Onward Christian Spaceman

Dear Trent:

I guess I never thought the existence of intelligent aliens would be evidentially contrary to Christianity. We believe that the world includes intelligences other than human ones. A minority in the Christian tradition (e.g., St. Anthony the Great, as reported by St. Athanasius, who perhaps agreed) even held that these angelic intelligences are embodied (in subtle matter).

If we met intelligent aliens, we would have to try to figure out: (a) are they fallen? and (b) if so, do we think Christ's salvation is for all embodied intelligent beings or just for humans beings, i.e., when one confesses that Christ came to redeem man, does one mean by "man" a member of homo sapiens or does one mean any rational animal. I think (a) probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out. I am not sure how we would figure out (b). But in any case, whatever the answers to (a) and (b) are, I don't think there is a serious challenge to orthodox Christianity there.

I think the existence of intelligent aliens could by itself raise the probability of the existence of God. For, either it is or is not extremely unlikely that intelligent life would arise somewhere in the universe in a naturalistic way given our laws and initial conditions. Currently, we do not know which disjunct is true, and both are serious possibilities. If it is not extremely unlikely that intelligent life would arise somewhere in the universe in a naturalistic way, the existence of aliens is not much evidence either way. But suppose that it is extremely unlikely that intelligent life would arise somewhere naturalistically. Then it is even more unlikely that it would do so twice over. But given theism, it is not unlikely that there would be intelligent life in several places, since a variety of intelligent life forms is a great good, and an intelligent being is not unlikely to produce a great good if it is within his power.

Moreover, if the arising of intelligent life in our universe given our laws and initial conditions is extremely unlikely, then the best naturalistic explanation of such arising is a multiple worlds anthropic principle one. But such an explanation would, assuming the arising of intelligent life in our universe given our laws and initial conditions, lead us to expect that we would observe intelligence in only one ecosystem, not in two. So such an explanation would be made less probable by the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in our universe.

Frankly, I have no idea if there is intelligent life elsewhere. I'd love to know, though.

Alex, your thoughts are quite similar to Lewis's.

I suggest that the existence of intelligent alien beings is not inimical to Christian faith.

As stated above, the first question would be whether they are fallen or not. I take it that, in fact, they would be fallen. It seems impossible as a practicality that they could have remained incorrupt in this corrupted universe.

And the key question would therefore be, whether Christ's redemption would apply to them.

I know that CS Lewis and others envisage the Incarnation and Redemption happening in many worlds.

But, reading St Paul, it seems clear that Jesus is the unique way to the Father for all, whether Terrans or from Arcturus 22.

It's a bit like the fact that all humans depend for their salvation on Christ, who was born at a particular time, in a particular place, and in a particular culture.

Felixdude,

So suppose the Narnian metaphisic obtain. Do we have very good reasons to think that Aslan is not identical to Jesus?

This may or may not be a different question, but why can't the Second Person of Holy Trinity be incarnate as Aslan in Narnia. The Catholic Church has a pretty strong tradition that the incarnation is non-reversible and permanent. Still, it's not *totally* obvious to me that a human couldn't have the body of a Lion and it certainly seems possible that the resurrected body could have the power to shape-shift if you will. Just some thoughts.

It raises some interesting questions about how to take all that "once for all" language in Hebrews. If the crucifixion and the other equivalent events elsewhere are really the same event, then maybe it's ok.

There is also the issue of whether the "all" is a wide-open quantifier or has a restricted domain. Context, I think, seems to support the latter.

Still, it's not *totally* obvious to me that a human couldn't have the body of a Lion and it certainly seems possible that the resurrected body could have the power to shape-shift if you will

Very interesting. In worlds where God has incarnated as a lion, it's false that he has incarnated as a human, right? In such worlds, why would we say that God has a human nature, as I think you're saying? Maybe you aren't saying that. I realize that the actual incarnation is "permanent", but in the Aslan-incarnation-world, w, the actual incarnation is the Aslan incarnation. So that's what's permanent from the point of view of w. So in the Aslan world, God, I guess, does not take on another nature, or (what?) takes on a lion nature?

What kind of worlds are we talking about? If we're talking about possible worlds, and God incarnated himself as Aslan but not as Jesus in that world, then it would be false in that world that God incarnated himself as a human.

But if we're talking about other planets or some other kind of world in a multiverse within a possible world, then it would be true that God incarnated himself as a human being and true that God incarnated himself as a lion. Truth values of sentences like that shouldn't vary from world to world within one possible world.

But if we're talking about other planets or some other kind of world in a multiverse within a possible world, then it would be true that God incarnated himself as a human being and true that God incarnated himself as a lion. Truth values of sentences like that shouldn't vary from world to world within one possible world.

This is hard for me to follow. God cannot incarnate himself as a lion in one cosmos of an actual multiverse and incarnate himself as a human in another cosmos of the actual multiverse. It's not possible. Neither God nor any other being can have property P in one cosmos and the property ~P in another, if both are cosmoi of the actual multiverse. It's a clear violation of Leibniz law. This is the same error committed in multiverse solutions to the problem of no best world: the solutions ignore the fact that cosmoi in the actual multiverse cannot overlap in any way.

Jeremy beat me to the modal comment while I was typing a draft offline. Dang, now as I'm about to post this Mike has replied again. I don't understand Mike's reply. Here's mky post:

Since the Narnian world would clearly be a part of this acuality the questions I have are two:

Q1: Whether the Second Person of the Holy Trinity can hypostatically unite with more natures than with just the human. The incarnation is permanent yet it seems to me that God the Son can maintain the hypostatic union with human nature while not being at all times incarnate. This is based on two items of evidence: 1. Jesus apparent ability to disappear and dematerialize (I know this is controversial, but it seems to be the plain sense of Scripture); 2. the assumption that God the Son is not currently incarnate, not locating any spatial region (maybe Peter van Inwagen thinks he's far off in space, that's not a smart-alec comment, I really wonder what Xn materialists think about this, does anyone know?).

So if there's nothing preventing hypostatic union with more natures and being irreversibly incarnate doesn't mean being at all times incarnate in the carnal form of the hypostatically united nature, then it seems that God the Son could also hypostatically unite with a narnian nature--talking animals clearly have rational souls, they are *people* in the Aristotelian sense--and sometimes incarnate in the carnal form of a Narnian.

Another note: Saints are said to have bilocated, so presumably Jesus could bilocate if he wanted and why not in different forms? This obviously only applies to the crazies like Alex and Tim and I, but it's still worth thinking about.

Finally, it could be that Narnians are humans in the relevant sense. It's plausible that the Fathers were working with a basically Aristotelian sense of "human" as "rational animal". This bit of Aristotle was known at the time and the Chalcedonian confession sounds Aristotelian enough "truly man, composed of rational soul and body." So if we are not some kind of "externalist" about human nature--thinking that geneticcs matters--then by being united to the human nature in the sense of "persons composed of rational soul and body" then Jesus himself can atone for aliens and Narnians (though in the story itself we're still left with the "once for all" bit, but that's a literary issue more than a philosophical one, though that would be interesting to delve into as well).

I've asked Alex and Matt to tell me if (where) my speculations have been delcared heretical by the Church. They've never failed me before. ;-)

Relevant to this discussion is Summa Theologiae, III, 3, 7: "Whether one Divine Person can assume two human natures?" Aquinas answers in the affirmative, arguing as follows: "What has power for one thing, and no more, has a power limited to one. Now the power of a Divine Person is infinite, nor can it be limited by any created thing. Hence it may not be said that a Divine Person so assumed one human nature as to be unable to assume another. For it would seem to follow from this that the Personality of the Divine Nature was so comprehended by one human nature as to be unable to assume another to its Personality; and this is impossible, for the Uncreated cannot be comprehended by any creature. Hence it is plain that, whether we consider the Divine Person in regard to His power, which is the principle of the union, or in regard to His Personality, which is the term of the union, it has to be said that the Divine Person, over and beyond the human nature which He has assumed, can assume another distinct human nature."

Presumably, if Aquinas thinks the Logos could take on two human natures, the Logos could take on one human and one Leonine nature.

Even if this is all correct, it still leaves the question whether the actuality of two or more Incarnations is compatible with what we know theologically.

The Fathers did, however, see the Incarnation as redeeming the whole physical world groaning under the yoke of the Fall. This suggests strongly that if there are other intelligent species, then they were redeemed by the Incarnation as man.

But I wouldn't go so far as to say the other view is heretical. One might not unreasonably try to limit "whole" in "whole world" to a maximal spatiotemporally connected region or something like that.

Mike:

On the two Incarnation hypothesis, it is true in both universes that the Logos is man and that the Logos is lion. However, the Logos is present qua man in one universe and is present qua lion in the other.

On the two Incarnation hypothesis, it is true in both universes that the Logos is man and that the Logos is lion. However, the Logos is present qua man in one universe and is present qua lion in the other

Alex, Trent,

As far as I can tell the qua-talk disguises the paradoxical claim. Let me be more clear in expressing what's, frankly, uncontroversial. Necessarily, if worlds w and w' are in the actual multiverse, then w and w' are compossible. No two worlds w and w' such that w and w' include literally the same individual P, P has property X in w and P does not have property X in w' are compossible. So these two worlds cannot both be a part of the actual multiverse. To avoid this, you might want to go to counterpart theory. This would go some way to solving the problem in violating LL. You could also go 4-dimensional, where what we have in w and w' are not the same individual P, but parts or possible parts of P, etc. But what you can't do is have the P (full stop) in w and w' with incompatible properties. So if the claim is that God is in w and in w', and God is a lion in w and a non-lion in w', then these are not both in the actual multiverse. Those worlds are not compossible.

Mike, by your lights has anyone here been advocating that? Not by mine.

Mike, by your lights has anyone here been advocating that? Not by mine.

Well, there are two possibilities here. First, someone might claim that God incarnated himself as a lion in some world (some world that is not a multiverse). If so, then God is not a human in that world. Second, someone might claim that God incarnated himself as a lion in some cosmos of a multiverse. If so, then God is not a human in any other cosmoi of that multiverse.

But you say above that,

...why can't the Second Person of Holy Trinity be incarnate as Aslan in Narnia. The Catholic Church has a pretty strong tradition that the incarnation is non-reversible and permanent. Still, it's not *totally* obvious to me that a human couldn't have the body of a Lion and it certainly seems possible that the resurrected body could have the power to shape-shift if you will.

That sure seems to say that God's incarnation as Aslan would have to be an incarnation as a human as well. I took Jeremy's subsequent post as somehow defending this possibility, provided that we had in mind a multiverse rather than a typical possible world. You then endorsed this post as just what you would have said in response to me. If that is not what Jeremy had in mind, then, as far as I can see, the comment is a non sequitor. It does not help the position that God incarnated as Aslan might be a human Aslan.
In any case, my point is simple. In any ordinary world in which God incarnates himself as a lion, he does not incarnate himself as a human and in any cosmos of a multiverse W in which God incarnates himself as a lion there is no other cosmos of W in which God incarnates himself as a human. What I say here seems contrary to the initial quote in which the incarnation as a lion would somehow be an incarnation of a human being in a lion body.

Mike, you sound like you're importing modal talk when we're not talking about two possible worlds but two locations within one world. This case, then, is more like the case of one object being bilocated. If I had two bodies, I could be sitting on my couch typing this comment right now while also being at the store buying some milk.

In such a case, here is what we can say. It is true that I'm on my couch typing. It is true that I'm at the store buying milk. It is not true that I am not on my couch. It is not true that I am not at the store. It is true that I am standing and that I am sitting. But it doesn't follow from my standing at the store that I'm not sitting, because I am sitting right here, even though I'm not sitting over there.

So what you can say is that God would be incarnated as a lion in one location and as a human being in another. You can't truly say that God is not incarnated as a lion or that God is not incarnated as a human being. You can say that God is incarnated as a lion in Narnia and as a human on earth. You can say that God is not incarnated as a lion on earth and is not incarnated as a human in Narnia. But I can't see how you get any contradiction out of this at all.

You can say that God is incarnated as a lion in Narnia and as a human on earth.

Jeremy,

You are treating these properties as though they were relations. They are not relations. So here's the problem.

1. God is incarnated as a lion in Narnia

2. God is incarnated as a lion.

(1) entails (2) in the same way that Jones is singing in the shower entails that Jones is singing. But (3) entails (4).

3. God is incarnated as a non-lion on earth.

4. God is incarnated as a non-lion.

And it cannot be that (2) and (4) are true any more than it can be true that God is singing (in Narnia) and God is silent (on Earth). Singing and being silent are not relations anyone bears to locations.

But 4 is ambiguous between:

4a: God is incarnated as something that is not a lion.

4b: God is not incarnated as a lion.

4a does not entail 4b.

"God is incarnated as a human on earth" entails 4a, but it does not entail 4b, since it's compatible with God being incarnated as a lion somewhere else.

I'm not sure what more to say. It cannot be true right now that God is incarnated as something that is not a lion and God is incarnated as something that is a lion. My best guess is that you think these are consistent because they are disguised relations. I agree that if they were relations, then they would be consistent. But they are clearly not relations. It might be easier to see if you consider (1) and (2). Suppose right now,

1. God is singing in Narnia.
2. God is silent on Earth.

(1) entails that, right now, God is singing and (2) entails that, right now, God is silent. So God, this one single being, is singing and silent right now. But he cannot have those two properties right now.

Jeremy,

One other possibility. I guess you could hold not that these properties are disguised relations, but rather that they're not incompatible at all. If so, then God could be both incarnated as a lion on Earth and, at the same time, incarnated as a human on Earth. If they are not incompatible, then God can have both properties in the same way that I can have the property of being left-handed and the property of being right-footed at the same time.
In any case, if you think they're compatible properties, then this is where we're disagreeing. I don't think--barring mysteries--that God could be incarnated as Aslan on Earth and also, at the same time, incarnated as Smith on Earth.

Mike:

Your argument, if it shows the impossibility of the Logos being both a man and a lion would equally well seem to show the impossibility of the Logos being both a man and God. The Logos is God. God is omnipresent. We want to say, thus, that the Logos is also inside the moon. But the man Jesus Christ is, qua man, not inside the moon.

Note that there are senses in which an object might have different properties in different places. This is clear for extrinsic properties: Stalin is famous in some places and infamous in others. But it is also true for other properties: The zebra is white in some places and black in others.

There is, for instance, no difficulty about a being singing in one place and being silent in another. First of all, the singing and silence may happen at different times, and then the difficulty evaporates. And, observe, that Narnia and Earth have separate time lines on C. S. Lewis's view. So it is never the case that an event in Narnia happens at the same time as an event on Earth. So there's an easy solution: God is a man at some times (the times in our time sequence after around 4 BC) and is a lion at other times (the times in the Narnian time seqence).

But that's not the only solution possible. For instance, it is quite possible for a being to sing in Texas while simultaneously being silent in Oklahoma. Just take a snake that stretches from Texas to Oklahoma and that has two mouths. The mouth in Texas sings, the mouth in Oklahoma is silent. So the snake sings in Texas and is simultaneously silent in Oklahoma.

Furthermore, I think there is a problem in your argument based on the absurdity of God being a lion and a non-lion. Let's try to formalize it. I will simplify by forgetting all about multiverses--they're a red herring. The question before us is whether in the same world God can be both a lion and a man.

The best way I can reconstruct your case is:
1. Suppose for reductio, God is both a man and a lion.
2. A man is a non-lion.
3. Therefore, God is both a lion and a non-lion. But that is absurd.

This argument works just as well or just as badly if one substitutes "God" for "lion", so if Christianity is right, there must be something wrong with the argument. What is wrong with it? I think it is (2), which is ambiguous between:
(2a) To be man is something other than to be a lion.
(2b) No man is a lion.

Now, if we understand (2) as (2b), absurdity ensues from (1) and (2). But (2b) simply begs the question against the defender of a double incarnation.

And if we understand (2) as (2a), no absurdity results, and indeed (3) no longer follows. To see that there is no absurdity, consider the fallacious parallel argument:
1*. Suppose for a reductio that Mrs. Windsor is both woman and monarch.
2a*. To be a woman and to be a monarch are not the same thing.
3*. Therefore, Mrs. Windsor is both monarch and non-monarch, which is absurd.

But of course Elizabeth Windsor indeed is both woman and monarch, may God save her.

On reading Mike's last comment, I see that indeed the question is whether being a lion and being a man are compossible. I have no good argument that they are compossible. But also no good argument has been presented that they are not compossible, and I am worried that most arguments against the compossibility would also show the incompossibility of being God and a man.

Let's try to make such an argument.

Argument 1. Bilocation of a material object is impossible. But a man and a lion cannot be present in the same place. Hence, if x is a man and a lion, then x is bilocated, which is impossible.

Responses: The standard medieval understanding of Christ passing through closed doors involves Christ and the door being at the same place at the same time. Presumably, Christ could likewise pass through a lion. Hence, it is probably possible for a man and a lion to be at the same place. I've also argued recently that the best understanding of the real presence involves genuine multilocation--the other accounts are not fully satisfactory.

Argument 2. To be a man requires that each of one's body parts be a human body part. To be a lion is to be leonine requires that each of one's body parts be a leonine body part. Every body part is a material object. No material object can be both a human and a leonine body part. Ergo, no man can be a lion.

Responses: If we transplanted a heart from a lion into a man, wouldn't that be both a human and a leonine body part? Further, it is not clearly true that every body part of a man has to be a human body part. One day, plausibly, it will become possible to transplant a tail from a cow to a man. But the man would not cease to be a man, even though he would acquire a non-human body part.

Argument 3. No human being can have two brains. But if x is a man and a lion, then he is a human being having two brains.

Response: We have no more reason to think that no human being can have two brains than we do to think that no human being can have two minds. But Christ has two minds.

Mike, I assert that they are relations similar to what 4D-ists say about having a part-at-a-time.

I don't think there's any such property of having a part simpliciter. All there is is having parts at times, etc.

If bilocation is possible, then it seems that God the same kind of model can be used of embodiement.

The 3D-4D debate sometimes seems to be a clash of intuitions, maybe we'll have one of those here, but I havn't been able to think of an argument against the relational view.

If Padre Pio really could bilocate--and you may well deny that he did or even could--then he can be standing and giving a homily here and kneeling in prayer over there.

One can't be kneeling-here and standing-here, but that's a whole different matter. If bilocation is possible, then we're in the relational framework it seems to me.

Alex,

Recall, I stipulated "barring the miraculous." You seem to be taking the miraculous as a datum, as in the real presence. I have no quarrel with that as theological commitment; but it's not so philosophically defensible. That's fine, mysteries generally aren't. To be very careful here, I do not deny that a human being could occupy the body of a lion. I do not deny that God might have a human nature and occupy the body of a lion. I think this is possible. It's possible in the same way that Socrates might have occupied the body of an alligator.
What I think is not possible is that God is incarnated in Smith over there and incarnated as Aslan over here. For, certainly, Aslan might be singing and, at the same time, Smith might be silent. In that case God is both singing and silent. That can't happen.

Trent,

This is the move to make. The move to 4D solves the problem nicely, I think. Of course 4D inherits its own problems, but what view doesn't?

Mike, your second comment after my last one is closer to what I'm saying, but I think I could be left-handed and right-handed at the same time by having two bodies, one left-handed and the other right-handed. If I time-travel back in time and hang out with myself, but in the meantime I've had a brain injury that changes my handedness, then on a 3D view I'm wholly present in two locations at the same time. In one of the locations, I'm left-handed, and in the other I'm right-handed. A 4Der would capture this by saying that a later stage in personal time is at the same temporal location as an earlier one, and one stage has one property and the other another. But a 3Der is actually the one who says something more like what I'm saying.

I would take it that the miraculous is a datum with the incarnation also.

But I'm not sure how being miraculous gets you around what you seem to be taking as principles of logical necessity. It could get you around nomic necessity, but that's not what I'm taking your argument to be.

As far as I can see, either I give up 3D or I give up the indiscernability of identicals. I give up the former. If I visit myself in the past and listen silently while I sing, then the only intelligible thing to say is that there is a slice of me listening silently to a different and louder slice. Otherwise my 3d self would be both singing and silent. But that's gibberish.

On the miracles talk, I misquoted myself (that is, I misquoted an earlier slice of myself!). I should have written "barring mysteries".

There's no need to give up the indiscernibility of identicals. That principle only says that if x and y are the same thing then they have the same properties. So if x is incarnated as a lion in Narnia then so is y. But isn't it true that Christ is incarnated as a lion in Narnia and that Aslan is incarnated as a human on earth? Aslan and Christ have the same properties, so it doesn't violate Leibniz's Law.

There's no need to give up the indiscernibility of identicals. That principle only says that if x and y are the same thing then they have the same properties. . .

Yes, there is. But let's try to stay with one example at a time. If I travel back in time where I am fully present and singing, then it is true of me full stop (not just some stage of me) that I am singing. It is true of me full stop, not just some stage of me, that I am not silent. But of course if I am silently watching myself sing, then it is true of me full stop that I am silent. Obviously impossible.

Now to the next example. Suppose God is fully present as Aslan. Certainly Aslan might be singing. So it is true of God that he is singing. Now suppose God is incarnated as a human, Smith. Certainly Smith might be silent. So it is true of God that he is silent. God is therefore silent and singing. Impossible. If we are talking about the full 3D being, then he has the properties of being silent and singing. It cannot happen.

Now to the next example. God is fully present as Aslan, the 3D God. If God is fully present, in front of me, as Aslan, then obviously every intrinsic property of God is fully present here. Among the properties fully present in front of me is the property of sitting down. No doubt that thing that is FULLY PRESENT in front of me (nothing is missing from this being, he is fully there) is not standing up. But you say that this being fully present right in front of me is incarnated as a human being. Suppose over there, as a human being, he is standing up. Impossible. If we are talking about the very same being as you insist we are--the being fully 3D present--then this being is both sitting down and standing up. That cannot happen unless it can be true that x = y, x has property F and y does not. Once again, impossible.

There's nothing else I can say without repeating myself, but I'm still seeing no argument for the incompatibility besides mere assertion.

Sorry to hear that. It might help to take a look at the problem of temporary intrinsics in Lewis's, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986)pp. 203-205, and his 'Rearrangement of Particles: A Reply to Lowe', Analysis 48
(March 1988) 65-72. Lewis makes the same argument there against bilocation in time or space. I've been running the same argument, but just for bilocation in space. In any case, maybe that will help clarify things for you.

I'm a bit confused concerning some of this discussion.

In particular, I'm confused by this comment,

"Mike, I assert that they are relations similar to what 4D-ists say about having a part-at-a-time.

I don't think there's any such property of having a part simpliciter. All there is is having parts at times, etc."

and this comment,

"This is the move to make. The move to 4D solves the problem nicely, I think. Of course 4D inherits its own problems, but what view doesn't?"

The 4-dist doesn't relativize the fundamental parthood relation to times. The fundamentical parthood relation is (on standard 4-dist views) a two place relation. We can then define a derivative three place relation with the fundamental two place relation and temporal parts.

The 3-dist, in contrast, typically does claim that the fundamental parthood relation is a three place relation; the 3-dist will frequently add that there is no two place parthood relation.

So, I'm not sure why Trent thinks that his view according to which it is not the case that "there is any such property as having a part simpliciter" is "similar to what the 4-dist says".

Second, and, I suppose, relatedly, it isn't clear to me how 4-dism helps in the case. We're supposed to think that God is incarnated, at t, as a man and God is incarnated, at t, as a lion.

Suppose we accept 4-dism. Then we'll think that God persists through any interval containing t by having a t-temporal part. But the case doesn't give us any reason to think that
God has two different temporal parts in different places at the same time (contrast this with the time travel scenario where there is a divergence between personal time and external time). If God has only one temporal part at t, then 4-dism doesn't help.

Instead, we should follow the 3-dist and relativize property instantiation (or the properties themselves) to spacetime regions. This gets around the problem, but it doesn't involve accepting 4-dism. In fact, it involves rejecting one of the claims that 4-dism is designed to save.

The 4-dist doesn't relativize the fundamental parthood relation to times. The fundamentical parthood relation is (on standard 4-dist views) a two place relation. We can then define a derivative three place relation with the fundamental two place relation and temporal parts.

Justin, right. The 4D move avoids making properties into relations. I read Trent as making that suggestion, though that is not what is strictly said.

Instead, we should follow the 3-dist and relativize property instantiation (or the properties themselves) to spacetime regions.

Don't you here treat properties as relations? Those properties--singing for instance--aren't relations. So this seems to describe the problem (or, one problem) rather than solve it. On the other hand, why must the 4Dist treat God as fully present as either Aslan or as Smith? If Aslan and Smith are co-temporal stages or parts of God, that seems to solve the problem, no?In any case, it occurred to me that it would solve the problem.

I missed this point,

. . . But the case doesn't give us any reason to think that God has two different temporal parts in different places at the same time (contrast this with the time travel scenario where there is a divergence between personal time and external time)

I'm not sure why we have no reason to believe that God has two parts in different places at the same time. We were looking for an explanation for how God might be incarnated at two different places at the same time. Someone inclined toward 4Dism might offer the explanation that these are two cotemporal parts of God.

Yes, Lewis relies on the same non sequitur that you're giving here. I don't know why so many 3Ders give in on this point. Having a property at a time is not the same thing as having a relation between a property and a time. It's simply having it simpliciter at that time and then having a different one simpliciter at another time. I've been hoping John Hawthorne would get around t=o publishing his response to this, but I don't think he has yet.

It's simply having it simpliciter at that time and then having a different one simpliciter at another time.

You can call anything you want "having a property simpliciter", I guess, but this above just restates the problem. Still, I've done what I could to clarify it. If Lewis's description does not help (or if Lewis was just too shortsighted to see there is really no problem here), I'm certain I cannot help you.

If the Logos is both a man and a lion, then the Logos has (at least) two mouths. A person with two mouths can sing with one and be silent with the other. I can give a perfectly good semantics for some qua talk in the case of a person with two bodies: x does A qua F, where F is a kind, provided that x does A with the F-body. Thus, we can say that the Logos sings qua human iff the Logos sings with its human body, i.e., with the vocal cords of the human body. Then it makes perfect sense--we have a clear semantics for it--to say that the Logos sings qua man and is silent qua lion.

But now we may ask: But does he sing or is he silent simpliciter? Well, that seems to be like asking of the one-eyed man whether he is blind. The answer is that he is blind in one eye. Likewise, on the hypothesis, the Logos sings with one body.

Alternately one might say that x sings simpliciter at t iff there is a body B that x has at t and x sings with B at t. (It is an essential property of singing in the ordinary sense that it be done with a body. God can produce sounds without a body, but that is not singing in the ordinary sense.) Fine. Then when the human mouth is singing (this is a synecdoche: mouths do not actually sing) and the lion mouth is not, we have to say that the Logos is singing simpliciter.

We then need a definition of "is silent simpliciter". Probably the way to do this is to say that x is silent simpliciter provided that x does not produce (relevant) sounds in any way. Thus, if the human mouth is singing and the lion mouth is silent, we can say that the Logos is not silent simpliciter.

No contradiction ensues.

Mike:

Why are you assuming that an Incarnation implies being fully present? And what exactly do you mean by "fully present"?

You gloss "fully present" as "nothing is missing from this being, he is fully there".

But if so, then it is far from clear that the defender of two Incarnations is going to grant that the Logos is fully present in both places. For if the Logos is man on Earth and lion in Narnia, then a part of him is not present on Earth (minimally, the tail; but in fact perhaps all the leonine parts, unless we suppose that the human heart is identical with the leonine one, etc.).

Maybe we can proceed as follows:
1. The man is fully present on earth.
2. The lion is identical with the man.
3. Therefore, the lion is fully present on earth.

But this is problematic with regard to just one Incarnation. (Consider: God is omnipresent. Hence by the same form of argument, we can say that Jesus Christ is on the moon, since God is there. But that surely isn't right.)

It seems that the defender of two simultaneous Incarnations will have to distinguish (1) into:
(1a) All of the parts that the man has are present on Earth.
(1b) All of the human parts that the man has are present on Earth.
Each of these is a sensible way of understanding (1). But then the defender of two simultaneous Incarnations will simply affirm (1b) and deny (1a). If it is insisted that (1) must be read as (1a), then he will simply deny (1).

I am also quite worried, Mike, that your approach will force you to affirm that God changes in the Incarnation.

Why are you assuming that an Incarnation implies being fully present? And what exactly do you mean by "fully present"?

Alex,

I'm not assuming that. By God being 'fully present' I mean that the incarnation of God is not just a temporal stage of God or a part of God. It is God in his entirety. The alternative on the table is that the incarnation is a temporal stage of God, where God himself is the "sum of stages" or a being stretched over time and space. If God is instantiated twice at the same time, and each instantiation is the fully present God, the worry is that he will have incompatible intrinsic properties. But he cannot be singing and not singing at the same time, he cannot be sitting and standing at the same time. Compare: it is possible that one stage of God is singing and another stage is not-singing at the same time. It is possible that, at the same time, one stage is sitting and another stage is standing.
Of course, 3Der's offer all sorts of ways of avoiding contradiction. One way is to bite the bullet and say that standing straight is a relation to a time/spatial location and not a property. Or they'll say that standing straight is a property but the instantiation of standing straight is a three-place relation, or they will say that standing straight is a one place property that together with things form propositions that are true/false at specific times. I'm sure there are other possibilities. In any case, Lewis and Sider seem to me right on this issue. Both claim that such circumvention accomplishes little, relativised properties are not properties. This is why I suggested (and, perhaps mistakenly, took Trent to be suggesting) a 4D solution to this problem: viz., that the two incarnations are cotemporal stages of God.

Mike,

I don't know how to read Trent as you're suggesting he should be read.

At any rate, here is my worry about the 4-dist response to the puzzle. The following is the (more or less) standard definition of 'temporal part':

x is a temporal part of y at t (or, x is a t-temporal part of y) iff x is a part of y at t, x exists at and only at t, and x overlaps at t every part of y at t.

Suppose, then, that God is incarnated at t as a lion and as a man. Any t-temporal part of God will, then, overlap everything that is part of God at t. So, it will overlap both the lion and the man. So, nothing that is spatially smaller than the lion/man fusion could be a temporal part of God at t. But, then, he only has one temporal part at t.

Justin,

I'll let Trent state his view; I might be just misreading him. I like what you say here. The case we're considering is unusual, so there seem to be two ways to go. If we're not universalists, we might want to reconsider the standard definition of temporal part.

T. x is a temporal part of y at t iff x is a part of y at t, x exists at and only at t, and x overlaps at t every part of y at t.

That is, we might be more restrictive about fusions. We might not allow that the fusion of Aslan and Smith is itself a temporal part of God, or anything at all. We'd need a qualifying clause on the right of (T). On a first pass, something like, x overlaps every part of some largest contiguous part of y at t (or maybe even x overlaps some part of y at t). But suppose we do not restrict fusions. Take the object that is the fusion of my last penny and Groucho Marx. The penny has the property of being copper. Groucho doesn't. What about the fusion? It looks like the fusion has a part that is copper and a part that isn't. Is there a contradiction here?

Mike:

1. "I mean that the incarnation of God is not just a temporal stage of God or a part of God. It is God in his entirety."

I am worried about this formulation, in part because the use of "the incarnation" as a substantive noun seems to me to be alien to the Christian tradition which uses the term abstractly: the incarnation is the fact or event of God's become flesh. There is nothing wrong with new uses of words--it's just that these new uses need to be explained.

I still don't see how the problem of conflicting intrinsics comes up in the case of two incarnations in a way in which it doesn't come up in the case of one incarnation.

Apparently (Aquinas and John of Damascus disagree here), Jesus as man did not know the day or the hour of his second coming; as God, of course he knew it. Jesus as man underwent change in respect of what appear to be intrinsic properties; as God, he is immutable and has no intrinsic properties that he is not identical with. Jesus as man was not present on the moon; as God, he is omnipresent. Jesus as man had a soul and body that could be divided from each other; as God, he is simple. And so on.

I am not denying that these are serious problems. I am, however, denying that the problems that arise for two simultaneous incarnations are any greater.

The 4D solution won't work at all, since God has no parts, and hence has no temporal parts.

2. I think that the relational way of doing things may be the right way to go for a lot of apparently non-relational properties for reasons independent of any deep metaphysical considerations about temporary intrinsics and the like, and they seem non-relational simply because in ordinary life we don't need to disambiguate certain things.

Singing is relative to a vocal apparatus--it's just that we happen to have only one vocal apparatus, so the issue doesn't come up.

Many shape properties, as well as the total mass-energy content, seem to be relative to a reference frame (particularly if, as General Relativity says we should, we allow non-inertial frames)--but we move around and accelerate too slowly for it to be a big issue in daily life. (Besides, shape depends on the larger space-time structure.) I suppose there might be topological properties that are invariant (e.g., being topologically equivalent to a donut), but I don't know how to define these properties in the case of a being made up of particles that do not touch each other.

Normally, we don't need to say what "is conscious of" is relative to, but split brain cases give pretty strong support for thining that "is conscious of A" is relative to something like a locus of consciousness, a bundle of awarenesses, a brain hemisphere, a sub-mind, a mind, or whatever (I don't know what the right thing to say here is).

I find it pretty hard to come up with non-gerrymandered temporary intrinsics that for independent reasons I don't have reason to think are relational. I can come up with gerrymandered ones by quantification over respects, such as "in no sense being aware of F", or "singing with some vocal apparatus". Maybe you can help me?

3. A move that I think is well worth making is to recall a lesson from the middle ages that was recently brought up by various folks in discussions of divine simplicity, namely that the same predicate might have very different truth grounds in different cases. The predicate might apply analogically in these different cases. For instance, the truth grounds of "Socrates is honest" may be the inherence in Socrates of a trope of honesty (I am not endorsing this); on the other hand, "God is honest" is made true in a very different way, since God is identical with his honesty.

I think that if one doesn't go mad-dog relationalist like I suggest in 2, this approach is promising for the Incarnation and the Trinity (Aquinas implicitly uses this approach for the case of the Trinity; I can also see it behind some of the things he says about the Incarnation).

If we do this sort of thing, then we can retain our (faulty, I think) intuitions that various predicates indicate intrinsics in our case, but non-intrinsics in the case of Christ, and we can do so in such a way that we are not merely equivocating in using the predicate in these multiple ways (just as we are not merely equivocating when we say the table and the dog both have legs).

Take the predicate "is in pain". Maybe (though split-brain stuff puts that into question) that indicates an intrinsic property in us. But consider: plausibly, there is a P such that a human being is in pain iff his mind is in state P. Now we apply the predicate "is in pain" in a relational way to a being that, like Christ, has two or more minds: Christ is in pain in respect of mind M iff M is in P. We are not equivocating when we use "is in pain" in regard to Christ and in regard to human beings, even though in the case of human beings "is in pain" is unary and in the case of Christ it is elliptical for "is in pain in respect to mind ...".

I am worried about this formulation, in part because the use of "the incarnation" as a substantive noun seems to me to be alien to the Christian tradition which uses the term abstractly

Alex,
At the moment, I'm not so worried about the theological question of what various Christian traditions happen to say. First, I'd like to make sense of a God--in some reasonably philosophically acceptable sense of God--incarnates twice at the same time.

Yeah, so if there are other planets with persons on them and they don't know about our "history", then assuming there was only one crucifixion etc., they can't believe in Christ and will unjustly be sent to hell or be annihilated.

That's bad.

I find it pretty hard to come up with non-gerrymandered temporary intrinsics that for independent reasons I don't have reason to think are relational. I can come up with gerrymandered ones by quantification over respects, such as "in no sense being aware of F", or "singing with some vocal apparatus". Maybe you can help me?

Alex,

I don't think your test you intrinsicality is reliable. Of course we can "come up with reasons" for thinking that some property is, after all, a relation, given other commitments. But there are after all intrinsic properties: it does seem pretty plain that having shape S is an intrinsic property (whatever view of the continuum/noncontinuum of space/time you take). As Sider notes somewhere, in timeless worlds things have shapes. So having a shape is not a relation to a time. Neither is being in pain a relation, and there are many others. But all of this involves pre-theoretical intuitions. There is no doubt that you can be so invested in some theoretical outlook that you're forced to deny there are anything but relations. But that's another (thousand) story (stories) altogether.

Dear Mike,

(Meta-discourse parenthesis: My general approach to searching for truth is to start with the things that I am absolutely committed to, namely the faith of the Scriptures, Fathers, Councils and of the other expression of the Christian tradition, and then see where I get to. I separate out philosophical reasoning when I have to, and I do so mainly for apologetic reasons or in order to converse with those who do not share my theological commitments, but vis-a-vis the search for truth, it's like fighting with one's arms tied behind one's back.

So what I was trying to do is to ask: Given what we know by faith--and in my case that includes the Christian christological tradition as expressed in the Councils and the Fathers--is it possible for there to be two incarnations. If I can show that an objection to two incarnations is also an objection to a single incarnation as traditionally understood, then I know that there is something wrong with the objection, because I know that that a single incarnation as traditionally understood did in fact happen, even if I cannot say what is wrong with the objection. (Likewise if one showed than objection to some epistemological thesis is also an objection to the claim that I know I have two arms, one would thereby have shown that there is something wrong with the objection, even if one could not say what is wrong with it.))

Back to intrinsic accidental properties. Before this whole discussion, I would have unhesitatingly said that they do exist. I am still inclined to think that they exist, but they now seem rather hard to find.

Shape as ordinarily understood is not an intrinsic property unless Relativity Theory is not a good guide to the metaphysics of space and time. Consider the fact that an object that is a circle in its rest frame is an ellipse in a typical non-rest inertial frame. And when one allows non-inertial frames, it will have yet other "shapes" in other frames.

It is tempting to say: "The shape of an object in its rest frame is an intrinsic property of the object." But how do we define "its rest frame"? Maybe the reference frame of the center of mass? That seems the only natural solution. However, the center of mass of an extended object need not define any reference frame, because the center of mass of an extended object can "move" faster than light. (Argument: Take a snake stretched in a line, and of approximately linearly uniform mass density. Very, very fast cut off the rear 1/3 of the snake. Assume snake doesn't die. The center of mass of the snake jumps by about 1/6 of the length of the snake instantly when the cut happens. Let's say the cut is made at 1/2 of the speed of light, and the snake is 10 feet long and 0.2 feet in diameter. Then the center of mass shifts by 1.7 feet in the amount of time that it takes light to travel twice the diameter of the snake, i.e., in the amount of time that it takes light to travel 0.4 feet. Since 1.7 is more than 0.4, the center of mass moves faster than light.)

As I said, I am inclined to think there are intrinsic properties. But the question is whether they are such as to create a serious problem for one or two incarnations. Shape, if it were an intrinsic property, would create such a problem. (Also for a single incarnation: God has no shape, so we've got a problem.)

I think being a man, being God and being a lion are intrinsic properties. But it would beg the question against the defender of multiple incarnations simply to assert that these properties are incompatible.

I think having a causal power is an intrinsic property. (It may even be that all non-essential non-gerrymandered positive intrinsic properties are havings of causal powers. I wouldn't be surprised.) But it is not clear that lions and humans have any incompatible causal powers. (It's not clear that there are any incompatible causal powers! There are exercises of causal powers that are incompatible, but that's a different issue, perhaps.)

A few quick comments.
My sense is that you're right that shape is not an intrinsic, purely spatial property in relativistic worlds (since there are no purely spatial properties in such worlds). But there are intrinsic, non-spatial properties. Probably the charge of an electron is one, I'm not sure. WRT the two incarnations, it does not seem so difficult to find incompatible properties. Aslan has typical lion features. Suppose Aslan is roaring, simpliciter. Smith has typical human features. Suppose Smith is emitting no sound, simpliciter. Certainly that is possible. But if Smith is God (and not merely a stage of God) and Aslan is God (and not merely a stage of God) then God is both emitting no sound simpliciter and roaring simpliciter. That's not possible.

Dear Mike,

About the sound case, I guess I can just say that indeed Smith cannot be silent simpliciter while Aslan is roaring. What grounds are there for supposing that the following would be possible if a double incarnation were possible?
(A) Smith is silent simpliciter while Aslan is roaring simpliciter.

Maybe there is an intuition you have here, one that I do not share. I would cautiously suggest that the situation you may be imagining here may be a misdescription of the following unproblematic situation:
(B) Smith is silent with his human vocal apparatus; Aslan is roaring with his leonine vocal apparatus.

I do have an intuition that if a double incarnation were possible, (B) would be possible. But it does not follow from this that (A) would also be possible. And of course (B) does not present the same logical problems that (A) does.

But maybe you will say that it is a typical human feature that one be able to be silent simpliciter, and Smith has typical human features.

Two moves are possible for me at this point. The first is to say that the right way to describe the human capability in question is not as a capability for silence simpliciter, but as a capability for silencing one's human body. Smith/Aslan has that.

The second move is to say, yes, of course Smith has the ability to be silent simpliciter. He can't be silent simpliciter while he is roaring with his leonine body, but of course our abilities have various kinds of limitations on them. I can't be silent when surprised by a sudden jolt of pain, for instance. I realize that the latter is a physical impossibility (maybe) while the former is a logical one, but the point is just that our abilities do have limitations.

I think you can see here my down-to-earth impulse. I actually want to argue this separately for each predicate. :-)

Mike,

You suggest two possible revisions of the 4-dist strategy.

I'm a bit unclear about the first revision. You say some things about rejecting Universalism and restricting fusions that were unclear to me.

I think the first revision involves modifying the standard definition of 'temporal part' in order to allow that, in the multiple incarnation case, God has multiple temporal parts.

So, as a first pass, we might define temporal part as follows:

(T*) x is a temporal part of y at t if and only if x is a part of y at t, x is exists at and only at t, and x overlaps at t some largest contiguous part of y at t.

So, given (T*), a material object (Pointy) composed, at t, of a point-sized material simple (Lefty) located at the tip of my left index finger and a distinct point-sized material simple (Righty) located at the tip of my right index finger will have, at t, three temporal parts. One will overlap, at t, any part of Pointy at t. One will overlap, at t , all and only parts of Lefty at t. The other will overlap, at t, all and only parts of Righty at t.

In the same way, God gets multiple temporal parts at t. Amongst the most salient is the temporal part that overlaps, at t, all and only parts of the Lion at t, the one that overlaps, at t, all and only parts of the Man at t, and the one that overlaps, at t, all and only parts of the Lion/Man fusion.

But, consider how this kind of view is troublesome for the standard 4-dist line concerning predication. 4-dists typically accept the claim that:

A is F at t iff A has a t-temporal part that is F.

But, this claim, in combination with your proposed definition of 'temporal part' results in the truth of 'Pointy is a simple'. That sentence, though, should be false. So, you'll have to say something about predication to go with your new definition of 'temporal part'.

Your second revision strategy, I take it, is to accept that God has a single temporal part at t, but claim that there is no "problem of spatial intrinsics" because distinct proper parts of God at t instantiate the relevant intrinsic properties.

I have two worries. First, this looks like a case of a scattered object, rather than a bi-located object. In the sense of 'location' typically at issue in disputes over bi-location, scattered objects aren't bi-located. So, if the last revision strategy is supposed to make sense of the double incarnation case, and the double incarnation case is supposed to be a case of bi-location, then the second revision strategy fails.

Finally, the second revision strategy doesn't depend in any crucial way on 4-dism. The 3-dist could take the same route.

Mike:

Another point.

I don't know if electric charge is an intrinsic property or not. I don't actually know how to decide this question.

In any case, I think one can't really use electric charge to generate a problem for the double incarnation. Let's try: Could it be that Aslan is positively charged all over while Smith is negatively charged all over? Well, that depends on the domain of quantification in "all over". If it quantifies over all the places of the relevant kind of body (so that Aslan is positively charged all over his leonine body while Smith is negatively charged all over his human body) there is no conflict. But if it quantifies over all of the places where the person is, then one can just say: "No, of course, Aslan can't be positively charged all over while Smith is negatively charged all over. But that's OK. Our intuition that the two should be possible is an unjustified leap from the intuition that Aslan can be positively charged all over his leonine body while Smith is negatively charged all over his leonine body."

I think this kind of move works for a lot of cases. All cases? I don't know--I don't have a meta-argument. I should also note that sometimes one may want to make this move in regard to souls rather than bodies. "Aslan in total pain while Smith in total bliss? Well, it is possible that Aslan's soul is all in the state in which a soul is when one is in pain, while Smith's soul is all in the state in which a soul is when one is not in pain. It is not possible, however, in the unrestricted sense of 'total' that Aslan be in total pain while Smith is in total bliss."

Thanks for these thoughtful (and difficult!)responses. Let me think harder about Alex's two posts. I'm not sure exactly what to say right now.

Justin, I think I can say something quickly. You write,

Your second revision strategy, I take it, is to accept that God has a single temporal part at t, but claim that there is no "problem of spatial intrinsics" because distinct proper parts of God at t instantiate the relevant intrinsic properties.

No, that's not my suggestion. My suggestion is that I need not worry about any inconsistency in the scattered temporal part AslanSmith (LionMan)for the same reason that I need not worry about any inconsistency in the scattered object PennyGroucho. The scattered object PennyGroucho has parts with different properties, and the scattered part AslanSmith has the parts Aslan and Smith with different properties. So I am not treating the incarnation of God as a scattered object. I am agreeing with the claim that God has three cotemporal parts.

You write,
I have two worries. First, this looks like a case of a scattered object, rather than a bi-located object. In the sense of 'location' typically at issue in disputes over bi-location, scattered objects aren't bi-located.

Right, I'm not claiming that. But I might be stuck with tri-location, since we do have three cotemporal parts. That's not wonderful, either.

So, if the last revision strategy is supposed to make sense of the double incarnation case, and the double incarnation case is supposed to be a case of bi-location, then the second revision strategy fails.

I agree. But it isn't trying to do that.

Finally, the second revision strategy doesn't depend in any crucial way on 4-dism. The 3-dist could take the same route.

No, the 3Ders are saddled with a contradiction, whether they assume bilocation or trilocation..

I wrote: "Our intuition that the two should be possible is an unjustified leap from the intuition that Aslan can be positively charged all over his leonine body while Smith is negatively charged all over his leonine body". The second instance of "leonine" should have been "human".

My previous comment is more complicated than necessary. More importantly, I'm not sure I can reach the trilocation conclusion. It should be easy for a 4Dist to make sense of bilocation. There ought to be lots of bilocated objects, in the 4dist sense, since an object is bilocated just in case it has two cotemporal parts. The 4Dist might define bilocation liberally, in a way that allows any two spatially distinct parts of an object at t to constitute two cotemporal spatial locations for the same object. We will wind up with lots of bilocated objects, but that's not such a big deal. Bilocation for the 4Dist should be an ordinary thing. Here's a suggestion.
We say that x is bilocated in time iff. x has a temporal part y that occupies spatial region R at t and x has a part z that occupies spatial region R' at t', and time t and t' do not overlap. Now say that x is bilocated in space iff. x has a spatial part y that occupies spatial region R at t and x has a spatial part z that occupies region R' at t, and regions R and R' do not overlap. Now define spatial parts on analogy with temporal parts. Consider the object Pointy. If Pointy is identified with the temporal part x + y at t, then Pointy is not bilocated and does not have the property of being simple. But 4Dists could urge that in addition to Pointy, there is the object Pointy*, where Pointy* consists in two cotemporal, spatial parts x and y. Pointy* is bilocated, though Pointy is not, and Pointy* is simple. So the question is whether you're thinking of the object composed of two spatial parts, or the object composed of one temporal part.

Mike,

I don't think I understand your last post (and, possibly, the one before that).

We've got two different definitions of 'temporal part' floating around. In order to avoid confusion, let 'T-temporal parts' be defined by the standard definition of 'temporal parts', and 'T*-temporal parts' be defined by your revision to that standard definition from a few posts back. Where I don't think the distinction matters, I won't mark it.

"Now define spatial parts on analogy with temporal parts."

I don't know what this means. Do we need to define 'spatial parts' at all? And if so, what does it mean to do so "on analogy with temporal parts"?

"Consider the object Pointy. If Pointy is identified with the temporal part x + y at t,"

Pointy is just a composite object. I chose Pointy only because, since Pointy has so few parts at t, it is easy to keep track them. Since 4-dists think that ordinary composite objects are fusions of temporal parts, they will think that Pointy is a fusion of temporal parts. So, if we assume that Pointy persists through time, then the 4-dist will not want to say that Pointy is Pointy's T-temporal part (or any of Pointy's T*-temporal parts). But, we can, if you like, suppose that Pointy exists only for an instant in virtue of the fact that Pointy's only proper parts, Righty and Lefty, exist only for an instant. In that case, Pointy will be identical to its T-temporal part at t.

What does the definite description 'the temporal part x + y at t' pick out?
Are the variables 'x' and 'y' supposed to name Lefty and Righty? I'll assume so. In that case, that definite description just picks out the thing that the orthodox 4-dist would call Pointy's (T-)temporal part at t.

"then Pointy is not bilocated and does not have the property of being simple."

Is Pointy bi-located at t? On your view, something is bi-located at t if and only if it has spatial parts at t that occupy disjoint regions at t. On the (standard) 4-dist view, something, x, has spatial parts at t that occupy disjoint regions at t if and only if x has a T-temporal part at t which has spatial parts at t that occupy disjoint regions at t. Since Pointy's T-temporal part does have spatial parts at t (the T-temporal parts of Lefty and Righty at t) that occupy disjoint regions at t, Pointy is bilocated at t on your view. Pointy is not a simple at t, though. This because Pointy's T-temporal part at t has the T-temporal parts of Lefty and Righty as spatial parts at t.

"But 4Dists could urge that in addition to Pointy, there is the object Pointy*, where Pointy* consists in two cotemporal, spatial parts x and y."

Here, I think, is where I really start to get confused. Pointy*, you say, is not identical to Pointy. So, if we're assuming that Pointy is an instantaneous thing, Pointy* is not identical to Pointy's T-temporal part at t. Are 'x' and 'y' naming, again, Righty and Lefty? If so, then Pointy* just is Pointy. Pointy (on the supposition that Pointy is an instantaneous thing) is identical to Pointy's T-temporal part at t. But, (on the assumption that 'x' and 'y' just name Righty and Lefty) Pointy* satisfies the definition of a T-temporal part of Pointy at t. Since there's only one, Pointy=Pointy*.

"Pointy* is bilocated, though Pointy is not, and Pointy* is simple."

If what I've just said is right, then this isn't. Where am I getting this wrong

Mike,

Here's a view that it seems to me that you might be endorsing. Tell me if it is in fact the view your want to endorse.

We just accept the standard definition of temporal part. We get rid of all of this 'T-temporal part' and 'T*-temporal part' talk.

But, we note that temporal parts very often have spatial parts. So, for instance, my current temporal part has a right arm (or, at least, a temporal part of a right arm) as a spatial part. Then, we note that Justin can be bent and straight at t in virtue of having a temporal part at t that is partially bent (due to the right arm part being wholly bent) and partially straight (due to the left arm part being wholly straight). Neither property (being bent and being straight) are relativized, but I can have them both at a time in virtue of having a temporal part at that time which has distinct spatial parts that have them both at that time.

Likewise, God can be a Lion and a Man at t as a result of the fact that God's temporal part at t has two spatial parts, one of which is a Lion, and the other a Man. And, given your account of bi-location, God counts as bi-located.

Is that the view?

If so, I want to renew my protest that it doesn't crucially rely on temporal parts.

The 3dist can claim that God can make it such that, at t, he has a part that is a Lion at t, and he has a part that is a Man at t. God is a Lion and a Man in virtue of having distinct parts that are both. And, God is bi-located given your account of bilocation.

Justin:

I am not sure it would count as two Incarnations if the Logos had as parts a lion and a man, unless perhaps the lion and the man were not two parts, but one improper part. For if the lion and man are proper parts, it is no more true that the Logos is a lion than it is true that I am an arm. It is never true that x is a proper part of x.

But it may be possible that a leonine body and a human body are proper parts of Christ, and that a leonine soul and a human soul are proper parts of Christ. However, in that case, we would have the counterintuitive (but true, I think) consequence that Christ's human soul and human body do not by themselves constitute a man. (I think Aquinas says that explicitly, but don't quote me on it.)

Alex

Alex,

I'm inclined to think that's right. So, I don't think that 3-dist should account for a double incarnation by invoking the kind of explanation I was putting in Mike's mouth. But, the 4-dist shouldn't either, and for the same reason.

That is, if God is both a Lion and a Man at t in virtue of having a temporal part at t that has a Lion as a spatial part and a Man as a spatial part, then, at t, God has a Man as a part and a Lion as a part. But, as you point out, that shoudn't count as a double incarnation.

My point was just that, if the 4-dist goes this way, the 4-dist is no better off than the 3-dist. I didn't want to claim that either should adopt this account of the double incarnation.

Suppose we introduce a spatial part of God via S. Say that if an object has two spatial parts at t, then the object is bilocated at t.

S. x is a spatial part of y at t iff y is not a scattered object, x is a part of y at t, x exists at and only at spatial region R at t, and x overlaps every part of y in R at t.

So Aslan is a spatial part of God at t, since Aslan is a part of God at t, Aslan exists at spatial region R at t, Aslan overlaps every part of God in region R at t. Similarly for Smith, God's other incarnation.

But is point x a spatial part of Pointy at t? No. x is a part of Pointy at t, but Pointy is a scattered object.

Is point x a spatial part of Pointy* at t? Yes. x is a part of Pointy* at t, Pointy* is not a scattered object, x exists at spatial region R at t, and x overlaps every part of Pointy* in R at t.