{"id":6590,"date":"2014-10-20T10:45:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T14:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=6590"},"modified":"2019-10-26T10:49:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-26T15:49:19","slug":"podcast-58-we-cant-prove-the-trinity-by-reason-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-58-we-cant-prove-the-trinity-by-reason-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"podcast 58 &#8211; We can&#8217;t prove the Trinity by reason alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_6119\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-6590-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities058.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities058.mp3\">http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities058.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities058.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?powerpress_pinw=6590-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities058.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"trinities058.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/7FuUF9DZM3zhtN41n6RJ6l\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_spotify\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe on Spotify\" rel=\"nofollow\">Spotify<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribebyemail.com\/trinities.org\/blog\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe by Email\" rel=\"nofollow\">Email<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6591\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/nice-try-Obama.jpg\" alt=\"nice try Obama\" width=\"521\" height=\"335\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/nice-try-Obama.jpg 578w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/nice-try-Obama-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/nice-try-Obama-420x270.jpg 420w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/nice-try-Obama-460x296.jpg 460w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/nice-try-Obama-90x58.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 521px) 100vw, 521px\" \/>At least, not in<a title=\"trinities podcast episode 58\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-57-richard-swinburne-on-the-trinity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> the way tried by Professor Richard Swinburne<\/a>. I briefly <strong>argue against such attempts<\/strong> in<a title=\"this episode on youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yA4tSUddqO8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> this episode<\/a>, drawing on my forthcoming paper <a title=\"Tuggy against a priori Trinity proofs\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/dale\/SinglePerfect.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;On the Possibility of a Single Perfect Person.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The jist of his argument is that a divine self <strong>wouldn&#8217;t be perfect unless<\/strong> he eternally brought about two other equals.<\/p>\n<p>I argue that this hasn&#8217;t been shown. To the contrary, it <strong>seems possible that<\/strong> there be just one perfect being, one self who is all-knowing, all-powerful, completely good, and so on. Being perfectly loving, being happy, being generous &#8211; I argue that no such perfection, as best we can tell, would compel a perfect self to bring about another, or two others.<\/p>\n<p>In the second half of this episode, I reason <strong>about divine aseity<\/strong>, and how I believe this\u00a0creates difficulties for Professor Swinburne&#8217;s Trinity theory. It strikes me that there&#8217;s some inconsistency in his views here. I&#8217;m <em>assuming<\/em>, because the claims don&#8217;t appear<a title=\"Was Jesus God? by Richard Swinburne\" href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/0199580448\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> in his 2008 treatment<\/a>, that he no longer holds that each person of the Trinity permissively causes the other two, <a title=\"Richard Swinburne's Trinity theory in The Christian God\" href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/trinity\/#FunMon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as I explain about his 1994 book here<\/a>. If he holds that, then I think it would follow that it was <strong>impossible<\/strong> for any being to exist<em> a se<\/em>! But I argue here that he should say that <strong>the Father<\/strong> has that property, and <strong>not the Trinity<\/strong>, which exists because of the Father and Son, in his view.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Links for this episode:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><a title=\"Was Jesus God? by Richard Swinburne\" href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/0199580448\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Was Jesus God?<\/a> (<a title=\"kindle edition of Was Jesus God?\" href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/B006NXGKU2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">kindle<\/a>)\u00a0&#8211; Correction: in the episode I say that this came out in 2010 &#8211; but is was rather 2008.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"trinities podcast episode 57\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/archives\/6575\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">podcast episode 57 \u2013 Richard Swinburne on the Trinity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"lonely god posts\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?s=lonely+god\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">previous trinities posts<\/a> on <em>a priori<\/em> proofs of a three-self Trinity<\/li>\n<li><em>Christian Philosophy of Religion<\/em>, ed. <a title=\"Colin Ruloff home page\" href=\"http:\/\/cpruloff.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Colin Ruloff<\/a> (The University of Notre Dame Press, 2014).\n<ul>\n<li>(Penultimate draft of my chapter in this book, &#8220;<a title=\"On the Possibility of a Single Perfect Person\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/dale\/SinglePerfect.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">On the Possibility of a Single Perfect Person<\/a>.&#8221; Please don&#8217;t cite the draft, but only the book version.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Richard of St. Victor on the Trinity\" href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/B006X0MIGU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To the contrary, it seems possible that there be just one perfect being, one self who is all-knowing, all-powerful, completely good, and so on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"default","neve_meta_container":"default","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"off","neve_meta_disable_footer":"off","neve_meta_disable_title":"off","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,16,47,9,57,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-books","category-papers","category-philosophy","category-podcast","category-theories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41885,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions\/41885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}