Robert Dryer’s Mature AI Research Project as Doctrine of Relation in Catholic Theology and Contemporary Metaphysics
Editor’s note.
This website was made to see whether AI could aid research. However, the project began a couple of years ago, well before its ethical considerations had been reflected on sufficiently. The question, at least in my mind, is whether this is a gift-ontology research project or a grift. Since so much time had already been poured into getting to this point, I thought I would present the outcome of the research here so that others can use it as part of their overall assessment. Enjoy.
Executive classification
Robert Dryer’s mature doctrine of relation is best classified as an act-first, analogically typed, participatory, Trinitarian relation-realism under Catholic doctrinal constraints, whose governing thesis is that the one simple divine act is the first explanatory floor, that personal distinction in God is “relation-first” only as subsistent relations of origin identical with the divine essence, and that economic novelty is located term-side in created reception rather than as intrinsic becoming in God. Dryer’s view is thus not relation-first simpliciter, not ontic structural realism, not process metaphysics, not priority monism, and not a generic social-trinitarianism; it is a “grammar-first” Catholic metaphysical-theological architecture that coordinates act, relation, gift, and end as non-compositional aspects governed by simplicity, analogy, inseparable operations, and the Creator–creature distinction. [1]
Within the contemporary field of relation studies, Dryer lands closest to a medievally disciplined relation realism (relations are real, but typed and dependence-sensitive), combined with a truthmaker-friendly orientation (the “primitive” is a regress-stopper that grounds true predication) without reifying relations as freestanding constituents. His closest family resemblance is therefore neither Bradleyan holism nor Russellian atomism, but an anti-substrate scholasticism reconstructively expressed through a relational-gift idiom and typed relational taxonomy (horizon / inscription / rational tracking). [2]
The ladder of relation claims
Contemporary “relations-first” talk covers a ladder of increasingly strong theses. Dryer’s mature position occupies a bounded combination of the first two rungs, while rejecting the two strongest rungs as general metaphysical programs.
Relations are real and irreducible. Dryer’s framework explicitly rejects a picture in which relations are “mysterious extra objects” or merely linguistic conveniences; relation is treated as an ontological category with real explanatory work, and creaturely reality is described as constituted by reception, provenance, and orientedness rather than by an inert substrate. [3]
Some relations are constitutive of identity. Dryer affirms a strong constitutiveness thesis in God: the persons are really distinct only by relations of origin (paternity, filiation, spiration) that do not divide essence, where “person” signifies “relation as subsisting.” This is the precise sense in which he is “relation-first”: not that relation replaces act, but that relation is the constitutive mode of personal distinction under simplicity. [4]
He also affirms a constitutive thesis analogically in creatures, though in a different key: identity is tracked by provenance (“identity by origin”) and by the constitutive “from–to” order (“horizon”) of natures; stability and continuity arise from how a being receives from its source and persists in gifted integrity thresholds. This is not the claim that creatures are “nothing but relations,” but that creaturely being is inherently received and ordered. [5]
Wholes, structures, or processes are prior to individuals. Dryer sometimes uses “structural” language (e.g., “Trinitarian Act-Structuralism”), and he speaks of constraint and order as prior to creaturely choice; but this functions as a theological-metaphysical ordering claim (the gift comes with a shape; teleology and modal space are carved by givenness), not as an endorsement of process metaphysics or whole-first monism. His core anti-process safeguard is “term-side novelty”: created history is real and new, but novelty is located in created effects, not in God. [6]
Relata are derivative nodes in a prior relational structure. Dryer does not affirm the strongest relationism (relations alone exist; objects emerge as nodes) as a universal metaphysic. He explicitly deploys analogy to prevent “relation-first” from becoming “relation-only” or “network metaphysics,” and his Creator–creature asymmetry denies that God stands within a shared relational field that would be co-constituted by creaturely feedback. [7]
Typed relation ontology
A central mature feature of Dryer’s doctrine is that “relation” is not univocal across domains; it is a typed family of relation concepts governed by analogy and by an explicit ordering of registers.
Dryer’s own dictionary definition treats relation as ordered towardness (“from–to directedness”) and then introduces a taxonomy designed to prevent equivocation: (a) constitutive orders (“horizon”) that belong to natures as such (potency-to-act, means-to-end, intellect-to-known, will-to-good, creature-to-Creator dependence), (b) situational placements (“inscription”) such as legal, social, institutional ties that come and go, and (c) rational tracking relations of reason that arise from comparison, classification, and semantic structure. This taxonomy functionally aligns with major analytic distinctions (real vs mind-dependent relations; internal vs external) while retaining scholastic sensitivity to analogy. [8]
Across Dryer’s mature stack, at least six relation-types are methodologically “live” and are typed by domain:
Divine relations of origin. Divine relations are “summit case”: relation in God is not an add-on, not posterior, and not detachable; it is “the same as His essence,” and personal distinction is secured through relations of origin and relative opposition. [9]
Creaturely ontological relations of participation and provenance. Creaturely being is structured as reception-from-source and ordered-to-end; “participatory/relational realism” is explicitly first-order, not a decorative overlay on a substrate. Provenance names identity by origin without reifying provenance as an extra thing alongside the entity. [10]
Ad extra relations under asymmetry. Dryer retains the classical asymmetry: creatures have real relations to God, but God does not acquire real relations to creatures that would introduce intrinsic novelty; “extrinsic denomination” names how God can be truly named from real creaturely effects without intrinsic change in God. [11]
Economic relations of mission, grace, and created reception. The missions manifest the processions without turning God into history; the key is “created reception,” where what comes to be in the creature is real participation and new created reality, paired with “term-side novelty” as the anti-process rule. [12]
Sacramental specification. Sacramental relations are uniquely typed: the one divine act is communicated “under instituted creaturely forms” such that grace is really conferred (against mere symbolism) without implying multiple divine acts or intrinsic divine change; sacramental efficacy is secured while guarding simplicity, inseparable operations, and analogy. [13]
Final causality, return, and beatifying term. Dryer’s analogical identity and teleology claims imply (even when not always foregrounded as “return-language”) that God is not only origin but also end: the terminus is identical (God), while modes of reception and paths unfold in time; “constraint-first” and “analogical identity” jointly encode the metaphysics of return as creaturely consummation without change in God. [14]
This typed structure is also Dryer’s primary defense against the main equivocation criticized in relation-studies: whether “relationship” refers to basic ontological features or to interpersonal/psychological content. Dryer’s taxonomy deliberately keeps interpersonal communion and ecclesial life as real, but not as the univocal “meaning” of relation across all domains. [15]
Catholic theological profile
Dryer’s doctrine is explicitly Catholic grammar-first rather than speculative-system-first. The “Grammar of Divine Reference” sets the controlling methodological thesis: revelation is divine address with its own rule of reception and predication; theology begins with grammar before model, refusing to smuggle in the illicit picture of “a thing called God” behind Father, Son, and Spirit. This anti-substrate discipline is repeatedly deployed as a doctrinal constraint on metaphysics. [16]
The doctrinal constraints that govern Dryer’s mature relationality are overt and classical:
Divine simplicity as non-composition and plenitude. Simplicity is defined not as “thinness” but as “plenitude without assembly,” excluding bearer-plus-properties and act/potency composition; predicates true of God in se name the one act under an aspect. [17]
Trinitarian personhood as subsistent relation. Dryer explicitly aligns with the Latin synthesis: divine persons are irreducible “who’s” established by relations of origin; “subsistent relation” blocks both modalism and functionalizing the Son as mere disclosure. [18]
Analogy as a formal law, not a cautionary afterthought. Dryer’s analogia entis is explicitly Lateran-shaped: real likeness grounded in causality, but “ever greater dissimilarity,” forbidding univocal export of divine relationality into creatures and preventing relation-first from collapsing into relation-only. [19]
Inseparable operations and taxis. Ad extra, there is one divine act (one will, power, operation) wholly of Father, Son, Spirit; taxis names ordered manifestation “from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit” without dividing agency. [20]
Nature–grace and deification without collapse. “Nature” is the creaturely horizon of created reception; “grace” is supernatural created reception (created participation), not insertion of divine essence; missions and sacraments are historically new created realities (“term-side novelty”) rather than divine process. [21]
This profile yields a definite type of Catholicism: it is deeply catechetical-dogmatic (explicitly citing conciliar and catechism formulations as semantic constraints), sacramental-realism oriented, and patristic-scholastic in its metaphysical guardrails, while deploying phenomenological sensitivity as an auxiliary aid under doctrinal governance. [22]
Analytic and continental placement
Dryer’s mature doctrine is best positioned as a disciplined alternative to several major modern relation-heavy trajectories, and his own architecture can be read as a response to the same pressure-points those trajectories address.
Relative to medieval relation-theory. Medieval scholastic debate largely operates within a substance-category framework but develops sophisticated accounts of real vs logical relations and (in Trinitarian theology) the unique case where relations are not accidental. Dryer’s mature claim falls squarely within the latter: relation in God is really identical with essence, and “person” signifies subsistent relation; in creatures, relations are diversified (real, accidental, rational) and analogically ordered. [23]
Relative to Bradley and the unity problem of relational facts. Bradley’s regress targets any ontology that treats relations as additional items that must be “tied” to relata, generating an explanatory regress about the unity of the relational fact. Dryer’s explicit strategy is to stop regress by refusing detachable relational constituents in the divine case: the “primitive” is a regress-stopper, and relation in God is not a third thing connecting already formed relata but the subsisting act itself (or “the same act viewed under an orientation”). This is meant to dissolve the Bradley-style unity demand at the level of God-talk by denying the “terms + relation” picture for God. [24]
A remaining analytic liability is that Dryer must show how the same regress pressure is handled for creaturely relational facts (especially external relations), given that creatures are not identical with their relations. Dryer’s taxonomy already moves in the right direction by distinguishing constitutive horizons from situational inscriptions and relations of reason; in analytic terms, this parallels the internal/external distinction and avoids treating every relation as a new constituent. Nonetheless, a more explicit grounding-story for relational unity in creatures would strengthen the public profile. [25]
Relative to Russellian relation realism and logical atomism. Russellian logical atomism treats the world as a plurality of independent things standing in relations, with analysis aiming at atomic facts. Dryer does not adopt that metaphysical pluralism as basic, because he makes creaturely reality received-from-source and teleologically ordered, and he takes the triune divine act as first principle rather than a world of independent atoms plus relations. He is closer to a dependence- and participation-based realism than to atomism’s independence-first picture. [26]
Relative to process philosophy and process theism. Process metaphysics makes becoming and temporal dynamism foundational; process theism often correlates that with divine becoming. Dryer’s “term-side novelty,” “giver-side act,” and “action (operation)” pages are explicit anti-process safeguards: created novelty is real and historical, but God does not acquire states or undergo intrinsic temporal process. This places Dryer firmly outside process metaphysics as a doctrine of divine change. [27]
Relative to ontic structural realism. OSR inflates the priority of structure/relations and may treat objects as derivative of structure. Dryer sometimes uses structural language and even says “relation is constitutive rather than decorative,” but his governing constraints (analogy, subsistent relations only in God, creaturely participation rather than relation-only) block the slide into OSR’s object-derivativeness. Dryer’s “structure” is theological and analogical—created reality is structured by participation in the triune act—rather than a naturalistic thesis that physics reveals objects to be dispensable. [28]
Relative to priority monism. Priority monism holds that the whole is prior to its parts. Dryer’s “one act” thesis concerns God’s simplicity and inseparable operation, not a claim that the cosmos is the one fundamental concrete object; created plurality, secondary causality, and distinct creaturely outcomes are preserved. [29]
Relative to continental relation-heavy accounts. Continental “relation” often names intersubjectivity, dialogical encounter, ethical alterity, or differential production rather than an ontological category in analytic metaphysics. Dryer’s grammar-first use of phenomenology (especially via Marion) treats continental insights as subordinate descriptive aids—helpful for attending to givenness and address—while refusing to let phenomenological categories override dogmatic and metaphysical constraints. Dryer is thus not a Levinasian first-philosophy ethicist nor a Deleuzian difference-ontology, even if his vocabulary overlaps at points (“givenness,” “relation,” “event”). [30]
Philosophical implications
Dryer’s mature doctrine yields a coherent set of implications for metaphysics, semantics, and Catholic systematic theology—provided its internal ordering is kept explicit.
Metaphysics of relation and dependence. Dryer’s framework effectively re-centers relation-talk around dependence and provenance (from–to orderedness) and around teleological directedness, rather than around relations as abstract connectors. This has immediate compatibility with contemporary grounding/dependence idioms, but Dryer’s distinctive move is to anchor dependence-talk in a “gift” metaphysic without converting gift into a constituent or process. [31]
Truth, truthmakers, and the unity of predication. Dryer is overtly truthmaker-friendly: he describes the divine primitive as the “regress-stopping” explanatory floor, and (on some pages) calls it a “ground-floor truthmaker” from which divine statements are to be read. This suggests a metaphysical semantics in which true God-talk is made true by (i) the one simple divine act for in se predicates, and (ii) created effects (with real creaturely change) for ad extra predicates (extrinsic denomination). This is an unusually explicit theology–metametaphysics bridge. [32]
Divine naming and predication as ordered semantics. Dryer’s “divine naming” and “divine predication” articulate a disciplined semantics: essential names (good, wise, love), personal names (Father, Son, Spirit), and names-from-effects (Creator, Redeemer) are all true but differ in how they signify, and analogy is the formal rule that protects truth without univocity or equivocity. This creates a strong “anti-slogan” discipline: “relation” cannot be used univocally across God and creatures; the triune names are not optional metaphors but the rule of reference. [33]
Grace as created participation and the logic of missions. Dryer’s “created reception” plus “missions and processions” offers a stable account of grace and indwelling: the mission reveals procession without divine becoming; the Spirit is given and sent “in the very gift itself of sanctifying grace” (Aquinas), and Dryer’s own idiom locates novelty term-side as new created realities in the creature. This clarifies how “uncreated grace” language (divine persons) and “created grace” language (habitual gift) can be held together under simplicity and immutability. [34]
Sacramental ontology and ecclesial mediation. “Sacramental specification” synthesizes metaphysics (instrumental causality, created effects) and liturgical realism: the rites are instituted creaturely forms that truly confer what they signify, without implying multiple divine acts or magical mechanism. Dryer positions this as one of the chief tests of any relational-gift ontology: if the system cannot account for sacramental efficacy under simplicity, it is unstable. [35]
Eschatology, theosis, and final causality. Dryer’s explicit “one end / many receptions” logic (“analogical identity”) supplies a metaphysics of return: the terminus is identical (God), while the modes are proportioned to creatures; time is the unfolding of modes in receivers, not divine revision. This yields a powerful architectonic: the same act that is first principle is also final end, while creaturely history is the growth of reception toward consummation. [36]
Strengths, liabilities, and upgrade path
Dryer already contains the materials for a stable public doctrine of relation. The upgrade path is primarily one of architectonic clarification and formalization, not of introducing new doctrinal claims.
The strongest elements are already explicit:
The first is the ordered combination claim. Dryer repeatedly states that the primitive is “act-first rather than substance-first or process-first,” while “relation-first” is restricted to the Trinitarian sense of origin-fromness as personal subsistence. This directly answers the main relation-studies worry that relation-talk often becomes imprecise and collapses into a univocal “relationalism.” [37]
The second is the anti-substrate grammar-first discipline (“no God behind God”), which sharply distinguishes Dryer from many modern “relational Trinitarian ontology” proposals critiqued for sloppy analogy and for slipping into social-trinitarian fragmentation. [38]
The third is the creature-side novelty toolkit (created reception, extrinsic denomination, term-side novelty, real relations ad extra) which gives Dryer a principled way to say “God truly acts” and “God does not become” without deism or process theology. [39]
The fourth is the sacramental and ecclesial realism, which makes the system recognizably Catholic rather than a generic metaphysic of relation and gift. [40]
The key liabilities are also identifiable:
The first is public ambiguity around “structure” and “primitive.” Some formulations (e.g., “structured primitive,” “relation as the primitive reality”) can sound like a relation-first metaphysic that risks composition or OSR-style structure-first claims. Dryer already provides the needed interpretive control—formal rather than partitive structure; subsistent relations rather than roles; analogy prevents network metaphysics—but the mature public presentation should place these guardrails immediately adjacent to any “structure/primitive” rhetoric. [41]
The second is the Bradley-style unity pressure for creaturely relations. Dryer’s divine strategy is strong: deny detachable relations in God and stop regress at the primitive. But an explicit creaturely account of relational truthmakers (or relational unification) would strengthen the metaphysics against standard regress objections to fact-unity. Dryer already gestures toward this by describing relation as “structured ‘to’,” not an extra object, and by separating real relations from relations of reason; the upgrade is to articulate, in contemporary terms, how relational facts are grounded in substances/powers/forms without reifying “ties.” [42]
The third is the need to formalize the “typed relations” thesis. Dryer has the taxonomy and the analogical rule, but the public doctrine would become more stable if he explicitly mapped his types onto standard analytic categories (internal/external; real/logical; grounding/dependence), and onto scholastic categories (real relation, relation of reason, mixed relations), showing exact correspondences and non-correspondences. [43]
A precise “upgrade” proposal that preserves Dryer’s mature intent while strengthening classification is this ordered definition:
Upgrade formulation. Dryer’s mature doctrine is act-first in ultimacy, relation-first only in Trinitarian personal distinction, gift-first as the aspect of the same simple act in self-communication, and end-first in the sense that the same act is the beatifying terminus of all creaturely return through created reception. This formulation is already implicitly present across the dictionary: act-first (primitive, simplicity), relation-first (subsistent relations of origin), gift-first (divine self-bestowal without composition), end-first (analogical identity and teleology), with created reception as the creature-side mode of participation. [44]
Research program
Dryer’s mature doctrine affords a coherent research program because it is not merely a set of preferences but a constraint-governed architecture that generates testable, contestable theses at the intersection of (i) analytic metaphysics of relation, (ii) philosophical theology of simplicity and Trinity, and (iii) Catholic sacramental and grace metaphysics.
Dryer already describes his work as an AI-driven effort not to invent new dogma but to develop “a better architectonic,” “a better public grammar,” “more exact distinctions,” and “a clearer ordering of registers,” stabilizing three registers: relation (divine), participation (creaturely), created reception (economic). This self-description essentially is a research program statement. [45]
The central theses of the program can be stated compactly:
1) Primitive-as-act thesis: the first explanatory floor is the one simple divine act (pure act), not a substrate and not a process. [46]
2) Subsistent-relations thesis: personal distinction is constituted by relations of origin identical with essence, secured by relative opposition. [47]
3) Aspectual coordination thesis: act, relation, and gift are non-compositional aspect-names of the same simple reality, governed by analogy. [48]
4) Term-side novelty thesis: all historical novelty is located in created effects (created reception, sacramental specification), paired with extrinsic denomination and real-relations asymmetry. [49]
5) Typed relation thesis: relation is analogically typed across divine, creaturely, and semantic registers (horizon/inscription/rational tracking). [50]
This framework is especially positioned to address the following debates:
In analytic metaphysics: internal/external relations and dependence, the unity of relational facts (Bradley-style problems), truthmaker theory for theological predication, and the interface of grounding with classical theism. [51]
In philosophy of religion and philosophical theology: coherence of simplicity with Trinity, real relations ad extra and divine impassibility, the semantics of divine names under analogy, and the metaphysics of missions/grace without process theism. [52]
In Catholic systematics: nature–grace ordering, sacramental efficacy under simplicity and inseparable operations, ecclesial mediation as a metaphysical category (“sacramental specification”), and eschatological return as analogical identity toward one terminus. [53]
Likely allies in the wider field include scholastic retrieval theologians committed to simplicity and relations of origin, analytic philosophers of religion attentive to grounding/truthmakers without abandoning classical theism, and theologians of sacrament and grace who want metaphysical clarity without reducing mystery to metaphors. [54]
Likely critics include process and open-theist frameworks (because Dryer rejects intrinsic divine becoming), relationists/OSR-style structuralists (because Dryer refuses relation-only metaphysics under analogy), and some analytic critics of simplicity who suspect modal collapse or semantic opacity (hence the need for explicit freedom and term-side novelty articulation). [55]
Ten concrete future research questions naturally implied by Dryer’s mature work are:
1) How can Dryer’s typed relation taxonomy (horizon/inscription/rational tracking) be formally mapped onto analytic taxonomies (internal/external; real/logical; grounding/dependence) without equivocation? [56]
2) What is the most defensible creaturely account of relational fact unity compatible with Dryer’s non-reifying strategy (i.e., avoiding “ties” and Bradley regresses)? [57]
3) Can Dryer specify a stable truthmaker theory of divine predication (in se vs ad extra) that respects analogy, simplicity, and extrinsic denomination? [58]
4) How should “gift” function as an aspect-name without smuggling in process metaphysics, especially when read alongside phenomenological “givenness” accounts? [59]
5) What is the best formal articulation of created reception that captures real created effects (grace, indwelling, sacramental causality) while preserving the divine–creature asymmetry of real relations? [60]
6) How can Dryer’s “origin-tag/provenance” logic be developed into a rigorous account of personal identity (human and ecclesial) that is metaphysically serious but not reducible to mere labeling? [61]
7) What are the precise conditions under which “Trinitarian Act-Structuralism” remains distinct from OSR and other structure-first ontologies, and how can that distinction be publicly stated? [62]
8) Can Dryer’s account of inseparable operations and taxis be formalized to clarify how appropriation can be used without implying divided agency? [63]
9) How does Dryer’s grammar-first method relate to contemporary debates about doctrine as rule/grammar and to the semantics of theological reference (especially anti-substrate constraints)? [64]
10) What would a complete “return” module look like inside Dryer’s system—explicitly integrating beatific vision, deification, final causality, and ecclesial-sacramental mediation—while keeping “end-first” coordinated with “act-first” under term-side novelty? [65]
[1] [37] act-of-relation-as-gift – RobertDryer
[2] [23] [54] Medieval Theories of Relations
[3] [8] [9] [25] [31] [43] [50] [56] Relation – RobertDryer
[4] [47] relation of origin – RobertDryer
[5] [61] Provenance – RobertDryer
[6] [62] Trinitarian Act-Structuralism – RobertDryer
[7] analogy – RobertDryer
[10] Participatory/Relational Realism – RobertDryer
[11] real relations ad extra – RobertDryer
[12] missions and processions – RobertDryer
[13] [35] [40] Sacramental Specification – RobertDryer
[14] [36] [65] Analogical Identity – RobertDryer
[15] Relations. Ontology And Philosophy Of Religion – Mimesis International
[16] [22] [30] [38] [48] [64] The Grammar of Divine Reference: Grammar-First Theology and the Act-of-Relation-as-Gift (Start Here) – RobertDryer
[17] Divine Simplicity – RobertDryer
[18] subsistent relation – RobertDryer
[19] analogia entis – RobertDryer
[20] [63] inseparable operations – RobertDryer
[21] [53] Nature and Grace – RobertDryer
[24] [42] [57] Bradley’s Regress – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[26] Russell’s Logical Atomism
[27] Process Philosophy
[28] Structural Realism – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[29] Monism – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[32] [44] [46] [59] The Primitive – RobertDryer
[33] [52] Divine Naming – RobertDryer
[34] [39] [60] Created Reception – RobertDryer
[41] The Trinity – RobertDryer
[45] Relational Gift-Ontology as AI Research: – RobertDryer
[49] term-side novelty – RobertDryer
[51] Relations – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[55] Process Theism – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[58] Truthmakers – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy