Ars Disputandi

Volume 3 (2003)
ISSN: 1566 5399

Benjamin Murphy Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

FLORIDA STATE
UNIVERSITY-PANAMA,
REPUBLIC OF PANAMA

Abstract
If logic binds all reality, it would appear that God must be bound by logic.
Swinburne argues that logic binds only actual human sentences. His case rests on
an argument against Platonism, and the assertion that contradictions are
incoherent. I argue that logic binds any possible language and so places a signi cant
limit on God's actions, that one need not be a Platonist to hold this, and that
contradictions are not incoherent. I conclude that if God is an agent, his hands must
be tied, and explain why I nd this conclusion unwelcome.

1 Doubts about placing limits on God

The laws of logic are frequently described as being `laws of thought'. In that
case, it seems that if we are to think about God properly, we must think about God
logically. Illogical thinking would have to be considered as illegal thinking: would
God want us to commit thought-crimes? It is on the assumption that he does not
that analytical philosophers of religion try to stay on their best logical behavior
when thinking about God and that means employing whatever technical means
are necessary to make sure that our thought remains observant of the limits of
logic. Of course, it may be that we are wrong to think about God at all. Given that
God should be at the center of every part of our lives, I can only suppose that this
would imply (as a matter of logic) that it is wrong for us to think at all. That may
be so, but even if it is, I am one of those poor souls who would only be able to
reach the conclusion that it is wrong for me to think after having given the matter
much careful thought.
Let us suppose, then, that thought about God should be logical. Why might
that be a problem? When an argument is described as logically valid, what is meant
is that it would be absurd to suppose that the premises are true and the conclusion
false. To say that it is absurd might mean that it would imply a contradiction, or
that it would imply that every proposition we can express is true. It is not clear
which of these is the fundamental test of absurdity. Advocates of `paraconsistent
logics', such as Nicholas Rescher and Graham Priest,1 attempt to construct systems
in which some contradictions are true, without it following that all propositions
are true. I am inclined to think that the best reason for thinking that not all
propositions can be true is that this would imply that some contradictions are
true, which I think is a clearly absurd conclusion. Of course, if it turns out that
every well-formed formula in some system is also a theorem, then the rules for
distinguishing theorems from other well-formed formulae will be redundant, and
the system will lack any applications. Either way, the point remains that, for logic
1. Nicholas Rescher, The Logic of Inconsistency (Oxford 1980) and Graham Priest, In
Contradiction (Dordrecht 1987).

c June 20, 2003, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:
Benjamin Murphy, `Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?,' Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.org] 3 (2003), section
number.
Benjamin Murphy

to operate, we must have the capacity to recognize that some things are absurd
and so cannot be true, thus forcing us, when faced with a valid argument, either
to accept the conclusion, or not to assert the premises.
But surely, as the angel Gabriel is said to have told the Virgin Mary `No
commandment is impossible for God!' i.e. for God, all things are possible (Lk.
1,37).
As Descartes stated in a letter to Mersenne:
Mathematical truths, which you call `eternal', were established by God, and
depend upon him entirely, like all other created beings. In truth, it would be
speaking of God like a Jupiter or Saturn, making him subject to the Styx and
the Fates, to say that these truths are independent of him.2

Descartes here expresses himself in mythological language, and the title that I have
taken for this paper is at least metaphorical, if not mythological. Mathematical or
logical necessity is depicted as some kind of force or power that may restrict an
agent, and this is seen as disturbing because, on the monotheistic view, there can
be no restrictions on God. Necessity is seen as a force, to which God's will must
bend, and thus it comes to take on the status of a God itself.
Some believers, myself included, nd this picture, of God with his hands tied,
or of Logical Necessity standing in the place of Fate, disturbing: the metaphorical
language indicates a sense that somehow, certain beliefs that seem correct about
God and certain beliefs that seem correct about logic do not add up. Other believers
are not at all disturbed: they simply fail to see that there is any very deep problem
here at all, and many philosophers of religion seem to fall into that category.
Of course, philosophers of religion have a vested interest in saying that God
is, in some sense, bound by logic, because it is at least partly due to their expertise
in logic that philosophers are able to claim a special quali cation to regulate
what can and cannot be said about God. If God is completely unbound by logic,
then philosophy of religion, or at least one common way of practicing philosophy
of religion, would be redundant. Perhaps this vested interest contributes to a
blindness to the problem. Alternatively, philosophers of religion may simply be
con dent that once the relationship between God and logical necessity is correctly
understood, the metaphysical picture in question will be seen to be mistaken, and
the problem dissolved.
One strategy for solving this problem would be to assert that logical necessity
is not a force outside of God, but is somehow internalized within God's Being. An
essential religious difference between monotheism and polytheism is that forces
that are, in polytheism, seen as independent and potentially in con ict are, in
monotheism uni ed in a single being. If this monotheism is to be a religion
that worships a living God, rather than merely paying metaphysical homage to
an abstract principle of being, some account must be given as to why we are
justi ed in speaking of this single principle as if it were a person (even if such
language is analogical). Furthermore, if this religious monotheism is to retain its
philosophical credibility, there should be some link between the doctrine about
2. Descartes `Letter to Mersenne, 15 April, 1630', in: Elizabeth Anscombe & Peter T. Geach,
(trans. and eds.), Descartes' Philosophical Writings (London 1970), 259.

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

the nature of logical necessity, and the epistemology of logic. Historically, this
strategy is followed by a tradition that has its origins in Platonism, and that receives
its classical expression within Christianity in the works of St. Augustine and St.
Anselm.3 This approach also has its contemporary advocates.4 However, I will
not be discussing this Augustinian strategy within this paper.
Instead, I will be focusing on a different strategy, one which, rather than
seeking to incorporate logical necessity within the Being of God, seeks to diminish
the signi cance of logical necessity to the point where it cannot be seen as a serious
rival to God's omnipotence. It is important to bear in mind that, if the strategy that
I discuss in this paper is unsuccessful, as I shall argue it is, there is the possibility
of reverting to the Augustinian strategy.5
The strategy that I will be discussing is one that is suggested by some remarks
made by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus:

3.031 It used to be said that God could create anything except what would
be contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is that we could not say what an
`illogical' world would look like.
3.032 It is as impossible to represent in language anything that `contradicts
logic' as it is in geometry to represent by its co-ordinates a gure that con-
tradicts the laws of space, or to give the co-ordinates of a point that does not
exist.6

In the context of the Tractatus, these two statements are supported by Wittgen-
stein's theory about the nature of meaning. This theory has already been widely
criticized and discussed, some of the most penetrating criticisms coming from
Wittgenstein himself in his later writings, and I do not propose to provide yet
another commentary upon it, because I do not have anything to add to what has
already been said. Nor do I have anything to add to the on-going discussion of the
nature of necessity in Wittgenstein's later work.
Even if the argument of the Tractatus as a whole is no longer considered
defensible, it might still be maintained that these particular statements are correct,
or more or less correct. If that is so, then Descartes' problem need no longer
concern us. I suspect that many philosophers of religion working within the
analytical tradition suppose that these comments by Wittgenstein are correct,
perhaps without explicitly formulating an argument to that effect.
What is needed is a clear defense of this Wittgensteinian position that is
offered independently of the Tractatus. Such a defense is offered by Richard
3. A historical overview of this tradition is contained in John F. Callahan, Augustine and
the Greek Philosophers (Villanova 1967) This was the 1964 St. Augustine Lecture at Villanova
University, and a full copy of the text is now available online at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/
jod/augustine.html
4. This strategy is discussed in Thomas V. Morris (ed.), Anselmian Explorations: Essays
in Philosophical Theology (Indiana 1987). An anonymous referee also recommends Gijsbert van
den Brink, Almighty God (Kampen 1993).
5. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pointing out the importance of the Augustinian
approach.
6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D. F. Pears and B. F.
McGuinnes (London 1974), 11.

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Benjamin Murphy

Swinburne in Chapter 5 of The Christian God.7 In sections 2 5, I will explain

Swinburne's position, and give reasons for supposing it is unsuccessful. In the 6th
section, I will consider whether there are any general lessons that may be drawn.

2 Swinburne's theory
Swinburne's conclusion is as follows:

Alas, we feel, if only it were not for the hard rules of logic by which we are
bound, we could be monogamously married to two wives at once, change the
past, and discover or perhaps create the greatest prime number. The true
state of affairs is that there are sentences that seem to us to describe a way
things might be, but do not really. Even though we do not appreciate their
ultimate incoherence, an omniscient being. . . would appreciate that ultimate
incoherence. . . and not be tempted to suppose that `a lack of ability to change
the past' designated a weakness in an agent, any more than does `a lack of
ability to open and shut a door at the same time', with respect to which neither
he nor we can make any sense of what it would be like for an agent to have a
property designated by it.8

In the context of a book about the Christian God, the interest of this claim lies in
the suggestion that being limited by logic implies no weakness in God. Logic does
not impose upon God, merely upon our ways of speaking about God.
In the broader context of Swinburne's apologetic project, it is necessary to
allow for some limitations upon what God can do in this book to prepare the
ground for his theodicy. In Providence and Evil: he argues there that there are
certain good ends which God can only achieve by permitting evil, because goods
and evils `have intricate logical connections with each other.'9 Nothing in this
article will undermine the plausibility existence of any of the logical connections
that Swinburne draws between goods and evils. Indeed, a different doctrine about
the nature of logical necessity might add to the credibility of theodicy: it is hard
to believe that God is forced to allow great pain and suffering because certain
strings of words are not coherent sentences of English. It is easier to believe that
God must allow suffering if the logical limitations within which he must work are
genuine limitations on reality.
Swinburne does allow for two other types of necessity which cannot be treated
in the same way as logical necessity metaphysical necessity and ontological
necessity but these need not concern us here.
The similarity with Wittgenstein's conclusion about this particular topic will
be apparent, but the route by which Swinburne reaches it is rather different. Swin-
burne rst makes a distinction between sentences, statements and propositions.
A sentence is a set of words in a given order one sentence type may be instan-
tiated by many tokens. If two sentences are synonymous, that is, if they have
the same meaning, then they are said to express the same proposition (e.g. `The
King is dead' and `Rex mortuus est'). But, of course, two utterances of the same
7. Richard Swinburne, The Christian God (Oxford 1994).
8. Swinburne, The Christian God, 114 115.
9. Swinburne, Providence and Evil, (Oxford 1998), x

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

proposition may have different truth-values, because they are uttered at differ-
ent times, in different places, or by different individuals. Two token sentences
express the same statement if and only if they attribute the same property to the
same individual at the same place and time. To know what statement has been
expressed by a token utterance of a given sentence type, we must know the con-
ventions of the language in which it is uttered, and the `referential context, that is,
those circumstances of its utterance that determine its reference to individuals,
places or times. . . '10 This three-way distinction between sentences, propositions
and statements is based upon a well-known article by E. J. Lemmon although
Swinburne does not follow Lemmon exactly.11 In particular, Swinburne does not
want to hypostatize statements and propositions, and that is an important part
of his position, which I shall discuss in the fourth section. Swinburne then takes
it upon himself to explain what it is for a statement or a proposition to express
a logically necessary truth. He allows that we can use the terminology of `pos-
sible worlds', but this terminology itself requires explanation, which Swinburne
proceeds to give:
A proposition is necessary if it is true in all possible worlds which boils
down simply to: if its negation entails a self-contradiction. Any sentence that
expresses a necessary proposition will also express a necessary statement
though which statement it expresses may vary with context.12
We have here three central logical relations: negation, entailment and self-
contradiction. Swinburne then proceeds to explain how these relations can be
seen as holding between token sentences, and that they hold in virtue of certain
facts about the community of language users. The key role is played by what
Swinburne terms 'minimal entailment':
A sentence r1 minimally entails a sentence r2 if the rules of the public lan-
guage are recognized by most speakers of the language to be such (when it is
suggested to them) that a speaker of r1 in the given context is 'committed' to
r2 in that context... Hearers would be at a loss to understand what claim was
being made by r1 if the speaker at the same time af rmed the negation of r2 13
The negation of a sentence s is de ned as a sentence which would be recognized as
being synonymous with `It is not the case that s', and a self-contradictory sentence
as a conjunction of two sentences such that most competent speakers would
recognize that one does no more than rule out the other.14 Entailment involves a
chain of minimal entailments between sentences, but, unlike minimal entailment,
an entailment might not be recognized by most language users, although each step
in isolation would be. Thus all of the crucial logical relations that are needed to
de ne `logically necessary' turn out to depend, ultimately, on facts about what the
majority of language users recognize as being involved in the meaning of sentence
types, along with facts about the context in which those sentences are uttered. So,
10. Swinburne, The Christian God, 98.
11. E. J. Lemmon, `Sentences, Statements and Propositions,' in: Bernard Williams & Alan
Monte ore (eds.), British Analytical Philosophy (London 1966). For a discussion of the differences
between his and Lemmon's position see Swinburne, The Christian God, 97.
12. Swinburne, The Christian God, 104.
13. Swinburne, The Christian God, 107.
14. Swinburne, The Christian God, 107.

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Benjamin Murphy

. . . logical necessity is at root a feature of actual human sentences and how

they are used. It governs language, and not the world.15

The question that then arises is whether these features of language in terms
of which Swinburne has explained logical necessity are themselves necessary or
contingent. Swinburne does not explicitly say that they are contingent, but he does
tell us that they involve, for example, `. . . the similarity of the neurophysiology of
each of us. . . '16 and `. . . facts about humans and their minds or brains. . . '.17 Logic
is `. . . a matter of human psychology...'18 and he states that what he has achieved
is a reduction:

Since entailment between sentences is a notion that I have analysed in terms

of the linguistic behaviour of humans, the logical necessity of a proposition is
similarly reducible.19

The message seems to be, then, that logical necessity has been reduced to factors
human linguistic behavior and the referential context of token utterances
which are themselves contingent. This would seem to provide a justi cation for
the theological claim that we do not have, in logical necessity, some deep force
that is beyond God's control.
Let us suppose, for the moment, that this is an accurate account of Swin-
burne's position. (In section 5, I will consider another way of interpreting Swin-
burne's position). Do the arguments that he provides succeed in establishing that
logical necessity can be explained with reference to facts that are entirely contin-
gent? I will argue that they do not. If the features of language in terms of which
logical necessity was explained are themselves logically necessary, then we do not
have a suitably reductionist account of logical necessity. In the next section, I will
argue that the features of language that Swinburne mentions are, in fact, logically
necessary features thereof.

3 Necessary and contingent features of language

Imagine the most primitive form of communication in which information is
passed on a system of animal signaling.20 When one animal senses an approach-
ing lion, it emits a noise. Other animals, of the same species, not so well placed
to sense the lion, respond to the noise as though to the lion itself, by taking the
appropriate evasive action.
Suppose that the animal species in question continually emits a sound that
never varies in pitch, volume, or any other measurable property. Could the
emitting of this sound function as a warning of approaching lions? It is obvious
that it could not, since the noise would be the same whether any lion had been
sensed or not.
15. Swinburne, The Christian God, 96 97.
16. Swinburne, The Christian God, 110.
17. Swinburne, The Christian God, 114.
18. Swinburne, The Christian God, 114.
19. Swinburne, The Christian God, 111.
20. A similar example is used by Huw Price, `Why Not ?', Mind 99 (1990).

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

If a continuous signal cannot function as a warning, then a signal that does so

function must be such that, in certain circumstances, the emitting of the signal is
incorrect (of course, if lions were particularly common, then these circumstances
might never in fact arise). To be precise, we can describe the sound as a signal for
lions if, and only if, the animals' behavior is such that it makes sense to ascribe to
them the knowledge that, in certain circumstances, it would be incorrect to emit
the sound. If the signal is to convey anything at all, then there would have to be a
possible circumstance which the signal's being correctly emitted rules out.
There is much that is contingent about this situation. It is a contingent
fact that the animals need to avoid lions, a contingent fact that they are not
all equally able to perceive lions, a contingent fact that they have something to
gain from sharing this information, a contingent fact that they are able to use
sounds as a means of signaling and so on. Is this primitive system of signaling an
example of something to which the English term `language' can be applied? That
also would seem to be a contingent fact it depends upon whether we English-
speakers will agree to apply the term `language' in this case. In fact, what has been
described here is too simple to be properly described as a language, although it
is a more primitive type of communication system. However, I think that while
not all communication systems are languages, it is the case that all languages
are communication systems hence if, as I will argue, there are features that any
communication system must possess, it follows that these are also features that
any language must possess.
I would maintain that, in this case, we can see logical necessity already at
work. If a sound is to function as a signal, there must be some possible situation
that its being correctly emitted excludes. Swinburne, it will be recalled, relies on
people's being able to grasp a token utterance's having a negation. One lesson
to be drawn from this example is that the grasp of that which is excluded by
a token utterance is a necessary feature of any linguistic community, (although
it is not essential that, for each potential token utterance x, there be some other
potential token utterance y whose task it is to express nothing more or less than the
negation of x, much less that there be some general linguistic device for expressing
negation). There are, in other words, necessary limits on any possible language,
and one of the primary tasks of philosophical logic is to explore these limits. These
limits alone do not wholly determine the structure that a language must have, but
they must be respected, and cannot be altered.
When I state that there are necessary limits on any possible language, I do
not merely mean that we would not apply the term `language' to anything which
does not fall within these limits I mean that anything which is to perform the
function which language performs must fall within these limits. We have the term
`language' because we are interested in things that can perform a certain function.
Naturally, if something is capable of performing this function, it will also have the
property of being such that our English word `language' applies to it. However,
things can only have the property of being such that certain English words apply
to them if there is such a thing as the English language, and that seems to depend
upon the existence of a set of speakers with certain dispositions. Things could,

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Benjamin Murphy

on the other hand, have or fail to have that property in virtue of which English-
speakers apply the term `language' even if there were no English speakers to apply
the term. (Furthermore, it is not dif cult to imagine that only one language is
spoken, and that this language contains no synonyms for our word `language').
The logical truth that I have claimed to nd concerns the property in virtue of
which the term `language' can be correctly applied, and not the property of being
that to which the term `language' can be correctly applied.
Has the claim that there are limits to any possible language any theological
signi cance? It seems to me that it has a great deal of signi cance. The question
is, after all, whether God's hands are tied by logic. At rst, it looked as though
Swinburne might have found a way out of this by reducing logical necessity to
facts which are contingent, and so in God's control. My suggestion is that when
God is considering what type of creatures to create, he is limited in his options
because there are certain features that cannot be combined. He can create a world
with creatures who have a signaling system to act as a warning for lions, but given
the needs of these creatures, there are certain limits upon this system. Even if we
stick to considering the features of language to which Swinburne appeals, God's
hands are, it seems to me, already tied. Once we have admitted that God's hands
are tied in this way, why not admit that they are tied in others as well? As I noted
above, Swinburne's claim is that

. . . logical necessity is at root a feature of actual human sentences and how

they are used. It governs language and not the world.21

My suggestion is that logical necessity governs not only actual human sentences,
but any possible language.
There are two possible objections that I can foresee and will attempt to
forestall (and, I am sure, a large number of objections which I do not foresee).
The rst objection is that all that I have succeeded in demonstrating is that
language is governed by logically necessary truths, and this is a trivial claim. I
have not, so this objection goes, succeeded in demonstrating that what takes place
in the world is restricted by logically necessary truths, and only if there were some
restriction in what can happen in the world there would be a signi cant restriction
on God's activity.
This objection is based on a misunderstanding. We are so used to contrasting
language and the world that we forget that language is a part of the world. A
restriction on any possible language is a restriction on any possible world. Once
we say that any possible language must have certain features, we imply that, for
any possible world, either it does not contain a language, or, if it does contain
a language, that language must have certain features. Of course, one might still
think that a restriction on language is a trivial restriction because language is a
trivial part of the world. However, even if it be admitted that language is a trivial
part of the world (and I do not see any reason to admit this), the question that
is being considered is whether God's hands are tied in any way whatsoever. The
force of Descartes' claim is that it is irreverent to suppose any restrictions on God's
action, trivial or not.
21. Swinburne, The Christian God, 96.

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

The second possible objection is that there is nothing within the story about
the animals and their signaling system which need cause Swinburne any concern.
I claim to have demonstrated that certain features of language are logically neces-
sary. Swinburne, of course, is not denying that there are such things as logically
necessary truths he is offering a theory which, he thinks, accounts for all logically
necessary truths, and if the truths for whose necessity I have argued are covered
by his account, where is the problem? He has provided a list of the basic steps
which we can rely upon in coming to establish that something is a logically neces-
sary truth, and it seems perfectly reasonable to suppose that the conclusion I have
attempted to establish as logically necessary that any the users of any language
must be able to grasp the falsi cation condition for any token assertion could
be established making use of these. That would simply require a more rigorous
argument than I have offered here. Why should Swinburne have any problem with
a conclusion that can be proved by means of those techniques by which he thinks
any logically necessary truth can be proved? His position is not a denial of the
existence of logically necessary truths, it is an explanation of how come there are
such truths and why should not some of those logically necessary truths concern
language?
I am not denying, however, that Swinburne may be right in asserting that
minimal entailments, negation and contradiction suf ce to explain all logical re-
lations and so all logically necessary truths. What I am denying is that these
factors, and in particular minimal entailment, depend only upon contingent fea-
tures of language. Swinburne is certainly not committed to there being no logically
necessary truths about languages: it is perfectly in order for him to say, `Unless
something possesses the following features, we shall not count it as being a lan-
guage, and this fact depends upon certain contingent facts about how we use the
word language .' Nevertheless, it seems that he is committed to there being no
logically necessary truths that do not, ultimately, depend only upon contingent
truths. The point for which I have been arguing in this section is not merely that
there are logically necessary truths about language, but that logical relations be-
tween sentences depend upon these necessary truths, and so cannot be explained
entirely in terms of merely contingent truths.

4 Platonism versus Nominalism

As far as Swinburne is concerned, the crucial issue is an ontological one. In
his opinion, the view that logical necessity puts limits on nature, rather than just
on human languages, is the result of a Platonist ontology. The Platonist postulates
timeless entities, such as `propositions' conceived of as the common content of
synonymous sentences and holds that `logical laws' are laws concerning the
relationships between these timeless entities.22 Swinburne wants to free us from
the grip of this Platonist metaphysics by persuading us to take a `nominalist' view
of propositions and statements. 23 According to this nominalist view, logical
relations are, ultimately, relations that hold between actual token assertions.
22. Swinburne, The Christian God, 106.
23. Swinburne, The Christian God, 105 116.

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Benjamin Murphy

These logical relations tend to follow certain general patterns, and it is useful to
set out these general patterns in systems of formal logic. It is convenient, when
studying logical relationships, to enter into the ction that these formal systems
convey general truths about timeless entities, propositions and statements, which
are expressed by our actual token assertions, but the test of the formal system is
always whether, when it is applied, it actually yields as valid those entailments
which really do follow from the token assertions in question by means of minimal
entailments which would be accepted by most competent language users. The
timeless entities of Platonism are nothing more than a convenient ction.24 It is
when we accept this nominalist picture that we are supposed to see that logical
necessity `. . . is not a very deep feature of the world.'25
The difference between my position and that of Swinburne can be charac-
terized by saying that whereas Swinburne thinks that logical necessity is `at root a
feature of actual human sentences and how they are used,'26 I think that we must
take into account limits on what languages there might be, and so it is legitimate
to see logic as involving a limit on things that might be. Does this mean that I am
committed to a defense of Platonism about possible languages or possible worlds?
That, I think, depends upon whether it is legitimate to infer from
S1: `There are limits on possible x's which are not yet actual x's'
to
S2 `There are possible x's which are not actual x's.'
where `are' in S2 is given some suitably strong ontological interpretation
strong enough for the position to amount to Platonism. I should note that there
are many substitutions that we can make for x in S1 which yield statements which
seem to be perfectly innocuous, but which do not seem, prima facie, to imply the
truth of the statements formed by making the same substitution for x in S2 .
For example, suppose that I am planning to make a shelf to hold my books.
If I want this shelf to support the weight of my books, it had better not be made of
paper. This is what I mean by a limitation on a possible object: there are certain
requirements which signaling systems must meet if they are to function as a means
of communication, and certain requirements that shelves must meet if they are to
support books (of course, it is a contingent property of paper that it fails to meet
the speci ed requirement on shelves the analogy is not supposed to be pushed
that far). I can be aware of this limitation on possible bookshelves before I start
work on constructing my actual bookshelf.
I do not think this implies that the actual bookshelf which I construct was
something that, as it were, existed eternally in some Platonic space, waiting for
me to instantiate it. I do not think that my knowledge that a paper shelf would
collapse under the weight of books requires me to suppose that, in some timeless
world, a possible but non-actual paper bookshelf is eternally collapsing under the
weight of some possible but non-actual books.
24. Swinburne, The Christian God, 108.
25. Swinburne, The Christian God, 96.
26. Swinburne, The Christian God, 96.

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

Perhaps I am wrong in thinking that there is no such implication in the

case of possible shelves. If there is a compelling argument for Platonism, which
starts from 'There are limitations on possible shelves' (interpreted in the sense
speci ed above as meaning that some statements like 'A bookshelf made of paper
wouldn't support those books' are true), then that argument would compel me to
be a Platonist. I think that such an argument would, in fact, compel most sensible
people to be Platonists, since the remarks about paper shelves seem to be clearly
true. Until we have such an argument however, I do not think it can be said that
my suggestion that there are limits on possible languages could be taken to imply
Platonism and if there were such an argument, it would turn out that Platonism
is not such an objectionable position after all.
I do not think that my position involves a commitment to Platonism, but
I do not feel bound to argue against Platonism either. Whereas a commitment
to the eternal existence of bookshelves would indeed be an extreme doctrine, the
Platonism advocated by Jerrold J. Katz, according to which abstract objects, such
as languages, novels and games exist eternally and so are discovered but not
invented is less extreme. Katz's arguments for the eternal existence of languages
do not rest upon those features of languages which languages share with shelves
such as our being able to set limits to the project of making/discovering one.27
Nothing that I have said here is intended to rule out the possibility that Katz,
or anyone else, might have good arguments in favor of the eternal existence of
languages. My point is just that the idea that logical necessity involves serious
limits on what kinds of world God can create need not rest upon the assumption
that logic concerns eternally existing abstract objects. Consequently, Swinburne's
nominalist arguments however effective they may be fail to loosen God's hands
from the knot of logic.

5 Incoherence and Inconsistency

It might be, however, that everything which I have said so far about Swin-
burne misses his point. I suggested in the rst section that the ability to make log-
ical deductions rests upon the ability to recognize that absurdity is to be rejected
where self-contradictory sentences are taken to be absurd. Swinburne offers the
following reason for rejecting self-contradictory sentences:
A sentence is thus self-contradictory if it is a conjunction of two sentences such
that (almost all) speakers of the language recognize one sentence as doing no
more than ruling out the other, in consequence of which speakers cannot see
the conjunction as making any claim that they can understand.28

The point could just be that, when we say that contradictions cannot be true,
what we mean is that certain apparent sentences are not sentences at all they
are the result of pushing symbols beyond the boundaries of language. In other
words, the set of illogical sentences is not a set of false sentences which even God
cannot make into true sentences while retaining their current meaning the set of
27. Jerrold J. Katz, Realistic Rationalism (Cambridge MA 1998); for a defence of the view
that languages and games are discovered, whereas concrete objects are made, see 127 139.
28. Swinburne, The Christian God, 107.

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Benjamin Murphy

`illogical sentences' is in fact an interesting sub-set of the set of things which are not
sentences at all and it is only sentences which can be said to bear truth-values.
As far as I can tell, at this point Swinburne is relying on our paying attention
to how we reason when we recognize a minimal entailment as holding or when
we see, in some speci c instance, that an assertion (e.g. `It is now raining here')
and its negation (`It is not the case that it is now raining here') cannot both be
true. The suggestion is that we see that the conjunction of these two utterances
lacks a meaning.
Is the assertion of a sentence and its negation really something that we are at
a loss to understand, however? When constructing a logical language, it is usual
to begin by giving some rules by which well-formed formulae can be distinguished
from other strings of symbols, and then to give further rules by means of which
we can set apart some sub-set of the well-formed formulae, which are labeled as
`theorems'. It is natural to say that the point of the rst set of rules, which yield
well-formed formulae, is to tell us what strings of symbols should count as having a
meaning: an adequate interpretation of the formal language would be one which
assigned a meaning to every well-formed formula. In paraconsistent logics, to
which I alluded above, some contradictions can feature among the theorems but
it is a matter of controversy whether this is acceptable. Even in plain rst order
classical propositional logic however, `P&∼P' counts as a well-formed formula.
It has, indeed, a perfectly respectable role in reductio ad absurdum arguments.
When we describe contradictions as being absurd, I do not think that this means
that we cannot understand what they mean is it not rather that we know what
they mean, and so see that they cannot be true? Of course, in any situation where
someone insists on asserting a manifest falsehood, we begin to have doubts about
their intentions. If someone asserts, on a bright sunny day, `It is raining', we
would begin to wonder whether they are attaching some special meaning to `It
is raining': perhaps they mean that it is raining in a moral and spiritual sense,
but that we are all too wicked to see it or perhaps their grasp of English is not
so good, and they have confused `raining' and `sunny'. We would wonder about
the intentions of the individual concerned, but not for the reason that the English
phrase `It is now raining' is one that is, by its very nature, hard to grasp.
Our attitude to an individual who uttered `P and not P', where P stands for
some declarative sentence, would be rather similar: it is probable that we would
be at a loss to explain what it was that they intended to communicate but that
would not be because they had violated the boundaries of coherence, understood
in the sense of meaningfulness, but because they had uttered something which was
plainly false. In some contexts, such as when contradictions are uttered by pro-
ponents of para-consistent logic, even those of us who reject paraconsistent logic
might very well think that we understand precisely what is being communicated,
although we reject it as false.
Wittgenstein, of course, argued that both contradictions and necessary truths
lack a sense.29 Few philosophers, I think, would now argue that necessary truths

29. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, paragraph 4.461 (page 34 in the trans-

lation by Pears and McGuinness).

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

lack a sense, nor do many philosophers still subscribe to the picture theory of
meaning on which this Tractarian doctrine rests. Even so, there remains a strong
tendency to suppose that contradictions, at least, are incoherent in the sense of
lacking a meaning. It was not until Dorothy Edgington awakened me from dog-
matic slumberings30 that it ever occurred to me to wonder whether contradictions
might, in fact, be meaningful. I soon concluded that my intuitions as a speaker of
English tell me that they are, and the role that they play in formal logic supports
those intuitions.
The case I have here advanced in favor of accepting contradictions as mean-
ingful is hardly decisive. However, I think it is only fair that when sentences
which we know perfectly well how to handle in our own language, and which
present no special problems to translators, are accused of being meaningless, they
be taken to be innocent until proven guilty. Swinburne does not, as far as I can
tell, present a compelling argument against the meaningfulness of contradictions.
Unlike Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, he does not present a general theory about
the nature of meaning, and derive from that the consequence that a contradiction
must lack a meaning he is content to appeal to intuitions. My own intuitions
refuse to testify against contradictions and I like to think that I am a competent
speaker of English.

6 A Broader Perspective
So far, I have argued that Swinburne fails to show that logic is concerned
only with the boundaries of human languages, and thus that it does not constitute
any signi cant kind of limitation on God. If he thinks that he has reduced logical
necessity to contingent features of the world then, I have argued, he is wrong. Even
if his arguments in favor of Nominalism rather than Platonism are successful, they
are, I have argued, irrelevant. If he is relying on the hypothesis that inconsistent
propositions lack sense then, I have argued, he is probably wrong, and at the very
least needs to supply more argument.
Although I have argued that this is an error on Swinburne's part, I do not
think that it undermines the rest of his systematic theology. Indeed, I suggested
that a better account of the nature of logical necessity might add credibility to
his work on evil and responding to the doubts about God's existence raised by
the problem of evil is, surely, more important than responding to philosophical
dif culties in conceiving God as being bound by logic.
One would hardly characterize Swinburne as a Wittgensteinian philosopher,
except in so far as any analytical philosopher is bound to be in uenced by Wittgen-
stein to some extent. I noted at the outset that Swinburne's explanation of logical
necessity is remarkably similar to certain remarks of Wittgenstein in the Tracta-
tus. We are dealing with a way of thinking that is deeply embedded in analytical
philosophy. In section 3, I argued that logic is concerned not merely with features
of actual human languages, but with constraints on possible languages. Swin-
burne is certainly aware that there are constraints on what minimal entailments
a community of language users can recognize although he does not clearly state
30. (Private conversation).

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Benjamin Murphy

whether he has in mind necessary constraints on any possible language, or contin-

gent constraints on human language. In a footnote, he invokes Michael Dummett's
The Logical Basis of Metaphysics as providing further support for this position.31
A couple of pages later, he notes that `Logic puts no limits on nature, only on those
descriptions of it that make sense', and refers the reader back to the footnote in
which Dummett's book was cited.32
Dummett's aim in The Logical Basis of Metaphysics is to show how disputes
about which forms of inference should be accepted as valid can be resolved by
providing a satisfactory account of the nature of understanding:33 the book could
also have been entitled The Hermeneutical Basis of Logic. Concerning the role of
pure ratiocination, Dummett states:

. . . although we no longer regard the traditional questions of philosophy as

pseudo-questions to which no meaningful answer can be given, we have not
returned to the belief that a priori reasoning can afford us substantive knowl-
edge of fundamental features of the world. Philosophy can take us no further
than enabling us to command a clear view of the concepts by means of which
we think about the world, and, by so doing, enable us to attain a rmer grasp
of the way that we represent the world in our thought. It is for this reason
and in this sense that philosophy is about the world. Frege said of the laws
of logic that they are not laws of nature but laws of the laws of nature. It
makes no sense to try to observe the world to discover whether or not it obeys
some given logical law. Reality cannot be said to obey a law of logic; it is our
thinking about reality that obeys such a law or outs it.34

It will hardly come as news to readers who have even a little acquaintance with
Dummett's work that he has been strongly in uenced by the writings of Wittgen-
stein and, above all, by the work of Gottlob Frege. Hans Johann-Glock has argued
that Dummett has inherited from Wittgenstein an approach to philosophy that
is, in some sense, Kantian. Dummett credits Frege with being the grandfather
of analytical philosophy because his work paved the way for the `linguistic turn',
although he himself did not clearly follow the signs of where his own work was
leading.35 The linguistic turn involves a recognition that a comprehensive account
of thought can only be attained through the study of language.36 The linguistic
turn can be taken as providing the key to all philosophical problems if we suppose
that the fundamental task of philosophy is to offer a comprehensive account of
thought and the limits of thought. This is, of course, the guiding idea of Wittgen-
stein's Tractatus, and Johann-Glock's suggestion is that the idea that the goal of
philosophy is to discover the limits of thought is deeply indebted to a Kantian
conception of the goal of philosophy.37
31. Swinburne, The Christian God, 110.
32. Swinburne, The Christian God, 114.
33. Dummett, The Logical Basis of Metaphysics, (Cambridge MA and London 1991), 1 19.
34. Dummett, The Logical Basis of Metaphysics, 1 2.
35. Dummett, Origins of Analytical Philosophy (Cambridge MA 1993), 14.
36. Dummett, Origins of Analytical Philosophy, 4.
37. Hans-Johann Glock `Philosophy, Thought and Language,' in: Preston (ed.), Thought
and Language: Supplement to Philosophy (Cambridge 1997), 154 160.

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

Kant wanted an explanation of synthetic a priori knowledge: how is it that

we can discover substantive truths about the world by means of pure reason? His
solution was that pure reason enables us to discover the limits of possible empirical
experience, limits imposed by human understanding. There is a sense, then, in
which Kant's revolution is the opposite of a Copernican revolution we discover
that, whereas we thought pure reason was giving us an insight into the world as
it is, it was really giving us insights into the means by which we apprehend the
world. This is an anthropocentric view of the role of reason: reason only gives us
insight into our own capacities.
If we take this to be an accurate précis of the Kantian manifesto, then the
above quotation from Dummett would appear to place him on the barricades with
Kant. Dummett differs from Kant, of course, in that he tries to understand the
nature of understanding not by means of transcendental arguments, but by means
of understanding what it is to understand a language, that is, by providing a theory
of meaning. What is constant is that reason is being applied to something that we
do understanding languages: the anthropocentrism remains.
An anthropocentric view of the role of pure reason allows for the complete
autonomy of God, or Nature, or Things in Themselves whatever it is that controls
or constitutes the world. This enables an analytical philosopher of religion to apply
the full range of logical skills to theological questions understood as questions
concerning what we humans can say or think about God without the nagging
sense of impiety that would come from supposing that we, mere humans, could
discover laws to which even God must bow. This is a very comfortable position,
and I would very much like to be able to adopt it but I have serious doubts about
its viability.
Of course, if there are necessary limits on the way things can be, we can never
observe them being outed. Yet if we are to comprehend these limits, we must, as
Wittgenstein perceived, step beyond them. We cannot step beyond these limits in
reality, but that does not mean that we cannot think beyond them. It is precisely
because we can think beyond them, and sometimes do so, inadvertently, that we
need to draw up, in language, a boundary between things which we can say which
might be true, and things which we can say which cannot be true. The boundaries
of logical necessity can be said, but not shown.
But how, it might be asked, can re ection upon our own capacities lead us to
conclusions about what can and cannot be the case? If it be admitted that logic can
lead us at least to an understanding of what we can and cannot do, (and this is what
we must suppose if we are operating within a broadly Kantian framework), then
logic itself provides a means for extending this. Having discovered a limitation
upon what we can do, we simply need to ask ourselves whether our proof of this
limitation depended upon any contingent fact about human agency.
If it does not, then we are entitled to suppose that this limitation would apply
to any agent at all, human or not this is just a matter of applying the introduction
rule for the universal quanti er. The logical inference is exactly the same as that
which allows us to infer from the fact that we can prove that Pythagoras' theorem
holds for a right-angled triangle with sides of arbitrary length to the fact of its

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Benjamin Murphy

holding for all right-angled triangles, whatever the lengths of the sides. (Of course,
our proof that Pythagoras' theorem applies to a right-angled triangle with sides
of arbitrary length may have rested on certain assumptions about, for example,
the nature of straight lines which only apply within Euclidean geometry in which
case we only know that the theorem applies to all right-angled triangles for which
those assumptions are true). If I can show that a task is impossible for an arbitrary
agent, then I have shown that it is impossible for any agent whatsoever and this
is precisely the type of move which is made when we consider, for example,
limitations inherent in the project of constructing a language. If it is impossible
for any agent whatsoever, then it must be possible for whatever agent governs
the way that things are in which case, we have explained how it is that we can
discover laws of the laws of nature not merely in the weak sense that Dummett
suggests by showing how it is we can show that, if God is an agent, his hands
must be tied.
In sections 1 5, I attempted to demonstrate by a detailed examination of
Swinburne's account of logical necessity that it is mistaken. In this section, I have
suggested that Swinburne's doctrine of logical necessity is strongly in uenced by a
general conception of the nature of the goal and methods of philosophical thinking
whose history Johann-Glock has correctly traced back to Kant. I do not think that
Swinburne himself shares this general conception of philosophical thinking, and
perhaps that is why most of his philosophical system could be preserved intact, as
far as I can tell, with a revised doctrine of logical necessity, although it would mean
that the question that forms the title of this paper would have to be reconsidered.
The general conception of philosophy that I attribute to Wittgenstein, Kant
and Dummett is as follows. Philosophers study the limits of some human capacity,
and thus the nature of the world as it is for humans, or as it is represented by
humans. Once this conception is made more precise, it can form the basis for
a philosophical strategy, a concerted attempt to identify the most fundamental
problems of philosophy and solve them in a systematic manner. This is what
unites Kant, the early Wittgenstein and Dummett, although of course each of
them spells out the general conception in a different way, thus resulting in three
different philosophical systems.
I certainly do not claim to have refuted this philosophical conception in
this nal section, but I have been trying to indicate why it seems dubious, and
to sketch reasons for preferring an alternative view, the view that philosophical
thinking is capable of dealing with limits not just of thinking, but of being, because
by understanding limitations on a Creator, we understand limitations on Creation.
I have sketched this view, but I do not pretend that it has been demonstrated. In
particular, it would take more argument than I can provide here to demonstrate
that our proofs about the limitations upon human agents would apply to any
agent at all. What I do hope to have shown is that this alternative is worth taking
seriously in particular, it is worth giving serious attention to its consequences
for philosophy of religion.
The consequence for philosophy of religion is quite simple that if God is
an agent, his hands must be bound by logic. To many, this might seem to be a

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 Are God's Hands Tied By Logic?

conclusion which is so trivial as to be scarcely worth stating apart from Descartes,

and a few other exceptions, have not most philosophers of religion always held
that God's omnipotence does not include the ability to do illogical things? Does it
make such a huge difference to our concept of God whether this limitation concerns
merely what we can say about him, or is a limitation on him as an agent? I do not
think the conclusion is at all trivial it seems to me that, for practicing members
of the monotheistic religions, it has great importance for one's relationship with
God.
Within the monotheistic religions, God has always been conceived as an
agent: the Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures all describe a God who does
things, who makes choices, and our relationship with him depends upon an ap-
preciation of what he has chosen to do for us. It is also a deeply rooted belief of
the monotheistic religions that God completely transcends us we must always
maintain a deep sense of humility when thinking about God for God is the ul-
timate arbiter of what is. The God of the monotheistic religions does not have to
submit to the will of the Fates, or bargain with Giants. Is it possible to retain this
attitude to God while holding that he, like any other agent, is bound by logic and
that we, mere mortals, have the ability to map with our symbols the chains of
God?38

38. I am very grateful to Richard Swinburne for taking the time to discuss an earlier version
of this paper. His encouragement to me when writing an article that is critical of his view is typical
of his generosity. I hope that his position has not been misrepresented. My thanks also to Robert
Forsythe, Michael Patzia, Amber Stancliffe and Dorothy Edgington, for helpful conversations on
these matters. I must add a special word of gratitude to the late Fr. Michael Purves, who rst
aroused my interest in this question when I was 15 years old, just a few years before his untimely
death.

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