Objections to the Material Composition Account of the Trinity

Unfortunately for the traditional Christian most often the picture painted by analogies is not that of the Trinity, but that most common of theological errors modalism. Modalism in its most basic form holds that there is one divine person who presents itself in three modes or forms. (The first recorded condemned modalist was the late 2nd century Noetus of Smyrna.) The water analogy serves as a good example of an analogy that fails to capture the Trinity. The analogy holds that the Trinity is like water in that water takes on three forms vapor, liquid, and ice. Similarly God, like the water, takes on three forms Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The problem here, as Rea and Brower point out, is that vapor, liquid, and ice are three states (modes) of a single substance, water, which is to fall into the heresy of modalism. Rea and Brower in their paper "Understanding the Trinity" also concur that the water analogy falls into modalism. This seems to be an odd claim for Rea and Brower to make if we consider that the water analogy seems significantly similar to the lump/statue analogy.

Following Rea and Brower's account of numerical sameness without identity it seems reasonable to say of the water that one can continue to believe that there are ice cubes and volumes of water, that every region occupied by an ice cube is occupied by a volume of water, that no ice cube is identical to a volume of water (after all, cubes and volumes have different persistence conditions), but also that there are never two material objects occupying precisely the same place at the same time. The two analogies then both seem to assert that there are different states or manifestations of a single substance, which looks remarkably like modalism. Rea and Brower might respond that the water analogy goes wrong in that it focuses on the one quantity of water being manifested in different forms, which sounds like modalism, whereas the hylomorphic compounds focuses on the individual objects. Nevertheless, the authors could just as easily respond that they were wrong to characterize the water analogy as leading to modalism if one insists on the kind of story told about lumps of water and ice cubes above.

Another worry here might be what we'll call the problem of simultaneous manifestations. One of the disanalogies between water and the Trinity is that the states of water can't be manifested at the same time whereas to maintain orthodoxy the distinct hylomorphs of the Trinity must be instantiated at the same time. While numerical sameness without identity is not a collocationist account, Rea and Brower grant that both tell a similar story. One limitation that the collocationist acknowledges, that Rea and Brower fail to make account of, is that two things of the same kind cannot comprise the same material object. The lump/statue example gives an account of two different kinds, a lump kind and a statue kind. What would seem to be needed for an adequate account of the Trinity is an example of a statue, statue, and statue that are numerically the same. This would seem to be exactly the kind of wonky object like tree and bent-tree that Rea and Brower claimed they don't need to be committed too.

A final concern is that we might be suspicious that there is a fourth person lurking in the mass that constitutes the persons of Trinity. Is the divine essence is an individual itself? Rea and Brower have room to reject such a notion since on their account this matter cannot constitute a person since it lacks form. Notice that in the account of numerical sameness without identity reference to what lays behind the object is referentially opaque. This perspective comes out in response to the question of what the object is in any region filled with matter unified in any object-constituting way. One can talk about the lump of bronze or one can talk about the bronze statue, but one cannot talk about one object that lies behind the two. The problem for the doctrine of the Trinity is that such a reading seems to make the persons of the Trinity too distinct, and talk of God mildly nonsensical. So when Rea and Brower say things like "He exists in three Persons" it is not clear who the referent of He is, or that He could have a referent at all. All God talk would need to become particularized on the individuals. Yet, such a picture begins to look like pluralism, and the unity of God fades out of the analogy.

Let me conclude by saying that Rea and Brower's account of numerical sameness without identity is certainly commendable for its novelty, and ingenuity. What is not clear is that is solves either the problem of material constitution, or the problem of the Trinity. To be generous, the account looks to be one that holds some promise for the traditional Christian. While I have raised a number of objections, I don't pretend that they are insurmountable for the defender of this analogy. I recognize that the authors have just made the first tentative steps of making their case, but much more needs to be said by way of clarification on the part of Rea and Brower.