A Possible Model for the Trinity
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and studying on the Trinity over the past few weeks and I would like to sketch a possible model of the Trinity. I’ll primarily be drawing on the work of Rob Koons and Joshua Sijuwade for this and I would like to note that Sijuwade has a new paper coming out on Divine Simplicity and his model of the Trinity which I recommend when it comes out (see here: https://www.metaphysics-of-entanglement.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/39516/Divine_Persons_as_Relational_Qua_Objects-_by_Koons.pdf, https://philarchive.org/archive/SIJBTM).
The big component of the Monarchy of the Father that this model utilizes is the identity of ‘God,’ by which I mean the Divine Substance or the entity which instantiates the Divine Nature, with the ‘Father’ of the Trinity. However, contrary to the traditional Monarchy of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit are not distinct ontological entities from the Father, but are qua objects within the Father. Essentially, the Father is the Knower and, as such, is the foundation of the other two persons of the Trinity. The Son is the qua object of the Father that follows from the Divine Intellect and so is God, the Father, rationally understood. The Holy Spirit is the qua object of the Father that follows from the Divine Will and so is God, the Father, loved. The Son and Holy Spirit are really distinct from the Father since they are the Father understood in different ways. Moreover, this account does not need relative identity since qua objects don’t adhere in the Divine Substance since they are just conceptual objects. This does not mean the Son and Holy Spirit are not real, though, they are simply not actual in the way that the Father is, but this is not problematic since this is a standard part of the Monarchy of the Father.
There are a few other things I need to think about before committing to this view, but I think it has some promise.
I don't think saying that the persons are really distinct because they are the Father understood in different ways is enough to show a real distinction. In fact, this seems to fall pretty firmly on the criterion of a conceptual distinction, so if you are planning on continuing the model, I would suggest a more definitive way of maintaining or demonstrating a real distinction.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I disagree since the Son and Holy Spirit are just qua objects and so they can be really distinct, distinct in act, while not adhering in any substance. The podcast I sent you is what brings out that point. They are not really distinct in the way that two actualities are distinct, they are just really distinct in the way that two relations are distinct. God Bless.
DeleteI'm not denying this model the possibility of a real distinction of persons, what I am saying is that such a real distinction cannot merely consist in "X and Y being Z understood in different ways." What actually constitutes the distinction as real is going to be something else, that's all.
DeleteYeah, you are right actually. I went back to Koons' discussion with Mullins on the Trinity and he says that, on his model, the distinction between the persons is merely conceptual, but that this is not the heretical modalism because these conceptual distinctions are something that God Himself is aware of, and not merely conceptual distinctions that we impose on Him. This seems to be non-heretical, as far as I can tell. Let me link that discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZFfaqQKj4. I think I prefer this to the relative identity view because I have my doubts about relative identity, but it's not something that is irrational. The SEP article does a good job of giving an overview of objections and replies: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative/. I did find a new paper that talks about the persons being improper parts of God, but I think this similar to Koons' view. God Bless :)
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