How one met someone can significantly affect the shape of one’s relationship with them for years to come. Therefore, we can imagine that what reasons convinced one to believe in God can significantly affect the shape of one’s relationship with God. If this is right, and if God has a plan for a particular kind of relationship with a person, then God might have reason to keep the person from being convinced by some evidence for the existence of God, in order that the person might instead come to be convinced by reasons that will set the stage for the particular shape of relationship God wants.
In particular, it would not be surprising if some of the more abstract philosophical arguments for the existence of God, while perfectly fine as arguments, might not be fitting for leading a particular individual into a deeply interpersonal relationship. And if so, we could imagine that God could keep the person from being convinced by such arguments, in order that the person might come to belief in a different way.
But it all could depend on the person. We are broken in different ways, and God has different plans for us all.
24 comments:
We are not 'broken'.
So, even the non-possibility of conversion due to theistic arguments is in God's plan. I really liked it, because it extrapolates in a brilliant way our total ignorance in relation to Him
If our ignorance in relation to Him is truly total, we have no way to know what is in God's plan.
Talking about "God's plan" is a example of antropomorphism. A Simple Immutable Being has no "plans".
Dr. Pruss what is your thoughts on the following argument that this world exist of absolute necessity:
M1 If God intentionally acts to actualize this world, then this world cannot possibly fail to obtain.
M2 If God’s intentional act to actualize this world is absolutely necessary, then
this world exists of absolute necessity.
M3 God’s existence is absolutely necessary.
M4 Anything that is identical to God’s existence must be absolutely necessary.
M5 All of God’s intentional actions are identical to each other such that there is
only one divine act.
M6 God’s one divine act is identical to God’s existence.
M7 God’s one divine act is absolutely necessary. (M3–M6)
M8 God’s intentional act to actualize this world is absolutely necessary. (M7)
M9 This world exists of absolute necessity. (M2, M8)
Premise M2 is false. Just as the same entity can be a philosopher in one world and a biologist in another, the same entity can be an act to actualize A in one world and an act to actualize B i another world.
But if said entity is necessarily a philosopher, he is a philosopher in every possible world.
Hence M2 is not false.
If God is identical to all His 'properties', He is identical to His act to actualize A and that act exists in every possible world.
You are assuming that it is an essential property of an act to actualize A that it is an act to actualize A.
No, I am not assuming that.
Without that assumption, I can just agree that God "is identical to His act to actualize A and that act exists in every possible world." But I can deny that in other worlds that act IS an act to actualize A, and hence I can deny that in those other worlds A gets actualized.
No, you can't deny this. My act to actualize A may in some possible world not lead to the actualization of A because I am a contingent being and my act may vary between possible worlds. Moreover, I am not omnipotent, so lots of things can go wrong with my act. But if God intends A, He gets A. So if you agree that God is identical to His act to actualize A, there can he no possible world without A.
"But, fortunately for the proponent of the DDS, and as I (Tomaszewski 2019) have shown, this argument commits the famous formal fallacy of substituting a contingently co-referential term into the scope of a modal operator. So the argument is simply invalid, for the reasons explained long ago in Quine (1953: Ch. 8), who gives us the following counterexample: Necessarily, 8 is greater than 7. The number of the planets is identical to 8.7 Necessarily, the number of the planets is greater than 7. And it is a good thing for proponents of the simple modal collapse argument that it is invalid, since many of them accept both of the premises of the following argument I call the “alternative argument from modal collapse”: Necessarily, God exists. God is identical with the Creator. Necessarily, the Creator exists."
- Christopher Tomaszewski in the book Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God
We can just reformulate the argument like this for the non-classical theist
M1 If God is the creator, then this world cannot possibly fail to obtain.
M2 If the creator is absolutely necessary, then
this world exists of absolute necessity.
M3 God’s existence is absolutely necessary.
M4 Anything that is identical to God must be absolutely necessary.
M5 God is identical to the creator.
M6 The creator is absolutely necessary. (M4–M5)
M7 This world exists of absolute necessity. (M2, M6)
Heavenly Philosophy
I am not sure I follow you. I don't think I agree with M1, at least not without further argument.M1 seems to beg the question because it basically says the same as M7, which is what you are supposed to prove. It is not because God is identical to the creator that He can't have created other things.
In order to establish M7 you need an argument like mine.
BTW, Tomaszewski is wrong. "God is identical to all of His 'properties'" is a rigid designator. It is a claim about God's essence, which no Thomist will deny is necessary.
"The number of the planets is identical to 8", on the other hand, is a contingent truth. It could have been 7 or 6, but it happens to be 8. God is identical to all of His properties means that God is necessarily identical to all of His properties. I don't think Tomaszewski will deny that, and Alex doesn't seem deny it. Instead Alex claims that an essential property of God (His intentional act to actualize A) can in some possible worlds, lead to God actualizing B. And I claim that is impossible, for several reasons.
An additional reason is that, if the God of Classical Theisl exists, possible worlds are dependent on God's act to actualize them, so God's act to actualize A already implies that God actualizes a possible world with A.
Walter:
The idea is this. The same entity, call it G, in the actual world w1 is an act to actualize A and in world w2 it is instead an act to actualize B. So although G, which in the actual world is an act to actualize A, exists in w2, in w2 there is no act to actualize A, because in w2, G isn't an act to actualize A, but an act to actualize B.
But then you deny that G is identical to His act to actualize A, which what you said you 'can just agree' on. It turns out you can't.
Do you actually believe that a necessary entity can be identical to a contingent one?
No, both entities are necessary. The act to actualize A is a necessary being. But the description "act to actualize A" only applies to this being in w1, not in w2, just as "friend of Peter" only applies to God in some worlds but not others (e.g., not in the ones where Peter doesn't exist).
Alex
You claim that the act to actualize A is a necessary being but you also claim, and this is a direct quote that in "w2 there is no act to actualize A". So, the act to actualize A is apparently a necessary being that doesn't exist in w2.
To say that the act to actualize A exists in every possible world but in some worlds it is actually the act to actualize B is the sameas sayin g God exists in every possible world but in some worlds he is actually the devil.
But even if I allowed fro that moive (and i don't), it is still true that the act to actualize A is not the same as the act to actualize B, hence it is contingent.
And now, you are probably going to draw the Cambridge change card. But a (mere) Cambridge change is a 'change' due to a change in another entity. My son is taller than me, not because I shrunk but because he has grown. In order for mere Cambridge change to apply to God as a creator, you will have to posit something extrinsic to God. But God as a creator has nothing extrinsic to Him prior to creation. hence, prior to creation (or the actualiztion of B if you wish), God's act was identical to God. If you now claim that in w2 where B was actualized, the description "act to actualize A" doesn't apply, you are saying that God is "an act to actualize something" and that, if it so happens that B was actualized, we describe it as "an act to actualize B".
But I thought, and correct me if I am wrong, that God is in full control over the things he actualizes and that if He wants to actualize a goat, He does not happen to get a sheep.
One simple answer from you will remove all possible ambiguity.
How does God control what He actually ends up actualizing?
I have never read or heard any satisfying answer from any Thomist, most of them do not even try, but I sincerely hope you will be the exception.
"To say that the act to actualize A exists in every possible world but in some worlds it is actually the act to actualize B is the sameas sayin g God exists in every possible world but in some worlds he is actually the devil."
In your comment of December 12, 2023 at 2:22 PM, you say you are NOT assuming that it is an essential property of the act to actualize A that it is an act to actualize A. But if it is NOT an essential property of the act to actualize A that it is an act to actualize A, then there is a possible world where that act exists and yet where that act is NOT an act to actualize A. That's what "essential property" (in the contemporary modal sense) means.
That's fine. Perhaps you are after all assuming that it is an essential property of an act to have the intention it does. That's a plausible assumption, but one that we defenders of divine simplicity tend to deny.
Alex
I am 'assuming' that some acts may be contingent, hence those contingent acts may lead to some other possible world, or that some acts to actualize A may accidently lead to B.
What I do assume, however, is that if God acts to actualize A, He does not actualize B instead.
If God wants A, He acts to actualize A and if that act is the same as the act to actualize B, then I ask you again to explain how this is possible.
Alex
"Perhaps you are after all assuming that it is an essential property of an act to have the intention it does. That's a plausible assumption, but one that we defenders of divine simplicity tend to deny."
I know that you defenders of DS tend to deny this, but my question is: do you have a basis to deny it other than that you don't want it to be true? IOW, how can the very same act be an act to actualize A (and not B)and an act to actualize B (and not A) in the absense of any variable?
Walter
Out of mere curiosity, what are your own personal beliefs about God, theism, etc?
I am an atheist.
Walter:
"do you have a basis to deny it other than that you don't want it to be true?"
Kripkean semantic externalism gives us some reason to be suspicious of it in general.
Suppose I am part of a community of avant garde conceptual sculptors. We have designed a rocket system to send a sculpting robot to planet X or planet Y in a year. The planet has already been randomly chosen by a mechanized coin flip, but the choice is not known to any human. Planet X's largest rock is made of obsidian. Planet Y's largest rock is made of granite. When planning our sculpture, we stipulate "Z" to be the name of the planet that the coin flip has selected, and "obsite" to refer to the material of the largest rock on Planet Z. And then we go on to discuss as a community what we want the robot to carve out of obsite on Planet Z. Finally, we come to an intention to make a sculpture of an undetached rabbit part. We program the robot accordingly, and finally press the Launch button. In programming the robot and pressing the launch button, we are performing the act of actualizing an undetached rabbit part sculpture out of obsite on Planet Z.
Now, in worlds where the coin flip chose X, that act is also an act of actualizing an undetached rabbit part sculpture out of obsidian on Planet X, because in those worlds "Z" means X and "obsite" means obsidian. And in worlds where the coin flip chose Y, that act is an act of actualizing an undetached rabbit part sculpture out of granite on Planet Y.
There are things in this thought experiment that can be questioned, but there is enough of reason to believe in some degree of semantic externalism that we should be suspicious of a general principle that in every world where an act occurs it has the same content.
Alex
Your thoughts experiment only world because there are external circumstances that are beyond our control.
I have already said.that some acts to actualize A may accidently lead to B being actialized.
So, I am afraid this doesn't answer my problem.
'world' should he 'work'
Post a Comment