Many thanks to J.T. Paasch, Scott Williams, and Joseph Jedwab for their excellent posts! And thanks to the many great commenters here; we’ve had some vigorous discussions, and only very rarely have things gotten a bit too “hot.” You folks are awesome.

A few hastily chosen highlights, in no particular order:

• Some introductory posts on “The” Doctrine: 1, 2, 3.
• The Orthodox Formulas (scroll down).
• Some thoughts on heresy.
• A long series on Richard of St. Victor, source of the social trinitarian arguments that there can’t be just one divine person.
• Some answers about modalism.
• Islam-Inspired Modalism.
• Scott Williams’s posts on the theory of Henry of Ghent.
• Judging a debate been evangelical apologist Rob Bowman (mysterian) and Christadelphian (humanitarian unitarian) Dave Burke.
• “Trinity Monotheism” – the “social”  Trinity theory of J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig.
• Is God a self?
• A few exercises in, um, creative writing: Gnomes, some weird sects, confused World Vision sponsorees, and Stalin’s USSR.
• J.T. Paasch on Arius and Athanasius.
• Sarah Hutton on Plato and the Trinity
• Randal Rauser puts a bullet behind the ear of the time-wasting “Rahner’s Rule”.
• Nothing new under the sun.
• Identity.
• Dealing with Apparent Contradictions.

As always, comments never close. What have I left out?

What sorts of posts to you find the most useful? What can we do to make trinities better? Shorter posts? More contributers? More frequent posts? More linkage? Fewer or more stupid pictures? More or less historical stuff?

Please sound off in the comments.

Thanks be to God, later in the Spring of 2000, I was hired for a tenure track teaching job. I paid my dues prepping numerous classes, bought a more serious winter jacket, and really learned how to shovel snow.

In the Spring of 2001, I wrote the first version of what eventually became my “Unfinished Business” paper, and presented it at an SCP meeting in Rochester, NY. I must have sent this at some point to my friend Stephen Davis, because later in the Spring I received an unexpected email from Richard Swinburne saying he’d been told I had a good paper on the Trinity, and asking me if I wanted to attend an SCP conference in, of all places, Moscow, Russia! My paper was a bit… un-Orthodox. (Short synopsis – social theories don’t work, “Latin” theories don’t work… What gives?) Even the old ladies who translated my paper into Russian said, “Duh, it’s a mystery!”, so I decided I needed to think more about that.

At the end of “Unfinished Business” I allude to a theory that I take to be a neglected, but arguably orthodox Trinity theory. I had in mind a view like Clarke’s (who I discussed briefly last time). But that didn’t work out – more on that next installment.

In Russia I had a few interesting conversations with Swinburne. In one, standing in Red Square, not far from Lenin’s tomb and the Kremlin, I objected that if he was right, then God would have deceived the Jews. He replied that evidently, I hadn’t read his book Revelation. I admitted that I had the book on my shelf, but hadn’t read it. I later did. It’s now in a 2nd edition, and I must say that I don’t entirely know what I think about it.

But regarding the OT, his view is that the meaning of a text is context relative. The Church having accepted the old Jewish scriptures into its canon, for the Church, those books mean what they were understood to mean upon being accepted.

His favorite example, which he told me then, and which I’ve heard him give since, is:

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us - he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (Ps 137:8-9, NIV)

For the Church, he says, this means that we should mercilessly kill off our sins or bad habits, or something like that. It is irrelevant, he argues, what the author may have meant when he wrote it.

I can’t bring myself to agree with this, for many reasons. But even granting this, I couldn’t see how it should soothe my worry, which was that in the OT, God revealed himself to be a great and good person, a god, a self. And if social theorists are right, this was evidently a lie, told  by three co-equal, always co-operating divine selves. What the Jews thought was a god, was really a tightly knit group (of divine persons, a.k.a. gods).

I don’t think all lies are wrong (“Yes ma’am, I do think your daughter makes a lovely bride.”)  - but this one appears to be wrong. I’m still thinking off and on about this issue, because of some helpful interactions with philosopher Bill Hasker, and it is clear to me that this sort of argument doesn’t count against all Trinity theories, and that it depends on the claim that the three always act in concert together – a claim which a trinitarian arguably needn’t hold (though it is a popular and much trumpeted assumption, in theological circles).

In any case, this concern about deception was one thing which pushed me away from any “social” Trinity theory. But a more important factor was that when I really dug hard into the Bible, I couldn’t find this wonderful fellowship, this quasi-family of divine persons there. It’s certainly not taught outright there, and I came eventually to think that it isn’t implied there either.

It’s easy to get off track on this point, because the personal relationship between Father and Son is a central theme of all the four gospels. Conspicuously absent are any portrayal of friendship with the Holy Spirit, and the idea that God just is this perfect community or fellowship.

This statement by John is telling in what it leaves out:

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:3, NIV

I also found that historically, this idea of the Trinity as a loving community basically isn’t there, isn’t represented in the mainstream catholic (Catholic-Orthodox-Protestant) tradition. The closest things are the Cappadocians’ occasional use of an analogy of three people, and Richard of St. Victor’s arguments in the high middle ages. But in the many Trinity wars – I mean, theological disputes – of the modern era (c. 1550-1850) this idea just isn’t in play. Maybe something like this view was held by the noted early medieval Christian philosopher John Philoponus, but it was quickly condemned as tritheism.

Back to the deception concern, I also found, in reading early modern philosophical theology after my “Deception” paper was done, that I wasn’t the first to raise sort of objection. More on that reading, including Clarke, and its influence on me, next time.

I remember going out for a walk one day around our neighborhood in Claremont; it was probably the dead of winter, but, you know, 55 degrees, since this was Southern California. I was praying, and I saw in someone’s front yard a sapling that had been tied of straight with a couple of stakes and cables, forcing it to grow straight. I knew that my own mind was enthusiastic but undisciplined, and I prayed that God would send me teachers to make me grow straight.

Of my twelve applications, I got into to three places, and I ended up  going to Brown University for my Ph.D. I had a great time there; no complaints at all. I’ll cover my time there in two posts.

The two who most influenced me were my dissertation adviser James Van Cleve and Victor Caston.

Victor is a ridiculously smart ancient and medieval specialist, interested particularly in philosophy of mind. I served as his Teaching Assistant for his ancient philosophy class, from which I learned a ton, and I attended Greek reading groups with him. Later, he would meet to read Aquinas with me in Latin. Urbane but not over-polite, with a smile he would simply call you out on your inconsistencies. He knew all the wiles of the species Homo Academicus, and he had an excellent way of ratting out bad philosophy, such as people parading a pet theory, skating by on the abuse of abstract nouns, or simply not reading a text carefully enough. This last one was a biggie. Having written his dissertation on Aristotle (and, on one of the most obscure issues in Aristotle), he was acutely aware of how medieval philosophers and 20th c. Thomists would misread Aristotle through the lenses of their own theories. He had an intense work ethic and attention to detail. I teased him about his caffeine intake, and about his paper with 400 references at the end. But I also tried to imitate his seriousness and precision. At one point, perhaps half way through, after reading a term paper of mine he informed me that I’d turned a corner in my development as a philosopher, and that meant a lot to me.

Van Cleve, who we students referred to as “JVC”, is another unique and dear man. Terrifically smart, he’s naturally humble and soft-spoken, but not easily swayed. He’ll sit there and listen through some big-shot philosopher’s paper, taking notes, then raise his hand, and without the slightest pretense puncture the whole thing with one soft spoken, sincerely asked question. He’s an early modern philosophy specialist, and honestly, I should have taken more with him than I did. One year he did a great graduate seminar on the philosophy of Thomas Reid. From a Caston course, I’d become interested in the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, and had plunged into the literature on that problem, as well as the literature on what philosophers call logical fatalism. With Van Cleve, I read some fascinating work by logicians on temporal logics, work which was in large measure inspired by the traditional discussions. He has great patience in working through technical, dense material.

There were few Christian students at Brown (except my friend Michael Pace) and no openly Christian professors, and no philosophy of religion specialists. But I came to think this was good for me. Rather than immediately attaching myself to some great Christian philosopher and becoming his mini-me, I was forced to develop my own views. Happily, Caston and Van Cleve were both interested in many questions of philosophy of religion. And also, Brown was more theist-tolerant, I think, than some top programs, due to its most famous recent philosopher Roderick Chisholm (who retired just before I went to Brown – never met him) being somewhat of a closet theist. I think Brown’s philosophical culture at the time – tough-minded, but somewhat restrained, polite, was in large measure due to him. I’ve heard stories of other places literally making a sport of devouring visiting speakers. At Brown they’d refute you, but leave your dignity intact.

I also much appreciated Ernest Sosa. He too was an admirable intellect, a profound and original epistemologist. I took and greatly enjoyed a couple of his seminars, but ended up veering away from epistemology, and towards the history of philosophy and philosophy of religion. He too was kind and helpful to me. At the time, and I assume still, he was an ex-Christian agnostic, but being friendly with folks like Plantinga, he took the view that theists and non-theists can learn a lot from one another. I agree.

There were others who helped me too, but I’d better get to the Trinity part. Towards the end of my career at Brown, I started to think about the Trinity. At some point, two friends and I – my best Christian friend in the program and another friend who was a former Christian and agnostic, decided to read through Richard Swinburne’s The Christian God. Wow! Richard knows how to argue. These years later, this is still the most careful, most philosophically sophisticated presentation of social trinitarianism.  I was much impressed, though not entirely sure I believed it. I was soon aware that Ed Feser and Kelly James Clark had argued in print that Swinburne was a tritheist. But I thought, well, this doctrine is pretty important. So what if it is tritheism? Maybe trinitarianism just is the right sort of tritheism. I mean, his Persons necessarily cooperate, can’t disagree. They are all divine and they function as if they are one agent.

At some point, as was my habit, I was digging around in the bowels of Brown’s excellent library, and ran across a book by a theology Ph.D. named Thomas Pfizenmaier, on Samuel Clarke‘s views on the Trinity. I read it, and was fascinated. In brief, it was a lot like what Swinburne was saying; the persons of the Trinity were really persons/selves. All are called “God” in the Bible, but the Father was (in some mysterious sense) the source of the others, and Clarke argues, he’s called “God” in a higher sense of the term. Plainly, Clarke had done his homework. I obtained a copy of his massive Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, in which he numbers and sorts every verse in the New Testament that has to do with the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. He then quotes (in Greek or Latin) pre-Nicene church fathers on these, and translates those quotes, and in the end summarizes what he says is the biblical Trinity doctrine in 55 propositions. Amazing. Why is this book out of print? Why have these arguments been ignored by academic theology for the last 200+ years? The more I read, the more I wondered. Eventually I reprinted it myself.

In short, Swinburne made me a social trinitarian, though I didn’t call it that at the time. And Clarke too, I saw, had a three agent, three self view of the Trinity. I saw that this was in a sense a point of logic. If each “Person” really is a person, and some things are true of each that aren’t true of the other two, then we really do have three here. Modalism is out. I can’t remember if it was at Brown or shortly thereafter, but at some point I read articles by Cornelius Plantinga making a plausible case that “social” Trinity theories were what the 4th c. Greek fathers meant all along.

And I was becoming aware that one’s theological theories really shape how one interprets the Bible, to an alarming degree. This was an application of what I learned from Victor Caston. I realized that I needed to really revisit the whole issue, looking at the Bible on its own terms, and finding a consistent way to understand it. I’d had experiences in church of the preacher reading a text, and basically saying, with little shame, “Well, we can see here that it seems to say P. Of course, we all know that not-P is true.” And then he’d move on! There’s no integrity in that, I decided, and I just can’t be that smug, that complacent in what my tradition tells me it is supposed to say.

I also started to realize that despite the similarities, there were some pretty important differences between Swinburne and Clarke.

Next time: a book that changed my life.

They call me "The More Than Subtle Doctor." You can call me Johnnie Boy.

A postscript to our Richard series: I was reading the interesting and dense The Mysteries of Christianity, by 19th c. German Catholic theologian Joseph Scheeben, on Richard of St. Victor, and he says the following in a footnote:

Scotus states decisively that Richard of St. Victor adduces rationes necessariae for the Trinity, but not evidenter necessariae, because the principles from which he argues are not evident. Cf. III Sent., d.24, q.un., no.20; I Sent., d.42, q.un., no. 4; Reportata, prol., no. 18. (p. 29, fn. 11)

I assume that Scotus’s point is the Richard’s arguments are valid, but that each has at least one unknown premise (making them not real “proofs” or demonstrations). But I lack the time and Latin ability to chase down these quotes and translate them.

Anyone else care enough about this to do it?

If you’re not a trinities contributor, this could be a guest post opportunity. The task: read the above passages, translate the relevant bits, share the translated bits and the point of them with us here.

Is Scheeben correct in saying that these objections are decisive? If you’re interested, email me.

Richard starts off with the point that for the Persons of the Trinity, unlike the case of any other persons, there is “individuality without plurality” – each is what it is without any plurality of any kind – and “unity without inequality” – I’m not sure what he means by this second phrase. (p. 396)

In contrast, any other person, such as you or me, can be “unequal to himself”, in that we can become greater or lesser over time. (e.g. I’m smarter and morally 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 dissimilar to itself… [since] one thing is easy for him, another is difficult and a third is impossible.” (p. 397)

Then he says, “one and the same nature… in one respect is less, in another it is greater, and [so is]… dissimilar and unequal to itself.” (p. 397) So, the same point he made about persons, can also be made about natures. Thus,

…where there is no true simplicity, true equality cannot exist. However in that Trinity, nowhere is anything dissimilar to itself nor is it unequal to any other in anything. (p. 397)

I assume that by “true equality” he means qualitative sameness/equality in the highest degree. Normally, when we call some X and some Y “qualitatively the same” we allow that they differ somewhat (e.g. two golf balls from the same package). But not here – the Father and Son don’t differ in their intrinsic properties, and so are as qualitatively the same as two things could possibly be. (This is just begging to be objected to, but I’ll pass it by.)

After this, he quotes the “Athanasian” creed on the equality of the Persons, and triumphantly ends with one more quote from that creed:

Behold now we have proved by open and manifold reasoning how true that is which we are commanded to believe, namely, that we venerate “one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.” (p. 397, emphasis added)

I’ll end with just a few observations about our whole Richard series:

• Richard has not persuaded me, by any of his arguments, that a perfect being must be tri-personal, or even that a perfect being must enjoy reciprocated love of an equal. It seems to me possible that perfect being lacks that good, and is nonetheless happy, and perfectly benevolent.
• It’s also clear  that Richard has no way to get his arguments (supposing they worked) to stop at three. Unlike Swinburne, he doesn’t even seem aware that he needs to show only three in addition to at least three. He leaves things at the latter.
• If your view of the Trinity is incompatible with the classical doctrine of divine simplicity – and if you call yourself a “social” trinitarian, it probably is, then Richard is not your ally, as he assumes the truth of the doctrine.
• As I explained last time, I don’t think his views on the Trinity are self-consistent. He needs the Persons to intrinsically differ from each other, and yet he insists, so as to remain orthodox, and to avoid tritheism, that they do not. Thus, he  needs to appeal to mystery – this self-inconsistency must just be due to the greatness of the subject-matter. It isn’t that he’s trying to have it both ways… He repeatedly sounds (e.g. in ch. 9, 10, 24) what I call negative mysterian notes, but rather half-heartedly – his Anselmian zeal is little cooled by such points.
• Another apparent inconsistency: he crucially appeals to the notion of cooperation. But if X and Y cooperate in a work, they do it together, and each makes his own contribution. Each, that is, exercises his own power. Cooperation involves two exercises of power, to bring about one effect (or various parts of one effect). And yet, given Richard’s views on simplicity, there is between the Persons of the Trinity one power, and so one exercise of power in any alleged case of “cooperation”. Which is to say, it isn’t really cooperation. It’ll just be the action of one god.

Certainly one and the same substance is not something greater or lesser, better or worse than itself. Therefore, [there are no inequalities among members of the Trinity] since one and the same substance is certainly in each. …for this reason any two persons [in the Trinity] will not be something greater or better than any one person alone; nor will all three taken together be more [great?] than any two or any one alone by himself… (p. 396)

I take it that in the first sentence here that by “substance” he’s referring to the divine nature, saying that it can’t be greater than itself. That’s hard to argue with. He then argues that no person can be greater than any other. There’s an assumption here that greatness is solely a function of a thing’s nature. I’m not sure why we should accept that. Why not other intrinsic properties as well? One might think, e.g. it is greater to be the Father than it is to be the Son, hence even though they share the divine nature, one might think that the Father is greater than the Son. The inference from X and Y have the same substance to X and Y are the same in greatness, seems invalid. But if we make a valid argument, by adding the premise that greatness is a function solely of essence, we have valid argument, but then, why accept the premise? Why think the argument to be sound?

Maybe he doesn’t need the premise though. Working as he is in an Augustinian tradition of Trinity theories, he may be assuming that each Person has no intrinsic properties other than the divine nature – not only is the divine nature simple, but it is the only component of each Person, so that each person is simple as well. If this is what he’s assuming, we’d get a valid argument, like this:

1. Greatness is a function of a thing’s intrinsic properties.
2. The Persons have no intrinsic properties beyond the divine nature.
3. The Persons share one and the same divine nature.
4. Therefore, the Persons do not differ in greatness.

The idea here is that the Persons are three because of extrinsic relations – e.g. Fatherhood is not some extra ingredient or component in the Father. Instead, it’s just a way that… the divine nature relates to itself? This in my view is highly problematic, but that’s matter for a different post.

I assume he’s not arguing that Father and Son can’t differ in greatness because they are numerically identical. That would make the argument valid – as nothing can’t be greater than itself, and Father and Son are one thing, therefore, neither is greater than the other. But if they are numerically one, then they can’t differ in any way, as nothing can differ from itself. And Richard assumes that Father and Son differ. So, this must not be how he’s arguing.

Finally, he ends with a blow on the mysterian trumpet:

Now observe how incomprehensible is that coequality of greatness from every viewpoint and in every respect in that Trinity where unity does not lack plurality and plurality does not go beyond unity! (p. 396)

I’m not sure what to make of all of this. One could read into it relative identity theories, or the Rea-Brower constitution theory, which invokes the dubious concept of “numerical sameness without identity”. On the other hand, there is the appeal to “incomprehensibility”. Is this a nod towards the apparent inconsistency of his views?

It seems to me that Richard doesn’t think the Persons of the Trinity to be identical (numerically the same), even though he thinks them to not differ in any component (in all one of them – as the only component in each is one and the same divine nature). They are three agents/persons/selves, and they must be three, for his arguments about love to even get one inch off the launchpad. Now add in his point that the three of them share a nature. It doesn’t obviously follow that they are one because of this share component – why can’t three things share a nature? It may, per the above argument, suffice to make them equal.

But how can they then be in personal relationships with one another?

• If X and Y “share perfect love”, then X has the property of loving Y, and of being loved by Y.
• And Y has the property of loving X, and of being loved by X.
• But solely because of their sharing perfect love, unlike Y, X doesn’t have this property – being loved by X. Thus, X and Y differ, both intrinsically (in the acts of loving) and relationally (their receiving the other’s love).
• Thus, there must be more to both than just the divine nature – there must be some extra component. So, the person must each be simple, and yet none of them can be.

Is that the mystery (apparent inconsistency)? Or in the quote above just a habitual flourish? Or is there another way to read all of this?

In chapter 23, Richard says that between the members of the Trinity “there seems to be more identity [sameness] than equality.” (p. 395) He then cites as an example three indistinguishable golden statues. Because they’re indistinguishable, we say they are “equal”. But there are three masses of gold involved, and so there are really three things here, three statues. But the case of the Trinity is different, he urges. How? Because “whatever is in any one person of the Trinity, the smae is also completely in any other person.” Here, he implies, we do have a deeper kind of “identity” or “sameness”.

I take it that Richard’s point is that the three Persons of the Trinity don’t differ as far as their composition, because each contains one and the same divine nature, here thought of as a particular.

He then brings up a case of “three rational spirits”, three souls. Though they may be equal, in that each is powerful and wise in the same way and to the same degree, they are in the end both three persons and “three substances”. His implied point, I assume, is that each has his own nature as a component – such as humanity, or maybe rational soulhood . Three natures, ergo three “substances” – I take it, there things, three concrete individuals.

Continuing to read into him, he means to contrast both of the cases with the Trinity in this way. Because the Three share one divinity, one divine nature as a component (share one “substance” in the sense of essence or nature), they are therefore, even though three persons, one substance, that is, one concrete individual, specifically one god.

Of course, the Persons will also be “equal”, for the same reason (sharing one token divine nature) – he makes this point at the very end of chapter 23.

Paul Herrick present a paper analysing and endorsing Richard of St. Victor’s main argument for the Trinity, and we had a good time discussing that. (Stay tuned, by the way, for the end of the series on Richard here.)

I presented a (barely) half-baked paper on constitution trinitarianism. Jeff Brower was kind enough to come to the session and point out that one of my objections was just plain confused. It was great talking to him afterwards. Now, back to the drawing board.

Speaking of Jeff, his plenary session was one of the best I’ve ever seen anywhere. Jeff presented a fascinating and carefully crafted paper, I believe part of a book-to-be on Aquinas on the metaphysics material objects, in which he argued that Aquinas holds a heretofore unexplored version of the substratum theory of concrete particulars. (Complementary) critical comments were given by the inimitable Hud Hudson, and some great dialogue ensued.

To my fellow attendees – hope to see you again next year. To everyone else – don’t miss out next year!

It goes like this:

1. There can be at most one omnipotent being. (premise)
2. No being can have more than one token of any property. (premise)
3. At most one token of omnipotence can exist. (2,3)
4. Any token of omnipotence is the same as any token of divinity. (divine simplicity)
5. At most one  token of divinity can exist. (3,4)
6. No token property can be had by more than one being. (premise)
7. There is at most one God. (5,6)

What shall we make of this argument? Why believe premise 1? Richard says,

…if it is agreed that omnipotence can do everything, it will be able to carry out with ease what any other power would not be able to do. For this reason it is clear that only one omnipotence can exist. (ch. 22, p. 394)

I have a couple of problems with this. First, we ought not think of divine power as the ability to do anything. God can’t lie, or torture innocent kittens merely for the fun of it. But maybe “everything” can be restricted in some way. Let’s suppose Richard is assuming that “everything” doesn’t include what is contradictory or intrinsically wrong.

What, then is he thinking? Richard thinks it obviously true that if a being is omnipotent, then for any other being, whatever this other being can’t do, the omnipotent one can do. Now, suppose there were two omnipotent beings – call them Lenny and Squiggy. By the above principle, it must be true of Lenny, that whatever Squiggy can’t do, Lenny can. But, there is nothing Squiggy can’t do – he too is omnipotent. Richard thinks this scenario is incoherent. But why? I suspect that medieval logic may be to blame here, but I’ll take another stab at what he might be thinking.

If any being is omnipotent, or unlimited in power, then necessarily, there is no more powerful being. It seems one could be omnipotent and be the only real being – just imagine an all-powerful Lenny, alone in reality.  But if there are other beings, and one is omnipotent, none of them will be more powerful than you. So add Squiggy to the picture – it logically follows, from Lenny’s omnipotence, that Squiggy isn’t more powerful than Lenny. But we can’t infer that Squiggy is limited in power – for all we’ve said, he might also be omnipotent. So it seems that there’s nothing incoherent about there being two omnipotent beings – at least, Richard has done nothing to establish this.

We shouldn’t build into the definition of “omnipotent” than there actually are other beings, whose power is surpassed.

One might think that more than one omnipotent being is impossible for other reasons. One might worry about multiple omnipotent beings possibly thwarting one another. Richard Swinburne argues that there could be multiple omnipotent beings who necessarily never clash in their choices and actions.

In any case, I think Richard of St. Victor’s argument falters at premise 1.

Does it have any other problems? Various metaphysicians would deny either 2 or 6, for various reasons.

Many philosophers, like me, do not affirm 4. To be divine, and to be omnipotent, are two different ways of being, or if you like two different properties. While it is conceivable that there could be a being which satisfies the concepts or terms “omnipotent” and “divine” because of one and the same aspect of itself, I think most theistic philosophers have committments that rule this out. That is, most theistic philosophers hold views about God that imply the falsity of the traditional simplicity doctrine. For instance, they think of God as having multiple properties, and as having non-essential ones. And many of us have grave doubts about the ultimate consistency of the divine simplicity thesis. Look at what Richard says near the end of ch. 22:

…like omnipotence, there can be only one divine essence. Not only is what each person is completely the same; but each one is what each other is. And so, supreme simplicity is in each; true and supreme unity is in all together; and marvelous identity is everywhere if you pay attention well. (ch. 22, p. 395)

It’s hard to know what to make of all this talk of identity or sameness. It would be incoherent for Richard to assert that each person is numerically the same as the others, for (1) he holds them to differ, e.g. in origin, and (2) he is clearly thinking of them as many – and yet as in some sense a unity. It’s clear that he thinks there’s only one token of omnipotence, and of deity between them. It would seem to follow that they are numerically one (at least, if we accept 6 above). But he can’t be saying that. Really, the resulting image is a big blur, however marvellous it may be.

If I’m right that he trying to assuage a concern about monotheism in this part of the book, he doesn’t get very far.

First, he refers back to the doctrine of divine simplicity, which is common coin for medieval theists, even, surprisingly, for trinitarians. This needs explaining nowadays – theists now tend to think of God’s nature as something he has, and of God as having, and not being, his attributes. Moreover, we tend to think that God has many attributes.

For a primer on divine simplicity, I can do no better than Bill Vallicella:

[According to this doctrine] God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Besides lacking spatial and temporal parts, God is free of matter/form composition, potency/act composition, and existence/essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one. God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has. As identical to each of his attributes, God is identical to his nature. And since his nature or essence is identical to his existence, God is identical to his existence. (William Vallicella, “Divine Simplicity”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Richard starts ch. 22 by gesturing back at book I of De Trinitate – his point is that this divine being/essence/nature common to the three is utterly simple. Yet he realizes that this by itself won’t soothe the concern about monotheism. How can we rule out that there are three gods, each of which has is an utterly simple, composition free being? Then he hits on an additional argument. I try to interpret and analyze it thusly:

1. There can be at most one omnipotent being. (premise)
2. No being can have more than one token of any property. (premise)
3. At most one token of omnipotence can exist. (2,3)
4. Any token of omnipotence is the same as any token of divinity. (divine simplicity)
5. At most one  token of divinity can exist. (3,4)
6. No token property can be had by more than one being. (premise)
7. There is at most one God. (5,6)

I insert the word “token” to make clear that we’re talking not about universal properties, which can in principle be had by or instantiated in many things, but rather token properties – features which are particulars, as much as the beings which have or (given divine simplicity) “are” them. My premises 2 & 6 are not stated by Richard; I insert them in the attempt to get a valid argument.

The point of the argument would be: never mind how many divine persons we’ve proven to exist, because we can also prove that there’s at most one God. So there’s your monotheism. 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. Here’s how Richard ends his chapter:

…there can be only one divine essence. Not only is what each person is completely the same; but each one is what each other is. And so, supreme simplicity is in each; true and supreme unity is in all together; and marvellous identity is everywhere if you pay attention well [, fool]. (p. 395, emphasis and Mr.-T-ism added)

Next time: What shall we make of this argument?

To do this, he’s used Anselmian perfect being theology – arguing that since God is absolutely perfect, and it would add to his perfection to have certain features, he must indeed have those. It seems that he prefers a three parallel arguments, from perfect goodness, perfect happiness, and perfect glory. (See, e.g. chapter 5.)

As the book goes on, though, it seems to me that he prefers the argument from happiness. Here, in chapter 21, he sums up his case, because he feels some pressure here at the end of the book  to explain why all this should be considered monotheism, and not polytheism. More on that next time. Here’s what looks like his summary of his argument:

The fullness of supreme happiness requires fullness of supreme pleasure. The fullness of supreme pleasure requires fullness of supreme charity. The fullness of supreme charity demands fullness of supreme perfection. (p. 393)

This last part isn’t easy to see, but as we’ve been over it, I let it go here. In chapter 21, Richard assumes that perfect being reasoning should be applied to each member of the Trinity. If we do this,  then we prove the existence of equally perfect beings, such that “all coincide in supreme equality. In all of them there will be equal wisdom, equal power, undifferentiated glory, uniform goodness, and eternal happiness…” (pp. 393-4, emphasis added)

This, he asserts, meets the requirement of the “Athanasian” creed, that “the Divinity [aka deity, godhead] is one, glory equal, and majesty coeternal.” (p. 394) This creed settles for an apparent contradiction; it states that the Three differ from one another, and that each has all the properties required to be a god, and then simply asserts that “yet there are not three gods, but one God.” But Richard feels compelled to say more. In this chapter, he asserts that the three are truly equals, but he’s aware that so far they would seem to be three co-equal gods. So it’s not clear that he does meet the requirements of orthodoxy, given that it is supposed to entail monotheism. In the next posts, we’ll look at how he addresses this monotheism concern.

God's expression of his eternal Word - a highly technical and precise diagram.

From 1, 2 and the first obvious truth, we infer that Jesus / the Son / the Word began to exist a finite time ago. From this plus the second obvious truth, we infer that this being is not fully divine. Thus, if you hold to the Logos christology, whether you realize it or not,  you are a subordinationist - someone which thinks that the Son exists because of, and has a lesser status than God, that is, the Father. You deny that the members of the Trinity are fully equal.

Interestingly, this seems to have been a (the?) standard view among catholic intellectuals of this time period. It was not the only view, though, and it was controversial. Also interestingly, this basic scheme of divine creation via a newly “expressed” helper seems due not primarily to John, but to the very Hellenized Jewish theologian Philo of Alexandria, a rough contemporary of Jesus. (See the sources cited here.) Mainstream trinitarian thinking has left Logos theory behind, and Philo’s influence has been almost forgotten.  Yet most theologians read John 1 and Proverbs 8 in almost the same way as Tertullian; they simply take the “expression” or “begetting” or “speaking” of the Word to be a timeless fact.

But is something like this the best way to read those chapters? I hope to get into that in a future series.

Look at the bottom case, and how the love arrows combine; this seems to be what Richard is imagining (see the quote in the last post). I don’t think it’s coherent, really – affections, or individual love-acts can’t literally fuse. Nor do I understand any non-literal way they can be said to “fuse”.

Still, I’m inclined to agree with Joseph and with Richard Swinburne that there is a unique value in lovers cooperating to love a third party. This is something we recognize, I think, in Mom and Dad’s love for junior, or even in “best friends” graciously including an excluded girl within their circle.

Further, I think Richard of St. Victor is right that there is a relational harmony and cooperation in such cases, and a unique sort of pleasure all around.

Whether this value would provide a perfect person with a compelling reason to create mysteriously originate at least two other divine persons is a further matter.

In chapter 20, Richard makes clear that my chart here is too simple – there should be a complex combined arrow connecting each pair to the third; where my chart has one (I got lazy, OK?) it ought to have three – one pointing at each person. But there are more love-fusions than what we’ve mentioned so far.

If the creation is considered, there the cord of love is tripled so that where suspicion concerning a defect of love could arise more easily, certitude is made more firm by greater confederation. (ch. 20, p. 393)

So in their love for the cosmos, imagine three love arrows coming out of the persons, and sort of twisting together to make one thicker, three-strand love arrow. I don’t follow his point here, though I understand the fusion he’s imagining. At the end chapter, he lamely suggests that one unconvinced by all of this would seem to be insane.

1. If one person loves another and only he loves only her, there is love but not shared love.
2. If two mutually love only each other (if the affection of each goes out to the other), again there is love but not shared love.
3. Shared love exists only if a third person is loved by two persons jointly:

“Shared love is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two persons harmoniously and in community, and the affection of the two persons is fused into one affection by the flame of love for the third.” (Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, p.392)

(This is as close as we ever get to a characterization of shared love.)

So, in divinity, if there is shared love, there are at least three persons. So supreme shared love requires at least three divine persons. Supreme shared love is of a kind that no creature could merit it or be worthy of it from its divine creator.

Next (B) consider further the nature of shared loved as a virtue:

1. Supreme benevolence is supremely great. Supreme harmony is also supremely great. Each such virtue is of great value.
2. Any virtue that results from the combination of each such virtue is also supremely great.
3. But supreme shared love results from the combination of supreme benevolence and harmony. Such a virtue can’t be lacking in what is perfectly good. And supreme shared love can’t exist without at least three persons.

Therefore, in divinity, if there is at least one person, there are at least three persons.

There’s a lot here. Much of it we have in effect already seen. I want to make only one comment about (A1). This doesn’t exactly say what Richard wants to say here. If one person loves another and only the first loves the second, then no one else loves the second. And if, in addition, the first loves only the second, then the first loves no one else. But it’s clear that Richard wants an example of unrequited love to contrast with his second example of mutual love between two persons alone.

For what it’s worth, I think there’s something deeply insightful here about the value of shared love. And even if we don’t think something like the following. The fact that any perfect being is essentially perfectly good is a reason to think that it must be that if there is some perfect being, then there is also another perfect being or even just some created being. Even if we don’t think this, so I say, perhaps we can agree that if there were three divine persons, there would be a distinctive kind of goodness in the world because of the existence of supreme shared love, one which wouldn’t exist if there were only two divine persons or even only one. If so, that is something for a Christian to recognize and celebrate.

That’s it for me on this series. Next up is Dale, who will bring us home: blogging on chs.20-25.

It might seem that supreme goodness can exist where one person supremely loves and receives nothing in return from the other person for full happiness. But in fact such supreme goodness can’t even exist where only two persons mutually love each other. Suppose that, in divinity, there are only two persons. Then each gives and receives love, and each gives and receives the pleasure that such love brings. If each is alone, neither receives such love nor such pleasure. So supreme generosity requires three persons. If, in divinity, there are only two, neither shares such pleasure. But each divine person, being perfect, is supremely generous. Therefore, supreme goodness requires that if there are at least two divine persons, there are at least three persons.

Note that the first sentence seems out of place and does no work here. Really the argument here only begins with the third sentence. The only new thing here is the mention of supreme generosity. Supreme generosity requires that each of two divine persons have a third divine person with whom to share love and the pleausre such love brings. Not so to share would be less than supremely generous. But I don’t see that we really have a new argument here for at least three divine persons (if God exists). So that’s ch.18. Next up will be ch.19, which will be my final post for the series.

Supreme happiness requires that if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons. Suppose, in divinity, there is only one person. Then (1) this person gives supreme love to no one and receives supreme love from no one. (2) Such a person lacks the pleasure of love that one draws from another. (3) But nothing is better than such pleasure. So such a person, who lacks such supreme pleasure, isn’t supremely happy. (4) But any divine person, being perfect, is supremely happy. Therefore, supreme happiness requires that if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons.

A few comments:

Re (1): This assumes again that with a divine person supreme love is only between divine persons, who are equally perfect.

Re (2): This assumes again that the pleasure of love requires love.

Re (3) and (4): I wonder what exactly Richard means by happiness. My guess is that he means something like Aristotle’s eudamonia where someone is happy only if overall they are a success in life. Richard seems to think that supreme happiness includes supreme pleasure so that someone who has supreme happiness couldn’t have more pleasure. Is that right? I believe that God has pleasure: just because many of his desires are satisfied. But I’m also inclined to think that God suffers, not in the sense that he is affected by things contrary to his will. But rather God suffers in the sense that some of his desires are frustrated, e.g. because we freely do things or things occur as a result of such, that God desires we didn’t do or that didn’t occur. Now just because God suffers doesn’t mean he doesn’t have supreme pleasure. But I can’t help wondering whether if things had gone differently with some of our choices and their results, God might have had more pleausure than he actually does. But I’m also pretty sure that Richard needn’t base the claim that God has the pleasure love brings on the claim that God has supreme pleasure. Couldn’t he get that from the claims that God is supremely good and that the pleasure love brings is a supreme good that God needn’t forego for some contrary good that is equally good?

That’s it. After this, ch.18. Notice again we are building our way up to three divine persons. In ch.16 we had an argument about one divine person. In ch.17 we have an argument for at least two divine persons (if God exists). And in chs.18-19 we will have an argument for at least three divine persons (if God exists).

1. Full wisdom and power can exist in only one person. If, per impossibile, there is only one divine person, he can still have fullness of wisdom and power.
2. The pleasures of wisdom and love differ. The pleasure of wisdom can be drawn from oneself. The pleasure of love must be drawn from another. Anyone who loves and desires to be so loved but doesn’t receive such love is displeased. But the pleasure of wisdom is even better when one derives it from oneself.
3. If, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can have full wisdom. Full wisdom and full power can’t exist without each other. For suppose someone lacks omnipotence. If she doesn’t know how to obtain what she so lacks, then she lacks full wisdom. And anyone who unwillingly suffers some defect of wisdom lacks full power.  Therefore, if, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can also have full power.

Re 1: I like the implicit distinction here between what is a real and only a conceptual possibility. There can’t really be only one divine person. For, as Richard is trying to demonstrate, there must be at least three divine persons. But the concepts of full wisdom and power don’t conceptually imply the concept of more than one divine person.

Re 2: Wisdom brings pleasure. If you desire wisdom and you have it and believe you have it, then you have the pleasure wisdom brings. And love also brings pleasure. If you desire love and you have it and believe you have it, then you have the pleasure love brings. That’s what you might think Richard would say. But he doesn’t say this exactly. Rather he says this. When you have the pleasure of wisdom, the object of your pleasure is not wisdom but rather yourself under the aspect of being wise. And when you have the pleasure of love, the object of your pleasure is not love but rather your beloved under the aspect of loving you. I like the implicit claim here that there is a kind of pleasure that is factive. If you have a certain kind of pleasure of wisdom, you must exist and be wise in order for you to have such pleasure. Anyone who had an intrinsically identical pleasure-state but was not wise would lack this kind of pleasure. And if you have a certain kind of pleasure of love, your beloved must exist and love you in order for you to have such pleasure. And anyone who had an intrinsically identical pleasure-state but had no beloved or had a beloved who did not love her would lack this kind of pleasure.

Re 3: This is a very interesting section. Do full wisdom and power imply each other? Does full wisdom imply full power? Richard seems to include in full wisdom knowing how to obtain what you lack. Let’s grant this. But Richard seems to assume, without argument, that if one lacks full power that can only be because one doesn’t know how to obtain it. On this assumption, it can’t be that one knows how to obtain full power but doesn’t choose to obtain it or even chooses not to obtain it. That’s not obvious. Does full power imply full wisdom? Again, Richard seems to assume, without argument, that anyone who suffers anything unwillingly lacks full power. Or to put it the other way around: anyone who has full power doesn’t suffer anything unwillingly. Arguably, full power includes irrestible will: so that it must be that what one wills is so. So, arguably, nothing is contrary to what one who has full power wills. But it’s consistent with this that something is so that one who has full power doesn’t will. One might have less than full wisdom, but not will that one have full wisdom. That’s just the kind of thing you’d expect if one really did suffer a defect of wisdom. After all, it’s not obvious that full power implies willing everything that is so. So it still might be that one who has full power suffers something unwillingly, not in the sense that it happens contrary to what he wills, but in the absence of any willing on his part concerning the matter.

Well, that’s enough on ch.16. Next is ch.17.

1. With divine persons, the perfection of one requires another, and so the perfection of a pair requires union with a third. Each such person is perfectly benevolent and so shares his perfection with the other. But if each is perfectly benevolent, then each with equal desire and for a similar reason seeks a sharer of his joy. Why?
2. Well, if two such persons mutually supremely love each other, the love each has for the other includes supreme joy. If only the one is loved by the other, only the one has such joy. And if the second doesn’t have one who shares in love for a third (condilectus), the second lacks the sharing of joy. (We must wait until ch.19 for Richard to spell out more fully the idea of condilectus.) So that each may share such joy, each must share in love for a third.
3. So if those who mutually love each other have perfect benevolence and so they desire that each perfection they have is shared, then it must be that each with equal desire and for a similar reason has a third with whom to share love.

Re 1. This is our conclusion: if there are at least two, there are at least three divine persons.

Re 2. The basic idea is this. The Father and the Son are perfect and perfectly love each other. Naturally, they take perfect delight in such love. The Father enjoys the love the Son has for him and the joy this brings. And so does the Son: the Son enjoys the love the Father has for him and the joy this brings. So each, being perfectly good, wants to share such love with another. The Father wants to share the love the Son has for him and the joy this brings with another. And the Son wants to share the love the Father has for him and the joy this brings with another. So each seeks out a third (the Spirit), one who is also loved by the Son and one who is also loved by the Father and also takes delight in such. To evaluate Richard’s argument here, we must consider what the mark of perfection is here. If perfection involves sharing and a perfect being is loved by another perfect being, will the first also share the perfection of being loved by the second? Richard apparently coins the term ‘condilectus’. We will meet this term again in ch.19.

Re 3. This is a summary of points made already.

In ch.16, there will be a change of gear. There he will go back to the start and work his way up to the claim that if at least one, then there are at least three divine persons. In ch.16 he claims that supreme power and knowledge can exist in a single person. In ch.17 he claims that supreme happiness can’t exist in fewer than two persons. And then in chs.18 and 19 he claims that supreme goodness and shared love can’t exist in fewer than three persons.

Richard has already argued in various ways that if there is so much as one divine person, there are at least three divine persons. But the arguments have all been a bit here and there. So to make the reasons even more evident, he plans to gather them all up into one. So here it is:

Suppose there is only one divine person: P.

1)      Then P doesn’t share his greatness.

2)      Compare two situations. In the first, P is the only divine person. In the second, P is not the only divine person; there is another: Q. In the second situation, P and Q love each other and P has the pleasure that love brings. So in the first situation, P lacks in eternity not only such love but also such pleasure.

3)      Anyone supremely good shares her greatness. (Not so to share is to retain something greedily. But anyone supremely good does nothing greedily.)

4)      Anyone supremely happy has such pleasure. (Not to have such pleasure is not to have an abundance of pleasure. But anyone supremely happy has an abundance of pleasure.)

5)      P is supremely good and happy.

So if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons.

Suppose there are only two divine persons: P and Q.

6)      Then P shares greatness. But P doesn’t share love or the pleasure that such love brings. (Only a person who has a partner and a beloved in the love shown him has the pleasure of love.)

7)      Anyone supremely happy shares love and the pleasure of love. (Nothing brings more pleasure than love.)

8)      P is supremely happy.

So if there are at least two divine persons, there are at least three divine persons.

Therefore, if there is at least one divine person, there are at least three divine persons.

There are two parts here. Let’s just briefly look at each in turn. So first let’s look at the section that aims to show that if there is at least one, there are at least two divine persons. Here I note only one thing: there’s an ambiguity in (2). It could mean that if there is only one divine person: P, then P doesn’t always love another, i.e sometimes P doesn’t love another. But it’s not clear this is right. This assumes that any creature begins to exist and so is not always around for P to love. But even if any creature does begin to exist, it still doesn’t follow that P doesn’t always love another. For it could be that at every time there is a creature that exists then and so there is someone around for P to love even if every creature begins to exist. It could also mean that if there is only one divine person: P, then P always lacks love of another divine person. This is true, in which case, Richard is not just speaking of love of another, but love of another divine person and so is relying on previous arguments for why the supreme love a divine person has includes love of another divine person.

Secondly, let’s look at the section that aims to show that if there is at least two, there are at least three divine persons. Here I comment on only one matter: a point of interpretation to do with (6). We have seen before Richard’s idea that love always involves a second person and sharing love always involves a third person. And here he seems to rely on what he said previously. I can see that, by Richard’s lights, P doesn’t love and so have the pleasure love brings unless there is a second P loves. And I can also see that, by Richard’s lights, P doesn’t share love unless there is, not only a second (Q) P loves but, a third with whom P shares his love of Q. But Richard says: “He alone possesses the sweetness of such delights who has a partner and a loved one in the love that has been shown to Him”. It’s not clear which of these two things Richard is saying. First, he is saying that P alone has such pleasure who has another to love, in which case the partner is the loved one, and then he later makes the point that to share love involves a third person. Secondly, he is saying that P alone has such pleasure who has a second to love and a third to love, in which case the partner is not the loved one. The problem with the first interpretation is that it makes the statement seem out of place coming as it does right after the claim that if there are only two divine persons, there’s no sharing of the pleasure of love. The problem with the second interpretation is that it makes the statement seem wrong by Richard’s own lights.

Well, this is enough to be getting on with for chapter 14. Next up chapter 15 on the claim that two divine persons must seek out a third divine person with equal desire and for a similar reason.

What's all this about Dallas then?

We now turn to Richard’s De Trinitate Book 3, Chapters 14-19

Here’s my formulation of the first part of ch.14:

Suppose there’s at least one divine person: P.

Then (1) P is so benevolent that he wants to have no good that he does not want to share.

And (2) P is so powerful that everything is possible for him.

And (3) P is so happy that nothing is difficult for him.

And (4) if (1)-(3) are true, there are at least three divine persons.

Therefore, (C) If there is at least one divine person, then there are at least three divine persons.

Re 1: I think this means that for every good that P has, he wants to share that good with another, at least if this is so much as possible. But this isn’t exactly what Richard says. If you want to have no good that you don’t want to share, you might satisfy your desire by giving up every good that you have. But, more relevantly, if you want to have no good that you don’t want to share, you might satisfy the first desire by making it so that every good that you have you want to share. But you can have the first desire without satisfying it and so without having the second desire.

Re 2: Surely, not everything is possible. But, as we know, it’s hard to define omnipotence. And I don’t suppose Richard needs anything as strong as that God has the power to bring it about that contradictions are true.

Re 3: I see how a premise about divine happiness could provide, with other premises, an independent line as to why if there’s one, there’s another divine person. But it doesn’t seem necessary to the argument, if we have a premise about divine benevolence already, which should, if what he said in previous chapters is right, with other premises, provide reason to think if there’s one, there’s another divine person. And besides, what’s this about being so happy that nothing is difficult? You might well think this should be linked, not with happiness, but rather with power. God is so powerful that nothing is difficult for him. I suppose there could be a link between happiness and easiness: if you’re happy, things are not difficult for you. Maybe. It might depend on what your happiness consists in. In any case, it’s hard to see how this adds much of anything to the argument. If I were Richard, I would have put something about being so knowing that he uses his power to bring about what he wants. But that’s just me.

Let’s reconstruct:

Suppose there is at least one person: P

Then (1*) P is so knowing, powerful, and good that he shares all that he has that he can.

And (2*) P has a perfect nature that he can share.

So (C1) there are at least two divine persons.

And if (C1), then (3*) P has a perfect love with another divine person that he can share.

Therefore, (C) if there is at least one divine person, there are at least three divine persons.

This could be something like what Richard has in mind, but spelled out a bit more.

Richard, though, says he hasn’t even started the main summary of his argument yet. He says this argument is enough, but he will makes things clearer. So next up, we will look at the clearer presentation. But this would be a good time for people to sum up any objections they have to Richard’s previous arguments that tie in to my proposed reconstruction. I confess I’ve not followed every objection and reply so far. And I suspect there may be more like me.