A Thomistic–Aristotelian Model of the Latin Trinity as an Apologetic Resource for Evangelical Theology

• Tomas Samuel Petersson

  Quest Academy

  Author

This article develops a Thomistic–Aristotelian model of the Latin doctrine of the Trinity that may serve evangelical theology in its engagement with philosophical atheism and analytic philosophy of religion. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas’s account of divine simplicity, his Aristotelian metaphysics of act and potency, and his doctrines of intelligible species, the verbum mentale, and the psychological analogy of intellect–word–love, I construct a conditional, “school‑style” argument: if classical theism in a Thomistic form is granted—namely, that there exists a simple, purely actual, intelligent, and volitional first cause—then a Latin‑style Trinitarian model with internal processions of Word and Love and three subsistent relations of origin arises as a metaphysically coherent description of the inner life of God. I argue that Aquinas himself maintains that the Trinity cannot be known by natural reason alone but only by revelation, yet his metaphysics of God and mind provides a powerful rational framework for showing that the doctrine is not self‑contradictory and is deeply fitting to a rich conception of the God of Christian Scripture. After reconstructing the relevant Aristotelian and Thomistic background, I present a stepwise argument from divine simplicity to the processions of Word and Love, treated as subsistent relations, and respond to major objections regarding representationalism, infinite regress, and the compatibility of internal processions with divine simplicity. I conclude by suggesting how this model can be fruitfully appropriated—and critically qualified—within evangelical systematic theology.

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