Having never understood the doctrine of the trinity in my life I found Abelards argument interesting however slightly confusing at the end. The analogy of wax was by far the most interesting piece of his argument however it still left me confused. Confused in the sense that I dont believe he answered the problem in a sufficient way, or rather I got the impression that behind the different components of the trinity was just god in a different form. This is not something that I particularly have a problem with although I do know that it is still thought of as a form of heresy. As for Boetheus the most interesting part of his argument seems to be his claim that it would be impossible for the divine substance to contain difference within it and that because of this the trinity is not a numerical difference creating something like the existence of three different Gods. However I am left unsatisfied as it seems like he is skating close to heresy waters as well. In both cases this issue seems very tricky for the philosopher to get themselves out of if one can not simply use modalism.
1. I found it interesting in Boethius argument how he makes a distinction between numerical differences in countable things and a numerical consistency in the repetition of one matter. This made some clarification to me for the matter of how God can be one entity but also be three entities at the same time. Boethius explains this as he states "the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and this Trinity is one God" they are repetitions of the same form so they have no change in number or merit. 2. It seems to me that there were a lot of connections between the end of Boethius' claim and the start of Abelard's. Both seem to state that the distinction of the three "Persons" of God don't vary in terms of merit but are actually just iterations of the same form of God. Therefore, what can be said of one Person can actually too be said of the other two as well.
I have heard many arguments for the Trinity however the distinction between countable entities and non-countable ones is completely unique. This distinction according to Boethius is to demonstrate that things that have similar substance are not countable within themselves. This is why we can say "The Father is God, The Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God". It is also interesting to see that these philosophers of the time realize that scripture does not allow them to ignore the trilema of the trinity and therefore they felt compelled to make sense of it rather than turn to Arianism.
I found this reading to be very repetitive, at least the first quarter of the reading basically just said God is three parts but one being but in many different ways. I will say however, that the repetitiveness of the reading really made me think about God somewhat differently. I have always know that God was three parts Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I never stopped to think about how people outside the Christian religion may view God. Some may actually believe the three parts that comprise God a separate entities. This would lead them to believe that Christianity has three Gods and not one.
A portion of the reading I found interesting is when author compared God to a sword. The concept of a God being made up of three parts may be confusing to some so to make it more understandable, the author compared God to a sword. A sword is known by the names sword, brand, and blade. These are three different names describing the same thing. God is know as Father, Son, Holy Spirit these are three names that characterize one God.
1. After reading Boethius, all I could think about was how frustrated the author(s) of the Bible would probably be over the quibbling that was taking place regarding the distinctions of 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit'. If I am not mistaken, wars were fought over these subtle distinctions. The argument that Boethius puts forward about God being a form with no image and no matter is interesting but seems to be lacking any real substance (no pun intended). With all of the mental gymnastics he performs he might as well be trying to prove String Theory. God is somehow form without matter or image and yet he is simultaneously the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If I remember correctly, Jesus had several 'accidental' features (brown hair, height and weight, skin color, the usual number of fingers and toes etc...). If this is the case, and Jesus (the son) is also God, these arguments for the unity of the Trinity seem to have no runway from which to launch. Boethius inadvertently admits this when he writes that the names of the Trinity can be likened to the names of a sword "brand, blade, sword" (295) and that "the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God" (295). Even if there were no logical contradiction, the argument feels like a huge unnecessary mess created by a dogmatic doctrine. 2. While reading Abelard's writing, I found myself asking the same question over and over. Why is it necessary that God be separate from the world? The attempt to make God immutable does not necessarily limit him to the beyond. Buddha Nature can be in all things, it seems that God could also be in all things. Why would God be accidental or vulnerable if he permeated the changeable world? It seems that the extreme mental efforts being put into forming arguments that separate God from the material world are a result of the influence of the concept of the forms.
While reading the sections for class I can’t help but wonder if the distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are differences of purpose. Although they are one, they are to be thought of differently despite each being indistinguishable to the others. If God the Father is the Creator, and Christ the Son is the Savior, and the Holy Spirit is the active spirituality of God in the world, then it is reasonable to say that although they are temporally eternal, there is still a way for one to be logically prior. For example, if the Son is the Savior, it stands logically that there must be something to save, and so the Father (as creator) must have created the world prior to the Son’s purpose of saving it. Likewise, the Holy Spirit as the active spirituality of God (in the world) cannot exist before the world, nor before God’s presence as the Son is established in the world. I propose that they exist as God eternally, but the form of Son and Holy Spirit serve a purpose which is not equally eternal, and so these purposes or experiences of God are designated as different despite being one in the same.
I feel as though the authors of these sections pay far too much attention to the account of plurality. Maybe it is the fact that I am several generations separate from (what the authors would agree is) my last truly Christian ancestor, but the problem of the trinity is not solved by redefining the God to be a group of things as much as it is solved by redefining each thing that would be in the alleged group so that it is consistent with biblical canon.
This argument seemed completely incoherent to me. It uses a language that contradicts whats its trying to say. I don't know why it's so focused on using number as a way to describe god if in doing so it has to completely redefine how numbers work. It's as if they wanted something more absolute than saying god has three names because even the shallowest understanding of linguistic would prompt someone to know that technically you can have any amount of names for one thing. It keeps contradicting itself to avoid being incoherent. At times in the argument it seems to assert that the a father, the son, and the holy spirit are all different parts of god but can’t say that because they are all the same and equal god. If god is infinite and all 3 persons are god then does that mean god is the addition of 3 infinities? This should go with saying, but that has become too abstract to have any value. I often wondered at many times throughout these 3 argument whether or not these writers were trying to make a metaphysical argument out of a linguistic one. So I wonder what was the understanding of linguistic like in medieval times?
1.) The idea that God consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a widely accepted view from most modern day practitioners of Catholicism, however I find the argument for this strange and perhaps even wrong as it is presented here. The argument proposes that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all of which are equal in their substance and permanence which allows for all of them to be God - they are all one and the same. However, the argument was prefaced by the claim that "the Son is generated by the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son" (1). If this were to be true, this implies that in fact the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different. A simple Venn Diagram can model the claims and shows the problem: when the claims are modeled it shows the Son as a partition of the Father as well as the Holy Spirit being a partition of the Son. This is problematic because, although the Son and Holy Spirit are contained in the Father, the Father is NOT contained in the Son and Holy Spirit; in fact the Holy Spirit does not contain either the Father or the Son at all, just elements of them. This would show that they are not equal and there IS a hierarchy as to the existence of these things, which is why there is an ordering to them. 2.) When number is spoken of, two definitions come up: "one with which we count and the other which consists in countable things" (3). Here this argument also falls apart. The comparison of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to the brand, the blade, and the sword is a clever one, as it is unique, however ultimately says something different when analyzed. It is not uncommon knowledge that every blade is NOT a sword - the argument falls apart from here on. since every blade is not a sword, then swords are but a subset of all things that encompass blades; this goes back to the initial modeling of the Venn Diagram that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit cannot one and the same if they do exist under these axioms. Even before getting to this conclusion, modeling the logic disproves the equivalence of "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" and "sun, sun, sun." Since they are different, they are not the same in number and do not hold in either definition.
1) Boethius proposes an argument that was easy to read and digest, however it left me rather unsatisfied. If "God differs from God in no respect" than when someone says "The father, son, and the holy spirit", they are only really saying "God, God, God". I agree with Kevin that the differences seem apparent enough to imagine that 'the father' is God in a different way than 'the son" is God.
2)The writers, especially Scotus, seem to really rely on God as being formless to skirt around the trinity question. He argues that because God is formless, no differences are apparent between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nothing can be said about God's actuality, the three are one essence. But it seems to me that their own theology contradicts this. The Trinity doesn't exist for no reason. Quite simply; the father means something different than the son. In this reading I haven't found anything quite too convincing in opposition to this.
I have never been one to easily accept arguments about religion, so naturaly I have never been able to really understand the concept of the trinity. I understand how it is taught and the three parts but never wrapped my head around how all three could be one entitiy. I thinl the best argument used in this essay is the argument that god is like a sowrd. He states all the parts that make up the sowrd that have their own name are still just one entity the sowrd. I still feel like this argument fall short logically. They claim god is three entititys sho there still are three seperate things going on, we just simplfy it and refer to the trinity as god.
1. During this read I thought Boethius claim of repetition was pretty interesting. He uses the analogy of a sword to God, and shows how it could have a different meaning and still be the same thing because the trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but they have totally different roles. I like how he compared them to the swords. This made the reading much more clearer to grasp what he was saying.
2. In Abelard's response, he also had some interesting words that left me confused. I understand how he speaks about the God's being diverse. The Father, Son, and Holy spirit are all different because of their distinguishing feature. Even though they are different each "persons" still have a distinctive feature that connects all of them into one. I feel like their was a lot of repetition throughout his argument, but I still ponder if he actually answered the initial question.
Having never understood the doctrine of the trinity in my life I found Abelards argument interesting however slightly confusing at the end. The analogy of wax was by far the most interesting piece of his argument however it still left me confused. Confused in the sense that I dont believe he answered the problem in a sufficient way, or rather I got the impression that behind the different components of the trinity was just god in a different form. This is not something that I particularly have a problem with although I do know that it is still thought of as a form of heresy.
ReplyDeleteAs for Boetheus the most interesting part of his argument seems to be his claim that it would be impossible for the divine substance to contain difference within it and that because of this the trinity is not a numerical difference creating something like the existence of three different Gods. However I am left unsatisfied as it seems like he is skating close to heresy waters as well.
In both cases this issue seems very tricky for the philosopher to get themselves out of if one can not simply use modalism.
1. I found it interesting in Boethius argument how he makes a distinction between numerical differences in countable things and a numerical consistency in the repetition of one matter. This made some clarification to me for the matter of how God can be one entity but also be three entities at the same time. Boethius explains this as he states "the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and this Trinity is one God" they are repetitions of the same form so they have no change in number or merit.
ReplyDelete2. It seems to me that there were a lot of connections between the end of Boethius' claim and the start of Abelard's. Both seem to state that the distinction of the three "Persons" of God don't vary in terms of merit but are actually just iterations of the same form of God. Therefore, what can be said of one Person can actually too be said of the other two as well.
I have heard many arguments for the Trinity however the distinction between countable entities and non-countable ones is completely unique. This distinction according to Boethius is to demonstrate that things that have similar substance are not countable within themselves. This is why we can say "The Father is God, The Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God". It is also interesting to see that these philosophers of the time realize that scripture does not allow them to ignore the trilema of the trinity and therefore they felt compelled to make sense of it rather than turn to Arianism.
ReplyDeleteI found this reading to be very repetitive, at least the first quarter of the reading basically just said God is three parts but one being but in many different ways. I will say however, that the repetitiveness of the reading really made me think about God somewhat differently. I have always know that God was three parts Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I never stopped to think about how people outside the Christian religion may view God. Some may actually believe the three parts that comprise God a separate entities. This would lead them to believe that Christianity has three Gods and not one.
ReplyDeleteA portion of the reading I found interesting is when author compared God to a sword. The concept of a God being made up of three parts may be confusing to some so to make it more understandable, the author compared God to a sword. A sword is known by the names sword, brand, and blade. These are three different names describing the same thing. God is know as Father, Son, Holy Spirit these are three names that characterize one God.
1. After reading Boethius, all I could think about was how frustrated the author(s) of the Bible would probably be over the quibbling that was taking place regarding the distinctions of 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit'. If I am not mistaken, wars were fought over these subtle distinctions. The argument that Boethius puts forward about God being a form with no image and no matter is interesting but seems to be lacking any real substance (no pun intended). With all of the mental gymnastics he performs he might as well be trying to prove String Theory. God is somehow form without matter or image and yet he is simultaneously the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If I remember correctly, Jesus had several 'accidental' features (brown hair, height and weight, skin color, the usual number of fingers and toes etc...). If this is the case, and Jesus (the son) is also God, these arguments for the unity of the Trinity seem to have no runway from which to launch. Boethius inadvertently admits this when he writes that the names of the Trinity can be likened to the names of a sword "brand, blade, sword" (295) and that "the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God" (295). Even if there were no logical contradiction, the argument feels like a huge unnecessary mess created by a dogmatic doctrine.
ReplyDelete2. While reading Abelard's writing, I found myself asking the same question over and over. Why is it necessary that God be separate from the world? The attempt to make God immutable does not necessarily limit him to the beyond. Buddha Nature can be in all things, it seems that God could also be in all things. Why would God be accidental or vulnerable if he permeated the changeable world? It seems that the extreme mental efforts being put into forming arguments that separate God from the material world are a result of the influence of the concept of the forms.
While reading the sections for class I can’t help but wonder if the distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are differences of purpose. Although they are one, they are to be thought of differently despite each being indistinguishable to the others. If God the Father is the Creator, and Christ the Son is the Savior, and the Holy Spirit is the active spirituality of God in the world, then it is reasonable to say that although they are temporally eternal, there is still a way for one to be logically prior. For example, if the Son is the Savior, it stands logically that there must be something to save, and so the Father (as creator) must have created the world prior to the Son’s purpose of saving it. Likewise, the Holy Spirit as the active spirituality of God (in the world) cannot exist before the world, nor before God’s presence as the Son is established in the world. I propose that they exist as God eternally, but the form of Son and Holy Spirit serve a purpose which is not equally eternal, and so these purposes or experiences of God are designated as different despite being one in the same.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though the authors of these sections pay far too much attention to the account of plurality. Maybe it is the fact that I am several generations separate from (what the authors would agree is) my last truly Christian ancestor, but the problem of the trinity is not solved by redefining the God to be a group of things as much as it is solved by redefining each thing that would be in the alleged group so that it is consistent with biblical canon.
Bonus Logic:
DeleteF= Father S=Son H=HolySpirit G=God
1. F⸧S
2. (F∙S)⸧H
3. F
4. S (1, 2 MP)
5. F∙S (3, 4 Conj.)
6. H (2, 5 MP)
There is no real purpose to this, but the readings got me thinking about logic.
This argument seemed completely incoherent to me. It uses a language that contradicts whats its trying to say. I don't know why it's so focused on using number as a way to describe god if in doing so it has to completely redefine how numbers work. It's as if they wanted something more absolute than saying god has three names because even the shallowest understanding of linguistic would prompt someone to know that technically you can have any amount of names for one thing. It keeps contradicting itself to avoid being incoherent. At times in the argument it seems to assert that the a father, the son, and the holy spirit are all different parts of god but can’t say that because they are all the same and equal god. If god is infinite and all 3 persons are god then does that mean god is the addition of 3 infinities? This should go with saying, but that has become too abstract to have any value.
ReplyDeleteI often wondered at many times throughout these 3 argument whether or not these writers were trying to make a metaphysical argument out of a linguistic one. So I wonder what was the understanding of linguistic like in medieval times?
1.) The idea that God consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a widely accepted view from most modern day practitioners of Catholicism, however I find the argument for this strange and perhaps even wrong as it is presented here. The argument proposes that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all of which are equal in their substance and permanence which allows for all of them to be God - they are all one and the same. However, the argument was prefaced by the claim that "the Son is generated by the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son" (1). If this were to be true, this implies that in fact the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different. A simple Venn Diagram can model the claims and shows the problem: when the claims are modeled it shows the Son as a partition of the Father as well as the Holy Spirit being a partition of the Son. This is problematic because, although the Son and Holy Spirit are contained in the Father, the Father is NOT contained in the Son and Holy Spirit; in fact the Holy Spirit does not contain either the Father or the Son at all, just elements of them. This would show that they are not equal and there IS a hierarchy as to the existence of these things, which is why there is an ordering to them.
ReplyDelete2.) When number is spoken of, two definitions come up: "one with which we count and the other which consists in countable things" (3). Here this argument also falls apart. The comparison of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to the brand, the blade, and the sword is a clever one, as it is unique, however ultimately says something different when analyzed. It is not uncommon knowledge that every blade is NOT a sword - the argument falls apart from here on. since every blade is not a sword, then swords are but a subset of all things that encompass blades; this goes back to the initial modeling of the Venn Diagram that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit cannot one and the same if they do exist under these axioms. Even before getting to this conclusion, modeling the logic disproves the equivalence of "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" and "sun, sun, sun." Since they are different, they are not the same in number and do not hold in either definition.
1) Boethius proposes an argument that was easy to read and digest, however it left me rather unsatisfied. If "God differs from God in no respect" than when someone says "The father, son, and the holy spirit", they are only really saying "God, God, God". I agree with Kevin that the differences seem apparent enough to imagine that 'the father' is God in a different way than 'the son" is God.
ReplyDelete2)The writers, especially Scotus, seem to really rely on God as being formless to skirt around the trinity question. He argues that because God is formless, no differences are apparent between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nothing can be said about God's actuality, the three are one essence. But it seems to me that their own theology contradicts this. The Trinity doesn't exist for no reason. Quite simply; the father means something different than the son. In this reading I haven't found anything quite too convincing in opposition to this.
I have never been one to easily accept arguments about religion, so naturaly I have never been able to really understand the concept of the trinity. I understand how it is taught and the three parts but never wrapped my head around how all three could be one entitiy. I thinl the best argument used in this essay is the argument that god is like a sowrd. He states all the parts that make up the sowrd that have their own name are still just one entity the sowrd. I still feel like this argument fall short logically. They claim god is three entititys sho there still are three seperate things going on, we just simplfy it and refer to the trinity as god.
ReplyDelete1. During this read I thought Boethius claim of repetition was pretty interesting. He uses the analogy of a sword to God, and shows how it could have a different meaning and still be the same thing because the trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but they have totally different roles. I like how he compared them to the swords. This made the reading much more clearer to grasp what he was saying.
ReplyDelete2. In Abelard's response, he also had some interesting words that left me confused. I understand how he speaks about the God's being diverse. The Father, Son, and Holy spirit are all different because of their distinguishing feature. Even though they are different each "persons" still have a distinctive feature that connects all of them into one. I feel like their was a lot of repetition throughout his argument, but I still ponder if he actually answered the initial question.