Sharing of power is a shocking thing, and apparently the more evil someone is, the more shocking it would be that such an evil would share power. J.R.R. Tolkien captured this well when he penned, speaking of the main villain: “. . . and he does not share power.” When God created, He shared power. God’s act to make creation is the supreme act of decentralization. God Himself as based on Christian Trinitarianism is not a centralized Entity. The unity of God owes to His one nature, but the differentiation and decentralization of God owes to the Persons of the Trinity. In this sense, the immanent Trinity is a model that intimates that the highest form of existence is one of decentralized harmony. We can further postulate that true Personhood and community exists only in the context of perfect peace. This is the Christian myth–which I am not implying by my use of the word “myth” as meaning untrue–that undermines the idea that humankind should always be at war.
I’ve talked to quite a few friends who believe that humankind is largely a horrible species, destined to be cruel, exploitative, and killers. While I think there is credulity to this view as represented on the governmental and media world-stages, I remain skeptical that we don’t have great hope in humanity elsewhere. Forget the non-profit groups and forget the churches and forget the rest of the contenders for whom is the model or exemplary of how humankind should be. You need look no further than your kids. Kids model the highest form of humanity. Even when we admit that their cognitive abilities are far less than adults, we find that those features kids have in bounds are far more desirable for harmony than big cognitive skill. Kids care. Kids focus on a sense of fairness to wild extents. Kids love intimacy. Kids want to just have fun–pleasure in the good is arguably the highest form of human existing. Kids are not driven by necessities but have far greater cares to attend to like love, friendships, hugs, and spending time together. Notice that these are all things that take a back seat or disappear as we become adults and the necessities of life predominate.
God’s act to create was the supreme act of decentralization and if we take kids as how humanity could be, that act of decentralization was for harmony to exist. Enacting intent and influence is central to personal power. The Trinity is always already a decentralized harmony of personal power. Nevertheless, the Trinity created persons with wills that can enact intent and influence, and therefore the Trinity shared power in what is a jaw-dropping feature of the Christian myth. When I use “myth” in this way, I do so just to put the Christian myth up against the other contending myths including putative scientific explanations of the universe’s purpose, existence, and explanation. That the universe should be at all is the stuff of legends and miracles. It used to be the case that scientists thought the universe to be eternal, which would somehow make organized energy eternal at least until observable history, which goes against the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which states that energy moves from organized to unorganized until max entropy is reached. My point is that even this so-called scientific explanation of the universe is mythical. Similarly, proponents of the Big Bang theory of the universe recognized that the moment of the beginning of the bang was a moment “where all scientific laws break down.” Hence, such a view is likewise miraculous or mythical, depending on which terms you are more comfortable with using. Thus, when I speak of the Christian myth, it does not imply “untrue” just as I suspect when a scientist states “where all scientific laws break down” he or she does not mean to imply “untrue.” My larger point is that all explanations of the universe–whether scientific or faith-based–are equally mythical or miraculous. Even the famed Nobel-prize winning physicist, Penrose, with his theory of existence being a series of expanding and collapsing universes, faces the ongoing trouble of current scientific laws being upended, replaced, or otherwise only relative to this present universe. Of course, we could simply rewind all this discussion and note that the attribute “eternal” as soon as it enters the conversation, we are readily moving into divine talk whether we apply that attribute to God, karma, the universe, or otherwise.
Therefore, central to the Christian myth is the origin of decentralization, its explanation in the Trinity, and decentralization inherent good. In Christian patristics (study of church fathers), there is a known differentiation between different and division. Division is bad, evil. Differentiation is good, beautiful. Division leads to dissolution, destruction. Differentiation constitutes harmony, balance, and symmetry. In the famous words of lord Acton, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Absolute power is a singly power that has no check or balance to it. That Acton’s truism is cited as an obvious explanation of reality is supported by the Christian idea of Trinity: that decentralization is the model of the divine, the departure from that decentralized harmony in favor of a unitary power, with no other persons checking, balancing, or contributing, makes perfect sense. Humans were designed to mimic God the Trinity so leaving behind decentralization in whatever domain of life leads inexorably to corruption, denigration, at least on the Christian view.
Dr. Scalise