A group of researchers in comparative psychology has recently argued that the human species is distinct from other primate species due to a unique capacity to share intentions with conspecifics. This capacity has come to be called shared intentionality, and it allows for unique forms of cooperation in human beings. Since, according to Christian doctrine, human beings are created in the image of God, I will argue in this paper that the unique, species-specific capacity of shared intentionality could helpfully inform our conceptions of God as Trinity, of humans as the imago Dei, and of human freedom as participation in triune life. My argument proceeds in three steps.
First, I summarize some recent findings of comparative and developmental psychologists, namely, Michael Tomasello, Melinda Carpenter, and others affiliated with the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Through a variety of experiments, they have shown that nonhuman primates are able to apprehend what others are intending, but are not able to share intentions with one another. In humans, on the other hand, the latter capacity begins to emerge early in life (often between 9-14 months) and develops into a more complete form as the human matures into adulthood. Such a capacity, it is argued, is a necessary condition for the emergence of human culture and for the distinctive forms of cooperation found among human beings.
Second, I show how the relations of the trinitarian persons to one another can be analogically and fruitfully conceived through the phenomenon of shared intentionality, such that God's one, intelligent, and loving operation stands as one, perfect act of shared intentionality among the trinitarian persons. Employing shared intentionality as an analogue for relations of the persons to one another has the potential to integrate the strengths of both the psychological and social analogies of the Trinity, which have often been seen as mutually exclusive. Shared intentionality as an analogue for the Trinity is psychological inasmuch as any act of shared intentionality requires acts of intelligible emanation to occur in the human beings sharing intentions, but it is also social inasmuch as it could not occur without a multiplicity of persons who are nevertheless united with one another through shared intentionality.
Third, I claim that, although the human capacity for shared intentionality emerges at an early age and provides the cognitive groundwork for active participation in human community, nevertheless the capacity has an implicit dynamism toward participating in the one, perfect act of shared intentionality between the trinitarian persons. True human freedom, in other words, consists in sharing intentionality with the divine persons, and the movement into a deeper effective freedom, for human beings, consists in being conformed to the shared intentionality of the divine persons.
In conclusion, by drawing upon recent comparative psychologists, my paper provides a conception of human and divine freedom as intrinsically communal: freedom consists in the activity of consciously sharing a world with another. For Christians, this freedom exists most excellently in the triune God, who for eternity share the divine life with one another, but in humans this freedom develops incrementally throughout human maturation and finds its ultimate fulfillment in sharing in the divine life with the trinitarian persons and with other human persons.
My paper argues that the phenomenon of shared intentionality can serve both as an analogue for God as Trinity and as an explanatory concept for speaking about human freedom as participation in the life of the triune God. My paper has three parts. First, I summarize some recent findings of comparative and developmental psychologists, who have argued human beings are unique due to a capacity to share intentions with conspecifics. Second, I show how shared intentionality can serve as an analogue for God as Trinity. Finally, I argue that human freedom consists in being conformed to the shared intentionality of the triune God.