Dale Tuggy (PhD Brown 2000) was Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Fredonia from 2000-2018. He now works outside of academia in Middle Tennessee but continues to learn and podcast.
Check it out: a whole site and blog devoted to art featuring impossible objects! I can’t help but think that the picture above had a trinitarian inspiration: according to the babelfish, it means “You must in such a way live”. (German speaking readers – feel free to correct the translation.) I read this as addressed to the Trinity. If so, this pic would be an… Read More »Linkage: Impossible World Site and Blog (Dale)
Mike, reloaded – before the smoke has even cleared.
More from Mike Almeida about a premise in an anti-social-trinitarian-argument argument I’ve been exploring. Also, (sorry Mike – actually, sorry everyone) I continue my cheesy cowboy theme. (But as a native Texan, it’s my sacred right, Pardn’r. đ )
Here’s a summary in (attempted) ordinary English of his thoughtful post on infinitely increasing properties @ his PhilRel Blog, followed by my response, which I posted to his comments section.
“Don’t mess with Texan metaphysicans, pardner.”
In a recent series of posts (uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco), I’ve been chewing on some philosophical arguments that “social” trinitarians have used for their doctrine. Been finding more gristle than meat.
In my latest installment, I was privileged to get some penetrating critical feedback from fellow philosophy of religion bloggers located in my home state of Texas – Alexander Pruss of Baylor and Mike Almeida of UT San Antonio (here, comments #2, 7-9) These guys are extremely sharp and are doing a lot of creative work in the field, by the way. About perfect beings – I’ve come to find out that Mike has thought a lot about this!
This post is my attempt to process Mike’s feedbackRead More »modal shootout on greatest possible beings – Part 1 (Dale)
An interesting discussion, with some links, by philosopher Parableman Jeremy Pierce: Muslims Worshiping God But Not Worshiping God. His view, as against some recent pastors and other folks, is that yes, Muslims do refer to the being that Christians acknowledge as the one true God, when they use the word “Allah”. [Saith Jeremy]…it seems completely ludicrous to me to claim that this being that is… Read More »Allah = God?
“This clears it all up, right?”
Anselm: “Um, no. I must bestow upon it the analytic frown of uncomprehension.”
(image credit)
I used to think I had a great objection to Anselm’s famous ontological argument. (Bear with me – this has something to do with social trinitarianism.) The argument, at least many forms of it, basically goes like this. If it is logically possible that there’s a Greatest Possible Being (i.e. a being such that there’s no logical possibility of there being a greater one), then it is necessary that there’s a Greatest Possible Being. More simply: if it’s possible (non-contradictory) that God exists, then it’s also necessary that God exists (i.e. it is inconsistent to suppose God not existing). (For more, see here and here. For more than you’d ever want to know, here.)
Many critics have replied like this:
I’d be a sucker to grant your premise. Why should I think that the notion of a Greatest Possible Being is the notion of a possible thing at all? Read More »perfection, the Trinity, and impossible beings (Dale)
He’s baaaaack. A smokier, bluesier, dirtier “Trinity Schminity”. Now in basement music video form! Apparently there’s been some big shakeup in the band. Their website says “we are now a Christian father and son band”. Mother and daughter, we hardly knew ye. đ Thankfully, they’re still “100% monotheist”. And they still ROCK. Get it? Winter has made himself a phony Trinity. “Bobo” and “Hayseed” are… Read More »Trinity Schminity – the music video
Four vivid, moving, memorable depictions of Love.
A post on some previous post commentary – no one can navel-gaze like a philosopher! đ Here’s a pictorial recap, and some additional thoughts on the comments here, in response to Scott and JT. The point of all this: we’re exploring why people who call themselves “social trinitarians” don’t like what they call “Latin” theories, and specifically the claim that those “Latin” theories can’t do justice to the loving relationships between the persons of the Trinity.Read More »on interpersonal love and stick figures (Dale)
Not possible. But why? (image credit)
Here are some rough-draft thoughts on another line of thinking associated with social trinitarian theories.
God is perfect. Arguably, an absolutely perfect being could not fail to be “well off” – in classical terminology, a perfect being must be happy, must be in a “blessed” condition. Part of perfection is independence. One kind of independence is the kind which comes up when discussing ontological or cosmological arguments for God’s existence – the idea of aseity, or existing but not because of anything else. But here’s another kind of independence or self-sufficiency: not requiring any thing (i.e. any fact not entailed by your existence) to be well off, to have a good life. Perhaps we could call it the divine property of security, or independent or self-sufficient happiness.
Is God as well off as he could possibly be? Arguably not,Read More »Reflections on the Impossibility of a truly lonely Christian God (Dale)
Dallas Willard is one of my favorite authors, and I don’t normally go in for criticizing what he writes. But I found a great example in this (good) book (p. 122) of an idea that is fairly widespread, and which underlies a lot of social trinitarian speculation. This brief passage got me to thinking. He says, …God is love and sustains love for us from… Read More »Are persons essentially relational?
You tell ’em, Joe. An interesting post & discussion: Alexander Pruss’s Blog: Liberal theology I think a lot of liberal theologians don’t have a “high view of reason” – many (not all) of them strike me as lazy drifters on miscellaneous intellectual currents. e.g. Has anyone’s reason really revealed to them, so to speak, that miracles don’t happen, or even that it’s irrational to believe… Read More »Linkage: Pruss on liberal theology (Dale)
Ice, ice, baby. (image credit)
A reader emailed me this question, and I thought others would be interested in my (attempt at) an answer. Also, this is a good chance to review and summarize some of my previous postings on modalism.
I was wondering if you could read [the following] and tell me what I was believing? (I think it might have been a form of Modalism) Also, I search everywhere and find that Modalism is wrong, but no explanations specifically why. Can you help me out on some links explaining that?
…I used to believe there was one God. He sometimes is called Father, sometimes called Jesus, and sometimes called the Holy Spirit. And sometimes called all at the same time. Read More »Reader Question About Modalism
Poetry, anyone?
Karen Armstrong is a famous ex-nun who has written, among other things, a puffing biography of the prophet Muhammad. She frequently appears on TV confidently gassing about various religious matters. But I was really taken a back by this, which I ran across in a podcast:
Ms. Armstrong: Well, you see, I think theology is poetry. That’s what my Jewish friend, Chaim Maccabee, told me all those years ago when he quoted Hillel’s golden rule to me and said, “You know, it doesn’t matter what you believe. Theology is poetry.”Read More »How not to do theology, Or: the theological Vogon (Dale)
The Trinity Challenge, from a Sufi Muslim blog. The comments there are wild and wooly. There’s a charge of polytheism, and some non-trinitarian Christians weigh in. The challenge, of course, cannot be met. But it seems to me he’s carelessly overlooking the options that the Trinity doctrine is: (1) implicitly taught in the Bible (i.e. it is deducible from what is there, though not explicitly… Read More »Linkage: a Muslim challenge (Dale)
MMM indeed! Henry of Ghent doesn’t spare the medieval lingo, and as Scott points out, it seems he never met a trinitarian theory he didn’t like – emanation, psychology, relations – it’s all good! Thanks to its being Thanksgiving break – and let me say Happy Thanksgiving to all our American and Canadian readers – I’ve caught up on the recent posts, as well as some very involved comments on my original H.O.G. post. (To those just jumping in – we’re using some letters defined in this post – it actually helps!) Here are some comments and questions relating to the lengthy comments on my original H.O.G. post. Perhaps this’ll give Scott some grist for the mill as he continues his series on Henry’s trinitarian theory. Read More »H.O.G. Questions
Blame a lot of MMM on this guy – the Hip’ster.
I feel some need to explain and justify what is going on here, as I have divided loyalties.
On the one hand, the stated purpose of the blog is to make recent research on trinitarian theories available to the wider public, in relatively brief, understandable, jargon free form.
On the other hand, this blog’s most faithful readers and commenters are specialists in medieval philosophy & theology, or in recent analytic philosophy of religion, and they can really get into dialogging in the way that PhDs (and to-be-PhDs) in these fields do – which is to say – highly abstract, jargon filled, argument-heavy discourse, that only a scholar can love. Being a scholar, of course, I love it, and have no desire to stem their exploration of historic trinitarian theories. They are all, in various ways, doing cutting edge work, and I learn a lot by listening in, and by joining in. And I know that other philosophy profs appreciate these discussions as well.
My solution? Have it both ways. đ I just want to try to build a bridge for non-academic readers, to help them, maybe, be able to get something out of this recent Medieval Metaphysical Mayhem (MMM). So I’m going to try to give some relevant background information.
Here goes: Read More »MMM unleashed @ trinities
“Stand aside, puny moderns. Or postmoderns. Or whatever you are.”
I thought that Scott and Joseph made some really penetrating comments on the first two posts in this series. Here I want to recap them, so we can discuss how Henry of Ghent (c. 1217-93) a.k.a. The Solemn Doctor would interpret our chart (see the first two posts), specifically, the second, modalistic interpretation I offered.
First, Joseph comes in with some weighty objections to that model (summarized and expanded by me from his comments).Read More »The Latin Trinity Chart 3 – Henry of Ghent to the rescue
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Here’s a second application for my Latin Trinity chart (see the first post for what the letters designate). Let’s say that a state of affairs is a thing/substance having a property at a time or timelessly.
The âpersonsâ here are just modes of D, that is, states of affairs involving D. So the Son just is D having Fi. And the Father just is D having P. And the Holy Spirit just is D having Sp. Regarding each of F, S, and H, each of them âjust isâ D – in the sense that in each of them, there is one and the same D.Read More »The Latin Trinity Chart 2 – a version of FSH modalism
Greetings, campers. We’ll return to Swinburne in a bit… I’ve been drawing again: Now it’s all clear, right? RIGHT?! key: D = the divine essence P = paternity Fi = filiation Sp = spiration F = the Father S = the Son H = the Holy Spirit T = the Trinity In this chart are eight “things” – in the widest sense of “thing”, i.e.… Read More »The Latin Trinity Chart 1 – 8 things, 1 trinity
If there’s at least one, there must be exactly three. Q.E.D.
The installment before the last, we saw that Richard Swinburne’s social trinitarian theory is very carefully built so as to satisfy multiple demands of orthodoxy. There is, he argues, a contradiction-free, reasonable trinitarian theory, which fits well with the classic creeds. But we can do even better than that. In Swinburne’s view, there’s a plausible argument for the Trinity based on reason alone. Don’t believe it? Oh, ye of little faith reason. Have ye not read the earlier Richard on this?Read More »Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 5 – Yes, we can prove it by reason alone
Dale’s Swinburne Trininty chart, version 2.0. (or 1.1 – whatever) Thanks to reader (and Swinburne student) Joseph Jedwab for the correction. He points out: [Swinburne] wants to avoid the idea that the Spiritâs existence is causally overdetermined [i.e. that it has two complete causes, either of which would alone suffice]. But he also wants to avoid the idea that each actively only partly causes the… Read More »Swinburneâs Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 4 – the cooperation involved in procession or spirating