In Defense of the Trinity's Coherence
by Denis Giron
I decided to write this article after taking another look at Imran Aijaz' wonderfully written article, Is Trinitarian Ontology Coherent? While I will raise objections to Aijaz's arguments, I will not, however, attempt to demonstrate that the doctrine is true (as personally I do not believe it corresponds with some fact of the matter). I believe we can treat the question of the doctrine's veracity as mutually exclusive from the question of its coherence. Thus my approach will involve two tasks: (1) to argue that Aijaz' argument does not necessarily prove the Trinity is incoherent, and (2) demonstrate that it is possible to construct a coherent conception of the Trinity.
Aijaz begins by offering the following breakdown of the doctrine:
- The Father is God.
- The Son is God.
- The Holy Spirit is God.
- The Father is not the Son.
- The Father is not the Holy Spirit.
- The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
- There is exactly one God.
From there Aijaz explains why he feels that the doctrine, comprised of the seven propositions above, is incoherent. He allows for only two possible interpretations, and argues that either one leads to contradiction. As Aijaz puts it:
Let the Father be designated by x, the Son by y, and the Holy Spirit by z. God, as defined by Swinburne, can be designated by G. As Cartwright notes, one way to interpret the creed is to take the verb 'is' and understand it to mean 'is identical with', therefore, x = G, y = G, and z = G. But if this is true, then it logically follows (according to Leibniz's principle of identity, which states: if x is the same object as y then x has exactly the same properties that y has) that x = y, x = z, and y = z. However, the creed will not allow this: (4)-(6). The Father, Son and Holy Sprit are different and distinct from each other.
Another possibility is to construe G as a general term to avoid the logical inconsistency. Thus, x is a G, y is a G and z is a G. But surely this would contradict (7), for we are suggesting the existence of three Gods, or tri-theism. Cartwright presents the following syllogism: "every Divine Person is a God; there are at least three Divine Persons; therefore, there at least three Gods". The second premise is supported the principle: if every A is a B then there cannot be fewer B's than A's. Cartwright cites the following analogy. If every cat is an animal, there cannot be fewer animals than cats.
The chief problem with Aijaz' criticism is that it ignores other possible interpretations of the doctrine of the Trinity. The problem, however, is one that is dealt with in the Philosophy of Language; it pertains to how one properly interprets the copula in a statement of the structure "X is Y". Aijaz scratched the surface of this issue in his second interpretation, but missed the alternative reading that is possible. Does the sentence "Jesus is God" employ a copula of identity, as in the statement "Cicero is Tully," or does it employ a copula of description [or predication], as in the statement "Cicero is Roman"? If the statement "Jesus is God" is understood as employing a copula of description, then there is nothing incoherent about the doctrine.
In every Catholic Missal one can find in the words to be uttered during High Mass the phrase credo in unum Deum, "I believe in one God." However, immediately after that both Jesus and the Father are declared to be Deum Verum, "True God," followed by the assertion that Jesus is consubstantialem Patri, "consubstantial with the Father." It is here that we find a key to properly interpreting the Trinity.
If Jesus is consubstantial with the Father, it means they are of the same essence, and leaves open the option of the popular ice-water analogy. Suppose you have a bowl of water with an ice cube floating in it. The water is H2O and the ice cube is H2O, but does this mean water is ice? No, simply because neither the water nor the ice cube is H2O in a sense of identity. They are each H2O only in a sense of predication. Thus if we treat Jesus as being God in a sense of predication, the contradiction that Aijaz alluded to vanishes.
Some may argue that this falls under Aijaz' second example. Imagine we define Gx as "x is a divine being". It is true that it is a contradiction to claim ($x)($y)($z)(((Gx & Gy) & Gz) & (~(x = y) & ~(y = z)))
... and then proclaim there to be only one divine being. There is, however, another way to look at this. There is a single divine essence - a single Godhead - and it is comprised of three beings who are God in a sense of predication. Interestingly, William Lane Craig, in his debate with Shabir Ally on the Islamic conception of God vs the Christian conception handled this issue beautifully. Craig made the Trinity analogous to a triangle - one shape, with three angles each being a part of the whole. Ally complained that each angle is not itself the triangle, and Craig responded as follows in his rebuttal:
I don't want to distract the debate to be a debate tonight about the deity of Christ. I want to simply say let's assume the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is what it is, and the question is: is that rational to hold to? And all Shabir actually could say here was that in a triangle each angle was not a triangle, but according to the doctrine of the Trinity, each person is God. This is simply based on a misunderstanding Shabir. The 'is' in the statement 'Jesus is God' is not an 'is' of identity. It's not like saying 'Cicero is Tully,' where those are simply two different names of the same person - an 'is' of identity. Rather, this is an 'is' of predication. It's like saying 'the couch is red'. You don't mean that the couch is a color; you mean that the couch has the property of being red. Similarly, when you say 'Jesus is God, the Father is God, the [Holy Ghost] is God,' that is to say that they are all divine - they all share attributes of deity. This is not an 'is' of identity, and unless you understand that, you're bound to be confused. So, it is simply not the case that according to the classic doctrine of the Trinity that the Godhead as a whole is identical to any one of the three persons. It is very much like a triangle, where you have one entity comprised of three angles, or one entity comprised of three persons. And if that is the doctrine, the I ask you what is rationally objectionable about that? That is the doctrine I believe, and I see nothing irrational about it.[1]
However here one may object that such a response borders on committing the fallacy of equivocation, where we simply come up with different meanings for the verb "is" so as to suit our position. My first response would be that the sole goal here is to do away with the claim of logical inconsistency. If this is a possible explanation then the alleged contradiction vanishes, simply because two propositions contradict each other if, and only if, it is impossible for both to be true. The fact that this interpretation is a possibility demonstrates that there is no contradiction.
My second response would be to invoke John 1:1. In that verse of the Bible it is stated that the Logos (Jesus) was with God and was God. If Jesus Logos was with God, he is clearly not identical to God, so how could he, therefore, be God as the very same verse proclaims? The best explanation is that the Logos was God only in a sense of predication, not identity. Thus we see that there does seem to be some prima facie Biblical support for this interpretation of Jesus' alleged divinity. Commenting on
on this verse (John 1:1), Raymond Brown writes:
Since Chrysostom's time, commentators have recognized that each of the three uses of "was" in vs. 1 has a different connotation: existence, relationship, and predication respectively.[2]
So, Craig's doctrine would hold to the following propositions:
- Jesus is the Logos.
- The Logos is God.
- Jesus is God.
The first proposition is an identity statement, so whatever is true of the Logos is true of Jesus. The second proposition is straight out of John 1:1, and employs a copula of predication (and the grammar of the Greek supports this). The third proposition also employs a copula of predication, and is simply inferred from (1) and (2). We could think of these propositions being rendered into formal logic as follows:
- j = l
- Gl
- Gj
At this point one may still wonder what it means to be God in a sense of predication (i.e. to be divine), yet not be God. A good analogy (provided by Craig) is that of a cat and a cat's skeleton. The skeleton of the cat is feline (in a sense of predication), but it is not a feline. Another analogy might be drawn from pondering God's intellect. We could assume that God possesses an intellect, and assume further that His intellect does not itself possess an intellect, thus God's intellect is not identical to God. Nonetheless, God's intellect is divine, thus showing it is possible to be divine, yet not identical to the Godhead in toto.
FOOTNOTES
- I make reference to Craig's debate with Shabir Ally, but I do not cite a specific source. This is because I know of no transcript of the debate. However a video of the debate can be purchased on line here: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/resources.html
- Raymond E. Brown (ed.), The Gospel According to John, (Doubleday, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 4.
HOME