Opera Trinitatis Ad Extra and Collective Agency

Abstract

This paper assesses the viability of the model of ‘collective action’ for the understanding of the doctrine of the inseparability of trinitarian operations, broadly conceived within a Social-Trinitarian framework. I argue that a ‘loose’ understanding of this inseparability as ‘unity of intention’ is insufficiently monotheistic and that it can be ‘tightened’ by an understanding of the ontology of triune operations analogically modelled after collective actions of a ‘constitutive’ kind. I also show that attention to the ‘description relativity of action ascriptions’ can potentially move us beyond the impasse of the doctrine of appropriation. Finally, I respond to potential objections.