Ben Witherington in his recent article titled “The Freedom of God and the Free Will of Human Beings” stated the following:
“One of the more interesting subjects to discuss is the freedom of God. What exactly is God free to do or not to do? …Of course there have been theologians who have argued that the terms good or evil are simply defined by what God does or does not do and sanction. I think there is a problem with this whole approach.”
Witherington is arguing against a view of God’s freedom sometimes defined as absolute volunteerism. Under this view, good and evil are simply an expression of God’s willful decision. In other words, God could—if He chose—define evil in any number of ways. Of course, a problem with this is that it tends to make both good and evil an arbitrary product of God’s will. One must conclude that if God deemed the wholesale murder of innocent children a “good”, then—despite our natural revulsion against such a thing—we would have to submit to God’s definition of what is ethically good. This whole scenario seems out of character with the God revealed to us in Christ.
Another issue that Witherington tackles is the question as to whether or not God is free to violate His own definition of sin. Witherington argues that in a sense God has the freedom to do such a thing; however, He would not. Here is what he states:
“This is not an absolute limitation. I assume God could set up a definition of sin and could violate it, but if God did, he would cease to be the good God of the Bible. It is the last refuge of a scoundrel to say that God who has already defined darkness and light, can change the definition along the way so that ‘whatever is, is right, because God has done and said it’. This is one of the reasons why it is terribly false to predicate of God sins that he prohibits us from doing, say for example destroying innocent human lives for no good or appropriate reason. But I digress.”
While I generally like Witherington’s conclusions, I think they are based upon a weak view of God’s nature. Anselm, the brilliant medieval theologian also addressed this issue in one of the most important works written in Western history, "Cur Deus Homo?" (roughly translated as “Why God had to Become Man”). “Cur Deus Homo?” is an imaginary dialogue between Anselm and his assistant Boso. In this portion of the work (Chapter XII), Anselm is answering the query “Whether it were proper for God to put away sins by compassion alone, without any payment of debt.” Here is part of Anselm’s reply:
“What you say of God's liberty and choice and compassion is true; but we ought so to interpret these things as that they may not seem to interfere with His dignity. For there is no liberty except as regards what is best or fitting; nor should that be called mercy which does anything improper for the Divine character. Moreover, when it is said that what God wishes is just, and that what He does not wish is unjust, we must not understand that if God wished anything improper it would be just, simply because he wished it. For if God wishes to lie, we must not conclude that it is right to lie, but rather that he is not God. For no will can ever wish to lie, unless truth in it is impaired, nay, unless the will itself be impaired by forsaking truth.”
I believe that Anselm is making the argument that God’s liberty of choice is circumscribed by what is “fitting” according to His Divine character. God, being perfectly just, therefore, would never will anything that is unjust. Likewise, because God is Truth, He would never lie. In fact, Anselm simply notes that if God wished to lie we cannot conclude that “it is right to lie;” rather, we must conclude that such a being is not truly God. For God to lie would indicate that He was less than “that than which no greater being can be conceived.” To be less-than-truthful in all things is an indication of some impairment (e.g. morally or intellectually). A deity who is impaired is not “that than which no greater being can be conceived.”
I like Anselm’s thinking—score one for those old ignorant guys in the “Dark Ages.”
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I'm not sure Anselm would agree that God is circumscribed or limited in this way although the concept that God acts within his truth (rectitude) is accurate. It seems he would argue that God's freedom of choice is not limited at all but has perfect freedom under his (Anselm's) definition. Anselm defines freedom as the "power to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake".
"In On Freedom of Choice (De libertate arbitrii) Anselm defines freedom of choice as “the power to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake” (DLA 3). He explores the notion of rectitude of will most thoroughly in On Truth (De veritate), so in order to understand the definition of freedom of choice, we must look first at Anselm's discussion of truth. Truth is a much broader notion for Anselm than for us; he speaks of truth not only in statements and opinions but also in the will, actions, the senses, and even the essences of things. In every case, he argues, truth consists in correctness or “rectitude.” Rectitude, in turn, is understood teleologically; a thing is correct whenever it is or does whatever it ought, or was designed, to be or do."
"Since, as we have already seen, Anselm will define freedom as “the power to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake,” the arguments of On Truth imply that freedom is also the capacity for justice and the capacity for moral praiseworthiness. Now it is both necessary and sufficient for justice, and thus for praiseworthiness, that an agent wills what is right, knowing it to be right, because it is right. That an agent wills what is right because it is right entails that he is neither compelled nor bribed to perform the act. Freedom, then, must be neither more nor less than the power to perform acts of that sort."
"Thus Anselm takes it to be obvious that freedom is a power for something: its purpose is to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake. God and the good angels cannot sin, but they are still free, because they can (and do) preserve rectitude of will for its own sake. In fact, they are freer than those who can sin: “someone who has what is fitting and expedient in such a way that he cannot lose it is freer than someone who has it in such a way that he can lose it and be seduced into what is unfitting and inexpedient” (DLA 1). It obviously follows, as Anselm points out, that freedom of choice neither is nor entails the power to sin; God and the good angels have freedom of choice, but they are incapable of sinning."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anselm/
Maybe he should stick to a narrow field of interest.
http://cla.umn.edu/sites/jhopkins/
I don't think philosophy is a matter of defining God, but rather another tool used in discovering who God is while we are mired in this sinful condition and separated from Him. I don't think anyone ever said He is clearly understood completely and there is no deception of the congregation occurring as you suggest. Maybe your "Aha!" attitude is not fully warranted...
Try as we might to use language in dealing with a spiritual issue is a best confusing and futile.
Consider the fact that we humans dream in pictures, moving pictures and these pictures, at first, we see as nonsensical until we treat them as what they surely are, symbols.
We are symbolic as a species. It is at our core. When we use a crude and limited tool such as language, we are, as is the subject matter, diminished.
Language is much like a screw driver. It is a tool for a variety of purposes for which it is designed but does poorly when used otherwise.
Keep simple, from the heart and soul when dealing with spiritual and all will be revealed, if not soon, then later. And if quite blessed it will come as that which you cannot describe with words nor would wish to. Perhaps as what we may see as a waking dream.
Now at first blush this might seem like quibbling terms, but I think that looking deeper into the idea, we find that a God bound by His nature to only do just and follow logic and such has no freewill and therefore no agency of choice. A God that could theoretically changes the rules mid-stream, violate His own rules, and lambaste us with logical inconsistencies, but chooses to be good in all things with goodness flowing from His nature into all of creation, this God certainly must have freewill and therefor agency of choice.
The end result of each scenario is still a consistent God driven by what is good because God is good, but the distinction of how the goodness of God governs His decisions is important.
I don't know that it is correct to say the goodness of God is necessary to His nature, but is rather a product of His nature. That is to say that it is not completely accurate to say that God could not violate His own law, and thus sin, but rather that He would never which is what makes Him absolute good.
If the choice did not exist, then He would not actually have freewill. It is good that God created us the way we are. This is a true statement based on His own recorded words in Genesis. If it is impossible that God acts otherwise, then He had no choice in creation. He was made to create us because He could create us and because it was good.
Then if God has no will and must act in certain ways because of His nature, then we end up leading to a part of the Cosmological argument that states that the cause must be a free agent with will and volition or the universe would have been made to happen the instant the necessary components were in place, and since the necessary components must be eternal, then the universe must be eternally created, which is a violation against the proofs from the initial statement.
This means that God must be the free agent that nothing acts upon, but instead acts upon everything else. This means that the goodness of God is a part of his character by free choice, and is not necessary to His character.
Again, I say that the end result is the same. God will never sin because He is good, but this is a choice not forced on Him by His nature.
I don't believe this is really an issue when the fullness of what I'm suggesting is considered. Since God is good, but by choice, He gives us good commands. He knows the are god commands because He knows everything. This is something necessary to His being. They are good because they promote that which is good and proper and avoid that which is evil.
Consider the command to avoid drinking to excess. We can easily see that this is a good command because of the problems associated with drunkenness. God knows the problems associated with breaking every command He gives and so gives us good commands because He is good by choice.
I believe this means that God gives us commands which are good, but they are good because He created them to be good commands. He created everything in our reality and so knows the best ways for us to interact with everything in our reality. God created poisonous plants, for example, and so we have a built in command to avoid eating these plants. They do serve a purpose in various forms and so the plants themselves are good but eating them is bad. The fact that our nature tells us not to eat a plant that we know to be poisonous is from God and is good. If there were no poisonous plants created, then this would be an absurd command that would be an impulse within us to not eat that which does not exist.
My point here is, that God is not imparting preexisting morals to us which would then imply a source of morals that is beyond God, but rather he is imparting morals which He created because of the reality which he created.
Again, one might point to the 10 commandments as moral absolutes that transcend this reality, but consider the possibility of a world where men cannot die. Wouldn't a command against murder be absurd in such a reality? What about a world where God is fully known, such as heaven will be, wouldn't a command against worshiping other gods be pointless? In fact, one could easily imaging God creating worlds where the "moral absolutes" wouldn't really apply because of the impossibility of breaking those absolutes.
This means that even those moral absolutes are created by God as part of creation itself and were not preexisting except that God knew those absolutes for eternity because it is His nature to know in this way.
"Can God sin?"
I thought God made the rules - so if you are the rule maker - why would you make rules you would break.
I think that to ask the question is to be anthropocentric as opposed to theocentric..
Perhaps we need to stop thinking of ourselves as having the "freedom" to choose to sin and then wondering why God does not have a "power" we seem to have, when in fact that apparent choice is not a freedom or a power at all, but rather a bondage and a powerlessness.
According to Anselm, God (and the good angels) cannot sin. Here is why;
"God and the good angels cannot sin, but they are still free, because they can (and do) preserve rectitude of will for its own sake. In fact, they are freer than those who can sin: “someone who has what is fitting and expedient in such a way that he cannot lose it is freer than someone who has it in such a way that he can lose it and be seduced into what is unfitting and inexpedient” (DLA 1)."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anselm/
It appears that Anselm, when properly understood, deals with the issues being raised here in an elegant, logical way. It is very important to understanding Anselm here to really understand his concept of "preserving rectitude of will for its own sake."
The phrase "preserving rectitude of will for its own sake" is defined and discussed in this document.
Get an English translation in .pdf format here:
http://cla.umn.edu/sites/jhopkins/DeVeritate.pdf
Ignore the fact that these statements are self-contradictory, they nevertheless form the basis of much secular thought. After reading what Anselm has to say about Truth, I think it would make for a great topic.
Note: The nihilist statements are self-contradictory because they state an absolute truth which is precisely what they seek to deny.
Even if it is Gods won character that makes it impossible for Him to do evil, then there is a being that one might conceive with all the attributes of a God that cannot do evil by necessity, but this being would be greater because this being would have the freewill to do evil, but actively overcomes any immoral notion be strength of will.
●First, just to let everyone know, I’ve been on vacation backpacking with my wife in the high Sierras and taking our delightful granddaughter to “the big water” (the ocean). Between backpacking and going to the beach I posted this article. I’m back now.
●I’m not an expert on Anselm, but, I think that his “greatest conceivable being” (GCB) would not be one that had “the freewill to do evil.” This can be approached from three perspectives, as follows:
1. Anselm, of course, was in the Augustinian tradition which defined evil as a privation. In a sense, a privation is a “nothing.” God does not do “nothing.” Whatever He does or creates is fully active—a “something.”
2. Here again is a part of my quote from Anselm:
For if God wishes to lie, we must not conclude that it is right to lie, but rather that he is not God. For no will can ever wish to lie, unless truth in it is impaired, nay, unless the will itself be impaired by forsaking truth.”
The point here, I believe, is that lying or doing evil is an indication of an impairment of some sort. A God who was capable of or desirous of lying or doing evil would be impaired in some way. For instance, lying is an impairment in regard to truth. Also, doing something evil is to do something that is not perfectly fit for the situation. Therefore a deity who must struggle to overcome the desire to do evil by his strength of will would not be as great a deity as one who is never impaired or ever even desires to do anything less than that which is perfectly fit for every situation.
3. The third approach is mentioned by Timbo above. Anselm’s view of freedom is to “maintain rectitude of will” by always doing that which is just. To do less is to indicate a lack of power. It is not an act of “freedom” to do something evil. Specifically, according to Anselm, to want to do evil--or to actually do evil--is to fall into bondage and demonstrate a certain weakness. God cannot fall into bondage.
If God slays, and that makes it morally Okay, then what does it say for us little mortals here on the ground? What do we need courts of Law for? There is nothing wrong with killing!
●First, in my post I am not defining God. Anselm actually provided the closest thing to a definition of God by noting that He is “that then which nothing greater can be conceived.” My post is an attempt to explain how the Supreme Being relates with the universe as a free agent.
●Actually, the thesis of my post is that God does not arbitrarily slay people and, therefore, it is not "morally okay" to kill people. God’s punishments are always just.
capananda wrote: Try as we might to use language in dealing with a spiritual issue is a best confusing and futile.
●One might say that your position is a form of theological know-nothing-ism. If I can know nothing or say nothing about God that does anything other than end in futility and confusion, then one might justly ask, “Why you are saying anything?” Aren’t you just confusing the issue?
●Additionally, of course, your position leads immediately to all manner of heresy. If some things about God cannot be correctly defined and signified in language, then everything is up for grabs. One might just as easily say God hates us as He loves us. Both—according to you—are equally confusing and futile.
(Your response) I'm not sure Anselm would agree that God is circumscribed or limited in this way although the concept that God acts within his truth (rectitude) is accurate.
●My statement was an attempt to summarize Anselm’s following thought:
What you say of God's liberty and choice and compassion is true; but we ought so to interpret these things as that they may not seem to interfere with His dignity. For there is no liberty except as regards what is best or fitting; nor should that be called mercy which does anything improper for the Divine character.
●If I am not mistaken, Anselm is saying that God’s “liberty and choice” are free but they are to be understood in relationship to His “Divine character”, His “dignity”, and a proper understanding of liberty (e.g. liberty being understood as doing what is “best or fitting” in every situation—or, maintaining rectitude of will to do the just thing). Therefore, I am not sure why you think my summary statement may not be correct.
It seems to me the only way to answer this is to say what is good, true and just are those things which are in agreement with God's will. Therefor, no matter what God wills, those things which are willed by God are necessarily good, true and just. To then try and question whether God's will is good, true or just becomes impossible because these terms are without meaning in this context. To say God, who is goodness, truth and justice, can be said to have (or not have) the qualities of goodness, truth or justice, is to say that goodness can (or not) have the quality of goodness, truth can (or not) have the quality of truthfulness and justice can (or not) have the quality of being just.
One can not question the blackness of blackness nor the goodness of goodness and likewise cannot question the goodness, truthfulness or justice of God.
This leads to saying that no matter what God wills it will necessarily be good, true or just, even if we might not agree intuitively. But how or why this should be a problem for anyone, I have no idea. Do we tell the color black that we think it lacks blackness and therefor judge it to be un-black?
I can see no way such issues should, or could, have any bearing on God's freedom. In fact, I find the whole issue of God's freedom to be equally nonsensical for the same reason.
Please read what I have said in the context of the fact that it is better to have freewill because it is better to choose good freely than to choose good without freewill, this necessarily requires the ability to choose less than perfect good. This is from Aquinas.
If this is a true statement then it must be always true. This is why the Angels were protected from the full vision of God, so that they might be able to choose less than God, and this was better than God being known to them in fullness allowing them only one choice. This is why God walked with Adam in the cool of the evening and left the garden while the serpent deceived Eve. Because it was better to allow them to choose instead of being with them always so they could never be deceived and could never choose God over something less than God.
Now, let’s consider a definition of sin as choosing the lesser good; seeking pleasure over justice for example. Pleasure is a good and justice is a good, but if pleasure must be sacrificed for justice then we must set pleasure aside and seek justice otherwise we are in sin. You know this is a true statement as well. Now, we must believe that if this is true it must always be true.
This means that God must have the ability to choose a lesser good because it is better to choose the greater good freely. This is the first statement and second statement reconciled and applied universally. This must be true because we know it to be better to have the freedom to choose the better good than to be forced to choose the better good. If God is the greatest conceivable being then he must have this quality as well because it is better.
It is also true because if God had to choose the greatest possible good at all parts of His existence with no will regarding the choice, then creation must be coeternal with God because there is no point in eternity when it would be less than good to create and so not point when God wouldn't create. Of course this presents logical impossibilities so we know it is not true and we know that God must have a will to choose not only to follow goodness but also to apply this within time as we perceive it.
Now there is this which I think you are overlooking. If God actively chooses to be good, then He always actively chooses to be good because of His eternal nature. His eternal nature is necessary to His being and also defines a great number of attributes to His being as appearing necessary. Goodness, Love, and Justice are among these attributes. Because He chooses to have these because they are all the greater good then He will always and has always had these attributes. In a way they appear to be necessary because it is impossible for God not to have these attributes, but it is impossible because of His will not because of His being.
Now, I ask you to please consider the ideas stated here withotu rejecting them just because they don't fit with what Aquinas or Anselem posited. Look at the logical progression I have followed and please show me where my logic fails. I'm willing to accept my logic here might be flawed, but I don't see the failure or where it comes into the problems that were pointed out because of God's eternal nature.
I cannot argue. After I posted the comment I realized the issue may have been semantic and not substantive. I'm glad to see some discussion on the issue.
William Lane Craig says: the theological misfortune in saying that “God could choose to be a malevolent, injurious, cosmic dictator but he has freely chosen not to be” is that on such a view God is not essentially good. There are possible worlds in which God freely chooses to do evil. Are you really prepared to say that God could have been evil? In such a world, He would not be worthy of worship. But a being which is not worthy of worship by definition is not God. So on your suggested view it seems that God could have failed to be God. This just doesn’t seem to make sense—would atheism be true in such a world? Or would someone else have been God? Would God, then, have been created by that God?
Moreover, on the suggested view, what is the ontological status of the Good? It seems you’ve embraced a sort of Platonism which is incompatible with God’s being the source of all reality outside Himself and which provides no source of moral obligation.”
The whole article can be found in the Q and A section at reasonablefaith.com
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6087
I don't think yo have considered what I have said fully. God could have chosen to be less than God, which of course means He would not be God, but He would always for eternity have not been God and so would not be God on any world and further no world would exist for Him to not be God on. The atheist would then be right that there is no God, but there would be no atheist either.
Instead God chooses to be Good (notice the cap to indicate ontological existence) and so is eternally Good and God. We now have a God that has absolute freewill even to the point of being able to hold back His will for the greater good of allowing others to also have freewill.
Further, PB, you did not discount any of my logic in coming to the conclusion I reached. I know that showing a false end can discount the conclusion, but I have reconciled this end through incorporating the eternal nature of God into the basis for what I have considered here.
I do not argue that God is not the ontological existence of Good and the source for all things good. What I am saying is that this is not expressly necessary to God's being, He would not be God without it, but He must choose to be this, or He is also not God. I guess you could say this is a secondary necessary aspect of God's being, that is it is required to be God that he must be Good, but primarily He must choose to be Good in order to be the greatest imaginable being, so the necessary aspect is God must choose to be Good in order to be God.
It is in adding this word that we begin to reconcile the issues. Then we must alter certain statements such as "God cannot lie." The statement now becomes, "God would never lie." We can know that God will always give us the truth from either statement, but knowing that God would never lie is knowing that God is honest, knowing that God could never lie is knowing that something makes Him to be truthful. If something makes Him to be truthful then that something is greater than Him, even if it is some aspect of Him it is still greater. Then we would be right is worshiping goodness instead of God proper.
This, of course, is absurd, so we must know that God is greater than Goodness, so He chooses to be Good and by this choice is God eternally Good.
Puri wrote: Please read what I have said in the context of the fact that it is better to have freewill because it is better to choose good freely than to choose good without freewill, this necessarily requires the ability to choose less than perfect good. This is from Aquinas.
●Hey, I really haven’t even finished reading all of the comments on the thread and I must say the level of discussion is stimulating and interesting.
●Puri, you had a concern about me answering using either Anselm or Aquinas. That’s tough because my whole purpose in writing this post was to see if I could do justice to one of Anselm’s insights. In a sense, I am attempting to argue from within Anselm’s thought-world. I enjoy doing this sort of thing. Additionally, I think part of the problem is that we have somewhat different definitions then did the medievalists for words like “goodness” and “free-will.” I will illustrate by responding to your statement I’ve quoted.
●The simplest response I can give to your statement is that “the ability to choose less than perfect good” is not really an “ability;” it is a weakness. The medieval terminology would likely be “choosing an apparent good.” Something that is an “apparent good” is a thing that appears to be “good” to the intellect but is not a “true good.” Therefore, to choose an apparent good over a true good is to choose the false instead of the true. If God is a simple being then He is essentially true—or Truth. For God to choose an apparent good He would have to be either mistaken (not omniscient) or not essentially true. In either case He would be demonstrating weakness and not omnipotence.
●Your way of stating the case that it is “better to choose good freely than to choose good without freewill”, would likely be stated differently in Anselm’s time. The issue would be whether something is willed necessarily or not. It would, therefore, be understood that God must absolutely and necessarily will Himself. This is reflected in the fact that man necessarily wills his own happiness. However, the secondary question, in regard to God, that follows this is in regard to other things. Must God necessarily will other things? The reply is no. We know this from the revelation of Scripture and because God’s existence is essential to His nature—He is His existence. All God must do is will Himself (this includes His desirability which is His goodness). He exists without need of anything. Consequently, all other things must be willed by God without necessity except by supposition; meaning that if He has willed it, it must necessarily happen. Therefore, “free-will” in God pertains to those things He has willed without necessity that are outside of Himself. In other words, “free-will” in God is not a matter of choosing between apparent and true goods. Only “true goods” flow from God as their cause. This is noted by James…
James 1:16-17 Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Do you see how this sentence can be taken to mean that goodness isn’t really grounded in God? “God is good, but by choice” as if God reaches toward to attain and do goodness. On this view, God isn’t good so much as He does good. But this is ontologically confusing which is why theologians and Christian philosophers usually take it that goodness flows necessarily from God’s own nature. This is what Craig says last in the comment above, I think.
You also stated that “God could have chosen to be less than God.” In line with this view, would argue that God can fail to exist?
Puri wrote: Instead God chooses to be Good (notice the cap to indicate ontological existence) and so is eternally Good and God.
●I just read your latest comment and don’t have much time to think or write in detail, so here is my quick swipe at a semi-intelligent response.
●God does not choose to be Good (noting the ontological meaning). God’s goodness is essential to His nature and He necessarily wills Himself. In other words, God cannot not will Himself (or His goodness). God’s goodness is not a “choice” in God (“choice” being understood in the modern sense). He must necessarily will Himself as Himself (pardon the redundancy). Only those things outside Himself are willed without necessity.
You admit that God would not be God without goodness. Right. But then you state that goodness is not a necessary attribute of God. This is incoherent and misunderstands necessity. By necessity, philosophers mean that God has X set of attributes in such a way that a failure to have any of X is necessarily a failure to be God.
Please don't misunderstand what I was saying. I don't have a problem with using any theologian including Aquinas or Anselem, but I do have a problem with the basic approach of, "you are wrong because you view doesn't line up with ...” Instead I would be more interested in hearing what they say on the matter if they wrestled with s similar reasoning and showed where the logical progression is flawed. If they never dealt with this logical progression then how can we know they are right and I am wrong?
PB,
I did say that God could be less than God, aka not God. Even Thom here has said "God must will only Himself" which means that God might not have willed Himself and so might not be. This would be to choose less that good though because to exist is better than to not exist. Now if we say that God must will Himself, then we begin to wonder what makes God will Himself. Is there some greater law, the law of goodness?, that makes God to will Himself? Again we come to the idea that Goodness must then be greater than God and so more worthy of worship because Goodness actually causes God to be.
Thom and PB, this again leads me to the idea that for God to will Himself He must choose Goodness or He would be less than God, but it is still a choice making Him greater than Goodness itself even though He embodies Goodness so to speak. In other words, Goodness can never be the end for Goodness without God is not enough.
Again I say that all of this must be understood within the eternal nature of God. That is, by willing Himself to be God, He will be God in all eternity infinitely into the past and into the future alike. He will never not will Himself to be God because He is eternal. By willing Himself to be God He also chooses to be Good. He will always choose to be Good and would not be God without choosing to be Good.
Thom, as to the issue of weakness in being able to choose a lesser good. I have a bag of sugary snacks beside my desk. They are there for when my children come visit. I am on a diet and know I cannot have them and so I don't. I know I could but I don't. Is it weakness in overcoming my desire? Let’s expand this further. What if my strength of will is so absolute that I can eternally choose to always be Good so that I don't even desire to eat the nutty bars (which are my favorite) sitting there even though they are good, but not as good as not eating them. Weakness isn't in being able to choose less than perfect good, it is in considering the choice. Further, let us consider the incarnation. Jesus was God, and yet man. He must have been temptable or Satan would not have tempted Him. The whole incarnation would have been a hoax. It says He shared in our suffering, but if He could not experience the desires of man then it would not be possible for Him to experience the trials of man. If it was possible for God to share in this, then He must be eternally able to share in this, or God would have experienced something new, which is to say God changed. To be God He must be Eternal. To be Eternal He cannot change ... I'm sure you are following this but I'll give the conclusion ... If He cannot change then He must have always shared in our Humanity and yet He must have always overcome our limitations. This means He must have always chosen the greatest good, which means He must have always chosen Good.
Finally, PB, I would argue that the necessary concept is choosing to be Good. God could not be God without being Good so He must be Good to be God, so this appears that Goodness is necessary to the being of God, but God could not be God if His will were not completely sovereign, this means He must choose Goodness and so the actual necessary statement is "God cannot be God unless He chooses to be Good" which is followed by "God chooses to be Good and so He wills Himself to be God."
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/
News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6087
In my humble opinion, Craig does an excellent job of answering a well-stated and thoughtful question presented to him by a Christian. In fact, I believe the questioner does a nice job of capturing some of Puri’s concerns. Here is how “Matt” the questioner states one of the issues:
It would be the difference between saying, “God is necessarily good simply because” and “God is perfectly good because He always chooses the good.” God could choose to be a malevolent, injurious, cosmic dictator but he has freely chosen not to be. His choices to love and do good in the midst of His freedom to do otherwise is essentially His glory. Does not a necessary moral nature that must love or must do the good as opposed to choose the good ultimately strip God of virtue and glory that can only be identified with a will that is free to choose?
Craig then proceeds to courteously respond to Matt’s inquiry. Craig does so using non-technical and contemporary jargon. It is well worth reading. But, it would be my opinion that his response is rooted in Anselm and Aquinas.
A little side-issue: I think—as can be sensed in Craig’s article—this debate has ramifications in regard to the central theological issue dividing Islam and Mormonism from Christianity, as well as, dividing some Christian affiliations from classical orthodoxy (notice above “Matt’s” concern about God’s “glory”). In other words, this debate has bigger implications then we may realize.
Yes it is a good article and yes it does address some of my concerns, but it hinges on this idea that if God could exist as less than God then in some possible world He would exist as such. This is absurd. If God could exist as less than God then one might posit a reality where there is no God, but such a reality would not exist because there would be no God to create it and so we know that God must choose to be Good just as God must will Himself and Himself alone. Everything else is contingent on this.
"God’s nature, like Plato’s Good, is ultimate, but as James discerned in his question, it is not arbitrary. Nor is taking God’s nature as paradigmatic of the Good arbitrary, for He is the greatest conceivable being and it is greater to be the paradigm of goodness than merely to exemplify it."
This is certainly true, but it is greater still for God to choose to be the paradigm of goodness thus making Him greater than Goodness rather than dependent on Goodness. Once again, if God is dependent on Goodness then we should worship Plato's good rather than God because it is greater, but if God chooses Good and so is God by that choice, then He is superior to Good and so worthy of worship over Good.
I should also point out that, while my statements are similar to Matt’s I would say there is a pointed difference. Specifically Matt’s verb tense would indicate temporal consideration. I have tried very hard to refer to God’s choice in the present tense or past perfect indicating the eternal nature of the choice. It isn’t that God looks at each moment and decides to remain good, but rather that this choice is eternal and part of His very nature.
This may be what Matt was trying to get at, but when I read what He said in his final paragraph I saw this distinct difference in the verb tense which seems to indicate continual choices as opposed to eternal choice.
"God Is Not Dead Yet"
"How current philosophers argue for his existence."
William Lane Craig | posted 7/03/2008 10:50AM
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/13.22.html?start=1
I think for God, truth and goodness are essential to God's nature and that by willing himself, He is what he is and cannot be otherwise any more than I can will my eyes to change color. Am I missing something?
by willing Himself He wills Himself to be those things, thus the part of God one might call "will" is the essence or being of God and thus the part of God that is greatest and worthy of all worship and Honor. It is through this part that He also wills everything not necessary to Himself into existence and holds in existence for apart form His continual will things would simply cease to be.
That is my point though, God's being, the most sacred part of Him, must be the most worthy part of Him or it would be appropriate to worship Goodness, or Truth, as many transcendental religions would teach. The greatest Good is not the Goodness of God, but the being of God that wills the Goodness of God.
And I think the being of God IS the Goodness of God (and truth, and light etc.). That is a distinction with a difference in my opinion. God wills himself. He IS those things. Not parts for the being to will but the will itself as being, as all, unity, and simplicity- all in One.
Yes it is a good article and yes it does address some of my concerns, but it hinges on this idea that if God could exist as less than God then in some possible world He would exist as such. This is absurd. If God could exist as less than God then one might posit a reality where there is no God, but such a reality would not exist because there would be no God to create it and so we know that God must choose to be Good just as God must will Himself and Himself alone. Everything else is contingent on this.
●I think what you have stated here in the first part of your comment is precisely Craig’s (and Anselm’s) point—namely, anything less than a deity that is Supreme would not be God. However, God does not “choose to be Good.” I will address this below.
You wrote: I did say that God could be less than God, aka not God. Even Thom here has said "God must will only Himself" which means that God might not have willed Himself and so might not be. This would be to choose less that good though because to exist is better than to not exist.
●The way that you describe God’s aseity (His self-existence) is to make it contingent. However, God is a necessary being. His willing of Himself is not subject to contingency. It just is. It is not subject to choice. In short, you are anthropomorphizing God. When we say “God must will only Himself” it is a crude way of analogically communicating that He is the Necessary Being of whom there is no beginning and no end. Additionally, God could not will Himself into existence--if He had to will Himself into existence (which is not possible because it is an essential impossibility), He would not be the GCB.
By the way, when you say that “God might not have willed Himself and so might not be” you fall into Anselm’s logical “trap” found in his ontological argument for God. In other words, because it is impossible for a GCB to come into existence, when you say “God might not have willed Himself” you are simply describing A) an impossibility and B) a being that could not possibly be God—the GCB.
You wrote: Now if we say that God must will Himself, then we begin to wonder what makes God will Himself. Is there some greater law, the law of goodness?, that makes God to will Himself? Again we come to the idea that Goodness must then be greater than God and so more worthy of worship because Goodness actually causes God to be…Thom and PB, this again leads me to the idea that for God to will Himself He must choose Goodness or He would be less than God, but it is still a choice making Him greater than Goodness itself even though He embodies Goodness so to speak…By willing Himself to be God He also chooses to be Good.
●Here you are essentially defining goodness as a virtuous behavior. As Craig points out in his article, God is like the “real orchestra” that is playing a symphony. Stereo systems that closely approximate the actual sound of the orchestra can be termed “high fidelity.” The systems are “high fidelity” because—by their activity—demonstrate an approximation to the “real” sound of the orchestra. God is good like the orchestra is the sound that the systems approximate. The orchestra is not approximating anything—it just is the thing the stereo systems are approximating. There is no standard of “good” outside of God Himself. He is goodness itself. All things in God are one and the same thing and His goodness is Himself. On the other hand, by approximating God’s goodness through virtuous choices, we demonstrate moral goodness. We are not “essentially” good.
●Again, God’s willing of Himself is not subject to contingency. It is not a choice.
You wrote: I am on a diet and know I cannot have them and so I don't. I know I could but I don't. Is it weakness in overcoming my desire?
●God does not and cannot have any desire to do a privation. Craig ably explains this.
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The thought keeps occurring to me, if God is Truth and God is Good and God is Eternal and Immutable, how is it that there is anything to choose from? God is. How can he choose to be other than what he is? Isn't it essential in the same way that my eye color is fundamentally fixed. It is what it is and they will always be blue. The essential nature of something isn't something that can be optional, like a habit or behavior, that one can change by force of will.
I think you've nailed the first 14 questions in the Summa.
God is. That means that there is no potential in God only existence. God cannot will himself to be anything other than what He is because He is...existence itself.
Likewise, God's simplicity means that God's will is His existence is His goodness is His love is His perfection, etc. If we believe that God could will himself to be other than He is, then we would be saying that God is something other than perfect and perfect existence itself.
I think for God, truth and goodness are essential to God's nature and that by willing himself, He is what he is and cannot be otherwise any more than I can will my eyes to change color. Am I missing something?
Yes, except that the analogy to your changing your eye colors is a weak analogy to the way that God exists as radical being itself.
You could change your eye color through contact lenses. If you changed your eye color, presumably you would be changing your eye color to something that you thought was better or more fitting. Your will would be moving you to act toward a good as you perceived it in your never-ending quest to achieve perfection by converting a potential good into an actual good.
But God is existence itself. He is pure actuality itself. He is actual existence itself. There is no potential for God to become better by converting a potential good into an actual good because He is perfect actual existence without potentiality. (Period! Paragraph!)
“If we believe that God could will himself to be other than He is, then we would be saying that God is something other than perfect and perfect existence itself.”
In other words, it is logically possible to conceive that god could sin, but this god would not be the greatest conceivable being we know and experience from scripture.
Thanks for a spot-on summation, Peter!
Ahhh....the light begins to dawn...
I was looking at the issue from Thomas' idea of good as pure "actuality" without "potentiality," which comes from the metaphysical idea that God is "simple" and pure existence.
But...obviously...Anselm's definition of God - "that than which nothing greater can be thought" - is another way of saying the same thing.
In fact, if we accept Anselm's definition - which we really have to accept - then we end up with divine simplicity and God as pure actuality without potentiality because, as you point out, there could be something greater.
*Slaps hand to forhead and experiences 'brain rush' *
Cool.
Thanks for pointing out how Anselm is "convertible" to Aquinas.
Regarding Anselm’s definition and divine simplicity, I don’t have a good comment, only a link to Plantinga because simplicity commitments aren’t easy.
http://www.quodlibet.net/plantinga.shtml
Many thanks again, Peter!
http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1174411723.shtml
I’m honestly surprised that you haven’t' moved on. Things have been hectic for me. My mother-in-law was visiting and my son got to come home from the hospital so I got way behind at church. I have just pulled even so I could get back into blog land.
Anyways, I haven't really had time to think through what has been written so I'll need to look it over. I did want to say this.
I don't dispute that God cannot become better. I would even say that God cannot become less. He is eternal and so His choices are eternal. As such we can consistently trust that goodness and mercy flow from Him more surely that we can know the sun will rise and set.
I still believe that God must be able to choose. My reason for this is God could have made us so perfectly moral that the idea of choice was less than us. If He exists that was then He could have made us that way. Such a state would be better than a state where we can choose less than God because such a state results in evil. If God is better because He cannot choose less then we are worse by being able to choose less. This seems apparent but I must be missing something here because you don't see it even when I present a step by step logical progression.
I understand what Aquinas and Anselem have said on this but I'm still missing the part where it is better for man to choose but God is better yet, and so we were in fact created imperfect so that evil would be chosen ... That is what I'm taking away at this point which does make God the author of evil by proxy.
For all who have time, read William Lane Craig’s latest Q&A response—It’s a goodie.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=q_and_a
Peace!
J
When you talk about choice, I think there's a fundamental distinction in how we must understand that term as it applies to God vs His creations. You used the word "imperfect" as applied to His creations, whereas I would view them as limited. Only God is perfect and He can only be who He is which is without limitation. We can't chose to completely not be either, but we can chose to shape ourselves within the limitations of our creation. Note the constraint of the limitation of our creation, which is God's prerogative. God's choice is in His expression of the limited as creation. Our choice acts within that. To constrain our choices to moral goodness only is to limit the goodness of the ability to chose. That limitation is greater than its consequences for both God and us.
There is a difference between limitation and imperfection. My dog is limited but perfect. He is perfectly a dog and is not less than or greater than a dog in any way. Dogs are made this way. They have limitations but those limitations are what make them dogs and they do not create evil and so those limitations are perfect as well because they allow the dog to be perfect as a dog.
Now humans are perfectly human, but they can do evil because of their limitation, this is imperfect if humans could have been created with perfect morals. We would always choose good over evil so the question of freewill would be more difficult, but there would be no evil.
Of course, this is addressed by the notion that our free moral choice is dependent on having the actual ability to choose less than good, which is better than being created with perfect morals that would negate any free choice we might have with regards to morals, but not regarding non-moral issues. We would still have the choice of eating a banana for breakfast or a waffle, but the concept of stealing breakfast would be so foreign that it wouldn't even enter our heads.
God is the gold standard of perfect and complete goodness. Created things are limited reflections of what He possesses completely. Goodness might be viewed as possessing being in more or less fullness. Creatures that have the ability to shape/limit themselves through their choices possess a greater expression of being than those that do not and are thus inherently better. Within those that do possess this ability, there is a wide range goodness defined by how well the ability is expressed in its choices. As bad as Hell is, it's better than annihilation or better than being a rock. All creation reflect God's glory in some way or another.