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. I try to interpret and analyze it thusly:

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)

I insert the word “token” to make clear that we’re talking not about universal properties, which can in principle be had by or instantiated in many things, but rather token properties – features which are particulars, as much as the beings which have or (given divine simplicity) “are” them. My premises 2 & 6 are not stated by Richard; I insert them in the attempt to get a valid argument.

The point of the argument would be: never mind how many divine persons we’ve proven to exist, because we can also prove that there’s at most one God. So there’s your monotheism. And each person “just is” the divine essence/nature/divinity. So each person of the Trinity just is divinity, and each person just is each of the the other two as well. Here’s how Richard ends his chapter:

…there can be only one divine essence. Not only is what each person is completely the same; but each one is what each other is. And so, supreme simplicity is in each; true and supreme unity is in all together; and marvellous identity is everywhere if you pay attention well [, fool]. (p. 395, emphasis and Mr.-T-ism added)

Next time: What shall we make of this argument?