October 2007 Archives

Suppose God is omnipotent.  Then, it seems, he can bring it about that

(*) a new crater now appears on the far side of the moon if and only if Jones tomorrow freely mows the lawn.

But if God did that, then his knowledge of the present state of the moon, plus his knowledge of his omnipotence, would yield him knowledge of whether Jones tomorrow mows the lawn.  Hence, if one restricts omniscience with respect to future free actions, one must similarly restrict omnipotence.

This may not be such a big deal.  After all, although (*) is logically possible, the open theist may claim that it is logically impossible that God bring about (*).  Still, it does show that there is a connection between omniscience and omnipotence.

One might think that an open theist who holds that propositions about future free actions cannot have truth value, or who holds that reports of future free actions are all automatically false, can escape the worry about the above restriction on omnipotence.  After all, if such propositions are all false, then God can bring (*) about simply by doing nothing, since the right hand side of (*) is automatically false.  And it seems too much to ask out of omnipotence to require that God bring about a proposition that cannot have a truth value.  But one can still modify the task to get around this response.  Let the task be to bring it about that:

(**) At t it be true that a day before t Jones mowed the lawn iff two days before t a new crater appeared on the far side of the moon,

where t is two days from now.  In other words, the restriction on omniscience still implies a new restriction on what histories God can bring about.  Again, it may not be such a big deal to the open theist.

Here is a link to a story "What is Bayes's theorem, and how can it be used to assign probabilities to questions such as the existence of God?" on the Scientific American which purports to be from today (I say purports because I somewhat suspect it's a web-trick where it just inserts the current date, it's done.).

Some specific complaints:

1. It does not talk about the two main points for which Swinburne argues: i. The explanatory power of theism as revealed in likelihoods (in the British sense, the reverse probability E/H), the intrinsic simplicity of theism: one person with a few properties of a familiar kind held in the simplest way.

2. He leads the reader to believe that Swinburne's Resurrection calculation essentially relies on the principle of indifference, which it does not, and which is easy to see from the preceding sentence.  . 

3. He accepts without question Dawkins's arguments and doesn't mention that probability is a form of *logic* which governs our beliefs, it doesn't tell us what to start out believing.  No one reading has any rational credence in flying spaghetti monsters or fairies, etc. so there is no appreciable decline in the prior of theism even using a form of the principle of indifference.

It's not that I expect much (especially balance) out of SA any more, but it's my area so I wanted to comment.

I was asked by several people to comment on a post by Bill V on his blog which raised the question whether one can be a philosopher and a Catholic.  I am drowning under deadlines so I haven't had a chance to look at it.  However, I have addressed the question on my Catholic blog and thought some readers might be interested.  I posted it there rather than hear because I don't have time to put the thoughts carefully and I feel less need to do that on my own personal blog.  Also, the point could hinge on a piece of Catholic dogma, so it might not be ecumenical enough for here anyway.

I'm swamped with deadlines, does anyone know what this is about:

"Against Darwinism"
Jerry Fodor
Rutgers University

In this set of lectures he discusses the logic of natural selection and argues that it cannot do what it advertises. The book that will result from these lectures will no doubt infuriate many. It cannot help but be controversial and, as such, widely read."

What does it mean to say that Christ is the truth?  There are less deep readings of this: only through Christ we learn the most important truths, that the most important truths are about Christ, etc.  Such readings make "Christ is the truth" be mere metonymy.  But I think that a deeper reading is called for, perhaps in conjunction with reflection on Christ as logos.

A deeper reading would, I think, have implications for metaphysics, including theories of truth.

Is Christ that whereby subject grasps object?

Is Christ that whereby human sentences or human thoughts correspond with their intentional objects, when they do so?

Is Christ a-letheia, a Heideggerian un-veiling of reality?

I just noticed that Alistair McGrath is organizing an international conference on natural theology, to be held in Oxford next June. Details can be found here. Speakers include Justin Barrett, Jeremy Begbie, John Hedley Brooke, Simon Conway Morris, Hilary Fraser, Peter Harrison, John Haught, Alistair McGrath, Richard Swinburne, and Keith Ward.

They have also issued a Call for Papers. The deadline for submissions in Nov. 15th. I wish I had something to submit.

Thesis: Even though Platonists and Aristotelians can have the same metaphysics of the Trinity, nonetheless it is harder for the Platonists to distinguish the doctrine of the Trinity from tritheism.  But the Christian Platonists can still escape the charge of tritheism by accepting divine simplicity.

I shall assume that Aristotelianism accepts individual forms, so that the humanity of Peter and the humanity of Paul are numerically distinct.  If it turns out that Aristotle did not accept individual forms, then I shall not deem Aristotle an Aristotelian. 

Now I can argue for my thesis.  Take the same metaphysics of the Trinity: There is one divinity and three hypostases (subjects, persons, individual substances, etc.).  Each hypostasis has the numerically same divinity.  

Suppose Platonism is true.  Then the Trinity is analogous to three human beings, say Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, each of whom is a distinct hypostasis that has the numerically same humanity.  Indeed, if the human ousia is humanity, then Socrates, Hypatia and Catherine are homoousioi, numerically one in ousia.  

Suppose isntead Aristotelianism is true.  Then the Trinity is no longer analogous in this way to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, because Socrates, Plato and Aristotle have numerically three humanities which are numerically distinct.  Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are only homoiousioi, alike in ousia. 

Now insofar as the Trinity is analogous to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, thus far the doctrine of the Trinity is like tritheism.  Hence, if Platonism is true, the doctrine of the Trinity is more like tritheism than if Aristotelianism is true.

Suppose Molinism is true.  It seems that there will be an interesting and non-trivial probabilistic structure to the space of F-conditionals (subjunctive conditionals of free will).  Some examples:

1. Almost implication where the reasons are better: P(Curley would accept a $10,000 bribe in circumstances C | Curley would accept a $5000 bribe in circumstances C) is high (but maybe not automatically 1).

2. Probabilification where the reasons are similar: P(Curley would accept a $5001 bribe in C | Curley would accept a $5002 bribe in C) is moderately high, but lower than the probability in 1.

3. Independence between non-interacting possible persons: P(Curley on earth would accept a $5000 bribe in C and Jones would accept a $5000 bribe in D) = P(Curley would accept a $5000 bribe in C) P(Jones would accept a $5000 bribe in D), if C and D are such that there is no causal contact between Curley and Jones.

4. P(Curley would accept a $5000 bribe in C | Curley would accept a $5000 bribe in C*) = 1 if C and C* differ only in respect of something not in the causal history of Curley's bribe decision.

Now some of these can be questioned, but I think they all have something going for them.  But never mind the details.  All I need is the claim that there are some probabilistic laws governing the relationship between different F-conditionals.

I don't think the probabilities here are just epistemic. 

So now let me ask: Where does the objective probabilistic structure of F-conditionals come from?  What grounds it?  I am inclined to think that objective probabilities tend to flow from laws of nature (the other alternative is some sophisticated version of the principle of indifference, but nothing like that will yield laws like (1)-(4)).  But that doesn't seem right here, especially if one is inclined as I am to think that the laws of nature are grounded in the powers and propensities of existing (and not counterfactual) entities. 

(One can make of the above an argument against Molinism: If Molinism is true, there should be such a probabilistic structure, but there can't be.  But one can also make of it an argument for Molinism: (1), (2) and (4), at least, are highly plausible in themselves;  but they do not make sense apart from Molinism.)