From the Mail: Theism and Idealism

Peter Wizenberg writes (by e-mail):



. . . I know that Orthodox Jews believe that at every moment the Universe is sustained by God's will. (You can substitute 'sustained by God's will' with 'perceived by God'.)



MP: That the divine will sustains the universe moment by moment is not only a commitment of orthodox Judaism, but also of Christian and Islamic versions of classical theism. For classical theism, creation is not merely creatio originans but also creatio continuans. To deny this is to embrace a form of deism.



So you are certainly right in your first assertion. And although we are bound to make some distinction (real or otherwise) between the divine will and the divine intellect, I am inclined to accept your second assertion as well. If everything distinct from God (with the possible exception of abstract objects) is brought into existence and maintained in existence moment to moment by God, then the esse of each concretum is its percipi, where 'is' expresses either strict identity or logical equivalence. How then could a theist not be an idealist?



A classical theist who is also a realist is saying in effect: (i) every contingent being is necessarily such that it is wholly dependent on divine noetic and volitional activity for its coming to be and for its continuing to be, and yet (ii) contingent beings are not ontologically dependent on God, but could exist even if God were not to exist or if God were not to sustain them in being. Now (i) and (ii) would certainly seem to be inconsistent!

Comments

[Jason Pratt]

I agree that there's a _very_ serious (and highly endemic) problem with classical theists accepting in practice (even if they would deny it in theory) both (i) and (ii). It shows up in prevalent damnation theories, for instance. (Anyone who stresses that souls in hell are separated from God, is implying (ii) although they might deny it elsewhere.) Most classical theists, though (along with me), are suspicious about agreeing to be philosophical idealists, because this seems to imply that nothing in fact is distinct from God, or distinctly not-God; and we're committed (for various reasons, some of which I think are good ones) to believing that some not-God entities exist. The tension is to affirm (i), which I do, while also affirming the existence of not-God entities (such as myself, for instance), while _also_ not slipping into simultaneously proposing (ii) which would imply some sort of cosmological dualism at least. Not easy, to say the least; and I don't know if I've found the best solution to it myself. But it was something I had to consider when writing out a straightline philosophy. (I'll be getting to it much later in the Progressive Synthetic. But there're scads of other things that must be considered first.)