We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Does your “dispositional” ontology avoid substantival categories?

Question: In Trinity and Process you argue against a “substantival” ontology and instead advocate a “relational,” “process” and/or “dispositional” ontology in which being, being-in-relation and being-in-process are one and the same. In your view, entity x is its relation to entity y (and all other relations) and is the disposition to interact with y (and all other entities) in various ways. My objection is that for an entity (x) to be related to another entity (y), they must first be distinct from one another. In some sense they must exist “in and of themselves,” otherwise they (as distinct entities) could not be related to each other. So too, to say that anything “becomes” or “is in process” or “is disposed to act” in certain ways seems to presuppose that there is first a distinct thing that becomes, is in process of becoming or is disposed to act in certain ways. This means there must be substances that own the relationship and substances that become and are disposed to act. So I don’t see that your relational, process and/or dispositional ontology can avoid substantival categories.

Answer: I believe you’re caught in a “language game” that structures adjectives and verbs around nouns. Try for a moment to observe concrete reality without imposing language on it. Don’t analyze it, just look. What you’ll find, I submit, is that there is an “x related to y” reality and an “x becoming” reality (these are two sides of the same coin). It’s all one thing. We analyze this one thing into separate parts, but our analysis is a map of the territory, not the territory itself. We abstract out of our concrete experience of reality to think and communicate – dividing reality up into nouns and adjectives and verbs. But the abstraction is one step removed from the reality we’re communicating about. (This is what Whitehead called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”)

Metaphysics is most fundamentally an attempt to get at the reality beyond words and then explain it with words. I argue that the closest our language-map we can get to concrete reality is via the category of dispositions. The most fundamental thing that can be said about anything, I argue, is that it is a network of dispositions that act (somewhat indeterministically) in various ways There is the “x disposed to y and y disposed to x” reality. And there is the “x disposed to verb” reality. And these are two sides of the same coin, since all action is action in relation to other things (which are themselves dispositions to act and relate in certain ways). Concrete experienced reality is a web of distinguishable dispositions to become and relate to other distinguishable dispositions in such and such ways.

We can, of course, theoretical isolate “x” from its disposition, relations and becoming, but this is like taking a snapshot of a river. In reality, the river is the flowing. The snapshot misses this.

The concept of disposition also is a snapshot, but because it is dynamic, it’s one that captures the truth that the reality it points to is not static. It’s becoming and relational. Adding the word “substance” contributes nothing to our thought. Indeed, I (following Hartshorne here) argue “substance” is nothing more than a word we use to cover a question. No one has, or ever has had, any clear idea what a “substance” is.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics: ,

Related Reading

What is the significance of Ezekiel 22:29–31?

The Lord says he “sought for” someone to stand in the breech for Israel “but I found none.” Hence Israel experienced the wrath of God. If everything that shall ever come to pass is eternally fixed in the divine mind, God would have foreknown that no one would respond to his call for a Moses-like…

Topics:

Is Free Will compatible with Predestination?

Question: Isn’t “freedom” simply our ability to do what we want? And if this is so there seems to be no incompatibility between saying that a person is “free” on the one hand, but predestined (or at least foreknown) by God, on the other. But why do you say that freedom is not compatible with…

How do you respond to Romans 11:36?

“For from him [God] and through him and to him are all things.” Calvinists sometimes cite this doxology as evidence that Paul believed that every single event in world history was from, through and for God. In light of the fact that the verses leading up to this doxology address God’s genuine frustration with Israel’s…

What happens to babies who die?

The Bible does not directly address the issue of what happens to babies who die before being able to make a decision for or against Christ. People have thus had to arrive at conclusions about this matter on the basis of other beliefs they hold to be true. The majority of evangelicals today assume that…

How do you respond to Romans 8:29-30?

Question: Romans 8:29–30 says that everyone God foreknew he predestined. You deny both that God foreknows and predestines individual believers. So this verse seems to refute your open view. Answer: First, as many exegetes have noted, the sort of “knowing” Paul intends in this passage is not merely intellectual knowledge, but rather an intimate affection.…

How do you respond to Proverbs 16:9?

“The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.” (cf. Prov. 19:21; 20:24; Jere. 10:23) Far from teaching that God controls everything, as some compatibilists maintain, this verse contrasts what the Lord controls with what he chooses not to control. Humans can and do make their own plans, but the Lord directs…