As a college student thirty years ago I read John Wisdom's "Gods" and was struck by the the Parable of the Invisible Gardener. Twenty-five years ago as a Ph.D. student, I read Flew, Hare, and Mitchell on the conditions for the meaningfulness of theological language. Flew had used the example of Wisdom's Invisible Gardener to show how theological claims "die the death of a thousand qualifications." Any claim that is consistent with any way that the world might have gone is a claim without semantic content. What claim is made, after all, when one says that "an invisible gardener comes and tends this mountain meadow" and that "this gardener is invisible and wholly incapable of detection"? What claim is made when one says 'God loves the young girl" and yet the young girl is suffering from throat cancer and is in severe pain? What strange ways religious people use words! How can one apply 'love' meaningfully after one admits that divine love is wholly unlike human love?
Twenty-five years ago, I was convinced by Flew. In fact, I was still convinced by Flew five years ago. However, I am no longer convinced by Flew. He supposed that any claim consistent with any way the world might have gone is no claim at all. I no longer agree. In fact, if one thinks deeply enough about this, one would expect a claim about God to be consistent with any way the world might be. Why? Well, if God is not a contingent being like other contingent beings, then the relational and non-relational properties of God would not be assigned by the way properties are distributed in the actual world. The properties of a necessary being would be based upon the way properties distribute in all possible worlds.
We can, of course, distinguish many senses of necessity. Of interest here is not logical or conceptual necessity, but metaphysical necessity. Whereas logical and conceptual necessity governs how states of affairs must be in all possible worlds and is thus a priori, metaphysical necessity speaks about what states of affairs must obtain on the basis of finding some other state of affairs obtains. For instance, "I think, therefore I am" is not true in all possible worlds, because one can imagine thinking without there being one that things. (Sartre presumably accomplished this.) However, given the fact that one is thinking, one is clearly being. That is, given the a posteriori fact of one thinking, one cannot not be present to think. Similarly, given the contingent fact that gold has an atomic number of 79, gold cannot not have such an atomic number. When one finds that about a thing that cannot otherwise be if the thing is to be the thing, one has found what is metaphysically necessary about the thing.
The point is that if God should exist, God could not not have the divine nature that makes God, God. Just as gold could have not existed, but did with an atomic number of 79, so could God have not existed, but does with a divine nature of love. Just as it is metaphysically necessary for gold to have an atomic number of 79, it is metaphysically necessary for God to love His creation. Finally, just as gold having the atomic number of 79 is consistent with any way worlds with gold present might have been, so too God loving his creation is consistent with any way those worlds with God present might have been. If God necessarily loves, this loving should be expected to be consistent with any way that the world might have been. Far from dying the death of a thousand qualifications, claiming that God love's His creation is to say something like humans loving after all. The modal status of love should not confuse us into thinking that God does not love, rather it should instruct us as to look not at the "moves in the game" but rather " at the rules of the game." Divine love is to human love as the rules of the game are to moves in the game. Just as the rules of the game are consistent with any moves within the game, so too is divine love consistent with any spatio-temporal acts of loving. Finally, just as the rules of the game show the spectrum of possible moves in the game, so does divine loving show the range of possible occasions of concrete, earthly loving.
Perhaps we have been thinking about divine agency wrongly. Perhaps we should not expect to find such agency as moves within the game, but as rules promulgated for the game. If so, such agency might show the spectrum of possible occasions of concrete human agents doing certain things. Perhaps we have been bewitched into thinking divine agency a contingent matter, rather than a matter of metaphysical necessity. In all worlds in which God is, God cannot not be at work. His being at work creates the very possiblity for human agency.
It is the mark of a necessity that the necessary thing be in all possible worlds. If divine agency is metaphysically necessary, it is in all those worlds in which there is God, worlds distinguished by the distribution of their worldly, contingent events. Perhaps if we could detect divine love like we discern human love, we would not have divine love at all. Making a macro-move in a game does not change the way that the game is played. Maybe Flew has been wrong all of these years; perhaps a claim that is consistent with any way the world might have been is not a pseudo-claim, but a more profound kind of claim. Perhaps we are not expecting such a claim, because we can undersand no longer what it would be for God to be.
I find it 'interesting' brother, that you discuss God's agency without mentioning Jesus. Although I am convinced that 'first article' discourse is necessary in the present cultural milieu, such conversation cannot take place (for Christians, isn't the first article conversation ultimately one-sided - isn't this why Luther's 'dialectic' sounds out of place/alien to (post)modern Lutherans when they are engaged in conversation about vocation, worship, the Fourth Commandment, etc.?) sans God's revelation in Jesus, at his Cross, is God's first premise when addressing 'the' question: What is God's will? What does God desire to disclose to us about himself. The "book of nature" ultimately cannot, and will not, yield up answers regarding God's mercy, forgiveness, dependability, steadfast love, etc.?
ReplyDeleteIsn't first article talk about God (it is talk which "bespeaks" - second order discourse - not talk which "speaks" - first order discourse), simply put, talk about God's "deeds"? Is it talk 'about' man's "commerce" with God. When we bespeak truth in the first article, 'about' God, how do we set about naming the necessary self-deception (again, for Christians this may be a one-sided assumption but... crux est sola nostra theologia) because its first premise is from the human-being toward 'God'?
To quote Herr Luther, "Man's mind is by nature so unsteady that when it turns from the one, it must by necessity turn to something else. Therefore when it turns from the Creator, it will by necessity turn to the creature."
Perhaps the question of the day, then, is how do Christians engage in first article discourse without dislocating the second article - separating the two natures as it were?
I find it 'interesting' brother that you discuss God's agency without mentioning Jesus - a word from God that comes dressed in skin and bone. Although I am convinced that 'first article' discourse is necessary in the present cultural milieu, such conversation cannot take place (for Christians, isn't the first article conversation ultimately one-sided - isn't this why Luther's 'dialectic' sounds out of place/alien to (post)modern Lutherans when they are engaged in conversation about vocation, worship, the Fourth Commandment, etc.?) sans God's revelation in Jesus, at his Cross. Isn't this God's first premise when addressing 'the' question: What is God's will? What does God desire to disclose to us about himself. The "book of nature" ultimately cannot, and will not, yield up answers regarding God's mercy, forgiveness, dependability, steadfast love, etc.... Can it?
ReplyDeleteIsn't first article talk about God (it is talk which "bespeaks" - second order discourse - not talk which "speaks" - first order discourse), simply put, talk about God's "deeds"? Is it talk 'about' man's "commerce" with God. When we bespeak truth in the first article, 'about' God, how do we set about naming the necessary self-deception (again, for Christians this may be a one-sided assumption but... crux est sola nostra theologia) because its first premise is from the human-being toward 'God'?
To quote Herr Luther, "Man's mind is by nature so unsteady that when it turns from the one, it must by necessity turn to something else. Therefore when it turns from the Creator, it will by necessity turn to the creature."
Perhaps the question of the day, then, is how do Christians engage in first article discourse without dislocating the second article - separating the two natures, as it were?
You began the discussion with Flew's invisible gardener whose existence is consistent with all states of affairs, wondering that if this is the case, what is the difference between an invisible gardener and no gardener at all. It seems that what Flew is concerned with is not that it is possible for such an invisible gardener to exist (or for that matter that it is possible whether there is no gardener at all), but rather with the epistemological problem of believing that he exists or not.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that you have taken Flew's objection to be ontological, and therefore defend the possibility, indeed, the necessity for God to be invisible, i.e., consistent with all states. I'm not certain that this is the case, for one might wonder whether there are certain logical or conceptual possibilities that would not be realized just because God is the Creator of all physical possibilites.
Presuming that God must by necessity be invisible, it seems that your answer to Flew is that by necessity there can be no epistemological justification for believing that God exists, that is, a natural theology is necessarily impossible.
Given the tenor of Flew's verificationist objection, we could imagine Flew concluding, then, that there was no positive reason to believe in God's existence.
Is this the gist of what you are saying?
bill powers
Donavon,
ReplyDeleteThe points you raise are important. It is, of course, a question of to what degree one can stay within the theological circle and do the kind of preparatory work necessary in our relativistic age to set the stage for occupying that circle and proclaiming truth that is not merely pro me, but both pro me and in se.
I know that I approach some of these things philosophically, but I have always believed that if truth is truth, then truth is one, and this means that we cannot rest content with the truths of faith contradicting truths in other domains. I do not think taking a position on this or most other things I write about is a salvific matter. I only say that if one is convicted by the Word incarnate and proclaimed, then one responds lovingly in ways appropriate to the great love having been given. My humble and fumbling thoughts are my own response to God's grace. They do not replace that about which you speak, but are offered in the spirit of painting an extreme edge of a very large canvas.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
I read Flew as saying that the claims that "God exists" or that "God loves his children" are devoid of semantic content because both claims are consistent with any way the world might have gone. Flew is saying that a claim about God's existence of properties that is maintained in the face of all possible empirical experience is not a genuine claim at all. My point was simply that, when one reflects about it, this seems like a rather odd presupposition to adopt when thinking about a being that is by nature not contingent. While Flew's argument clearly holds for claims about contingent beings, it would not seem to hold for claims about beings having necessary properties.
My rather crude suggestion is that the meaningfulness of claims about God to the meaningfulness of claims about other contingent beings is analogical to the rules of chess compared to moves within the game of chess. In other words, I am wondering whether a statement about God that is consistent with any way the world might have gone is not devoid of semantic content, because the statement is making a metaphysical claim, a claim that, by definition, is consistent with any way the world might have gone. The big problem here, of course, is to carefully specify the difference between a metaphysical and conceptual necessity. While conceptual truths hold in all possible world, metaphysical truths hold in all possible worlds where certain conditions are met. This demands much more thought, of course.
Dennis:
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I'm not getting all you are saying. What I will here fix on is the assertion that a human idea or concept is devoid of meaning if it is consistent with all states of affairs. (I, nor do I think Flew, don't know what a non-human idea might be like).
This seems to me to be saying something like that we have to be able to say what it is not. What would it be like for God to not love the world? This seems like a more general concept than states of affairs, either that or Flew is (again) slipping in verificationist prescriptions. In the case of the gardener, the only states of affairs permitted are those available to Flew. But surely there could be and are states of affairs unavailable to him (e.g., God loving the garden). This is why I still think the central issue is epistemological. But let me go on.
There appear to me to be many concepts that bear Flew's burden. Any concept that is an ultimate category seems a candidate: the Being of being (being-ness), the universe, the "world," space, time.
We can't conceptualize what Nothing could be, nor something not the universe, nor a place without space, or time without time. Yet we go about daily using the ideas and don't think they are nonsense. There are no states of affairs in which there is no time or space, at least not so we can grasp them. They, like being in the universe, are attributes of all states of affairs.
So why do we have this problem with God? Is it because we, as theists, have committed an unforgivable sin of making God a Creator. Indeed, God, according to our understanding, by very definition, cannot be a state of affair. He exists outside of space, time, and the world. Yet I say that He is. To include such a way of being, I must expand my sense of a state of affair. Some people say, "the world is all there is." In order to say this they must at least imagine a state of affair outside the world. I fear however that in my expanded sense of state of affair I have done what Flew will not permit. For he will surely only include a state of affair that is in the world, in time, and in space, otherwise what access would he have? So, while he cannot imagine a space outside of space or a time outside of time or a world outside the world, he can know what it is like to be within them.
Since I fear I am rambling off topic, let me conclude with one point that perhaps you are making. Isn't this property of being true for all states of affairs true of all things we call necessary? If logic is necessary, there is no state of affairs where Flew can say "logic is not there." This is not to say that there aren't illogical states of affairs, but that even in saying that, I am committed to logic being there even though there was a state of affairs in which illogic was also. I wonder, too, if this isn't true of all notions of identity, unless we deny there is any such thing. What if there is transworld identity? Am I not there for all states of affairs. Well, perhaps not, since there will certainly be a world where I am not. So I suppose that could be true of all contingent identity, but not of any necessary identity.
I just don't see, without adopting a verificationist notion of meaning, how Flew could be interpreted as saying that without a possible state of affairs with which an idea is incompatible it must be meaningless. Of course, we often might say something like, "why that could be true under any circumstances (come what may)." Such an objection, however, does not argue that it can't be true, only that you have provided no reasons for me to believe it. If, as a Christian, we point to the Cross as evidence that God loves us come what may, we could not be saying (I think) that if Christ was not crucified, God would not still love us. In what sense, then, does it serve as an answer to Flew? That though we were enemies of God, yet He died and suffered for us? What then could separate us from the love of God (in Christ)?
Anyway, this requires more thought. But think, both you and Donovan (since it addresses somewhat his concern) how it might be that Christ, His Death, and Resurrection serves as an answer to Flew. It certainly is NOT an invisible Gardener.
bill
Bill,
ReplyDeleteThank you for an incredibly thought-provoking post. Let me see if I can answer some of your points.
I believe that we agree that Flew's criterion of meaningfulness is excessively restrictive for the believer. Flew is saying, for instance, that if God's love is consistent with any way we might imagine the world to be such that God does not love, then to say 'God loves' is meaningless. This is analogous to saying that if 'the gardener comes' is consistent with any way we might seek to disprove it, then the assertion is meaningless.
I think your language of 'ultimate category' is felicitous. And this is the point I was trying to make. The substance-property view in metaphysics would be, if true, necessarily true. There could not be a state of affairs that could falsify it, because it would be presupposed in the counterinstance. Of course, it may not be true metaphysically. The substance-property view is not, after all, logically true, only metaphysically so. That is, I can imagine a possible world where it does not hold. However, to imagine such a world is to already imagine all worlds where it does not hold. If the substance-property view is true, it is true in all possible worlds. Metaphysical truths either play in all possible worlds, or in none of them. It is an all or nothing proposition.
Now the point is to ask whether the statement 'God loves His creation' is true in all possible worlds, or in none of them. A very strong advocate of theological determinism might hold that God's love truly is consistent with any way the world might have gone. To say such a thing is not to utter meaningless if there is the possibility of evidence-transcending truth conditions. Although the early Wittgenstein thought it senseless '2 +2 = 4' seems meaningful, though there is no world in which it does not obtain.
Now the question is this: Can 'God creates the universe' itself be a necessary truth; can it be itself consistent with any way that the universe might have come about. We oftentimes think that the statement is contingent, but we need not think that way - - particularly if God is a necessary being like the tradition claims.
Now if God is a necessary being, then it is not the case, as Spinoza knew, that he just happens to be the case. Like in mathematics, His existence, and the relations He has with the universe would obtain unless they are contradictory. This does not mean that one would employ the "geometric method" and try to unfold the attributes of God from the law of noncontradiction. It would be to suggest that if we know God to exist on other grounds, perhaps the testimony of Scripture and Spirit, then we could only defeat His existence by showing that claiming it issues in logical inconsistency. In other words, to claim that God creates causally, is a metaphysical claim true in all possible worlds - - unless one found a contradiction.
These reflections are purely of an experimental nature. It would be difficult to sustain a doctrine of creation that holds in all possible worlds, for how is 'God creates the universe' like 'all things are substances upon which properties inhere'? The answer would be that just as a substance-property ontology is the best explanation for things in space, a Creator God is the best explanation for things in time. It is unlikely that many will be moved by this argument.