#893 Logic and God
June 23, 2024Dear Professor Craig,
I recently watched your immensely interesting interview, "God and Abstract Objects", on Closer to Truth. As I understand it, after 13 years of study, you eventually came to an anti-realist stance on abstract objects, along the lines of Jody Azzouni's "deflationary nominalism", or as you call it, "neutralism", as a solution the logical conflict between God's (presumed) divine aseity, on the one hand, and the existence of abstract objects, on the other.
If I have properly understood your view, I have a concern about your solution.
Thomas Nagel, Jerrold Katz, and others have shown it is logically impossible to doubt the existence of at least some of the most basic laws of logic (e.g. modus ponens, universal instantiation, law of contradiction, etc.): any attempt at such doubt is self-defeating, because the thought process of doubting always presupposes _some_ laws of logic. That means not all the laws of logic can be merely "useful fictions" or "matters of pretense". It also seems clear that the laws of logic _constrain_ what God can do, i.e., He cannot do anything that would violate (all the) the laws of logic. And it seems clear that the laws of logic are not concrete objects: (1) they're not physical objects, for obvious reasons; (2) they do not exist as products of, or 'in', human minds, because their deliverances obtain universally, i.e., obtain regardless of what any particular human mind thinks/believes/knows about them, and they constrain what human minds can possibly think about anything; and (3) they do not exist as products of, or 'in', God's mind, because they constrain God's nature, i.e., constrain what God can possibly do, as well as sustain the _logical_ necessity of God's existence. Therefore, the laws of logic are abstractly existing objects, and they exist uncreated or ungrounded by God. As such, they undermine God's divine aseity.
Have I overlooked something?
Thank you for your time and consideration, I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Maaneli Derakhshani
United States
Dr. craig’s response
A
Thank you for your question, Dr. Derakhshani! I do think there’s something you’ve overlooked.
I think you’re failing to distinguish between truth and existence. I very much doubt that the philosophers you mention think that it’s logically impossible to doubt the existence of the laws of logic. After all, Jody Azzouni and other deflationary nominalists can’t do the logically impossible! Nor do they seem caught in some unseen incoherence. Rather I feel certain that what these philosophers mean is that it’s impossible to doubt the truth of the laws of logic. For in denying their truth one presupposes their truth.
Unlike fictionalists, Azzouni is emphatic that the laws of logic and mathematics are true. But it is the very essence of Azzouni’s position that truth does not entail existence. So he would say that, necessarily, 2+2 = 4, but that does not imply that there are things, mind-independent objects, called 2+2 and 4. So he would deny vigorously that “the laws of logic can be merely ‘useful fictions’ or ‘matters of pretense’.” At most what is a fiction or pretense is that they exist.
I don’t know whether the philosophers you name believe that the laws of logic are not only true but also existent things. The argument you ascribe to them delivers only their truth.
In case the distinction between truth and existence is not yet clear, consider the proposition Wednesdays come between Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m sure you will agree that that proposition is true. But would you therefore also infer that Wednesdays exist? Are there mind-independent objects out there in the world called Wednesdays? That seems preposterous. Wednesdays are socially constructed objects, not real things in the world.
In other words, you cannot read ontology off of language. Just because a statement is true, we cannot infer that the things referred to in that statement therefore exist.
Notice how you yourself re-phrase your statement “the laws of logic constrain what God can do,” with the more acceptable statement “He cannot do anything that would violate (all the) the laws of logic.” The first suggests the unacceptable idea that the laws of logic are things existing independently of God and acting upon him to restrict him. But the second simply sets limits to the range of his power: even an omnipotent being cannot bring about logical impossibilities.
So I agree with your enumerated points (1) and (2), but that does not imply (3), which again speaks unacceptably of things that “constrain God's nature, i.e., constrain what God can possibly do, as well as sustain the logical necessity of God's existence.” Horrors! You’ve not only compromised God’s omnipotence, but made God into a being dependent upon these logical objects for his existence! I see no reason to think that the truths of logic cannot be grounded in the mind of God himself as essential to his nature. They no more constrain him than does his essential goodness.
- William Lane Craig