Disputatio LVIII: De Signo Theologico et de Forma Illuminationis

 On the Theological Sign and the Form of Illumination

Quaeritur

Utrum signum theologicum sit locus in quo intelligibilitas Logi efficitur praesens creaturis sub forma signi, ita ut revelatio non sit mera significatio sed manifestatio; et quomodo Spiritus efficit ut ista manifestatio fiat participabilis sine reductione signi ad nudam immanentiam.

Whether the theological sign is the locus in which the intelligibility of the Logos becomes present to creatures under the form of a sign, such that revelation is not mere signification but manifestation; and how the Spirit ensures that this manifestation is participable without reducing the sign to a merely immanent function.

Thesis

A theological sign is not a symbol that points beyond itself to a distant referent. It is a created form through which the Logos-constituted intelligibility of divine action becomes manifest in the finite. The sign is therefore not extrinsic to revelation but intrinsic to its economy.

The Spirit illumines the sign so that it becomes transparent to the divine act it mediates. Without the Spirit, the sign remains opaque, but with the Spirit, the sign becomes the medium of participation in the Logos’ intelligible presence.

Thus, theological signs do not merely convey information. They are the formal structures by which divine act becomes encounterable within creaturely horizons.

Locus Classicus

John 1:14
ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο.
“The Word became flesh.”

The incarnation is the archetype of all theological signs whereby a finite form makes the locus of divine manifestation.

Romans 10:17
ἡ πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς.
“Faith comes from hearing.”

The word heard is not a bare sound but a Spirit-illumined sign that mediates divine action.

Luther, WA 30 II, 552
Verbum Dei est signum et donum simul.
“The Word of God is both sign and gift.”

Theological signs participate in and deliver the reality they signify.

Explicatio

There is an insufficiency of semiotic models when detached from ontology. Modern accounts of signs often conceive signification as a relation between finite items: a signifier and a signified linked through convention or structure. While such accounts illuminate language, they cannot account for revelation. They lack a metaphysics of divine act and therefore reduce theological signs to linguistic functions. But revelation requires more than reference. It requires manifestation: the presence of divine intelligibility in a created medium. Thus the theological sign is not a semiotic function but a metaphysical participation.

The Logos is the form of every theological sign. Every divine act is intelligible because its form subsists in the Logos. Therefore every sign that mediates divine action must be a form shaped by the Logos. The sign does not merely refer to divine act but bears its intelligibility. Accordingly, the sign’s structure reflects the Logos’ form. Its content is not autonomous from divine initiative and its intelligibility is never self-standing but derivative upon the divine act. The incarnation is the paradigmatic case of this. But Scripture, sacrament, and promise share the same logic: each is a finite form bearing the intelligible presence of the Logos.

Illumination makes the sign participable. Without illumination, the sign remains closed. It does not disclose God, but merely displays creaturely form. Illumination opens the sign to become the medium of divine manifestation. This opening is not an epistemic alteration but an ontological donation. The Spirit grants creatures to encounter the divine act in and through the sign’s form. Knowledge arises because the sign becomes transparent to the Logos. Thus, illumination does not add meaning to the sign. It grants participation in the meaning the sign already bears.

The sign is an event rather than a static object. Theological signs are not static entities awaiting interpretation, but are rather events in which divine action becomes present. A sacrament is not an object but an enacted sign; Scripture is not merely text but living word; proclamation is not a speech-act alone but a site of divine address. The sign is therefore not exhausted by its linguistic or material properties. It is a finite locus of manifestation, rendered such by the Spirit who actualizes the Logos’ intelligibility within it.

The we must reject purely linguistic or immanent models. Postliberal theology sometimes construes revelation as emerging from within the grammar of the community. But the sign’s power does not lie in communal usage. It lies rather in divine action. The sign becomes revelation not when it is interpreted but when it is illumined. In this way, grammar orders discourse, while illumination grants reality. Thus, theological signs are not cultural artifacts whose meaning is negotiated, but are divine gifts that disclose.

Objectiones

Ob I. If signs mediate divine action, do we not reintroduce a created intermediary between God and creatures?

Ob II. If the Logos is the form of the sign and the Spirit the illuminator, is revelation split between form and access?

Ob III. If signs manifest divine act, does this collapse transcendence into immanence?

Ob IV. If illumination is necessary, how can signs retain objective meaning independent of subjective experience?

Ob V. If signs are events, does this undermine their stability or repeatability?

Responsiones

Ad I. Signs are not intermediaries but media. They do not stand between God and creatures but are the places where God acts. Their existence does not obscure God but reveal him.

Ad II. Revelation is not divided but ordered. The Logos shapes the sign’s intelligibility; the Spirit grants communion with this intelligibility. This expresses personal distinction, not division.

Ad III. Manifestation is not collapse. The finite does not contain the infinite. It is the locus where the infinite acts. Signs render God present without confining him.

Ad IV. Objective meaning arises from divine action, not from human consciousness. Illumination concerns reception, not constitution. The sign’s meaning is objective because its form is Logos-shaped.

Ad V. The sign’s repeatability arises from the constancy of divine intention. Its event-character does not eliminate stability but secures it: the same divine agent acts in each instantiation.

Nota

The theological sign is the place where divine intelligibility enters the finite economy under a form appropriate to creaturely reception. Its meaning lies neither in human interpretation nor in semiotic structures but in the Logos-shaped intelligibility that the Spirit illumines.

Thus theological signs cannot be reduced to texts, symbols, or practices. They are the finite forms through which God gives himself to be known.

Determinatio

We therefore determine:

1. Theological signs are finite forms made the loci of divine manifestation.
2. Their intelligibility is constituted in the Logos.
3. Their participability is granted by the Spirit.
4. Illumination does not alter the sign but opens it.
5. The sign mediates divine action not as representation but as presence.

Revelation is thus the event in which God’s intelligible act becomes manifest through a sign illumined by the Spirit.

Transitus ad Disputationem LIX

Having shown that theological signs mediate divine intelligibility through Spirit-illumined manifestation, we now turn to the economy of divine presence as it unfolds in history. For signs do not appear in abstraction but in a temporal order shaped by divine intention.

We proceed therefore to Disputatio LIX: De Historia Ut Loco Revelationis, where we consider how historical events become theological loci when illumined by the Spirit and formed by the Logos.

________

Quaestiones Analyticae Post Determinationem II

Q1. If a theological sign is a locus of manifestation rather than a semiotic relation, how does this relate to classical truth-conditional semantics?

Responsio

Truth-conditional semantics presumes propositional form. But theological signs precede propositional articulation. They provide the ontological ground upon which propositions can later be formed. The sign is not true or false; it is the site where divine action becomes manifest. Propositions about the sign acquire truth conditions only by referencing this manifestation.

Q2. Can theological signs be modeled within a hyperintensional semantics?

Responsio

Only analogically. Hyperintensionality captures distinctions finer than necessary equivalence, which is appropriate for theological signs whose meaning depends on participation, not extension. Yet signs exceed hyperintensional analysis because their identity lies not in conceptual structure but in divine act. Hyperintensional models can represent distinctions between interpretations but cannot constitute the reality they signify.

Q3. How does illumination relate to felicity conditions in theological discourse?

Responsio

Felicity pertains to the internal grammar of theological assertion. Illumination pertains to the external truth of what is asserted. A statement is felicitous when it accords with the grammar of faith; it is true when it corresponds to the Logos-constituted reality that the sign manifests. Illumination bridges the two by granting access to the reality that grounds felicity.

Q4. Do sacramental signs require a unique model-theoretic treatment?

Responsio

Yes. Sacramental signs are not merely designators but enactments. They cannot be captured by classical satisfaction (M ⊨ T). They require constitutive satisfaction (Λ ⊨* Tₜ), in which the divine act grounds both the sign and its efficacy. The model is not interpretive only; it is participatory.

Q5. If signs are events, does this eliminate the possibility of stable theological models?

Responsio

No. Events are stable insofar as the agent who performs them is stable. The constancy of divine intention grounds the repeatability of sacramental and scriptural signs. Stability in theology arises not from static forms but from the fidelity of the acting God.

Nota Finalis

This analytic section clarifies that theological signs occupy a space where ontology, semiotics, and logic converge. They resist reduction to any one of these domains. Their meaning is grounded in divine action, their form in the Logos, and their reception in the Spirit. This provides the conceptual foundation for the next disputation, where historical events become loci of revelation.

Disputatio LVII: De Spiritu Ut Luminatore Intelligibilitatis

On the Spirit as the Illuminator of Intelligibility

Quaeritur

Utrum Spiritus Sanctus sit ille qui creaturis dat participationem in intelligibilitate Logi, ita ut divina revelatio non sit mera cognitio sed ingressus in formam intelligibilem actus divini; et quomodo haec illuminatio neque confundat Logos cum Spiritu neque revelationem redigat ad nudam conceptualitatem.

Whether the Holy Spirit is the one who grants creatures participation in the intelligibility of the Logos, such that divine revelation is not mere cognition but entry into the intelligible form of divine act; and how this illumination neither confounds Logos and Spirit nor reduces revelation to conceptuality.

Thesis

As the Logos is the constitutive form of divine intelligibility, so the Spirit is the personal agent who grants creatures access to this intelligibility. The Spirit does not generate intelligibility. The Spirit illumines the intelligibility eternally constituted in the Logos and draws creatures into participation with it.

Thus the Spirit is not an epistemic supplement, nor a secondary condition added to divine self-disclosure. The Spirit is the very possibility of reception, the act whereby divine intelligibility becomes creaturely light. Revelation is therefore not a transmission of concepts but a participation in the intelligible articulation of divine life.

Locus Classicus

John 16:13
ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν.
“He will guide you into all truth.”

The Spirit leads not by external instruction but by granting entry into the truth already articulated in the Logos.

1 Corinthians 2:10–12
τὸ γὰρ Πνεῦμα πάντα ἐρευνᾷ… ἵνα εἰδῶμεν τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ χαρισθέντα ἡμῖν.
“The Spirit searches all things… that we might know the things freely given to us by God.”

Knowledge is the fruit of participatory illumination, not conceptual deduction.

Athanasius, Ep. Serap. I.20
οὐ χωρὶς τοῦ Πνεύματος θεογνωσία.
“There is no knowledge of God apart from the Spirit.”

Luther, WA 40 I, 226
Spiritus Sanctus est qui facit verbum intelligi et corda accendit.
“The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the Word understood and kindles the heart.”

Explicatio

The Spirit does not create intelligibility but opens it. The intelligibility of divine action is eternally constituted in the Logos. The Spirit neither adds to nor completes this intelligibility. Rather, the Spirit grants creatures participation in what the Logos eternally is. Illumination is therefore not a form of epistemic enhancement. It is the metaphysical condition under which divine intelligibility becomes available to those whose being is not divine. Without the Spirit there can be divine intelligibility but no creaturely apprehension of it.

Illumination as participation, not perception. Creaturely knowledge often assumes a model of perception: the object is intelligible; the subject observes. But revelation does not follow this pattern. For divine acts cannot be perceived as objects that stand before a viewer. Rather, one must participated in them. The Spirit is the one who effects this participation. To know God is to stand within the intelligible form of God’s act, and this standing-within is the Spirit’s gift. Thus, theology is grounded not in the capacities of the knower but in the indwelling of the Spirit who grants access to the Logos.

The Spirit and the Logos remain distinct in their missions. The divine missions reflect eternal relations. The Son manifests the Father; the Spirit grants communion with the Son. Illumination is therefore not reducible to articulation. The Logos articulates divine intelligibility; the Spirit incorporates creatures into this articulation.

There is no confusion of persons. The Spirit does not become the Logos nor supply what the Logos lacks. The Spirit brings creatures into the Logos without dissolving the personal distinction that grounds the economy. Revelation is intelligible life rather than conceptual content, for if revelation were merely conceptual, illumination would be superfluous. Human reason could grasp divine propositions as it grasps mathematical ones. But revelation is participation in divine life. Concepts may accompany this participation, but they are never its essence. The Spirit draws creatures into the Logos-shaped intelligibility of divine action. The mind is illuminated because the heart is converted. The intellect receives light because the whole person is brought under the form of divine act.

Thus, revelation is not information but transformation.There is an insufficiency of linguistic or communal models to grasp this. Some modern theologies treat illumination as the communal regulation of meaning. But linguistic formation alone does not yield divine knowledge. It orders speech, not reality. Grammar can describe how the church speaks of God, but the Spirit alone grants participation in God. To collapse illumination into communal formation is to reduce revelation to anthropology. It confuses theological intelligibility with linguistic coherence. The Spirit is not the curator of ecclesial grammar, but is rather the giver of divine light.

Objectiones

Ob I. If illumination is participation, however, knowledge becomes mystical rather than intelligible.

Ob II. If intelligibility is in the Logos and illumination in the Spirit, it seems that revelation is divided, for form is given by one person, and access by another.

Ob III. Illumination introduces contingency into revelation and access seems dependent on subjective conditions.

Ob IV. If the Spirit grants participation, human cognition seems bypassed, thus undermining the rational character of theology.

Ob V. Postliberal theology claims the community already possesses intelligibility through its practices, and thus the Spirit’s role becomes redundant.

Responsiones

Ad I. Participation is not obscurity. The Logos is form; the Spirit is light. To participate in form is to know truly, not to dissolve into the inarticulate. Mysticism is avoided because participation is in the Logos, whose intelligibility is determinate.

Ad II. Revelation is not divided but ordered. The Son is intelligibility; the Spirit is communion. These are not separable acts but one divine motion under distinct personal relations.

Ad III. Illumination is contingent for creatures, not for God. Divine intelligibility is eternally complete, yet creatures receive it according to their created and redeemed condition. This does not relativize revelation but confirms its gift-character.

Ad IV. Cognition is not bypassed but elevated. The Spirit does not cancel reason but enables it to apprehend what exceeds its natural horizon. Reason becomes capable of divine things because it is drawn into their form.

Ad V. Grammar regulates theological speech but does not confer divine knowledge. The Spirit is not redundant because the community cannot generate participation in God. While practices can shape discourse, only the Spirit grants knowledge.

Nota

The Spirit’s illumination is the metaphysical bridge between divine intelligibility and creaturely knowledge. It is neither enthusiasm nor epistemic supplementation. It is the act whereby God’s own intelligibility becomes creaturely light. Theology therefore depends neither on external demonstration nor on internal intuition. It depends on participation in the Logos through the Spirit.

This is why theology is always doxological, for the knower’s act is a response to divine illumination, not an autonomous achievement of reason.

Determinatio

We therefore determine:

1. The intelligibility of divine action is constituted in the Logos.
2. The illumination of this intelligibility for creatures is the work of the Spirit.
3. Revelation is participation in divine life, not merely conceptual apprehension.
4. The Spirit’s illumination preserves both divine transcendence and authentic theological knowledge.
5. Theological truth (Tₜ) is received only insofar as Λ ⊨* Tₜ becomes luminous to the creature through the Spirit’s act.

Transitus ad Disputationem LVIII

Having shown that the Spirit grants access to the intelligibility constituted in the Logos, we turn to the question of how this illumination takes shape in the order of signs. For revelation comes to creatures through words, sacraments, and histories.

Thus we proceed to Disputatio LVIII: De Signo Theologico et de Forma Illuminationis, where we examine how the Spirit-illumined Logos shapes the signs through which divine action becomes manifest in the created order.

_________

Quaestiones Analyticae Post Determinationem

Q1. You describe illumination as participation. How does this differ from epistemic justification?

Responsio

Justification concerns the adequacy of reasons for belief. Participation concerns the transformation of the knower’s being. Illumination precedes justification because it grants the very possibility of apprehending divine intelligibility. Justification operates within a horizon and illumination grants that horizon.

Q2. Does illumination imply a noetic regeneration analogous to moral regeneration?

Responsio

Yes, but not by analogy of degree. Noetic regeneration arises because divine intelligibility cannot be apprehended from the standpoint of fallen reason. Illumination does not destroy reason but reorders its orientation, giving it a share in the Logos’ form. This is not psychological improvement but ontological redirection.

Q3. If illumination is necessary for knowledge of God, does this undermine the possibility of natural theology?

Responsio

Not entirely. Natural theology may recognize that creation bears intelligible marks of divine goodness. But knowledge of God as God requires participation in divine intelligibility, which only the Spirit grants. Natural theology yields analogical apprehension; illumination yields participatory knowledge.

Q4. Could illumination be interpreted as a kind of divine testimony?

Responsio

Testimony is too weak a category. It presumes a propositional content relayed by a speaker. Illumination is not a report but a sharing. It grants the creature a share in the intelligibility of divine act rather than asserting propositions about it.

Nota Finalis

This disputation advances the theological logic established in LV and LVI by showing that intelligibility and its apprehension are not parallel operations but one divine motion received under two aspects: the Son articulates; the Spirit illumines. These analytic questions demonstrate that theological knowledge is neither constructed nor inferred but given as participation. They reveal that to know God is to stand in the light of the Logos by the Spirit who grants sight.

Bare Particulars, Trinity and Incarnation I

I

I was blessed thirty years ago to be a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Iowa.  It was in the 1980s, a time where the influence of the "Iowa School" was rapidly waning.  The "Iowa School" of philosophy was associated inter alia with the work of Herbert Feigl, Gustav Bergmann, Wilfred Sellers and Everett Hall.  These men deeply understood logical positivism and further grasped that ontological questions could not be disassociated from it.  While none were teaching at Iowa in the 1980s, excellent philosophers like Panayot Butchvarov remained who were profoundly interested in questions of contemporary metaphysics.   

Of all of the Iowa philosophers, Gustav Bergmann was perhaps the most interesting.  Born in Vienna in 1906 with a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Vienna, Bergmann was briefly a member of the famous "Vienna Circle" before moving to Berlin in 1931 to work with Einstein on certain aspects of mathematical physics.

Bergmann later migrated to America in the late 1930s and was invited to the University of Iowa to work with the Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin.  While Bergmann and Lewin parted company fairly quickly, Bergmann made connections at Iowa and was appointed a lecturer in the early 1940s, finally progressing to full professor by 1950.    Bergmann stayed in Iowa City beyond his retirement in 1974.  I remember seeing him occasionally in the philosophy department in the early 1980s when I was there, often reading an Italian novel.  Unfortunately, he developed Alzheimer’s and succumbed to the disease in 1987.  

Bergmann was committed to logical positivism early on, and retained a general orientation towards logical empiricism throughout his life.[1]  He was also an unregenerate realist who held that metaphysics was not only possible, but necessary if one was going to give a coherent account of the ontological structure grounding the semantic conditions of ideal language.  Starting with the syntax of the language of formal logic, Bergmann attempted to make explicit the logical structure of that language by pointing to the metaphysical constitution of the objects and states of affairs referred to by that language.[2] 

The Iowa School has always been interested in the metaphysics of universal and particulars, believing that careful analysis of a logically perspicuous language could bear metaphysical fruit.   And Bergmann’s vineyard was indeed lush!   A committed realist who granted ontological status to various kinds of abstract objects, Bergmann advocated that the common sense particulars of which we are directly acquainted, e.g., this ball and that spot, are actually not metaphysically simple, but rather are constituted by metaphysically more basic bare particulars exemplifying various universals.  Bergmann thus argued for a “complex ontology” while eschewing a “functional ontology” (Frege).[3]   There is much wisdom to be gleaned in reading Bergmann, though such reading is mostly out of favor today.[4]

II

In this essay I want to review Bergmann’s notion of a bare particular with an eye towards its theological appropriation.   Is there any way that this notion can be helpful in understanding the ontological grounds for Trinitarian and Christological discourse?  

Bergmann’s Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong gives a description of what he means by a ‘bare particular’. 

A bare particular is a mere individuator.  Structurally that is its only job.   It does nothing else.   In this respect it is like Aristotle’s matter, or, perhaps more closely, like Thomas’ material signata.   Only, it is a thing.[5]

Bergmann claims that two red spots can “exemplify” the same universals (e.g., redness, spot-shapeness), and are yet different spots because they are constituted by different bare particulars.  Like Aristotelian primary substances, bare particulars can neither be “said of” any other thing nor be “present in” something else.  Furthermore, while bare particulars are predicated, they cannot be predicated of any other thing.  Bare particulars, unlike properties, are thus the ultimate subjects of predication.  While ‘white’ can be “said of” particular white properties or can be “present in” particulars as such, it can also be predicated: this particular white property had by this particular can itself be said to be white.[6]  This is not possible with a bare particular.  In phrases like ‘x is a bare particular’, the “is” must be one of identity and not attribution.  

Bill Vallicella has written quite cogently about the metaphysical situation regarding bare particulars.[7]  Such particulars, while possessing properties, have no natures, that is, they have nothing by virtue of which the particular is the particular that it is.  Bergmann countenanced that an external relation of exemplification obtains between bare particulars and the universals that are “exemplified” in them.   For instance, bare particular a can exemplify whiteness and felininity (catness), in that whiteness and felininity are both “here.”   The relation of exemplification is external because there is nothing about whiteness or felininity that necessitates there exemplification at a.   Conversely, there is nothing about being a that requires whiteness and felininity to be so exemplified. Since every bare particular is externally related to the properties that are exemplified at that particular, the properties had by the bare particular or merely accidental to it.   While this particular exemplifies white and felininity, it is possible for it to have exemplified black and canininity (dogness). 

The fact that bare particulars are not Aristotelian substances is easily grasped.  Aristotelian substances have a “layer” of properties without which the particular could not be the particular it is.  One might say that the individual is internally related to its nature for Aristotle.[8]  As Vallicella points out, on an Aristotelian understanding, the particular Fido is no longer free to take on any property whatsoever.  The dog Fido cannot, as it were, take on the property of felininity and still be the dog Fido.  In other words, the particular Fido is a canine in each and every possible world in which Fido exists.  

This is not the case with the bare particular a, for apparently, a can take on properties like canininity or felininity at will as it skirts through possible worlds.  The capability a posseses to do this is necessary if a is properly to individuate, for a bare particular simply is that which individuates two qualitatively identical objects.   This red spot and that red spot are individuated by the fact that this red spot is this one and that red spot is that one.   A bare particular always exemplifies some property or other, but does so only contingently. Any properties exemplified at a are simply primitively exemplified at a.  There is no deeper ground in a, no nature, that determines the expression of any particular properties at a.   Vallicella terms this feature “promiscuous combinability”: each bare particular can “hook up” with any universal, in that it is logically possible for any universal to be exemplified at any bare particular. 

Bergmann is a constituent ontologist holding that bare particulars are ingredient in each ordinary particular, that is, an ordinary particular is constituted by a bare particular exemplifying properties.   One could argue that a bare particular having constituent parts violates the nature of that particular’s particularity, and advance instead a non-constituent ontology for particulars.   On this view, there would be no deeper constitution of an ordinary particular. The particular is numerically distinct from other particulars, although that by which it is numerically distinct is not specified.  This seems the tactic of Nicholas Wolterstoff, who rejects Bergmann’s constituent analysis claiming that ordinary particulars are, in fact, simple.[9] 

At this point we might distinguish Bergmann’s “bare particular” from the notions of “thin particular” and “thick particular.”   David Armstrong seems – unjustly in my view -- to think his “thin particular” is different than Bergmann’s “bare particular.” But his distinction between thick and thin particulars is useful.   While a thin particular is a particular considered in isolation from the properties it instantiates, a thick particular is that thin particular considered in combination with the properties it instantiates.[10]  Armstrong declares, “the thin particular remains the particular with its attributes abstracted away.  The thick particular is again a state of affairs: the thin particular’s having the (particular) attributes that it has.  Armstrong’s thin particular, like Bergmann’s bare particular, is committed to a constituent analysis of ordinary particulars. 

I assume for the remainder of this article that the notion of a “bare particular” or “think particular” is ultimately philosophical defensible, though I know that much work is needed in making that defense.  As a theologian, my purpose is not to do the philosopher’s deep work at this time, but rather to move to a different question entirely.   What do the doctrines of the Trinity and two natures of Christ look like when assuming that notion of bare particularity?  How do “bare” or “thin” particulars relate to the tradition’s understanding of hypostasis and persona?  Finally, how might this discussion connect with Scotus’ notion of haeccity?   I will take up these questions in the next post.         
   

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[1] Defining “logical empiricism” is not easy.  Richard Creath writes, "What held the group together was a common concern for scientific methodology and the important role that science could play in reshaping society. Within that scientific methodology the logical empiricists wanted to find a natural and important role for logic and mathematics and to find an understanding of philosophy according to which it was part of the scientific enterprise.”  See Creath, Richard, "Logical Empiricism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .[2] For an overview of the life and philosophy of Bergmann, see William Heald, “From Positivism to Realism: The Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann, 1992, http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/bai/heald.htm.
[3] His constituent ontology analyzes seeming particulars into bare particulars exemplifying universals.   A function ontology eschews “in” as the primary metaphysical relationship, substituting instead a coordinating function, e.g., the function of {green, oval, spatio-temporal location} as argument delivers “this spot” as a value.
[4] Bergmann does place fairly heavy demands upon his reader.   Those interested in his work should study the following:  Philosophische Analyse / Philosophical Analysis: Ontology and Analysis:  Essays and Recollections about Gustav Bergmann, eds., Addis, Jesson and Tegtmeier (Muenchen: Walter de Gruyter, 2013); Philosophische Analyse / Philosophical Analysis: Fostering the Ontological Turn: Gustav Bergmann (1906-1987), eds. Egidi and Bonino, (Muenchen: Walter de Gruyter, 2013); and Philosophsche Analyse / Philosophical Analysis: Gustav Bergmann: Phenomenological Realism and Dialectical Ontology, eds., Langlet and Monnoyer, (Muenchen: Walter de Gruyter, 2013).
[5]Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (Madison, WS: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), 25.
[6] All of this goes back, of course, to Aristotle in his Categories.   Aristotle famously said that only particular substances are neither “said of” nor “present in” something else.
[7] See http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2014/11/bare-particulars-versus-aristotelian-substances.html.
[8] a is internally related to b if and only if the being of a is in part determined by the being of b, e.g., I am internally related genetically to my father.  a is externally related to b if and only if the being of a is not affected by the relationship a has to b, e.g., my father is externally related genetically to me.
[9] See Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Bergmann’s Constituent Ontology,” Nous 4:2 (May 1970), 116ff. 
[10] See David Armstrong, “Universals as Attributes,” 65-93, Michael Loux, Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings (New York: Routledge, 2001), 79:  “The thin particular is a, taken apart from its properties (substratum).   It is linked to its properties by instantiation, but it is not identical to them. . . .  However, this is not the only way a particular can be thought of.   It can also be thought of as involving its properties.  . . This is the thick particular.  But the thick particular, because it enfolds both thin particulars and properties, held together by instantiation, can be nothing but a state of affairs.”   Armstrong seems to think that Bergmann’s “bare particular” does not instantiate properties, a view that Bergmann explicitly denies.

Thinking Hegelian Thoughts

It can happen to you anywhere, and sometimes with the least provocation. You can be having a good day, a clear day, a day when you know what you know and what you should do. It can be a day of teaching, of administrating, or of reading and studying. It can be a day like other good days. . . But then it happens: Suddenly, capriciously Hegel makes sense.

Now I don’t mean to say that one suddenly grasps the system, that one comes to clarity about how mediated immediacy works with respect to the whole of ideal and historical reality, or even that one succeeds in actually learning something more about Hegel’s thought. It is not really a greater appreciation of Hegel that one has, but rather that all of a sudden, and quite out of the blue, one discovers one is Hegelian; one grasps that what Hegel says is deeply true.

My own recent insightful moment occurred on a day like other days. I was lecturing on the problems bequeathed by Kant and was talking about how Fichte, Schelling and Hegel responded to these problems. I was talking about how, for Kant, the forms imposed by the subject on things were due to our autonomous transcendental synthesizing activity, and that Hegel believed that Kant had allowed that the particularity of the forms so imposed was ultimately inexplicable, or, in Hegel’s terms, “shot from the pistol.” Famously, Hegel had accused Kant of allowing these forms to stand in “bare externality,” and that what was thus needed was a way to show how this “moment” was itself the result of some higher movement of the Spirit, or some more lofty unpacking of the Idea. (At this point undergraduate students are generally thinking about something fun they shall be doing in the summer.) On this recent day in class, I appealed to Hegel’s implicit presupposition of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in explaining why Hegel could not leave the forms in mere bare externality and, I must admit, I was even a little proud in showing how Hegel was thusly continuing in the German rationalist tradition. But then it happened: Hegel’s solution simply seemed inescapable! Of course, one cannot merely leave the Kantian subject in externality; one must finally “take it up” in the higher movement of Spirit. If one does not do so, one is guilty of hanging the Kantian subject out to dry in the arena of the irrational; one is, in other words, condemning the Kantian subject to the abyss of Value.

The story goes like this: For many philosophers prior to Kant, the world is merely given; it is thus the subject’s obligation to conform itself to the objective structure of the world. But the skeptical trajectory culminating in Hume had shown how the objectivity of the natural sciences could not be maintained without a move to the subject. In order to ground the objectivity of experience, Kant deduced those necessary conditions for the possibility of experience. These included, as is well known, the pure a priori forms of intuition (space and time), and the pure a priori forms of understanding (quantity, quality, relation, and modality). Of these, the two most famous fall under ‘relation’, the pure a priori concepts of substance and cause. Since philosophers had shown that substance and causality were not part of the structure of the world in itself, they must be located elsewhere if they are to be retained. Kant famously located them in the autonomy of the transcendental synthesis that gives rise to the self/world structure. It is because human being in its transcendental be-ing, imposes form upon the world, that human being in its subjective be-ing can come to know the world as a formed content. Kant showed, in effect, that since the necessary forms employed in modern science could not be derived from the content of the world in itself, that they must be grounded in the synthesizing activity of the subject. The transcendental condition for the possibility of a formed world was not a world that came as formed, but a synthesis that imposed the form of the subject upon a formless world. (Theologically, one could say that without the Word there could be no World.) So Kant did not allow the world to stand in its immediacy, but rather showed that all knowledge of the world demanded a mediacy by the subject.

Now enter the heroic Hegelian solution: Instead of leaving the transcendental condition for the possibility of a formed world to be just the way things are (“shot from the pistol”), Hegel showed how this transcendental synthesizing activity was itself accounted for by the movement of Geist (Spirit) that is, by definition, no longer something that needs accounting for. Whereas the content of the world is formed by the form of transcendental synthesis, the form of that synthesis is itself the result of the content of Spirit, a formed Spirit whose content is both form and content. So it is that the abyss of Value is grounded once more in Truth.

Thinking about Hegel makes one think Trinitarian thoughts. The content of the world is the result of the form of the Word: God speaks all things into being. But this divine speaking is never something wholly external to those with eyes to see, because the One speaking is identical to the One testifying to the speaking. There is thus an identity of being and thinking.

Lutheran theology is a Trinitarian theology. Hegel is a Lutheran. And so it happens that Hegelian philosophy is profoundly Trinitarian theology.

So with the insight that Hegel is true, what does one do? One approaches with ontological humility the contour of the world; one explores with epistemological humility the contour of the self knowing the world; and one discerns with religious humility the contour of the divine upon whose absolute ground the subject knows its object.

Theological Semantics and the Problem of Interpretation

The sentence 'the cat is on the mat' is meaningless until it has been given an interpretation. We define a function from the sentence to objects within a domain. Standardly, we should say that 'cat' refers to {x: x is a cat}, 'mat' refers to the {x: x is a mat} and 'is on' refers to { (x, y) : x is on y} . Thus, we say that there is some member of the first set a, some member of the second set b, such that is a member of { (x, y) : x is on y}. To give an interpretation is to define a function from relevant linguistic units in the language to things in the world, such that the objects in the world form a functional image f* of the language. Thus, 'the cat is on the mat' is given by f*(cat), f*(mat), and f*(cat, mat) is a member of {(x, y) : x is on y}.

Now imagine providing such an interpretation for Trinitarian discourse. 'God is the Father', 'God is the Son', and 'God is the Holy Spirit', 'the Father generates the Son', and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son'. One could say that f*(Father) is a member of f*(God), f*(Son) is a member of f*(God), f*(Holy Spirit) is a member of f*(God), and that {x : x is God} has one member g. Thus f*(Father) = f*(Son) = f*(Holy Spirit) = g. 'The Father generates the Son' is thus f*(Father, Son) is a member of f*{(x, y) : x generates y}. Accordingly, 'The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son' is given by f*(Father, Holy Spirit) and f*(Son, Holy Spirit) is a member of {(x, y) : x proceeds y}. What follows, of course, is that it is a member of {(x, y) : x generates y}.

Now, taking 'G' to be "generates", we have that Ggg. Lombard and the Fourth Lateran Council reject Ggg because ascribing the reflexivity of generation to the individual g seems to deny simplicity, for there seems to be no possible world in which something can generate itself without dividing itself. (Notice how one can know oneself or think oneself without dividing oneself - - if one has intuitive, nondiscursive knowledge as has traditionally been thought to be true of God.)

Martin Luther, however, had no problem affirming the propriety of "the divine essence generates the divine essence'. When he said this, he meant that the Father generates the Son. If the Father is the divine essence, and the Son is the divine essence, and the Father generates the Son, then the divine essence generates itself, Ggg. He seems to have no problems with this because if Plato is a man, and Aristotle is a man, and Plato is a teacher of Aristotle, then it is proper to say that man is a teacher of man. Of course, the set M = {x : x is a man} is not a singleton set as is D = {x : x is God}. D has one member g, but M has billions of members.

When thinking the divine essence, one must not only subscribe to it a as a general essence, but one must claim a single instantiation, for if there was more than one instantiation, there would be a compromise of monotheism.

In order to make progress on the various claims in the late medieval period, we must be able to state clearly the ontological situation of the Trinity in the most perspicuous language we possess: first-order predicate logic with identity.

On the Theological Equivalency of East/West Trinitarin Models

Theologians are oftentimes too lax in getting clear on the types of claims they make. Take, for instance, the claim that the East and West made theologically equivalent claims about the Trinity, although they divided philosophically in their conceptuality about universals: The East assuming that a universal could be numerically one and multiply instantiatable, and the West denying this. Is it indeed true that the East and West make equivalent trinitarian claims?

Theoretical equivalency is understood differently on syntactical and semantic approaches. According to syntactical approaches, theories T1 and T2 are equivalent if they have, as their extension, the same or equivalent set of models. This syntactical approach to understanding theories and their equivalency was dominant through much of the twentieth century, and is oftentimes referred to as "the classical view" or "the received view." On this approach, a theory is a set of uninterpreted axioms in a specified formal language using a set of correspondence rules that provide a partial empirical interpretation to the theory by linking observable entities and processes to particular non-logical terms. A theory is true just in case its interpreted axioms are all true.

The semantic approach to understanding theories and their equivalency has developed over the last four decades. While syntactic approaches are interested in deducibility from axioms, semantic approaches focus upon the notion of "satisfaction." Objects which satisfy the axioms are models of those axioms. According to the semantic approach, the axioms comprise part of a theoretical definition. Whether or not such a definition is true of the world depends upon theoretical hypotheses. A theory is true just in case all of its associated hypotheses are true. In the words of F. Suppe, the semantic view "construes theories as what their formulations refer to when the formulations are given a formal (semantic) interpretation" (Suppe, The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, p. 4). This model-theoretic view identifies theories with the set of models that satisfies the theoretical laws of the theories. The models can be understood as being a pure structure: abstract entities and relations. Theories T1 and T2 are equivalent if and only if they are satisfied by sets if models M1 and M2 respectively, such that M1 and M2 are isomorphic to each other.

Applying this to the Trinitarian question, we might say that sentence "God is both one and three" is satisfied by two different sets of models, one employing a multiply instantiable universal, the other a property particular overlapping the compresent bundles of properties constituting the persons. If two separate sets of model structures satisfy the same set of Trinitarian propositions, these structures are equivalent and they are isomorphic with respect to each other.

It is ironic to find that East and West Trinitarian controversies may have been argued by people holding equivalent or almost equivalent Trinitarian views. Perhaps one is not making a different theological claim at all when "starting with the persons" or "starting with the essence." Maybe, in fact, the new social Trinitarianism is finally equivalent to older, more traditional Trinitarian positions.

Trinitarian Confusions between East and West?

Richard Cross has argued that the East and West do not really "adopt radically divergent accounts of the Trinity" (Richard Cross, "Two Models of the Trinity," HeyJ XLIII (2002) 275-294). I believe Cross is fundamentally correct, though I do have some observations.

It is often claimed that the Eastern view (following the Cappadocian Fathers) starts from the diversity of the persons and then moves to account for the unity of the essence, while the Western view (following Augustine) starts from the unity of the divine essence and then attempts to account for the diversity of the persons. Clearly, much has been made of this distinction in the secondary literature. One finds characterizations of the difference between East and West such as the following: The Thomistic tradition originating in Augustine assumes this order of logical priority: Relation, Person, and the Processions; the Cappodocian tradition understands the logical priority this way: Processions, Person, the Relations. (e.g., See Knuuttila & Saarinen, "Innertrinitarishe Theologie in der Scholastik und bei Luther, " pp. 243-264, Caritas Dei: Beitraege zum Verstaendnis Luthers und der gegenwaertigen Oekumene.) Cross argues persuasively that the difference between the Eastern and Western traditions has little to do with theology, but everything to do with different philosophical assumptions operating in the East and West. "The Eastern view does, and the Western view does not, generally accept a sense in which the divine essence is a shared universal" (275). Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, claims that the divine essence is a singular multiply-instantiatable universal; Augustine denies this.

Cross begins his analysis by giving the standard metaphysical options on universals and particulars. He first distinguishes the substrate/property view of the constitution of substance from that of a congeries of properties having what Russell called "compresence." Secondly, he distinguishes properties as particulars from properties as universals. Accordingly, if properties are particulars, then the indiscernible properties of numerically distinct substances are themselves numerically distinct. However, if properties are universals, then the indiscernible properties of numerically distinct substances are identical (and thus by Leibniz's law) the same property. If two particulars have the same shade of blue and if these shades of blue are particulars - - one shade of blue is exactly like the other - - , then the shades of blue are numerically diverse. However, if the two particulars have the same shade of blue and the shades of blue are literally the same shade, then the blue is a universal. A universal is, by definition, a property that can be a constituent in more than one substance. Particular properties, by definition, cannot be constituents in more than one substance. Accordingly, the only real metaphysical possibility for overlapping substances on a bundle theory (the view that a substance is a compresence of properties) is that there are universal properties that are ingredient in each and every compresence.

This insight is crucial for understanding the putative divergence between the Eastern and Western views. For purposes of analysis, allow 'substance', 'hypostasis' and 'person' to be used interchangeably, and futher assume that 'divine essence' is an overlapping property (a property common to the three substances), and must thus be, on the previous analyis, a universal. This divine essence is termed the 'ousia' by the East. As to the question of whether this divine essence is one simple universal property, or a bundle of such properties, Cross follows Augustine: "God however is indeed called in multiple ways great, good, wise, blessed, true and anything else that seems not to be unworthy of him; but his greatness is identical with his wisdom . . . and his goodness is identical with his wisdom and greatness, and his truth is identical with them all; and with him being blessed is not one thing, and being great or wise or true or good, or just simply being (esse), another" (Trin. 6.7.8 CCSI., I, 237).

Gregory of Nyssa clearly articulates the view that the universal divine essene (ousia) is a unviversal that is multiply instantiated in the three divine persons:

"If now of two or more who are [man] in the same way, like Paul and Silas and Timothy an account of the ousia of men is sought, one will not give on account of the ousia of Paul, another one of Silas andd again another one of Timothy; but by whatever terms the ousia of Paul is shown, these same will fit the others as well. And those are homoousioi to each other, who are described by the same fomular of being" ("Human Nature in Gregy of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and Theological Singnificance," Supplements to Vigilae Christianae, 46, p. 709, p. 70).

The universal which is the divine essence is clearly numerically singular:

"But the nature is one, united to itself and a precisely undivided unit (monas), not increased through addition, not decreased through subtraction, but being and remaining one (even if it were to appear in a multitude), undivided, continuous, perfect, and not divided by the individuals who participate in it" (Gregory, Abl. GNO, III/I, 40.24-41.7).

Cross points out, however, that Gregory's universal is not ante rem. The divine essence does not exist uninstantiated, but is rather immanent in the persons; it is that "of which" the persons are (Cross, 281). The divine essence is shared by the persons, but the divine persons as overlapping bundles of properties do not share their own personal properties.

According to Cross, the Western theologians implicitly accept the view of the shareability of the divine essence by the persons even though they explicitly criticize this position. The western theologians deny that the divine essence is a universal "in the sense of 'universal' accepted by the West, not the sense accepted by the East" (Cross, 281). Though they deny this, they accept that the essence is shared by the persons. Augustine writes:

"In the simple Trinity one is as much as three are together, and two are not more than one, and in themselves they are infinite. So they are each in each and all in each, and each in all and all in all, and all are one" (Trin. 6.10.12, CCSL, L, 243).

Over eight centuries later, Aquinas echoes Augustine:

"In God, the essence is really identical with a [viz., each] person, even though the persons are really distinct from each other" (ST 1.39.1, c).

Yet the western theologians explicitly reject Nyssa's view on universals. Quoting Augustine again:

"If essence is species, like man, and those which we call substances or persons are three, then they have the same species in common, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have in common the species which is called 'man'; and if while man can be subdivided into Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not mean that one man can be subdivided into several single men - - obviously he cannot, because one man is already a single man - - then how can one essence be subdivided into three substances or persons? For if essence, like man, is a species, then one essence is like one man" (Trin. 7.6.11, CSSL, L, 236).

Augustine's criticism assumes that if the divine essence is a species, and if a species is divisible, then the divine essence is divisible. But since this cannot be so, he concludes that the divine essence is not a species. But if it is not a species, then it is not a universal at all. Cross believes that Augustine holds that a universal (species) is divisible because he assumes that Neoplatonic notion of in re universals. Neoplatonists are nominalists here; they claim that universals (species) are merely aggregates of particulars.

Although Aquinas is not a Neoplatonic nominalist, his Aristotelian realism agrees on this point: "No universal is numerically the same in the things beneath it" (Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum 1.19.4.2). Cross concludes: "Unlike the Eastern tradition, . . . the Western tradition accepts - - as a matter of philosophical fact - - that universals, even in re universals, are not such that they are numerically identical in each exemplification" (Cross, 284). Thus, while the Cappadocians assumed that all universals, not just the divine essence, "are numerically singular, and . . . the particulars are collections of such universals" the Western tradition rejected the claim of the numerical singularity of universals and the consitution of particulars from universals (ibid.). While both the East and the West claimed that the divine essence is a singular property formed by the intersection of the properties of the persons, the West disagreed with the East in claiming that this intersection could be accounted for by claiming the existence of a numerically identical universal. The divine essence as a universal in re is not logically or metaphysically prior to the persons, but dependent and posterior to the persons. Yet, this essence is something more than its instantiations in the persons; for this essence is what makes possible the identity of these persons.

To the objection that Eastern and Western views must be theologically distinct because social trinitarian views can be grounded in the former and not via the latter, Cross claims that such views actually cannot be grounded in one tradition more properly than the other. It is just not the case that the Western view adopts a Trinity of subsistent relations between persons disallowing a social trinitarian approach, and the East a theory of personal processions completely compatible with a robust social trinitarianism.

The Western notion of subsistent relations claims that the persons are individuated with respect to dyadic relations holding between the persons. These dyadic relations are not constitutive of the persons themselves; they do not inhere in things, but somehow "hang between" their relata. Aquinas writes:

"Distinction in God arieses only through relations of origin . . . But a relation in God is not like an accident inherent in a subject, but is the divine essence itself. So it is subsistent just as the divine essence is subsistent. Just as, therefore, the Godhead is God, so the divine paternity is God the Father, who is a divine person. Therefore 'divine persons' signifies a relation as subsistent" (ST 1.28.1, c).

Cross points to Augustine as the source of this view, for it was Augustine who denied that God can be a subject for accidents, and thus rejecting accidents, identifies relations as the non-inherent "things" whose distinction does not entail a distinction in substance: "What is stated relationally does not designate substance. So although begotten differs from unbegotten, it does not indicate a different substance" (Trin. 5.5.6, CCSL., I, 210). Because accidents require a substrate, and because the presence of a substrate is incompatible with simplicity, the assertion of simplicity requires a denial of accidental personal properties. However, "a divine person can include a relation without that relation thereby entailing composition" (287). Thus, for the West, the divine persons cannot be pyschological subjects, for such psychological subjects are necessarily individuated by their non-relational properties.

Cross believes that Gregory of Nyssa effectively also embraced the category of subsistent relations. In the following quote, the distinguishing features of the persons are clearly the causal relations they possess with respect to each other:

"While confessing that the nature is undifferentiated, we do not deny a distinction in causality, by which alone we seize the distinction of the one from the other: that is, by believing that one is the cuse and the other is from the cause. There is the one which depends on the first, and there is that one which is through that which depends on the first" (Abl. GNO, III/I, 55.24 - 56.6).

So, as it turns out, the East is close to a doctrine of subsistent relations, and the West assumes that the divine essence is shareable among the three persons. Accordingly, both East and West deny social trinitarian accounts which hold the three persons as distinct pyschological subjects. While Eastern and Western views are consistent with social accounts of the Trinity - - a shareable divine essence among persons clearly allows for pyschologically distinct subjects - - both reject those accounts because of the need to individuate persons on the basis of something other than the accidental (non-relational) properties of the persons (Cross, 288).

What is to be said of this analysis? Clearly Cross has clarified matters greatly. That God is one and three, does seem to entail that the divine essence can be shared by persons. The Western view, that this essence is a numerically singular property shared by the persons, is not at all incompatible with the Eastern view that this essence is a universal that, while it is immanent in the persons, is none the less numerically one and multiply instantiatable in them. If this is so, then the unity from which the West begins is just the shareable property/universal. While the West might ground their talk of personal diversity upon the ground of divine unity, the shareable property of divine unity is nontheless dependent upon the bundled properties constituting the persons. Alternately, while the East might ground their talk of divine unity upon the grounds personal distinctiveness, this unity clearly, like the West, remains dependent upon the existence of the persons.

Cross's analysis, if true, suggests that while the Eastern and Western views have their own metaphysical models, each satisfies the same set of theological propositions. If this is so, then there is no theological differences between the two.