Classical theism or Theistic personalism?
It’s been a year since I have joined this forum and have yet to actually ask a question let alone answer one. What does everyone think about the debate between classical theism (that God exists outside of time and does not have parts) and theistic personalism (that God is a person and likewise exists in time and has parts). I have always been convinced that classical theism is more logical, God being both immanent in the world and transcendent beyond it. This is largely due to my interest in the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition and Platonism; the God of Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas falls under the heading of classical theism. Edward Feser and David Bentley Hart are some of my favorites but I also enjoy advocates of theistic personalism like Richard Swinburne, who rejects divine timelessness (and I don’t exactly think he’s enjoy the label of a “theistic personalist”), and a little bit from William Lane Craig, who rejects both divine simplicity and divine timelessness. What do you all think? I have a hard time understanding what theistic personalism is so if someone knows better than I on this please chime in.
Comments (52)
If you like Edward Feser he has a blog post about this: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/04/craig-on-divine-simplicity-and-theistic.html?m=1
As I remember, a criticism Hart makes of the theistic personalist view is essentially that on those terms God’s existence relies on some undefined absolute, which would on examination be the God of classical theism.
Ergo,
Incomprehensibilis
The comprehension paradox.
Both the simple(st) and the (most) complex are beyond comprehension. Understanding, like most things I suppose, can only occur in media res.
It's easy to get lost in intricate philosophical theology and miss the feel of the problem.
On the one hand:
If God is all powerful, all knowing, all good, unchanging and timeless, then how can we have a relationship with Him or He with us?
On the other hand:
If God is a person as we understand persons to be and if God is able to give and take in relationship with us, then how can He be also a supreme and eternal being?
Yes, we know your opinion on this. You don't belong in this discussion. It's not about the existence of God. Go back in your cage and don't disrupt people who are trying to work on this.
Come on Tim. Go play cards with 180 Proof in his cage. Leave these nice people alone.
Well, I have no authority to invite you out. But it's simple courtesy to address the question on the terms the original poster sets.
For what it's worth, I think the general problem can have a humanist interpretation as well. One kind of parent will be perfect, all-knowing, all-controlling, endlessly patient - but somehow not quite approachable. Another kind will be engaged and engaging, frazzled and caring, but perhaps lacking in consistency. For anyone who thinks that 'God' may be some kind of psychological projection of our human needs (at best) then this might give an idea of the feeling of the problem (if it is a problem).
I suspect that the OP was by someone writing an essay in theology and a one-line essay 'There is no God' might not yield the A or B they were hoping for on the particular set topic....
Thanks for setting the context. I wasn't aware of the terminology from the OP.
One way to approach the question is to perhaps enquire what God and human beings have in common (suspending disbelief, obviously, for the purposes of the thread).
- will
- a body? Can space, or the universe, be a body? Is that compatible with transcendence?
- sentience
- thought, as we understand it? What about functional aspects of though that are substrate dependent?
Can we have finite and infinite versions of these things?
:up:
More logical in what sense? Classical theism has at its core an apparent contradiction or conceptual muddle, between God's transcendence, and God's causal role in creating the world and periodically interacting/intervening within it. What does it mean, for instance, to claim that an entity is timeless and atemporal but nevertheless stands in various causal (and therefore temporal) relations with the world? How does a transcendent entity interact with the world they supposedly transcend? And what to make of traditional, apparently nonsensical, attributes of God like necessary existence or omnipotence?
So at least in terms of logic, it seems theistic personalism has one up on classical theism, and I think the primary arguments for classical theism are theological rather than logical.
The idea is that he’s transcendent and immanent, as in beyond any instance of a particular thing, while being that which gives everything its being; in that sense he’s always interacting with everything.
Necessity isn’t nonsensical; it just means can’t not exist. Omnipotence understood as every power that exists - like the power heat has to boil water - coming from God also seems reasonable.
Right, and this leads to the sorts of issues I mentioned.
Quoting AJJ
I know what it means, the problem is that it doesn't hold up under scrutiny, as Kant and Hume and many others have shown: a conditioned necessary existence makes perfect sense- e.g. given a triangle, three angles exist necessarily- but an absolute/unconditioned necessary existence is non-sense.
So again, on purely logical grounds, its hard to say that classical theism is on firmer ground than theistic personalism; the motivations for many of these aspects of classical theism are theological, not logical.
The Christian story and other accounts of gods becoming human draw some of their relevance from this. It’s fair to think that God would be impersonal and incomplete if not for experiencing creation from a human perspective.
You didn’t mention any other issues.
Necessity is something you can assert about things. To say something is necessary is just to say it can’t not exist; you might be wrong in making that assertion, but it isn’t nonsense.
Yep, I sure did.
Quoting AJJ
Sure it is. Necessary existence is, by definition, conditioned; given something, something else exists necessarily. Talk of unconditioned or absolute necessary existence is meaningless- you may as well talk about the deductive validity of the color purple.
Quoting Dermot Griffin
I am not sure about logic and god and personally think there is more in father Richard Rohr's understanding of the tradition of contemplative prayer and mysticism. I generally find I resist discussions that try to shoehorn ideas of God into laws of physics and human relationships. If God is transcendent then surely he transcends all that?
You didn’t mention any other issues, just the one about interaction.
“It is in the nature of a triangle to have 3 sides. Given that a triangle exists, it necessarily has 3 sides.”
“It is in the nature of God to exist. Given that he exists, he exists necessarily.”
Also the one about temporality. So you ignored one, and hand-waved away the other.
Better luck next time, I guess?
Quoting AJJ
Lol, exactly. Of course, given some X, it always follows that, necessarily, X exists; nothing peculiar to God there. What is attributed to God, of course, is an absolute and unconditioned necessity. Which is, as I noted, and as countless philosophers going back to Hume have pointed out, simply meaningless- a misuse of terminology. If you want to more substantively contribute on this point, you might want to familiarize yourself with what they had to say on the matter (happy to provide references, if you're genuinely interested).
You mentioned temporality in respect to interaction. It wasn’t hand-waving; the concepts are clear.
Necessary means can’t not exist. It doesn’t follow from something existing that it’s necessary.
Common mistake: it's 'in medias res'.
Please actually, if you’re willing.
Right, the point was that the general conceptual tension manifests in various ways. Transcendence/interaction was one. Temporality and causality another.
Quoting AJJ
It most certainly was.
I know what it means (and strictly speaking, "necessary" means necessarily true, not necessarily existant). And yes, that's how deduction works: if something is given- for instance, the existence of some X- then, it follows necessarily that that thing exists. Which is the correct and meaningful way we can talk about necessary existence; i.e. based on the condition of something... as opposed to the nonsensical talk of an absolute and unconditioned necessity, i.e. as of God's existence.
Quoting AJJ
for Hume, see part 9 of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
for Kant, see chapter III section IV of the Critique of Pure Reason
There's also an abundant literature on this topic within the philosophy of religion. The consensus appears to be, as I've stated here, that the theological notion of God's necessary existence is a category error, a mis-use/understanding of the relevant terms, and not something that is logically sustainable.
Its also worth noting, wrt this point, that all theistic arguments that make use of this purported necessary existence ("ontological arguments") are, without exception, invalid or question-begging... it appears even apologists agree that this is an empty concept, as any other necessary truth can be demonstrated in virtue of its negation entailing a contradiction, not merely assumed/stipulated rather than shown (as must be done with God's "necessary existence").
Temporality and causality... interaction.
Transcendence: you can’t find God as an object in the world.
Immanence: he’s that which gives everything its being.
The concepts are clear.
Necessary means can’t not exist. If an object such as a pen exists you can make it so it no longer exists, i.e. it isn’t necessary.
He explicitly says above that necessity is a logical possibility; his problem is that it can’t be found in experience (and so can’t really be known), but then, as he also says, neither can contingency.
:ok: In medias res it is!
Is there any similarity between the fallacious conceptualization you describe in the above quote and the problem that Georg Cantor ( considered the founder of modern set theory) discovered within his unrestricted comprehension principle?
To be clear, I'm asking if the lack of restriction in both instances links them together as similar fallacies.
Hume has this to say:
Both Kant and Hume are in agreement with what I’ve said: necessity can be asserted about things; the assertion may not be right, but there isn’t a logical problem with making it.
Still just hand-waving. If the concepts are clear, then answer the questions I posed.
Quoting AJJ
You keep repeating this, as if this is what is in dispute here. Are you even reading the posts you're attempting to respond to, or are you just being lazy? We know what the word "necessary" means, that's not the problem.
They are most explicitly not in agreement with what you're saying: they both explicitly repudiate the concept of necessary existence, which you mistakenly claim is perfectly fine.
And no one said there was a "logical problem" (as in a contradiction, or a fallacious inference) with it; what I, and virtually every philosopher (as opposed to apologists/theologians) to consider the matter going back to Hume, have said is that its a terminological or conceptual error: unconditioned necessary existence, without respect to some condition/antecedent, is an abuse/mis-use of logical terminology and is not a meaningful concept that can be correctly attributed to any entity or object, and God's existence is not a necessary truth.
I suppose it would be like saying something "follows", but doesn't follow from anything, or that something could be "to the left of" without being to the left of anything: you're simply misusing terms, such that they've ceased to be meaningful or intelligible.
They don’t repudiate the concept. Read the quotes I provided.
Oh dear. Yes, both of them explicitly repudiated the concept. Hume could hardly have been more specific::
[quote= "Hume, DCNR Part 9"] The words, therefore, "necessary existence", have no meaning, or, which is the same thing, none that is consistent.[/quote]
(italics mine for emphasis)
I mean honestly, how did you miss this? Did you not even bother reading the cited sections? Or is it that you see no problem in asserting that people said the literal exact opposite of what they actually said?
Either way, its clear you're either unwilling or unable to have a serious conversation on this topic, so I'll spare myself further wasted time by ending this conversation here.
He’s rejecting its demonstrability. The concept remains intact, since he applies it in principle to the universe.
Plus, in the other quote Kant acknowledges the conception to be a logical possibility.
Like I said, not serious. Go waste someone elses time.
It’s rhetoric, or else he wouldn’t bother applying it in principle to the universe.
The laughing emoticon represents a forfeit. GG.
Now seriously, go troll someone else; you've wasted enough of my time already.
It represents a forfeit.
Your response is logical & clear. I think I understand you. Here goes: You're saying that a necessary being must have an antecedent condition in virtue of which it necessarily follows.
In my question, I'm not concerned with the fact that Cantor's set logic, without a limiting condition applied to its comprehension principle, leads to a paradox.
I'm not trying to ascribe any degree of the paradoxical to your statement about an antecedent condition being required for a necessary being.
Instead, I'm looking at the two instances from a broadly inclusive, wide-angle point of view.
I'm asking if they're similar in that they have something in common: limiting condition required.
The God of theistic personalism is the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham and Moses.
The God of Classical theism is the Neoplatonic God, Plotinus' God, at least a variant of it.
There is definitely tension between these two models of God.
There is also a Neo-Classical God that approaches Theistic Personalism. Ryan Mullins makes a good case for this.
Could you possibly tell me more about this “Neo-Classical God?” First time I’ve ever heard of it.
Here is an excellent essay where the neoclassical approach is also discussed in a nutshell.
You can read it online without having to log in:
https://www.academia.edu/20717983/The_Difficulty_with_Demarcating_Panentheism