{"id":1046,"date":"2009-08-10T19:59:13","date_gmt":"2009-08-10T23:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=1046"},"modified":"2009-08-10T20:08:41","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T00:08:41","slug":"richard-of-st-victor-10-perfect-happiness-requires-perfect-love-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/richard-of-st-victor-10-perfect-happiness-requires-perfect-love-scott\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"We
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After his initial argument from perfect love for a Trinity of persons, Richard tries to support it by a brief argument<\/strong> from perfect happiness<\/strong>. Here I wish to summarize<\/strong> what I take to be this confirming argument from the plenitude of happiness. [Keep in mind that \u2018plenitude\u2019 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<\/strong>. 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?<\/p>\n

x = Father; y = Son; z = Holy Spirit<\/p>\n

(1) If x<\/em> has the plenitude of perfect happiness<\/strong>, then x<\/em> has the plenitude of perfect love<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(2) If x<\/em> has the plenitude of perfect love, then there is an x<\/em>, y<\/em>, and z<\/em> that mutually love one another. (From his argument from perfect love.)<\/p>\n

(3) But if e.g., y<\/em> does not love x<\/em><\/strong> (e.g., because y is unwilling), then x<\/em> grieves<\/strong> because y<\/em> does not love x<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(5) If x<\/em> (forever) grieves, then x<\/em> is (forever) not perfectly happy.<\/p>\n

(6) Thus, x’s<\/em> not having<\/strong> the plenitude of perfect love<\/strong> entails that x<\/em> is not perfectly happy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(7) But surely x<\/em>, who satisfies the description of the best of all possible beings, is perfectly happy; therefore, x<\/em> has perfect love.<\/p>\n

(8) Therefore, God is a Trinity of persons.<\/p>\n

“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].\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my next (and last) post, I say what I think of these arguments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2018plenitude\u2019 has that particular meaning of a property of… Read More »Richard of St. Victor 10 – Perfect Happiness Requires Perfect Love (Scott)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,14,9,13,3],"tags":[40,22],"class_list":["post-1046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-posts","category-history","category-philosophy","category-theologians","category-theories","tag-richard-of-st-victor","tag-trinity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}