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Theologians

Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Theologian and Philosopher

A while back I posted on a short, popular piece by Biola theologian Fred Sanders. He’s now responded. I’m going to continue the conversation, I hope shedding light on the differing assumptions and methods of present-day academic theologians and philosophers. I agree with Fred that responses-to-responses are usually boring. Here’s a greater crime: a (long) response to a response to a response. 😛

I guess what set me in motion was his claim, which struck me as unreasonable, that it’s a good thing that there’s no “Trinity verse” in the Bible – i.e. one which explicitly and clearly  states the doctrine.

In fact, up until I think some time in the late 19th c., trinitarians thought they had something pretty close:Read More »Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Theologian and Philosopher

Ignored Analytic Theology

Over at Aporetic Christianity Paul has had a worthy post on a major new tome of systematic theology, which he says whiffs it on the contributions of analytic philosophers of the last 40 years or so. I agree with all the examples Paul gives of philosophers / analytic theologians whose work should not be ignored by any serious investigator – not because they’re my peeps –… Read More »Ignored Analytic Theology

Linkage: Feudin’ Christian Philosophers & Theologians

Over at Aporetic Christianity, Paul M. has a long but interesting and perceptive post on the hostility he’s encountered in some Reformed circles towards analytic theology. (See his whole post if you’re wondering what “analytic theology” is.) A sample: Not only is philosophy shunned as speculative and troublesome, many Reformed… disparage some of the tools those in this discipline specialize in utilizing. Logic and analytical… Read More »Linkage: Feudin’ Christian Philosophers & Theologians

Is God a Self? Part 3 – Clayton

Philip Clayton teaches theology and philosophy at the Claremont School of theology, and at the Claremont Graduate University.

He publishes a ton, and much of his work is in the science and religion genre. Unlike many authors in that genre, Clayton isn’t a scientist – his training is in theology, religious studies, and philosophy.

He’s also a co-founder of this Big Tent Christianity project, which aims in his words “to foster a radically different understanding of the heart of Christian faith” – different, that is, from the theologically and culturally conservative and liberal camps.

But our question is: Is God a self? What saith Clayton? Check out his interview (blue button), and then click here for my take -> Read More »Is God a Self? Part 3 – Clayton

confused kid

Mysterians at work in Dallas

confused kid
Clearly, the instructor’s work has been accomplished.

What I call positive mysterianism about the Trinity is the view that the doctrine, as best we can formulate it, is apparently contradictory.  Now many Christian philosophers resort to this in the end, but only after one or more elaborate attempts to spell the doctrine out in a coherent way. On the other hand, some jump more quickly for the claim, not really expanding on or interpreting the standard creedal formulas much at all. These are primarily who I have in mind when I use the label “positive mysterian”.

I ran across a striking version of this recently, in a blog post by theologian C. Michael Patton, who blogs at Parchment and Pen: a theology blog. In his interesting post, he says that all the typical analogies for the Trinity (shamrock, egg, water-ice-vapor, etc.) are useful only for showing what the Trinity doctrine is not.

This contrasts interestingly with what I call negative mysterians. Typically, and this holds for many of the Fathers, as well as for people like Brower and Rea nowadays, they hold that all these analogies are useful, at least when you pile together enough of them, for showing what the doctrine is. Individually, they are highly misleading, and only barely appropriate, but they seem to think that multiplying analogies like these results in our  achieving a minimal grasp of what is being claimed. Maybe they think the seeming inconsistency of the analogies sort of cancels out the misleading implications of each one considered alone.

In any case, in Patten’s view, the best you can do is to Read More »Mysterians at work in Dallas

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)

Hitler a consumer of trinitarian speculations

This is one for the history buffs. Check out this piece from my favorite magazine: Hitler’s Forgotten Library. Skip to the end (last 9-10 paragraphs) for the Trinity stuff – which is (I think, ultimately Hegel-inspired) absolute idealist / monist riffing on the Trinity. Can’t muster much interest in that genre myself, since I think monism is obviously false. But I note that some theologians… Read More »Hitler a consumer of trinitarian speculations

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

Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)

We might look happy, but we're not. We hated the guy in the upper left corner; so he's not around anymore.
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. Read More »Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)

Richard of St. Victor 9 – Perfect Love Requires Three Persons (Scott)

Three is perfection, four is redundant. (Un)Fortunately, one of these people gets knocked-off.
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.Read More »Richard of St. Victor 9 – Perfect Love Requires Three Persons (Scott)

“Trinity” @ the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Little known fact: overwork causes one’s neck to become invisible! After an embarrassing amount of time, I’ve finally finished my encyclopedia entry on the Trinity for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (as well as lengthy supplementary documents on the history of Trinity doctrines, Judaic and Islamic objections, and unitarianism). Since I can’t thank them in the entry, I’d like to thank editors Ed Zalta and… Read More »“Trinity” @ the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Richard of St. Victor 8 – A Proposed Constitutional Trinitarian Taxonomy (Scott)

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

Read More »Richard of St. Victor 8 – A Proposed Constitutional Trinitarian Taxonomy (Scott)