Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, March 31, 2023
Speaker: Oskari Juurikkala (Åbo Akademi University, University of Helsinki)
***
Nowadays, one of the main challenges of trinitarian theology is its relevance: it is felt by many that the image depicted by classical trinitarian doctrine is not only incomprehensible, but also distant and uninteresting. In this seminar, we were introduced to a small treatise known as Theologus Autodidactus (or ‘the self-learned theologian’, an apologetic fable in favour of the Christian trinitarian doctrine), whose arguments anticipate modern social and personalistic ideas of the Trinity.
The author, Theodore Abu Qurrah (c. 750 – c. 825), venerated as a saint in the Orthodox tradition, was a Christian apologist in the times of early Islam. He was a Syrian Melkite born in Edessa, present-day Sanliurfa, in south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border.
Abu Qurrah is one of the first proponents (perhaps the first ever) of a relational interpretation of the image of God that builds explicitly upon the paradigmatic human model of marital love. In particular, he developed the idea that the image of God in man is reflected in interpersonal communion, so that the generative relationship between Adam (man) and Eve (woman) and their offspring tells us something about God himself.
In Theologus Autodidactus, Abu Qurrah’s principal objective is to show that the Christian faith is true. A central point of contention with Islam is the doctrine of the Trinity, as Christians hold that the One God is three divine Persons. To guide the reader into this direction, relational perfections are introduced, and Abu Qurrah finds a reflection of the Trinity in the human family as a community of persons. He argues that the greatest and noblest things in human life have to do with communion and sharing. In Theologus Autodidactus we are told that without other human persons, Adam’s «felicity of life would be with the pigs, asses, and other beasts, which is not felicity». The suggestion is that if one insists on the rigid monotheism of Islam, which denies the possibility of more than one person in God, then the result is an inferior God because he is someone without company equal to him.
It seems undeniable that Theologus Autodidactus is aimed at persuading Muslims but, though Abu Qurrah was widely known by them, none of the extant texts from Muslim authors address the rather elaborate imago Dei argument for the Trinity made in the Theologus Autodidactus; instead, they respond to a set of briefer arguments and analogies outlined in a shorter work of Abu Qurrah.
Is it relevant today to study Theodore Abu Qurrah’s trinitarian proposals? As shown by Oskari Juurikkala, even the limitations and deficiencies of his arguments may serve our own quest for understanding the mystery of God and communicating it to others, particularly in a time where human relationality arouses particular interest.
