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A person's a person, no matter how divine? The question of univocity and personhood in Richard of St Victor's De Trinitate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2017
Abstract
This article offers a reading of Richard of St Victor's medieval treatise On the Trinity. It suggests that while Richard interrogates the question of trinitarian personhood in innovative ways, his contribution lies in the way he emphasises how nature influences 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.
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References
1 Hill, William J., The Three-Personed God: The Trinity as Mystery of Salvation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), p. 227 Google Scholar.
2 In one passage, Stanley J. Grenz does briefly suggest that Richard advocated a ‘social understanding of God as triune’, and that Hegel's influence ‘led to a renewal of social trinitarianism reminiscent of that pioneered by Richard of St. Victor’. See his The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), p. 31.
3 Moltmann, Jürgen, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 174 Google Scholar.
4 ‘For the invisible things concerning him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by things that are made’ (Vulgate: invisibilia enim ipsius a creatura mundi per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur).
5 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity: Introduction and Commentary, trans. Ruben Angelici (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), p. 81.
6 Ibid., p. 82.
7 Ibid., p. 85.
8 ‘Didicimus ex superioribus quod in illo summo bono universaliterque perfecto sit totius bonitatis plenitudo atque perfectio.’ Richard of St Victor, De Trinitate: Texte Critique avec Introduction, Notes et Tables [hereafter: De Trin.], ed. Jean Ribaillier (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1958), III.ii.4–5.
9 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, p. 116.
10 De Trin., III.ii.9–10: Oportet itaque ut amor in alterum tendat, ut caritas esse queat.
11 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, p. 116.
12 Ibid., p. 117.
13 den Bok, Nico, Communicating the Most High: A Systematic Study of Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St. Victor (d.1173) (Paris: Brepols, 1996), pp. 285–6Google Scholar.
14 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, p. 118.
15 Ibid., p. 125.
16 Ibid., p. 126.
17 Ibid., pp. 141–2.
18 Contra Richard Swinburne, who claims that Richard of St Victor offers an argument for ‘three divine individuals’: The Christian God (Oxford: OUP, 2004), p. 189.
19 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, p. 153.
20 Ibid., p. 154.
21 Especially in Anselm's De processione Spiritus Sancti.
22 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, p. 163; De Trin. IV.xxii.8–9: persona divina sit divine nature incommunicabilis existentia.
23 Richard of St Victor, On the Trinity, p. 163; De Trin., IV.xxii.15–16: Sed hujusmodi omnes excluduntur in eo quod existentie significatio restringitur et divine nature additione determinatur.
24 ‘One act cannot be produced by three wills. This means that God must be one Person (in the [modern sense]). It also means that the three Persons cannot have three wills; they cannot inter-act. Together, they have only one will, the act of which comprises all contingent things: all things factually willed by God with respect to non-divine beings.’ Den Bok, Communicating, p. 482.
25 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, p. 197.
26 Ibid., p. 198.
27 Gunton, Colin E., The Promise of Trinitarian Theology, 2nd ed. (London: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 78.Google Scholar
28 Michael W. Blastic, ‘Condilectio: Personal Mysticism and Speculative Theology in the Works of Richard of Saint Victor’, Ph.D. dissertation, St Louis University, 1991, p. 147.
29 This is, of course, essentially the principle of analogy applied to theological speech. Richard's contribution is to specify with greater precision than certain of his forebears (and some contemporary theologians) the nature of the similarity and dissimilarity in the concept of the person as it is applied to God and creatures.
30 Thanks are due to the Centre for Catholic Studies (Durham University) and the Systematic Theology Faculty at Aberdeen University for the chance to present an earlier draft of this material at their respective seminars.