Some theistic solutions in metaphysics

Personal identity

Suggestion: Personal identity is either a primitive fact or else a matter of the soul. In the “weird cases” God chooses which way things are going to go—both options are open.

• Alternative:
• A non-theist can also take a similar view of personal identity, and then say that there are special laws of nature which determine which way things go in the weird cases.

Properties

Suggestion: Properties (and numbers, propositions and worlds) are thoughts or concepts in the mind of God.

• Advantage:
• Can explain instantiation relation as just falling under a concept. The standard Platonist—and indeed everybody—needs to have two relations: (1) a relation between mental concepts and extra-mental things (properties/individuals), and (2) instantiation. The theistic conceptualist only needs a relation between concepts and the things that fall under them
• Disadvantages:
• May have difficulties with divine simplicity.
• Consider this claim: “The sugar cube dissolved in the water because it had the property of solubility.” But do we want to say that the sugar cube dissolved in the water because it fell under a certain divine concept? Having a property seems causally efficacious, in a way in which falling under a divine concept does not seem to be.
• Response 1: To some extent this is a problem for the standard Platonist, too.
• Response 2: Moreover, maybe we want to have properties, but not in order to explain what it is to be a certain way. Properties do other things for us—for instance, they allow us to talk about similarities, etc.

Possibility

Suggestion 1: A proposition p is possible provided that p is either true or God can bring it about that p.

• Advantage:
• A neat, brief account reducing possibility to the power of a being, and powers are more comprehensible.
• Disadvantages:
• It is possible that I freely mow the lawn today, but can God bring it about?
• Omnipotence becomes a trivial truth—by definition God can do whatever is possible.

Suggestion 2: A proposition p is possible provided either it is true, or else there exists something that can initiate a chain of causes leading to something which can initiate a chain of causes … leading to p being the case. This is only plausible if there is a God, since otherwise it will not generate enough possibilities.

• Advantages:
• Still reduces possibilities to powers.
• The atheist can accept at least part of the account.
• Disadvantages:
• Not quite so neat as suggestion 1.
• Omnipotence is non-trivial but harder to define.

Laws of nature

Suggestion: L is a law of nature if and only if L is a general claim that God wills to generally hold.

• Advantages:
• Laws of nature on this story are clearly explanatory.
• It is not mysterious how things “know” to follow the laws.
• Disadvantages:
• Not so clear how probabilistic laws work. Does God fill in the details?
• God’s involvement is too heavy-handed.
• Possible difficulties with divine simplicity.
• Distinction between general and particular claims that God wills may be ad hoc.

Proper function

Suggestion: It is the function of A to do F if and only if someone makes A in part in order that A might do F. This extends to biological things if God exists.

• Advantage:
• Clear, unmysterious account of proper function, reducing it to a concept that everybody anyway needs (the concept of doing something for a reason).
• Supports functionalist and causal theories of mind.
• Disadvantage:
• Possible difficulties with divine simplicity.
• Then either God has made viruses to infect, or else infecting is not a proper function of a virus, and neither option is attractive.

Mind

Suggestion: One of the main difficulties with dualism is the question of how a non-physical mind or non-physical states arose through physical processes of evolution. If God exists, he can allow the physical processes to produce the physical configurations for minded beings, while intervening to create the non-physical aspects.