Roman dogma: Modal collapse or Intentional and Providential Collapse
Thesis: Roman dogma leads to a bit of a pickle for Romans. This pickle puts them between two hard choices, the first choice is to bite the modal collapse bullet and end up with the fatalistic conclusion that everything is necessary or to attempt to avert that bullet and find themselves hit with the two other bullets, the Intentional and Providential collapse arguments all of which have been touched on by Joe Schmid. I'll try to condense the issue here.
Is it dogma?
I won't go into where exactly these dogmas are defined in detail, but I'll give you some references. The first is The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott on Simplicity and Unity in God. The Second is going to be something like Denzinger 389 if my memory serves me correctly, in which God is identified with his attributes, which implies Actus Purus, which leads to the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity as understood in Roman Dogma. These point to things like Fourth Lateran Council, First Vatican Council, and a confession of faith from the Council of Rheims approved by three popes.
How to avert Modal Collapse
- Necessarily, God exists.
- God is identical to God’s actual act of creation.
- Necessarily, God’s actual act of creation exists.
This argument is, indeed, valid. Nor is there any untoward question-begging here— on DDS, there can be no distinction between God and God’s actual creative act, for that would introduce a composition of agent and action in God. The argument, then—by the classical theist’s own lights—is sound. The question is whether (3*) entails modal collapse. - Joe Schmid, fruitful death of modal collapse arguments
Necessarily, God’s actual act of creation exists.
Necessarily, if God’s actual act of creation exists, the actual creation exists.10
Necessarily, the actual creation exists.
Here’s the crux: if God’s creative act is deterministic—i.e., if God’s creative act necessitates its efect—then modal collapse straightforwardly ensues in conjunction with (3*). For God’s actual creative act brings about everything numerically distinct from God. Hence, given the necessity of said act and the fact that causal acts necessitate what they bring about, a simple application of the distribution axiom entails that everything numerically distinct from God is likewise necessary. - Joe Schmid, fruitful death of modal collapse arguments
Premises 4-6 are the application of the distribution axiom mentioned here. So to answer the question how do we avert modal collapse? It seems the answer to this is to deny premise 5. The roman can therefore avoid modal collapse, but only if he's willing to suggest that God’s act indeterministically produces its effects.
Joe describes this in a new paper as the Biconditional Solution.
Trapping the Move to Indeterminism
Biconditional Solution: Classical theists(Romans) avoid modal collapse if and only if they embrace an indeterministic link between God and his efects.
Contingent Predications about God's Act
One other piece of information that's needs to be recognized from this debate is that extrinsic predications of God's act, given Roman theology, are extrinsic meaning true in virtue of something external to God.
While God’s act is indeed intrinsic (and therefore identical) to Him, ‘God’s act of creation’ designates that act, not how it is in itself, but by way of its contingent efects. That is, whether ‘God’s act of creation’ designates God’s act depends on the existence of a creation which is contingent, and so the designation is not rigid. And since the designation is not rigid, the identity statement is not necessary, as it must be in order to validate the argument from modal collapse. (2019, p. 280) - Christopher Tomaszewski
As Thomist Tomaszewski points out God's act is not creative in virtue of anything that is true about the act itself, but rather it is true in virtue of the fact that creation is enduring.
Another reason contingent divine predications are extrinsic is that God—under traditional articulations of DDS—is purely actual. He has no potential for change or for cross-world variance. Thus, everything about God as he is in himself is utterly invariant across worlds. - Joe Schmid, From Modal Collapse to Providential Collapse
As Schmid points out, given Actus Purus, God has no potential for change and is thus invariant across all possible ways reality could be. This therefore debars any contingent intrinsic predication of God's act as that would entail that God is not invariant across all ways reality could be, and God would no longer be Pure Act. We see that Joe's Biconditional Solution bears out this consequence as well, and this is where the problem begins to arise for Roman's who wish to remain consistent.
God Knows What He Will Do in Advance
Surely, then, God knows and intends what he is doing in advance. It is not as though God brings something about but doesn’t know or intend in advance what he is doing, i.e., what he is bringing about. The notion of ‘in advance’ here is a bit imprecise, but we can precisify it by speaking of the state causally prior to creation. As Brian Leftow explains the doctrine of creation within the classical tradition, “before all else existed, God existed, alone, or God and only God did not begin to exist” - Joe Schmid, From Modal Collapse to Providential Collapse
If such a God is personal, then his actions are personal actions, and this means they are intentional and free; and if such a God is perfect in character, then his actions are rational and good. These guideposts for refection on the doctrine of creation force us to think of God as knowing what he is doing when he creates. When he says, for example, “Let there be light (Gen. 1:3),” he does not discover what light is when it comes into existence. He meant light. And if he meant it, then he knew about light before he spoke it into being.
The precise sense of ‘before’ is difcult to pin down; minimally, it is an explanatory or logical ‘before’. If the world is a product of God’s rational action then when God makes light he makes it, in part, because he knows about light, as when we say that the child aced the test because she knew her multiplication table. Ward, T. M. (2020, p. 5). Divine ideas. Cambridge University Press
This means that God knows and intends what he will create in advance of creating it. It also entails that his knowing and intending it to come about is part of the reason why something comes about in reality in the way that it does.
The Problem of Intentional Collapse
This is where the problem rears it's head. For God’s knowing and intending what he will create is a contingent phenomena. It is a contingent truth that God actualizes our world. If it's contingently true that he actualizes our world, then it's contingently true that God knows he will actualize this world in advance of creating it. Likewise then, it is only a contingent truth that God intends to actualize this world. Had reality been some other way, then it would have been the case that God intended to actualize that world instead of this world.
God’s act in itself has a character adequate to provide an intentional explanation for creation’s obtaining.
God’s act in itself has a character adequate to provide such an intentional explanation only if God’s act in itself counts as an act of intending creation
If God’s act in itself counts as an act of intending creation, then the contingent predication of intending creation to God is not extrinsic.1111
If the contingent predication of intending creation to God is not extrinsic, then DDS is false.12
So, DDS is false. (8–11)
The problem of Providential Collapse
To make matters precise, I wish to formalize it. Before doing so, we need to get clear about the terms employed therein. By ‘facts about an agent and their act(s)’, I mean the facts about how the agent and their acts are in themselves. It includes things like internal mental willings, intentions, desires, the character of the act(s), the character and states of the agent, and so on. By ‘x is perfectly compatible with y’s obtaining’, I mean x leaves open whether y obtains; y’s obtaining is a live possibility on the supposition that x obtains—x’s obtaining does not ensure, settle, or determine ~y. By ‘divine efect’, I mean whatever efect of God’s one necessary act obtains. We can then formalize the providential collapse argument as follows: - Joe Schmid, From Modal Collapse to Providential Collapse
If fixing all the facts about an agent and their act(s) is perfectly compatible with the obtaining of any possible efect of their act(s) among an arbitrarily large range of possible efects, then the agent is not in control over which efect of their act(s) obtains.
If DDS is true, then fixing all the facts about God and his act is perfectly compatible with the obtaining of any possible divine efect among an arbitrarily large range of possible divine efects.
So, if DDS is true, God is not in control over which divine efect obtains. (13, 14)
But since God is provident, God is in control over which divine efect obtains.
So, DDS is false. (15, 16)
It is at this point I will say that these arguments have convinced me that Roman Theology is untenable. It's stuck in a dilemma, modal collapse or the collapse of intentionality and providence in God all together. Romans can either bite the modal collapse bullet or they can avoid it, only to fall pray to the following two arguments. I would love to hear if anyone has any creative solutions to this issue.