NOTES 3737 Monotheistic conceptions of ultimate reality
1 It is logically consistent with monotheism that there exist abstract objects that possess
logically necessary existence. Abstract objects have no causal powers, are not self-conscious
or even conscious, and exercise no creation or providence. They are of little if any religious
interest. It is a necessary truth that If X has logically necessary existence then there is
nothing Y such that Y is distinct from X and X depends on Y for X’s existence. So if There
are abstract objects that have logically necessary existence is true, it is also true that
There exists something whose existence does not depend on God. God’s status as Creator,
and any coherent notion of divine sovereignty, does not require that something that
cannot depend for its existence on anything else depend for its existence on God or deny
that the existence of such things is logically possible. But the only candidates for being
something of this sort would seem to be things that exist with logical necessity.
2 Trinitarian monotheists speak in this fashion, though typically holding God to be three
persons in one substance; other monotheists speak of God as personal while adding that
it is proper to speak in this way because God is more like a person than God is like
anything else. The latter claim rests in part on views concerning the alleged limits of
descriptions of God. For a monotheistic tradition to make even the comparatively weak
religious claims central to Greek monotheism, God must be self-conscious. For a
monotheistic tradition to make the more robust religious claims characteristic of Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, or Hindu monotheism, God must be a self-conscious agent – one
who knowingly and purposively acts. A self-conscious agent is a person.
3 Roughly Aristotelian in content.
4 If the point isn’t clear, consider a parallel case. If I ask for the accurate explanation of the
existence of this very duck that walks the shore in front of me, the answer is that it had
parents. But if I want to know the explanation of there being any ducks at all, I cannot
properly be told about there being duck parents; there being duck parents is (part of)
what I want explained.
5 Arguably, this claim is typical of but not essential to Semitic monotheism.
6 Exodus, chapter 2 passage in which God, in standard translations, makes self-reference
by using the terms “I am” seems not to require a stronger philosophical reading than
that expressed by something like God exists, and it is logically impossible that God
depend on anything else for existence.
7 Of course N(Np) – Necessarily, Necessarily, p – is a second-order modal proposition, and
one can go on up the ladder. We will go to third-order in a moment.
8 Here is a little more: 1 P entails proposition Q if and only if it is logically impossible that
P be true and Q be false (i.e., if P, but not Q is a contradiction); 2 No necessary truth
entails a necessary falsehood; 3 No logically contingent proposition entails a necessary
falsehood; 4 No necessary truth entails any logically contingent proposition; 5 Every
necessary falsehood entails any proposition whatever (this assumes the rules If P then
(P or Q) and If (P or Q) and not-P, then Q or their equivalent); 6 Every logically contingent
proposition entails every necessary truth; 7 Every logically contingent proposition entails
some, but not all, other logically contingent propositions.
9 The logical relations between these views go as follows. Where NT = necessarily true;
NF = necessarily false; CT = contingently true; CF = contingently false, the relationships
are:1 If NG is the case, then CG, N(NOT-G), and C(NOT-G) are NF.
2 If N(NOT-G) is the case, then NG, CG, and C(NOT-G) are NF.
3 If CG is the case, then NG and N(NOT-G) are NF and C(NOT-G) is CF.
4 If C(NOT-G) is the case, then NG and N(NOT-G) are NF and CG is CF.