What do you think?
Rate this book
Principles of Catholic Theology, Book 3: On God, Trinity, Creation, and Christ
572 pages, Hardcover
Published October 4, 2024
23 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Joseph White
35 books63 followersFather Thomas Joseph White, O.P. is rector of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the “Angelicum”). Fr. White is an expert in Thomistic metaphysics, Christology and Roman Catholic-Reformed ecumenical dialogue. Fr. White converted to Catholicism at age 22, while studying at Brown University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 29, 2025
Principles of Catholic Theology, Book 3: On God, Trinity, Creation, and Christ (Thomistic Ressourcement Series) by Thomas Joseph White
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Cat...
This is a dense, long (536 pages), deep exploration of the deepest and densest topics in theology, and it is a terrific, educational read. This is a kind of “fix up book” that takes Thomas Joseph White’s articles and stitches them together in this book. This makes for a fair amount of redundancy, where the same point is made several times in several chapters, but this is more of a feature for those of us trying to learn a topic. By the fourth time that White explained that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished by origin, I had the concept nailed.
White is a Thomist. That means that he is a student of St. Thomas Aquinas and uses Thomistic reasoning and arguments to advance his own arguments. In doing his analysis, White relies on doctrines and principles that are so old and well-established that they have been virtually forgotten in modern times, and, yet, we can see that they provide the best answers in solving conundrums that bedevil modern theologians. These doctrines include the Beatific Vision, the doctrine of the Communication of Idioms, divine simplicity, and the two natures of Christ.
For most people who identify themselves as “Bible Christians,” these ideas will pass right over their heads. For most Christians of all sorts, even if they have heard these words, they will be unable to do more than offer a general concept to define them. Yet, these are core ideas that help us to understand the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity.
Let’s start with the idea of the “mystery.” Most people will use the term “mystery” in relation to Christian doctrine as a way of saying “I don’t understand it and no one does.” This seems to excuse the person from explaining what they might think are paradoxes.
In a Christian sense, “mystery” does not mean “it is beyond understanding.” Rather, it means “it cannot be known without revelation.” A Christian “mystery” is a revealed truth. The fact that God is a Trinity or that God became incarnated as man is a “mystery” because natural reason cannot reveal these facts; only divine revelation can. (p. 339) After the revelation, human reason can go to work in understanding the revealed truth. Some mysteries may be beyond our ability to grasp directly and totally. God is, after all, infinite and we are not. We may understand the mystery by analogy, which means that we are missing the totality since all analogies break down.
White makes the point that “mysteries” are “revealed truths” several times in the book. Naturally, the point finally clicked for me only after several repetitions of the idea. (p. 58-59: “One has no reason to know about the inner Trinitarian life of God apart from the encounter with divine revelation in the person of Christ. And so, correspondingly, if one does have reason to believe in the mystery, it is in virtue of supernatural faith and not apart from it.”)
Divine revelation about God can take the form of divine names, which cannot define God in a limited way. God transcends any genus that we use to define created realities. Aristotle in the Categories noted that we use a number of categories, or genuses, to think about the things around us, e.g., quantity, quality, location, habit, passion, action, etc. God is not subject to these categories because He is being itself. It is not possible to talk about being qua being as having a location or a quantity. (p. 36.)
On the other hand, God is not alien to Creation. The world relates to God because God created the world. If we find something in Creation, it seems reasonable to believe that the thing exists in some way in God because things cannot receive qualities which their cause does not have to give. So, we can use analogy to discuss revealed divine names. Aquinas calls this the analogia entis (the analogy of being) and Karl Barth referred to Jesus as the “concrete analogia entis.”
One of the concepts that assists this approach is the theory of transcendental “which first began to emerge in Aristotle.” (p. 36.) Aristotle departed from Plato in viewing “the Good” as a property, not a form. As a property, the Good was a feature of “being” or “existence,” rather than its own free floating substance. Goodness was a perfection of existence; the good existed wherever being existed. Goodness was proportional to existence, i.e., the more something existed as it ought, the more good it was.
The Biblical tradition, God is associated with existence. According to White, this association is pre-philosophical. It is found in Moses’ definition of God as “I am.” As pure existence, God is immaterial – matter being subject to change and alteration by nature, whereas existence always is, always is “in actuality” without potential to change, always changing potential into actuality in other things. Thus, we end up with an idea of God that is unenvisionable, without representation, without form or parts. (p. 117.) God is not depicted with the head of a lion or with six arms dancing on a dwarf. God is not something accessible to our sense.
God is also “simple.” White argues that “simplicity” is the concept that makes it possible to square monotheism with trinitarianism.
Simplicity means that there are no parts in God. God is not material and so does not have Body parts. Further, God is pure existence, which is pure actuality, which means that God does not have the potentiality to change or be anything other than God. God is not divided between actuality (actual existence) and potential existence. Moreover, God’s existence is not divided from His existence. God’s nature is His existence. He is not a part of any genus; He is existence itself and existence itself is not divided into parts. God’s existence his nature, which means His power is His existence, His goodness is His existence, His benevolence is His existence, etc.
But what about the Trinity? Don’t the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit seem like parts of God?
To many, the answer is “yes.” But the doctrine of divine simplicity teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are identical with God’s existence, love, goodness, etc. They are all the same nature. Further, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all identical with God. The nature and existence of each one is identical – the same – as the nature and existence of God’s essence and existence.
What distinguishes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the persons of the Trinity – is their relationship between each other, and, specifically, their relationship of origin: the Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds or is spirated from the Father and the Son. Relationships in the persons of the Trinity are real, but each person shares the same divine nature/existence.
Are these parts of God? No, because each one is perfectly and completely God and each one subsists perpetually in the other, a feature called “perichoresis,” meaning mutual indwelling or co-inherence.
The concept of simplicity and perichoresis means that the persons of the Trinity are equal in the divine attributes – they all share the same divine nature. There is nothing in one that is not in the other. The ONLY difference is the difference of origin.
This rules out those who argue for eternal submission of the Son to the Father, as well as those who argue that the persons of the Trinity have separate consciousnesses and so exist as a “society” of equals who agree to the terms of their relationship.
From the Trinity, White moves on to Christology. White starts from the orthodox understanding that Christ was entirely human and entirely divine. He rejects Kenotic theology that argues that in the Incarnation, the Son gave up his divine attributes. This amounts to a reverse Monophysitism, which would have a single nature in Jesus in practical effect and in everything but name, i.e., the nature of Jesus would be human in all but name. This is inconsistent with Jesus’ performance of miracles and his self-understanding.
Although it is a popular idea today, Kenotic Christology – Christ was only a human in practical effect since the divine powers were on hiatus – makes a hash of Christian theology. Orthodox Chalcedonian theology – the kind that includes Catholics, Orthodox, and mainstream Protestants – affirm that the two natures of Christ are never separated always united, never confused and always unchangeable. A Kenotic Christology violates these precepts.
Christ has two natures but is one divine Person, namely the Son. This leads to the requirement that the way we talk about natures and persons be clarified to avoid confusion. Aquinas laid out four rules. (PP. 33q- 333.) First, all attributes of the human and divine natures pertain to the “single personal subject of the Divine Word.” So it is permissible to say, God slept. Second, the attributes of the two natures are not properly predicated of each other and should not be confused. Christ in His human nature did not perform miracles; the Logos did not die. Third, all nature terms can be employed grammatically as subject terms IF AND ONLY IF they denote the personal subject considered under the aspect of that nature. Thus, it is proper to say “God suffered on the Cross” or “God had a mother” IF AND ONLY IF we mean that “this person,” the Incarnate Word, did this things in His human nature. Likewise, if we say “Jesus created the world,” we mean “the Logos created the world in his divinity.” Fourth, we may ascribe the actions to the natures of Jesus Christ as long as one is clear that this does not imply that these natures are individual persons. If we say as Pope Leo, “divinity performs miracles” while “humanity suffers,” this does not mean that these are separated natures amounting to separate persons. They are more poetic ways of saying, “this person,” i.e., the Incarnate Word did these things consistent with either the human or divine nature.
My insight here is that these rules – the Communicatio Idiomatum – flow out of the Chalcedonian definition that Christ is one person with two natures, which are not confused, separated, or changed, but are always united. These rules seem to exclude Kenotic Christology because they are eliminating the need for a “communication of idioms.” All idioms for this kind of Kenotic Christology are human idioms. There can be no confusion because everything is attributed to the human nature, which clearly eliminates much of the mystery of the Incarnation.
Jesus’ self-understanding is key. Jesus was self-confidently aware that he was God, that the Father was His Father, and that he had a divine mission that would take Him to His death. Where did that self-understanding come from?
Aquinas viewed Jesus as having three kinds of knowledge: (a) normal human knowledge that comes from experience, (b) prophetic knowledge, which gave to Jesus knowledge about everything that was humanly knowable, and (c) the Beatific Vision, which was a vision of God’s nature and demonstrated without doubt that Jesus was God.
Under the orthodox understanding, the two natures meant that Jesus had two wills: a human and a divine will. These wills had to be coordinated. White argues that anything less than the Beatific Vision would have left Jesus merely guessing at his divinity. Jesus would have had good reasons to believe that he was divine, but He would not have had the self-confidence that the scriptures demonstrate, a self-confidence which comes from the immediate and direct knowledge of his divine status through the Beatific Vision. The coordination of Jesus’s wills would have been accidental, not necessary, which is not sufficient.
I found this book to be very rewarding. It is long, and it probably is not for beginners. If you have a background in the subject, it is very engrossing.
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Cat...
This is a dense, long (536 pages), deep exploration of the deepest and densest topics in theology, and it is a terrific, educational read. This is a kind of “fix up book” that takes Thomas Joseph White’s articles and stitches them together in this book. This makes for a fair amount of redundancy, where the same point is made several times in several chapters, but this is more of a feature for those of us trying to learn a topic. By the fourth time that White explained that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished by origin, I had the concept nailed.
White is a Thomist. That means that he is a student of St. Thomas Aquinas and uses Thomistic reasoning and arguments to advance his own arguments. In doing his analysis, White relies on doctrines and principles that are so old and well-established that they have been virtually forgotten in modern times, and, yet, we can see that they provide the best answers in solving conundrums that bedevil modern theologians. These doctrines include the Beatific Vision, the doctrine of the Communication of Idioms, divine simplicity, and the two natures of Christ.
For most people who identify themselves as “Bible Christians,” these ideas will pass right over their heads. For most Christians of all sorts, even if they have heard these words, they will be unable to do more than offer a general concept to define them. Yet, these are core ideas that help us to understand the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity.
Let’s start with the idea of the “mystery.” Most people will use the term “mystery” in relation to Christian doctrine as a way of saying “I don’t understand it and no one does.” This seems to excuse the person from explaining what they might think are paradoxes.
In a Christian sense, “mystery” does not mean “it is beyond understanding.” Rather, it means “it cannot be known without revelation.” A Christian “mystery” is a revealed truth. The fact that God is a Trinity or that God became incarnated as man is a “mystery” because natural reason cannot reveal these facts; only divine revelation can. (p. 339) After the revelation, human reason can go to work in understanding the revealed truth. Some mysteries may be beyond our ability to grasp directly and totally. God is, after all, infinite and we are not. We may understand the mystery by analogy, which means that we are missing the totality since all analogies break down.
White makes the point that “mysteries” are “revealed truths” several times in the book. Naturally, the point finally clicked for me only after several repetitions of the idea. (p. 58-59: “One has no reason to know about the inner Trinitarian life of God apart from the encounter with divine revelation in the person of Christ. And so, correspondingly, if one does have reason to believe in the mystery, it is in virtue of supernatural faith and not apart from it.”)
Divine revelation about God can take the form of divine names, which cannot define God in a limited way. God transcends any genus that we use to define created realities. Aristotle in the Categories noted that we use a number of categories, or genuses, to think about the things around us, e.g., quantity, quality, location, habit, passion, action, etc. God is not subject to these categories because He is being itself. It is not possible to talk about being qua being as having a location or a quantity. (p. 36.)
On the other hand, God is not alien to Creation. The world relates to God because God created the world. If we find something in Creation, it seems reasonable to believe that the thing exists in some way in God because things cannot receive qualities which their cause does not have to give. So, we can use analogy to discuss revealed divine names. Aquinas calls this the analogia entis (the analogy of being) and Karl Barth referred to Jesus as the “concrete analogia entis.”
One of the concepts that assists this approach is the theory of transcendental “which first began to emerge in Aristotle.” (p. 36.) Aristotle departed from Plato in viewing “the Good” as a property, not a form. As a property, the Good was a feature of “being” or “existence,” rather than its own free floating substance. Goodness was a perfection of existence; the good existed wherever being existed. Goodness was proportional to existence, i.e., the more something existed as it ought, the more good it was.
The Biblical tradition, God is associated with existence. According to White, this association is pre-philosophical. It is found in Moses’ definition of God as “I am.” As pure existence, God is immaterial – matter being subject to change and alteration by nature, whereas existence always is, always is “in actuality” without potential to change, always changing potential into actuality in other things. Thus, we end up with an idea of God that is unenvisionable, without representation, without form or parts. (p. 117.) God is not depicted with the head of a lion or with six arms dancing on a dwarf. God is not something accessible to our sense.
God is also “simple.” White argues that “simplicity” is the concept that makes it possible to square monotheism with trinitarianism.
Simplicity means that there are no parts in God. God is not material and so does not have Body parts. Further, God is pure existence, which is pure actuality, which means that God does not have the potentiality to change or be anything other than God. God is not divided between actuality (actual existence) and potential existence. Moreover, God’s existence is not divided from His existence. God’s nature is His existence. He is not a part of any genus; He is existence itself and existence itself is not divided into parts. God’s existence his nature, which means His power is His existence, His goodness is His existence, His benevolence is His existence, etc.
But what about the Trinity? Don’t the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit seem like parts of God?
To many, the answer is “yes.” But the doctrine of divine simplicity teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are identical with God’s existence, love, goodness, etc. They are all the same nature. Further, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all identical with God. The nature and existence of each one is identical – the same – as the nature and existence of God’s essence and existence.
What distinguishes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the persons of the Trinity – is their relationship between each other, and, specifically, their relationship of origin: the Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds or is spirated from the Father and the Son. Relationships in the persons of the Trinity are real, but each person shares the same divine nature/existence.
Are these parts of God? No, because each one is perfectly and completely God and each one subsists perpetually in the other, a feature called “perichoresis,” meaning mutual indwelling or co-inherence.
The concept of simplicity and perichoresis means that the persons of the Trinity are equal in the divine attributes – they all share the same divine nature. There is nothing in one that is not in the other. The ONLY difference is the difference of origin.
This rules out those who argue for eternal submission of the Son to the Father, as well as those who argue that the persons of the Trinity have separate consciousnesses and so exist as a “society” of equals who agree to the terms of their relationship.
From the Trinity, White moves on to Christology. White starts from the orthodox understanding that Christ was entirely human and entirely divine. He rejects Kenotic theology that argues that in the Incarnation, the Son gave up his divine attributes. This amounts to a reverse Monophysitism, which would have a single nature in Jesus in practical effect and in everything but name, i.e., the nature of Jesus would be human in all but name. This is inconsistent with Jesus’ performance of miracles and his self-understanding.
Although it is a popular idea today, Kenotic Christology – Christ was only a human in practical effect since the divine powers were on hiatus – makes a hash of Christian theology. Orthodox Chalcedonian theology – the kind that includes Catholics, Orthodox, and mainstream Protestants – affirm that the two natures of Christ are never separated always united, never confused and always unchangeable. A Kenotic Christology violates these precepts.
Christ has two natures but is one divine Person, namely the Son. This leads to the requirement that the way we talk about natures and persons be clarified to avoid confusion. Aquinas laid out four rules. (PP. 33q- 333.) First, all attributes of the human and divine natures pertain to the “single personal subject of the Divine Word.” So it is permissible to say, God slept. Second, the attributes of the two natures are not properly predicated of each other and should not be confused. Christ in His human nature did not perform miracles; the Logos did not die. Third, all nature terms can be employed grammatically as subject terms IF AND ONLY IF they denote the personal subject considered under the aspect of that nature. Thus, it is proper to say “God suffered on the Cross” or “God had a mother” IF AND ONLY IF we mean that “this person,” the Incarnate Word, did this things in His human nature. Likewise, if we say “Jesus created the world,” we mean “the Logos created the world in his divinity.” Fourth, we may ascribe the actions to the natures of Jesus Christ as long as one is clear that this does not imply that these natures are individual persons. If we say as Pope Leo, “divinity performs miracles” while “humanity suffers,” this does not mean that these are separated natures amounting to separate persons. They are more poetic ways of saying, “this person,” i.e., the Incarnate Word did these things consistent with either the human or divine nature.
My insight here is that these rules – the Communicatio Idiomatum – flow out of the Chalcedonian definition that Christ is one person with two natures, which are not confused, separated, or changed, but are always united. These rules seem to exclude Kenotic Christology because they are eliminating the need for a “communication of idioms.” All idioms for this kind of Kenotic Christology are human idioms. There can be no confusion because everything is attributed to the human nature, which clearly eliminates much of the mystery of the Incarnation.
Jesus’ self-understanding is key. Jesus was self-confidently aware that he was God, that the Father was His Father, and that he had a divine mission that would take Him to His death. Where did that self-understanding come from?
Aquinas viewed Jesus as having three kinds of knowledge: (a) normal human knowledge that comes from experience, (b) prophetic knowledge, which gave to Jesus knowledge about everything that was humanly knowable, and (c) the Beatific Vision, which was a vision of God’s nature and demonstrated without doubt that Jesus was God.
Under the orthodox understanding, the two natures meant that Jesus had two wills: a human and a divine will. These wills had to be coordinated. White argues that anything less than the Beatific Vision would have left Jesus merely guessing at his divinity. Jesus would have had good reasons to believe that he was divine, but He would not have had the self-confidence that the scriptures demonstrate, a self-confidence which comes from the immediate and direct knowledge of his divine status through the Beatific Vision. The coordination of Jesus’s wills would have been accidental, not necessary, which is not sufficient.
I found this book to be very rewarding. It is long, and it probably is not for beginners. If you have a background in the subject, it is very engrossing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review