Beau Branson

Brescia University
  •  35
    Gregory of Nyssa on the Individuation of Actions and Events
    In James Siemens & Joshua Matthan Brown (eds.), Eastern Christian Approaches to Philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 123-148. 2022.
    Beau Branson rounds out the previous two chapters, by exploring the doctrine of inseparable operations ad extra in the writings of St Gregory of Nyssa. This doctrine says that all the activities of the three hypostases of the Trinity, at least insofar as they relate to things outside of (“ad extra”) the Trinity, are not only qualitatively identical but numerically identical. Importantly, Branson focuses his attention on Gregory’s theory of action and the individuation of events that emerges from…Read more
  •  189
    The Intertwining of Philosophy and Religion in the Western Tradition
    Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Religion. 2020.
    Philosophers have gotten something of a bad reputation for widespread—and perhaps closed-minded—atheism. The reality, however, is quite otherwise. For most of their history, philosophy and religion have been intertwined in one way or another, and the vast majority of philosophers have had some kind of religious beliefs, oftentimes central to their philosophy, whether or not they have made the links explicit. This is not without good reason. Though their methods (sometimes) differ, philosophy and…Read more
  •  1056
    Where did the universe come from? Is life a result of chance, or design? If God is loving and all-powerful, why does evil still exist? Is religious belief just a byproduct of undirected evolutionary processes? Or did God make sure humans would evolve in such a way as to believe? Are philosophers closed-minded about religion? And why is so much of philosophy of religion about God-but not about gods? Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Religion introduces students to some of the major tradit…Read more
  •  1154
    One God, the Father: The Neglected Doctrine of the Monarchy of the Father, and Its Implications for the Analytic Debate about the Trinity
    TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 6 (2). 2022.
    Whether Trinitarianism is coherent depends not only on whether some account of the Trinity is coherent, but on which accounts of the Trinity count as "Trinitarian." After all, Arianism and Modalism are both accounts of the Trinity, but neither counts as Trinitarian (which is why defenses of Arianism or Modalism don’t count as defenses of Trinitarianism). This raises the question, if not just any account of the Trinity counts as Trinitarian, which do? Dale Tuggy is one of very few philosophers to…Read more
  •  2137
    No New Solutions to the Logical Problem of the Trinity
    Journal of Applied Logics 6 (6): 1051-1092. 2019.
    Analytic theologians have proposed numerous “solutions” to the Logical Problem of the Trinity (LPT), mostly versions of Social Trinitarianism (ST) and Relative Identity Trinitarianism (RI). Both types of solution are controversial, but many hold out hope that further “Trinitarian theorizing” may yield some as yet unimagined, and somehow importantly different, solution to the LPT. I first give a precise definition of the LPT and of what would count as a solution to it. I then show how, though the…Read more
  •  12779
    The Logical Problem of the Trinity
    Dissertation, University of Notre Dame. 2014.
    The doctrine of the Trinity is central to mainstream Christianity. But insofar as it posits “three persons” (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), who are “one God,” it appears as inconsistent as the claim that 1+1+1=1. Much of the literature on “The Logical Problem of the Trinity,” as this has been called, attacks or defends Trinitarianism with little regard to the fourth century theological controversies and the late Hellenistic and early Medieval philosophical background in which it took shape. I arg…Read more
  •  383
    Ahistoricity in Analytic Theology
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1): 195-224. 2018.
    Analytic theology has sometimes been criticized as ahistorical. But what this means, and why it is problematic, have often been left unclear. This essay explicates and supports one way of making that charge while simultaneously showing this ahistoricity, although widespread within analytic theology, is not essential to it. Specifically, some analytic theologians treat problematic doctrines as metaphysical puzzles, constructing speculative accounts of phenomena such as the Trinity or Incarnation …Read more