Trinity Personated

 

lunes, 3 de julio de 2023

Thomas Hobbes's materialist explication of the doctrine of the Trinity in Leviathan (Part III, "Of a Christian Common-Wealth"), on the basis of his dramatistic notion of personation as central to all aspects of human reality and social life. 

Of the Trinity

Here wee have the Person of God born now the third time. For as Moses, and the High Priests, were Gods Representative in the Old Testament; and our Saviour himselfe as Man, during his abode on earth: So the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the Apostles, and their successors, in the Office of Preaching, and Teaching, that had received the Holy Spirit, have Represented him ever since. But a Person, (as I have shewn before, chapt. [16].) is he that is Represented, as often as hee is Represented; and therefore God, who has been Represented (that is, Personated) thrice, may properly enough be said to be three Persons; through neither the word Person, nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible. St. John indeed (I Epist. 5.7.) saith, There be three that bear witnesse in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these Three are One: But this disagreeth not, but accordeth fitly with three Persons in the proper signification of Persons; which is, that which is Represented by another. For so God the Father, as Represented by Moses, is one Person; and as Represented by his Sonne, another Person; and as Represented by the Apostles, and by the Doctors that taught by authority from them derived, is a third Person; and yet every Person here, is the Person of one and the same God. But a man may here ask, what it was whereof these three bare witnesse. St. John therefore tells us (verse 11.) that they bear witnesse, that God hath given us eternall life in his Son. Again, if it should bee asked, wherein that testimony appeareth, the Answer is easie;  for he hath testified the same by the miracles he wrought, first by Moses; secondly by his Son himself; and lastly by his Apostles, that had received the Holy Spirit; all which in their times Represented the Person of God; and either prophecyed, or preached Jesus Christ. And as for the Apostles, it was the Character of the Apostleship, in the twelve first and great Apostles, to bear Witnesse of his Resurrection; as appeareth exprssely (Acts I. ver. 21, 22.) where St. Peter, when a new Apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas Iscariot, useth these words, Of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst us, beginning at the Baptisme of John, unto that same day that hee was taken up from us, must one bee ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection: which words interpret the bearing of Witnesse, mentioned by St. John. There is in the same place mentioned another Trinity of Witnesses in Earth. For (ver. 8.) he saith, there are three that bear Witnesse in Earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Bloud; and these three agree in one: that is to say, the graces of Gods Spirit, and the two Sacraments, Baptisme, and the Lords Supper, which all agree in one Testimony, to assure the consciences of beleevers, of eternall life; of which Testimony he saith (verse 10.) He that beleeveth on the Son of man hath the Witnesse in himselfe. In this Trinity on Earth the Unity is not of the thing; for the Spirit, the Water, and the Bloud, are not the same substance, though they give the same testimony: But in the Trinity of Heaven, the Persons are the persons of one an the same God, though Represented in three different times and occasions. To conclude, the doctrine of the Trinity, as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture, is in substance this: that God who is alwaies One and the same, was the Person Represented by Moses; the Person Represented by his Son Incarnate; and the Person Represented by the Apostles. As Represented by the Apostles, the Holy Spirit by which they spake, is God; As Represented by his Son (that was God and Man), the Son is that God; As represented by Moses, and the High Priests, the Father, that is to say, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that God: From whence we may gather the reason why those names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the signification of the Godhead, are never used in the Old Tesament: For they are Persons, that is, they have their names from Representing; which could not be, till divers men had Represented Gods Person in ruling, or in directing under him. 

Thus we see how the Power Ecclesiasticall was left by our Saviour to the Apostles; and how they were (to the end they might the better exercise that Power,) endued with the Holy Spirit, which is therefore called sometime in the New Testament Paracletus which signifieth an Assister, or one called to for helpe, though it bee commonly translated a Comforter. Let us now consider the Power it selfe, what it was, and over whom.

 

Hobbes's generalized notion of Person and Personation as a building block of human reality and a tool for social-dramatistic analysis is further commented here:

"How to Make Artificial Persons: Hobbes's Dramatistic Theory of Interaction and of Political Representation." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 10 Oct. 2015.

         Academia 14 Jan. 2022.*

         https://www.academia.edu/68132891/

         2022

—oOo—

 

Mejor sin nadie

Las cartas de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a su prima Marguerite Teillar-Chambon durante los años de la Primera Guerra Mundial fueron editadas por ésta con el título P.Teilhard de Chardin: Génesis de un Pensamiento. En las cartas relata episodios de su vida como camillero y sacerdote en el ejército francés, y sobre todo medita sobre sus intuiciones teológicas y su relación con Dios, que encuentra a la vez consoladora y problemática, pues lejos aún de los misticismos evolucionistas del punto Omega, porfía Teilhard en la eterna trampa de intentar ver la historia y la humanidad como guiada y observada (nunca "caprichosamente atormentada") por un Dios personal, esa imposible mezcla de trascendencia cósmica y de "amigo imaginario" que lleva a las mentes a laberintos de espejos, incertidumbres intransitables y despeñaderos abisales—

Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there. 

Esfuerzos vanos o contradictorios cuando Teilhard intenta extraer una teodicea de las atrocidades y brutalidad estúpida de la guerra, viéndola como el lugar donde está la acción creativa del mundo, como un conflicto del mundo consigo mismo que lleva a un avance espiritual, a una mayor integración y una espiritualidad superior, etc. etc.... 

 En fin, entre las perplejidades a que se aboca Teilhard intentando justificar ante su prima el sentido divino de la labor de ambos, y buscando más luz en su relación con el Gran Amigo, hay un pasaje revelador—revelador de la otra cara del heroico camillero y del dedicado y piadosísimo sacerdote. Una cara de su personalidad podríamos decir muy poco cristiana, e incluso muy poco humana, aunque quiénes somos para decir lo que es poco humano o demasiado humano. En fin, que es una fea idea o una fea actitud o tendencia (fea a la vez que "muy devota y muy mística") que Teilhard confiesa a su prima en confianza aunque no exactamente como un pecado (y eso que no es algo como para irlo diciendo, aunque al parecer sí es publicable). 

Digo que no me parece muy cristiano, o muy "católico" al menos —pero ya avisaba Nietzsche contra una tendencia malsana en el cristianismo, el rechazo al mundo, el tanatismo o desprecio de lo existente en aras de un mundo mejor. Tendencia virtuosa o desprendida, que si se sale de madre puede inducir a actitudes francamente desagradables o indeseables.

Es un pasaje el que digo donde se juntan en Teilhard de modo inextricable el amor místico a Dios y un cierto satanismo presuntuoso y mefistofélico. Unas tentaciones solipsistas que ni Max Stirner las querría. Por no decir una prepotencia cósmica, un egoísmo galáctico, un elitismo de vértigo, un tanatismo ascético y una misantropía larvada que al parecer el buen sacerdote hacía mucho por no manifestar de maneras ofensivas en su día a día. 

En fin, ésta es la idea— que no digo yo que vaya a causar escándalo hoy. De hecho podría augurar un nuevo brote de teilhardismo entre los actuales animalistas, extincionistas y antinatalistas:

Por mi postal de anteayer, habrás sabido que he recibido tu carta del 10 de agosto [de 1917]. ¿No es curioso que ambos tengamos la misma debilidad, por la vida de contemplación egoísta, sin nada que la perturbe y donde ningún tercero (a menos que sea elegido para ello) se interponga inoportunamente entre los dos esenciales, el alma y Dios? Tienes razón, hay que reaccionar. Además, naturalmente hablando, el "otro" (es decir, todo el mundo, salvo una decena de humanos admitidos en nuestra órbita) es un intruso que nos importuna. Al menos, yo lo siento así, en algunos momentos. Intuitivamente, yo preferiría una tierra llena de bestias, a una tierra llena de hombres. Cada hombre tiene un pequeño mundo aparte, y este pluralismo me es esencialmente desagradable. Es preciso recordar que estamos en devenir, y que toda esta multiplicidad, por la caridad que Nuestro Señor nos exige, contrariamente a nuestros gustos, acabará por no ser más que uno... Es, sin duda, un aumento de esta Unidad, pagado con nuestro esfuerzo por salir de nosotros, lo que se traiciona por este aumento de nuestra vida interior, que sigue a la exteriorización caritativa de nosotros mismos, de que tú hablas. En estos momentos, como en los de sufrimiento providencial, se siente de una manera extraña que nuestra verdadera fuerza no está en nosotros, sino que nos viene de otra parte, cuando plegamos nuestra libertad a unas condiciones de existencia que no tienen nada de común con nuestras pequeñas combinaciones personales.

Quizá haya que ver en todo esto en parte un síndrome de la mili, con Teilhard a la vez fastidiado por la despersonalización del ejército o por el exceso de intimidad a que obliga, y fustigándose a sí mismo a sobrellevar lo que vaya viniendo, por la disciplina debida y por abnegación cristiana. En todo caso arrojan estas reflexiones una luz curiosa sobre la personalidad que llevó a Teilhard a su curioso apocalipsis divino o Big Crunch teológico en el que toda diferencia y contradicción se subsumen en un Dios autocontemplado que —por fin— está solo y absorto consigo mismo, una vez depurada su Noosfera, y superadas (aufgehoben) sus creaciones y meditaciones.

 

 

Nacimiento de la Noosfera

 —oOo—

Trinity Personated

 

 

Thomas Hobbes's materialist explication of the doctrine of the Trinity in Leviathan (Part III, "Of a Christian Common-Wealth"), on the basis of his dramatistic notion of personation as central to all aspects of human reality and social life. 

Of the Trinity

Here wee have the Person of God born now the third time. For as Moses, and the High Priests, were Gods Representative in the Old Testament; and our Saviour himselfe as Man, during his abode on earth: So the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the Apostles, and their successors, in the Office of Preaching, and Teaching, that had received tha Holy Spirit, have Represented him ever since. But a Person, (as I have shewn before, chapt. [16].) is he that is Represented, as often as hee is Represented; and therefore God, who has been Represented (that is, Personated) thrice, may properly enough be said to be three Persons; through neither the word Person, nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible. St. John indeed (I Epist. 5.7.) saith, There be three that bear witnesse in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these Three are One: But this disagreeth not, but accordeth fitly with three Persons in the proper signification of Persons; which is, that which is Represented by another. For so God the Father, as Represented by Moses, is one Person; and as Represented by his Sonne, another Person; and as Represented by the Apostles, and by the Doctors that taught by authority from them derived, is a third Person; and yet every Person here, is the Person of one and the same God. But a man may here ask, what it was whereof these three bare witnesse. St. John therefore tells us (verse 11.) that they bear witnesse, that God hath given us eternall life in his Son. Again, if it should bee asked, wherein that testimony appeareth, the Answer is easie;  for he hath testified the same by the miracles he wrought, first by Moses; secondly by his Son himself; and lastly by his Apostles, that had received the Holy Spirit; all which in their times Represented the Person of God; and either prophecyed, or preached Jesus Christ. And as for the Apostles, it was the Character of the Apostleship, in the twelve first and great Apostles, to bear Witnesse of his Resurrection; as appeareth exprssely (Acts I. ver. 21, 22.) where St. Peter, when a new Apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas Iscariot, useth these words, Of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst us, beginning at the Baptisme of John, unto that same day that hee was taken up from us, must one bee ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection: which words interpret the bearing of Witnesse, mentioned by St. John. There is in the same place mentioned another Trinity of Witnesses in Earth. For (ver. 8.) he saith, there are three that bear Witnesse in Earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Bloud; and these three agree in one: that is to say, the graces of Gods Spirit, and the two Sacraments, Baptisme, and the Lords Supper, which all agree in one Testimony, to assure the consciences of beleevers, of eternall life; of which Testimony he saith (verse 10.) He that beleeveth on the Son of man hath the Witnesse in himselfe. In this Trinity on Earth the Unity is not of the thing; for the Spirit, the Water, and the Bloud, are not the same substance, though they give the same testimony: But in the Trinity of Heaven, the Persons are the persons of one an the same God, though Represented in three different times and occasions. To conclude, the doctrine of the Trinity, as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture, is in substance this: that God who is alwaies One and the same, was the Person Represented by Moses; the Person Represented by his Son Incarnate; and the Person Represented by the Apostles. As Represented by the Apostles, the Holy Spirit by which they spake, is God; As Represented by his Son (that was God and Man), the Son is that God; As represented by Moses, and the High Priests, the Father, that is to say, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that God: From whence we may gather the reason why those names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the signification of the Godhead, are never used in the Old Tesament: For they are Persons, that is, they have their names from Representing; which could not be, till divers men had Represented Gods Person in ruling, or in directing under him. 

Thus we see how the Power Ecclesiasticall was left by our Saviour to the Apostles; and how they were (to the end they might the better exercise that Power,) endued with the Holy Spirit, which is therefore called sometime in the New Testament Paracletus which signifieth an Assister, or one called to for helpe, though it bee commonly translated a Comforter. Let us now consider the Power it selfe, what it was, and over whom.

 

Hobbes's generalized notion of Person and Personation as a building block of human reality and a tool for social-dramatistic analysis is further commented here:

"How to Make Artificial Persons: Hobbes's Dramatistic Theory of Interaction and of Political Representation." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 10 Oct. 2015.*

         http://vanityfea.blogspot.com.es/2015/10/hobbess-dramatistic-theory-of.html

—oOo—

 

 

Sospechoso parecido

 El sospechoso parecido (iconográfico, digo) entre Dios Padre y Moisés parecería avalar la tesis dramatística de Hobbes sobre la personificación de la Trinidad.

El teatro como 'harmonia praestabilita'

 

Según Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga & Paralipomena I,6-8:

 "Pero los profundos pensamientos de Malebranche habían dado la ocasión próxima al sistema leibniziano de la harmonia praestabilita, cuya amplia fama y alto prestigio en su tiempo dan prueba de que lo absurdo es l oque con mayor facilidad hace fortuna en el mundo. Aunque no me puedo jactar de tener una clara representación de las mónadas leibnizianas, que son al mismo tiempo puntos matemáticos, átomos corpóreos y almas, me parece fuera de dueda que una suposición semejante, uan vez comprobada, podría servir para ahorrarse todas las hipóptesis ulteriors en orden a explicar la conexión entre lo ideal y lo real, y despachar la cuestión diciendo que ambos están ya totalmente identificado en las mónadas (por eso también en nuestros días Schelling, en cuanto autor del sistema de la identidad, se ha recreado en ello). Pero al célebre filósofo matemático, enciclopedista y político no se le ocurrió aprovecharlas para eso sino que formuló a propósito la armonía preestablecida como fin último. Esta nos ofrece dos mundos completamente distintos, cada uno de ellos incapaz de actuar sobre el otro (Principia philos. § 84 y Examen du sentiment du P. Malebranche, p. 500 ss., en Oeuvres de Leibnitz,  pub. P. Raspe), cada uno el duplicado totalmente superfluo del otro, si bien ambos han de existir a la vez, marchar en exacto paralelismo y mantenerse totalmente acompasados; por eso el Creador de ambos, ya al comienzo, ha establecido entre ellos la más exacta armonía, en la que ahora siguen marchando juntos de la forma más admirable. Dicho sea de paso, la harmonia praestabilita se podría quizá explicar de la mejor manera comparándola con el teatro, donde con gran frecuencia el influxus physicus existe sólo en apariencia, ya que la causa y el efecto no se conectan más que a través de la armonía preestablecida por el regidor; por ejemplo, cuando uno dispara y el otro cae a tempo. En los §§ y62 y 63 de su Teodicea Leibniz ha expuesto el tema en su monstruosa absurdidad de la manera más crasa y con brevedad. Y, sin embargo, en todo el dogma no tiene ni siquiera el mérito de la originalidad, por cuanto ya Spinoza había planteado con suficiente claridad la harmonia praestabilita en la segunda parte de su Ética, en concreto en las proposiciones sexta y séptima con sus corolarios, y de nuevo en la parte quinta, proposición 1, después de que en la proposición quinta de la segunda parte hubiera expresado a su manera la doctrina afín de Malebranche según la cual todo lo vemos en Dios Así pues, Malebranche es el único autor de todo ese argumento y arreglado tanto Spinoza como Leibniz, cada uno a su manera. Leibniz habría podido incluso prescindir del tema, pues abandonó ya el simple hecho que constituye el problema—que el mundo nos es dado inmediatamente como nuestra mera representación— para sustituirlo por el dogma de un mundo corpóreo y un mundo espiritual entre los cuales no es posible ningún vínculo; porque él enlaza la cuestión de la relación entre las representaciones y las cosas en sí mismas con la que se refiere a la posibilidad de los movimientos del cuerpo mediante la voluntad, y soluciona ambas juntas a través de su harmonia praestabilita (Véase système nouveau de la nature, en Leibniz Opp, ed. Erdmann, p. 125.—Brucker hist. ph. Tom. IV., P. II, p. 425) El mo0nstruoso absurdo de su hipótesis lo hicieron patente ya algunos de sus contemporáneos, en especial Bayle, al exponer las consecuencias que de ella derivaban. (Véase, en los Escritos menores de Leibniz traducidos por Huth en el año 1740, la nota a la página 79, en la que Leibniz mismo se ve obligado a exponer las escandalosas consecuencias de su afirmación). Sin embargo, precisamente la absurdidad de la hipótesis a la que fue impulsada una cabeza pensante por el presente problema demuestra la magnitud, la dificultad y la perplejidad del mismo, y en qué poca medida se lo puede eliminar y cortar el nudo con una simple negación, tal y como se osa hacer en nuestros días."

El proceso de las Máscaras de Dios