Abstract

This article proposes that a single structural insight—the triadic ontology of the human person consisting of the Somatic (S), Intellectual (I), and Volitional (V) axes—provides a unifying framework for interpreting the major contributions of Western philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, and economics. It shows how disparate thinkers and traditions—Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Aquinas, Roman Catholicism, the common-law tradition, Austrian praxeology, and modern anarchistic theories of governance—were each attempting to understand fragments of a unified ontological structure. Triadic ontology clarifies their achievements, resolves their contradictions, and illuminates the metaphysical architecture beneath the Gospels, original sin, and the Eden narrative.

1. Introduction: The Re-Emergence of a Lost Structure

Across history, the Western intellectual tradition has produced extraordinary insights, yet these insights often seem disjointed, contradictory, or mutually incomprehensible. Philosophy oscillates between rationalism and empiricism, theology between grace and law, jurisprudence between liberty and authority, economics between subjectivism and determinism.

Triadic ontology resolves these tensions by restoring the missing dimension of human action: volition (V)—the spiritual axis across which alignment with the Good occurs. When combined with embodiment (S) and intellect (I), the triadic model reveals that each tradition in the Western canon was working within one or two axes while lacking the full threefold architecture.

This article shows how the triadic model brings coherence to the entire lineage of Western thought.

2. Kierkegaard: The Discovery of the Volitional Axis

Kierkegaard’s contribution is unmistakably volitional.
He identifies:

• the self as a synthesis requiring willing alignment,
• despair as misrelation of the will,
• faith as a leap of volitional trust,
• and the highest human act as “choosing oneself before God.”

Kierkegaard is the first major philosopher to name V explicitly, though he lacks a full ontology of S and I. Triadic ontology:

• situates Kierkegaard in V,
• explains the existential urgency of decision,
• and clarifies why he saw objective reasoning (I) as insufficient for faith.

3. Nietzsche: The Collapse and Distortion of Volition

Nietzsche also perceives V—but detached from the Good.
His Will to Power is a volitional reality stripped of moral orientation.

He correctly sees:

• the insufficiency of S-driven hedonism,
• the illusions of I-driven rationalism,
• the spiritual dimension of willing.

But without a transcendent Good (G):

• volition becomes self-assertion,
• morality becomes self-creation,
• truth becomes perspectival,
• and suffering becomes aestheticized rather than sanctifying.

Triadic ontology recognizes Nietzsche as a misdirected genius of volition:
He sees the axis but not its telos.

4. Aquinas and Roman Catholicism: Reason Without Volitional Independence

Aquinas elaborates I with systematic rigor and synthesizes S through Aristotelian embodiment, but he subordinates V to I by defining the will as the “rational appetite.”
This leaves Catholic thought with:

• a powerful intellectual theology,
• a morally serious anthropology,
• a robust sacramental system,
• but no independent ontology of the will.

Catholic moral theology thus becomes:

• intellectually rigorous,
• institutionally durable,
• juridically structured,
• but often blind to the existential immediacy of V emphasized by Christ and the apostles.

Triadic ontology restores the axis Aquinas lacked, explaining:

• the Catholic focus on law and sacrament (S + I),
• the clerical authority structure,
• and the persistent Protestant critique that Rome “neglects the heart” (V).

5. Common Law: The Juridical Recognition of Volition

Common law, unlike most philosophical systems, explicitly recognizes V as the essential feature of moral action:

• mens rea (guilty mind),
• contract assent,
• consent,
• intention,
• negligence (failure of volitional duty),
• capacity to be bound.

Law cannot function without V.
It is the only major Western system that preserved volitional ontology intact—because without V, justice is impossible.

Triadic ontology clarifies why:

• common law is inherently moral,
• legal responsibility cannot be grounded in S or I alone,
• contract theory is a spiritual structure,
• Western liberty depends on recognition of volitional reality.

6. Austrian Praxeology: Volition in Economic Form

Mises and the Austrian school discovered the formal structure of V without naming it spiritually:

• Action requires purpose.
• Choice reflects subjective value.
• Preference ordering is volitional, not deterministic.
• Economic calculation arises from the activity of choosing beings.

Praxeology is the formal science of V applied to markets.

Triadic ontology shows:

• why Austrian economics is uniquely compatible with Christian anthropology,
• why economics collapses under determinism,
• why centralized planning fails (it negates V),
• why entrepreneurship is inherently volitional creativity.

7. Triadic Human Rights: A New Regime of Liberty

Human rights become coherent only when mapped across S, I, and V.

S-rights (Embodiment / Life / Integrity)

• bodily autonomy
• protection from violence
• health and property

I-rights (Thought / Speech / Conscience)

• freedom of expression
• access to truth
• intellectual honesty
• freedom from coercive narrative manipulation

V-rights (Agency / Consent / Covenant)

• freedom to choose
• freedom to refuse
• freedom of covenantal obligations
• moral accountability
• non-coercion as a fundamental moral law

This triadic rights regime:

• unifies civil liberties,
• moral philosophy,
• contract law,
• and spiritual anthropology
  into a single coherent system.

8. Triadic Anarchism: Order Without the State

A triadic anarchic society recognizes:

• S-goods: safety, property, reputation, restitution
• I-goods: truth, transparency, communication
• V-goods: consent, covenant, voluntary association

It understands that:

• Authority emerges from covenant, not coercion.
• Law emerges from contract, not decree.
• Enforcement emerges from mutual defense, not monopoly.
• Order emerges from orienting V toward the Good.

This resolves the contradictions in classical anarcho-capitalism:

• the problem of agency,
• the collapse into cartelization,
• the moral neutrality of markets,
• and the lack of spiritual ontology.

Triadic anarchism is not libertarian escapism.
It is political metaphysics grounded in the structure of human nature.

9. The Ontology of the Gospels

The triadic model exposes the structure beneath Christ’s teachings:

S (Body / World / Persecution)

• “Do not fear those who kill the body…”
• “Take up your cross…”
• Miracles restoring S to proper function.

I (Mind / Narrative / Deception)

• “You have heard it said… but I say to you…”
• “Why do you reason thus in your hearts?”
• Parables destabilizing false mental frames.

V (Will / Allegiance / Obedience)

• “Not My will but Thine.”
• “If any man wills to do His will…”
• “The kingdom is at hand.”
• “Let your yes be yes.”

The Gospels are volitional ontology embedded in narrative.

Christ reveals that spiritual reality is not elsewhere—it is the domain of volitional alignment with the Good here and now.

10. Original Sin and the Eden Narrative

The triadic reading clarifies the Eden story:

The Fall Was Not an Intellectual Mistake (I).

They did not merely “misunderstand.”

Nor Was It Bodily Appetite Alone (S).

The fruit was “pleasing,” but appetite is not sin.

The Fall Was Volitional (V):

• mistrust of God’s goodness
• assertion of intellectual autonomy against truth
• preference for self-interpretation over divine reality
• choosing an alternative narrative to the Good

Thus original sin = the will turning away from Truth.

Consequences:

• S becomes disordered (death, pain).
• I becomes darkened (self-deception).
• V becomes weakened but not erased.

Triadic ontology explains the human condition better than any dyadic philosophy.

11. Conclusion: The Triadic Restoration of Coherence

Triadic ontology:

• restores the missing axis of volition,
• reveals the unity behind Western intellectual history,
• clarifies the theological structure of the Gospels,
• explains the moral nature of law and economics,
• resolves ancient philosophical contradictions,
• exposes original sin as volitional misalignment,
• and provides the framework for a coherent political, economic, and spiritual order.

This is not a theory among theories.
It is the underlying architecture that philosophy, theology, and jurisprudence have been grasping in fragments for millennia.

By restoring the triadic model to the center of human self-understanding,
we recover what was always present in Scripture, always assumed in law, and always intuited by the greatest thinkers:

Man is a being who chooses,
and through choosing enters the spiritual realm,
where the kingdom of God is always at hand.