In three of the last four posts (Rick St. Vick 6, 7, 9, 10) I surveyed some of Richard of St. Victor’s arguments for why there must be at least three divine persons. (We’ve yet to see an argument for there aren’t more than three persons.) Here I’d like to respond to these, and to [...]
After his initial argument from perfect love for a Trinity of persons, Richard tries to support it by a brief argument from perfect happiness. Here I wish to summarize what I take to be this confirming argument from the plenitude of happiness. [Keep in mind that ‘plenitude’ has that particular meaning of a property of [...]
In this post I’d like to focus on Richard’s initial argument for why God must be a Trinity of persons. Thus far in his argument he has argued for two divine persons, and now adds a further line of argument to show that God is in fact a Trinity and not a Binity of persons. [...]
Richard of St. Victor is well known for talking about love, and how awesome it is. It might surprise a few people who have only read the popular English translation of Book 3 (the love/ethics? book) that On the Trinity contains six books. The English translation has brought attention to what some contemporary (continental-esque) philosophers [...]
Up to this point in Book 3 Richard has told us several things about love (caritas). We have wondered at his saying there isn’t a perfectly good person if he doesn’t love. We have sorted through some necessary conditions for love such that we wonder whether a perfectly good person p must love another person [...]
In De Trinitate Book 3.7 Richard summarizes some of what comes beforehand. We have learned that supreme goodness requires supreme love (i.e. supreme love is a necessary condition for supreme goodness), and that supreme love requires more than one person. If supreme love were only self-love, then the total state of affairs “one divine person [...]
“If I think of pork-products, is that a self-conscious act of thinking?”
What follows is the first of a two part post.
Part 1: The Divine Word as Divine Practical Knowledge
Part 2: If God Weren’t a Trinity, then Creatures Would Necessarily Be Created.
Part 1
In pre-Nicene days (and post-Nicene days) there was much debate about the [...]
“Is there any Son who does not cause His Father to become a Father and vice versa?”
Here I wish to briefly summarize what I take to be Henry’s position on the question: is the Father constituted by the (personal) property of being ‘ungenerated’ (ingenitum)? Henry’s discussion of this comes from his Summa Quaestionum Ordinariarum 57.1.
Henry [...]
“My god Spock! Is this the apex of human intellectual production?” “No Captain, look within, do you smell that?”
I apologize for the delay in posting. I have been busy with, among other things, my own work.
In the previous post, I enumerated 40 lines of premises and conclusions that generally summarizes Henry’s philosophical psychology of [...]
“Will the real H.o.G. please stand up?”
Henry of Ghent was an eclectic theologian. He fancied new theories and adored old theories. When it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, Henry was a glutton for old and new doctrines. What was old that he liked? His favourite theologian was Augustine, and his favourite book [...]
“All we need is one substance to cure the ills of our society!” “I have personal experience with substance abuse, and it is wrong.”
Before I start a mini-series on the Trinitarian thought of Henry of Ghent, I thought it would be good to offer a brief survey of the late 13th c. landscape. This is [...]
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