EFS, Metaphysics and Theology - A Second Response to Derrick Brite on EFS (Part 3)

On the Metaphysics of Attributes and Act

Alongside this idea of will being a property of nature comes the classical theist view of attributes. For classical theism, “attributes” are substances or things. They exist really just like cars and wind, since for Aristotle, thought “in its actualized states is identical to the act in which it is thought,”^[11] and God is pure act. When classical theists claim that God is His attributes, they are asserting more than the view that God cannot be separated from His attributes (the biblical view). Rather, each “attribute” is a thing that really exists. In order for any attribute to not achieve autonomous existence, God must be them, so that there are no parts of “free moving” attributes attached to God as like a composite thing.

All of such ideas about attributes depend on Aristotelian metaphysics. For most of us, “attributes” at their core are descriptive terms. To say that William is a man is to merely state that “man” is a descriptor that fits him. Nobody believes that to call William a man is to assert that a reified attribute “being a man” is either William himself or is attached to him, sticking to him like magnets on a fridge. Of course, as composite creatures, we do have parts, and therefore our “parts” contribute to our attributes as well (e.g. “having two eyes,” “having two legs”). However, “parts” and “attributes” are not necessarily the same thing, as the attribute “being a man” shows. “Attribute” is first and foremost a descriptor term that can be used to describe parts of things.

When it comes to God, the simplicity of God is an attribute of God that asserts that God has no parts. If attributes are things, then any “part” of an attribute that is not identical with God would be outside of God’s simple being, and therefore simplicity is denied. The total identification of God’s attributes of God’s being is necessary for classical theism, or God would cease being God.

If however we take attributes as primarily descriptors, as I do, then the whole issue would be construed differently. The identification of God’s attributes with God’s being is merely to say that one cannot separate God from His attributes, as if God’s justice can be removed and God remains God. It is an “is” of union, not an “is” of absolute identity. To assert that God has attribute X is merely to say X is what God is like without any commitment to how that is or whether X is of the essence of God.

This is important as it goes to the core of why Brite and other classical theists continually assert that we hold to “ontological disparity” despite our repeated denials to the contrary. Brite points to one statement I had made, where I had said “For the Son to not submit to the Father is for God to be not God; an impossibility.” He then moves on to cite Strachan’s book The Grand Design, stating from there that EFS is committed to the idea that “a definitional aspect of the being of God is the relationship of authority and submission.” The problem is that neither Strachan nor I have mentioned anything about the “being of God.” In fact, I would object to the statement “a definitional aspect of the being of God is the relationship of authority and submission” as heretical. But why would Brite think that is what EFS teaches? The only way it seems that one can get from statements from Strachan and me to statements like Brite’s is to hold to attributes as things.

When I state that the Son must submit to the Father, that is not a statement of ontology. In my first response, I had made it clear that such submission is a submission in God’s energies not His essence. It is to state merely what it appears, what God does and has done. There are attributes of God that pertain to His being, for example simplicity. But attributes such as “the Son submits to the Father” is not a proper attribute but a descriptor. It is not an attribute of the Son in the divine essence.^[12] Therefore, although we say that the Son submits to the Father, we deny that submission of the Son is of the essence of the divine.

Brite brings further artillery onto the scene in the writings of Kevin Giles, where he remarks that subordination of being lies behind submission in act or function. That brings another plank of Aristotelian philosophy into the scene: that act follows being (agere sequitur esse). But this depends on Aristotelian fourfold causality, especially the idea of final causation, which I reject.^[13] While certainly nature influences act, I reject the view that nature or being fully directs act. After all, if God has the freedom to save one person or not to save the same person, that act must not come from His own immutable nature or He would not be free at all to choose whom He would save.

As someone who rejects Aristotle and holds to modern physics, I reject both the reification of attributes and Aristotelian four-fold causation. I do not hold them to be true of this world, and I do not see why they are needed for theology either. I would challenge Brite, and other classical theists like him, to prove these to be true and necessary for a biblical theology before proceeding further.

[To be continued]

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[11] David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 35

[12] I do not hold to such things as the “essence of the Son.” There is only one undivided essence: Father, Son and Spirit

[13] See Daniel H. Chew, “Why Act follows Being is unbiblical,” Daniel’s Place (blog), Dec 20 2021. Accessed Feb 14 2022 (https://puritanreformed.blogspot.com/2021/12/why-act-follows-being-is-unbiblical.html)