Logic and theology
Examine how the theological tractates use categories, definitions and axioms to clarify doctrines received through faith.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
Composed roughly between 512 and 522 amid Christological disputes between Rome and Constantinople, the tractates were long doubted until a fragment of Cassiodorus published in 1877 confirmed Boethius’s authorship; the authenticity of the fourth was contested longer. Medieval masters from Gilbert of Poitiers to Aquinas commented on them. Five short Latin treatises apply logical distinctions to Christian doctrine: the Trinity, whether Father, Son and Spirit are each predicated substantially of the divinity, how substances are good without being substantial goods, the catholic faith, and the person and two natures of Christ against Eutyches and Nestorius.
Following the arguments
Person : Against Eutyches, a person is defined as an individual substance of a rational nature, a formula endlessly discussed by later theologians. Being and what is : The third tractate distinguishes being from that which is and explains that things are good because their being flows from the first good. Relation : In the treatise on the Trinity, categories change meaning when said of God: substance preserves unity while relation multiplies the Trinity.
Continuing the reading
Begin with the short third tractate and its axioms, then read the fifth for the definition of person, noting each time which logical tool is at work. Composed roughly between 512 and 522 amid Christological disputes between Rome and Constantinople, the tractates were long doubted until a fragment of Cassiodorus published in 1877 confirmed Boethius’s authorship; the authenticity of the fourth was contested longer. Medieval masters from Gilbert of Poitiers to Aquinas commented on them.
In Boethius, logical precision serves theological questions while marking the limits of what argument can settle.
Your turn to think.
- Which logical distinction does each tractate rely on, and which problem does it resolve?
- What does the definition of person include, and what does it deliberately exclude?
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