The Liberal Catholic Church (LCC) has distinguished itself from the rest of the independent Catholic churches from the very beginning by its own theological position. While it is true that in the early days of its existence the liberal and esoteric tendencies were 'hidden' from the preeminent doctrine of the mother church (the Old Catholic Church of the British Isles), at the time of the resignation of Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew and the 'handover' to James Ingall Wedgwood in 1916, the Church not only changed its name to the Liberal Catholic Church, but went so far as to set down its specific doctrine in black and white in the Constitutions (Statement of Principles and Summary of Doctrine of the Liberal Catholic Church) and in the landmark text "The Parting of the Ways", written by Bishop Frank Waters Pigott as a systematic theology text for the church in 1927.
I will try, in this article, to present a summary of the Trinitarian doctrine as expounded in some reference texts of the LCC tradition.
In presenting the particularity of the doctrine of the LCC, it is good to premise that, even before doctrine, for the 'Founding Fathers' came freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and research. In the words of Wedgwood:
“In the Liberal Catholic Church we leave our members perfectly free in matters of belief, because we recognize that a man’s belief depends very much on his stage of evolution. As he grows in spirituality, so will he grow in understanding and in knowledge of the great facts in nature. So while we have certain teachings and beliefs which we present to our people, we do not insist upon an acceptance of them until they themselves can see them to be true. If they are wise, they will take them as working hypotheses and try to make them living realities in their lives.
That is the work that lies before us—to try to make these teachings of the Christian Church matters of understanding and not merely matters of faith.” [1]
This makes it possible for different spiritual sensitivities to coexist within the same community. It makes it possible for people with different visions to join the choir of the Universal Church, reciting the same Creed (the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed can be used, for example), accepting it in form, even if interpreting it in their own hearts in a different way.
There are, however, formulae in the Liberal Rite that can be used in place of the historic Creeds. The Act of Faith (4th edition of the LCC Liturgy) lends itself well to introducing the subject of this article:
We believe in God, the undivided Unity, embracing all in oneness.
We believe in the Holy and all-glorious Trinity, who pervades the whole universe, who dwells also in the spirit of man.
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Lord of love and wisdom, first among his brethren, who leads us to the glory of the Father, who is himself the way, the truth, and the life.
We believe in the law of good which rules the world and by which one day all his sons shall reach the feet of the Father, however far they stray.
We strive towards the ancient narrow path that leads to life eternal.
So shall his blessing rest on us and peace forevermore. Amen. [2]
This Act of Faith summarises the Trinitarian doctrine of the LCC. Let us look at its main points.
God is One but manifests Himself as Trinity.
The Trinity is One as God, three as manifested powers.
The One becomes manifest as the First. Being, the Self-Existent Lord, the Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word Will, or Power, seems best to express this primary Self-revealing, since until there is Will to manifest there can be no manifestation, and until there is Will manifested, impulse is lacking for further unfoldment. The universe may be said to be rooted in the [Page 226] divine Will. Then follows the second aspect of the One — Wisdom; Power is guided by Wisdom, and therefore it is written that "without Him was not anything made that is made";[S. John, i, 3. ] Wisdom is dual in its nature, as will presently be seen. When the aspects of Will and Wisdom are revealed, a third aspect must follow to make them effective — Creative Intelligence, the divine mind in Action. [….. ] These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects of One. Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of clearness, but cannot be disjoined. Each is necessary to each, and each is present in each.” [3]
In this view, “The Father is the transcendent Consciousness beyond all relativity; the Son is the extension of that Consciousness into the Primal Energy that is the Holy Spirit manifesting as creation. The Father is the impersonal God and the Son is the personal God. The Holy Spirit is the evolving power that causes us to pass up the evolutionary ladder from a single atom of hydrogen to divinity.” [4]
God is both transcendent and immanent.
The universe is not separate from God, but exists as a participant in the breath of Divine Life that continually sustains and vivifies it. However, God is not completely identified and limited by His universe but transcends it. "God is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent; beginningless and endless; trinity and unity. Totally outside all things and yet within all things simultaneously. [...] When we think of God as outside all things we say “Father,” and when we think of God as within all things we say “the Son.” But it is the one and only God we are speaking of in this way." [5]
The Trinity dwells in Man and Man is divine in nature.
A direct consequence of the previous point is that the Trinity itself dwells in Man. There is no separation between God and Man and, by virtue of being in the image of God, Man has within himself the power to know God. "Man, made in the image and likeness of God, reflects in himself the three dominant attributes of the three Persons of the Trinity: will, wisdom and creative activity." [1]
"The authentic Christian teaching is that humans are threefold, being images of the Trinity. A human being is made up of a spirit and a body, certainly, but there is a third component that is of paramount significance: a psychic level that links the material and the spiritual and enables the material and the spiritual to communicate." [4]
A corollary of divine immanence is the divinity of Man, both of "all of humanity collectively and of each individual in particular". [6]
"Man, made in the Image of God, is himself divine in essence—a spark of the Divine Fire. The Divinity that was fully manifest in Jesus Christ is being gradually unfolded in each one of us until we come ‘unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’5 The Spirit uses a soul and body for contact with the various worlds of being through which we gain those experiences which gradually draw out into manifestation our latent divine powers." [1] This introduces two other themes of great importance: the figure of Jesus Christ and the evolutionary journey of Man.
Jesus Christ.
In the (4th edition) Act of Faith of the LCC we are presented with Jesus as our brother. Since all humanity shares the fatherhood of God, it follows that we are all brothers. Jesus shared the same human nature with us. The point on which the LCC insists is that with Jesus we also share the divine nature, though ours is only latent and in power while Jesus' is fully realised. This is why it is not permissible to think that the LCC's view belittles Jesus' divinity, let alone his role as Saviour and Teacher.
Jesus, unlike the rest of his fellows, "has made perfect His manhood. He has lifted it into the Godhead where it ever remains as perfect manhood. He has real- ized His true nature, His essential divinity, “by taking of the Manhood into God.” We have not done so; some of us have not nearly done so. He is conscious of that oneness as we are not. Therefore, speaking of the Lord Christ as incarnate in Palestine and present at every Catholic Eucharist, we can say of Him that He was truly God the Son, because of His consciousness, as man, of that oneness. For the same reason He could say, as we as yet cannot, “I and the Father are One.”(έν) We also are one with the Father, but, as incarnate human beings, not yet consciously so. " [6]
That is why we say that Christ is the Way that leads us to the Father. Man's destiny is evolution; evolution means manifesting the perfection of Christ. "This Christ is our foundation, the ground and basis of our existence. We are inseparable from Christ. All our evolution takes place in the relative universe which is pervaded and directed by the Cosmic Christ. For us as Christians, Jesus Christ is the link through which we strive toward perfection in the Eternal Christ. " [4]
The Holy Spirit and evolution
One day God's children will return to his feet. If Christ is the model of perfection to which to strive, the level of consciousness to which Man aspires, the Holy Spirit is the one who presides over evolution and allows the journey to continue. The Holy Spirit is the creative intelligence that shapes matter by manifesting the power of God. Just as formless primordial matter, after being overshadowed by the Spirit, becomes capable of producing form and revealing the second person of the Trinity who is clothed in matter, in the same way it is over our individual lives that the Holy Spirit works, enveloping and transforming us in order to manifest the Son of God in us. "Christ is within every man because that is God’s plan for the evolution of His world. […]. our spiritual life is an effort to bring the Christ within into full activity that it may be one with the Christ without, …” [7]
In the multiplicity of manifestation it is the Holy Spirit who leads back to Unity 'not by the conversion of divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of humanity into God. [...] from him all things came; and in him all things will one day return, not to lose consciousness, for then the result of all the aeons of evolution would be lost, but to become a conscious part of that stupendous whole, a facet of that all-embracing consciousness, which is indeed the divine father of all, above all, through all, and in you all." [8]
As the Athanasian creed reminds us, "in this Trinity there is nothing that is before or after, nothing greater or lesser". The three persons of the Trinity, though defined in an ordinal sense, are co-eternal, co-equal and interconnected, and their 'distinction' operates, as already mentioned, in the field of manifestation.
Giovanni++
Sources
[1] Wedgwood J.I., Collected Works, St. Alban Press (2004);
[2] The Liturgy according to the use of the Liberal Catholic Church, Third Edition, St. Alban Press (2016);
[3] Besant A., Il Cristianesimo esoterico (translated by Fabrizio Ferretti), Edizioni Teosofiche Italiane (2011);
[4] Burke G., The Yoga of the Sacraments, ocoy.org;
[5] Burke G., The Christ of India, ocoy.org;
[6] Pigott F.W., The parting of the ways, St. Alban Press (2010);
[7] Leadbeater C.W., Christian Gnosis, St. Alban Press (2011);
[8] Leadbeater C.W., The Christian Creed - Origin and Signification
I will try, in this article, to present a summary of the Trinitarian doctrine as expounded in some reference texts of the LCC tradition.
In presenting the particularity of the doctrine of the LCC, it is good to premise that, even before doctrine, for the 'Founding Fathers' came freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and research. In the words of Wedgwood:
“In the Liberal Catholic Church we leave our members perfectly free in matters of belief, because we recognize that a man’s belief depends very much on his stage of evolution. As he grows in spirituality, so will he grow in understanding and in knowledge of the great facts in nature. So while we have certain teachings and beliefs which we present to our people, we do not insist upon an acceptance of them until they themselves can see them to be true. If they are wise, they will take them as working hypotheses and try to make them living realities in their lives.
That is the work that lies before us—to try to make these teachings of the Christian Church matters of understanding and not merely matters of faith.” [1]
This makes it possible for different spiritual sensitivities to coexist within the same community. It makes it possible for people with different visions to join the choir of the Universal Church, reciting the same Creed (the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed can be used, for example), accepting it in form, even if interpreting it in their own hearts in a different way.
There are, however, formulae in the Liberal Rite that can be used in place of the historic Creeds. The Act of Faith (4th edition of the LCC Liturgy) lends itself well to introducing the subject of this article:
We believe in God, the undivided Unity, embracing all in oneness.
We believe in the Holy and all-glorious Trinity, who pervades the whole universe, who dwells also in the spirit of man.
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Lord of love and wisdom, first among his brethren, who leads us to the glory of the Father, who is himself the way, the truth, and the life.
We believe in the law of good which rules the world and by which one day all his sons shall reach the feet of the Father, however far they stray.
We strive towards the ancient narrow path that leads to life eternal.
So shall his blessing rest on us and peace forevermore. Amen. [2]
This Act of Faith summarises the Trinitarian doctrine of the LCC. Let us look at its main points.
God is One but manifests Himself as Trinity.
The Trinity is One as God, three as manifested powers.
The One becomes manifest as the First. Being, the Self-Existent Lord, the Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word Will, or Power, seems best to express this primary Self-revealing, since until there is Will to manifest there can be no manifestation, and until there is Will manifested, impulse is lacking for further unfoldment. The universe may be said to be rooted in the [Page 226] divine Will. Then follows the second aspect of the One — Wisdom; Power is guided by Wisdom, and therefore it is written that "without Him was not anything made that is made";[S. John, i, 3. ] Wisdom is dual in its nature, as will presently be seen. When the aspects of Will and Wisdom are revealed, a third aspect must follow to make them effective — Creative Intelligence, the divine mind in Action. [….. ] These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects of One. Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of clearness, but cannot be disjoined. Each is necessary to each, and each is present in each.” [3]
In this view, “The Father is the transcendent Consciousness beyond all relativity; the Son is the extension of that Consciousness into the Primal Energy that is the Holy Spirit manifesting as creation. The Father is the impersonal God and the Son is the personal God. The Holy Spirit is the evolving power that causes us to pass up the evolutionary ladder from a single atom of hydrogen to divinity.” [4]
God is both transcendent and immanent.
The universe is not separate from God, but exists as a participant in the breath of Divine Life that continually sustains and vivifies it. However, God is not completely identified and limited by His universe but transcends it. "God is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent; beginningless and endless; trinity and unity. Totally outside all things and yet within all things simultaneously. [...] When we think of God as outside all things we say “Father,” and when we think of God as within all things we say “the Son.” But it is the one and only God we are speaking of in this way." [5]
The Trinity dwells in Man and Man is divine in nature.
A direct consequence of the previous point is that the Trinity itself dwells in Man. There is no separation between God and Man and, by virtue of being in the image of God, Man has within himself the power to know God. "Man, made in the image and likeness of God, reflects in himself the three dominant attributes of the three Persons of the Trinity: will, wisdom and creative activity." [1]
"The authentic Christian teaching is that humans are threefold, being images of the Trinity. A human being is made up of a spirit and a body, certainly, but there is a third component that is of paramount significance: a psychic level that links the material and the spiritual and enables the material and the spiritual to communicate." [4]
A corollary of divine immanence is the divinity of Man, both of "all of humanity collectively and of each individual in particular". [6]
"Man, made in the Image of God, is himself divine in essence—a spark of the Divine Fire. The Divinity that was fully manifest in Jesus Christ is being gradually unfolded in each one of us until we come ‘unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’5 The Spirit uses a soul and body for contact with the various worlds of being through which we gain those experiences which gradually draw out into manifestation our latent divine powers." [1] This introduces two other themes of great importance: the figure of Jesus Christ and the evolutionary journey of Man.
Jesus Christ.
In the (4th edition) Act of Faith of the LCC we are presented with Jesus as our brother. Since all humanity shares the fatherhood of God, it follows that we are all brothers. Jesus shared the same human nature with us. The point on which the LCC insists is that with Jesus we also share the divine nature, though ours is only latent and in power while Jesus' is fully realised. This is why it is not permissible to think that the LCC's view belittles Jesus' divinity, let alone his role as Saviour and Teacher.
Jesus, unlike the rest of his fellows, "has made perfect His manhood. He has lifted it into the Godhead where it ever remains as perfect manhood. He has real- ized His true nature, His essential divinity, “by taking of the Manhood into God.” We have not done so; some of us have not nearly done so. He is conscious of that oneness as we are not. Therefore, speaking of the Lord Christ as incarnate in Palestine and present at every Catholic Eucharist, we can say of Him that He was truly God the Son, because of His consciousness, as man, of that oneness. For the same reason He could say, as we as yet cannot, “I and the Father are One.”(έν) We also are one with the Father, but, as incarnate human beings, not yet consciously so. " [6]
That is why we say that Christ is the Way that leads us to the Father. Man's destiny is evolution; evolution means manifesting the perfection of Christ. "This Christ is our foundation, the ground and basis of our existence. We are inseparable from Christ. All our evolution takes place in the relative universe which is pervaded and directed by the Cosmic Christ. For us as Christians, Jesus Christ is the link through which we strive toward perfection in the Eternal Christ. " [4]
The Holy Spirit and evolution
One day God's children will return to his feet. If Christ is the model of perfection to which to strive, the level of consciousness to which Man aspires, the Holy Spirit is the one who presides over evolution and allows the journey to continue. The Holy Spirit is the creative intelligence that shapes matter by manifesting the power of God. Just as formless primordial matter, after being overshadowed by the Spirit, becomes capable of producing form and revealing the second person of the Trinity who is clothed in matter, in the same way it is over our individual lives that the Holy Spirit works, enveloping and transforming us in order to manifest the Son of God in us. "Christ is within every man because that is God’s plan for the evolution of His world. […]. our spiritual life is an effort to bring the Christ within into full activity that it may be one with the Christ without, …” [7]
In the multiplicity of manifestation it is the Holy Spirit who leads back to Unity 'not by the conversion of divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of humanity into God. [...] from him all things came; and in him all things will one day return, not to lose consciousness, for then the result of all the aeons of evolution would be lost, but to become a conscious part of that stupendous whole, a facet of that all-embracing consciousness, which is indeed the divine father of all, above all, through all, and in you all." [8]
As the Athanasian creed reminds us, "in this Trinity there is nothing that is before or after, nothing greater or lesser". The three persons of the Trinity, though defined in an ordinal sense, are co-eternal, co-equal and interconnected, and their 'distinction' operates, as already mentioned, in the field of manifestation.
Giovanni++
Sources
[1] Wedgwood J.I., Collected Works, St. Alban Press (2004);
[2] The Liturgy according to the use of the Liberal Catholic Church, Third Edition, St. Alban Press (2016);
[3] Besant A., Il Cristianesimo esoterico (translated by Fabrizio Ferretti), Edizioni Teosofiche Italiane (2011);
[4] Burke G., The Yoga of the Sacraments, ocoy.org;
[5] Burke G., The Christ of India, ocoy.org;
[6] Pigott F.W., The parting of the ways, St. Alban Press (2010);
[7] Leadbeater C.W., Christian Gnosis, St. Alban Press (2011);
[8] Leadbeater C.W., The Christian Creed - Origin and Signification