I'm leaving Catholicism

[adamhovey1988]

Okay, because you can’t explain it it mustn’t be true, got it. I can’t explain astrophysics, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

The relations, however, are opposed to each other insofar as they cannot be reduced to each other. There is not an ontological distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But there is a real distinction in relation only, insofar as generation is not being generated, and spirating is not the same as being spirated.

It doesn’t seem as though there’s a way to prevent relational real distinctions from collapsing into real ontological distinctions.

To say that it is a real distinction is to say that it’s a distinction in extra-mental reality. A distinction in extra-mental reality is a distinction in what is real/what has being, thus, it’s ontological as it deals with being.

To look at one procession, what knows and is known in God are identical. The subject is the object, the object is the subject. The procession begins and terms in the same, simple being. The only real distinction is the relation in knowing and being known. The relations don’t collapse into each other, and cannot, for they are in opposition to each other. I think you’re trying to conceive of real relations as distinct beings. They are not.

There may also be a tendency to view God (and immutability) as passive here, but he is eternally active in knowing himself.

 

[TheDefaultMan]

I think you’re trying to conceive of real relations as distinct beings. They are not.

Not necessarily distinct beings, but rather, if those real relations entail real distinctions it has to collapse into some ontological distinction. Real distinctions are distinctions in extra-mental reality, meaning that they refer to distinctions in being in some way (like the distinction between substance and accident, or act and potency). If there is an ontological distinction then, of course, it is not simple.

To look at one procession, what knows and is known in God are identical. The subject is the object, the object is the subject. The procession begins and terms in the same, simple being. The only real distinction is the relation in knowing and being known.

To say that there’s a real distinction in God the Knower and God the Known is to say that there is something that God the Knower has that God the Known doesn’t, and/or vice versa. This entails that God qua Knower and God qua known are either individuated from one another and are thus different substances, or are accidents of the substance of God. Either way, it contradicts simplicity.

The relations don’t collapse into each other, and cannot, for they are in opposition to each other.

The way I see the distinction between God the Knower and God the Known is that these are only analogical (and thus imperfect) predicates. So, we can say that they aren’t in opposition to each other the same way God’s Justice and Mercy are not in opposition to each other.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

I think you’re trying to conceive of real relations as distinct beings. They are not.

Not necessarily distinct beings, but rather, if those real relations entail real distinctions it has to collapse into some ontological distinction. Real distinctions are distinctions in extra-mental reality, meaning that they refer to distinctions in being in some way (like the distinction between substance and accident, or act and potency). If there is an ontological distinction then, of course, it is not simple.

To look at one procession, what knows and is known in God are identical. The subject is the object, the object is the subject. The procession begins and terms in the same, simple being. The only real distinction is the relation in knowing and being known.

To say that there’s a real distinction in God the Knower and God the Known is to say that there is something that God the Knower has that God the Known doesn’t, and/or vice versa. This entails that God qua Knower and God qua known are either individuated from one another and are thus different substances, or are accidents of the substance of God. Either way, it contradicts simplicity.

This supposes that origin is some property a thing has that makes it this thing instead of some other thing. On that I must disagree. There is nothing the knower (in the case of God) has that the known does not, for what is knowing and known are identical. You seem to be holding that the Father is the knower and the Word is the known. It’s not quite so simple. It’s not that the Father is one and the Word is the other. God is both. The difference is only that the relation of knowing in God is different than the relation of being known and they do not collapse into each other.

If I’m going very informal here, God is one “part” (calling it a part when there is only one is no doubt incorrect, but I hope you take my meaning). The Father and Word are not different parts. It’s that the one and only part exists in opposing relation to itself. If I were to draw a diagram to represent this, imagine a square that represents God. To represent the procession of the intelligible act of the intellect we draw a curved line that starts from this square and then curves around and points back at the same square. The beginning and term are the same. It is both the beginning and the end of this act of knowing. The line does not point to another block that is identical, it points back to its origin. The block is both beginning and end of this activity (and by beginning and end I don’t mean places so much as the generator of the activity and recipient or goal of the activity), and the beginning and end in this sense are two opposing relations that subsist in the same nature. The line (procession) has a one way direction.

I’m not pulling that diagram from anything else I’ve ever seen, I just came up with it, and I hope it’s an accurate reflection. The Divine Processions that are the Trinity are this type of intrinsic activity.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

The relations don’t collapse into each other, and cannot, for they are in opposition to each other.

The way I see the distinction between God the Knower and God the Known is that these are only analogical (and thus imperfect) predicates. So, we can say that they aren’t in opposition to each other the same way God’s Justice and Mercy are not in opposition to each other.

I don’t see justice and mercy as opposed or opposites to begin with, and this is a tangent but they seem more like secondary attributes of a sort related to his Goodness/fullness of being and not first order Divine Attributes. I’m starting to throw around some terminology I just made up (or rather, than I’m using without reference to any maybe-existing standard). Hopefully it’s coherent.

 

[Hodos]

yes and no

Yes in that I think reason should come first before accepting any Divine Revelations as true. If you’re not motivated by reason, you could’ve just as easily been a Muslim, a Jew, etc.

No in that I completely understand that God is incomprehensible. Just because his essence is incomprehensible, that doesn’t mean that we can just ignore possible contradictions in our views of God.

No one here is arguing that reason should not be used. Rather, we are saying that God is not limited to human reason, and human reason is insufficient to describe God. It is God who created your capaciity for reasoning, not the other way around. Not only that, but the reason why we believe in the Trinity is because God revealed himself in the flesh, and poured out his Holy Spirit upon the Church. The doctrine of the Trinity exists because of the historical interaction and revelation of himself through the work of the Father, through the incarnation of the Son, and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. We aren’t abandoning reason to believe the Trinity. We are saying that this is how God revealed himself in the historical act of salvation. I may not understand how that works, but I know that’s what he did. The issue you are having is that, as I said, you are elevating human reason above God and attempting to limit him according to your will and reason rather than according to his nature as he has revealed it.

 

[Flor]

It sounds like you believe in God, which indicates that you personally experience His presence … This is a major wonderful thing. Are you a Baptized Catholic leaving the Church ? Did you go through RCIA ? Have you read the Catechism ? Do you know a Priest who you can ask about the Trinity ?

 

[rdj69]

You simply have an inaccurate understanding of either Divine Simplicity, the Trinity, or both.

This video should help explain it:

 

[Magnanimity]

I’m leaving Catholicism, and Christianity more broadly, because I cannot reconcile the God of Classical Theism, who is absolutely simple, with a Trinity.

I do sympathize with having trouble holding to divine simplicity and God as Trinitarian. It’s a pickle that isn’t always acknowledged to be the difficulty that it in fact is.

I do wonder though with the work of certain “personalist” Thomists recently whether the divine simplicity has to be re-understood. God as relational (and Trinitarian) would be the reality that I’d feel the need to hold on to, not simplicity as understood by Thomists prior to the 20th century. Have you read any W. Norris Clarke? Just curious. There is plenty that I don’t know regarding this specific issue, but I wonder whether the thought of these Thomists might be helpful.

Also, I have to say, it smacks of an almost extreme rationalism to say that the reason why you would stay in a religion is because it all logically works out just fine. Very, very Kantian. And I know your likely response, “Don’t just chalk it all up to mystery.” But the more I learn, the more mysterious seem all aspects of existence. If you reduce your theistic worldview to a logically-tight, perfectly coherent one, I can only imagine you’d end up in some facile position which explains very little about Reality. But, maybe I’m wrong.

Still and all, it does seem an odd reason to abandon a religion. A religion, at its very essence is designed to help you connect with the Absolute, not to help you find the perfectly coherent and tightly-logical worldview that admits of no mysteries. That it to say, the function of the religion (any religion) is to assist the practitioner in linking up with the Source. If not, how would you explain contemplation, prayer, the sacramental life? What do any of these things have to do with being logical?

And, name any important aspect of reality that doesn’t have something genuinely mysterious about it. I doubt you can. I doubt any of us can.

But, I do sympathize with you on this issue. How to understand what makes the Persons distinct within ipsum esse. Tough one.

 

[TheDefaultMan]

Your analogy doesn’t seem to work under close inspection. The square, in your analogy, seems to have the accident/property of being the beginning and the end of the line. These properties can differ yet still adhere in the same substance because of the substance/accidents distinction. This cannot exist in God since he is absolutely simple.

 

[TheDefaultMan]

I don’t see justice and mercy as opposed or opposites to begin with

I didn’t mean to say that they were opposites per se, but that on the face of it it seems as though God has attributes that could not possibly be synonymous (like God’s Existence, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, etc.), which is why it is stressed that the distinctions made between God’s attributes are 1) Analogical and not Univocal and 2) are logical and not real distinctions. This seems to apply to the distinction between God qua Knower and God qua Known. It could be that there is something analogous to both Knower and Known in God but that these analogical predicates are not really distinct.

 

[TheDefaultMan]

You simply have an inaccurate understanding of either Divine Simplicity, the Trinity, or both.

This video should help explain it:

I watched this video as soon as it came out. I’m very familiar with what he says there, and I think my replies in this thread have already shown my problems with what’s said in the video.

 

[TheDefaultMan]

Look, I agree that God Infinitely supersedes my feeble understanding. This is why, as Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas rightfully point out, we can only know what God is by knowing what he isn’t.

One thing that they would agree with is that God as Pure Act, Ipsum Esse cannot be contradictory. That’s not saying something about God, that’s saying something about what he is not

So if we came across a religion that claimed to speak for Pure Act, Ipsum Esse but taught (implicitly or explicitly) that God is a composite, then we would have to rule out that religion as either being false or proclaiming a god (lowercase g) that isn’t;Pure Act, Ipsum Esse but rather a being among many that could not be the Supreme Being.

This is what I’m stating about the Trinity. What I’m saying is that to affirm real distinctions in the Trinity is to affirm one thing we know God (Pure Act, Ipsum Esse) isn’t, namely, a composite being.

 

[catholic03]

I’m leaving Catholicism, and Christianity more broadly, because I cannot reconcile the God of Classical Theism, who is absolutely simple, with a Trinity.

I’m so sorry to hear this. Have you talked to a priest about your theological conclusions? Are you still going to Mass?

 

[TheDefaultMan]

There’s a stark difference between not being able to explain astrophysics and not being able to explain married bachelors.

The former is just due to a lack of possible knowledge about the subject while the latter stems from the fact that it is literally impossible given that it is contradictory.

 

[rdj69]

I watched this video as soon as it came out. I’m very familiar with what he says there, and I think my replies in this thread have already shown my problems with what’s said in the video

The video explains why Divine Simplicity and the Trinity are not contradictory notions; you claim that they are, so I don’t think you’re actually understanding what you’re objecting to. Could you specifically address the points made in the video that you disagree with, and explain why you disagree with them?

 

[TheDefaultMan]

Could you specifically address the points made in the video that you disagree with, and explain why you disagree with them?

Sure.

My contention is that Classical Theist affirms that there are real distinctions within the Trinity. What this means, in case you aren’t familiar with the terms, is that it reflects a distinction in extra-mental reality.

This means that there are ontological distinctions in God, which contradicts Divine Simplicity.

That’s my main problem, basically. I agree with Classical Theist in that you could say, via analogical predication at least, that there are relational distinctions, but I disagree because I think that these distinctions are ultimately logical and not real.

To say that they are logical and not real would contradict the Church’s teaching that explicitly affirms that the distinction is real and not merely logical.

 

[TheDefaultMan]

You’re kidding, right? You think that epistemic realism, or first principles in general are just assumed to be true based on some irrational blind faith? Not a lot of people in academia take this view seriously. To argue against first principles or epistemic realism would be to shoot yourself in the foot because they themselves are presupposed in arguments against them.

 

[Wesrock]

Your analogy doesn’t seem to work under close inspection. The square, in your analogy, seems to have the accident/property of being the beginning and the end of the line. These properties can differ yet still adhere in the same substance because of the substance/accidents distinction. This cannot exist in God since he is absolutely simple.

The intrinsic processions and relations are essential, not accidental. The essence is paternity and filiation, it does not have the accidents of being paternity and filiation. I already wrote that the beginning and end should not be conceived as places in regards to a line, but intelligible activity that has God as both its source and terms, where the source and term are the same thing, where God exists relationally to himself as both source and term.

As St. Thomas wrote, “[A]lthough paternity, just as filiation, is really the same as the divine essence; nevertheless these two in their own proper idea and definitions import opposite respects.” And also, "Power and goodness do not import any opposition in their respective natures; and hence there is no parallel argument. "

Unlike the example of power, knowledge, and goodness, generator and generation are opposites, and the difference is real and not just logical. When relation is an accident there is a relation because there is a distinction between two subjects, such as Socrates being shorter than Plato. When a relation is subsistent it is the reason for the distinction.

 

[rdj69]

it reflects a distinction in extra-mental reality .

This means that there are ontological distinctions in God

Why do distinctions in extra-mental reality equate to ontological distinctions?

I disagree because I think that these distinctions are ultimately logical and not real.

To say that they are logical and not real would contradict the Church’s teaching that explicitly affirms that the distinction is real and not merely logical.

Why do you think these distinctions are logical and not real?