Simply Given: Self-Gift and Consubstantiality in Aquinas and Social Trinitarianism

Abstract

Social Trinitarians have long argued that a strong reading of consubstantiality rules out the possibility of anything interpersonal – including interpersonal self-giving – in God. I argue that, for Aquinas, the claim that all three persons are identical to the same nature is no threat to interpersonal self-giving. Nor is it merely compatible with interpersonal self-giving. Instead, it is necessary for the fullest possible self-giving: if the Father and the Son did not share a single nature, then the Father could not give everything he has to the Son.