Yes, the LTers do equivocate between the DE as an abstraction and the DE as a concrete thing. This is why Aquinas so (famously and) carefully distinguished terms that apply to the DE abstractly, and terms that apply to the DE concretely.

But as for drawings, I think that all the scholastics would want three circles drawn completely overlapping. Scotus too. We can draw the components separated to help our brains conceptualize the various bits of the puzzle, but that’s just a heuristic device. Don’t get me wrong. I draw things in my classes all the time because its so helpful to ’see’ the components of the trinity. But those sorts of pictures don’t do justice to divine simplicity. Divine simplicity entails that identity relations obtain between the DE and the PPs/persons — every LTer agrees on that, even Scotus. To capture those identity relations, we’d have to draw everything overlapping.

Maybe this helps to show why the LTers think that loving the DE entails loving a person. Since the DE is identical to a person y, if x loves DE, x loves y (by transitivity).

To Scott’s comment # 21. Scotus is unique in holding that the constituents of God are all really the same, but they are formally non-identical. I won’t go into this too much as Scotus’s view of formal non-identity is pretty famous. Basically, x and y are really the same if they are inseparable (even by divine power); x and y are formally non-identical if they are susceptible of different (Aristotelian) definitions. Let’s use ‘RSFnI’ for being really the same but formally non-identical.

Scotus thinks all the constituents of God are RSFnI. God’s omnipotence and omniscience, for example, are inseparable but defined differently, so they are RSFnI. The DE and the persons are RSFnI for the same reasons. The DE and the PPs are RSFnI for the same reasons. Scotus is a very unique LTer because he admits some kind of non-identity (namely, RSFnI) into the trinity, so his view of divine simplicity is somewhat weaker than, say, Aquinas’s.

So yes, Scott, Scotus thinks the DE is a constituent of the persons which is RSFnI to the persons. And Scotus thinks a perfect knower will know each of those constituents. But Scotus also thinks that perfect identity relations obtain between all RSFnI constituents in God. So again, transitivity carries right through. If x knows DE, and if DE = y, then x knows y.

Thus, the DE is perfectly identical to divine omnipotence, so if the Father x knows the DE, x knows divine omnipotence. Similarly, the DE is perfectly identical to the Son, so if x knows the DE, x knows the Son.

This is just a special kind of case, where the knowers (the divine persons) are perfect/infinite knowers, and the thing they know (the DE in its concrete exemplifications) is a perfect/infinite thing.

Also, as you say, it’s not like knowing a universal in the created realm, because a universal is indifferent to its exemplifications. Not so for the DE. That’s not indifferent to its exemplifications. So it would be odd to know the full ‘contents’ of the DE, as it were, without knowing something about its exemplifications.

So I think this particular case doesn’t have to do with any general account of knowledge. It just has to do with the peculiar nature of the knower and the known. If you had to pin it down to a ‘general account’ of knowledge, I’d hesitantly say to look in the Augustinian and Anselmian direction. Augustine’s stuff about perfect knowers and the perfectly known, and how knowledge entails knowing yourself (e.g., the mind) and the other (e.g., the inner word) in its fullest degree, all that stuff.

Also, divine simplicity is important. On divine simplicity, the DE is necessarily identical to each of the persons, just as it is identical to any of the divine attributes. Given this, the LTer would think it impossible to perfectly know the DE but not, say, its goodness or omniscience, for these are all identical to the DE. The same goes for the persons.

I think there is an analogous ‘problem’ with Aquinas’s acct. of individuation our God’s knowledge of individual creatures. You can look at my article here for more details: http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/SMLM/PSMLM6/PSMLM6.pdf

Suffice it to say, it is one thing to know principles that constitute an entity, it is another to know the concrete particular that exemplifies the principles. I think what is required is discussion of the ‘thisness’ of the divine essence/persons. It is sort of misleading to think of DE is a metaphysical principle; or better put, it is misleading to think of DE as a universal that is by definition indifferent to the entities that exemplify it. A follow up problem, if DE is by definition necessarily and sufficiently ‘in’ three divine persons, how would we square this with Jesus Christ’s contingently being constituted by the Son’s DE?

I’m being a stickler here–but I’m trying to look at the Aristotelian roots in this stuff, and particular where the Arist. stuff breaks down; or at least, what premises must be accepted to make sense of the claim that x’s knowing DE just counts as x’s knowing a divine person. We might even say, if x knows DE, and x’s knowing DE counts as knowledge of a divine person–does this account enable us to say whether x knows this or that divine person?

My guess is that Peter Aureoli’s (or Ockham too?) claim about the indistinction of DE and PPs is motivating you to say that we can’t conceptually make a distinction btwn. DE, a personal property, and a divine person. So, it is conceptually impossible to think DE w/o also thinking every other divine person. Is this right?

But that’s not all x knows about DE. x also knows the concrete way that DE necessarily exists, namely as three persons. So x knows Father, Son, and Spirit.

In other words, if DE is form-like and PP is form-like, and these two form-like properties together constitute a divine person–couldn’t it be the case that to say the Father knows DE does not precisely count as the Father knowing the ‘composite’ [DE+being a Son]? If the formal object of the Father’s knowing is DE, I don’t see why by this fact _alone_ this counts as the Father’s knowing a whole person?

Perhaps one way around this is how you construe DE and PPs. If somehow DE is the causal basis for the Son and the Holy Spirit, then perhaps we might say the Father knows the Son in virtue of knowing the causal basis of the Son (and Holy Spirit). But then again, is it enough to know the causal basis for the Son and Holy Spirit in order to know the two ‘products’? We can call this view the ‘DE as causal basis view’ [=DECBV].

Perhaps we don’t mean that the Father knows the Son in virtue of knowing the causal basis of the Son (i.e. DE); rather, perhaps we are saying that the Father knows a formal constituent of the Son. For an essential property of the Son is the divine essence. So if the Father knows this essential property of the Son, then the Father knows the Son by knowing this formal ‘part’ of the Son. We can call this view the ‘DE as formal constituent view’ [=DEFCV].

My concern is that DECBV and DEFCV aren’t good enough, or precise enough as accounts of the Father’s knowledge of the Son; or analogously, for the Father’s love for the Son. It seems that the sort of view we’d want to hold is something like this: the Father knows the Son inclusive of all the Son’s formal constituents [=AFC, for 'all formal constituents'].

Given divine simplicity I can see why DECBV or DEFCV would seem to suffice as an account of the Father’s knowledge/love of the Son. And moreover, that this is the only case where DECBV or DEFCV could suffice for knowledge/love of a person. Still, though, my intuition is that a more precise account could be given, something like AFC.

Yes, that is the view.

I myself am hesitant to try and generalize this point to human knowledge/love in general. This view only applies to a divine person who knows/loves the divine essence.

Part of this view is that divine knowledge is perfect, which means that anyone with divine knowledge will know as much as they can. Human knowledge is not perfect, so it’s not the case that anyone with human knowledge will necessarily know everything that is knowlable.

For example, when I love a widow, I don’t need to (and probably cannot) know everything about the widow. But if a divine person loves the widow, they will necessarily know everything about her. Similarly, if a divine person knows the divine essence, they will necessarily know everything about it, and one of the things that can be known (by a perfect divine mind) about the divine essence is that it is necessarily exemplified as Father, Son, and Spirit.

Is the view that if a divine person loves the divine essence, then it necessarily follows that the person loves the other persons who are constituted by the divine essence?

In contemporary epistemology there is a view called ‘closure’. A basic description of this view is as follows: Socrates knows that if P, then Q. But Socrates knows P, therefore Socrates also knows Q . ‘Closure’ is often criticized b/c it indicates or suggests that you ‘know more than you know’. For example, if I know that James is a human being, does it necessarily follow that _I_ know James has the capacity for laughter? The anti-closure position would say ‘no, Scott doesn’t necessarily know that James has the capacity for laughter’. One reason for this is based on an ‘open view’-namely, I’d need to know James has the capacity for laughter and only then could I add this knowledge together with my other knowledge that James is a human being. Only then could I perhaps figure out that James’s capacity for laughter is a necessary and non-essential property of James.

Now, with the case of divine love, is there something analogous to the closure/open views? If the Father loves the divine essence, does the Father necessarily love another person? If you hold the closure view, then yes, the Father does love all persons constituted by DE; but if you hold an open view, then no, the Father only loves DE and not another person qua person. On an open view, we’d need to say that the Father loves divine persons— but then perhaps the reverse issue would come up– if the Father loves other divine persons, does the Father necessarily love DE? It perhaps seems that the same situation arises–it depends if you uphold a closure or open view…

All this to say, to love the one ‘overlap’ among the three circles (on the Scotist model) is not identical with saying you love the whole circle, even the part that overlaps with the other 2 circles. So yes, I think Dale is on to something here.

However, if we look at e.g. Henry’s model, then to say you love DE is closer to the claim that you’d be loving a whole divine person, b/c you’d be loving the whole circle which is identical with DE and the personal property. Dale, maybe you could help me ‘draw’ some circles?

OK - I still, sorry, don’t see why loving DE would entail loving the persons of which it is a component. JT - we can *say* that it does, intend it to, but I think we need to show it to. As Scott points out, it is coherent to, e.g. love the matter of this bookcase and not its form - to love its matter isn’t (necessarily) to love it. In general, if we love something, it doesn’t follow that we love “everything that’s either in it or necessarily entailed by it.” If you love a widow, suppose she has essential parts X, Y, Z (suppose: brain parts). It doesn’t follow that you love them. (esp. if we’re talking about a love-attitude one only adopts to persons) And her existence (qua widow) entails that her husband is dead - perhaps you don’t love the fact that her husband is dead - he was a buddy of yours. As you say, JT, LT *tries to* make room for the personal love, but it’s not clear that it successfully does.

I agree with your points about essential features and merely necessary ones. It’s not clear to me just where events fit into Aristotelian metaphysics. But in that middle of that comment you put your finger on the problem: “If *two people* love each other…” Problem is, the LT we’re discussing has Persons “loving” a universal (which yes, is *supposed to* count as their loving one another).

I’m not sure why you talk about a metaphysician loving a *concept*. Rather, he’d be loving a metaphysical… principle or component, or whatever. You say “But this isn’t really a perfect (or ‘full’) act of love.” But that’s what needs to be shown. Why couldn’t it, be, if that metaphysician’s mental stance is sufficiently… arduous, if I can put it that way.

Scott - yeah, I think you’re right that some STers, under early modern influence (Descartes, Kant, Reid) think that selves should be irreducible, fundamental entities. But I think they might accept composed, non-basic persons, if the Trinity theory was more Swinburne-like, in positing what are clearly person-to-person relationships.

This is just a guess. I’m sure there are STers that are quite happy to talk about metaphysical parts, but my guess is that an STer wants the word ‘person’ to be metaphysically basic, rather than to signify the sum of two metaphysical per se parts (i.e. DE + a personal property).

Dale comments that on the Aristotelian view, love occurs when one person takes a pro-attitude (of some sort) on something else. And you aptly point out that the problem STers see with this is that personal fellowship, community, and so forth just drops out of the picture. I think that’s a clear way of putting the worry that most STers see with the ‘classical’ notion of love.

But it seems to me that it doesn’t quite hit the mark. To explain this, I’ll take a little detour into essential and necessary properties first.

The Aristotelians think, like most of us do today, that a kind-essence includes a whole lot of properties that are necessarily instantiated in every individual of that kind. However, the Aristotelians class some of these properties as ‘essential’ and some of them as ‘necessary’. For example, every human will exemplify humanity, rationality, risibility, and so forth. But the Aristotelians say animality and rationality are ‘essential’, and the others (like risibility) are ‘necessary’.

So if every human will necessarily have all these properties, what’s the point of saying some are ‘essential’ and some are ‘necessary’? The reason is that the Aristotelians think the essential properties explain (and for some, causes) all the others. Animality and rationality, for example, explain (and for some, causes) all the others like risibility to be instantiated too. So the Aristotelians distinguish essential and necessary properties for explanatory reasons.

Given this, it would be a mistake to say that when the Aristotelians describe the human essence as ‘animality and rationality’, then the ability to laugh drops out of the picture. This would be a mistake because although animality and rationality are the ‘essential’ properties, risibility is a necessary property, and so there can be no human without risibility.

Okay, with all that said, the same goes for the Aristotelian view of love. Yes, the Aristotelians say that when one person loves something, we just need one person x who performs an act of love A which is directed/inclined at some y. But that’s not all that happens. This is just the ‘essence’ of love. It is the root level analysis which explains/causes all other necessary properties that occur in love. And of course there are other necessary properties and/or states of affairs that come along with this.

If two people both love each other, for example, then community, fellowship, and all of that jazz will come along with it too. But for an Aristotelian, these are more like the necessary properties, not the essential properties. That is, the essential properties explains/causes the necessary properties. Indeed: if no person loved another (the essence), then fellowship, community, etc. (the necessary properties) wouldn’t exist either.

So I think it’s a mistake for the STers to say that on the classical view, the necessary properties (fellowship, community, etc.) drop out of the picture. They don’t. It’s just that the Aristotelians won’t class those necessary properties as ‘essential’ for explanatory purposes.

So the worry of ST about the classical view — that there is no community, fellowing, etc. — seems to me unfounded. I myself agree with the STers that the best kind of love includes community, fellowship, and so forth. But the Aristotelians would agree with this too.

Does this make sense? I may be getting too into technical stuff unnecessarily.

(I myself don’t follow an Aristotelian view on love, btw, even though I’m defending it. I just think the ‘personalists/relationalists’ and STers have given the classical view a bad rap which can at times be fairly historically inaccurate.)

I’m assuming that EL, as a perfect act of love, is as passionate and vigorous as it can be. I’m also assuming that loving the divine essence involves loving everything that’s either in it or necessarily entailed by it. The divine persons are thus included. They come along with, as it were, the divine essence.

To clarify this point. LTers maintain that just as it’s impossible to know/love the divine essence fully/perfectly without knowing/loving its goodness and omnipotence, so too is it impossible to know/love the divine essence without knowing/loving the persons that exemplify it.

LTers would also maintain that this is true for the divine persons who love the divine essence, and for the blessed in heaven who love the divine essence. In both cases, loving the divine essence entails loving the divine persons.

Maybe I can put the point like this. Whether you are a divine person or a human person in heaven, staring at/knowing/loving the divine essence is not like staring at a big white light. It’s like staring at/knowing/loving three persons who perfectly exemplify the numerically same essence.

Anyways, so on the LT view, each divine person essentially loves the divine essence, and this means that each person essentially loves each other too. And if we want to say that a divine person ‘experiences’ being loved by another, then each divine person would therefore experience being loved by the other persons too.

To put it another way, EL includes PL. For LTers, EL is intended to be robust enough to include all the community/personal stuff that PL does too.

So I guess I’m just not clear why all the community/personal and mutual love stuff (relations) wouldn’t (obtain for) apply to the divine persons, given just EL.

(As I see it, the problem isn’t that the LT view makes no room for community/personal love. Indeed, LT tries to build all that stuff in. Rather, the problem as I see it is whether LT coherently/successfully does so.)

I agree that there is a qualitative difference in these goods: being Lord of a good (inanimate) creation, and being in fellowship with another person. However, it is less clear what the difference is between fellowship with another divine person, and with a community of Christ-like human persons. That might be more a matter of degree - hard to say.

But in any case, it is one thing to assert that a divine or perfect being must enjoy such a good, and another to argue for it. With Davis, it’s supposed to be a necessary truth. The way one argues for a necessary truth is to show how it is impossible (contradictory) for the claim in question to be false - that’s how necessary truths are, such that it’s contradictory to suppose them false. I believe that no social trinitarians actually shoulder this burden. They just want it to be true that divinity or perfection implies actual loving of another; they’re enraptured by this image of God as a having a built-in community.

God’s essence can’t be identical to any person, for on the accounts we’re talking about, some things are true of one but not the other. (See this previous post.) They could in some other, lesser sense be “the same”, but then we must be told what that is.

As for God’s love of his essence, my take on it would be that God’s essence just is the persons (I believe that’s where Henry ends up, right?). So, the inference interpreted theologically, after the standpoint of revelation, would be true: God’s love of his essence just is the love of the persons for each other (and self), as one single love. However, I’m not sure that this helps from the standpoint of metaphysics and trying to prove the doctrine of the Trinity in the first place.