EFS, Metaphysics and Theology - A Second Response to Derrick Brite on EFS (Part 4)

On the Metaphysics of Necessity

The final issue I would like to address is the issue of necessity. What does it mean for something to be necessary? According to Brite and the classical theists, if something is necessary, then it is essential and thus ontological. As I have said in my review of chapter 8 of Matthew Barrett’s book Simply Trinity, such argumentation depends on equivocation between two meanings of the word “essential.”^[14] Something is “essential” if it has to happen. Something is also “essential” if it pertains to the essence of a thing. The two meanings of the word “essential” are not the same. The two are the same only if one holds to Aristotelian philosophy, whereby a thing can be described by its four causes. If that is the case, if something has to happen (“essential” as being necessary), then the happening must be described by one of its four causes. Since God is pure act, any such cause would pertain to His being, and therefore anything divine that is necessary must pertain to the essence of the divine.

However, if we throw out Aristotelianism, this line of reasoning falls apart. If God’s will is free, His will must not be determined (deterministically) by His nature, otherwise an immutable nature implies a determined will and thus God is not free. If God is to be free, He is who He is, and He does what He does, and He is not what He does.

Necessity in this light is not about some mutability or immutability of the divine essence. Rather, necessity here has to do with the logical flow between cause and effect as it relates to possible worlds. X is “necessary” for Y if and only thing X is found in all possible worlds where Y is, and not found in all possible worlds where Y is not. To put it more systematically,

Thus, to state that it is necessary for the presence of the biblical God to lead to the Son submitting to the Father is equivalent to saying that the necessity of God leads to the necessity of the Son submitting to the Father. Therefore, it is not possible for God to not exist, and for the Son to not submit to the Father.

As it can be seen, this is an exercise in modal logic, and says nothing at all about the divine essence. What is required is just to note that the Scripture teaches that the Son submits to the Father, and that such submission is part of the eternal plan of God which is true in all possible worlds. The necessity of the Son’s submission to the Father is one of modal necessity, and has no relation to the divine essence at all.

This issue of necessity has come up before in the history of theology, albeit on different topics. The question has been asked whether it is necessary for Jesus to die on the Cross in atonement for sin. On the one hand, God’s plan is immutable, and Jesus is the eternal Savior who was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8; alt rendering). But dying on the Cross happens in time, and it happens in a world of contingencies. Furthermore, God is free so He does not need to save sinners and therefore dying on the Cross is not necessary, is it? One can start to see the thorniness of such a question, and why questions on necessity are not as easy as the classical theists have made them out to be.

My question for Brite and the classical theists is this: Can you see there is a difference between modal necessity and essential necessity? Can you at least recognize the complexity of questions of what constitutes necessity as it relates to God, and stop pigeon-holing all ideas about necessity into questions on the divine being? Perhaps classical theists should actually engage the philosophical literature on this topic and others instead of insisting on reading everything through the lens of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.

This brings us to Witsius and the Pactum. Here is what Witsius has said about the Pactum as it relates to necessity:

XXI. The third thing we promised to enquire into was this: “Could the Son refuse to undertake, or withdraw himself from this covenant?” To which question, we are again to answer distinctly. 1st. If the Son be considered as God, the whole of this covenant was of his own most free will and pleasure. There neither was, nor could be any necessity to bind the Son of God, as such, to this covenant. Here is nothing but mere good pleasure, philanthropy unmerited, and altogether lieral, pure, and unmixed grace. 2dly. If he be considered as man, though he indeed entered into this engagement of his own accord, without being constrained; yet he could not, without sin, from which he is at the greatest distance, withdraw from this agreement … ^[15]

XXIII. 2dly. The Son of God had from eternity engaged to satisfy this covenant, by assuming human nature, and obeying in it … If the human nature, personally united in him, could have withdrawn itself from, and renounced the covenant, it was possible that the Son of God himself might have violated his covenant engagements. And in that case Christ would not be either the true and faithful God, who cannot lie, or not be God omnipotent … ^[16]

XXIV. 3dly. God had by an eternal and irrevocable decree, appointed, promised, and confirmed by oath, the inheritance of all blessings in Christ, Heb. vi. 13-18. Luke i. 73. But if Christ could have withdrawn himself from the covenant, then the decree of God would have become void, his promises been deceitful, and his oath falsified; and therefore the whole counsel of God concerning the oeconomy of our salvation, so often inculcated in the prophetical writings, would have become of no effect; which is indeed blasphemy to imagine. … ^[17]

Witsius, in responding to the question whether the Pactum was necessary for the Son, retreated to the difference between the human and divine nature, focusing only on the fact that it was impossible for the human nature to retreat from the Pactum. The divine nature delights in the Pactum and thus no necessity bounds the Son as God to the covenant. And if one sees “bound” here as forcing the Son to go through the Pactum, that is true. But what Witsius glosses over is the fact that for the Son to choose to, in a sense, go against what he delights in, is an impossibility. The idea of modal necessity is present in Witsius’ thought, yet not emphasized.

The main point to drive here is that modal necessity is not new to the Reformed tradition. There is nothing wrong with insisting on the modal necessity of the submission of the Son in the Pactum. To those who insist that the Reformed Tradition does not historically speak using such language, are we more interested in policing speech or speaking truth?

[to be concluded]

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[14] Daniel H. Chew, Contra Barrett on the Issue of EFS: A Critique of Chapter 8 of Simply Trinity, accessed Feb 15 2022 (https://www.angelfire.com/falcon/ddd_chc82/theology/ContraBarrettEFS.pdf)

[15] Witsius, 1.3.21; This version, p. 184

[16] Ibid., 1.3.23; this version page 185

[17] Ibid., 1.3.24; this version page 186