Here are some interesting thoughts on trinitarian doctrine by young philosopher Kenny Pearce. I like the way Kenny resists simply settling for mysteries; he has a good sense of how empty that stance is.
I’d have to disagree with his claim that persons are causally connected series of mental events, for several philosophical reasons. The main one is this: as stated, it implies something contradictory and false, namely that two later persons can each be numerically identical to one earlier person.
I’d like to add more, but I’m cramming to get ready for the start of the school year here. I wonder, though – how does he think it can be “proven from Scripture” that
‘person’ and ‘substance’ carry no external meaning into the [Nicene] formula and are merely plugged in as a matter of convenience
Thanks for the link!
It appears that I misspoke, or at least spoke misleadingly. I clearly don’t think that it can be proven from Scripture that Nicaea does or doesn’t say this or that (unless we had some theological reason to suppose that Nicaea was infallible). What I meant to say is that the modest claim that “God is three in one sense, and yet one in another sense” can be proven from Scripture, but stronger statements of trinitarian theology probably cannot.
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