- Joy, enjoyment, desire are all abstracts; they are emotions rather than objects. Therefore, (as a Christian scientist friend of mine argues) none of those things are an actual attribute of God, in that God isn’t ‘made’ of any of those things. herefore, as all of God’s attributes are infinite, when we talk of infinite joy, we mean it as hyperbole ‘only’. HOWEVER, another Christian friend of mine says infinite joy is possible for us (in the afterlife) and that it is an attribute of God’s. Peter Kreeft, the famous theologian, says God’s beauty is (literally) infinite is quality (it is endlessly better to the best we know). It’s arguable that beauty is an abstract as it’s a ‘reaction’ rather than an object. So, erm, confused. Clever men seem to disagree- certainly leaves the rest of us floundering when that happens!
- Fiction. I have often heard it said that all the fiction we enjoy, is enjoyable because it reflects God. However, I read an intelligent Dr answer this on his site (Dr William Draig lane- I think his name was);
“What about other kinds of abstract objects? You are absolutely right that philosophers who believe in the existence of abstract objects think that novels, plays, musical compositions, fictional characters, and so forth, exist as abstract objects. What is disputed is whether these are created by their writers and composers or whether these people just happened to stumble upon these pre-existing objects. Many people feel quite uncomfortable in saying, for example, that Leo Tolstoy did not create Anna Karenina but just found it. This view seems to seriously depreciate the creative genius of authors and composers. So many want to say that people created these abstract objects. Still, it’s hard to see why, once you grant that such abstract objects exist, these collections of words or notes did not pre-exist their discovery by these folks. I think it’s better to just deny that such abstract entities exist and maintain that our ability to talk truthfully about them (e.g., “Sherlock Holmes is the most famous detective in English fiction”) doesn’t entail their existence.”
What to believe?!- Yet another abstract that may, or may not, be of God. Although, how a ‘unique’ good can be created by us idependently of THE Creator seems- odd. Particularly as great fiction- and art- often seems to speak to us (via ineffible longings) of things infinitely desirable rather than being ‘fully graspable’ and utterly contemplated or enjoyed to their full capacity by us now.
Hi Thomas;
First of all, I am not sure what your (or your friend’s) justification is for calling joy, beauty and desire etc ‘abstractions’. In classical Christian philosophy there are two main kinds of intellectual abstraction, that of the universal from the particular (such as ‘fruit’ from oranges and bananas) and the abstraction of form from matter (such as the abstraction of number from a series or shape from tangible objects). Joy and desire are not essentially abstractions as such; they are actual, real human experiences. We can draw abstractions from them, but in themselves they are not abstractions. At the same time, it is not proper to speak of beauty as being an emotional ‘reaction’. Emotions may attach themselves to the experience of beauty, but beauty itself is something real, although in many respects, it may be ‘transcendent’ (some Christian philosophers counted beauty among the transcendentals, although St Thomas does not). The philosopher you are thinking of who counts music, etc, among “abstract” objects is William Lane Craig, but the use of the term ‘abstract’ here in reference to these things is a common metaphor for non-physical objects.
Infinite joy is not possible to us because we are finite by nature. Even if we allow for the possibility (as St Thomas for example does) that our capacity for joy and love is unlimited, it is not on that account actually infinite because that would involve the simultaneous possession of unlimited joy which is only possible to God.
The doctrine of “analogy of being” in Christian philosophy may help answer your question about the nature of joy, beauty, fiction, desire, etc. According to this doctrine in its simplest form, all created perfections exist in God (perfections of such things as beauty and joy) in which the creature participates in virtue of being connected to God as an effect is connected to its cause. Our experience of joy and desire is thus a participation in the source of all true Joy and Desire, which is God. Our created experience is not equivalent to the Divine Source, but is only a finite copy of it, but it is real nonetheless.
