Is The Trini­tar­i­an Ontol­ogy Coherent ?

Philo­soph­i­cal the­ism, in con­tem­po­rary times, has been dom­i­nat­ed by philoso­phers who are Chris­tians. These the­is­tic philoso­phers have pub­lished a great amount of lit­er­a­ture defend­ing the ratio­nal­i­ty of belief in God, and any par­tic­i­pant in the great debate will sure­ly be famil­iar with the names of intel­lec­tu­al giants like Alvin Planti­nga, Richard Swin­burne, William Lane Craig, among many others.

Swin­burne, for exam­ple, gives the­is­tic belief, and in par­tic­u­lar Chris­t­ian belief, philo­soph­i­cal treat­ment in toto. I have noticed the fol­low­ing pro­gres­sion in his case for Chris­tian­i­ty. First, he argues that the notion of ​‘God-talk’ is per­fect­ly coher­ent, and there are no a pri­ori rea­sons to reject the­is­tic belief. See Swin­burne’s The Coher­ence of The­ism (Oxford, Claren­don Press : 1977) Next, he argues on cumu­la­tive grounds that nat­ur­al the­ol­o­gy ren­ders the exis­tence of God more prob­a­ble than not. Richard Swin­burne, The Exis­tence of God (Oxford, Claren­don Press : 1991)Final­ly, Swin­burne artic­u­lates var­i­ous argu­ments for Chris­t­ian par­tic­u­lar­ism, e.g. rea­sons to believe in the Chris­t­ian Rev­e­la­tion, the Res­ur­rec­tion of Christ, etc.Swin­burne’s argu­ments can be found in Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Atone­ment (Oxford, Claren­don Press : 1989), and Rev­e­la­tion (Oxford, Claren­don Press : 1992). He there­fore epit­o­mizes the clas­sic Lock­ean evi­den­tial­ist, who is pre­pared to give ratio­nal rea­sons for all his beliefs.

Of course, not all Chris­t­ian philoso­phers have the evi­den­tial­ist enthu­si­asm of Swin­burne. The reformed epis­te­mol­o­gists, spear­head­ed by Alvin Planti­nga and Nicholas Wolter­storff, approach the­is­tic belief ana­lyt­i­cal­ly, but not on evi­den­tial­ist grounds.See for exam­ple, Alvin Planti­nga & Nicholas Wolter­storff, Faith and Ratio­nal­i­ty(South Bend, The Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame Press : 1983) Although they may reject giv­ing argu­ments for reli­gious beliefs, and still claim that belief in God is ratio­nal, what is impor­tant to note is that they are pre­pared to dis­cuss the­ism in an ana­lyt­ic and ratio­nal manner.

These prefa­to­ry remarks are impor­tant to bear in mind, since I now wish to look at the philo­soph­i­cal ten­abil­i­ty of the (ortho­dox) Chris­t­ian depic­tion of God, which I feel has been large­ly ignored by con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian philoso­phers. My analy­sis will only be con­fined to divine ontol­ogy, and the con­tention I will be argu­ing for is that ​‘Chris­t­ian monothe­ism’ is onto­log­i­cal­ly inco­her­ent. This has fur­ther impli­ca­tions for Chris­t­ian par­tic­u­lar­ism (in so far as it is under­stood by Pauline ontol­ogy), for if, on a pri­ori grounds, the Chris­t­ian depic­tion of God is impos­si­ble, then it fol­lows a for­tiori, that the doc­tri­nal par­tic­u­lars which are con­tin­gent on this erro­neous ontol­ogy can­not be true.

I am writ­ing this piece with the inten­tion of hear­ing from Chris­t­ian philoso­phers who adhere to the Pauline ontol­ogy of God, believe in its coher­ence, and are will­ing to dis­cuss the mat­ter on ratio­nal grounds.

Locat­ing Our Topic

Nat­u­ral­ly, no insight is free from pre­sup­po­si­tions, and so I will need to state the posi­tion from which my analy­sis is going to depart. The ter­mi­nus of nat­ur­al the­ol­o­gy is usu­al­ly a meta­phys­i­cal pos­tu­la­tion, some ​‘first cause’, ​‘intel­li­gent design­er’, ​‘law giv­er’, or the like. The the­ist, of course, argues that this being is God. Accord­ing to Swin­burne, to state that God exists is to state that there is :

“A per­son with­out a body (i.e. a spir­it), present every­where, the cre­ator and sus­tain­er of the uni­verse, a free agent, able to do every­thing (i.e. omnipo­tent), know­ing all things, per­fect­ly good, a source of moral oblig­a­tion, immutable, eter­nal, a nec­es­sary being, holy, and wor­thy of wor­ship.“Swin­burne, The Coher­ence of The­ism, p. 1

This is a def­i­n­i­tion of God that Jew­ish-Islam­ic the­ism can eas­i­ly accept with­out any major dif­fi­cul­ties, for this is the com­mon under­stand­ing of God in West­ern the­ism. As far as divine ontol­ogy goes, it is a monothe­is­tic def­i­n­i­tion : there is only one God, the Cre­ator and Sus­tain­er of the uni­verse who exists. Under­stood thus, there is noth­ing obvi­ous­ly inco­her­ent about pos­tu­lat­ing such a being. I will fur­ther assume that there are no a pri­ori rea­sons for con­sid­er­ing the exis­tence of such a being (tak­ing Swin­burne’s def­i­n­i­tion) as impos­si­ble, due to some log­i­cal con­tra­dic­tion or the like (a defence of such a con­tention will be the task for anoth­er day).

Now the ques­tions I wish to explore are these : When Swin­burne’s def­i­n­i­tion of God is unpacked, and fur­ther expli­cat­ed with­in ortho­dox Chris­t­ian the­ism, is it still coher­ent ? Are there any a pri­ori rea­sons for con­sid­er­ing it to be inco­her­ent, and thus impos­si­ble ? If so, what impli­ca­tions are there for ortho­dox Chris­t­ian particulars ?

Stat­ing Trini­tar­i­an Ontology

Accord­ing to ortho­dox Chris­tian­i­ty, although there exists a God as under­stood by Swin­burne, He is tri-per­son­al. In oth­er words, God is three dis­tinct per­sons (The Father, Son and Holy Spir­it) in one sub­stance, and yet He is still one being. To under­stand this, we can do no bet­ter than turn to the Athanasian Creed, where we find the fol­low­ing exis­ten­tial statements :

“[T]he Catholic Faith is this, that we wor­ship one God in Trin­i­ty and Trin­i­ty in Uni­ty. Nei­ther con­found­ing the Per­sons, nor divid­ing the Sub­stance. For there is one Per­son of the Father, anoth­er of the Son, and anoth­er of the Holy Ghost. But the God­head of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One, the Glo­ry Equal, the Majesty Co-Eter­nal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost … So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God … there is One Father, not Three Fathers ; one Son, not Three Sons ; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts … He there­fore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trin­i­ty.“The Athanasian Creed, avail­able online. I have sum­ma­rized the idea behind the doc­trine of the Trin­i­ty, although it is sug­gest­ed the read­er scru­ti­nize the entire text. 

Try­ing to make sense of the creed can be dif­fi­cult, and there­fore we can fol­low philoso­pher Richard CartwrightRichard Cartwright, ​‘On the Log­i­cal Prob­lem of the Trin­i­ty’, in Philo­soph­i­cal Essays (MIT Press : 1987), p. 188. by stat­ing the sev­en basic propo­si­tions of the creed, the belief in which is essen­tial for sal­va­tion, for the pur­pos­es of analysis.

1. The Father is God.
2. The Son is God.
3. The Holy Spir­it is God.
4. The Father is not the Son.
5. The Father is not the Holy Spirit.
6. The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
7. There is exact­ly one God.

From this point onwards, when I refer to the Chris­t­ian under­stand­ing of God, it is in ref­er­ence to the Athanasian Creed that my argu­ments are to be understood.

Can A Tri-Per­son­al Deity Exist ?

Answer­ing this ques­tion is very much an onto­log­i­cal explo­ration. We need to dis­tin­guish between a pri­ori and a pos­te­ri­ori answers to the ques­tion of exis­tence. By a pri­ori answers, I am refer­ring to answers which speak of con­cep­tu­al pos­si­bil­i­ties or impos­si­bil­i­ties. For exam­ple, there is a con­cep­tu­al pos­si­bil­i­ty that there exists in the world a uni­corn. There is noth­ing in the def­i­n­i­tion of a uni­corn which would imme­di­ate­ly ren­der its exis­tence impos­si­ble. On the oth­er hand, it is con­cep­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble that there exists in the world a mar­ried bach­e­lor, since the notion of a mar­ried bach­e­lor is inco­her­ent. We know imme­di­ate­ly a pri­ori that such a being could not exist, ever.

By a pos­te­ri­ori answers, I am refer­ring to propo­si­tions which we know the truth or fal­si­ty of through expe­ri­ence. Thus, although the exis­tence of a uni­corn is con­cep­tu­al­ly pos­si­ble, most peo­ple do not believe that uni­corns exist because of the lack of expe­ri­ence they have had, or lack of evi­dence. How­ev­er, one would always be open to the evi­dence, since uni­corns could exist. But it would be absurd to seek evi­dence for the exis­tence of mar­ried bach­e­lors, since it is con­cep­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for such beings to exist.

Here, I am con­cerned with the def­i­n­i­tion of the Trin­i­ty, propo­si­tions (1)-(7) stat­ed above. If any two of these propo­si­tions are con­tra­dic­to­ry, then it would be con­cep­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for God, in so far as He is under­stood in ortho­dox Chris­t­ian the­ism, to exist. And there­fore, assess­ing the a pos­te­ri­ori evi­dence for or against the doc­trine of the Trin­i­ty (as is often the case with the Bib­li­cal data) would be as mean­ing­less as enter­tain­ing a mar­ried bach­e­lor’s request for divorce.

Let the Father be des­ig­nat­ed by x, the Son by y, and the Holy Spir­it by z. God, as defined by Swin­burne, can be des­ig­nat­ed by G. As Cartwright notes, one way to inter­pret the creed is to take the verb ​‘is’ and under­stand it to mean ​‘is iden­ti­cal with’Cartwright, Trin­i­ty, p. 191, there­fore, x = G, y = G, and z = G. But if this is true, then it log­i­cal­ly fol­lows (accord­ing to Leib­niz’s prin­ci­ple of iden­ti­ty, which states : if x is the same object as y then x has exact­ly the same prop­er­ties that y has) that x = y, x = z, and y = z. How­ev­er, the creed will not allow this : (4)-(6). The Father, Son and Holy Sprit are dif­fer­ent and dis­tinct from each other.

Anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty is to con­strue G as a gen­er­al termIbid., p. 192 to avoid the log­i­cal incon­sis­ten­cy. Thus, x is a G, y is a G and z is a G. But sure­ly this would con­tra­dict (7), for we are sug­gest­ing the exis­tence of three Gods, or tri-the­ism. Cartwright presents the fol­low­ing syl­lo­gism : ​“every Divine Per­son is a God ; there are at least three Divine Per­sons ; there­fore, there at least three Gods”.Ibid., p. 196 The sec­ond premise is sup­port­ed the prin­ci­ple : if every A is a B then there can­not be few­er B’s than A’s. Cartwright cites the fol­low­ing anal­o­gy. If every cat is an ani­mal, there can­not be few­er ani­mals than cats.

It seems we have a dilem­ma : if x, y and z are iden­ti­cal with G, then we sim­ply have one per­son, or three names for one per­son. The hereti­cal posi­tion of modal­ism comes to mind, where the eter­nal coex­is­tence of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spir­it is denied. But if x, y and z are a G (i.e. belong to a gen­era), then one has three divine per­sons, which of course is anoth­er hereti­cal posi­tion : tri-the­ism. In the first instance, the con­tra­dic­tion can be removed by alter­ing propo­si­tions (4)-(6). In the sec­ond, by alter­ing (7). But tak­en alto­geth­er, (1)-(7) por­tray an incon­sis­tent set. It fol­lows ipso fac­to that the Chris­t­ian God, as He is depict­ed in the Creed, can­not pos­si­bly exist.

Impli­ca­tions For Chris­t­ian Particularism

Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian ontol­ogy, as depict­ed in the Athanasian Creed, forms the basis for a num­ber of Chris­t­ian par­tic­u­lars. And these par­tic­u­lars are con­tin­gent upon the truth of the Chris­t­ian ontol­ogy of God. The impli­ca­tions of onto­log­i­cal inco­her­ence of the Trin­i­ty are that cer­tain doc­tri­nal par­tic­u­lars sim­ply can­not be true. For exam­ple, the divin­i­ty of Jesus (the sec­ond per­son of the Trin­i­ty took on human form), the incar­na­tion (which involves the sec­ond per­son in the Trin­i­ty being com­plete­ly God and man simul­ta­ne­ous­ly), etc. There seems to be an a pri­ori block­ade that pre­vents these doc­tri­nal par­tic­u­lars from even get­ting off the ground.

Con­clu­sions

To con­clude, the doc­trine of the Trin­i­ty as pre­sent­ed in the Athanasian Creed depicts an onto­log­i­cal­ly inco­her­ent mod­el of God. To dis­solve the con­tra­dic­tions which arise from ana­lyz­ing the Creed, one can either reject the plu­ral­i­ty of per­sons and hold that there exists a sin­gle per­son with dif­fer­ent names or modes. 

Alter­na­tive­ly, one can embrace tri-the­ism. As long as one is com­mit­ted to nei­ther con­found­ing the per­sons, nor divid­ing the sub­stance, as the Creed would have us do, one is hold­ing beliefs about God which are log­i­cal­ly incon­sis­tent. And if one is to remain con­sis­tent with the philo­soph­i­cal treat­ment of the­ism in con­tem­po­rary phi­los­o­phy by the likes of Swin­burne and Craig, it fol­lows that the doc­trine of the Trin­i­ty, and its rela­tion to ​‘Chris­t­ian monothe­ism’ — being pro­found­ly irra­tional — should be abandoned. 

[cite]