The Logic of God

This trend toward seeing God as infinitely distant from creation probably reached its culmination, at least with regard to Christianity, in Aristotle. Of course Aristotle came before Christ, but the Medieval re-discovery of his thought had a profound effect on the Christian thinking of the time, and, eventually, ours as well.

Aristotle saw God as infinitely distant from creation — so distant that he did not even know that the world existed! All he did was “think about thinking.” Aristotle’s philosophy in modified form became the basis for Christian philosophy in the High Middle Ages and, in spite of the Reformation, the basis for much of Christian theology to this very day.

The relevant characteristics of this God were as follows.

First, God is perfect. But this perfection is defined in static terms. Perfection cannot involve change, because any change from perfect (so the thought goes) would be less perfect.

Second, God’s knowledge was perfect — and again this meant that God’s knowledge could not change. But because the world was changing, this seemed to mean that God’s knowledge stood outside of changing reality. Since time is the medium in which change occurs, that would mean that God himself must be “outside of time.” As a result of this, God’s perfect knowledge would embrace all of time and so everything that happened would be foreknown by God.

Third, God is unmoved. That is, because he is already perfect in satisfaction and blessedness, he could not be drawn to anything else. Here again the Greeks thought that action was the result of the actor being drawn to goodness. But since God was “already there” at the perfection of goodness he had no reason to move and so no reason to act.

Fourth, God was “a-pathetic.” That is, he had no pathos, no emotions. He was unaffected by anything in creation since that would imply that his state of being was somehow dependent on something outside himself. If he could “feel” grief, for example, it would imply that he was imperfect, since grief is a departure from the bliss of perfection.

To sum up, we can say that God had no potentiality. Everything good about God was already present in maximal degree. Any change would be a change for the worse and so impossible for a perfect being.

If God is perfect, his knowledge is perfect. But if he is fully actual, then his knowledge is unchanging. Therefore nothing about reality can change, since it would change God’s knowledge. For this reason there is ultimately no distinction between actuality and potentiality: everything is already actual.

Perhaps the reader can sense that this view … uh … creates … massive problems. For one thing, it would seem to make creation necessary. That is, God could not spontaneously decide to create because that would involve a change in his knowledge.

Note that it does no good to say that creation could involve a kind of imagination of reality, fully realized in God’s mind, that God actualized. Because the point at which God’s imagination became actualized would involve a change. God would have acted to change imagination into reality, and that would necessitate a change in God’s perfect state.

But if God must create (because he did create) this violates the notion that God is perfectly free. Somehow God’s actions are constrained in some unimaginable way by his perfection. But if he is not perfectly free not to create, this would seem to violate the notion that God is perfect in every respect.

Another problem is that what God created, because it is fully actualized in God’s mind, must be complete and perfect as it stands. Otherwise this would make God the author of an imperfect creation. In other words, this world must be (by some measure) the best of all possible worlds.

I should point out here that many Christian thinkers, even well-known ones today, think that this is true. They argue that the world as he created it is the world that most glorified God. An example from some time ago is Jonathan Edwards’ view that sin is necessary because it glorifies God by revealing an aspect of his character — his justice and hatred for sin — that would otherwise lay dormant.

Having gone a fair distance down the road of God as fully actual, we might ask ourselves if we have made a wrong turn somewhere, because we seem to have wound up in a really bad neighborhood. That is, we are concluding that God’s hatred of sin requires that he create a world that exemplifies sin. Is there some alternative that requires less agonizing mental contortions? The “open future” view seems to be one such view.

In this view, we see God’s perfection as both actual and potential. In his actual perfection, God is unsurpassable except by himself. That is, in his current “instantiation” God is the most excellent in every positive characteristic of any entity that exists. But his excellence in the present does not limit his potential excellence.

It is similar to the conundrum of whether God can make a rock too heavy for him to lift. The correct answer is “no”. This might be surprising but we notice the following.

First, this does not limit God in his ability to make rocks. He can make a rock of any mass (at least any mass that is logically possible).

But second, having made such a rock, he is still able to lift it. God is limited neither in his ability to make rocks nor in his ability to lift rocks.

Thus God in his current instantiation is like an actual rock that he has made. But God in his potential to exceed himself is like his ability to lift any rock he might make.

God is unsurpassable in the excellence of his actuality except by himself. And this involves the second aspect of God — his potential excellence. God in his actuality is supreme among everything that exists; but he has the potential to surpass himself by actualizing what is currently only potential.

It makes sense to think about God this way, because if we think in human terms, we would see someone with potential as superior to one who had no potential. But how then could the most superior being have no potential at all?

We notice in passing that this unsurpassable potential is a potential infinity. God in his actuality may or may not be infinite (I have not thought this through yet). But God in his potential is certainly infinite.

The “open future” view asserts that God perfectly knows the possibilities of the future. He knows all the “forking paths” the future could take, and their outcome. This view also states that God is able to respond with perfect intelligence and wisdom to every possibility. What this means is that even if the future is potential, God can still figure it out, and act so as to ensure his desired result will occur.

What’s more, there are instances where God can be certain of things about the future. For example, if we look at Romans 8:29 we read “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…”. This verse does not require that God know that any particular person will be saved; what it does say is that God knew that there would be those who would be saved and he ordained that anyone so saved would be conformed to the image of his Son.

We can imagine a store that is having a grand opening. The store advertises that anyone who comes will get a free gift and major discounts. The manager of the store knows that he will have customers. He does not know who they will be but he has already decided that if they come they will get a free gift, and whatever they buy will be 40% off normal price (or whatever).

Note that the open view does not deny that God could know that some particular individuals would be saved. For example, he could know that the disciples (except Judas) would be saved because Jesus chose them and worked with them. Note also that it does not require that Jesus knew that Judas would betray him at the time he chose him, though John shows that he knew fairly early on that it was not going well for Judas (John 6:70).

The point of all this is that God can have particular knowledge of the future in some instances because he can see the way it will turn out given the possibilities. In other cases, he can see the future has having a variety of possible outcomes, but none that he cannot deal with. But the very nature of God and the future implies that he does not control in every detail the way things will turn out (though he could if he decided to create a universe like that). And God is not a passive beholder of the future — he acts so as to turn it in the direction of his purposes. But he does not overrule the freedom he decided to give to creation.

This view is relevant to our lives because it says that we are collaborators with God, co-creators of the beauty he is making. Every choice you make can be a participation in the creation of that beauty. And notice also that, at the end, the Church will be the dazzlingly beautiful Bride of Christ, clothed in “… fine linen, bright and pure — for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Revelation 19:8). See also the description of the beauty of the Bride in Revelation 21:9-27.

We are becoming “God’s glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). This is not just spiritual hot-air. It means that what we do matters. God interacts with our choices and actions to actualize the future.

See how this explains that we can “glorify God.” One of the paradoxes the Greeks ran up against is that there does not seem to be any way that the worship of the worshiper can benefit the gods in any way. Clearly if they were already perfect, the worship could not benefit them in any way.

Plato, in his dialog Euthyphro, discusses this notion: does the worship of the gods improve them? But of course it cannot. And what benefit accrues to the gods by the service we give them? There can be none, given the Greek view of the gods as perfect and so beyond either need or improvement.

But if we are cooperating interactively with God in creating reality then our worship matters to God — not because it makes him more perfect, but because it participates in God’s glory — and so also in our own glory. The Bible speaks often of the glory that will be ours: Romans 2:7, 10; 3:23 (by negative implication); 5:2; 8:18; 8:21; 9:23; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 11:7; 15:43; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:17; Colossians 1:27; 3:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; 2 Timothy 2:10; Hebrews 2:10; 1 Peter 1:7; 5:1, 4, 10; 2 Peter 1:3; Revelation 21:11. Of course this glory has its source in God, but we share in it — and thus give it unique expression in a way nobody else does. This is the wonder of God’s continuous interaction with his creation.

God is unsurpassed in his actual aesthetic experience — its intensity and variety (encompassing the whole universe). But he can nevertheless surpass himself with an even more varied and intense aesthetic experience. And the point is that he made us to be part of that. We matter to God; he values us — not because we are necessary in some way but because we are a major part of the unfolding beauty of creation. (This way of seeing things receives some direct support in Matthew 26:6-13.)

But Paul says, “… but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Now the open view allows us to take this phrase “let your requests be made known to God” seriously. That is, we lay before God not necessarily what we need — we may not even know what we need — but what matters to us, what we care about. And in this manner we reveal ourselves to God and open ourselves and our lives to his interaction.

Prayer, then, is our way of interacting with God in the on-going creation of our lives. This interaction is relational — self-revealing on both sides. We open ourselves to know and be known by God, and he invites us to know him and be known by him (see 1 Corinthians 8:3, Galatians 4:9). Because it is our life, God gives us the privilege of being part of the shaping of its unfolding through prayer.