Reading: Reformational View

Welcome back. We're in the middle of some deep waters here. I've been demanding of us some sustained abstract thinking. I hope you're up for it. Today, we're going to do some more. But today we're going to consider why that analogy that I have, for theory of reality—the analogy of a necklace with beads on a string—is the wrong analogy from a Christian point of view.

To be sure, many Christians have taken that position; most of them have, in fact. They've done so for the reason that they identify God with the perfections of Plato, the perfections that Plato and Aristotle wrote about. They think that's the very being of God, and God can share those perfections with creatures because creatures have them only in an imperfect mode. I've pointed out the serious mistake in that, because whatever perfection creatures possess in a finite and imperfect mode is the same property, the same attribute, that God possesses in the infinite mode. This makes us partly identical with the very being of God, on that point of view. And that's an unacceptable consequence. It's completely unacceptable from a Christian point of view that we view humans as even partly identical with God. We are not self-existent; we do not call things into existence out of nothing. Only the Creator does that.

But I started to say there's a second very bad consequence from this view that I designated last time as the AAA view—standing not for an auto club, but for Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas—three very gifted thinkers. This doesn't mean they got everything right. In their view, the perfections are not characteristics that God possesses; they are God. I find the opposite view in the Cappadocian fathers and which was followed by the two main Protestant reformers, Luther and Calvin. I'm going to call that the Orthodox/Reformational view. In this view, God's attributes depend on God; they are neither untreated nor identical with God's very being. It's the being of God that gives rise to the attributes, not that they are identical with Him.

For the thinkers in this tradition, they're not going to adopt the view that the perfections, when they occur in creation, are either divine or semi-divine. They believe that when they occur in God, they are created. We can understand them because we're only creatures, and as they occur in creatures, they're also created. That is, they depend on God. If that's so, then there's nothing, no characteristics that we find in creation, more real than any other kind. This rules out the kind of theory that the AAA view suggests, where some aspects of creation are more real than the rest. So, what more natural way is there to come up with a theory of reality than trying to explain the non-divine features of creation in terms of the ones that are divine or semi-divine?

This means that explanation is the same thing as what's called a reduction argument. I think the best way to proceed here is to give illustrations rather than trying to define this abstractly. Suppose now, as Christians, we're going to adopt the Plato/Aristotle ontology of form and matter. We'd need to explain everything else in creation in terms of how form influences and gives organization to matter. For example, how does form plus matter account for why some things are good and others are evil?

If we were to offer an argument for that, it would be a reduction argument. There are several forms that reduction arguments can take. They can be linguistic, factual, or causal reductions. But these approaches come with their challenges. For instance, a causal explanation runs into severe difficulties. Suppose we take something that's neither form nor matter but produced by them. And here, the text seems to cut off.

Okay, our causal reduction here is going to be form and matter. It's going to be formed plus matter, causes, and much when we pick aesthetic beauty.

Now, what we have to do is talk about how abstract forms now let's make it more difficult. I like this better. Let's talk about ugliness. How does pubs form combined with matter in order to produce something that's aesthetically ugly? If we were not assuming that there's a form for ugliness, or biting the bullet with that with Plato, there aren't forms for negatives, then how does form and matter explain that ugliness can arise in life, we can see things that we experienced as positively ugly.

Now, here is what we have, we will try to explain it causally. So what we have to do is say that causes that don't have the property ugliness converge in such a way as to produce something that does have it then you have problems with the cause. What kind of causality we talking about here? Is the cause physical? Is the cause spatial, mathematical? If the causes one kind of property and what gets produced as a different kind, we can't conceive of any causality linking them.

Again, this is very like the problem that has plagued theories of how our minds interact with our bodies. If we assume that our minds are purely rational, and don't have any physical properties at all, and that our bodies are purely physical and biological, and don't have themselves rational properties, then how can we conceive of any causal interaction between them? Whatever is true of one's false or the other? And what's true, this one's false. This one, then you can't conceive of any relationship of interaction or kind of interaction, would it be rational or physical? And if you say neither, then what? What would you propose at its place?

No one's ever been able to get around that. Causal interactions lose their meaning when you try to postulate them or say, there must be such a thing. Because you're starting with one kind of cause and producing another kind of effect. The explanations, then reduction, reduction explanations have a dim future. Nobody's gotten any of them to work yet. Even the most sophisticated, everyone admits, doesn't work.

What's going on in present-day philosophy is most non-Christians in philosophy, most people who don't believe in God, to put it that way, non-theists, who are in philosophy, and are trying to come up with a theory of reality, are materialists. They try to say the basic reality is purely physical, then they have to explain how the purely physical creates in us an experience that includes properties like beautiful and ugly, morally good and evil, just and unjust or even valid and invalid as in the case of logical arguments. How does what is purely physical produce something that's logical, or aesthetic or ethical, and no one yet has been able to produce a single argument show how that's even possible, let alone a proposal argument as to how it actually works.

So here's the second consequence I want to say, of the triple a view that identifies God says God is the perfections. That makes the perfections in the world, that is, the perfections weigh in, they occur in creatures more real than non-perfections.

Here's a concrete example: the perfections of God, that is, whenever goodness, justice, holiness, truth, knowledge, and all that occur in preachers is uncreated. They're every bit as much as it's uncreated, and God core to this view, then those things and laws of logic and math are more real than, say, weight, mass, specific gravity. And other physical properties, or spatial properties. They're more real than things being conical or spherical, occupying space, and so forth. They're also more real than any perceptual property. So they're more real than, say, colors, or tastes, or sounds, and so on.

So it sets up a program of explanation, a theory of reality, and knowledge, that's reductionist, it just fits beautifully. If some properties are more real than others. And what better reason to think that than that God has them, and they must be more real. So we explain the less real is caused by the more real, and we end up having a theory that requires us to make a reduction argument of some kind, either we argue that the language we use to talk about each side, what gets produced is the same, or it's factually identical, or it's causally identical. We got to commit some one of them.

And notoriously, they've been tried now for well over a century. And everyone in philosophy admits none of them have succeeded. They can't work, they don't work. And there's no reason to think that they will at some point in the future. So the question then is, well, where does that leave us? And I want to suggest something very definite about where it leaves us. That if we take what I call the Orthodox reformational view, I don't know what else to call that. Because both Luther and Calvin held this doctrine of God that was proposed by the Capranos shins, and champions again in the 14th century by Gregory Palace. If they hold to that view, I think it can be very clearly shown they do. And so did the outstanding 20th-century theologian in that reformational tradition, Carl Bart. They all held that view. So it covers Lutheranism, Calvinists, and other people, I'm just coining the term reformational for that.

Here, the Orthodox in the reformational view, is going to commit us to a non-reductionist program. And that non-reductionist program, is a program that shows, if we do that, if we take that non-reductionist approach, that does have properties that are more real than others. Then we can very easily show that. We can do it through a non-reductionist approach, and a non-reductionist approach, is one that argues that some properties are more real than others, by the very fact that they're uncreated. And they belong to God and God alone. And therefore, we have a different set of starting points, from which we will derive all of our theories about how the world is put together. That's where I want to leave us. And next time, we'll take up the topic of the third consequence of the triple a theory. And that is how it leads to anti-realism about persons.

Original Unedited Transcript

Welcome back. We're in the middle of some deep waters here. I've been demanding of us some sustained abstract thinking I saw, I hope you're up for it. Today, we're going to do some more. But today we're going to consider why that analogy that I have, for theory of reality, the analogy of a necklace with beads on a string, is the wrong analogy. from a Christian point of view, to be sure, many Christians have taken that position on most of them have, and they have done so for the reason that they identify God with the perfections of Plato, that Plato and Aristotle wrote about, they think that's the very being of God, and God can share those those perfections with creatures, because creatures have them only in the imperfect mode. And I pointed out that the serious mistake in that, because whatever perfection creatures possess, in finite and imperfect mode, is the same property, the same attribute that God possesses in the infinite mode. And that makes us partly identical with the very being of God, on that point of view. And that's an unacceptable consequence. It's completely unacceptable from a Christian point of view, that we view humans as even partly identical with God, we are not we are not self existent, we do not call things into existence out of nothing, only the Creator does that. But I started to say there's a second very bad consequence from this view, that I designated last time as the a a view of God and His attributes were a sense not for an auto club, but for Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, three very gifted thinkers, which does not mean that they got everything right. Now in their view, the perfections are God is not that God possesses them as characteristics, but rather that they are God and on the view that I'm I find them the Cappadocia and fathers and which was followed by the two main Protestant reformers Luther and Calvin and on the on that view, they are not I'm going to call that the Orthodox slash reformational view. God's attributes depend on God, the attributes are neither untreated, nor nor are they identical with God's very being. It's the being of God that gives rise to the attributes not that it's identical with him.

And this means that for the thinkers in this tradition they are not going to take the view that there that the perfections when they occur in the creation are semi divine are either divine or semi divine let's do the either or.

They believe instead that God created so when they occur in God, they're created they're created that's how we can understand them. We're only creatures we and they as they occur in creatures they're also created. That is That depends on God. If that's so then there's nothing, no characteristics that we find in creation, more real than any other kind. And so, that rules out the kind of theory that that the perfections suggests that is that on the AAA view some aspects of creation are more real than the rest. And what would they be they be the characteristics that God has for affections, plus the necessary truths of math and logic those things are more real than the rest of creation. So, what more natural way to explain what more natural way is there to come up with a theory of reality, then trying to explain the non divine features of creation in terms of the ones that are not that are divine or semi divine let's just take the Christian version of the by the semi divine features as I started explained last time, also this means that explanation is the same thing as what's called a reduction argument, I think the best way to proceed here is, is to give illustrations rather than trying to define the stuff in the abstract. Suppose now, where as Christians, we're going to adopt the Plato/Aristotle ontology of form and matter. Now, what we need to do is explain everything else in creation in terms of form and matter how form influences and gives the organization to matter. So, that means what we need to do is explain, for example, how form in this theory plus some matter okay accounts for why some things are good, and others are evil

if we were to offer an argument for that, that would be called a reduction argument that is good and evil are real, but maybe they causally reduce the form of matter that is formed can influence matter in such a way that acts that do this are evil acts that do this have the are good. That's why those acts have certain properties. They have the properties because the properties emerge when form impacts matter this way, that would be a reduction argument. And there are several forms that they can take. They can take the form of first of all arguing for a linguistic reduction you understand that in this expression, reduced to means explained body. So if good and evil are explained by the combination of form and matter, they're reduced that to that. And in the sense of one sense of this. One sort of argument people have used is a linguistic one that is they have argued that what we mean by good and evil actually turns out on analysis to be only talk about form and matter. That clear They're arguing that the language used to talk about one boils down to language used to talk about another. One famous thinker who used this, tried to argue that there are no physical objects in the world. All we know are are our own sensations. And he are tried to argue that when we say that something is solid, like the top of this desk, all we mean is that when we put our fist on it, it makes a noise, we feel resistance. And we can't have this this object pass through this object without seriously damaging or destroying this one. But all those are more sights, taste, touches, sounds and smells, he said, We never really get to talk about anything else. Well, that sort of argument has been tried in the past, and is nowadays universally rejected as failing, the meaning of good and evil are not going to boil down to talk about forms and matter of matter, and how they interact, and so on. We can't replace the language of one with language of another. So then people tried to argue that although the language had be reduced, the two things are in fact identity identical anyway. Factual identity. What we mean by good and evil is not what we mean by a former matter. But this particular combination for a matter is what an act that has the real property of being good, or the property of being evil. And it's somehow generated by the farm in the matter. The factual identity arguments themselves have now also been roundly rejected for very good reasons. And more often, people tried to argue, causal reduction. That is to say, form and matter are not what we experience as good and evil. We've never experienced just a pure form or pure matter anyway, they're always mixed. But they are what cause some things to be good, and some to be evil. And the causal explanation here runs in those severe difficulties. And it runs in difficulties like that, let's take something that's supposed to be neither form nor matter but produced by it. Let's suppose that what we're talking about here I'm sorry.

Okay, our causal reduction here is going to be form and matter.

It's going to be formed plus matter, causes, and much when we pick aesthetic beauty

now what we have to do is talk about how abstract forms now let's make it more difficult. I like this better.

Let's talk about ugliness.

How does pubs form combined with matter in order to produce something that's aesthetically ugly? If we were not assuming that there's a form for ugliness, or biting the bullet with that with Plato, there aren't forms for negatives, then how does form and matter explain that ugliness can arise in life, we can see things that we experienced as positively ugly. Now, here is what we have, we will try to explain it causally. So the what we what we have to do is say that causes that don't have the property ugliness converge in such a way as to produce something that does have it then you have problems with the cause. What kind of causality we talking about here? Is the cause physical is the cause spatial mathematical If the causes one kind of property and what gets produced as a different kind, we can't conceive of any causality linking them. Again, this is very like the problem that has plagued theories of how our minds interact with our bodies. If we assume that our minds are purely rational, and don't have any physical properties at all, and that our bodies are purely physical and biological, and don't have themselves rational properties, that how can we conceive of causal any causal interaction between them? Whatever is true of one's false or the other? And what's true, this one's false. This one, then you can't conceive of any any relationship of interaction or kind of interaction, would it be rational or physical? And if you say neither, then what? What would you propose at its place? No one's ever been able to get round that that causal interactions lose their meaning when you try to postulate them or say, there must be such a thing. Because you're starting with one kind of cause and producing another kind of effect. The explanations, then reduction reduction explanations have a dim future. Nobody's gotten any of them to work yet. Even the most sophisticated, everyone admits, doesn't work. What's going on in present day philosophy is the most non Christians in philosophy most people who don't believe in God put it that way, non theists, who are in philosophy, and are trying to come up with a theory of reality, or materialists, they tried to say the basic reality is purely physical, then they have to explain how the purely physical creates in us an experience that includes properties like beautiful and ugly, morally good and evil. Just an unjust or even valid and invalid is in the case of logical arguments. How does what is purely physical produce something that's logical, or aesthetic or ethical, and no one yet has been able to produce a single argument show how that's even possible, let alone proposal argument as to how it actually works. So here's the second consequence, I want to say, of the triple a view that identifies God says God is the perfections. That makes the perfections in the world that is the perfections weigh in, they occur in creatures more real than non perfections.

So the here's a concrete example, the as the perfections of God that is whenever goodness, justice, holiness, truth, knowledge, the all that occur in preachers is uncreated. There every bit as much as it's uncreated, and God core to this view, then, then those things and laws of logic and math are more real than, say, weight, mass, specific gravity. And other physical properties, or spatial properties, they're more real than things being conical or spherical, occupying space, so forth. They're also more real than any perceptual property. So they're more real than, say, colors, or tastes, or sounds, and so on. So it sets up a program of explanation, theory of reality and knowledge, that's reductionist, it just fits beautifully. If some are properties are more real than others. And what better reason to think that than they God has them, and they must be more real. So we explain them less real, is caused by the more real and we end up having a theory that requires us to make a reduction argument of some kind, either we argue that the language we use To talk about each side, what gets produced is the same, or it's factually identical, or it's causally identical. We got to commit some one of them. And notoriously, they've been tried now for well over a century. And everyone in philosophy admits none of them have succeeded. They can't work, they don't work. And there's no reason to think that they will at some point in the future. So the question then is, well, where does that leave us? And I want to suggest something very definite about where it leaves us. That if we take what I call the Orthodox reformational view, I don't know what else to call that. Because both Luther and Calvin held this doctrine of God that was proposed by the kapranos shins, and champions again in the 14th century by Gregory Palace, if they hold to that view, I think it can be very clearly shown they do. And so did the outstanding 20th century theologian in that in that reformational tradition, Carl, Bart, they all held that view. So it covers Lutheran Zion, Calvinists and other people, it's I'm just coining the term reformational. For that, here, the Orthodox in the reformational view, is going to be committed to a view, number one a view of reality theory of reality that is not reductionist.

They're going to be committed shoved off in the direction of a theory of knowledge that is non reductionist. And then, as a consequence, they're going to deal with each special science that was Aristotle's term, each discipline, he didn't mean by that just just physics and biology, laboratory sciences, he meant that ethics and aesthetics and politics would be sciences as well fields of knowledge theories in the special sciences will also be non reductionist. And what does that mean? Well, it means that we are not going to claim that the semi divine things cause that is produce the non divine things in creation if they don't, then what produces them? I mean, if you're taking the the view that the necklace analogy is wrong, you can't pull out any one or two beads to be the neck of the string of the necklace. Then what does hold all things together? If it's not forming, matter, interacting, producing everything else, that's what causes everything else. It's the explanation of everything else is the explanation of how knowledge works to if there is a reality and knowledge are not going to depend on having one or two kinds be more real than the rest and produce the rest. What is the reality that holds all things together and that produces them? Well?

The answer, my friends is simple. It's got nothing in objects created objects, hangs all their properties of parts together and makes them what they are. God holds them all together and makes them what they are. These candidates for divinity on semi divine status have all been God substitutes. How do we know that? We know that Because scripture itself tells us in Colossians, chapter one that God through Jesus Christ has created all things. and in Him all things hang together. The what it is that hangs everything together isn't anything to be found in them, or in the creation in the universe at all. It's their Creator. It's God. And if you take that position, you will then be obliged to work out a non reductionist ontology and epistemology. And if you work out a non reductionist account of the existence of things, and the non reductionist account of how we know things that will oblige you to take that position in all the special areas of knowledge, in math, in physics, in biology, in logic, in sociology, economics, ethics, and so on. It will be non reductionist, nothing within the creation explains everything that's going on, rather the we will trace out the relationships between all of the aspects of things as they, as we experienced them, as they appear in our experience, and we will not attribute to anything in them or about them, the status of being the divine or semi divine, that holds all things and makes them what they are, that belongs to God and to God alone. Well, I hear you saying, what would a theory like that be? I mean, come on, the only ways people have ever tried to explain the world is by reduction theories by a arguing that something that appears to be very different from the rest of reality is actually produced by this part of reality over here, created reality, because this is the divine in the world, or it's the semi divine. Nobody has ever proposed a theory about that made God the author or creator Sustainer of everything in existence, held together in its own nature. Well, there has been at least one I'm in favor of the program, whether this one succeeds, or it doesn't. But I think it's impressive. And I think that it's about time we got to it. What I'm going to do is sketch out the beginnings of such a non reductionist view. In order to do that, I want to review just briefly, what we're not going to be doing.

Let's suppose that x, y, and z are what we want to explain, we're not going to be saying there's some part or aspect of the universe including people.

Which reduces x y & z to those parts, part or aspect of the universe. And we'll call that a a part or aspect of the universe, namely A, which reduces XY and Z and there are several senses in which that might be true.

That is verbally that's one that means all the talk about xy and z can be analyzed to show that it ends up being talked about a lot or second, X, Y and Z are identical. With a all the attempts to do that, and that had been tried, and there have been many in the 20th century end up saying that when you try to make a the cause of XY and Z, all your all you end up doing is saying there is a and there is x, y and z. You never get an A all by itself to to be the cause of X, Y and Z three I'm sorry, what I just said had to do with the causal I flipped it Let's go back. All right, this, this is saying it's identical when you try to take the A. and claim it is the exact same thing as XY and Z, what you find out is what the trouble you ran into with the, with the verbal claim the first one, see, it pops up again, the talk about XY and Z can't be collapsed, just talk about a that, so there's no reason to think they're identical. Now, there's the causal one, a causes XY and Z. But then, in what sense of cause, you can't get a clear sense to the cause that's supposed to work. If it's supposed to work between a, which is not X, Y, and Z, and X, Y, and Z, that don't have any common property with a if a is really completely different reality. And you're claiming it's producing something that it is not, then what kind of causality is that? Take concrete example, if you're a materialist, and you're trying to claim today is the purely physical, and you want to say that has produced things that are say, logical, and verbal and social. What kind of causality holds between, if it's neither physical, it has to be a physical causality, that it would have to produce a physical result. If the causality itself is only physical, how does it produce something it isn't, what you end up doing is claiming a kind of creation out of nothing, which doesn't make any sense can't be formulated. So all the different senses of reduction of of reduction are being rejected. Now, what we're going to do is try to trace out the relations have different things that different things have in the universe, according to their natures. And we're not going to assume right away, that their natures have to be primarily form and matter of primarily form or exclusively matter or any other candidate.

We're not going to assume that at all. So next time, we're going to have a real treat, we're going to look at an actual theory of reality that's been worked out. It's been worked out in much greater detail than I'm going to be able to present it here. I'm sure you're grateful for that. That means you won't be responsible for the greater detail on your exams. But I'm going to work it out in enough detail, I think, to sketch for you how it goes now tries to explain the nature's of the things we encounter in creation, including human nature. And we'll see that it does it in a non reductionist way. At it, that looks very promising and powerful. As far as the way it's been developed. So far. It's it's very impressive, and people are still working on it. It was originally constructed devised by a brilliant philosopher. His name is Herman DoorBird. Not that you would know that because the Dutch Calvinist philosopher, who wanted to take the Orthodox and reformational view of God, and start over with that as the basis for philosophy and see what difference it made. And we'll begin that treat next time. I'll see you then.