Johannes wrote:

The text in italics is definitely not my position, and I wonder on what basis you thought it was. Maybe my statement "the explanation of the Hypostatic Union as that between Subsistent Existence (or Act of Being) and contingent human essence" left some room for misunderstanding, and I should have said "the explanation of the Hypostatic Union as that between a contingent human essence and Subsistent Existence (or Act of Being) in place of ordinary contingent existence".

This is a slip on my part. I should have written “between existence and contingent natures”. (On Vallicella's account, this just is the relation between God and contingent natures.)

As long as you postulate that contingent existence and contingent essence are really distinct, you can state that the relation between the Son and Jesus' human nature is the relation between existence (in this case Subsistent Existence) and contingent essence, without the need to articulate precisely what the relation between existence and essence in contingent beings is.

But I've just shown, by pointing to various accounts of existence, that this isn't so. In fact, on every account I can think of, the relation between existence and essence doesn't yield what you need for an account of the Incarnation; and so a sort of general account of the Incarnation based the real distinction isn't enough.

This post is a digression about a couple of related points.

First, just as scientists are bounded by empirical observations when developing a scientific theory, Christian philosophers are bounded by Christian faith when developing a philosophical theory.

Let's take as example the gravitational wave (GW) signal GW170817. In contrast with previous GW signals which had been the result of black hole mergers, and therefore had not been accompanied by concomitant electromagnetic (EM) radiation signals, this was the result of the merger of two neutron stars, and was accompanied by the gamma-ray burst signal GRB 170817A, which was detected beginning 1.7 seconds after the GW merger signal and lasted for 2 seconds. The origin of the signals was the galaxy NGC 4993, located 140 Mly away.

The relevance of the simultaneous observation of both signals is that it ruled out a number of  alternative theories of gravity ("alternative" with respect to General Relativity) in which GWs and EM waves travel at different speeds. Therefore, if after GW170817 a theoretical physicist keeps proposing one of those theories, he will no longer be considered an academically respectable scientist but a mathematically proficient crackpot.

Turning now to philosophy, for a Christian philosopher the data from divine Revelation play the same role as that which the data from empirical observations play in physical science. Just as any scientifically respectable theoretical physicist would check if a theory he is developing is consistent with recorded observations before publishing it, any theologically respectable Christian philosopher should check if a theory he is developing is consistent with divine Revelation before publishing it.

As there are two fundamental Christian doctrines, the consubstantial Trinity and the Incarnation, and as any Christian philosopher should know that the main philosophical explanation of the latter is by stating that the Person of the Son is the Act of Being of Jesus' human essence, any Christian philosopher who develops a theory of existence should check whether his theory is consistent with that explanation and then decide to publish or scrap it based on the result of that check, in the first case showing explicitely in his publication that his theory explains the Hypostatic Union. Just as any theoretical physicist who develops an alternative theory of gravity should check whether his theory is consistent with GWs and EM waves travelling at the same speed and then decide to publish or scrap it based on the result of that check, in the first case showing explicitely in his publication that his theory predicts it [1].

Second, it can be easily shown that the property theory of contingent existence is wrong. P is a property of contingent entities iff different entities can have different values of P, including the case of not having P (such as physical extension in the case of spiritual entities). But all contingent entities have contingent existence. Therefore contingent existence is not a property.

If someone replies to the above that today mammoths do not have contingent existence, I reply that they do not have essence either. An essence of a mammoth is only in an existing mammoth, and today there is no such entity. What there is in some human intellects is a more or less abridged representation of the form of a mammoth, while in the divine Intellect there is a perfect pre/re/presentation.


[1] As did the authors of this and this still potentially viable alternative theories of gravity.
 

Last edited by Johannes (9/10/2018 5:15 pm)

Turning now to philosophy, for a Christian philosopher the data from divine Revelation play the same role as that which the data from empirical observations play in physical science. Just as any scientifically respectable theoretical physicist would check if a theory he is developing is consistent with recorded observations before publishing it, any theologically respectable Christian philosopher should check if a theory he is developing is consistent with divine Revelation before publishing it.

I'm actually happy to hear you say this. I think it captures an important truth about the Christian view of the relation between philosophy and religion. Philosophy is religion's handmaid. The truths of religion are accepted in a sense prior to doing philosophy. (I'm not sure they're irrational so much as pre-rational, though the latter may be a species of the former.) Posters here often strike me as very nervous about this aspect of Christianity (a sign of the times, I suppose).

I'm, of course, not a Christian philosopher. (I'm sympathetic.)

Second, it can be easily shown that the property theory of contingent existence is wrong. P is a property of contingent entities iff different entities can have different values of P, including the case of not having P (such as physical extension in the case of spiritual entities). But all contingent entities have contingent existence. Therefore contingent existence is not a property.

I think Miller is going to deny that P is a property of contingent entities iff different entities can have different values of P or not have it, and say that existence is an essential property of all existing natures (entities), rather than an accidental one.

Here is an argument against the property theory of existence. (i) if existence is a property, it's either an accidental property or an essential (non-accidental) property; (ii) if existence is an accidental property, an entity a can (by definition) exist without instantiating an existence property, and this is absurd; (iii) if existence is an essential property, then God can't destroy an entity a's existence property without destroying a; hence (iv), rather than a losing its existence in virtue of losing its existence property, a loses its existence property in virtue of losing its existence (and this shows that a's existence is other than its existence property); hence (v), existence is neither an accidental nor an essential property; hence (vi), existence isn't a property. I wonder whether a similar argument can be raised against the existential Thomist view based on a distinction between accidental and essential constituents.

John West wrote:

I'll try to check out LaZella's dissertation when I get some more time, and see if I have anything to say in reply. I'd like to get a clearer sense of what he means by “bounded”.

John, please note that, after you quoted my post #12 in your response, I changed substantially the text of the 3rd point, specifically removing all mention of "bounded" (which BTW had got there only from me, not from LaZella's dissertation). I explained the reason for the change in note [5].

 

Last edited by Johannes (9/15/2018 10:15 pm)

Jason wrote:

If God is Being then every being instantiates their being from Being in a non competitive way,

Jason, I can't understand what you mean when you say that a contingent entity x "instantiates its being from Being". What is for an entity x to "instantiate its being"?

Now, that the existence of contingent entities is non competitive with Absolute Existence is clear. There is no need for Absolute Being to "contract" Himself in order to make "existential room" for contingent entities to exist (and it would not be possible either, because of divine immutability).

Jason wrote:

that is to say if I get my being from Being then Being does not overcome me completely because it instantiates it.

By saying that "your being instantiates Being" you seem to be approaching dangerous grounds, specifically panentheism. Your being participates of Absolute Being, it does not "instantiate" It.

Jason wrote:

This is taken as a step further in the Incarnation where the second person of the Trinity is one with the human soul of Christ in a non-competitive way such that the human soul of Christ cannot exist without the second person of the Trinity but can still exist without being overpowered by him completely.

The statement that "the second person of the Trinity is one with the human soul of Christ" is at best ambiguous and should be avoided, because it can be readily understood in the same way as Jesus' statement "I and the Father are one." (Jn 10:30), in which case it would be extremely erroneous. The correct statement is that "the second person of the Trinity is the Act of Being of the human soul of Christ". (*)

Jason wrote:

The reason why God can be fully human and divine at the same time is because He is not one being in many but is Being itself (Subsistent Act of Being to be more accurate) hence He and only He would have the power to do so.

More exactly, the reason why a divine Person can assume a contingent essence/nature is because the (one and only) divine Essence/Nature is the Subsistent Act of Being, i.e. because God, each divine Person, is NOT a compound of an act of being and an essence distinct from it. Therefore, God can create a contingent essence and, at the moment of its creation, unite it to one of the divine Persons as to its Act of Being (*).

In contrast, a contingent entity such as an angel is a compound of a created essence/nature and a contingent act of being bound to and bounded by that contingent essence, so that it cannot be also the act of being of another contingent essence.

(*) The divine Essence, i.e. the Subsistent Act of Being, does not exist in a pre-Personal or imPersonal way. I.e., the divine Essence conceived in a Person-independent way is an abstraction. Therefore, the Subsistent Act of Being in an impersonal way cannot be the act of being of a contingent essence simply because it does not exist. Note that some Thomists, specifically the professional Thomistic philosopher who I mentioned and quoted in note [5] of this post, would strongly disagree with what I have just said and had already said in note [4] of that post. (Scotus would also probably disagree, which in fact makes me feel much more comfortable, since good Blessed John Duns got it right in so few points...)