Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T08:51:46.244Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Truthmaking, resemblance, and divine simplicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2021

Mahmoud Morvarid Open the ORCID record for Mahmoud Morvarid [Opens in a new window]
Mahmoud Morvarid*
Affiliation:
School of Analytic Philosophy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P.O. Box 19395-5746, Tehran, Iran
*
e-mail: morvarid@ipm.ir
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity, if an intrinsic predication of the form ‘God is F’ is true, then God's F-ness exists and is identical with God. To avoid the absurdity of identifying God with a property, a number of philosophers have proposed that God's F-ness should be interpreted, not as a property God possesses, but as the truthmaker for ‘God is F’, which is God himself. I shall argue that given some plausible assumptions, the truthmaker interpretation would undermine the highly plausible idea that there are ‘natural’ predicates which apply univocally or (at least) analogically to both God and some created beings. The only way in which the advocate of the truthmaker interpretation can avoid this problem is to embrace wholesale radical nominalism (with its own costs). That is to say, the truthmaker interpretation is far more constrained than it might initially appear to be.

Keywords

divine simplicitytruthmaker theorythe truthmaker interpretation of divine simplicitythe objective similarity argument
Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 547 - 563
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alston, WP (1989) Divine Nature and Human Language. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.10.7591/9781501733161CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, WP (1993) Aquinas on theological predication. In Stump, E (ed.), Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 145–178.Google Scholar
Alston, WP (2005) Response to Wolterstorff. In Battaly, H and Lynch, M (eds), Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 229–236.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T (1947) Summa Theologica, Fathers of the English Dominican Provence (trans.). New York: Benziger Brothers.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T (1955) Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One: God, Pegis, AC (trans.). New York: Hanover House.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D (1978) Universals and Scientific Realism, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D (1989) Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D (2004) Truth and Truthmakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Augustine, (1963) On the Trinity, McKenna, S (trans.). Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Avicenna, (2005) The Metaphysics of The Healing: A Parallel English–Arabic Text, Marmura, ME (ed. and trans.). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press.Google Scholar
Bergman, M. and Brower, J (2006) A theistic argument against platonism (and in support of truthmakers and divine simplicity). In Zimmerman, D (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 357–386.Google Scholar
Bigelow, J (1988) The Reality of Numbers: A Physicalist's Philosophy of Mathematics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Brower, J (2008) Making sense of divine simplicity. Faith and Philosophy 25, 3–30.10.5840/faithphil20082511CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brower, J (2009) Simplicity and aseity. In Flint, T and Rea, M (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 105–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, K (1990) Abstract Particulars. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cappelen, H, Lepore, E and Mckeever, M (2020) Quotation. In Zalta, E (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/quotation/.Google Scholar
Davidson, D (1984) Quotation. In his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation and Logic Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 79–92. Originally published in Theory and Decision 11 (1979), 27–40.Google Scholar
Devitt, M (1980) Ostrich Nominalism’ or ‘Mirage Realism’? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61, 433–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geach, P (1972) Quotation and quantification. In his Logic Matters. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 205–209.Google Scholar
Harris, J (2017) Analogy in Aquinas: the Alston/Wolterstorff debate revisited. Faith and Philosophy 34, 33–56.10.5840/faithphil201712575CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasker, W (2016) Is divine simplicity a mistake? American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90, 699–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornsby, J (2005) Truth without truth-making entities. In Beebee, H and Dodd, J (eds), Truth-Makers: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 33–47.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283569.003.0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leftow, B (1990) Is god an abstract object. Noûs 24, 581–598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leftow, B (2012) God and Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D (1983) New works for a theory of universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, 343–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Melia, J (2005) Truth-making without truth-makers. In Beebee, H and Dodd, J (eds), Truth-Makers: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–84.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283569.003.0005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulligan, K, Simons, P and Smith, B (1984) Truthmakers. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 44, 287–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, A (1996) The metaphysics of properties. Mind 105, 1–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppy, G (2003) The devilish complexities of divine simplicity. Philo 6, 10–22. Page references are to the online version at: https://philpapers.org/archive/OPPTDC.pdf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, J (1999) There is no ‘Truthmaker’ argument against nominalism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77, 325–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A (1980) Does God Have a Nature? Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press.Google Scholar
Plantinga, A (2000) Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pruss, A (2008) On two problems of divine simplicity. In Kvanvig, J (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 150–167.Google Scholar
Quine, WVO (1960) Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Restall, G (1996) Truthmakers, entailment and necessity. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74, 331–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocca, G (1991) The distinction between res significata and modus significandi in Aquinas's theological epistemology. The Thomist 55, 172–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G (2002) Resemblance Nominalism: A Solution to the Problem of Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, K (1996) The traditional doctrine of divine simplicity. Religious Studies 32, 165–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saenz, NB (2014) Against divine truthmaker simplicity. Faith and Philosophy 31, 460–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Y (2013) The deadlock of absolute divine simplicity. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 74, 117–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnieder, B (2006) Truth-making without truth-makers. Synthese 152, 21–46.10.1007/s11229-004-7905-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, M (2013) Religious Language. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137033208CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, R (1993) The Coherence of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0198240708.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallicella, W (1992) Divine simplicity: a new defense. Faith and Philosophy 9, 508–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, R (2010) Talking about God: The Concept of Analogy and the Problem of Religious Language. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, N (2005) Alston on Aquinas on theological predication. In Battaly, H and Lynch, M (eds), Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 209–228.Google Scholar