Aquinas on God's knowledge of propositions

Does God know that the sky is blue?

That seems like a silly question. It’s not like we’re asking whether God knows future contingents, or counterfactuals of freedom. That the sky is blue is something that it is utterly unproblematic for God to know.

Except that it is tempting to say that God has no propositional knowledge, and knowing that the sky is blue is knowing a proposition.

It seems that Aquinas answers the question in Summa Theologiae I.14.14: “God knows all the propositions that can be formulated” (that’s in Freddoso’s translation; the older Dominican translation talks of “enunciable things”, but I think that doesn’t affect what I am going to say). It seems that God does have propositional knowledge, albeit not in the divided or successive way that we do.

But what he is up to in I.14.14 is not what it initially sounds like to the analytic philosopher’s ear.

For consider Thomas’s argument in I.14.14 that God knows all formulable propositions:

Since (a) to formulate propositions lies within the power of our intellect, and since (b), as was explained above (a. 9), God knows whatever lies within either His own power or the power of a creature, it must be the case that God knows all the propositions that can be formulated.

But now notice an ambiguity in “God knows the proposition that the sky is blue.” In one sense, which I will call “alethic”, this just means God knows that the sky is blue. In another sense, the “objectual”, it means that God knows a certain abstract object, the proposition that the sky is blue. In the objectual sense, God also knows the proposition that the sky is green—God fully knows that proposition, just as he knows other objects, like the person Socrates. But God does not, of course, have the alethic knowledge here—God does not know that the sky is green, because the sky is not green.

If it was the alethic sense that Thomas was after, his argument would be invalid. For in article 9, the discussion clearly concerns objectual knowledge. Exactly the same argument establishes that God knows the proposition that the sky is green as that he knows the proposition that the sky is blue. Furthermore, the Biblical quote Thomas gives in support of his view is “The Lord knows the thoughts of men” (Psalm 93:11). But the Lord doesn’t know all of them to be true, doesn’t know all of them alethically, because not all of the thoughts of humans are true.

Furthermore, if it was alethic knowledge that Aquinas was after, it would be inaccurate to say God knows all propositions. For only “half” of the propositions can be known alethically—the true ones!

All that said, I think we can still bootstrap from the objectual to the alethic knowledge. God’s knowledge of objects is perfect (Aquinas relies on this perfection multiple times in Question 14) and hence complete. If God knows something, God also knows all of its properties, intrinsic and relational. Thus, if God knows a proposition objectually, and that proposition has a truth value, God knows that truth value. In particular, if that proposition is true, God knows that it is true. And that seems to suffice for counting as knowing the proposition alethically.

So, it looks like Aquinas is committed to God objectually knowing both the propositions that the sky is green and that the sky is blue, and also knowing that the former is false and the latter is true—which seems to be enough for God to count as knowing that the sky is blue. (Though I could see this last point getting questioned.)

Aquinas's embryology and the theory of relativity

Aquinas famously thinks that there is a succession of forms in utero, with first a vegetable form, then an animal form, and then a rational animal (human) form. No two of these forms are had simultaneously.

But if a three-dimensionally extended object that has form A comes to be a three-dimensionally extended object that has form B, with no other forms intervening, then, in every inertial reference frame except for at most one, there is a time at which some of the matter has form A and some of the matter has form B. So unless there is a privileged frame, Aquinas’s story doesn’t work.

In the following diagram, the slanted dashed line indicates a reference frame where some of the matter has form A (red) and some has B (blue).

Here is a variant that could work, but does not seem very plausible. We could imagine that when we have a transition from A to B, the matter of A, except at one point, passes to B through one or more other forms, indicated by the yellow portion of the diagram. These might be forms of mere particles, or they could be some special forms. In other words, A dies off into a point, with the dead matter acquiring transitional forms, and then B starts growing from the last point of A, incorporating the transitional forms. Where the A and B substances meet will be a point either of A or of B, but not of both. The narrowing of A and the growth of B happen at the speed or light or less.

On this variant, no inertial frame contains both A and B points. (If light moves at 45 degrees from horizontal in the diagram, then inertial frames correspond to lines like the dashed one making a less than 45 degree angle with the horizontal.)

But there is something rather weird going on here. Suppose that A is the vegetable form and B is the animal form (a similar argument will apply if A is the animal form and B the human form). Then close to the pointy meeting between A and B, the yellow stuff contains the vast majority of what biology would call “the embryo”, and a fairly well-developed one, since it’s on the cusp of becoming an animal. Yet the vast majority of that “embryo” is the yellow stuff—neither the vegetable nor the animal, but something else, maybe mere atoms. Indeed, once we get close enough to the meeting point, the yellow will materially function just like an embryo, since a tiny subatomic hole makes no difference to material functioning. This is very odd, and gives us reason to reject Aquinas’s story.

Of course, the main alternative to Aquinas’s story is that the gametes change into a human being. That faces some of the same difficulties. However, I think the difficulties are less if the gametes are not themselves a substance, but a plurality of substances, perhaps particle-substances. In the diagram below, the gamete-stuff is in yellow, and the blue indicates the human being. We still have the problem that early on most of what we have will need to be biologically very close to a functioning zygote, and yet it is in yellow, except for a small blue hole corresponding to where ensoulment is spreading out from a single point. But I think this is less problematic, because at this juncture the yellow stuff is something that is less obviously an organism. (Admittedly, the blue stuff is less obviously an organism when it is nearly a point. But what makes it an organism is that while its matter has little going for it, it’s got the right form.)

So, relativity makes it hard to hold on to Aquinas’s embryology. Which is a nice thing for pro-life Thomists who want to defend ensoulment at conception and hence deny Aquinas's embryology--or Catholic Thomists who find the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception incompatible with that embryology.

Maybe there is some way of getting out of this by using the considerations from yesterday’s post, though.

The structure of morality

In physics, we hope for the following unification: there is a small set of simple laws, and all the rest of physics derives logically from these laws and the contingencies of the arrangement of stuff.

In ethics, a similar ideal has often manifested itself. While I have a hope for the ideal being realized in physics, I have come to be more pessimistic about the ideal in ethics. Instead, I think we can have a looser unificatory structure. We can have a multilevel hierarchy of more general laws, and then more specific laws that specify or implement the more general laws.

I suspect the looser structure is what we have in Aquinas’s Natural Law. At the highest level we have the general law that the good is to be pursued and the bad to be avoided. This is then specified into three laws about promoting the goods of existence, species-specific life and reason. These three laws, I think, are then further specified.

There is thus a structure to the moral law, but it is not a deductive structure. The higher level laws make the lower level laws fitting, but do not necessitate them.

More on the non-causal dualist theory of perception

In a recent post, I offered a non-causal dualist theory of sensory awareness on which when I see a red cube, there is a state r_b of my brain representing the red cube, and a relation V of perception between r_b and my soul, which relation is external to the soul. As a result, there need be no intrinsic difference between my soul when I am perceiving red cube and my soul when I am not perceiving a red cube.

I want to make a few more notes on this theory, for it seems to me that it is worth taking seriously.

1. This theory is very close to Aquinas’. Aquinas thought that sensory awareness was constituted by the reception of sensory data (“phantasms”) by sense organs. The sense organs, and not the soul, are modified by the sensory awareness. Of course, it was crucial to this that the sense organs be informed by the form of the animal, and the form of an animal is the soul. So we have a similar structure: there is a relation of the soul and the sense organs, and the sense organs are then modified by the sensory data. If we neglect the difference between the brain in my theory and the sense organs in Aquinas’s, then Aquinas’s theory is just an expansion on my theory. The state r_b is the state of the sense organs having their sensory data, and my external relation V of perception on Aquinas’s view is simply constituted by a pair of relations on Aquinas’s: the informing relation of the soul to the organ, and the sensory-data-possession relation between the organ and its sensory data.

Thus, the main difference between my theory and Aquinas’s is that I replace the sensory organs with parts of the brain. And there is good reason to think that if Aquinas had the empirical data we do, he would think of the phantasms as in the brain rather than in the eyes, ears, etc. For we have good reason to think direct neural stimulation of the visual center of the brain could produce the same visual experience as gazing upon a red cube. Thus, the only difference between Aquinas and the theory—apart from Aquinas offering more detail on the relation V—is that on the theory, the sensory organs in Thomas’s sense are all inside the skull.

2. What we should say about qualia on this theory? The analogue to the visual quale of my perceiving a red cube on this theory consists of V and r_b. That’s a pair of things rather than one thing. One of these two things, the brain state r_b, is physical, but the other thing, the relation V, is a non-physical relation between a non-physical thing, the soul and a brain state r_b. Thus qualia are partly non-physical and partly physical.

3. It seems the theory contradicts the knowledge argument. Consider the brain state r_b representing a red cube and the brain state g_b representing a green cube. It seems that on the basis of seeing a green cube, I can get to know the relation V obtaining between my soul and g_b. And on the basis of neuroscience, I can get to know r_b. Thus, without ever seeing anything red, it seems I can know what it’s like to see red.

I am not strongly attached to the knowledge argument in its standard form. I kind of like the radical variant on which a never conscious person could never get to know what consciousness is like. And that variant fits with the theory, since a never conscious person has never experienced the relation V. (You might say: A never conscious person couldn’t know anything. I think it is a mistake to require consciousness for knowledge. First, one can have non-occurrent knowledge without consciousness—I know my multiplication tables even when asleep. Second, the unconscious vampires in Watts’ Blindsight clearly have knowledge.)

That said, I do not think it is obvious that just by knowing what the ingredients are like one knows what the whole is like. Thus, knowing what r_b and V are like may not be enough to know what it is like to have one’s soul stand in V to r_b. (Compare: Alice knows what it is like to be married to Bob, and she knows Carl, but it doesn’t follow that she knows what it is like to be married to Carl.)

Ill-suited matter, form, and immortality

A question I haven’t seen explored much by contemporary neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is that of matter ill-suited to the form. Is it metaphysically possible for a bunch of molecules arranged like a normal oak tree to have the form of a pig? It would be, of course, a very unfortunate pig. Or is some minimal amount of match between the actual arrangement of the molecules and the form needed?

On light-weight neo-Aristotelianism, on which forms are simply structural properties, the answer has got to be negative.

But on heavy-weight neo-Aristotelianism, on which forms are irreducible entities, it seems like there should be no such restrictions. Why couldn’t God unite the form of a pig with a body as of an oak tree, or the form of an oak tree with a body as of a human?

However, supposing that we take such a liberal view on which there is no such thing as matter metaphysically incompatible with a form (presumably pace historical Aristotelians), we then have a puzzle. If it would be metaphysically possible for a pig form to be united to a bunch of organic gases, why is it that when pigs are vaporized, they (we assume) invariably die? Here is my story. Assume for simplicity time is discrete. At each time t, a pig—in virtue of its form—has a causal power to continue existing at the next time. But causal powers have activation conditions. The activation condition for the causal power to continue existing at the next time is an appropriate arrangement of the pig’s body. When the pig’s body becomes so distorted that this activation condition is no longer satisfies, the pig loses the power to go on living. And so it dies. However, of course, God could make it keep on living by a miracle: a miracle can supply what the causal powers of a thing are incapable of.

This account has one somewhat implausible prediction. Suppose that some powerful being instantaneously scatters the molecules of an ordinary pig across the galaxy, so that at t₁ we have an ordinary pig and at the next time, t₂, the pig molecules are scattered. Because at t₁ the pig has a causal power of continuing to exist conditionally on its molecules being appropriately arranged at t₁, and this condition is indeed satisfies at t₁, the pig will live one moment in scattered condition at t₂—and then perish at the next moment, t₃.

On this account, external causes do not directly destroy an object. Rather, they destroy the activation condition for the object’s power to continue existing. When that activation condition is destroyed, the object (barring a miracle) ceases to exist. But it has that one last existential hurrah before it falls into nonbeing.

Does it follow that on a heavy-weight Aristotelianism with my story about death, a pig metaphysically could survive the annihilation of its body? I am not sure, but I am inclined to think so. Indeed, I am inclined to think that if we had a normal pig at t₁, and then at t₂ the matter of the pig were annihilated, the pig would still exist—reduced to an abnormal immateriality—for that one instant of t₂, and then, barring a second miracle, it would slide into non-being at t₃.

What about us? Well, Aquinas argues for our soul’s natural immortality on the grounds that the human soul has a proper operation that does not depend on the matter, namely pure thought. I have never before been impressed by the move from a proper operation independent of matter to natural immortality, but in my above (neo-Aristotelian but not very Thomistic) setting I see it having significant force. First, we have this question: What are the activation conditions for the human’s power-to-continue-existing? It makes sense that for a being whose only non-existential operations are material, the activation conditions should be purely material. But if a being has a proper operation not dependent on the matter, then it makes perfect sense for the activation conditions of its power-to-continue-existing not to include material conditions. In fact, something stronger can be said. It seems absurd for a thing to have a power to continue thinking whose activation conditions outstrip its power to continue existing. It would be like a power to play soccer without a power to move. So, it seems, if Aquinas is right that we have an immaterial operation, then we have the power to continue existing even absent a body. Of course, God can stop cooperating with any power we have, and if he stopped cooperating with our power-to-continue-existing, then we would stop existing (unless God miraculously sustained us in existence independently of that power!), but naturally we would continue to exist. Assuming, of course, Thomas is right about us having a proper operation that does not depend on matter, which is a different question.

(And unlike Thomas, I think we have immortality, not just our souls.)

Existence

In his famous critique of the ontological argument, Kant said that existence is not a property. Frege and Russell gave a very influential response to Kant (though not framed as such): the existence of an object is not a property of the existent object, but it is a second-order property of an abstract object. Thus, the existence of Biden is the second-order property of being instantiated possessed not by Biden himself but by the abstract object Bidenness.

But now consider this very plausible principle:

1. The existence of an object is explanatorily prior to all the (other) properties of that object.

The parenthetical “other” is included to make (1) acceptable both to Frege-Russell and to “pre-Kantians” who think existence is a property of the existent object.

But combining (1) with the Frege-Russell account leads to an explanatory priority regress:

• Biden’s maleness is posterior to Biden’s existence.

• Biden’s existence is Bidenness’s being instantiated.

• Bidenness’s being instantiated is posterior to Bidenness’s existence.

• Bidenness’s existence is Bidennessness’s being instantiated.

• Bidennessness’s being instantiated is posterior to Bidennessness’s existence.

• Bidennessness’s existence is Bidennessnessness’s being instantiated.

• …

How can we arrest this regress? A natural move is to restrict the Frege-Russell view of existence to contingent entities. Thus, Biden’s existence is the instantiation of Bidenness, but Bidenness is a necessary entity, and its existence is not the instantiation of some further entity. Indeed, perhaps, the pre-Kantian view holds of Bidenness: Bidenness’s existence could just be a property of Bidenness.

Note that if the pre-Kantian view holds of necessary beings, then Kant’s critique of the ontological argument falls apart, since God is a necessary being.

But let’s think through the pre-Kantian view a little bit. Suppose that x is an object and e is its existence, and suppose e is a property of x. But how can x possess e without already existing prior to having e? (I.e., surely, (1) is true with the parenthetical “other” removed.) There seems to be one possible move here: perhaps x = e. That would be a view on which some objects are identical with their own existence—a view very much like St. Thomas’s, who held that God, and God alone, was identical with his own existence.

So, interestingly, thinking the Frege-Russell view through leads fairly naturally to a view like Thomas’s.

I am attracted to this variant of the Thomistic view:

2. Uncaused objects are identical with their existence.

3. The existence of a caused object is its being caused.

The worry that an object cannot possess a property without “already” existing does not appear pressing when the property in question is being caused.

Moreover, we might even more speculatively add:

4. An object’s being caused is its cause’s causing of it.

On this view, a contingent thing’s existence, like on the Frege-Russell view, is a property of something other than the thing: it is a property of the cause (perhaps an extrinsic property of the cause, when the cause is God, so as not to violate divine simplicity).

"For the common good"

Aquinas thinks that for something to be a law, it must be “for the common good” (in addition to satisfying other conditions). Otherwise, the legislation (as we might still call it) is not really a law, and does not morally require obedience except to avoid chaos.

But suppose we have a cynical view of legislative activity, thinking that many cases of legislation are imposed not in order to the further the common good but in order to get the legislators reelected. One may worry that even if such a piece of legislation happens to further the common good, it is not for the common good but for reelection, and hence is not a valid law on Aquinas’ criteria.

Here is a possible way out. We should limit our cynicism. Start with a multiplicity of different options here, perhaps importantly different: the legislator may think the law would be popular with their constituents; voting for the law may help the legislator get an alliance with other legislators that will help getting reelected; or, the legislation will secure a large campaign contribution from an interested party. The last is the most crass, of course. But even so, it is reasonable to think that in most cases the legislator thinks that their getting reelected serves the common good. There may be some cases of serious corruption or power pursuit where even this is gone, but in those cases we really should worry about the validity of the supposed law. But in many cases even when there is corruption, I expect the legislators think it is good for their country that they be in office.

This solution reads “for the common good” broadly. The having of the legislation need not be aimed at the common good, but it is enough if the passing of the legislation—or maybe just the legislator’s voting in favor of it—is aimed at the common good. One may worry that this is overbroad: that the content of the legislation has to serve the public good.

But that would be too strict a criterion. The common good is the common good of the relevant political entity, say a country. But international negotiation can result in treaties where two countries each pass a coordinated piece of legislation such that: (a) the content of each piece of legislation harms the citizens of the country it is passed in and benefits the citizens of the other country; but (b) the benefits outweigh the harms in such a way that the coordinated deal is for the common good of each country. In this case, it is not the content of the legislation that serves the good of the people governed by it, but the fact of there being such legislation serves their good, by getting the other country to pass the coordinated legislation. And this seems like it could be a perfectly legitimate case of valid legislation, assuming the harms are not of a kind that are morally impermissible (e.g., the legislation invidiously harming a vulnerable group).

In fact, the case of the legislator voting for a piece of legislation in order to get reelected is not very different from such international negotiation. In each case, the legislation as such may not directly serve the common good, but its promotion is nonetheless thought to lead to the common good. So it is important to read the “for the common good” criterion broadly. But if we read it this broadly, then apart from really serious cases of corruption or power madness, we have good reason to think that most of the legislation we are under in democratic societies is “for the common good”, unless it is clearly immoral (further discussion here would require separate analysis of the two ways legislation can be immoral: by requiring immoral action from one or by being an immoral imposition that doesn’t require immoral action from one).

Beauty and goodness

While listening to a really interesting talk on beauty in Aquinas,I was struck by the plausibility of the following idea (perhaps not Aquinas'): The good is what one properly desires to be instantiated; the beautiful is what one properly desires to behold. So the distinction between them is in how we answer Diotima's question about desire (or eros): what do we want to do with the object of desire?

Slavery, forced marriage and unjust laws

Slavery is the ownership of one person by another. Since a person no more owns another than a thief owns the purloined goods, there has never been any slavery. But of course there have been institutions thought to be slavery: institutions in which a person was thought to be the property of another. These were not institutions of slavery in the above strict sense but forms of unjust imprisonment, kidnapping, etc.

This seems to be merely a point about words, and a mistaken one at that. “Of course, Alexander II ended serfdom in Russia while Lincoln ended slavery in the US. Words mean what they are used to mean, and to dispute historical claims like these is to be like the fusty grammarian who claims that ‘It’s me’ is bad English.”

I agree that the question of words is unimportant. But here is what is important. Institutions are defined in large part by their norms. It is a defining feature of the norms of slavery (and, with some differences, of serfdom) that one person has property-style rights over another who has onerous obligations corresponding to these rights. But in fact, nobody has such rights over another, and the supposed obligations do not obtain. The institution that the “masters” saw themselves as a part of did not in fact exist, because the rights and obligations that they took to be integral to the institution did not, and could not, in fact exist.

We can use the term “slavery” (and cognates in other languages) for that non-existent institution, just as we use the term “phlogiston” for the substance that chemists mistakenly believed in before oxygen was discovered.

But we could also use distinguish and use two terms. Maybe slavery_h is the historical form of social organization that actually (and deplorably) existed and slavery_n is the normative institution that the masters_h (and maybe some of the slaves_h, as well) incorrectly thought to exist and thought to be coextensive with slavery_h.

Again, the words don’t matter, but it matters that there was a morally condemnable attempt to create a certain social institution which attempt failed because the norms that were attempted to be instituted were incapable of institution.

This is a pattern we find in many other cases. There is no such thing as a forced marriage, since the norms of love and sexuality that define marriage do not come into existence apart from the free consent of the parties. But of course over the course of history there have been morally condemnable attempts to force people—especially women—into the institution of marriage. These attempts always failed, and what the victims were forced into was a different institution, one subjecting them to such injustices as kidnapping, unjust imprisonment, rape, etc.

Thomas Aquinas, similarly, holds that there are no unjust laws. Of course, legislators may attempt to enact laws that would be unjust (or they may simply be exercising power and not even trying to legislate). But when they do so, they fail to enact laws. What they enact are mere demands masquarading as laws (philosophical anarchists think all “laws” are like that). Again, the question of words is unimportant, but what is important is the pattern: the legislator is deplorably attempting to create a social institution—a law—and failing to do so, but instead creating another institution.

The particular cases of this pattern are interesting, and so is the pattern itself. A central part of the pattern is an attempt to create an institution (or an instance of an institution) that misfires, and instead another institution is created that is widely but mistakenly thought to be the one that was the target of the attempt. But the cases of slavery, forced marriage and unjust laws also share another feature that not all the cases of misfiring do. For instance, suppose due to an honest mistake in the counting of ballots, there is a mistake as to who the mayor of a town is. The false mayor then attempts to legislate something quite just. The attempt fails, because the false mayor lacks the standing to legislate. But there need be nothing morally deplorable here, as there is in the slavery, forced marriage and unjust law cases.

Moreover, the three cases I started with are not just morally deplorable, but there seems to be an important connection between moral evil and performative misfire. Slavery_h is morally horrific, but slavery_n would be even worse, as the slaves_n would be under genuine obligations to do the enforced labor required of them and not to escape. This would, as it were, make morality itself complicit with the master, and the properly formed conscience of the slave into a whip in the master’s hand. And the same holds in the other two cases: morality itself would be a tool of oppression.

There are, alas, times when morality is a tool of oppression. The duties that exist between relatives are frequently exploited by repressive regimes as a means of social control: If you are an Uyghur or Tibetan defecting to a free country and speaking out against the Chinese regime, your relatives back home will suffer, and this restricts your activity because of the duties you have to your relatives. But the kinds of cases where the wicked use morality as a lever against the righteous seem different and less direct from what would be the case if slavery, forced marriage and unjust laws had the normative force that they pretend to. It is a mere coincidental effect of duties to family when these duties make it morally impossible or difficult to stand up to a wicked regime. But it would be of the very nature of the norms induced by slavery, forced marriage and unjust laws—if these norms really came into existence—that they would oppress.

This still leaves an interesting puzzle, which different moral theories will answer differently: Why is it the case that morality does not innately oppress?

Objection: Maybe slavery_h does create norms, but not moral norms.

Response: I myself don’t think there are any non-moral norms. But in any case slavery_h does not create any kind of obligation on the slave to obey the master, whether moral or not, except in some, but not all, cases a prudential one.

Good-bye, (Aristotelian) matter

Of course, there are material things like oaks and people, and it’s distinct from immaterial things like angels. But for a long time I’ve been wondering why my fellow Aristotelians think that there is matter, a component of material things. In the process of reflection, I have given up on matter as a fundamental ontological category. Of course, for theological and common-sense purposes, I need to have the concept of a material substance, but here I hope there is some reduction, such as that a material substance is a substance that has at least one geometric property. My Aristotelianism now inclines to be more like Leibniz’s than like the historical Aristotle’s or Aquinas’s. Material substances, on my view, are much like Leibniz’s monads; they are like Aristotle’s gods or Aquinas’s angels, plus whatever properties or causal powers are needed for them to count as material. I am my own form, and in this form there inhere accidents.

What philosophical work does matter play, particularly in Aristotelian theories?

1. Many Aristotelians say that something remains through substantial change, namely matter.

The persistence of matter through substantial change is said to do justice to the intuition that the corpse is the remains of the living creature: that there is something in the corpse that was in the living creature. But it is notoriously difficult to remain faithful to the Aristotelian emphasis that identity always comes from form and allow that anything in the corpse is identical to anything in the prior living body. Absent a solution to this, the Aristotelian has to say that there is one bunch of matter prior to death, a bunch of matter informed by the form of the living body, and a different bunch of matter after death, informed by the forms of the substances making up the corpse. But that does not do justice to the common-sense intuition.

In the vicinity, too, there is the question of why it is that the corpse is physically like the living body. But this is not to be accounted for by matter, but by accidents such as shape, mass and color. Accidents are possessed by substances. Either accidents can or cannot survive the destruction of their underlying substance. If they can, then we have an explanation of why the corpse is physically like the living body. If they cannot, then adding that there is matter in both—and even that it is the same matter—does not help: we simply have to bite the bullet and say that the accidents of the living body have the power to cause similar accidents in the corpse.

2. Matter may play a role in diachronic identity.

But since immaterial substances like angels can persist over time, matter isn’t needed to solve the problem of diachronic identity. Moreover, the problem of diachronic identity seems to me, as a four-dimensionalist, to be a pseudoproblem (see also this]). It is no more a problem how the same thing can exist in 2017 and in 2018 than it is a problem how someone can exist in the room and in the hall—just put a leg in each, and you’ll see how. Matter does nothing to help with the latter problem, since presumably it isn’t the same chunk of matter that’s in the room as in the hall. So, why should matter help with the former?

3. Matter may play a role in problems of material composition.

Matter may also play a role in some specific solutions to the problem of material composition. One might, for instance, identify the lump with the matter and the statue with the substance composed of it, or the lump with one thing made of the matter and the statue with another thing made of the same matter, and then explain away the commonality of many properties, like mass, by the identity of matter. But either the statue and the lump have numerically the same accident of mass or they do not. If they do, then since accidents inhere in substances, not in matter, the commonality of matter doesn’t do any work. If they do not, then the commonality of matter doesn’t seem to have done much—we still have to explain why the two have an exactly similar accident of mass, given that they have numerically distinct ones.

What matter does do, I think, is help differentiate the classic statue–lump case from the horse–ghost case where Bucephalus’s ghost happens to walk right through the living Seabiscuit, in such a way that the ghost horse and the living horse happen to occupy exactly the same space. For we can say that the ghost case is a case of merely spatial colocation, while the statue–lump case is a case of having the same matter. And intuitively there is a difference between the two cases. Interestingly, though, this isn’t the material composition problem that matter usually gets invoked to solve. And since I don’t believe in statues, or in any other entities that could plausibly be thought to make there be two entities of one chunk of matter, this does little for me.

4. Isn’t hylo-morphism the distinctively Aristotelian solution to the mind-body problem?

Sure. But, even more than the classic Aristotelian solution, my view is a dissolution to the mind-body problem rather than a solution. The form of course affects the accidents that constitute and shape our embodiment. All of this is due to the nexus—ontological, teleological and causal—that exists between the substance and its accidents (both substance–accident and accident–accident). It’s not a case of one thing moving another: it is just the common story of the form affecting the accidents and the accidents affecting one another.

And, yes, of course I agree with the Council of Vienne that the soul is the form of the body. On my view, talk of the soul is talk of the substance qua form and apart from the accidents constituting its materiality, and the substance qua form is a base for all the accidents which constitute us as having bodies. So, the soul is the form of the body.

5. Physics talks of matter.

Sure, but physics probably doesn’t have a fundamental distinction between matter and energy, I think.

Anyway, I don’t deny that there is matter in the sense of substances that are so configured as to count as material. Quite possibly, where you have a heap of sand, you have a heap of material substances, and hence matter. (But perhaps not: perhaps fundamental physical reality is just a handful of fields.)

---

All in all, I just see little if any benefit to matter. And there is much mystery about it. Ockham’s razor cuts it away.

Unless, of course, we come to some philosophical problem that can’t be solved without matter, or can’t be solved as well without it…

Do God's beliefs cause their objects?

Consider this Thomistic-style doctrine:

1. God’s believing that a contingent entity x exists is the cause of x’s existing.

Let B be God’s believing that I exist. Then, either

2. B exists in all possible worlds

or

3. B exists in all and only the worlds where I exist.

(Formally, there are other options, but they have no plausibility. For instance, it would be crazy to think B exists in some but not all the worlds where I exist, or in some but not all the worlds where I don’t exist.)

Let’s consider (3) first. This, after all, seems the more obvious option. God’s beliefs are necessarily correct, so in worlds where I don’t exist, God doesn’t believe that I exist, and hence B doesn’t exist. Then, B is a contingent being that causes my existing. Now apply the Thomistic principle to this contingent being B. It exists, so God believing that B exists is the cause of B’s existing. Let B₂ be God’s believing that B exists. Since B₂ causes B, B₂ must be distinct from B, as causation cannot be circular. Furthermore, if (3) is the right option in respect of B and me, then an analogue for B₂ and B should hold: B₂ will exist in all and only the worlds where B exists. The argument repeats to generate an infinite regress of divine believings: B_n is God’s believing that B_n − 1 exists and B_n causes B_n − 1. This regress appears vicious.

So, initial appearances aside, (3) is not the way to go.

Let’s consider (2) next. Then B exists in some possible world w₁ where I don’t exist. Now, at w₁, God doesn’t believe that I exist, since necessarily God’s beliefs are correct. This seems to be in contradiction to the claim that B exists at w₁. But it is only in contradiction if it is true at w₁ that B is God’s believing that I exist. But perhaps it’s not! Perhaps (a) the believing B exists at the actual world and at w₁ but with different content, or (b) B exists at w₁ but isn’t a believing at w₁.

Let’s think some more about (2). Let w₂ be a world where only God exists (I am assuming divine simplicity; without divine simplicity, it might be that in any world where God exists, something else exists—viz., a proper part of God). Then by (2), B exists at w₂. But only God exists at w₂. So, God is identical to B at w₂. But identity is necessary. Thus, God is actually identical to B. Moreover, what goes for B surely goes for all of God’s believings. Thus, all of God’s believings are identical with God.

It is no longer very mysterious that God’s believing that I exist is the cause of my existence. For God’s believing that I exist is identical with God, and of course God is the cause of my existence.

The difficulty, however, is with the radical content variation. The numerically same mental act B is actually a believing that I exist, while at w₂ it is a believing that I don’t exist. Furthermore, if truthmaking involves entailment, we can no longer say that B truthmakes that God believes that I exist. For B can exist without God’s believing that I exist.

All this pushes back against (1). But now recall that I only called (1) a “Thomistic-style” doctrine, not a doctrine of St. Thomas. The main apparent source for the doctrine is Summa Theologica I.14.8. But notice some differences between what Aquinas says and (1).

The first is insignificant with respect to my arguments: Thomas talks of knowledge rather than belief. But (1) with knowing in place of believing is just as problematic. Obviously, it can’t be a necessary truth that God knows that I exist, since it’s not a necessary truth that I exist.

The second difference is this. In the Summa, Aquinas doesn’t seem to actually say that God’s knowledge that x exists is the cause of x’s existence. He just says that God’s knowledge is the cause of x’s existence. Perhaps, then, it is God’s knowledge in general, especially including knowledge such necessary truths as that x would have such-and-such nature, that is the cause of x’s existence. If so, then God’s knowledge would be a non-determining cause of things—for it could cause x but does not have it (and, indeed, in those worlds where x does not exist, it does not cause x). This fits well with what Aquinas says in Article 13, Reply 1: “So likewise things known by God are contingent on account of their proximate causes, while the knowledge of God, which is the first cause, is necessary.”

Maybe. I don’t know.

Thoughts on theistic Platonism

Platonists hold that properties exist independently of their instances. Heavy-weight Platonists add the further thesis that the characterization of objects is grounded in or explained by the instantiation of a property, at least in fundamental cases. Thus, a blade of grass is green because the blade of grass instantiates greenness (at least assuming greenness is one of the fundamental properties).

Heavy-weight Platonism has a significant attraction. After all, according to Platonism (and assuming greenness is a property),

1. Necessarily (i) an object is green if and only if (ii) it instantiates greenness.

The necessary connection between (i) and (ii) shouldn’t just be a coincidence. Heavy-weight Platonism explains this connection by making (ii) explain or ground (i). Light-weight Platonism, which makes no claims about an explanatory connection between (i) and (ii), makes it seem like the connection is a coincidence.

Still, I think it’s worth thinking about some other ways one could explain the coincidence (1). There are three obvious formal options:

2. (ii) explains (i)
3. (i) explains (ii)
4. Something else explains both (i) and (ii).

Option (2) is heavy-weight Platonism. But what about (2) and (3)? It’s worth noting that there are available theories of both sorts.

Here’s a base theory that can lead to any one of (2)–(4). Properties are conceptions in the mind of God. Furthermore, instantiation is divine classification: x’s instantiating a property P just is God classifying x under conception P. It is natural, given this base theory, to affirm (3): x’s instantiating greenness just is God’s classifying x under greenness, and God classifies x under greenness because x is green. Thus, x instantiates greenness because x is green.

But, interestingly, this base theory can give other explanatory directions. For instance, Thomists think that God’s knowledge is the cause of creation. This suggests a view like this: God’s classifying x under greenness (which on the base theory just is x’s instantiating greenness) causes x to be green. On this view, x is green because x instantiates greenness. If the “because” here involves grounding, and not just causation, this is heavy-weight Platonism, with a Thomistic underpinning. Either way, we get (2).

And here is a third option. God wills x to be green. God’s willing x to be green explains both x’s being green and God’s classifying x as green. The latter comes from God’s willing as an instance of what Anscombe calls intentional knowledge. This yields (4).

So, interestingly, a theistic conceptual Platonism can yield any one of the three options (2)–(4). I think the version that yields (3)—interestingly, not the Thomistic one—is the one that best fits with divine simplicity.

Colors and transsubstantiation

This is going to be very speculative, and I doubt it yields an orthodox account of transsubstantiation, but since there is some chance that it does yield such an account (and if it doesn't, we might get a deeper picture of transsubstantiation by thinking about why it fails), it's worth thinking about.

Let's say, as a first approximation, that an object is white at a spacetime region U provided that the object has a direct causal power of reflecting light incident on U diffusely and approximately uniformly across the visible spectrum. Observe that in this definition nothing was said about U being a region that is occupied by the object. It is logically possible for an object to have a causal power of action at a spatial and/or temporal distance, thereby diffusely and approximately uniformly reflecting light incident on a region unoccupied by the object. Now suppose that a white piece of bread is going to be destroyed, but just before it is destroyed the causal power of whiteness that it has is enhanced to work at a temporal distance, thereby diffusely and approximately uniformly reflecting light incident on a spatial region shaped like a piece of bread in the future after the destruction of the piece of bread. Then there is a sense in which the whiteness of the piece of bread persists after the destruction of the piece of bread.

It seems there are two senses in which we can say that the whiteness of an ordinary object is at a location V. One sense is that the relevant causal power is located at V and the other sense is that the object is directly causing light to be reflected whitely at V. The location of the accident of whiteness can be identified either with the location of the causal ground of the reflection or with the location of the immediate effect of that causal ground (the second matches how Aquinas understands the locations of angels: they are deemed present where they act). Normally, the two locations coincide or are very close together. So there is a a sense in which, in the scenario where the bread has the power of causing white reflections after its destruction, the accident of whiteness exists at the location where the reflection occurs, and hence continues to exist after the destruction of the bread.

Accidents outliving their substances

Thomas Aquinas's take on transsubstantiation supposes that the accidents of bread and wine can continue existing even after the bread and wine have perished, something that was heavily criticized by people like Jan Hus.

But here is an argument for the possibility of an accident outliving its substance. Consider a very long rattlesnake, stretching out to maybe ten million kilometers in length. The rattlesnake is rattling for one second. The rattling of the tail is an accident of the rattlesnake, call this accident R. Then the snake is near-instantaneously destroyed, e.g., by a series of synchronized explosive charges.

Well, near-instantaneously in one reference frame! This snake is long enough that there will be another reference frame in which the front half is destroyed 15 seconds before the back half is. In this reference frame, there will be a time when the rattling of the tail occurs even though the front half of the snake doesn't exist. But a snake whose front half has been destroyed is no longer existing. So in this reference frame the accident R exists even though the snake no longer does.

Granted, in the case of the snake it is only true in some reference frames that the snake doesn't exist while R does, while in the Eucharist the persistence of the accidents past the demise of the bread and wine takes place in all reference frames. But once we have seen that the principle that accidents must be contemporaneous with their substance is not generally true, I think some wind is taken out of the objector's sails.

Against per se ordered infinite sequences of causes

Say that a sequence of events is per se causally ordered provided that each event not only causes the next but also causes everything in the next that is involved in causing the one after that (if there is one after that).

1. Any possible chunk of contingent reality is such that it is possible for something internally just like it to have a cause.
2. It is not possible to have a cause for an infinite per se causal regress of contingent causes.
3. Anything internally just like an infinite per se causal regress of contingent causes is an infinite per se causal regress of contingent causes.
4. So an infinite per se causal regress of contingent causes is impossible.

In the argument, (1) is a weak causal principle. The reason for the "something internally just like" phrase is that without the phrase the premise would immediately imply that every possible chunk of contingent reality has a cause given essentiality of origins. Premise (3) requires a non-Humean account of causation. I am going to ignore metaphysical questions about chunks of reality: perhaps we can reformulate in terms of pluralities, perhaps in terms of sets.

A crucial controversial premise is (2). Here's an intuitive line of thought that inclines me to (2). Suppose we have a backwards-infinite per se causal sequence of chickens and eggs, each chicken fully deterministically causing an egg with all of its relevant causal power, and each egg deterministically causing a chicken with all of its relevant causal power. And imagine this regress has a cause, say, G. How can G cause that whole sequence? Well, it couldn't do it by causing one particular chicken or one particular egg, for that wouldn't account for the chickens and eggs that came before that. The only picture I get of how something could cause the whole sequence would be if it caused each one of the eggs and chickens, or each one prior to some point in time, or more generally some backwards-infinite subsequence. The argument will be the same in each of the three cases, so I will just focus on the simplest.

So the cause G caused each of the eggs and chickens, and thereby caused the sequence. But of course each egg is caused by a chicken, too. So a given egg has two causes: it is caused by a chicken and by G. But the chicken caused the egg fully, with everything the egg needed to do its job of causing the next thing. So what did G contribute? Nothing really crucial to the sequence, since everything crucial to it was contributed by the chicken. Rather, it looks like it's going to be a case of overdetermination. The egg is caused by G and it's caused by the chicken. But G's causing of the regress as a whole isn't overdetermined (or so we may surely assume, modulo some technicalities), since in the absence of G the whole sequence wouldn't be caused. And if you take away a non-overdetermining cause, the effect disappears. So if you took away G, the whole regress should disappear. But why should taking away G matter, given that all of the causal influences by which G allegedly causes the regress are individually overdetermined?

If this is all right, then the critical attention will shift to (1).

From unrestricted composition to unrestricted caninity

According to unrestricted composition (UC) for any plurality of things there is a whole that is exactly composed of them. Sider offers a continuity argument for UC. Here's a vivid formulation. Let the Ps be the particles in the even-numbered books on one of my bookshelves. If UC is false, then in the actual world the Ps will be a paradigm case of something that doesn't compose a whole. But there is a world where the Ps compose a dog. And between these two worlds there is a continuous sequence of worlds where the Ps gradually migrate from their every-second-book positioning to their canine positioning. It is absurd to think that suddenly somewhere in this continuous sequence the particles come to compose something. So, Sider concludes, they compose something all along, even in the actual world.

But to a hylomorphist, the argument as I've put it simply fails. There is no world where the Ps compose a dog, since a dog—or any other complex entity—is not composed of matter, but of matter and form. The argument can, however, be reformulated. Say that the Ps materially compose an F provided that the Ps are material and together with some form compose an F. Then the argument gets off the ground. In the actual world, the Ps do not materially compose anything while in the final world they materially compose something. Where along the line do they come to materially compose something?

Now, however, the story is underdescribed. For we have failed to say in which worlds in the sequence there is a substantial form of the dog informing the Ps. Facts about substantial forms should not be assumed to supervene on facts about the arrangement of the particles. There could be zombie dogs that are nothing but heaps of particles looking like a dog. In other words, it's a contingent matter whether a certain kind of arrangement of particles materially composes something—if there is a form informing them, then they compose and if not, not.

Of course, there is a question of explanation: Why is there no form informing the Ps in the actual world but there is one in the the non-zombie dog worlds? But the answers aren't particularly troublesome. Maybe the laws of nature explain that. Maybe God just decides when to create forms and make them inform particles.

However, there is a final move that Sider can make. Instead of asking in which worlds the Ps (materially) compose something, he could ask which arrangements of particles are such that something could be materially composed of the particles in that arrangement. Of course the dog-like arrangement is like that. And the even-numbered-book arrangement is not. So where is the transition in the continuous deformation of the even-numbered-book arrangement into the dog-like arrangement?

This is an interesting question for the hylomorphist. It is closely to the question of what forms there could be (cf. the discussion here and in the Murphy book referenced in the comments there). The hylomorphist could take an unrestricted view. There is a sufficiently wide variety of possible forms and defects that any possible arrangement of matter is compatible with being informed by some form—perhaps defectively. There could be a possible world where something looking just like our even-numbered-book arrangement is a highly defective (it doesn't grow or reproduce) plant.

Nonetheless, there is a remaining problem. While the even-numbered-book arrangement may be apt for materially composing a defective plant, it's surely inapt for materially composing a dog. So there will seem to be a discontinuous transition between those arrangements that can and those that cannot materially compose a dog. One answer here is that "dog" is vague. This doesn't fit with traditional Aristotelian views, though, on which all dogs have an exactly similar form, and so one could meaningfully ask about the range of arrangements that could be informed by a form that's exactly like that. But perhaps the Aristotelian can yield some ground here. Another answer would be unrestricted canine composition: any material arrangement could materially compose a dog, albeit a highly defective one. I am somewhat drawn to this strange view. Yet is it that strange? I think I can imagine a dog continuously deforming into the even-numbered-book arrangement but where rather than dying the dog comes to be more and more defective. I am dualist enough that I can even imagine the dog being conscious throughout the process.

Divine simplicity and uncompromising monotheism

I think sometimes people think of the doctrine of divine simplicity as an odd artifact of a particular metaphysical view—say, Aquinas'. But that's the wrong way to think about it. Rather, as Maimonedes observed, divine simplicity is an expression of uncompromising monotheism.

For if God had parts, these parts would be in important ways divine. The first and most obvious reason, which I've discussed in at least one earlier post, is that at least some of God's parts would be uncreated. But only God is uncreated. Granted, the Platonist restricts this to claim that only God is an uncreated concrete entity. I think this restriction does compromise on monotheism, but even this restriction won't help here, since presumably God's parts, if he has any, are as concrete as God.

Second, a central theme in monotheism is that God not only is greater than everything else—some polytheists may think this to be true of their chief god—but that God exceeds everything else by, as one might say, "infinitely many orders of magnitude." But can a being that is composed of parts exceed the collection of his parts by infinitely many orders of magnitude? The whole can be greater than the parts taken together. But can it be so much greater than the parts, so much that God is God but the parts taken together do not threaten monotheism? If one responds that the sum of God's parts is just as God (as on classical mereology), and so God doesn't have to exceed the sum, then I have a different argument. Consider any one part x₁ of God, and consider the collection X* of God's other parts. Then if God is the sum of his parts, he cannot exceed both x₁ and X* by infinitely many orders of magnitude, since the sum of two things does not exceed both of them by infinitely many orders of magnitude (compare the arithmetical fact that a+b is no greater than twice the greater of a and b). And so at least one of x₁ or X* threatens uncompromising monotheism.

Third, a being that is made of parts has some powers because of the parts. So if God were made of parts, he would have some powers because of something other than himself. But that certainly threatens monotheism.

Fourth, if God were not simple, then sometimes when we worship God, we would be worshiping him on account of some component of God. For instance, we would be worshiping God on account of his mercy, or on account of his justice, or on account of his beauty.

Now, we learned in Plato's Lysis that if we love a for the sake of b, then in an important sense what we really love is b. I propose a weaker analogue to this principle:

1. If we worship x on account of y, then we are thereby worshiping y

(I am not saying that we don't really worship x). Thus:

2. If God is not simple, our worship of God on account of his mercy (say) is worship of a component of God that is not God.

But to worship something other than God is idolatrous on uncompromising monotheism. Thus:

3. Worship of anything other than God is wrong if uncompromising monotheism is true.

However:

4. It is not wrong to worship God on account of his mercy.

Putting (1)-(4) together, we conclude that God is simple.

I think the last argument is the religiously deepest reason why uncompromising monotheism requires divine simplicity. Divine simplicity ensures that our worship of God has only God as the object of worship.

A Thomistic creationism of sorts

Suppose that God made physical stuff (say, particles) be arranged just like in a butterfly, but he did not give (either directly or by some general policy) a butterfly form. Then we would have something that looks just like a butterfly. And to the extent that butterfly behavior is ultimately predictable just from physics, that bunch of physical stuff would behave like a butterfly. There wouldn't be a butterfly there. In fact, there wouldn't be one thing there: just a bunch of physical stuff.

Now, we are not yet in a position to know how much of the physical behavior of organisms—especially non-human ones—is predicted by the physics. Let us suppose, however, that it turns out that all the physical behavior of non-human animals is predicted by the physics. (Humans have free will, and that's a different business.)

Now let me tell a story. I don't think the story is actually true, though it seems basically[note 1] logically possible:

God created a physical world and had some chemical stuff come together in a way that "reproduced". And then evolution took over, and bundles of physical stuff that were better at survival and reproduction reproduced more, until we had bundles of physical stuff shaped like algae, trilobites, trees, dinosaurs, birds, horses and apes. But there never were any algae, trilobites, trees, dinosaurs, birds, horses or apes. Finally, not too long ago on a cosmic scale, there came to be two bundles of physical stuff that were physically rather like humans. By this point, there was no physical stuff shaped like trilobites or dinosaurs, but there was physical stuff shaped like algae, trees, birds, horses and apes. And God then said: "Let there be algae, trees, birds, horses, apes and many other organisms", and he created forms which informed the algaelike, treelike, birdlike, horselike and apelike bundles of physical stuff, and all sorts of other bundles. Thereupon, there were birds, horses and apes, though things didn't look any different. Finally God said: "Let there be humans", and he created forms which informed the human-like bundles of physical stuff. And there were humans.

This story is fully compatible with naturalistic evolution. Indeed, the only bar to the possibility of this story would be a vitalism on which physical stuff does not behave like living organisms. On this story, there literally never have been any dinosaurs. But there will have been bundles of physical stuff arranged dinosaurwise, and that's all many a biologist thinks a dinosaur is anyway.

But since bunches of physical stuff can't be conscious—they need soul, i.e., form, for that—then on this story there was no consciousness before human beings came on the scene. This is theologically attractive in that it enables us to hold that suffering came into the world through human sin. For we can continue the logically possible story thus:

When God created the forms of all the organisms, he miraculously arranged things so that no organism would suffer, miraculously making a harmonious state. And he put humans in charge of this delicately balanced system. Humans, however, quickly came to freely reject God's sovereignty in the system that he put them in charge of, and he reluctantly removed his miraculous protection from the system in deference to the authority he granted humans. And so humans and other animals came to suffer.

This story is also interesting in that it is yet another way to reconcile naturalistic evolution with the not dogmatically required but still somewhat attractive theological idea that all the organisms there are were directly created by God. For the story makes clear in a Thomistic setting how naturalistic evolution only explains how we got to have the physical stuff shaped and behaving like algae, trees, birds, horses and apes. God's creation is needed to make this stuff into actual algae, trees, birds, horses and apes: forms need to be put in. (Compare how in Genesis we are told that God made Adam from the "dust of the earth", i.e., physical stuff.)

The main reason I don't like this story has to be with my being an eternalist. I think past (and future) objects are real. And I think reality will be more wonderful if it really contains trilobites and dinosaurs, not just physical stuff arranged trilobitewise or dinosaurwise. So while the above story is basically logically possible, I don't think it's actually true, because it seems likely that a God whose goodness spreads itself out creatively would be likely to create forms for physical stuff arranged trilobitewise and dinosaurwise.

But there might, nonetheless, be aspects of the story that we can adopt. In the story, creation was safeguarded by God's taking bundles of physical stuff and giving them form. We can posit this in a more commonsensical evolutionary story. Maybe the gametes of two dinosaur parents involve some mutation that makes the offspring be particularly birdlike. Then God can simply prevent the offspring from being informed by a dinosaur form and then instead make the offspring be informed by a bird form. This is still direct creation of birds from previously existing physical matter. And while higher animals prior to the first human sin were conscious, we can suppose that God in his love miraculously prevented any instance of conscious suffering that wouldn't be on balance good for the animals, say by miraculously preventing pain qualia or in some other way. But this divine miraculous intervention perhaps ended (though perhaps not!) when Adam and Eve rejected God's rule over the earth they were put in charge of.

I am not a panentheist

In the past, while reading about panentheism I've had a hard time seeing how it's not simply a version of orthodox theism. That we are in God, that all our existence is a participation in God and that God is present in everything by his omnipresence and universal sustenance and causal concommittance are all perfectly orthodox ideas, ones that, for instance, any Thomist will embrace. Thus I thought that I probably am a panentheist if panentheism is understood as "All things are in God and God is in all things" (Matthew Fox). Of course, many panentheists would add to the above various unorthodox doctrines, but these did not seem to me to be a part of panentheism. However, I am now thinking, after a careful look at the rather confusing panentheism article in SEP that a core doctrine of panentheism is divine dependence on the the non-divine. And that's not compatible with orthodox theism, I think, and certainly not with what I think. So I guess I'm not a panentheist after all.

Ex nihilo nihil

Nothing comes from nothing. Take that as a given. But a mountain's coming from molehill[note 1], while not literally a case of something from nothing, would be just as bad. There is a Polish proverb that even Solomon cannot pour a drink from an empty container. But, likewise, even Solomon cannot pour wine from a container of water (at least without help from something greater than Solomon). The more doesn't come from the less.

What doesn't have something cannot give it.

Now, obviously, this principle needs to be limited. You can get a headache from playing a videogame for too long, but the videogame doesn't have a headache. The principle applies to positive being, to perfections.

So our causes must have all the perfections we have. It is plain, then, that the cause of humanity must have all the perfections of thought and will that humanity has. The First Cause cannot simply be a bunch of energy or matter. This is obviously important for the second part of the Cosmological Argument, the move from a First Cause to God. And of course, this is a very familiar line of thought. It's very forcefully there in Samuel Clarke, and it was already there in the medievals (whom Clarke amusingly criticizes while recapitulating their arguments).

But I don't want to dwell on the consequences of the principle that nothing can give what it doesn't have. Rather, I want to say something about the line of thought, if one may call it that, that leads me to it this morning. There is nothing really new here. The line of thought is one I had been thinking about for years, partly under the influence of Richard Sisca. But suddenly this morning it becomes very plausible. One is told that on big things people aren't convinced by argument, but rather have something like a conversion. But one can also have something like a conversion with regard to an argument. Suddenly it becomes clear that the line of thought is just right, and that the objections to it are mere technicalities. Sometimes one even has the experience of thinking that one knew this all along—or at least that one should have. This is a very interesting experience.