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Elements in the Philosophy of Religion
God and Abstract Objects
Some believe that there is a God who is the source of all things; and some believe that there are necessarily existing abstract objects. But can one believe both these things? That is the question of this Element. First, Einar Duenger B�hn clarifies the concepts involved, and the problem that arises from believing in both God and abstract objects. Second, he presents and discusses the possible kinds of solutions to that problem. Third, B�hn discusses a new kind of solution to the problem, according to which reality is most fundamentally made of information.
75 pages, Paperback
Published June 22, 2019
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26 people want to read
About the author
Einar Duenger Bøhn
9 books6 followersEinar Duenger Bøhn er professor i filosofi ved Universitetet i Agder.
Han underviser og forsker innen etikk, metafysikk, teknologiens filosofi og kunstens filosofi.
Bøhn er oppvokst i Vormsund og hadde et utenlandsopphold i California som 17-åring der han ble hektet på filosofi. Han studerte filosofi ved Universitetet i Oslo der han fikk hovedfag i 2003.
I 2009 fikk han Ph.D. i filosofi fra University of Massachusetts i Amherst, USA, på en avhandling om mereologien, om forholdet mellom et objekt og dens deler.
Han ble førsteamanuensis ved Universitetet i Oslo, men meldte overgang til Universitetet i Agder der han fikk jobb som professor.
Han har skrevet flere bøker, er en aktiv formidler i TV og radio, og står bak en rekke podcaster som formidler filosofi til et bredt publikum.
Han er også hobbykunstner og har blant annet vært med i Portrettmesterskapet på NRK.
Han underviser og forsker innen etikk, metafysikk, teknologiens filosofi og kunstens filosofi.
Bøhn er oppvokst i Vormsund og hadde et utenlandsopphold i California som 17-åring der han ble hektet på filosofi. Han studerte filosofi ved Universitetet i Oslo der han fikk hovedfag i 2003.
I 2009 fikk han Ph.D. i filosofi fra University of Massachusetts i Amherst, USA, på en avhandling om mereologien, om forholdet mellom et objekt og dens deler.
Han ble førsteamanuensis ved Universitetet i Oslo, men meldte overgang til Universitetet i Agder der han fikk jobb som professor.
Han har skrevet flere bøker, er en aktiv formidler i TV og radio, og står bak en rekke podcaster som formidler filosofi til et bredt publikum.
Han er også hobbykunstner og har blant annet vært med i Portrettmesterskapet på NRK.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 14, 2019
An elegant and precisely articulated account of the philosophical positions on the relationship between God and abstract objects.
Shortly summarized, the book deals with the question of whether God (defined as a concrete entity, and as the necessarily existing cause of everything that is not Hirself) is compatible with the necessary existence of abstract object (defined as necessary, aspacial and eternal objects; exemplified as "sets" that can be either empty, singular or consist of any number of physical or otherwise manifested things.) The problem can easily be avoided by denying the existence of one or the other, but if one seriously attempts to maintain the existence of both the problem arises as a question of preeminence: which of the two has metaphysical priority over the other; i.e: which serves as grounding for, and which is grounded in, the other? Bøhn concludes that the two are compatible if the solution to the grounding problem is that abstract objects must be synchronically grounded in God. To accompany this priority of God over abstract objects without reducing the stated definition abstract objects, Bøhn puts forth an informationalist narrative: Reality (i.e. everything that exists) is information, and God is the most fundamental information, from which all other things derive their being. (This narrative disolves the fundamental distinction between objects and properties.)
The book gives a charitable overview of all relevant positions to this topic, and gently elaborates on each point until we reach Bøhns preferred conclusion (which is not that Divine Informationalism is necessarily true, but that it is a promising hypothesis warranting serious philosophical attention.) I do not think this book will be received with any controversy. It does not enter any debates on the existence of God nor abstract objects, it only proposes a theory in which the existence of both is metaphysically coherent. In fact, it explores several positions for such a theory.
The only part I didn't find myself almost immediately agreeing with was the communications-derived definition of metaphysical information as that which can be coded, transmitted and decoded. The book did not convince me that God as defined in sections 1 and 2 could be regarded as pure information in this definition from section 3. Even though this was the explicit wording of Bøhn's definition of information, I thought from the context that this wording should be regarded metaphorically, in lack of a more neutral language in which to articulate what metaphysical information is. The need for more work on this is addressed on p. 41.
Index:
Section 1: The Problem
- Divine Foundationalism (2)
- Divine Aseity (2)
- Divine Sovereignty (2)
- Divine Necessity (3)
- Divine Eternity (3)
- Divine Aspatiality (3)
- Concrete[ness] (3)
- Law of excluded middle with respect to properties (3)
- Abstract Objects (Section 1.2)
- Grounding (from 9-)
Section 2: Positions
- Atheistic Nominalism (13)
- Atheistic Platonism (13)
- Theistic Nominalism (14)
- Theistic Platonism (15-)
- Absolute Creationism (19-)
- Divine Conceptualism (25-)
- Hyperintentional Grounding (27-)
Section 3: Divine Informationalism
- Semantic information (33)
- Algorythmic information (33)
- Metaphysical information (33)
- Infomationalism (37)
- Divine informationalism (42)
- The problem of God and information (43)
- Solution to the grounding problem (43)
- Solution to the bootstrapping problem (44)
- Divine Concreteness (47)
Quotes:
- [11] Also, God (being God) can perform so-called supertasks. To perform a supertask is to perform a countable infinity of operations in a finite stretch of time. For example, God can count to infinity in one minute. First, God spends 30 seconds counting to 1; then 15 seconds counting to 2; 7.5 seconds counting to 3; 3.25 seconds counting to 4; and so on. Within a minute, God will have reached infinity. God can likewise perform so-called hypertasks, which means performing an uncountable infinity of operations, as well as ultratasks, which means perform- ing one operation per each ordinal number; all in a finite stretch of time. The notion of a supertask (and hypertask and ultratask) can help make sense of how God can ground or create the entire abstract realm at an instant, but it still being all up to God. We can think of a supertask (or a hypertask or ultratask) but shrink the finite stretch of time arbitrarily close to a point in time. Assuming the task is a free performance by God, we are then in effect considering a free creation and grounding at an instant. There is thus no point in time at which God existed without the abstract realm God also created.
- [42] I will henceforth work on the assumption that God is information “outside” any medium, independent of all of them. As per the theses of DF and aseity, God is thus all and only pure information, the source of all other things, hirself independent of any medium to carry it.
- [43] We cannot fully dig into this here but note that the notion of metaphysical information, or information as reality, does not rule out it being a personal, conscious, and normative kind of information.
- [44] The fact that abstract objects are necessary and eternal things might then just mean that God instantaneously coded it all as a presupposition for any concrete coding. That means simply that all the information God concretely coded presupposes all the information God abstractly coded, but not vice versa. Another way of putting it is that the concrete is simply a differently coded proper substructure of the abstract and the way the concrete processes informa- tion, i.e. the algorithmic information for the concrete, cannot go beyond the information in the abstract. As a theoretical bonus, that also helps make sense of how and why mathematized science works so well in understanding and manipulating the concrete world. This is another way of understanding Morris and Menzel’s (1986) idea that we cannot step outside of the created modal space we are a part of.
- [45] Again, we must resist the temptation to try to reduce God to talk of objects or properties. That is, we must resist the temptation to say that God must have had some properties prior to coding any of hir information, e.g. the capacity to code. According to DI, objects and properties are coded information, so any talk of God’s properties prior to hir coding of any information can only, at best, be made sense of posterior to hir coding of some of hir information. God hirself is pure information, which can only be referred to ostensively but be coded in many different ways, objects and properties being only two such ways. God hirself is prior to any such coding of objects and properties, which is why there is no bootstrapping problem.
Finally, I would like to remark that although I read this book with keen interest, I am not without an opinion on the topic of the existence of God and abstract objects. I do not at the time of writing this believe in the existence of abstract objects. Abstract objects are and must be, it seems to me, abstracted from concrete objects. Empty sets are theoretical constructions, and do not make sense to me as "beings". The existence of God, as a concrete entity, is, however, believable.
Shortly summarized, the book deals with the question of whether God (defined as a concrete entity, and as the necessarily existing cause of everything that is not Hirself) is compatible with the necessary existence of abstract object (defined as necessary, aspacial and eternal objects; exemplified as "sets" that can be either empty, singular or consist of any number of physical or otherwise manifested things.) The problem can easily be avoided by denying the existence of one or the other, but if one seriously attempts to maintain the existence of both the problem arises as a question of preeminence: which of the two has metaphysical priority over the other; i.e: which serves as grounding for, and which is grounded in, the other? Bøhn concludes that the two are compatible if the solution to the grounding problem is that abstract objects must be synchronically grounded in God. To accompany this priority of God over abstract objects without reducing the stated definition abstract objects, Bøhn puts forth an informationalist narrative: Reality (i.e. everything that exists) is information, and God is the most fundamental information, from which all other things derive their being. (This narrative disolves the fundamental distinction between objects and properties.)
The book gives a charitable overview of all relevant positions to this topic, and gently elaborates on each point until we reach Bøhns preferred conclusion (which is not that Divine Informationalism is necessarily true, but that it is a promising hypothesis warranting serious philosophical attention.) I do not think this book will be received with any controversy. It does not enter any debates on the existence of God nor abstract objects, it only proposes a theory in which the existence of both is metaphysically coherent. In fact, it explores several positions for such a theory.
The only part I didn't find myself almost immediately agreeing with was the communications-derived definition of metaphysical information as that which can be coded, transmitted and decoded. The book did not convince me that God as defined in sections 1 and 2 could be regarded as pure information in this definition from section 3. Even though this was the explicit wording of Bøhn's definition of information, I thought from the context that this wording should be regarded metaphorically, in lack of a more neutral language in which to articulate what metaphysical information is. The need for more work on this is addressed on p. 41.
Index:
Section 1: The Problem
- Divine Foundationalism (2)
- Divine Aseity (2)
- Divine Sovereignty (2)
- Divine Necessity (3)
- Divine Eternity (3)
- Divine Aspatiality (3)
- Concrete[ness] (3)
- Law of excluded middle with respect to properties (3)
- Abstract Objects (Section 1.2)
- Grounding (from 9-)
Section 2: Positions
- Atheistic Nominalism (13)
- Atheistic Platonism (13)
- Theistic Nominalism (14)
- Theistic Platonism (15-)
- Absolute Creationism (19-)
- Divine Conceptualism (25-)
- Hyperintentional Grounding (27-)
Section 3: Divine Informationalism
- Semantic information (33)
- Algorythmic information (33)
- Metaphysical information (33)
- Infomationalism (37)
- Divine informationalism (42)
- The problem of God and information (43)
- Solution to the grounding problem (43)
- Solution to the bootstrapping problem (44)
- Divine Concreteness (47)
Quotes:
- [11] Also, God (being God) can perform so-called supertasks. To perform a supertask is to perform a countable infinity of operations in a finite stretch of time. For example, God can count to infinity in one minute. First, God spends 30 seconds counting to 1; then 15 seconds counting to 2; 7.5 seconds counting to 3; 3.25 seconds counting to 4; and so on. Within a minute, God will have reached infinity. God can likewise perform so-called hypertasks, which means performing an uncountable infinity of operations, as well as ultratasks, which means perform- ing one operation per each ordinal number; all in a finite stretch of time. The notion of a supertask (and hypertask and ultratask) can help make sense of how God can ground or create the entire abstract realm at an instant, but it still being all up to God. We can think of a supertask (or a hypertask or ultratask) but shrink the finite stretch of time arbitrarily close to a point in time. Assuming the task is a free performance by God, we are then in effect considering a free creation and grounding at an instant. There is thus no point in time at which God existed without the abstract realm God also created.
- [42] I will henceforth work on the assumption that God is information “outside” any medium, independent of all of them. As per the theses of DF and aseity, God is thus all and only pure information, the source of all other things, hirself independent of any medium to carry it.
- [43] We cannot fully dig into this here but note that the notion of metaphysical information, or information as reality, does not rule out it being a personal, conscious, and normative kind of information.
- [44] The fact that abstract objects are necessary and eternal things might then just mean that God instantaneously coded it all as a presupposition for any concrete coding. That means simply that all the information God concretely coded presupposes all the information God abstractly coded, but not vice versa. Another way of putting it is that the concrete is simply a differently coded proper substructure of the abstract and the way the concrete processes informa- tion, i.e. the algorithmic information for the concrete, cannot go beyond the information in the abstract. As a theoretical bonus, that also helps make sense of how and why mathematized science works so well in understanding and manipulating the concrete world. This is another way of understanding Morris and Menzel’s (1986) idea that we cannot step outside of the created modal space we are a part of.
- [45] Again, we must resist the temptation to try to reduce God to talk of objects or properties. That is, we must resist the temptation to say that God must have had some properties prior to coding any of hir information, e.g. the capacity to code. According to DI, objects and properties are coded information, so any talk of God’s properties prior to hir coding of any information can only, at best, be made sense of posterior to hir coding of some of hir information. God hirself is pure information, which can only be referred to ostensively but be coded in many different ways, objects and properties being only two such ways. God hirself is prior to any such coding of objects and properties, which is why there is no bootstrapping problem.
Finally, I would like to remark that although I read this book with keen interest, I am not without an opinion on the topic of the existence of God and abstract objects. I do not at the time of writing this believe in the existence of abstract objects. Abstract objects are and must be, it seems to me, abstracted from concrete objects. Empty sets are theoretical constructions, and do not make sense to me as "beings". The existence of God, as a concrete entity, is, however, believable.
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