Is Ned in trouble? Here’s a quick post to wrap up the series on Brower’s and Rea’s constitution theory of the Trinity. First, it’s striking how original and self-consistent their approach is. It is rare to find something this new, and this well thought through on such an old topic. They’ve carefully carved out a unique position, one which has a motivation outside of theology… Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 6: summing up
Like about everything else these days.
In this post I want to explore what to me is the oddest and hardest part to grasp of the constitution trinitarianism. When I first read their paper, I thought they thought God was a stuff – that is, that the term “God” referred to a certain thing, that immaterial stuff they call “the divine essence”. That was wrong on two counts. For as we’ve seen, “the divine essence” isn’t supposed to be a thing (although they think it wouldn’t be a catastrophe if they admitted it was a thing – see their footnote 10). Hence, it can’t be a thing which is identical to God. Second, they don’t think that “God”, say, when used in a Psalm, refers to that stuff. So, what do they think it refers to? It depends. They hold that it’s a systematically ambiguous term. Why is that?Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 5: Ambiguous God-talk
JT Paasch is a graduate student at Oxford, he’s originally from Utah. He earned a M.Div at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (under Kevin Vanhoozer), then went to Oxford to work with Richard Cross on medieval trinitarian theology. His doctoral thesis is titled ‘The Logic and Metaphysics of the Trinity according to William of Ockham’. I’ve appreciated his thoughtful comments on some of my posts here. I thought the following one was post-worthy.
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. Read More »Guest post: JT Paasch on constitution trinitarianism
“Come on, you tired little brain – don’t fail me now.” (No, I don’t really blog naked – serious thought requires having at least your underpants on.)
Joseph Jedwab does an excellent job (here, comments 3 & 4) pressing me for details, and taking a shot at defending the Brower and Rea theory. I wanted to chew a bit on some issues that Joseph and Ian raise before moving on, offering some corrections and other reflections. (And JT – I want to post your lengthy comment (the second one) as a guest post, so we can discuss the priority issue – email me if you object to this promotion. 
) Any bold type that appears in quotes here has been added by me.
To non-philosophical readers: I apologize for the over-long load of philosopher-lingo that follows. You may want to skip this one! Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 4: pausing and revisiting some issues
Is the Son God? In the immortal words of Bill Clinton, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Brower and Rea suggest the following classification of meanings of “is” (in logic, “is” is called “the copula” – that which connects the subject and what’s being said of that subject).
Um, no the Clintons aren’t in the original chart in their paper (71).
And yes, Bill is intrigued by the word “copula”. Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 3: The Meaning of “Is”
In the same issue of Faith and Philosophy (22:1, Jan 2005, 77-86) Bill Craig has a critical response piece. (Available online here.) First, he gives a nice and clear summary of their article, more complete than the one I gave last time. Then he proceeds to object. As with most philosophical theories, when you start objecting, things start getting complicated, and you start to understand the theory in question better.
For starters, what do they mean by “the divine essence”? What sort of thing is this which constitutes the persons? Rea answers in an email which Craig quotes:
All we mean to commit ourselves to is the idea that maybe the Persons are like a hylomorphic [form plus matter] structure: there’s something…we call it the “divine essence”… that plays the role of commonly shared matter, and, for each Person, something else that plays the role of form. (80)
Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 2: Craig’s objections
The next theory up to bat is by philosophers Mike Rea of Notre Dame and Jeff Brower of Purdue University. In some ways Mike reminds me of his mentor Al Plantinga – a tall guy you don’t want to argue against unless you absolutely have to. He’s published many articles in metaphysics and philosophy of religion, and is perhaps best known for this book. He’s presently editing several books, including one of recent essays on the Trinity, which I’m really looking forward to seeing. Jeff is one of the best medieval philosophy specialists around, focusing on metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and ethics. I think he has excellent tastes in medieval philosophers. Both of these guys are top-notch, and you’ll always learn a lot from anything they publish. Both of them, by the way, have many papers available to download from their websites, and their other Trinity work will surely be discussed here at some future date. The one I’ll be discussing in this series is here. Theirs is a bold and controversial theory, and one which is quite out of step with the Social Trinitarian views that have been so popular of late.
“Material Constitution and the Trinity” (Faith and Philosophy 22:1, Jan 2005, 57-76) is a difficult and technical article, dense with argument. Philosophers will appreciate how well it’s crafted; I not sure many others can get through it! Here I’ll just lay out the broad lines of it, getting slightly more precise in future installments. Consider Ned the gnome:
How many things are pictured here? Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 1: Ned and Lumpy
…why not say that there is a single substance, God, but that the existence of this substance grounds other, non-fundamental entities [i.e. the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit] that perhaps can be considered parts of God. …the existence of the whole is prior to the existence of the parts. For someone drawn to a social trinitarian sort of view that takes the members… Read More »Linkage: Ian’s search for a new Social Trinitarian theory
Time to close out this long series with a brief summary of my own observations on and objections to Trinity Monotheism. These aren’t all the one’s I’ve mentioned, but only the ones I think are the most relevant. And I should say that Joseph has raised some others as well, both in his guest post and in his comments. The whole parts issue is a… Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 9: Some final thoughts and objections
A couple of equally “bugly” ladies. In his attack, Dan Howard-Snyder goes through four different things one might have in mind by saying there are “two ways to be divine”. Continuing his defense and elaboration of the theory of Trinity Monotheism, Bill goes through each of these, declaring that Dan’s objections beg the question, or saddle the Trinity Monotheist with commitments she needn’t make. I’ve… Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 8: Bill Fires Back, Part 2
Last time we looked at Daniel Howard-Snyder’s published attack on Moreland’s and Craig’s Trinity theory they call “Trinity Monotheism“. Bill Craig, never one to duck a fight, fired back. (“Trinity Monotheism Once More,” Philosophia Christi 8:1, 2006, 101-13) First, he complains that Dan “fusses terribly over the analogies” they use (e.g. a human, Ceberus) while not saying much about the actual proposal. This is a… Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 7: Bill fires back, part 1
In this post, I’ll take a crack at summarizing a lengthy salvo against Trinity monotheism launched by Daniel Howard-Snyder. Dan is well known and respected for his work on the problem of evil and in theory of knowledge. He has a hard-hitting and thorough style, very Alstonian (which is no accident). Generally, Dan is a nice guy, with a good sense of humor to boot.… Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 6: Attack of the Dan
In what sense, according to Craig and Moreland, are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each “divine”? Well, consider Rover. They’d say that the following four things are canine: Rover Rover’s nose Rover’s tail Rover’s left ear So, just as the parts of a dog are just as canine as the dog, so maybe “we could think of the persons of the Trinity as divine… Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 5: “divine”
In the words of Moreland and Craig,
We turn finally to Trinity monotheism, which holds that while the persons of the Trinity are divine, it is the Trinity as a whole that is properly God. If this view is to be orthodox, it must hold that the Trinity alone is God and that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while divine, are not Gods. (589, their section 3.2.2)
Leftow, in the essay we mentioned last time, gives a complicated objection to this whole approach, which Moreland and Craig represent in the following helpful chart. (p. 590)
Leftow’s point is that no matter how you develop Trinity monotheism, you end up with an unacceptable theoryRead More »Trinity Monotheism Part 4: parrying Leftow
To fully understand a philosophical theory, one needs to understand not only the content of it, but the reasons for which it is held. This is why I’m patiently going through how Moreland and Craig reject what they see as the competing Trinity theories, before giving their own.
As we’ve seen, they consider themselves to be “social trinitarians” (last time we looked at their rather vague definition of that term). They then adopt Brian Leftow’s taxonomy of social trinitarian theories, and decide that the first of these is the most promising. Read More »Trinity Monotheism Part 3: Their Set-Up, Part 2
Sometimes, all your main interests converge. Books? Check. Computers? Check. Philosophy and theology? Check. History? Check. The result: http://trinities.org/books.Read More »Books
Before going into objections to “Trinity Monotheism”, I thought it’d be a good idea to say a bit more about their long, meaty chapter in which they (eventually) set out their own theory, in this book. This’ll take a couple of posts, and we’ll allow time for discussion between them. Theologians in particular should find a lot to chew on here;they’re pretty out of step with the theological world on these issues, as we’ll see.Read More »Trinity Monotheism part 2: their set-up, part 1
Returning from my travels, it seems I’ve recently received two issues of Faith and Philosophy, dated Oct 2006 and Jan 2007. There are several bits that may be of interest to readers of this blog.Read More »Some good stuff in Faith & Philosophy
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.Read More »Guest Post: Jedwab on “Trinity Monotheism”
William Lane Craig is a respected and extremely prolific Christian philosopher. I’d give you his c.v., but it might bring the internet to a standstill. He’s sometimes a bit pugnacious in print, but is very amiable in person. And he’s extremely sharp. His trinitarian co-theorizer, J.P. Moreland, is also influential and inhumanly prolific, and is one of the clearest, best organized writers around. He’s been called a “scrappy” arguer, which is apt, and he’s also a swell guy (I took classes from him at Biola in the early 90s, and I’m grateful for how he influenced me). A Willardite, he also writes books about Christian spirituality, such as this good one. Both Craig and Moreland are well known for their many forays into the popular area, in the form of books on apologetics, public debates and such.
Nice doggie… nice doggie… What’s Cerberus here got to do with the Trinity? Keep reading.
Read More »Moreland’s and Craig’s “Trinity Monotheism” – Part 1