tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post2869305015713930457..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Divine conservation, existential inertia, presentism and simultaneous causationAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-6544365893270536562021-11-29T19:45:36.041-06:002021-11-29T19:45:36.041-06:00I ameliorate the occasionalism worry here: http://...I ameliorate the occasionalism worry here: http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2021/11/simultaneous-causation-and-occasionalism.htmlAlexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-70122445702941049802021-11-17T09:30:13.651-06:002021-11-17T09:30:13.651-06:00But causation itself requires divine concurrence a...But causation itself requires divine concurrence according to classical theism. Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-91935701364157835952021-11-16T13:23:31.760-06:002021-11-16T13:23:31.760-06:00Doesn't B theory/eternalism make divine conser...Doesn't B theory/eternalism make divine conservation, if not false, at least superfluous? If you think things could carry on existing by causing their later-selves (under B theory), why should God bother "conserving" anything at all, and why is there so much stress in dogma and traditional teaching on the doctrine that God conserves everything in being at all times, and if not for his *conservation* things would cease to be?RunDechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087138435392371312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-32714327289191220862021-11-02T16:24:28.013-05:002021-11-02T16:24:28.013-05:00I don't see the problem though - primary causa...I don't see the problem though - primary causality is by definition an aspect of causality in the created order that belongs to God, and so some things involve only divine causation. The existence of A at t1 is something that can only involve God's divine causation, insofar as its existence is considered absolutely. Even if the prior temporal existence of A somehow explains or even causes its existence later, it can only do so in a qualified way for other aspects of its existence, not in an absolute sense which belongs solely to God. So the absolute sense involves only divine causation.<br /><br />So I don't think this is as occasionalistic as it seems to be.Wesley C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05903323901343952714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-55700824854938471042021-11-02T10:44:12.370-05:002021-11-02T10:44:12.370-05:00God *supplies* some of the links rather than expla...God *supplies* some of the links rather than explaining the links.<br /><br />At t1, A exists. At t2, A exists and causes B. At t3, B still exists.<br /><br />The connection between A existing at t1 and B existing at t3 consists of three explanatory links.<br /><br />Let W = A existing at t1. X = A existing at t2. Y = B existing at t2. Z = B existing at t3.<br /><br />Then we have three explanatory links:<br /> 1. W explains X.<br /> 2. X explains Y.<br /> 3. Y explains Z.<br /><br />The "explains" in 2 involves creaturely powers, while in 1 and 3 it involves divine power alone. Thus, if we take out the links powered by God alone, we are left with a hole.<br /><br />Take analog alarm clock. At night, you set the alarm clock for 7:30, by moving a red hand to the "7:30" position. That hand persists overnight in its position (i.e., both the substances the hand is made of and their positional accidents persist). In the morning, the clock's moving hour hand makes contact with the red hand, which triggers an alarm. Roughly, then, we have these three explanatory links that take us from evening to morning:<br /> 1. Because you turned a knob, the red hand got located at the 7:30 position in the evening.<br /> 2. Because the red hand was located at the 7:30 position in the evening, it was also located at the 7:30 position at 7:30 in the morning.<br /> 3. Because the red hand was located at the 7:30 position at 7:30 in the morning, the alarm went off.<br />Here we have three explanatory links. Links (1) and (3) involve creaturely causal explanation, but link (2) has no creaturely explanation, but is purely explained by divine conservation.<br /><br />Another way to see that this is occasionalist is to imagine an eternalist theistic alternative that involves a limited amount of causal existential inertia. In this alternative, for many classes of objects, an object's existing at an earlier time causes the object to exist at a later time via primitive diachronic causation. This causation, like all creaturely causation, involves both creaturely causation but requires divine "primary causal" cooperation. On this alternative, each of the three links in the alarm story has a divine "primary causal" explanation and a creaturely "secondary causal" explanation. There is no occasionalism. But once you remove the creaturely "secondary causal" story from link (2) in the alarm story, you obviously have partial occasionalism. And that impoverished story is what the presentist divine conservation theorist tells us. <br /><br />(On reflection, it seems that Catholics at least are committed to *some* partial occasionalism. Namely, we are committed to God alone being the cause of the human soul. But that's because there is something exceeding mere nature in human beings--there is something spiritual. But it would seem to be problematic to suppose that *every* diachronic explanation has occasionalist links.)Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-1608352873070976582021-11-02T05:48:47.693-05:002021-11-02T05:48:47.693-05:00How exactly is this presentist conservation story ...How exactly is this presentist conservation story similar to occasionalism just because a full explanation of the causal chain requires one to include God's conservation of it? If one accepts that God conserves things in existence at every moment, then a truly complete causal account would have to include God's conservation in it as well. Of course, you could exclude this consideration when analysing the created causal chain by itself without further reference to what's outside it ontologically, which implies that God's causality and created causality are categorically different aspects of reality and one doesn't necessarily have to make direct reference to it or even be aware of it directly.<br /><br />But the same can be said of the clock alarm being set and going off - while it's true God's conservation is an important element of a full account of the whole causal picture, you can easily understand the causal link between the two without reference to divine sustaining, and don't need to be explicitly or directly aware of God's conservation if you want to focus solely on the secondary created causal aspects of it.Wesley C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05903323901343952714noreply@blogger.com