Philosophy of Religion

God and the Laws of Logic. Archetypal Ectypal Model vs Theistic Conceptual Realism Model

The Theistic Conceptual Realism Model view of relationship between God and logic

The Archetypal Ectypal Model view of relationship between God and logic

Key:
AEM = Archetypal-Ectypal Model.
TCRM = Theistic Conceptual Realism Model
ATSC = Archetypal Trinitarian Self Coherence
I = ‘‘l’’ refers to the laws of logic as we know it, an accommodated form of the ectypal laws of thought in God’s mind
————- Continue reading “God and the Laws of Logic. Archetypal Ectypal Model vs Theistic Conceptual Realism Model”

Herman Bavinck Archetypal-Ectypal Model of Knowledge and True Theology. BB003

Divine revelation is the foundation of true knowledge of God
For Herman Bavinck, the only adequate foundation for human knowledge of God is God’s self-disclosure. Without divine revelation, human knowledge remains speculative and distorted by finitude and sin. Divine revelation bridges the knowledge gap between God and man, but what is the relationship between knowledge in God and knowledge that is revealed to us? Continue reading “Herman Bavinck Archetypal-Ectypal Model of Knowledge and True Theology. BB003”

Herman Bavinck’s Metaphysics of Knowledge. BB002

Herman Bavinck’s Metaphysics of Knowledge. BB002

Knowledge beyond the Immanuel Kant’s Bounds of Pure Reason
“Pure reason” refers to Immanuel Kant’s idea of the faculty of reason operating independently and applying a priori concepts or innate forms and categories of thought to impose order to makes sense of sensations received from the world. Effectively, the mind becomes the measure and bounds of all knowledge. But we can never be sure if there is correspondence between the structured experience in mind and reality outside the mind. Kant’s conclusion is that there is an unbridgeable gap between what the mind perceives with its constructed concepts and representations (phenomena) and the world or the things-in-themselves (noumena).

Herman Bavinck agrees with Kant that the mind plays a determinative role for all meaningful experience but Bavinck argues that Kant’s epistemological dualism undermines knowledge altogether. “For, says idealism [Kant], if a thing and the representation of a thing are two different realities, then we must despair of knowledge of the thing. Since we simply can never test our representation of a thing by the thing itself, we can never step outside of ourselves, of our representational world…We always remain inside the circle of our representations and never come into contact with the thing itself, only with our representation of the thing. Stated differently, only that which is conscious exists for us; I can only think the thought, not the thing itself. That which is not my thought is inconceivable, unknowable to me; it does not exist for me.” [RD 1.216] Continue reading “Herman Bavinck’s Metaphysics of Knowledge. BB002”

In Defence of Secondary Causation Against Occasionalism

So, if created things have no actions productive of effects, it follows that no nature of anything would ever be known through the effect. And thus, all the knowledge of natural science is taken away from us, for the demonstrations in it are chiefly derived from the effect. (Aquinas SCG 3.69.18)

Secondary Causes: Their Relation to the Primary Cause (God)
The Primary Cause (God) is the uncaused cause, the source of all beings and existence.¹ God continues to sustain the universe at every moment to ensure its continued existence and operation.

Secondary Causes like finite living beings and natural forces possess causal powers. For example, fire has the power to heat and a human has to power to make choices and initiate action. Everything must have a cause. A thing’s nature must be caused by another, that is, it is causally dependent on another agent in a chain of causes. Since these agents are dependent, there are accordingly regarded as secondary” causes. This chain of causes operates as an interactive system established by God. However, each “secondary” cause is ultimately dependent on the power of the Primary Cause (God).

What is the relationship between primary cause and secondary cause? The relationship between a craftsman and his tool provides a helpful analogy: The craftsman (God) is the primary cause of the artifact but this does not undermine the genuine role contributed by the tool (secondary cause) in the production of the artifact.

In Defence of Secondary Causation Against Occasionalism
According to occasionalism², created substances do not have intrinsic power of causation to bring about changes or events. There is no secondary causation since all events are directly caused by God. The discussion below defends the necessity of secondary causation by highlighting some weaknesses of occasionalism. Continue reading “In Defence of Secondary Causation Against Occasionalism”

1
“For Scholastics, in order to be caused (whether caused to exist or caused to undergo some change), a thing must in some way be a mixture of act and potency, since to change or come into being is to go from potency to act. But then what is pure actuality and thus devoid of potency not only need not have a cause, but could not have had one. Hence it is false to say that everything has a cause. The principle of causality says that what changes requires a cause, that what comes into being has a cause, that what is composite, contingent or merely participates in being needs a cause, and in general that what goes from potency to act requires a cause. But that is very different from saying that absolutely everything has a cause. When the Scholastic says that God is uncaused, that is not because God is being made an arbitrary exception to a general rule. It is rather because God is taken to be pure actuality, non-composite, non-contingent, and so forth.” Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (editiones scholasticae, 2014), p. 107.
2
Occasionalism was a dominant philosophy school in medieval Islam. Its prominent advocates included Al-Ash’ari (10th C), founder Ash’arite occasionalism and following him, Al-Ghazali (12th C) and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (13th C). According to Islamic occasionalism, what appears to be causal relationships in nature are merely God’s habit (’adah) of creating certain events after others, with no necessary connection between them. “God has decreed as a matter of habit (’adah) that the succession of accidents shall correspond to a certain pattern… But it is clear that God who is the ultimate Agent could alter this course of habit freely.” See Majid Fakhry, Islamic Occasionalism (Routledge, 1958, 2008), p. 30

Bonus Lecture: Thomas Aquinas, Soul’s Powers (Faculties), Cognition & Proof of God’s Existence

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
(1225-1274). Painting attributed to Botticelli, 1481-82.

Video Link – Thomas Aquinas, Soul’s Powers (Faculties), Cognition & Proof of God’s Existence

Contents of Video

Aquinas’ hylomorphism
– Soul and body are distinguishable realities, ‘incomplete substances’; but together they form one substance, the human being.
– The Soul as a Subsisting Form Configuring Matter.
– Soul survives death (contra Aristotle).
– Powers (faculties) of the human soul.

Aquinas on Cognition-Knowledge
– Common sense, phantasia, agent intellect, possible intellect.
– Sensible species, phantasms
– Active intellect & intelligible species, inner word or concept, possible intellect
– Four different stages – the reception of sensible species; their processing into phantasms; the abstraction of intelligible species; and their processing into intellected intentions.

Arguments for Existence of God
– The First Way: God, the Prime Mover
– The Second Way: God, the First Cause
– The Third Way: God, the Necessary Being
– The Fourth Way: God, the Absolute Being
– The Fifth Way: God, the Grand Designer

You can watch the video at
Thomas Aquinas, Soul’s Powers (Faculties), Cognition & Proofs God’s Existence

Forthcoming Uploads – New series of videos on Biblical-Nicene Trinitarianism vs Early Heresies.

Reformed Compatibilist Freedom. Part 2. Harry Frankfurt on Hierarchy of Motives and Free Will

The debate on free will has traditionally focused on how external constraints may prevent us from freely doing what we want to do. In contrast, modern psychology highlights how internal constraints (or drives) such as addictions, phobias and other kinds of compulsive behavior can be even more compelling in determining our actions. Frankfurt introduces several distinctions to our internal constraints or desires in order to shed light on they affect the way we exercise our free will.

(1) First-order desire: “A wants X”, is a desire to perform some action. A desire to eat a mango is a first-order desire; a desire for world peace is not.

(2) Will: a first-order desire which is effective, i.e. which causes one to do what one desires to do. A desire to eat mango is one’s will in Frankfurt’s sense, if that desire brings one to actually eat mango. Continue reading “Reformed Compatibilist Freedom. Part 2. Harry Frankfurt on Hierarchy of Motives and Free Will”

Reformed Compatibilist Freedom. Part 1. Critique of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities by Harry Frankfurt

A. Definitions
1) Determinism: Determination is, intuitively, the thesis that, given the past and the laws of nature, there is only one possible future. [Van Inwagen, Essay on Free Will (Oxford UP, 1983), p. 65] In theological terms, an event (such as choice or action), is determined, that is, it must occur because there are sufficient conditions for its occurrence obtained earlier by the decrees of God.

The two major contending positions in the debate on determinism and free will are:
Compatibilism is the idea that there is no conflict between determinism and free will.
Incompatibilism is the idea that determinism rules out free will.

2) The principle of alternative possibilities (PAP)
PAP: A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise.

PAP has been at the centre of current debates about free will and moral responsibility. Harry Frankfurt, an accomplished philosopher observes: “Practically no one, however, seems inclined to deny or even to question that the principle of alternate possibilities (construed in some way or other) is true. It has generally seemed so overwhelmingly plausible that some philosophers have even characterized it as an a priori truth. (p. 1).

B. PAP Argument Against Determinism (Predestination)
Critics against predestination (as a form of causal determinism) contend that (1) causal determinism rules out free will or our ability to do otherwise. Then, they conclude via (PAP) that (2) causal determinism is inconsistent with moral responsibility.

Argument Part 1
1. If someone has free will, then he is able to do otherwise.
2. If determinism is true, then he is no able to do otherwise.
3. Therefore, if determinism is true, he does not have free will.

Argument Part 2
P1 A person’s act is free and morally responsible if and only if that person could have done otherwise. (PAP).
P2 Predestination teaches that no one could have done otherwise than what he is predestined to do.
P3 Predestination is inconsistent with moral responsibility (given PAP).
C1: Predestination is not true.

The subtext of this argument is that predestination cannot be true since it undermines human moral responsibility by denying free will and makes God culpable for the sins of his creatures.
Continue reading “Reformed Compatibilist Freedom. Part 1. Critique of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities by Harry Frankfurt”

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Conclusion. Part 7(b)/7

Concluding Argument for Divine Omniscience and Exhaustive Foreknowledge of God The Open Theist argues that if God’s foreknowledge is exhaustive, then all human action will be necessarily actualized since God’s ‘beliefs’ about future events cannot be falsified. But this would make it impossible to hold humans responsible for their acts if they cannot but act … Continue reading “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Conclusion. Part 7(b)/7”

Concluding Argument for Divine Omniscience and Exhaustive Foreknowledge of God

The Open Theist argues that if God’s foreknowledge is exhaustive, then all human action will be necessarily actualized since God’s ‘beliefs’ about future events cannot be falsified. But this would make it impossible to hold humans responsible for their acts if they cannot but act necessarily. We must choose between God’s exhaustive foreknowledge and libertarian human freedom. However, the undeniable fact of life is contingent human action. The logical recourse is to reduce significantly, if not decisively, the scope of divine foreknowledge to preserve human freedom.

The Open Theist’s argument is premised on a false dilemma that one must choose between the ‘necessities’ of divine foreknowledge and contingent libertarian freedom. Continue reading “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Conclusion. Part 7(b)/7”

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Supplementary Reading on Necessary and Contingent Cause and Effect. Part 7(a)/7

The purpose of this post is to clarify the conceptual categories and the finely balanced relationship between necessity and contingency underlying the Reformed doctrine of meticulous providence and human freedom. I. Distinction between Natural and Free Causes Reformed Scholaticism frames the relation between God as the Creator and the world as his creation by using … Continue reading “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Supplementary Reading on Necessary and Contingent Cause and Effect. Part 7(a)/7”

I. Distinction between Natural and Free Causes
Reformed Scholaticism frames the relation between God as the Creator and the world as his creation by using ontological concepts like cause and effect. A further distinction is made between subjects with attributes of freedom (free causes) and subjects without that quality (natural causes).

A cause produces an act, and either the act or the state of affairs brought forward by the act is called the effect.

A natural cause is of such a nature that it could produce only one kind of act. Hence, it is called a necessary cause. Example, fire always burns and animals are driven by instincts.
A free cause is able to act variously at different times and structurally at one and the same moment. The effect of free causes are contingent or free. Continue reading “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom: Supplementary Reading on Necessary and Contingent Cause and Effect. Part 7(a)/7”

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. Part 6/7 – Distinction Between Necessity of the Consequent and Necessity of the Consequence –

I. The purpose of this article is to show that the Open Theist’s argument against divine foreknowledge is flawed because it fails to distinguish between “the necessity of the consequent” and“the necessity of the consequence”. We begin with some clarifications of the terms that are crucial to our discussion: Things are contingent of which it … Continue reading “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. Part 6/7 – Distinction Between Necessity of the Consequent and Necessity of the Consequence –”

We begin with some clarifications of the terms that are crucial to our discussion:

Things are contingent of which it is possible that they are or are not.
Things are necessary of which it is impossible that they are not.

A necessary proposition is a proposition that could not possibly have been false, whose negation is impossible as this would entail a contradiction in reality. For example, it is necessary that 2 + 2 = 4. Philosophers describe a necessary proposition as one that true in all possible worlds.

A contingent proposition is a proposition that is not necessarily true or necessarily false (i.e. whose negation does not entail a contradiction in reality). An example of a contingent proposition is the proposition that human beings must be born on earth. A contingent proposition is one that is true in some possible worlds and not in others.

II. We recall the Open Theist argument:
1. An omniscient God knows all true propositions, past present and future. That is he holds no false beliefs (future propositions).
2. If God foreknows John will do X at 9 pm tomorrow, then John must do what God foreknows he will do. Continue reading “Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom. Part 6/7 – Distinction Between Necessity of the Consequent and Necessity of the Consequence –”