Some might be interested in the following discussion between William Lane Craig and Josh Rasmussen on divine aseity and abstract objects. I haven't watched it yet, and I doubt I'd entirely agree with either Craig or Rasmussen on the topics at hand, but I post it because it might be a thought-provoking discussion on subjects important in philosophical theology.
I thought it might be worth presenting a chunk of Turretin’s exposition of the divine name as a prime example of the tradition. It’s instructive in itself, not because everything in it holds up, but because many haven’t taken the time to look at what this type of argumentation looks like. Also, because it makes a key point that, whatever you do with the rest of it, still needs to be heard: ontology and character are bound up with each other. There can be no simple bifurcation between being and doing.
The etymology and signification of the word is such as agrees with God alone. From Scripture, it is evident that it implies most especially three things which are seen to be connected (Is. 44:24-26):
(a) The eternity and independence of God, inasmuch as he is a necessary being, and existing of himself, independent of any other, self-existent (autoon)–“I am that I am” (Ex. 3:14). Hence he is called simply the being (ho on, as the ancient philosophers and Plato especially acknowledged). John describes him by the three distinctions of time: “which is, and which was, and which is to come” (ho on kai ho en kai ho erchomenos, Rev. 1:4). In reference to this we have that expression of the ancient heathen: “Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be, O great Zeus” (Zeus hen, Zeus esti, Zeus essetai o megale Zeu, Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.12.10).(b) It implies causality and efficiency because what is the first and most perfect in each genus is the cause of the rest (for God is by himself so that he is the cause of being to all others, Is. 44:24).(c) It implies immutability and constancy in promises because he really performs and does what he has promised by giving to his promises being (to einai), not only self-existent (autoon), but also essentially existent (ousion) and essence-making (ousiopoios). In this sense, he says that he had not been known to the patriarch by his name Jehovah (Ex. 6:3), not as to the signifying word (for the contrary is evident from the book of Genesis), but as to the thing signified (because he had not as yet given being to his promises concerning the multiplication of seed, the bringing of people out of Egypt, their introduction to Canaan, etc.).
He had made himself known to the patriarch by his power in the creation of the world, in its government and in the bestowal of many blessings and their wonderful defense; but he had not as yet really declared himself to be Jehovah, by fulfilling the promises given to the patriarchs. But since eternal existence, omnipotent power and immutable truth belong to God alone, the name Jehovah (which embraces these three) ought to be peculiar to him alone. –Institutes of Elenctic Theology Volume 1, Third Topic, Q. IV, Sec. V
As I said, there are a few things that are instructive about this passage. For one thing, the diversity of sources appealed to is always enlightening to note, simply because at certain times Christians, or especially Evangelicals, have been accused (and been guilty) of intellectual ghettoization. Turretin can comfortably appeal to pagan philosophical and literary tradition in order to supplement his point.
Even more important is the point we see in subsection “c”. Turretin engages in some theological exegesis by appealing to the acts of God, the character of God, in order to ensure the point about the being of God. As Vanhoozer has argued, metaphysics is unavoidable because we must give an account what God is like in order to account for who he has shown himself to be. What must the God who acts in this story be like in order to do and say the kinds of things we see in the biblical narrative?
R. Scott Clark said:
This passage gets us closer to the heart of the problem, his apparent revision of the traditional Reformed doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God. As a matter of truth, God's essence is a dark, unrevealed entity. God, as he is in himself (in se) is hidden from us...We know that God's hidden essence is but we don't know what God's essence is. We're not capable of knowing or understanding that essence. We know what God has revealed of himself to us. God has given us pictures, illustrations, analogies, but he has not revealed himself as he is in himself...The Reformed want to affirm both the mystery of God's hiddenness and the utterly reliability of his self-revelation.
This seems to allow for the possibility that God could be a sort of chaotic evil God. More like the Norse god Loki who was a liar and a trickster than the God of the Bible. After all, we don't know God's true essence, and God has not revealed himself in Scripture "as he is in himself," so perhaps even what he's revealed to us doesn't necessarily reflect who he truly is.
On the one hand, we don't and can't know God's essence. But on the other hand, God doesn't reveal his essence to us except by "pictures, illustrations, analogies." So who's to say there's much truth in even the "pictures, illustrations, analogies" God has given us in Scripture? At best, it'd seem to be verisimilitude. The appearance of truth rather than truth itself. But we don't know to what degree, if any, the appearance is true to the truth.
As such, Clark's statement seems to allow for the possibility that God gave us half-true or even false pictures, illustrations, and analogies about himself in Scripture.
James Anderson reviews God Without Parts by James Dolezal.
BTW, here's a video interview with Dolezal on his book:
But my problem is that calvinists keep bringing up this dumb argument that if some person cannot do some particular action, they then claim that that person does not, cannot have LFW. Since God cannot sin, he cannot have LFW. We will not sin in heaven, so we cannot have LFW in Heaven. God cannot lie, so He must not have LFW.But this post isn't about commenting on how "unloving" Robert is towards Calvinists (but it is odd given how he berated Steve Hays).
Ilion I keep seeing this extremely lame argument being spewed foth by calvinists. It seems to me that they are making a simple logical mistake that for people who pride themselves on logic should not be happening.
P- 1 = God cannot do particular action (X)
P -2 = Unless a person can do everything, the person does not have LFW,
:’ = Therefore = since God cannot do (X), God does not have LFW.
The problem should be obvious, it does not logically follow from the fact that some person cannot do a particular action, that they no longer have choices in regards to other actions.
According to Plantinga, libertarian free will is a morally significant kind of free will. An action is morally significant just when it is appropriate to evaluate that action from a moral perspective (for example, by ascribing moral praise or blame). Persons have morally significant free will if they are able to perform actions that are morally significant. Imagine a possible world where God creates creatures with a very limited kind of freedom. Suppose that the persons in this world can only choose good options and are incapable of choosing bad options. So, if one of them were faced with three possible courses of action—two of which were morally good and one of which was morally bad—this person would not be free with respect to the morally bad option. That is, that person would not be able to choose any bad option even if they wanted to. Our hypothetical person does, however, have complete freedom to decide which of the two good courses of action to take. Plantinga would deny that any such person has morally significant free will. People in this world always perform morally good actions, but they deserve no credit for doing so. It is impossible for them to do wrong. So, when they do perform right actions, they should not be praised. It would be ridiculous to give moral praise to a robot for putting your soda can in the recycle bin rather than the trash can, if that is what it was programmed to do. Given the program running inside the robot and its exposure to an empty soda can, it's going to take the can to the recycle bin. It has no choice about the matter. Similarly, the people in the possible world under consideration have no choice about being good. Since they are pre-programmed to be good, they deserve no praise for it.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-log.htm
Alvin Plantinga, who is obviously a theist that we can trust, (at least I hope so last time I checked, :-)), defines free will as:
“If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t.”
That seems to be the converse of what Hasker suggests, so I believe Hasker’s definition is a good one.
"The basic idea is this: to be ultimately responsible for an action, an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason, cause, or motive for the action occurring. If, for example, a choice issues from, and can be significantly explained by, an agent's character or motives (together with background conditions), then to be ultimately responsible for the choice, the agent must be in part responsible by virtue of choices or actions performed in the past for having the character and motives he or she now has. Compare Aristotle's claim that if a man is responsible for the good or wicked acts that flow from his character, he must at some time in the past have been responsible for forming the good or wicked character from which these acts flow" (Kane, Contemporary Introduction to free Will, Oxford, 2005, p.121, bold emphasis mine).Not only do most views of God not see him as "having a past", almost all see him as necessarily good. There was never any "forming" of his character. There was never a time when he wasn't good. He never made the decision to form his character to a certain mold.
