But calling it Logos, reason, or divine and you've already got yourself a nontraditional trinity.
"Logos" is already a very old name for Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity. It originates in the opening of John's Gospel, and relates to the use of the word in Greek philosophy. As is well known, Jesus has many "Names," and this is a traditional one.
John says, In the beginning was the Word . . . and without Him nothing was made that was made." Traditionally, the Creator is God the Father, but from this verse and the creeds, it is widely accepted as orthodox that God the Father created the universe through, or with the agency of, the Son. Even Milton, widely supposed to be a Monist, depicts things this way in Paradise Lost.
But it was evident to the Church Fathers in their commentaries on John that the title of Logos also refers to the Word, to a built-in rationality, and to order in the universe, all possible meanings of the Greek word. This is standard Trinitarian doctrine, not an innovation.
The traditional Christian philosophical view is that because through the agency of the Logos God created and sustains the universe, therefore the universe shares the same rationality that we find in ourselves, who are also part of the creation. Our minds understand the objective universe and can hold rational dialogues with others concerning it, because both were created by the same rational God.
But the coin thingy is misleading. The reductionist doesn't recognize the other side. The resolution is not a side.
Sometimes true, certainly. Materialist scientists may say "either/or," and consider both sides before coming to a decision. Others may see only one side or the other. I don't recall the exact metaphor that is under question here, but I would put in my two cents worth and say that although a coin must land either heads or tails, these are also the two sides of a single coin.
Moreover, sometimes the exclusionary choice may be correct. It depends what question is under consideration.
Thank you for stating this better than I did, Cicero! But that is what I was trying to say about the Logos.
On the rationality of the universe, it's interesting to compare the Christian understanding with Plato's. Christians believe we humans were made in the image or likeness of God by the Father according to His Word (the Son, one of whose names is Logos, "word").
Plato thought that human beings were the image or eikon of the Cosmos itself: we are "microcosmos." And both Cosmos and microcosmos have the nature of zoon noun echon, "ensouled living beings (i.e., "animals") that think (i.e., that possess reason, or nous). Thus, where Christian philosophy holds that "Our minds understand the objective universe and can hold rational dialogues with others concerning it, because were created by the same rational God" -- Plato might say that because both man and universe have in common the nature of living, reasonable beings, we are able to understand the universe, and to enter into rational discourse with other minds concerning it.
Plato is vague on the issue of the creator. It seems clear to me that the Demiurge of Timaeus is not God himself. Plato seems to put God entirely "outside" the Cosmos -- a "God of the Beyond." [Sort of like YHWH -- "the true name of our Heavenly Creator" -- before His self-relevation to Moses in the burning bush at Sinai....]
To a Christian, that Plato could not speak of a personal creator god stands to reason; for Christ's Incarnation (by which He revealed the Father to mankind in His own Person) did not occur until some four centuries after Plato's death....
Just some stray thoughts....
Thanks so very much for writing, Cicero!
The problem, Cicero, is that logos has different meanings. Very often when we plug in the word "reason", we end up moving in a Kantian or modern direction. What is reason? You can follow an answer going in one direction with Augustine and another in Gregory of Nyssa. Even Clement of Alexandria catches himself and so does Iranaeus. Perhaps Augustine's ciceronian Platonism prevented him from seeing how Socrates made that all-important discovery about the character of his wisdom. He didn't call it socratic ignorance. He called it a kind of human wisdom. Socrates knew that his reason fell short of the divine, although you'll find commentators a thousand to one who vouch that Plato's analysis of divine reason was human reason. Kant, for example, claims to finish what Plato began.
So a distinction must be made. The first step toward working through this problem is to recognize three distinct natures: the uncreated divine, the created human, and the created order of nature. When we say "reason" we need to take as much care as when we say "evolution." For there are kinds. And it is important to distinguish the Christian (St. John's) sense of logos from the Greek views. St. John uses the word to compel Greeks into a direction that would emancipate them from paganism. One of these pagan views was the logos-fire idea attributed by Heraclitus but very popular with the Stoics. Stoicism, held that the divine wisdom is immanent in the world. What comes out of their ethics is the injunction to live according to Nature, not the Creator of nature, a subtle but profound difference. Identifying Christ the logos with a Stoic world spirit was awfully tempting for heretics and certainly innovative.