And Yet They Are Not Three Gods But One God

(transl. by Paweł Garbacz)

Abstract

Peter van Inwagen, And yet They are not Three Gods but One God, w: tenże, God, Knowledge, and Mystery. Essays in Philosophical Theology, Ithaca–London: Cornell University Press 1995, s. 222-259.

The paper proposes a system of formal logic, called Relative-Identity Logic (RI-logic). It is shown how to translate a large class of sentences using the vocabulary of Trinitarian theology into the language of RI-logic. This class includes sentences containing singular terms like „God” and „the Holy Spirit”. It is argued that no contradiction is derivable from this class in RI-logic. This treatment differs from the work of P.T. Geach and others in its detailed attention to singular terms and its use of „is the same being as” in place of the more specific „is the same God as”.