Monday, October 8, 2012

The Ontological Argument and the Trinity

Is the ontological argument compatible with the Trinity?


“Is Anselm's ontological argument compatible with the Doctrine of the Trinity? I can conceive of a being with more than three persons, so does that mean God has more than three persons? I understand quantity does not equal quality, but I can conceive of a being with at least 4 of the highest quality persons. I'm a Christian who's just starting to get into apologetics, and I can't find an adequate answer to this question.”

Randy:

Hello,

Thanks so much for your e-mail! I think you will find apologetics--and philosophical apologetics in particular--very intellectually satisfying, so let me just say welcome!

Now on to your question: if the objection at the question's heart holds, then it would be against any argument that relied on a greatest conceivable being (or Maximally Great Being, MGB), not just Anselm's (so this would work against Plantinga's contemporary modal ontological argument also, for example). However, I don't think the objection holds. There are a number of ways I can approach this question. I'll go in order (over a couple) from least convincing to most convincing. In my opinion, any of these are adequate to dispel the notion.

First, Anselm's argument for an MGB does not, strictly speaking, directly get us the Christian God. Anselm certainly meant it that way, and I think upon reflection we would see the Christian God is identical to the MGB. But since it's not designed to discuss that aspect, it doesn't appear to be able to be used for it.

Second, the problem of cardinal numbers presents itself. So if it's a matter of conception, one must add another number. But then one can always add another number. So if 4 is good, 5 is better; if 5 is good, is better, and so on. So with conception, one can conceive a potentially-inifinite number of persons. But it gets worse. For this number of persons must actually be concrete and instantiated in reality. Thus, all of the attendant problems with an actually infinite number of things present themselves/.

Third, the conception that matters is of metaphysical greatness, not merely any property. God has the accidental property of creating this world (the way reality is); very few people argue that this property is inherently great-making. For a reminder, a great-making property is a property it is metaphysically better for a being to have than to lack. I don't see any reason why God could not have created some other type of world, or even no world at all beyond himself and maybe a few angels. The point is that it's not necesarily true that the number of persons in a being is itself a great-making property. That the being of God is multi-personal is a great-making property is evident in that such a being will need to display love even without creation. However, this says nothing about the number of persons, and I don't see any good reason to think that four persons is metaphysically greater than three. Numerical greatness does not equate to metaphysical greatness; if it did, God would have to do one more good act than he in fact did, no matter how many he did!

12 comments:

  1. Hello,
    I'm also interested in this question (and am trying to write a seminary paper about it). There is very little written on this that I've come across so far so any leads would be welcome.

    I think that each member of the Trinity must exist necessarily. To suggest otherwise seems to amount to what I'll call modal Arianism-the view that "There is a possible world in which He is not."

    The Father seems to exists necessarily, by virtue of an ontological argument of some sort (or in order to refute the question "who made God?"). The Nicene principle of homoousion, however, requires that the Father and Son share the same nature. Against the Arians, this ruled out the Father being eternal but the Son having a beginning. Against modal Arians, this rules out the Father existing necessarily but the Son existing contingently.

    Richard of St. Victor argued that (at least) three persons are necessary due the nature of love. The only question in my mind is "Why not more?" If you have any feedback or books to point me too I'd appreciate it.

    Take care,

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    1. Hello, thanks for commenting! I would say John Feinberg's book "No One Like Him" might have something to say about it, though I am not sure.

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  3. Hi Randy, Slightly off-topic, but i just had a question about William Lane Craig's comparison of the trinity to the mythical dog Cerberus. I'm not sure if you're familiar with his analogy.(www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s5-8) so before I ask my question I thought I'd just check to see if you had heard it.

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    1. I've heard him mention it! I don't think it's perfect, but I think it helps to illustrate what he needs it to.

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    2. OK. In WLCs analogy he says,

      "The idea is that we should start by thinking of God as a soul, just as you are a soul; and when you die, you are a disembodied soul. You are at that time an unembodied consciousness, so you are one thing – you are one immaterial substance. That is what I am inviting us to think about God as. God is an immaterial substance, a mind, just like you are when you are an unembodied soul. Then I want to invite you to think that this is a soul that is much more richly endowed with cognitive faculties than you are. You just have one set of cognitive faculties, and therefore you are one person. But I want you to try to imagine a soul that is endowed with three sets of cognitive faculties."


      The bit that confused me was that I always assumed (maybe wrongly) that the soul/spirit was some sort of ghostly immaterial replica of us, like in the film 'Ghost' where Patrick Swayze dies and his soul/spirit leaves his body (or, to use a more biblical example, the witch of Endor story where a soul'spirit appears).. And I assumed Craig therefore saw God as one soul/spirit which just happened to have three minds whereas humans in contrast have one. However what threw me was that Craig then seems to equate the soul and mind and use the words as synonyms. But, if that's the case, it'd then seem he is saying that God is one mind (soul) that has 3 minds, which doesn't seem to make sense. I'm probably misreading him somewhere. Hope this question makes sense too :)

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    3. In this comparison, he is using "mind" for "soul," and that's why he is deliberately using "cognitive faculties" for intellect. So, if I am interpreting Craig correctly, the way in which he uses these terms within the analogy is that cognitive faculties are subsets of minds, whereas mind is standing for the soul, which is a being. So mind/soul-->cognitive faculties. Does that help?

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    4. I might be more confused now :), but I'll give it a shot: So Craig is equating mind and soul just for the purpose of the analogy but in real life (so to speak) he wouldn't be arguing that the soul and mind are totally synonymous, though the mind is part of the soul?. I'm still a little confused as to what the soul actually is then: is it just some immaterial substance or energy which is endowed with a rational mind?

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    5. He might say that; unfortunately I just don't know for sure what he would say. What I want to do is avoid ascribing univocality for terms like "mind" and "soul" to Craig, since most of us do not use only one meaning for many, if not most, of our terms. Stated positively, many, if not most, of the terms we use have more than one meaning. Because of that, I'd hate to saddle Craig with only one. That explains my restriction to this analogy. I do think he takes mind/soul/person to be synonymous when speaking of God, and thus "cognitive faculties" would be a kind of subset, not purely identical to God himself, but some kind of predicate.

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    6. I may have butchered it here, because Craig would probably correct me: he does think God is personal, but not only one person, and so maybe I should have said "mind/soul/being."

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    7. OK, forgive me for being so dense :) (I appreciate your patience) but to sum up, then, am I right in understanding the spirit/soul of humans (and also angels I guess) as being some sort of immaterial substance endowed with a mind, and that in the case of the trinity we have one immaterial substance endowed with three minds?

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    8. As long as by "mind" we mean "cognitive faculties" I'd say you have it right! :)

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