Why Kronen & Reitan’s Argument from Divine Benevolence Works for Me

Below, I set forth why Kronen & Reitan’s Argument from Divine Benevolence works for me.

My construal, I know, will not be uncontroversial. But I hope that, at least, Duns Scotus & Jordan Daniel Wood might find some modicum of merit in my interpretation.

At Eclectic Orthodoxy, the Rev Dr Rooney attempts to fault
Dr Reitan’s argument & responses by showing the unacceptable implications of it via parody: “All my parody needs to show is that union with God without any separation by sin, even temporarily, is better than union with God after some temporary sin or separation. As long as the former is better (i.e., that state in which the Blessed Virgin found herself, or Christ, was better than the state of any other creature), then premise 6 will entail that God’s benevolence should impel Him to create all persons in that same state, since it is best, if not simply far better than the peccable state in which we find ourselves.”

In my view, Dr Reitan’s argument & subsequent explications can be easily rescued from this parody by a disambiguation of the word, always, in the premise that “God always does what is best for every rational creature.”

It is my contention that, always, properly conceived, would refer to – not phenomenological seriality, but – an eternal – temporal simultaneity.

Other distinctions are needed to avoid false equivalences between concepts like “free consent of the will [FCOW]” and im/peccability. These realities can’t be juxtaposed as alternate states because FCOW refers essentially to natures & logoi, i.e. ontological apples, while im/peccability refers personally to secondary natures & tropoi, i.e. theotic & epectatic modal oranges.

FCOW refers to an essential reality, i.e. to what we are, but peccability refers, modally, to when we either ignore or reject what we “really & truly” are, images of God, and can “really & truly” become, likenesses to Christ.

Essentially, then, positively construed, all human beings are “able not to sin.” In that sense, there’s no ontological disparity, naturally, between those dwelling in heaven, those dwelling on earth and Mary in her timeless Immaculate Conception.

Personally, then, positively situated, all human beings are already possessed by Christ. By freely being thus possessed, all have been timelessly gifted what’s divinely the Absolute Best.

Unlike our FCOW, which reflects a “real” divine relative perfection, naturally per logoi, peccability refers, personally per tropoi, to various parasitic realities (parupostases) and not to our divine – human essence.

Our human nature’s not wounded or sinful or “capable” of sin. Peccability refers to privative acts, which, precisely because they are not divinely co-effectual, can effect only fantastic events, which I refer to in my system as mere ephemeralities and not clear eternalities.

So, there’s *no-thing* “really” different – protologically, eschatologically & even historically – between Mary in her redemptively Immaculate Conception, the blessed in heaven in their epectasis, & other rational creatures in our earthly theosis.

Our [FCOW] refers, naturally, as consistent with the divine logoi, to human potencies (of divine relative perfections), which are reducible, personally, by efficient acts of tropoi.

For rational creatures, all “true” events are symmetrically constituted across time as co-effected by their every FCOW with the divine will, because all rational creatures as imagoes Dei are mutually constituted, interpersonally, in the Totus Christus with Christ, Who already possesses the perfect world, i.e. what’s best for each & every person.

That perfect creation refers to both heaven & earth, where what’s “best” refers only to “real” events and not to tragic (evil) events, which are not caused by God.

All rational creatures have already been gifted what’s “best” because they all share identical divine – human potencies, which guarantee THAT they’ll manifest Christ, naturally, per logoi.

And they can all personally instantiate these divine relative perfections, temporally & eternally, theotically & epectatically, by exercising their FCOW to co-self-determine HOW they’ll manifest Christ, growing in likeness to Him, personally, per tropoi.

This “already – thereness” that’s integral to my own systematics as I employ it, above, is consistent with Jordan Daniel Wood’s treatments of the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, the Second Coming of Christ and the Immaculate Conception & Mary’s fiat (co-effected).

JDW draws contrasts to real, true events and those that are sinful & tragic, with a divine logic that goes beyond phenomenological seriality and applies to “real” co-constitutive relations across time.

Evil? I’ve No Need of that Hypostasis

The way I further parse things is that the will is essentially gifted, i.e. it’s part of our divine human nature.

Deliberative willing is a redundancy. Indeed, it operates in our movement, modally, from what we are as images of God per the logoi of our primary natures to what we can become as likenesses of Christ per the tropoi of our secondary natures. We begin this movement, historically & theotically, and continue it, eternally & epectatically.

Per my view, then, I have no need of the hypothesis of evil or ill being. Quite the contrary, our nature provides for a volition that integrates our wills & intellects, equipping them to deliberate among relative perfections of well being.

To “make” evil necessary is to wrongly hypostasize what’s parhypostatic. It’s tantamount to making an “ability” to sin a divine logoi. Rather, it privatively inverts our divine – human potencies of “being able to become more like Christ,” which we all share essentially, by wrongly elevating what are merely modal parasitizations – like “able to sin” – to the very essence of being human.

It’s precisely why, with Maximus & Scotus, the Incarnation was built into the divine cards from the cosmic get-go & not occasioned by some felix culpa. He looked around and said It’s All Good!

In my take, any answers to the question of why there exist aspects of creation like both earth & heaven must be grounded in the fact that they are both essentially good and that the divine economy is all about a theophany, which has no need of a violent ontology.

It’s not like God must make it a natural necessity that creatures & being must be set over against nonbeing in order to better drive home that the divine realities of the theophanic are really & truly manifestations of beauty, goodness & truth.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t, per my aesthetic teleology, give epistemic – axiological distancing a prominent role in augmenting beauty. It even has an eternal role in epectasy, I believe! But, in my account, that distancing need only involve benign (eu-tropic) information entropies &, perhaps, even thermodynamic entropy. It wouldn’t require the malignant (dys-tropic) biological entropies that bring about all manner of ill-being, e.g. physical death. That’s just a sign that things went awry and need restoration.