{"id":9990,"date":"2012-01-24T14:06:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T14:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/01\/24\/necessary-being-a-note-on-a-post-by-james-barham\/"},"modified":"2012-01-24T14:06:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T14:06:42","slug":"necessary-being-a-note-on-a-post-by-james-barham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/01\/24\/necessary-being-a-note-on-a-post-by-james-barham\/","title":{"rendered":"Necessary Being: A Note on a Post by James Barham"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the context of a reply to a "nasty attack on [Alvin] Plantinga by Jerry Coyne that cannot go unanswered," James Barham explains<\/a> why he is an atheist:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The other reason I balk [at accepting a theism like that of Plantinga's] is that I can\u2019t help suspecting there is a category mistake involved in talking about the \u201cnecessity\u201d of the existence of any real thing, even a ground of being. When we speak of the ground of being\u2019s existing \u201cnecessarily,\u201d perhaps we are conflating the nomological sense of \u201cnecessity\u201d\u2014in the earth\u2019s gravitational field an unsupported object necessarily<\/em> accelerates at 32 feet per second squared\u2014with the logical sense of the word\u2014if all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, then necessarily<\/em> Socrates is mortal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Many experience intellectual discomfort at the thought of a being that is, as Barham says, real (as opposed, presumably, to ideal or abstract) but yet exists of broadly logical (metaphysical) necessity.  To discuss this with clarity I suggest we drop 'real' and use 'concrete' instead.  So our question is whether it is coherent to suppose <\/em>that there exists a concrete being that necessarily exists, where the necessity in question is broadly logical.  The question is not whether it is true, but whether it is thinkable without broadly logical contradiction, and without 'category mistake.'   But what does 'concrete' mean?  It does not mean 'material' or 'physical.' Obviously, no material being could be a necessary being. (Exercise for the reader: prove it!)  Here are a couple of definitions:<\/span><\/p>\n

D1. X is concrete =df<\/sub> X is causally active or passive.<\/span>
D2. X is abstract =df<\/sub> X is causally inert, i.e., not concrete.<\/span><\/p>\n

The terms of the concrete-abstract distinction are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive:  everything is one or the other, and nothing  is both.  And the same goes for the physical-nonphysical distinction.  The distinctions are not equivalent, however: they 'cut perpendicular' to each other.  There are (or at least it is coherent to suppose that there could be) nonphysical concreta.  Whether there are physical abstracta is a nice question I will set aside for now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Plantinga's God, if he exists, is concrete, wholly immaterial, and necessarily existent.  Obviously, one cannot imagine<\/em> such a being.  (A point of difference with Russell's celestial teapot<\/a>, by the way.) But I find Plantinga's God to be conceivable<\/em> without contradiction or confusion or conflation or category mistake.   Barham thinks otherwise, suggesting that the notion of a necessarily existent concretum trades on a confusion of nomological necessity with logical necessity.  I find no such confusion, but I do find a confusion in Barham's thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, there is a genuine distinction between nomological necessity and logical necessity. Barham's sentence about an unsupported object in Earth's gravitational field is nomologically necessary, but logically contingent.  It is the latter because there is no logical contradiction in the supposition that a body in Earth's gravitational field accelerate at a rate other than 32 ft\/sec2.   <\/sup>The laws of nature could have been other  than what they are.  But what does this have to do with the possibility of the coherence of the notion of a concrete individual that exists in all broadly logically possible worlds if it exists in one such world?  Nothing that I can see.  Barham points, in effect, to a legitimate difference between:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Necessarily, an unsupported object in Earth's gravitation  falls at the rate of 32ft\/sec2
<\/sup>and<\/span>
2. Necessarily, if all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

The difference is in type of modality.  In (1) the modality is nomological while in (2) it is logical.  Both cases are cases of de dicto<\/em> modality: the modal operator operates upon a dictum or proposition.  But when we speak of God as a necessary being, we are not speaking of the necessary truth of a proposition, whether the necessity be nomological or logical.  We are speaking of the necessary existence of a 'thing,' a res. <\/em>Accordingly, the modality is de re. <\/em>So I am wondering whether Barham is succumbing to de dicto-de re<\/em> confusion.  Of course, there is the proposition<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

3. Necessarily, God exists<\/span><\/p>\n

where the necessity in question is broadly logical.  The truth-maker of this proposition, however, is God himself, a necessarily existent concrete individual.<\/span><\/p>\n

My point, then , is that there is no logical mistake involved in the concept of God as necessary being, no confusion, no category mistake.  Even if the concept fails of instantiation, the concept itself is epistemically in the clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barham will no doubt continue to be an atheist.  But he ought to drop the above accusation of category mistake.  He can do better. He could argue that all modality is de dicto<\/em>.  Or that all necessity is linguistic\/conventional in origin.  Or he could give J. N. Findlay's 1948 ontological disproof, which I will feature in my next post<\/a>.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I should add that Barham's post, What Happened to Jerry Coyne's Sensus Divinitatis<\/a>, only a small part of which I examined above, is extremely good and should be carefully read.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the context of a reply to a "nasty attack on [Alvin] Plantinga by Jerry Coyne that cannot go unanswered," James Barham explains why he is an atheist: The other reason I balk [at accepting a theism like that of Plantinga's] is that I can\u2019t help suspecting there is a category mistake involved in talking … Continue reading “Necessary Being: A Note on a Post by James Barham”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[191,143,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-and-theism","category-god","category-modal-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}