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Absolute Identity and the Trinity Absolute Identity and the Trinity Chris Tweedt Trinititarians are charged with (at least) two contradictions. First, the Father is God and the Son is God, so it seems to follow that the Father is the Son. Trinitarians affirm the premises but deny the conclusion, which seems contradictory. Second, the Father is a god, the Son is a god, and the Holy Spirit is a god, but the Father isn't the Son, the Father isn't the Holy Spirit, and the Son isn't the Holy Spirit. This seems to entail that there are three gods. Again, Trinitarians affirm the premises but deny the conclusion. There are two main views of the Trinity that are designed to (among other things) avoid these alleged contradictions. These views, however, have problems. In this paper, I present a resolution to these alleged contradictions that a Trinitarian proponent of divine simplicity can endorse without succumbing to the problems of the two main current views. What is surprising about the view I'll propose is that it is helped by divine simplicity. This is surprising because many current Trinitarian views either reject divine simplicity or find it a difficult doctrine to maintain. In section 1, I'll better describe the alleged contradictions the Trinitarian needs to dispel and the way in which the Trinitarian needs to dispel these alleged contradic- tions. In section 2, I'll give the two main ways to dispel these alleged contradictions and give the problems with these views. In sections 3{5, I'll propose and defend a view that dispels the alleged contradictions. If sections 3{5 are successful, the view I propose will avoid the heresies of modalism and tritheism in a way that is supported by divine simplicity. In section 6, I'll show that the view I'm proposing avoids the problems the two main views from section 2 face.1 1Throughout this article, I will reference Aquinas in the footnotes, because I think the view I propose here is (at least very close to) Aquinas' view, and because, to many at least, a view of the Trinity is more plausible if it is supported in the tradition. However, even if you're not convinced that this is Aquinas' view, the view is, I think, independently attractive to a Trinitarian. 1 Introduction Peter van Inwagen (2003) raises two arguments that allegedly result in a contradiction for any orthodox Trinitarian view. Here's the first. Trinitarians want to affirm the premises but not the conclusion of this argument: 1. The Father is God. 2. The Son is God. 3. So, the Father is the Son. If someone were to affirm the conclusion, that would be to affirm modalism. Modal- ism is the view that the Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit) are not really distinct. Rather, they are roles, functions, or guises of the same thing, like Clark Kent and Superman are just the Kryptonian Kal-El in different guises, or playing different roles.2 Trinitarians cannot accept modalism and remain orthodox, because modalism was condemned at the First Council of Nicaea. So, Trinitarians must deny 3, which seems to be inconsistent with accepting 1 and 2. Here's the second alleged contradiction. Trinitarians also want to affirm the premises but not the conclusion of this argument: 4. The Father is a god.3 5. The Son is a god. 6. The Holy Spirit is a god. 7. The Father is not the Son. 8. The Father is not the Holy Spirit. 9. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. 10. So, there are at least three gods. In case it's not clear why the conclusion follows, let us translate `x is a god' as `Gx'. The conclusion, then, is: Gf & Gs & Gh & f6=s & f6=h & s6=h, 2This is Michael Rea's example (2003, 443). 3I'm assuming here that God is a god. 2 which we can translate `There are at least three gods.' To accept the conclusion, then, is to accept polytheism, the view that there is more than one god. To accept polytheism would be disastrous to the Trinitarian, because monotheism is a central tenet of Christian Trinitarianism. The Trinitarian must deny 10, which seems to be inconsistent with accepting 4{9. How is the Trinitarian to respond? I will follow Aquinas in holding that the task of the Trinitarian is merely to provide some way to dispel contradictions rather than to understand the Trinity.4 That is, the Trinitarian merely needs to show how someone can affirm the premises but deny the conclusion without violating Trinitarian doctrine. To understand the Trinity would require a vision of God's essence, which we can't do in this life. Rather, the Trinitarian should take it on authority that it is possible to affirm the premises but not the conclusion of these arguments and show how this can be done without contradiction. 2 The two main views and their problems In this paper, I'll present a way of dispelling the alleged contradictions that is different than the two main extant ways of dispelling these contradictions: Social Trinitari- anism and Relative Identity. Below I'll give the ways these views aim to dispel the contradictions, and I'll give the problems with each view. Social Trinitarians take the `is' in the first argument to be an `is' of predication. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share the same divine nature like individual humans share a human nature. Each individual human is a human; the `is' here is an `is' of predication. This solves the first problem. Socrates is human and Aristotle is human, but Socrates isn't Aristotle. Social Trinitarianism, however, doesn't solve the second problem. For example, Socrates is a human, Aristotle is a human, and Socrates 6= Aristotle, so there are at least two humans. It is hard to see how Social Trinitarians avoid polytheism. This is the biggest problem for the view, and it is one that has led many to reject Social Trinitarianism.5 The second main view is the Relative Identity view. All proponents of relative identity hold that there is sortal-relative identity. That is, there is a sortal F in respect of which the relata are the same. For example, Cicero is the same person as Tully. To relative identity theorists, possibly x is the same F as y but x is not the same G as y. For example, I am the same person as I am, but perhaps I am not the 4My strategy here is influenced by Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles, vol. 1, ch. 9, sec. 2. and vol. 4, ch. 1, sec. 10, and Summa Theologica I.32.1 ans). This kind of strategy is also found in contemporary work, e.g. Pruss (2008) and Gorman (2011). 5E.g. Brower (2004), Leftow (1999), and Clark (1996). 3 same passenger as I am, because I may be counted by, say, an airline as two different passengers.6 For another example, two men are the same surmen if they have the same surname, but different men can be the same surman.7 This enables relative identity theorists to say that, e.g., the Father is the same God as the Son but not the same person as the Son. Proponents of Relative Identity come in two varieties: extreme or moderate.8 Proponents of extreme Relative Identity accept RI1. Proponents of moderate Rela- tive Identity accept RI2 but not RI1.9 RI1 All absolute identity statements are ill-formed. RI2 All absolute identity statements are reducible to relative identity state- ments. Either way, the first alleged contradiction is dispelled. Either each premise is an absolute identity statement so is ill-formed, or it's reducible to a relative identity statement. If the latter, the first two premises, if they're stated as absolute identity statements, should instead be reformulated using relative identity. Here's an example of how this might be done:10 1'. The Father is the same god as God. 2'. The Son is the same god as God. 6This example is from Tuggy (2009). 7This example is taken from Geach (1967). 8My thinking about relative identity into these categories was largely formed by Rea (2003). 9van Inwagen says he remains neutral about whether there is absolute identity or not, but if there is absolute identity, at least the second problem remains. See Rea (2003, 440{442) for an argument that a RI theorist like van Inwagen needs to endorse RI1 or RI2 at least in relation to Trinitarian formulations. 10The reformulation of the argument here captures the essence of the project of the Trinitarian proponent of Relative Identity, but it may not be exactly right under some views of Relative Identity. For example, vanInwagen doesn't accept that there are singular referring terms, though it's not clear he shouldn't. (See Rea 2003, 439 n. 18) Further, vanInwagen translates `The Father is God' differently than I do below, for more reasons than eschewing singular referring terms. First, vanInwagen starts with two undefined predicates: `is the same being as' and 'is the same person as'. Second, he translates `x is God' as `x is divine & 8y(y is divine ! x is the same being as y)'. If we translate `The Father' as `a begetting being', we would then translate `The Father is God' as: `A begetting being is divine, and it is the same being as any other divine being', which (ignoring the issue with singular referring terms) is equivalent to `The Father is the same god as God', if, as I have assumed here, God is a divine being and: x is the same god as y iff x is the same being as y and both x and y are divine.
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