An Argument for the Trinity from Divine Love

In this post I will give an philosophical argument for there being multiple persons in one God. The argument is as follows:

P1: There is one God who is the greatest possible being
P2: Greatest possible being has every moral perfection to the highest possible degree
P3: Love is a moral perfection
P4: Love to the highest possible degree is not solely centered on ones own person but on another person in love (GL)
P5: God either has GL by his very substance or by things outside of his substance
P6: It is false that God has GL outside of his substance
P7: God has GL in his substance entails that the substance has multiple persons
P8: God has GL in his substance
C: Hence, God is multiple persons




Premise 1:

The greatest possible being is such that there can only be one because it is better that God's greatness has no equal rather than there be an competing equal to God. It also seems that the greatest possible being would be a being worthy of worship and hence God is the greatest possible being.

Premise 4:

Love to the highest possible degree is not solely centered on ones own person but on another person in love. This seem plausible because when a person only loves himself this seems like not the best kind of love but rather it seems self-centered. For this reason a love that is not for another person is a imperfect love and not a property that is had by the greatest possible being.

Premise 6:

This love cannot depend on creation (which is something outside of God) because creation happens to exist by an act of God's free will to create. There are some possible worlds where God does not create and in those worlds God would still be loving even if there are no other created beings. In other words: God's love is necessary and essential, but creation is contingent so created persons cannot be the object of God's love because God's loving nature is necessary.

Conclusion:

This argument shows that God is one substance, but this one substance has multiple persons so that the greatest possible being can have the greatest possible love which would be one person loving at least one other person. General revelation using reason as it's instrument can demonstrate such a truth as there being a plurality of persons in one substance but special revelation alone can give us the most precious truth that God is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A Reformed Response to Mark Krause on the Person/Nature Distinction

The following is my response to an argument made against my recent post, Problems with the Eastern Orthodox Distinction of Person/Nature?, on the Eastern Orthodox blog "The Well Of Questions" by Mark Krause. Mark's full response can be found here.

First of all, I don’t quite know what to make of his definition of nominalism. Here’s a better one: Nominalism is the thesis that there are no universals. Given this definition, it is very difficult to see how Orthodoxy is nominalist. We surely think that universals exist, we just do not think that hypostasis is a universal.

Response: My definition was perfectly clear. I think you are redefining terms at this juncture because you want to avoid the obvious charge that you are a nominalist only with regards to persons. I am a nominalist only with regards to justification, thus I am not a nominalist either way given your definiton. But I am a nomialist and so are you with regards to one thing, I just happen to be clear about it. I do not reject universals as a whole and neither do you, but that was not the claim of my post at all. Also, just to be clear to our readers, the word "hypostasis" means "person."

Instead, hypostasis is what gives reality to universals. Hypostasis is the entity that instantiates a nature and thereby gives it a concrete existence, but obviously, an hypostasis is not merely the instantiation of a nature. Hypostasis is not the kind of entity that could be a universal because it is inherently what gives a concrete PARTICULAR existence to a nature. This particularity is key. What is natural is what is held in common between the members of a natural class, but what is hypostatic is what is particular to the individual members of the natural class. It is a category confusion to seek the universal hypostasis that every individual hypostasis instantiates. The whole point of the category is to have a place for particularity. If one denies this categorical distinction between hypostasis and nature then how does one establish the particularity of the members of a natural class? More to the point, how does one establish the particularity of the members of the Trinity?

Response: I do not really see how, if a person instantiates a nature and gives it particular existence, that therefore we are warranted in allowing nominal predication to that one entity. You are saying that persons give particularity to everything and because of that it does not need to instantiate a universal. I do not see how giving the persons of the trinity this unique role that therefore we are able to be nominalists with regards to persons. Another problem remains: mere human beings also have persons but they do not give concrete existence to everything, yet your view of personhood would still require you to have fictional predications of human persons. This seems inconsistent because you are saying the persons of the trinity cannot be instantiated because they give things particular existence, but mere human persons do not do that so there is no reason to have merely names or fictional predicates for them. Why couldn’t the nature of God establish particularity after he has chosen freely to create? Why could not a person be an instantiation of a universal and also give particularity to everything else? You don't argue for the negation of the alternative possibilities. In addition, why could not the members of the trinity be distinct and yet at the same self-instantiate personhood in all three instances of the divine persons? These all seem like plausible ways out and your questions that do not bring to the table any sort of metaphysical dilemma.

Justification for the categorical distinction between hypostasis and nature aside, even if everything Nate says is correct and compelling about the “nominalism of Orthodoxy” regarding hypostasis, this still provides no reason why the Orthodox cannot condemn the Reformed for having a nominalist view of justice. We don’t have a nominalist view of justice because we the think that Scripture teaches to the contrary. Does Scripture also teach that hypostasis is a universal? I don’t think so.

Response: Well I obviously I think that scripture does teach an extrinsic, nominalistic view of justification, but I do not see any reason for thinking that Reformed folks have to hold that there is no universal for justice whatsoever. I simply hold to nominalism with regards to justification and not for justice. In this case the imputation is still just because Jesus Christ made a covenant and earned righteousness that he did not need so that he can give it to us legally. The act is allowed under the exception of an agreement between it’s just members (the trinity). It seems to me that since the Father and Son made such an agreement that this exception makes a lot more sense than saying a person gives particularity and this somehow excludes it from real predication.

Thus, Nate’s argument doesn’t succeed. The point is Scripture teaches that justice is real and a universal, but the Reformed do not. Scripture does not teach that there is a universal for hypostasis. One reason for this, is surely that such a teaching would be committing a grave category mistake. I mean, seriously, does Nate think that all realists must believe in a Universal called “particularity” that all particulars must participate in? Such a notion would be silly because of the obvious category confustion between universals and particulars.

Response: I actually think there is a universal for particulars, I agree with Scotus on this point. I see no reason for doubting this. I think that justice is a universal but with regards to covenants and believers' justification one can predicate nominalistically about a believers' status in some sense, but the righteousness is a real righteousness (namely it is Christ’s righteousness that is merited for us). I will make a future post arguing for this view from scripture alone.

I conclude that your argument about persons allowing for particularity does not entail that you have to predicate them nominalistically, and that I can make theological exceptions for nominalistic predication (at least partially) about believers in a covenantal relation made by God.

Problems with the Eastern Orthodox Distinction of Person/Nature?

In Eastern Orthodox theology there is a distinction between a person and a nature. A nature in this view would be a thing that has instantiated properties. A person is not a nature nor is it an instantiation of a nature. The reason this is so is to avoid Christological heresies such as Nestorianism. For if a person is an instantiation of a nature or is a nature itself then you have two persons in the incarnation which would be Nestorianism. I do not think one has to buy this distinction to avoid Christological Heresies, but nonetheless their motivation is a good one. The problem with this position is that it leads to pure nominalism:

P1: Nominalism is the view that general predications of individual things are merely names and not instances of universals.

P2: The Person is not a instantiation of a universal

C: All predications of a person are nominalistic

If a person does not instantiate any universals then what is predicated of the person is merely a fictional title or a title based on names alone. This is significant because the Eastern Orthodox often accuse Protestants of being nominalists because of their view of legal justification by faith alone (as if nominalism in all respects were irrational or theoretically deficient). But here it seems that the Eastern Orthodox reasoning on this point is inconsistent and arbitrary since with regards to persons they have no problem with being nominalistic. Thus, this shows two things 1) the eastern view of person is nominalistic, 2) Eastern Orthodox no longer has a philosophical critique about the Protestant view of Justification on the basis that it is nominalistic.


***Note: This is inconsistent with my last post on Divine Simplicity but I was merely giving that post for those who thought perhaps the person/nature distinction is reasonable.

Using Eastern Orthodoxy to Defend Divine Simplicity

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity the doctrine of Divine simplicity is largely rejected. However, the east does provide western theologians with some helpful distinctions that may help defend the doctrine of divine simplicity with a few areas of alleged incoherence. In this blog we will use the essence/energies distinction and the person/nature distinction to defend the doctrine of divine simplicity.

*Person/Nature and Divine Simplicity*

These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of divine simplicity:

P1: In God’s essence there are no distinctions (Divine Simplicity)

P2: In God’s essence there are three distinct persons (Trinity)

C: The conjunction of P1 & P2 is necessarily false

In eastern christian thought (Eastern Orthodoxy) the persons are distinct from the nature; this is called the person nature distinction. The person is not an instantiation of a nature nor is it a nature. On the other hand, a nature has properties such that each property is an instantiation of a universal. Now that we have this distinction in mind let us apply it to the doctrine of divine simplicity. If we say that the persons are distinct but not separate from the essence/nature of God then it seems like the contradiction goes away. This is because the doctrine of divine simplicity is *only* about the essence of God ad intra and not about things distinct from it (like persons and actions).

In addition, this is also helpful to defend other objections against divine simplicity like this: “if one says that there is no distinction in God then God’s libertarian free will (being able to create or not create) is the same as his justice, mercy, and reason. If this is then true then perhaps God could voluntaristically will to be just or unjust. And this is clearly absurd.” (Michael Garten from Well of Questions gave me a response like this once). However, if one holds to this person/nature distinction as I have suggested then one could say that the wills are located in the persons. In which case you could say that God does not have the option to libertarianly will to be immoral or something that is logically contradictory since this will is not in his essence but in the persons.


*Essence/Energies and Divine Simplicity*

These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of a contingent creation and divine simplicity:

S1: In God’s essence there is no distinction (Divine Simplicity)

S2: God creates from his essence by which there is no distinction

S3: God’s essence is necessary

S4: If S1, S2, and S3 are true then Creation is necessary

S5: It is false that creation is necessary

C: Divine Simplicity is false (S1)

The essence/energies distinction teaches that there is a distinction between God’s essence ad intra and his actions (the actions are called energies). Therefore, with this distinction in hand one can easily reject S2 and still hold that God’s essence ad intra is fundamentally simple or without any sort of distinction. This is even more helpful when one thinks that the will is located in the persons then one might argue that the person is the one that makes the decision to create or not create rather than putting this sort of deliberation in the essence that might lead to some sort of emanationism.

Concluding Remarks:

We have seen from this post that if one puts certain Eastern Orthodox distinctions at work in the doctrine of divine simplicity then one might be able to defend it with a lot more ease and confidence.

***Side Note****

If one wants to find information on the Eastern Orthodox teaching of person/nature and the essence/energies distinction then consult either Well of Questions Or Energetic Processions (Both links to these blogs are found on our " blog list" to the right).