Posted by TomD  7/25/2017 9:30 am | #1 |
Why do you think it is important to say that God is free with respect to creating or not creating? It makes sense to say that God is free in the sense that there is no factor prior to him which necessitates his willing. That said, what is the principal reason for thinking God could have failed to create or created a different world entirely?
I know Aquinas's argument for this conclusion, but I have a hard time getting my mind around it and I think he might be too quick in the way he presents it
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Posted by Discens 7/25/2017 9:52 am | #2 |
As far as I know, the point is that being is convertible with goodness, but only actual existence is "being" in a strict sense, while essence is only potency for being. Therefore, since nothing except God exists in virtue of its own essence, nothing except God is good in virtue of its own essence. Therefore, all created beings are good only AFTER they receive actual existence. So God is not compelled to create them, since they receive their goodness only by the fact that they are created, and their goodness is not prior to the act of creation.
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Posted by seigneur 7/26/2017 3:01 am | #3 |
TomD, Why do you think it is important to say that God is free with respect to creating or not creating? It makes sense to say that God is free in the sense that there is no factor prior to him which necessitates his willing. That said, what is the principal reason for thinking God could have failed to create or created a different world entirely?
God could not have failed to create: once God decides, so it becomes, inevitably. But the decision is free. God's freedom is important because anything with any sort of limits is not properly God.
Also, logically, derived or contingent beings cannot have any properties that are not there in the ultimate being. Since contingent beings have some freedom, the ultimate being must have perfect freedom so as to be able to impart it to the rest.
Last edited by seigneur (7/26/2017 3:01 am)
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Posted by Camoden 7/26/2017 4:08 pm | #4 |
I have argued in the past the principle issue is on the strength of the PSR. I am sympathic with Katherine Roger that when you apply God's status as always doing the best, and something close to the PSR, it might follow God could have only created this world. I don't see an issue with this with regards to the contingency argument as I have never framed the argument around modality. The ability to create other things would still be an active power of God's as possible essences are real imitations of God, and hence it is meaningful to mention these as being able to be uttered in logically consistent ways. In a strict sense nothing is necessitating God and He is only acting out of "moral necessity" to quote Clarke, not strict logical necessity. While this view was made famous by rationalists, it was implicit even in Augustine. So I don't see this as a big issue. God is simply all wise and His wisdom reflects His ability to choose best. There are loads of options to posit as the reason for creation , just as an example note Augustine's argument that this world contains the perfect number of several classes of agents. This doesn't have to necessarily be plausible but it shows there can be reasons and that the arguments lodged against a BoaPW are not conclusive. Nothing external is coercing Him and God is simply creating because He wishes to, and God knowing His glory knows the best way to reflect it, meaning perfecting things with goods fitting their being. What I would say to someone who doesn't want to accept this counter intuitive conclusion (which I don't necessarily accept mind you) is that this can be read as a negative predicate of God and all we are able to intuit is that God is not coerced, and perhaps His freedom consists in this. With regards to God making creatures that have open options, and given proportionate Causality, so must God, it really depends on how you define such a notion. Anselm's definition of freedom "The ability to keep rectitude of the will for it's own sake" , allows for open options with regards to human creatures, while God and the good angels aren't able to not hold on to what the good have been given (obvious reasons for God not being able to do this of course). Since options have some normitivity in them, God and human agents still act on the same sorts of things, the difference being God is acting on His essence which is the Good. I think with more modern conditions of freedom that there are good reasons for denying the PAP, and hence I don't think this option is a good proves much. With this removed we can proceed to argue that God and man both share many similar features and there is a level of Univocity here, and that this perfection is not in creatures and lacking in God.
Just my thoughts
Have a nice day everyone and God bless you all,
Cameron
PS, sorry to anyone I have not replied to, just saw this and thought I would answer as it is something relevant to my research at the moment.
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Posted by DanielCC 7/26/2017 5:48 pm | #5 |
TomD wrote:
Why do you think it is important to say that God is free with respect to creating or not creating? It makes sense to say that God is free in the sense that there is no factor prior to him which necessitates his willing. That said, what is the principal reason for thinking God could have failed to create or created a different world entirely?
If God is is compelled, either by his own nature or by the obligation to create the best, to actualize one and only one possible world then we hit the problem of modal collapse - it turns out that one possible world is the only possible world and that all seemingly contingent facts are in fact necessary. This completely destroys all of our modal intuitions.
PS, sorry to anyone I have not replied to, just saw this and thought I would answer as it is something relevant to my research at the moment.
Have you written anything else on this subject out of interest? I think the varying arguments for modal collapse are probably the biggest problem for theism (even version of the POE really boil down to God having a sufficient reason for actualizing X world). If I ever return to philosophy proper one of my main thesis to defend is that the major problems of theism collapse into the general problems of free will.
Last edited by DanielCC (7/26/2017 5:51 pm)
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Posted by Camoden 7/26/2017 6:08 pm | #6 |
Written, no. I have been looking into various solutions (or people biting the bullet) to this problem for a while. Someone I am acquainted with wrote a work on this a while back. Need to find it.
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Posted by DanielCC 7/26/2017 6:13 pm | #7 |
Written, no. I have been looking into various solutions (or people biting the bullet) to this problem for a while. Someone I am acquainted with wrote a work on this a while back. Need to find it.
Think Leftow has written some essays on this topic, but they're not all accessible through my archive system. William Rowe gives the animadversion against Divine free will as one of his main arguments in favor of atheism.
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Posted by Camoden 7/26/2017 6:16 pm | #8 |
Since it isn't letting me edit, acquainted might be a stretch. He is in a Facebook group with me lol. But that is the most comprehensive treatment of the problem I have seen. Stephen J Duby in his book Divine Simplicity seems to be the most cited treatment of it. From what I have seen though, while it is possible to have some form of perhaps alternative possibility's with regards to freedom, accepting a strong version of the PSR makes it tougher.
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Posted by Camoden 7/26/2017 6:19 pm | #9 |
Written, no. I have been looking into various solutions (or people biting the bullet) to this problem for a while. Someone I am acquainted with wrote a work on this a while back. Need to find it.
Think Leftow has written some essays on this topic, but they're not all accessible through my archive system. William Rowe gives the animadversion against Divine free will as one of his main arguments in favor of atheism.
Yeah, I have seen this. I don't think it is conclusive. Pruss's paper on Divine Creative freedom goes over that, although I don't exactly remember if Pruss assumed anything like Classical Theism. Needless to say, I think if you use a sort of Leibnizian grounding to modality in God, most of the issues dissolve, even if it is implausible. I mean, since you read Leftow you can see how Theism offers so much explanatory power over naturalism on this front, even if it is grounded as an in oppertative active power in God.
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Posted by Camoden 7/26/2017 6:21 pm | #10 |
Sorry if my messages are cryptic, I am not able to edit them for some reason.
