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. In a nutshell, Richard supposes that perfect love is a necessary condition for perfect happiness. And most of us would suppose God is happy, right?
x = Father; y = Son; z = Holy Spirit
(1) If x has the plenitude of perfect happiness, then x has the plenitude of perfect love.
(2) If x has the plenitude of perfect love, then there is an x, y, and z that mutually love one another. (From his argument from perfect love.)
(3) But if e.g., y does not love x (e.g., because y is unwilling), then x grieves because y does not love x.
(5) If x (forever) grieves, then x is (forever) not perfectly happy.
(6) Thus, x’s not having the plenitude of perfect love entails that x is not perfectly happy.
(7) But surely x, who satisfies the description of the best of all possible beings, is perfectly happy; therefore, x has perfect love.
(8) Therefore, God is a Trinity of persons.
“From this therefore, we gather and grasp by indubitable reasoning that the plenitude of happiness excludes every defect of love, whose perfection demands a Trinity of persons, as has been said, and furthermore shows clearly that it cannot be lacking. Behold how … supreme happiness … proclaims the assertion of the Trinity [of persons].”
In my next (and last) post, I say what I think of these arguments.
Hello Scott, Dale, and others-
Regarding part of Dale’s questions from 8/2009, I’d like to posit a response. Dale wrote:
“Maybe the thwarted lover still has enough love to be well off/happy.”
Certainly you are correct, Dale. Maybe a lover can be happy while not enjoying requited love. But for R. St. V., perfect love, by definition, includes a full return to the lover. Another concern you pose is a bit more on target:
“…how could there be any intrinsic top limit to what God can own and enjoy?”
By ‘intrinsic’ I shall understand Dale to mean necessary in some interesting sense, perhaps metaphysical or logical necessity. It may be that R. St. V. is not committed to an upper limit of happiness in any sense of necessary. More strongly, R. St. V may not be committed to an upper limit of happiness at all.
God’s supreme and perfect happiness, for R. St. V., is characterized by qualities such as *having charity*. A necessary condition for charity is *having a person to direct love towards* (Bk III, Ch.II). Therefore, a necessary condition for perfect happiness is *having a person to direct love towards*. As R. St. V’s proof develops, we see that supreme love would be “disordered” if directed at creation, and therefore must be directed at a divine person. This definitional/argumental clarification may be a step towards an answer to your question, and here is why: I do believe R. St. V’s proof allows for the possibility that love is in some sense ‘infinite’ [God is eternal (Bk.II), He is simple (Bk. II) and therefore His supreme love is eternal]. If this is possibly the case, if God’s love is possibly eternal, then it is at least possible that the ‘top limit’ of God’s happiness is eternally/infinitely high. In other words, there may be no upper limit of happiness at all.
So at least one of your worries may be alleviated. I believe your bigger worry is how God can love His creation whatsoever given His already supreme-love-from-eternity. And to this Scott posits an answer along Victorine lines. The problem is not, however, that supreme happiness requires perfect love.
Good questions Dale. I, likewise, have lots of problems with Richard’s argument. At this point I’m just reporting what I take him to be saying. Unfortunately, he doesn’t say much about what ‘happiness’ amounts to. I suppose that he _at least_ means that x has no unmet desires with regard to the divine essence and any person that exemplifies it. I assume that Richard brackets out God’s relation to creatures here; God wants me to do some action, but I don’t– do I cause God to grieve, essentially (or accidentally)? Richard, I think, is considering whether it is eternally the case that God is happy or grieves. Put another way, whether it is in the nature of God to be happy or to be one that grieves.
Also, I suppose Richard believes that x’s being happy with regard to y, and x’s being grief-stricken with regard to y, are contraries. The grieving divine person (because of unrequited love) might hope that the other returns the love; but hope is not happiness (right now). After all, if I hope for something, like finding a $20 bill on the ground, this hope doesn’t make me happy– it might give me apparent happiness given an expectation. It’d be different if a reliable person made a promise to me that I’d get a $20 bill sometime in the future in my mailbox. I can have some happiness about that b/c I know (in some sense) that i’ll get the $20– but in the case Richard is considering, there is no promise of requited love.
Hi Scott,
I’m not really clear on the conception of happiness Richard is presupposing here… Perhaps it means: not lacking in (a sufficient amount of) any (sort of?) good thing? Or: not having any unmet desire. On the face of it, a being might be happy/well off with unrequited love – it may be (as your premise 3) that one’s love is as yet unrequited, but one may be hopeful that the wanted lovee will accept one’s love. Maybe the thwarted lover still has enough love to be well off/happy.
If happiness is a matter of enjoying/having certain goods, it is hard to see what “perfectly happy” could amount to – how could there be any intrinsic top limit to what God can own and enjoy?
So I don’t really get what it is about happiness that requires perfect love, i.e. love of at least two others (with some extra condition). I don’t see why having unrequited love must bring happiness destroying grieving, although it by definition involves an unmet desire. Doesn’t happiness tolerate tons of unmet desires? It had better – God desires that all be saved, and that we all always do what is good and right, and yet these desires regularly are frustrated. But we don’t say on that account that God is unhappy.
Hmm– “God is a Trinity of persons”, but Richard realizes God is a Trinity of persons not because God is perfect love– but because … (cut to commercial; wait until next season for the conclusion).
Bottom right in your montage: one of the greatest moments of TV history. Bobby’s alive, and Pam realizes it was all just a dream. Any application to Ricardo the Victorine’s arguments?
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