Is Mariology a Part of the Presuppositionalist 'Package Deal'? A Question for Flood

Full disclosure: I am not a theologian. I am a philosopher of religion who, as part of his task, thinks about theologoumena which, on a broad interpretation of the term, are simply things said about God, a term which therefore includes not only official, dogmatic pronunciamenti of, say, the RCC's magisterium, but also includes conjectures, speculations, and opinions about God that are not officially promulgated.

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Anthony Flood writes,

The Christian worldview, expressed on the pages of the Bible, is a revelatory “package deal,” if you will, not a buffet of optional metaphysical theses. The organic connectedness (within the divine decree) of creation, trinity, and incarnation—even the so-called “contingencies of history,” e.g., Joshua’s impaling the King of Ai on a pole after slaughtering all of his subjects (Joshua 8)—await clarification in God’s good time, if He sees fit to provide it, but are put before us for our assent today.

Flood is a presuppositionalist who believes that "intelligible predication" presupposes the truth of the Christian worldview.  Thus, "The Christian does not avail himself of his birthright (Christian theistic) worldview because it confers omniscience on him, but rather because (a) it saves intelligible predication and (b) no competing worldview does."

We are being told that the Christian worldview, as Flood understands it, offers the best and indeed the only explanation of the fact of intelligible predication.  That intelligible predication is indeed a fact I do not question. But I do have some questions about Flood's explanation of the fact. One of them concerns what he includes in his explanation.  It is clear that he includes more than the existence of God where 'God' refers to a purely spiritual being, of a personal nature, endowed with the standard omni-attributes, who exists of metaphysical necessity, and who created out of nothing everything distinct from himself, or at least everything concrete distinct from himself. One reason for this 'more' is because Flood's God is not just personal, but tri-personal: one God in three divine persons. This is not intended as tri-theism, of course, but as monotheism: one God in three divine persons. 

Furthermore, in the Christian worldview as Flood understands it, the second person of the Trinity, variously known as the Logos, the Word, God the Son, became man in a particular man, Jesus of Nazareth, at a particular time in a particular place. One and the same person, the Son, without ceasing to be fully divine, became fully human, with a human body and a human soul, by being born of a virgin named 'Mary' in a stable in Bethlehem.  So it seems that the 'package deal' must include, in addition to Trinity and Incarnation, some version of Mariology.  Why must it? Because Jesus Christ, the God-Man, had to have gotten his human nature from somewhere. He inherited his human nature from his human mother.

Let's think about this.  God the Son is not a creature. Is Jesus a creature? His earthly mother is a creature. Jesus had no heavenly mother, at least not until the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into heaven.  But that was long after the Incarnation event; I won't say anything more about the Assumption here. And Jesus had no earthly father. Joseph was his step-father, and a step-father is not a father in the earthly or biological sense of the term. The father of Jesus is a purely spiritual being.  So Jesus Christ, the God-Man, at the moment of Incarnation, has a heavenly father but no earthly father, and an earthly mother but no heavenly mother.

Mary became pregnant.  What was the nature of the inseminating seed? It had to be purely spiritual. Why? Because it came from God who is purely spiritual. What about the inseminated egg? It had to be physical. Why? Because it was the ovum of an earthly woman. It was a miraculous pregnancy by supernatural agency.

Now the God-Man had to be free of original sin to be able to do his redemptive work and restore right relations between man and God. So he could not have 'contracted' original sin from his earthly mother. Hence the logic of the soteriological narrative required that Mary be conceived without original sin. Hence the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

It therefore seems that Mariology must be part of Flood's 'package deal,' and indeed a Mariology that includes Immaculate Conception.  So my first question to Flood is this:

Do you hold that the only possible explanation of  intelligible predication must be in terms of a Christian worldview that includes not only Trinity and Incarnation but also Immaculate Conception?

This is not a rhetorical question. It is a genuine question raised so that I might understand what exactly Flood's position is.  Tony is making a mistake if he thinks I am being polemical here. I am not. I honestly find presuppositionalism puzzling and I am trying to understand it.

My second question to Flood which I cannot develop and defend in this installment is this:

Given the well-known logical conundra that arise when we try to render intelligible to ourselves such doctrines as Trinity and Incarnation, conundra that seem to threaten the intelligibility of these doctrines, and therefore seem to threaten the intelligibility of any explanation of intelligible predication in terms of a worldview committed to them, how do you respond?  Do you maintain that the supposed logical puzzles are easily solved and that Trinity and Incarnation in their orthodox formulations are logically and epistemically unobjectionable? If that is not the tack you take, what tack do you take?

Comments

[Anthony Flood]

BV: “Do you hold that the only possible explanation of intelligible predication must be in terms of a Christian worldview that includes not only Trinity and Incarnation but also Immaculate Conception?”

No.

BV: “Given the well-known logical conundra that arise when we try to render intelligible to ourselves such doctrines as Trinity and Incarnation, conundra that seem to threaten the intelligibility of these doctrines, and therefore seem to threaten the intelligibility of any explanation of intelligible predication in terms of a worldview committed to them, how do you respond?”

I won’t buy into what you call “well-known conundra” that “seem to threaten” this or that intelligibility. You’ve considerably added to my burden of rebuttal. When I believe I’ve met it, I’ll send you the link thereto.

BV: “Do you maintain that the supposed logical puzzles are easily solved and that Trinity and Incarnation in their orthodox formulations are logically and epistemically unobjectionable?”

Again, I won’t sign off on “logical puzzles.”

BV: "If that is not the tack you take, what tack do you take?

Within the ambit of a combox, I cannot formulate my answer (which concerns the appropriate theological posture a Christian should take toward philosophical questions) but I’m grateful to you for motivating me to try to explain presuppositionalism in a way that scratches where your mind's itching (as mine did for many years). At least I know my answer won't be unsolicited.(:^D)

Tony

[BV]

"No" has the virtue of being pithy, but hardly counts as a satisfactory answer. My growing sense is that further discussion of this and related topics won't get us anywhere. We can agree on one thing: you are better off a presupper than a commie.

[Anthony Flood]

I think your growing sense is misleading you, Bill, which I will show in due course. Doing so, however, requires time. I cannot compress the satisfactory answer I'm working on into this combox. Yes, I took advantage of the closed-end form of your first question because I cannot relate the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception to the Christian worldview as I define it. My other answers, as you can see, were more expansive. This is your platform on which you have the last word, as I have it on mine. To repeat: "I’m grateful to you for motivating me to try to explain presuppositionalism in a way that scratches where your mind's itching (as mine did for many years). At least I know my answer won't be unsolicited." I hope you haven't made up your mind about it before reading it. Tony

[S]

I can't speak for Flood, but as a presupper myself, I would answer "No" to the question on Mariology, simply because I would reject the chain of inferences regarding how sin is passed on, and thus the need for the Immaculate Conception (much as many early giants of the faith did -- including Aquinas, at least as to IC per se). My position would be that *if* it could actually be shown, from the Bible and valid arguments therefrom, that the IC was necessary to render the whole thing coherent, then the answer would be yes; but I would reject that hypothesis.

Apologies for intruding in an argument.

[BV]

S,

That's a very good comment; no need to apologize for intruding. My question is addressed to all 'presuppers.'

I know a lot more about mereology than about Mariology, but you are quite right about the doctor angelicus, Aquinas, arguably the greatest theologian of them all. I need to dig up his texts on this topic and think them through. But there is also the doctor subtilis, John Duns Scotus, to reckon with.

Here is a worthwhile article: https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/j/john-duns-scotus-on-the-immaculate-conception.php

>>First, was Mary in need of redemption if she had been conceived without stain of original sin?

Second, when, in the course of her conception, was Mary preserved from the stain and effects of origin of sin?

These obstacles have stymied many of the Church's leading theologians over the centuries among them St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure. So the great teachers of the Church hesitated to proclaim the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

[. . .]

Enter Duns Scotus into the academic arena of the controversy. Beginning with the general principle formulated by St. Anselm in the eleventh century, potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (it was possible, it was fitting, therefore it was accomplished), he jumped into the thick of the intellectual tussle. In a matter of time the Subtle Doctor dispelled all objections satisfactorily.

The first hurdle in the dispute regarded Mary's need of redemption. If she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, without original sin, was she exempt from Christ's redemption? Did she not need to be redeemed?

In his Letter to the Romans (5:12), St. Paul had taught "it was through one man (Adam) that sin came into the world, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned." Paul is telling us that everyone inherits original sin and its consequences. Therefore Mary needed to be redeemed. But Christ had not yet come to accomplish the redemption.<<

BV: Yes, that is the problem.

>> Duns Scotus pushed this obstruction from the path by showing that instead of being excluded from the redemption of the Savior, Mary obtained the greatest of redemptions through the mystery of her preservation from all sin. This, explained Scotus, was a more perfect redemption and attributes to Christ a more exalted role as Redeemer, because redeeming grace which preserves from original sin is greater than that which purifies from sin already incurred.<<

BV: The Subtle Doctor is making a distinction: 'ordinary' redemption vs. 'perfect redemption.'

>>Consequently, Christ was Mary's Redeemer more perfectly by preservative redemption in shielding her from original sin through anticipating and foreseeing the merits of his passion and death. This pre-redemption indicates a much greater grace and more perfect salvation.<<

BV: Preservative redemption is a pre-redemption via divine foreknowledge? Tell me more.

>> Since Mary was a daughter of Adam, when was she preserved from original sin and its consequences? This was another obstacle to be cleared. In resolving this second problem the Subtle Doctor cleverly saw his way clear by making the necessary distinction between the order of nature and the order of time.<<

BV: a second distinction wheeled onto the field: order of nature vs. order of time.

>> Previously St. Thomas and other illustrious Doctors of the Church had reasoned that Mary was sanctified and preserved from sin either before animation, that is, before God infused a soul into the physical embryo in her mother's womb, or after animation. She could not have been sanctified before animation, otherwise she would not have had to be redeemed. If Mary was sanctified after animation, then she whom God was raising to be Satan's destroyer, was, at least for a very brief time, subject to the influence of the Prince of Darkness through contact with original sin. This line of reasoning was based on a time sequence.<<

BV: That is indeed the problem, formulated as a dilemma. Can Scotus find a way between the horns?

>> Blessed John Duns Scotus explained that the time element was not the type of order in question, but rather the order of nature. Because physical generation precedes sanctification by God's grace, Mary was an heir to the debt of Adam before being made a child of God.

In our thinking we consider Mary first as a daughter of Adam and then sanctified as a daughter of God. But this does not necessarily place the soul of our Blessed Mother in two successive states--sin followed by grace. With Mary, conception and sanctification were simultaneous, producing a twofold situation at the first moment of existence.

At one and the same time, Mary, as a human descendant of Adam and Eve, contracted the debt of original sin and became by the privileged infusion of grace a daughter of God, which preserved her from the consequences of the common lot of fallen nature by a special anticipation of the merits of the Savior.<<

BV: Very interesting, but very strange. I will have to write a separate post before I give you my verdict on the Scotist solution to the dilemma.

Might it be that our 'presuppers' are closet Scotists? That is not a rhetorical question, though it rings a bit snarky and half tongue-in-cheek.

[Anthony Flood]

Bill, the Scotist speculation in question is neither found in nor deducible "by good and necessary consequence" from Scripture, so it is not something presuppers would accept as part of the worldview that uniquely underlies intelligible predication. Tony

[Vito B. Caiati]

Duns Scotus's Oxford
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Towery city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark charmèd, rook racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did
Once encounter in, here coped & poisèd powers;

Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours
That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
Rural, rural keeping — folk, flocks, and flowers.

Yet ah! this air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;

Of realty the rarest-veinèd unraveller; a not
Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;
Who fired France for Mary without spot.

[BV]

So what does it mean, Vito?

[Vito B. Caiati]

The discussion, which touched on Duns Scotus and the Immaculate Conception, just brought this beautiful sonnet of Hopkins' to mind, so I decided to share it, since it references the doctrine in the last line. I had no other intention beyond that. The influence of Scotus, and in particular of his notion of haecceity, on Hopkin's poetry is a subject that has long interested me. Sorry, if I steered things a bit off course, but I could not resist.

[BV]

Vito,

Yesterday I read the sonnet twice, carefully, but found it too obscure for my mind and taste. For example, the second two lines of the first verse make no sense to me. 'lily'?

Is 'realty' an old word for 'reality.' So the doctor subtilis unravels reality, OK, but what do his veins have to do with it?

I find Scotus so obscure that he has no such effect on me as swaying my spirits to peace. I find him more agitating that peace-inducing.

As for the last line, I get the "Mary without spot," but the four preceding words convey no thought to me.

I am assuming that good poetry must be intelligible -- not to any Tom , Dick, or Mary, but to people such as myself.

Now haecceity is a topic of great interest to me. If you have the time and desire, explain what 'haecceity' means to you and how it figures into Hopkins' poetry.

Thanks for the comments.

[BV]

Now this, dear Vito, is a great sonnet, and to me perfectly intelligible:

Sonnet 129: Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Guess who.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Although certainly no philosopher and thus certainly not able to grapple with Scotus, I understand haecceity as referring that which makes something the specific thing that it is, i.e., its individual particularity, as distinct from its quiddity or the kind of thing that it is. Hopkins derived his poetic concept of inscape, “the expression of the inner core of individuality, perceived in moments of insight by an onlooker who is in full harmony with the being he is observing” (Norman MacKenzie, A Readers Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins, 233), from this concept. Tied to inscape is the poet’s notion of “instress,” or the force imminent in being that holds the inscape together or that brings it entirely into the cognizance of the viewer. An example of inscape in Hopkin’s “Pied Beauty:” The line “rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim,” in which the speaker (observer) sees not simply any swimming trout (kind of thing) but rather one whose sides are speckled with small, rose-colored moles (a unique particular thing).

As for the Shakespeare sonnet, it is very great, but I would argue that Hopkins’ “Duns Scotus’s Oxford” is a fine example of that form. I believe that he coins the word “realty” from “real” to allude to the individual things that actually exist (again haecceity), the intricately tangled nature of which Scotus, the “rarest-veined unraveller,” that is, a high unusual and highly gifted corporeal being (veins/blood), was able to disentangle.

[BV]

Right, Vito. The haecceity (thisness) of thing is what makes it be the very things it is and no other.

>> Hopkins derived his poetic concept of inscape, “the expression of the inner core of individuality, perceived in moments of insight by an onlooker who is in full harmony with the being he is observing” (Norman MacKenzie, A Readers Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins, 233)<<

While I agree that the poet's task is to attempt to express the individuality of things and persons, the best he can do it to approach this individuality 'asymptotically' without ever reaching it and ex-pressing it. He cannot express in words or in concepts "the inner core of individuality." And this because *individuum qua individuum ineffabile est.* The particular qua particular is ineffable and thus it is impossible to capture in any series of words the haecceity of a thing. As Aristotle said, there can be no science of the particular qua particular. Likewise, there cannot be any expression in language of the particularity of a particular.

>>The line “rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim,” in which the speaker (observer) sees not simply any swimming trout (kind of thing) but rather one whose sides are speckled with small, rose-colored moles (a unique particular thing).<< But of course there are many trout that fit the latter description, whence it follows that the latter description does not express the haecceity of the trout the observer is observing.

[Vito B. Caiati]

I agree that, given the limitations of human cognition and perception, the haecceity of a thing cannot be fully captured in words, whatever the linguistic and musical powers a poet. Eliot’s remarks in Burnt Norton about the inevitable shortfalls of language in speaking of eternity are also applicable in this instance: “Words strain, /Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, / Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, / Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, /Will not stay still.” However, I don’t think it wrong to hold that the striving of Hopkins to come close to achieving such a capture results in a series of unparalleled poetic encounters with “thisness,” such as, for example, the first stanza of his magnificent depiction of a falcon in the early morning sun, “The Windhover.” Here, his language and a panoply of poetic techniques, from alliteration, to assonance, and internal rhythm, impart something of the essential nature and powers of the thing in question, the falcon, at a moment in time, thus heightening our usual powers of awareness.

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!