Saturday, August 24, 2019

Scotus on divine simplicity and creation


In my exchange with Ryan Mullins on the doctrine of divine simplicity, I noted that one of the problems with his critique of the doctrine is that he pays insufficient attention to the history of the debate about it.  Hence he overlooks what should be obvious possible responses to his criticisms, such as Aquinas’s appeal to the distinction between real relations and logical relations.  He also makes sweeping attributions of certain views to all defenders of divine simplicity, overlooking crucial differences between proponents of the doctrine.  Other critics of divine simplicity also often make these mistakes.  A consideration of the views of John Duns Scotus further illustrates the range of issues with which any serious general critique of divine simplicity must deal.

Scotus, like other classical theists, affirms divine simplicity.  But he famously differs with Aquinas and other fellow classical theists over some important matters of background metaphysics.  Let’s consider some views of Scotus that are relevant to the debate over divine simplicity.  Some of these involve disagreement with other proponents of the doctrine, though some of them are merely important contributions of Scotus’s own with which other proponents could agree.

Scotus does not agree with the Thomist position that theological language is analogical.  He takes such language to be univocal.  Hence when we speak of God’s goodness or wisdom, say, we are using “goodness” and “wisdom” in the same sense as when we speak of human goodness or wisdom.  Now, as applied to human beings, “goodness” and “wisdom” are to be defined differently, and so they are also to be defined differently when applied to God.  But that entails, for Scotus, that there is a formal distinction between God’s goodness and God’s wisdom.

A Scotistic formal distinction is not the same as a real distinction, but neither is it the same as a merely conceptual distinction.  It’s supposed to be a kind of middle ground between them.  There is, for Scotus, no real distinction between God’s goodness and wisdom insofar as they are not separable.  The one could not exist without the other.  However, the distinction between them is not merely a distinction in thought.  There is something in extra-mental reality that makes wisdom and goodness different.  The Scotist way of putting this is that there is a difference in formalities between wisdom and goodness – and thus, again, a formal distinction between them.  So, for the Scotist, while there is no real distinction between the divine attributes, it is not correct to say that they are identical full stop.  Not only is the concept of wisdom different from the concept of goodness, but wisdom and goodness themselves are not formally identical.

Where the analysis of action is concerned, Scotus distinguishes between an act of will, the object of the act, and the effect of the act.  In created agents, there can be a plurality of each of these.  I exhibit multiple acts of will over time, each with its distinct object and each with its distinct effects.  For example, the other day I willed to have a steak for dinner, the outcome of the act being a feeling of fullness in the stomach.  Today I willed to type this blog post, the outcome of which was the appearance of certain words on my computer screen.  And so forth.  In God, who is outside time, there can in Scotus’s view be only one act of will, but there can still be a multiplicity of objects and effects of that one act.

The will’s being free, in Scotus’s view, entails several key features.  First, the will is of itself neutral or indifferent toward the outcomes it might produce.  Second, even when the will chooses some action A, it retains at the moment of choice the ability to choose non-A (even if it can’t actually choose both at the same time).  Third, there is no further explanation to be sought for the will’s choice of A other than that the will chose it.  The point of these features is to emphasize the will’s radical indeterminacy with respect to its objects.

Now, Scotus holds that natural reason can demonstrate that contingent things must have a First Cause and that this First Cause is simple or non-composite and exists of necessity.  But he also argues that the creative act of this necessarily existing First Cause cannot itself have been necessary, or its effects would have been necessary too rather than contingent.  Hence creation must have been the result of a free act.  The demonstration of a First Cause, in other words, gets us precisely to something that is both necessary (in its existence) and free (in its activity).

But why does the First Cause will as it does, given that it could have willed otherwise?  Given Scotus’s analysis of the will’s freedom, this is a bad question, like asking of a certain stone why it is a stone.  Given that a thing is in fact a stone, there’s nothing more to be said about why it is.  That’s just its nature, and it couldn’t be any other way and still be a stone.  Similarly, for Scotus, given that a certain choice was free, there’s nothing more to be said about why it occurred.  It occurred because it was free, and it couldn’t have been any other way and still be free.  Again, for Scotus, looking for some explanation of the will’s free choice that is deeper than its being free is a category mistake.  Once you’ve identified it as free, you’ve given it all the explanation you could have or could need.

All the same, it is possible in Scotus’s view for a thing to be necessarily willed and freely willed at the same time.  In particular, he holds that though God does not necessarily will to create the world, God does necessarily will himself.  But even here he wills freely.  In a famous illustration, Scotus asks us to consider a man who has voluntarily flung himself off a precipice, and who, as he falls to his doom, continues to will his fall.  He both falls of necessity insofar as gravity ensures that he will not stop until he hits bottom, and also freely wills his falling.  In a similar way, God both cannot not will himself, but also freely wills himself.

So, how might a Scotist respond to Mullins and other critics of divine simplicity who take the doctrine to be incompatible with divine freedom?  As we’ve seen, Mullins is critical of the Thomistic account of the analogical use of theological terms, and insists that key terms must be understood univocally.  But Scotists don’t accept the doctrine of analogy either, yet they nevertheless insist on divine simplicity.  So they could happily accept Mullins’ criticisms of analogy while taking them to be irrelevant to the larger issue.

Scotists would also no doubt object that certain steps in Mullins’ main argument are expressed in too sloppy a manner.  For example, in steps (8) – (11) of his argument, Mullins speaks of God’s actions being “identical” to one another and to God’s existence.  But the Scotist will ask whether what is meant here is real identity or formal identity.  Mullins’ argument also assumes that necessity and free choice are incompatible, but Scotus’s example of the man flinging himself off the precipice indicates that that assumption needs to be made more precise.

Perhaps the heart of Mullins’ argument could be salvaged by tightening it up to get around these particular objections, but others will be harder to deal with.  For example, step (10) of Mullins’ argument states that “God’s act to give grace is identical to God’s one divine act.”  But the Scotist could object that this conflates the object and/or effect of the divine act with the act itself.  “God’s act to give grace” is identical to God’s one divine act qua act, but not identical to it qua act to give grace, specifically.  Other steps of the argument, such as step (4), also seem to conflate divine acts with their objects and effects.  Naturally, without these steps, Mullins’ critique collapses.

Again, Scotus claims to have demonstrated that a First Cause must be at the same time simple, necessary, and free, and that given the radical indeterminacy of the will, it is metaphysically impossible for the First Cause’s effects – such as creation and the giving of grace – to have been necessary.  Hence any argument that supposes that divine simplicity and divine necessity entail that God’s choices are themselves necessary begs the question against Scotus.  The Scotist could insist that we have independent reason to judge that such a claim must be wrong, so that any interpretation of simplicity, necessity, and will that would entail that God could not have refrained from creating the world, giving grace, etc. must be mistaken.

Into the bargain, Scotus also agrees with Aquinas’s point that the world’s relation to God is a real relation, but God’s relation to the world is merely a logical relation (where this distinction corresponds to what in my initial reply to Mullins I referred to as the distinction between real properties and Cambridge properties).

As this last remark indicates, there are aspects of Scotus’s position that Thomists and other classical theists could happily agree with, though there are other aspects that the Thomist would reject.  For example, Thomists would reject Scotus’s view that theological language is univocal, his notion of a formal distinction, and his voluntarist account of the will.  But Mullins and other critics of the doctrine of divine simplicity claim to have refuted the doctrine full stop, not merely the Thomist’s way of spelling out the doctrine.  So in order to make their case, they would not only have to reply to what Thomists have said – which, as I have already noted, they often fail to do – but also to what Scotus and other non-Thomists have said.

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28 comments:

  1. Is there any repercussions from having a mixed view of the Scotist-Thomist view?

    Initially, id say I'm happy with the Thomistic position on analytical use of language but I'm also pretty partial towards Scotist's formal distinctions. But doesn't the formal distinction depend on a univocal view of language?

    Can you have both an analogical view of language and formal distinctions?

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    1. I do not see why there would be a problem employing the term from as semantical perspective. Thomists do speak of real and separable distinctions and real and inseparable distinctions. I personally like the term formal distinction because it is less wordy and can prevent confusion. But a Thomist would not say that God’s attributes are formally distinct. He would say that they are merely conceptually distinct. And that is where the analogical rubber hits the road.

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    2. Standard disclaimer that I'm far from an expert.

      Univocity, analogy and equivocity are concepts common to all scholastics. The dispute around univocity specifically relates to God and creatures: whether there are things we can predicate of God truly in the same, not, similar meaning as we can anything else. Scotus perceived that if we couldn't even apply the principle of non-contradiction, say, to God, then He would truly be incomprehensible, but Aquinas and subsequent Thomists insisted that to suppose we could speak of God and creation in the same terms reduces God to a creature. There's obviously a lot more to say about the subject, though.

      The problem, as far as I know, isn't unrelated to, but equally not inextricable from the formal distinction. From my limited understanding, the formal distinction-- and later Thomists' rejection of it-- hinges more on the problem of universals and cognition. The problem relates to how something could be extra-mental (as the formal distinction need be to distinguish it from a logical distinction) while not rising to the level of a real distinction, and this question has a lot to do with how one looks at cognition, individuation and the problem of universals more broadly.

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    3. all Scholastics use these terms, but there was a dizzying array of differing usages. The franciscans, for example, normally classify analogy as a subclass of equivocity, an "equivocal by design" following Boethius. Also, Scotus' actual position is not that it is an either or situation between analogy and univocity, but a both and. Though it is not well explained, the position of Scotus and the entire scotist school (exception of Mayronis) into the 18th century is that the same concept is analogical and univocal, ie the same concept admits of both.

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    4. Gjon, is that your actual name? If so, would you happen to be Albanian? Which parish do you attend?

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  2. Sorry that's not 'analytical' but 'analogical'.

    Doh.

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  3. It is ironic that many Evangelical Protestant types are big fans of Luis de Molina (although I cannot speak for Mullins). Being a Scholastic theologian (and a Catholic), I would assume Molina believed in Divine Simplicity. I wonder how Evangelicals who accept Molina’s views on grace but reject his views on divine simplicity respond.

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    1. Scott,
      Many evangelicals accept divine simplicity. Mullins concedes that divine simplicity was the norm before 1800. It is found in the systematic theologies of Turretin and other Reformed theologians; it is found in the systematic theologies of Wesleyans including the 20th century theologian, Orton Wiley; it is found in Hooker and other Anglican theological works; I assume that Melanchthon in the Lutheran tradition accepted divine simplicity. It is found in Article 1 of the Thirty-Nine Articles as revised by John Wesley for the American churches. There is nothing in Evangelicalism that demands rejecting divine simplicity.

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  4. Regarding the logical/real relation between God and creation Mullins rejects it, he gives his reasons in this interview on the subject of God's temporality :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-vlwdWNcDQ

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  5. Dr. Feser,
    I wish you would discuss Duns Scotus' Onto-theological argument for God's existence.

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  6. Can a Scotist affirm every one of the five ways for example? The way I see it the differences are in the conclusion, when describing the necessary being "everyone calls God". But I feel like the premises need to be modified to a certain extent when differences arise in the conclusion.

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    1. I really don't know what you mean by "affirm the five ways". Affirm the conclusions arrived by them that God is immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, absolutely simple, etc? Of course, the Scotistic conception of God is not radically different from the Thomistic view and not notably divergent from the broader scholastic tradition in that regard.

      Affirm that the arguments are valid? I don't see why not, but a Scotist would have reservations about accepting them to the letter, because they are naturally produced in the Thomistic framework, which is not fully commensurable with the Scotistic one (Aquinas' divergent views on actuality-potentiality being just one case).

      In any case Scotus developed his own (voluminous, meticulously thorough and not particularly perspicuous as one might expect) argument for the existence of God which proves as much as the Five Ways among other things.

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    2. At the very least, Scotus rejects the premise from the first way, 'everything that is moved is moved by another'. See his QQ super Met. IX q. 15.

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    3. Thank you both for your answers.

      Gjon,
      your second paragraph came very close to my actual issue. Is there a way for a Scotist to say that one or more of the five ways are sound, e.g. through reformulating some premises to fit better the own framework? Can a Thomist say that Scotus´ proof is sound? Do the frameworks prevent each other from affirming soundness of the proofs from the other school or can they be made compatible?

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    4. Lee,

      without being too knowledgable about where exactly Scotus differs on that issue, I find it very strange that you say that he rejects "everything that is moved is moved by another" and yet the first premise in the link provided by Gjon states that "No effect can produce itself". That sounds contradictory.

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    5. the claim 'everything that is moved is moved by another' as so formulated would include the will as well, which Scotus denies. it is also a principle established about physical motion and part of a physical proof for the existence of God, which was largely abandoned in the late thirteenth century. You can find a note on it in Scotus' early Lectura proof for God's existence, as a note at the end, and he doesn't mention it at all in his revised proof in the Ordinatio and Parisian reportatio.

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    6. It's necessary to distinguish valid/sound on one hand and compatible with one's own philosophical system on the other. Certainly one can appreciate an argument even if you don't agree with the premises or maybe just don't find it compelling and/or satisfying (the ontological argument never fails to elicit visceral reactions). It might (or might not) be possible to modify or harmonise one to mesh with your framework, but whether such a thing ought to be attempted is a different question.

      In the case of the five ways and Scotus' metaphysical argument for the existence of God, I'm not sure what impetus there would be. It's not a major bone of contention (in and of itself) between the schools, and neither sees any great want to address. For the Scotist, the latter proof follows from more fundamental premises and demonstrates as much as each of the five ways in one comprehensive argument, and so the former is not missed. On the Thomistic side, the five ways are widely considered Aquinas' crowning achievement, and many would balk at a proof that a novice couldn't follow with light groundwork, especially considering the prominent role Thomism and the five proofs in particular play in apologetics.

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    7. Lee,

      I see. This is the objection often brought up, that it seems to lead to a type of compatibilism, instead of libertarian free will. I don´t know if this is true. Ed certainly disagrees.
      Thanks a lot.

      Gjon, thank you for the insight.

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  7. Hi Ed,

    I just came across a paper by Mark K. Spencer titled, "The Flexibility of Divine Simplicity: Aquinas, Scotus, Palamas" at https://www.academia.edu/26922293/The_Flexibility_of_Divine_Simplicity_Aquinas_Scotus_Palamas_International_Philosophical_Quarterly_57_2_July_2017_123-139

    It puts forward what I feel is a very sensible compromise proposal and its tone is irenic. I'd be interested to know what you thought of it. Cheers.

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    1. Vincent,
      Thanks for pointing me to this remarkable paper. I am not certain whether this paper works, but if it does it is a huge contribution to dialogue between the East and the West. If crucial insights between Aquinas and Palamas can be synthesized, I am all for it.

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    2. Hi Tim,

      You're welcome. I hope Ed will see fit to write an article on it, one of these days. Cheers.

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  8. From Feser's linked article concerning Craig:

    " It is affirmed in such councils of the Roman Catholic Church as the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and Vatican I (1869-70) – which means that it is de fide, an absolutely binding, infallible, irreformable teaching of the Church, denial of which amounts to heresy."

    I did not realize it was formal doctrine. Philosophers like Alvin Plantinga espouse theistic personalism and Catholicism. How do they reconcile this if it is indeed considered a heresy?

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    1. Easy. By not being Catholic. Plantinga is a Calvinist

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    2. Alvin Plantinga is a Protestant, not a Catholic.

      Every Catholic accepts divine simplicity. But, AFAIK, there is more than one acceptable model of Divine Simplicity - not just Aquinas's, but Scotus's, some suggestions based on Palamas, etc.

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    3. I believe that, although Palamas strongly drew from the Cappadocians (a Palamist would argue his position is implicit in the Greek Fathers), the latter have a approach to divine simplicity that shouldn't be simply equated with the former, but is also obviously distinct from Aquinas.

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    4. My point is that Catholics are probably not required to interpret Divine Simplicity in thomistic terms; there are a variety of other options available.

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    5. Oh, I know, sorry, was just bringing another alternative to Aquinas' account.

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    6. Oops! Sorry guys, didn't realize he was a Protestant. I guess his being at Notre Dame threw me off. Thanks for the replies.

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