If one starts with absolute simplicity, then the only way to develop trinitarianism is to view the divine Persons as relations of the simple divine essence (e) to itself. We might, for example, think of the Father, Son, and Spirit in terms of the three relations entailed by identity. Thus, the Father is a monadic reflexive relation (e=e), the Son is a dyadic symmetric relation (if a=e then e=a), and the Spirit is a triadic transitive relation (if a=e and b=a, then c=e). But, against this line of thought it seems obvious that relations aren’t persons. Moreover, there’s no clear ontological difference between this sort of “trinitarianism” and a modalism that takes the hypostatic distinctions to be merely conceptual.
Open Future
A blog by Alan Rhoda, Ph.D., mainly about philosophy, religion, and the metaphysics of time, free will, and future contingency.
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Boy, have you ever opened up a colossal can of worms!
I’m going to try to reply to this in at least 2 or 3 posts. It’s late now and I doubt my thought will come out as coherently as I hope.
I’m slowly reworking my way through Joseph P. Farrell’s “God, History, and the Dialectic: The Two Europes and Their Cultural Consequences.” If you don’t mind, I’m going to share some of Farrell’s thoughts on this matter mixed with my own.
Starting with absolute simplicity necessarily prioritizes unity (essence) over multiplicity (persons and energies). Since God has been defined in dialectical opposition to the cosmos (he is simple whereas the cosmos is complex), the only way to derive a Trinity out of absolute simplicity is to, as you have noted, define persons as relations of the essence to itself and done so in a dialectical manner. That is the Carolingian Shield: All the persons are God, but the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit. The personal distinctions are merely nothing more than three sets of relations, and those relations are dialectical oppositions. I’m going to need to sleep before I can say more.
Jim G.
Herein is the resultant inversion of the ordo theologiae I described in Hexagon. In the case of simplicity, the essence is, in Farrell’s words, “ontologically prior” to the persons, since “person” is defined as a relation of the essence to itself. Such a state of affairs would be an absolute disaster for Nicene and Post-Nicene theology, because it implies that the Father (the “Unbegotten”) is derived from something else, namely the essence, or more appropriately, a relation of that essence to itself. The impersonal “Godhead”, that is, the absolute simplicity, is the thing that underlies Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Moreover, that which is truly “God” is no longer personal.
The next problem with simplicity and persons is the relations of origin. The Greek Fathers confess that the Son is eternally generated from the Father and that the Spirit is eternally “exhaled” from the Father. No one knows what the precise distinction is between generation and spiration, but we know they are distinct because the Son and Spirit are not identical. But if the essence is absolutely simple and without distinction, then two single-processions as outlined above will produce the same entity twice, so in the simplicity, the Spirit must be a double procession to distinguish it (the procession) from generation (which is single – Father to Son).
Farrell (in my opinion brilliantly) traces Augustine’s thought process for the double procession of the Spirit. Augustine does not move directly to the process of double procession, for to do so would result in no distinction of persons (and therefore pure Sabellianism). Instead he moves to a property (energy) shared by Father and Son – life in oneself. The “uncaused” Father possesses life in himself. The “caused” Son does likewise. This common energy of life in themselves allows the double procession of the Spirit from both the uncaused and caused causes in Augustine’s reason. He puts the “middle step” of property/energy in the midst of his journey from essence to person in order to preserve, at least in his mind, a real distinction of persons and a way to differentiate the single and double causes of the eternal origin of the Son and Spirit.
The obvious outcome of all this is that the Spirit is the common attribute of the Father and Son, and because he is an attribute, is identical to the essence in both name and reality. Augustine says as much. The Spirit is the locus of the Trinity, because of the simplicity. This is just a repackaging of Neoplatonism’s One, Nous, and World Soul, because that is all you can do with it. More to come.
Jim G.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the comments. Couple thoughts:
(1) I’m not sure that DDS leads to the essence becoming “ontologically prior” to the divine hypostases. It seems to me that the great “equals sign” that is DDS ultimately collapses the person/energy/essence distinctions leading to a pure, undifferentiated monism. If that’s right, then there’s no ontological priority between any of those terms, for they are all on the same ontological level, that of the One. Any distinctions between those terms that we make are ultimately merely conceptual or even nominal, not real.
(2) Regarding processions, what you say sounds right to me. If the Persons are merely relations of the divine essence to itself, then the only way to differentiate the Persons is as different relations. But since these relations cannot be distinguished by their relata, which in every instance is just E (the divine essence), they can only be distinguished in terms of lower- and higher-order relations of E to itself. That’s what I was trying to capture by distinguishing between the monadic (reflexive), dyadic (symmetric), and triadic (transitive) relations entailed by the concept of identity. The one relation (identity) implicitly contains the other three, and those three constitute an ordered sequence of sorts. In terms of the Trinity it means that the Father, Son, Spirit are ordered like 1, 2, 3. But why stop there? We can keep relating the essence to itself in higher-and-higher order ways to yield quadratic, 5-adic, 6-adic, relations etc. So why stop at three? If the Persons are mere relations of E to itself, then why shouldn’t there be an infinite number of Persons?
To use a slightly different example, let the divine essence be the number 1. The Father is 1. We can relate 1 to itself by, say, addition. 1+1. That gives us 2. The Son is 2. We can keep on going: (1+1)+1. That gives us 3. The Spirit is 3. But, again, why stop there? Why not go on to ((1+1)+1)+1, (((1+1)+1)+1)+1, ((((1+1)+1)+1)+1)+1, …, etc.? I don’t see a principled way to stop things after 3 if, as we’ve supposed, the Persons are just relations of E to itself. Take any such relation, r, and it’s easy to construct a seemingly endless sequence: ErE, (ErE)rE, ((ErE)rE)rE, etc.
The upshot, I submit, is that if a robust doctrine of the Trinity is to be maintained without either collapsing into modalism or blowing up into Infinitarianism, then the Persons cannot be simply relations of E to itself.
I should have just said that essence is all there is, so the concept of any other thing stemming from it (energy, relation, or person) is merely superfluous. And merely nominal. That would have been better.
As for the multiplication of relations, both Athanasius and Photius already beat you to the punch. You are in good company, though.
But I actually think three is the limit. Although there was a multiplication of entities in Platonism, from the 4th entity forward all are repetitive iterations of symmetric and transitive relations. The three (and only three) unique KINDS of relations in the system are reflexive, symmetric, and transitive. A quaternity is a transitive of the first and third and so on. No NEW KIND of relation is possible, or at least I don’t see it.
Jim G.
Hi Jim,
I suspect you’re right about triadic relations being the limit. The great American philosopher C. S. Peirce, who was quite an accomplished logician, argued that all quadratic and higher relations can be reduced to combinations of triadic and dyadic relations. If he’s right, then there’s never need for a fourth term.
And that is why Plotinus’s and Hegel’s systems both stop at 3. Three is the limit of dialectical necessity.
How did we get eyeballs deep in such a mess?
Jim G.
And here is another, even more frightening point.
You are obviously correct that the three relations coming out of such a system are reflexive, symmetric, and transitive. Reflexive stands alone; the symmetric is making two out of one and then transitive is making a third out of the first two.
What is ultimately important about such a system is the dialectic of opposing relations, rather than the NAMES assigned to those relations. The names themselves are merely descriptive of a larger, more fundamental phenomenon. Therefore, it really does not matter if we call those relations “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” or “One, Nous, and World Soul” or “Reflexive, symmetric, and transitive” or even “Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis.” They are all merely differing sets of names for the same system. This “trinity” obviously cannot be the Christian God if it is merely an instantiation of a larger phenomenon that can adequately “fit” any number of rationalistic thought-system, because it is the same “ideal” model of dialectics of opposition.
Augustine’s dialectical “trinity” is therefore identical to Plotinus’ One and first two emanations and likewise identical to Hegel’s dialectic. The latter is just “simply” the working out in time and space of the system of Plotinus, which is the same as that of Augustine.
Jim G.
Very interesting point. Considered abstractly, there are many (nominally) different ways of cashing out the threefold identity relations, which suggests that if the Persons are merely relations of the Essence to itself, then there’s no real difference between Trinitarianism so conceived and any other threefold identity model, such as Plotinus’ or Hegel’s.
Bingo.
The system remains the same regardless of the names used to identify them.
Hegel’s “world spirit” who brings “the simplicity” to creation by erasing all distinctions (might I call it the joining of man and machine in the demonic “hive-mind”) as the “last synthesis” brought on by the last “great world man” is fundamentally identical to the Holy Spirit-as-conceived-by-Augustine. He knew what the World Soul was. He spent nearly a decade in Neoplatonism.
Augustine was a sleeper cell. He was supposedly one of the greatest minds who ever lived.
If that compliment is true, then he knew exactly what he was doing.
Jim G.