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

Abstract

AbstractSocial 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.