Divine Fission: A New Way of Moderating Social Trinitarianism

Abstract

The topic of this paper is a way of speculating about the Trinity in which we start with a heterodox Social Trinitarianism and then moderate it to ensure that various desiderata are satisfied. We could think of this as the synthetic approach: understanding God as a unity formed out of three divine persons. This may be contrasted with the analytic approach in which we start with the one God and discover the three persons in God. St Augustine's Psychological Trinitarianism is an example of that analytic approach. But neither the analytic approach nor ways of seeing the two approaches as compatible are within the scope of this paper. I note, however, that one promising way of combining the approaches is to use Geach's relative identity theory of the Trinity. This has recently been defended by Van Inwagen who notes its antecedents in the Athanasian Creed. Indeed I suspect this is the only way of achieving literal conformity with that creed, which however, is not the decree of any ecumenical council. I do, however, respect it because of its traditional use in Christian liturgy. There is a proviso, though, namely that its authority is of an informal kind and so, I hold, there is no need to conform to it literally. Subject to that proviso I shall take respect for the Athanasian creed as one of the desiderata for social trinitarians. I note at the outset that I shall not be considering the case for believing that there are no more than three divine persons, as opposed to believing there are at least three and then suspending judgement about whether there are any more. Nonetheless for convenience of exposition I shall take myself to be defending the traditional doctrine.