Welcome to the sixth installment of my review of Dr. Edward Feser's The Last Superstition. You can find parts one, two, three, four and five at those links. In Chapter 3 Dr. Feser presents arguments for the existence and nature of God. Having covered existence in part five, I will not turn to some of the arguments offered for the nature of God. For the purposes of this post, I will treat Dr. Feser's arguments for existence as being completely convincing, and see if they really do tell us what he claims concerning the nature of God.
As an aside, given that the Unmoved Mover depends on the impossibility of an infinite essentially ordered causal series, it's rather curious that the Unmoved Mover themself must possess infinite power (otherwise, use of any causal power would diminish the Mover). It seems we can't avoid the infinite, no matter what.
While Aquinas may have written thousands of pages on the arguments about these attributes, Dr. Feser's words are considerably more brief, and I should be able to discuss them below the fold.
Starting with the Unmoved Mover, who has been revealed to be pure act and no potential, Dr. Feser says there can only be one of them. After all, if there was more than one, there would need to be some way of distinguishing them, and any possible distinction, such as one having more power than another, would be a potential for one that was an actuality for the other. It was difficult to take this argument seriously. No where else in his book does Dr. Feser use one being's actuality to assess a potentiality of a different being. My actuality as a human is not affected by the potential of soil to turn into an oak tree in the presence of an acorn. Unmoved Mover A can easily have some feature X that is not a potentiality nor an actuality at all for Unmoved Mover B. Now, you can certainly argue that A can in no way change or affect B, and vice-versa, but this does not make them the same.
Another argument is that the Mover can not be material, because to be material is to have potential to be something else. However, this seems to be a generalization based on the material things that we know. There is no reason to think that the Mover can't be a material thing with no potential to change at all. If you care to go back to Russell's teapot, the teapot is by definition at the center of the universe, and all other things circle it. Nor does it have any potential to become a cereal bowl or a silver spoon, it is fully expressed, unchanging as a teapot.
Finally, as the source of all causes, the Mover must possess all attributes in the highest degree. Of course, these are only the positive attributes like goodness and love, negative attributes like badness and hate are privations, states identified by the absence of a positive feature. I don't find that description metaphysically persuasive. Just sticking with emotions, the enjoyment of seeing another person in pain (schadenfreude) is not in any way the lack of some other attribute. Empathy is an attribute, but you can have neither empathy nor schadenfreude, just indifference, which would seem to be the privation of both. However, I find it unlikely Dr. Feser would claim schadenfreude is a feature of the Mover.
The last feature is that the First Cause, who merges every other essence with its existence, had no other being to merge it's essence and existence together. Thus, the Cause is simple, in that its essence is its existence, and its existence is its essence. This argument makes sense to me, and I have no objection to saying God is simple. What's interesting is that I hear this doctrine of simplicity used as statements why the Teapot, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster are not comparable to God, because their existence is composite, being both material and essence. However, I can't see that. Just because for everyday, potential-laden, material things we separate essence from the matter does not mean this applies to the Cause. We should not let our analogies limit who the Cause can be.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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6 comments:
I need to start reading this from the beginning to make a decent comment. But I have a choice dont I?
I could take a red pill and perhaps look at the power of placebo, post hoc and "belief armor" or I could take a blue pill and decide if I think, in the end, that the internet is a good ro evil construction
One Brow,
Quick reply regarding your introductory aside:
You say, "As an aside, given that the Unmoved Mover depends on the impossibility of an infinite essentially ordered causal series, it's rather curious that the Unmoved Mover themself must possess infinite power (otherwise, use of any causal power would diminish the Mover). It seems we can't avoid the infinite, no matter what."
To say that it's "curious" suggests you think it incompatible with, or at least uncongenial to, Feser's position. Why?
It's true that Feser's position requires us to buy the idea that any given Caused Thing we happen to be looking at today cannot have been preceded (in essential order, not necessarily in temporal sequence) by an infinite number of passively Caused Things, with no active Initiator Of Causation to shove the whole lot from potentiality into actuality.
I think he somewhere says that you can't have an infinite sequence of actualized material substances. (Or some such thing.) I gather this means that, in principle, it doesn't make sense to say that some material thing which exists (but used to not exist, or else used to exist but was different in some way, or else has always existed but might have not existed) could be part of an infinite series of other things which also are extant material things, which also had to be "actualized" to either exist, or to be the way they are now.
Since he denies such a narrow type of infinities, there's no reason why he can't turn around and then say, "BUT, with God, or numbers, or with any other transcendental (i.e. non-material, non-temporal) forms, you can have as many infinities as you like!"
Moreover, I don't think that Feser would quite say that God has "infinite power," except by analogy, only.
He contends, instead, that the First Cause, being Pure Act and the Final Telos of everything, must as a logical necessity, simply BE all the excellences that created things merely HAVE. They HAVE existence, but the Pure Act First Cause IS existence; they HAVE truth, but the Pure Act First Cause IS truth; they HAVE power, but the Pure Act First Cause IS power, and so on.
That's different than saying, "Well, an ant has a certain amount of power, a man a greater amount, the president of the United States a still greater, the entire Google corporation a still greater, some as-yet still-in-transit alien invaders from Andromeda still more, the fallen angel Lucifer still more, the angel Michael still more, the seraphim yet more, and God infinitely more than the most-buff of all the seraphim."
That formulation suggests a numerical "power rating," where God has an infinite rating. But the A-T thing about God seems to be unrelated to infinitely-stacked numbers. So there'd be no reason God couldn't BE "Power with a Capital P," while denying that no single created thing HAD an infinite "power rating."
One Brow,
You say, of Feser's statement that there can only feasibly be one being who is Pure Act, "It was difficult to take this argument seriously. No where else in his book does Dr. Feser use one being's actuality to assess a potentiality of a different being."
Isn't it true that, if Feser is correct on this point, then, this could not be said of any other being? If the only being of whom it is true its Actuality eliminates the option of there being more than one, then why would he have said it anywhere else in the book? (Unless he was stating the same argument about God in more than one place?)
So when you say, "My actuality as a human is not affected by the potential of soil to turn into an oak tree in the presence of an acorn" I think Feser would merely respond, "Well of course not...why should it?" (And he'd respond identically if you'd reversed the role of soil and acorn. I see what you're doing there, but I don't see that it has relevance for the A-T understanding. I think the A-T guys affirm that the acorn is the living organism and the soil is not, and that the nutritive soul -- i.e., the principle of life -- of the acorn is continuous from its formation until it dies. But I think the A-T guys don't mind at all saying that the soil has a potential to be transformed into parts of the tree, so long as you don't say that, while alive, the tree is transformed into parts of the soil, thereby pretending that the tree substantially doesn't exist.)
You state his argument as, "...if there was more than one, there would need to be some way of distinguishing them, and any possible distinction, such as one having more power than another, would be a potential for one that was an actuality for the other."
First, I think he would only say this if he was talking loosely (as he is wont to do) and by analogy. When speaking precisely he's at pains to say that God doesn't so much have power as Is Power, and all other beings have power only inasmuch as God donates a temporary and finite capability to share in that aspect of His intrinsic nature. This puts Him as the source of the possibility of power, and of that, by definition, there could only be one.
(I keep tiptoeing up to the possibility of saying, "Feser thinks of God as the Form of Power," but somehow I don't think that's quite right. I don't understand A-T well enough yet to grasp it, but I'm pretty sure Feser sees God more as the Form of Forms, or at least the Source of Forms, rather than Yet Another Form. But I may be accidentally turning Feser into a Platonist rather than an Aristotelian.)
At any rate, that's one way to understand why Feser is saying that, by definition, there can only be one Pure Act being.
The other would be closer to the way you stated his argument: How to tell the difference between them, if there's more than one? This makes it sound like a failure on our part to distinguish between two things, like a mother of twins who can't tell her twins apart. But I think Feser's saying more than that: He's saying there couldn't possibly be any difference, because what could it be?
Pure Act isn't in a place so you can't distinguish between the two Gods by location. Pure Act isn't in a duration so you can't distinguish between them according to when they start or end. Pure Act is already perfected...no, wait, that's not right; Pure Act is already the standard of perfection of every excellence and has no deficiency of any of them, so you can't distinguish between them either by saying one lacks a little of some good thing or possesses a little of some bad thing. (Keeping in mind, always, that this is speaking loosely of a being that, in principle, doesn't HAVE things but IS things.)
...continued...
...continuing...
You add, "There is no reason to think that the Mover can't be a material thing with no potential to change at all."
Wouldn't a thing that was made of protons and neutrons, or even dark matter, or even vacuum energy, be by definition changeable? Or perhaps the thing is space-time itself; well, space-time can be curved. Or perhaps the thing is merely energy; well, energy can be converted into matter and vice-versa. This is just part of what we mean when we call a thing matter or energy or space or time.
If we were to encounter Pure Act -- you can't push it to new places, you can't bounce light off it, you can't cut it with a laser, you can't anything it, including perceive it directly, because in no sense could it be ever called passive to anything that you did to it, since all your ability of doing things is being provided by it at every moment -- we'd never group it in the same set as "matter." It would have nothing in common with matter.
I think you're stuck with saying the mover might be a Slithy Tove thing with no potential to change at all (where Slithy Tove is some intentionally-meaningless Jabberwocky borrowed for the purpose of replacing the phrase, "I know not what.")
But Feser is okay with that. He's saying, "Hey, if we reason about what is, we can just see that there's a "thing" -- for want of a better word, since what we're describing seems not to fit into any of the same categories as anything else we call "things" -- with all these attributes (some of which we're only able to describe by analogy). If you want to use a Jabberwocky term like "Slithy Tove" or a Douglas Adams-ism like "Turlingdrome" as your name for it, be my guest."
Finally, you say, "I don't find that description metaphysically persuasive. Just sticking with emotions, the enjoyment of seeing another person in pain (schadenfreude) is not in any way the lack of some other attribute."
I tentatively with you, about this. I mean, I can imagine how your example, schadenfreude, could be defined as a deficiency (of mercy or compassion, perhaps). But at a higher level I don't intuitively get how we can distinguish between deficiencies and excellences for any kind of attribute which doesn't have moral content. If Feser's left us a clue as to how to do that, I haven't seen it.
You conclude, "...I hear this doctrine of simplicity used as statements why the Teapot, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster are not comparable to God, because their existence is composite, being both material and essence. However, I can't see that. Just because for everyday, potential-laden, material things we separate essence from the matter does not mean this applies to the Cause. We should not let our analogies limit who the Cause can be."
I'm unsure what Feser'd say. But inasmuch as the Teapot can boil, the Unicorn can gallop, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster can, I dunno, fly or flagellate or touch things with His Noodly Appendage, they can't be pure act. The same would be true of Zeus or Poseidon (presuming always that the Greeks weren't just writing their version of Superman comics and really believed in the existence of their deities in a non-symbolical way). All these things would be, by the definitions of classical theism, space aliens rather than God. The movie/comic-book-character Thor constitutes, so far as I can tell, a perfect integration of Norse (t)heology with Judeo-Christian (T)heology.
R.C.
To say that it's "curious" suggests you think it incompatible with, or at least uncongenial to, Feser's position. Why?
I find some irony in resorting to the use of the non-numerical infinite to solve the problems arising from the ruling out of the numerical infinite.
Since he denies such a narrow type of infinities, there's no reason why he can't turn around and then say, "BUT, with God, or numbers, or with any other transcendental (i.e. non-material, non-temporal) forms, you can have as many infinities as you like!"
Ultimately, we all choose the putative infinities we find the most comfort in.
That formulation suggests a numerical "power rating," where God has an infinite rating. But the A-T thing about God seems to be unrelated to infinitely-stacked numbers. So there'd be no reason God couldn't BE "Power with a Capital P," while denying that no single created thing HAD an infinite "power rating."
Since power is separable from God, it can not simply be God. If you want to say inifinte/unlimited/what-you-will power is a feature only of God, that does not change that it is infinite, and is not God.
So when you say, "My actuality as a human is not affected by the potential of soil to turn into an oak tree in the presence of an acorn" I think Feser would merely respond, "Well of course not...why should it?"
If I were to say that GodA and GodB are both pure act, neither having any unfulfilled potential, that GodA can act to reverse time while GodB can not, in what way does that imply that GodB has a potential that is not actualized? You need to answer this question, and questions like this, to form a proper response to my objection.
When speaking precisely he's at pains to say that God doesn't so much have power as Is Power, and all other beings have power only inasmuch as God donates a temporary and finite capability to share in that aspect of His intrinsic nature. This puts Him as the source of the possibility of power, and of that, by definition, there could only be one.
Describing what you hypothesize to represent an actual state of affairs is not a rebuttal to a different hypothesis.
R. C.,
Pure Act isn't in a place so you can't distinguish between the two Gods by location … so you can't distinguish between them according to when they start or end. … so you can't distinguish between them either by saying one lacks a little of some good thing or possesses a little of some bad thing. (Keeping in mind, always, that this is speaking loosely of a being that, in principle, doesn't HAVE things but IS things.)
Being pure act means you have no unfilled potential. It does not imply that you fulfill every possible potential. God does not grow feathers and has no potential to grow feathers, but that is not a lack for God. There is nothing to prevent two distinct beings from fulfilling every potential so completely that they embody those acts fully, yet having different characteristics.
Wouldn't a thing that was made of protons and neutrons, or even dark matter, or even vacuum energy, be by definition changeable?
Why? More importantly, why would such a being be limited to this type of matter?
If we were to encounter Pure Act -- you can't push it to new places, you can't bounce light off it, you can't cut it with a laser, you can't anything it, including perceive it directly, because in no sense could it be ever called passive to anything that you did to it, since all your ability of doing things is being provided by it at every moment -- we'd never group it in the same set as "matter." It would have nothing in common with matter.
On the contrary, as the source of all things, you would perceive it in every way possible. You don’t have to shine a light off of it, because it shines all lights on its own.
I'm unsure what Feser'd say. But inasmuch as the Teapot can boil, the Unicorn can gallop … they can't be pure act.
As long as the boiling coming from its own merged essence and existence, and not from an external heat source, the Teapot can be pure act. So long as the gallop is the result on the merging of essence and existence, and not the external contact with a surface, the Unicorn can be pure act.
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