George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life (Jones)

Jones, Tom.  George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life. Princeton University Press, 2021.

George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, is (in)famous for his view that matter does not exist, or so goes the common understanding.  This biography does not really explore that line.  Tom Jones mentions it, but I think that Jones, who is not a philosopher, realizes the issue is probably beyond his pay grade. He does highlight one metaphysical idea for which he claims is the center of Berkeley’s thought.  It is St Paul’s claim that in God “we live and move and have our being.”  From this one can deduce not only Berkeley’s metaphysics, but also his politics.

Analysis of Berkeley’s ‘Ideas’

For Berkeley, ideas are the regular productions of an organizing intellect.  The object is the idea, overcoming the dualism between idea and object. This represents a tradition that breaks with the earlier epistemology.  As Mortimer Adler noted, older thinkers saw ideas as what one thinks through to the object, not the object itself.

Berkeley is willing to speak of the idea as a thing, but not as a substance.  So far, the idea is passive.    But in this world of ideas we also have “spirits,” having both understanding and will.  The understanding perceives ideas and the will operates about them. In both cases, understanding and willing, they are relations but ideas themselves.

Berkeley introduces another notion, that of Notion.  It is a type of knowledge we have of spirits and relations. The identity of the person consists in the identity of will, with spirits as “fundamentally willing substance.”

The author makes clear he does not share Berkeley’s view of God.  This could mean he does not share Berkeley’s idealism, and that is understandable. I do not think that is what he means.  The “nuts and bolts” of Berkeley’s theology is fairly mainstream among conservative Protestants. I take it the author is agnostic on the existence of God.  In any case, it does not detract from his work.  He genuinely wants to understand why Berkeley believed what he did.

For the author, Berkeley’s metaphysics, theology, and politics represents “a morally committed and politically privileged Anglicanism equally…draw[ing] on his concept of the end of human life as participation in divinity. We participate–literally–in the will of God by “entering into a hierarchical network of obligations, dependencies, and responsibilities.”

“All properties of mind in lower orders of being are derived from the infinite mind, and the true student of nature looks up from the study of the physical world to see that ‘the mind contains all, and acts all, and is to all created beings the source of unity, harmony and order, existence and stability.”

Birth to a New Doctrine

Author’s aim: “this suite of writings [of Berkeley’s] serves a social and religious programme.”

Although his philosophy appears bizarre, Berkeley thought he had good reason for it, grounding it in St Paul’s claim that in God we live and move and have our being.  At this point in the narrative neither Jones nor Berkeley draw an obvious inference: the foundation of all reality is Spirit, namely God’s Spirit, not matter. If Berkeley’s philosophy ultimately proves unworkable, the previous proposition nonetheless remains true.

Skepticism, according to Berkeley: ‘Men thought that real things subsisted without the Mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth real as it was conformable to real Things.’ This seems fairly innocuous, but in the 20th century it would have devastating consequences.

Interesting note: Primary qualities are inseparable from bodies; “secondary qualities are powers of primary qualities.” In other words, according to Berkeley, you cannot “form an idea of these primary…

Passive Obedience and Early Politics

Berkeley’s politics are fairly standard among Anglican Tories, but we should probably gloss what Tory did and did not mean, or perhaps could mean, in the eighteenth century. A Tory could have been a supporter of the Pretender, the exiled Stuart monarch.  As a firm defender of the Church of England, Berkeley was not that.  But there was a new type of Toryism emerging: a defender of the monarchy and the established church as such, often in opposition to mercantile Whigs.

This perhaps strains some of Jones’s analysis: Berkeley’s politics are fairly standard.  There is little need for his metaphysics, at least his idealism, to ground it.  If all one wants is a monarchy and an established church, you do not need to accept Berkeley’s package deal.  But Jones might be arguing for something else:  Berkeley grounds his politics not in his idealism, but in his view from St Paul: In God we live and move and have our being.  From there, no doubt supplied by numerous premises, one can see a subordinated society not unlike Alexander Pope’s vision of a Great Chain of Being. Each link in a chain participates in the one above it.  In Jones’s words, “Participation is by subordination.” It is not without reason that both Berkeley and Jones spend some time discussing Plotinus.

Berkeley Against the Freethinkers

Berkeley, like many conservative churchmen of his day, opposed the rise of skepticism and “free-thinking.”  Unlike other churchmen, he saw them as part of a Roman Catholic plot to destroy Protestant societies.  Although this belief is probably wrong in the specifics, the epistemology of both Jesuits and freethinkers is the same.

Conclusion and Evaluation

Despite Berkeley’s metaphysical notoriety, Jones spends little time on it.  Jones is a student of literature, not philosophy and theology.  Indeed, Jones mentions the doctrine of the Trinity as “three people and one person.”  That was painful to read. Notwithstanding that gaffe, Jones gives us a good picture of the life and world of Bishop Berkeley.

Life’s Ultimate Questions by Ronald Nash

Nash, Ronald.  Life’s Ultimate Questions.

I think I have figured out the problem with “worldview.”  It was originally meant to be used as a tool.  We have turned it into an end-goal.  No, the situation is even worse.  We have turned it into a commodity.  That is why worldview talk today is basically useless.  We hear a lot about how “this is in conflict with a Christian worldview.” Rarely do we hear anything of how belief-forming mechanisms work or exactly why socialism always leads to shortages and gluts. It did not always have to be this way.  There was once a better way to talk about worldview analysis.  Ronald H. Nash offers one such model.

For the moment–maybe forever–let us put aside the term “worldview.”  We will use “system” instead.  Nash argues that the case for or against Christian theism should be made and evaluated in terms of total systems.  A system must meet several tests: the law of noncontradiction, outer experience, internal cohesion, and practice. Could there be more criteria?  Possibly, but the above are a good start.

Naturalism

A naturalist believes “the physical universe is the sum total of all there is.”  

The most intuitive problem with naturalism is the process of reasoning itself.  C.S. Lewis and most recently Alvin Plantinga point out that reasoning exceeds the bounds of nature, or at least it is not clear how biological reactions can create the law of non-contradiction.

Moreover, it seems naturalism reduces to physicalism, and this is a problem.  “If truth, a proposition, or a thought were some physical motion in the brain, no two persons could have the same thought.”

Plato

Nash updates Platonic language by speaking more of sets than forms.  This is a clear gain. We can now rephrase Plato to say “that every class of objects in the physical world has an archetype or a perfect pattern existing in the immutable, eternal, and immaterial world.”  We do not need to accept Plato’s conclusions–indeed, until we get to St. Augustine we are better off not accepting him–but he does provide the reader with a number of conceptual tools.  For example, “An essence is the set of essential properties without which a particular thing like this squirrel or that tree would not exist as a squirrel or tree.”

Plato’s realm of forms is too neat.  It works in some areas but not in others.  For example, “One could not know that a and b are equal unless he already knew the standard, Equal itself.”  We know universals prior to the particular.  Unfortunately, finding out how this knowledge arrives leads to some problems, namely reincarnation.

Aristotle

Our discussion of Aristotle will turn mainly on his definitions of terms, since much of Aristotle will be repeated in Aquinas. Nash summarizes Aristotle’s view of substance as “any given thing that exists or has being.” A substance is composed of matter and form, the latter being the “set of essential properties that makes it the kind of thing it is.”

An essential property is a property of x, which if it lost, x would cease to be x. A common property “is any property that  human beings [for example] typically possess without also being essential.”  For example, the property of having ten toes is common, but not essential.

Plotinus

Of all the ancient philosophers, Plotinus is easily the most interesting and most powerful.  

Main idea: the One necessarily expands downward.  The next level is the Nous, or the One’s thinking.  Then there is soul, and finally bodies or matter.

The One is so “one-ish” that attributing any property to it compromises its unity.  As Nash notes, “If we say ‘The One is x,’ we introduce dualism into the One via the distinction between subject and predicate.” Even saying the One is unknowable does not help, for already we seem to know quite a few things about the One.

If this One is “God,” then how do we relate to it?  As best one (sorry!) can tell, you can only relate to it by some mystical catching up into it.

Plotinus’s universe

Is Matter evil for Plotinus?  No.  It would be a mistake to call him a Gnostic.   Matter does represent some sort of fall in being, but that means it is less good rather than evil.

Augustine

Although much of this is familiar material, Nash has some helpful charts for explaining Augustine’s thought. Nash does a fine job explaining, for example, Augustine’s epistemology.  It is more than simply “faith seeking understanding.” It is illumination.  It is a correlation of being and knowing.

Illumination: God, Soul, and Sun

In a familiar metaphor, Augustine believes “God is to the soul what the sun is to the eye. God is not only the truth in, by, and through whom all truths are true….He is also the light in, by, and through whom all intelligible things are illumined.”

Aquinas

I am going to skip much of this thought.  Although presuppositionalists have done a uniformly terrible job at explaining Aquinas, Nash seems to get it right.  

The Law of Non-contradiction

Simply put, A cannot be B and ~B at the same time and in the same relationship.  

So far, so good.  B represents the class of all dogs (or humans).  Non-B is its complement, everything else in the universe that is not a dog. Nash explains by way of a lengthy quote from Gordon Clark:

“If contradictory statements are true of the same subject at the same time, evidently all things will be the same thing. Socrates will be a ship, a house, as well as a man. But if precisely the same attributes attach to Crito that attach to Socrates it follows that Socrates is Crito. Not only so, but the ship in the harbor, since it has the same list of attributes too, will be identified with this Socrates-Crito person. In fact, everything will be the same thing. All differences among things will vanish and all will be one.”

But does this apply to God?  Would not this reduce God to human logic? Nash responds:

“If God does operate according to a different logic, a higher logic in which B and non-B are indistinguishable, nothing would prevent God at the final judgment from announcing that there

is no difference between believers and nonbelievers and between God’s keeping and breaking his promises. But there is no need to get upset, because on such grounds there can also be no difference between heaven and hell.”

But one may still object that God may be internally contradictory, having his own sort of logic where the law of non-contradiction need not apply.  If that is true, then they could not know it, for communication presupposes this very law.

Possible Worlds

This is where it gets fun.  Before proceeding, one should define a number of terms.

Proposition: that which is expressed in a sentence’s meaning.

State of affairs: an inadequate definition would be that which obtains if a proposition is true.  It is better illustrated in the following diagram:

The above is fairly common sense.  Some pious Christians might balk at what follows: true propositions are eternal entities. This seems to follow from one’s definition of truth.  If truth is unchanging, then it seems to be eternal. Such truths would be in the mind of God.

Possible world: a possible world is a way the world could have been. All that one needs is for a state of affairs a) to be different and b) logically consistent.

Book: for every possible world, the book is the sum total of all true propositions.

Lest we get too excited, not every counterfactual state of affairs is a possible world.  More likely, it is only a slice of a possible world.

Lest this get too abstract, there is a very real pay-off: possible worlds allow us to define essential and non-essential properties, so necessary for Christology (to name but one example). An essential property is one that I possess in every possible world. Let’s apply this to discussions of God.

According to Nash, “A divine attribute then is a property that God could not lose and continue to be God; it is an essential property of God, existing in every possible world.

Epistemology

Nash, although a Clarkian of sorts, seems to hold to the correspondence theory of truth: “Truth is a property of propositions that correspond to the way things are.”

How, then, do we arrive at true beliefs?  It is to Nash’s great credit that he draws upon the Reformed Epistemology school’s use of Thomas Reid.  He quotes Wolterstorff on Reid: “At the very foundation of Reid’s approach is his claim that at any point in our lives we have a variety of dispositions, inclinations, propensities, to believe things–belief dispositions we may call them. What accounts for our beliefs, in the vast majority of cases anyway, is the triggering of one and another such disposition.”

On open theism: “When I think about this view of God, I often find myself in a situation wanting to pray for this God.  I would probably do that, except under the circumstances, I’m not sure who I should pray to.”

Ethics and Emotivism

Problems with emotivism:

1. Every ethical judgment is correct, for how can my feelings be wrong?
2. All moral actions are good and bad at the same time
3. No one actually disagrees over moral issues
4. It implies a contradiction: if someone says, “I like to get drunk, but I know it is wrong,” he actually means “I like to get drunk, but I don’t like to get drunk.”

Conclusion

This is probably my favorite text on worldview. It is somewhat technical in parts, so it might not be the first text to start with.

William James (Clark)

Clark, Gordon H.  Willam James. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co., 1975.

In this little monograph, Gordon H. Clark surveys and analyzes William James’ pragmatism, giving particular attention to James’ early work on pluralism and his later and more popular works on pragmatism.

William James began, if not a full Hegelian, at least as an Idealist before becoming known as a pragmatist.  Seeing that monism and pantheism could not account for the plurality of the world, James sought refuge in pluralism. The question remains: how successful was he?

James defines empiricism as “the habit of explaining wholes by parts” (quoted in Clark 13). He is already off to a perilous start, for Clark points out: “a circle cannot be explained in terms of its arcs because an arc is defined in terms of a circle” (13).

James did not like Hegelianism, but he still wanted “intimacy.” One should quickly point out that intimacy does not mean what it currently means in modern parlance.  With that said, it is not exactly clear what James himself means by it. At this point in the narrative, it probably means something like “connection with.” James goes on to explain his rejection of theism because its God is “wholly Other.” (What James meant was something like the Creator-creature distinction, not Barthianism).

James’ problem now should be obvious: as an empiricist, he wants to explain wholes by parts, but he still wants at least one conclusion of idealist pantheism: union with y. His vague definition notwithstanding, James doubles down: “Not to demand intimate relations with the universe, and not to wish them satisfactory, should be accounted signs of something wrong.”  Clark makes the obvious reply: “But how can anyone be intimate with the universe, or any part of it, except persons and perhaps a pet dog?  To talk of being intimate with a cement driveway…is to use words without meaning” (15).

If James were to continue this line of argument, he might seem to think of himself, still attached or one with the Absolute, as a god.  That is a familiar line in human history.  As Clark notes, however, it is much harder to think of the cement driveway as a god (16). We must leave James’ idealism here, for he eventually abandons it.

Pragmatism

Following Charles S. Peirce, James saw beliefs as “rules for action” (27) and our reactions, particularly the sensate ones, as the consequences of the beliefs. It is probably good for James that he gave up his idealism, for Clark notes that any system of the Absolute, on James’ pragmatism, is only an effect of my actions. “God is merely the things I do” (28). And if realities can be changed like this, “theories thus became instruments, not answers to enigmas” (James, quoted in Clark 28).

If theism suffers from such a view, so does, surprisingly, science.  Scientific laws are now “approximations.” This is not entirely wrong, but James’ inference from it is: objective truth is nowhere to be found (29).  The law of non-contradiction is now an instrument of reality.  (One could  ask, I suppose, whether it was a true or accurate instrument).

Traditional thought had connected the laws of logic with being.  It should not be a surprise to see James, having now relativised logic, attack the idea of substance. Clark here surveys the history of “substance language.”

James defines the soul as “the verifiable cohesions of our inner life” (31).  The following quote, situated in the context of rationalism, is why Gordon Clark was one of the best *writing* philosophers: “Rationalism had supposed that the laws of science were the eternal thoughts of the Almighty, who thundered in syllogisms and reverberated in conic sections.”

Concerning the opposition between spirit and matter, James says, shockingly, they are the same thing. It is not clear why they are so, but one could guess that such a dichotomy means little for the pragmatist when it is time to make future plans. Clark proceeds to attack James on the point whether the pragmatist can truly explain the past. On Clark’s reading, James had reduced “God, soul, and matter to ‘substances,’” “a mere name for collections of qualities and events” (32). If both God and matter are names for past events, then any name could work just as well. More damning still, none of this actually explains the past.  On James’ construction they are the past!

To conclude this part of the analysis, “Sometimes James attaches and intellectualistic content to the concept God and desires it tested in experience; but at other times he argues that every concept is precisely its future effects in human behavior” (33).

Truth

James has problems with the “copy of reality” model of truth (presumably, the correspondence theory). Let us for the moment grant James’ criticisms of this model. He has a more immediate problem with “intellectualist” models of truth: they cannot have practical consequences.  Clark counters with the traditional understanding of God as a spirit infinite, eternal, and unchanging…etc. “Now if such a spirit actually exists; that is, if this idea refers to a true reality, hundreds of practical conclusions follow” (36).

For James, however, ideas are not true, “they are made true by events.” But does this not apply to James’ own proposal?  Must it not be made true by an event, thereby starting out as false? It seems it must.

Here I must offer an interlude: James could have avoided most of the problems in his theory by changing “made” to “discovered.” It is true (!) that many situations in life do not readily lend themselves to a correspondence model.  More often than not, truth is discovered as it is integrated into a larger pattern, as Michael Polanyi would so forcefully argue a half century later.  James, unfortunately, does not take this path.

Conclusion

There is much to James’ credit. He writes better than most philosophers, and in many respects, he is the American philosopher.  Most Americans would not agree that “truth is what works,” but they would probably agree with its converse: if something regularly fails, then there is something wrong with it.  Unfortunately, James’ relativising of logic, among other problems, dooms his system from the start, at least on Clark’s reading.

Van Til and the Foundation of Christian Ethics (Hatch)

Hatch, Scott J. Van Til and the Foundation of Christian Ethics: A God-Centered Approach to Moral Philosophy. Libertyville, IL: Reformed Forum, 2023.

In the investment world, there is a danger in over investing in stocks that appear good but do not deliver all that is hoped.  The same is true in theology.  There are good (intellectual) investments in Van Til’s theology.  Unfortunately, his students over invested in his epistemology and apologetic method while leaving his ethics largely untouched.  This is a shame, as his ethics promise a number of key insights to the Christian life.

Scott Hatch of Reformed Forum has given probably the best (and maybe the first; I am not sure) systematic treatment of Van Til’s ethics.  I do not think there is anything like it in print. He surveys the failure of modern ethics, the nature of the summum bonum, Van Til’s theonomic and Klinean followers, and the structure of the will in Christian discipleship.  He has several appendices that include the full text of Van Til’s 1930 syllabus.

The Enlightenment Project had to fail because it lacked a foundation for justification. It degenerated into emotivism. Kierkegaard could not give a reason for actions other than “because.” Hume realized morality was just desires.

By contrast, summing up the problem, Hatch notes: “To call something good is to make an evaluative judgment, but an evaluative judgment implies a kind of standard or criterion by which an evaluation can be made” (Hatch 17).

Van Til and Vos

Hatch comes closer than any other recent author in showing the connection that Geerhardus Vos had on Van Til.  We know Van Til said Vos was his favorite teacher, but seeing “Vosian” elements in Van Til’s work is a tougher challenge.  I maintain it is difficult because we look for Vosian elements in the wrong place.  You will not find them, not in any great detail, in his apologetics works.  You will, however, find them in his ethics (28). The biblical-theological method allowed Van Til to see a unity between Old Testament and New Testament ethics.

In Search of An Ethical Absolute

Van Til took a “worldview approach” to Christian ethics, specifically Reformed Christian ethics. By “worldview” neither Hatch nor Van Til mean giving the stock Christian answers to pre-selected questions.  Rather, “worldview” means “Reformed worldview,” a view of life derivative of the revelation of the self-contained God. A specifically Reformed ethic will contain “the absolute self-sufficient personal God; the self-revelation of God in nature and history; the reality of sin; and the revelation of God objectively in Christ and Scripture and subjectively through regeneration and sanctification” (31).

Metaphysics and Biblicism

This might not have been Hatch’s point, but Van Til eschews any type of biblicism that rejects the need for metaphysics.  Hatch notes that Van Til saw “how modernist and liberal thought veers toward moralism but lacks any real metaphysical or epistemological foundation” (33). Indeed, in Defense of the Faith (2008) he says “metaphysics is logically foundational for both epistemology and ethics” (quoted in Hatch 46).

Idealism and Pragmatism

Van Til’s comments on idealism are somewhat dated.  You will find few idealists today. Pragmatism, on the other hand, will always be relevant.  Fortunately, apart from any Christian ethic it is easily dispensed with: “if the absolute is constantly evolving, then there is no fixed reference point for moral values’ ‘ (53).

Personality and the Will

In 2010, Richard Muller critiqued Jonathan Edwards’ view of the will as departing from the historic Reformed teaching, causing a firestorm among some of Edwards’ followers. I tend to think Muller was right, but neither side was altogether convincing.  In other words, pace Edwards I actually believe I make free decisions.  Pace Muller, when I act I seem to act in a unity as a whole person.  Faculty psychology might be true (I think it is), but few people are conscious of it when they act.

It is a shame that neither side in the debate used Van Til’s insights.  Following Augustine, he notes “man is free, but he does not have the freedom of contrary choice, and is nonetheless responsible for his actions” (99). Modern advertising seems to confirm Van Til’s point: “the expanding industry of advertising and communications has highlighted psychologically just how subtly and subconsciously people can be influenced” (102). In other words, a judicious ethics has a whole approach to the whole man.

Toward a Reformed Christian Ethic

As man gets progressively sanctified, he gets progressively “freer” (104).  How is this possible?  Van Til gives an eloquent format from his syllabus: man must become “increasingly spontaneous in willing the will of God,” “increasingly fixed in strengthening the backbone of this will,” and “increasingly [growing] in momentum to meet this increasing responsibility” (CVT, CTE 44-46). This is made possible by its working out in the larger narrative of post-redemptive history. In other words, he must strive for the true summum bonum, the highest good. The summum bonum is the kingdom of God.

Kline, Bahnsen, and Frame

Both Meredith Kline and Greg Bahnsen saw Van Til as formative for their theology, yet Kline and Bahnsen came to radically different conclusions about ethics.  Who, then, was the most faithful student of Van Til?  There is a better way to rephrase this question and answer it: Van Til was a faithful student of Geerhardus Vos when it comes to the nature of the ethical life.

Greg Bahnsen’s theonomy is widely-known, so we will only touch on the highlights for this discussion.  Theonomy proper depends on two points: 1) a unique exegesis of Matthew 5:17ff and 2) the claim that the Old Testament penal codes are binding today unless otherwise rescinded.  It should be obvious by now that Van Til taught no such thing in his ethics.  Neither can it be inferred he taught this in his ethics. I think Bahnsen suspected this (and I think Gary North knew it).  Bahnsen mentions Van Til’s ethics only once in his 500 page work on theonomy, and there it is only Van Til’s claim that there is either theonomy or autonomy, but it is clear that Van Til meant it in a general sense.  Therefore, we can safely conclude, and Hatch does, that Bahnsen’s ethics is not faithful to Van Til’s.

Does that mean Kline is the true Van Tillian on ethics?  It is not so clear there, either. Kline maintained, or at least he pointed out, a “seeming inconsistency between the Decalogue and certain divine commands,” which he called “intrusion” (137). On one level, this seems like common sense.  The conquest of Canaan is an intrusion of the End Times Judgment into history, yet this intrusion is not normative.  What is not clear, though, is what counts as intrusion and what counts as application. The more we see typological anticipations in the Old Testament, the less useful is the Old Testament for ethics. I think Kline is probably closer to Van Til in terms of biblical narrative than Bahnsen is, but I do not believe he would have accepted Kline’s intrusion ethics.

Criticisms

As with many books about or by Van Til, “reason” is always “autonomous reason” if used by the other guy (21-22). Moreover, Hatch refers to Oliphint’s book on Thomas Aquinas, noting, however, that Oliphint’s analysis has met with severe criticism (22 n24).  He does not think the criticisms damage the main point.  I suspect they do.

Speaking of Thomas Aquinas, Hatch only mentions Aquinas’s actual writings once, and in a footnote, and even then it is a reference to James Dolezal’s God Without Parts, quoting Summa Contra Gentiles. This is a recurring theme with Van Tillian literature.  We need to see more interaction with actual passages from Thomas Aquinas. We are often told “Thomas’s view reduces to x” or “His Aristotelianism is clear here,” but we never see how that is the case.

I suppose some thinkers, notably Kant and Hume, were guilty of “autonomous reason,” but I have read enough works by presuppositionalists to suspect that the adjective “autonomous” is doing the heavy lifting normally required by sustained analysis of primary sources.  That analysis we do not always see.

Conclusion

These criticisms should be noted, but they do not take away the value of the book.  The book is literally in a class by itself.  Van Tillians, and even presuppositionalists from other schools, should pay more attention to Van Til’s writings on ethics. They generally do not have the difficulties found in some of his other works, save on one possible point: Van Til’s syllabus, in a way not dissimilar to Oliver O’Donovan’s works, does not always deal with practical problems in ethics.  That is not a problem.  Van Til, as the title of this work suggests, deals with “the foundation of Christian ethics.”

‘This review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.’

Deep Comedy (Leithart)

Leithart, Peter. Deep Comedy.

My recent reviews of Leithart and Jordan should not suggest any endorsement of their larger theology. Far from it. Rather, besides the merits of the individual works in question, I want to show that I have probably read more of their literature than the typical FV manlets on social media.

The short thesis of this book is that Western literature moves from Tragedy to Comedy and from Comedy to Deep Comedy.

Beginning with Tragedy:

The pivotal work of ancient history is Homer. The Iliad is a tragedy. Good people (well, protagonists anyway) gone bad. It is hard to find a happy ending to this story. More importantly, such a framework tending toward despair is inherent in a pagan (Greek) culture.

He first defines a metaphysics (read:  order of reality, being, etc) as tragic if it interprets death as the final reality (Leithart 38).  In this sense, The Iliad is thoroughly tragic.  This is fairly common knowledge but Leithart takes it one step further (with implications for Christian theology):  another aspect of tragic metaphysics is the view that treats finitude, temporality, becoming, and limitation as either a problem or something to be transcended.   This is all of non-Christian (and some Christian) Western thought.  As Leithart notes, this refuses to see the world as a gift.   Any attempt to “overcome embodiment” or see evil as finitude or non-being is representative of this thought.   It is not too different from Satan’s suggestion that “ye shall be as gods.”

Western literature, then, while still pagan, tries to move towards Comedy. Of course, the Odessy has a happier ending than the Iliad. But it lacks the deep resorvoirs of the Christian story. Odesseus knows he will die. And having been to Tarturas, he knows it is better to remain alive.

But The Aeneid is happier, right? Well, kind of. Aeneus does build a mighty house, but only by toppling other houses. Aeneas brings the destruction of Troy with him to Carthage. Aeneas, despite great moments, turns Carthage, represented by the suicidal funeral pyres of Dido, into another Troy.

Socially speaking, this translates to a dualism between order and chaos.  Order was maintained at the cost of sacrifice (mimesis, Girard?) and chaos is merely kept at bay.  While one may appreciate the beauty of much Platonic thinking, at the end of the day, as David Bentley Hart notes on this gloss, “The world, for all its beauty, is the realm of fallen vision, separated by a great chorismos from the realm of immutable reality” (Hart 49).  Modern advocates of Platonic realism, especially in its renewed Catholic and Orthodox forms, will point to the beauty of lesser realms participating in the forms, each to the other, finally to the One.  Certainly, there is a charm to it but one cannot avoid the conclusion that each emanation from the One must be seen as lesser, if not fallen.  Hart zooms in on a key point:  “in all multiplicity…change is not merely accidental, but a kind of falsehood.”

But something happens with the Western Story. Christ in a way takes the Platonic worldview and subverts it. This is Leithart’s most brilliant moment in any of his books. He wrestles with the challenge given by postmodern philosopher Derrida: All literature (or story) must have a supplement to the Origin. But the supplement is almost always a degeneration of the Origin. This shows up in literature. The sons (Zeus and the gods) overthrow the fathers (Chronus and the Titans). Supplementation for Derrida–and the greeks–is violent.

One of the (inevitable) terrors of the Iliad was not only death and tragedy, but the fall of the City.  The danger to the City is not merely from without, be the danger an army or a vengeful god from the Libyan desert (the reader is encouraged to consult Hart’s beautiful analysis of this horror, Beauty of the Infinite, 373-394), but from the very foundations of the city.   The scapegoat is sacrificed to appease the angry god.   Again, Leithart:  “Disorder is a violence against order, but order can be established, in the ancient system, only by a violent suppression of the violence” (Leithart 47).

Interestingly, there is no such thing as “origin” unless there is also a moment of “supplementation.” Accordingly (and contra to Plato), there is no such thing as pure origin, pure essence, or a pure stream. It is already supplemented. At this point Derrida, himself an unbeliever, comes very close to a dark Trinitarianism. He, like Athanasius, sees that there can be no Father without a Son. But Derrida prefers Hesiod (violence) to the Gospel of John (perichoreisis).

This is the eschatological moment in the Trinity, and in Western History. Unlike all of history before it, this time the Son does not violence the Father. Christ reveals the Father, does the Father’s will, and incarnates the Father’s love.

Deep Comedy:

The newly revealed (although ancient) Trinitarian theology was a joyful theology. The Christian gospel–the Christian story–moves from “glory to glory” (1 Cor. 3). The end is always better than the beginning. The medieval romances, despite some lapses, are much happier than Homer. The Christian (medieval) world is thus supernaturalized. The Christian hero is thus an adventurer.

Further, creativity itself is an expression of violence on the pagan scheme.  In its more polished form supreme reality was the One, the ineffable, the unchangeable static realm of bliss.   If this “Being” is the highest good, any change, any difference, any becoming is a less-than, a loss of “good.”  Creativity, by contrast, is dynamic and represents ever new possibilities.  Two alternate conclusions appear as a result:  human life is “becoming” on anyone’s take, for the Greeks human existence is necessarily tragic since it introduces new movements away from the One. For the Christian, Yahweh speaks his Word (דְבָר) and creates new realities.  And he calls it “good.”  Even more, as images of Yahweh, we image him to the world by sub-creation.  The Christian cosmology, simply put, is joyful.

Until Christ is Formed in You (Essays on Dallas Willard)

Eds. Steven L Porter, Gary M. Moon, and J. P. Moreland. Until Christ is Formed in You: Dallas Willard and Spiritual Formation. Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 2018.

That Dallas Willard had a huge impact, largely positive, on evangelicalism is undeniable. That his students have faithfully carried forth his work, applying it in new situations, is also true. A number of such books could probably be written from that angle. This book is unique because it suggests tensions and underdeveloped points, usually in Willard’s psychological works, that should be addressed.

In this review I will state Dallas’s view of the human soul, the tensions it raised, and some thoughts on Kevin Vanhoozer’s speech-act theory as it relates to spiritual formation. I have disagreements with Willard on various issues. For one, I am Reformed. He is not. My take on Christian formation is more heavily oriented to the means of grace and the Lord’s Supper. I do not see that emphasis in his work. Unless otherwise relevant to the various essays, I will not mention every disagreement I have with him, if only for space reasons.

Willard’s Positive Case

Willard’s true gains were not so much in the basics of spiritual formation but in the structure of the human [[Soul]]. As will be noted later, for those of us who come from a classically Protestant background, there was not much noteworthy to us in books like The Divine Conspiracy. That is because the Reformed prize the means of grace which communicate to us the benefits of redemption. That mindset is absent to the larger American community, although it was to that community, not the Reformed one, Willard wrote.

As noted primarily in Renovation of the Heart, the body and soul exist in a symbiotic relationship that is particularly attuned to the hierarchy within the soul. For starters, for Dallas,
-“the will refers to the core dimension’s ‘power to initiate;”
-“the spirit refers to the core dimension’s fundamental nature as distinct from the physical reality;’
-“the heart refers to the core dimension’s center…to which every other component of the self owes its proper functioning” (Black).

The soul, then, is the unifying cohesion to the above dimensions.

A Gentle Critique

Willard’s treatment of the soul was groundbreaking among broadly evangelical teachers. I think it is true in its basic outline. There are some tensions, though, which is student, J. P. Moreland, draws to our attention. First, some basic categories:

• a substance can be used in two ways: it could be an individual thing with properties and dispositions, or it can refer to a thing’s [[Essence]], the range of actual and potential properties.
• A property is a universal; it is non-spatial and extra-temporal. On some readings, “properties (and relations) are universals that, when exemplified…become constituents of the ordinary particulars that have them.”
• a relation is a ‘being X than Y’ state of affairs. It can be either internal or external. For our purposes, “the body stands in an internal relation to the soul such that the soul could exist without the body but not vice versa” (Moreland).
• A part as used here is a separable part, able to exist if removed from the whole.
• The faculties of the soul group its capacities.

So far, so good. Dallas’s project runs into difficulty when pressed on whether “I am my body” or “I am my soul.” He seemed to say both at times. Moreover, should we refer to ourselves as humans, persons, or human persons, or does it even matter? It seems that being human is somehow connected with having a body, in which case I can be a person in the afterlife without being human.

What happens when I die? My soul continues but not my body. This means my identity cannot be fundamentally connected with having a body. As Moreland notes, “If I am neither the soul or the body, it is hard to see how it could literally be that I survive death”. Restating Dallas’s view:

1. the soul is a mode of the body
2. My body is essential to my identity
3. Human relations cannot be separated from my bodily identity.

There is an obvious problem: this cannot account for the intermediate state, something on which Dallas so eloquently wrote.

Both Moreland Dallas (rightly) want to avoid Cartesian dualism. Moreland is going to opt for something like a modified Thomism. He suggests that some of Dallas’s statements on personal identity should not be taken literally. I think that is a good start. Although I generally agree with Moreland’s modified Thomism, I do think there is some promise in a phenomenological approach.

Moreland distinguishes between “thin” and “thick” particulars of substance. A thin particular is the essence or form. A thick particular is the concrete substance. In this view, the soul, a thin particular, is identical to the person.

Putting on Christ as Speaking

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, true to his representation, gives a speech-act account of spiritual formation. Although he does not explicitly mention it, his take on doctrine as cognitive therapy parallels Dallas’s emphasis on the primacy of knowledge. Even more, it flows naturally from it, something the spiritual formation movement, not necessarily Dallas himself, has not always been able to do. “Doctrine resembles,” says Vanhoozer, “cognitive therapy to the extent that it encourages certain ways of thinking about God, the world, and ourselves.” It specifically allows us to “acquire theodramatic habits of thought.” In short, it is character formation.

This helps bridge the gap for a problem that has somewhat haunted Christian ethics. The church, following St Paul’s list of the fruit of the spirit, has always embraced a form of Aristotle’s virtue ethics, and rightly so. But if one forms character out of repeated practice and habit, then it is not always clear why the gospel is needed. By rooting virtue formation in the specifically theological speech of the Bible, Vanhoozer is able to face this problem from a fresh perspective.

Lest we substitute a new and better, albeit mechanical, series of habits for the old ones, Vanhoozer reminds us this is not simply rote speech. Rather, “It involves our doing too, but a doing of a very particular kind: a participation in the doing (and the done) of Jesus Christ.” Following some New Testament scholars, Paul’s new theory of virtue formation locates us in the story of Jesus Christ.”

quote: Scripture may be the soul of theology, but doxology is the soul’s embodiment.

Conclusion

Even though I love and cherish Dallas Willard’s writings, not all of it resonated with me. For all of its perceived problems, the Reformed faith, particularly as it understood the means of grace, never really suffered from the easy-believism which Dallas had to confront. As a result, I could only read some emphases with bewilderment. Moreover, I do not remember Dallas–or these authors–dealing with the means of grace, particularly the Lord’s Supper. As a result, while Dallas gave much-needed critiques of broad evangelicalism, I wonder if he ever truly escaped it. To be sure, Dallas believed in the Lord’s Supper and the importance of the local church. I simply wonder how much it actually structured his view of sanctification.

The Battle for God (Geisler and House)

Norman Geisler. H. Wayne House. Max Herrera.  The Battle for God: Responding to the Challenge of Neotheism. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001.

The battle for God, at least on the Open Theist front, is largely over.  Open Theism, the view that the future is open for God, has largely been absorbed into other movements.  Open Theism, for all its protestations against Greek metaphysics, was still largely metaphysical and metaphysical movements never gained much momentum.  However, even with Open Theism no longer an existential threat for Evangelicalism, this book is still worth a careful reading.  

The divine attributes are like a row of dominoes or a Jenga tower.  The latter analogy is most apt. The concepts reinforce and support one another.  Stated negatively, to attack or even weaken one attribute threatens the entire edifice. 

Each chapter follows the same format: a positive presentation of the historic position, otherwise known as classical theism; then a survey of patristic, medieval, and Reformation sources; he then states the open theist argument, often in the form of a syllogism.  Although the authors are sometimes light on exegesis, there is a method to this format.  These attributes are not Greek concepts.  They are not even merely Reformed concepts.  Arminius, whether consistently or not, said some of the same things.  The lesson is clear: reject this view and you are not simply out of step with Reformed theology–you are out of step with most of the church.  Notice what I am not saying.  I am not saying this is Thomism.  Some of it is.  I happen to think much of the Thomist view of God is correct, but whether it is Thomism or not is irrelevant to the discussion.

If all of the attributes at the very least imply and entail one another, and at most are one another, then defending one attribute often defends another.  We will illustrate below.

Omniscience

We prove God’s omniscience by the following:

Infinity: If God’s knowledge is identical to his being, and he is infinite, then his knowledge is infinite (26).

Causality: “All effects preexist in an efficient cause, since a cause cannot produce what it does not have.” Therefore, all future free actions pre-exist in God.

The key issue is whether we can still have free actions if God’s knowledge of them is already certain.  Anselm provides us with some careful reflection.  He writes, “For although He foreknows all future events, he does not foreknow every future event as occurring by necessity” (quoted in Geisler 34). In other words, there is no compulsion in the actual event.

Eternality

When we say God is eternal we mean he is beyond time. Like every other attribute, this flows from who God is.  Because God is prior to creation, he is outside time (Geisler 69). As Geisler further notes, “The creator of time cannot be part of time” (70). Because God is Pure Act, he cannot be in time.  Time is a form of change, and if God is outside of time, he is outside of change.

Immutability

An immutable God is not an immobile God, and in any case, immobility in metaphysics does not mean what people today mean by the word (106ff). As with all the attributes, this is correlative to them, primarily divine simplicity.  Geisler writes: “Everything that changes is composed of what changes and what does not change. But there can be no composition in God. He is an absolutely simple being. Hence, God cannot change” (108-109).

Simplicity

Even Open Theists might grant that God is an infinite being, provided how many nuances they can give to the term.  Even so, God cannot have an infinite number of parts, because one can always add another part.  Ergo, God is simple (148).

Conclusion

Who is the real Greek philosopher?  It is not I.  In fact, it is no one.  Both sides in this debate utilize key aspects of metaphysics.  At the end of the day, Open Theists say God is unchanging in his love. He might be a most mutable being in every other attribute, but he is always loving.  This sounds like a watered-down view of immutability, and that sounds like it must be Greek metaphysics!  

The Shorter Summa (Peter Kreeft)

Kreeft, Peter. The Shorter Summa. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.

Introduction

On one hand, there is no substitute for reading Thomas Aquinas himself.  If one must have an abridgment and/or guide, then Peter Kreeft’s longer Summa of the Summa is the best bet.  But if that option is already available, is there any point to a Shorter Summa?  Yes, but maybe not for all readers. Although the Summa of the Summa gives the reader everything he needs to know, it is nonetheless daunting.  A Shorter Summa, by contrast, introduces the reader to medieval thought, gives the reader Thomas’s exact words, and avoids the more complicated discussions.

Epistemology

With respect to our dispensationalist friends, the best way to look at Thomas’s epistemology is by using charts.

Three Acts of the Mind

Understanding

Judging

Reasoning

Metaphysics

Existence of God

Kreeft makes the distinction between necessary existence, which applies to God, and our knowledge of that necessary existence. The predicate is included in the essence of the subject (1,2,1). God’s existence is not self-evident to us because we do not know the essence of God.

These articles are preambles to faith, not articles of faith (1, 2, 2).

Proof from motion:  “Motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality.” Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, but this cannot go on to infinity.  In other words, change occurs.  But what changes must be actualized by another, and this other will either be purely act or an admixture of act and potency. It is important to note what Thomas is not saying at this point.  He is not saying that this goes backward in a linear fashion to a First Cause, with creation having its first moment.  Rather, this series of causes is hierarchical in structure.  The later terms depend on the (continued) existence of the first term.  For example, if car A hits car B which hits car C, car A is the first cause in this linear series.  If, after the accident, car A were to disappear, the damage would still be done.  This is not what we mean when we apply hierarchical causality to God.

Simplicity of God

God cannot be made of parts if he is the first being, for who, then, would have put him together? Moreover, as he does not have potentiality, he cannot be actuated by anything else.

The existence of God in things.

God is in all things, not as essence or accident, but “as an agent is present in that upon which it works” (1, 8, 1).  He is in all things as the cause of their being.

The Will of God 

Does God’s will have a cause?  No. As God by one act understands everything in his essence, so by one act he wills all things in his goodness (I, 19, 5).

The Providence of God

Providence does not impose a necessity on things because not all things have an inherent necessity.  Some have necessary causes, others contingent causes (I, 22, 4).

Epistemology and Psychology

“Free will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free will man moves himself to act.  But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself” (1, 8, 31).

Conclusion and Summary

Nothing substitutes for reading Thomas, preferably in large–very large–amounts.  If one were to have to choose for an abridgment of Thomas, then Kreeft’s larger work is the one to read.  Nonetheless, there is something useful about this shorter Summa. And Kreeft is always fun to read.

Contemplating God with the Great Tradition (Carter)

Carter, Craig. Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021.

Even though I fully endorse Craig Carter’s Great Tradition project, there have been some areas I was hesitant about. One such area was the use of premodern exegesis.  Not having yet read his book on that subject, I thought he meant something like allegorical interpretation and a disregard for the Bible’s Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) context.  I was pleased to discover that he is quite attuned to the ANE context.  Indeed, he is able to do something similar to what the Greek Fathers did at Nicea: he takes the pictures and language of the ANE and shows how prophecy corrects them.

In other words, in terms of his argument about Isaiah 40-48, we view the Bible’s relationship to the ANE, not as one of dependence, but as a polemical corrective, challenging both the pantheistic metaphysics of then and the naturalistic metaphysics of today.

I would normally in the course of a review analyze topics as they emerged from the book. I cannot do that with this book, as Carter is insistent on the phrase “Christian Platonism.” Since his phrase is prone to misinterpretation, we should define it.  Carter explains: “Christian Platonism is a label that can be applied to the theological metaphysics that grows out of fourth-century pro-Nicene theology and becomes integral to classical Christian orthodoxy” (Carter 7). Because of late modernity’s captivity to philosophical naturalism and its erasure of a transcendent God, Carter feels the need to shock readers with something like Platonism.

What Went Wrong?

The Enlightenment did not give us knowledge; it gave us a new mythology.  To be specific, it dressed ancient Babylonian cosmology in more scientific and mechanistic terms.  That is bad enough.  It is even worse when you take that mythology and rewrite the doctrine of God.  Liberals are guilty of this, to be sure, but as Craig Carter makes clear, conservatives are not much better.

Mythological thought sees a continuity between god (or gods), man, and nature.  There is an immanent “force” in nature that explains change. The Enlightenment never rejected this idea.  In the 18th century, it understood the universe as a machine with the power of self-motion.  In the nineteenth century, it exchanged the model of machine for that of organism. What it never rejected with the idea of a “power” in nature that does not need a transcendent God.

Pagan metaphysics, whether ancient or modern, viewed all of reality as part of one cosmic order.  The attributes of God are then applied to the cosmos. This worldview is, in fact, quite consistent. Only the present is real in mythological thinking.  Also emphasized is fertility and potency, forms of sympathetic magic.  And if all reality is one and connected, then it is wrong to introduce boundaries within reality (e.g., male/female; creator/creation).

Even if modern-day conservatives rejected the more pantheistic aspects of mythological thinking, they never rejected the Enlightenment’s view of God, particularly in the pitting of God’s actions vs. God’s being.  In other words, we can only know God by his actions, not by speculating into his being.  Worse yet, this god can be found only in the historical process.

Trinitarian Classical Theism

Against this mythological view of God, Carter champions the historic doctrine of Trinitarian classical theism (hereafter TCT). Carter’s argument demands that we affirm both Trinitarianism and classical theism in one model.  Classical theism without the Trinity will give you Deism.  Trinitarianism without classical theism will give you only a god (or three gods) among other gods.

TCT is necessary for Christian orthodoxy as it generated key metaphysical doctrines: simplicity, aseity, and creation ex nihilo (Carter 49). TCT is also relevant for pastoral ministry: by focusing on God’s being, one can confidently claim that God is x (e.g., love) in his being.  His being is trustworthy.  Yes, this God acts in history, but if we have no assurance that he is steadfast and unchanging in his being, then we can never be quite sure he will always be for us.

TCT begins with God as the First Cause. Correlative with this claim is the one that God is Pure Act.  Existence is part of his essence, otherwise God would need to receive his existence from something other than his essence.  Everything in the universe is a mixture of act and potency.  God has no potency; if he did he would have to be fully actualized from someone (something?) else.  Even worse, if God was not pure act, then the hierarchical chain of motion could never begin, for anything with potency needs an unactualized Actualizer. Furthermore, since there is no change in God’s being, he must be eternal (as all things in time are subject to change). And since there is no potency, he must be immutable. Similar deductions would follow from these reflections.

Hermeneutics and Exegesis

The immediate rejoinder to any such project of “Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition” is the charge that said Christian Platonists will start reading allegories out of the text, which is fatal to any good hermeneutics.  That is a real problem, but it is not a problem with Carter’s proposal. He says the Bible has its own metaphysical assumptions, and when we read naturalistic metaphysics into the text (e.g., any liberal commentary), we are just as guilty of mishandling the text. Does the Bible prove the metaphysics of the Great Tradition?  It is not obvious that it does, but that should raise another question: which is closer to the metaphysics of the Bible: a view that holds that universals are real or a view that believes the cosmos is an organism that evolves?

It is true that one might reject both options, but if the reader is relatively conservative and holds to some form of the ecumenical creeds, then the Great Tradition metaphysics is inevitable. It is easy to “reject all things Platonic;” it is much more difficult to invent a brand new metaphysics on the spot.

The heart of this book is a sustained reflection on Isaiah 40-48. Isaiah is arguing for a certain view of God. Carter makes two specific claims: Yahweh is not a being among other beings, and the invisible realm is filled with countless beings (129). Some might bristle at Carter’s view that there are elohim besides Yahweh.  If that makes one uncomfortable, we can just use Paul’s language in Ephesians 6: ἀρχάς, τὰς ἐξουσίας, πρὸς τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ σκότους τούτου, πρὸς τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις. As any good ANE writer knows, this implies some sort of hierarchy in the spiritual world. Yahweh, however, is not part of this hierarchy.  

If classical theism should never be divorced from Trinitarianism, neither should it be divorced from Isaiah 40-48.  Carter notes: “God is both the metaphysically absolute First Cause of all things and also the One who speaks and acts in history in order to judge the world and save his people” (139).

This underscores how radical a doctrine of creation ex nihilo is. Unlike ANE myths, in the bible creation is not rebellious.  God does destroy Rahab (more on that later, perhaps), but not in the process of creation. Rahab in Psalm 74 refers back to the Exodus and the opening of the Red Sea (143).

Platonism Revisited

Carter notes that the fathers “accepted the Platonic concept of universals as the basis for the logical order discernible in creation, but through  scholastic realism, they relocated them from a hard-to-define Platonic ‘third realm’ into the mind of God” (206). In a similar manner, the Fathers, following the Gospel, championed the Logos, not as a demiurge, but as a Creator; not as a mere structuring principle, but as someone who acted in history.

Carter summarizes his Christian Platonism with a discussion of Lloyd Gerson’s “Ur-Platonism.” For Gerson, all Platonic models incorporate five propositions: 1) antimaterialism, 2) antinominalism, 3) antimechanism, 4) antiskepticism, and 5) antirelativism (Gerson, 9-19, quoted in Carter, 290). Gerson’s criteria seem overly broad and ignore some of the more objectionable points of Plato’s worldview. Nonetheless, it does communicate what the Great Tradition is trying to say and can be appreciated for that.

Evaluation and Analysis

Carter’s most contentious point is his deliberate use of the term “Christian Platonism.”  It is unlikely biblicists would reject his larger project, at least at the basic level.  One might reject Thomism, but few can reject the idea that God is a First Cause without embracing some form of finite godism. It is Platonism, and specifically Carter’s emphasis on Platonism as such, that draws the most ire.  I will admit I do not particularly like the term, but I understand his point.  He wants to “shock” the reader, a reader perhaps long stuck in the mud of philosophical naturalism and materialism.  I get it. I would have said it another way, but I will not quibble over terminology.

In any case, there is very little of Plato in the book.  In fact, for those who have read all of Plato, there is not as much discussion on the realm of Forms as one might expect.  Far more important for Carter’s project, on the other hand, is the prophet Isaiah.  Carter devotes four chapters with a sustained analysis and exegesis of Isaiah 40-48.  By contrast, Plato is mentioned on fourteen or so pages. By Christian Platonism, Carter clearly means a transcendent God who acts on his world without being reduced to the world.  Could he have chosen a better term?  Probably.  Does his reasoning make sense?  Yes.

More important than quibbles of terminology is Carter’s heroic defense of the historic doctrine of God.  As he notes, the Christian world “recovered” the doctrine of the Trinity in the 20th century.  That might not have been a good thing.  Without simultaneously recovering classical theism, it gave us figures like Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, John Zizioulas, Jurgen Moltmann, and others. Without a robust classical theism, God gets moved to history and the historical process. We are not saying one must champion a view of God as First Cause to avoid this problem, but it is hard to imagine what one would do, otherwise.

Works Cited

Carter, Craig A. Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021.

Gerson, Lloyd P. From Plato to Platonism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Wyclif (Anthony Kenny)

Kenny.  Anthony.  Wyclif. London: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Can a lapsed Roman Catholic write a fair book on John Wyclif?  Yes. Can said Roman Catholic write a good book on Wyclif? Again, yes.  Anthony Kenny, noted analytic philosopher, explores the often dizzying philosophical depths of an often misunderstood (both by Roman Catholics and Protestants) late medieval figure.  Indeed, Kenny claims that Wyclif anticipated many key developments in analytic philosophy.

It is fair to say that Wyclif is a man shrouded in myth.  As Protestants, our praise of him is not undue, but it is misplaced.  We are grateful for his efforts in translating the Bible from Latin to English, but that was not the reason for his fame in his lifetime.  Rather, his metaphysics–and later his work on the Eucharist–earned him international fame.  Ironically, it is for any reason other than that that Protestants read him today.

Philosopher of Truth

“All envy or actual sin is caused by a lack of an ordered love of universals…because every such sin consists in a will preferring a lesser good to a greater good” (Wyclif, quoted in Kenny 10).

Nominalists err “because they misunderstand the nature of predication.”  The universal is generally the predicate in a sentence, such as “John is wise.”  The universal, or form, is the predicate shared between at least two entities.  As Kenny notes, “The genus is what is predicated of many things which are different in species” (13).

So far, so good.  This is common fare in the discussion about universals.  Wyclif, like all Christian realists, has to anchor universals in the mind of God, lest he have something existing outside the reality of God.  This leads to a very interesting taxonomy:

(1) The mind of God has the thought of all universals from eternity, which Wyclif calls “Idea.”

(2) Once things are created, they are metaphysical universals, or what we commonly call universals.

(3) When someone thinks about the universals, they are logical universals.

Being, Form, and Essence

Every entity, or existing thing, has esse, or being.  The first kind of being, not surprisingly given Wyclif’s above taxonomy, has its anchor in the Idea in God.  From there, beings have their causes, whether general or specific, and this is essential being (18).  Moving down to the ladder, these beings have existence.  Finally, they have their accidental qualities.  

Wyclif’s discussion of being is straightforward.  Where he hints at new ground is his discussion of “truth-makers,” or what  it is that makes a proposition true.   Being;  being is what makes a proposition true. This sounds odd at first, but it is important to remember that being was not always divorced from truth in earlier ages.  Moreover, Wyclif is talking about essential, not existential being.  A thing’s essential being “is part of the fabric of the universe” (21).

Freedom and Necessity

Wyclif distinguishes between the various kinds of necessity.  Per se necessity, such as a mathematical truth, is absolutely necessary.  Per accidens necessity, such as my own existence, is not (31). Wyclif takes it a step further: hypothetical necessity can flow from something that is eternally the case (Kenny 33). It is not immediately clear what he is aiming at, but it is something along the lines of “eternal contingent truths.”  Kenny outlines the argument in the following way:

1. If God has always known that John will sin tomorrow, John will sin tomorrow.
2. God has always known that John will sin tomorrow.
3. Therefore, John will sin tomorrow.

Even though (2) follows absolutely, in terms of logic, from (1), it is not an eternally necessary truth because John’s existence is not eternally necessary. Wyclif wants to make the argument, plausible enough, that while God can “necessitate a free agent, he cannot compel or constrain him” (35).

Grace and Dominion

On civil dominion: “a man in sin has no right to dominion or lordship; a man who is in a state of grace possesses all the goods of the universe” (45).  He means that just ownership depends on just use, and since a sinner can never use a thing justly, he does not really own it.

That is not the most striking thing Wyclif says.  If each Christian owns the goods of the universe, then he logically shares them with other Christians who are in a state of grace.

Kenny goes a bit too far when he calls this “communism,” since it resembles nothing of Lenin or of the masses seizing ownership of the factories.

Wyclif draws yet another conclusion: if the above is true, then we should be able to tell who is in a state of grace.  This is a problem, since we normally cannot see into God’s predestination. He really does not deal with the question, save to say that some, probably local clergymen, are just manifest sinners that we will know.

The Body of Christ

Wyclif never rejected the doctrine of the Real Presence, only the current explanations of transubstantiation.  The real problem:  where did the bread go?  Transubstantiation seems to entail metaphysical annihilation. On a more concrete note, it involves a theory of accidents without a substance.  And if that holds, why believe in material substances at all?

Conclusion

Kenny writes with admirable and enviable lucidity. Even where Wyclif is not clear, and despite Kenny’s best efforts, two chapters in this book are probably inaccessible to the average reader, Kenny does as good a job for which one cold ask.