Some Inadequate Conceptions of Divine Holiness

Abstract

This chapter considers and rejects some extant conceptions of holiness. On one view, to be holy is simply to be divine; but even if the property being holy is identified with the property being divine, an account of holiness should provide also an account of what is distinctive about conceptualizing divinity in terms of holiness. On another view, holiness is separateness; but unless we are given some accounting of the sort of separateness at issue, the account is uninformative. Another view of holiness is Kantian, taking holiness to be moral perfection; but it seems possible to affirm God’s holiness while denying that God is properly evaluable by moral standards. Recent attempts by philosophers to give systematic accounts of holiness—that offered by O. R. Jones (to be holy is to exhibit divine personality) and that offered by Quentin Smith (to be holy is to be the most exalted being in a privileged genus)—are failures.