An Irreducibly Complex God
When discussing the existence of God, proponents and opponents alike base
their arguments on the attributes God possesses.
There are a multitude of attributes traditionally ascribed to God:
omnipotence, omnibenevolence, justice, etc.
Those who deny God’s existence allege to find incompatibility between two
or more attributes and show that God’s existence is absurd or that belief in God
is irrational. This leaves theists
with three options: refute the anti-theist’s argument, redefine the concept of
God to escape the anti-theist’s argument, or relent and eliminate one or more
attributes. In this paper I will
argue that the typical manner of arguments by anti-theists is flawed.
I will challenge their standard response by stating that God is simple,
meaning that the attributes are not to be understood individually, but rather
they holistically represent God’s nature.
I believe we can redefine how God is viewed.
It is important to first address the issue of the status of language used to
describe God before we can evaluate claims regarding God’s attributes and
existence. There is conflict
regarding how to talk about God.
Presently, there is no definitive way to prove or deny God’s existence.
This leaves us debating whether it is rational to believe in God and how
we should speak about God. Some
claim that our human language and concepts are incapable of intelligently
representing God. This is mirrored
by the idea of silent reverence at the realization that God’s nature either
exceeds our ability to understand or compels us to avoid explanation.
Therefore, it is better not to speak of God and only experience God.
Though there are reasons for remaining silent due to a lack of understanding or
as a sign of reverence, both of these approaches share a fundamental flaw; they
propose we ignore or shy away from a major philosophical and theological
question. William James addressed
the issue of whether it is rational to even talk about God.
He argues that “our non-intellectual nature does influence our
convictions”1. Since our
non-rational natures can influence our convictions, this means that we often
must speak about something which cannot be accounted for based on purely
rational or logical bases. Perhaps
proponents of Gould’s non-overlapping magesteria would argue that specific
fields (religion, science, sociology, etc.) should not converge because they
deal with entirely different issues2.
I will argue that this is erroneous.
Religious concepts have been an enduring part of human history.
This means that magesteria governing personal and public life have
included religious elements that arguably are inseparable.
The magesteria naturally overlap and are dependent on each other; they
cannot be isolated. James
concludes, “The state of things is evidently far from simple; and pure insight
and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only things that really
do produce our creeds”3.
We cannot ignore issues relating to God because they pervade every magesteria.
By prohibiting God talk, we arguably diminish the useful, and perhaps
indispensable, social role that religion can play in discussions that center on
values.
If I am correct, there are pragmatic reasons for talking about God even though
our language cannot truly represent God’s nature.
So, how should we talk about God? The positions in this debate take three
forms: talking about God based on experience, literal language, or analogy.
The problem with speaking about God through experience is how to talk
about God if you haven’t experienced God.
In addition, most “religious” experiences are personal and private, which
allows no grounds for verification and they are inapplicable to those believers
who have not had an experience.
Speaking of God literally is highly problematic.
We cannot definitively prove God’s existence or nature, understand God,
or even experience God making it difficult for philosophical discussion.
Too much debate is then spent on God language instead of on God.
This leaves the analogical approach, which I believe is the most
plausible and effective.
To speak of God using analogies allows room for clarity in discussing religious
language. By calling God “wise,” we
use that term analogically and, thus, aim to describe God within the limits of
human language; we do not claim to represent the whole of God’s nature itself.
John Houston approaches the issue of describing God by basing his
arguments on Aquinas’ thoughts on divine simplicity and naming God4.
Because of the concepts of divine simplicity, Houston notes that
objections to describing God by analogy are a result of the lack of attributes
in a “simple” God. Therefore,
saying “God is Wise” or “God is Good” is the same as saying that “God is God”5.
This means that all analogies when speaking of God are tautological and
unneeded. The descriptions “all
amount to identity statements which are themselves identical with one another”6.
We must realize that speaking of God via analogies does not affect God’s
character; it is simply a means for us to understand the concept “God is God” in
a way that is understandable for us.
Houston does this best in his concluding paragraph:
“Our understanding of the concepts of goodness and wisdom derive from the
different experiences we have of creatures, whose agent cause is God. The
distinguishing features of our concepts enable us to distinguish the contents of
the different attributes we ascribe to God without at the same time having to
claim that the referent of these attributes differs ontologically. Although the
predicates ‘wise’ and ‘good’ signify the same ontological referent—God—they do
not signify the same thing in accordance with our experience. This means that
the statement “God is good” is informative in a manner that the statement “God
is wise” is not—and vice versa”7.
Speaking of God via analogy as a means to represent the infinite in finite terms
stands as a legitimate way to discuss God while not getting lost in linguistic
debate.
By establishing analogy as the means of describing God, we also
simultaneously establish simplicity as the focal point for understanding the
unity of God’s attributes. We
acknowledge that the phrases “God is wise” and God is good” are ultimately the
same as “God is God”, but the former phrases are still informative.
This means that we break down the simplicity of God into elements that we
can understand, but God is still a unified whole.
Houston states, “According to divine simplicity we recognize that God and
His attributes are ontologically identical. However, it does not follow that
these attributes are therefore indistinguishable. Their identity obtains in
virtue of their ontology, their distinctness obtains in virtue of our conception
of them”8. God is God,
but we look at individual portions of God’s nature to understand them.
Regardless, God is ultimately unified and we must maintain this
realization.
God is traditionally viewed as simple, or having no parts.
Nevertheless, many critiques of God’s existence involve attempting to
unravel God by comparing two or more of God’s attributes in order to prove an
incompatibility. I believe this to
be an inappropriate understanding of a “simple” God.
A simple God cannot be reduced, meaning that all of God’s attributes can
stand together to defend each other as a whole.
Therefore, when God is viewed as simple, God’s nature cannot be
scrutinized in parts, but must be taken together.
This kind of God can withstand the traditional critiques of anti-theists.
Even though God is simple, we view God as a complex entity because of the limits
of our language. But God is
irreducibly complex, which I argue is the same as God being simple.
We cannot literally know God, so we are left to understand God to the
best of our capabilities since we must discuss God’s nature.
Therefore, by referring to God as irreducibly complex, I mean that we
must view God as if God was
constructed of various portions, while recognizing that God’s nature escapes the
bounds of our language. If we created a being that was omnipotent, omniscient,
just, merciful, etc., we wouldn’t create God.
Assuming that there are a finite amount of ingredients capable of
comprising an infinite entity is counterintuitive and absurd.
God is not the product of multiple attributes.
We can,
however, understand God through analogies, but we must acknowledge
ultimately that God is not both good and wise.
God is God. This means the
wisdom and goodness are complimentary descriptions of God, along with the many
other attributes.
At first glance there may seem to be a contradiction in claiming that a simple
entity is also irreducibly complex.
However, consider a jigsaw puzzle.
A puzzle is innately simple because it is a picture of a whole image.
But that picture is divided into many smaller pieces that when put
together comprise the whole. Each
piece is a small feature of the whole, but simply viewing the individual pieces
and what small portions of the whole puzzle they represent will not help us to
understand the picture as a whole.
The individual pieces won’t suffice.
It is only in the perfect combination that they make the complete whole
which, upon completion, is no longer complex.
God is simple so we divide the concept of God in an attempt to understand
the infinite whole, but the single attributes cannot be used to represent the
whole. They help us build the
picture, but they alone are not the picture.
In this same regard, the attributes as seen through analogy help us
understand God, but they are not God and cannot be interpreted as if they are.
Why think that simplicity characterizes God’s nature?
God, as traditionally construed, is seen as a prime mover or a creator
and is called necessary for everything to follow9.
This means that God would have existed prior to everything else which
leads to the conclusion that nothing created God, yet everything comes from God.
As long as this stands as the view of God, it follows that God must be
simple. If God is not dependent on
anything to exist, then there is no combination of attributes, circumstances, or
necessary factors that sustain or comprise God. As Aquinas states, “every
composite is posterior to its component parts, and is dependent on them; but God
is the first being”10.
At most, God can only be God, nothing else.
Then it follows that if God is simple, but we perceive God as complex and
comprised of parts, then complexity is not a feature of God’s nature but rather
of the language we use to refer to God’s nature
This interpretation of a simple God allows us to make sense of the collection of
attributes that have been ascribed to God over the history of theology.
The major attributes are as follows: omnipotent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent, omnipresent, immutable, infinite, simple, merciful, just,
self-sufficient, free, and loving11.
There may be more or less depending on how you want to group them, but
these are the core attributes.
Because of God’s simplicity, these attributes are only human perceptions of God,
not literal, independent qualities.
To say that God is any of these is to say that “God is God”.
But we must use analogy to parse the concept of God into terms and ideas
we can convey.
Thus far, I have argued that God is irreducibly simple and that there are
pragmatic reasons for using language that seems to isolate individual
attributes. But
there is a problem that remains. Is
it logical to ascribe these attributes to God in the first place?
After all, as analogies these attributes could be understood as
projections of our finite understanding.
There is no verifiable way to define these analogies as factual
descriptions of God.
For instance, Aquinas proposes in his fourth way of proving God’s existence that
God is the maximum degree of existence12.
This concept tends to be disregarded as outdated because it is based on
the Platonic idea of forms.
Aquinas’ proof by degree is mocked and rejected by Richard Dawkins because it
seems to hold a logical contradiction.
To illustrate this he jokes, “You might as well say, people vary in
smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum
conceivable smelliness. Therefore
there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God”13.
The major critique is that if God is the maximum of creation, then this
seems to make God the maximum of both the positive and negative parts.
While God would be the maximum of good, Dawkins critique would hold God
as simultaneously the maximum of evil.
This makes it seem easy to disregard the concept of degree, but this is
incorrect.
By approaching this issue from the perspective of negative theology, we can see
the error in Dawkin’s reasoning.
Negative theology applies to the argument of degrees by realizing
how attributes fit in with each other.
Consider the concept of good and evil.
These two ideas are not separate, as Dawkins would argue.
Evil is simply a lack of good, or less good than the maximum14.
This can be argued because the two concepts are opposites and cannot be
separated as abstracts. If there is
a lack of evil, then there is good, and vice versa.
This is just as if there is a lack of heat there is cold, or a lack of
light becomes darkness. Evil only
exists when there is a substantial lack of goodness.
That means that the maximum degree of evil is actually omnibenevolence.
Evil is linked to goodness, making evil at its best perfect goodness and
not ultimate depravity. Dawkins
believes that the argument of degree leads to contradictions because God must
hold perfections of every opposing
attribute leading to contradictions.
Negative theology shows there are no opposing attributes, just different
degrees of fundamental attributes.
I believe this is significant in establishing degree as a powerful proof for the
existence of God as well as for clarifying how we describe God’s nature.
We can extrapolate the idea of degree from the Platonic doctrine of forms
and use it in combination with negative theology to establish a sound basis for
our traditional analogies of God.
We can examine what is seen around us and look to God as the origin of it.
Aquinas considers this issue when it comes to using analogy in describing
God, such as saying “God is good”.
He states that analogy will, “fall short of a full representation of Him... For
these names express God, so far as our intellects know Him. Now since our
intellect knows God from creatures, it knows Him as far as creatures represent
Him”15. In this way we
acknowledge that we can know God through history and humanity because God’s
imprint or essence is in all of creation.
Since God is posited as a creator and point of origin, logically it
follows everything to come from that creator would somehow represent that
creator. How can something unlike
God come from God?
Negative theology and the concept of degree work together so we can
differentiate what the attributes are.
God is the maximum fulfillment of the baseline attributes of existence.
This means God isn’t perfect good and perfect evil, because evil is on
the same scale of goodness. Aquinas
continues, “Therefore the aforesaid names signify the divine substance, but in
an imperfect manner, even as creatures represent it imperfectly. So when we say,
"God is good," the meaning is not, "God is the cause of goodness," or "God is
not evil"; but the meaning is, "Whatever good we attribute to creatures,
pre-exists in God," and in a more excellent and higher way. Hence it does not
follow that God is good, because He causes goodness; but rather, on the
contrary, He causes goodness in things because He is good”16.
Since everything in existence is made by God and is a degree of God, then God
only has to represent the perfections.
Nothing that comes from God can surpass God’s character, which is
reflected into our language used to describe
God’s attributes. Many challenges
have been made regarding God’s attributes, especially God’s “omni-’ attributes.
A classic challenge made against God’s omnipotence is whether “God can
create a stone too heavy for Him to lift”17.
This seems challenging because either God is not omnipotent for being
unable to make the stone, or not omnipotent for being unable to lift the stone.
George Mavrodes solves this riddle, but his conclusion is not directly
relevant to this project18.
What is important are the implications that exist in these attributes.
We must look at them with the model presented by Aquinas.
God is the maximum of created attributes.
This does not necessarily imply a literal omni- anything to God.
As finite creatures with limited power, we will view an entity with
immeasurably more power as omnipotent.
This doesn’t make God omnipotent, it just means we describe God as
omnipotent. After all, our
descriptions of God should be analogies at best, not literal and factual claims
that are impossible to verify.
Therefore, God’s supposed omnipotence is projected from the vantage point of our
lesser power. I think it is better
to replace our omni- terms with analogies that won’t lead to linguistic
challenges such as in the stone riddle.
Instead of omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, we should
understand the analogies in terms of God being the most powerful, wise, and good
entity to exist. This portrays the
same character of God in less conflicting language.
If God is the most powerful, and the most powerful means omnipotent, then
God is omnipotent. If God is the
most wise, but there is no logical possibility of something being omniscient,
then God is simply the most wise.
This allows us to establish God as the maximum of all negatively derived
attributes with room for God to be either omni- or just the most-, and neither
of these is damaging to the God concept as a whole.
Once we establish analogy as a means of describing God, defend God’s innate
simplicity, and do away with linguistic complications, we can discuss the
concept of God as a whole. Is a
simple God a contradiction? The
answer has to be “no”, because if God is simple, there is nothing about God that
can contradict God’s nature. There
are two ways to clarify this answer.
One is simple, whereas the other takes more to develop.
The simple answer is that God’s nature cannot be a contradiction because
contradictions only come in our view and language.
If we accept that God is irreducibly complex, (because we cannot know God
entirely, we can only understand God as inseparable attributes that are small
parts of an infinite whole) then we must acknowledge that God’s nature is not in
conflict and not contradictory. We
can get caught in the language, but our debate over it does not affect or change
God’s character. Since we cannot
prove God’s existence, we can only assume that if God exists, then God exists in
the non-contradicting simple state that logic brings us to.
This won’t be a good enough answer for those skeptics who are still concerned
with the attributes that God maximizes.
I have already expressed how God can be simple while maintaining multiple
attributes. With that established,
we will move forward. Many attacks
mounted against God come in the form of pitting particular attributes against
each other. For instance, some argue that God cannot be all powerful and all
knowing while being all good since God created a world full of death and sin.
A good and powerful God would not do this, unless that God was capable,
but lacked foresight and wisdom.
This evidence seems condemning.
Another alleged conflict is with God’s justice, mercy and love.
How can God maximize justice while being merciful and loving?
God’s justice requires that God punish sinners, while God’s mercy
contradicts fairness. But some
people will still go to hell because of God’s justice, so God must not be loving
enough because God’s justice overpowers God’s love and mercy.
These are considered defeaters by opponents to God’s existence.
However, I believe them to be logical fallacies that focus on the
language and technicalities used to describe God, not the actual character of
God. These arguments are based on
the idea that for some reason, God’s attributes are independent of each other
and are in a constant conflict against each other.
This is innately illogical.
If all these properties exist in a simple God, then they cannot be reduced to
individual properties.
This brings to light an entirely new way
to think of God. Instead of looking
for how the properties contradict each other, let us test if they can support
each other. Even through our
potentially flawed analogies, the attributes we give to clarify “God is God”
allows us to perceive a simple and irreducibly complex God that is logically
consistent. I believe the fallacy
in singling out a pair of attributes comes in allowing opponents to turn one
attribute into a straw man. The
issues I presented above can be remedied by including the rest of God’s
attributes. It was easy to disprove
God by only examining a small portion of God, but what about the whole?
When we consider the entirety of God, it resolves the seeming contradictions.
The two issues presented above are solved simultaneously by considering
the whole of God’s nature. God is a
self-sufficient entity that exists as a prime mover.
Because God is self-sufficient, then God is simple since nothing was
before God to make God. This also
makes God free, for there is nothing to keep God in check.
If a free God made the decision to create, then God’s goodness would lead
God to create a universe where the inhabitants ultimately had the ability to
experience the perfection and goodness of God by having the capabilities to
analogously reason about that which is beyond their understanding, allowing them
to spend eternity in heaven[I].
God’s power allows God to create that existence, or any God chooses.
But, God’s wisdom allows God to create the most ideal world for goodness
to be potentially maximized in the creations.
Therefore, God would create a world that allowed evil and good to
simultaneously coexist in a balance19.
This is not by a lack of power or goodness, but an insight into
potentiality of which world could hold the greatest ability to promote the
maximum level of goodness[II].
God created a world with good and evil so that the creation could experience
ultimate goodness through choice.
But, this meant that some would also suffer the effects of evil.
God is just, meaning that those who succumbed to evil would have to be
separated forever from God20.
But this would ruin God’s plan if not dealt with.
Therefore, God’s mercy is enacted to allow any and every free will agent
to make a decision to embrace the goodness God has set apart.
The justice still deals with those agents who don’t enact the decision,
but God’s love is used as a tool to inspire the mercy opportunity to spread.
This means that for God’s perfect world where anyone can experience the
goodness of God, some will not. This is not by a failure of God, but by a
failure of the individual. If we
accept God’s wisdom, we cannot question the status of the world.
The faults then become the consequences of the finite nature of creation,
not the intentional and powerful creator.
The combination of God’s attributes will suffice to solve individual
conflicts between themselves.
This brings us to two major conclusions in the debate regarding God’s nature.
The first is that many of the flaws in the character of God are
misunderstandings based on the use of our language, or our limited implication
with words such as justice. We take
the idea of perfect justice to mean perfect fairness, because that is our
concept. We project this meaning,
but that does not make it the universal maximum of justice.
Second, even with the traditionally prescribed human analogies, the
character of God still remains intact as a whole.
Love and goodness solve the conflict between justice and mercy.
Justice and wisdom solves conflicts between omnipotence and
omnibenevolence. It is easy to
separate God’s attributes to make a mess.
But, we have to recognize God is simple and the attribute separation is a
fallacy.
It would be illogical to judge a whole entity by a single part.
To appropriately evaluate God, we must evaluate God entirely.
God’s characteristics cannot contradict each other because God is simple
and ultimately only has one characteristic, “Godness”.
As finite creatures, we divide these analogously into separate categories
to understand. But we must remember
these categories are based on analogies.
Therefore, all assessments on God’s being made on these analogies cannot
stand as factual and flawless descriptions. God can only be evaluated as God,
not as our perception. Therefore, a
simple God is broken down into many attributes that are irreducibly complex and
can withstand scrutiny as a whole.
Works Cited
1.
James, William. "The Will To Believe." Minnesota State University.
www.mnsu.edu/philosophy/THEWILLTOBELIEVE.pdf (accessed March 21, 2013).
2.
Gould, Stephen J.. "Nonoverlapping Magesteria." Riverside Community College.
faculty.rcc.edu/huff/bioassignmentsfall2011/Gould201997.pdf (accessed March 21,
2013).
3.
James
4.
Houston, John A.. To Speak of God: Transcendence, Simplicity, and Aquinas’
Doctrine of Analogy., 2008.
5.
Houston, pg. 9
6.
Houston, pg. 9
7.
Houston, pg.12-13
8.
Houston, pg. 12
9.
Aquinas, St. Thomas. "Summa Theologica." Internet Sacred Text Archive Home.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa.htm (accessed February 13, 2013).
10.
Aquinas
11.
Shatz, David. "Chapter 1: The Concept of God." In Philosophy and faith: a
philosophy of religion reader, 1-4. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
12.
Aquinas
13.
Dawkins, Richard. The God delusion.
Pg. 77-80. London: Bantam,
2006.
14.
"Augustine's Confessions." Christian Classics Etheral Library.
www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.pdf (accessed March 21, 2013).
15.
Aquinas
16.
Aquinas
17.
Pojman, Louis P.. Philosophy of religion: an anthology. Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1987. Pg. 268
18.
Pojman, pg. 268
19.
Pojman, pg. 188
20.
Pojman pg. 181-200
[I]
Alvin Plantinga’s “The Free Will Defense” lays out the argument for
God’s free will, God choosing to create, and why God chose to create the
world we have now. It
stands as the basis for my arguments.