On God's Not Falling Under Concepts

Fr. Deinhammer tells us,  ". . . Gott fällt nicht unter Begriffe, er ist absolut unbegreiflich. . . ." "God does not fall under concepts; he is absolutely inconceivable or unconceptualizable. . . ."

Edward the Logician sent me an e-mail in which he forwards a stock objection:

Who is it who is absolutely inconceivable or unconceptualizable? Either ‘he’ tells us, or not. If so, the proposition is false. If not, the proposition is incoherent.

I appreciate that you are quoting the person who wrote to you, but my aporia stands.

Ed's aporetic point can be summed up as follows. Talk of God as inconceivable is either false or meaningless. If the person who claims that God is inconceivable is operating with some concept of God, then the claim is meaningful but false. If, on the other hand, the person is operating with no concept of God, then saying that God is inconceivable is no better than saying that X is inconceivable, which says nothing and is therefore meaningless. (X is inconceivable is at best a propositional function, not a proposition, hence neither true nor false. To make a proposition out of it you must either bind the free variable 'x' with a quantifier or else substitute a proper name for 'x.')

A Response to the Objection

Suppose we make a distinction between those concepts that can capture the essences or natures of the things of which they are the concepts, and those concepts that cannot. Call the first type ordinary concepts and the second limit concepts (Grenzbegriffe). Thus the concept cube captures the essence of every cube, which is to be a three-dimensional solid bounded by six square faces or sides with three meeting at each vertex, and it captures this essence fully.   The concept heliotropic plant captures, partially,  the essence of those plants which exhibit diurnal or seasonal motion of plant parts in response to the direction of the sun.

Now the concept God cannot be ordinary since this concept cannot capture the essence of God. For in God essence and existence are one, and there is no ordinary concept of existence.  (The existence of a thing, as other than its essence, cannot be conceptualized.) Again, in God there is no real distinction between God and his nature, whereas no ordinary concept captures the individuality of the thing of which it is the concept. Since God is (identically) his nature, there can be no ordinary concept of God.

There is, then, a tolerably clear sense in which God is unconceptualizable or unbegreiflich: he cannot be grasped by the use of any ordinary concept. But it doesn't follow that we have no concept of God.  The concept God is a limit concept: it is the concept of something that cannot be grasped using ordinary concepts. It is the concept of something that lies at the outer limits of discursive intelligibility, and indeed just beyond that limit. We can argue up to this Infinite Object/Subject, but then discursive operations must cease. We can however point to God, in a manner of speaking, using limit concepts. The concept God is the concept of an infinite, absolute and wholly transcendent reality whose realitas formalis so exceeds our powers of understanding that it cannot be taken up into the realitas objectiva of any of our ordinary concepts.

If this is right, then there is a way between the horns of the above dilemma. But of course it needs further elaboration and explanation.

Comments

[Dave Bagwill]

And now, directly from Jerusalem, we bring you the following:

"If you really knew me, you would know my Father(God)as well. From now on, you do know him (God). You've even seen him!"

Philip said, "Master, show us the Father (God); then we'll be content."
"You've been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don't understand? To see me is to see the Father (God)."

And: "And He is the radiance of His (God's) glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

I don't want to sound all fundamentalist, because I'm not a fundie; but those statements above are rather - bold? :-)
If they are true - if Jesus really was not lying or deluded - then 'God' is not unknowable. Athens has come up with its own (still debated) definition of the concept 'God'; but to the extent it ignores the above, I suspect it as being misguided.

[Richard Norris]

The existence of a thing can always be understood to be its identity, however thin that conceptualization is.

[Tom]

I always wish that Paul had addressed this question. He debated with the philosophers in Athens (although I'm not sure he talked with any Platonists). He was also extremely well-educated so I'm sure he was aware of Greek philosophy. But his writings, or at least the ones we have, just aren't concerned with this issue. Either he wasn't aware of the problem, or he didn't think it was a problem. I find it interesting how first century Christians, who were Jews like Paul, just embraced the deity of Christ but didn't really offer any justification for how that was supposed to jive with the Jewish monotheism.