Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Whether Jesus Exists Necessarily

Lukas Novak comments by e-mail:

You list the following propositions in your post, Christology, Reduplicatives, and Their Truth-Makers:

1. The man Jesus = the 2nd Person of the Trinity.
2. The 2nd Person of the Trinity exists necessarily.
3. The man Jesus does not exist necessarily.

and then say that "each of these propositions is one that a Christian who understands his doctrine ought to accept." And then you develop a way how the (quite obvious) inconsistency could be explained away.

What I want to point out is that in fact the third proposition most certainly is not something that a Christian who understands his doctrine ought to accept. Quite to the contrary!

There is more to Dr. Novak's e-mail than the above excerpt, but it may help if I give an explicit argument for (3):

4. God is a necessary being: he exists in every possible world.

5. God's creation of a physical universe  is a libertarianly free act:  there are possible worlds in which God creates  a physical universe and there are possible worlds in which he does not.  So, although God exists in every possible world, he does not create in every possible world.

6. The existence of  a physical universe and of each physical thing in it is contingent.  (from 5)

7. Jesus is a man (a rational animal) born in Bethlehem of Mary,  etc.

8.  Animals, rational or not, are physical denizens of the physical universe.

9. Jesus is a contingent being. (from 6, 7, 8)

10.  That which exists contingently (in some but not all worlds) does not exist necessarily (in all worlds).  (Self-evident modal principle)

3.  The man Jesus does not exist necessarily. (from 10)

This appears to be a 'knock-down' argument.  Surely, (4) and (5) are propositions an orthodox Christian must accept. (6) follows from (5).  No orthodox Christian can deny (7). (8) is an analytic truth. (9) is a valid consequence of (6), (7), and (8) taken together.  (1) is a self-evident modal axiom. (3) follows directly from (10).

I suggest that this crystal-clear argument is more worthy of acceptance that the obscure doctrine of supposita with which Novak attempts to rebut (3).

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29 responses to “Whether Jesus Exists Necessarily”

  1. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Here is my explanation from the rest of the letter to dr. Vallicella. I will deal with the “crystal clear” argument in the following comment.

    According to the Christian doctrine, there is just
    one person or suppositum in Christ. It is the
    person of the Word, the Second Person of the
    Trinity. But this person has, in addition to its
    “native” divine nature, contingently assumed a human
    nature. On this basis we can say that the Word has
    become a man, “Verbum caro factum est”.
    The assumed human nature is, of itself, not a
    suppositum or person. It has no suppositality of
    its own. It is assumed by the person of the Word,
    its de facto suppositality is the suppositality of
    the Word.
    Now it is a general principle that operations,
    properties and existence are properly ascribed to
    supposita. Why? Because a suppositum is the
    ultimate subject both in the logical and the
    ontological order; anything that is not a
    suppositum “passes on” its perfection to something
    else – the subject in which it inheres. Only a
    suppositum keeps it for itself. Therefore, it is
    not e.g Christ’s humanity what was born of Mary,
    but the man (and God!) Jesus. It is not Jesus’
    divinity what is omniscient but the God (and man!)
    Jesus, again.
    Therefore: when we say “The man Jesus exists”, we
    refer by the subject term to the suppositum that
    is both God (necessarily) and a man
    (contingently). And if we ask what is the modal
    status of the existence of this supposit, it is
    most certainly a necessary existence, due to the
    possessed divine essence. Of course, this
    suppositum is only contingently a man. But just
    like it is true that “the Creator exists
    necessarily”, despite the fact that He is only
    contingently the Creator (He could have decided
    not to create), it is also true that the man Jesus
    exists necessarily. For the supposit to which the
    name Jesus refers in the actual world exists in
    all possible worlds, even though He is not a man
    (and is not called “Jesus”) in many of them. The
    term “Jesus”, or “The man Jesus” refers rigidly
    across the possible worlds to the suppositum
    satisfying its semantics in the actual world.
    Thus, there is no logical problem to solve, or at
    least not the one you’ve set out to solve.

    Reply
  2. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Concerning the “crystal-clear” argument:
    I concede (4) and (5).
    Regarding (6), I distinguish:
    (6a) The existence of a physical universe and of each physical thing in it, if it is in all aspects created, is contingent.
    (6b) The existence of a physical universe and of each physical thing in it, even if it is in some aspect uncreated, is contingent.
    I concede (6a) and reject (6b) and claim that (6b) does not follow from (5). A thing that is only “partially” created cannot, of course, be on the basis of that claimed to be totally contingent.
    Regarding (7), I distinguish:
    (7a) Jesus is a man (a rational animal) born in Bethlehem of Mary etc., who is not God
    (7b) Jesus is a man (a rational animal) born in Bethlehem of Mary etc., who also is God
    I reject (7a) and concede (7b) – of course.
    And now it is easy: I concede (8), but I am free to reject the inference to (9) which is no more warranted by the conceded assumptions.
    I concede (10), but I am free to reject (3), just as I have rejected (9).
    I have not even needed to mention the supposita.
    One final correction: The “doctrine of supposita” was not used by myself “to rebut (3)”, but to state correctly the content of the Christian doctrine of Incarnation.

    Reply
  3. Michael Sullivan Avatar
    Michael Sullivan

    I would like to submit that there is a problem with using the “=” sign in discussions of this sort. It seems to inevitably bear a mathematical connotation, whereby the terms on each side of the “=” are taken to be absolutely equivalent. In mathematics this is fine, because the only distinctions between what is signified by the left- and right-hand sides of an equation are distinctions of reason: (2+2) and (4) are only rationally, not really or formally, distinct. In a sentence like “The man Jesus is the second person of the Trinity”, however, a lot of careful ontological distinctions need to be made in order for the proposition to conform to orthodox doctrine. “Jesus=Logos” is *not* like the proposition “Sam Clemens=Mark Twain”.

    Reply
  4. T. Hanson Avatar
    T. Hanson

    Dear Dr. Novak,
    You wrote,
    “Therefore: when we say “The man Jesus exists”, we
    refer by the subject term to the suppositum that
    is both God (necessarily) and a man
    (contingently). And if we ask what is the modal
    status of the existence of this supposit, it is
    most certainly a necessary existence, due to the
    possessed divine essence.”
    I am having a hard time understanding your logic. You say Jesus both necessarily exists (as God) and contingently exists (as man). And then conclude from this that Jesus necessarily exists). But that is the fallacy of composition (an aspect of Jesus is necessary, therefore Jesus is necessary).
    You seem to commit the same fallacy here:
    “But just like it is true that “the Creator exists
    necessarily”, despite the fact that He is only
    contingently the Creator (He could have decided
    not to create), it is also true that the man Jesus
    exists necessarily.”
    -since the divine part of the man Jesus is necessary, then the man Jesus is necessary???
    If Jesus is as you say, “the suppositum that is both God (necessarily)and a man(contingently),that is, if he is the unique hypostatic union of “necessary God” and “contingent man,” then he cannot exist in all possible worlds, since in some of them, there would be no carne in incarnation, nothing with which the necessary part can unite.
    Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but I just can’t make sense of this.
    Best Wishes.

    Reply
  5. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Michael S. writes, “I would like to submit that there is a problem with using the “=” sign in discussions of this sort. It seems to inevitably bear a mathematical connotation . . . .”
    I dsagree. It is not the ‘equals’ sign, but the sign for absolute numerical identity. It means no more and no less than the ‘is’ of absolute numerical identity. I will explain absolute numerical identity and its difference from relative identity in a separate post. I should also point out that identity is not the same as equivalence. If two propositions are equivalent (whether in a given possible world or across all possible worlds), it does not follow that they are identical.
    What I will concede to you, though, is that in a sentence such as ‘Jesus of Nazareth is God the Son,’ the exact meaning of ‘is’ can be reasonably disputed. Perhaps the exact sense is not conveyed by ‘=’ where this is a sign for an equivalence relation (reflexive, symmetrical, transitive) governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals and the Necessity of Identity. Perhaps there are contingent sameness relations, a suggestion I floated already.

    Reply
  6. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Lukas Novak,
    Your response to my argument is very strange. You reject #7. But note that #7 — Jesus is a man — leaves open whether he is only a man or is the God-man. So you cannot reasonably reject #7. I am sure you know that orthodoxy maintains that Jesus Christ is fully human. ‘Jesus is a man’ is clearly true and you must accept it if you understand your own doctrine.
    Suppose I said that Vaclav Havel was the last president of Czechoslovakia. And you then object: I distinguish between ‘VH was the last pres. of Czechoslovakia who was not the first pres. of the Czech Republic’ and ‘VH was the last pres. of Czechoslovakia who was the first pres. of the Czech Republic’ and you then affirm only the second sentence. You can make that distinction if you like, but it is irrelevant to the question whether ‘VH was the last pres. of Czechoslovakia’ is true or false. Of course it is true.
    Similarly, ‘Jesus is a man’ is true as it stands whatever else may be true of him. Your rejection of (9) — Jesus is a contingent being — is therefore completely unwarranted.
    The problem here is that you are refusing to to see the problem set forth in my original triad, a problem that can be put as follows: How can a necessary being (God the Son) be the same as a contingent being (Jesus)? No doubt you have a solution to this problem via your doctrine of supposita. That solution may be adequate or it may not be. That is not at issue at the moment. What I am trying to get you to focus on is the problem. The problem is there whether solved or unsolved, whether soluble or insoluble. Even if your solution is perfectly adequate, it does not follow that the problem disappears: it remains as a solved problem.

    Reply
  7. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    And please note that the problem is not my invention or the invention of any recent philosopher of religion. It has persisted through the ages, as I could easily prove.
    Do you deny that there is at least a prima facie problem of explaining how the orthodox Incarnation doctrine is logically coherent? I hope you don’t answer that in the affirmative! But if you do, would you also say that there no prima facie problem of evil? (I won’t spell this out; you know what it is.)
    If a person has a solution to the problem, it does not follow that there is no problem. In fact, the existence of a solution presupposes the existence of the problem to which it is the solution.

    Reply
  8. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Hanson,
    you misunderstood. I do not say that Jesus exists both necessarily and contingently. Jesus exists necessarily in virtue of its divine nature. What he does not do necessarily is his being a man, not existing.
    There is no fallacy of composition involved. Something exists necessarily if there is a sufficient ontological reason for it to exist necessarily. Now in case of Jesus the reason is not his human nature, but there still is a reason, his divine nature.
    The relation of a nature to supposit is not, technically, just that of a part to a whole, but that of an inhering constitutive principle to its subject. You cannot predicate parts of their wholes, but you can predicate a nature “in concreto” of its bearer (subject, suppositum).
    An analogy: John has dual citizenship. He is both an American and a Swiss citizen. Now would you object in the same manner against the claim that John has the right to vote in America?

    Since the American part of John can vote in America, the Swiss citizen John can vote?

    ???

    Reply
  9. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Regarding “=”:
    Here I must (quite unusually :-)) side rather with Bill. I generally agree that one must observe the various kinds of distinctions and identities when discussing such things as Trinity and Incarnation (and in fact, also when discussing any other things).
    But in this concrete case, the person of Jesus, we deal with one suppositum. That is, an entity with perfect numerical unity. Therefore, all concrete nouns that describe Jesus or God the Son refer to one and the same suppositum, and the identity here is precisely the pure absolute numerical identity Bill is so fond of 🙂 It is this kind of identity that assures the “communicatio idiomatum”, that is, sharing of the properties between Jesus-as-man and Jesus-as-God in an unqualified sense. This is the reason why the divine idioma of necessary existence is, in an unqualified sense, aplicable to the man Jesus. For he is one and the same suppositum as the God Jesus.
    So THIS is precisely the place where the analytician can make use of his identity-buldozerring. In case of Jesus-God and Jesus-Man it works, due to the identity of suppostium they share.

    Reply
  10. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Bill,
    I have not rejected (7). I have made a distinction in it. That means: I have indicated an acceptable and an unacceptable meaning of it. Similarly, I have distinguished an acceptable and an unacceptable meaning of (6). Now: In order that your conclusion logically follows, you must assume at least one of the premises in the sense I have rejected. If you are not prepared to assert one of the premises in the rejected sense, you won’t get your argument to work, it falls apart in a fallacy of equivocation. Can we agree on that, before we proceed further?

    Reply
  11. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Bill,
    regarding your questions concerning problems: please could you specify the meaning of “problem”?
    I certainly concede that there is some problem, in a sense, in the doctrine of Incarnation. My point was not that there is no problem in the doctrine but that the thesis “Jesus exists contingently” is by no means part of that doctrine. Your proof is not a proof that it is, it is an objection against the doctrine, because the doctrine says that Jesus exists necessarily (“I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ… Son of God, the only-begotten, born of the Father before all ages… God from God, begotten not made…”).

    Reply
  12. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Lukas,
    Sorry, but as it seems to me I gave a rigorous argument and you failed to find a genuine flaw in it. Let us carefully consider the creedal formulation you just quoted:
    “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ… Son of God, the only-begotten, born of the Father before all ages… God from God, begotten not made…”
    What this says is that (i) Jesus Christ is the Son of God (God the Son, the 2nd Person of the Trinity, the eternal Logos or Word) and (ii) the 2nd Person is begotten by God the Father, not made (created) by the Father.
    Part of what the quotation is about is an inter-Trinity relationship, the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. That relationship obtains whether or not God creates a physical universe. It obtains in every possible world since God exists in every possible world and is triune in every possible world. But he creates only in some worlds. In those possible worlds in which God does not create, there is God the Son (because he is a necessary being), but there is no Jesus — and this for the simple reason that in those worlds there is no Incarnation. To have Incarnation there has to be some carfen, as Hanson said, some meat, some flesh. “And the Word became flesh and dwellt among us.” But there cannot be any flesh without creation.
    The other part of the quotation specifies the relation of God the Son to the man Jesus: they are the same in some sense.
    The man Jesus does not exist in every possible world, contrary to what you say, for the simple reason that Incarnation does not occur in every world: the man Jesus exists contingently as part of a contingent creation.
    Therefore, you cannot use the above formulation to refute me because I have just given an interpretation of it which is consistent with my view that the man Jesus does not exist necessarily.
    I trust you are familiar with ‘possible worlds’ discourse. It is a very useful facon de parler for setting forth modal relations. It goes back to Leibniz as you know. Plantinga’s *Nature of Necessity* is an excellent recent exposition of it.

    Reply
  13. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Not ‘carfen’ above but ‘carnis.’

    Reply
  14. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Bill,
    I have made a standard response to an argument, known for centuries as “distinction”. Even Leibniz still strongly recommendend strict observation of the techique of disputation (of which responding by menas of a distinction is a part) as the best way to resolve mutual misunderstanding; so I will try and keep this strategy for the moment. In order to avoid any digressions, please allow me to repeat my question: Do you assume (6b) and/or (7a) in your argument (explicitly or implicitly) or not?
    Some further comments (not intended to divert you from answering the above question :-))
    Yes, I am well acquainted with the possible-worlds apparatus and find it very useful.
    You write:

    The man Jesus does not exist in every possible world, contrary to what you say, for the simple reason that Incarnation does not occur in every world.

    How is it differnt from:

    The Creator does not exist in every possible world, for the simple reason that Creation does not occur in every world.

    I wonder?
    The moral is: reference by means of a contingently instantiated property (Creator, man) does not imply contingence of existence of the bearer of the property.
    And lastly: There is no such thing as “the man Jesus” as distinct from “Jesus the God”. You cannot refer separately to Jesus-as-man and Jesus-as-God. This is the meaning of the dogmatic statement that they are a single, undivided person. The distinction in reference can ONLY be made in abstracto, that is, on the level of the natures. This is really, really crucial.

    Reply
  15. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    >>You write:
    The man Jesus does not exist in every possible world, contrary to what you say, for the simple reason that Incarnation does not occur in every world.
    How is it different from:
    The Creator does not exist in every possible world, for the simple reason that Creation does not occur in every world.<< You are suggesting that the second sentence is false, and so is the first. I say they are both true. 'The Creator' is a definite description, not a name. And so it is true that the Creator does not exist in every possible world. For it is not the case that in every world there is a unique x such that x creates. God of course exists in every world. But because God creates only in some worlds, he satisfies the description 'the Creator' only in some worlds.

    Reply
  16. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    >>In order to avoid any digressions, please allow me to repeat my question: Do you assume (6b) and/or (7a) in your argument (explicitly or implicitly) or not?<< I assume neither of the following: 7a) Jesus is a man (a rational animal) born in Bethlehem of Mary etc., who is not God (7b) Jesus is a man (a rational animal) born in Bethlehem of Mary etc., who also is God You apparently do not appreciate the point that my (7) is neutral as between (7a) and (7b). My premise (7) was that Jesus is a man. How can you deny that? You can't: you must concede it. It is irrelevant that you think that something in addition is true: that Jesus is God the Son. I don't know what you are getting at with (6a) and (6b). You must grant that God does not create in every possible world. So you must also grant that the existence of physical objects is contingent. That's all there is to it.

    Reply
  17. T. Hanson Avatar
    T. Hanson

    Dr. Novak,
    You wrote:
    “you misunderstood. I do not say that Jesus exists both necessarily and contingently.”
    But you do say that in your first sentence:
    “Therefore: when we say “The man Jesus exists”, we
    refer by the subject term to the suppositum that
    is both God (necessarily) and a man
    (contingently)”
    The “suppositum” is both God (necessarily) and man (contingently). Then you infer this supposit is “most certainly a necessary existence, due to the possessed divine essence.” But you can just as easily infer the supposit is most certainly a contingent existence, due to the possessed human nature. For some reason you make the former inference and not the latter.
    Your analogy actually makes my case. Here is your analogy:
    “An analogy: John has dual citizenship. He is both an American and a Swiss citizen. Now would you object in the same manner against the claim that John has the right to vote in America?”
    Please notice that I did not say you cannot infer from your first sentence that Jesus is necessary. If the “suppositum” is both God (necessarily) and man (contingently) as you say, then you can certainly infer he is necessary. But you can also infer that he is contingent.
    Similarly you can infer from the fact that John is a dual U.S./Swiss citizen that he is a U.S. citizen (and can vote in the U.S.) But you can also infer that John is a Swiss citizen (and can vote in Switzerland). Your argument above is analagous to saying John can vote in the U.S. but not in Switzerland.
    So, from your statement “when we say “The man Jesus exists”, we
    refer by the subject term to the suppositum that
    is both God (necessarily) and a man
    (contingently)” we can validly infer the man Jesus is both necessary and contingent, which is a contradiction.

    Reply
  18. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Hanson,
    there is a difference between the modality applied to an item’s existence and the modality applied to an item’s having certain property. From the fact that something has a property contingently you cannot infer that it exists contingently.
    If you say that you do not infer the contingency of existence from the contingency of Jesus’ having the property “man”, but from the fact that contingecy is somehow implied in the nature of man, then I deny the assumption. It is not true that all men are necessarily contingent, that is to say, it is not true that all bearers of the human nature are merely contingently existing supposita. Why? Because the human nature can be (contingently) assumed by an uncreated and therefore necessarily existent suppositum.
    The human nature does entail contingency in the sense that it, as a nature, necessarily cannot be present in all possible worlds. But since it can be possessed contingently by a supposit, this does not entail the contingency of existence of any supposit bearing this nature. The suppositum is free to exist in some worlds without the contingent nature and therefore it can be necessarily existent, despite bearing, in some worlds, contingent nature.
    Contingency is a negative property. It is the lack of presence in certain possible worlds. Just like you cannot infer the unqualified lack of the right to vote in America for John, you cannot infer the unqualified lack of presence in all possible world for Jesus.

    Reply
  19. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    To Bill regarding “Creator” and “The man Jesus”:
    Great, now we are getting at something!
    I claim that we can use definite descriptions both rigidly (or “de re”) and non-rigidly (or “de dicto”). (Perhaps you are familiar with the emulation of this distinction within the Transparent Intensional Logic.)
    For example, we can very meaningfully say that “In some world, the present POUS is not the POUS”. We refer to the miserable individual satisying the property in the actual world and ascribe to it a modal property across all possible worlds.
    So, in my opinion, rigidity and non-rigidity is a pragmatic feature of an expression; although proper names tend to be used rigidly, they are sometimes used non-rigidly (“Jack the Ripper need not have become Jack the Ripper”, “Henceforth I never will be Romeo”), and definite descriptions tend to be used non-rigidly, nevertheless they are quite often used rigidly.
    But there are some limits to our liberty in determining the kind of reference (or supposition): In case we wish to ascribe a de re modality to a subject, we must refer rigidly to it. In fact, in my opinion ascribing a de re modality just is ascribing a modality to a rigidly grasped individual (TIL calls it “de re supposition”).
    Why is it so? Because de re modality consists in one and the same fixed individual having properties (or existence) relatively to many possible worlds. Therefore this notion cannot be expressed without fixing the individual across possible worlds, which is only possible by means of rigid reference (=de re supposition).
    Therefore, when ascribing necessary or contingent existence, which is a de re modalized property, we must use the referring expressions rigidly. When you say “The Creator does not exist in every possible world”, it can be true only as a “de dicto” statement, saying precisely that “Creator” is not satisfied in every possible world, or that “Creator exists” is not de dicto necessary. You failed to speak of a necessary/continget existence of an individual, instead you spoke of a contingent satisfaction of a description.
    Now: just like you cannot from this de dicto contingence infer de re contingence in case of Creator, you cannot from the de dicto contingece of the satisfaction of “Jesus the man” infer the de re contingence of Jesus’s existence. Just like the individual satisfying “Creator” in the actual world can exist in some worlds without being Creator, the item satisfying “Jesus” in the actual world can exist in some worlds without being a man.
    If you only mean “Jesus the man exists contingently” in the de dicto sense (that is, “‘Jesus the man’ is contingently satisfied”), then I have no quarrel with you; but such an assertion has no bearing whatsoever on the ontological status of Jesus.

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  20. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    To Bill regarding (6) and (7):
    Please have a little more patience with me. Let us go just step by step.
    I take it so that by saying “Jesus was a man” you do not mean to implicitly assume that “Jesus was not God”. Right?
    Now please clarify in a similar way your position on (6):
    By claiming that (I simplify) every physical object is contingent, do you implicitly assume the contingency even of those physical objects (regardless of whether there are such objects at all) that are uncreated?

    Reply
  21. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    T Hanson,
    Novak is saying that there is a suppositum S such that (i) S exists in every world, (ii) S has the divine nature in every world, (iii) S has human nature in some but not all worlds. Both ‘Jesus’ and ‘God the Son’ refer to the same item, namely, S. This is how he understands ‘Jesus is God the Son.’ S is both fully human and fully divine.
    This seems effective as a response to your criticism because you seem not to be distinguishing between necessity/contingency of existence and necessity/contingency of property-possession.
    What is puzzling, though, is that on Novak’s view, Jesus exists necessarily (in all worlds). So Jesus exists and is fully human in worlds in which nothing material/physical exists! It is rather diffcult to understand how abeing can be called fully human in a situatin in which it has no mother, no relatives, no body, etc.

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  22. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Lukas,
    I agree that there are rigid and nonrigid uses of definite descriptions, but I am not quite sure what you are trying to prove with the help of this distinction.

    Reply
  23. T. Hanson Avatar
    T. Hanson

    Bill Vallicella said: “So Jesus exists and is fully human in worlds in which nothing material/physical exists! It is rather difficult to understand how a being can be called fully human in a situation in which it has no mother, no relatives, no body, etc.”
    Okay, I see. Yes this is the difficulty that prevented me from seeing he was making the distinction in the first place.
    Another reason I did not imagine him making this distinction is speaking of God or one of the Persons of God as possessing a property contingently, is very problematic since all the properties of God are necessary.
    I will let this suffice as a response to Dr. Novak, and thank you both for the clarification.

    Reply
  24. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Bill and T. Hanson:
    Bill writes:

    What is puzzling, though, is that on Novak’s view, Jesus exists necessarily (in all worlds). So Jesus exists and is fully human in worlds in which nothing material/physical exists!

    I am afraid I do not endorse this. Of course, in the world where Jesus did not incarnate he is not fully human – he is not human at all there!
    Note that in case of the de re modus of reference the reference of the name “Jesus” is set up according to the actual world. So there is no contradiction in saying “Jesus is not human in the wordl w”, despite the fact that “Jesus” refers to Jesus in virtue of His humanity. The subject expression in this sentence refers to Jesus through His humanity in the actual world, wheras the predicate denies the property of humanity from Jesus in some other world. Only if “Jesus” were to refer in a non-rigid way (de dicto supposition) it would imply that anything to which “Jesus” refers in any world must satisfy the condtion of being human.
    Hanson pointed to another fairly substantial problem: namely, how can God have contingent properties? Of course this is a fair question that needs to be answered.
    In fact, there are quite a lot contingent properties of God: God contingently not only has become man, but also created, called Abraham, etc. All God’s free acts are contingent. But how is that possible?
    The answer is: The necessity of God’s properties is something that is required by God’s simplicity – there are no really distinct accidental forms in God. But God’s simplicity is something that pertains to God’s essence, not to anything outside God’s essence. As long as, an insofar as, a property does not express anything pertaining to God’s essence, it need not be predicated necessarily of God.
    There are clear trivial examples of such God’s properties, the “cambridge properties” of God (called traditionally “denominatio extrinseca”), like “being loved by Mother Theresa”. Such properties do not posit anything real in God, instead, they posit something real (here, the act of loving God) somewhere else (here, in Mother Theresa).
    But in case of God even some properties which prima facie seem to be “intrinsic denominations” behave something like the simple case just mentioned. These are the properties that stem form God’s freedom. I will paraphrase the classical explanation of how God’s freedom works by Scotus from Lectura 1, 39.
    Human freedom has two aspects: (i) we can perform different contingent acts of will, and (ii) by means of these acts we can will different objects. Our acts are formally specified by the objects: that means, we need specifically different acts to will specifically different objects.
    Now whereas to be able to choose many different objects is a perfection, the necessity to do so by means of different acts of will is an imperfection, because it implies potentiality and composition in the subject. It follows then that in God only aspect (ii) will be in place, not aspect (i).
    It means that in God, whose act of will is really identical with His will, and in turn with His very nature, there can be just one single act of will, which is of itself necessary, as regards its own entity. But unlike humans, this act of God’s will relates contingently to any object that can be willed by God.
    So in any ascription of a free decision to God we must distinguish (i) the act of God’s will which is necessary and identical to God; (ii) the object (and effect) of that act which is contingent and different from God. If we say, for example, that God created the world, it is a contingent proposition, but its contingency is based solely on the contingency in the object of God’s will, not on any contingency in the act of God’s will. If God decided not to create, He, his essence and his act of will would “look like” precisely the same; only there would be no created world as a result. (This is the implication of God’s absolute independence on anything extrinsic to Him.) So “being Creator” and “not being Creator” does not make any difference in God, but only a difference in the the creation. God is free not because He can have contingent acts of will, but because He can cause effects as contingent.
    Thus “Creator” is partially intrinsic and partially extrinsic denomination. Insofar as it is intrinsic, it posits something necessary in God, namely His act of will identical with His essence. Insofar as it is extrinsic, it posits something contingent outside God, namely the Universe as dependent in its existence from God.
    Now the analysis of Incarnation is substantially the same. Incarnation does not make any difference for God as God, it does not cause any change in His nature. As regards His nature, God is quite the same in all possible worlds. But in some worlds, He assumed an additional created nature. That makes some difference. It makes a difference in the person of the Word – it is different to have become flesh and not to have become flesh -, but since the human and divine natures in the Word Incarnated are “undivided but unmixed”, it makes no difference in His divine nature, or in God as such. The diffrence of creating/not creatin an additional nature for the Second Person is just as extrinsic to the divine essence as is the difference of creating/not creating the Universe.

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  25. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Bill,
    you asked what I was going to prove by means of the rigid/non-rigid distinction. I wanted to disprove your claim that

    The man Jesus does not exist in every possible world, contrary to what you say, for the simple reason that Incarnation does not occur in every world.

    This implication is not valid given that we use “Jesus” de re (rigidly). And we must use it rigidly, if we want to talk about the modal ontology of Jesus and not just about the modal semantics of “Jesus”.
    My point is simply that the contingency of incarnation and creation does not imply that Jesus exists contingently – which seems to be the gist of your argument. But I will wait for your response concerning (6).

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  26. aresh v. Avatar
    aresh v.

    Lukas,
    Is there any difference in the way you use the name “Jesus” (de re and rigidly) and the name “Son” (as in “the Second Person of the Trinity”)?
    It seems to me that your distinctions allow you to consider the human nature in Jesus more as an accident than as an essence. I would consider the nature (natural kind) of something be a fundamental criterion for the identification of items across possible worlds (I could have been a different man in another world but not a number). If so, in order to talk about Jesus (de re and rigidly) we have to maintain that we are referring always to something that has a double nature (divine and human). The human nature is contingent for the Second Person of the Trinity not for Jesus.
    I’m wondering if it would make sense to you a sentence like this “in a possible world Jesus could have not been God”

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  27. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Aresh,
    your question is very much in place. I will try to answer.
    The key is that the criterion of identity across the worlds is, in this ontological scheme, suppositality. Now you are right, normally the “supposital” identity coincides with the “essential” identity; therefore we can take individual essences as the criteria of identity. It is so because a suppositum requires at least one essence and normally at most one essence. Such a suppositum indeed cannot exist without that essence.
    But assuming that certain very special kind of suppositum, namely the Son, can contingently assume another essence, it will not depend on this essence with regard to its existence. For even in the worlds where it is to lack this additional essence it still retains the other, “original” essence and the suppositality that pertains to it.
    You see that despite the fact that the human nature is not an accident but an essence, we still must concede that it is accidental for the Second Person of the Trinity. But that conceded, we have also to concede that it is accidental to Jesus, if “Jesus” refers “de re”, that is, rigidly to the suppositum satisfyig “Jesus” in the actual world. For in the actual world, what satisfies “Jesus” is the Second Person, noting else.
    The entire difficulty is therefore reduced to the problem, how is it that a substantial essence can be possessed contingently. Now consider this: If a “secondary essence” can be assumed at all, it must be assumed contingently: because an essence makes its subject a complete being, therefore “one is always enough”, so to speak; the additional one is not required. Furthermore, a “secondary essence” can only be assumed by a being that will not be intrinsically changed by such an assumption, for any change in the essence would otherwise imply corruption of the original being. This seems only to be possible for an infinite being, because only in case of infinity finite additions don’t make any difference. But now when we have arrived at the understanding that the “secondary essence” makes “no difference”, even if it is truly assumed in the essential manner by the original being, it becomes a little more intelligible how is it possible for it to be assumed contingently. For why are essences said to be necessary for their subjects? Precisely because the identity of the suppositum is conditioned by “essential sameness”: the identity of the suppositum cannot endure essential variation – either temporal or modal. But we have seen that assumption of another essence cannot be such as to imply essential variation of the original suppositum, therefore it holds also conversely: from the point of view of the resulting 2-essenced suppositum lack of the “secondary” essence in a possible world does not imply essential variation and therefore does not destroy numerical identity of the suppositum. Thus it appears possible for that suppositum to lack the secondary essence in a world but retain numerical identity.
    The explanantion in the last paragraph goes beyond the official doctrine. Bu it is the common theological explanation of the notion of contingent possession of a nature. Nevertheless, complete comprehension is of course impossible here.
    Note also that the “contingency” is to be taken purely in the synchronic modal sense. Once assumed, it is impossible for Christ to “put it away”. In this diachronic sense, humanity is “necessary” and “essential” for Christ.
    The sentence “in a possible world Jesus could have not been God” does not make sense at all, because “Jesus” refers to the Person of the Son who is God in all possible worlds.

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  28. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Lukas,
    You can, if you wish, use ‘Jesus’ as a rigid designator of the 2nd Person of the Trinity. But then what name do you use to refer to the man from Nazareth?
    Do you agree that the man from Nazareth is a primary substance composed of a human body and a human intellective soul? And do you agree that in possible worlds in which God does not create there are no primary substances composed of human body and human soul?
    Do you believe that at times in the actual world before the Incarnation, and in possible worlds in which no creation occurs, the 2nd Person is united with a human soul-body complex?

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  29. Lukas Novak Avatar
    Lukas Novak

    Bill,
    The man from the Nazareth is the same person as the Second Person of the Trinity. You cannot refer to the one without referring to the other. There is simply just one individual, just one subject. You can refer to it under various descritpions but you always arrive at one and the same suppositum. The only way how to separate the humane from the divine is not on the level of supposita denoted by concrete terms, but on the level of natures denoted by abstract terms. “Humanity” and “divinity” refer to different things in Christ, but “Jesus”, “God”, “material substance”, “Son of Mary” etc. all refer to one and the same individual entity, the single bearer of both humanity and divinity.
    I do agree that the man from Nazareth is a primary substance composed of a human body and a human intellective soul, if that does not imply that this is an exhaustive description of what he is and if it does not exclude logical de re contingency of his being so.
    I do agree that in the No-Creation worlds there are no substances composed of body and soul, insofar as it does not exclude the possibility that there may be substances in such world that in some other world are composed of body and soul.
    (I concede: For every NoCreation world, there is no x such that x is a material substance in that world.)
    (I deny: For every NoCreation world, there is no x such that x exists in that world and is a material substance in some / the actual world)
    Now the crucial thing. In case of Jesus, there is no such thing as “soul-body” complex, as distinguished from the Second Person of the Trinity. The soul-body complex just is the person of Jesus, and this just is the same person as the Second Person of the Trinity.
    But: of course, before the Incarnation and in worlds where Incarnation did not occur, the 2nd Person is not united with humanity or human nature. But humanity is not the same thing as the body-soul complex! Humanity is a formal principle, it is “that by means of which” or “through which” or “in virtue of which” a man is a man, that means, that through which and thanks to which a man is a soul-body complex.
    The Second Person of the Trinity did not unite with the soul-body complex! This would imply Nestorianism and rejection of the Ephesus dogmata. The Second Person of the Trinity became the soul-body complex. “The Word is made flesh”. It became a soul-body complex by assuming the human nature; but since it already had had another nature, it is not merely a soul-body complex, but something more (viz. God).
    It is therefore correct to say that before creation and in the worlds where creation did not occur the Second Person is not a soul-body complex, or that it is not united with the human nature.

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