Recently in Concept of God Category

Many people have difficulty with God's acts in the Bible because God seems to be committing or commanding immoral acts (e.g., when God commands the Israelites to wipe out certain people-groups, including children). I think that many of these charges can be alleviated if some good justification can be given for the claim that it is morally permissible for God to kill people as he does in the Bible.

One step towards arguing for the claim that it is morally permissible for God to kill people is to argue that people do not have the right not to be killed by God. I may have the right that you not kill me, and vice versa, but

What could the doctrine that all times are present to God mean?

Suppose you have a time machine that lets you travel through all of time in a finite amount of subjective time. How? Well, first travel back a thousand years; then slow down your internal time, so that you live through the millenium in half a second of internal time, or else fast-forward with your time machine at two thousand years per second; then travel back two thousand years, and then change your subjective time so as to live through that millenium in a quarter of a second (or else fast-forward); keep on going until all the past is covered. This will take no longer than one second, even if the past is infinite (if the past is finite, you need to adjust for the fact that the age of the world may not be a multiple of a thousand years, but that's a triviality). Now do the future, which is easier: just slow down your internal time to cover the future millenium in half a second, the next millenium in a quarter of a second, and so on (or else use your time machine in fast-forward mode). In at most two (subjective) seconds, you'll have covered all of time.

Now, repeat this process over and over, forever. Assuming your specious present is at least two seconds long (if it's shorter, just speed up the process and/or increase your mental capacity), all objective times will always be within your specious present. So here is one apparently coherent sense of the claim that all objective times are present to a being: all objective times are within that being's specious present. And the above argument suggests that it is logically possible to have a being such that all times are within the being's specious present. Indeed, it is possible to have a being such that this is always the case.

I am not claiming that God is such a time-traveler. For one, God is unchanging, while this being seems to live on a changing two second cycle. But we can get a bit of a help towards imagining of God's relation to time as follows. The above being goes through all of objective time every two seconds. We can imagine another being that does this every second. And another that does this every half second. God, then, is like the limiting case of this progression of beings.

What is helpful about this is that it suggests a way of understanding the idea that God's immutability is not stasis but infinitely fast activity.

In Revelation, we learn that the angels are singing "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty!" We speak of "holy men" and there might be a "holy moment". We strive for "personal holiness".

I've always had difficulty getting a grasp of this concept. Sometimes, it seems that "holiness" is used synonymously with "moral purity" or "sinlessness". I've also heard "being holy" equated with "being wholly other or set apart or different", but what's that supposed to mean?

As a first approximation, x is holy iff x is really, really morally good. But this feels like its lacking. Any ideas?

Here is a simple proposal:

A being x is omnipotent provided that in every possible world, x's free choices are collectively the ultimate explainers of the rest of contingent reality.

In particular, only a necessary being can be omnipotent. Whether omnipotence is compatible with created free will depends on how exactly we spell out "ultimate explainers". We might think that if y in situation S freely chooses to A, and God creates y in S, and y freely chooses to A, then God's creation is an ultimate explainer (it may or may not be the case that an ultimate explainer of a proposition is an explainer of the proposition).

This definition is incompatible with Molinisms on which God is not an ultimate explainer of conditionals of free will.

If the above account is right, we have a sound ontological argument along the lines of the standard S5 ontological argument:

1. Possibly, there is an omnipotent being.
2. Therefore, there is an omnipotent being.

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.

The thesis that truth supervenes on being is that any two possible worlds that differ in the truth-value of a proposition also differ in whether some entity exists or not.

Truth supervenes on being if and only if contingent truth supervenes on being.  (Necessary truths trivially supervene on everything.)

A theistic argument for contingent truth supervening on being:  If p is a contingent truth that does not supervene on being, then no one can have brought it about that p.  For how can someone make such a p be true?  One’s making something contingently be thus-and-so is a matter of causing and/or refraining from causing (I make an egg be hardboiled by causing it to heat up;  I make it be spoiled by leaving it alone).  Causation is a relation.  Relations hold only between entities.  So, any contingent truths that are brought about by someone must supervene on being.  The same is true for contingent truths that are brought about by something.  Ergo, if there is a contingent truth that does not supervene on being, it is ultimately lacking in explanation (it might have a constitutive explanation, but that has to stop somewhere, and it can’t stop at being/non-being, so the problem remains).  And it is contrary to divine sovereignty that there be contingent truths that are not caused to be such, at least indeterministically, by God.  (The latter consideration entails that Molinism is false.)  So, contingent truth supervenes on being, because God is the first cause (even if indeterministically) of all contingent truth.

In a discussion about the metaphysical status of race (of all things) on my personal blog, Econ Grad Stud said something that led to a question that I've thought about before but having really arrived at anything definitive about. Assume an atemporal view of God and an orthodox position on the Trinity and the Incarnation. Answer the following questions:

1. Did Christ become human?
2. If so, was there a time when Christ was merely divine (and thus not human)?
3. In what sense, if any is Christ atemporal?

I'm not sure what I think of this, but I'll try out a toy theory, which does have some argumentative support.

[Given the substantiveness of Alexander's last comment from the Onward Christian Spaceman thread I'm giving it its own post. -Matthew]

Let's try this tack.  Let's forget all about this high-flown metaphysics, and just ask what a double incarnation would have to be like, given what we know about a single incarnation.

To do this, I will assume something that I do not actually believe: that some objects have parts.  I think some of the things I say will work without that assumption, with some modifications, but in any case I am not going to inflict my weird ontology on people here.

Suppose two incarnations.  It is true, as Justin and I have pointed out, that we don't want to say that Aslan and Smith are proper parts of one person.  However, we ought to say that Aslan's leonine body and Smith's human body are proper parts of one person.  My body is a proper part of me--here I assume that materialism is false, of course.  Surely it would likewise be true that Aslan's leonine body is a proper part of Aslan, and Smith's human body is a proper part of Smith. 

Compare: Who is the President's President?  The President.  I've seen bumper stickers saying "Bush is not my president."  I don't know if these people mean this in the optative mood or if they really intend it to be the indicative mood, but, whether they like it or not, George W. Bush *is* their president.  George W. Bush is also George W. Bush's President.  

Awhile back, Dale (Tuggy) and I had a few go-rounds on social Trinitarianism (I'm fer it, he's agin' it).  The debate included my post "Of Course Trinitarians are Polytheists!  Duh!" (which was perhaps a bit overwrought, but so was some of the stuff I was responding to.)  I will assume--as is pretty standard--that "God" is a title-term. 

One item Dale mentioned that was supposedly evidence for something or other with which I disagreed was that Jesus calls the Father his "God."  I don't think much of significance in the debate follows from this since the Father is also the Father's God.  He is his own God just as Bush is his own President [insert political joke here].  

Is Jesus the Father's God?  In some sense yes.  Jesus is the God-the-Son of the Father it seems to me.  I'm inclined to think that the deity (predicate adjective) of the Son is in some sense the same deity as the deity of the Father and so the Son is the God of the Father in the exact same sense in which the Father is the God of the Son.  There's nothing new under the sun, so I'm sure if I've committed some heresy here I'll hear about it.

It could be that a *real* social Trinitarian will want to say that the Father is the God of the Son in an asymmetric way since the Father bears the begetting relation to the Son which is a species of generation relation, and nothing bears any relation of that type to the Father.  Not sure if that matters to the debate either.  

I think some good might be got by thinking about this more.  Wish I had time!

Life in the real world has kept me from fully maintaining my blogging duties. So, I've a bit of catching up to do. The first order of business is that I need to plug Dale Tuggy's Trinity survey project. Dale is attempting to survey the Christian public as to how their conception of God comports with trinitarian theories and creedal statements. I think Dale has captured all of the recent Trinity theories, and some non-trinitarian theories as well, that are represented in recent philosophical theology literature. So, head over and take the survey, then you'll get to see the results. And please, encourage any seminary professors or those teaching Christian theology at the graduate level to participate.

Keith DeRose reflects on Calvinism and philosophers. Why amidst a resurgence of Calvinism in mainstream evangelicalism (both among theologians and at the popular level) has there been virtually no change in the libertarian orthodoxy in Christian philosophy? Keith seems to agree with Dean Zimmerman that this has to do with having to put up a more serious defense of Christianity with secular philosophers, since most Christian philosophers are in secular philosophy departments, and most Christian theologians are in Christian seminaries and colleges. I think that's probably right as a sociological explanation.

I do find it somewhat interesting given that I (as a Calvinist) find the Calvinist response to the problem of evil to be more thoroughgoing in its consequences (even if more difficult to motivate in its foundations), as a number of Christian philosophers throughout history have held. After all, if Calvinism is true, then every bit of evil is fully explained with no remainder. But it's at the foundations of a response to the problem of evil that most Christian philosophers are turning to libertarianism. It's also in the face of considerable social pressure against libertarianism, given that compatibilism is now the default in the philosophical world (a situation interestingly parallel to the dominance of materialism, with many Christian philosophers holding on to dualism).

I've got some more detailed thoughts on this at my personal blog, but I thought it was worth directing Prosblogion readers to this discussion without subjecting all of you to the details of how a Calvinist will view this whole issue. Those who want to see that can read my lengthier reflections there.

My last post was about a problem for open theists. I now think it is just a special case of a more general argument. Here's the quicker argument for the same conclusion:
1. Nothing (contingent) can be true without a truthmaker.
2. Truthmakers are a subclass of entailers: if T is a truthmaker for p, then it is impossible for T to obtain and p not to.
3. The future is metaphysically contingent: it is not metaphysically necessary that the universe continue.
4. So, for any T that obtains in the present or past, it is possible for T to obtain and every p about the future fail to be true.
4. So, nothing in the present or past could be a truthmaker for any future truth.
5. So, no claim about the future is true.

This is an argument the open theist I have in mind must reject, since such an open theist thinks there are some truths about the future. Pretty clearly, what must be rejected in the argument is the notion of a truthmaker. But here I'm lost, since the worry about future truths is supposed to be something about whether they are "grounded". I have no idea what this is supposed to be, since it can't be explained in terms of truthmakers. So the challenge is to say what the notion of grounding involves that doesn't require entailment, covers cases in which the future is determined, and excludes cases where the future is undetermined.

But don't say: to be grounded is just to be determined, either in the accidentally necessary way the past is or in the causal way that some of the future is. We want a substantive explanation of the view, not a trivial restatement of it.