Is the Doctrine of Trinity a Logical Contradiction?

[McCulloch]

He [God] is not capable of instantiating logical contradictions. Why did you think He could? What did you take omnipotence to mean?

And yet Trinitarian Christians insist that God is a logical contradiction. There is one God. The Son of God is God. God the Father is God. But the Son is not the Father.

For one, Christians do not insist God is a logical contradiction. You might believe that the Trinity is a logical contradiction, but that is apart from it being the Christian's stated belief that God is a logical contradiction. Your objection here is completely irrelevant.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons (Greek: ὑποστάσεις): the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial (Greek: �μοο�σιοι). Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being (Greek: ο�σία). The Trinity is considered to be a mystery of Christian faith.

According to this doctrine, there is only one God in three persons. Each person is God, whole and entire. They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: as the Fourth Lateran Council declared, "it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds". While distinct in their relations with one another, they are one in all else. The whole work of creation and grace is a single operation common to all three divine persons, who at the same time operate according to their unique properties, so that all things are from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed describes Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father".

Question for debate: Is the Doctrine of Trinity a Logical Contradiction?

[Ionian_Tradition]

God is one entity, which eternally exists as three persons. A person does not equal an entity, but is a particular way that an entity can exists. So, an entity can exist as a person, as an object, as an idea, as a possibility. God is one entity who exists as three distinct persons, three distinct simultaneous modes. This objection fails to understand the basic patristic conception of a person.

That sounds like modalism rather than trinity.

Nope. That's why the word "eternally" is important. Modalism suggests that there is one God who is manifest in several different subsequent modes throughout history. Trinitarianism says that there is one God who is eternally manifest in three persons. There is no confusion of persons, nor any subsequent manifestations. All are co-eternal.

This is interesting. If all members of the trinity are co-eternal could you please explain the relationship between the father and the son in light of this fact? A father is prior to his son. How then can the son exist co-eternal with the father if the father is prior to the son? Or are these monikers we use to label the "father" and the "son" fundamentally meaningless given the fact that both exist co-eternal?

If your answer is that the father is ontologically prior to the son in the same way that the bottom book of an eternally existing stack of books is ontologically prior the books on top of it, have you not implied that the existence of the son is predicated upon the existence of the father in the same way that the spacial location of the top book is predicated upon the books beneath it?, If so, the son cannot be a "non-contingent" being (God). Moreover "God" (the three persons of the trinity) could not be a non-contingent being given that the existence of the entity "God" is predicated upon the existence of the father, spirit and son (who is predicated upon the father). We're left with, at the very least, a non-contingent father upon which a "God" (and the son which also comprises it) is ultimately contingent....Which seems quite strange. But I suppose I should allow you to answer instead of attempting to preempt your response.

[AquinasD]

Here's one straight from the Summa Theologica and your patron saint if I'm not mistaken. Thomists assert that the "first way" establishes the existence of a being of pure actuality, or unmoved mover (God), which provides the ground and source of all that is.

I'll give you a cookie for understanding my point.

It is argued that this being of pure act, possesses no potentiality and must therefore exist as one singular entity.. for if there existed multiple beings of pure act, then their existence would denote differences in state and identity which would further denote the existence of potentialities not actualized in reference to their respective counter parts. Thus a being of pure act (lacking potentiality) could not exist along side other beings of pure act which embody unrealized potentialities. The doctrine of the trinity posits the existence of 3 separate and distinct instantiations of God (the unmoved mover/being of pure act). However, these beings cannot exist coextensive with one another if indeed they are to be named the being of pure actuality. Either one is the ground and source of the others, in which case all members of the trinity are not God (the being of pure act), or there are no "others". In both instances the doctrine of the Trinity (3 beings = 1 being of pure act) is shown to be both logically and theologically untenable as per Aquinas' "first way". I believe this perhaps qualifies as an example of how the doctrine of the trinity might contradict a way Thomists, such as yourself, "know God".

Nearly everything you say there is correct, except that you make a mistake in equivocating on "being." You say each Person is a being, though this is not the case; properly speaking, no category of being can be applied to God except in an analogous sense. Thus, to say that each Person is a "being," but then to infer that the "being" known of by the First Way is meant equivocally, is mistaken. You're using "being" in two different senses but applying it in two different propositions as if it were one.

[theopoesis]

My comment refers to the conditions necessary in order for a trinitarian God to exist. It is possible that only 2 of the three members of the trinity could exist. The absence of the third would, if I'm understanding your argument correctly, cause "God" to cease existing. Thus we can imagine a scenario where elements of God exist while God itself does not, in the same way that atoms can exist in a form which is not Oxygen. Therefore, it seems clear that the existence of God is contingent upon a particular arrangement of divine persons, some of whom could theoretically continue existing in the absence of "God". This is quite different from saying "if God did not exist, then God would not exist".

The bold is actually disputed in several ways. Kieth Yandell, for example, elaborates on a philosophical model of the Trinity that claims God is complex, such that all members of the Trinity must exist if any do. This would fit with many theological models of the Trinity. I've mentioned Bernard Lonergan before. But he argues that all people have a self conception which they can relate to. God the Father's self conception is a perfect representation of himself, even to the point of existing, and so the Father begets the Son. Then, the Father loves the Son, but can only love in the full giving of himself, and so spirates the Spirit. Given this theological model, if the Father is Conscious, the Son and Spirit must exist. Of course it's all speculative, but so would be any model which claimed that one could exist without the other.

Second, since the Persons are existential categories and not ontological categories, your claim as to constituent parts seems to fail. God isn't three ontological parts, nor is God three entities, nor is God three things. God is one ontological part, one entity, one thing that has a Tri-personal existence.

Minds are more than mere existential categories, they are beings which possess an ontological quality. Minds are necessary in order for persons to exist. Thus if the Trinity is tri-personal, it possesses 3 separate and distinct minds which together form a phenomenon we refer to as "God". This notion however, denotes that the entity God is reducible to its parts (three minds). To be sure, God is "one" as oxygen is "one", this is merely to say that God is comprised of constituent parts (3 minds) which together form a "whole" we call God, in the same way that oxygen is comprised of constituent atoms which together form a molecule. Unless I've overlooked something, which is certainly possible, I believe my claim stands lest you somehow demonstrate that minds are not beings which exist ontologically.

I've argued in our head to head that this is not the definition of mind or person that Trinitarian theology supposes. Mind is not a material or ontological category. Mind is not a brain. Mind is a phenomenology, consciousness, a way of existing through thought.

In essence you are asserting a specific definition, which Trinitarian theology is not based on, then claiming that by that definition Trinitarian theology is logically contradictory. But this is a straw man, because this is not the definition which much Trinitarian theology has accepted or put forward.

And you ask me to put forward a philosophy of mind to "demonstrate" the definition I have argued. Yet, you have not put forward a philosophy of mind to demonstrate that your own claims are correct. To be honest, I don't have time to develop a full philosophy of mind in the week and a half I have left here before I leave for the summer. All I am asking is that people recognize that, given certain definitions of terms, Trinitarian theology need not be obvious foolishness and logical contradiction. The definitions or metaphysics of course could be false. This I grant. But the general tone around here (not from you by the way) is that someone would have to be completely ignorant of logic to believe in the Trinity.

Indeed, to use your analogy, height is not me, nor is width or depth. But I require these things in order to exist as I am. In the same way God is not Jesus, the father, or the spirit... but God requires these persons in order to exist as it is. So while it may be true that together the father, son, and spirit make a God, just as height, width, and depth (amongst other things) create an Ionian_Tradition, it is not true that Jesus is God independently, just as width is not Ionian_Tradition independently. It takes more than width to make a Ionian_Tradition, similarly it takes more than a Jesus Christ to make a God. Thus the claim that Jesus is fully God is demonstrably false. Jesus is fully Jesus. In the absence of the additional members of the trinity, he is nothing more. Only through the relationship of the trinity can he be said to be a part of God.

Like all analogies, there is a range of comparison between the two objects of the analogy, and a range of dissimilarity. My point was merely that you exist simultaneously in three dimensions, and these things are aspects of your existence. The same is true of the Three Persons of the Trinity, which are aspects of God's existence simultaneously. But the Persons are not simply spatial dimensions.

Moreover, "fully God" is derived from the Greek. It does not mean, nor was it intended to mean, that the One God is only Jesus. Rather, it was intended to mean that Jesus in his existence fully hypostasizes the characteristics of the One God. Jesus is fully God because he is a person who exists as the personification, the hypostasization, of the one being called God. Jesus does not manifest only some of this being, only some of these attributes.

Regarding the Greek, are you arguing that the intention of the biblical authors was to use words like "he", "him" & "I" to refer to a multipersonal entity? Are you implying that the terms in question were employed in a metaphoric sense similar to the way seamen refer to a ship as "her"? If so, I admit I find this reasoning somewhat specious. When God speaks of "himself" does it do so metaphorically as well?

Let's say I am speaking in Greek, and I am speaking of a house, "o oikos." If I want to use a substantival article to stand for the house (which is common), I use "o." Which is a masculine pronoun. Technically, to translate it into english, you would translate it as "he." Of course, this doesn't make much sense, so we make adjustments and translate it as "it." Now, if I am speaking of God, it is "o theos." If I want to use a substantival article to refer back to God, I use "o." It's the same thing as with "o oikos." It just is a masculine article standing in the place of the words "o theos." When we translate this into English, the technical way to translate it is as "he." Unlike with the word "oikos" we do not make a change so that God is "it", but we leave "o" as "he." However, this does not mean that it necessarily is speaking of one personal "he" as "he" is usually used in English. "O" still is just a substantival article meaning "God."

Now there are many other words used, many individual verses to translate, and much to consider. But all I'm saying is in that some instances where the English makes it seem as if one person is being discussed, the Greek need not imply as much.

I suppose that my issue with this pertains to the arbitrary manner in which the term "God" is defined here to fit the trinitarian model. Why is it that 3 divines make a "God" and not merely 1, 6 or 100? I see no reason why the term "God" should refer solely to a collection of 3 supernatural minds. Moreover, I fail to see how such a being constitutes a "necessary being" or "maximally great" being. Surely 4 divine minds seem no less "necessary" than 3, and a union of 4 divine minds seems "greater" (if nothing else than in quantity) than 3. Moreover the fundamental distinctions between trinitarian monotheism and a somewhat unique brand of Polytheism seem quite vague.

My issue with your objection of an "arbitrary" definition of God is that it ignores the entire development of Trinitarian theology. People didn't just "arbitrarily" sit down one day and say "Let's say God is Three Persons." There were very concrete things that led to the development of the Trinity:

(1) Analysis of the New Testament Canon as data
(2) Consideration of the Phenomenology of early Christian Spirituality. Jesus prayed to God the Father, but Christians worshipped Jesus as God, and they also recognized that something profound must have happened for them to recognize a human being as God, and so they experienced what they described as the Holy Spirit as God working within them to recognize Jesus as God.
(3) The development of Christian philosophy through various theological debates that tried to philosophically understand the idea of God through the lens of the Bible and Christian experience and worship practice.
(4) The development of early Christian liturgy and worship practices - there was an artistic and aesthetic component

So real consideration was paid during the development of the doctrine of the Trinity to the data of the scriptures, religious experience, and philosophical argumentation.

But is there any reason to hold to the Trinity today? Is there any reason to uphold it, or is such a choice arbitrary? There are in fact several reasons why the doctrine is not arbitrary:

(1) A minimum of three people are required to truly analyze a social action, such as love. And Christians believe God is love.
(2) Lonergan's above mentioned argument suggests that God is Three.
(3) Complex religious phenomenologies have been developed based on the Trinity and in support of it. So in the Father we relate to God as hidden in person and nature, in the Son we relate to God as hidden in nature but revealed in person, and in the Spirit we relate to God as hidden in person but revealed in nature. There is no need to posit a fourth person we can relate to in nature and in person because of Christian views of sin (we cannot be in the presence of the fully revealed God) and because of the Christian view of eschatology (God the Father will one day be fully revealed in person and in being).
(4) The Biblical data, spiritual phenomenology, and philosophical arguments of the early Church are still considered and held in esteem by some people today (myself included).

[McCulloch]

Not if God is pure energy outside of space and time and outside of our physical limitations.

Energy, like matter, exists only within space|time.

[Bust Nak]

Nope. That's why the word "eternally" is important. Modalism suggests that there is one God who is manifest in several different subsequent modes throughout history. Trinitarianism says that there is one God who is eternally manifest in three persons. There is no confusion of persons, nor any subsequent manifestations. All are co-eternal.

Well I am in over my head here, but I thought modalism doesn't say anything about God manifesting in different mode subsequently, but these modes are aspects of God. i.e God doesn't have to take off one mask and put on the next. He has three faces.

[theopoesis]

Nope. That's why the word "eternally" is important. Modalism suggests that there is one God who is manifest in several different subsequent modes throughout history. Trinitarianism says that there is one God who is eternally manifest in three persons. There is no confusion of persons, nor any subsequent manifestations. All are co-eternal.

Well I am in over my head here, but I thought modalism doesn't say anything about God manifesting in different mode subsequently, but these modes are aspects of God. i.e God doesn't have to take off one mask and put on the next. He has three faces.

I hate to ever refer someone to Wikipedia, but in this instance it is easier than referring you to an obscure Church history book.

Sabellius taught that God was indivisible, with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three modes or manifestations of one divine Person. A Sabellian modalist would say that the One God successively revealed Himself to man throughout time as the Father in Creation; the Son in Redemption; and the Spirit in Sanctification and Regeneration. (Because of this focus on God's revelation of himself to man, Modalism is often confused with Economic Trinitarianism).

You do bring up a good point with the "Aspects", as modalism did not discuss God in three Persons, which is another reason my proposal isn't modalistic.

[theopoesis]

Good Morning Ionian_Tradition:

It seems our debate is just spilling over here. Perhaps we should copy and paste i into the head to head?

This is interesting. If all members of the trinity are co-eternal could you please explain the relationship between the father and the son in light of this fact? A father is prior to his son. How then can the son exist co-eternal with the father if the father is prior to the son? Or are these monikers we use to label the "father" and the "son" fundamentally meaningless given the fact that both exist co-eternal?

I am aware of two early Church theologians who address this question. The first is Gregory of Nyssa, in his Answer to Ablabius. Gregory suggests that the terms are existential terms which do not refer to the nature of the Father, Son, or Spirit, but which refer to their mode of existence. That the Son was "begotten" or "caused" by the Father does not imply that the Son's being came from the Father at some point in time. Rather, it means that the Son's existence is a mode of existence dependent upon the Father. If we take Bernard Lonergan's psychological analogy, which I have mentioned above, we can see this play out. As soon as and as long as God exists and has consciousness, Jesus exists as the perfect projection of the Father's self. There is no time in which this projection has not occurred. And since the Father is eternal (I perhaps prefer "everlasting"), the Son is co-eternal.

The second early Church theologian I am aware of is Basil of Caesarea, who actually discusses this in a letter to Gregory of Nyssa. In that letter, Basil suggests that terms like "begotten" and "proceeds from" and "begat" and "spirated" are useful to distinguish between the Persons. If each person is one hypostasization, one Personal eternal manifestation, of God, then each Person has identical characteristics with the nature of God. How, then, could we ever tell the Persons apart? Through the adjectives which we have been given which refer to their existence: "begotten by" and "proceeding from", "begat" and "spirated." These words help us to differentiate by name what we experience as differentiation through our contemplation and worship. If Basil is correct here, the term "Father" is as much or more for our benefit so that Jesus could teach us to worship God as Father, and could teach us of our adoption as God's children through his death, as it is helpful in speaking of the immanent Trinity.

Moreover "God" (the three persons of the trinity) could not be a non-contingent being given that the existence of the entity "God" is predicated upon the existence of the father, spirit and son (who is predicated upon the father). We're left with, at the very least, a non-contingent father upon which a "God" (and the son which also comprises it) is ultimately contingent....Which seems quite strange.

Again, you are not using the Persons as existential terms. The Persons of the Father, Son, and Spirit are simply the ways in which God exists. To say that God's existence is contingent upon the existence of the Father, Spirit, and Son is essentially to say that God's existence is contingent upon the existence of God existing. Seems rather tautological. Of course, we could easily turn the objection around and say that the existence of the Father, Son, and Spirit are contingent upon there being some Being which they exist as. Either way, I do not see why this is a particularly challenging critique. In either instance, God is only contingent upon Godself.

There are also much more complex theological questions at hand when you raise this question, the primary of which is the distinction between Eastern and Western approaches to the Trinity. The former would consider the Three Persons and God's existence as the most important aspect of the Trinity, while the latter would arguably consider the simple ontology as the most important aspect. Thus, Photios would argue in the ninth century in Byzantium in the East that we should think of God the Father as the distinct Personal source of all that is, including the Son and Spirit, and in this way we retain a Personal God and Creator. Photios would worry that if we make ontology primary, we lose a Personal God and create an impersonal one. To apply Photios to the way I have been describing the Trinity, the Being of God is real because there are Three Persons who exist as hypostasizations of that Being.

On the converse, Anselm of Canturbury, writing in the eleventh century in the West, writes that "God is from God" and begins his analysis of the Trinity with the simple Being of God. It seems that Anselm would think that the Persons exist because God exists as simple Being, the origin of the persons (yet this origin is eternal, so there is not subsequent nature to it). Critics today suggest that Anselm and other Westerners like him have created an "ontotheology", a theology of being, instead of a theology of Persons. Photios claims it is the Persons we worship, and so the Persons on whom we must build our theology.

That's a bit of a tangent, but it does show that there are different broad approaches to answering your question.

[99percentatheism]

Not if God is pure energy outside of space and time and outside of our physical limitations.

Energy, like matter, exists only within space|time.

How?

[99percentatheism]

And what passages do you use to support your non trinitarian views - Surely it's not simply because 1+1+1 = 1 doesn't make sense?

Trinity can be expressed as 1 + 1 + 1 = 1
Modalism can be expressed as 1 × 1 × 1 = 1

Modalism makes more sense to me.

But it makes no sense to Jesus, God the Father or the Holy Spirit. All of whom are described as individuals existing at the same moment. Modalism describes God as a person putting on three different hats and becoming some new creature each time. Your math really is 1 + 1 + 1 x as many occurneces as can be dreamed up.

[Ionian_Tradition]

It is argued that this being of pure act, possesses no potentiality and must therefore exist as one singular entity.. for if there existed multiple beings of pure act, then their existence would denote differences in state and identity which would further denote the existence of potentialities not actualized in reference to their respective counter parts. Thus a being of pure act (lacking potentiality) could not exist along side other beings of pure act which embody unrealized potentialities. The doctrine of the trinity posits the existence of 3 separate and distinct instantiations of God (the unmoved mover/being of pure act). However, these beings cannot exist coextensive with one another if indeed they are to be named the being of pure actuality. Either one is the ground and source of the others, in which case all members of the trinity are not God (the being of pure act), or there are no "others". In both instances the doctrine of the Trinity (3 beings = 1 being of pure act) is shown to be both logically and theologically untenable as per Aquinas' "first way". I believe this perhaps qualifies as an example of how the doctrine of the trinity might contradict a way Thomists, such as yourself, "know God".

Nearly everything you say there is correct, except that you make a mistake in equivocating on "being." You say each Person is a being, though this is not the case; properly speaking, no category of being can be applied to God except in an analogous sense. Thus, to say that each Person is a "being," but then to infer that the "being" known of by the First Way is meant equivocally, is mistaken. You're using "being" in two different senses but applying it in two different propositions as if it were one.

You'll note that I stated the following:

The doctrine of the trinity posits the existence of 3 separate and distinct instantiations of God (the unmoved mover/being of pure act).

In light of this statement, my usage of the term "being" seems, to me, quite consistent with the sense the term is employed per the "first way". With that said, you raise an interesting point. You claim that no category of being can be applied to God, yet it is obvious that the members of the trinity, by virtue of their personhood, possess a mind. Minds are clearly a category of being in the sense you wish to avoid. How then do you reconcile your claim that God is not a category of being while simultaneously attributing to God a mind possessing a category of being antithetical to the manner in which God is said to "be", per the first way? If you claim, that the mind of God is not a category of being ,but rather a sense of "being" known of by the "first way" , have you not yourself equivocated on the term "mind" in that you've attributed to mind a sense of being which is incongruous with the sense of being which describes the manner in which minds exist?