Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T08:36:31.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The God of the groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2015

CHAD A. MCINTOSH
CHAD A. MCINTOSH*
Affiliation:
Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, 218 Goldwin Smith Hall Ithaca, NY 14853, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue that Social Trinitarians can and should conceive of God as a group person. They can by drawing on recent theories of group agency realism that show how groups can be not just agents but persons distinct from their members – albeit, I argue, persons of a different kind. They should because the resultant novel view of the Trinity – that God is three ‘intrinsicist’ persons in one ‘functional’ person – is theologically sound, effectively counters the most trenchant criticisms of Social Trinitarianism, and enjoys independent theological support from the biblical notion of ‘corporate personality’.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 167 - 186
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauckham, Richard (2008) Jesus and the God of Israel (Milton Keynes: Paternoster).Google Scholar
Boman, Thorleif (1960) Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek (London: SCM Press).Google Scholar
Brown, David (1989) ‘Trinitarian personhood and individuality’, in Feenstra, R. & Plantinga, C. Jr, (eds) Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological Essays (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 48–78.Google Scholar
Copp, David (1979) ‘Collective actions and secondary actions’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 16, 177–186.Google Scholar
Copp, David (2006) ‘On the agency of certain collective entities: an argument from “normative autonomy” ’, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 30, Shared Intentions and Collective Responsibility (Malden MA: Blackwell), 194–221.Google Scholar
Craig, William Lane (2009) ‘Toward a tenable Social Trinitarianism’, in Rea, M. & McCall, T. (eds) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Doctrine of the Trinity (New York: Oxford University Press), 89–99.Google Scholar
French, Peter (1984) Collective and Corporate Responsibility (New York: Columbia University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garr, W. Randall (2003) In His Own Image and Likeness: Divinity, Humanity, and Monotheism (Leiden: Brill).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodstopper, Kenneth (2007) Conscience and Corporate Culture (Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell).Google Scholar
Hasker, William (2009) ‘Has a Trinitarian God deceived us?’, in Rea, M. & McCall, T. (eds) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Doctrine of the Trinity (New York: Oxford University Press), 38–51.Google Scholar
Hasker, William (2013) Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Hess, K. M. (2010) ‘The modern corporation as a moral agent: the capacity for “thought” and a “first-person perspective” ’, Southwest Philosophy Review, 26, 61–69.Google Scholar
Hess, K. M. (2013) ‘ “If you tickle us”: how corporations can be moral agents without being persons’, Journal of Value Inquiry, 47, 319–335.Google Scholar
Hess, K. M. (2014a) ‘Because they can: the basis for the moral obligations of (certain) collectives’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 38, Forward-Looking Collective Responsibility (Malden MA: Blackwell), 203–221.Google Scholar
Hess, K. M. (2014b) ‘The free will of corporations (and other collectives)’, Philosophical Studies, 168, 241–260.Google Scholar
Hess, K. M. & Bjornsson, Gunnar (MS) ‘Corporate crocodile tears? On the reactive attitudes of corporations’.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, Daniel (2009) ‘Trinity monotheism’, in Rea, M. & McCall, T. (eds) Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Doctrine of the Trinity (New York: Oxford University Press), 100–125.Google Scholar
Hurtado, Larry (1998) One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (New York: T&T Clark).Google Scholar
Johnson, Aubrey (1961) The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God (Cardiff: University of Wales Press).Google Scholar
Kaminsky, Joel (1995) Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).Google Scholar
Leftow, Brian (1999) ‘Anti-Social Trinitarianism’, in Davis, S. T., Kendall, D., & O'Collins, G. (eds) The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (New York: Oxford University Press), 203–249.Google Scholar
List, Christian & Pettit, Philip (2011) Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Malina, Bruce & Neyrey, Jerome (1996) Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality (Louisville KY: Westminster Knox Press).Google Scholar
McCall, Thomas (2010) Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans).Google Scholar
McKenna, Michael (2006) ‘Collective responsibility and an agent meaning theory’, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 30, Shared Intentions and Collective Responsibility (Malden MA: Blackwell), 16–34.Google Scholar
Menary, Richard (ed.) (2010) The Extended Mind (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).Google Scholar
Mol, Jurrien (2009) Collective and Individual Responsibility: A Description of Corporate Personality in Ezekiel 18 and 20 (Leiden: Brill Koninklijke).Google Scholar
Perdue, Leo (1997) ‘The household, Old Testament theology, and contemporary hermeneutics’, in Perdue, L. & Blenkinsopp, J. (eds) Families in Ancient Israel: Families, Religion, and Culture (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press), 223–258.Google Scholar
Pettit, Philip (2004) ‘Groups with minds of their own’, in Schmitt, F. (ed.) Socializing Metaphysics (New York: Rowman and Littlefield), 167–193.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Cornelius (1989) ‘Social trinity and tritheism’, in Feenstra, R. & Plantinga, C. Jr, (eds) Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological Essays (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 21–47.Google Scholar
Robinson, H. Wheeler (1909) ‘Hebrew psychology in relation to Pauline anthropology’, in Mansfield College Essays (London: Hodder & Stoughton), 265–286.Google Scholar
Robinson, H. Wheeler (1980) Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press).Google Scholar
Robinson, John A. T. (1977) The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia PA: The Westminster Press).Google Scholar
Silver, David (2005) ‘A Strawsonian defense of corporate moral responsibility’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 42, 279–293.Google Scholar
Tanner, Norman (1990) Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, I: Nicea I to Lateran V (Washington DC: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press).Google Scholar
Tollefsen, D. P. (2003) ‘Participant reactive attitudes and collective responsibility’, Philosophical Explorations, 6, 218–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuggy, Dale (2003) ‘The unfinished business of Trinitarian theorizing’, Religious Studies, 39, 165–183.Google Scholar
Tuggy, Dale (2004) ‘Divine deception, identity, and Social Trinitarianism’, Religious Studies, 40, 269–287.Google Scholar
Watson, Gary (1996) ‘Two faces of responsibility’, Philosophical Topics, 24, 227–248.Google Scholar
Wilson, Marvin (1989) Our Father Abraham: The Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans).Google Scholar
Wright, N. T. (1993) The Climax of the Covenant (Philadelphia: Fortress Press).Google Scholar