Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-hqlzj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-17T05:03:35.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Trinity, generality, and dominance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

H. E. BABER
H. E. BABER*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA, 92110, USA
*
e-mail: baber@sandiego.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I defend a relative identity solution to the identity puzzle posed by the doctrine of the Trinity. It has been argued that relative identity theories which admit absolute identity, such as the account proposed here, do not succeed in saving the doctrine of the Trinity from logical incoherence. I show that this argument fails. Relative identity theories that admit absolute identity are logically conservative, metaphysically innocent, and unproblematic. And, given the account I propose we can, without incurring any logical or metaphysical costs, hold that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same being but not the same trinitarian person.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 435 - 449
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Brower, J., & Rea, M. C. (2009) ‘Material constitution and the Trinity’, in McCall, T. & Rea, M. (eds) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 263–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, J. (1989) ‘The doctrine of the Trinity and the logic of relative identity’, Religious Studies, 25.2, 141–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deutsch, H. (1998) ‘Identity and general similarity’, Philosophical Perspectives, 12, 177–199.Google Scholar
Deutsch, H. (2007) ‘Relative identity’, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative/ (accessed 24 March 2013).Google Scholar
Garbacz, P. (2002) ‘Logics of relative identity’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 43.1, 27–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geach, P. T. (1967) ‘Identity’, Review of Metaphysics, 21.1, 3–12.Google Scholar
Griffin, N. (1977) Relative Identity (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Hasker, W. (2013) Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard-Snyder, D. (2014) ‘Trinity’, in Crane, Tim (ed.) The Routledge Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Le Poidevin, R. (2009) ‘Identity and the composite Christ: an incarnational dilemma’, Religious Studies, 45.2, 167–186. doi:10.1017/S003441250800975X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martinich, A. P. (1978) ‘Identity and Trinity’, Journal of Religion, 58.2, 169–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, J. (1970) ‘The same F’, The Philosophical Review, 78, 181–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, J. (1978) ‘Relative identity and number’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 8, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rea, M. C. (2009) ‘Relative identity and the doctrine of the Trinity’, In McCall, T. & Rea, M. (eds) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 249–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuggy, D. (2014) ‘Trinity’, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/trinity/ (accessed 6 January 2014).Google Scholar
van Inwagen, P. (2009) ‘And yet they are not three gods but one God’, in Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 217–248.Google Scholar