I'm a hybrid. I'm made of lines, but I also shine (as indicated by more lines).

In the last post, I explained that Nestorians believe that a complete individual human nature is indiscernible from an individual human person.

Monophysites also take this idea very seriously. In fact, the Monophysite takes very seriously the more general claim that a complete individual nature of any kind is indiscernible from the corresponding individual that belongs to that kind (for instance, a complete individual cow-nature just is the individual cow in question). So if there are two natures in Christ, then there will be two individuals that correspond to each of those natures.

But the Monophysite does not want to say that there are two persons in Christ, so he will insist that there is just one nature in Christ. That way, there will just be one person. But since Christ is both human and divine, this one nature must be a special hybrid of divinity and humanity.

The strongest form of Monophysitism would claim that this hybrid Christness-nature has all divine properties, and all human properties. This, however, is incoherent, for it would amount to two persons as well. After all, having all the divine properties is sufficient for membership in God’s-kind, and having all human properties is sufficient for membership in human-kind. There would, then, still be two natures, which contradicts the initial claim that there is just one (allegedly) hybrid nature.

So the more careful Monophysite will want to say that Christ lacks at least some of the properties required for either or both of God’s-kind or human-kind. That way, there will not be two natures (and hence, not two persons).

This allows us to distinguish between various forms of ‘weak’ monophysitism. For example:

(a) One could say that Christ only lacks a human feature (e.g., rationality). That’s Apollinarianism (a weak form of Monophysitism).

(b) One could say that Christ lacks certain divine features (e.g., omnipotence). That’s kenoticism (a weak form of Monophysitism as well).

(c) One could say that Christ lacks certain divine features and certain human features (e.g., an Apollinarian-Kenoticist?), and that would be the weakest form of Monophysitism.

Don't let my flowing white locks fool you. I have sound ideas.

In the last post, I explained that an individual human nature is indiscernible from an individual human person.

The Nestorianism takes this point very seriously. As she sees it, if the Word (= the second person of the Trinity) assumes a complete individual human nature, then the Word assumes a discrete human person too, for a complete individual human nature is completely indiscernible from a discrete human person. But the Word is already a discrete person, namely a divine person, so the question is this: is the divine person identical to the assumed human person?

It would seem that the answer is no. For instance, one could point out that if x and y are the very same thing, then they must share all the same properties. But the divine person and the human person in Christ do not share all the same properties. For example, the divine person does not grow or take in nutrients, while the human person does. So the divine person must not be the same as the human person.

But that means there are two distinct persons in Christ: a divine person and a human person. And that is precisely what Nestorianism claims: there are two natures, and two persons in Christ.

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In the last post, I classified Monophysitism, Chalcedonianism, and Nestorianism. All three of these must grapple with a basic philosophical issue, namely this: a complete indvidual human nature brings along with it everything required for being a discrete human person.

Note that ‘individual human nature’ does not mean the humanity in the human in question (readers of scholastic philosophy are often tempted to think that). Rather, it means the humanity plus any individuating features, whatever they might be (a haecceity, a unique collection of accidents, or whatever). That is, an individual human nature is whatever it is that makes an individual human the particular human that it is.

For instance, if some x has a complete individual human nature, then one might say that x has the relevant kind of organic body, the ability to take in and process nutrients, grow, be sentient, think and love, and so on, and all of these things are what being a particular human consists in.

However, these also seem to be the very things that being a particular human person consists in too. After all, it is hard to imagine a human person without the relevant kind of organic body, the ability to process nutrients, be sentient, think and love, and so forth. To be all these things is just what it means to be a particular human person.

So on the face of it, it looks as if being an individual human is the very same as being an individual human person. That is, if one has a complete individual human nature, then they have everything needed to be a discrete human person too. Or, to put it another way, an individual human is completely indiscernible from the corresponding individual human person.

We're here to defend the faith against heresy!

The Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) condemned Monophysitism and Nestorianism. The following table helps to classify Monophysitism, Nestorianism, and Chalcedonianism.

Nestorianism: 2 natures, 2 persons
Chalcedonianism: 2 natures, 1 person
Monophysitism: 1 nature, 1 person

So Nestorians hold that in Christ, there are two natures (discrete divine and human natures), and two persons (discrete divine and human persons).

Chalcedonians hold that there are two natures (discrete divine and human natures) but one person (Jesus Christ).

Monophysites hold that there is one nature (a special divine-human hybrid nature) and one person (Jesus Christ).

In the next post, I will discuss the basic philosophical issue that these various positions grapple with.

If the circle and triangle overlap, that's bad. If they don't overlap, that's bad too.

These days, when analytic philosophers of theology talk about the Incarnation, they often say things like ‘if such-and-such, then such-and-such, but that would be Nestorianism’. The implication, of course, is that landing oneself in Nestorianism would be a very bad thing.

But why? Perhaps a lay person might want to avoid Nestorianism because they were told it was a ‘heresy’. But a hard-core Christian philosopher, I think, would want to be more explicit about saying just what Nestorianism is, and provide some reason for why they want to avoid it (rather than just asserting that some position is Nestorian).

So what, exactly, is the philosophical meat and potatoes of Nestorianism? In this series of posts, I want to explain what Nestorianism is from a philosophical point of view. Monophysitism is also thrown around sometime in these discussions, so I will discuss that too.

(Oh, I think there are still thriving ‘Nestorian’ and ‘Monophysite’ (or to use the politically correct term, ‘Miaphysite’) Christian communities out there, but the beliefs of these communities do not necessarily match up with the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies that were condemned by the early church. In these posts, I am only talking about the condemned heresies.)

We might look happy, but we're not. One of us really hated the guy who looks 'asleep'; one of us really loathes someone's antiperspirant. We need love. Please help.

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 a substance that is not from another substance, but all other substances are from it.] Richard argues that if we are committed to the claim that God is perfectly happy, then we should also be committed to the claim that God is a Trinity of persons. In a nutshell, Richard supposes that perfect love is a necessary condition for perfect happiness. And most of us would suppose God is happy, right?

x = Father; y = Son; z = Holy Spirit

(1) If x has the plenitude of perfect happiness, then x has the plenitude of perfect love.

(2) If x has the plenitude of perfect love, then there is an x, y, and z that mutually love one another. (From his argument from perfect love.)

(3) But if e.g., y does not love x (e.g., because y is unwilling), then x grieves because y does not love x.

(5) If x (forever) grieves, then x is (forever) not perfectly happy.

(6) Thus, x’s not having the plenitude of perfect love entails that x is not perfectly happy.

(7) But surely x, who satisfies the description of the best of all possible beings, is perfectly happy; therefore, x has perfect love.

(8) Therefore, God is a Trinity of persons.

“From this therefore, we gather and grasp by indubitable reasoning that the plenitude of happiness excludes every defect of love, whose perfection demands a Trinity of persons, as has been said, and furthermore shows clearly that it cannot be lacking. Behold how … supreme happiness … proclaims the assertion of the Trinity [of persons].”

In my next (and last) post, I say what I think of these arguments.

Three is perfection, four is redundant. (Un)Fortunately, one of these people gets knocked-off.

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. Why must God be a Trinity of persons? Richard argues from his notion of perfect love.

“Greatest love cannot lack in anything.”

Perfect love requires the following.

(i) A person “wishes another to be loved as oneself.”
(ii) A person “wishes that another person be loved equally by the one whom s/he loves supremely and by whom s/he is supremely loved.”

Translation: For person a, person b, and person c, a has perfect love only if

(1.) a equally loves b, and vice versa.

(2.) a equally loves c, and vice versa.

(3.) a desires that b equally loves c, and that c equally loves b.

(1)-(3) will be jointly sufficient for a‘s perfect love if it turns out that there is a b and a c, and that all the lovin’ obtains between a, b and c as described in (1.)-(3.), especially that b equally loves c, and vice versa.

Recall that ‘equal love’ requires that the persons who ‘equally love’ have the same substance-kind. We might say the intensity (my word) of love is measured by the kind of substance that is the object of love. If I love a human, there’s a certain intensity of my love for a human; but if I love God, then my love is maxed-out because God is the most lovable being. Also, recall that Richard argued in Book 1 of On the Trinity that there can be only one divine substance. Thus, for a to love an equal, b and c, b and c must satisfy the following necessary and sufficient condition:

For divine person a, who has the one divine substance essentially, persons b and c are equal to a if and only if b and c each has the one divine substance essentially.

Notice that a divine person can love a creature ‘perfectly’, but that this love is not ‘love of an equal’ because no creature (besides Jesus) is constituted by the divine substance. So, God can “so love the world that …”, but we might say the quality of this love is fixed by the object of the love. Since divine persons are divine, love for such a person is as intense a love as possible; but love for creatures is less intense simply by reason of the kind of being that a creature is.

The argument from perfect love for a Trinity of persons continues.

(4.) If a has perfect love, then there must be a third person c, otherwise a fails to have perfect love.

(5.) If a fails to have perfect love, then either a is unwilling to have perfect love or is unable to have perfect love.

(5.i) If a is unwilling to have perfect love, then perfect love must be elsewhere. But who else besides a divine person could have perfect love essentially? Nobody. But a person who has the divine substance essentially satisfies the description of ‘the best of all possible beings’ (substances). Therefore, a person, who has the divine substance essentially, has perfect love.

(5.ii) If a, who has the divine substance essentially, is unable to have perfect love, then a does not satisfy the description of the best of all possible beings (substances). But a, who has the divine substance essentially, satisfies the description ‘the best of all possible beings’. But a person who satisfies the description ‘the best of all possible beings’ has perfect love. Therefore, a has perfect love.

(6.) Therefore, there are (at least) three divine persons.

In the next post I survey another argument that Richard employs, namely an argument from perfect happiness.

Yeah!! It just might be that constitutional theories are on the rise. Thanks Rick St. Vick!

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 would call Richard’s ‘erotics’. What remains to be seen is whatever he says in Books 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. In this post I’d like to focus on one theme in these other books, which I’ll call Richard’s Constitutional Latin Trinitarianism (= CLT). At the start I must say that I am claiming that Richard suggests a constitutional model of the Trinity and not that he straightforwardly proposes one. At least, Richard can be read to propose such a model–after all, certain later scholastics like Henry of Ghent seem to have read Richard in that way.

In what follows I give a taxonomy  of constitutional Trinitarian theories. I do not say this is an exhaustive taxonomy; nevertheless it helps to isolate the sort of constitutional model that I think can be read off of books 1, 2, 4, and 5.

Genus: Constitutional Models. Every divine person is constituted by two concrete properties, the divine substance and a unique distinguishing personal property.

Species1: For each divine person there is numerically one divinity. (Three persons, three divinities.) E.g., social                   trinitarianism.

Species2: There is numerically one divine substance. (Three persons, one divine substance).

Sub-Species1: Material Constitution Model. Divine persons are the same in virtue of having the divine substance essentially, and the divine substance is like a subject of essential accidental forms.

Difference1: Material Constitution Derivation Model. The Father is identical to the divine substance, and the Son and Holy Spirit have the divine substance derivatively. Hence, there are two essential accidental forms that inhere in the divine substance.

Difference2: Material Constitution Generic Model. No divine person is identical to the divine substance. Hence, every divine person has the divine substance in a unique way analogous to three essential accidental forms of the same substance.

Sub-species2: Non-Material Constitution Model. Divine persons are the same in virtue of having the divine substance essentially, and the divine substance is like an immanent universal nature and not like a subject of accidents.

Difference1: Non-Material Constitution Derivation Model. The Father is identical to the divine substance, and the Son and Holy Spirit each have the divine substance essentially and derivatively in a unique way.

Difference2: Non-Material Constitution Generic Model: No divine person is identical to the divine substance. Every divine person essentially has the divine substance in a unique way.

My proposed interpretation of Richard of St. Victor is as follows:
Genus: Constitution Model
Species: Numerically one divine substance.
Sub-Species: Non-material constitution
Specific Difference: Generic model of the divine substance

I should mention what I take to be a similarity btwn. the material and non-material constitutional models. There is a certain job to be done in each theory to account for how the same divine substance is a constituent of every divine person. This addresses the Christian claim that there is one God, one Creator, one Lord, etc.

On the one hand, the material constitution model proposed by Brower and Rea employs the “sameness without identity” thesis. On the other hand, on my read of Richard’s metaphysics of the Trinity he supposes the divine substance is a singular existing non-divisible universal nature, what Richard Cross has aptly called (in discussing Duns Scotus’s theory) the divine substance’s “being exemplifiable”. If we think the divine substance is exemplifiable, then it cannot be numerically divided up, but it can be a constituent of more than one divine person. Being exemplifiable is a peculiar way that a universal is communicable to many. Another way that a universal is communicable to many is if it is instantiable, then it divisible into numerically distinct occurrences. Richard of St. Victor seems to think of creaturely essences as instantiable, and he in effect denies that the divine substance is instantiable. So, it would seem that we could detect a sameness without identity thesis in Richard too–although it wouldn’t be along the lines of a material constitution model, b/c he doesn’t think of the divine substance like a substance that bears accidental forms (essentially). Nevertheless, on Richard’s view the divine substance is one existing thing that constitutes several divine persons.

Now, what of the personal properties? If a common nature is instantiable, then an instantiated nature entails a non-instantiable personal property; if a common nature is exemplifiable, then the exemplified common nature entails a non-exemplifiable personal property. So, to Richard of St. Victor’s mind, the personal properties are (in effect) non-exemplifiable (what he calls “incommunicable”). Whether or not these personal properties are relations or absolute properties is irrelevant here. What matters is that on Richard’s view every divine person is (in effect) constituted by the divine substance (and since the divine substance is a constituent of every divine person we can say it is ‘a common property’) and by a non-exemplifiable personal property which distinguishes the persons from one another.

One last comparison. On the material and non-material constitutional theories, I take it that both affirm the following:

The name ‘God’ is not a proper personal name, since Father, Son, and Holy Spirit equally satisfy it. Hence, the name ‘God’ does not signify this person, but a certain person, namely the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. (Of course, you could also use the name ‘God’ at once to refer to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but this grammar might lead away from a constitution account of the Triune God).

Consider the following suggestive passage from Richard of St. Victor’s On the Trinity Book 4.16 ln.35-49:

It should be kept in mind that existence designates substantial being, but sometimes [a substantial being] from what is common, and other times [a substantial being] from what is an incommunicable property. However, we say a common existence when it is understood to obtain from [1] a common property. But [we say] incommunicable when it is understood to obtain from [2] an incommunicable property. In truth [3] it is proper to the divine substance not to be from some other substance (but only from itself), and in truth [4] it is proper to the person that does not have an origin not to be from some other person. On the one hand, [1.1] [the divine substance] is understood [as] a common property, but on the other hand [4.1] [not-having-an-origin-from-another-person] is an incommunicable property. For it is common to all divine persons to be this substance which is not from some other substance but from itself. Therefore when the divine substance is said or understood to be from itself, [5] the same [property] is common to the existing [persons].

In [1] I take Richard to posit a concrete property; from Book 1 he gives a cosmological argument to the effect that the divine substance can only be numerically one. This property is ‘common’–that is, it is (and so can be) a constituent of more than one divine person.

In [2] I take Richard to posit an incommunicable property, which is a personal property. A personal property belongs (and can belong) only to one person.

In [3] I take Richard to posit that the divine substance as such depends on no other substance for its being. Hence, the singular exemplifiable divine substance has the [abstract] property does not depend on another substance.

In [4] I take Richard to be talking about the Father, and he attributes to the Father the incommunicable property does not depend on any other _person_ for his existence. However, the [abstract] property does not depend on another _substance_ is not an incommunicable property of the Father or any divine person. In [5] Richard makes clear that the [abstract] property not being from another substance is common to every divine person. So, it is not unique to the Father to not depend on another substance.

In [5] Richard concludes by saying the [abstract] property not being from another substance is common to every divine person. The reason it is common to all persons is because the singular divine substance, which is not from another substance, is an essential constituent of every divine person.

By inference, no divine person is identical to the divine substance (cf. [1], [5]). In On the Trinity Book 4.8 Richard makes clear that every divine person is constituted by two properties, a common property and an incommunicable property, or what (borrowing from Richard Cross) I call an exemplifiable immanent universal, and a non-exemplifiable personal property.

There is only one.

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 q if p is to be perfectly good. You might say we’ve been contemplating some divine ethics, or aesthetics, or whatever.

In the previous post I suggested how we might interpret what Richard means by saying (two) divine persons are equal and similar to one another, namely the divine persons have the same disposition of love and the same acts of love (see [T4’] and [T5’]). In the next part of Richard’s argument he returns to his metaphysics of the divine substance which he discussed in Books 1 and 2. (In the English translation the term ‘plenitudo’ is translated as ‘fullness’, which might be misleading because it is a technical term in contrast with ‘participation’ (participatio). So I stick with ‘plenitude’.) In Book 3.8 Richard reminds us that

R1: In mutually loved and mutually loving persons, in order that supreme love might exist worthily, there must be in each both supreme perfection and the [plenitude] of all perfection.

In Book 1 Richard distinguished between ‘plenitude’ and ‘participation’.

R2: If p has a plenitude of X, then p has X independently of all other substances.

R3: If p has a participation of X, then p has X dependently on another substance.

Think of the plenitude of X as the original X, and participation as contingently having a likeness of X. So,

R4: If each divine person p and q has the plenitude of supreme love, then p and q have supreme love independently of any other substance.

In Book 1 Richard argued that there can be only one substance that is eternal and causally depends on no other substance; all other existing substances are either sempiternal (roughly co-eternal) causally from another substance (e.g., angels), or temporal and causally from another substance (all material creatures); there is no substance that is temporal and not causally from another substance.

Given R1, R2, and R4, it looks like there are two persons that have numerically the same substance. But what level of generality or individuality is this substance? Some (Aristotelian secondary) substances are quite general like animal, and some are quite specific like human. Even still, there are individual humans like Dale, Joseph, and JT. So, on what level ought we to take the divine substance? Well, none of these. Instead, in Book 2.12, which I consider to be one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated sections of Richard’s De Trinitate, he declares that some substances by definition are singular, non-repeatable, non-instantiable (I explain ‘instantiable’ and ‘non-instantiable’ a bit more in the next post). That is, if we consider the person Daniel, he is constituted by the substance Danielitas (Richard borrows from Boethius’s Platonitas). If a person is constituted by Danielitas, then he is the person Daniel. Having made this distinction Richard applies it to the divine substance by calling it divinitas. If a person is constituted by divinitas, then he is a divine person. (I return to the ‘constitution’ issue in the next post.) Notice that divinitas is a substance and there cannot be further instantiations of it. So, the two divine persons (at this point in the argument) have numerically the same singular substance called divinitas.

Next Richard gives us some rhetorical helps. Consider a human person. On Richard’s view she is composed of two substances: a bodily substance and a rational substance, and yet she is one person. Why think it impossible then if in God there is one substance and yet more than one person? Crazier things happen….

“Explain to me, I implore you, how there is personal unity in so great a dissimilitude and diversity of substances, and I will tell you how there is a substantial unity in so great a similitude and equality of [divine] persons. You say, ‘I do not grasp it; I do not understand; but even if the understanding does not grasp it, nevertheless experience itself per suades me.’ Well said indeed and rightly too! But if experience teaches you that something exists in human nature that is above understanding, should it not also have taught you that something exists above your understanding in divine nature? And so a person can learn from himself, by way of opposites as it were, what he ought to think concerning those things which are proposed to him for believing concerning his God.” (Book 3.10)

Before moving on to Richard’s initial argument for why there must be a trinity and not a duality of divine persons based on what he takes as the nature of perfect love I want to mention one hitherto overlooked issue in contemporary Trinitarian discussions. This issue will certainly be discussed after this current series on Book 3 of Richard’s De Trinitate. That is, Richard’s apparent constitutional Latin trinitarianism [= CLT] which I take as a different stream of Latin trinitarianism than the one Brian Leftow has called “a Latin Trinity” or “the Latin Trinity”. I take Richard and those who rightly interpret him or agree with him (e.g., Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus) to follow CLT, but those who are less interested in Richard’s own view or just misinterpret him to satisfy Leftow’s LT, or what I would call non-constitutional Latin trinitarianism [= NCLT]. If this is right, as I believe it is, then Brower and Rea have some new (non-Dominican) comrades.

Hey bro. I'm JR Ewing. (Forget Dynasty, Dallas - the best kind of city -is awesome.) Just because you don't love me doesn't mean I don't love you.

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 has self-love” is not as perfect a state of affairs as another total state of affairs, namely “two persons have self-love, and each loves the other person.” Thus,

If there is supreme love, then there is a plurality of persons.

Likewise, Henry infers from what he takes to be the nature of supreme love to entail the equality of the persons in question.

If there is supreme love, then there is an equality of persons.

Below I try to explain  just what all this means.

Richard says that divine persons are equal and similar to one another. It is somewhat unclear what he means by this distinction, but the best sense I can make is this.

(T4’)    Divine persons are equal if they have the same dispositions (wisdom, goodness, etc.).

(T5’)    Divine persons are similar if they exercise their same dispositions.

So, a divine person is perfect if this person satisfies (T4) (= For any person x, if x has a charitable disposition P, x is not perfect if x does not exercise P ) and (T5) (= For any person x, if x has a charitable disposition P, x is not perfect if x does not exercise P on some person y, where x is not identical to y.). And, if any divine persons x and y are equal and similar to one another, then x and y satisfy (T4’) and (T5’).

At this point there is ambiguity about the precise meaning of ‘same’ in (T4’) and (T5’). I will talk about this issue in the next post.

Richard believes that the love between divine persons is supreme love. But what does it mean to ‘love supremely’? Here is what I think Richard is getting at.

Beings come in (substance) kinds. For example, there are rocks, tree, cats, cars, humans, angels, and God. Each of these is worthy of a certain kind of love. If I love a creature in the way I love God, then there is something gone wrong. A human being is certainly lovable, but there might be things about a human being that are not so lovable, e.g., sin, imperfection, etc. Or again, suppose humans never fell into the state of sin. Is a righteous human creature equally lovable to God? Well, no. Consider one of the 10 Commandments, “you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and you shall have no other gods before me.” Or again, rational creatures might require discursive reasoning to acquire beliefs and knowledge, and so depend on other things for these. But God does not require discursive reasoning, nor does God depend on others for these things. The point here is that our love for God is of a different kind than our love for any creature, no matter the righteous or unrighteous state (or actions) or powers of the creature in question.

So, if a divine person is going to love another person, this divine person could love a creature, or another divine person. But all creatures, whatever kind they are, are contingent, lesser in kind, and so less lovable than God. So if this divine person loves a creature, then this divine person has love for a less lovable kind of being (though of course, still lovable! We might say, ‘x is lovable in proportion to the kind of being x is’.). But Richard claims that for a divine person to have supreme love, the supreme love must be love for an equal. This equal must be co-eternal, because the first divine person is eternal. So, necessarily the first divine person always loves this other person. But suppose God eternally creates. In this case, a divine person might love a co-eternal creature. Nevertheless, any creature is a lesser kind than every divine person, and so a divine person’s love for a creature is not supreme love. Supreme love is relative to kinds. But divinity is the highest kind, thus every divine person is most lovable. Thus,

(T7)    Supreme love should be directed at the highest kind of lovable beings.

Besides, the first divine person is no fool because this first divine person is wise, good, etc. So, this divine person knows that if there is to be supreme love for the highest kind of lovable beings, then this divine person will love another divine person, otherwise it won’t be supreme love, but love for a lesser kind. So,

(T8)    “Supremely wise goodness guides discretion.” (“Who ya’ gonna love?”)

The first divine person is not ignorant, but directs love for another at another divine person.
At this point in the argument the first divine person has self-love and lover for another divine person. Moreover, if divine persons are equal and similar, then there will be mutual love between them.

Consider the following possible state of affairs:

(S1)     A divine person x (1) has self-love and (2) loves divine person y, and (3) y has             self-love but (4) y does not love x.

The only bad part in (S1) is (4). Thus, we might analyze (S1) as a case where x’s love for y is balanced off by y’s not loving x. (S1) overall is a good total state of affairs, but there could be a better one.

Consider another possible state of affairs:

(S2)    A divine person x (1) has self-love and (2) loves divine person y, and (3) y has             self-love and (4) y loves x.

By comparison we might say that the possible states of affairs (S2) is better than (S1) because (S2) has all good parts and no bad parts.

But, if (S2) is an overall great state of affairs, is it indefeasibly the greatest overall possible state of affairs? Could there be another total state of affairs (S3) that is better than (S2) such that (S2) can lose the title “the greatest state of affairs”? As we will see several posts from this one, Richard concedes that there is an (S3) such that (S2) is not indefeasibly the greatest overall possible state of affairs. Before moving onto the question of (S3), Richard solidifies what he takes “the same” to mean in (T4’) and (T5’), and this will be the subject of the next post.

Philosophical theology in a small-town newspaper. Yes, really!

My other blog gig is as the Theist on Objectivist v. Constructivist v. Theist. This blog was begun to post the newspaper columns (in our local paper) in which my collegues Bruce Simon (liberal, aka “Constructivist”) and Steve Kershnar (libertarian, aka “Objectivist”) debated points of politics and morality. When Bruce no longer had the time, I stepped in as the Theist, and debated Steve mostly on moral and religious questions in a series of sort of debate style opinion columns. Steve is a good friend and colleague, and we’ve frequently butted heads on all sorts of things since I was hired at Fredonia in 2000. He’s sharp, well-read, funny, and has a winning personality. To say he’s well-published would be an understatement – see his whopper c.v.  He’s written on many questions of justice, public policy, ethics, and philosophy of religion. His work is original, rigorous, and informed by relevant empirical research. In addition his his philosophy PhD (he’s a proud, proud Cornhusker) he holds a law degree from Penn. In his inimitable trouble-making style, he decided to write a column on the Trinity leading up to Christmas, which we’re please to cross-post from here.  - Dale

THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY

The Objectivist [Steve Kershnar]

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 21, 2008

“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 ontological status and (narrative) identity of the Son of God. One branch of discussion focused on the Apostle John’s claim that the Son of God is the Word of God. In various places in the New Testament the Son of God is identified as the agent through whom the Father creates the world, which is equivalent with saying the Word of the Father and the Father create creatures.

From these sources a ‘Logos-theology’ was born (that you can read about in the history books). The Logos is that by which creatures are created, have their existence and persistence in existing.

Now, Henry takes up the question as to whether the Word is ‘practical knowledge’. Henry generally gets his definitions of kinds of knowledge from Aristotle. From Aristotle we learn about three kinds of knowledge: speculative knowledge, practical knowledge and productive knowledge.

Speculative knowledge is knowledge for its own sake. There is no other end in mind than just knowing some X.

Practical knowledge includes the conceptual content of speculative knowledge but has a certain end or action in mind. Medical doctors have practical knowledge; they know all sorts of things about the human body in order to repair broken and malfunctioning parts of the body. Doctors know about human bodies for the purpose of healing human bodies. What doctors do is some action, e.g. repair a cancerous heart. What they do is adjust or re-shape something that already exists (e.g. people’s eyes, hearts, hands).

Productive knowledge is about some x for the purpose of making an x; and existence has its own independent existence (e.g. an axe is a product with its own existence). For example, a poet knows how poems are supposed to be constructed (prosody, etc.) and then makes poems. What remains after the action of the poet is some product with (independent) per se existence, i.e. some poem there on the written page or there produced in the memory of the hearers of the poet when the poet recites his/her poem. Productive knowledge presupposes some material on which to make the product. A sculptor requires marble, clay or bronze in order to make his/her statue.

So Henry asks whether the divine Word is practical knowledge. What this amounts to is whether the divine Word contains some kind or sort of knowledge that the other kind of divine knowledge does not contain. What is this other kind of divine knowledge?

In short, this other kind of divine knowledge is the knowledge that the three divine persons have in common. If some thinker is constituted by the divine essence, and the divine essence includes the power to think/’have’ knowledge; and there are three who are constituted by the divine essence, then there are three thinkers who ‘have’ divine knowledge. This common knowledge, in medieval speak called ‘essential knowledge’, is conceptually perfect in every way; there is no lack or conceptual defect in divine essential knowledge. This perfect essential knowledge is what Henry calls ‘simple knowledge’; this basically means that the divine intellect is passive, it simply receives all of its conceptual content from its object (divine essence) which is present to the divine intellect. Nevertheless, as we have seen, Henry thinks the divine intellect is passive (that results in simple knowledge) and then active (that results in the produced mental Word).

Henry says certain provocative things like, ‘the Word is cognition of an intellect knowing that it knows what it knows and knowing the very act of knowing what it knows’; this could possibly be glossed in modern day language as ‘the Word is self-conscious knowledge’. (I have certain hesitations that Henry thinks the Word is the formal cause of self-conscious knowledge in the three divine persons on the premise that Henry thinks divine essential knowledge is perfect in every way; ‘perfect knowledge’ should at least amount to self-conscious knowledge, no?)

So, in SQO 59.6, the last article and question on the Son and Word of God, Henry asks whether the Word is practical knowledge? He dialectically goes through six possible definitions of practical knowledge that basically covers the ways a thinker can gain/obtain practical knowledge (by being taught by a teacher, knowledge from experience, etc.). But after a long discussion, he says that simple knowledge and the Word can both be called practical knowledge in a most general sort of way in that both manifest what is true. It is only an act of love that is practical; i.e. only a volitional act of love can have some end in a creature. Of course, a volitional act of love requires/presupposes knowledge of the true (God makes true humans, not false square-circles).

So, no, the Word is not practical knowledge. The Word is not knowledge per se for the purpose of doing some creative action. What then is peculiar about the Word in distinction from simple essential divine knowledge? Well, the Word is an intellectual product and divine simple essential knowledge is not a product qua product. So, what Henry does is to try to capitalize on the notion that the Word is a product, i.e. produced-knowledge; and b/c it is produced-knowledge it has some sort of affinity with produced-creatures, namely creatures and the Word are both produced. Of course, the production of the Word and the production of creatures differ in rather significant ways. The produced-Word has necessary existence; produced-creatures have contingent existence. The produced-Word is identical with the divine essence; produced-creatures are identical with their divine exemplars (divine idea of some possible creature) and not with the divine essence. Still, Henry thinks there is something to saying the Word is produced-knowledge and saying creatures are produced. What is the affinity? Well, b/c both have this modal similarity _being produced_ there is some sense to saying that the Word is ‘like’ creatures in a way that divine simple essential knowledge is not ‘like’ creatures, namely that the Word is produced (in a very peculiar way) and creatures are produced.

In other words, Henry seems to commit what Robert Pasnau ['Aquinas and the Content Fallacy', The Modern Schoolman, 1999?] calls the ‘content fallacy’ to the nth degree. The content-fallacy is when you equate the ontological status of some concept/knowledge with the concept/knowledge itself. The classic problem, as Pasnau states it is thus: scholastics thought that the (human) intellect is immaterial and that universals are immaterial; therefore, b/c the intellect is immaterial it thinks with (immaterial) universals and not with material individuals. Pasnau argues that there is no reason to say that b/c the (human) intellect is immaterial it can only think by means of universals—for the intellect can and does directly think of (material) individuals.

In Henry’s case, the ontological status of the Word as (ontologically) produced is the bridge by which he tries to say that the Word is practical knowledge (i.e. conceptual content oriented toward producing creatures) b/c the Word has this modal property being produced in common with creatures that are by definition produced. Of course, Henry makes all the expected distinctions btwn. the Word as an ad intra divine production and creatures as ad extra creaturely contingent productions.

If Pasnau is right about what he calls the ‘content fallacy’, then Henry has no way to suggest how the divine Word might be practical knowledge. But if Pasnau is wrong, then Henry has a branch to stand on. Unfortunately for Henry, I have yet to see how Pasnau might be wrong on this score. Perhaps in time I might find a way through the ‘content fallacy’.

“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 engages in a lengthy discussion of ways the word ‘ingenitum’ (not generated) or ‘innascibile’ (not able to be born) can be predicated of the Father, whether negatively, privately, or positively. The upshot of these distinctions is to ask about the precise nature of this property ‘ungenerated’. Is it saying what the Father is not (negation), or is it saying the Father lacks some further property and is potentiality to receive some new property (privation), or is it saying there is some positive property the Father really is constituted by?

Henry rejects predication of the property ‘ingentium’ to the Father by negation and by privation; instead he opts for predication of a positive property. What then is this positive property that the Father has/is?

Henry starts by saying that the fundamental personal property of the Father is ‘paternity’, i.e. the actor who generates his Son. ‘Paternity’ is the (positive) property that constitutes the Father. Henry claims that the Father is the Father because he generates the Son; he is not Father ‘prior to’ or without regard to his Son. Next, given this positive property, Henry claims that paternity implies that the (divine) Father is ‘not from another’. Unlike with human Moms and Dads who themselves have a Mom and Dad, the divine Father does not himself have a ‘parent’ who brings him into existence.

There is a tension here. The Father is the Father because he generates the Son. So, the ‘Father’ (or also called ‘the first divine supposite/agent’) makes himself the Father by doing something (generating his Son). And, the Father is not caused by the Son being generated, because the Father is ‘not from another’, i.e. he is not ‘from the Son’. On the one hand, there is no Father without the Son; on the other hand, the Son does not cause the Father. This is a prime instance of Henry’s ‘nested distinctions’ (as R. Friedman discusses). Henry wants it to be the case that there can be no Father without a Son and that the Father as agent-cause is an agent-cause ‘not from another’. The Son doesn’t given the Father the Father’s capacity to generate the Son. Rather, the Father generates the Son and in this very generative act his (the Father’s) ‘existence’ is not dependent on the Son’s existence, but rather his identity as ‘Father’ does seem to be dependent on there being a Son.

Returning to the discussion above about the positive property of ‘paternity’ and the implied property ‘ingenitum’, Henry’s point is that we first need to posit the positive property of ‘paternity’ and then we can infer the property ‘not from another’. Henry holds that if for the sake of argument we took away the positive property of ‘paternity’ from the Father, then we’d also be taking away the Father’s ‘not being from another’ or what is called the Father’s ‘innascibility’. Henry is clear: innascibility presupposes paternity, and paternity does not presuppose innascibility.

This is a strong tension in Henry’s thought. On the one hand, he wants the existence of the Father to be prior to the Son (by nature, not by time), on the other hand, he wants the identity of the Father as Father to be a correlative with the Son. As Aristotle teaches us, correlatives presuppose one another. Henry clearly wishes to make the Father existentially prior (by nature) to the Son, yet he also clearly wishes that the identity of the existentially prior (by nature) person to be by correlation with the Son. The upshot is that he wants the person called Father to be existentially prior to the person called Son, yet in order to understand the Father as prior you first must posit his correlation with the Son. In other words, Henry is firm that you cannot set aside Christian revelation and posit an absolutely first divine actor. He is worried that speculation about the Father as ungenerated may lead to a pagan (i.e. Jewish or Muslim, in Henry’s view of things) notion of God who is the supreme agent constituted absolutely and not relatively. [Addition: On Henry's Classical Christian theist view, when we speak of a divine person, we speak of some absolute property and some relative personal property; divine persons are not merely constituted by an absolute property (divine essence), but are also constituted by a relative property (i.e. paternity, filitation, active spiration, and passive spiration). If we say a divine person is only constituted by absolute properties then if we posit three persons we posits three gods, which is tri-theism. The only way to avoid tri-theism is to follow Augustine's and Boethius's strong claims about the relative properties, in addition to the absolute of the divine essence, of divine persons in order to safeguard divine simplicity, divine unity and the trinity of persons.] Clearly, Henry is worried about heresy if we consider the Father as ungenerated as an absolute property, rather than as a relative property (i.e. based on the correlation Father-Son). Henry takes it as a mark of Christian theology that divine persons are by definition are (c0r)relative to one another (i.e. correlatives: Father-Son; active spiration-passive spiration). Thus, although he sees the merit in saying the Father is ungenerated, he doesn’t want us to construe this without presupposing the correlation Father-Son.

In the end, Henry says that predicating ‘being ungenerated’ or ‘being ingenerate’ is a dignity of the Father (and not a dignity of the Son). Rather, he thinks because the Father is Father, it is proper to him that he is ‘not from another’. But the Son having the property ‘being from another’ does not have this property ‘not from another’–it is not of the Son’s ‘dignity’ (perfection?) to have this property. What is a dignity (perfection) of the Son is ‘to be from another as one who is generated’.

So, as is sometimes the case with Duns Scotus who mis-reports Henry of Ghent’s position on a given matter, Henry does not teach that the Father’s innascibility is a bare negative property without reference to a positive property; rather Henry teaches that the property ingenitum presupposes the positive property of paternity. Still, Henry concedes that even if we (rightly) have in mind this positive relative property of the Father (paternity), we can say that ‘being ungenerated’ is a positive property of the first divine supposite/agent whether or not (per impossibile) this first divine agent generates the Son (SQO 57.1, Badius 1520, vol. 2, f. 119vC).

[Addition in response to Dale's comments: keep in mind previous posts about Henry's acct. of the 'material constitution' of divine persons. A divine person is constituted at minimum by two kinds of properties, an absolute property (non-relative) and a relative property. The absolute property is the divine essence and it is what accounts for why a person is a divine person and for why the three persons are all divine; persons are divine not by a similarity relation nor even by equality of being divine. If the divine persons were 'equally' divine, then (acc. to Henry) when we compare the divinity of the Son to the divinity of the Father, we are only saying that the Son's divinity lacks being greater or lesser than the Father's. Thus, the Son's divinity is merely a double privation of (1) lacking being greater, and (2) lacking being less than the Father's divinity. Henry thinks mere equality of divinity does not state a positive property, but merely a double privation; again, the double privation ('equality of divinity') identifies privative properties and does not express some positive property as such. Henry identifies this view of the 'equality' (as double privation) of divinity btwn. divine persons as a Semi-Arian acct. of the Son's divinity. Instead, if we wish to be Catholic about this, we need to posit a positive property, namely the divine essence that is a shared positive property; the Father has this property, the Son had this property and the Holy Spirit has this property. (cf. SQO 70.1) So, no, Henry does not think that the divine essence has some sort of special or peculiar identity with the Father and that the other divine persons lack. On Henry's 'generic view', the Father's being ingenitum does not imply that the divine essence is somehow more proper to the Father than to other divine persons (pace Henry's criticism of the 'semi-arian' position), rather, the Father's being ingenitum means the Father is not efficient causally dependent on the Son, but vice versa, the Son is efficient causally dependent on the Father. Of course, the has necessary existence b/c the Son is constituted by the divine essence that has the property 'necessary existence' (necesse esse)  So, the Father is the efficient cause of the Son, and in order for there to be an efficient cause of the Son, there must be an actor who can perform the function of being an efficient cause. Thus, we need to say that the Father is not dependent on another by efficient causality. However, if the Father were dependent on another by efficient causality, we would seemingly enter into an infinite regress. In order to stop this infinite regress, we need to say that the Father is 'not from another by efficient causality' and that the Son is from another by efficient causality. Of course, if we look at the formal cause, then we'd look to the divine essence as that form (formal cause) by which the Father generates the Son/Word. More on this after my Christmas vacation.]

“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 the Trinity. There are one or two things that ought to be clarified.

I have posted some responses to Dale’s post in the Comments section of his post.

I would like to elaborate on two issues in this post.

1. Why must the divine intellect be perfectly actual? (pace Dale’s 2nd objection)
2. Why must the divine intellect have two powers, an operative power and a productive power?

In regards to 1, Henry generally follows Anselm’s perfect being theology program. In this program, when we attribute some property to God we should follow the rule: ‘whatever it is simply better to have than not have we should attribute to God’. This property that it is simply better to have than not to have in medieval speak is called a ‘pure perfection’. A pure perfection is some property that it is simply better to have than not to have it. A pure perfection is some property x that is not considered as a pure perfection with regard to some species-nature. It is not a question of whether ‘it is better for my fish Nigel to be a Ninja or not’, but whether it is simply better to be a Ninja or not. A comparison to some species is not at issue here. For example, if it is better to be wise than not be wise, we should say that God is wise. If it is better to be loving than not to be loving, we should say that God is loving. If it is better to be stupid than not stupid, we should attribute ‘being stupid’ to God. But, our intuitions lead us to think that being wise and being just are simply better to have than not to have; yet being stupid is something we wouldn’t attribute to God because it is actually better to not be stupid, than to be stupid.

But if we say being wise is some property of God, we need to recognize that the property being wise presupposes an ability to understand. Henry thinks that the property ‘being wise’ is based on the property ‘having an intellect’. If you don’t have an intellect, then you can’t be wise. Thus it seems, it is better to have an intellect than not to have an intellect. So, following Anselm’s rule we say that God has the property ‘having an intellect’. Henry of course follows the scholastic line about divine simplicity. According to this we don’t say that God ‘has’ anything, rather we say that God ‘is’ whatever it is better to be than not to be. The property ‘to have x’ is not as good as the property ‘to be x’. For, having some property x means that you can lose this property and still exist, in other words, the property of ‘having x’ is something you can gain or lose.. But according to this doctrine of divine simplicity God cannot gain or lose any property, so God just is His properties. Thus, God, or more technically, the divine essence (DE) is an intellect.

Is it better that an intellect actually be wise or potentially be wise? Henry clearly says that DE is actually wise, because potentiality is some sort of imperfection. The value here is that being actual, being pure actuality is better to be than to lack pure actuality.

Dale asks, ‘why must we say the divine intellect be an exercised power rather than an unexercised power?’ To Henry’s ears this is to ask, ‘why must we say that the divine essence has the property of being actually wise rather than being potentially wise?’ So, on Henry’s view, the property ‘being an intellect with actual perfect knowledge is a pure perfection’.

A follow-up point: DE constitutes divine persons. It is divine persons who perform actions, not DE. Henry follows the Aristotelian dictum (though currently in interpretative debate from people like Alan de Libera) that only supposites (things/agents) perform actions, causal principles don’t by themselves perform actions. The classic example is this: does heat heat things? Or does a hot thing heat other things? Henry clearly goes with the latter option. DE is an infinite vat of powers; but powers by themselves don’t act. Rather, a DE-constituted-person performs actions. Thus, a divine person is actually wise because a divine person is constituted by DE which includes the property ‘being intellective’ (i.e. ‘having’ an intellect). So, if we want to say that a divine person has the property ‘being wise’ we must say that the divine intellect is exercised. If not, then we are saying the divine intellect is not exercised, is in potentiality, and that a divine person constituted by DE is not actually wise. But this is repugnant to Christian faith; Q.E.D. it is false.

To the second question: Henry argues that the human intellect has two basic kinds of powers. The first power is to be able to receive some data from the external world. Simultaneously with receiving this data humans perform an intellectual operation. This initial intellectual operation is unique in that the intellect just receives some data and hasn’t done anything with the intellectual data. The intellect just receives it and say, ‘gosh, what is that?’ Directly after this moment there are two options. We can forget about this and do something else, or we can try to figure out what we just intellectually cognized for the first time. The very act of figuring out what we intellectually cognized for the first time is a reflexive act. We think about what we just thought about and we try to figure it out; we ask questions about it: is that a living being? ‘No.’ Is that a thing that moves itself? ‘Perhaps.’ Did some agent make this thing and order it in such a way that it moves?’ ‘I think so. The other day somebody mentioned to me that this guy Bill Gates made it.’ ‘Oh, that could be a computer.’ Etc.

Henry says that this series of questioning is basically one kind of intellectual act. It is a reflexive act. We go back and forth over what we first intellectually cognized. We ask questions about it and try to get satisfying answers. This process of Q & A scholastics called discursive reasoning. And at the end of this process is the golden definition, and following St. Augustine, Henry calls this golden definition a mental ‘Word’.

God of course is not silly like humans and does not need to go through this intellectual process to arrive at this golden definition. In fact, according to Henry, God the Father’s first intellectual act is similar to our initial act of intellectually cognizing something for the first time, except that when the Father does it, his knowledge is entirely and in every way conceptually perfect. The Father doesn’t need to reflect on his knowledge in order to get a clearer intellectual grasp of what He knows or to gain self-consciousness. Moreover, it seems that Henry posits that ‘having/being perfect knowledge is a pure perfection’. Thus, all divine persons should have this pure perfection.

Nevertheless, Henry thinks that generally speaking intellects have the power to initially think of something for the very first time (by an operation) and in turn reflect on it (a production). In the human case, we produce propositions, syllogisms, essays, arguments, etc. in order to get clearer knowledge. But in the divine case, the reflective act is not for the sake of getting clearer knowledge or gaining perfect knowledge (pure perfection), but rather simply because an intellect, any intellect has these two features, and so the Father reflects on what he already perfectly knows and produces a Word. The divine Word is not clearer knowledge than the Father’s knowledge prior to this production, rather, the divine Word is a perfect copy of what the Father’s knows.

Still, we may ask, if the Father has perfect knowledge prior to the production of the Word, why produce the Word? But, if we say the Father needs to produce the Word in order to gain knowledge, we would attribute imperfect knowledge of the Father (i.e. we would deny the pure perfection ‘being perfect knowledge’ of the Father). So Henry avoids this route. Rather, Henry bases his claim on the basic property of intellects in general. In general, intellects receive data and simultaneously perform a basic intellectual operation and may then reflect on this act. Thus, for any intellect if it is perfect as a kind-nature, then the agent with an intellect performs an operation and a production. In the human case, reflection (a perfection of an intellect qua intellect) is the for the purpose of clearer knowledge (pure perfection). In the divine case, there intellectual reflexive production because the divine intellect has the ‘fecundity’ to perform such an action; it is a perfection of an intellect -not a pure perfection- that an intellect has performed a reflexive productive act that terminates in a product; in God this product is a perfect copy of perfect knowledge, the divine Word.

Perhaps this last response is unsatisfying. However, it works well with Trinitarian theology. It is a serious problem if we say that a personal property is a pure perfection. A personal property is a property that only one divine persons ‘has’. This property distinguishes a divine person from other divine persons. If we consider being a Word as a personal property, then if being a divine Word is a pure perfection, then the Father lacks this perfection and thus the Father is imperfect. But if being a divine Word is just a perfection with regard to the divine intellect (rather than a consideration of some property without regard to species or what is better or worse for a ‘kind of power’), then we can say the Word is the perfection or completion of the intellect precisely because it is better for an intellect to be actualized with regard to its operative power and (reflexive)-productive power than not.

“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 titled De Trinitate was Augustine’s. Of course, Henry didn’t just read Augustine, he read other De Trinitate texts: Boethius, Ambrose, Hilary, Richard of St. Victor and learned important lessons from these. The primary theological source for psychological doctrines applied to the Trinity comes from Augustine (who contemplated such models as the Father as Memory, Son as Intelligence/Word, and Holy Spirit as Will/Love). Further, Henry takes Richard of St.Victor’s claim about the importance of ‘mutual love’ (of the Father and Son) and applies it as the principiative principle for the production of the Holy Spirit. A ‘principiative principle’ is a fancy phrase for ‘productive power’. Henry seems to use it at times in distinction from a productive power for the production of created essences (e.g. human beings). Still, the the semantic range of this can be applied to ad intra divine productions, and ad extra creaturely productions.

Henry also fancied ‘new’ doctrines of human philosophical psychology, though he was critical of these. What he liked was Aquinas’s developed teaching about what a mental ‘Word’ is, namely, a product that an intellect can produce that is really distinct from the intellect and its operations. This ‘word’ inheres in the intellect as an accident. Further, Henry liked the notion that this product is some sort of ‘final’ act of the intellect. Of course, in the divine case the ‘Word’ won’t ‘inhere’ in the divine essence, but ‘subsist’ in its. This of course is ambiguous (and worthy of another post).In epistemology Henry disagreed with Aquinas. Whereas Aquinas thought we could achieve scientific definitional knowledge of material objects by the natural powers God has given us, Henry didn’t think our natural powers could adequately achieve their natural end without more supernatural help from God. Henry follows Augustine that to avoid scepticism we need to posit general and special divine illumination for certain and true knowledge. Henry’s general scepticism in epistemology more or less falls out when he talks about the Trinity–for of course, God has perfect knowledge, and the divine essence is the one and only proper object of the divine intellect. Of course, the divine essence is so freakin’ awesome that God knows every possible and real creature by it, not to mention the Trinity of persons.

When it comes to the will, Henry had to figure certain things out for himself without Aquinas’s aid. What would he call a real product of the will that inheres in the agent who performs the productive act of this product? Henry has no proper name for this, so he gave several names: zeal, inflammative love, illustrative love, and manifestive love.

So, then how does Henry use philosophical psychology to explain the real distinction between divine persons? In this post I focus only on the ad intra production of the Son. In a later post I will discuss the ad intra production of the Holy Spirit. (I confess I aim to read lots more of Henry’s SQO before then, there are 20 questions in SQO 60-61), and it is basically unknown to most people, even most specialists.)

I start by overlooking Henry’s long proof for God’s existence (SQO 21-29) (as I am not as familiar with it as I need to be presently) which would contribute to the premise below that there is a first divine actor. Henry considers the Trinity in two ways: by an essential order and by a principatiave order (i.e. order of the persons). There is only one divine essence and this essence has the property ‘not from another (essence)’. Henry claims that a similar property is true in the principiative order: there is a person ‘not from another (person)’. I haven’t yet found his proper argument for such a transference of a property from the essential order to the principiative order, still, I suggest an argument he might’ve made.
Below are 40 lines trying to summarize Henry’s general claims about the intellectual emanation of the Word from the Father. Apologies in advance for enthymemes, etc. There are of course, details omitted here, e.g. 9-12 are quite contestable. Duns Scotus took Henry out to lunch and bought him a trash can (Ord 1.3.1-3). The arguments, to my mind, entirely depend on how Henry and Duns Scotus explain what an ‘intelligible species’ is in human cognition (worthy of another post!) and how this gets mapped onto divine cognition.

1. P1: The divine essence necessarily is an active form without any unrealized potentiality in itself.
2. P2: Any power of the divine essence is complete/perfect by its act.
3. (Aside) P2.1: There are two powers of the divine essence: intellect and will.
4. P3: Any act necessarily requires an actor (supposite).
5. C: Therefore, there is an actor of the divine essence that does not emanate by intellect or by will (i.e. is not principiated by intellect or by will). Call this ‘non-emanated’ actor ‘the Father’ or ‘innascible divine person’.

6. P1: There is a necessary prior/posterior order between the acts by intellect and by will.
7. P2: The Father’s act by the power of intellect is necessarily prior to his act by will because it is impossible for an act of will to occur without the actor knowing something (volition presupposes knowledge).
8. C: Therefore, the Father’s first act is by the power of intellect.

9. P1: The power of intellect in the divine essence has two strengths: (i) as an operative strength that is perfected by its term, which is the true (verum), and (ii) a productive strength that is perfected by its term, which is a real product called the ‘Word‘ (i.e. declarative of the true). Call this really distinct product from its producer a ‘mental Word’.
10. P2: There is a necessary prior/posterior order between (i) and (ii).
11. P3: (i) as perfected is prior to (ii) as perfected because (ii) as perfected necessarily presupposes (i) as perfected. If (i) were not prior, then (ii) could not be declarative of (i).
12. C: Therefore, the Father’s act by (i) is necessarily prior to the Father’s act by (ii).

13. P1: The Father’s act by (i) is a necessary condition for the Father’s act by (ii).
14. P2: The Father necessarily acts by (ii) [cf. 2].
15. C: Therefore, the Father necessarily acts by (ii) posterior to the Father’s act by (i).

16. P1: The term of (i) and the term of (ii) are diverse.
17. P2: The term of (i) is rationally distinct from the Father; the term of (ii) is really distinct from the Father.
18. P3: The Father’s act by (i) is not his act by (ii), vice versa.
19. C: Therefore the Father’s act by (i) is a different kind of act than the Father’s act by (ii).

20. P1: An act whose term remains within the agent is an operative act.
21. P2: The Father’s act by (i) remains in the Father.
22. C: Therefore, the Father’s act by (i) is an operation.

23. P1: An act whose term is a really distinct product from the producer is a productive act.
24. P2: The Father’s act by (ii) terminates in a really distinct product.
25. C: Therefore, the Father’s act by (ii) is a productive act.

26. P1: The only kind of intellectual productive act whose product remains within the same essence as the producer’s essence is a reflexive act.
27. P2: The Father produces the Word, which remains in the divine essence.
28. P2: The Father performs an intellectual productive act.
29. C: Therefore, the Father’s intellectual productive act is a reflexive act.

30. P1: A divine person is constituted by a personal property and the divine essence [these properties are rationally distinct].
31. P2: Any combination of a personal property and the divine essence is a supposite.
32. C: Therefore, a divine person is a supposite.

33. P1: The Father is constituted by the divine essence and a personal property. 34. C: Therefore, The Father is a divine person.
33. (P2: A divine person is a supposite.)
34. C: Therefore, the Father is a supposite.

35. P1: The Word is constituted by the divine essence and a personal property. 36. C: The Word is a divine person.
36. (P2: A divine person is a supposite.)
37. C: Therefore, the Word is a supposite.

38. P1: The Father necessarily acts by the power of intellect.
39. P2: To act by the power of intellect necessarily is to act by (i) whose perfection is the true; and consequently to act by (ii) whose perfection is in a real product.
40. C: Therefore, the Father necessarily knows the true by (i) and consequently produces the Word by (ii) [cf. 1-4].

Ring around the ro… WATCH OUT DUDE!

Trinities is going group.

I realized that some of the frequent commenters are so good, and have so much to say, that sometimes I’d rather “ride” than “drive”. Some of their “comments” are as long and substantial as my posts! So I’ve invited a few to join in as contributors, as often as their other duties allow.

The first of these, Scott Williams, will shortly be doing a series on the medieval theologian/philosopher Henry of Ghent & other recent work on medieval theories. Scott is a PhD student, who is on the Theology Faculty at Oxford University, though he’s presently a visiting student at Notre Dame, which recently acquired his supervisor Richard Cross.

It isn’t that I’m out of ideas for postings – that’ll never happen! It’s just, I can only post so much so fast, and I think we can all learn a lot from guys like Scott. So, welcome aboard, Scott!

Be sure to check out his blog, the title of which is either (1) contradictory, or (2) an example of English (or Utahn?) dry humor. I say the charitable interpretation is (2). – Dale

In the traditional western view of the trinity, e.g., as the likes of Augustine and Aquinas think, the divine essence basically functions as a nature.

Of course, the classical (Aristotelian) sense of ‘nature’ is a little tricky. For most theologians such as Aquinas, a nature in created things is particular in the way that a trope is considered particular. Further, Aquinas would distinguish between nature-tropes and accidental-tropes. Plato’s humanity would be a nature-trope, but Plato’s paleness would be an accidental-trope. Additionally, nature-tropes are instantiated by matter, and that makes a substance (in the sense of an individual object). Accidental-tropes are instantiated by substances.

Here’s the key points about this classical view.

(1) Both of these kinds of tropes are posterior to their subjects (i.e., to their trope-bearers). The reason is that they are instantiated by their subjects, not the other way around. Perhaps another way of putting this is that the natures are posterior to the things that exemplify them.

(2) Also, natures are not individual objects. They do have some extramental reality in the same way that the modern notion of tropes have some extramental reality, but they are not individual objects. They are rather traits or attributes of individual objects. Socrates and Plato are individual objects, while ‘humanity’ is an attribute of Socrates and Plato rather than an individual object in its own right. But nevertheless, ‘humanity’ does have extramental reality because it’s really ‘there’ in Socrates and Plato.

As I said at the beginning of this comment, the divine essence functions in the same way. It is posterior to the persons, just as ‘humanity’ is posterior to Socrates and Plato. And the divine essence is not an individual object, but it does have extramental reality in the divine persons because it’s really ‘there’ in the Father and Son. Likewise, the divine persons are, in some sense, individuals just as Socrates and Plato are individuals.

The major difference between the divine essence and natures in created things is that natures in created things are multiplied by their subjects. Thus, Socrates’ humanity is not identical to Plato’s humanity. As I said, natures in created things are more like tropes because they are particular for each individual instantiator.

The divine essence, on the other hand, is like an immanent universal. It is not divided by each divine person which instantiates it. Thus, each divine person shares the numerically same nature (the divine essence). It would be as if Plato and Socrates shared the numerically same humanity. Apart from that, the divine essence basically operates like a nature.

B&R’s account is pretty much the complete opposite of this. The divine essence is like the subject which instantiates the personal properties.

I wonder about some of the things that this might entail.

(a) One might argue that the divine essence has to be an individual if it is to instantiate anything. This would be an argument similar to Scotus’s argument for individuation: any of the obvious candidates for individuation (e.g., matter, accidents, etc.) are already individual, so they must already be individuated and thus can’t function as individuators. There must, then, be something individual itself (a haecceity) which instantiates any properties and makes them particular.

I myself am not necessarily opposed to saying the divine essence is an individual. I certainly don’t want to identify the divine essence with the father, because that would lead to the ‘derivation’ view of the trinity, which doesn’t seem to me very workable.

(b) One might further argue that on this view, the personal properties have to be like natures in that they are instantiated by the divine essence. B&R certainly seem to talk this way when they say that matter instantiates forms. But if this is right, do we then mean that the personal property being a father is the generic nature paternity? That would seem to go against the whole ‘generic’ view of the classical tradition, where the divine essence is seen as the generic nature of the persons, not the other way around. And what sort of consequences would this entail?

I don’t know how I feel about this particular point. In principle, I see no reason why the personal properties can’t be seen as generic natures.

(c) I have further questions (as does Joseph) about what any of this means for the question ‘one consciousness or three?’ For the classical view, does saying the divine essence is an immanent universal block the inference that there are three consciousnesses? Likewise, for B&R’s view, does saying the divine essence is the subject of the personal properties block the same inference?

With respect to the classical view, I’m inclined to think that there is one consciousness. The divine essence is the thinking and willing power-pack, and since the divine persons are the subjects of that power-pack, there would certainly be three agents which do the thinking and willing. But since they all share the same thinking and willing power-pack, they would all perform the numerically same acts of thinking and willing, and I’m not sure that gives us enough to say there are three distinct consciousnesses. But my mind is not totally made up on that yet.

With respect to B&R, I don’t even know how to go about answering the question. They haven’t really clarified their position enough yet.

Technorati Tags: JT Paasch, Jeff Brower, Mike Rea, constitution trinitarianism, nature, trope, essence

I’m very pleased to introduce Joseph Jedwab, who has some interesting comments on Moreland’s and Craig’s understanding of the Trinity. I haven’t had the privilege of meeting him, but given how he spells “center”, I gather he’s English. Joseph is currently teaching philosophy and finishing his dissertation at Oriel College of Oxford University, on the metaphysics of the Trinity and the Incarnation. And he’s working under the supervision of one of the greatest living philosophers of religion, Richard Swinburne. Hiring committees take note – he goes on the job market next year! – Dale

I agree this is a clear account. I’m a bit worried about how the discussion might influence terminology. Moreland and Craig describe their view as Social Trinitarian and contrast this with an Anti-Social Trinitarian view. This is a mistake. Leftow’s title indicates his paper is against Social Trinitarianism (ST). It’s not supposed to be the name of a Trinitarian view. As you know, the name of the view Leftow defends is ‘Latin Trinitarianism’ (LT). Further, they say that the main commitment of ST is that there are three centres of consciousness, but it’s not clear what a centre is.

Is it a mental subject (i.e. a subject of mental properties, like you and me)? But what difference is there, if any, between a mental subject and a mental substance? If a substance just is an entity that has a causal power, then it seems ‘mental subject’ and ‘mental substance’ are equivalent, in which case if the one mental substance constitutes three additional mental subjects there are four mental subjects/substances in all. If a substance isn’t just an entity that has a causal power, what is it such that the mental subjects in the Trinity aren’t substances?

If a centre isn’t a mental subject, then is it a bundle or composite of conscious mental events that stand in some unity relation to each other alone? But then it’s not easy to see why that should imply there are three persons (i.e. rational mental subjects) and so why this view should qualify as a version of ST, where presumably the persons must at the very least stand in social relations to each other. For such bundles are not persons and we’ve been given no reason to think each bundle constitutes a person.

Finally, they say the contrast with LT is that on their view God has three faculties of intellect and will. But this depends on how one individuates faculties. Perhaps one might individuate according to the one mental substance and say there’s one such faculty or individuate according to the persons and say there are three. One might even do both, having faculties of different kinds or faculties in different senses.

The best way I can see to make sense of their view is to use some Lockean metaphysics. Say there’s one infinite spirit (a substance in the sense of a basic item in one’s ontology that is a concrete object, i.e. has a causal power) and say because it has three consciousnesses it constitutes three persons. This makes the view a bit like Merricks’ analogy in ‘Split Brains and the Godhead’, in which case it’s not a million miles away from Leftow’s LT. It’s clear in some ways but could do with a bit more spelling out.