Secondary Holiness

A desideratum for a theory of God’s primary holiness is that it be possible to offer an account of how secondary holiness—the holiness of beings other than God—derives from it. This chapter aims to sketch such an account of secondary holiness. Holiness functions in the manner of Aristotelian pros hen homonymy, in which there is an explanatorily central property and other properties called by that name are so denominated because they stand in some relevant explanatory relationship to the central notion. While there are multiple such relationships to primary holiness, the main derivative sense of holiness as applied to nondivine things consists in being an object such that intimate unity with it counts as unity with the primarily holy God.

The Holiness Framework

The only framework necessarily characterizing divine action is the holiness framework, on which divine action responds appropriately to God’s own perfection by being motivated to keep what is deficient, defective, and in any way limited at a distance from God. Such a framework makes intelligible our response to God as holy and fits well within our ordinary practical thought about ways in which some actions, things, and relationships can be beneath one. It can also be situated in any theory of reasons for action that has a place for expressive reasons, and is extremely useful in offering an interpretation of divine action in Scripture. The appeal to the holiness framework as the only necessary framework for divine action does not entail that God does not act on reasons of love for creatures; rather, it entails only that God acts on such reasons contingently, if at all.

Divine Humility

It is plain from Scripture that we should think that there is some sense in which God exhibits humility. We thus need a conception of humility that is compatible with its being a feature exhibited by God. The most promising such conception is that of a disposition not to invoke reasons of status when deciding whether to act for the sake of other worthwhile ends. Such reasons of status are ascribed to God in the holiness framework. God is humble insofar as God has not stood on God’s status by refraining from creating at all; or, having created, by leaving us entirely to our own devices and not revealing Godself to us; or, even if revealed to us, refraining from becoming incarnate as one of us. It is a further positive feature of the holiness framework that it enables us to illuminate God’s nearly unthinkable humility.

A Holy Being, Creating

This chapter explores how exclusive acceptance of the holiness framework transforms how we approach perennial problems of creation, evil, and divine hiddenness. Because creation is an intimate relationship between God and other things, and all such other things are limited in goodness, the holiness framework entails that God has standing reasons not to create at all. The problem of evil, under the holiness framework, is not about evil’s justification, but just about God’s having to be intimately related to it, given its existence—the holiness framework entails that God has motivation not to be intimately related to what is evil, but God has to be intimately related to it, given its existence and God’s intimate relationship to all that exists. And as being known by is an intimate relationship, God would have reason to remain hidden rather than known by us limited, imperfect persons. God’s willingness to be intimately related to this world is against the reasons given by divine holiness, and is accounted for only through the reasons of love for us that God graciously, contingently acts upon.

Divine Love, Divine Holiness, and the Atonement

The chapter contrasts what we should expect and require from a theory of Atonement if we take divine action to be governed by the holiness framework and if we do not. The primary foil is Eleonore Stump’s unqualifiedly and exclusively love framework account of the Atonement. Stump’s way of categorizing theories of the Atonement based on whether the obstacle to union with God is in us or in God is inadequate; rather, the appropriate distinction is between views that take the obstacle to be psychological (as Stump’s own view does) or normative (as satisfaction and penal substitution views do). By Stump’s own lights, the way in which past sin is an obstacle to union with God requires a normative treatment, and the holiness framework provides a plausible explanation of this: so long as such past sin is not dealt with, it normatively precludes the fuller unity with God that is constitutive of our good.

Absolute Holiness and Life Everlasting

According to traditional Christian doctrine that there are two possible final destinations for humans: Heaven or Hell. With respect to Heaven, the holiness framework understands entrance of humans into union with God in Heaven to be an act of gracious contingent love bestowed by God, limited by the extent to which that human exhibits the imperfection that make even more intimate union unfitting. Everlasting heavenly life, on this view, is a continual perfecting of the human in a way that makes even closer union with God more fitting, which in turn makes further transformation toward perfection possible. With respect to Hell, the holiness framework makes intelligible why universalism could be false: persons who are confirmed in sin have settled themselves on evil, and thus are not only unfit for intimate union with God—their unfitness is so extreme as to preclude God’s appropriately even acting so as to aid effectively in their transformation. Holiness considerations can also be invoked to explain the falsity of annihilationism.

Primary Holiness

This chapter proposes an account of primary holiness—the underivative holiness that God exhibits—that takes as its starting point Rudolf Otto’s theory of the experience of holiness in The Idea of the Holy. While there is much in Otto that is worth rejecting, his idea that the distinctive mark of the holy is its involving both a fascinans aspect and a tremendum aspect is both plausible and fruitful. The fascinans aspect is that the holy is experienced as overwhelmingly attractive. The tremendum aspect is that the holy is experienced as repelling, but in a normative sense—one experiences the holy as something in whose presence one is not fit to be, and so one is out-of-place by drawing too near. This is the basis for a plausible normative theory of holiness: to be holy is to be a being with respect to which such responses are appropriate.

A Holy Being, Incarnate

This chapter develops two lines of argument. The first concerns a very fundamental normative problem of Christology. Since the assumption of a human nature is the most intimate relationship that a divine person could stand in with respect to a created being, and all created beings are dramatically limited, it seems a divine person would have overwhelmingly strong reasons against becoming incarnate. The solution appeals to contingent love toward creatures: acting contingently on reasons of love, God chooses (but did not have to choose) to accept the unfittingness resultant upon becoming incarnate for the sake of creatures. The second line of argument concerns the relevance of the holiness framework to the claim that Christ is not just sinless but impeccable. The best explanation for impeccability is from the holiness framework: it is unsurprising that God could not be willing to enter into the most intimate sort of relationship possible with a creaturely nature that exhibits the worst sort of defect, that is, sin.

Two Flawed Frameworks for Divine Action

The aim of this chapter is to downgrade the plausibility of the two standard frameworks for understanding divine action: the morality framework and the love framework. The morality framework holds that God necessarily acts in accordance with a set of universal moral standards. The love framework holds that God necessarily exhibits to their maximum the desires constitutive of love. Against the morality framework, there is very strong basis to think that God does not necessarily have reasons to adhere to the norms of morality that bind us, and only if God were to have such reasons could such norms necessarily apply to God. Against the love framework, the view of God as necessarily maximally loving is at odds with the norms for perfection in love, relies on a false view about the way that our desires give us reasons, and founders when confronted with the difficulty of specifying an intrinsic maximum for being loving.

Divine Holiness and Divine Perfection

This chapter defends an argument from divine holiness to divine perfection. Primary holiness presupposes a value gap between the holy being and others—it is the greatly superior value of the holy being that makes union with that being desirable for other beings, and makes intimate unity with the holy being at some level unfitting. A necessarily holy being will have to be infinitely and unqualifiedly valuable. For otherwise there will be beings other than God that approach the holy being’s value, at least in certain contexts, in such a way that union with God will not be overwhelmingly desirable and extremely intimate union will not be unfitting. As the God of Scripture must be thought of as absolutely holy, the connection between absolute holiness and absolute perfection underwrites a new argument from Scripture to Anselmian perfect being theology.