Does God Have a Nature? (Aquinas Lecture 44) [Paperback]

Alvin Plantinga (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 146 pages
• Publisher: Marquette Univ Pr (June 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874621453
• ISBN-13: 978-0874621457
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #944,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God does have a Nature, January 5, 2001

By 

Jeffrey Sykes (Overland Park, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Does God Have a Nature? (Aquinas Lecture 44) (Paperback)

Alvin Plantiga's work Does God Have a Nature? explores the difficulty with the aseity-sovereignty issue. If one asserts that God does have a nature, then one limits both the aseity and the sovereignty of God. If one wishes to preserve God's sovereignty and aseity, then one must deny that God has a nature. Plantiga investigates four approaches to the issue of aseity-sovereignty: (1) our concepts do not apply to God, (2) Aquinas' doctrine of divine simplicity, (3) nominalism or "concretism," and (4) Cartesian possibilism. In his drive to knock down each of these positions, Plantiga clearly states that God has a nature and that it is difficult to hold that God exists a se or to hold to a strong version of God's sovereignty.

Plantiga finds that (1) suffers from self-referential problems. He then attacks (2) and says that this view equates God with a property. He beleives it is nonsensical to say that God is a property and also personal. The position therby creates more problems than it solves. In examining nominalism, Plantiga seems to think that it does not help one answer the question but it does help one see that the question is not about ontology but rather modality.

The fourth view is that of Descartes and it is broadly characterized as Universal Possibilism. This view holds that all truth is contingent. This presserves God's a se and his soveriegnty. However it has problems. Plantiga thinks this renders knowledge through reason or any other means unreliable.

To demonstrate the problems of possibilism, Plantiga speculates that God, according to Descartes, could even make the following true: [51] God knows that he does not exist Here Descartes is not saying that God may do the logically impossible; instead, he is insisting that nothing is logically impossible for God. Plantiga summarizes Descartes position as described by the propositions below:

[57] God is sovereign. [58] If God is sovereign, then everything is dependant upon him. [59] If everything is dependant upon him, then every truth is within his control. [60] If every truth is within his control, then [51] could be true and possible.

Plantiga disagrees with propositions [58] and [59]. For him an alternate proposition is much more intuitively true:

[61] [51] is impossible

Descartes feels that [58] and [59] are intuitively true. He does not ground them in revelation or some other form of authority. Thus, if one found another position that was more intuitively true, one might possibly reject Descartes premises as untrue. For Plantiga it comes down to the two possibilities: which is more intuitively true ([58] and [59]) or [61]. Plantiga says, "I can't speak for Descartes, of course; but for me and my house, [61] seems about as stable and clear and compelling as any intuition we have; considerably more compelling than [58] or [59]." At this point Plantiga seems to invoke the law of non-contradiction (A does not equal -A) as proof that it is impossible for God to be omniscient and know nothing at the same time. Plantiga concludes that God has at least one essential property. He does not know that he does not exist. Therefore, there are some things that are not possible for God. To say that God has an essential property, for Plantiga is equivalent to saying that God has a nature. Plantiga goes on to point out that God has other essential qualities such as existence. Since God has a nature, there are necessary truths and humans are able to have real knowledge.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stimulating, If Not Ultimately Persuasive, December 8, 2000

By 

Darren L. Slider - See all my reviews

This review is from: Does God Have a Nature? (Aquinas Lecture 44) (Paperback)

The question in the title of this 1980 contribution to Marquette University's Aquinas Lecture series has its root in a broader concern vis-a-vis the Divine omnipotence: If we posit that God has a nature, must we conclude that He has properties different from Himself (say, His own wisdom, or the truths of arithmetic) over which He has no control? Plantinga pursues five lines of inquiry.

First, he investigates the Kantian transcendental idealism of Kaufman, who concludes that God as He is in Himself entirely transcends any concept we have of Him. Plantinga deftly draws out the incoherence of this position: if God transcends all of our concepts of Him, He must also transcend the concept we have of God "God transcends all of our concepts of Him", and the position crumbles into dust.

Second, he considers the position of Aquinas that God is simple: that is, God has a nature but is identical to it, so that He is all of His properties, whence there exists no property external to Him such that He has no control over it. Plantinga is less successful here: He argues that the position leads to the conclusion that God is a property. Since a property can't be a person but is merely an abstract object, he says, it would follow that God is an abstract object. He does briefly consider the Thomist position that what is said of God, as opposed to what is said of us (e.g., goodness, wisdom, intellect, etc.), is said neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically. After stating that this notion is a difficult one, Plantinga concludes that, rather than simply supporting the notion that "property" is applied to God and to the creation analogically, it "cuts both ways": that is, the notion can be used equally well to cast doubt on our argument for God's simplicity. It is not at all obvious, however, from the fact that the analogical predicate is not minutely spelled out, that it is susceptible to any such desired use. Thus Aquinas' notion of the Divine simplicity remains (despite a few minor difficulties) broadly coherent.

Third, Plantinga takes on nominalism, the belief that abstract objects do not actually exist, but only concrete instantiations of this. He shows masterfully that nominalism doesn't solve the problem: Even if there are no abstract objects, there are truths (if not, assertions of nominalism itself will be unsubstantive). Over some of these (say, that a foot-long hot dog exceeds six inches in length), on the showing of nominalism, God still has no control.

Fourth, he considers the Cartesian notion of universal possibilism, the idea that God has a nature but that none of His properties are necessary--they could all have been otherwise. This, he points out, has the virtues of coherence and of consistency in asserting that everything is under God's control: He could have made anything at all other than it is (three and four could have been eight instead of seven, say). Plantinga goes to great length to elucidate (quite successfully) the ambiguity inherent in this position and goes on to argue that, if is true, it compromises our knowledge of any truth at all.

Fifth, Plantinga honestly accepts what he sees to be the consequence of the failure of the above positions: God has a nature, and His omnipotence is limited by the fact that there are necessary truths over which He has no control. He ends with a line of thought which may conclude that "we can point to an important dependence of abstract truths upon God," but unfortunately he does not develop it here.

In summary, Plantinga is mostly sound and lucid as always, but I am not persuaded to abandon belief in the Divine simplicity. It is well sustained by Thomas' notions of divine eternity, of the creation's asymmetrical relation to God, and of analogical predication, and has the additional virtues (not touched upon by Plantinga) of metaphysical superiority and beauty. These qualities alone bestow upon the notion of the Divine simplicity some warrant (in Plantinga's sense), enough warrant, I say, for knowledge, provided that the notion is coherent and otherwise undefeated.

All told, the book is highly stimulating and well worth reading.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God does have a Nature, January 5, 2001

By 

Jeffrey Sykes (Overland Park, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Does God Have a Nature? (Aquinas Lecture 44) (Paperback)

Alvin Plantiga's work Does God Have a Nature? explores the difficulty with the aseity-sovereignty issue. If one asserts that God does have a nature, then one limits both the aseity and the sovereignty of God. If one wishes to preserve God's sovereignty and aseity, then one must deny that God has a nature. Plantiga investigates four approaches to the issue of aseity-sovereignty: (1) our concepts do not apply to God, (2) Aquinas' doctrine of divine simplicity, (3) nominalism or "concretism," and (4) Cartesian possibilism. In his drive to knock down each of these positions, Plantiga clearly states that God has a nature and that it is difficult to hold that God exists a se or to hold to a strong version of God's sovereignty.

Plantiga finds that (1) suffers from self-referential problems. He then attacks (2) and says that this view equates God with a property. He beleives it is nonsensical to say that God is a property and also personal. The position therby creates more problems than it solves. In examining nominalism, Plantiga seems to think that it does not help one answer the question but it does help one see that the question is not about ontology but rather modality.

The fourth view is that of Descartes and it is broadly characterized as Universal Possibilism. This view holds that all truth is contingent. This presserves God's a se and his soveriegnty. However it has problems. Plantiga thinks this renders knowledge through reason or any other means unreliable.

To demonstrate the problems of possibilism, Plantiga speculates that God, according to Descartes, could even make the following true: [51] God knows that he does not exist Here Descartes is not saying that God may do the logically impossible; instead, he is insisting that nothing is logically impossible for God. Plantiga summarizes Descartes position as described by the propositions below:

[57] God is sovereign. [58] If God is sovereign, then everything is dependant upon him. [59] If everything is dependant upon him, then every truth is within his control. [60] If every truth is within his control, then [51] could be true and possible.

Plantiga disagrees with propositions [58] and [59]. For him an alternate proposition is much more intuitively true:

[61] [51] is impossible

Descartes feels that [58] and [59] are intuitively true. He does not ground them in revelation or some other form of authority. Thus, if one found another position that was more intuitively true, one might possibly reject Descartes premises as untrue. For Plantiga it comes down to the two possibilities: which is more intuitively true ([58] and [59]) or [61]. Plantiga says, "I can't speak for Descartes, of course; but for me and my house, [61] seems about as stable and clear and compelling as any intuition we have; considerably more compelling than [58] or [59]." At this point Plantiga seems to invoke the law of non-contradiction (A does not equal -A) as proof that it is impossible for God to be omniscient and know nothing at the same time. Plantiga concludes that God has at least one essential property. He does not know that he does not exist. Therefore, there are some things that are not possible for God. To say that God has an essential property, for Plantiga is equivalent to saying that God has a nature. Plantiga goes on to point out that God has other essential qualities such as existence. Since God has a nature, there are necessary truths and humans are able to have real knowledge.