Mad Max(imally)

From a letter to William Lane Craig, Craig’s response (bold mine):

Your envisioned scenario is quite similar to the objection of the late philosopher J. Howard Sobel. Sobel invites us to conceive of something which, if it is possible, is a dragon in whichever world is the actual world. This is just like your “phoenix that exists in the actual world.” (So you are in the company of an eminent philosopher in having your reservations!) If such a thing is possible, then a dragon exists. So is it possible? The only way to know, says Sobel, is to look around and see if there are any dragons. If there aren’t, then the notion is not logically possible after all. You can’t just rely on your modal intuitions.

Having a hard time with the bolded part. Phoenixes and dragons are imagined creatures, thrown together from spare parts of what was already known. People knew of birds, reptiles, fire, flight, and rebirth already. Phoenixes and dragons are certain configurations of those concepts that, to the creators, didn’t exist, but their component parts do. Their real, non-mythological “parts” are a posteriori bits of information gleaned from perceiving the natural world. There’s value in mentioning this because there can be degrees of possibility. Dragons or phoenixes, as commonly regarded, borrow from well-known facts of biology and physics, and violate only a few. So it’s more possible than other things that they could exist in our universe, given what we know of it. What if there was a dragon made entirely of polygonal glass, that breathed black fire? That’s far less likely to exist, since it would require advanced technology or some kind of magical enchantment, both of which are of a more dubious logical possibility.

But my main issue is with the “maximal” terminology used. It’s a modern epistemology/ontology term–I get why it’s used, and I suppose it’s probably true with respect to God, but I think it’s ultimately unhelpful. To me, “maximally” paradoxically implies a limitation: a container, even an indescribably large one, can be “maximally” filled. It might be better to come up with a term to describe God as the very source of x, rather than having an x to a “maximal” degree. By ascribing God as the only “sourceful”* thing in existence, we’re putting the horse before the cart, as it should be. “Sourcing” God is a start to making Him the ontological source of all that we could perceive, and it leaves it open so that He is the source of things we can’t perceive. It works as a catch-all, instead of coming up with a list of properties and throwing them into the bucket. The only problem is that it’s unsatisfactory, philosophically. Some philosophers, maybe the ones who aren’t completely Westernized, will be okay with this shift. If you feel like you’re losing your grip by doing this, I’d say that’s a good thing. A God you can get a handle on is one you don’t want to be following.

Related reading: Theology: Has it become too Propositional?

*Those of us who really need to cling to the “maximal” appellation can say God is the “maximally sourceful” being in every conceivable universe. I promise I won’t laugh.