The Problem of the Trinity

Nice posting Matthew. I, of course, don't have a solution. But I think that it's a really intriging puzzle and an important issue, so I'm glad that such things are being discussed here.

So I think the inconsistency is genuine. And it strikes me as a defeater for Traditional Christian belief. I am curious what people think the right answer to the following questions are:

(1) Is the inconsistency genuine?

(2) If (1) is true, what is the correct conclusion to draw from it?

I think there are a couple of suppositions in the layout of the puzzle that need to be addressed in order to determine if the puzzle is a genuine one.

1) At what level unity? Things that look absolutely distinct when viewed three-dimensionally, if Minowski et al are right, come together in four dimensions to form one all encompassing Spacetime manifold. Perhaps the triune deity is unified in some analogous manner which we currently lack the requisite apparatus to comprehend.

2) What sort of identity? Even if "is" is the "is" of indentity, what does that mean for an infinite deity? For finite beings identity means sameness. If I am x and y is not x, then I am not y. So, finite identity is transitive, and clearly demarcated. Do we assume that identity looks the same for an infinite being? Perhaps you'll object that indentity cannot look one way for the finite and another for the infinite, and i take the point. But nevertheless, I think it may be possible that there is something else it means for an infinite x to be so identified, even if I can't put my finger on it.

Kevin,

Thanks! One of the main reasons I put this up was so that I can refer back to it in future posts on the topic. It would be handy if we had handful of brief statements like this.

Christian,

(1) I think there are ways to dodge the inconsistency charge, but I don't know of any that clearly avoid heresy. I suspect that for all its problems only Imran and myself are going to accept this claim.

(2) The creedal Christian conception of God is flawed. There has always been some minority within the tradition that has asserted this. Arius, Servetus, Locke, Newton, Emerson, are just a few of the more famous ones that could be mentioned.

Patrick,

Your going to have to say a lot more before I start to get a picture of what you have in mind in 1. As for 2 I'm going to claim that identity is univocal. If you really take the point of this objection then I don't why you'd think there is something else identity means. Perhaps you think the persons stand in some tight relation that isn't idenity, but then you are going to have explain in what sense they are all One. This goes right to the heart of the problem. Explainations tend to give an account that leads into heresy by either making the persons too distinct, or too unified.

Well, it's no surprise that I don't see any inconsistency, even in appearance. All 1-7 imply is that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, but in such a way that 'Father', 'Son', and 'Holy Spirit' are at least in some real cases not intersubstitutable. And I don't think it's really surprising that the heptad is consistent: strictly speaking, 1-7 is as congenial to modalism as to orthodoxy. More propositions would need to be added to create any genuine inconsistency.

Matthew,

I'm not sure how one avoids inconsistency. Do you think that one can do so by moving to relative identity?

I think the Christian should say the creedal conception of God is flawed, too. In fact, I don't think the Christian should care much about what the creed says.

But, it is still an interesting question just what the Christian should say. So, what do you think: One God and one person (or) three Gods and three persons? Other?

Brandon,

The inconsistency seems pretty straightforward. What do you have in mind? Perhaps it is better to state the inconsistency with appeal to Leibniz' Law. Next, point out a property the son has that the father lacks, like "being the son of the father". Next, it follows that the son is not identical to the father. Finally, it follows that if both the son and father are each a god, then there are at least two gods.

I think Leibniz'z Law is non-negotiable and neither is counting by identity. That's why I think the inconsistency is genuine.

Matt, assume you're using the "is" of predication. Then this follows,

1. The Father is God.
Gf
2. The Son is God.
Gs
3. The Holy Spirit is God.
Gh
4. The Father is not the Son.
f ~= s
5. The Father is not the Holy Spirit.
f ~= h
6. The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
s ~= h
7. There is exactly one God.
(Ey)(Vx)(Gy & ((x ~= y) -> ~Gx))

These are patently inconsistent. Indeed, the subset (1), (2), (4), (7) is inconsistent.

But this is also mistaken,
"One does not need to be a sophisticated logician to see that the propositions imply that three distinct beings are each identical with one being, i.e. it is the case that each of the persons is God, and yet it is the case that there is only one God."

These propositions have no such implication unless you read the "is" as identity, contrary to the initial suggestion.

To have a chance at consistency, you have to let some quantifiers range over persons and some quantifiers range over substances or beings. You want three persons identical in substance or being (but not identical in their persons). Restrict the quantifiers appropriately and I think you can retain consistency. It is another matter altogether (not forthcoming from any consistent formalization) to get some insight into the metaphysics of the Trinity. There, unfortunately, we remain at a loss (or, in any case, I do)

Christian,

I just don't see any inconsistency at all here; I'm open to being shown what it is. (7) can only form an inconsistency with the others if 'God' is treated along the same lines as 'Father' &c. (in other words, as Mike noted, if you are not restricting quantifiers). But the traditional interpretations of these sentences doesn't do this.

To see this, think of Gregory of Nyssa's "On Not Three Gods". Gregory takes the standard (eespecially Eastern) view that while the metaphysics of the Trinity is unique, the logic of it is entirely ordinary. For, says Gregory, take three human beings. The 'is God' in (1)-(3) are usually understood as meaning 'has a divine nature'. Thus we get the parallel:

(1a) Peter has a human nature.
(2a) Paul has a human nature.
(3a) John has a human nature.

Now, Peter, Paul, and John are different people, so:

(4a) Peter is not Paul.
(5a) Paul is not John.
(6a) Peter is not John.

And says, Gregory, this is also true:

(7a) There is exactly one nature that is human nature.

For, Gregory points, out, this follows if you hold (as he does) that everything that is human shares (in whatever metaphysical way you prefer) one human nature.

Now, we know that (1a)-(7a) are not logically inconsistent. (Even if you think Gregory is stretching on (7a), it's not obvious that he's making a logical error.) The difference in the two cases, Gregory insists, is not logical, but metaphysical. The difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit on the one hand, and Peter, Paul, and John on the other, is just that they are related to their natures in a different way: Whereas human beings share a human nature by (as it were) dividing it up materially, the Persons of the Trinity share it by way of the traditional Trinitarian processions.

I've left a posting on my site about this, essentially Brandon's argument is only valid if we do not read the name 'God' as a logically proper name. Otherwise

F = G
S = G
F /= S

is clearly not valid.

Correction. The argument is clearly not valid if 'God' is read as a proper name. But it is still invalid if 'is God' is read as the 'is' of predication.

Brandon's / Gregory's version works only if the 'is' is not read as identity or predication, but as signifying a relation which each of the three persons bear to the one Godhead or God-ness.

Which is stretching it a bit. I standardly read the word 'God' as a proper name, referring to a tribal potentate. I can also read it as a common noun, but then why the upper case 'G'? But even that does not work. Brandon has us reading it as some 'godness', some abstract entity that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all related to, but are not identical with. Who or what then is God?

Brandon,

One issue you mention is whether quantifiers are to be correctly interpreted as restricted. If they are, it might be argued that a contradiction cannot be derived.

My response is simply that (a) there is no non-ad-hoc reason I can think of to restrict the quantifiers as they occur in the creed, and (b) even if there is some restriction that is independently motivated, I do not see at all how it will help. For example, we restrict quantifiers to times and places, but these entities are presumably identical at all times if ever identical.

Next, you say "'is God' in (1)-(3) are usually understood as meaning 'has a divine nature'." You go on to suggest that when read this way a contradiction cannot be derived.

Sure, we can interpret "So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God," as Gregory suggests, in that 'is God' means 'has a divine nature'. But that is not what the creed says. It says 'is God' and clearly means the 'is' of identity, not predication. Hence, the "And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God."

The question we need to ask is what is the logical form of the creedal statement. To deny an inconsistency requires attributing a deviant logical form, and the only motivation for doing that is to avoid a contradiction. But one can do that with any philosophical argument. The strategy is really bad unless we have an extremely good reason to do so. I can't see what that reason could possibly be.

Ocham,

I'm not sure I understand your point about the 'is' of predication, since 'has a human nature' and 'has a divine nature' can both be translated as 'is human' and 'is divine', and instead of talking about the different ways they possess nature we can talk about the differences between being human and being divine. It's still true that Peter and Paul are not identical to each other or to being human; and it still can be true that 'being human', considered only in itself, is the attribution of something common (in whatever way) to all things human (one can admit this without committing to any position on how these things are common). And so with the parallel in the God case: the supposed contradiction only gets off the ground by assuming that (7) implies that anything that is God is strictly identical to everything that is God. But there's nothing in the predicate 'being God' that implies this, nor in the traditional understanding of what it means to say there is exactly one God.

The upper-case G, I would have thought, was honorific, as upper-case initial letters usually are when talking about the divine. And we must keep in mind that Trinitarian theology is not an English-language phenomenon, but something that spans many languages. In Latin, which in the West is usually the governing language (because it is the primary reference language) for these matters, there is no sharp distinction between 'deus' and 'divinus' -- you can say 'He is God (deus)' and 'He is divine (divinus)' indifferently, without any change of meaning. This sort of thing used to be common in English as well: 'divine' (and its synonyms) and 'god' and 'human' (and its synonyms) and 'man' were once used in an exactly parallel way. 'To be God' and 'to be divine' were just synonymous.

Christian,

There is a straightforward reason to restrict quantifiers, namely, that the only question here is whether the traditional understanding of the Creed is logically inconsistent; and in the traditional understanding quantifiers are restricted.

I'm not sure I understand your comment about Gregory. Gregory's account, which is just a Cappadocian account, has been the standard way of interpreting the creed at least since the Cappadocians (and they saw themselves as just setting out squarely the traditional understanding of it). The creed doesn't have a logical form in vacuo; things can only have logical forms as interpreted this or that way (for the straightforward reason that they have different logical forms if interpreted in different ways). When the creed says 'is God' it has (at least as far as I am aware) almost never been taken to be attributing identity in the strict and proper sense, because for most of its history the locution would not normally have implied that, any more than 'is divine' would have. In any case, the credal formulations are actually quite clear on this matter. In the Quicunque Vult, of which Matthew quotes only a part in the above post, 'is God' is simply treated as parallel to 'is eternal', 'is almighty', is omniscient' &c. It would be absurd to talk about a logical inconsistency in the traditional doctrine of the Trinity if the traditional doctrine of the Trinity has throughout the tradition not been taken in the way that implies the contradiction.

> I can't see what that reason could possibly be.

Charity principle. Interpret what is said in a way that optimises agreement. This means reading the creed in a way that avoids any obvious contradiction. Since reading 'is' as the 'is' of identity leads to an obvious contradiction, we cannot read it that way.

We haven't mentioned Geach's resolution, by the way, which supposes a difference of counting sortal. Thus three persons, but one God. Cartwright has an objection to this, however, which I can't remember.

By the 'is' of predication, I mean that the predicate is asserted of the subject. Thus 'Felix is a cat'. This is entirely distinct from the 'has' of relation, as in 'Felix has a cat'. We can turn one into the other, thus 'Felix is a cat-owner', but this would have bad consequences for your argument. For while these are all consistent (assuming two people can own one cat)

X has a cat
Y has a cat
X is a different individual from Y
there is only one cat

these are not:

X is a cat-owner
Y is a cat-owner
X is a different individual from Y
There is only one cat-owner

Ocham, I think I still may be missing something. I'm not convinced there's any more than a verbal difference between saying, "Paul has a human nature" and "Paul is human" (of course, you're right that there would be a world of difference between "Paul is a human" and "Paul has a human" but I don't think that's the parallel). While one might, on different metaphysical views, prefer different locutions, what is the real logical difference between:

X has a cat
X is something that has a cat
X is a cat-haver

It's also true that there's a difference between "There is only one cat" and "There is only one individual that has a cat"; but I don't see how this is a difference, at least as far as the logic goes, between 'is' of predication and 'has' of relation -- rather, it's a difference between talking about cats had and talking about cat-havers.

Christian Lee, you say,
"(a) there is no non-ad-hoc reason I can think of to restrict the quantifiers as they occur in the creed".
That's good. Who wants an ad hoc reason? But then you add,
"(b) even if there is some restriction that is independently motivated, I do not see at all how it will help".
Well, it can help. Suppose in my domain are just c, b and a. If I am quantifying over persons in my domain and use x, y and z, then I can hold that,
1. (Ex)(Ey)(Ez)((z~=y) & (y~=x) & (z~=x))
So there are three distinct persons. But these three persons might be identical in substance. Quantifying over substances in my domain now, I can use s, t, r,
2. (Es)(Et)(Er)((s = t) & (t = r) & (s = r))
All substances in my domain are identical.
Now unless you decide to add principles bridging (1) and (2) such as "any persons that are identical in substance are also identical in person" we have no conflict between (1) and (2). And indeed there is precedent for (1) and (2). No less a thinker than Spinoza maintained that there is exactly one substance (indeed he offers a proof that could be no more than one), so we all have the same substance, but there are many modes of that substance; in our case many persons.
As I noted above, we can make the logic work. But that isn't the big problem. The big problem is getting a better insight into the metaphysics.

Brandon and Ocham,

Suppose Jack says "There is snow outside and then again, there isn't snow outside."

I say Jack contradicted himself. But, then someone tells me:

Be charitable. Interpret Jack so that what he says comes out reasonable (true). One way to be charitable is to interpret Jack as restricting his quantifier.

So, interpret him to mean that "In some location L, there is snow at L and L is outside." Also, "In some location L*, there is not snow at L* and L is not identical to L*."

See, someone might say, Jack did not contradict himself!

Now, I ask: Is that really a plausible response?

I suggest it is not. And I suggest that that is what we are being asked to do when we restrict our quantifiers wrt the creed.

Then again, this is not the important issue. We need to ask: Given that there is a meaningful question "Is The Father numerically identical to Jesus?" We must answer it. And interpretation aside, I want to know whether the answer is yes or no. So, given that 'Jesus' and 'The Father' are names and given that I am stipulating that the identity I care about is the one we talk about in intro logic:

Is 'J = F' true?

Christian,

(1) It would be a plausible response if the apparent contradiction in the original statement in English were the result of a too-wooden translation of an idiom in another language. We have to remember that Trinitarian theology was not originally worked out in English; it was worked out primarily in Greek and Latin. So, for instance, it is relevant whether the translation "The Father is God," as you are understanding it, is introducing something not found in (say) the deus Pater of the Quicunque Vult. And in fact, in theological Latin there tends not to be a sharp divide between deus and divinus.

Further, as I've pointed out with regard to Gregory of Nyssa, the interpretation is not an ad hoc attempt to get out of a contradiction, but is the interpretation that is allegedly under examination here, because it is the primary traditional interpretation; it's other interpretations that are ad hoc, since they are not the traditional doctrine of the Trinity.

(2) In traditional Trinitarian theology, the Father is not numerically identical to the Son. That's the point of "The Father is not the Son". But as far as I can see there's nothing in Trinitarian theology to imply otherwise.

Hey Mike,

A bit more explicity:

1. The Son is not the same person as The Father.

2. If (1), then there is a property p such that The Son has P and The Father lacks p.

3. So, there is a property p such that The Son has P and The Father lacks p.

4. For all x,y: If there is a property p that x has and y lacks, then it is not true that x = y.

5. So, The Father is not identical The Son.

6. But, The Father is identical to The Son.

(a) I assume that 1 or 6 is false. (b) I assume that 1 and 6 are entailed by the creed.

I might be wrong about (b). Nevertheless, if (a) is true, then I think traditional Christianity is false.

Suppose I am mistaken about what claims a traditional Christian is comitted to. Back to 5.

5. So, The Father is not identical The Son.

6*. The Father is a divine being.

7*. The Son is a divine being.

8*. For all x,y: If Dx and Dy, and it is not the case that y = x, then there are two individuals that are D's.

9*. So, there are two divine beings.

10*. If 9* is true, then Polytheism is true.

11*. Polytheism is true.

Where do you think the Christian should object?

Brandon,

I don't know Latin. I'm just going off the English translation.

You suggest that:

"The Father is God" in Latin may mean

(a) The Father is divine,

and not,

(b) The Father is numerically identical to God.

I'm happy to run with that. See the argument above.

The question is what there is one of. Does 'there is only one God' say that there is only one God? Or does it say that there is one divine nature? I would read it as saying the former. But if you insist on reading it as the latter, then I insist on reading the premisses that way as well. That is, I will read

X is God

as

X is divine nature.

i.e. as asserting an identity between X and divine nature-ness (or something - it's not clear what it would mean). But in that case your argument is still invalid.

It's a basic principle of logic that if you insist on a certain reading of a word or expression in the predicate, then you should give exactly the same reading in both premisses and conclusion.

Christian,

Your premises (1)-(4) establish that the Father and the Son are not identical persons. So yes you have derived that the Father and the Son are not identical persons. But that much everyone agrees with. The creed does not require that they be identical persons. It requires that they be identical in being or substance. And nothing in these premises shows that they are not identical in substance.

I'm surprised that two issues haven't sprung up so far in this discussion. The first is the reduplication strategy, which is a rather prominent strategy among certain philosophers of religion (PvI has a very good paper on this, though I don't have it in front of me to give the citation).

The second is divine simplicity, which in some ways seems to make the 'problem' of the Trinity eminently worse, but also which, if true, also makes claims like 'there is a property p such that The Son has P and The Father lacks p' false.

Hey Ocham,

There is no equivocation in the argument. Which premise do you deny? The argument is valid.

Mike,

I don't even understand the expression 'identical in substance'. What premise is false?

Kevin,

What is the reduplication strategy?

Christian,

(6) I think is ruled out by the creeds. Your starred argument, however, is a significant one -- the significant issue, I think. But Mike's right: whether (6*), (7*), and (10*) are true will depend on what we understand to be involved in calling something "a divine being."

Kevin,

The reduplication strategy doesn't seem to me to be promising in this context, but then I don't know much about how people go about it.

It might just depend on what we mean by 'property', but I'm not sure that divine simplicity implies that "There is a property p such that The Son has P and The Father lacks p" is false. It does imply that this is true of at least some kinds of properties, the sort that we usually call divine attributes -- intellect, will, omniscience, etc. But I'm not sure how far this actually extends; strictly speaking, the simplicity thesis is just that God has no real components, so the only property-distinctions that are ruled out are those that would make God really composite in some way.

Brandon,

Okay. Now we have a target. Now I wonder why anyone thinks that (6*) or (7*) is false? I point out that if either is false, then that fact in itself should strike a traditional Christian as a very counterintuitive consequence.

6*. The Father is a divine being.
7*. The Son is a divine being.

We cannot understand the 'is' as it occurs in these premises as the 'is' of identity. If we did, then that would entail that (6) is true, and as everybody says, "nobody thinks that".

So, we must understand the 'is' in (6*) and (7*) as the 'is' of predication. That is, we are predicating of The Son and The Father, whatever they are, substances, hylomorphic compounds, individuals, essences or whatever, the property of being divine.

But, then, there are two divine beings. And that is real heresy.

I think that whether it is real heresy depends on what we mean by saying that something is a divine being. If "The Father is a divine being" is just another way of saying "The Father is divine" then it's not heresy, but pure orthodoxy. If, however, we mean it in such a way as to imply that the Father is a divine being whose attributes are separate from any other divine beings there may be, then it would be heresy. But understood that way (6*) would be taken by credalists to be false. I don't think this is counterintuitive; it's exactly what one would expect. (6*) and (7*) can only be true on the credal view if they are understood in such a way that we are not attributing to Father and Son separate divine natures; the Father and the Son share divine attributes, having the same will, intellect, omnipresence, etc. If we understand it in this way, then (10*) seems to be false. If we understand it in a way that rules out this attribute-sharing, then (10*) seems to work, but (6*) and (7*) would be taken as false. So I think the orthodox response to your argument would be that it equivocates.

Christian said
> There is no equivocation in the argument.
> Which premise do you deny? The argument is
> valid.

Confusion, it was Brandon's argument which is equivocal. Clearly we have to read 'God' in different ways to render the following consistent.

X is God
Y is God
x /= Y
There is only one God.

If we read the counting sortal 'God' as counting Gods all the way through, it is glaringly inconsistent. Brandon's solution is to read 'God' as counting divine natures in the conclusion, but counting havers of divine natures in the conclusion.

Sorry, that should read counting havers of divine natures in the PREMISSES.

Brandon,

The response you offer on behalf of the creedalist will not work. A defense must locate a false premise and motivate the claim that the premise is false. That has not been done.

As far as I can tell, all we have is the following argument.

1. If the premises in your argument are true, then the othodox view is false.
2. But, the orthodox view is true.
3. So, some premise in your argument is false.

(6*) is to be read as "The Father has the property of being divine." You say this is orthodoxy. Good.

But then my conclusion follows. It is no good to say that "(6*) and (7*) can only be true on the credal view if they are understood in such a way that we are not attributing to Father and Son separate divine natures." The whole point is that I have an argument that shows the creedal view is mistaken. In order to show something in my argument is mistaken, a false premise must be located and be independently motivated (to be false). All that you say is that some premise is false if it disagrees with a creedal view.

Now, that aside, I do have "some" sympathy with rejecting (10*) and arguing that monotheism is consistent with the claim that there are many divine beings. I think this is how I would respond to the argument. Strictly speaking, one might argue, monotheism is the view that there is only one God, not only one divine being. It might be argued that there can be multiple divine beings all of which are the same God in virtue of having some property p. Next, there is an interesting question as to whether there is any property p which might make the claim true.

I think, however, that finding some property p to play this role is impossible. This is to say that we are forced to accept that:

(a) The Father and The Son are different persons.
(b) The Father and The Son are different divine beings.

We need to explain how it is possible that (a) and (b) could be jointly true, while it is false that:

(c) There is more than one God.

I think the explanation is mandatory given that it should strike us as incoherent. Let me think about how to formulate an argument to the conclusion that this task cannot possibly be done.

Christian,

I'm not sure I follow your argument. The topic at hand is whether the credalist position is consistent. Because of this, it doesn't matter whether the credalist is mistaken or not; what matters is merely whether all the premises are being taken in the sense the credalist takes them -- because only then can it show that the credalist is inconsistent. My point was that the credalist isn't committed to (6*) & (7*) in the sense of "a divine being" that seems necessary for (10*); so the argument identifies no inconsistency in the Trinitarian claims.

Hey Brandon,

If the Creedalist position is mistaken, then I think it is inconsistent. I think this because to show the view is consistent is to at least present a possible model according to which all the premises are true. I think some premises are necessarily incompatible.

I am happy to take the creedalist view as they want it to be understood, of course. It is "their" view, not mine. However, they must show me the money. They must explain how two divine beings can be different persons, but the same God. On top of that, they must exaplain the view so that the explanation is reasonable and consistent. That has "not" been done. Not even close.

This locution gets floated around: 'x is the same in substance as y'. Either it means 'x is a substance and y is a substance and x = y' or it does not. If it does, see the above argument, if it does not, then (a) the locution is incomprehensible and (b) because of (a) it will not show the creed is consistent.

Again, you wrote, "My point was that the credalist isn't committed to (6*) & (7*) in the sense of "a divine being" that seems necessary for (10*); so the argument identifies no inconsistency in the Trinitarian claims".

That isn't enough. It is not enough to say (me) "just interpret 'a divine being" so that one of the premises is false, either (6*) or (10 *)". I am stipulating that I mean the same thing wherever the expression occurs! You have to argue that I cannot possibly do that, and argue this without appealing to "The Creed says..."

To do this is to take a view on which premise is false and why?

Brandon,

Again I say, fallacy of equivocation.

You are translating each of the statements into your preferred logical form, to show there is no inconsistency. But you have to be consistent about how you translate into logical form. For example, you translate 'the Son is God' into 'the Son has a divine nature '. Thus you are translating 'is God' into 'has a divine nature'. Fine, but you must be consistent about how you translate 'There is only one God' also. On the assumption that this means

There is only one thing which is God

this translates (substituting 'has a divine nature' for 'is God') as

There is only one thing which has a divine nature

But this does not give you what you want. What you want is 'There is only one divine nature'.

You need to show us a way of translating the statements of the creed into a logical form which is consistent throughout, and which does not lead to a contradiction. You have not done this.

PS so we are all agreed on the text we are talking about, I have put a parallel Latin/English version of the Quicunque here

http://uk.geocities.com/frege@btinternet.com/latin/Quicunque.htm

Thanks for the link Ocham.

Here is another argument. Recall above:

6*. The Father is a divine being.
7*. The Son is a divine being.
8*. For all x,y: If Dx and Dy, and it is not the case that y = x, then there are two individuals that are D's.
9*. So, there are two divine beings.
10*. If 9* is true, then Polytheism is true.
11*. Polytheism is true.

I backed off 10* a little suggesting how one might deny it. Now here are some considerations in favor of it. Suppose Polytheism is the view that there is more than one God. Also, suppose being a divine being is not sufficient for being a God. Question: What is?

Answer: Being the creator of the Universe, being omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect.

Now, either The Father is omn, omn & mp, or The Father is not.

If The Father is, then the Father is a God (the same goes for the Son and The Holy Spirit).

If that is correct, then Polytheism is true.

But, Polytheism is not true.

So, The Father is not omn, omn & mp (the same goes for The Son and The Holy Spirit).

But, God is omn, omn & mp.

So, God is not identical to either The Father, The Son or The Holy Spirit.

Assume that God is a person.

If that is right, then God is not the same person as either The Father, The Son or The Holy Spirit.

Therefore, God has important God-making essential properties that none of The Father, The Son or The Holy Spirit has. God is not the same person as any of them.

It is not clear how The Father, The Holy Spirit or The Son can be related to God in any way that is at all interesting. At worst, we have four Gods, at best, we have one God and three divine beings that are distinct from God in the ways we care about.

Christian,

You say:

That isn't enough. It is not enough to say (me) "just interpret 'a divine being" so that one of the premises is false, either (6*) or (10 *)". I am stipulating that I mean the same thing wherever the expression occurs! You have to argue that I cannot possibly do that, and argue this without appealing to "The Creed says..."

But again I'm not understanding your argument. Of course you're stipulating that you're usng it the same throughout. But if you are still considering the question of whether the credal position is logically consistent, this isn't relevant; the only thing that is relevant is whether the credalist is committed to all your premises but denies your conclusion, under an interpretation of the premises that logically requires the conclusion. As I've noted above, the credalist is only committed to statements like (6*) and (7*) in a fairly weak sense, namely, where it is just another way of saying "The Father is divine" and "The Son is divine". (There are lots of things that would be divine that would only qualify as "a divine being" in this weak interpretation, e.g., divine attributes, that no one would think implies polytheism.) But (10*) requires that (6*) and (7*) be taken under a strong interpretation, namely, "The Father is a divine being separate from all others" and "The Son is a divine being separate from all others". Thus the equivocation. This suffices, as far as I can see, to break the charge that the credalist is inconsistent in the way suggested by your argument.

Ocham,

As I've pointed out, these issues are already dealt with by Gregory of Nyssa in "Not Three Gods". "There is only one God" is for the logical purposes here properly (and traditionally) translatable as "There is exactly one nature that is divine nature". We do tend to take "There is only one God" in a stronger sense; namely as "There is exactly one nature that is divine nature" plus some metaphysical claims about divine natures as opposed to other natures (e.g., the one I already pointed out -- that it is not shared by being materially divided). No one has given any serious argument that these metaphysical claims are even relevant to the logical problems suggested in the post and comments above. I think they fairly clearly are not because what is at issue in the above arguments is not the nature of divine unity but the mere question of whether the heptad is consistent, or, in the case of Christian's argument, whether the credalist, committed to monotheism, is committed to a sense of 6* and 7* that entail polytheism. I've argued that the credalist is not traditionally committed to either of these alleged inconsistencies -- the inconsistency only arises if you ignore the way Trinitarian doctrine has traditionally been understood. If you have any mind any other inconsistencies, I'd need to see the arguments for them laid out before I could say whether they work or not.

Brandon,

It appears that we are moving quickly towards an impasse. Last ditch:

(6) The Father is God.

I interpreted this as (6*) to avoid obvious contradiction.

(6*) The Father is a divine being.

I get that you think that the Creed places a constraint on how 'is a divine being', as it occurs in (6*), can be interpreted. I think, again, that we should interpret the claim however the Creed says (The Creed itself does not say one way or the other, however).

I have suggested that logic places a constraint on how the 'is' can be interpreted. It is either the 'is' of numerical identity or it is the 'is' of predication. Above, I went with this and said let's understand (6*) as

(6**) The Father has "the property" of being divine.

I did this to make it clear that the 'is' is not the 'is' of identity. We are forced to do this because of the fact that interpreting the 'is' as it occurs in (6*), as the 'is' of identity, is such that it leads directly to contradiction.

Now, I also think that (6**) is equivalent to:

(6***) The Father is a divine being.

Of course, again, we must read the 'is' as the 'is' of predication, and not identity, in (6***).

At this point, I don't understand your criticism. I have made it clear how the premises are to be understood. You wrote:

"But (10*) requires that (6*) and (7*) be taken under a strong interpretation, namely, "The Father is a divine being separate from all others" and "The Son is a divine being separate from all others". Thus the equivocation."

Well, I have now said what I mean by (6*) and, correspondingly, (7*). Perhaps what you really deny is:

(8*) For all x,y: If Dx and Dy, and it is not the case that y = x, then there are two individuals that are D's.

Do you deny that if The Father and The Son are not identical, and if The Father and The Son both exemplify the property of being divine, then there are two individuals that are divine?

First point: I don't see how one could reasonable deny this. Do you deny this?

Perhaps you think, instead, that the expression 'has the property of being divine' as it occurs in (6*) is incomplete. So, (6*) is flat out false. There is no property of 'being divine' that The Father has, rather, there is a property of:

PP: 'being divine not separate from all others'.

The Father has PP and not the property of being divine. Thus, (6*) is false if read without the ammendment, but (6*) and (7*) are true if understood as expressing PP. I say okay, let's read (6*) and (7*) with this new property in mind.

This new property is expressed by a term of art, it doesn't exactly wear it's logical form on its sleeve. Because (8*) is general truth about individuals and properties, I take it whatever form of this property has, it obeys (8*).

From this it follows that there are two individuals, The Father and The Son, and each has the property of being divine not separate from all others. So, there are two things with the property of being divine not separate from all others.

Perhaps when read this way you think (10*) is false. That is how I interpret your last comment. If this is how you are objecting, good. Notice, this is not the same objection as the following: (6*) is false if 'is divine' is read one way, (10*) is false if read another. Rather, the objection is one of two different objections: (A) that (6*) is false because it attributes a property to The Father that The Father does not have. Flat out. (B) That (10*) is false because Polytheism is not entailed by accepting that there are two distinct individuals that have the property of being divine but not separate from all others. Again, notice there is no equivocation in my argument. My argument says "mean by 'is divine' whatever you want, just be consistent throughout." The question is: What do you mean? And given that meaning, where do you object?

Now, my previous post becomes relevant. What exactly is entailed by the claim that Polytheism is true. Is it sufficient that there be two individuals that are divine not separate from all others? Perhaps not. Maybe instead, those individuals must also be omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect. I doubt this, but suppose it is true.

Polytheism: There is more than one individual that has the property of being omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect.

Monotheism: There is at least one, but only one, individual that has the property of being omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect.

We should ask: Does the individual referred to by 'The Father', the individual that is

(a) Not identical to the individual picked out by 'The Son',
(b) The individual that exemplifies the property of 'being divine not separate from others',
(c) The individual that is not the same person as The Son,

Does The Father have the further properties of being omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect?

If so, I suggest that Polytheism follows. Now, I suspect you will respond: Wait! These individuals have the property of being divine not separate from all others. So, Polytheism does not follow.

Now, if this is how you respond, we have a new argument. I think this response is ultimately incoherent, but I have not argued that yet. First, though, are we on the same page, or is there just an impasse?

Brandon,

You say -
>There is only one God" is for the logical purposes here properly (and traditionally) translatable > as "There is exactly one nature that is divine nature".

This is inconsistent with the assumption that 'is God' means 'has a divine nature'.

> the inconsistency only arises if you ignore the way Trinitarian doctrine has traditionally been
> understood

No, the inconsistency lies in the traditional understanding itself. Do you agree that

A. There is only one God

entails

B. There is only one thing that is God ?

I say that B follows logically (or rather, semantically) from A. If you disagree, why?

Christian,

You misunderstand Brandon. You argue that there are two divine beings. Brandon will reply that there is nonetheless one divine nature. The problem is how to interpret 'there is only one God'.

Ocham,

I can't say whether A entails B unless I know what 'thing' is ranging over in B.

I don't see the reasoning under which "There is exactly one nature that is the divine nature" is inconsistent with "is God" meaning "has a divine nature" in "The Father is God".

It occurs to me, by the way, that there may be some talking at cross-purposes between us; because I've been thinking largely about "Not Three Gods" and you've been thinking largely about the Quicunque Vult. In "Not Three Gods", when Gregory says there is one God, this isn't intended to be restricted (in the sense I will point out in a moment), so it is simply translatable as "There is one nature that is the divine nature." As Gregory notes, the singularity of this nature is far greater than we usually find with (say) human nature, in virtue of its being divine (and thus, e.g., constituted by the processions, not materially divided, etc.). But that's all there is to it.

However, the Quicunque Vult never uses unus est Deus in this sense, because the meaning of the phrase is restricted by what is prior to it (deus Pater, deus Filius, deus Spiritus Sanctus). The meaning is not

"The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is exactly one God"

but instead something different. Compare with the unus omnipotens:

"The Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent, and yet there are not three omnipotents but one omnipotent"

where the meaning is clearly (and consistent with tradition:

"The Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent, and yet there are not three separate omnipotents, i.e., three omnipotents divided from each other (cf. the previous phrase 'neque substantiam separantes'), but three united in one omnipotence (cf. the previous phrase 'Trinitatem in unitate')."

The unus deus is simply parallel to this:

"The Father is god, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is god, and yet they are not three gods but one god." Or, in other words: "The Father is divine, the Son is divine, the Holy Spirit is divine, and yet they are not three divinities divided from each other but are united in one divinity." Or, to put it in yet other terms: The Father has a divine nature, the Son has a divine nature, the Holy Spirit has a divine nature, and yet they are not three divided divine natures but have one divine nature."

So the difference between the Quicunque Vult is this: that in the Quicunque Vult, "they are one god" is taken in a sense restricted to the Godhead of the Three. The idea is (quite explicitly when taken in context) not "There is one thing that is God" but "The Godhead they have is one." (This, it scarcely need be said, is entirely consistent with the Gregorian, and not-contextually-restricted, "There is exactly one nature that is the divine nature".)

If I've confused things by bringing in Gregory, I apologize. But "Not Three Gods" is, as far as I can see, an adequate answer to the heptad and the polytheism objections. If you are arguing about the Quicunque Vult in particular, then I may have messed up the discussion by continuing to talk about Gregory, since Gregory's points were made for a more abstract discussion; because if that's the case then we're really on to a different argument. Let me know if this is the case.

Sorry to fill up the comment box (we may have to move off this thread soon, if the discussion continues) but I had missed Christian's comment.

It may well be that we are reaching the point where there's just not enough commonality to be clear on what the other is saying. Your (6**) conveys nothing to me because I don't know what your theory of properties is; if you just mean "The Father is divine", then I agree that that's what it means, but we haven't made any progress, since there are lots of things that are divine that might be considered divine beings in a perfectly reasonable sense, but are not divine beings in the sense meant by polytheism (divine attributes, divine ideas, divine volitions). Likewise, with regard to your comments after (8*) I don't know what you are counting as individuals. Individual whats? Properties? Relations? Processions? Subjects of actions? Natures?

If I said: "I am divine and I am not divine" and I stipulate that 'divine' has the same meaning in both conjuncts, then I contradicted myself.

And if you reply: "That depends upon your theory of properties", then that reply just strikes me as off the mark.

That seems to be what has happenend. It looks like we just can't get on the same page.

Brandon, you say
> I can't say whether A entails B unless I know what 'thing' is ranging over in B.

The quantifier can have any range you like. Why should it matter? The English sentence 'There is only one F.' says that within that range of things under consideration, at least one of those things is an F, and no other one of those things is F. In standard semantics, it is equivalent to all the following statements.

Something is an F and nothing else is an F.
There is an F, and everything that is an F is identical with that F
For some x, x is an F and no other y is an F.
For some x, x is F and for all y, if y is F, x = y

Trinitarian doctrine may state otherwise, but Trinitarian tradition is not standard logical doctrine, and it is logic we are concerned with here, not church tradition or theology or metaphysics.

Ocham,

It matters because 'is God' taken in the weak sense we've been discussing can be predicated of a number of a number of distinguishable things; but "There is exactly one God" usually has a more narrow interpretation, as being about hte divine substance. I can't know if A entails B until I know how you are taking them.

Brandon wrote
>>>
It matters because 'is God' taken in the weak sense we've been discussing can be predicated of a number of a number of distinguishable things; but "There is exactly one God" usually has a more narrow interpretation, as being about hte divine substance. I can't know if A entails B until I know how you are taking them.
>>>

No it doesn't matter. The range can be whatever you like, and hence doesn't matter.

A. There is only one F

unconditionally entails

B. There is only one x that is an F

whatever the range of x. It may be that the range of the natural language quantifier in A is restricted. Perhaps when we say 'there is only one drunk person' we mean there is only one drunk person at the party. But then the same restriction applies to B. There is only one x (where x ranges over people at the party) such that x is a drunk person.

I really can't see what the problem is here. The implication from A to B is a basic principle of logic, and can be found in any elementary logic texts.

Ocham,

You miss my point. A only entails B if you are not equivocating; I accept that A (under a given interpretation) always entails B (under the relevant interpretation) -- but, not knowing how you are taking either A or B, I don't know if, under the interpretation you are giving them, equivocation is avoided. And it's not surprising that this is an issue; A and B, in this context, are not, and cannot be assumed to be, examples of the linguistic conventions of modern logicians (which re-organize language according to the predicate calculus) as you seem to be assuming. They must be understood under ordinary language conventions (the ones governing how they are understood as formulated by the Trinitarian) and translated. I don't know whether A entails B unless I have some notion of how you are understanding them.

To put it another way, I grant that A (as it is generally used today to stand for a particular logical formulation) entails B (as it is generally used today to stand for a particular logical formulation); but the A we are actually talking about you have explicitly identified as the Trinitarian's understanding of A, and this can't be simply conflated with A (as it is generally used to stand for a particular logical formulation).

Consider the matter further. Suppose a universe in which there exists one, and only one human being. Then we have:

A' There is exactly one human.

which entails

B' There is only one thing that is human.

Well and good. But suppose someone were to come along and say: "Well, B' is clearly false. For this human person also has a human hand. Now, hands, like persons, are things; and they are human; so there are two things that are human. Actually, there are many, many things that are human in this universe: human cells, human hair, human toes, human bones, etc. So, since A' entails B', and B' is false, A' is false."

But, of course, the person who is saying this is engaging in a sophism; for A' doesn't entail B' understood in a way that allows this multiplication of 'humans', since no principle that allowed such a multiplication would be equivalent to A' at all -- it entails it understood in a way that is equivalent to it. A' is not unrestricted, so B' cannot be unrestricted. The B' that is entailed by A' is a more restrained principle that doesn't introduce an equivocation.

Now, in fact, from the Trinitarian perspective a lot of the alleged arguments that the Trinity is inconsistent are viewed as similar to this sort of sophistry. So it is not enough to say that A (understood in whatever way) is formally equivalent to B (understood in the relevant way to maintain the entailment); we are talking about a particular Trinitarian claim A, which, as it is usually understood, is not understood in an unrestricted way, and which therefore can only entail a B that is not understood in an unrestricted way. So it's not a minor issue, even if there is nothing more to it than maintaining a reasonable amount of clarity to avoid equivocation. I don't know whether A (as the Trinitarian understands it) entails B (as you are understanding it) because I don't know if you are understanding B in a way such that it would be entailed by A as A might actually be understood. You keep responding as if the problem here were that I'm denying the standard semantics; when the problem, in fact, is that I don't know whether you are interpreting the claims in a way that fits it (namely, in a way that would avoid equivocation between the real B and a claim that is only apparently similar to B). I just need more information; I don't think this is an unreasonable request.

But it was in order to remove this difficulty that I formulated the entailment as follows:

A. There is only one F
entails
B. There is only one x that is AN F

Note in B I wrote 'an F' – I put the indefinite article before 'F' to show that in B the schematic variable F is to be read as schematic for a count noun. For it clearly is a count noun in A, for it is preceded by the cardinal number 'one'.

As you say, the entailment does not hold if F turns into an adjective in B, as in your version. For you have 'There is exactly one thing that is human'. Then of course there is no such entailment. But I am not saying there is!

Are you arguing that the it works for the Trinitarian if we interpret the 'is God' in 'The Son is God' as an adjective (as in 'human hair') but as a count noun in 'there is only one God'? Then I agree with you there. But is that what you mean?

The Trinity by itself is impossibly difficult to understand. How can one entity clearly be three, but also be one all at the same time? It is similar to asking for three infinite and distinct sets that all have the different members and then requiring them to all be equal. It is complete nonsense.

However, this is simply because of a misunderstanding of the actual Christian text. If we were to go to the source of the writings then we would gain a much clearer picture of what the writers intended the "Trinity" to be. It was intended to designate three distinict beings who all share the same purpose.

This is the only possible solution that could be of any value or else why would there need to be three different gods when they are one in the first place?

Er, which writings? The link below to my site gives a parallel Latin-English text of the Athanasian Creed, which the thread here concerns. Scholars agree that the original text was Latin. Moreover the source for the difficult bits is Augustine (I can supply these on request).

http://uk.geocities.com/frege@btinternet.com/latin/Quicunque.htm

I think he meant that the Athanasian creed relies on a misunderstanding of the import of the biblical texts.

Is there a reference to the 'Trinity' in the biblical texts'

Not by that name, no. That's his point.

I happen to think the crucial elements of the doctrine can be found in the New Testament, but as John Locke was fond of pointing out there's no formula like "three persons, one substance" in any of those texts, which leads some people to complain that the biblical writers ("the actual Christian text") were misunderstood in the formulation of the later creeds (which are then thought to be no longer the Christian teaching).

Jeremy,

So, if you think that Athanasian Creed is inconsistent with the New Testament, and thus isn't "actually Christian," I wonder if you'd say the same for the Nicean Creed and the Apostle's Creed? This makes me wonder about your understanding of Christian tradition, particularly given how the canon was set at a time after (and informed by) at least the earliest credal forulaus.

Kevin:

Why think that the New Testament view can be "formulated" at all or even that it has to be coherent? It isn't a book of philosophical theology and it wasn't written by theologians or philosophers. Why not accept that it is beyond formulation and leave it at that? None of us would attempt to come up with formulas to define our wives or people that we love or how we relate to them. Why formulate the belief in "God"? As A. N. Williams argued in the most recent edition of the Journal of Scottish Theology, there just may be no definite reference for the word "God" given the notion of the Trinity.

I tend to believe that the problem arises from the confluence of two mutually inconsistnt views of "monotheism," a word that never appears anywhere in scripture. One view is of a supreme God among gods, the Most High God, and a metaphysical view of God where God alone is uncreated and everything else is created. Obviously, if God creates everything then eveything else but God is not God, and if God is the Most High God among the gods then there are other gods of the same kind. The latter view persisted into the first century as amply demonstrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls and various Jewish pseudepigraphic works.

Kevin, I offered an interpretation of what a commenter meant. I thought my efforts to express my disagreement with that view would have been sufficient to make it clear that I didn't endorse the view that I thought the commenter was putting forth.

Blake, if the biblical texts don't have their origin in God, then there's no reason to think they're going to be coherent, but anyone with a higher view of their authority has to take them to be from God, who is not incoherent.

I agree that there's no biblical reason to use the biblical texts to come up with philosophical formulations of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to each other ontologically, but I think there are clear statements within those texts that give a clear picture of some things that you can't say if you take those texts seriously. But there is a philosophical issue here. If the texts are taken to lead to the Athanasian formula, then the charge that the view is contradictory arises, and those who hold the view want an account of the inner workings of the view that shows that it's not contradictory.

Jeremy:

I'm largely in sympathy with the way you approach the issue; but I believe that it is a category mistake to treat the statements (or word-pictures) in the New Testament as propositions. For there to be a contradiction the nature of the assertions must be such that they play the language game of sentences or propositions. They must be the kinds of truth-bearers that could be contradictory.

Further, while I take the scriptural texts to be inspired, I don't take them to be infallible or to even necessarily play the language game where contradictions could arise. I believe that the formulations of the trinity in the various creeds play that language game and they are mistaken ab initio in their attempt to treat scriptural language-pictures as assertorial propositions. I also agree that such creedal statements regarding the trinity are contradictory or incoherent in first order logic.

A word picture is not a proposition, but surely word pictures can express propositions in the same way any sentence can express a proposition. What is it that the word picture is supposed to be illustrating if it's not some underlying propositional truth? I understand the view that word pictures are more helpful for teaching or understanding truths that can also be expressed in propositional terms. I don't understand the view that word pictures can be meaningful without expressing any propositions.

This isn't the place to get into the issue of whether scripture is infallible.

On the other hand, maybe there is nothing more to so-called propositions than sentences (or word-pictures); Blake certainly would not be the first to make that claim (cf. Quine, for instance). Nor is it "sure" that word-pictures can or do express propositions: first, maybe there are no propositions at all, second, even if there are propositions, not every declarative sentence need express one (cf. for instance, standard solutions to the liar paradox), third, maybe word-pictures are essentially non-cognitive, fourth maybe they are not used for literal predication but are something closer to honorific claims. The possibilities go on and on.

Mike, you're missing the point. Blake seems to think every single NT text that might have any bearing on the Trinity is a word picture of the sort that it doesn't express any proposition, and then he adds that something can't be a contradiction without expressing propositions. (The last point automatically rules out some of the views you mention.)

If this is right, then we run into real trouble. Somehow Jesus isn't saying anything when he says that he doesn't do anything except what the Father wills. How can that not express something that contradicts the claim that Jesus does all sorts of things outside the Father's will?

It presumably doesn't mean anything to speak of the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There's no significance whatsoever to the fact that the Great Commission speaks of one name for the three. If it doesn't express the sort of thing that could contradict the claim that they don't share one name in any sense at all, then I can't figure out what it's supposed to mean at all.

You could become a nominalist or a Quinean and express the things I just did in a really roundabout way. You can allow for sentences that don't express propositions or word pictures that are non-cognitive, but I don't see how any of that can help support the claim that there are no statements in the New Testament that have enough bearing on the Trinity that could in principle be able to contradict any other statements that might reflect on this doctrinal issue. That seems obviously false to me when I look at actual statements that seem to have a bearing on it, and calling them word pictures or developing theories of propositional content doesn't seem to help.

Jeremy:

Look at the kind of example you give as asserting something about the trinity. The great commission. Do you really believe that such notions hang on the slender thread of usage of a name for the three? Look at it:

“All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world� (Mt. 28:18-20 ASV).

So is this really an attempt to express something like but one substance for three divine persons (because there is one name and three persons named) -- or is it just a way of speaking in the Greek that doesn't bear all that additional weight? I think that it is a pretty large stretch to pull some metaphysical statement or proposition out of this kind of text. This text is a really good example of looking beyond the mark and attempting to make a doctrine out of a statement of practice.

So I am not claiming that nothing important is being asserted -- I'm claiming that what is being taught is not a propositional truth but an expression of authority and a marker of belonging to a community. So I just think that the creedal statements are a basic misunderstanding of the type of discourse and the rules that apply to the language game being played. However, I agree that when the propositional language game is overlayed this practice, it leads to incoherence. But the incoherence is deeper than merely the fact that the propositions are inconsistent. It is just a wrong-headed way of treating the text.

I didn't say you could derive the doctrine of the Trinity from Matthew 28. I said the fact that one name is assigned to all three is saying something, and it's something that's generally taken to be relevant to the Trinity issue. It's not just a statement of practice. You couldn't baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit unless there's something that it is to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There couldn't be such a thing unless there's a name that the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Given that the on name given to the Father that's ever called a name is the name 'Yahweh' and that the word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible for 'Yahweh' is also applied to Jesus over and over again to indicate something special about him, a strong case can be made that the name this verse is referring to is 'Yahweh'.

Now that may not be true, but it's certainly something that there's evidence for. The writer (if Jesus didn't say it) or Jesus himself must have had something in mind by constructing the sentence as it is. That thing might contradict something else. Either it includes what I think it includes, or it doesn't. Either way it can admit of contradiction, because what you're saying it says contradicts what I think it says. So by constructive dilemma it can admit of contradiction because on either option it can contradict the other option.

Even if it's merely an expression of authority, then it still has propositional content, i.e. tha