I want to thank the perspicacious Lukas Novak for helping me in my endless quest to know myself. Professor Novak comments:
Is Bill a Gnostic?
Well, I am not sure about the precise meaning of this epithet, but to me Bill appears as a strange amalgam of a rationalist and a fideist. The rationalist comes first and sets up certain rather strict requirements on the contents of faith — so that everything that does not fit in comes out as "incoherent" or "incomprehensible". Then, entre fideist and says that we nevertheless are still justified in believing these contents because we can justifiably assume that our intellect is so incompetent.
To me, this puts too much confidence in our reason in the first stage and too little in the last. It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction etc. in a given particular case. In this, he seems to be putting way too much confidence in his reasonings. The overall, habitual outcome of this is, however, the exact opposite: a significantly diminished confidence in the competence of our intellect as such. (This reminds me of the mechanism of how "misology" is generated, in Plato's Phaedo.)
We were discussing ecclesiology and the Incarnation, but at the moment I am revising my Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Divine Simplicity entry, so I want to shift over to this topic since similar structural patterns emerge. What follows is a section I will add to the entry, one on a recent paper by Eleonore Stump of St. Louis University. Professor Stump is a distinguished Aquinas scholar and defender of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS).
4.4 Stump's Quantum Metaphysics
Like Dolezal, Eleonore Stump thinks of God as self-subsistent Being (esse). If God is absolutely simple, and not just simple in the uncontroversial sense of lacking material parts, then God must be self-subsistent Being. God is at once both Being and something that is. He has to be both. If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be "religiously pernicious." (Stump 2016, 199) Indeed, if God were Being but not a being, then one could not sensibly maintain that God exists. For if Being is other than every being, then Being is not. (It is instructive to note that Martin Heidegger, the famous critic of onto-theology, who holds to the "ontological difference" of Being (Sein) from every being (Seiendes) ends up assimilating Being to Nothing (Nichts).) On the other hand, if God were a being among beings who merely has Being but is not (identically) Being, then he would not be absolutely transcendent, worthy of worship, or ineffable. Such a God would be "comfortingly familiar" but "discomfiting anthropomorphic." (Miller 1996, 3)
The problem, of course, is to explain how God can be both Being and something that is. This is unintelligible to the discursive intellect. Either Being is other than beings or it is not. If Being is other than beings, then Being cannot be. If Being just is beings taken collectively, then God is a being among beings and not the absolute reality. To the discursive intellect the notion of self-subsistent Being is contradictory. One response to the contradiction is simply to deny divine simplicity. That is a reasonable response, no doubt. But might it not also be reasonable to admit that there are things that human reason cannot understand, and that one of these things is the divine nature? "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) As I read Stump, she, like Dolezal, makes a mysterian move, and she, like Dolezal (2011, 210, fn 55), invokes wave-particle duality. We cannot understand how light can be both a wave phenomenon and also particulate in nature, and yet it is both:
What kind of thing is it which has to be understood both as a wave and as a particle? We do not know. That is, we do not know the quid est of light. [. . .] Analogously, we can ask: What kind of thing is it which can be both esse and id quod est? We do not know. The idea of simplicity is that at the ultimate metaphysical foundation of reality is something that has to be understood as esse —but also as id quo est. We do not know what this kind of thing is either. (Stump 2016, 202)
Stump, E., 2016, “Simplicity and Aquinas's Quantum Metaphysics” in Gerhard Krieger, ed. Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles im Mittelalter: Rezeption und Transformation, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 191–210.
Dolezal, J. E., 2011, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications.
Miller, B., 1996, A Most Unlikely God, Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press.
Now for my apologia.
Novak's characterization of me as both a rationalist and a fideist is basically accurate. And yes, the rationalist comes first with exacting requirements. Let me try to illustrate this with DDS. God is the absolute reality, a stupendously rich reality who transcends creatures not only in his properties, but also in his mode of property-possession, mode of existence, mode of necessity, and mode of uniqueness. God is uniquely unique. Such a being cannot be a being among beings. He is uniquely unique in that he alone is self-subsistent Being. Deus est ipsum esse subsistens.
One can reason cogently to this conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion is apparently self-contradictory. The verbal formula does not express a proposition that the discursive intellect can 'process' or 'compute.' It is unintelligible to said intellect. For the proposition the formula expresses appears to be self-contradictory. Stump agrees as do the opponents of DDS.
Now there are three ways to proceed.
1) We can conclude, as many distinguished theists do, that the apparent contradictions are real and that God is not absolutely simple, that DDS is a 'mistake.' See Hasker, William, 2016, “Is Divine Simplicity a Mistake?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 699-725. For Hasker, DDS involves category mistakes, logical failures, and a dehumanization of God. (One mistake Hasker himself makes is to think that a defender of DDS can only tread the via negativa and must end up embracing radical agnosticism about the nature of God. Stump has some interesting things to say in rebuttal of this notion. See Stump 2016, 195-198.)
In short: God is not reasonably believed to be simple.
2) A second way is the mysterian way. The conjunction of God is esse and God is id quod est is an apparent contradiction. But it is not a real contradiction. Characteristic of the mysterian of my stripe is the further claim that the structure of the discursive intellect makes it impossible for us to see that the contradiction is merely apparent.
In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple despite the ineliminable apparent contradictions that this entails because, as Stump puts it, "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) To put the point more generally, it is reasonable to confess the infirmity of human reason with respect to certain questions, and unreasonable to place an uncritical faith in its power and reach. This is especially unreasonable for those who accept the Fall of man and the noetic consequences of sin.
Besides, if God is not a being among beings, then one might expect the discursive intellect to entangle itself in contradictions when it tries to think the Absolute Reality. God, as Being itself, cannot be subsumed under any extant category of beings.
3) A third way is by maintaining that the apparent contradictions can be shown to be merely apparent by the resources of the discursive intellect. In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple, and all considerations to the contrary can be shown to rest on errors and failures to make certain distinction.
What is my argument against (3)? Simply that the attempts to defuse the contradictions fail, and not just by my lights. Almost all philosophers, theists and atheists alike, judge the notion of a simple God to be contradictory.
What is my argument against (1)? Essentially that those who take this line do not appreciate the radical transcendence of God. This point has been argued most forcefully by Barry Miller (1996). Theists who reject divine simplicity end up with an anthropomorphic view of God.
As for Novak's charge of misology or hatred of reason and argument, I plead innocent. One who appreciates the limits of reason, and indeed the infirmity of reason as we find it in ourselves here below, cannot be fairly accused of misology. Otherwise, Kant would be a misologist. I will turn the table on my friend by humbly suggesting that his doxastic security needs sometimes get the better of him causing him to affirm as objectively certain what is not at all objectively certain, but certain only to him. For example he thinks it is epistemically certain that there are substances. I disagree.
But I want to confess to one charge. Lukas writes, "It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction, etc." It may be that I am too zealous in my hunt for aporiai. But I am deeply impressed by the deep, protracted, and indeed interminable disagreement of philosophers through the ages over every substantive question. My working hypothesis for the metaphilosophy book I am trying to finish is that the core problems of philosophy are most of them genuine, some of them humanly important, but all of them insoluble by us. And then I try to figure out what philosophy can and should be if that is the case, whether it should end in mystical silence — that is where Aquinas ended up! — or fuel a Pyrrhonian re-insertion into the quotidian and a living of life adoxastos, or give way to religious faith, or something else.
I want to thank the perspicacious Lukas Novak for helping me in my endless quest to know myself. Professor Novak comments:
4.4 Stump's Quantum Metaphysics
Like Dolezal, Eleonore Stump thinks of God as self-subsistent Being (esse). If God is absolutely simple, and not just simple in the uncontroversial sense of lacking material parts, then God must be self-subsistent Being. God is at once both Being and something that is. He has to be both. If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be "religiously pernicious." (Stump 2016, 199) Indeed, if God were Being but not a being, then one could not sensibly maintain that God exists. For if Being is other than every being, then Being is not. (It is instructive to note that Martin Heidegger, the famous critic of onto-theology, who holds to the "ontological difference" of Being (Sein) from every being (Seiendes) ends up assimilating Being to Nothing (Nichts).) On the other hand, if God were a being among beings who merely has Being but is not (identically) Being, then he would not be absolutely transcendent, worthy of worship, or ineffable. Such a God would be "comfortingly familiar" but "discomfiting anthropomorphic." (Miller 1996, 3)
The problem, of course, is to explain how God can be both Being and something that is. This is unintelligible to the discursive intellect. Either Being is other than beings or it is not. If Being is other than beings, then Being cannot be. If Being just is beings taken collectively, then God is a being among beings and not the absolute reality. To the discursive intellect the notion of self-subsistent Being is contradictory. One response to the contradiction is simply to deny divine simplicity. That is a reasonable response, no doubt. But might it not also be reasonable to admit that there are things that human reason cannot understand, and that one of these things is the divine nature? "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) As I read Stump, she, like Dolezal, makes a mysterian move, and she, like Dolezal (2011, 210, fn 55), invokes wave-particle duality. We cannot understand how light can be both a wave phenomenon and also particulate in nature, and yet it is both:
Stump, E., 2016, “Simplicity and Aquinas's Quantum Metaphysics” in Gerhard Krieger, ed. Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles im Mittelalter: Rezeption und Transformation, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 191–210.
Dolezal, J. E., 2011, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications.
Miller, B., 1996, A Most Unlikely God, Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press.
Now for my apologia.
Novak's characterization of me as both a rationalist and a fideist is basically accurate. And yes, the rationalist comes first with exacting requirements. Let me try to illustrate this with DDS. God is the absolute reality, a stupendously rich reality who transcends creatures not only in his properties, but also in his mode of property-possession, mode of existence, mode of necessity, and mode of uniqueness. God is uniquely unique. Such a being cannot be a being among beings. He is uniquely unique in that he alone is self-subsistent Being. Deus est ipsum esse subsistens.
One can reason cogently to this conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion is apparently self-contradictory. The verbal formula does not express a proposition that the discursive intellect can 'process' or 'compute.' It is unintelligible to said intellect. For the proposition the formula expresses appears to be self-contradictory. Stump agrees as do the opponents of DDS.
Now there are three ways to proceed.
1) We can conclude, as many distinguished theists do, that the apparent contradictions are real and that God is not absolutely simple, that DDS is a 'mistake.' See Hasker, William, 2016, “Is Divine Simplicity a Mistake?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 699-725. For Hasker, DDS involves category mistakes, logical failures, and a dehumanization of God. (One mistake Hasker himself makes is to think that a defender of DDS can only tread the via negativa and must end up embracing radical agnosticism about the nature of God. Stump has some interesting things to say in rebuttal of this notion. See Stump 2016, 195-198.)
In short: God is not reasonably believed to be simple.
2) A second way is the mysterian way. The conjunction of God is esse and God is id quod est is an apparent contradiction. But it is not a real contradiction. Characteristic of the mysterian of my stripe is the further claim that the structure of the discursive intellect makes it impossible for us to see that the contradiction is merely apparent.
In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple despite the ineliminable apparent contradictions that this entails because, as Stump puts it, "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) To put the point more generally, it is reasonable to confess the infirmity of human reason with respect to certain questions, and unreasonable to place an uncritical faith in its power and reach. This is especially unreasonable for those who accept the Fall of man and the noetic consequences of sin.
Besides, if God is not a being among beings, then one might expect the discursive intellect to entangle itself in contradictions when it tries to think the Absolute Reality. God, as Being itself, cannot be subsumed under any extant category of beings.
3) A third way is by maintaining that the apparent contradictions can be shown to be merely apparent by the resources of the discursive intellect. In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple, and all considerations to the contrary can be shown to rest on errors and failures to make certain distinction.
What is my argument against (3)? Simply that the attempts to defuse the contradictions fail, and not just by my lights. Almost all philosophers, theists and atheists alike, judge the notion of a simple God to be contradictory.
What is my argument against (1)? Essentially that those who take this line do not appreciate the radical transcendence of God. This point has been argued most forcefully by Barry Miller (1996). Theists who reject divine simplicity end up with an anthropomorphic view of God.
As for Novak's charge of misology or hatred of reason and argument, I plead innocent. One who appreciates the limits of reason, and indeed the infirmity of reason as we find it in ourselves here below, cannot be fairly accused of misology. Otherwise, Kant would be a misologist. I will turn the table on my friend by humbly suggesting that his doxastic security needs sometimes get the better of him causing him to affirm as objectively certain what is not at all objectively certain, but certain only to him. For example he thinks it is epistemically certain that there are substances. I disagree.
But I want to confess to one charge. Lukas writes, "It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction, etc." It may be that I am too zealous in my hunt for aporiai. But I am deeply impressed by the deep, protracted, and indeed interminable disagreement of philosophers through the ages over every substantive question. My working hypothesis for the metaphilosophy book I am trying to finish is that the core problems of philosophy are most of them genuine, some of them humanly important, but all of them insoluble by us. And then I try to figure out what philosophy can and should be if that is the case, whether it should end in mystical silence — that is where Aquinas ended up! — or fuel a Pyrrhonian re-insertion into the quotidian and a living of life adoxastos, or give way to religious faith, or something else.