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? 

Joseph Ransdell on Charles Sanders Peirce

"When the truth about Peirce's life and accomplishments becomes generally known, it will be perceived that he was not only the most omnicompetent scientific mind of his time, perhaps never subsequently to be equalled, but also a moral hero of the intellect, of the stature of Socrates: a veritable icon or paradigm of philosophia--which really means devotion to the search for truth . . . ." Joseph Ransdell, Semiotic Objectivity in Frontiers in Semiotics 240 (John Deely et al. eds., 1986).

Making Good Sense: Pragmatism’s Mastery of Meaning, Truth, and Workable Rule of Law

Here is the abstract for my latest article forthcoming in the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy. In the article, I try to take a middle path between two types of error plaguing present times: "post-truthism" and formalism.

Abstract

The hermeneutic pragmatism explored in this article timely examines how “post-truth” claims over-estimate semantic freedoms while at the same time underestimating semantic and pre-semantic restraints. Such pragmatism also timely examines how formalists err by committing the reverse errors. Drawing on insights from James, Peirce, Putnam, Rorty, Gadamer, Derrida, and others, such hermeneutic pragmatism explores (1) the necessary role of both internal and objective experience in meaning,  (2) the resulting instrumental nature of concepts required to deal with such experience, (3) the related need for workability to apply to the “the collectivity of experience’s demands, nothing being omitted,” (4) the inherent role of morality and other norms in measuring such workability, (5) the semantic as well as experiential nature of our workable realities,  (6) the semantic freedoms involved in constructing, framing, and retaining our workable realities and concepts, and (6) the semantic, pre-semantic, and other restraints on constructing, framing, and retaining our workable realities and concepts.

Such hermeneutic pragmatism also introduces Eunomia, a real-world alternative to Dworkin’s superhuman judge Hercules.  Named after the Greek goddess of good order, the human Eunomia represents the reasonable judge excellently versed in (among other things) legal theory, legal practice, linguistics, and philosophy of language.  Additionally, in its appendices, this article surveys the pragmatic restraints of “implementives” and provides a detailed overview of pragmatic “workability” restraints for both law and fact.

In addition to countering formalist error, such hermeneutic pragmatism thus timely counters troubling “post-truth” claims in certain segments of government and society. For example, The Washington Post tells us that President Trump is “known for trafficking in mistruths and even outright lies;” that “The president often seeks to paint a self-serving and self-affirming alternate reality for himself and his supporters;” that, through May 31, 2018; “Trump had made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days--an average of 6.5 such claims per day of his presidency;” and that  Donald Trump, Jr. has posted poorly-doctored images making “his father’s Gallup presidential approval rating look [ten points] higher than it actually is” while claiming “I guess there is a magic wand to make things happen and @realdonaldtrump seems to have it.”  Additionally, the President’s attorney Rudy Giuliani has expressly claimed that “Truth isn’t truth.” Competent and ethical lawyers must of course reject such mendacity.

("Sense" in the title of this article means not only “meaning conveyed or intended” but also “capacity for effective application of the powers of the mind as a basis for action or response.” See Sense, MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2014) “Workable” has the broad meaning discussed in Sections II, IV, and Appendix C of the Article.)

Embracing Life: Shakespeare and "Existentialism"

              Sartre claims that existence precedes “essence,” that “being-in-itself” is thrust upon us, that we have our subsequent brief existence to create our identities or “essences” (our “beings-for-itself”).^[1]   The great American pragmatist William James also notes that we are thrust into a swirl of experience which we try to predict and organize with concepts and theories as our “tools.”[2] 

            Many years before James and Sartre, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, Jaques, and other diverse characters also opine on one’s brief moments thrust upon life’s “stage.”  Lear’s naked babe, for example, cries when tossed upon that “stage.”  Interestingly, the infant has feeling and tears for coming to a “great stage of fools”^[3] even though it presumably lacks language and concepts such as “stage” or “fool.”  Shakespeare’s babe suggests a pre-conceptual link to the swirl of experience—a feeling link which James’s concepts and theories for predicting and navigating experience could then supplement and build upon. (For those interested in feeling and emotional connections to the world, I have explored the subject further in my Cognitive Emotion and the Law .)

            Lear’s babe also gives us moral as well as epistemic insight. The infant “comes to” rather than “brings” foolishness to a “great stage of fools.”  Not choosing to navigate this swirl of experience, the babe can’t be a fool for just being born--any foolishness it may display must come after mere birth itself.  As Emily Dickinson also notes, mortals born into the swirl aren’t given an initial “Skipper’s” or “Buccaneer’s” choice in the matter:

Ballade of Charles Sanders Peirce: That Common Measure of the Number Three (An Addition to "The Apology Box")

      Ballade of Charles Sanders Peirce

A "candle" burns a finger, lights a room--

The only sense that "candle" has is how

It might unfold in our experience.

Experience is "firstness" unified.

It's "secondness" upon division.  And

It's "thirdness" in relating separate parts.

Three categories mix.  We'll often see

That common measure of the number three.

A "candle" is a sign one can dissect.

Such word's a signifier pointing to

An object and a meaning of the word.

Since arbitrary, words are symbols though

Resemblance also signifies (icons)

As does participation (indices).

In parts and types of signs, again we see

That common measure of the number three.

We'd waste our time to doubt a sign unless

We're given cause within experience.

If so, we question what is plausible.

We then inquire what might be probable.

That done, we then examine likelihood.

In threes, hypotheses, deductions, and

Inductions wrestle doubt.  Again we see

That common measure of the number three.

James erred in his conception of the truth.

Instead, life's trinities are tilting toward

Real truth that casts a shadow we can see:

That common measure of the number three.


© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

Double Sonnet of William James: Grace That Brings Good Order in the Head (Addition to "The Apology Box")

            Double Sonnet of William James

                                   I.
  
Descartes, pure mind and body can't be kept

Apart as claimed.  Drawn from experience,

They share a common nature, common sense

That both derive from shared experience.

I am therefore a monist.  I accept
That all is drawn from pure experience:
The body, mind, and all relations.  Hence,
Truth, too, must come from shared experience.

Truth is what works in shared experience.
With free will, physics is indifferent.  Hence,
Determinism turns on how we find

An absence of free will.  Because we find
Determinism horrid, we are led

To free will's higher order in the head.

                            II.

Descartes, why suffer needless doubt except

When something fails to work.  There's little sense

In doubting for the sake of doubt. I've kept

So many years of James I see no sense

In doubting James.  Efficiencies accept

That James exists until experience

Astounds such thinking--I of course accept

Doubt when thought stumbles with experience.

For me, religious doubt makes little sense.
Belief in God disturbs no physics.  Hence,

If God brings better order to my mind,

I'd err denying God.  Of tender mind,

I savor God and angels overhead,
And grace that brings good order in the head.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

Finding Wisdom in a Fractured World

Archive of Blog Originally Posted 4/5/2014 in The Huffinton Post

We need to discuss the nature of wisdom more than we do. If we can’t articulate at least some measure of what it means to be wise, how can we justify any notion of the good life or of the good society? At this particularly-difficult time when our country seems fractured down the middle, how can we not focus on the nature of wisdom?