Trinitarian Act-Structuralism

I struggle to characterize my own view, which is unabashedly Catholic, but also wants to offer a challenging productive view (even if I’m wrong). So, I fed AI a bunch of my work to come up with my view in a pithy definition. Here’s what the back and forth produced.

Definition

Trinitarian Act-Structuralism names a classical-theist framework in which the most fundamental reality is a single, subsistent, tri-personal act-of-relation-as-gift. This act is identical with the divine essence (not a substrate bearing properties), constitutes the divine persons by relations of origin, and structures created reality by analogical participation. In Robert Moses Dryer’s (my) presentation (mostly on robertdryer.com), the view is very roughly Thomistic in its leanings: it retains pure act (actus purus), subsistent relations, and divine simplicity in Catholic registers (Lateran IV asymmetry, analogical predication, sacramental realism). But, I have phenomenological biases, and a relational project for constructive communication of systematic theology. In Marion’s idiom, the beginning of my project, is the saturated phenomenon that gives itself before it can be bracketed as “being.” The givenness is personal and relational from the outset: Father as source, Son as reception-in-return, Spirit as shared fruition. Revelation, not deduction, is the fountainhead, but the gift immediately invites phenomenological clarification.

Core Theses

At the heart of the position stands a primitive explanatory terminus: the act-of-relation-as-gift halts regress on simplicity, Trinity, and divine action without positing a deeper basis. In God, to be and to give coincide; the act just is the simple divine being, not a faculty or decree behind the scenes. Within this one act there are exactly two relations of origin ad intra—begetting (Father to Son) and spiration (from the Father and the Son as one principle to the Spirit)—while perichoresis (mutual indwelling) follows from unity of essence and is not a third origin-relation. The act is necessary per se with respect to God’s own life, yet any ad extra specification (creation, grace) is contingent and free by virtue of pure act’s indifference to opposites. Creatures participate in this act analogically—truly but finitely—so that what is identical in terminus (God) is received according to diverse, creaturely modes. Basically, my systematic theology is based of modes of participation. But, it can be any relational idiom, my friend John Sylvest has proposed modes of union. You can read more about his project here: Eternal Creation, the Logos Asarkos/Ensarkos, and Divine Relationality – Syncretistic Catholicism

Distinctives and Contrasts

My account is personalist in that the primitive structure is intrinsically tri-personal, yet it is not “theistic personalism” in the univocal sense; God is not a member of a genus with creatures, and all predication remains analogical under the rule of greater dissimilarity. It is not process theism: there is no becoming in God, and divine simplicity and actus purus are affirmed. Nor is it an impersonal structuralism: structure is personal because the primitive is a subsistent tri-personal act. Finally, it is not a social-trinitarian composition model; personal distinction arises by origin, not by assembling parts or centers of consciousness.

Intra-Divine Structure (Arity)

“Arity” here counts the distinct formal relations of origin within the one divine act; on this account the arity is two. These two origin-relations (Paternity and Spiration) entail their correlates (Filiation and Procession), yielding the traditional four real relations without introducing additional origins or compromising numerical unity of the divine essence.

Analogical Participation and Identity by Origin

Created realities share in the one act by analogical participation: they receive a real, finite share that neither collapses Creator and creature nor severs them. To mark this, the view employs “origin-tags,” the participatory stamp by which identities are grounded by origin rather than by mere property-bundles or bare persistence criteria. “Provenance” is used in a strict metaphysical sense to mean origin-as-identity (source plus authenticating trace of participation), not chain-of-ownership or appraisal history; the provenance of creaturely being is the one act-of-relation-as-gift, and nothing outside that act serves as a rival source.

Liturgical Enactment

The Eucharist provides sacramental density to what could be described (from the divine side) as an extrinsic or Cambridge relation: God does not change, yet a new, enacted reciprocity comes to be on the creaturely side. Real presence thus heightens, rather than threatens, simplicity: the same divine act is given under sacramental signs, with identity of terminus (God given and received) and analogy of mode (creaturely reception in finite, ecclesial, and sacramental form).

Scope and Limits

The framework presupposes classical theism—divine simplicity, actus purus, analogical predication—and is designed to integrate Trinitarian doctrine, creation, Christology, sacramental theology, and eschatology with maximal parsimony. Pneumatologically, it aligns with the Latin formula “from the Father and the Son as one principle,” and can be rendered ecumenically as “from the Father through the Son” without altering the arity of origin-relations. Its persuasive force is strongest for interlocutors who grant the classical commitments; those who deny simplicity or constitutive relations in God will contest the starting points rather than expose an internal inconsistency (naturally).