@DanielCC
I think theologians take infinity in God in the sense that "there is no end, no limit or no boundary"  which I think would be an accurate description of classical God (at least in my opinion).

@Nowwhat?
Taking infinite to mean as above God has the infinite power to create "boundaries" around what He creates. Which is where your 4th point fail.

If God created the universe, then the universe's creation has an explanation beyond merely the fact that God is Omnipotence and thus is capable of being the efficient cause of what might be created. Because that is also true of the other metaphysically possible objects that God did not in fact create. And hence cannot be the reason why this universe exists and not another. One needs a fuller explanation, such as invoking Libertarian freewill (just an example).

Contra what somebody wrote above, creation is a change. A change from God being a maximal description of the state of affairs, to God not being a maximal description of the state of affairs. That change needs an explanation (assuming you hold to a sufficiently strong PSR). And if you cannot turn to the created object/s for the explanation (since creation does not involve the actualisation of a potential) then you need God for the task. Which will ultimately result in the actualisation of a potential.

Dennis wrote:

surroundx wrote:

A change from God being a maximal description of the state of affairs, to God not being a maximal description of the state of affairs.

This reminds me of something, so if in a possible world where God is the sole existent, and we compare this world to a world where God creates, then there are at least two numerically distinct entities. However if God is being itself, does the same problem arise, is either of the world a maximal world? Is the concept of a maximal description of the state of affairs coherent? I don't know, just stuff that I think about.

Let's take your first possible world to be PW1 (i.e. God is the sole existent), and the second to be PW2.

Take the following statement: God exists.

Clearly this statement fully describes PW1, but it does not fully describe PW2. Thus it is a maximal description of the state of affairs of PW1, but not PW2.

Dennis wrote:

I totally understand that, but I'm not convinced or I'm not sure how this adds a problem. This certainly doesn't seem to be change, it seems to be an analysis of two distinct contingent state of affairs. So we have two different state of affairs where the the description in P1 is obviously not the same description of P2.

The problem isn't analytic, it is synthetic. Forget multiple PW's if that confuses you. Concentrate on the actual world. Take AW0 to be the initial non-temporal state of affairs in which God is the sole existent. AW1 causally follows, in which God is not the sole existent. If AW0 doesn't cause AW1, there is nevertheless a non-accidental explanation for why AW1 rather than some other metaphysically possible state of affairs AW1'. Since AW0 is causally prior to AW1, nothing in AW1 can serve as an explanation of the transition. Something in AW0 must explain the transition lest the transition be inexplicable.

Dennis wrote:

Does the classical theist believe that God is moving from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality by the act of creation?

They need some sort of explanation for the change in the states of affairs. Merely saying that the two are different is tautological. We've already stipulated that PW1 and PW2 are not identical, same with AW0 and AW1. They're free to explain the change without reference to a potential in God being actualised, but the explanation must nevertheless solely concern God since everything else in AW0 is pure potentiality. And pure actuality does not explain the contingent fact that AW1 followed AW0 rather than Aw1'.

Nowwhat? wrote:

1.  Creation is the act of bringing from potential to actual
2.  Potential requires an actual to exist within.
3.  God is fully actual
4.  God is the only actual being.
5.  No potential exists
6.  God cannot have brought anything from potential to actual
7.  God is not the creator

Seems like God has to either be a mixture of potential and actual, or there has to be another uncreated actual being to bear potential besides God.  Thoughts, critiques?

 

Nowwhat

I think the classical theist would say that, in creating ex nihilo, God bings about both the potentiality and the actuality of an object (which is a mixture of both). So, He doen't need any potential "within", at least not if one thinks creatio ex nihilo is coherent.

I think, however, that there is another way of looking at it. 

I'll give it a shot

1. God is Being itself.
2. God is the whole of reality (from 1, there is no other being than God)
3. The whole of reality is immutable (from 2 plus Divine immutability)
4. The whole of reality cannot change (from 3)
5. Obvious to our sense is change (premise 1 of the argument form change)
6. conclusion: change can't be real.

I seems as though, starting form classical theism, we end up proving Parmenides was right after all. 


 

Last edited by belorg (1/06/2018 4:35 am)