884heid wrote:

I more or less adhered to Aristotelian realism when it came to universals due to Armstrong's almost impenetrable critique of non-trope nominalism on the accusations of coextension and blob theory. But I always thought that strict identity was somewhat implausible along with other issues of realism, which made me welcome the idea of Trope theory being an alternative and viable option.

I meant to add: since you've read Armstrong, something to watch out for is that he thinks universals exist in space. Most philosophers would say that universals are had by particulars in space, but aren't themselves in space.

I've also heard that there is a possibility that many medieval philosophers were more alligned with trope theory than realism of Aristotle.

Ockham probably believed in particularized qualities (tropes).

Of the 6 trinitarian claims at pp. 37-38, #1 is a wrongly-expressed tautology and #5 is conceptually wrong at the most elementary level. Therefore the dissertation does not deserve any consideration.

Taking advantage of your reactivation of this thread, I will comment on the opening post:

John West wrote:

There is a prima facie conflict between the three limbs of the doctrine of the Trinity:

(1) The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God.
(2) The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Father is not the Holy Spirit.
(3) There is exactly one God.

No conflict there, either prima or ultima facie. Each Person is the divine nature in a different mode (*), and there is exactly one divine nature.

(*) It was St. Basil of Cesarea who first distinguished the divine Persons by their modes of being ("tropoi hyparxeos"), a notion that has nothing to do with the "modes of appearing" of the modalist heresy. To note, the use of the term by the Cappadocian Fathers is completely different from its use in the neomodalist (or mitigated modalist or semimodalist, as preferred) heresy of Karl Barth and Karl Rahner. Whereas for the former each Person is the subject of the respective mode of being, which is what distinguishes that Person from the other two, for the latter the only real divine Person is the subject of the three modes of being.

As I wrote at the penultimate post of this thread about the historical formulation of trinitarian doctrine, assuming the Thomistic real distinction between contingent essence and contingent act of being, we can make a general definition of hypostasis that applies to both the divine Persons and the contingent entities and can be used to formulate the dogmas of trinitarian and christological orthodoxy.

Recalling that hypostasis meant the individual, particular, concrete, really existing subject or "hypokeimenon", and adopting the particular (as opposed to universal) sense of ousía:

ousía = essence or form in a particular sense
 
hypostasis = act of being in a particular mode + ousía

act of being = {Subsistent Act of Being (one), contingent act of being (many)}

modes of the Subsistent Act of Being = {fontal plenitude and paternity, filiation, passive spiration or procession}

modes of a contingent act of being = {created}  -- or none at all

divine Ousía (one) = Subsistent Act of Being (one)  -- per absolute divine simplicity

God the Father = Subsistent Act of Being in fontal plenitude and paternity mode

God the Son before the Incarnation = Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode

God the Son after the Incarnation = Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode + Jesus' human ousía

Holy Spirit = Subsistent Act of Being in passive spiration or procession mode

To note, this is not a Thomistic but a Bonaventuran account of the Trinity. As I explained in this thread, it solves the problem of why the Son does not in turn beget his own son.

Last edited by Johannes (9/26/2018 1:27 pm)

I see, looking through my notes, that I ended up distilling a more general argument:

Let e be the Divine Essence, P be the paternity relation (for the Father), S be the filiation relation (for the Son), and H be the procession relation (for the Holy Spirit), where relations are construed as medievals' res respectivae. Let + be the symbol for mereological addition.*

If you identify God with any mereological sum of e, P, S, or H (e.g. e + P + S + H), you lose Simplicity. If, however, you don't identify God with a mereological sum of e, P, S, or H, you have to either identify God with a relation or make the relations meant to account for members of the Trinity external to God.

The argument can be generalized so that e, P, S, and H can be variables for any ontological constituents you like, so that I was sort of wasting ink in the note at the start of this thread.

*I used the broad sense of parts often used in contemporary ontology, which includes both "metaphysical parts" and concrete, thingly parts.

John West wrote:

I see, looking through my notes, that I ended up distilling a more general argument:

Let e be the Divine Essence, P be the paternity relation (for the Father), S be the filiation relation (for the Son), and H be the procession relation (for the Holy Spirit), where relations are construed as medievals' res respectivae. Let + be the symbol for mereological addition.*

If you identify God with any mereological sum of e, P, S, or H (e.g. e + P + S + H), you lose Simplicity. If, however, you don't identify God with a mereological sum of e, P, S, or H, you have to either identify God with a relation or make the relations meant to account for members of the Trinity external to God.

It depends on what you mean by "relation".

A. Subsistent Relation. Then each of Them is the respective divine Person.

B. Personal property. Then each of them is the personal property or mode of Being of the respective divine Person.

In case A, talking about "any mereological sum of e, P, S, or H" does not make sense, because e is the common essence of the divine Persons abstracted from their respective personal properties. While P, S and H Exist, e does not exist apart from, or previous to, Them.

In case B there is no composition because the divine essence cannot exist in a mode-independent way. Even if there were no generation and espiration, the personal God would be the divine essence in unbegotten mode, i.e. first. Muslims and Jews would probably agree with that, just changing "first" to "first and only". The Christian difference is that we hold that the First Person enunciates his self-knowledge generating a consubstantial Word or Son. The Bonaventuran difference is that we hold that the First Person enunciates because He is First, understanding Firsthood (Primitas) not just as unbegottenness (no one before) but as Fontal Plenitude.

Absolute simplicity, then, is a property of each divine Person and of the divine essence abstracted from the personal properties or modes of being, which, as I said, does not and cannot exist apart from, or previous to, the divine Persons.

Last edited by Johannes (9/27/2018 4:01 pm)

I think what is happening, Johannes, is that we're using two different senses of “Simplicity” and “absolutely simple”. I'm using it to mean "something without any ontological parts". (This is, I think, how Aquinas uses it, but different from how a lot of other scholastics use it.)

In case A, talking about "any mereological sum of e, P, S, or H" does not make sense, because e is the common essence of the divine Persons abstracted from their respective personal properties.

If the divine essence has real properties or property-instances, it has ontological parts and is (by definition) complex (i.e. not absolutely simple). If it lacks real properties, then by Simplicity the personal properties are all strictly identical with one another. (Unless we're equivocating on the word property?)

Absolute simplicity, then, is a property of each divine Person and of the divine essence abstracted from the personal properties or modes of being, which, as I said, does not and cannot exist apart from, or previous to, the divine Persons.

The properties don't need to be able to exist apart to import ontological complexity into God.