Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Rationalistic Fideism, Mysterianism, Misology, and Divine Simplicity

I want to thank the perspicacious Lukas Novak for helping me in my endless quest to know myself.  Professor Novak comments:

Is Bill a Gnostic?

Well, I am not sure about the precise meaning of this epithet, but to me Bill appears as a strange amalgam of a rationalist and a fideist. The rationalist comes first and sets up certain rather strict requirements on the contents of faith — so that everything that does not fit in comes out as "incoherent" or "incomprehensible". Then, entre fideist and says that we nevertheless are still justified in believing these contents because we can justifiably assume that our intellect is so incompetent.

To me, this puts too much confidence in our reason in the first stage and too little in the last. It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction etc. in a given particular case. In this, he seems to be putting way too much confidence in his reasonings. The overall, habitual outcome of this is, however, the exact opposite: a significantly diminished confidence in the competence of our intellect as such. (This reminds me of the mechanism of how "misology" is generated, in Plato's Phaedo.)

Lukas Novak Prague white shirtWe were discussing ecclesiology and the Incarnation, but at the moment I am revising my Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  Divine Simplicity entry, so I want to shift over to this topic since similar structural patterns emerge.  What follows is a section I will add to the entry, one on a recent paper by Eleonore Stump of St. Louis University. Professor Stump is a distinguished Aquinas scholar and defender of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS).

4.4 Stump's Quantum Metaphysics

Like Dolezal, Eleonore Stump thinks of God as self-subsistent Being (esse). If God is absolutely simple, and not just simple in the uncontroversial sense of lacking material parts, then God must be self-subsistent Being. God is at once both Being and something that is. He has to be both. If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be "religiously pernicious." (Stump 2016, 199) Indeed, if God were Being but not a being, then one could not sensibly maintain that God exists. For if Being is other than every being, then Being is not. (It is instructive to note that Martin Heidegger, the famous critic of onto-theology, who holds to the "ontological difference" of Being (Sein) from every being (Seiendes) ends up assimilating Being to Nothing (Nichts).) On the other hand, if God were a being among beings who merely has Being but is not (identically) Being, then he would not be absolutely transcendent, worthy of worship, or ineffable. Such a God would be "comfortingly familiar" but "discomfiting anthropomorphic." (Miller 1996, 3)

The problem, of course, is to explain how God can be both Being and something that is. This is unintelligible to the discursive intellect. Either Being is other than beings or it is not. If Being is other than beings, then Being cannot be. If Being just is beings taken collectively, then God is a being among beings and not the absolute reality. To the discursive intellect the notion of self-subsistent Being is contradictory. One response to the contradiction is simply to deny divine simplicity. That is a reasonable response, no doubt. But might it not also be reasonable to admit that there are things that human reason cannot understand, and that one of these things is the divine nature? "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) As I read Stump, she, like Dolezal, makes a mysterian move, and she, like Dolezal (2011, 210, fn 55), invokes wave-particle duality. We cannot understand how light can be both a wave phenomenon and also particulate in nature, and yet it is both:

What kind of thing is it which has to be understood both as a wave and as a particle? We do not know. That is, we do not know the quid est of light. [. . .] Analogously, we can ask: What kind of thing is it which can be both esse and id quod est? We do not know. The idea of simplicity is that at the ultimate metaphysical foundation of reality is something that has to be understood as esse —but also as id quo est. We do not know what this kind of thing is either. (Stump 2016, 202)

Stump, E., 2016, “Simplicity and Aquinas's Quantum Metaphysics” in Gerhard Krieger, ed. Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles im Mittelalter: Rezeption und Transformation, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 191–210.

Dolezal, J. E., 2011, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications.

Miller, B., 1996, A Most Unlikely God, Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press.

Now for my apologia.

Novak's characterization of me as both a rationalist and a fideist is basically accurate.  And yes, the rationalist comes first with exacting requirements. Let me try to illustrate this with DDS.  God is the absolute reality, a stupendously rich reality who transcends creatures not only in his properties, but also in his mode of property-possession, mode of existence, mode of necessity, and mode of uniqueness. God is uniquely unique. Such a being cannot be a being among beings. He is uniquely unique in that he alone is self-subsistent Being. Deus est ipsum esse subsistens.

One can reason cogently to this conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion is apparently self-contradictory.  The verbal formula does not express a proposition that the discursive intellect can 'process' or 'compute.' It is unintelligible to said intellect.  For the proposition the formula expresses appears to be self-contradictory. Stump agrees as do the opponents of DDS.

Now there are three ways to proceed. 

1) We can conclude, as many distinguished theists do, that the apparent contradictions are real and that God is not absolutely simple, that DDS is a 'mistake.'  See Hasker, William, 2016, “Is Divine Simplicity a Mistake?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 699-725.  For Hasker, DDS involves category mistakes, logical failures, and a dehumanization of God.  (One mistake Hasker himself makes is to think that a defender of DDS can only tread the via negativa and must end up embracing radical agnosticism about the nature of God. Stump has some interesting things to say in rebuttal of this notion. See Stump 2016, 195-198.)

In short: God is not reasonably believed to be simple.

2) A second way is the mysterian way.  The conjunction of God is esse and God is id quod est is an apparent contradiction.  But it is not a real contradiction. Characteristic of the mysterian of my stripe is the further claim that the structure of the discursive intellect makes it impossible for us to see that the contradiction is merely apparent.

In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple despite the ineliminable apparent contradictions that this entails because, as Stump puts it, "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) To put the point more generally, it is reasonable to confess the infirmity of human reason with respect to certain questions, and unreasonable to place an uncritical faith in its power and reach.  This is especially unreasonable for those who accept the Fall of man and the noetic consequences of sin.

Besides, if God is not a being among beings, then one might expect the discursive intellect to entangle itself in contradictions when it tries to think the Absolute Reality.  God, as Being itself, cannot be subsumed under any extant category of beings. 

3) A third way is by maintaining that the apparent contradictions can be shown to be merely apparent by the resources of the discursive intellect. In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple, and all considerations to the contrary can be shown to rest on errors and failures to make certain distinction.

What is my argument against (3)? Simply that the attempts to defuse the contradictions fail, and not just by my lights.  Almost all philosophers, theists and atheists alike, judge the notion of a simple God to be contradictory.

What is my argument against (1)? Essentially that those who take this line do not appreciate the radical transcendence of God. This point has been argued most forcefully by Barry Miller (1996).  Theists who reject divine simplicity end up with an anthropomorphic view of God.

As for Novak's charge of misology or hatred of reason and argument, I plead innocent. One who appreciates the limits of reason, and indeed the infirmity of reason as we find it in ourselves here below, cannot be fairly accused of misology. Otherwise, Kant would be a misologist.  I will turn the table on my friend by humbly suggesting that his doxastic security needs sometimes get the better of him causing him to affirm as objectively certain what is not at all objectively certain, but certain only to him.  For example he thinks it is epistemically certain that there are substances. I disagree.

But I want to confess to one charge. Lukas writes, "It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction, etc."  It may be that I am too zealous in my hunt for aporiai.  But I am deeply impressed by the deep, protracted, and indeed interminable disagreement of philosophers through the ages over every substantive question.  My working hypothesis for the metaphilosophy book I am trying to finish is that the core problems of philosophy are most of them genuine, some of them humanly important, but all of them insoluble by us.  And then I try to figure out what philosophy can and should be if that is the case, whether it should end in mystical silence — that is where Aquinas ended up! — or fuel a Pyrrhonian re-insertion into the quotidian and a living of life adoxastos, or give way to religious faith, or something else.

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11 responses to “Rationalistic Fideism, Mysterianism, Misology, and Divine Simplicity”

  1. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Good post, Bill. Three comments:
    First, you wrote “One who appreciates the limits of reason, and indeed the infirmity of reason as we find it in ourselves here below, cannot be fairly accused of misology. Otherwise, Kant would be a misologist.” I agree. Not only Kant, but Socrates, the very man who made the point about misology in Phaedo. (Well, technically Plato made the point as the author of that dialogue. But maybe the idea originated with Socrates.)
    Second, you wrote “Characteristic of the mysterian of my stripe is the further claim that the structure of the discursive intellect makes it impossible for us to see that the contradiction is merely apparent.”
    What might be the specific aspects of the structure of the discursive intellect that prevent our understanding of divine matters such as Simplicity and Incarnation?
    I’ll make the third comment in another post.

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  2. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Here’s my third comment:
    Regarding the problem of evil, philosophers have used the term skeptical theism (ST) to refer to the claim that a theist should be skeptical of his ability to understand why God permits evil. Stephen Wykstra has characterized ST as follows:
    1. If God exists, we humans should not expect to understand much about his purposes.
    2. If (1) is true, much of what might seem to be strong evidence against God isn’t strong after all. (A Skeptical Theist View, in God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views, p. 109)
    Wykstra elaborates on (1) with his disproportionality thesis:
    “DISPRO: If such a being as God does exist, what our minds see and grasp and purpose in evaluating events in our universe will be vastly less than what this being’s mind sees and grasps and purposes.” (111)
    Wykstra writes that *sensibly humble theism* is a better term than ST and that a denial of DISPRO might be called *insanely hubristic theism*. (111)
    It seems to me that ST can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to our understanding of God’s nature.
    One objection is that ST – applied to the discussion about DDS – might engender skepticism about the human ability to understand and use logic, just as ST might engender skepticism about moral knowledge when applied to the problem of evil.

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  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    Thanks, Elliot. No time now, but I will say that, yes, Socrates of *docta igorantia* fame is certainly no misologist while pointing out how little we really know.
    More later.

    Reply
  4. Fr Matthew Kirby Avatar
    Fr Matthew Kirby

    “If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be “religiously pernicious.” (Stump 2016, 199) Indeed, if God were Being but not a being, then one could not sensibly maintain that God exists.”
    I suppose this is supposed to be self- evident, but I don’t see how it follows at all. On the contrary, Existence Itself exists seems far more self-evident.
    “For if Being is other than every being, then Being is not.”
    But Absolute Being is not “other than” every particular being in the sense of “outside being”, as indeed the wording shows. He is other than finitised beings, because He is Unconditioned Being.
    Also, if I may be permitted to use one of the neologisms from my thesis, finitised beings are in fact “be-eds” not be-ings, inasmuch as they themselves do not exist, if we take “exist” as an active verb in the proper sense. They are brought into and kept in existence from outside themselves, at a fundamental level. Whereas God, having aseity, can be said to exist in the proper, verbal, active sense.
    So, God is not “a being” because He is “The Being”, whereas for anything that we refer to as “a being” it is not “be-ing” at all, strictly speaking. Only God exists simpliciter, as Barry Miller put it, from memory. When we say God is “other than” “beings” then, we mean both there is no overlap of essence with them and that while He simply “is”, they “are” only insofar as He causes them to be.

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  5. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot asks,
    >>What might be the specific aspects of the structure of the discursive intellect that prevent our understanding of divine matters such as Simplicity and Incarnation?<< Excellent question. Well, we think in opposites and we cannot think otherwise. To think is to judge. To judge is to combine representations in the unity of one consciousness (Kant). I judge that a is F. Three items to distinguish: subject, copula, predicate. I can't think the thought that Al is fat without distinguishing Al from fatness. But of course the thought is not a list: Al, fatness. Thus every judgment involves both an analysis and a synthesis brought about by the copula 'is.' The problem of the unity of the proposition is waiting in the wings: the thought cannot be got by adding 'is' to the list. To discourse is to run (currere) from subject to predicate and back again. Hence discursive intellect. There are no simple propositions, pace Barry Miller. In the simplest judgment the thought is splayed out between subject and predicate. Al is fat iff fat Al exists. But 'fat Al,' I would argue, involves a copulative element. So here too there is a synthesis even if you hold that 'exists' is not a first-level predicate. DDS entails that in God, essence (nature) = existence. Can we attach a thought (proposition) to this verbal formulation? It is a structural feature of the discursive intellect that we think in opposites. Essence and existence are opposites. The what and the that/whether. Essence is not existence. Essence taken by itself does not exist, and existence taken by itself has no nature. So what could it mean to say, as DDS implies, that there is something whose nature is (identically) existence? If the verbal formulation expresses a proposition, it is not one that the discursive intellect finds intelligible. What the DI finds are contradictions and category mistakes.

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  6. BV Avatar
    BV

    Thanks for the push back, Fr. Kirby. Our disagreement appears to go deep, and what you say does not change my view. I honestly don’t see how you could reasonably disagree with what you quoted me as saying.
    I suppose we will agree that what is wanted is a via media between the Scylla of negative theology according to which nothing can be truly said or known about God and the Charybdis of an anthropomorphic theology according to which “. . . God’s properties are merely human ones, albeit extended to the maximum degree possible.” (Miller, 1996, 3)
    And it seems that to tread this middle path requires that we think of God not as esse alone or something that is (id quod est) alone, but as both together. We can express this using your phrase above: Existence itself exists. Or Being itself is. Or Being itself is a being. Or, defying Heidegger: Das Sein selbst ist ein Seiendes.
    But now notice the difference between (a) God is Being itself in its prime instance, and (b) God is Being itself in its sole instance. From your final paragraph you seem to be opting for (b). You say: >> God is not “a being” because He is “The Being” . . .<< So you are not denying that God is; you are denying that anything other than God is. You are saying that God is not a being among beings, but the only being. You are saying that God is an ens, but not an ens among entia. You seem dangerously close to a monism according to which Being itself is, and alone is. I have no idea what you mean by 'be-eds.'

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  7. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Thanks for your helpful response, Bill.
    “We think in opposites.” Good point. I remember J. P. Moreland saying in a talk somewhere that it might be the case that human beings are born with innate knowledge of sameness and difference. Without such knowledge, we couldn’t begin to think.
    “We cannot think otherwise.” If this is true, it seems Swinburne’s metaphilosophical claim – namely that although we haven’t solved all the problems of philosophy yet, given enough time we might do so in the future – doesn’t work, at least not concerning the DDS.
    Our thinking in terms of opposites seems to refer to propositional knowledge. Does it also refer to knowledge by acquaintance? If not, perhaps we can know by direct experience whether or not God’s essence = God’s existence. The beatific vision?

    Reply
  8. Fr Matthew Kirby Avatar
    Fr Matthew Kirby

    “Be-ed” is simply a way of signalling that creatures’ existences are received and so ontologically their “act of being” should be rendered by a passive rather than active verb form, because it is not, strictly speaking and at the root, their act. Another way of expressing this is to say that they are all “actualiseds”, while only God is Pure Act.
    BTW, I am not denying in an absolute sense that anything other than God is, but denying that anything other than God is actively in and of itself be-ing. For this reason I deny that the term “being” applies in an unqualified or proper sense to any other than God.

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  9. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot,
    Sameness-difference may well be the most fundamental pair of opposites.
    Knowledge by direct mystical insight is non-discursive. ‘God is simple’ is a mystical saying. If it expresses a proposition, the prop. it express is unintelligible to the discursive intellect. The very form of the sentence ‘contradicts’ the proposition the sentence is ‘trying’ to express.
    Do you catch my meaning?

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  10. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill, I think I catch your meaning. Your point occurred to me as I was writing my previous post. Knowledge by direct insight is non-discursive. Such knowledge can’t be adequately expressed in language. Yet we try, often by using analogies.

    Reply
  11. Fr Matthew Kirby Avatar
    Fr Matthew Kirby

    On a second look at what you said Bill, I see I responded to the English words “a being”, interpreting them as meaning “a being among other beings (conceptually)” or “a being such as other existents are beings”. I am still happy with what I said on that basis.
    But when I look at the Latin, “id quod est”, translating it as “that which is”, I feel that the correct response is to say that there is no real difference between it and “ipsum esse”, strictly speaking, thus there is no need to say God is both. I say this for reasons already outlined above. Only God is “that which is”, simpliciter, unconditionally, as truly his own act. Everything else is “that which is as this, contingently”, conditioned by a limiting essence and conditional upon causation by Absolute Being.

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