Divine Simplicity, Modal Collapse, and the Difference Principle

The question before us is whether the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) can be upheld without the collapse of modal distinctions. 

In "Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity" (Journal of Reformed Theology 7, 2013, 181-203), R. T. Mullins asks (footnote omitted):

Could God have refrained from creating the universe? If God is free then it seems that the answer is obviously ‘yes.’ He could have existed alone. Yet, God did create the universe. If there is a possible world in which God exists alone, God is not simple. He eternally has unactualized potential for He cannot undo His act of creation. He could cease to sustain the universe in existence, but that would not undo His act of creating. One could avoid this problem by allowing for a modal collapse. One could say that everything is absolutely necessary. Necessarily, there is only one possible world—this world. Necessarily, God must exist with creation. There is no other possibility. God must create the universe that we inhabit, and everything must occur exactly as it in fact does. There is no such thing as contingency when one allows a modal collapse. (195-196)

The foregoing suggests to me one version of the problem.  There is a tension between divine simplicity and divine freedom.

1) If God is simple, then he is purely actual (actus purus) and thus devoid of unexercised powers and unrealized potentialities. He is, from all eternity, all that he can be. This is true in every possible world because God exists in every possible world, and is pure act in every possible world.  As a necessary being, God exists in every possible world, and as a simple being, he is devoid of act-potency composition in every world in which he exists. 

2) As it is, God freely created our universe from nothing; but he might have created a different universe, or no universe at all. This implies that any universe God creates contingently exists.

The dyad seems logically inconsistent.   If (1) is true, then there is no possible world in which God has unexercised powers. But if (2) is true, there is at least one possible world in which God has unexercised powers. Had God created no universe, then his power to create would have gone unexercised.  Had God created a different universe than the one he did create, then his power to create our universe would have gone unexercised. So if God is both simple and (libertarianly) free, then we get a logical contradiction.

In nuce, the problem is to explain how it can be true both that God is simple and that the universe which God created ex nihilo is contingent.  Clearly, the classical theist wants to uphold both. What is unclear, however, is whether he can uphold both.

There are two main ways to solve an aporetic polyad. One is to show that the inconsistency alleged is at best apparent, but not real.  The other way is by rejection of one of the limbs. 

Many if not most theists, and almost all Protestants, will simply (pun intended) deny the divine simplicity.  I myself think there are good reasons for embracing the latter.  But how then avoid modal collapse?

Modal Collapse

We have modal collapse just when the following proposition is true: For any x, x is possible iff x is actual iff x is necessary.  This implies that nothing is merely possible; nothing is contingent; nothing is impossible.  If nothing is merely possible, then there are no merely possible worlds, which implies that there is exactly one possible world, the actual world, which cannot fail to be actual, and is therefore necessary.  Modal collapse ushers in what I cill call modal Spinozism. 

(The collapse is on the extensional, not the intensional or notional plane: the modal words retain their distinctive senses.)

Suppose divine simplicity entails modal collapse (modal Spinozism). So what? What is so bad about the latter?  Well, it comports none too well with God's sovereignty. If God is absolutely sovereign, then he cannot be under a metaphysical necessity to create. Connected with this is the fact that if God must create, then his aseity would be compromised. He cannot be wholly from himself, a se, if his existence necessarily requires a realm of creatures.  Finally, creaturely (libertarian) freedom would go by the boards if reality is one big block of Spinozistic necessity.

Steven Nemes' Solution

If God created our universe U, and U is contingent, then it is quite natural to suppose that God's creative act is as contingent as what it brings into existence, namely, U. But this is impossible on DDS. For on DDS, God is identical to his creative causing.  This being so, U -- the creatively caused -- exists with the same metaphysical necessity as does God.  The reasoning that leads to this unacceptable conclusion, however, rests on an assumption:

DP. A difference in effect presupposes a difference in the cause. (Nemes, 109)

For example, the difference between U existing and no universe existing entails a difference in God between his actualized power to create U and his unactualized, but actualizable, power to refrain from creating anything. 

Nemes proposes that we reject (DP), at least with respect to divine causality.  (110) Accordingly, the contingency of U's existence does not reflect any contingency in God, even though U is wholly dependent on God for its existence at every moment at which it exists.  So if we reject the Difference Principle, then we can maintain both that the created universe is contingent and that there are no unrealized potentialities in God.  But if we don't reject (DP), then "the argument from modal collapse [against the divine simpicity] is successful." (111)

Is the Nemes Solution Satisfactory?

I say it isn't.  It strikes me as problematic as the problem it is proposed to solve. 

Consider an analogy. In a dark room I turn on a flashlight that causes a circular white spot to appear on a wall. When I turn off the light the spot disappears.  Clearly, the beam of light from the flashlight is the cause and the spot on the wall is the effect. We also note that the beam is not only the originating cause of the spot, but a continuing cause of the spot: the spot depends on the beam at every moment at which the spot exists. In this respect beam-spot is analogous to divine creating- universe existing.  Finally, we note that, just as the spot depends for its existence on the  existence of the beam, and not vice versa, the contingency of the spot depends on the contingency of the beam.   If the spot is contingent, then so must be its cause. Suppose that at time t, the light is on and the spot appears.  To say that the spot is contingent is to say that, at t, t might not have existed. But had the spot not existed at t, then the light would not have been on at t.  Surely it would be absurd to say both that the light is on at t and the spot does not exist at t

Similarly, it seems absurd to say both that the creative causing of U is occurring in every possible world and that U does not exist in every possible world.  Bear in mind that divine causing is necessarily efficacious: it cannot fail to bring about its effect. The divine Fiat lux! cannot be followed by darkness (or no light).   

But of course arguments from analogy prove nothing (assuming the rigorous standards of proof that I favor), and so Nemes would be within his rights were he simply to reject my analogy.  He might insist that just as God is sui generis, the creative relation between God and creatures is sui generis and cannot be modeled in any way.  He might insist that divine causality is unique. In this one case, a causal 'process' that occurs in every possible world -- because said process is identical to God who exists in every world -- has an effect that exists in only some possible worlds.

We are now in the following dialectical situation. Nemes would have us accept DDS and reject DP.  But I see no reason to think that this is any better than accepting DP and rejecting DDS.  Either way, the exigencies of the discursive intellect are flouted. 

An Aporia?

It seems that the proponent of divine simplicity faces a nasty problem.  At the moment, I see no satisfactory solution.

The aporetician in me is open to the thought that what we have here is a genuine aporia, a conceptual impasse, a puzzle  that we cannot solve. God must be simple to be God; the created universe is really contingent. We cannot, however, see how both limbs of the dyad can be true and so we must see them as contradictory, even though they are presumably not contradictory in reality.  

It could be like this: the limbs are both true, but our cognitive limitations make it impossible for us to understand how they could both be true.  Mysterianism may be the way to go.  This shouldn't trouble a theologian too much. After all, Trinity, Incarnation, etc. are mysteries in the end, are they not?  Of course, I am not suggesting the doctrine of divine simplicity can be found in the Bible. 

An Exchange with Lukas Novak

In an earlier thread, I wrote:

At best, a cosmological argument takes us from the contingent universe U to a divine creative act that explains the existence of U. Now this creative act is itself contingent: God might not have created anything. If God is simple, then he is identical to the creative act. Since the act is contingent, God is contingent, and therefore not God by the Anselmian criterion. On the other hand, if God is necessary, then the creative act and U are necessary, which is unacceptable. The following cannot all be true:

1) God is simple. 
2) God is noncontingent.
3) God's creative act is contingent. 

Dr. Novak responded:

God's creative act need not be contingent. It only needs to contingently bring about its effect.

God's efficiency is distinct from created efficiency. A created cause is itself changed by causing (by eliciting de novo the productive act as its accidental form), God is not changed by causing (being for eternity identical to any of its timeless creative acts). God would be the same in all respects had He not caused the world into existence. This is the requirement of His perfection.

Novak's first two sentences makes no sense. If the effect is contingent, then the creative act which is its cause must also be contingent. There is a three-fold distinction on the notional plane among God (the agent of the creative act or action), the creative act itself, and the effect of the creative act.  God is a necessary being. Now if God is identical in reality  to the creative act whereby he creates U, as per DDS, then the creative act must also  be necessary, in which case the created universe cannot be contingent.

One source of confusion here is that 'act' can be used in two ways. To say that God is pure act (actus purus) is not to say that God is pure action; it is merely to say that he is devoid of all potency.  Note also that God is not the cause of the existence of U; the cause is God's creative action.

I can agree with the rest of what Novak says, except for the penultimate sentence, but only if he draws the conclusion that follows from it, namely, that the created universe exists of metaphysical necessity.

REFERENCE: Steven Nemes, "Divine Simplicity Does Not Entail Modal Collapse" in Carlos Frederico, et al. eds., Rose and Reasons: Philosophical Essays, Bucharest: Eikon, 2020, 101-119.

 

Comments

[Steven Nemes]

Hi Bill,

Thank you for interacting with my chapter! It is always nice when people take what you say seriously enough to interact with it. Would that it happened more often! :-)

Also, if anyone else would like to read my paper, it can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/41975414/Divine_simplicity_does_not_entail_modal_collapse

To address your post: I suggest that the proponent of divine simplicity reject the difference principle. You seem to me to be arguing by analogy that the difference principle must apply to God's causing the world as much as to the beam of the flashlight producing a beam spot on the wall.

My initial impression is that your argument by analogy is dissatisfactory for a few reasons.

(1) On the surface of it, your response seems to beg the question. You write that the contingency of the beam spot depends on the contingency of the flashlight's being on. I don't disagree with this, of course, but you seem to be asserting straightforwardly that the beam spot could not be otherwise (it could not cease to exist, for example) as the effect of the flashlight unless there were also a difference in the flashlight (e.g., it is turned off). You then say that God's causality of the world cannot be otherwise than this. You seem to be arguing on the basis of a particular creaturely case in favor of the difference principle. But my proposal was precisely that the difference principle, which is obviously valid with respect to creaturely causation, -- although quantum indeterminacy perhaps complicates matters, -- must be rejected with respect to God's creation of the world. I am asserting ~P and your response seems merely to assert that P. Why should I be obliged to accept that the difference principle applies to God as well?

Also, I would also insist on the terminological distinction I make in my chapter about differences of interpreting the phrase "God's act of creation." In the causal sense, this refers to God as that in virtue of which His effect is produced. In the effectual sense, this refers to the God's effect, viz. the creation, insofar as it is created by God. I would not agree that "the creative causing of U is occurring in every possible world." I would sooner say: that in virtue of which U actually exists, is present in every possible world, although U is not so present. Because U is actual, we call that principle "God's act of creating U." But in a different possible world, where its effect was something else, we would not call it "God's act of creating U" but rather something else.

(2) I think that the rejection of the difference principle with respect to divine causality can be rationally motivated and is not only a "last-ditch effort" to save divine simplicity from modal collapse. In the chapter, I point out various differences between the way creaturely causation takes place and the way divine causation evidently takes place. Creatures cause things by undergoing various accidental modifications of their being. The flashlight causes the beam spot in virtue of the electrical processes that go on within it once it is turned on. Likewise, Pat Metheny causes music to come into existence when he grabs a guitar and holds it in a certain position and begins to move his hands around in the right ways. In other words, creaturely causes function by taking on various accidents that "point them" towards the production of their contingent effect. But per divine simplicity God is not a substance with accidents and thus cannot cause things in this way. He can only cause things in an entirely direct and unmediated fashion, out of nothing -- hence divine "causality" is probably better named "creation" or some other such term, in order to distinguish it from the creaturely category of "causation." If He is to create contingently, then He must be "capable" of producing a creature without being essentially "pointed at" or "directed at" the production of that specific creature. This is another way of saying that the difference principle cannot apply to God if He is to create things contingently. It is not a desperate rejection of some otherwise unassailable rational principle; rather, I think I am proposing something like a transcendental argument for the possibility of contingent creation in principle.

(3) I also sense a certain apriorism in your argument from analogy. You seem to me to take the difference principle as some kind of a priori principle of causality in general. But I would insist that we do not simply come into the world with a notion of causality. Our notion of causality is gained over time in the experience of causation in the world. With respect to creaturely causation, we are able to abstract from particular cases the ideal principle that a difference in effect presupposes a difference in cause. But suppose we then move beyond creaturely being and try to accede to the thought of the Creator of creaturely being. On the basis of various onto-cosmological arguments, such as the one you propose in your book, we arrive at the conclusion that finite being does not contain the explanation of its existence within itself; therefore it is necessary to infer the existence of an infinite, transcendent cause of existence which is not subject to the conditions of finite being (such as metaphysical composition). At this point in our reasoning, we are confronted with two realities: the contingent existence of finite being and the absolutely simple, transcendent cause of finite being. There does not appear to me to be any justification for importing the difference principle into this new and specific situation: nothing demands it, and if we recognize the "historical" origins of our awareness of the difference principle, we can see that it would be inappropriate to appeal to it here. We learned about the difference principle through our encounter with finite beings. But now, at this point in our reasoning, we are not dealing merely with finite beings, but with the cause/creator of finite being. It seems to me excessively aprioristic to hold onto the difference principle as universally applicable, when we can instead say that now, when we come to the conclusion of an absolutely simple cause of finite being, we are in a new situation that has to be understood on its own terms, rather than conforming it to our previous experience which was not absolutely universal but particular.

I look forward to your response!

[john doran]

I would avoid the problem by rejecting this one of Mullen's conclusions:

"If there is a possible world in which God exists alone, God is not simple. He eternally has unactualized potential for He cannot undo His act of creation."

God cannot "unchoose" a choice that He has made any more than He can create a rock bigger than He can lift; and the fact that He cannot do either in no way compromises His Freedom or His Omnipotence.

In other words, once God makes a choice, there is no further unactualized potential with regard to that choice.

In the actual world, He chose to create this world from all eternity. In some other possible world He chose to exist alone from all eternity. And in some other world He eternally chose an entirely different creation.

I think at least part of the difficulty arises from our relative inability to understand what it is like to make a choice "from all eternity" - i.e. in such a way that there was no time when that choice had not been made; we can't help but think of choices as being the result of deliberation. But, as Aquinas warns, all reasoning about God is done analogically, and omne simile claudicat.

[Richard Norris]

One either escapes the issue by swallowing the henadic pill, as it were, or gets crushed by the strictures of ontology. It is inescapable.

[Steven Nemes]

To Richard Norris:

What do you find unsatisfying about my reasoning in my paper, as well as in my comment? I think the point that I make about the "historical" origins of the difference principle is a good one and worth taking seriously. Because it arises through the discovery of creaturely causation, there is no basis for supposing that it must also apply in the case of divine creation.

[BV]

Steven,

Here is one question for you. If a child asks why a rock is hot, I might simply say" "It is in the sun." Is the sun the cause of the rock's being hot, or the sun's shining on the rock that is the cause of the rock's being hot? I'd say the latter: it is not a substance (the sun) that causes an event, but an event that causes an event. The cause here involves a substance, but it is not a substance but an event.

So I say that the existing of U is the effect, not of God, but of God's causing U. Since the effect is contingent, the cause must also be. A contingent effect cannot have a necessary cause. Of course, God is a necessary being, but strictly speaking it is not God who is the cause of U's existing, but God's causing U to exist.

Another question for you. Do you grant that to say that God is pure act does not imply that God engages in any actions? Some of the writers seem to conflate the distinct senses of 'act.' God is pure act whether he acts or not.

[Steven Nemes]

Bill,

With respect to your first point: I think the sun causes the rock to be hot. Naturally it causes this in conjunction with very many other factors: the position of the earth, the atmospheric conditions, the exposure of the rock to the sun's rays, and perhaps we can include the present state of the whole cosmos in the equation. Moreover, the sun's heating the rock is not an event separate from the rock's being warmed. The heating is a process that takes place over time and the effect is simultaneous with the cause. I would even say that the causation is an event which includes both substances standing in a certain relation to one another and to everything else such that the one is affected by the other in some way. But it is an event that includes both substances simultaneously. One substance causes an effect in the other, and this causality is itself an event, rather than being a relation between events. Once the entire state of affairs is taken into consideration, one could say that the sun qua substance, in this exact state, heats the rock.

But once again I have to insist that you are begging the question. God does not and cannot cause things in virtue of his being in some certain state. That is to impose a condition of creaturely causation on the creator, where it doesn't belong. Divine simplicity doesn't allow God to be in various (intrinsic) states. Because of this, divine causality has to be understood differently. If God is to cause something contingently, He has to be able to produce an effect — or perhaps it is better to say, He has to be the explanation for the reality of a thing — entirely apart from being "pointed towards" its production in the way that the sun, in all of its current states and granting the current state of the earth, the rock, and everything else, is "pointed at" heating the rock. In other words, in the special case of God, as required by the doctrine of divine simplicity, we must reject the difference principle.

With respect to your second question: God's act in the philosophical sense refers to Him and it is only one. God's act in this sense is not an action or an exercise of agency. But we speak of God's actions in theology, more specifically referring to events in history which He brought about in His Providence, and these are many. But God's actions in this sense are simply states of affairs He brought about, such as His freeing the Hebrews from slavery or converting Paul, and not something internal to Him.

[Lukáš Novák]

Hi Bill,

you say that my key statement --

God's creative act need not be contingent. It only needs to contingently bring about its effect.

-- does not make sense. I take you simply mean it is false -- but I cannot discern any real argumentative support from your part for this. Your analogies, talk of "causal process", Mullins' talk of a "potential" in God etc. rely on a picture of causality which a priori excludes the simplicity of the cause, so they cannot be used to independently prove that a free cause in general cannot be simple. Do you have any non-circular argument for the thesis that no necessary act can bring about its effect contingently? Unless you have, your derivation of modal collapse from God's simplicity cannot proceed, and no aporia results (just reluctance to accept the only coherent way out).

Meanwhile, I offer to you a bunch traditional arguments and considerations purporting to show that my thesis holds.

First and foremost: Every act which is necessarily connected to its object is dependent on its object (it cannot exist without it) and the species of the act is determined by the object. But such dependence is an imperfection. Therefore, no absolutely perfect act can depend on its object, or be specified by it, therefore, every absolutely perfect act must be only contingently related to its object.

Now we know that God is absolutely perfect. We know that causative power is required for absolute perfection; therefore, we know that God has causal power. But we also know that his causal power must be absolutely perfect one, that is, not one realized through acts necessarily connected with, and specified by, their objects.

Another way how to look at it is to say that God simply does not need any causal acts to mediate his causal power. He is causally efficient through his very essence, directly, and contingently, imparting being to the created essences immediately. It is only with respect to this causal power which is an aspect of his essence that we call the selfsame essence an "act" (in the sense of activity).

It can also be understood from the point of view of freedom. God's freedom, unlike ours, must be a perfect one. Our freedom is limited in many ways, but one of the limits consists in the fact that in order to be capable of willing opposite objects, we need distinct, opposite acts (because our acts are specified by their respective object and therefore necessarily connected with them). Therefore, our freedom is safguarded by there being a contingent connexion between our will and the individual acts of willing: our will brings about an act of willing contingently, and so it contingently wills whatever object it wills, which is however necessarily annexed to the respective act. Divine freedom, on the other hand, cannot be thus limited. God is not in need of a plurality of possible acts to be capable of willing possible opposite objects. His only, single, absolutely perfect and necessary act of willing, entitatively identical to His essence, enables him to relate to whatever object is in His power to will. So through one and the same act of will, God is capable of willing any (good) object whatsoever. Whereas in case of our will, the "gap" (i.e., contingency) is situated between our will and its act, in God it falls between the act=will=essence and its object (as there is no other available place).

Indeed: one wonders: if one is a libertarian, and so assumes that a (created) will can relate contingently to the free acts it elicits, why is it such a problem to admit that it is possible that God's very essence (playing also the role of His will) relates contingently to whatever it causes?

Unlike our will, God's will need not, even and cannot, cause his own additional acts in the manner of accidental forms. For God already is in act all through, he therefore cannot perfect himself further in any way. "God's accidental form", then, is an impossible being (and so outside the scope of what God can bring about). But God still can cause all possible beings into being -- so much we know since we know He must have an unlimited power. Therefore, it only remains that he can cause them immediately, just like we can immediately freely cause only our own acts of will, while all other effects we produce by means of these.

If contingent causality is possible in our will towards our own immediate effects (the acts of our will), why should'nt it be possible in God with respect to His immediate effects (all created things)?

Best,

Lukas

P.S. There are more problems with Mullins (he seems to be making several distinct arguments at once), but this would be a traditional reply to what seems to be his main point: viz. "God could avoid creating, therefore in God there is potential not to create: but whoever has a potential is not simple."

Reply: there is an active potential in God - conceded, there is a passive potential - denied. Whoever has an active potential is not simple - denied; whoever has a passive potential - conceded; and the conclusion does not follow.

Explanation: An active potential as such is not a potential to undergo a change but merely to bring about a change; but only a potential to undergo a change implies composition (viz. of potency and act). A created will is an active potency, but not a pure one: it also has a passive aspect, as it is receptive of its own acts and perfected by them. God's will, of course, is a purely active potency and therefore God himself is not intrinsically changed by willing this or that -- he only brings about a change outside Himself. Therefore, any unfulfilled (active) potentiality of God is really an imperfection (lack of actuality) among the creatures, not in God.

God simply must not be anthropomorphized (Isaiah 55:8...); you can only transfer concepts abstracted from creatures (such as "act", "power", "cause", "will" etc.) to God if you purge them of all imperfections.