The question we or at least I were considering was not the theology that there is one God, and only Three Divine Persons, but the philosophical one as to whether the Trinity could proceed another member in the divinity, and if not what are the reasons. Robert Sungenis told me one in a correspondence that this was a question of nominalism, which is why I brought up that topic
You said “moderate nominalism”. Moderate nominalism uses tropes. Or did you mean Duns Scotus style with common nature (which are realist)?I don’t see how a nominalist’s could believe in the concrete with an abstractum. I think they were more scientific. Science can say that a piece of grain is different from a raisin without being philosophical about it. The Trinity is spiritual so the nominalist perspective of material objects (essentially Descartes position as well) doesn’t really apply
The article covers Exaggerated Realism, Nominalism, Conceptualism, and Moderate Realism. Now, your comment that I responded to was on moderate nominalism, but you last post was on conceptualism.The Catholic Encycloepdia article you cited writes, “Conceptualism admits the existence within us of abstract and universal concepts (whence its name), but it holds that we do not know whether or not the mental objects have any foundation outside our minds or whether in nature the individual objects possess distributively and each by itself the realities which we conceive as realized in each of them. The concepts have an ideal value; they have no real value, or at least we do not know whether they have a real value.” So tropes would be such of an idea about which you cannot verify it’s validity, which to means seems to be the only different between forms and tropes.
No, I am referring to modern moderate nominalism, see Williams, Donald Cary “On the Elements of Being: II.” The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Dec.), 1953, pp. 171-192.I used the term “moderate nominalist” in respect to Duns Scotus’s opinion of God’s will (instead of reason) as the cause of good. By moderate nominalism’s " abstract particulars" you must mean form (which only makes sense in respect to another principle, prime matter).
Nominalism plain and simple does deny the existence of abstract and universal concepts and takes things simply scientifically. “An oak tree acts very much like another oak true, but it’s the mind that says they are the same”. That’s there argument. None of this has to do with the Trinity though. Do keep in mind that his encyclical Faith and Reason of 1998, John Paul II welcomed philosophical pluralism in the Church
I believe “begotten, not made” means by nature, not an act of will. By nature: God begets God, man begets man.I don’t have anyway to find a periodical from 1953. I know from experience that you are a very good researcher though.
From what I’ve read about Duns Scotis (a book on the supernatural I own from the 1960’s), he thought with most theologians that the divine nature was prior to the persons, but that the world’s relation to God was one that obtained it’s finite goodness because of God’s will in ordination. Aquinas put the emphasis on God’s intellect in forming the universe. This was referred to as Scotus’s nominalism. Personally I believe that the persons are prior to the nature because choice of goodness precedes nature in a way. But this seems like trying to see behind the Trinity, and I doubt any arguments are at all conclusive on this question. A lot of us have trouble enough with the Father being both paternity and the nature, and yet the Son not being the paternity. I get a glimpse of it, but adding the question of precedence of either personhood or nature makes it to much for me to handle
I posted this on another thread but it applies here also:I don’t have anyway to find a periodical from 1953. I know from experience that you are a very good researcher though.
From what I’ve read about Duns Scotis (a book on the supernatural I own from the 1960’s), he thought with most theologians that the divine nature was prior to the persons, but that the world’s relation to God was one that obtained it’s finite goodness because of God’s will in ordination. Aquinas put the emphasis on God’s intellect in forming the universe. This was referred to as Scotus’s nominalism. Personally I believe that the persons are prior to the nature because choice of goodness precedes nature in a way. But this seems like trying to see behind the Trinity, and I doubt any arguments are at all conclusive on this question. A lot of us have trouble enough with the Father being both paternity and the nature, and yet the Son not being the paternity. I get a glimpse of it, but adding the question of precedence of either personhood or nature makes it to much for me to handle
No, it is not possible that another person proceed in the Trinity because in God that which is possible, and that which is do not differ. If, therefore, in God it were possible for there to be several Sons, there would be several Sons. But, this is heretical. God is pure act, there is no potentiality in Him whatsoever.The question we or at least I were considering was not the theology that there is one God, and only Three Divine Persons, but the philosophical one as to whether the Trinity could proceed another member in the divinity, and if not what are the reasons. Robert Sungenis told me one in a correspondence that this was a question of nominalism, which is why I brought up that topic
Begetting is in kind, so the internal processions are the subject, and that are from nature not from will, per the Churches statement to the Arians.Since there is no time with God, and the reason that the Father using in birthing the son is the son Himself, it sounds possible for will to be prior to nature since we are dealing with something so far above our reasoning, and likewise the causing of processions could still be necessary, similar in kind of Augustinian system of efficacious grace. I am a Molinist with regard to humans, but who is to say what works in the Divine realm?
The divine will and the divine intellect are the divine nature and the Trinity of persons are the divine nature and the divine nature is the Trinity of persons. The Trinity of persons and the divine nature are one and the same reality, they are identical which is why we say one God in three persons. We distinguish the persons and the divine nature according to our mode of understanding but in reality they are one and the same in God. Accordingly, it is erroneous to think that the divine nature is prior to the divine persons or the divine persons prior to the divine nature.Since there is no time with God, and the reason that the Father using in birthing the son is the son Himself, it sounds possible for will to be prior to nature since we are dealing with something so far above our reasoning, and likewise the causing of processions could still be necessary, similar in kind of Augustinian system of efficacious grace. I am a Molinist with regard to humans, but who is to say what works in the Divine realm?