In this short essay, I will firstly problematize the notion of communio in dogmatics and compare it to the problems that arise when referring to a common good or common goods in secular contexts. Secondly, I will consider in what way it might nevertheless be possible and even necessary to speak of both communio and common good. Finally, I will reflect on how to make a difference by coming together, what role theology can play in this shared endeavor, and how the notion of commoning might be helpful.

1. Communio conceptions in ecclesiology and secular common good concepts – parallel problems
   
   In theology, the discussion of communio takes place mostly in trinitarian theology and ecclesiology. In both fields, the metaphor of communio highlights on the one hand an important matter; on the other hand, it is highly problematic.
   
   The conception of communio draws attention to the following: The Christian God is not to be thought of as a lonely transcendent God, but as inherently pluralistic and relational. In opposition to a conception of ontological solitude, God – being the communio of Father, Son, and Spirit – is the community of love. Thus, God cannot be external to his own relationship with the very other of himself. From this relation, he simultaneously gives himself away and receives himself in return. Therefore, God can be thought of as a God who is relational and open – and thus also open to the communion with the world into which he gives himself, as we believe it is revealed in Jesus Christ. Subsequently, the Second Vatican Council depicts the church as the communio that gathers in the name of Jesus Christ. Her members experience themselves bound together by the paradigm of the divine communio, as revealed in Jesus Christ and by the claim to be the very place of this communio in and for the world. This place does not rest on the logic of mutual displacement and competition, but on cooperation and mutual support.
   
   So, what is the problem with communio? Its meaning is highly ambivalent.(1).
   
   On the one hand, liberation theologians, such as Leonardo Boff, demanded a democratization of church structures based on the conception of communio. Leaders of the Roman church, on the other hand, instrumentalized the metaphor to invoke the unity of all who wish to belong, to discourage dissenting opinions, and thereby to reinforce the existing structures of a centralistic hierarchy and to exclude divergent positions. These mechanisms of exclusion, relating to the church as communio, appear in the declaration Dominus Iesus by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Herein, the catholic church does not recognize the churches of the Reformation as churches.
   
   Political theologian Kathryn Tanner, therefore, fundamentally rejects those ambivalent theological paradigms, such as the Trinitarian communio as basic concepts for a political-economic program. Yet, she also emphasizes that God is most intimately connected to us and wants to open us to him and to each other. (2).
   
   Tanner's skepticism corresponds to the long-standing skepticism about the concept of common good in secularized contexts within a liberal society. The common good critique – not unfounded –aims at the totalitarian aspects of this notion. These aspects appear especially in its political use; insofar as the term common implies that there are goods, or ultimately one good, that would be the same for all. It is also remarkable that both ecclesial and secular-political contexts rely on the body-metaphor to illustrate the notion of common/commonality. A fundamental critique of the depiction of a political community as common or shared body came from post-Shoah critical theory. And more recently, postcolonial discourse again exposed its problematic underpinnings. By referring to something common or collective/communal, this motif may promote hegemonic uniformity and prevent the appreciation of plurality and diversity, even if something else is propagated superficially– as, e.g., the church's reference to the trinitarian communio shows. Unlike to God, on the level of the finiteness of creation, unity and diversity do not simply coincide; instead, they tend to generate repressive relationships.
   
   I think one reason for the ambivalence of the conception of both communio and commons could stem from the fact that the paradigm of distinction and exceptionalism is still so influential that it even overpowers opposing paradigms in their transformational dimension. To put it differently: If the powerful and rich talk about the ideal of communio or emphasize the common good, it is likely that actual inequalities are (or are to be) concealed.
   
   
   
2. Speaking about communio and common goods from below – the vision that things could be different than they are
   
   However, we see – within the church's context – that for example grass-roots communities adhere to the conception of communio. Their approval is not just the idle talk of a rich elite but comes from the least affluent parts of society. (3) Looking at the context of the economic and climate crises, movements of ‘commoning’ emerge in critical opposition to liberal capitalism. These movements engage in shaping politics from below and are committed to social transformation. From a theological perspective, it is fair to state that they share a vision of a different society. They assume it could be different than it is. Each activist seems to be motivated in her*his way by a vision or an imaginary – in phenomenological terms, by a determined indeterminate that materializes through joint action. (4) In this vision, there is no definitive schedule or roadmap; and yet, it includes a counter-perspective to the given state of things – a negative vision as it were that does not know already how to do it better, but only that the given state is not sustainable and does not work the way it is, and therefore tries something else. Perhaps, this explorative endeavor could be a way to escape the totalitarian dangers of a common good, as formulated at the beginning.
   
   Likewise, Jesus’ practice and his parables of the coming kingdom of God in the gospels work in a similar way. They inspire and challenge us to see, whether we could be a space/resource for each other, instead of taking space/resources from each other. When and where this happens, then we can interpret it, from a theological point of view, as the activity of God’s spirit.
   
   Thus, commoning is to be understood as an incomplete and fundamentally open process, because (and if) it wants to defy new exclusions and hierarchies. This is a process under the watchful eye of critical theory, and a reciprocal process of shaping and being shaped at the same time. This relationship between commoning and negation/critique is certainly worth investigating in more detail (here, Giorgio Agamben’s considerations on the "potentiality to not-do" could be helpful). (5)
   
   A sober look at alternative communitarian forms of life in history, stemming from a genuine Christian motivation (such as the poverty movements, mendicant orders, or beguines) shows the following: These alternative forms have never led to a sustainable transformation of societies. At best, they were able to create islands of retreat from the dominant logic of money and power. Further, they could not close the gap between rich and poor; in fact, the gap became even wider. Nevertheless, they demonstrate a possibility to withdraw from this logic and to live differently. In diachronic comparison, our societal situation seems to be somewhat similar to the situation of the people in the late Middle Ages, when such alternative possibilities of living differently began to develop a certain attractiveness. If we consider, for example, how Clara of Assisi fought all her life with the Pope for the privilege of poverty, then it becomes apparent that this lifestyle was certainly problematic and dangerous for the authorities; as it disrupted dependencies and hierarchies, here above all those tied to gender. Voluntary poverty was a path to self-empowerment that Clara and her community opened at least to some women of their time. Clara's founding of an order for women following Christ (or, in her wording: the poor embracing the poor Christ) did neither provide a stable communion nor a solution that lent itself to societal generalization. Rather, her enterprise resulted and results in an open-ended process and as such is an expression of the "always multiply located social dreaming of the common good."(6)
   
   
   
3. God's entanglement in the world and the notion of commoning
   
   From a theological perspective, the following questions arise: (How) could commoning possibly work? And what role can theology play in this process?
   
   Currently, diverse approaches to the relation of God and creation – in particular the so called panentheistic, process-theological, and incarnation-theological approaches – attempt to make the distinction between God and creation more permeable. These approaches question the traditional conception of God as sovereign and his location vis-a-vis creation; further, they counter the influence of exceptionalist paradigms through a new image of God: A God who is not self-sufficient, who is not independent from creation, who needs humans and all creatures, who is deeply involved and entangled in the world. In this regard, we can state the following: The place of the world is the place of God, and vice versa. With reference to Jacques Derrida, Catherine Keller, a theologian, speaks of Divinanimality.(7) Life, thus, presents itself as a network. In this network, God would be understood as its ground, space, and power. This relationality means the power of God would also be our power, and our materiality to be the materiality of God. Here again, ecofeminist theologians of the 20th and the early 21st century rely on and process the metaphor of the body. Sallie McFague, for example, referred to the world as God's body.(8)
   
   Drawing on McFague, I also used this metaphor quite extensively in the past.(9) But I have since come to the conclusion that this metaphor is also (highly) ambivalent; just it has been in the context of the ecclesial communio or the invocation of a communal identity. Our consideration needs to be careful since a uniform order to which all must submit lurks in the background, and from which creative chaos is excluded. The notion of commoning, which so far is rather unusual in theology, could be helpful here. If we are to understand the ongoing entanglement of God and the world (or better: the cosmos) as commoning, a creative process in collaboration is described. In this process, shaping and being shaped are simultaneous parts, including the individual, God, and all others. In this endeavor of commoning, a realm of exclusion is not tenable. There is only patient waiting for everything and everyone.
   
   This also includes all matter. Dhawn B. Martin, a theologian, writes: "Our material existence is the substance of life lived in communion with all of creation. In other words, it is a shared or common good."(10)
   
   I would like to emphasize this depiction. And I would like to encourage us to talk more of the process (and practice) of 'commoning' than of the state (and stasis) of communion and common good.

1. For the following paragraph, see Bernd Jochen Hilberath, „Communio-Ekklesiologie – Die Herausforderung eines ambivalenten Konzepts,“ in theologie.geschichteBeiheft, no. 1 (2010), 317–341; Bernd Jochen Hilberath, „Kirche als communio. Beschwörungsformel oder Projektbeschreibung?,“ in ThQ, no. 174 (1994) 45–65; Bernd Jochen Hilberath, „Problematische Verengungen. Das neue Dokument der Glaubenskongregation über die Kirche,“ in Herkorr, no. 61 (2007), 389–893.

2. See Kathryn Tanner, ”Trinity,” in The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology, ed. Peter Scott and William T. Cavanaugh (Oxford: Blackwell 2004), 319–32; Jonathan Cole, “The Trinity. Prototype of Real Existence or Danger to Political Wellbeing? Tanner, Volf, and Yannaras in Conversation,” in Religions (2021), 12, 998 (https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110998).

3. For these considerations, see Rieger, “Reconfiguring the Common Good and Religion in the Context of Capitalism Abrahamic Alternatives,” in Common Goods. Economy, Ecology, and Political Theology, ed. Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre et al. (New York City: Fordham University Press, 2015), 149-168.

4. See Bernhard Waldenfels, „Der Primat der Einbildungskraft. Zur Rolle des Gesellschaftlichen Imaginären bei Cornelius Castoriadis,“ in Revue européenne des sciences sociales, no. 86 (1989/27), 141-160.

5. See Giorgio Agamben, „Über negative Potentialität,“ in Nicht(s) sagen. Strategien der Sprachabwendung im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Emmanuel Alloa and Alica Lagay (Bielefeld: transcript, 2008), 285–298.

6. Melanie Johnson-Debaufre, “Dreaming the Common Good/s. The Kin-dom of God as a Space of Utopian Politics,” in Common Goods. Economy, Ecology, and Political Theology, ed. by Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre et al. (New York City: Fordham University Press, 2015), 103–123, here 117.

7. See Catherine Keller, Political Theology of the Earth. Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public (New York City: Columbia University Press, 2018), 113.

8. See Sallie McFague, The Body of God. An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis, MN: fortress press, 1993).

9. For example, see Christine Büchner, “Gott ‚hängt‘ an uns. Hermeneutische Überlegungen zur Relationalität von Wirklichkeit,“ in Wirklich? Konzeptionen der Wirklichkeit und der Wirklichkeit Gottes, ed. Veronika Hoffmann (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2021), 107-122.

10. Dhawn B. Martin, „A Cosmopolitical Theology. Engaging “The Political” as an Incarnational Field of Emergence,” in Common Goods. Economy, Ecology, and Political Theology, ed. by Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, et al.(New York City: Fordham University Press, 2015), 124–145, here 126.