A journal article on the issue of modal collapse, and a brief comment

Very excited that my latest article (co-authored with my good friend Daniel Pedersen @AbdnDivinity) is now officially published in the Journal of Reformed Theology and out in the wild! @BrillPublishing @MarquetteTheo #divinesimplicity #modalcollapse #divinefreedom pic.twitter.com/sezojTpfBf

— Chris Lilley (@Frostinthepines) April 9, 2022

An interesting journal article has just come out on the issue of modal collapse as it relates to the doctrine of God, in the Journal of Reformed Theology which is currently open access here. Modal collapse is an argument, promoted by those like Ryan Mullins, that a strong version of divine simplicity (DDS) implies a collapse of all contingencies into absolute necessities in God. The article is an attempt to argue that such ideas of modal collapse depend on premises that are at best contested, and therefore the modal collapse argument is not the knockdown argument against the doctrine of divine simplicity as it has been stated to be.

There are a lot of interesting things in this article, and I am sure Mullins will respond to this article in due time. I would just like to make a brief comment here on the article's explanation of necessity. According to the authors, the difference between hypothetical and absolute necessity "rests solely on the source, or ground, of a thing’s necessity in relation to its essence or concept." The authors cite Boethius, Aquinas and Leibniz to support this distinction. The authors then argue that therefore, asserting that something will necessarily happen does not imply that it is absolutely necessary, since the ground of why it happens is external to its being, and therefore still considered hypothetically necessary. In other words, whether something is necessary in any and all possible worlds is totally irrelevant to the discussion about the nature of necessity, since the only thing that matters is the intrinsicity or extrinsicity of the act to its being.

While it is certainly understandable why the ancients think like that, that manner of thinking is something I reject. Intrinsicity or extrinsicity certainly informs one understanding of necessity, in the sense that nothing can go against its nature. Therefore, it is intrinsically necessary that a triangle has three sides. However, it is one thing to claim that intrinsic necessity is associated with absolute necessity. It is another to claim that intrinsic necessity IS absolute necessity, and extrinsic necessity IS hypothetical necessity. The authors in this article have cleverly asserted that even an appearance of absolute necessity does not imply that necessity is absolute if the ground is extrinsic, so any proof that an extrinsic necessity seems absolute will be rejected by this criterion. However, what if an intrinsic necessity can be shown to be not absolute? Such should certainly blow their argument apart.

What is a thing? Sometimes, defining what a thing is, and what is necessary for the thing to be what it is (intrinsically) is not that easy. So, what is a photon with a wavelength of 700nm? We call it a light particle transmitting red light. But what is intrinsically necessary in such a light particle? Well, traditional philosophers would probably say that "redness" is an essential property of such a light particle. However, we know from science that "redness" is perceived subjectively to the human person, therefore "redness" as a secondary property is not intrinsic to "photon with wavelength of 700nm." So "wavelength of 700nm" seems to be intrinsically necessary for such a proton. Except, it is not absolutely necessary for that photon to have a wavelength of 700nm. That photon is blue or red shifted to an observer moving at relativistic speed, thus it has a different wavelength despite the photon not undergoing any change. True, the different wavelength is due to perception from relativistic viewpoints, but the point remains that this intrinsic necessity is not absolutely necessary.

What is the intrinsic necessity of "infinity"? It seems clear that infinity is a number beyond all numbers. Therefore, an intrinsic necessity of infinity is transcendence. Yet, from the work of Georg Cantor, we know this intrinsic necessity is not an absolute necessity, since it is possible to have different infinities and therefore, despite the intrinsic necessity of infinity to transcend numbers, under specific mathematical manipulation, infinities can be managed, qualified, and even transcended despite their inherent transcendence. Here, we see another case in which intrinsic necessity is not absolute necessary.

These two counter-examples, one from physics and the other from math, show that intrinsic necessity does not necessarily mean absolute necessity. The point is not to separate the two, but to show that the assertion that hypothetical necessities are always hypothetical even when they look absolute, is based upon an association of the types of necessities that are not necessarily the case. If there can be even one intrinsic necessity that is not absolute, then one should not assert that the only thing that matters is the ground of necessity and not the overall manner in which any necessity plays out not just due to being but due to place and circumstance.

On the older distinction between hypothetical and absolute necessity, just because in many cases something is absolute or necessary due to whether it is intrinsic or extrinsic to the thing does not entitle one to ground necessity in being alone. In the case of light for example, "being" is very much linked with act, because light is in act. Therefore, it is much better to ground necessity in possible world scenarios rather than talk about essence. Speaking of essence, it is clear from looking at things like shadows that just because something is a thing does not imply it has a essence, so grounding necessity in essence is strange if it is possible that a thing does not have an essence. How does one talk about the necessity or otherwise of shadows since shadows have no essence?

Now, most certainly, this paper is an interesting paper. However, as I do not hold to the same metaphysics as the classical theists but that amenable to modern science, I do not find the arguments in the paper convincing. After all, why should I find arguments based on ontology persuasive when we all know that the ancients, while smart and perceptive and who build the foundation with which we can attain to modern science, are ignorant of actual ontology? We can respect their insight, respect their contribution, without uncritically accepting anything they have to say on any topic.