COMMENTARY Bonus|Tomaszewski responds to Mullins’ on Modal Collapse

Summary

Does the God of classical theism have properties? Does he have attributes? Can we make conceptual distinctions about the simple God? How should we understand the notion of ‘rigid designation’ and its relevance to the modal collapse debate? What is Dr. Ryan Mullins’ latest proposed modal collapse objection? How does Christopher Tomaszewski respond to it? In this Commentary bonus episode, I’m joined by Professor Christopher Tomaszewski to discuss these questions.

Guest Bio

Christopher Tomaszewski is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Belmont Abbey College. He works in metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and philosophy of religion, and especially on the application of the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas to contemporary problems in philosophy. He is the author of articles on topics such as Divine simplicity, the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and skeptical theism, which have appeared in a number of journals, including Analysis, Philosophia, and The Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

Topics

• START – 03:37 – Teaser & preliminary comments.
• 03:37 – 10:00 – What has Christopher been researching recently?
• 10:00 – 12:04 – What’s a main theme of Plato’s Gorgias?
• 12:05 – 16:25 – What is the ‘sin of racism’ and is it one or many?
• 16:25 – 22:26 – What do Tomaszewski and DeRosa see as the value in this episode?
• 22:26 – 29:25 – Does the God of classical theism have properties?
• 29:25 – 31:09 – DeRosa defends Mullins as being correct about properties.
• 31:10 – 44:13 – Further clarifications about Cambridge properties
• 44:14 – 57:58 – What kinds of distinctions apply to the simple God?
• 57:58 – 01:06:05 – Accusation that Christopher’s paper fail to engage with the metaphysics of DDS.
• 01:06:05 – 01:18:05 – Does Christopher’s paper properly characterize Mullins’ argument?
• 01:18:05 – 01:18:57 – Does the 3-premised argument rest on ambiguous premises?
• 01:18:57 – 01:31:02 – What is Mullins’s updated argument and where does Christopher disagree?
• 01:31:02 – 01:34:32 – Christopher says, “I agree with Joe Schmid 100%!”
• 01:34:32 – 01:36:48 – Are there two ways of talking about “God’s action” or “God’s intentional action”?
• 01:36:48 – 01:44:48 – How should we construe ‘God’s intentional action’ according to classical theism?
• 01:44:48 – 01:49:29 – Does Johnny Waldrop’s paper show that the modal collapse argument is valid?
• 01:49:30 – 01:56:03 – What is ‘rigid designation’?
• 01:56:03 – 01:57:22 – Is Joe Biden the President?
• 01:57:22 – 01:59:01 – Who is the Queen of Canada?
• 01:59:02 – 02:02:03 – More on rigid designation and intentional action
• 02:02:04 – 02:09:50 – Does Christopher’s account get the order of explanation backwards?
• 02:09:51 – END – Closing remarks, resources, and the shownotes page.

Resources

Simply Impossible: A Case Against Divine Simplicity by Ryan Mullins (2013)

The End of the Timeless God by Dr. Ryan Mullins (2016)

Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse: A Persistent Problem by Dr. Ryan Mullins and Shannon Eugene Byrd (2021, forthcoming)

Collapsing the Modal Collapse Argument by Christopher Tomaszewski (2019)

Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account by W. Matthews Grant

Divine Simplicity Does Not Entail Modal Collapse by Steven Nemes (2020)

The Fruitful Death of Modal Collapse by Joseph C. Schmid (2021)

Related Episodes

Ep. #135 – A Conversation with Dr. Ryan Mullins on DDS & Modal Collapse

BONUS|A Brief Review of my Conversation w/ Mullins

Ep. #150 – Free Will & Divine Universal Causality w/ Dr. W. Matthews Grant

Ep. #149 – Does God Suffer? w/ Fr. Thomas Weinandy

Ep. #136 – God, Creation, & Modal Collapse (Revisited) w/ Steven Nemes

Ep. #144 – Classical Theism & God incarnate w/ Dr. James Dolezal

Ep. #143 – Immateriality of the Intellect w/ Tomaszewski (and some Modal Collapse)