- John West
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
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.
I need, I think, to learn more about what you mean by “mode” before I can reply to this part. I had assumed you weren't using “mode” to mean “property-instance” (as a lot of authors, old and new, have), but your previous comments suggest that you were.
Muslims and Jews would probably agree with that, just changing "first" to "first and only".
This could be. I remember reading somewhere that Aquinas was considered to have a really radical view of divine simplicity in his time, even though now when we talk about “Simplicity” and “absolute simplicity” we typically mean his “without any ontological parts”. (If you adopt a view of divine simplicity more like, say, Scotus's, then obviously the mereological argument fails.)
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
(ii) The Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode started to actualize Christ's human nature at the moment of the creation of said nature.
I don't see how this explains how the Subsistent Act of Being, God, can stand in temporal relations and “before” and “after” are, unless you mean them in some other sense, temporal relations.
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Thread Starter- Johannes
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
John West wrote:
If the divine essence has real properties or property-instances, it has ontological parts and is (by definition) complex (i.e. not absolutely simple).
No, it does not have.
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?)
The Subjects of the personal properties are the Persons, not the common essence. E.g. the property of paternity means that the Subject with that property generates/begets (a Son). But it is the Father Who begets, not the essence. This was expressly stated by the Ecumenical Council Lateran IV in 1215:
Therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three Persons is that reality (res) - that is to say substance, essence or divine nature - which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality (res) neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds.
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
(ii) The Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode started to actualize Christ's human nature at the moment of the creation of said nature.
I don't see how this explains how the Subsistent Act of Being, God, can stand in temporal relations and “before” and “after” are, unless you mean them in some other sense, temporal relations.
The Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode does not stand in a real relation to Christ's human nature but in a relation of reason. It is Christ's human nature which stands in a real relation to the Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode, specifically is actualized by Him, or, using terminology previous to the adoption of the Aristotelian act/potency framework, subsists in Him.
The case is analogous to when we say that God started to hold the universe in contingent existence (i.e. by its own contingent created act of being) at the moment of the creation of the universe without meaning by that that God stands in a real temporal relation to the universe. It is the universe which stands in a real relation to God.
This is explained clearly by Aquinas in ST III, Q. 35, A. 5:
Now, every relation which is predicated of God from time does not put something real in the eternal God, but only something according to our way of thinking, as we have said in the FP, Q[13], A[7]. Therefore the filiation by which Christ is referred to His Mother cannot be a real relation, but only a relation of reason.Consequently each opinion is true to a certain extent. For if we consider the adequate causes of filiation, we must needs say that there are two filiations in respect of the twofold nativity. But if we consider the subject of filiation, which can only be the eternal suppositum, then no other than the eternal filiation in Christ is a real relation. Nevertheless, He has the relation of Son in regard to His Mother, because it is implied in the relation of motherhood to Christ. Thus God is called Lord by a relation which is implied in the real relation by which the creature is subject to God. And although lordship is not a real relation in God, yet He is really Lord through the real subjection of the creature to Him. In the same way Christ (i.e. the divine Person of the Son) is really the Son of the Virgin Mother through the real relation of her motherhood to Christ.
Last edited by Johannes (9/27/2018 8:17 pm)
- John West
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
If the divine essence has real properties or property-instances, it has ontological parts and is (by definition) complex (i.e. not absolutely simple).
No, it does not have.
This isn't some controversial thesis. It just follows from the definitions of “property” and “ontological part” (and my definition of divine simplicity is one Vallicella, who literally wrote the SEP article on divine simplicity, and Edward Feser, among others, use).
The Subjects of the personal properties are the Persons, not the common essence. E.g. the property of paternity means that the Subject with that property generates/begets (a Son). But it is the Father Who begets, not the essence.
Just look at the way you're talking about God. This is how you talk about something ontologically complex.
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Thread Starter- John West
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
The Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode does not stand in a real relation to Christ's human nature but in a relation of reason. It is Christ's human nature which stands in a real relation to the Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode, specifically is actualized by Him, or, using terminology previous to the adoption of the Aristotelian act/potency framework, subsists in Him.
Right. Res respectivae (as opposed to relations construed as we tend to now) allow this kind of talk, but I've always been suspicious of it. (It's part of the very meaning and essence of “before” that if x is before y, y is after x. I make a similar complaint about a one-sided similarity relation in another really old post here.) It sounds like a narrowly logical (as opposed to a strictly or broadly logical) or conceptual absurdity.
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Thread Starter- Johannes
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
If the divine essence has real properties or property-instances, it has ontological parts and is (by definition) complex (i.e. not absolutely simple).
No, it does not have.
This isn't some controversial thesis. It just follows from the definitions of “property” and “ontological part” (and my definition of divine simplicity is one Vallicella, who literally wrote the SEP article on divine simplicity, and Edward Feser, among others, use).
This was just a communication problem. My "does not have" referred to your first "has" (bold and underlined), not to your second "has" (just bold). Thus, I was denying only the factuality of the antecedent, not that the consecuent follows from the antecedent.
The problem was clearly my fault. I should have said "No, the divine essence does not have real properties or property-instances."
The Subjects of the personal properties are the Persons, not the common essence. E.g. the property of paternity means that the Subject with that property generates/begets (a Son). But it is the Father Who begets, not the essence.
Just look at the way you're talking about God. This is how you talk about something ontologically complex.
We need to be precise in what we mean by "God", whether one Person, or the common essence abstracted from the Persons, or the three Persons at once (the last usually called "the Godhead"). This need for precision is already evident in the conventional English translation of Jn 1:1, not in the Greek original whose literal translation is: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God (ton Theon), and the Word was God."
Having said that, the Persons are neither parts of the divine essence (as abstracted from the Persons) or of the Godhead, and therefore neither the divine essence (as abstracted from the Persons) nor the Godhead is ontologically complex.
Last edited by Johannes (9/28/2018 12:52 am)
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
Having said that, the Persons are not parts of the divine essence or of the Godhead, and therefore neither the essence nor the Godhead is ontologically complex.
Do you mean “mode” in the sense of “mode of Being”? This is what I thought at first.
(I'm still not sure I see how something absolutely simple can have three distinct modes of Being without importing complexity into it. God doesn't exist three times. He exists once. In one way. But I would rather take it up when I have more time. I'm also not sure “paternity”, “filiation”, et al., are modes of Being. I'm willing to accept that a contingent, externally unified entity has a different mode of Being (i.e. contingent Being) from a necessary “being” whose essence is identical to his existence (i.e. necessary Being), or that a dependent being (e.g. an accident) has a distinct mode of Being (i.e. dependent Being) from an independent being (e.g. a substance with its independent Being); but talk of a “mode of Being of paternity” or a “mode of Being of filiation” just sounds like we're importing aspects of distinct essences into the essence of existence. Was my father's mode of Being distinct from mine in virtue of his being my father? But again, these are the kinds of conversations we should be having when I can afford to pay real attention to them.)
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Thread Starter- Johannes
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
I'm still not sure I see how one absolutely simple entity can have three distinct modes of Being without importing complexity into God. God doesn't exist three times. He exists once. In one way.
Again, the subjects of the modes of Being are the respective Persons. You cannot call "He" either the essence as abstracted from the Persons or the Godhead (i.e. the three Persons at once).
What you are rejecting, a single subject existing three times, is the neomodalism of the two heterodox Karls, Barth and Rahner. It is not orthodox trinitarian theology.
I'm also not sure “paternity”, “filiation”, et al., are modes of Being.
Paternity and filiation are relations, a notion introduced in Western theology by St. Augustine, and you can perfectly stay wholly within Western theology and just ignore modes of Being. The latter notion was introduced by St. Basil of Caesarea and I find it highly suitable and convenient, but if it complicates your understanding of the subject instead of facilitating it, just ignore it.
but talk of a “mode of Being of paternity” or a “mode of Being of filiation” just sounds like we're importing aspects of distinct essences into the essence of existence.
A mode of Being refers just to a personal property or to a subsistent relation as relation and not as subsistent, and is just a convenient (at least for me) way of speaking. E.g.
Son = Subsistent Filiation = Subsistent Act of Being as filiation = Subsistent Act of Being in filiation mode.
For me, it has the advantage of reflecting suitably and conveniently the interpersonal difference regarding ad-intra fecundity, whereby the Son and the Holy Spirit do not enunciate their self-knowledge generating respective further sons, and the Holy Spirit does not spirate his love of the Father and the Son as further holy spirits.
Was my father's mode of being distinct from mine in virtue of his being my father?
Nope, and that's exactly why you ("thou", i.e. John West) can be father of your own children.
Last edited by Johannes (9/28/2018 6:19 am)
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Re: The Problem of the Trinity and Divine Simplicity
Again, the subjects of the modes of Being are the respective Persons. You cannot call "He" either the essence as abstracted from the Persons or the Godhead (i.e. the three Persons at once).
You see, I have no idea how to square this explanation with divine simplicity. I'm not denying that the following is what Catholic dogma states:
The Subjects of the personal properties are the Persons, not the common essence. E.g. the property of paternity means that the Subject with that property generates/begets (a Son). But it is the Father Who begets, not the essence. This was expressly stated by the Ecumenical Council Lateran IV in 1215
I'm just not sure how, given God's absolute simplicity, we can have a common essence and a property of paternity that aren't just the same (strictly identical) thing. In other words, my question isn't what Catholic dogma is. It's how to assay it in a way compatible with divine simplicity. And I don't see that you've done that.
But I'm going to leave this conversation here and get back to other stuff I should be doing right now.
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