The Trinity: A Philosophical Investigation

By H. E. Baber

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SCM Press
• Release date: Feb 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780334057277

Book preview

Introduction

Philosophical theology studies the machinery of religious doctrines and the logical problems they involve, including those posed by the doctrine of the Trinity. These puzzles are of interest whether the doctrines under examination are true or false. Philosophical engagement with them does not presuppose any commitment to their truth, any more than does engagement with the work of contemporary philosophers on other topics or works that constitute the philosophical canon.

The current study is a philosophical investigation of the Trinity doctrine. It does not address the question of whether the doctrine of the Trinity, however it may be understood, is true or the more fundamental question of whether God exists. And it is not concerned with the epistemology of religious belief. It is an investigation of the Christian doctrine that God is a Trinity of Persons, an inquiry which is of philosophical interest regardless of whether the doctrine, on any interpretation, is true, but which is for those of us who are Christians an exercise in faith seeking understanding.

Philosophical Theology and Religious Studies

Between philosophers who do philosophical theology and their counterparts in religious studies and related disciplines a great gulf is fixed. William Wainwright, in his contribution to a discussion between scholars in the American Philosophical Association, philosophers’ primary professional society, and the American Academy of Religion, which caters for scholars in religious studies and related disciplines, observes that members of the APA and AAR rarely engage professionally with the same literature, or with one another and, to a great extent, begin with radically different assumptions. ‘Most APA philosophers of religion’, he notes, ‘are theists or (if they are not) take only theism seriously. It seems fair to say that the proportion of philosophers of religion who are theists is much smaller in the AAR than in the APA’.¹

Religious Studies

Academia is, by and large, dismissive of religion and hostile to it. Among faculty in every discipline, religious belief is an anomaly and something of an embarrassment. Wainwright notes, however, that this ‘doesn’t explain why departments of religion should be more hostile to open espousals of theism than to open espousals of, say, Buddhism. Nor does it explain why departments of philosophy should be less hostile to evangelicals and other traditional theists than departments of religious studies are.’²

Wainwright suggests that the chief bone of contention is, perhaps, religious studies scholars’ assumption of what he calls ‘interpretation universalism’, according to which ‘everything is interpretation. Things exist and are as they are only relative to one or another of our conceptual schemes’.³ William Wood, reflecting on ‘the New Analytic Theology’ practiced in philosophy departments concurs:

The difference between metaphysical realism, favored by analytic philosophers of religion, and Kantian interpretation universalism, favored by theologians and continental philosophers, is absolutely crucial. It marks the single most important division between the two camps. Indeed, in my experience, across the rest of the humanities—and definitely including practitioners of religious studies—assertions that Kant was mostly wrong, that interpretation universalism is mostly false, and that metaphysical realism is mostly true tend to be met with a reaction that goes beyond mere disbelief. Outside of philosophy departments, those statements earn incredulous stares.⁴

In departments of religious studies relativism is the working hypothesis; in philosophy departments, most of which are dominated by analytic philosophers, the assumption is that one can distinguish true from false propositions in a principled and ‘objective’ way. Religious studies scholars suspect analytic philosophers of naiveté, for failing to recognize Kant’s critical insights and for what they take to be our uncritical, conservative dogmatism. Reflecting on ‘the New Analytic Theology’ William Wood remarks: ‘Most scholars working in the religious studies academy have little use for analytic philosophy . . . [and many] believe that analytic philosophy is merely a stalking horse for oppressive and antiquated forms of traditional Christianity.’⁵

In addition, while philosophers of religion deal with metaphysical issues concerning the objects of religious belief, religious studies scholars focus on the human subject and the human phenomenon of ‘religion’, understood as a complex set of practices, texts, myths, social relations and psychological attitudes. Imbued with the deep anti-metaphysical bias of post-Kantian continental philosophy, they prefer to regard their academic discipline as a social science or a humanities discipline concerned with the interpretation of Text, that has import for ethical reflection, social critique, and political engagement. Some, indeed, regard theology, insofar as it has traditionally been understood to be a sub-species of metaphysics, as suspect. Woods remarks on ‘the endless pearl-clutching debates in departments of religion about whether allowing theology into the academy will somehow eviscerate the study of religion as a legitimate human science.’⁶

This worry is unfounded. Taking the content of work in an academic discipline seriously does not preclude investigation into the history or culture of the discipline. Doing science or, as a philosopher of science, reflecting on the foundations, methods, and implications of science and the reliability of scientific theories, does not preclude investigations in the history of science or the study of working scientists’ culture. And taking theology seriously, investigating the content of religious believers’ commitments and the cogency of arguments for theological claims, does not undermine the project of religious studies scholars who understand their discipline as a social science. Historically, however, many social scientists have been dismissive of religious belief and have taken Weber’s secularization thesis to be the fundamental theorem of sociology. And religious studies scholars, as Wainwright suggests, are often remarkably hostile to religion – and to philosophical theology.

A member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at my university explained the odium of theology to me. She informed me that the ‘theological’ component of the departmental designation was a holdover from the dark days when the University of San Diego was a ‘diddly-shit Catholic college’ dominated by conservative clergy and their fellow-travelers. And that it was only after the university was upgraded and her department was able to hire some academically respectable faculty that they managed to slip in the ‘religious studies’ tag.

Theology, she explained, was essentially catechism: the uncritical exposition of dogma—rigidly orthodox, uncompromisingly conservative, and outdated. Religious studies, on the other hand, was a social science: the investigation of religious beliefs and behaviors from an historical and cross-cultural perspective. Theology was dogmatic and religiously committed; religious studies was not. In this last respect, I discovered, her view of things was not idiosyncratic but was, indeed, echoed by the Wikipedian account:

The [religious studies] scholar need not be a believer. Theology stands in contrast to . . . religious studies in that, generally . . . [the theologian] is first and foremost a believer employing both logic and scripture as evidence. Theology according to this understanding fits with the definition which Anselm of Canterbury gave to it in the 11th century, credo ut intelligam, or faith seeking understanding (literally, I believe so that I may understand). The theologian then has the task of making intelligible, or clarifying, the religious commitments to which he or she subscribes. The scholar of religious studies has no such allegiances.⁷

William Hasker, on the philosophical side of the gulf, agrees:

Establishing the foundations for the doctrine of the Trinity is a monumental task. Central to this task is the revelation, or what is taken to be the revelation, of God in Jesus of Nazareth . . . anyone who does not believe that such a revelation occurred has no need to concern herself with the doctrine of the Trinity, unless for the purpose of refutation, or perhaps with a purely historical interest.⁸

This is false. Believers perhaps need to concern themselves with theology, including the doctrine of the Trinity, but theological doctrines are also of interest to unbelievers and not merely for the purpose of refutation or for purely historical purposes. The assumption that theology is, necessarily, a reflection on the practitioner’s faith commitment mirrors the popular assumption that the study of philosophy is a quest for ‘a philosophy’, for a system of profound truths about the universe and wisdom about how to live well. Many analytic philosophers engaged in the work of philosophical theology would disagree. While the quest for wisdom and fundamental truths about the universe is perhaps important, our aspirations as analytic philosophers are more modest. We rarely concern ourselves with the truth of contested philosophical assumptions. Rather, we try to work out the implications of those assumptions—both those to which we ourselves subscribe and those we reject. While, as human beings, we may be interested in questions of how to live, as philosophers we are interested in logic puzzles and arguments.

Doing Philosophy

Philosophical theology studies the machinery of religious doctrines and the logical problems they involve, including the those posed by the doctrine of the Trinity. These puzzles are of interest whether the doctrines under examination are true or false. Philosophical engagement with them does not presuppose any commitment to their truth, any more than does engagement with the work of contemporary philosophers on other topics or works that constitute the philosophical canon.

In doing philosophy, we regularly engage professionally, both as scholars and as teachers, with philosophical doctrines that we do not believe. When we teach history of philosophy we navigate the intricacies of philosophical systems with which we have little intellectual sympathy. All of us who are charged with teaching extend ourselves to make sense of and, for pedagogical purposes, defend philosophical doctrines that we regard as patently false but interesting. Few of us endorse Descartes’ dualistic ontology or epistemological foundationalism but we engage with Descartes, and teach Descartes, doing what we can to present his views in the most plausible way because Descartes is fresh, wonderful, and interesting, because his arguments are exciting and challenging, and because he is very smart. Virtually none of us are Berkeleian idealists but we love teaching Berkeley because he is a brilliant, mad Irishman who contrives wonderful arguments in support of (prima facie!) crazy conclusions.

We love Descartes, Berkeley, and the whole lot of those smart philosophers, our forebears, even though we do not believe them. We investigate the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas, the Continental Rationalists, the British Empiricists, and Kant because we want to understand how their systems work, to crank the wheels and see which gears engage. And, if we are in the business of rational reconstruction, as most of us are, we tune up and polish the machinery for greater efficiency and plausibility. This isn’t to say we believe these philosophical claims, even as reconstructed and improved. We just enjoy monkeying around with them and are interested in seeing what it takes to get them up and running—like antique car buffs, tinkering with vintage automobiles.

So it is with theology. Whether Christian doctrine is true or false it is philosophically interesting. The Trinity doctrine in particular poses the kind of puzzles many of us enjoy most—identity puzzles. Of course, many philosophers find their identity puzzles elsewhere in e.g. the Statue and the Clay, the Ship of Theseus, the Dividing Self and other such puzzle cases. There is no shortage of identity puzzles and philosophers who are not Christians may be inclined to deal with these rather than the Trinity puzzle. Nevertheless, the Trinity doctrine has a claim to being mother of all identity puzzles. Some, indeed, suggest that the identity puzzles posed by the Trinity doctrine motivated the preoccupation with logical problems that shaped philosophy in the West. In any case, not all philosophers who have concerned themselves with the Trinity doctrine are Christians, or religious believers of any kind.

Many theological doctrines, whether true or false, are philosophically interesting—and the Trinity doctrine is perhaps the most interesting. It is the grand identity puzzle. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. If each ‘is’ expresses strict, classical identity, then the conjunction of these claims is inconsistent with the claim that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct. It is not however a problem that scholars on the religious studies side, even those who admit to being theologians, care about. We read work in those disciplines written during the past century and find no discussion of the logic puzzles which, for us, make the Trinity doctrine interesting. To this extent, the gulf fixed between philosophers and scholars in religious studies, theology, and related disciplines reflects a difference in our interests. They, like most people, are not interested in logic problems. They are interested in the supposed practical import of the Trinity doctrine, including what it is taken to reveal about human nature, and the alleged ethical and political implications.⁹

Nevertheless, there are substantive disagreements between us too. Unlike our colleagues in religious studies and (revised contemporary) theology, most philosophers who do philosophical theology are either theologically orthodox themselves or, regardless of their own views, engage primarily with theological orthodoxy. In part I suspect this is because theological orthodoxy, at least Christian orthodoxy, is more logically problematic and so more interesting, than many heterodox accounts. Making sense of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine takes logical fancy-dancing. Sabellianism, by contrast, is easy and so, from the philosophical point of view, boring. One God plays three roles, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Assuming that there is a God—an assumption that is problematic and so philosophically interesting—Sabellianism poses no further philosophically interesting problems. Orthodox Trinitarianism is logically vexed and, therefore, philosophically interesting.

The ‘Foundations’

Many who engage in philosophical reflection on the doctrine of the Trinity take orthodox Trinitarian theology as the starting point for their investigations not only because it is poses challenging logical problems but because they are convinced that Christian orthodoxy is theologically correct and that correct theology is of great importance. Philosophy has to be about something and they assume that orthodox Trinitarian theology is the subject matter for critical reflection on the Trinity doctrine. Nevertheless, while there is no serious difficulty in identifying the subject matter of other philosophical investigations, this assumption that philosophical theology should be a reflection on theological orthodoxy is controversial.

Philosophy is a meta-discipline, which aims to make sense of first order disciplines and discourses: philosophy of science is about science and, arguably, metaphysics is about our commonsensical way of understanding ourselves and our world. Philosophical theology is about theology. But which theology? There is no serious question about which activities or linguistic practices philosophy of science is about: philosophers of science study orthodox, mainstream science as practiced by credentialed scientists at universities and research institutions—not astrology, theory of chiropractic, homeopathy, or any other ‘alternative’ theories and practices. Though religious studies scholars and advocates of Critical Theory may disagree, and regard us as naïve and dogmatic, most of us recognize that mainstream science is worth serious consideration but that unorthodox, ‘alternative’, and fringe pseudo-science is not.

When it comes to theology there is no such consensus: orthodoxy is one man’s doxy, heterodoxy is another man’s doxy. If philosophical theology is, as suggested, a meta-discipline aimed at making sense of theological doctrines then we want to know which theological doctrines it should aim to make sense of. This poses the question of ‘foundations’. There are many competing theologies, some of which were early dismissed as heterodox but others that continue as theological options. Which should we accept as foundational, and why?

Hasker, searching for the ‘foundations’ of Trinitarian theology, finds them in the theological literature of the fourth century:

I propose that the best place to begin in our investigation of the doctrine of the Trinity is with the Church Fathers of the late fourth century. They are the giants on whose shoulders we need to stand, if we are to arrive at an understanding of these matters.⁵ Here is another way of understanding my proposal: this is not a Cartesian project, in which the objective is to demolish our existing edifice of belief, scour the building site down to bedrock, and build all over again with imperishable materials. What I am proposing is rather in the spirit of Reidian epistemology, in which certain deliverances of common sense are taken as given, indeed as indispensable, though not infallible, and we seek to improve and extend the edifice of knowledge even as we continue to dwell therein . . . to be sure, the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity can hardly be characterized as common sense. For Christians, it is rather uncommon sense, the sense of the marvelously uncommon Gospel whose message it encapsulates.¹⁰

That, arguably, is not necessarily so. We can choose our ‘foundations’ and start where we please. I suggest, first, that we be begin our investigation with the devotional life and practice of religious believers: with liturgy and the religious discourse it embodies, with hymnody, ceremony, religious custom, and the arts as they have figured in the life of the Church. This poses a question: if we start with religious practice and discourse, with which religious practice and discourse should we start? And why should we start with the particular religious tradition we choose to investigate? The answer is just because that is the project. In a philosophical investigation of theological doctrine, we need not address the question of whether it represents the ultimate truth about reality or the correct interpretation of the Christian tradition. We can, rather, address a less ambitious question: if this is the church culture in which you engage, how can you make sense of its discourse and practice? You go to church, you make noises about the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—and often. You cross yourself to that formula. You repeat the Nicene Creed. You chant the Litany and sing hymns invoking the Trinity. Can that be made sense of without contradiction? And, if so, how?

There are, of course others who do not engage in this discourse. Could they be right? For our purposes, once again, it does not matter any more than it matters whether the claims on a variety of non-theological topics we discuss in a philosophy class are true. We are not interested in grand truths about the universe or in wisdom or in whose religious convictions, if any, are correct. We are pursuing the more modest program of determining whether the church practices and church-talk in which some engage makes sense and, if so, how to understand it. The religious discourse of most Christians may indeed derive from developments in fourth century theology that Hasker regards as ‘foundational’. The Nicene Creed we recite was formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and revised later in the century at the second ecumenical council of the Church in 381 CE at Constantinople. But even here, when it comes to interpretation, there is wiggle room. The Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople proclaims Jesus Christ, the Son of God, homoousios with the Father. But the notion of substance (ousia) that figures in this definition is contentious, and there has never been any clear account of what, if anything, it is that the homoousion commits one to.

To what is it, that Christians are committed? Orthodox Christians would likely agree that the fundamental thesis of Christianity is that there is one and only one God and that Jesus Christ, an historical figure who lived in first century Palestine, is divine. The Trinity doctrine, and later negotiations concerning Christology, represent attempts to make sense of this thesis: to reconcile monotheism with the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. Arguably, for this purpose the doctrine of the Trinity fails. Recognizing early on that traditional views about what God was like, viz. immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, and incorporeal, had somehow to be reconciled with the conviction that Jesus was a mortal man who was corporeal and neither omnipotent nor omniscient. The Trinity doctrine, it was hoped, would drive a wedge between God the Father who was immortal, omni­potent, omniscient, and incorporeal, and God the Son, incarnate as Jesus, who was not immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, or incorporeal. But once the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, was declared homoousios with the Father and indiscernible with respect to omnipotence, omniscience, and all generically divine properties, that difficulty reemerged: how could Jesus, who was not immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, or incorporeal be God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, who was? The problem, it turned out, was a Christological one which the Trinity doctrine did not solve. To that extent, Trinitarian theology was a failure.

Nevertheless, Trinity talk is embedded in popular piety, not only in the recitation of the creed, but in the liturgy and hymnody of the church, and in religious devotion. It is on that account that the doctrine deserves consideration. What do Christians believe? Minimally, that there is some supernatural or other—if not a conscious being, at the very least, a state of affairs—and that we may hope for supernatural post-mortem survival. Liturgy, hymnody, and the language of religious devotion attempt to articulate the ineffable, and church practice seeks to get us in touch with the supernatural.

Religion

It may be suggested that this account of religious belief is not sufficiently minimalist. Why assume the existence of some supernatural or other, even an impersonal supernatural? To reject that assumption is to reject religion as such because religion is of its essence about the supernatural: any practice that does not assume beliefs concerning the supernatural does not count as religion—or, at the very least, not an uncontroversial central case of religion as ordinarily understood.¹¹

Religion as a term of art was developed in the 19th and 20th centuries by those with an interest in comparative religion. . . . [R]eligious studies scholars in particular assumed that every religion of its essence was an overarching worldview . . . [this] definition fits ill with the folk’s understanding of religion . . . There are numerous self-help programs, preoccupations and philosophies that shape the entirety of their adherents’ lives, including Marxism and Freudianism, fashion and football, which we would not call religions without benefit of scare quotes because they do not involve any supernaturalistic element . . .

There are of course philosophies of life that do provide worldviews, values and moral visions that shape their adherents’ lives. But such philosophies are not, given the folk understanding of religion, either inherently religious or essential to religion . . . on the other hand, it seems likely that the folk would understand practices that have no ethical or philosophical import as religious, for example, the practices of voodooists and shamans . . .

[W]e can understand religion as:

1 A body of doctrine concerning supernatural beings, phenomena or states of affairs

2 associated with ceremonies, typically involving cult objects and other special equipment

3 embodied in an institution.

All clear cases of religion meet all three conditions; no religion fails all three; and social practices that satisfy two of the conditions are borderline cases of religion. State Marxism and other ideological/patriotic cults are borderline cases of religion to the extent that they satisfy (2) and (3). They are not central cases because their constitutive doctrines do not concern supernatural beings, phenomena or states of affairs. Freelance New Ageism is a borderline case of religion because, although it satisfies (1) and (2) insofar as it involves beliefs about the supernatural, ceremonies and cult objects, it is not institutionalized. Philosophies concerning supernatural beings, phenomena or states of affairs that are not associated with rituals or institutionally embodied are clearly not religions.¹²

The Trinity doctrine is a feature of Christian discourse about the supernatural. There are of course other religious traditions that embody different claims about the supernatural. The aim of a philosophical investigation of the Trinity doctrine as understood here however is not to adjudicate amongst the claims of religious traditions, or to suggest that all are beautiful in their own way, but just to investigate that central doctrine of Christian theology—again, because that is the project.

And Speaking of the Project . . .

The doctrine of the Trinity, some suggest, is poised precariously between monotheism and polytheism. In Chapter 1, which follows, I consider the character and respective merits of monotheism and polytheism, and pose the question of how a Trinitarian theology can preserve ‘what matters’ in monotheism. The take-away from this discussion is that we should begin with an account of the relations between Trinitarian Persons, the Trinitarian ‘processions’ or ‘relations of origin’ rather than by attempting to sort out the identity puzzle on which most philosophical treatments focus and altogether avoid attempts to make sense of ‘substance’ of which the Nicene Creed declares the Father and Son are ‘the same’.

Chapter 2, ‘Beyond the De Régnon Paradigm’ canvasses the popular but largely discredited distinction between ‘Latin’ and ‘Greek’ or ‘Social’ Trinitarianism which popularly figures in taxonomies of Trinitarian theologies. I argue that there are several distinctions under the De Regnon rubric that do not make the cut along the same joints, including the distinction between what have been described as ‘One-Self’ and ‘Three-Self’ doctrines of the Trinity. I suggest that instead of characterizing Trinitarian theologies as ‘Latin’ or ‘Greek’ we should rather distinguish the ‘Latin Question’ of how the Persons are individuated from the ‘Greek Question’ of what it is that makes them the same God.

Currently Social Trinitarianism understood as the Three-Self doctrine is the received view amongst analytic philosophers writing on the doctrine of the Trinity and, apparently, contemporary theologians. In Chapter 3, ‘Social Trinitarianism’, I argue that Three-Self Trinitarian theology is not supported by Scripture, Tradition, or Right Reason and has nothing whatsoever to recommend it.

In