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From prolific philosopher-theologian Keith Ward‘s God: A Guide for the Perplexed:
[The so-called Athanasian creed] is usually not now said in churches. One reason for this is suggested by my own experience the last, and only, time I tried to get an Anglican congregation to recite it aloud in church. When they got to the phrase, ‘the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible… and yet there are not three incomprehensibles’, they all burst out laughing. The whole thing was just too incomprehensible, and so the Trinity still seems to many people. (p. 234)
I think he means to put an emphasis on “seems,” for in his view, the doctrine is comprehensible enough, for he goes on to explain the doctrine of three persons in one substance as asserting that
…there are three different aspects of the one divine being, that none of them can be collapsed without remainder into the others, and that all of them together are necessary to an adequate idea of God. …[And these are] God as transcendent abyss, God as particular yet unbounded intelligence, and God as the immanent creative energy of being… (235-36)
The three persons identified with three aspects of God – this is a version of what I used to call FSH modalism. Admittedly, Ward pulls his punch – just before he says this is “One way of putting [the doctrine] today…”, but it seems to be his preferred way, as he expounds it and no other in this book.
A bit further on, he makes another interesting comment that ties in with previous discussions here:
Jews and Muslims, and other believers in God who reject the idea of the Trinity, could, in my experience, be quite sympathetic to this interpretation of the Trinity, if the qualifications required by the acceptance of the analogy were kept firmly in mind – though they might still reject the idea that Jesus is the unique personal form of God. (237)
Back to the famous creed – the “Athanasian” creed is often taken, by philosophers and sometimes by theologians, as being THE definitive statement of “the” doctrine of the Trinity, or at least, as the hard core which all future elaborations or developments must include. (I think, by the way, that this is a big mistake.) As Ward points out, and as my own experience suggests, this creed plays little role in the life of Christian people, whether in liturgical or devotional contexts. So some questions for our readers:
- Has any church you’ve been a part of regularly recited or read aloud the “Athanasian” creed?
- Have you ever heard a sermon or homily on that creed?
- Do you consider that creed an important spiritual document (as opposed to a theoretical one) – one which is either essential to, or at least importantly aids Christian spiritual development?
My own answers: no, no, and no.
Doesn’t sound entirely coincidental to me that the passage which was found to be a liturgical stumbling block is also the passage where the old translation is very weak (or arguably just plain wrong). If it’s a “picky” point, then why do few or none of the modern translations render Latin immensus as “incomprehensible”?
It’s kind of a picky point – I mean, “unmeasurable” is close, if understood metaphorically, to what some mean by “incomprehensible”. And I’ll bet that in a 5th-6th century context, to call God “infinite” had epistemic connotations. But I concede this point – perhaps the mirth of Ward’s congregation was due to their incomprehension of the term “incomprehensible” in the creed, and that “infinite” would have been less weird to them. Ward seems to have concluded, partly from said episode, that said creed isn’t terribly useful liturgically. If one thinks that, translating “immensus” as “infinite” probably won’t change the judgment.
Latin “immensus” basically means “un-measurable” or “unlimited”, or in the particular context of the Athansian creed, probably best translated “infinite” (as in the ICET-ELLC translation). Something which is infinite might be incomprehensible, but “Immensus” is simply not very directly equivalent to the modern English word “incomprehensible” — as already discussed in the late 19th century (see http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iv.i.iv.html ).
Hi AnonMoos,
My Latin dictionaries list “immeasurable” and “unfathomable” among the meanings of “immensus”. Why, then, think it is a mistranslation? And what is a better term for “immensus” there, in your opinion?
“Incomprehensible” is pretty much an outright mistranslation of the Latin word “Immensus” in the original. If you’re going to use the Athanasian Creed liturgically, then it would be better for many reasons to use a more modern translation than the archaic 1662 English Book of Common Prayer translation. For notions of identity in ordinary language being quite a bit more complex than what is expressible in simple first-order logic, see https://trinities.org/blog/archives/55
“takes no position on identity whatsoever”
What does taking a (metaphysical? logical?) position on = have to do with anything here? Would you be unwilling to say that part of the content of the Bible is that Abraham and Sarah are not =? I’d call that implicit content because it portrays some things being true of one that aren’t true of the other.
“All it says is that there are three persons, not confounded, and that such as one is they all are, so that the substance is not divided.”
Why ignore the other parts of the content which I pointed out? I guess you’re trying to stick with the explicit contents, and so you’re only willing to consider the bits that seem to have to do with sameness. But then, you’re ignoring my part about property differences.
“sameness as unity” Pray tell, what is that?
Re: the Mohawk example. I think – correct me if I’m wrong – you’re denying or ignoring the indiscernibility of identicals. I think that’s a self-evident truth, and wouldn’t have much to say to persuade you.
If you think that the apparent inconsistencies of the Ath creed can be easily responded to by lay people, then I think you’re assuming (as many do) that what I call “mysterian” replies to those concerns are good ones. Again, I’ll put off that topic for now – but I’ll just say, I’m not so sunny about those kinds of responses.
On the Newton example – I don’t think we disagree the relation between his and more recent theories (though with you I never know!) I’ll grant the point that it must be considered whether the Ath creed, even though strictly speaking false, is close enough to being true for (at least some) practical (spiritual) purposes. Creeds are normally thought to aim at truth though, however practical they may also be.
With regard to your implicit premise, it appears to me to be reading far more into the language than actually appears; it is not implied by the confession, which takes no position on identity whatsoever. All it says is that there are three persons, not confounded, and that such as one is they all are, so that the substance is not divided. One could perhaps read the ‘non confundentes’ as a claim of non-identity, but nothing in the language requires it.The only claim that is made is that the Trinity is three (not one) with regard to Persons and one (not three) with regard to substances.
With regard to your argument, consider this other argument:
1. Brandon on Wednesday wore only a red shirt, not a white shirt.
2. Brandon on Tuesday wore only a red shirt, not a red shirt.
3. Therefore, Brandon on Wednesday is not one and the same as Brandon on Tuesday.
The layperson, of course, is not confusing identity with qualitative similarity in rejecting arguments like these, or, indeed, making any mistake at all; he is simply avoiding the mistake of confusing sameness as unity (which he uses often) with sameness as identity (which he uses at most only in a limited set of artificial contexts). In your argument, the Mohawk is clearly being taken as a way in which Jill’s boyfriend Brandy-Brand and Brandon are two countable individuals. But distinct countability is a rather looser notion than identity; think of (as one example) Roxanne’s boyfriend Cyrano and Cyrano de Bergerac or(as another) Tibbles and Tibbles not counting his tail.
With regard to sophistication, I’ve read a number of the works too; I am not so impressed as you are. The strongest arguments, it seems to me, are never logical but historical. The logical objections in general tend to bear the weakness and lack of sophistication with regard to logic that all but a few works in the seventeenth and eighteenth century have. I’m inclined to think that you are reading your own logical sophistication into them, just as it seems to me that you are reading it into the lay objector. Of course, I haven’t read the whole literature; it could be that you are thinking of some knock-down argument I’ve never come across.
You missed the point of my shamrock reply; as I explicitly said it was not an elaboration of the doctrine of the Trinity, it was a reply to a particular objection that could not be answered by that objection without raising the level of sophistication. What you seem to me to be doing throughout all your replies is taking all the family of objections on one side (against the Quicunque Vult formulation) and treating them as if they were the very simple formulation; and taking all the replies on the opposing side (the responses) as if they were only at the very complex level. As you stated before, “The inconsistency jumps out at you – any layperson can grasp it. What’s subtle are the ways people try to resolve them.” This, of course, is not true. The subtle responses are raised by subtle objections; any apparent inconsistencies that may jump out at a layperson are relatively crude, and can in general be given counter-responses by laypeople.
The Newton analogy is appropriate as a response to your criticism above whether or not we’ve found out anything more, because your argument, as far as I can see, would still require us to say that we can only attribute approximation to Newton if we could say he had the more sophisticated view but simplified it for pedagogical purposes. This overlooks the fact that someone can, for a large number of reasons, be fairly accurate, within a generous margin of approximation and practical purposes, for many, many other reasons. Newton was selected not as being the closest example, but as being an obvious case where your assumptions would seem to give us the wrong answer. At least, as far as I could understand your argument; it’s possible I misunderstood the criticism.
“the Quicunque Vult says nothing about identity; this is a straightforward anachronism”
Hey Brandon – notice that I put the premise about = in brackets – it isn’t, as you point out, part of the explicit content of that creed that none of the three are numerically identical to one another, but it is something implied there, as it says some things are true of each, that aren’t true of the other two.
“most laypersons have a looser notion of unity than you do” Yes and no. They’re not familiar with the logic of identity, and often confuse = with qualitative similarity (and possibly with other things). But, they have the concept nonetheless, and use it, in the following type of reasoning:
1. Jill’s boyfriend Brandy-Brand had a mohawk at time t.
2. Brandon didn’t have a mohawk at time t.
3. Therefore, Brandon and Brandy-Brand are not one and the same.
Re: sophistication: one only has to be concerned with logical consistency to worry about that creed. Starting in the radical reformation, and cropping up at various later times such as the late 17th c. in England, many ministers, professors, and thinking laypeople concluded that the “Athanasian” creed was contradictory. I can tell you from reading them that few of them had a logician’s sophistication. As to logical apparatus, I think I expressed the apparent inconsistency pretty well in my last comment, in 4 lines and using only one technical term – “identical”. This isn’t really a technical term – everyone has this concept. Give any common person a Star Trek transporter scenario wherein two James T. Kirks are “printed out”, and say the two would be *nearly* qualitatively the same, but wouldn’t be numerically the same (they are two) – and all the heads will nod. Same with the reasoning above.
Your shamrock reply would work, I think, if the creed were saying that God is somehow three and somehow one. But, it implicitly says more than that. I think you’re reading common (what I call) “mysterian” views into the creed. (More on that in coming posts.)
To make your Newton analogy appropriate, I think we’d have to have now found out more of the truth about what the author of the Ath creed was talking about, so that we can see that he was making rough but decently accurate (though apparently inconsistent) approximations. Is that what you think? If so, I’d like to know what it is we’ve found out.
No: the Quicunque Vult says nothing about identity; this is a straightforward anachronism that won’t bear serious philological examination. (I don’t see how you can be making this mistake; the document doesn’t even mention ‘idem’; much less does it have any expression that is unequivocally an expression for identity.) Most laypersons do not recognize identity as involved because most laypersons have a looser notion of unity than you do. The “inconsistency,” despite your claim otherwise, can’t be formulated at all without a fairly sophisticated and subtle logical apparatus. We’re talking a High-Scholasticism / Post-Fregean type of sophistication. Without this sort of sophistication, any objection that could be made to it can’t be made precise enough to avoid apparent counter-analogies. (‘One thing and one thing and one thing do not together make one thing’ says the Irish chieftain; ‘Ah,’ says St. Patrick, ‘Consider the shamrock, which with one leaf and one leaf and one leaf makes one leaf.’ The response can be rejected as not good enough for the doctrine of the Trinity — but you cannot reject it as such at the level of the original objection, which is perfectly answered by it. You would have to raise the level of precision in the objection. To identify an inconsistency in the Quicunque Vult that is not susceptible to any such everyday responses, you have to reach a level of precision well beyond what most people use in everyday life.)
There is, of course, no reason why you need to regard the author of the Quicunque Vult as having had a more sophisticated view, only a very felicitous expression of a crude but adequate view. Whether it is adequate can’t be determined on the basis of perceived inconsistencies unless you have already shown those inconsistencies not to be due to approximation. (Newtonian physics is merely an approximation, and a crude approximation under certain circumstances. Yet we still teach it. And the reason is that it is an excellent way to teach physics; refinements can come later. But it would make no sense to suggest that this claim requires us to hold that Newton knew relativistic physics but was making simplifying assumptions.)
They’re pretty apparent, I’m afraid.
The three are said to differ somewhat.
[Hence, none are identical.]
Each is F.
But there’s only one F.
Sigh.
The inconsistency jumps out at you – any layperson can grasp it. What’s subtle are the ways people try to resolve them. (e.g. relative identity)
I understand the point about simplifying (and inconsistent) assumptions in presentations for beginners. This makes more sense when the author actually has a sophisticated view which he could spell out if need be. I’m not sure the author of the Ath creed had such a view – his concern is to enforce catholic orthodoxy.
How are you identifying apparent inconsistencies? Whether something counts as an inconsistency, apparent or otherwise, depends on the degree of approximation that is allowed. A document’s being a basic teaching document means that there is considerable room for approximation. You don’t teach high school algebra with full-scale category theory; and it would be silly to nitpick a textbook on string theory merely because it is strictly speaking inconsistent to think of space as a rubber sheet. Silvanus Thompson’s famoust textbook, Calculus Made Easy, presents an approach to calculus that is not rigorous and strictly speaking falls prey to the same inconsistencies Berkeley noted in the eighteenth century — but it is also widely regarded as one of the best first introductions to calculus ever written. The inconsistencies are insignificant given that the work is explicitly an attempt to give a rough first approximation to get you acquainted with the way it all works, and the inconsistencies that would be troubling if it were put forward as representing a higher level of precision are insignificant at that level of deliberate approximation. To think of it as a problem would be to fail to recognize its pedagogical value.
Besides, in the case of the Quicunque Vult, the apparent inconsistencies are not always so apparent (nor always anything more than apparent).
Hi Brandon,
A document’s being “catechetical” means that apparent inconsistencies are unimportant? I could see why that’d be a problem *in different ways* for theoretical vs. for practical documents, but it seems to me to be equally a problem for the latter…
No, No, and Yes (to the importantly aids part, not the essential part). I think it’s actually a splendid catechetical document: relatively simply, relatively memorable, and the problems proposed for it are usually seen to be exaggerated if it is taken to be catechetical. I agree entirely, though, that it’s absurd to treat it as the definitive statement of the doctrine of the Trinity.
No, No, and probably Yes.
Richard St. Victor talks about chanting the Athanasian Creed, and comments that few have given arguments from reason to explain its more difficult points; he doesn’t mention any laughing, though he does often mention ‘idiots’ and the uneducated….
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