This paper is a reflection on two ontological analogies that have played a role in discussion about the Trinity---the Modalist and Social analogies. I argue that the Modal analogy commits one to a view of the divine persons that comports poorly with Scripture. I then consider two arguments to the effect that the doctrine of the Trinity commits one to tritheism. I argue that the Social analogy contains better resources for handling these arguments than the more traditional position, which (...) involves denying that the divine persons are substances. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the social trinitarian account in Richard Swinburne's "The Christian God." After setting out the route Swinburne follows in reaching his conclusions about the Godhead, I endeavour to show two things: (i) that his account does not avoid the charge of tritheism and thus is not faithful to key elements in the Christian creeds; (ii) the philosophical moves behind his conclusions are not compelling if, as we can, we challenge his assumptions about divine necessity. (...) A better account of divine necessity takes us away from Swinburne's version of trinitarianism/tritheism. (shrink)

The Tritheism of the sixth century has not been widely studied. John Philoponus, the greatest exponent of the theory, developed the idea by applying Aristotelian realism to the doctrine of the Trinity and concluded that in the Trinity there are three hypostases and three natures, whence comes the name for those who hold this position: “Tri-theists,” since they divide the one nature and substance of God into three. This article sheds light on the earliest stage of the development of (...) Tritheism beginning in the year 557, when we can date the first appearance of John Askotzanges in the sources, and goes up until the first Syndocticon, the agreement reached between the Tritheists and the Theodosians at Constantinople in the beginning of the year 567. After the death of Theodosius in 566, Tritheism no longer remained merely a local reality in Constantinople but spilled over the confines of the Imperial capital and spread throughout the East, especially in Egypt. (shrink)

Today's conflicts between religions are grounded largely in historical injustices and grievances but partly in serious conceptual disagreements. This essay agrees with Miroslav Volf that a nontritheistic Christian account of the Trinity is highly desirable. Three traditional models of the Trinity are examined. In their pure, unmixed form, two of them should logically be acceptable to Jews, Muslims, and strict monotheists who regard Christianity as inherently tritheistic, despite lip service to one God. In the social model, three distinct self-aware subjects (...) are unified by being in perfect harmony with each other. Despite Volf's best defense of this, to conceive of three gods, this is how one would go about it. In the psychological model, one divine subject has three psychological capacities—memory, understanding, and will. In the functional model, one subject relates to the world in three different ways—as creator, redeemer, and companion. These two are genuinely monotheistic. Finally, a monotheistic account of the unity of Jesus with God is proposed for consideration. (shrink)

This book assembles the evidence for what the Greek Fathers, the men whose contructive thought underlies the creeds, really thought and taught about the nature of God. It shows that they were original thinkers, with a profound reverence for the text of the Scriptures, and minds keenly tranined to discuss what ultimate truths were expressed in the scriptural text and what reality should be ascribed to Christian religious experience. The results indicate that a good deal which is assumed in current (...) theological text-books needs to be revised. The Fathers had to reconcile monotheism with faith in a Trinity of divine Persons. In the process, they pursued many lines of inquiry, often only to discard them after trial, but after following various clues and making various intellectual adventures they reached a solution of the problem, which was both true to their data and philosophically reasonable. Though the bulk of the book is concerned with the third and fourth centuries, during which the creeds were in the process of formulation, the story is carried down to the eighth century where the progress of original thought came to a standstill. It is shown that a great change came over the philosophical tradition during the sixth century, and owing to the consequent growth of formalism, a genuine outbreak of tritheism occurred. The book ends with the account of how this outbreak was met and overcome, largely through the efforts of a thinker whose very name is unknown, and whose book has only survived under the name of another man. (shrink)

Anselm examines and defends the doctrine of the Trinity in three works, the ’Monologion’, ’On the Incarnation of the Word’, and ’On the Procession of the Holy Spirit’. Using the ’Monologion’ as a base, this essay connects Anselm’s doctrine of God’s metaphysical simplicity to his Trinitarian views. Anselm is concerned to avoid the heresies of Arianism, tritheism, and modalism. Because he regards the doctrine as transcending the powers of human reason and thus incapable of being proved, his argumentation proceeds (...) by adopting the analogies of memory, understanding, and will used earlier by Augustine, and by modifying Augustine’s analogy of water as headwaters, river, and drinking water. (shrink)

The Latin Trinity (LT) and the Social Trinity (ST) represent the two dominant approaches for interpreting the doctrine of the Trinity in contemporary philosophical theology. Both approaches have consequences for Christian theology, however, and I believe that neither sufficiently overcomes the charges of modalism or tritheism, respectively. Moreover, the charge of the overall logical incoherency of the doctrine of the Trinity remains a viable criticism. In order to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against charges of incoherency, while avoiding (...) the modalistic and tritheistic leanings of the LT and ST models, I argue that the unitary nature of God‐as‐three‐hypostases is best understood in terms of a relationship of supervenience between the revelation of (1) Deut. 6:4 and (2) the Gospel of John. The Hypostases of the Trinity supervene on the unitary identity of God insofar as to be ‘God’ is to entail the perichoretic relationship of unbegottenness, begottenness, and spiratation (procession). The Supervenient Trinity (SvT), as an analogical model, provides a way to understand God as (1) and (2) that better avoids the modalist and tritheistic difficulties raised by the LT and the ST approaches. (shrink)

The Latin Trinity and the Social Trinity represent the two dominant approaches for interpreting the doctrine of the Trinity in contemporary philosophical theology. Both approaches have consequences for Christian theology, however, and I believe that neither sufficiently overcomes the charges of modalism or tritheism, respectively. Moreover, the charge of the overall logical incoherency of the doctrine of the Trinity remains a viable criticism. In order to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against charges of incoherency, while avoiding the modalistic (...) and tritheistic leanings of the LT and ST models, I argue that the unitary nature of God-as-three-hypostases is best understood in terms of a relationship of supervenience between the revelation of Deut. 6:4 and the Gospel of John. The Hypostases of the Trinity supervene on the unitary identity of God insofar as to be ‘God’ is to entail the perichoretic relationship of unbegottenness, begottenness, and spiratation. The Supervenient Trinity, as an analogical model, provides a way to understand God as and that better avoids the modalist and tritheistic difficulties raised by the LT and the ST approaches. (shrink)

Joachim of Fiore accused Peter Lombard of the "quaternary" heresy only to be later himself condemned for tritheism at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 A.D.). The Abbot's error was to affirm the trinitary unity by means of the collective. The historiography still sustains the hypothesis that this error originated in the heretical doctrine of Gilbert de la Porée. However it is difficult to keep such hypothesis when we relate the Abbot of Fiore and the Abbot of Clairvaux. Also difficult (...) will be to persevere accepting as equivocated the affirmation of such Trinitarian unity. What is more, even if part of the problem can be solved by relating both abbots, it is necessary to understand that the mystical way proposed by each of them is quite different. One follows the way of knowledge and of the collective spiritual ascension while the other follows the way of the will and of individual ecstasy. (shrink)

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.

These papers, arising from a 1983 conference on one of the last and most acute Neoplatonist commentators on Aristotle, a Christian later condemned for his monophysitism and tritheism, focus on the arguments in which he objects to tenets of Aristotle's philosophy of nature, notably on the eternity of the world and the natures of place and projectile motion.