Thursday 24 March 2016

As you were...

Every now and then I get carried away with the desire not to be a heretic and I fall into the trap of coming up with a new configuration of some version of the doctrine of the Trinity (DOT) that I've already 'debunked' in the past, and allowing myself to be taken in by it for a little while, fooling myself that I have subjected the theory to proper analysis when in fact such is the psychological pleasure of feeling myself to be within the fold of Christian orthodoxy that I have, unconsciously, held myself back from employing the appropriate level of critical rigour.
Such was the case with my recent 'grammar of infinity' model of the Trinity (see previous post) which, once put through its analytical paces, revealed itself as a failure for all the usual reasons.
Basically, if there is something that there is only one of (God) then the Persons either are that thing that there is only one of - in which case there must be only one Person - or the Persons are not the thing that there is only one of - in which case they are not God. You just can't have it both ways!
In my GOI model, the thing that there was only one of was the extent of the divine attributes and, while all the Persons may share that same (infinite) extent to their attributes, none of them is identical to the extent of their attributes. It's the usual problem of the fact that while each of the Persons may share the one divine nature, it cannot be the case that each of them is the divine nature - so if the divine nature is God then the Persons are not God and if the divine nature is not God then the fact that there is only one of it does not help resolve the problem of the DOT.

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