I often think and write about epistemology. Recently, though, I have been trying to focus more on metaphysics. As a point of departure, I've been reading about God and abstract objects (link), and one position on the relationship between the two (assuming there is one) is that of Greg Welty and James Anderson, a position alternatively labeled as Theistic Conceptual Realism or Divine Conceptualism (link, link, link, link).
There are some objections or areas of critical engagement with this position (link, link) that seem to imply it is (at least) in need of some refinement, but my remarks in this post will have more to say about how strikingly similar the position seems to be, in some respects, to that of Plotinus. Consider the following statement by Anderson (emphases his):
But here’s the key point: none of this requires that divine thoughts have content distinct from those thoughts. The considerations that drive us to distinguish human thoughts from their propositional content simply do not apply to God’s thoughts (although presumably they would apply to other creaturely thoughts, e.g., angelic thoughts). Indeed, in the case of God’s thoughts, we deny that there is any such distinction, because we argue for identity between propositions and divine thoughts. In other words, the propositions that serve as the content of human thoughts (such as the proposition that 2+2=4) just are divine thoughts, precisely because only divine thoughts would have the kind of features (objectivity, necessity, intrinsic intentionality, and so forth) that propositions must have in order to play the roles that we take them to play. (link)
The potential never becomes actual by chance; there must always precede an effective principle to induce actualization. Therefore, above soul one must posit the Divine Mind or, what is the same thing, the world of Ideas. To appreciate the identification of the mind and the objects of thought is difficult for the untutored in any age; to those who are tutored in modern idealism it may be confusing. One should particularly guard against using one’s own mind as an illustration of the Divine Mind and a sense object as an illustration of an object of thought. In Neo-Platonism the objects of mind are not sense objects but concepts, and since the essence of mind is thought, since the Divine Mind is always actual, there cannot be, as in the case of a human mind and a sense object, any separation of the mind from the objects which completely characterize it. Or conversely, suppose that the mind and its objects were not the same, and that the essence of the mind were separable from its thought. On such a supposition the mind would be only potentially intellectual, while in itself it would be unintellectual. Therefore the Divine Mind and its objects, the Ideas, are inseparable. In modern idealism the mind alone is ultimate and its ideas are its creations. But Plotinus writes, “Not by its thinking movement does movement arise. Hence it is an error to call the Ideas intellections in the sense that, upon an intellectual act in this principle one such Idea or another is made to exist.” It is true that the thoughts of the mind are Ideas, but it is untrue that the Ideas exist because the mind thinks them. (Selections from Hellenistic Philosophy, 1940, pg. 228)
A few points:
1) The part is bold seems to be similarly motivated as Theistic Conceptual Realism... with the ironic twist that looks as though Plotinus has "concepts" as the objects of the divine mind, not Anderson and Welty. Perhaps rebranding the position of the latter would be too little, too late - but labelling their view as Theistic Propositional Realism or Divine Propositionalism would be, I think, more appropriate.
2) Can one categorize Anderson's and Welty's position "an Anti-Platonist Alternative" as, for example, Craig does (link)? Is agreement with a Neo-Platonist "Anti-Platonic"? In response to this sort of question, one point is that the Theistic Conceptual Realist has resources (assuming the view itself is coherent and otherwise consistent with Christian theism) to defend a particular view of divine aseity that a strict follower of Plato simpliciter does not. Another point would be that it is not as though Anderson and Welty have the same view of the relationship between God and abstract objects as Plotinus does - their views about God are completely different, as the continuation of Clark's exposition of Plotinus proceeded to demonstrate. For instance, Welty and Anderson would not, I think, identify God with His own mind.
3) Finally, I italicized the last several sentences to show that Plotinus not only anticipates Theistic Conceptual Realism; he also anticipates (and then argues against) Absolute Creationism, a position which holds that God creates abstract objects (such as His own thoughts, link). Plotinus' argument is aimed against TCR as well.
It is interesting that just as Plotinus seemingly formulated his views with this opposing position in mind, so too did Welty formulate "Theistic Conceptual Realism" as a response to "Absolute Creationism." Only, I gather that Welty and Anderson stop short of Plotinus' identification of the divine mind and divine thoughts. Either way, one may hope too that this contemporary reprise of historico-philosophical progression gives leads to another, better Augustine.
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