Saturday, April 23, 2022

Eobard Thawne as an analogy of the Thomistic trinity

It is almost a truism that attempts to analogize the one true Triune God are doomed to failure, since there would always be more dissimilarities than similarities in the analogy. Since we desire to know how God can be one and three at the same time, any model that does not maintain the tension between the one and the three can be analogized, and none more so than the strong Thomistic model of the Trinity, where the persons are just "relations" within the one being of God.

Before I continue, I will readily acknowledge that many classical theists believe much more orthodox views of the Trinity. Nevertheless, in the interest of showing how certain statements about the Trinity by Thomists are logically suspect, I am purposely accentuating the current emphases into an analogy of the Thomistic trinity.

If the persons are just relations in the one being, if the persons of the Trinity are totally unlike the modern definition of a "person" but are merely relations in the one being, if the only communication within the Trinity is between the divine and the human nature of Jesus Christ, that there is no real communication otherwise within the Godhead including covenant making (any intra-Trinitarian covenant is a figurative covenant not a literal covenant), the Triune God works as one agent and one will, the persons do not will anything but only the one esence wills everything, then the Reverse Flash is a perfect analogy of this "Trinity." How is that, you might ask? The Thomistic trinity has only one essence; Eobard Thawne and his time remnants have one essence. The internal distinction between the Thomistic trinity is one of mere relations; same for Eobard Thawne and his time remnants. In this particular case, the distinction is between Thawne as unoriginate and which temporal context he spawns any one time remnant. But, you may object, Thawen is not eternal, and his time remnants have origins in time. Not really. The Reverse Flash has broke time until he exists necessarily apart from any one timeline, thus he is "unoriginate" in a sense. This goes the same for any one time remnant, which has a "origin" in time yet is tied to no one time and exists necessarily as long as Thawne exist (thus they receive their being from the unoriginate Thawne).

The Thomistic trinity has no real communication within the Godhead but there is a lot of communication towards creation and the towards the persons through the medium of creation, i.e. ad extra. Thawne and his time remnants are the same essence, and their talk comes out of the one will of the one essence of Thawne. They operate as one, having perfect knowledge of each other since they are the same being. Yes, the analogy is not perfect because each Thawen remnant may discover something that Thawne prime did not and thus the need for external talk, so the point of analogy is that all external communication is in a sense due to the external world.

When one interacts with a Thawne remnant, one intereacts with the one essence of Thawne, yet does not interact with the "person" of Thawne prime. Likewise, the Son died, thus God died, but the one essence of God did not die neither did the other persons of the Godhead died. One can almost predicate a form of communicatio idiomatum for Eobard Thawne, but I think you get the picture by now.

When it comes to analogy of the Trinity, Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse Flash makes for a compelling analogy of the Thomistic trinity. Except for Thawne's created status, his limited power, knowledge, wisdom, presence and so on, on the issue of being and person, he seems to be a great analogy for the Thomistic trinity. Now, I do not believe Thawne is an actual analogy of the Triune God, but then, I am not a Thomist.

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