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Mott1 · Mar 28, 2007

Plontis: Thanks for your reply, as always I appreciate the commitment you have to this forum. Although I certainly acknowledge the points you make (and they are good points), it seems that we are arguing in circles. If we were to discuss the Golden Rule outside of this particular argument, there would be no contention other than perhaps our philosophical disparities. I understand your premise that the Golden Rule variations lie in how they are phrased in the various traditions, these variations are in turn associated by the basic principle "of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and acting (in some way) towards them as you would want to be acted on yourself."
However if Kung utilizes the Golden Rule as a variable in which he acknowledges that certain traditions make no distinction between the principle and parochialism then Global Ethic encounters a very real problem. If in a certain tradition the "Golden Rule" (or its basic principle) and parochialism are interwoven and inseparable, then I can't see how Kung expects the Global Ethic project to succeed without first clearly expressing the necessity for the said tradition to subvert. On the contrary we see that Kung expresses the opposite, in that the very fiber of the religious doctrines need not change.

Küng said:
it would be ridiculous to consider Global Ethic as a substitute for the Torah, the Sermon on the Mount, the Qur'an, the Bhagavadgita, the Discourses of the Buddha or the Sayings of Confucius.

This is the basis of my argument with regard to Kungs understanding of the Golden Rule as a principle with no variation, or atleast no parochial variation. You have also acknowledged this contradiction, however you seem to imply that the parochialism that exists in Islam is not a doctrinal fundament.

Plotinus said:
I suppose the idea is that there is a distinction between the fundamental principles, which are supposedly the same everywhere, and the ways in which those principles have been modified by history and tradition, which are not the same everywhere; thus they are identical in kernel if not in shell, as it were. Küng wants to remove the shell from each tradition and expose the identical kernels.

What I am saying is that the "shell" Kung wants to remove is in essence part of the "kernal." In Islam, the codification of parochialism is not just some outside factor that has limited the very basic and simplest form of the Golden Rule, it is the factor on which the "Golden Rule" (or its basic principle) functions.

Plotinus said:
Nevertheless, the important point is that even if removing the encrustations of history and prejudice results in a "Golden Rule" which is both universally accepted and applied universally everywhere that it is accepted, it doesn't follow from that that every instance of the "Golden Rule" currently found, before history and prejudice are removed, will have universal application.

I am not entirely sure that I have understood you here. Are you suggesting that there may exist a variation of the Golden Rule in some traditions where history and prejudice have not yet been removed to reveal its universalism? While this may be true of some ancient doctrines be they secular or relgious, you must consider that other doctrines are formulated on a history of prejudice. Where its essential principles are constructed on the very language of parochialism.
If you are saying the opposite, in that versions of the Golden Rule in some traditions are not universal in nature even after the encrustations of history and prejudice are removed. Then I would agree.

Plotinus said:
You haven't given any reason to suppose that, on Küng's principles, it must be.

Kung's principle is "a minimal basic consensus relating to binding values, irrevocable standards and moral attitudes, which can be affirmed by all religions." Stripping away the "undeniable dogmatic or theological differences" will not result in a consensus to binding values, parochialism is an irrevocable standard and moral attitude in Islam.

Plotinus said:
Imagine if you had several orchestras, all playing variations on the same piece of music. You could listen to them all and then write out the tune that they all have in common, without any of the elaborations or variations that each group has added. What's more, if you did that, you wouldn't necessarily have to believe that any of those orchestras had originally started by playing the "simple" tune and then elaborated on it. Perhaps no-one had ever written out the "simple" tune at all before you did your comparative survey. But you could still claim that all the orchestras were basically playing that tune, though each in their own way. It seems to me that this is Küng's view of the ethical systems of the different "great" religions and their relation to the "Global Ethic". He need only believe that all actually existing ethical codes are variations on a theme, and then abstract from them all what that common theme is. He needn't suppose that there actually exists any group, either now or in the past, who has only that common theme without any variations. And he can plausibly claim that each of the ethical codes is an authentic expression of that "Global Ethic", even when he also identifies elements of those codes that are undesirable by the terms of that very same ethic. After all, in the orchestra example, it could be the case that each orchestra's version of the simple tune contains wrong notes, or chords that don't really work. The musical researcher, having abstracted and written down the simple tune common to them all, could criticise these inadequate variations on the basis of the score he has written - even though that score is based only on what he has heard from all the orchestras. Thus, even though the Global Ethic exists, as a historical reality, only in variegated form in the various traditions, it can still be abstracted and used as a criticism of other aspects of all those traditions.

This is such a beautifully rendered and well executed analogy, I was left undecided on whether to taint it with a rebuttal. Any rebuttal would be akin to vandalizing the Mona Lisa! well, Mona Lisa could use a mustache, a beard and a pair of horns so I'll try my untrained hand at art.

As a composer, Kung must understand that the differences in the melodies are just as important as the similarities, especially when the orchestras are not playing from the same piece of music. The musical compositions that each orchestra is playing may have similar pitches, modes and gradations, however there are discernable differences. Lets say the composer writes a simple tune taken from the chords in which the various musical compositions share, this simple tune played together with the other musical compositions should correspond in harmony. However if a particular orchastra is not in harmony with the rest, then this would suggest that its musical composition contains notes that discord from the others. The chords it shares with the other orchestras works only within the strophe of its own musical composition. The composer should express the necessity to rewrite these notes or have them stricken from the musical composition in order for the orchestra to play in harmony with the his simple tune. If the composer does not acknowledge that the notes within the musical composition must be improvised then he is simply plugging his ears and ignoring the cacophony.

The musical researcher, having abstracted and written down the simple tune common to them all, could criticise these inadequate variations on the basis of the score he has written - even though that score is based only on what he has heard from all the orchestras. Thus, even though the Global Ethic exists, as a historical reality, only in variegated form in the various traditions, it can still be abstracted and used as a criticism of other aspects of all those traditions.

I find this part of your analogy interesting. It seems that you are suggesting that the Global Ethic project is Kungs way initiating dialogue and directing criticism at those traditions which hold to parochial principles. If that is the case, I believe he should make it clear so his audience is not misled into thinking that all religions share the same ethical prinicples.
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Plotinus said:
In the absence of any other texts by Küng on the subject I suppose we won't get any further with our analysis, at least for the time being. As I said before I'm not really very familiar with Küng's work, most of which is forbiddingly voluminous, just like with all German theologians (there's the old joke about the German theologian who published a systematic theology in six volumes, with all the verbs in volume six). Of course all authors are going to be less detailed and perhaps less consistent in speeches than in books, and as I say, I don't think Küng is enormously consistent in this speech. The interpretation I've given above is the one that seems to me to make the most sense of the most passages in the speech, but there's probably not much point arguing precisely what he means without some more authoritative texts.

I agree, I'll read more of Kungs literature on Global Ethics and then perhaps the truth will reveal itself. I based my opinion on these links:
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicin...s/laughlin-lectures/kung-world-religions.html
http://cae.hkbu.edu.hk/html/newsletter/vol8/8B_Becker.html
http://www.scu.edu/scm/summer2005/kung.cfm

Plotinus said:
Thanks. It's always good to debate these sorts of things sensibly, since you'll always learn something - even if it's only what those who disagree with you think, and why. If you're lucky you'll have your mind changed in the course of the debate, which means you've learned something even more substantial than that. Yes, it can even happen in CFC OT...

I couldn't agree more. I might add that to me the "winner" in any debate is the person who learns the most, and in this regard I believe I have been the winner in all the debate we have had in the past.

Plotinus · Mar 29, 2007

Mott1 said:
This is the basis of my argument with regard to Kungs understanding of the Golden Rule as a principle with no variation, or atleast no parochial variation. You have also acknowledged this contradiction, however you seem to imply that the parochialism that exists in Islam is not a doctrinal fundament.

What I am saying is that the "shell" Kung wants to remove is in essence part of the "kernal." In Islam, the codification of parochialism is not just some outside factor that has limited the very basic and simplest form of the Golden Rule, it is the factor on which the "Golden Rule" (or its basic principle) functions.

I don't know enough about Islam to comment on this example, but I think your basic point is right. In fact this is a common criticism of projects like Küng's, especially those that try to do it with doctrine rather than with ethics. For example, John Hick is a very well known theologian and philosopher who argues for a pluralist understanding of religion, whereby instead of judging other religions by the standards of our own, we should judge them all according to a universal standard which supposedly contains the best of them all. So Hick says that all religions are true inasmuch as they express "Reality" and the need for people to attain salvation through this "Reality", and he thinks that this is the basic point of all religion (at least, all "great" religion). But of course it's been pointed out many times that this is a pretty arbitrary approach. Why fix on "Reality" and salvation as the focal point of all religion? Why not fix on self-improvement, or submission to authority, or dedication to the community, or any number of other things that are important to various religions? In fact, in his emphasis on "Reality" and salvation, it looks like Hick really is judging other religions by his own, because if you rename Reality "God" then this is the essence of Christianity.

In other words, anyone who tries to go beyond the differences and extract a common core which is similar everywhere is really going to be extracting the common core that they want to find. It's quite arbitrary what you pick. In Küng's case, he thinks that the parochialism of the various religions is simply encrustation that can be stripped away, to reveal a common universalism underneath. But perhaps this is because he wants to find a universal ethic. Perhaps a less benevolent theologian, engaged in the same task, would argue that the universal tendencies of the different ethics are the encrustation, and a tendency to parochialism is really what they all have in common, and which is more fundamental. Who's to say which is which?

Mott1 said:
I am not entirely sure that I have understood you here. Are you suggesting that there may exist a variation of the Golden Rule in some traditions where history and prejudice have not yet been removed to reveal its universalism? While this may be true of some ancient doctrines be they secular or relgious, you must consider that other doctrines are formulated on a history of prejudice. Where its essential principles are constructed on the very language of parochialism.
If you are saying the opposite, in that versions of the Golden Rule in some traditions are not universal in nature even after the encrustations of history and prejudice are removed. Then I would agree.

Actually I was just saying that by claiming there is a common core to all the ethical systems, Küng is not committed to the further claim that there was once a time when these ethical systems were actually identical. That is, I just wanted to make it clear that talk of "encrustation" and so on can be metaphorical. It's not like there was once a pure, ur-ethic which later developed into the different systems, like Latin developing into Italian, French, Spanish, and so on. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many theologians believed that something like this had really happened - that there had once been a pure religion which had degenerated in various locations into the religions we know today. Since they were all deists, they thought this original religion was deism, and they sought to "reform" the existing religions to return them to this state of purity. Of course we know now they were hopelessly wrong. I was just trying to make the point that Küng is not committed to such a naive position.

Mott1 said:
Kung's principle is "a minimal basic consensus relating to binding values, irrevocable standards and moral attitudes, which can be affirmed by all religions." Stripping away the "undeniable dogmatic or theological differences" will not result in a consensus to binding values, parochialism is an irrevocable standard and moral attitude in Islam.

Of course you could have binding parochial values. In fact, you could have binding parochial values that are shared by everyone in the world. For example, take the Confucian emphasis on "filial piety", the notion that you are permanently in debt to your parents and owe them special attention for as long as they live. That's clearly a parochial value: you have to treat certain people, who are close to you, differently from others. But everyone could share that value, if everyone were to become Confucian. In fact less extreme versions of it do seem to be generally shared by most people. Not by me, I hasten to add. I think Confucianism is my least favourite religion. And I'm not going to get into an argument over whether it's actually a religion or not!

Anyway, the point is that, perhaps ironically, parochialism is perfectly capable of being a universal value. The fact that everyone is parochial to some degree demonstrates this. And I think the example of "filial piety" indicates that, further, it is possible for everyone to be parochial in the same way. Not that this makes much difference to the argument, but it's worth pointing out. The problem with reconciling the different ethical systems as Küng wishes to do is not their parochial nature per se, but (a) the fact that they are all parochial in different ways and towards different sets of people, and (b) the fact that he (quite rightly, in my opinion) doesn't want the Global Ethic to be parochial at all.

Mott1 said:
This is such a beautifully rendered and well executed analogy, I was left undecided on whether to taint it with a rebuttal. Any rebuttal would be akin to vandalizing the Mona Lisa! well, Mona Lisa could use a mustache, a beard and a pair of horns so I'll try my untrained hand at art.

As a composer, Kung must understand that the differences in the melodies are just as important as the similarities, especially when the orchestras are not playing from the same piece of music. The musical compositions that each orchestra is playing may have similar pitches, modes and gradations, however there are discernable differences. Lets say the composer writes a simple tune taken from the chords in which the various musical compositions share, this simple tune played together with the other musical compositions should correspond in harmony. However if a particular orchastra is not in harmony with the rest, then this would suggest that its musical composition contains notes that discord from the others. The chords it shares with the other orchestras works only within the strophe of its own musical composition. The composer should express the necessity to rewrite these notes or have them stricken from the musical composition in order for the orchestra to play in harmony with the his simple tune. If the composer does not acknowledge that the notes within the musical composition must be improvised then he is simply plugging his ears and ignoring the cacophony.

Glad it made sense! And I think your point here is the same one I made above, that it is arbitrary to select some features of the system under study as essential and others as unnecessary. To the adherent of the system, perhaps they are all essential.

Mott1 said:
I find this part of your analogy interesting. It seems that you are suggesting that the Global Ethic project is Kungs way initiating dialogue and directing criticism at those traditions which hold to parochial principles. If that is the case, I believe he should make it clear so his audience is not misled into thinking that all religions share the same ethical prinicples.

I don't know if that is what Küng wants to do, although it does seem to me to be implied by his criticisms of parochialism in that lecture, and indeed by the project of identifying a Global Ethic in the first place. If the Global Ethic is not to criticise some aspects of traditional religions, then why have it at all?

CartesianFart · Mar 31, 2007

Mott and Plotinus:
I hope i am not jumping off the conversation which is one of the best i have seen in awhile but i do want to interject by saying that in order for "Global Ethic" can be applied to the world is simply to take many religious ethics that are similiar to one another and extirpate it in a Kantian fashion in order to institutionalize it.What i mean by "Kantian" is that taking and seperating moral principles from the all of religions of the world and create a new set of morals for new pedagogues to instil on subjects(childrens at an early age) in a global institution that transcend bounderies of any nation-states.With this transnational school system with its own education and language can teach a new breed of Global citizens that share the same ethical view-point in the world. :king:

Plotinus · Mar 31, 2007

I suppose you could say that universalisability (if that's a word) is central to both the Global Ethic and to Kantian ethics, though I think in rather different ways. With Kant, universalisability is a sign of consistency, the idea being that you should act in a way that is consistent with wanting everyone to act in that way. And consistency is important because Kant believes that moral values can be rationally deduced. I don't think that's important to Küng. But it does have to be said that Kant, like Wittgenstein, is one of those philosophers that modern theologians seem to be disproportionately awed by. I'm not sure why.

CartesianFart · Mar 31, 2007

Plotinus said:
I suppose you could say that universalisability (if that's a word) is central to both the Global Ethic and to Kantian ethics, though I think in rather different ways. With Kant, universalisability is a sign of consistency, the idea being that you should act in a way that is consistent with wanting everyone to act in that way. And consistency is important because Kant believes that moral values can be rationally deduced. I don't think that's important to Küng.

It should be important to Kung since it requires an global imparative of having a global institutions of educators and students that inhabit it in all places in the world that share the same systems.Of course families,nationalistic pride,ethic pride,religious pride and many others are the reason that an Global ideal on how to provide the universaliality of our educational system is never will be actualized because of already establish institutions that exist now are already in competition of one another and they are not indeed gonna let another new-kid-on-the-block to compete.

But it does have to be said that Kant, like Wittgenstein, is one of those philosophers that modern theologians seem to be disproportionately awed by. I'm not sure why.

Well firstly,Kant and Wittgenstein are fundementally different in many ways and that can correlate on the fact that theologians study with their own language of the problems of religion and philosophy have also their own language to study the concepts of religion and science.Kant have his own idiomatic way of using the language of philosophy of approaching philosophy based on his existence of the 18th century Europe and Wittgenstein have his own idiomatic way of using the language of philosophy of approaching philosophy in the 20th century which is broaden not only of the western world but the world itself since European colonialism have reached its peak.

Plotinus · Apr 17, 2007

Blue Monkey said:
I've thought from time to time that the infamous quodlibets such as "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" posed and answered by the Scholastics (i.e. Aquinas) were in fact given in the spirit of a Zen koan - that the struggle to find a satisfactory answer was meant, in the end, to exhaust the intellect and lead out of that labyrinth towards direct spiritual experience of God. I'd like your comments on this, and quodlibets in general.

I've been reading an awful lot of quodlibets over the past couple of weeks so I thought I'd revisit this question and say a little more about it.

"Quodlibets" were a subgenre of "question" literature. The "question" as an academic exercise developed in the twelfth century and really came into prominence in the thirteenth. It developed out of the idea of a debate: the master would set a question and everyone would suggest answers to it, and provide arguments for those answers. The debate would be settled not by a vote but by the decision of the master. By the thirteenth century, this was quite formalised, and the setting and adjudicating of these questions was one of the things that an advanced student would have to do as part of his training to become a master (basically the equivalent of a modern doctor's degree).

The prospective master of theology had to fulfil two main criteria. First he had to write a commentary on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard. This became the standard textbook of theology in the early thirteenth century, making it possibly the most influential theological work ever written, although hardly anyone reads it today. Here's something I wrote on Peter Lombard and his "Sentences":

Peter Lombard was not a very original theologian, but his Sentences became the standard theological textbook for the rest of the Middle Ages and beyond. He was thus one of the most influential authors in Christian history.

Life

Very little is known of Peters life. He was born to a poor family in Italy, probably Novara, later moving to Lombardy. He studied at Bologna and Reims, partly with the support of Bernard of Clairvaux. By the mid-1130s he was in Paris, probably attending the lectures of Peter Abelard. About a decade after that, he was teaching at the cathedral school in the city, quickly making a name for himself as one of the foremost theologians in France. Together with Robert of Melun, he opposed the teaching of Gilbert de la Porrée, and he was present at the council of Reims in 1148 which considered Gilberts teaching. In 1159 he became bishop of Paris, but he died a year later.

Peter wrote commentaries on the Psalms and on Paul, as well as a number of sermons. But he is famous for his Libri quatuor sententiarum, probably completed in 1154 and revised four years later. The work was one of the emerging genre of sentence literature, based on a careful study and comparison of biblical texts and passages from earlier theologians. Peter was apparently influenced, in particular, by Hugh of St Victor and also Abelard (the latters Sic et non could be seen as a forerunner of Lombards method). Another important influence was Gratian, a Benedictine monk who, in around 1140, compiled the Decretum, an enormous collection of passages on canon law.

Thought

The Sentences consists of a collection of passages from earlier writers and Peters comments on them, arranged thematically. His purpose was to make available to readers the whole body of Christian teaching of past centuries in a single place. He probably drew much of his material from existing handbooks and sentence literature as well as from original texts; most of the material comes from the Latin church fathers, above all Augustine. He did, however, incorporate material from a newly available translation of John of Damascus, thereby making John an important influence on later western theology.

The first book deals with God and the Trinity. He stresses the greatness and incomprehensibility of God: God transcends any language we can apply to him, but we can still say things positively about him, such as the fact that he is one God. On the Trinity, Peter is careful to distinguish between the three Persons distinguishing them from each other by their mutual relations, as Augustine did and also distinguishes between the three Persons and their common nature. He also elaborates on Augustines claim that the Holy Spirit is the mutual love of the Father and the Son; Peter takes this quite literally, arguing that the eternity of the Father and the Son guarantees that the Spirit is a genuine Person in his own right, not just an attribute of them.

The second book addresses creation, the angels, and the nature of the will, while the third book deals with christology and salvation. Peters treatment of christology was particularly influential and divisive. He presents three Christologies as rival theories. The first is the assumptus theory, associated with many earlier writers, especially Robert of Melun. According to this, at the incarnation, there is a man who becomes God and God becomes that man. The second is the subsistence theory, associated with the followers of Gilbert de la Porrée. According to this, the Son originally had one nature and one substance, but at the incarnation gained a second nature and two more substances (body and soul). The third is the habitus theory, according to which Christs humanity is like a garment perfectly real, but a covering for his divinity. Peter does not explicitly endorse this theory, although he seems to prefer it to its rivals. He suggests that Christ, insofar as he is a man, is not anything a claim meant to oppose the subsistence theory, which in the eyes of its opponents comes too close to stating that Christs humanity is a distinct thing from his divinity, something smacking of Nestorianism.

Peters account of salvation is something of an attempt to combine Abelards views with the more traditional language of inherited guilt and sacrifice, but he has apparently not read Anselm of Canterbury on the subject. He argues that Christs sacrifice frees human beings from the eternal punishment from sin, but there is also temporal punishment, which remains. That is dealt with by the subject of the fourth book, the sacraments, probably the most influential part of the whole work. Peter distinguishes between each sacrament itself and the reality which it conveys. Like Hugh of St Victor, he believes that there are exactly seven sacraments, and he introduces some of the ideas and language that would become standard in speaking of them. For example, he talks about the conversion of the elements in the Mass into the body and blood of Christ, a forerunner of the later doctrine of transubstantiation.

Influence

The Sentences met with a mixed reception in the fifty years or so after Peter Lombards death. It seems to have been popular by the end of the twelfth century, with some authors modelling their own works after it for example, Praepositinus of Cremonas Summa theologica follows much the same pattern as the Sentences. We are told that the Sentences was almost condemned at the Third Lateran Council of 1179, but there was not enough time to discuss the matter. Presumably this was because of the attacks upon it by John of Cornwall and Walter of St Victor, who charged Peter with christological nihilism, the notion that Christs humanity was an accident of his person which could be removed, something which seemed to be entailed by Peters implied support of a habitus christology . In 1170 Pope Alexander III condemned the claim that Christ is nothing insofar as he is man, though without condemning either Peter Lombard or the Sentences as a whole.

Later, Joachim of Fiore attacked Peters understanding of the Trinity, claiming that the Lombards distinction between the three Persons of the Trinity and the divine nature made the Trinity into a Quaternity. This interpretation of Peters views was examined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, but it was rejected and the Lombards orthodoxy upheld. Despite this, there continued to be some reservations. The idea that the Holy Spirit is quite literally the love of the Father for the Son and vice versa was not very popular; Aquinas would later reject it. Despite these misgivings, though, after 1215 the Sentences was considered the primary textbook of theology at all universities. Alexander of Hales pioneered its use at Paris, being the first master there to lecture primarily on the Sentences rather than on the Bible. Students would study theology in the terms laid down by the Sentences, writing comments on it, and all those who wished to teach had first to deliver a two-year lecture course on the work of the Magister. Many later theologians, such as Duns Scotus or William Ockham, would develop some of their doctrines in the course of their commentaries on Peter Lombard. It was usually studied together with the Historia scholastica of Peter Comestor, which was also recommended at the Fourth Lateran Council. This central place of the Sentences in determining peoples understanding of Christian theology would last until the sixteenth century.

The commentary that a graduate student would write on the "Sentences" was often a major piece of work. Often, scholars would continue to work on the commentary even after they had officially become a master. The student would read other people's commentaries on the same subject, of course, and try to evaluate their interpretations. This meant that the commentary would be widely read - much more so than a modern doctoral thesis - and so it was possible to become famous purely on the basis of your Sentence commentary. For example, Richard of Middleton was a pretty obscure scholar until his commentary on the "Sentences" was published in the 1290s (about a decade after he'd finished the first draft and become a master). After its publication he became not just famous but acclaimed as a Doctor of the Church (because of his reliable orthodoxy, he's known as the Solid Doctor, not the most exciting title really).

The second thing an advanced student had to do was hold a series of Quaestiones or questions - that is, debates like the ones I described above. These debates would be written down in a formal style and published, just like the Sentence commentary. Here, the student had a freer hand in what subjects to tackle; the Sentence commentary obviously had to follow the format of the "Sentences", but the questions could be on pretty much any subject; typically, a master would hold a series of questions on the same subject, and these might be published together to make up a sort of treatise. So in a way you could say that the whole course was rather like a modern American-style doctoral degree: the Sentence commentary was like the taught segment and the questions were like the dissertation. Most of the "treatises" by thirteenth-century theologians are actually collections of questions: for example, Thomas Aquinas' book "On Truth" is three volumes of questions on logic and metaphysics. Sometimes, however, a master would hold "quodlibetal" questions. "Quodlibet" basically means "whatever you want", so these were sessions with no set topic. Students would suggest all kinds of things to discuss and the master just had to do the best he could. In other words, it was a lot like forum threads like this one.

Normally, quodlibetal questions covered the normal things that philosophers and theologians talked about. Here's a typical example from one major theologian of the late thirteenth century:

Henry of Ghent said:
Is the will a higher power than the intellect, or the intellect a higher power than the will?

There follows a treatment of questions that pertain both to the separated soul and to the soul joined to the body. One of these concerned the comparison of its two principal powers to each other, namely, whether the will is a higher power than the intellect or the intellect is a higher power than the will. The other five were concerned with the comparison of their actions.

With regard to the first question, it was argued that the intellect would be a higher power, because the Philosopher says this in the tenth book of the Ethics. 1 According to him, practical reason is the first mover in things to be done by the will. 2 Moreover, Augustine says in chapter twenty two of Against Faustus: Without a doubt in actions of the soul, contemplation, which belongs to the intellect, is preeminent. 3 Moreover, in his reason man is formed anew according to the image of God. 4 Finally, that which directs is higher than that which it directs and the judgment of the intellect directs the will.

Against this view is the fact that the will is the first mover of itself and other things in the whole kingdom of the soul, and such a power is higher.

The Solution

To this we must say that, since the powers of the soul of themselves are hidden from us and unknown to us, just as the substance of the soul is, we have to seek, in a way appropriate to us, all knowledge concerning them from what is subsequent to them. Hence, we have to judge the preeminence of one power over another from those things that are subsequent to the powers and that provide us a way of coming to know the powers. These are three: habit, act, and object. We must say that the power whose habit, act, and object are superior to the habit, act and object of another is without qualification superior to that other power.

Now it is the case that the habit, act, and object of the will are utterly superior to the act, habit, and object of the intellect. Hence, we must say that the will is absolutely superior to the intellect and is a higher power than it.

The position we have taken is clear because the characteristic habit of the will which carries it toward the good by an act of true love is the habit of charity. By it, according to Augustine, we love God in himself and the neighbor in God and because of God. But the highest habit of the intellect is wisdom by which we contemplate God and things eternal, according to Augustine in book fourteen of The Trinity. The Apostle states well the degree by which the habit of charity is superior to every habit of wisdom and knowledge, when he says in chapter thirteen of the First Letter to the Corinthians, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and do not have charity," and so on.

The degree by which the act of the will, which is to will or to love, surpasses the act of the intellect, which is to know or to have knowledge, is obvious from two comparisons: first, from the comparison of one act to the other, second, from the comparison of each of them in terms of how the subject of the act is perfected by its object.

What we are aiming at is clear from the first comparison. For, as Augustine says in book twelve of On Genesis, and the Philosopher says in book three of The Soul, "The agent and the mover are always more noble than that upon which they act." But the will is the universal and first mover in the whole kingdom of the soul and superior to and first mover of all other things to their end, as will be seen below. For, as Anselm says in Likenesses, "It moves reason and all the powers of the soul." And as Augustine says in book three of Free Choice, "The mind itself is first subject to the intention of the mind; then the body which it governs, and thus it moves any member to activity." Hence, the will commands reason to consider, to reason, and to deliberate when it wills and about what topics it wills, and it likewise makes it to stop. The intellect does not command or move the will in any such way, as will become clear further on, when we say more about their comparison.

From the second comparison, what we are aiming at is likewise clear. For by the action of the will the will itself is perfected by the very reality that is loved as it exists in itself, because by its action the will is inclined toward the reality itself. But by the action of intellect the intellect is perfected by the thing known as it exists in the intellect. By its action the intellect draws into itself the reality known, while by its action the will transfers itself to the object willed for its own sake so that it may enjoy it. For this reason, as Dionysius says in chapter four of The Divine Names, by its action the intellect likens itself to the reality known, but the will transforms itself into the object willed. It is much more perfect and lofty to be transformed into the good as it is in itself according to its own nature than to be made like the true as it is in the knower in the manner of the knower and thus in an inferior manner. Accordingly, Augustine says in the eleventh book of The Trinity, "When we know God, his likeness comes to be in us, but a likeness of an inferior degree, because it is in an inferior nature." Hence, the activity of the will is far more perfect and lofty than the activity of the intellect to the degree that love and esteem for God is better than knowledge of God. Even if with respect to those things that are less than the soul the opposite is the case, namely, that the action of the intellect is higher than the will, because the knowledge of bodily things in the soul is higher and more noble than the love of them, this only makes the intellect to be more noble than the will in a certain respect. But the first relation and comparison makes the will to be higher without qualification. For the first goodness and the first truth are the essential and primary objects of the intellect and the will; other things are objects of the intellect and the will in comparison to them secondarily and in a certain respect. In the same way, in other things something true or good is true or good in some respect in comparison to the first truth and first goodness, since by nature it does not have the character of true or good except through an impression of the first truth and goodness, as will have to be explained elsewhere. Thus the will seeks something good by reason of some participation that thing hag in the first goodness and the intellect knows something true only by reason of some participation that thing has in the first truth. Accordingly, it is more natural for the will to be perfected by the first goodness than by anything else and for the intellect to be perfected by the first truth than by anything else. For this reason the will and the intellect cannot perfectly come to rest in the enjoyment of any good or in the knowledge of any truth until the first goodness and the first truth are attained. In accord with this, Augustine says in the beginning of The Confessions, "You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." Hence, since everything should be judged to be unqualifiedly more of a certain kind in comparison to that which is more without qualification and more in terms of its nature, as the Philosopher says in the first book of Posterior Analytics, the act of the will should be judged unqualifiedly better than the intellect and absolutely so, since it is unqualifiedly better than it in comparison to its first object. This agrees with the thought of the Philosopher in the Topics: "If the best in this genus is better than the best in that genus, then the former is better than the latter without qualification."

Next, that the object of the will is superior to the object of the intellect is obvious, because the object of the will, which is the good without qualification, has the character of an end without qualification and of the ultimate end. The object of the intellect, which is the true, has the character of a good of something, for example, of the intellect. Thus it has the character of an end subordinate to another end and ordered to the other end as to the ultimate end. For, when there are many particular ends, they are all included under some one end, and all the powers which have divers ends are subordinated to some one power whose end is the ultimate one, as is stated in the beginning of the Ethics. In accord with this, then, the intellect is completely subordinated to the will. And in this way, as in all active potencies ordered to an end, that potency which regards the universal end always moves and impels to activity the other potencies which regard particular ends and regulates them, as the master art regulates the other arts in a city, as is stated in the beginning of the Ethics, so the will moves the reason and directs it to activity, as well as all the powers of the soul and members of the body.

It must, then, be said that the will is absolutely the higher power in the whole kingdom of the soul and thus higher than the intellect.

Pretty hideous stuff. As you can see, it follows the normal pattern of a (published) question: first the question is asked, and then a number of arguments are given for answering it in one way. But then we are given a longer argument for answering it the other way, and the original arguments are refuted. This pattern will be familiar to anyone who's looked at Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, which obviously follows the same sort of pattern. You can also see the typical thirteenth-century method of arguing, using mainly rational arguments, but appealing to authority to back them up - mainly the Bible, Augustine, and Aristotle (the Philosopher).

However, it seems that sometimes students (or even the masters themselves?) would suggest slightly more unusual topics. Here's a famous example from an author not normally noted for his sense of humour:

Thomas Aquinas said:
Questions on Whatever (Quaestiones Quodlibitales), Question 12, Article 20.

Whether truth is stronger than either wine, the king or woman.

Objections:

1. It seems that wine (is stronger than the others) because it affects man the most.

2. Again, (it seems) that the king (is stronger than the others) because he sends man to what is most difficult, namely, to that which exposed himself to mortal danger.

3. Again, (it seems) that woman (is stronger), because she commands even kings.

On the other hand is the fact Eszra IV, 35 says that truth is stronger.

I respond that it should be said that this is the question proposed to youths (who were going to be destroyed) in Eszra. One should realize, therefore, that if we consider these four, namely wine, the king, woman and truth, in themselves they are not comparable because they do not belong to the same genus. Nevertheless, if they are considered in relation to some effect, they coinside in one aspect, and so can be compared with each other. Now, this effect in which they come together and can be compared is the affect they have on the human heart. One ought to see, therefore, which among these most affect the heart of man.

One should know, therefore, that man has a certain ability to be affected corporally and another in his animal (nature). This latter is of two kinds, according to the sense faculties and according to the intelligible faculties. The intelligible, indeed, is of two kinds, the practical and the speculative.

Among those things, however, which pertain to affecting according to the disposition of the body, wine has the excellence which makes (someone) speak through drunkenness. Among those things which pertain to the affecting of the sensitive appetite, pleasure is the more excellent and principally sexual (pleasure), and so woman is stronger. Again in practical things, i.e. in human things, which we are able to do, the king has the greatest ability. In speculative things, the highest and most powerful is truth.

Now, however, bodily powers are subjected to animal powers, animal powers to intellectual (ones), and practical intellectual powers to speculative (ones). And so simpliciter truth is greater in dignity, and more excellent and stronger.

As all this suggests, I think the answer I gave to the original question the first time around was right. Quodlibetal questions, like other quaestiones, were asked in order to get an answer. Of course, some, like the question addressed by Aquinas above, weren't entirely serious. Henry of Ghent's text is far more typical. As a rule, quodlibetal questions were more puzzling than other questions, because they were raised by people who wanted them to be debated. But the master would always come to some conclusion or other. The medievals typically did not believe in unanswerable problems; there was always a solution of some kind.

kuukkeli · Apr 17, 2007

Concerning the earlier discussion of the Question of Evil and the notion that free will is at times used to solve it. To me it appears obvious that free will can't solve any questions concerning omniscient creator god because free will is logically impossible under those conditions.

God is omniscient
God is the creator of all
God knows what each man will do during his life
God creates each man to do certain things
Men live their lives as decided by god
Men have no free will

1 and 2 are traditionally traits of a christian notion of god. 1 leads to 3. 2 and 3 will lead to 4. 5 and 6 are just the same as 4 but from the perspective of man.

So Plotinus, how is the concept of free will usually incorporated to christianity? How did theologians argue in favor of free will? And when was the free will seriously questioned for the first time (was there anyone before Luther)?

Plotinus · Apr 18, 2007

Those are lots of big questions, especially the last part on history. I don't have time to address the historical question right now, except to say that free will was certainly questioned long before Luther by many people. In fact, the very first Christian philosopher - the Gnostic Basilides - rejected the doctrine of free will.

However, I disagree that freedom of the will is logically impossible under the conditions you state. I think your argument is invalid. I think it's OK down to 4 (although I suspect that many people would reject the move from 2 and 3 to 4, but I think you're probably right there). However, I don't see that 5 and 6 follow from 4.

The first problem is that you haven't defined what you mean by "free will". There are definitions of free will that are perfectly compatible with being determined by God - namely, "compatibilist" free will. Clearly, such a notion of free will is useless for addressing the problem of evil, but then that's hardly the only reason why Christians have traditionally believed in free will.

More importantly, though, I don't see that from "God creates each person to do certain thing" it follows that "We live our lives as decided by God." And even if it did follow, I don't see that it would follow from that that we don't have free will, even contra-causal free will. It would follow, if by 4 you meant that God creates people, and then forces them to do what he wants. But that's not what Christians believe (not all of them anyway). Leibniz argued that God understands each person as a possibility before he creates them. For example, God understands the possible Caesar who will freely choose to cross the Rubicon. He also understands the possible Caesar who will freely choose not to cross the Rubicon. In fact he understands a vast number of possible Caesars who all choose to do various things. In fact, God decides to create the possible Caesar who freely chooses to cross the Rubicon. Now he does this because, for his own ineffable purposes, he wants the Rubicon to be crossed. But he hasn't forced Caesar to do it. All he's done is to actualise the Caesar who he knows freely chooses to do so. I don't see how this compromises Caesar's free will at all.

So I think that divine omnipotence and omniscience are perfectly compatible with free will however defined. However, this compatibility means, once again, that free will is useless for explaining evil. Because if God can choose what actions are taken, by creating people who he knows will freely take those actions, then it follows that he wants all the evil actions that have been taken to have been taken. The fact that they were done freely by created beings doesn't make any difference.

ironduck · Apr 18, 2007

If a god creates people as possibilities their combined possibilities could lead the world any possible way, which again would mean that said god had no particular plan creating them.

What do you mean by contra-causal free will?

Plotinus · Apr 18, 2007

ironduck said:
If a god creates people as possibilities their combined possibilities could lead the world any possible way, which again would mean that said god had no particular plan creating them.

Not at all. When I say "possibility" I don't mean something necessarily uncertain. For example, the possible Caesar who crosses the Rubicon is simply a possible person who, if actual, actually crosses the Rubicon. If God knows all these possibles (and, being omniscient, he must know all possibles as well as all actuals), then he knows what they would all do if created. If he knows what each one would do then he knows what the total outcome would be, the complete history if you like. For example, before creation, God understood the possible me who would start this thread. God also understood the possible you who would post on it. God chose to actualise both of us, which means that he knew I would actually start this thread and you would actually post on it.

You can express the same idea with the notion of possible worlds, a possible world simply being a way the universe could have been (there is a possible world where I did not start this thread, for example). God knows all possibilities; this means he understands every one of the infinite number of possible worlds. He chooses one of these possible worlds to make actual. Therefore he understands the actual world and knows everything that happens in it. And none of this has any implications for free will.

This is basically a long-winded way of saying that just because something is certain doesn't mean it's not free.

ironduck said:
What do you mean by contra-causal free will?

Indeterminate free will. If you perform an act with contra-causal freedom, it means that nothing caused the act, or at least that it was not fully determined by the circumstances immediately before it. To put it another way, you could have had exactly the same situation immediately before the act, and the act could have gone the other way. Someone with perfect knowledge of the state of affairs immediately preceding the free act could not have predicted it.

This contrasts with compatibilist free will, according to which your act is free if it is what you wanted to do (as opposed to doing it because you're forced by external circumstances). An act that is free in this sense could still be completely determined; it just has to be determined entirely or largely by you.

Traditionally, Catholics have insisted that we have contra-causal free will, while (most) Protestants have rejected this notion and said we have only compatibilist free will. Today, though, many Protestants have reverted to the Catholic view, because the claim that we have contra-causal free will is the basis for the free-will defence against the problem of evil. However, if what I said in the above post is right, then even if we do have contra-causal free will (which most philosophers think is pretty dubious), then it's no help in the problem of evil.

kuukkeli · Apr 18, 2007

Plotinus said:
The first problem is that you haven't defined what you mean by "free will".

I haven't actually thought of an exact definition. The most obvious (to me at least) would seem to be that actions of an individual are not determined before they actually happen (in contrast to determinism).

More importantly, though, I don't see that from "God creates each person to do certain thing" it follows that "We live our lives as decided by God." And even if it did follow, I don't see that it would follow from that that we don't have free will, even contra-causal free will. It would follow, if by 4 you meant that God creates people, and then forces them to do what he wants.

I'm trying to clarify. If god creates man with knowledge of that man's all future actions the creation itself forces the man act in predetermined way. Contra-causal free will (according to your explanation) does not in my opinion refute determinism of omniscient creator god. God still creates Caesar that is destined to live the life decided by god. He has no free will as there never was any doubt of any of his decisions, his whole life was predetermined.

Plotinus · Apr 18, 2007

kuukkeli said:
I haven't actually thought of an exact definition. The most obvious (to me at least) would seem to be that actions of an individual are not determined before they actually happen (in contrast to determinism).

That's contra-causal free will. But if you define free will in a compatibilist way, as suggested above, then you can have free will and be determined. Augustine argued that although having the ability to sin or not to sin is a greater freedom than being unable not to sin, the greatest freedom of all is being unable to sin. On that view, compatilibist free will (combined with a will that is determined to good rather than evil) is preferable to contra-causal free will.

There's a further problem with the definition of contra-causal free will as indeterminacy, though, which is that we normally think of undetermined events as random, not willed. For example, according to the Copenhagen school of quantum physics, many quantum events are not determined - they are random. Assuming that these events are indeed undetermined, we wouldn't say they are "free" in any meaningful way. So what's the difference between a free act and a random one? This is why many philosophers believe that the notion of contra-causal free will is either completely incoherent or incomprehensible. You have to explain how something can be neither determined nor random.

kuukkeli said:
I'm trying to clarify. If god creates man with knowledge of that man's all future actions the creation itself forces the man act in predetermined way.

Not at all. Here's an analogy (can't remember whether I used this earlier in this thread or just planned to). Suppose I want a new chair. I look through a catalogue and I see there are many chairs on offer. I decide to order a blue chair. The blue chair duly arrives in a delivery van and appears in my room. Now, there could have been a green chair or a red chair, since these were also options in the catalogue. But I chose the blue one. Thus, the fact that there is now a blue chair in my room is caused, in part, by my decision that it was best to have a blue chair rather than one of any other colour.

However, I did not make the chair blue. All these chairs already existed in the warehouse; I simply chose the one I wanted. I might have achieved the goal of having a blue chair by the alternative route of ordering an unpainted chair and then painting it blue myself, but I didn't.

Now on Leibniz' view (which he actually takes from de Molina, and I think de Molina was right), we can think of God choosing what to create in exactly the same way. God wants there to be a Caesar who crosses the Rubicon. Now we could think of him creating Caesar and then determining him to cross the Rubicon (this was the view of de Molina's opponent, Banez). That's like buying an unpainted chair and then painting it yourself. On this view, we really are puppets in the hands of God. But the alternative view is to think of God as surveying the various possible Caesars and choosing which one to create. This is like considering a selection of ready-painted chairs and deciding which one you want. Just as I don't make the chair blue, so too God doesn't make Caesar cross the Rubicon. Considered even as a possibility, Caesar makes that decision himself, freely (on whatever definition of "freely" you want). Note that God does not determine what the possibilities are. If something is possibly true, it is necessarily the case that it is possibly true; thus the choice of possibles before God is actually necessary. That is, he necessarily faces that array of (infinite) possibilities. But virtually all theologians have agreed that God does not determine what is necessarily true. Descartes is generally regarded as thinking that God can decide what is necessary, and Peter Damian is often (I think wrongly) interpreted in this way, but that is a very minority view with very problematic consequences. So there all these possibilities for God to choose between, just as there are various chairs in the warehouse that I could order. But God doesn't decide what those possibilities are, any more than I decide what chairs are on offer. Considered as a possible only, Caesar still freely chooses to cross the Rubicon, just as the chair is blue even when it is only in the warehouse. Transferring the chair to my room doesn't make it any bluer. Making Caesar actual doesn't make his decision any less free.

It makes perfect sense to talk about the free actions of possible, non-actual, beings: we could say that Mr Darcy freely chooses to marry Elizabeth Bennett. As things stand, Mr Darcy does not exist in the actual world; he is only a possible person. Suppose God decided he wanted that to happen in actuality: he would simply actualise the Mr Darcy who freely chooses to marry Elizabeth. And bingo, you have an actual Mr Darcy who freely makes that choice. He chooses in accordance with God's will, because if it weren't God's will, he wouldn't have actualised him. But he still chooses freely. God doesn't determine him to do anything. God simply creates the person who will freely choose the things that God wants him to.

kuukkeli said:
Contra-causal free will (according to your explanation) does not in my opinion refute determinism of omniscient creator god. God still creates Caesar that is destined to live the life decided by god. He has no free will as there never was any doubt of any of his decisions, his whole life was predetermined.

I think you're confusing certainty with determinism. We normally think that if you know, with certainty, what someone is going to do, then that act is not done freely. But this is because our knowledge is normally rather uncertain. If we had certain knowledge of a future act like that, then this would have to be because there was some kind of inevitability about it, either caused or simply known by the knower. But in fact we don't think there's anything intrinsically unknowable about free acts. I know what I did yesterday, but my knowledge of those acts doesn't mean they weren't free (by whatever definition). Someone else can also know what I did yesterday, but that doesn't stop them being free acts. Now God is supposed to be outside time. For him there is no past or future; the whole of history is laid out before him. That means he knows, with certainty, what everyone does. Why does that mean that everyone's acts must be predetermined, any more than if God were at the end of time, remembering everyone's acts? If you really think that God's omniscience destroys free will you need to make it more explicit. Why does God's knowledge of my (past, present, or future) actions have to mean that those acts are determined, when someone else's knowledge of my (past) actions not mean that they are determined?

ironduck · Apr 18, 2007

Perhaps the real issue here is what it means to be outside of time? At least I think it is for me.

If something is outside of time it must mean that causality in a sense no longer exists, which makes choices irrelevant as well.

Plotinus · Apr 18, 2007

ironduck said:
Perhaps the real issue here is what it means to be outside of time? At least I think it is for me.

If something is outside of time it must mean that causality in a sense no longer exists, which makes choices irrelevant as well.

Certainly the problem of what it means to say that God is eternal, and whether it's possible, is another of the big issues in historical theology. Of course Christians haven't always believed that he is literally outside time (I think Origen was the first Christian to argue this, and it became standard after Augustine) and they don't all believe it now (many theologians in the past century have rejected it, especially those influenced by process theology).

You're right that one of the criticisms of the idea that God is outside time is that it brings up problems with causality. If we assume that a cause must temporally precede its effect, than a non-temporal God cannot cause anything. Personally I'm not sure that that principle must hold anyway, so I don't really see such a big problem. For example, we could change it to say that a cause cannot come after its effect, in which case God could still cause things without breaking that principle.

kuukkeli · Apr 18, 2007

I do appreaciate your answers as it must take a lot of time to come out with such indepth answers to many posters. So to save your time I try to be as brief as possible (knowing myself that might not be very brief).

Plotinus said:
There's a further problem with the definition of contra-causal free will as indeterminacy, though, which is that we normally think of undetermined events as random, not willed.

I do see your point but it doesn't appear to be valid for the matter at hand. First, omniscience removes the concept of randomness. There are no undetermined outcomes for the omniscient god. Second, if undetermined is classified as random in this context then I don't see what is left to be called free will; The possibility that god chose wouldn't have free will as its life would only be a result of a cosmic roll of dice, not a result of free will.

God doesn't determine him to do anything. God simply creates the person who will freely choose the things that God wants him to.

This is the core problem. I don't agree that in such an event god is not determining the person's whole life. It's like smilies: :lol:

does not laugh because it wills so but because someone made it that way. If I choose to "create" another :lol:

it still doesn't laugh because it wills; It has no will, it has only one fixed course. Same is true for actualized possibility; it has no will, it's only moving onwards on a set of rails.

Why does God's knowledge of my (past, present, or future) actions have to mean that those acts are determined, when someone else's knowledge of my (past) actions not mean that they are determined?

There is no way for me not to consider the following as determinism:

God knows X will do Y
God creates X
X does Y

On the other hand I can't see where determinism is in following:

X is
X does Y
Z learns that X did Y

There are two important differences between these cases: 1) timing* (knowing before) and 2) creation (responsibility of X's existence in the first place). I also don't think that #1 can be refuted by making a claim that god is outside time because the other possibilities were never actualized so the choice of which possibility is created can't be based on a "memory" (i.e. being outside time is indifferent).

*Physicists in here can correct me but I'm under impression that time is still considered to have a direction which means there is difference between past and future.

Plotinus · Apr 18, 2007

kuukkeli said:
I do see your point but it doesn't appear to be valid for the matter at hand. First, omniscience removes the concept of randomness. There are no undetermined outcomes for the omniscient god.

I still haven't seen a good reason for this.

Remember that "determine" is ambiguous. In one sense, it means to cause something. In another sense, it means to find something out. For example, in a sentence such as "Archaeologists have determined that Alexander's palace was 100 feet high", "determine" just means "discover". But in a sentence such as "The Bank of England has determined that interest rates will rise this quarter" it means "cause" or "bring about".

Now of course, for an omniscient being, there is nothing indetermined in the sense of uncertain. There is nothing for an omniscient being to discover. However, it does not follow simply from that that for an omniscient being there is nothing indetermined in the sense of uncaused. And it absolutely does not follow that for an omniscient being there is nothing which is indetermined by that being.

kuukkeli said:
Second, if undetermined is classified as random in this context then I don't see what is left to be called free will; The possibility that god chose wouldn't have free will as its life would only be a result of a cosmic roll of dice, not a result of free will.

I'm not sure quite what your point here is. However, the problem of simply defining contra-causal free will doesn't really have anything to do with God. It seems very hard to explain how it differs from both determinism and randomness, and that's hard even before you drag God into the picture.

kuukkeli said:
This is the core problem. I don't agree that in such an event god is not determining the person's whole life. It's like smilies: does not laugh because it wills so but because someone made it that way. If I choose to "create" another it still doesn't laugh because it wills; It has no will, it has only one fixed course. Same is true for actualized possibility; it has no will, it's only moving onwards on a set of rails.

Not at all! Of course a smilie has no free will. But why would that necessarily be the same for a person? Look at it this way: you choose which smilies you want to appear in your post, but you didn't design those smilies in the first place (I assume). You just choose them from a selection that the forum presents you with. Similarly, God chooses which beings he wants to exist in actuality, but he doesn't choose what their natures are to start with, because they exist as possibilities in his understanding even when they are not actual.

Put it like this: God creates Caesar because Caesar chooses to cross the Rubicon. It's not that Caesar crosses the Rubicon because God creates him. Of course, he only crosses the Rubicon in actuality because God creates him, but he would have crossed it as a possibility even if God hadn't created him (or if God had created an alternative Caesar who made a different decision).

Imagine I am an employer who is deciding which of two candidates to employ. One candidate is excellent, very well qualified and has great experience. The other candidate is rubbish. Suppose I employ the first candidate, and that candidate then goes on to be very good. Did I cause that employee to be very good? Did I make him be good? Did I force him to act in a certain way, or remove his free will? Of course not: the employee himself did that. The fact that I had good reason to think that this candidate would be a good employee doesn't make me the complete cause of his good behaviour (although I am a partial cause, in that he wouldn't have been able to work well if I hadn't employed him). In God's case, of course, he has perfect knowledge of how each possible person would behave if created. In that respect he's in a better position than an employer looking at CVs. But it doesn't make him any more a cause of how each person behaves in actuality. He causes the fact that their behaviour is actual and not merely possible; he doesn't cause what that behaviour is considered as a possibility, and therefore he doesn't cause what that behaviour is when it is actual either. The only thing he causes is its actuality.

kuukkeli said:
There is no way for me not to consider the following as determinism:

God knows X will do Y

God creates X

X does Y

Well, what I said before is the reason I would disagree. I know that all children like sweets. I have a child, and indeed it turns out to like sweets. Does it follow from that that I determined the child to like sweets? On the contrary, I'd prefer it if he didn't.

kuukkeli said:
On the other hand I can't see where determinism is in following:

X is

X does Y

Z learns that X did Y

There are two important differences between these cases: 1) timing* (knowing before) and 2) creation (responsibility of X's existence in the first place). I also don't think that #1 can be refuted by making a claim that god is outside time because the other possibilities were never actualized so the choice of which possibility is created can't be based on a "memory" (i.e. being outside time is indifferent).

*Physicists in here can correct me but I'm under impression that time is still considered to have a direction which means there is difference between past and future.

I'm not convinced that the timing makes a difference. If time has a direction, that doesn't mean there's any difference between past and future except from our point of view. Say I perform an action on Friday, and someone knows about it on Saturday. That doesn't make the act any less free. Now suppose that someone knows about it on Thursday. Why does that make the act any less free? Just saying that it makes a difference doesn't make it so.

Similarly, causing an individual's existence does indeed, in a sense, make you the cause of the individual's acts; in the child case above, if I hadn't had the child, he wouldn't have liked sweets or done anything at all. However, it is one thing to be a (partial) cause of an act, it is quite another to (fully) determine that act. My parents are causes of everything that I do, but only partial causes, because my behaviour is caused by all sorts of things, including my own decisions. If we thought that parents fully determine their children's actions then we would punish the parents of criminals. Similarly, if God creates someone, it doesn't follow from that that he determines everything they do. If God knows everything that that person will do, and still creates him, then presumably this means that God approves of all of it, or at least wants it to be done, or something like that. But it doesn't follow that he determines it or that the person in question has no free will in choosing to do it.

kuukkeli · Apr 18, 2007

Thanks for the replies. I won't clutter the thread with this any more as I guess both of us have given most of the arguments that we have (I may change my mind if I come up with some extra ammunition though). This just appears to be something I disagree with theology (at least part of it). No much use to repeat that disagreement

Atticus · Apr 18, 2007

Sorry if these are answered before, I've skipped a lot of posts.

Can christians or thelogians explain why God had to sacrifice someone to forgive our sins? What about the seemingly arbitrary precondition that we have to believe on his(/hers/it's) existence?

Do you think malevolent God is plausible? (One solution to the problem of good could be that false hope induces more suffering than no hope at all)

Plotinus · Apr 19, 2007

kuukkeli said:
Thanks for the replies. I won't clutter the thread with this any more as I guess both of us have given most of the arguments that we have (I may change my mind if I come up with some extra ammunition though). This just appears to be something I disagree with theology (at least part of it). No much use to repeat that disagreement

Well, don't blame theology, it's just my opinion!

Atticus said:
Sorry if these are answered before, I've skipped a lot of posts.

Can christians or thelogians explain why God had to sacrifice someone to forgive our sins? What about the seemingly arbitrary precondition that we have to believe on his(/hers/it's) existence?

Christian theologians have come up with all sorts of explanations of how salvation works and why it involved Jesus' death. Not all of them agree that God "had" to sacrifice someone, and not all of them think that people "have" to believe anything at all.

In Romans 6, Paul argues that Christ's death saves because of our union to him. Paul describes sin as an oppressive force that can only be escaped through death. Christ dies, but we are mystically united to him, and we can make his death our own. That allows us to "die to sin" without having to literally die. And because Christ was raised, we are raised to new life in him.

The church fathers mostly thought that salvation comes through the incarnation rather than Christ's death. According to Irenaeus, the fact that divinity is joined to humanity actually divinises humanity. Athanasius agreed and said that God became man so that man might become God. On this view, Christ's entire life is what saves, not just his death. This is why there were such huge controversies over precisely how the divine and the human interrelate in Christ, because they thought it was the very heart of the faith.

In the early Middle Ages, most people's understanding of salvation had more to do with being rescued from the devil. The idea was that, by sinning, human beings had put themselves under the devil's control, so God had tricked the devil and rescued them. Gregory of Nyssa used the famous analogy of the fish. Jesus' humanity is the bait, and the devil is the fish that seizes him (the devil wants to destroy such an obviously good man). But Jesus' divinity is the hook that is concealed within. The devil is snared and humanity is rescued. Gregory thought that Jesus' divinity actually converts the devil (he did not believe that anyone, even the devil, would ultimately be condemned). Other theologians thought that Jesus' death was a sacrifice to the devil, because the devil literally had rights over human beings; God therefore had to "buy" them back from the devil. In Mark 10:45, Jesus himself is represented as supporting this rather odd view, by talking about "redemption".

In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury argued that in fact Jesus' death is an offering to God, not to the devil; it is a gift that Jesus makes to God to buy our forgiveness, as it were. In medieval society, if you committed a crime against someone, you were considered to have robbed them of their honour; either you had to make restitution, by paying back what you had stolen and something extra to cover the loss of honour, or you were punished. But Anselm argues that because sinning against God is infinitely serious, it is impossible to give him anything of equal or greater value. Only God could pay God enough. But only man should do so, because man sinned. So there has to be someone who is both God and man, whose death is of infinite value; Christ’s death therefore makes satisfaction to God for the sins of humanity, and no-one has to be punished at all.

That became the dominant theory of the atonement in the Middle Ages. At the same time, though, an alternative theory was put forward by Peter Abelard, according to which Christ saves by giving us an example of completely self-denying love and sacrifice. The idea is that we are so inspired by his example – both of his life and, above all, of his death – that it changes us to become better people. There also seems to be an idea of Christ’s death acting as a sort of conduit for God’s love to change people from within, but it’s not really clear how this works. Notice that in this theory, and also Paul's theory which I explained at the start, it's not an arbitrary condition that you have to believe; the fact that you believe is essential to its working. If you didn't think that Christ's death was an act of self-sacrifice then it's not going to change the way you act at all.

Abelard also sketched out a completely different theory of the atonement, according to which Christ dies in the place of sinners. On this theory, God’s justice compels him to punish the sinful; but Christ takes their place and suffers their punishment instead, which allows God to let sinners go. This theory was worked out properly by Calvin in the sixteenth century and it became the dominant one in Protestantism. In fact, virtually all evangelicals today not only believe it but think that it is the doctrine of the atonement, which all Christians are supposed to believe. They don’t normally even know of the existence of alternative theories.

But in fact, apart from the evangelical churches, most Christian churches have never accepted any of these theories (or any of the others, for there are plenty more) as definitive. The standard Christian position is that Christ – especially his death and resurrection – saves sinners; how he does so is another matter. C.S. Lewis put it rather nicely (for once): he said it’s like eating dinner. You know that eating dinner keeps you healthy. Nutritionists have many different theories about how that works, but that’s not really important; all that matters is that it does work.

Atticus said:
Do you think malevolent God is plausible? (One solution to the problem of good could be that false hope induces more suffering than no hope at all)

There’s nothing inconsistent about the notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing being who is supremely evil instead of supremely good (Descartes imagined such a being in his first Meditation). As you point out, that would raise a “problem of good” analogous to the traditional “problem of evil”: if God is all-evil, why would he allow good? I don’t think your proposed solution is very effective: I think it’s pretty clear that there’s an awful lot of happiness in the world which doesn’t lead to greater suffering. In fact if you look at the world you’ll see that there’s a lot of suffering and a lot of happiness too; if you were to infer from that alone the general attitude of God, you’d probably think him a bit good and a bit evil, rather like us.

ironduck · Apr 19, 2007

I like the example of the employer.

Plotinus said:
I know that all children like sweets. I have a child, and indeed it turns out to like sweets. Does it follow from that that I determined the child to like sweets? On the contrary, I'd prefer it if he didn't.

This one not as much.

Children are genetically predisposed to like sweets. If you have a child you know it's going to have its odds stacked heavily in favour of liking sweets, so in essence you're creating a child knowing (almost) that it will like sweets. You're creating a child that's (almost) predetermined to like sweets. Children rarely choose to like sweets. Of course there are exceptions, but since the potential parent is not omniscient they're less relevant for the example. You are essentially creating a being that's predetermined to like sweets.

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