Trinity: one or three 'centres of consciousness'?

[Vouthon]

Aquinas does mention the personalities of God in a few places of his writings. For example, in the ST, Pt. 1, Q. 39, art. 3, reply to obj. 4, he writes:
The form signified by the word “person” is not essence or nature, but personality. So, as there are three personalities—that is, three personal properties in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost—it is predicated of the three, not in the singular, but in the plural.

I think this elementary course on scholastic theology (from the International Catholic University) is instructive in that regard:

https://icucourses.com/pages/025-10-three-persons-are-subsistent-relations

The fatherhood constitutes the Person of the Father, the sonship constitutes the Person of the Son, and the passive spiration constitutes the Person of the Holy Spirit. But in God "everything is one where there is no distinction by relative opposition."

Consequently, even though in God there are three Persons, there is only one consciousness, one thinking and one loving. The three Persons share equally in the internal divine activity because they are all identified with the divine essence. For, if each divine Person possessed his own distinct and different consciousness, there would be three gods, not the one God of Christian revelation. So you will see that in this regard there is an immense difference between a divine Person and a human person.

The above is excerpted from

Fundamentals of Catholicism, Vol. 2​

By Fr. Kenneth Baker

Professor Kenneth Baker, S.J also notes:

“Some Catholics think that the three Persons are separate, independent beings. In this view each of the three is thought of as having his own thinking, willing and separate consciousness. In other words, they are considered to be similar to three human persons, but only on a higher level and endowed with “divine” power.

That view is false and is equivalent to affirming three gods. For, in God everything is one where there is not an opposition of relation. Thus, in him there is only one thinking, one willing and one “consciousness.” The three Persons share equally in all the divine actions and operations that are proper to the divine nature."

 

[BlueKumul]

I always found it natural to see God as One Being engaged in three kinds of activity and relationship with the creation. But I’m not sure if this is in line with traditional theology.

If there are three “centres of consciousness”, then there are three gods. Sounds like Zeus and his mates, who were also united by “monarchy of the father”.

 

[Vouthon]

I always found it natural to see God as One Being engaged in three kinds of activity and relationship with the creation. But I’m not sure if this is in line with traditional theology.

I would say, that as described, this is pretty much the heresy of “Sabellian modalism”.

The Trinity is not just a revelation about the “economy of salvation” or ‘how God relates to us/creatures’.

That God is Triune refers to His actual inner life (immanence), as He relates to Himself in the distinct subsistencies of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So, there is real but relative distinction within God (while He is perfectly one in every other respect (the ‘absolute’ sense), that has not to do with this opposition of relation) and not just in how he relates to “us”.

However, it is to be understood as three distinct subsisting relations of the one 'essence/being/will/intellect/consciousnes" (distinct only as to origin of relation in the personal properties of Paternity, Filiation and Spiration) and not three distinct substantial ‘minds’ (which, as you say, would be the opposite heresy of tritheism - like Zeus and other subordinate deities on Mount Olympus).

 

[Vouthon]

The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) condemned the ‘tritheism’ of Joachim of Fiore, which tried to understand the unity of the divine persons as being a collective of ‘persons’ in same sense as humans:

Fourth Lateran Council : 1215 Council Fathers - Papal Encyclicals

We therefore condemn and reprove that small book or treatise which abbot Joachim published…Abbot Joachim clearly protests that there does not exist any reality which is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit-neither an essence nor a substance nor a nature — although he concedes that the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit are one essence, one substance and one nature. He professes, however, that such a unity is not true and proper but rather collective and analogous, in the way that many persons are said to be one people and many faithful one church, according to that saying : Of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one mind, and Whoever adheres to God is one spirit with him; again He who plants and he who waters are one, and all of us are one body in Christ; and again in the book of Kings, My people and your people are one. In support of this opinion he especially uses the saying which Christ uttered in the gospel concerning the faithful : I wish, Father, that they may be one in us, just as we are one, so that they may be made perfect in one…

We, however, with the approval of this sacred and universal council, believe and confess with Peter Lombard that there exists a certain supreme reality, incomprehensible and ineffable, which truly is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, the three persons together and each one of them separately. Therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial.

Of note, Joachim “concedes that the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit are one essence, one substance and one nature” yet still committed tritheism for how he conceived of this after the fashion of human persons in a collectivity.

This is because, in saying so, he contradicted Nicene doctrine: that God in Himself is that one single ‘essence’ or ‘supreme reality’, whilst God as He relates to Himself subsists in or as three co-eternal and co-equal hypostases (‘persons’ or distinct subsisting relations of the one essence and substance) which are not apart from the essence but a threefold subsistence of it by way of Paternity, Filiation and Spiration.

 

[Richca]

The following is an interesting post by a certain priest, Father Ryan Erlenbush. It is titled “Are there three personalities in God, an “I” of the Father and an “I” of the Son and an “I” of the Holy Spirit?”

https://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-there-three-personalities-in-god-i.html

Also, I still have the question "Is the Son of God aware in the Godhead that he is not God the Father or God the Holy Spirit? That he came forth from the Father and was eternally begotten by the Father as his Son? I believe this is the revelation that Jesus himself gave us. If there is one consciousness in God, how are we to explain this? I think it would be extremely unreasonable to say that God the Son is not aware that he is God the Son.

 

[Vouthon]

The following is an interesting post by a certain priest, Father Ryan Erlenbush. It is titled “Are there three personalities in God, an “I” of the Father and an “I” of the Son and an “I” of the Holy Spirit?”

Are there three personalities in God, an "I" of the Father and an "I" of the Son and an "I" of the Holy Spirit? | The New Theological Movement

I read that before but must say, I sincerely think he’s wrong and the Catholic theologian who wrote the fundamentals of Catholicism text I cited (himself a priest) evidently would think he is too.

Patristics scholars stress, as even Metropolitan Zizioulas concedes in spite of his social Trinitarian tendencies, that “hypostases” did not refer to what we today mean by an individual human person with their own mind (rather that pertained to the essence in common between the Persons, differentiated only by their personal properties of distinct relations of origin).

To equate human persons with divine persons is to make the same mistake Joachim did in his condemnation by the Fourth Lateran Council, imputing creaturely characteristics onto Deity.

His being a priest, of course, does not guarantee the veracity of his personal theological reflections. Even though I respect his ministerial, ordained office, I must concur with the witness of the Fathers and sacred tradition (as I read them in line with modern patristics scholarship).

There was an infamous pope in the middle ages who denied that the blessed in heaven see the Beatific Vision, in a non-magisterial announcement.

After his death, the next Pope decreed the correct doctrine magisterially and condemned his private theological speculation as heresy.