Publication details
Trinitarian Reconciliation of Being : Comenius and Trinitarian Metaphysics
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| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | In his opening address to the New Trinitarian Ontologies conference in Cambridge (2019), John Milbank emphasized both contemplative and transformative dimensions of the quest for Trinitarian ontology. At a time of serious global political and environmental crisis, Trinitarian revision of transcendental and categorical metaphysical structures of being promises to unfold and nourish an unexpected disposition towards reconciliation and peace. But how can this be? How can this theoretical Trinitarian revision of metaphysics be plausibly connected with some sort of practical action? To examine this question, I will follow in my paper Milbank’s recommendation of the Trinitarian metaphysics of Jan Amos Komenský, or Comenius (1592-1670). In Comenius’ pansophic vision, the religious, scientific and political crisis of his tragic times was to be overcome by reducing all these areas to their Trinitarian roots. Building on the recent scholarship of the Bamberg Trinitarian School (Heinrich Beck, Erwin Schadel) and Czech comeniology (Jan Patočka, Karel Floss, Pavel Floss), I will argue that Comenius’ attempt to connect his Trinitarian metaphysics in Janua rerum with his Trinitarian pragmatics in Triertium catholicum is grounded upon a plausible bond between Aristotelian analogia entis and Augustinian analogia Trinitatis. If the basic acts of human soul (cogitatio, operatio, sermo) are reshaped in gloriam Triunius Dei, the analogical structure of reality (Being, Good and Truth) becomes transparent to its Trinitarian foundation. That way, through the real participation in the Spirit of the Son and the Father, human creativity harmonizes itself with the originally Trinitarian Creation of all being. Although Comenius could not stop the progress of explicitly anti-Trinitarian Socinian modernity and was eventually forgotten, he offered a fully Trinitarian alternative, which could be now re-examined in the light of the current endeavour to think of and participate in the Trinitarian reconciliation of being. |
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