Ockham against Robert Cowton on the substratum view

One of the more obvious problems with Henry's theory is that it seems to entail that the divine essence is imperfect. By all standard medieval accounts, matter is less perfect than form because it has less actuality than form, and here 'actuality' refers to causal oomph (among other things). If Henry wants to say the divine essence is matter, it would seem to follow that the divine essence has less causal oomph, less actuality, or less perfection than it would if it were a form.

This is certainly not a consquence that Henry wants to draw. Robert Cowton, one of Henry's followers, attempted to address this problem by arguing that Henry's model of material production accurately applies to the Son's production, but only if we remove any imperfection from the model. For Robert, divine production is like material production, free from imperfection.

In material production, there is a producer and a product, so let's call these x and y, respectively. Both the producer and the product are composed of matter and form, so let's call the matter M and the form F, and let's use subscripts for x and y to specify the matter or form of x or y: the matter Mx and the form Fx of the producer, and the matter My and the form Fy of the product.

The same goes for divine production. There is a producer and a product, and let's call these x and y, and the producer and the product are each constituted from the divine essence and a personal property, so let's call these E and P, and let's use subscripts for x and y to specify the essence and the personal property of x and y: the essence Ex and the personal property Px for the producer, and essence Ey and the personal property Py for the product.

According to Robert, in material production, there are three imperfections that need to be removed in divine production. First, there is one lump of matter in the producer, and another lump of matter in the product, so the matter of the producer and the matter of the product are not numerically identical. Thus, in material production, we have:

(M1) Mx and My are not numerically identical.

But this is an imperfection, so Robert says we should remove this for the divine case. In divine production, the 'matter' is the divine essence, and it will not be numerically distinct in the producer and the product, so we have:

(D1) Ex and Ey are numerically identical.

In the production of the Son, the divine essence in the Father is numerically identical to the divine essence in the Son. Between the Father and the Son, there is just one divine essence that they share.

Second, the lump of matter that a product is made from is in potential to the form of the product. When a sculptor makes a statue out of a lump of clay, the clay is in a state of potentiality to the form of the statue, thus:

(M2) My is in a state of potentiality to Fy.

But this is also an imperfection, so Robert claims we should remove this from divine production. Thus, in divine production:

(D2) Ey is not in a state of potentiality to Py.

When the Father produces the Son in the divine essence, the divine essence is not in a state of potentiality to being a Son. Presumably, this means that 'before' the divine essence is a Son, it is not in a state of potentiality, It is always in a state of pure actuality.

Third, in material production, when a producer produces a product, this occurs by changing a lump of matter into a product. This means that the matter was first potentially the product, and after the production, it is actually the product. For example, when a sculptor turns a lump of clay into a statue, the clay changes from being potentially a statue to actually being a statue. Thus:

(M3) Before x produces y, My is potential. After x produces y, My is actual.

But this is an imperfection, so Robert says we should remove this imperfection in the divine case:

(D3) Ex and Ey are actual.

In divine production, then, the divine essence does not change from being potentially the Son to being actually the Son. Rather, the divine essence is always actual. D3 follows straightforwardly from D2.

In addition to the three imperfections just discussed, Robert thinks there are three perfections in material production that apply to divine production. First, in material production, the lump of matter in the producer is the same kind of thing as the lump of matter in the producer. Thus:

(M4) Mx is the same kind of thing as My.

This is a perfection, so this also applies to divine production:
(D4) Ex is the same kind of thing as Ey.

Of course, D4 follows directly from D1. If Ex and Ey are numerically the same thing, then there can only be one thing, E, so Ex and Ey will be whatever kind of thing E is.

Second, in material production, matter helps, along with a form, to constitute the product. When a sculptor produces a statue out of a lump of clay, the clay is part of what constitutes the statue. Thus:

(M5) My partially constitutes y.

This is a perfection, so this also applies to divine production:

(D5) Ey partially constitutes y.

Third, Robert claims that in material production, a product is not produced ex nihilo. Rather, a product is produced from some matter. Thus:

(M6) y is not produced ex nihilo.

Again, this is a perfection, so it applies to divine production too:

(D6) y is not produced ex nihilo.

When the Father produces the Son, he does not produce the Son from nothing. Rather, the divine essence already exists, and the divine essence is one of the ingredients in the Son.

(I must admit that I don't see why M6 would be a perfection. Surely Robert would think that an act of creating some y from nothing would be more perfect than producing y from some already existing matter. After all, to produce y from nothing would take more effort, as it were, than producing y from something already existing. Perhaps Robert is stretching for one more reason why material production could apply to the divine case, but whatever his reason, Robert takes this as a perfection of material production.)

As I have already explained, Ockham doesn't think we have any reason to say a model based on matter is any better than a model based on form. But Robert thinks there are reasons why this model of matter maps onto the divine case better than a model of form would. Much of Robert's argumentation for this relies on the fact that most of M1-M6 (and thus D1-D6) seems to require that the 'matter' is prior to the form.

For example, if D1 is true, that is, if Ex is identical to Ey, then when x produces y, E exists in x prior to its existence in y. Likewise, if D5 is true, that is, if Ey partially constitutes y, then Ey will be prior to y. Robert thus infers that whatever role E is going to play in the model, it will be prior to the product because it exists in the producer prior to the production, and because it partially constitutes the product. In material production, matter is prior to the product in just these ways, so matter is a good canditate for this role.

Ockham agrees that the divine essence is prior to the product, but this does not mean that the divine essence is more like matter than form. Presumably, Ockham is thinking of the example where God creates some matter under an already existing form. In such a case, the form is more prior than matter to the product, so mere priority is not enough to say the divine essence is more like matter than form.

Besides, in the divine case, the personal properties are really identical to the divine essence, and for Ockham, this should prevent any attempt to compare the divine essence and the personal properties to matter and form. Matter and form are really distinct entities, so it is simply not appropriate to talk about the divine essence and the personal propreties in hylomorphic terms.

All of this suggests that for Ockham, explaining the production of the Son in terms of material production is, at best, just an analogy. The divine essence is not literally matter, so Henry and his followers can only say this in an extended sense. Of course, one could ask: this is just an analogy, so why can't we use this analogy, or even many analogies, to explain divine production? It seems to me that Ockham finds material production to be a particularly bad analogy. At the end of the day, we have to remove so many features from the model of material production that we are hardly left with much of a model. If we go with material production, then we end up with a fairly thin model, a model with very few features that can't do much explanatory work. What Ockham wants, I think, is a thick model, a model with many features that can do some explanatory work.

Ockham against Henry on the substratum view

Like Scotus, Ockham thinks Henry's model of material production is problematic, and like Scotus, Ockham thinks the main problem lies in the claim that the divine essence is the matter or quasi matter of the divine persons. Ockham's argument is, roughly, that we can take the claim that the divine essence is matter either literally or in an extended sense, and since nobody thinks the divine essence is literally matter, it must be matter in an extendend sense. But if that's the case, we could just as easily say that in an extended sense the divine essence is something else – form, for example.

Let's say that a statement that is literally true is TL, and let's say that a statement that is true in an extended sense is TE. Thus:

(P1) The statement 'x is y' is either TL, or TE.
(P2) Not TL.
(P3) Not TE.
(P4) Therefore, x is not y.

As for P2, it seems obvious that the divine essence cannot literally be matter, but Ockham does not shy away from giving a few reasons for this, if only just to show how absurd it would be to take Henry's claim literally. Two are worth consideration.

First, Ockham says that the term 'matter' is applied precisely to that which is in potency to some really distinct form. According to Ockham:

(T1) Matter is (i) really distinct from form, and (ii) in potency to form.

If, then, this is what 'matter' means, then to say the divine essence is matter is to say:

(T2) The divine essence is (i) really distinct from some form or forms, and (ii) in potency to those forms.

In the divine case, the 'forms' would be the personal properties, so it would follow that the divine essence would be really distinct from the personal properties and in potency to the personal properties.

Of course, Henry thinks the divine essence is in potency to the personal properties, so it might seem that Henry would be quite happy to agree that the divine essence is 'matter' in just this sense. However, Henry also thinks that matter and form are really distinct, even though he thinks the divine essence is really identical to the personal properties. So although Henry may want to say the divine essence is in potency to the personal properties, Ockham's claim is that simply being in potency to a form is not enough to merit the proper label 'matter' (A strolling Socrates is in potency to the act of sitting, but does that make him the 'matter' of an act of sitting?). To be called 'matter' literally, the divine essence and the personal properties would also have to be really distinct.

Second, Ockham thinks that if we divide and sub-divide the world up various categories, some of which are incompatible with each other, we cannot apply something from one category to something of another, incompatible category. But this is exactly the kind of thing that is happening when Henry says the divine essence is matter. If we divide 'being' into the categories of created being and uncreated being such that anything contained in the category of created being cannot be applied to anything contained in the category of uncreated being, and if we then classify 'matter' in the category of created being, it follows that 'matter' cannot apply to anything in the category of uncreated being. Like most Christian scholastics, Henry does think that matter belongs in the category of created being, since the doctrine of creation entails this, and of course he thinks God is the only uncreated being. Consequently, Henry cannot attribute matter to the divine essence literally, for matter belongs to a category that is fundamentally inapplicable to God.

One might object that this argument would apply to every predicate from the created order which we apply to God (e.g., 'wisdom', 'goodness', 'love'). Indeed, by standard medieval accounts, human concepts are acquired by emprical observation of created entities, and so by Ockham's reasoning, it should follow that every concept we wish to apply to God in fact cannot be applied to God, for such concepts belong to the category of created being. It would seem from this that if Ockham is to be consistent, then he cannot apply any creaturely-acquired concepts to God.

However, Ockham does not think that every concept humans acquire belongs to the category of created being. At the very least, Ockham thinks the concept of 'being' applies to both created and uncreated being, and perhaps one could argue that there are other concepts that apply universally (or even transcendentally) to created and uncreated beings. Ockham's problem with Henry's account is not that he is using a concept acquired from creatures to describe God. The problem is that 'matter' belongs exlusively to the category of created being. And it is important to keep in mind that Ockham is talking about literal predication here. The point, then, is that if matter is classed in the category of uncreated being, then it can be applied literally to created beings only, not to uncreated being.

In any case, if it's not P2, then it must be P3. The claim that the divine essence is matter cannot to be taken literally, so it must be taken in an extended sense. However, Ockham thinks that speaking of something in an extendend sense requires some common condition C on which the extension is based.

(T3) If the statement 'x is y' is TE, then (i) x is C, and (ii) y is C.

For example, the claim 'Paul is lightning fast' is based on the condition C of being able to travel at high speeds. Paul is C, and lightning is C, so we can say 'Paul is lightning fast' based on C. (Compare with 'Paul is turtle fast', which still is intelligible based on the condition of speed, and 'Paul is lamp fast', which is not intelligible because there is no condition to draw a likeness.) Thus, if Henry wants to say that the divine essence is matter in an extended sense, then there must be some condition which is common to the divine essence and matter.

Ockham points out that if C is common to not just x and y, but also some other z, then we could just as easily say 'x is z'. That is, if this condition is common not just to the divine essence and matter, but also to other things, then we end up with no reason to say that the divine essence is matter, for we could just as easily say the divine essence is one of the other things which share the same condition.

For example, if there is some condition that applies to the divine essence, to matter, and to a goat, and if this condition is the basis by which one can say the divine essence is matter in an extendend sense, then one could just as easily say the divine essence is a goat. The point is that if we want to maintain in any non arbitrary way that the divine essence is matter in an extended sense, then the condition for that extended sense cannot be common to the divine essence, to matter, and to other things. It must be common only to the divine essence and matter.

But even if there is some condition that is common to the divine essence and matter, Ockham argues that if there another condition, D, that the divine essence shares only with something else, w, then we could also say 'x is w', and then we have no reason to choose y over w. For example, one could argue that there is some condition common only to the divine essence and to form, and that would be sufficient to allow us to say 'the divine essence is form' in an extended sense. And if we can say that in an extended sense, just as we can say 'the divine essence is matter' in an extended sense, why should we choose one over the other?

Ockham applies this argument in various ways to Henry's position. For example, Ockham rightly recognizes that one of the reasons Henry turns to material production is because the divine essence is included in the Son but is not produced in the Son, so Henry wants a model where some part of the product is not produced. In the realm of material beings, matter is just that: a part of the product that is not produced. But, Ockham argues, matter is the most obvious candidate here only because we are considering natural causes, and natural causes always presuppose matter.

But if we consider another cause such as God, then there is no reason to think that matter is the best candidate for the unproduced part of a product. After all, couldn't God create some matter under an already existing substantial form? In that case, the form would be the unproduced part of the product, so why don't we say the divine essence is form? Ockham does not see why Henry should say the divine essence is matter solely on the grounds that he is looking for a model that includes an unproduced part of the product.

Ockham also argues that we could say the divine essence is a hylomorphic composite just as easily as we can say the divine essence is matter. After all, a composite has per se unity, and neither the matter nor the form it is composed from has per se unity. Further, a composite is more perfect than either the matter or the form it is composed from. God is both per se and perfect, so why we not just say the divine essence is a hylomorphic composite instead of matter?

The divine attributes

The topic of the divine attributes focuses on the nature of God's properties. A divine attribute is a property of God. So what is the list of properties that belong to 'the divine attributes'?

Traditionally, such properties must be compatible with being God. The properties being good or being wise or being awesome are compatible with being God, but most of wouldn't say the property being addicted to child pornography is. So when it comes to the list of divine attributes, we're just including God-compatible properties on the list, attributes like 'good', 'wise', 'perfect', and so forth. (Which properties, I would suggest, are not PC-compatible, but only Mac-compatible).

In any case, this question has its locus classicus in Aquinas's discussion of the divine attributes. Aquinas's position runs as follows.

When we observe and ponder the world, we notice two types of entities: objects, and the properties of those objects. Consider a red car. The car is the object, but its red color is a property of the car. The car has other properties too, like being fast, weighing such and such, and so forth.

Now, would we say that an object is identical with any of its properties? Is a car identical -- the very same thing as -- its property of being red? Aquinas, at least, would say no. The car can still be the car without being red, so being a car and being red don't seem to entirely be the same thing. Likewise, the property being red can apply to things other than cars (like lamp shades and sunsets), so being red and being a car don't seem to be entirely the same thing.

Aquinas concludes from this that objects are different from their properties. Objects have properties, but objects are not identical to their properties.

Now apply this to properties that we include in our list of divine attributes. Take 'wise' for example. If I say 'Dan is wise', I seem to be talking about an object (Dan), and a property (being wise). On Aquinas's analysis, Dan is not identical to his property of being wise. After all, Dan can exist without being wise, and being wise can apply to objects other than Dan. Thus, Dan has wisdom, but Dan is not identical to his wisdom.

But what about when we say 'God is wise'? As Aquinas sees it, the situation is different. God does not have wisdom, God is wisdom. God is completely identical to his properties (i.e., the divine attributes). In other words, in the created realm, objects and properties are different, but in the divine case, the object in question (God) is identical to his properties (the divine attributes).

(Notice that this entails that God's properties will always be true of God, but this is not the case for creatures. Dan can exist without wisdom, but God cannot exist without wisdom. Dan can acquire or lose (if, perhaps, he had a lobotomy) wisdom, but God cannot acquire or lose wisdom.)

Aquinas, famously, argues that our minds work in accordance with the created order, so when I say something like 'John is wise', my mind understands John as having the property of being wise. So statements like 'John is wise' are understood as 'John has the property of being wise'. Aquinas thinks that our minds think this way because the world is that way, and God made our minds to understand the created order.

But God is not like the created world. God does not have the property of being wise. He is wisdom. As Aquinas sees it, we cannot understand it, because any statement like 'God is wise' gets translated in our brains as 'God has wisdom'. Thus, we always don't really understand the true meaning of our statements about God. We cannot then, understand what it is to be wisdom. We can only understand what it is to have wisdom.

(The same goes for existence. We can't understand what it is for God to be existence, we can only understand what it means to have existence. But existence is slightly more complicated than the other divine attributes like 'wisdom', because it is not clear that existence should be construed as a property. In any case, I won't discuss existence more here.)

As one author puts it, for Aquinas, we know that our words refer to God, but we don't understand the true sense of those words, since we can't understand what it is for God to be wisdom. We know our God-talk has reference, but it doesn't have sense. Aquinas is, in this respect, firmly in the negative theology tradition.