Kimbell Kornu cites Jonathan Edwards to the effect that, “One alone, without any reference to any more, cannot be excellent” (Edwards 1980, 337; as quoted by Kornu, 2014, 46). Which is to say that the goodness of the Unity of God (his oneness) is mutually dependent upon his plurality, (his trinity). His Unity is a real unity of persons, and not a mere abstract formula that could be summarized: “x=1”. The God of the Bible, the One surpasses the parameters of the Platonic One, is therefore necessarily a unity of plural excellency; a primordial agreement of Persons so eternally unified that even the numeric value ascribed to “1” is too inaccurate an evaluation. He is more fully Unified than “x=1”. And yet, the plurality must be maintained or else the One ceases to be the Good. For it is is not good to be alone.
The creation of Eve from Genesis 2 follows this Trinitarian logic. Adam and Eve are designed to be a perfect unity of different persons. For as it was true of the Creator, so it is true of the man made in his image: "one alone, without any reference to any more, cannot be excellent.”
And good metaphysics is good pastoral theology: The people we are called to be is a triune people, a plurality whose unity is paradoxically more “one” than the “oneness” achieved by solitary individuation (being remote and ultimately singular) or by false and artificial unity pretended by sameness or visions of transhuman singularity (the loss of individuation).
The Church, like her Lord, is a union of persons, distinct but indivisible. All Saints Day is a trinitarian feast of gathered love where we celebrate the ways in which the Spirit of the Triune God has worked and is still at work forming a people who are many-and-one. A People who are simultaneously…
Unified without sacrificing the plurality that makes real love possible.
Plural without sacrificing the unity that is the fruit of real love.
It is a people who are like himself. A Cloud of Witnesses that is made in the image of the Great Cloud that hovered over Sinai and Tabernacle. Perhaps we can say that today’s feast is not only “The Feast of Easter applied to God’s People” perhaps we can say too that it is “The Feast of the Holy Trinity applied to God’s People.”
Amen. The Spirit and the Bride say “come.”