The Modal Collapse Objection to Divine Simplicity
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
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Dr. Craig discusses Divine Simplicity with Ryan Mullins and Cameron Bertuzzi.
You can watch the entire interview here: • Discussing Divine Simp...
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This is a very important topic. Thanks for the link to the full discussion.
there are very strong thomists responses to the modal colapse, but this is a very interesting discussion.
Very strong indeed. The modal collapse objection is a non-starter.
Misunderstanding of divine simplicity. God’s actions don’t contribute essentially to himself. There could be a world where god never created. That’s totally okay for god to do. His actions don’t convert potency into actuality. God would still be just as good and just as loving even if he never created. Rather what got essentially IS (not what he DOES) is the sole contributor to his actuality.
Said with all charity, keep on doing what ur doing!!
Just Thomism blog by Dr James Chastek helps here. '3 Step Approach To Eternity' or 'Sola Volunte' or 'Craig Contra Divine Simplicity' are posts that come to mind.
Heard James Gifford talking about how Calvinistic thinking (amongst other things) roots from divine simplicity. Was having a bit of trouble keeping up with him, but now makes prefect sense. Still have to work through how some of the other things he talked about (early heresies) are rooted in this doctrine.
I don't understand anything that's being talked about here. All I know is that I find the doctrine of divine simplicity to be nonsensical and un-understandable.
Do you like Trump ?
Cringe
Spinoza recognized this, which is why he believed that all facts are necessary facts.
That's metaphysically absurd.
So Craig is arguing determinism
How did you get that from the video? - RF Admin
@@drcraigvideos He said God has no potential to do anything else then what he is doing
@@rsolano26 He was describing the Thomistic view, not his own. - RF Admin
@@rsolano26active potency passive potency distinction
Is he related to Eustace Mullins ?
lmao
That would be extraordinary! Eustace was a gentleman and scholar of the highest order.
@@elgatofelix8917this guy however isn’t
Not really acknowledging the Thomist answers to this. I also don’t see how Craigs version of Molinism avoids this problem.
Are you sure you actually understand Molinism?
@@leonardu6094 - can’t tell if this is a joke or not. I understand Molinism, I just think it tries to answer a question Aquinas has already answered.
@@fndrr42 What is it you think Molinism is trying to answer?
@@leonardu6094 - it is trying to account for the free will of humanity without encroaching on God's Divine Sovereignty. This tension is non existent with a proper understanding of Thomism and seems to nullify the need for hypothetical counter factual knowledge in God. Seems to assume that we can comprehend univocal truth about God Ad Intra - which I strongly reject.
@@fndrr42 I agree with you the tension is non-existent but precisely because of Molinism, not despite it. Hence why I'm a Molinist.
But I'm curious though, as a thomist, how exactly has Thomas Aquinas resolved the issue without appealing to Molinism. How has Aquinas solved the age old question "If God is in control of every single thing, How are humans responsible for anything?". Please enlighten me. I ask sincerely.
Analytic philosophy: Not. Even. Once.
Craig makes a few subtle mistakes. Yes, all God knows, He knows necessarily. What He knows, however, primarily and absolutely, is Himself. And on Divine Simplicity, that means the knowledge and self are, in fact, self-same. Since God is pure actuality, and since by His act everything else receives actuality (including any actual potentiality in a thing), then in knowing Himself God knows not only all that actually is but all that could be. So omniscience just is His own existence.
But that doesn't negate divine freedom, and therefore, it does not entail fatalism. For there is no necessity that God be this rather than that. God could have freely chosen to create this rather than that, for instance. In that case, He would have know this, rather than that, to be actual, and that, rather than this, as potential. God, then, remains absolutely free and all facts are contingent on His free choice to determine His own existence. This rests on the distinction between absolute necessity and necessity by supposition, which Craig seems to ignore. You can review that in ST Ia.19.3.
Finally, Craig conflate potentiality and possibility. I am fairly certain he understands the distinction. That he conflates them here is disheartening, because it makes him appear dishonest. It amounts to little more than a strawman, so that people who don't know the difference aren't informed that not only does it exist but that it is really foundational.
How does God have the ability to create and not create when essence = self knowledge under divine simplicity and
If God self knowledɡe knowledge knows the fact that X will be created necessarily and knowledge = essence then from the aspect of essence X will be actualised necessarily and there is no other possibility of actualisation other then X but if God has freedom then from aspect of power God has the ability to create and not to create.
Which one is it essence (necessarily create) whereas power (create/not create) but under DS power = essence?
How do you explain this multiplicity in God?
@@aron9128 the problem is in your second move. God could have done other than what He did. In that case, He would have known that necessarily. Remember that there is nothing external to God to which He is accountable or subject. He is under no law of necessity of any sort. He is not under compulsion even by His own nature.
God simply Is. And as He says in Exodus 3, He will be what He will be. He is, in a word, free. 100%, entirely free.
So, yes, He knows Himself. And what He knows Himself to be (and thus all facts He actualizes), He knows because He has chosen freely to be that.
@@GulfsideMinistries that wasn't the point that if something else was known then God could have done otherwise.
The point is If essence knows X will exist then essence has a necessary relation with X and God doesn't have the ability to not create what he knows will exist under DS because there is no power which is the ability to actualise distinct from knowledge rather essence is compelled to the act what it knows.
It you say God has ability to do otherwise even after knowing what will exist then that would multiplicity in God because from the perspective of power God has the ability to create and not create but from the perspective of essence = self knowledge there is no possibility other then what will exist.
@@aron9128 You have it backwards when you say that God must create X if He knows X will exist. Rather, He knows X will exist because He freely chooses to create it. The necessities rooted in God's will. God determines it by determining Himself. He is. It determined by some necessary thing outside of Himself.
@@GulfsideMinistries If God's knowledge of what will exist is caused by his will. God is omniscient through itself yet his knowledge of what will exist is contingent on the existence of X.Also, why does God choose X rather Y?
If God necessarily choose X then choice couldn't have been otherwise and is necessary.
If God possibly choose X then God's *will* is contingent and requires an external reason for why he possibly choose X.
el problema de todo esto es que la metafisica tomista se refiere a la realidad y utiliza la logica como herramienta, lo contradictorio seria en el caso que Dios estuviera en el mismo plano ontologico que la creatura libre, pero no es asi Dios conoce necesariamente lo que nosotros realizamos contingentemente y o hay ninguna contradiccion, dr craig por favor deje de simplificar a Dios a categoria logicas por favor
Divine Simplicity is laughably absurd. Although i will say it's kind of ironic seeing Dr Craig raise this objection, seeing as the same logic can be applied to his criticism of 'PAP' when it comes to discussions about Libertarian Free will. He says Divine Simplicity is absurd because it would mean that everything happens necessarily and i completely agree with that assessment, but it think the same criticism can be validly applied to his "Sourcehood view" of Libertarian free will and his reject of 'PAP'. I'm just holding him to consistency.
That is a good point. I had not thought of that. No PAP = no contingency.
@@redbearwarrior4859 Thanks!
I find the arguments for divine simplicity compelling. I encourage you to read or watch more vids on the topic as many brilliant people disagree. To refer to the opposing position as laughable seems derisive. Pat Flynn has a number of videos with Dr. Gavin Kerr on the topic & there is a great discussion between Dr. Craig & bishop Barron on this issue. If interested in divine simplicity & free will Dr Mathew’s grant specializes in that area. Not to make blatant appeals to authority, but Dr Josh rasumen has come around to the idea, Dr David Bentley hart ascribes to divine simplicity, Dr Christopher tomischki, and in pretty sure Dr. Alex Pruss also affirms divine simplicity.
For me, by my lights, I think embracing theistic personalism (or just allowing for complexity within God) comes at a cost of losing ultimate explanation by placing God within the ontological frame of a broader reality, as opposed to the ground of being itself, leaving the ontological frame of reality left unexplained. I find the counter arguments to modal collapse & the aloneness argument persuasive, again by lights. But I would not hold that those who don’t are irrational or their positions laughable.
@@markbirmingham6011 How presumptuous of you to assume i disagree with your conclusions on Divine Simplicity simply because i "haven't read enough". Talk about derisive. I suppose i can reach the same conclusion about you and your embrace of divine simplicity by simply asserting you haven't read enough critics. I have read the literature by proponents of Divine simplicity and i find it an incoherent view.
@@leonardu6094 funny, I almost explicitly said, “not that you haven’t looked into them.” But I didn’t think my comment that you read more entails that you haven’t read any or at all. Either way, that’s not what I intended but pardon if you interpreted that way. Again, I can understand why people hold to theistic personalism, while still disagreeing and find divine simplicity more convincing. Again, didn’t mean to imply you haven’t given it thought. Pardon and cheers.
And fair enough, if 2 people hold mutually exclusive views and both are convinced that they are correct, each person could claim the other needs to look into it more, give that they are convinced the other has reached the wrong conclusion.
the Trinity seems anything but simple
@Miles Doyle If you really expected _anybody_ to read your very long script, especially when you eschewed adding paragraphs, you were sadly mistaken.
He’s supposed to have infinite knowledge and infinite power. That’s not simple. That’s infinitely complex.
The way God is simple is not the same way that you are simple.
infinite knowledge or power that has absolutely nothing to do with simplicity or complexity, Mr. male
@@billyhw5492 Care to elaborate?
@@caret4812 Wrong. The more there is to something, the more complex it is.
@@Homo_sAPEien Simple just means "not composed of parts." God's knowledge is not composed of an infinite array of distinct facts. As Craig himself admits, on DS, what God knows is not each fact but rather Himself. God knows one thing, and that one thing entails a knowledge of everything. For the essence of God just is existence. Now all things that exist are just that -- ways to exist. Thus, in knowing Himself, God knows existence perfectly; in knowing it perfectly, He immediately knows all the ways existence could be and the ways that existence actually is. But to know all actual existences and all potential existences is just the same thing as saying that God knows everything.
So, again, God's omniscience is not an array of individual facts. It's the perfect and complete knowledge of the one thing that is Himself. And, in fact, His self-knowledge is not even distinct from Himself as something He has. Rather, He just is His self-knowledge. That's what God is. The Act of Existence Existing in Itself (in Latin, ipsum esse subsistens).
Lmao