On Divine and Human Agency

Part 3, A Non-Contrastive Metaphysics of Transcendence and Immanence

According to Kathryn Tanner in God and Creation in Christian Theology, the problem with a contrastive metaphysics is univocality of being. 

By "univocal," a term of art in theological conversations, we mean "the same thing" or "the same meaning." So, "univocality of being" means that "being" or "existence" for God is "the same" or "means the same thing" as "being" or "existence" for creation. That is to say, God and creation both "exist" in approximately the same way. 

Phrased differently, God is one being among other beings. The most powerful being, perhaps, but still a being. 

Following up on the last post we can see how univocality of being is at work in both pantheism and deism. In pantheism God just is the cosmos and is, therefore, a being like other beings. The totality of being, perhaps, but existing as created things exist. Relatedly, in deism God exists at a distance from creation, two beings alongside each other, the way a table and a chair exist side by side. Creation is "here" and God is "there."

The point for Tanner is that when transcendence and immanence are framed contrastively we assume univocality of being, which means we lose track of how to properly frame God's relation to creation. Univocality of being, where God is a being among beings, sets up the either/or problems we've been talking about regarding mental health. Either human agency is at work (e.g., therapy, medication) or God is at work (via prayer, for example). One being or the other, one cause or the other, has to be at work in a zerosum, competitive relation.

So what we need here is a non-contrastive metaphysics, one that escapes framing being univocally. And Tanner suggests we accomplish this by "radicalizing" our notions of divine transcendence and immanence. Here's Tanner from God and Creation:

[An] extreme of divine involvement requires, one could say, an extreme of divine transcendence. A contrastive definition is not radical enough to allow a direct creative involvement of God with the world in its entirety....A God who genuinely transcends the world must not be characterized, therefore, by a direct contrast with it. A contrastive definition will show its failure to follow through consistently on divine transcendence by inevitably bringing God down to the level of the non-divine to which it is opposed...

The Christian theologian therefore needs to radicalize claims about both God's transcendence and involvement with the world if the two are to work for rather than against one another...This insistence upon a non-contrastive characterization of God's transcendence forces, in turn, Christian talk of God's creative agency to be worked out in a genuinely radical way: God must be directly productive of everything that is in every aspect of its existence. Anything short of that supposes, I have argued, a diminished transcendence. Apparent problems of incompatibility are resolved in this manner--not at the cost of either claim [regarding both God's transcendence and immanence] but in taking both to their genuine extremes. 

Basically, we must so radicalize our notion of divine transcendence so that God can become radically immanent. Phrased differently, it's God's Otherness which allows God to come close. For if God were the "same" as us (univocality of being) God's closeness would start to crowd us and nudge us aside. But since God's Being is radically unlike our being (a non-contrasting metaphysics) we can confess with Augustine that "God is closer to me than I am to myself." Only when God's Being is different from my own (radical transcendence) can such intimacy be achieved (radical immanence). 

This non-contrastive metaphysics, I am suggesting, is the metaphysics we need to puzzle through how God relates to mental health, as it allows for both divine and human agency to exist in a non-competitive relationship. One shouldn’t need to choose between prayer and prescriptions.