Volume 34, Issue 3, July 2017
Scott M. Williams

Pages 321-346
https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil20178385
Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the Trinity
I develop a Latin Social model of the Trinity that is an extension of my previous work on indexicals and the Trinity. I focus on the theological desideratum of the necessity of the divine persons¡¯ unity of action. After giving my account of this unity, I compare my account with Swinburne¡¯s and Hasker¡¯s social models and Leftow¡¯s non-social model. I argue that their accounts of the divine persons¡¯ unity of action are theologically unsatisfactory and that this unsatisfactoriness derives from a modern conception of personhood according to which distinct and incommunicable intellectual acts and volitional acts are necessary conditions for one¡¯s being a person. I argue that the Latin Social model is preferable to the modern-personhood models because it is simpler in explanatory economy with regard to securing the necessity of the divine persons¡¯ unity of action.