Some years ago, a resident of the prison where I served as the Protestant chaplain, share with me the story of a young priest who was assigned to give religious instruction to the youth in the parish. On one particular occasion, he was to explain the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to them. He thought that hae would try to explain it to them in terms that they could understand. Subsequently, he used the terms "Dad, Junior, and the Spook" thinking that they would understand this as the equivalent of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. An equivalent attempt to do this in the Spanish language would be "Papa, Junior, y el Cuco."
Well, how do we explain the Trinity to people living in a situation of oppression and suffering, where those categories mean little, if anything? To people who are the victims of colonization, second-class citizenship and residency, facing inferior wages in the employment market, living in substandard conditions, and living in fear of does not matter whether God is one,two, or three persons. What matters to them is the relevance or non-relevance of God-talk to the socio-economic and political conditions in which they live in the Diaspora of the U.S.A. As one of my colleague theologian friends put it, Hispanic people in the U.S.A. are not concerned with theological abstractions and speculation, but rather with basic survival, or as he put it, "with getting the cheese off the trucks."
Just to briefly put things into historical perspective, the word "Trinity" is not found anywhere in the Scriptures. It came into vogue after the fourth century, during which time the Church was embroiled in a controversy concerning the nature of God and Jesus. The word "Trinity" was used to explain the relationship which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit had with each other, without losing their distinct identities as individual persons.
This controversy became more complicated by the teachings of Arius, who believed that Jesus was created by God. In other words, he did not believe that Jesus was part of the Godhead or divine nature. He taught, based on his understanding of the New Testament, that Jesus was both inferior and subservient to God the Father. In essence, his theology made Jesus an inferior god, which in a sense, established a form of polytheism, which the Church was trying to avoid in its doctrinal formulations, and which he also, ironically enough was trying to avoid. The Arian doctrine strongly resembles the teachings of the modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses, who also believe that Jesus is subordinate to God, not only by role, but by nature.
Another complication was that of the teachings of Sabellious, who taught that God was revealed to humankind in three different modes or forms. Sabellius taught that at one time in history, God was revealed as Father, at another time as Son, and finally as Holy Spirit. In essence, Sabellian doctrine, or as it came to be known "Sabellian Modalism," promoted the idea of a trinity of roles, rather than a trinity of persons.
Finally, after the Emperor Constantine called for the Church to huddle and lay this matter to rest, the Church adopted the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine states that God has been revealed to humankind in the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are distinct as to person, but not as to nature. In other words, by nature, all three of them are divine, and can properly-speaking, be called "God." Needless to say, this position of the Church led to the allegation that the Christian religion is one of polytheism.
The systemic theological reflections on the Trinity of European or North American origins have traditionally drawn from biblical (mostly New Testament), patristic, scholastic, and contemporary sources, mediated by the philosophical and historical categories of each age. Within the advent of political theology in Europe and liberation-oriented theologies in the Third World within the last decades, contemporary trinitarian theologies address questions formerly regarded by theologians and non-theologians alike as the exclusive domain of the political sciences (Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology. New York: Seabury Press, 1988, pp. 130-132).
This, of course, raises the question of whether or not the doctrines of the Church are a reflection of how in its thinking society should be arranged. Is the ancient doctrine of the Trinity one which at a certain period in history legitimized the gradual development of Christendom, i.e. a system where the Church governed society? Is the doctrine of the Trinity, as understood today, one which reflects the legitimization of a male-dominated society? With the advent of inclusive language in Scripture and in Christian theology, one wonders if the theological stance of the contemporary Church would be reflective of a different social order.
Hispanic theologians seek to develop their own trinitarian structure. Subsequently, they must take into account what other contemporary and past trinitarians have said. The Hispanic theologians cannot evade the toil and sweat of scholarly research and reflection. To pretend to replace the required intensity and level of scholarship with ill-conceived and pseudo-spiritual or practical theologies would amount to an escapist, non-professional theological praxis that would disqualify the Hispanic theologian as a responsible practitioner of the profession (Roberto Goizueta, Inaugural Presidential Discourse, Third Annual Meeting of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologian of the United States, 3-5 June 1990, Berkley, California).
Hispanic theologians retrieve and reformulate into their own theological milieu all that they see as true and methodologically sound; the theologians allow First World theological systems to stand critically before their belief system. They have also become acutely aware that their theology must be an even sharper critique of bourgeois and non-committed theologies that arise from a fatigued, post-modern North-hemispherical Western society (Metz, pp. 88-99).
Hispanic theologians know that their own methodology has to offer many elements, forgotten or utterly unknown, for the most part, to First World Western Colleagues. Although some of these elements are common to all theological latitudes, they all are more intensely lived and reflected upon within the Hispanic domain. This applies to Hispanic trinitarian theology (Sixto Garcia, "A Hispanic Approach to Trinitarian Theology: The Dynamics of Celebration, Reflection and Praxis" in We Are A People. Roberto S. Goizueta, ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p. 110).
A question that comes into play is whether or not Hispanic theology should be a trinitarian theology in the classical sense of the word? Should Hispanic-American theology reflect the contents of the historic creeds and doctrinal formulations of the Church? This theologian (yours truly) believes that since Hispanic-American and Latin-American theology is an anti-colonial theology which is not based on a Western biblical hermeneutic, that Hispanic-American theologians should develop their own conception of the nature and work of God and the doctrine of the Trinity, not based on a supposed Western cultural and theological superiority, but rather, within a framework of relationships of people engaged in the struggle for liberation from domination and dependency. The notion of God should reflect the just society that Liberation Theology, on the basis of its understanding of the Gospel, seeks to create.
The construction of a Hispanic-American trinitarian system begins, like any other Hispanic theological project, with the popular religious faith of the community. That community, in turn, reflects a faith which utilizes its situation of domination and oppression as the starting point for biblical interpretation and theological reflection (Garcia in Goizueta, p. 118).
A challenge for Hispanic-American theology lies in the following question: Should our theology follow the Catholic and Orthodox models of including experiences (the presence of the Holy Spirit in the early Church), tradition, and Scripture in its formulations, or should it subscribe to the Reformation model of "Sola Scriptura?" Another possible model might be that of "Prima Scriptura," where the traditions and experiences in the Church carry weight, not unlike that of Scripture, but rather enough weight to be included in the formation of dogma.
This theologian, though Protestant, believes that if one is to be intellectually honest, that he/she must acknowledge that both the experiences and traditions of the Church gave way to the Scriptures, i.e. that the Scriptures came as a result of the presence of the Holy Spirit in and the traditions of the Church. To subscribe to the "Sola Scriptura" paradigm, is to deny the Spirit's role in the formation of the Church, and to invalidate or minimize the tradition, would be tantamount to believing and affirming that the Scriptures developed in a historical vacuum. Biblical theology, itself points to revelation coming to us through the mediation and the filtering of human experience.
In Roman Catholic theology, the role of Marianism is the hermeneutical key to the trinitarian experience of the Holy Spirit. Theologians from different Christian traditions agree that the biblical role of Mary as disciple, as hearer of the Word, and as the receptor of the Holy Spirit, can offer common points of ecumenical discussion and theologizing (Bertrand Buby, Mary: The Faithful Disciple. Mahwah, New Jersey, Paulist Press, 1985, p. 67).
This particular discussion underscores the role of Mary in the Hispanic perception of the unity and trinity in God. It is superfluous to be reminded of the traditionally seminal role that Mary has played through the centuries in Hispanic prayer, and liturgy. This reality springs from an old tradition that associates Mary with the salvific activity of Jesus and through Jesus with the Father and the Spirit. This Hispanic tradition can claim a foundational New Testament background, especially though not exclusively in the Gospel according to Luke ( Garcia in Goizueta, pp. 121-122).
In Hispanic Protestant theology, what we find is a conception of the Trinity which is based on an assemblage of Scripture passages. Very little, if any attention is given to the cultural and social contexts from which those particular Scripture passages emerged. Even less attention is paid to the literary form of those books in which those passages appear. The tendency in Protestant theology is to quote the Scriptures verbatim, and at the same time, disregard how the context colors the content of Scripture.
The future of the theology of the Trinity in the Hispanic churches will depend on the attitude of the Church. If the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches overemphasize the role of the tradition, then their trinitarian will be based on decisions that the Church made at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.; merely for the sake of antiquity in thinking that this position is preserving "the faith that was once delivered to the saints." On the other hand, if the Protestant churches continue to rely on the "Sola Scriptura" model in order to define the Trinity, then they will just end up recycling and regurgitating the mechanical and robotic citation of Scripture which do not lead to a well-thought-out theology.
The future of Hispanic-American "God-talk" will always depend on how the Church as the custodian of theology, interacts with its immediate environment, and how what is taking place in that environment, leads the Church in developing its self-understanding of God's revelation in Christ. The trinitarian theology of the Church must reflect the Church's engagement in the struggle for justice and liberation in the world. It cannot not be Nicene for the sake of being Nicene. Its trinitarian theology must reflect a God who has heard the cry of the people and descended to help them and deliver them from bondage.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona
Visiting Professor of Theology, Tainan Theological College/Seminary
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