The Trinity/ bi-conditional or conditional relation?

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Dranu

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Upon reading some philosophy of language, I was reminded of the difference between a conditional and bi-conditional statement because I think the author was confusing the two. In other words, the author made an assumption such as:

Cicero is Tully, therefore Tully is Cicero, which cannot be concluded from the given premise ‘Cicero is Tully’. If that were the case then John is green would entail green is John, which is absurd. So it reminded me of the Trinity of the Father being God and the Son being God but the Father not being the Son, and it occurred to me that the reason many think this appears contradictory is because they assume a bi-conditional between God and any of the persons rather than a one way conditional from Person to God.

I was wondering if anyone knows if the relation between the Persons of the trinity and God is conditional from a given Person and God (if P then G) or if it is bi-conditional (If P then G and if G then P) according to our doctrine. I would really like to know!!!

If it is bi-conditional, by a hypothetical syllogism you can construct an apparent contradiction, if not everything looks fine. Therefore, if it is bi-conditional, does anyone know a way out of the apparent internal contradiction?
 
You are correct in that it is not bi-conditional. “The Father is God” has the same structure as your previous example, “John is green”. “God is the Father” is flatly incorrect theology. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are persons who share the one divine nature (“Godhead”, which if modernized is “Godhood”), as in an analogous sense many objects (grass, trees, my eyes, John) share greenness.
 
Awesome, thanks! Well that does away with any purely logical oddities with the Trinity.

Do you have any documents that I can review or anything? I have never really seen anything saying God is Father, but I have never really seen something (or remember seeing something) that denies that relation.
 
My belief is that God was once One, but when He thought of what His Creation would need He realised that He was far to strict, far too heavy handed and He thought up His Divine Plan. It included a woman who could be turned to, as He would be soft on her, and grant her everything she asked for. It included Him as a Man. It included Him in Spirit Form. Thus when He becomes One again, He is known as Triune or Trinity. The plan was executed out of love for us. But if you want an equation of sorts try this; God is M + B + S thus M + B + S is God. You are the same – Mind Body Soul. Image and Likeness.
 
JJJ4Eva, the problem with that is that if God changed, then we must assume God changed either for the greater or lesser (as a change requires just that, change). In other words, we would have to assume ‘that than which none greater can be conceived’ a ‘greater can be conceived’. That is, one that has all those qualities plus eternal existence in the greater mode of existance (be it pre MBS or One).

But back to the FSH Trinity, does anyone have a source to identify the relation is only conditional?
 
Hi Dranu, I think in your haste to get to an answer you desire, you forgot there may be other answers. My analogy is one of God the Father is the Mind (M) God the Son is the Body (B) God the Holy Spirit is the Soul (S). Together you have an extreme Being who is a semblance of His Creation.
God would always change for Greater – the thing is, do you think that God can learn from His Creation? We have had great minds who have lived, do you think that God (all knowing) knows all our creative prowesses before they are formed, what then would be the point of having this creation if He knew exactly what We would do? Then of course what would be the purpose of freewill? Assume for a minute that the words that form in your mind as you oppose my argument are not the words that God would come up with, then think this; perhaps He learns from us, thus He changes from what He learns. What He knew at the beginning of time cannot be exactly the same as it is now, He now knows that we are so inventive that we have created a communication tool called the internet; do you think that He knew that at the inception of creation? My feelings around the “changes” are very strong – I feel that when we were thought of before everything was put into action, it never occurred to Him to burn our souls for all eternity. When He cast out His enemy, He banished him to the nether-regions and possibly in a rage decided that those of us who would fall into its clutches will be banished along with it, into the same. He changed from not considering us to be sinners, to not knowing us any other way. He changed thus His Plan to have a live a life in Eden, to have us live a life of toil, he changed it further still by saving us through Christ. God can change. But, yes, as He is Good, so will His change be. If God was that egotistical as to not want to learn from us, then He would never have wanted us in the first place, for every parent learns from his child.
 
JJJ4Eva,

There are huge problems with what you are saying (and it is certainly heretical).
My analogy is one of God the Father is the Mind (M) God the Son is the Body (B) God the Holy Spirit is the Soul (S). Together you have an extreme Being who is a semblance of His Creation.
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The Persons are not “parts” of God which is essentially what you are saying. God is perfectly simple (de fide) He absolutely has no parts.
God would always change for Greater
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God cannot change. He is immutable. (de fide) God does not learn from His creation. Learning was not the point of creating.

I don’t even know where to begin, the very nature of God precludes the possibility of change. The fact that He is eternal means that He exists outside of time, and hence there could be no change. You are denying at least half of the attributes of God directly (and the other half implicitly).
 
The only reference that comes to mind is the Athenasian Creed, but obviously it doesn’t explicitly say anything about “bi-conditionality” or any other modern terms.

Here’s the relevant part of the creed.
Saint Athenasius:
Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all else, hold to the Catholic Faith. Whoever does not keep this faith pure will certainly perish forever.

Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, without mixing the persons nor dividing the essence. For each person: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is distinct, but the deity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory and coeternal in majesty.

What the Father is, so is the Son, and so is the Holy Spirit.
The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated;
The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal;

Any yet they are not three who are eternal, but there is One who is eternal,
just as they are not three who are uncreated,
nor three who are infinite,
but there is One who is uncreated and One who is infinite.

In the same way the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit is almighty;
And yet they are not three who are almighty, but there is One who is almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God;
And yet they are not three gods, but One God.
So the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord;
yet they are not three lords, but One Lord.

For just as Catholic truth compels us to confess each person individually to be God and Lord,
so the Catholic faith forbids us to speak of three gods or three lords.

The Father is neither made not created, nor begotten of anyone.
The Son is neither made nor created, but is begotten of the Father alone.
The Holy Spirit is neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father.

So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Spirit, not three Spirits.
Within this Trinity none comes before or after; none is greater or inferior, but all three persons are coequal and coeternal, so that in every way, as stated before, all three persons are to be worshiped as One God, and One God worshiped as three persons.

Whoever wishes to be saved must have this conviction of the Trinity.

…
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Dranu said:
Upon reading some philosophy of language, I was reminded of the difference between a conditional and bi-conditional statement because I think the author was confusing the two. In other words, the author made an assumption such as:

Cicero is Tully, therefore Tully is Cicero, which cannot be concluded from the given premise ‘Cicero is Tully’. If that were the case then John is green would entail green is John, which is absurd. So it reminded me of the Trinity of the Father being God and the Son being God but the Father not being the Son, and it occurred to me that the reason many think this appears contradictory is because they assume a bi-conditional between God and any of the persons rather than a one way conditional from Person to God.

I was wondering if anyone knows if the relation between the Persons of the trinity and God is conditional from a given Person and God (if P then G) or if it is bi-conditional (If P then G and if G then P) according to our doctrine. I would really like to know!!!

If it is bi-conditional, by a hypothetical syllogism you can construct an apparent contradiction, if not everything looks fine. Therefore, if it is bi-conditional, does anyone know a way out of the apparent internal contradiction?
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Hi. When I read this, I was reminded of Augustine’s seven statements about the Trinity, and I tried to work them out in a tree diagram. F = Father, S = Son, HS = Holy Spirit, G = God.
  1. If F then G
  2. If S then G
  3. If HS then G
  4. If F then not S and not HS
  5. If S then not F and not HS
  6. If HS then not F and not S
  7. If F, S, and HS, then G
This actually works out in a tree diagram. However, if you add the biconditional (such as If G, then F, S, and HS), then it does not.

So, upon re-reading your post, I realize that I agree with you, and I didn’t really answer your question. Sorry. 😊
 
Okay, now I’m answering the question, at least to the best of my ability. I took all of the seven statements in the previous post and did a tree diagram with them, but also adding the biconditional statement for every single one of them. (Yes, I know this took a long time and was difficult, but I’ve got the night free. 🙂 )

Anyway, there is only one way the biconditional on all of them works out to be possible: that is if there is no Father, no Son, no Holy Spirit, and no God. Then it appears possible.

What this boils down to is that the relations between Person and God seem to be conditional and not biconditional (as the second post in the thread already said). If they are simply conditional, then the logic seems to work out; if biconditional, then not. Well, that’s enough for me. Over and out.
 
Me again, once more. I looked up “Shield of the Trinity” on Wikipedia, because this symbol contains the seven statements mentioned. However, according to this article, the statements are intended to be read bi-conditionally. If this is true, then we do run again into the logical problem. So does anyone know if this is true (I realize that Wikipedia might not be the most accurate theological source)?
 
cpayne said:
Me again, once more. I looked up “Shield of the Trinity” on Wikipedia, because this symbol contains the seven statements mentioned. However, according to this article, the statements are intended to be read bi-conditionally. If this is true, then we do run again into the logical problem. So does anyone know if this is true (I realize that Wikipedia might not be the most accurate theological source)?
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The relations are intended to be read bidirectionally, but only if the verb “is” is unidirectional. The Wikipedia page mentions this toward the end.
 
So far I have been unable to find anything that says the relation between the Persons and God is bi-conditional, only conditional. This, however, does not rule out that possibility that it is bi-conditional. As it stands, I am going to assume a conditional relationship until it is proved otherwise, and then worry/philosophize about that conundrum.

Had an Anglican philosophy professor tell me it was conditional as well, but there is no telling how in line that is with Catholic beliefs as he did not cite a source. Perhaps I will ask him if he knows one.

-P.S. I did see that article on wiki a while back, but I do not exactly trust it for orthodoxy or simple philosophy (I have corrected a philosophical mistake on a certain parradox there before).
 
selylidne said:
The relations are intended to be read bidirectionally, but only if the verb “is” is unidirectional. The Wikipedia page mentions this toward the end.
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I thought you said earlier that it is not to be read bi-conditionally? Are you talking about the non-transitive ‘is’ that it mentions? Seems kind of odd to me, but I suppose I will come to try and understand it if it really is Catholic doctrine.
 
We say God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for God is one in that He “is a unity unlike any other possible unity” (Jewish scholar Maimonides).
 
Dranu said:
I thought you said earlier that it is not to be read bi-conditionally? Are you talking about the non-transitive ‘is’ that it mentions? Seems kind of odd to me, but I suppose I will come to try and understand it if it really is Catholic doctrine.
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Here is the relevant portion of the article:

"The main achievement of the Shield of the Trinity diagram is to transfer a large part of the essential “mystery” or “paradox” of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from the realm of complex verbal philosophical abstractions and esoteric theological vocabulary to the realm of simple logic, as presented in the relatively easily graspable form of a concrete and conveniently compact visual diagram. It is remarkable as a basically-successful attempt, roughly 800 years old, to represent a complex set of abstract concepts in precise graphic form (as opposed to many of the near-contemporary attempts of Joachim of Fiore and Raymund Lull, which were not so successful). Thus it is probably one of the oldest meaningful “graphs”, in the sense of graph theory (technically, it is a complete graph on 4 vertices, the same as the vertices and edges of a tetrahedron).

Of course, if the diagram is interpreted according to ordinary logic, then it contains a number of contradictions (since the set of twelve propositions listed above is mutually contradictory). However, if the three links connecting the three outer nodes of the diagram to the center node are interpreted as representing a non-transitive quasi-equivalence relation (where the statement “A is equivalent to C” does not follow from the two statements “A is equivalent to B” and “B is equivalent to C”), then the diagram is fully logically coherent and non-self-contradictory. So the medieval Shield of the Trinity diagram could be considered to contain some implicit kernel of the idea of alternative logical systems.[2]

Unlike some other logical or mathematical constructs sometimes offered as analogies for the Trinity (such as the Venn diagram and the cube viewed by inhabitants of a two-dimensional plane), the Shield of the Trinity does not too easily lend itself to interpretations which are non-orthodox from the traditional mainstream Christian point of view."

Hope this is more helpful than not. Best, cpayne
 
Thanks. I have looked at the article. What I was saying was that (besides the whole non-transitive thing being extremely odd to me) many have said that the relation is not bi-conditional between the Persons and God, yet this article claims it is, and was even pointed to by someone who said the relation is not bi-conditional.
 
Dranu said:
Thanks. I have looked at the article. What I was saying was that (besides the whole non-transitive thing being extremely odd to me) many have said that the relation is not bi-conditional between the Persons and God, yet this article claims it is, and was even pointed to by someone who said the relation is not bi-conditional.
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Yeah. I’ve been thinking a bit about this, and here’s my conclusion: I agree that the conditional implication is the theologically orthodox one, even though I have no definitive statement to that effect. Moreover, on a purely semantic note, it seems the biconditional relation cannot make sense, because it sounds as if it would be falsely “exhaustive.” For example, the Father is God. That makes sense, because everything that the Father is, is God; it is an exclusionary and exhaustive statement. But if we reverse the implication (God is the Father), that does not make the same sense in the same way, because it sounds as if God is the Father to the exclusion of being any other persons or descriptions; that is, it is falsely exhaustive.

What do you think? :confused:
 
I agree that I think it is (mono)conditional, but I just want to know for sure the orthodoxy of that before I go spouting it to some debates/dialogues with non-Catholics/Christians:D. If it is not orthodox, I would like to discuss how it could even be remotely possible to bypass the contradiction.

However, the reasons are different for why I think it is not bi-conditional. I think one could say (not assuming the Trinity) that God is Father, and still leave room for more description, just like one could say *John is tired *and John is tall. The contradiction arrises, assuming Trinity and bi-conditional relationships from Persons to God, when one says God is Father, Son is God, yet also say Son is not Father, since you can derive Son is Father just from those two premises (G is F, S is G) by hypothetical syllogism.

S is G
G is F
Therefore, Son is Father (contradicting the premise Son is not Father)
 
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