Journal: Christian Apologetics Journal
Volume: CAJ 01:1 (Spring 1998)
Article: Could Abstract Objects Be The Thoughts Of God?
Author: Stephen Montague Puryear

CAJ 1:1 (Spring 1998) p. 1

Could Abstract Objects Be The Thoughts Of God?

Stephen Montague Puryear

(This paper was presented at the 1997 meeting of ETS.)

Introduction

Contemporary Platonists hold that abstract objects such as properties, relations, propositions, numbers, sets and possible worlds exist necessarily and independent of the mind. But if such necessary entities are in fact among the furniture of the universe, how exactly are we to explain their existence? The simplest answer is, of course, that we cannot. Abstract objects are just brute facts of the universe and as such cannot be explained by pointing to any causing or creating activity; they are, as Bertrand Russell once said of the world, “just there, and that’s all.” Recently, however, some philosophers have claimed that the existence of abstract objects can indeed be explained, and that the theist is uniquely equipped for the task. Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Morris and Christopher Menzel suggest that abstract objects be construed as the thoughts or concepts of God which he thinks according to his nature and therefore in every possible world. Accordingly, abstract objects are at once absolutely necessary and yet caused to exist by God. This proposal has the added theological benefit of reconciling the traditional claim that God is the source of all existence with the existence of abstract objects. Following Morris and Menzel, I refer to this general view as “theistic activism” (or simply “activism”). In this essay I argue that the theistic activist can account for the existence of abstract objects only at the expense of a coherent view of God. After setting forth the central claims of activism (Part I), I argue that activist claims, in conjunction with the standard Platonistic understanding of natures, imply that God causes his own nature, which seems tantamount to self-causation (Part II). I contend that the activist can successfully avoid the charge of self-causation by holding that God is distinct from his nature (Part III), but that this last move raises other serious problems which are neither avoidable nor answerable (Part IV). In view of these latter problems I conclude that theistic activism fails to provide an adequate account for the existence of abstract objects.

The Project Of Theistic Activism

In Does God Have a Nature? Alvin Plantinga discusses at length the relationship of God to abstract objects. He devotes most of the work to explicating and critiquing the views of Aquinas, Descartes and nominalism, but in his closing remarks Plantinga offers some suggestions of his own. He asks whether we can perhaps explain the necessary proposition 7 + 5 = 12 by pointing to the fact that it is part of God’s very nature as an omniscient being to believe that 7 + 5 = 12. And perhaps the ...