Month: August 2018

More on Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse

This entry continues my ruminations on whether the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) entails modal collapse (MC). The commenters in the earlier thread gave me no reason to think that DDS does not entail MC. But one of them sent me to Christopher Tomaszewski's paper which is worth reading and deserves a response.

Tomaszewski presents one of R. T. Mullins' arguments as follows:

1) Necessarily, God exists.
2) God is identical to God’s act of creation.
Therefore
3) Necessarily, God’s act of creation exists.

Tomaszewski claims that above argument is invalid and for the same reason that the following argument is invalid:

7) Necessarily, God exists.
8) God is identical to the Creator.
Therefore
9) Necessarily, the Creator exists.

Now the second argument is clearly invalid. It takes us from true premises to a false conclusion. God exists in every possible world. But in only some worlds does he instantiate the role of Creator. So it is not the case that the Creator exists in every possible world.

Some find the Leibnizian patois of 'possible worlds' puzzling. I don't need it. The point can be made without it, as follows. God exists of metaphysical necessity. But he does not create of metaphysical necessity: creation is a contingent act. Therefore, it is not the case that, necessarily, God is the Creator. Had he created nothing, he would exist without being Creator.

So the second of the two arguments is invalid. Now if the first argument has the same logical form as the second, then it too will be invalid.  But the first argument does not have the same logical form as the second.

The form of the first is:

Necessarily, for some x, x = a.
a = b.
ergo
Necessarily, for some x, x = b.

Clearly, this argument-form is valid, whence it follows that any argument having this form is valid. I am assuming that the individual constants 'a' and 'b' are Kripkean rigid designators: they denote the same object in every possible world in which the object exists.  I am also assuming Kripke's Necessity of Identity principle: For any x, y if x = y, then necessarily, x = y.  By instantiation, if a = b, then necessarily a = b. Now if necessarily a exists, and a cannot exist without being identical to b, then necessarily b exists.

Contra Tomaszewski, the arguments have different forms. The first instantiates a valid form and is therefore valid while the second instantiates an invalid form and is therefore invalid.

I expect someone to object that (2) above – God is identical to God’s act of creation — is not an instance of the logical form a = b, where the terms flanking the identity sign are Kripkean rigid designators. But I say they are; indeed they are strongly rigid designators.  A rigid designator is a term that picks out the same item in every possible world in which the item exists. A strongly rigid designator is a term that picks out the same item in every possible world, period.  Thus the designatum of a strongly rigid designator is a necessary being.

My claim, then, is that (2) is a statement of identity and that  'God' and 'God's act of creation' in (2) are both strongly rigid designators. My claim is entailed by DDS which says, among other things, that there is no real distinction in God between agent and action.  So if God is identical to his act of creating our universe, and God exists in every possible world, then the creation of our universe occurs in every possible world, which in turn entails modal collapse.

Tomaszevski has an interesting response (pp. 7-8):

While God’s act is indeed intrinsic (and therefore identical) to Him, “God’s act of creation” designates that act, not how it is in itself, but by way of its contingent effects. That is, whether “God’s act of creation” designates God’s act depends on the existence of a creation which is contingent, and so the designation is not rigid. And since the designation is not rigid, the identity statement is not necessary, as it must be in order to validate the argument from modal collapse. 

This response begs the question. For it assumes that the effect of the divine act of creation is contingent. But that is precisely the question!  If you just assume — as we all want to assume –  that creation is contingent, then of course there is no modal collapse. The issue, however, is whether one can adhere to that assumption while holding fast to DDS.  Besides, the second sentence in the above quotation makes little or no sense. The act of creation is individuated by the object of creation (our universe, say, in all its detail); an act of divine creation is nothing without its object.  

Am I assuming what I need to prove (and thus begging the question) when I insist that (2) above is necessarily true and thus that the first argument is valid?  No, I am merely unpacking what DDS implies.  

My conclusion is that Tomszevski has clarified the problem for us, but he has not refuted the above argument from DDS to MC. 

Is God Beyond All Being?

This is a redacted re-posting of an entry that first appeared in these pages on 8 May 2015. It answers a question Fr. Kimel poses in the comments to Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse.

……………………………….

Fr. Aidan Kimel writes,

Reading through Vallicella’s article, I kept asking myself, Would Mascall agree with the proposition “existence exists”? I find the proposition odd. [. . .] What about the assertion of Pseudo-Dionysius that God is beyond all Being? Aquinas would certainly agree that the Creator transcends created being; but I suspect that Dionysius is trying to say something more.  I wonder what the Maverick Philosopher thinks about “beyond Being” language  (I can pretty much guess what Tuggy thinks about it).

I plan to discuss the strange question whether existence exists in a separate post.  Here I will say something about whether God is beyond all Being.

Well, what would it be for God to be beyond Being?  What could that mean?

First we must distinguish between Being and beings, esse and ens, das Sein und das Seiende.  It is absolutely essential to observe this distinction and to mark it linguistically by a proper choice of terms. If we do so, then we see right away that Kimel's question is ambiguous.  Is he asking whether God is beyond all beings or beyond all Being?  Big difference! (Heidegger calls it the Ontological Difference.)

I think what Kimel means to ask is whether God is beyond all beings.  A being is anything at all that is or exists, of whatever category, and of whatever nature.  Being, on the other hand, majuscule Being, is that which makes beings be. Now one of the vexing questions here is whether Being itself is, whether that which makes beings be is itself a being or else the paradigmatic being.  Heidegger and Pseudo-Dionysius say No!  Aquinas says Yes!  (That is, Aquinas says that Being is the paradigmatic being from which every other being has its being.)  Dale Tuggy would presumably dismiss the question by maintaining that there just is no Being, there are only beings; hence the question lapses, resting as it does (according to Tuggy) on a false presupposition.  

Now distinguish three positions.  (A) God is a being among beings. (B) God is not a being among beings, but self-subsistent Being itself.  (C) God is neither a being among beings, nor self-subsistent Being itself, but beyond every being.  Tuggy, Aquinas, Pseudo-Dionysius.  (You're in good company, Dale!)

I have already explained what it means to say that God is a being among beings.  But to repeat myself, it it to say that the very same general-metaphysical scheme, the very same scheme of metaphysica generalis,  that applies to creatures applies also to God.  This implies, among other things, that God and Socrates (Socrates standing in for any creature whatsoever) exist in the same way.  It implies that there are not two modes of Being, one pertaining to God alone, the other pertaining to Socrates. If, on the other hand, one maintains that God is not a being among beings, then one is maintaining, among other things, that God and Socrates exist in different ways.  The difference can be put by saying that God is (identically) his existence and existence itself while this is surely not the case for Socrates: he has existence but he doesn't have it by being it.  In God there is no real distinction, no distinctio realis, between essence and existence while in Socrates there is a real distinction between essence and existence.

Equivalently, if God is a being among beings, then God is one member of a totality of beings each of which exists in the very same sense of 'exists' and has properties in the very same sense of 'has properties.'  But if God is not a being among beings, then there is no such totality of beings each of which exists in the very same sense of 'exists' and has properties in the very same sense of 'has properties' such that both God and Socrates are members of it.

How does (B) differ from (C)?  On (B) God is (identical to) Being but also is.  God is not a being, but the being that is identical to Being itself.  (C) is a more radical view.  It is the view that God is so radically transcendent of creatures that he is not!  This is exactly what pseudo-Dionysius says in The Divine Names (Complete Works, p. 98) It is the view that God is other than every being.  But if God is other than every being, then God in no way is.  

This can also be explained in terms of univocity, analogicity, and equivocity.  For Tuggy & Co. 'exists' in 'God exists' and 'Socrates exists' has exactly the same sense.  The predicate is univocal across these two occurrences.  For Aquinas, the predicate is being used analogously, which implies that while God and Socrates both are, they are in different ways or modes. But for Pseudo-Dionysius the predicate is equivocal.

Fr. Kimel suspects that Pseudo-Dionysius is saying more than that God transcends every creature.  The suspicion is correct.  Whereas Aquinas is saying that God is, but transcends every creature in respect of his very mode of Being, Pseudo-Dionysius is saying more , namely that God is so transcendent that he is not.  

My question for Fr. Kimel: Do you side with the doctor angelicus, or do you go all the way into the night of negative theology with Pseudo-Dionysus? 

Socialism as a Hate Crime

Reviews the millions upon millions slaughtered under socialist regimes in the USSR, Nazi Germany, China under Mao, Cuba under Castro, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and North Korea. Analyzes the situation in Venezuela and explains why socialism must fail.

Socialism reliably leads to disaster, but know-nothings refuse the lessons of history.

For example, why would anyone want to practice medicine under socialism? Doctor shortages are exploding under ObamaCare.

Venezuela

Kimball on Kapitalismus

The man's a classy polemicist:

Capitalism is the greatest engine for the production of wealth that the ingenuity of man has ever devised. But after it achieves a certain level of prosperity, it regularly excretes characters like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, beneficiaries of capitalism whose contempt for its strictures is equaled only by their ignorance of its tenets. 

I say, "Up with capitalism, down with Ocasionalism!"  Does the silly goose have a cortex?

It is a paradox of plenty: our fabulous success and prosperity have spawned an army of know-nothings bent on destroying what their betters have constructed over centuries.

Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse

Fr. Aidan Kimel would like me to discuss  the question whether the doctrine of divine simplicity entails the collapse of modal distinctions.  I am happy to take a crack at it.  I take my cue from a passage in a paper Fr. Kimel kindly sent me.  In "Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity" (Journal of Reformed Theology 7, 2013, 181-203), R. T. Mullins asks (footnote omitted):

Could God have refrained from creating the universe? If God is free then it seems that the answer is obviously ‘yes.’ He could have existed alone. Yet, God did create the universe. If there is a possible world in which God exists alone, God is not simple. He eternally has unactualized potential for He cannot undo His act of creation. He could cease to sustain the universe in existence, but that would not undo His act of creating. One could avoid this problem by allowing for a modal collapse. One could say that everything is absolutely necessary. Necessarily, there is only one possible world—this world. Necessarily, God must exist with creation. There is no other possibility. God must create the universe that we inhabit, and everything must occur exactly as it in fact does. There is no such thing as contingency when one allows a modal collapse. (195-196)

The foregoing suggests to me one version of the problem.  There is a tension between divine simplicity and divine freedom.

1) If God is simple, then he is purely actual (actus purus) and thus devoid of unexercised powers and unrealized potentials. He is, from all eternity, all that he can be. This is true in every possible world because God exists in every possible world and is pure act in every possible world.

2) As it is, God freely created our universe from nothing; but he might have created a different universe, or no universe at all. Had he created no universe, then his power to create would have gone unexercised. In those possible worlds in which God freely refrains from creating, God has unexercised powers. 

The dyad seems logically inconsistent. If (1) is true, then there is no possible world in which God has  unexercised powers. But if (2) is true, there is at least one possible world in which God has unexercised powers. So if God is both simple and (libertarianly) free, then we get a logical contradiction.

There are two main ways to solve an aporetic polyad. One is to show that the inconsistency alleged is at best apparent, but not real.  The other way is by rejection of one of the limbs. I take the dyad to be inconsistent.

Many if not most theists, and almost all Protestants, will simply (pun intended) deny the divine simplicity.  I myself think there are good reasons for embracing the latter.  To put it in a cavalier, bloggity-blog way: God is the Absolute, and no decent absolute worth its salt can be a being among beings. We have it on good authority that God is Being itself self-subsisting.  Deus est ipsum esse subsistens. Platonic, Plotinian, Augustinian, Aquinian, Athenian. It can be shown that simplicity is logical fallout if God is Being itself.  So it seems I must deny (2) and deny that God could have refrained from creating.  But this seems to lead to modal collapse. How so?

Modal Collapse

We have modal collapse just when the following proposition is true: For any x, x is possible iff x is actual iff x is necessary.  This implies that nothing is merely possible; nothing is contingent; nothing is impossible.  If nothing is merely possible, then there are no merely possible worlds, which implies that there is exactly one possible world, the actual world, which cannot fail to be actual, and is therefore necessary.

(The collapse is on the extensional, not the intensional or notional plane: the modal words retain their distinctive senses.)

Suppose divine simplicity entails modal collapse (modal Spinozism). So what? What is so bad about the latter?  Well, it comports none too well with God's sovereignty. If God is absolutely sovereign, then he cannot be under a metaphysical necessity to create. Connected with this is the fact that if God must create, then his aseity would seem to be compromised. He cannot be wholly from himself, a se, if his existence necessarily requires a realm of creatures.  Finally, creaturely (libertarian) freedom would go by the boards if reality is one big block of Spinozistic necessity.

An Aporia?

It seems that the proponent of divine simplicity faces a nasty problem.  At the moment, I see no solution.

The aporetician in me is open to the thought that what we have here is a genuine aporia, a conceptual impasse, a puzzle  that we cannot solve. God must be simple to be God; the modal distinctions are based in reality; we cannot see how both limbs of the dyad can be true and so must see them as contradictory.   

It could be like this: the limbs are both true, but our cognitive limitations make it impossible for us to understand how they could both be true.  Mysterianism may be the way to go.  This shouldn't trouble a theologian too much. After all, Trinity, Incarnation, etc. are mysteries in the end, are they not?  Of course, I am not suggesting the doctrine of divine simplicity can be found in the Bible. 

Later I will evaluate an attempt to solve the problem via an approach to real modality via potentialities and dispositions.  

References to relevant literature appreciated. By the end of the year I have to update my Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Divine Simplicity entry.  

Was the Pre-Trump World Normal or Abnormal?

Another fine article from a man who is working too hard for his own, and our, good.

An open memo to Professor Hanson:

When I see you on TV, you look all fagged-out and beat-to-hell. We love you, we need you, and we want you to take care of yourself. And please realize that this world, while undeniably real and worthy of some concern, is, sub specie aeternitatis, a vanishing quantity not worthy of the full measure of anyone's concern. Fight the good fight, but look beyond the passing scene and the present fray. Only in that way will you keep things in perspective.

Excerpt:

Open borders and the salad bowl, in cultural terms, had replaced the ideas of sovereignty and the melting pot. Everything from late-night television and Hollywood movies to the NFL and sitcoms had become politicized, or perhaps even weaponized as useful in the cultural struggle to create a progressive U.S. liberated from its past traditions and norms. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other groups were branded as mainstream progressive voices and their critics as haters, racists, and fascists.

Remember iconic moments such as Mitt Romney’s soft-gloves response to debate moderator Candy Crowley’s hijacking of a presidential debate, Jeb Bush’s avowal that illegal immigration was “an act of love,” or John McCain’s decision to all but rule out any mention of the Reverend Wright during the 2008 campaign. Such was the respectable acquiescence to the new progressive realities.

 

The Left: Morally Obtuse and Economically Retarded

As witness the Deep Thoughts of Chelsea Clinton:

Has abortion made America more prosperous? Chelsea Clinton seems to think so.

The former first daughter spoke recently at a “Rise up for Roe” event in New York City, one of a series of meetings organized by NARAL and Planned Parenthood to oppose the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In the course of her remarks, she suggested that one way to strengthen support for keeping abortion legal and readily available is to emphasize what a boon Roe v. Wade has been for the US economy.

Read it all, as we say in the blogosphere.

Chelsea in 2020!

Nice Ladies Leaving the Democrat Party

Here:

Democrats are leaving their party more in sorrow than in anger, but leaving it they are, sickened by the Democratic Party’s hard left turn. Tens of thousands are telling their stories on the #walkaway movement’s public Facebook page. Their YouTube videos are a fascinating window into the innermost thoughts of kind, thoughtful people across America—all former Democrats.

If the nice ladies leave, that will leave only the pussy-hatted nasty women of the ilk of Mad Maxine and Bitter Hillary. Sad!

The Paradox of the Misanthropic Naturalist Animal Lover

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, man and man alone among living things has a higher origin and a higher destiny. Made in the image and likeness of God, and the only creature so made, he comes from God and is called to return to God for his ultimate felicity and fulfillment. He is, to be sure, an animal, but one called to theosis and thus an animal qualitatively different from every other type of animal. 

In that now languishing tradition, man had a calling, a vocation.

But God is dead, culturally speaking, at least among the the elites of the West, and since 1859 the qualitative superiority of the human animal is no longer much believed in. Man is back among the animals, 'in series' with them, just another product of evolution, whose origin is measly and whose destiny is extinction.  Man on a naturalist construal is at best quantitatively superior to his non-human progenitors.

Read the whole thing at MavPhil StrictPhil.

David Horowitz versus Jonah Goldberg

Here:

The posture of these NeverTrumpers is transparently self-serving. It preserves their intellectual credentials as “conservatives,” and simultaneously takes them out of the line of fire from an increasingly vicious Left whose goal is to destroy Trump and his presidency, and—incidentally—conservative America. Sitting on the fence affords them new career opportunities—appearances on CNN and MSNBC and columns in the New York Times. All that’s required is that they avoid taking sides in the political war that is engulfing the country. All this reminds me of a memorable Trotsky sneer about liberals, whom he accused of being reluctant to step into the stream of political conflict because they were afraid to get their moral principles wet.

Right. The principles of the Never-Trumpers are for discussion but not for implementation.  The members of the bow-tie brigade love to yap and scribble, and they do it at a very high level, as witness Goldberg's Suicide of the West, which I recommend to you for its insights; but they wilt at the prospect of bringing their principles to bear upon political reality and "getting them wet."

Up until now I had considered Goldberg to be the least offensive of the Never-Trumpers, but having read Horowitz's piece, Goldberg has dropped a notch in my estimation.

The Last Days and Words of Leon Trotsky

On this date in 1940 in Mexico City Ramon Mercader drove an ice axe (not an ice pick as some accounts have it) into the skull of Leon Trotsky.  He died the next day.  Here we read:

Mercader later testified at his trial:

I laid my raincoat on the table  in such a way as to be able to remove the ice axe which was in the pocket. I  decided not to miss the wonderful opportunity that presented itself. The moment  Trotsky began reading the article, he gave me my chance; I took out the ice axe  from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a  terrible blow on the head.

According to Joseph Cannon, the secretary of the Socialist Workers Party  (USA), Trotsky's last words were "I will not survive this attack. Stalin  has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before."

Trotsky, who didn't shrink from murder and brutality in pursuit of his utopian fata morgana, met his end brutally. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Related: Trotsky's Faith

Trotsky's erstwhile secretary, the logician Jean van Heijenoort, himself came to a brutal end in Mexico City a victim, not of politics, but of . . . well read it:

Like a Moth to the Flame.