Craig on divine simplicity and theistic personalism

A number of readers have called my attention to a recent podcast during which William Lane Craig is asked for his opinion about theistic personalism, the doctrine of divine simplicity, and what writers like David Bentley Hart and me have said about these topics.  (You can find the podcast at Craig’s website, and also at YouTube.)  What follows are some comments on the podcast.  Let me preface these remarks by saying that I hate to disagree with Craig, for whom I have the greatest respect.  It should also be kept in mind, in fairness to Craig, that his remarks were made in an informal conversational context, and thus cannot reasonably be expected to have the precision that a more formal, written treatment would exhibit.

Having said that…

I was surprised at how many basic mistakes Craig made in his characterization of the views of his opponents, and at how little argumentation (as opposed to mere assertion) was offered in response to those views.  Let’s walk through the various issues Craig addresses and dissect his comments.  (A side note on the most minor mistake:  The man interviewing Craig mispronounces my name.  The correct pronunciation is “fay-zer,” like the word “phaser” in Star Trek.) 

What is theistic personalism?

Craig and his interviewer give the impression that “theistic personalism” is a label that Thomists apply to non-Thomist theists in general; that David Bentley Hart -- who, like me, is critical of theistic personalism -- is, accordingly, a Thomist; that what “theistic personalism” amounts to is just the traditional Christian understanding of God; and that rejecting theistic personalism entails regarding God as impersonal.  None of these things is true. 

For one thing, Hart is most definitely not a Thomist.  Indeed, as readers of my various exchanges with Hart over the years know well, Hart is very critical of Thomists.  That alone suffices to show that, contrary to the impression Craig gives, the dispute between theistic personalists and their critics is simply not the same dispute as that between Thomists and non-Thomists.

For another thing, “theistic personalism” is a label which (as far as I can tell) was introduced by Brian Davies in his book An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and he contrasts theistic personalists, not merely with Thomists specifically, but with classical theists in general.  Now, as Davies explicitly says, the classical theist tradition includes thinkers as diverse as Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna, Leibniz, the Protestant Reformers, Jonathan Edwards, and many others.  And the aspect of classical theism that Davies emphasizes throughout the book is its commitment to the doctrine of divine simplicity, together with such implications of that doctrine as the theses that God is immutable, that he is timeless, that he is not a particular instance of some general kind of thing, and so forth.

What makes someone a “theistic personalist” as opposed to a classical theist, then (as I read Davies), is essentially that he either explicitly denies the doctrine of divine simplicity, or that he at least implicitly denies it by virtue of denying God’s immutability, or claiming that God is an instance of a kind, etc.  Classical theist critics of theistic personalism thus include not only Thomists, but also Augustinians, Scotists, and Suarezians, not to mention traditional Eastern Orthodox and Protestant theologians, as well as traditional Jewish theologians, Muslim theologians, and purely philosophical theists.

Davies also explicitly says that what he is calling “theistic personalism” is the same thing as what Norman Geisler calls “neo-theism.”  Now, what Geisler attacks as “neo-theist” are views which characterize God as composite rather than simple, changeable rather than immutable, temporal rather than atemporal, and so forth -- views such as “open theism,” process theology, Plantinga’s attack on divine simplicity, etc.  What he’s attacking, then, are not “non-Thomists” as such.  Geisler also emphasizes that the classical theism he defends is the traditional Christian conception of God, and the conception that Christian theologians have traditionally seen as implicit in the Bible.  Geisler thus condemns “neo-theism” not only on philosophical grounds, but also precisely as a departure from Christian tradition and a departure from scripture.  (Davies does the same.)

Now, as Craig notes in the podcast, he was a student of Geisler’s.  He really ought to know, then, that it is extremely misleading to represent the dispute between theistic personalists and their critics as if it were merely a dispute between Thomists and non-Thomists, or between traditional Christian theists on the one hand and philosophical corrupters of scriptural teaching on the other.

It is also simply false to imply, as Craig does, that Thomists and other critics of theistic personalism regard God as “impersonal.”  When classical theists like Davies say that God is not “a person,” they do NOT mean that God is impersonal, an “it” rather than a “he.”  On the contrary, most classical theists, including all Thomists, would say that among the divine attributes are intellect, will, omniscience, freedom, and love.  Naturally then, they regard God as personal rather than impersonal, since nothing impersonal could intelligibly be said to possess these attributes.  As I have said many times, the problem with the thesis that “God is a person” is not the word “person,” but rather the word “a.”  And as Davies (and I) have argued many times, there are two key problems with it, a philosophical problem, and a distinctively Christian theological problem. 

The philosophical problem is that this language implies that God is a particular instance of the general kind “person,” and anything that is an instance of any kind is composite rather than simple, and thus requires a cause.  Thus, nothing that is an instance of a kind could be God, who is of course essentially uncaused.  (Obviously these claims need spelling out and defense, but of course I and other Thomists have spelled them out and defended them in detail many times.)  The distinctively Christian theological problem is that God is Trinitarian -- three divine Persons in one substance -- and thus cannot be characterized as “a person” on pain of heresy.  (As Davies has pointed out, it seems that the first time the English language formula “God is a person” appears in the history of Christian theology is in the 1644 heresy trial, in Gloucester, England, of someone named John Biddle -- where the formula was condemned as implying Unitarianism.) 

So, the reason Davies labels the rejection of classical theism “theistic personalism” is not that he thinks God is impersonal.  The reason is rather that he takes theistic personalists to start with the idea that God is a particular instance of the general kind “person” and to go from there.  And this, he thinks, is what leads them to draw conclusions incompatible with classical theism, such as that God is (like the persons we’re familiar with in everyday experience) changeable, temporal, made up of parts, etc.  To reject theistic personalism, then, is not a matter of regarding God as impersonal, but rather a matter of rejecting the idea that God is a particular instance of the kind “person,” or of any other kind for that matter.  (For example, though classical theists certainly regard God as the uncaused cause of the world, they do not think that this is correctly to be understood as the claim that God is a particular instance of the general kind “cause.”) 

Now, I have found over the years that even though I have repeated these points many, many times, some critics of classical theism still constantly mischaracterize the dispute between classical theism and theistic personalism as a dispute over whether God is personal or impersonal.  It is regrettable that Craig, who is a serious scholar and an intellectually honest one, would perpetuate this misunderstanding.  I don’t believe for a moment that Craig is intentionally mischaracterizing the classical theist position.  I hope these remarks will clear the air on that issue once and for all, at least for Prof. Craig and his readers.

Divine simplicity

In characterizing the doctrine of divine simplicity, Craig gives the impression that the doctrine involves, among other things, the claims that we can only make negative predications of God, that we can make only analogical predictions of God rather than univocal ones, that analogical predications are non-literal, and that we not only have to be agnostic about God’s nature but that God has no essence.  None of this is correct.

First, while some adherents of the doctrine of divine simplicity (such as Maimonides) are committed to a purely negative theology, most are not.  Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, et al. certainly agree that we can make positive as well as negative affirmations about the divine nature.

Second, while Thomists hold that all language about God has to be understood in an analogical rather than univocal way, not all classical theists or adherents of the doctrine of divine simplicity would say that.  For example, Scotists both affirm divine simplicity and hold that theological language is univocal.  Of course, we Thomists regard this Scotist position as unstable, but the point is that it is (contrary to the impression given by Craig) simply not the case that the debate over divine simplicity is as such a debate over whether theological language ought to be understood in an analogical rather than univocal way.

Third, when Thomists say that theological language ought to be understood analogically, they do NOT mean that it ought to be understood non-literally.  To suppose otherwise is to confuse analogical language with metaphorical language.  And not all analogical language is metaphorical.  For example, according to the Thomist view about analogical language, when I say that the enchilada I had for dinner last night was good, that William Lane Craig writes good books, and that William Lane Craig is a good man, I am not using the word “good” in the same, univocal sense.  Rather, I am saying that there is something in the food which is analogous to the goodness of the books, something in the books which is analogous to the goodness of a man, and so forth, even if it is not exactly the same thing in each case.  But I am not speaking non-literally or metaphorically in any of these cases either.   Similarly, when Thomists say that there is in God something that is analogous to what we call “goodness” in us, something analogous to what we call “power” in us, etc., they are not saying that God is good, powerful, etc. in only a non-literal or metaphorical sense.  (The idea that Thomists regard talk about God as “just a metaphor” is another unfortunately very common and very annoying misunderstanding.)

Fourth, neither the doctrine of divine simplicity nor the Thomist understanding of it entails that God has no essence.  On the contrary, Thomists hold that God’s essence just is pure actuality or subsistent being itself.  The claim is rather that, unlike everything else that exists, God does not have an essence distinct from his existence.  (The reason is that, if he did have an essence distinct from his existence, then he would be composed of metaphysical parts and thus require a cause, i.e. something independent of him which accounts for how those metaphysical parts are combined so as to compose the whole.) 

Fifth, if the Thomist were saying that God has no essence, then it would follow that we would have to be “agnostic” about God, would have to regard him as entirely “incomprehensible,” etc. (as Craig says the Thomist view implies).  For you can hardly understand something that has no essence or nature to be understood.  But again, that is not what the Thomist says.  To be sure, Thomists do say that God is “incomprehensible” in the sense that our minds -- accustomed as they are to understanding things by analyzing them or breaking them down into their constituent parts -- have great difficulty grasping the nature of that which is utterly simple or non-composite.  But the incomprehensibility here derives, not from any unintelligibility in God (as it would if God had no essence), but rather from the limitations on our finite intellects. 

Then there is Craig’s claim that there is just “no reason to accept” the idea that God is subsistent being itself rather than a being.  This simply ignores, without answering, the traditional Thomist arguments to the effect that if God is other than subsistent being itself, then it would follow that there is a distinction between God’s essence and his existence, in which case he would be composite and thus require a cause of his own -- in which case he would not be God.  (Neo-Platonists, Aristotelians, and other classical theists would give other, related arguments for similar conclusions.)  The doctrine of divine simplicity, its defenders claim, far from being some odd and unmotivated fifth wheel that philosophers have for no good reason tacked on to the Christian idea of God, in fact follows necessarily from an analysis of the claim that God is the uncaused cause or ultimate explanation of everything other than himself.  It is, they maintain, a logical concomitant of theism, and its denial is thus tantamount to atheism.  Craig no doubt disagrees with this, but he does not even engage the key arguments, much less refute them.

Miscellaneous issues

Craig also makes a number of further claims which are very strange.  For example, he says that whereas the Bible describes God as holy, loving, a creator who knows us and causes us, etc., “all these things are denied by Thomism.”  This is simply a bizarre claim.  I know of no Thomist who would deny any of these things.  Indeed, every Thomist I know of would staunchly affirm each of these attributes.  Perhaps what Craig means is that whatever the intentions of Thomists themselves, Thomism implies a denial of these attributes.  But if that is what is meant, then it is a mere undefended, question-begging assertion. 

Craig also gives the impression that Thomists accuse non-Thomists in general of denying the doctrine of divine conservation.  Furthermore, though Craig himself does not deny that Thomists believe in miracles, some listeners might get that impression from what he and his interviewer say about the issue of divine “intervention.”  These are also serious misunderstandings.  For one thing, neither I nor any other Thomist or classical theist that I know of has ever denied that many non-Thomists, and indeed even many theistic personalists, affirm the doctrine of divine conservation.  For another, no Thomist that I know of denies that God causes miracles to occur.  As I have said many times (e.g. here), the question about whether God “intervenes” is rather a question about whether a miracle ought to be understood on the model of the action of a machinist who tinkers with the operation of a machine that is otherwise running along on its own.  (The problem here is in part that the question to which Craig was responding was badly formulated, with the questioner sloppily running together issues that need to be carefully disentangled.)

Finally, Craig suggests -- in commenting on a reader’s questions about Herbert McCabe’s formulation of the Thomist conception of God -- that an empty spirituality, along with a rejection of miracles, of divine providence, and of traditional Christian morality, is inevitable if one accepts McCabe’s position.  He also suggests that there are “non-intellectual” and “emotional” factors lurking behind the reader’s question.  It is hard to know what to say in response to the first claim other than to point out that it is mostly just an undefended and sweeping assertion (and, where an argument is implied, also presupposes a caricature of McCabe’s position).  It is hard to know what to say in response to the second claim other than to point out that it seems an ad hominem piece of long-distance psychoanalysis. 

But again, since this is an informal and conversational context, I think we ought to cut Craig some slack.  It is also only fair to note that Craig directs his listeners to his book (co-written with J. P. Moreland) Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, wherein his criticisms of divine simplicity are developed in a more systematic way.  In the same spirit, I direct my own readers to my forthcoming book Five Proofs of the Existence of God, which (among other things) includes a detailed and systematic defense of divine simplicity against Plantinga, Craig, et al.  (More on that in due time.  In the meantime, I also direct your attention to an earlier post on Craig and divine simplicity, and other posts on the dispute between classical theism and theistic personalism.)