Relations in Ramon Llull’s Trinitarian Ontology

Abstract

After his conversion in 1263, and following a vision on Mount Randa in 1273, Ramon Llull adopted a trinitarian view of the world. At the same time, he found his purpose in missionary activity, seeking to convert Christians, Muslims, and Jews to the Catholic faith. He also wanted to serve this purpose through his books. The trinitarian ontology that these books presuppose can be seen in his understanding of relations. Llull’s trinitarianism begins with the Augustinian tradition’s trinitarian understanding of the world. The basis of his trinitarian ontology lies in his understanding of correlatives, one of his most original contributions to the thought. Together with relative principles and the doctrine of God’s Dignities as absolute principles, these form the basis of his doctrine of Art, the art of combining elements. Trinitarian ontology also appears in his analysis of human’s relationship with God, in his dynamic definition of human being, and in the structure of the composition of human being. This article will show that trinitarian ontology is a presupposition of Ramon Llull’s vision of the world.

1. Introduction

After his conversion in 1263, and following a vision on Mount Randa in 1273, Ramon Llull began to look at the world in a new way. At the same time, he found his purpose in missionary activity: in winning over Christians, Jews, and Muslims to the Catholic faith. He also wanted to serve this purpose through his books, in which, using a combination of elements, Llull proposed a way to find the truth. This was part of his art,1 about which he began to write after an experience of God’s revelation, coming to understand that he would best serve God by writing “the best book of the world for the conversion of unbelievers”:2 the book, according to him, had been dictated to him by God (Lullus 1980, pp. 272–76). His experience on Mount Randa in 1273 was Llull’s second revelation from God (Platzeck 1962, p. 6). The first was in 1263, when he was on a pilgrimage to Rocamadur in southern France, and to Santiago de Compostela. He wrote a cantilena to a lady with whom he had fallen in love, although he was married with two children. Jesus Christ appeared to him several times. He understood that he had to change, left his wife to take care of their children, and began to learn Latin and Arabic.

Following the vision in 1273, he began writing several arts; founded the Miramar monastery in Mallorca on 15 October, 1276, to spread the Catholic faith among Muslims; travelled around Europe, and three times to Tunisia; and visited bishops and popes (Lullus 1980; Platzeck 1962, pp. 6, 14–41). Llull was convinced that with the help of his art, he could reform all science, especially theology, and give it an adequate foundation (Roelli 2021, p. 303). In his art, Llull emphasized the trinitarian understanding of the world (Pring-Mill 1955), presupposing a trinitarian ontology. Trinitarian ontology can be understood as the explanation for the ontological structure of reality in the light of faith in the Trinity (Coda 2011, pp. 553–63; Coda 2012, p. 160; Coda 2021, pp. 52–53). This interpretation is given through a different conceptual framework than the one used by Llull. My aim is not to search for the truth of all of Llull’s propositions, but to search for the key to his trinitarian world picture. Trinitarianism can also be seen in his understanding of relations. He first defines relations and then develops his understanding of them.

2. Llull’s Understanding of Relations

Ramon Llull understands definition as the determination of a substance or essence, but also as a form of descriptive explanation that proceeds by determining the definition in terms of the four Aristotelian causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. The definition’s descriptive form, which is dynamic and co-essential, comes through correlatives to the essence of the defined (definiendum). In the correlatives, the active and the passive principle are co-essential (Fidora 2007, pp. 76–83; Platzeck 1962, pp. 285–88).3 Llull defines a relation as “a form that denotes the necessary multiplicity as it exists … between the preceding and the following” (Lullus 1985, p. 108). He understands a relation, under this definition, as an abstract form of thought (Platzeck 1963, p. 573). According to this definition, a relation points to a necessary multiplicity. The relation must be between at least two members, and these members must be such that a relationship between them is possible. Llull also highlights the importance of their order, such that one is the previous member and the other the next. Such a structure, in which the order of the members matters, also explains the correlative. While Aristotle emphasized the relation’s first member (Aristotle 1933, 1020b26–1021b11, pp. 260–67), Llull finds the essence of the relation in the very act of relation itself (Platzeck 1963, p. 575). According to Llull, the relationship consists of its own essential principles, which he divides into three classes: I. difference, concordance, and contrariety; II. beginning, middle, and end; III. majority, equality, and minority. He presents these with a figure T in Ars brevis (Lullus 2001, pp. 8–15; Llull 1993a, pp. 301–4). He also calls these principles relative principles, or principles of relationships (Pring-Mill 1955, p. 232). Figures are examples of possible combinations of elements. A relation exists where a multiplicity of elements is necessary, that is, where differences occur (Platzeck 1963, p. 577).

3. The Doctrine of Correlatives

According to Llull, correlatives are basic, true, and necessary principles in all things. He calls them innate principles, because they belong to all beings. According to Llull’s doctrine of correlatives, as he writes in his Liber correlativorum innatorum (1310), every being consists of an active principle, a passive principle, and an act of existence that unites these two principles. The correlative is expressed using the Latin suffixes -tivus, -bile, and -are (Lullus 1978a, p. 132; Volek 2001, pp. 23–25). Llull thus uses typically scholastic suffixes, such as -tivus, -bilis, or bile and -are (Lullus 1986, p. 31) to express a fully fledged system of concepts that reflects the inner structure of God’s attributes as well as various other things. He thus creates the most innovative Latin vocabulary in medieval thought (Roelli 2021, pp. 304, 355).

They belong to corporeal beings, including humans, but also to angels and to God (Lullus 1978a, pp. 136–46). The human body has four faculties: elemental, vegetative, sensitive, and imaginative. All these bodily abilities have their correlatives, and also belong to the three faculties of the human soul: reason, will, and memory (Lullus 1978a, p. 147). Llull’s acceptance of these faculties of the soul is influenced by Augustine, and he distinguishes two forms in human beings, the first and the second. The first form is common, and consists of an active form (-tivum) that can be both spiritual and physical. The passive form (-bile) of the spiritual and that of the physical together constitute the matter composing each human being. Their connection constitutes the connectable nature of this being, who lives as long as this nature persists. The second form is particular: the rational, individual human soul that perfects the body and controls it. The active element of human bodies is form, the passive is matter, and the connectable is nature (Lullus 1978a, pp. 147–48). The elemental form includes the four elements that have been accepted by philosophers since the time of Empedocles: fire, water, earth, and air. Their sum is called mass, and each of them also has its correlatives (Lullus 1978a, p. 151).

Among all scholastics, Llull emphasized correlatives the most (Platzeck 1964/1965, p. 73). Correlatives themselves were not invented by Llull, but adopted from an older tradition that goes back to Plato (Platzeck 1962, pp. 171–72). It spread through Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, the Stoics, Augustine—who applied it in the doctrine of the Trinity—and Boethius. It probably reached Llull through Richard of Saint Victor, and Llull applied it widely.

Llull understood all triads and ternaries as images of the Trinity. At the same time, he wanted to use his correlatives to change the subject and the predicate, and thereby use a proof through equating (demonstratio per aequiparationem); this is completely valid about God, because in him all predicates can be interchanged and thus are equated (Pring-Mill 1955, p. 232; Artus 1987, p. 256; Lullus 1981b, p. 216). Llull understands the extension of correlatives to all predicates to be his own contribution to their development (Platzeck 1964, p. 173). For example, in the speech to Muslims he delivered upon his arrival in Tunisia, he emphasizes that in God all predicates—or, as he calls them, dignities—are equal, and through correlatives, he proves the Trinity of persons in God (Lullus 1980, pp. 290–91). He mentions that all divine dignities (dignitates) exist in correlatives. Dignities in the sense of absolute dignities are essential attributes of God (Pring-Mill 1955, p. 232).4 In the work Vita coaetanea, however, his argumentation is highly abbreviated.

One such proof of the Trinity through correlatives can be better approximated from Llull’s other work Liber de possibili et impossibili (1310) (Lullus 1978d, p. 389). In it, he first proves that there is a perfect being. Using a reductio ad absurdum, he proves that if there were no perfect being, then all things would be contingent and unlimited, and it would follow that first, true, and necessary principles are both possible and impossible. However, that would be absurd. That is why there must be a perfect being. He next proves the Trinity using correlatives.5 There is a perfect being. There are three correlatives within it: optimizing, optimized, and to optimize. We call these three correlatives the divine persons. The optimizing produces the optimized, and to optimize comes from both. Similarly, he gives a proof of the Trinity from other correlatives of the virtue (Lullus 1959b, p. 292).6 Thus, Llull uses the doctrine of correlatives to prove the Trinity philosophically, basing his proof on the unity of essence and the activity of individual absolute dignities (dignitates) (Gayà Esterlich 2016). However, according to Llull, this type of proof only binds believers. For unbelievers, it merely shows that the Trinity and the Incarnation are not contrary to reason (Lullus 1981b, p. 221; Pardo Pastor 2002, p. 269).7 Such proofs are therefore sufficient to refute all the objections unbelievers raise against the truths of faith (Euler 1990, pp. 109–10).8

Similarly, in Liber, in quo declaratur, quod fides sancta catholica est magis probabilis quam improbabilis (1310), he first proves that God necessarily exists (Lullus 1978e, p. 332). He next formulates the scholastic principle that goodness coincides with being. If this were not true, there would be contradictions; for example, the highest good and the highest non-being would coincide, which is impossible. Thus, Llull again uses a reductio ad absurdum to prove that God necessarily exists. This also proves God’s properties: eternity, supreme power, supreme wisdom, simplicity, supreme perfection, the goal of everything, and the sheer act (Lullus 1978e, p. 332). Again, using a reductio ad absurdum, he then proves that there can only be one God (Lullus 1978e, p. 333). In this work, he proves the Trinity through correlatives. These are made up of twenty attributes of God, which belong to him in the most perfect degree (Lullus 1978e, pp. 360–64). The incarnation of Jesus Christ is proved in a similar fashion (Lullus 1978e, pp. 364–67).

4. Necessary Reasons

Some philosophers and theologians called the evidence that justifies the mysteries of faith “necessary reasons” (rationes necessariae). Llull mentions that Richard of Saint Victor uses these necessary reasons in De Trinitate as evidence of the Trinity (Lullus 1978e, p. 339). Llull apparently adopted the concept of the necessary reasons from Ibn Hazm (Lohr 1984, p. 81). He accepts the necessary reasons for proving faith precisely because he understands his art to be superior to both philosophy and theology (Domínguez Reboiras and Uscatescu Barrón 2017, p. 1075). Llull understands necessary reasons in a double sense (Artus 1987, pp. 266–67). In the first sense, he understands them as God’s attributes, which he often calls dignities (Lullus 1981a, pp. 139–40). In the second sense, he understands them as possible proofs, in which the premises assert what is true about divine reasons or what is inferred from them (Lullus 1981b, p. 216). In this sense, “his ‘necessary reasons’ were not, however, logical proofs, but rather arguments of greater or lesser congruence which could not be denied without denying generally accepted principles” (Pring-Mill 1990, p. 59).

To prove the necessary reasons, he used proof by comparison (demonstratio per aequiparantiam). He distinguished this evidence from evidence per quia and propter quid (Lullus 1985, pp. 196–200). Proof propter quid is proof through the cause, i.e., proving the effect from the cause. This proof is deductive. Evidence per quia is evidence of a cause through its effect, which is inductive evidence. Proof through equalization (per aequiparantiam) can have three versions. The first is a proof through the equality of multiple powers; the second is proof of the equality of potencies through their effects; and the third is proof of equality through acts of potency.

Proof by comparison, Llull’s original contribution to the history of philosophy (Fiorentino 2018, p. 401), can be used only for subjects and predicates that can be interchanged. These are used in the syllogism on the superlative degree of being (Lullus 1978c, p. 197). Llull distinguishes three types of syllogism: those on the positive, the comparative, and the superlative level (Lullus 1978c, pp. 197–98). Syllogisms of the positive degree, expressing a belief without foundation at the level of opinion, are of two types: this level applies to two contradictory syllogisms when neither is necessary, and to the subject and predicate if they are not interchangeable. Syllogisms on the comparative level consist of the extremes of those on the lower levels, when the subject and its properties (Fiorentino 2018, p. 405) are very different. The equality of subject and predicate is ensured by the middle term of measurement (medium mensuratis), which occurs equally between the two extremes of subjects and their properties. Next comes the evidential syllogism (Lullus 1978b, p. 263). Proof, by comparison, is used. Llull employs exactly this kind of proof in Liber, in quo declaratur, quod fides sancta catholica est magis probabilis quam improbabilis, after the proof that God necessarily exists, to prove the interchangeability of the predicates that can be attributed to God, thereby proving the Trinity through three correlations (Lullus 1978e, pp. 360–64) and the Incarnation through two correlations and causation (Lullus 1978e, pp. 364–67).9 Llull says that proof of the existence of God is more necessary than mathematical proofs because the evidence of the premises in faith is more necessary than the evidence in mathematics (Lullus 1978e, p. 330). In some books, he writes explicitly as a Christian, as a theologian, or a mystic. The absolute primacy of Jesus Christ in the thinking of Llull is evident from 1287 on (Platzeck 1962, p. 335). He writes that Jesus Christ assumed human nature for the purpose of the passion and the death on the cross for the salvation of all people.10

It was an act of God’s love for the human beings. And the book The Book of the Lover and the Beloved (1276–1283) has the structure of a mystical dialogue between the soul (the Lover) and Jesus Christ (the Beloved) in accordance with the style of Sufism (Platzeck 1962, p. 458; Lullus 1988a, p. 327).

Therefore, a subtle intellect, reason, and good intention are needed to accept art (Lullus 2001, p. 139). Llull’s ideas resemble Anselm’s doctrine that “faith seeks reason” (fides quaerens intellectum),11 but in their own original way. In his Proslogion, which he first called Fides quaerens intellectum and whose original title shows its subject programmatically, Anselm, starting from faith, tried to deepen this faith through reason with the desire to see God (Karfíková 1990, pp. 3–4). “Faith is thus the first condition of speculation and the last horizon of understanding” (Pugh 1998, p. 38). Similarly, Llull starts from faith, and the evidence for the Trinity and the Incarnation deepens faith through reason. For unbelievers, these proofs show that the Trinity and the Incarnation are not contrary to reason.

5. Divine Dignities

Divine dignities express God’s names—that is, attributes—because we transfer them from the perspective of the world, created according to God’s knowledge and will, to God himself (Platzeck 1962, p. 104). In his first work, Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem (1274), Llull uses sixteen dignities of God; in Liber de gentili et tribus sapientibus (1274–1283) he has seven of them (Lullus 2015, p. 56); and from the time of the Ars inventiva veritatis (1290), he uses the nine dignities of God (Hösle 1985, pp. XLIV–XLV). This change constitutes a passage from the quaternary to the ternary period of his work. In his figures, he expressed God’s ranks in such a way that it was possible to attribute to God various predicates that expressed dignities. He called these dignities absolute or transcendental principles (Pring-Mill 1955, p. 232).

Llull drew the fundamentals of his doctrine from John Scottus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Richard of Saint Victor, the school of Chartres, Kabbalah, and Ibn-Arabi (Enders 2006, p. 200). Divine dignities (dignitates) form the essence of God and are the principles of the creation of the world; as transcendental concepts, they also exist in the thoughts of the knowing subject (Euler 1990, pp. 99–100). From an epistemological point of view, divine dignities are transcendental concepts, and thus can be predicated on everything, both on creatures and on God. They are dignities of God because they exist in God and are identical with his essence. Creatures can only participate in them. They are relational concepts, because, in God, they are in relation to the creatures that can participate in them; and, thus, creatures become the image of God (Colomer 1995, p. 86). The world is structured through dignities and correlatives (Lullus 1978a, p. 136). The divine dignities are the characteristics of God that are accepted by three monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (Mayer 2009). Beginning with these commonly accepted dignities of God, Llull wanted to explore what the three monotheistic religions have in common, so that in his fictional interreligious dialogues (Lullus 1998; Lullus 2015), he could then use correlatives to prove the authenticity of the Christian faith, especially the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Llull used also relative principles in disjunctive ternaries. He presented them in his figures, of which he created several. Multiplicity includes categories of arrangement, among which parallel and ordinal arrangement are the most important (Platzeck 1963, pp. 577–80). The parallel arrangement explains the first ternary of principles, i.e., difference, agreement, and opposition. In these, the degrees of difference can grow from numerical through qualitative to substantial, while the degrees of agreement grow in the reverse order. This ternary refers to the spiritual and material world of human beings. Other ternaries are based on an ordinal arrangement, with some kind of order in which members come before and after one another. The second ternary refers primarily to the natural world, and concerns all parts of nature, space, and time. The third ternary refers to logic, mathematics, and ontology. Llull drew ideas for the first ternary from Plato, and those for the second and third from both Plato and the Pythagoreans (Platzeck 1963, p. 580).

6. The Combination of Elements in the Figures

Llull looked at the combination of elements in a new way, using combinatorial figures and geometrically symbolic figures (Platzeck 1962, p. 298). He created several figures with letters of the alphabet to combine the elements, with the aim of pursuing the truth. According to Bonner, he used twelve figures from Ars generalis ultima (1305) at first, and only four figures from Ars brevis (1308) (Bonner 1997, p. 3), having previously used these four in Tabula generalis (1293–1294) (Lullus 2002, pp. 9–26). Each letter of the alphabet represents a specific set of notions falling under different categories. These notions and categories can create various combinations—and Ars brevis offers some strict rules for how to combine them. These categories in Ars brevis are absolute predicates, relative predicates, questions and rules, subjects, virtues, and vices (Llull 1993a, p. 299). The figures in question are A, T, and the third and fourth figures. In Figure A (Figure 1), the letter A appears inside a circle of nine letters, B–K, which symbolize nine principles, each of which can be ascribed to the others. In Figure T (Figure 2), around the letter T at the center is a circle with the same nine letters, B–K, arranged in the order B, E, H, C, F, I, D, G, and K, with a ternary of elements under each of them. The ternaries of elements under the letters B, C, and D are the same, as are those under the letters H, I, and K. The ternaries under the letters E, F, and G are different: under the letter E is the ternary of time, quantity, and cause; under F is the ternary of extremity, measurement, and connection; while under G is the ternary of privation, termination, and target cause. The ternaries under the letters B, C, and D are connected by triangles, as are those under the letters E, F, and G, and under the letters H, I, and K. These express other ternaries, characterizing relationships in three classes: I. difference, agreement, and opposite; II. beginning, middle, and end; III. greater, equal, and less. Thus, the same ternaries under the letters B, C, and D and under the letters H, I, and K are connected, as are the different ternaries under the letters E, F, and G.

Llull explains some elements in this figure in even more detail. He understands the cause as one of the four Aristotelian causes: effective, material, formal, and final causes. Each element of the correlatives in Figure T in the Ars brevis can be derived from any other;12 Figure T is among those that express the form of a combination of elements.

In the third figure (Figure 3), Llull combines the letters B–K into combinations of two letters and arranges them in a table. In the first row are the combinations BC, CD, DE, EF, FG, GH, HI, and IK. In the second line, the second letter of each of these combinations is shifted to the next one in the alphabet; and so on in the subsequent lines, with one combination fewer in each. Llull refers to each combination of elements as a compartment (camera). The third figure is a combination of the first two figures, and therefore the letters B–K symbolize what they did in those figures. In this third figure, the elements expressed by letters can be combined with each other.

The fourth figure (Figure 4) contains the letters B–K in three concentric circles. These circles can be rotated relative to each other except for one, thus combining the elements expressed by the three letters in any vertically aligned compartments. The three figures from Tabula generalis and Ars brevis are the same (second, third, and fourth); only the first figure is expanded in Ars brevis, using a circle with the same meanings under the letters B–K, but now in the grammatical form of adjectives.

7. Trinitarian Ontology as a Foundation of Llull’s Thinking

Trinitarian ontology can be understood in both a broader and a narrower sense. In a broader sense, trinitarian ontology is the conscious or unconscious interpretation of reality in the light of the event of Jesus Christ, that is, his incarnation, passion, and resurrection. In the narrower sense of the term, trinitarian ontology is the interpretation of being from the place in the conscience to which Jesus drew us with his ontological revelation (Coda 2012, p. 165). Trinitarian ontology is an ontology of the love of the persons in God and of the vocation of the personal creation to the love. Trinitarian ontology is an ontology of freedom and non-being in love, which is the non-being in the cry of forsaken Jesus (the experience of the abandonment of Jesus from his Father; Mt 27, 46) in the act of his self-giving in freedom (Coda 1984, pp. 179–81). Trinitarian ontology presupposes the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ (Coda 2011, pp. 556–63). Knowledge of the trinitarian God is a real participation in the Life of the Trinity, to be one in Jesus Christ (Gal 3, 28; Coda 2011, pp. 15–17). It opens the understanding of being as agape, as free self-giving in Jesus Christ. Trinitization means being in the relation of mutual love; it is the participation of people in the mutual love of divine persons. Trinitization will be accessible through Jesus Christ, who, in the Spirit, opens the three-personal event of the agape in the experience of the mystery of God. The love of Jesus for the people, fulfilled with the gift of his life, revelated the love of God (Coda 2007, p. 60). Participating in such love, a human being lives in the mutual love of the divine persons in God (Coda 2007, p. 62).

The preparatory period for the development of trinitarian ontology can be divided into four stages (Coda 2012, pp. 162–65). The first stage is based on the first testimonies of the New Testament and on the experience of the Church in the third to fifth centuries. In this period, people experienced the extraordinary gift of being drawn into the place of the Trinity, the space of community and freedom in which Jesus lives in his relationship with the Father (Abba), and from which new light, and the power of new life and of new and liberating thoughts, radiate in the Spirit.

In the second stage, from the councils of the fourth century, Christian inspiration gives rise to thought. The meaning of, and inspiration for, the novelty arising from the event of Jesus were explained in the dialogue with Hellenic culture. Inspired by his trinitarian worldview, Augustine developed an ontology that has being itself—that is, substance—at its center, but with a focus on the relationship with the other. In the High Middle Ages, the works of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure emphasized the character of the relations in God and the entrance to God through the Crucified One.

In the third stage, the modern age draws on the heritage of the Middle Ages, and in the works of Rosmini and Hegel, it finds a trinitarian key to interpreting the whole of reality. In the fourth stage, in the twentieth century, an important deepening of trinitarian ontology appeared in Klaus Hemmerle’s Theses on the Trinitarian Ontology, while Teilhard de Chardin and Chiara Lubich gave a stimulus to the concept of trinitization. According to Hemmerle, we need a new ontology for today’s situation: one which begins with the specifically Christian, triune God and his incarnation in Jesus Christ. Such an ontology’s understanding of everything would stem from the love of God, from his self-giving. A practical result would be that one responds to this love and thereby learns to give oneself. This response leads from listening to God to the creation of a new We, of new relationships (Hemmerle 1976, pp. 31–69). Trinitization is an imitation in relationships between people of the relationships within the Trinity. The very concept of trinitarian ontology appears in the twentieth century with the authors Theodor Haecker, Hans Eduard Hengstenberg, Wilhelm Mook, Clemens Kaliba, J. Ernest Davey, and Klaus Hemmerle, who wrote with the intention of renewing metaphysics and ontology in the light of the mystery of the Trinity (Žak 2012, p. 440). Their works inspired other authors to develop a trinitarian ontology in contemporary thought.

8. Trinitarian Ontology as the Presupposition of Llull’s Thinking

Although Llull does not use the concept of trinitarian ontology, his thinking presupposes such an ontology in a broader sense. Llull understands the world through a lens defined by what the three monotheistic religions have in common, as well as through Christian theology in the Augustinian tradition of Anselm, the Victorian school, and Bonaventure. He tried to discover what unites the representatives of the three monotheistic religions, striving for peace, harmony, and unity among people; his work can be described as a bridge between Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures (Domínguez Reboiras 2016). The influence of the Augustinian tradition can be observed mainly in the three faculties of the soul (reason, will, and memory), in the emphasis on divine attributes, and in the adoption of hylomorphism in the doctrine of correlatives (Pring-Mill 1955; Pring-Mill 2001, pp. 93–95).

Llull looks at the world from the trinitarian point of view, and thus the trinitarian ontology is visible in his thinking as one of its premises. It is also manifest in his dynamic understanding, and new definition, of human being: “the animal that produces human being” (Lullus 1985, p. 22). It means that by the creativity of a person, a person’s activity and her formation come into effect through that activity. Two correlatives are combined here: performing (homificans) and capable of acting (animal/ens hominificabile); the third correlative (hominificare) is not explicitly mentioned (Köhler 1995, p. 92). According to Llull, one should know who one is so that one can know and love oneself, others, and God, and avoid what is harmful to a person (Lullus 2000, p. 152). Knowing oneself results in the realization of a person, and not knowing oneself results in neglecting oneself (Lullus 1986, p. 236). The activity that creates a person, therefore, includes intellectual activity, which, in turn, includes knowing oneself and, accordingly, one’s goal in life. At the same time, it also leads to love for oneself, others, and God.

Llull described this understanding of love in Liber amici et amati, which is part of his novel Blaquerna (1276–1283) (Lullus 1988a; Lullus 1989–1990; Llull 1993b). This is a dialogue about love between the lover and the beloved, between Llull and Jesus Christ.13 The one who knows the evidence of the Trinity is closer to the beloved.14 The book is intended to lead to knowledge and love of God, and it upholds the doctrine of equality between knowledge and love for God (Llull 1993b, p. 214). The beloved and the lover are united by love.15 The will of the beloved, that love is increasing in all people.16 This is also where Llull’s theory of correlatives manifests itself, with all three correlatives present. Llull also refers to his art in it (Llull 1993b, p. 207). This work is considered a manifestation of his mysticism (Conde Solares 2020, pp. 7–9). Llull looks to all things and people from the trinitarian perspective—from the ‘inside’ of the Trinity—inspired by his own union with the Trinitarian God. This led him to the mission and to the peaceful dialogue.

9. Conclusions

After his conversion, Ramon Llull looked at the world through a trinitarian prism. His vision of the world was inspired by his own union with the Trinitarian God. And this is the same as the knowledge of God in Coda’s understanding of trinitarian ontology. Llull’s thinking presupposes a trinitarian ontology. This is evident in the necessary reasons for proving the truths of faith, especially the Trinity and the Incarnation, where the validity of the proofs is limited to Christian believers. For unbelievers, they are sufficient merely to show that Christian doctrines are not contrary to reason. Trinitarian ontology also appears in Llull’s doctrine of correlatives. They represent the structure of all things, and thus reflect the Trinity. This presupposition is also reflected in his dynamic understanding of man as the animal/ens homificans that becomes itself through its activity. This activity includes intellectual activity, especially knowing oneself, which should lead one to love oneself, one’s neighbor, and God. These influences are also manifest in Llull’s Liber amici et amati.