Thanks for your comments. They have given me much to chew on. But, of course, I believe I have good objections to them all. Unfortunately, we are approaching the time of the week that becomes very busy for me. I hope to be able to respond to them sometime tomorrow. But if I don’t, I will definitely do so on Monday.

In the meantime, I would be interested to hear from you all whether you think trust is a belief or an emotion or, perhaps, both and why you believe one way or the other. Initially, I just assumed that trust is a type of belief. However, I just recently encountered some arguments (I’m not sure what I think of them) that trust has properties that are unique to emotions and, thus, is not identical or cannot be reduced to a belief, but may be necessarily accompanied by a belief.

And if it is an emotion, how would that affect Blake’s argument that the classical God cannot be trusted? And, generally, how would it affect the concept of perichoresis?

Thanks, again.

John: All I can do is endorse what Geoff has said. I don’t see why you say that (2) is impersonal. It seems to me to be as personal as (1) if you are presently in a relationship with your brother. Logically BTW, (1) and (2) are simply equivalent. If you trust your brother to pick you up, then being picked up by your brother remains to be done and is just as future tensed as (2).

The divine persons cannot deceive each other; but they could do other than what they are expected to do given present intentions because they can change their mind. Let me give a concrete example. At T1 the Father trusts the Son to atone at T2. It is possible that the Son will not atone — but the Son has an intention at T1 to atone at T2. The Father is certainly trusting of the Son because the Son may not do as he is trusted to do despite his intention at T1. However, the Son is also trustworthy. He is the most trustworthy being in the universe. Still, in the moments before the Son atones the universe hangs in the balance. The Son vindicates the Father’s trust at T2. He could have failed to atone at T2, but he didn’t. The Son could not have deceived the Father at T1 about his intention at T1 because his intentions (present tense) are know to the Father, but he could have failed to atone at T2 right up until he does so because he can change his mind at any time.

However, let me say that this kind of thought and exploration is the primary reason that I wrote. You have engaged in some careful analysis and asked important questions about trust and perichoresis or perfectly transparent indwelling. I say keep it up!

I think your argument fails because of this assumption. If the future is open, and if the actors in the perichoretic relationship have libertarian free will, then they can only know their *current and past* intentions. The future does not exist to be know so they can not know the future intentions of one another. Therefore, they must trust each other to not change their intentions in the future.

Also, while they could betray each other (using their free will to do so), Blake is right that they could not deceive each other.

This is a completely new area of philosophy for me. Before Blake’s book I had never thought about the nature of trust. So, first, let me thank Blake for waking me from my slumber here. Second, because it is new to me, I am going to have a hard time articulating my views. But I will try my best here to explain what I am thinking.

It seems to me that you are confusing the following two statements:

(1) I trust my brother to pick me up.
(2) I trust that my brother will pick me up.

(1) is an interpersonal trust, i.e., trusting a person. (2) is trusting that a future event/action will occur. (2) is not interpersonal. It is impersonal. It is similar to trusting that your alarm clock will go off. But what is the difference b/t them?

First, as Annette Baier has noted, a necessary condition of interpersonal trust is the potential for betrayal. And you cannot be betrayed by events or actions. That is actions or events not taking place, though you expected them to, is not sufficient to produce betrayal. Thus, the mere fact that your brother does not show up to pick you up is not sufficient for betrayal; for your brother could have been in a car accident on the way to get you. In that case, you could be disappointed that your brother did not pick you up because you relied on that event. However, you were not betrayed by your brother. In order to be betrayed by your brother, your brother must intentionally not pick you up. Thus, when you trust your brother to pick you up, you are not trusting “that he’ll be there.” Rather, you are trusting that your brother is committed to being there or intends to be there.

Furthermore, another necessary condition of trust is the acceptance of some level of vulnerability. That is, the truster is accepting a certain amount of risk that the trustee may be not be fully committed or is being deceptive. If one has an infallible knowledge of another’s intentions then one is not vulnerable and, thus, does not trust. For example, suppose that you have the power to peer into another persons mind and discern their commitment and intention. Now imagine that you ask your brother to pick you up and choose to use your power on him. When you do, you discover (i.e., infallibly know) that he has a high level of commitment and intention to pick you up. Do you at that point trust your brother? No, you don’t. Because you refused to be vulnerable. The same can be said if you discover that he was not committed. Thus, it seems, to me, that Carolyn McLeod is right when she observes that trust happens before one monitors or when one out of respect refuses to monitor the commitment or intention of another. If one does not accept a certain amount of vulnerability with respect to the other’s commitment and intention then trust has not occurred. Thus, two people in a perichoretic relationship cannot trust one another because there is no vulnerability there.

If I trust my brother to pick me up at the airport I’m trusting that he’ll be there not that he intends to be there but lets other things come in the way. I think we trust the fulfillment of an intent and not the mental forming of an intent or decision.

It seems to me that “gap” that both you and Blake demand for trust is found in Blake’s sense of an open future. But because you are focused not in fulfillment but in a particular mental state at the time of trust this is insufficient for you.

So I think the temporal criticism I made earlier still applies.