More Thoughts on Philosophical Theology - The Trinity

I recently read an article in Philosophia Christi by Michael Rea about the Trinity and relative identity.  Now the Trinity is a very difficult and mysterious part of God to understand, in fact, this is what God is - The Trinity.  The traditional belief about the Trinity is that God is 3 persons and one being or 3 persons and one essence/substance.  Now you don't want to be a modalist, who claims that God is one being with 3 manifestations or appearances.  One doesn't want to be a tritheist either because one doesn't want to believe in three gods and be a poly-theist. 

A doctrine in metaphysics, began by Leibniz I believe, called the principle of indiscernable identicals claims that A = B if and only if for every property A has, B has also.  (I think it might be  a bit more technical than this, but this is more for my purposes than my politically minded readers anyway.)  We would say then that A is numerically identical to B.  The problem is that in the Godhead, the Son has a property that the Father doesn't have - that of being begotten, also the property of being incarnate.  The Holy Spirit has the property of procession.  So, unless we are modalists, the members of the Trinity cannot be numerically identical.  This is where the doctrine of relative identity is helpful.  Briefly (and non-technically) there may be a property that A has that B doesn't have, but there is only one, in every other way A & B are identical.  This is helpful for understanding the Trinity.  Now, what are the practical applications, I am not sure yet.  I do think that it is a helpful beginning to understand how the Trinity can be 3 yet 1.  Three different persons, 1 divine essence.

Hope this wasn't too confusing, I think it confuses me sometimes.

Back with more political talk later :)