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LeonardDeNoblac
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No, I was talking about this post:
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lelinator
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Thank you for the clarification. So let me address this argument. Let’s agree that with God there are certain attributes that are “necessarily” true. Let’s also agree that those necessarily true attributes are those things that couldn’t possibly be otherwise. Let’s also assume that one of the attributes that’s necessarily true about God, is His will. I.E He wills things into existence. Let’s also agree that the things that God wills into existence aren’t themselves necessary…rather they’re contingent upon God’s free will choices. Those free will choices are eternally true, but not necessarily true…because they could be otherwise. After all, if they couldn’t be otherwise, then they themselves would also be necessary.
That’s a lot of assumptions, but if you agree, let’s go with those for now.
If the aforementioned is true, then God’s free will choices aren’t “necessarily” true. That’s an important distinction. They’re not necessarily true, specifically because they could be otherwise. They only have the “potential” to be true.
So what we’re left with is the fact that God’s will is necessary, but what He wills isn’t necessary, because it has the potential to be otherwise. But that means that potentiality…what God may choose to create…must precede what He actually does create. But if potentiality precedes the created things, then it must reside within the necessary things. It must reside within God Himself.
So it would seem as though there must be at least two necessary things, potentiality…that which has the potential to exist, and will…that by which what has the potential to exist, is actually caused to exist.
Now it’s entirely possible that your preceding post already addressed this argument, and I’m simply too dense to understand the crux of what you wrote. If so, could you kindly try to clarify your argument for me. Otherwise I fail to see the flaw in my reasoning. But that’s not to say that there isn’t one. And any well reasoned attempts to point them out would be appreciated.
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STT
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A decision already made is referring to an act in the past.
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LeonardDeNoblac
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That’s the whole point of the issue, and I’ve already provided what I think is a satisfactory answer in my previous post.
I’ll clarify it:
If you don’t understand how a relation of reason is different from a real relation, I’ll give an example.
There is a real relation between a father and his son, because the foundation (the act of the generation of the son by the father ) really exists distinctly from the father.
However, if I say that I’m behind a chair, this is only a relation of reason, because the spatial foundation of the relation would only exist in my mind and not in reality (I could also say to be in front of the chair at the same time and this would have the same truth value ).
I’ll clarify it:
- there is a relation between God’s will and the contingent things willed by God
- a relation has three constituents: the subject (God’s will ), the foundation (God’s act of willing what He wills ) and the term (the contingent things willed by God )
- a relation can either be a real relation (the foundation is real and distinct from the subject ) or a relation of reason (the foundation exists only in the mind )
- God’s will has no real relation to the contingent things willed by God, but only a relation of reason, because, given Divine Simplicity, the foundation (God’s act of willing what He wills ) is one and the same with the subject (God’s will ), so there is no foundation that exists distinctly from the subject
- in a relation of reason, because the foundation doesn’t really exist distinctly from the subject, the term doesn’t really imply anything in the subject, so the real contingency of some things willed by God doesn’t imply any real contingency in God’s will
If you don’t understand how a relation of reason is different from a real relation, I’ll give an example.
There is a real relation between a father and his son, because the foundation (the act of the generation of the son by the father ) really exists distinctly from the father.
However, if I say that I’m behind a chair, this is only a relation of reason, because the spatial foundation of the relation would only exist in my mind and not in reality (I could also say to be in front of the chair at the same time and this would have the same truth value ).
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o_mlly
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Your confusion seems to be your belief that a free will cannot also be an immutable will. The two properties are not mutually exclusive. In eternity, the angels and saints retain their free will which in the presence of the Beatific Vision becomes willfully immutable (just like His).
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Wesrock
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@lelinator
I want to apologize im advance as I don’t have the time to forumlate my own words on the matter, but your questions are good ones.
For reference (for whoever may be interested), St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the will of God in a lot of detail in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Chapters 72 - 88 (chapters in this case are much shorter than chapters in modern books, and this discussion of the will follows a prior discussion on the intellect of God). Of particular interest to lelinator’s questions are chapters 82 and 83.
https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm#82
I want to apologize im advance as I don’t have the time to forumlate my own words on the matter, but your questions are good ones.
For reference (for whoever may be interested), St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the will of God in a lot of detail in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Chapters 72 - 88 (chapters in this case are much shorter than chapters in modern books, and this discussion of the will follows a prior discussion on the intellect of God). Of particular interest to lelinator’s questions are chapters 82 and 83.
https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm#82
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o_mlly
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We understand “outside of time” to be eternity. In time, we experience all things sequentially. In the moment, we are in the present. In the next moment, we are in, what was a moment ago the present, the future. And the prior moment has moved from present to past. If the state of all things in the present are not identical to their state in the past then things could be otherwise.
How does a being in eternity experience things? In eternity, beings experience all things at once in the eternal moment. If a being in eternity experiences all things at once then no things can change, that is, all things could not be otherwise. It would seem that the proper verb tense to describe the experience of beings in eternity is only the present participle, e.g. being, loving, creating, redeeming, sanctifying, etc. How could it be otherwise?
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lelinator
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The issue that I’m dealing with, is how to differentiate what’s necessarily true, from what’s eternally true, and the problems that inevitably arise from that distinction.
As you point out, for God, everything exists in the present, in one eternal now. But the fact that the existence of everything is “eternally” true doesn’t mean that their existence is “necessarily” true. Yes, they exist, but the argument is that they don’t need to exist. That implies, that at least in some sense, it could’ve been otherwise. Which means that something, supposedly God, had to choose between two “potential” states. One of existence, and one of nonexistence. And that choice, although I’ll grant you that it’s an eternal one, was still a choice between two different potential states.
Trust me, I understand your argument, and I get it. It just doesn’t quite clear things up for me. But if I understand Aquinas correctly, (which is highly doubtful) then he may offer a solution.
The referenced chapters may be short, but they’re definitely not easy to wrap one’s head around. And I certainly haven’t taken enough time to do that properly. But based upon a superficial examination, this is what I believe that Aquinas is saying.
EVERYTHING IS NECESSARY, that means you, me, the trees, and the stars, they’re all necessary…but…and this is an important but, they’re not necessary in and of themselves…they’re contingent.
In other words, from God’s intellect necessarily follows God’s will, and from God’s will necessarily follows everything else, and all three of those things are necessary. But the last one “everything else” is contingent upon the first two, because the necessity of “everything else’s” existence doesn’t reside within itself, but rather the necessity of its existence resides within the first two.
Thus Aquinas gets around the need for potentiality by arguing that everything is necessary. It’s just that for things such as you and I, that necessity doesn’t reside within ourselves, but rather arises from God’s intellect and His will.
If I’m lucky, I’ve correctly ascertained the gist of what Aquinas was saying. If not, hopefully @Wesrock will have time to straighten me out.
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Richca
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What God could freely choose to create such as the universe of creatures and what God freely chose or willed to create are simultaneous in him. This is the perfection of God. We cannot ascribe a before and after in him which would involve time since God is eternal. In one eternal act of his intellect, God knew what he could create and simultaneously, in one eternal act of his will, God freely chose and willed to create. God did not need any “time” to reason over whether to create or not which would involve an imperfection which we cannot ascribe to God and he is eternal in which there is no before and after.
Similarly, the generation or procession of the Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son are simultaneous with the Father’s being and existence and so eternal. In our way of thinking, since the Son is from the Father, we might think that the Father must precede the Son but he doesn’t since the processions from the Father are eternal as the Father is.
Similarly, the generation or procession of the Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son are simultaneous with the Father’s being and existence and so eternal. In our way of thinking, since the Son is from the Father, we might think that the Father must precede the Son but he doesn’t since the processions from the Father are eternal as the Father is.
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o_mlly
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If God could will imperfectly then what He wills could be otherwise. If God wills perfectly then how could it be otherwise? God is the perfect cause of what in time may seem as imperfect effects (and they do) but played out in eternity their perfection is manifested.
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lelinator
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@Wesrock, yup, I’m quoting my own post. Why? Because if my understanding of Aquinas’ argument is correct, then it’s exactly the same as my argument for solipsism.
From the solipsistic perspective, the existence of everything around me necessarily follows from the conscious/intellectual reality that “I am”.
To illustrate, by looking at my computer, I not only know that my computer exists, but I automatically know that other things must exist as well. Like the factory that manufactured the computer, and the people who work in that factory, and the families of those workers, and so on, and so on. In fact, if I follow this line of reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, I’ll likely find that everything else must exist, simply due to the fact that my computer exists.
Then the question becomes, if I can know that everything else exists simply from the existence of my computer, then just how little information must I begin with in order to know that everything else must exist as well?
Ultimately, can I simply begin with the knowledge that “I am” and from that knowledge can I know that everything else must also exist? I think that the answer to that question is yes. Just from the knowledge that I exist, I can know that everything else must also exist.
Which brings me to Aquinas’ description of God, and that from God’s intellect necessarily follows God’s will, and from God’s will necessarily follows everything else. That seems eerily similar to the solipsistic argument that from the intellectual realization the I am, necessarily follows the existence of everything else.
Now some people believe that solipsism is simply nuts, but I think that it’s not really all that different from what Aquinas proposes, that from the intellect necessarily follows everything else.
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lelinator
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It may be helpful to consider what Aquinas says on the subject of God’s will.
If I interpret this correctly, Aquinas isn’t appealing to the fact that God’s choices are eternal…that they exist outside of time.
For example, in [1], you can’t substitute the word “eternally” for the word “necessarily”. They may be functionally the same, but the meaning is different.
He’s arguing that what God wills, He does so necessarily. This would seem to mean that from God’s perfect intellect necessarily follows God’s will, and from God’s will necessarily follows everything else. It really isn’t a matter of choice at all, hence the word “necessarily”. In other words, it couldn’t be any other way. Not that it wasn’t any other way, but rather it couldn’t be any other way.
This isn’t to say that God doesn’t have free will, but rather that the perfection in God’s intellect necessarily leads to everything else.
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IWantGod
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God’s knowledge and being is perfect and is also love. God’s mind is perfect. So there are no limitations in his knowledge or mind. Processes can only exist where there are limitations. And what God wills follows perfectly from his knowledge, which is his nature, which is love, which is his will which is his existence. They are all identical and do not follow potentially from one-another.
How do we solve the apparent dilemma?
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- To say that God has free-will is not the same thing as saying that we have free-will because our free-will is limited, so when we think about what we are going to do it involves what we potentially are. We are potentially good.
- God is not potentially good or potentially love. So to solve this dilemma we can say that God is not forced to create what is not necessarily true or real, and he need not because he is the fullness of good, not potentially good. But he always will create because his will is love which is his nature which is his existence.
God does not have to create, because God is already everything that is good, but he always will create because God is love.
There is some level of mystery to this in that we really do not have to exist in-order for God to be love. So logic alone cannot penetrate everything. But it follows logically that our existence can only be an expression of God’s love.
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IWantGod
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What would you say of the idea that creation is a gift to Jesus?
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lelinator
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It’s unusual for us to agree, but in this case we’re fairly close. However, there’s one area where I see room for disagreement.
When I look at the world around me, I see what appear to be imperfections. So I have to ask myself, is it more likely that a perfect intellect such as God’s gave rise to those imperfections, or that an imperfect intellect such as mine gave rise to those imperfections?
On the other hand, is that a false dichotomy, why do I assume that they’re imperfections in the first place? After all, the concept of up is meaningless without the concept of down, as is the concept of hot, without the concept of cold. Why would I refer to one aspect of such pairs as being an imperfection?
So when I look at the world around me, is it really a world filled with imperfections, or is perfection simply an intellectual impossibility? I.E you can’t have hot without cold, because the very concept is meaningless.
Thus it may be that reality owes its very existence to these so-called imperfections, because existence, without the nuances by which to differentiate the things within it, is simply meaningless.
Just food for thought…or intellectual garbage…however you choose to look at it.
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Wesrock
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The beginning of Ch 82 is listing common objections to what he developed in the few previous chapters. It was these that reminded me of your questions. In the middle of Ch 82 he begins to address these points.
I’ve seen your other comments and would like to address at some point but I’ve been on holiday with family.
I’ve seen your other comments and would like to address at some point but I’ve been on holiday with family.
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LeonardDeNoblac
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Where does this idea come from? And how is it relevant to the topic?
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IWantGod
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It’s just an idea i had, i don’t know if it’s correct, it may well not be. I was just thinking that the relationship between the 3 person’s of the trinity might give some further insight into why God created.
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