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Thursday, September 26, 2024

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Bill,

This notion of God as an “unembodied mind, or better as an unembodied person” is, as you argue, the only one of the three that makes much sense, but it gives rise to two questions which have troubled me, someone without philosophic training, for a long time.

First, if God is a “person,” then is He not one of a set of beings that fall under the category “Person,” and if so, how can he be uniquely unique? In other words, he differs from persons like you and me simply by the fact that his powers exceed ours and not that his being is ontologically unique.

Second, seeing that you quote Aquinas, does not this definition of God as a “disembodied mind” create intractable philosophical problems for this thinker’s position on the disembodied human soul, since he argues that humans are a body-soul composite and that in the post-mortem, pre-resurrection state, the powers of the human soul, deprived of the senses, are drastically reduced? Why should this be so for the soul of the human “person,” once liberated from the body, and not that of the divine “person”? It would seem that the soul stuff of “unembodied persons” would be much the same, since they fall under the same category of “person.” Would not Platonic dualism work better in addressing this problem?

You may not have the time or interest to address either of these questions, but I wanted to raise them in any case, since doing so allows me to clarify my thinking.

Vito

Vito,

The questions that trouble you, also trouble me. It may be that they are insoluble by us in our present state. I'll address the second one, first.

>>Second, seeing that you quote Aquinas, does not this definition of God as a “disembodied mind” create intractable philosophical problems for this thinker’s position on the disembodied human soul, since he argues that humans are a body-soul composite and that in the post-mortem, pre-resurrection state, the powers of the human soul, deprived of the senses, are drastically reduced?<<

First of all, I did not say that God is a disembodied mind, but an unembodied mind. God is a pure mind/spirit. We are embodied spirits. We may become disembodied, but God as pure spirit cannot become disembodied.

But your problem survives this distinction. My aporetic method requires that we first get as clear a possible about what the problem is. The aporetician's motto is: "Problems first! Solutions second, if ever." So what's the problem?

1. God and Socrates are both persons.
2. A person is an individual substance of a rational nature. (Boethius)
3. God is a complete individual simple substance.
4. Socrates 'here below' (post-natal, pre-mortem) is a complete individual composite (non-simple) substance composed of substantial form and proximate matter (materia secunda), a substance whose completeness requires the interplay of both of these ontological factors/constituents, namely, form and matter.
5. Socrates post-mortem, if he exists at all, will exist in a disembodied and thus incomplete state deprived of his sensitive powers. For after death, Socrates will exist as a mere form. He will still be a person by the Boethian definition (an individual substance of a rational nature) but he will lacks sensitive powers and possess only the powers of the intellect.
6. Only embodied persons have sensitive powers.
7. God, since he is unembodied, has no sensitive powers.
8. If a person A and a person B differ in that A has intellectual but no sensitive powers, and B has both intellectual and sensitive powers, then A and B cannot both be persons.

The above is Vito's problem formulated as an inconsistent octad: the constituent propositions cannot all be true. (1) and (8) cannot both be true.

So Vito, will you accept the above aporetic octad as a formulation of your problem?

Vito,

Assuming that you accept the above formulation, why can't a Thomist simply reject (8)? He might say that God and Socrates are both persons, but in an analogical sense of 'person,' where analogy is mid-way between univocity and equivocation.

God and Socrates both exist. But they exist in different ways. God exists a se; Socrates exists ab alio. So the analogia entis may be a way around your problem. Suppose that there are two modes of personhood, absolute and derivative. God is the one and only absolute person. Every other person is derivatively a person.

Of course, this gives rise to further puzzles, which I am willing to explore.

Vito,

Here is another conundrum for your delectation.

1. God is omnipotent: he can do anything that is logically possible.
2. God is a pure spirit: he has no physical body and is wholly immaterial.
3. Only embodied (enmattered) spirits/mind have sensitive powers.

The above is an aporetic triad, the limbs of which are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true. Any two limbs, taken in conjunction, entail the falsity of the remaining limb.

Do you understand why?

Bill,

Yes, I “accept the above aporetic octad as a formulation of your problem,” and I thank you for this clear presentation of it. And I do see that ascribing an analogical sense to the term person when speaking of God might be a way to handle the inconsistency of the aporetic octad; however, and I say this as amateur in these weighty matters, something about this approach leaves me uneasy in that it seeks to salvage one concept by adding an additional concept, making a highly complicated matter even more so.

As to your question about the aporetic triad. I think I see why “are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent”: God, a (2) pure spirit, cannot (2) be omnipotent if he lacks the sensitive powers of embodied spirits, since (3) only the latter possess them? Am I right?

Vito

What a great post!

The statement that man is “theomorphic” is wonderful.

My comments here are about God from a Protestant Christian perspective , not a philosophical one.

You describe God as an unembodied mind. And that seems about right when we read in John 1 that " in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God...” I take “Word” to be close to Mind" or at least related.

But then we find out that Jesus is the Word. And Jesus took on flesh, so that part of the Trinity does have a body and still does even after his resurrection and ascension. Of course, the concept of the Trinity isn’t being discussed here, but it shows that talking about God is complex. The verses you quoted from Genesis 1:26,27 are either speaking in the " royal we” or seem to be referring to more than one person -- “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”

So yes, we are spiritual beings, but also embodied, like Jesus. I think too, that Jesus had pre-incarnate visitations, told about in the Old Testament, to Abraham and others, so he took on a body temporarily even before his incarnation.

I think your example of the fetus not being able to imagine a better existence than his current one is fantastic!

You got it, Vito. If God is omnipotent, then he has the power to see, hear, etc. things. Can he not see the Red Sea? And if he is omniscient, does he not possess sensory knowledge of sensory things? If he has sensory knowledge, then possessing such knowledge does not require having a body.

Vito,

Now for your first question: >>if God is a “person,” then is He not one of a set of beings that fall under the category “Person,” and if so, how can he be uniquely unique? In other words, he differs from persons like you and me simply by the fact that his powers exceed ours and not that his being is ontologically unique.<<

Here is your argument, rigorously formulated:

1. God is a person
2. Socrates is a person
3. If x, y are persons, then x, y are persons in the same sense of the term. But:
4. God and Socrates are very different.
Therefore
5. >>God differs from persons like you and me simply by the fact that his powers exceed ours and not that his being is ontologically unique.<<
Therefore
6. God is not ontologically unique.

That is your argument. It is a rationally acceptable argument free of formal and informal fallacy, but it is not rationally compelling/coercive. For I can run it in reverse with no breach of logical propriety by denying (6) and then denying one or more of the premises. And so I deny (3). God and Socrates are not persons in the same sense.


God cannot be impersonal, so we say he is a person; but he cannot be a person in the very same way that you and I are persons, so we must say that God is suprapersonal. But then we are beyond what the discursive intellect can render intelligible to itself. We are in the precincts of mystery, the mystical, the Unsayable, the ineffable, the inexpressible. Aber es gibt allerdings das Unaussprechliche. (Wittg) In the Holy of Holies, silence reigns. In the Beatific Vision, seer and seen are one and yet not one. Coincidentia oppositorum. (Cusanus) Here is where philosophy ends: in the visio beata in which the individual soul achieves its final individuation by merging with the Supreme Individual. This mystical denoument cannot be imagined or conceived. From the POV of the Discursive Framework, which is where we are right now, it must appear as either Nothing or a meta-physical Something -- when it is neither, but both.

Thank you, Trudy,

>>You describe God as an unembodied mind. And that seems about right when we read in John 1 that " in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God...” I take “Word” to be close to Mind" or at least related.<<

Yes. The Word (Logos) is God in his revelatory aspect. "1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4"

Already in John 1, there is, if not a Trinity, a Binity: The Word is identical to God and the Word is with God, and therefore not identical to God. One God in two divine persons.

>>But then we find out that Jesus is the Word. And Jesus took on flesh, so that part of the Trinity does have a body and still does even after his resurrection and ascension.<<

That's not the right way to put it. It is not Jesus who took on flesh, but the eternal Word, co-eternal with the Father, who in himself fleshless, took on flesh. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." More precisely, the eternal Word took on a man, body and soul at a particular and in a particular place. 'Jesus' is the name of that particular man who was born, lived, and died.

At the Ascension, Jesus ascends body and soul, and returns to the Father, importing materiality into the immaterial Trinity -- which is a puzzle you glide right past. But more on this later.

I'm glad you liked my little story at the end. It can be expanded and made better: imagine twins in the same womb telepathically communcating with each other, the one twin an 'old soul,' the other not. The one who is not argues that they have it made in the only reality there is while the old soul argues that there is this event called Birth coming and that there is much more after that!

Materiality into the Immaterial Trinity is a mystery for sure. But Jesus’ body was different after his resurrection. He could appear and disappear, as when the disciples were meeting in the upper room, first without Thomas and then with Thomas. Christians call his a glorified body. We will still be able to see his scars and know it is him, but he is now immortal. He will never die again. We can’t imagine a body like that, but it seems he can be seen or not seen; he can be material or immaterial.

Trudy,

The glorified or transfigured body of Christ, though not gross like our bodies, is still a body and so still material . . .

Surely when Christ ascended into heaven, he did not take off like a rocket and head into outer space. I have always tended to think of Ascension as de-materialization, but that does not comport well with the body and soul bit.

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