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.
Is it a mental subject (i.e. a subject of mental properties, like you and me)? But what difference is there, if any, between a mental subject and a mental substance? If a substance just is an entity that has a causal power, then it seems ‘mental subject’ and ‘mental substance’ are equivalent, in which case if the one mental substance constitutes three additional mental subjects there are four mental subjects/substances in all. If a substance isn’t just an entity that has a causal power, what is it such that the mental subjects in the Trinity aren’t substances?
If a centre isn’t a mental subject, then is it a bundle or composite of conscious mental events that stand in some unity relation to each other alone? But then it’s not easy to see why that should imply there are three persons (i.e. rational mental subjects) and so why this view should qualify as a version of ST, where presumably the persons must at the very least stand in social relations to each other. For such bundles are not persons and we’ve been given no reason to think each bundle constitutes a person.
Finally, they say the contrast with LT is that on their view God has three faculties of intellect and will. But this depends on how one individuates faculties. Perhaps one might individuate according to the one mental substance and say there’s one such faculty or individuate according to the persons and say there are three. One might even do both, having faculties of different kinds or faculties in different senses.
The best way I can see to make sense of their view is to use some Lockean metaphysics. Say there’s one infinite spirit (a substance in the sense of a basic item in one’s ontology that is a concrete object, i.e. has a causal power) and say because it has three consciousnesses it constitutes three persons. This makes the view a bit like Merricks’ analogy in ‘Split Brains and the Godhead’, in which case it’s not a million miles away from Leftow’s LT. It’s clear in some ways but could do with a bit more spelling out.
Joseph Jedwab, who, at first, “seems [to be] posing a dilemma” to Moreland & Craig and their “Trinity Monotheism”, after all admits the possibility, on the basis of “some Lockean metaphysics”, of an “infinite spirit” which (who?) “because it has three consciousnesses … constitutes three persons”.
Dale’s “dogma” whereby “person” should be equated, one to one, with substance has disappeared, after all …
MdS
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Hi Dale,
I think the main point is that they need to make some big decisions to have an account. We need to know what they mean by ‘mental substance’, ‘centre of consciousness’, and ‘person’. I think Trenton Merricks is right when he says that many who describe their view as a version of ST are saying that there are three divine persons and there’s some consistent way to read the claim that there’s one God. But this on its own isn’t nearly enough to qualify as an account of the Trinity. I didn’t really intend to pose a dilemma so much as to show that they need to say more.
The main choice, as I see it, for accounts of the Trinity is whether there’s one basic divine mental subject (who’s God) and then one tries to say what it is for there to be three divine persons, or else whether there’re three basic divine mental subjects (who are the divine persons) and then one tries to say what it is for there to be one God. (By ‘a mental subject’, I mean a subject of mental properties. By ‘basic’ I mean something like what John Locke means by ‘substance’ in his Essay 2.27.)
I see the Brower and Rea idea of defending the coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity as orthogonal to the debate on how many basic subjects there are in the Trinity. But the way Brower and Rea use the idea commits them to three basic subjects. There’s divine stuff. It’s not an entity. Together with a form it composes or constitutes a person. The concept of stuff here is primitive. There are three forms (fatherhood, sonship, spirithood). The same stuff with each form constitutes three persons. We count divine persons only by identity. We count Gods only by numerical samenesss (without identity), which comes to counting by the same divine stuff. That’s just how the concepts of divine person and God work. (We needn’t do this in terms of divine stuff. We could do this in terms of something like a divine substratum, which is an entity. But one way or the other, there’s no underlying mental subject.)
One could have a Lockean theory of the Trinity and use numerical sameness without identity to explain why each divine person is God. But this would use the idea differently from how Brower and Rea use it.
So the best way I see to interpret Moreland and Craig lines up their view more closely with Merricks and Leftow (who I see as one-basic-subject theorists) than it does with Brower and Rea (who I see as three-basic-subjects theorists).
Best,
Joseph
Hi Joseph,
It seems you’re posing them a dilemma. Either the three are persons – i.e. personal beings/substances, or not. If they are, you’re got four divine substances, with three as parts of the fourth. If not, then why think they’re “persons” at all, or that they’re capable of being in personal relationships with one another.
You suggest, positively, that the second way would work, IF (big if) we accept a Lockean account of persons. Here, there’d be one thing, one substance (God?) which underlies three “consciousnesses”, thus simultaneously constituting three persons. Isn’t that very similar to what Brower and Rea have urged? (I’ve been meaning to post on that…)
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