July 8, 2008
Initial observation: Many Christian philosophers are realist, i.e. they welcome a plethora of abstracta into their ontology (their belief of what there is, i.e. what exists). Moreover, their doing so is often seemingly connected to an informal and probably unstated argument the goes something like the following:
1) As a Christian you already accept immaterial entities, viz., God, angels, demons, heaven, souls and the like.
2) The existence of abstracta, just another set of immaterial entities, turns out to be helpful in preserving the things you want to preserve as a Christian philosopher.
3) Seeing as you have no problem believing in some immaterial entities, and seeing as adopting a realist ontology is pragmatic for your philosophical and theological goals, what is there to keep you from believing in a whole host of immaterial entities?
(Now, of course, I do not think this reasoning holds for every Christian realist. Moreover, even if something like this argument were a gateway to one’s adopting a realist ontology, this is not to say this same person would justify their ontology by means of such reasoning.)
Having said all this, here is my problem. I think there is a major equivocation in Christian philosophy; viz., between that of saying God, angels, etc. are immaterial and saying that abstracta are immaterial—though perhaps not so on some Platonist conceptions of the Forms. The equivocation is easily made clear by the following argument:
1) Nothing is both a concrete particular & an abstract entity.
2) A necessary condition of a thing’s being an abstract entity is that it lacks causal powers.
3) God and other spiritual beings have causal powers.
? Therefore, God and other spiritual beings are concrete particulars.
Now, providing the necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing to be a concrete particular does not seem to be a quick and easy task; however, what the above argument shows, regardless of our ignorance of these aforementioned conditions, is that whatever is meant by “immaterial” from a Christian perspective is not univocal to what is meant by “immaterial” from the philosopher’s perspective. I think hashing out exactly where these two notions of “immaterial” diverge would be very profitable pursuit for all of philosophy, not just that of Christian philosophy and theology.
Posted in Christian Perspective, Theology, Philosophy 
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May 29, 2008
This Worry’s Criticism
However, before concluding that the one who has Source-Worry*** has a sufficiently robust reason for their judgement that all FSCs fail, first, it will be useful to see how Source-Worry*** is able to stand against criticism. One critic of the Source-Worry*** sort of response to FSCs is John Martin Fischer. Fischer writes in his The Metaphysics of Free Will, “I am willing to grant to the flicker theorist the claim that there exists an alternative possibility here; but my basic worry is that this alternate possibility is not sufficiently robust to ground the relevant attributions of moral responsibility…;” namely, because “…it is highly implausible to suppose that it is in virtue of the existence of such an alternate possibility” that one is morally responsible for what they do. We might formulate Fischer’s-Worry as follows:
Fischer’s-Worry: Sure, it can be shown that FSCs do not rule out every available alternative. However, do we really want to ground moral responsibility on the availability of such non-robust alternatives?
Before addressing Fischer’s Worry directly, it will be helpful to review how his criticism fits into the overall dialectic I have established. In this dialectic, I offered that the first move was Frankfurt’s Worry; viz., if an agent wouldn’t have done otherwise, what does it matter if they could have done otherwise. Second, I offered that due to the significance of Frankfurt’s suggestion and the weight of philosophical history, it would no doubt run up against a seemingly warranted Counter-Worry; viz., we ought not reject too hastily and without a definite counterexample a condition whose satisfaction has seemed necessary for the vast majority of philosophical history. Third, I introduced two FSCs, Moral Failure I and II, and I offered that Moral Failure II brought to the surface two kinds of worries (a Source-Worry and a PAP-Worry) that may lead one to doubt that Frankfurt had in fact offered a sure counterexample to PAP. Fourth, I pushed the Source-Worry in order to discover what the ultimate worry behind it might be. Fifth, after pushing this worry to a sufficient depth, I discovered that the Source-Worry might ultimately be a worry about control; viz., the worry of how an agent who cannot control at a morally relevant kind of time whether some action occurs or not can rightly be held morally responsible. Sixth, I concluded that being the right kind of source for moral responsibility just entails one’s having alternate possibilities available to them at a morally relevant sort of time. Seventh, I concluded that the one with this sort of Source-Worry is able to hang FSCs on the horns of a dilemma: either FSCs fail because they allow for an understanding of an agent that essentially has alternate possibilities available to them or they simply beg the question against the one with this sort of Source-Worry.
Now, having surveyed the previous dialectic, we are in a better position to address Fischer’s Worry. The first point that is important concerning Fischer’s Worry is Read the rest of this entry »
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May 28, 2008
Worrying FSCs
If you will, ponder the memory of some moral failure (obviously, this thought experiment will be limited to my honest readers). Preferably a vivid memory, one that includes your awareness of all the main motivating and influencing factors for your (in)action(s), i.e. your “moral failure.” Now, having deeply and honestly considered this “moral failure,” imagine someone, perhaps a companion that you consider impeccably credible, telling you that your circumstances were such in your situation that, in a way, your “moral failure” was destined to occur. Imagine them explaining that your “moral failure” was destined because if you had tried (or wanted, or endeavoured, or whatever fine-grained mental action/event you wish to insert here) in any way to do otherwise, then, even if your doing so would have been causally insufficient in and of itself to guarantee the non-occurrence of your “moral failure,” your doing so would have been sufficient to trigger a mechanism that was in place, a mechanism which would have caused you to do exactly as you did. You can fill in the details of this mechanism (how it works, how it got there, etc.) however you like.
Now, imagine your credible companion asking you the following question and consider, if you will, your honest response:
If I told you that you did not trigger this mechanism, would you consider its mere dormant presence—a presence that only guaranteed that you couldn’t have done otherwise—in any way relevant to whether you ought to be considered morally responsible for your “moral failure?
If I am honest, I must respond, no.
Many, seemingly, Read the rest of this entry »
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May 24, 2008
Introduction
This paper (or series of posts), mostly, is an examination of worries. More specifically, it is an examination of the worries that may be provoked by the question: can an agent rightly be held morally responsible if The Principle of Alternate Possibilities, or PAP, is not satisfied? In this paper, I attempt to identify specific PAP-related worries and the role they play for those who have them. I begin with, what I offer, was Harry Frankfurt’s worry, the worry that lead him to offer the famed style of counterexample against PAP that now bears his name, viz., Frankfurt-Style Counterexamples, or FSCs. Next, I focus my attention on the counter worries that may follow as reactions to FSCs. More specifically, I attempt to identify whether there may be at least one counter worry to FSCs that could reasonably lead someone, if they had it, to deny that FSCs are unsuccessful. Having identified, what I believe, is a counter worry that fits this description, I weigh its worth against one prominent critic’s worry. In the end, my examination of the critic’s worry demonstrates that it fails for various reasons and I conclude, therefore, that if someone has a counter worry of the identified sort, they can reasonably deny FSCs success.
Setting the Stage: Frankfurt’s-Worry & the Counter-Worry
In an influential 1969 article, Harry Frankfurt offered what he believed were good reasons to believe that the requirement of PAP for moral responsibility is merely an “illusion.” In one telling section of his paper, Frankfurt provides, what I believe to be, the heart of his worry with PAP:
Suppose a person tells us that he did what he did because he was unable to do otherwise; or suppose he makes the similar statement that he did what he did because he had to do it. We do often accept statements like these (if we believe them) as valid excuses, and such statements may well seem at first glance to invoke the revised principle of alternate possibilities. But I think that when we accept such statements as valid excuses it is because we assume that we are being told more than the statements strictly and literally convey. We understand the person who offers the excuse to mean that he did what he did only because he was unable to do otherwise, or only because he had to do it. And we understand him to mean, more particularly, that when he did what he did it was not because that was what he really wanted to do.
From this passage, Read the rest of this entry »
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May 13, 2008
Last night Ginny and I went to a lecture given by Michael Ward concerning his new book, Planet Narnia. Ward’s discovery is fascinating, seemingly undeniably true and it makes my appreciation for Lewis’s genius even greater. Below is the book description from Amazon’s cite.
For over half a century, scholars have laboured to show that C. S. Lewis’s famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser’s
Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia’s symbolism has remained a mystery.
Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis’s writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets - - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - - planets which Lewis described as “spiritual symbols of permanent value” and “especially worthwhile in our own generation”. Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality. The cosmological theme of each Chronicle is what Lewis called ‘the kappa element in romance’, the atmospheric essence of a story, everywhere present but nowhere explicit. The reader inhabits this atmosphere and thus imaginatively gains connaitre knowledge of the spiritual character which the tale was created to embody.
Planet Narnia is a ground-breaking study that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the Chronicles, but of Lewis’s whole literary and theological outlook. Ward uncovers a much subtler writer and thinker than has previously been recognized, whose central interests were hiddenness, immanence, and knowledge by acquaintance.
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April 28, 2008
In summary, I have attempted to establish the minimal requirements, or the conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient, for adopting the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge into one’s theological framework. I began my task by investigating two general questions. First, what does God know according to the doctrine of middle knowledge? Second, when does God know what He does according to the doctrine of middle knowledge? From my investigation of the first question, I established two minimal requirements. (I) God’s knowledge comes in at least three forms: ‘what could and could not be’, ‘what will be’ and ‘what would be.’ (II) I established that for God to have knowledge of ‘what would be,’ He must be a being with a robust form of freedom, namely, God could have done things differently than He did. God was not determined to create as He did. From my investigation of the second question, I established two further minimal requirements. (III) God must have a second pre-volitional moment, or middle moment, after his natural knowledge yet before his free knowledge. (IV) For God to have this middle moment, it must be within God’s power to create a creature that is given the opportunity to make one free choice (just as free as God’s choice when He decides which world He wants to create). In conclusion, in as much as one is willing to affirm these four minimal requirements or in as much as one is willing to adopt them into their theological framework, I believe that it can correctly be stated that their theological framework is one that benefits from the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge.
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April 24, 2008
When Does God Know What He Does According to the Doctrine of Middle Knowledge?
From the most evident characteristic that gives this doctrine its name, God’s middle knowledge is located at the logical moment in the middle of (or between) God’s natural knowledge and His free knowledge. The phrase ‘logical moment’ is used here to signify some kind of logical priority or ordering in the progression of God’s knowledge not to indicate different temporal moments in God’s knowledge. We have already established that God’s robust freedom and the three distinctions in God’s knowledge are necessary conditions for the doctrine of middle knowledge. The question that we must look at here is: How is the logical ordering of God’s knowledge significant to the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge? To help elucidate this question, I will briefly draw some distinctions in these logical moments.
God’s first logical moment of knowledge is His ‘could and could not be’ or natural knowledge. It is said that this kind of knowledge is pre-volitional or logically prior to God’s act of creation. Seemingly, God’s natural knowledge is recognized as the first logical moment because if God does not know which worlds are possibly available for His enjoyment, then how could He choose which world He prefers to be the actual world. Also, it is commonly recognized, yet not universally accepted, that God is not responsible for knowing what is necessary and what is possible—what is logically necessary and what is logically possible does not depend on God for this status. The third logical moment (skipping the second for now) is God’s ‘will be’ or free knowledge. Free knowledge is considered post-volitional knowledge. At the logical moment at which God decides which possible world He desires to be actual, He is said to know perfectly and completely which world ‘will be’. However, at this point a very important question arises: whence the need or the room for a second logical moment, or middle moment, in God’s knowledge (a second pre-volitional moment in between God’s natural and free knowledge)?
Up until this point, we have established that God’s robust freedom and the three distinctions regarding His kinds of knowledge are minimal requirements for the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge. However, these conditions do not seem to entail this second pre-volitional moment (or middle moment) in God’s knowledge. Since the minimal requirements confirmed thus far do not seem to limit the number of possible worlds that are feasible for God to create, there seems to be nothing that would hinder God in the procession of His natural knowledge to His free knowledge. It seems that for this middle moment, this second pre-volitional moment, to exist another minimal requirement will be needed.
As I just alluded to, the only reason there would be a middle moment in God’s knowledge is if not every possible world was a feasible world for God to enjoy. What kind of things might limit the feasible worlds God is capable of enjoying? The answer, again, is some form of a robust freedom. This time, however, the freedom cannot be God’s. It must belong to another creature or perhaps be a property in another creaturely essence. If it is possible or within God’s power for Him to create another creature with a form of freedom similar to His own, then God would not be able to enjoy just any possible world He pleased. For example, if God is able to (or could) create a creature with a form of freedom similar to His own, then there is a possible world where He does. Now, suppose in this possible world this being is faced with at least one robustly free choice. Perhaps this creature is faced with the decision of whether to refrain from eating some forbidden fruit. If this creature freely goes wrong in respect to that decision, then the possible world in which this creature freely goes right in respect to that same decision is not a possible world that God could potentially enjoy. It should be clear that the mere possibility of God creating a creature with a freedom similar to His own is all it would take to limit the feasible worlds that God could enjoy.
If this is possible, then here is where the middle moment of God’s knowledge comes into the picture. First, God knows all that could and could not be. Second, God surveys, so to speak, all the worlds that are feasible for Him to create—given that the set of feasible worlds is not identical to the set of possible worlds. Third, God chooses which of the feasible worlds He would like to enjoy. So, the possibility of a creature (besides God) who is given at least one robustly free choice is enough to establish this middle moment in God’s knowledge and enough to count as a minimal requirement for the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge
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April 21, 2008
As I have already stated, the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge attributes a certain kind of knowledge to God at a certain moment. So, to discover what God knows at this so-called “middle moment,” it will be helpful to identify what God is said to know at those moments this “middle moment” fits between. The first kind of knowledge God’s middle knowledge is said to fit between is His comprehensive and infallible knowledge comprised of all that could and could not be; i.e. the possible and the necessary. The accepted name for this kind of knowledge is God’s natural knowledge. Using possible world semantics to elucidate talk of necessity and possibility, we can say that if something is necessarily the case, then it is the case in every possible world. Moreover, if something is possibly the case, then it is the case in at least one world. Furthermore, whatever fits the description of being necessarily the case and/or possibly the case never changes; these kinds of facts do not change from one possible world to another according to the possible world semantics we are considering. For example, something that is necessarily the case, say 2+2’s equaling 4, never fails to be the case. While, something that is possibly the case, say Kansas’s winning the 2008 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, is the case in at least one world, viz., the actual world.
The second kind of knowledge God’s middle knowledge is said to fit between is His comprehensive and infallible knowledge of all that will and will not be. The accepted name for this kind of knowledge is God’s free knowledge. According to God’s free knowledge, nothing is a surprise to God. For anything that is going to happen, God knew it was going to happen.
Now, having identified the two kinds of knowledge that are said to frame God’s middle knowledge, viz., God’s knowledge of what could and could not be and His knowledge of what will and will not be, we are now in an improved position to see what remaining kind of knowledge might appropriately fit within (or in the middle of) this frame. The suggested type of knowledge appropriate to this frame is God’s comprehensive and infallible knowledge of all that would and would not be. It is very important to note, however, that though would-be-knowledge is intimately connected with the propositional content of God’s middle knowledge, to say without qualification that would-be-knowledge just is middle knowledge would be to beg the question that God in fact has middle knowledge, which is controversial, while God’s having would-be-knowledge in and of itself is not.
Would-be-knowledge typically takes the propositional form “x would (not) be the case if y were (not) the case.” Two points are significant concerning God’s would-be-knowledge. First, whatever ‘would be’ the case given some circumstances, ‘could be’ the case. Therefore, the content of God’s would-be-knowledge is to be found in God’s natural knowledge. Second, whatever ‘would be’ the case given some circumstances, is not necessarily what ‘will be’ the case. Therefore, the content of God’s would-be-knowledge might or might not be apart of God’s free knowledge. Therefore, if one believes there is at least one other way that God could have done things, e.g., if one believes that God could have made the world to include one less grain of salt, then they should have no trouble with God’s would-be-knowledge. This follows due to the fact that if God could have done things differently, then God knows he could have done things differently (by his natural knowledge). Furthermore, God knows that if He had made the world to include one less grain of salt (x), then He would know (by his free knowledge) the exact state of the world He chose to create (y).
Therefore, the first recognized requirement for adopting the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge into one’s theological framework is an acknowledgment that God’s knowledge can be divided into the three non-controversial forms of what could be, what will be and, most importantly, what would be. However, there is also a second requirement to be located within this first requirement. The second requirement is that God could have done otherwise, i.e. God has some form of freedom, a freedom that must be incompatible with His not being able to do otherwise. I cannot go into the debate here about whether one ought to consider free agency as compatible with determinism. However, I will stipulate my understanding of ‘robust freedom’ to entail that if God was determined (even if only by His nature) to bring about one particular possible world, then God could not have done otherwise and should not be considered free in this ‘robust’ sense. It is God’s ‘could be’ and ‘will be’ knowledge coupled with His ability to do otherwise that are the grounds for His ‘would be’ knowledge. If God is not free in this ‘robust’ sense, then God cannot have this separate sort of knowledge. Therefore, since I am looking to establish only the minimal requirements, I will not go any further than requiring the necessity of God’s freedom (at this point).
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April 18, 2008
In theory, the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge in and of itself is a rather simple doctrine. If someone knows the name of this particular doctrine, they have at their fingertips almost a full exposition of it. For example, if someone, unfamiliar with this doctrine, were to guess that this doctrine attributes to God a particular kind of knowledge at a middle kind of moment, then they would have the overall framework for this doctrine down. For any theological framework, however, there is one or a number of distinct characteristics that individuate or distinguish it from its competitors. We can think of these characteristics in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. A necessary condition is a quality without which something will not fall under a concept, while a sufficient condition is a quality the presence of which locates something under a concept. In this paper, I will attempt to identify the conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for adopting a doctrine of God’s middle knowledge into one’s theological framework, or, more succinctly, what I will call the minimal requirements. My conclusion will be: in as much as a theological framework affirms these minimal requirements, one ought to consider it a framework that benefits from the doctrine of God’s middle knowledge.
Therefore, my task of identifying and examining the minimal requirements will proceed as follows. In the subsequent section, I will focus on two main questions. First, what does God know according to the doctrine of middle knowledge? Second, when does God know what He does according to the doctrine of middle knowledge? I will begin by answering these questions because it not only seems like an obvious place to begin but also because, I believe, the remaining minimal requirements proceed naturally from the answers to these questions. After my investigation of these questions, I will summarize my findings.
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March 17, 2008
I haven’t investigated this in the least, other than watching the movie myself, however, I would like to suggest that the movie “No Country for Old Men” is a contemporary theatrical expression of the ancient Biblical book Ecclesiastes. I am not suggesting that the directors and writers were trying to duplicate this book in its entirety. However, I do think most of the major themes of “No Country for Old Men” overlap quite consistently with the major themes of Ecclesiastes. If you have seen the movie and it left you feeling confused, I suggest you thumb through Ecclesiastes to see if it illuminates the movie’s themes for you. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, then I suggest you read Ecclesiastes before you watch the movie. I think if you do this, you will appreciate the movie’s message and subtleties far more.
I would love to hear what you think about any of the correlations you see between “No Country” and Ecclesiastes.
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