What about respecting their decision as a free agent and not trying to impose upon their will by modifying it through rehabilitation, but instead giving them their just dessert? One ought be rewarded for bad behavior and good.

As C.S. Lewis says, "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ought to have known better, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image." — Hanover

Great. :up:

Nice.

Kabbalah. https://stljewishlight.org/arts-entertainment/understanding-hebrew-numerology-and-the-secrets-of-the-torah/

I doubt I can improve on 's reply, but since seemed to have trouble with transitivity, I'll throw in a bit more.

A relation is transitive if, for that relation, if A relates to B, and B relates to C, then A relates to C.

Identity is taken as being transitive.

If A=B, and B=C, then A=C.

Identity is also taken as reflexive, A=A, and as symmetrical, if A=B then B=A.

Indeed, taken together, this is a classic definition of identity. This holds in classical and most intuitionistic logics. One exception is Geach's demand that identity always be related to a sortal, which was pretty explicitly an ad hoc defence of his Catholicism. It is very rarely used outside of theology.

My previous comments kept the modal context in order to show that modal collapse ensues from denying transitivity to identity. But this is simply a result of those modal systems having accepted predicate logic, and so transitivity.

To that we might now add that Geach's logic risks in modal collapse. It seems to require that all possibilities are necessities in order to avoid contradiction.

And again, the overarching observation that the task folk here set for themselves is not to see where the logic goes, but to invent a logic that supports the Christian narrative. Even if that means dropping basic principles of classical logic, elsewhere held sacrosanct.

Shall we say that thinking you can derive the trinity from first principles is... ambitious? And this supports the contention from the OP, that there is much tht is problematic in the Christian Narrative.

It's "one nature, three persons." Consider the analogous case of human nature:

Mark is human. (A is B)
Christ is human. (C is B)
Therefore Mark is Christ. (A is C)

This is obviously false. Leaving out that all predication vis-á-vis God is analogical, you would still need to assume a properly metaphysical premise like:

"More than one person cannot subsist in the same nature."

Traditionally, in "the Holy Spirit is God," "is God" refers to the Divine Nature. I suppose another premise that would work is: "'is God' must refer to univocal, numerical identity." However, this is exactly what is denied. As noted earlier, numerical identity is taken to be posterior to (dependent on) God, the transcendental property of unity, and measure. Numerical identity is a creaturely concept. From earlier:

Right, numerical identity (dimensive quantity) is posterior to virtual quantity (qualitative intensity) and anything's being any thing at all. Unit (and thus number, as multitude) is posterior to measure. Which is just to say that, to have "three ducks" requires "duck" as a measure, etc. God's unity is transcendental however, in the sense that all being is unified. "Thing" and "something" are also considered derivative transcendentals (in the same way beauty is). They are prior to numerical identity in that you cannot have "numbers of things" without things; multitude presupposes units. The supposition here is that numbers exist precisely where there are numbers of things, hence their posteriority, although they are prior as an absolute unity in God (normally attributed to Logos).

Part of the idea of their pre-existence God is that all effects exist in their causes. But it's also the case that no finite idea is wholly intelligible on its own (just as multitude is not intelligible without unit). Hegel's Logic is largely extending this idea. Only the "true infinite" can be its own ground.

I have not personally seen many theologians reaching for non-classical logics, particularly not Thomists. They generally take this sort of objection to result from a failure to make proper distinctions, often paired with a question begging assumption of the univocity of being.

And again, the overarching observation that the task folk here set for themselves is not to see where the logic goes, but to invent a logic that supports the Christian narrative.

Historically, the Analogia Entis has its origins in Aristotle, with the study of logic. Nominalism and the assumption of univocity are a much later, theologically motivated rejection of analogy (one that emerged in a somewhat similar fashion in Islam a few centuries earlier). In general, the historical approach of the nominalists and the key reformers they influenced was indeed to say that the Trinity is simply affirmed through faith alone, even if it is seemingly contradictory under the assumption of univocity. By contrast, the classical view would be something like: "the Trinity is beyond human reason but not contrary to it."

Personally, I find this sadly ironic. The main concern of the nominalists was that somehow natures "limited God," making God less fully sovereign and powerful (so too for creatures' possession of any true freedom). Yet, their innovations simply reduce God to "the most powerful being among many," very strong, but just a being like any other. Infinite being comes to sit on a porphyrian tree next to finite being; God sits to the side of the world instead of being fully transcendent ("within everything but contained by nothing"). God becomes incapable of granting creatures true freedom or causality without Himself somehow losing a share of these. God becomes the "divine watchmaker," exercising a wholly extrinsic ordering upon being, as opposed to being the generator of an intrinsic ordering bound up in "natural appetites" (ultimately a "Great Chain of Love" emanating outwards in analogical refractions from the angels down to non-living elements). It is, in many ways, a greatly reduced vision of God.

This is factually incorrect. Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of signs is based explicitly on his study of scholastic theories of signs that were developed originally by Saint Augustine. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Do you have a citation where Peirce admits as much? If not it's mere speculation.

Maybe. Likewise, the four gospels correspond to the four elements. Matthew is earth, Mark is fire, Luke is air, and John is water. This, multiplied by the three states: mutable, fixed, and cardinal, equals the number of apostles, the number of the tribes of Israel, and of course, months of the year. There are numbers all over the place, such as the birthmark on my scalp: 666. :grin: — frank

Nice extrapolation!

Relating to a different tradition, Hinduism, the three modes: Cardinal, fixed and mutable can be equated with the trinity of creation, preservation and destruction embodied in the Hindu Trimurti as Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. Of course this is a very different conception than the Christian trinity.

And then we have the rhree Gunas:

The three gunas are fundamental qualities in Indian philosophy that describe the nature of all things:
Tamas: Represents darkness, inertia, and chaos. It is associated with lethargy and ignorance.
Rajas: Signifies activity, passion, and movement. It is linked to desire and restlessness.
Sattva: Embodies purity, harmony, and balance. It is connected to knowledge and enlightenment.

These gunas interact to influence human behavior and the natural world, forming the basis of all creation. Understanding these qualities can help in achieving balance and insight in life.
(I copied and pasted the above because I'm lazy).

Gurdjieff said that man is "third force blind". His three forces he called the Holy Affirming, the Holy Denying and the Holy Reconciling. One example he gave was bread; people think bread is flour and water, but they forget the baking he says. Maybe he got this straight from Hegel, or maybe it is just an inevitable outcome of thinking about how things are for us.

It seems all this trinitarian stuff is basic to the logic of all human experience and thought. As soon as we divide the world into self and other, the third thing of the relationship between self and other becomes obvious. It seems clear that the ideas of creation, preservation and destruction apply to the becoming of all things.

It's "one nature, three persons." Consider the analogous case of human nature:

Mark is human. (A is B)
Christ is human. (C is B)
Therefore Mark is Christ. (A is C)

This is obviously false. Leaving out that all predication vis-á-vis God is analogical, you would still need to assume a properly metaphysical premise like:

"More than one person cannot subsist in the same nature."

Traditionally, in "the Holy Spirit is God," "is God" refers to the Divine Nature. I suppose another premise that would work is: "'is God' must refer to univocal, numerical identity." However, this is exactly what is denied. As noted earlier, numerical identity is taken to be posterior to (dependent on) God, the transcendental property of unity, and measure. Numerical identity is a creaturely concept. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's very hard to see what you are trying to do here, or how it might help your case. I had presumed you would be seeking to defend trinitarian dogma, but your example serves more to highlight the problem.

Presuming we read "Mark is human" and "Christ is human" as that Mark and Christ participate in a common nature, then we are not here talking about identity. That is, you have moved from identity to predication. If we were to follow that, you would end up with Christ and The Holy Spirit merely participating in godhood in the way that Mark, Christ and Tim participate in being human. You would have three gods, not one. Your conclusion would be polytheistic.

You seem to think that you can avoid this by claiming "numerical identity is a creaturely concept". But that is exactly the issue; classical logic does not permit us to just drop transitivity without contradiction. Your suggestion amounts to saying that logic does not apply to god - to claiming mysticisms.

That idea, "participates in a common nature", is a presumably Aristotelian or Thomist? It seems to be a way to render a relation as a predication. The idea is that individual substances (like Mark, Christ) "participate in" or "instantiate" universal natures or essences (like humanity). Instead of saying:

Mark stands in the relation of instantiation to human nature

The scholastic tradition reformulates this as predication:

Mark is human

Now traditional trinitarianism requires identity, not participation - it requires that the Holy Spirit literally is God.

Frankly you seem to be using the ambiguity of "is" to make an invalid logical move seem plausible. Either "is God" means identity and contradiction ensues, or it means predication and polytheism.

____
Your comments on analogical reasoning are similarly puzzling. It doesn't address the issue - even if granted, it leaves aside whether analogical reasoning can actually do the logical work required. You would have it that God is so transcendent that normal logical categories don't apply, and yet claim analogical reasoning somehow captures this transcendence. How?. Your aim may be to preserve the Trinity and avoid contradiction, but how you do this remains unexplained. How could "Analogically, the Holy Spirit is God" be represented logically? - and if it can't be, then it is illogical. Ok, so god is not just another creature - he is special; and again, what this amounts to is the claim that logic does not apply to God!

What you have set out does not help Bob derive the Trinity form first principles, nor show me how to understand the special kind of identity in "Christ is god, The holy spirit is god, but Christ is not the holy Spirit".

It just changes the topic.

____
But moreover, adding more and more assumptions and explanations to an already ad hoc account is not helpful. You seem to be simply digging a deeper hole.

Anyhow, as John Deely never gets tried of repeating, the sign relation is "irreducibly triadic." It is defined relationally, just as the Trinity is. A sign isn't an assemblage of parts, since each component only is what it is in virtue of its relation to the whole. The sign and the Trinity aren't perfect images of each other, the idea is rather that all of creation reflects the Creator, and thus the triadic similarity shows up even in the deepest structures, yet no finite relations can capture the Trinity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Just noticed this. Here Tim claims significant similarity: "...all of creation reflects the Creator, and thus the triadic similarity shows up even in the deepest structures". Then immediately withdraws it: "no finite relations can capture the Trinity"

So what is it that is similar? If there is no relation, how is there a similarity?

It's a mystery, a sophisticated way to say it's not contradictory without actually resolving any contradictions.

Any work on Peirce that covers his studies should do. It's not an ancillary fact, but central to his whole project. I thought Realism and Individualism: Charles S. Peirce and the Threat of Modern Nominalism by Oleskey was good, but the great popularizer of Peirce, John Deely has the compact Red Book as well.

So it seems you have gone with adding the premise: "classical theologians are wrong about what they think they are saying, and have been wrong since the Patristic era, because when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity."

But I've already mentioned the response here. They would claim that this is absurd, since God's unity is a prerequisite for there to be number, and multitude is, by definition, a property of the limited and finite.

So what is it that is similar? If there is no relation, how is there a similarity?

For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them.

— Fourth Lateran Council, 1215

That's the basic idea of the Analogia Entis.

Presuming we read "Mark is human" and "Christ is human" as that Mark and Christ participate in a common nature, then we are not here talking about identity. That is, you have moved from identity to predication. If we were to follow that, you would end up with Christ and The Holy Spirit merely participating in godhood in the way that Mark, Christ and Tim participate in being human. You would have three gods, not one. Your conclusion would be polytheistic.

What individuates particulars that share a nature and formal identity? That's an important question here. It's also a wholly metaphysical question.

Participation is a metaphysical notion as well. Creatures participate, God is what is participated in.

So it seems you have gone with adding the premise: "classical theologians are wrong about what they think they are saying, and have been wrong since the Patristic era, because when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, no.

The Trinity is a mystery. It's three persons, each of which is fully God. I think you're trying to waffle on whether it's a contradiction or not. I'm not sure why you would want to do that. That it's contradictory is what makes it a mystery.

I think people who find themselves in opposition about God questions might actually show a bit more support for each other’s perspectives.

Set Theory is like a neutral ground to understand seeking to logically penetrate a mystery that seems impenetrable.

Sets obviously function.

But then there is the Set of all Sets - impossible and defies all logic (yet it keeps rearing its head and underpinning logical progress..)

This is a type of mystery in the face of clear evidence/logic. We sort of have to live with how simple sets clearly are useful, AND how sets are ultimately impossible. We can call this where logic meets mystery.

So we can give the believers in the mysterious Trinity a pass (letting them have their evidence AND letting them attempt to logically explain and make coherent something that seems must be a paradox and to yield contradictory statements).

I’m just saying, the emergence of mystery is not fatal and need not end the reasonable discussion.

So it seems you have gone with adding the premise: "classical theologians are wrong about what they think they are saying, and have been wrong since the Patristic era, because when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah. :up:

Isn't this the same thing that always happens with @Banno? He takes his parochial, historically ignorant version of Analytic Philosophy and pretends that it is somehow the One Ring to Rule them All? It's the same old game of pretending to refute metaphysical positions without engaging in metaphysics.

Relevant:

Was the OP just an attempt to supply an argument for the predetermined conclusion that religious thinking is bad? It doesn't seem to have succeeded.

The irony here is that Banno does a 180 when he goes after religion, relying on unimpeachable principles that religion has supposedly transgressed. "Any stick to beat the devil." — Leontiskos

Banno clings to "pluralism" whenever someone critiques him, and then he is all of the sudden a proponent of "monism" as soon as he is doing his anti-religious schtick.

-

I had presumed you would be seeking to defend trinitarian dogma — Banno

Are you attempting to attack Trinitarian dogma? What do you take it to be? You're obviously ignorant of Christianity, Thomism, and all the rest of the things you pretend to have conquered. You seem to be specifically attacking your construal of a popular diagram. That diagram is not Trinitarian dogma. If you want to attack the Trinitarian doctrine you would have to find a theological source to engage.* Else, in that alternative universe where a serious Banno exists, he would actually look at the Council of Nicea. Yet even to read the diagram charitably is to not assume that "is" is being used numerically, which you obviously have not managed.


* If someone is actually trying to critique Thomism, then they probably want to engage Thomas. The easiest place is the first part of the Summa Theologiae, particularly questions 30, 31, and 32.

For someone honestly "interested in what Christians believe," you sure don't seem particularly interested in what Christians have to say about your description of their beliefs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that the OP was a clear rallying cry for bad faith anti-religionists to engage in insults and trolling. The pre-redacted OP itself was just a bunch of insults pretending to aspire to something more. The whole thread may have been given too much credit. It's fairly hard to salvage a thread that begins that way.

Yep. Pretending that it is coherent when it plainly isn't.

when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd be happy for you to give a different account of "is" that will satisfy the criteria you set, and yet allow a coherent logic. As things stand, you seem to think it fine to just specify that it is not the "is" of identity and leave it at that.

If you are sung a word in some novel way it's up to you to explain that use. And open to others to simply reject that use if it is unexplained or inept.

What you have done is to claim that Christ is God, The Holy Spirit is god, and the Father is God, but that Christ is not the Father, nor the Holy spirit, nor is the Holy spirit the Father; and when the logical consequences of this are pointed out, you say that the "is" here is not the is of identify, "=", but some other "is".

And some how this is not an ad hoc compromise.

sets are ultimately impossible — Fire Ologist

They're not.
(I'm assuming you're referring to naïve set theories.)
There are axiomatics that are free from the paradox you suggest.
I'm not sure I'd call it a mystery as such. :)

Yep.

Further, transitivity is essential to set theory; it's a fundamental result of extensionality.

Set theory is a mystery to some. I don't think 's approach is a great help. If the trinity is a mystery, then leave it as such, without trying to make it fit into this or that logical frame. It just doesn't fit.

's usual attack on the messenger rather then the message.

Tedious.

@Wayfarer presented the diagram as an explanation of the Trinity. I'm just pointing out the consequences of that diagram.

The whole thread may have been given too much credit. It's fairly hard to salvage a thread that begins that way. — Leontiskos

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

trinity is a mystery, then leave it as such — Banno

I think you can still reason about mysteries.

Like Frege and Russell did. “How the hell do sets collapse into impossibility?”

That's sort of what Geach is trying to do, to invent a logic that will give a consistent account of intransitivity.

It's legitimate if the goals is accepted - if one already accepts the Trinity, and is looking for a coherent account.

But if one does not already accept the Trinity, there is no reason to think much of the logic.

It's special pleading - making up an exception when your claim was shown to be false. That's what Tim does when he says "is" has a special use when talking about the Trinity.

And then adding more exceptions as the discussion proceeds.

Digging the hole deeper.

A better approach might well be to accept that the Trinity is a mystery, and not to look for coherence. If that's your point, I'll agree.

I asked for a quote from Peirce wherein he say his semiotics were inspired by Augustine.

A better approach might well be to accept that the Trinity is a mystery, and not to look for coherence. If that's your point, I'll agree. — Banno

Well, I agree it is impossible to simply grasp the Trinity, especially when trying to do so in a math class or a logic class.

But when two Christians are faced with what they believe Jesus said and meant when he said he and his father are one, they can make reasonable statements about it, to try to grapple with it and understand it more, and correct error about it and discover new facts. Just like two mathematicians grappling with the set of all sets. It’s incoherent, but still it is there to grapple with, to perplex, to face head on anyway.

In other words, yes it’s a mystery, but that doesn’t have to nothing more can be said. That doesn’t mean nothing can be said as true about the Trinity and no one can say other things are false about it. Ground can be covered while the mystery remains.

If the trinity is a mystery, then leave it as such, without trying to make it fit into this or that logical frame. It just doesn't fit. — Banno

I'm curious how far some will go trying to make sense of it. :grin:

Sure, all that.

How does that look from outside that milieu?

Poetic, or perhaps not so poetic, musings. No one denies that children can play nonsense games together.

No one denies that children can play nonsense games together. — Janus

You, @frank, and @Banno are surely proof of this.

I asked for a quote from Peirce wherein he say his semiotics were inspired by Augustine. — Janus

"If you don't have a quote from Peirce saying its true then it doesn't count!"

How infantile is this thread? How clownish and desperate are these anti-religious hacks?

A Catholic accepts the doctrine of the Trinity, which says the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. A Catholic also accepts the doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice, as outlined in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"

Put the two together, and we have God sacrificing Himself, to Himself, to save us from Himself. — frank

:lol:

What more hackneyed attempts at "gotchas" are still in store for this thread?

I asked for a quote from Peirce wherein he say his semiotics were inspired by Augustine. — Janus

Might be so.

https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6893ead2b2448191918a398bb89f8439

Unverified - might be confabulation.

Of course the main critique of that approach is that it takes all communication as signage - as referential; and that is the exact reason Wittgenstein used a quote from Augustin to begin his Investigations. So in so much as Peirce borrows from Augustin, they share in a compromised view of language.