Trinities – Page 54 – Theories about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Richard of St. Victor 5 – Evaluation of the argument thus far (JT)

June 7, 2009

"Have you seen this baby? We're dead serious, you know."

In the last three posts, I explained Richard’s argument for why there must be two distinct persons who charitably love each other. Here I want to raise some objections to three of Richard’s claims.

Richard of St. Victor 4 – Charity is shared by equals (JT)

June 2, 2009

STAGE 3. Next, Richard tries to establish that God can only charitably love an equal. He introduces this idea by raising the following objection: if God must direct his charitable love at a distinct person, then why couldn’t he direct his charitable love at a created person? That would satisfy T5 from the last post, so that should be enough to perfect God’s charitable disposition, right?

Richard of St. Victor 3 – Perfect charity must be directed at another person (JT)

May 20, 2009May 25, 2009

“Steven, let’s look over there and pretend like we don’t see that floating head.”

STAGE 2. In this stage, Richard tries to show that perfect charity must be directed at another person. Here’s the quotation:

‘no one is properly said to have charity on the basis of his own private love of himself. And so it is necessary for love to be directed toward another for it to be charity’.

Richard of St. Victor 2 – God’s goodness requires charity (JT)

May 16, 2009May 15, 2009

“Listen Luke, Claudia and I have something to tell you. This comes from a good place, because we love you. It’s the 1980s now. Less gel, more blow dry.“

STAGE 1. In this stage, Richard wants to show that God’s perfect goodness somehow requires that God is perfectly charitable. I say ‘somehow requires’ because the logical relation here is not clear. Richard is saying ‘God’s goodness _____ perfect charity’, but what fills in the blank? Is it ‘entails’, ‘presupposes’, or some other logical relation?

Here’s the actual quotation, with the particular claims marked in brackets.

‘[T1] there is [in God] fullness and perfection of all goodness. [T2] However, where there is fullness of all goodness, true and supreme charity cannot be lacking. [T3] For nothing is better than charity; nothing is more perfect than charity’.

Let’s look at T1, T2, and T3 in turn.

Richard of St. Victor 1 — Introduction (JT)

May 13, 2009

Could Krystle, Blake, and Alexis Carrington NOT have been a dynasty? I think not.

Richard of St. Victor is well known for his argument that perfect love must be shared between three persons, and since God’s love is perfect, there must be three persons in God. Richard presents this argument in Book 3 of his De Trinitate, and that’s what we’ll be looking at in this series of posts.

Arius and Athanasius, part 11 – General questions about divine production (JT)

April 11, 2009March 13, 2009

In this series of posts, I’ve been discussing the view of Arius that the Son is created from nothing, and the view of Athanasius that the Father begets the Son. All of this illustrates two basic issues that any classical account of the Trinity has to face when it tries to explain how one divine person produces another. First, we need to think carefully before… Read More »Arius and Athanasius, part 11 – General questions about divine production (JT)

Arius and Athanasius, part 10 – The Father and Son can’t share all their properties (JT)

April 8, 2009December 28, 2009

Son, I know you want it, but you just can't have my triangle.

Last time, I explained that Athanasius has not made it clear how the Son ‘inherits’ divine properties from the Father. Yet even if Athanasius could explain how the Son ‘inherits’ properties from the Father, there’s still another problem. Like Arius, Athanasius believes that the Father is simple, and so anything ‘in’ the Father is, strictly speaking, identical to the Father. If the Son is going to inherit any properties from the Father, then surely he’d have to inherit them all. As Athanasius himself realizes, it’s not a question of the Son inheriting part of the Father. It’s a question of all or none.

However, there are certain properties the Son cannot inherit from the Father, on pain of contradiction. For instance, the Son cannot inherit the Father’s unbegotteness. The Son is begotten, but the Father is not, so the can’t inherit the Father’s unbegotteness without entailing a contradiction.

Arius and Athanasius, part 9 – How do the Father and Son share properties? (JT)

April 5, 2009March 14, 2009

In the last two posts, I looked at Athanasius view that the Father begets the Son much like how human fathers beget human sons. But Athanasius’ view raises some interesting questions.

One of the things Athanasius likes about natural procreation is that sons get their natures from one of their ingredients, namely the substance they get from their fathers. For example, in God’s case, the Father is an ingredient in the Son, and the Son inherits his divine properties from that ingredient. However, the Son is not identical to the Father, and it’s not clear to me how the Son is supposed to ‘inherit’ properties from something he’s not identical to.

Arius and Athanasius, part 8 – Athanasius on begetting the Son (JT)

April 2, 2009March 13, 2009

This diagram from the 1970s says it all.

Last time, I explained that Athanasius thinks human fathers procreate sons by giving a part of their substance to the mother, and that bit of substance then becomes an ingredient in the zygote, and the zygote inherits its human nature from that ingredient.

Athanasius thinks this basic model applies to God too, though he is careful to make an important qualification: human fathers beget sons by giving up a part of their substance, but God the Father gives his whole self to his Son, not a part.

Arius and Athanasius, part 7 – Athanasius on natural procreation (JT)

March 31, 2009March 13, 2009

In the last two posts, I explained that Arius believes the Son is created from nothing. Athanasius, for his part, denies this. As he sees it, the Son is begotten, and here, ‘begetting’ (or ‘generating’, as it’s also called) is a technical term for the natural process of procreation, as when living organisms produce offspring. For Athanasius, the Son really is a son; he’s the natural offspring of the Father.

Arius and Athanasius, part 6 – Arius on the Son’s creation (JT)

March 28, 2009March 13, 2009

Last time, I explained that Arius believes there can only be one unproduced producer, and that’s the Father. The Son, by consequence, is produced, but there’s nothing controversial about saying that. Arius gets controversial when he tries to explain how the Son is produced. As Arius sees it, if the Father produced the Son with any ‘pre-existing ingredients’, he’d either have to use created ingredients, or he’d have to use some ingredient taken from within himself (those are the only two options). But Arius thinks neither of these are open to the Father.

Arius and Athanasius, part 5 — Arius on the Unproduced Producer (JT)

March 25, 2009March 25, 2009

Son, I know it's hard, but could you just TRY and smile for the camera?

So far, we’ve established that something is created from nothing if it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients (see this one for a quick summary). Arius, for his part, believes that the Son is produced in just this way. In this post, I want to start looking at Arius’ argument for this conclusion.

Arius and Athanasius, part 4 — A definition of creation (JT)

March 22, 2009March 13, 2009

In the last two posts, I explained what I mean by ‘pre-existing ingredients’. In the first of those two posts, I said that an ‘ingredient’ in a product is something that is (i) in the product, and (ii) not identical to another ingredient or to the whole product. In the second of those two posts, I explained that an ingredient is ‘pre-existing’ if it’s not… Read More »Arius and Athanasius, part 4 — A definition of creation (JT)

Arius and Athanasius, part 3 — Producing something with ‘pre-existing’ ingredients (JT)

March 19, 2009March 13, 2009

It's easy to make things with pre-prepared ingredients!

In the last post, I explained that something is ‘created from nothing’ when it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients. I also explained that by ‘ingredient’ I mean any sort of constituent which satisfies the following two conditions: first, it exists in the product; and second, it bears its own properties, i.e., it has features that other ingredients in the product do not have, and which the product itself does not have. In this post, I will explain what I mean by ‘pre-existing’.

Arius and Athanasius, part 2 – Producing something with ‘ingredients’ (JT)

March 16, 2009March 13, 2009

Well Dad, I just don't understand why we had to make them so small.

As I said last time, Arius maintains that the Son is created from nothing (ex nihilo), but Athanasius denies this. Much of the discussion depends on what these authors mean by ‘creation’. Before we go any further then, it will be helpful to establish a working definition for ‘creating something from nothing’. This requires some care, because we’re after a definition that both Arius and Athanasius would agree to. But so long as we make the right qualifications, I think that Arius and Athanasius do agree on what it means to create something from nothing.

Just so we have a rough idea of what we’re talking about, let me begin by describing creation in the following way: something is created from nothing if it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients. Now, that’s a very loose way of putting it, but it makes the basic idea clear enough. We know that things get produced with pre-existing ingredients all the time. Masons build walls with bricks and mortar, cavemen make charcoal with fire and wood, humans procreate with sperm and eggs, and so on. But none of that counts as a creation. Something is created from nothing only when it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients.

Arius and Athanasius, part 1 — How is the Son produced? (JT)

March 1, 2009March 13, 2009

Even though it should be obvious from our three faces, we like to carry around this large diagram, just to be clear.

This series is extracted from a paper I delivered at the APA in Chicago last month. I’ve basically just cut up the paper into smaller chunks.

As we all know, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is three persons: the Father, Son, and Spirit. Further, two of these persons, the Son and the Spirit, are produced. According to both East and West, the Son is produced by the Father, but the East holds that the Spirit is also produced by the Father, while the West holds that the Spirit is produced by the Father and Son together. But that’s by the by. The point is that some of the divine persons are produced.

The question that interests me is this: how, exactly, does one divine person produce another? In this series, I want to look at two 4th century attempts to explain how the Father produces the Son: that of Arius, and that of Athanasius.

Quote: Stephen Nye on disliking the clear as such (Dale)

February 22, 2009February 12, 2009

…I will not deny clear things concerning the Trinity, as some do, only because they are clear. I don’t think we may argue after this manner; “The Doctrine of the Trinity is a Mystery; your Account of it is no Mystery, therefore it is not the true Doctrine of the Trinity”: For it will be still mysterious enough to us, tho we do not reject… Read More »Quote: Stephen Nye on disliking the clear as such (Dale)

Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 5 – identity blabber

February 20, 2009February 26, 2015

Barak Hussein Obama, as I write this, enjoys untold legions of fans. Some of them identify him with Jesus, or with Abe Lincoln, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or Moses. What I just said is true. But what it mean? It sure does not mean that a lot of people think B.H.O. is one and the same being as (i.e. is numerically identical to) Abe (etc.).… Read More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 5 – identity blabber

Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 4 – rubber doctrines

February 18, 2009February 11, 2018

A prominent Christian scholar is criticizing some of his peers for their discussions of Jesus-era Jewish monotheism: [these blokes work] with only two possibilities: monotheism could either have remained intact or been broken. Commendably, [one of the blokes] pictures developments stretching or even distending Jewish monotheism, but he too seems not to consider the possibility of significant reformulations and new adaptations of a religious commitment… Read More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 4 – rubber doctrines