Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Is God free?

2. But to uphold the divine absoluteness, it is also necessary that God be libertarianly free in his production of creatures.  For suppose there is something in the divine nature that necessitates God's creation.  Then God would depend on the world to be himself and to be fully actual.  He would need what is other than himself to actualize himself.  This entanglement with the relative would compromise the divine absoluteness.  God would need the world as much as the world needs God.  Each would require the other to be what it is.  (210)
3.  So God must be both simple and free to be absolute.  But it is very difficult to understand how a simple being could be free in the unconditional 'could have done otherwise' sense.    If God is simple, then he is pure act in which case he is devoid of unrealized powers, potentialities or possibilities.  To act freely, however is to act in such a way that one (unconditionally) could have done otherwise, which implies unrealized possibilities.


In this post I’m not going to take a general position on divine simplicity. Instead, I’m going to make a narrower point.

It seems to me that this objection suffers from a crude notion of potentiality which conflates different types of potentiality.

i) For instance, we might say a boy is potentially a man. Boyhood is a goal-oriented stage whose telos is manhood.

If a boy doesn't achieve manhood, then he's unfulfilled in that respect. He doesn't become what he was meant to be. He's essentially frustrated. He failed to achieve his natural telos. 

ii) Consider another type of potentiality: I could either wear a tie to church or not wear a tie to church.

But surely that's a very different type of potentiality. Whether or not I wear a tie is hardly intrinsic to my nature. I'm not unfulfilled by having that unexemplified possibility. That's not like a process of maturation, or a phase in my self-actualization. I'm not stunted thereby.

iii) To put this another way, whether or not God makes the world (or makes a different world) is irrelevant to his personal fulfillment. He has nothing to gain (or lose) by that action. In that sense, God has no ends–no intrinsic telos to be realized or unrealized. God is goal-oriented, but he's not the beneficiary of what he plans.

15 comments:

  1. God became His own Image on a designated day and hour, and the Image suffered and died a painful death as His goal, and surely He benefited Himself by becoming His own image in flesh and bones, and so He will always be flesh and bones; from now on that is; or from His resurrection on.

    Just thinking out loud.

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  2. I think I agree...

    We may say that although in one sense you could either wear a tie to church or not wear a tie to church, in a metaphysical sense there is no alternative possibility regarding how you will choose, which I think underscores the point that what you do choose is not an essential property or intrinsic to your nature. That is why I don't think that arguments against the "necessity of divine will" that are predicated upon the notion that if God cannot choose otherwise he can't be God are all that persuasive. It's often argued that if God could not have chosen otherwise then creation has claim on God, to which I'd simply say that God's intention has claim on him so much so that he can't choose other than what he does, which does not make him the beneficiary of what he plans or contingent in any way that would violate Christian doctrine.

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  3. "I think I agree" with the post, not the follow-up comment.

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  4. I need help explaining to an Orthodox fellow how penal substitutionary atonement doesn't undercut God's immutability. He maintains that the atonement did not change how God relates to man, but how man relates to God ("God cannot change," he says). Interested to hear what you all think.

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  5. PJ,

    Let me tread in unfamiliar waters without being dogmatic...That God does not change in any essential or intrinsic way shouldn't lead us to believe that he doesn't change in any sense whatsoever, or that we should avoiding thinking in relationship changes, such as those that pertain to conversion and reconciliation. God was reconciled at the cross to sinners and we enter into relationship with him upon conversion, which in some sense can be seen as a change in relationship that he undergoes I would think. Regarding the cross, I think it's a mistake to deny that a person died for our sins. Some would like to think that a nature died for our sins. They think, how can God die? They further ask, how can the Second Person of the Trinity rule creation while dead? Well, when we're dead won't we be conscious etc.? We'll be separated from our bodies for a time, as was the Lord. Can't the Lord rule creation apart from his body? He did so prior to the incarnation, did he not? So, in a real sense God the Son, a divine person, died and not just his human nature. A person died for our sins. Does that require change? I'm not sure, but whatever we think, we must keep in mind that whatever "change" we speak about, it must be consistent with God's unchanging nature. Mystery? Maybe. Contradiction, I don't think so but...

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  6. I know that if Christ did not lay down His precious life on the Cross for me, then I would face God's wrath, and His holy condemnation. The holy lamb of God, Jesus, took all my sin, and washed me clean with His precious blood, when He didn't have to. In fact he asked His Father "is there any other way, nevertheless, Your will be done."

    What a wonderful Savior and Friend. Makes life worth living doesn't it. Living for my personal Redeemer and Lord.

    I'll never know why. Never.

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  7. Isn't the gospel glorious? :)

    Hey, my word verification is "woofei." Isn't that what Mozart's wife called him in the movie? :)

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  8. Dear Steve Hays,
    how can I contact you?
    a man with good intentions

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  9. andrei said...

    "how can I contact you?"

    Just leave your contact info and I'll touch base with you.

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  10. my email address is
    ionutandreipurel@gmail.com
    ('ionut' is a name,not what you might think :); it's actually ionutz :))

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  11. Philip Jude said:
    He maintains that the atonement did not change how God relates to man, but how man relates to God ("God cannot change," he says).

    One wonders whether your EO friend has fully thought through the implications of EO theosis doctrine, PJ. You might ask him about that.

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  12. PHILIP JUDE SAID:

    "I need help explaining to an Orthodox fellow how penal substitutionary atonement doesn't undercut God's immutability. He maintains that the atonement did not change how God relates to man, but how man relates to God ("God cannot change," he says). Interested to hear what you all think."

    There is no temporal shift in God's attitude. Rather, substitutionary atonement supplies the judicial grounds for God to forgive the redeemed. It concerns a teleological order (means-ends), not a chronological order (before-after). The atonement needn't occur before God can take the atonement into account–especially as God decreed the atonement in the first place.

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  13. "The atonement needn't occur before God can take the atonement into account–especially as God decreed the atonement in the first place."

    Steve, I don't think anyone would have a problem with that. I certainly don't. Indeed, clearly with respect to those who lived prior to the atonement God took into account the future atonement with respect to those who by grace through faith believed the promises of God. In other words, those who lived prior to the atonement could be justified on the basis of the atonement. Notwithstanding, maybe the question at hand is whether we may speak of God in any sense changing toward those who are elect under either dispensation prior to their embracing gospel revelation. In other words, another question lurking might not be so much a question that contemplates any supposed change in God due to the exact temporal moment of the cross but rather maybe there's a question of whether there was in any respect "change" in God's dealing with, or attitude toward, sinners after the reception of gospel promises even prior to the time of the cross, granting of course that Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

    As you say, "There is no temporal shift in God's attitude." I think I agree, which is consistent with how I interpret Ephesians 2:3. Although prior to conversion we were "children of wrath just like the rest" I have always considered that status of the elect prior to conversion in judicial terms and not so much in God's attitude toward us, which is consistent w/ your statement: "Rather, substitutionary atonement supplies the judicial grounds for God to forgive the redeemed. It concerns a teleological order (means-ends), not a chronological order (before-after)."

    Maybe to speak to those sorts of things again, or more fully maybe, might be helpful. I don't know. I any case, I'm appreciative of your work, as always.

    RD

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  14. There's a difference between a changing God and a changeless God who decrees change, who decrees historical contingencies and hypothetical consequences in cause/effect, if/then relationships. Conditional prophecy is a good example (Jer 18:7-10). Covenantal sanctions supply another good example (Deut 28).

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  15. Love the Word you have referenced:

    "If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.’-God
    Jeremiah 18:5-11

    I pray America would repent. That is our Leadership wuld be granted God's great grace to see the truth.

    Have a wonderful Lord's Day, and may we all live for Jesus with hearts full of joy, and our minds contnet in His love and truth, which was, and is, seen in the Cross.

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