Work #1511 · Mid-career period
The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity
Clarke's 1712 collection of all Trinity-relevant Scripture passages — the work that nearly cost him his preferment
Samuel Clarke
· 1712
· English
· Theological compilation with critical commentary
Tradition: Newtonian natural theology / English rationalism / Arian-Subordinationist anti-Trinitarianism
Clarke's 1712 'Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity' — a quasi-Arian-Subordinationist reading that nearly cost him his preferment
Published in 1712, 'The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity' compiles in three parts all Scripture passages bearing on the doctrine of the Trinity, with Clarke's critical commentary. The book argues for a quasi-Arian or Subordinationist reading: the Son and Spirit are derived from the Father, not co-eternal and co-equal in the Nicene-Athanasian sense. The work brought formal complaints to Convocation in 1714 and led Clarke to clarify his views, narrowly avoiding ecclesiastical censure but precluding any further advancement in the Church.
Author
Editions cited
- The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity (London, James Knapton, 1712; 2nd ed. 1719); Works (1738), vol. 4
School Embodiments
Sola-Scriptura method applied to the Trinitarian question.
"The Doctrine of the Trinity is to be settled from Scripture, not from the Fathers or the Councils." (Scripture-Doctrine, preface)
Quasi-Arian-Subordinationist position — early-eighteenth-century anti-Nicene tendency.
"The Father alone is self-existent; the Son and Spirit derive from Him." (Scripture-Doctrine, Part II)
Rationalism
18%
Rational-critical method applied to Trinitarian dogma.
"What Scripture does not require, reason does not impose." (Scripture-Doctrine, preface)
Latitudinarian-Anglican framework, strained by anti-Nicene tendencies.
"The Church of England's Articles must be read as Scripture allows." (Scripture-Doctrine, on the Articles)
Newtonian-Subordinationist alignment — Newton's similar private Arian views.
"The Father is the sole self-existent — the Newtonian-theological alignment." (Scripture-Doctrine, Part II)
Natural Theology
13%
Natural-theological background.
"Reason and Scripture together resolve the Trinitarian question." (Scripture-Doctrine)
Internal Tensions
The work that brought Clarke before Convocation in 1714 and precluded his further ecclesiastical advancement.
⧖
I. Time
1712 — mid-career Clarke.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Grain: Continuous
Freedom: Both
Traversability: Linear
Direction: Uni-directional
Dimensionality: One
✦
II. Space
London.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Curvature: Flat
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◉
III. Matter
Three-part theological compilation.
Attributes
Extent: Finite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Conservation: Conserved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◎
IV. Observer
Mid-Clarke, on the question that defined his career-ceiling.
Attributes
Time Instance: Single
Space Instance: Single
Knowledge Extent: Immediate
Knowledge Retainment: Total
Physicality: Embodied
Agency: Active
Number: Plural
Metaphysical Agency: Personal
⚡
V. Energy
Critical-biblicist energies.
Attributes
Extent: Finite
Ontological Status: Substantival
Conservation: Conserved
Dispersibility: Irreversible
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VI. Information
Single large volume — Scripture-passages plus commentary.
Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival
Cosmic Conservation: Conserved
Personal Conservation: Conserved
Granularity: Continuous
Personas that cite this work
Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint
Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.
Computed school proximity
The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.
How The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity resolves each dilemma
48 resolved positions across 4 dimensions · 9 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
How much weight do future people deserve?
Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much.
47%
Is regret rational?
The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing.
47%
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them?
Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing.
47%
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing.
47%
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time.
47%
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide.
47%
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
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Do you really choose?
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Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
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Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing?
Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance.
55%
Is the physical world fully real?
Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting.
55%
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing?
Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good.
55%
What is money?
Money is a real institution with intrinsic features.
54%
What is a nation?
A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character.
54%
What makes someone male or female?
Sex is a real biological kind with given content.
54%
Should we edit the human germline?
Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given.
54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards?
Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural.
68%
Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us?
The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction.
68%
Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it?
The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description.
68%
Is environmental damage ever truly permanent?
Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation.
66%
Can a civilization recover from collapse?
Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial.
66%
Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally?
Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current.
66%
When does a person begin?
A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence.
54%
What is marriage?
Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make.
54%
What is our place in nature?
Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform.
48%
Should we colonize space?
Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship.
48%
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
Genetic modification is cultivation by other means.
48%
Is reality fundamentally digital?
No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure.
44%
Are there indivisible units of experience?
No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness.
44%
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed.
44%
What happens to "you" when you die?
A soul continues into another mode of being.
37%
Can prayer for someone far away affect them?
Prayer reaches because God or a cosmic ordering acts on the prayed-for.
37%
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence?
What looks like coincidence is providence — there is no such thing as a real coincidence.
37%
Are the dead morally present to the living?
The dead are present through divine memory, communion of saints, or ancestor presence.
35%
Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom?
The human observer is in time, but God's vantage is not — and foreknowledge is not foreordering.
33%
Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless?
Meditation participates in a real eternity — divine or cosmic — that the bounded human observer ordinarily cannot reach.
33%
Does prayer change God's mind?
God sees from outside time; prayer doesn't change God's mind, but it is part of how providence is enacted.
33%
Could an AI have a mind that matters?
No — minds are not the kind of thing we engineer.
30%
Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans?
Moral standing comparable to humans requires what only humans have.
29%
Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious?
Without ensoulment, an organoid is tissue, not a person.
29%
What makes someone the same person over time?
You are a soul — what persists through change is the non-bodily aspect.
29%
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
The soul persists; the cognitive change is the body's, not the person's.
29%
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
The soul accompanies the person; engineering can't transfer it.
29%
Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally?
Distance doesn't dilute obligation; communion of saints / divine relation spans the cosmos.
29%
Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it?
Defer to credentialed traditions; experts are the modern analog.
28%
Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge?
Revelation is the paradigm case of authoritative knowledge.
28%
Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces?
An LLM has no soul to whom revelation could be addressed; the question doesn't apply.
28%
Does history have a direction or meaning?
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How is knowledge of reality produced?
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Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal?
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Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed?
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What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize?
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Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species?
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Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it.
39%
Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access.
39%
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible.
39%
Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was.
39%