Eternality
How precisely is divine eternality
incompatible with divine impassibility? This question should first be clarified
by an exact definition of “eternality.” By “eternality” I mean “the condition
of having eternity as one’s mode of existence,” as opposed to “sempiternality,”
“the condition of having sempiternity” as one’s mode of existence.” “Eternity”
is, according to the classic definition of Boethius, “the complete simultaneous
and perfect possession of unending life.” This implies that one cannot exist
both eternally and in time, since the events constituting the life of a
temporal entity occur sequentially, some later than others. Therefore, a
temporal entity does not possess its life completely and simultaneously, and an
eternal entity exists atemporally. “Sempiternity,” on the other hand, means
“everlasting existence.”
Since all change occurs in time, it
will be clear than an eternal being cannot change at all, that is to say is
immutable simpliciter, which is incompatible with possibility. Thus
eternality implies immutability, which in turn implies impassibility. The
question then is: do we have to hold to the divine eternality? Because we have
suggested above that attributes like immutability and eternality are
corollaries of the divine unconditionedness, it seems a rational procedure
first to ask in what way the divine eternality is entailed by divine
unconditionedness. The most obvious
answer to this question is that divine eternality is implied by divine
immutability in its absolute sense. Since I have already argued that the most
important arguments for absolute immutability fail, it seems unnecessary here
to discuss the question of whether eternality indeed is entailed by
immutability. Even if this is true, we are not compelled to conclude that God
exists eternally, since we are not compelled to accept that God is absolutely
immutable.
Therefore we will have to look for
arguments for divine eternality that are logically independent of divine
immutability. I suspect that the most important of these is the following,
which originates with Boethius. God’s omniscience entails that God infallibly
knows all true propositions as true. Some true propositions are about the
future. God infallibly knows these propositions as true too. This seems to
imply determinism: when God knows at t1 that Jones will do A at t2,
then Jones is not free at t2 not to do A. This problem could be
resolved by God’s being eternal, because if God exists eternally, He does not
know at t1 that Jones does A at t2, but He knows
eternally that Jones does A at t2: Jones’s doing A at t2
is eternally present to God. Thus God does not have foreknowledge of
true propositions concerning the future, but eternal knowledge. This is
compatible with the freedom of human actions: God’s eternally knowing that
Jones does A at t2 is compatible with Jones’s being free not to do A
at t2.
According to this argument, then, (1)
God exists eternally and (2) God has eternal knowledge of temporal events. This
presupposes that the prepositions (1) and 92) involve no contradictions. It is
a moto point whether this is the cases, but for reasons of space I do not want
to give a review of this debate. For the debate on the question of whether the
most general of the two propositions (1) involves contradictions I refer to the
extant literature, whereas I want to make one short comment on the question of
whether the most particular of the two propositions (2) involves
contradictions. If God is omniscient, God must see things as they are. Now it
is characteristic of all the things in this world that they are changing.
Therefore God must see them as changing, and changing things “can be known as
changing only by a knower whose awareness follows along with it.” Therefore,
the awareness of the knower must be mutable, and since eternality and
mutability are incompatible, cannot be eternal. This argument seems to me to be
decisive against the notion of God’s eternal knowledge of temporal events and
therewith against Boethius’ solution of the problem of God’s foreknowledge and
human free will. This solution is only a seeming solution, since it presupposes
a contradiction and fails to do justice to God’s omniscience. It seems
reasonable to suppose, therefore, that God’s mode of existence is sempiternal.
I have not come to the end of my
discussion of the arguments against divine passibilty that are based on divine unconditionedness
and and two of its corollaries, divine immutability and divine eternality.
Summing up, I have argued that unconditinedness may be given up in favour of
self-existence, absolute immutability in favour of partial immutability and
eternality in favour of sempiternality. This alternative interpretation of the
three divine attributes is compatible with a qualified form of divine passibility.
With respect to these qualifications, the conclusion draws in the previous
section (i.e. that God cannot be under causal constraint and that His passions
cannot be due to causal influence) has been corroborated. Moreover, I have
shown that God must be immutable with respect to His abilities and His moral
character; if God is passible, the changes in His feelings or the quality of
His inner life cannot detract from His abilities or His moral character. (Marcel
Sarot, God, Passibility and Corporeality [Studies in Philosophical
Theology 6; Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992], 57-59)
David Brown: God
has experiential knowledge through the incarnation
As we have seen above, David Brown
suggests that only the incarnation could have brought God certain sorts of
knowledge. This does not seem satisfactory to me, because it means that God
depends upon the incarnation for His omniscience. This implies that in a
certain respect human nature is more perfect than divine nature: human nature
is of itself capable of having experiential knowledge, whereas divine nature is
not. For those who hold that God exists in time—and David Brown is one of them.
(See Brown, Continental Philosophy, pp. 42-3)—it means that God has not
been omniscient during the major part of His existence. Last but not least,
this solution entails that one can no longer claim that the incarnation took
place merely for our sake; by becoming incarnate God would also have ensured
His own omniscience. (cf. Blumenfeld, “Compossibility,” p. 214 n. 10)
The above argument, then, cannot be
met by holding that God has gained experiential knowledge during the
incarnation. More is required: we should hold that the divine itself must be
capable of having certain experiences and feelings and must in fact have had
some of these. This position safeguards the divine omniscience without bringing
with it the problems involved in Brown’s solution. Though this position is
perfectly compatible with passibilism, unlike Hartshorne’s position it does not
undeniably entail passibilism. The claim that God must have or have had some
experiences or feelings is a weaker claim than the claim that God is passible
for passibilty mutable feelings and experiences are required, whereas at least
some theologians might hold that if God has experiences, it must be timeless
and immutable experience. On the other hand, the claim that God must be able to
undergo feelings or experiences corroborates passibilism in an important
respect: God must be able to have feelings and His inner life must have a
qualitative aspect. (Marcel Sarot, God, Passibility and Corporeality [Studies
in Philosophical Theology 6; Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing
House, 1992], 75-76)
Does intellectual
omniscience also entail experience?
I have argued above that, if God
cannot have experience, He lacks experiential knowledge. Furthermore, I argued
that experiential knowledge adds something to intellectual knowledge. From this
it follows that if God lacks experiential knowledge, He cannot be fully
omniscient. But can a Being without experience be intellectually omniscient?
For the sake of the argument, I more or less conceded above that this is
possible.
There are, however, indications that
the ability to know how certain experiences feel also limits one’s intellectual
knowledge. In a remarkable article R. A. Sharpe argues that someone who is
congenitally immune to pain-Sharpe calls him Robinson—cannot judge whether new
descriptions of painful experiences are correct, and cannot himself propose new
descriptions.
“Take a familiar mild discomfort, such
as ‘pins and needles.’ The man immune from pain can identify and describe it,
of course. He recognizes that a man has pins and needles when he gets up and
shakes a hand or foot and when the discovery is rapid . . . But what Robinson
does not have is the capacity to adjudicate on whether a new description of
pain is adequate or not. ‘Pins and needles’ can be variously described. Some
languages have ‘ant-creepings’; the young son of a colleague . . . described it
as ‘fizzings.’ Those of us who have had the sensation can do what the man
immune to pain cannot do. We can say that ‘fizzings’ is a better description
than ‘pins and needles.’ Since a consensus is attainable such a description
might become generally accepted . . . Once accepted, Robinson and his
fellow-non-sufferers can, of course, apply the term in line with the usual
criteria. But though Robinson can apply a description or identifying term once
it is accepted, he can neither put forward a new description nor can he play
any role in its ratification.” (R. A. Sharpe, “How Having the Concept of Pain
Depends on Experiencing it,” Philosophical Investigations 6 [1983]
142-44; quotations taken form p. 143)
Thus people who are congenitally
immune to pain cannot judge whether new descriptions of painful experiences are
correct. The knowledge whether descriptions are correct falls under the
category of intellectual knowledge, however. This means that people are
congenitally immune to pain are handicapped not only in their capacity for
experiential knowledge, but also in their capacity for intellectual knowledge.
This has an important implication for
the doctrine of God, namely: if God lacks experiential knowledge, He is not
able to judge whether new descriptions of experiences are adequate or not. In
that case, moreover, God would necessarily be dependent upon His creatures for
the formulation of such descriptions God would only be able to gain a full
intellectual knowledge of creaturely experience indirectly, namely by having
knowledge of the knowledge of His creatures. This would mean that human beings
would be in advance of God with respect to the intellectual knowledge of
creaturely experiences as well. This corroborates the argument for a
“sensitive” God, since even when one agrees with the present author that
omniscience involves more than knowledge of all true propositions, such
knowledge remains an indispensable ingredient of divine omniscience. (Marcel
Sarot, God, Passibility and Corporeality [Studies in Philosophical
Theology 6; Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992], 76-77)
Prima facie it may seem that no form of divine embodiment
is compatible with the Christian tradition. The Bible—and especially the Old
Testament—portrays God as a corporeal Being: it speaks freely of God’s finger,
His hand and arm. His lips, mouth and voice. His eye, nose and face, His heart,
His feet, etc. The Jewish tradition is divided on the interpretation of the
Scriptures: some rabbis give a literal interpretation and hold that God has a
human form and shape, whereas other prefer an allegorical or metaphorical interpretation
and affirm the incorporeality of God. The Christian tradition, however, is much
more unified in its rejection of anthropomorphisms in general and of divine
corporeality in particular.
Over against the corporeality of God
it teaches His spirituality, thereby indicating “that God, Who as our Creator
and Redeemer bestows life, is not corporeal.” (Marcel Sarot, God,
Passibility and Corporeality [Studies in Philosophical Theology 6; Kampen,
The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992], 209-10)
. . . the theopaschite formula is a christological
formula and not a theological formula. It allows us to say that the
human nature of Jeus suffered, that the Second Person of the Trinity suffered,
that the Logos incarnate suffered, but not that the divine nature of
Jesus suffered. Now this creates a logical problem: how is it possible on the
one hand to assert that the Second Person of the Trinity suffered and on the
other hand to deny that the divine nature is capable of suffering?
Classical theology has proposed the
doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum as a solution to this problem.
According to this doctrine, the hypostatic union of the human and the divine
nature in the Person of Christ is such that the attributes of both natures can
be truly ascribed to this one Person. Thus Christ is omnipotent—since
omnipotence is an attributed of the divine nature—as well as passible—since
passibilty is an attribute of the human nature. Since it is the same
subject—Christ—Who is God and man, the man in Christ shares the properties of
God and vice versa. This could be called the perfect interchange of the
properties of God and man in Christ (communicatio idiomatum in the ontological
sense). As a result of this the man Christ can be spoken of as having
divine attributes, and the divine Logos can be spoken of as having human
attributes and as truly being the subject of human experiences (communicatio
idiomatum in the logical sense). Thus, because the divine Logos
shares in the possibility of the man Christ, one can truly say that the divine
Logos suffers. However, the communicatio idiomatum only applies to the
conjunction of concrete and concrete, not to the conjunction of abstract and
abstract. The divine nature does not share in the attributes of the
human nature and vice versa, and one cannot say that the divine nature
has suffered. In other words, the flesh of Christ is the medium
passionis: it is only by His union with the flesh that the divine Logos,
though His nature remains impassible, can suffer.
To many contemporary theologians this
solution seems highly implausible, if not incoherent. To them it seems that if
the divine Logos suffered through or in the flesh, this presupposes that the
divine nature itself is capable of suffering. If this were not true, the Logos
also could not suffer in the flesh, since He Himself would remain impassible in
the suffering of the flesh. Therefore it seems that either the divine
nature is capable of suffering, or in the incarnation of the Logos has
lost the divine nature and acquired attributes that are incompatible with the
divine nature. In the first case the divine nature would be passible, but this
is just what traditional theology wants to deny, and in the second case it
would become meaningless to say that the incarnate Logos really was divine,
since its attributes would be incompatible with the divine nature.
This objection against orthodox
christology surely rests upon a mistake. There is no contradiction involved in
the assertion that the impassible Logos, without loosing His impassible nature,
suffers by its union with the flesh. Consider the following analogy. Of itself
a compact disk player is incapable of producing music, even when its plug has
been inserted into the wall-socket et cetera. It can produce electric
signals only, so it needs an amplifier with loudspeakers to translate those
signals into sounds. Thus a compact disk player is must of itself (it has a
mute “nature”), but when it is united with an amplifier it can produce sounds,
without thereby losing its mute nature. Or consider an incorporeal spirit-a
“ghost”—that is incapable of moving objects. By being united with a body it
might acquire this ability, without thereby losing its own nature. In such a
case its body would be the medium of its “moving-actions.” In a similar
way, if the divine nature is impassible, the second Person of the Trinity might
suffer through the Flesh during the incarnation, without thereby loosing His
essential impassibiilty. Thus there is no contradiction involved in the
assertion that the impassible divine Logos became incarnate and suffered. This
does not of course prove that the divine nature indeed is impassible, but it
does remove one important argument against divine impassibility. (Marcel Sarot,
God, Passibility and Corporeality [Studies in Philosophical Theology 6;
Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992], 92-94)
