Trinity, regiratio and Mind: An Exploration of the Systematic‐Theological Resources of Ruusbroec’s Regirative Model

This article discusses the original and highly dynamic doctrine of the Trinity of Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381) and explores its potential for systematic theology today. Ruusbroec characterizes the Trinity as ‘a flowing, ebbing sea’ in which the divine processions are being reversed through a moment of regiratio or return. The theological‐anthropological implications of this view (as well as Ruusbroec’s affirmation of three faculties) are being examined. It is argued that Ruusbroec’s central insight may have two distinct advantages. First, it may supplement some of Thomas Aquinas’s views (who only recognizes two faculties, not three). Aquinas’s dyadic understanding of the human person makes it difficult, for instance, to do full justice to intuitive aspects we associate with mind, as well as to beauty as a transcendental. Secondly, the notion of regiratio may also assist us in addressing the problem of ‘trinitarian inversion’ whereby the ‘sequence’ of the economic missions does not cohere well with that of the immanent processions.