Safeguarding Divine Simplicity with Bernard Lonergan
Recently, arguments have been put forth attacking the doctrine of divine simplicity (some scholarly, others popular). None of these arguments are original. In fact, Ed Feser argues in response to these objections that they haven’t moved the conversation forward an inch from where it has historically been. This is frustrating in a sense similar to the “Who created God?” objection is. Obviously, objections to divine simplicity from, say, contingent predication, are a more sophisticated breed of argument, I suppose, but that does not make them any less fallacious or tedious, especially when they been responded to a thousand and one times, and can be found answered in a number of quintessential Thomistic texts.
To illustrate this purported lack of homework, let us consider the thought of Bernard Lonergan (both his work Insight and Grace and Freedom) to highlight not only how cobwebbed these contemporary objections to divine simplicity objections are, but how handily they have been swept away by philosophers and theologians who endorse divine simplicity; philosophers and theologians the objectors have little to no excuse *not* to be familiar with, especially since Lonergan is a significant 20th century authority figure within Thomistic scholarship. (Here, I must note the irony of those who object to Thomism frequently complaining of being unfairly accused of “not reading or understanding Aquinas” by Thomists, only to then — as if in the same breath! — trot out objections which clearly demonstrate they have neither read nor understand Aquinas.)
We begin with Insight, Chapter 19, where Lonergan addresses objections alleging an incompatibility between contingent predication and God’s absolute, immutable simplicity (whether knowledge, will, etc), in writing, “… every contingent predication concerning God also is an extrinsic denomination. In other words, God is intrinsically the same whether he understands, affirms, wills, causes this or that universe to be. If he does not, then God exists and nothing else exists. If he does, God exists and the universe in question exists; the two existences suffice for the truth of the judgments that God understands, affirms, wills, effects the universe; for God is unlimited in perfection, and what is unlimited in perfection must understand, affirm, will, effect whatever else is.”
Let us lay out the scene, then, that Lonergan is explaining.
So, there is God.
And if – if, if, if! — God chooses to create, the only difference “on the scene” is the existence of some effect (call it E), which is extrinsic to God, and with God remaining intrinsically the same. (Note: here we must also draw a critical but commonly overlooked distinction between God’s act and the effect of God’s act. Steven Nemes covers this point in his recent paper on the issue).
Thus, all contingency is pushed extrinsically to God, for God’s causing of E *just is* E’s existing (which amounts to no intrinsic change in God), which is the same with God’s “choosing E,” “willing E,” “knowing E,” “loving E,” etc, especially given divine simplicity, in which God’s knowledge just is God’s power, and so on. There is just God, E, and the relation of dependence of E upon God. There is, to reiterate, no intrinsic or essential change in God, at all. Period. All contingency is (once more) extrinsic, in which case divine simplicity is in no sense threatened via God’s contingent creation, since whatever contingency emerges is merely a Cambridge change, and no account of divine simplicity would deny Cambridge changes, or changes of relation, in virtue of God’s creating the world.
So, in just one paragraph Lonergan dispatches a considerable bulk of objections hurled at divine simplicity, all by drawing a few simple and non-arbitrary distinctions, which allows us to maintain that God remains essentially the same across all possible worlds regardless of what God does, or does not, create. But also, having a clear understanding of knowledge is relevant to the issue, especially because much (though, admittedly not all) of what makes knowledge knowledge is not merely some intrinsic belief, but of some intrinsic belief matching up to something extrinsic to it. Say I am funny to Peter. Clearly, then, what makes that statement something I am knowledgeable of (assuming it is true) is not just my belief that I am funny to Peter, but some fact grounded extrinsically (from me) in Peter: since for me to have knowledge of being funny to Peter, what is required is some extrinsically existing state of Peter to confirm, or correspond, to my belief. Once this aspect of knowledge is properly accounted for, alongside God having knowledge of all possibilities of being in virtue of knowing himself (which is intrinsic and unchanging), together with a firm and proper understanding of the principle of analogy, God’s knowledge of contingent facts is perfectly compatible with divine simplicity.
To run a brief example, God can “see” the possibility of a cat on a mat, but what makes God have knowledge of there being a cat on a mat, is just God’s causing there to be a cat on a mat; and that, again, is extrinsic to God, and could be or not be without any intrinsic change in God.
Lonergan builds on these points as follows, “… though the extrinsic denominator is temporal, the contingent predication concerning God can be eternal. For an eternal act is timeless; in it all instants are one and the same instant; and so what is true at any instant is true at every instant. Hence, if at any instant it is true that God understands, affirms, wills the existence of Alexander’s horse Bucephalus, then the metaphysical conditions of the truth are the existence of God and the existence of Bucephalus; moreover, though Bucephalus exists only for a short period, still God eternally understands, affirms, and wills Bucephalus to exist for that short period.”
The next two paragraphs are important; proceed carefully,
“It is impossible for it to be true that God understands, affirms, wills, effects anything to exist or occur without it being true that the thing exists or the event occurs exactly as God understands, affirms, or wills it. For one and the same metaphysical condition is needed for the truth of both propositions, namely, the relevant contingent existence or occurrence…
“… the fourth corollary is inverse to the third, namely, that divine efficacy does not impose necessity upon its consequents. In the light of divine efficacy is it quite true that if God understands or affirms or wills or effects this or that to exist or occur, then it is impossible for the this or that not to exist or not to occur. Still, the existence or occurrence is a metaphysical condition of the truth of the antecedent, and so the consequence merely enunciates the principle of identity, namely, if there is the existence or occurrence, then there is the existence or occurrence.”
How often is this exceedingly simple but profound point overlooked by theistic-personalists and atheists alike! Not only is contingency preserved (and modal collapse avoided) by this otherwise rudimentary acknowledgement, but so is divine immutability, impassibility; all divine simplicity, in a word. However, because these points are so frequently overlooked, it is worth transitioning to Grace and Freedom, where Lonergan expands upon each in turn.
This, too, is important. (on pg. 104)
“This problem has already been presented. On the one hand, St. Thomas maintained not only free acts but also all terrestrial activity to be contingent; on the other hand, he affirmed God’s eternal knowledge to be infallible, his eternal will to be irresistible, and his action through intellect and will to be absolutely efficacious. Now, if God knows every event infallibly, if he wills it irresistibly, if he effects it with absolute efficacy, then every event must be necessary and none can be contingent. Such is the problem. An account of the solution offered by St. Thomas falls into three sections: first, certain fallacies must be seen through; secondly, the basic solution has to be presented; thirdly, variations on the basic theme have to be noticed.”
“The first fallacy lies in a misconception of time. To a temporal being our four-dimensional universe has three sections: past, present, and future. To an eternal ‘now’ this division is meaningless. On this point St. Thomas never had the slightest doubt: he was always above the pre-Einsteinian illusions that still are maintained by our cosmology manuals; strenuously and consistently he maintained that all events are present to God.”
“The second fallacy lies in supposing God’s knowledge of the creature, or his creative will and operation, to be some reality in god that would not be there if he had not created. God is immutable. He is entitatively identical whether he creates or does not create. His knowledge or will or production of the created universe adds only a relation rationis (relation of reason) to the actus purus (pure actuality). They are predications by extrinsic denomination. Further, it is to be observed that a fallacy on this point is closely connected with fallacious ideas of time. For there can be no predication by extrinsic denomination without the actuality of the extrinsic denominator: else the adaequatio veritatis is not satisfied. Accordingly, to assert that God knows this creature or event, that he wills it, that he effects it, is also ipso facto to assert that the creature or event actually is.”
“The third fallacy is a confusion of hypothetical with absolute necessity. If A, then A: granted the protasis, the apodosis follows necessarily. But this necessity is not absolute, standing in its own right, but hypothetical, resulting only from the protasis. Moreover, what hypothetically is necessary, absolutely may be either necessary or contingent. On this point St. Thomas is so insistent that no more need be said.”
“‘God knows this’ is true by an extrinsic denomination. There is no extrinsic denomination without the actuality of the extrinsic denominator. Therefore, the actuality of the ‘this’ is included in the protasis, and its reappearance in the apodosis is not absolute but hypothetical necessity: if A, then A.”
Finally, once one draws the otherwise elementary scholastic distinctions between active vs passive potency, etc, all the remaining objections toward divine simplicity dissolve and the classical theist is (once again) vindicated. (Consider also Christopher Tomaszewski’s paper on the formal invalidity of Mullin’s argument; alongside our 2+ hour discussion called Defending the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.)
Of course, I acknowledge that *I* am not adding anything to the debate, either. But then again, I never had to.