What, precisely, is “modalism,” and what, if anything, is wrong with it? I find the theological and historical literature to be depressingly unclear about this. Why? Partly it’s the sparseness and obscurity of the original sources. Partly it’s the habit of simply repeating the same lore over and over, couched in the same (sometimes unhelpful) terms, starring the same (not too well drawn) heroes and… Read More »What is Modalism?
Now, on to the Fourth Lateran Council, convened by Pope Innocent III in 1215. This council, considered the 12th “ecumenical” council, was one of the all-time most important councils, which strongly shaped catholicism in the “high†middle ages. It was called, in part, to get another crusade going, after some crusading failures and set-backs. The resulting “constitutions†were proposed (and to some extent written by?)… Read More »The Orthodox Formulas 5: The 4th Lateran Council (1215)
An apologist spells out “the Trinity” as incoherent monotheistic tritheism.
Real arguments vs. pointed questions combined with incredulous tone.
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
Two installments ago, we looked at Brian Leftow’s setup of the issue, and last time we surveyed his distinctive “Latin” trinitarian theory. This time, we’ll wrap it up. A rather obvious and potentially serious objection to Leftow’s theory is that it makes the doctrine of the Trinity out to be modalism, for plainly, in his view, each of the Persons is a mode of God… Read More »Leftow 4: “A Latin Trinity” – Part 3
Last time, we saw the set-up from Leftow. He’s aiming at orthodoxy, which to him means theorizing in the tradition of the great medieval Latin-speaking theologians. He’s spent a good amount of ink defending the consistency of supposing that a person might travel back to the past, so that she, as it were, acts together with (nearby and at the same time as) her earlier… Read More »Leftow 3: “A Latin Trinity” – Part 2
Brian Leftow’s “A Latin Trinity” (Faith & Philosophy 21:3, July 2004, 304-33) is a theory of the Trinity which aims to be squarely in the tradition of “Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas”. (304) He also cites the Athanasian creed and the one from Toledo in 675 as well. I’m going to treat this challenging article in parts, and do some simplifying and summarizing in order… Read More »Leftow 2: “A Latin Trinity” – Part 1
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
Philosophy Compass is a unique philosophy journal which only publishes survey articles, pieces which aim to summarize recent work. Its aim, as editor Brian Weatherson explains, is to enable people to keep up with a vast, overspecialized, fast-moving, and only somewhat accessible world of philosophical research. What’s more exciting – they sell the pdfs of the articles for $1.99. They’re trying to be the iTunes… Read More »Robin Le Poidevin on metaphysics and the Incarnation @ Philosophy Compass
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
“Is this your first Rush concert?” “Yes, I’m so excited.” Rich and Brian had been talking about this for months. Like geeky hard rock fans worldwide, they had long been in awe of Neal Peart’s furious and precise drumming, Geddy Lee’s dancing bass and soaring vocals, and the rich textures and screams of Alex Lifeson’s electric guitar. This was their first Rush concert, and they… Read More »Meeting Rush
Kudos to the team at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for
Missing in #2 are references to, if not summaries of, Tom Senor’s work, particularly his criticisms of the Stump/Leftow property-borrowing approach, and of the hoary qua-move. Maybe a couple of references to Hick would be appropriate as well, e.g. his criticism of two-minds theories. Positively, maybe a reference to van Inwagen on relative identity. But on the whole, I thought it was well done – congrats to David. And I hope we see more philosophical theology in the IEP.
One quick reflection:Read More »“Incarnation” @ the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dale)
Here’s a long but engaging interview by Sean Finnegan at his Christian Monotheism website. (Podcast RSS feeds here.) The subject, a young man named Christopher Amelung, underwent the change of theology noted above. He doesn’t recount all of the relevant arguments and exegesis; it’s rather a narrative of his own thoughts, emotions, and relationships. This is not a deconversion story, but a story of a… Read More »Reformed trinitarian to unitarian Christian
This brings the total of R’s to 6. Wish I could say there weren’t more coming! We’ve looked so far at two ways Christians may respond to apparently contradictory doctrines: Redirection and Restraint. We now move on to a third strategy: Resolution. In brief, the Resolver holds that the apparent contradiction can be banished, made to disappear. She doesn’t change the subject (as the Redirector),… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 7 – Resolution by Rational Reinterpretation
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”
In this episode we hear Mr. James Lee (PhD student in Philosophy at Syracuse University) present his paper “His Ways (of Being) Are Not Our Ways” at the Society of Christian Philosophers meeting on November 8, 2014 at Niagara University.
“I believe in the divinity of Christ.” Perfect. Like a Rorschach test, people can read it however they want.
Over at Aporetic Christianity Paul has had a worthy post on a major new tome of systematic theology, which he says whiffs it on the contributions of analytic philosophers of the last 40 years or so. I agree with all the examples Paul gives of philosophers / analytic theologians whose work should not be ignored by any serious investigator – not because they’re my peeps –… Read More »Ignored Analytic Theology
(continued) Unbeknownst to Brian and Rich, powerful aliens from Alpha Centuri were listening in on their conversation. The aliens thought it a shame that Rush was not a musician. After some discussion, they decided to make a band which was otherwise just like Rush, but which was itself, or rather, himself, a musician – a power trio who was a virtuoso. For starters, they copied… Read More »Rush 2.0 and Rush 3.0