‘Thou encompasses all and fillest all; and since thou are the All, thou art in all’.
‘Thou art not derived or detached from anything; nor is any place empty or devoid of thee’.
Jewish Hymn of Unity‘Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God’.
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Part I, Proposition XVIntroduction
In a series of papers, Robert Oakes (Reference Oakes1986, Reference Oakes1997, Reference Oakes2006, Reference Oakes2012) has introduced a distinction between ‘theistic internalism’ and ‘theistic consubstantialism’. According to theistic internalism, the universe is somehow internal to God. According to theistic consubstantialism, the universe and God are essentially made of the same stuff,Footnote 1 with God being either identical with or constituted by the cosmos. While theistic consubstantialism implies theistic internalism, Oakes argues that the converse is not the case.
Theistic consubstantialism appears neutral between whether God and the universe are identical or the universe somehow constitutes God. In either case, many versions of pantheismFootnote 2 and at least some versions of panentheismFootnote 3 would count as versions of theistic consubstantialism. Importantly, for my purposes, if theistic consubstantialism is true, then God is identical with or constituted by the cosmos. God is essentially corporeal if theistic consubstantialism is true. Theistic orthodoxy is committed to the non-corporeality of God. So theistic consubstantialism is regarded as a non-option for orthodox theists.
Oakes argues that theistic internalism is consistent with theistic orthodoxy. He argues that we can endorse theistic internalism without endorsing theistic consubstantialism.
I take it that at least one commitment that might constrain the orthodox theist from taking it to be possible that God is identical with or constituted by the universe would be an antecedent commitment to divine perfection and the notion that essential corporeality is an imperfection. In this article I will argue that if God is identical with or constituted by the universe, then God would have essential epistemic powers that God cannot have otherwise or would only have accidentally. Specifically, if theistic consubstantialism were correct, God would have the essential property of being able to know things in ways God would otherwise not be able to know them. For instance, God would possess the power to have knowledge de se of the contents of the mind of every conscious being that is internal to God; and this power would be an essential and intrinsic property of God's. If this is right and the problems with essential corporeality are chimerical, then God's being embodied would be a great-making attribute, contrary to the received view.
Some take the power to have knowledge de se of the minds of other conscious beings to be entailed by omniscience. For instance, Linda Zagzebski (Reference Zagzebski2008) has argued that omnisubjectivity, which would afford God the power to have knowledge de se of the contents of the mind of every conscious being, is entailed by omniscience. I think Zagzebski is correct. Moreover, the truth of theistic internalism makes this claim even more plausible than if theistic internalism is false. But if this power is to be an essential property of God's, then theistic consubstantialism must also be true. If theistic internalism is true but theistic consubstantialism is false, then God's possession of the power to have knowledge de se of the minds of other centres of consciousness besides God's consciousness would be accidental since it would depend upon whether or not a cosmos with conscious beings other than God exists and is internal to God.
What I shall argue in what follows is that either God is essentially corporeal and possesses greater essential epistemic powers than God would have otherwise or God is essentially incorporeal and has a diminished range of essential epistemic powers. I will argue that, in the light of this dilemma, we should accept theistic consubstantialism given that corporeality is not obviously a defect. But having the essential power to know things in a way one would otherwise not know them is a great-making property.
I proceed as follows. First, I discuss some of Oakes's reasons for why theists should accept theistic internalism and what sort of internalism orthodox theists would have to endorse. I then offer an argument for theistic consubstantialism from theistic internalism. Finally, I consider a few objections that could be raised by the orthodox theist.
Theistic internalism
Some may find theistic internalism to be antithetical to theistic orthodoxy's emphasis upon the incorporeality of God. It is commonly assumed among contemporary philosophers of religion that, while God sustains it, the cosmos is exterior to God in some sense, with a boundary existing between God and God's creation. This boundary is crossed, in some sense, when God acts.
Contrary to what appears to be the consensus among theistic philosophers, Robert Oakes argues that the doctrine of the cosmos's being internal to God follows from some basic commitments of theistic orthodoxy. Theistic internalism is repugnant to theistic orthodoxy only if the universe is understood as internal in a way that implies theistic consubstantialism.
In making the case for theistic internalism, Oakes appeals to divine omnipotence and omnipresence. With regard to omnipotence, Oakes asserts that divine omnipotence must include the power to produce objects interior to God (Oakes (Reference Oakes2012), 71). If God's power allowed God to create only objects that failed to be interior to God, then such a power would be limited in a way not fitting for an agent who is omnipotent.
That God must possess the power to create things internal to God in order to be omnipotent is controversial.Footnote 4 It may be argued that such a power is impossible for God to possess. Specifically, it may be argued that if God is incorporeal in the way described by orthodox theists, then God's producing objects internal to God is necessarily impossible since God lacks any spatial location. Hence, such a power would not be within the scope of omnipotence. I find this objection to Oakes's reasoning compelling. So my focus will be on omnipresence. But omnipotence will return, making an appearance in my case for theistic consubstantialism.
Appealing to divine omnipresence to establish theistic internalism seems more promising. Divine omnipresence has been taken to involve at least God's pervasive creating, conserving, and sustaining activity in the world. Oakes maintains that the doctrine also implies that God is pervasively immanent in the whole world. Assuming that this is an implication of the doctrine of divine omnipresence, Oakes argues that, owing to this doctrine, ‘there is readily seen to be decisive warrant for concluding not simply that theistic orthodoxy is compatible with Theistic Internalism, but, far more significantly, that it (theistic orthodoxy) is incompatible with the denial of Theistic Internalism’ (Oakes (Reference Oakes1986), 179). The reason this is so is because if the doctrine of omnipresence implies that God's presence fills every place, then God's being has no borders (Oakes (Reference Oakes2012), 70).
Oakes goes further, offering one of the most illuminating (although largely overlooked) treatments of the doctrine. Oakes elaborates on what the divine pervasive immanence in the world he takes to be implied by omnipresence involves:
Now among those items ruled out by the doctrine of God's omnipresence or pervasive immanence is the existence of some spatial location s such that God failed to be present at s. . . . Moreover, God's pervasive immanence guarantees that, for any spatial location s, the presence of some spatial object at s in no way conflicts with God's being present at s. For God's pervasive immanence necessitates His presence in all things as well as in all (spatial locations or) places. (Oakes (Reference Oakes1986), 180)
So far, notwithstanding any differences of detail, Oakes's position can be grouped together with some other recent proposals (e.g. Hudson (Reference Hudson and Rea2009), Pruss (Reference Pruss2013), and Swinburne (Reference Swinburne1993) ).
What may be more controversial is that omnicontainment is a corollary of omnipresence, according to Oakes (Reference Oakes1986, 181). The world is immanent in God. That is, the totality of the created world is contained in God. Oakes contends that all the objects in the universe possess the relational property of being interior to God. This relational property is also an essential property of natural objects but not of God, according to Oakes (Reference Oakes2006, 174). There is no ontological room, Oakes argues, for natural objects that are ‘ontologically exterior to a Being Whose plenitude is absolutely limitless’ (ibid.). He goes further, asserting that, ‘[s]ince the Divine plenitude is maximal, that is, must fill Heaven and Earth, it is very hard to see how there could possibly be natural objects which failed to be ontologically interior to that plenitude’ (ibid.). Space, on this account, does not contain God. Rather, God contains space. And God's containing space is not an essential property of God's. Using the framework of possible worlds, there is at least one possible world where God is not immanent in a cosmos of any kind. This is so because ‘traditional theism requires that there are at least some possible worlds that lack a cosmos’ (ibid., 176). So while God is essentially maximally present in any world, being immanent in the cosmos is accidental to God.
This last point is worth developing a bit further since the crux of the debate between the orthodox theistic internalist and the theistic consubstantialist is over the modal status of the internality of the universe to God. The theistic internalist, like Oakes, takes the universe to be accidentally internal to God. The universe is accidentally internal to God since the universe could have failed to be internal to God. The theistic internalist maintains that the universe could fail to be internal to God by God either not creating the universe or else by God deciding not to contain the universe (so God could create and leave the universe to its own devices). Importantly, if the universe ceased to exist, God would not cease to exist.
The theistic consubstantialist insists that the universe's being internal to God is an essential property of God's. So the cosmos could not fail to be internal to God according to the theistic consubstantialist. If God exists, then the universe must exist. The universe cannot cease to exist without God ceasing to exist.
In the remainder of this article, it will be argued that we should not only be committed to theistic internalism but should go further and accept theistic consubstantialism if we make two further assumptions besides theistic internalism. Specifically, if we assume that God has maximal epistemic power, and that all of God's powers are essential properties of God's, then we should accept theistic consubstantialism.
Making the case for theistic consubstantialism
According to theistic orthodoxy God is omnipotent. God is also assumed to be omniscient. While omniscience and omnipotence are typically treated separately, this is a mistake, especially if we understand omniscience in terms of God's having maximal epistemic power. The idea is quite simple. If God is omniscient, then God possesses maximal epistemic power (see Nagasawa (Reference Nagasawa2003) and (Reference Nagasawa2008) ).Footnote 5 By ‘epistemic power’ I take it we are referring to what we might otherwise refer to as an agent's capacity for acquiring knowledge. Qua capacity, epistemic power would be a relatively non-specific, complex dispositional property of an agent that is composed of more basic dispositional properties of the agent (see Martin (Reference Martin2007), 84–85). Any gain or loss in an agent's dispositional properties results in a net gain or net loss of an agent's causal powers. In the case of epistemic power, any gain or loss in the individual powers that enable the agent to acquire knowledge would result in a corresponding decrease or increase in the agent's epistemic power. Finally, if omniscience is understood as maximal epistemic power, then God's omniscience is subsumed by omnipotence since divine omniscience is a thesis about some dimension of God's power.
It may be objected that omniscience should not be understood in terms of maximal epistemic power.Footnote 6 That is, the possession of maximal epistemic power may not be sufficient for an agent to be all-knowing. For instance, it may be suggested that an agent may possess maximal epistemic power but be ignorant owing to the power never being manifested. Of course, objects, including agents, may possess a power without ever manifesting the power possessed.Footnote 7 For instance, water in a place with no salt still has the power to dissolve salt. But it will never manifest this power. But it is not obvious that an agent could possess maximal epistemic power in a world without the power's being manifested. Even in a world where only God exists, God's maximal epistemic power would at least be manifested in God's first-person knowledge of the divine mind. And, assuming theistic internalism (as I am doing in this article) and that there is only an infinitely dense gravitational singularity internal to God, God's maximal epistemic power would be manifested in God's knowledge of the myriad possible ways some quantum fluctuations might be manifested. In any case, whether the objects of knowledge are few or many, God's maximal epistemic power would be multi-track, being manifested differently (potentially, in an infinite number of ways) in response to different triggers. So long as there is something to know, the power would be manifested with respect to everything there is to know. Hence, God's having maximal epistemic power does not appear to be consistent with the failure to be omniscient.
If the foregoing is correct, then, using the framework of possible worlds, God should have the same epistemic power in every possible world. If God fails to have some type of knowledge or cannot know something in a particular way in at least one world w 1, but God has that knowledge or the power to know something in the way in question in w 2, then God is not omniscient simpliciter since God's epistemic power would be limited in w 1 relative to w 2. Furthermore, God would not be essentially omnipotent owing to the diminished epistemic powers of God in w 1 vis-à-vis w 2.
Attentive readers will have noticed that I asserted that maximal epistemic power is not limited just to what is known but how things are known. Maximal epistemic power maximizes not only the amount of what is known but how things are known. What is known is dependent upon the amount of what there is to know. If there is less to know than there might be otherwise, then that does not impair God's epistemic power. But God's epistemic power is vitiated if there are ways not available for God to know things. For instance, if in w 1 God knows one less thing than God knows in w 2 because there is one less thing to know in the former, God's epistemic power is not obviously diminished. However, if God has the power to know something or know something in a particular way in w 1 that is not available to God in w 2, then God's epistemic power is not as great in w 2 as it is in w 1.
Recall in the introduction that I claimed that, assuming theistic internalism, in order for God's power to have knowledge de se of the contents of the mind of another conscious agent to be an essential divine property, theistic consubstantialism must be correct. Knowledge de se is a way of knowing the contents of a person's mind. More specifically, knowledge de se is first-person self-knowledge. What Daiki believes when he believes that he is making a mess is the same thing Maria believes when she believes of Daiki that he is making a mess. Only how they believe what is believed differs from Daiki to Maria. That is, Daiki and Maria may both believe the same thing, but in different ways. If we assume this distinction is a correct one to make, then, turning to God and Daiki, the object of God's knowledge can be the same as the object of Daiki's knowledge when Daiki believes ‘I made a mess’. The intentional object of both God's belief and Daiki's belief is the same. But while God can know what Daiki knows when Daiki knows he made a mess, God knows it in a different way. Furthermore, assuming that God and Daiki are different persons and neither one is a proper part of the other, there are ways in which God cannot know what they both know. How God knows that Daiki made a mess is restricted by God's being distinct from Daiki.
In the interest of clarity, I should be open about some assumptions I am making about knowledge de se. First, I am assuming that John Perry (Reference Perry1979) is correct that the object of knowledge in cases of knowledge de se includes a sentence. So knowledge de se is a species of knowledge de dicto. Second, I am assuming that the object of knowledge in cases of knowledge de se is a singular sentence. More specifically, I assume that the object of knowledge can be understood as a Russellian proposition, where a Russellian proposition is not a sui generis Platonic entity that is somehow more than what is represented in a representation token such as a sentence. Rather, a Russell proposition ‘contains the entities indicated by words’ (Russell (Reference Russell1903), 47). So a proposition on this view is a state of affairs that has as its constituents some object or objects and relations and/or properties. The proposition expressed by ‘My car is blue’ is a state of affairs involving my car and its being blue and the proposition expressed by ‘Andrei is married to Lara’ is a state of affairs involving Andrei and Lara standing in the symmetrical relationship of being married to one another. I assume that a sentence is false when what it represents is not made true by anything in the world, and it is true when what it represents is made true by something in the world. Both assumptions are consistent with Perry's views. And they deliver the result that we can distinguish between what is known and how it is known.
So, why should we think that theistic consubstantialism is required for God to have the power essentially to have knowledge de se of the minds of others and, hence, maximal epistemic power? If theistic internalism is true, then the universe is internal to God. The traditional theist who accepts theistic internalism will insist that the universe is accidentally internal to God. But if the universe is accidentally internal to God, then God will have some of God's powers accidentally. I focus on only one such power here, namely, the power to have knowledge de se of the contents of the minds of other conscious beings. If such beings and their conscious states are internal to God in the sense articulated, then there is a way that God can know the contents of their minds that God would not have available to God otherwise. Specifically, if the cosmos is internal to God, then God has the power to have first-person knowledge of the contents of the thoughts of other conscious agents. This power is an accidental power according to the theistic internalist who rejects theistic consubstantialism. God could fail to have the power to have such knowledge. God may have the range of essential powers that would allow God to have the power to have knowledge de se of the minds of others, but since the cosmos is not essentially internal to God, God does not have the power in question essentially. God possesses this power accidentally. So God's essence is such that God could lack the epistemic power to have knowledge de se of the thoughts of other conscious agents. If this is so, then God lacks omniscience simpliciter since God's epistemic powers are diminished compared to what they would be if the cosmos were essentially internal to God. Putting it in terms of possible worlds, there would be worlds in which God has an epistemic power that God lacks in some others. So God lacks omniscience simpliciter on this view and, hence, God is not necessarily omnipotent.
If God is essentially omnipotent, then all of God's epistemic powers will be essential properties, including the power to have knowledge de se. But the power to have knowledge de se is not an essential property of God's according to the theistic internalist who rejects theistic consubstantialism since God can fail to have this power. But if having this epistemic power is a great-making attribute, then we should expect God to have this power essentially. If this is right, then a consequence is that theistic consubstantialism is true. Consider the following argument that represents my reasoning thus far.
1. God possesses the maximally consistent combination of great-making attributes.
2. Having the essential power to have knowledge de se of the minds of every conscious being is a great-making attribute. (Assumption)
3. So (1) and (2). (from (1) to (2) )
4. If (3), then God's power to have knowledge de se of every conscious mind internal to God is an essential property.
5. If God's power to have knowledge de se of every conscious mind internal to God is an essential property, then the universe is essentially internal to God.
6. So the universe is essentially internal to God. (from (3) to (5) )
7. If (5), then theistic consubstantialism is true.
8. So theistic consubstantialism is true. (from (6) and (7) )
Premise (1) should not be too controversial given my earlier discussion of knowledge de se, omniscience, and omnipotence. The remaining premises should at least be prima facie reasonable given my reasoning so far. But some substantial objections can be raised against the general line of reasoning I have taken up in this section. To some of those objections I now turn.
Objections
I consider four objections in this section. I do not believe any are fatal to the reasoning presented above.
First objection
Even if God's essential epistemic powers are greater if God is identical with or constituted by the universe, divine omnipotence is in jeopardy. God may have essential epistemic powers if theistic consubstantialism is true that God would not have otherwise. But God's power would be constrained by God's being either identical with or constituted by the cosmos.
Reply to first objection
The most obvious response is to offer a tu quoque reply. This problem is not unique for the theistic consubstantialist. It is also a problem for the traditional theist. Divine power is constrained both by God's nature and by some of the features of reality. For instance, if God is morally perfect, God's power to act in certain ways is constrained by God's moral perfection. Traditional theists accept other constraints on divine power. For instance, God is constrained by logic (God cannot create a square-circle) and divine foreknowledge (God cannot render it false that it will be the case that p at some later time t if God knows that p will obtain at t). There are still other constraints.
What is important is that the total essential powers God possesses are the total maximum that can be possessed that would be consistent with God's other attributes, logic, and relevant features of the world. No less importantly, the total range of essential powers God possesses remains stable. They are not stable if theistic consubstantialism is false since God's power to have knowledge de se of the minds of creatures would not be an essential property.
Second objection
God's existence is contingent if the universe is essentially internal to God since the universe does not exist necessarily. God's existence can still be necessary if the universe is accidentally internal to God. So God on the theistic consubstantialist view is not as great as God is according to traditional theism.
Reply to second objection
God's existence may not be logically necessary if theistic consubstantialism is true. But God's existence may still be metaphysically necessary. There is a tendency among philosophers of religion not to disambiguate these two types of necessity. In part this is owing to a failure to account adequately for what grounds modal metaphysical claims. Mere appeals to possible worlds are not very informative unless one takes actual concrete possible worlds to be the grounds of such claims providing their truthmakers. And the conceptualist solutions offered by some theistic metaphysicians are not very satisfying, either.
A more attractive alternative to modal realism grounds modal claims in the essences or the dispositional properties of objects.Footnote 8 For ease, I will leave the specifics of any such accounts unspecified here. But it's easy to see that on such strategies God's existence can still be necessary. If, for instance, part of God's essence were that God couldn't fail to exist, then God would exist necessarily. And if God has the power to have knowledge de se of the minds of creatures necessarily, then this power is also constitutive of the divine essence. But an upshot of this is that the cosmos, in some form, exists necessarily (although it would remain logically possible for there to be no cosmos). Moving to the more familiar discourse that cashes out modal claims in terms of possible worlds, the domain of discourse for making modal claims about the nature of the cosmos is limited to worlds where there is a cosmos that is internal to God. In exploring what states of affairs are necessary or possible we should begin with an examination of the essences or dispositional properties of the objects that are constitutive of those states of affairs and work out what sort of modal metaphysical claims we can justifiably make about them on that basis. If theistic consubstantialism is right, then the only relevant worlds for our purposes in doing philosophical theology should be worlds where there is a cosmos that is either identical with or constitutes the divine.
Third objection
The universe has defects. In particular, what may be a source of concern for theistic consubstantialism is that it is corruptible. So being identical with or constituted by the universe is an imperfection. So God on theistic consubstantialism is inferior to God as characterized by the traditional theist.Footnote 9
Reply to third objection
This is a challenging objection. If God is identical with or constituted by the universe, then God is subject to entropy – with maximum entropy involving the end of movement of energy with maximal expansion and a ‘heat death’.
This may not be a problem if the oscillating universe model is correct. On this model, the universe will stop expanding and begin to contract, resulting in a crunch which may very well be followed by another big bang, etc. It is not clear that this is corruptibility if we do not have the destruction of energy.
Some may worry that the oscillating universe model is too speculative. But at this juncture, what we have are just better and worse speculative models of the universe, its origins, and its trajectory being offered by theoretical physicists. Even if the oscillating universe model is false other models allow us to account for how God can be infinite and not corruptible in any ultimate sense. For instance, God may be identical with or constituted by an infinite multiverse.
In any case, what is important for my purposes here is that it is not obvious that the corruptibility objection is decisive. Given the total set of considerations that favour or count against identifying God with the cosmos or taking God to be constituted by the cosmos, it seems more reasonable than not to accept theistic consubstantialism if we accept theism and theistic internalism.
Fourth objection
What if the universe is essentially internal to God but God is neither identical with nor constituted by the universe? Nothing about the cosmos being essentially internal to God implies consubstantialism.Footnote 10 If this is so, then God can still have the essential power to have knowledge de se of every conscious mind although God and the universe are not made of the same stuff. So theistic internalism can describe a necessary state of affairs while theistic consubstantialism is false.
Reply to the fourth objection
Denying theistic consubstantialism while holding that the universe is essentially internal to God may appear to be an attractive option for the traditional theist. But this is not obviously an improvement over theistic consubstantialism.
Suppose the universe is essentially internal to God. Moreover, the universe is not identical with God nor does it constitute God. Notice that, once again, using a possible worlds framework, there is no world in which God exists in which the universe does not exist. Moreover, assuming that God exists necessarily, since the universe would be essentially internal to God, the universe cannot cease to exist.
This sort of approach faces many of the same challenges as theistic consubstantialism I addressed in responding to the second and third objections above. For instance, since God is necessarily related to the universe and the universe appears corruptible then it seems God is subject to corruptibility or at least the possibility of ceasing to exist.
This sort of view also starts to look a lot like panentheism or a view very much like panentheism once you start thinking about God's relationship to the universe. God and the universe are unified on this view. It may be argued that the unity they have is not sufficient to describe them as one thing. But the relation they bear to one another looks quite a bit like the relationship the mind and body bear to one another on compound dualism. God qua substance and the universe qua substance compose the totality of reality (assuming that abstracta exist and are somehow in God in the way described by divine conceptualists). But this relationship is even stronger than the one we find between mind and body on compound dualism. The universe is essentially internal to God. Neither can exist without bearing the relationship in question to the other.
If we suppose that I am right about the relationship of God to the universe on the view under question on which the universe is essentially internal to God, there is a final worry that may push us towards pantheism or a more standard version of panentheism. I have argued elsewhere (Buckareff (Reference Buckareff, Buckareff and Nagasawa2016) ) that traditional theism faces a pairing problem similar to the one faced by substance dualism (see Kim (Reference Kim2005) ). I will not repeat my argument here. But failing to locate God in space-time in the sort of way proposed by recent versions of pantheism and panentheism creates substantial difficulties for theists who are realists about discourse about divine action. Given the other worries for this alternative, I would suggest that the theistic internalist who takes the universe to be essentially internal to God should bite the bullet and endorse theistic consubstantialism.
Conclusion
My goal in this article has been to show that if someone accepts theistic internalism, then they should accept theistic consubstantialism. I have argued that theistic internalism implies that God has certain epistemic powers only if the cosmos exists. Unless theistic consubstantialism is true, then God can fail to have these epistemic powers and, hence, divine omniscience is not omniscience simpliciter and divine omnipotence is in jeopardy. I do not expect traditional theists to acquiesce and accept theistic consubstantialism. But proponents of orthodox theism owe us some reasons for rejecting theistic consubstantialism. They must do more to show that theistic consubstantialism is false while theistic internalism remains correct. And if theistic internalism must be dispensed with to avoid theistic consubstantialism (as I have argued here), then we are owed an argument for why Oakes is mistaken that it is a commitment of traditional theism.Footnote 11
