[Deleted]

'Essence' is 'what is essential to the being', from the Latin 'esse' 'to be'. — Wayfarer

If by the essence you mean a set of properties and abilities, then we are on the same page. Otherwise, I don't understand what essence could possibly mean. That is true since we have something that exists objectively, so-called God (which I think It is a mind); God is therefore a substance, given the definition of substance as something that objectively exists. Such a substance needs to have abilities and properties in order to interact with reality.

Are you happy with that explanation of "essence"?

I'm not. — Banno

I don't understand what that definition is referring to unless essence refers to properties and abilities!

That was a very good bringing-together of various different strands of the thread. :up:
I was revisiting Damascene's exposition of the faith to see how much more accessible it is than Aquinas. It is certainly more accessible, but perhaps still not accessible enough for what this thread would require.

Wholly instrumental analytic reason is in a sense diabolical (in both its original and current sense). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agreed. And we can hold that such an approach is diabolical while also maintaining that it need not be explicitly atheistic (for example). The issue has to do with a closed-off-ness to both analogical reasoning and transcendence.

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Let's just leave it at this: on it's face, the Catholic Trinity appears to be contradictory. — frank

If there is a contradiction, then present the argument for that conclusion. As I noted earlier, internecine differences over the Trinity do not turn on the question of contradiction. They turn on the question of consistency with Scripture, the Fathers, or other such sources.

That must mean there is something objective and particular about the concept of the Trinity — Fire Ologist

I think this is right. The "sensus fidelium" could not exist if what is agreed upon were truly incoherent.

Let's just leave it at this: on it's face, the Catholic Trinity appears to be contradictory. Catholics are aware of this, but deny that it's a contradiction, because the truth is beyond human comprehension. If we were enlightened, we would see that it's not a contradiction. — frank

Trinity “appears” to include specific contradiction. Yes.

The rest of the quote is muddled but may be accurate. It is better restated:
Catholics see the apparent contradiction, and we see that the depths of the Trinity will proceed beyond full human understanding, but we also believe we will forever understand more and more about the Trinity because it is not a contradiction - we will learn more about God, like God knows himself.

So you could say “if we were enlightened we would see that it’s not a contraction” because though it appears contradictory to simple logic, it still appears, so it must have some accounting, and this will take further “enlightenment”.

I wouldn’t really say “the truth is beyond human comprehension” but if all you mean by that is the fullness of all there is to know about the Trinity is infinite and so never finite as we humans like to make things, then sure, I can leave it at that.

The "sensus fidelium" could not exist if what is agreed upon were truly incoherent. — Leontiskos

That should be a huge flag for those who say things like “Trinity is a contradiction” that is beyond comprehension. It can’t possibly be the case where two people independently come to the same conclusions that there is nothing coherent to the Trinity in itself for us the determine for ourselves. (Unless maybe we are both saints! :lol: )

a "slave to sin," beset by the "civil war in the soul" of Romans 7 and The Republic is to be less a person, more a mere jumble of external causes. Indeed, to be irrational is to be less fully anything at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good stuff. This is about the old relationship between change/becoming (irrational) and permanence/substanc (fully thing). The problem of how particulars actually participate in the forms; and the ontology of these.

——

Some people think it is rigorous to leave personhood undefined but analyze what persons do. When, somehow, what we do IS who/what we are, and it is impossible to analyze either one without the other. We, as persons, are more like a “Trinity” than they will allow themselves to admit. (Resorting to psychosis without realizing that is again, more apt to describing the human condition than they would like to admit. The analysis of it is too confounding and preposterous. (Like so many other things about experience and being a person, although they are less fun to mock than God and those who say they believe such things.)

Don't shoot the messenger.

4. When one is offended by another person, whose fault is that feeling of offense? The hurling of insults is certainly the fault of the one hurling insults, but the feeling of offense, who is responsible for that?
— Fire Ologist — Banno

Do you think I am offended?

Or were you offended by me?

Heated rhetoric need have no relationship to any offense or insult.

No insult intended, and all due respect but, it may actually be the case that you might be slightly full of shit sometimes. If you really think the God who is a trinity of persons is like the person who is suffering from DID, then I take it back and apologize if any offense was taken.

So were you full of shit? Or was your DID observation meant to advance the discussion. I hope so, because I think a discussion about how any human person (DID or not) relates to the Trinity could be instructive towards the Christian narrative, which you seem interested in to some playful extent. (I’m guessing you were just shitting me. Good one. Me and myself - we both saw the humor in it, although one of us was also a little disappointed. But haha.).

If you really think the God who is a trinity of persons is like the person who is suffering from DID... — Fire Ologist

No, I don't think that. What I've shown is that the description of God presented here is muddled. The arc is that the muddle is continually papered over. This is now the bit where you pretend that you and Leon pretend to have answered the problems raised. You haven't.

This is now the bit where you pretend that you and Leon pretend to have answered the problems raised. You haven't. — Banno

Ok. To make one of the issues real clear (as it did for Claud), let’s put the issue as follows.

Trinity lovers think they can say this:
“One plus one plus one equals one.”
And/Or maybe it should be said, “one equals three.”

But that makes zero sense, is contradictory and incoherent.

You want an answer to the above math problems.

Well that answer will never come. So if the above two statements are each a key important (dare I say essential) facet of the Trinity, and there is no answer coming, then you are done. Trinity is incoherent. All you see is people papering over this basic math inconsistency with pretense.

Right? End of discussion.

Trinity means one plus one plus one equals one, and that’s impossible to even conceive as a coherent thought so discussion never really started. Right?

I continue to be impressed by the amount of gymnastics to try making sense of such religious text/creed.

Way back in school, we were doing formal proofs, so we were given exercises and their answers, and had to fill in the proofs, "Solve this-and-that", except one of the answers was intentionally wrong. One student then kept retrying until they got the given, but wrong answer. I don't recall how many sheets of paper they used, just that they also arrived at the right answer. :)

Pretty much. This thread will doubtless go on for several more pages.

End of discussion. — Fire Ologist

Unfortunately not.

I think you're the only legit Catholic in the discussion, so let me assure you: if it's meaningful to you, you're right where we all are. None of us have final answers.

End of discussion.
— Fire Ologist
Unfortunately not. — Banno

Hmmm.

Is this a reluctant way of saying you are still mildly interested?

You haven’t given any new effort to show me some pretenses.

Isn’t life in general full of muddle to be sorted out? Then we try to communicate what’s been sorted tk some other person, who adds their own muddling influences.

Muddle doesn’t raise any new critique.

I think there is plenty unaddressed in the above pages directed to you by me - pick something if interested in proceeding.

I’m not exactly sure what you are saying to me.

you're right where we all are. None of us have final answers. — frank

I agree, I think?

Final answers.

When it comes to the Trinity, like most meaningful things, knowledge increases (for fools like me), but is never final.

So did we just become best friends or something?

So did we just become best friends or something? — Fire Ologist

no

:rofl:

You haven’t given any new effort to show me some pretenses. — Fire Ologist

Not sure what that sentence is. The ball remains in your court, so far as I can see.

How does 1+1+1=1? By misunderstanding either "1" or "+" or "=", or using at least one of them in a way that is not in accord with their usual use.

I don't understand what that definition is referring to unless essence refers to properties and abilities! — MoK

The standard modern definition of an essence is as those properties had by some individual in every possible world that includes that individual.

It's not too far from the classical definition as what makes a thing what it is, and not another. It avoids the circularity of "'Essence' is 'what is essential to the being'". There's still room for ambiguity and interpretation.

How does 1+1+1=1? By misunderstanding either "1" or "+" or "=", or using at least one of them in a way that is not in accord with their usual use. — Banno

Right, so 1+1+1=1 can’t possibly be right, and/or, if it is forced to be right, there is a misuse of "1" or "+" or "=".

So we have to get back to that, because that is a huge pickle.

Forget the Trinity pickle for a second. You have to, in order to re-approach the life inside God and ask about the math of it. You need to start over because those are the wrong starting questions.

Let’s just say there is one God. And let’s just say this one God is called the Father, and he created all things.

There is nothing heretical about that being full stop who and what Catholics believe in.

God the Father is all 4 year old kids think of when they say they know God. Those kids are right, and in full alignment with the Catholic Church, and full agreement with the life and example of Jesus, who taught people to pray the Our Father, which makes no plain reference to the Son or Holy Spirit. You can refer to the whole and to all of the one God by simply saying “Father.” That is not heresy.

Period. End of Catholic narrative.

Also sounds like the Jewish narrative, but they didn’t use the name “Father.”

We have a long way to go to get back to asking “so what is the math of it?” So far, the math is simple. We can get there, but you don’t really participate in my posts…

Do you want to grow into the fourteen year old God, the Son? Ask, why did he call God “Father” in the first place, and not just something like “Lord” or some name, like Elijah?

'Essence' is 'what is essential to the being', from the Latin 'esse' 'to be'.
— Wayfarer
If by the essence you mean a set of properties and abilities, then we are on the same page. — MoK

Sure - that's the encyclopedia definition. But I am stressing the link between 'esse' and 'is' (esse is the Latin verb for 'to be'). So the essence is the 'is-ness' of something.

. That is true since we have something that exists objectively, so-called God — MoK

I don't think that classical theology would ever say that God 'exists objectively'. Whatever exists objectively can be discovered scientifically. Here some references: God does not Exist, Bishop Pierre Whalon; He Is who Is (review of David Bentley Hart 'The Experience of God'. I'm linking these articles as illustrations of the ideas of 'apophatic theology' in modern parlance.)

Interesting how folk are happy to use logic until it doesn't get them what they want, and then just drop it.

the essence is the 'is-ness' of something. — Wayfarer

What's "Is-ness"? Isn't that a reaffirmation of A=A, that the essence of A is that A is A? Doesn't that leave you with defining the "is" of identity in terms of essence, and then defining essence in terms of identity?

Or are you saying that the essence is what makes something a particular thing? In which case, if God does not exist, how is god a particular thing? Does god not then have an essence?

"Is-ness" is no clearer a term than "essence" - and even that's being generous. It's better if an explanation is clearer than the thing it is trying to explain.

Moreover, "is-ness" appears to be yet another example of how merely syllogistic logic fails to deal with identity. Syllogistic logic can only deal with single-place predicates, and so must interpret any relation, including A=A, as a single place predicate - "A has the property of being A". Hence the invention of the pseudo-predicate "is-ness".

Yes, the redundancy of ipseity. :wink:

A question worth considering is how this failing on the part of syllogistic logic relates to the whole edifice of the philosophy of "being". A misplaced logic as the source of "being" from Hegel through to Heidegger?

But of course this is philosophical imperialism and I have entirely missed the point.

:up:

"the essence is the 'is-ness' of something"

This is why they executed Socrates.

But you can't make an apology for the Catholic view by referring to Eastern Orthodox. Let's just leave it at this: on it's face, the Catholic Trinity appears to be contradictory

They're not that different on the language here, or even the praxis. I used the East to explicate the West because the Western language (e.g. substance) has been adopted by later philosophy and the terms have become loaded with all sorts of unhelpful connotations. In English, Eastern Christianity is still largely described using the Greek terms (indeed, we still use Greek in the liturgy and hours to some extent) and this avoids those connotations. Also, the East tends to be a bit "looser" and more focused on "praxis," which I think is helpful.

A great example of this is Hieromonk Damascene's explanation of Christianity (particularly Eastern Christianity) through Taoism, in "Christ the Eternal Tao." It's an orthodox presentation, but the use of Chinese instead of Greek terms helps avoid all the loaded terms.

I don't think it's prima facie contradictory. The most obvious analogate is the way different individual existences (substances) possess the same nature (formal identity), and this is not itself contradictory.

If we were enlightened, we would see that it's not a contradiction

Indeed, and this is in the Catholic tradition as well. If you look at the Catechism's section on the virtue of faith, you'll see the whole idea of illumination. The classic formulation is praxis → theoria (illumination) → theology (gnosis), although this comes out in several ways. The Reformation left the Catholic tradition with a greater desire to codify things, but such efforts are ultimately futile when detached from praxis and the theological virtues because man's nous is clouded, and it is clouded inasmuch as it is improperly oriented.


19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Romans 1

Syllogistic logic can only deal with single-place predicates, and so must interpret any relation, including A=A, as a single place predicate - "A has the property of being A". Hence the invention of the pseudo-predicate "is-ness".

It has many ways of dealing with many placed predicates and relations. The ancients and medievals did not lack a notion of polyadic properties. Indeed the core sign relation for language, supposition, and epistemic relations are all triadic.

It is an interesting question, how metaphysics and natural language affected the development of logic. Obviously, changing notions in metaphysics were themselves often motivating factors for innovations in logic, the early nominalists being a key example.

If by the essence you mean a set of properties and abilities, then we are on the same page

This is not what is meant by an essence in classical metaphysics. This would seem to lead to something like a commitment to a "bundle metaphysics" where things just are collections of properties (plus or minus some bare substratum or haeccity that properties attach to; i.e., "pin cushion metaphysics"). Such theories are reductionist, but they also tend to be nominalist, although I suppose they could also align with some sort of austere realism that reduces all things to a basic set of properties (e.g., ontic structural realism, reduction to a platonic mathematics).

Actually, I think "SQL metaphysics" might be the better term for these theories because they are basically positing some sort of lookup array that is matched to things (usually on the basis of "sense data"), so that things just are whatever produces matches for the array. But this of course leads to the question: "from whence the array?" and "were there butterflies and stars prior to the generation of the array as a set of lookup values?" .

But in the classical metaphysics that underwrites the early expositions of the Trinity an essence is primarily a metaphysical explanation of how anything is anything at all and interacts with anything else, not how terms refer to things. The original point of an essence is to explain the preconditions for there being properties in the first place. The SQL metaphysics leaves the core concerns of nature (interaction), and quiddity (whatness) out of the picture, to focus wholly on definition. This is perhaps most obvious with the Divine Nature. God is not God because God checks a set of boxes on what God must be in "possible worlds."

Agreed. And we can hold that such an approach is diabolical while also maintaining that it need not be explicitly atheistic (for example). The issue has to do with a closed-off-ness to both analogical reasoning and transcendence.

Exactly. The rationalists are a prime example here. They generally have good aims, such as securing faith in reason, trying to resolve sectarian disagreements, creating a firm foundation for a wholly instrumental science based on the "mastery of nature" for the benefit of man, etc. They were, in general, religious. But there is a neglect of praxis here that cuts against tradition and Scripture, and a move towards instrumentalizing and proceduralizing reason and wisdom. And when they are unsuccessful in an approach that is almost wholly ratio, the result is skepticism, but also a view of the nous that is no longer radically open to what lies above it, and a participation in a greater Logos.

I'd suggest that the sheer instrumentality of the "new science" is a major culprit here. It leads to a sort of pride. It's a particularly pernicious pride in that it often masquerades as epistemic humility. Its epistemic bracketing is often an explicit turn towards the creature and the good of the creature without reference to the creator, as if the one could be cut off from the other. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools," and exchanged a holistic view for a diabolical process that cuts apart and makes it so that "reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions."

Also, the East tends to be a bit "looser" and more focused on "praxis," which I think is helpful. — Count Timothy von Icarus

My impression is that Greek Orthodox has more acceptance of mysticism. Do you have a favorite Orthodox writer?

So true. :fire:

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I continue to be impressed by the amount of gymnastics — jorndoe

I continue to be impressed by the anti-Trinitarian "mysticism". "It's totally contradictory. I don't have a coherent argument for that conclusion, but just take my word for it!~" Usually one comes to the conclusion that something is contradictory after making a serious argument to that effect. Not on TPF, though. :wink: