{"id":35247,"date":"2015-04-23T11:02:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T15:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=35247"},"modified":"2015-05-14T08:17:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T12:17:23","slug":"dialogue-with-the-maverick-philosopher-god-is-a-being-not-being-itself-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dialogue-with-the-maverick-philosopher-god-is-a-being-not-being-itself-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Dialogue with the Maverick Philosopher: God is a being, not Being itself &#8211; part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-35253\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lets-argue-loudly.jpg\" alt=\"michael scott - let's argue loudly!\" width=\"404\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lets-argue-loudly.jpg 552w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lets-argue-loudly-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lets-argue-loudly-420x315.jpg 420w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lets-argue-loudly-460x345.jpg 460w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lets-argue-loudly-90x68.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/>Thanks to the Maverick Philosopher, Dr. William Vallicella, for <strong><a title=\"Bill Vallicella on God and existence\" href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2015\/04\/god-a-being-among-beings-or-being-itself.html\" target=\"_blank\">an excellent, deep post<\/a><\/strong> following up on a recent face-to-face conversation we had (which was a follow-up to <a title=\"podcast episode 84\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-84-dr-william-vallicella-on-god-and-existence\/\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a>). In this and follow-up posts, I want to interact with his discussion. I only get through part of it here.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes, I affirm that <strong>God is a being. As a Christian<\/strong>, I hold that &#8220;God&#8221; is a god, and of course <em>the<\/em> god, the unique or &#8220;one true&#8221; god. By definition, a god is a being. So God is a being.<\/li>\n<li>Is God\u00a0<strong>a being &#8220;among beings&#8221;?<\/strong> I take it that the idea is that he&#8217;s not <em>as<\/em> dissimilar to other beings as some would have it. I think that yes, in trivial ways, he is like other beings. He exists. I exist. We&#8217;re like in that respect, even if you suppose that he also exists in a greater way, or to a higher degree.<\/li>\n<li>And as Bill says, in my view, God is <strong>literally a self<\/strong>, a self who is all-powerful and all-knowing, for instance. I too am a self, but am extremely limited in knowledge and power. I don&#8217;t think of being a self as having a property, but rather as\u00a0being a certain way, so as to satisfy the concept we have of a self. God is <strong>a who, not a what<\/strong> (and, not a they); in other words God is a personal being.<\/li>\n<li>God and I (and you) all\u00a0exist. Does it follow that we all three of us <strong>exist in the same way?<\/strong> Well, we all satisfy the concept <em>existing<\/em>, but God also satisfies the concept <em>necessarily existing<\/em>, which is just to say that he exists, and it is absolutely impossible for him to not exist. (In the jargon which is so common: he exists &#8220;in all possible worlds.&#8221;) We all exist, yes, but God necessarily exists (which entails his existing). So I think it <strong>can\u00a0be misleading<\/strong> to say that &#8220;God <em>is<\/em> in the same way that creatures are.&#8221; This suggests that God and creatures aren&#8217;t importantly different as respects their existence. But creature can not exist, whereas God can&#8217;t not exist. That&#8217;s a big difference.<\/li>\n<li>Now Bill says that in my view, &#8220;<strong>God is really distinct from his properties, and that his properties are really distinct from one another<\/strong>.\u00a0 God is in this respect no different from Socrates.&#8221;\n<ul>\n<li>I would add that\u00a0this may be worrying if properties are fundamental in the universe. <strong>If having a property is<\/strong> being appropriately related to a universal property, so that it is &#8220;in&#8221; one, or one &#8220;exemplifies&#8221; that property, then it seems that God will be <strong>dependent<\/strong> upon other things (universal properties) for his being, e.g. powerful, or loving. But I don&#8217;t grant that there are universal properties. It seems better to me to just accept that there are <strong>brute similarities<\/strong> between concrete things. God, like any being, has modes, but those in a sense depend on him, being ways he is.<\/li>\n<li>So is <strong>God distinct from, e.g. his wisdom?<\/strong> Sure, they are not identical. God is a being, a self and a god, but God&#8217;s wisdom is merely an intrinsic and essential aspect of him, and so not itself a self. God ain&#8217;t an aspect of himself, or so it seems to me. So, they (God and his wisdom) are numerically distinct. But as Bill notes, <strong>it doesn&#8217;t follow that<\/strong> God could exist without his wisdom, or vice-versa.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Is God&#8217;s wisdom different than his love? Of course they are.<\/strong> That in virtue of which he satisfies our concept of wisdom is a different aspect of him than that in virtue of which he satisfies our concept of being loving. He&#8217;s complicated &#8211; not in having many parts or ingredients or components, but in having a great many aspects. By &#8220;aspects&#8221; I mean intrinsic modes, ways he intrinsically is. I don&#8217;t see why God would be dependent, in any objectionable sense, on such modes, given that he absolutely can&#8217;t be otherwise. Loosely, in more common lingo, they are among his &#8220;essential properties.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Now Bill says, &#8220;God is in this respect no different from Socrates. &#8230;And both items have their properties by <strong>instantiating them<\/strong>.&#8221; I don&#8217;t see how anything in this theology of God as a being commits one to belief in universal properties which must be &#8220;instantiated.&#8221;\u00a0But yes, I think it follows that <strong>God is not, in my view, simple<\/strong> &#8211; not in the way that ancient and medieval theologians and philosophers meant. He may be (and in my view is) nonetheless <strong>partless<\/strong>. But simplicity is meant to exclude even different aspects or facets or modes of a thing.<\/li>\n<li>And I think Bill is correct also that in my view &#8220;God is really <strong>distinct from his existence<\/strong>.&#8221; His existence, I want to say, is just that in virtue of which he satisfies our concept <em>exists<\/em>. Of course, anything has <em>that<\/em> &#8211; I mean, its own existence. But this doesn&#8217;t entail contingently existing, as far as I can see.<\/li>\n<li>Bill concludes, &#8220;If [Dale]\u00a0is right, then <strong>God cannot be Being itself<\/strong>.&#8221; I think this is right. But more must be said about this thing which God, in my view, ain&#8217;t. Just what is it that we&#8217;re considering denying here?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dialogue-with-the-maverick-philosopher-god-is-a-being-not-being-itself-part-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">Next: what is meant by &#8220;Being itself&#8221;?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the Maverick Philosopher, Dr. William Vallicella, for an excellent, deep post following up on a recent face-to-face conversation we had (which was a follow-up to this). In this and follow-up posts, I want to interact with his discussion. I only get through part of it here. Yes, I affirm that God is a&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dialogue-with-the-maverick-philosopher-god-is-a-being-not-being-itself-part-1\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dialogue with the Maverick Philosopher: God is a being, not Being itself &#8211; part 1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,8,38,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-debates","category-linkage","category-monotheism","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35345,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35247\/revisions\/35345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}