Spermatozoa reach the fallopian tube during ovulation by traveling through the female reproductive tract mucus. This non‐Newtonian viscoelastic medium facilitates spermatozoon movement to accomplish fertilization or, in some cases, blocks spermatozoon movement, leading to infertility. While rheological properties are known to affect spermatozoon motility with in vitro models using synthetic polymers, their precise effects in vivo are understudied. This paper reviews the rheological measurements of reproductive tract mucus during ovulation in humans and model animals, focusing on viscosity and its potential (...) effect on spermatozoa. Mucus viscosity in the female reproductive tract's different compartments is poorly understood. While information on this subject is incomplete, most mammals appear to have a viscosity decrease along their female reproductive tracts. Based on this sparse information, we hypothesize that viscosity changes in female reproductive tracts may guide spermatozoa to eggs, a novel concept that could improve our understanding of reproductive biology. (shrink)

BackgroundYouth are increasingly aware of the negative effects of climate change on the planet and human health, but this knowledge can often come with significant affective responses, such as psychological distress, anger, or despair. Experiencing major “negative” emotions, like worry, guilt, and hopelessness in anticipation of climate change has been identified with the term eco-anxiety. Emerging literature focuses on adults' experience; however, little is known about the ways in which children and youth experience eco-anxiety.ObjectivesThe aim of this review was to: (...) identify the available evidence on the topic of eco-anxiety in children, clarify the mental health consequences brought by the awareness of climate change in this population, and identify knowledge gaps in the literature and considerations for future research.MethodsGiven that the research on the topic of eco-anxiety in children is limited, that there are very few randomized controlled trials, and that the goal is not to analyze individual studies in-depth, a scoping review was used. Keywords pertaining to the themes of eco-anxiety, climate change and children were used as search terms in five databases. Journal articles using qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as gray literature were examined by two independent reviewers. A descriptive-analytical method was used to chart the data that emerged from the literature. Eighteen articles were considered in the final analysis.ResultsEvidence confirms that children experience affective responses and eco-anxiety in reaction to then awareness of climate change. Mental health outcomes include depression, anxiety, and extreme emotions like sadness, anger, and fear. Youth from vulnerable communities, like indigenous communities, or those who have strong ties to the land are often identified as being emotionally impacted by climate change. The literature analyzed also describes how children and youth are coping with eco-anxiety, including maladaptive and adaptive responses. Preliminary considerations for parents, teachers and educators, mental health care providers, school systems, adults and people of power include adding age-appropriate climate education to the school curriculum, considering youth's emotions, and promoting healthy coping through empowerment. Important gaps exist in the definition of eco-anxiety in youth, as various characterizations of this emerging concept are found across articles. (shrink)

Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain mundane instrumental actions (e.g., Neil believes the switch is connected to the light, so he flipped the switch to illuminate the room). Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain group affiliation or identity (e.g., in order to belong to the Christian Reformed Church Neil must believe that God is triune). If we set aside the commonality of the word "belief," we can pose a crucial question: Is the cognitive attitude typically involved in the first "light (...) switch" sort of case the same as the cognitive attitude typically involved in the second "Trinity" sort of case? Or: Is mundanely believing the same cognitive relation as groupishly believing? In this essay, I argue that the answer is no. Mundane Beliefs play their instrumental roles well if they are true, and their manner of processing is accordingly sensitive to evidence. Groupish Beliefs play their identity-constituting roles well if they are distinctive, and their manners of processing accordingly allow for and often support distortions of evidence and truth. The manners of processing are thus so different that--despite the common word "belief"--philosophy of mind and epistemology would do well to recognize distinct cognitive attitudes. (shrink)

Which Trinity? : the doctrine of the Trinity -- In contemporary philosophical theology -- Whose monotheism? : Jesus and his Abba -- Doctrine and analysis -- "Whoever raised Jesus from the dead" : Robert Jenson on the identity of the Triune God -- Moltmann's perichoresis : either too much or not enough -- "Eternal functional subordination" : considering a recent evangelical proposal -- Holy love and divine aseity in the theology of John Zizioulas -- Moving forward : theses (...) on the future of Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

There is a lively debate in contemporary Analytic Philosophy of Religion about the consistency of the Trinitarian doctrine. In this context, the notion of ‘mystery’ has become crucial. However, although it is currently considered the main challenge of Trinitarian theology, its definition remains rather partial and superficial. After a brief description of today’s Mysterianism, I analyse three ‘emblematic’ positions in light of the current debate: Aquinas, Leibniz and Hegel present three ways to believe in a mysterious Trinity. I will (...) point out a few possible weaknesses in the positions of the first two authors in order to better highlight the usefulness of the Hegelian position, often underestimated in the contemporary analytic debate. I will also analyse the connection between the three positions and their respective metaphysics, showing the epistemological premises (e.g., analogy and univocity) that need to be better investigated in the future. (shrink)

A number of thinkers today, including open theists, find reasons to attribute temporality to God. According to Robert W. Jenson, the Trinity is indispensable to a Christian concept of God, and divine temporality is essential to the meaning of the Trinity. Following the lead of early Christian thought, Jenson argues that the persons of the Trinity are relations, and these relations are temporal. Jenson’s insights are obscured, however, by problematic references to time as a sphere to which (...) God is related. Schubert M. Ogden gives the notion of divine temporality coherent content by arguing that God’s actuality is best understood as an unending succession of experiences. This paper was delivered in the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

It is difficult to reconcile claims about the Father's role as the progenitor of Trinitarian Persons with commitment to the equality of the persons, a problem that is especially acute for Social Trinitarians. I propose a metatheological account of the doctrine of the Trinity that facilitates the reconciliation of these two claims. On the proposed account, ‘Father’ is systematically ambiguous. Within economic contexts, those which characterize God's relation to the world, ‘Father’ refers to the First Person of the (...) class='Hi'>Trinity; within theological contexts, which purport to describe intra-Trinitarian relations, it refers to the Trinity in toto-thus in holding that the Son and Holy Spirit proceed from the Father we affirm that the Trinity is the source and unifying principle of Trinitarian Persons. While this account is solves a nagging problem for Social Trinitarians it is theologically minimalist to the extent that it is compatible with both Social Trinitarianism and Latin Trinitarianism, and with heterodox Modalist and Tri-theist doctrines as well. Its only theological cost is incompatibility with the Filioque Clause, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son—and arguably that may be a benefit. (shrink)

The article is devoted to almost unknown monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church, a Holy Trinity Zosimo-Savvatievskaya Novo-Solovetskaya Krasnokholmskaya poustinia that was one of the important pilgrimage places of the royal family in the 17th century. Despite the fact that the monastery was founded in the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, it is an important link in the historical and cultural development of our Fatherland, primarily because the extant architectural monuments of outstanding artistic qualities. That is why the architectural (...) ensemble of the monastery occupies a prominent place in the history of Russian culture. In addition, Novo-Solovetskaya poustinia is an important historical object providing data on the development of Russian spiritual and artistic culture of the late seventeenth century. The question of cultural-historical and social roles that Orthodox monasteries played in the history of Russia is still not sufficiently studied is. The modern development of the Russian state cannot be complete without the restoration of the positive legacy that has been lost in our culture and morality. In this regard, the study of development and formation of the Orthodox monastic culture may fill this gap. Historical development of the Zosimo-Savvatievskaya Novo-Solovetskaya Krasnokholmskaya poustinia, its architecture can contribute to the restoration of our historical memory, which is an important factor in the revival of our national identity. The author of the article also tells about the history of monastery in tough years of godless power and about the people, who died for their faith and who are called now the new martyrs. (shrink)

In this paper, I will offer an analogy between the Trinity and extended simples that supports a Latin approach to the Trinity. The theoretical tools developed to discuss and debate extended simples in the literature of contemporary analytic metaphysics, I argue, can help us make useful conceptual distinctions in attempts to understand what it could be for God to be Triune. Furthermore, the analogy between extended simples and the Trinity might surprise some who find one of these (...) at least plausibly possible and the other incoherent. (shrink)

Reprinted in Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity, Oxford, 2009, eds Michael Rea and Thomas McCall. In this essay, I assess a certain version of ’social Trinitarianism’ put forward by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, ’trinity monotheism’. I first show how their response to a familiar anti-Trinitarian argument arguably implies polytheism. I then show how they invoke three tenets central to their trinity monotheism in order to avoid that implication. After displaying these tenets more (...) fully, I argue that Trinitarians would do well to hold Moreland’s and Craig’s trinity monotheism at arms length. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, with special attention to the most influential solutions to the so-called "threeness-oneness problem".

This 9,000+ word entry briefly assesses five models of the Trinity, those espoused by (i) Richard Swinburne, (ii) William Lane Craig, (iii) Brian Leftow, (iv) Jeff Brower and Michael Rea, and (v) Peter van Inwagen.

Tao and Trinity treats the Trinity as a philosophical notion coming to birth in Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Plato. All three attempt to treat the idea of an absolute source or unity of all things, and are driven in the direction of a first principle which is an instance of itself, an identity and a contradiction at once. The Trinity later on in Aquinas is also such a principle, one characteristically Western, with consequences for art and metaphor, image (...) and symbol, comedy, tragedy, and religion. The consideration of Aquinas forces a rewriting of the history of Western philosophy from Parmenides to Heidegger, Whitehead, and Derrida. The Tao is an Eastern version of such a principle - less dependent on dialectic, reason, logic, hierarchy, and more on nature, mysticism, and transcendence."--Back cover. (shrink)

The problem of the Trinity is often framed as a paradox between some propositions central to the doctrine of the Trinity that seem to be logically in tension with each other. However, a problem of Paradox presupposes that we have a sufficient understanding of the meanings of the propositions (otherwise we wouldn’t even have any appearance of conflict between these meanings). My claim in this paper is that the main problem of the Trinity is more radical than (...) a problem of Paradox: it’s rather a problem of Meaninglessness, in the sense that the difficult challenge is to grasp a meaning for the central propositions of the doctrine (not to render logically compatible some meanings clearly grasped). I show how we can respond to the problem of Meaninglessness and how, once we have solved it, there is no need to try and dissolve the appearance of contradiction which constitutes the problem of Paradox. As far as the problem of Paradox goes, the solution adopted here is therefore a form of Mysterianism. (shrink)

Traditionally it has been presumed that the knowledge of God’s triune nature could be derived only from positive Biblical revelation. However, the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the universal possibility of true salvific faith implies that supernatural revelation also occurs outside Christianity. Karl Rahner’s explanation of the meaning of the Trinity as “concrete monotheism” raises the possibility of an implicit knowledge of God’s self-revelation as “Word” and “Spirit” in the experience of grace and its formulation in the categories of (...) the other world religions. (shrink)

SUMMARYSchleiermacher's doctrine of the Trinity is constituted not only by his Glaubenslehre but also in Über den Gegensatz zwischen der Sabellianischen und der Athanasianischen Vorstellung von der Trinität . Schleiermacher can be seen to construe the persons of the Trinity as the circumscription of divinity. This point leads to consideration of divine wisdom as the ground of both the immanent and economic Trinity.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Rationally Accessible? A Priori Arguments for Trinitarian Theism Revelation‐based Arguments for the Trinity Arguments in Favour of the Social Analogy Arguments Against the Social Analogy The Social Trinity and Tritheism.

Kortum summarizes his own argument as follows: (1) Without thought, one cannot intentionally create anything. (2) Without language, one cannot have higher-order thoughts. (3) Without others, one cannot have a language. (4) Before the physical universe existed, God was alone and without others. (5) Therefore (by steps 3 and 4), God could not have had a language. Thus (by steps 2, 3 and 4), God could not have had any higher-order thoughts. And so, ultimately (by steps 1, 2, 3, and (...) 4), God could not have intentionally created the physical universe. In this essay, I challenge Kortum’s conclusion. Although I have little doubt that other responses are readily available to those who believe in intelligent design, in what follows I argue that the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity (or at least one version of it) provides the resources to block his argument. His argument might work against other versions of monotheism; by it he might be able to show that the notion of a solitary and. (shrink)

The studies on the history of the notion of “personhood” have largely recognized that Christian thought had a central role in the development and significance of this concept throughout the history of Western civilization. In late antiquity, Christianity used some terms taken from the classic and Hellenistic vocabulary in order to express its own theological content. This operation generated a “crisis” of classical language, namely a semantic transformation in the attempt to address some aspects of reality which were not envisioned (...) by the previous usage of these words. The term person is a paradigmatic example of this process. In fact, from the outset, it played a strategic role in formulating the idea of Incarnation, one of the central doctrines of Christianity. This essay aims to show how, during the first centuries of Christianity, the terms commonly used in order to express the notion of “personhood” became pivotal elements for the formulation of the discourse about the Trinity and progressively acquired new meanings. The analysis focuses only on the initial stage of the elaboration of this concept in Christianity and, based on some of the most significant texts, tries to bring out a series of theoretical problems that may be useful to understand the subsequent debate. In order to do so, the author divides the text in two parts. In the first one, he analyses two features strictly connected to the theological use of the term “persona”, which remained central also when this term was later referred to man. These features are individuality and ontological stability, along with the structurally relational status of personhood. In the second part, the author offers more details about the theology of the Cappadocian Fathers, in particular of Basil of Caesarea, and analyses two sectorial languages—mathematical and iconic language—used by Basil in order to describe the intra-trinitarian relationships. (shrink)

Prima facie, relative identity looks like a perfect fit for the doctrine of the Trinity since it allows us to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of which is a Trinitarian Person, are the same God but not the same Person. Nevertheless, relative identity solutions to logic puzzles concerning the doctrine of the Trinity have not, in recent years, been much pursued. Critics worry that relative identity accounts are unintuitive, uninformative or unintelligible. I suggest that (...) the relative identity account is worth a second look and argue that it provides a coherent account of the doctrine of the Trinity. (shrink)

Trinity, freedom and dialogue not only represent three themes of Nicholas Cusanus' thought, but provide a possible hermeneutic key to reading his work and understanding his philosophy. Through a historico-philological and theoretico-speculative investigation, an attempt is made to investigate Cusanus' complex reflection on the One and his reflections on the concept of man and religion. If Cusanus has collated Platonic and Neoplatonic reflection, in particular from Plato, Proclus and Dionysius, he managed at the same time to direct their teachings (...) towards the Trinity. In his last works he reformulates his theory of the First Principle by endeavouring to thematize and give greater emphasise to the freedom of the One. But if freedom denote divine acting, it cannot but imprint also the being of his image, that is to say of man, whose mind is defined as viva imago Dei. Only by starting out from these presuppositions can the dialogical perspective be understood that he elaborated as response to the burning issue then current in his day of encounter, namely the meeting and clashing among the different cultures and religions. At the bloody conquest of Constantinople at the hands of the Turkish army (1453), just at the moment when all Europe was crying out for a recourse to arms and a crusade, the German philosopher and cardinal laid aside the merely denigratory and condemnatory designs against Islam in an attempt to make Christians realise that by putting faith in the one God there existed scope for possible mutual understanding and communion, that was essential for embarking on the way towards peace. (shrink)

The paper argues that Sergej Bulgakov's sophiology was an attempt, via antinomism or the philosophy of antinomies, to overcome the rationalism, monism, and determinism (in a word, "pantheism") of Vladimir Solov'ëv's philosophy of the Absolute understood as an abstract Trinitarianism. After detailing Solov'ëv's thought on the Trinity and Bulgakov's criticisms of it, the study then describes Bulgakov's antinomism and its application to the doctrine of God. However, it is contended that Bulgakov's antinomism ultimately falls into the same problems with (...) pantheism found in Solov'ëv and so the last part of the paper tentatively proposes resources in his work, stated in the form of a suggested "fourth (Bulgakovian) antinomy" between ousia (divine Being as such) and Sophia (the revelation in God and the world of the divine Being), that might help to avoid a collapse of God and the world by making the divine Being proper utterly transcendent and unknowable. (shrink)

If God’s choice to create the universe is an unnecessary choice, then, Oppy argues, something contingent is ultimately at the origin of the universe, and as long as “brute contingency” is the basis for the universe’s existence, why bother with the additional postulate of a necessary being? Bergson’s work on free will, however, coupled with traditional trinitarian theology, suggests that it is more rationally satisfying, and certainly more in keeping with a viable principle of sufficient reason, to stop searching for (...) causes/explanations at the free choice of the Christian God instead of at the universe itself. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Trinity developed in response to a range of theological interests, among them the project of reconciling claims about the divinity of Christ with monotheism and massaging Christian doctrine into the ambient (largely Platonic) philosophical framework of the period. More recently the Trinity doctrine has been deployed to promote normative claims concerning human nature, human relationships and social justice. During the past two decades analytic philosophers of religion have increasingly engaged with the doctrine. There are, (...) however, a number of foundational questions that have not been addressed in the philosophical literature. The Trinity: A Philosophical Investigation considers the competing accounts of the Trinity doctrine, whether orthodox or heterodox, and aims to respond to objections and explicate their motivations and entailments. (shrink)

In the following paragraphs, I will describe ten strategies through which we can show the weaknesses of every form of theism based on the "One God", while postulating that the Trinity is a good solution. This approach follows up on Swinburne’s claims about the existence of a priori and a posteriori proofs for the existence of the Trinity (his proofs are part of the sixth strategy). Clearly, these strategies are not “new”: they have been advocated by many thinkers (...) in the past and in the present. I merely revived them, and brought them together in a kind of cumulative reasoning: the strength of them arises when these strategies are considered together, showing that the Trinity is a reasonable hypothesis even though it is contradictory. The proposed strategies lead to the conclusion that there must exist in God something similar to what we call ‘real relations’ and ‘multiplicity’; and in order for God to be relational, there must exist in Him some “distincts” that relate to one another. This is postulated by philosophical reasoning, not just by Revelation, and regardless of the choice to support a process metaphysics. As Trinitarian theology contains the mystery of eternal generation, the strategies do account for the fact that in philosophy we contemplate the mystery of eternal self-distinction and of all the other ‘self-actions’ of the One. The eternal generation remains mysterious, but it is the idea that best helps us describe how God is (One and Triune) and how he creates the world. God must be Triune in every theistic system. The One God is, as One, also Triune. The Unity-Trinity of the Principle is the only apophatic point that we can reach from many quarters. Once autonomous paths of reason have established that God is a Person and Persons, One-Multiple, Creator (communicated), Free, Relational and Infinite possibility, it therefore emerges that our most reliable hypothesis is that of the Trinitarian God. (shrink)

This paper develops an interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, drawn from Augustine and the Athanasian Creed. Such a doctrine includes divinity claims (the persons are divine), diversity claims (the persons are distinct), and a uniqueness claim (there is only one God). I propose and defend an interpretation of these theses according to which they are neither logically incompatible nor do they do entail that there are three (or four) gods.

This book recounts the remarkable history of efforts by significant medieval thinkers to accommodate the ontology of the Trinity within the framework of Aristotelian logic and ontology. These efforts were remarkable because they pushed creatively beyond the boundaries of existing thought while trying to strike a balance between the Church's traditional teachings and theoretical rigor in a context of institutional politics. In some cases, good theology, good philosophy, and good politics turned out to be three different things. The principal (...) thinkers discussed are Augustine, Boethius, Abélard, Gilbert of Poitiers, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. The aspects of Trinitarian doctrine dealt with are primarily internal ontological questions about the Trinity. The approach draws on history of theology and philosophy, as well as on the modern formal disciplines of set-theoretic semantics and formal ontology. Augustine inaugurated the project of constructing models of the Trinity in language drawn from Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, especially the conceptual framework of Aristotle's Categories. He used the Aristotelian notions of substance and relation to set up a model whose aim was not so much to demystify the Trinity as to demonstrate the logical consistency of maintaining that there is one and only one God at the same time as maintaining that there are three distinct persons, each of whom is God. Standing against this tradition are various heretical accounts of the Trinity. The book also analyzes these traditions, using the same techniques. All these accounts of the Trinity are evaluated relative to the three constraints under which they were formed, bearing in mind that the constraints on philosophical theorizing are not limited to internal consistency but also take note of explanatory power. Besides analyzing and evaluating individual accounts of the Trinity, the book provides a novel framework within which different theories can be compared. (shrink)

An appropriate motto for Augustine's great work On the Trinity is 'faith in search of understanding'. In this treatise Augustine offers a part-theological, part-philosophical account of how God might be understood in analogy to the human mind. On the Trinity can be fairly described as the first modern philosophy of mind: it is the first work in philosophy to recognize the 'problem of other minds', and the first to offer the 'argument from analogy' as a response to that (...) problem. Other subjects that it discusses include the nature of the mind and the nature of the body, the doctrine of 'illumination', and thinking as inner speech. This volume presents the philosophical section of the work, and in a historical and philosophical introduction Gareth Matthews places Augustine's arguments in context and assesses their influence on later thinkers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Trinity by Thomas Joseph White, O.P.:A Model of Living ThomismSerge-Thomas Bonino O.P."The human being naturally seeks wisdom." From the very first line of the magisterial work we are dealing with, Fr. Thomas Joseph White's 2022 The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God, it is all about wisdom. Wisdom was already at the heart of a previous work by Fr. White devoted to (...) the natural theology of St. Thomas, his 2009 Wisdom in the Face of Modernity. Wisdom is more than the accumulation of information or the juxtaposition of knowledge. It is an eminent form of knowledge that, on the one hand, involves the person of the thinker in all its dimensions, intellectual, emotional, existential, and on the other, seeks to understand its object in the light of the most fundamental causes, which are simultaneously the most enlightening and explanatory principles because they are the most universal. The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God is undoubtedly a work of wisdom. Fr. White grasps the entire Christian mystery from its Trinitarian source, since, as we shall see, the entire Mystery (in the Pauline sense of the economy of salvation in Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Father's benevolent purpose) is at the same time rooted in the eternal mystery of the triune God and makes it known to us as it unfolds its truth and saving power in time.But the sapiential nature of the object studied has some effect on the form of the work itself. Indeed, if Fr. White were not Rector Magnificent of the Angelicum, he would be a magnificent architect, because he possesses a sense of order to the highest degree and knows how to introduce unity in diversity. The presentation of The Trinity is perfectly structured, and therefore very [End Page 461] clear and didactic. Among many other factors that create its unity, I was especially interested in the highlighting of what the philosopher André de Muralt calls "structures of thought": similarities of proportionality between the ways in which authors from even very different theological epochs have treated a problem.1 I am thinking for instance of how Fr. White shows the strong structural similarities between contemporary Trinitarian theologies and the three types of medieval Trinitarian theology (the Franciscan, the Thomist, and the Nominalist). "My claim here is that the modern Trinitarian tradition tends to reproduce various elements of the medieval traditions, … albeit in creative and unexpected ways" (399). So it is a conceptually well-unified work, and where there is unity, there is being, goodness and beauty.The introduction, as I said, is placed under the sign of wisdom. Fr. White takes up there the neo-Scholastic theme of the "three wisdoms": philosophical wisdom, theological wisdom, and mystical wisdom.2 The book's perspective is explicitly that of theological wisdom, as a scientific form of the intelligence of faith, but (we shall return to this point in connection with the place given to philosophy) it puts into practice in an exemplary manner the collaboration, without confusion or separation, between the three wisdoms.3My purpose, of course, is not, nor can it be, to "summarize" the contents of a book of more than seven hundred pages, which manages to be both a comprehensive handbook for higher theological education and a true personal theological essay. I will therefore limit myself to highlighting three partial but significant aspects.(1) The first is the explicit and overt Thomistic character of the book (see 6–7). The Trinity is in fact a vibrant plea in favor of the relevance of the theology of St. Thomas, as indicated by the very last sentence:The Church today can and should still have recourse to the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and to the living Thomistic tradition, as a privileged means of interpreting and advancing her own understanding of the mystery of God.(690) [End Page 462]The Trinity is the demonstration in actu exercito of the truth of this concluding statement. I therefore propose to reflect, in the first part of my paper, on the nature of Fr. White's Thomism, which depends, as we... (shrink)

Theistic religions differ in their conceptions of the nature of God. One philosophical-theological position, the Christian Trinity, stands out as unique amongst theistic religions. If such a position were demonstrated, it would significantly narrow the philosophical-theological gap in discussions of God’s nature. I proposed that such an argument in favor of the Christian Trinity can be found in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. It is argued that language is an essentially social phenomenon and that God is a language user (...) requiring God to be an essentially social being. As a result, either polytheism or the Christian Trinity is true. I argue that this divine social nature is best explained by the Christian Trinity. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Trinity poses a deep and difficult problem. On the one hand, it says that there are three distinct Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and that each of these Persons “is God”. On the other hand, it says that there is one and only one God. So it appears to involve a contradiction. It seems to say that there is exactly one divine being, and also that there is more than one. How are we to make sense (...) of this? (shrink)

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity requires the joint truth of the statements that there is a unique and simple God, and that there are three distinct Persons each of which is God. Saint Augustine posed the question what entities would have to exist, and how would they have to be related, in order for this doctrine to be internally consistent. The present book examines the attempts by ten leading philosophers (Augustine himself, Boethius, Abelard, Gilbert, Lombard, Bonaventure, Albert, Aquinas, (...) Scotus and Ockham) to answer Augustine's question. Subsidiary questions include the nature of divine simplicity, the divine perfections, the personal relations and their associated properties, and the interrelation between the abstract and the concrete within the Godhead. Each one of the historical theories of the Trinity is presented as a semantic model postulating a domain that, as needed, comprises a number of substances and non-substances. In each case, the theory's terms (e.g. the names of the Persons, and of the divine perfections, etc.) are assigned to elements in the domain. The elements to which the names apply essentially are designated as such. As needed, the abstracts of the names are also assigned elements in the domain. Various pairs of elements in the domain are connected as correlatives, or as abstract and concrete, or by way of substantial predication. These models allow for comparisons between different theories, and provide a means of checking a theory's consistency. (shrink)

The Trinity. This chapter examines Abelard’s first major writing about the divine Trinity, the Theologia ‘Summi boni’, written in 1119–20 and condemned as expounding heresy at the Council of Soissons in 1121. Abelard emphasizes the capacity of pagan philosophers to gain insight into the supreme good as much as prophets of the Old Testament. He applies his theory of language to words used about God to explain how Christians can speak of three divine persons as names given to (...) signify different attributes of God, namely his power, wisdom and goodness. (shrink)

Dale Tuggy argues that my trinitarian views are in conflict with the theology of the New Testament; the New Testament, rather, is unitarian. I show several flaws in this argument, and point out the New Testament evidence that eventually led to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Clausewitz's ?remarkable trinity? has long been a touchstone for discourse on the military's strategic position relative to other essential elements of Western society. Similarly, the just war tradition has long been a touchstone for moral discourse on war. Although these touchstones represent two intellectual traditions which may appear to have little or nothing in common, the 21st-century strategist or policymaker must take into account the imperatives of both traditions. This is so because, in the Information Age, public reactions to (...) perceived moral shortcomings associated with the decision to go to war, or with perceived moral lapses on the battlefield, can significantly disrupt the balance which the ?remarkable trinity? requires. Accordingly, this study takes as its task to propose a model which accommodates the concerns of both traditions. It first examines both formulations of Clausewitz's ?remarkable trinity? and then proposes a revised model of the ?remarkable trinity? which accommodates just war concerns. It concludes with some reflections on contemporary applications of the model, especially as it relates to the instruments of national power. (shrink)

Moore, Gerard Review(s) of: The trinity: Insights from the mystics, by Anne Hunt, A Michael Glazier Book, Collegeville: Liturgical Press. 2010, pp.190, ISBN 9780814656921, $37.95.

I reconsider in this article the problem of the Holy Trinity from the standpoint of some recent theories of the ontology of relations. After having presented the problem and after having introduced some basic ontological concepts, I shall briefly dwell on the ontology of non-symmetrical relations and on the O-Roles theory suggested by Francesco Orilia. Afterwards, I shall develop my own solution to the problem of the Holy Trinity by exploring the status of Intratrinitarian relations and of divine (...) Persons. Among other things, I shall defend the thesis that divine Persons are not substances, but peculiar modes of God. I shall also ground the distinction between the properties attributed to God himself and the ones attributed to specific divine Persons. Finally, I shall anticipate and face some objections against my account and argue that it is legitimate to maintain that there is no kind of persons in general—which is a consequence of my view. (shrink)

Nicholas of Cusa (1402-1464) explored the boundaries of human reason for the sake of making religious belief believable. Unwillingly, he became a milestone in the process of rationalizing Christian theology. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) is a proof to this perspective by the way he makes use of Cusanus’s approach. In his ’Spaccio de la bestia trionfante’, Bruno discusses Cusanus’s attempts at the geometrical problem of squaring the circle. Bruno not only promotes his atomistic geometry, he also uses the metaphoric meaning of (...) triangle for Trinity as an occasion to supplant ’faith’ with ’sincerity’. For Bruno faith is not anymore the true belief of religion, but rather ’good faith’ and fidelity, i.e., social and political virtues. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aquinas’ account of analogy provides resources for resolving the prima facie conflict between his claims that (1) the divine relations constituting the persons are “one and the same” with the divine essence; (2) the divine persons are really distinct, (3) the divine essence is absolutely simple. Specifically, I argue that Aquinas adopts an analogical understanding of the concepts of being and unity, and that these concepts are implicit in his formulation of claims about substance (...) and relation in the Trinity. I then show how Aquinas appeals to key structural features of analogical concepts, notably, the simpliciter/secundum quid characterization, to resolve apparent conflicts between the unity of substance and distinction of relations in the Trinity. (shrink)