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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.
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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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