Does the Trinity have one mind or three minds?

[JapaneseKappa]

There is a plurality of subsistent “relations” in God - these “relations” are different from one another - they are the Divine Persons.

What I mean by Divine Simplicity is addressed by Thomas Aquinas in ST, Part I, Question III where various types of compositions are discussed and ruled out in God’s case (see my previous posting #241). Thomas does not think that the really different “subsistent relations” known as the Divine Persons negate the simplicity of the Divine Substance. God is both One Primary Substance (prote ousia) and also Three Persons.

How do you explain the plurality of the Three Persons while the Substance remains One?

I have explained that this simultaneous plurality/unity is a logical impossibility. I have also asserted that the use of “relations” is simply a way for theologians to avoid coming to that conclusion, even though the relations don’t actually address the underlying contradiction.

To address this, you will need to show which point of my syllogism is denied by Aquinas’ use of relations, because I don’t believe his use of relations allow him to escape my conclusion.

 

[Lucretius]

1. Suppose that there is a respect (R) in which F and S are different, and let the difference be characterized by some description “d” such that F is d, while S is not d.
2. Therefore, according to 4 and 5, S and F must both be identically the same as G in R.
3. Therefore, according to 2 and 6, G is both “d” and “not d” in R.

What do you mean when you say that x is identical to G in R? If you translated it like this: the Father is identical the God in respect to paternity, I can’t make sense of what you mean with “respect to Paternity.”

We believe that paternity and filiation are both equal to the Divine essence: what we believe is that they aren’t equal to each other. The Father and the Son are not two parts that have a relation, they are the polar ends of a relationship. If God is paternity, he is also filiation, but that doesn’t mean paternity is filiation, similar to how yourself and your concept of yourself are the same essence, but nevertheless are distinct in terms of relation.

In other words, there is no ontological parts of the Divine essence, but there are distinction on how the Divine essence relates to itself. These relations are not splitting the Divine essence into parts, because God, his concept of Himself, and his volition and experience of Himself are not parts of the Divine essence, but different ways God relates to himself in virtue of being personal.

Christi pax.

 

[Lucretius]

Suppose that there is a respect (R) in which F and S are different

Here’s another thing: saying that “there is a respect in which the Father and the Son are different” misunderstands the doctrine, because we are not saying that the Father has some quality that the Son doesn’t, rather, we are saying that the relation of Fatherhood is opposed to the relation of Sonship, because the persons are the subsist relations themselves, not substances or parts of a substance that have this relation. The Father is not like a man who, when he has a child, obtains the relation of fatherhood, he just is Fatherhood, and so forth.

The Father then doesn’t have a quality “d” or “begetting” that the Son doesn’t have, rather, the Father is God begetting, and the Son is God begotten. Your arguments all prove that they are the same essence, but that was never at issue. I don’t think your arguments even touch on what it means to be a subsist relation, rather, they all seem to consider them as parts of whole.

The whole idea behind the psychological analogy is illustrate that the relation between the thing in itself and the thing as known by itself is a real relation, and it doesn’t disappear just because the Being’s intellect is not distinct from its own being and will. Rather, because the being of the Thing and its intellect is the same, its concept of itself is the same being as itself. The Trinity is analogically the result of the personality of God reflecting on Himself.

Christi pax.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

What do you mean when you say that x is identical to G in R? If you translated it like this: the Father is identical the God in respect to paternity, I can’t make sense of what you mean with “respect to Paternity.”

We believe that paternity and filiation are both equal to the Divine essence: what we believe is that they aren’t equal to each other. The Father and the Son are not two parts that have a relation, they are the polar ends of a relationship. If God is paternity, he is also filiation, but that doesn’t mean paternity is filiation, similar to how yourself and your concept of yourself are the same essence, but nevertheless are distinct in terms of relation.

But divine simplicity says that all of God’s properties are identical. So if God has the property of paternity and filiation, then simplicity requires that they are the same thing. Your point (that they are not the same) sounds an awful lot like Plantinga’s attack on Thomistic divine simplicity.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

the Father is God begetting, and the Son is God begotten. Your arguments all prove that they are the same essence, but that was never at issue. I don’t think your arguments even touch on what it means to be a subsist relation, rather, they all seem to consider them as parts of whole.

Question: Is the Son God begetting?

If the Son is not God begetting, then in my syllogism, d = “God begetting.” If the Son IS God begetting (and the father is God begotten) then there is no sense in which the father and son are distinct at all and all you have done is re-labeled boxes.

 

[levinas12]

I have explained that this simultaneous plurality/unity is a logical impossibility. I have also asserted that the use of “relations” is simply a way for theologians to avoid coming to that conclusion, even though the relations don’t actually address the underlying contradiction.

To address this, you will need to show which point of my syllogism is denied by Aquinas’ use of relations, because I don’t believe his use of relations allow him to escape my conclusion.

To assert at the same time that there are three substances and one substance would be a contradiction. But person is neither substance nor accident … person is outside Aristotelian categories.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

To assert at the same time that there are three substances and one substance would be a contradiction. But person is neither substance nor accident … person is outside Aristotelian categories.

What Aristotle has to say is irrelevant. The law of non-contradiction doesn’t care whether Aristotle knows how to categorize something.

Lets take personhood at face value, and suppose the Father is a person. Either the father is the same person as the son, or he is not. Either the father is the same person as God, or he is not. If the father is the same person as God, but not the same person as the Son, and the Son is the same person as God, then we have violated the law of non-contradiction.

Now, perhaps you might say “God isn’t a person, so you can’t compare the father and God like that!” To which I will respond:

If the father is a person, and God is not a person, then the father is not God. If the father were God, then he would simultaneously be a person and not be a person, in violation of the law of non-contradiction.

 

[Lucretius]

Lets take personhood at face value, and suppose the Father is a person. Either the father is the same person as the son, or he is not. Either the father is the same person as God, or he is not. If the father is the same person as God, but not the same person as the Son, and the Son is the same person as God, then we have violated the law of non-contradiction.

When we say “God” in this context, we are referring to the only instance of the Divine Nature.

To say that the three persons being the same nature is contradictory is false, because we have encountered individuals with the same nature that are nevertheless seperate, like how Fluffy and Whiskers are different cats yet share the same nature.

To say that the three persons being the same substance is contradictory is also false, because we have encountered things that are the same substance but are nevertheless distinct, like how my life, my mind, and my will are distinct, yet are the same thing, me.

To say that the three persons being God contradicts Divine Simplicity is also false, because we believe that the three persons are relations, relative to each other, not seperate substances nor ontological parts.

Now, perhaps you might say “God isn’t a person, so you can’t compare the father and God like that!”

We aren’t saying God isn’t a person: we are saying God is by nature personal, and three persons in one substance.

You seem to keep viewing the Persons as either separate substances, or separate ontological parts, and I agree the doctine would then be contradictory in the former and in contradiction with the doctor of the Divine Simplicity in the latter, but this is not what we mean by Person. I recommend looking through the multiple posts on this thread, and on this site, as well St. John of Damascus’ writing on the Trinity: ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.viii.html

and St. Thomas’ articles on the Trinity: newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

Christi pax.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

When we say “God” in this context, we are referring to the only instance of the Divine Nature.

To say that the three persons being the same nature is contradictory is false, because we have encountered individuals with the same nature that are nevertheless seperate, like how Fluffy and Whiskers are different cats yet share the same nature.

This is an abuse of analogy. I considered adding a “now you might say” with this very objection to my previous post, but I didn’t think you’d actually make this claim. God is not like a cat, because there is and can only be one God. If you meet the necessary and sufficient conditions for being God, you are it and when someone is talking about God, they are talking about you.

In the previous post I said that if God is not a person, and the father is God, then the father is not a person. This is true, because the instant you say “God isn’t a person,” you’ve made “not being a person” a necessary condition for being God. There cannot be some gods that are persons and some that are not.

Now if you wanted to revise the trinity to be something like “the parts of the trinity are each gods, equal in godlyness” that’d be (among other things) a denial of divine simplicity.

To say that the three persons being the same substance is contradictory is also false, because we have encountered things that are the same substance but are nevertheless distinct, like how my life, my mind, and my will are distinct, yet are the same thing, me.

To say that the three persons being God contradicts Divine Simplicity is also false, because we believe that the three persons are relations, relative to each other, not seperate substances nor ontological parts.

Whether your life, mind and will are identically the same thing as you requires argumentation. At first blush, it is not something I am inclined to accept. Indeed, I would view “you” as a sum of those things such that each one is a part of you, or at least a subset of your accidents. In other words, the kind of parts that God is not allowed to have.

We aren’t saying God isn’t a person: we are saying God is by nature personal, and three persons in one substance.

You seem to keep viewing the Persons as either separate substances, or separate ontological parts, and I agree the doctine would then be contradictory in the former and in contradiction with the doctor of the Divine Simplicity in the latter, but this is not what we mean by Person. I recommend looking through the multiple posts on this thread, and on this site, as well St. John of Damascus’ writing on the Trinity: ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.iii.iv.i.viii.html

and St. Thomas’ articles on the Trinity: newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

I am asserting that the doctrine is contradictory as long as there exists a respect in which the parts of the trinity are distinct from one another. When I say “respect” I am being as general as I possible can be. If they were different substances, then the parts would be distinct with respect to their substances. If they were different parts, then they would be distinct with respect to which part of God they were. If they’re on different ends of a relation, then they are different with respect to that relation. I have not asserted any of those differences to actually be the case. I am asserting simply that there exists some respect in which the persons of the trinity are distinct. My use of relations/parts/persons has been purely to show that neither your nor Aquinas’s invocation of those concepts resolves the issue.

 

[levinas12]

What Aristotle has to say is irrelevant.

You cannot understand the meaning of "substance " or “essence” or “nature” without having some familiarity with Aristotle. Much of the discussion here revolves around these terms.

The meaning of “person”, as distinct from “substance”, is also relevant.

“Substance” responds to a “what” question; “person”, to a “who” question. “What” and “who” reflect two different dimensions of reality which are not interchangeable.

I agree that the notion of the Trinity is tricky. Divine Substance is only “first” substance; there is no “second” substance. A “first substance” is the concrete entity, e.g., this tree in front of my house. A “second substance” is the nature or essence of “this tree”, a nature that defines other trees as well - this is “second substance”…For more on this distinction between "first and “second” substance, see Aristotle’s metaphysics.

And, again, the meaning of “substance” in Aristotle cannot be applied univocally to God.
That is, there are important differences between Aristotle and Christian theology.

First, the “whatness” of God is only “first substance”; there is no “second substance”, i.e., a nature that can be shared with other entities.

Second, God’s “substance” cannot be defined by genus and a specific difference.

Third, in God, there is no real distinction between “essence” and “existence”.

Consequently, God is not just one entity among other entities, not even a Supreme Entity.

Aristotle’s God is one entity among others, and is a Supreme Entity. Aristotle’s God is part of the inventory of the contents of the Universe. The Christian God is not. The Christian God is “outside” the entire Universe (i.e., is not a part of the cosmos).

Therefore, we have to use a type of analogy when speaking of God.

Analogy is not a dishonest maneuver

It’s just that meaning is not always univocal. And this absence of univocality allows us to say, without logical contradiction, that there are three Persons and one “first substance”.

We cannot talk this way about beings within the Universe. For example, there is just one person paired with a human being, a “first substance” of “rational animal”, However, that “one person” is not just a"rational animal" - Abraham Lincoln has more ontological density than “rational animal” (otherwise, to say Abraham Lincoln is a rational animal, and Thomas Jefferson is a rational animal, would be to assert that Abraham Lincoln is identifical to Thomas Jefferson).

Another way of saying this: there is no genus and specific difference that defines Abraham Lincoln qua Abraham Lincoln, i.e. qua the “person” of Abraham Lincoln; however, there is a genus and specific difference that defines Abraham Lincoln qua human being, i.e., “rational animal”.

Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson can share the same nature (“rational animal”) but at the same time be two different persons.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

You cannot understand the meaning of "substance " or “essence” or “nature” without having some familiarity with Aristotle. Much of the discussion here revolves around these terms.

But my point does not invoke them. Therefore, if you want to actually address my point, you need to show how they are relevant to and represent a resolution of the point I made.

The meaning of “person”, as distinct from “substance”, is also relevant.

“Substance” responds to a “what” question; “person”, to a “who” question. “What” and “who” reflect two different dimensions of reality which are not interchangeable.

I have never used them interchangeably. I have argued that you’re now allowed to violate the law of non-contradiction while answering “who” questions anymore than you are allowed to violate the law of non-contradiction while answering “what” questions.

I agree that the notion of the Trinity is tricky. Divine Substance is only “first” substance; there is no “second” substance. A “first substance” is the concrete entity, e.g., this tree in front of my house. A “second substance” is the nature or essence of “this tree”, a nature that defines other trees as well - this is “second substance”…For more on this distinction between "first and “second” substance, see Aristotle’s metaphysics.

And, again, the meaning of “substance” in Aristotle cannot be applied univocally to God.
That is, there are important differences between Aristotle and Christian theology.

First, the “whatness” of God is only “first substance”; there is no “second substance”, i.e., a nature that can be shared with other entities.

Second, God’s “substance” cannot be defined by genus and a specific difference.

Third, in God, there is no real distinction between “essence” and “existence”.

Consequently, God is not just one entity among other entities, not even a Supreme Entity.

Aristotle’s God is one entity among others, and is a Supreme Entity. Aristotle’s God is part of the inventory of the contents of the Universe. The Christian God is not. The Christian God is “outside” the entire Universe (i.e., is not a part of the cosmos).

Therefore, we have to use a type of analogy when speaking of God.

Analogy is not a dishonest maneuver

It’s just that meaning is not always univocal. And this absence of univocality allows us to say, without logical contradiction, that there are three Persons and one “first substance”.

It may not be dishonest, but it sounds an awful lot like “we can’t understand, so logic doesn’t apply.”

Now it is a clever trick to deny that God has a “second substance.” According to my understanding, that is the same as denying that God has a nature. Which is all well and good, right up until you remember that theologians are all the time appealing to God’s nature.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

St. Thomas further teaches that the name substance cannot properly be applied to God, not only because He is not the subject of any accidents, but also because in Him essence and existence are identical, and consequently He is not included in any genus whatever.

Which is fine until you realize that “genus” was how Aristotle creates definitions for what things are. So by denying that God belongs to a genus, Aquinas is denying that you can create a Aristotelian definition for what God is. Then, because you can’t create definitions for God, (or any of the persons of the Trinity), you never have to notice that your definitions of God are explicit violations of the law of non-contradiction.

However, Aquinas himself has no problem describing features God must have. (It would be awfully hard to prove that something exists if you couldn’t say anything definitive about it.) Therefore, the inability to create Aristotelian definitions must not preclude us from establishing at least some necessary conditions for something to be God. And because we can do that, then my objection still stands. My syllogism does not require a genus+difference definition of God, just a straight up comparison of attributes.

We cannot talk this way about beings within the Universe. For example, there is just one person paired with a human being, a “first substance” [did you actually mean second substance?] of “rational animal”, However, that “one person” is not just a"rational animal" - Abraham Lincoln has more ontological density than “rational animal” (otherwise, to say Abraham Lincoln is a rational animal, and Thomas Jefferson is a rational animal, would be to assert that Abraham Lincoln is identifical to Thomas Jefferson).

Another way of saying this: there is no genus and specific difference that defines Abraham Lincoln qua Abraham Lincoln, i.e. qua the “person” of Abraham Lincoln; however, there is a genus and specific difference that defines Abraham Lincoln qua human being, i.e., “rational animal”.

Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson can share the same nature (“rational animal”) but at the same time be two different persons.

The primary substance DOES identify the individual, so I think you meant secondary substance.

But this is confusing because I’m pretty sure you just finished denying that God has a second substance, which according to the Catholic Encyclopedia “designates the universal essence or nature as contained in genus and species.” So if God does not have this genus+difference definition in the first place, this whole analogy is irrelevant.

Nothing in my syllogism requires that we establish a genus+difference definition for God or any part of the trinity.

 

[Lucretius]

God is not like a cat, becausethere is and can only be oneGod.

The understanding that God has three minds is based on the idea that each person is an individual substance/thing/particular, which would make each person a separated substance from each other, which is why PluniaZ keeps calling this approach polytheistic. In human persons, this idea that each person is a separate substance/thing is correct, but this is not true in God. Our ideas are based on our experiences with created things, and since God transcends created things, which only share a degree of likeness to God, our concepts only approximates the infinite reality of God.*

This is why our understanding of God appears so paradoxical to us: normally contradictory -or at least unassociated- concepts from our experiences are being used to understand a reality where they are unified. Something being a particle and a wave is paradoxical from normal macro-level experience, but not so in the quantum realm. Something’s mass not changing in motion is true in the relatively slow motion of common things on Earth, but in the world of very fast objects, mass increases as velocity increases. In the same way, in normal experience (with created things), three people aren’t or can’t be the same substance/thing. But not so with God: our concepts are based on observing only a small part of reality -one derived too-, not the whole.

Each of these principles: that distinct things can share the same nature, that distinct things can be the same thing, that there is some things that are one of a kind, etc. together make up the doctrine of the Trinity. They may seem contradictory to us, but that is because these principles are derived from out experiences with created things: but God transcends created things. These principles are not contradictory in themselves, but only contradictory in the things we are familiar with.

I am asserting that the doctrine is contradictory*as long as there exists a respect in which the parts of the trinity are distinct from one another.

You haven’t shown that the subsisting relations of God divide God up ontological. God the Father is literally distinct from the Son and Spirit only in respect to not being the Son and Spirit. That it: that’s the only thing that makes them different. This is what it means to be a subsisting relation. And the Father, Son, and Spirit all have the same substance, goodness, intellect, mercy, justice and will, etc. The Father doesn’t have some Divine goodness that the Son and Spirit don’t have, etc., and so the doctrine doesn’t contradict Divine Simplicity. They are relations, and so the only thing that makes them different are their relations.

If we said that the Father is not the Son in the same sense we mean when we say that “God is good” the you would be corrected that there is a contradiction.

You are correct that Divine simplicity teaches that there is ultimately only one sense in which God attributes “are,” but this doesn’t contradict the doctrine of the Trinity because the “is” in the statement “The Father is not the Son” isn’t a statement about God’s attributes, but a statement about His relations.

The doctrine is odd, because the things we are familiar with don’t possess such an existence (which is why there is no one good analogy for it, but rather a multitude of analogies), but it isn’t contradictory.

Christi pax.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Each of these principles: that distinct things can share the same nature, that distinct things can be the same thing, that there is some things that are one of a kind, etc. together make up the doctrine of the Trinity. They may seem contradictory to us, but that is because these principles are derived from out experiences with created things: but God transcends created things. These principles are not contradictory in themselves, but only contradictory in the things we are familiar with.

I have presented my argument as a formal syllogism, not “well it seems like…” In case you have forgotten, I have added the situation-specific variant below.

You haven’t shown that the subsisting relations of God divide God up ontological. God the Father is literally distinct from the Son and Spirit only in respect to not being the Son and Spirit. That it: that’s the only thing that makes them different. This is what it means to be a subsisting relation. And the Father, Son, and Spirit all have the same substance, goodness, intellect, mercy, justice and will, etc. The Father doesn’t have some Divine goodness that the Son and Spirit don’t have, etc., and so the doctrine doesn’t contradict Divine Simplicity. They are relations, and so the only thing that makes them different are their relations.

But that is enough for my syllogism. I can re-write it explicitly if you are not clear:

1. F is distinct from S with respect to identity.
2. Therefore, F is F while S is not F.
3. With respect to identiy, either F is identically the same as G, or F is not identically the same as G.
4. If F does not have the same identity as G, then we have contradicted a trinitarian requirement (i.e. that F be identically the same as G.)
5. Repeat 3 and 4 with S instead of F
6. Therefore, according to 4 and 5, S and F must both be identically the same as G with respect to identity.
7. Therefore, according to 2 and 6, G is both F and not F.
8. 7 is a violation of the law of non-contradiction.
9. Therefore 2 either violates a trinitarian requirement, or is logically impossible.

If we said that the Father is not the Son in the same sense we mean when we say that “God is good” the you would be corrected that there is a contradiction.

You are correct that Divine simplicity teaches that there is ultimately only one sense in which God attributes “are,” but this doesn’t contradict the doctrine of the Trinity because the “is” in the statement “The Father is not the Son” isn’t a statement about God’s attributes, but a statement about His relations.

The doctrine is odd, because the things we are familiar with don’t possess such an existence (which is why there is no one good analogy for it, but rather a multitude of analogies), but it isn’t contradictory.

This is a move I anticipated before I wrote out my syllogism originally. Specifically, you are saying there is a separate category of being (lets call it “iz”) such that:

F iz G, F iz not S, and S iz G.

To deny this requires a Clintonian “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

Presto change-o! You have avoided the law of non-contradiction because the law of non-contradiction only deals with “being” not “izzing.”

As a further observation:
Invoking Aristotelian substances is essentially “doing more work than we need to.” Aristotle invented the idea of substances to resolve the “Ship of Theseus” class of problem. That is, if you replace all the parts of a ship during a voyage, in what respect is it the same ship? Well said Aristotle, it is the same in “primary substance” which means a kind of metaphysically-existing identity-paste. What exactly is this “primary substance?” According to New Advent: “You can’t really define it but its like you know how when…” Now that is the kind of philosophizing I might accept from a college roommate on a Friday night, but I’m not about to add that kind of vagueness into my thinking without a good reason to do so. So when thinking about God, do we have a good reason? No! God is like the opposite of the Ship of Theseus. He cannot and does not change. Whatever attributes he has, those are the attributes he has always had and will always have. Same for whatever relationships he’s in, parts he may be made up of, or identities he has. Moreover, there can only ever be one of him! If you look like God, swim like God, and quack like God, then you are not “a god that is possibly the God we’re interested in, better check the identity-paste” you are the one and only God. MOREmoreover, God is simple which means that all of his attributes are the same! So our duck test only needs to test for a single attribute in order to identify whether or not something is the one-and-only God!

So lets review: When thinking about God we don’t have to worry about God changing. We also don’t have to worry about selecting the wrong God from a litany of possible gods, and we can identify God with a one-question test.

Now, given those facts, why is everyone acting like this is somehow super complicated? All the relevant features of God make the question simpler, not more complex. What possible motivation would someone have to invoke Aristotelian identity-glue in this situation, unless they wanted to deliberately “do more work” and make the problem seem harder or more inscrutable than it actually is?

 

[levinas12]

The primary substance DOES identify the individual, so I think you meant secondary substance.

I have been using too literal a translation of the Aristotle’s Greek - so where Aristotle has “prote ousia”, I translated it as “first substance”. And likewise with the form or nature as “second substance”.

Perhaps a better translation is “the primary sense of substance”, “secondary sense of substance”. “Primary” connotes that the real substance is the concrete entity, i.e., the particular tree outside my house. “Secondary” connotes the “eidos” or “form” or “nature” which is common to many particulars (you could say the “universal” as opposed to the “particular instance” as long as “universal” is understood to be “out there” in the things themselves and not confined to “inside” our heads as a private idea “locked up” (John Locke) in the secret cabinet of my own thoughts).

What I meant, in my previous posting, is that the primary substance exemplifying the “eidos” of “rational animal” is the concrete individual man, e.g., standing outside my house. For Aristotle, the individuality of this specific man is due to the matter, not to the “form”. The individuality of the specific man is just like the individuality of any other material entity - i.e., it is due to the matter. The matter exhaustively explains the “instancing” of the form.

Some philosophers (e.g., Robert Spaemann) disagree with Aristotle’s account of individuality as it pertains to “persons”. “Person” (as the basis for the individuality of human beings) goes beyond the matter; and, as discussed in the previous posting, “person” is not the “eidos” or “nature” or “form”. “Person” is neither “matter” nor “form” (which is defined by genus and specific difference).

So the uniqueness and “unrepeatability”, “non-shareability”, i.e., ncommunicability", of a specific human being is due to the presence of “a person”. And there is no definition, no essence, no comprehensive class of attributes belonging to a “person” - e.g., how would you define Abraham Lincoln qua Abraham Lincoln, what makes this specific person to be this specific person. Yet somehow we know who the person is. How is that possible? Where do the personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, them) come from? This is a genuine issue in philosophy.

 

[levinas12]

To continue:

I would argue that the “person” is an ontologically deeper notion than even “primary substance” if the latter is understood simply as an “instance” of a “form” - “instance” understood as a bare particular with spatial and temporal coordinates, etc.

All of this is a propaedeutic to our present discussion.

God is not a primary substance in the same sense that a concrete material entity is a primary substance. God qua God does not have spatial and temporal coordinates. In fact, God is not “an entity” among other entities. So what does it mean to call God a “substance”?

“Substance” conveys a sense of the permanent, what is unchanging. This applies to God but with restrictions because God is outside time and space (is it a contradiction to say that someone who is outside time and space is also always “there” as a “full presence without absence”).

“Substance” is the principle of operation. Human “substance” explains metabolism and cognition as abilities. So, too, in an analogous way, God’s substance is the principle of His “operation”, e.g., loving.

Human secondary “substance” is expressed through a plurality of persons. In an analogous way, God’s primary substance is expressed through three persons (where is the logical contradiction here?).

 

[levinas12]

I have been using too literal a translation of Aristotle’s Greek - so where Aristotle has “prote ousia”, I translated it as “first substance”. And likewise with the form or nature as “second substance”.

Perhaps a better translation is “the primary sense of substance”, “secondary sense of substance”. “Primary” connotes that the real substance is the concrete entity, i.e., the particular tree outside my house. “Secondary” connotes the “eidos” or “form” or “nature” which is common to many particulars (you could say the “universal” as opposed to the “particular instance” as long as “universal” is understood to be “out there” in the things themselves and not confined to “inside” our heads as a private idea “locked up” (John Locke) in the secret cabinet of my own thoughts).

What I meant, in my previous posting, is that the primary substance exemplifying the “eidos” of “rational animal” is the concrete individual man, e.g., standing outside my house. For Aristotle, the individuality of this specific man is due to the matter, not to the “form”. The individuality of the specific man is just like the individuality of any other material entity - i.e., it is due to the matter. The matter exhaustively explains the “instancing” of the form.

Some philosophers (e.g., Robert Spaemann) disagree with Aristotle’s account of individuality as it pertains to “persons”. “Person” (as the basis for the individuality of human beings) goes beyond the matter; and, as discussed in the previous posting, “person” is not the “eidos” or “nature” or “form”. “Person” is neither “matter” nor “form” (which is defined by genus and specific difference).

So the uniqueness and “unrepeatability”, “non-shareability”, i.e., ncommunicability", of a specific human being is due to the presence of “a person”. And there is no definition, no essence, no comprehensive class of attributes belonging to a “person” - e.g., how would you define Abraham Lincoln qua Abraham Lincoln, what makes this specific person to be this specific person. Yet somehow we know who the person is. How is that possible? Where do the personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, them) come from? This is a genuine issue in philosophy.

 

[levinas12]

I have been using too literal a translation of the Aristotle’s Greek - so where Aristotle has “prote ousia”, I translated it as “first substance”. And likewise with the form or nature as “second substance”.

Perhaps a better translation is “the primary sense of substance”, “secondary sense of substance”. “Primary” connotes that the real substance is the concrete entity, i.e., the particular tree outside my house. “Secondary” connotes the “eidos” or “form” or “nature” which is common to many particulars (you could say the “universal” as opposed to the “particular instance” as long as “universal” is understood to be “out there” in the things themselves and not confined to “inside” our heads as a private idea “locked up” (John Locke) in the secret cabinet of my own thoughts).

What I meant, in my previous posting, is that the primary substance exemplifying the “eidos” of “rational animal” is the concrete individual man, e.g., standing outside my house. For Aristotle, the individuality of this specific man is due to the matter, not to the “form”. The individuality of the specific man is just like the individuality of any other material entity - i.e., it is due to the matter. The matter exhaustively explains the “instancing” of the form.

Some philosophers (e.g., Robert Spaemann) disagree with Aristotle’s account of individuality as it pertains to “persons”. “Person” (as the basis for the individuality of human beings) goes beyond the matter; and, as discussed in the previous posting, “person” is not the “eidos” or “nature” or “form”. “Person” is neither “matter” nor “form” (which is defined by genus and specific difference).

So the uniqueness and “unrepeatability”, “non-shareability”, i.e., incommunicability", of a specific human being is due to the presence of “a person”. And there is no definition, no essence, no comprehensive class of attributes belonging to a “person” - e.g., how would you define Abraham Lincoln qua Abraham Lincoln, what makes this specific person to be this specific person. Yet somehow we know who the person is. How is that possible? Where do the personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, them) come from? This is a genuine issue in philosophy.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Human secondary “substance” is expressed through a plurality of persons. In an analogous way, God’s primary substance is expressed through three persons (where is the logical contradiction here?).

I have very clearly laid out where the logical contradiction is, in syllogism form. Thus far you have not answered how all your “extracurricular activities” with Aristotelian substances has let you deny a step in that syllogism.

Now that you are using the term “express” it almost seems like you’re leaning towards modalism. There is no logical contradiction in modalism, because of course God is able to express himself to us in different ways without actually being different.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

So the uniqueness and “unrepeatability”, “non-shareability”, i.e., ncommunicability", of a specific human being is due to the presence of “a person”. And there is no definition, no essence, no comprehensive class of attributes belonging to a “person” - e.g., how would you define Abraham Lincoln qua Abraham Lincoln, what makes this specific person to be this specific person. Yet somehow we know who the person is. How is that possible? Where do the personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, them) come from? This is a genuine issue in philosophy.

So here you are doing the same kind of denial-that-a-definition-exists that Aquinas did, except you’re leveling this charge at “personhood” rather than “Godhood.”

But as I said several posts ago, the law of non-contradiction doesn’t care if Aristotle knows how to categorize or define something. So unless your argument is literally:

We can’t create a definition of the person Abraham Lincoln because logic doesn’t apply to persons

then non-contradiction is still on, and the onus is still on you to explain why any of this is relevant to the syllogism I have provided.

 

[Lucretius]

1. F is distinct from S with respect to identity.
2. Therefore, F is F while S is not F.
3. With respect to identiy, either F is identically the same as G, or F is not identically the same as G.
4. If F does not have the same identity as G, then we have contradicted a trinitarian requirement (i.e. that F be identically the same as G.)
5. Repeat 3 and 4 with S instead of F
6. Therefore, according to 4 and 5, S and F must both be identically the same as G with respect to identity.
7. Therefore, according to 2 and 6, G is both F and not F.
8. 7 is a violation of the law of non-contradiction.
9. Therefore 2 either violates a trinitarian requirement, or is logically impossible.

Like I pointed out already, when we say that the Father is not the Son, we mean something different then when we say that the Father is God and the Son is God. You’re simply equivocating on your “is” then. Your first premise already misunderstands what we mean. A more correct formation would be “F is distinct from S with respect to relation.” But such a premise undercuts the whole motivation behind your argument.

By the way, President Clinton isn’t wrong that “is” has a multitude of senses, he is wrong in that he tried to use the ambiguity in order to avoid admitting his immoral actions.

This is a move I anticipated before I wrote out my syllogism originally. Specifically, you are saying there is a separate category of being (lets call it “iz”) such that:

When we say that the Father is not the Son, we aren’t referring a status in being, but rather a status in relation, which is just what is meant when we say that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are subsistent relations.

As a further observation:
Invoking Aristotelian substances is essentially “doing more work than we need to.” Aristotle invented the idea of substances to resolve the “Ship of Theseus” class of problem. That is, if you replace all the parts of a ship during a voyage, in what respect is it the same ship? Well said Aristotle, it is the same in “primary substance” which means a kind of metaphysically-existing identity-paste. What exactly is this “primary substance?” According toNew Advent:“You can’t really define it but its like you know how when…” Now that is the kind of philosophizing I might accept from a college roommate on a Friday night, but I’m not about to add that kind of vagueness into my thinking without a good reason to do so.

Substance is the underlying reality of a thing, it is what makes a thing a thing, and not something in another. What makes redness, sweetness, and smoothness the one thing we call an apple rather than three separate things? It’s that these accidents share the same underlying reality, the same substance, which we have labeled “apple.”

Are you willing to say that the forest is the same kind of thing as the tree, or the leaf the same kind of thing as the forest? Of course not, because to say that a forest is a thing in the same thing as a tree would be Whitehead’s fallacy of misplaced concreteness: it would be the fallacy of reification. Just because I label me and the moon Mooncretius, doesn’t mean that they are not to separate things that just happen to be labeled together.

So, on the contrary, the idea of substance is a deep insight into the nature of “reality” (literally, from “rei,” the Latin word for “thing”), and not some kind of naval gazing. To say that it is mysterious and hard to fully comprehend wouldn’t be wrong, but it would be sophomoric to assert that this means it’s occult garbage, just as it would be nonsense to say that quantum duality or anything we do not fully understand is sophomoric.

MOREmoreover, God issimplewhich means that all of his attributes are the same!

A relation is not an attribute: or do you think that “being near to the table” is an attribute of the chair?

Now, given those facts,*why is everyone acting like this is somehow super complicated?

We aren’t. Sorry to be blunt, but you can’t seem to approximate the idea of a subsisting relation without mixing it with ideas about separatable parts or substances. Of course, I sympathize with you, since the idea of a subsisting relation has very little parallel in creation, which is why it is hard to express an single, strong analogy for, but rather is better understand in a multitude of different analogies, just like saint Patrick points out: m.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw

Christi pax.