Todd Decker

I was recently reading Introduction to Christianity, written in 1968 by Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI. One line from the introduction really stood out to me:

“The world comes from reason, and this reason is a Person.”

I think this may be the most perfect and succinct expression of what I believe. Most of the topics that interest me could be traced back to this sentence. It contains two important ideas:

1. The world is rational.

2. The world’s rationality comes from God.

That the world is rational is consistent with scientific realism, which is the view that the world described by science is real. It’s a view that I think, or at least hope, most people would agree with. Its connection to the second idea – that the world’s rationality comes from God – is not obvious. Many people believe that the world described by science is real without believing in God. Or believe in God and that the world described by science is real without connecting these two ideas. But I think these two ideas are necessarily linked. The reason the world is rational is because its rationality is God’s rationality.

Another thing I like about this statement is that it can be understood in a few ways, all of which I agree with. And the different interpretations have to do with different meanings of “come from” and “reason”, at least in this English translation of Ratzinger’s statement. That the world “comes from” reason we can understand to mean that God creat-ed (past tense) the world and that God is continually creat-ing (present tense) and sustaining the world. By “reason” we can understand “reason” as the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments and “reason” as a cause, explanation, or justification. Both work. So we get these four interpretations and their combinations:

“The world comes from reason”

1. At the point in time when the world came into existence it came from reason.

2. The world continues to exist in the way that it does from reason.

“And this reason is a Person”

1. Reason, as such, is a Person.

2. A Person is the reason, or cause, for the world existing.

Before digging further into this let’s look at a longer version of the quote from Ratzinger:

“The God who is logos guarantees the intelligibility of the world, the intelligibility of our existence, the aptitude of reason to know God and the reasonableness of God, even though his understanding infinitely surpasses ours and to us may so often appear to be darkness. The world comes from reason, and this reason is a Person, is Love–this is what our biblical faith tells us about God.”

The intelligibility of the world is fundamentally connected to scientific realism because it’s really what makes science possible. What are some ways in which the world is intelligible scientifically? Here are four:

1. When controlled experiments have predictable and repeatable results.

2. When the results of controlled experiments have predictable and repeatable distributions.

3. When variables in controlled experiments vary in proportion to other variables.

4. When previously unknown laws can be derived from previously known laws and confirmed by experiment. 

I include predictable and repeatable distributions because the results of experiments very often are distributions. This can either be because of variations in conditions that we can’t completely account for or because the aspect of nature itself that is being measured actually is a distribution in essence. In the first case the reason for the distribution is a limitation on our knowledge, something epistemological. In the second case the distribution is actually a property in nature itself in its essence or being, something ontological. In either case there is regularity and predictability. Even if the individual data points are not predictable their distributions are. And I think that still counts.

These four kinds of intelligibility are all basic to scientific practice. In an unintelligible world science would not be possible.

I think the novelist Cixin Liu portrayed this well in The Three Body Problem. In that novel aliens are interfering with the results of particle collider experiments to keep humans from making any progress in their scientific knowledge. One scientist describes it to a colleague using an analogy with billiard balls, a classic case of predictable physics:

“Imagine another set of results. The first time, the white ball drove the black ball into the pocket. The second time, the black ball bounced away. The third time, the black ball flew onto the ceiling. The fourth time, the black ball shot around the room like a frightened sparrow, finally taking refuge in your jacket pocket. The fifth time, the black ball flew away at nearly the speed of light, breaking the edge of the pool table, shooting through the wall, and leaving Earth and the Solar System.” (The Three Body Problem, 70)

Of course science would be impossible in that kind of world. And really we wouldn’t even get as far as attempting science because the existence of physical life depends on the regularity of matter, cellular structures, and biochemical reactions. A truly unintelligible world is difficult to imagine because it’s not the kind of world we could live in. It would be a lot like the formlessness and void, the tohu va-bohu (תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ) in Genesis 1:2, before God imposed order on it.

In science we are in the business of characterizing the world’s regularities. That there are such regularities in the first place we appropriately take for granted. Why and how these regularities are there in the first place is not a scientific question but a philosophical, and specifically metaphysical question. Though we can certainly be interested in that question as scientists as well. It seems like the kind of question that would not be answerable from inside the system. As a comparison, computer programs and video games also have regularities. But these come from their developers. The program has a programmer who is not part of the program. The original regularity and structure of the system comes from the outside. I understand the regularity and structure of the real world to come about in a similar way.

If the world comes from reason then what would it mean for this reason to be a person? Both that the world comes from reason and that this reason is a person are statements of faith. But there are also reasons to believe them that support that faith. That reason is a person has both philosophical and scriptural support. 

First on the philosophical support. In a previous episode I looked at the argument from eternal truths, an argument for the existence of God. In Edward Feser’s version of the argument he considers three possible versions of realism: Platonic realism, Aristotelian realism, and Scholastic realism. He describes these three possibilities in this way:

Platonic realism: abstract objects exist in a “third realm” distinct from either the material world or any intellect. 

Aristotelian realism: abstract objects exist only in human or other contingently existing intellects. 

Scholastic realism: abstract objects exist not only in contingently existing intellects but also in at least one necessarily existing intellect.

These options have some similarity to three options I’ve proposed as possible explanations for the rationality of the world:

1. The rationality of the world is independent of any intelligent beings.

2. The rationality of the world is a conditional property, conditional on there being intelligent beings in the world.

3. The rationality of the world is the rationality of a mind that grounds the world.

I think the idea of the world’s rationality being a conditional property is the most immediately plausible and straightforward, even though I think it is ultimately inadequate. It would be something of the form:

1. IF there are intelligent beings in reality.

2. AND IF any existing intelligent beings obtain some degree of accurate understanding of reality.

3. THEN such intelligent beings will find reality to be intelligible and rational.

I think that happens to be true as far as it goes. But it doesn’t explain or give grounding for the world’s intelligibility, why it is that way in the first place.

Edward Feser establishes scholastic realism, the view that abstract objects exist in at least one necessarily existing intellect, by a process of elimination; eliminating Platonic realism and Aristotelian realism for what he sees as insuperable objections. I won’t go into the insuperable objections to Platonic realism and Aristotelian realism here but just refer those interested to Feser’s text, and move on now to the scriptural foundation for seeing reason as a person.

First, what is the alternative to a personal nature? It would be an impersonal nature. For example, in the times of classical Greece and the Roman Empire the stoics and other educated people understood the world to be governed by logos (λόγος).  Heraclitus (535 – 475 BC) said all things come to pass in accordance with the logos (γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ τὸν λόγον, ginomenon gar panton kata ton logon). The Stoics had a concept of logos spermatikos (λόγος σπερματικός), understood as the generative principle of the world that creates all things. Very similar to Ratzinger’s statement that the world comes from reason. But an important difference was that the Greeks and Romans did not understand the logos to be personal, but impersonal; law without a lawgiver. What then are we to understand from the following Biblical passage?:

“In the beginning was the Word (Λόγος), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:3, KJV)

From this passage alone, in the prologue to John’s gospel, we might still understand the Logos to be an impersonal, generative power. Both share a common principle that it is by the Logos that all things are made. But the Gospel writer then makes clear that this Logos is not impersonal at all and actually became, of all things, a human being:

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14, KJV)

The Logos was made flesh, the man Jesus of Nazareth. This Incarnation allowed other human beings to see and know God. Up to that point man had seen no form in God, as had been made reiterated to the Israelites in the Torah:

“Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female” (Deuteronomy 4:15-16, NKJV)

John acknowledges that this had been the case. But with the Incarnation of Jesus things change.

“And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, KJV)

“No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” (John 1:18, KJV)

Jesus then could rightfully say:

“He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9, KJV)

Not that they are the same person. That would be a misunderstanding of the Trinity, “confounding the persons”. But in Jesus of Nazareth human beings could see God in the flesh, as a fellow human being and as a person.

As a person God has a mind, a will, self-consciousness, and awareness. What’s more God has all these things in greater and in more perfect measure than we do. We are created in God’s image. So these personal attributes as we find them in ourselves are patterned after their more perfect form in God’s personal attributes.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) described this well in his Summa Theologiae:

“‘Person’ signifies what is most perfect in all nature—that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature. Hence, since everything that is perfect must be attributed to God, forasmuch as His essence contains every perfection, this name ‘person’ is fittingly applied to God; not, however, as it is applied to creatures, but in a more excellent way; as other names also, which, while giving them to creatures, we attribute to God… Although the word ‘person’ is not found applied to God in Scripture, either in the Old or New Testament, nevertheless what the word signifies is found to be affirmed of God in many places of Scripture; as that He is the supreme self-subsisting being, and the most perfectly intelligent being.” (Summa Theologiae 1.29.3)

What’s the upshot of that? Here’s how I think about it. Do we really matter? We certainly matter to each other. But we’re not always fair to each other. And we’re not in control of the world so we’re limited in how much we can actually do for each other. If the world comes from an impersonal source that source is indifferent to us. Whether we live or die, thrive or suffer. But if the world comes from a person we can matter to him. And the witness of scripture is that we do. We matter to God and God is powerful over all other forces. Paul’s message in Romans 8:31-39 is spot on:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Theology, as the study of God and the things of God, naturally takes the existence of God as a first principle. When studying other theological topics like God’s nature, humanity, and salvation we take God’s existence for granted. And in our own religious development many of us concern ourselves with these other topics before concerning ourselves with the existence of God. Especially in times when belief in God was more universal, people probably worried more about salvation from their sins and how to get right with God, whose existence they took for granted. Still, in systematic theology, where we’re considering the logical relations between ideas it makes sense to start with God’s existence.

Why do people believe in God? I’ve actually asked a lot of people why they believe in God and in most cases the people I’ve talked to don’t believe in God for intellectual reasons. Some have had spiritual experiences that lead them to believe. Some are led to believe because they take seriously the issues of life’s purpose, death, pain, and the need for meaning; what I call existential issues. I think those are good reasons to believe in God. I share those reasons. But I think in my own life intellectual reasons have actually come first, with spiritual and existential reasons coming after. Maybe that’s unusual but that’s just how it’s happened. So that’s what I want to focus on presently; not because intellectual reasons are the most important, but because they’re the most natural for me. And because they lay out the first principles for the rest of systematic theology as a rational structure.

Intellectual reasons for believing in God are expressed most formally as arguments. Arguments here in the technical sense, not in the sense of being ornery and quarrelsome. An argument is a group of statements put together to show that certain statements provide reasons to believe another statement. These different statements are premises and conclusions. An argument is put together to show how certain premises provide reasons to believe a certain conclusion. There are many arguments for the existence of God. By the nature of what an argument is then this means that there are reasons to believe in God. It doesn’t mean that they are automatically good reasons, but there are reasons.

Valid deductive arguments are understood to follow absolutely from their premises. If an argument is deductively valid the conclusion cannot fail to follow from its premises. If the premises are true the conclusion must be true. This means then that a lot of discussion about arguments focuses on the premises. There are definitely deductively valid arguments for the existence of God. But it’s obviously still possible to reject these arguments, not because the conclusions don’t follow from the premises – they do – but because not everyone accepts the premises of the arguments. There’s no argument for the existence of God that seals the deal and convinces everyone. But there are arguments that I find convincing.

The most prominent arguments for the existence of God are:

– The Cosmological Argument

– The Teleological Argument

– The Moral Argument

– The Ontological Argument

I think the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments are all very good arguments and I find them convincing. I’m not sure about the ontological argument. I think it’s either untenable or absolutely brilliant. But I don’t grasp it well enough to know yet. Regardless, I’m actually not going to talk about any of these arguments any more right now because they aren’t the most compelling for me personally. Instead I want to focus presently on an argument that I personally find the most compelling and interesting:

– The Argument from Eternal Truths

This argument is not as well known and it’s not an easy argument to understand. So I’d like to present it in stages of increasing detail, starting with a short version of just a few sentences and moving toward a longer, more formal version. It was actually the short version that I’ve put the most effort into. For one thing, with the longer, more formal versions I’ve relied on the work of others. And even though I understood their expressions of the argument and found them persuasive I didn’t find them succinct enough to share with people. It can be quite difficult to refine longer arguments into short statements. It necessarily eliminates supporting details and you have to just let that go.

My own version is not an argument in the technical sense but an informal explanation. Here’s the short version:

I think that there are certain ideas that are true in a way that is separate from space, time, and material things. We could suppose that these ideas are products of our minds; and there does seem to be something mental about them. But they would have to be features of a very different kind of mind, a mind that is eternal and that has effects on all the matter in the universe.

That’s the gist, as best as I can think to put it this briefly. That is, informally, an explanation for why I believe in God intellectually. Three key components here to point out:

1. Ideas

2. Mind

3. Eternity

The ideas in question here are things like mathematical truths, logical truths, laws of physics and chemistry; things that are true anywhere and everywhere, all the time. Here’s a slightly longer version of the above statement that adds some of this detail:

I think that there are certain ideas – like in mathematics and logic – that are necessarily true in a way that is separate from space, time, and material things. Such ideas must exist in a way that is very different from material things. We could suppose that these ideas are products of our minds; and there does seem to be something mental about them. But these ideas also seem to have real effects in the material world. All matter in the universe behaves in consistently mathematical ways that don’t depend on our minds. Still, I think we’re right to understand these ideas as mental. They just have to be features of a very different kind of mind, a mind that is eternal and that has effects on all the matter in the universe.

I think I find this kind of explanation compelling because of my background working in chemistry and materials science. I spend a lot of time thinking about matter and the way it behaves, the patterns in the behavior of matter. So I’m especially inclined to think about what governs matter. Versions of the argument from eternal truths that I’ll talk about subsequently focus on different aspects but I think they get at much the same core principles.

The classical statement of the argument from eternal truths comes from Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) in his book On Free Choice of the Will. In Book II he gives the argument from eternal truths in the form of a dialogue with a character named Evodius. He uses mathematics as an example of eternal truths:

“The intelligible structure [ratio] and truth of number is present to all reasoning beings. Everyone who calculates tries to apprehend it with his own reason and intelligence.” (2.8.20.80)

And he stresses that such truths are eternal, i.e. valid at all times:

“I do not know how long anything I touch with the bodily senses will last, for example when I sense the Earth or the sky or any physical objects in them. But seven and three are ten not only at the moment, but always; it never was and never will be the case that seven and three are not ten. I therefore declared that this incorruptible numerical truth is common to me and to any reasoning being.” (2.8.21.83)

Later he proposes three options:

“Then, in regard to this truth we have long been talking about and in which we recognize so many things: Do you think it is (a) more excellent than our mind is, (b) equal to our minds, or even (c) inferior?” (2.12.34.133)

The option that these truths are inferior to our minds would be the idea that they are wholly products or our creation. This would be a very strong form of social constructionism. Augustine doesn’t accept this option:

“When anyone says that eternal things are more valuable than temporal things, or seven and three are ten, no one says that it ought to be so; he simply knows that it is so. He is not an inspector making corrections but merely a discoverer taking delight.” (2.12.34.134-136)

The second option is that truths are equal to our minds. This is a weaker form of social constructionism and I think is more commonly held. Truths aren’t just arbitrary but they’re still essentially dependent on our minds. Truths are products of our mind’s ways of constructing a mental picture of the world, of our mental “categories”. But Augustine objects to this on account of our mind’s changeability:

“Now if (b) were the case, that this truth is equal to our minds, then it would itself be changeable. For our minds sometimes see more of the truth and sometimes less. And for this reason, they acknowledge themselves to be changeable. The truth, remaining in itself, neither increases when we see more of it nor decreases when we see less, but instead it is intact and uncorrupted, bringing joy with its light to those who turn towards it and punishing with blindness those who turn away from it.” (2.12.34.135-136)

Another way he might have said this is that three and seven would make ten even if no one in the world believed it, or even if there were no people at all. There are certainly arguments to the contrary, some of which will be addressed later, but I think this conforms pretty well to the way most people think about truth.

Another example would be truths of advanced mathematics, which are much more complicated and the question of whether they were true before they were discovered or only became true when they were first expressed. Roger Penrose refers to the example of the Mandelbrot set:

“The particular swirls of the Mandelbrot set… did not attain their existence at the moment that they were first seen on a computer screen or printout. Nor did they come about when the general idea behind the Mandelbrot set was first humanly put forth… Those designs were already ‘in existence’ since the beginning of time, in the potential timeless sense that they would necessarily be revealed precisely in the form that we perceive them today, no matter at what time or in what location some perceiving being might have chosen to examine them.” (Penose, The Road to Reality, 17)

Augustine thought similarly and from this he concluded that the truths must be more excellent than our minds:

“Consequently, if the truth is neither inferior nor equal, it follows that it is superior and more excellent. Now I had promised you, if you recall, that I would show you that there is something more exalted than our mind and reason. Here you have it: the truth itself!” (2.13.35.137)

Augustine then identifies that which is superior to our minds and reason as God. This is the classical formulation of the argument from eternal forms. I think it does a good job of laying out all the essential ideas. Some of the more modern versions that follow I think improve on it and make the argument more formal.

One modern version of the argument is given by Lorraine Juliano Keller in her 2018 paper “The Argument from Intentionality (or Aboutness): Propositions Supernaturalized”. In that paper she gives a few versions of the argument. First she gives this informal expression of the “rough idea”:

“Truth involves representation–something is true only if it represents reality as being a certain way, and reality is that way. But representation is a function of minds. So, truth is mind-dependent. Yet there are truths that transcend the human mind, e.g. eternal truths. So, there must be a supreme mind with the representational capacity to “think” these transcendent truths. Therefore, a supreme mind (viz., God) exists.” (Dougherty, Wallis, Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project, 11)

One important thing to point out here is how Keller juxtaposes two ideas that are in tension and then synthesizes them together. The two ideas are:

1. Truth is a product of mind

2. Truths are independent of our minds

The second idea, that truths are independent of our minds, is one I very much want to endorse. But the first idea, that truth is a product of mind also seems right. As I said in my own explanation, there does seem to be something mental about true ideas. Keller links truth with representation. What does that mean? I think Richard Rorty gave a good explanation of this:

“We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations. Truth cannot be out there – cannot exist independently of the human mind – because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own – unaided by the describing activities of human beings – cannot.” (Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity)

I don’t agree with Rorty’s statement in its entirety but I think there’s a lot here that he does get right and it supports Keller’s point about truth involving representation. Rorty says that, “Where there are no sentences there is no truth.” Let’s grant that. He also says that, “sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.” Here’s where I disagree. And I think this difference is key. Recall the two key ideas I picked out in Keller’s statement above:

1. Truth is a product of mind

2. Truths are independent of our minds

Are these two ideas contradictory? No, actually. They’re in tension certainly. And Rorty picks up on that. But note that Rorty points to human languages and human creations. But things change significantly if we do not so restrict ourselves. We can say both that (1) truth is a product of mind but also that (2) truths are independent of our minds, of human minds. We can do that if we also consider other minds, or another mind. The mind of God.

With all that in mind let’s now look at her formal expression of the argument:

1. Propositions represent essentially [Premise]

2. Only agents represent fundamentally [Premise]

3. So propositions depend for their existence on agents. [from 1,2]

4. There are propositions that no finite agent entertains (transcendent propositions).

5. The representation of transcendent propositions is independent of the representation of finite agents. [from 4]

6. So, transcendent propositions cannot depend on finite agents. [from 3,5]

7. Therefore, there’s an infinite agent.

Hopefully this is clear enough in light of all the foregoing. The argument starts with the nature of propositions and the nature of representation. Propositions are representational in nature, like Rorty insisted. And only agents can represent. Nevertheless there are propositions that no humans are representing: talking about or thinking about. So who is thinking these propositions? Rorty denies that such propositions would exist at all. But I’m rejecting that idea. If propositions exist even when no human being is thinking them someone else has to be thinking them. Furthermore these propositions are transcendent and eternal. They can only exist in that way if they are thought by an infinite thinking agent.

I think this is a good argument. There are two main ways to get around it.

1. Deny that propositions represent essentially

2. Deny that there are transcendent propositions, propositions that no finite agent entertains

I’ll address the first denial in the next argument from Edward Feser. Alternatives to this premise include Platonism and Aristotelianism.

The second denial is a very big topic that I won’t go into here in detail. But I’ll touch on it. It’s a debate about universals, a debate going back to at least the Middle Ages in Europe and in other forms before that. The two major positions are realism and nominalism. With the example of mathematics two positions are mathematical realism and mathematical anti-realism, the basic question there being whether mathematical truths are things we discover or create.

I’m a mathematical realist but there are some important clarifications necessary to make this positions sufficiently sophisticated. The issue that complicates things is that there are many different mathematical systems we can work in and they have different rules. For example in Euclidean geometry parallel lines never converge or diverge. But we can change the rules to make different geometries to allow parallel lines to converge (elliptic geometry) or diverge (hyperbolic geometry). That sure makes it seem like we are free to invent mathematics in any way we like. But is that the case? No, I don’t think so. Because in whatever geometry we choose we are still constrained by the conditions of that geometry.

I think Alex Kontorovich put it well when he said: “The questions that are being asked are an invention. The answers are a discovery.” Having said that, I think it’s also important that any questions we ask be well-formed. For example, you can’t just ask the question, “Is it green?” and expect for there to be a right answer without specifying what “it” is. But as you set conditions to your system it shapes its structure for certain right and wrong answers that are not arbitrary.

As another example of this principle, I’m reading an excellent book that just came out this year (2022) by Eugenia Cheng called The Joy of Abstraction. It’s a book about a general theory of mathematical structures called category theory. I highly recommend it. Early in the book she addresses the issue of whether a proposition like “2+2=4” is absolutely true. She gives the example of modular arithmetic in which this may or may not be true. For example in modulus 3 2+2=1. Or another, more practical every-day example, in modulus 12 (like with a clock) 5+9=2 (5 PM plus 9 hours is 2 AM). So, she maintains, mathematics is different in different contexts:

“Mathematical objects behave very differently in different contexts; thus they have no fixed characteristics, just different characteristics in different contexts. The truth is not absolute but is contextual, and so we should always be clear about the context we’re considering… Pedantically one might declare that the ‘truth-in-context’ is then absolute, but I think this amounts to saying that truth is relative to context. Your preferred wording is a matter of choice, but I have made my choice because I think it is important to focus our attention on the context in which we are working, and not regard anything as fixed.” (Cheng, 44)

I have no disagreement with that; other than being called “pedantic”, but that’s OK. I’ll take that allowance that our preferred wording is a matter of choice. And I actually think that for purposes of category theory Cheng’s preference makes sense. But for my present purposes I prefer the other option, that “truth-in-context” is absolute.

That’s all I’ll say for now about realism for universals. It’s a big topic. But those are some of my reasons for thinking the way I do around it. And I think they’re reasonable.

The last version of the argument from eternal truths I want to share is from Edward Feser in his 2017 book Five Proofs of the Existence of God. His third proof he calls the “the Augustinian Proof”, as a nod to Augustine’s exposition of it in On Free Choice of the Will. Feser summarizes it in this way:

“It begins by arguing that universals (redness, humanness, triangularity, etc.), propositions, possibilities, and other abstract objects are in some sense real, but rejects Plato’s conception of such objects as existing in a “third realm” distinct from any mind and distinct from the world of particular things. The only possible ultimate ground of these objects, the argument concludes, is a divine intellect—the mind of God.” (Feser, 13)

It’s the same general set of ideas and structure as we’ve seen in the other versions. In his chapter on this proof he gives a formal version of the argument in 29 statements. I like this argument because it’s very thorough. But it’s also very long so it is harder to follow. But I think having looked at the earlier versions of the argument it will help. Let’s go ahead and go through all 29 statements of Feser’s argument and then comment on certain parts of it.

1. There are three possible accounts of abstract objects such as universals, propositions, numbers and other mathematical objects, and possible worlds: realism, nominalism, and conceptualism. 

2. There are decisive arguments in favor of realism. 

3. There are insuperable objections against nominalism. 

4. There are insuperable objections against conceptualism. 

5. So, some version of realism is true. 

6. There are three possible versions of realism: Platonic realism, Aristotelian realism, and Scholastic realism. 

7. If Platonic realism is true, then abstract objects exist in a “third realm” distinct from either the material world or any intellect. 

8. If Aristotelian realism is true, then abstract objects exist only in human or other contingently existing intellects. 

9. If Scholastic realism is true, then abstract objects exist not only in contingently existing intellects but also in at least one necessarily existing intellect. 

10. There are insuperable objections against the claim that abstract objects exist in a “third realm” distinct from either the material world or any intellect. 

11. So, Platonic realism is not true. 

12. There are insuperable objections against the claim that abstract objects exist only in human or other contingently existing intellects. 

13. So, Aristotelian realism is not true. 

14. So, Scholastic realism is true. 

15. So, abstract objects exist not only in contingently existing intellects but also in at least one necessarily existing intellect. 

16. Abstract objects such as universals, propositions, numbers and other mathematical objects, and possible worlds are all logically related to one another in such a way that they form an interlocking system of ideas. 

17. The reasons for concluding that at least some abstract objects exist in a necessarily existing intellect also entail that this interlocking system of ideas must exist in a necessarily existing intellect. 

18. So, this interlocking system of ideas exists in at least one necessarily existing intellect. 

19. A necessarily existing intellect would be purely actual. 

20. There cannot be more than one thing that is purely actual. 

21. So, there cannot be more than one necessarily existing intellect. 

22. An intellect in which the interlocking system of ideas in question existed would be conceptually omniscient. 

23. So, the one necessarily existing intellect is conceptually omniscient. 

24. If this one necessarily existing intellect were not also omniscient in the stronger sense that it knows all contingent truths, then it would have unrealized potential and thus not be purely actual. 

25. So, it is also omniscient in this stronger sense. 

26. What is purely actual must also be omnipotent, fully good, immutable, immaterial, incorporeal, and eternal. 

27. So, there is exactly one necessarily existing intellect, which is purely actual, omniscient, omnipotent, fully good, immutable, immaterial, incorporeal, and eternal. 

28. But for there to be such a thing is just what it is for God to exist. 

29. So, God exists.

See Feser, pages 109 – 110

The first part of the argument concerns the nature of eternal truths, what he calls abstract objects. How to account for them? And he proposes three options: realism, nominalism, and conceptualism. We’ve talked about this before and why I think realism is the best option. Realism is the view that abstract objects “are real, and neither reducible to anything material nor sheer constructs of the human mind”. Nominalism “denies that abstract objects are real”. Conceptualism “allows that they are real but insists that they are wholly constructed by the human mind”. (90)

Feser gives 10 arguments in favor of realism, which I won’t go over here but just list. You can either read about them further in his book or just look them up online. His 10 arguments in favor of realism are:

– The “one over many” argument

– The argument from geometry

– The argument from mathematics in general

– The argument from the nature of propositions

– The argument from science

– The argument from the nature of possible worlds

– The vicious regress problem

– The “words are universals too” problem

– The argument from the objectivity of concepts and knowledge

– The argument from the incoherence of psychologism

Some of these have already been touched on. I’ll just say a little more about the argument from science because I find that one especially interesting personally. Feser says:

“Scientific laws and classifications, being general or universal in their application, necessarily make reference to universals; and science is in the business of discovering objective, mind-independent facts. Hence, to accept the results of science is to accept that there are universals that do not depend for their existence on the human mind. Science also makes use of mathematical formulations, and since (as noted above) mathematics concerns a realm of abstract objects, to accept the results of science thus commits one to accepting that there are such abstract objects.” (92)

I touched on this earlier talking about how eternal truths seem to have real effects in the material world, that all matter in the universe behaves in consistently mathematical ways, that don’t depend on our minds. Eugene Wigner called this “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences”. Though I would call it the remarkable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, because I don’t think it’s unreasonable, rather, divine reason is precisely what is behind it.

After having argued for realism about universals in the next part of the argument Feser touches on the nature of such universals. In what way do these universals exist? He proposes three options: Platonic realism, Aristotelian realism, and Scholastic realism.

Under Platonic realism abstract objects don’t exist in the material world nor in the human mind “but in a ‘third realm’ that is neither material nor mental” (97). 

“This is the famous realm of Platonic Forms, entities which exist outside time and space and which the things of our experience merely imperfectly ‘resemble’ or ‘participate’ in.” (97)

In many ways I consider myself a Platonist. Or at least, I think there’s a lot that Platonism gets right. But I don’t go quite all the way with Platonism for various reasons. One of these reasons is that I’ve been persuaded that abstract objects are mental in a way that Platonic Forms are not. 

Feser mentions three problems with Platonism. First, the Forms seem to be causally inert. Since one of the reasons for thinking that realism is true in the first place is the remarkable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences this would be a problem, because things that are causally inert can hardly be effective. The second problem is the “Third Man” argument, which I won’t go into but has to do with an infinite regress of meta-forms. The third problem is that it’s not clear with the notion of material objects resembling the Forms that an object is more a genuine instance of itself than an image of it would be, for example a human person a more genuine person than a statue of a human. For more detail on all this just see his book.

Under Aristotelian realism universals do not exist in a “third realm” of Forms but in particular objects. The universals are features that we abstract from concrete individual objects. The universals really do exist but are instantiated in individual objects, rather than in a “third realm” of Forms. Feser describes it this way:

“The universals are abstracted from these [particular objects] extramental things by the mind, rather than being the free creations of the mind. Aristotelian realists emphasize that abstraction is essentially a mental process, so that abstract objects are essentially tied to the mind. Hence, though animality, triangularity, redness, humanness, and so forth do exist in mind-independent reality, they do not exist there as abstract objects, but only as tied to concrete particular individuals. And though animality, triangularity, redness, humanness, and so forth can nevertheless exist as abstract objects, they do not so exist in mind-independent reality. There is no third Platonic alternative way for universals to exist—namely, as both abstract and mind-independent at the same time.” (100)

The problems with Aristotelian realism that Feser points out concern its dependence on the material world. What if the material world didn’t exist at all. This would seem to be an at-least-possible counterfactual. How would Aristotelian realism obtain in that case? How would a material world or human minds come into existence? There wouldn’t seem to be any grounding for that possibility since Aristotelian realism would require something material already present to ground it. Other counterfactuals present problems. There are plenty of things that could have existed but haven’t come into existence. Daniel Dennett has talked about the “Library of Mendel”, a theoretical library containing all possible genomes (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea). There would seem to be an infinite number of potential organisms that have never come into material existence. But if these potential organisms have never actually come into existence there couldn’t be any place for their forms to be physically instantiated in Aristotelian realism. But it doesn’t seem like they are any less logically possible for that fact. Finally, there would seem to be propositions “that would be true whether or not the material world or any human mind existed.” (101) But if the material world didn’t exist there would be no grounding for these propositions in Aristotelian realism. Same for necessary truths of mathematics and logic. So Feser rejects Aristoelian realism.

The remaining option to account for realism is Scholastic realism. Feser describes it this way:

“This brings us, at last, to Scholastic realism, which is essentially Aristotelian in spirit, but gives at least a nod to Platonic realism. Like Aristotelian realism, Scholastic realism affirms that universals exist only either in the things that instantiate them, or in intellects which entertain them. It agrees that there is no Platonic “third realm” independent both of the material world and of all intellects. However, the Scholastic realist agrees with the Platonist that there must be some realm distinct both from the material world and from human and other finite intellects. In particular—and endorsing a thesis famously associated with Saint Augustine—it holds that universals, propositions, mathematical and logical truths, and necessities and possibilities exist in an infinite, eternal, divine intellect. If some form of realism must be true, then, but Platonic realism and Aristotelian realism are in various ways inadequate, then the only remaining version, Scholastic realism, must be correct. And since Scholastic realism entails that there is an infinite divine intellect, then there really must be such an intellect. In other words, God exists.” (102)

The remaining fifteen statements in Feser’s argument follow from Scholastic realism, working out the attributes that this necessarily existing intellect must have. For example, that there can only be one such intellect and that he must be omniscient and omnipotent. I think these three are related in a rather interesting way.

One reason for holding realism to be true in the first place is the observation that matter behaves according to patterns of eternal truths, for example the mathematical forms of the laws of physics. For this to occur it’s not sufficient just that these eternal truths be thought. These thoughts must also have causal power. The mind that thinks these eternal truths must also be causing them to have the effects that they have in the material world. One way of talking about this causality is in terms of actuality and potentiality.

Fair warning: the next couple minutes might be a little hard to follow because it gets into some technical jargon from classical and medieval philosophy. If it’s too much just hold tight for a few minutes.

Actuality and potentiality are ideas from Aristotle that also feature prominently in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Potentiality is any possibility that a thing has. Actuality is what causes a thing’s potentiality to be realized. In Aristotle’s philosophy these concepts equipped him to give an account for change and rebut arguments against the possibility of change by philosophers like Parmendies. Change is “the actualization of a potential” (Feser, 18). Everything in the universe has multiple ways that they can be. At any given moment things are a certain way. But they can be otherwise. They have unrealized potentiality. In order for a thing to change and realize different potentialities something must cause that change. What causes these changes are actualities.

One statement in Feser’s argument is that a necessary being is purely actual. Why must that be? This is important and it connects the related attributes of oneness, omniscience, and omnipotence. A necessary being is one who cannot fail to exist. He has always existed and always will exist. Furthermore, he was never created in the first place. He is the one who creates but is himself uncreated. In the terms just described earlier, he has no potentiality that is actualized by something else. He is not brought into existence by anything else. He is what actualizes the potentialities of everything else. Lacking any potentiality he is pure actuality.

Another statement in Feser’s argument is that there cannot be more than one thing that is purely actual. Why is that? There are a number of reasons. One reason is that the sum of all knowledge consists of an interlocking system of ideas that is indivisible. More on that shortly. Another reason is the following:

“In order for there to be more than one purely actual actualizer, there would have to be some differentiating feature that one such actualizer has that the other lack. But there could be such a differentiating feature only if a purely actual actualizer had some unactualized potential, which being purely actual, it does not have. So, there can be no such differentiating feature, and thus no way for there to be more than one purely actual actualizer.” (36)

So the unity, the oneness of the necessarily existing intellect follows from its pure actuality.

Another statement in Feser’s argument is that what is purely actual must be omnipotent. I think it’s actually pretty straightforward to see that actuality entails power. Actuality is what brings about change; actualizing potentialities. The necessarily existing intellect is purely actual and the only thing that is purely actual. Everything else has potentiality that must be actualized by something else. Eventually this all ties back to the one purely actual necessarily existing intellect. As Feser states:

“To have power entails being able to actualize potentials. Any potential that is actualized is either actualized by the purely actual actualizer or by a series of actualizers which terminates in the purely actual actualizer. So, all power derives from the purely actual actualizer. But to be that from which all power derives is to be omnipotent. So, the purely actual actualizer is omnipotent.” (37)

Finally omniscience. This is closely connected to the fact that there is only one necessarily existing intellect. Recall that it is in the mind of this one necessarily existing intellect that abstract objects such as universals, propositions, numbers and other mathematical objects, and possible worlds reside. Since there is only one necessarily existing intellect it’s not as if “such-and-such possible worlds, necessary truths, universals, and so forth exist in necessarily existing intellect A, and another group of possible worlds, necessary truths, universals, and so forth exist in necessarily existing intellect B.” (104) This wouldn’t really work anyway by virtue of the nature of abstract objects. Abstract objects “are not independent of one another in a way that would allow their ultimate ground to lie in distinct necessarily existing minds. Rather, they form an interlocking system.” (104) It all exists in only one necessarily existing intellect. This one knows all these things, all universals, propositions, numbers and other mathematical objects, and possible worlds. The one necessarily existing intellect knows all these things.

This knowledge is certainly unfathomably vast. Is there anything that it doesn’t include? Is there anything that this one intellect would not know? He knows all universals, propositions, numbers and other mathematical objects, and possible worlds. But what about contingent truths, like the fact that I went to the grocery store at 8 PM this evening? Here too actuality is key. On this Feser states the following:

“It would also have to know all truths, including contingent ones. For if it knew less than all of them, then it would have an unactualized potential–the potential to know the truths that it does not in fact know–and thus fail to be purely actual. So, it must be omniscient in an unqualified sense.” (106)

So we have one intellect who is both omniscient and omnipotent. It’s a long argument and it takes some effort to stick with it, work all the way through it, and really understand each step in the argument. But I think it’s worth it. It’s a good argument and the most detailed of the ones presented here.

People come at arguments with different inclinations to find different premises more or less plausible. I don’t expect that if I find a certain argument persuasive that everyone will find it persuasive, because they may not come to it as open to the premises of the argument as I am. And it’s certainly the case with me and arguments that I don’t find persuasive. An argument that one person finds persuasive I may not find persuasive at all because the premises don’t seem as plausible to me. And if we want to pursue the argument further we have to dig deeper into the premises. And so it goes.

In my case I really do find these arguments from eternal truths quite persuasive. I think it’s natural to suspect arguments for the existence of God to be motivated reasoning. We already believe in God for non-rational reasons so let’s try to come up with some rational explanation to make a case for what we already believe. First thing to say there is that I actually don’t think such rational reconstruction is illegitimate anyway. We believe a lot of correct things first for non-rational reasons and then only work out the rational justification for it after the fact. That’s perfectly fine. But also in my case I actually do just happen to find this to be the most plausible account for the way things are. Not just about God, but about everything, especially in the sciences. 

The deeper I look into the nature of things the more I see reality not as mere matter but as intellectually structured. As Joseph Ratzinger put it: “The intellectual structure that being possesses and that we can re-think is the expression of a creative premeditation, to which they owe their existence.” (Introduction to Christianity, 152) When everywhere I look I find more and more rational, intellectual structure, what else can I think? I’m practically compelled and driven to these conclusions.

We’ve gone over a lot here so having passed through all this I’d like to finish by returning to the simplified, shorter expressions of the ideas involved here. I’ll share the summaries of Feser and Keller and then finish with my own.

Feser:

“It begins by arguing that universals (redness, humanness, triangularity, etc.), propositions, possibilities, and other abstract objects are in some sense real, but rejects Plato’s conception of such objects as existing in a “third realm” distinct from any mind and distinct from the world of particular things. The only possible ultimate ground of these objects, the argument concludes, is a divine intellect—the mind of God.” (Feser, 13)

Keller:

“Truth involves representation–something is true only if it represents reality as being a certain way, and reality is that way. But representation is a function of minds. So, truth is mind-dependent. Yet there are truths that transcend the human mind, e.g. eternal truths. So, there must be a supreme mind with the representational capacity to ‘think’ these transcendent truths. Therefore, a supreme mind (viz., God) exists.” (Dougherty, Wallis, Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project, 11)

And mine:

I think that there are certain ideas – like in mathematics and logic – that are necessarily true in a way that is separate from space, time, and material things. Such ideas must exist in a way that is very different from material things. We could suppose that these ideas are products of our minds; and there does seem to be something mental about them. But these ideas also seem to have real effects in the material world. All matter in the universe behaves in consistently mathematical ways that don’t depend on our minds. Still, I think we’re right to understand these ideas as mental. They just have to be features of a very different kind of mind, a mind that is eternal and that has effects on all the matter in the universe.