Is creation necessary or contingent? & No real relations

[Michael]

𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐬. 𝐄𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐅𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐍𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲

Armstrong: "[It] seems clear that God can no more fail to actualize an infinite number of possible worlds than he can fail to know and love the Son."[1]

One could argue that if God has to create, then He needs creation to be perfect. As Edward Feser points out, "[If] God cannot be boundless in love without creating the world, then creation 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 add something to God – it 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑠 or 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑠 his love.  This entails that God 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑠 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 in order to be complete, perfect, unlimited, unbounded."[2]

Armstrong: "And so in some classically monotheistic traditions, an explicit multiversal cosmology is exactly what we find. So, for example, the Bhagavata Purana teaches a vast number of universes, which are collectively "the very body of the great person Vishnu" (𝐵ℎ𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝑃𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑎 III.10.40).[5] Some kabbalistic cosmologies involve the notion of either temporal or spatial multiverses. Islamic thinkers like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149-1209) posited a multiverse as the best possible reading of the Quranic praise of "God, Lord of the Worlds." In each such case, the qualitative infinity of God motivates the belief in the superiority and likelihood of a quantiatively infinite creation—that God's creation of a singular, finite world would be absurdly 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 for an unconditioned, ultimate Reality capable of infinitely more."[3]

Elsewhere, Armstrong writes, "[I ] can speak to voluntarism: if God perceives a possibility of something he can give rise to and elects not to, what he is rejecting is nothing other than himself."[4]

I would deny that alternative possibilities entails voluntarism. There's intellectualism. One has reasons for A and B, and chooses one for those reasons. Also, since everything depends on God for its existence, then all beings and acts are caused by God. My choices are caused by God (as well as me). If God and I cause me to choose A over B, does that mean God is rejecting Himself in rejecting B? If every choice is made in a different world, that would mean even my acts of sin are metaphysically necessary. Perhaps we should be charitable and interpret Armstrong as saying God actualizes all possible creatures or all possible initial/final states of creation, but leaves it indeterministic whether sin occurs and whether certain finite choices occur.

Feser also would deny the charge of voluntarism: "God wills things other than himself only for his own sake.  They are willed as manifestations of his own goodness.  But they are not willed because they somehow 𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 his goodness, because that goodness is already perfect.  Hence he doesn't 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 to will any other thing as a means to realizing the highest good, which is himself. 

𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞? No, that doesn't follow either.  He wills them for a 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 – again, as a manifestation of his own goodness."[5]

Armstrong: "For God, as the infinite fullness of Being, to choose but one set of possibilities for the creation of the world, and for 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 world to be the product of that election, cannot be squared with God's absolute existence and contemplative vantage of all potentials. For God, in his infinite, eternal point of view, every finite reality, insofar as it is rooted in the truth, goodness, and beauty that he is, is equally valuable as his own theophany; God cannot isolate one of these possible worlds as particularly more valuable than others without, to some extent, discriminating about those possibilities that lay dormant within his own pure actuality."[6]

Feser: "[G]iven that the divine nature is as classical theists, on independent grounds, argue it to be (pure actuality, perfect, omnipotent, etc.) there can be no need in God for anything distinct from him, so that nothing in his nature can compel him to create."[7]

Armstrong: "But 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜 𝑒𝑥 𝑛𝑖ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑜, as Nyssen and later St. Maximos the Confessor would come to articulate clearly, is really 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜 𝑒𝑥 𝐷𝑒𝑜: creation from nothing other than God, creation from no primordial matter or exterior principle to the Godhead itself."[8]

"In the language of Maximos' 𝐴𝑚𝑏𝑖𝑔𝑢𝑢𝑚 7, "The Logos is always and everywhere seeking to realize the mystery of his embodiment"—specifically, his embodiment as the creaturely 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑜𝑖. That is to say, the Logos seeks embodiment as each of the 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑜𝑖 that subsist in him, without exception, and under the auspices of which creation, incarnation, and deification are all simultaneous movements towards this end.[6]"[9]

"Because the Logos is naturally, essentially infinite, being of the same essence as the infinite God, the logic of classical monotheism outlined above obtains in the ℎ𝑦𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑠 of the Logos: there exist an infinite number of paradigmatic possibilities for the Logos' embodiment, all known to and seen by God eternally, and therefore all loved forth into being by God in that act of the Father's total outpouring of love upon the whole Son."[10]

Feser: "[P]recisely because of the "eminence" of divine power, none of its effects can be necessary, because it simply doesn't 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒 any particular effect in order to realize the end of manifesting divine goodness.  For 𝑎𝑛𝑦 particular effect 𝐸, some non-𝐸 would do just as well, since divine goodness is already perfect just as it is."[11]

Armstrong: "[C]reation as the work or play of God in the Trinitarian 𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑠 and ecstasy cannot be arbitrarily finite but must be finitely, quantitatively infinite, as much the image of God's essential infinity as is time of eternity or space of divine omnipresence or matter of spirit. The Father cannot discriminate between those 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑜𝑖 that preexist within the Son as the prefigurations of creation, electing some and not others for true creation, anymore than he can discriminate between some "part" of the Son who is by nature without parts, as worthy of his love in distinction to other parts; the Father either pours out the whole of his self-emptying love upon the Son in breathing the Spirit upon him or he does not do it at all, and the natural 𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑜𝑛 of this intradivine activity is the creation of the world in all its quantitative infinity."[12]

Feser: "[A]n absolutely necessary cause producing an absolutely necessary effect is a 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦.  For if something is an 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡, then 𝑖𝑝𝑠𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑜 it is not and cannot be 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 necessary."[13]

Armstrong: "If God is not only infinite existence and consciousness, but also infinite "bliss," the delight of truth, goodness, beauty, and so forth, then "every possible universe" for God is always a universe whose creation is always already fully accomplished, that is, fully centered and headed in the Son and fully deified through union with him by the Spirit.

If we think with Origen, then we will distinguish three senses of creation: ποιέω-creation, the world as it exists in blueprint form in the divine mind; πλάσσω-creation, the "molded" world that is in progress towards its divine blueprint; and κτίζω-creation, the union of ποιέω and πλάσσω, of which Christ is the prototype. Bulgakov might talk about this triad as Divine Sophia (the world as it eternally preexists in the Divine Mind), Creaturely Sophia (the world as it is animated by its noetic archetype and in progress towards harmonization with it), and the future creation as the final union of Divine and Creaturely Sophia, a kind of sophianic, cosmic incarnation. Multiplied outward, the multiverse modifies this picture only slightly, by suggesting that a.) with respect to the ποιέω-creation, the Divine Mind conceives of an infinite number of forms to which it may give rise, as a quantitative expression of God's own qualitative infinity (though as Samuel Watkinson will point out, Cusanus would caution that the distinction between qualitative and quantitative infinity breaks down at a certain point); b.) with respect to the πλάσσω-creation, those infinite forms emerge in diverse orders/spatiotemporal streams/dimensions/whatever (let's say, for argument's sake, Tegmark's ultimate multiverse), in a way that appears disparate, incomplete, and potentially even contradictory; c.) with respect to the κτίζω-creation, the sophianic world (which, again, from God's vantage point, has already been finished) is infinitely resplendent with the glory of God pouring as though an infinite number of finite modes; here, every world in the multiverse will find itself perfected and unified with one another through their common union with God in the Son and by the Spirit."[14]

"[D]ivine compulsion by necessity is only problematic for God's absolute freedom if in fact the necessity arises from outside of God, from beyond the boundaries of the divine nature. If God creates an infinite number of worlds because this is what accords with his own nature, it is the 𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑜𝑛 proper to his 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑖𝑎𝑖 as Creator, then freedom and necessity are not opposed in God...."[15]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐨 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Armstrong has tried using 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 to defend God's creating all possible worlds (call it "multiverse" for brevity). Since nothing intrinsic to God varies based on what happens outside Him--and he takes on no new intrinsic or accidental properties when things are created/modified--then there is no reason to prefer one world over the others. While true (libertarian free choices definitionally lack a contrastive explanation), this doesn't entail God creates all worlds, as the charge of arbitrariness was dealt with above.

Moreover, it could be argued that the multiverse actually leads to a denial of 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠! On one construal of 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠...

Mark Henniger: "[Aquinas] held that a relation R of a to b is real only if a and b are really distinct extra-mental things, and there is a real extra-mental foundation in a for R. Aquinas also held that a relation R of a to b is of reason only if either (i) a and/or b is not real, or (ii) a and b are not really distinct, or (iii) there is no real foundation in a for R."[16]

W. Matthews Grant: "We are left, then, with condition (iii), according to which to say that God has only rational relations to creatures is to say (at least) that, for any relation God has to His creatures, there is no real foundation in God for that relation. And I take this teaching to imply that, for any relation God has to His creatures, were that relation not to obtain, there would be no real, intrinsic difference in God, no change in God's real, intrinsic features or properties."[17]

...A is really related to B if B's being different implies a difference in A. On the multiverse, God is determined to create the multiverse. (It's an intrinsic predication/property of God that a multiverse is effected.) This means that if, per impossibile, the multiverse were different (if it did not obtain), God would be different, for in that case He would not be determined to make the multiverse. On the view where creation is contingent, if creation were different (e.g. if there were no creation), God would be intrinsically the same, for in 𝑎𝑛𝑦 case He would not be determined to make any world.

I see a potential way out of this for the multiverse-and-𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 proponent. We might construe 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 as meaning that any change in what's extrinsic to God implies no new, accidental intrinsic property of Him. Since God's intrinsic nature (even if it's one determined to make a multiverse) is what it is necessarily, then all its properties are essential. It's not as though God gains an intrinsic property when the multiverse is made out of nothing.

What are your thoughts? Does classical theism entail a contingent or necessary creation? Does a multiverse lead to a denial of 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠?

[1] David Armstrong, "Words in the Word: On the Multiverse", https://www.mercyonall.org/posts/words-in-the-word-on-the-multiverse?fbclid=IwAR3YCITVrZuAq4UaoQRIiWErNBZ7J0mAndHD6aCLqmlAzd9IwvtER61feeo
[2] "Divine freedom and necessity", https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/10/divine-freedom-and-necessity.html
[3] "Words in the Word", boldness added
[4] https://www.facebook.com/groups/552331154934653/permalink/2021406148027139/?app=fbl
[5] Edward Feser, "Aquinas on creation and necessity", https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/08/aquinas-on-creation-and-necessity.html , boldness added
[6] "Words in the Word"
[7] "Davies on classical theism and divine freedom", http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/12/davies-on-classical-theism-and-divine.html
[8] "Words in the Word"
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] "Aquinas on creation and necessity"
[12] "Words in the Word"
[13] "Aquinas on creation and necessity"
[14] https://www.facebook.com/groups/552331154934653/permalink/2021406148027139/?app=fbl
[15] "Words in the Word"
[16] Mark G. Henniger, SJ 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠: 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑙 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 1250-1325 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). For another recent study, see Jeffrey Brower 'Medieval theories of relations', in Edward N. Zalta (ed.) 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐸𝑛𝑐𝑦𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑃ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑦 (Summer 2001 edn), URL = http://stanford.edu/archives/sum2001/entries/relations-medieval/ , qtd. by Grant
[17] Grant, W. M. (2007). Must a Cause Be Really Related to Its Effect? The Analogy between Divine and Libertarian Agent Causality. 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠, 43(1), 1–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20006346

[james03]

Feser is clearly the superior intellect:

Feser: "[A]n absolutely necessary cause producing an absolutely necessary effect is a 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦.  For if something is an 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡, then 𝑖𝑝𝑠𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑜 it is not and cannot be 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 necessary."[13]

Before this Armstrong can engage in his word vomit about the "multiverse", he has to deal with this contradiction he has created.

[james03]

The infinite multverse is a band aid needed because atheism has blown up.  A lot of atheistic scientists even laugh at it.  There is zero evidence for it, only a need if your prime, overarching principle is "Anything but God".

[james03]

Does classical theism entail a contingent or necessary creation?

Define "necessary" in "necessary creation".  Are you talking about modal necessity or metaphysical necessity vis a vis God?

Creation is modally necessary for the simple reason that it exists, and God can not change.  Since God Is, creation must be as it is.

However creation is not metaphysically necessary with regards to God.

Creation is modally necessary because it is contingent on a God that Is.

[Michael Wilson]

Classical Theism, of the Greek type, does entail necessary creation, since the Greeks argued that if God created, He had to create, and therefore the universe is eternal as God.
Revelation tells us that God did not have to create and creation was a free act that God operated at the beginning of time, and He did so to manifest His own Goodness.
St. Thomas tells us that the eternity of the universe or its creation in time, cannot be proven one way or the other, through reason alone.

[Michael]

Revelation tells us that God did not have to create

Where?

[james03]

Classical Theism, of the Greek type, does entail necessary creation, since the Greeks argued that if God created, He had to create, and therefore the universe is eternal as God.

This is somewhat correct from a perspective of modal necessity.  However the inclusion of "He had to" crosses over to metaphysical necessity and is wrong.  God Is.  There is nothing above God whereby he "has" to do anything.  He just Is.

I'd change the sentence to "the universe had to exist".

[Michael Wilson]

This is somewhat correct from a perspective of modal necessity.  However the inclusion of "He had to" crosses over to metaphysical necessity and is wrong.  God Is.  There is nothing above God whereby he "has" to do anything.  He just Is.

I'd change the sentence to "the universe had to exist".

Thanks, I did phrase it wrong. The Greeks rationalized that God was pure act, and therefore there is no change in Him; if therefore the Universe exists, it is because God created it; and since God is pure act and there is no passivity in Him, therefore the universe has always existed.

[Michael Wilson]

On God's freedom to create; from the Sacrae Theologiae Summa Treatise IIB

pg. 67. On God's Freedom to Create; par. 129. Proof from Holy Scripture. It proclaims the freedom of God in His activities ad extra absolutely and so emphatically that it is rightly thought to include the freedom of contradiction and specification with regard to creation.
a) God does n the world whatever he wishes. Ps. 115.3. "our god is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases" In Particular, the same thing is said about the world. Ps. 135.6: "Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps."
These texts which directly concern the freedom of specification are thought to hold true "a fortiori" concerning God's freedom of contradiction.
b) God freely conserves the world, therefore He also freely creates it. 2 Macc.8.18: "Who (God) is able with a single nod to strike down...the whole world."
Wisd. 11:26"How would anything have endured if thou hadst not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by thee have been preserved?"
c0 St. Paul talking about predestination to faith, which depends on the will of God alone, proclaims a universal principle-that God does everything with deliberation and by His will and therefore with freedom. Eph. 1:11: "Who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of His will".
d) In many particular things in the world God is introduced as "choosing"; this of course supposes His absolute freedom. Concerning the Jewish people, Ps. 33.12: "...the people whom he (the Lord) has chosen as his heritage. Concerning the faithful, Eph.1:4: "He Chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy". 1 Cor. 1. 27-30: "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong....". Concerning the Apostles, Mark 3.13 "He called to Him those He desired".
e) Everything is possible to God, which of course could not be said unless He were free to do them. Matt. 19.26: "With God all things are possible. Wis. 12.18: Thou who art sovereigns in strength dost judge with mildness, and with great forbearance dost thou govern us; for thou has power to act whenever thou dost choose."
f) All things have been created by the will of God. Rev.4.11: "Thou dist create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created.".

[james03]

Catholic Philosophy is the only internally consistent philosophy in the West.  Words have consequences, which is why more and more you are seeing Trad Catholics slowly rise in influence.  We are the only sane ones left.