Exploring Presumptions & Entailments: Does the Concept of an Omniscient, Moral, Loving, & Omnipotent Divinity Entail Incarnation?

Lawyers and others (including theologians) who would conceptualize and reason well must carefully identify conceptual presuppositions and entailments involved in their reasoning. Such lawyers and others (including theologians) must furthermore be good  hermeneutic pragmatists who recognize the critical role of virtue in analysis. They must therefore only embrace  concepts and their entailments where doing so helps sufficiently better organize experience (including moral experience). In the spirit of prodding lawyers to learn from examples outside the law (as well as in the spirit of helping those struggling with matters spiritual), I examine presupposition, entailment, and pragmatic questions raised by St. Anselm's fascinating Cur Deus Homo.

Attempting to prove in his Cur Deus Homo why God had to become a man, Anselm presupposes divinity's existence in traditional Judeo-Christian form. Careful thought identifies such presupposition not only for logical reasons. There are practical, theoretical, and spiritual reasons as well. If one does not yet embrace such divinity, the work will not convince. Worse, one might not explore the fascinating broader logical questions of whether belief (should one have it) in any omniscient, moral, loving, and omnipotent creator deity logically entails belief in incarnation and perhaps even divine suffering and punishment in this world (such as the Crucifixion or the travails of Vishnu/Krishna). Additionally, addressing this second question first may help with one's answer to the first (i.e., whether such divinity in itself should be embraced). Exploring such entailment question involves at least the following epistemological, agapeic, moral, and omnipotence sub-questions:

Logical Entailments of Divine Omniscience

Omniscience would include human knowledge. However, since human knowledge involves concepts whose meaning turns on how such concepts play out in human experience, how could divine omniscience include such human knowledge without incarnation of at least part of itself in order to receive the fullness of such experience? (Similar points throughout these questions will also apply to other sentient creatures but, for simplicity's sake, I do not address them here.)

One might object that omniscience only requires divinity's having theoretical, "un-incarnate" knowledge and familiarity with the incarnate. However, since human theory is inseparable from practice in the incarnate world, how can true omniscience avoid actual presence within the incarnate world which includes perspectives, sensations, and feelings found only there? We see unfortunate parallels here in the world of law school where so-called professors of law purport to have deep knowledge without meaningful actual practice experience.

One might object that despite the fusion of theory and practice, divine omniscience can somehow miraculously include such experiential perspectives, sensations, and feelings. However, if this is so, how is the divine not thereby effectively incarnate? What would be the difference?

I leave readers to answer these questions for themselves.

Logical Questions of Divine Agape

How could a fully loving divinity entirely remove itself from the realm of the loved? Does this not require incarnation of at least part of itself?

One might attempt to answer this with such notions as the Holy Spirit operating in the world. But, again, for the reasons raised above, how could divinity fully share the human experience without becoming human as well? Does this not therefore require incarnation?

Again, I leave readers to answer these questions for themselves.

Logical Entailments of Divine Morality

How could divinity embrace the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) without incarnation? That is, how could divinity require humans to suffer the slings and arrows of incarnation without divinity also subjecting at least part of itself to such slings and arrows? And does this not require incarnation?

The same could be framed another moral way: how without moral hypocrisy could a divinity expect humans to endure incarnation without expecting the same of at least part of itself?

However noble a divinity's reasons might be for creating this universe, how could a supremely moral divinity create a universe its omniscience knew would be filled with evil (including both evil unleashed by free will and evil unleashed by natural causes), require punishment of evil doers within that creation, and yet somehow fully exempt at least part of itself from punishment for any role it had in such evil? 

And if such moral accountability requires worldly punishment of those created, how could such divinity morally fully exempt itself from such worldly punishment for any evil it unleashed in this world? Would this not require incarnation as well? Traditionally viewed as heresies, Theopassianism (holding God suffered and died on the cross) and Patripassianism (God as Father vicariously endured his Son's suffering) have wrestled with these questions.

Again, I leave readers to answer these questions for themselves.

Logical Questions of Divine Omnipotence

If the divine is omnipotent, how can there be reason not to incarnate at least part of itself if required?

One might object that incarnation is a logical contradiction and omnipotence does not involve powers to perform the logically impossible. However, as conceptual metaphors demonstrate, contradiction is both possible and required within this world. For example, we speak of light as both a particle and a wave, and deepest knowledge and possibility recognizes that the world in which we live is too complex to be captured consistently. Contradiction is thus unavoidable in this world of actual experience.

Again, I leave readers to answer these questions themselves.

Having posed these questions, I end with just a few general points. First, of the questions raised above, perhaps the epistemological ones most strongly suggest that incarnation is conceptually entailed by the concepts of divinity explored. (That, of course, is not to demean the other questions.) Second, a serious hermeneutic pragmatist embracing the critical role of virtue in analysis will consider more than pure entailment logic and inquire whether such concept of the divine and its entailments sufficiently help us better organize experience (including moral experience). Third, two essays of William James are extremely useful in this regard: The Will to Believe and The Sentiment of Rationality. Fourth, in exploring and perhaps modifying concepts here, one must remember the animals and other sentient creatures. Vishnu/Krishna, for example, "appears in every species." If good hermeneutic pragmatism embraces entailed incarnation, how far must such entailment go? 

Hermeneutics and Anselm's Ontological Argument: Lessons for Lawyers and Others On Existential Proof

When lawyers and others explore the limits of logical proof in proving matters of existence, it's quite useful to explore St. Anselm's Ontological Argument purporting to prove God's existence as a matter of pure logic. Grasping how the argument might might work on a purely hermeneutic level while possibly failing on the pragmatic level helps explain the need for meaning to work in the face of experience. We can also gain much insight on these points by exploring how a common objection to Anselm's argument fundamentally fails. As we'll see, hermeneutics must be pragmatic in the sense discussed below, and this straightforwardly makes the case for hermeneutic pragmatism as best philosophy.

Starting with a common objection to Anselm's argument, it seems but common sense that things either exist or they don't apart from pure logic. For example, as the objection might go, my keyboard I'm using now would exist even if no one knew logic. How, then, can pure logic prove anything exists? Well, the objection and example assume that existence as we commonly understand the term is something simply there apart from language. But that is error. Existence is a concept created by our language (or more precisely our semiotics). That is, existence itself is hermeneutic and things can meaningfully "exist" within countless conceptual schemes of the world that we might construct. Hilary Putnam's exploration of "internal realism" sheds further light here. How, then, is existence less subject to logical proof within conceptual schemes than other concepts like that of God offered by St. Anslem? 

All that said, we of course cannot accept that God must transcendentally exist simply because we can deductively prove God's existence within Anselm's (or any one else's) conceptual worldview. First, this ignores the hermeneutics just discussed: we can have countless concepts of God which may or may not be compatible within the countless potential conceptual world schemes we might use. Second, any such purely deductive ontological argument would ignore a critical element of good reasoning. Our concepts must work in the face of all experience: they must help us predict, organize, and improve such experience in ways that sufficiently handle (for the purposes we have) all experience (including moral experience). If we wish to fully "prove" anything, we must therefore not only successfully prove how concepts flow within a conceptual scheme. We must also demonstrate the pragmatic workability just discussed. This is the real lesson of Anselm's argument and the flaws in the common objection to Anslem noted above. Thus, as theologians wishing to prove the existence of God must address both hermeneutics and pragmatism (and thus embrace hermeneutic pragmatism), so must lawyers wishing to prove matters of existential dispute. 

Anselm's no less fascinating Cur Deus Homo also invites useful instruction in hermeneutic pragmatism. Hopefully soon, I plan to sketch out a more modern rewrite also in question form. In addition to allowing such further exploration of good hermeneutic pragmatism, I hope this will also help too-insular lawyers see how deep explorations of areas beyond the law can make them better lawyers.

Anselm's Short Ballade (An Addition to "The Apology Box")

              Anselm’s Short Ballade

I’m unsurprised that mind persists although

The body drops extinguished.  Nothing may

Be perfect but the Lord.  That being so,

Death must be flawed and therefore cannot stay

The intellect forever lest we say

Death is invincible and perfect, too.

I can’t consistently speak such a way,

Lord.  Reason will not let me turn from you.

Nor could I doubt your being, Lord, although

You did not show your face.  God is, we say,

The greatest thing conceivable.  That so,

God must exist since absent things, we say,
Are less.  Should God not be, that opens way

To something greater:  God plus being, too.

But nothing’s greater.  Logic shows the way,

Lord.  Reason will not let me turn from you.

And thus I kneel in hopeful prayer you’ll say,

“Come follow me as well in heaven, too.”

I cannot rise until you’ve shown the way,

Lord. Reason will not let me turn from you. 

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.