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The Impossibility of God
Jeffrey Grupp
Philosophy Department
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907
www.AbstractAtom.com
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The Impossibility of God
Jeffrey Grupp,
Philosophy Department
Abstract
I discuss the relations between God and spatial entities, such as the
universe. An example of a relation between God and a spatial entity is the
relation, causes. Such relations are, in David Armstrong’s words,
“realm crossing” relations, which are relations between or among spatial
entities and entities in the realm of the spatially unlocated. I discuss
an apparent problem with such realm crossing relations. If this problem is
serious enough, as I will argue it is, it implies that God cannot be the
creator of the universe. I also discuss that if God cannot be the creator
of the universe, then God does not exist.
1. Introduction
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Regardless of how common it is for philosophers around the world to
believe that these realm crossing relations exist, if my argumentation in
section 2 is correct, such realm crossing relations are impossible, which
would show that there is no monotheistic God who is a creator of the
spatial realm. I imagine that there will be many objections to my
reasoning, and for that reason, in section 3 I will discuss objections
other philosophers have presented to me. I will also discuss
an objection
presented to me by physicists.
However,
I will find that the objections others have presented to
my reasoning appears to only reveal more problems to do with relations
between God and the universe. But before getting started with my
arguments, in this introduction, I will briefly discuss realm crossing
relations.
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Before discussing the specific problem with realm crossing relations, I
will discuss how I use the terms “realm crossing relation”, and
“unmediated attachment”, which are relevant to discussion of the problems
of God’s (alleged) interrelatedness to the universe.
There are two types of realm crossing that I discuss in this paper: (i) a
realm crossing relation, which is an intermediary between
God, and spatial entities; and (ii) realm crossing unmediated
attachments which, I will discuss, must exist as a result of the
(alleged) co-exemplification of the asymmetrical causal relation between
God and spatial entities. Let “realm crossing relation” denote any
relation that stands between entities in space and an entity not in space.
I am not concerned with the specific nature of such r
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ealm crossing relations here (are they universals, tropes, etc.?). I am
only concerned with the issue that realm crossing relations are alleged
connections between a spatially unlocated entity (God) and entities in
space, or the entirety of space.
Unmediated attachment is a kind of attachment
entities are involved in which does not involve an intermediary.
Let “unmediated attachment” denote an attachment that is a
non-relational attachment or tying which the realm crossing relation
is involved in with its relata, or, as I will discuss, that parts of the
realm crossing relation (if it is not a simple, but rather is a complex,[5]
relation) are involved in with each other.[6]
Unmediated attachment is not a relation between attached entities,
and unmediated attachment does not involve any sort of entity that
is between the attached entities. A realm crossing
unmediated attachment is an unmediated attachment between an entity that
is not in space and spatial entity.
2.2. Some Questions about Realm Crossers
In this section, I will be concerned with unmediated attachments between
spatially located entities and entities that are not in space. For realm
crossing relations to connect God and spatial entities, I will discuss
that unmediated attachments are required in the interconnecting of God and
spatial entities, since God can relate to spatial entities in only one of
the following two ways:
-
The realm crossing relation is
partless (noncomplex, simple), and thus is either wholly spatially
located or wholly spatially unlocated. If the realm crossing relation is
an intermediary connection between a spatially located entity and God,
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then the noncomplex realm crossing relation involves an unmediated
attachment to both spatial entities and to God.
-
The realm crossing relation is
both spatially located and spatially unlocated, and therefore is
composed of two or more parts (the relation is complex), where at least
one part is wholly spatially located (and involves an unmediated
attachment to all of space, or with entities in space), and where at
least one part is wholly spatially unlocated (and involves an unmediated
attachment to God). In order that the realm crossing relation give rise
to a connection between spatially located entities and God, a wholly
spatially located part and a wholly spatially unlocated part of the
realm crossing relation must involve an unmediated attachment.
Since the realm crossing relation is an alleged connection between God and
spatial entities, points 1 and 2 both suggest that if there is an
interconnection across realms from God to the universe, this
interrelatedness must involve at least one unmediated attachment of a
spatial entity and an aspatial entity. It is this unmediated
attachment that I am concerned with in this paper, and which I will argue
below is contradictory. Theists, have not explained or rendered
intelligible how a causal relation between God and entities in the
universe, or between God and the entire universe (the sum of all entities
in the universe and all spatial locations), could have such a capacity to
cross realms, and to coherently involve the unmediated attachment of an
entity that is wholly spatial and an entity that is wholly not in space.
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According to points 1 and 2, there are several scenarios for which
entities might be those that are involved in the unmediated attachment of
a wholly spatially located entity and a wholly spatially unlocated entity.
I will not discuss or argue the issue of which of the entities
mentioned in points 1 or 2 are those that must specifically be involved in
this unmediated attachment. I will only be concerned with the issue that
there is at least one such unmediated attachment between a wholly
aspatial entity and a wholly spatial entity, if it is the case that God
causally relates to objects in the universe, or to the entire universe, as
described in points 1 and 2.
With respect to this unmediated attachment, I will
call the entity wholly outside of space O, and the entity wholly in space
L. According to the scenarios described in points 1 and 2 above, L could
be the physical particular caused by God (the universe, or an object
located in the universe, such as, for example, the Earth[7]);
or L could be the entire causal relation if the causal relation is simple
and is wholly located in space, as discussed in point 1. Or L could be a
part of the realm crossing causal relation that is wholly in space,
as discussed in point 2. O could be God, or could be the entire the causal
relation, if the causal relation is simple and not in space, as discussed
in point 1. Or O could be a part of the causal relation that is not
in space, as discussed in point 2 above. What L and O symbolize depends on
if point 1 is correct, or if point 2 is correct; and, beyond that, it also
depends on many of the specific details to do with points 1 or 2. In this
paper, I am not concerned with which is correct point 1 or point 2. My
concern is not specifically where the unmediated attachment of L
and O occurs. My only concern is that realm crossing indeed involves an
unmediated attachment of L and O at some point in the scenario of God
causally relating to the universe.
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I do not know of any explanation of how, exactly, a wholly
spatially located entity and a wholly spatially unlocated entity can be
involved in an unmediated attachment. An unmediated attachment between a
wholly spatially located entity and a wholly spatially unlocated entity
appears seriously problematic for the following reasons.
It is difficult to understand how an unmediated attachment between a
wholly spatially located entity and a wholly spatially unlocated entity
might take place at all. Such an unmediated attachment, would require
either that the wholly spatially unlocated entity "reach across" the
realms in order to be at a place and to thus involve an unmediated
attachment to the wholly spatially located entity, or vice versa. Since a
wholly spatially located cannot fail to be at a place, a wholly spatially
unlocated entity then must indeed "reach across" to the wholly
spatially located entity, in order to involve an unmediated
attachment to the wholly spatially located entity. Since the wholly
spatially located entity can only be at a place, the wholly
spatially unlocated entity must become wholly spatially located,
and must somehow be at a spatial place, if it is to involve an
unmediated attachment to the wholly spatially located entity. Similarly, a
wholly spatially located entity would have to "reach across" the realms in
order to become spatially unlocated, if they are to involve an
unmediated attachment to a wholly spatially unlocated entity. However, how
this occurs is not only unexplained, it is also apparently
self-contradictory: in order that such an unmediated attachment occur
between a wholly spatially located entity and a spatially unlocated
entity, either a wholly spatially located entity must not be
spatially located (not be at a spatial place), or a
wholly spatially unlocated entity must be spatially located (be at a
spatial place). But by the definition of "spatially unlocated", what
is wholly spatially unlocated cannot be at a
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spatial place lest it be
spatially located; and by the definition of "spatially located", what is
wholly spatially located cannot fail to be at a place lest it be spatially
unlocated. If the realm crossing intermediary (the relation, causes)
is indeed a connection between God and the entities of the universe, the
realm crossing intermediary apparently involves such contradictory
features.
3. Objection 1: The Entire Universe is Unlocated and God can Relate to It
Some philosophers may object to the reasoning of the
previous section for the following reasons. If our universe is the only
universe (as some astrophysicists maintain), then it is not spatially
located, since there is no physical space outside our universe for the
universe to be located in. In other words, the points in space are
locations,[8]
and the entirety of space is a set of locations that are,
as-a-whole, spatially unlocated, and thus God can be related
to the universe as-a-whole, such as, for example, when initially creating
the universe. God cannot be related to the individual parts of the
universe since parts of the universe are spatial items, but God can be
related to the entire universe since the entire universe is spatially
unlocated (if our universe is the only universe).[9]
There is a problem with this objection. Since the universe, is a
collection of spatial locations, it is made up of the individual
locations, and God would also be related to each of the individual
locations. In other words, by being related to the entirety of the
universe, God would also have to be related to each of the individual
points of space that make up the universe. If God was not related
to any of the individual points of space of the universe, then God could
not be related to the entire universe, since space is the sum of
the individual locations. If God is related to the universe as a whole,
then God must be also related to each of the individual locations that
compose the entire universe.
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One could object to the reasoning given
to this point in this section by maintaining that God need not interact
with the totality of the universe at any time except the singularity,
where the universe may have been a simple (partless) entity, and thus
God’s interaction with the singularity was an interaction with one
point-sized, or Planck-sized, item, which is spatially unlocated. This
objection however, will not due, since the singularity at t0
was not space (was not the universe). Quentin Smith writes:
"The universe is
standardly defined as the set of events, each event being a point in a
four-dimensional spacetime continuum, such that each event is
characterized by four coordinates (x1, x2, x3,
t)...But the singularity at t0 is not in a
three-dimensional space...Accordingly, the singularity at t0 is
not a part of the universe and a fortiori not the earliest part of
the universe. Rather it is a source of the universe. The universe
began at some time after t0..."[10]
If God created the singularity at t0,
but, the singularity was not part of the universe, the question arises:
How could God create the universe if the singularity before space
came into existence was not the universe? If God only causally
related to the singularity in his act of causing the universe, and if the
singularity was not the universe, then God did not create the universe,
but created the entity (singularity) that (allegedly) lead to the
existence of the universe. At best, on this account it would instead be
the case that God did not create the universe, but rather created
an entity that in some sense transformed into the universe: God created
the singularity, and then after that the universe came into
existence not by God, but by the singularity's transforming into the
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universe by way of its expansion. If
this reasoning is correct, the truth value of the statement “God created
the universe” is false, and the truth value of the statement “God created
the singularity” is true.
4. Conclusion
If relations between or among entities outside of space and
entities inside of space are contradictory relations, given that
God is outside of space, God could not have in the past, present, or
future interrelated in any way with the universe or entities in the
universe, and thus could not have created the universe. Some philosophers
may hold that although God is not in space, God can still interact with
nature since He is located at every point in space in the sense that He is
conscious of every point in space and causes every point in space. But
this merely sidesteps my argumentation above: If God (spatially unlocated)
is conscious of every point in space (spatially located), or is the cause
of every point in space (spatially located), then God has the relations,
causation, or consciousness of, with space, and to hold that
God causes or is conscious of every point in space is an assertion that
God (outside of space) and space (nature) would be related in some way,
and the problems I have discussed would ensue.
If my argumentation is correct, it may show that God cannot,
for example, be the creator of the universe, and my argumentation may lead
to the conclusion that God is apparently a contradictory entity, since God
is defined as the creator of the universe, but cannot be the creator of
the universe.
Click here
to go to Dr. N. Manson's critical
comments given at the Conference on the 25th
Click here
to see my response to Manson's
comments at the Conference on the 25th
Works Cited
Armstrong, D.M., 1997, A World of States of Affairs, Cambridge
University Press: Cambridge.
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Armstrong, David M., 1989. Universals: An Opinionated Introduction,
Westview: Boulder.
Craig, William Lane, and Smith, Quentin, 1995, Theism, Atheism, and Big
Bang Cosmology, Oxford: New York.
Grupp, Jeffrey, 2005,
"The
Impossibility of Relations Between Non-Collocated Spatial Objects and
Non-Identical Topological Spaces,"
Axiomathes: An International Journal in Ontology and
Cognitive Systems,
Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 85-141(57).
Grupp, Jeffrey, 2004,
"Problems
with the Platonist Exemplification Tie Between Located Entities and an Unlocated
Entity,"
Dialogue:
Canadian Philosophical Review, Vol. XLIII,
pp. 491-498.
Grupp, Jeffrey, 2003, "The
Impossibility of an Exemplification Tie Between Particulars and Universals,"
Metaphysica: The International Journal for Ontology and
Metaphysics,
Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 27-38.
Loux, Michael, 1998, Metaphysics: A
Contemporary Introduction, Routledge:
New
York.
Mellor, D. H., 1991,
“Properties and Predicates”, in Matters of Metaphysics, 170-182,
Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Mellor, D. H., 1992, “There
Are No Conjunctive Universals”, Analysis, 52: 97-105.
Roeper, Peter, 1997, “Region-Based Topology”, Journal of Philosophical
Logic,
26: 251-309.
Click here
to go to Dr. N. Manson's critical comments given at the Conference on the
25th
Click here
to see my response to Manson's comments at the Conference on the 25th
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[1]
Some philosophers may wonder why I may appear to be limiting
discussion of causation in this article to a metaphysics of causation
via causal relations, rather than causation via some other
mechanism. The reason I do this is because this article is about
criticism of philosophers of religion, and they ubiquitously maintain
that God’s causal interaction with spacetime is an interaction via
asymmetric causal relatedness between God and spacetime.
Therefore, in criticizing philosophers of religion, I only need to
discuss causation relations, not other possible account of
causation between God and the universe.
[2]
Philosophers typically consider God to be outside of space, even
though he is omnipresent (aware of all points of space), due to the
fact that God is the cause of the universe, and thus is separate from
the universe. Therefore, when I refer to “God” I am not referring to
any sort of pantheistic notion or interpretation of what God is, but
rather I am only referring to the interpretation of God assumed by
standard Western philosophers of religion, such as Quentin Smith,
Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, William Vallicella, just to name
a few. The only way I
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know of that philosophers have explained God as
being the cause of the universe is to invent the idea of causal
relations between God and the universe, such as in the way that Smith
and Craig have debated in their recent book (1995) about the
possibility or impossibility of God’s causal relationship with the Big
Bang singularity at the beginning of our universe. But if it is found
that these sorts of causal relations are impossible, as I intend to
show in this article, then it would be the case that God would be
the cause of the universe (since this is part of the definition of
God) and not the cause of the universe (the evidence of this article),
which is an impossibility, and thus God would involve contradiction
and thus would not exist.
[3]
I will discuss an objection to the concept of realm crossing in
section 3.
[4]
Armstrong, 1989, 76. Unlike Armstrong, I discuss causal
relations as realm crossing relations, rather than instantiation
relations as realm crossing relations. I do this because it seems more
coherent to consider the ordinary causal relation connecting the
realms as the realm crosser, rather than to consider an instantiation
as the realm crosser. Further, three recent papers (Grupp
2003,
2004,
2005) argued that
an instantiation relation (also called the exemplification tie),
apparently cannot account for a realm crossing connection between
spatially unlocated entities and spatial entities. But it in fact does
not matter to the argumentation of this paper which entities
(causal relations or instantiation relations) are realm crossers, but
only that at least one of them is a realm crosser. It does not matter
because, in this paper, my argument against realm crossing focuses on
the general concept of realm crossing, rather than on which
specific entities are realm crossers.
[5]
Complex relations (or properties) are relations that have conjunctions
of other relations as (simpler) parts. Armstrong writes:
Consider conjunctions of universals. If there are
complex universals at all, then conjunctions of universals should
qualify… Given that F and G are distinct universals, then F&G can be a
universal, provided always that a particular exists at some time which
is both F and G… But, it may be objected, if there are complex
properties, then they must be complexes of simple properties, or at
least complexes of simple properties and relations. If it is also
maintained… that all universals are instantiated, then any complex
property can then be replaced in each of these instantiations by a
conjunction of states of affairs involving simple properties and
relations. The alleged conjunctive property, or any other complex
property, will supervene on these states of affairs. And then what
need to recognize anything but the complex of states of affairs
involving nothing but simple universals? (Armstrong, 1997, 31-32)
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Some, such as David Mellor (Mellor, 1991, 1992) deny
that there are any complex properties. This would not matter to my
reasoning in this paper, since I am also going to argue that there are
not any. I am considering that there are complex relations here for
the sake of argument, and as a way of showing that temporally located,
temporally extended, complex properties are problematic.
[6]
I am discussing this scenario as if relations directly attach
to one another, or to particulars, rather than as if relations and
their relata are mediated by an exemplification tie (or what
some call the instantiation relation, as Armstrong does in his
passage above). I do this because I am considering this unmediated
attachment of a relation to its relata as synonymous with
“exemplification tie” or “instantiation relation”, where an unmediated
attachment between a relation and its relata is an entity (in the
broadest sense of “entity”) that is a special “unmediated linkage”, to
use Loux’s terminology, (Loux, 1998, 38-41) that a relation and its
relata are involved in. (This is how Strawson describes the
exemplification tie.) To my knowledge, this is how the exemplification
tie is to be considered. Three recent papers ([name deleted to keep
author anonymous]) show that considering the exemplification tie as a
mediating entity, rather than as an unmediated attachment,
leads to a contradictory description of the exemplification tie. If
the reasoning of those papers is correct, then the exemplification tie
is a special unmediated tying that a causal relation, God, and the
particular created by God, are involved in, and which does not involve
a mediating entity. Strawson's description of the tie does not
involve the tie being an intermediary entity, acting as
mediator between relation and relata; but rather the tie is a
special capacity of direct (non-mediated) attachment that relation and
relata can allegedly be involved in. Loux describes the
exemplification tie as a “linker”, and the word “link” might imply a
chain-like connection, where only the pieces of a chain are involved,
and a third, mediating entity, analogous to a rope between a
boat and a dock, that is an entity different from the chain links, is
not required for the linking of the chain links to ensue. If this
reasoning is correct, and if the reasoning in Grupp (2003,
2004,
2005) is correct, then it is the relation, and not
the unmediated attachment (exemplification, instantiation), that
must account for the crossing of realms, and that must account for
the mediating between God and physical entities.
[7]
Some platonists may question why a physical object, such as a the
Earth, is a wholly spatially located object, since, according
to platonism, physical things have spatially unlocated
properties. Platonists often neglect to disclose what entity,
specifically, it is that a first-order property ties to, and they
merely claim it is “the particular” that exemplifies properties. But
this is not specific. First-order platonic properties cannot be tied
to other properties, lest a platonistic substance be a wholly
unlocated bundle. Thus, first-order properties must tie to the
only remaining element of the substance: the particularity.
Since this particularity cannot be a property (lest a substance be a
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bundle), this particularity can only be the thin particularity
of the substance. Accordingly, the Earth is a physical, spatial entity
in the sense that it is a thin particular (wholly located)
exemplifying (wholly unlocated or wholly located) platonic universals
(wholly unlocated). In this way, platonistic metaphysics only involves
wholly spatially located or wholly spatially unlocated entities, and
in considering the Earth as wholly spatially located, I am
referring to the thin particular that is wholly spatially
located, and which is distinct from, but attached to, wholly
spatially unlocated properties, one of which may be the property,
created by God.
[8]
Roeper writes: “… a point is a location in space”. (Roeper, 1997, 251)
[9]
I am grateful to David Charlton for this objection.