First Trinity: Truth, Beauty, Goodness
History
1. Plato (4th century BCE) – the philosophical roots
In The Republic:
- The Good (highest principle)
- Truth as participation in the Forms
- Beauty as an objective, eternal reality
2. Aristotle (4th century BCE) – metaphysical refinement
Aristotle spoke of:
- Truth as conformity of intellect to being
- Good as the final cause of all things, The Unmoved Mover, pure actuality and ultimate cause
3. Plotinus & Neoplatonism (3rd century CE)
- The One is the source of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
- Beauty is a sign of participation in the divine
All being flows from and returns to the One
4. St. Augustine (4th–5th century CE) – Christian identification
- God is Truth (not merely truthful)
- God is the Supreme Good
- God is Beauty itself (“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new”)
The Platonic ideas become explicitly theological.
5. St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century) – systematic formulation
The transcendentals:
- Being (ens)
- One (unum)
- True (verum)
- Good (bonum)
- Beauty (pulchrum)