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CHAPTER 4 Reflection on threesomes and twosomes
Reflection on threesomes (and twosomes) in history
Seemingly, the habit to divide almost everything into three lies deeply buried in the structure and sense making of the human consciousness. In ancient Indo-European societies, it was the custom to describe the whole of society by distinguishing three functions, those of warrior, orator and labourer. Even Immanuel Kant thought that all of philosophy could be summarised in three questions: What can we know? What may we hope? What must we do? (Kenny1997:181-192).
In the Christian tradition, it has become commonplace to view God as manifesting himself in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The tri-partite division is been found in anthropology: the body, soul and spirit. It seems then a division into three offers an instrument of analysis and of synthesis at the same time. As known, Western history is generally been divided into three epochs: the Antique World, the Middle Ages and the Modern World (Raedts 2000:1).
Christophorus Cellarius (1638–1707) who lived at the end of the seventeenth century applied the viewpoint of the Leyden Church historian Georgius Horn (1627–1670) who saw the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Reformation as the two most crucial events in church history (Mertens 1992:46). Celarius distinguished three historical periods that he, for the first time, gave the now familiar names of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Age although it seems to be already present in the writings and documents of the fourteenth century scholars such as Petrach and Boccaccio (Oosthuizen 1972:9; Schaeffer 1990).
Renaissance humanists seemingly were instrumental in the classical formulation of the periodisation of Ancient, Middle and Modern eras. They displayed great admiration for the Greek-Roman cultural achievements, but had an aversion toward the culture of the so-called “Dark Ages” in which Christendom had fallen. They saw themselves as heralds of the new era in which the glory of Western society are been restored. The humanists deeply believed that, with their zeal for the restoration of classical Latin, they had forever left behind the middle period by restoring the glory of ancient Rome.
Point in case is the crowning of Petrach as poet-laureate in Rome on the Capitol on Easter Sunday 1341, twelve hundred years after the last coronation of a poet had taken place. With this grand gesture, classical literature was resurrected (Mertens 1992:32-33). A similar pattern is been identified in the mindset of the Reformers who divided Western society also into three epochs. Whereas the above thinkers were culturally motivated, the leading thought of motivation with the Reformers was religious in nature. The Reformers regarded the Middle Ages as rotten due to the dark times of primitive superstition and that they stood on the threshold of a new era.
Joachim of Fiore
There was and will always be attempts to fuse and solidify the movement of time, and in broader sense to identify the Logos or the Spirit with specific periods in history. One such effort was been done by Joachim of Fiore’s historical periodisation of salvation history, and his eschatological vision of its perfection shaped the Western interpretation of history, particularly in its modern form. Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore (c.1135–March 30, 1202), was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore (now Jure Vetere). He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist. His followers are been called Joachimites.
Michael Grosso (1995:42-47) argues that Joachim of Fiore had a major impact on the philosophy of History. By converting the static theological idea of the Trinity into a developmental pattern of spiritual evolution, a dry scholastic symbol became a tool for predicting the course of history. In effect, Joachim historised the Trinity, inventing a system of thought that would grip the prophetic imagination of the West and lay the groundwork for the secular ideas of progress, evolution and revolution (1995:44). The modern faith in progress grew up from the messianic form Joachim gave to history (1995:40-59).
Born in Calabria, some time about 1135, from what we would call a middle class family today, he acted as an official in the court of the Norman kings of Sicily where he had a spiritual conversion, and went off on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a mysterious time about which we know little. When he returned to Calabria, he lived as a hermit for a number of years before eventually joining the Cistercian Order (McGinn 2006:1).
Like many 12th century monks, Joachim was fundamentally a scriptural commentator. History has it when he was trying to understand and write a commentary on the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse, it seem like a daunting task. Nevertheless, while studying the doctrine of the trinity he had a vision “in which the fullness of the Apocalypse and the complete agreement of the Old and New Testaments [were] perceived with a clear understanding by the mind’s eye” (Eusebius in Grosso 1995:43). By means of studying the hidden harmonies of the two Testaments, Joachim thought he saw a third historical epoch still been unfolding (Gonzales 1984:306). The Trinity became an image of time, of progressive movement. Within the doctrine of the Trinity, he saw the pattern of history itself. Thus, the progress involved development from the age of the Father to the age of the Son. The first age was been based on the age of the Father, the second on the incarnate Son. There tradition stopped. A third age was yet to come: the age of the Holy Spirit. This altogether new epoch proceeded out of the first two stages, integrating yet transcending them (Reeves 1976:1-8). The first, lasting from Adam to Jesus, lasted forty-two generations. Joachim then reasoned that since God loves order and symmetry, the era of the Son is been lasting the same number of years. At thirty years per generation, Joachim calculated the date the era of the Spirit would start in 1260. The monks who are more spiritual than other people will be the heralds of the new age. This sense-making scheme had implications since herewith Joachim launched a full-scale attack on Western patriarchy (Grosso 1995:44).
As already said, it does seem that the three persons of the Trinity represent three stages in the progress of history proper, but also in the history-faith development. According to this scheme, the course of history is been directed to move from an age of fear to an age of faith. Thus, the first moment in the evolution of divine consciousness, the age of the Father, is fear; in the age of the Son it is been replaced by faith; while the third age, or Third Testament, gives rise by faith to a higher stage of history and is characterized by love.
Joachim was been brought into disrepute by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) under Innocent III. The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 condemned some of his ideas about the nature of the Trinity, but without taking any action. Finally, Pope Alexander IV condemned his writings and those of his follower, Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino. In 1263, a commission was set up which eventually declared his theories heretical. His theories inspired also subsequent heresies like Dulcinians and Brethren of the Free Spirit and had an influence on Lessing. Ever since G Lessing, ‘modern times’ have been viewed as the fulfilment of the ‘third kingdom of the Spirit’ which history had prepared and heralded. A new sense of life and nature, of the world and God was been promulgated. This was the emotional thrust behind the Enlightenment (Küng 1991:132). It knew itself to be the goal of history and the revelation and solution of history’s riddle. In this sense, Lessing wrote in The Education of the Human Race:
“Perhaps their ‘Three Ages of the World’ were not so empty a speculation after all, and assuredly they had no contemptible views when they taught that the New Covenant must become as much antiquated as the Old has been. There remained among them too the same economy of the same God. Ever, to let them speak my words, ever the self-same plan of the education of the race. Only they were premature. Only they believed that they could make their contemporaries who had scarcely outgrown their childhood, without enlightenment, without preparation, all at once men worthy of their Third Age. Moreover, it was just this, which made them enthusiasts. The enthusiast often casts true glances into the future, but for this future, he cannot wait. He wishes that this future be accelerated, and accelerated through him” (Lessing in Moltmann 1992:296).
What Lessing does here is to connect creation (the coming of the Third Age) to redemption (education of the race) which brings about renewal (of the status quo) and hence fulfilment of time. From a philosophical point of view this indicates a total different understanding of our scheme and Moltmann suggests that (1992:296) Lessing misunderstood Joachim. The argument, contra Lessing, runs along the lines of temporal concepts of anticipation and abrogation regarding the Trinitarian concept of appropriation to which Joachim adhered. In short, his reasoning was that history was a process with a goal, a self-transcending process. There was a developmental pattern, destined by divine degree to evolve. The three ages or divisions are aspects or stages of one process – the unfolding of the spirit, and they exhibit Joachim’s law of spiritual development.
Another way to view time or (cultural) history from a Western perspective is to differentiate between Greek Roman, Judeo-Christian and the Humanist-technological beliefs. Van der Walt (2000:9) even describes the worldviews in Africa as pre-colonial (until ca. 1800); the colonial period (until ca. 1960); and the postcolonial era (from more or less 1960) – and that is according to him solely applicable to the past century (sic).
Toffler (1981:338-358) in turn suggests an agricultural, industrialised and techno-civilisation as keys of entry in history. Our key to various historical epochs is the God-world-life view of various people about periods such as antiquity and modern times. Therefore, when someone emphasises the idea of a worldview as the sole access avenue of making sense of reality the omission of the input of human beings and the age-old question about the involvement of God in people’s lives and their worlds forces such an approach in the direction of reductionism. The point in case is that almost throughout all of history a triad seems to surface. Whatever names one chooses to describe realities as handy markers; it remains difficult at times to make sense of the specific characteristics of each era. Suffice to these identifications or naming is a way describing the form of awareness and of identity (Küng 1977:77; Vollenhoven 1961:1-34). Diversity is been encountered with a seemingly unified idea ruling the dogma of the day.
Tripartite segmentation as been unavoidable highlights my argument. Religious views are been set in threes. The number three comprises the deity. It takes three heavens to comprise heaven – Paul talks about someone (presumably himself) being “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:1-4). It seems that it takes three to get to heaven – two or more people, plus God (“where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst,” Matt.18:20). In addition, it takes three to get married – a man and a woman, plus God.
According to the theology of Augustine of Hippo, it takes three to complete the ‘incarnations’ of God – in the words of Scripture, in the humanity of Jesus, in the action of the sacrament. Bonaventure, a thirteenth-century Franciscan, has been expounding in his rules for the acquisition of knowledge, a need for ‘three eyes’ of seeing God: the eye of flesh (by which we perceive the external world), the eye of reason (by which we attain the knowledge of the internal world of philosophy and mind), and the eye of contemplation (by which we attain knowledge of the transcendent world) (Wilber 1980: 216-220).
Three historical ages complete the process of history, according to Joachim of Fiore (Age of the Father, Age of the Son, Age of the Spirit) and Giambattista Vico (the divine, the heroic, and the human). Three scales of time are needed to encompass history in the historiography of French economist/historian Ferdinand Braudel – ‘geographical time’ (in which events occur over the course of aeons), ‘social time’ (shorter spans of time for measuring economies, states, and civilizations), and ‘individual time’ (the shortest span of all, the history of human events). Ernest Gellner (1988) in Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History argues three discontinuous stages of human history (hunting/gathering or agriculture/ scientific industrial) are discernable for the historian/anthropologist/philosopher to explore as three basic types of human activity – production, coercion, and cognition.
Modernity
Modern philosophers are not been excluded from the tri-partite club. It takes three to define time – past, present, future – and if J.B. Priestley is correct, it takes three differentiations to conceptualise Time: Time 1 (chronological time), Time 2 (intermediate or pliant time), Time 3 (our true time – overlapping with the future) (Priestley 1964: 292-308). It takes three ‘sub universes’ to form the universe in the thought of philosopher/lecturer Karl Popper and Penrose’s – World 1 (the physical world), World 2 (the mental world), World 3 (the cultural world).(Penrose 1999: 93-100; Popper 1972).
A tripartite tendency is been found among modern scientists too. Three levels of consciousness, according to Freeman J. Dyson, accommodate the increasing diversity and knowledge of the world – the first level of consciousness present in each particle as it makes ‘quantum choices,’ the second level of consciousness present in human creation, the third level of consciousness present in God (1988).
Chapter 1: Perhaps it is true!
1.1 Dilemma: Problem or mystery?
1.2 All embracing commitment to God, humanity and the natural world
1.3 A perspective of faith as one amongst many
1.4 Telling of stories…and dancing
1.5 Faith and Experience
1.6 The field and statement of the thesis
1.7 Intersecting continuums
1.8 Pentecostalism and ecumenical experience
1.9 The grand acts of God as widest and deepest background of the study
1.10 Contrariness of 20th century Pentecostal trajectories
1.11 Provisional markers en route
Chapter 2: A faith theoretical approach
2.1 A faith theoretical approach in Faith Studies
2.2 Integral and differential reflexion of systems and patterns?
2.3 Time’s arrow
2.4 Chaos in order and order in chaos
2.5 Bohr, Heisenberg and the uncertainty principle
2.6 Small and smaller micro particles and big and bigger macro entities
2.7 A wholesome radical, integral and differential approach
Chapter 3: Twosomes, threesomes or foursomes
3.1 Whence the problem?
3.2 Whitehead and the relationality of processes
3.3 Heidegger, Being and the everyday world
3.4 Heidegger: the-being-thereness of existence in the everyday world
3.5 The mystery expressed in twosomes, threesomes and foursomes?
Chapter 4: Reflection on threesomes and twosomes
4.1 Reflection on threesomes (and twosomes) in history
4.2 Reflexion on twosomes (and threesomes) in history
Chapter 5: A theory of faith and sense making approaches
5.1 Theology or a Theory of faith?
5.2 Sense making views as God-human-and-world views
5.3 Operational characteristics of sense making God, human and world views and approaches
CHAPTER 6: A Spirit-directed approach
6.1 A Spirit-directed approach
6.2 Intertwined movements of Word → Spirit and Spirit → Word
6.3 Notions of the Holy Spirit in the past
6.4 Current notions of the Holy Spirit
Chapter 7: Inclusive Spirit-directedness of the First Fruit
7.1 Pneuma-directed theology of the First Fruit
7.2 Pentecost affirmation and vindication of Creation, Crucifixion-Resurrection and Fulfilment in the future
7.3 One-sided Pentecostal perspectives
7.4 Spirit-direction of <God… human beings… physical-organic cosmic world> embedded in Dasein, Sosein and Aktsein
Chapter8: Kenosis, Incarnation and Reflection
8.1 Pneumacentric and Christcentric sense making negotiation
8.2 Kenosis, incarnation and reflexion
8.3 A Pneuma- and Christ-directed theory of faith
8.4 Kenosis hymn: Situatedness
8.5 Reflexion and Christology
8.6 Christological aspects of kenosis and incarnation
8.7 Aspects of the economy of kenosis
8.8 Continuous awareness of creation, reconciliation, renewal and fulfilment
8.9 <God… humanity… natural cosmic world>
8.10 Time and context
8.11 Provisional approximation of kenosis and incarnation
Chapter 9: Triads and threesomes in humans
9.1 A faith theoretical approach and the Dasein, Sosein and Aktsein of humanity
9.2 Anthropological schematization
9.3 Dasein, Sosein, Aktsein and Creational, Christ-, Spirit- and Fulfilling-directed experience
9.4 Christian being as radical human being
9.5 Realisation of being human: a wholesome approach
9.6 Anthropological trajectories of modernity
9.7 A Theory of Faith: Body talk
9.8 Embodiment as the end of all God’s work
9.9 Gestalt (eventshape) and multiplexity of mind
9.10 Spirit, eventshape (Gestalt) and circles
Chapter10: Dynamism of identity and non-identity
10.1 Dynamics of technologies and interaction of identity and non-identity
10.2 Societal dynamism: transformation and sociocultural epochs
10.3 Trajectories and dynamics of the social world
10.4 Dynamic character of modern social life
10.5 Processes of reflexion
10.6 Society, culture and identity
10.7 Collective identity and sense making
Chapter 11: Approaches to texts, theories, processes and human doings
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Constructivism and realism
11.3 Mirroring, interpretation and negotiation of texts, theories, natural processes and human doings
Chapter 12: Spirit, Person and Community
12.1 Identity, identities and identifying
12.2 Dynamic roots and relations
12.3 God as Spirit in the human and natural cosmic world
12.4 The dance of to-gether-ness and at-other-ness of God, human beings and the universe
Bibliography
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