Counterfactuals and the Bible

Matthew 11:23
“And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”

In this passage, Jesus is telling the persons of one city X that if the persons of another city Y had experienced what persons of X had experienced, the persons of city Y would have repented instead of being destroyed. In order for this to work it seems that we need to imagine the persons of Sodom experiences a bunch of things that they did not, in fact, experience. So, Jesus is saying that if history had gone differently (such that the persons of Sodom had seen what the persons of Capernaum are seeing), then the persons of Sodom would have reacted differently than the persons of Capernaum are in fact reacting. 

Now, there is a way to construe what Jesus is saying that is compatible with either Kripke’s account or with the account he is criticizing. 

On Kripke’s account, what we do is simply take the persons of Sodom and imagine them living in a different history of the world. Jesus is saying that if that had happened they’d have repented. 

On the Cluster Theory, what we do is we find the salient properties that Jesus is highlighting about Sodom—say, the great wickedness of the people of Sodom—and we imagine those properties being causally interacting with the properties he is highlighting about Capernaum—say, the great miracles He is performing in Capernaum—and what we would find is a different is a very different effect—the combined properties would cause the properties of repentance. 

Now, it is very important to realize that Kripke is not saying that the latter is somehow impossible. It is possible to do what the Cluster Theory implies we must do or are in fact doing when we hear Matthew 11:23. I just did it! His big point is that it is not required by semantics. Kripke’s account of names such as Sodom, suggests that in many cases we use names to pick out a particular object and that it is very natural and plausible to speak about that particular object in a counterfactual situation. His account allows us to do that, it does not force it, whereas, if he is right, the Cluster Theory really does not allow us to do what Kripke says we can do. 

Esther 4:14
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.” 

This passage is very famous. Mordecai is giving Esther a kind of warning and reprimand. If you do C, E will occur. Like the above passage, we have a kind of counterfactual, except this one is future-oriented (I will ignore this interesting complication here). 

So, we imagine Esther remaining silent. What happens? In this counter-to-fact situation, the Jews are still delivered from the evil Haman but by another person. Furthermore, in this counter-to-fact situation, Esther’s family perishes. None of things actually happened but Mordecai is stating that they would have had Esther remained silent. 

While the Matthew passage seems to lend itself either to a rigid designator interpretation—“Sodom” in the passage refers to the actual city and not justvarious descriptions; “Capernaum” refers to the actual city and not justvarious descriptions—or a Cluster Theory interpretation—what Jesus wants us to imagine are the salient properties, their combo, and the subsequent effect—this passage does not seem to me to lend itself to the Cluster theory interpretation. We are supposed to imagine Esther remaining silent, not someone other person with the relevant features remaining silent. We are supposed to imagine her family perishing, not some other family with the relevant features perishing. 

So, this passage seems to require treating the name “Esther” as a rigid designator. We imagine Esther—that woman—remaining silent and we see what happens to her and her family. That is, when we read this passage we implicitly treat the name “Esther” as a rigid designator—it refers to the same person in all possible histories of the world—and not as an abbreviated description. 

Question: Does all of that make sense?
Question: What do you think? Agree? Disagree? 

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