Aristotelianism and the Christian Worldview

Originally posted here.

Introduction:
Throughout the centuries the Christian tradition has had a love-hate relationship with Aristotle. His logic and metaphysical categories provided strong tools for developing and formalizing such classic doctrines as the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity. On the other hand, he famously held that the universe was eternal and that there was no first man such as Adam, putting him at odds with Christian belief. Yet in the midst of this conflict, there is much to be gathered and adopted by the Christian. Here I’d like to examine a few of Aristotle’s ideas about the essences of things and see how they relate to the Christian view of man.

Essences:
The first thing to note is that humans, along with every other kind of thing, have “essences” or “natures”. An essence is simply that in virtue of which a thing is what it is. It’s what makes the definition of a thing true. It’s also the grounding of a thing’s essential properties, i.e. those properties which are intrinsic to that type of thing. Without essences we could not form inductive laws, we could not differentiate between kinds of things, and we couldn’t even properly define our concepts.

Essences entail that things have natural ends or functions (what Aristotle calls the “telos”). It would be incorrect to understand “function” in terms of the functions of human artifacts such as wheels or fishing rods. Rather, things have functions in the sense that they function in a certain natural way. So we can see clearly that by their very essences things like dogs or snakes have natural functions, including sensory perception, reproduction, self-change, and sustenance. This is what makes it good for them to pursue certain goals, like eating food or reproducing. To generalize, it is good for them to fulfill their functions.

This may seem irrelevant, but it has truly significant consequences for us as well. It gives medicine a normative structure, making sense of the strong and reasonable intuition that things such as broken bones or tumors are defects, while other things such as firmness of muscle or thorough digestion are indicators of health. It means that we all have certain functions which it is objectively good for us to fulfill. This can provide a foundation for objective morality and a guide to living our lives. Thus understood, essences are both indispensable and significant.

The Christian Picture:
So what is essential to humanity? Well, recall that essences are what differentiate things from entities of other kinds. In attempting to discover our essence then, it would be useful to see how we differ from other things. We share some characteristics with non-living things because we too are made of matter and have mass. But we are different from them precisely in virtue of the fact that we are alive. We are different from some living things like plants due to our sensory capabilities which we have in common with other animals. Yet we humans can be distinguished even from these creatures by our rationality. Unlike other animals, we can abstract from concrete particulars to general universal truths. Thus, humans are by their very essence rational animals.

How well does this fit into the Christian view of things? Consider the idea that God is a being with infinite knowledge, and thus an intellect. In Romans 11:33 for instance, Paul the Apostle praises God’s omniscience: ” O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!” Aristotle’s view confirms precisely what the believer says, that is, that humans are by their very essence endowed with an intellect and will like God’s. As Genesis 1:27 says: “God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” Every human, male and female, is essentially made in God’s image.

We can also conclude from Aristotle’s view that, because humans have an essence with natural ends, there are some things that are objectively good for all of us, and that these objective moral truths are available to anyone who uses his or her reason and conscience. This confirms what we find in Romans 2:14-15: “For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them.”

Much more could be said about all of these ideas. Yet it becomes clear how strongly these Aristotelian theses can be used to support what the Christian affirms. Hence, there is much fruit to be found by the Christian in the Aristotelian tradition, making the ancients very worthy of our attention.

Real Definition

In attempting to define things we can end up with a large amount of vagueness. For example, take the case of a kitty. When someone asks "what is a 'kitty'?" it is clearly insufficient to simply list properties which hold truly of it. For instance, in reply one might say that it is something small, furry, and cute. This would all be true. But that doesn't really help us to get at what a kitty is, does it? What we need here is not a mere nominal definition. We need a real definition.

The most precise and clear way of getting to a real definition is by what is called "genus-species classification". One must not confuse this with something like "biological species" which are these days based off of evolutionary lineage. In terms of giving real definitions of things, it usually has very little to do with that. The easiest way to understand this is with set theory and venn diagrams. In terms of set theory, a genus is just a type of superset and a species is a type of subset. A superset counts as a genus when all of the members of its subsets share certain particular attributes in common. A subset counts as a species when its members all have some special attribute which demarcates them from the members of the other subsets. This difference is called the "specific difference". So with the case of the kitty, the genus is "cat", since kitties have all of the attributes necessary to be included in the genus (superset) of cats. However, a kitty is different from other cats insofar as it is young. So the specific difference is the attribute of its youth. This creates a separate species from other cats, such as adult ones who have the specific difference of mature age. Maybe the venn diagram above is illuminating.

So to get a real definition of kitty we take the species and genus, giving us "young cat". Hypothetically, one could do this with any given natural kind of thing.

Problem of Evil, Free Will, and God's Obligations

The following argument is taken from a paper by Alexander Pruss. What I'm concerned about is the questions that it raises about God's nature; but before that I should explain the main point of the argument. Essentially, it is a variation of what is commonly known as the free will defense. I will call it the Prussian Free Will Defense. (That sounds like a chess strategy, doesn't it?) What the paper aims to show is that God's omnibenevolence and ability to make creatures with significant freedom does not preclude his creating creatures who freely choose to do evil. It essentially runs like this.

First off, the whole reason we are trying to make a free will defense is because we assume there is some moral principle of an omnibenevolent God which is incompatible with the actual existence of evil in the world. This is hopefully an accurate statement of how the atheist understands the situation to be. Let's call it the No Evil People (NEP) principle:

(NEP) There is some moral principle in the nature of an omnibenevolent, and omnipotent God which prohibits him from creating a creature who does something immoral.

We assume that significant freedom is a great good. That's how free will defenses work. This is what I mean by the phrase "significant freedom." Someone performs an action significantly freely just in case he freely refrains from a duty or freely refrains from doing something immoral. So someone who performs a significantly free action has significant freedom. Let's call the following the Significant Freedom Principle (SFP).

(SFP) It is not the case that God’s omnibenevolent nature contains a moral principle that would make it impossible for him to create a significantly free person.

Now, this is the general form of argument. What we argue for is the conditional C: If (NEP), then not-(SFP). If we take that as our first premise, and our free will defense says that (SFP) since we assume the great value of significant freedom, it follows that not-(NEP). And if not-(NEP) then there is no logical contradiction between God's creating a world with creatures which commit evil.

Here's how we argue for that conditional. First we need this Highly Plausible Principle (HPP):

(HPP) If it is logically impossible for someone to do something immoral, then he lacks significant freedom.

Classical theists usually understand God to be a necessary being, i.e. one which exists in all possible worlds. God is understood to be the creator of all things other than Himself. That means that necessarily, any contingent being is a creature of God. So if (NEP) is correct, and if it is logically necessary that every contingent being is a creature of God, then it is logically impossible that a contingent being does anything immoral. Thus, it is logically impossible that any person does anything immoral. Hence, by (HPP), it is impossible that any person have significant freedom. This implies that (SFP) is false, and thus our C is true. Modus tollens then, (NEP) is false.

I won't argue for the idea that God is a necessary being. I'd stand in the traditional theistic tradition by saying that any contingent entity can't be what is understood by the classical God. Besides, Pruss offers many arguments to show that C still holds should we understand God to be contingent. The main point is the conclusion that we have to draw from the Prussian Free Will Defense:

(conclusion) 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.

This raises some questions about the nature of omnibenevolence (can you see them?) which I hope to look at later.

Blog

I'll be using this blog to get my thoughts down and keep track of everything that I'm working on. I hope to ask some questions, generate discussion, and maybe find some answers from people who are more knowledgeable than I. If you think you have an answer please do tell!