April 2009 Archives

As many of you know, Bill Craig and Wes Morriston met recently to publicly discuss the Kalam cosmological argument. Although I wasn't there, I might still be in a unique position to comment on the dialectic between these guys because I was Bill's student and later Wes' TA. (I've also read pretty much all the articles both Wes and Bill have written on this topic.) So, I'd like to share my own perspective on the kalam argument and on parts of the dialectic between Wes and Bill.

I'll begin with a few observations concerning the philosophical styles of Wes and Bill. Wes clearly values careful truth-seeking. When teaching and interacting with students, he displays intellectually sincerity and humility and is wary of over-confidence. I very much admire this virtue in Wes, and I hope I've gleaned some of it from him. Wes is good at playing the role of a skeptic, because he's good at critiquing his own beliefs. Bill often appears more as a truth-expresser. It's not that he isn't a truth-seeker; no doubt he is (in class, I witnessed him admitting to be mistaken about something, and on another occasion he apologized for sounding over-confident about something). But he tends to express himself very confidently. Although I think confidence and humility can work together, the confident one risks sounding overly triumphant, which can provoke skepticism.

The Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame presents a conference entitled

Theme: The conference will focus on the charge that the Abrahamic religious traditions should be rejected because of their foundation in the Hebrew Bible, which allegedly portrays God as immoral and vicious. The presenters and commentators will include philosophers--both theistic and nontheistic--as well as Biblical scholars.

Event 1: The Mangoletsi Lectures 2009 (Sponsored by the Mangoletsi Trust and hosted by the Department of Philosophy)

God, Science and Philosophy
Peter van Inwagen
John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

6th May: God and Science I
13th May: God and Philosophy II
20th May: God and Philosophy II
27th May: God and Science II

The lectures will take place at 5.30pm in the Miall Lecture Theatre, Baines Wing
ALL WELCOME

If you would like to attend any of these lectures, please contact Robin Le Poidevin, Department of Philosophy (r.d.lepoidevin@leeds.ac.uk)

Event 2: Metaphysics of Theism workshop
University of Leeds
Thursday 28th May

Schedule:
11.00 Registration and coffee, Department of Philosophy foyer

11.30 Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds): 'A Four-Dimensionalist Trinity?'
Baines Wing, Room G37

12.45 Buffet lunch, Department of Philosophy foyer

1.30 David Efird (York): 'Theological Idealism about Possible Worlds'
Baines Wing, Room G37

2.45 Tea/Coffee, Department of Philosophy foyer

3.15 Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame): 'God and Other Uncreated Things'
Baines Wing, Room G37

4.30 End

Registration: A registration fee of £10 (or £5 for those with a student card), which covers lunch and refreshments, will be charged on the day (cash only, please), but please give notice that you wish to attend by writing to Robin Le Poidevin (r.d.lepoidevin@leeds.ac.uk), indicating any dietary requirements, by 14th May at the latest.

1. If Libertarianism about the will is true then none of our decisions is causally determined by any previous physical or mental event(s) (or state(s)).

2. If none of our decisions is causally determined by any previous physical or mental event(s) (or state(s)) then there is always a possibility that even the most recalcitrant rejecter, R, of divine reconciliation may, at some time in the future, tF, freely choose to be reconciled to God.

3. Therefore if God sustains R in existence until tF, then R will be freely reconciled to God.

4. Furthermore, It is no cost to an omnipotent God to sustain R in existence until tF.

5. So then, God if God desires that everyone is freely reconciled to him, then he will sustain everyone in existence until they freely choose to be reconciled to him.

6. God does desire that everyone is freely reconciled to him.

7. Thus everyone is freely reconciled to God. (i.e, Universalism is true).

This argument for Universalism about salvation subsumes libertarian freedom as a premise. Libertarians, like Jerry Walls and Bill Craig, typically argue that Universalism conflicts with Libertarianism. They seem to think that human beings can delude themselves in such a way that they will never, ever, be freely reconciled to God, and any attempt on God's part to shatter their illusions and reconcile with them would have to violate their autonomy in order to succeed. This strikes me as odd. After all, if they truly are free in the libertarian sense, their iterated persistence in their own delusion cannot be taken as a certain datum. Surely their freedom, if it is genuine, must include the freedom to come to their senses. So it seems that only if the libertarian denies libertarian freedom can they actually assert that humans could persist forever in rejecting God.

Let (R) be the denial of moral defeatism. I’m worried about the truth of (R) quite apart from God’s existence, so assume the possible moral responses in (R) do not include divine responses.

R. For any evil E that occurs, there is a possible response R to E such that R is a free moral response to E, R is impossible in the absence of E, the moral value of (R & E) is (neutral or) positive.

I include of course any evil E that is occurring, has occurred or will occur. The denial of (R) is the position that there exists some evil to which every possible moral response is defeated. That is, every possible moral response is such that (R & E) is negative. By free moral responses to evil I have in mind actions (individual and collective) that display moral courage, charity, perseverance, compassion, care, hope, mercy, generosity, justice and the like. Some well-known exemplars of free moral responsiveness include M. Gandhi, M. L. King, Mother Teresa, among, of course, many others. These individuals display what is possible in the way of free moral responses to evil. Now consider (P1) and (P2).

P1. If moral defeatism is false, then the existence of gratuitous evil depends largely on what we freely choose to do.

P2. If moral defeatism is true, then there is (was, will be) some evil E such that there is nothing anyone (or any group) could ever do, over any amount of time, in response to E that is not defeated by E.

An individual essence is a property (or set of properties) that an individual has uniquely and in every world in which he exists.

IE. E is an individual essence of S iff. E is essential to S and everything distinct from S has ~E (the complement of E) essentially.

So take the property that some possible individual has of having some very high and interesting degree of power, knowledge and goodness. Now consider the additional property of being identical to that individual. We have stipulated that there’s some being in some world with these properties, and that seems uncontroversial. It says only that, possibly, someone has such properties. Under what conditions do those properties constitute an individual essence? Those properties constitute an individual essence just in case the individual has them uniquely and in every world in which he exists. Let’s be a bit more exact. Let S be the possible individual and W the relevant world. The properties are Gx, Px, Kx, and Hx, where these are goodness, power, knowledge (all in some interesting compossible degree) and being identical to S, who has those properties in W. Let Cx be the following conjunctive property.

P. Cx = Gx & Px & Kx & Hx

No doubt Cx is satisfiable by one and only one individual, viz., S. But does S have that property in every world in which S exists? Obviously, it depends on the number and kinds of worlds in which S exists. Two possibilities.

*My thanks to Felipe, Yujin, Alex and Ted for pressing questions on this issue.

I mean to beg no questions in claiming that (1) is an easily observed a priori truth.

1. <>(Ex)(x is maximally excellent & x is necessarily existing).

I do not take the proposition that x is maximally excellent to (obviously) entail that x is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent or creator of everything that exists. I take (1) to entail that there is something that necessarily exists and is such that there is nothing that is more excellent (than it).

Still, observing that (1) is true is important. Now we avoid altogether the hackneyed objection that, “well, it is possible that a maximally excellent being does not exist, too”. The only question in dispute is what are the maximally excellent compossible properties.

But that too is an avoidable question. There are only certain sets of properties that we are actually concerned about and we can, without begging any questions, focus on them. Observe that it is equally undeniable that there is some degree K of knowledge that (more or less closely) approximates omniscience, some degree P of (essential) power that approximates omnipotence, some degree G of (essential) goodness that approximates (essential) omnibenevolence such that Px & Kx & Gx are compossible with necessary existence, Nx. So, the only question that is open is what is the greatest degree of each that is compossible with necessary existence. Let’s put it more exactly, quantifiying over degrees of such properties and beings that might possess them.

1. <>(EK)(EP)(EG)(Ex)([]Kx & []Px & []Gx & Nx)

[3.13.09 revised and updated; 3.14.09 addendum]

One of the problems with accepting Christian universalism is that in doing so it seems that one must give up on a libertarian notion of freedom of the will. This is due to the classic Arminian objection that a being could not really be free unless it were possible for that being to resist the will of God--that she be saved--for all eternity. Thus the denizens of Hell are said to be there as a result of their ongoing rejection of the Almighty. The universalist, contra the Arminian, holds that Hell is essentially purgative and restorative, and thus only temporary, and that ultimately everyone is reconciled to God. But then, if everyone is ultimately reconciled with God, it seems to follow that no one possesses libertarian freedom. After all, no one can choose to be permanently separated from God.

Has anyone had time to listen to this: 2009 SPR Presidential address

I'm dying to listen to it, but I defend on Monday.

I've been thinking for a little while about two related arguments for compatibilism based on Christian theology. In this post, I'll look at the implications of the traditional approach to the Incarnation, and in a second post I'll look at what the kind of robust view of inspiration that I favor will require. I'm cross-posting this at my personal blog.

It seems to me that with the traditional understanding of the Incarnation, something like compatibilism must be true of Jesus' freedom. The traditional view of the Incarnation is that Jesus is fully God and fully human, and his divine nature prevents him from doing anything sinful, but at least in his earthly life he had all the human ability to do so, being fully tempted in every way. This means that we need some sense in which it's possible that Jesus do something wrong and some sense in which it's not. The best way I know of that anyone has captured this is to say that it was possible for Jesus to do wrong in relation to his human nature but not possible in relation to his divine nature.

But what does that mean? If it means that two natures constrain him, and one allows it while the other doesn't, then it just implies that it's not possible for him to have sinned. His human nature would have allowed it, but the divine nature prevented it. This seems just like the situation for someone with no legs: it's possible for them to walk with respect to their brain but not possible for them to walk with respect to their legs. So it's simply just not possible for them to walk, unless it's ever proper to ignore the obstacle sufficient for preventing that possibility, and it pretty much never is unless you're talking about attaching new legs or something like that. But there's no such analogous possibility with Jesus, as if he could lose his divine nature. So this doesn't well capture the intuition that there's some sense in which Jesus could have sinned, in order to explain the statements about his having been genuinely tempted. This complaint strikes me as much like the complaint that libertarians on free will offer against compatibilism.

The analogy of God as the author and us as his characters has a venerable history. Here I want to object to one use of the analogy as a way of resolving the tension between providence and creaturely causation, deterministic and especially indeterministic. The puzzles the analogy is addressing are like this:

1. How can it be that horses evolved fully under the influence of random stochastic processes, and yet we can also explain the existence of horses in terms of the way they glorify God?
2. How is it that Francine freely chose to accept baptism in the name of the most holy Trinity, and yet the choice was entirely caused by God's grace?

The suggestion made is that in these cases there are two entirely non-competing explanations. The case is parallel to the way that an event in a story can be explained both in terms of the author's activity, plans and motivations, and in terms of in-story causal processes. Thus, there is no conflict between:

3. Colonel Mustard was murdered because the author believed that books about murdered colonial colonels sell well.
4. Colonel Mustard was murdered because he knew that Captain Catsup was not as great a tiger hunter in India as he claimed to be.

It would be a mistake to give (3) as the explanation when solving the mystery, except in a post-modern sort of novel--think of the absurdity of the great detective in the novel getting everybody in a room together, and then saying (3).

This use of the author analogy is mistaken for a simple reason. The "because" in (4) is in the scope of a fictionalizing operator. What (4) really says is:

5. According to the story (Colonel Mustard was murdered because he knew that Captain Catsup was not as great a tiger hunter in India as he claimed to be).

And "According to the story" is a truth-canceling operator. The "because" in (5) is within the scope of that truth-canceling operator, and hence does not provide an explanation.

If, like me, you are *incredibly* strapped for time these days, you might consider looking at the Philosopher's Digest, which right now has a couple of reviews of PR articles.

Suppose that George voted for a friend to be hired, and now he want to figure out whether he did it for the sake of friendship, or whether he did something nepotistic. One way for George to figure this out is for him to ask:

1. Were Jane not my friend, would I still have voted for her?

An affirmative answer would show, barring weird circumstances (such as Black watching one's brain, and ensuring that one cannot but vote for Jane), that George should stop worrying.

But, now, I think that

2. Were Jane not his friend, George would still have voted for her

is not a Molinist conditional. Here is why. What George wants to know is something about his actual motivations. The truth value of (2) understood Molinistically is irrelevant to how things actually went--there is another possible world, where everything in fact goes just as it does, but where (2) understood Molinistically has a different truth value. At most, the truth value of (2) understood Molinistically may be evidence for the truth value of (2) understood in the way which makes it relevant to George's question about his motivations.

When George asks (1), he is looking for an answer that supervenes on facts about his motivations. The Molinist answer to (1) does not do that, though it may be probabilistically connected with facts about his motivations.

At the same time, there are times when we really do want to know the truth of a Molinist conditional. Thus, prior to the vote, Jane might ask herself:

3. If I were to cease to be George's friend, would he vote for me?

In asking herself this, she could have two questions in mind. She could be trying to find out something about George's motivations and his character. In that case, she is not interested in the truth value of a Molinist conditional. Or she could be trying to figure out whether it is prudent for her to break off the friendship before the hiring vote (of course, the only way she could get a certain answer to that question would be by divine revelation). In the latter case, the truth value of a Molinist conditional is precisely what she wants to know.

The above raises a worry for Molinists that they have to have two kinds of subjunctive conditionals of free will, the Molinist and the non-Molinist ones, while anti-Molinists need only one, the non-Molinist one. Maybe, though, the Molinist can say that when Jane is trying to figure out George's motivations and character, she is not interested in the truth value of the B→V conditional (were I to break off, he'd vote for me), but in the probability of that conditional. (See also this post).