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In this post, I want to assess an argument for atheism called the Transcendence-vs.-Personhood Argument (hereafter, "TvP Argument"). The first section is an exposition of the argument as formulated by Theodore Drange. The second section is a partial assessment of the argument. The work of William Lane Craig appears prominently in this section. Craig is a highly regarded philosopher of time and philosopher of religion who has written extensively on the relationship between God and time. He is also, of course, a theist. Thus, his work on divine eternity provides a useful "test case" for the TvP Argument.
1. Exposition
In his 1998 article, "
Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey,"
Drange surveys ten arguments which attempt to demonstrate that particular concepts of God are incoherent because they entail two or more divine attributes which contradict one another.[1] The TvP Argument is one of those arguments.
As William Lane Craig reports, all theists believe that God is eternal, in the minimalist sense that "God exists without beginning or end. He never comes into or goes out of existence; rather His existence is permanent."[2] If we think of divine eternity as a genus concept, then that genus has exactly two species: timeless and temporal. These two species are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. In other words, an entity must be timeless or temporal but cannot be both. An entity is temporal just in case the entity exists in time; an entity is timeless if and only if it is not temporal. The combination of divine eternity and temporality yields the 'derived' divine attribute of omnitemporality. Craig explains:
I mean that if God is omnitemporal, He existed at every past moment, He exists at the present moment, and He will exist at every future moment. No matter what moment in time you pick, the assertion "God exists now" would be literally true at that time.[3]
Just as philosophical theology has two rival species of divine eternity, the philosophy of time has two rival theories of time. According to A-theory (also known as the tensed or dynamic theory of time), there is an objective difference between past, present, and future moments of time. In contrast, B-theory (also known as the tenseless or static theory of time) is the view that the distinction between past, present, and future is merely a subjective feature of consciousness.
Turning from God's relationship to time to God's relationship to space, all theists believe that God is immaterial. The combination of immateriality and spirit yields the derived attribute of incorporeality: God is somehow a 'living' being without a body. When incorporeality is combined with certain Biblical passages (such as Ps. 139:7-10), theists like Craig derive yet another divine attribute: omnipresence. As Craig explains, to say that God is omnipresent is to say that God is somehow "everywhere present in his creation."[4] Craig's preferred interpretation of omnipresence is divine spacelessness, viz., "that God is not spatially located in the universe but is causally active at every point in it."[5]
To say that God is "transcendent" is to say that God is somehow beyond the world. But what does that mean? There are many options, but perhaps the easiest to understand is that transcendence just is the combination of timelessness and spacelessness. On this view, God is transcendent because He is timeless and spaceless. We can represent this understanding with the following premise.
(1) If God exists, then He is transcendent, i.e., spaceless and timeless.
But if God is outside of time, then it is utterly mysterious how God can perform actions within time. Imagine an event which occurs at 3:01 p.m., an event which God caused by willing the event. Whether we say that God's action occurred just before 3:01 pm. or at exactly 3:01 p.m., the cause stands in a temporal relation with its effect. This suggests our next premise.
(2) If something is timeless, then it cannot exist within time and perform actions within time.
In metaphysics, philosophers ordinarily distinguish between concrete and abstract objects. Concrete objects are things like meteors, bowling balls, and rivers. Concrete objects can be causes, effects, or both. For example, a river can be the the effect of precipitation (rain or snow); it can also be the cause of erosion. In contrast, abstract objects, if they exist, include things like numbers, properties, propositions, and so forth. Abstract objects are spaceless, timeless, and unable to stand in causal relations. If all we knew about "God" was that God is transcendent, then it would be tempting to classify God as a 'mere' abstract object, like the number 2. But, of course, the number 2 cannot cause anything, whereas God, if God exists, is able to stand in causal relations. Thus, theists have always affirmed that God is concrete, not abstract. Despite being transcendent, God is somehow able to perform actions within time. Theists have also believed that God is a person, a personal being, or in some analogical sense similar to a person or a personal being. This belief can be encapsulated in the next premise.
(3) If God exists, then He is a person (or a personal being).
All non-question-begging examples of personhood involve persons who exist in time and consequently who perform actions in time. This suggests:
(4) But a person (or personal being) must exist and perform actions within time.
But now we have two pairs of contradictories: timelessness and temporality, and the inability or ability to perform actions within time. Therefore:
(5) Therefore, something that is transcendent cannot be a person (or personal being). [From 2 and 4]
The concept of God presupposed by steps 1 and 3, however, imply that God is both transcendent and personal. Combined with 5, it follows that
(6) It is impossible for God to exist.
This six-step compound argument contains four premises (steps 1-4) and two inferences. Because both inferences are clearly correct, the only question to consider is whether the premises of the argument are true.
2. Assessment
Let's consider steps 1-4 in turn.
2.1. Premise (1)
As is the case with all multiple attribute disproofs, one way to avoid this argument is to deny that one (or more) of the purported divine attributes is not essential. Some theists might do this by denying that God is timeless, personal, or both. Here I will consider premise (1); I will consider premise (3) later on. As Drange points out in another essay,[6] "the word 'God' has many different meanings" and so it is useful to specify which concept or sense of "God" one is talking about. Thus, in order to be maximally charitable, in the rest of this essay I will assume that, by "God," Drange means, at a minimum, a transcendent person (or personal being). By stipulating this definition of "God," Drange may avoid objections that theism does not entail that God is both transcendent and personal. At the same time, however, some theists may (correctly) complain that, even if the TvP argument is successful, it is not relevant to the concept of "God" in which they believe. Nevertheless, I think there are theists who affirm that God is, in some sense, both transcendent and personal. For example, William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, in their book Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, define "God" as having the following attributes: necessity, aseity, incorporeality, omnipresence, eternity, omniscience, immutability, omnipotence, and goodness.[7] Craig and Moreland explain that their preferred interpretation of omnipresence is the view that God "is not spatially located in the universe at all but cognizant of and causally active at every point in it."[8] Furthermore, their preferred interpretation of eternity, assuming a dynamic or A-theory of time, is the view that "God is atemporal without creation and temporal since creation."[9] Thus, in Drange's terminology, Craig's and Moreland's view seems to entail that God is transcendent without creation and at least partially transcendent (non-spatial) since creation.
If the interpretation of the previous paragraph is correct, then premise (1) is at least partially applicable to the Craig-Moreland definition of "God," and so I think it can be instructive to pit Drange's argument against the Craig-Moreland definition. Doing so immediately raises an important question: are the divine attributes in Drange's argument essential attributes or not? The very fact that Drange does not consider this distinction suggests that Drange is, at least implicitly, treating them as essential attributes. But the Craig-Moreland interpretation of divine eternity is the view that God is neither necessarily timeless nor necessarily temporal. Rather, on their view, God is contingently temporal and so, using Drange's terminology, God is contingently transcendent (despite God, on their view, being necessarily non-spatial). Nevertheless, on their view, God had a "timeless phase" of His existence without creation. So I think it will be useful to consider Drange's argument regarding God qua timeless being.
2.2. Premise (2)
This brings us to premise (2). The first half of the consequent is true by definition: if something is timeless, it does not exist in time. But what about the possibility of a timeless object or being acting within time? Some might be tempted to appeal to God’s omnipotence, but it's far from clear that omnipotence includes the ability to actualize a metaphysically impossible world, and the metaphysical possibility of a timeless being acting within time is precisely the point at issue.
Consider the following dilemma. Either God is essentially timeless or He is not. If God is essentially timeless, then it is hard to see how God could act within time. All non-question-begging examples of causal relations involve temporal relations such as earlier than, simultaneous with, or later than. But the problem is worse than that. Unless the theistic proponent of essential timelessness wants to grant that time itself is self-existent, it is hard to understand how "God is essentially timeless" can be reconciled with "God caused time itself to exist." As Craig himself points out:
Can God remain untouched by the world's temporality? It seems not. For at the first moment of time, God stands in a new relation in which He did not stand before (since there was no "before"). Even if in creating the world God undergoes no intrinsic change, He at least undergoes an extrinsic change. For at the moment of creation, God comes into the relation of sustaining the universe or, at the very least, of co-existing with the universe, relations in which He did not stand before. Since He is free to refrain from creation, God could have never stood in those relations, had He so willed. But in virtue of His creating a temporal world, God comes into a relation with that world the moment it springs into being. Thus, even if it is not the case that God is temporal prior to His creation of the world, He nonetheless undergoes an extrinsic change at the moment of creation which draws Him into time in virtue of His real relation to the world. So even if God is timeless without creation, His free decision to create a temporal world also constitutes a free decision on His part to exist temporally.[10]
Consider, then, the second horn of the dilemma: God is
contingently timeless. This is the view Craig describes in the above passage. As I have argued
elsewhere, however, this view is incoherent. Craig's model of divine eternity requires that a
timeless cause ("God's act of causing the universe") is
simultaneous with a
temporal effect ("the universe beginning to exist at t0"). But it is necessarily true that a timeless cause cannot be simultaneous with a temporal effect. Thus, Craig's model of divine eternity is logically incoherent.
2.3. Premise (3)
A classical theist might try to evade the TvP argument by denying divine personhood and thus premise (3). According to this objection, whatever force the TvP Argument might have against neo-theism or theistic personalism, the argument is not applicable to classical theism. Classical theists deny that God is literally a person; instead, when they say that they believe God is personal, they are using the word "personal" in an analogical sense. As Edward Feser explains, on classical theism,
God is personal in the sense of having the key personal attributes of intellect and will. However, classical theists would deny that God stands alongside us in the genus “person.” He is not “a person” alongside other persons any more than he is “a being” alongside other beings. He is not an instance of any kind, the way we are instances of a kind. He does not “have” intellect and will, as we do, but rather just is infinite intellect and will. He is not “a person,” not because he is less than a person but because he is more than merely a person.[11]
Thus, one objection might be that if classical theism is true, then premise (3) is false. However, it seems to me that (3) does not depend upon interpreting "personhood" literally. Whether God "has" intellect and will or somehow "rather just is infinite intellect and will" makes no difference to the present argument. The relevant questions are (i) whether a timeless "person" (in any sense) can exist at all; and (ii) if so, whether a timeless "person" (again, in any sense) can act within time. This brings us to premise (4).
2.4. Premise (4)
2.4.1.On the Possibility of a Timeless Person
Let us first consider question (i): is a timeless person possible? In his book, Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time, William Lane Craig summarizes Daniel Dennett's work on personhood. As summarized by Craig, Dennett identifies six necessary conditions for any individual P's being a person:
P is a person only if:
i. P is a rational being.
ii. P is a being to which states of consciousness can be attributed.
iii. Others regard (or can regard) P as a being to which states of consciousness can be attributed.
iv. P is capable of regarding others as beings to which states of consciousness can be attributed.
v. P is capable of verbal communication.
vi. P is self-conscious; that is, P is capable of regarding him/her/itself as a subject of states of consciousness.[12]
As Craig writes, "All of these criteria depend in some way on P's having or being said to have consciousness. So, as an initial step in assessing the present argument, we may ask whether the concept of a conscious, timeless being is possible."[13] In what follows, I will very briefly summarize what Craig writes about (i)-(vi), as applied to the possibility of a timeless person. Craig discusses (ii) - (vi) first, saving (i) for last. I will follow his order of discussion.
(ii) Craig considers and rejects an argument by Richard Gale against the possibility of atemporal or timeless personal consciousness. According to Gale, "A mind is conscious, and consciousness is a temporally elongated process."[14] Craig replies, however, "he fails to show that being temporally extended is an essential property of consciousness, rather than just a common property of consciousness." Furthermore, "There is no reason to think that God cannot know 2+2=4 without having a disposition to engage in temporal activities."[15]
(iii) For basically the same reason, Craig argues that condition (iii) can be satisfied by a timeless mind.
(iv) Craig doesn't use these words, but the essence of his proposal seems to be as follows. Temporal persons are clearly possible and can satisfy condition (iv); God, qua timeless person, can somehow 'become' a temporal person and so, in that sense, can indirectly satisfy condition (iv), even if God, again qua timeless person, cannot directly satisfy condition (iv) 'while remaining' time timeless. How is this possible, according to Craig? God's being timeless or temporal is a contingent, not essential, property of God. If God 'were initially' contingently timeless, 'then' God could 'later become' temporal.[16]
(v) For essentially the same reasons, Craig argues that a contingently timeless person could satisfy condition (v). Even if God, qua timeless being, were incapable of regarding others as conscious beings, if God is contingently timeless, then God, as a contingently timeless being, could somehow create conscious beings, becoming temporal in the process, and then, qua temporal person, be capable of regarding his creatures as conscious beings.[17]
(vi) As applied to God conceived as a timeless being, this condition requires that God knows truths about Himself from a first-person perspective, such as "I believe that 2+2=4." But, as Craig points out, "it takes no more time to believe truly that 'I have no human company,' for example, than it does to believe that 'No human beings exist.'" Thus, condition (vi) is met.
Finally, turning to (i), Craig argues "God's being timeless impairs neither God's noetic structure (His system of beliefs) nor His ability to discharge any intellectual duties He might be thought to have."[18]
I find Craig's application of (ii), (iii), and (vi) convincing. I am not, however, so sure about (i), (iv), and (v). Regarding (i), in part of his attempt to show that a timeless person can satisfy condition (i), Craig appeals to divine omniscience. It seems to me, however, that, in order to determine if that move is successful, one would also need to determine if a timeless, omniscient being can somehow have knowledge of tensed facts. Craig is extremely aware of this problem and has written extensively on it.[19] I have not, however, studied his writings on this topic. So I consider (i) an open question and will leave it to the side.
As for (iv) and (v), the success of Craig's argument here depends upon whether one believes that God's being timeless or temporal can be contingent and, if so, whether a timeless God could somehow 'change' into a temporal God. Again, Craig is extremely aware of this problem. He argues that there are possible worlds in which God alone exists.[20] From that fact and the fact that our (temporal) world exists, plus the supposition that God exists, it follows that God is contingently temporal. If one is willing to regard God's existence as metaphysically possible,[21] it seems to me that Craig's argument here is exactly right: God's temporality (in the actual world) would be a contingent fact about God. What remains to be seen, however, is whether it is metaphysically possible for a timeless being, even God, to somehow 'change' from timeless to temporal. If is possible, then Craig's assessment of (iv) and (v) would seem to go through. If not, then not.
2.4.2. On the Possibility of a Timeless Person Acting In Time
But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a timeless person is at least coherent. Let's turn to question (ii): can a timeless person act within time? This question presents us with a dilemma: either this timeless person is contingently timeless or necessarily (essentially) timeless. Craig chooses the first alternative. He argues that God, qua timeless person, chooses to create the world and, in so doing, 'becomes' temporal.
Can God remain untouched by the world's temporality? It seems not. For at the first moment of time, God stands in a new relation in which He did not stand before (since there was no "before"). Even if in creating the world God undergoes no intrinsic change, He at least undergoes an extrinsic change. For at the moment of creation, God comes into the relation of sustaining the universe or, at the very least, of co-existing with the universe, relations in which He did not stand before. Since He is free to refrain from creation, God could have never stood in those relations, had He so willed, But in virtue of His creating a temporal world, God comes into a relation with that world the moment it springs into being. Thus, even if it is not the case that God is temporal prior to His creation of the world, He nonetheless undergoes an extrinsic change at the moment of creation which draws Him into time in virtue of His real relation to the world. So even if God is timeless without creation, His free decision to create a temporal world also constitutes a free decision on His part to exist temporally.[22]
Let us call this model of a timeless person acting in time the "indirect model." God, qua timeless person, indirectly acts in time by creating the world and thereby becomes temporal. I have already argued in section 2.2 that Craig's view is incoherent.
But what about the "direct model," viz., the possibility that God, qua timeless person, acts in time and remains timeless? This is the view favored by Eleonore Stump, Norman Kretzmann, and others. A proper assessment of their view would require a blog post at least as long as this one, but time constraints do not allow me to write that assessment now. I will save that ask for another day.
In this post, I have assessed the TvP Argument against one particular theory of divine eternity, Craig's. I have argued that Craig's theory of divine eternity is incoherent. Furthermore, I have argued that incoherence prevents Craig's concept of God from satisfying two of the six necessary conditions for personhood. Thus, Craig's concept of God evades the TvP argument, but only by virtue of (i) denying that God is essentially timeless; and (ii) not being able to coherently affirm divine personhood.
Of course, Craig's work on the divine attributes is not the only game in town. I recognize the literature on divine eternity is vast and I have barely scratched the surface. A complete defense of the TvP Argument would require engagement with the full set of theories of divine transcendence (including divine eternity) and divine personhood, especially the theory (or theories?) affirmed by classical theists. The purpose of this blog post was to determine if the TvP argument is worthy of further inquiry based on its ability to overcome the objections one might expect Craig to offer. I have argued that the TvP argument can overcome those objections. Whether the argument is ultimately sound remans to be seen.
Notes
[1] Theodore M. Drange, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey"
Philo 2 (1998): 49-60. Republished electronically at
The Secular Web (1998),
https://infidels.org/library/modern/theodore-drange-incompatible/. I have switched the order of premises (2) and (3) to enhance readability. I have also replaced "outside space and time" with "spaceless and timeless."
[2] William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God's Relationship to Time (Crossway, 2001), 13. N.B.: Here and throughout this post, I use the word "theism" as a shorthand for monotheism. Since Mormonism is a type of polytheism, I consider Mormonism to be inconsistent with theism. Furthermore, by "theism," I intend to exclude deism, pantheism, and panentheism.
[3] Craig 2001, 13.
[4] J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Baker, 2003), 509.
[5] Moreland and Craig 2001, 510.
[10] Craig 2001, 87.
[12] Daniel Dennett, "Conditions of Personhood," in The Identities of Persons, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 175-196. Cited in Craig 2001, 79-80.
[14] Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 52.
[15] Craig, 2001. 80.
[16] In this paragraph only, all expressions inside of 'scare quotes' are my words, not Craig's.
[19] E.g., Craig 2001, 97-109; God, Time, and Eternity: The Coherence of Theism II: Eternity (Springer, 2001), 112-133.
[20] Craig 2001, 89-92.
[22] Craig 2001, 87.
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