A few months ago I wrote a post exploring an aporetic triad related to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In this post I want to approach the topic from a different angle by considering three different models of the Trinity. By “the Trinity” I mean a tri-personal version of monotheism such as is depicted… Read More: Three Models of the Trinity »
This post is about the essence–energies distinction, that is, the distinction between God’s essence and God’s energies. The distinction is central to Eastern Orthodox theology, but is largely ignored and often denied in Western Christianity. So what gives? What is this distinction supposed to be? Why do Eastern Christians think it’s vitally important? And why… Read More: Making Sense of the Essence–Energies Distinction »
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… Read More: Thinking about the Trinity »
This post is the third in a series on a recent book by James D. Gifford, Jr. titled The Hexagon of Heresy: A Historical and Theological Study of Definitional Divine Simplicity (Wipf & Stock, 2022). In the first post I discussed the problem of the One and the Many and why the idea of absolute… Read More: The Hexagon of Heresy – Part 3: Cosmology »
It is often insufficiently appreciated, I submit, that so-called “classical theism” is not a monolithic model of God. There are two main varieties: Unqualified classical theism (UCT) = God is absolutely simple, absolutely immutable, absolutely timeless, absolutely impassible, purely actual, etc. Qualified classical theism (QCT) = God is significantly simple, significantly immutable, significantly timeless, significantly impassible, etc.,… Read More: Two Varieties of Classical Theism »