The Divine DanceSample

Creative Continuation

Daniel Walsh, who was Thomas Merton’s primary philosophy teacher, says he’s not sure if the human person can even legitimately be called a creation, because we are a continuance, an emanation from, a subsistent relation with what we call Trinity. We are in continuity with God somehow, and not a separate creation. We are “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.” (See Ephesians 1:4.)

Mature Christianity is thus an invitation to share in the personal life of God, a dynamic of generated love forever continued in space and time through God’s creatures.

Thus, God’s self-knowledge includes knowledge of us, and God’s self-love includes love of us.

They are the same knowing, the same loving, and the same freedom.

Yes, in some sense we become an “other” that can be seen as a separate object from God, but from God’s side, we are always known and loved subject to subject, just as the persons of the Trinity know and love one another. God and the human person must know (and can know) one another center to center, subject to subject—and never subject to object.

This is the perhaps the clearest way to describe God’s unconditional acceptance of us, the forgiveness of our mistakes, and mercy toward us in all circumstances: 

We are never an object to God. God cannot but love God’s image in us. 

So a fully Christian theology and philosophy of the human person must say that human personhood originates in the divine Logos, the eternal Christ, as imitations and reflections of God’s relationship to Godself. We are constituted by the same relationship that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

“The end for which the human person is created is to manifest the Truth of Christ in the love God has for himself in his Divine Trinity,” Daniel Walsh says in his lectures to the monks. 

Divine Personhood and human personhood are reciprocal, mutually-mirroring concepts. God’s nature as relationship creates ours, and ours is constituted by this same bond, which is infinite openness and capacity to love.

We must know that we are in fact objectively loveable to really be able to love ourselves. That is what Divine Personhood assures and guarantees. Your false self is not ready for unconditional love. Love and respect, yes. But not unconditional love—only conditional love.

This becomes Merton’s foundation for what he calls the True Self, which is always, objectively, and forever completely loveable—all ephemera notwithstanding. I believe this was supposed to be the foundational good news of the gospel, the rock of salvation—a basis for human personhood that does not vacillate and cannot fail. Jesus is announcing with his words and exemplifying with his Table and teaching alike that human persons are created inside of the substantial and infinite love of the Trinity. You cannot “get” to such a place; you can only rest and rejoice in such a place.

We hope this plan has encouraged you. Explore other resources at https://www.whitakerhouse.com/book-authors/richard-rohr/.