blog.kennypearce.net

A Blog About the Trinity!

Not long ago, I posted on the question of whether the doctrine of God as three 'Persons' in one 'Substance' was a solution to the Scriptural paradox of God's threeness and oneness, or merely a restatement. Now, thanks to thanks to The Prosblogion, I have found a new philosophy blog, devoted entirely to the Trinity! (I try, as a matter of principle, to be devoted entirely to the Trinity myself, but here we are talking about the direct subject of speech, in addition to the goal of life!) Dale, the author, has begun with a series of posts (three, so far, I don't know if there will be more) entitled "The Doctrine." Part three is particularly relevant to the discussion that has been going on here, as it outlines the various understandings of what it means for the Father and the Son to be "of one Substance" (Gr., homoousia) as the Nicene Creed affirms. For the record, I'm a "relative identity" proponent myself - I think this is what all the paradox-loving types were trying to say all along, and we philosophers - who don't like paradoxes, unless they have pretty solutions - took a while to catch up. Of course, relative identity, even in Peter van Inwagen's quite rigorous formulation, is definitely a restatement rather than a solution, but it proves that there is indeed a possibility of the contradiction being merely apparent.

I still hope to follow up on this issue by examining more closely the use of certain technical terms in Aristotle's metaphysical writings and in the Chalcedonian Creed's Christology (and its later application to Trinitarian theology by the First Council of Constantionple), which I have already written some cursory thoughts about. In the meantime, I highly reccomend that everyone go an read Dale's series! It looks to be a very promising blog.