The Trinity: God in Dialogue, pt. 1

Christians are a curious sort of monotheist:  they worship one God who exists eternally as a community of persons.

It almost goes without saying that someone is bound to either misrepresent or misunderstand this teaching.  So many Church Fathers spilled so much ink explaining how Christians could believe in a Trinity without lapsing into polytheism or espousing logical nonsense.  I intend to tackle this topic rather carefully, because all of the series depends upon this foundational, three-part segment.  

In this post, I will set forth my understanding of the crucial term "person."  I will accomplish this first by briefly describing its etymology, then by exploring the implications of its etymological roots for the Christian Trinitarian dogma.

The word person originates from the Greek word prosopon, meaning "face."  More specifically, it referred to an actor's facemask, but came to refer more broadly to any human face.  This mask served two purposes:

1. It allowed the actor to assume the character's identity before the audience and in relationship to the other actors.
2. It amplified the actor's voice.  Romans referred to the same mask as a "persona", a word which evolved quite naturally into the English word.  

It is interesting to note that the word's etymology neither lends itself to a purely individualistic nor communitarian understanding of the human person.  The actor's prosopon lends him a new identity, but it is a specific identity within the whole.  He does not become Perseus per se, but instead becomes Perseus within the context of the particular play and in relation to the other characters.  He assumes a particular communal context.  On the other hand, he does not merely dissolve into the play, assuming an identical role as every other actor.  He truly adopts another, albeit contextualized, identity:  The actor can only become Perseus when he wears his given prosopon.

In light of this etymology, the term person speaks to what theologians and philosophers might describe as "intersubjective."  Each individual identity is distinct, but not self-contained.  Remove Perseus from this play, and he ceases to be the same Perseus.  If, for example, he were transferred from the myth of Medusa to another myth about his stunning chess game, he would cease to be "Perseus, slayer of Medusa."  He would be "Perseus, Bobby Fischer of the Aegean."

This understanding of prosopon greatly clarifies the Trinitarian dogma:  God eternally exists as three persons (personae, prosopa).  The Father is indeed the Father, but specifically in relation to the Son, and vice versa.  The Spirit is Spirit, but specifically and most fundamentally in relation to the Father and the Son.  They, together, are God, just as all of the actors together make the play.  However, each of the Persons fulfills a unique role within the God nature.

It is important to note that the Persons are not merely playactors, however.  The Son truly is the Son, just as the Father and Spirit truly are their personae.  None of them can simply abandon their role.  What is most important about the analogy is that their identities are all most fundamentally realized within their eternal relationship.  This relationship is the God that Christians worship:  One God who exists eternally as a communion of three Persons.

In the next segment, I will distinguish this view further from the modern Western conception of personality.