Last time I sketched out the broad, old, deep case for the Christian God being a being. This time, I want to explain where and why I get off the Thomist metaphysical bus before it reaches its destination. The Thomist project looks something like this. (I know this is oversimplified; I don’t think it matters for the subjects before us though. Correct me in the comments if I’m wrong.)
- There must be an explanation for why there there are any beings at all.
- This explanation is not provided by the cosmos itself or by any part of it.
- Therefore, this explanation must be provided by one or more sources, as it were, “outside” the cosmos.
- This outside-the-cosmos explanation-provider must be utterly simple.
- Therefore, it is one source, not many. (4)
- Therefore, this source’s being must be the same as its essence. (4)
- Therefore, as all human terms are suited primarily to apply to things which aren’t utterly simple, any human term which truly applies to this source will do so in a sense which isn’t the same as, but is somewhat like the sense in which it applies to composite things. (4)
I have no objection to 1-3; I believe in God.
Notice how much weight 4 bears. 5-7 (and other doctrines about God that I’ve left out) are derived from 4, from the claim that the source of the cosmos must be utterly simple. That is, not only does it have no parts, but it has no distinguishable properties, aspects, facets, modes, or if you like, metaphysical ingredients. In this post, I will explain why I think the case for 4 is less than compelling.
Suppose one believed in a material and anthropomorphic God, a being made of matter, but some special kind of matter – not the kind which composes the cosmos. This God would literally have parts – e.g., a head and a torso. Could he provide an explanation for why there is anything at all?
Let us suppose that this material God existed necessarily. Still, it would seem that he’s not qualified to be the ultimate source of everything else. Why?
He has parts. We’ve stipulated that he’s necessary, so he’s always had them – they were never assembled together. Still, you may think, he exists because of his parts – because they exist and are ordered so as to compose him. Any given proper part is not him, but something else, though a part of him. But the point is that he exists because of other things, namely, his parts.
Some will be tempted to think it’s enough that this God is necessary – that he exists no matter what, or “in all possible worlds.” But it is conceivable that there should be many necessary beings, and that some should exist because of others. So if we want an ultimate explanation of why there is anything, the source must not only be necessary, but also independent – that is, not necessary because of another. It must be a se.
In all of this, the Thomist and I agree. I agree that an ultimate source can’t have parts. He’re where, it seems to me, things go wrong.
The Thomist thinks that if this source had in it any multiplicity of any kind, then it would not be indepenedent. Why? Realism about universals.
What if God is both wise and powerful? The believer in properties says this means that God has the property of wisdom, and the property of power. The realist about universals says this means that God “participates in” on “instantiates” the universals wisdom and power. The Aristotelian about universals also thinks of them as in the things, and so as something like a parts, components, or ingredients of things. So, if God has distinct properties, then he has something like parts – or in any case, he has his essential properties because of other things – because of, in this case, the universals wisdom and power. He isn’t, then, independent, as his existence depends on these other things. The only way out, the Thomist says, is to deny that God has any distinct properties – and that there are distinctions of any kind in God. That’s the traditional theory of divine simplicity.
But it’s not clear that is the only way out.
Some monotheistic fans of abstracta such as universals will say that aseity only requires that God not depend on any other concrete beings. This will leave God as the Greatest Possible Being. Are abstracta also necessary and a se? They can reply: so what? That doesn’t put them at all in God’s league, as he’s also omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and so on. Abstracta are powerless shadows by comparison.
Must we think that God is the free creator of all else? The present theory rules out that. But arguably, the biblical and traditional requirement is that God alone made the heavens and the earth. As to things which couldn’t possibly be created (abstracta), it’s no deficiency in God if he didn’t create them.
Realists who aren’t Aristotelians about universals will say that it is simply a mistake to think of a thing’s properties as parts or components of it. Parts are parts. But having properties, they think, is bearing a unique relation to some universal. A partless being, they will urge, may bear such a relation to countless universals. God does that, and because he has the properties (yes, plural) that he does, he’s the greatest being there could be.
Others will move the realm of abstracta inside God himeslf. He doesn’t depend, they will urge, on anything outside himself. Does this work? I doubt it. But it is a view with a long history, and can be developed in various ways, and some smart people still hold versions of it. God will be the ultimate source of all other things, either by free creation, or by… whatever relation he bears to the abstracta.
For my part, I don’t believe in abstracta. For non-theological reasons, I think that positing them introduces at least as many problems as it solves. I do believe things are similar, and I do believe in something like what philosophers now call individual properties – but I don’t grant that they are second-class substances. I think they’re just ways substances are, or modes of them.
God exists, and is wise and powerful. This means, roughly, that he knows a lot about important matters, and that he can intentionally do a wide range of actions. (Those are vague terms, expressing vague concepts.) There’s no need, in my view, to suppose this means God is essentially related to distinct, eternal “universals” of wisdom and power – be they parts of his, or denizens of the proverbial “Platonic heaven.” What thing(s) make(s) it true that God is wise and powerful? God – that’s all.
But isn’t his wisdom distinct from his power? Yes, those are distinct (and essential) aspects of God. They are ways he is, and ways he must be. Does this mean he has parts? No. But is he then, as Thomists would have it, utterly simple? No – his wisdom is a different intrinsic mode or aspect of him than his power. But he doesn’t have parts – modes aren’t things, but only ways things are, and so are not parts.
On any of these alternate views, including my nominalist view at the end, God will be a being. But he’ll also be necessary and independent of any other (concrete) being.
Is such a being qualified to provide an explanation for why there are any beings? It seems to me, yes. Why does he exist? Because he’s independent and necessary – to realize that, is to realize why he exists. Why then do other things exist? In my view, because he freely decided to create them. Believers in abstracta need to say something further here, about how the abstract depend on God, or why it doesn’t matter that the abstracta are independent of him.
Now, Thomists think that any source of all beings, any provider of an explanation for why there are beings at all, can’t be itself a being, so it must be “Being Itself.” And they think they can well account for the truth of claims like “God is powerful and wise” while denying that there’s any difference between God’s power and God’s wisdom, and while holding that God is devoid of any internal distinctions.
How is divine simplicity possible (conceivable without contradiction) at all? Good question. And how can this possibly be compatible with the Trinity – the tradition of a triune, tri-personal God? Another good question. And these won’t be answered by appealing, as Thomists tirelessly do, to the prestige of the Great Men who have believed in divine simplicity.
We’ll discuss these other parts of the Thomist agenda in other posts. It takes time to work through this behemoth of a system.
Great article. I’m wrestling with the same issues and am glad to have found your blog. I just wrote a piece on how Karl Barth accepts God’s finitude in certain respects (God is beyond both infinity and finitude, or he IS both in his own way) and I think one could push Barth further (it wouldn’t take much of a push) to have him saying that God is beyond both matter and the immaterial realm, which just makes sense to me. Here is the Barth article:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2014/01/karl-barths-finite-god
And here is a link to my book, Jesus Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter, where I try to think through these issues beginning with Christology:
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Christ-Eternal-God-Metaphysics/dp/0199827958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389110845&sr=1-1&keywords=Webb%2C+Jesus+Christ
I’m working on a new book, God and Other Bodies, so I am still in the midst of these complex (not simple!) issues. Thanks
Dale,
Brilliant post! It took me a couple of years to finally realize the Thomistic conception of God is based upon realism about universals. I knew the conception was false because it is logically contradictory (e.g. a strictly simple and immutable being identical to his acts cannot freely create; it cannot know what is happening ‘now’; etc.) and contradicts, as well, what God has revealed about himself in the Scriptures (as you ably demonstrated in the first part of this series). But, as one trained in biblical studies and not philosophy, it took two years of teaching myself philosophy to finally figure out that the Thomistic arguments that conclude to the conception of God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens (or Actus Purus) were based on an assumed premise of realism about universals, which itself is based upon an assumed problem of the one and the many. But that problem is not a real one. And universals, or abstracta, are not real beings. Therefore, the Thomistic conception of God is the conclusion of valid but unsound arguments. The presupposed premise of realism about universals is false. Again, wonderful post!
Michael
Dale,
Long time reader, but haven’t commented in a few years.
Here’s my objection: all sides agree that we give different accounts of God’s wisdom and God’s self. The whole question is if these two things are really distinct, that is, if what you call a divine “mode” or “aspect” is really different from God’s self. If it is, then God depends on something other than himself in order to exist, which is exactly what you say is impossible in the first part of the post, and which at any rate seems impossible by the terms. If not, then there’s no daylight between you and the Thomists, who would say that this is exactly what they mean by divine simplicity.
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