I appreciate your eight parts chart.

What is your definition of Trinity?

Thanks.

Kindest regards,

Chin-Lee

God was manifested in the flesh Tim. 3:16

In the beginning God = the Father Gen. 1:1

The Spirit of God = the Holy Ghost Gen. 1:2

And God said = the word in The Gosples = JESUS

spoken word= OLD TESTAMENT
living word = GOSPLES
acting word GOD IN ACTS
explaining word IN THE EPISTLES
revealing word = IN REVELATION
his new name in Rev. THE WORD OF GOD= HIS NEW NAME

1. Each person “is” God, i.e. is a proper part of God. Each just is God in another sense as well, namely that the only component substance in each person is one and the same D (the only component being a mere property or relation). So in that sense, one might think of each person as “all of” God.

2. D “is God”. But what is identical to the one God is T.

3. Yes. I’m being a little vague about what precisely Fi, P, and Sp are.

4. Why? I guess it’s just that they seem to be sort of ingredients of what has them – or, they bring with them a sort of complexity. I wouldn’t get too hung up on the lingo of parts & wholes…

5. I think we have intuitions against “summing up” selves of any sort – I’m with you and PVI on this. But on this model, if T is going to be identical to God, it must exist.

6. Why not say that the form (i.e. P) is the subject of D? Because that seems backwards – that’d be like saying that my whiteness in the subject of me.

7. You and Alexander are right – you simply can’t go with full-bore, neoplatonist-style simplicity on this model. But you could take a good part of that doctrine – no form/matter, or act/potency complexity here.

Thanks for the reply.

1. I don’t see how identity on its own is going to do it. What’s the account of how each Person is God and how there is one God?

2. On this model, is the divine essence God?

3. Are you using ‘property’ and ‘universal’ interchangeably? It seems to me you could have tropes rather than universals here.

4. If one does accept universals or tropes, why think of them as parts or something like parts of substances at all?

5. One could say that the divine essence and each personal form exists, as does each composite of the essence and one form, but there’s no entity that is the composite of the essence and all the forms. Van Inwagen says just as the holy Family (Joseph, Mary, and Jesus) are three persons, not some entity that is the composite of the three, so the holy Trinity (F, S, and H) are three Persons, not some composite thereof. Sounds good to me.

6. I get that on this model each Person is a composite of the essence and a form, but I don’t see why it follows the essence is the subject of the form. Why then not say rather or also that the form is the subject of the essence. And doesn’t it still seem that if the essence is the subject of each of the forms, the essence is a Father, Son, and holy Spirit, which seems wrong. If every Father generates every Son and the essence is a Father and a Son, doesn’t it follow the divine essence generates itself? But nothing generates itself.

7. I also don’t see how this model could go with full-strength divine simplicity, but then there are I think good independent reasons to deny the full-strength version. By full-strength I mean Thomas’ account.

Best,

Joseph

The standard view of the Trinity does not make the relations be something over and beyond the persons.

But here – if we’re realists about properties, and think of them as parts, or something like parts of what has them, then why won’t this do the trick – as you point out, no oddball “sameness” relations need to be asserted – just identity, and part-whole relations.

Your remark about T is interesting. On the face of it, how can this be a trinitarian theory if there’s no x such that x = T? Many people strongly want the Trinity to just be the Christian God, including many social tinitarians, such as Richard of Oxford. The appeal of this model is that T “just is” D, as are F, S, and H, in the sense that D is sort of the core part of each… thought that’s not a good way to put it.

Re: your second question, on this model, F is identical to the merological sum of D and P, S is identical to the sum of D and Fi, etc. So D is the subject of those relational properties, but so is (e.g.) F, because he just is D+P. So I guess the persons have them in a derived way, by one of their parts having them.

This is of course a lot like the Brower and Rea account, except the divine essence is a thing rather than stuff. I think you’ll need to say something about why there is one God here: so perhaps there is sameness without identity and one counts Gods by such a relation. So whether this view is right, partly turns on whether one should posit such a relation in addition to identity. I don’t see why one should. I’m also not a big fan of this kind of constituent ontology, where something like a substance has properties as proper parts. But on its own terms, I note two things:

1. I don’t see why there need be an entity T. Why not say the Trinity is not one thing but is the three divine Persons? After all, it’s not as if to make this fly we need identify the Trinity with God.

2. I don’t see why we need say that the divine essence is the subject of the different relational properties. The subject of paternity (i.e. the entity that has the relational property of being a Father) is the Father, the composite of paternity and the divine essence. Wouldn’t saying that the divine essence is the subject of each relational property imply that the divine essence is a Father, Son, and Spirit?

Best,

Joseph