Disputatio XXVI: De Universalibus Immanentibus et Necessitatione

On Immanent Universals and Necessitation

Quaeritur

Quaeritur utrum necessitas legum naturae sufficienter explicari possit per relationes reales inter universalia immanentia, an vero talis explicatio aut in regressum, aut in factum brutum, aut in participationem infiniti deveniat.

It is asked whether the necessity of natural law can be adequately explained by real relations among immanent universals, or whether such an explanation must ultimately collapse into regress, brute fact, or participation in the Infinite.

Thesis

Immanent realism explains regularity by positing universals instantiated within things and connected by real relations of necessitation. Yet the nexus that binds one universal to another either becomes an infinite regress, a brute primitive, or an implicit participation in an infinite unity. Thus, while immanent universals preserve realism, they cannot close the circle of explanation within the finite.

Locus Classicus

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
— Colossians 1:17

Patristic and scholastic theology interpreted this not as poetic hyperbole but as a metaphysical statement. Athanasius (Contra Gentes 41) held that creatures “stand fast by participation in the Word.” Aquinas, commenting on the same verse, wrote: “In ipso omnia constant, quia ipse est ratio essendi et ordinis in rebus.”(Super Colossenses I.17.) The order and interrelation of created forms thus depend upon the Logos as their unifying act.The attempt to ground such order solely in finite relations among universals severs form from source and leaves unity unexplained.

Explicatio

D. M. Armstrong, seeking a realist alternative to both Humean descriptivism and Platonic transcendence, developed a theory of immanent universals in What Is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge University Press, 1983) and A World of States of Affairs (1997). For Armstrong, universals are not abstract entities existing apart from things but real features instantiated in rebus. A natural law is then a relation of necessitation between such universals:

N(F, G) means that every instance of F is necessarily also an instance of G.

For example, the law “All electrons repel each other” corresponds to a relation N (being an electron, repelling other electrons). This N-relation is itself a real universal connecting others, not a mere linguistic rule.

Armstrong’s system preserves a realist ontology, for lawfulness exists in the world, not in our descriptions. It also avoids Platonism by keeping universals immanent.Yet the decisive problem lies in the status of the necessitation relation itself.

If N is simply another universal, it must stand in further relations explaining how it binds F and G—relations such as N′(N, F, G)—and so on ad infinitum. If N is primitive, we are left with unexplained necessity. If N is grounded in the overall structure of being, that structure functions as a transcendent unity, in effect, a metaphysical participation in the Infinite.

Thus Armstrong’s account, while internally rigorous, cannot ultimately provide a self-sufficient finite explanation. It gives us the mechanics of law but not its metaphysical coherence. The problem is not empirical but ontological: what makes the system of immanent relations one and necessary rather than a contingent web of co-instantiated properties?

Obiectiones

Objiectio I. In 1983 David Armstrong argued that immanent universals provide the ontological structure science presupposes. The relation of necessitation N is real and sufficient. No further grounding is needed.

Objiectio II. Moderate realism claims that by positing universals in rebus rather than ante res, we respect the finitude of creation and avoid both Humean nominalism and Platonic abstraction.

Objiectio III. Scientific pragmatism holds that the theory of immanent universals aligns well with scientific practice, which operates by discovering relations among properties, not by appealing to transcendent causes.

Objiectio IV. Empiricists argue that an infinite ground multiplies entities beyond necessity. The unity of laws is a consequence of the shared structure of matter and fields, not of any higher participation.

Objiectio V. The theologicus cautus ("cautious theologian") opines that to require an infinite explanation of finite order threatens to erase the integrity of secondary causes and the natural autonomy of creation.

Responsiones

Ad I. To say that N(F, G) is real explains that the relation exists, not why it obtains. Unless N itself is grounded, the account halts in primitive necessity. A brute tie between universals is no advance over the brute law it replaces.

Ad II. Immanent universals are indeed within things, yet their coordination across all things remains unexplained.The in rebus does not by itself yield the per se unity of the real. Participation in a higher act of being is required for coherence among universals.

Ad III. Scientific adequacy differs from metaphysical sufficiency.
Empirical inquiry describes how properties are correlated; metaphysics asks why such correlation is necessary. Armstrong’s ontology presupposes the unity it should explain.

Ad IV. The claim that matter and fields explain law simply restates the problem at a lower level. For the structure of matter and fields is itself law-like and requires grounding. Invoking the material order as ultimate converts contingent structure into absolute necessity without reason.

Ad V. Participation in the Infinite does not annul finite autonomy but establishes it. Only what is grounded in the Infinite can act coherently according to its own nature. The Spirit’s causal presence secures the creature’s integrity by making its lawfulness possible.

Nota 

The idea of universal immanence captures a profound half-truth.
On the one hand, it rightly discerns that the divine is not absent from the world but intimately present within it, sustaining the being of all that is. On the other hand, when detached from the transcendence that grounds it, immanence collapses into necessity without freedom, into an all-encompassing process in which God and world dissolve into one another.

Theology must therefore distinguish immanentia participationis from immenentia identitatis. In the first, the divine act is interior to all things as their sustaining cause; in the second, the divine and the creature are confused as modes of one process. But true immanence is participatory, not monistic. God is within all things precisely because all things are within God.

Necessity, when viewed in this light, is not mechanical but the mark of divine fidelity. The stability of natural law expresses the constancy of the creative Word, whose will does not waver. The same act by which God gives being gives order, and thus the regularity of the world is grace made habitual. Accordingly, immanence and necessity are not rival to transcendence and freedom; they are its temporal manifestation.

The absolute dependence of creatures upon the divine act entails that while God is more interior to them than they are to themselves, yet God remains infinitely beyond them. The world’s necessity is therefore double. It is necessary in itself because the divine act holds it in being, and yet contingent before God, who freely gives it.

Universal immanence, properly understood, is the metaphysical form of providence:the Creator’s continuous presence as the reason for the world’s coherence. This providence is the “necessity of grace,” the steady rhythm of divine constancy through which all that is remains possible.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Armstrong’s immanent realism preserves ontology but not ultimacy. The N-relation that ties universals together is either another universal (regress), an unexplained primitive (brute fact), or a reflection of a deeper unity (participation).

2. Finite relations cannot ground universal coherence. The multiplicity of universals demands a unifying act that is not itself one among them. Without such an act, law remains accidental coordination.

3. The appeal to the Infinite is not extrinsic but intrinsic. The very notion of “necessitation” implies participation in an unconditioned ground of necessity. The Infinite is the metaphysical horizon within which immanent universals receive their order.

4. The participation of universals in the Infinite corresponds to the theological doctrine of the Logos. As the eternal form of all forms, the Logos is the ratio essendi and ratio ordinis of finite properties. Law, in this light, is the reflection of divine intelligibility within creation.

5. Hence, immanent realism, while the most sophisticated of finite explanations, points beyond itself. Its internal coherence is the sign of participation, not self-sufficiency. In the Infinite Word, the many relations of the finite find their unity; in the Spirit, they find their continuous actuality.

Therefore, the necessity of natural law cannot rest in the N-relations of universals alone but requires the participation of all finite forms in the Infinite act of being — in ipso omnia constant.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXVII

If universal immanence reveals that the divine act is interior to all things as the ground of their necessity,then theology must next inquire how that immanent act manifests within the distinct natures of creatures themselves. After all, divine constancy, to be real, must articulate itself in finite structures of power and tendency. The same Word who upholds all being also orders its operations; the regularity of nature is the expression of this inner form.

Hence we turn to Disputatio XXVII: De Essentiis Dispositionalibus,
in which we ask whether the necessity of natural law arises from the intrinsic powers of things, or whether even these dispositions, in all their apparent autonomy, depend upon participation in the infinite act that both constitutes and coordinates them.

Trinitarian Confusions between East and West?

Richard Cross has argued that the East and West do not really "adopt radically divergent accounts of the Trinity" (Richard Cross, "Two Models of the Trinity," HeyJ XLIII (2002) 275-294). I believe Cross is fundamentally correct, though I do have some observations.

It is often claimed that the Eastern view (following the Cappadocian Fathers) starts from the diversity of the persons and then moves to account for the unity of the essence, while the Western view (following Augustine) starts from the unity of the divine essence and then attempts to account for the diversity of the persons. Clearly, much has been made of this distinction in the secondary literature. One finds characterizations of the difference between East and West such as the following: The Thomistic tradition originating in Augustine assumes this order of logical priority: Relation, Person, and the Processions; the Cappodocian tradition understands the logical priority this way: Processions, Person, the Relations. (e.g., See Knuuttila & Saarinen, "Innertrinitarishe Theologie in der Scholastik und bei Luther, " pp. 243-264, Caritas Dei: Beitraege zum Verstaendnis Luthers und der gegenwaertigen Oekumene.) Cross argues persuasively that the difference between the Eastern and Western traditions has little to do with theology, but everything to do with different philosophical assumptions operating in the East and West. "The Eastern view does, and the Western view does not, generally accept a sense in which the divine essence is a shared universal" (275). Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, claims that the divine essence is a singular multiply-instantiatable universal; Augustine denies this.

Cross begins his analysis by giving the standard metaphysical options on universals and particulars. He first distinguishes the substrate/property view of the constitution of substance from that of a congeries of properties having what Russell called "compresence." Secondly, he distinguishes properties as particulars from properties as universals. Accordingly, if properties are particulars, then the indiscernible properties of numerically distinct substances are themselves numerically distinct. However, if properties are universals, then the indiscernible properties of numerically distinct substances are identical (and thus by Leibniz's law) the same property. If two particulars have the same shade of blue and if these shades of blue are particulars - - one shade of blue is exactly like the other - - , then the shades of blue are numerically diverse. However, if the two particulars have the same shade of blue and the shades of blue are literally the same shade, then the blue is a universal. A universal is, by definition, a property that can be a constituent in more than one substance. Particular properties, by definition, cannot be constituents in more than one substance. Accordingly, the only real metaphysical possibility for overlapping substances on a bundle theory (the view that a substance is a compresence of properties) is that there are universal properties that are ingredient in each and every compresence.

This insight is crucial for understanding the putative divergence between the Eastern and Western views. For purposes of analysis, allow 'substance', 'hypostasis' and 'person' to be used interchangeably, and futher assume that 'divine essence' is an overlapping property (a property common to the three substances), and must thus be, on the previous analyis, a universal. This divine essence is termed the 'ousia' by the East. As to the question of whether this divine essence is one simple universal property, or a bundle of such properties, Cross follows Augustine: "God however is indeed called in multiple ways great, good, wise, blessed, true and anything else that seems not to be unworthy of him; but his greatness is identical with his wisdom . . . and his goodness is identical with his wisdom and greatness, and his truth is identical with them all; and with him being blessed is not one thing, and being great or wise or true or good, or just simply being (esse), another" (Trin. 6.7.8 CCSI., I, 237).

Gregory of Nyssa clearly articulates the view that the universal divine essene (ousia) is a unviversal that is multiply instantiated in the three divine persons:

"If now of two or more who are [man] in the same way, like Paul and Silas and Timothy an account of the ousia of men is sought, one will not give on account of the ousia of Paul, another one of Silas andd again another one of Timothy; but by whatever terms the ousia of Paul is shown, these same will fit the others as well. And those are homoousioi to each other, who are described by the same fomular of being" ("Human Nature in Gregy of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and Theological Singnificance," Supplements to Vigilae Christianae, 46, p. 709, p. 70).

The universal which is the divine essence is clearly numerically singular:

"But the nature is one, united to itself and a precisely undivided unit (monas), not increased through addition, not decreased through subtraction, but being and remaining one (even if it were to appear in a multitude), undivided, continuous, perfect, and not divided by the individuals who participate in it" (Gregory, Abl. GNO, III/I, 40.24-41.7).

Cross points out, however, that Gregory's universal is not ante rem. The divine essence does not exist uninstantiated, but is rather immanent in the persons; it is that "of which" the persons are (Cross, 281). The divine essence is shared by the persons, but the divine persons as overlapping bundles of properties do not share their own personal properties.

According to Cross, the Western theologians implicitly accept the view of the shareability of the divine essence by the persons even though they explicitly criticize this position. The western theologians deny that the divine essence is a universal "in the sense of 'universal' accepted by the West, not the sense accepted by the East" (Cross, 281). Though they deny this, they accept that the essence is shared by the persons. Augustine writes:

"In the simple Trinity one is as much as three are together, and two are not more than one, and in themselves they are infinite. So they are each in each and all in each, and each in all and all in all, and all are one" (Trin. 6.10.12, CCSL, L, 243).

Over eight centuries later, Aquinas echoes Augustine:

"In God, the essence is really identical with a [viz., each] person, even though the persons are really distinct from each other" (ST 1.39.1, c).

Yet the western theologians explicitly reject Nyssa's view on universals. Quoting Augustine again:

"If essence is species, like man, and those which we call substances or persons are three, then they have the same species in common, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have in common the species which is called 'man'; and if while man can be subdivided into Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not mean that one man can be subdivided into several single men - - obviously he cannot, because one man is already a single man - - then how can one essence be subdivided into three substances or persons? For if essence, like man, is a species, then one essence is like one man" (Trin. 7.6.11, CSSL, L, 236).

Augustine's criticism assumes that if the divine essence is a species, and if a species is divisible, then the divine essence is divisible. But since this cannot be so, he concludes that the divine essence is not a species. But if it is not a species, then it is not a universal at all. Cross believes that Augustine holds that a universal (species) is divisible because he assumes that Neoplatonic notion of in re universals. Neoplatonists are nominalists here; they claim that universals (species) are merely aggregates of particulars.

Although Aquinas is not a Neoplatonic nominalist, his Aristotelian realism agrees on this point: "No universal is numerically the same in the things beneath it" (Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum 1.19.4.2). Cross concludes: "Unlike the Eastern tradition, . . . the Western tradition accepts - - as a matter of philosophical fact - - that universals, even in re universals, are not such that they are numerically identical in each exemplification" (Cross, 284). Thus, while the Cappadocians assumed that all universals, not just the divine essence, "are numerically singular, and . . . the particulars are collections of such universals" the Western tradition rejected the claim of the numerical singularity of universals and the consitution of particulars from universals (ibid.). While both the East and the West claimed that the divine essence is a singular property formed by the intersection of the properties of the persons, the West disagreed with the East in claiming that this intersection could be accounted for by claiming the existence of a numerically identical universal. The divine essence as a universal in re is not logically or metaphysically prior to the persons, but dependent and posterior to the persons. Yet, this essence is something more than its instantiations in the persons; for this essence is what makes possible the identity of these persons.

To the objection that Eastern and Western views must be theologically distinct because social trinitarian views can be grounded in the former and not via the latter, Cross claims that such views actually cannot be grounded in one tradition more properly than the other. It is just not the case that the Western view adopts a Trinity of subsistent relations between persons disallowing a social trinitarian approach, and the East a theory of personal processions completely compatible with a robust social trinitarianism.

The Western notion of subsistent relations claims that the persons are individuated with respect to dyadic relations holding between the persons. These dyadic relations are not constitutive of the persons themselves; they do not inhere in things, but somehow "hang between" their relata. Aquinas writes:

"Distinction in God arieses only through relations of origin . . . But a relation in God is not like an accident inherent in a subject, but is the divine essence itself. So it is subsistent just as the divine essence is subsistent. Just as, therefore, the Godhead is God, so the divine paternity is God the Father, who is a divine person. Therefore 'divine persons' signifies a relation as subsistent" (ST 1.28.1, c).

Cross points to Augustine as the source of this view, for it was Augustine who denied that God can be a subject for accidents, and thus rejecting accidents, identifies relations as the non-inherent "things" whose distinction does not entail a distinction in substance: "What is stated relationally does not designate substance. So although begotten differs from unbegotten, it does not indicate a different substance" (Trin. 5.5.6, CCSL., I, 210). Because accidents require a substrate, and because the presence of a substrate is incompatible with simplicity, the assertion of simplicity requires a denial of accidental personal properties. However, "a divine person can include a relation without that relation thereby entailing composition" (287). Thus, for the West, the divine persons cannot be pyschological subjects, for such psychological subjects are necessarily individuated by their non-relational properties.

Cross believes that Gregory of Nyssa effectively also embraced the category of subsistent relations. In the following quote, the distinguishing features of the persons are clearly the causal relations they possess with respect to each other:

"While confessing that the nature is undifferentiated, we do not deny a distinction in causality, by which alone we seize the distinction of the one from the other: that is, by believing that one is the cuse and the other is from the cause. There is the one which depends on the first, and there is that one which is through that which depends on the first" (Abl. GNO, III/I, 55.24 - 56.6).

So, as it turns out, the East is close to a doctrine of subsistent relations, and the West assumes that the divine essence is shareable among the three persons. Accordingly, both East and West deny social trinitarian accounts which hold the three persons as distinct pyschological subjects. While Eastern and Western views are consistent with social accounts of the Trinity - - a shareable divine essence among persons clearly allows for pyschologically distinct subjects - - both reject those accounts because of the need to individuate persons on the basis of something other than the accidental (non-relational) properties of the persons (Cross, 288).

What is to be said of this analysis? Clearly Cross has clarified matters greatly. That God is one and three, does seem to entail that the divine essence can be shared by persons. The Western view, that this essence is a numerically singular property shared by the persons, is not at all incompatible with the Eastern view that this essence is a universal that, while it is immanent in the persons, is none the less numerically one and multiply instantiatable in them. If this is so, then the unity from which the West begins is just the shareable property/universal. While the West might ground their talk of personal diversity upon the ground of divine unity, the shareable property of divine unity is nontheless dependent upon the bundled properties constituting the persons. Alternately, while the East might ground their talk of divine unity upon the grounds personal distinctiveness, this unity clearly, like the West, remains dependent upon the existence of the persons.

Cross's analysis, if true, suggests that while the Eastern and Western views have their own metaphysical models, each satisfies the same set of theological propositions. If this is so, then there is no theological differences between the two.

Luther and Ontology I

Metaphysics was clearly a going concern in the late Middle Ages. There was controversy of many kinds related, of course, to issues within medieval semantics. The common belief was that there must be a most general structure of the world presupposed by the categories within language itself. Important questions included the following: What is the nature of wholes and how are they related to parts (mereology)? What is the nature, and ontological status, of relations? How do essence and existence relate (especially within divine reality), and what ontological status does each have? Are there such things as universals, and, if so, in what do they consist? What is being in its most general nature? Is it univocal? Finally, and most importantly, what is the being of God? What does it mean to say that the divine has properties? Are these traditional divine properties compatible?

It would be odd to think that Luther burst on the scene in the early sixteenth century with a sophisticated theological vocabulary and theory that profoundly addressed the human existential situation and yet somehow circumvented (and was hence disconnected from) the traditional metaphysical problems. Unfortunately, although this would be odd, it is exactly what much post-Kantian Luther interpretation has seemed to assume. It has presupposed that the really interesting questions within Luther scholarship are questions as to how Luther's theological language connects to human existence lived coram deo and within the reality of God's promise. That this is important for Luther goes without saying. He did stress the power of the living Word, and emphasized what might be called the "performative" characteristics of language of the divine.

However, Luther always assumed that theological language has truth conditions, that propositions are true or false in so far as the state what is, or what is not, the case. Theological language is constative, not merely performative. God, for Luther, is really triune; there actually are two disconsonant natures within Christ; the physical Body of Christ is really present in the bread and wine at the communion table. The infinite really is somehow in the finite in such a way that the infinite remains infinite while the finite remains finite. What is more, Christ really is present in the Christian such that one can speak of "ein Kuchen." As is the case in the history of theology generally, there is a "unity" or "identity in difference" presupposed within key theological loci. While Luther understood that the assertion of the existence of such identities was justified finally on the basis of revelation, he did not skrink away from calling such such assertions true, and supposing that they are true because they state some state of affairs that actually obtains.

The question is how to conceive these identities. Clearly, Luther believed that Aristotle was a great enemy to theology, and much preferred Plato to his even more precocious student. But what metaphysics is presupposed if the substance/accident metaphysics of Aristotle is incapable of conceiving the res ineffabilis of the two natures of Christ or the three persons of the Trinity? Should one simply assume that there is no way things ultimately stand that make true dogmatic theological propositions? Would one be better off construing dogmatic theological propositions relationally, that is, as expressing or specifying human experience in relation to divine reality. If Kant is right, of course, theological expressions must finally be construed as being about human experience (thinking, feeling, or doing), and about the phenomena of "limit points" within that experience. If Kant is right, then the truth of theological expressions, for Luther, simply can't be determined by objectively existing states of affairs.

But, I would argue, Kant is precisely wrong as an interpreter of Luther. Luther must be understood within his context as an Augustinian trained in the nominalist tradition, an Augustinian knowing standard nominalist semantic theory and metaphysics, an Augustinian who, however, is so moved by the incomprehensibility and ultimate significance of the res ineffabilis that he is willing to be innovative both semantically and metaphysically. About this, I shall have much more to say in subsequent posts.