In his Historical and Critical Dictionary, in the entry “Simonides,” Pierre Bayle retells the famous story of the aforementioned poet and wiseman, who when in the court of the tyrant Hiero, was asked “What is god?” Simonides, it is said, found himself unable to answer immediately and asked for a day to consider the question. The next day in court, Hiero asked Simonides what his answer was, and again the poet asked for an extension, this time two days. Two days passed, and Simonides asked for another four days to keep considering the question; and so it went on like this, with Simonides asking for double the time whenever asked. It is in the context of this story that Bayle raises an issue for theism I’ve given some thought to myself. He says there in part, imagining what Simonides might have been thinking:

It is not sufficient to say that God is distinct from the bodies that make up the universe. One will want to know if he resembles them with regard to extent, that is, if he is extended…. If I say that God is not extended, one will conclude that he is nowhere and can have no union with the world. How then does he move bodies? How does he act where he is not? Besides, our understanding is not capable of conceiving of an unextended substance and a spirit entirely separated from matter.

This seems to me to be much like the objection leveled against substance dualists (or as I’ll call them from here out, cartesians, though I should note that I intend this only as shorthand and don’t mean to import other epistemological, physical, etc. doctrines into the term) re how an unextended mind could interact with extended physical substance. Now, I imagine that most cartesians these days are also theists, but the converse is not true and not all theists are cartesians. But for those theists who do reject substance dualism, on the grounds of the problem of interaction, they would seem to have a God-World dualism, which they embrace, that’s problematic in the same way as the mind-body dualism they reject. Our theist might reply that the situation is different because god is omnipotent, and thus this should be no problem for a being that can cause any possible state of affairs to obtain. But the cartesian might in fairness reply:

“But does God’s acting on the world require infinite power? We agree that God could bring to bear infinite power on the world if he so wished, but why think that He in fact does? Nothing seems to require it, and there doesn’t appear to be any positive evidence that this actually happens. Moreover, it seems plainly incomprehensible to say that a finite effect should require an infinite cause. We see finite causes making finite things happen all the time, so why should God of all beings need infinite effort to get a finite job done? But if God isn’t exerting an infinite power, or acting as an infinite cause, but a finite one, then this is just to say that when an unextended substance acts on a finite one, however that happens, then a finite amount of power is sufficient. But we say that because minds do act on bodies, and the actuality of this action shows that they do have the requisite power.”1

So by this reasoning, it would seem that the theist who believes that a body-less god acts on the universe, mysterious though it is, may as well accept substance dualism, or at least drop the objection from interaction. Another route for the theist to take would be for them to drop the requirement that god be unextended. But as Bayle’s Simonides claims elsewhere in the note, this would seem to demand a distinction between two kinds of extension, one corporeal and one incorporeal,2 which is little more comprehensible than cartesian interactionism. Unless that distinction between two kinds of extension is dropped. That might be putting the theist too close to Spinozism for their comfort, but let’s examine the matter in more systematically.

Now, assuming theism, space is either a creation or it is not. If space is a creation, then we need to take into consideration god’s relation with space. If space of any kind is a creation, then it seems that ex hypothesi god was not extended prior to space coming into being, so we have two options: (a) god was not extended in space prior to the creation of space, and is not now, or (b) god was not extended in space, but is now. On the other hand, if space is not a creation, then there seem to be even more options, because we can ask if this uncreated space is independent of god or not. If it is independent of god, then space is either (c) a contingent being or (d) a necessary being. If uncreated space is not independent of god, then it is either (e) an attribute of god or (f) not an attribute of god.3

So, we seem to have at least six propositions resulting from the above assumptions. Let’s briefly go through the consequences of these propositions. (a) Leaves us with the problem that we began with; (b) seems to make trouble for the theist since it implies that god undergoes an essential change, one that makes him essentially like a creature; (c) asserts that there is at least one contingent being independent of god, but theism has it god is the cause of all contingent beings; (d) asserts that there is at least one necessary being independent of god, but theism typically has it that god is unique in being the only necessary being; (e) has it that space is an attribute of god, which seems to be a form of Spinozism; and (f) has it that space is neither independent of god, nor a creation, nor one of his attributes, which I at least cannot make sense of.

1. space is a creation

1.1 (a) god was not extended in space and is not now

1.2 (b) god was not extended in space, but is now

2. space is not a creation

2.1 space is independent of god

2.1.1 (c) space is a contingent being independent of god

2.1.2 (d) space is a necessary being independent of god

2.2 space is not independent of god

2.2.1 (e) space is an attribute of god

2.2.2 (f) space is not an attribute of god