Necessitarianism

This is the first time in a long time I don’t feel as though I have writer’s block. I have had no shortage of topics on my mind, and as if I didn't have enough to blog about, Drake Shelton has written a response to an excursion I wrote on what Gordon Clark called necessitarianism, which he accepted by the time he wrote The Trinity after having previously rejected it. Even as Trinitarianism has become clearer to me in the past several months – thanks in part to Drake – this remains one fundamental issue on which I have been unable to agree with him. This is what I wrote that Drake is responding to in his post:

Finding Scriptures which deal with this issue will require consideration of logical implications, for to my knowledge there is no explicit passage which addresses it. My current response would be that nothing which occurs is unnecessary, for that would imply, as Clarke wishes to avoid, that God’s will is arbitrary. Sure, on the assumption that there are multiple possible worlds, God may have a reason for instantiating some particular possible world, but as on Clarke’s view such a reason would not be necessary, it would still be arbitrary. I may as well ask what God’s reason was for choosing His reason for creating this possible world over against any other reason capable of being chosen which might have led to the instantiation of another possible world, and there could be no answer because the reason itself was chosen arbitrarily. There are, however, several objections to my own position – some made by Clarke and others I have received from those who are in most other respects in agreement with my Trinitarian views – so I will try to address them in a short amount of space.

Clarke thinks the idea that something can be willed necessarily is a contradiction in terms. Thus, he, Athanasius, and others dichotomize that which is willed from that which is a “necessity of nature.” But I do not find his reasons for saying so persuasive: he mentions that I might as well say that a man’s heart beats by his will, the sun rises by man’s will, and a balance which turns necessarily turns by its will. These are just examples of what a proof by example fallacy looks like. What Clarke rather ought to have done is define what it means “to will” or “to choose” or “to act.” As a Calvinist, I don’t have any problem with a definition of these terms which excludes the notion of freedom of contrariety – the ability to have willed, chosen, or acted differently than one did. In fact, freedom of contrariety itself presupposes a definition of willing, choosing, and acting. I would define these words in terms of the mind’s volitional selection, determination, or performance.

Where the line is between providing mere synonyms and providing a clear metaphysical definition can be challenging, but in any case, I am in no worse a position than Clarke, who must also define these terms. Until he does, the burden of proof is on him to explain why necessity is mutually exclusive with will. Anyway, I don’t suppose Sean will have any issue with my explanation, as this is entirely consistent with Gordon Clark’s view 1) that God’s existence is necessary yet by His eternal will and choice, and 2) that the generation of the Son is voluntary and necessary like creation (see his chapter on Eternal Generation in The Trinity).

This last remark brings me to the objection from the other side to my position, viz. my thinking creation is necessary as well as the Son and Spirit. Whereas Sean thinks I bring the Son and Spirit down to the level of creation by making the them contingent – a counter which backfires, as [I would hope] Sean would not say the person[al property] of the Son is created even though he holds that the person[al property] of the Son is contingent – the objection here is that I raise the creation to the level of divinity (see here and here for examples).

Now, I admit I have perhaps missed some solution which would resolve the tension between an unnecessary creation and a seemingly arbitrary God, but if so, I have not encountered it. It seems easier for me to explain why a necessary creation is not divine than it is to explain why an unnecessary creation is not arbitrary. As I understand it, the reason there is an objection to the idea that who the Father is determines everything He wills is that such means the Son, Spirit and creation all originate from the Father in the same way. I suspect the argument is that since “like causes like,” one whose nature is divine must, if He acts according to a “necessity of nature,” cause another with a divine nature.

But I do not see why this needs to be the case. The nature or person of the Father may determine His causation of this possible world as well as the Son and Spirit, but I assert that creation is not consubstantial with the Father because the Father did not [and, therefore, could not on my view have willed to] communicate His nature to creation. Thinking about this question recently, I found myself asking: is divine nature communicated to the Son and Spirit because they are eternally begotten and spirated, or are the Son and Spirit said to be eternally begotten and spirated because the divine nature is communicated to them? If the latter is possible, then is this not a reasonable answer as to why the necessity of creation would not imply consubstantiality with its Creator?

Drake responds:

We have already discussed this. Your use of “unnecessary” is ambiguous. You could mean a necessity of God’s nature or of a necessity extending from the eternality of his will. (link). I think you are still stuck in the dialectic between a necessity of nature and an arbitrarity.

That is, he wants to know, when I speak of “multiple possible worlds” or of the “necessity” of creation, whether I am speaking with reference to what is possible and necessary to God according to His nature or possible and necessary to God according to His will. On Drake's view, that which is necessary according to God’s nature is also necessary according to His will. But that which God wills is not necessarily necessary according to His nature, though there may be some other meaning according to which it may be called necessary, a point I will turn to momentarily. To answer, though, I was questioning whether there are other possible worlds that God could have instantiated according to His nature or if this actual world is the only possible world and, thus, necessary for Him to will as well.

Now, in our last discussion, Drake agreed that “what God wills must be agreeable to His nature.” But, as I just mentioned, he also said he doesn’t think that God’s nature determines everything He wills. His nature prescribes the boundaries of what can be willed in all cases, but it does not determine what must be willed in all cases. In that case, the argument I outline in the above paragraphs is little different than what it was then:

The divine will is atemporal. We agree. It’s logically contingent on the divine nature. We agree. The only problem, as I see it, is that on your position, no answer can be given as to why the divine will instantiated this “world” (or reality) over against another “world” which would have similarly been agreeable to the divine nature. There must be some other “world” agreeable to the divine nature on your view, or else this world would have been necessary, a point to which you strenuously object. I believe last time we established that another such “world” would have been one in which God didn’t create. That would be, you said, consistent with the divine nature. Then again, I pointed out it would be mutually exclusive with this “world” because only in the latter is it true that “God created.”

Now, you can say the divine will was eternal or atemporal, but I don’t think that isn’t relevant because you’ve already agreed that it’s nevertheless logically contingent on the divine nature, a divine nature which, since it doesn’t “direct and regulate” which of the two (or more) “worlds” which are agreeable to it are to be instantiated by the logically contingent divine will, there can never be any answer as to why the divine will instantiated this “world” over against the other which would have similarly been agreeable to the divine nature. This is why the instantiation of this “world” must have been arbitrary relative to any other “world” which would have been agreeable to the divine nature. This is why I say that on your view, the divine will is arbitrary. Anything you could adduce as a reason for God’s instantiation of this “world” (e.g. “for His glory”) could without exception have been adduced as a reason for the other.

Drake replied that “The will is eternal which makes the question meaningless.” I strongly disagree. My argument is effective as long as God’s will is logically contingent on His nature. This is exactly what Drake admits when he says that “what God wills must be agreeable to His nature.” True, there is no chronological or temporal lapse between that which is possible for God to effect by His nature and that which He eternally chooses to effect; there is, however, a logical priority. Because there is such a priority, the question is begged as to why, if God could have instantiated some other world or reality agreeable to His nature, He rather willed to instantiate this one. What was His reason? Drake replies:

The word “reason” can be replaced by the word “basis” and as we have discussed many times there are two of those in God: nature and will. So yes you could ask what was the basis of his eternal will, and I would respond, the agreeability of his nature.

I am afraid the point has been missed. If I ask what the basis or reason is that, given that world A (in which God creates) and world B (in which God never creates) are both agreeable to His nature, God chose to instantiate world A rather than world B, the answer “it was agreeable to His nature” doesn’t suffice. For world B would also have been agreeable to His nature. The arbitrarity objection stands.

Drake does mention that there are two “reasons” or “bases” in God, but He doesn’t elaborate as to what that means. What does it mean for God to have a reason according to His nature, how is it distinguished from His having a reason according to His will, and in what way does his answers to these questions solve the problem of seeming arbitrariness (i.e. God’s choosing of world A which is no more or less agreeable to His nature than world B would have been)? Drake continues:

You think that necessities are only necessities of nature. I have affirmed that a necessity can also extend from the eternality of God’s will and thus openly deny that creation is arbitrary, thus denying any other possible world, while also denying that it is a necessity of divine nature.

Firstly, I have to wonder what was the point of the previous questions designed to determine whether I was speaking of necessity “according to nature” or necessity “according to will” when it is apparent he already knew I was speaking about the former.

More importantly, how is the will of God necessary if it is not necessitated by His nature? It would seem more precise to say that the will of God necessitates, not that it is itself necessarily necessitated. This is very important, because my objection pertains to the latter, not the former. God’s will may be some times be necessitated – such as in the communication of divinity to the Son and Spirit – but it is not always necessitated.  But my argument is that the fact that the will is not always necessitated is why it is sometimes arbitrary. The fact that it necessitates whatsoever is willed is irrelevant.

As a side point of clarification, the points regarding man’s heartbeat, the sunrise, and the turn of a balance were related to Samuel Clarke’s argument that what is necessary is mutually exclusive with what is willed. I had quoted his argument earlier in my article, which was why I mentioned it then. Drake does not believe the two are mutually exclusive, so there is no reason to further pursue this particular line of dialogue.

So much for the responses to my criticisms. Now Drake offers a few criticisms of his own. Firstly, he thinks that my assertion that there are not multiple possible worlds agreeable to God’s nature implies “a conflation of activity, essence and existence. This is ADS.” But this is not an argument. The Father possesses distinct attributes whether or not creation is necessary according to His nature, and these divine attributes, while they determine His activity, are distinct from it. A definition of “existence” will need to be provided before I can reply further.

In response to my question, “is divine nature communicated to the Son and Spirit because they are eternally begotten and spirated, or are the Son and Spirit said to be eternally begotten and spirated because the divine nature is communicated to them?” Drake replies:

The former. The emanation is the basis of the communication, in the genus of relation. The latter makes the emanation arbitrary and ad hoc. WE may have here encountered the Hegelian Dialectic. In order to avoid an arbitrary God, you are forced to have an arbitrary God.

I don't particularly like the language of emanation, though I understand what he means: it is the genus of which spiration and begetting are species. Regardless, why does Drake think that “the Son and Spirit [are] said to be eternally begotten and spirated because the divine nature is communicated to them” suggests arbitrarity? I stated the existences of the Son and Spirit are necessary in any case, so if everything God wills is to maximize the manifestation of His glory, and the Father has communicated divinity (and individuating properties) to two other subjects, the logical conclusion is that this communication is willed for His glory, which is clearly not ad hoc. There are too many unexplained gaps for me to be expected to follow these arguments.

His last argument, stated here, explains why he thinks that it is necessary to maintain that creation is not necessary according to God’s nature, and this, unless I am mistaken, is supposed to show why that which is derived by a necessity of nature is that to which the divine nature is communicated. Essentially, the argument is that if creation is necessary according to God’s nature, such makes God’s nature dependent on creation, which is pagan.

But dependent in what sense? In my article on Clarke, Drake made the point – with which I agree – that the property of Fatherhood logically depends on the Son. The Father cannot be the Father unless there is a Son, which is no problem since the Son has always existed. But this isn’t pagan, is it? The Son metaphysically depends on the Father, yet the Father too in some sense depends on the Son. If no deficiency in the Father is implied in this case, then I do not see why, by way of analogy, it may not be said that creation is necessary according to God’s nature so long as it is clarified that any implied dependency doesn’t suggest deficiency. Indeed, creation is from God precisely because God had a reason to create. That this reason is necessary according to His nature rather anticipates any objection that this reason is externally imposed on God. Deficiency is precluded rather than established. God is sufficiently able to effect that which He most strongly desires; the fact that He must do so according to His nature is not because of what creation is but because of who He is. The creation clearly metaphysically depends on the Creator, but it must also be kept in mind that it is the nature of God that determines the nature of creation, not the other way around.

It is rather like epistemology: in epistemology, there are axioms and theorems. In short, axioms are the set of propositions purported to be sufficient in order for knowledge to be possible. They are preconditions for knowledge. Theorems are what can be deduced by means of the axioms. Now, even though our knowledge-claims regarding theorems depends on our being able to deduce them from a source – axioms – the knowledge of the axioms will in some sense depend on the system of theorems they yield. For axioms can be falsified if two theorems they produce are contradictories.

So on the one hand, just as a theorem cannot be known if it is not deducible from some given set of axioms, creation cannot exist if it is not the product of the Creator. The theorems (creation) are determined by the nature of the axioms (God). On the other hand, just as one can use theorems as one means by which to evidence that a set of axioms is not unsound, creation is one means by which to evidence that God is divine. Neither of these are sufficient conditions, but both are necessary conditions. But I will not push the analogy too far.

Finally, none of this implies that the divine nature is communicated to creation if it is necessary according to God’s nature. That only follows if it cannot be the case that “the Son and Spirit said to be eternally begotten and spirated because the divine nature is communicated to them.” I don’t see that this possibility has been refuted.

UPDATE: Drake and I are continuing this discussion here.