A Summary and Interpretation of Boethius' - "On The Holy Trinity"
Stephen Alexander Beach
A Quick Note
An absolute necessity for understanding this work is understanding that our human language is intrinsically colored by our metaphysical state of being in the physical world. And so when it comes to predicating something of God, we must, like Isaiah, have a hot coal put to our lips, so to speak, to help purify our language to be fit to even attempt at describing the divine. And so if we are trying to understand in this reading what we can or cannot say about God as Trinity, we should begin by asking, what is meant properly by "subject", what is meant by "is", and what is meant by "predicate" in reference to God? We know that God's essence is equal to his existence, and so therefore predication is going to have to work differently with respect to God versus everything else.
Chapter I - The Statement of the Dogma of the Trinity and the Sources of Plurality
This treatise of Boethius On The Holy Trinity is written in the context of a letter to his friend "Lord and father Symmachus", and he reveals that he is drawing from St. Augustine and his personal study of philosophy (there are certainly also influences from Aristotle's Categories).
The Catholic dogma regarding the Trinity, which Boethius clearly states, is that the "Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Ghost is God", but not that they are three Gods, but one God. This seems counter intuitive to the average person, and so it begs the question, how are we to understand this? Well, Boethius talks about "otherness" being the source of plurality, and he gives three examples related to predication and otherness: Genus, species, and number. Genus, referring to a broad category of similar/shared essences. Species, referring to the genus + specific difference which give the definition of a thing. And number, referring to the accidents of things being individuated in space and time. Because of matter's individuating property, anything subject to matter is not the same as its form. Rather, it is expresses only part of its universal form.
A Quick Note
An absolute necessity for understanding this work is understanding that our human language is intrinsically colored by our metaphysical state of being in the physical world. And so when it comes to predicating something of God, we must, like Isaiah, have a hot coal put to our lips, so to speak, to help purify our language to be fit to even attempt at describing the divine. And so if we are trying to understand in this reading what we can or cannot say about God as Trinity, we should begin by asking, what is meant properly by "subject", what is meant by "is", and what is meant by "predicate" in reference to God? We know that God's essence is equal to his existence, and so therefore predication is going to have to work differently with respect to God versus everything else.
Chapter I - The Statement of the Dogma of the Trinity and the Sources of Plurality
This treatise of Boethius On The Holy Trinity is written in the context of a letter to his friend "Lord and father Symmachus", and he reveals that he is drawing from St. Augustine and his personal study of philosophy (there are certainly also influences from Aristotle's Categories).
The Catholic dogma regarding the Trinity, which Boethius clearly states, is that the "Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Ghost is God", but not that they are three Gods, but one God. This seems counter intuitive to the average person, and so it begs the question, how are we to understand this? Well, Boethius talks about "otherness" being the source of plurality, and he gives three examples related to predication and otherness: Genus, species, and number. Genus, referring to a broad category of similar/shared essences. Species, referring to the genus + specific difference which give the definition of a thing. And number, referring to the accidents of things being individuated in space and time. Because of matter's individuating property, anything subject to matter is not the same as its form. Rather, it is expresses only part of its universal form.
"Thus 'different' is said in respect to either genus, species or number. But it is variety among accidents that produces difference in respect to number. For three men differ neither in genus nor species, but in their accidents: for even if we mentally separate all accidents from them, there is still a different location for each and for all of them, which we can in no way imagine to be one: for two bodies will not occupy one location; and location is an accident. Therefore these three men are many in respect to number, since the become many by their accidents."
Chapter II - The Three Speculative Sciences and God Not Being a Subject
Likewise, each of these predicates can be viewed differently from the three different speculative sciences: physics, mathematics, and theology (metaphysics). Physics studies bodies in motion, mathematics - quantities abstracted from matter, and Theology/metaphysics - realities not subject to body/number/extension.
So we must purify our mind of images and proceed intellectually according to form, which is where being lays. God is simple form without parts or accidents. He is perfectly one with his form and cannot be called a "subject" like all other things because there are no distinctions between his form and his being. "Yet form which is without matter cannot be a subject, and it cannot be in matter either: for [in such a case] it would not be a form, but an image. For from these forms which are outside of matter have come those forms which are in matter and which produce a body. And we are sloppy when we call those in bodies 'forms' when they are really images: for images take on appearance of these forms which are not established in matter. In conclusion, there is no diversity in such a case [as God], no plurality from diversity, no multitude arising from accidents and therefore no number." [in God]
Chapter II - The Three Speculative Sciences and God Not Being a Subject
Likewise, each of these predicates can be viewed differently from the three different speculative sciences: physics, mathematics, and theology (metaphysics). Physics studies bodies in motion, mathematics - quantities abstracted from matter, and Theology/metaphysics - realities not subject to body/number/extension.
So we must purify our mind of images and proceed intellectually according to form, which is where being lays. God is simple form without parts or accidents. He is perfectly one with his form and cannot be called a "subject" like all other things because there are no distinctions between his form and his being. "Yet form which is without matter cannot be a subject, and it cannot be in matter either: for [in such a case] it would not be a form, but an image. For from these forms which are outside of matter have come those forms which are in matter and which produce a body. And we are sloppy when we call those in bodies 'forms' when they are really images: for images take on appearance of these forms which are not established in matter. In conclusion, there is no diversity in such a case [as God], no plurality from diversity, no multitude arising from accidents and therefore no number." [in God]
Chapter III - God's Unity and Oneness
There is a key distinction that Boethius makes between what is "countable to us" versus what is "numerical in itself." Countable to us refers to the mode of human knowing (which he clearly talks about in The Consolation of Philosophy Ch. V). Our human mode of knowing follows our being, as rational animals whose knowledge begins in the sensing of the physical world (quantitative extension in space and time). Being numerical in itself refers to a distinction of parts within a thing which can thus be quantitative and numerical. And so something can be wholly one and yet from our perspective we can create plurality or distinctions with our mode of knowing and speaking. With the divine reality, number is only on our side as the knower, not in God himself.
There is a key distinction that Boethius makes between what is "countable to us" versus what is "numerical in itself." Countable to us refers to the mode of human knowing (which he clearly talks about in The Consolation of Philosophy Ch. V). Our human mode of knowing follows our being, as rational animals whose knowledge begins in the sensing of the physical world (quantitative extension in space and time). Being numerical in itself refers to a distinction of parts within a thing which can thus be quantitative and numerical. And so something can be wholly one and yet from our perspective we can create plurality or distinctions with our mode of knowing and speaking. With the divine reality, number is only on our side as the knower, not in God himself.
"When it comes to the number by which we count, therefore, the repetition of unities produces plurality; but when it comes to the number of things, the repetition of unities does not produce plurality. For instance, if I were to say concerning the same thing, 'one sword, one blade, one brand.' - since one sword can be known by so many terms- this is an iteration of unities, not an enumeration. For instance, if we were to say. 'brand, blade, sword.' this is, so to speak, a repetition of the same thing, not an enumeration of different things. Or if I were to say, 'sun, sun, sun’ I would not have produced three suns, but I would have predicated of one sun so many times."
Thus we cannot apply number to God like we do to everything else. So when God is said three times it is not saying there is plurality in God, but a plurality in our speech or in our mode of thinking. And thus when we say of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - we are not introducing a plurality of gods, but rather the statement is a repetition of the same one thing. But this raises the question, what is the difference between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit then? To understand how there can be three distinct persons within one unified God, we must first understand how predication works.
Chapter IV - The 10 Categories and Divine Predication
Okay so where is the distinction then between the three? Well, when we predicate we use the 10 categories, but since God is a substance beyond all we know of substance we cannot predicate in the same way between God and us. "But when one applies these to divine predication, everything that can be predicated is changed."
God is not just a substance, like what we are usually familiar with in our experience. God can be analogously said to be a substance, but will always infinitely transcend everything we know of substances. Boethius calls God the "beyond substance." Therefore, likewise, all predications have to be equal to God's "beyond substance," since existence and essence are the same in God. The principle of individuation does not apply to God as it does to every other being. For every other being there can be a distinction between its ideal form and the real existent being, and thus can be categorized by genus and species. God, though, cannot be categorized in any genus or species because he is perfectly one and perfectly himself. The ideal and the reality are one in the same. This also means that we cannot call the other 9 categories accidents when applied to God, but only to us, as God has no accidents.
Boethius concludes chapter IV with three summary terms related to predicating the 10 categories differently, and to different subjects - us or God-.
The key aspect of these lines is that there can exist divine relation in God within his perfect unity. In itself they are all totally interpenetratingly related with one another, just as all God's qualities are interpenetratingly perfect. But to us God's justice and his greatness, his mercy, his power, etc. can all be drawn out distinctly because that is how we know them according to our mode of knowing. Indeed justice is not the same as power, nor mercy the same as greatness, yet they all find perfect unity in God. And so too with us, we can draw out the distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can say that the Father is not the same as the Son and not the same as the Holy Spirit, while in themselves they consist in perfect unity. And so relation as predicated to God is the relation between same to same and equal to equal. "And in the Trinity there is a similarity of the Father to the Son and of both to the Holy Ghost, just as there is a sameness of that which is the same to that as which it is the same."
Chapter IV - The 10 Categories and Divine Predication
Okay so where is the distinction then between the three? Well, when we predicate we use the 10 categories, but since God is a substance beyond all we know of substance we cannot predicate in the same way between God and us. "But when one applies these to divine predication, everything that can be predicated is changed."
God is not just a substance, like what we are usually familiar with in our experience. God can be analogously said to be a substance, but will always infinitely transcend everything we know of substances. Boethius calls God the "beyond substance." Therefore, likewise, all predications have to be equal to God's "beyond substance," since existence and essence are the same in God. The principle of individuation does not apply to God as it does to every other being. For every other being there can be a distinction between its ideal form and the real existent being, and thus can be categorized by genus and species. God, though, cannot be categorized in any genus or species because he is perfectly one and perfectly himself. The ideal and the reality are one in the same. This also means that we cannot call the other 9 categories accidents when applied to God, but only to us, as God has no accidents.
And so dealing with quality and quantity (accidents intrinsic to a substance), for instance, we cannot say that God is just, or that God has justice (a part) ... but rather God is justice itself (whole). The substance of God must be equal to any predication of God. Indeed it is implied in it, such that saying "God" implies every perfect notion of his being, being perfectly just (quality), or perfectly great (quantity), but for our sake we can emphasize some aspect out from the rest when we talk about God as just or great.
Even the external accidents of place and time are predicated differently of God than we are used to. For place, Boethius points out that we cannot say that God is in any place, but rather that all places are in God. This is because to say that God is in a place would mean that reality exceeds God, which is wrong. But when we say that all places are in God we establish that God exceeds reality and therefore holds all places in being, and thus they exist in him. [This also points to the radical debasement that God subjects himself to by putting himself in a place in our reality in the eucharist!] With time, God’s eternity is predicated as a simultaneous and complete possession of the present. This is different from our continual now's spread out in time, our what Boethius calls "sempiternity". Action can be said of God (if it is indeed purified like the other categories) but passion and position cannot be said in any way of God.
Boethius concludes chapter IV with three summary terms related to predicating the 10 categories differently, and to different subjects - us or God-.
1) "predicates in respect to the thing itself" - referring to created substances.
2) "accidents in respect to the thing itself" - referring to accidents of created substances
3) "a predicate in respect to the substance of the thing itself" (this distinction is because God cannot be called a subject, as he is his essence perfectly) - referring to all of God's perfect predicates.
Chapter V - The Trinity and the Predicate of Relation
Boethius, with all these distinctions being made, then turns to the Trinity, finally, and how we might uphold the dogma that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not identical. The insight is going to have to come from an understanding of the category of relation in regard to the Trinity. Relation is unique among the categories because it can be added or destroyed without changing its subject at all. This is because relation is not in the thing itself but in an extrinsic existence of comparison between multiple things or multiple aspects of the same thing. "Therefore those things which do not produce a predicate in respect to a property of some thing, in that which it truly is, are able to alter or change nothing and can vary no essence in any way."
And so for the Trinity what does it mean to predicate relation? On one end we do not want to say that relation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a completely meaningless distinction, but we also don't want to say that it changes the substance of God either. Rather, it does mean something, but without changing the substance. Boethius talks about this middle way as such: "Thus if 'Father' and 'Son' are predicated in relation, and they differ in no respect but this relation alone, as we stated, and if this relation is predicated neither relative to that of which it is predicated, as though it were the same, nor according to the thing itself of which it is said, then this predicate does not produce a difference of things in that of which it is spoken, but indeed - if it can be said - it produces something that can scarcely be understood: a difference of persons." In other words, when we predicate relation to God we are not introducing plurality, division, or otherness ... but what then are we saying about God?
Chapter VI - The Key Insight - Two Perspectives on Divinely Predicating Relation
In this last chapter is where the key insight of all this lies, in my opinion, and it centers around these lines: "Thus substance holds together unity, while relation brings number to the Trinity: therefore those things which are brought forth in isolation and separately are of relation. For the Father is not the same as the Son, nor is the Holy Ghost the same as either of them. Yet God is the same as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He is the same as justice, goodness, greatness and all the things which can be predicated of Him Himself."
The key aspect of these lines is that there can exist divine relation in God within his perfect unity. In itself they are all totally interpenetratingly related with one another, just as all God's qualities are interpenetratingly perfect. But to us God's justice and his greatness, his mercy, his power, etc. can all be drawn out distinctly because that is how we know them according to our mode of knowing. Indeed justice is not the same as power, nor mercy the same as greatness, yet they all find perfect unity in God. And so too with us, we can draw out the distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can say that the Father is not the same as the Son and not the same as the Holy Spirit, while in themselves they consist in perfect unity. And so relation as predicated to God is the relation between same to same and equal to equal. "And in the Trinity there is a similarity of the Father to the Son and of both to the Holy Ghost, just as there is a sameness of that which is the same to that as which it is the same."
He then points out that, just as he said earlier, divine predication is unique because God's being is wholly unique in comparison to any other created being. "But if this phenomenon cannot be found in all other things, this is the result of the difference known from transitory things." And here Boethius concludes his letter.
But if our conclusion is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist as equal relations in God and distinct relations to us, just as justice, mercy, and power exist as equal relations in God and distinct relations to us, we are led to ask: why is three persons more perfect than one in God, how is perfect being itself? Well, Boethius does not get into this but it seems clear that if God is love, then within himself there would have to exist a perfect lover, beloved, and love shared ... and there is the perfection of the Holy Trinity which is one in being God and yet to us we can say that the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Holy Spirit.
Just a final note here on what one might take away from this. Only God can correctly speak and know God, all other beings will only know God according to their mode of being. God is a only one thing, perfectly unified, but since we cannot know him in this manner, we must introduce distinctions in his being so that we can understanding something analogously from our mode of existence. And so God's greatness, goodness, and justice all are perfectly one and interpenetrating with one another, and yet to us we can, from our mode, introduce distinctions and say that God's greatness is not his goodness and his goodness not his justice. In itself though it must uphold divine simplicity, and so it will remain a mystery to us how these things can perfectly interpenetrate with one another.
Just a final note here on what one might take away from this. Only God can correctly speak and know God, all other beings will only know God according to their mode of being. God is a only one thing, perfectly unified, but since we cannot know him in this manner, we must introduce distinctions in his being so that we can understanding something analogously from our mode of existence. And so God's greatness, goodness, and justice all are perfectly one and interpenetrating with one another, and yet to us we can, from our mode, introduce distinctions and say that God's greatness is not his goodness and his goodness not his justice. In itself though it must uphold divine simplicity, and so it will remain a mystery to us how these things can perfectly interpenetrate with one another.
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