Beyond the Control of God?

Paul Gould

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781623569372
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Philosophie de la religion

The question of God's relationship to abstract objects touches on a number of perennial concerns related to the nature of God. God is typically thought to be an independent and self-sufficient being. Further, God is typically thought to be supremely sovereign such that all reality distinct from God is dependent on God's creative and sustaining activity. However, the view that there are abstract objects seems to be a repudiation of this traditional understanding of God. Abstract objects are typically thought to exist necessarily and it is natural to think that if something exists necessarily, it does so because it is its nature to exist. Thus, abstract objects exist independently of God. Philosophers have called this the problem of God and abstract objects. In this book, six contemporary solutions to the problem are set out and defended against objections. It will be valuable for all students or scholars who are interested in the concept and nature of God.

1

God and Propositions

Keith Yandell

The overall question at hand is how God is related to abstract objects. One answer is that God has no such relation, there being no abstracta to which to relate. This is nominalism and for the sake of the argument, I will simply assume that it is false. One reason for a theist to accept nominalism is that if there are abstract objects of some sort then theism is false.1 I will argue that this is mistaken. The metaphysical waters are deep and turbulent, and I can only argue that one path through them avoids philosophical and theological refutation. At least three views compete for first place. First, some definitions are needed.

Definitions

By “God” I mean “the omnipotent, omniscient creator of everything that exists and can be created.” By “abstract objects” I mean such things (if there are such things) as propositions, states of affairs, universals, properties, numbers, and the like. Each of these things, should there be any of them, cannot not exist, is not in space, is eternal (timeless) or everlasting, and is bereft of causal powers. They are not conscious things, let alone self-aware. God, on the other hand, is self-aware and has causal powers. God is not an abstract object—not even if God cannot not exist.

Three views

At least three views vie for first place. One is propositionalism2—the view that there are propositions and they have intrinsic necessary and mind-independent existence. Another is that instead of propositions there are ideas in the mind of God that have as their propositional content the necessary truths, and since God has necessary existence and necessarily has these thoughts, they are necessarily true—a view we will call theistic ideaism. The third view, theistic activism, maintains that God exists and propositions exist, and the former somehow causes the latter.

There is another distinction that is relevant, that between the view that necessarily, God exists is true—necessitarian theism (NT)—and the view that God exists is true and logically contingent—a view we will call plain theism (PT). Theistic ideaism, as noted, requires that necessitarian theism be true. Propositionalism is neutral regarding these two types of theism. One could consistently hold that there are both God and propositions, and each has necessary existence, and neither in any fashion depends on the other. This view, for whatever reason, seems to receive little discussion, and without prejudice I will ignore it here. Much of the following discussion regarding propositionalism will treat it on its own terms, and then it will be combined with plain theism—a view we will call (again without prejudice to necessitarian theism) theistic propositionalism. So we have these views:

PROPOSITIONALISM (P): there are bearers of truth value (being true or false) that necessarily exist and cannot depend on anything else for existence.

THEISTIC IDEAISM (TI): there are no propositions; what there are instead are the contents of thoughts necessarily had by a necessarily existing God.

THEISTIC ACTIVISM (TA): there are necessarily existing abstract objects that bear truth value and depend for their existence on God.

THEISTIC PROPOSITIONALISM (TP): there are propositions that do not depend on God for their existence nor does God depend for existence on propositions; the proposition God exists is true and logically contingent (though it is necessarily impossible that God depends on something distinct from God for existence).

Logical relations

Note, for clarity’s sake that, so far as modality goes, there are two kinds of theism, as follows:

NECESSITARIAN THEISM (NT): The proposition God exists is necessarily true.

PLAIN THEISM (PT): The proposition God exists is contingently (non-necessarily) true.

Since God exists cannot have both modalities, at least one is false. In parallel, from the same perspective, there are two kinds of atheism:

NECESSITARIAN ATHEISM (NA): The proposition God exists is necessarily false.

PLAIN ATHEISM (PA): The proposition God exists is contingently (nonnecessarily) false.

The logical relations among these views is this:

a)If NT is true, then NA (being the denial of a necessary truth) is necessarily false, and PT and PA (since they both get the modality wrong) are also necessarily false.

b)If NA is true, then NT (being the denial of a necessary truth) is necessarily false, and PT and PA (since they both get the modality wrong) are also necessarily false.

c)If PT is true, then NT and NA (since they both get the modality wrong) are necessarily false, and PA (being the denial of a contingent truth) is contingently false.

d)If PA is true, then NT and NA (since they both get the modality wrong) are necessarily false, and PT (being the denial of a contingent truth) is contingently false.

The task

There is a plethora of writings on whether or not God exists, and on whether or not abstract objects exist. Since the issues vary depending on which sort of abstract object is under discussion, I will choose one type—propositions. Propositions are the bearers of truth value and are asserted by the standard use of declarative sentences. They are not sentences, since the same proposition can be asserted by use of more than one sentence in the same language, and by sentences in more than one language. Propositions, according to propositionalism, are altogether mind-independent. The proposition Unicorns play on the Matterhorn (eternally or everlastingly) exists, though sadly it is false. It was true long before there were people to believe it that seven is greater than five and it is impossible that anything has logically incompatible properties. I will be concerned with an incomplete conditional: “If God exists, and there are propositions, then they are related such that … .” The task will be to correctly fill in the blank. Any way in which this is done will be controversial. My purpose is to sketch a position that, like its competitors, requires considerable discussion and defense, which cannot be provided here. The sketch contrasts with an empiricism that explains necessity away or attempts to make something else primitive to it.

An exegetical answer?

Some will want to decide how to fill in our conditional by appeal to Scripture. There seems to be no direct reference whatever to abstract objects in the Christian Scriptures. But there is Col. 1.16–17: “For by him were all things created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him.” Are we to take Paul to be including abstract objects? It is quite unlikely that Paul had abstruse metaphysics in mind. It can be replied that neither Paul nor his audience knew about quantum phenomena, or electricity, but surely a theist is going to think that God created them, so why not abstract objects? This would be a more impressive objection were propositions concrete objects like quantum phenomena or electricity; but they are not. There is the additional fact that abstracta have no causal powers, and so can do nothing. Abstract objects are not in heaven or earth. Paul’s point seems to be that God is sovereign over “thrones or powers or rulers or authorities” that might pose a threat; abstract objects have no such possible role.

It may be useful here to consider a different passage. According to Matt. 13.31–2 Jesus claimed that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds. Apparently, it is not—the orchid seed is said to be smaller. Was Jesus wrong? That depends on what he was saying. Is he to be understood as teaching a lesson in agriculture, or using information regarding what a local farmer might “sow in his field” to make a point that his auditors would understand (apparently the mustard seed is the smallest seed about which they would know)? I take it that Paul is asserting the ultimate security of believers from destructive powers and Jesus with the significance of even very small faith and its capacity to grow large. The point is: Over-interpretation of either passage seems unnecessary.

Conventional necessity

There are various attempts to show that necessity is not primitive—that it is somehow grounded in something non-necessary. Only a brief review of some attempts is possible. On one account ascriptions of necessity are just the result of, or are just descriptions of, the way our brains work. On another they are just the way our minds work or just descriptions thereof. But as analyses of necessary truths, or accounts of why they are necessarily true, these suggestions are irrelevant. Waiving the fact that often our brains or minds do not work in these ways, the occasions on which they do work in these ways are contingent in two ways. They might not have done so (they often don’t) and, more importantly, there might not have been any brains or minds. Necessity vanishes in the “analysis.” Evolutionary accounts are equally beside the point. Telling even a true story about how we came to think as we do (sometimes) think will not tell us whether the laws of logic are necessary truths. The claim that the laws of logic just are these things tries to explain necessity in contingent terms. The laws of logic, among other things, define the parameters of reasoning that proceeds from true premises to true conclusions. In that regard, we ought to think in that way. The supposed brain, mind, or evolutionary account of how we came to think of laws of logic, or in accord with them, is no analysis of the laws.

Another suggestion is that the deep grammar of our language gives rise to there being necessarily true propositions—propositions of a sort that these rules do not allow to be false. But of course the deep structure of the language we use might have been different (we might have come to use a different language) and there might not have been any “us” to use language at all. The early Edmund Husserl offered this view (which he later rejected): P entails Q if and only if most of those who believe that P also believe that Q. On this view, we would have to wait for an unusual sociological survey to discover whether (I) Every cat is furry and independent entails (F) Every cat is furry. Those who disliked the result could hire a Madison Avenue firm to construct commercials aimed at changing people who accept (I) into rejecters of (F). More fundamentally, the view assumes “Everyone who accepts (I) accepts (F)” is true if and only if “(I) entails (F)” is true, and is false unless there is this logical relationship. But then it assumes a logical relationship—that of mutual entailment (in the old sense)—that has not been analyzed away. Necessity cannot be grounded in, or depend on, non-necessity.

Descartes offered a somewhat more sophisticated view. He located the relevant conventions in heaven, arguing that, since God is omnipotent, God can do anything; God could have made different laws of logic. If (1) Agnes is happy and (2) brooms live in closets then (3) planets are apples, could have been a valid argument—it would be had God so chosen. (If the objection comes to mind that laws of logic are true and rules are neither true nor false, it should be remembered that for every valid rule of inference R, there is the law that R is a valid rule of inference). Descartes offered two arguments. One was an argument from omnipotence, which he defined as the ability to do anything. This assumes that there is such a thing as making a contradiction true. In fact, however, there is no such thing for God to do, or not to be able to do. His other argument was that something is possible only if it is conceivable by us, so since there are lots of things that are true that we cannot conceive...