Comments on: Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 1 (Dale)

By: Dennis

Dennis — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:10:26 +0000

Looks like full De Trin in English, how very exciting! Not upset in the least to be taking language classes right now to muddle through Richard in French. Thanks for the great news and your helpful discussions thus far Scott- keep’em coming!

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 13:51:33 +0000

Hi Dennis,

I believe it will eventually come out in this series:

http://www.amazon.com/Trinity-Creation-Victorines-Translation-Richard/dp/1565483731/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287236812&sr=1-5

I spoke with Boyd Coolman about this a year or so ago and he said that Richard’s De Trin. would be in it. So, I’d keep my eye on it.

To my mind, Richard’s Books 2, 4, and 5 are the most interesting parts of his De Trin.. It’s no surprise that folks like Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus cite those parts–especially his criticism of Boethius’s definition of a ‘person’. And, it seems to me that some (though _certainly_ not all) of Richard’s moves are fundamental in Henry’s and Scotus’s trinitarian theologies.

By: Dennis Bray

Dennis Bray — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 06:18:40 +0000

Hi Dale. Do you, Scott, or anyone you know of, have an English translation of books 4 and/or 5. I know there was mention of translations on pdf., but I need only 4 and 5 (2 would be great as well!). Thank you.

Best,
Dennis

By: trinities - Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 25 (Dale)

trinities - Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 25 (Dale) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:45:28 +0000

[...] better now than when I was 14.) And persons like us have multiple properties (we’re not simple). (p. 396) And of a human person, say Barak Obama, we can say that “his power alone is [...]

By: Lukas Novak

Lukas Novak — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:06:41 +0000

Just a little comment to your interpretation of Richard (Scott has touched it from another point of view): it seems to me that it is not the same what Richard says – namely:

“Not only is what each person is completely the same; but each one is what each other is.”

and how you interpret it:

“And each person “just is” the divine essence/nature/divinity. So each person of the Trinity just is divinity, and each person just is each of the the other two as well.”

It is not the same to say that “What is Father is the same what is Son” (Richard), and “Father is Son”! The first statement is orthodox, because the “what” a thing is refers to the things essence. And it is true that Father has precisely the same essence as the Son. On the other hand, “person”, or “Father”, or “Son”, refers to the individual persons _as persons_, and _as persons_ it is not true that they are the same. When speaking about the Trinity, one has to be very, very careful, because one is used to neglecting distinctions which in ordinary talk can safely be neglected, but in case of the Trinity everything depends on them.

By: Vlastimil Vohánka

Vlastimil Vohánka — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:10:37 +0000

My previous comment is not appearing. So, again:

Dr Bill Vallicella and my friend Dr Lukas Novak are currently discussing the Trinity. See Bill’s blog.

Lukas in his last comment to the post called “Supposita” proclaims that his verison of Latin Trinitarianism, which version he takes to be orthodox, does not seem to appear in your SEP entry on the Trinity.

He explicates his version in his comments to the same post and to the post “On the Trinity: A Medievalist Takes Me to Task.”

Novak’s graphical scheme of his theory here:
http://www.skaut.org/ln/docs/trinity.pdf

By: Vlastimil Vohánka

Vlastimil Vohánka — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:02:28 +0000

Vallicella: “God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical.”

Novak denies that divine simplicity is, at least on the view of many scholastics, that strong: “… it is not the case that God’s simplicity is to be understood so that absolutely everything in God is identical in the strongest way to anything else in God.”
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/01/supposita.html?cid=6a010535ce1cf6970c01287759a6a1970c#comment-6a010535ce1cf6970c01287759a6a1970c

By: Vlastimil Vohánka

Vlastimil Vohánka — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:57:04 +0000

Dale,

Bill Vallicella is currently discussing the Trinity with my colleague Dr Lukas Novak (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic). See Bill’s blog.

Lukas holds to a version of a Latin Trininirianism, but apparently not to any of those listed in your SEP entry — see his comment: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/01/supposita.html?cid=6a010535ce1cf6970c0128775b21b5970c#comment-6a010535ce1cf6970c0128775b21b5970c .

Lukas’s view is presented graphicaly in his scheme: http://www.skaut.org/ln/docs/trinity.pdf
with his main verbal explication here: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/01/on-the-trinity-a-medievalist-takes-me-to-task.html
and here: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/01/supposita.html

By: trinities - Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 2 (Dale)

trinities - Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 2 (Dale) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:31:36 +0000

[...] Last time I tried to analyze Richard’s argument in ch. 22 that his view preserves monotheism. This time, I critically evaluate the argument. Is it sound? [...]

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:42:19 +0000

In Books 4 and 5, Richard comes out with the distinction between persons and substances. What’s required for a person is a substance and something that satisfies being an incommunicable property. So, a person won’t merely be the divine substance–but the divine essence plus a personal property that is unshareable/incommunicable. Otherwise, Father = Son = Holy Spirit, and we’ve got Sabellianism or something like it.