JOSPEH G. DONDERS

Schopenhauer, and more recently Joseph Camp bell¹, studied the mysterious relation that can bind the contemporary western solidly individualized person to the other and to society by `compassion.' The `melting-together,' the `flowing-over,' the `fusion' taking place at such a moment deserve our attention.

In the description of our perceptions of self and other we rely on the models we use. As we can use only the models we know, the discovery of the possibility of a new model changes our perception. Thus when William Har vey discovered the nature of the circulation of our blood and compared our heart to a pump, suddenly our heart beats began to be heard in that sense. Before hearts were in a way not beating!³

There is a kind of reciprocity between the models we use to explain natural phenomena and the way we perceive ourselves. In the different models various cultural groups use to understand nature, we find a key to their self-understanding. Hence, it is important to note that in our not so very ancient Western approach the `thing' model has been used practically from the very beginning, and though eclipsed for some time, it has remained the underlying theory. This views reality as built up out of atoms. Western medical science has been built almost exclusively on this approach developed by Emped ocles who considered every sickness as a lack of proportion between the four chemical elements that compose all reality: air, fire, water and earth. Though the number of elements and their combinations have increased (and are increasing) since the development of that insight, essentially it is

still the way in which the West approaches issues of sickness and health.

Perhaps unwittingly such a theory has defined in another way also the nature of self. The person is an atomistic type of reality and society is built up out of those individualized and to an extent personalized atoms.

However, not so long ago a serious difficulty arose as regards this atomistic theory in science. As not all phenomena could be explained (and predicted) working with this atomistic model, a complimentary theory was needed. Forced by the nature of their discoveries scientists began to speak about and particles and wave-fields at the same time. They could look at reality from either an atomistic, individualized point or view, or from an energy-field, wave or (w)holistic point of view. In this relation particle/field the question which is first and which is second does not make much sense. Both are facets of the same reality: `rights and responsibilities'--if we may metaphorically speak of them in this context--seem to harmonize.

Facing this kind of dilemma some Western physicists, pushing their insights further, became not only poetic, but even mystical. They began to speak in terms of a cosmic dance as the only way to visualize that particles can, at the same time, be a dynamic energy field.⁴ When dancing the dancers remain the dancers, the partners remain the partners, but when well done it becomes difficult to make a distinction between the partners and between the dance and the dancers. It is in this dance that the scientific West meets the mystical East and West.

This is noticeable mainly in the development of our theological theories on the Trinity as called for by the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ within an originally strictly monotheistic context, discussions which tore the Christian world apart into a West and an East. Without entering here into the thousand year old `filioque' question, it is fruitful in our context to recall that the difference between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches is based on this discussion. In the Eastern Churches the Holy Spirit is given first to the community and then to the individual person; in the Holy Spirit is first given to the individual and then to the community. (One might even find this difference in secular terms in the two New Year's speeches given by Re agan and Gorb achev respectively in l987. Reagan assuring the Russians that his main interest was to assure everyone their own personal rights, whereas Gorbachev insisting that `we together' are facing our task in the world.)

In both Eastern and Western interpretations the issue of first and second maintained in the Trinitarian interpretations. The Latin American Liberation Theologian Leonardo B off suggests that this is due to the fact that both Eastern and Western approaches really remain essentially monotheistic.⁵ The Eastern Church starts from the monarchy of the Father as the principle of all divinity who communicates His essence and substance to the Son and the Spirit. It is a theology centered on the first person only. The Western Church starts from one divine substance internally differentiated in the Three Persons. In both theologies the Persons are constituted by their interrelatedness, but--Boff states--no real justice is done to their co-equality.

It is interesting to note that perichoresis can also be translated in another way as circle-dance, or to use the old English word for it: a carol. Our destiny seems to be to dance together, This is an experience to which each culture can relate, and is possibly the final answer to our quest for how person and community relate. Schel er's sympathy, Schop enhauer's compassion, the scientist's dance of particle and wave and the perichoresis in our description of transcendency, all seem to agree with something we know from experience, namely, that it is in the dance that we find ourselves.

1. See Joseph Cam pbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space (New York: Alfred Marck, 1986), p. 112.

2. Arthur Schopen hauer, Die Beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik, II, Uber das Fundament der Moral, (1840) (Sämtliche Werke, XII Volumes, Der Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1895-1898).

4. See, e.g., Fritjof C apra, The Turning Point (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979).

5. Leonardo Bo ff, Trinity and Society (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1989).