In the First Meditation of That All Shall Be Saved, David Bentley Hart presents the primary argument of the book, his “moral modal” argument for universal salvation.
I don’t disagree with Hart’s moral modal argument. As a universalist I’ve defended it. I think it’s irrefutable.
I would suggest however that your P13 as stated is false. 'Irrevocable' suffering as a final state – yes, that’s the problem. But clearly (clearly enough to me) not all suffering is evil. Some transient suffering can be instrumental, redemptive, therapeutic, pedagogical. So if P13 means ‘suffering’ simpliciter, I'd see that as a problem. At the very least, the distinction I'm suggesting doesn't undermine the moral argument.
Thanks Tom. While there is a distinction between suffering per se and per accidens, I'm not sure it matters for P13. The former, as the privation of some good, is evil. The latter, if it is a proportional side effect of some good (e.g. the pain of physical therapy), is a permissible evil. But, considered in itself, it is still evil.
I could be wrong, but I think you’re misreading the classical distinction. You're equating:
- Suffering as an end → per se, and evil.
- Suffering as a means → per accidens, and tolerable.
You’re placing the defining line between per se and per accidens suffering on ‘instrumentality’ (means vs. end), whereas in classical thought the key distinction is ‘intentionality’. Thus, suffering chosen as an end in itself (sadism, retribution, etc) is per se suffering that is evil while suffering chosen as a means to some good end (fasting, surgery, ascesis) is also per se suffering (though not evil) because it is chosen. Per accidens suffering on the other hand is unintended (not chosen, even as a means).
Many don't take all suffering considered in itself to be evil (partly because to consider anything in itself is an abstraction, and good and evil are not abstractions, but also) since they suppose some measure of struggle/pain (ascesis and conatus essendi) to be a God-given term of the human journey from the get-go, not an evil consequence of sin or a fall.
But in any case - you're talking about irrevocable eschatological suffering. I just thought P13 could use some qualifying for those who don't view all suffering considered in itself to be evil but who agree with Hart's argument.
Actually, I was trying to be careful to avoid that equation (thus I referred to per accidens suffering as a "side effect," which is not a means). In addition, I was trying to avoid what I took to be your claim that some suffering is "instrumental" and hence a means, which, as you say, is intended. So, I am adopting the classic double-effect principle, according to which, evil (in this case, suffering qua suffering) can be permitted as a proportional side effect of the intended means.
I think "training" and "striving" are good. But I think it is important to describe them carefully. Take fasting. Abstaining from food is a morally neutral means for the sake of a good end, say, freeing up the mind for prayer and scripture reading. And suffering is a foreseen, proportional side effect of abstinence.
Similarly, a coach might set difficult tasks for his players (neutral means) to make them better at the sport (good end), while foreseeing suffering as a proportional side effect of the workout.
Finally, my main focus is the evil of "irrevocable eschatological suffering," but I think that any suffering is evil. Hence, God cannot intend transient historical suffering either. The generic P13 covers both.
Bradford, this is Fr. Rooney. I responded two years ago to Hart's argument on Facebook, offering a similar reconstruction to that you propose (although much more streamlined and logically perspicuous) and noting that the first premise is unmotivated and ought to be rejected. In your reconstruction, I believe that roughly corresponds to rejecting premise 15. It does not follow that, if someone is eternally damned, God directly wills rather than merely permits their damnation.
In addition to that chief logical move to reject the argument's conclusion, I'd reject premise 13. Suffering is not an intrinsic but an accidental evil and so it does not follow that if God intends suffering He intends a per se evil. Further, I think many of the claims made about the eschaton are likewise false and rely on equivocation, but I don't see that they prove much in the way of supporting that premise 15.
You can find my recent resharing of that post, but there were a few others in this series.
Some of your premises are similar to those of my reconstruction; others are not. In particular, nothing in your reconstruction resembles my P1-P5, a crucial part of Hart's argument. As a result, your reconstruction is quite different. For example, as you say, your 1a is unmotivated; but my P15 is motivated. As I point out, it is motivated by P8 and hence by P1-P7.
You claim your reconstruction is more "logically perspicuous." Where is mine lacking in perspicuity? There is an obvious enthymeme supporting P14 (not wanting to be too pedantic, I left out "God cannot intend evil"). And I left out premises about God intending the whole éschaton and, hence, every part of the éschaton (which also seem obvious). But granting those, my reconstruction is deductively valid.
"It does not follow that, if someone is eternally damned, God directly wills rather than merely permits their damnation." Does not follow from Hart's argument (as I have presented it)? Please point out the jump in reasoning.
I think P13 is correct: suffering is (awareness of) a privation of some good. As such, i.e. qua privation, it cannot be the object of a good intention. But rather than have that discussion, let me narrow P13 to "eternal suffering is evil." Clearly (I hope), the suffering of the damned, the pain of loss, is (awareness of) a privation of some good. And as such, i.e. qua privation, it cannot be the object of a good intention. Therefore, God cannot intend that privation.
"Suffering is not an intrinsic but an accidental evil and so it does not follow that if God intends suffering He intends a per se evil." Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't suffering always caused by privation (i.e. suffering just is felt privation)? If so, what would it mean to intend the suffering without also intending the underlying privation?
" I think many of the claims made about the eschaton are likewise false and rely on equivocation, but I don't see that they prove much in the way of supporting that premise 15." Which claims? What equivocation? Why do you think they don't prove much? Please elaborate.
I did not include the earlier parts of Hart's argument in my reconstruction for two reasons. First, to avoid attributing to Hart an obviously logically fallacious argument. Second, because I had discussed Hart's argument in previous posts, such as this one: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19BPVj39Fp/.
It does not follow that if God permits someone to be damned, that God thereby directly intends their damnation, unless you assume that God directly intends all that He permits. But that is precisely what is at issue. I reject the view that God directly intends all that He permits, and specifically reject as unmotivated the claim that God directly intends and cannot merely permit those evils that persist in the eschaton as well.
So, for suffering being an accidental evil which results from some privation, I take it that God merely permits any such evils to persist. The suffering itself is only accidentally an evil. The privation underlying is the individual soul/person being in a state of mortal sin, forever. But God does not intend that anyone be in such a state anymore than He intends anyone sin. He merely permits individuals to sin and to persist in the state or consequences attendant upon sin.
Thus, the key move of Hart's argument which I am rejecting is that I reject that God directly intends all that occurs in the eschaton. Just as God does not directly intend all that occurs in this life, God can merely permit evils (namely, damnation) to persist in the eschaton.
I see no reason that can be given which entails that God's permission of evils in this life and in the eschaton is somehow fundamentally different. I assume you take P1-5 to demonstrate this difference. But this argument is unsound in various respects.
Let me briefly state at least one reason that the argumentation of P1-5 is unsound. Specifically, we have independent reasons to reject the conclusion P5 that the eschaton is the telos or reason for creation. In the argument's explanation you seemed to propose a view on which God creates for His own goodness, or for the divine nature. But the eschaton is a creature, not the divine nature. And so if the reason for creation is God's own goodness, then the eschaton cannot be the reason for creation, since the eschaton is not divine. Hence, P5 is false.
If the earlier parts of Hart's argument commit an obvious logical fallacy, it should be easy to show. Please do so.
The position you criticize in the linked post (the "confusion" of a creature's télos with its final state in the éschaton) is not the one I attribute to Hart (the identity between the télos of God's creative act and the éschaton). I would be interested to hear any specific criticisms you have of the latter.
In your last paragraph, you argue that P1-P5 must be unsound because there is an independent reason to reject P5: "the eschaton is a creature, not the divine nature." But in the classical Christian tradition, creatures can "partake of the divine nature" (ST I–II q. 112, a. 1). And since it is Hart's view that everyone (and everything) will be deified, he holds that the final state of every person is unity with God by participation in the divine nature. This is evident in his affirmation of Gregory's view: “the cosmos will have been truly created only when it reaches its consummation in ‘the union of all things with the first Good.’” Thus, I say that "for Hart, this final state is, from God’s eternal perspective, the divine nature, i.e. the creaturely participation in the divine nature."
"It does not follow that if God permits someone to be damned, that God thereby directly intends their damnation, unless you assume that God directly intends all that He permits. But that is precisely what is at issue." No, it is not. If it were Hart's view that God "intends all that He permits," then Hart would hold that God intends every historical evil. But, as I explain, he does not. Rather, as I explain, he holds that the distinction between God's intention and permission is only inapplicable to the éschaton.
You "reject as unmotivated the claim that God directly intends and cannot merely permit those evils that persist in the eschaton." But Hart does motivate that claim. This is the game theory part of the argument. To refute it, you need to engage with it.
"The suffering itself is only accidentally an evil." I raised a question about this.
"I reject that God directly intends all that occurs in the eschaton." Denying a conclusion is not the same thing as refuting an argument supporting that conclusion.
P2 is false. That premise was "If a creative act is free of every limitation, its térma is its télos." The argument for this premise is unsound.
The argument for this premise is taken from Aquinas' claim that 'the principle of human acts . . . is the end. In like manner it is their terminus: for the human act terminates at that which the will intends as the end.' You say: "Consider the act of a potter. The télos of his potting is the finished pot. And the térma of his potting is the finished pot—his potting concludes when the pot is done. So, (assuming there are no mistakes) the goal and terminal state of potting are the same. In this regard, God’s creating is like the potter’s potting."
But it is false that whatever an act temporally terminates at - its temporal endpoint or final state of some acts - constitutes that act's goal or telos. And Aquinas is not here using 'terminus' in the sense of temporal endpoint. He means that which terminates the act. Achieving the purpose for which one acts can in some cases terminate the act in a transient production, as in the example you give later of pottery, but not every act involves a transient product which is the purpose/terminus of the act. That is, it is false that very act has a terminal temporal endpoint identical with its intended end, or, that whatever is that temporal endpoint is the end of the act.
For instance, if I smoke a cigarette, the endpoint of the act (temporally) is the burnt out cigarette. But it is not the goal of my action that I produce burnt out cigarette butts. And I can also intend a complex state of affairs, where my actions depend on those of others, such as intending to go to the movies if you likewise consent to go with me (but not otherwise). My intention is not simply exhausted by the temporal end-state of going to the movies with you or not going to the movies, since my intention could also be fulfilled in either way (depending if you want or don't want to go).
On similar lines, we can give an analysis of God's purposes which makes clear that God can intend an outcome with a complex intention, rather than simply to produce a given state of affairs. For instance, God can aim to achieve union with all those who likewise will to achieve union with God. But then it is clear that God's desires are terminated in the appropriate sense whenever He achieves union with those who will it and does not achieve union with those who do not. And it would be that God's telos is achieved at the eschaton. But it does not follow that, if someone fails to achieve union with God, God wishes that this person fails to achieve union all things considered. Rather, God's intention or telos regarding that person was conditional. So, it would be illegitimate to infer that whatever the state of that person is is whatever God intended for that person, absent any other conditions. God's intention for that person was always and will always be to achieve union with this person, if they were to will it. God's intention is not thwarted if that person fails to will union, even though it is also false that God did not will union with this person. There are many similar cases in human action.
So, I reject P2. And, given that P2 is false (corresponding roughly to my P1a), it follows that the intended conclusions will not follow from P2.
[In the linked post, I criticize the same view you are proposing, although I don't think you see that they are logically equivalent. I claim that there is a confusion between a creature's télos with its final state in the éschaton: that whatever happens as the final temporal state in the eschaton must be that creature's telos. You argue to the contrary that Hart's position is instead that there is an "identity between the télos of God's creative act and the éschaton." But the inference here is that whatever persists in the eschaton *is* the telos of God's creative act regarding every individual. So, logically speaking, to say that the temporal endpoint of anything in the eschaton is identical with its telos is the same as saying that whatever state an individual exemplifies in the eschaton is the telos of God's act in regard to that individual. These are truth-value substitutable, logically speaking. I see no clear difference between these claims.]
You fail to grasp the point I was making about the telos of God's creative act. I noted that the telos of God's act is the divine nature itself, rather than any created good, and that the eschaton is a created good, and that the eschaton cannot therefore be that telos of God's creative act. You respond that "in the classical Christian tradition, creatures can 'partake of the divine nature' (ST I–II q. 112, a. 1). ...the final state of every person is unity with the divine nature." This fails to grasp the point I was making. The union of a creature with the divine nature is likewise a created state of affairs - i.e., the union of creature with God is itself a created thing. That union then cannot be the telos of creation, properly speaking. The divine nature is not the same as creation or the state of affairs which obtains at the eschaton.
Finally, you noted that, "If it were Hart's view that God 'intends all that He permits,' then Hart would hold that God intends every historical evil. But, as I explain, he does not. Rather, as I explain, he holds that the distinction between God's intention and permission is only inapplicable to the éschaton." Now, I was not asserting (in what you cited) that Hart denies the distinction between God's intention and permission of evils. You are correct that Hart endorses this distinction between intention and permission prior to the eschaton, although arguing that this distinction fails to apply at the eschaton.
Nevertheless, the deep problem with Hart's position is that the reasons given by Hart that the distinction fails to obtain at the eschaton likewise apply prior to the eschaton: namely, that God's creative act is unlimited. For, God is no less unlimited in creative ability to providentially direct the world at every point in its history than He is in directing its consummation at the eschaton.
If God's creative act is unlimited, then nothing ought to prevent God from achieving His aims. If God's aims were to ensure that every creature achieves union with God, then this union should obtain at every time. But, clearly, union with God does not obtain now. Now, as far as I can see, Hart seems to endorse the view that there are metaphysical necessities which constrain God's act (however we want to explain or account for these necessities, as in a necessity of the divine nature itself, etc.), such that it is logically incoherent to think God could achieve union with every creature immediately and at every time. But this does two things. First, it undermines the grounds for asserting that these metaphysical necessities do not obtain at the eschaton. That is, it opens the door to others likewise appealing to metaphysical necessities that prevent God from saving all - maybe just the same necessities that prevent God from achieving union with all immediately and at every time. Second, it makes all evil metaphysically necessary, on whatever grounds Hart presumes, such that not even God could have achieved a world without just the sin and evil we see.
And I think this consequence is very serious, especially given Hart's view that the metaphysical necessities in question follow from God's nature itself. That is, given Hart's account of God's nature, God does directly intend sin and evil. Hart thinks God necessarily creates, given the divine nature as loving. So, since Hart's views entail that all sin and evil is a necessary consequence of God's creative act, such that not even God could have created a world without the sin and evil we see, then not even God could have avoided willing the necessary concomitants of creation. Consequently, for the same reasons given by Hart that 'antecedent and consequent will' collapse in virtue of the fact that God's act is unlimited by anything extrinsic to Himself, then God's intention and permission collapse in regard to every sin and evil He brings about in creation. Likewise, "the outcome of the aleatory venture may be intentionally indeterminate, but the wager itself is an irrevocable intentional decision, wherein every possible cost has already been accepted"; so, if God creates necessarily and creates a world in which it is logically incoherent to suppose that union can be achieved without sin, or even the chance of sin, and accepting such a chance of sin involves an 'irrevocable intentional decision' by which God directly wills all such chances of evil, then God directly intends all such sin and evil that happens. For, God is no less unlimited in creative ability to providentially direct the world at every point in its history than He is in directing its consummation at the eschaton.
I think your argument against P2 muddies the water. Hart says that the éschaton is creation’s “term.” And, in my reconstruction, I say that the éschaton is the térma, the terminal or final state, of God’s creative act. Similarly, when discussing human acts, I speak of their térma, terminal state, or conclusion. There is no mention of a temporal endpoint in any of these contexts. That’s because the temporal endpoint is accidental to the final state. The final state of the act of potting is the completion of the pot, not the moment in time, say Tuesday morning, at which it is completed. Accordingly, I do not say that every act has a “temporal endpoint” that is identical with its télos, or that the télos of an act is whatever its “temporal endpoint” happens to be. Indeed, I’m not sure what it would mean to say that the télos of potting is Tuesday morning. What I do say (following Aquinas) is that every act has a terminal state that is the same as the act’s télos—the completed pot is the terminal state of the act of potting, and this is the same as the télos of the act.
I also think your description of smoking is inadequate. You say, “if I smoke a cigarette, the endpoint of the act (temporally) is the burnt out cigarette.” First, a burnt-out cigarette is not a moment in time but a state of affairs. Second, if you set out to completely smoke a single cigarette, then the terminal state of that act is a cigarette smoked down to the butt. But that is hardly ever the télos or terminal state of smoking. It is, for example, the goal (proximate, not remote) of a non-smoker who has accepted a dare to smoke a cigarette; but it is not the goal of a smoker on his break. The latter’s goal, the object of his act of smoking, is a nicotine rush and/or the kinaesthetic pleasure of inhaling and exhaling tobacco smoke. Hence, the state of sufficiently experiencing that rush and pleasure is the terminal state of the act. (The adverbial qualification is important. A smoker might experience some rush and pleasure after a few puffs, but he keeps smoking because his goal is a greater intensity and amount. On some occasions, he might attain the desired levels by smoking half a cigarette; on others, by consecutively smoking two cigarettes.) So, in normal circumstances, a burnt-out cigarette butt is neither a smoker’s goal nor the terminal state of his smoking. Not every act is a poíēsis, and so not every act produces a poietón. I have not said otherwise.
Your example involving a conditional intention to go to the movies confuses different topics. Insofar as it is relevant to the above discussion of acts, it consists of two possible acts—going to the movies and, say, doing laundry at home—each of which has a terminal state that is the same as its télos.
“But it does not follow that, if someone fails to achieve union with God, God wishes that this person fails to achieve union all things considered. Rather, God's intention or telos regarding that person was conditional.” Hart argues that it does follow. This is the game theory part of his argument. It needs to be engaged with.
“So, logically speaking, to say that the temporal endpoint [sic] of anything in the eschaton is identical with its telos is the same as saying that whatever state an individual exemplifies in the eschaton is the telos of God’s act in regard to that individual. These are truth-value substitutable, logically speaking. I see no clear difference between these claims.” Yes, (A) “The telos of God’s creative act is the eschaton” and (B) “The telos of a creature is its part in the eschaton” mutually entail each other. But there is still a clear difference between them. (A) is conceptually and metaphysically prior to (B). And that priority is important for the argument. In the First Meditation, Hart is arguing from the nature of God, not that of creatures.
Concerning the divine nature, you seem to be assuming a point that I do not make. Hart says that “creation’s term is the divine nature for which all things were made.” I gloss this as the “final state is . . . the divine nature, i.e. the creaturely participation in the divine nature.” The point of both statements is that, from God’s eternal perspective, the térma-télos of his creative act is the deification of all things. Thus, the térma-télos of creation is union with God himself, it is God’s nature and goodness as shared with creatures. Obviously, it cannot be God exclusively, or his nature or goodness exclusively.
Finally, your remarks about God being constrained by metaphysical necessities are outside the scope of the moral modal argument. If you’re genuinely interested in Hart's view, see “If God is going to deify everyone anyway, why not deify everyone immediately” (link below). As for your claim that his view entails “that all sin and evil is a necessary consequence of God's creative act,” why think that? He says that the possibility of sin and evil is a necessary consequence of the creation of free persons (again, see the linked piece). But the necessity of sin and evil? If that were so, and the moral modal argument were correct, then the creation of free persons would be evil. In which case, God could not create.
The problem I am highlighting is that the claims about the eschaton beg the question, one way or another, relying as they do on the fact that the eschaton is temporally final and equivocating this temporal finality with whether the eschaton is intentionally final/terminal. But this is precisely what I deny: it is not true that the eschaton is intentionally terminal in all respects simply because it is temporally final. As far as I can see, your argument commits the same mistake, with the additional problem that, if you do not move from the fact that the state is temporally final to its intentional finality (as I think Hart does), then I see no premise by which we can argue that the eschaton and all its aspects constitute an intentionally final state ("or térma, terminal state, or conclusion") simply from the fact that it is a temporally final state of the universe.
The argument in favor of P2 given in the lemma was only that some acts have terminal states; it does not show that every act which has a temporally final state entails that this temporally final state is likewise the intentionally terminal state of that act. And, unless it follows that the temporally final state of every act is identical with its intentionally terminal state (that is, what is positively intended), it does not follow that the eschaton and all its aspects are the intentionally final state of God's creative act. This is particularly true if not every act is productive. We cannot infer from the fact that a certain state of affairs obtains in the eschaton that God positively intends every aspect as its intentionally terminal state, since those obtaining states of affairs are not necessarily the terminal products of the act.
For instance, I pointed out that having a conditional intention is possible, and that (given such intentions) one cannot infer that, because someone only achieves one of various ends they are aiming at, therefore the person never had the intention to achieve those other ends or that they positively intended 'all along' to achieve the ends that they did. The point is that this conditional intention constitutes a counterexample to the assertion that God's telos is entirely identical with the temporally final state of the cosmos. It can be that God has conditional intentions toward persons and towards the cosmos, and then it would not follow that the temporally final state is what He wills simpliciter.
Now, I don't see that 'game theory' considerations undermine the above counterexample [although I find that moniker confusing, as these discussions do not actually have anything to do with what in mathematics is called 'game theory']. Having a conditional intention is not the same as willing simpliciter or positively intending an end. Yet, as I further argued, considerations of 'game theory' cut both ways - because they prove too much. The 'game theory' perspective seems to be that, if God creates with a conditional intention to permit evil X, or creates such that He knows X is a possibility, then God directly or positively intends X to occur. But it is clear that, on Hart's view, God creates by knowing that sin and evil are necessary possibilities. Therefore, it likewise follows that God directly or positively wills all evil and sin, whether or not damnation is possible. That is, given Hart's 'game theory perspective,' since God creates on the chance of sin, it follows that God has directly intended all sin and evil. The piece you cite by Hart indicates exactly what I proposed was Hart's position: that the possibility of sin and evil are metaphysical necessities which not even divine omnipotence can prevent.
But notice: if you want to exempt God's 'responsibility' for sin and evil on account of the fact that sin and evil were only a necessary *possibility* and not a *necessary* entailment of God's creative act, then the 'game theory' considerations ipso facto fail to apply to the case of damnation. That is, we can deny that damnation was anything more than a likewise necessary possibility of God's creative act, rather than being a necessary entailment of it.
Now, I think Hart's view has serious problems regarding the necessity of creation and providence which I don't think you are facing, but it is nevertheless clear from the above (and your responses) that there is a dilemma in this 'game theory' response: if God does not positively intend whatever is simply possible as a result of His creative act, then damnation would need not be positively intended, since it is simply possible; if God does positively intend whatever is possible as a result of His creative act, then all other instances of sin and evil would likewise be positively intended.
There may be a property of the eschaton, like its fixity, such that everything in it is intended. And/or perhaps God can't antecedently prevent the possibility of allowing the possibility of sin, but He *can* antecedently prevent the possibility of sinning forever. (This is compatible with the fact that the universalist and Fr. Rooney may agree that God could've contingently prevented the possibility of sin by not putting creatures in circumstances where they could sin.)
Also, even though God is unlimited in His creative power, there may be logical limits that are unique to the temporal and the eschaton. Besides the above, just as God can't change the past, He can't create a creature with a certain past unless that past really occurred. A package deal. The eschaton may require a past where God had the possibility of choosing whether to allow the possibility of sin.
It may be the case that there is a limit to being in sin: a creature can keep indeterministically rejecting God, but once they hit a ceiling, they deterministically choose God. The universalist God can't antecedently ensure no possibility of possibility of sin, but given His loving nature, there is a sinning ceiling which He antecedently ensures. Its being a ceiling is uniquely characteristic of the temporal.
Would God risk universal damnation? I don't think so. Yet "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us" (Attr. St. Augustine) and "One soul is more precious to God than the entire cosmos" (Attr. a saint). Also, given that all being apart from God is caused by God, even acts of sin aren't left solely to the individual. God is arguably ultimately responsible for the consequences of what He and His creatures do.
A well-intentioned person sent me this post as a link, hoping I would be "converted". Oh well.
Anyway, this reconstruction of Hart's argument isn't new, not that it isn't a good steelman (it is). The polysemy of "end" in Hart's argument in his First Meditation hasn't gone unnoticed. All that said, there are several issues:
(1) The orthodox could deny that suffering is itself always evil — if someone undergoes the suffering of shame for some act they committed, then that suffering is evil in one sense (in that it's a privation of some good) but also fitting in another sense (it is good for people to feel shame for their wrongs). This is basically G. E. Moore's concept of organic unity.
(2) The orthodox could also distinguish on intention: God might conditionally intend that all creatures attain to eternal well-being on the condition that they live good lives. It would be evil for God to allow the eternal damnation of some only if they deserve it, but the orthodox needn't grant that any creature deserves it. Obviously, one can give arguments for why all rational creatures deserve eternal well-being, as Hart does in _You Are Gods_, but whether they are sound can be debated.
(3) The most significant problem with Hart's argument here is that it doesn't properly take into account God's intention of the temporal world with all its attendant evils. Let's concede that the terma and telos of God's creative act is the eschaton. But what about all that leads up to it? If it's not the telos, then it is something either extraneous to the end or is the means to the end. Since it's not extraneous, it's clearly the means. Now it is true that whoever intends an end must also intend the means: this holds true of all rational agents. They might not intend _every_ aspect of the means, such as when a smith has to work with metal of inferior quality to craft an artefact. But this clearly isn't true of God, who creates ex nihilo. Therefore this means that whatever evil transpires is, by Hart's own reasoning, intended by God. This simply follows from the fact that to intend the end is to intend all the means involved in getting to the end, and since God creates ex nihilo, both the ends and the means are intended by him.
Now Hart may plead all he wishes that the distinction between the antecedent and permissive or consequent wills of God coincide only at the eschaton, but he has not _shown_ why they come apart only then: by the sheer fact that whoever intends the end also intends the means, particularly if they have complete control over both, Hart's deity intends the evils in the temporal world.
The solution to this difficulty is to affirm the orthodox position that God does not intend any creaturely good unconditionally. All good that a creature receives is conditioned on the contingent cooperation of other creatures and on the contingent relation of that individual creature to God. God has no requirement to give unconditioned flourishing to any creature, anymore than he has a requirement to give eyes to a plant.
As an aside, that Hart doesn't see the flaw in his arguments doesn't make him a dolt: plenty of otherwise brilliant thinkers make flawed arguments. Hart is no different.
(1) I have not argued that shame per se is evil, only that shame is bad _in a sense_ inasmuch as it's bad _for the subject_. It is not absolutely bad, since feeling shame is the morally right thing to do in certain circumstances. Since shame is an instance of suffering and there are at least some cases where suffering is not absolutely evil, therefore it is not the case that suffering is always evil.
(2) The orthodox position is that no creature deserves eternal well-being, therefore God does not injure any creature by damning them. God in general has no obligations to any creature, even if it is impossible for him to intend evil to any.
(3) As I have argued, Hart's argument for the collapse of the antecedent/consequent will proves too much, because it cannot apply only to the eschaton, because what is intended as an end also applies to the means. If the telos is such that nothing can prevent God from actualizing it (given creation ex nihilo), then by the same principle viz. creation ex nihilo, nothing can prevent God from actualizing the means (the temporal world) without all its attendant evils. If God could prevent those evils but doesn't, then he has "played dice" with the world.
None of these apply to the orthodox view on which God has no obligations to his creatures, but since the Hartian argument rests on God being evil for even allowing the possibility of eternal damnation, the same applies to the Hartian deity.
(1) I understood your claim that "the suffering of shame . . . is evil in one sense (in that it's a privation of some good)" to mean that, qua suffering, it is a privation. Is that not your view?
(2) Suppose God predestined the damnation of someone (in a Calvinist sense). Would that injure the damned person?
(3) What is the means here? Why does it have to include historical evils? Couldn't someone like Hart say that the creation of free persons is the means, their eternal beatitude is the end, and historical evils are all unintended secondary effects of the means (à la double effect)?
(1) Not every privation is absolutely evil. As an example, a lion hunting down a gazelle kills it and the latter suffers pain in the process. The whole of it is bad for the gazelle and a privation of its life, but not absolutely evil.
(2) God could will not to grant eternal well-being to a sinless person. They would remain in their natural state forever, but given their sinlessness, they would not suffer.
(3) The means here is the temporal world itself, which is intended by God, therefore it is an end of the creative act, even if it's not the ultimate end. Since whoever intends the end must also intend the means, the means is also an end of the divine intention. Since the divine intention, as creative act is free from limitation, there can be no gap between terma and telos. Obviously the evils in the temporal world don't _have_ to be there: that adds to the problem for Hart's position. Given that God could will the eschaton through any means (given that the creative act is free from all limitations), he could have actualized the temporal world without the evils that characterize it. He could have acted in such a way as to prevent the possibility of any evil from occurring. But he didn't, ergo he "played dice" with his creatures. The point I'm making is that Hart's reasoning about the eschaton which is the telos of the creative act, also applies to the temporal world itself which is a secondary telos of the same act insofar as whoever intends the telos also intends the means.
(1) "The whole of it is bad for the gazelle." Indeed.
(2) Would they suffer the "pain of loss"?
(3) Yes, I understand that is your view. My question was, is there any reason why someone like Hart couldn't hold that historical evils are unintended secondary effects of the creation of free persons?
(1) Indeed, and just as something can be bad for the gazelle without being evil simpliciter, the suffering of the erstwhile sinner can be bad for them without being evil.
(2) I don't think so. They would just lack the supernatural good of eternal well-being.
(3) Hart could indeed hold to such a view, but not _coherently_, as anything that applies to the eschaton as the end must also apply to the temporal world insofar as it is also a secondary end of the creative act.
God can know the past and present, and perhaps the final state, but not any unsettled parts (e.g. free choices, emission of an alpha particle, collapse of the wave function) between the present and the end. They don't exist so as to ground a truth value. My guess is that it wouldn't affect your argument.
While I am aware of Kenny's criticism and (vaguely) of some of the replies (e.g. by Stump and Kretzmann), I haven't given it much thought. So I wouldn't want to weigh in on the particulars of the simultaneity debate. That said, I suspect that Kenny's univocal use of "simultaneous" is a problem. God's transcendence needs to be considered.
I think it becomes unintelligible to rely on an analogical use of simultaneous. What does it mean if not "present to"? It becomes vacuous term. You could substitute Kenny's "simultaneous" with "present to" and the argument still works.
I think all descriptions of God are analogical (or apophatic).
Does it affect the argument if God cannot know our future because it is "unsettled"? As I understand it, the argument depends on classical theism. A god who could learn new things as the future "settles" into the present, so to speak, is not pure act, not the God who creates ex nihilo, and so, not the God whose creative terma and telos must be identical.
Hart says something relevant to this question toward the end of the First Meditation: "If Christians did not proclaim a creatio ex nihilo – if they thought God a being limited by some external principle or internal imperfection, or if they were dualists, or dialectical idealists, or what have you – the question of evil would be an aetiological query only for them, not a terrible moral conundrum" (89-90).
I disagree. God, or Pure Act, for instance, knows what time it is now, even though it's always changing. His contingent beliefs are (partly) extrinsic and imply no intrinsic variation in God across possible worlds.
Thank you for this Bradford.
I don’t disagree with Hart’s moral modal argument. As a universalist I’ve defended it. I think it’s irrefutable.
I would suggest however that your P13 as stated is false. 'Irrevocable' suffering as a final state – yes, that’s the problem. But clearly (clearly enough to me) not all suffering is evil. Some transient suffering can be instrumental, redemptive, therapeutic, pedagogical. So if P13 means ‘suffering’ simpliciter, I'd see that as a problem. At the very least, the distinction I'm suggesting doesn't undermine the moral argument.
Tom
Thanks Tom. While there is a distinction between suffering per se and per accidens, I'm not sure it matters for P13. The former, as the privation of some good, is evil. The latter, if it is a proportional side effect of some good (e.g. the pain of physical therapy), is a permissible evil. But, considered in itself, it is still evil.
I could be wrong, but I think you’re misreading the classical distinction. You're equating:
- Suffering as an end → per se, and evil.
- Suffering as a means → per accidens, and tolerable.
You’re placing the defining line between per se and per accidens suffering on ‘instrumentality’ (means vs. end), whereas in classical thought the key distinction is ‘intentionality’. Thus, suffering chosen as an end in itself (sadism, retribution, etc) is per se suffering that is evil while suffering chosen as a means to some good end (fasting, surgery, ascesis) is also per se suffering (though not evil) because it is chosen. Per accidens suffering on the other hand is unintended (not chosen, even as a means).
Many don't take all suffering considered in itself to be evil (partly because to consider anything in itself is an abstraction, and good and evil are not abstractions, but also) since they suppose some measure of struggle/pain (ascesis and conatus essendi) to be a God-given term of the human journey from the get-go, not an evil consequence of sin or a fall.
But in any case - you're talking about irrevocable eschatological suffering. I just thought P13 could use some qualifying for those who don't view all suffering considered in itself to be evil but who agree with Hart's argument.
Thanks again.
Actually, I was trying to be careful to avoid that equation (thus I referred to per accidens suffering as a "side effect," which is not a means). In addition, I was trying to avoid what I took to be your claim that some suffering is "instrumental" and hence a means, which, as you say, is intended. So, I am adopting the classic double-effect principle, according to which, evil (in this case, suffering qua suffering) can be permitted as a proportional side effect of the intended means.
I think "training" and "striving" are good. But I think it is important to describe them carefully. Take fasting. Abstaining from food is a morally neutral means for the sake of a good end, say, freeing up the mind for prayer and scripture reading. And suffering is a foreseen, proportional side effect of abstinence.
Similarly, a coach might set difficult tasks for his players (neutral means) to make them better at the sport (good end), while foreseeing suffering as a proportional side effect of the workout.
Finally, my main focus is the evil of "irrevocable eschatological suffering," but I think that any suffering is evil. Hence, God cannot intend transient historical suffering either. The generic P13 covers both.
Bradford, this is Fr. Rooney. I responded two years ago to Hart's argument on Facebook, offering a similar reconstruction to that you propose (although much more streamlined and logically perspicuous) and noting that the first premise is unmotivated and ought to be rejected. In your reconstruction, I believe that roughly corresponds to rejecting premise 15. It does not follow that, if someone is eternally damned, God directly wills rather than merely permits their damnation.
In addition to that chief logical move to reject the argument's conclusion, I'd reject premise 13. Suffering is not an intrinsic but an accidental evil and so it does not follow that if God intends suffering He intends a per se evil. Further, I think many of the claims made about the eschaton are likewise false and rely on equivocation, but I don't see that they prove much in the way of supporting that premise 15.
You can find my recent resharing of that post, but there were a few others in this series.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16Tao5Rxez/
Some of your premises are similar to those of my reconstruction; others are not. In particular, nothing in your reconstruction resembles my P1-P5, a crucial part of Hart's argument. As a result, your reconstruction is quite different. For example, as you say, your 1a is unmotivated; but my P15 is motivated. As I point out, it is motivated by P8 and hence by P1-P7.
You claim your reconstruction is more "logically perspicuous." Where is mine lacking in perspicuity? There is an obvious enthymeme supporting P14 (not wanting to be too pedantic, I left out "God cannot intend evil"). And I left out premises about God intending the whole éschaton and, hence, every part of the éschaton (which also seem obvious). But granting those, my reconstruction is deductively valid.
"It does not follow that, if someone is eternally damned, God directly wills rather than merely permits their damnation." Does not follow from Hart's argument (as I have presented it)? Please point out the jump in reasoning.
I think P13 is correct: suffering is (awareness of) a privation of some good. As such, i.e. qua privation, it cannot be the object of a good intention. But rather than have that discussion, let me narrow P13 to "eternal suffering is evil." Clearly (I hope), the suffering of the damned, the pain of loss, is (awareness of) a privation of some good. And as such, i.e. qua privation, it cannot be the object of a good intention. Therefore, God cannot intend that privation.
"Suffering is not an intrinsic but an accidental evil and so it does not follow that if God intends suffering He intends a per se evil." Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't suffering always caused by privation (i.e. suffering just is felt privation)? If so, what would it mean to intend the suffering without also intending the underlying privation?
" I think many of the claims made about the eschaton are likewise false and rely on equivocation, but I don't see that they prove much in the way of supporting that premise 15." Which claims? What equivocation? Why do you think they don't prove much? Please elaborate.
I did not include the earlier parts of Hart's argument in my reconstruction for two reasons. First, to avoid attributing to Hart an obviously logically fallacious argument. Second, because I had discussed Hart's argument in previous posts, such as this one: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19BPVj39Fp/.
It does not follow that if God permits someone to be damned, that God thereby directly intends their damnation, unless you assume that God directly intends all that He permits. But that is precisely what is at issue. I reject the view that God directly intends all that He permits, and specifically reject as unmotivated the claim that God directly intends and cannot merely permit those evils that persist in the eschaton as well.
So, for suffering being an accidental evil which results from some privation, I take it that God merely permits any such evils to persist. The suffering itself is only accidentally an evil. The privation underlying is the individual soul/person being in a state of mortal sin, forever. But God does not intend that anyone be in such a state anymore than He intends anyone sin. He merely permits individuals to sin and to persist in the state or consequences attendant upon sin.
Thus, the key move of Hart's argument which I am rejecting is that I reject that God directly intends all that occurs in the eschaton. Just as God does not directly intend all that occurs in this life, God can merely permit evils (namely, damnation) to persist in the eschaton.
I see no reason that can be given which entails that God's permission of evils in this life and in the eschaton is somehow fundamentally different. I assume you take P1-5 to demonstrate this difference. But this argument is unsound in various respects.
Let me briefly state at least one reason that the argumentation of P1-5 is unsound. Specifically, we have independent reasons to reject the conclusion P5 that the eschaton is the telos or reason for creation. In the argument's explanation you seemed to propose a view on which God creates for His own goodness, or for the divine nature. But the eschaton is a creature, not the divine nature. And so if the reason for creation is God's own goodness, then the eschaton cannot be the reason for creation, since the eschaton is not divine. Hence, P5 is false.
If the earlier parts of Hart's argument commit an obvious logical fallacy, it should be easy to show. Please do so.
The position you criticize in the linked post (the "confusion" of a creature's télos with its final state in the éschaton) is not the one I attribute to Hart (the identity between the télos of God's creative act and the éschaton). I would be interested to hear any specific criticisms you have of the latter.
In your last paragraph, you argue that P1-P5 must be unsound because there is an independent reason to reject P5: "the eschaton is a creature, not the divine nature." But in the classical Christian tradition, creatures can "partake of the divine nature" (ST I–II q. 112, a. 1). And since it is Hart's view that everyone (and everything) will be deified, he holds that the final state of every person is unity with God by participation in the divine nature. This is evident in his affirmation of Gregory's view: “the cosmos will have been truly created only when it reaches its consummation in ‘the union of all things with the first Good.’” Thus, I say that "for Hart, this final state is, from God’s eternal perspective, the divine nature, i.e. the creaturely participation in the divine nature."
"It does not follow that if God permits someone to be damned, that God thereby directly intends their damnation, unless you assume that God directly intends all that He permits. But that is precisely what is at issue." No, it is not. If it were Hart's view that God "intends all that He permits," then Hart would hold that God intends every historical evil. But, as I explain, he does not. Rather, as I explain, he holds that the distinction between God's intention and permission is only inapplicable to the éschaton.
You "reject as unmotivated the claim that God directly intends and cannot merely permit those evils that persist in the eschaton." But Hart does motivate that claim. This is the game theory part of the argument. To refute it, you need to engage with it.
"The suffering itself is only accidentally an evil." I raised a question about this.
"I reject that God directly intends all that occurs in the eschaton." Denying a conclusion is not the same thing as refuting an argument supporting that conclusion.
P2 is false. That premise was "If a creative act is free of every limitation, its térma is its télos." The argument for this premise is unsound.
The argument for this premise is taken from Aquinas' claim that 'the principle of human acts . . . is the end. In like manner it is their terminus: for the human act terminates at that which the will intends as the end.' You say: "Consider the act of a potter. The télos of his potting is the finished pot. And the térma of his potting is the finished pot—his potting concludes when the pot is done. So, (assuming there are no mistakes) the goal and terminal state of potting are the same. In this regard, God’s creating is like the potter’s potting."
But it is false that whatever an act temporally terminates at - its temporal endpoint or final state of some acts - constitutes that act's goal or telos. And Aquinas is not here using 'terminus' in the sense of temporal endpoint. He means that which terminates the act. Achieving the purpose for which one acts can in some cases terminate the act in a transient production, as in the example you give later of pottery, but not every act involves a transient product which is the purpose/terminus of the act. That is, it is false that very act has a terminal temporal endpoint identical with its intended end, or, that whatever is that temporal endpoint is the end of the act.
For instance, if I smoke a cigarette, the endpoint of the act (temporally) is the burnt out cigarette. But it is not the goal of my action that I produce burnt out cigarette butts. And I can also intend a complex state of affairs, where my actions depend on those of others, such as intending to go to the movies if you likewise consent to go with me (but not otherwise). My intention is not simply exhausted by the temporal end-state of going to the movies with you or not going to the movies, since my intention could also be fulfilled in either way (depending if you want or don't want to go).
On similar lines, we can give an analysis of God's purposes which makes clear that God can intend an outcome with a complex intention, rather than simply to produce a given state of affairs. For instance, God can aim to achieve union with all those who likewise will to achieve union with God. But then it is clear that God's desires are terminated in the appropriate sense whenever He achieves union with those who will it and does not achieve union with those who do not. And it would be that God's telos is achieved at the eschaton. But it does not follow that, if someone fails to achieve union with God, God wishes that this person fails to achieve union all things considered. Rather, God's intention or telos regarding that person was conditional. So, it would be illegitimate to infer that whatever the state of that person is is whatever God intended for that person, absent any other conditions. God's intention for that person was always and will always be to achieve union with this person, if they were to will it. God's intention is not thwarted if that person fails to will union, even though it is also false that God did not will union with this person. There are many similar cases in human action.
So, I reject P2. And, given that P2 is false (corresponding roughly to my P1a), it follows that the intended conclusions will not follow from P2.
[In the linked post, I criticize the same view you are proposing, although I don't think you see that they are logically equivalent. I claim that there is a confusion between a creature's télos with its final state in the éschaton: that whatever happens as the final temporal state in the eschaton must be that creature's telos. You argue to the contrary that Hart's position is instead that there is an "identity between the télos of God's creative act and the éschaton." But the inference here is that whatever persists in the eschaton *is* the telos of God's creative act regarding every individual. So, logically speaking, to say that the temporal endpoint of anything in the eschaton is identical with its telos is the same as saying that whatever state an individual exemplifies in the eschaton is the telos of God's act in regard to that individual. These are truth-value substitutable, logically speaking. I see no clear difference between these claims.]
You fail to grasp the point I was making about the telos of God's creative act. I noted that the telos of God's act is the divine nature itself, rather than any created good, and that the eschaton is a created good, and that the eschaton cannot therefore be that telos of God's creative act. You respond that "in the classical Christian tradition, creatures can 'partake of the divine nature' (ST I–II q. 112, a. 1). ...the final state of every person is unity with the divine nature." This fails to grasp the point I was making. The union of a creature with the divine nature is likewise a created state of affairs - i.e., the union of creature with God is itself a created thing. That union then cannot be the telos of creation, properly speaking. The divine nature is not the same as creation or the state of affairs which obtains at the eschaton.
Finally, you noted that, "If it were Hart's view that God 'intends all that He permits,' then Hart would hold that God intends every historical evil. But, as I explain, he does not. Rather, as I explain, he holds that the distinction between God's intention and permission is only inapplicable to the éschaton." Now, I was not asserting (in what you cited) that Hart denies the distinction between God's intention and permission of evils. You are correct that Hart endorses this distinction between intention and permission prior to the eschaton, although arguing that this distinction fails to apply at the eschaton.
Nevertheless, the deep problem with Hart's position is that the reasons given by Hart that the distinction fails to obtain at the eschaton likewise apply prior to the eschaton: namely, that God's creative act is unlimited. For, God is no less unlimited in creative ability to providentially direct the world at every point in its history than He is in directing its consummation at the eschaton.
If God's creative act is unlimited, then nothing ought to prevent God from achieving His aims. If God's aims were to ensure that every creature achieves union with God, then this union should obtain at every time. But, clearly, union with God does not obtain now. Now, as far as I can see, Hart seems to endorse the view that there are metaphysical necessities which constrain God's act (however we want to explain or account for these necessities, as in a necessity of the divine nature itself, etc.), such that it is logically incoherent to think God could achieve union with every creature immediately and at every time. But this does two things. First, it undermines the grounds for asserting that these metaphysical necessities do not obtain at the eschaton. That is, it opens the door to others likewise appealing to metaphysical necessities that prevent God from saving all - maybe just the same necessities that prevent God from achieving union with all immediately and at every time. Second, it makes all evil metaphysically necessary, on whatever grounds Hart presumes, such that not even God could have achieved a world without just the sin and evil we see.
And I think this consequence is very serious, especially given Hart's view that the metaphysical necessities in question follow from God's nature itself. That is, given Hart's account of God's nature, God does directly intend sin and evil. Hart thinks God necessarily creates, given the divine nature as loving. So, since Hart's views entail that all sin and evil is a necessary consequence of God's creative act, such that not even God could have created a world without the sin and evil we see, then not even God could have avoided willing the necessary concomitants of creation. Consequently, for the same reasons given by Hart that 'antecedent and consequent will' collapse in virtue of the fact that God's act is unlimited by anything extrinsic to Himself, then God's intention and permission collapse in regard to every sin and evil He brings about in creation. Likewise, "the outcome of the aleatory venture may be intentionally indeterminate, but the wager itself is an irrevocable intentional decision, wherein every possible cost has already been accepted"; so, if God creates necessarily and creates a world in which it is logically incoherent to suppose that union can be achieved without sin, or even the chance of sin, and accepting such a chance of sin involves an 'irrevocable intentional decision' by which God directly wills all such chances of evil, then God directly intends all such sin and evil that happens. For, God is no less unlimited in creative ability to providentially direct the world at every point in its history than He is in directing its consummation at the eschaton.
Father Rooney, thanks for your reply.
I think your argument against P2 muddies the water. Hart says that the éschaton is creation’s “term.” And, in my reconstruction, I say that the éschaton is the térma, the terminal or final state, of God’s creative act. Similarly, when discussing human acts, I speak of their térma, terminal state, or conclusion. There is no mention of a temporal endpoint in any of these contexts. That’s because the temporal endpoint is accidental to the final state. The final state of the act of potting is the completion of the pot, not the moment in time, say Tuesday morning, at which it is completed. Accordingly, I do not say that every act has a “temporal endpoint” that is identical with its télos, or that the télos of an act is whatever its “temporal endpoint” happens to be. Indeed, I’m not sure what it would mean to say that the télos of potting is Tuesday morning. What I do say (following Aquinas) is that every act has a terminal state that is the same as the act’s télos—the completed pot is the terminal state of the act of potting, and this is the same as the télos of the act.
I also think your description of smoking is inadequate. You say, “if I smoke a cigarette, the endpoint of the act (temporally) is the burnt out cigarette.” First, a burnt-out cigarette is not a moment in time but a state of affairs. Second, if you set out to completely smoke a single cigarette, then the terminal state of that act is a cigarette smoked down to the butt. But that is hardly ever the télos or terminal state of smoking. It is, for example, the goal (proximate, not remote) of a non-smoker who has accepted a dare to smoke a cigarette; but it is not the goal of a smoker on his break. The latter’s goal, the object of his act of smoking, is a nicotine rush and/or the kinaesthetic pleasure of inhaling and exhaling tobacco smoke. Hence, the state of sufficiently experiencing that rush and pleasure is the terminal state of the act. (The adverbial qualification is important. A smoker might experience some rush and pleasure after a few puffs, but he keeps smoking because his goal is a greater intensity and amount. On some occasions, he might attain the desired levels by smoking half a cigarette; on others, by consecutively smoking two cigarettes.) So, in normal circumstances, a burnt-out cigarette butt is neither a smoker’s goal nor the terminal state of his smoking. Not every act is a poíēsis, and so not every act produces a poietón. I have not said otherwise.
Your example involving a conditional intention to go to the movies confuses different topics. Insofar as it is relevant to the above discussion of acts, it consists of two possible acts—going to the movies and, say, doing laundry at home—each of which has a terminal state that is the same as its télos.
“But it does not follow that, if someone fails to achieve union with God, God wishes that this person fails to achieve union all things considered. Rather, God's intention or telos regarding that person was conditional.” Hart argues that it does follow. This is the game theory part of his argument. It needs to be engaged with.
“So, logically speaking, to say that the temporal endpoint [sic] of anything in the eschaton is identical with its telos is the same as saying that whatever state an individual exemplifies in the eschaton is the telos of God’s act in regard to that individual. These are truth-value substitutable, logically speaking. I see no clear difference between these claims.” Yes, (A) “The telos of God’s creative act is the eschaton” and (B) “The telos of a creature is its part in the eschaton” mutually entail each other. But there is still a clear difference between them. (A) is conceptually and metaphysically prior to (B). And that priority is important for the argument. In the First Meditation, Hart is arguing from the nature of God, not that of creatures.
Concerning the divine nature, you seem to be assuming a point that I do not make. Hart says that “creation’s term is the divine nature for which all things were made.” I gloss this as the “final state is . . . the divine nature, i.e. the creaturely participation in the divine nature.” The point of both statements is that, from God’s eternal perspective, the térma-télos of his creative act is the deification of all things. Thus, the térma-télos of creation is union with God himself, it is God’s nature and goodness as shared with creatures. Obviously, it cannot be God exclusively, or his nature or goodness exclusively.
Finally, your remarks about God being constrained by metaphysical necessities are outside the scope of the moral modal argument. If you’re genuinely interested in Hart's view, see “If God is going to deify everyone anyway, why not deify everyone immediately” (link below). As for your claim that his view entails “that all sin and evil is a necessary consequence of God's creative act,” why think that? He says that the possibility of sin and evil is a necessary consequence of the creation of free persons (again, see the linked piece). But the necessity of sin and evil? If that were so, and the moral modal argument were correct, then the creation of free persons would be evil. In which case, God could not create.
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2021/01/20/if-god-is-going-to-deify-everyone-anyway-why-not-deify-everyone-immediately/
The problem I am highlighting is that the claims about the eschaton beg the question, one way or another, relying as they do on the fact that the eschaton is temporally final and equivocating this temporal finality with whether the eschaton is intentionally final/terminal. But this is precisely what I deny: it is not true that the eschaton is intentionally terminal in all respects simply because it is temporally final. As far as I can see, your argument commits the same mistake, with the additional problem that, if you do not move from the fact that the state is temporally final to its intentional finality (as I think Hart does), then I see no premise by which we can argue that the eschaton and all its aspects constitute an intentionally final state ("or térma, terminal state, or conclusion") simply from the fact that it is a temporally final state of the universe.
The argument in favor of P2 given in the lemma was only that some acts have terminal states; it does not show that every act which has a temporally final state entails that this temporally final state is likewise the intentionally terminal state of that act. And, unless it follows that the temporally final state of every act is identical with its intentionally terminal state (that is, what is positively intended), it does not follow that the eschaton and all its aspects are the intentionally final state of God's creative act. This is particularly true if not every act is productive. We cannot infer from the fact that a certain state of affairs obtains in the eschaton that God positively intends every aspect as its intentionally terminal state, since those obtaining states of affairs are not necessarily the terminal products of the act.
For instance, I pointed out that having a conditional intention is possible, and that (given such intentions) one cannot infer that, because someone only achieves one of various ends they are aiming at, therefore the person never had the intention to achieve those other ends or that they positively intended 'all along' to achieve the ends that they did. The point is that this conditional intention constitutes a counterexample to the assertion that God's telos is entirely identical with the temporally final state of the cosmos. It can be that God has conditional intentions toward persons and towards the cosmos, and then it would not follow that the temporally final state is what He wills simpliciter.
Now, I don't see that 'game theory' considerations undermine the above counterexample [although I find that moniker confusing, as these discussions do not actually have anything to do with what in mathematics is called 'game theory']. Having a conditional intention is not the same as willing simpliciter or positively intending an end. Yet, as I further argued, considerations of 'game theory' cut both ways - because they prove too much. The 'game theory' perspective seems to be that, if God creates with a conditional intention to permit evil X, or creates such that He knows X is a possibility, then God directly or positively intends X to occur. But it is clear that, on Hart's view, God creates by knowing that sin and evil are necessary possibilities. Therefore, it likewise follows that God directly or positively wills all evil and sin, whether or not damnation is possible. That is, given Hart's 'game theory perspective,' since God creates on the chance of sin, it follows that God has directly intended all sin and evil. The piece you cite by Hart indicates exactly what I proposed was Hart's position: that the possibility of sin and evil are metaphysical necessities which not even divine omnipotence can prevent.
But notice: if you want to exempt God's 'responsibility' for sin and evil on account of the fact that sin and evil were only a necessary *possibility* and not a *necessary* entailment of God's creative act, then the 'game theory' considerations ipso facto fail to apply to the case of damnation. That is, we can deny that damnation was anything more than a likewise necessary possibility of God's creative act, rather than being a necessary entailment of it.
Now, I think Hart's view has serious problems regarding the necessity of creation and providence which I don't think you are facing, but it is nevertheless clear from the above (and your responses) that there is a dilemma in this 'game theory' response: if God does not positively intend whatever is simply possible as a result of His creative act, then damnation would need not be positively intended, since it is simply possible; if God does positively intend whatever is possible as a result of His creative act, then all other instances of sin and evil would likewise be positively intended.
There may be a property of the eschaton, like its fixity, such that everything in it is intended. And/or perhaps God can't antecedently prevent the possibility of allowing the possibility of sin, but He *can* antecedently prevent the possibility of sinning forever. (This is compatible with the fact that the universalist and Fr. Rooney may agree that God could've contingently prevented the possibility of sin by not putting creatures in circumstances where they could sin.)
Also, even though God is unlimited in His creative power, there may be logical limits that are unique to the temporal and the eschaton. Besides the above, just as God can't change the past, He can't create a creature with a certain past unless that past really occurred. A package deal. The eschaton may require a past where God had the possibility of choosing whether to allow the possibility of sin.
It may be the case that there is a limit to being in sin: a creature can keep indeterministically rejecting God, but once they hit a ceiling, they deterministically choose God. The universalist God can't antecedently ensure no possibility of possibility of sin, but given His loving nature, there is a sinning ceiling which He antecedently ensures. Its being a ceiling is uniquely characteristic of the temporal.
Would God risk universal damnation? I don't think so. Yet "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us" (Attr. St. Augustine) and "One soul is more precious to God than the entire cosmos" (Attr. a saint). Also, given that all being apart from God is caused by God, even acts of sin aren't left solely to the individual. God is arguably ultimately responsible for the consequences of what He and His creatures do.
A well-intentioned person sent me this post as a link, hoping I would be "converted". Oh well.
Anyway, this reconstruction of Hart's argument isn't new, not that it isn't a good steelman (it is). The polysemy of "end" in Hart's argument in his First Meditation hasn't gone unnoticed. All that said, there are several issues:
(1) The orthodox could deny that suffering is itself always evil — if someone undergoes the suffering of shame for some act they committed, then that suffering is evil in one sense (in that it's a privation of some good) but also fitting in another sense (it is good for people to feel shame for their wrongs). This is basically G. E. Moore's concept of organic unity.
(2) The orthodox could also distinguish on intention: God might conditionally intend that all creatures attain to eternal well-being on the condition that they live good lives. It would be evil for God to allow the eternal damnation of some only if they deserve it, but the orthodox needn't grant that any creature deserves it. Obviously, one can give arguments for why all rational creatures deserve eternal well-being, as Hart does in _You Are Gods_, but whether they are sound can be debated.
(3) The most significant problem with Hart's argument here is that it doesn't properly take into account God's intention of the temporal world with all its attendant evils. Let's concede that the terma and telos of God's creative act is the eschaton. But what about all that leads up to it? If it's not the telos, then it is something either extraneous to the end or is the means to the end. Since it's not extraneous, it's clearly the means. Now it is true that whoever intends an end must also intend the means: this holds true of all rational agents. They might not intend _every_ aspect of the means, such as when a smith has to work with metal of inferior quality to craft an artefact. But this clearly isn't true of God, who creates ex nihilo. Therefore this means that whatever evil transpires is, by Hart's own reasoning, intended by God. This simply follows from the fact that to intend the end is to intend all the means involved in getting to the end, and since God creates ex nihilo, both the ends and the means are intended by him.
Now Hart may plead all he wishes that the distinction between the antecedent and permissive or consequent wills of God coincide only at the eschaton, but he has not _shown_ why they come apart only then: by the sheer fact that whoever intends the end also intends the means, particularly if they have complete control over both, Hart's deity intends the evils in the temporal world.
The solution to this difficulty is to affirm the orthodox position that God does not intend any creaturely good unconditionally. All good that a creature receives is conditioned on the contingent cooperation of other creatures and on the contingent relation of that individual creature to God. God has no requirement to give unconditioned flourishing to any creature, anymore than he has a requirement to give eyes to a plant.
As an aside, that Hart doesn't see the flaw in his arguments doesn't make him a dolt: plenty of otherwise brilliant thinkers make flawed arguments. Hart is no different.
(1) If shame per se is evil, it is not a counter example to P13.
(2) Could you clarify this objection? I don't follow.
(3) Why couldn't Hart account for historical evils in the traditional way, i.e. by employing the distinction between will and permission?
Some flaws are, or would be, so obvious that only a dolt would miss them.
(1) I have not argued that shame per se is evil, only that shame is bad _in a sense_ inasmuch as it's bad _for the subject_. It is not absolutely bad, since feeling shame is the morally right thing to do in certain circumstances. Since shame is an instance of suffering and there are at least some cases where suffering is not absolutely evil, therefore it is not the case that suffering is always evil.
(2) The orthodox position is that no creature deserves eternal well-being, therefore God does not injure any creature by damning them. God in general has no obligations to any creature, even if it is impossible for him to intend evil to any.
(3) As I have argued, Hart's argument for the collapse of the antecedent/consequent will proves too much, because it cannot apply only to the eschaton, because what is intended as an end also applies to the means. If the telos is such that nothing can prevent God from actualizing it (given creation ex nihilo), then by the same principle viz. creation ex nihilo, nothing can prevent God from actualizing the means (the temporal world) without all its attendant evils. If God could prevent those evils but doesn't, then he has "played dice" with the world.
None of these apply to the orthodox view on which God has no obligations to his creatures, but since the Hartian argument rests on God being evil for even allowing the possibility of eternal damnation, the same applies to the Hartian deity.
(1) I understood your claim that "the suffering of shame . . . is evil in one sense (in that it's a privation of some good)" to mean that, qua suffering, it is a privation. Is that not your view?
(2) Suppose God predestined the damnation of someone (in a Calvinist sense). Would that injure the damned person?
(3) What is the means here? Why does it have to include historical evils? Couldn't someone like Hart say that the creation of free persons is the means, their eternal beatitude is the end, and historical evils are all unintended secondary effects of the means (à la double effect)?
(1) Not every privation is absolutely evil. As an example, a lion hunting down a gazelle kills it and the latter suffers pain in the process. The whole of it is bad for the gazelle and a privation of its life, but not absolutely evil.
(2) God could will not to grant eternal well-being to a sinless person. They would remain in their natural state forever, but given their sinlessness, they would not suffer.
(3) The means here is the temporal world itself, which is intended by God, therefore it is an end of the creative act, even if it's not the ultimate end. Since whoever intends the end must also intend the means, the means is also an end of the divine intention. Since the divine intention, as creative act is free from limitation, there can be no gap between terma and telos. Obviously the evils in the temporal world don't _have_ to be there: that adds to the problem for Hart's position. Given that God could will the eschaton through any means (given that the creative act is free from all limitations), he could have actualized the temporal world without the evils that characterize it. He could have acted in such a way as to prevent the possibility of any evil from occurring. But he didn't, ergo he "played dice" with his creatures. The point I'm making is that Hart's reasoning about the eschaton which is the telos of the creative act, also applies to the temporal world itself which is a secondary telos of the same act insofar as whoever intends the telos also intends the means.
(1) "The whole of it is bad for the gazelle." Indeed.
(2) Would they suffer the "pain of loss"?
(3) Yes, I understand that is your view. My question was, is there any reason why someone like Hart couldn't hold that historical evils are unintended secondary effects of the creation of free persons?
(1) Indeed, and just as something can be bad for the gazelle without being evil simpliciter, the suffering of the erstwhile sinner can be bad for them without being evil.
(2) I don't think so. They would just lack the supernatural good of eternal well-being.
(3) Hart could indeed hold to such a view, but not _coherently_, as anything that applies to the eschaton as the end must also apply to the temporal world insofar as it is also a secondary end of the creative act.
How would it affect your argument if certain in-between states of creation are not-yet-determined?
𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡. 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛. 𝐼𝑓 𝐴 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝐵, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐵 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝐶, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝐴 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝐶. 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝐵𝐶 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑇𝑉 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝐵𝑖𝑔 𝐵𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒. 𝐵𝑢𝑡, 𝑜𝑛 𝑆𝑡. 𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑠' 𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤, 𝑚𝑦 𝑡𝑦𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦. 𝐴𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛, 𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝐼 𝑡𝑦𝑝𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠, 𝑁𝑒𝑟𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑛. -ANTHONY KENNY - DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN FREEDOM. In: AQUINAS: A Collection of Critical Essays EDITED BY ANTHONY KENNY
God can know the past and present, and perhaps the final state, but not any unsettled parts (e.g. free choices, emission of an alpha particle, collapse of the wave function) between the present and the end. They don't exist so as to ground a truth value. My guess is that it wouldn't affect your argument.
While I am aware of Kenny's criticism and (vaguely) of some of the replies (e.g. by Stump and Kretzmann), I haven't given it much thought. So I wouldn't want to weigh in on the particulars of the simultaneity debate. That said, I suspect that Kenny's univocal use of "simultaneous" is a problem. God's transcendence needs to be considered.
I think it becomes unintelligible to rely on an analogical use of simultaneous. What does it mean if not "present to"? It becomes vacuous term. You could substitute Kenny's "simultaneous" with "present to" and the argument still works.
You didn't answer my question, at any rate.
I think all descriptions of God are analogical (or apophatic).
Does it affect the argument if God cannot know our future because it is "unsettled"? As I understand it, the argument depends on classical theism. A god who could learn new things as the future "settles" into the present, so to speak, is not pure act, not the God who creates ex nihilo, and so, not the God whose creative terma and telos must be identical.
Hart says something relevant to this question toward the end of the First Meditation: "If Christians did not proclaim a creatio ex nihilo – if they thought God a being limited by some external principle or internal imperfection, or if they were dualists, or dialectical idealists, or what have you – the question of evil would be an aetiological query only for them, not a terrible moral conundrum" (89-90).
I disagree. God, or Pure Act, for instance, knows what time it is now, even though it's always changing. His contingent beliefs are (partly) extrinsic and imply no intrinsic variation in God across possible worlds.
His argument removes the agency God gave Humanity. God interacts with our existence temporally and atemporally. I shall have to think on it.
His argument simply places Gods agency above man’s agency as we should expect. If in fact His ways are higher, which they must be. Isaiah 55:8