The following contains an excerpt from Edward Feser’s blog and makes references to his book
Five Proofs of God’s Existence. Again, the link to his website is
here. I also reference various articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
So, in my last thread, I went over an argument for God’s existence that depended on the real distinction between essence and existence. This argument originated in the Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas’s book
On Being and Essence, and, to summarize, argues that everything that has a real distinction between its existence (that it is) and its essence (what it is) must have its existence ultimately derived from some first cause whose essence just is existence itself. Since all known objects of our experience have such a real distinction, they all have their existence caused by a first cause. And since nothing whose essence is identical with its existence can have multiplicity or contingency, this first cause is an absolutely necessary uncaused cause of everything else. This argument was framed as a refutation of the Doctrine of Existential Inertia (which holds that objects, once they start existing, remain in existence until they are positively destroyed) and a proof for the Doctrine of Divine Conservation (which holds that any created object depends on God’s will in order to exist at any point in time and would be destroyed if God ceased to will it into existence).
In this essay, we will attempt to build on the previous argument, refute both pantheism (the belief that God is the universe) and panentheism (the belief that God is both immanent to the universe and beyond the universe simultaneously), and defend classical theism.
First, there is a need for definitions.
Pantheism is the belief that God is identical to the world in an ontological sense (that is, in being). To them, God is the universe, full stop. Pantheism is associated with Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, some varieties of Kabbalistic Judaism, Celtic spirituality, Sufi mysticism, Spinozan philosophy, and transcendentalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia also notes that modern popular film, such as
Star Wars,
Avatar, and
The Lion King all include pantheistic themes. Similarly,
panentheism is the belief that God is both immanent to the universe and beyond the universe simultaneously. Unlike pantheism, God is not identical with the world, but is still present in the world in such a way that he is changed by it. Panentheism is associated with the religious beliefs of Neoplatonism and their Cambridge Platonist successors, the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, and universalism. It should be noted that there is significant overlap between pantheists and panentheists, such that Baruch Spinoza and the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism could be argued as being either pantheistic or panentheistic.
Classical theism is the tradition of natural theology most common to Western philosophical theism and has prevailed in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam historically. It is rooted in the classical realist philosophy (that is, in the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic traditions). Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Maimonides, and Avicenna were all classical theists. Classical theism holds that, whatever else we say about God, he must be the metaphysically ultimate first cause of creation. Classical theism has traditionally stressed God’s transcendence and distinctness from his creation.
Building on what we know from last time, we know that God is absolutely necessary for the existence of everything else and utterly unique in his existence (that is to say, there could not be more than one God). But it follows then that if God is utterly unique from anything, including things in the realm of experience, how can we learn about him?
Following the Christian philosopher Pseudo-Dionysus the Aeropagite, we know of three ways that we can determine God’s attributes:
via negativa,
via causalitatis, and
via eminentia.
Via negativa or by way of negation is where we deny of God any characteristic that is incompatible with his being the first cause or is incompatible with his other attributes.
Via causalitatis or by way of causality is where we move from knowledge of the world to knowledge of God as the cause of the world. And finally,
via eminentia or by way of eminence is whereby we conclude, by way of the principle of proportionate causality (according to which every cause contains the effect in some way), that God can be said to possess in an eminent way certain features we attribute to things in the world.
First, God must have
aseity. Divine aseity refers to God’s independence in his existence, decrees, will, and actions. If God were not self-sufficient in a radical way, then he would depend on something else for his existence or actions. Thus, he would not be a first cause in any real sense. Contrary to
atheist fiction, which depicts God as being somehow dependent on his worshippers, God does not need us in any way. All he needs is himself.
Another important attribute God has is
simplicity. God must be non-composite or without parts (material or metaphysical). God is an undivided whole that cannot be separated in reality. For if God did have parts, then each of those parts would be ontologically prior to it, so there would need to be some cause even more basic to explain why God’s parts were combined the way they were and that thing would be the first cause. Divine simplicity has many radical implications, one of which being that God is each of his own attributes; he does not have existence, he is existence. God’s simplicity makes him so utterly unlike anything else that it is hotly contested by modern theologians like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig, who argue that the concept is incoherent. But to deny it is to deny that God is the first cause, which is anathema to any self-respecting monotheist.
These concepts fit in nicely with our previous essay. God’s utter transcendence (or aseity) fits with the previous description of him being the absolutely necessary uncaused first cause. God doesn’t need something outside of himself in order to exist. As an Aristotelian would put it, he has no potential in need of actualization, because he is purely actual. And God’s absolutely simple nature fits very nicely with his essence and existence having no distinction. Created beings, insofar as they have a real distinction between their essence and existence, have parts.
This is where the pantheist and panentheist positions break down. Contra the pantheist, God could not be the universe because the universe is made up of parts, and God is simple. The universe and its constituent parts are metaphysical composites of essence and existence, and the material universe in particular is made up of physical parts that are conjoined. God, being metaphysically simple by necessity, could not be the universe for this very reason.
And contra the panentheist, God cannot be immanent to the universe in a way that would allow him to be affected by the universe, else that would violate his aseity. Some panentheists try to get around this by claiming God has necessary and contingent aspects. But this again would violate divine simplicity, as God could not have any real contingent properties in the Scholastic sense. Note that this does not lead to us believing that God’s every action is part of his necessary essence and is therefore necessary in itself. God’s status as creator of the world is not a real property but what Scholastics call a relation. To demonstrate what I mean by this, imagine that Socrates and Plato were the same height, but then Plato grew a few inches. According to modern philosophy, Socrates would have gained the “property” of “being smaller than Plato,” but this does not entail any real change in Socrates. Similarly, the creation of the world and its changing relationship with God entail no real change in God.
In conclusion, the correct conception of God is classical theism: a radically transcendent being that has no need to interact with us, but deigns to do so anyways.
As a side note for any of my, this conception of God ties into why God is male. For this topic, I’ll quote Edward Feser’s blog
here. He starts by refuting the idea that God is an impersonal “it” by pointing to how God has something analogical to an intellect and free will, and since these are definitive of persons, it follows that God cannot be referred to as an “it.”
I will go over a defense of God’s intellect in a later post.
Edward Feser said:
But why “He” rather than “She”? Well, consider further that from the point of view of classical natural law theory, the fundamental natural social institution – the family – has the father as its head… Suffice it to say that the claim is not that men are morally superior to women, or that they have dictatorial rights over their wives and children, or that all men are born leaders and all women born followers. The claim is rather that in any orderly social arrangement there must be some ultimate authority, and that nature has ordained that at least in the normal case it is in the father in whom this authority resides. For when human beings are living in accordance with what the natural law requires of them in the area of sexual morality, families will tend to be large. Obviously this would put a very great burden on mothers if there were no one to protect and provide for them and their children, but protecting and providing for them is precisely what a father is supposed to do. And that, from the point of view of natural law theory, is why men tend to be more assertive and oriented to the public rather than the domestic realm, and thus more oriented toward leadership.
…[F]rom the perspective of the moral theory associated with A-T, paternal and thus masculine imagery is naturally going to be regarded as the appropriate sort to use when characterizing God’s relationship to His creatures. For they are dependent on Him in a way comparable to a family’s dependence on a father; and He has authority over them comparable to the authority a father has over his family.
So, one reason for God’s being a “he” rather than a “she” is that he relates to the universe similar to how a man relates to his family: as its head.
The second reason has to do with the doctrine of
ex nihilo and its implications.
Edward Feser said:
From a classical theistic perspective, God creates the world ex nihilo rather that out of His own substance. Creation is thus in no way comparable to gestation and birth, imagery which, when applied to theology, suggests either pantheism or a pagan cosmogony. The divine creative act is more like the relatively “distant” role played by the father in procreation. Accordingly, paternal and thus masculine imagery better conveys God’s transcendence.
Again, Feser defends referring to God as “he” by invoking the concept of imagery. Certainly, those who claim God is male are not claiming him to be male in the sense humans are (since he doesn’t have physical parts). Rather, he is male in a way analogous to us, in the sense to how he relates to creation.
Feser then goes on to note the specifically Scriptural reasons why God would be considered male by a Christian, but I will not go into them into detail here.
If I were to summarize, I would say that a classical theist conception of God would portray God as masculine because of his authority and transcendence. In contrast, a feminine portrayal of God invokes images of submission and physical gestation (and therefore dependence on creation). Describing God as female invokes imagery that makes him more creaturely and less divine, so it is more fitting given God’s nature for him to be male.