How useful is the ‘constitution model’ of the Trinity?

[Michie]

Disclaimer (14/12/2021):
When I wrote this, I was quite dissatisfied with the conclusion, given its humility, but now it seems to me that it would indeed be too ambitious to hope for anything less humble. It seems to me that a Trinitarian theologian can only give you a story about what the Trinity could be, and never about what it univocally is. The Constitution Model sets out to give us a story which responds to the Logical Problem of the Trinity, and it does just that.

What the essay does not do is consider alternative models of the Trinity (Leftow, for example, has his own). I happen to think they are inferior, for reasons not mentioned in the essay, but the reader may think otherwise, and I invite them to give them due consideration.

What perhaps deserved mentioning in the essay that I did not mention is that the Model seems well-equipped to deal with the processions between the Persons of the Trinity. Consider that a statue-pillar composite may only exist because a sculptor sets out to make a statue, which ends up also being used as a pillar. Then, the pillar clearly proceeds from the statue. The Son could proceed from the Father in a relation that is analogous, except intrinsic to the Father (unlike the pillar in this example, which only stands in the relation of procession from the statue because of a fact about some external being, i.e. the sculptor).

Continued below.
How useful is the 'constitution model' of the Trinity? - Clarifying Catholicism

 

[Bob Crowley]

I gave up a long time ago trying to psychoanalyse God, viz. explain how the Trinity works together.

I don't even know how my own trinity of body, mind and spirit works together, so trying to up the ante and work out how God works is beyond me.

I am a dualist, and as I've stated ad infinitum, the night my father died he turned up in my room. We argued and conversed and so on.

He was in spiritual form ie. a "ghost" and yet it was obvious he could hear, speak, think, and see, all those things we take for granted but for which we use our bodily organs. But he had no brain, no voice organs, no eyes, and no ears.

Likewise I could hear, speak, think and see and communicate with him, but what was the communication media - sound and light waves, or some sort of direct spiritual communication while we appeared to go through the motions?

I don't even know the answer to that, so I'm hardly in a position to figure out how the infinite mind (minds?) of the Trinity works, or how the Trinity acts as One Being.