Before dealing with the content of Clifton’s Vacuous Notes, I’d like to start with a clarification that he makes in the comments section. In an earlier exchange, Chris had offered the following syllogism:
1) It is not the case that the Son might not have existed.
2) Therefore it is not the case that the Son might not have been begotten.
3) Therefore it is not the case that the Father might not have begotten the Son.
This seems fairly straightforward. The point of the syllogism was to clarify what Clifton meant in his assertion that the Father wills to beget the Son. Is it or is it not the case that this willing is to be understood in the libertarian sense such that the Father might not have willed to beget the Son? Clifton, having stated that we have no way of knowing whether the Father might not have begotten the Son, Chris countered with his first premise. I was rather surprised at Clifton’s response. He wrote: “Your syllogism fails from the very first premise: ‘We know, 1) It is not the case that the Son might not have existed.’ In fact, we know nothing of the sort.” Chris’ response was, in my estimation, appropriate. By denying the first premise and, consequently, its conclusions, Clifton had affirmed the possibility that the Son might not have existed. And this is, for all practical purposes, Arian.
But now it looks as though this is not at all what Clifton meant. He writes, “Now this revelation to us [i.e., the Son’s revelation of the Father and of the Holy Trinity] makes it impossible for us to say that the Son might not have existed.” As it turns out, Clifton’s objection to Chris’ first premise is not over its substance but over the fact that he prefaced it with the words “We know.” Clifton’s distinction between epistemic and revelatory claims is, in the context of this discussion, about as unhelpful a tangent as anyone could have devised. Had Chris prefaced his syllogism with “We accept by faith on the basis of divine revelation” rather than “We know” the truth content of his premise would not have been affected. And this in turn should settle the question of whether the Father’s freely willing to beget the Son (per Clifton’s claim) can be understood in the sense that it could have been otherwise.
Still, Clifton cannot be completely exonerated of Arian sympathies until we consider this statement from the same exchange with Chris:
“On the other hand, if we reason that God the Father could not have done otherwise, what consequences result from that? I cannot see but that God the Father's mode of willing becomes identified with his natural will shared by all the Persons of the Trinity. But if that be the case, we are back in the realm of modalism.”
Here we have Clifton stating the negative consequences of reasoning that the Father could not have done otherwise (i.e., could have willed not to beget the Son). However, if he has problems with this point of reason, he must have equal problems with his own statement of faith, “Now this revelation to us makes it impossible for us to say that the Son might not have existed.” You can’t have it both ways. Either the Father could not have done otherwise, or the Son might not have existed. That one of these statements is presented as a matter of reason and the other as a matter of faith is irrelevant. What ultimately matters is whether or not they are true.
All those who accept the truth of Clifton’s faith statement, that we cannot say that the Son might not have existed, must also accept the truth of the premise that the Father could not have willed not to beget the Son. Assuming, then, that Clifton places a high priority on his own statement of faith, he is left with one option. He needs to rethink the connection he sees between claiming that the Father could not have done otherwise and modalism. If the Father could have willed not to beget the Son, then it is acceptable, even required, to say that the Son might not have existed. On the other hand, if we cannot say that the Son might not have existed, then we must accept the premise that God had no option in begetting the Son.
Whatever Clifton means in saying that the Father freely willed to beget the Son, this cannot include the idea of libertarian free will such that the Father could have done otherwise. For that matter, it can’t include any form of compatiblism either. Both theories of the will involve the notion of “could have done otherwise.” The only kind of willing that makes sense if the existence of the Son could not have been otherwise is one that comes after the fact. It is not a willing that causes things to happen, but one that approves of what has already happened. Yet, if this is the only kind of willing that is involved, I must admit that I have completely lost the connection to monergism and monothelitism. When I made a similar observation in my last post in this thread, Clifton responded: “Kevin’s failure to grasp the implications for monergism of Trinitarian person-nature dogma is not any proof that such a dogma has nothing whatsoever to do with monergism. It is simply prima facie evidence of the poverty of his imagination.” However, the issue is not whether there is a connection between monergism and Trinitarian person-nature dogma, but whether this connection exists between monergism and the Father willing or not willing the begetting of the Son. Barring any evidence to the contrary, I maintain that there is no connection. The well being of my imagination aside, Clifton’s response is a simple case of misdirection.
Here, I’d like to move on to Clifton’s discussion of the distinction between “the divine will [which is] the same natural will among all the Persons of the Godhead” and the “personal employment of the natural will [which] is the mode of willing unique to each person of the Godhead.” What I see described here is a distinction between the faculty of the will and the personal use of that will. God, having only one nature, there can be only one will. However, since the persons are truly distinct, both from the divine nature and from one another, there must be three different employments of that will. If I have understood Clifton correctly, then I agree with him.
It seems, however, that Clifton doesn’t think so. According to him, my argument “ultimately must conclude [that] the mode of willing is identical to the divine natural will.” Throughout his discussion, Clifton uses the Father willing to beget and the Son willing to be begotten as examples of the different modes of willing in the Trinity. And this is where Clifton gets confused. He believes that, because I had already rejected his example, I must also reject the distinction he was illustrating. This might follow, except for the fact that, by connecting the two concepts, Clifton has fallen into a category mistake. The question is not, “What does the begetting of the Son say about the personal employment of the divine will?” It is, “Does the begetting of the Son say anything about the divine will at all?” I answer that it does not.
Posted by kcourter at dezembro 10, 2006 12:54 AM | TrackBack
What is the revelatory basis of the assertion that necessary existence is a defining feature of divinity? Is the Son divine because his existence is necessary or because he participates in the divine essence and is consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit? How do you avoid making a defining feature of the divine essence (ingeneracy) out of the hypostatic property of the Father? If God is both pure act with no unrealized potentiality and absolutely simple, then how is there divine freedom with respect to creation?
This methodology is flawed, it begins with God as a *being*, attempting to pick out essential attributes and properties of the divine essence, before starting with the revelation of Christ and Trinitarian God.
Posted by: William B at janeiro 13, 2007 01:30 PMYou're assuming a lot here, William. I am starting with the revelation of Christ and, through Christ, of the Trinitarian God. Furthermore, there is no idication in my affirmation of the necessary existence of the Son of a methodology that begins with God as a being. This affirmation is, rather, a partial response to the question, “What does it mean for the Son to be consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit?” The Son is divine because he is consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit; his existence is necessary for the same reason.
Although I agree that it is methodologically flawed to begin with God as a being before starting with revelation, there is nothing wrong with considering God as a being after receiving his self-revelation. This is especially true considering that one of the primary names by which he has chosen to reveal himself is a conjugation of the verb to be. The necessary existence of the Son is tied to his divine substance. The inclusion of homoousias in the Nicene Creed was intended, in large part, as a response to those who argued that the Son's existence was not necessary, that it was contingent, and that there was, in fact, “a time when the Son was not.” In itself, the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father says nothing about the kind of existence he enjoys. It does say that, whatever kind of existence the Father has, the Son has. If the existence of the Father is necessary, then so is that of the Son. And if, due to his substance, the existence of the Son is necessary, then the Father could not have willed him into existence. Whatever can be brought into or out of existence by an act of will, or by any means for that matter, can only have contingent existence.
That which is true of the divine substance must be true of those persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, who are of that substance. The substance of deity is self-existent. It depends on nothing and can neither be created nor destroyed; i.e., it has necessary existence. Since all three persons share in the same substance, then anything that is true of that substance can be considered a defining feature of each of the divine persons. Now, what of hypostatic properties? These properties define the relationship among the persons in the Trinity. The Father begets, he is not begotten. The Son is begotten, he does not beget. The Spirit is spirated, he does not spirate. There is no danger of turning a hypostatic property into a defining feature of the divine essence. Not only would I have to argue that the divine substance itself is begotten (as well as begetter, spirater, and spirated), but I would have to deny any meaningful ontological relationship or distinction between the persons within the Trinity. Perry's mantra to the contrary, I do not identify person and nature but have consistently distinguished between the two.
As to your final question, how does the fact that God has a simple, unchangeabele, and necessarily extant substance prevent him from acting freely? I can see how a change in substance would change what one is able or willing to do, but it does not follow that an immutable substance eliminates freedom of choice. Unless you mean to suggest that the exercise of choice always involves a change in substance, then I'm not sure how your question is relevant. Whether you are referring to the act of creaton itself or to God's continual interactions with his creation, he has always been free to do exactly as he pleases.
We construct general concepts via opposition. Freedom is opposed to necessity, unity to plurality. Plurality and freedom are identified with instability or defectibility insofar as they open the door to the possibility of dissolution, corruption or sin.
However, if the Holy Trinity or the Incarnate Christ is subsumed under these general concepts, then there is nothing but chaos. The Gospel appeared as "foolishness" the Greeks because Christ was the living unity of these apparently contradictory properties and attributes, implying the falsity of the Hellenic metaphysic. The Greeks couldn't distinguish between things or form general concepts without opposing and separating things, plurality itself always implied instability and distinction implied opposition.
The Fathers were opposed this infiltration of Hellenic philosophy into revelation. God's transcedence is not opposed to his immanence; divine simplicity is not opposed to real plurality in God (or of divine energies.) Contingency is inferred from freedom because the general concept of freedom has been opposed to the general concept of necessity.
Since you pick out properties/attributes of the divine essence prior to the consideration of persons you are forced to construct a Triadology in conformity with those preconceived notions. Why coudn't someone with the same kind of reasoning argue that since the *essence* is ingenerate and simple then the Son and the Spirit cannot be divine? Mustn't you rob God & Christ of their freedom lest they be only *contingently* good? If freedom is inseparable from contingency, is the sinlessness of God, Christ, and the perfected saints opposed to their indefectibility?
The truth is that the begetting of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit cannot be philosophically dissected.
My meaning of my last question was clear; I asked, "If God is both PURE ACT WITH NO UNREALIZED POTENTIALITY and absolutely simple, then how is there divine freedom with respect to creation?"
Posted by: William B at janeiro 16, 2007 06:02 PMIs the freedom of Christ opposed to his being incapable of sinning? Does the fact that Christ chooses freely imply that he could have always chosen to sin and is "contingently" good rather than "necessarily" good? Does not the fact that God and Christ both possess both freedom and fixed in perfection undermine the basis of this entire artificial construct?
Posted by: William B at janeiro 16, 2007 06:29 PMYou have a unique talent, William, for opposing arguments that have neither been stated nor implied. For variety's sake, you might try reading what mine actually is. Who is “we”? I will admit that many concepts are better understood if constructed via opposition. Especially if the realities represented by those concepts are themselves in opposition. Freedom and necessity, however, are not among these. I do not indentify plurality or freedom with instability or defectibility. Consequently, what the Greeks may or may not have thought is irrelevant to this discussion, as is the Fathers' opinion of them. I hold to a compatibilist view of the will and, with that, to the idea that a person exercises his will according to his nature. If that nature is necessarily good, then the will can only be exercised toward that which is good. Yet this does not negate the freedom of the individual. Libertarian ideas of personal freedom restrict it only by that which violates the law of non-contradiction. Compatibilist ideas restrict it even further to what the individual is capable of wanting. God is incapable of evil acts because he is incapable of evil desires. Necessity and freedom fit together perfectly. This much of my beliefs on the matter should have been obvious. Why, then, are you asking a series of questions predicated on the assumption that I separate freedom from necessity and inseparably join it to contingency? If you want answers, go dig up an ancient Greek. As far as I'm concerned, your questions are nonsense. Perhaps you could rewrite them in capital letters.
Posted by: Kevin at março 8, 2007 10:58 PM