Unity

Richard begins his quest to understand that which he believes about the Trinity by offering an innovative argument for the existence of God, sometimes labelled the ratio Richardi. The basis of his argument is the rather tautological claim that any necessarily existing being must cohere with the principle of necessity (if not demonstrably, at least theoretically). So, regarding the existence of God, reason would dictate that, if there is a being which is not a constituent of the world, a being upon which the world depends for its existence (i.e. the typical understanding of ‘God’), then that being's existence must accord with necessity, rather than contingency. Yet there is more at stake. Richard is also out to demonstrate that the kind of God which the Christian faith professes also coheres with the demands of logical consistency: that is, God as eternal, uncreated, omnipotent, immense, simple, and ultimately, triune. There is, then, a strong notion of ‘faith seeking understanding’ operative in this argument. Richard, of course, already believes that such a God exists; his aim in the treatise is to demonstrate how the God he confesses by faith is in fact the God who must exist.

According to Richard, there are three particular ways in which a being can exist: eternally from itself, eternally from another and non-eternally from another. The third category is most typical to our everyday experience: those things we encounter in the world are not eternal (evident from the phenomenon of change), nor are they self-existent (evident from the phenomenon of coming-to-be). The fact of non-self-existent realities therefore raises the question: from what did these objects ultimately receive their existence? This question must be answered, Richard argues, otherwise one would either have to admit an infinite regress (i.e. the denial of any principle of being whatsoever) or posit an absolutely spontaneous coming-to-be from nothing, which is absurd. Hence, from the existence of non-eternal, non-self-existent reality, Richard deduces the existence of an eternal, self-existent being upon which the former depends for its existence. Methodologically, then, ‘In the created nature we see mirrored that which we need to believe regarding the uncreated nature’, a principle which Richard repeatedly extracts from Romans 1:20.Footnote ⁴ Consequently, ‘The evidence of experience persuades us of the need for a substance that originated from itself’.Footnote ⁵

The next step in the argument is to suggest that an eternally self-existent being must be all-powerful. It would not be enough for this being simply to have sufficient power to bring everything else into existence; rather, Richard says, this being must be the very power by which it operates. If this were not the case, then there would have to be something called ‘power’ in which this being would participate, leading to the conclusion that it is not, in the end, self-existent, but rather receives an element of its being from elsewhere. For a being to be regarded as the cause of all other being, then, it must not only be the highest being, but also the principle of being itself, or what Richard deems ‘the supreme substance’ (summa substantia): ‘Rightfully, then, this substance is called primordial, since every existing thing derives its principle and origin from it.’Footnote ⁶ Moreover, because this substance is likewise the cause of both rational and non-rational being, it must itself be the principle of rationality as well, that is, God must be all-wise. Crucially, if God does not have power and wisdom – that is, if God does not participate in power and wisdom, but rather is the principle of all power and wisdom – then it must be the case that power and wisdom are both identical with the supreme substance. The supreme substance must therefore necessarily be simple, otherwise it would not be ‘supreme’, but merely exemplary of various pre-existing excellencies.

Now, obviously, if God is the supreme substance, which exists eternally and of itself, then that divine substance must be incommunicable. There can be only one God, at least on account of the indiscernibility of identicals – two beings who possess the same eternally self-existent substance either admit of a hierarchy (which denies the definition of the summa substantia), or they are in fact one and the same being. Thus, Richard says, ‘in spite of whether one says that in the single divinity there is only one person or whether one claims that there is a plurality [of persons], God cannot be but only one in the substance’.Footnote ⁷

Richard's insistence on the simplicity of the divine substance must be registered now as an absolute commitment. The consequence of denying this understanding of the divine substance would be tantamount to demoting God to the level of created, and therefore mutable, being. If God is not simple, then his very existence would be contingent upon realities which precede him. This is not merely impiety for Richard; in his mind, it also pushes the theologian to admit either the eternal self-existence of the world (which Richard believes is insufficient to explain the phenomena of motion and change), or simply to capitulate to the sin of idolatry, that is, choosing to worship as God that which is less than divine. Although Richard relies to some extent on his readers’ assumption that God is a perfect being, to him ‘the attribution of every highest conceivable thought to God’ is a logically necessary consequence of contemplating the very idea of God in the first place. In order to be considered the summa substantia, God must be and not have his attributes, and thus God must be simple and substantially singular.

So, to summarise, for Richard ‘God’ indicates, at the very least, an eternally self-existent substance that is in itself the very principle of all power and wisdom. In the next book, Richard will argue that a series of other divine attributes are entailed by such a substance – attributes such as immutability and immensity – although in fact he is working toward the completion of a key triad of attributes that will drive the remainder of his argument. For Richard, God's omnipotence entails his ability to do all that is logically possible, while his omniscience entails his ability to know all that is logically possible. The missing element is God's supreme goodness, which directs God's power in the direction of the very best logical possibility, which is, of course, God's self. This triad – power, wisdom and goodness – functions as a kind of operative set of criteria for the rest of the treatise, and is that which leads Richard to the conclusion that the supreme substance (if it is, in fact, supreme) must also be triune.

Plurality

Book III of De Trinitate is, of course, the most familiar to contemporary readers. In this book Richard argues that, in order for God not only to be supreme power and wisdom, but also supreme goodness, he must also be triune. He makes this case on the basis of a consideration of caritas and what supremely perfect caritas must entail. In the course of this exposition, many of the key terms that will inform our concern for the definition of the person emerge.

Richard begins by reminding his readers that the supreme substance must be equivalent to the ‘fullness and perfection all goodness’.Footnote ⁸ His next move (left unexplained in context) is to suppose that the highest good must be identified with caritas, or love, ‘since nothing is better or more perfect than caritas’.Footnote ⁹ Caritas, it seems for Richard, is the perfection of amor; or amor becomes caritas only when it ‘tends toward another’.Footnote ¹⁰ Hence, he concludes, ‘If a multiplicity of persons is absent, there can be no place for caritas.’Footnote ¹¹ What we glean from this argument, then, is twofold. First, Richard believes that God's nature entails not only that God recognises caritas as the highest good (otherwise he would not be all-wise), but also that he does not fail to possess such a good (otherwise he would not be all-powerful). Second, Richard also believes that caritas requires the presence of ‘otherness’ (alteritas) in order to be realised – thereby raising the question of the necessary and sufficient conditions for ‘otherness’ that must be met in the divine substance in order for God to be caritas in himself. This latter point will be the subject of book IV.

Now, in order for God to instantiate the perfection of love, his love must be directed toward the summum bonum, which is God himself. If he were to love a lesser being (for instance, humanity), his love would be good, but not yet the necessary entailment of the good. In fact, Richard says, it would be disordered love (caritas inordinata), which is impossible for God, since a being who both knows the highest good and has the power to possess it would not fail to do so. Hence, to satisfy the demands of both proper order and the supreme goodness in the divine substance, otherness must be found within the divine substance itself: ‘in order for fullness of caritas to reside in the very divinity, a divine person had to be united with another person of his same dignity, and thus, also divine’.Footnote ¹²

Richard then proceeds to add another plank to his reasoning: that of the divine happiness (felicitas). His belief is that if God is to be supremely happy, he must embody all that most contributes to such a state of affairs. For Richard, a prerequisite for happiness is benevolence: one cannot be happy unless he shares, unselfishly, all that he has with another. This is concordant with certain prevalent notions at the Abbey of St Victor. As Nico den Bok comments: ‘The background of Richard's argument from perfect mental powers to a plurality of Persons reflects a particular stage in the attempt to baptize an ancient idea: The good is not envious. . . . This aspect was also one of the most important spiritual features of St. Victor from its foundation at the beginning of the twelfth century. . . . the desire to communicate to others without reservation is one of the most intimate hallmarks of the Victorine mentality.’Footnote ¹³ For God to be caritas, then, there must be a person who is equal to the divine substance who can donate his love to an ‘other’ who likewise possesses that substance. This second person must therefore also share the love he receives from the first in order to fulfil the divine happiness. Hence, ‘in that true and supreme happiness, neither joyous love nor reciprocal love can be absent’.Footnote ¹⁴

At this point, Richard has achieved a ‘binity’, but of course not yet a Trinity. The argument for the third person again flows from his belief that the divine substance must be supremely happy. Imagining the logic sequentially, then, the reasoning proceeds as follows: having achieved the reality of caritas between the first and second persons of the divine substance, God acquires a new measure of happiness: that of giving and receiving love. In other words, a new ‘good’ now resides in the divine substance. But if the good is not envious, then now this good – the good of reciprocal love – must be shared as well. As Richard puts it: ‘in authentic caritas, the greatest excellence seems to be this: to will that someone else be loved just as we are’.Footnote ¹⁵ To put it another way: whatever good the divine substance possesses, this good must be shared with a worthy ‘other’. God himself is this worthy other, but in experiencing the joy of reciprocal love in dual personhood, a new ‘sharing’ is necessitated if God is to retain supreme happiness – what Richard terms condilectio or ‘co-love’, the terminus of perfect caritas. Hence, three persons are necessary in the divine substance if it is in fact to be the summa substantia characterised by the plenitude of power, wisdom and goodness: ‘in true unity is found not just a generic plurality, but a true Trinity, and a true unity [is found] in the true Trinity’.Footnote ¹⁶ In other words, for Richard the eternally self-existent substance, which also reveals itself as the principle of the world's existence, must be singular in substance and triune in personhood.

And yet, what sort of personhood is required by this account of necessary triunity? In book III, Richard uses words to describe the relations of the Trinity that may incline the modern reader toward a particular interpretation. For instance, he refers to the Trinity as a ‘community of love’ (consortium amoris), and even, at one point, ‘society in community’ (societas consortio). In common parlance, of course, words like ‘society’ and ‘community’ imply the joining together of discrete individuals to either constitute or be constituted by a larger whole. But how can Richard really mean this, especially in light of all that he says concerning divine simplicity? How can there be community within a single, absolutely simple substance? This is the subject of book IV, which is our last stop in this brief exposition of De Trinitate before we gather up these thoughts and attempt a constructive appropriation of Richard's trinitarianism.

Personhood

For Richard, understanding the plurality of persons in the Trinity all depends on how one defines the term ‘person’. Indeed, he says, ‘if we want to interpret the word “person” both according to its common meaning and in a technical way, we cannot conceive how a plurality of persons – understood commonly (sub ea acceptione) – can subsist in a unity of substance’.Footnote ¹⁷ This is an important point that will significantly influence our interpretation. Richard is suggesting that there are features of ‘personhood’, as commonly understood, which are inappropriate when applied to the divine persons. He therefore has several options before him if he wants to reconcile the tension. First, he could simply jettison the word ‘person’ altogether as wholly misleading (as Karl Barth famously recommends in Church Dogmatics, I/1). This option is unthinkable for Richard, however, since he regards the church's language, particularly that found in the Quicumque, as possessing Spirit-inspired authority. Second, he could redefine personhood generally in light of the divine persons, thereby orienting metaphysics entirely around this newly discovered and perhaps counterintuitive dynamic (as many modern theologians, such as Catherine LaCugna, have opted to do). This route also seems to be unavailable to Richard, however, since he clearly regards the created realm as theologically informative as a ‘mirror’ of the divine (recall his appeal to our experience of contingency as a starting point for his theistic argument from book I). In other words, Richard would expect something of the ‘substance-nature’ of personhood, as evidently seen in human individuality, to be somehow reflective of God. The third option, which I think he actually takes, is to admit levels of similarity and dissimilarity between the concepts of the person vis-à-vis the divine and the human, such that certain aspects of God's personal life are evident in creation, while others are not. He does this, moreover, by establishing what we might call gradations of personhood – or categories which aim to pick out what personhood looks like in specific contexts and under certain conditions. When this is kept in mind, I suggest, it becomes easier to make sense of some of Richard's more suggestive language.

To begin with, Richard agrees with Boethius that personhood has to do with rationality. This is because personhood speaks not to a substance's ‘what-ness’, but more specifically to its ‘who-ness’. And yet, in our common experience, we experience a ‘who’ only in terms of an individual substance. In other words, I can recognise you as a ‘you’ because you possess as an individual the rationality that human nature includes. More strongly: you do not merely ‘have’ personhood; rather you are a person. The rational substance which you possess has, in Richard's parlance, danielitas – Daniel-ness; you are a uniquely circumscribed instance of rational substance. All of this lends credence, then, to Boethius’ famous definition: a person is an ‘individual substance of a rational nature’. If, then, the ‘what’ question pertains to a common property, and the ‘who’ question pertains to an individual property (as Richard says), in the case of human personhood, being a ‘who’ entails very specifically the individuation of human nature. This is the import of Boethius’ definition, which Richard rightly perceives.

If God is simple, however, then clearly the plurality of persons cannot result in the individuation of the divine substance. This would entail tritheism, which Richard already argued in books I–II is impossible. Hence, Boethius’ definition simply will not do as a means of designating divine persons. Alterity is required, as the argument from love insists, but it cannot be the alterity of individuals.Footnote ¹⁸ When it comes to the Trinity, a personal property cannot be an individuating property – a new definition is needed.

Richard begins to construct such a definition by suggesting that personal properties can pertain to nature and/or origin. This he says corresponds to the etymology of the verb existere, according to which the prefix ex refers to origin and the root sistere to nature. In the case of human beings, our personhood rests on both: we are persons because we receive our substance from other persons, and because our nature is such that we possess it by individual participation and not simply by be-ing (or: we are non-eternal, non-self-existent persons). As Richard puts it: ‘specific existences in the human persons are differentiated both according to the quality of each of them and according to their very individual origin’.Footnote ¹⁹ In God, however, personal properties must pertain particularly to origin and not nature, as the divine persons are absolutely consubstantial: ‘since the identity of the substance excludes any difference of quality, different [divine] persons’ properties will have to be sought with regards to the sole origin’.Footnote ²⁰

All of this leads Richard very naturally to the traditional processional model of the Trinity, propounded at least since the time of Origen (whose works were studied in St Victor) but defended more recently to Richard's day by Anselm of Canterbury.Footnote ²¹ What distinguishes the three persons of the Godhead, according to this model, are ultimately their relations of origin (what Anselm calls ‘oppositional relations’): one generates another, another is generated, and a third proceeds from the first two. Each person of the Trinity is in full possession of the divine substance, and yet their personal properties, on account of the diversity and relativity of their respective origins, are necessarily incommunicable. The definition on which Richard ultimately settles to speak of divine personhood, then, is the following: ‘a divine person is an incommunicable existence of the divine nature’.Footnote ²² Recalling my earlier claim that Richard speaks in ‘gradations’ of personhood, this definition would be the most specific he can offer with respect to the divine substance. To understand the significance of this, however, we must take a step back.

The most general condition of personhood, according to Richard, is to have an incommunicable existence in a manner that accords with a particular kind of rational substance. What makes me ‘me’, then, is twofold. First, I participate in a particular kind of nature: human nature. This means that, like all other human beings, I receive my existence ‘from outside’ (i.e. I am contingent), I do not exist eternally and I possess rationality; my nature is a factor in my personhood. Second, while ‘what’ I am is therefore communicable, ‘who’ I am is incommunicable. This is because my origin is unique, and the quality of my ‘substance’ is to a certain extent singular (e.g. my body takes up a different space than all other bodies, even if I were to be somehow ‘cloned’). The factors that make my personal identity incommunicable, then, again, pertain to origin and nature. A shorthand definition for a human person in Richard's terms, then, would be an ‘incommunicable existence of the human nature’. The important element to notice in all of this is that the kind of nature that one possesses dictates precisely the kinds of conditions which will establish their personhood (and consequently, the kinds of relations that one can have with other persons, both with respect to and beyond one's own nature).

To put the matter more clearly: it seems to me that any univocity implied in Richard's definition of the ‘person’ represents only a part of what his reasoning seeks to achieve. All persons, whether human, angelic, divine or anything else must be rational and irreducible – that much is clear. But within those extremely generic parameters a whole series of ‘blanks’ must be filled in which radically qualify both the definition of the person in question and any kind of potential relationality that person might experience (including, for instance, ‘communion’). Moreover, it is important to remember that the purpose of De Trinitate is not to reason to definitions that would ultimately comprehend the divine nature, but to direct the mind to contemplation of the divine nature precisely as the highest and therefore incomparable reality. Thus, while Richard assumes that ‘person’ must be a meaningful term when applied to God in the Quicumque, even so, its meaning ‘is specified and determined by reference to divine nature’.Footnote ²³ This, to my mind, is a vastly important point, and so, in our final section, I would like to explore how this might impact our understanding of the Trinity today.