Parsimony is a word often associated with William of Ockham, and his Razor. It means "economy of use" or simplicity. Very appropriate, since the Razor aims to simplify thought, whether that thought is strictly "philosophical" or not.
Ockham was a radical. Historically, he had perhaps the strongest view of the power and will of God of any post-apostolic theologian. He even went so far as to say that "If God had commanded His creatures to hate Himself, hatred of God would have been praiseworthy." Whatever or however God acts is good, and all other acts must be judged by His acts.
Yet, ironically, Ockham had a very liberal view of the freedom of the will. Martin Luther went so far as to call him a "Pelagian", although Luther was known to let his words get away from him.
Like so many radicals, Ockham suffered severely for the positions he took. Often overlooked in philosophy textbooks is Ockham's devotion to his beliefs. He didn't just die in poverty, he lived in poverty and died excommunicated and exiled. He was abandoned by his own order as lavish statues and buildings "dedicated" to St. Francis were erected. The "Invincible Doctor" spent much of 1327 in prison, and the next two decades in exile. A Munich parking garage has a plaque that identifies his burial place.
My own geography allows me to survey contemporary theologians, and even survey surveys of contemporary theologians. They all have a small god. Ockham said that God can do ANYTHING. Nothing is impossible for God. God CAN make a square circle, even if men can't imagine it.
Today men like to temper their theology with some blurry combination of Aristotle, Plato, and Jonathan Edwards. "Goodness" is God's "nature" (as if God was in any way, "natural"). God won't/can't do what they don't think He will because He is bound/driven by His own personality, they say. Many go so far as to say God will never break the rules of logic, multiplicity of Biblical miracles where God broke the rules of physics/nature/metaphysics (Incarnation?) notwithstanding.
Could God duplicate Himself? I ask. No no, of course not, they say, Triune Godhead notwithstanding.
Could God commit suicide? I ask. No no, of course not, it's not in His "nature", they say. Everyone knows suicide is always wrong, crucifixion notwithstanding.
Now to be sure, the crucifixion was not exactly like suicide nor is the Trinity exactly like duplication. Instead they are even more mysterious, more supernatural, and more non-logical than either suicide or duplication.
Ockham's answers to these questions were unlike his contemporaries and mine, and he suffered greatly as a result. The "Invincible Doctor" had an answer for everyone who challenged him: God is always bigger and not-God is always smaller.
Ockham's example is useful to those who suffer for righteousness (and although I would like to, presently I do not count my swollen knee as suffering for righteousness: I speak hypothetically here):
My God can beat up your god.
Posted by Jake at December 9, 2003 10:36 PM | TrackBackAhhh, a square circle. It exists in mathematics...at least a square ball does. It is found when, instead of using the distance formula that we are used to, dist=sqrt((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2), which gives a unit ball that is a circle centered at (0,0) (each point on the circle is of distance 1 from the origin), we use the distance formula dist=max{|x2-x1|, |y2-y1|}. Under this distance formula (called a metric) the unit ball centered at (0,0) is a square with corners at (1,1) (1,-1) (-1,1) and (-1,-1). Each point on this square is of distance 1 from (0,0) under this metric. Thus we have a square ball.
I know it's a bit technical, but I thought I'd at least add some input from a subject that I know something about.
Posted by: Toolie at December 10, 2003 01:50 AMFYI, given the definitions of square and circle, even God would have difficulties constructing a square circle without encoutering a contradiciton. Difficulties, but I wouldn't put it past Him.
Posted by: Toolie at December 10, 2003 01:52 AMDifficult? God became man. God died. God came back to life.
God knows all the formulae. (The square ball is kinda cool to think about, though.)
Posted by: Jake at December 10, 2003 08:12 AMOckham's is a more difficult code to live by.
Posted by: Blandus at December 10, 2003 08:34 AMAmen! I agree wholeheartedly. Best post in a long time.
Posted by: Montana at December 10, 2003 09:27 AMNow you tell me: can God make a rock so big He can't lift it???
Posted by: Jake at December 10, 2003 05:55 PMOf course not, Jake.
Posted by: David Talcott at December 14, 2003 10:46 PMYou missed it, David . . . didn't we talk about this once before? Over breakfast?
Posted by: Jake at December 16, 2003 03:39 PMBreakfast...hrmm....don't quite remember...do remember your suburban late at night headed eastward, though.
A few more quick comments, since this thread is still active. Of course God can't do some things, right? I mean, the idea that "God is always bigger" is a crazy philosopher's pipe-dream (Though I do believe that God is as big as any being could ever be--he is the measure of possibility space!!!!). I have 14 more pages to write by 5 oclock, so I don't have the exact references, but I recall that there are at least two things God can't do. There's the James passage where God can't "change" (and then we fight about what that means) and there's another, OT?, which says God cannot lie, or deceive. Ok, so there's at least 2 things God cannot do. Read, cannot. Further, even if there's nothing he cannot do, then that's his nature, right? So, away with you, Ockham! For further fun reading on this you can look up a little book by Plantinga called "Does God have a Nature?", about 1969 I think, though, I got dibs on the next first edition that shows up on Abebooks.com(what a glorious website). Do Baptists read other books than the Bible???
BTW--my wife and I loved your cinnabon entry, very hilarious.
BTW2--I've started my own blog...I think there are some interesting posts on it already at talcott.blogspot.com perhaps you could check it out and possibly link to it since your blog seems to be a veritable center of the Hillsdale blogosphere. Warning, I can get polemical.
DT
Posted by: David at December 17, 2003 08:23 AMOh, God can't lie. That means that Ockham is all wrong. Why didn't I ever think of that? Gee whiz, that proves God has a nature. God lives in bondage to his nature, because he is a natural thing.
Or . . .
Plantinga is laughed at by everyone except evangelical Christians who gleefully think he invaded the "Roman" Notre Dame, God is totally free, and mankind (read: creatures) understand truth through God's actions, not without them.
Do baptists read books other than . . .?!?!?! That was cheap.
Posted by: Jake at December 17, 2003 09:18 AMOuch! Ouch! Ad hominem hurts!
Ockham has lots of interesting things to say, and I appreciate the direction that you're pushing. God is indeed free and indeed owes us nothing. And I subscribe to a revelational epistemology (in most of my moods). Just trying to say it seems eminently plausible that there are things God can't (won't!?) do. And I think this is so because He is so great--it's His lack of defects that implies some limits.
Oh, and BTW, those Evangelical Christians should be just as gleeful over George Marsden (who's a hoss). Oh, and also, any school where the philosophy department has to go down to the religion department and remind them that God exists is perhaps no "bastion" for Rome. (oooooo-feel the ad hominem! feel it burn!)
DT
--thanks for the link, much appreciated.
Posted by: David at December 17, 2003 11:06 AMGrrrr . . . we will revisit this.
Posted by: Jake at December 20, 2003 11:48 PM
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Theology
The doctrine of God
Classical theism, the reigning doctrine of God in Christendom, affirms that God is void of body, parts, passions, even compassion, wholly simple, wholly immutable, independent, immaterial, the supreme cause and never the effect. What creatures have, God does not. I challenge this doctrine, on four grounds.
First, I find it unbiblical. Now, in so saying, I realize the Bible is not a book on metaphysics. God's salvific revelation occurs in history, not nature. Nevertheless, I feel Scripture implies a metaphysic wholly other than that found in classical theism. Granted, many biblical passages speak of God as immutable. But wait a sec, many others do in fact speak of God as changing (e.g., Hosea 11:8, Amos 7:3, Jeremiah 18:8, Exodus 32:14). Indeed, the prophets function so as to alter the operations of YHWH's will. Malachi 3:5-7 is often taken to be an affirmation of a wholly immutable God ("I, the Lord, change not"). But this is followed up by saying, "Return to me, that I might return to you." Taken together, these passages mean, at least to me, that God enjoys a fixity of purpose, and in that fixity, does not vary. But rather than denying change, such fixity insists upon it. Hence, if we change in such-and-such a way, then God, too, will change in an appropriate manner. And thre biblical metaphors for God are all anthropomorphic in nature. God shares the creaturely characteristics of will ,memory, emotion, anger, disappointment, etc. Quarrel all you want with these metaphors, as but a mere concession to our feeble intellects. Still, the fact remains they mean God undergoes changing affective states analogous to pleasure and displeasure, in ourselves. If these metaphors do not fit the reality of God, then they are useless and should be dropped. The Incarnation, if it is at all revelatory of God, reveals his general MO with creation. God is incarnate throughout the entire universe, which functions as his body. And the biblical predication of God is genereally relative predication. It's hard to be a creator, without a creation; a king, without subjects, a father, without children; a lover, without someone to love.
Secondly, there is the matter of epistemology. Knowledge, I think, demands two things. First, we must generalize from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Secondly, knowledge, real knowledge, is empathy, a knowing from "within." Now, if there is one "within" I am most familiar with, it is human experience. So, I think that unless there is a genuine analogy, a true likeness, between ourselves all all the rest of reality, from the atom up to God, then we haven't got an inkling what is going on. Now, one major characteristic of human existence is that we are continually changing, evolving. The traditional notion of the "self" as something permanent is a myth. Rather the "self" is best thought of as a name for a society of perishing occasions. Moment to moment, we are different persons. No thinker thinks twice. God, then, I see as the most changeable that there is, the supreme effect as well as cause. And in so saying, I am not overlooking the fact that there is consistency in God. There is an absolute or abstract dimension to God. What God always does. God always seeks to maximize beauty, is always omniscient, empathic, loving. But there is also the matter of the relative nature of God, God in the concrete, God as continually changing. We must, however, be careful not to focus just on the common thread running through various occasions, overlooking their key differences. Well may God always seek to maximize beauty, but what is beautiful in one context or era may not be in another. Well be God always be omniscient; but as new things happen, God's knowledge is increased, if for no other reason than he has moved from knowing X as merely potential to knowing X as a definite, decided matter of fact. Another major characteristic of human existence is that we are social, relational beings that arise out of our relationships. Reality is like a spider's web; you tweek it here and it giggles there. God, then, as I just said, is the supreme effect as well as cause. As much as God creates the universe, the universe creates God. Thirdly, there is the matter of meaning, value, significance. If God is wholly immutable, as classical theism argues, then saint or sinner, it's all the same to him, who remains blissfully indifferent. If nothing can make any real difference in God, then his love and wisdom can make no difference in his decision-making process. But who can put any real faith in such a cold, dehumanizing God? And if God could be just as happy, whole, and complete, without a universe as with one, then why did he bother to create it, in the first place? How would we be anything other than meaningless and insignificant to him? And how could we think of God as loving? Love means, at a minimum, to derive part of the content of your being, from the loved objects. And how could God deliver us from the evil of evils, that the past fades? We acquire satisfactions, only to lose them. So, why bother to do anything, when it's all going to go up in smoke soon enough? If God is wholly immutable, he is, then, helpless to deliver us from this evil. On the other hand, if God is supreme effect, if we can pass our experiences over into God, then everything is of significance because everything is preserved and enjoyed in God's memory forever.
Thirdly, there is the matter of divine transcendence. Classical theism sought to affirm transcendence, but at the price of immanence. God, in Thomism, exists wholly outside of creation, wholly unrelated to anything going on. Hence, we are left with the tragic situation of a world that never really gets into the life of God, because he is not about to react to it, and a God who never really gets into the world, because he would then be affected, conditioned, by it. The universe, then, has meaning only in the negative sense of a kind of holding tank to be escaped from if we are to attain to what is of ultimate value. And Christianity becomes a static, world-negating religion. And then, is God truly transcendent? The classical model of God pictures God and the world as two wholly separate circles that do not intersect. The world of time, change, materiality, contrasted over and against the divine world of immaterial, changeless simplicity. Well then, what do we call the whole of reality, the whole shooting match? Meta-God? Because it seems God is but one limited aspect of some larger, more inclusive whole or reality that includes him and then some. Put another way, classical theism argued that no reality can stand over and against God, on an equal footing, so as to exclude him. But, ironically, that is exactly what calssical theism ended up doing: The whole world of materiality and change is, at best, an anti-God principle, the complete and total antithesis of God's own nature. I think a better solution is to say that God is the chief exemplification of all metaphysical principles. Loosely put, what holds for creatures also hold for God, but to the nth degree. And this huge quantitative difference makes for a qualitative one as well. Everything in the universe is a part of everything else, is incarnate throughout; but only to a very limited degree. We, for example, directly interact with little more than our own brain cells. In sharp contrast, God's body, the universe, is wholly internal to him. Hence, God enjoys an unsurpassably direct and immediate empathic response to any and all creaturely feeling. We are total strangers to sensitivity on this grand of a scale.
Fourthly and finally, there is the matter of what is sometimes called the "monopolar prejudice" of classical theism. Now, it sure seems to me that the church fathers, and many Christians today, set up checklists of seemingly contradictory divine attributers, such as being-becoming, cause-effect, and then go down the list, ascribing only one side to God, the side which squares best with certain Hellenic notions that the "really real" is wholly simple, immaterial, passionless, simple. To me, this is lopsided. Nothing real can be described by reference to only one side or pole, and each pole represents a virtue. If it is good to be independent and not deterred by others, it is also good to be deeply moved and affected by the feelings of others. I think that creation is God's own eternal evolution from unconsciousness into self-consiciouness and seslf-actualization, and I think we should rejoice in the fact we have a genuine significance in the life of God.
Blair Reynolds
Just in case you are curious, I live in Fairbanks, AK, with my wife, Debbie, who is a social worker, and two Cocker (Corker) Spaniels. Due to an overly tight academic market, I have no full-time teaching position. I have a B.A., cum laude, psychology (Muskingum College, 1969), an M.S., clinical psychology (Purdue University, 1972), and a Ph.D., theology (University of Pittsburgh, 1983). I am the author of a number of books, which are available at B and N. Toward a Process Pneumatology, my dissertation, was chosen for publication by Susquehanna University Press, l990. I have two hobbies, which I pursue with real passion. One is playing the trumpet, the other is running a steam locomotive. I am a state-licensed boiler operator and member of the engine crew for No.1, the first locomotive to go to the Yukon, which our group rebuilt and operates. Based on my railroading experiences, I and a co-author wrote Hot Rail! This is an over-the-top farce about an imaginary steam railroad in contemposrary Alaska. It is currently in press with a royalities publisher and should be out next month. Previously, I published a "process novel" entitled One Night in a Strange Blue Light, a dark comedy to make process more understandable to laity. I am forwarding some pix you might find interesting. Blair Reynolds
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Since you seem interested in questions on God as he is in his own nature, I'm sending you some comments I already had posted, giving my own take on this topic. Feel free to write back. Blair Reynolds
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