I recently finished Robert Adams' old article "The Virtue of Faith" (chapter 1 of the book The Virtue of Faith), and I found a really interesting point. Uncertainty and faith are necessary for a certain sort of special good in a relationship. I think it's worth quoting Adams on this:
Deadlines have kept me away from the discussion since my last comment on, I think, one of the very first posts. So it's good to have this deadline to make me get this post up. If Moser is playing John the Baptist here, am I doomed to play Judas? You'll sense a lot of frustration with this chapter, but I tried to keep it light-hearted as usual. If you read me as outright angry, just imagine an emoticon smiley face at the end of every other paragraph. :-) I'm not angry or mean, just frustrated. Well I'm not angry anyway. The litany of questions pleading for clarification is below the fold.
We return this week to Moser's book The Elusive God. In these three sections Moser addresses God's intervening Spirit, the acquaintance with the power of God's intervening Spirit, and the split between Jerusalem (philosophy) and Athens (theology). While there are a number of places in which I wanted to agree with Moser, I found the arguments scarce, the explanations often confusing, and some of the claims simply repetitive. Perhaps this is because this section marks more of a turn to theology rather than philosophy, but nonetheless I still expected more clarity.
1. Spirit
As we've seen to this point, Moser certainly doesn't think it is sufficient to have propositional knowledge of God. His claim is that a perfectly loving God is going to offer a distinctive kind of purposively available evidence. A kind of evidence that has been widely overlooked by philosophers and theologians. This evidence is that divine self-revelation of God's imparted Spirit to humans. With the imparting of God's Spirit, humans receive the power to be transformed towards God's moral character.
I'm far from an expert on these matters, but from the small sample of theology I've read it doesn't seem to me that the imparting of God's Spirit and it's transformative power have been much neglected. Perhaps I've just been reading all the right stuff, but I doubt it. Examples like this, and the repeated kicking at natural theology, keep me thinking that I wished Moser would just make the case for his positive argument without trashing the practice of philosophy and theology along with their practitioners.
In any case, Moser makes a number of appeals to the writings of Paul in making the case for how the imparting of God's Spirit gives us two things, (1) a new noncoercive power that is felt by the recipient and observable by others, and (2) directly self-authenticating firsthand veridical evidence of God's reality. One thing that get's confusing is that it often isn't clear on the first reading who power is supposed to be evidence for. On the one hand we can have knowledge of God's Spirit via our conscience, but we can also have knowledge via the evidence of new power. Of course both of these are also supposed to serve as evidence for others, at least if the have "eye's to see".
I've read this section about 15 times and it still isn't clear to me what the Spirit is supposed to be. I suspect that if one didn't grow-up Christian, or spend a good deal of time reading theological literature, one could easily get lost or confused about the Spirit. Here are a few candidates for what Moser means when he talks of Spirit:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/
In case you haven't seen it yet, Dale Tuggy's excellent piece on the Trinity is now up at SEP.
Event 1: The Mangoletsi Lectures 2009 (Sponsored by the Mangoletsi Trust and hosted by the Department of Philosophy)
God, Science and Philosophy
Peter van Inwagen
John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
6th May: God and Science I
13th May: God and Philosophy II
20th May: God and Philosophy II
27th May: God and Science II
The lectures will take place at 5.30pm in the Miall Lecture Theatre, Baines Wing
ALL WELCOME
If you would like to attend any of these lectures, please contact Robin Le Poidevin, Department of Philosophy (r.d.lepoidevin@leeds.ac.uk)
Event 2: Metaphysics of Theism workshop
University of Leeds
Thursday 28th May
Schedule:
11.00 Registration and coffee, Department of Philosophy foyer
11.30 Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds): 'A Four-Dimensionalist Trinity?'
Baines Wing, Room G37
12.45 Buffet lunch, Department of Philosophy foyer
1.30 David Efird (York): 'Theological Idealism about Possible Worlds'
Baines Wing, Room G37
2.45 Tea/Coffee, Department of Philosophy foyer
3.15 Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame): 'God and Other Uncreated Things'
Baines Wing, Room G37
4.30 End
Registration: A registration fee of £10 (or £5 for those with a student card), which covers lunch and refreshments, will be charged on the day (cash only, please), but please give notice that you wish to attend by writing to Robin Le Poidevin (r.d.lepoidevin@leeds.ac.uk), indicating any dietary requirements, by 14th May at the latest.
The analogy of God as the author and us as his characters has a venerable history. Here I want to object to one use of the analogy as a way of resolving the tension between providence and creaturely causation, deterministic and especially indeterministic. The puzzles the analogy is addressing are like this:
This use of the author analogy is mistaken for a simple reason. The "because" in (4) is in the scope of a fictionalizing operator. What (4) really says is:
Kelly Clark of SCP notes that this entry was not included in the APA program.
Philosophy of Religion Group: Friday evening, 7:00-10:00 (Session GIV-12).
Patristic Conceptions of the Trinity
Chair: Michael Rea, Notre Dame
Presenters:
Richard Cross, Notre Dame, Lewis Ayres, Emory, J. T. Paasch, Oxford
Looking at the program for the upcoming meeting of the Central APA I noticed the names of a number of Prosblogion contributors, commenters, and readers. I know those on the program need no further excuse to be in Chicago in February, but the rest of you might be interested in coming for some of the talks listed below the fold.
A few days ago, I posted about some derised philosophy of religion articles for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. My friend Shawn Floyd is the medieval philosophy area editor for the IEP and thought that some PB-readers might be interested in contributing to the IEP's holdings in this area. In particular, Shawn's hoping to consign articles in the following areas:
Medieval Philosophers
Albert the Great
Aquinas's Metaphysics
Roger Bacon
John Buridan
William of Champeaux
Giles of Rome
Robert Grosseteste
Henry of Ghent
Peter Lombard
Maimonides
Meister Eckhart
Peter John Olivi
Medieval Topics
Medieval Philosophy (overview)
Theories of Cognition
Medieval Logic
Theories of Practical Reason
Theories of the Trinity
But he'd probably also be open to other articles as well. If interetested, contact Shawn here.
I think Tuggy's on sold ground with regards to the GPB, and I suspect those sympathetic to the social trinity will object to #2. In any case, you should leave your comments over at Trinities.
- Greatness either supervenes only on intrinsic, essential properties, or not.
- If it does, then the property "loving another" isn't a great-making property (it isn't intrinsic).
- If the property of "loving another" isn't a great-making property, then no Anselmian social trinitarian argument is sound.
- If it does not, then properties other than intrinsic and essential ones may contribute to a thing's greatness.
- If properties other than intrinsic and essential ones may contribute to a thing's greatness, then some of these other properties are infinitely increasable.
- If some of these properties are infinitely increasable, then the concept of a Greatest Possible Being (GPB) is in fact the concept of an impossible being (in other words, there couldn't be a GPB).
- If a GPB is an impossible being, then this reasoning is always unsound:
- God is a GPB.
- For any x, if x is a GPB, then x has feature F.
- God has feature F.
- If the above reasoning is unsound, then no Anselmian social trinitarian argument is sound.
- Either way, no Anselmian social trinitarian argument is sound.
I was reminded this morning that the van Inwagen/Zimmerman joint Persons: Human and Divine is now available in print. What reminded me was Eric Olson's review of the book in the latest edition of Mind. (Link for subscribers.) Perhaps the most significant aspect of this book is that it contains a number of essays defending substance dualism which, to quote Olson, "get a more sympathetic hearing than current fashion would dictate." Most of the other essays appear interesting and thoughtful, though some tread well worn ground.
Best passage of the review:
Perhaps the most interesting essays are those devoted to the incarnation, original sin, and the trinity. Taken literally, these doctrines are baffling to the point of absurdity, and Christian philosophers will be sorely tempted to reinterpret or ignore them. There are no such evasions here. These essays offer the elevating spectacle of a first-rate mind operating in a tight spot. (Emphasis added)
Thesis: Even though Platonists and Aristotelians can have the same metaphysics of the Trinity, nonetheless it is harder for the Platonists to distinguish the doctrine of the Trinity from tritheism. But the Christian Platonists can still escape the charge of tritheism by accepting divine simplicity.
I shall assume that Aristotelianism accepts individual forms, so that the humanity of Peter and the humanity of Paul are numerically distinct. If it turns out that Aristotle did not accept individual forms, then I shall not deem Aristotle an Aristotelian.
Now I can argue for my thesis. Take the same metaphysics of the Trinity: There is one divinity and three hypostases (subjects, persons, individual substances, etc.). Each hypostasis has the numerically same divinity.
Suppose Platonism is true. Then the Trinity is analogous to three human beings, say Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, each of whom is a distinct hypostasis that has the numerically same humanity. Indeed, if the human ousia is humanity, then Socrates, Hypatia and Catherine are homoousioi, numerically one in ousia.
Suppose isntead Aristotelianism is true. Then the Trinity is no longer analogous in this way to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, because Socrates, Plato and Aristotle have numerically three humanities which are numerically distinct. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are only homoiousioi, alike in ousia.
Now insofar as the Trinity is analogous to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, thus far the doctrine of the Trinity is like tritheism. Hence, if Platonism is true, the doctrine of the Trinity is more like tritheism than if Aristotelianism is true.
In a discussion about the metaphysical status of race (of all things) on my personal blog, Econ Grad Stud said something that led to a question that I've thought about before but having really arrived at anything definitive about. Assume an atemporal view of God and an orthodox position on the Trinity and the Incarnation. Answer the following questions:
1. Did Christ become human?
2. If so, was there a time when Christ was merely divine (and thus not human)?
3. In what sense, if any is Christ atemporal?
I'm not sure what I think of this, but I'll try out a toy theory, which does have some argumentative support.
The following claims seem to be true:
(1) God not be in any way caused to act by anything outside of himself.
(2) Providence requires that God in his actions respond to events in the world.
If one adds the plausible claim:
(3) If God responds to events in the world, then these events are partial causes of his action
one concludes that God cannot have both aseity and providence. This conclusion, however, is theologically problematic: aseity seems to follow from transcendence, and providence is affirmed by all the major monotheistic religions.
Strong Sovereignty (the doctrine that God determines the truth value of every contingent proposition) and Molinism can be seen as providing ways to deny (2). One could also take them as ways to reinterpret (2) in a way that denies (3). I don't think it matters which option one takes. Anyway, the idea is that given Strong Sovereignty, God simply decides everything ahead of time in such wise that he has no need to "respond" to events, since all the events are always already part of his plan. Strong Sovereignty has a difficulty, however, with free will and with the deductive problem of evil. Molinism, on the other hand, holds that God knows prior (I always understand "prior" as "prior in the order of explanation" here) to any decision what to create how any stochastic processes (including free choices) would turn out in any possible circumstances, and using this knowledge, he can make a complete plan of creation without needing to "respond" to events. Thus, God knows that
(*) were Adam and Eve placed in the garden, they would freely sin.
Thus he does not need to "respond" to their sin with their expulsion. He can simply strongly actualize Adam and Eve in the garden, and strongly actualize their expulsion, knowing that they would sin. Molinism faces two major problems: (a) that the subjunctive conditionals like (*) arguably make no sense, and (b) the problem that Robert Adams raised that it appears to commit one to explanatory loops.
In this post I want to describe a model of creation developed in discussion with Grant Matthews and Sarah Coakley, based on some ideas of theirs, that offers a way to reconcile aseity with providence without making use of Strong Sovereignty or Molinism. I think the model has theological problems, which may be insuperable, but it should be on the table. Interestingly, the model does not even require foreknowledge (though, of course, I believe in foreknowledge).
Define Our Task Pelagianism (OTP) as the doctrine that without grace it is possible that a person does all the actions and has the mental states that are directly sufficient, given God's promises, for entering into heavenly joy. The "directly" here is meant to rule out the interposition of further actions or mental states, but is meant to be compatible with the idea that God's gracious causality is still needed to move us into heaven after we have done the required actions or mental states--God is at least needed to reward our merit.
The "directly" is kind of messy, but is needed in an account of Pelagianism. For it is compatible with the denial of Pelagianism that God has specifically promised that Jones will be saved (e.g., God might have made this promise to Jones or to Jones' mother). Then Jones' blowing his nose is sufficient, given God's promises, for entering into heavenly joy, since the content of God's promises entails that Jones will be saved whether or not he blows his nose. But Jones' blowing his nose is not directly sufficient, since other actions and/or mental states are needed, e.g., faith. On the other hand, a doctrine that says that God's judgment is based on whether we have blown our noses--all those who had go to heaven and all others go to hell--would imply OTP given that we do not need God's grace to blow our noses. (We need divine creation, sustenance and cooperation to blow our noses, but grace goes beyond creation, sustenance and cooperation.)
I assume OTP is false.
Call a bunch of actions and mental states that are jointly directly sufficient for entering into heavenly joy given God's promises "salvific". Pelagians and non-Pelagians agree that there are salvific actions and mental states. Thus, all agree that faith, hope and love in mind and action would be sufficient for salvation given God's promises. Our Task Pelagians, however, hold that there is a salvific bunch of actions and mental states that could occur absent God's grace.
The less that a doctrine requires of salvific actions and mental states, the more likely it is that it implies OTP. First, note that a doctrine which made some set of purely external physical movements compatible with the laws of nature directly sufficient for salvation would very likely imply OTP, since any set of purely external physical movements compatible with the laws of nature might well be done without grace, simply on a whim, or might even occur purely randomly due to quantum processes, and hence absent God's grace.
Many of my philosophical interests intersect at a theistic theory of the possibles (the possibles are things that could possibly be, whether they actually are or not). I’m interested generally in modality, but also in theories of abstracta, the nature of possibilia, and a traditional understanding of the nature and attributes of God. This post isn’t about these things in particular, but these interests did lead me to an article by John Doyle entitled, “Suarez on the Reality of the Possibles” (The Modern Schoolman, Nov, 1967).
Let me start by saying that I don’t know much about Suarez past what I learned in this article. So, in the sequel, any time I talk about Suarez, I really mean Doyle’s understanding of Suarez.
Suarez has some interesting things to say about the relation between God and the possibles. Often Christians say that the possibles somehow rely on God for their existence. Aquinas, for instance, says that it is necessary for every being that exists to be created by God (ST I q44, a1). Other Christians believe that if the possibles are independent of God’s creative work, they infringe on his aseity. Suarez doesn’t agree.
Suarez says that even if God did not exist, the possibles would still exist. The possibles aren’t dependent on God, then, since they can exist even if God doesn’t exist (given that the possibles don’t contingently depend on God).
However, Suarez goes even further and claims that if the possibles didn’t exist, God couldn’t exist. Doyle writes, concerning Suarez’s view of the possibles:
“Of themselves they are eternally true and apt to be known, even if there were no God. Far beyond this, their reality is such that if they were not what they are, there would be no God and, a fortiori, none of the actual creatures that depend on him.”
Suarez has the order of dependence the other direction from Aquinas. The existence of the possibles doesn’t depend on the existence of God, since they can exist without him; but, if there were no possibles, there would be no God.
Suarez has other interesting things to say about the relationships between God and the possibles. He says (here I quote Doyle) that the possibles “are ‘not positively but in a certain negative way’ equal to God.” I suppose they are equal to God in a negative way insofar as Suarez says the possibles have their existence insofar as they are non-contradictory, but I’m not sure. Suarez also says (again, quoting Doyle) “the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, proceeds from the Father’s knowledge of Himself and of creatures inasmuch as they are possible.” As Doyle rightly sees, this makes the Son “somehow subsequent” to the possibles. I’ve never seen any Christian, let alone a philosophical powerhouse like Suarez, affirm something like this. Does anyone know anything about this, or about other Christian philosophers who have held similar views?
Frequent reader and sometime commenter Dale Tuggy, SUNY Fredonia, is the latest philosopher to enter the blogosphere. His blog, Trinities, promises to be very narrow in focus and very interesting for those interested in a philosophical examination of the doctrine of the Trinity. The subject of the site is the doctrine(s) of the Trinity, and he adds only the Trinity. I suspect that it will in be about the Trinity except when it's not. In those other cases I suspect it'll be about unities, binities, triads, and possibly even quadrads. Perhaps in time we'll be able to drag him onto the Prosblogion team, but in the mean time give him a visit and welcome him to the blogosphere.
The most recent volume of the journal Child Development has a fascinating article on "Trust in Testimony: How Children Learn About Science and Religion" by Paul Harris and Melissa Koenig. Though the two are psychologist, there is plenty of philosophy put to good use in the article. Harris and Koenig review a number of studies relating to children's understanding of unobservable scientific and religious entities. (Sorry Dennett, more evidence that there is no taboo against the scientific study of religion.) Children appear to conceptualize the two subjects in similar fashion while bracketing the two into separate domains. Unsurprisingly, children place more confidence in the information they receive regarding unobservable scientific entities than about things in the religious domains. However, "it would be a mistake to conclude that children’s trust in testimony simply offers them a way to amplify or extend their own powers of observation. Although in some domains it does just that, it also leads them to be credulous toward spiritual claims that are not ultimately grounded in observational evidence."
Roger Lundin, Blanchard Professor of English at Wheaton College, has an interesting essay in Books & Culture on pragmatism, postmodernity, and the theology of experience. I wish I had time for more thoughtful comment, but I particularly enjoyed the traced connections between Emerson and William James, their work, and the enduring influence of their work.
Beliefnet editor Laura Sheahen has an interview with The End of Faith author Sam Harris on why religion must end.
Anthony Matteo, professor of philosophy at Elizabethtown College, has a lengthy article in Science & Spirit one why naturalism might not be able to solve the problem of consciousness T
om Hundley of the Chicago Tribune reports on the decline of religious belief in Europe, particularly Eastern Europe. Some of this is the aftermath of communism, but it's important because while Europeans and Americans share some common heritage we are diverging on matters of faith and religion.
Nextbook has an interview with Rebecca Goldstein, professor of philosophy at Trinity College, on Baruch Spinoza and her recent book Betraying Spinoza.
This weekend I chaired a session at the Eastern Regional Meeting of the Society of Chistian Philosophers in which Dale Tuggy put Reid and Hume on the psychologists couch. It was an interesting exercise in moral psychology. It also reminded me to post on the Trinity, since Dale is a detractor of social Trinitarianism (ST) of which I am an adherent. Dale has a 2003 Philosophia Christi piece criticizing my main man Ed Wierenga's ST paper which appeared in Faith and Philosophy in 2004 (the publication order is explained by the fact that Dale commented on Ed's paper at a conference before either were published).
I was not able to join the discussion here which Bill started but I think the discussion only briefly touched on the real issue.
To my mind, Tom made just the right move in that discussion: God is not a person, though he is personal. I think Bill's response is too quick: "If the personality is divided among the Persons, then the one God is subpersonal." I question whether "divided among" is the right way to think about it and I question whether even on that interp God comes out as subpersonal. It has always driven me crazy when Plantinga says that God is a person. He very frequently defines theism as the belief that "there is such a person as God." I've always cringed at this and I think in every text I have where he says that I've scrawled in he margins "No! God is personal!"
Social Trinitarians are *not* saying that the personality of the Godhead is divided among the divine persons in the same way that the personality of my Logic class is divided among my students and I. The relationship between the divine persons and each other and with the Godhead is much more intimate than that. Can I spell it out precisely? No I cannot (I might be more worried if I could!). But I don't think that's an objection in this context. ST-theorists, like all Trinitarians, will always have more work to do.
I do wish to note that papers arguing against ST tend to neglect of some of the details of Swinburne's 2nd section--"The Traditional Doctrine"--of his Chapter on the Trinity in The Christian God , especially 180-1, 186, 189. What he says there clearly distinguishes the society of persons in the Godhead from ordinary societies. Is the mystery going to disappear? Of course not (and we should be worried if it did!). Still, Swinburne states, in clear terms using standard terminology from analytic philosophy, a property which distinguishes them and which naturally expresses, though in a mind-boggling way, the interconnectedness of the persons of the Trinity. Anti-social Trinitarians will want more, no doubt, but I think it is enough.
Now to the polytheism bit.
