Ken Hochstetter of the College of Southern Nevada kindly sent me some comments on my SEP Divine Simplicity entry. They are thoughtful and challenging and deserve a careful reply. My remarks are in blue. I have added some subheadings.
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My comments are all about section 3 of the entry. With respect, to my lights at least, it is not so clear that you explained how DDS is coherent. Before getting into the details, let me state why, apart from your entry, I have found DDS to be incoherent. This may then help understand some of my specific comments on your section 3.
Properties and the Difference between Constituent and Relational Ontology
As you are well aware, those who think there are properties can be divided into realists, who think properties are universals (who can be further divided up into various camps), and moderate nominalists (or trope theorists), who think properties are particulars. And, there are extreme / austere nominalists who deny the existence of properties altogether. Those who believe in the existence of properties can be divided into constituent ontologists and relational (i.e., nonconstituent) ontologists, as you point out.
Put roughly, in line with other’s thinking about this (including yours), I understand constituent ontologists as thinking that properties are intrinsic to a concrete particular, entering into the being of the concrete particular, modifying it (e.g. a contemporary thinker would be D. Armstrong). Thus, the property is a constituent of it. And, roughly, in line with other’s thinking about this (including yours), I understand relational ontologists as thinking that properties are extrinsic to a concrete particular, such that the property does not enter into the being of the concrete particular, but rather the concrete particular is an unanalyzable ‘blob’ (to put it as van Inwagen does), but nevertheless in fact “has” or exemplifies properties, where the properties are abstract objects related to (by exemplification) the concrete particular (e.g., a contemporary thinker would be PVI). Thus, the property is not a constituent of the concrete particular.
[. . .]
Response. Although I basically agree with the above, I see matters a little differently. I take it to be a Moorean fact that things have properties, and thus a Moorean fact that there are (instantiated) properties. Properties are the extralinguistic features of things. Ripe tomatoes are typically red. Wet floors are typically slippery. In my lexicon, then, 'property' is not a term of philosophical theory, but a 'datanic' term. (I am open to the suggestion that one philosopher's datum is another's theory.) Thus I don't build much by way of philosophical theory into my use of 'property.' My usage does not takes sides on whether properties are abstract or concrete, universal or particular, constituent or nonconstituent. But I do feel justified in building 'extralinguistic' into 'property.' For I take it to be phenomenologically evident that the redness of a tomato is out there in the world, at the tomato, and that, while we can use 'red,' 'rot,' (in German), and 'rouge' to refer to that feature, the feature itself is what it is regardless of which language we speak and indeed whether or not there are any languages.
It is given — it is a prephilosophical datum — that there are properties. I see that the tomato is red and that the cat is black. We begin philosophizing about properties when we ask, not whether they are, but what they are. One question is whether properties are extramental. If yes, then I call that view realism about properties. Now if properties are real as opposed to mind-dependent or language-dependent, this leaves open the question whether they are universals or particulars. A universal is a repeatable item. A particular is an unrepeatable item. Suppose there are two tomatoes before me and both are (the same shade of) red. Are there two numerically different rednesses before me or only one? If properties are particulars, then two; if universals, then one. So by my lights a trope theorist counts as a realist just as much as one who conceives properties to be universals. Of course, this is largely a matter of terminology. 'Realism' and 'nominalism' can be used in different ways.
Realism-1: There are universals, and properties are universals.
Nominalism-1: There are no universals; everything is a particular; hence properties are particulars.
Realism-2: There are language- and mind-independent items, and properties are among such items.
Nominalism-2: Properties are language-dependent.
As I see it, one can be both a nominalist-1 and a realist-2. Presumably, such a one would be a moderate nominalist in Hochstetter's sense. A nominalist-2 would be an extreme or austere nominalist in Hochstetter's sense. Another name for such an extremist would be 'ostrich nominalist,' a phrase from D. M. Armstrong. See article below on ostrich nominalism.
Besides asking whether properties are universals or particulars, we can also ask what it is for a thing to have a property. It is a Moorean datum that things have properties, but the nature of the having is a philosophical problem. My cup is blue. Does the cup have the property by standing in a relation to it — the relation of exemplification — or by containing it as an ontological or metaphysical part or constituent? The root issue that divides constituent ontologists (C-ontologists) and those that N. Wolterstorff calls "relational ontologists" (R-ontologists) is whether or not ordinary particulars have ontological or metaphysical parts. C-ontologists maintain that ordinary particulars have such parts in addition to their commonsense parts, and that among these ontological parts are (some of) the properties of the ordinary particular, and that the particular has (some of) its properties by having them as proper parts. R-ontologists deny that ordinary particulars have ontological parts, and consequently deny that ordinary particulars have any of their properties by having them as parts. Of course, R-ontologists do not deny that (most) ordinary particulars have commonsense parts.
Drawing on some graphic images from D. M. Armstrong, we can say that for C-ontologists ordinary particulars are "layer cakes" while for R-ontologists they are "blobs." The term 'blob' is from Armstrong, not van Inwagen. It conveys the idea that ordinary particulars lack ontological structure in addition to such commonsense structure as spatial structure.
The distinction between these two styles of ontology or two approaches to ontology is not entirely clear, but, I think, clear enough. To take an example, is the blueness of my blue coffee cup an abstract object off in a platonic or quasi-platonic realm apart and only related to the cup I drink from by the external asymmetrical relation of exemplification? That, I take it, is van Inwagen's view. I find it hard to swallow. After all, I see (with my eyes) the blueness at the cup, where the cup is. Phenomenologically, I see properties. So some properties are visible. No abstract objects (as PvI and the boys use 'abstract objects') are visible. Ergo, some properties are not abstract objects. So I am inclined to say that the blueness is in some unmereological and hard-to-explain sense an ontological proper part of the cup. It is obviously not the whole of the cup since the cup has other properties.
It is also worth observing that an ontological constituent needn't be a property. Gustav Bergmann's bare particular and Armstrong's thin particulars are ontological constituents of ordinary or 'thick' partculars but they are not properties of those particulars. So, pace Hochstetter, C-ontology is not just a thesis about properties.
So much for ontological background. For more on the two ontological approaches, see my article, "Constituent versus Relational Ontology," Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism, vol. 10, no, 1, 2013, pp. 99-115. Now on to the meat of the discussion.
DDS Incoherent Even on a Constituent-Ontological Approach
Given this, I can now state my trouble understanding the coherence of DDS, apart from your SEP entry.
DDS proponents often state the doctrine as the view that God is identical to his existence, nature, properties, etc., implying that each divine property is identical to every other divine property, is identical to his nature, is identical to his existence. Now suppose relational ontology is true. Then, as Plantinga has pointed out, and you note in your entry, DDS is clearly incoherent, for several reasons. One reason is that it would imply that God (a concrete particular) is a property, which is an abstract object.
Response: On this point we agree completely. No sense can be made of DDS on R-ontology.
But, apart from your entry, I have found DDS to be no less incoherent given constituent ontology. Here are just a few of the incoherencies I find.
First, many constituent ontologists accept that properties are universals (e.g., D. Armstrong). If this is right, then if God is identical to his properties, then God is a universal. That is, a concrete particular is a universal. This is incoherent. This is incoherent, furthermore, even if, as Armstrong holds, universals are not abstract objects, but are immanent.
Response: Hochstetter's point is that shifting from C-ontology to R-ontology, by itself, does nothing to rescue DDS from incoherence. An excellent challenge worthy of careful consideration!
I will begin my response by uncovering an assumption that he seems to be making and that I reject. The assumption is that there is some one ontological framework appropriate for both God and creatures. An ontological framework provides answers to such questions as:
- What are properties?
- What is it for an item of any category to have properties?
- What is it to exist?
- What is it to exist possibly, contingently, necessarily, actually, and impossibly?
What Ken may be assuming is that 'property' has exactly the same meaning for God and creatures; that God and creatures have properties in the very same way (whether by exemplifying them as on an R-ontology or by containing them as on a C-ontology); that God and creatures exist in the very same way or mode; that modal status is univocal across the creator-creature divide. To illustrate the last point, God and the number 9 are both necessary beings. If modal status is univocal across the creator-creature divide, then one could say, and presumably Ken would say, that to be necessary is to exist in all metaphysically (broadly logically) possible worlds, and that God and 9 are necessary in this one univocal sense.
The following three points are clear and will be granted by Ken. (i) No creature is identical to its properties. (ii) No creature is identical to its existence. (iii) God is not a creature, but the ultimate and absolute source of all creatures and all that pertains to them: their being, their intelligibility, their attributes, and their axiological determinations. (Ken might balk, however, at attributes and axiological determinations if he thinks of the 'Platonic menagerie' (phrase from Plantinga) as uncreated, as independent of God in its existence and in its nature.)
I take the explanation of these three points to be that God is not a being among beings. (Here I expect Ken to balk big time, and Dale Tuggy too, and all of their evangelical and other fellow-travellers, and not without reasons that I respect.) Clearly, or rather plausibly, God does not have being in the way creatures have it. They have it contingently; God has it necessarily, where these modal terms must ultimately be cashed out in terms of modes of being/existence. (That there are no modes of being/existence is one of the dogmas of analytic philosophy. I believe that dogma can be reasonably rejected. See my essay, "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, eds. Novotny and Novak, Routledge, New York and London, 2014, pp. 45-75.)
What's more, this metaphysical necessity of God's existence is merely modelled, but not explained, by Leibnizian and neo-Leibnizian talk of God's existing in all possible worlds. He doesn't exist necessarily because he exists in all worlds; he exists in all worlds because he exists necessarily. The latter is the metaphysical ground of the former, and not vice versa. But what is the ground of the divine necessity? It is not unreasonable to say that God exists necessarily because there is no real distinction in him between essence and existence as there is in Socrates. But if there is no such real distinction in God, then it makes sense to say that God is (identically) his existence. With this we arrive at a central claim of DDS.
This comports well with the divine aseity, sovereignty, and transcendence. God is not just another being among beings albeit one distinguished by the properties he has and the number of possible worlds in which he exists. God not only transcends every creature; he transcends the very ontological framework appropriate to creatures. So, for example, property-possession for God is different from property-possession for Socrates. Socrates has wisdom; God is wisdom. As St Augustine says somewhere, "God is what he has." This implies that there is no one ontological framework appropriate to both God and creatures. That is, it implies that Hochstetter's assumption, one he shares with many other theistic philosophers, is false. But to say that there is no one common ontological framework is not to say that there are two radically incommensurable ontological frameworks, one for God, and one for creatures. There has to be some way of extending the creaturely framework so that it can accommodate God's absolute reality. Here, where things admittedly get murky, is where some doctrine of the analogia entis must be brought to bear. The murkiness is unavoidable as paltry minds of our type attempt to reach up in thought to the stupendously rich reality that God is and must be — if God exists and is not an idol, not just one more item in the ontological inventory like Russell's celestial teapot were that useless piece of space junk to exist.
In sum, I think that the fundamental root of our disagreement is the assumption that there is one ontological framework that fits both God and creatures, a framework the univocal principles of which must be satisfied by every actual and possible entity. My point is that the divine transcendence and alterity make it impossible to accommodate God within an ontological framework fit for creatures. The upshot of Hochstetter's approach is a god that is anthropomorphic, a being among beings, one with properties that set it apart from every other being, no doubt, but nevertheless an approach that does not do justice to God's absolute transcendence. (See Barry Miller, A Most Unlikely God, pp. 1-4 for an elaboration of this point.)
So, while I agree with Ken that it would be incoherent to say of any creaturely concrete particular that it is identical to a universal it has as a constituent, it is not obviously incoherent to say of God that he is (identically) each of his property-constituents. That is obviously incoherent only if one assumes what I have been saying one ought not assume. For while God is in some sense a particular, he is not a particular among particulars. He is an absolutely unique particular. To say that God is absolutely unique is to say more than that he is one of a kind, or even necessarily one of a kind; it is to say that he transcends the kind-instance distinction entirely. God cannot be an instance of the divine kind. For then God would be dependent for his nature on something logically and ontologically prior to him to the detriment of his absoluteness. A God worth his 'salt' is an absolute or he is an idol, a false god. That is axiomatic.
Now if God is an absolutely unique particular, a particular that transcends the distinction between kind and instance, then this fact about him allows that he have, by being, a universal. For if God is an absolutely unique particular, then he is a particular only in an extended sense of the term possessing in an extended sense of the term attributes in an extended sense of the term. For if God is not just wise, but wisdom itself, then wisdom is not a one-over-many that may or may not be exemplified. It is more like a particular, an unrepeatable. God is absolutely unrepeatable. Could wisdom be unrepeatable? It could be if it were something like a necessarily self-exemplifying Platonic Form. A necessarily self-exemplifying Form entails, by its self-exemplification, its identity with a particular, an unrepeatable, namely, itself.
Can we wrap our heads around such a notion? I seem to be doing so right now. Admittedly, we are hard by the boundary of the sayable — which is also the boundary of the unsayable. But this is no surprise: we are engaged in a strenuous effort of transcendence toward a stupendously rich Reality that, but its very nature, can only be fitfully and dimly conceived by us. The real God cannot be domesticated: he cannot be housed within an ontological framework appropriate for creatures.
Now if God is an absolutely unique particular, an absolutely unique unrepeatable, and wisdom is a necessarily self-exemplifying Form, one that entails its identity with an unrepeatable, namely, itself, then the way seems clear to identify God and wisdom and interpret God's having wisdom as God's being wisdom.
Please note that while each creaturely particular is unrepeatable, each such particular belongs to the category of particulars: each particular has the categorial form of particularity that it shares with every other particular. Hence every creaturely particular is distinct from its categorial form, particularity. If that were not the case, there could not be a plurality of creaturely particulars, contrary to fact. But God is an absolutely unique particular. As absolutely unique he transcends not only the distinction between kind and instance, but also the distinction between particular and particularity.
Similar reasoning can be implemented with respect to God's concreteness. While God is in some sense concrete, and thus causally active, he is not a cause among causes, but an omnipotent causal power involved in the causality of every secondary cause.
To sum up. Ken's argument is straightforward, clear, and superficially compelling. It could be put as follows. God is a concrete particular. Wisdom is a universal. Particulars and universals are categorially disjoint: it is incoherent, a category mistake, to say of any particular that it is identical to any universal. And it does not matter at all whether one takes a C-ontological or an R-ontological approach to universals. Therefore, it is incoherent to maintain that God is identical to his properties if properties are universals.
My response is that this argument is only superficially compelling. For it rests on a rationally rejectable presupposition, namely, that the ontological framework appropriate for creatures is also, without modification or extension, appropriate for God. It is reasonable to maintain that this is not the case. God is not a particular among particulars, and his properties are not properties among properties. It is reasonable to maintain that God not only transcends every creature; he transcends the very ontological framework appropriate to creatures.
I don't claim to have decisively refuted Ken's view, but I have succeeded in neutralizing it.
The rest of Ken's objections can be treated in the same way, mutatis mutandis.
But there is a task that remains, one I will take up tomorrow or the day after, namely, the task of explaining why C-ontology is better suited to explaining DDS than R-ontology.
Second, suppose then that the DDS proponent accepts trope theory or at least denies that God’s properties are universals. Still, the view implies that God is a property. This strikes me as a category mistake, no matter how properties are viewed. For if properties exist, and constituent ontologists think they do (setting aside the possibility that an extreme nominalist might be a constituent ontologist), then properties are in one category, and concrete particulars (i.e., substances) are in another. And, nothing can be both a concrete particular (substance) and a property, on pain of belonging to two categories at once, which is incoherent. Now perhaps this difficulty can be avoided, but the devil is in the details. I would like to see how.
Third, whether properties are universals or not, the properties we attribute to God, or he reveals himself to have, appear to be distinct, and in such a way that they could not be identical. And to suggest they are identical strikes me as incoherent. For example, knowing all truths is surely a distinct property from being perfectly good. Again, perhaps this difficulty can be avoided, but the devil is in the details. I would like to see how.
Fourth, I truly do not understand the claim that God’s nature is identical to his existence. To exist is to be, and to have a nature is to be defined a certain way (roughly). I truly cannot even begin to make sense of the idea that His being is His definition, or defining property(s).
And, as a side note, if one adopts extreme nominalism, and one accepts DDS, then one cannot state the doctrine as the view that God is identical to his properties, as, given extreme nominalism, there are no properties. But, I find extreme nominalism incoherent as well. So, to my lights, adopting extreme nominalism to explain DDS is to adopt one incoherent view to explain another.
So much for my thinking about DDS apart from your entry. Now as I turn to your entry, specifically section 3, I do not find that you have helped me see how DDS can be coherent, even if one adopts constituent ontology. While you stated that DDS is not obviously incoherent given constituent ontology, I do not see you showing the details of how incoherence is eliminated under such ontology. Perhaps I am missing something, but here are my thoughts, for what they are worth.
In section 3, prior to 3.1, you say that if one adopts constituent ontology, and suggests that the divine nature is self-individuating, then the view that God is his nature is not obviously incoherent. But, it is not clear to me how this eliminates the incoherence. More exactly, I do not find that you have shown (as opposed to merely assert) that the apparent incoherencies I raised above to be anything other than incoherent. Let me explain.
Regarding Incoherence #1: Even if the divine nature is self-individuating, if properties are universals, then we still have God being a universal, which is incoherent. Perhaps this can be avoided by suggesting that an instance of a universal is a particular. But, this would not be something the DDS theorist could embrace, for unless one makes the instance of the universal identical to the universal (which is incoherent if the instance is a particular), it leaves the universal as a distinct entity from God, which the DDS theories would not permit. So, how does adopting constituent ontology eliminate this apparent incoherency?
Regarding Incoherence #2: I do not see how adopting constituent ontology, and adopting the view that the divine nature is self-individuating avoids the category mistake of making a substance a property, whether the property is a universal or trope. For even the suggestion that God is a trope makes him a property, not a substance. So, how does adopting constituent ontology eliminate this apparent incoherency?
Regarding Incoherence #3: I do not see how adopting constituent ontology, and adopting the view that the divine nature is self-individuating eliminates the apparent incoherence of identifying omniscience with perfect goodness, for example. Unless one first explains how these can be identical to each other without incoherence, the idea that God is (identical to) his nature has not been shown to be not obviously incoherent. So, how does adopting constituent ontology eliminate this apparent incoherency?
Regarding Incoherence #4: I do not see how adopting constituent ontology, and adopting the view that the divine nature is self-individuating clarifies how God’s nature is identical to his existence. So, how does adopting constituent ontology eliminate this apparent incoherency?
In addition to having trouble seeing that you have shownhow adopting constituent ontology, and adopting the view that the divine nature is self-individuating eliminates the apparent incoherencies, I find further difficulty seeing that you have shownhow DDS is not obviously incoherent in other respects. Here are two examples:
Example #1: In 3.2, you point out that if we take a Plantingian view of existence, as a first-level property, then the idea that God is identical to his existence is obviously incoherent. You then say that there are plenty of reasons to reject this view of existence. However, you do not here show that with alternative understandings of existence the idea of God being identical to his existence is conceivable, as opposed to incoherent. Merely mentioning that there are alternative views of existence does not show how under such views of existence it is coherent to suggest that God is identical to his existence.
In 3.3 you say that “[t]he foregoing may explain how it is conceivable without obvious incoherence that God and his nature and God and his existence be identical” [emphasis mine]. But, as I suggested above, I do not see that explained how either of these ideas to be coherent, or even not obviously incoherent.
Example #2: Further on in 3.3 you wrote, “The divine nature is, or can be thought of as, a conjunctive property. So there is at least one property that is self-instantiating: it has itself as its sole instance, and indeed as its sole possible instance.” But, saying that the divine nature has itself as its sole instance strikes me as incoherent. Consider some of the properties in the conjunction. Omnipotence:How is it that omnipotence is omnipotent? Omniscience:How is it that omniscience is omniscient? Perfect Goodness: How is it that perfect goodness is perfectly good?
It may well be that failure to see that you have shown how DDS is not obviously incoherent is my lack of insight. Nevertheless, this is where I find myself. Perhaps then you could elaborate, for people like me, to further help us see in detailhowadopting constituent ontology, and adopting the view that the divine nature is self-individuating eliminates the apparent incoherencies.
And, as promised, another bibliographical item is Katherin Rogers, Perfect Being Theology. In chapter 3 she discusses and defends DDS. The reference is:
Rogers, K., 2000, Perfect Being Theology, Edinburgh University Press.
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