McTaggart was a brilliant metaphysician. An atheist and an absolute idealist. His theories on time sparked enduring philosophical interest and analysis. In some Dogmas of Religion, John McTaggart has an intriguing objection to God's existence.
Another point must be considered in reference to omnipotent personality. Human personality is never found to exist without the recognition of the existence of something not itself. (We may follow Hegel's example in calling this the Other of the person. Other is a better term than Non-ego, since that may suggest that what is recognized by one person as not himself must not be any other person, but something impersonal, and this suggestion would be wrong, for what I recognize as not myself may quite well be another person.) We only realize our personality insofar as our consciousness has a content — a manifold to which the centre is formed by that I, awareness of which constitutes personality. And this content of consciousness involves for us the recognition of an Other. This may be direct, as when I know something other than myself, or have some volition regarding it, or some emotion towards it. But even when the Other is not involved directly, it is involved indirectly. It may be that that which directly occupies my consciousness is some part of my own nature, as when I think of past events in my life, or will to correct a fault in my disposition. But when we inquire into the nature of those events, or of that fault, we find that they include, or in the long run involve, the recognition of the existence of an Other.
Nor is this recognition, for finite personality, a limitation or imperfection, which it is impossible to remove altogether, but which hampers the fullness of self-consciousness. On the contrary, the more vivid, definite, and extensive is our recognition of the Other, the more vivid and definite becomes our self-consciousness. As consciousness of an Other becomes vague and indefinite, consciousness of self becomes vague and indefinite too.
I take the gist of his argument to be that self-awareness entails a corollary awareness of what is not oneself. To be self-aware implies a point of contrast. A subject/object dichotomy. To be me in distinction to what is not me.
However, this argument, if sound, is not an argument against theism in general. Rather, it constitutes an argument against unitarian theism. That may not be McTaggart's intention, but that's the principle. Trinitarian theism easily eludes the force of this argument, for the Trinity provides the very point of contrast that McTaggart's argument implicitly finds wanting in unitarian theism. In Trinitarian theism, there's the correlative comparison between self-awareness and otherly-awareness, as mutually defining requirements.
That is what I was trying to get at in the first argument of my blogpost: Speculative Arguments In Defense of the Trinity
ReplyDeleteI wrote (sans text formatting):
...Here's a thought experiment that can help illustrate the point. Imagine a man stranded on an island separated from his fellow man (i.e. other human beings). Now imagine that the water surrounding the island disappeared. Then imagine the island itself disappeared. Then imagine his physical body disappeared and he's reduced to an unembodied mind (or spirit) without any parts. If he were born or came into existence in such a situation what would he be able to contrast himself with in order to distinguish himself from another person or thing? His mind would be blank. It's true that God, being omniscient, has what theologians call 1. necessary knowledge and 2. free knowledge (Molinists also claim, 3. middle knowledge). However, God's knowledge, of itself, wouldn't ensure personality. It would be analogous to a computer that has a lot of data, but no necessary consciousness.
Here's where I'm speculating without being dogmatic or even taking this as my tentative position. What if consciousness requires change? If not change in being or beings (e.g. in the physical world time is measured by physical changes), at least mental inter-change or interaction of minds? Non-theists often object to the coherence of a personal timeless God because all our experiences of consciousness and personality are temporal. It's admitted by all that it's difficult to understand the concept of a timeless person. The doctrine of the Trinity can therefore potentially provide an explanation for how God could be conscious sans creation (i.e. apart from or "before" creation)....
The following is not in the argument, but it's implied. I should including it in the future. The mental/rational/emotional interchange between the persons of the Trinity provide for the possibility of consciousness sans creation and time. There's no change of being in God since God's being is immutable, but there might be "change" or "interchange" between the persons that's analogous [not univocal] to the change we experience in the physical world. And so, instead of physical motion, there might (among other things) be intra-Trinitarian emotion (like love) between the persons of the Triad.
DeleteWithout God to contrast and interact with any other thing or person, it's hard to imagine God being personal or conscious. So, either God is multi-personal or impersonal.
Delete"that self-awareness entails a corollary awareness of what is not oneself. To be self-aware implies a point of contrast"
ReplyDeleteI'm not clear, from what you've pasted in this post, that this is McTaggart's point. He doesn't say that anywhere here. I haven't read the whole essay, though.
More importantly, the claim is implausible. Why think it impossible that there is a being who exists alone, and so can only be aware of himself? The way one argues for such a claim is to start with this assumption:
1. There exists a conscious being who is self-aware but is not aware of anything else.
and then derive a contradiction - a claim of the form P and not-P - or at least a claim which is manifestly impossible.
But I have no idea how one might do this. I suspect, Steve, that you don't either. It can't be what McT says here, that humans always gain awareness of themselves by contrasting themselves to other things. And this is laying aside just how we'd get from the above point (that self-consciousness implies consciousness of something else) to the Trinity.
Speculations in this genre generally seem to go: if P, then theism implies Trinity. But we never get around to saying why anyone should accept P. And worse, P is implausible; it *seems* false! Just suppose that there is a spirit who is the only thing that exists, and that he's aware of himself only. Where's the impossibility there? No can point one out. So we've not advanced a step beyond the question in the subject line of this post. 'Doh!
"But *surely* P must be true, because that would aid *our theory*."
:-/
I take McTaggart's argument to be that a solitary being can't only be aware of himself because self-awareness is a relation requiring background awareness of whatever else is not oneself, which is lacking under that scenario. An argument ad impossibile for a solitary self-conscious being.
DeleteSo, for instance, while newborn babies have minds, they lack the cognitive development to be self-aware in distinction to their immediate surroundings. The introspective knowledge of my existence as a distinct being. Where that ends and something else begins.
"self-awareness is a relation requiring background awareness of whatever else is not oneself"
ReplyDeleteLet us suppose that this is true for humans. Why think this would be true for self-awareness in principle, for any sort of being?
McTaggart anticipates that precise objection and explains why there's a general principle in play.
DeleteSteve, you'll have to say more than "This metaphysician said so" if we're going to argue about this. I think we both know that that's not a good reason. We need some intelligible reason to think that the general principle is true. Presumably, if true, it'd be a necessary truth, so we'd expect that there'd be some way to show that its falsity is impossible - if McT is indeed on to something.
ReplyDeleteHe gave a reason for why that's true.
DeleteI don't get it. Perhaps you would be so kind as to paraphrase the reason in one sentence.
DeleteI don't want to interfere or intrude on Dale and Steve's conversation, so I'll make my additional comments here.
ReplyDeleteTime is difficult to conceive of apart from some kind of change. Conversely, change seems to imply the reality of time. Atheists like to argue that an atemporal God (i.e. timeless) couldn't be conscious, and therefore couldn't be personal. That such a being would be more like an impersonal computer. They claim consciousness seems to depend on temporality and/or change (i.e. "action" of some kind). However, if God were multipersonal, then an atemporal God could have inter-personal inter-"action".
I suppose that a proponent of a temporal and/or finite and/or process God might be able to solve this problem since temporality implies change of some sort. However, such conceptions of God have other ontological problems associated with them. I'm open to the possibility of an infinite God who is temporal either eternally, or since creation (though atemporal sans creation). However, if God were eternally temporal, then where would the change that's required be found to account for that temporality? If it's in God's very being itself, then that would imply a process theology view of God (with its attendent ontological problems). However, multi-personality could account for that change, since the "change" or "action" would be found in the interaction between the divine persons. So, it seems multi-personality can make sense of a personal God whether temporal or timeless. But I have difficulty conceiving of either a timeless OR temporal God who's unipersonal.
BTW, Anthony Rogers' lecture Is the Old Testament Trinitarian? has just been uploaded here: https://youtu.be/904RszSWG_w
ReplyDeleteAt 28:10 to 36:43, Rogers points out that while Christian scholarship from the time of Warfield has generally moved away (completely or more and more) from the position that the Trinity was revealed in the OT; many modern Jewish scholars have been going in the opposite direction. Suggesting something like the Trinity (or at least a Binity) was believed by some (sometimes even majority of) Jews both before, during and after the time of Christ. Rogers then goes on to quote some of these contemporary Jewish scholars to that effect.
This lecture and Jonathan McLatchie's debate on the same topic have been added to my blog Trinity Notes.
By "modern Jewish scholars" I think you must mainly mean Boyarin. Here's a critical review of his book by a leading scholar: https://newrepublic.com/article/103373/jewish-gospels-christ-boyarin
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Dale.
DeleteAt 28:41 he lists the following Jewish scholars: Alan Segal, Daniel Boyarin, Moshe Idel, Daniel Abrams, Elliot Wolfson. He also mentions and quotes them in his article here:
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/genesis_19_24_trinitarian2.html
I know you know of Alan Segal and Daniel Boyarin. In the article he describes the rest in the following way:
Moshe Idel as "the Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem..."
Daniel Abrams as one "who recently received the Gershom Scholem Prize from The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and who lectures on Jewish Mysticism at Bar Ilan University..."
Elliot Wolfson "the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University..."