Can Philosophy Break the Trinity?

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Catholics believe that God is a trinity. This means that God is composed of three persons, who together exist as one substance. While this version of the one true God may be sound according to scripture and the writings of the early theologians, is it sound according to philosophical principals? I have reason to believe that it is not. If God exists as a trinity according to Catholicism, than it is logical to say that it pertains to the divine nature to exist as three personalities composing one god. In that case, the concept of the trinity would be prior in nature to God himself. This is because the Trinitarian version of God maintains that God is necessarily composed of three persons, and if God is necessarily composed of three persons, then there must be an entity prior to God necessitating the trinity aspect of God. The one true God should not be bounded by any kind of nature prior to itself. The one true God should exist as one being, one consciousness, and the first cause of all that is. Can anyone argue with this?
 
Catholics believe that God is a trinity. This means that God is composed of three persons, who together exist as one substance. While this version of the one true God may be sound according to scripture and the writings of the early theologians, is it sound according to philosophical principals? I have reason to believe that it is not. If God exists as a trinity according to Catholicism, than it is logical to say that it pertains to the divine nature to exist as three personalities composing one god. In that case, the concept of the trinity would be prior in nature to God himself. This is because the Trinitarian version of God maintains that God is necessarily composed of three persons, and if God is necessarily composed of three persons, then there must be an entity prior to God necessitating the trinity aspect of God. The one true God should not be bounded by any kind of nature prior to itself. The one true God should exist as one being, one consciousness, and the first cause of all that is. Can anyone argue with this?
How is your argument any different than if I were to say that the concepts of “one” and “true” and “God” and “being” and “consciousness” and “first cause” had to exist before God, and then there must be an entity prior to God necessitating all these aspects of God?

Your approach invalidates any concept of God, not just the Christian concept.
 
In that case, the concept of the trinity would be prior in nature to God himself.
Your argument seems to assume that God exists IN time. But He does not. Nothing is ‘prior to’ God. God is a spiritual being with no extension in time or space. He is one entity, not three. Each person of the Trinity possesses the single divine nature; ‘person’ is not a separate entity existing apart from nature.
 
Our faith in the Trinity of God does not eliminate the necessary attributes predicated of Him.

You write that, “…God should exist as one being, one consciousness, and the first cause of all that is.”

I would first like to note something rather unsettling here. You write that God should. In your finiteness you put onto God who alone knows and comprehends Himself a should. As followers of God we are required to hear His Word and what is revealed through His Spirit in the Word rather than a priori placing our own subjective shoulds upon Him.

The Triune God is most certainly one being. Our faith in the Trinity does not lead us to believe there are three beings who together compose or make One God. In fact, that would be outright polytheism which is principally why Mormonism is denied to be Christian. Your conception of the Trinity meaning three beings rather than one being because there is more than one hypostasis in the Deity is a result of a faulty understanding on your part; not a deficiency in the doctrine itself.

The Triune God does not cease to be the first cause of all that is because He is Triune. Specifically, we refer to the first person of the Trinity, the Father, as the origin of the first cause. We do this, because The Son and The Spirit also find their origin within Him (albeit eternally). As we confess in the creed, “I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible…” Being the first cause, His causation comes through His eternally begotten Son in the power of His eternally breathed out Spirit. Thus, the causation of the Father never occurs apart from His Son & Spirit.

The argument you presented that any attribute God possess being necessary to His being must therefore be imposed by a being who preceded Him is fallacious. God Himself is eternally existent and exists however He Himself exists. We cannot understand that. We never will. That is just peculiar to the Almighty. We have to learn to live with it.

I pray you continue to grapple and wrestle with this awesome mystery and come to a point where you place your faith in the eternal Son who is the gateway to the Triune God.

In His service. 👍
 
Can anyone argue with this?
Yes. You said:

(1) If God exists as a trinity according to Catholicism, than it is logical to say that it pertains to the divine nature to exist as three personalities composing one god.
(2) In that case, the concept of the trinity would be prior in nature to God himself. This is because:
(a) the Trinitarian version of God maintains that God is necessarily composed of three persons, and
(b) if God is necessarily composed of three persons, then there must be an entity prior to God necessitating the trinity aspect of God.

(2)(a) more or less restates (1), but (2)(b) doesn’t follow from (2)(a).

Regardless of whether God is Trinitarian or not, your argument requires that some entity prior to God must necessitate God’s existence. That is clearly wrong. If God is self-necessitating existence, then His mode of existence, whatever that may be, needs no cause. Hence, the fact that God’s existence is Trinitarian does not necessitate a cause above God any more than the simple assertion that God exists.

Conversely, God’s existence does not necessitate that His existence is tri-personal; rather, this is revealed. Hence, there is an equivocation on the “necessity” of God’s tri-personal existence. We know that God must necessarily exist in some way by the existence of anything, but we only know that His existence is necessarily tri-personal because He has revealed this to us.
 
The one true God should exist as one being…
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity in no way denies the oneness of God’s being, only the oneness of his personhood (i.e., unitarianism).

Don
+T+
 
If God is self-necessitating existence, then His mode of existence, whatever that may be, needs no cause. Hence, the fact that God’s existence is Trinitarian does not necessitate a cause above God any more than the simple assertion that God exists.
Right. This whole argument is reminiscent of the idea that if God is good, Goodness must exist logically “prior to” God’s existence. The classical answer to this is that God’s existence is “simple” in nature and thus can’t be broken into separate “attributes” (such as being good, being a Trinity, being powerful, etc.). According to “divine simplicity,” all the different things one can say about God are just different ways of saying the same thing, which is: God. Nothing therefore need be logically prior to God.
 
God created logic. We exist in and communicate with logic. God does not need logic itself to exist or have an existence that is logical to us. If He says He Is Three and One at the same time who are we to argue with it when the very language we would use to think or argue is not capable to communicate it.

People don’t realize that mathematics and logic are a part of creation. God bacame a part of creation but is above and beyond it.
 
  1. Everything that exists except God was created by God.
  2. God has always existed.
  3. This means that at some point, nothing existed except God.
  4. God is absolutely perfect, and thus cannot change.
  5. God is love.
  6. But love cannot be absolutely perfect unless shared.
  7. Thus, there must exist a multiplicity of eternal divine persons “within” the one eternal God.
Philosophy doesn’t contradict the Trinity. It confirms the reasonableness of the Trinity.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
  1. Everything that exists except God was created by God.
  2. God has always existed.
  3. This means that at some point, nothing existed except God.
  4. God is absolutely perfect, and thus cannot change.
  5. God is love.
  6. But love cannot be absolutely perfect unless shared.
  7. Thus, there must exist a multiplicity of eternal divine persons “within” the one eternal God.
Philosophy doesn’t contradict the Trinity. It confirms the reasonableness of the Trinity.

– Mark L. Chance.
Neat. This confirms my understanding of the base meaning of life which I got from the Theology of The Body. That meaning is to be gift of self. No matter what you do, if being gift of self is not an element of what you are doing you will not be fullfilled as a person. The altimate meaning of life is being gift of self back to God. But I like the idea that the element of being Gift to Each Other to Each Other is Love and Is a core element of God’s Existence. Therefore as you said He must not have been Alone. At the same time the Gift of Self to Each Other in completeness Is what makes God One.

Why 3? I like the number three and creation points to three all over the place, three dimenssions of physical existence, past present future, three elements in water and we can go on and on. Why 3?
 
Catholics believe that God is a trinity. This means that God is composed of three persons, who together exist as one substance. While this version of the one true God may be sound according to scripture and the writings of the early theologians, is it sound according to philosophical principals? I have reason to believe that it is not. If God exists as a trinity according to Catholicism, than it is logical to say that it pertains to the divine nature to exist as three personalities composing one god. In that case, the concept of the trinity would be prior in nature to God himself. This is because the Trinitarian version of God maintains that God is necessarily composed of three persons, and if God is necessarily composed of three persons, then there must be an entity prior to God necessitating the trinity aspect of God. The one true God should not be bounded by any kind of nature prior to itself. The one true God should exist as one being, one consciousness, and the first cause of all that is. Can anyone argue with this?
Nicene Creed:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven,

By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered, died and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father (and the Son)
Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e4/Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-variations-thumb.png
 
Neat. This confirms my understanding of the base meaning of life which I got from the Theology of The Body. That meaning is to be gift of self. No matter what you do, if being gift of self is not an element of what you are doing you will not be fullfilled as a person. The altimate meaning of life is being gift of self back to God. But I like the idea that the element of being Gift to Each Other to Each Other is Love and Is a core element of God’s Existence. Therefore as you said He must not have been Alone. At the same time the Gift of Self to Each Other in completeness Is what makes God One.

Why 3? I like the number three and creation points to three all over the place, three dimenssions of physical existence, past present future, three elements in water and we can go on and on. Why 3?
Why Three? Because Three is The One. 👍

In Ancient times both the West and East used three fingers as a sign of the Trinity to cross themselves. Christian warriors would also hold up three fingers after a battle and Moslems would hold up one. I think that’s one thing we should go back to.
 
There are two basic ways love is shared:
  1. Between two persons for each other, such as between a husband and wife.
  2. From two persons for the same third person, such as between two parents for a child.
Three is the minimum number of persons required to exhibit both ways of sharing love.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
. . .

Why 3? I like the number three and creation points to three all over the place, three dimenssions of physical existence, past present future, three elements in water and we can go on and on. Why 3?
The Holy Father, John Paul II, spoke of this Mystery as one revealing that God, while One, is never alone. God is a Community of Persons, and it is in this Divine Communion that man finds the fulfillment of his desire for communion with another. It is only because of the “First” Communion of the Divine Persons that our communion is possible with one another and with the Divine Persons. These Persons have no need for Communion with one creature, let alone millions, yet out of the fruitfulness of the impenetrating Love within the Godhead we have been created in order for us to participate in that Divine Communion (primary) and communion with each other (secondary).
“God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has in Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love.”
“A great mystery, a mystery of love, an ineffable mystery, before which words must give way to the silence of wonder and worship. A divine mystery that challenges and involves us, because a share in the Trinitarian life was given to us through grace, through the redemptive Incarnation of the Word and the gift of the Holy Spirit: ‘Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling-place with him’ (Jn 14: 23).” John Paul II.
vatican.net/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_10031999_en.html
 
Your argument seems to assume that God exists IN time.
No, he said “prior in nature.” He’s talking about logical, not temporal priority–in other words, what depends on what. It’s a valid point, but VociMike’s answer is a good one–exactly the same problem obtains if you have a purely unitary conception of God.

Edwin
 
Let me propose a couple of questions here:
  1. If God exists as a trinity, does he do so by choice?
  2. Do we have any other reason to believe that God is a trinity, other than the bible?
 
Let me propose a couple of questions here:
  1. If God exists as a trinity, does he do so by choice?
The Church taught me that God is immutable (unchanging). This suggests to me that there was no choice with regard to His trinitarian nature. That would be like asking me if I chose to have two hands. I have two hands because I am human.
  1. Do we have any other reason to believe that God is a trinity, other than the bible?
Yes, the teachings of the Catholic Church.
 
Sounds like someone is playing the Arian card.

Saladin says “If God exists as a trinity, does he do so by choice?”

St. Gregory Theologian says in his Third Theological Oration.
Will you then let me play a little upon this word Father, for your example encourages me to be so bold? The Father is God either willingly or unwillingly; and how will you escape from your own excessive acuteness? If willingly, when did He begin to will? It could not have been before He began to be, for there was nothing prior to Him. Or is one part of Him Will and another the object of Will? If so, He is divisible. So the question arises, as the result of your argument, whether He Himself is not the Child of Will. And if unwillingly, what compelled Him to exist, and how is He God if He was compelled—and that to nothing less than to be God? How then was He begotten, says my opponent. How was He created, if as you say, He was created? For this is a part of the same difficulty. Perhaps you would say, By Will and Word. You have not yet solved the whole difficulty; for it yet remains for you to show how Will and Word gained the power of action. For man was not created in this way.
newadvent.org/fathers/310229.htm

However,
Do we have any other reason to believe that God is a trinity, other than the bible?
If you mean other than by Christian revelation, then the answer is no. The Trinity is a revealed truth undiscoverable to natural reason. The arguments above show the plausibility of the Trinity, but they are not certain proofs.
 
Let me propose a couple of questions here:
  1. Do we have any other reason to believe that God is a trinity, other than the bible?
I have two children, a boy and a girl. Do you have any other reason to believe that I have two children, other than the fact I revealed it to you?
 
Let me propose a couple of questions here:
  1. If God exists as a trinity, does he do so by choice?
He has the same choice that he would have if he existed as a unity.
  1. Do we have any other reason to believe that God is a trinity, other than the bible?
The bible is not the source of our belief in the Trinity (although Protestants incorrectly assert that it is). The source of our belief in God’s Trinitarian nature is the faith which was taught by Jesus Christ (that is, by God himself) to the Apostles, which has then been handed down without corruption through the ages.
 
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