Forgive me if someone has already brought this up; I have read through some of this thread but I confess, I haven’t read everything.
First, you have demonstrated a keen mind, and I value your passion for philosophy and for sticking to the principle of noncontradiction.
I will only suggest this, and hopefully it is not too naive or expressive of my simple mind. I hold no degrees, am no intellectual, and my ongoing depression limits what already limited powers of thought I possess! If it is unhelpful or asinine, I apologize!
Obviously, you know we believe that the Trinity is one of the dogmas that falls under Special/Divine revelation. That is, a truth that we could arrive at through the powers of our own natural reasoning. We could not move from what is known to this truth. But, like you say, these truths cannot be illogical or self-contradictory; if we are being asked to square the circle and accept it by faith, then yes, we should abandon that. You appear to have thought about this carefully, and I believe it is something important to you and that you are not just out to prove us and the Church wrong. You seek after Truth (and of course we would say you are, therefore, still seeking after Christ). That said, I agree with Wesrock and his presentation of St. Thomas’ argument, but I appreciate how difficult this is, for we are trying to fit the Essence of God into our minds as God has revealed Himself.
Preamble over–my addition is this: I often ask myself when looking at dogmas of special revelation, how does this aid my thinking? I’m sure you know that we believe this to be suprarational, that they perfect our reasoning. So what does this perfect? What missing piece of the puzzle does this provide? In my understanding, it explains to me why God created. If God is simple as you suggest, with no real distinction in Persons, if He is closer to the God of Islam, then I simply cannot understand (perhaps this is a product of my own stupidity) why He created to begin with. For God is perfect, lacking nothing at all, and had nothing to achieve or perfect in creating. But like Romano Guardini says in his work The Lord, love does these things. We believe God is Love, that He freely chose to give Himself to us, in our very act of participating in some measure in His being (which extends to all of creation in varying degrees). God’s inner nature of Love among His three Persons, His being eternally in love with Himself, that He is Love, this explains to me why I exist–for love does these things. Sometimes I find myself doubting whether I have reconciled what you are struggling with, for it is a great and difficult subject and I am little and simple. But then I keep coming back to why am I here, why was I made at all. And when I look at Aristotle and Plato, I see them unable to explain how the Prime Mover or the God of the Forms makes contact with creation, to say nothing as to why. Maybe you have a reason why a God who lives in isolation, who therefore cannot be said to be Love, creates. But any one I have seen is more a problem to the truth of Divine Simplicity than the Trinity–the Trinity reconciles, for me, Divine Simplicity and creation.
