Modal Collapse (Again)

Dwong asks an important question:

Like denying they’re a hipster, modal collapse arguments are what all the hipster theologians are about these days, failing to recognize how thoroughly the issue has been dealt with by philosophers who had no penchant for pascal colored hair or messy comb-overs: Lonergan, Maritain, Matthews Grant, Eleonore Stump, Brian Davies, Edward Feser (also here, specifically on Cambridge change), Rob Koons, Alex Pruss, Christopher Tomaszewski, Peter Totleben, and Norris Clarke, to name a few.

As well, I have responded to modal collapse (and related) objections at greater length here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. But here we are again!

The modal collapse objection is meant to show classical theism is either 1) incoherent or 2) costly in what it entails, with the general idea being: if God is simple and immutable, then how could God be free to create other than God has?

For example: if God had not created this world, but some other world (or no world), then wouldn’t this place an intrinsic potency in God (say, the potency to create whatever God didn’t create)? If so, then wouldn’t that be incompatible with the classical theistic claim that God has no intrinsic potency? Or if not, then wouldn’t we be committed God creating necessarily because there was no potency for God to do otherwise — in which case, nothing is contingent after all? Would we then succumb to deterministic fatalism??? (Notice: the “collapse” between contingency and necessity).

Modal collapse objections often overlook basic distinctions or import controversial theses that classical theists would (and should) deny.

For it is true that God does not have any intrinsic PASSIVE potency — that is, no higher perfection that God could attain because God is pure actuality, subsistent being itself. However, it has long been acknowledge among classical theists that God has unlimited ACTIVE potency, which really just refers to God’s omnipotence or God’s ability to bring about all possibilities of being EXTRINSIC to God.

At which point it will be objected that if God created differently then surely SOMETHING about God would have to be INSTRINCIALLY different. Before responding, let us appreciate that the critical assumption is now coming to light, which is this: that causes must change in producing their effect.

Here, there is much to be said.

First: it is a fallacy of accident to assume — as both Ed Feser and Brian Davies point out — that a cause must change in producing its effect. The reason is because it is accidental (rather than essential) that causes change in producing their effect, and primarily this has to do with the fact that most of the causes in our experience are contingent — not to mention physical — beings. However, what is essential to the cause effect-relationship is not that a cause change in producing an effect but simply than an effect is produced. Thus, while it might seem strange that a cause could bring about an effect without being affected, the classical theist can respond — “Yes, this may seem strange — fair enough. However, should we be surprised that things become a bit ‘unusual’ when talking about God, who is radically transcendent and (unlike us) in no way dependent upon anything aside Himself?” In other words, if any cause should be different in how it produces or relates to effects, that would be God.

“… every contingent predication concerning God also is an extrinsic denomination. In other words, God is intrinsically the same whether he understands, affirms, wills, causes this or that universe to be. If he does not, then God exists and nothing else exists. If he does, God exists and the universe in question exists; the two existences suffice for the truth of the judgments that God understands, affirms, wills, effects the universe; for God is unlimited in perfection, and what is unlimited in perfection must understand, affirm, will, effect whatever else is.” (Lonergan, Insight, Chap 19.)

Of course, charging a fallacy of accident doesn’t show HOW God remains intrinsically the same while producing some effect but it does grind many (if not most) modal collapse objections to a halt where further assertion becomes question begging.

Fortunately, we can go further in answering Dwong’s questions by bringing in resources provided by various Thomistic thinkers, including Matthews Grant and (more recently) Gaven Kerr. What we must consider is the nature of intentional action, and this is where the critic may be importing a particular action theory (namely, a Davidsonian action theory) that the classical theist has every right to deny.

I will be exploring these themes in an upcoming podcast; in the meantime, Gaven provides the executive summary:

“The third is that it is a general principle of Aquinas’s metaphysics that the action of the agent is in the patient. So, when an agent acts, that action is not in the agent, but the patient. When it comes to the act of creating, the action is God’s granting existence to things. The existence thus granted is not located in God, but in creatures. On the Anscombian account of agency, the action of the agent is extrinsic to the agent and in his effects, i.e. his doings in the world. The form or intentionality of the action then is not some mental event in the agent, but in the action itself. Similarly, then with God, the form or intention of His action is not some mental event in Him causing Him to act, pace Davidson, but is the form of the patient, i.e. the creature.

The fourth is that given his commitment to God’s simplicity, Aquinas sees no distinction between God’s power and His exercise of that power; rather there is a distinction between God’s power and the thing brought to be by that power, i.e. the creature. On Davidson’s account, there must be a distinction between the agent’s capacity to act and the exercise of that capacity, since the exercise is preceded by a mental event that brings the agent into operation in his action. By contrast, insofar as Anscombe’s account denies any preceding mental event as cause of the action, the agent simply acts without a preceding mental event as cause.[1] So, when an agent acts, that action is not in the agent, but the patient. When it comes to the act of creating, the action is God’s granting existence to things. The existence thus granted is not located in God, but in creatures. On the Anscombian account of agency, the action of the agent is extrinsic to the agent and in his effects, i.e. his doings in the world. The form or intentionality of the action then is not some mental event in the agent, but in the action itself. Similarly, then with God, the form or intention of His action is not some mental event in Him causing Him to act, pace Davidson, but is the form of the patient, i.e. the creature.” (Article forthcomign)

Bolding was mine.