Faith, Reason, and Ritual: The Summae of William of Auxerre

I’m working on a second book-length translation project (the first one is off to the publisher and awaiting comments). Here’s a summary:

By exercising the intellect in philosophical argumentation and the emotions and imagination in Christian liturgy, we can develop virtue and experience the divine. This is the view articulated by William of Auxerre in his Summa Aurea and Summa de Officiis Ecclesiasticis, excerpted at length in a modern language for the first time in Faith, Reason, and Ritual: The Summae of William of Auxerre. William was not a member of a religious order, and his work was highly influential on both Franciscans like the authors of the Summa Halensis and Dominicans such as St Thomas Aquinas. But William also represents, as Boyd Taylor Coolman put it, a “road not taken” in scholastic philosophy: by drawing on the monastic tradition and emphasizing the symmetry between spiritual and material psychological powers, William shows how traditional questions in the philosophy of religion (the existence of God, the rationality of faith) relate to concrete religious practice and experience. Faith, Reason, and Ritual will give scholars of medieval thought insight into the development of philosophy and theology in the early scholastic period and contemporary philosophers of religion access to medieval thought on topics like mystical experience and ritual, growing topics of interest in the field today.

William of Auxerre on Divine Command Theory
William of Auxerre on Monotheism
Liturgy and COVID-19
Conformed by Praise: Xunzi and William of Auxerre on the Ethics of Liturgy

Aquinas on creative freedom, cont’d

(First post.)

Aquinas says (SCG 2.91.6), in order to prove the existence of angels:

“It’s possible for there to be something in the genus of substance without a body. But all possible natures are found in the order of things: otherwise the universe would be imperfect.”

Possunt igitur esse quaedam in genere substantiae omnino absque corpore. Omnes autem naturae possibiles in rerum ordine inveniuntur: aliter enim esset universum imperfectum.

It’s a nice argument:

1. Every possibly instantiated nature is actually instantiated.
2. Some incorporeal nature is possibly instantiated.
3. Therefore, some incorporeal nature is actually instantiated.

But does this mean that God could not have made the universe with any other species than He did? (He couldn’t have made a world without angels, or with unicorns instead of rhinoceroses, etc.) That seems to be what Aquinas is saying, but that’s a pretty severe restriction on divine freedom.

On the other hand, Aquinas says in SCG 3.97.13 that the precise “measure of perfection” according to which God distinguishes different kinds of creatures is up to Him. This accords better with my own theological intuitions, but I’d like to know how it fits with 2.91.6. One possibility is that what counts as a “possible nature” in 2.91.6 depends on God’s free choice (not a logical possibility, but a kind of hypothetical possibility). But there are two problems with that:

1. Aquinas’ claim in 2.91.6 reduces to a near tautology: “Everything God willed to place in the order of things is found in the order of things.”
2. Also, Aquinas’ proof of the existence of angels in 2.91.6 seems to fail in that case, because it’s still dependent on God’s will whether angelic natures are possible natures in the first place.

 

Aquinas on Choice in Creation

Aquinas, unlike Avicenna, Averroes, etc., thinks that God acted freely in creating the universe: He could have chosen not to create at all.

But given that God did choose to create, how much freedom does Aquinas think God had in what kind of world He created? Specifically, what kinds of beings could God populate His creation with? There are two possibilities here:

1. Given that God chooses to create, there is only one possible set of beings with which to populate the world, and God has no choice over whether or not to create those kinds of beings.
2. Given that God chooses to create, there are a number of possible sets of beings with which to populate the world, and God can choose which set He actually creates.

In Summa Contra Gentiles 3.97.10-11 Aquinas says that the distinction in the different kinds of things follows from a distinction in numerical grades in perfection. As Aristotle and Boethius say, species are like numbers. Therefore, you can arrange all the species on a chain of being going from the highest angel down to the lowest kind of material thing (some kind of dirt, I guess), where each member of the chain is one “perfection point” higher than the one below it. That makes it sound as if the kinds of things that make up the universe is logically pre-determined: there’s exactly one species that fits each slot on the chain.

This seems to be corroborated in SCG 2.91.6, where he says that “all possible natures are found in the order of things: otherwise the universe would be imperfect.” If by “possible” Aquinas means “logically possible,” then Aquinas is saying that God, because He is perfect, can only create a world with exactly the kinds of beings that the world does, in fact, has. So God couldn’t have created Middle Earth, or a universe with unicorns or dragons. This is a severe limitation on divine freedom- and one that runs against my Christian theological intuitions (although I can’t think of a place in Scripture that explicitly goes against this view).

On the other hand, if by “possible” Aquinas means “possible within the world God chose to create” that leaves open the possibility that God can pre-determine, by free choice, which kinds of things are, in fact, possible in the world He chooses to create. This view seems to be corroborated by SCG 3.97.13, where Aquinas says that the precise “measure of perfection” by which God creates is up to His will. That sounds like, although all theoretical species in God’s mind fill out all possible grades of perfection, God can pick and choose precisely which ones he uses.

But that, in turn, could mean one of two things:

1. In a theoretical order of possible species ABCDEFG, God can pick any set of them (ABC, ABDG, CEG, etc.). This is a very broad view of divine creative freedom.
2. In a theoretical order of possible species ABCDEFG, God can pick any adjacent set of them (ABC, ABCD, CDEF, etc.). This is a much more restricted view of divine creative freedom.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure what Aquinas thinks about this question. But he may think God is much more restricted in His act of creation than is usually supposed. I may have to write about this more in the future.

A Biblical argument for divine simplicity

1. If anything is so distinct in God as to make Him not absolutely simple, the Persons are.
2. If the Persons are so distinct as to make Him not absolutely simple, then tritheism is true.
3. If anything is so distinct in God as to make Him not absolutely simple, then tritheism is true. (1,2)
4. If tritheism is true, the Bible misrepresents God’s nature. (Since the Bible teaches monotheism.)
5. If anything is so distinct in God as to make Him not absolutely simple, the Bible misrepresents God’s nature. (3,4)
6. The Bible does not misrepresent God’s nature. (Assumption of orthodox Christianity)
7. Nothing is so distinct in God as to make Him not absolutely simple. (5,6)
8. God is absolutely simple. (restatement of 7)

Basically the argument says: If God’s justice and mercy (for example) are so distinct as to make God metaphysically complex, then a fortiori the actual distinct persons of the Godhead must be. But they aren’t; so God’s attributes aren’t distinct in this way, either.

This argument is directed toward orthodox Christians, so premises 1-2 assume that Arianism and Sabellianism are false according to Scripture: the Persons of the Trinity are distinct Persons and each individually is the one God. Obviously Arians and Sabellians would dispute this.

This argument interests me in two ways:

1. Absolute divine simplicity follows necessarily from fairly intuitive ideas about the Trinity. The idea that the doctrine of the Trinity, which implies multiplicity, really requires that God be absolutely simple may seem counterintuitive; it seemed that way when my father (Robert Andrews) suggested it to me several years ago. But after reflecting on it I realized he was right.
2. This is a Biblical argument in the sense that it appeals to Biblical teaching as a whole, without requiring a proof-text for the conclusion. You can call this a “second-order Biblical argument.” The lack of explicit passages explaining divine simplicity does not constitute proof that divine simplicity is not a Biblical doctrine.

William of Auxerre on Divine Command Theory, Part 3

Earlier, when I explained William of Auxerre’s case against divine command ethics, I mentioned that there might be a problem in the transition from Premise 4 (“God is the cause of A’s being evil”) to Premise 5 (“God is the cause of some evil.”). That is, the argument may be invalid: even if all the premises are true, the conclusion does not necessarily follow.

A is designated as “some action.” But this is ambiguous. Do we mean an action-type or an action-token? That is, do we mean a class of actions under which individual actions may fall (“killing innocent people,” “buying a car”), or do we mean actual particular action in the world (“John Wilkes Booth’s killing of Abraham Lincoln,” “my buying a blue 2012 Versa”)? Presumably we’re talking about action-types: “Thou shalt not steal” means stealing in general is wrong, not just that my stealing that pen from work is wrong. So when we talk about “God’s prohibiting some action,” we seem to be referring to action-types.

So when we say “God is the cause of A’s being evil” (Premise 4), we mean that God is the cause of some action-type being evil. What does it mean for an action-type to be evil? It means that any token of that type is evil; that is, some action-type E is evil iff, for any action-token e1, if e1 is a token of E, e1 is evil. That is, when we say, “Stealing is wrong,” what we mean is, “Each individual action, if it is an act of stealing, is wrong.”

Back to premise 4. Based on the analysis we just did, when we say “God is the cause of A’s being evil,” what we mean is that God is the cause of it being the case that, if there is a token of the action-type A, that token is evil. This is because in premise 4, A refers to an action-type.

What about premise 5 (“God is the cause of some evil”)? In order for the argument to be valid, premise 5 has to follow from premise 4. We can test this by making a dummy premise linking the two:

4a. If God is the cause of A’s being evil, God is the cause of some evil.

Is this true? Well, again, does A refer to an action-type or an action token? If it refers to an action-type, it seems that 4a is not true. The problem is that you can have a type without any token instance of it. For example, the action-type “sprouting wings and flying to the Moon” has no actually existing tokens. That’s why we had to express the wrongness of action-types in a conditional: “if it is an act of stealing…” And so, even if an action-type is wrong, if no instance of that type exists, then no actual wrong (malum or “evil” in medieval terms) exists in the world. So, God’s being the cause of an action-type being evil does not entail that He is the cause of some actual evil in the world.

OK, you say, but there are actual cases of stealing (and murder, and gossip, etc.) in the world. But that doesn’t matter. Those particular instances of evil actions have causes other than God: human free will, for example. And so, even though God is the cause of the action-type being evil, the cause of each particular evil in the world is something other than God. So if A refers to an action-type, 4a is false, which means that 4 does not follow from 5 and the argument is invalid.

And if it refers to an action-token- we don’t need to consider that possibility, since that would introduce an ambiguity in the argument that would also make it unsound.

The end of the matter: God’s declaring that some class of actions is evil does not entail that He actually causes any evil actions, and so does not entail that He is the cause of any evil in the world.

I have a suspicion that this refutation of the argument doesn’t work as well as it seems, which I might write about in the future.

Against Extreme Divine Command Theory, cont’d

Last year I translated a very interesting argument I found in William of Auxerre against “extreme” Divine Command Theory (DCT), but did not do much to explain it.

What do I mean by “extreme?” I use “extreme” to head off more nuanced versions of DCT that might overcome this kind of objection. DCT is the position that God’s commands are somehow the source of ethical rules; Extreme DCT or EDCT is the position that (1) DCT is the case, (2) God’s commands are an exclusive and sufficient explanation of ethical rules. For the EDCT-ist, no appeal to things that would ameliorate the apparent arbitrariness of DCT (like God’s inherent goodness or rationality) are possible.

The argument. William’s objection went like this (Summa Aurea 2.11.3.3):

Cum prohibitio sit ipse Deus prohibens, Deus ipse esset causa malitie in actione; quod absit.

“Since God’s prohibition [of an action] is just God himself prohibiting [the action], God Himself would be the cause of the evil in an action; which can’t be allowed.”

Formalization. We can state the argument in a more formal way like follows:

1. God’s actions are identical with God. (Assume true for now)
2. God’s prohibiting some action A is identical with God. (Follows from 1)
3. God’s prohibiting A is the cause of the A’s being evil. (Thesis of EDCT)
4. God is the cause of A’s being evil. (Follows from 2,3)
5. God is the cause of some evil (Follows from 4)
6. God is not the cause of any evil. (Assume true for now)
7. God’s prohibiting A is not the cause of A’s being evil. (5 and 6 contradict, and the only premise we can negate to save the contradiction is 3)

Since 7 is the opposite of the EDCT thesis, if the argument is sound, it refutes EDCT. It seems valid- if the premises are true, the conclusion is true.

Evaluating the assumptions. Is the argument sound? The two assumed premises are 1 and 6.

Premise 6 is fairly intuitive. God is perfectly good; how could He be the cause of any evil?  Evil in the world must come from something else: human/angelic free will, for example. This is standard theodicy stuff. If we wanted to, we could replace “cause” with “direct cause” in lines 3-7 in order to clarify what we mean.

Premise 1 was a pretty standard position in William’s day, but requires some explanation now. William argued for the standard Christian doctrine that God is absolutely simple: He has no “body, parts, or passions,” as the 39 Articles put it. That means that in an absolute sense, you can’t differentiate one attribute of God from another: his wisdom is identical to his justice is identical to his mercy, and so on. The differences come out in His relation to creation; but God in Himself has no parts. Otherwise God would depend on His parts in order to exist; but God does not depend on anything for existence.

All of God’s attributes, then, are identical with God. But in William’s view, that includes even His actions. On God’s side of things, God’s creating the world is identical with God’s calling Moses to be His prophet- on God’s side of things. The effects of those actions on creation differ, like a hammer that strikes two nails at once. But God’s actions in themselves are simply God.

The whole argument hinges on this premise. For if EDCT is correct, then what causes it to be the case that, say, killing innocent children is evil is God’s prohibiting the killing of innocent children. But “prohibiting the killing of innocent children” is an action performed by God- and that means that it simply is God. But that means that God Himself is what causes the killing of innocent children to be evil. That entails that God is the cause of evil. But God can’t be the cause of evil. So EDCT can’t be correct.

It’s a clever argument that marshals traditional natural theology in a brilliant way. It’s also pretty intuitive once you understand it: If God alone makes certain actions evil, then God is the only explanation for the existence of evil in the world, and that’s a major problem. Of course, if you don’t accept radical divine simplicity or goodness (premises 1 and 6), the argument won’t persuade you. But for those of us who do, it’s pretty compelling. I do wonder if is a problem with the transition from line 4 to line 5, however. I may write about this later. (And in fact, I did)

William of Auxerre on Monotheism

Here’s a neat argument for monotheism from William of Auxerre (Summa Aurea 1.3.2, p. 25). I suspect he got it from some Islamic writer, but I haven’t identified the source.

“From this [i.e., that God is entirely simple] it follows that there is only one God, i.e. only one Highest Good. For supposing there were multiple Highest Goods, it would follow that “Highest Good” qua “Highest Good” would be a universal containing multiple singulars under it. But no universal can be applied to a singular except by adding something to it. For example, the species “human” is be applied to a singular only adding individuating accidents. But no addition can be made to the Highest Good, since it is totally simple. Therefore, the Highest Good can’t be a universal containing multiple singulars under it, nor can it in any way be said how one Highest Good could differ from another Highest Good. Total simplicity (which obtains in this case) cannot coexist with any difference in genus, species, substantial difference, property, or accident.”

Ex hoc etiam sequitur quod unus solus Deus est sive unum solum summum bonum. Si enim dicatur quod plura sunt summa bona, sequitur quod hoc ipsum summum bonum sit universale quod continet sub se plura singularia. Nullum autem universale trahi potest ad singulare nisi per aliquam adiunctionem, ut hec species « homo » non potest trahi ad singulare nisi per additionem accidentium individuantium. Nulla autem additio potest fieri in summo bono, cum sit omnimodo simplex. Non erit igitur hoc ipsum summum bonum universale continens sub se plura singularia nec aliquo modo posset dici in quo differret summum bonum a summo bono. Omnimoda enim simplicitas, que ibi est, non patitur quod ibi sit aliqua differentia vel in genere vel in specie vel in substantiali differentia vel in proprio vel in accidente.

Which “Faith and Reason” Question?

The question, “Are faith and reason compatible?” is ambiguous. Of course the terms “faith” and “reason” admit of many meanings; that goes without saying. But “compatible” is also ambiguous. One can distinguish at least three senses of “compatibility”:

1. Epistemic compatibility. Faith and reason are epistemically compatible iff one can simultaneously believe a proposition by faith and know it by reason.
2. Compatibility of scope. Faith and reason have compatibility of scope to the degree to which there are propositions that can be both believed by faith and known by reason (but not necessarily simultaneously).
3. Compatibility of value. Faith and reason have compatibility of value to the degree to which whatever value there is (for salvation, membership in the People of God, etc.) in believing some propositions by faith is not negated or diminished by also knowing the same or related propositions by reason, and especially if that value is increased by it.

And a negative answer to one question doesn’t entail a negative answer to another. For example, a Christian thinker might affirm that faith and reason have total compatibility of scope (you could prove any Christian doctrine by reason…) but no epistemic compatibility or compatibility of value (…but then you’d lose your faith, so don’t do it). Or you could say that they have high compatibility of value (giving arguments for your faith strengthens it…) but low compatibility of scope (…but very few doctrines can be proven that way).

Epistemic compatibility is an interesting one, and is the topic of my dissertation. It seems odd to say that you can believe something by faith and know it by reason at the same time. And the dominant position appears to be that you can’t. Thomas Aquinas, for example, denied epistemic compatibility: he thought that if you have, e.g., an argument proving that God exists, you can’t also believe that God exists by faith. This means that in one sense he actually assigns a low compatibility of value to faith and reason (because if you know a doctrine by reason, you can’t get the benefit (salvific merit) that comes from believing it by faith). But on the other hand, Aquinas is famous for assigning a *high* compatibility of value to faith and reason. How does he reconcile this? By assigning a medium to low compatibility of scope: some Christian doctrine (e.g. the existence of one God) can be proven, but others (the Trinity, the Incarnation) can’t be proven. Since Aquinas denies epistemic compatibility, and thinks faith is necessary for salvation, he has to posit a less-than-100% epistemic compatibility between faith and reason.

William of Auxerre (the topic of my dissertation) is like Aquinas in that he is optimistic about using reason to investigate matters of faith, and yet he answers all three questions differently. He is an epistemic compatibilist: he thinks it is perfectly possible to simultaneously believe a proposition by faith and know it by natural reason. That means that the scope question is irrelevant to him: even if you could prove all of the Christian faith (and he very nearly thinks you can), it would still be possible for you to simultaneously believe what you just proved. And he has an even higher compatibility of value: faith is vital for salvation for William, as for Aquinas, and reason doesn’t do anything to diminish that. It’s a very unusual position, and one that I’m enjoying comparing with more common and more intuitively plausible positions like that of Aquinas.

William on Ransom Theory

Another concise argument from William, this time theological, criticizing the ransom theory of atonement while preserving the truth in it:

Dominus redemit nos a diabolo; ergo per pretium datum diabolo, et dedit se pretium; ergo dedit se diabolo.

[The ‘Ransom’ argument.] “God redeemed us from the Devil. Therefore, [He redeemed us] at a cost paid to the Devil. And He gave Himself as the cost. Therefore, He gave Himself to the Devil.”

Hec argumentatio non valet: ‘Dominus redemit nos per pretium datum diabolo; ergo dedit pretium diabolo’. Et est ibi fallacia secundum consequens, quia fit ibi processus a superiori ad inferius affirmando, quia redimere pretio dato superius est ad dare pretium diabolo, quoniam diabolus detinuit homines in carcere tanquam custos. Custodi autem carceris non solvitur pretium, sed domino carceris. Deus enim est dominus inferni; et ita pretium illud erat dandum et reddendum Deo Patri.

[William’s reply.] “This argument is invalid…It commits the fallacy of [affirming] the consequent, since it proceeds by affirmation from the higher to the lower [i.e., from the general to the specific]. For redeeming at a given cost is higher [i.e. more general] than giving the price to the Devil, since the Devil detained men in prison as a jailkeeper. But you don’t pay bail to the jailkeeper, but to the master of the prison. For God is Master of Hell, and so the price was to be given and repaid to God the Father.”

First, William disputes the validity of the argument. I think the fallacy William is identifying is assuming that “redeemed from the Devil” must mean “redeemed by paying the Devil,” when that’s only one possible interpretation. So “affirmation from the higher to the lower” means “inferring a specific claim from a more general claim,” which is fallacious. He calls it an instance of  “the fallacy of the consequent,” and I think he has in mind reasoning like this:

1. If God redeemed us by paying the Devil (specific claim), He redeemed us from the Devil (general claim).
2. God redeemed us from the Devil.
3. Therefore, God redeemed us by paying the Devil.

Which is obviously fallacious. So given that God redeemed humanity from the Devil, it doesn’t follow that God ransomed humanity from the Devil.

(I don’t think the part of the argument William quotes commits this fallacy, though. Maybe he just put it there as a placeholder.)

Second, William gives us a reason to doubt that the “ransom” interpretation is the correct one: we’re only under the devil’s power because God put us there as a punishment for our sins. Christ did redeem us from the Devil; but He did so by paying God, not the Devil. We really did give ourselves over to the Devil, but as our jailkeeper, not our owner. The fact that Christ’s death redeemed us from the Devil is not sufficient reason to think that Christ’s death was an atonement paid to the Devil, and not to God. On the other hand, the fact that the atonement was a debt paid to God doesn’t mean that Christ’s death didn’t free us from the dominion of the Devil.

Liar, Lunatic… Philosopher?

C.S. Lewis’ “Trilemma” (or “Liar, Lunatic, Lord” argument) is a familiar argument in Christian apologetics. Lewis didn’t actually originate it, but here’s how he puts it:

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice.” (Mere Christianity)

The argument is basically this:

1. Jesus claimed to be God.
2. Someone who claimed to be God is either a liar, insane, or actually God.
3. If Jesus is a liar or insane, he can’t be a great moral teacher.
4. If Jesus is God, he is not merely a great moral teacher.
5. Therefore, either Jesus is God, or he is not a great moral teacher.

Sometimes this gets expanded into an outright argument for Christ’s divinity (I think G.K. Chesterton made this argument in The Everlasting Man):

6. Jesus displays profound moral integrity, so he’s not a liar.
7. Jesus seems to be mentally stable, so he’s not insane.
8. Therefore, Jesus is God.

It’s not a decisive argument, but it’s a pretty good one. But what interests me today is that a similar argument could be applied to Scorates’ claim to have a daimonion (not a demon, but a benevolent spirit) that spoke to him whenever he was about to do something he shouldn’t do:

1. Socrates claimed that a spirit regularly spoke to him.
2. Someone who claims that a spirit regularly speaks to him is either a liar, insane, or telling the truth.
3. Socrates displays profound moral integrity, so he’s not a liar.
4. Socrates seems to be mentally stable, so he’s not insane.
5. Therefore, Socrates was telling the truth about a spirit speaking to him.

Like Jesus, Socrates was certainly a very odd person- but he doesn’t seem mentally ill. And like Jesus, he wasn’t above using figurative language when he felt people were intellectually beneath him or not willing to follow his argument. But also like Jesus, it’s usually very clear when he’s using metaphors and when he’s being gravely serious, and what he says about the daimonion appears to fall into the latter category (especially since, unlike Jesus’ claim to divinity, his claim to have a guardian spirit probably wasn’t too unbelievable in his time). On the other hand, an isolated delusion of a spirit speaking to you in an otherwise stable personality is a little more believable than an isolated delusion that you’re, you know, the Lord God, in an otherwise stable personality. So I think our best conclusion is either that Socrates had a very specific, recurring delusion but was otherwise fine (seems unlikely to me, but possible), or that he actually had some kind of contact with a spirit.

You could make a further argument for the latter conclusion based on the fact that the daimonion seems to have actually guided him pretty well (until the very end… and there’s your counterargument).

How to process this as a Christian, I don’t know. The daimon could have been a demon, sweet-talking Socrates until it found a way to lead him to his death. Or it could have been an angel (who knows what an angel was doing in ancient Greece, but it’s not impossible). Or maybe there are other kinds of spirits. I don’t know! I’m just following the argument where it leads.