What Billings argues is that Calvin’s doctrine of participation, is, among other things, a kind of doctrine of deification. That is not to say that it is a direct repetition (as if that’s possible anyway) of patristic doctrines of theosis/deification, but he does major on a Johannine theology of “indwelling” and even speaks of our “substantial participation” in Christ (Billings devotes an entire chapter, chapter 3 to discuss Calvin’s thought on participation in Christ’s “substance”).

As Billings explains, “Calvin’s positive language of participation in and oneness with Christ’s ’substance’ by the Spirit can be seen as a perichoretic model of interpenetration” (p. 64). In contrast with e.g., Osiander, Calvin holds on this particular point, that believers are not infused with Christ’s substance (as he wants to uphold the Creator/creature distinction and even employed an kind of Chalcedonian analogy of oneness without confusion in his attempt to explain the intimate relation b/w Christ and believers), rather they receive the substance of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, “who brings the blessings of the Father given to the Son to the community of faith. Participation in the substance of Christ is irreducibly Trinitarian and communal in Calvin’s thought” (p. 64).

However, I don’t think that one needs to deny Platonic influences on Calvin, as Calvin was hugely influenced by Augustine, who, of course, is permeated with Platonic ideas (no pun intended). However, both Calvin and Augustine, I would argue, tend to Christianize and hence transform Platonic insights such that they would not be accpetable to a (speaking anachronistically) non-Christian Platonist.

Best wishes,
Cynthia

Is it your intimation that Billings would make the claim (or perhaps it’s overt) that over against the “gift theologians” (I’m actually thinking specifically of Milbank here) Calvin’s “participation” is non-Platonic in orientation (and that because of the “inner transformation” of the believer in being incorporated by participation in the Triune life)? Thanks again. Peace,

dave b

I thought so!

Best wishes as well, and thanks for participating in this conversation.

Cynthia

As a Christian, I wholeheartedly agree that any errors we make are not because God endowed us with inherently flawed cognitive capacities but because we misuse them.

Best to you,

Peter

See Plantinga’s discussion of error , false beliefs, and sin in his Warranted Christian Belief. You might find particularly relevant his section on the Aquinas/Calvin model and the “sensus divinitatis”.

Best wishes,
Cynthia

My suggestion was that it is highly probable for organisms with a natural instinct for survival to have normal desires connected with their instinct (e.g., “I don’t want to be eaten!”), but that it is not very probable for such organisms to have odd desires like the one Plantinga describes in his tiger/hominid case (viz., “I want to be eaten.”) I then argued that, given normal as opposed to odd desires, the organism will need to have largely true beliefs about its immediate environment, and hence that
P(R/N&E) is fairly high (>.5).

Consider the following objection to my proposal that Nunley develops on pp.128-137 of his dissertation. Returning to the tiger/hominid case, suppose the hominid has the normal desire not to be eaten. Following Plantinga, Nunley replies that the hominid might nevertheless have false beliefs which are compatible with his/her desire, yet which facilitate his/her survival. An example Plantinga gives is a belief involving a definite description that does not correctly apply to the menacing object in the hominid’s immediate vicinity: e.g., “The witch who just turned into that tiger over there is trying to eat me!” Why, Nunley and Plantinga ask, should we have any reason to expect natural selection of cognitive mechanisms generating true beliefs rather than false beliefs, when survival can be promoted just as well with normal desires combined with false beliefs including improper definite descriptions?

One might grant the logical possibilty of false beliefs involving improper definite descriptions but argue that it is still much more probable for the subject to have less complicated true beliefs. I shall not pursue this option now because it requires a better understanding of how probabilities should be assigned in these and related cases. (See Nunley’s discussion of Alston’s objection for material that may be pertinent to this issue.)

Instead, I wonder whether the evolutionary psychologist might insist that even in the case where the hominid believes that the witch who just turned into a tiger over there is trying to eat me, nevetheless there is a sense in which the hominid believes something true, and thus in which his/her cognitive mechanisms are functioning reliably.

Here I am reminded of Keith Donnellan’s influential distinction between semantic reference and speaker’s reference. Donnellan gives the example of a person at a party who says that the man in the corner drinking champagne is tall, when in fact the man is drinking sparkling water instead of champagne (though he is in fact tall). Strictly speaking, the sentence used to ascribe a belief to the speaker is false because it contains an improper definite description. Yet clearly there is some sense in which the speaker says/believes something true about the man in the corner–namely, that he is tall. Donnellan takes this to be an instance of the distinction between the semantic reference of the definite description in the sentence the speaker utters and the speaker’s own reference.

The evolutionary psychologist might ask Nunley and Plantinga: in the witch case, why should we ascribe beliefs to the hominid on the basis of semantic reference as opposed to the speaker’s (the behaver’s) reference? After all, there is a perfectly good sense in which the hominid in this case believes something true and crucial to his/her survival–namely, that something over there that can eat him is after him. Perhaps all Plantinga’s argument shows is that P(R/N&E&Sem) is fairly low, where Sem=having beliefs the contents of which are specified in accordance with semantic reference. It does not show that P(R/N&E&Sp) is fairly low, where Sp=having beliefs the contents of which are specified in accordance with speaker’s/behaver’s reference.

If Plantinga and Nunley complain that this still leaves open the probability of surviving with a number of false beliefs (such as that witches routinely turn into tigers), it might be replied that it is no part of any sensible reliabilism–theistic, naturalistic and evolutionary, or otherwise–that survival requires cognitive mechanisms which generate beliefs ALL or even MOST of which are true. Even theists must acknowledge that the cognitive mechanisms with which God endowed us have led many people to have egregiously false beliefs, such as that there is no God, that we are nothing but material beings, that acquiring wealth is the supreme good, etc. I think the evolutionary psychologist would argue only for reliable cognitive mechanisms about basic facts connected with Churchland’s four Fs, not about farflung theoretical or religious beliefs. The truth is that our cognitive mechanisms are not very reliable when it comes to the hard stuff. Just ask any philosopher how many other philosophers she thinks have got it right!

I encourage others to consult Nunley’s work with regard to these issues. The sections are helpful in directing the reader various lines of objection and reply. Thanks again, Cynthia, for the reference!

Best,

Peter

Oops! In my last sentence that should have been “P(R/N&E)” and “beliefs,” not “bekiefs.”. Sorry!

Peter

Yes, it’s a good conversation to have!

I think the point I’m trying to make begins by acknowledging that all parties to the debate agree that biological organisms have a natural instinct for survival. But then, for example, when a hungry cat pounces on a mouse and eats it, the probability that the cat wants to eat the mouse to stay alive is extremely high, if not close to 1. Of course, it is logically possible that the cat with its natural survival instinct actually wants to die and believes eating the mouse will kill it because the mouse is poisonous, and when it fails to die the cat keeps eating mice in the hopes that one will eventually finish it off. Nevertheless, given a powerful natural instinct for survival, and assuming that higher organisms are capable of psychological states with semantic content, the probability of the cat’s having the latter desire is next to nil. And if the cat has the former desire, then its beliefs about its immediate environment will need to be largely true in order to satisfy it. In other words, I suspect that the highly probable natural desire ascribed to the cat raises
P/(R&NE) for the cat’s bekiefs significantly above Platinga’s fairly low (<.5) estimate.

Best,

Peter

Thanks for interacting–this is a good conversation. Hopefully some others who have a good working knowledge of Plantinga and this topic will chime in as well.

Best wishes,
Cynthia