{"id":465,"date":"2008-09-01T10:25:10","date_gmt":"2008-09-01T14:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=465"},"modified":"2015-05-13T11:21:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T15:21:21","slug":"dealing-with-apparent-contradictions-part-19-review-of-antognazza-on-leibniz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dealing-with-apparent-contradictions-part-19-review-of-antognazza-on-leibniz\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 19 – Review of Antognazza on Leibniz"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Maria Rosa Antognazza<\/strong><\/a> teaches at King’s College London, where she also directs the Centre for the History of Philosophical Theology<\/a>. She has written a highly praised forthcoming intellectual biography<\/a> of the great Leibniz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Below is my review of her book pictured here<\/strong>. The review is forthcoming in Religious Studies<\/em>. Bottom line: Leibniz employs positive and negative mysterian moves, as well as rational reconstruction <\/strong>of the Trinity doctrine, in my view not very convincingly. I’m most bothered by his complacency about Bible interpretation. This is a very well done book<\/strong>, whatever the ultimate verdict is on Leibniz’s views.<\/p>\n

Review of Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation: Reason and\u00a0Revelation in the Seventeenth Century.<\/a><\/em> Trans. Gerald Parks. (London: Yale University Press,
\n2007). Pp. xxv+322. \u00a3 35.00 Hbk. 978\u00ad0\u00ad300\u00ad10074\u00ad7.<\/p>\n

This rich and welcome book is an English translation, by the late Gerald Parks, of a revised\u00a0version of Antognazza\u2019s Trinit\u00e0 e Incarnazione: Il rapporto tra filosofia e teologia rivelata nel
\npensiero di Liebniz<\/em> (Vita e Pensiero: Milan, 1999). It is a historical\u00adphilosophical account of\u00a0Leibniz\u2019s writings on the Trinity and Incarnation doctrines, including his mostly unpublished
\ncomments on the controversial writings of others. The approach is historical rather than\u00a0topical, which introduces some repetition; those interested in pursuing specific arguments or
\ntopics in detail will find themselves flipping around a lot, and frequently diving into the copious\u00a0endnotes. Those interested in the historical angle will appreciate these endnotes (occupying
\n112 of the book\u2019s 322 pages), the fruits of countless hours chasing down and translating\u00a0obscure manuscripts. And those who only (or primarily) read English will appreciate her broadscholarship, which draws on recent German, French, and Italian secondary literature. The\u00a0book sports a solid index, and is clearly written and organized. The main audience will be\u00a0those interested in historical philosophical theology, particularly readers of Leibniz\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Preliminary Discourse on the Conformity of Faith with Reason\u2019 which begins his Theodicy.\u00a0Readers of Dixon\u2019s 2003 book Nice and Hot Disputes<\/em><\/a> will be interested as well, as she also\u00a0expounds Leibniz\u2019s thoughts on the fascinating trinitarian controversy among Anglicans in the\u00a01690s.<\/p>\n

Antognazza reveals a Leibniz who is a confident, but careful and tolerant apologist for\u00a0traditional Christianity. Not unlike present\u00ad day Christian analytic philosopher-\u00adapologists,\u00a0Leibniz never tires of claiming that these doctrines haven\u2019t been proven contradictory, taking\u00a0this to be the main point of unorthodox interlocutors \u2013 that they are demonstrably\u00a0contradictory.<\/p>\n

In the face of sophisticated objections, he\u2019s quick with the logical judo, in a way which\u00a0is not always convincing. As an example, Leibniz considers this argument by Polish Socinian\u00a0Andrew Wissowatius (a.k.a. Andrew Wiszowaty) (1608-\u00ad1678):<\/p>\n

The one most high GOD is that Father from whom all things come. The son of GOD\u00a0JESUS CHRIST is not that Father from whom all things come. Therefore the Son of\u00a0GOD JESUS CHRIST is not the one most high God. (22)<\/p>\n

A natural way (at least, to most present \u00adday philosophers) to analyze this argument is as\u00a0follows:<\/p>\n

1. Fg (Fx means \u2018x is that Father from whom all things come\u2019)
\n2. ~Fc (g names God, and c names Christ)
\n3. Therefore, g ? c.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If something is true of God that isn\u2019t true of Christ (or vice\u00adversa), then it follows (by Leibniz\u2019s\u00a0Law \u2013 that is, by the indiscernibility of identicals) that God and Christ are not numerically\u00a0identical. Alternately, we might read the premises as identity statements:<\/p>\n

1. g = f
\n2. s ? f
\n3. Therefore, s ? g.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here 3 follows by the transitivity of identity, a necessary truth on which Leibniz often and\u00a0rightly insists. Both arguments are valid. But Leibniz doesn\u2019t admit either analysis. He urges\u00a0that Wissowatius\u2019s argument should be read like this:<\/p>\n

1. Everyone who is the one most high God is that Father from whom all things come.
\n2. The Son of God Jesus Christ is not that Father from whom all things come.
\n3. Therefore, the Son of God Jesus Christ is not the one who is the one most high God.
\n(25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This argument seems valid as well. But Leibniz thinks that this formulation reveals an\u00a0ambiguity in premise 1, concerning the scope of the universal quantifier (Latin: omnia<\/em> \u2013 all or\u00a0everything), which enables him to claim the argument is valid but turns out unsound however\u00a0the ambiguity is resolved. If by omnia<\/em> we mean only the creatures (and thus, not the Son, who\u00a0is eternal and uncreated), Leibniz denies 2. (The Son is the source or \u2018father of\u2019 all creatures.)
\nBut if omnia includes the Son as well, he denies 1. (The Son is the one God but isn\u2019t the\u00a0source off all things including himself; rather, he comes from the Father.) Antognazza\u00a0observes that \u2018Leibniz\u2019s ultimate aim seems to be the denial of [premise 1]\u2019. (26) As he says in
\na later text,<\/p>\n

…in the Trinity there is a difference between these two: to be God the father, and to\u00a0be he who is God the father. For God the son is not God the father, and yet he is the\u00a0same one who is God the father, that is, the one most high God. (26)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the Son is not God the Father (some things are true of each, which are not true of the\u00a0other), and yet the Son is \u2018the same one who\u2019 is the Father. In short, Son and Father can be\u00a0the same being (even the same \u2018who\u2019, the same person?) without being identical. If this is his
\nstrategy, Leibniz could simply admit either of my two analyses above as sound, but consistent\u00a0with the doctrine of the Trinity. But I wonder if Leibniz here isn\u2019t simply failing to engage his
\nopponents, who probably assume there\u2019s no difference between being the same being, and\u00a0being numerically identical.<\/p>\n

Leibniz considers the Trinity and incarnation doctrines \u2018mysteries\u2019, which means that\u00a0they are (one or more of these): (1) not completely understandable by humans, (2) apparently\u00a0(but not really) contradictory, (3) claims the meaning of which we have but the smallest grasp,\u00a0(4) not provable or demonstrable, (5) unexplainable, (6) contrary to common notions, (7)\u00a0improbable. (It is often unclear precisely what Leibniz means by calling a claim\u00a0\u2018incomprehensible\u2019 or \u2018a mystery\u2019.) The Christian theologian needn\u2019t be embarrassed by these\u00a0mysteries, for nearly everything in the natural world is a mystery (i.e. it or its essence isn\u2019t\u00a0completely understandable by humans in this life). Unlike some fans of mystery, Leibniz is
\nsensitive to the point that one cannot believe that P (at least, in the sense in which believers\u00a0should aspire to believe important revealed truths) unless one at least to some degree\u00a0understands the meaning of P. His solution is to suggest that humans may have \u2018confused
\nknowledge\u2019 (as he sometimes puts it, clear but not distinct knowledge, or an \u2018analogical\u00a0understanding\u2019) of the meaning of the terms occurring in these doctrines. This ought not\u00a0distress us \u2013 many philosophical terms are equally poorly understood. (56) At his most\u00a0conservative, Leibniz seems disinclined to explicate the meaning of \u2018divine person\u2019 at all. An\u00a0explication \u2018of the Mysteries of religion is not necessary\u2019, Leibniz says at one point, and \u2018the
\nsafest thing is to stay with the terms of the scriptures and of the church.\u2019 (105)<\/p>\n

However, the metaphysician in Leibniz will not be repressed. For one thing, one may\u00a0seek for \u2018images\u2019 of these realities in the human mind. (107\u00ad110) And in bolder moods Leibniz\u00a0will sometimes (again, like many recent philosophical theologians) suggest a seemingly
\nconsistent rational reconstruction, interpretation, or explication (he and Antognazza often say\u00a0\u2018explanation\u2019) of the doctrine of the Trinity. His favorite such move is the claim that the\u00a0doctrine posits three \u2018relative substances\u2019 (or \u2018relative beings\u2019) but only one \u2018absolute\u00a0substance\u2019 (\u2018absolute being\u2019). Yet he seems to back off from this formulation, saying that only\u00a0the latter is properly called a substance, and three \u2018persons\u2019 are \u2018understood through
\nincommunicable relative modes of subsisting\u2019 (79), and are \u2018constituted\u2019 by their relations to\u00a0one another. (118) Then there is the undeveloped suggestion that the \u2018persons\u2019 of the Trinity\u00a0are not substances (at all?) but rather \u2018active principles\u2019 which in some sense compose the\u00a0one divine substance. (158, 110) This reader has the impression that by the time of his\u00a0mature \u2018Preliminary Dissertation\u2019, Leibniz had lost some of his enthusiasm for such\u00a0\u2018explanations\u2019 (i.e. plausible metaphysical accounts of) the Trinity and incarnation doctrines,\u00a0as there he sticks almost entirely to his mysterian defenses.<\/p>\n

How does his mysterian defense of the rationality of the Trinity and the incarnation\u00a0work? Leibniz admits in various places that these doctrines are barely understood, apparently\u00a0contradictory, contrary to appearances and to \u2018common notions\u2019, and (antecedently?)\u00a0improbable. Despite all this, Leibniz\u2019s main strategy, in both his \u2018Preliminary Dissertation\u2019 and\u00a0in many fragmentary previous writings, is to urge that these doctrines are reasonably believed\u00a0unless demonstrated to be contradictory.<\/p>\n

If this is the game the apologist is playing, he\u2019ll find it relatively easy to win, for (as is\u00a0now widely agreed) there are few demonstrations (roughly, arguments which no sane and\u00a0unbiased adult human who understands them can doubt to be valid and sound) in philosophy
\nor theology. For nearly any alleged demonstration, one can find a doubtable premise, thus\u00a0showing the argument to not be a demonstration, even if the argument is in fact sound and\u00a0indeed convincing to many.<\/p>\n

In any case, the above factors constitute prima facie evidence against the doctrines in\u00a0question. Leibniz accepts this, but holds this evidence to be outweighed by superior evidence\u00a0to the contrary. He thinks that atheism needn\u2019t worry us, for the existence and perfection of\u00a0God are demonstrable. Further, there are arguments for the truth of Christianity which, while\u00a0not demonstrations, can be called \u2018proofs\u2019, as they give us \u2018moral certainty\u2019 of truth of
\nChristianity. A demonstration that, say, the Trinity was contradictory would outweigh any such\u00a0\u2018proof\u2019, but happily there are no such demonstrations. These undefeated proofs \u2018justify, once\u00a0and for all, the authority of Holy Scripture before the tribunal of reason, so that reason in\u00a0consequence gives way before it… and sacrifices thereto all its probabilities.\u2019 (\u2018Preliminary\u00a0Dissertation\u2019 s. 29) In short, these arguments are \u2018incomparably stronger\u2019 than any the\u00a0dastardly Socinians (etc.) will ever suggest. (s. 37)<\/p>\n

His whole mysterian defense, then, rests on apologetic arguments for the inspiration of\u00a0Scripture, something like an argument from indirect testimony (to the ministry\u00ad-validating\u00a0miracles of Jesus and others). One fears that Leibniz was a better logician than
\nepistemologist. But even if he\u2019s right about the strength of those arguments, does the Bible in\u00a0fact teach the (traditional, creedal) Trinity and incarnation doctrines? Many of Leibniz\u2019s
\ncontemporaries had argued in depth about this, notably Stephen Nye in his A Brief History of\u00a0the Socinians<\/a><\/em> (1687, 1691), but Leibniz rests his case on what Antognazza calls \u2018the\u00a0argument from providence\u2019 \u00ad that a good God simply wouldn\u2019t let his church go astray on\u00a0matters as central to human salvation as these. (75)<\/p>\n

One wonders whether a Protestant like Leibniz can consistently affirm such tight\u00a0providential oversight of (mainstream or widespread) Christian teaching. But the deeper point
\nis that Antognazza\u2019s book reveals a lost opportunity. Leibniz was so firmly entrenched in his\u00a0traditional apologist\u2019s defenses that he seems to not have understood the perspective of\u00a0(usually spatially and\/or temporally distant) unitarian opponents. They held the Trinity and\u00a0incarnation to be underivable from the Bible, and this was not solely because they (usually)\u00a0held the those doctrines to be contradictory, but rather because of the language and doctrines
\nof the New Testament considered as a whole. The English unitarians in which Leibniz was\u00a0interested (91\u00ad-110) repeatedly insist that they\u2019re not against mysteries (in any of the above\u00a0senses) per se, but rather against mysteries which are of merely human origin. Nor did they\u00a0neglect tradition; they were eager to show their views to be compatible with elements of both\u00a0patristic and (at least some) modern theology. Leibniz does half\u00adheartedly venture a few
\nconventional exegetical arguments but these would and should not have impressed his\u00a0opponents. (115\u00ad-116)<\/p>\n

A minor complaint about the book is that Antognazza, perhaps sticking too closely to\u00a0her role in reporting Leibniz\u2019s views, sometimes passes on his contentious, misleading, or\u00a0false claims about various \u2018antitrinitarians\u2019. For example: the Socinians are revivers of ancient\u00a0Arianism, who stupidly confuse \u2018above reason\u2019 with \u2018against reason\u2019 and incomprehensibility\u00a0with inconsistency, think that impossibility follows from improbability, and cavalierly dismiss as\u00a0textual corruptions biblical passages which affirm the creedal doctrines.<\/p>\n

On the whole, though, Antognazza\u2019s sympathy for Leibniz\u2019s project helps her to\u00a0present his case with clarity and thoroughness, revealing him to be one of the greatest early\u00a0modern apologists and philosophical theologians. When push comes to shove, she and\u00a0Leibniz do carefully present unitarian inconsistency objections to the Trinity and incarnation\u00a0based on considerations about identity, omniscience, aseity, and so on. Those interested in\u00a0either metaphysical or mysterian defenses of these doctrines would do well to read this\u00a0unique and well-\u00adcrafted study.<\/p>\n

Dale Tuggy
\nSUNY Fredonia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maria Rosa Antognazza teaches at King’s College London, where she also directs the Centre for the History of Philosophical Theology. She has written a highly praised forthcoming intellectual biography of the great Leibniz. Below is my review of her book pictured here. The review is forthcoming in Religious Studies. Bottom line: Leibniz employs positive and… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 19 – Review of Antognazza on Leibniz<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":464,"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":[16,14,33,10,20,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-incarnation","category-logic","category-mystery","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","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=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35343,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions\/35343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}