Pure Actuality

Many scholastic theologians, most notably Aquinas, make the claim that God is "pure actuality." This is supposed to do a lot of philosophical and theological "work"; it is by showing that there exists a being which is pure actuality that Aquinas is able to deduce many of the divine attributes. However, it is not immediately clear what this even means if one is not familiar with the metaphysical context of medieval philosophy.

A charitable interpreter who has read some medieval philosophy may be able to see how scholastics use this claim and identify certain inferences from this claim as being valid and others not. But it'd be nice if we had a more precise characterization of what it means to say God is 'pure actuality', so that we can see if all that Aquinas says follows actually does follow from this claim. Moreover, once we have a precise characterization of what Aquinas is even asserting, we can begin to more clearly assess the plausibility of the claim itself and whether Aquinas has established it. I propose the following definition:

• x is pure actuality if and only if for all (intrinsic) P, if x is P then x is actually P.

For completeness and wider scope of application, I also propose the following definitions of a thing's being 'composed of' or 'having' actuality and potentiality:

• x is composed of potentiality if and only if for some (intrinsic) P, x is P and x is potentially P
• x is composed of actuality if and only if for some (intrinsic) P, x is P and x is actually P.

Reply to William Lane Craig on Divine Simplicity

Dr. William Lane Craig has made a response to my previous post where I argued that his own view of divine sovereignty entails the truth of divine simplicity. Now, Craig is actually correct about one thing: My argument does not by itself entail that God is identical to all his parts. This only follows from the conclusion of my argument if you grant that God really has a will, intellect, etc. Craig does not grant this, since he doesn't think talk about things having parts is metaphysically substantive.

There are a lot of things to say about Craig's response here. Maybe the first is to simply note that he is denying that anything really, in the metaphysically deepest sense, has any parts. This is surely an unacceptable conclusion. Personally I would think it's better to simply deny God has any parts rather than to deny anything has parts. Absent this option, if I didn't believe in divine simplicity I would even modify my account of divine sovereignty just to save parthood. For otherwise I honestly don't know how Craig explains kidneys, brains, legs and their relations to the people who have them. This is just a datum of experience, that there are at least some parts.

Craig tries to use an argument by Peter van Inwagen to back up his thesis. However, the problem is that Van Inwagen's argument only demonstrates the falsity of the doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts, which is the idea that any region of a body can be taken to be a proper part. His argument can only go through if we are dealing with 'parts' like Dottie* which are constituted by enough matter in such a form that a person can survive by becoming identical to them. It's not obvious though that I could ever become identical to, say, my heart. So his argument would not go through with those sorts of proper parts.

Now, I'm inclined to reject the doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts anyway so I'm happy to accept the soundness of the argument. But it just doesn't demonstrate that there are no proper parts. And if it did entail that, then--like Peter Geach did with Tibbles the Cat--I would just take the argument to establish the relativity of identity rather than the complete lack of proper parthood. More importantly, it's not even obviously sound. We might just deny the premise that Dottie becomes identical to Dottie*, since Dottie seems to be an animal (or a soul) and Dottie* seems to be a 'lump'. In virtue of their falling under different sortals these two objects have different identity conditions associated with them, and thus by Leibniz's law they are non-identical. They are merely constituted by the same matter.

There's also something to be said about Craig's underlying Carnapian sympathies. There is intense debate about taking this sort of view about language and metaphysical methodology (cf. the Chalmers volume on metametaphysics), and suffice it to say for now that I'm not too sympathetic. I will criticize this neo-Carnapian line of thought later, but this post should be enough to see why Craig's response is inadequate.

William Lane Craig Responds

...to my post on divine simplicity, here.

Minimal Divine Simplicity and the Trinity

Just a note: I will probably be laying kind of low for a while, since I am now moved in at my new school and taking summer courses. I will be kind of busy for the next two months, so please do not be offended if I don't reply to comments quickly on this blog. I will get back to you eventually. Anyway, enjoy the post!

For Catholics, belief in the doctrine of God's simplicity is dogmatically defined to be held by all the faithful just as much as the doctrine of the Trinity (see the Fourth Lateran Council as well as Vatican I). Does the official dogma of divine simplicity contradict the revealed truth about the Holy Trinity? Not necessarily, at least on a certain construal of divine simplicity. Call this the "minimal doctrine of divine simplicity":

(MDS) God has no proper parts, either metaphysical or physical.

This means that God possesses of course no physical parts, but also no properties, ontological constituents, tropes, accidents, immanent universals, distinct intellectual parts (e.g. distinct will and intellect), etc.

Is this what the Church intends to define when it says God is simple? Arguably so. The definition of simplicity must be strong enough to rule out theistic personalist views of God, for this is not found in the teaching of the Fathers and is arguably inconsistent with the other divine attributes which are mentioned in connection with simplicity in these Councils (e.g. God's being immutable, incomprehensible, infinite in will). Hence, it must mean more than that God is simply non-physical; God isn't just simple in the sense that an angel is. On the other hand it must be weaker than simply identifying God's essence with his existence. For if the Church meant to endorse dogmatically the Thomistic teaching on simplicity, this would make anyone who did not hold to this view in substance to be heretical; hence, the teachings of the Cappadocian Fathers as well as St. Maximus the Confessor, and likely even Bl. Duns Scotus, would be heresy. This is why MDS seems to be a likely candidate for the minimal required belief in divine simplicity for orthodoxy.

But given MDS, this is a truth about the Trinity:

(TR) It is not the case that the persons of the Trinity are proper parts, either metaphysical or physical.

For the persons of the Trinity all share fully in the divine essence; the Father is fully God, just as the Son is fully God, just as the Holy Spirit is fully God. To suppose the persons are proper parts of God would mean there is something G which is fully God, and that each person of the Trinity does not fully share in the essence of G (since, after all, G essentially has as proper parts each of the persons of the Trinity, whereas the same does not hold for each of the individual persons). Hence, the persons of the Trinity cannot be understood to be proper parts of God in any sense; hence, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity cannot contradict the minimal doctrine of divine simplicity.

This seems to show that the Church's teaching here is consistent; it is a separate matter whether Aquinas's teaching which includes the doctrine that God's essence = his existence, as well as that God is pure actuality, can be made consistent with the Trinity.

William Lane Craig on God and Analogy

William Lane Craig, as with most contemporary analytic philosophers of religion, objects to the classical Thomistic idea that God cannot be said to be a being in the sense that we can. I aim to argue that at least some of his claims here are unreasonable.

Craig objects: "One of the aspects of Thomas Aquinas’ thought that I find most disturbing is his claim that we can speak of God only in analogical terms. Without univocity of meaning, we are left with agnosticism about the nature of God, able to say only what God is not, not what He is."

This does not follow in the slightest; in fact, I wonder if Craig actually understands what analogy is, since it is one of the main points of Aquinas's theory of analogy to avoid this problem. Aquinas sought to show, in contrast to Maimonides, that though we can't predicate attributes of God in the same sense as us we can still speak meaningfully and make positive predications about him. Craig fails utterly to show how from the semantic analogy of the term 'being' we are left only with negative theology.

Next, Craig says: "When in discussions with atheists I affirm, 'God exists' and they reply, 'God does not exist,' we may need to be sure that we mean the same thing by 'God,' but there is no equivocation on the meaning of 'exists.'"

I guess what Craig is trying to say here is something like this: If the word 'exists' is analogical, then when I affirm God exists and when atheists affirm God does not exist, we are both equivocating past each other. But this is a genuine ontological dispute and so there is no equivocation; hence, 'exists' is not analogical. The problem is that the main premise is simply not true; if analogy is true, then we affirm that God exists in one sense, and the atheist simply denies that God exists in any sense, including the one I am predicating of God.

In the next paragraph, Craig says this: "The problem you pose brings us to the heart of my current work on divine aseity. What makes God more than just one being among many is precisely His aseity: God alone is self-existent; everything else exists contingently. Only God exists of Himself (a se); everything else exists through another (ab alio). That makes God the source of being for everything apart from Himself."

Now, I really like this, and I agree with this completely. The only problem is that Craig himself doesn't; for if what Craig says is literally true then divine simplicity is true, from which it is a small step to the doctrine that talk about God is analogous. Here's why:

(1) Whatever is non-identical to God is created by God. [conceded by Craig]
(2) If God has metaphysical proper parts ('parts' hereafter), then at least one of these parts is not created by God. [prem]
(3) Either God has parts or he doesn't. [LEM]
(4) Suppose he does have parts. [assp]
Then
(5) All of God's parts are created by God. [by 1]
But
(6) One of God's parts is not created by God [by 2,4]
This is a contradiction. Hence, we must reject our assumption. Hence:
(7) God has no parts.

So by 'metaphysical proper parts' here I mean things like ontological constituents, such as a property-instance (or trope or accident or whatever). (1) is just Craig's own thoughts on the matter, and (2) is true because clearly God doesn't create his essential properties; he depends on those for his existence, since if they didn't exist then neither would he. The rest follows by the meanings of the terms and the rules of logic.

Craig says that he considers God to be a substance, presumably in the same manner we are: "Not a physical substance, of course, but a spiritual substance like a mind."

However, the case is even more clear if Craig thinks God's mind and will are distinct; for if he does, granting Craig's doctrine of aseity, then from (1) it follows God's will must be created by God. But it is absurd to suppose God creates his own will; after all, he must have a will to do that! So, either Craig's doctrine of aseity is false (which I agree with Craig it isn't) or God is not distinct from his will (which I think is right, but is really only intelligible given divine simplicity).

Craig thinks getting rid of Platonism will solve the problems concerning God's aseity; but it doesn't, since even if there are no abstract properties in us there are clearly ontological constituents (my brownness, my height, my shape, etc.). Even taking 'parts' in this sense, I think the above argument shows that if he wants to hold on to the strong doctrine of aseity set out in the quote above he needs to get rid of the idea that God has any parts at all. And if God has no parts in the metaphysical sense then it can be shown speech about God is analogical; for in our case, to say I am good is to say the quality of goodness inheres in me as an accident (or is exemplified as a property, or inheres as a trope or whatever). But since God has no parts in any of these senses, to say God is good cannot be to say this about him. And the same with any of the divine attributes. Thus our terms must be said analogically of God.

[Edit: Craig's reply here. My reply here.]

Classical Theism vs. Neo-Theism I: Divine Simplicity

In contemporary debates about the existence of God it is common to hear reference to 'the traditional divine attributes.' These include properties like omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, immateriality, eternality, and personality. It is supposed that if God exists he 'exemplifies all of these great-making properties'. This is the 'orthodox' conception of God in contemporary philosophy of religion and philosophical theology as heard from Craig, Plantinga, Swinburne, and most others.

Unfortunately, right from the get-go, there is a perfectly good sense in which this conception of God is unorthodox. According to the Fourth Lateran and First Vatican Councils of the Catholic Church, the doctrine that God is a perfectly simple being--one without any composition--is defined as infallible, binding dogma, denial of which amounts to heresy. Hence, the doctrine has some degree of pedigree in that it has been held by billions of Christians to be a very important doctrine. But even aside from this I would argue that the contemporary view--what I will call 'neo-theism'--is directly contrary to the truly 'classical theistic' view of God's nature. Classical theism has been the majority opinion for thousands of years. It is the view of the great pagan philosophers like Aristotle and Plotinus, the Christian Saints Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Bl. Duns Scotus, as well as other monotheistic thinkers like Maimonides, Averroes, and Avicenna. Such classical theists would deny that God is 'personal' or 'perfectly good' or 'eternal' in the sense that neo-theists take God to be. Distinctively classical theistic doctrines which are unpopular among the neo-theists of today include divine immutability, timelessness, and simplicity. I will focus on this last doctrine as an example of a fundamental difference between the two views, and argue that the classical theist view maintains God's perfection in a way which the neo-theist view does not.

The way that God's attributes are defined in contemporary philosophy of religion as above implicitly contradicts divine simplicity from the start. According to the contemporary view, when we predicate perfect moral goodness of God as in the sentence 'God is good', the referent of the term 'God's goodness' is the property of goodness. Likewise, if we say 'God is omniscient', the referent of the term 'God's omniscience' is the property of omniscience, and similarly for omnipotence, immateriality, and so on. However divine simplicity says that the referents of all intrinsic predications about God are identical, for to say otherwise would be to introduce metaphysical complexity into God. Hence, it is common to hear classical theists saying that God's goodness IS his omniscience, which IS his omnipotence, and so on. But it would seem to follow that omnipotence and goodness are the same property, which is clearly false; indeed, it would follow that God is himself a property!

Obviously the classical theist doesn't want to commit himself to such seemingly absurd claims, and it would be stupid to suppose 2,000 years of great thinkers were simply willing to accept a manifest falsehood. The more reasonable inference is that contemporary and classical thinkers are working with very different metaphysical presuppositions, and this is correct.

One neo-theist assumption is the Platonist, relational ontology within which Plantinga phrases the objection presented above. For Plantinga and other contemporary detractors reality consists of concrete individuals, platonic properties, and relations of exemplification. The platonic properties are abstract objects, which means they lack efficient causal power, while the causally efficacious concrete individuals exemplify these properties. Clearly God is an individual, since as creator of the universe he possesses causal power, in which case it follows he could not be an abstract object; hence he could not be identical to any of his properties, and thus divine simplicity is false. But certainly none of the classical presenters of simplicity accepted this ontological framework. Rather, following Aristotle, they would take a thing's features to be ontological constituents of a subject. This is the picture found in Aristotle's Categories for instance, where accidents such as color or size are said to be 'present in' a subject. Among contemporary philosophers D.M. Armstrong's theory of universals seems to be an example of a constituent ontology as well. Within such a framework it's not obviously incoherent to suppose that God is identical with his constituents so long as we can admit the idea of an improper constituent (analogous to an improper part or improper subset), since it doesn't follow from the very meaning of the term 'ontological constituent' that the constituent in question is a property; 'ontological constituent' is a category-neutral term, and doesn't necessarily imply Plantinga's relational ontology.

More generally though we can make sense of divine simplicity in terms of truthmakers. The neo-theist assumes that the referents of abstract singular terms like 'Alfredo's audacity', or in our case 'God's goodness', are platonic properties. This is what makes it impossible for God's to be identical with his goodness, for this to be identical to his omniscience, and so on. However, those who embrace divine simplicity can deny this account of predication. Rather, a classical theist will accept a truthmaker account, which says that if an intrinsic predication of the form 'a is F' is true, then a’s F-ness exists, where this entity is to be understood as the truthmaker for 'a is F.' So divine simplicity says God is identical with the truthmakers for each of his intrinsic predications. This makes sense because a truthmaker is an entity in the world in virtue of which a proposition is true. Clearly by this understanding truthmakers need not be properties (they can sometimes be). They can also be substances, as is the case with God--to deny this would at least have to be argued for and such a denial is on the face of it implausible. Hence, it is perfectly coherent to say God is his omniscience, which is his omnipotence, and so on. All this is saying is that God is identical to that in virtue of which he is omnipotent, that he is identical to that in virtue of which he is omniscient, and so on; and moreover, by the transitivity of identity, these things are each identical to each other. This picture shows that divine simplicity is not obviously contradictory and deserves much more than the charges of 'unintelligibility' and 'incoherence' ignorantly thrown at it today.

With these charges of absurdity put to one side we can see that divine simplicity is at least prima facie coherent. Certainly we will need to be given better arguments than Plantinga's cavalier dismissal of 2000 years of philosophy based on the presupposition of his own anachronistic ontology. But to argue something is logically coherent isn't to argue that it's true. In another post I will provide an argument to the effect that only a  simple God can truly be said to exist of himself and thus be perfect.

False Senses of God's Goodness

Introduction:
What does God's omnibenevolence consist in? I think that we need to do a little more work on fully explaining what we mean by this. In fact I'm somewhat distraught, because it seems that if we affirm God's all-goodness we should already know what we're talking about. I think that some of the notions which are typically bound up with omnibenevolence really don't make sense.

In a post a while back I presented the Prussian Free Will Defense. I think the argument is sound. The conclusion that we end up drawing from it is the following. It will be important in determining what omnibenevolence can be and what it cannot be:

(C1) It is not the case that there is some moral principle in the nature of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being which prevents him from creating a creature who does something immoral.

"Actualizing all possible goods":
I think it's relatively easy to understand omnipotence and omniscience. Omnipotence is just the ability to do all that is possible. Omniscience is just the knowing of all things. So does omnibenevolence consist in the actualizing of all good things?

I'm convinced that this notion is incoherent. (C1) shows that God's omnibenevolence is compatible with God's not actualizing worlds which he could have actualized in which all moral agents always freely choose to do the right thing. And that is certainly incompatible with God's omnibenevolence meaning that he actualizes all possible goods.

The idea that omnibenevolence means "actualizing every possible good" is probably in contradiction with the idea of omnipotence anyhow. One could think of two goods which are mutually exclusive but are both within the range of God's power. For example, my marrying Lucy and my marrying Edith are both goods which are mutually exclusive and possible for God to actualize. However, God can only bring about one of these. Hence, if God is omnipotent, he can't be omnibenevolent if that means that he actualizes every possible good; there are some goods which God could actualize but doesn't.

"Preventing all unnecessary evil":
It seems that the existence of an all-good being must preclude the existence of unnecessary evil. Responses to the problem of evil like Plantinga's Free Will Defense say that some evils which take place are justified by greater goods. But the atheist objects that there are some evils which are probably not justified by greater goods, and in general, the theist agrees that if this were true then an omnibenevolent God would not exist. The typical attempt to solve the problem is to claim that no evils are unnecessary.

But what if the theist were to take a different route and say that even if there were evils which could have been prevented that this doesn't rule out the existence of an all-good God? In fact, I think (C1) shows that this is true. For take again the possible world W1 in which all agents always freely choose to do what is good. (C1) shows that there is no moral principle in the nature of an omnibenevolent being which prevents him from actualizing a world W2 where an evil is committed even though he could have actualized W1 instead. But in that case, some of the evils which take place are unnecessary; they could have been prevented by God's actualizing W1.

A Problem:
So we see that, based on (C1), omnibenevolence cannot imply the actualizing of all possible goods. Neither does it imply the preventing of all unnecessary evils. Yet this seems to sap omnibenevolence of any real content. How could we call something "all-good" which allows needless suffering and withholds a great many good things from us?

To me this is a big problem. I want to find some possible ways in which we can understand omnibenevolence in light of these objections. Any thoughts?