In three of the last four posts (Rick St. Vick 6, 7, 9, 10) I surveyed some of Richard of St. Victor’s arguments for why there must be at least three divine persons. (We’ve yet to see an argument for there aren’t more than three persons.) Here I’d like to respond to these, and to one JT’s responses too.Read More »Richard of St. Victor 11 – Response to the Argument From Love Thus Far (Scott)
In De Trinitate Book 3.7 Richard summarizes some of what comes beforehand. We have learned that supreme goodness requires supreme love (i.e. supreme love is a necessary condition for supreme goodness), and that supreme love requires more than one person. If supreme love were only self-love, then the total state of affairs “one divine person has self-love” is not as perfect a state of affairs as another total state of affairs, namely “two persons have self-love, and each loves the other person.” Thus,
If there is supreme love, then there is a plurality of persons.
Likewise, Henry infers from what he takes to be the nature of supreme love to entail the equality of the persons in question.
If there is supreme love, then there is an equality of persons.
Below I try to explain just what all this means.
Read More »Richard of St. Victor 6 – Supreme Love Only Among Equals, Again (Scott)
Greetings, campers. We’ll return to Swinburne in a bit… I’ve been drawing again: Now it’s all clear, right? RIGHT?! key: D = the divine essence P = paternity Fi = filiation Sp = spiration F = the Father S = the Son H = the Holy Spirit T = the Trinity In this chart are eight “things” – in the widest sense of “thing”, i.e.… Read More »The Latin Trinity Chart 1 – 8 things, 1 trinity
We had our first post here or 6 / 19 / 06 – over 350 posts ago! Thus, we are 5. Ready for Kindergarden, evidently! 😉 Many thanks to J.T. Paasch, Scott Williams, and Joseph Jedwab for their excellent posts! And thanks to the many great commenters here; we’ve had some vigorous discussions, and only very rarely have things gotten a bit too “hot.” You folks are awesome. A… Read More »trinities turns 5
I discuss mystery-epistemology and Bible interpretation with James and Andrew at City of God. And Scott (previous trinities posts) goes to town on Augustine, Henry of Ghent, and John Duns Scotus at Per Caritatem, where they’re having a Augustine Blog Conference.
I’ll be the worm in the duncecap. JT and Scott can fight over who is which jellybean. Congratulations to trinities contributor Joseph Jedwab, who is in the process of finishing his PhD at Oxford, under Richard Swinburne. It’s been a good spring for Joseph. First, he lands a prestigious post-doc at Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion. Then, he lands a job at Kutztown… Read More »Congratulations to Joseph
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
Subject: Theories about God, Jesus, and the Trinity. Purposes: To survey, explain, and evaluate theories relating to the above, past and present. To foster discussion and critical thinking about these topics among the general public, as well as philosophers, theologians, and apologists. To host and complement the trinities podcast, which you can support at Patreon. Current Contributors Dale Tuggy (posts) (PhD Philosophy, Brown University, 2000) Former professor… Read More »About
Joseph Smith made some bold claims, many of which
“The Trinity doctrine, at least for orthodox Christians, is found in the seven ecumenical councils.”
What is “mere” social trinitarianism, and why is it controversial among trinitarian theologians?
Who needs the Bible when you can gesture at some philosophical speculations?
“What bothers me most is the rhetorical move you’re making with this claim that everyone before Nicea (or so) was a ‘Unitarian.'”
I explain my view that arguments from truth are a greater threat to human freedom than are arguments from foreknowledge, and I argue against the all-false view about statements about future events that (as of now) may or may not occur.