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Reader Question About Modalism


Ice, ice, baby. (image credit)

A reader emailed me this question, and I thought others would be interested in my (attempt at) an answer. Also, this is a good chance to review and summarize some of my previous postings on modalism.

I was wondering if you could read [the following] and tell me what I was believing? (I think it might have been a form of Modalism) Also, I search everywhere and find that Modalism is wrong, but no explanations specifically why. Can you help me out on some links explaining that?

…I used to believe there was one God. He sometimes is called Father, sometimes called Jesus, and sometimes called the Holy Spirit. And sometimes called all at the same time. Read More »Reader Question About Modalism

HoG: The Most Divine Content-Fallacy, and ‘Is the Divine Word Practical Knowledge?’ (Scott)

Wild HoG

“If I think of pork-products, is that a self-conscious act of thinking?”

What follows is the first of a two part post.

Part 1: The Divine Word as Divine Practical Knowledge
Part 2: If God Weren’t a Trinity, then Creatures Would Necessarily Be Created.

Part 1

In pre-Nicene days (and post-Nicene days) there was much debate about the ontological status and (narrative) identity of the Son of God. One branch of discussion focused on the Apostle John’s claim that the Son of God is the Word of God. In various places in the New Testament the Son of God is identified as the agent through whom the Father creates the world, which is equivalent with saying the Word of the Father and the Father create creatures.

From these sources a ‘Logos-theology’ was born (that you can read about in the history books). The Logos is that by which creatures are created, have their existence and persistence in existing.

Now, Henry takes up the question as to whether the Word is ‘practical knowledge’. Henry generally gets his definitions of kinds of knowledge from Aristotle. From Aristotle we learn about three kinds of knowledge: speculative knowledge, practical knowledge and productive knowledge.

Read More »HoG: The Most Divine Content-Fallacy, and ‘Is the Divine Word Practical Knowledge?’ (Scott)

How not to do theology, Or: the theological Vogon (Dale)

newvogon.jpg

Poetry, anyone?

Karen Armstrong is a famous ex-nun who has written, among other things, a puffing biography of the prophet Muhammad. She frequently appears on TV confidently gassing about various religious matters. But I was really taken a back by this, which I ran across in a podcast:

Ms. Armstrong: Well, you see, I think theology is poetry. That’s what my Jewish friend, Chaim Maccabee, told me all those years ago when he quoted Hillel’s golden rule to me and said, “You know, it doesn’t matter what you believe. Theology is poetry.”Read More »How not to do theology, Or: the theological Vogon (Dale)

HoG: “What does it mean to say the Father is ungenerated?” (Scott)

paternity.jpg

 

“Is there any Son who does not cause His Father to become a Father and vice versa?”

Here I wish to briefly summarize what I take to be Henry’s position on the question: is the Father constituted by the (personal) property of being ‘ungenerated’ (ingenitum)? Henry’s discussion of this comes from his Summa Quaestionum Ordinariarum 57.1.

Henry engages in a lengthy discussion of ways the word ‘ingenitum’ (not generated) or ‘innascibile’ (not able to be born) can be predicated of the Father, whether negatively, privately, or positively. The upshot of these distinctions is to ask about the precise nature of this property ‘ungenerated’. Is it saying what the Father is not (negation), or is it saying the Father lacks some further property and is potentiality to receive some new property (privation), or is it saying there is some positive property the Father really is constituted by?

Henry rejects predication of the property ‘ingentium’ to the Father by negation and by privation; instead he opts for predication of a positive property. What then is this positive property that the Father has/is?

Read More »HoG: “What does it mean to say the Father is ungenerated?” (Scott)

HoG: Intellectual Production of the Word (Scott)

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“My god Spock! Is this the apex of human intellectual production?” “No Captain, look within, do you smell that?”

I apologize for the delay in posting. I have been busy with, among other things, my own work.

In the previous post, I enumerated 40 lines of premises and conclusions that generally summarizes Henry’s philosophical psychology of the Trinity. There are one or two things that ought to be clarified.

I have posted some responses to Dale’s post in the Comments section of his post.

I would like to elaborate on two issues in this post.

1. Why must the divine intellect be perfectly actual? (pace Dale’s 2nd objection)
2. Why must the divine intellect have two powers, an operative power and a productive power?

In regards to 1, Henry generally follows Anselm’s perfect being theology program. In this program, when we attribute some property to God we should follow the rule: ‘whatever it is simply better to have than not have we should attribute to God’. This property that it is simply better to have than not to have in medieval speak is called a ‘pure perfection’. A pure perfection is some property that it is simply better to have than not to have it. A pure perfection is some property x that is not considered as a pure perfection with regard to some species-nature. It is not a question of whether ‘it is better for my fish Nigel to be a Ninja or not’, but whether it is simply better to be a Ninja or not. A comparison to some species is not at issue here. For example, if it is better to be wise than not be wise, we should say that God is wise. If it is better to be loving than not to be loving, we should say that God is loving. If it is better to be stupid than not stupid, we should attribute ‘being stupid’ to God. But, our intuitions lead us to think that being wise and being just are simply better to have than not to have; yet being stupid is something we wouldn’t attribute to God because it is actually better to not be stupid, than to be stupid.
Read More »HoG: Intellectual Production of the Word (Scott)

Linkage: a Muslim challenge (Dale)

The Trinity Challenge, from a Sufi Muslim blog. The comments there are wild and wooly. There’s a charge of polytheism, and some non-trinitarian Christians weigh in. The challenge, of course, cannot be met. But it seems to me he’s carelessly overlooking the options that the Trinity doctrine is: (1) implicitly taught in the Bible (i.e. it is deducible from what is there, though not explicitly… Read More »Linkage: a Muslim challenge (Dale)

H.O.G. Questions

H.O.G. – is that you up there? I’m getting my B.B. gun.

MMM indeed! Henry of Ghent doesn’t spare the medieval lingo, and as Scott points out, it seems he never met a trinitarian theory he didn’t like – emanation, psychology, relations – it’s all good! Thanks to its being Thanksgiving break – and let me say Happy Thanksgiving to all our American and Canadian readers – I’ve caught up on the recent posts, as well as some very involved comments on my original H.O.G. post. (To those just jumping in – we’re using some letters defined in this post – it actually helps!) Here are some comments and questions relating to the lengthy comments on my original H.O.G. post. Perhaps this’ll give Scott some grist for the mill as he continues his series on Henry’s trinitarian theory. Read More »H.O.G. Questions

H.o.G.: Philosophical Psychology at Play with the Father and Word/Son (Scott)

Will the Real H.o.G. please stand up?

“Will the real H.o.G. please stand up?”

Henry of Ghent was an eclectic theologian. He fancied new theories and adored old theories. When it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, Henry was a glutton for old and new doctrines. What was old that he liked? His favourite theologian was Augustine, and his favourite book titled De Trinitate was Augustine’s. Of course, Henry didn’t just read Augustine, he read other De Trinitate texts: Boethius, Ambrose, Hilary, Richard of St. Victor and learned important lessons from these. The primary theological source for psychological doctrines applied to the Trinity comes from Augustine (who contemplated such models as the Father as Memory, Son as Intelligence/Word, and Holy Spirit as Will/Love). Further, Henry takes Richard of St.Victor’s claim about the importance of ‘mutual love’ (of the Father and Son) and applies it as the principiative principle for the production of the Holy Spirit. A ‘principiative principle’ is a fancy phrase for ‘productive power’. Henry seems to use it at times in distinction from a productive power for the production of created essences (e.g. human beings). Still, the the semantic range of this can be applied to ad intra divine productions, and ad extra creaturely productions.

Henry also fancied ‘new’ doctrines of human philosophical psychology, though he was critical of these. What he liked was Aquinas’s developed teaching about what a mental ‘Word’ is, namely, a product that an intellect can produce that is really distinct from the intellect and its operations. This ‘word’ inheres in the intellect as an accident. Further, Henry liked the notion that this product is some sort of ‘final’ act of the intellect. Of course, in the divine case the ‘Word’ won’t ‘inhere’ in the divine essence, but ‘subsist’ in its. This of course is ambiguous (and worthy of another post).Read More »H.o.G.: Philosophical Psychology at Play with the Father and Word/Son (Scott)

MMM Gone Wild at Paris! Or, the Birth of Philosophical Psychology in Trinitarian Theology (Scott)

Two Scholars, One Aquinas

“All we need is one substance to cure the ills of our society!” “I have personal experience with substance abuse, and it is wrong.”

Before I start a mini-series on the Trinitarian thought of Henry of Ghent, I thought it would be good to offer a brief survey of the late 13th c. landscape. This is way too brief and fairly focused, but hey, you’ve got to start somewhere. As the scholastics would say, you cannot will to do something, unless you have some sort of knowledge. No voluntary action without knowledge, however imperfect or confused that knowledge is! (As an aside: Jean-Luc Marion, a contemporary philosophical-theologian and former student of Jacques Derrida contests this medieval Aristotelian claim, and argues that acts of will –i.e. to love- does or can precede any knowledge.)

Of all the issues to discuss about the Trinity the one at hand here is the question: what causes or explains why the divine persons are really distinct from each other? We know there are three persons, and one ‘substance’/’ousia’ from Scripture and our orthodox Creeds, but is there anything that we could say that might account for why there are three, and not say five divine persons? Or even, why not say there is a potential infinity of divine persons (on some contestable account of the deification of believers)? You get my point. Why three divine persons and what makes it that there are three, no more and no less?

Read More »MMM Gone Wild at Paris! Or, the Birth of Philosophical Psychology in Trinitarian Theology (Scott)

MMM unleashed @ trinities

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Blame a lot of MMM on this guy – the Hip’ster.

I feel some need to explain and justify what is going on here, as I have divided loyalties.

On the one hand, the stated purpose of the blog is to make recent research on trinitarian theories available to the wider public, in relatively brief, understandable, jargon free form.

On the other hand, this blog’s most faithful readers and commenters are specialists in medieval philosophy & theology, or in recent analytic philosophy of religion, and they can really get into dialogging in the way that PhDs (and to-be-PhDs) in these fields do – which is to say – highly abstract, jargon filled, argument-heavy discourse, that only a scholar can love. Being a scholar, of course, I love it, and have no desire to stem their exploration of historic trinitarian theories. They are all, in various ways, doing cutting edge work, and I learn a lot by listening in, and by joining in. And I know that other philosophy profs appreciate these discussions as well.

My solution? Have it both ways. 🙂 I just want to try to build a bridge for non-academic readers, to help them, maybe, be able to get something out of this recent Medieval Metaphysical Mayhem (MMM). So I’m going to try to give some relevant background information.

Here goes: Read More »MMM unleashed @ trinities

The Latin Trinity Chart 3 – Henry of Ghent to the rescue

“Stand aside, puny moderns. Or postmoderns. Or whatever you are.”

I thought that Scott and Joseph made some really penetrating comments on the first two posts in this series. Here I want to recap them, so we can discuss how Henry of Ghent (c. 1217-93) a.k.a. The Solemn Doctor would interpret our chart (see the first two posts), specifically, the second, modalistic interpretation I offered.

First, Joseph comes in with some weighty objections to that model (summarized and expanded by me from his comments).Read More »The Latin Trinity Chart 3 – Henry of Ghent to the rescue

The Latin Trinity Chart 2 – a version of FSH modalism

 Let’s try this again.

Here’s a second application for my Latin Trinity chart (see the first post for what the letters designate). Let’s say that a state of affairs is a thing/substance having a property at a time or timelessly.

The “persons” here are just modes of D, that is, states of affairs involving D. So the Son just is D having Fi. And the Father just is D having P. And the Holy Spirit just is D having Sp. Regarding each of F, S, and H, each of them “just is” D – in the sense that in each of them, there is one and the same D.Read More »The Latin Trinity Chart 2 – a version of FSH modalism

Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 5 – Yes, we can prove it by reason alone


If there’s at least one, there must be exactly three. Q.E.D.

The installment before the last, we saw that Richard Swinburne’s social trinitarian theory is very carefully built so as to satisfy multiple demands of orthodoxy. There is, he argues, a contradiction-free, reasonable trinitarian theory, which fits well with the classic creeds. But we can do even better than that. In Swinburne’s view, there’s a plausible argument for the Trinity based on reason alone. Don’t believe it? Oh, ye of little faith reason. Have ye not read the earlier Richard on this?Read More »Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 5 – Yes, we can prove it by reason alone

Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 4 – the cooperation involved in procession or spirating

Dale’s Swinburne Trininty chart, version 2.0. (or 1.1 – whatever) Thanks to reader (and Swinburne student) Joseph Jedwab for the correction. He points out: [Swinburne] wants to avoid the idea that the Spirit’s existence is causally overdetermined [i.e. that it has two complete causes, either of which would alone suffice]. But he also wants to avoid the idea that each actively only partly causes the… Read More »Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 4 – the cooperation involved in procession or spirating

Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 3 – functional monotheism

How the three are tightly functionally unified, in Swinburne’s view.

(See below for the interpretation.)

Last time we looked at Swinbure’s suggested reading of the creeds. They can’t he says, be charitably read as holding that in the same sense there’s only one divinity, and that there’s three. Swinburne comes down on the side of three. Like all social trinitarians, he’s attracted to a vision of the Trinity as being a loving community, three eternal and perfect, spirits, three selves, enjoying one another’s company, living in communion with one another, and working together in all they do. In short, he wants to say there are personal relationships internal to God – and this implies that there are persons – subjects of experience, thought, and action – in God.Read More »Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 3 – functional monotheism

Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 2 – a key move

(Picture credit.)

Swinburne isn’t what you’d call a theological liberal. He’s not a conservative evangelical either, given his rejection of things like biblical inerrancy. He was, I believe, a life-long Anglican, until 1996 when he converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. As I understand it, at least part of his motivation was his exasperation with anything-goes style Anglicanism (e.g. priests who are not theists). But my point is that he aims to be a “Catholic” Christian, in the sense of one who holds to mainstream orthodoxy – roughly, that core of doctrines held in common by Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and (at least in theory) most Protestants. (Actually, he’s probably a good bit more “Catholic” than that – in that he believes in apostolic succession, and in the authority of The Church to decree the meaning of scriptural texts – see his book Revelation.) This requires some dexterity on his part, and creates the burden of crafting a theory that one can claim fits with the “Athanasian” and Constantinopolitan Creeds.

Swinburne argues that it is uncharitable to read the ecumenical councils’ claim that “there is only one god” as asserting that there’s only one divine individual, as that would contradict their committment to there being three divine individuals.Read More »Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 2 – a key move

Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 1


Swinburne sez: Two thumbs up for the social analogy!

Richard Swinburne is an Emeritus professor at Oriel College, Oxford University, and is widely considered one of the greatest living Christian philosophers. He’s done original work in philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and general metaphysics, but is perhaps best known for his work in philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. He has a way of squarely facing tough issues, and treating them in original and principled ways. He’s particularly well known by philosophers for his arguments for mind-body dualism, for his cumulative case for the existence of God, and for his bold social trinitarian theory, which I’ll cover in this series. Read More »Swinburne’s Social Trinitarian Theory, Part 1

Quotes: Lewis Ayres on Pro-Nicene 3rd-4th century trinitarianism

 


A simple being containing multiple distinct “persons” – D’oh!

Theologian Lewis Ayres is the author of this worthy book. In it, he hammers the point that the Latin vs. Social trinitarian categories aren’t helpful in understanding post-Constantinople trinitarian theology. I think he’s right about that, though I persist in using the terminology because it is helpful for 20th and 21st century theories. Ayres’s book is a wonderful piece of patristic scholarship, but it is also an extended polemic against social trinitarians. Basically, he thinks that what he aptly calls the pro-Nicene tradition has gotten short shrift in recent theological work on the Trinity, and he very helpfully presents the core of that tradition and bats down a great many mis-readings of it. Obviously, he’s sympathetic to this sort of trinity theory, to put it mildly. This will definitely come up when I discuss social theories.

Here I just wanted to pass on a striking quote, which to me spotlights a central problem that many people have with the mainstream classic Latin or Pro-Nicene tradition.Read More »Quotes: Lewis Ayres on Pro-Nicene 3rd-4th century trinitarianism

Constitution Trinitarianism Part 6: summing up

Is Ned in trouble? Here’s a quick post to wrap up the series on Brower’s and Rea’s constitution theory of the Trinity. First, it’s striking how original and self-consistent their approach is. It is rare to find something this new, and this well thought through on such an old topic. They’ve carefully carved out a unique position, one which has a motivation outside of theology… Read More »Constitution Trinitarianism Part 6: summing up