Jim
There is only one humanity, so when you have more human, there is still only one humanity, not multiple humanities. One Divinity, with three members, each fully divine, does not become three divinities (gods).
Not at all. In most polytheisms the many gods share one divinity (divine kind or status, as opposed to mortals), too. Which is what their genealogies point to -- gods and goddesses uniting and giving birth to other gods, within the same "family".
Ross,
I wonder if there isn't some latitude in considering that rather than the three individuals being examples of a species, they are deemed the entirety of the co-existant race.
And what would that change? Wouldn't they be just a finite number of "examples"?
The only way imo to avoid tritheism is to construe hypostaseis and personae not as mere samples but as non-interchangeable positions in a definite structure. Three "modes of being," as Barth puts it, insisting on being against modalism (which implies modes of operation or appearance).
As another sidebar, I have also given consideration to whether a creator needs to be more complex than His progeny. Following that thought: when an amoeba splits, which part is the parent and which part the child?
I highlighted the words "creator" and "progeny" because they belong to two distinct metaphors, which the Gnostic crisis of the 2nd century and subsequent theology, both orthodox and heretic, have dramatically set against each other. Creator / creature or Father / progeny, that has become the main shibboleth of Christian theology... from this perspective, where does the notion of creation fit in your diagram:
- A divides to A+B; A+B "copulate" bringing forth C
- A Divides to A+B; A+B divides to A+B+C+D; D rebels
? Just testing how far you trust your Gnostic leanings
Craig,
In classical theology the finite/infinite issue does not belong to the doctrine of Trinity per se (or ontological Trinity, dealing with the eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit), but to the accompanying doctrine of hypostatic union of "God the Son" and the man Jesus, hence of the uncreated and the created, which actually calls for another, termed "economical," Trinity. Which was a logical necessity inasmuch as Gnosticism was rejected, but remains also the less satisfying aspect of orthodoxy imo. Perhaps the essential originality of Karl Barth's theology was to deny this distinction, building up a speculative anti-Gnosticism (mankind in God, the finite in the infinite rather than the opposite).
The core of the Trinity doctrine, to me, stands in the very simple formula: God above us, with us, within us.
