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THE COHERENCE OF THE TRINITY

It would be pretentious of me to suggest that such a complex philosophical problem as the coherence of the Trinity could be dealt with adequately in anappendix. My aim is rather modest. I shall only try to demonstrate that critics of the Trinity have failed to that the doctrine of the Trinity is incoherent.

The Athanasian Creed gives us a useful starting point for our discussion: Weworship one God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the

persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son isanother, and the Spirit is another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and HolySpirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty equally eternally. . . Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there are not three gods butone God. . . And in this Trinity there is no before or after, no greater or lesser, butall three persons are equally eternal with each other and fully equal.

We may break down the above statement into the following propositions.

(1) The Father is God.

(2) The Son is God.

(3) The Holy Spirit is God.

(4) The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spiritis not the Father.

(5) There is one and only one God.

Critics have attacked the Trinity on two counts.A. Statement (2) basically affirms the Incarnation of Christ or the teaching thatJesus Christ possesses both the divine and human nature, as a foundational truthfor the formulation of the Trinity. Critics therefore charge that the proposition thatChrist is both God and man is a contradictory statement. For example, John Hick alleges that the contradiction is of the same kind as that of affirming a squarecircle.

Now we have no problem in affirming that the square circle is a contradiction

since by definition a square excludes being a circle. Our definitions of a squareand a circle are mathematically exact and we know precisely what we are talking

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about.

On the other hand, it is not obviously evident why God and man need to bemutually exclusive. Certainly we are not in a position to give an exact

mathematical definition of God or man. We have not succeeded in definingexactly what man is, much less who God is. We have not been given cogentdemonstrations why God could not act as a subject with the characteristics of divinity and humanity under the condition of earthly existence. We can argue thatno man could assume Godhood, but there seems no logical limits to God takingup manhood or acting as a subject under conditions of humanity. At least criticslike Hick have not demonstrated it.

Take also the case of Ahmad the (fictitious) chief minister of the state of Johor,who is also the father of Kamal now residing in Singapore. As minister Ahmadhas authority over all citizens of the state of Johor. Being the father of Kamal hemay exercise authority over Kamal. But his authority over Kamal is not by virtueof his position as chief minister. Neither is his authority over the state of Johor byvirtue of his position as father of Kamal. The point is that we may recognizeChrist as the subject of different things depending on whether we are thinking of him as God or as man. In other words, it is appropriate to predicate certain divinequalities (e.g. he is uncreated) as well as human qualities (e.g. he was thirsty) toJesus without confusing them as identical things.

B. The second attack comes in the charge that statements (1) to (5) constitutewhat is logically termed an inconsistent set. The proof comes in the form of showing how the set of propositions generate two contradictory statements. Thus,statements (1), (2), (3) and (5) entail:

(6) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one thing,

and (4) entails:

(7) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are separate things.

However, it is evident that (6) and (7) are inconsistent. Hence (1)-(5) is aninconsistent set of statements.

But the conclusion relies on a set of logical moves that fail to recognize that theFather, the Son and the Holy Spirit are separate things in a different sense fromthe sense that they are one thing. It is necessary to acknowledge how blurred the

boundaries are with regard to what is a thing. Stephen Davis gives two usefulillustrations:

(8) Joseph, Mary and Jesus are separate things and Joseph, Mary and Jesus areone thing.

Once we realize that each thing in the first clause refers to a person while the

thing in the second clause refers to a family then there is no ground to concludethat a contradiction exists.

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Davis continues:

(9) Lines AB, BC and CA are separate things and lines AB, BC and CA are one

thing.

Again the contradiction is resolved if we recognize that the first thing refers to aline while the second thing refers to a triangle.

We may now reconsider (6) and (7). We may combine them to give

(10) The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one thing and the Father, the Sonand the Holy Spirit are separate things.

In the light of the earlier discussion on statements (8) and (9), it is obvious thatdifferent things are involved in the two occurrences in (10). There is no ground to

judge the statement as self-contradictory.

Admittedly we may not be able to define exhaustively what these senses of thingare. The substance of thing here is a matter of historical investigation andreligious experience. Even then, given human limitation in matters eternal, we canonly expect tentative analogical conclusions. But at the level of logical formcritics should at least concede that they have not proven conclusively that theformulation of the Trinity is a contradictory statement.

There are also other strategies to resolve the apparent contradiction of the doctrineof Trinity. Some philosophers, building on Peter Geachs logical theory of relative identity, suggest that statements of identity are relative and statementslike A = B are incomplete. The statement should be made more specific likesaying that A = B with respect to x(God). The statement of the Trinity (F = Swith respect to x) may be explained thus: The Father is the same God as the Son

but is not the same person as the Son. The statement, The Father is not the same person as the Son but is the same God as the Son is coherent. Hence the Trinity iscoherent.

Perhaps this view enables us to appreciate better Karl Rahners description of theTrinity. We may say that the Father, Son and Spirit are identical with onegodhead and are relatively distinct from one another. These three as distinct areconstituted only by their relatedness to one another ( The Trinity , Burns & Oates1970, p. 72).

To be fair, the concept of relative identity is a difficult and controversial issue(which fundamental philosophical concept isnt?). But perhaps the preliminaryexamples given are enough to indicate that there are logical resources in our reflection on the Trinity. In fact I have passed over the philosophical models of

the Trinity by ancient thinkers like Augustine and modern philosophers likeDavid Brown, T. V. Morris and Richard Swinburne since an appendix is not the

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place to provide a positive analogy. I am only attempting the negative defensivestrategy of exposing the charges of incoherence for the Trinity to be less logicallycompelling than initially presumed. I can therefore conclude that there should beno logical barrier to prevent us from adopting an open mind and examining afresh

the historical evidences to support the Trinity.

BibliographyThe above discussion is indebted to

Stephen Davis, Logic and the Nature of God . MacMillan, 1983.

Brian Davis, Thinking About God . Geoffrey Chapman, 1985.

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