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Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate Ch.14

What's all this about Dallas then?
What’s all this about Dallas then?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s reconstruct:

Suppose there is at least one person: P

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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9 thoughts on “Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate Ch.14”

  1. Is a _privation_ of thisness what Richard S. says, or just that divine persons do not have _thisness_? In other words, is ‘lacking thisness’ a privation or a negation?

  2. Hey JT!

    I see what you mean about Richard Oxon. He does think the divine persons are individuals. But since they lack thisness, perhaps we can also say they are universals. This is only part of the reason R. thinks there can’t be more than three. The other part has to do with the fact (if it is a fact) that Father, Son, and Spirit lack overall reason to bring about a fourth person, in which case no fourth person is necessary and so not divine.

  3. Interesting comments all. I’ll chime in on the infinity of persons that Dale raises. This is a classic objection to the Anselm/Aquinas argument for the filioque. For them, the divine persons differ only by origin, i.e., who produced them, so they must come from different producers. Thus, the Son must be produced by one person, and the Spirit must be produced by two persons. But, the objection goes, why shouldn’t we think that there’s a fourth person produced by three persons, and a fifth produced by four, and so on ad infinitum.

    Scott’s comment is insightful too, for it reminds me of the later Richard (Swinburne): the persons are not individuals, but rather universals, and therefore the Father and Son (for instance) cannot produce more than one Spirit.

  4. As regards the question, why at most three divine persons? I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll remind those who have forgotten. In book 5 Rick St. Vick focuses on the causal origins of the divine persons. He supposes that only one divine person [=Father] is ‘not from another, and productive of another’, and only one divine person [=Son] is ‘from another, and productive of another’, and only one divine person [=Holy Spirit] is ‘from another, and not productive of another’. And, there isn’t a divine person that is ‘not from another, and not productive of another’. This last option won’t work b/c perfect love requires that there be at several divine persons; but if we examine the causal origins of the persons, at most there can be three divine persons.

    There is more to be said about this, of course, but this is the basic sort of move to show why there can at most be three divine persons. I imagine Richard assumes the identity of indiscernibles such that e.g., there can’t be two divine persons with the personal property ‘from another and productive of another’.

  5. Thanks Dale! Good comments.

    Re 1: Do you mean it’s incompatible with being a person to share all one can with another or that it’s incompatible just to want to do so? Of course, I can’t share being Joseph with another and the Father can’t share being the Father with another. Is this enough holding back? I do wonder whether this is part of fallen nature not to be content with beholding perfection and knowing it through and through, but wanting there always to be more to find out about another, else boredom sets in. But this is also just a vague worry on my part.

    There’s also a theoretical problem here. If a person doesn’t share all she can and also doesn’t share nothing, then how much does she share? And why didn’t she share just a little bit more or less than she did? To posit some but not all sharing possible in the divine being introduces theoretical complexity.

    Re 2: I’m tempted to say that all Richard need show here is that there are at least three persons, and he deals with the question of at most three persons later. Still, one might think the argument I gave makes it impossible to say there are at most three. For perhaps P has a perfect love with two divine persons that he can share and so on. Richard would need to do some work here to show that, though P can share a perfect love with another divine person, P can’t share a perfect love with two divine persons, and so on.

    Finally, I agree that we should worry about whether if it works, Richard’s argument is not just an argument for Trinitarianism but also Tritheism. But this is a different issue. Richard is a Latin Trinitarian, not a Social Trinitarian, in so far as these labels have sense. So whether the number of divine persons goes to infinity, Monotheism is supposed to be intact. Let me put it this way: the argument no more massacres Monotheism if it shows an infinity of divine persons than if it shows only three of them.

  6. Joseph,

    Excellent post – if only Richard of St. Victor were as careful you!

    I have a couple worries:

    (1) I have a vague intuition that it is incompatible with the nature of personhood that one should want to share *everything* about oneself with another. Even in the most intimate I-thou relations, something is held back – that is part of the allure of relationship with another. Now an omnipotent being could share *everything* every last thought, feeling, desire. It seems to me this would make living together as two autonomous agents impossible. Of course, one may say this is a matter of human limitations… So, this is just a vague worry, that it is not even desirable to share *all* one has or is.

    (2) I’m curious to see if this runaway train can be avoided:

    He thinks a perfect person has what we can call super-generosity – the desire to share all one has. The first being has himself, and so creates another to share in that (or in the divine nature). This super-generosity is supposed to be a good thing, and clearly an omnipotent being could replicate it in another. So the second person must have supergenerosity. They enjoy their love for another, and being super-generous, are compelled to make a third. These three enjoy their three-way-love, and each being super-generous, they are compelled to share it with a fourth. And of course, this fourth is supergenerous… I think we can all see where this is going: a divine person, so conceived, implies an infinite number of divine persons.

    It’d be better to say that divinity or perfection doesn’t imply supergenerosity, than to massacre monotheism in this way, no? I know how Richard of Oxford tries to get out of this, but I’m interested to see if and how Ricky of St. Vicky does it.

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