Is There a Way from Split-Brain Cases to Trinity?

Abstract

The trinity is one of the most controversial doctrines in Christianity. To its critics, the main problem that makes the trinity so controversial is how it is that God can be one being and three different persons at the same time. For, according to the trinity doctrine, these three divine persons mentioned are not identical to each other, but despite this, all three are one and the same God. This situation was seen as problematic by many Christians and different explanations were developed. One of the recently proposed solutions to this issue is to make trinity reasonable based on neurological and psychological experiments, especially on split-brain cases. The most important feature of split-brain disease is that patients whose brain hemispheres are disconnected/separated from each other appear to have two different streams of consciousness at the same time, unaware of each other. It is as if there is more than one person inhabiting, even if there is one single body there. Some Christians, drawing an analogy from this case, claimed that God could also be three persons at the same time -although there was only one being. One of the leading proponents of such a claim has been Trenton Merricks, he tries to explain the trinity with this strategy/solution. In this study, first of all, why Merricks finds existing solutions insufficient will be taken and his criticisms of the Trinity will be examined. Then, a critical analysis will be made on the validity of his effort to explain the trinity with an analogy based on the case of the split-brain case.