An episodic account of divine personhood

I present Ned Markosian's episodic account of identity under a sortal, and then use it to sketch a new model of the Trinity. I show that the model can be used to solve at least three important Trinitarian puzzles: the traditional ‘logical problem of the Trinity’, a less-discussed problem that has been dubbed the ‘problem of triunity’, and a problem about the divine processions that has been enjoying increased attention in the recent literature.

A person's a person, no matter how divine? The question of univocity and personhood in Richard of St Victor'sDe Trinitate

This article offers a reading of Richard of St Victor's medieval treatiseOn the Trinity. It suggests that while Richard interrogates the question of trinitarian personhood in innovative ways, his contribution lies in the way he emphasises hownatureinfluences the criteria for personhood with respect to different modes of existence. Thus, while human personhood shares certain features in common with divine personhood, the two concepts must remain distinguishable with reference to the type of natures they uniquely ‘person’. This conclusion may serve to chastise modern forms of trinitarianism which assume ‘univocity’ of divine and human personhood too hastily.

Otherwise than Identity, or Beyond Difference

This paper locates in the philosophy of Maximus the Confessor a remarkable concern for the temporality, finitude, and historicity of the human soul, that at once anticipates Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology,” but which is also capable of overcoming the limitations of philosophical nihilism. In taking up Heidegger’s claim that the recovery of ontology (and philosophy itself) depends upon the understanding of Being always in relation to its self-revelation in the finite and historical reality of human existence, it becomes clear that contemporary philosophical expression requires a “turning away” from the conceptual unity of finite beings and eternal Being, and a movement toward a radically subjective negativity. In contrast to his Neoplatonic forebears, Maximus presents a mode of thinking which is capable of surpassing Heideggerian negation, not through a denial of human particularity or finitude, but rather through a transformation of the very categories of Being and non-being themselves through his understanding of divine personhood. For Maximus such personhood is conceived of as transcending both Being and time, and yet without any loss of transcendence comes also to partake fully of both through the mystery of the Incarnation. According to Maximus, this radical event of be-coming forever transfigures the sphere of beings, bringing the historical into the transcendent, non-Being into Being, and death into life.