Does the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity Identify God with a Property?

The doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) says that God is not composed of parts or is in anyway divisible. This means that each of God’s attributes cannot be considered as separate individual properties, but instead have to be considered as all being identical to each other; God’s attribute of omnipotence is identical to God’s attribute of omniscience, and both of these identical to God Himself, etc. This way of understanding God was the position of the majority of the church fathers and medievals, as well as that of the compilers of the reformation confessions. 

The first article of the Anglican church states:

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions… (39 articles, BCP)

Equally, the Westminster divines concluded in the second chapter of their confession:

There is but one only living, and true God: who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions…

There were strong reasons for why the church held to DDS. First, if God was composed of parts, then He could not be considered to be pure act, for any composite has the potential to be divided into the parts that compose it. This leads to the second concern with divine complexity; namely, that it would weaken God’s essential nature. God would have the potential to be separated into His parts; and even if this possibility is never actualised, it still weakens God’s essential nature as a being who can say ‘I am who I am’ (Ex. 3.14). Third, it would make God dependent upon His parts, as any composite is dependent upon the parts that compose it; for instance, a mosaic is dependent upon the individual coloured pieces that make it up. Fourth, complexity would entail that God is not the first of all things, for these parts would precede God, even if just logically. 

While these reasons have for many been convincing, especially if one rejects nominalism, contemporary philosophers have had serious doubts about DDS. The reason given that simplicity comes with too high a metaphysical cost to justify its benefits. One of the alleged metaphysical costs is that it would make God to be identical to a property. And since a property is inert and impersonal, and God is active and personal, God cannot be identified with a property and thus cannot be simple. Moreover, if God is one property, we would not be able to distinguish between God’s properties. However, since we can, God cannot be just one property.

A key proponent of this criticism is Alvin Plantinga, who lays out these criticisms in his paper 'Does God Have a Nature' (Marquette University Press, 1980)’. Plantinga says,

[God] doesn’t merely have a nature or essence; he just is that nature, … [and] each of his properties is identical with each of his properties…so that God has but one property.” But this “seems flatly incompatible with the obvious fact that God has several properties; he has power and mercifulness, say, neither of which is identical with the other. (pp. 46–47).

He further says,

No property could have created the world; no property could be omniscient, or, indeed, know anything at all. If God is a property, then he isn’t a person but a mere abstract object; he has no knowledge, awareness, power, love or life. So taken, the simplicity doctrine seems an utter mistake. (47)

What could we say in response to Plantinga’s criticism? The most common response is that Plantinga has misunderstood the metaphysics of those who hold to DDS. James Dolezal and Lawrence Dewan argue that a property is something that inheres in something imperfectly. (God without Parts, Pickwick Publications, 2011) All creatures have limited power, knowledge, goodness, etc. and so inhere these things as properties. God, however, has perfect power, perfect knowledge, and perfect goodness. This means that God does not inhere these things as properties but is instead identical to them.

The crux of Dolezal and Dewan’s argument can be explained as follows. No creature can be said to be identical to the attributes of power, knowledge, and goodness, since if they were identical to these attributes, then they could not be said to have these attributes in a limited way, which all creatures do. To explain this, let us consider what it is to be human. A human is identical to the human nature; this means that while humans can be more fully or less fully human - they might lose a leg or something, it can never be said that a human is less human. A human is a human in so far is it has the essence of a human, and they possess this essence in so far as they exist as a human. No human could be less than a human; that would be absurd. So, when I have imperfect knowledge within me, it cannot be identical to me but must inhere inside of me as something conceptually separate. This, Dolezal and Lawrence, argue, is a property. God, however, is identical with all His attributes and holds them perfectly. God thus does not inhere his attributes as properties; rather, God is the perfection of the attributes that creatures inhere as properties. Dolezal thus concludes: ‘We attribute to God the perfections but not the inherence’.

The way that this addresses Plantinga’s concern is that it allows for us to say God is not a property. This means that God can only be allegorically ascribed properties. Francis Turretin sums up gist this argument well: 

Attributes are not ascribed to God properly as something superadded to his essence (something accidental to the subject), making it perfect and really distinct from himself; but improperly and transumptively inasmuch as they indicate perfections essential to the divine nature conceived by us as properties (IET. 3.5.2)

If God is not a property, then it does not follow that God is necessarily inert and impersonal by being identical to His attributes. 

However, while this solution has the advantage of showing the difference between man and God and shows that it is wrong to say DDS makes God a property, it yet leaves how God is to be personal as unexplained and mysterious, nor does it explain how God can be ascribed different attributes. Of course, this mysteriousness does not exclude the possibility that God is a person. Nevertheless, there is a further response that can be given that makes things more clear. 

On the classical theist understanding, God is said to be pure act. Katherine A. Rodgers, by appealing to David Hume, believes that  understanding God as pure act can elucidate DDS. (Perfect Being Theology, Edinburgh University Press, 2000, p. 30.) Hume argued that we do not perceive our own properties; rather, we only perceive our own acting and experiencing as a result of these properties. So, I do not experience myself as a subject with the property of rationality; I only experience myself as thinking. The same can be said with power. I do not experience the property of power, but only its exercise in things. In other words, we only ever experience ourselves as acting, our acts. This experience of acting can serve as an analogy to how God is pure act. Additionally, we can do things that have multiple aspects to them. For example, by the single act of knowing that Anselm existed in 1033, I know various pieces of information: what existence means, what 1033 means, etc. Similarly, in one act God can be said to know all things. 

And since most theists believe that thinking is the same as acting within God, in knowing all things God can be said to be doing all that He knows. Hence, God in a single act is knowing all He does and doing all He does. It is in this way in which we can call God to be powerful and knowledgable, although in an allegorical way to how we predicate these terms in man.

Understanding God as act also helps us grasp in some sense the way we can call God personal. Of course, since God is fundamentally different to us in many aspects, existing outside of time, being immutable, the way we call God a personal can only be an allegorical predication. Nevertheless, a vital aspect needed for a personal relationship is interaction. I cannot have a personal relationship with a rock since a rock cannot interact and respond to anything I say or do to it. If God was a mere abstract property, then the same could be said of God - it is difficult to see how God could be interacting and responding to the things I do. However, if God is pure act, then God can respond and interact with me; from His eternal standpoint He can be acting to effect a change at t2 in response to something I do at t1; God can be acting to respond to my prayer at 12noon yesterday, and thinking/doing of the response at 12noon today.

Calvinistic Molinism

For a long time philosophers and theologians have been trying to reconcile God’s sovereignty and determination over the universe with man’s freedom and responsibility. Often, responses have been unsatisfactory by either favouring a strong version of God’s sovereignty at the expense of man’s freedom, or a strong version of man’s freedom at the expense of God’s sovereignty. In this blog post, I will offer what I term the Calvinist Molinist solution, which attempts to mediate between these two extremes. However, before we can discuss what Calvinist Molinism is, we first have to examine Molinism itself.

Molinism is the theological model, first put forward by sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina as a solution to solve the sovereignty/freedom conflict, and is popular amongst contemporary philosophers such as William Lane Craig. The way Molinism attempts to solve the sovereignty/freedom conflict is by postulating that, in addition to God’s natural knowledge (knowledge of all modal truths) and free knowledge (knowledge God has about contingent affairs), God also has middle knowledge, which is knowledge of how creatures would have freely acted in non-actual circumstances. God, the Molinist says, in light of what He knows via His middle knowledge, chooses to actualise the circumstances that would bring about a world where creatures have freely chosen to act in a way that is most pleasing to Him. The Molinist maintains that God only ever actualises the best feasible world. A feasible world is a subset of possible worlds that are limited by subjunctive conditionals of creaturely freedom (henceforth SCCs) - what creatures would freely choose in a given circumstance. This is in contrast to any mere possible world, which may include scenarios where God overrides the free will of creatures to achieve some end. The molinist argues that SCCs are brute facts, and not grounded in God, which they believe must be argued to protect the freedom of man. 

Molinism has been popular amongst theologians and philosophers as it allows for both God to remain strongly sovereign while also preserving man’s freedom and responsibility. It also provides a solution to the problem of evil in that the culpability for evil, at least moral evil, can be grounded within the free actions of creatures. However, Molinism has serious problems, challenging God’s aseity and sovereignty, the doctrine of divine simplicity, and faces trouble when faced with the ‘truth-maker objection’.

Molinism threatens God’s sovereignty because it suggests that there are contingent facts that God has no control over. God is simply confronted with SCCs which He is beyond His power to do anything about. And this is not only problematic philosophically, but also Biblically, for the Bible asserts that God is sovereign over all of creation. (Job 42:2)

Molinism has the additional disadvantage of threatening divine attributes that are seen as essential to classical theism. For a start, Molinism poses a threat to the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity. Divine simplicity argues that God’s act of willing is identical to God’s act of knowing, and that these are both identical to God’s being. The problem with Molinism is that God is affected by the objects of middle knowledge in a way that entails that His knowledge could not be identical to His willing. Molinism also poses a threat to divine impassability, since it entails that God is affected and changed by the facts of middle knowledge. Moreover, Molinism challenges the doctrine of aseity, which says that God alone is self-sufficient and that all other things depend upon Him; for Molinism claims that these facts cannot be dependent upon God. This again has not only a philosophical disadvantage but a Biblical one too, conflicting with Col. 1.16. Of course, one could reject these doctrines, but this is a high metaphysical cost just to adhere to Molinism.

The final problem with Molinism is that it is incompatible with the truth-maker principle, which states that for any true proposition P, there is some entity which bears and grounds that truth, by virtue of which makes the proposition true. What makes it true that Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March is the fact of him being so assassinated. Similarly, what makes it true that there are bears in Russia is the fact of there being bears in Russia. Molinism, however, brings into question this principle, since there can be no entity that grounds the truth of SCCs. It cannot exist within the creatures, as they are yet to exist, and the Molinist argues that it cannot exist within the mind of God as this would conflict with man’s freedom. 

While those who hold to Molinism have criticised the truth-maker theory and have asserted that SCCs can exist as brute fact, we should hesitate before rejecting the truth-maker principle for the following reasons. First, truth-maker theory prima-facie is a self-evident theory, and we should not reject a self-evident theory for a less evident theory (Molinism) without good reason. Second, if we reject the idea of truth makers, we are left without an explanation of what it is that makes a given proposition true, and are thus lead into indeterminacy. Third, to reject the truth-maker principle would also bring into question the validity of the principle of sufficient reason; this principle itself has admirable prima facie plausibility and if rejected would, as said by Alexander Pruss, undermine science (The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 255.) and philosophical argument. ('The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument', in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, 2009, p. 45)

Defenders of Molinism, such as Craig, have attempted to rebut this criticism by demonstrating that certain truths cannot have truth makers, which shows the truth-maker principle to be erroneous. (Craig, 'Middle Knowledge, Truth-Makers, and the Grounding Objection', Society of Christian Philosophers, 18(3):337-352, 2001) These truths are as follows:

(1) No physical objects exist. 

(2) Dinosaurs are extinct today.
(3) All ravens are black.
(4) Torturing a child is wrong.
(5) Napoleon lost the battle of waterloo.
(6) The US President will be a woman in 2070.

The problem with Craig’s counter-examples is that it relies on assumptions that are classically rejected by classical theists, such as nominalism and the A-theory of time. (2), (5), and (6) all have a truth-maker if we adopt a B-theory of time. (1)’s truth-maker can be explained by appealing to the totality of facts that exist, which includes the facts about the essences of things that exist within the mind of God and whether their potentialities have been actualised or not. This explanation, of course, is excluded on a nominalist account. (4) Can have a truth-maker, again by appealing to the essences of things. On classical essentialism, it is the essence of a thing that defines what is right or wrong for a thing to do. (3)’s truth-maker is also the essence that exists within the mind of God, which defines Raven’s as birds that are black. 

There is a lot more that can be said about truth-makers, but that is a subject for another blog post. Nevertheless, it should be clear that for the traditional classical theist, Craig’s counter-examples are not going to hold weight.

Given that Molinism has a high metaphysical cost, what might be offered in its place that overcomes these problems? I suggest Calvinistic Molinism. Calvinistic Molinism, instead of postulating SSCs as brute fact, instead argues that the SCCs exist within the mind of God as His thoughts. These SSCs are a result of our natures that first exist as essences, or blueprints, within God’s mind. Contrary to what the Molinist might say, it is hard to see why this ought to be taken as denying free will anymore than if the natures are just the result of some undetermined brute fact. Moreover, Calvinistic Molinism has the advantage that it can exist without conflicting with classical theism, and other intuitive principles while also preserving man’s freedom, since God’s sovereignty over the actions of creatures are not the direct result of His particular decrees. 

What might be said to be problematic with Calvinistic Molinism? Perhaps the biggest problem is that it makes the problem of evil more acute, making it seem to be the case that God is the author of sin. There are two ways that one could respond to this challenge. First, we might be able to say that while both God and y are equally responsible for creating s when y does sinful action s, they are not equally to blame. This is because blame attaches itself to intentions. We might be able to say, therefore, that the intention that God had for creating s was to promote the greatest good whereas the intention that y had was not but rather was to benefit himself, meaning that God is not blameworthy whereas y is. 

An additional response is to appeal to our inability to fully comprehend God and His influence over the world. It is wrong to imagine that the way God exercises control over His creation is similar to that of how a man has control over puppets. Instead, we should picture it as being analogous to how an author has control over the events of a novel. Within a crime novel, when the Butler murders Mrs White, we assume that the punishment that the Butler receives is just - we do not object because the story was determined and written by an author. In an analogous way, we can say that while God has control over His creation, the way He exercises His control is not one that violates man’s responsibility or makes God responsible for evil.

Is Feser Correct in Calling Hume's Fork Self-Contradictory?

In his blog post on the problem of induction, Feser accuses Hume’s argument against induction as being self-contradictory. However, I have heard a recent rebuttal that claims Hume's argument is not self-contradictory, like Feser claims. To see if Feser was correct in his analysis, let us turn to examine Hume and Feser's accusation of contradiction. 

Hume argued that induction can never be justified, since there are only two means by which something can be justified, neither of which works for justifying induction. The first way in which induction could be justified is via what Hume terms ‘relation of ideas’, and the second way is what he terms as ‘matters of fact.’

An example of a proposition that is justified as a ‘relation of ideas’ would be ‘all bachelors are unmarried’. What makes this proposition justified in terms of the ‘relation of ideas’ is that it is necessarily true by virtue of the fact that the term ‘bachelor’ logically entails the idea of ‘unmarried man’. Justifying induction in this way would require showing that there is a similar relation between the idea of x happening multiple times and an event y that always follows x. However, as Feser notes, there is no such connection; this because it is at least conceivable that an effect does not follow a cause, bread failing to nourish us for example, in a way that it is not conceivable to imagine a married bachelor. 

An example of a proposition known as a matter of fact would be ‘the British drink tea’. For the fact that this is true is not because of the idea that being British logically entails that one drinks tea (although it may seem like it), but rather because it is a contingent empirical fact that the British drink tea. To argue that induction is justified by matters of fact would mean that it is a contingent empirical fact that induction has been reliable and therefore should be justified. But, this is equally, if not more, problematic. This is because to infer from the fact that induction has been reliable in the past to the belief that induction is now reliable is to rely on induction and therefore argue in a circle, as it presupposes the reliability that is trying to be proved. Hume hence concludes that our belief in induction is unjustified.  

Feser argues that Hume’s fork is notoriously self-refuting, as the principle itself is neither known as a matter of fact nor is it true in virtue of its constituent ideas and known in terms of the relation of ideas. So, Feser says that Hume’s fork ‘is as metaphysical a principle as any Hume was trying to undermine with it, and its very promulgation presupposes that there is a third epistemic point of view additional to the two Hume was willing to recognize.’ He further argues that any attempt by Hume to salvage the fork from this criticism would also salvage induction.

As stated above, some have asserted that Feser has erred in thinking that Hume’s fork is self-refuting. The proponents of this criticism argue that Hume’s fork is actually justified in terms of the relation of ideas. They argue this due to their reading of Hume’s Fork as stating the truism that all propositions are either known a priori or a posterior, and their belief that this truism is justified in terms of the relation of ideas. 

Is this rebuttal any good? I don’t think so. For such a criticism has missed how justification in terms of the relation of ideas is understood by Hume, and as such has let the very point of Feser’s response slip under its nose. We can see this when we expand upon what Hume meant by the relation of ideas. In Hume’s thought, the kind of truths that are justified in terms of the relation of ideas are analytical truths. An analytical proposition is one where it is the definition of the antecedent that makes the consequence true; thus, ‘all bachelors are unmarried men.’ is true because the definition of ‘bachelor’ is ‘unmarried man’. It is for this reason that it can be known a priori. Feser’s point is that Hume’s fork is clearly not known because of any of its definitions that constitute it; and because of this implicitly assumes that there is a third way by which things can be justifiably known, and is hence self-contradictory. 

It is through this implicit third way of how we might justifiably believe something that induction could be justified. Other propositions that fall under this third definition could possibly include moral truths, truths about the external world, whether other minds exist or not, etc. etc. To argue, therefore, that all Feser is attacking is the self-evident truth that all propositions are justified either a priori or a posterior is to misunderstand Hume and to concede the very point Feser was trying to make. 

Anselm's Commercial Atonement - An Outstanding Theory?

There have been quite a few theories to explain the Biblical doctrine of the Atonement in church history. In this blog post, we will examine Anselm’s theory and see why it ought to be rejected.

Anselm argued that because of our sin we have brought great dishonour to God. Because of this, man had to either restore to God His honour that he had besmirched and offer compensation; or God would show that He was still Lord over man, and thus protect His honour by subjecting man to punishment. However, there was a problem. What could man offer to God as compensation? Anselm argued that man could only offer as compensation something that is not already owed by the person compensation is being paid to. But there is nothing man has that is not owed by God. He cannot offer obedience, as this is demanded by God. Nor could he offer repentance, as this too is demanded by God. What man could have offered was his life; however, Anselm says that man has forfeited his life through sin. 

This is where the need for the Atonement comes in. Because Christ was sinless, He did not owe His life to God as a debt and therefore could freely offer it to God as satisfaction. Moreover, because of the worth of a divine life, it was more than adequate compensation to cover the sins of the whole world.

There are many objections that can pitted against Anselm’s theory. There, is, however a common one that is no good. We will examine this first. It is said by some that Anselm is portraying God as a feudal monarch whose wounded ego demands some sort of satisfaction before he can forgive those that have offended His honour. The critics argue that it would be far greater if God magnanimously forgave the insult without demanding satisfaction. After all, are we not encouraged in the Bible to forgive those who have harmed us, even without reparations? 

However, this criticism will not work for two reasons. First, as has been noted by William Lane Craig (See his Cambridge Elements book on the Atonement), the fundamental concern of Anselm is not with God’s honour but with God’s justice and its moral demands. Indeed, sin is something that brings dishonour to God; yet, the reason why God cannot just overlook the offence is because it would be unjust to do so. Anselm says that if sin goes passed unpunished ‘there will be no difference between the guilty and the not guilty; and this is unbecoming to God.’ (I.12) It would make ‘injustice like God.’ The reason, therefore, why God cannot just compassionately forgive sin is because ‘such compassion on the part of God is wholly contrary to the divine justice, which allows nothing but the punishment as the recompense of sin’ (I.24). But how is it that justice determines what God does? Why does God, who is all powerful, not just ignore justice and forgive the injury done to Him? In response to this question, Anselm says that ‘There is nothing more just than supreme justice, which... is nothing else but God Himself.’ In other words, Anselm declares God to be justice itself, and God cannot be inconsistent with Himself. (I.12) 

Second, even if we grant the critics the possibility of God forgoing justice that He may forgive, this would not deal with the problem of shame. Now, there are some (See Stump’s work on the Atonement) that would claim that Anselm’s theory is not concerned with shame. I disagree. There are certainly implicit references to shame in his Cur Deus Homo (see Ch. XIV), and more explicit references in his other work: Anselm’s Meditations and Prayers make mention to shame. And this would make sense given the honour-shame culture Anselm was writing in. 

If God were to just forgive us without exacting punishment, then we would still feel ashamed. We would know that we had wronged God and His honour and had not done anything to make reparations. This would make it unbearable to dwell in God’s presence. The sacrifice of Christ allows us to offer to God something as a reparation for our sin and thus deal with the shame that we feel for having wronged God. And this is something that cannot be dealt with if God just forgives us without reparation, unless we adopt some counterintuitive position, such as God wiping our memories etc.

  

There are, however, real concerns with Anselm’s theory of the Atonement. To begin, Anselm's theory is viewed in entirely a commercial framework. What is unjust on Anselm’s theory is that there is a debt to be paid to God; God has been deprived of something that was His and justice demands that this is restored: ‘and this (what is just) is the sole and complete debt of honour which we owe to God’ (I.11 - Parenthesis Mine). This can be illustrated via the following analogy. Suppose that I steal £50 from Timothy. Now, on the restorative theory of justice advocated by Anselm, justice demands that I pay back Timothy the £50 that I stole and offer a bit more to make amends for the losses to him that were caused by my theft of the £50; as long as I restore and fix the damages caused, justice as been served.

Anselm is not without Biblical support for this ‘commercial view’ of the Atonement. Various Biblical passages liken the substitutionary atonement of Christ to debt or pecuniary payment. The Bible speaks of man being ransomed by Christ (1 Tim. 2.6), that man was bought with a price (1 Cor. 6.20), and that God removed the ordinances [which some interpret as debts] that stood against us (Col. 2.16). The question is how far are we to push this language? For pecuniary language can be used metaphorically, as when we speak of a criminal sentenced to gaol ‘paying for his crime’. So, are these verses to be taken literally, or metaphorically referring to some penalty or punishment that Christ had to pay? The issue with taking these verses literally, as Anselm does, is that God’s justice is then just concerned with the payment of debt — the balancing of scales — and not with condemnation being expressed against the act of the crime itself. In other words, Anselm’s theory fails to take into account the need for punishment for sin. Yet, there are many places in the Bible that portray the retributivist nature of God, and God’s displeasure at the act of sinning: ‘And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity’. (Isaiah 13.11; c.f. Psalm 5.5) 

A further consequence of Anselm’s lack of emphasis on punishment is that it does not adequately take into account the need of Christ’s suffering on the cross. Anselm does attempt to offer a reason for why the suffering of Christ was necessary. Anselm’s reason is that because man fell so easily, it is only fitting that Christ suffer and pay compensation with difficulty. Although, it is not immediately clear how this follows. On the commercial view that has been presented by Anselm, it seems that what matters is that God’s honour is restored with compensation, and that this is done by offering something up of great value voluntarily - a divine life in the case of Christ. But how this is done should be irrelevant. Going back to our previous example, if I owe Timothy £50, plus compensation, what matters is whether or not the sum is paid, not how it is paid. (We will assume I am not breaking the law, like robbing a bank etc. in order to pay Timothy.)

Now, it might be said that it brings more honour to God if Christ offers up something with difficulty than not with difficulty. Indeed, it is a greater honour to me if a low value gift is given to me by someone who had to spend a great part of his income to provide for it, than if it was given to me by someone with great wealth for whom the gift was a mere drop in the ocean of his income. The problem with this, however, is that Christ is worth such an infinite value that the offering of His death alone would be enough to satisfy the honour of God, without the need for the death to be difficult and painful. To argue that Christ’s life is not enough unless He suffers with pain and difficulty undermines His infinite value. Moreover, close reflection reveals that the reason why we value those who do things for us that are difficult is because they chose to still do that thing for us despite the fact that the act was difficult, and not because the act was difficult per se. It brings me no greater honour if my friend decides to do me a favour and makes it purposely difficult for himself than if he just took an easier option available to him. If I ask my friend to buy milk for my fridge — because I am too busy writing an essay to go myself — I will not be more thankful to him if he chose to walk to the grocers three miles away when he could have gone to the grocers half a mile away. Similarly, if it was possible for Christ to offer His life up in a simpler, easier way, it is not more honourable if He chooses to offer His life with great difficulty.

Another problem with Anselm’s "debt" theory of the Atonement is that it falls prey to Socinian objections. Faustus Socinus, the leader of this movement and from whom it derives its name, forwarded the following two objections against a commercial view of the Atonement, in his work On Jesus Christ Our Saviour (1578). 

First, he argued that if we view the Atonement as a debt, then it becomes difficult to see why anything is demanded of us once Christ has paid it. If Christ’s death was the payment for sin, then why do we need to repent and profess faith in Christ? The debt has already been paid and I should be free to go to heaven without God requiring repentance. (Gnomes 1990, III.9) Going back to our analogy, if Daniel pays Timothy my debt of £50, then Timothy has no right to demand any more money in relation to this debt from me. 

Second, he objected that a purely commercial view of the Atonement weakens the love and forgiveness of God: if all the Atonement does is pay my debt, then there is no forgiveness on God’s behalf - it is just a balancing of the scales. When I pay a creditor my debt, he does not forgive me. (Gnomes 1990, III.9) Yet, the Bible speaks of God as forgiving our debts: in the parable of the two debtors, the debt is not paid but forgiven by the master. (Lk. 7.36-50) 

It is likely that it is because of these problems that Anselm moved away from pressing his commercial view of the Atonement too hard and instead, inconsistently, moved to argue that what Christ paid was not literally our debt and the compensation required; but rather that we are to view Christ as offering something to God that was not demanded of Him, and because of this, He gains a reward for His service, and that because Christ as part of the Triune Godhead is in need of nothing, wishes that God gives this reward to mankind in the form of absolving him of his guilt.

This understanding, however, does not fit in with the rest of Anselm’s system, viz. Christ became man to pay off man’s debt and restore honour to God. If Christ’s death is not a payment of our literal debt but an earning of a reward that can be applied to anyone, then it becomes irrelevant whether Christ was man or not. Why did God have to become a man for the reward to be passed onto man? We could also ask why this reward could not have been given to the fallen angels. Anselm argues that this reward cannot be passed onto angels because Christ did not take the nature of an angel. (Ch. II.19) But how does this follow? If I earn a reward for a service I do, surely I should be able to bestow it upon whom I like whether it be a fellow human being or my pet cat, Miaow. Of course, it may be the case that the reward is specific to a particular class. A reward of a new book is not going to be much use to Miaow - at least not in the sense it is intended to be. However, it is difficult to see how the reward of having one’s debt canceled is specific to any particular class. An angel can make use of this reward just as much as I can. 

Additionally, it is unjust that a debt that justice dictates must be paid can be forgiven because of an action, which is not the paying of this debt, performed by another person. Again returning to our analogy, if justice dictates that I should pay Timothy back my £50 I owe him, then it would be unjust for him to wipe this debt as a reward for something his loyal servant decided to do. 

As we have seen, then, while Anselm’s theory might have prima-facie Biblical support, for the Bible does speak of the Atonement in pecuniary terms, it has serious problems when examined at a deeper level. These problems mean that Anselm’s theory of the Atonement, as presented in Cur Deus Homo, is inadequate. There may be amendments that can be made to his theory to mitigate these problems, but it is beyond this blog post to discuss such attempts here or other theories of the Atonement that might be offered as an alternative.

God, Conceivability, and Necessary Goodness

It is a basic principle of logic that if S entails B and necessarily S, then necessarily B. So, if it is true that God, an omnipotent and omniscient being, is necessarily good, and a good God would not allow a world to exist where there is more evil than good, then necessarily there cannot exist a world where more evil exists than good. Theodore Guleserian has a problem with this. He argues that we can easily conceive of a world where more evil than good exists. He says:

Think of a world, we will call it 'B' in which the only sentient beings whose existence is contingent are non-rational animals of various sorts or are sentient beings a good deal like the higher non-rational animals in our world - all of which suffer long spontaneous bouts of excruciating pain, and spend the few hours between bouts barely doing what is necessary to survive. We can draw the picture as detailed as we like: in this world, mutations do not take place, so the species to which these animals belong do not evolve. Perhaps they exist for an infinite stretch of time. And during this eternity they never experience anything we would call pleasure - only relief from pain. Pain-avoidance and other innate drives would be the only factors motivating their behaviour. (God and Possible Worlds: The Modal Problem of Evil, Nous, 1983)

Guleserian argues that given we can easily conceive of this world, it would appear that it is possible; there is, after all, nothing logically inconsistent about it. But this leaves us with the following options. Either (1) we say that an omniscient, omnipotent, and good (OOG) being would allow for a world where more evil than good exists, which entails that there is not one world that an OOG being would prevent, or (2) we say that a world with more evil than good is impossible, or (3) we deny that God is necessarily good.

To hold (1), he says, would go against our most fundamental moral intuitions and therefore should be rejected. We ought to reject (2) because we can conceive of a world where more evil exists than good, and it is in our basic intuition that what is conceivable is possible, at least in this case. We should accept (3) for it is the option that requires the least sacrifice on our basic intuitions: for even if we are convinced in the existence of God, and even that God is a OOG being, to reject that God has any of these attributes necessarily is not to reject that he has them at all, say contingently. 

I agree with Guleserian that (1) ought to be rejected. However, there are serious problems with his rejection of (2). Here is why.

First, Guleserian’s argument is founded upon the controversial idea that conceivability is a guide to possibility. This principle is popular amongst Cartesians who believe that the mind is separate from the body because one can conceive of thinking without a body - see Swinburne. But as pointed out by opponents of Cartesian dualism, how does the Cartesian know that he does not think this only because he poorly understands the mind? Like how someone with a poor grasp of a Euclidean triangles might think it possible for such a triangle to have angles that add up to something other than 180 degrees. Similarly, perhaps a greater understanding of God and good and evil would show that it is actually impossible. For this reason, I am of yet unsure if conceivability is a good guide to possibility.  

Second, the idea that God's existence makes a world with more evil than good impossible is not as counterintuitive as Guleserian claims. For contrary to Guleserian’s claims, many theists rely on the idea that an OOG being could not create a world with more evil than good to justify the very existence of evil, by appealing to sceptical theism. The sceptical theist response to evil argues that the reasons for why God allows suffering are beyond our ken. We are not in the epistemic position to judge the reasons that God might have for allowing the evil that he does. Nevertheless, we know that since He is good, and necessarily so, there must necessarily be good reasons for why He allows evil.

Third, if we believe that it is a great making property to be good rather than evil, then we have good reason to believe that God is necessarily good, despite what intuition may say otherwise. This reasoning being that the Ontological Argument proves that a maximally great being - a being that has all great making properties and no lesser making properties - exists necessarily. Guleserian anticipates this objection and argues that it is a weak argument as there are few supporters of the Ontological argument. However, this is just incorrect. The Ontological Argument is a well established and accepted argument within philosophical theology and has many supporters today, such as Plantinga and Craig, to mention a few. It is therefore not something that can be dismissed out of hand easily.

For these reasons, Guleserian’s argument is to be rejected. 

Hoffman on Why God Cannot be Contingently Omnibenevolent

In his paper ‘Can God do Evil?’ Joshua Hoffman puts forward a simple argument for why God must be necessarily omnibenevolent rather than contingently omnibenevolent. Hoffman begins his paper by noting that many philosophers and theologians have argued that God must be necessarily omnipotent. The reason for this being that if God was contingently omnipotent, then it is a mere contingency that He was able to create the universe, and it might have been the case that no universe at all was created. But, Hoffman argues, this would entail that there is no ultimate explanation of the universe or sufficient reason for the universe. Thus, the position that God is contingently omnipotent is incompatible with the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) and should be rejected; this is if we grant, as Hoffman does, that God must be omnipotent to create ex nihilo, and we accept the PSR.

Hoffman believes that a parallel can be forwarded to demonstrate that God must be necessarily omnibenevolent. His argument is that an omnibenevolent being seeks to bring about an optimal world - this being a world that is at least as good as any other possible world. Hence, if God was necessarily omnibenevolent, God necessarily creates an optimal world. However, if God is only contingently omnibenevolent, then it is only a ‘cosmic accident’ that God is ‘so well intentioned.’ And this again conflicts with the PSR and should hence be rejected. 

Hoffman’s account, however, is flawed. For any argument that attempts to apply PSR reasoning to God ought to be viewed with some suspicion. For suppose we say that God must be necessarily omnibenevolent in order to provide an explanation for why God must have created an optimal world; we are still left with unanswered questions as to why God chose to create a certain world over that of another. Even if an omnibenevolent God must create an optimal world, why, we can ask, does God create this particular optimal world over that of another? Why has he chosen to create a world where all things are as good as they can be and a leaf falls at t1 instead of an equally good world where a leaf falls at t2? There are a few options that can be proposed to answer this. (1) There is only one unsurpassable optimal world that has no rival. Therefore, there needs to be no explanation beyond God’s omnibenevolence why He created this one. (2) There is an explanation, but we cannot or do not yet know what it is. (3) There is no reason for why God chose for the leaf to fall at t1 instead of t2.

(1) seems highly implausible. It is difficult to see how a world where leaf falls a second later than a leaf in another world ceteris paribus can be less or more optimal. Any appeal to chaos theory (the idea that small things can effect massive change, like the flapping of a butterflies wings causing perturbations in the atmosphere that can cause a tornado across the globe) is negated by the fact that God had to choose between the world ending at t1 or a millisecond later at t2; in this case there is no time for chaos theory to have effect. However, if either (2) or (3) are accepted, then a problem arises for Hoffman’s theory. If (2) is correct, then the person who believes that God is only contingently omnibenevolent can argue that there is a reason for why God is ‘so well intentioned’, it is just that we do not or cannot know what this reason is. If (3) is correct, then he can likewise say that there is no reason for why God is so well intentioned. 

Given that (1) is implausible and it would be inconsistent to hold to (2) or (3) in the case of God choosing between optimal worlds but not in the case of why He chooses an optimal world, Hoffman’s argument is to be rejected.  

Why We Need Act and Potency

It is no longer common to explain the nature of change in terms of act and potency. However, the philosophers of antiquity, such as Aristotle, saw the act-potency distinction as being essential to explain change. Indeed, Aristotle saw the distinction as necessary to respond to the challenge of Parmenides, who denied the reality of change.  

Parmenides’ argument is that being can only change if made to do so by something other than it. But the only thing other than being is non-being. Hence, change would require being to arise out of non-being. However, since nothing can arise from non-being (nothingness), change is therefore illusionary. For suppose that we have a toy plastic car and I put a match to it; it will ultimately melt and turn into mushy goo. But what metaphysical explanation can we provide to explain what has given rise to this goo? The explanation cannot reside completely in the fire because not everything fire touches turns to goo. The explanation cannot be that the goo is a combination of the fire and toy car, for any combination of things can be separated back into their separate parts, even if just theoretically; yet, we do not find fire or a toy car as parts within the goo. And the goo obviously was not hiding somewhere within the car, so the only explanation left, argues Parmenides, is that the goo has come from nothing, which is to say that it has not come at all but is just illusionary.

It might seem that the best way to respond to a challenge like Parmenides would be to disregard his position as absurd and inconsistent. If change did not occur, then I could not have typed this blog post on the nature of act and potency, nor could Parmenides have gone through the necessary reasoning in his brain to arrive at the conclusion that change is illusionary. That change occurs is just self-evident. 

However, this way of responding is inadequate; for it tells us that something has gone wrong, but it does not tell us what has gone wrong. It is only once we appeal to Aristotle’s act-potency distinction that we can see where Parmenides has erred. Aristotle argued that the error in Parmenides reasoning is to think that he has exhausted all possibilities as to an explanation for the rise of change. Aristotle maintained that there is another available analysis of change, on which change does not arise out of non-being but rather out of being of another kind; namely, being-in-potency - the way a thing could potentially be. To illustrate being-in-potency, a bar of gold is an example of being-in-act, but it can potentially be melted down and become a puddle, or be painted to be a different colour, such as pink, or be smelted into a ring, etc. All these things exist as being-in-potency alongside the being-in-act. This being-in-potency is a real feature of the thing in question and accords with its nature. Hence, it is within the nature of a gold bar to potentially be melted down and be a puddle, but the bar does not have the potentiality to grow legs and do the can-can. While it might be conceived that this could happen in one possible world, Aristotle’s talk of act-potency is not what modern philosophers today think about when discussing possible worlds. What a thing could do in any possible world is not to be equated with her potentialities; rather, a thing’s potentiality is related to a thing’s nature - something we will discuss in a future post. 

Aristotle argued that potency of a thing gives rise to act when something external interacts with the actual part of that thing. So, the external fire interacting with the actual car gives rise to the potentiality of goo. The potentiality of a thing itself cannot give rise to itself, otherwise it would be inexplicable why it has arisen to act at this time and not at another time, and this is true of things composed of parts that appear to move themselves, for it is the parts moving other parts rather than one part moving itself.

Now, it might be asked what exactly is being-in-potency. It is clear what being-in-act is - it is the actual stuff that we can measure. One possible answer is that we cannot know exactly what being-in-potency is but nevertheless can deduce that it is a necessary feature of the world to explain change. Alternatively, we could appeal to the mind of God and argue an occasionalist position, which says that the potency of a thing is what God has determined He will cause a thing to become when acted upon by certain other things. So, one might say that God has determined in His mind that plastic toy cars turn to goo when interacted upon by fire. 

Is God Greater if He is Only Contingently Good?

Avak A. Howsepian, in his paper 'Is God Necessarily Good?', argues that it is greater for God to be contingently good than necessarily good. The reason given for this by Howsepian is that a contingently good being is able to do more good acts than a necessarily good being. To demonstrate this, Howsepian defines two ways that one can do a good action: first, one can do a good action by directly performing that action, and second, one can do a good action by choosing to refrain from doing evil. So, to give the example provided by Howsepian, Fiske may do a good action by choosing to feed the hungry but may also do a good act by choosing to refrain from gluttony. Howbeit, Howsepian argues that we can only refrain from doing a good action if there is a possibility to do otherwise and we know that there is a possibility to do otherwise: I cannot intend to square a circle because I know that a square circle is impossible. A necessarily good being, therefore, cannot intend to refrain from evil because he would know that it is impossible for him; whereas a being who is only contingently good can, having the ability to be able to directly do a good action and do the good act of refraining from an evil. Howsepian says that the latter is clearly not as great as the former. Hence, God, should be conceived as a contingently good being rather than a necessary good being.

Howsepian’s analysis is faulty. Here is why. First, Howsepian’s argument is first predicated upon the idea that what makes God good is His possibility of doing good actions. But how does this make one any more good than a being who has not got the possibility of doing these good actions? For instance, it is possible that I be as good as the Apostle Paul, or John Wesley, or some other great saint. But this does not make me as good as them: the mere possibility of being as good as these saints does not entail that I am as good as them. Similarly, for a being to have the possibility to do more good actions than x does not show Him to be any more good than x. What it does show is that the being has the ability to do more things and is thus more omnipotent. We have already dealt with whether God’s goodness threatens his omnipotence here. 

Howsepian concedes this point and reformulates his argument. Howsepian writes: 

Of course, one could ask, why might one think that an appeal to a proper subset of possible good action types could be helpful in adjudicating the question of whether or not a necessarily omnipotent, necessarily omniscient, and contingently good being is more benevolent than a necessarily omniscient, and necessarily good being? The answer to this question can be most readily appreciated by further considering the truth of the following proposition: If G* is wholly good and G* can refrain from evil actions, then G* will refrain from evil actions.

We are now entering dangerous waters. We are no longer saying that God is good because He has the possibility to do good actions but because He does good actions. But this would make God’s goodness dependent upon creation (perish the thought!) as God can do more good actions in a universe where He chooses to create than in a universe where He does not choose to create. But it seems evident that a God who needs to depend upon His creation in order to be good is not maximally great. Howsepian has evidently made an error in his reasoning somewhere along the way.

Part of the problem is that Howsepian seems to think that God is to be called good in exactly the same way that we are to be called good. But this obviously cannot be the case. We are subject to moral commands and duties that we have to obey, and we call people good when they choose to follow these commands and duties. But on traditional theism, God is not under any moral commands or duties; for it is God who issues the commands and duties of morality, and it would be absurd to say that God commands Himself. If God is going to be called good in an identical manner to us, then the commands and duties of morality must come from something external to God, which He then becomes subject to. But not only does this sacrifice God on the altar of the Euthyphro Dilemma, it also seriously weakens the aseity of God. Whatever reason, then, we have for calling God good, it is not because He follows the commands and duties of morality. And it is here where Howsepian first errs. (I will address in a later blog post by what we mean when we call God good.)

But let us grant Howsepian his definition of what it means for God to be good. Because even if we do this, it is by no means clear that refraining from an action is a morally good action. It is true that we attach a certain praiseworthiness to when we refrain from an evil action; however, we only intend not do an evil act when weakness is involved: the drug abuser intends not to do the evil action of taking drugs because he is tempted towards that evil. I do not intend to refrain from drug taking. The thought does not cross my mind. I aim to live a healthy life, etc. and it follows from this that I do not take drugs. But for Howsepian this is not enough to count as actively refraining in a way that is praiseworthy. Howsepian argues that if I am absorbed in a game of chess, I might not be doing evil but I am not refraining from it. I need to be actively refraining for it to count. But this entails the absurd conclusion that the drug abuser who needs to be constantly refraining from taking drugs is more good than myself who does not need to refrain from drug taking, because I am not a drug abuser. Where Howsepian has gone wrong is that he has equivocated the praise that we give for achievement with moral praise. The reason we praise the drug abuser who has resisted the temptation to take drugs is because it was a difficult thing for him to do and not because he is to be morally praiseworthy. We can therefore deny that resisting evil is a morally praiseworthy act. 

Howsepain has thus not demonstrated that it is better for God to be contingently good than necessarily good.