otherwise among other absurdities, He favors some over others with instantiation or existence.

Couldn't the same be said about God not creating other, merely possible individuals?

As for ideas in particular, lately I've been rehearsing on paper the various (Renaissance) positions on mathematicals.

You're already sounding too plenitudinous for my blood. We need truthmakers for mathematical propositions, but I'm not sure those need to be mathematical objects.

I have similar 'willies' about God knowing the future in any fashion but through perfect indirect knowledge; being God, the present, and the past when it was present, should be all He needs be 'omni'.

The trouble is pulling that off without becoming a compatibilist.

I am on the warpath about infinities and God too; and have fallen back on God being 'complete' or 'perfect'.

Could you unpack this last part?

Shade Tree Philosopher wrote:

John West wrote:

otherwise among other absurdities, He favors some over others with instantiation or existence.

Couldn't the same be said about God not creating other, merely possible individuals?

Sure, and I like that. God is purus actus.

But then what's the problem with God creating some universals instead of others?

It's common to intone 'God could make other worlds if He wanted to.' I think that statement is trying to point at something profound, but subtly conceives God as holding out on us. i doubt that God is reserved, so to speak. The Universe and its furniture can be contingent without being one of a range of possibilities in a Craftsman's mind: it's an arresting image, but primitive. There should be a sense in which God had just this Universe on His mind, and no other. He was not shopping around, so to speak, even in His own mind, and then (of course) picked out the best.

I'm more than fine dropping the possible worlds imagery and saying that “God is a truthmaker for all truths of possibility”. I could, however, use some clarification of the next part:

At its creation the Universe was already complete, perfect, furnished, an interlocking collection of individual things. That it expanded, or evolved etc. is just its completeness through time. In a way it is as absurd to say God would make more Universes as that Jim Henson would make several versions of Kermit the Frog.

Are you saying that we live in the only possible world[1], or that there is more than one possible perfect world? The first leads to necessitarianism. If there is only one possible world, then everything that happens had to happen. In the second case, why doesn't God create more than one world? It doesn't seem like the perfectness of one world need lessen the perfectness of the others, and two perfect worlds seem better than one.

One reason people admit universals is to solve the problem of universals. The anti-realist nominalisms—predicate, concept, class, and resemblance nominalism—can't solve it. Realist or trope nominalism, however, is a live option. Were you thinking of a substance/attribute trope theory, or a bundle trope theory in your previous comments?


[1]I mean for "possible world" to be read non-compositely as “a world that is possible”, or “a world that God can create or could have created”, rather than as a possible-world.

Last edited by John West (4/04/2016 7:36 pm)

I think we talked past each other here, Chris:

As for individuals, necessity, and being the only one: It is already a little fictional to speak of what God could have done, in the past tense so to speak. "A" god in the Greek or Roman sense is understandable; "a" God in the classical sense, not just the one and only but The One, (more than a pun, there can be *no* 'other One') is to flirt with absurdity. God is unique, indeed The Unique.

Think of a parallel puzzle about the Good and God: morals arise from God's nature, Who is the Good. Thus we avoid divine command theory's arbitrariness: humble morals like 'respect property' spring from His complete Goodness. Likewise, we avoid necessitarianism about the world if the World is beyond that kind of necessity, grounded in God's ultimate and primary Uniqueness.

I assumed we were using possible worlds to talk about the different ways God could create or not create a created order. I also assumed that we were using the omnipotence principle to decide what God could create[1]. My concern was that your comments suggested (to me, anyway) that God is compelled by His Nature to create one specific world. (A perfect world, perhaps.)

I think you read my post as a Euthyphro Dilemma about whether God is prior to possible worlds, or possible worlds prior to God.

That was telegraphic of me. I deny any such thing as mere possible individuals. In that way, God no more has unrealized universals in the divine Somewhere than He has merely possible people waiting to get picked for real existence.

I was going to ask: why does this make you want to eliminate universals from your ontology then? That is, why not say the same for universals as for individuals? But I think what happened is that when you wrote "There is precious little worry that He loves universals; otherwise among other absurdities, He favors some over others with instantiation or existence" you used "universals" to mean "Divine Ideas of species or essences".


[1]I formulate the omnipotence principle as “God can do everything logically possible and not against His Nature.”

Hi John,

I want to ask you a bit more about the distinction between necessity by supposition and absolute necessity. From what I've learnt, necessity has a very determinate meaning, so to say that if there is a case where there is some x, some y necessarily follows. 

Now philosophers like Anjum and Mumford have given this claim the test of antecedent strengthening, which I think amounts to the same claim as yours. This antecedent strengthening, however, seems to work if and only if, we do not make a distinction between absolute necessity and necessity by supposition (I think, if I've misunderstood this, please feel free to correct me). Most philosophical errors in the past, I would say, is  because they don't understand necessity per, and that is because they fail to make this distinction and as a result end up using it wildly wrong.

In short, all of this supposedly hinges on how we decide what it means by 'necessity.' Would this be right? If I'm off base somewhere, let me know. Since I have more things to add to this, I'll ask those things after I get a reply. 

Last edited by Dennis (4/07/2016 6:28 am)

Thanks for confirming that. We have a case where an act x, makes it so that y follows, necessarily. Anjum and Mumford provide the example of a match being struck which I don't really find determinate enough an example. What exactly would be causing the confusion here?

Necessary conditions and necessity in causation. How would you make a difference or clear conceptual confusion when someone says,

"If the vital point in the heart of a man/woman is struck, they will necessarily die."

It is at least a necessary condition for people to have a heart (of some sort), and if this perishes, I will necessarily perish as well. Where would I be making an error?