Personhood is teleologically relational in the sense that a person is the kind of being that necessarily can only be fulfilled in relationships with other persons.
Necessarily, any person other than God is a creature.
So, if God is a single person, this person necessarily can only be fulfilled in relationships with creatures.
If a being only finds its fulfillment in relationships with Fs, then the being’s fulfillment depends on Fs.
So, if God is a single person, God’s fulfillment depends on creatures.
God’s fulfillment does not depend on creatures.
Thus, God is not a single person.
thus, if God is a person, God is two or more persons.
(I think most non-Christian monotheists these days will say that God is a single person. But I wonder if it wouldn’t be a better view for them to deny that God is a person at all, and to insist that the centrality of personhood to the understanding of God is a mistaken Christian approach.)
Here is another variant on the argument:
Necessarily, a person can only flourish in relationship to another equal person.
It is possible that God flourishes.
If God is a single person, then it is impossible for there to be another person equal to God.
So, God is a single person, it is impossible that God flourishes. (9 and 11)
So, God is not a single person. (10 and 12)
So, if God is a person, God is two or more persons.
Now, granted, it is a standard view in Christianity that one cannot prove the doctrine of the Trinity by reason. If the arguments above are sound, have I contradicted that view? No, for several reasons. First, the arguments don’t establish that God is three persons. Second, the arguments only establish that if God is a person at all, then God is two or more persons—but a further argument is needed that God is a person at all. (Perhaps perfect being theology can yield that.)
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