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Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 2 (Dale)

Last time I tried to analyze Richard’s argument in ch. 22 that his view preserves monotheism. This time, I critically evaluate the argument. Is it sound?

It goes like this:

  1. There can be at most one omnipotent being. (premise)
  2. No being can have more than one token of any property. (premise)
  3. At most one token of omnipotence can exist. (2,3)
  4. Any token of omnipotence is the same as any token of divinity. (divine simplicity)
  5. At most one  token of divinity can exist. (3,4)
  6. No token property can be had by more than one being. (premise)
  7. There is at most one God. (5,6)

What shall we make of this argument? Why believe premise 1? Richard says,

…if it is agreed that omnipotence can do everything, it will be able to carry out with ease what any other power would not be able to do. For this reason it is clear that only one omnipotence can exist. (ch. 22, p. 394)

I have a couple of problems with this. Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 2 (Dale)

Guest Post: Greg Spendlove on Logos Christology

Below is a guest post by Greg Spendlove, who is an adjunct philosophy instructor at Salt Lake Community College. He received his Master of Arts in Christian Thought with an emphasis in Systematic Theology and a cognate in Philosophy of Religion from Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL in 2005. His Master’s thesis was entitled “A Critical Study of the Life and Thought of Brahmabandhab… Read More »Guest Post: Greg Spendlove on Logos Christology

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 1

Has Richard, after these 21 chapters so far of Book III of his On the Trinity (De Trinitate) only succeeded in proving that there are at least three gods? In chapter 22, Richard argues for a negative answer.

First, he refers back to the doctrine of divine simplicity, which is common coin for medieval theists, even, surprisingly, for trinitarians. This needs explaining nowadays – theists now tend to think of God’s nature as something he has, and of God as having, and not being, his attributes. Moreover, we tend to think that God has many attributes.

For a primer on divine simplicity, I can do no better than Bill Vallicella:

[According to this doctrine] God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Besides lacking spatial and temporal parts, God is free of matter/form composition, potency/act composition, and existence/essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one. God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has. As identical to each of his attributes, God is identical to his nature. And since his nature or essence is identical to his existence, God is identical to his existence. (William Vallicella, “Divine Simplicity”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Richard starts ch. 22 by gesturing back at book I of De Trinitate – his point is that this divine being/essence/nature common to the three is utterly simple. Yet he realizes that this by itself won’t soothe the concern about monotheism. How can we rule out that there are three gods, each of which has is an utterly simple, composition free being? Then he hits on an additional argument.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 22 – part 1

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 21 (Dale)

In the preceding chapters, Richard has been arguing for the impossibility of only one divine person. If there’s one, there must be more than one; more than that, there must be at least three.

To do this, he’s used Anselmian perfect being theology – arguing that since God is absolutely perfect, and it would add to his perfection to have certain features, he must indeed have those. It seems that he prefers a three parallel arguments, from perfect goodness, perfect happiness, and perfect glory. (See, e.g. chapter 5.)

As the book goes on, though, it seems to me that he prefers the argument from happiness. Here, in chapter 21, he sums up his case, because he feels some pressure here at the end of the book  to explain why all this should be considered monotheism, and not polytheism. More on that next time. Here’s what looks like his summary of his argument:

The fullness of supreme happiness requires fullness of supreme pleasure. The fullness of supreme pleasure requires fullness of supreme charity. The fullness of supreme charity demands fullness of supreme perfection. (p. 393)

This last part isn’t easy to see, but as we’ve been over it, I let it go here. In chapter 21, Richard assumes that perfect being reasoning should be applied to each member of the Trinity. If we do this,  then we prove the existence of equally perfect beings, such that “all coincide in supreme equality. In all of them there will be equal wisdom, equal power, undifferentiated glory, uniform goodness, and eternal happiness…” (pp. 393-4, emphasis added)

This, he asserts, meets the requirement of the “Athanasian” creed,Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 21 (Dale)

three loves graphic

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 20 (Dale)

three loves graphicAs Joseph explained in his last post, in his On the Trinity, Richard of St. Victor asserts the superiority of “shared love” (Latin: condilectus). He holds that it is superior to other loves in value and in the pleasure it involves. He’s imagining something like my chart on the left.

Look at the bottom case, and how the love arrows combine; this seems to be what Richard is imagining (see the quote in the last post). I don’t think it’s coherent, really – affections, or individual love-acts can’t literally fuse. Nor do I understand any non-literal way they can be said to “fuse”.

Still, I’m inclined to agree with Joseph and with Richard Swinburne that there is a unique value in lovers cooperating to love a third party. This is something we recognize, I think, in Mom and Dad’s love for junior, or even in “best friends” graciously including an excluded girl within their circle.

Further, I think Richard of St. Victor is right that there is a relational harmony and cooperation in such cases, and a unique sort of pleasure all around.

Whether this value would provide a perfect person with a compelling reason to create mysteriously originate at least two other divine persons is a further matter.

In chapter 20, Richard makes clear that my chart here is too simple – there should be aRead More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch. 20 (Dale)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.19 (Joseph)

Here Richard spells out more fully than before the nature of shared love (condilectus). Here he offers one main argument (A.1-3) from supreme shared love for the Trinity and then a follow-up argument (B.1-3) again from supreme shared love for the Trinity. So (A) consider the nature of shared love:

  1. If one person loves another and only he loves only her, there is love but not shared love.
  2. If two mutually love only each other (if the affection of each goes out to the other), again there is love but not shared love.
  3. Shared love exists only if a third person is loved by two persons jointly:

“Shared love is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two persons harmoniously and in community, and the affection of the two persons is fused into one affection by the flame of love for the third.” (Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, p.392)

(This is as close as we ever get to a characterization of shared love.)

So, in divinity, if there is shared love, there are at least three persons.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.19 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.18 (Joseph)

Here is my paraphrase of the argument in ch.18: It might seem that supreme goodness can exist where one person supremely loves and receives nothing in return from the other person for full happiness. But in fact such supreme goodness can’t even exist where only two persons mutually love each other. Suppose that, in divinity, there are only two persons. Then each gives and receives… Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.18 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.16 (Joseph)

So next up ch.16. Here’s my version of what goes on in this chapter:

  1. Full wisdom and power can exist in only one person. If, per impossibile, there is only one divine person, he can still have fullness of wisdom and power.
  2. The pleasures of wisdom and love differ. The pleasure of wisdom can be drawn from oneself. The pleasure of love must be drawn from another. Anyone who loves and desires to be so loved but doesn’t receive such love is displeased. But the pleasure of wisdom is even better when one derives it from oneself.
  3. If, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can have full wisdom. Full wisdom and full power can’t exist without each other. For suppose someone lacks omnipotence. If she doesn’t know how to obtain what she so lacks, then she lacks full wisdom. And anyone who unwillingly suffers some defect of wisdom lacks full power.  Therefore, if, in divinity, there is only one person, such a person can also have full power.

Re 1: I like the implicit distinction here between what is a real and only a conceptual possibility. There can’t really be only one divine person. For, as Richard is trying to demonstrate, there must be at least three divine persons. But the concepts of full wisdom and power don’t conceptually imply the concept of more than one divine person.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.16 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.15 (Joseph)

So we’re done with ch.14. Now on to ch.15. Here’s a paraphrase of his argument: With divine persons, the perfection of one requires another, and so the perfection of a pair requires union with a third. Each such person is perfectly benevolent and so shares his perfection with the other. But if each is perfectly benevolent, then each with equal desire and for a similar… Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Ch.15 (Joseph)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Chapter 14, Part 2 (JOSEPH)

I (and so we) took a break from the Richard posts. But we now return. Perhaps at some point I’ll blog on some conferences I’ve been to: the Metaphysics of the Incarnation conference at the University of Oxford last September. And I might share a very brief talk I gave on the Trinity at a local church last October. But for now, on to the main attraction.

Richard has already argued in various ways that if there is so much as one divine person, there are at least three divine persons. But the arguments have all been a bit here and there. So to make the reasons even more evident, he plans to gather them all up into one. So here it is:

Suppose there is only one divine person: P.

1)      Then P doesn’t share his greatness.

2)      Compare two situations. In the first, P is the only divine person. In the second, P is not the only divine person; there is another: Q. In the second situation, P and Q love each other and P has the pleasure that love brings. So in the first situation, P lacks in eternity not only such love but also such pleasure.

3)      Anyone supremely good shares her greatness. (Not so to share is to retain something greedily. But anyone supremely good does nothing greedily.)

4)      Anyone supremely happy has such pleasure. (Not to have such pleasure is not to have an abundance of pleasure. But anyone supremely happy has an abundance of pleasure.)

5)      P is supremely good and happy.

So if there is at least one divine person, there are at least two divine persons.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate, Chapter 14, Part 2 (JOSEPH)

Spock sez: it will take you approximately 10 minutes, 43.5 seconds to read Helm's interesting post.

Helm on Reason, Theology, Logic, Turretin, and McGrath

Some good stuff from philosophical theologian Paul Helm at his blog Helm’s Deep. Among other things he criticizes this book by Alister McGrath. My favorite quote: …there is some confusion between affirming the logical consistency of the mysteries of the faith, and showing that they have not been proved to be inconsistent, and demonstrating their consistency.

Book review: Randal Rauser’s Faith Lacking Understanding

Note: this review originally appeared in Religious Studies Review. FAITH LACKING UNDERSTANDING: THEOLOGY ‘THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY’. By Randal Rauser. Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2008. This rausing little book is a work of popular philosophical theology which exhibits uncommon intellectual honesty, courage, humor, clarity, and insight. Each chapter but the first is devoted to a doctrine of the Apostles’ Creed: Trinity, Creation, Incarnation, Atonement, Ascension,… Read More »Book review: Randal Rauser’s Faith Lacking Understanding

A contradiction free christology, courtesy of Santa & his theological elves!

Linkage: What Randal wants for Christmas

Philosophical theologian Randal Rauser has been blogging as the Tentative Apologist. This year, for Christmas, he says he’s hoping for “a coherent account of the incarnation“. In other words, he wants a way of understanding the incarnation doctrine which is apparently consistent. Will he get it? Word has it that the elves are working overtime on this request, as Rauser has been a very good… Read More »Linkage: What Randal wants for Christmas

Hitler a consumer of trinitarian speculations

This is one for the history buffs. Check out this piece from my favorite magazine: Hitler’s Forgotten Library. Skip to the end (last 9-10 paragraphs) for the Trinity stuff – which is (I think, ultimately Hegel-inspired) absolute idealist / monist riffing on the Trinity. Can’t muster much interest in that genre myself, since I think monism is obviously false. But I note that some theologians… Read More »Hitler a consumer of trinitarian speculations

“Incarnation” @ the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dale)

brilliant

Kudos to the team at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for

  1. their recent radical re-design, done by Josh D. May. Notable improvements include a nice print-friendly page feature, and the entries sorted by topic. Here are the Philosophy of Religion ones.
  2. their new entry “Incarnation”, by University of Wisconsin Madison PhD David Werther, who teaches in their division of Continuing Studies. He does an excellent job of keeping it simple; it’s a brief and clear introduction to the Incarnation as treated by analytic philosophers, and is by design pretty ahistorical.

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)

Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate Ch.14

What's all this about Dallas then?
What’s all this about Dallas then?

We now turn to Richard’s De Trinitate Book 3, Chapters 14-19

Here’s my formulation of the first part of ch.14:

Suppose there’s at least one divine person: P.

Then (1) P is so benevolent that he wants to have no good that he does not want to share.

And (2) P is so powerful that everything is possible for him.

And (3) P is so happy that nothing is difficult for him.

And (4) if (1)-(3) are true, there are at least three divine persons.

Therefore, (C) If there is at least one divine person, then there are at least three divine persons.Read More »Richard of St. Victor’s De Trinitate Ch.14

Richard of St. Victor 11 – Response to the Argument From Love Thus Far (Scott)

Does love have enough gas to get us there? Stay Tuned.
Does love have enough gas to get us there? Stay Tuned.

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)

Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)

We might look happy, but we're not. We hated the guy in the upper left corner; so he's not around anymore.
We might look happy, but we're not. One of us really hated the guy who looks 'asleep'; one of us really loathes someone's antiperspirant. We need love. Please help.

After his initial argument from perfect love for a Trinity of persons, Richard tries to support it by a brief argument from perfect happiness. Here I wish to summarize what I take to be this confirming argument from the plenitude of happiness. [Keep in mind that ‘plenitude’ has that particular meaning of a property of a substance that is not from another substance, but all other substances are from it.] Richard argues that if we are committed to the claim that God is perfectly happy, then we should also be committed to the claim that God is a Trinity of persons. Read More »Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)

Richard of St. Victor 9 – Perfect Love Requires Three Persons (Scott)

Three is perfection, four is redundant. (Un)Fortunately, one of these people gets knocked-off.
Three is perfection, four is redundant. (Un)Fortunately, one of these people gets knocked-off.

In this post I’d like to focus on Richard’s initial argument for why God must be a Trinity of persons. Thus far in his argument he has argued for two divine persons, and now adds a further line of argument to show that God is in fact a Trinity and not a Binity of persons. Why must God be a Trinity of persons? Richard argues from his notion of perfect love.Read More »Richard of St. Victor 9 – Perfect Love Requires Three Persons (Scott)