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In this second philosophical conversation with Dr. Joseph Jedwab (part 1 here) we discuss some of his reasons for thinking that God is strictly aspatial but loosely spatial and present at all places. His is a version of the “classical” approach to the topic, i.e. arguably the approach which has been dominant in the mainstream Christian tradition. We also discuss famous Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), whose views on this topic Dr. Jedwab finds to be helpful.
To remain (somewhat) understandable, we had to leave a lot out; for all the dirty metaphysical details, you’ll have to see his paper forthcoming in the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, “God’s Omnipresence: A Defence of the Classical View.”
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Links for this episode:
- Dr. Jedwab’s home page
- posts @ trinities by Dr. Jedwab
- “omnipresence” by Dr. Ed Wierenga at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Encyclopedia entries on thinkers mentioned or discussed in this episode
- Aristotle of Stagira
- Augustine of Hippo
- Boethius
- Anselm of Canterbury
- René Descartes
- Thomas Aquinas
- Universals in medieval philosophy
- David Armstrong (1926-2014) on universals
- Metaphysician Dr. Kris McDaniel
- This week’s thinking music is “Nachtwandel” by Andy G. Cohen.
Would using this maneuver of talking about different senses in which God can be strictly and literally nowhere, but loosely everywhere-license others to use this same tactic when explaining classical Trinitariansim?
Relative Identity comes to mind- Identity being relative to a sortal term.
God is one God, and yet God is three persons.
I don’t see any connection between the two.
But as a matter of fact, it so happens that Dr. Jedwab defends the relative identity approach to the Trinity. He’s got a recent article on that in Faith and Philosophy, if you’re curious. I may post on Relative Identity trinitarianism soon… I think I have a new and tough objection to it.
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