Idealism and Christian Philosophy: Idealism and Christianity Volume 2 9781628924060, 9781501317576, 9781628924084

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Idealism and Christian Philosophy
1. Idealism and the Reasonableness of Theistic Belief
2. Idealism and the Nature of Truth
3. What Is that Stone? Idealism and Particulars
4. Idealism and Perception: Why Berkeleyan Idealism Is Not as Counterintuitive as It Seems
5. Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem
6. Idealism and the Nature of God
7. God, Idealism, and Time: A Berkeleyan Approach to Old Questions
8. Idealism and Science
9. Immaterialism, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature
10. What’s the Point? Idealism and the Moral Life
Notes on Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Idealism and Christian Philosophy

Idealism and Christianity General Editor: James S. Spiegel Volume 1: Idealism and Christian Theology Edited by Joshua R. Farris, S. Mark Hamilton, and James S. Spiegel Volume 2: Idealism and Christian Philosophy Edited by Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel

Idealism and Christian Philosophy Edited by

Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel

Idealism and Christianity Volume 2

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 Paperback edition first published 2017 © Steven B. Cowan, James S. Spiegel, and Contributors, 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the editors. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cowan, Steven B., 1962– editor. Title: Idealism and Christian philosophy / edited by Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, [2016] | Series: Idealism and Christianity ; volume 2 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015027493 | ISBN 9781628924060 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Idealism. | Philosophy and religion. | Christian philosophy. Classification: LCC BR100 .I35 2016 | DDC 261.5/1–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn. loc.gov/2015027493

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978-1-6289-2406-0 978-1-5013-3586-0 978-1-6289-2407-7 978-1-6289-2408-4

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To George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Idealism and Christian Philosophy Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel

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1 Idealism and the Reasonableness of Theistic Belief James S. Spiegel

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2 Idealism and the Nature of Truth Gregory E. Trickett

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3 What Is that Stone? Idealism and Particulars Steven B. Cowan

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4 Idealism and Perception: Why Berkeleyan Idealism Is Not as Counterintuitive as It Seems Howard Robinson 5 Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem Charles Taliaferro

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6 Idealism and the Nature of God Adam Groza

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7 God, Idealism, and Time: A Berkeleyan Approach to Old Questions Benjamin H. Arbour

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8 Idealism and Science Douglas K. Blount

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Immaterialism, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature Marc A. Hight

10 What’s the Point? Idealism and the Moral Life Keith Ward

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Notes on Contributors Index

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Acknowledgments This book is the result of a dedicated team effort, from initial conception to printing and distribution. We would like to thank each of the authors who contributed to this volume. We are grateful not only for their insights and timely work but especially for their patience and grace in dealing with our incessant demands! We also want to thank Joshua Farris and Mark Hamilton, editors of the first volume in this series and helpful advisers for this volume. It was a case of extraordinary serendipity that brought us together for this project. Joshua and Mark were already at work on their volume on idealism and theology when we learned about their project, which was at about the same stage of development as ours. So we joined forces, hatching the plan for a two-volume series, which the good folks at Bloomsbury have now made a reality. We are immensely thankful to their editorial and production team, especially Haaris Naqvi who shared our vision for this ambitious project from the start and has so patiently worked with us along the way. I (Steve Cowan) also wish to thank my friend and coeditor, Jim Spiegel, whose espousal of Berkeleyan idealism has always led me to take it seriously and not dismiss it as so many do, and whose patient answering of my many questions finally helped me, after many years, to embrace it. And I thank all the students who have endured my lectures on Berkeley over the years and whose tough questions pushed me to hone my own understanding, and eventually defense, of his idealist philosophy. Lastly, I thank my wife and my son for their encouragement and patience while I worked on this book. You are truly a blessing to me. I (Jim Spiegel) want to thank Steve for coming up with the idea for this book almost immediately upon his conversion to the Berkeleyan idealist perspective! It has been a pleasure working with him and benefiting, both as a writer and editor, from his superb scholarship. Thanks also to my students at Taylor University for sharpening my thinking about idealism and its implications. And, lastly, I am grateful to my wonderful wife and four children for their constant support and encouragement.

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Finally, we think it is appropriate to express our gratitude for the good bishop himself, George Berkeley, whose influence remains strong even three centuries since defending his idealist thesis. This volume stands as a testament to this fact. And we hope that, as Berkeley wished for his own Principles of Human Knowledge, this book, too, will somehow serve to “inspire [our] readers with a pious sense of the presence of God.” Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel Soli Deo Gloria Summer, 2015

Introduction: Idealism and Christian Philosophy Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel

Perhaps no term in the philosophical lexicon has been the source of more confusion (or scorn) than “idealism.” As evident in the fact that the word is used to categorize thinkers as wide-ranging as Plato, Eriugena, Berkeley, Kant, and Hegel, the doctrine itself is maddeningly ambiguous, always requiring some qualification. And, even when properly qualified, there are the common, if understandable, misinterpretations and straw man dismissals of the doctrine that abound even among otherwise careful thinkers. So, any volume dedicated to the topic is bound to be fraught with peril, particularly a book concerned with the most misconstrued of all idealisms: Berkeleyan idealism. And these challenges could only be exacerbated by integrating its analysis with a Christian theological perspective. So why do such a thing? Because, briefly put, the benefits are worth the risks. We believe that Berkeleyan idealism—the thesis that all that exists are minds and their ideas—has immense benefits for virtually every area of human understanding, from theoretical issues in philosophy and theology to the most practical concerns of human life. This was certainly the conviction of the inspiration for this volume—George Berkeley, the eighteenth-century Bishop of Cloyne, who concluded his most famous philosophical work as follows: What deserves the first place in our studies is the consideration of God and our duty; which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labors, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual if, by what I have said, I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the presence of God; and having shown the falseness or vanity of those barren speculations which make the chief employment of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practice is the highest perfection of human nature.1

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As an orthodox Christian, and eventual leader in the Anglican church, Berkeley was first and foremost concerned with nourishing the faith of his readers and prodding them to lives of virtue. He was deeply convinced that his brand of idealism, properly understood, would help to reinforce such faith and virtue in the life of any believer. And, in terms of his negative aims, he was equally persuaded that this thesis could be a powerful inoculation against the rise of atheism, agnosticism, and religious skepticism in Europe at the time. In short, Berkeley saw his thesis that “to be is to be a perceived or to be a perceiver” as a powerful boon to faith in God. Let’s consider Berkeley’s argument in defense of this thesis. His starting point is the observation that physical objects are nothing more than their perceivable qualities. John Locke had proposed that underlying the qualities of an object— its color, texture, shape, and so on—is some sort of material “substratum” that is itself unperceivable. He argued that such a thing must be there in order to account for the unity and persistence of physical objects. Further, as a confessed empiricist, Locke insisted that all of our ideas must come to us through sensation. Yet this supposed material substratum (or substance) cannot be perceived and/or accessed in any way via the senses. This explains why Locke dubbed his material substance “I know not what”—a tacit admission that he literally had no idea what he was talking about.2 Berkeley countered that we cannot even imagine an unperceived physical object. To try to imagine anything is to entertain certain qualities of the thing, but by definition Lockean substance itself has no qualities but lies beneath them. So Berkeley concludes that the very notion of material substance is “repugnant,” for “when I consider the two parts or branches which make the signification of the words material substance, I am convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them.”3 Another problem with the doctrine, Berkeley tells us, is that given the existence of God, the supposition of a material substratum is not necessary. Why theorize about an unknown, unthinking stuff supporting the perceivable qualities we experience when an all-knowing, all-powerful deity is more than sufficient to account for this? Berkeley’s primary argument for his thesis, however, is not merely a refutation of Lockean substance. His principal line of defense of this thesis can be distilled as follows: 1. Physical objects are nothing but collections of perceivable qualities. 2. Perceivable qualities are essentially ideas.

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3. Ideas are mind-dependent—they exist only when perceived. 4. Therefore, physical objects exist only when perceived. The argument is clearly valid, but the premises warrant explanation. According to Berkeley, the first premise is evident from experience. As he argues in the first dialogue of his Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, sense experience discloses to us nothing in any physical object beyond its color, texture, shape, taste, odor, and so on. Moreover, the perceiver relativity of such things as size, density, temperature, sweetness, and other qualities further reinforces the premise. As for the second premise, this must be qualified in light of the general sense of “idea” that Berkeley, Locke, and many other early modern philosophers used the term. For them, “idea” encompasses sensory impressions, bodily sensations, and mental images.4 Thus understood, perceivable qualities clearly fall under the category of “ideas.” And as for the third premise, Berkeley considered this to be self-evident, since ideas (sensory impressions, etc.) cannot exist on their own but must always be experienced by some conscious subject. So, for Berkeley, the entire physical world is mind-dependent. That is, as far as physical objects are concerned, their esse is percipi. However, this is not the whole of Berkeley’s thesis but only part of it. His full thesis is that to be is to be perceived or to be a perceiver. John Russell Roberts is emphatic on this point, noting that: It is all too common to be told that what Berkeley’s view about existence amounts to is that “to be real is to be perceived” or that “to exist is to be perceived.” This in turn leads to Berkeley being labeled a “subjective idealist”—an advocate for a uniquely bizarre form of solipsism, a sort of group solipsism, wherein reality consists of what I do or may perceive, plus what you do or may perceive, plus what he, she, or it does/did/may perceive.5

Roberts goes on: “Berkeley did not say ‘esse is percipi’ . . . any more than Commander Prescott said ‘Fire until you see the whites of their eyes!’ In the former, as in the latter, what’s deleted makes all the difference.”6 And, of course, what is so often deleted is the second part of Berkeley’s thesis, which is that critical phrase “aut percipere,” so that Berkeley’s full thesis is esse est percipi aut percipere: to be is to be perceived or to be a perceiver. As Roberts correctly notes, Berkeleyan ontology is a “monism of minds.” The only true substances are spirits, and these come in two forms: infinite and finite. The infinite Spirit is God, the source of all else that exists. And finite spirits include humans, angels, and whatever other finite, perceiving minds God has

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made. There are also two kinds of ideas: the real and the imaginary. “Real” ideas are those which we access through our senses and thus are, we might say, “public.” “Imaginary” ideas, on the other hand, are those invented and possessed by a single mind rather than obtained via the senses, and so are essentially “private” in nature.

The relevance of idealism to Christian philosophy It is obvious why Berkeleyan idealism is relevant to contemporary philosophy, since it offers interesting alternative approaches to all kinds of current philosophical debates, from the nature of physical objects to the mind–body problem to issues in philosophy of science. But what, if any, relevance is there to Christian philosophy in particular? Why a book on idealism and Christian philosophy? For one thing, there are good independent theological reasons to take the idealist thesis seriously, many of which are explored in volume 1 of this Idealism and Christianity series.7 But the most fundamental reason for Christians to seriously explore the idealist thesis is that there are straightforward scriptural grounds for the view, which may be expressed with this simple argument: 1. God is (or has) a mind. 2. The world constantly depends upon God for its existence. 3. Therefore, the world is mind-dependent. The first premise should be obvious enough, from a biblical standpoint. Here the term “mind” is taken to be coterminous with “spirit,” as it is with Berkeley and other idealists of his stripe. And in Scripture there are countless references to God using this term, from Genesis 1:2 to Revelation 22:17. The second premise, which pertains to the doctrine of divine conservation of the universe, is a little less obvious, biblically speaking, but evident enough that it is considered central to Christian theological orthodoxy. Numerous passages throughout the Old and New Testaments refer to the fact that God sustains the universe, but two of the more significant among these are Hebrews 1:3, which affirms that God “sustain[s] all things by his powerful word,” and Colossians 1:17, which says, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”8 Now given that God is/has a mind, and the world continually depends upon God for its existence, the first part of the Berkeleyan thesis follows: the entire physical world is minddependent. Of course, there is much more to be said here—and much more will

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be said in what follows—but this is enough to show that there is some biblical warrant to look in the direction of idealism when working out a metaphysical position on God’s relationship to the physical world. And that is to say, Christian philosophers specifically, whose philosophical pursuits are properly informed to some significant degree by their theological convictions, ought to give serious consideration to an idealist perspective. Another reason for the Christian philosopher to take idealism seriously is that so many important Christian philosophers have done so. This includes the eighteenth-century American theologian and philosopher Jonathan Edwards, who is the central historical figure for volume 1 in this series, as Berkeley is for this volume—as well as contemporary philosophers such as Robert Adams,9 Stephen Daniel,10 and the authors featured in this volume.

Aims of the book and a note on terminology The primary aims of this book are as follows. First, we want to illustrate the helpful conceptual resources that idealism can bring to assorted philosophical issues—by potentially solving problems, providing substantive insights, and even making a Christian philosophical perspective on an issue more compelling. Second, we intend to clarify what idealism is, to enhance the reader’s understanding of metaphysical idealism generally and Berkeleyan idealism in particular. And, third, through the ten chapters below, we hope to demonstrate something of the versatility of idealism, insofar as it admits of a variety of interpretations and applications in diverse contexts. The contributors to this volume are far from doctrinally homogeneous. We differ on all sorts of issues, including the strength of our commitment to idealism and the ways in which we believe it is appropriately applied to the philosophical issues we address. But we all heartily affirm the importance of giving careful ear to idealism because of the potentially rich insights this perspective may bring to a whole range of critical philosophical issues. Finally, a few clarifications regarding terminology. As should be clear by now, the form of idealism discussed in this book is Berkeleyan idealism. For the most part, the authors will refer to this doctrine simply as “idealism,” but it is also variously referred to as “immaterialism” and “metaphysical idealism.” The more pedestrian, nonphilosophical occurrences of “idealist” and “idealism” should be clear from context. As for the view opposing idealism, espousing the

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mind-independence of the physical world, this too will admit of some terminological variation. Generally, in contexts regarding discussion of ontology, the terms “materialism” and “matterism” will be used. In contexts pertaining to the doctrine of human perception, the term “realism” will be used. It should be noted that where the term “materialism” is used in this book it should not be understood to denote naturalism or physicalism, the view that only physical things exist. Rather, materialism, like matterism, will simply refer to any view which affirms the mind-independence of physical objects. (As such, the view in the philosophy of mind often called “substance dualism” counts as a version of materialism.) We trust that where these and other terms are not given precise definition by the authors, context will make sufficiently clear which meaning is intended.

Chapter previews As noted above, this book contains chapters by ten different philosophers, all of whom seek to fulfill one or more of its aims. What follows are brief synopses of each chapter. James S. Spiegel (Taylor University) leads off the volume with “Idealism and the Reasonableness of Theistic Belief.” He shows that belief in God is more plausible or reasonable on an idealist perspective than on rival ontologies. This is so for several reasons. First, according to idealism, every aspect of sense experience is the product of some mind, and since neither I nor any other finite mind are plausibly the source of my sense experiences, the source must be an immensely powerful Mind. Thus, all of my sense experience counts as evidence for God. Second, in addition to providing theists a more parsimonious ontology than matterism, idealism arguably provides superior accounts of divine action, the laws of nature, and the nature of miracles. Finally, Spiegel shows that idealism suffers no special liabilities regarding the problem of evil when compared to nonidealist theism. Christian theism seems to presuppose a realist conception of truth by which truth is borne by the propositional content of statements that adequately describe reality. However, some defenders of realism such as Bertrand Russell and William Alston argue that idealism cannot accommodate a realist conception of truth. In “Idealism and the Nature of Truth,” Gregory E. Trickett (Weatherford College) responds to this challenge. He shows that the challengers’ arguments

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are largely based on misunderstandings and/or ignoring of important features of the Berkeleyan type of idealism, especially its commitment to Christian theism. Rightly understood and appropriately qualified, Berkeleyan idealism clearly supports a realist (and correspondence) view of truth. In “What Is that Stone? Idealism and Particulars,” Steven B. Cowan (Lincoln Memorial University) offers an account of the ontological nature of particulars consistent with Berkeleyan idealism. After discussing the three major views on particulars prominent in contemporary philosophical literature—namely, the substratum, bundle, and substance theories—he contends that a Berkeleyan idealist account of particulars will combine the latter two: a substance theory for minds and a bundle theory for sensible objects. A key feature of this account is that any alleged problems that these theories are thought to have are avoided by a commitment to idealism. Common sense seems to commit us to (1) the belief that perceptual experience puts us in direct contact with the physical world, and (2) the belief that physical objects are mind-independent. In “Idealism and Perception: Why Berkeleyan Idealism Is Not as Counterintuitive as It Seems,” Howard Robinson (Central European University) argues that Berkeleyan idealism accommodates these commitments at least as well as, if not better than, any of its rivals. Since, on idealism, the objects in the physical world just are their perceptible qualities, idealism clearly meets the requirements of (1), unlike representative realism which denies that we directly perceive the physical world and, moreover, leaves the nomological structure of the world an impenetrable mystery. As for naïve (or direct) realism, Robinson shows that it cannot explain how, even when an object seems other than the way it actually is, that object is the only thing of which we are aware. Idealism meets the requirements of (2) by claiming that, while physical objects are not independent of God’s mind, they do nonetheless exist independently of finite minds. Though it may be objected that this still leaves idealism somewhat counterintuitive, it is not more so than contemporary scientific “realism” with its commitment to the bizarre world of quantum physics. In “Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem,” Charles Taliaferro (St. Olaf College) argues against the prominent view in the philosophy of mind that the material/ physical world is primary in favor of the primacy of the mind. He shows that materialist accounts of the mind cannot accommodate the reality of consciousness, and that attempts to eliminate the mental from reality fail. The truth is, he claims, that the existence of the mind and the mental is more certain and better known than the physical. Given the primacy of the mind, coupled with the resources of

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theism, idealism provides the basis for a more satisfying philosophy of mind than either materialism or dualism. In addition to accounting for the existence and nature of the mental, idealism offers a straightforward solution to the problem of causal interaction between the mind and body. In “Idealism and the Nature of God,” Adam Groza (Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary) argues that the Berkeleyan conception of God is consistent with Christian orthodoxy. It is sometimes charged that idealism commits one either to pantheism (the view, roughly, that God is identical to the world) or panentheism (the view that the world is a part or extension of God). Groza shows that the charge of pantheism cannot be sustained, that Berkeleyan idealism actually entails the orthodox Christian distinction between Creator and creation. Regarding panentheism, Groza distinguishes two versions—a strong version according to which creation is part of God and thus divine, and a weak version in which the physical creation exists in God’s mind but is freely created by him out of nothing. While the strong version is inconsistent with Christian orthodoxy, Groza contends that the idealist need only embrace weak panentheism that poses no obstacle for orthodoxy. Benjamin H. Arbour (University of Bristol) takes up the question of God’s relation to time in “God, Idealism, and Time: A Berkeleyan Approach to Old Questions.” He shows that, even if one insists on presentism (the view that only the present exists), then the traditional view of divine timelessness is the best option. Arbour contends that idealism is, despite appearances, consistent with presentism. However, other views of God’s relation to time—unqualified divine temporality and accidental divine temporality—are beset with serious difficulties vis-à-vis the nature of God, in particular an inability to account for the traditional view of God’s omnipotence. In “Idealism and Science,” Douglas Blount (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) explores the implications of Berkeleyan idealism for our understanding of the aims of science and the nature of scientific theories. Most contemporary scientists and philosophers of science espouse realism, the view that scientific theories are aimed at providing literally true descriptions of the world. So understood, such theories often postulate the real existence of theoretical entities that are causally active. Blount shows, however, that Berkeleyan idealism, holding as it does that only minds and ideas exist, is generally skeptical of the existence of theoretical entities and denies that physical objects actually interact causally. Though running contrary to the more widely accepted realist view of science, this phenomenalist view of physical reality finds support in the fact that scientific

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theories are underdetermined by data and gain their acceptance by displaying various theoretical virtues which do not, strictly speaking, entail their truth. Marc A. Hight (Hampden-Sydney College) addresses the possibility and nature of miracles in “Idealism, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature.” He distinguishes two views on the nature of miracles, namely, the traditional interventionist view according to which miracles constitute divine violations or suspensions of natural laws, and the creation view (inspired by Augustine) according to which the only miracle is God’s act of creation. Hight argues that the Berkeleyan idealist can accommodate either view of miracles. However, taking seriously the claim that natural laws must be exceptionless in order to provide a basis for scientific explanations, it may be that the creation view is more plausible. If so, the nonidealist faces a dilemma: either abandon belief in miracles altogether (because the creation of matter ex nihilo is highly implausible) or embrace idealism. In “What’s the Point? Idealism and the Moral Life,” Keith Ward (Heythrop College) argues that idealism, especially Christian idealism, is uniquely qualified to provide a basis and rationale for the moral life. Idealism gives ontological priority to the existence of mind, indeed, to one, great primordial Mind. This implies that the mind-dependent universe created by that Mind must exist for a purpose, which is the realization of intrinsic values that are present in Him as possibilities. Ward summarizes the most significant of these values with the acronym CAUSE: Creativity, Appreciation, Understanding, Synergy, and Empathy. Such values require not only the existence of, and interaction between, other (finite) minds, but also a world in which those finite minds contribute to the self-expression of the mind of God.

Notes 1 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 104. 2 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 305. 3 Berkeley, Principles, 31. 4 Here we lean upon David M. Armstrong’s helpful analysis in his introduction to Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings, ed. David M. Armstrong (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 8.

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5 John Russell Roberts, A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 4. 6 Ibid., 5. 7 Idealism and Christian Theology, ed. S. Mark Hamilton, Joshua Farris, and James S. Spiegel (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016). 8 New International Version of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973). 9 See Adams’s “Idealism Vindicated,” in Persons: Human and Divine, ed. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007). 10 See Reexamining Berkeley’s Philosophy, ed. Stephen H. Daniel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007) and New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought, ed. Stephen H. Daniel (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2008).

Bibliography Adams, Robert. “Idealism Vindicated.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman. Oxford: Clarendon, 2007. Armstrong, David M., ed. Berkeley’s Philosophical Writings. New York: Macmillan, 1965. Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill, 1957. Daniel, Stephen H., ed. New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2008. Daniel, Stephen H. Reexamining Berkeley’s Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Hamilton, S. Mark, Joshua Farris, and James S. Spiegel, eds. Idealism and Christian Theology. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Roberts, John Russell. A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

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Idealism and the Reasonableness of Theistic Belief James S. Spiegel

George Berkeley conceived his esse est percipi thesis as a way of inspiring his readers “with a pious sense of the presence of God”1 and thus as a bulwark against atheism, agnosticism, and religious skepticism. Like many religious apologists, Berkeley defended an array of theistic proofs, but the strength of his case for theism hangs especially on the plausibility of his idealist thesis. This is because of the diverse ways that idealism enhances a theistic perspective, such as by expanding our sense of the evidence for God, enhancing our understanding of divine action in the world, offering a more parsimonious ontology, and providing a more compelling perspective on the laws of nature and the nature of miracles, vis-à-vis nonidealist brands of theism. In short, as I aim to show, an idealist perspective offers a number of conceptual benefits that enrich a theistic worldview.

The Berkeleyan thesis: Esse est percipi, aut percipere Let’s recall exactly what the idealist thesis is, beginning with Berkeley’s argument in defense of it. For Berkeley, the key starting point is the observation that physical objects are nothing more than their perceivable qualities. Now perceivable qualities are essentially ideas, so a physical object is really just a collection of ideas. And since ideas are mind-dependent, it follows that physical objects—the entire physical world, in fact—is entirely mind-dependent. That is to say, when it comes to physical objects, esse est percipi—to be is to be perceived. But this is not the whole of Berkeley’s thesis, nor even the most important part. For in Berkeley’s ontology there are, centrally, the spirits who do the perceiving. Thus,

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the complete Berkeleyan idealist thesis is esse est percipi aut percipere: to be is to be perceived or to be a perceiver.2 The Berkeleyan idealist ontology, then, is very simple (a point I shall emphasize below). All that exists are minds and their ideas, with minds being the only true substance. Hence, the doctrine is essentially a spiritual monism. Among minds, there are two distinct kinds: finite minds (including humans) and one infinite Mind, which is God, who is the ultimate source of all other minds and their ideas. And among ideas, there are also two kinds: the real and the imaginary. “Real” ideas are those that are publicly accessible via our senses, and “imaginary” ideas are those that are merely private—entertained within a single mind and not accessed through the senses.

Implications of idealism regarding evidence for God My purpose here is not to defend Berkeley’s thesis nor the ontology it implies (or is taken to imply). Rather, I want to consider how an idealist perspective might enhance a theistic approach to a variety of issues. What I hope to show is that belief in God turns out to be more plausible or reasonable given the adoption of an idealist perspective.

The ubiquity of evidence for God One way in which idealism reinforces the rationality of theistic belief pertains to its implication regarding the ubiquity of sensory evidence for theism. Specifically, given the Berkeleyan thesis, all of our sense experience—every single percept we gather with each of our senses, is immediate evidence for God. Everything you see around you now as you follow these words on the page or cast your gaze around the room, every sound you hear, each smell, taste, and tactile sensation— all of it evidences the reality of God. To see why, consider again the Berkeleyan claim that esse est percipi. Given this thesis, every aspect of sense experience is the product of some mind or other. So the first question to ask is whether the things you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel right now are the product of your mind. You can rule out this possibility easily enough, since it should be obvious to you that: (1) you are not consciously producing the images and other sensations you constantly encounter via your senses, and (2) you have no reason to believe that you produce all of your

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own experiences unconsciously, as you do when you are dreaming. So, if your mind is not producing your sense experience, then since some mind is doing so, it follows that the source must be some other mind. And such a mind would have to be so great as to be nothing less than divine. As Berkeley reasons: To me it is evident . . . that sensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I conclude, not that they have no real existence, but that, seeing they depend not only on my thought, and have an existence distinct from being perceived by me, there must be some other mind wherein they exist. As sure, therefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure is there an infinite omnipresent Spirit, who contains and supports it.3

This is sometimes referred to as Berkeley’s passivity argument for the existence of God.4 Granting the idealist thesis that to be is to be perceived, need we grant the theistic conclusion? One might retort with the many minds objection, which notes that Berkeley hasn’t shown that the ideas you encounter in sense experience are caused by just one other mind. It is conceivable, after all, that your various ideas of sense are produced by a plurality of finite minds. Although Berkeley doesn’t address this objection per se, his assumption seems to be that this alternative cannot account for the tremendous unity and consistency of the ideas we encounter in experience. Jonathan Dancy comments accordingly: We can suppose that if there were several minds involved, some trace of the differences between them would emerge in their effects. But a remarkable feature of the world of sense is its consistency . . . It does not reveal traces of the working of more than one mind; every realist must agree with Berkeley’s contention that, within his system, this is so.5

If the many minds objection won’t work, then perhaps a skeptical response in the manner of David Hume is appropriate. Thus, one might resist the theistic implication by suggesting that, although you might have no positive reason to believe that your own mind is producing your sense experience, it is nonetheless possible that this is so. For, Hume says, By what argument can it be proved, that the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects, entirely different from them, though resembling them (if that be possible) and could not arise from the energy of the mind itself? . . . It is acknowledged, that, in fact, many of these perceptions arise not from any thing external, as in dreams, madness, and other diseases.6

So what are we to say to this? In responding to some philosophical arguments, resorting to skepticism may be appropriate and practically reasonable. But in

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this case, it is particularly problematic. For resisting the theistic implication of idealism in this way results in solipsism—the notion that the entirety of your experience is produced by your own mind. The standard response to solipsism is apropos here as in any context: Yes, it is logically possible that the entire world is your own mental projection, but it’s not a sane thing to believe, which probably explains why solipsism might be the only philosophical view that isn’t seriously defended by any philosopher. But then again—and more to the point—to whom would one really be defending the view, besides oneself! So it seems that, if idealism is true, then one cannot doubt or reasonably question God’s existence so long as anything at all exists. That is, given Berkeley’s thesis, all of your sense experience counts as evidence for God. Thus, on idealism, doubts about God are completely undermined because, to the extent that one doubts God’s existence, one must at the same time seriously entertain the possibility of solipsism or, to opt for something along the lines of the “many minds” approach, embrace the notion that something like the Matrix scenario is correct—that all of human experience is generated by a computer or some other finite intelligence. But solipsism is existentially repugnant, and the Matrix-like theories seem silly and properly reserved for science fiction entertainment.7 For the idealist, then, the reality of God is immediately apparent. Far from needing an argument to prove or provide philosophical or scientific evidence for God’s existence, “we need only open our eyes to see the sovereign Lord of all things, with a more full and clear view than we do any one of our fellow creatures.”8 There are also implications here for the contemporary problem of divine hiddenness. This is the supposed problem created by the fact that God’s existence is not more clearly evident. If God were real, it is argued, then this is something he would want everyone to know, so God would ensure that there could be no nonculpable unbelief regarding his existence. But since there are honest, nonculpable unbelievers, this means God’s existence is not sufficiently clear, which therefore constitutes evidence that God does not exist.9 However, if idealism is correct, then, simply put, the notion that God is hidden is dubious. God is no more hidden than other people are hidden, Berkeley would say, since the cases are parallel: God is known as certainly and immediately as any other mind or spirit whatsoever distinct from ourselves. We may even assert that the existence of God is far more evidently perceived than the existence of men; because the effects of

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nature are infinitely more numerous and considerable than those ascribed to human agents.10

This is so because we know both God and people via their perceptible effects: human bodily behaviors indicate the thoughts and intentions of the mind “behind” them, and the thoughts and intentions of the mind “behind” the physical world are similarly known through events in the physical world. Lastly, the idealist thesis reinforces the notion that belief in God is, as Reformed epistemologists would say, “properly basic.” According to Reformed epistemologists, such as Alvin Plantinga, theistic belief is well within one’s epistemic rights even in the absence of an argument for God’s existence. Just as we all reasonably believe in other human minds despite the lack of a good argument for them, Plantinga argues that one does not need an argument to reasonably believe in a Mind behind the world. Belief in God is an appropriate epistemic starting place, a properly basic belief, as is belief in other human minds. By showing how the divine Mind is encountered just as much in sense experience as any human mind, and thus reinforcing the parity between belief in other finite minds and belief in the divine Mind, Berkeleyan idealism provides further grounds for affirming the Reformed epistemological claim that belief in God is properly basic.

Accounting for divine action Another way in which idealism reinforces the reasonableness of theistic belief is by providing a plausible account of divine action in the world. According to many philosophers of science, the notion of divine intervention in the physical world presents a serious problem for science and, thus, for theistic belief. So to the extent that one can provide a coherent account of divine action in the world, while also respecting the integrity of science, theism will prove more reasonable. Divine intervention in the physical world may be seen as problematic in at least two ways.11 First, there is the ontological problem: How do we make sense of the notion that an immaterial divine spirit causally interacts with material objects? There seems to be an unbridgeable ontological gulf between soul or spirit, on the one hand, and the physical world on the other. This is, of course, just another version of the interaction problem that plagues mind-body dualists in the philosophy of mind. Just as Descartes struggled to make sense of any

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causal interaction between soul and body, the theistic philosopher of science will struggle as well to make sense of divine interaction with the physical world. Secondly, there is the methodological problem of divine intervention. Scientific inquiry is premised on the notion that the cosmos displays functional integrity, that is, that the laws of nature and the causal workings of the physical realm are consistent. So how can one reasonably affirm such consistency while also affirming divine activity in the world? Such causal intervention by a transcendent spirit seems to threaten the integrity of science as a strictly empirical methodology. Idealism offers immense theoretical advantages for the theist as she addresses these problems of divine action in the world, since idealism: (1) solves the ontological problem by eliminating the ontological gulf between spirit and matter, and (2) solves the methodological problem by preserving the functional integrity of the cosmos. First, regarding the idealist solution to the ontological problem, recall that for the idealist the physical world is just a collection of divine ideas. There literally is nothing more to the physical world than perceivable qualities of solidity, texture, color, shape, temperature, taste, odor, and so on. The multitudinous physical objects that we experience are nothing but organized collections of such perceivable qualities. And all of these qualities are essentially ideas that the cosmos-sustaining Mind shares with finite minds like you and me. Thus, there really is no significant ontological gulf to be bridged on the idealist conception of things, because ideas are the natural currency of minds. In fact, nothing could be more intuitive than this, since all of our minds constantly traffic in ideas throughout all of our conscious experience. That’s just what minds do. No ontological gulf there. Or, if there is a gulf, it is not nearly so wide as on the realist conception of things, which affirms the mind-independence of material objects. So, what about the methodological problem of divine action in the world? How does idealism help here? Many theistic philosophers of science, such as Ian Barbour, Nancey Murphy, Arthur Peacocke, and John Polkinghorne, struggle with or even deny altogether the notion of divine interaction in the world precisely because this would threaten cosmic consistency or functional integrity. Thus, some would even opt for a noninterventionist model of divine action in the world, which arguably amounts to a form of deism. The idealist approach may be seen as just as radical as noninterventionism in so far as it denies the notion of occasional divine intervention in the world. But rather than eschewing divine interaction with the world, the idealist affirms divine action everywhere and at every moment. Since all of our sense experience is constantly

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and thoroughly an encounter with divine ideas, there literally are no times or places in cosmic history or human experience where God is not directly acting in the world. In fact, the whole physical cosmos just is the perceivable activity of God. Thus, there remains functional integrity on the idealist model, though this is due to the fact that God is always acting in the world rather than never at work in the world.

Theoretical parsimony A further virtue of idealism is that it provides a more parsimonious ontology than that offered by matterist theism (the view of the theist who affirms the existence of mind-independent substances). This point is perhaps best explained in terms of the logic of theory selection. When deciding which among competing theories to prefer in a particular domain, one of the major criteria of theory selection is the principle of parsimony or, as it became known in the late Medieval period, “Ockham’s Razor.” The principle has been articulated variously but is generally understood as a methodological preference for elegance or simplicity.12 Thus, as it is sometimes expressed, when striving to explain some data or event, other things being equal, the simplest theory is to be preferred. Otherwise put, what is adequately explained on X number of principles or factors is needlessly explained by more. As with most methodological guidelines, explicit defenses of this principle are not uncontroversial. Yet, perhaps because of the intuitive plausibility of Ockham’s Razor, the principle seems always to be assumed and applied throughout the disciplines, including both the empirical and a priori sciences. So, assuming that parsimony is indeed a theoretical virtue, what may we say about idealism? Well, idealism provides for a more simple ontology for theists, since on this view the only substances are minds, as opposed to the matterist view which is twice as complex, affirming the existence of two kinds of substance: mind and matter. At least when it comes to theism, idealism prevails over matterist theism according to the criterion of parsimony. And when compared to naturalism, idealism overcomes a long-standing weakness of matterist theism. For naturalists have often pointed out that their ontology is simpler than that of theism, as naturalists affirm that the only real substance is matter, while matterist theists affirm two substances: matter and minds (e.g., God and human souls). So the naturalist boasts a parsimonious monism, while matterist theists are stuck with the task of explaining why their

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doubly complex ontology should not undermine the reasonableness of their worldview. In contrast, the idealist is immune to the charge of violating Ockham’s Razor, since, like the naturalist, she essentially affirms ontological monism.13 The difference, of course, is that for the idealist the one real substance is Mind, not matter. So then the debate comes down to this: Which makes more sense as an ultimate explanans for the rest of the cosmos: Mind or matter? Both sides claim that their preferred ultimate “stuff ” is the source of everything else. But so conceived, the preferability of idealism is obvious. For Mind as ultimate reality provides easy and natural explanations for the origin of the cosmos, cosmic and biological fine-tuning, the emergence of life, and the fact of consciousness, while naturalism struggles mightily to account for each of these things. So the advantage in terms of ultimate explanatory power when it comes to many of the most basic facts of science and human experience lies clearly on the side of Mind. Thus, the case for theism appears to increase greatly under an idealist conception of things, vis-à-vis matterist brands of theism, since the naturalist can no longer claim the advantage of parsimony.

Natural laws and miracles The last application of idealism I’d like to discuss concerns the rationality of science, specifically the way in which idealism accounts for the laws of nature. One of the most challenging issues in the philosophy of science regards how to make sense of such cosmic constants as the inverse square law, Avogadro’s constant, the laws of thermodynamics, and dozens of other physical and chemical regularities. What accounts for their constancy? This is a very significant question, since the whole discipline of science rests on the assumption of the uniformity of nature. Scientific enterprise is built upon induction, and all inductive methodologies assume that the future will resemble the past as regards natural laws. So the fundamental rationality of science is at stake here. In response to this question of accounting for the laws of nature, philosophers have proposed a variety of approaches. One of these is the necessitarian view, which says that the laws of nature are somehow necessary. They are regular and constant because they cannot be otherwise. But why can’t they be otherwise? In what sense are they necessary or, otherwise put, what accounts for their having no exceptions? One version of this approach insists that the laws of nature are logically necessary.14 That is, it is logically impossible for such laws as the Big Bang expansion rate and the law of gravity not to consistently hold. The problem

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with this approach is that it seems obvious that there is no logical necessity to the laws of nature because we can easily imagine an exception to many such laws. For example, I can imagine the universe expansion slowing down, even coming to a halt. And I can imagine gravity ceasing altogether and all solid objects that are not fastened to the ground suddenly beginning to float in the air. Since I can conceive of such states of affairs, it is apparent that they are at least logically possible. This clearly defeats the logical necessitarian approach. A more common version of the necessitarian view conceives of the necessity of natural laws in causal rather than logical terms. On this account, the laws of nature must hold because of the active powers inherent in physical systems. One advocate of this approach, A. F. Chalmers, writes, The inverse square law of gravitation describes quantitatively the power to attract possessed by massive bodies, and the laws of classical electromagnetic theory describe, among other things, the capacity of charged bodies to attract and radiate. It is the active powers at work in nature that makes laws true when they are true.15

This approach has some initial plausibility and is certainly an improvement on the logical necessitarian approach. Nonetheless, it suffers from some serious flaws as well, problems pointed out by David Hume centuries ago but which have never been adequately addressed. Hume pointed out that no matter how closely we analyze a causal relationship, such as that between two billiard balls colliding on a table, we never observe anything like a necessary connection between them. We see ball A move into close proximity to ball B. We hear a sound when they briefly become contiguous, and then we see B roll away from A. In fact, we observe such events over and over again throughout the course of human experience. But what we never see or otherwise experience is a necessary connection. In fact, according to Hume, the idea of causal necessity is something that we impose upon such events. We have no empirical evidence for it. Nor, says Hume, could we ever experience such necessity, for, again, we can easily imagine any number of events following the contact between the two billiard balls, such as ball B floating into the air or both balls suddenly transforming into toads or daffodils. However unusual or unique such states of affairs might be, we cannot rule them out just because they’ve never occurred before. The fact is that we can conceive of them happening, and we have no empirical grounds for saying that they won’t happen or that they are impossible. A less ambitious approach to the laws of nature, actually inspired by Hume, is the regularity view. This approach concedes that there really is no way to rationally

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account for the laws of nature. We empirically observe regularities in nature, but beyond this we can say no more.16 Regularity theorists may emphasize to one degree or another the practical benefits of assuming the uniformity of natural laws, but they will stop short of insisting that the laws are necessarily uniform. This approach certainly has the merit of avoiding the pitfalls of necessitarianism, but in its restraint it fails to provide anything like an explanation for the laws of nature. In fact, the regularity view really amounts to a refusal to attempt to explain the laws of nature. But, of course, this only allows the problem to persist and thus leaves major Humean cracks in the epistemological foundations of science. Here is where theism provides a much-needed alternative account of the uniformity of nature and, thus, an adequate basis for inductive methodologies. For the theist may appeal to divine providence as the grounds for natural laws. The law of gravity, Avogadro’s constant, the laws of thermodynamics, the Big Bang expansion rate, and every other law of nature remain uniform, says the theist, because God has ordained them to be so. All regularities of nature are explained by the constancy of divine decrees. This is the standard—though not universal—theistic account of the laws of nature. But how are we to conceive of such decrees? How exactly does God sustain the uniformity of nature? This is precisely where the explanatory power of idealism comes into play. On a Berkeleyan account, what we call the laws of nature are simply the routine divine governance of the ideas of sense experience. Berkeley explains it as follows: the ideas of sense . . . are not excited at random . . . but in a regular train or series, the admirable connection whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules or established methods wherein the mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of sense are called the laws of nature; and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended with such and such other ideas in the ordinary course of things.17

The ultimate purpose of such divinely ordained natural regularities is very practical in nature, says Berkeley, for: This gives us a sort of foresight which enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life. And without this we should be eternally at a loss; we could not know how to act anything that might procure us the least pleasure or remove the least pain of sense. That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us;

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that to sow in the seedtime is the way to reap in the harvest; and in general that to obtain such or such ends, such or such means are conducive—all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connection between ideas, but only by the observation of the settled laws of nature, without which we should be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born.18

Notice Berkeley’s explicit denial of any “necessary connection between ideas”—a fact that for Hume a few decades later would constitute the grounds for radical skepticism, but only because Hume could not, or would not, rely on theism to provide the needed foundation for human knowledge. So, for the idealist, there is no absolute necessity in the cosmic regularities we call laws of nature. They are only “law-like” because God has ordained that they hold consistently. But this is not to say that the laws hold universally. For, as Berkeley says, “the Author of Nature [may] display overruling power in producing some appearance out of the ordinary series of things. Such exceptions from the general rules of nature are proper to surprise and awe men into an acknowledgment of the Divine Being.”19 Such divine actions are called miracles. And these are nothing more than significant exceptions to divine routine in cosmic governance. A miracle, such as an instantaneous healing or parting of a large body of water, is no more difficult for God to effect than are the ordinary “natural” events of the cosmos. It is all the work of providence, some states of affairs being common and others exceedingly rare, and thus a cause for great wonder. Note the common feature of natural laws and miracles on this account. Both are divinely ordained. One is a matter of consistency for the human good, while the other is exceptional for the human good. Neither is difficult for an almighty God. Rather, natural laws pertain to ordinary providence while miracles are rare exceptions to this routine. Both should inspire awe and wonder—the latter because of the novelty of the event and evident divine purpose and blessing that accompanies the exception; the former because of the benefits that accrue from such consistency, not to mention the constant ubiquitous and meticulous care such regularities imply. To summarize, then, the particular benefits of an idealist approach for philosophy of science are as follows. First, idealism provides a deeply theistic account of the laws of nature and, thus, a theistic metaphysical and epistemological foundation for all of science. Second, idealism provides a plausible causal explanation for the laws of nature which overcomes the problems of the alternative

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necessitarian and regularity theories. And, thirdly, for idealism, miracles do not present a special conceptual problem for theism and are no more difficult to explain than are the regularities of nature to which they are rare exceptions. I consider all of these features of idealism to be conceptual virtues that lend to the further credibility and reasonableness of theism. But here an objection is likely to be raised. Isn’t science undermined by the occasional exception to laws of nature? In order for scientific explanations to be reliable, the laws must be assumed to be absolutely uniform. Otherwise, we can never be sure whether a given event is one of the rare exceptions and thus unsusceptible to scientific explanation. So, the objection goes, the idealist account of natural laws is actually counterproductive when it comes to supporting the rationality of science.20 There are, I believe, at least two promising replies to this objection. First, one might simply point out that rare exceptions to laws of nature which result in, say, the saving of a human life or some other precious good, are hardly enough to overturn the practice of science. As evidence of this fact, many contemporary physicians claim to have witnessed miracles, but they neither give up their medical practice nor, more generally, their commitment to the scientific method because of this. Instead, they proceed as before, though with a certain wonder and perhaps an openness to similar events taking place in the future. Similarly, plenty of research scientists have also testified to witnessing miraculous events, but they too continue their scientific research. In both cases, the reason is obvious. The rare occurrence of divinely ordained exceptions to natural laws need not undermine one’s confidence in the general uniformity of nature. Another way of dealing with the objection rejects the assumption that miracles necessarily involve an exception to some law of nature. Perhaps the apparent exceptions to the laws of nature suggested by, say, the turning of water to wine or the sudden healing of a sick person are not exceptions at all but rather divine introductions of new elements or causal factors. And when these are incorporated into a given physical context, still divinely governed according to the usual laws, the desired salutary result is achieved, such as the transformation of the drink or revival of the sick. Of course, on this account some will claim that such divine introduction of new energy into a situation would still be an exception to a physical law, specifically the law of energy conservation. However, a careful consideration of this law shows that this is not the case. For the law of energy conservation states that in an isolated

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system energy is neither created nor destroyed; the amount of energy remains constant. But the sort of supernatural intervention we are envisioning would, ex hypothesi, come from outside the “system,” that is, the physical cosmos. Thus, the first law of thermodynamics actually allows for the divine introduction of new energy into the cosmos. Therefore, this alternative way of conceiving of miracles is indeed consistent with the notion that the laws of nature have no exceptions.

Some concerns regarding the problem of evil A natural objection at this point concerns the problem of evil. We need only consider how idealism naturally recommends, or is typically associated with, a high view of providence such that God completely controls all aspects of creation. Now if that is the case, then how can God not be blameworthy for all of the evils that occur in this world, from diseases and natural disasters to the most heinous deeds performed by human beings? After all, everything in the cosmos is, as it were, God’s ideas. Now there are two distinct aspects to this objection, each pertaining to a particular category of evil—natural evil and moral evil. In dealing with the objection, it is best to keep these separate for the sake of clarity. First, consider the category of natural evil or suffering. Does the idealist thesis somehow exacerbate the problem of natural evil? In other words, is God more susceptible to the charge of injustice or apathy regarding creaturely pain if idealism is true? It’s difficult to see how this could be so, since even on low views of providence God is still perfectly aware of human suffering and perfectly capable of stopping all of it. An omnipotent being would seem to be no less responsible for natural evils in the world whether he actively causes them or knowingly permits them. The critical question, of course, is whether the deity has good reasons to cause or permit the suffering that he does. And if he has good overriding reasons to permit suffering (e.g., in order to build character), then arguably he likewise has good reasons to actively cause it.21 But the situation is a bit different when it comes to moral evil, which is the sort of evil that concerns human choices, as opposed to natural events like diseases and hurricanes. Does idealism present any special problems for the theist as regards accounting for moral evils like rape, theft, and child abuse? Some would insist so. In Berkeley’s Three Dialogues, Hylas accuses his idealist friend of

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“making God the immediate Author of . . . murder, sacrilege, adultery, and the like heinous sins.”22 Berkeley replies through his mouthpiece Philonous: The imputation of guilt is the same, whether a person commits an action with or without an instrument. In case therefore you suppose God to act by the mediation of an instrument, or occasion, called Matter, you as truly make Him the author of sin as I, who think Him the immediate agent in all those operations vulgarly ascribed to Nature.23

Berkeley’s point here is to remind his fellow theists that the matterist doctrine is no effective shield against the problem of moral evil. So whatever difficulty the idealist might have regarding this aspect of the problem of evil, it is shared by all theists alike and therefore no reason for theists to reject idealism. But Berkeley continues with a second response to the objection: I farther observe that sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and religion . . . Since, therefore, sin doth not consist in the physical action, the making God an immediate cause of all such actions is not making Him the Author of sin.24

This is an interesting line of response because it emphasizes the important distinction between a person’s will, which the agent controls immediately, and his or her physical body, which as a collection of divine ideas, is immediately governed by God. And it is the former, not the latter, that is the precise locus of moral evil. This seems to suggest that Berkeley would sanction a free will defense, as he is allowing that the choices we make really are fully our own and God is not to be blamed for them. This conclusion is apparently reinforced in the third part of Berkeley’s threefold response to the objection from evil: I have nowhere said that God is the only agent who produces all the motions in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any other agents besides spirits; but this is very consistent with allowing to thinking rational beings, in the production of motions, the use of limited powers, ultimately indeed derived from God, but immediately under the direction of their own wills, which is sufficient to entitle them to all the guilt of their actions.25

This passage not only reinforces the idea that Berkeley would be comfortable with a free will defense against the objection from moral evil but that his idealism could even be consistent with an Arminian soteriology or even an open theist conception of divine providence.26 Berkeley himself rejected the former, and it is clear that he would personally oppose the latter. Furthermore, an idealist metaphysics certainly

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seems most at home with a high view of providence. But this not to say that idealism is somehow logically inconsistent with an Arminian theology or a more relaxed view of providence. This fact should be taken as an invitation to non-Calvinist philosophers and theologians to “try on” the Berkeleyan perspective and see what idealist models might be possible using the categories of these other traditions.

Conclusion I have suggested that idealism offers resources for developing a more reasonable or plausible brand of theism. Idealism implies that all of our sense experience counts as immediate evidence for God, a fact which in turn implies that even doubts about God’s existence are deeply irrational. Second, idealism provides a plausible and natural way of conceiving divine action in the world, which overcomes the usual problems attending nonidealist approaches. Third, when it comes to the criterion of theoretical parsimony, idealism—being a form of metaphysical monism—scores more favorably than nonidealist theistic metaphysical accounts and at least as well as an austere naturalism. Fourthly, idealism offers a compelling account of the laws of nature, thereby securing the epistemological basis of science and reinforcing our belief in the ultimate rationality of the scientific enterprise. Moreover, this same idealist account of natural laws also just as readily provides a plausible account for miracles. Finally, I showed why the objection from evil does not present significant grounds for rejecting the idealist perspective. There are several routes of response to this problem, as Berkeley himself demonstrates. For these reasons, all those who believe in God should seriously consider idealism as a metaphysical framework that enhances the overall reasonableness of a theistic perspective. And, for the same reasons, naturalists ought to more seriously consider theism.

Notes 1 George Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 104. 2 Unfortunately, Berkeley’s actual thesis is often truncated by commentators, thus severely misrepresenting the nature of his claim. For an excellent discussion of this point, see John Russell Roberts, A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), Chapter 1.

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3 George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (Chicago: Open Court, 1969), 64. Berkeley presents this argument initially in his Principles of Human Knowledge, Sect. 29 and then develops it further in Sects. 146–156. 4 The argument was first given this name by Jonathan Bennett in his “Berkeley and God,” Philosophy 40 (1965): 207–221. 5 Jonathan Dancy, Berkeley: An Introduction (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 43. 6 David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding in Essential Works of Hume, ed. Ralph Cohen (New York: Bantam, 1965), 158. Hume presents a similar skeptical argument regarding knowledge of the external world in A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Sect. 6. 7 One problem with appealing to the idea that the cosmos is computer generated is that it only pushes the problem back a step, because the sensory experience of agents in charge of that system would have to have a source, too. 8 Hume, Inquiry, 157–158. 9 Contemporary discussion of the issue was launched by John L. Schellenberg in his Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993). For some good responses, see Michael Murray, “Coercion and the Hiddenness of God,” American Philosophical Quarterly 30.1 (1993): 27–38; and Peter van Inwagen, “The Hiddenness of God,” Arguing about Religion, ed. Kevin Timpe (New York: Routledge, 2009). 10 Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, 98. 11 The Divine Action Project, featuring the work of such eminent thinkers as Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke, and John Polkinghorne, aimed to address this problem and work out a coherent conception of divine action in the world that also preserves the rationality of science. For an overview, see Wesley Wildman, “The Divine Action Project, 1988–2003,” Theology and Science 2.1 (April 2004): 31–75. 12 For some helpful analyses of this principle, see J. J. C. Smart, “Ockham’s Razor,” in Principles of Philosophical Reasoning, ed. James H. Fetzer (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984), 118–128; and Dorothy Walsh, “Occam’s Razor: A Principle of Intellectual Elegance,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 241–244. 13 Of course, both naturalists and idealist theists also affirm the reality of ideas and other conscious states, but these aspects of reality do not constitute an additional substance on these views. 14 For various versions of this view, see E. Fales, Causation and Universals (London: Routledge Press, 1990); C. Swoyer, “The Nature of Natural Laws,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (1982): 203–223; and J. Bigelow, B. Ellis, and C. Lierse, “The World as One of a Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43 (1992): 371–388. 15 A. F. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science? 3rd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999), 219.

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16 Proponents of various versions of the regularity approach include A. J. Ayer, “What Is a Law of Nature?” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 36 (1956): 144– 165; Carl Hempel, “Provisos: A Problem Concerning the Inferential Function of Scientific Theories,” in The Limitations of Deductivism, ed. A. Grunbaum and W. C. Salmon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); and Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), chapter 4. 17 Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, 37. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 53–54. 20 For a discussion of this objection, and an alternative idealist account of the laws of nature, see Marc A. Hight’s chapter “Immaterialism, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature” in this volume. 21 This is a major point made by proponents of the “soul-making theodicy.” For more on this, see John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) and James S. Spiegel, “The Irenaean Soul-Making Theodicy,” God and Evil: The Case for God in a World Filled with Pain, ed. Chad Meister and James Dew Jr. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2013). 22 George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, 99. 23 Ibid., 99–100. 24 Ibid., 100. 25 Ibid. 26 Open theism is the theological view that denies exhaustive divine foreknowledge and so emphasizes human freedom that God is literally capable of surprise, disappointment, or even erroneous expectations of the future and thus at times in history must change his mind or alter his original plans for dealing with people and events. See, for example, David Basinger, The Case for Freewill Theism: A Philosophical Assessment (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996) and John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Bibliography Ayer, A. J. “What Is a Law of Nature?” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 36 (1956): 144–165. Basinger, David. The Case for Freewill Theism: A Philosophical Assessment. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996. Bennett, Jonathan. “Berkeley and God.” Philosophy 40 (1965): 207–221. Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957.

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Berkeley, George. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Chicago: Open Court, 1969. Bigelow, J., B. Ellis, and C. Lierse. “The World as One of a Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43 (1992): 371–388. Dancy, Jonathan. Berkeley: An Introduction. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Fales, E. Causation and Universals. London: Routledge Press, 1990. Hempel, Carl. “Provisos: A Problem Concerning the Inferential Function of Scientific Theories.” In The Limitations of Deductivism, edited by A. Grunbaum and W. C. Salmon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Harper and Row, 1978. Hume, David. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding in Essential Works of Hume. Edited by Ralph Cohen. New York: Bantam, 1965. Murray, Michael. “Coercion and the Hiddenness of God.” American Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1993): 27–38. Nagel, Ernest. The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961. Roberts, John R. A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Sanders, John. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Schellenberg, John L. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. Smart, J. J. C. “Ockham’s Razor.” In Principles of Philosophical Reasoning, edited by James H. Fetzer, 118–128. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984. Spiegel, James S. “The Irenaean Soul-Making Theodicy.” In God and Evil: The Case for God in a World Filled with Pain, edited by Chad Meister and James Dew Jr. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013. Swoyer, C. “The Nature of Natural Laws.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (1982): 203–223. van Inwagen, Peter. “The Hiddenness of God.” In Arguing about Religion, edited by Kevin Timpe. New York: Routledge, 2009. Walsh, Dorothy. “Occam’s Razor: A Principle of Intellectual Elegance.” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 241–244. Wildman, Wesley. “The Divine Action Project, 1988–2003.” Theology and Science 2 (April 2004): 31–75.

2

Idealism and the Nature of Truth Gregory E. Trickett

A fundamental question in philosophical discourse is that of the nature of truth. How one answers this question will affect every other concept that person holds from ethics to hermeneutics. Deflationary responses to the question of the nature of truth relegate the concept of truth to one of utility and pragmatics while realist responses anchor the whole of their metaphysical and epistemological assumptions on their formulation of the concept of truth. For the Christian, a realist approach is necessary if one is to take the nature of God and the veracity of the scriptures seriously. But, while alethic realism affords some amount of common consent among its adherents, there is still much to discuss. The heart of such discussions involves the question of what theory of truth best agrees with a Christian realist view. Furthermore, idealism seems well suited to address such questions. Though often (mis)understood to be an antirealist view, Berkeleyan idealism is best interpreted in realist terms that are in keeping with some of the best of contemporary work in realist conceptions of truth. If this is so, then idealism may offer the best answer to which theory of truth best agrees with a Christian realist view.

Alston’s Realist Conception of Truth William Alston offers a good start to this discussion in his A Realist Conception of Truth. Alston argues that a realist conception of truth is a minimalist view that “embodies what it is for a statement . . . to be true” and takes the notion of truth seriously, that is, considers truth to be important.1 The primary truth bearer is simply propositional content. Alston denies that his view assumes any kind of ontological status of propositions; it is enough, he says, that propositions “can

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serve as subjects for truth-value attributions.”2 As such, a realist conception of truth is not tied to any particular definition of truth like that sought in a correspondence theory of truth (CT), but rather outlines the conditions for truth.3 The centerpiece of this conception is Alston’s T-schema: The proposition that p is true iff p. The substitution of p for any declarative sentence which is properly used to make statements results in a T-statement. According to Alston, The suggestion is that if we understand that any T-statement is conceptually, analytically true, true by virtue of the meanings of the terms involved, in particular the term “true,” then we thereby understand what it is for a proposition to be true. Understanding that amounts to recognizing how it is that the content of a proposition, what it is “a proposition that,” determines a (necessarily) necessary and sufficient condition for the truth of that proposition. And once we see that, we grasp what it is for a proposition to be true in a realist sense. That gives us the realist CONCEPT of propositional truth.4

Perhaps what we can say of Alston’s approach is that his general realist conception of truth does not wed him to any particular version of CT. Although it seems that, even with Alston’s qualifications, it cannot avoid some version of CT. Alston himself seems to admit as much when he says that his conception of truth could be seen as an “inchoate correspondence theory.”5 Alston’s conception is a minimalist approach to truth. In it, he is searching for the most essential, meaningful element of truth which is the T-schema. When he concedes that his view might be an “inchoate correspondence theory,” I take him to mean that if his realist conception of truth is a correspondence view, it is only basically such a view. It is, at most, a bare-bones correspondence; but, as will be shown below, a bare-bones correspondence is enough to properly qualify a view as a correspondence view. Assuming that Alston’s realist conception of truth is right and assuming further that some version of CT is unavoidable given such a conception, what version(s) of CT is (are) acceptable? First, we must outline what is needed for any version of CT to be so labeled. Aristotle provides a rich heritage for such an outline. In Metaphysics, Aristotle gives this definition of “the true and the false”: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.”6 Edward Pauley offers three “intuitions,” fundamental to any CT, that can be gleaned from Aristotle’s definition of truth: (1) It is statements (or thoughts) which are true or false; (2) the truth of statements is dependent on facts independent of the statement; and

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(3) truth consists in some sort of relation between statements and facts.7 Other statements in Metaphysics affirm this assessment of Aristotle: But since that which is in the sense of being true, or is not in the sense of being false, depends on combination and separation, and truth and falsity together depend on the allocation of a pair of contradictory judgments (for the true judgment affirms where the subject and predicate are really combined, and denies where they are separated, while the false judgment has the opposite of this allocation; it is another question, how it happens that we think things together or apart; by “together” and “apart” I mean thinking them so that there is no succession in the thoughts but they become a unity).8

The truth of what we say depends on the relation between the combination of subject and predicate in our speech with the independent (from what we say) subject and predicate as they are “really combined.” Understanding these intuitions as criteria for any version of CT, we can see that a realist conception of truth cannot avoid some version of CT. Alston’s claim that propositions (or statements) are the primary truth bearers fulfills the first criterion. Furthermore, it can be inferred from the T-schema that the truth these statements bear is dependent on the way the world really is (the right side of any given T-statement) and that truth is found in the way such statements relate to these ways of the world, thus fulfilling the latter two criteria for CT. Therefore, we can assume that the intuitions (criteria) of CT presuppose (or imply) a realist conception of truth.9 While these three intuitions (criteria) about what qualifies for a version of CT seem right and obvious, there is a classic understanding of “real” as meaning “substantively material” that does not seem right or obvious. On this understanding of “real,” metaphysical realism assumes metaphysical pluralism (or at least materialism). A rigid example of this assumption is seen in Richard Kirkham’s Theories of Truth. In defining a realist view of truth, Kirkham states that a condition for a realist theory of truth is that the facts (states of affairs that obtain in the actual world) involved are understood as mind-independent, “that is, neither [their] existence nor [their] nature depends on the existence of any mind,” including the mind of God.10 As such, material or “real” objects are ultimately and completely independent from any and every mind. Another, more flexible, but nonetheless strong, example of this assumption is seen in Alston’s discussion of metaphysical realism. In particular, what Alston is concerned about with respect to the realism/idealism debate are not views that claim that physical objects are in some way (say causally) dependent on mind, but rather he is concerned with

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views that regard physical objects as “constitutively” dependent on mind. He writes, “If physical substances, space and time, universals, or whatever, depend on a relation to mind for being what they are, for their essential character, for their constitution, then they lack the kind of independence of mind that is required for realist status.”11 This is the idealism that Alston has in mind when he states that “Berkeley is paradigmatically an idealist.”12 Yet, Bishop Berkeley’s approach to these issues seems to assume both a realism in Alston’s sense of the term and an idealism that seems to be absolute. I will discuss below how these two can be reconciled on a Berkeleyan understanding, making the assumption that realism implies pluralism false. Therefore, assuming Alston’s realist conception of truth, I will argue in the remainder of this chapter that one need not accept a traditional pluralistic metaphysic to be a realist with respect to truth. Furthermore, certain types of monistic idealist metaphysics—specifically Berkeleyan idealism—are consistent with a correspondence theory that can be derived from Alston’s realist conception of truth. This makes Berkeleyan idealism a strong candidate for a realist conception of truth that is idealist and that takes seriously the intuitions of CT. I will begin by outlining what Berkeleyan idealism is and how it may or may not capture the intuitions of CT. I will argue that what is typically understood as realism is a strong realism that makes certain assumptions about the nature of facts and their independence. I will then suggest that what are needed on a Berkeleyan view are different assumptions that make for a weak realist perspective. I will then show, given the assumptions of weak realism, how the notions of possible and actual ideas in the mind of God are essential features of the Berkeleyan picture. Next I will construct an idealist CT from the outlined Berkeleyan view and address a particular objection from Bertrand Russell to this view. Finally, I will conclude by noting reasons why a Berkeleyan idealist CT based on a weak realist picture is superior to strong realist versions of the CT.

Realism and Berkeleyan idealism A common way to treat George Berkeley in the literature is to strip his thought of theological relevance, assuming that any mention of the divine is an effort to make sense of an odd view of metaphysics or an example of Berkeley bowing to social and political pressures of his day.13 Thus, his philosophy is seen as a

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thoroughly secular one dotted with unnecessary religious references. Treating Berkeley in this way, however, is mistreating him. To properly understand Berkeley’s philosophy we must understand the theological nature of it. In this section I will discuss what I term “strong” and “weak” forms of realism, suggesting that Berkeley is properly understood as advocating a weak form of realism. After outlining what I mean by strong realism, I will discuss Berkeley’s case against material substances. I will then discuss Berkeley’s case for immaterialism in light of an explanation of weak realism.

Against pluralism I claimed earlier that Alston’s realist conception of truth cannot avoid CT. Typically what is assumed when one talks about CT is a realist view with certain assumptions about the nature of facts and their independence, namely that in order to be real, such facts, being independent of the statements that correspond to them, must be about a nonmental substance. Yet given the Aristotelian criteria for CT, it is not evident that facts must have any particular metaphysical nature in order to be real. As mentioned above, Alston claims that what is typically meant by “realism” is the independence of certain things, such as physical objects, from the mind. He states that at the heart of the realist/idealist conflict is the idealist notion that nothing is independent of mind. Such a claim, in its extreme, is incompatible with realism. Why? Because what it means to be real is to be, at least in some sense, nonmental. According to Alston, forms of idealism that claim “constitutive dependence” of everything on mind are incompatible with realism.14 I will consider such a view a strong realist view, that is, a view that assumes metaphysical pluralism so that the independence of facts, at least in part, requires independence from any mind whatsoever, implying the certain existence of material objects.15 Such a view meets and goes beyond the Aristotelian criteria for CT. It is widely held that the basis for Berkeley’s argument against materialism is, at least in part, an argument against abstract ideas.16 Supposedly, abstract ideas are ideas “that the mind can frame to itself . . . exclusive of extension,” like color and shape.17 However, this belief is seen by Berkeley as an error in reasoning. He states that, if understood properly, what follows from abstraction is basically nothing. Red is a particular color, and to abstract is to rid an idea of its particulars; thus to abstract color is to think of no particular color that is still color, and the same is true of extended bodies of no particular shape but still a shape, or

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moving things of no particular motion that still move with a motion—these are, Berkeley suggests, “not easy to conceive.”18 Essentially, Berkeley is arguing that our ideas are based on the particulars that we experience. Furthermore, we can only have ideas of that which we experience. Any ideas we have are of particular things and abstracts are by definition not particular; therefore we can have no experience of abstract things. Once this conceptual framework is in place, Berkeley drives home his point: since material substance is an abstract object, we can have no experience of it and therefore have no reason to assume it exists at all. Thus, the belief in material substance is based on unfounded assumptions.19 It is this conclusion that prompts the famous esse est percipi (“to be is to be perceived”).

For idealism What Alston’s view cannot avoid is, at least, a weak realist version of CT. Such a view does not assume that the nature of facts and their independence is necessarily nonmental. Facts must have an independent relation to statements that correspond to them, but the essential nature and independence of these facts could be mind. I will discuss below how such a view might be construed. For now, suffice it to say that if Alston’s minimal view implies anything it is a weak realism and a weak realism only, nothing more. Furthermore, a weak realist view just meets the Aristotelian criteria for CT and goes no further. In Berkeley’s view, the ultimate conclusion of an empirical perspective is that mind is the one and only real substance. Locke’s “that I know not what” (material substratum) is unknowable because it is not there. What is there is the perceived qualities—color, odor, extension, and so on. All of these are ideas of perception that exist in the mind. To say of a thing that it exists is to say that it is perceived. To use Berkeley’s example, the desk he writes on exists insofar as it is seen, that is, perceived. The same is true of the odor that is smelled or the sound that is heard—they exist because they are perceived by the mind. There is no abstract material substance to which these things attach themselves. Berkeley states, This is all I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.20

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However, rather than coming to a solipsistic or pantheistic conclusion, Berkeley is (or at least is trying to be) orthodox in his beliefs. The stated purpose of his Principles is to bring man into the following conviction: that “eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good;” that he is with us and keepeth us in all places whither we go, and giveth us bread to eat and raiment to put on; that he is present and conscious to our innermost thoughts; and that we have a most absolute and immediate dependence on him. A clear view of which great truths cannot choose but fill our heart with an awful circumspection and holy fear, which is the strongest incentive to virtue, and the best guard against vice. For after all what deserves the first place in our studies, is the consideration of God, and our duty; which to promote, as it was in the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual if by what I have said I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the presence of God [emphasis mine]: and . . . better dispose them to reverence and [to] embrace the salutary truths of the gospel, which to know and to practice is the highest perfection of human nature.21

Berkeley saw his immaterialism as being consistent with the faith so as to lead people to a greater understanding of, fear of, and love for God. In this way, we can understand Berkeley as being concerned with what is ultimately real. To connect this Berkeleyan immaterialism to the notion of weak realism, we can understand sensible objects as being roughly equivalent to facts (though not the converse). Without getting bogged down in semantics, we can provide a basic understanding of what facts are from Pauley’s above intuitions gleaned from Aristotle. A fact then is simply “what is”; that is, some aspect of the world (be it a state of affairs, truth-bearer, or property relation)22 that is independent of statements about the world. If what it means for something to be a fact is that it is some aspect of the world that is independent of statements about the world, then we can understand sensible objects, or perceivable things, at least to be facts. On a Berkeleyan understanding, these facts are indeed independent of what we say about them, and also independent of any particular finite mind’s perception of them, but they are not thereby constitutively independent of the substance that is mind. That is, they are not independent of God’s mind perceiving them since what it means for them to be real is to be an idea in God’s mind. Thus, on a weak realist’s view, facts are fundamentally mental objects in the mind of God. A thing so construed is “real” because of its independent existence in the mind

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of God. The notion of material things is not necessary on this view and can be discarded. In this way, while Berkeley asserts that the physical is not material, he does not deny the existence of physical reality. Reality as such is constitutive of certain ideas in the mind of God. Furthermore, as A. C. Grayling notes, what is physical in the sense outlined above enjoys a kind of independence. Grayling states, “In one sense of the term ‘realist,’ indeed, Berkeley is a realist, in holding that the existence of the physical world is independent of finite minds.”23 Immaterial physical reality is independent of created, finite minds but not independent of the mind of God. Of central importance for Berkeley and for the kind of idealist CT I am arguing for is the concept of ideas.24 It is to this concept that we now turn.

Possible and actual ideas in the mind of God According to Berkeley, sensible objects are certain ideas in the mind of God and thus facts independent of human thought. We can extend this concept to the weak realist CT and claim that what it means for a statement to be true is that it corresponds with an idea in the mind of God. But this claim does not quite seem to capture the Aristotelian intuition of CT because to do so the ideas in the mind of God must be sensible features of the world we experience, and surely not all ideas in the mind of God are so described. What kind of ideas in God’s mind can be counted as sensible ideas? Presumably, ideas that God makes available to the perceptions of finite creatures. But what of the other ideas in God’s mind, ideas that are not made available this way? Would not these ideas be related to truth also, and would not the nature of that relation be one of correspondence? Perhaps the best way to answer these questions is to delineate between actual ideas and possible ideas, that is, ideas that could be actual but are not, within the mind of God. Fredrick Copleston notes that Berkeley himself draws this distinction, thinking simply in terms of ideas in the mind of God and ideas imprinted on finite minds.25 If I understand Copleston correctly, what he means is that on Berkeley’s view, the ideas in the mind of God are ideas that God eternally knows and consist of every idea in God’s mind. This includes what we would call sensible objects as well as ideas that will never be perceived by finite minds.26 When a finite mind perceives an object, God imprints on that mind the idea of the object, thus making it a sensible object to that mind. The difference between simple ideas in the mind of God and ideas we perceive is that God

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makes ideas we perceive perceptible to us. Thus, from a finite mind’s point of view, ideas made available to its senses are actual and ideas not made available to its senses are possible. Of course thinking of ideas in this way is problematic because we still want to claim that an idea in the mind of God, regardless of my access to it, is related to truth. But if truth consists in the relation of statements with independent facts in the world, there can be no such relation with possible ideas in the mind of God. It seems that the only way out of this problem is to say that there are statements that correspond to possible ideas in the mind of God and other statements that correspond to those same ideas should they be actualized. As such, possible world theory could do the heavy lifting for us. However, the concern is not just for true statements about ideas in various possible worlds, but statements that are unknown to us yet which may or may not be true in any given possible world. Furthermore, I’m concerned about statements about ideas that are possible in this actual world, such that they exist as unactualized ideas in the mind of God. We could envision that such statements have a relation to ideas in the mind of God such that they are true. In this way, ideas in the mind of God relate to truth when they correspond to the statement that truly describes them. Perhaps this means that all we can say about unactualized ideas in the mind of God is that they are unactualized, but there may be other propositions unknown to us that correspond to those statements. Such statements might take the form “The unactualized idea in God’s mind is x.” In any case, it seems clear that unactualized ideas in the mind of God are related to truth in that there are statements that correspond to them. This is a real problem that deserves greater attention, but it seems that the answer lies in the way the ideas in God’s mind are made available to finite minds. In a discussion of Berkeley on this point, Copleston states that “what Berkeley means . . . is simply that the same sensible things which, as perceived by a finite subject, possess ectypical or natural existence possess, as perceived by God, archetypal existence.”27 Applying this to CT, a true statement corresponds to the ectypically or naturally existent thing which is just an idea of God, an archetypically existent thing, made available to the perception of finite minds. In other words, archetypically existent things, when made to be perceptible to finite minds, are thus made to exist naturally by virtue of that perception. It could be said that they are made real. With respect to purely archetypical existent things, we could assume there are statements that also correspond to their existence in the mind of God. But, what the nature of such statements is or whether they are ever stated would remain unknown.

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James Spiegel suggests that Berkeley’s distinction between possible and actual ideas in the mind of God rests in the concept of private and public language.28 The ideas that God makes available to the perceptions of finite minds are public, while the ones that remain unactualized are private. Perhaps we could view the unactualized, archetypical ideas in the mind of God as unuttered statements or private thoughts that God has not made public; however, if God were to make them public, there would be statements independent from them that would correspond to them. Whatever way the case is viewed, the affirmation of material substance does not have much bearing (if any) on unactualized, possible ideas. The questions concerning unactualized ideas in the mind of God are the same whether assuming the existence of material substances or not. Thus, given realist assumptions based on a pluralistic metaphysic, what does it mean to say that unactualized ideas in the mind of God are related to truth? What corresponds to such ideas or what do such ideas correspond to? In other words, on a pluralist metaphysical CT, if facts comprise material substance, then it’s unclear what relation ideas in the mind of God have to truth.

An idealist CT We can see at this point the basic approach to an idealist CT. Given the Aristotelian criteria for CT and Alston’s realist conception of truth, an idealist CT is one in which statements are said to be true if and only if they correspond to facts that are independent of the statements, or more precisely, independent of finite minds, since the statements in question are the products of finite minds. Such facts are ideas in the mind of God made available to the perception of finite minds. The view is idealist because the constitution of both facts and statements is in mental substance and the existence of material substance is denied. However, such facts are appropriately called real in Alston’s sense of the T-schema which assumes nothing about the metaphysical status of statements or facts.

Russell’s objection to Berkeley The most significant objection to this idealist view of truth comes from Bertrand Russell, one of the most well-known and influential correspondence theorists of the twentieth century. Laying the groundwork for his theory of truth in The

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Problems of Philosophy, Russell gives an argument for the assumption that the existence of material substance is a matter of common sense, thus making any idealist claim contrary to common sense.29 In Problems Russell paints an absurd picture (apparently with Berkeley in mind)30 of a desk with a cloth on it. If the desk were completely covered by the cloth, “we [should] derive no sense-data from the table.” Since the existence of the desk is contingent on its being perceived, we would have merely a cloth suspended in midair by nothing. But this description of the Berkeleyan view is not quite accurate. We would receive sense-data from the table about its extension, hardness (were we to touch it), and so on, while certain other sense-data would be blocked from us such as the color of the desk, perhaps the construction materials of the desk, whether it is scarred or unblemished, and so on. Perhaps what can be said is that these sense-data do not exist if no one can experience them. But still, these sense-data can be experienced, one merely needs to take the cloth from the desk and the sense-data can be perceived. I know that this might not be Russell’s point.31 Perhaps his point is better made by obscuring the entire table from perception, either by holding the cloth between the table and perceiver so that the perceiver is unaware of it, or by removing the perceiver from the room completely. In this way, the desk is truly not perceived by anyone, and neither is the cloth or anything else in the room. Thus, for the much lampooned philosophical question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?,” Berkeley’s response would appropriately be, “It makes no sound because there is no tree, and even still no forest!” But of course we should take heart, because in fact someone is there perceiving the tree, forest, desk, and cloth—the person of God. But Russell seems to ignore this aspect of Berkeley’s idealism in his specific critique of it in Problems. It seems that Russell’s objection rests on an equivocation of the term “physical” and the ignorance or ignoring of Berkeley’s devotion to orthodox Christianity. What objectors mean by “physical” is material substance while what Berkeley means is sensible object. It is true that both of these terms assume some sort of sensory experience of the object in question, but the main difference lies in the constitution of the substance behind such experience. Russell’s table is a brown, hard, physical object.32 Berkeley would certainly agree. However, what Berkeley means by “physical” is a mental object (in the mind of God) that has been made (by God) available to human perception. That God makes these things so is no throw-away notion. What makes Berkeley’s idealism plausible is the insistence that the mental furniture of the universe is not dependent on finite minds for

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their existence and that they are not “merely” sense-data that our minds perceive, but that these things have their creation and being in the mind of God. Russell also suggests that Berkeley’s argument for immaterialism rests on fallacious reasoning. In particular, Russell points out two aspects of Berkeley’s view that he sees as fallacious. First, Russell states that Berkeley’s understanding of ideas as being in the mind is confusing. He states, “[W]hen Berkeley says that the tree must be in our minds if we can know it, all that he really has a right to say is that a thought of the tree must be in our minds. To argue that the tree itself must be in our minds is like arguing that a person whom we bear in mind is himself in our minds.”33 What is confused, according to Russell, is the difference between the act of perceiving a thing and the thing as an object of perception. Thus, Berkeley’s view that ideas like color and shape must be in the mind “seems to depend for its plausibility upon confusing the thing apprehended with the act of apprehension.”34 The key to Russell’s objection is made in his final analysis of Berkeley’s “fallacious” reasoning on this point. Confusing the act with the object, that is, that they are both “ideas” in the sense of being in the mind rather than merely before the mind,35 is confusing the nature of knowledge since knowledge consists in a mind’s apprehending, or being acquainted with, things other than itself. Russell suggests: This question of the distinction between act and object in our apprehending of things is vitally important, since our whole power of acquiring knowledge is bound up with it. The faculty of being acquainted with things other than itself is the main characteristic of a mind. Acquaintance with objects essentially consists in a relation between the mind and something other than the mind; it is this that constitutes the mind’s power of knowing things . . . Thus when we realise the nature of knowledge, Berkeley’s argument is seen to be wrong in substance as well as in form, and his grounds for supposing that “ideas”—i.e. the objects apprehended—must be mental are found to have no validity whatever. Hence his grounds in favour of idealism may be dismissed.36

But what is absent from Russell’s evaluation of Berkeley is the concept of God’s mind as the mind in which these objects are grounded. In this way, the objects of perception are not in finite minds, but rather in the infinite mind of God. It may be that a finite mind’s power of knowing things is tied up with “being acquainted with things other than itself.” But it does not follow that God would know in this way. In fact, we are told as much in scripture: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord” (Is. 55:8, NASB). It is reasonable to assume that an infinite mind would know in a distinctly different

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way from a finite mind. Our finite minds must gain mediate knowledge based on things separate from ourselves. But, since the ideas of God’s infinite mind are the stuff of the universe, his knowledge is immediate. Furthermore, and more fundamentally, Russell begs the question against what it means for a thing to be perceived.37 On Berkeley’s view, since the tree is simply an idea (or ideas), it must be in someone’s mind. But in arguing against this view, Russell assumes that the tree must be mind-independent. Berkeley claims that the notion of matter is unimportant because we cannot know it. This is the focus of Russell’s second charge of fallacious reasoning. According to Russell, Berkeley assumes that what cannot be known to us cannot be important, and what is not important may not be real. Russell states, It is inferred that whatever can in any way be relevant to our experience must be as least capable of being known by us; whence it follows that if matter were essentially something with which we could not become acquainted, matter would be something which we could not know to exist, and which could have for us no importance whatever. It is generally also implied . . . that what can have no importance for us cannot be real, and that therefore matter, if it is not composed of minds or of mental ideas, is impossible and a mere chimera.38

In short, Russell claims, the apparent “truism” that “we cannot know that anything exists which we do not know” is false.39 The term “know” must not be equivocated here. In the first sense, “know” is used with regard to belief or conviction—it is a judgment. In the second sense, “know” is used with regard to our “acquaintance” with objects. So, according to Russell, a more accurate restatement of the false “truism” is, “We can never truly judge that something with which we are not acquainted exists.”40 The implication of this would be that a person with whom we are not acquainted must be judged not to exist, for example, the Emperor of Russia.41 But even though I may know of such people (or things) by virtue of another’s testimony of being acquainted with them, it would remain the case that I could not judge that person’s testimony since I am not acquainted with their acquaintance. This is obviously ridiculous since there are many people and things about which I claim knowledge but with which I am not acquainted, for example, the Emperor of Russia, the center of the earth, and so on. Thus, Russell claims, “there is no reason why I should not know of the existence of something with which nobody is acquainted.”42 The problem with Russell’s critique is found at its beginning. Russell rightly acknowledges that the idealist infers that “whatever can in any way be relevant to our experience must be at least capable of being known by us.”43 And the subsequent

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implications follow. But it must be the case that what is relevant to our experience must be available to our senses, even if our senses will in fact never perceive it. Russell assumes that matter is just such a thing, but Berkeley’s argument against abstract ideas given above shows that matter is no such thing. In fact, matter is inconceivable as a separate or general abstract notion. It is not possible that one perceive it apart from the ideas that apparently adhere to it. It is not only something with which we are not acquainted, it is something with which we cannot be acquainted. So Russell misstates the truism given above. It should be “We can never truly judge that something with which we cannot be acquainted exists.” One final point should be made on this matter. Russell states at the close of the chapter, “What happens, in cases where I have true judgment without acquaintance, is that the thing is known to me by description, and that, in virtue of some general principle, the existence of a thing answering to this description can be inferred from the existence of something with which I am acquainted.”44 This is not problematic for Berkeley. But Russell’s assumptions are. First, there is no description of material substance—by Locke’s definition it is not capable of description. It is simply the stuff underlying what we perceive. This, as a description, is ambiguous since it could easily apply to ideas. As such, we could say that the existence of ideas can be inferred from our acquaintance with sensible objects. Of course, for Berkeley this leads inextricably to God. It seems that Russell is not ignorant of Berkeley’s theological commitments, but simply chooses to ignore them. Russell is fairly accurate in his assessment of Berkeleyan immaterialism and the nature of ideas and perception according to Berkeley in his chapter on idealism, with one notable exception. Russell states that “ideas in the mind of God” are “more or less like those we have when we see the tree, but differing in the fact that they are permanent in God’s mind so long as the tree continues to exist.”45 Russell is attempting to underscore the connection between God’s ideas and facts in the world that make it possible for people to have the same kinds of experience. I see the same tree that you see because God permanently “sees” that same tree. This is not quite right by Berkeley because it implies that God’s ideas are contingent on the facts in the world. Our ability to have similar experiences is dependent on God’s actualizing, making available to our perceptions, certain things; but it is not that God’s ideas persist so long as the tree is there—rather, the tree is there so long as God’s will to make his ideas about the tree available to human perception persist. In any case, although Russell is nearly accurate in his admission of the role of God in human perception in Berkeley’s system, he nevertheless ignores that role in his subsequent critique of that system.

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Other objections Copleston notes that Berkeley’s immaterialism may lead to verificationism, the untenable position of the logical positivists. According to Copleston, to say that the horse is in the stable even if no one is in the stable perceiving the horse is to say that if a man walks into the stable he would perceive a horse. “Berkeley’s position . . . seems to approach very closely to that of some of the modern neopositivists when they maintained that the meaning of an empirical statement is identical with the mode of its verification.”46 However, such an objection neglects Berkeley’s claim that all sensible objects are ideas in the mind of God. On this understanding, verification is only secondary to the meaning of empirical statements since their foundation is the mind of God.47 Another objection to this view is the straightforward claim that Berkeley argues against precisely what I have argued for. That is, it is claimed that Berkeley argued against an idealist CT in favor of something else, like pragmatism. This is the position taken by Paul Olscamp. Olscamp’s view seems to turn on a redundancy view of an idealist CT and a misunderstanding of Berkeley. On the former, Olscamp claims that since, on an idealist CT (he calls it idea-CT), what is said to correspond are ideas, subjects and predicates become identical making them trivial statements. “That theory held that truth was a function of the correspondence of ideas. Thus, in the case of the sentence about the die [i.e., ‘A die is hard, extended, and square’] the ideas named by the subject and those named by the predicate are the same, and hence the sentence is trivially true.”48 But, if the statement, “The die is hard” is true if and only if the die is hard, a distinction is made (on any version of CT) between the statement itself and the way the world is. The statement is said to be true in case it corresponds to the way the world is. In an idealist CT, the only difference is that the way the world is, is a construct of ideas in the mind of God made perceptible to finite minds. Thus, on the latter aspect of Olscamp’s objection, Berkeley’s religious commitments and his supposition that the nature of reality is dependent on the mind of God are disregarded.

Conclusion In conclusion, the Aristotelian intuitions of CT are compatible with an idealist understanding of CT. Considering that a weak form of realism fits with such intuition so that what is real is simply what is independent of finite minds, we can use Berkeleyan arguments against abstraction and for immaterialism to

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explicate a working idealist CT. In addition, such a view is superior to versions of CT that assume metaphysical pluralism. An idealist CT preserves God’s sovereignty in a way pluralistic CTs do not. On Berkeley’s view, the only way that truth can be had is if God exists. Since the facts to which our statements correspond are given to us and sustained by the mind of God, there is no separation of what is fact from God’s creative act. James Spiegel notes, “Since the world consists of God’s public ideas, it must persist only because he continues to publicize his thoughts.”49 Were God to stop thinking of his creation, or give up the idea of creation, all would cease to exist. On a Christian pluralistic view, matter is dependent on God for its creation, but not necessarily anything more. In this way the view has the unappealing consequence that the purely transcendent, disinterested God of deism could simply create and leave, and truth would be unaffected by it. Such a view paves the way for impiety in the way one deals with reality and truth. On the idealist view, however, truth is continually dependent on the continuous creative act of God.50

Notes 1 William P. Alston, A Realist Conception of Truth (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 6. 2 Ibid., 21. 3 Ibid., 21, 27, 32–37. 4 Ibid., 27. 5 Ibid., 33. 6 Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon and trans. W. D. Ross (New York: The Modern Library, 2001), Γ, 7, 1011b 26–27. 7 Edward Pauley, The Correspondence Theory of Truth in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy (PhD diss., Boston University, 1969), 20. 8 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Ε, 4, 1027b 18–25. It may be worth noting that immediately following this passage Aristotle states that “falsity and truth are not in things . . . but in thought; while with regard to simple concepts of ‘whats’ falsity and truth do not exist even in thought . . . [S]ince the combination and the separation are in thought and not in the things, and that which is in this sense is a different sort of ‘being’ from the things that are in the full sense . . ., that which is accidentally and that which is in the sense of being true must be dismissed.” If I understand Aristotle right, he considers the question of combining and separating predicates and subjects and how that relates to how such predicates and subjects “really” combine to be secondary to the question of being itself, the subject of his present inquiry.

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9 The implication may not be altogether obvious. How one construes “facts” and what it means for a fact to be “independent of statements” is important. It would seem that if it is the case that for a fact to be considered real it must be independent of thought (and thus statements, if statements are mental things) then these intuitions indeed imply realism. But I will claim below that “facts” and “independence” so construed may not be necessary for CT to work. 10 Richard L. Kirkham, Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), 71. 11 Alston, A Realist Conception of Truth, 74. 12 Ibid., 73. 13 Stephen R. L. Clark, “Berkeley on Religion,” in The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, ed. Kenneth P. Winkler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 369. 14 Alston, A Realist Conception of Truth, 73–74. 15 Strictly speaking, materialism would qualify as a “strong” realism here, but what I am concerned with are views that are compatible with an Orthodox Christian view, and materialism simpliciter is not. 16 See George Pappas, “Abstract Ideas and the Esse is Percipi Thesis,” Hermathena 139 (1985): 47–62; Keota Fields, Berkeley: Ideas, Immaterialism, and Objective Presence (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 150–194; and, though not favorable to Berkeley on the point, I. C. Tipton, Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism (London: Methuen, 1974), 132–176. The extent to which Berkeley’s antiabstraction argument serves as such a basis is contested by some. See Samuel C. Rickless, Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 104–115 and David Berman, George Berkeley: Idealism and the Man (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 28–44. However, my own view of Berkeley on this point is motivated by Berkeley’s own claim in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, in The Works of George Berkeley, ed. G. N. Wright, Vol. I (London: Thomas Tegg, 1843; reprint, Elibron Classics, 2005), 88, where Berkeley states, “If we thoroughly examine this tenet [that unperceived material substance exists], it will perhaps, be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas.” Rickless in particular makes a compelling case for how Berkeley has been historically and recently misread on this point, but my assertion is that Berkeley’s anti-abstraction argument serves as a basis, in part, for his immaterialism, not his idealism per se. It’s worth considering the extent to which Berkeley’s immaterialism can be easily separated from his idealism (e.g., compare Tipton, Immaterialism, 12–13; and Fields, Berkeley, 193–194), but such consideration is beyond the scope of this chapter. 17 Berkeley, Principles, 74–75. 18 Ibid., 76.

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19 Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Vol. V: Modern Philosophy: The British Philosophers from Hobbes to Hume (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 218. 20 Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, in The Works of George Berkeley, ed. G. N. Wright, Vol. I (London: Thomas Tegg, 1843; reprint, Elibron Classics, 2005), 88. 21 Ibid., 147. We can further determine Berkeley’s desire to be orthodox by his attempt to defend the faith throughout his writings (The full title of the quoted work is A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge wherein The Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the Grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are Inquired into; and his other works include Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists; and Alciphron: or The Minute Philosophers in Seven Dialogues; Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion, Against Those Who are Called Free-Thinkers). James Spiegel gives a good defense of Berkeley’s orthodoxy in “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism,” Faith and Philosophy 13.2 (1996): 216–235. 22 For a good overview of the use of the term “facts” in philosophy, see Kevin Mulligan and Fabrice Correia, “Facts,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ spr2013/entries/facts/ (accessed May 11, 2015). For a more detailed treatment of how these things relate to truth (and of alethic philosophy in general), see Michael P. Lynch (ed.), The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001); and Andrew Newman, The Correspondence Theory of Truth: An Essay on the Metaphysics of Predication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 23 A. C. Grayling, “Berkeley’s Argument for Immaterialism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, ed. Kenneth P. Winkler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 168. 24 There is a distinction for Berkeley between ideas and notions that Grayling attempts to clarify (see Grayling, “Berkeley’s Argument for Immaterialism,” 176– 177). However, the concept of notion is somewhat confusing and enigmatic and, in any case, is not necessary for what I am arguing. To that end, the much clearer concept of ideas will suffice. 25 Copleston, A History of Philosophy, 244–246. 26 It should be noted that what it means for an idea in God’s mind to be sensible is that it should merely be capable of being perceived, it need not actually be perceived, thus the language above stating that sensible ideas are ideas that God makes available to the perception of finite minds. 27 Copleston, A History of Philosophy, 245.

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28 Spiegel, “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism,” 225. 29 See Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1929), 10–71. 30 I say this because Russell’s desk-in-his-study example did not originate with him. Berkeley uses his table in his own study to make certain points about immaterialism and Russell’s use of the same example to point out the absurdity of Berkeley’s ideas is (it seems) cleverly intentional. The example of the cloth and the desk that I refer to in this paragraph is found in Russell, Problems, 31. 31 It may be argued that this is exactly his point and that I have made it for him. Just like the cloth gives evidence of a table underneath it, so sense-data give evidence of a material substratum beneath them. However, Russell’s analogy breaks down in no trivial way because the cloth can be stripped off the table to reveal what underlies it—a desk available to perception; sense-data on the other hand cannot be treated this way; its removal can yield no thing that is subject to perception. 32 Russell, Problems, 10–16. Russell continues to use his table in discussion throughout the chapter. 33 Ibid., 63. 34 Ibid., 65. 35 As Russell sees it, things in the mind are what might traditionally be understood as ideas while things before the mind are objects which the mind apprehends. 36 Russell, Problems, 66–67. 37 I’m thankful to Steve Cowan for bringing this point to my attention. 38 Russell, Problems, 67–68 (emphasis mine). 39 Ibid., 69. 40 Ibid., 70. 41 The example is Russell’s from the early twentieth century (and originally referenced the emperor of China), hence its irrelevance to contemporary events. The example is still useful, because not many alive today would be acquainted with the Emperor of Russia in the early twentieth century in the way Russell means. 42 Russell, Problems, 70. 43 Ibid., 68 (emphasis mine). 44 Ibid., 71. 45 Ibid., 62 (emphasis mine). 46 Copleston, A History of Philosophy, 220. 47 Ibid. 48 Paul J. Olscamp, The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 40–41. 49 Spiegel, “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism,” 229.

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50 This chapter began as a paper for a graduate seminar on truth in 2008. I’d like to thank respondents to that paper during the seminar. I’m also thankful to those who gave comments at Southwest Regional EPS (2009), SCP (2009), and BAPT (2012) conferences at which I presented earlier versions of this chapter. I am most thankful to Doug Blount, Jay Howell, Ben Arbour, and the editors, Jim Spiegel and Steve Cowan, for their very helpful comments and constructive criticisms.

Bibliography Alston, William P. A Realist Conception of Truth. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Aristotle. Metaphysics. In The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon and translated by W. D. Ross. New York: The Modern Library, 2001. Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. In The Works of George Berkeley, edited by G. N. Wright, vol. I. London: Thomas Tegg, 1843; reprint, Elibron Classics, 2005. Berman, David. George Berkeley: Idealism and the Man. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Clark, Stephen R. L. “Berkeley on Religion.” In The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, edited by Kenneth P. Winkler, 369–404. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy: Vol. V: Modern Philosophy: The British Philosophers from Hobbes to Hume. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Fields, Keota. Berkeley: Ideas, Immaterialism, and Objective Presence. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011. Grayling, A. C. “Berkeley’s Argument for Immaterialism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, edited by Kenneth P. Winkler, 166–189. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Kirkham, Richard L. Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992. Lynch, Michael P., ed. The Nature of Truth: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001. Mulligan, Kevin and Fabrice Correia. “Facts.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. Available at: http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/spr2013/entries/facts/. Newman, Andrew. The Correspondence Theory of Truth: An Essay on the Metaphysics of Predication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Olscamp, Paul J. The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970. Pappas, George. “Abstract Ideas and the Esse Is Percipi Thesis.” In Hermathena 139 (1985): 47–62.

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Pauley, Edward. The Correspondence Theory of Truth in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy. PhD dissertation, Boston University, 1969. Rickless, Samuel C. Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1929. Spiegel, James. “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism.” In Faith and Philosophy 13 (1996): 216–235. Tipton, I. C. Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism. London: Methuen, 1974.

3

What Is that Stone? Idealism and Particulars Steven B. Cowan

As I sit on my front porch looking out over my yard, I can see a large stone, half-buried in the ground, protruding above the grass, a smooth granite dome. It’s that stone I have to go around every time I mow the lawn. While I sip my morning coffee, continuing to put off mowing the grass for as long as the grass (or my wife!) will let me, I ponder the question, as only a philosopher would: what is that stone? I imagine that someone might answer, “Well, it’s a stone, of course.” Yes, it is a stone. But what is that? A more sophisticated but typical answer is that the stone is a collection of atoms or, more abstractly, of material simples. Okay, suppose that’s right. This only pushes the question back a step. Now I ask, what are atoms (or the relevant material simples)? The question I’m asking about the stone, of course, could be asked about a lot of other things. What is the tree that stands a few yards away from the stone? Or how about the neighbor’s dog that is sniffing around my vegetable garden tracking the rabbit that nibbled the lettuce in the night? For that matter, what is the lettuce? Or my house or the chair I’m sitting on? And what is that white, round object in the sky—the moon—that is gradually fading away in the morning sunlight? And what is this body that I have, with its hands and feet, and bulging mid-section? Perhaps most importantly, what am I? The philosophers who are reading this know that, with all these questions, I am asking for an assay of particulars. A particular is an individual, concrete thing like a stone, or a chair, or an atom, or a dog, or a person. And the question, again, is what are such things? What is the ontology of particulars? In the history of philosophy, there have been three major theories concerning the metaphysical nature of particulars: the bundle theory, the substratum theory, and the substance

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theory. Each of these theories has many able defenders both historically and at present. They also each have plenty of critics. And it ought to go without saying that which of these views one holds, given that each has its own unique problems and costs, has a lot to do with other theoretical commitments one has. My own interest in this chapter involves what, if anything, a commitment to Berkeleyan idealism has to offer the debate over the nature of particulars. What I attempt to show here is that Berkeleyan idealism not only provides solutions to major problems associated with at least two theories of particulars (namely, the bundle theory and the substance theory), but also suggests that a mixed theory of particulars—utilizing the bundle theory as an account of one kind of particular and the substance theory as an account of another kind—is necessary and desirable. I begin with a discussion of the three major theories of particulars and their alleged problems.

The bundle theory and its problems According to the bundle theory, particulars are bundles of properties.1 There is nothing more nor less to them than the properties exemplified by/in the bundle. To illustrate, consider once again that stone in my front yard. On the bundle theory, that stone is simply the collection or “bundle” of its properties. It is simply the attributes being roughly spherical, being grayish, being four feet in circumference, being granite, and so on, all bundled or assembled together in time and space. That is what the stone is. So, since the stone is not something distinct from its properties but simply is the bundle of its properties, we must say straightforwardly that the stone is constituted by sphericalness, a four-foot circumference, grayness, and so on. More precisely, the bundle theory may be defined as follows: (BT) Necessarily, for every particular a and every entity x, x constitutes a if and only if x is a property and a exemplifies x.2

Among the apparent benefits of the bundle theory are its simplicity and the fact that it need not appeal to the existence of any mysterious “substratum” or “bare particulars” as does the substratum theory that we will examine below. Despite these benefits, the bundle theory has some potentially serious problems. One charge is that it seems to entail that particulars have all their properties essentially. Take that stone again. Although we would all agree that the stone has

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some essential properties such as being a stone or being self-identical, most of us tend to think the stone possesses some properties that are merely accidental and not essential to it. For example, it has the property being roughly spherical. It seems that we can conceive of the self-same stone not having this property but instead having the property being oblong or, because maybe I’ve bumped it too many times with my mower, being jagged. However, the bundle theory may not be able to accommodate the distinction between essential and accidental properties. If, as BT states, objects just are bundles of properties, then any variation in properties seems straightforwardly to entail a variation in the thing itself. For example, imagine a particular thing S that is constituted by the set of properties {P1, P2, P3} so that S is nothing more than those properties bundled together. Now imagine that S loses property P3 and gains property P4, so that now we have the bundle of properties {P1, P2, P4}. It seems that what we have now is an altogether different particular—S*. So, it appears that the bundle theory is committed to the idea that particulars have all their properties essentially.3 Of course, it is open to the bundle theorist to embrace this conclusion, claiming that things do have all their properties essentially despite our ordinary way of speaking. And when it comes to artifacts like tables and cars, and inanimate objects like stones, the cost of embracing this result may be relatively innocuous. However, if we apply this result, say, to human beings or dogs (living things), it is far more counterintuitive to say that they have all their properties essentially. In any case, critics of the bundle theory believe that there is another more devastating objection to it. The objection turns on the claim that the bundle theory depends on the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles: (PII) For any particulars a and b, and for any property P, if a has P if and only if b has P, then a and b are identical.

The problem is that PII seems to be false. As originally developed by Max Black,4 the problem goes like this: imagine a possible world containing exactly and only two iron spheres located precisely two miles apart and which have all the same properties—they are the same color, the same diameter, the same mass, and so on. By PII, however, these two iron spheres are numerically identical (i.e., one and the same entity). But they are not identical. There are two iron spheres. If this is indeed a possible world (and why not?), then we have what seems to be a counterexample to PII. And the devastating objection to the bundle theory is that it presupposes that no two particulars can be qualitatively identical.5 The bundle theory entails, that is, what we all know to be false in this possible world, namely,

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that the two spheres are numerically identical. In other words, the bundle theory lacks the conceptual resources to discern the discernible nonidentity of the two spheres. Call this objection the discernibility problem. The obvious move for the bundle theorist, of course, is to point out that the two iron spheres, even according to Black’s description of the possible world in which they exist, are not completely qualitatively identical. After all, each sphere occupies a different region of space. So, they clearly differ with regard to at least one relational property. This means that the case of the spheres is not really a counterexample to PII after all. To see how and why this may or may not help the bundle theorist, notice that the distinction between relational and nonrelational properties allows us to distinguish two versions of PII. According to the strong version: (PIIS) For any particulars a and b, and for any nonrelational property P, if a has P if and only if b has P, then a and b are identical.

This version restricts numerical identity to those things which are indiscernible only with regard to their nonrelational or intrinsic properties. This is clearly the version of PII that is assumed and apparently refuted by Black’s counterexample. The weak version of PII is: (PIIW) For any particulars a and b, and for any (relational or nonrelational) property P, if a has P if and only if b has P, then a and b are identical.

This version of the principle is unassailable. Things that are absolutely identical with respect to every kind of property they have cannot be distinct but must be numerically identical. The response of the bundle theorist outlined above involves an appeal to PIIW, the claim being that PIIW is clearly true and that the bundle theorist may distinguish Black’s two spheres by noting their different relational properties. This move will not save the bundle theory, however, even if it challenges Black’s critique of PII. The bundle theory is supposed to give us an assay of particulars. But if relational properties are allowed to be part of the account, then the bundle theory’s analysis will be circular. It will, that is, include in its account of what it means to be a particular thing other particular things (since relational properties presuppose the existence of other particulars). So, the only noncircular way for the bundle theory to define particulars is to appeal to the strong version of the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PIIS). But that version seems to be

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false as Black’s counterexample indicates. So, the bundle theory would appear to be false as well. There have been several proposed strategies for defending BT against this objection.6 I will not belabor to examine these here, but will assume for our purposes that BT as defined above is at least seriously problematic.

The substratum theory and its problems On this view, particulars are not simply bundles of properties. There is a distinct entity, over and above a particular’s properties that underlies them, that “supports” or “bears” the properties. This additional entity is called a “substratum” or a “bare particular.” So, on this view, a given particular is a combination or fusion of a substratum and a set of properties.7 To illustrate, consider that stone once again. As noted earlier, the stone has certain properties such as being roughly spherical, being gray, and being four feet in circumference. Unlike the bundle theory, however, on the substratum view there is something else that bears these properties—the substratum—which in itself has none of these properties. The substratum per se is neither roughly spherical, gray, nor four feet in circumference. Yet these properties are unified and held together by their attachment to the substratum. The stone, then, is not a bundle of properties, but is a composite made up of a bare substratum and a certain set of properties that it bears. Stated formally, then, the substratum theory is: (ST) Necessarily, for every particular a, a is constituted by (i) some substratum s (i.e., some bare particular), and (ii) some set of properties P that are had by (i.e., instantiated by) s.

So understood, it won’t do, as some have tried, to object to the substratum view by saying that a bare particular would be a thing without any properties whatsoever, and a propertyless entity is impossible.8 For ST clearly allows that the substratum has properties, namely, the properties that it instantiates and which partly constitute the particular in question. Thus, the substratum that partly constitutes the stone has, as a constituent of the stone, the properties of being roughly spherical, being gray, and so on. It is only when the substratum is considered in itself distinct from the particular in which it is a constituent part, that it may be said to be bare, to have no properties. What does that mean? According to many substratum theorists, it means that the substratum per se

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lacks essential properties.9 Whatever properties it has are the accidental properties that, combined with the bare substratum, constitute a particular thing. But surely a substratum must have some essential properties? Would it not at least have the essential property of being the bearer of properties? The substratum theorist seems forced to admit that substrata do have at least some essential properties, namely, those that are necessary for something to be the kind of thing a substratum is. Nevertheless, the defender of ST might claim that substrata are otherwise bare and serve as the possessors of all other kinds of properties. However, allowing that substrata have some essential properties, combined with the notion that substrata are, as the bearers of properties, necessarily distinct from the properties they bear, gives rise to another difficulty. As Michael Loux puts it, this move “forces us to conclude that a substratum cannot be the literal possessor of any attribute essential to it.”10 That is, as a bare particular, the substratum itself cannot be the bearer of its essential properties. So, what would be the bearer of a substratum’s essential properties? It would seem that there must be another distinct and independent substratum to be their bearer. But, then, the essential properties of that new substratum also have essential properties that require as their bearer yet another substratum. And now we are off on a vicious infinite regress of substrata for each and every particular. The upshot of this is that the substratum view has great difficulty providing us, as it purports to do, with an ultimate subject for properties. This is not to say, of course, that substratum theorists do not have ways of trying to get around these problems.11 For our purposes, however, it doesn’t matter. As we will see, on Berkeleyan idealism, ST will be unmotivated and unnecessary.

The substance theory Both the substratum theory and the bundle theory are reductionist views of particulars. In other words, they attempt to define particulars by reducing them to their constituent parts. For these theorists, particulars are “built up” out of other things. In the case of the bundle theory, particulars are built up out of properties. On the substratum view, they are constructed out of properties together with a bare substratum. Inspired by Aristotle, the third perspective on the nature of particulars rejects this reductionist strategy. According to the substance theory (also called the

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“substance-kind” view), concrete particulars themselves should be taken as the most fundamental entities.12 They cannot be reduced to constituent entities that are more basic than they. This is not to say that particulars do not have parts. A dog, for example, has many parts. It has a nose, two ears, two eyes, a stomach, and so on. And it may also have atoms that compose its body if such things as atoms exist. Nevertheless, the substance view claims that a dog cannot be reduced without remainder to those parts. For, as the old adage says, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Hence, for purposes of metaphysical analysis, the dog—the concrete particular—is an irreducibly basic thing. Such a basic entity the substance theorist calls a substance. It must be added, however, that substance theorists cannot allow that everything we ordinarily think of as a particular counts as a substance in the sense defined above. For the substance view, the paradigm cases of substances are living organisms (plants, animals, and persons), the things that philosophers and scientists sometimes call “natural kinds.” As such, substances are essentially characterized by continuity through change, a unity of their parts, properties, and capacities, and the exercise of causal powers.13 This means that other things such as mountains, lakes, automobiles, and that stone in my front yard are not substances because, by virtue of lacking some of these characteristics, they are not (or at least do not seem to be) things of which it can be said that the wholes are greater than their parts. Such things seem to be simply aggregates of their parts. So, the substance theorists tends to restrict the designation of “substance” to living organisms and (perhaps) material simples (the latter being those natural kinds—say, atoms—that compose the bodies of living things and other physical objects like stones and cars). Some substance theorists, such as Michael Loux, see the substance view as a middle position between the bundle theory and the substratum view.14 Like the latter view, and unlike the former, the substance view holds that properties are the properties of something; properties are possessed or had by something else. Unlike the substratum view, however, the thing that has the properties is not a bare substratum. Take, for example, the dog I mentioned above. Call him Rover. According to the substance view, the possessor of Rover’s properties is Rover himself! There is no part of Rover (a bare particular) that bears his properties. Rover, the substance, is the bearer of his properties. Like the bundle theory, the substance view claims that particulars are characterized by their properties. What a thing is, is a function of the properties it has. But unlike the bundle theory, the substance theory can easily allow for

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a distinction between the essential and accidental properties of a substance. The reason is that the substance view recognizes a special kind of property called a “substance-kind property” (sometimes a “natural-kind property”). As noted above, a substance is a member of a natural kind. Rover, for instance, is a member of the natural kind “dog.” What makes Rover a member of that natural kind? It is simply that Rover has the essence of a dog. To have the essence of a dog is to have all of the essential properties of a dog. The essential properties that make a substance the kind of thing it is may be understood as a sort of complex property comprised of whatever simple properties are necessary to distinguish one natural kind from another. So, the substance theorist would say that Rover exemplifies the complex natural-kind property being a dog. Exemplifying that property is what makes Rover the kind of thing he is, a dog. So rather than being identical with a bundle of properties all of which are essential to it (as on the bundle theory), the substance view claims that “a substance just is, in the sense of being identical with, an exemplification of a substance-kind property.”15 Substances will have other properties, of course. Rover, for instance, may have the property of being brown-haired or being adventurous. But these properties will be accidental to him and will serve (among other things) to distinguish him from other dogs. The substance theory has much to commend it. For one thing, it appears to have the resources to avoid the problems associated with the other two views of particulars. It avoids the problems of ST because, though it requires that properties have a subject, that subject is not bare. Individual substances have many properties both essential and accidental, and those substances are not an additional, bare entity over and above their properties; rather, they just are exemplifications of their substance-kind properties. Further, as we saw above, the substance view avoids the potential problem that BT has in having to claim that all properties are essential. Moreover, the substance view is consistent with a denial of the strong version of the PII. Because the advocate of the substance view does not believe that particulars are simply the bundle of their properties, but are exemplifications of their substance-kind properties, he need not be committed to the idea that things that share their nonrelational properties are numerically identical. For while substance-kind properties are nonrelational properties (a substance can exemplify a substance-kind property even if no other particulars exist), there can be two distinct substances that have exactly the same nonrelational properties simply in virtue of their being two instances of a particular substance-kind property.

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Nonetheless, as already noted, the substance theory does have at least one (perhaps) undesirable consequence: it implies an asymmetry between many of the physical objects of our experience in that Rover and other living things count as substances but that stone in my yard does not. Of course, given that the former are alive and thus have various internal capacities and functions that stones, planets, and tables do not, the asymmetry is not arbitrary. Still, insofar as we are looking for a general assay of particulars, it does seem a bit disappointing that a great many of the things we might otherwise consider to be examples of particulars (stones, planets, and tables) fail to fall under the central ontological category designed to assay particulars (i.e., substance). And it does not seem to mitigate this disappointing asymmetry to take the route that, well, stones, planets, and tables don’t really exist after all—that is, all that the “stone,” for example, is is a collection of material simples (substances) “arranged stonewise.”16 Another possible concern has to do with the fact that, on the substance view, the living things that are substances are composed of other substances, namely physical simples. The problem here is that this raises the specter of reductionism. According to the substance theory, the living things that are substances are supposed to be irreducible to any constituent parts (as noted above). The natural “commensense” parts of such substances (e.g., Rover’s eyes, legs, and stomach) do not seem to pose a problem for the substance theorist because he can say, following Aristotle, that “the essence of any organic part of a living being can be identified only by reference to the whole living being whose part it is.”17 But this won’t work for the material simples that compose Rover’s body because, as noted, those simples are substances in their own right. As Michael Loux explains, though, the substance theorist can deal with this problem by appealing to the inherent teleology of living beings. It is the functional, teleological nature of a living organism’s potentialities and capacities that accounts, at least in part, for its “whole-is-greater-than-its parts” character and which makes a reduction to its compositional structure impossible, given, of course, that material simples lack such teleology. I think this move by the substance theorist works as far as it goes. But it comes with the cost of introducing another undesirable asymmetry—this time between the teleological nature of some substances (living things) and the nonteleological nature of others (material simples). While I think that this asymmetry should be maintained, along with the other asymmetry discussed above (though with important qualifications), it does not seem to me that either of them is adequately motivated on a materialist or dualist ontology.

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A Berkeleyan account of particulars In this final section, I attempt to show how Berkeleyan idealism18 can provide an assay of particulars that is not subject to any of the standard objections associated with other nonidealist views. The view that I will elaborate is a mixed one that incorporates the substance theory and a qualified version of the bundle theory.19 As everyone familiar with Berkeley knows, his basic ontological stance is succinctly stated with the Latin phrase esse est percipi aut percipere (“to be is to be perceived or to perceive”). At least when it comes to the question of particulars,20 Berkeley allows that the only things that exist are minds (or “spirits” as he often calls them) and the ideas that minds have. As he himself puts it, “For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds of thinking things which perceive them.”21 He continues, From what has been said, it follows, there is not any other substance than spirit, or that which perceives. But for the fuller proof of this point, let it be considered, the sensible qualities are colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, and such like, that is, the ideas perceived by sense. Now for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing, is a manifest contradiction; for to have an idea is all one as to perceive: that therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist, must perceive them; hence it is clear there can be no unthinking substance or substratum of those ideas.22

Clearly, then, for Berkeley, the only things that count as substances are minds. All of the other ordinary objects of our experience—stones, mountains, planets, tables, and the bodies of living things such as Rover and the lettuce in my garden—are “collections of ideas,”23 which are, by the nature of the case, dependent for their existence upon a perceiving mind. From this, a mixed assay of particulars immediately presents itself: (1) a substance theory for minds, but (2) a bundle theory for sensible objects.

Minds as substances For those who hold a substance dualist view of the mind (or soul), the mind may be understood as “a primitive . . . unity of parts, properties, and capacities.”24 On this view, though the mind has a certain kind of complexity, its parts—the will, sensory abilities, and so on—are inseparable, which means that the mind has a

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deeper sort of unity than other complex things that have separable parts like that stone, a table, or Rover’s body. This, as noted above in the section on the substance theory, is the central idea in the notion of a substance. The primary difference, as applied to idealism, is that only minds (or souls) may be characterized in this fashion.25 No sensible object, such as the stone that I see in my yard or Rover’s body, is a substance. The limitation of the concept of substance to mind eliminates the asymmetries among the ordinary particulars of our experience that the nonidealist substance theorist must admit. Rover’s body, the stone, the table, insofar as they are sensible objects, are ontologically on a par, as are any physical simples of which these things are composed. What’s more, there should be no concern about any asymmetry between the mind and these other particulars because the categorical distinction between the mind (as a substance) and these other things (as nonsubstances) is demanded by the assumption of an idealist ontology. According to idealism, all of the familiar particulars (i.e., sensible objects) are collections of ideas (or bundles of properties—see below) and are the objects of perception by a substantial soul. Does this mean, then, that Rover is not a substance? By no means. On this idealist picture, I am a substance in virtue of my being identical to a particular soul or mind. Likewise, Rover is a substance in virtue of his being identical to a particular mind. Both Rover’s body and mine, however, are not substances but rather are contingent properties had26 by our respective minds.27

Sensible objects as bundles of properties All of the more familiar particulars—stones, dogs, tables, lakes, and so on—are the objects (or potential objects) of sensory perception. They are sensed by sight, hearing, smell, taste, and/or touch. As such, we may simply refer to them, as idealists and modern empiricists are wont to do, as sensible objects. On the Berkeleyan idealist view of things, sensible objects should be assayed, as previously suggested, as bundles of properties. However, the idealist cannot accept BT without qualification since BT is intended as an assay of all particulars including minds. So, the suggestion here is that the idealist espouses not a bundle theory of particulars in general but a bundle theory of sensible objects, to wit: (BTS) Necessarily, for every sensible object a and every entity x, x constitutes a if and only if x is a property and a exemplifies x.

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Now one concern with BT is that it entails that particulars have all their properties essentially. And while this is a price that might be paid for artifacts and natural objects that are mere aggregates (e.g., mountains and planets), critics of BT claim it is too high a price to pay when it comes to living things. It should be clear that BTS entails that all sensible objects have all their properties essentially including living organisms. Is this, then, too high a price to pay? Perhaps not. For one thing, the idea that sensible objects will not survive changes to their properties should not at all be surprising on an idealist ontology. Though a very rough analogy, imagine that “Rover” is a character in an animated TV show. We all know that as Rover runs, say, across the TV screen chasing a cat, that every change in “Rover” (position, size, color, etc.) actually indicates a numerically distinct object. Likewise, the idealist must insist that insofar as the real dog Rover is a sensible object, every change in Rover indicates a numerically distinct sensible object. This result, I take it, is logically entailed by idealism. (I should add, though, that it might be open to the idealist to stipulate that Rover’s “body” is numerically identical to a causally related chain of bodies and thus maintains a sense of the numerical identity of his body over time.) For another thing, while it may be true that the bodies of living things, being sensible objects, will have only essential properties, this does not entail that living things per se will have only essential properties. For insofar as they are identical to minds, those minds being substances, we can say that their everchanging bodies are properties of their persisting minds. BTS also can avoid the discernibility problem that saddles BT. The reason is that BTS, unlike BT, need not presuppose PIIS. For sensible objects may be discerned, in part, by their relational properties. For example, there should be no problem in saying, on BTS, that what distinguishes that stone in my yard from an otherwise qualitatively identical stone, is that the former stands, say, to the north of the latter. (We must presuppose here, of course, that the two stones are being simultaneously perceived.) There is no problem of circularity here because, as noted, BTS is not intended to provide a general assay of particulars but only of sensible objects. What is more, sensible objects, by definition, must be identified (at least in part) by their relational properties. On idealism, sensible objects only exist insofar as they are perceived (either by God or some other finite mind). So, for a sensible object a even to exist, it must stand in a perceptual relation to some particular mind. And, further, for two sensible objects a and b to be (simultaneously) perceived by some particular mind, they must differ with regard to some of their relational properties. With regard to Max Black’s

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two iron spheres, then, they can exist only if they are perceived and they can be perceived (and discerned) only if they differ in some relational property(ies).

An objection and a very Aristotelian answer A traditional (nonidealist) substance theorist may object at this point. He might begin by reminding us that, on his view, what distinguishes living things (substances) from other, inanimate particulars is the unique teleological nature of the former. Despite the asymmetry that this introduces between familiar particulars (i.e., making living organisms substances and stones not substances), this distinction between things that have innate teleology and things that lack it, is a distinction that should be maintained. Now the mixed account of particulars detailed above (minds as substances and sensible objects as bundles of properties) does attempt to maintain that distinction by associating living things with minds/souls. And it does so without having to postulate two kinds of substances (living things and physical simples), thus introducing yet another asymmetry. This would seem to be a virtue of the idealist account vis-à-vis the traditional substance theory. But the substance theorist could say that the idealist account comes with a counterintuitive cost. If the bodies of living sensible things must be associated with minds to account for their teleology and, thus, their distinction from nonliving sensible things, then do we not have to assume that plants and not just animals have minds or souls? And doesn’t this seem to be too much of a stretch for commonsense to bear? The first thing to say in response to this objection, such as it is, is that the problem will not beset only the idealist view. It will also beset the traditional substance theory. Given that the paradigm examples of substances (according to the substance theory) are living organisms, then not only are human beings and animals substances, but so are plants. And insofar as the substance theorist believes that the teleological nature of living organisms is a function of certain capacities inherent in the souls which diffuse the bodies of substances, then it must be the case that the tree near that stone in my front yard has a soul no less than I do. So, if the notion that plants have souls is counterintuitive, and that is a problem for the idealist account of particulars, then it’s a problem for the traditional substance theorist, too. I submit, however, that neither the traditional substance theorist nor the idealist should see the idea of plants having minds/souls as counterintuitive. Indeed,

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we may all look to the original substance theorist, Aristotle, for inspiration. He held that plants, humans, and animals all have souls albeit of varied capacities.28 Aristotle is well known for distinguishing three kinds of souls: the rational soul (had by humans and other persons), the sensitive soul (had by other nonrational animals such as dogs, birds, frogs, and butterflies), and the nutritive soul (had by plants). The differences between these types of souls have to do with their different functions and capacities, though he also believed that these types were nested hierarchically so that the sensitive soul included (some of) the capacities of the nutritive soul while adding uniquely animal capacities, and the rational soul included (some of) the capacities of the nutritive and sensitive souls while adding uniquely personal capacities. I certainly see no reason why the idealist, who takes minds to be the only substances and living things to be intimately related to minds, cannot co-opt Aristotle and hold the view that all such living things, including plants, are numerically identical to minds of varying capacities and that have certain sets of sensible properties that are their bodies.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have endeavored to show how a Berkeleyan idealist might make his way in the contemporary discussion of the nature of particulars. He may do so by adopting a mixed theory in which minds are understood as Aristotelian substances and sensible objects are bundles of properties.29 What’s more, this idealist account has the virtue of overcoming or avoiding problems often associated with nonidealist versions of those theories. It is for this latter reason that I hope contemporary metaphysicians will seriously consider the merits of an idealist ontology.

Notes 1 Advocates of the bundle theory include the later B. Russell, Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London: Allen and Unwin, 1940); A. J. Ayer, Philosophical Essays (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1954); John O’Leary-Hawthorne, “The Bundle Theory of Substance and the Identity of Indiscernibles,” Analysis 55.3 (July 1995): 191–196; and Albert Casullo, “Particulars, Substrata, and the Identity of Indiscernibles,” Philosophy of Science 49 (1982): 591–603.

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2 With minor modifications from Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, “The Bundle Theory Is Compatible with Distinct but Indiscernible Particulars,” Analysis 65.1 (January 2004): 72–81. 3 It would seem possible for the bundle theorist to avoid this problem by endorsing the notion of temporal parts. This might, however, raise other difficulties. For which see M. Loux, Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 93–97; and James Van Cleve, “Three Versions of the Bundle Theory,” Philosophical Studies 47 (1985): 95–107. 4 See Max Black, “The Identity of Indiscernibles,” Mind 61 (1952): 153–164. 5 Strictly speaking, as Michael Loux points out (Metaphysics, 98–99), the bundle theory alone does not entail PII. To get from BT to PII, one must also have what Loux calls the Principle of Constituent Identity: (PCI) Necessarily, for any complex objects, a and b, if for any entity, c, c is a constituent of a if and only if c is a constituent of b, then a is numerically identical with b. Of course, the bundle theorist will certainly endorse PCI. For “constructed items are nothing more than the items that go together to constitute them, so that we can provide a complete ‘recipe’ for complex things by identifying the items that count as their constituents. But, then, a requirement on the ontologist’s use of these terms is that no numerically different complex objects have exactly the same constituents.” 6 See, for example, O’Leary-Hawthorne, “The Bundle Theory of Substance and the Identity of Indiscernibles”; Rodriguez-Pereyra, “The Bundle Theory Is Compatible with Distinct but Indiscernible Particulars”; and Casullo, “Particulars, Substrata, and the Identity of Indiscernibles.” 7 Advocates of the substratum theory include John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II.23; the early B. Russell, “On the Relations of Universals and Particulars,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 12 (1911–1912): 1–24; G. Bergmann, Realism (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967); T. Sider, “Bare Particulars,” Philosophical Perspectives 20 (2006): 387–397; and J. P. Moreland, “Theories of Individuation: A Reconsideration of Bare Particulars,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1998): 251–263. 8 Andrew Bailey calls this the “Classic Objection” (A. Bailey, “No Bare Particulars,” Philosophical Studies 158 [2012]: 31–41), and it has been raised, among others, by G. E. M. Anscombe, “Substance,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society suppl. vol. 38 (1964): 69–80; and K. Campbell, Abstract Particulars (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 9. Responses along the lines suggested above are made, for example, by T. Sider, “Bare Particulars”; and D. M. Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), 94–96. 9 See, for example, R. Baker, “Particulars: Bare, Naked, and Nude,” Nous 1 (1967): 211–212; and D. M. Armstrong, Universals, 95.

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10 Loux, Metaphysics, 122. 11 See, for example, J. P. Moreland, “Theories of Individuation”; and J. P. Moreland and T. Pickavance, “Bare Particulars and Individuation,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2003): 1–13. But for what might be a more decisive argument against ST, see A. Bailey, “No Bare Particulars.” 12 In addition to Aristotle (Categories 5; Metaphysics VII) and Thomas Aquinas (On Being and Essence; Summa Theologica, passim), advocates of the substance theory include P. F. Strawson, Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959); Michael Loux, Substance and Attribute (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978); D. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); J. Hoffman and G. S. Rosenkrantz, Substance: Its Nature and Existence (London: Routledge, 1997); and J. P. Moreland (with W. L. Craig), Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 214–219 (though he later combines it with a substratum view to solve the problem of individuation). 13 For more on this, see Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 215–218. 14 Loux, Metaphysics, 111. 15 Cynthia MacDonald, Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 116. 16 Peter van Inwagen is now most famous for making this move. (See his Material Beings [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990]). For others who recognize the problem under discussion here, see Loux, Metaphysics, 115–116; and E. J. Lowe, A Survey of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 66–68. 17 Loux, Metaphysics, 116. 18 I believe that what I say here applies equally well to Jonathan Edwards’ version of idealism, though I admit that my familiarity with Edwards on this score is limited. 19 The suggestion that Berkeleyan idealism incorporates such a mixed view is by no means original to me. I first ran across it in M. Loux (Metaphysics, 91), though he indicates that Berkeley himself actually mixed the bundle theory with the substratum theory (but I do not think that this is so). 20 I frame Berkeley’s view this way so as to leave open the possibility that Berkeley did not intend to reject the real existence of abstract entities (properties, relations, etc.). Contrary to many of Berkeley’s interpreters, I see no clear evidence in his principal works (Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous) that he did or would have rejected their existence, his arguments against abstractionism notwithstanding (that, after all, is an issue concerning epistemology, not ontology). What is clear, however, is that in his later work, Siris (see, esp. § 306–338), he embraces the existence of abstract objects, no doubt understanding them, in the tradition of Augustine, as divine ideas. However, for defenses of the idea that Berkeley always held to the existence of abstract objects, see, P. S. Wenz,

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“Berkeley’s Christian Neo-Platonism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 37.3 (1976): 537–546; Stephen H. Daniel, “Berkeley’s Christian Neo-Platonism, Archetypes, and Divine Ideas,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 39 (2001): 239–258; and Costica Bradatan, The Other Bishop Berkeley: An Exercise in Reenchantment (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007). G. Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, Sect. I.3. Ibid., I.7 (emphasis in original). Ibid., I.1. J. P. Moreland and S. B. Rae, Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics (Downers Grove, IL: 2000), 69. I make no claim that Berkeley himself would have (or would not have) endorsed this characterization of the mind. For his part, he describes the mind as “one simple, undivided, active being” with emphasis on the term “active” (as opposed to the merely passive nature of ideas) (Principles of Human Knowledge, I.27). For what it’s worth, Berkeley’s characterization is a bit too empiricist for my own taste. Moreover, I see no reason why a contemporary Berkeleyan idealist can’t embrace the more robust notion of mind advocated by the Aristotelian substance theorist. (But see J. R. Roberts, A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007], 88–110.) The “having relation” between mind and body is left here unanalyzed. Though I am presently uncertain, I suspect that the relation of body and soul, given that the body is a bundle of properties, will have to be characterized along Cartesian lines (perhaps minus causal interaction) rather than Aristotelian/Thomistic lines. This may very well entail, though, that there is no actual causal interaction between the mind and its body. Idealists, like Berkeley, have tended to embrace occasionalism, the view that God is the only causal agent in the sensible, physical world. This means that, on the occasion of my forming an intention to move my body, God acts causally to move my body for me. See Aristotle, On the Soul, II.1–2. Obviously, if this idealist account is plausible, then there is no need or motivation for a substratum theory of particulars even if that theory can overcome its objections—unless, of course, a bare substratum is necessary for purposes of individuating distinct minds (as suggested by J. P. Moreland [see note 12 above]). However, I am not convinced that the individuation of minds requires the existence of substrata (see reference to Cynthia MacDonald in note 15 above).

Bibliography Anscombe, G. E. M. “Substance.” In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 38 (1964): 69–80.

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Aquinas, Thomas. On Being and Essence, 2nd ed. Translated by Armand Maurer. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1968. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981. Aristotle. Categories. In A New Aristotle Reader, edited by J. L. Ackrill. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Aristotle. Metaphysics. In A New Aristotle Reader, edited by J. L. Ackrill. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Aristotle. On the Soul. In A New Aristotle Reader, edited by J. L. Ackrill. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Armstrong, D. M. Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989. Ayer, A. J. Philosophical Essays. London: St. Martin’s Press, 1954. Bailey, Andrew M. “No Bare Particulars.” Philosophical Studies 158 (2012): 31–41. Baker, Robert. “Particulars: Bare, Naked, and Nude.” Nous 1 (1967): 211–212. Bergmann, Gustav. Realism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge. In Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, edited by R. Woolhouse. New York: Penguin Books, 1988. Berkeley, George. Siris. Eighteenth Century Collections Online Print Editions. Hampshire: Cengage, n.d. Berkeley, George. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. In Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, edited by R. Woolhouse. New York: Penguin Books, 1988. Black, Max. “The Identity of Indiscernibles.” Mind 61 (1952): 153–164. Bradatan, Costica. The Other Bishop Berkeley: An Exercise in Reenchantment. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007. Campbell, Keith. Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Casullo, Albert. “Particulars, Substrata, and the Identity of Indiscernibles.” Philosophy of Science 49 (1982): 591–603. Daniel, Stephen H. “Berkeley’s Christian Neo-Platonism, Archetypes, and Divine Ideas.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 39 (2001): 239–258. Hoffman, Joshua and Gary S. Rosenkrantz. Substance: Its Nature and Existence. London: Routledge, 1997. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Maurice Cranston. New York: Collier Books, 1965. Loux, Michael. Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Loux, Michael. Substance and Attribute. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978. Lowe, E. J. A Survey of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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MacDonald, Cynthia. Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. Moreland, J. P. “Theories of Individuation: A Reconsideration of Bare Particulars.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1998): 251–263. Moreland, J. P. and Scott B. Rae. Body and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Moreland, J. P. and T. Pickavance. “Bare Particulars and Individuation.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2003): 1–13. Moreland, J. P. and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003. O’Leary-Hawthorne, John. “The Bundle Theory of Substance and the Identity of Indiscernibles.” Analysis 55.3 (July 1995): 191–196. Roberts, J. R. A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo. “The Bundle Theory is Compatible with Distinct but Indiscernible Particulars.” Analysis 65.1 (January 2004): 72–81. Russell, Bertrand. Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: Allen and Unwin, 1940. Russell, Bertrand. “On the Relations of Universals and Particulars.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 12 (1911–1912): 1–24. Sider, Theodore. “Bare Particulars.” Philosophical Perspectives 20 (2006): 387–397. Strawson, P. F. Individuals. London: Methuen, 1959. Van Cleve, James. “Three Versions of the Bundle Theory.” Philosophical Studies 47 (1985): 95–107. Van Inwagen, Peter. Material Beings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Wenz, P. S. “Berkeley’s Christian Neo-Platonism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 37.3 (1976): 537–546. Wiggins, David. Sameness and Substance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.

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Idealism and Perception: Why Berkeleyan Idealism Is Not as Counterintuitive as It Seems Howard Robinson

The normal and, in a sense, natural reaction to Berkeley’s system is to see it as an outrage to common sense and as more or less the most counterintuitive metaphysic put forward by any serious modern thinker. My argument in this chapter is that this is not so. Berkeley’s conception of the physical world is no more counterintuitive—indeed, less so—than the one that emerges from modern scientific realism and materialism. Berkeley’s conception of the physical world is that it has two essential dimensions. One is the “manifest world” of common experience, which depends for its specific character on the particular manner of human experience. The other is what lies behind this manifest world, namely a nomic structure which is realized in the Divine Mind or Logos. It is this latter supernaturalism that is the cause of scandal. But once the naivest of naïve realisms has been overthrown, the picture of what underlies the manifest world that the materialist can provide is more deeply rebarbative. According to the most sophisticated philosophical interpretation of physics, there is merely a quantum field which governs the motion through many dimensions of a minimal number of particles. Not merely is this more mysterious than that of a Divine Mind, it wholly lacks the resources to explain the human dimension—everything from consciousness and thought themselves, to every form of normativity and value—which Berkeley’s theological account renders natural and transparent.

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The choices facing common sense The common sense account of our perceptual relation to the physical world importantly contains the following two propositions. 1. Our perceptual experience standardly puts us in direct contact with the physical world. The “immediate contents” of our experience are physical objects themselves. 2. Physical objects are mind-independent: they exist in their own right. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century seemed to philosophers to make it impossible to maintain both these propositions together. It seemed to establish that what we are immediately aware of are “ideas in the mind,” not mind-independent objects. This led philosophers such as Descartes and Locke to abandon proposition (1) in order to hold on to (2), and hence to become indirect realists in the philosophy of perception. Berkeley took the opposite path. In order to hold on to the claim that we experience the world directly, he said that the world is, in some sense, composed of the ideas in our minds. He abandoned (2) and affirmed (1)—except that he held that (2) was true in a sense, because physical objects do not exist in a particular person’s mind—like a pain or a thought—but are intersubjective phenomena. So whereas the conventional response to the scientific facts, as found in Descartes and Locke, saved only one of the two principles of common sense, Berkeley saved both by reinterpreting one of them: physical objects are independent of any given (human) mind. One might say he saved one and a half of the principles, against the indirect realists’ one, and thus stayed, in a sense, nearer to common sense than the more conventional position. This strategy of Berkeley’s remains at the heart of idealism: the presence of the world in our consciousness is deemed more fundamental to its nature and existence than allowing it an autonomous existence. There are two issues that arise immediately and with which I want to deal. One concerns what, if anything, there is to the physical world other than the experiences we have of it. This is the issue that divides Berkeley and Hume, and, indeed, in general, the theistic phenomenalist from the mainstream radical empiricist. Everyone agrees that experiences come in an ordered fashion, such that it is as if they are law-governed. According to the Humean, that is the whole story: there are no laws beyond the fact that experience comes in a certain order or pattern. That is all there is for there to be laws. For the

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Berkeleyan the nomological structure that lies behind experience is not simply a logical construction out of the experiences, but it is something that really exists. Up to a point, Berkeley and the conventional realist are in agreement here. The physical realist and the Berkeleyan agree about the contents of the laws: they are those that can be uncovered by physics and the special sciences and so expose in the most economical way the rationale behind the manifest empirical world. The difference between the Berkeleyan and the realist consists in the different ways in which they think the nomological structure is realized. For the traditional realist, it is embodied in a mind-independent material world, the nature of which, beyond its nomological structure (if it has such a further nature) is necessarily and permanently a mystery. For the Berkeleyan, it is realized in God’s Mind, as His plan for the world of our lived experience, and has no further physical properties. I shall argue in a later section that this is no more counterintuitive than modern scientific versions of realism. The second issue concerns the relation between idealism and direct realism— that is, about how the idealist should handle problems associated with the claim that the ideas in our mind really are the physical objects. The salient differences between what I will call Naïve Realism (I will deploy the term Direct Realism in a slightly different sense later), Representative Realism, and Idealism can be shown as follows: Naïve Realism: that of which one is normally “immediately aware” is a physical object—or a surface feature of the same. Representative Realism: that of which one is immediately aware is not a physical object but an effect produced in one by the object. The physical object is that which gives rise to the phenomena and the intrinsic physical nature of things is the nature of the cause of the phenomena. Idealism: that of which one is immediately aware is the effect of a nomological structure or framework which itself has no further physical properties other than those nomological properties. The only empirical and categorical properties of physical objects are the properties presented in the way they appear to creatures. The nomological structure is realized in the Divine Mind or Logos.

This way of looking at idealism gives rise to the two issues I introduced above. One concerns the purely nomological conception of the “world behind experience” that I attribute to idealism. The other concerns whether the account of the

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“phenomena” is adequate to preserve Berkeley’s claim that idealism leaves us in direct touch with the physical world. I shall deal with these issues in order.

Is what lies behind experience just a framework of law? It is a standard criticism of the modern scientific conception of the physical world that it reduces it to a collection of powers or forces. One root of this criticism is Russell’s claim that science reveals only what things do and how they behave, not what they intrinsically are.1 The nature of the physical world that lies behind the manifest world of appearance is revealed by science only in terms of how its constituents influence each other: nothing intrinsic, no monadic properties, nothing nonrelational about these constituents can be uncovered by science. Either the world is just structure, or there is a hidden element. David Lewis believes in such a hidden element. The need to admit that the core of matter lies hidden from us Lewis calls “Ramseyan humility.”2 Let us look at these two options, pure structure and Lewis’s Ramseyan humility. The conception of the world as a collection of powers or as a set of laws, which ultimately explain the manifest world of appearance, are two ways of expressing the same thought, namely that there is nothing to the physical world beyond mutual interaction and influence. In both cases, the properties that the fundamental objects or states (i.e., those that lie deep behind experience) possess are exhausted in terms of the effects they produce—how, that is, they interact with each other. In both cases the upshot is that objects can only be attributed any intrinsic or qualitative properties (over and above, say, bare location in space and time) at the level of their manifestation in experience. Whether this conception of the physical is able to sustain any form of physical realism is a matter of ongoing controversy. The problem for the realist, put very succinctly, is that it leaves us with a conception of the physical according to which it possesses only abilities to modify abilities to modify abilities to modify . . . This regress is only halted by the qualitative states that emerge in experience. I have previously expressed the regress argument as follows: A power is a power to produce some effect, but if everything is a power, it is a power to produce another power (presumably by modification of a power-entity already present, not by creation of a power from nothing). Why this leads to a regress can be seen as follows. Let us call the first power A. We only know what A is if we know what kinds of thing the actualization of its potentiality gives rise

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to. In other words, we only know what A is if we know what it is a power to do, what states would constitute its manifestation. Let us call the power which A is the power to produce, “B.” So what A is, is the power to produce B. But this is not informative unless we know the nature of B. B, being a power, is the power to produce some further power state, call it C . . . It seems that we are moving into a regress. You can understand what a power is only by reference to a further power, of which one has no specific conception unless you know the power state which would be its effect, and so on.3

The conclusion to be drawn from this argument is that the pure powers or nomological conception of the physical world can be given content only if it is understood as giving rise to a realm which is not purely structural but in which monadic properties or qualities figure. This is in fact how scientific theories get a more-than-mathematical content, namely by being modeled in more picturable terms. However, it is not merely a matter of heuristic, but they must result in such a realm if they are to have real content. Simon Blackburn sees this, but backs away from the consequence in an evasive way. Blackburn’s initial response to the powers ontology is positive. He says of this picture of the world: “Is this the way it has to work? I believe so.”4 But he then considers a version of the regress objection to this theory, accepting that the regress can only be ended because “[c]ategoricity in fact comes with the subjective view.”5 And he continues, “[t]he trouble is that such events [i.e., subjective ones], conceived of as categorical, play no role in the scientific understanding of the world.”6 This appears to be a complete surrender to the argument: only by its relation to the phenomenal can our conception of the physical world be given content. Beyond the phenomena, the physical world is just the “permanent possibility” of such phenomena. Blackburn’s response to this idealist conclusion is to lapse into skeptical detachment. After remarking that “I leave the issue in Hume’s hands rather than Berkeley’s”7 (which, I presume, is a way of refusing to admit that it might have idealist implications), he concludes: “It almost seems that carelessness and inattention alone can afford a remedy—the remedy of course of allowing ourselves to have any idea at all of what could fill in space.”8 This skeptical hauteur does not seem to me to help the realist come to grips with the challenge that the argument presents. If “carelessness and inattention” are the only ways of avoiding the idealist conclusion, then idealists have only to wake their audiences up to the real force of their argument in order to triumph.

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There is, however, one influential attack on the regress argument provided by Alexander Bird. His response moves in two stages. First, he claims that those who are prepared to accept vagueness in properties will not be disturbed by the argument. For example, “[t]hose who take an epistemicist approach to vagueness will reject this conclusion.”9 He then acknowledges that, though the problem no longer exists based on the need for the determinacy of a property, there is still an issue about identity. But even to those for whom indeterminate natures are permissible, the impermissibility of indeterminacy of identity should be clear, thanks to Gareth Evans’s (1978) argument that indeterminate identity violates Leibniz’s law. Bearing in mind that for the requirement the identity be determinate is more obvious than the requirement that nature be determinate it will be more effective to present the regress argument in terms of the determinacy of identity rather than of nature.10

The issue of identity, stripped of its association with natures, is deemed soluble by appeal to graph theory. If I understand Bird’s argument, it is that the points on a graph can be adequately identified in purely relational terms, provided the graph is asymmetric. (If it is not asymmetric, then you have something like the indeterminate identification that would come with a mirror universe; you would not know which was which between two isomorphic points.) The argument by which Bird reduces the issue to what one might call one of bare identification thus leaving it seemingly open to a formal, geometrical solution, is, I think, entirely misconceived. Vagueness is irrelevant to the regress argument. The regress charge is that no identifiable content has been assigned to the powers, not that the borders of those powers are vague. Vague predicates standardly have clear paradigm cases—Yul Brynner’s baldness and Everest’s mountainousness are not contested and are clearly identifiable. The powers regress claim is that no central case content has been given, not that the content is indeterminate in a sense like that of vagueness. Indefiniteness, in the sense of vagueness, is not the same as vacuity, and the latter is what the regress argument purports to prove. So the possibility (which I do not need to deny) of identifying a node on a graph or geometrical figure in a purely relational fashion is, it seems to me, completely irrelevant to the task of giving content to our conceptions of physical properties in terms of the states they (paradigmatically) give rise to. If the realist cannot defend the purely structuralist account of the physical world, his only option is Lewis’s Ramseyan humility—the physical world has a hidden nature which we can never in principle come to know. It is necessarily

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hidden because anything we come to know by scientific investigation (and how else can we research the inner nature of matter?) will result in more causal laws and power-properties. But Lewisian humility is of no help in giving content to the purely structural view of the world, for the dispositional contents that characterize the elements in that structure cannot derive their content from effects on something completely unknown. Lewis and Armstrong both postulate unknown foundations for powers and dispositions because they think that such states must have a categorical base, not as a way of giving content to the actualizations of the dispositions in question. For the latter task, unknown properties are of no help. I have argued that the fact that science reveals only the nomological structure of the world that lies behind experience shows, in conformity with idealism, that that structural world has content for us only by its relation with the world of experience. Only at the level of experience does the world possess any knowable intrinsic properties—the nomological structure is what underpins the “permanent possibility of sensation” that Mill identified with physical objects.11 But that still leaves us with the need to justify the idealist claim that the contents of experience can be somehow identified with the physical objects of common sense.

Idealism and the common sense view of physical objects Berkeley spoke as if physical objects were just collections of the sensible qualities they presented in experience, plus the potentiality for producing more of the same: Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell and consistency have been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things. . . .12 The table I write on, I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or some other spirit actually does perceive it.13

I stated at the start of this essay that one pillar of common sense is that: Our perceptual experience standardly puts us in direct contact with the physical world. The “immediate contents” of our experience are physical objects themselves.

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And I said that Berkeley sought to preserve this commonsensical notion. But it faces the same problem as Berkeley’s “collection of ideas” account, namely the so-called “argument from illusion.” The way things appear is variable in ways that the object itself is not. Not every perspective to every more or less normal perceiver presents the object as being the way we take it to be in itself. Now common sense is not ignorant of the blatant fact that objects appear in different ways without themselves changing. To cope with this, the simple statement of common sense is augmented by: The Intentionality Thesis: (i) the subjective content of experience (“how the world seems”) is not to be reified, so that (ii) even when an object seems other than the way it actually is, that object is still the direct object of awareness and the only thing of which we are aware.14

Step (i) of the intentionality thesis seems to go against both naïve realism and the sense-datum thesis, the latter being very close to the Berkeleyan claim that we are aware of ideas in our minds. Both of those theories treat the appearances of things as objects of awareness in their own right. Step (ii) forces us to face the question of how the physical object can be the direct object of awareness if the way it appears cannot be identified with the object itself. One is surely not, in an unequivocal sense, “immediately aware” of two things at the same time, namely the thing and how it appears. The natural way of coping with the first problem is to adopt an intentionalist theory of perception. According to this theory, the subjective contents of experience are not instances of sensible qualities, such as colors and shapes, but states which are characterized as being of colors, or of shapes (or as representing colors or shapes), which states do not involve any instances of those qualities and, therefore (supposedly) those qualities are not objects of awareness. There are at least two reasons for rejecting this theory. First, in the present context the only actual monadic and intrinsic properties of objects are their sensible qualities. To find that these are deemed intentionally inexistent, and therefore that there are no monadic and intrinsic properties of physical objects at all is a bizarre conclusion, to be avoided if possible. Second, it seems to me to be a theory of dubious intelligibility. Suppose that one suffers from a partial hallucination, so that one seems to see a large red patch which obliterates from view the things actually in front of one in the area seemingly occupied by the patch. Calling the red patch “an intentional object” makes no difference to the fact that it is an object of awareness. Nor does it mitigate its ability to constitute

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a “veil of perception” between the subject and the external world. So, if the point of the intentionalist jargon is to avoid having an intermediate object of awareness between the subject and the world, it blatantly fails to perform this function: refusing to reify it as a “thing” makes no difference to the phenomenological or epistemic situation.15 In fact, even the sense-datum theorist can reconcile himself with step (i) of the intentional theory. We can begin from the fact that even the sense-datum theorist accepts that taking our experience in the common sense realist way is both natural and inevitable. We can express this as follows. (1) Our sense-data are naturally and inevitably conceptualized and, hence, interpreted as, appearances of a physical world, and this is the only way they can be made sense of and how they are “meant” (by evolution, God, or both) to be interpreted.

This commits us to speaking the language of perceptual realism, and, insofar as I am speaking of the physical world, when I report an hallucination (as of the red patch mentioned above), there is nothing there, there only seems to be. The same applies when the white wall looks red, in a case of “illusion” rather than hallucination. This gives us: (2) Within the scope of our common sense realist interpretation of the sensedata, the Intentionality Thesis (i) holds. This thesis is at the core of the “logic” of the perceptual realist interpretation of experience, which we cannot (and should not wish to) avoid.

But this does not constitute a reconciliation of common sense and sense-data, for it is still unclear how we can be aware of objects in the physical world, not surrogates, and yet be aware of logically private sense-data. It is not clear how step (ii) of the Intentional Theory can be accommodated. Let us call the interpretation of our sense-data enshrined in (1) and (2), the Canonical Interpretation, because it expresses how the data are meant to be interpreted or used. If we are to understand how something like direct realism is to be infused into the canonical interpretation, we must look at what is involved when other cognitive states, such as thought and judgment, are taken to be directly and really of real objects in the world. If I think about the Eiffel Tower, that it is in Paris, I think using words with meaning, but no one thinks that these vehicles of thought constitute some sort of veil between me and it. The thought is about the Eiffel Tower simpliciter. (Those who, like Locke, take thoughts to

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be images might have such a problem. Locke has no plausible doctrine of the intentionality of ideas, relying entirely on the probability of their having suitable resembling causes. As we shall see, that is not irrelevant to the present issue.) If we can take perception as being a form of judgment, represented not in language but sensorily, I do not see why it cannot be thought to be just as much of its object as is a verbal thought. It is important to see how integrated the sense-data and the judgment are. Consider the perceptual judgment involved in perceiving and recognizing that there is an armchair in front of me. What is the relation of the judgment to the phenomenal episode with which it is connected? It is tempting to think of them as accompanying each other, side by side, so to speak, or with the sense-datum first, swiftly followed by the judgment. But it is also possible to think of them as synthesized into one event, with the phenomenal content contained within the judgment. Just as some judgments have words as their vehicle, perceptual ones have phenomenal contents. Now, the judgment is about the armchair, which is an object in the external world. This is no more a “projection” (in a sense that carries the derogatory overtones of illusion or unnoticed mistake) than it is in the case of the way the words, with their meanings, refer to the Eiffel Tower: the phenomenal features, when structured into a judgment, refer to the chair, in a way analogous to that in which the meaningful words refer. Isn’t this to relapse wholly into an intentional theory? No, because the sense-data can be referred to in their own right: I can identify a pink, chairshaped datum, as well as being able to judge perceptually that there is a physical object of a certain kind present. Must not the intentionalist say that when the perception is not veridical there is nothing referred to? Otherwise, are there not two competing objects of awareness, one a sense-datum in private space, and the other a physical object in public space? This does appear to be the current dogma, but I can see no reason to accept it. Take, first, the claim that, when an experience is hallucinatory, or a feature of experience nonveridical, there is no phenomenal object to be an object of reference.16 The comparison with thought is instructive. When a thought fails of reference there is no real proposition, but there is a meaningful sentence or thought with a certain character. If I try to refer to “that star over there” when it is only a speck on the telescope lens, there may be no reference and no proposition, but there is a perfectly clear meaningful sentence, and we know, in the context, what the speaker is “trying to say.” I can pick out and refer to the individual words and their meanings irrespective of whether the sentence succeeds in making a reference in the world, and say what

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would have to have been the case for there to have been a genuine proposition. What is more, without the meaningful words there would be no proposition thought in the case of successful reference (assuming the thoughts of this kind to be verbal, or dependent on words). The words and their meaning are identifiable independently of their specific contribution to that particular proposition, if there is one; and, in an obvious sense, the word meanings are prior to what is said by means of them in that individual case. Similarly, if I see a white wall looking yellow, or hallucinate my armchair altogether, the experience has a character and a content that I can individuate perfectly easily, and it involves the sense-data, without which the judgment delivered by the canonical interpretation would not be possible.17 The analogy with the relation between word meanings and their contribution to the content of a proposition shows why the sense-datum in private space and the fully conceptualized experience of a public object are not in competition.18 I hope that this explains why I talk of saving common sense but not of saving naive realism. The theory called “naive realism” is the classical empiricist attempt to express the common sense view on perception. The naïve realist articulates common belief as the claim that the sense-data we perceive are themselves features—for example, surfaces—of objects. In the context of a theory that has only an imagistic conception of mental content, this is the best that can be done. A theory that takes intentionality seriously can, however, do better. In order for a cognitive act to be genuinely of its object it is not necessary (or, indeed, possible) for the mode of presentation to be identified with the thing itself simpliciter. It is part of the logic of perceptual judgments that the appearance of an object is an appearance of that thing, but it is not part of that logic that the object is that way, except as presented under those circumstances. It is important to my resolution of (ii) that perception involves what I have called perceptual judgment and this might be thought to make perception too intellectual. In particular, judgments, it might be argued, involve concepts, whereas perception is essentially nonconceptual. The discussion of whether perception is conceptual or not has become something of an industry. Many writers seem to treat the divide between conceptual activity and perception as an absolute one. A. D. Smith, for example, says, Concepts are simply irrelevant to perception as such . . . [by which] I mean . . . that they are irrelevant to what it is that makes any sensory state a perception at all: they are irrelevant to the intentionality of perception, to its basic worlddirectedness.19

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Despite Smith’s certainty, I find it difficult to discern exactly what the debate is about. Its roots seem to be in the Wittgensteinian dogma that there can be no thought (and possibly even no consciousness) without language. It is clear that there are no concepts without thought and if there is no thought without language, then there are no concepts without language. As it is very natural to think that nonlinguistic animals, including very young human beings, are perceptually conscious, then perception must be nonconceptual. But the connection between thought—and therefore concepts—and language is a nominalist dogma, as I shall now explain. There seem to me to be a weak and a strong form of conceptualization. By the weak form I emphatically do not mean what has sometimes been called a “merely behavioral” or “dispositional” sense of thought, where it consists only in reacting in a way that is appropriate to having a certain thought or act of recognition. Nothing purely behavioral counts as conceptualization or thought, as I am using the terms. Any mental act that is genuinely conceptual must involve an irreducible grasping of a universal in some form. The distinction I wish to draw is between grasping a universal as it presents itself in a sensory or quasi-sensory (imagistic) form, and grasping it where it no longer depends on a sensory medium or instantiation for its apprehension—for example, as linguistic meaning or in “pure thought?,” assuming there to be such. In the latter, stronger, sense of conceptualization, it is intimately connected with that sense of “thought” where thought happens naturally in the absence of instances of the universals that constitute its content. In the weaker form, there is still a grasping of universals, but they cannot be handled with the freedom and flexibility that “thought in absence” allows. This is where nominalism is relevant. If you regard consciousness itself, whenever it involves even the slightest element of recognition, however fleeting, as involving the apprehension of a universal in re, then you will see the world as already, in a sense, conceptualized for us and apprehended as such. Put in another jargon, if perception is the reception of form, then it is at least proto-conceptual. If you are a nominalist, on the other hand, universals only enter at the point at which a certain fairly sophisticated kind of mental activity comes into play. It seems that this is far too intellectual a level to be essential to animal perception. If one wants to allow that animals perceive objects without having to form sophisticated concepts, one might feel obliged to treat the objects’ presence in their experience as a brute fact. The sense in which perception is a form of judgment, according to my account above, only requires weak conceptualism that involves the handling of

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universals in their instances or quasi-instances. I do not think that this should be denied to animals or babies. (According to Aristotle, e.g., even the perceptual soul receives form as such.) The argument I have so far presented fits well with Berkeley’s treatment of perception as a form of divine language in the fourth dialogue of Alciphron.20 Euphranor illustrates the position as follows: Upon the whole, it seems the proper objects of sight are light and colours, with their several shades and degrees; all which, being infinitely diversified and combined, form a language wonderfully adapted to suggest and exhibit to us the distances, figures, situations, dimensions, and various qualities of tangible objects: not by similitude, nor yet by inference of necessary connexion, but by the arbitrary imposition of Providence, just as words suggest the things signified by them.21

What is initially striking in this passage is the insistence that perception represents things, not by resemblance, but, like language, by convention (“arbitrary imposition”). The interpretation of Berkeley’s meaning is controversial, but it fits naturally into the “judgmental” account, where the judgments are cast in terms of the “canonical interpretation” that I present above. We are used to the idea that the same theoretical conception of the world can be derived via different senses. We could even imagine a Martian with essentially similar aims and ambitions as ours, but with five senses none of which were experientially like ours, and who could have, for all practical purposes, a conception of the macroscopic world which was isomorphic with ours, and, on the basis of which, he could develop the same theoretical sciences. Understood in terms of its nomological structure, the more formal “primary quality” side of its canonical interpretation, and, therefore, for all our purposes in action, the Martian and the Earthling simply have different perceptual notations providing them with the same information. But doesn’t this conventionalism undo the idealist claim that the phenomena are the physical objects? Some critics have worried that Berkeley retreats in Alciphron to a form of representative realism.22 We can see that a Berkeleyan is not forced in this direction if we recognize and develop further the notion of the Canonical Interpretation of our sense-data. The phenomena—the sense-data or ideas—have three important properties: (i) They are the vehicles of our sensory judgments, (ii) they are the way the physical world manifests itself to us, and (iii) they are the only categorical properties the physical world possesses. The physical world is a

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nomological structure manifested in experience. The manifestations may vary in kind for different creatures, as they vary for different perspectives. But they are all subject to the Canonical Interpretation, as being of enduring physical objects, presenting various appearances. And these appearances are all the empirical content of what is otherwise a somewhat abstract nomological structure.

Scientific realism and common sense Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to shake off the conviction that a scientific realist view must be nearer to common sense than an idealist one. But contemporary scientific realism is a very strange beast. David Albert puts the situation as follows: A hundred years ago, physics aspired to produce a complete, and unified, and seamless, and philosophically realistic account of the entirety of nature. It aspired to tell us straightforwardly what the world is. It aspired, that is, to settle questions of metaphysics. And all of that came to look somehow quaint and childish under the spectacular assault of quantum mechanics.23

Quantum theory seemed to demand an account of the world which was not merely nondeterministic, but also seems to give consciousness a role in determining the physical facts—the “collapse of the wave packet.” This nonrealist, “Copenhagen” view of physical reality fits well with idealism and not with scientific realism. Albert, being strongly committed to the realist camp, rejects the traditional interpretation of quantum theory in strong terms: “This [Copenhagen interpretation] strikes most of us nowadays as weird, glib, scary, oppressive, intolerant stuff.”24 He then tells us what a realist understanding of quantum wave functions would have to look like: it is “to think of them as concrete physical objects.” He continues, The most striking and controversial feature of this approach is undoubtedly that the stage on which such objects must make their appearance . . . is a mindnumbingly high-dimensional space . . ., a space whose dimensionality is three times as large as the total number of elementary particles in the universe. . . . . . . The sorts of physical objects that wave functions are, on this way of thinking, are (plainly) fields. . . .

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On Bohm’s theory, for example, the world will consist of exactly two physical objects. One of those is the universal wave function, and the other is the universal particle. And the story of the world consists, in its entirety, of a continuous succession of changes of the shape of the former and a continuous succession of changes in the position of the latter.25

Albert is well aware that this picture of the world has little relation to common sense realism: The particularly urgent question (again) is where, in this picture, all the tables, and chairs, and buildings, and people are. The particularly urgent question is how it can possibly have come to pass, on a picture like this one, that there appear to us to be multiple particles moving around in a three-dimensional space . . . The business of actually filling in the details of these accounts is not an altogether trivial matter.26

A similar view is expressed by Barry Loewer. He writes, The idea . . . is that the fundamental ontology of the world consists of a field described by the wave function and a single point particle (the “world particle”) both occupying a very high dimensional space (the number of dimensions determined by the wave function). The goal then is to provide an account of how the manifest world emerges from the motions of the particle (the motions of the particle are determined by the field). At first (and maybe second and third . . .) this is very contra to way we think of the manifest world and highly unintuitive. But the idea is that degrees of freedom of the particle (motions along various dimensions) can be collected into triplets each of which can be thought of as comprising the motions of an individual particle in 3-dimensional space. These ‘emergent particles’ move so as to implement ordinary physical objects. e.g. there are a large number of particles that move (and would move under certain counterfactual situations) just like the motions of particles that comprise e.g. my cat . . . Because the world particle wiggles in accordance with certain laws . . . a kind of 3-D spatial structure emerges. The emergence is understood as a kind of functionalist implementation so one would have to be on board with this much functionalism.27

Albert acknowledges the difficulty of working out how the one omnicompetent particle manages to be in all the right places to make up the normal macroscopic world, but there are two problems here. One is internal to the science, and concerns how one might derive the almost infinite particle locations from the

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laws governing the one thing. But, beyond that, there are the kinds of problems raised by Russell. Is there any reason to think that macroscopic physical space—or time—is actually qualitatively the way it seems? If not, even if the scientific problem were to be solved, the most that the physical world could achieve would be a bare isomorphism with the world of experience: one would have constructed a macroscopic world, but not the manifest one of common sense.28 Albert and Loewer do not, of course, represent the only realist interpretation of quantum theory available, but theirs is one of the most respected.29 In order to escape the nonrealist interpretation of the quantum account of matter, one has to imagine that something called a field, which operates in a space of a dimensionality three times as large as the number of elementary particles in the universe, manipulates a single particle, through all these ‘many worlds’ so that it can play the role of the myriad particles that seem to be in them. It is interesting to see how Albert explicates the notion of a field: [T]hey are the sorts of objects whose states one specifies by specifying the values of some set of numbers at every point in the arena in which they live, the sorts of objects whose states one specifies (in this case) by specifying the values of two numbers (one of which is usually referred to as an amplitude, and the other as a phase) at every point in the configuration space of the universe.30

It is not obvious that such a notion is realist at all, for it consists in assigning numerical values to points in space. What is certainly the case is that this is open to the same objections as the pure structure and powers conception of physical reality that was discussed above. For these numbers assigned to points measure only degrees and kinds of influence. It might seem that the “universal particle” gives extra substance to this conception, but what the nature of such a particle is supposed to be, given that all the causal properties belong to the quantum field, is itself something of a mystery. In fact, in quantum discourse, whether something is a field or a particle seems to concern whether its behavior needs to be represented probabilistically or determinately: something is a particle when a situation need not be represented as a superposition of possible outcomes. The idealist, of course, denies none of the science, either in the form of observational evidence or mathematical expression, but can at least claim that his account of how this nomological structure is realized is certainly no more counterintuitive than that which is forthcoming from current scientific realism.

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This is so even before one takes into account the more standard shortcomings of a physicalist account of the world. Quantum realism is no better at accommodating consciousness, thought, or value than is a more traditional form of physicalism. The idealist picture already builds the first two of these into its world, and holds more hope of accommodating the latter than its more fashionable rivals. But these are issues I cannot pursue further here.

Notes 1 Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter (London: Allen and Unwin, 1927), 388ff. 2 David K. Lewis, “Ramseyan Humility,” in Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, ed. D. Braddon-Mitchell and R. Nola (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 2009). 3 Howard Robinson, “Idealism,” in The Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind, ed. B. McLaughlin, A. Beckermann, S. Walter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 190. 4 Simon Blackburn, “Filling in Space,” Analysis 50.2 (1990): 62–65. 5 Ibid., 65. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., 64, n.7. 8 Ibid., 65. 9 Alexander Bird, Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 136. 10 Ibid. 11 J. S. Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1884), 240. 12 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), I.1. 13 Ibid. 14 The intentionality thesis can be taken as standing proxy for all those idioms which were appealed to by “ordinary language” philosophers in their attempt to show that all phenomena can be characterized without resort to sense-datum talk. The intentional idioms such as “seems,” “looks,” “appears,” lie at the center of this whole family. 15 This criticism, namely that the intentional theory is substantially similar to traditional representationalism, is one that is made by modern “relationalists.” See, for example, the argument in Bill Brewer, Perception and Its Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chap. 4.

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16 This, for example, is the view in M. J. M. Martin, “The Limits of Self-awareness,” Philosophical Studies, 120 (2004): 37–89; and “On Being Alienated,” in Perceptual Experience, ed. T. S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 17 I use the word “character” in this context deliberately. D. Kaplan (“Dthat,” in Syntax and Semantics, vol. 9, ed. P. Cole [New York: Academic Press, 1978]; reprinted in The Philosophy of Language, ed. A. P. Martinich [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985] attributes “character” to demonstratives even when they are failing to refer. This is the same for sense-data, whether or not they are representing reality as it actually is. 18 This argument is developed further in Howard Robinson, “The Ontology of the Mental,” in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. M. Loux and D. Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 527–555. 19 A. D. Smith, The Problem of Perception (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 95. 20 I became aware of the relevance of this material as a result of reading the work of David Bartha, a doctoral student at Central European University. 21 George Berkeley, Alciphron: or The Minute Philosophers in Seven Dialogues, Dialogue IV, sect. X. The Works of George Berkeley, vol. III, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1955). 22 For a survey of the options, see A. David Kline, “Berkeley’s Divine Language Argument,” in Essays on the Philosophy of George Berkeley, ed. Ernest Sosa (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1987), 129–142. 23 David Albert, “Wave Function Realism,” in The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics, ed. A. Ney and D. Albert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 52. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 53–54. 26 Ibid., 56. 27 Barry Loewer, personal communication with author. 28 See Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1912/1959); and “On the Experience of Time,” Monist 25 (1915): 212–233. See also Howard Robinson, “The Self and Time,” in Persons, Human and Divine, ed. P. van Inwagen and D. Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 55–83. 29 A very different view, for example, is presented in T. Maudlin, “The Nature of the Quantum State,” in The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics, ed. A. Ney and D. Albert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 126–153. 30 David Albert, “Wave Function Realism,” 53.

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Bibliography Albert, D. “Wave Function Realism.” In The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics, edited by A. Ney and D. Albert, 52–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Bird, A. Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Blackburn, S. “Filling in Space.” Analysis 50.2 (1990): 62–55. Brewer, B. Perception and Its Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Kaplan, D. “Dthat.” Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9, edited by P. Cole. New York: Academic Press, 1978. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Language, edited by A. P. Martinich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Lewis, D. K. “Ramseyan Humility.” In Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, edited by D. Braddon-Mitchell and R. Nola. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. Martin, M. “The Limits of Self-awareness.” In Philosophical Studies 120 (2004): 37–89. Martin, M. “On Being Alienated.” In Perceptual Experience, edited by T. S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Maudlin, T. “The Nature of the Quantum State.” In The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics, edited by A. Ney and D. Albert, 126–153. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Mill, J. S. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1884. Ney, A. and D. Albert, eds. The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Robinson, H. “Idealism.” In The Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by B. McLaughlin, A. Beckermann, and S. Walter, 186–205. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Robinson, H. “The Ontology of the Mental.” In The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, edited by M. Loux and D. Zimmerman, 527–555. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Robinson, H. “The Self and Time.” In Persons, Human and Divine, edited by P. van Inwagen and D. Zimmermann, 55–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Russell, B. The Analysis of Matter. London: Allen and Unwin, 1927. Russell, B. “On the Experience of Time.” Monist 25 (1915): 212–233. Russell, B. The Problems of Philosophy [1912]. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Smith, A. D. The Problem of Perception. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

5

Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem Charles Taliaferro

What is known as the mind-body problem is the problem of sorting out how to reconcile the apparent distinction between material bodies and processes on the one hand with our subjective, experiential states (our thinking and feeling, our thoughts and emotions) on the other. The problem is well stated by T. L. S. Sprigge: The main reason for holding [there is a distinction between the mental and physical] is that it seems entirely possible that a scientist should have complete knowledge of a human organism as a physical system and yet be ignorant of the special character of that individual’s consciousness.1

Sprigge goes on to press his point in terms of our experience of other persons: For that matter, there is nothing physical about another person, which absolutely proves that he is conscious. His consciousness is not something which could be located in his brain for everything about the brain could be as it is without the individual being conscious.2

These claims set up the problem of how to account for this apparent dualism or duality between consciousness and material objects. If we have reason to believe that there is a real split or nonidentity between consciousness and the body, how might the two causally interact? This challenge became exacerbated in the work of Descartes in which it is supposed that the material world is spatially extended, whereas the world of the mind is not extended spatially. How can that which does not take up space or is nonspatial causally affect that which is spatial? Many philosophers since the time of Descartes have deemed dualism unacceptable because of the problem of accounting for mind–body interaction, and they have sought either to explain away this apparent dualism or to suppress or explain away the apparent reality of consciousness.

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If we grant that some form of idealism is plausible—in which the material or physical is understood in terms of the mental (minds)—the mind-body problem becomes transformed into terms that are radically different from those of mainstream materialist philosophers. The latter routinely assume we have a clear understanding of physical objects and physical causation; from their point of view, consciousness and the mental are mysterious. In this chapter, I take up the mantle of idealism, contending that we have a far clearer grasp of mind and the mental than we do of the ostensibly mind-independent, material world. The first section of what follows presents reasons for recognizing what may be called the primacy of the mental. In a second section, I draw on the primacy of the mental and the coherence of idealism to challenge one of the materialist objections to thinking we are more than our material bodies. In that section, I also attend to the prospects of making sense of mind-body interaction. I propose that there are reasons for believing that all causal interactions in our cosmos are ultimately best explained in terms of a theistic metaphysics. This means that in the so-called problem of causal interaction, both relata (the mental and bodily) are best accounted for in terms of mind, a divine mind. In a final, third section, I contend that, in an idealist framework, we have reason to embrace a more integrated understanding of persons than we find in either materialist or mainstream dualist philosophies of mind. A brief note is in order at the outset on the relationship of dualism and idealism: in its standard usage, “idealism” is a form of monism and so, by definition, it seems that the truth of idealism entails the falsehood of dualism. But there is room for some compromise. First, given an overall idealist framework, there may yet be (in fact I think there is) good reason not to identify what idealists would recognize as bodily life (or, as it were, the mind-dependent or constituted bodily life) as itself identical to conscious states. There can be, in a sense, a dualism within an overall monist framework, just as not all forms of monism threaten the identity and differences between beliefs and desires, intentions and nonintentions, or concrete individual things. (It is probably only essential to point this out given the unfortunate history of the term “dualism”—a nineteenthcentury invention—that suggests (wrongly) that so-called dualists believe there are only two kinds of things. Dualists can be ontological pluralists.) Second, some idealists, such as the late, great Berkeleyan John Foster, have defended Cartesian dualism as a kind of provisional or conditional position: given that there are mind-independent physical objects and processes, Foster argued that we have good reason for not identifying the mental and the physical. Sprigge, himself an idealist but not in the Berkeleyan tradition, adopted a similar stance.

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The primacy of the mental A useful way to appreciate the primacy of the mental is to take stock of those who claim the opposite. Let us consider briefly two very different philosophers, Daniel Dennett and Roger Scruton, and their reasons for not giving primacy to the mental. Of the two, Dennett is the more disdainful about both the mental as something irreducibly real and the very existence of the self as a mental subject. Dennett offers the following, frequently cited overview of his position: There is only one sort of stuff, namely matter—the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology—and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon. In short, the mind is the brain . . . We can (in principle!) account for every mental phenomenon using the same physical principles, laws, and raw materials that suffice to explain radioactivity, continental drift, photosynthesis, reproduction, nutrition, and growth.3

Dennett claims that, in contrast to this straightforward understanding of a physical, causally interconnected world, dualism (as well as an idealist concept of the self) employs an utterly nonscientific or antiscientific concept of objects: Dualism (the view that minds are composed of some nonphysical and utterly mysterious stuff ) . . . [has] been relegated to the trash heap of history, along with alchemy and astrology. Unless you are also prepared to declare that the world is flat and the sun is a fiery chariot pulled by winged horses—unless, in other words, your defiance of modern science is quite complete—you won’t find any place to stand and fight for these obsolete ideas.4

In multiple publications, Dennett charges that a successful explanation of the mental (consciousness, etc.) must be an explanation in terms of the nonmental. We are otherwise left with mystery. Those who believe that nonmental explanations of the mental leave something out are guilty of not appreciating that the very nature of the explanation of X (whatever) must not leave X as a fundamental, irreducible reality. So, philosophers like Sprigge, Thomas Nagel, and others who suppose that there is some qualia or what-it-is-like experientially that should be recognized as foundational are parodied in the crudest fashion: Thinking, mistakenly, that the explanation leaves something out, we think to save what otherwise would be lost by putting it back into the observer as a quale—or some other “intrinsically” wonderful property. The psyche becomes the protective skirt under which all those beloved kittens can hide. There may be

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What are we to make of these claims? I suggest that Dennett’s position is selfundermining and conceptually confused. It is self-undermining to the extent that he must preserve and rely on the reality of thinking, appealing to (what he believes to be) good reasons, personal identity, grasping entailment relations, etc., in order to make the claims he does. Beginning with his credo, he writes as though we have a clear idea about physical principles and the physical sciences, when in fact what he is appealing to is our ideas (theories, thoughts, concepts) of what is physical. To appeal to physics, chemistry, and physiology is presumably to appeal to what persons practice with theories and observation, devising experiments, making predictions. To appeal to the processes of radioactivity and so on is to appeal to what we conceive of and apply as abstract laws involving our ideas about radioactivity, our categorical explanatory frameworks involving continental drift, and so on. Nutrition and reproduction as events only come to be understood by us when we engage in understanding, thinking, reasoning, and so on. Stan Klein points out the irony (or, really, absurdity) of considering the mental (and the concept of the mental) as secondary to the physical: According subjectivity, at best, “second class citizenship” in the study of mind is particularly ironic in virtue of the fact that subjectivity is the very thing that makes the scientific pursuit of such knowledge (actually any knowledge) possible. Timing devices, neuroimaging technologies, electroencephalographs, and a host of modern means of obtaining objective knowledge of minds are useless absent an experiencing subject . . . To believe otherwise has the absurd consequence of rendering our knowledge of mind (or, more generally, of reality) dependent, in its entirety, on the provisions of an experiential conduit stipulated either to be unworthy of study or essentially nonexistent.6

So, as a first point, we need to appreciate that both our everyday and our disciplined scientific practice rely on and are constituted first and foremost by experiential, observational, ideas, concepts, and the like. Secondly, Dennett’s dismissal of the self seems to be incoherent. Who is the “thing” (Dennett?) that claims to be explaining consciousness and the self? Dennett famously describes the self as a center of narrative gravity; in other words, he has a “fictive” self.7 But fictional selves cannot think, believe, act, live, or die, and so on, except in the context of narratives. When a self in a narrative commits a murder, there is no need for anyone to call the police. So, who is

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writing this sentence: “I hope I have shown, there are good reasons for thinking.” Dennett writes with bravado that if we are going to explain the self or “Subject,” we have to eliminate it; you have to deny you exist as a subject if you are to explain yourself. If we are to explain the conscious Subject, one way or another the transition from clueless cells to knowing organizations of cells must be made without any magic ingredients. This requirement presents theorists with what some see as a nasty dilemma . . . If you propose a theory of the knowing Subject that describes whatever it describes as like the working of a vacant automated factory—not a Subject in sight—you will seem to many observers to have changed the subject or missed the point. On the other hand, if your theory still has tasks for a Subject to perform, still has a need for a Subject as witness, then . . . you have actually postponed the task of explaining what needs explaining. To me, one of the most fascinating bifurcations in the intellectual world today is between those to whom it is obvious—obvious—that a theory that leaves out the Subject is thereby disqualified as a theory of consciousness (in Chalmers’ terms, it evades the Hard Problem), and those to whom it is just as obvious that any theory that doesn’t leave out the Subject is disqualified. I submit that the former have to be wrong.8

But who is the “I” who writes “I submit that . . . ” or the “me” who wrote “To me?” I suggest that Dennett’s position here is as self-referentially absurd as denying the law of identity. I suggest that it is Dennett’s rhetoric (describing his critics as scientifically incompetent, and Dennett’s—literally—incredible confidence in his advocacy of absurdity) that buys him a hearing in the field. It is Dennett who is profoundly antiscientific as he denies that scientists (as persons who are real and not fictive) exist. To be intelligible, he must treat as nonfictive (i.e., treat as real) that he and we and scientists truly exist as thinking, feeling, reasoning beings, and yet, in the final analysis, none of us is fundamentally real. The following observation by S. Gallagher and D. Zahavi is spot on, but the point is so obvious it is regrettable that it must be stated: “Science is performed by somebody; it is a specific theoretical stance toward the world . . . scientific objectivity is something we strive for but it rests on the observations of individuals.”9 What about nonphysical stuff? First and foremost let us appreciate that the very concept of “stuff ” is a concept and that we cannot even understand the question unless we have an understanding of what counts as “stuff ” (arguably, this is different from the concept of an aggregate) and what counts as “physical.” I propose that because the very concept of “physical” is not clear, we lack a lucid way of delimiting the nonphysical. The old problem of secondary properties has

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yet to meet with a solution. Are smells, sounds, colors, tastes, and so on mindindependent? The effort to make smells (the experience of smelling a perfume or sewer) things or events in space in the complete absence of minds (the mental, the subjective, subjects) remains absurd. Smelling is the way persons (or other sorts of sentient beings) have olfactory experiences stimulated by events like wood burning. In the absence of sentient beings there are no smells. And once one acknowledges that persons smell, taste, see, and have other experiences, one faces the problem that was noted at the outset of this chapter about how to identify such states with electrochemical brain processes. Apart from the challenge of locating so-called secondary properties in a noncontroversial understanding of what is physical, what about seeking to elucidate the concept of physical by appeal to spatial relations? If something is spatial, does it follow that it is physical? That question is easily answered. G. E. Moore, H. H. Price, and abundant philosophers since the Cambridge platonists to Howard Robinson and others today, contend that sensory images, after-images, dream-images are spatial and yet not in the physical space as described and demarcated by the physical sciences. Going back to Sprigge and Nagel, no exploration of your brain while you are dreaming is going to yield any description or explanation of what you are dreaming (except insofar as, based on the subject’s recollections, we are able to establish correlations). Will Dennett’s appeal to radioactivity, continental drift, photosynthesis, reproduction, nutrition, growth, and so on, be of use? Such appeals will not help us in understanding what is physical and what counts as physical causation without knowing what to think about the color, sound, smell, and so on of each, and knowing what to think about laws of nature, the nature of causation, and so on. Added to all the above, Sprigge’s point still stands. If we allow Dennett (what I think we should not allow) his favored understanding of a person’s physical body as clueless cells, one can know all about the body without knowing a person’s conscious states. Let us now turn to Scruton. Scruton is not in Dennett’s camp in his philosophy of the self, but he seems, like Dennett, to reject the kind of experiential awareness we have of our mental states. He therefore seems to reject the primacy of the mental in the way I am interested in defending it here. Scruton grants, as an epistemic point, that we seem to have privileged access to mental states, but he thinks it is an illusion that this is evidence that these states are (metaphysically) real states distinct from “our shared physical world.” He writes, “It is true that each person has privileged knowledge of his own present state of mind, and is immediately aware of a whole

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range of mental states that he can attribute to himself on no basis.”10 By “no basis” Scruton is referencing the apparent fact that we do not require some principle or criterion to identify our thoughts (at any time and over time) as one’s own. We seem to be able to grasp our continuity as a foundational, criterionless awareness of ourselves. Scruton continues: The illusion persists that therefore there is some special fact about those mental states, an inner glow, as it were, revealed only to him, which he is able to record because he is immediately present to his consciousness in a way that no physical object or event could be present . . . Hence, on this view, the “inner life” is essentially inner: unobservable to others and conducted in a world of its own.11

Scruton relies on Wittgenstein’s private language argument to argue that language usage is essentially public and admits of correction from others. If our language about our interior, unobservable lives were inaccessible we would not have any meaningful way to refer to it. Rather than acknowledge the primacy of the mental as an experiential reality, we need to recognize the primacy of our public forms of life. Scruton even instructs us that, at least in many cases, there is no mental, experiential feeling of “what it is like” to be in different states: “There is nothing that it’s like to believe that carbon dioxide is a gas, to wonder whether the moon is made of cheese, to admire Jane rather than Mary, to doubt Justin’s evidence, to understand Pascal’s theorem, or to read this sentence.”12 Contrary to Scruton, I think Sprigge’s point still stands. We could know all there is to know about a person’s body in what Scruton (like Dennett) recognizes as physical terms and yet have no idea about whether the person believes that carbon dioxide is a gas or believes the moon is made of cheese or admires Jane or have any idea of what the person thinks about Justin’s evidence, and so on. Like Dennett, Scruton caricatures the position he is criticizing by referring to it as the view that there is some “inner glow” to a person. (This creates the bizarre image of examining a brain and, when finding an inner glow, we reach the conclusion that, ah, that must be consciousness!) If Sprigge is right, Wittgenstein’s private language argument fails, for there are no entailment relations that allow us to observe and thus correct each other’s conscious referential states. For those who adopt a philosophy of language that requires corroboration and correction as essential for linguistic practices, consider prelinguistic babies or nonhuman animals that lack language. I suggest Sprigge is correct: Suppose one doubts whether fish are conscious. This could still occur with maximal knowledge of the fish as a physical organism. Nothing in the anatomy,

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Seeing the difficulties of eliminating or denying the primacy of the mental in the work of Dennett and Scruton, let us consider the prospects for how even the coherence of idealism gives us a reason to resist philosophers who argue we are no more than material bodies (understood in terms of contemporary materialism). In this section I also further address the mind–body problem with reference to causal interaction.

Idealism and the primacy of the mental As noted at the outset, in today’s philosophy of mind, the physical or material is taken to be primary. To bring out the problem with these views, consider the commonplace materialist objection against dualism (specifically against Descartes) that we cannot conceive of disembodiment. This is relevant in what is called the modal argument for dualism, according to which there is reason to believe persons (or the mind or the mental) can exist without the physical, and that, therefore, counts as reason to believe that persons are not identical with something physical. As I have explained and defended elsewhere,14 the modal argument relies on a principle called the indiscernibility of identicals: If A is B, then whatever is true of A is true of B. Here “A” and “B” need to be thought of as two referring terms or names or descriptions that strictly pick out some object. So, if the Morning Star is the Evening Star, then whatever is true of the Morning Star is true of the Evening Star. We have been appealing to such a principle at the outset of the chapter in considering the mental and the physical: if sensory states are the very same thing as brain states, then whatever is true of the relevant sensory states are true of the brain states. In the modal argument for dualism, it is argued that we have reason to believe that there are some things true of persons that are not true of their bodies, namely, it is possible for persons to exist without their bodies, and possible for their bodies to exist without there being a person. Consider Richard Sorabji’s account of disembodiment and the objections that this raises for him. He asks us to imagine becoming disembodied: Can we perhaps imagine this? Suppose that as you sit alone in your room, you notice your foot seems to be disappearing from view and that you cannot feel

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it either. Gradually the disappearance spreads up your legs and then the rest of your body, leaving your clothes a crumpled heap. Last to go is your voice, and then you could no longer have any direct effect on what was going on. But would you have ceased to exist, or would you not rather be surveying in helpless horror the scene that you had vacated?15

The thought experiment about disembodiment needs to be reconceived from the standpoint of the coherence of idealism. If, say, a Berkeleyan understanding of idealism were true, then right now you are (from a materialist point of view) not embodied in the sense that you have a mind-independent body. You are not in a world imagined by Dennett or Scruton but in a world fundamentally constituted by the mind and the mental. One way to bring out the problem in Sorabji’s thesis is to use a somewhat misleading analogy. Imagine the total virtual immersion world as depicted in the film The Matrix. Using this, let us rewrite Sorabji’s thought experiment. Imagine you sit alone in your room. You reach down to touch your foot and it appears as real as ever. You look at your legs and the rest of your body, your clothes. You speak to a friend on the phone but then it dawns on you. You remember volunteering for an experiment in which your “real body” would be in repose while you were given a virtual reality with as much vivid sensation and agency to act in a public world, interconnected with others.

You need not think of becoming “physically” disembodied in terms of losing your foot, leg, or any part of your body. All you need to do in terms of the thought experiment is to think that you are in an idealist possible world or to imagine that the actual world is idealist. Alternatively, you might imagine that you are gradually coming to live in an idealist world, coming to first feel your idealist (or, as with the matrix by analogy, virtual) foot and leg as your own. In this scenario, you might gradually make a transition in which you come to lose agency and sensation in your current body and gradually take on your virtual or idealist body. Consider now the objections that Sorabji raises to becoming disembodied, especially one that involves an appeal to what we seem to know about mindbody interaction: Even though this may seem imaginable, the disembodied scenario faces [much] criticism. It would, of course go against all the scientific evidence we have access to, since we see that impairments of the brain are correlated with impairments of experience and activity, so that it would go outside the available evidence

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to suppose that total destruction of the brain could go with the recovery of psychological experience and activity.16

In response, first note that those who accept dualism, or any account of persons that allows for personal identity after the destruction of the body, are fully aware that damage to the brain causes damage to the mind (thinking, feeling, agency, and so on). In fact, very few dualists are not interactionists, and so they are committed to holding that in fact there is causal interaction between brain and mind. If there were no interaction, their view would be false. So, damage to the body causing mental damage is precisely what these philosophers insist upon. Moreover, given that the brain sciences only establish correlation rather than identity, the observation of a person’s death is not the observing of a person’s ceasing to be. If Sprigge is correct (and I have every reason to think he is), no one observing a person’s physical anatomy is ipso facto observing a person’s consciousness, and so it is not the case that when one observes a corpse or even the annihilation of the corpse, one has ipso facto observed the annihilation of the person or her consciousness. It may be that persons are annihilated when their bodies are annihilated, but this is a hypothesis or inference rather than a matter of observation, whether this involves ordinary perception or scientific investigation. Two other matters are worthy of observing, the first involving parapsychology and the second involving idealism. I will not employ an argument from reported near-death experiences of ostensibly out-of-the-body experiences as evidence that persons exist after the dissolution of their bodies, because in most cases we do not have definitive evidence that the brain of the subject has completely ceased functioning. Still, I think the ostensible coherence of such reports from persons who appear to be able to describe confirmable facts from vantage points remote from their body, gives us some reason to believe in the metaphysical possibility of disembodiment.17 Second, although there is not space to engage in the natural theology necessary to bolster the following thesis, I propose there are good reasons to believe that all causal relations in the cosmos are best understood in terms of a theistic metaphysics. On this point, I follow John Foster in his masterful work The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God.18 Foster offers an intriguing argument to the effect that theism offers the best account of causation, whether this involves nomological laws or not, in which God is responsible for imposing the causal transitions in the cosmos as regularities. This might be thought of as a case of occasionalism,

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and it would not be unprecedented to link idealism with occasionalism, as we find in the work of Berkeley. Occasionalism, in the form promoted by Nicolas Malebranche (d. 1715) denies that any finite, created entities have any causal efficacy. His reasons for thinking this are complex, but one of them may be suggested succinctly. Malebranche maintained that causal efficacy (in which one event causes another) must involve strict necessity such that it is not possible for A to cause B unless (assuming all conditions remain similar) A necessarily causes B, or, putting it differently, A could not occur without B occurring (ceteris paribus). Only God, however, has the power to establish such necessary connections. There is no logical or metaphysical entailment between cause and effect in the natural world (it is not necessarily the case that my intending or trying to lift my hand will bring about my hand rising), but from the standpoint of God’s omnipotent will (as an omnipotent being God cannot will that Aand B not occur) causal relations in the natural world can have a divinely derived necessity. While this view has some appeal in terms of simplicity and comprehensiveness, it has drawbacks in terms of recognizing nonnecessitating or nondeterministic causation, the denial that created persons have causal efficacy, and the implication that (on some views) God must be meticulously involved in every ostensible causation (when you prick your finger on a rose, you do not feel pain from the rose and your central state nervous system, but because God causes the pain on the occasion of your pricking your finger). Some of these points are of evident importance theologically, especially the recognition of creaturely free will. However, Foster shows how theism may underwrite the regularities of the natural world in a comprehensive divine act of sustaining worlds in which such regularities are indeed fixed, without supposing God must embark in a meticulous role in fixing each occasion of causation. Foster also shows how this need not involve occasionalism insofar as God’s particular creative action would be required (metaphysically) in all causal relations. Rather, on Foster’s model, God may be seen as maintaining regularities in a comprehensive act of creation and the sustaining of a cosmos that give rise to laws of nature in which such laws may include probabilistic, nonnecessary causal relations. Such laws may even involve the production of new subjects (such as persons) from nonpersonal forces. Obviously, without being able to fully develop Foster’s line of reasoning here, appealing to his project may be wanting, but I invoke it to make the following point: should Foster be right, then the causal powers and relations that comprise our bodily life are not themselves entirely nonmental.

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The “mind-body problem,” alluded to at the outset of this chapter, takes its form in the current literature about how to relate mind to what is (metaphysically) alien to mind, a mind-independent object that we may access only indirectly. If, however, it turns out that the physical, material world is itself undergirded by mind, then we have a worldview that can match and even outperform those materialist worldviews that are purportedly advantageous for their simplicity. That is, materialists today tout the idea that their position has the advantage over dualism for they reduce the mind-body problem to a material body problem; they do not have to explain how two metaphysically distinct realms causally interact. Well, if idealism is right, then it understands the mind-body problem in light of a unified, comprehensive mind and mindful conception of reality. The mind-body relationship, from a theistic point of view, is a relationship within a comprehensive philosophy of mind, rather than a relationship between mind and that which is radically foreign to mind. Moreover, a theistic metaphysic is able to offer a response to the big cosmological question of why there is a contingent cosmos at all or this particular one. On this front, I refer readers to recent work on the cosmological argument.19

Idealism and the future of the mind-body problem Mainstream materialism today is in an uneasy position. Arguably, aggressive forms of materialism such as we find with Dennett cut against basic, common sense recognition of the self and the reality of our thinking, reasoning, and so on. More modest philosophies of mind that recognize the self and the reality of the mental (such as we find in the work of John Searle) face the tough question of why the self and the mental seem uniquely difficult to contain in the prevailing concept of the physical. So, Searle does more to declare that thinking is merely a biological process like photosynthesis or digestion without taking seriously just how profoundly different such phenomena are compared to the brain and thinking. Searle’s position is unable, in my view, to surmount the challenge we encounter in Sprigge’s argument that began this chapter.20 And, while there is not space here to trace all the problems facing materialist alternatives (e.g., claiming that the mental is only a representation of the physical, or claiming that the ostensible distinction between the mental and physical is merely epistemic), I hope to provide reasons for thinking that from the standpoint of theistic idealism, we have the opportunity to secure a more

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integrated understanding of persons. So, in the case of materialism, I suggest we do not yet have an account of persons that leaves ample room for the mental and physical to be integrated—because so far materialist accounts either deny the reality of self and experience or fail to recognize the extraordinary duality of the mental and physical. But what about dualism for nonidealists? I suggest that some nonidealist dualists wind up with a bifurcated understanding of embodiment, perhaps because of their resisting the more mind-oriented character of idealism. So, consider Richard Swinburne’s account of embodiment: We humans have bodies. A body is a physical object through which we can make a difference to the world and learn about the world; and ordinary humans are tied down to acting and acquiring information through their bodies. I can only make a difference to the world by doing something with some part of my body –by using my arm to move something, or my mouth to tell you something. And I can only learn about the world by stimuli landing on my sense organs (light rays landing on my eyes or sound waves landing on my ears, for example).21

While there is much that I admire in Swinburne’s work as a whole (indeed, I probably share as much as 80% or more of his philosophical reasoning and convictions), I believe this account leaves us with an excessive bifurcation or alienated view of the mind-body relationship. First, there is the language that we humans have bodies. A more integrated approach would better describe we humans as embodied (albeit, in our current state, contingently). To describe the body in terms of making a difference to the world and learning about the world seems to make the body a kind of vehicle or portal, rather than to describe embodiment in terms of being in the world. Describing us as “tied down” to our bodies suggests we might be like detachable objects that might easily float away. Like Swinburne, I believe in an afterlife in which person and body have different ends, but I think it is vital for philosophers of mind (especially Christian philosophers who, presumably, wish to affirm the goodness of embodied life) to understand embodiment as profoundly deep, involving desires, emotions, purposes, and so on, rather than highlight information gathering. To describe talking in terms of doing something with one’s mouth also seems a tad fractious and barren. More might be said critically here, but the point is perhaps already evident that there are ways we might more integrally understand embodiment. I suggest that an idealist framework will be more inviting in making such an integrated understanding of embodiment persuasive because of its more thorough affirmation of mind than we find in forms of dualism (such as the

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version of substance dualism developed by Richard Swinburne) in which mind is seen over against a mind-independent, impersonal material world.

The importance of idealism The philosophy of mind literature today rarely acknowledges how idealism might shift the arguments of the day. As I have argued in this chapter, even the bare coherence of idealism (its being a metaphysical possibility) can offer us a new way to assess arguments, such as the modal argument or thought experiments like those assessed by Sorabji. And theism can be a source of providing us with a more integrated account of being a person in the world.

Notes 1 T. L. S. Sprigge, The Importance of Subjectivity: Selected Essays in Metaphysics and Ethics, ed. Leemon McHenry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011), 9. Sprigge’s line of reasoning here was originally published at the same time that Thomas Nagel’s famous essay, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” appeared in the Philosophical Review 83 (1974): 435–450. 2 Ibid. 3 Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (New York: Little, Brown, 1991), 33. 4 Daniel C. Dennett, Kinds of Minds (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 24. 5 Ibid., 455. 6 Stan Klein, “A Defense of Experiential Realism: The Need to Take Phenomenological Reality on Its Own Terms in the Study of Mind,” Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 2.1 (2015): 43–44. 7 See Daniel C. Dennett, “The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity,” in Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives, ed. F. Kessel, P. Cole, and D. Johnson (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1992). 8 Daniel C. Dennett, Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005), 145. 9 S. Gallagher and D. Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 41. 10 Roger Scruton, The Soul of the World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 42. 11 Ibid.

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Ibid., 43. Sprigge, The Importance of Subjectivity, 9. See my Consciousness and the Mind of God (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). R. Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 305. Ibid. I refer readers to two good sources on the relevant evidence: Paul and Linda Badham’s Immortality or Extinction? (London: MacMillan, 1982); and Michael B. Sabom’s Recollections of Death (New York: Harper and Row, 1982). John Foster, The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). See, for example, Timothy O’Connor’s excellent work, Theism and Ultimate Explanation (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). See J. P. Moreland, Consciousness and the Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2008); and my Consciousness and the Mind of God. Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 6–7.

Bibliography Badham, Paul and Linda. Immortality or Extinction? London: Macmillan, 1982. Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991. Dennett, Daniel. Kinds of Minds. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Dennett, Daniel. “The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity.” In Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives, edited by F. Kessel, P. Cole, and D. Johnson. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1992. Dennett, Daniel. Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. Foster, John. The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Gallagher, S. and D. Zahavi. The Phenomenological Mind. London: Routledge, 2008. Klein, Stan. “The Feeling of Personal Ownership of One’s Mental States: A Conceptual Argument and Empirical Evidence for an Essential, but Underappreciated Mechanism of Mind.” In Proceedings of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. American Psychological Association, 2015. Moreland, J. P. Consciousness and the Existence of God. London: Routledge, 2008. Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 83 (1974). O’Connor, Timothy. Theism and Ultimate Explanation. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Sabom, Michael B. Recollections of Death. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

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Scruton, R. The Soul of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Sorabji, R. Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Sprigge, T. L. S. The Importance of Subjectivity: Essays in Metaphysics and Ethics. Edited by Leemon McHenry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011. Swinburne, Richard. Was Jesus God? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Taliaferro, Charles. Consciousness and the Mind of God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

6

Idealism and the Nature of God Adam Groza

In a poem written about his conversion, Blaise Pascal distinguished between the God of Scripture and the God of the philosophers: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God.1

The Apostle Paul sounds a similar warning in Colossians 2:8, saying, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the basic principles of this world, and not according to Christ.” Pascal and the Apostle Paul both recognize the subtle danger of sacrificing orthodoxy at the altar of philosophy and pursuing the question of God’s nature by reason alone and apart from special revelation. Berkeley himself is suspected of making just this sort of illicit exchange. Stephen Daniel interprets Berkeley’s God to be “the semantic matrix of reality, the place or space in which all things (including minds and ideas) have identities and are originally differentiated.”2 G. Dawes Hicks claims that Berkeley is either a pantheist or a panentheist.3 In the process of defending the Christian faith against deists such as John Toland and Anthony Collins, was Berkeley himself heterodox? The subject of God’s nature includes such topics as God’s existence, triunity, simplicity, omnipotence, transcendence, and immanence. God’s transcendence refers to his being separate and distinct from all that is created. The Bible refers to God’s transcendence in many places, such as in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. According to these (and other) passages, God exists prior to creation,

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is separate from creation, and sovereign over creation. The Apostles’ Creed speaks of God as “maker of heaven and earth.” It is safe to say that an orthodox Christian understanding of God’s nature requires affirming the transcendence of God. The claim of Daniel, Hicks, and others seems to be that idealism necessarily conflates any meaningful distinction between God and creation such that idealism entails pantheism, or at least, panentheism. If Berkeley’s God is merely a semantic matrix of reality, then He is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus Christ. He is, in fact, the sort of “God of the philosophers” of which Pascal, and the Apostle Paul, warned. In what follows, I will attempt to offer an explanation of Berkeleyan idealism that maintains an orthodox Christian understanding of the nature of God.

Pantheism Pantheism is the belief that God is identical with the material universe: For any material object X, X=God. Michael Levine says that Berkeley can be rightly construed as a pantheist because “there is one all-inclusive unity and that the unity is in some sense divine.”4 For Levine’s charge of pantheism to be true of Berkeley, Berkeley would have to conceive of the world such that everything is in some sense divine. Yet Berkeley holds that minds are distinct from ideas. Even if Berkeleyan ideas are thought to be (in some sense) divine, it still leaves the category of finite minds as separate and distinct from God, and therefore, not everything is in some sense divine because neither finite minds nor ideas are divine in any sense. The issue, according to Levine, is that saying “everything is part of God” is sufficient for pantheism.5 Therefore, he concludes, Berkeleyan idealism is pantheistic because all reality is dependent on the mind of God. But if Levine is correct, then all Christians would be pantheists, for no Christian should say that there exists something that does not (necessarily and ultimately) depend on God for its existence. It seems to me that any Christian would want to affirm the complete dependence of all creation on God. Even a Christian materialist—a person committed to orthodox Christianity and who also affirms the existence of mind-independent matter—would want to affirm that matter owes its continual existence to God. So, if Berkeley is open to the charge of pantheism, then so too are all Christians.

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Dependence of one thing upon another does not entail ontological oneness. For instance, if I am pushing the button on a water fountain to get a drink, the flowing water depends on my pushing the button, but I am not one with the flowing water. Berkeley clearly teaches that all reality is united and connected. For instance, in a poem published in Siris he writes: Causes connected with effects supply A golden chain, whose radiant links on high Fix’d to the sovereign throne from hence depend And reach e’en down to tar the nether end.6

He further writes: “upon mature reflection . . . all things together may be considered one universe,”7 and “the mind maketh all things to be one.”8 The world and its contents are unified in the sense that they are dependent on the mind of God. Berkeley writes: This perceiving, active, being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived, for the existence of an idea consists in its being perceived.9

Colin Turbayne calls this the Inherence Principle.10 Ideas exist in the mind of God and at times in other finite minds as well. Creation is the act of God sharing his ideas with finite minds. Berkeley also taught that ideas are distinct from minds, which Turbayne calls the Distinctive Principle. Put together, you have a God who shares his ideas and is distinct from His ideas. What Berkeley would affirm about God and other minds is represented in Acts 17:28: “‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”11 This verse is a favorite of Berkeley’s, as it was for Malebranche and Spinoza. Berkeley explains his interpretation of Acts 17:28: Nothing can be more evident to anyone that is capable of the least reflection on the existence of God, than a spirit who is intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that variety of ideas or sensations which continually affect us, on whom we have an absolute and entire dependence, in short, in whom we live, and move, and have our being.12

In Alciphron 4:12 and 4:14 we learn that through the language of nature we know that God is intimately present to our minds. Nature is the means by which God communicates his ideas to us. When our perceptual faculties are functioning

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properly we encounter a world of ideas which exist in God’s mind and are being communicated to finite minds. So to be “in Him” is to be surrounded by His ideas. All ideas are in God’s mind and many of these are also in finite minds. This raises the question of Berkeley’s theory of space. Berkeley says in the Principles that God is space: “Either . . . real space is God, or else . . . there is something besides God which is eternal, uncreated, infinite, indivisible, and immutable.”13 In Siris, he states that the doctrine of space as real, external, and absolute is a creation of modern philosophy and a “phantom of the mechanic and geometrical philosophers.”14 Spinoza, More, Hobbes, Locke, and Raphson interpret space in physical terms and then attribute divine characteristics to it: This is pantheism, yet such philosophers, except Spinoza, are not accused of being pantheists.15 Not surprisingly, Berkeley rejects the notion of absolute space because it is neither experienced by the senses nor proved by reason. As Gary Thrane notes: A closely connected reason for Berkeley’s worries (about space) was the activity that Newton seemed to ascribe to space. For Newton, space is active insofar as the dynamical properties of matter are a function of their relation to absolute space. Thus, in Newton’s system, absolute space has the features that Berkeley found objectionable in the new physics’ description of matter. The attack on matter was only half the battle; absolute space too had to be banished.16

Berkeley spends time in both Principles and Alciphron demonstrating that the notion of space does not come from vision. Since only minds and ideas exist, scientific constructs such as the concept of space have only instrumental value. According to Berkeley, space is merely a term used to describe the appearance of extension.17 It describes the relation between our visible and tactile sensations.18 Through experience, finite minds learn to coordinate between visible and tactile sensations and the experience and coordination of these separate ideas is called space. Given idealism and Berkeley’s notion of space, ideas must exist in God’s mind for there is nowhere else for them to exist. There is no “outside” God’s omnipresent mind. No absolute space in which something could exist. To suggest something exists outside of God is to say there is something he didn’t create, isn’t dependent on Him, or is outside His control. For Berkeley, this is tantamount to atheism. What then has space to do with pantheism? In On Real Space or Infinite Being (1697), Joseph Raphson distinguished two kinds of pantheism. In the first kind of pantheism, God is nothing more than the totality of physical objects. In

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the second kind, described by John Toland in Socinianism Truly Stated (1705), pantheism is the belief in “a certain universal substance, material as well as intelligent, that fashions all things that exist out of its own essence.”19 Now clearly on the first definition, Berkeley is not a pantheist. He does not simply equate God with the physical universe. In the second sense, I do not think he qualifies as a pantheist either. God is a universal substance, I suppose, because he is infinite and because he is Spirit or Mind, and that is a substance. However, Berkeley would not say God created out of his own essence or substance in the way affirmed by pantheism. On Berkeley’s view, ideas are not the substance of God. If the world of ideas exists in the mind of God, then what does it mean for God to create? Hylas challenges Philonous in the Third Dialogue to explain the Genesis story of creation, in which God creates the world in six days.20 In his article, “Berkeley and the Work of the Six Days,” Lynn Cates argues that Berkeley affirms an orthodox account of creation.21 Cates points out that in order to remain orthodox, Berkeley faces at least two doctrinal constraints. First, he must deny that creation is coeternal with God. Second, he must affirm divine immutability in creation.22 Only God is eternal, and in creating, God must not change. Christians affirm that God creates ex nihilo and that creation had a beginning in time. Cates distinguishes between creation and conservation or preservation.23 Creation has a beginning in time and God continues to preserve His creation. The Christian theist must deny that creation has always existed.24 Christians also affirm that, in the act of creating, God did not change. Cates notes that the only kind of change allowed is in regard to God’s relations.25 Creation results in God having new relational properties, but His essential properties remain unchanged. God does not change his mind or alter his substance in creating the world. Berkeley thus describes creation: If I had been present at creation, I should have seen things produced into being, that is become perceptible, in the order prescribed by [Moses] . . . When things are said to begin or end their existence, we do not mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All objects are eternally known by God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal existence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures, are, by a decree of God, perceptible to them, then they are said to begin a relative existence, with respect to created minds. Upon reading therefore the Mosaic account of the creation, I understand that the several parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits, endowed with proper faculties; so that, whoever such were present, they were in truth perceived by them.26

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Cates concludes that, on Berkeley’s account, creation is the “perceptibility of the archetypal ideas in God’s mind by finite spirits.”27 Before humans were created, angels might have perceived the earlier days of creation, so those days were perceived by finite spirits. Orthodox Christians are also committed to the position that God has always known everything there is to know. So in this sense, all Christians believe that everything is eternally apprehended by the mind of God. This does not commit Christians to the position that the universe is eternal, only that God has eternally known the universe, because He is timelessly eternal, and the physical universe is comprised of His ideas. Before the work of creation, finite spirits did not perceive divine ideas.28 Berkeley affirms the Mosaic account of creation. According to his construal, creation refers to God bringing about finite minds and communicating ideas directly to finite minds. His account denies that creation is eternal and affirms that God remains unchanged in his essence. Creation involves God having ideas and creating finite and temporal minds with whom to share some of those ideas. Since God is unchanging and omniscient, He has eternally apprehended his own ideas and known which ideas he would share with finite minds, once he chose to create finite minds. In this sense, creation has always existed in the mind of God. If this is a problem for Berkeley, it is a problem for all Christians who affirm that God has exhaustive foreknowledge. God has always known that I would exist and what kind of person I would be, yet this in no way implies I have always existed. Christians also believe in creatio ex nihilo, which is the doctrine that God didn’t create out of preexisting stuff. Berkeley affirms this understanding of creatio ex nihilo. Yet, if the sensible world is comprised of ideas that are not material, does God create out of His own essence? If He does, then pantheism seems unavoidable. Yet, in Berkeleyan idealism, God does not convey divine properties (omniscience, omnipotence, etc.) at creation. These properties can only apply to a divine mind, and minds are nothing like ideas. So Berkeleyan idealism does not imply that God created out of His essence—God did not use Himself as preexisting stuff to create. Berkeley therefore escapes the charge of pantheism. God’s ideas are dependent on Him but distinct from Him. Michael Levine has raised the point that objects and persons that depend on God necessarily for their existence are, ontologically speaking, aspects or modifications of that entity since they cannot exist apart from God’s activity.29

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However, why should it be the case that in order to be ontologically distinct from X that Y must exist independently from X? Berkeley believes that creation is dependent on God for its existence, but so does any orthodox Christian. Berkeleyan idealism raises the specific question, what is the relational status of God’s ideas to God’s mind? When it comes to finite minds and finite ideas, it seems that ideas are ontologically distinct from minds, since minds can gain (and lose) ideas and maintain continuity of identity. A person can have many ideas about childhood and lose them after a concussion, and the person remains the same despite losing some of his ideas. The fact that an idea depends necessarily for its existence upon a mind does not mean that it has no existence of its own. Ideas are ontologically distinct from minds but are dependent upon minds. So, Berkeleyan idealism does not entail pantheism.30 To say that God is a divine substance and eternally exists in three Persons means that the divine essence is eternally manifest in three Persons, namely, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each Person possesses essential divine attributes (omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, eternality, love, etc.). God’s thoughts are not identical with God, being impersonal and unable to possess divine attributes. To say X is God is to say X possesses essential divine attributes. Since it cannot be said that thoughts possess essential divine attributes, then it doesn’t make sense to say that God’s thoughts are identical with God. Berkeley writes of the ontological relation of minds and ideas as follows: This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived, for the existence of an idea consists in its being perceived.31

So ideas exist in the mind. God’s ideas exist in his mind and also, at times, in other (finite) minds. Yet, again, an idea being in God’s mind is consistent with its being ontologically distinct from God. A person exists in space but is ontologically distinct from space. I take Berkeley to mean that ideas are not a part of mind though they cannot exist apart from minds.32 Berkeley, relying on the Inherence Principle and the Distinction Principle, thus maintains an ontological distinction between minds and ideas such that God is not identical with His ideas. At this point, someone might interject: “Okay, so objects are comprised of ideas in the mind of God. What a strange notion, that this cup is God’s idea!” To my knowledge Berkeley does not deal with this specific issue, but I suspect the distinction he would make is between God’s mind and ideas, on the one hand,

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and finite minds and their ideas, on the other. God does have an idea of the cup, but I do not have in my mind God’s idea of the cup. Rather, I have access to my experience of the imperfect idea of the cup being communicated to my mind, which might be different from the idea of the cup being communicated to another finite mind. We call these slight differences of ideas perspective. Two finite people with different perspectives of the cup have different ideas of the cup, but neither is God’s perfect idea of the cup. However, what are present to my mind are not God’s ideas but my experiences of God’s ideas. So there are several kinds of things which exist: God, God’s ideas, finite minds, and the ideas in finite minds. Berkeley admits that humans are ignorant of the nature of spirit for want of ideas of them.33 Berkeley’s most complete discussion of mental substance occurs in the third dialogue of Three Dialogues where Hylas raises what has become known as the Parity Argument.34 Hylas actually makes three arguments (referred to by Phillip Cummins as the inconceivability argument, the nescience argument, and the substance argument), but each of them amounts to the charge that Philonous’s treatment of matter and spirit lacks parity: “You acknowledge you have, properly speaking, no idea of your own soul. You even affirm that spirits are beings altogether different from ideas. Consequently that no idea can be like a spirit. We have therefore no idea of any spirit.”35 Hylas thinks that Philonous is inconsistent in his reasoning. He argues that Philonous’s reason for rejecting matter also counts against mind (or spirit). Elsewhere Hylas offers another version of the parity argument: Notwithstanding all you have said, to me it seems that according to your own way of thinking, and in consequence of your own principles, it should follow that you are only a system of floating ideas, without any substance to support them. Words are not to be used without a meaning. And as there is no more meaning to spiritual substance than to material substance, the one is to be exploded as well as the other.36

Hylas refers to Philonous’s argument in the Second Dialogue in which Philonous demonstrates that the phrase “material substance” is “either meaningless or contradictory.”37 Thomas Reid agrees with Hylas, dismissing Berkeley’s rejection of material substance: Of all the opinions that have ever been advanced by philosophers, this of Bishop Berkeley, that there is no material world, seems the strangest, and the most apt to bring philosophy into ridicule with plain men who are guided by the dictates of nature and common sense.38

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What reasons does Berkeley have for affirming spiritual substance given his rejection of material substance? The essence of Berkeley’s response to the parity argument is that each spirit has itself and its activities as immediate objects of experience: I own I have properly no idea, either of God or any other spirit; for these being active, cannot be represented by things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I do nevertheless know, that I who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas exist. Farther, I know what I mean by the terms I and myself; and I know this immediately, or intuitively, though I do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a color, or a sound.39

Each mind has immediate self-knowledge and knows that it exists and what it is.40 Berkeley, like Descartes, takes knowledge of oneself to be incorrigible. Finite minds have immediate knowledge of ideas and of themselves and their mental activities. For Berkeley, self-awareness becomes the basis for knowledge of God: However, taking the word idea in a large sense, my soul may be said to furnish me with an idea, that is, an image or likeness of God, though indeed extremely inadequate. For all the notion I have of God is obtained by reflecting on my own soul heightening its powers and removing its imperfections. I have therefore, though not an inactive idea, yet in myself some sort of an active thinking image of the Deity.41

Knowledge of God starts with self-awareness. From the notion of self, one subtracts imperfection and arrives at “an active thinking image of the Deity.”42 Thus, as has often been noted, Berkeleyan idealism entails theism.

Panentheism Berkeley is able to avoid the charge of pantheism, but what about panentheism? The German word Allingottlehre was coined by Karl Krause (1781–1832) who wanted to distinguish pantheism from panentheism. The English word “panentheism” was not used until the mid-twentieth century.43 Modern theologians who embrace panentheism (in some form) include German theologians Wolfhart Pannenberg and Jürgen Moltmann.44 Panentheism comes from the Greek πᾶν (‘all’), ἐν (‘in’), and θεός (‘God’), transliterating as ‘all-in-God-ism’. It would be wrong to assume that, because the term is relatively new, the doctrine itself is also new.45 In fact, there are representative panentheists

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throughout the ages. Plotinus held that the world emanated from God and that “the infinite power of the One eternally overflows or emanates into what is other and less perfect than itself.”46 Furthermore, ideas and intellect are identical with the One.47 Creation as emanation is a common theme in panentheism and usually entails the denial of creatio ex nihilo since God creates out of his essence rather than out of nothing. Johannes Wenck, professor of theology at Heidelberg, charged Nicholas of Cusa with this very heresy of identifying God and creation.48 Nicholas does seem to identify God with the world: Absolute maximality is, absolutely, that which all things are: in all things it is the Absolute Beginning of things, the Absolute End of things, and the Absolute Being of things; in it all things are indistinctly, most simply, and without plurality, the Absolute Maximum, just as an infinite line in all figures.49

And then there is Jakob Böhme, a German Christian mystic who lived from 1575 to 1624. Böhme was influenced by kabala and thought of creation as God giving birth to the universe in such a way that creation is divine.50 From Plotinus to Böhme, panentheism has rivaled the orthodox conception of God and creation by postulating a God who (in some way) contains the universe. Put another way, panentheism is typically understood to be the view that creation is divine because it exists as a part or aspect of God. On this view, the ontological distinction between Creator and creation is erased, often in an attempt to bolster ecological concerns and increase the value of creation in itself.51 In understanding the world to be part of God, panentheists regard creation as inevitable because God is love and cannot love without something (or someone) to love.52 Thus creation is a necessary expression of His love. He cannot be God without creation since love is a necessary condition of being God and God cannot love without creation. In panentheism, both God and nature exist necessarily.

Two kinds of panentheism Thus understood, panentheism is often regarded as heretical. But I suggest that there are at least two versions of panentheism: Strong panentheism (SP) and weak panentheism (WP). SP regards creation as divine, existing as part of God. In contrast, what I am calling WP is the view that God freely creates out of nothing and creation exists in God’s mind. I hope to show that there is no good argument to suggest that Berkeley was an adherent of SP, but that he is in fact committed

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to WP.53 Without this distinction, when Berkeley is charged with panentheism, the label implies that he denies creatio ex nihilo or God’s absolute freedom in creation or that he blurs the creator/creation distinction, none of which is true of Berkeley.54 Jürgen Moltmann, for instance, acknowledges an ontological distinction between Creator and creation and affirms creatio ex nihilo.55 Yet, the way in which he affirms creatio ex nihilo is incompatible with the doctrine of omnipresence. Moltmann argues that in creation God completely removed himself from a space and then created the universe in that empty space.56 The notion of God removing himself is taken from the kabbalistic theory of zimsum, or self-limitation.57 Where God withdraws his presence is complete nothingness, or as Moltmann says, “God withdraws Himself from Himself to Himself.”58 God does not simply create by calling something into existence which otherwise did not exist. Rather, God humbly removes himself to make room for creation.59 Moltmann affirms creatio ex nihilo but in an unorthodox way, for not even God is present in the space of self-limitation. God then creates and reinfuses his presence, by the Spirit, into the space of creation which is in God.60 An idealist like Berkeley need not suppose that for God to create within Himself He must vacate a space. Rather, as I will explain below, Berkeley locates ideas in minds, both divine and (sometimes) finite minds. Moltmann’s panentheism is unorthodox because he limits (at least for a short time at the point of creation) divine presence.61 However, his version of panentheism agrees with most orthodox approaches because he affirms creatio ex nihilo and does not think creation is essentially divine. Panentheists such as Böhme affirm that God is nature but that he is also more than nature. Moltmann, however, does not believe God is identical (in any way) with nature.62 This further demonstrates the need for a more nuanced definition of panentheism. Recall that Berkeley believes that there are minds and ideas, and that, for physical objects, esse est percipi (“to be is to be perceived”). Perception is a mental activity, and what we perceive are ideas. Ideas exist in both finite minds and in the Divine Mind (God). So, the physical universe is comprised of ideas that exist in the mind of God (and may also exist in finite minds) but finite minds do not exist in God’s mind. This meets the basic definition of panentheism, since creation exists in God. But, specifically, it is a version of WP, and WP is consistent with Christian orthodoxy—creatio ex nihilo, divine freedom in creation, and a sufficient distinction between creator and creation.

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Berkeley’s brand of panentheism It seems that most (or, in any case, nonidealist) theists believe mental properties exist in the mind of God but that there are also material properties not in the mind of God. A mind-independent entity, such as Locke’s material substratum, is not observed, and so Berkeley says the notion of such an entity is vacuous since it is something, as Locke puts it, “we know not what.” Berkeley insists that physical objects are collections of properties that exist in the mind of God: “As sure therefore as the sensible world really exists so sure there is an infinite, omnipresent spirit who contains and supports it.”63 For a physical object to exist, it must ultimately be an idea in the mind of God. An idea may also be communicated to finite minds, but the finite mind could go out of existence (say, be annihilated) and the idea would still exist because God’s mind contains all ideas. As such, Berkeleyan idealism at least qualifies as a WP. But now, we may ask, does Berkeley’s view qualify as a form of SP? First, SP denies the ontological distinction between Creator and creation. Yet Berkeley states in Siris: “There is no resistance to the Deity: nor hath he any body; nor is the Supreme Being united to the world as the soul of an animal is to its body; which necessarily implieth defect, both as an instrument, and as a constant weight and impediment.”64 Siris is important in the discussion of pantheism and panentheism because it shows that Berkeley clearly rejects that creation is a kind of body for the divine substance. He argues that creation does not possess divine attributes nor is it identical with the world. In Siris, Berkeley argues that aether is the instrumental means of divine mediation in human affairs, but it is not a divine substance. Berkeley describes aether as “[t]he elementary fire or light which serves as an animal spirit to enliven and actuate the whole mass and all the members of the invisible world.”65 It exists in God’s mind but does not possess the essential attributes of divinity, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and so on. As he says, God is not united to the world. Creation is dependent on and yet distinct from God. Second, SP views the physical universe as the body of God.66 Yet Berkeley rejects any notion that God has a body. Furthermore, Berkeley refers to God as a divine mind and an eternal mind.67 Minds in Berkeleyan ontology are immaterial. Berkeley holds the orthodox Christian view that God is Spirit.68 Based upon Berkeley’s famous heterogeneity principle, an idea can be nothing but an idea. Since God is not

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an idea, he is a mind, and minds do not have perceptible qualities like bodies. Since the world is perceptible, and since only ideas are perceptible, then the world is comprised of ideas. God, being a mind, cannot be an idea based upon the heterogeneity principle. Otherwise put, since God is a mind, and since physical objects are ideas in the mind of God, then God is not identical with physical objects because God is not identical with His ideas. Thus, since Berkeley does not equate God’s ideas with God, he is neither a pantheist nor a strong panentheist. Ideas are perceptible for finite minds, but generally, Berkeley defines ideas as objects of thought: “Note that when I speak of tangible ideas, I take the word idea for any of the immediate objects of sense or understanding, in which [with] large signification it is commonly used by the moderns.”69 And again: “One idea or object of thought cannot produce or make alteration in another.”70 So Berkeley defines ideas as objects of thought. If the world is comprised of ideas, then the world is comprised of objects of thought. God communicates His objects of thought to human minds, and then we think his thoughts after Him. Does Berkeley’s treatment of mind and matter lack parity? I don’t think so. If the world is mind-independent, then God isn’t necessary for its continued existence. If we only know the idea of an object but not the object itself, then the world is largely unknown to us. This isn’t a response to the parity argument, but it is an explanation and justification for why Berkeley treats matter and mind differently. Berkeley finds the notion of mind-independent matter repugnant.71 He acknowledges that many things exist which cannot be known, but none of these involves an inconsistency.72 His ultimate reason for rejecting matter is not that he lacks an image of it, but rather that “attempts to define it as an unperceiving extended substance yield contradiction not intelligibility.”73 He finds no such inconsistency with mental substance, and given that one has immediate knowledge of oneself as a mind, his reasons do not seem to lack parity. Berkeley seems to have good reason to affirm an ontology of nothing but minds and ideas.74

Conclusion It appears, then, that Berkeley is committed to panentheism but not in a way that conflicts with an orthodox Christian understanding of God’s nature. A

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distinction between SP and WP is helpful to see that, while the world of ideas exists in the mind of God, WP maintains a distinction between creator and creation, creatio ex nihilo, and an orthodox conception of divine attributes. Furthermore, Hylas’s Parity Argument does not defeat Berkeley’s reasons for rejecting material substance while accepting mental substance.

Notes 1 Blaise Pascal, The Memorial, in Pensées and Other Writings, trans. Honor Levi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 178. 2 Stephen Daniel, “Berkeley’s Pantheistic Discourse,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 49 (2001): 180. 3 G. Dawes Hicks, Berkeley (London: Ernest Benn, 1932), 205–226. 4 Michael Levine, “Theocentric Mentalism,” Sophia 26 (1987): 31. 5 Ibid., 31–34. 6 Berkeley, Siris, in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessup (Milwood: Kraus, 1979), 5:226. 7 Ibid., 3:290. 8 Ibid., 294. 9 Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, in Works, 1:258. 10 Colin Turbayne, “The Berkeley, Plato, Aristotle Connection,” in Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 295–310. 11 Among those who have referred to Berkeley’s use of Acts 17:28, see Ian T. Ramey, “Berkeley and the Possibility of Empirical Metaphysics,” in New Studies in Berkeley’s Philosophy, ed. Warren E. Steinkraus (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966), 24; Michael Hooker, “Berkeley’s Argument from Design,” in Berkeley: Critical Interpretive Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 264; and Genevieve Brykman, Berkeley et le voile de mots (Paris: J. Vrin, 1993), 19. 12 Berkeley, Principles, in Works, 1:149. 13 Ibid., 147. 14 Berkeley, Siris, in Works, 3:253–254. 15 Daniel, “Berkeley’s Pantheistic Discourse,” 182. 16 Gary Thrane, “The Spaces of Berkeley’s World,” in Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 128.

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17 Berkeley, Principles, in Works 1:311–312, 320–324. 18 Ibid., 1:280–281. 19 John Toland, quoted by A. A. Luce, Berkeley and Malebranche: A Study in the Origin of Berkeley’s Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1934), 49. 20 Orthodoxy does not require the six days of creation to be literal twenty-fourhour periods. Orthodoxy requires that God is the creator of all things in heaven and on earth, that He needs nothing to do his work of creation, and that he creates freely. 21 Lynn Cates, “Berkeley and the Work of the Six Days,” Faith and Philosophy 14 (1997): 82–86. Cates states of Berkeley’s orthodoxy: “I can say [Berkeley] was orthodox. Indeed, his denominational preference—Church of Ireland, in the Anglo Catholic Tradition—indicates his wish to be orthodox. Add to this his concern in writing the Principles of Human Knowledge, namely to combat atheism, and his care in answering metaphysical questions about the Mosaic account of creation in such a way as to attempt to preserve the traditional account, and Berkeley comes off looking extremely orthodox indeed” (p. 86). 22 Ibid., 82. 23 Ibid. 24 God has eternally, yet timelessly, apprehended his own ideas: In this sense, they have eternally existed. However, there is a distinction to be made between God’s ideas of creation and the act by which He shares some of those ideas with finite and temporal minds. I take this to be a Berkeleyan account of creation. 25 Cates, “Berkeley and the Work of the Six Days,” 82. 26 Berkeley, Three Dialogues, in Works 1:472. 27 Ibid., 1:63. 28 Ibid. 29 Levine, Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity, 43. “Whereas unity explained in terms of substance, ontology, etc. is too abstract a basis for religious belief, an account in terms of a unifying principle is not.” He goes on to say that “the pantheist does not conceptually segregate unity and divinity” (p. 49), and therefore, a world of ideas that are dependent on God constitutes pantheism. 30 Ibid., 35. 31 Berkeley, Principles, in Works 1:258. 32 Colin Turbayne says something similar in his commentary on this section of Principles and section 89. 33 Berkeley, Principles, in Works 1:334–338. 34 Phillip Cummins, “Hylas’ Parity Argument,” in Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Colin Turbayne (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 283–294. Thomas Reid also raised a version of the parity argument against

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Adam Groza Berkeley, Hume, and other philosophers. My purpose here is not to interact with Reid’s version, since it has less to do with Berkeley’s treatment of mind and matter and more to do with Reid’s views on perception. For more on this topic, see God and the Ethics of Belief, ed. Andrew Dole and Andrew Chignell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 164–166. Berkeley, Three Dialogues, in Works 1:447. Ibid., 233. Cummins, “Hylas’s Parity Argument,” 285. Thomas Reid, Inquiry and Essays, ed. Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), 175. Berkeley, Three Dialogues, in Works 1:447. Cummins, “Hylas’s Parity Argument,” 287. Berkeley, Three Dialogues, in Works 1:447–448. This is not the only way Berkeley arrives at knowledge of God. He argues in Alciphron that the visible world is a divine language by which we infer a Divine Mind. Charles Hartshorne, preface to The Divine Relativity: The Social Conception of God (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1948). Moltmann accepts the term “panentheism,” but Pannenberg does not, although his theology fits the definition. Norman Geisler wrongly claims that the view originated with Alfred North Whitehead. Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2003), 568. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers, 40. Plotinus, Enneads, 5.1. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers, 55. Jasper Hopkins makes this point in A Concise Introduction to the Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa (np.: Arthur J Banning, 1986), 12–15. Nicholas of Cusa, On Learned Ignorance, 2.3.111. Jakob Böhme, Jakob Böhme: Essential Reading, trans. Robin Waterfield (New York: HarperCollins, 1989), 64. This is certainly the case with Moltmann as evidenced in his ecological liberation theology. Since God is Triune, he can express his love without creating because the three persons of the Trinity love each other. There are panentheists who think God could have refrained from creating, such as Philip Clayton. Defining panentheism is difficult. G. Dawes Hicks does not define panentheism and the literature on the subject varies widely. What I have done in this section is to compile positions that would generally be accepted by panentheists. In so doing,

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Moltmann is representative of the position. Where there is disagreement, I indicate it in a footnote. By “absolute freedom in creation” I mean that God was free to communicate whatever ideas he desired to communicate with whomever he desired to communicate at the time of his choosing. Philip Clayton, “Panentheism Today: A Constructive Systematic Evaluation,” in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in the Scientific World, ed. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 252–254. Moltmann is an example of a panentheist theologian who affirms creatio ex nihilo. Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 86. Ibid., 86–87. Others in Christian theology have viewed creation as self-limitation, including Nicholas of Cusa, Friedrich Oeinger, A. von Oettingen, and Emil Brunner. These and others saw the zimsum doctrine of self-limitation to be the first step in divine humiliation, which culminated in the cross. Moltmann was primarily concerned to advocate a nonhierarchical creation that would support a theology of liberation. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 89. Moltmann sees this as a category shift from fatherly to motherly metaphors. Ibid., 206. Moltmann makes a distinction between beginning creation, continuous creation, and consummation of creation. There are other aspects of Moltmann’s theology which I find troubling, but his theology of creation consistently intends to defend creatio ex nihilo, although in the process, it sacrifices omnipresence. Cooper, Panentheism, 237–258. Berkeley, Three Dialogues, in Works 1:424. Berkeley, Siris, in Works 3:263. Ibid., 263–264. Grace M. Jantzen, God’s Body God’s World (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1984). Berkeley, Siris, in Works, 3:266 (in sections 173 and 352). John 4:24. Berkeley, New Theory of Vision, in Works 1:149. Berkeley, Principles, in Works 1:335. Ibid., 448–449. Philonous says of matter “it is repugnant that there should be a notion of it.” Ibid. Cummins, “Hylas’s Parity Argument,” 290. Included with minds would be mental contents such as concepts and notions.

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Bibliography Berkeley, George. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessup. Milwood: Kraus, 1979. Böhme, Jakob. Jakob Böhme: Essential Reading. Translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Cates, Lynn. “Berkeley and the Work of the Six Days.” Faith and Philosophy 14 (1997): 82–86. Clayton, Philip. “Panentheism Today: A Constructive Systematic Evaluation.” In In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in the Scientific World, edited by Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacock, 252–254. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. Cooper, John. Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006. Cummins, Phillip. “Hylas’ Parity Argument.” In Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne, 283–294. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982. Geisler, Norman L. Systematic Theology. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2003. Hartshorne, Charles. “Preface.” In The Divine Relativity: The Social Conception of God. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1948. Hooker, Michael. “Berkeley’s Argument from Design.” In Berkeley: Critical Interpretive Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne, 264–282. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982. Jantzen, Grace. God’s Body God’s World. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1984. Levine, Michael. Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity. New York: Routledge, 2014. Luce, A. A. Berkeley and Malebranche, A Study in the Origin of Berkeley’s Thought. Oxford: Clarendon, 1934. Moltmann, Jürgen. God in Creation. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993. Nicholas of Cusa. On Learned Ignorance. New York: Hyperion, 1979. Pascal, Blaise. The Memorial, in Pensées and Other Writings. Translated by Honor Levi. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Plotinus. The Enneads: Abridged Edition. Edited by John Dillon and translated by Stephen McKenna. New York: Penguin, 1991. Ramsay, I. T. “Berkeley and the Possibility of Empirical Metaphysics.” In New Studies in Berkeley’s Philosophy, edited by Warren E. Steinkraus, 13–30. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966. Reid, Thomas. Inquiry and Essays. Edited by Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.

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Thrane, Gary. “The Spaces of Berkeley’s World.” In Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne, 127–147. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982. Turbayne, Colin. “The Berkeley, Plato, Aristotle Connection.” In Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, edited by Colin Turbayne, 295–310. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982.

7

God, Idealism, and Time: A Berkeleyan Approach to Old Questions Benjamin H. Arbour

In a properly Christian ontology, everything begins and ends with God. We know from Scripture that God is Alpha and Omega. A properly Christian theological method, then, will be thoroughly shaped by this maxim, such that it makes sense for someone to seek and understand God, as well as possible, before attempting to understand creation. This would certainly be in keeping with the philosophical method espoused by George Berkeley: [W]hat deserves the first place in our studies, is the consideration of God, and our duty; which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual, if by what I have said I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the presence of God: and having shewn the falseness or vanity of those barren speculations, which make the chief employment of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practice is the highest perfections of human nature.1

Unsurprisingly, this necessitates more than a priori reasoning, since much of what can be known about God comes from a posteriori reasoning—which would be any study of creation, and divine revelation given thereto, which I take to include Scripture. Nonetheless, I propose that God is more foundational to reality than is our conception of God, and this should help us realize that philosophical and theological methodologies concerning Godself (theology proper) are more important than philosophical and theological methodologies about theological method. In fact, God should play a significant role in determining what a properly Christian theological method might be. Taking it as an obvious axiom of Christian thought that “God first” is a good way of reasoning when doing metaphysics (or epistemology, for that matter), it seems

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clear that when thinking theologically, one should study God first, before turning one’s attention to the study of creation. Accordingly, in what follows, I will offer some reflections on the divine nature, then on idealism, and also on the nature of time. I will then discuss how those findings can be recombined with adequate interrelations so as to avoid logical contradiction or metaphysical impossibility. In so doing, and throughout, I offer some suggestions about how Christians should think about God’s relationship to time, all on the assumption of Berkeleyan idealism.

God God is a maximally great being.2 God lacks no perfection, and God is maximally perfect. An Anselmian understanding of God entails that God enjoys omni-styled attributes when it comes to power, knowledge, and love. There is much debate these days as to whether these attributes are coherent, and debate about whether or not Anselmianism is the proper way to understand the divine nature, and even whether Anselmianism entails that God is OmniGod.3 Additionally, it is becoming increasingly popular for contemporary philosophers of religion to abandon some tenets of classical theism. In keeping with historic Christian orthodoxy, for the purposes of this chapter, I assume that God enjoys: necessary existence, omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, immateriality, aseity, simplicity, sovereignty. On the basis of these, we will examine God’s relation to time. It isn’t enough to predicate great making properties to God; they must be predicated properly. Piety leads us to recognize that God, as a maximally great being, enjoys these attributes perfectly, and therefore necessarily. The modality with which God enjoys perfections is itself perfect.4 Therefore, we are right to conclude that whatever great-making properties God has, they are essential to the divine nature, such that God is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, and so on. This modality has implications for how one understands divine power, given different understandings of God’s relation to time, which we will discuss in due course.

Idealism and God The standard understanding of metaphysical idealism requires “the view that sensible objects (such as tables and chairs, apples and pears) and their sensible

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properties (such as shape and color) are nothing more than mind-dependent entities, that is, things that depend for their existence on the existence of some mind or minds.”5 We can infer that, on idealism, the only things that exist are minds and ideas, where ideas are properly understood to be the objects of some mind or minds. Moreover, ideas should not be understood to exist independently of some mind or minds, even if ideas are not numerically identical to, or constitutive of, some mind or minds. But, it is fair to say that idealism entails ontological monism wherein the only substances that make up reality are minds. Our present concern is what idealism offers when considering God’s relation to time. As a Christian philosopher, I won’t hesitate to appeal to theological motivations for idealism, nor will I be embarrassed about pointing out how idealism serves to preserve theological desiderata. Specifically, I want to show how commitments of historic Christian orthodoxy motivate idealism, and vice versa.6 Among these commitments, which were affirmed at the Council of Nicaea, are creatio ex nihilo and divine conservationism. Allow me to tease out a few implications of these doctrines. When Berkeley suggested that idealism entails immaterial substance monism as the proper global ontology, he was assuming Locke’s analysis of the nature of matter. Locke’s appeal to an “unknown substratum” as a mind-independent imperceptible substrate of qualities fails to account for what matter is, and it won’t work to follow Locke by admitting that substance in general is “I know not what.” Christians believe that all nondivine things depend on God for their existence; they also understand God to be immaterial. Moreover, as Berkeley argued, such an unperceivable material substratum is both unintelligible (literally inconceivable, by Locke’s own admission) and unnecessary (since God is sufficient for supporting perceivable qualities).7 Berkeley thus concluded that material substance, in Locke’s sense of the term, does not exist. But what about alternative understandings of the nature of matter? Descartes understood matter to be whatever it is that admits of extension. Locke, having already accepted Cartesian substance dualism, offered his alternative understanding of matter and, together with it, a distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Whereas Descartes identified one particular primary quality (extension) as that which allows perceivers to identify something as “material” in nature, Locke conceived of matter more abstractly. Locke’s argument for primary and secondary qualities stems from his own empiricism, which was the common way of reasoning, accepted by many in his day, and was being defended by many

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other early modern epistemologists. But, Locke’s abstract conception of matter entails that extension is somehow more fundamental to ontology than matter itself, and he suggested that matter in this way stands underneath extension.8 Nevertheless, Berkeley reasoned that Lockean distinctions between primary and secondary qualities fail to prevent the motivation for metaphysical idealism. Therefore, whether one understands matter along Cartesian lines as that which gives rise to extension, or along Lockean lines, it seems that idealism still follows, even if Berkeleyan immaterialism isn’t entailed by metaphysical idealism. Christians affirm that all nondivine things exist in some dependent relation to God. So, even if matter exists, it must be that any and all matter is still, in some sense, ultimately dependent upon God, and therefore Mind, for its existence. In regards to debates concerning idealism, whether or not immaterialism is reasonable depends on how one analyzes and understands the nature of matter. In order to ensure that we discuss things properly, and in continuity with others who’ve discussed these issues, we need to get clear on the nature of matter before we can insist that any such substance does or does not exist. Accordingly, given the historical context in which Berkeley was writing, we have no reason to think that any discussion that follows is germane to Berkeleyan idealism if we assume alternative conceptions of matter that differ significantly from either Descartes’s or Locke’s. All this to show that, on Christianity, the universe (and everything contained therein) owes its existence to God, who is properly understood to be an immaterial, rational agent. Christians confess this when they recite the relevant portion of the Nicene Creed, which asserts that God is “Creator of all things, seen and unseen.” Therefore, if one takes matter to be mind-independent substance, it follows that matter does not exist, for everything in the universe owes its existence to an immaterial, yet rational, God (Mind). If matter is understood as that which gives rise to extension, the idealist can concede the existence of matter while simultaneously denying that any such extension is ultimately mindindependent, for the existence of such matter would be understood as contingent, and therefore dependent upon God (the divine Mind) for its existence.

Time In contemporary analytic philosophy there are a number of current debates about the nature of time.9 Now philosophers debate whether time is dynamic

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or static, whether times are discrete such that temporal moments are neither extended nor infinitely divisible, or if time is continuous, or even whether time is merely a relation that holds between things (either events or objects, for example). Unfortunately, space constraints preclude a detailed investigation of all of these issues. Our present discussion will focus on two questions that are most fundamental to the metaphysical nature of time. Regarding ontology, the first question concerns when things exist. The current positions are: eternalism, growing-blockism, and presentism.10 According to eternalism, all times are equally real in the sense that the past, the present, and the future genuinely exist. On this view, time is spread out in an ordered series, and what we understand to be past times and future times are just as real—just as much existent—as what we understand to be the present moment.11 Defenders of growing-blockism assert that the past and the present genuinely exist, but the future has yet to come into real existence. On this view, the times that actually exist are expanding as the edge of extant times (the present) continues to move forward as the future becomes present.12 Presentism maintains that the present is the only time that is; all other times either were real, or will be real, but are actually nonexistent since they have either passed out of existence in the case of history, or are not yet real in the case of the future.13 The other question that dominates contemporary work in philosophy of time concerns the nature of tense. Is there something real, or privileged, about the present? This question can be answered in one of two ways. Either a tensed theory of time (known as the A-theory) is right, or the tenseless theory of time (known as the B-theory) is right. Let’s take these in reverse order. B-theorists argue that tense reduces to a series of earlier-than, later-than, and/or simultaneous-to relations, which means that temporal indexicals such as “now” or “today” don’t pick out anything ontologically distinct. A-theorists argue that there is such a thing as a real, genuine, objective present moment that serves to divide the past from the future. Furthermore, A-theorists do not merely affirm presentism. Rather, A-theorists say that what we understand by indexicals such as “now” or “today” does not reduce to objective, nonindexical measurements such as “3:30pm,” or “Tuesday, February 3, 2015.” Presentists argue that which moment is present is something that changes from moment to moment, and that our understanding of the “now” corresponds to that objective present. Presentism fits most naturally with an A-theory, since A/B hybrid theories such as the “moving spotlight” have fallen out of favor. B-theoretic approaches tend to favor eternalism, since growing-blockism still preserves something objective about

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the moment that divides that which ontologically exists (the past and present) from what is ontologically not yet extant (the future).

God and time Philosophical theologians defend one of three positions concerning God’s relationship to time: divine timelessness, unqualified divine temporality (UDT), or accidental divine temporality (ADT). The first view—divine timelessness—is the traditional view defended by the vast majority of philosophical theologians throughout the history of Christianity, and those who defend this view maintain that God does not experience time as a succession of events, nor is there any such thing as a past or a future for God.14 Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, philosophers of religion thought it a settled issue that if God exists, God is eternally timeless; few trained philosophers would have suggested otherwise. However, in the contemporary scene, divine timelessness is increasingly falling out of favor, and appears to be the minority view. Defenders of UDT assert that time is coeternal with God, and that God always has been, now is, and always will be, and these statements should be taken literally such that God is in time, always has been in time, is now in time, and always will be in time.15 Defenders of ADT maintain that prior to the creation of time, God did not have any relation to time at all, so God “was” timeless, where the predicate “was” ought not be taken literally such that it implies that God had some temporal history or succession of moments prior to the creation of time. Rather, God “was” timeless, but at the creation of time, God became temporal.16 Although this basic taxonomy oversimplifies things by overlooking further subdistinctions within these three positions, the suggestions that I offer for how idealism can reshape the way Christians conceive of God’s relationship to time don’t hinge on those issues.

God, idealism, and time God’s relationship to time and related subjects such as the dilemma of human freedom and divine foreknowledge have perplexed scholars for as long as philosophers have been thinking about religion. The twentieth-century revival of interest in metaphysics and philosophy of religion has produced no shortage

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of literature on these issues. However, to date, no one that I am aware of has examined how idealism might contribute to our understanding of these issues. I will examine how idealism aids Christians in defending classical conceptions of the divine nature. On idealism, time itself depends on God for its continued existence, so many of the problems that arise from ontologies other than idealism can be avoided by defending idealism and the ontology it requires. Accordingly, because Nicene orthodoxy implies that God is the only being who exists a se, idealism helps to solve many philosophical puzzles that plague other systems. To begin, we must identify whether time is a product of creation. Christians who reject platonism can appeal to the Nicene Creed to motivate a case against time as uncreated since, on nonplatonistic readings, time falls into the category of unseen things created by God.17 Accordingly, times, and time itself, are products of creation. This view accords with the views of contemporary science, which takes time to be interrelated with space such that the concept of time and the concept of space cannot be fully separated, except when speaking heuristically. Furthermore, the idea that time could exist apart from creation suggests the existence of an actual infinite series, which is controversial.18 Finally, metaphysicians of time have noted that the ontological nature of time is itself contingent.19 For example, if eternalism is true, it is contingently true. If something is contingently true, it must be contingent upon something, otherwise we’d have to posit the existence of brute contingents, which are not plausible.20 Therefore, if the nature of time is contingent, time itself must be created.21 However, platonists who reject such a move might appeal to taking times as abstractions while simultaneously suggesting that times are the sorts of thing that exist necessarily. This merits two replies. First, Berkeley’s argument against abstract ideas has impacted the way that many conceive of abstract objects.22 On idealism, especially Christian idealism, there are no such things as abstract objects per se, since what platonists conceive of as abstractions turn out to be metaphysically dependent upon the divine Mind, and therefore not genuinely abstract in the typical platonist sense. Suggesting otherwise constitutes a denial of Nicene orthodoxy (namely, that God is the creator of all things, seen and unseen).23 Second, we need to consider what it would mean for time(s) to be abstract ideas. If times exist as mind-independent abstract objects in the way that would be necessary to avoid the problems raised by Nicene orthodoxy, then time itself (or times themselves) would have to be eternal. But, for reasons that should be clear, this won’t due; we cannot take time as something that is eternal, regardless of whether we take eternal to mean timeless (which would constitute

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an obvious contradiction) or as everlasting (which would lead to vicious circularity). And no one who defends the abstractionist view of time affirms divine temporality, since, to these folks (presumably), it isn’t a real affirmation that God is in time unless we aren’t just speaking abstractly, but rather about what is actual and concrete. So, now that we have seen that orthodoxy requires that we take time(s) to be concrete, how is the Christian to understand God’s relationship to time?24 First, we must understand time to be a creation. Taking this view seriously requires that time itself has a beginning—time isn’t eternal (regardless of whether someone understands the word “eternal” as denoting timelessness, or everlastingness).25 Consider concepts that necessitate the existence of time: duration, succession, the passing of time, etc. None of these temporal concepts could be metaphysically predicated of anything (including God) without time having first been created by God. Apart from the existence of time (which must have been created by God), there would be no meaningful way to attribute any of these temporal concepts to anything, for such attributions would be false without the existence of time. Therefore, no temporal property could be predicated of God prior to creation, since Nicene orthodoxy requires that time is created. So, since all temporal properties are therefore contingent, and contingent upon God, it seems that proper affirmations of divine transcendence would lead the orthodox away from predicating temporality to God. Also, on Berkeleyan idealism, time cannot be considered material substance because orthodoxy requires that we understand all of creation to be ontologically dependent upon God (and therefore Mind). It may be an obvious entailment of creation ex nihilo that nothing exists that is truly mindindependent, but it has important consequences. Metaphysicians who deny discreteness about times cannot posit understandings of time that require any kind of temporal extension, because identity over time, and temporal extension required by identity over time, mean that either endurantism or perdurantism is true.26 But both these views imply multiple moments of time, or, if you prefer, multiple time slices of a possible world, and therefore discreteness about times, which is what the nondiscreteness view is trying to avoid in the first place. Additionally, discrete moments cannot be explained away by appealing to notions of extension that arise from four-dimensional understandings of the space-time continuum, for any such notion of extension implies that time be spread out, and therefore material in nature (at least, so long as we wish to

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preserve continuity with early modern conceptions of matter).27 Recall that temporal duration of an entity, which is what endurantism requires, only makes sense if we can think about moments at which one state of affairs obtains, and other moments at which alternative states of affairs obtain.28 So temporal continuity, for metaphysicians who deny discreteness about times, is a problem, since temporal continuity cannot be understood in terms of temporal extension, even though this is required by both eternalism and growing-blockism. Rather, it turns out that if one assumes Nicene orthodoxy and the nondiscreteness of times, eternalism and growing-blockism are both metaphysically impossible, because any understanding of identity over time requires us to conceive of time in discrete moments, which has thus far been denied, because such would make any and every temporal being that experiences any kind of duration count as being extended, and therefore material in nature.29 One might retort that spatial extension is relevantly different than temporal extension. However, such a view undermines the continuity between space and time that advocates of four-dimensionalism favor. Furthermore, such a response begs the question against the idea of extension being predicated of time. If extension means something like “spread out,” why would it be false to predicate extension, or spread-outness, to temporal entities that experience duration across multiple moments? It’s worth saying, in anticipation of an objection, that, presumably, whatever the differences between spatial extension and temporal extension might be, the “spread-outness” is the same. If not, it seems that we need to use different language when discussing extension in time versus extension in space. That change in language itself would constitute an important step forward in debates about the nature and ontology of time. Alternatively, metaphysicians could suggest alternative conceptions of matter that don’t require either mind-independence or extension, but such conceptions require a rejection of received opinions about matter, which would necessarily lead us away from historical continuity with discussions concerning substance ontology, particularly as concerns Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley.30 Of course, one could argue for discreteness about time(s) while simultaneously defending the idea that times are abstractions rather than concrete particulars, and still preserve traditional understandings of divine timelessness that are compatible with nonpresentist conceptions of time.31 But, as we’ve already noted, Berkeleyan idealism isn’t compatible with the existence of genuinely abstract objects. Berkeley himself would have defended an Ersatz view to preserve the

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desiderata of abstractionism without the incompatibility problems. Charles McCracken notes, For Berkeley the creation of the visible world is identical with God’s freely making a certain decree: the decree, that is, that certain sense qualities will be perceived in a certain order and connection by such spirits as do exist, or that those qualities would be perceived in that arrangement, were any spirits in existence.32

Having demonstrated that eternalism and growing-blockism face insurmountable problems concerning extension, even when coupled with discreteness about times, we need to examine presentism, which is the only remaining option.33 In fact, some might argue that presentism is metaphysically required to understand properly what Berkeley’s views entail for continuity over time, particularly as concerns identity over time, and all the more so given his denial that continuous creation entails continuous recreation (all of which seems to require a tensed, dynamic view of time). Assuming all of this is true, I will now argue that God is timeless such that God was never a temporal being prior to creation, nor did God become a temporal being at creation. Before making those points, we should note how surprising it is that nondiscreteness about time(s), together with orthodox Christianity, entails presentism. Berkeleyans will be especially interested since they tend to defend divine timelessness. To date, no defenders of divine timelessness have advocated for strict presentism as the proper ontology of time. But this subject is even more exciting because the vast majority of Christians who defend presentism also argue against divine timelessness in favor of either ADT or UDT. But, given that time is created, and that God transcends creation, we need an argument for why presentism is incompatible with divine timelessness. With regard to God’s relationship to time, UDT is eliminated by the fact that time must itself be created (which is true just as much on presentism as it would be on alternative ontologies of time). One cannot rationally maintain that time is ontologically dependent upon God for its very existence, yet God has everlastingly been in time. If time is created, then time began to exist. Since it is not true that God began to exist, it must be the case that God, in a timeless sense, existed logically prior to the existence of time, and therefore UDT is false. Therefore, ADT is the only option available for anyone who thinks that God experiences temporal succession. However, because this view entails ontological kenosis for God, Christians who defend presentism ought to prefer divine timelessness over

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ADT, since the former avoids God’s moving from existing timelessly to existing temporally and is therefore subject to the limits imposed upon God by whatever the existence of time metaphysically requires.34 This is all the more true in light of the essentiality of divine great-making properties (i.e., necessity concerning the modality with which God enjoys divine perfections). In fact, ADT and divine temporal kenosis entail that it is presently inaccurate to ascribe to God Thomistic understandings of divine omnipotence. But before this can be made clear, we need to turn our attention to other issues in the metaphysics of time.

On the impossibility of multiple, independent, distinct a-series Upon initial reflection, most people think it’s possible for more than one independent, distinct time series to exist. One could conceptualize an argument for the possibility of multiple independent time series without endorsing fullscale modal concretism a la David Lewis, who affirmed the actual existence of all possible worlds.35 However, whether or not the existence of multiple, independent, distinct time series is possible hinges quite a bit on how one conceives of time. Suppose that the A-theory of time is correct—that time is linear and dynamic, that we approach the future and move away from the past, and that the present is objectively real. If all this is true, Cantorian set-theoretic arguments show why what might initially seem to be multiple, independent, distinct time series, are actually indexed to one meta-time line, as I argue below. If the A-theory is true, then time must be linear, such that we can conceive of two independent, distinct time lines as parallel strings, which preserves both the distinctness and independence of each time series. Imagining just two independent, distinct time series, let us call the first alpha and the second beta. Suppose also that, although time is linear in both alpha and beta, time moves more quickly in beta than it does in alpha, at a rate twice as fast. This thought experiment seems to support the possibility of multiple, independent, distinct time series. However, upon further reflection, it’s clear that as long as time moves at constant rates in both alpha and beta, there would always be a way to index time(s) in alpha to time(s) in beta. For instance, since time in beta moves twice as quickly as it does in alpha, we could deduce that time t1 in alpha would correspond to t2 in beta, and t14 in beta would correspond to t7 in alpha.

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It does not matter that an observer from the perspective of alpha would have no epistemic access to time in beta, or whether that observer has any epistemic access to know whether or not beta exists at all—even whether beta possibly exists. That a time-indexed observer lacks the ability to index a moment in that time series to another independent, distinct time series does not imply that Cantorian set-theoretic arguments are irrelevant, for the worry is ontological, not epistemic. Nonetheless, conceiving of time as two parallel strings actually lends credence to the idea that each time series is indexed to one, single meta-temporal framework more foundational than either alpha or beta, which precludes the idea that these time series are genuinely independent. But what if time doesn’t flow at a mathematically constant rate? Maybe time moves at one rate for a period of 10 moments and then at some other rate for 5 moments before changing back for the next 10 moments, and so on. Although we have no reason to think that time actually functions this way, so long as some pattern exists, Cantorian set-theoretic arguments militate just as much against alternative conceptions of the flow of time. Additionally, if time doesn’t reflect some sort of pattern, it is hard to see how time is linear, or how we could refer to a time series as temporal with any univocal or analogical sense of the word “time.” Such alternative conceptions of time wouldn’t constitute a genuine A-series. Similar responses can be offered to anyone tempted to suggest that one of the time series might not reflect linear conceptions of time. It’s difficult to fathom what time is at all if it isn’t linear, so it’s hopeless to try to understand how nonlinear temporal sequences would function, and it goes without saying that nonlinear conceptions of time are outside the bounds of the A-theory. But what about objections that multiple, independent, distinct time series are possible simply in virtue of the incommensurability of the respective time series? Incommensurability objections don’t get very far because it’s impossible to know how to understand time qua time in either a univocal or analogical sense across multiple time series if the two time series are altogether incommensurable. What about the possibility of two independent, distinct time series where one is an A-series and one is a B-series? Because there is no objective present on B-theoretic understandings of time, temporal indexing arguments don’t show that these distinct time series are indexed to one another by a more foundational temporal function. However, the possibility of such a scenario will not save proponents of UDT or ADT from the dilemma because even if it is possible for

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multiple time series to exist completely independently and distinct from one another, no interaction could ever transpire across these time lines. I explain why below.

On the impossibility of interaction between distinct time series Brian Leftow argues that interaction across multiple time series would eliminate the distinctness of each time series on multiple grounds. As soon as some moment in alpha can be indexed to some moment in beta, the distinctness of the time series is eliminated.36 Furthermore, by conceiving of two time series as strings, any interaction across these distinct time series means that the strings cross at some point. Because the strings aren’t parallel they aren’t completely independent, nor are they genuinely distinct. Leftow also argues against the possibility of any interaction between multiple independent, distinct time series on the basis of other issues in metaphysics. If the fixity of the past precludes backward causation, any interaction between multiple independent, distinct time series is impossible. Consider the possibility of alpha and beta where some event at t3 in alpha interacts with some event at t2 in beta. Now suppose that this event at t2 in beta causes some series of events that concludes at t5 in beta. Now suppose that at t5 in beta, some event interacts with some event at t1 in alpha. We now see that the possibility of interaction between multiple independent, distinct time series makes backward causation possible. Any arguments against this example will invariably eliminate the independence and/or the distinctness of each time series by positing some temporal relation between the two time series (which would be necessary to prevent indirect backward causation by interaction between multiple time series).37

Omnipotence and accidental impossibility Modal accommodations are standard for contemporary understandings of omnipotence. Accordingly, God has the ability to actualize any state of affairs that doesn’t entail a contradiction, and is therefore logically possible. So understood, we see that divine power isn’t impugned by God’s inability to draw square-circles or create stones so heavy that not even God can lift them; on this account, such

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objects are not metaphysically possible. Moreover, these modal accommodations preserve the absoluteness of the law of noncontradiction. If nuances in modal metaphysics are allowed to shape our understanding of divine power, we ought to allow time to help demarcate the boundaries of metaphysical possibility, an idea which goes back at least as far as Aquinas: God is omnipotent at t = df. God can bring about all states of affairs that can be produced at t.38

Aquinas defends the principle of the fixity of the past. Once something fades into the past, it is too late for anyone—even God—to change or alter it. Later medieval philosophical theologians gave the name “accidental necessity” to the special category of contingent events that now necessarily make up the past. God’s inability to change what is now accidentally necessary doesn’t pose a legitimate threat to omnipotence any more than God’s inability to draw squarecircles does. So, time is allowed a seat at the table in discussions concerning the extent of divine power. But suppose that the principle of the fixity of the past guarantees that what is presently future becomes accidentally necessary when that moment of the future arrives in the present. This won’t do enough heavy lifting to allow defenders of divine temporality to modally reformulate definitions of omnipotence and thereby preserve classical understandings of divine power. It initially seems that, assuming ADT, God is able to actualize anything that is logically possible, or at least God used to be able to do so. However, this doesn’t save ADT from the charge of ontological kenosis owing to a change in divine power. Prior to being in time, God was timelessly able to actualize any logically possible state of affairs, but, after entering into time at the moment of creation, because it’s impossible for any interaction to take place across multiple, independent time series, God isn’t able to actualize a potentially infinite number of possible worlds that were otherwise available to God prior to creation. So, it isn’t that these worlds aren’t logically possible simpliciter, which would be necessary to preserve Thomistic conceptions of divine power. This is all the more true when one remembers that time itself is a creation, and when one presumes divine freedom with respect to whether or not to create. If divine temporality is true, and presentism is also true, then God lacks the ability to actualize states of affairs that the vast majority of philosophers of time agree are logically possible. If, according to UDT, God has everlastingly been in time, then God never had the ability to actualize any of a potentially infinite

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number of B-theoretic states of affairs because of both the impossibility of multiple independent, distinct time series and the impossibility of any interaction across independent, distinct time series. Furthermore, even if interaction concerns could be overcome while still making sense of one time series being actualized from within another time series, the second time series wouldn’t be genuinely independent of the time series from which the other was actualized. Here one might object as follows. If all this is logically impossible, then defenders of UDT will object that, given Thomistic omnipotence, divine power remains unscathed. To date, all advocates of divine temporality affirm the A-theory of time. Given the impossibility of something within one time series acting on another independent, distinct time series, it seems that the existence of anything other than the actual A-series is metaphysically impossible. Defenders of UDT understand that God exists everlastingly within an A-series; Thomistic definitions of omnipotence aren’t impugned by God’s inability to actualize what is logically impossible. So it seems that divine omnipotence remains intact, right? Wrong. Such a response can only be offered by those willing to argue that the A-theory of time is necessarily true. The problems I raise don’t point to logical impossibility, but rather metaphysical impossibility, and then only if God is in time. But those who defend the A-theory of time readily acknowledge that a B-series of time isn’t logically impossible, in that B-theories are internally consistent. They don’t violate the law of noncontradiction. Furthermore, taking time as a creation of discrete points, when the points are ordered properly, is perfectly consistent with the idea that time serves a functional role in preventing contradictions, given that God is responsible for the ordering of times of creation.39 Hence, there are possible worlds in which the B-theory is true. But, if God exists within an A-series, then God lacks the ability to actualize certain possible worlds. Furthermore, this inability on the part of God does not owe to the logical impossibility of those worlds considered independently of God’s relation to time. Therefore, by presupposing divine temporality in an attempt to preserve omnipotence, those who argue for the impossibility of those worlds on the grounds that God is in time are putting the cart before the horse by begging the question against divine timelessness. Advocates of ADT such as William Lane Craig maintain that God entered time at the moment of creation. This view allows for appeals to the principle of the fixity of the past to assist in navigating around the dilemma. However, because God was at one logical moment able to actualize any of several

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possible states of affairs, but upon actualizing one of them God lost the ability to actualize other possible states of affairs otherwise heretofore understood to be logically possible, we encounter two problems. First, recall that change requires the passing of time. As I’ve argued, ADT entails that the divine nature changed from God’s “being able” at one timeless moment to God’s “not being able” at another moment (the temporal moment corresponding to the first moment of creation). But since time is necessary to account for change, it seems that ADT actually rules out the very possibility of God’s ever having existed timelessly. Consider the change in the divine nature, which requires time: at one (timeless) moment, God had a set of properties that accurately describe God, and at some other (logically later) moment40 God had a different set of properties.41 Defenders of UDT can respond differently if they are willing to defend the necessity of presentism. Given essential everlastingness, it has everlastingly been the case that God lacked the ability to actualize a B-series, which might serve to rule out B-theoretic approaches to time as logically possible. But this comes at a cost. Defenders of divine temporality are committed to the idea that God necessarily exists inside of something that God created. Let that sink in. Divine simplicity might help clarify this, given a properly Nicene understanding of creation. However, no appeals to simplicity can come from defenders of divine temporality because divine temporality is incompatible with divine simplicity. If God experiences temporal succession, time has everlastingly limited God such that whichever time series is actual prevents God from being able to actualize possible worlds which are otherwise acknowledged to be logically possible.42 Furthermore, for defenders of ADT, divine freedom concerning God’s decision whether or not to create anything at all entails that the creation of time is contingent. Since we’ve heretofore acknowledged the internal consistency of B-theoretic approaches together with divine timelessness, we have reason to prefer divine timelessness over ADT, lest we be forced to give up omnipotence. Some might not see any problems here, arguing that we need to reconfigure our doctrine of God around our metaphysics of time. But it seems best to understand time in light of the divine nature rather than the other way around, given the foundational, metaphysical priority of God that Nicene orthodoxy requires. But, for anyone not persuaded, it follows from the combination of UDT and presentism that the B-theory is necessarily false, and that the A-theory of time is necessarily true. For Christian philosophers who are unwilling to deny the logical possibility of worlds in which a B-series obtains, these philosophers

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should deny UDT since that view requires an admission that there are logically possible states of affairs that God lacks the ability to actualize. Advocates of ADT are able to avoid this dilemma since the timeless life God enjoyed logically prior to the existence of time afforded God the option of selecting which of a variety of metaphysically possible time series to actualize. On this account, time is one of the things that would be selected depending on which possible world God actualizes. On ADT, because God now exists as a temporal agent within an A-series, it is now metaphysically impossible for God to actualize a B-series, but not because such is impossible simpliciter (broadly logically impossible), but rather because it is now accidentally metaphysically impossible, given God’s decision to become a temporal agent. And, even if it is God’s decision to bring it about that God is no longer able to do what was previously logically possible, advocates of ADT mistakenly think they preserve omnipotence because this still requires the admission that God is not able to bring about certain logically possible states of affairs. Defenders of ADT should anticipate this Anselmian anti-kenosis response: on ADT, God is not essentially omnipotent, but rather used to be contingently omnipotent. Once God is in time, God will be limited by time in a way that God wasn’t at moments logically prior to the existence of time. Presently, God has the ability to actualize multiple different states of affairs, but in the future God will be unable to actualize states of affairs that are currently logically possible. So, attempts by defenders of ADT to navigate around these problems by appealing to accidental necessity won’t preserve robust accounts of omnipotence. In fact, most perfect being theologians deny that this sort of ontological kenosis is even possible, especially on classical approaches such as Augustianism, Anselmianism, or Thomism.43 Affirmations of divine temporality have untoward implications for one’s doctrine of God. Some might willingly embrace these implications and pay the price of giving up essential omnipotence, but this seems much too expensive— astronomically overpriced, really—when compared against the price of merely admitting the logical possibility of worlds in which a B-series obtains.

Conclusion Having summarized a few of the key issues in debates about the metaphysics of time, we have seen that it is impossible for any interaction to take place between multiple independent, distinct time series. One’s understanding of time shapes

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how one should understand other things related to the divine nature, such as God’s relationship to time. Christianity requires a certain understanding about created things, and even the nature of what it means to create. From the perspective of Christian idealism, time must be a creation—a claim that is clarified by Nicene orthodoxy. Once this much has been conceded, I hope it’s clear that the best answers to questions concerning God’s relationship to time involve divine timelessness. I will leave it to others to ascertain whether divine timelessness requires an A-theoretic or a B-theoretic understanding of the actual world (or whether one of these approaches is precluded by divine timelessness). If it is in fact the case that God’s relationship to time (or lack thereof) precludes either an A-theoretic approach, or a B-theoretic approach, it’s unclear how we should reason. If something is precluded by God’s being eternally timeless, idealism would lead one to reason that it is logically impossible, whereas adherents of divine temporality will similarly maintain that anything precluded by God’s being in time is logically impossible. But this brings us to an obvious impasse and therefore isn’t constructive. So, the principle of charity demands that we consider both A-theoretic and B-theoretic approaches to issues in ontology and metaphysics and that each approach corresponds to logically possible worlds (or at least worlds that were possible at some time(s) in the past). Given that charitable approach, it seems best to defend divine timelessness, so as to maximize the range of what we take to be logically possible states of affairs that God has the power to actualize, and thereby preserve Thomistic understandings of divine omnipotence. If one does not wish to interpret things along such charitable and ecumenical lines of thought, the question remains as to how we should shrink the pool of possible world candidates, which brings us right back to the impasse. Alternatively, advocates of divine temporality might choose to deny classical conceptions of divine omnipotence, whereupon God is thought to have the power to actualize all logical possibilities. Some advocates of divine temporality make this very concession.44 Perhaps some alternative understanding of divine power is correct, but this, too, for obvious reasons, isn’t attractive to Anselmians. In conclusion, it seems that divine temporality faces a series of difficult challenges in the light of Nicene orthodoxy. No doubt divine temporality will continue to be considered a legitimate position for Christian philosophers interested in the debate over God’s relationship to time. However, those defending these views need to register their disagreement with contemporary metaphysicians, of whom the overwhelming majority think that the nature of

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time is contingent, and especially Christian philosophers who think that this contingency is grounded, at least partly, in God. Alternatively, they can give up classical definitions of divine omnipotence, and together with it, the Anselmian conception of God as a metaphysically perfect being.

Notes 1 George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), Section 156. 2 By asserting that God is a maximally great being, it is not my intention to weigh in on discussions concerning whether or not God is a being, or whether or not God is beyond being. For anyone who has Thomistic concerns about God as a being, please feel free to qualify the statement analogically. 3 So, Yujin Nagasawa, “A New Defence of Anselmian Theism,” The Philosophical Quarterly 58.233 (2008): 577–596. Some open theists make use of similarly styled arguments in suggesting that a less than completely omniscient God still qualifies as a maximally great being (Cf. William Hasker, God, Time and Knowledge [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989]; Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism, 2nd ed. [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993]; and Peter van Inwagen “What Does an Omniscient Being Know?” Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 1 [2008]: 216–230). 4 Cf. Thomas V. Morris, “Properties, Modalities, and God,” Philosophical Review 93 (1984): 35–55, reprinted in Anselmian Explorations (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 76–97. 5 Samuel C. Rickless, Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1. 6 I presuppose doctrines that are disputed by nearly everyone who rejects historic Christian orthodoxy, but I understand this piece of analytic theology to be uniquely oriented toward Christianity. Due to space constraints, and because it would go well beyond the purview of this essay, I won’t attempt to motivate these metaphysical commitments which, it seems to me, all orthodox Christians should champion. 7 Berkeley presents these two arguments, respectively, in Principles, Sections 16–18 and 53. 8 Whether a relation of “standing under” is metaphysical dependence, whether ontological, causal, or some other kind of dependence, is unclear. But it’s clear that, for Locke, there is likely some sort of axiology of simplicity at work here. Thanks to Jim Spiegel for helping me think about this, and helping me realize how much epistemology as first philosophy among the early moderns drives metaphysics.

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9 Not many realize that the stage for these debates was set, and much of the terminology was defined, by the British idealist J. M. E. McTaggart. See J. M. E. McTaggart, “The Unreality of Time,” Mind 17 (1908): 456–473. 10 If growing-blockism is logically possible, then it seems that shrinking-blockism is also logically possible. Thanks to Mike Rea for bringing this to my attention. Since I’m not aware of anyone who defends shrinking-blockism, I won’t discuss it any further. 11 For defenses of this position, see Michael C. Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 246–280; and Theodore Sider, FourDimensionalism (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 2001). 12 Ever since Trenton Merricks published a rather devastating critique of growingblockism, fewer and fewer philosophers are defending it. Cf. Merricks, “Goodbye Growing Block,” Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2 (2006): 103–110. The most prominent recent defense of the view is Michael Tooley, Time, Tense & Causation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 13 For defenses of presentism, see Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Thomas M. Crisp, “Presentism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 211–245; and Ulrich Meyer, The Nature of Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 14 Cf. Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); and Paul Helm, Eternal God, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 15 Cf. Nicholas Wolterstorff, “God Everlasting,” in God and the Good, ed. Clifton J. Orlebeke and Lewis B. Smedes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), reprinted in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, ed. Steven M. Cahn and David Shatz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 181–203 and Dean Zimmerman, “God Inside Time and before Creation,” in God and Time, ed. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 75–94. 16 Cf. William Lane Craig, God, Time and Eternity (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2001). 17 Christian platonists who assert that their models of platonism preserve divine aseity are likely compatible with idealism, which means that the abstract forms aren’t abstract at all, since they are ontologically dependent upon God for their existence, a la either theistic conceptualism or some other causal dependence. Additionally, since some platonists have independent reasons for understanding time(s) as created, we needn’t explore that further, since platonism only poses a problem for our present concerns if it allows for an understanding of time as uncreated. 18 Cf. William Lane Craig, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1979), 65–102.

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19 The contingency of not just time but the nature of time is defended by adherents of numerous models of time. See, for example, Crisp, “Presentism,” and Rea, “Four-Dimensionalism.” To be fair, some dissent from this view, including Dean Zimmerman, who mentioned that time as we experience it must be the way that it is, but there are alternative understandings of what time is (such as that which gives rise to the law of non-contradiction) that might allow different ontologies of time to serve the same functional role (personal communication, October 24, 2015, during the Randomness and Foreknowledge Conference, Dallas, Texas). For an account of presentism’s necessity, see Meyer, The Nature of Time, 94–99. 20 While it may be appropriate to posit brute facts that are necessary, the existence of brute contingents calls for an answer to the question, “Contingent upon what?” Replies that involve appeals to bruteness are not intellectually satisfying, since they fail to overcome objections concerning what serves as the ground of either the bruteness or the contingency of the facts being discussed. Thanks to Josh Rasmussen for helping me think more clearly about this. 21 For additional arguments supporting the idea that time must be created, see Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen, “Time Without Creation?” Faith and Philosophy 31.4 (2014): 401–411. 22 Cf. Rickless, Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism. 23 Sadly, idealism was not one of the positions considered in Paul M. Gould (ed.), Beyond the Control of God? (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014). 24 For additional arguments concerning God’s relation to time given the concreteness of time, see Pruss and Rasmussen, “Time Without Creation?,” 407. 25 Interestingly, some Christian B-theorists (e.g., Helm) hold that time (taken as a whole) is eternal, in the sense that past, present, and future are all equally real and genuinely extant, while they also maintain that time itself has a beginning! I take it that there is an important equivocation in the different senses in which temporal issues seem to be at work on this view. 26 Endurantists maintain that a being is wholly present at any given moment of time at which that being exists, whereas perdurantists understand identity over time as the combination of the sum of all time slices at which a being exists. Endurantists argue that perdurantists cannot rationally maintain that a being is wholly present at any moment of time at which that being exists. 27 For a defense of a perdurantist account of identify over time, see Hud Hudson, The Metaphysics of Hyperspace (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2–16. 28 The possible simultaneous existence of one moment of time corresponding to different states of affairs constitutes an obvious violation of the law of

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Benjamin H. Arbour noncontradiction. Alternatively, consider the possible existence of multiple moments at which the exact same state of affairs obtains in both moments, such that there is no change across the moments. In order for these moments to count as genuinely different moments, one must presuppose differences between the states of affairs that obtain respective to each moment since the moments are different times. And that is a good reason to think that God is timeless. Since God is not material in nature, it cannot be the case that God is temporally spread out, as on a perdurantist account of identity over time. Rather, if divine temporality is true, then something interesting follows: any metaphysics of time that entails that temporal beings are material in nature is not the proper metaphysics of time. Which is another way of saying that presentism is metaphysically necessary, at least if God is in time. It’s worth noting that Berkeley understood himself to be responding to both Locke and Descartes in their terms, using words as understood and defined by them. Discussions about idealism that fail to take this into account either interpret Berkeley uncharitably by failing to take his historical context into account, or they demonstrate a lack of concern for historical continuity when discussing the metaphysics of substance, or both. For an in-depth discussion of this view, and how it might be applied in philosophical theology—especially with respect to the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge—see T. Ryan Byerly, The Mechanics of Divine Foreknowledge and Providence (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014). Charles McCracken, “What Does Berkeley’s God See in the Quad?” Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 61 (1979): 280–292, 288. Presentism seems to require discreteness about time, given the common view that the present is the instant which divides the past from the future. If times are infinitely divisible, there doesn’t seem to be a way to pick out exactly what constitutes the present. Additionally, presentists needn’t worry about extension since only one moment exists on presentism, namely, the present. Accordingly, there is no such thing as temporal extension on presentism. Kenosis is the view that God has the ability to divest Himself of certain greatmaking attributes and retain divinity. In this case, the great-making attribute would be divine timelessness, and a particular conception of omnipotence that it allows (which I discuss further later in the essay). Cf. D. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 1986). Much of this material comes from Brian Leftow’s lectures on “Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom,” at the Analytic Theology Master Class, Munich, Germany, February 16–19, 2012. This argument can be run against the possibility of interaction between any two independent, distinct time series, regardless of whether they are both A-series,

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both B-series, or one of each. However, B-theorists might not be bothered since some of them might affirm the possibility of backward causation. Brian Leftow, “Omnipotence,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, ed. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 167–198, 170. Cf. also Brian Leftow, “God’s Omnipotence,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 187–195. Cf. T. Ryan Byerly, The Mechanics of Divine Foreknowledge and Providence, where an argument is made that such a view also preserves theological intuitions such as that of exhaustive definite foreknowledge of future contingents, together with significantly free individuals. Whether this later moment is understood to be logically later or chronologically later isn’t germane to the issue of metaphysical time, which is all that is necessary to secure my point. In the case of ADT, this logically later moment can also be understood to be a temporal moment, whereas, prior to the creation of time, the moment understood to be logically prior to the other moment cannot be taken to be a temporal moment. It’s also worth noting that attempts to make sense of this that involve simultaneous causation commit two errors. First, there is a category mistake stemming from univocal understandings of causation in timeless domains as obtained in tensed domains. Second, if simultaneous causation that brings about change is possible, then the law of noncontradiction is false, at least on the view of time espoused by presentists. Taking this into consideration is all the more reason to prefer divine timelessness over ADT. This worry still bothers me in spite of protestations that Christians needn’t be concerned about God being a prisoner of time. Cf. R. T. Mullins, “Doing Hard Time,” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014): 10.12978/ jat.2014–1.17–51–51122018a. Thomism counts as a kind of perfect being theology because, as I’m considering it here, the kind of perfect being theology I’m concerned with can accommodate Thomistic worries that God is beyond being, or that univocal language of perfections/attributes might not apply to God, etc. Cf. Thomas J. Oord, The Uncontrolling Love of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, forthcoming).

Bibliography Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Edited by Jonathan Dancy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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Berkeley, George. “Letter to Johnson,” November 25, 1729. In George Berkeley. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, edited by Jonathan Dancy, 172–175. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Bourne, Craig. A Future for Presentism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Byerly, T. Ryan. The Mechanics of Divine Foreknowledge and Providence: A TimeOrdering Account. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Craig, William Lane. God, Time and Eternity. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2001. Craig, William Lane. The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1979. Crisp, Thomas M. “Presentism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, edited by Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, 211–245. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Gould, Paul M., ed. Beyond the Control of God? Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Hasker, William. God, Time and Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989. Helm, Paul. Eternal God, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Hudson, Hud. The Metaphysics of Hyperspace. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Kvanvig, Jonathan L. and Hugh J. McCann. “Divine Conservation and the Persistence of the World.” In Divine and Human Action, edited by Thomas V. Morris. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988. Leftow, Brian. “God’s Omnipotence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, edited by Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, 187–195. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Leftow, Brian. “Omnipotence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, 167–198. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Leftow, Brian. Time and Eternity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. McCracken, Charles. “What Does Berkeley’s God See in the Quad?” Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 61 (1979): 280–292. McTaggert, J. M. E. “The Unreality of Time.” Mind 17 (1908): 456–473. Merricks, Trenton. “Goodbye Growing Block.” Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2 (2006): 103–110. Meyer, Ulrich. The Nature of Time. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Morris, Thomas V. “Properties, Modalities, and God.” Philosophical Review 93 (1984): 35–55, reprinted in Anselmian Explorations: Essays in Philosophical Theology, 76–97. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987. Mullins, R. T. “Doing Hard Time: Is God the Prisoner of the Oldest Dimension?” Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014): 160–185. 10.12978/ jat.2014–1.17–51–51122018a. Nagasawa, Yujin. “A New Defence of Anselmian Theism.” The Philosophical Quarterly 58.233 (2008): 577–596.

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Oord, Thomas J. Essential Kenosis. Downers Grove, IL; Intervarsity Press Academic, forthcoming. Pruss, Alexander and Joshua Rasmussen. “Time Without Creation?” Faith and Philosophy 31.4 (2014): 401–411. Rea, Michael C. “Four-Dimensionalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, edited by Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman, 246–280. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Rickless, Samuel C. Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Sider, Theodore. Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 2001. Spiegel, James. “The Theological Orthodoxy of Berkeley’s Immaterialism.” Faith and Philosophy 13.2 (1996): 216–235. Swinburne, Richard. The Coherence of Theism, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Tooley, Michael. Time, Tense & Causation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. van Inwagen, Peter. “God and Other Uncreated Things.” In Metaphysics and God, edited by Kevin Timpe, 3–20. New York: Routledge, 2009. van Inwagen, Peter. “What Does An Omniscient Being Know?” Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 1 (2008): 216–230. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “God Everlasting.” In God and the Good: Essays in Honor of Henry Stob, edited by Clifton J. Orlebeke and Lewis B. Smedes. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975; reprinted in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, edited by Steven M. Cahn and David Shatz, 181–203. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Zimmerman, Dean W. “God Inside Time and before Creation.” In God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, edited Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff, 75–94. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

8

Idealism and Science Douglas K. Blount

Perhaps the most pressing question for contemporary philosophers of science concerns the status of scientific theories. Such theories typically explain observable phenomena in terms of unobservable entities. In short, they explain what we see in terms of what we can’t see. Whether such entities actually exist, however, is a matter of significant controversy. Those who contend that such theoretical entities exist—or, at least, that the physical sciences properly aim at developing theories whose unobservable entities exist—are scientific realists.1 They view such sciences as properly aimed at developing theories that constitute literally true descriptions of the natural world. Those who deny that the physical sciences properly aim at developing such theories are, not surprisingly, scientific nonrealists. This chapter seeks first to explicate the nonrealist understanding of science arising from Berkeleyan idealism and second to provide some nonidealist considerations in favor of that understanding.

Berkeley’s phenomenalist philosophy of science The physical sciences, as the label implies, are concerned with the physical world—that is, with the world of physical objects such as cherries, rocks, and trees. For that reason, the idealist’s view of such sciences follows from her view of such objects. Eschewing material substance, she construes physical objects not as mind-independent chunks of matter but rather as mind-dependent sets of ideas. In George Berkeley’s Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Philonous says of a cherry, “Take away the sensations of softness, moisture, redness, tartness, and you take away the cherry.” Thus, a cherry “is nothing but a congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses:

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which ideas are united into one thing . . . by the mind; because they are observed to attend each other.”2 And as things go for cherries, so they go for physical objects more generally. Such objects are “congeries of sensible impressions,” collections of ideas united together because one perceives them as such. Ideas, moreover, are passive; they have no causal power. “A little attention,” Berkeley states, “will discover to us that the very being of an idea implies passiveness and inertness in it, insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do any thing, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of any thing.”3 On the idealist’s view, therefore, only spirits—or minds—have causal powers; they alone are active; they alone do things. Berkeley recognizes that this puts the lie to ordinary language according to which, say, fire heats and water cools. “We must no longer say upon these principles,” he writes, “that fire heats, or water cools, but that a spirit heats, and so forth.”4 But since speaking in such a way might seem ridiculous, he famously advises his readers “to think with the learned, and speak with the vulgar.”5 Embracing Copernicus’s heliocentric view of the universe does not require one to cease speaking of the sun as rising and setting—even though, on that view, it does neither of these things; so also embracing idealism does not require one to cease speaking of fire as heating and water as cooling, such talk being a convenient shorthand.6 So, then, physical objects do not causally interact with one another. When one billiard ball strikes another, it does not cause its fellow to move. Even so, a pattern is clearly evident. For such a ball’s coming into contact with its fellow typically signifies the latter’s moving. So also when a dry piece of paper comes in close proximity to a lit matchstick, its doing so signifies an imminent change in it, for it too will soon ignite. The regularity of such patterns, however, points not to causal powers inhering in billiard balls and matchsticks but rather to a beneficent Creator who excites within his creatures ideas in an orderly and predictable manner. Such regularity makes the physical sciences possible, for it allows us to make “sure and well-grounded predictions, concerning the ideas we shall be affected with, pursuant to a great train of actions, and be enabled to pass a right judgment of what would have appeared to us, in case we were placed in circumstances very different from those we are in at present.”7 The physical sciences, as Berkeley understands them, investigate these patterns, thereby illuminating the manner in which God orders his creation. The ideational connections and patterns thus revealed exist not of logical—or even causal—necessity but rather by divine fiat.

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While a billiard ball’s hitting its fellow occasions the latter’s movement, it is God himself who moves it. Billiard balls and the events involving them are not related as causes and effects but rather as signs and things signified. “The fire which I see,” he explains, “is not the cause of the pain I suffer upon my approaching it, but the mark that forewarns me of it. In like manner, the noise that I hear is not the effect of this or that motion or collision of the ambient bodies, but the sign thereof.”8 Physical objects and events involving them thus serve as signs. More specifically, Berkeley likens them to the elements of a language. Ideas are organized into “artificial and regular combinations” for the same reason that letters are combined into words: “That a few original ideas may be made to signify a great number of effects and actions, it is necessary they be variously combined together: and to the end their use be permanent and universal, these combinations must be made by rule, and with wise contrivance. By this means abundance of information is conveyed unto us.”9 As this suggests, the physical world thus constitutes a sort of linguistic system by which God communicates to us. Euphranor, Berkeley’s mouthpiece in Alciphron, makes this explicit, saying, the great mover and author of nature constantly explaineth himself to the eyes of men by the sensible intervention of arbitrary signs, which have no similitude or connexion with the things signified; so as by compounding and disposing them, to suggest and exhibit an endless variety of objects differing in nature, time, and place, thereby informing and directing men how to act with respect to things distant and future, as well as near and present.10

Natural laws express physical patterns and regularities but, Kenneth Winkler explains, “do not pick out causes and their effects; they are, instead, the grammatical rules of the language in which God speaks to us for the sake of our well-being.”11 Consequently, the scientist becomes, on Berkeley’s view, a grammarian of sorts. Jonathan Dancy puts the point well. The physical world is a genuinely linguistic system, whose elements are variously combined and concatenated in much the sort of way that letters and words are, so that they should be capable of carrying detailed messages. Just as a limited number of letters can be used to create an infinite variety of messages, so a limited number of physical elements can be combined for the same purpose. The whole is thus an informational system, in which God, of his goodness, speaks to us about what we can expect in the future. And scientists can be conceived as the grammarians of this system, who understand how the individual elements

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combine to generate this or that meaning in the particular case, and are thus able to know better what is being said.12

Natural events, then, amount to instances of divine speech; scientific investigation, as Berkeley conceives it, seeks to decode that speech in order to understand the divine message encoded within it. Understanding this divine speech “ought to be the employment of the natural philosopher,” he tells us, “and not the pretending to explain things by corporeal causes.”13 As this makes clear, Berkeley sees the natural philosopher’s proper role as discerning the patterns by which the ideas constitutive of physical objects relate to one another, not in discovering causal connections between them. On Berkeley’s view, moreover, scientific knowledge cannot extend beyond those ideas that are the immediate objects of our sense experience. Insofar as they are unobservable, the entities theorized by science to explain observable phenomena simply cannot exist (and, thus, cannot be known); they turn out to be mere conceptual devices. “For example,” J. P. Moreland explains, “the word atom refers not to an entity that exists but to a potentially infinite set of actual or possible sensory experiences in the laboratory.”14 This makes Berkeley’s view of science an early example of phenomenalism, according to which our knowledge of the external world cannot extend beyond the immediate objects of our sense experience. In discerning the patterns by which physical objects relate to one another, the physical sciences prove extremely valuable; for knowledge of natural laws “gives us a sort of foresight, which enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life.”15 Not surprisingly, then, Berkeley sees in the divine speech that constitutes the physical world a clear indication of God’s goodness to us. And insofar as they seek to understand that speech, the physical sciences serve a good and useful purpose. In declining to see the physical sciences as properly directed at explaining natural events in terms of physical objects causally interacting with one another, Berkeley’s view runs contrary to what might be considered the common—if not commonsense—view; more significantly, it runs contrary to the view of science typically held by scientists themselves. For scientists typically “aspire to explain why things happen the way they do,” and in so doing they rely heavily on the notion of natural necessity; but that notion is incompatible with Berkeley’s philosophy.16 So this might be seen as an insuperable difficulty for Berkeley and other idealists. But is it? In what remains of this chapter I suggest that we have, independently of idealist commitments, good reasons to reject scientific realism.

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Less than ideal reasons for taking Berkeley seriously on science “Nature,” C. S. Lewis tells us, “has all sorts of phenomena in stock and can suit many different tastes.”17 But he understates the situation because, as philosophers of science have long realized, a finite and explainable set of data has infinitely many possible explanations. This fact presents would-be theorists with what has come to be known as “the problem of underdetermination”: from the radical multiplicity of explanations available for any given data set, it follows that data always underdetermines theory.18 Rom Harré explains, Faced with alternative but equipollent theories, that is theories which deliver the same predictions in the same circumstances for some empirical domain, scientists do make choices between them. There are evidently reasons for choosing among such alternatives, since such choices do not seem to be just random. As long ago as 1602 Christopher Clavius pointed out that the predictive power of alternative theories cannot be among these reasons. For any data base there are indefinitely many sets of propositions from which that data base can be recovered by logical means, whether by retrodiction or prediction. Thus, any given items of data lend next to no support to any one of the alternatives. This point has been revived in recent times as the “underdetermination of theory by data.”19

As Robin Le Poidevin succinctly states, then, “For any given theory, the evidence will never determine the choice between that theory and some rival theory.”20 How, then, do scientists choose between rival theories? One might expect that, in the natural sciences, theory choice is rule-governed. In other words, one might expect that some well-established rules govern theory selection so that one who follows those rules infallibly knows which of a set of rival theories to accept. Sadly, however, theory selection in science is not so simple. Historians of science, such as Thomas Kuhn,21 have shown that, rather than following some set of rules (the following of which determines which of two rival theories to accept), theory choice in science involves value maximization. In other words, when selecting between competing theories, the practitioners of a scientific discipline tend to settle on the theory that, in their judgment, best maximizes certain theoretical virtues. Rather than being rule-governed, then, theory choice in science is value-laden. Among the theoretical virtues that scientists seek to maximize are predictive accuracy, internal consistency, internal coherence (which involves a theory’s lacking ad hoc elements), consonance (which involves how well a theory fits

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with one’s other theoretical commitments), fertility (which involves a theory’s “ability to predict phenomena which it was not designed to account for”22), consilience (which involves a theory’s ability to account for data for which it was not constructed), and simplicity.23 So everything else being equal, scientists prefer the more predictively accurate theory to the less predictively accurate one; everything else being equal, they prefer the more fertile theory to the less fertile one; everything else being equal, they prefer the simpler theory to the more complex one; and so it goes with each theoretical virtue. With respect to two rival theories, then, everything else being equal, scientists prefer the theory that best exemplifies a particular theoretical virtue. In real life, however, everything else is never equal. Members of scientific communities simply do not face situations in which two theories are equal with respect to all but one theoretical virtue. Rather, they face situations in which one theory seems best with respect to some such virtues, another with respect to others. Moreover, a scientific community cannot settle the issue between two theories simply by counting the number of theoretical virtues that each best exemplifies and then selecting the one that best exemplifies more such virtues. For, of course, one theory might best exemplify more theoretical virtues than its competitor without best exemplifying those virtues in toto. In other words, while it might win with respect to more virtues, its victories might be comparatively slim whereas its competitor, though winning less often, enjoys such decisive victories that, in effect, it wins the war despite losing most of its battles. The manner in which scientific communities choose between competing theories thus reflects the values of those communities. No doubt such communities have reasons for valuing certain characteristics in theories—those referred to above as “theoretical virtues”—rather than others. But notice that there are, in principle, indefinitely many different characteristics that a scientific community can choose to value in theories. Consequently, there are indefinitely many different possible sets of theoretical virtues that scientists can seek to maximize. This raises two questions for a would-be theorist. First, given that indefinitely many different sets of theoretical virtues could be chosen for maximization, why choose one set of theoretical virtues rather than another? Second, however one answers that question, why think maximizing any set of theoretical virtues will lead to truth? After all, there is no necessary connection between predictive accuracy or internal consistency or internal coherence or fertility or consilience

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or simplicity and truth; a theory may exhibit any (or even all) of these virtues without being true. These two questions—the first concerning which set of theoretical virtues to maximize, the second concerning whether maximizing any such set will yield truth—are not scientific questions. They cannot be answered by scientific inquiry. Rather, they are philosophical questions. Moreover, they are questions to which scientists themselves seldom attend. What thus underlie theory choice in science are certain philosophical assumptions; moreover, scientific communities whose aim is the construction and selection of theories seldom subject those assumptions—fundamental though they are for the manner in which they seek to achieve that aim—to rigorous scrutiny. Given such considerations, then, why think theories put forward by the natural sciences are in fact true? After all, a currently favored theory has infinitely many possible competitors; and its favored status comes not from being demonstrably true but rather from its ability to maximize certain theoretical virtues that have no necessary connection to truth. No doubt the common response to this question appeals to the undeniable usefulness of scientific theories. In discussing scientific realism, according to which science aims at true theories and accepting a scientific theory involves believing it to be literally true, philosopher Hilary Putnam claims that the “positive argument for [scientific] realism is that it is the only philosophy that doesn’t make the success of science a miracle.”24 But is he correct? Does the pragmatic success of science mean that scientific theories are true (or, at least, approximately so)? If we refuse to accept such theories as (at least approximately) true, must we then say that their undeniable usefulness is a miracle? I think not. For the usefulness of scientific theories is itself a datum having infinitely many possible explanations. Even if one grants that the best explanation for the usefulness of those theories posits their truth, to infer their actual truth from that fact is simply to beg the question. Let the usefulness of scientific theories be data set Δ; let the claim that scientific theories are true be Θ. We can move from (1) Δ and (2) Θ is the best explanation for Δ to

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(3) Θ is true only if we assume something like (4) For any given data set Σ and theory Τ, if Τ best explains Σ, then Τ is true. But (4) is precisely the point at issue. So the argument Putnam puts forward in favor of accepting scientific theories as (approximately) true begs the question. Still, in the absence of a rival explanation for the stunning success of scientific theories, the argument they put forward has a certain intuitive appeal. Happily, however, a rival explanation for that usefulness is not far to seek. Bas van Fraassen puts the point admirably, stating, I can best make the point by contrasting two accounts of the mouse who runs from its enemy, the cat. St. Augustine already remarked on this phenomenon, and provided an intentional explanation: the mouse perceives that the cat is its enemy, hence the mouse runs. What is postulated here is the “adequacy” of the mouse’s thought to the order of nature: the relation of enmity is correctly reflected in his mind. But the Darwinist says: Do not ask why the mouse runs from its enemy. Species which did not cope with their natural enemies no longer exist. That is why there are only ones who do. In just the same way, I claim that the success of current scientific theories is no miracle. It is not even surprising to the scientific . . . mind. For any scientific theory is born into a life of fierce competition, a jungle red in tooth and claw. Only the successful theories survive.25

To put van Fraassen’s point more simply, the natural sciences set out to construct useful theories; consequently, useless ones simply do not last. Theories find acceptance only if they prove useful. If they were not useful, they would never be accepted in the first place.

Conclusion To sum up, on Berkeley’s phenomenalist account of the physical sciences, such sciences seek to decode the divine language comprising the natural world by explicating the patterns and regularities in accordance with which our ideas are ordered. That language is, on Berkeley’s view, a benevolent accommodation on God’s part toward his creatures, a gift that allows us to order our lives well.

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Science discovers those patterns and regularities—thus uncovering the grammar of nature—so that they can inform our activity; the physical sciences thus contribute to our well-being. But in so viewing the sciences, Berkeley also denies that they properly aim at explaining natural phenomena in terms of physical objects causally interacting with one another. To think, with the scientific realist, that scientific theories provide true—or approximately true—explanations of natural phenomena is to confuse signs and the things they signify with causes and effects. An accurate understanding of theory choice in science leaves such an idealist understanding of science intact.

Notes 1 Although definitions of scientific realism outnumber such realists only slightly, one would be hard pressed to find a better account of it than that given by nonrealist Bas van Fraassen. He characterizes scientific realism as the following view: “Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true” (Bas C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980], 8). 2 George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, ed. Robert M. Adams (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979), 81. 3 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, ed. Jonathan Dancy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), Sect. 25. 4 Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Sect. 51. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., Sect. 59. 8 Ibid., Sect. 65. 9 Ibid. 10 George Berkeley, Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, in The Works of George Berkeley, vol. III, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1955), 157. 11 Kenneth P. Winkler, “Berkeley and the Doctrine of Signs,” in The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, ed. Kenneth P. Winkler (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 139. 12 Jonathan Dancy, “Introductory Material,” in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, ed. Jonathan Dancy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 52.

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13 Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Sect. 66. 14 J. P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation (Grand Rapids: Baker 1989), 174–175. 15 Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Sect. 31. 16 Dancy, “Introductory Material,” 52. 17 C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 221. 18 As Robin Le Poidevin states, “The problem of underdetermination concerns the relationship between theory . . . and the empirical data . . . The problem then is to show how theory choice can ever be rational.” From “Underdetermination,” in The Oxford Guide to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 19 Rom Harré, “Reasons for Choosing Among Readings of Equipollent Theories,” in Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison: Stabilities, Ruptures, Incommensurabilities? ed. H. Léna Soler Sankey and Paul Hoyningen-Huene (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2008), 226, emphasis added. 20 Ibid., 226. 21 Cf. Thomas S. Kuhn, “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice,” in The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 320–339. 22 Milena Ivanova, “Is There a Place for Epistemic Virtues in Theory Choice?,” in Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, ed. Abrol Fairweather (New York: Springer, 2014), 207. 23 This list by no means exhausts the theoretical virtues scientists seek to maximize. Cf. Ernan McMullin, “The Virtues of a Good Theory,” in The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science, 2nd ed., ed. Martin Curd and Stathis Psillos (New York: Routledge, 2014), 561–572. 24 Hilary Putnam, Mathematics, Matter and Method, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 73. 25 van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, 39–40.

Bibliography Berkeley, George. Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher. The Works of George Berkeley, vol. III, edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1955. Berkeley, George. Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, edited by Robert M. Adams. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979.

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Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, edited by Jonathan Dancy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Dancy, Jonathan. “Introductory Material.” In A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, edited by Jonathan Dancy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Harré, Rom. “Reasons for Choosing Among Readings of Equipollent Theories.” In Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison: Stabilities, Ruptures, Incommensurabilities? edited by Léna Soler, H. Sankey, and Paul Hoyningen-Huene. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2008. Ivanova, Milena. “Is There a Place for Epistemic Virtues in Theory Choice?” In Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, edited by Abrol Fairweather. New York: Springer, 2014. Kuhn, Thomas S. “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice.” In The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Le Poidevin, Robin. “Underdetermination.” In The Oxford Guide to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Lewis, C. S. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964. McMullin, Ernan. “The Virtues of a Good Theory.” In The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science, 2nd ed., edited by Martin Curd and Stathis Psillos. New York: Routledge, 2014. Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. Grand Rapids: Baker 1989. Putnam, Hilary. Mathematics, Matter and Method, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. van Fraassen, Bas C. The Scientific Image. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Winkler, Kenneth P. “Berkeley and the Doctrine of Signs.” In The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, edited by Kenneth P. Winkler. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

9

Immaterialism, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature Marc A. Hight

A miracle, at a rough first pass, is an event that is not in principle explicable in terms of natural causes alone. Since miraculous events require something beyond human capabilities to produce, the alleged presence of miracles has traditionally been one powerful reason for endorsing theism. At the same time, those who endorse miracles typically believe that the natural world operates according to universal laws, thus creating a troublesome tension. The presence of a genuine miracle—if one thinks of miracles as violations of natural laws— seems incompatible with the possibility of scientific explanation that requires we treat laws of nature as universal. Two strategies have been traditionally employed to preserve the coherence of miracles. One might weaken the concept of a natural law, such that they need not be exceptionless, hence allowing for miracles as infrequent violations of the laws of nature. I call this the “traditional” view as it has been historically the more common understanding of miracle. Alternatively, one might preserve the universality of natural laws and argue that miracles are not violations of laws of nature, but rather are acts of creation. This alternative, although less widely accepted, also has a long history, going back at least as far as Augustine. I call this a “creation” theory of miracles. The primary aim of this endeavor is to assess the impact of one’s ontological views on the plausibility of miracles. After grappling with the concept of miracle and outlining some of the relevant ontological concepts, I argue for several conclusions. First, I contend that if one adopts the traditional view of miracles, ontology is not relevant to the plausibility of the theory. As a result, immaterialists are at no special disadvantage to their materialist rivals. Second, I

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argue that there are reasonable concerns independent of ontology that impinge on the plausibility of the traditional account of miracles. I do not argue that the traditional account is incoherent, but endorsing it comes with a cost that intellectually honest individuals must squarely engage. Finally, I contend that the creation view of miracles is importantly impacted by ontological concerns in a manner that makes immaterialism decidedly more attractive. As with the traditional view, there is a price to pay. The resultant picture of miracles is perhaps less intuitive, but I argue that the final picture is coherent and consistent with the basic demands of theism. As a general conclusion, I contend that, on balance, immaterialism has better resources to support rational Christian belief in miracles. In my argument I draw on the philosophy of George Berkeley for inspiration. Berkeley, an eighteenth-century Irish philosopher and divine, suggests that immaterialism (the denial of the existence of material substance) is more compatible with Christianity than its materialist rival. Berkeley is surprisingly cautious and sober in his few discussions of miracles, tending toward skepticism about many miraculous reports1 and arguing that miracles must be few in number to preserve their effect.2 Although he endorses the traditional account of miracles, he appears to recognize limits to the view. Elsewhere he provides the resources suggestive of the alternative that I argue is only open to immaterialists, namely that only acts of creation (and annihilation) are properly speaking miracles. Berkeley provides insights that impact both of the primary views on miracles, helping us to see the advantages of immaterialism with respect to the plausibility of miracles.

Miracles and materialism The word miracle comes from the Latin miraculum (“object of wonder”) and mirari (“to wonder”). In the Christian tradition, miracles play at least one critical role in the faith: they inspire it.3 Miracles are acts of God that generate wonder and, consequently, greater faith. As such, miracles must actually be wondrous. If I reach into a bowl of water and lift from it a perfect sphere of water, that might well inspire wonder. But if you learn about surface tension and the pertinent laws of nature, the event becomes merely a curiosity—the wonder at some level has been removed. The same is true for any event where natural or “scientific” explanations can later account for it. As Paul Tillich notes, the term “miracle”

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should not be applied to events that produce wonder only for a time since “these cease to produce astonishment after one has become accustomed to them, although a profound admiration of them may remain.”4 Miracles are reserved for events that continuously inspire wonder. Yet there is another danger: events when too strange can produce incredulity instead of wonder. If I claim to make a sphere that is simultaneously a cube, one suspects a trick or simply refuses to believe. No faith is inspired. For critics of Christianity, there appears to be ample ground for skepticism. How can any contemporary educated person believe that a person walked unaided on water, that illnesses are instantaneously healed, or that storms can be called or calmed immediately on command? The complaint is that these events are inconsistent with other claims we believe to be true. Christians thus ought to emphasize a conception of miracle that meets two requirements.5 First, miracles must inspire wonder in a fashion unlikely to succumb to advancements in our understanding of the natural world. Second, miracles must be naturally inexplicable without producing absurdity, whether that be outright contradiction or a series of claims that too pointedly conflict with other well-established claims we are loathe to surrender. I do not contest that there might be other conceptions of miracle, but for the purposes of the present argument, I shall confine myself to this one. It is worth noting that the term miracle is often employed carelessly, such as in contexts that demand neither lasting wonder nor resist natural explication. For example, “It would be a miracle if [insert favorite sports team here] won the championship this year.” Such common uses of the term I am consciously excluding from this analysis. Having a sense of what a miracle is for the rational Christian, let us be clear about what materialism does and does not include. A materialist holds that there exist objective, mind-independent substances (i.e., matter and material objects). Christian materialists typically hold that these substances are independent only with respect to finite (created) minds; all substances are technically dependent on God as their creator. The nature of this ontological dependence, however, is seldom made clear. As I argue below, the concept of a material object does not fit well with the claim of ontological dependence. Materialism in this context does not preclude there being other substances (minds, spirits, souls, etc.) and thus should not be understood as material monism or as in any way excluding dualistic or pluralistic ontologies. Materialism, for the purposes of this discussion, posits only that the ordinary objects human persons perceive are external to the minds of perceivers and independent of them. Objects have

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their own set of laws that govern their behavior and could exist even were all perceiving creatures annihilated. This description is what makes material objects “objective”; such objects do not depend on subjects for their reality. At this point it is also important to distinguish material from physical. The former has ontological implications (mind-independence, externality, etc.), but the latter does not. “Physical” refers to anything that might be experienced or sensed. The physical world refers to the world as seen, heard, touched, and so on. Materialists hold that at least some part of the physical world is explainable by appeals to (or, in radical cases, by being identical to) the material world. I distinguish physicalism from materialism to avoid begging the question about ontological issues. Immaterialists deny the existence of mind-independent material substance, but posit a physical world that we all experience. The details that underlie this view (whether it be virtualism, idealism, or some other ontology) lie beyond the scope of this endeavor.

Miracles and divine contravention: The traditional view The most common approach to resolve the “tension” between genuine miracles and laws of nature is to deny that natural laws must be actually without exception. They are naturally without exception (i.e., nothing in the regular workings of the physical world can violate those laws), but that is no limit to God contravening a law. Aquinas provides the canonical characterization of this conception of miracles: “Those effects are rightly to be termed miracles which are wrought by Divine power apart from the order usually observed in nature.”6 The emphasis is on miracles being supernatural in virtue of being distinct from (or contravening) our understanding of nature. For the traditional approach, one’s underlying ontology is essentially irrelevant. Whether the laws apply to the behavior of mind-independent external objects or to the objects of experience, the key lies with the divinely orchestrated exceptions to regularities. The nature of those regularities is thus not specifically important when it comes to miracles. Berkeley endorses this view, noting explicitly the point that miracles inspire wonder. He writes: It may indeed on some occasions be necessary, that the Author of Nature display his overruling power in producing some appearance out of the ordinary series of things. Such exceptions from the general rules of Nature are proper to surprise

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and awe men into an acknowledgement of the Divine Being: but then they are to be used but seldom, otherwise there is a plain reason why they should fail of that effect. Besides, God seems to choose the convincing our reason of his attributes by the works of Nature, which discover so much harmony and contrivance in their make, and are such plain indications of wisdom and beneficence in their Author, rather than to astonish us into a belief of his being by anomalous and surprising events.7

It is clear that the immaterialist has no special problem that would not apply with equal force against the materialist. Suitable inspiration may be had from the exceptions to experienced regularities whether or not the laws divinely contravened are material. If one is willing to accept the concept of a natural law as having exceptions (perhaps singular or unique as Berkeley notes to preserve their inspirational effect), then miracles are in fact no different to the materialist or the immaterialist. Yet Berkeley displays some hesitance in his account when he emphasizes both how miracles must be infrequent and the regular working of nature. God is the creator of regular and harmonious laws. Berkeley asserts that such creation is better indication of God’s existence and power than astonishing us with “anomalous and surprising events.” Since Berkeley also wants to demonstrate the superiority of immaterialism with respect to religious belief generally, one might be tempted to suppose that there is something more to the story. Berkeley, I think, implies (but does not state) that there is something dissonant about supposing that God would create regularities only to make exceptions to them, especially since the presence of those regularities seems sufficient to inspire awe. Given that Berkeley was an enthusiast of Augustine, it seems reasonable to suppose that he was aware of a rival account.8 Augustine, many centuries earlier, argued that there has been only one miracle, that of creation. Even the resurrection of Christ should be viewed as a corollary of sorts to the one genuine miracle. For Augustine, miracles cannot be supernatural. “For how can an event be contrary to nature when it happens by the will of God, since the will of the great creator assuredly is the nature of every created thing? A portent therefore does not occur contrary to nature but contrary to what is known of nature.”9 Augustinian miracles are, in a sense, a part of nature. Natural laws can retain their universality, on this view, since the miraculous applies to objects as created and not the laws that govern their behavior. This view has the added benefit of sharpening the concept of miracle, even given changes in our technology and knowledge. We might think an event

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is miraculous at one point in time (lacking the scientific sophistication to explain it) but later learn to account for the event. Christians, following Tillich, want to reserve the adjective “miraculous” for events that cannot possibly be explained naturally. Not much wonder is likely to be inspired by events that once appeared to be the result of divine intervention but later turned out to be entirely explicable by natural laws.

Miracles and natural law Before we can fully explore the promise of the alternative conception, we first need to get some conceptual clarity about the “tension” that allegedly exists between the traditional account of miracle and natural laws. My purpose here is to charitably present a reasonable challenge that has been posed (in varying forms) to the traditional conception of miracle in order to motivate a serious investigation of the alternative creation view of miracles. The challenge comes from the concept of natural law. There is some dispute (especially among philosophers of science) about the precise meaning of a natural law. Some argue that natural laws must be necessary in addition to being universal, while others merely contend that perfect regularity is sufficient.10 Among many scientists and philosophers, however, the requirement of universality is prevalent. That is, independently of what we know, a genuine natural law admits no exceptions in the domain where it applies. Practitioners of the scientific method rely on the presumption that a putative scientific law is exceptionless in order to generate both explanations and predictions in the physical world. The traditional conception of miracle requires the possibility of exceptions to laws, thus the claim is that advocates of the traditional account of miracles must sacrifice science—too high a price for many to pay. If the physical universe is governed according to a set of exceptionless and at least theoretically knowable principles, then one might think the inspirational nature of any putative miracle will be automatically undermined. Alastair McKinnon, for instance, argues that theists ought to avoid the concept of miracle altogether, since “miracle cannot correctly and consistently describe any event, whether real or alleged.”11 If one believes that the universe is governed by natural laws, then any event which falls outside of that posited explanatory order will automatically be suspect and labeled as absurd if not impossible. Here one

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must be careful. Some commentators argue that there are ontological reasons for supposing that God cannot both establish natural laws and act in miraculous ways that violate those laws. Thus one frequently finds defenders of miracles, such as Alvin Plantinga, carefully analyzing the claim of inconsistency. For instance, after reviewing a number of claims about an alleged science/religion problem, Plantinga writes “These various assertions of a ‘religion/science problem’ do not, however, succeed in making it clear what exactly the problem is supposed to be.”12 Plantinga then diagnoses the problem for what he calls “classical science” by noting that such an alleged problem only occurs when one adds that the (material) universe is causally closed. And as he notes, “That is a metaphysical or theological add-on, not part of classical science.”13 He is correct, for the problem is not strictly speaking an ontological one. The present problem raised by the skeptic concerns explanation. Science as a methodology does not require a particular ontology, which is precisely why framing the alleged tension in purely metaphysical terms is misleading. Let us stop and articulate exactly why many think laws must be treated as universal for scientific methodology to work. One might, for instance, argue that, strictly speaking, there are no perfectly regular natural laws. Instead, there are mostly regular laws occasionally broken by the intervention of God. If such exceptions occurred, however, the skeptic alleges that the explanatory power of science would be ultimately demolished.14 Before I attempt to charitably explicate the claim, we must be careful to note its scope. The argument is not that all explanations require universal laws. Explanations can also be thought of psychologically, as in removing puzzlement. If I appeal to Zeus’s wrath to explain how lightning struck me, that invocation is certainly explanatory in some sense. It enables me to “make sense of ” the world. Many such explanations admit exceptions to regularities in our typical lived experience. A scientific explanation, however, ultimately has as an ideal predictability. The power of a scientific explanation lies in the degree to which it enables one to predict (or retrodict) events in the physical world. Such explanations thus require a principled justificatory link, usually one that involves subsuming particulars under general laws. Those laws might only apply to certain domains under certain conditions, but when properly constrained, scientific explanations come with public predictive power. Anyone under those conditions will be able to successfully predict the outcome. One might, perhaps uncharitably, think that the view requires a false dilemma: either the laws are exceptionless or no knowledge is possible at all. The point is only that scientific knowledge, along

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with its concomitant power of prediction, requires universality. Nothing in this analysis denies that other forms of knowledge exist. If laws are not universal, such that the posited relations hold only “most of the time” (e.g., that pressure and temperature vary directly most of the time; sometimes they vary inversely or directly but according to a different relation based on divine intervention), then every putative scientific explanation would be subject to the objection that the case in question might be an exception. And such an objection is not one merely posed by the willful skeptic; it is a principled objection. But one might nonetheless think this a small price to pay, especially if those exceptions were seen to be vanishingly rare. Yet two problems seem to arise with that strategy. First, no finite mind has any idea what the likelihood for divine intervention in the workings of the world might be (or other kinds of interventions for that matter— one might think, as an example, that the Satan who tortured Job was exercising supernatural interventional powers as well). For all we know, the past few centuries have been an aberration and the “laws” are in fact quite different from how they have held for most of history. The skeptic claims that such suppositions make appeals to laws and hence predictions practically useless. Second, it is arguable that scientific explanations rely on the presumption of universality in order to gain explanatory power. That is, the very possibility of applying the scientific method to a particular problem starts with the presumption that observables behave in universal ways. This presumption applies independently of whether or not the laws are probabilistic and it is important not to confuse the universal applicability of a law with its content. It might be the case that some of the claims of quantum mechanics are correct and that there are irreducible probabilities. Yet what we call those probabilities (such as the probability “spread” of the location of a particle whose velocity we know) are not random nor are they variable (i.e., the probabilities themselves for the same set of circumstances do not change). The judgment of probability applies universally within a certain domain. Consider Dalton’s Law of partial pressures as an example of how a scientific explanation seems to require the presumption of universality over a restricted domain. Dalton’s “Law” is an approximation of the total pressure of a gas in a limited volume. It is an approximation because we know that the law really works only for low-pressure gases that do not interact. Scientists do not use the law for reactive gases or in high-pressure situations: it simply does not apply. But within the domain for which it is posited to be true, no scientist while doing science and invoking the law can admit the possibility that the law has an exception, whether

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that exception be due to divine intervention or otherwise.15 To do so is to admit that the law is false (in that domain) and then there is no point in using the law since it would lose its predictive power. Now some laws range over domains that are more universal than others, but unrestricted domains for scientific explanations are exceedingly rare. The first and second laws of thermodynamics and the law of conservation, for instance, admit of no (known) exceptions in any domain. And thus the skeptic drives home the concern: to suggest that exceptions are possible is to destroy the predictive power of the explanation. There might be a psychological explanation that serves the function of removing some doubt, but the scientific explanation is lost. If a putative exception is discovered, the methodology dictates that we look for error, or failing that, we reject the law. It is not an option to simply say, “Well, there are exceptions to the law in the relevant domains.” To say so is tantamount to simply rejecting the law. Richard Swinburne takes a slightly less radical approach, arguing that the concept of a violation to a natural law is coherent, provided that the exception is not a repeatable counterinstance to the law.16 It is unlikely that the skeptic would be swayed, as Swinburne’s suggestion does not evade the underlying problem. Even if miracles are singular violations of laws, the possibility of scientific explanation would be fundamentally undermined. Since we would have no way of knowing when a miracle might occur and violate a law, nor which laws might be violated, all laws would lose their explanatory power. We might choose to operate according to less stringent standards and extract explanations from what we commonly or typically experience, but then the charge would be that we have sacrificed science. There would be no arbiter or standard to which one could appeal. Every event could in principle be explained—or explained away—by an appeal to a miraculous intervention, rendering scientific explanations (and predictions) both nonfalsifiable and empty of power. The underlying point about the importance of perfectly regular laws can be seen from the viewpoint of the theist as well. On the traditional view, in order for an event to be seen as miraculous, there must be a regularity that is violated. In essence, what makes an event wondrous and miraculous just is the violation of the regularity. If the violation is of a law that is only “mostly” regular, the inspiration suffers. This is why no one takes the person seriously who proclaims a miracle when he finds that a “1” comes up upon the roll of a fair one-hundredsided die. The point has been well made before. C. S. Lewis, for instance, notes, “We must now add that you will equally perceive no miracles until you believe that nature works according to regular laws. If you have not yet noticed that the

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sun always rises in the East you will see nothing miraculous about his rising one morning in the West.”17 We may take Lewis’s point to its logical extreme. Only the violation of perfect regularities can produce wonder sufficient to be termed a miracle, assuming that one requires that miracles violate natural laws. But what of cases where God intervenes by violating a law that had previously held with perfect regularity? At that point, one may argue that all scientific explanation that relied upon that law would be undermined. From our epistemic standpoint, we cannot tell what previous events might have involved divine intervention just as we cannot predict the same for future events. Since intervention would be a viable alternative for any event at that point, admitting the miracle is logically equivalent to denying the relevant law. If God suspended the law of gravity, there would be no law of gravity (i.e., the law would be false). When one invokes a miracle to explain an event, additional context must be provided to elevate it to the status of a miracle, no matter how unlikely the event. Quantum mechanics predicts that some events will occur at extremely low probabilities; but they are a part of the natural order nonetheless. No informed physicist would be inspired to faith by such an event alone, since its occurrence is actually predicted by the laws that govern the physicist’s understanding of the universe. Imagine a food pantry that runs out of food, but by coincidence it had been “randomly” selected for a food delivery by a distant charity.18 To claim that such an event is miraculous overly weakens the concept. The unexpected delivery was a blessing to be sure, but such cases are not sufficient to inspire faith in persons where it is not already present. Miracles require the regularity of natural laws just as the possibility of scientific explanation does. That the skeptical concern should be taken seriously even by Christians is additionally demonstrated by the fact that a large number of theists strive to preserve the integrity of natural law as they defend the coherence of miracles. As Robert Larmer concludes near the end of his work, “[M]iracles, considered as objective events specially caused by God, can conceivably occur in a world which behaves, always and everywhere, completely in accordance with the laws of nature.”19 Note the emphasis on “always and everywhere.” A key point in Larmer’s defense of miracles is that natural laws must be inviolable.20 Others defend the universality of natural laws by arguing that the natural world does not exhaust the real. Hence C. S. Lewis contends that the theist holds that there is more to reality than just one nature.21 The essence of “Supernaturalism,” and the attendant grounds for defending the reality of miracles, depends on the rejection of the claim that the natural, material world is all that exists. Here again,

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however, Lewis’s position is that laws of nature are not contradicted; they are instead supplemented in a dualist or pluralist ontology. And Lewis even candidly asserts that if the natural world is all that exists, then miracles cannot exist. “But if Naturalism is true, then we do know in advance that miracles are impossible.”22 Here by “naturalism” Lewis may be understood to mean material monism. He posits a nonmaterial realm to account for alleged explanatory shortfalls of naturalism. Yet what the skeptic suggests is that posited laws must be inviolable not as a matter of metaphysical, but explanatory necessity. In that case, it does not matter for the present issue what ontology one adopts, supplemented or not. And charitably interpreted, I think Lewis rightly understands the point. Lewis’s solution to the “problem” of natural law and miracles is not to deny either but to argue that natural laws are not by themselves sufficient to explain the universe. Laws apply to ontological posits, and no law currently explains why there are things (as opposed to why there is nothing, whether those things are physical objects, minds, or something else). We can use Lewis’s insight to motivate serious consideration of the second account of miracles. Miracles do not violate natural laws. Instead they account for the presence of objects to which exceptionless laws apply. So to start, we have at least one clear possible example of a genuine miracle: God’s act of creation. As briefly noted earlier, this position is certainly not new. Augustine argued that the only miracles possible are acts of creation (and by extension annihilation). At this point we are faced with what appears to be a credible argument for why we cannot allow miracles that violate laws of nature without the great sacrifice of the possibility of scientific explanation. I am not asserting that the traditional account cannot be defended against this challenge. It strikes me as sufficiently pressing, however, to incentivize investigation of alternatives. If miracles are real, perhaps they can inspire wonder without producing the incredulity of a direct conflict with our use of the laws of nature, the inviolability of which may well be required for scientific explanation. It is at this point that one’s ontological beliefs become relevant, since it turns out that materialism is ill-suited to defend acts of creation as miracles.

The materialist and creation The difficulty materialists face when defending the reality of miracles is straightforward. Since materialism posits an independent and regular objective

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reality, a part of the concept of a material object is that its behavior is tied to independent law-like regularities. For example, a part of what it means to be a sphere is that it will behave in certain ways when placed on an inclined plane. The behavior of material objects is also closely tied to both laws of regularity (such as gravity) and what I call ontological laws (e.g., material objects persist even when no minds perceive them). Just as an alleged material sphere is not a spherical object if it does not roll in certain cases, if it ceases to exist when not perceived then it is not a material object either. Both kinds of laws are constitutive of being a material object. As soon as one starts to deny the ontological independence of material objects, the “material” part loses coherence. What is the difference between a material object that God causes to not exist when not perceived and an immaterial object whose nature is such that it exists only when perceived? None. The core of the distinction between materialist and immaterialist ontologies lies precisely here. Troubles arise because material objects are mind-independent. In materialist contexts, precisely what generates the wonder with an alleged miracle is what undermines its credibility. Lot’s wife was transformed into a pillar of salt after turning to watch the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If God violated the material order in turning her to salt, then incredulity rightly results as the account destroys our very conception of material objects. One might wonder whether she existed at all, since human bodies—material bodies in general—do not behave that way. The point is subtle and easy to overlook. Part of what it means for something to be material is that it obeys the laws that govern material reality. When a putative explanation violates those laws, there is an implicit weakening of the concept of a material object (whether we intend it or not) in the course of that explanation. Either one must reject the explanation on the grounds that it is incoherent because it mischaracterizes the nature of material objects, or one must alter (or surrender) the concept of materiality. What is the point of God creating a nominally independent, regular, material order? The obvious (but not often enough invoked) answer is that such an order allows God’s created people to engage, understand, and know creation. Many theists, Berkeley included, were well aware of the point. Berkeley argues that God created the world in a manner that obeys perfect regularities so that creation as a whole better functions: But it is evident that those actions are not adapted to particular views, but all conformed to certain general rules, which, being collected from observation, are by philosophers termed laws of nature. And these indeed are excellently

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suited to promote the general well-being of the creation: but, what from casual combinations of events, and what from the voluntary motions of animals, it often falls out, that the natural good not only of private men but of entire cities and nations would be better promoted by a particular suspension, or contradiction, than an exact observation of those laws. Yet, for all that, nature still takes its course; nay, it is plain that plagues, famines, inundations, earthquakes, with an infinite variety of pains and sorrows; in a word, all kinds of calamities public and private, do arise from a uniform steady observation of those general laws, which are once established by the Author of Nature, and which He will not change or deviate from upon any of those accounts, how wise or benevolent soever it may be thought by foolish men to do so.23

God acts in law-like ways. And if God does not deviate from the established natural order to prevent calamities, parity of reasoning suggests that God always acts in law-like ways, or so Berkeley suggests. Obviously there could be other reasons for positing miracles (drawing attention to God, etc.), but it is worth noting that Augustine can accommodate this challenge by claiming that only creation is miraculous; everything else is a part of the (optimal) natural order. Thus, of course God always and only acts in law-like ways. Once past creation, nothing in the material world could possibly be miraculous in the Christian worldview without surrendering the coherence and rationality of certain beliefs. The preceding prepares us to diagnose the difficulty materialists have with miracles. Although the creation of matter might well seem to qualify as miraculous, the very characterization of the concept of matter precludes such creation, let alone its classification as a miracle. Matter is never created or destroyed; the law of conservation is as central to the materialist ontology and to materialist science as any law scientists invoke. Another way to get clear about the point is to evaluate a prominent argument that purports to show that genuine miracles need not violate laws of nature. The goal is to show that theists who defend the reality of miracles: (1) recognize the need to accommodate particular natural laws, and (2) have difficulty doing so within a materialist ontology. Let us examine the argument advanced by Robert Larmer in his book Water into Wine? An Investigation of the Concept of Miracle.24 In outline the argument runs as follows: 1. Laws of nature are not sufficient to explain the phenomena we experience. In addition to the laws, we need the objects to which those laws apply. 2. The annihilation or ex nihilo creation of an object (such as a unit of mass) does not violate a law of nature.

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3. Hence, there can be miracles (of the form of annihilation or creation) that do not violate laws of nature. The obvious problem is with the second premise. Larmer defends the premise by invoking an analogy. He claims that tossing an extra ball into a group of billiard balls in motion would not contravene any laws of motion. Thus he concludes, “Similarly, by creating or annihilating a unit or units of mass/energy, God may produce in nature an event that could not otherwise occur without violating the laws of nature.”25 Larmer proceeds to anticipate objections, most notably for present purposes the charge that his argument implies a violation of the law of the conservation of matter and energy. His response depends on extending the same analogy he initially invokes. The law of conservation applies, he emphasizes, only to closed systems. Since the existence of a divine being would lie outside of the material realm, by definition any miraculous interference would entail that the system is not closed. Hence, it would be a mistake to apply a natural law in such an instance. Although initially intriguing, this line of argument will not persuade the skeptic. The problem with Larmer’s argument is that he confuses the metaphysical status of a law holding (in fact being true) with the epistemological issue of when said law can be explanatory. Invoking a law requires a closed system in order to produce an explanation, since otherwise it is possible that unknown variables (including other laws) might intervene. But the stipulation of a closed system says nothing about whether the laws are true or universal. The requirement of universality is a prerequisite for the possibility of scientific explanation. Unless the law is an exceptionless universal, no scientific explanation can be had. It is an additional epistemic requirement that the context in which we invoke laws is one where the system is closed. Closing a system only precludes other variables from preventing us from determining which laws (and other variables) apply. Yet none of that indicates that any (true) law is ever contravened. In Larmer’s example, no laws are actually contravened; adding new billiard balls to a system violates no law—it only alters the descriptive facts of the system. He is right about that, but such a case is not the objection. If one were trying to explain why the new balls appeared, that would be a different example, and one where few rational persons would accept as an initially plausible answer, “They appeared via an act of ex nihilo creation that falsifies the law of conservation.” Larmer’s analogy simply does not apply as his opponent is arguing that the law of conservation is being violated. New matter is being introduced when new billiard balls simply appear on the table.

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The argument as a result does not work for the materialist. It is not clear how materialists can avoid falsifying the second premise. The ex nihilo creation of a material object absolutely violates the law of conservation. The law is either true or not. If true, then we impose the restriction of a closed system in order to be better able to tell what is going on, but the truth of the law is independent of the scope of our inquiry. If not (and one might coherently simply deny the law), then one has essentially surrendered the materialist ontology. Larmer provides a response to the challenge advanced here, but it does not help the materialist who wants the traditional conception of miracle. Larmer distinguishes between a “strong” and “weak” version of the principle of conservation. The strong view is that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only altered in form. The weak view is that in causally isolated systems the total amount of energy must remain constant.26 He contends that a strong view of natural laws “functions as a defining-postulate of physicalism.”27 After all, the strong principle rules out the possibility of creation ex nihilo. Thus he asserts that the only evidence we have for the principle is in fact evidence for the weak version, which is compatible with creation. The strong principle would help to explain why we experimentally find the weak version to be true, but that does not preclude the possibility of there being other explanations for our experiences. Unfortunately, Larmer reads the primary challenge to the compatibility of miracles and natural laws as an evidential one. As the skeptic argues, the main concern is of another nature. To review, the argument has two lines of attack. First, laws must be without exception in order to support scientific explanation and prediction. Second, theists need exceptionless laws to genuinely meet the demand that miracles be timelessly wonder-inspiring. Neither of these concerns is about the evidence we have for laws. Scientific explanation requires that the laws (whatever they ultimately are) be universal. Thus, noting that there might be other explanations for why the weak principle of conservation is true is to miss the fundamental problem. I am suggesting that the deeper problem here concerns materialism itself. Materialists are bound, no doubt often unknowingly, to a conception of mind-independent objects that precludes ex nihilo creation.28 One obvious solution to save the possibility of miracles (and Larmer-style arguments) is to jettison the materialist ontological baggage. If we approach the laws of nature from the perspective of their being physical (as opposed to material) laws, the difficulty might be resolved. The key is to recognize that the wonder generated from a miracle does not stem from its violating a law of nature, but

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rather from the understanding that the laws were fashioned in such a manner as to produce the kinds of experiences it is possible to have. God works in perfectly regular ways, but we might not understand all of those regularities. Some of them might be in principle beyond our comprehension (revelatory mysteries), but those regularities are genuine. That description preserves the possibility of scientific knowledge about the world, preserves the universal nature of laws required for the former, and preserves a coherent conception of miracle. The wonder is to be found in the act of creation coupled with what that creation and the laws fashioned by God could produce in our ordinary course of experience.

The immaterialist alternative: Miracle as creation We may now construct a picture of what an immaterialist world might look like on either conception of miracle. As noted earlier, immaterialism faces no special problems (i.e., none beyond what a materialist might encounter) with respect to the traditional view of miracles as violations of nature. And Berkeley himself appears to, albeit cautiously, commit himself to such an account on at least one occasion.29 However, as I have argued, there is reason to be hesitant about whether miracles are consistent with violations of natural laws on the grounds that such a view seems to conflict with the possibility of scientific explanation. Given that immaterialists typically admit the reality of natural laws in the experienced world, we must delve deeper to find an alternative. The difference lies in how immaterialists characterize reality. Since the world as experienced is the real world, mind-independence is not built into the concept of commonsense objects. As a result, the immaterialist is free to posit that God governs the world in perfectly regular ways (allowing for scientific understanding) while allowing that the world is nonetheless ontologically dependent on the divine. Despite his earlier claims, we can here draw inspiration from Berkeley, who saw the issue in a slightly different context. He was challenged about whether immaterialism was consistent with the Mosaic account of creation, and in his Three Dialogues he addresses the concern this way: Why, I imagine that if I had been present at the Creation, I should have seen things produced into being; that is, become perceptible, in the order described by the sacred historian . . . When things are said to begin or end their existence, we do not mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All objects are eternally known by God, or which is the same thing, have an eternal existence in

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his mind: but when things before imperceptible to creatures, are by a decree of God, made perceptible to them; then are they said to begin a relative existence, with respect to created minds. Upon reading therefore the Mosaic account of the Creation, I understand that the several parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits, endowed with proper faculties; so that whoever such were present, they were in truth perceived by them. This is the literal obvious sense suggested to me, by the words of the Holy Scripture.30

For materialists, the creation of a material world by an immaterial being requires creation that is literally ex nihilo. Immaterialists, however, need not labor under that restriction. For the immaterialist, common-sense objects are eternally dependent on the mind of God. Thus, when we finite minds speak of “creation,” that is in a derivative sense. When we speak of the creation of the universe, we mean from the standpoint of finite minds. Thus, Berkeley notes that the biblical creation concerns how “the several parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits.” God’s knowledge of the universe is eternal. Technically speaking, it makes no sense to say from the divine perspective that anything was ever created; God is an eternal being. The critical factor in creation is when God chose to make it public: that from our finite perspective the universe as we know it came into being. And this was not creation from nothing; it was the rendering perceptible of ideas that God sustains eternally. The materialist must explain literal creation from nothing.31 It is more palatable to argue that God literally created nothing, but “created” the world in the derivative sense of making his ideas known to his people.32 We can extrapolate from this conception of creation to other miracles. The miracle of bodily resurrection, for instance, stems not from contravening a law, but from understanding how amazing it is that laws that permit such wonders are possible. Consider Berkeley’s account of resurrection as the renewal of bodies from the earth. Berkeley argues that the doctrine of bodily resurrection is both plausible (i.e., need not generate incredulity) and inspirational precisely because it follows a physical regularity.33 Just as wheat dies in the winter to be reborn in the spring, so too may persons die only to be later reborn.34 And such a conception meets the requirements of miracles nicely. The event inspires timeless wonder without producing incredulity through contradiction of natural law. In fact, miracles gain support from comparing them to regularities in our experience. One might object that immaterialism in fact undermines the wonder required for miracles. Resurrections, the parting of seas, manna from heaven—if they are

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just tricks of ideas, then there are no miracles. There is nothing extranatural about those events to inspire faith. Berkeley anticipates this concern. But it will be urged, that miracles do, at least, lose much of their stress and import by our principles. What must we think of Moses’s rod, was it not really turned into a serpent, or was there only a change of ideas in the minds of the spectators? And can it be supposed, that our Saviour did no more at the marriage-feast in Cana, than impose on the sight, and smell, and taste of the guests, so as to create in them the appearance or idea only of wine? The same may be said of all other miracles: which, in consequence of the foregoing principles, must be looked upon only as so many cheats, or illusions of fancy. To this I reply, that the rod was changed into a real serpent, and the water into real wine . . . I shall only observe, that if at table all who were present should see, and smell, and taste, and drink wine, and find the effects of it, with me there could be no doubt of its reality. So that, at bottom, the scruple concerning real miracles hath no place at all on ours, but only on the received principles, and consequently maketh rather for, than against what hath been said.35

Berkeley’s point is that immaterialism forces one to recast what is meant by real. There is no trick when it comes to miracles. The serpent and the wine are, on immaterialist principles, at least as real as if they were material beings. The materialist needs real to encompass a strong form of ontological independence. The immaterialist can secure a sense of the independence of the world (to avoid solipsism) by invoking volitional independence. We do not control the ideas we perceive because God is responsible for what we perceive (the order of nature). Yet we can have that sort of independence without ontological independence, allowing the miraculous changes we experience to be fully “real” and wondrous. Nonetheless, one might press the objection further. On the account I am suggesting here, only creation is truly miraculous. Other alleged miracles in the Bible (such as turning water into wine) will be “demoted” in a sense. Furthermore, everything that exists in nature will, in some sense, be miraculous. The concern is that such will gut the inspirational force of miracles. Herein lies the cost of this alternative reading: it requires that we recalibrate our understanding of miracle. The turning of water into wine should produce less wonder than creation. Theists have, in a sense, become profligate with their miracles, allowing the word to lose much of its meaning. People interpret any unusual event as miraculous; but doing so undermines more generally the timeless wonder miracles represent. Only the act of creation is truly and timelessly wondrous. Immaterialism

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captures the inspirational nature of miracles better than materialism while preserving the perfect regularity of the perceived world in a manner that allows us to explore and explain the natural world. I would go so far as to suggest that we might discover that there is a natural process that explained the water-wine conversion. Such a discovery need not undermine faith, since the presence in the world of a set of natural laws that could accommodate such an otherwise unusual occurrence is itself deserving of some appreciation. As a result of this analysis, we may conclude that immaterialists are at a minimum no worse off than materialists when it comes to the defense of the possibility of miracles. If one accepts the traditional view, ontology is not relevant and hence immaterialists can defend the same account. And if one takes seriously the skeptical challenge that traditional miracles are not compatible with the possibility of scientific explanation, then the immaterialist has the option of endorsing the creation view of miracles, providing her with resources not available to the materialist. Either way, there seems to be an affinity between immaterialism and theism, one that extends far enough to allow for a coherent concept of miracles.36

Notes 1 See “Berkeley to James,” in The Correspondence of George Berkeley, ed. Marc Hight (New York: Cambridge, 2013), 428 (letter 282, June 7, 1741). 2 George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1948–1957), III: Sect. 63 and George Berkeley, Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher. The Works of George Berkeley, Vol. III, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1955), IV:15. 3 I do not assert that inspiring faith is the only role miracles play. They might occur for reasons unrelated to our faith. One might argue that the miracle of Christ’s resurrection was because he could not be contained by death. That the event also inspires faith is not relevant to why it occurred. 4 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol I. (London: Nisbet, 1986), 129, quoted in God in Action: A Reader, ed. Jeff Astley, David Browb, and Ann Loades (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 37. 5 For a discussion of some relatively recent views on the concept of a miracle, see David Basinger and Randall Basinger, Philosophy and Miracle: The Contemporary Debate (Lewiston: Edwin Mellon, 1986).

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6 Summa Contra Gentiles III, cii. See Summa Theologica I:102:4. Miracles are “beyond the order or laws of the whole created nature.” 7 Principles of Human Knowledge, Sect. 63. 8 See Siris 359, where Berkeley cites Augustine as endorsing the Plotinian view that, strictly speaking, God is not the direct cause of creation. God produced the Word, and all created things were made by the Word. 9 Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 21.8. For an overview of the Augustinian position, see Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), esp. Ch. 1. 10 See, for instance, David Armstrong, What Is a Law of Nature? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 11 Alastair McKinnon, “‘Miracle’ and ‘Paradox,’” American Philosophical Quarterly 4.4 (October 1967): 308. 12 Alvin Plantinga, “Divine Action in the World (Synopsis),” Ratio XIX (December 2006): 497. 13 Ibid., 501. 14 For a representative discussion of why scientific explanation cannot allow for exception or irregularity (especially in the context of miracles), see Guy Robinson, “Miracles,” Ratio 9 (1967): 155–166, esp. 159, where Robinson notes what would happen if irregularities were admitted to science. “Scientific development would either be stopped or else made completely capricious, because it would necessarily be a matter of whim whether one invoked the concept of miracle or irregularity to explain an awkward result, or on the other hand accepted the result as evidence of the need to modify the theory one was investigating.” 15 Scientists are persons as well. Thus, a scientist could admit exceptions to laws while not doing science. But qua scientist (while engaging in the scientific method and doing science) she cannot. 16 Richard Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 26–28. 17 C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 47. One might object that Lewis probably did not mean “regular” to entail exceptionless. Perhaps so, but the point remains. What makes the event miraculous is the degree to which a regularity is violated. 18 I did not invent this example, but I have heard it so many times I am simply unaware of to whom to attribute it. 19 Robert Larmer, Water into Wine? An Investigation of the Concept of Miracle (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), 100. 20 See also Ward, who similarly argues that reality is not a closed system and hence miracles need not violate natural laws (Keith Ward, Divine Action, [London: Collins, 1990], 179–181). Basinger and Basinger explore (without explicitly endorsing) similar options (see Basinger and Basinger, Philosophy and Miracle, 11).

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21 Lewis, Miracles, 8–11. 22 Ibid., 10. It is worth noting that I think Lewis is mistaken about this point. 23 George Berkeley, Passive Obedience, in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1948– 1957), VI: 24. 24 Larmer, Water into Wine? The main argument is outlined in chapter 2, the outline below reflects Larmer’s claims on pp. 19–20. 25 Ibid., 20. 26 Ibid., 24. 27 Ibid., 61. 28 Even positing a “Big Bang” does not escape the concern. Nothing in that theory actually posits the creation of matter and/or energy ex nihilo. It is an explanatory starting point, not an ontological one. 29 See Principles of Human Knowledge, I.63. 30 Three Dialogues in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1948–1957), III:251–252. 31 One might conjecture that God created matter from ideas and hence such creation was not technically ex nihilo. Given that substance dualists tend to think of matter and mind/spirit as incommensurable, it is not clear that such creation—using ideas as a “blueprint”—is still not ex nihilo. However, if one believes it makes sense to suppose that mental substances were converted by God into material substance, I grant the point can be blunted. My thanks to Steven Cowan for raising this possibility. 32 See again Siris 359. There is a tradition of which Berkeley was aware that took a more nuanced approach to divine creation. 33 See Marc Hight, “Berkeley and Bodily Resurrection,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.3 (July 2007): 443–458. It is worth noting that if we take Berkeley seriously, one ought to consider the cycles of life just as miraculous as our promised bodily resurrection. My thanks to Michael Allen for this insight. 34 See Alciphron, VI:11. 35 Principles of Human Knowledge, I.84. 36 I would like to thank Michael Allen, Roomet Jakapi, James Janowski, Jeffrey Vogel, Patrick Wilson, and the editors James Spiegel and Steven Cowan for their helpful insights on this chapter.

Bibliography Aquinas, Thomas. Summae Theologiae. Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute, 2012. Armstrong, David. What Is a Law of Nature? New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

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Astley, Jeff, David Browb, and Ann Loades, eds. God in Action: A Reader. New York: T&T Clark, 2004. Augustine. The City of God against the Pagans (De Civitate Dei). Translated and edited by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Basinger, David and Randall Basinger. Philosophy and Miracle: The Contemporary Debate. Lewiston: Edwin Mellon, 1986. Berkeley, George. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. Edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, 9 vols. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1948–1957. Hight, Marc. “Berkeley and Bodily Resurrection.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.3 (July 2007): 443–458. Hight, Marc, ed. The Correspondence of George Berkeley. New York: Cambridge, 2013. Larmer, Robert. Water into Wine? An Investigation of the Concept of Miracle. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988. Lewis, C. S. Miracles. New York: Macmillan, 1960. McKinnon, Alastair. “‘Miracle’ and ‘Paradox.’” American Philosophical Quarterly 4.4 (October 1967): 308–314. Plantinga, Alvin. “Divine Action in the World (Synopsis).” Ratio 19 (December 2006): 495–504. Robinson, Guy. “Miracles,” Ratio 9 (1967): 155–166. Swinburne, Richard. The Concept of Miracle. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology. Volume I. London: Nisbet, 1986. Ward, Benedicta. Miracles and the Medieval Mind. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Ward, Keith. Divine Action. London: Collins, 1990.

10

What’s the Point? Idealism and the Moral Life Keith Ward

Idealism is, in its most general sense, belief in the priority of mind. The most basic “stuff ” of which the universe is composed is not small indivisible lumps that are solid, unconscious, extended, and spatially located, as materialists suppose. It is consciousness, whose contents are such things as perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Mind may or may not be able to exist without matter; but matter can certainly not exist without mind, for matter exists as one sort of content that is possessed by minds. For theistic idealists, there is one ultimate mind, the mind of God, which may exist without there being any material universe, though possibly the generation of one or more universes is a natural expression of the potentialities of the divine being. However, there may be different sorts of matter, and it seems logically possible for the contents of mind to be pure thoughts. For almost all idealists, it is thought rather than sense-perception that is of primary importance. Perceptions do not just swim around in a chaotic sea of colors, sounds, and tactile sensations, as A. J. Ayer seems at one time to have thought. They are ordered so as to form an intelligible, coherent, and relatively stable world. Intelligibility implies intelligence and thought. So idealists believe in the priority of thought over sensation and feeling. In the mind of God, most theists believe, are thoughts of every possible state that could exist. Possible states, idealists feel, are only actual insofar as they are conceived by mind, which has the power to know them in a nonsensory way, and the power to bring them into being as actualities.

Intrinsic value in the universe As intelligent and rational, the primordial mind must bring possibilities into being for a reason, and that reason will most obviously be for the sake of their

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intrinsic value, for the reason that they are worthwhile just for their own sake. Expressed in more theological terms, God creates in order to express the divine glory, for God’s glory is the supreme intrinsic value and beauty of the divine being itself. Other states may be brought into being because they are either conditions or consequences of such intrinsically valuable states. For instance, it is a condition of realizing the value of an outstandingly beautiful and technically proficient performance of a difficult piece of music that there have to have been years of hard disciplined practice, entailing much failure and frustration along the way. Those times of frustration would not be brought into being by a rational being for their own sake. But they could be brought into being as conditions of the great intrinsic value of eventual success. And possibly they could be brought into being in the hope of such success, even if no success was actually achieved. A good, but not outstanding, pianist might live a life of hard practice and eventual failure. Such a pianist might become embittered and depressed, and that would be a bad state. It would nevertheless be worth allowing such states to exist as a foreseeable but not intrinsically valuable condition of realizing the value of success on someone else’s part. In a word (with some apology to the composer Salieri), it is worth having lots of Salieris if their existence is a condition of having one Mozart. Of course, pianists and composers who do not achieve outstanding success should not get depressed and bitter. They should learn to appreciate the achievements of others, while also being reasonably pleased at what they themselves have achieved, which is after all of great worth, given their natural capabilities. To accept that you have done the best with the capacities you have is in itself of great value. But the realization of that value requires the achievement of specific excellences of character, self-knowledge, and self-acceptance. Thus it is that the realization of many distinctive values cannot be achieved just by one primordial all-determining mind. It can only be achieved by the hard-won discipline and self-acceptance of minds who must learn to create and appreciate values for themselves, and who may often fail to do so. A universe created for the sake of realizing states of value will not necessarily be a Paradise, where all goes well and all beings are happy. It may be a world where many values are to be realized through arduous work, discipline, cooperation, and development in self-knowledge, self-criticism, and self-acceptance. In such a world, where the process of self-fulfillment and self-acceptance is difficult and beings are free to pursue that process or not, discipline, cooperation, and development may often be lacking. There may instead be greed, hatred, and

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willful ignorance of one’s own inner motives and desires. There will then be many disvalues in existence, but it will still be true that the world was created for the sake of realizing great values. The moral purpose of the world will still be the realization of distinctive values, but that purpose may be far from obvious, and may even appear to be almost wholly frustrated by societies of finite minds which are lost in greed, hatred, and ignorance. That is why some theorists think the universe seems to lack purpose, meaning, and value. Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize winning cosmologist, famously said, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”1 This statement reflects a widespread opinion in the Western world that there is no purpose or goal in the existence of the universe. It either exists for no reason at all, by pure chance, or it exists by some strange sort of necessity, changing in accordance with its own immutable laws, but without any intelligent direction or awareness of what is going on. In his Dreams of a Final Theory, Weinberg concedes that “It is possible that there is only one logically isolated theory that is consistent with the existence of intelligent beings.”2 This may seem to raise the possibility that intelligent beings could form a goal of cosmic evolution. But he adds that “all our experience throughout the history of science has tended. . .towards a chilling impersonality in the laws of nature.”3 There is no special status for life or intelligence. The universe will inevitably run down, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, and all will end in the same impersonal bleakness from which it began. There may be only one physical system that will give rise to intelligent beings, but the same system will wipe them out and seems indifferent to their existence. Intelligent beings are, after all, a temporary by-product of the universe’s relentless and indifferent machine. For Weinberg, and for many other mathematical physicists, it seems that there is vast intelligibility in the universe, but no value. Yet that is a paradoxical perspective. “There is a beauty in these laws [of nature] that mirrors something that is built into the structure of the universe at a very deep level,” Weinberg says.4 So there is value in the universe. The appreciation of its beauty and intelligibility are values that only the existence of this precise universe, with its tendency to generate physical structures that are complex, integrated, beautiful, and intelligible, and to generate intelligent beings capable of appreciating them, could make possible. It is the cosmos which has given rise to personal lives, to consciousness, intelligence, and freedom. It has given rise to states of intrinsic value. This

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could have been a vastly improbable accident. But given the intelligibility and beauty of the universe, it could also be a process essentially directed toward the realization of certain intrinsic values. And that suggests the existence of a cosmic mind which could generate the process for the sake of such a goal. The problem for thinkers like Steven Weinberg is why the process should be apparently so indifferent to the happiness of finite persons. Idealists usually suppose that intelligence must operate within the bounds of necessity. The primordial mind is necessarily what it is. It exists as an “unlimited ocean of being,” containing and cognizing all possible states. While rational choices are made for the sake of realizing values, those choices cannot logically be totally unconstrained. They are made by a mind with a specific nature (able to know and choose between necessarily existent possible states). The divine nature necessarily expresses itself, and in that necessary self-expression there may be elements that arise from the nature of the divine by necessity and not by rational choice. Such elements, obscurely symbolized in the Bible by the Great Deep (Genesis 1:2) and by the monster Leviathan (Isaiah 27:1), may be ordered and subdued by reason and by love, but their overcoming and transformation may be a necessary part of the self-expression of the primordial mind. As such they may account for the destruction and negativity that seems inseparable from an evolving cosmos. When Weinberg complains that the laws of nature seem indifferent to human well-being, he is complaining about the structure of a world in which finite minds are called to create and appreciate values which can only be realized through conscious, cooperative, and freely willed discipline and effort. Yet this is precisely a world in which scientists can come to understand and appreciate the elegant structure of the cosmos by arduous cooperative work, even if most people can ignore or even oppose this endeavor and its hard-won results. In such a world there cannot be laws that prevent all harm, and thus prevent such things as human greed, laziness, envy, and the love of power. Nor can there be laws that favor only the good and directly punish the bad. To think that the world is like that has been a constant temptation of religious thinking. But the facts of human experience show that the evil often flourish and the good are oppressed and enslaved. That must be so in any world in which the innocent suffer harm because of the brutality of others, and the ruthless gain power by taking advantage of the nonviolence of the good. If there are to be societies of truly free and possibly cooperative human beings, then the laws of the natural order must be neutral and “impersonal” enough to permit that cooperation to be freely given or withheld.

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It does not follow that the laws of nature are indifferent to human life. It is only the operation of such laws that permitted the emergence of human life in the universe. It is such laws that make possible the existence of values which are realizable only by human discipline and endeavor. It is such laws that generate beauty and goodness, understanding and love. Is the understanding and appreciation of the intelligibility and beauty of the cosmos pointless? No, it is its own point. These are experiences of intrinsic and objective value, that is, of things worthwhile for their own sake, whether or not particular individuals happen to think them to be of value. It is not just the physical nature of the universe that is of value. It is mental states of understanding and appreciation that are of value. All actual values are mental states. Intelligibility and beauty really exist, but they are known as intelligible and beautiful, and are thus only actualized as values, when they are the objects of attentive and instructed mental states. For idealists, what gives point to life is the experience of intrinsic value, and the occurrence of such experiences is the purpose of a worthwhile human life, and could be said to be the purpose of the universe itself. The moral life lies in the pursuit of the moral goal of the universe, which is the conscious realization of its inherent potentialities, as they unfold throughout its developing history.

The moral goal of the universe This may seem like a form of evolutionary naturalism, arguing that we must act in a certain way just because that is the direction in which cosmic evolution is moving. This form of evolutionary naturalism suggests that an act or state is good just because it is more evolved. It should be clear, however, that such a view is the reverse of what is being suggested. A Supreme Mind would choose states that are of intrinsic and objective value, that are worthwhile for their own sake alone. This is an irreducibly moral matter, and depends on the axiom that some things are intrinsically worthwhile, whatever people think. It is not that the primordial mind desires something, and subsequently calls it “good.” It is rather that the primordial mind apprehends some state to be worthwhile, apprehends its irreducible goodness, and may choose to realize it for that reason. The good is not independent of primordial mind; it is part of the necessary and essential content of that mind, and so is identical with it. This entails that primordial mind is necessarily what it is in some respects; that goodness is not chosen

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by some arbitrary whim or random choice. The universe has a goal because primordial mind apprehends the necessary existence of intrinsically worthwhile possible states. If the universe evolves from a simple “Big Bang” to the integrated complexity of the human brain, it evolves toward the realization of goodness because goodness is necessary and irreducible. I am not saying that states are good just because that is where cosmic evolution leads. So I am not supporting evolutionary naturalism. The universe, as scientists now understand it, can be seen as progressively unfolding new forms of being and value, which are potential in its first beginning, and which develop in a coherent and continuous way. In this sense, it could be said that the German idealists were the first thinkers to develop a theory of evolution, before it became a scientifically attested process. In Hegel, evolution took a dialectical form, and many later idealists would agree that the process does move by creative reorderings of previous sequences of events which integrate diverse past phenomena into new and often more complex patterns of order. Time and development, creativity and selection, seem to be central to the process. In this process, subjects of experience are not passive or isolated. They are parts of the creative process, cooperating or competing with other parts in a continuous interactive flow of becoming. The experiences of value which constitute moral goals are essentially parts of that creative and interactive process, and the agents who experience those states contribute positively (and, regrettably, sometimes negatively) by their actions to the emergent values that are uniquely realized in this universe. Values as experienced are the culmination of processes of endeavor and creativity, and the remembrance and incorporation of their histories, as well as their self-willed projections toward the future, are constitutive parts of what they are. It is the total process of realization that is of value, and not just the final fully realized state. It is for this reason that an acceptance that the physical universe will end with what used to be called the “heat-death of the universe” does not take value away from the universe as a whole. Even if the process comes to an end, it could have been of great value in itself. Just as the fact that the universe began does not cast doubt upon its present value, so the fact that the universe will end does not impugn its intrinsic value. Moreover, idealists usually hold that the beginning and end of this physical universe do not mean the end of the Supreme Mind that underlies the universe. So there is some form of life beyond the physical always present in a mind that is not bound by the physical. That reinforces the importance of value-realizing

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action as contributing to an eternal spiritual reality. Even if created minds do not live after death, the end of the physical universe leaves belief in the existence of a fully realizable moral goal of the universe untouched, for the goal is realized in the mind of God. It might then seem possible or even likely that the Supreme Mind would be able to give created minds a share in this final realization. Not all idealists have believed in personal immortality, but it does seem a natural consequence of idealist thought.

Creativity and change I have suggested that idealists believe in the ontological priority of mind, of thought, of value, and of purpose. A primordial rational mind will generate universes for the sake of the distinctive values they alone can realize. But can we gain any idea of what those values will be? Only if we can gain some such idea will belief in idealism yield a concrete idea of the moral life. It has already been argued that this universe can be seen as a process of the gradual realization of distinctive values that are created by the self-development and social interaction of personal agents. This perspective suggests the nature of the basic values that form the moral goal of this universe. In stating more explicitly what these values are, I will use an acronym which may have some use as a way of readily bringing them to mind. The acronym is CAUSE, which is a reminder that the subject under consideration is the nature of the underlying cause of the existence of this universe. “C” is for creativity. It is probably A. N. Whitehead more than any other philosopher who has stressed the primary value and importance of creativity.5 This seems to me a valuable idealist contribution to thinking about God, and one can accept it as such without being committed to all the theses of Process philosophy. There have been periods of history when creativity was not especially valued. Indeed, it has often been thought that conformity to tradition or repetition of some primal pattern of life is the greatest human virtue. There is a certain amount of truth in such attitudes, for God can be thought of as the supreme primordial goodness, the Good itself. In that sense, all human striving can do is produce a series of imperfect copies of some aspect of the eternal and unchanging Good. Traditional ideas of God, derived from aspects of the thought of Plato and Aristotle, have seen God as changeless and impassible, and as not needing to create any universe in order to bring into being anything new.

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On these views, creation cannot add anything to the being of God. Creation is purely for the sake of creatures who change, but whose changes leave God exactly as God always was and always will be, whether or not those creatures exist. Perfection is a sort of changeless contemplation of the Good. As Aristotle put it, God is “self-thinking thought,” a being whose perfection rests simply in contemplation of its own changeless perfect nature.6 Idealist thinkers generally challenge this idea of perfection, and therefore also challenge this idea of God, who is the supremely perfect. Why should perfection be thought of as an unchanging and unchangeable state? Such a view would entail that bringing something new into being by creative effort is not part of perfection, or is not of great value for its own sake. But if you think of a composer or artist who brings into being music or paintings that have never before existed, which reveal patterns of sound and color which are totally original with them, and develop previous patterns in new ways, it might begin to seem that such creative activity is, after all, of great value. Originality is something one may prize, and the effort and talent that is thereby realized is one of the most satisfying excellences in human life. The evolutionary perspective is one that stresses that new things can develop, that the complex can grow from the simple (even though theists believe that this requires direction by a Supreme Intelligence), and that not everything is predetermined by a prior reality so that there is truly nothing new under the sun. The evolutionary perspective is also bound up with a sense of historical particularity, which developed at about the same time. For Anselm, as for Plato, the eternal ideas in the mind of God were more real than their merely temporal copies, and the ideal goal of human life was to move from the temporal and changing to the eternal and timeless. In medieval Christian philosophy, particular individuals were thus in a sense less real than their eternal archetypes (or “essential natures”), so that humanity was more real than particular human beings. The sense of historical particularity reverses that perspective, and states that individual events that happen in time are more real than eternal concepts, which are relatively abstract and unreal. We may prefer to say that each is real in different ways. But the emphasis on the historical and particular as having its own distinctive reality, and being worthy of contemplation in and for itself, is a radical conceptual revolution. It means that time and individuality have an intrinsic importance of their own, and are not just dispensable means to the contemplation of the eternal.

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Such a change of perspective can lead to a complete denial of the eternal and essential, and eventually to a form of materialism which denies that there is any nontemporal or purely conceptual reality. But it is important to see that in its earliest forms this was not the case. For it was precisely the life of the mind that was seen to be temporal, individual, and in a continual flowing process. Creativity essentially involves change, the evolution of the new which builds on but transcends the already existing, and it involves particularity, as what I create is uniquely my product, to which I contribute my unique talent and expression. So with the primordial mind of God, if God creates a universe, which begins and perhaps ends in time, then God creates something new, something additional to the being of God itself. Some new content of the divine mind is actualized. God must change creatively, and if God is truly a creator, then God becomes what God need not have been. Knowledge of the contingent must itself be contingent. The existence of a contingent universe changes God. The German philosopher and Lutheran pastor Herder said that the universe progressively unfolds what has always been potential in it. Creativity becomes a great value when the universe is perceived to be an evolving and emergent process, within which the emergent striving of human beings can be seen as a basic virtue, an essential human excellence. It must not be forgotten that becoming is the expression of being. That is, the process of creative change is not chaotic or haphazard and completely unforeseeable. There are parameters of change and emergence. There are primordial depths of eternity and necessity in Being, though they are largely hidden from human thought. To put it in theological language, ultimately God must be, changelessly must be, what God is—wise, compassionate, and blissful in being. But this eternal reality is not some extra layer of being, separated from the creative flow of the temporal. It is rather the form of the temporal, the changeless nature that is expressed in continual change—just as changeless wisdom may be expressed in manifold and diverse wise decisions in ever-new contexts. So, we might say, God is changelessly and essentially creatively free. In seeking to be creative, humans cooperate with the creativity of God. In doing so, they both add new elements to the divine knowledge, and enable the divine activity to be expressed in novel ways. It is in this way that idealism gives a particular view of the human–divine relationship that gives rise to a distinctive—and I would say, deeper—view of what the moral life of humans really is.

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Appreciation and understanding The moral life is not, however, one of ceaseless activity. There is an important place for contemplation too. The “A” and “U” of the acronym “CAUSE” stand for “appreciation” and “understanding,” and part of the good life for humans is learning truly and intensely to appreciate the values of truth, beauty, and goodness. As I have said, there is no actual value without conscious awareness, and there are many degrees of awareness. The simple contemplation of a beautiful landscape is something that can fill the mind with a distinctive pleasure that is calm and serene. On hearing a Mozart symphony, you can learn to understand how the harmonies are formed, the instruments combined, and the musical themes developed, and so appreciate the music in a more intellectually saturated way. On coming to understand the theory of relativity, you can discover the beauty of numbers and imaginatively explore the structures of space and time, finding excitement in the way you can appreciate the intricate complexity of the natural world. It is not the case that one of these ways of appreciation and understanding is “better” than the others. It is just that there are different degrees of intellectual understanding, interwoven in various ways with different forms of sensual appreciation. Feeling and thought are both engaged in all acts of appreciation. Both can be cultivated, by taking the time to attend to the natures of things as they present themselves to us, and finding in them a nonpossessive, nonegoistic loss of self in entering into their objective goodness. Though there is no hard and clear distinction between the two, appreciation is more concerned with the affective tone of experience. It is concerned with the feelings of attraction or aversion that are aroused when we apprehend something. And perhaps such feelings are not purely subjective, as though they had nothing to do with the nature of the objects themselves. They are, or should be, feelingresponses that are appropriate to the nature of things, and thus they give a sort of knowledge of things that is in itself not conceptual. It is more like love for another person, which gives knowledge of that person not open to others, but real and objective nevertheless. I think you could speak of “affective knowing”—knowing by participation in the being of another. It requires an openness to their being, a sensitivity to the natures of things. So there is a sort of discipline of the feelings, as you shape yourself into the sort of person who can be open and sensitive and not diverted by the undue influence of personal desires and proclivities.

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Understanding is more concerned with thought, with forming concepts for describing and relating things and interpreting their natures. The formation of concepts is fraught with difficulty. Our concepts are almost always in some natural language (unless they are purely mathematical), and that language has a history of constant change, as the meanings of words can change quite radically over time. Words can also be interpreted very differently among linguistic subgroups. So it is not helpful to speak of the “one correct meaning” of a word, even though dictionaries exist to record some widely accepted meanings and to present a certain standard usage in cases of dispute. So without some sophisticated mathematical concepts there are things we simply cannot understand, in quantum physics for example. And it is probably true that many philosophical disputes arise because we just have not thought of precise, accurate, and clarifying concepts which might enable us to cut through the disputes. (I am thinking of long-standing arguments about free will, mind and matter, and God, for example.) Understanding is a continuing search for better ways of thinking about the things we experience, which give us a more comprehensive, coherent, and fruitful grasp of how things really are. And I suspect that we will probably never achieve a completely comprehensive, coherent, and fruitful view. We might say that concepts do not mean things. People mean things by using concepts, but what they mean can only be discovered by seeing how they use and relate vast webs of concepts which together comprise a general set of values and ways of seeing the world of their experience. Sometimes we might need to share in that web of concepts to understand more fully what they mean. This is not meant to be a defeatist remark, as though all understandings are relative (without objective truth) or that there is no difference between poor and good understandings of a given topic. It is meant as a reminder that understanding is a difficult and many-leveled process. To possess a good understanding of something is a virtue, a distinctively human excellence. Like appreciation, it requires a certain humility, sensitivity, and self-knowledge. In philosophy, as Socrates said (according to Plato), the person of greatest understanding is one who realizes that they fully understand very little. Nevertheless, greater understanding is a moral goal that is always worth striving for. It is an asymptotic ideal, the full possession of which probably belongs only to God. Because of this, the ideals of appreciation and understanding can be seen by idealists as imitations of that perfect appreciation and understanding that exists in the divine mind, and as participations in the divine wisdom. Possibly,

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then, the divine may illuminate human minds through the inspiration of human feeling and thought—though it is as well to be very cautious about human claims to have been so inspired. Yet it would be reasonable to take as an ultimate goal of the moral life a fuller participation in divine wisdom, bliss, and intelligence, and so to think that this is an attainable goal after all. Here is a distinctive view of the moral life and its goal that the philosophy of idealism underpins.

Synergy and empathy Persons do not exist in isolation, and few forms of creativity, modes of appreciation, or kinds of understanding would be possible without participation in a social complex with its own history and set of basic values. The “S” and “E” of the acronym CAUSE stand for synergy and empathy. Each person needs to work cooperatively (synergistically) with others, and to have a deep feeling for and understanding of other persons. Many, perhaps most, idealists believe that human minds are not isolated and wholly autonomous. The twelfth-century Indian idealist Ramanuja said that finite selves and the material universe together constitute “the body of the Supreme Lord.”7 This image implies that the experiences of finite selves become parts of the all-inclusive experience of the Supreme Mind, and thus organs of experience for the supreme spiritual reality. The actions of finite selves become expressions of the all-encompassing creativity of the Supreme Mind, and thus realizations of potentialities inherent in the supreme spiritual reality. The image of selves as the body of the Lord, which is remarkably similar to the Christian image of believers as “the body of Christ,” stands in need of qualification from a Christian viewpoint. Many finite experiences, like the pleasure felt by a torturer, cannot be attributed to God. Yet, being known by God, they enter into the experience of God. As such, they must carry an element of judgment or censure and thus a distancing from the perfection of the divine mind. The realization of certain possibilities in the divine mind is due to consciousnesses other than and alienated from the divine mind itself. Christian idealism is therefore distinguishable from Absolute or nondualistic forms of idealism in that, as in the idealism of Ramanuja, an irreducible alterity and relationship exists in the ultimately real. There is a diversity-in-unity such that the ideal toward which the cosmos is meant to move is a mutual indwelling of many diverse experiences and actions. This is a complete cooperation of actions

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and sharing of experiences, by which the primordial mind is expressed in and through the diverse minds of finite beings, and those beings in turn contribute to the divine experience by their own freely creative choices. For Christians, however, this is an ideal to be fully realized only at the end of this world’s time. In this universe, there is a possibility, that has unfortunately become actual, that the ideal communion of being will be broken, and that finite minds will choose radical autonomy and individualistic self-will rather than extended sympathy and cooperation. In such a world “the will which is above us and higher than ours,”8 will not be realized in and through the self-realization of many finite wills. It will become an ideal which it is hard, and maybe impossible, to realize, and which comes to seem like a demand of the moral life. It will not, however, be an arbitrary command of some superior power. It will be an intimation of what a perfected life can be, bringing with it a hope that our failures will not render such a life completely beyond reach. This is one form of the Christian Gospel, that God will bring to perfection what we cannot achieve, but which remains the proper form of our self-realization as members of the body of the Supreme Lord. Christian idealism brings to that longing for universal sympathy and creative human cooperation, which was so marked in humane philosophers like John Stuart Mill, the belief that universal Spirit will make it actual even for human beings who are presently filled with hatred and the spirit of divisiveness. Then we can see humans, not as the weak and corrupted wills they so often display, but as always possessing the inmost possibility of becoming unique contributors to the self-expression of the mind of God, and therefore as proper objects of respect, compassion, and hope.

Christian idealism There is, of course, much more that might be said about the ethics of idealism. There is not just one such ethical system. Bishop Berkeley was able to generate from his form of idealism an ethic of absolute moral prohibitions. It is never under any circumstances right to rebel against duly constituted political authorities, he believed. But that was not so much a result of his idealism as of a very pessimistic view of the capacities of individuals to make responsible moral decisions. Immanuel Kant, also a self-styled “critical idealist,” held that there were absolute moral prohibitions. And again it may be doubted whether

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the application of his principle of universalizability (the Categorical Imperative) really leads to such a result. Many matters remain to be discussed about the nature of moral rights and duties, and their relationship to the ideals of goodness that I have discussed in this chapter. I have concentrated on the way in which idealism provides a distinctive perspective within which a particular view of morality can intelligibly arise. My argument has been that idealism gives ontological priority to the existence of mind. This impels it to give priority to thought, value, and purpose. A minddependent universe must exist for a purpose, which is the realization of intrinsic values that are conceived or present as possibilities in the primordial mind that generates the universe. The rise of idealism as a distinctive philosophical school coincided with the Protestant Reformation and the rise of modern science and of historical studies in Europe. These movements of thought, probably unintentionally, interacted to generate an idea of history as the self-development of a supreme spiritual reality. God was no longer a changeless reality unmoved by the flux of history, and the real came to be seen as the historical, individual, and changing. Evolutionary theory began with the postulate of time as the medium through which a spiritual reality gradually realized its own possibilities. The realization of intrinsic value thus came to be seen as the purpose of an emergent process of spiritual selfrealization. Many Christians found this rather disturbing, for both the immutable God of Aquinas and the all-determining sovereign Lord of Calvin were felt to be threatened. Even worse, the very idea of a God was felt by many to be superfluous, as the laws of a nature “red in tooth and claw” assumed control of the universe. As Thomas Huxley famously argued, in his essay on “Evolution and Ethics,” the processes of nature were to be opposed on moral grounds, not imitated. Christian idealism has to show that its view of God is consonant with the saving revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and that the idea of a progressive self-expression of God in the universe is consonant with our scientific understanding of nature. I have argued that a view of the universe as moving to the emergence of intelligent life is fully consonant with evolutionary theory, and that there are basic moral values that such a view underpins. These are the five values I characterized as: creativity, appreciation, understanding, synergy, and empathy—summarized by the acronym CAUSE. The philosophy of idealism supports the intrinsic value of creativity, as the process of originating the genuinely novel; of appreciation and understanding, as sensitivity to and intellectual awareness of the nature of

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things; and of synergy and empathy, as realizing the value of social interaction and the communion of finite minds within the reality of the primordial mind of the universe. There are many forms of idealism, and even many forms of theistic idealism. The one I have outlined suggests a distinctive Christian view of the moral life, which might be summarized by saying that it sees human beings as unique and creative contributors to the self-expression of the mind of God. Humans are parts of God’s self-unfolding in creation. It is in God that “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is a creative, passionate, dynamic, and relational being, in whose life we now share, and with whose life we shall be fully united at the end of days. We shall “become participants in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The distinctive feature of Christian idealism is that humans cooperate with the divine creativity, participate in the divine wisdom, and grow into a communion of free persons and the divine, which is an authentic expression of the mind of God: “He set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). To put that in overtly Christian terms, the moral task of human beings is to let the Spirit of Christ live in them, allow themselves to be conformed to the mind of Christ, and learn to live “in Christ” as members of the body of the Lord. Even if this task is believed and accepted only by few, then for them it becomes a vocation to demonstrate in thought and action what the will and purpose of God is for all people without exception. The moral life is a life that has a point, a moral goal of great intrinsic value. Christian idealism can help to make clear what that point is. The beauty, attraction, and plausibility of the Christian idealist view of the moral life is one strong argument for the truth of the Christian faith. It is also an argument that idealism is a philosophical perspective that provides the most adequate underpinning for Christian belief in the contemporary world.

Notes 1 Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 154. 2 Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (New York: Vintage Press, 1993), 191.

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3 Ibid., 196. 4 Ibid., 194. 5 See, for example, A. N. Whitehead, ‘Process and Reality’ (corrected edition: The Free Press, New York, 1978), Part 1, chapter 1, and Part 5. 6 See Aristotle, ‘Metaphysics’ lambda (The Works of Aristotle, vol. 8, trans. W. D. Ross. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928]). 7 Ramanuja, The Vedanta Sutras, trans. George Thibaut, in Max Muller (ed.), Sacred Books of the East, vol. 48 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904), 95. 8 F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927), 159.

Bibliography Bradley, F. H. Ethical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927. Ramanuja, The Vedanta Sutras. Translated by George Thibaut. In Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 48, edited by Max Muller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904. Weinberg, Steven. Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. New York: Vintage Press, 1993. Weinberg, Steven. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. New York: Basic Books, 1977.

Notes on Contributors Benjamin H. Arbour is executive director of the Institute for Philosophical and Theological Research. His publications have appeared in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Bibliotheca Sacra, and Modern Reformation. He is coeditor of the forthcoming books: (with Kevin Timpe) New Essays against Open Theism (Routledge) and (with Greg Ganssle) Christian Theology and the Modern Philosophers (Zondervan). Douglas K. Blount is professor of Christian Philosophy and Ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His scholarly articles have appeared in Public Affairs Quarterly, Philosophia Christi, and Southwestern Journal of Theology. He is coeditor (with Joseph D. Wooddell) of The Baptist Faith and Message 2000: Critical Issues in America’s Largest Protestant Denomination (Rowman and Littlefield). Steven B. Cowan is assistant professor of Philosophy and Religion and director of the Philosophy and Religion Program at Lincoln Memorial University. His scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as Religious Studies, Faith and Philosophy, and Philosophia Christi. He is the coauthor (with James Spiegel) of The Love of Wisdom (Broadman & Holman) and editor of Five Views on Apologetics (Zondervan). Adam Groza is vice president of Enrollment and Student Services and associate professor of Philosophy of Religion at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a contributing author in the book Ministry in the New Marriage Culture (B&H Press) and his writing has been featured in Baptist Press, Markets and Morality, and The Southwestern Journal of Theology. Marc A. Hight is Elliott Professor of Philosophy at Hampden-Sydney College. He is the author of The Correspondence of George Berkeley (Cambridge) and Idea and Ontology (Penn State) as well as numerous articles concerning early modern philosophy. Relevant to this volume, he has published articles related to Berkeley and idealism in Modern Theology, Revue Philosophique, and Journal of the History of Philosophy.

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Howard Robinson is University Professor, and former Provost, of Central European University, a graduate school in Budapest. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Rutgers Center for Philosophy of Religion. He is the author of Matter and Sense (Cambridge), Perception (Routledge), and editor of the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Berkeley’s Principles and Three Dialogues and coeditor (with John Foster) of Essays on Berkeley (Oxford). James S. Spiegel is professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University. He has published numerous articles on Berkeleyan idealism, and his scholarly work has appeared in such journals as Faith and Philosophy, Sophia, and International Journal of Philosophy and Theology. His books include Hypocrisy: Moral Fraud and Other Vices (Baker) and the award winning How to Be Good in a World Gone Bad (Kregel). Charles Taliaferro is professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at St. Olaf College. He is the author or editor of over twenty books including The Routledge Companion to Theism (editor), The Image in Mind (Continuum), coauthored with Jil Evans, and Evidence and Faith: Philosophy and Religion Since the Seventeenth Century (author, Cambridge). Gregory E. Trickett is associate professor of Philosophy at Weatherford College in Weatherford, Texas. He has presented his work on idealism at several meetings of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Keith Ward is a Fellow of the British Academy, Regius Professor Emeritus of Divinity, University of Oxford, and Professorial Research Fellow at Heythrop College. He is the author of over thirty books, including Religion and Revelation (Oxford), God: A Guide for the Perplexed (Oneworld), More Than Matter? (Lion/ Hudson), and Morality, Autonomy, and God (Oneworld, 2013). Ward delivered the Gifford Lectures in 1993–1994.

Index abstract ideas see ideas abstraction 33, 43, 45n. 16 abstractionism 66, 136 abstract objects 66, 133, 135, 150 accidental necessity 140, 143 acquaintance 40–2 Adams, Robert M. 5, 10n. 9, 161n. 2, 162 agnosticism 2, 11 Albert, David 84–6, 88nn. 23, 30, 89 alethic realism see realism Allen, Michael 185 Alston, William 6, 29–34, 38, 44n. 1, 45nn. 11, 14, 48 Anscombe, G. E. M. 65n. 8, 67 Anselm 194 Anselmianism 128, 143–5, 145nn. 3–4, 150 antirealism, antirealists 29 Apostles’ Creed 108 appreciation 9, 189, 191, 196–8, 200 Aquinas, Thomas 66, 68, 140, 149n. 38, 150, 168, 185, 200 Arbour, Benjamin H. 8, 48, 127, 203 Aristotle 30–1, 35, 44nn. 6, 8, 48, 56, 59, 64, 66n. 12, 67n. 28, 68, 83, 120n. 10, 125, 193, 194, 202n. 6 Arminian theology 24–5 Armstrong, David M. 9, 9n. 4, 65nn. 8–9, 68, 77, 184n. 10, 185 atheism 2, 11, 46n. 21, 110, 121n. 21 Augustine 9, 66n. 20, 160, 165, 169, 175, 177, 184nn. 8–9, 186 Avogadro’s constant 18, 20 Ayer, A. J. 27, 27n. 16, 66n. 1, 68, 187 Badham, Paul and Linda 105, 105n. 17 Bailey, Andrew 65n. 8, 66n. 11, 68 Baker, Robert 65n. 9, 68 Barbour, Ian 16, 26n. 11

bare particular 52, 55–8 see also material substratum Bartha, David 88n. 20 Basinger, David 27, 27n. 26, 183n. 5, 184n. 20, 186 Basinger, Randall 183n. 5, 184n. 20, 186 Bennett, Jonathan 26n. 4, 27 Bergmann, Gustav 65n. 7, 68 Berkeley, George viii, ix, 1–4, 5, 9–10, 10nn. 5, 10, 11–15, 20–1, 23–5, 25nn. 1–2, 26nn. 3–5, 10, 27, 27nn. 16–19, 22, 28, 32–44, 45nn. 13, 16, 17–18, 46nn. 20–1, 23–4, 47nn. 28, 30, 48–9, 48, 49, 60, 66nn. 19–20, 67nn. 21–3, 25, 67n. 27, 68, 69, 71–5, 77–8, 83, 87n. 12, 88nn. 21–2, 101, 107–15, 116–20, 120nn. 2–3, 6–16, 121nn. 17–19, 121nn. 21–3, 25–7, 31, 33–4, 122nn. 34–6, 39, 41–2, 63–5, 123nn. 67, 69–72, 124–5, 127, 129–30, 133, 135, 136, 145nn. 1, 5, 7, 147n. 22, 148nn. 30, 32, 149–51, 153–7, 160–1, 161nn. 2–11, 162, 162nn. 13, 15, 163, 166, 168–9, 176–7, 180–2, 183nn. 1–2, 184n. 8, 185nn. 23, 30, 32–3, 186, 199, 203–4 Berman, David 45n. 16, 48 Big Bang 18, 20, 185, 192 Bigelow, J. 26n. 14, 28 Bird, Alexander 76, 87n. 9, 89 Black, Max 53, 54, 55, 62, 65n. 4, 68 Blackburn, Simon 75, 87n. 4, 89 Blount, Douglas K. 8, 48, 153, 203 Böhme, Jakob 85, 116, 117 Bourne, Craig 146n. 13, 150 Bradatan, Costica 67n. 20, 68 Bradley, F. H. 202, 202n. 8 Brewer, Bill 87n. 15 Brunner, Emil 123n. 57 Brykman, Genevieve 120n. 11

206

Index

bundle theory 7, 51, 52–8, 60–1, 64n. 1, 65n. 5, 66n. 19 Byerly, T. Ryan 148n. 31, 149n. 39, 150 Calvin, John 200 Cambridge Platonists 96 Campbell, Keith 65n. 8, 68 canonical interpretation (of sense data) 80–1, 83–4 Cantorian set-theoretic arguments 137–8 Casullo, Albert 64n. 1, 65n. 6, 68 Cates, Lynn 111–12, 121nn. 21, 25, 124 causal interaction, interactionism 8, 15, 16, 67n. 26, 67n, 74, 92, 98–100 causation 26n. 14, 28, 92, 96, 100–1, 139, 146n. 12, 149nn. 37, 41, 151 Chalmers, A. F. 19, 26n. 15 Chalmers, David 95 Christ see Jesus Christ Christianity 4, 39, 108, 130, 132, 136, 144, 145n. 6, 162n. 14, 163, 166–7 Christian orthodoxy 4, 8, 46n. 21, 47nn. 28–9, 49, 107, 117, 121nn. 20–1, 128, 129, 145n. 6, 151 see also Nicene orthodoxy Christian theism 6, 7 Clark, Stephen R. L. 45n. 13, 48 Clayton, Philip 122n. 52, 123n. 55, 124 Collins, Anthony 107 common sense 7, 39, 71, 72, 77–81, 84, 102, 114, 181 common sense realism 85 concepts, conceptualization 29, 30, 36, 38, 40, 44n. 8, 46n. 24, 61, 79, 81–2, 93–6, 102, 110, 121n. 29, 123n. 74, 124, 133–4, 137, 165, 167, 169–70, 173–4, 176–7, 180, 183, 183n. 5, 184nn. 14, 16, 19, 186, 194, 197 consciousness 7, 18, 71, 72, 82, 84, 87, 91–5, 97, 100, 104nn. 3, 6–8, 105, 105nn. 14, 20, 106, 187, 189, 198 constituent identity, principle of 65n. 5 Cooper, John 122nn. 46, 48, 123n. 62, 124 Copernicus, N. 154 Copleston, Fredrick 36, 37, 43, 46nn. 19, 25, 27, 47nn. 46–7, 48 Correia, Fabrice 46n. 22, 48 correspondence theory of truth see truth cosmic constants 18

cosmological argument 102, 146n. 18, 150 Council of Nicaea 129 Cowan, Steven B. viii, ix, 1, 7, 47n. 37, 48n. 50, 51, 185nn. 31, 36, 203 Craig, William Lane 66n. 12, 69, 141, 146nn. 16, 18, 150 creatio ex nihilo 112, 116, 117, 120, 123n. 55, 129, 134, 179 creation 8, 9, 23, 40, 44, 101, 107–9, 111–13, 116–18, 120, 121nn. 20, 24, 123nn. 54, 56, 57, 60–1, 124, 127–8, 132–6, 141–2, 144, 146n15, 147nn. 21, 24, 151, 154, 165–6, 169–70, 175–83, 184n. 8, 185nn. 28, 31–2, 194, 201 see also Mosaic account of creation creativity 9, 192, 193–5, 198, 200, 201 Creator 8, 116–18, 120, 121n. 20, 130, 133, 154, 167, 169, 195 Crisp, Thomas M. 146n. 13, 147n. 19, 150 Cummins, Phillip 114, 121n. 34, 122nn. 37, 40, 123n. 73, 124 Dalton’s law 172 Dancy, Jonathan 13, 27n. 5, 28, 149, 155–6, 161nn. 3, 12, 162n. 16, 163 Daniel, Stephen 5, 10, 10n. 10, 67n. 20, 68, 107, 108, 120nn. 2, 15 Dennett, Daniel 93–9, 102, 104nn. 3–4, 7–8, 105 Descartes, Rene 15, 72, 91, 98, 115, 129, 130, 148n. 30 direct realism see realism discernibility problem 53–4, 62 disembodiment 98–100 distinctive principle 109 divine action 6, 11, 15–17, 21, 25, 26n. 11, 28, 184nn. 12, 20, 186 divine conservation 4, 111, 129, 150 divine decrees 20 divine governance 20–1 divine hiddenness 14–15, 26n.9, 28 divine ideas 16, 17, 24, 66, 67n. 20, 68, 112 divine intervention 9, 15, 16, 23, 170–4 divine timelessness see God, timelessness dualism 6, 8, 91–3, 98, 100, 102–4, 129 Edwards, Jonathan 5, 66n. 18 Ellis, B. 26n. 14, 28 embodiment 103

Index empathy 9, 198–9, 200–1 empiricism, empiricist 2, 61, 67n. 25, 72, 81, 129 endurantism 134, 135 epistemology, epistemologist 15, 66n. 20, 127, 130, 145n. 8, 162n. 22, 163 Eriugena 1 esse est percipi (aut percipere) 3, 11–12, 34, 60, 117 eternalism 131, 133, 135–6 ethics, morality 29, 67n. 24, 69, 104n. 1, 106, 122n. 34, 199, 200 Euphranor 83, 155 evil, problem of 6, 23–5, 27n. 21, 28, 190 evolutionary naturalism 191–2 evolutionary theory 200 experience 2, 3, 6, 7, 12–20, 25, 26n. 7, 34, 36, 39, 41–2, 59–61, 71–9, 84, 86, 88n. 16, 89, 96, 99, 103, 110, 115, 156, 168, 171, 180–1, 189–90, 192, 196, 198 explanation (scientific) 9, 22, 93, 96, 105, 157, 159–61, 165–6, 170–6, 178–80, 183, 184n. 14 extension 8, 33, 34, 39, 110, 129–30, 134–6, 148n. 33 facts 18, 30–6, 37–8, 42, 44, 45n. 9, 46n. 22, 48, 72, 84 faith 2, 35, 46n. 21, 49, 107, 121n. 21, 124, 147, 151, 166–7, 174, 182–3, 183n. 3, 201 Fales, Evan 26n. 14, 28 Farris, Joshua viii, 10, 10n. 7 Fields, Keota 45n. 16, 48 finite spirits see mind; soul; spirit Foster, John 92, 100–1, 105, 105n. 18 four-dimensionalism 134–5, 146n.11, 147n. 19, 151 free will 27, 27n. 26, 101, 132, 148nn. 31, 36, 189, 190, 197, 199 free will defense 24 Gallagher, S. 95, 104n. 9, 105 Geisler, Norman L. 122n. 45, 124 God, aseity 128, 146 attributes 107, 113, 118, 120, 128, 148n. 34, 149n. 43, 169 belief in 6, 12, 15, 169

207

eternality 110–13, 118, 132, 146n. 14, 150, 181, 193, 195 existence 2, 13, 14–15, 25, 100, 105, 105nn. 18, 20, 107, 109, 128, 169, 178, 190 foreknowledge 27n. 26, 112, 132, 147n. 19, 148nn. 31, 36, 149n. 39, 150 freedom 8, 116, 117, 121n. 20, 123n. 54, 136, 140, 142, 195 glory 188 immanence 107 immateriality 115, 128, 129, 130, 181 immutability 110, 111, 200 love 27n. 21, 28, 113, 116, 122n. 52, 128, 149n. 44 omnibenevolence, goodness 128, 155, 156, 193 omnipotence 8, 112–13, 118, 128, 137, 139–43, 144–5, 148n. 34, 149n. 38, 150 omniscience 112–13, 118, 128 simplicity 107, 128, 142 sovereignty 44, 128 timelessness 8, 112, 121n. 24, 132, 135–7, 141–2, 144, 148nn. 29, 34, 149n. 41 transcendence 16, 44, 107–8, 134, 136 gospel 1, 35, 127, 199 Gould, Paul M. 147n. 23, 150 graph theory 76 Grayling, A. C. 36, 46n. 23–4, 48 great-making properties 128, 137, 148n. 34 growing-blockism 131, 135–6, 146n. 10 Groza, Adam 8, 107, 203 Hamilton, S. Mark 10, 10n. 7 Harre, Rom 157, 162n. 19, 163 Hartshorne, Charles 122n. 43, 124 Hasker, William 145n. 3, 150 Hegel, G. W. F. 1, 192 Helm, Paul 146n. 14, 147n. 25, 150 Hempel, Carl 27n. 16, 28 Herder, J. G. 195 heterogeneity principle 118–19 Hick, John 27n. 21, 28 Hicks, G. Dawes 107–8, 120n.3, 122n. 53 Hight, Marc A. 9, 27n. 20, 165, 183n. 1, 185n. 33, 186, 203

208

Index

Hobbes, Thomas 46n. 19, 48, 110 Hoffman, J. 66n. 12, 68 Hooker, Michael 120n. 11, 124 Hopkins, Jasper 122n. 48 Howell, Jay 48n. 50 Hudson, Hud 147n. 26, 150 Hume, David 13, 19, 21, 26nn. 6, 8, 28, 46n. 19, 48, 72, 75, 122n. 34 Huxley, Thomas 200 Hylas 3, 23–4, 111, 114, 120, 121n. 34, 122nn. 37, 40, 123n. 73, 124, 153 idealism, absolute 198 benefits (advantages) of 1, 11, 16, 18, 21, 102, 166 Berkeleyan viii, 1, 4–5, 7–8, 12, 15, 29, 32–5, 52, 56, 60–1, 64, 66n. 19, 71, 99, 108, 112–13, 115, 118, 128, 130, 134–5, 153, 204 explanatory power of 18, 20 German 192 Hegelian 1 ideas 1, 2–4, 8, 11–13, 16–17, 20–1, 23–4, 26n. 13, 32, 34, 36–8, 40–4, 45n. 16, 46nn. 24, 26, 47nn. 30, 35, 48, 60–1, 66n. 20, 67nn. 20, 25, 68, 72–3, 77–8, 80, 83, 94, 107–20, 121nn. 24, 29, 123nn. 54, 129, 153–6, 160, 181–2, 185n. 31, 193–4 abstract 33, 42, 45n. 16, 48, 133 imaginary 4, 12 real 4, 12 simple 36 identity of indiscernibles, principle of 53–4, 64n.1, 65nn. 4–6, 68, 69 strong version 54–5, 58, 62 weak version 54 imagistic conception of mental content 81, 82 immaterialism 5, 27n. 20, 33, 35, 40, 42–3, 45n. 16, 46nn. 21, 23–4, 47nn. 28, 30, 49, 48–9, 130, 151, 165–6, 169, 180–3 indiscernibility of identicals, principle of 76, 98 induction 18, 100, 105, 105n. 18 inherence principle 109, 113

intentionalist theory of perception see perception intentionality thesis 78–9, 87n. 14 intrinsic value see value, intrinsic inverse square law 18, 19 Ivanova, Milena 162n. 22, 163 Jakapi, Roomet 185n. 36 Janowski, James 185n. 36 Jantzen, Grace M. 123n. 66, 124 Jesus Christ 105n. 21, 106–8, 169, 183n. 3, 198, 200, 201 Job 172 kabala 116 Kant, Immanuel 1, 199 Kaplan, D. 88n. 17, 89 Kirkham, Richard 31, 45n. 10, 48 Klein, Stan 94, 104n. 6, 105 Kline, A. David 88n. 22 knowledge 21, 26n. 6, 40–1, 91, 94, 96, 97, 115, 119, 122n. 42, 156, 169, 171–2, 180–1, 195, 196 Krause, Karl 115 Kuhn, Thomas 157, 162n. 21, 163 Kvanvig, Jonathan 150 Larmer, Robert 174, 177–9, 184n. 19, 185nn. 24–7, 186 law of gravity 18, 20, 174 law of identity 54, 62, 76, 95 laws of nature 6, 9, 11, 16, 18–21, 22–3, 25, 26n. 14, 27n. 20, 28, 96, 100–1, 105, 105n. 18, 165–6, 168, 174–9, 189–91, 201n. 2, 202 necessitarian view 18–19 regularity view 19–20 laws of thermodynamics 18, 20, 173 Leftow, Brian 139, 146n. 14, 148n. 36, 149n. 38, 150 Leibniz’s law see indiscernibility of identicals, principle of Le Poidevin, Robin 157, 162n. 18, 163 Levine, Michael 108, 112, 120n. 4, 121n. 29, 124 Lewis, C. S. 157, 162n. 17, 163, 173–5, 184n. 17, 185nn. 21–2, 186

Index Lewis, David K. 74, 76–7, 87n. 2, 89, 137, 148n. 35 Lierse, C. 26n. 14, 28 Locke, John 2–3, 9n. 2, 10, 34, 42, 65n. 7, 68, 72, 79–80, 110, 118, 129–30, 145n. 8, 148n. 30 Lockean substance see material substratum; matter Loewer, Barry 85, 86, 88n. 27 logical positivism, positivists 43 Logos 71, 73 Loux, Michael 56–7, 59, 65nn. 3, 5, 66nn. 10, 12, 14, 16–17, 19, 68, 88n. 18, 89, 146nn. 11, 13, 150, 151 Lowe, E. J. 66n. 16, 68 Lynch, Michael P. 46n. 22, 48 McCracken, Charles 136, 148n. 32, 150 MacDonald, Cynthia 66n. 15, 67n. 29, 69 McKinnon, Alastair 170, 184n. 11, 186 McMullin, Ernan 162n. 23, 163 McTaggert, J. M. E. 150 Malebranche, Nicolas 101, 109 Martin, M. J. M. 88n. 16, 89 materialism 6, 8, 31, 33, 45n. 15, 71, 98, 102–3, 166–8, 175–9, 183, 195 material substratum 2, 7, 34, 47n. 31, 51–2, 55–7, 60, 65n. 7, 66nn. 12, 19, 67n. 29, 118, 129 matter see material substratum matterism see materialism Maudlin, T. 88n. 29, 89 Merricks, Trenton 146n. 12, 150 Meyer, Ulrich 146n. 13, 147n. 19, 150 Mill, J. S. 77, 87n. 11, 89, 99 mind 1, 3–4, 6–9, 11–18, 31–44, 46n. 26, 47n. 35, 60–4, 67nn. 25–7, 29, 71–3, 78, 91–104, 107–20, 121n. 24, 122nn. 34, 42, 123n. 74, 129–30, 133–5, 153– 4, 160, 167–8, 172, 175–6, 179–82, 185n. 31, 187–201 see also soul; spirit mind-body problem miracles 6, 9, 11, 18, 21, 23–5, 27n. 20, 159–60, 165–86 Moltmann, Jürgen 122nn. 44, 51, 123nn. 53, 55–7, 59–61 Moreland, J. P. 65n. 7, 66nn. 11–13, 67nn. 24, 29, 69, 105

209

Morris, Thomas 145n. 4, 150 Mosaic account of creation 111–12, 121n.21, 180–1 Mulligan, Kevin 46n. 22, 48 Mullins, R. T. 149n. 42, 150 Murphy, Nancey 16 Murray, Michael 26n. 9, 28 Nagasawa, Yujin 145n. 3, 150 Nagel, Ernest 27n. 16, 28 Nagel, Thomas 93, 96, 104n. 1, 105 naïve realism see realism naturalism 6, 17–18, 25, 175, 191–2 Newman, Andrew 46n. 22, 48 Ney, A. 89 Nicene creed (council of Nicaea) 129–30, 133–5, 142, 144 Nicholas of Cusa 116, 122nn. 48–9, 123n. 57, 124 nominalism 82 Ockham’s (Occam’s) Razor 17–18, 26n.12, 28 O’Connor, Timothy 105, 105n. 19 O’Leary-Hawthorne, John 64n. 1, 65n. 6, 69 Olscamp, Paul 43, 47n. 48 Oord, Thomas 149n. 44 orthodoxy (theological) 4, 8, 46, 107, 117, 121nn. 20–1, 128–9, 133–5, 142, 144, 145n. 6 panentheism 8, 108, 115–19, 122nn. 44, 53, 123n. 55 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 115, 122n. 44 pantheism 8, 108, 110–13, 115, 118, 121n. 29 Pappas, George 45n. 16, 48 particulars 51–69, 135, 171 Pascal, Blaise 97, 107–8, 120n. 1, 124 Pauley, Edward 30, 35, 44n. 7, 49 Peacocke, Arthur 16, 26n. 11 perception 61, 71–2, 78–83, 100, 117, 122n. 34, 187 perdurantism 134, 147nn. 26–7, 148n. 29 personal identity 94, 100 phenomenalism 8, 72, 156, 160 Pickavance, Tim 66n. 11, 69

210

Index

Plantinga, Alvin 15, 171, 184n. 12, 186 Plato (and Platonism) 1, 96, 133, 146n. 17, 193–4, 197 Plotinus 116, 122n. 47, 124 Polkinghorne, John 16, 26n. 11 positivism see logical positivism presentism 8, 131, 135–6, 140, 142, 146n. 13, 147n. 19, 148nn. 29, 33, 149n. 41 properties 35, 53–64, 66n. 20, 67n. 26, 73–8, 83, 86, 95–6, 110–12, 118, 128–9, 134, 137, 142 providence 20–1, 23–5, 83 Pruss, Alexander 147nn. 21, 24, 151 Putnam, Hilary 159–60, 162n. 24, 163 qualia 93 qualities 2–3, 7, 11, 16, 34, 60, 75, 77–8, 83, 119, 129–30, 136 quantum theory 7, 71, 84, 86–7, 87n. 29, 172, 174, 197 Rae, Scott 67, 69 Ramanuja 198, 202n. 7 Raphson, Joseph 110 Rasmussen, Joshua 147n. 20, 151 Rea, Michael 146n. 11, 151 realism, alethic 6, 29, 32–5, 43, 45n. 9 direct (naïve) 7, 73, 78–9, 81, 85 metaphysical 31–5, 43, 45n. 15, 74 representative 7, 73, 83 scientific 7–8, 71, 73, 84, 86–7, 156, 159, 161n. 1 Reid, Thomas 114, 121–2n. 34, 122n. 38, 124 relativity 3, 196 Rickless, Samuel 45n. 16, 49, 145n. 5, 147n. 22, 151 Roberts, J. R. 3, 10n. 5, 25n. 2, 28, 67n. 25, 69 Robinson, Guy 184n. 14, 186 Robinson, Howard 7, 87n. 3, 88nn. 18, 28, 89, 96, 204 Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo 65nn. 2, 6, 69 Rosenkrantz, Gary 66n. 12, 68 Russell, Bertrand 6, 32, 38–42, 47nn. 29–41, 49, 64n. 1, 65n. 7, 69, 74, 86, 87n. 1, 88n. 28, 89

Sabom, Michael 105, 105n. 17 Sanders, John 27n. 26, 28 Schellenberg, John 26n. 9, 28 science 4, 8, 14–18, 20–2, 25, 26n. 11, 73–4, 77, 83, 85–6, 93–6, 100, 133, 153–63, 170–3, 177, 184nn. 14–15, 189, 200 scientific realism see realism Scruton, Roger 93, 96–9, 104n. 10, 106 Searle, John 102 sensation 2–3, 12, 77, 99, 109–10, 153, 187 sense data 39–40, 47n. 31, 78–81, 83, 87n. 14, 88n. 17 Sider, Theodore 65n. 8, 69, 146n. 11, 151 skepticism 2, 8–9, 11, 13, 21, 26n. 6, 75, 166–7, 171–5, 178–9, 183 Smart, J. J. C. 26n. 12, 28 Smith, A. D. 81–2, 88n. 19, 89 solipsism 3, 14, 35, 182 Sorabji, R. 98–9, 104, 105n. 15, 106 soul 15–17, 27n. 21, 60–1, 63–4, 67n. 26, 83, 109, 113–15, 118, 167 see also mind; spirit space 32, 52, 54, 74–5, 80–1, 84–6, 91, 96, 107, 110, 113, 117, 133–5, 196 Spiegel, James 6, 27n. 21, 28, 38, 44, 46n. 21, 47nn. 28, 49, 48n. 50, 49, 145, 151, 185n. 36, 203–4 spirit 3–4, 11–16, 24, 60, 77, 109, 111–15, 117–18, 136, 154, 167, 181, 185n. 31, 199, 201 see also mind; soul Sprigge, T. L. S. 91–3, 96–7, 100, 102, 104n. 1, 105n. 13, 106 Strawson, P. F. 66n. 12, 69 substance 2, 3, 12, 17–18, 26n. 13, 32, 33–9, 42, 45n. 16, 57–9, 60–1, 62, 63–4, 64n. 1, 65nn. 6, 8, 66n. 12, 67, 67n. 25, 68, 69, 111, 113, 114–15, 118–20, 121n. 29, 129–30, 134, 135, 148n. 30, 153, 166, 167–8, 185n. 31 see also material substratum substance theory 7, 52, 56–9, 60–1, 63–4, 66n. 12, 67n. 25 substratum see material substratum substratum theory 7, 51, 52, 55–6, 65n. 7, 66n. 19, 67n. 29

Index Swinburne, Richard 103–4, 105n. 21, 106, 145n. 3, 151, 173, 184n. 16, 186 Swoyer, C. 26n. 14, 28

211

truth 6–7, 29–49, 158–9, 179, 196–7 Turbayne, Colin 109, 120n. 10, 121n. 32, 125 universals 32, 82–3

Taliaferro, Charles 7, 106, 204 teleology (teleological), 59, 63 temporality, accidental divine temporality (ADT) 8, 132, 136–8, 140–3, 149 divine 8, 134, 140–4, 148n. 29 unqualified divine temporality (UDT) 132 theism 6–7, 8, 11–12, 15, 17–18, 20–2, 25, 27n. 26, 100–1, 104, 115, 128, 165, 166, 183 Thrane, Gary 110, 120n. 16, 125 Tillich, Paul 166, 170, 183n. 4, 186 time 8, 17, 32, 52, 62, 74, 86, 97, 111–12, 127–51, 155, 192, 194–6, 199–200 Tipton, Ian 45n. 16, 49 Toland, John 107, 111, 121n. 19 Tooley, Michael 146n. 12, 151 Trickett, Gregory E. 6, 204

Van Cleve, James 65n. 3, 69 van Frassen, Bas 161n. 1, 162n. 25, 163 van Inwagen, Peter 26n. 9, 28, 66n. 16, 69, 145n. 3, 151 verificationism 43 Walsh, Dorothy 26n. 12, 28 Ward, Benedicta 184n. 9, 186 Ward, Keith 9, 184n. 20, 186, 204 Weinberg, Steven 189–90, 202, 202n. 1 Wenck, Johannes 116 Wenz, P. S. 66n. 20, 69 Wiggins, David 66n. 12, 69 Wildman, Wesley 26n. 11, 28 Winkler, Kenneth 155, 161n. 11, 163 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 82, 97 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 146n. 15, 151 Zimmerman, Dean 146n. 15, 147n. 19, 151