Jerónimo Pardo's analysis of the problems raised by some popular trinitarian paralogisms is studied in this paper. The purpose is to show how the notions employed by the theologians in order to solve theological problems were introduced into a textbook on logic to deal with some genuinely logical problems. First, the problem, common to all logical approaches, of achieving a fine-grained analysis of the logical form of syllogistical inferences. Second, the problem, typical of the terminist approach to logic, (...) of guaranteeing that Latin is an adequate vehicle for logical analysis. (shrink)

The so-called “Trinitarian paralogisms” are apparently legitimate instances of syllogistic inference-schemes with premises and conclusions containing expressions of the language of the Trinity doctrine, which fail to be truth- or acceptability-preserving. The logical problem of the Trinity splits into two levels of analysis. First, the technical aspects of Trinitarian paralogisms are analysed in terms of logical innovations in theories of “suppositio” and “distributio”. Second, the philosophical aspect of Trinitarian paralogisms translates into the question of (...) formality as general applicability of logic. The sixteenth century tradition can be reconstructed as a reaction to the fourteenth century nominalist logical analysis. As opposed to post-medieval scholasticism developing the medieval approach, humanism and reformation criticise scholastic logic in terms of diff erent specifi c anthropological theories. (shrink)

This article provides an original reappraisal of the notion of Minnemystik in the work of the 13th-century Flemish beguine Hadewijch of Antwerp, with specific reference to its Trinitarian and Christological orientations. After an introduction to the nature and origins of Hadewijch’s work, relating to the discovery of four extant manuscripts in Belgium in 1838, followed by an elucidation of the experience-driven epistemology of the Victorians Richard of St Victor and Hugo of St Victor as her key early scholastic influences, (...) Hadewijch’s Minnemystik is distinguished from Wesenmystik, as encountered in the mystical work of her French contemporary and beguine counterpart, Marguerite Porete. From this discursive basis, Hadewijch’s Minnemystik is reassessed and represented as pertinently Trinitarian and Christological in orientation, and therefore as a theological presentation from the 13th century. (shrink)

A recent analysis of genome‐wide expression patterns and regulatory motif content of paralogous yeast genes1 strongly suggests that mutational robustness (backup) between paralogous genes is achieved via transcriptional reprogramming of one paralog to compensate for the loss or silencing of the other. BioEssays 27:865–868, 2005. Published 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Sometimes I dream that I am an astronaut. I land my spaceship on a distant planet. When I tell me children on that planet that on earth school is compulsory and that we have homework every evening, they split their sides laughing. And so I decide to stay with them for a long, long time… Well anyway… until the summer holidays. Each state of the mind is irreducible. The mere act of giving it a name, that is of classifying it, (...) implies a falsification of it. From all this, it would be possible to deduce that there is no science in Tlon, let alone rational thought. The paradox, however, is that sciences exist, in countless number… The metaphysicians of Tlon are not looking for truth, nor even for an approximation of it; they are after a kind of amazement. They consider metaphysics a branch of fantastic literature. They know that a system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to some one of them. Even the phrase ‘all the aspects’ can be rejected, since it presupposes the impossible inclusion of the present moment, and of past moments. (shrink)

: According to Kant, the arguments of rational psychology are formal fallacies that he calls transcendental paralogisms. It remains heavily debated whether there actually is any formal error in the inferences Kant presents: according to Grier and Allison, they are deductively invalid syllogisms, whereas Bennett, Ameriks, and Van Cleve deny that they are formal fallacies. I advance an interpretation that reconciles these extremes: transcendental paralogisms are sound in general logic but constitute formal fallacies in transcendental logic. By formalising (...) the paralogistic inference, I will pinpoint the error as an illegitimate existential presupposition. Since - unlike transcendental logic - general logic abstracts from all objects, this error can only be detected in transcendental logic. (shrink)

Christian apologetics has recently gained a new impetus from authors such as Alister McGrath, who advocates a new, Trinitarian approach to natural theology, the main purpose of which is to confirm a resonance between scientific discoveries and Christian doctrine, thus confirming its credibility. In this article, we use Trinitarian natural theology, which has many advantages over classical natural theology, on the example of the surprising phenomenon of true love. This is manifested in the material world in The Principle (...) of Insufficient Reason, observable through observations of deeds of love, which lack reciprocity and, in the lifeworld in the essence of ratio-sui or selfexplicability of true love, experienceable through experiences of explanation of the reasons for love with love itself. The analysis of different layers of reality and its scientific methods, together with the postpositivistic recognition of the plurality of methods, has shown that the method of inference to the best explanation, which is used in the article, is a legitimate scientific method. The Christian doctrine of the Triune God of Love and the doctrine of perichoresis make perfect sense of the empirical observations and lifeworld experiences of true love. However, the question remains unanswered: which of the worldviews best explains the curious and surprising phenomenon of true love? (shrink)

Considered in light of the reader’s expectation of a thoroughgoing criticism of the pretensions of the rational psychologist, and of the wealth of discussions available in the broader 18th century context, which includes a variety of proofs that do not explicitly turn on the identification of the soul as a simple substance, Kant’s discussion of immortality in the Paralogisms falls lamentably short. However, outside of the Paralogisms (and the published works generally), Kant had much more to say about (...) the arguments for the soul’s immortality as he devoted considerable time to the topic throughout his career in his lectures on metaphysics. In fact, as I show in this paper, the student lecture notes prove to be an indispensable supplement to the treatment in the Paralogisms, not only for illuminating Kant’s criticism of the rational psychologist’s views on the immortality of the soul, but also in reconciling this criticism with Kant’s own positive claims regarding certain theoretical proofs of immortality. (shrink)

William Hasker and I have a friendly disagreement over the doctrine of the Trinity. We both reject classical theistic attributes like divine timelessness and divine simplicity. Instead, we affirm that God is temporal and unified. Further, we reject so-called Latin models of the Trinity, and prefer social models of the Trinity. Where we disagree is over the doctrine of the processions of the Trinitarian persons. In this essay, I articulate some problems for the doctrine of the processions.

In this elegantly written book, Russell Friedman offers a fascinating account of Trinitarian theology in the period 1250-1350. Chapter 1 compares Aquinas's and Bonaventure's explanation of the identity and distinction of the three divine Persons. For Aquinas, the properties constitutive of the divine Persons are strictly relational properties, grounded in relations of opposition in the order of origin. Bonaventure accepts the role of relational properties, but he emphasizes the distinct way that each Person emanates: the Father is unemanated, the (...) Son emanates as generated by the Father ("by way of nature"), and the Holy Spirit emanates as freely spirated by the Father and the Son ("by way of will"). As Friedman .. (shrink)

A historical and systematic introduction to what the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about the Trinity. By focusing on the thought of one of the greatest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilles Emery OP elucidates the classical Christian understanding of God.

Spirituality and ultimacy are inextricably linked. Underlying the plurality of spiritualities are myriad ways to construe the identity of the transcendent. In a Christian sense, the notion of the divine with a Trinitarian identification is central. The article examines the implications of such a naming of God for spirituality. Attention is paid to the relationship between doctrinal theology and spirituality as well as to scholarly reflection already undertaken on a so-called Trinitarian spirituality. The article suggests guidelines for future (...) work and emphasises that an adequate account should be given of how Trinitarian theology is undertaken as symbolising and hermeneutical endeavour. Some unique features of this spirituality are profiled, and it is argued that a Trinitarian imagining of the divine may generate perspectives not possible in an unqualified monotheistic approach. (shrink)

Considered in light of the reader’s expectation of a thoroughgoing criticism of the pretensions of the rational psychologist, and of the wealth of discussions available in the broader 18th century context, which includes a variety of proofs that do not explicitly turn on the identification of the soul as a simple substance, Kant’s discussion of immortality in the Paralogisms falls lamentably short. However, outside of the Paralogisms (and the published works generally), Kant had much more to say about (...) the arguments for the soul’s immortality as he devoted considerable time to the topic throughout his career in his lectures on metaphysics. In fact, as I show in this paper, the student lecture notes prove to be an indispensable supplement to the treatment in the Paralogisms, not only for illuminating Kant’s criticism of the rational psychologist’s views on the immortality of the soul, but also in reconciling this criticism with Kant’s own positive claims regarding certain theoretical proofs of immortality. (shrink)

Building on the ideas of philosophers and literary theorists such as Davidson, Rorty, Derrida, Lyotard, and Bakhtin, the author investigates the role that interpretation plays in the acts of writing and reading.

Contributed paper concerns the misleading ways of argumentation caused by ambiguity of natural language as Aristotle describes them in his writing On Sophistical Refutations. It will be shown that traditional and generally accepted interpretation of these paralogisms is inappropriate and new solution will be proposed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Trinitarian Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar: An Introduction by Brendan McInernyEndika MartinezThe Trinitarian Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar: An Introduction by Brendan McInerny (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), 250 pp.Thomas Aquinas affirms that knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity is useful to think about creation and about the salvation of humanity (Summa theologiae I, q. 32, a. 1, (...) ad 3). Brendan McInerny addresses this challenge by introducing, in a captivating and suggestive way, the Trinitarian theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. This book responds in great detail to the question posed by Balthasar in Razing up the Bastions: What place does the doctrine of the Trinity have in Christian existence? In order to answer this question, the author divides the book into four chapters, preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. The first two chapters are about the immanent Trinity, the third about deification, and the last one about apophaticism.In the introduction, McInerny comments on Balthasar's distinct theological method. This method has been praised by some scholars, such as Lucy Gardner or David Moss, for presenting old mysteries in new configurations; but it has also been criticized by other scholars such as Karl Rahner or Karen Kilby for alleged Gnosticism or presuming a "God's eye view... above Tradition, Scripture or history... against his [Balthasar's] desire to remain epistemologically humble" (6). McInerny reaffirms that Balthasar never belittles the abysmal difference between creatures and God; but rather, he recognizes that alterity is founded on a principle of similarity. Thus, the Thomistic real distinction does not stop the possibility of creatures becoming "sons and daughters of the Father, in the Son, by the Holy Spirit." Instead, difference is the principle of similarity, since it is founded on the "movement of the divine essence... the kenotic outpouring, self-sacrifice, self-gift of the intra-trinitarian difference" (13).Chapter 1, "God is Love: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theology of the Immanent Trinity," deals with the generation of the Son, the procession of the Holy Spirit, and thus the divine relations. The author explains that Balthasar seeks to affirm a strong unity in the person of the Father as the foundation of divinity or as the core of the mystery of selflessness and pure love. This unity, however, appears in the very difference between the persons in an "intra-mental act of producing distinct persons capable of reciprocal acts—a reciprocity required if God is love" (16). The Father is Father insofar as he eternally gives the entirety of divinity to the Son; and the Son is Son insofar as the groundless "love of the Father finds its expression in the mirror of the Son's own groundless consent to, and thanksgiving for, being [End Page 382] begotten" (26). The Spirit is in-between the Father and the Son as their bond of love so that it seals and maintains "the infinite difference between them"; the Spirit is the "identity of the gift-as-given and the gift-as-received in thanksgiving" (28). In the order of processions, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in a miracle of eternal fruitfulness. The author argues in this chapter that there is both an active and passive function in each person of the Trinity due to a real I-Thou relationship that occurs in the divine life. Despite the provisional nature of any concept applied to God, this dialogue can be considered "of reciprocal wonder and worship, of infinite reciprocal gratitude,... the reciprocity of divine love as therefore the reciprocity of divine worship, adoration and prayer" (41).In chapter 2, "A Confluence of Diverse Tendencies: The Sources of Balthasar's Immanent Trinitarian Theology," the author seeks to put Balthasar into context. McInerny highlights the influence of Richard of Saint Victor and Bonaventure in the context of the Franciscan and Thom-istic dispute over whether the Father is Father by generating the Son, or if he generates insofar as he is Father. Balthasar says that "the Father cannot be thought to exist "prior" to his self-surrender. He is the movement of self-giving that... (shrink)

A historical and systematic introduction to what the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about the Trinity. By focusing on the thought of one of the greatest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilles Emery OP elucidates the classical Christian understanding of God.

We begin with a puzzle about how to intelligibly combine the active and passive elements of perception. For counsel, we turn to Augustine’s account of perception in De Trinitate. Augustine’s trinitarian account of perception offers an attractive resolution of our puzzle. Augustine’s resolution of our puzzle, however, cannot be straightforwardly adopted. It must be adapted. We end with speculation about how this might be done.

The present article argues that the doctrine of the inseparable external operations of the Trinity is consistent with the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son alone. To demonstrate this, it will be shown, first, that the assumption of human nature can be ascribed to the Son alone when taken as a state, as opposed to an action. Secondly, I will defend John Owen’s claim that the Son is not the “immediate” agent of Christ’s actions. Finally, an appeal is made (...) to Trinitarian “missions” to show the coherence of OAE with our having communion with distinct divine persons. (shrink)

In recent years, many resourceful thinkers have brought a new clarity to the issues surrounding the doctrine of the Trinity. Two incompatible families of Trinitarian doctrine have been clearly distinguished: Social Trinitarianism and Latin Trinitarianism. I argue here that no theory in either camp has yet evaded the triune pitfalls of inconsistency, unintelligibility, and poor fit with the Bible. These two main approaches appear to be hopeless, and I argue that appeals to ‘mystery’ are no way to avoid the (...) difficulties at hand. Thus, the Trinitarian project is as yet unfinished. (shrink)

The via contemplativa and the via activa have been seen as two parallel tracks in spirituality. The separation is inevitable without a rich Trinitarian anchor. Uniting the Western, substantive view of God and the Eastern, relational view offers the hope of an integrative spirituality: the coming together of Mary and Martha, the active and the contemplative life. The high-priestly prayer of Jesus in the garden offers a similar vision of integration: Intimacy and fruitfulness are possible through a mutual indwelling (...) empowered by the Holy Spirit. We feed on the living bread so that the life of Christ is manifest in the world. At the table hostility becomes hospitality. Missional spirituality is founded on a single movement of Godself into the world: mission as the self-unfolding of contemplation. (shrink)

Roderick Chisholm has recently developed a view that can be regarded as in large part a modern version of the rational psychology attacked by Kant in his critique of the “paralogisms of pure reason.” Chisholm argues that the self is a substance, that it is not “annexed to” or “placed in” any other being, that it has a certain numerical identity, and that it is directly known in itself—four claims that map fairly easily onto the main themes of Kant’s (...) Paralogisms. At various points Chisholm directs himself against what he takes to be skeptical Kantian considerations against these claims. I happen to believe most of these claims are true and that even Kant was ultimately committed to them, but what I shall advance here is simply the interpretive thesis that Chisholm’s arguments for these claims are weak and their weakness is well exposed precisely by considerations encouraged by Kant’s discussion of the paralogisms. In other words, there is still more work to be done if one desires a contemporary defense of rational psychology. (shrink)

I shall argue here that Trinity is a leitmotiv in Marion’s works and that his latest analysis on said concept can enlighten us on the function of the icon and on the structure of his phenomenology of givenness. As such I will argue for a Trinitarian character of givenness. To prove this, I shall structure this paper as a commentary on Givenness and Revelation that will show how this book reveals unclear functions of the Trinity involved in givenness, such (...) as the role of the Holy Spirit, and relate these functions to the strict phenomenological structure of the act of giving. I shall first set the stage for a phenomenological interpretation of Trinity, showing which concepts are at play in Marion’s analysis of revelation. This will be followed by the integration of Trinity in the immanent field of phenomenology. Further, I shall show how revelation serves as the model for a new phenomenal logic, and I shall try to explain its manifestation. This will be followed by a presentation of how Marion’s new considerations on the topic of revelation can clarify both the role of the given and in addition the role of the subject within Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. (shrink)

The theorizing about the doctrine of the Trinity by contemporary analytic philosophers of religion has recently been imbued with an air of enthusiastic excitement and self-confidence. My intuition is that there’s room for saying something more in support to the embarrassment and puzzlement traditionally related to the predication of God’s onefoldness and threefoldness. My purpose is to deliver a general argument for (weak) trinitarian skepticism. My view is that the argument provides substantive reasons in support to the common sense (...) intuition that either God’s onefoldness and threefoldness aren’t actually compatible or God’s onefoldness and threefoldness aren’t robustly construed. (shrink)

How can the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be distinct and yet identical? Prompted by the doctrine of the divine Trinity, this question sparked centuries of lively debate. In the current context of renewed interest in Trinitarian theology, Russell L. Friedman provides the first survey of the scholastic discussion of the Trinity in the 100-year period stretching from Thomas Aquinas' earliest works to William Ockham's death. Tracing two central issues - the attempt to explain how the three (...) persons are distinct from each other but identical as God, and the application to the Trinity of a 'psychological model', on which the Son is a mental word or concept, and the Holy Spirit is love - this volume offers a broad overview of Trinitarian thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, along with focused studies of the Trinitarian ideas of many of the period's most important theologians. (shrink)

The re-appreciation of the Trinitarian confession in the twentieth century is widely considered a major theological development. Recently, several critical voices emerged, questioning the direction of these explorations. As response, the article identifies major emphases of this rediscovery, namely, the return to sources, the clarification of the function of the confession and its re-envisioning of the nature of divinity, the more centring of the Christian vision in one material principle, the heuristic potential for practical questions and the need for (...) apophatism. The article appreciatively intimates the subtler dynamics to the enthusiasm for the Trinity and briefly highlights the presence of transcendence, narrativity, imagination, analogy and spirituality in the discourse. Some suggestions have been provided for future reflection. (shrink)

This article examines the Wesleyan Trinitarian theology and pneumatology as God's performative actions through insight into the speech act theory. Wesley's understanding of the Holy Spirit in the Trinitarianism, which reveals God's salvation performance, has not been studied relatively much in Wesleyan Trinitarianism. Also, in modern theology, Trinitarianism is being interpreted newly along with various disciplines through interdisciplinary dialogue. Therefore, this article attempted to re-examine Wesley's Trinitarianism and Holy Spirit theory with the speech act theory in the philosophy of (...) language. These quests allow us to explain that the salvation of the triune God is revealed in the believers. CONTRIBUTION: This article engages the traditional Wesleyan Trinitarian theology and pneumatology as God's performative actions for the salvations to reconsider it in the speech act theory. It can explain what God's performative action of salvation achieves in the lives of believers and how it transforms their lives. (shrink)

Augustine’s sermons on the Psalms of Ascent, part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, are a unique entry in the venerable tradition of those writings that aim to help us ascend to a higher reality. These sermons transform the ascent genre by giving, in the place of the Platonic account of ascent, a Christian ascent narrative with a Trinitarian structure. Not just the individual ascends, but the community that is the church, the body of Christ, also ascends. The ascent is (...) up to God, the Idipsum or the Selfsame, the ultimate reality, confessed by the church as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of the Incarnation, God the Son enables us to ascend, making himself the way of ascent from the humility we must imitate at the beginning of the ascent all the way up to Heaven, where he retains his identity as Idipsum. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works in the ascending church to convert our hearts to the love of God and neighbor. I review the Platonic ascent tradition in Plato’s Republic and Plotinus’ Enneads; overview ascent in some of Augustine’s earlier writings; introduce the narrative setting of the sermons on the Psalms of Ascent; and analyze the Trinitarian structure of their ascent narrative. I close with some reflections on the difference between a preached Trinitarianism that encourages ascent and a more academic effort to understand God such as we find in Augustine’s de Trinitate. (shrink)

Classical Trinitarian dogma affirms that God is simple—a teaching also advanced by major proponents of classical monotheism. Nevertheless, as each one knows, this notion is controversial in modern analytic philosophy, where it is commonly contested. It is also largely ignored in contemporary continental dogmatic theology. Nevertheless, the teaching that God is simple is requisite for any authentic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma of Nicaea. It is also eminently defensible from a rational, philosophical point of view. In what follows (...) I will begin with (I) a theological consideration of the notion of Trinitarian simplicity before considering (II) the metaphysics of the simplicity of the divine essence. (III) I will then consider briefly two special problems that are associated with the metaphysics of divine simplicity: divine knowledge and divine freedom. (IV) Finally, I will consider briefly the significant Christological consequences of the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of the traditional affirmation of divine simplicity. (shrink)

During the second half of the 16th century, some members of the Society of Jesus began to develop different interpretations around the doctrine of causality within the history of Aristotelian commentaries. Since Aristotle had not proposed an unambiguous definition of cause, the debate grew between the interpreters of his Physics and Metaphysics. Therefore, before Suarez systematized the theories in his Metaphysical Disputations, the professors of the Colleges of Arts and Jesuit Universities discussed the definition of cause (ratio formalis causae). In (...) this essay, I intend to reconstruct the history of causality debate before 1597 when Suarez published his successful metaphysical work and went to Coimbra as a professor of theology. The aim of this essay is to analyse some of the most influential Portuguese professors from Evora and Coimbra and their commentaries on the Aristotle’s works including those proposed by Ignatio de Tolosa (1564), Pedro da Fonseca (1589) and Manuel de Gois (1592). In this way, knowledge of the different views within the Society of Jesus will allow a better understanding of the developments made by Suarez to define causality as principle in the new metaphysical (theological and trinitarian) perspective towards Modernity. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present a Fitch–style natural deduction proof theory for modal paralogics (modal logics with gaps and/or gluts for negation). Besides the standard classical subproofs, the presented proof theory also contains modal subproofs, which express what would follow from a hypothesis, in case it would be true in some arbitrary world.

In this essay we analyze some of the most influential of the recent claims that the Son is permanently and necessarily subordinate to the Father. After first summarizing the case made by Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem for their view, we evaluate the strength of their case and advance some counterarguments. In spite of the fact that their view has attracted a great deal of attention and criticism, the massive and important metaphysical claims made by Grudem and Ware have not (...) yet received adequate scrutiny. (edited). (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Fortunatian’s Christology and Trinitarian theology that can be deduced from his recently found work Commentarii in evangelia and, by doing so, to present a general re-evaluation of his role in the political-doctrinal clashes at the middle of the 4th century. By investigating Fortunatian’s (Trinitarian) theology in relation to the prior early Latin Trinitarian doctrine and to different heterodox traditions, and ascertaining his doctrinal standpoint in the Arian controversy of (...) the middle of the 4th century, his doctrine reveals itself to be far more Catholic and “pro-Nicene” – though remaining deeply rooted in the Latin theological tradition – that it was regarded before. (shrink)