God and Evil, Mind and Matter

It is a simple point of logic that if propositions p and q are both true, then they are logically consistent, though not conversely. So if God exists and Evil exists are both true, then they are logically consistent, whence it follows that it is possible that they be consistent. This is so whether or not anyone is in a position to explain how it is possible that they be consistent. If something is the case, then, by the time-honored principle ab esse ad posse valet illatio, it is possible that it be the case, and my inability, or anyone's inability, to explain how it is possible that such-and-such be the case cannot count as a good reason for thinking that it is not the case. So if it is the case that God exists and Evil exists are logically consistent, then this is possibly the case, and a theist's inability to explain how God and evil can coexist is not a good reason for him to abandon his theism — or his belief in the existence of objective evil.

The logical point I have just made is rock-solid.  I now apply it to two disparate subject-matters. The one is the well-known problem of evil faced by theists.  The other is the equally well-known 'problem of mind' that materialists face, namely, the problem of reconciling the existence of the phenomena of mind with the belief that nothing concrete is immaterial.

The theist is rationally entitled to stand pat in the face of the 'problem of evil' and point to his array of arguments for the existence of God whose cumulative force renders rational his belief that God exists. Of course, he should try to answer the atheist who urges the inconsistency of God exists and Evil exists; but his failure to provide a satisfactory answer is not a reason for him to abandon his theism. A defensible attitude would be: "This is something we theists need to work on."

Cottingham on the Origin of the Religious Impulse

John Cottingham, On the Meaning of Life (Routledge 2003), p. 52:

. . . the whole of the religious impulse arises from the profound sense we have of a gap between how we are and how we would wish to be . . . .

This is not quite right, as it seems to me. The sense of the gap between 'is' and 'ought' is undoubtedly part of the religious impulse, but there is more to it than this. It must be accompanied by the sense that the gaping chasm between the miserable wretches we are and what we know we ought to be cannot be bridged by human effort, whether individual or collective. Otherwise, the religious sensibility would collapse into the ethical sensibility. There is more to religion than ethics. The irreligious can be aware of the discrepancy between what we are and what we should be. The religious are convinced of the need for moral improvement together with a realization of their impotence in bringing it about by their own efforts.

But now, if I may be permitted to argue against myself:  "Haven't you maintained more than once that Buddhism is a religion?  And isn't Buddhism a religion of self-help?  And haven't you quoted the 'Be ye lamps unto yourselves' verse?  So something has to give.  If Buddhism counts as a religion, then it cannot be essential to a religion that it invoke 'other-power' for moral improvement.  And if the latter invocation is essential to religion, then Buddhism is not a religion."

Well, my man, it looks like we are going to have to think about this some more. 

"And another thing.  You say that there is more to religion than ethics. This implies that ethics is an essential component of religion.  But doesn't Kierkegaard speak of the teleological suspension of the ethical?  Might it not be that one can have religion without ethics?"

A religion worth having cannot be decoupled from ethics.  See Abraham, Isaac, and an Aspect of the Problem of  Revelation and  Kant on Abraham and Isaac.

Waves and Particles

Michael G. Pratt, Queen's College, writes:

Greetings from Kingston, Canada.

I enjoy your blog, and have been reading it regularly for over two years now.

I was reminded of you as I read this story about an unallied, iconoclastic particle physicist whose independence appears to be spawning some important insights into the nature of the universe.

Supposita

We have been discussing the question of the logical consistency of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.  Dr. Lukas Novak (Charles University, Prague) has offered a solution to the consistency problem that relies crucially on the notion of a suppositum or supposit.  If I have understood him, his suggestion is that there is nothing logically problematic in the suggestion that the individual divine nature has three supposits, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

It is worth reminding ourselves that any solution to the consistency problem will depend on one's background logic and general ontology.  And the same holds if one decides that the problem is insoluble.

But being none too clear about what a supposit is supposed to be, I asked Novak  if he could define the term and how it stands vis-a-vis such terms as 'bare particular' (Gustav Bergmann) and 'thin particular' (David Armstrong).  He responded as follows:

Ad 4) X is a suppositum iff X is something endowed with individual nature and suppositality, that is, X is both uninstantiable and incommunicable to a subject (and not a part nor an aggregate).

Ad 5) It is better said that Socrates' humanity inheres in Socrates, who is a suppositum. Suppositum is not a bare or thin particular. If there were bare particulars, they would probably be classified as supposita, but classically supposita are not considered to be "thin" or "bare" – they have their rather "thick" essences or natures de re necessarily. Socrates is identical to Socrates' suppositum. Socrates' humanity inheres in Socrates and is a metaphysical constituent of Socrates. Socrates' humanity plus his suppositality makes up Socrates. Neither Socrates' humanity nor his suppositality are entities in their own right, they are just aspects or metaphysical constituents of Socrates. So I use "inhere" here as _not_ implying any particular kind of distinction between the nature and the suppositum.

Continue reading “Supposita“

Of Pasta and Perichoresis

Dr. Vallicella,
 
Regarding your recent posts on the trinity and the incarnation, I wanted to float something by you again. I referred you some time ago to a book by James Anderson titled, Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status . I am writing you again to suggest that its argument be taken into account as you are looking into the questions and problems that arise from thinking about the trinity and the incarnation.
 
Regards,

Paul Manata (a fellow Italian who cooks his pasta just the way you like it)

 
Mr. Manata,
 
Now I have to take the book seriously!  The book has been placed on my list.  I recently became aware of Anderson via Dale Tuggy.  Tuggy classifies his Trinitarian metatheory as positive mysterianism.  The pasta allusion is to my The Seven Deadly Sins of Pasta.  As for perichoresis, this Wikipedia article appears to be competent.
 
UPDATE from Mr Manata:  
 
Thanks. I should add that I did write a very lengthy review of Anderson's book (located here). It's about 30 pages long and might serve to whet the appetite of some of your readers. Dr. Anderson was sent a copy of the review and feels it is a good summary of the book.

Contemporary Czech Analytic Scholasticism

Vlastimil Vohánka reports: 

I observe you're discussing with my friend Lukas Novak.

 

Here, in the Czech Republic, one of the most atheistic and secularist countries in the world, one can, paradoxically, observe a sort of revival of Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy, including the inauguration of philosophical organizations and of a Neo-Aristotelian journal, several conferences, and interaction with the mainstream, sometimes with original results, both in the history of philosophy and systematic philosophy. You can take a look at these sites:
Studia Neoaristotelica (a new journal of the societies; partially in Czech and Slovak, in the future to a greater degree in world languages).
 
The leading figure of the young Czech scholastics, who are my friends, is Prof Stanislav Sousedík (* 1931), a historian of baroque philosophy and systematically a theorist of predication. He has published extensively in Czech and German.
 
There will be a conference on the synthesis of ontology of scholasticism and analytic philosophy (Prague, Czech Republic, 2010, c. June 28 — June 30, organized by Charles University in Prague – Catholic Theological Faculty). 
 
The themes are:

Aristotelian metaphysics and its plausibility; scholastic development of Aristotelian metaphysics; contemporary metaphysics: being and existence, realism vs. nominalism, structure of particulars, persistence through time, the necessary and the possible, propositions and states of affairs, causes and explanation; God. From the invited speakers, E. J. Lowe, Michael J. Loux, Gyula Klima, David S. Oderberg, Robert Passnau, Edward Feser, and Uwe Meixner have confirmed their attendance. I repent that before the budget of the conference was run out I had not asked you whether you would come.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘Sunny’ Songs

Last time the theme was 'rainy' songs.  To balance things out, here are some 'sunny' songs.  Donovan, To Try For the Sun.  Forgot what a great tune that is.  Might have been the mid-60's since I last heard it.  And then there's the moody Sunny Goodge Street by the same artist.  The Beatles, Here Comes the Sun. 

Jimi Hendrix, Third Stone From the Sun from his first album.  A bit of psychedelia from '67.  It's good to see that Mose Allison is still at it, at age 83.  Here is his quirky verson of "You Are My Sunshine."  I used to catch Mose at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California, at the end of the '60s.  Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan try to do a duet of the same song.  If you can't stomach either of those versions, there is always Doris Day.

Cream, Sunshine of Your Love.  Bobby Hebb, Sunny (1966).  I had to reach my long arm far back into the musty mausoleum of moldy oldies for this Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee version of the old standard, The Sunny Side of the Street (1941). 

Finally, The Sun Also Rises, a tune that I heard in 1968 and have had in my head for four decades but haven't heard again until just now. For the last 42 years I have been trying without success to remember the name of the band and locate the tune.  'Fever Tree' it is, an obscure group that I heard together with Canned Heat at an L.A. club in '68.  If you remember them, I'll buy you a beer. 

Aquinas on Why Being Cannot Be a Genus

At 998b22 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that being cannot be a genus. Thomas Aquinas gives his version of the argument in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, ch. 25, para. 6. I find the presentation of the doctor angelicus clearer than that of the philosophus. After quoting Thomas' argument, I will offer a rigorous reconstruction and explanation of it. The argument issues in an important conclusion, one highly relevant to my running battle with the partisans of the 'thin' conception of being.

The Anton C. Pegis translation reads as follows:

Continue reading “Aquinas on Why Being Cannot Be a Genus”

Augustine and the Child at the Seashore: Trinitarian Metatheory

St-augustine I was told this story as a child by a nun. One day St. Augustine was walking along the seashore, thinking about the Trinity. He came upon a child who had dug a hole in the sand and was busy filling it with buckets of seawater.

Augustine: "What are you doing?"

Child: "I am trying to empty the ocean into this hole."

Augustine: "But that’s impossible!"

Child: "No more impossible than your comprehending the Trinity."

The point of the story is that the Trinity is a mystery beyond our comprehension.  It is true, even though we cannot understand how could it be true, where 'could' expresses epistemic possibility.  It is a non-contradictory truth that lies beyond our mental horizon.  Could there be such truths?

Note that there are at least three other ways of thinking about the Trinity doctrine.  One could take the view that the doctrine is both true and contradictory, along the lines of dialetheism according to which there are some true contradictions. (b) Or one could take the view that the doctrine is all of the following: true, non-contradictory, and intelligible to us, even though we cannot know it to be true by reason unaided by revelation.  Under this head would fall putative solutions to the consistency problem that aim to provide an adequate model or analogy, a model or analogy sufficient to render the orthodox doctrine intelligible to us.  (c) Finally, one could take the line that the doctrine is contradictory and therefore false.

Thus there appear to be at least four meta-theories of the orthodox Trinity doctrine.  These are theories about the logico-epistemic status of the doctrine.  We could call them Mysterianism, Dialetheism, Intelligibilism, and Incoherentism.  The last two terms are my own coinages.

Note that I have been talking about  orthodox (Athanasian) Trinity doctrine.  But religion and theology are, I would urge, open-ended, analogously as science is, and so there is no bar to theological innovation and development.  Perhaps one of the doctrines that got itself branded 'heretical' can be rehabilitated and made to work. It is worth pondering that the orthodox are heretics to the heretics:  had a given heretical sect acquired sufficient power and influence, had it drawn to its side the best minds and most persuasive exponents, then it would not be heretical but orthodox.

Everyone likes to think of his own doxa as orthotes but not every doxa can be such on pain of contradiction.  So we ought to be humble.  Apply the honorific 'orthodox' to your doctrine if you like, but smile as you do so.

Trinity and Set Theory

Let S and T be mathematical sets. Now consider the following two propositions:

1. S is a proper subset of T.

2. S and T have the same number of elements.

Are (1) and (2) consistent? That is, can they both be true? If yes, explain how.

If you think (1) and (2) are consistent, then consider whether there is anything to the following analogy. If there is, explain the analogy. There is a set G. G has three disjoint proper subsets, F, S, H. All four sets agree in cardinality: they have the same number of elements.

Of Blood and Blog

I don't think my experience is unusual: our blood relatives tend not to give a hoot about our blogging activities. They say blood is thicker than water, but consanguinity  sure doesn't seem to translate into  spiritual affinity. No matter, the community that we can't find by blood, we'll find by blog.

The people who know us take us for granted. Is it not written that "no prophet is welcome in his hometown"? (Luke 4, 24: nemo propheta acceptus est in patria sua.)

One could call it the injustice of propinquity. We often underestimate those nearby, whether by blood or space, while overestimating those afar.

An Escape From Reality?

If someone tells you that philosophy is an escape from reality, reply: "You tell me what reality is, and I'll tell you whether philosophy is an escape from it."

The point, of course, is that all assertions about reality and its evasions are philosophical assertions that embroil the objector in the very thing from which he seeks to distance himself.