I haven't seen the videos, but sometime I'll try to take a look.

I have read Analysis of Existing. I think it's a great and important book. (It's probably not unfair to Fr. Miller to say that Kremer's presentation of his work is sufficient on its own.) He consolidates Miller's approach to the issues in a very clear way.

The basic idea is to defend a two-sense analysis of the predicate "______ exists"; that is, though there is a second-order use of "______ exists" that is properly predicated of concepts ("Cats exist"), the first-order use is legitimate in some cases (when predicated of singular names). So he's assaulting a whole tradition of theorizing about existence from Kant to Frege to Russell to Quine.

Given that analysis, Miller claims, there is actually a hidden contradiction in asserting both that Fido (a contingently existing dog) exists and that God does not.

He also does a very good job of rebutting the claim that classical theism is flatly incoherent. He casts the divine attributes as "limit cases" of creaturely attributes. A limit case is not merely a limit simpliciter (the maximum or minimum in some class of things, like the most powerful creature). It's rather that to which the instances in a class tend, and accordingly it need not be a member of the class itself.

So the limit case of the sequence of lines of length 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ... might be a point - not a line at all. Similarly, the limit case of a sequence of circles of radius 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ... might also be  a point - not a circle at all. So limit cases are clearly not unrelated to the instances in the class, though they need not be members of the class. But also, two distinct classes might have the same limit case. The limit case of our circles and of our lines are identical.

He argues that, if God exists, if God's essence = God's existence (a corollary of the argument for God's existence), and if possessing the limit case of attribute X (power, goodness, intelligence, ...) does not impute potentiality to that which possesses it, then God possesses the limit case of attribute X.

Dennis wrote:

If it's not too much of a bother, could you elaborate on the hidden contradiction?

Well, I probably cannot. It's subtle and I don't have the book in front of me. But Bill Vallicella may be able to help:

Wherein lies the contradiction? Consider Fido's existing. On Miller's preferred analysis, Fido's existing has two constituents, Fido and Fido's existence. Whereas Fido is a complete entity, one capable of independent existence, Fido's existence is a property-instance and therefore incomplete: incapable of independent existence, it requires a complete entity for its "individuation." (p. 38, n. 22) As constituents, Fido and his existence are ontologically, not chronologically, prior to Fido's existing in the sense that "...Fido's existing must be constructible conceptually from Fido and his existence." (p. 10) But such a construction would make no sense if Fido could not be conceived prior to Fido's existing. Yet chapter 3 ("The Inconceivability of Future Individuals") issues in precisely this conclusion: "Fido could neither be referred to nor conceived of before he existed." (p. 11)

Thus a contradiction emerges at the heart of concrete individuals: Fido's existing is a complex whose ontological constituents are such that one of them (Fido) must be and cannot be conceived prior to Fido's existing. Fido must be independently conceivable if he is to be available for the conceptual construction; but he cannot be so conceivable since "prior to its existing no concrete individual could be conceived of by anyone or in any way." (p. 42)

I like the videos. I think they present the subject matter well, capture the appropriate dialectic, etc.

Some more could be said about good and evil. I think Peter Geach's analysis of good is a helpful way of framing the discussion of the privation view, and it's easy to motivate (the basic point is to focus on the fact that the expression "X is a good F" has indeterminate sense). It establishes the connection between goodness and being, so that one can see why it's intelligible (and required) to understand goodness as a privation of being / fullness of being.

The response to the problem of evil is dry.I think there's more that could be said about it, like the fact that the problem of evil is often couched in basically utilitarian terms.

That said, I think the problem of evil is one spot where classical theists really are inclined to appropriate the theistic personalist approach. Though, of course, the premise that God might have a reason for permitting evil is not a theistic personalist premise; it's given expression by the major classical theists, even though theistic personalists have formulated the free will defense in detailed and elaborate ways. Barry Miller, also, takes for granted the free will defense in his own presentation (though he doesn't intend to do anything like a thorough treatment of the problem of evil; he mentions it in passing in one of his books, probably after addressing the question of creaturely freedom).

I think it's also generally worth mentioning (in the context of the utilitarian-ness of the problem of evil) how odd it is in the context of the way religion is practiced. The central event of Christianity is the unjust execution of God himself, and Christians find great value in suffering and redemption. From the perspective of a practitioner, inside the religion itself, the existence of evil doesn't generally seem unintelligible. (This is not to suggest that it is not a point of struggle for many believers. It's just to say that if one really takes the perspective of a believer, i.e. if one really tries to think about what it would be like for Christianity to be true, the God-must-have-a-reason answer is not patently weak, however dry it sounds in the abstract. Also, thinking about evil in terms of the crucifixion seems to open one up to seeing that God's "reasons" might not be utilitarian balancings, as the terminology of "reasons" and "greater goods" generally seems to suggest.)

So: Nice videos, a bit weak on the problem of evil.

The comments are terrible. But what do you expect?

Last edited by Greg (12/23/2015 11:53 pm)

seigneur wrote:

In my view, the power of classical theism lies in reconciliation of all religions, in the insight that all religions (not just Abrahamic ones) are a modified formulation or imperfect apprehension of the same ultimate reality. To describe the same ultimate reality as succinctly and coherently as possible, different theologian-philosophers (as in classical theism doing philosophy and doing theology is the same thing) outline matters and draw distinctions differently. As a result, the different descriptions appear contradictory to each other, but they may still have internal consistency and coherence and they can be useful explanatory guides.

I agree about the aim and power of classical theism you give here. My quibble would be with the last sentence - I agree that different descriptive schemas can be used to represent reality, but would say that some have to do it better than others. If there can be multiple equally consistent and coherent schemas then it pushes one towards an Anti-Realist view on which none of them would really represent reality.  

seigneur wrote:

 In other traditions, however, such as (Neo-)Platonism and Vedanta, God is distinct from Creator. God is the Absolute, the One, while Creator is an emanation, a corollary necessary to explain the multiplicity of things and the diversity of existence. The universe looks diverse and multiple to us, humans, and requires an explanation, and a sensible thing to do is to posit Creator to explain creation, but if God is omnipresent spirit, eternal and immutable, then it's not coherent - according to (Neo-)Platonism and Vedanta - to attribute creatorship to that God, because creatorship implies agency and agency implies mutability, a kind of motion or change, and this cannot be logically permitted. Thus God is distinct from Creator and Vedas (that which is held to be scriptures in Vedanta) bear this out.

From our point of view, the universe looks like multifarious creation, but the proper aim of classical theism is to describe things from God's point of view. Creatorship is necessarily (because scripture says so) attributed to God in Abrahamic religions, but other traditions of classical theism (that don't have the same scriptural burden) predicate of God the absolute logically necessary metaphysical minimum and creatorship is an unnecessary complication. The core tenet of classical theism is that God is simple..

Surely another core tenant of classical theism is that the rest of reality is ontological dependent on God, that God is the ground of Being? That is what the creation relation seeks to capture regardless of whether one has intermediaries between the Deity and the material cosmos. 

I'm not sure there actually is a difference between Creato Ex nihilo and Emanation, both describe God's giving out of being in a way which is strictly unique (God is nothing like a human craftsman, but then again neither is He, the ontologically simple being, like a candle flame throwing out particles of itself - both are useful metaphors and little more).

seigneur wrote:

In other traditions, however, such as (Neo-)Platonism and Vedanta, God is distinct from Creator.

In the case of Platonism this isn't *quite* right. One makes a distinction between creation and everything else. God/One is the original source of all being, and this coming from God/One of being *is* creation (indeed "from out of nothing"). Secondary actions of God/Angels/whatever (henads) aren't properly speaking any more creation than when I make a table from wood. God's just perfect at it, and I'm not.