1.1 Greek Life and Tragedy

In turning toward the mystery of God from the perspective of Being and relation, we can immediately see how precious of a guide the attribute of divine life can be.Footnote ¹ It has the merit of covering all terrain, embracing the spheres of religious history, philosophy and theology. In fact, from the most ancient of times, the human being has always taken the fullness of being to be life, and religious thought indeed has emerged precisely as a yearning toward the source and origin of this Life, urged onward by the perception of one’s own finitude. Man places himself before God, for he acknowledges his relation with God to be an essential relation from which springs the life that constitutes his own being. Since the dawn of history, even the most primitive of myths manifest this intertwining of Life, being and relation. Paternity and filiation, the transmission of life, death and the conditions surrounding the subsistence of any community are all essential elements of the religious conception and the literature of all the most ancient civilizations.

All this can be illustrated with an example taken from Greek tragedy. The sequence in the life of Oedipus shows how the collapse of all distinction between being father, mother and son indeed bears with it the ruin of the city, as without any distinction based on relation, life is not possible. A particularly beautiful and meaningful example of this is given in Antigone, whom Sophocles seems to have sculpted to be the very namesake of tragedy. Oepdipus’ daughter lives in Thebes with one of her brothers under the protection of her uncle, Creon. As is recounted in Seven Against Thebes, another of her brothers turns on the city and is subsequently delivered death in the duel with the brother who stands in defense of Thebes. They kill each other. Thus, the curse of Oedipus continues to plague his posterity. Creon decrees that the corpse of this nephew who attacked the city would not be buried, a fate that, according to popular belief of the time, meant the soul would forever be deprived of the peace of the netherworld. Here emerges the crux of the tragedy that weighs so heavily on Antigone, who is torn between her duty of obedience to the law of the community (polis) to which she belongs and a precept of higher law, which is tied to her relation with her brother and family (genos).

In the context of this, an important dialogue occurs between Creon and his son, Haimon, who is involved in the affair insofar as he is engaged to Antigone. As his son approaches, Creon asks him whether he is angry at him for having condemned Antigone. Haimon immediately places himself in submission to the sovereign, acknowledging that he belongs to Creon. The latter responds by stating an incontrovertible principle, that the son must always place himself under the judgment of the father (γνώμης πατρῴας πάντ΄ ὄπισθεν ἑστάναι). Only in this way can the polis continue to subsist, for if Creon’s own sons did not obey him much less would the citizens and soldiers in battle do so. Here the tragedy that is crushing Antigone is translated in terms of the relationship between father and son. Haimon appeals to the voice of the people and natural law, which prohibits killing the innocent, but does not succeed. In the end Creon condemns Antigone.Footnote ²

Tragedy is, then, born of the struggle between the demands of the whole and those of the individual: Creon defends the city, whereas Antigone considers her brother; the father lays down the law for all, yet the son would save the woman he loves. A fateful aut-aut emerges between the life of the city and the life of the self, that is, between the universal and the particular.

This tragic dimension of life, which characterizes the whole of Greek tragedy, claims metaphysical roots as we shall see, for identity cannot be attributed if not through the category of substance. As Haimon is only himself insofar as he remains in submission to the paternal archetype, so is ontological primacy always assigned to the prototype rather than the individual. The absolute value of the person has not yet been constituted. The death of Socrates is a further example of this.Footnote ³

This leads to a full-on metaphysical analysis, one that pursues the ontological foundation that lies beyond appearances and all that which could be other than what it is. The sought-after principle must be outside the realm of physical reality (μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ) and indeed provide the very basis for this reality. Hence, the fundamental question of being: what is it that renders this reality concrete as opposed to some other reality? What is the essence of this reality (ousia)? What “lies beneath,” sustaining this phenomenal, or external, appearance?Footnote ⁴

Haimon and Antigone can only live, then, can only be, if they willingly submit to the universal, a universal that stands in marked contrast to their individuality and their relationships. The greatness of Greece does not only consist of having developed metaphysical thought but in furthermore realizing and declaring that its solution is not completely satisfying. The honor of sympathy granted to Antigone together with the declaration of the limit of the paternal answer as received in Haimon’s words constitute the true and proper apex of the Greek literature imbued with a deep humanism. Tragedies could be compared to magnificent tombstones that at the same time are border stones laid on the very limits of Greek world.

In a way, tragedy itself reveals how Greek metaphysical thought aspires to go beyond what it knows in search not only of the principle of that which lies outside of all physical reality but also of that which is the basis of the reality that is properly human and hence the very sense of the mystery of freedom. Yet the history of thought demonstrates how it is only through Revelation that this avenue of new exploration is opened.

1.2 Metaphysics and Scripture

A personal encounter with God lays out for the human being the means by which to fulfill this undertaking. The Fathers of the Church were able to wield Greek thought as an instrument, particularly in the Middle- and Neo-Platonic periods, for it did not dismiss nor overlook metaphysics. Rather, they used it to consider the truth of being as was presented to human thought by the encounter with God.Footnote ⁵ In a certain sense, the Fathers came to accomplish the very dynamic of Greek thought, one that is invoked through tragedy’s deep cry of despair.

But what is the content of this innovation so introduced? Largely through an analysis of the work of the Cappadocians, the present study proposes that this ontological innovation lies in the fact of having recognized relation to be an original co-principle together with substance. As opposed to other authors who deal with relational ontology, also in reference to Cappadocian theology,Footnote ⁶ the idea advanced here is that relation has not supplanted substance: if one were to analyze the ontology of the Fathers, one would instead see the first placed next to the second, without any superiority of one over the other.

Indeed, it could not have been otherwise if it is true that theology must always be based on real and salvific events. Metaphysics is not some arcane science reserved for a few elect, rather it is an essential facet to any and all thought that aims to explore what is real. The necessity of metaphysics and its field of investigation are illustrated by a consideration that might be called a child’s favorite question. It is also a kind of translation of the most fundamental metaphysical question there is: What is it? Why? It is not without cause that wonderment is the underlying attitude that moves both children and philosophers.

To wonder of a certain thing, what is it, means precisely to inquire after its essence.Footnote ⁷ This is an ordinary and even daily problem, as is for instance knowing whether or not what one ordered at the restaurant will in fact be brought to the table and not something else. Likewise in Scripture this same question continually emerges. When manna is discovered in the desert, the Israelites wonder what is it? Hence, the phrase man hu (Ex 16:15), from which derives the very name of this substance given them from heaven. In various encounters with God, they must continually revisit this same question. “This thing that speaks to us, places itself in our midst, what is it?” Is it simply one of the local divinities or does it belong to that single category that claims one and only one representative, inasmuch as it is the One on high and therefore the only God? Little by little the Israelites come to understand that God is the Creator, the One who made all things from nothing, that He is substance in a way superior to all else, as He is the living God and origin of all being. The human being as well as all other things need Him in order to subsist, whereas He identifies Himself with Being and Life itself. The innovation here is that this God is the Absolute and yet has a name, that He enters into relation, that He is a person.

Joseph Ratzinger pointed out that the essential difference between polytheism and monotheism is not expressed in the fact that the former worships a plethora of deities, whereas the latter recognizes but one. For even in various forms of polytheism, the Absolute is considered to be singular, precisely as it is in monotheism. The essential element of polytheism is, rather, that this same Absolute, often identified with the god of heaven, apex of the divine hierarchy, is not addressable (ansprechbar), as It does not enter into relation with the human being. In such a context as this, the human being can only address the finite reflections of the Absolute or those gods that represent the intermediate ontological degrees that in a determined manner connect the Absolute and the world.Footnote ⁸ It was once inconceivable that the supreme God be a concrete who, a someone, one who likewise enters into dialogue as a thou with respect to the I of the individual human being. Personal being was understood to be necessarily limited. One can hereby grasp in what way the ontological innovation introduced by the thought born out of Revelation resides precisely in the personal and relational dimension.

A perfect example of this is the theophany on Mount Sinai (Ex 3). Finding himself before the burning bush, Moses takes steps toward it to understand what it might be. Yet emanating from this burning bush is a voice that calls out to him, addresses him and intimates to him that he should remove his sandals because the ground he treads upon is holy. There is already a startling notion in all of this: in sacred space, there where God abodes, man can only enter as naked and stripped from anything that might act as a barrier, that might protect him. God does not tell Moses to distance himself, rather to approach in his bare feet. Hence, the question what is it is transformed into the question who is it, and indeed into an earnest request for a name. In Exodus 3:14, it is exactly substance and person that are closely united: God says of Himself I am, He Who is. He is the One who is more, greater than all else, for He is the beginning and end of all beings. He is truly an I who speaks, who creates, who loves. God is a Person and has relations, desiring to enter into relation with his people. His very distinctiveness must assume as an image not a stone or totem, rather communion and unity of the people, of a people who on their own are weak and without a homeland. God reveals Himself, therefore, precisely in His relation with the human being.

Hence, in the New Testament, God not only discloses His personal being but also reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet again, the questions what and who emerge side by side. Indeed, the crucifixion itself is a sort of ultimate metaphysical judgment and demonstration of how the High Priest knew very well that Jesus claimed to be God, essentially offering a precise answer to the first question: “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). What is Jesus? God. His substance is the substance of God, one, absolute, infinite and eternal. Yet Jesus simultaneously offers a different answer to the question of who: He is not the Father but the Son. Christianity thereby implies keeping together the two levels of what and who in concomitance, without confusing them with each other or placing one before the other. This is not something derived out of the cultural milieu in which the Greek Fathers found themselves, nor any specific moment of history, for the very sense of Scripture depends on this twofold question. It is only by making oneself a child (Mt 18:3) that one grasps the sense found herein. Hence, it is asking exactly those questions that arise out of the wonder of both children and philosophers.

It is in traversing this path of development that Christian thought has in stages come to acknowledge that the one and only God in three Persons not only has relations but is also three eternal Relations. Greek metaphysics has thus been extended through this sense of who, that is, in the personal sense, becoming a relational and Trinitarian ontology and a relational ontology precisely because it is a Trinitarian one.Footnote ⁹

1.3 Systematic Approach: Trinitarian Ontology

The scope of the present volume is to offer an outline of the Cappadocians’ elaboration on this new ontology, in particular of Gregory of Nyssa’s work on the category of relation. He was the younger brother of Basil and the most speculative of the Cappadocian Fathers.Footnote ¹⁰ He is noted for the vital role he played in the preparation and unfolding of events at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. The Cappadocian thought cannot be considered merely a proposed theory, nor simply as one voice among an ocean of other opinions. Rather, it constitutes an essential element in the formulation of Trinitarian dogma, one might even say an objective point of departure, as the Cappadocian thought, having been developed in relation with the definitions of the Council, may be considered to belong to the dimension of data.Footnote ¹¹ We are dealing with normative thought that takes precedence and claims a place on a plane distinct even from that of Augustine, who would be immensely influential in the West, though subsequent to the formulation of Trinitarian dogma as this is instead fixed in the Greek area. In a certain sense, Cappadocian thought belongs to a category that is properly systematic and is not solely situated in the sphere of theological reflection.

Joseph Ratzinger emphasized in his theological writings the revolutionary breadth of Trinitarian theology from the point of view of metaphysics and in particular underlined the new ontological status it recognizes in relation.Footnote ¹² He reached such a conclusion upon a reflection of Augustine’s Trinitarian doctrine. This has led Piero Coda to write that it is precisely in Patristic thought where one recognizes in nuceFootnote ¹³ an initial, authentic Trinitarian ontology, even if the expression Trinitarian ontology in and of itself is of rather recent origin. In speaking of this, one primarily begins with the Thesen of Klaus Hemmerle, in the form of philosophical letters written to Hans Urs von Balthasar,Footnote ¹⁴ who in turn deals with this question in his Theodramatik.Footnote ¹⁵ Likewise, the tendency toward a close conception of the relationship between philosophy and theology, common in Orthodox thought, is linked to Trinitarian ontology, particularly in the work of Pavel Florenskij and Sergej Bulgakov.Footnote ¹⁶ The same can be said of certain areas of research in contemporary philosophy,Footnote ¹⁷ such as the work by Antonio Rosmini, the phenomenology of Edith SteinFootnote ¹⁸ or the discussions on onto-theology.Footnote ¹⁹ In this context, the categories of person, relation and communion play a fundamental role.Footnote ²⁰

In the present work, what is meant by the expression Trinitarian ontology is precisely the ontology of relation as it is conceived through Trinitarian revelation. Indeed, an analysis of the Greek tradition shows that the dogmatic development of the fourth century could actually be re-read as the history of the birth of a new ontology of relation, one that surpasses classical Greek metaphysics.

This, then, would be a kind of contribution to a “neo-patristic synthesis” as desired by John Zizioulas in his well-known Being as Communion,Footnote ²¹ in the hope that this work might encourage and advance dialogue among the many different Christian denominations.Footnote ²²

Currently, a reflection on the ontology of the person and relation is front and center in many interesting studies that attempt to analyze the reflection of the Trinity in the structure of created being, and in particular in anthropology.Footnote ²³ For example, there is the work of John Zizioulas,Footnote ²⁴ Colin GuntonFootnote ²⁵ and Christoph Schwöbel.Footnote ²⁶ Clearly, this type of analysis must place itself in direct contact with the early Church Fathers and with the doctrinal advancement made in the fourth century, whose metaphysical innovations are highlighted in these approaches.Footnote ²⁷

Studying the work that has emerged in the last thirty years of this past century, one can schematically identify, at least in a historical-dogmatic analysis, two principle lines of development: one that is more prevalent in the West, which moves along the Augustinian tradition and focuses on the concept of relation, building upon its relationship to substance; then there is the development more prevalent in the East, which, beginning with the impressive theology of the Greek Fathers, focuses mainly on the concept of person, demonstrating its precedence with respect to philosophical substance.

The former perspective, largely on account of Joseph Ratzinger, emerges from a background of Augustinian thought, successfully echoing in a Thomistic-inspired philosophy as well with the work of Norris Clark and his notion of being as substance-in-relation.Footnote ²⁸

The latter perspective is mainly represented by the above-mentioned author John Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon. In his Being as Communion, first published in 1985, he expands a reformulation of metaphysics from the perspective of the history of dogma and the personal principle of the monarchy of the Father. The doctrine of the Greek Fathers of the fourth century constitutes a fundamental moment in the development of ontology inasmuch as they position the Person of the Father as the source of all Being, both on an intra-divine level as well as on the level of economical participation. This exhibits the personal dimension as fundamental to the level of metaphysics.Footnote ²⁹

The two perspectives seem to employ two different tones, as Matthew Levering points out.Footnote ³⁰ The first deals with the substance-relation pairing, and within a context that tries to harmonize classical philosophy and theology through the simple fact of having recourse to metaphysical categories, whereas the second is based on a purely theological category of monarchy, thus maintaining the priority of the Person of the Father over substance and greatly emphasizing the rift between Greek philosophical reflection and patristic thought.

The intention of the present study is to provide evidence of the possible convergence between both readings through a reconstruction of the historical-dogmatic development of the Greek Fathers of the fourth century. In particular, together with the reflections of Basil the Great, here there is recourse to the thought of his younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and the latter’s insistence on the economical-immanent distinction and the co-relativity of the divine Persons. It is precisely this notion of co-relativity, as it is found in divinis, that is the element that facilitates a reconciliation of the two readings, inasmuch as it strongly expresses personal communion in terms of relation and hence in terms of a relationship to substance. With respect to Zizioulas’ deep analysis,Footnote ³¹ we in particular try to show how relation and substance can never be dialectically opposed if one means to remain faithful to Cappadocian thought.Footnote ³²

1.4 Historical Approach: Patristic Philosophy

But there is another perspective that provides particularly interesting elements in the present context and that the previous section requires to be examined: the historical-philosophical one. Indeed, the epistemology that has characterized modernity has led to an unnatural and anachronistic separation between the properly philosophical and religious dimensions in the analyses of Classical and Late Antique philosophy. The connection with salvation, which has been essential in metaphysical research since its beginnings, has thus remained totally in the shadows. This led to a radical separation between philosophy and theology, a separation that made it inexplicable why theologia was the first name for metaphysics in the fourth century BC and why Christian life has been identified, eight centuries later, with the term philosophia.

This is why a recent book by Johannes Zachhuber is of great interest. He deals with the subject of Patristic philosophy, covering, with speculative vigor and scientific courage, the period from the fourth century to John Damascene.Footnote ³³ The volume seeks to overcome the stark dichotomy between Patristic thought and the study of ancient philosophy.Footnote ³⁴

The thesis of the book, in a nutshell, is that the real metaphysical novelty in the Patristic field did not occur in the fourth century, as some important authors have argued, for example, Zizioulas and Losski, but only in the following centuries in the context of the discussions about Christology.

Zachhuber’s analysis has a pars destruens and a pars contruens. The latter consists of drawing attention to the philosophical value of the Christological debates of the first millennium. This is a truly valuable service for both philosophical and Patristic research, which opens up a very promising field of investigation. The historical fact that the metaphysical discussions and reformulations to describe the unity of Christ’s two natures in his one hypostasis represent a genuine metaphysical novelty is apparent and extremely important. The pars destruens consists of deconstructing the identification of Cappadocian theology with a metaphysical revolution, which for the first time recognizes the value of the individual in relation to the universal.

The question is extremely important for the research perspective on the following centuries, since the theology of Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus became a sort of Scholastic ante litteram for the later Patristic thought. The author has the merit of highlighting the development of the thought of the three Cappadocians, pointing out the transition between a theory of the triunity of God in Basil, later shared by Gregory od Nazianzus, according to an approach that is defined in the text as “abstract,” and a more “concrete” version characteristic of Gregory of Nyssa, in his reinterpretation (and defense) of his brother’s thought. Zachhuber rightly corrects an exclusively linguistic (and logical) reading of Basil’s Trinitarian theology, which would lead to a merely social conception of divine unity, highlighting the originality of Cappadocian philosophy.

While the pars contruens of Zachhuber’s proposal is absolutely acceptable, the pars destruens is less convincing. In fact, the approach to the Cappadocians’ theology seems flawed from the outset by the decision not to consider apophaticism as a fundamental element of their epistemology.Footnote ³⁵ This prevents the reader from grasping the great novelty of the relation, which in the ontology of Basil and the two Gregories becomes a true principle of individuation for the divine Persons.

As the following pages will attempt to demonstrate, the perspective of the relation (schesis) makes it difficult to agree with the claim that the Cappadocians do not depart from the Greek philosophical tradition in their supposed prioritization of unity over the particularFootnote ³⁶ or that for them the uniqueness of the existent was as irrelevant as in Hellenistic thought.Footnote ³⁷ Zachhuber writes:

If this were the case, then it would be incomprehensible that Gregory of Nyssa was the first person in history to condemn slavery in an absolute and theologically founded manner, as previous research has made clear.Footnote ³⁹ Similarly, it would be incomprehensible to understand how the Cappadocian concept of pronoia concerns both universal history and the individual at the same time, unlike the philosophical perspective, including the Hellenistic one, for which pronoia never touched the material and personal level.Footnote ⁴⁰ For the same reason, the novelty in the conception of historia, which becomes the narration of a concrete life, of a personal history, would not be understandable either.Footnote ⁴¹

But also from a theological point of view, the perspective chosen by Zachhuber carries within itself a principle of opposition between Trinitarian doctrine and Christology, because, in the absence of a correct consideration of the apophatic dimension, it projects the concept of hypostasis developed by Gregory of Nyssa at the cosmological level onto the ontology of the three divine Persons.Footnote ⁴²

This movement of thought from the bottom to the top seems to contradict precisely Cappadocian epistemology, because it does not sufficiently distinguish the nature of the Creator from creatures. Thus, Zachhuber cannot fully appreciate that the characteristics that identify the three divine Persons in the Cappadocian theology are the Father’s being without beginning, the Son’s being through generation and the Holy Spirit’s being through procession. But these characteristics are based on the act from which the processions emerge, founding hypostatic distinction on the different relations (πρὸς ἄλληλα σχέσις) of origin of the divine Persons, as we will try to show.Footnote ⁴³

And it is precisely the resemantization of schesis that makes it difficult to accept Zachhuber’s assertion that Gregory of Nyssa’s conception of hypostasis is close to that of Porphyry.Footnote ⁴⁴ The following chapters will be devoted precisely to showing the novelty of the relational conception of the Cappadocians with respect to the Neo-Platonists, with the consequences that follow at the level of the principle of individuation.

This revision of Aristotelian categories opens up possibilities of thought that can be judged valid even independently of the faith that inspired them. This is why the Cappadocians’ reshaping of classical metaphysics can be considered a crucial element of Patristic philosophy.

1.5 A Look Ahead: The Road Map

The present study is inspired by a tremendous claim made by Jean Daniélou, who in 1968 wrote of the Mystery of the One and Triune God:

Jean Daniélou is one of the preeminent scholars of Gregory of Nyssa, thus it seems helpful to re-read Gregory’s thought from the perspective of Trinitarian ontology, combining philosophy and freedom. But in order to do this, it is likewise necessary to briefly review the history of logos and the cosmological conception that characterized the Greek world (Chapter 2). Doing so will reveal how the Greek logos was linked to the concept of necessary relation (logos ut ratio) and why Trinitarian reflection had to re-elaborate it according to the notions of freedom and mutual gift (Chapter 3). The central nucleus of Gregory of Nyssa’s theology is the divine Filiation: the process of purification of the concept of filiation in creation, which is the only way to avoid contradicting the content of Revelation, urged to overcome the reading of the Logos as a figure of ontological mediation so as to make the insertion of the Logos into the divine immanence possible (Logos ut relatio).

Yet this undertaking marks a change in the very makeup of ontology. Classical metaphysics is hereby extended in a relational sense. This is evident in any elaboration of the divine attributes, and in particular of the attributes of Life (Chapter 4), that is re-read through a Trinitarian lens and is thus inseparably connected to eternal generation (Life from Life). This conclusion, which here can only be partial, is verified through a review of the history of the term schesis (relation) from its debut in the philosophical thought (Chapter 5) until the emergence of the thought of the three Cappadocian Fathers (Chapter 6). Both the originality of their elaboration and the explicit ontological orientation of their doctrine are themes that go hand-in-hand according to this very same historical review.

This Cappadocian reshaping of metaphysics has extremely relevant consequences at the level of knowledge theory and epistemology. They will first be explored from the point of view of apophaticism and how, in the Christian conception, it points precisely to the role of relation in the cognitive act, founding the philosophical value of both faith and worship (Chapter 7). Then, secondly, it will be shown how the Cappadocian solution responds to an aporia present in the Greek conception of epistêmê, the root of which goes back to the metaphysical tension between the one and the many, hence to the discussion between Parmenides and Plato. From this comes an open conception of logic that, surprisingly, is also in tune with contemporary research in this field (Chapter 8).

Lastly, the conclusion (Chapter 9) aims to present Trinitarian ontology as appearing out of an exploration of the Cappadocian thought as a true and proper third navigation, which, beginning with the divine Word, rips open classical metaphysics to acknowledge the sense of relation and a personal dimension.Footnote ⁴⁶

This set course, which places the quite unfashionable term ontology in conjunction with the adjective Trinitarian, might seem daunting or, even in the best of scenarios, a worthless venture in our own day. Yet it seems necessary to answer the post-Nietzchian relativism that threatens the foundations of contemporary existence. In such an age of crisis, it is all the more urgent to return to the sources, as indeed any authentic renaissance in the history of thought has always been accompanied by a return to origins and by overcoming a dependence on their respective commentaries.Footnote ⁴⁷ Here we are dealing with an attempt to show, through a historical perspective, how the concept of person, relation and freedom, that is, a real Patristic Trinitarian ontology, has emerged through theological reflection, these very elements that today are gravely endangered by Western relativism and individualism.Footnote ⁴⁸

Clearly, this work is a kind of proposal and nothing more. Yet the decomposition of a communitarian fabric along with the multiplication of pathologies that accompany it render such a project necessary. In this endeavor, various threads of an investigation converge, giving rise little by little to a true and proper hope for a rebirth of human thought in postmodern times.Footnote ⁴⁹