Hylomorphism and the trinity

In what follows, I would like to examine the shortcomings of comparing the divine persons to hylomorphic compounds. According to traditional classical theism, the divine persons are said to be made up of the divine essence plus a personal property such as being a father or being a son. Throughout the history of trinitarian theology, this occasionally gets construed in terms of hylomorphic composition: the divine essence plays the role of 'matter' and a personal property that of 'form', so the divine persons can be seen as hylomorphic compounds made up of matter and form.

The claim that the divine persons can be seen as hylomorphic compounds shows up mostly recently in a paper by Jeffrey Brower and Michael Rea ('Material Constitution and the Trinity', Faith and Philosophy 22 (2005): 57-76; henceforth, B-R). When they bring hylomorphism into the picture, B-R are trying to solve a much bigger problem pertaining to the identity and distinction of the divine persons. Here I don't want to discuss B-R's larger project. Instead, I would only like to focus on the claim that the divine persons can be seen as hylomorphic compounds.

I will give two arguments against this claim. First, I will argue that hylomorphism does not map onto the divine persons because the constitutive relation between matter and form cannot apply to the trinity in a straightforward way, or at least not in a way that is obvious to me. Second, I will argue that hylomorphism cannot explain the divine persons because neither the divine essence nor a personal property can play the role of matter. Rather, both must play the role of form.

1. The constitutive relation between matter and form cannot apply to the trinity

A hylomorphic compound is any entity composed of matter and form. But that's not the end of the story. These two constituents also stand in relation to each other in some way. Hylomorphism not only brings along with it matter and form, it also brings certain relations between matter and form. There are, of course, many ways that matter and form are related. For example, we can talk about relations of identity and distinction between matter and form (as B-R do throughout their paper). But this is not the sort of relation that concerns me.

Here, I am interested in a constitutive relation. By 'constitutive relation', I mean the sort of relation which explains why matter and form constitute one thing. This relation needs to be a unity-making relation in some relatively strong sense. A hylomorphic compound is not, after all, just a heap or pile of matter and form. On the contrary, matter and form are supposed to combine in a hylomorphic compound to make up one thing. The constitutive relation explains why matter and form make up more than just a heap or pile. It explains the unity of matter and form in a hylomorphic compound.

This is relevant for the divine persons because we would not want to say the divine persons are heaps or piles of the divine essence and personal properties. There must be some unity-making relation which makes the divine essence and a personal property more than just a heap or pile, some unity-making relation which makes the divine essence and a personal property into a single person. My question, then, is this: what is this relation? What kind of constitutive relation can apply to matter and form but can also apply to the divine persons?

One common answer is to talk about this relation in terms of material organization or arrangement, and this is what B-R seem to do. They describe forms as 'complex organizational properties'. Presumably, this means that they take forms to be the sort of property (or bundle of properties) which organizes or arranges material parts in a particular way. For example, the form of a chair would organize slabs of wood into a chair, while the form of a table would organize slabs of wood into a table. The form is what explains why the material parts end up arranged as they are. For B-R, the relation of form to matter seems to be a relation of material organization or arrangement.

But how exactly would this apply to the trinity? According to B-R, the divine essence is immaterial (and presumably simple), so there aren't any material parts. If the personal properties are supposed to be 'forms' and the divine essence is supposed to be 'matter', what exactly would these 'forms' organize or arrange? It's hard to see how a relation of material organization could apply to an immaterial divine essence. The divine essence, in virtue of being immaterial or un-arrangeable, blocks the possibility of being related to form in this way.

As it stands then, B-R's claim that the divine persons can be seen as hylomorphic compounds fails. If B-R take 'forms' as organizational properties, the divine essence cannot play the role of matter because it is immaterial and thus cannot be organized or arranged. If B-R want to successfully see the divine persons as hylomorphic compounds, they must clarify what sort of constitutive relation applies to the divine essence and the personal properties. The relation of organization or arrangement is inapplicable to the trinity, so some other relation needs to be specified in a way that is consistent with B-R's other claims about the divine essence.

Perhaps we could look to the Aristotelian relation of act-potentiality. Perhaps it is clearer to talk about this in terms of acts and recipients. Forms are acts of some sort, and matter is the recipient of those acts. For example, if we press a signet ring into a lump of wax, the wax is the recipient of the act of imprinting the ring's shape. The wax is potential because it could take on some other shape, or no shape at all. Likewise, the ring's shape is actual because it is what actually makes the wax take on its shape. The relevant feature of this picture is that the form is what makes the wax become what it becomes, not the other way around. The form is the actual-maker, not the matter, since matter is only potential.

But again, how exactly would this apply to the trinity? If the divine essence is supposed to be 'matter' and a personal property is supposed to be 'form', then the divine essence would only be potential to the personal properties, which is to say it would only potentially be a father or a son. Yet according to B-R, the divine essence is not potentially a father or a son. It is a father or son in some necessary sense. Indeed, most would want to say the divine essence is actual, not potential. Besides, Aristotle's act-potentiality relations explain change, and that's not the sort of thing B-R want to explain in the trinity. So here too, the act-potentiality relation is inapplicable to the trinity as a constitutive relation.

What other options are there? To be sure, there are many kinds of constitutive relations, but I cannot seem to see any which don't run into the same sorts of problems. This doesn't mean there aren't any good candidates. I have, after all, only discussed two of the more obvious options (organizational and act-potentiality relations). My aim is simply to show that the standard constitutive relations of hylomorphic compounds don't map onto the divine persons in a straightforward way, at least not without some modifications. If we want to pursue hylomorphism as a model for the divine persons, we need to go further than B-R and explain exactly how 'matter' and 'form' are related so as to constitute a person. Otherwise, we're left with some 'matter' and some 'form' which are just supposed to be 'there' in a divine person.

Whatever we say about this, it has to be relevant to matter and form. By 'relevant', I mean it must have something to do with why one would call the divine essence 'matter' and a personal property 'form'. I have argued that the divine essence cannot be related to personal properties by organizational relations or act-potentiality relations, and so without any other candidates for a constitutive relation on the table, there seems to be no reason to call the divine essence and personal properties 'matter' and 'forms' at all. Hylomorphism can only apply to the divine persons if we establish a constitutive relation which is coherently applicable to the trinity, and it is not clear to me how this could be accomplished.

2. Neither the divine essence nor a personal property can play the role of matter

Another problematic feature of hylomorphism is that only the form explains what kind of thing the compound is. Matter can be arranged into numerous configurations. For example, the same slabs of wood can be configured into a chair or a table. In both cases, the form is what makes the hylomorphic compound into the kind of thing it is, not the matter. The form is the chair-making property or the table-making property, not the wood. The matter itself does little to explain what kind of thing the hylomorphic compound is. If I may put it in the following terms, the form is the thing-maker, not the matter.

The same goes for the divine persons. If we consider the divine essence as 'matter' and the personal properties as 'forms', then the personal properties are the thing-makers, not the divine essence. The personal properties will make the divine essence into the kind of thing it is. Consider the property being a father. Such a property would make some matter into a father, just as the property being a chair would make some matter into a chair. Thus, the property being a father would make the divine essence into a father. Considering the divine persons as hylomorphic compounds thus entails that the property being a father is the father-making property, the property being a son is the son-making property, and the property being a spirit is the spirit-making property. But there's more to the divine persons than being a mere father, a mere son, or a mere spirit.

The divine persons are also divine. Hylomorphism explains why the persons are father, son, and spirit, but how does it explain that the persons are divine? What is the divine-making property? If we take the divine essence as 'matter', it cannot play the role of a divine-making property, because matter is not a thing-maker. What we are left with, then, is simply a father (not a divine Father), a son (not a divine Son), and a spirit (not a divine Spirit). Relegating the divine essence to the role of 'matter' prevents the divine essence from being a divine-making property.

Perhaps we might say that matter does in fact contribute to the kind of thing a hylomorphic compound is. After all, if a chair is made out of wood, it is a wooden chair, and if it is made out of iron, it is an iron chair. Likewise, in the trinity, the 'matter' contributes to what kind of thing each divine person is. The Father is made out of the divine essence, so he is a divine Father, the Son is made out of the divine essence, so he is a divine Son, and the same goes for the Spirit. But this would be a mistake.

Consider the case of a clay statue of Goliath. It is true that a clay Goliath is clay because he is made of clay. Likewise, a bronze Goliath is bronze because he is made of bronze. But compare this with the human Goliath. It is not true that the human Goliath is human because he is made of human 'material'. If that were true, animals would count as humans too, because they are made up of the same kind of flesh and blood material. Thus, the matter cannot be a thing-making property. The human-making property for the human Goliath is not his matter, it is his human form. The same goes for clay and bronze statues. To say a statue is bronze is to say the bronze-making property is the form of the bronze, not the matter.

The problem with saying the divine essence plays the role of matter is that the divine essence cannot play the role of divine-maker. One might turn the model upside down and say the divine essence is the 'form' of the divine persons, while the personal properties are the 'matter' of the divine essence. But this won't do either. Although it does make the divine essence into a divine-maker, it relegates the personal properties to the role of matter, so they cannot be thing-makers. For example, if the property being a father plays the role of matter, it cannot be a father-making property, and the same goes for the property being a son or being a spirit. We would end up with three divine things, but not with a Father, Son, and Spirit.

Whatever model we use to explain the constitution of the divine persons, it needs to explain how both the divine essence can be a divine-making property and how a property such as being a father can be a father-making property. Hylomorphism cannot do this. Any model which employs hylomorphism to explain the divine persons faces the difficulty that the matter cannot play the role of thing-maker. When it comes to the trinity, perhaps it would be best to avoid hylomorphism altogether.