Radicalizing the Trinity: A Christian Theological Reflection on Panikkar's Radical Trinity

In his earliest writings Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010) develops a trinitarian vision of the universe which he later applies to his encounters with world religions and cultures. He calls this the “cosmotheandric” (cosmic-divine-human) insight. In his Gifford Lectures entitled “The Trinity and Atheism: The Dwelling of the Divine in the Contemporary World” (1989), later published as The Rhythm of Being (2010), Panikkar speaks of the “radical Trinity” as the mature understanding of the Christian insight and of most human traditions. He specifically defends his thesis according to classical Christian teaching. Here we explore the cogency of Panikkar’s position including his understanding of the Trinity as a fundamental challenge to monotheism.