Fellow blogger Kristor of the Orthosphere has written a post in response to some posts and comments Bruce Charlton and I have shared over the past few weeks concerning the nature of God and freedom and the motive/purpose of Creation. Dr. Charlton has written a response to that post here.
The discussions continue, but breakthroughs remain elusive.
Kristor’s approach to such metaphysical assumptions is firmly anchored in the traditional, classical, conventional assumptions of Nicene Christianity because he finds them intelligible, as opposed to the apparently unintelligible assumptions Bruce or I posit.
There is of course a third option: the classical metaphysics of Nicene Christianity, in which God as uniquely eternal and necessary is the sufficient reason for all being, including his own: not a brute fact, but on the contrary the perfectly intelligent and thus intelligible fact, in whose light all other things are intelligible, at least in principle, so that knowledge is possible; and in which creatures are not eternal, but rather contingent upon God, so that as contingent they can change, act, suffer, move, love, learn, grow, understand and be understood, and so forth.
The chief problem with the intelligible fact of a uniquely eternal and necessary God who is the sufficient reason for all being, including his own, is it focuses almost entirely on the how of Creation while simultaneously and conveniently side-stepping the why of Creation.
Kristor’s position is simple. Creation had to have a cause—more specifically, a first cause. This first cause is God, the creator and source of all being, including his own. Without God, there would be no Creation, yet Creation remains completely unnecessary to God, who has no needs or wants whatsoever and is entirely self-sufficient.
Let’s take a moment and consider God’s position before Creation (not an easy thing to do within the classical/traditional framework, which places God outside of time, but anyway).
Okay, here we go:
The only being who exists before Creation is God. Put another way, nothing exists but God. Time does not exist. Nothing happens; nothing changes. Yet, all is perfect because God is perfect.
Think about that for a moment. Before Creation, God—in his solitude or his Trinity communion—existed in perfection.
Existence was perfect because only a single ideal being existed and nothing else. This single perfect being needs nothing, wants nothing, and experiences nothing but the eternal perfection of his ideal state of self-willed being.
From that state of absolute perfection, God inexplicably, and dare I say, unintelligibly decides to create. Unintelligible because the very act of deciding to embark upon a Creation that would be less than perfect, that its Creator, due to his omni-attributes, knew full well would be imperfect, strikes me as the most unintelligible of all unintelligible facts.
Why would a perfect being willfully decide to create imperfection in his perfection?
Well, decide is the wrong word. He has no choice but to create imperfection because he cannot duplicate his perfection because it is a squared circle.
Still, why mess with a perfect state of being?
God's state of being before Creation implies that he could not have made that state of being any better. Creation has not improved it in any way, shape, or form. That is what perfection means. Thus, the impulse for Creation cannot be grounded in the motivation to "make things better" because such a thing would have been impossible for God to do. I won't go so far as to say God was motivated to make things worse, but . . .
Perhaps he wanted a change. Yet Nicene Christianity posits God as immutable. Perhaps he needed something other than himself or his Trinity. Okay, but Nicene Christianity claims God is impassible and has no needs.
So, God creates, and it isn’t just God alone anymore—there is time, space, matter, and creatures of all sorts, including man, all created from nothing, and all created for good.
However, God decides to create creatures that are capable of evil because free will; however, being omniscient and omnipotent, God knows full well that evil, suffering, and atrocities of all sorts will occur.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m still searching for the why of Creation in all of this, starting with the unintelligible fact of why a perfect being who needs nothing would bother creating non-eternal imperfection out of nothing and call it good; non-eternal imperfection that he does not want or need but that is then utterly contingent upon him for its very existence.
Kristor cites knowledge as the overarching motive or impulse behind Creation. That is, an absolute, perfect, unchangeable God decides on Creation so that we, his imperfect, non-eternal, created-from-nothing creatures, can change, act, suffer, move, love, learn, grow, understand, and be understood.
Why a perfect being, perfect in his solitude, would decide upon such a thing remains something of a mystery.
Having said all of that, I agree with Kristor to some degree—the purpose of Creation is rooted in learning, growing, understanding, and loving, but such a purpose must emanate from something intelligible.
An absolute, immutable, impassable, unchangeable, self-sufficient God who existed alone in total perfection before Creation is not and cannot be the source of that intelligibility.
The discussions continue, but breakthroughs remain elusive.
Kristor’s approach to such metaphysical assumptions is firmly anchored in the traditional, classical, conventional assumptions of Nicene Christianity because he finds them intelligible, as opposed to the apparently unintelligible assumptions Bruce or I posit.
There is of course a third option: the classical metaphysics of Nicene Christianity, in which God as uniquely eternal and necessary is the sufficient reason for all being, including his own: not a brute fact, but on the contrary the perfectly intelligent and thus intelligible fact, in whose light all other things are intelligible, at least in principle, so that knowledge is possible; and in which creatures are not eternal, but rather contingent upon God, so that as contingent they can change, act, suffer, move, love, learn, grow, understand and be understood, and so forth.
The chief problem with the intelligible fact of a uniquely eternal and necessary God who is the sufficient reason for all being, including his own, is it focuses almost entirely on the how of Creation while simultaneously and conveniently side-stepping the why of Creation.
Kristor’s position is simple. Creation had to have a cause—more specifically, a first cause. This first cause is God, the creator and source of all being, including his own. Without God, there would be no Creation, yet Creation remains completely unnecessary to God, who has no needs or wants whatsoever and is entirely self-sufficient.
Let’s take a moment and consider God’s position before Creation (not an easy thing to do within the classical/traditional framework, which places God outside of time, but anyway).
Okay, here we go:
The only being who exists before Creation is God. Put another way, nothing exists but God. Time does not exist. Nothing happens; nothing changes. Yet, all is perfect because God is perfect.
Think about that for a moment. Before Creation, God—in his solitude or his Trinity communion—existed in perfection.
Existence was perfect because only a single ideal being existed and nothing else. This single perfect being needs nothing, wants nothing, and experiences nothing but the eternal perfection of his ideal state of self-willed being.
From that state of absolute perfection, God inexplicably, and dare I say, unintelligibly decides to create. Unintelligible because the very act of deciding to embark upon a Creation that would be less than perfect, that its Creator, due to his omni-attributes, knew full well would be imperfect, strikes me as the most unintelligible of all unintelligible facts.
Why would a perfect being willfully decide to create imperfection in his perfection?
Well, decide is the wrong word. He has no choice but to create imperfection because he cannot duplicate his perfection because it is a squared circle.
Still, why mess with a perfect state of being?
God's state of being before Creation implies that he could not have made that state of being any better. Creation has not improved it in any way, shape, or form. That is what perfection means. Thus, the impulse for Creation cannot be grounded in the motivation to "make things better" because such a thing would have been impossible for God to do. I won't go so far as to say God was motivated to make things worse, but . . .
Perhaps he wanted a change. Yet Nicene Christianity posits God as immutable. Perhaps he needed something other than himself or his Trinity. Okay, but Nicene Christianity claims God is impassible and has no needs.
So, God creates, and it isn’t just God alone anymore—there is time, space, matter, and creatures of all sorts, including man, all created from nothing, and all created for good.
However, God decides to create creatures that are capable of evil because free will; however, being omniscient and omnipotent, God knows full well that evil, suffering, and atrocities of all sorts will occur.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m still searching for the why of Creation in all of this, starting with the unintelligible fact of why a perfect being who needs nothing would bother creating non-eternal imperfection out of nothing and call it good; non-eternal imperfection that he does not want or need but that is then utterly contingent upon him for its very existence.
Kristor cites knowledge as the overarching motive or impulse behind Creation. That is, an absolute, perfect, unchangeable God decides on Creation so that we, his imperfect, non-eternal, created-from-nothing creatures, can change, act, suffer, move, love, learn, grow, understand, and be understood.
Why a perfect being, perfect in his solitude, would decide upon such a thing remains something of a mystery.
Having said all of that, I agree with Kristor to some degree—the purpose of Creation is rooted in learning, growing, understanding, and loving, but such a purpose must emanate from something intelligible.
An absolute, immutable, impassable, unchangeable, self-sufficient God who existed alone in total perfection before Creation is not and cannot be the source of that intelligibility.
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