The Trinity and Buddhism? Social Trinitarianism and Dependent Co-Arising

Andrei Rublev's Trinity, representing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a similar manner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yeah, well, it may sound strange, but it's still a provocative way of approaching the topic of Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Brian McLaren gives his formulation of a particular view of the doctrine of the Trinity, a view known as Social Trinitarianism, in a recent article for Tikkun magazine. He uses this view as a basis for understanding our fundamental interconnected with all things, including each other and the source from and of which all things spring and to which they return, which sounds like part of the description of God frequently used on this blog (source, substance, and sustainer of existence) which kind of sprang out of reflections the Tao, Tathata, and Dharmakaya.

Here is a sample of what McLaren wrote:

At the heart of Social Trinitarianism is the concept of perichoresis, which images God as a dynamic unity-in-community of self-giving persons-in-relationship. The Father, Son, and Spirit in this view are not three independent units (or monads) eternally bound together in a larger unity. Nor is God one independent unit with three identical parts. Rather, each person exists in dynamic social relationship with the others, and God is the relational unity in which they relate.

Similarly, the being of one person of the Trinity is not independent of the being of the others, so that one could be subtracted and the other two would stand. Nor does the being of one person stand over against the being of the others so the Father could be defined as “not the Son or the Spirit” or the Spirit as “not the Father or the Son,” and so on. Rather, the very idea of person — whether applied to human beings or to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is redefined in Social Trinitarianism as “being in relationship.” A person’s relationships with the others, in other words, aren’t an accessory to the person who exists apart from them. Those relationships are what and who that person is, and that person cannot be said to exist apart from those relationships. Being, then, for God as for us, means interbeing, being in relationship, so the three persons of the Holy Trinity are not merely one with each other: they are one in each other. 

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