World + God = God? The Aporetics of the God-World 'Relation' (2020 Version)

This from a reader:

I just started reading Philosophy for Understanding Theology by Diogenes Allen. The first chapter is devoted to the doctrine of creation.  These two sentences jumped out at me: "The world plus God is not more than God alone. God less the world is not less than God alone." Do you agree? How would you unpack them?

These are hard sayings indeed.  Herewith, some rough notes on the aporetics of the situation.

I once cataloged twelve different meanings of 'world.' By 'world' here is meant the totality of creatures, the totality of beings brought into existence by God from nothing.  (Don't confuse this sense of 'world' with the sense of 'world' as the term is used in the 'possible worlds' semantics of modal discourse.) Now if  God is a being among beings, it would make no sense at all to say that "The world plus God is not more than God alone."  For if we could add the uncreated being (God) to the created beings, then we would have more beings.  We would have a totality T that is larger than T minus God.  If God is a being among beings, then there is a totality of beings that all exist in the same way and in the same sense, and this totality includes both God and creatures such that subtracting God or subtracting creatures would affect the 'cardinality' of this totality. (Not wanting to fall afoul of Georg Cantor, I assume that the number of (concrete) creatures is finite.)

But if God is not a being among beings, but Being itself in its absolute fullness, as per the metaphysics of Exodus 3:14 (Ego sum qui sum, "I am who am") then there is no totality of beings all existing  in the same way having both God and creatures as members.  When we speak of God and creatures,

. . . we are dealing with two orders of being not to be added together or subtracted; they are, in all rigour, incommensurable, and that is also why they are compossible.  God added nothing to Himself by the creation of the world, nor would anything be taken away from Him by its annihilation -- events which would be of capital importance for the created things concerned, but null for Being Who would be in no wise concerned qua being. (Etienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, Scribners, 1936, p. 96.  Gilson's Gifford lectures, 1931-1932.)

Here, I am afraid, I will end up supplying some 'ammo' to my Protestant friends Dale Tuggy, Alan Rhoda, and James Anderson. For the Gilson passage teeters on the brink of incoherence.  We are told that there are two orders of being but that they are incommensurable. This can't be right, at least not without qualification.   If there are two orders of being, then they are commensurable in respect of being.  There has to be some sense in which God and Socrates both are.  Otherwise, God and creatures are totally disconnected, with the consequence that creatures fall away into nothingness.  For if God is Being itself, and there is no common measure, no commensurability whatsoever, between God and creatures, then creatures are nothing.  God is all in all. God alone is. 

Gilson is well aware of the dialectical pressure in this monistic direction: "As soon as we identify God with Being it becomes clear that there is a sense in which God alone is." (65)  If we emphasize the plenitude and transcendence of God, then this sensible world of matter and change is "banished at one stroke into the penumbra of mere appearance, relegated to the inferior status of a quasi-unreality." (64)  That's exactly right. (I will add in passing that this metaphysical conclusion underwrites the contemptus mundi of the old-time monk and his world flight.) But of course Christian metaphysics is not a strict monism; so a way must be found to assign the proper degree of reality to the plural world.

Here is the problem in a nutshell.  God cannot be a being among beings.  "But if God is Being, how can there be anything other than Himself?" (84)  We need to find a way to avoid both radical ontological pluralism and radical ontological monism.

It's a variation on the old problem of the One and the Many.  (It is important in these discussions to observe the distinction between Being and beings, between esse and ens, between das Sein und das Seiende.  Hence my use of the majuscule when I refer to the former and the miniscule when I refer to the latter.)

A. If Being itself alone is, then beings are not.  But then  the One lacks the many.  Not good: the manifold is evident to the senses and to the intellect.  The plural world cannot be gainsaid.  In theological terms: If God alone is, then creatures are not, even in those possible worlds in which God creates. But then what is the difference between possible worlds in which God creates and those in which he does not?

B. If beings alone are, then Being is not.  But then the many lacks the One.  Not good: the many is the many of the One.  A sheer manifold with no real unity would not a cosmos make.  The world is one, really one. It is One in itself, not merely by our conceptualization.

C. If Being and beings both are in the same way and and the same sense, then either Being is itself just another being among beings and we are back with radical pluralism, or Being alone is and we are back with radical monism.

Gilson's Thomist solution invokes the notions of participation and analogy.  God is Being itself in its purity and plenitude and infinity.  Creatures exist by participation in the divine Being: they are limited participators in unlimited Being. So both God and creatures exist, but in different ways.  God exists simply and 'unparticipatedly.'  Creatures exist by participation.  These are radically different modes of existence. God and creatures do not form a totality in which each member exists in the same way.  We can thus avoid each of (A), (B), and (C).

But the notion of participation is a difficult one as Gilson realizes.  It appears "repugnant to logical thought" (96):  ". . . every participation supposes that the participator  both is, and is not, that in which it participates." (96)  How so?

I exist, but contingently.  That is: I exist, but at every moment of my existence it is possible that I not exist. There is no necessity that I exist at any moment of my existence. I am not the source or ground of my own existence.  No existential boot-strapping! Assuming that I cannot exist as a matter of brute fact, my Being (existence) is not my own, but received from another, from God, who is Being itself.  So my Being, as wholly received from another, is God's Being.  But I am not God or anything else.  I have my own Being that distinguishes me numerically from everything else.  So I am and I am not that in which I participate.

To formulate the contradiction in a somewhat clearer form: My existence is MY existence, and as such 'incommunicable' to any other existing item AND my existence is NOT MY existence in that it is wholly derivative from Gods existence.

In terms of the One and the Many: Each member of the Many is itself and no other thing; its unity is its own and 'incommunicable' to any other thing, AND each member of the Many derives its ownmost unity and ipseity from the One without which it would be nothing at all, lacking as it would unity.

In terms of creation:  Socrates is not a character in a divine fiction; he does not exist as a merely intentional object of the divine mind; his mode of Being is esse reale, not esse intentionale, AND Socrates receives from his creator absolutely everything: his existence, essence, and properties as well as his free and inviolable ipseity and haecceity that make him an other mind, a Thou to the divine I, and a possible rebel against divine authority. So Socrates both is and is not a merely intentional object of the divine mind.

Gilson does not show a convincing way around these sorts of contradiction.

The One of the many is not one of the many: as the source of the many, the One cannot be just one more member of the many.  Nor can the One of the many be the same as the many: it cannot divide without remainder into the many.  The One is transcendent of the many.  But while transcendent, it cannot be wholly other than the many. For, as Plotinus says, "It is by the One that all beings are beings."  The One, as the principle by which each member of the many exists, cannot be something indifferent to the many or external to the many, or other than the many, or merely related to the many. The One is immanent to the many.  The One is immanent to the many without being the same as the many.  The One is neither the same as the many nor other than the many.  The One is both transcendent of the many and immanent in the many. Theologically, God is said to be both transcendent and omnipresent.  He is both transcendent and immanent.

What should we conclude from these affronts to the discursive intellect?  That there is just nothing to talk about here, or that there is but it is beyond the grasp of our paltry intellects?  If what I have written above is logical nonsense, yet it seems to be important, well-motivated, rigorously articulated nonsense.

Comments

[George]

Please correct me if I'm mistaken, Dr. Vallicella, but I've taken this proposition concerning God and creation as qualitative, not quantitative, in nature.

Recently, apropos, I read Robert Sokolowski's "The God of Faith and Reason" who comments on how God's creation doesn't "add" more to reality. To quote: "(God plus any creature) cannot be conceived as better than God alone" (pg. 9). That is, "better" in a qualitative sense, not quantitative sense.

By way of analogy, think of mathematical limits. (Infinity is really a limit in mathematics, not a number.) Loosely speaking, say we have the equation "x." If we take x as approaching infinity, the answer to the limit is infinity. Likewise, if we have the equation "x + 999999999999999999," have x approach infinity, the limit also equals infinity.

In an analogous sense, God plus any creation is no more than God plus no creation. The qualitatively infinite cannot be exceeded by any qualitatively finite creation. By analogy, infinity plus 100 is still infinity.

However, if we're thinking quantitatively, then we have a big problem. God is quantitatively one being. I---as a young man---am quantitatively one being. God (as creator) plus George (me as a creature) equals two. Two is greater than one. Though I cannot speak for Diogenes Allen, am I mistaken to think of the proposition in the qualitative terms?

Insofar as God is "Being Itself," this does raise how there can be many "beings." Yet can we not SEPARATE the issue of divine simplicity of God as Being Itself FROM THE question of if God's creation adds to the qualitative goodness to reality?

[Fr Matthew Kirby]

"To formulate the contradiction in a somewhat clearer form: My existence is MY existence, and as such 'incommunicable' to any other existing item AND my existence is NOT MY existence in that it is wholly derivative from Gods existence."

But if we distinguish between existence-as-fact and existence-as-act, calling the latter be-ing, we can say instead: "My existence is my existence (a fact noting that it is ME that has been brought into being) and none others (as that fact refers to me only), but my be-ing is not my be-ing in the active sense, but only in the passive, received sense. That is, I do not "be" strictly speaking, or self-actualise, I am an "actualised". The former sense of "existence" is ontologically dependent on the latter, but is epistemologically prior. More to the point, the two are genuinely distinct, and so the paradox is resolvable. Or so I would argue.

[BV]

George,

Consider two scenarios. On the first, God alone exists. On the second, God and one creature exists. Add to that the proposition that ens et bonum convertuntur. That implies that for any x, x is or exists iff x is good. To be = is to be good. Now to many it would seem obvious that if two entities exist (as on the second scenario), then more good is realized than on the first.

[George]

I can see your basic point, sir, though I still wonder if there's a way around this difficulty or if your point addressed my interpretation.

If "being" is identical to "goodness," then more beings means more goodness. This seems to be understood in simple quantitative terms. It's a matter of simple counting. And if there's an identity between "being" and "goodness," it seems if we consider "being" in a quantitative sense, we then must consider "goodness" in a quantitative sense.

Formula: God plus one creature = two beings = two good things

Nonetheless, what of thinking of the proposition concerning God and creation in qualitative terms-----or just in terms of matters of quantitative degrees? Doesn't that make a categorical difference? (Forgive me if I'm being dense. If I'm missing some nuance, please kindly help me.)

Actually, now that I think of it, I think this is essential: Don't we have to be careful in claiming an identity between being and goodness? Being and goodness is to be applied by an analogy of proper proportionality.

God and a creature are two beings, but they are not equal. In reply, you could say: two good things is greater than one good thing, EVEN IF those two good things are not of equal value (but each individually has goodness at least greater than zero). Two is greater than one.

X + Y > X (if Y>0 and X>0). Even in this context, however, couldn't I then reply: here the math limit analogy applies? The goodness of X and Y consists in their individual worth, assuming, I suppose, we can assign any quantitative values to qualitative things.

X approaches infinity (God), whereas Y (me) is some finite value. In that case, Infinity plus Y is NOT GREATER than Infinity plus zero (i.e., zero as in no creature created by God).

So, the issue, I believe isn't as simple as this: two beings (or two good things) are greater than---or more than---one being (or one good thing). We have to consider that the beings aren't just of equal worth but that one of those beings is taking on an infinite value. Do you believe that's a reasonable take?

[George]

One more thing I should add, which will hopefully clarify things more: (1) being and goodness are "identical"; (2) God plus one creature produces a greater number of beings; (3) thus, given (1), God plus one creature produce a greater number of goods.

This is a fine argument, but there may be something missing. There may be more goods quantitatively, but are there more goods qualitatively? My argument, as I have so far developed it, is that there isn't, even if there are more goods quantitatively. So, X and Y are more goods. But X + Y doesn't produce more qualitatively. Is this a distinction without a difference? No, I don't necessarily believe so. X + Y are about two things (namely, X and Y), but it doesn't follow that X + Y MUST be greater than X.

Also, maybe there's something wrong about (1)? Maybe or maybe not. Being and goodness may be "convertible" in some sense with each other, but aren't they still perceived from different angles such that we can speak about "being" and "goodness" as somehow separate? I'll have to review a metaphysics book.

[BV]

Fr. Kirby,

In effect, you are distinguishing between Existence itself (ipsum esse subsistens) and existence as 'contracted' by a finite essence. And so we can say that my existence is mine (and incommunicable to any other) insofar as Existence itself is contracted by my essence and 'received' by my essence, and my existence is NOT mine insofar as it derives from self-subsistent esse.

But this solution is Avicennian and has problems of its own. It seems to require that there be pre-given essences and that creation is the actualization of such essences, the addition of existence to pre-given essences, when creation is ex nihilo.