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Joseph

Originally from Montreal in Canada, I lived in the UK for most of my life. My wife and I live in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where I teach philosophy at the University there. My doctoral work was on the metaphysics of the Trinity and Incarnation, in which I argue for a particular account of both doctrines. My supervisor was Richard Swinburne and my examiners were Brian Leftow and Howard Robinson.

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.19 (Joseph)

Here Richard spells out more fully than before the nature of shared love (condilectus). Here he offers one main argument (A.1-3) from supreme shared love for the Trinity and then a follow-up argument (B.1-3) again from supreme shared love for the Trinity. So (A) consider the nature of shared love:

  1. If one person loves another and only he loves only her, there is love but not shared love.
  2. If two mutually love only each other (if the affection of each goes out to the other), again there is love but not shared love.
  3. Shared love exists only if a third person is loved by two persons jointly:

“Shared love is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two persons harmoniously and in community, and the affection of the two persons is fused into one affection by the flame of love for the third.” (Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, p.392)

(This is as close as we ever get to a characterization of shared love.)

So, in divinity, if there is shared love, there are at least three persons.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.19 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.18 (Joseph)

Here is my paraphrase of the argument in ch.18: It might seem that supreme goodness can exist where one person supremely loves and receives nothing in return from the other person for full happiness. But in fact such supreme goodness can’t even exist where only two persons mutually love each other. Suppose that, in divinity, there are only two persons. Then each gives and receives… Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.18 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.16 (Joseph)

So next up ch.16. Here’s my version of what goes on in this chapter:

  1. Full wisdom and power can exist in only one person. If, per impossibile, there is only one divine person, he can still have fullness of wisdom and power.
  2. The pleasures of wisdom and love differ. The pleasure of wisdom can be drawn from oneself. The pleasure of love must be drawn from another. Anyone who loves and desires to be so loved but doesn’t receive such love is displeased. But the pleasure of wisdom is even better when one derives it from oneself.
  3. If, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can have full wisdom. Full wisdom and full power can’t exist without each other. For suppose someone lacks omnipotence. If she doesn’t know how to obtain what she so lacks, then she lacks full wisdom. And anyone who unwillingly suffers some defect of wisdom lacks full power.  Therefore, if, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can also have full power.

Re 1: I like the implicit distinction here between what is a real and only a conceptual possibility. There can’t really be only one divine person. For, as Richard is trying to demonstrate, there must be at least three divine persons. But the concepts of full wisdom and power don’t conceptually imply the concept of more than one divine person.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.16 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.15 (Joseph)

So we’re done with ch.14. Now on to ch.15. Here’s a paraphrase of his argument: With divine persons, the perfection of one requires another, and so the perfection of a pair requires union with a third. Each such person is perfectly benevolent and so shares his perfection with the other. But if each is perfectly benevolent, then each with equal desire and for a similar… Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.15 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Chapter 14, Part 2 (JOSEPH)

I (and so we) took a break from the Richard posts. But we now return. Perhaps at some point I’ll blog on some conferences I’ve been to: the Metaphysics of the Incarnation conference at the University of Oxford last September. And I might share a very brief talk I gave on the Trinity at a local church last October. But for now, on to the main attraction.

Richard has already argued in various ways that if there is so much as one divine person, there are at least three divine persons. But the arguments have all been a bit here and there. So to make the reasons even more evident, he plans to gather them all up into one. So here it is:

Suppose there is only one divine person: P.

1)      Then P doesn’t share his greatness.

2)      Compare two situations. In the first, P is the only divine person. In the second, P is not the only divine person; there is another: Q. In the second situation, P and Q love each other and P has the pleasure that love brings. So in the first situation, P lacks in eternity not only such love but also such pleasure.

3)      Anyone supremely good shares her greatness. (Not so to share is to retain something greedily. But anyone supremely good does nothing greedily.)

4)      Anyone supremely happy has such pleasure. (Not to have such pleasure is not to have an abundance of pleasure. But anyone supremely happy has an abundance of pleasure.)

5)      P is supremely good and happy.

So if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Chapter 14, Part 2 (JOSEPH)

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.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate Ch.14

Brentano and the Trinity, Part 1 (Joseph)

Franz Brentano

What a great beard!

Franz Brentano (1838-1917), a forerunner of the phenomenological movement and the analytic movement, was of great influence on folk such as Edmund Husserl, Alexius Meinong, Anton Marty, Carl Stumpf, and Kasimir Twardowski. He is best known for his work Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint (1874). And in that work he is best known for his view that the mark of the mental is intentionality:

Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself… (Brentano, Psychology, 88)Read More »Brentano and the Trinity, Part 1 (Joseph)