Can God do anything?
By 'God' I mean a person who is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient) and all-good (omnibenevolent). I take it that possession of those properties is sufficient to make one God. I do not want to debate this, it is just to tell you what I mean by 'God'.
I, in common with Jesus and Descartes and others, would understand being 'all-powerful' essentially to involve being able to do anything. In fact, I think it's the other way around - God is described as 'all-powerful' as an attempt to express the idea that God can do anything.
But interestingly most contemporary philosophers of religion understand omnipotence differently. They interpret omnipotence to involve being able to do all that it is logically possible for one to do (actually, they normally qualify it a bit further to avoid certain problems).
This strikes me as most odd, indeed rather absurd - it really isn't an undestanding of 'omnipotence' at all, but an attempt to redefine the term so that it no longer refers to being all-powerful. For surely it is self-evident that a being who is restricted by what logic says is possible is a being who has less power than one who is not? That seems undeniable.
For a being who is restricted by logic cannot make a square circle, whereas one who is not can. So the one who can has more power than the one who can't, right?
Consider too that a being who is restricted by logic cannot reason fallaciously. Yet that's something all of us can do (and do do, regularly). A being restricted by logic will be compelled, in his thinking, to draw a particular conclusion from a certain set of premises, whereas I am free to draw any old conclusion I want. Well, even though that being reasons very well, I now have powers that this being does not have. Which is absurd if that being is also being touted as all powerful.
One might object that the power to reason fallaciously is not a power worth having. Perhaps, but that's beside the point: we're not talking about the 'value' of various powers, just the quantity of them one possesses. So someone who makes this objection is trying subtly (or not so subtly) to change the topic.
Why, then, do so many contemporary theists maintain and promote this patently confused understanding of omnipotence? (which is really not an understanding of omnipotence at all, but an attempt at replacing it with something else).
I think there are two reasons, both of them bad. The first is that many seem to think that certain proofs of God's existence - in particular, ontological and cosmological arguments - imply the existence of a necessary existent. This is a bad reason, because a) even if they did, that would just mean they refute God rather than prove him - re-labelling what you've proved 'God' will not help; and b) they don't.
The second bad reason is that it is thought that there is something absurd in the idea of a being who is able to make married unmarried men and square circles. Or perhaps, it is thought that these things, being logically impossible, are not abilities at all.
This is a bad reason, however, because it is flagrantly question begging. That is, it just supposes that logic - and not God - determines what is truly possible. Yet the whole point is that if God is all powerful then, by virtue of being all powerful, it would be God - not logic - that determines what's truly possible.
So anyway, I think most contemporary theists are seriously - seriously - confused and that an omnipotent being can do anything at all, and that there are no problems with this idea. Indeed, it just 'is' the idea of a truly omnipotent being and anyone who tries to redefine omnipotence in ways that place restrictions on God is simply replacing God with someone who is unable to do a range of things.
I, in common with Jesus and Descartes and others, would understand being 'all-powerful' essentially to involve being able to do anything. In fact, I think it's the other way around - God is described as 'all-powerful' as an attempt to express the idea that God can do anything.
But interestingly most contemporary philosophers of religion understand omnipotence differently. They interpret omnipotence to involve being able to do all that it is logically possible for one to do (actually, they normally qualify it a bit further to avoid certain problems).
This strikes me as most odd, indeed rather absurd - it really isn't an undestanding of 'omnipotence' at all, but an attempt to redefine the term so that it no longer refers to being all-powerful. For surely it is self-evident that a being who is restricted by what logic says is possible is a being who has less power than one who is not? That seems undeniable.
For a being who is restricted by logic cannot make a square circle, whereas one who is not can. So the one who can has more power than the one who can't, right?
Consider too that a being who is restricted by logic cannot reason fallaciously. Yet that's something all of us can do (and do do, regularly). A being restricted by logic will be compelled, in his thinking, to draw a particular conclusion from a certain set of premises, whereas I am free to draw any old conclusion I want. Well, even though that being reasons very well, I now have powers that this being does not have. Which is absurd if that being is also being touted as all powerful.
One might object that the power to reason fallaciously is not a power worth having. Perhaps, but that's beside the point: we're not talking about the 'value' of various powers, just the quantity of them one possesses. So someone who makes this objection is trying subtly (or not so subtly) to change the topic.
Why, then, do so many contemporary theists maintain and promote this patently confused understanding of omnipotence? (which is really not an understanding of omnipotence at all, but an attempt at replacing it with something else).
I think there are two reasons, both of them bad. The first is that many seem to think that certain proofs of God's existence - in particular, ontological and cosmological arguments - imply the existence of a necessary existent. This is a bad reason, because a) even if they did, that would just mean they refute God rather than prove him - re-labelling what you've proved 'God' will not help; and b) they don't.
The second bad reason is that it is thought that there is something absurd in the idea of a being who is able to make married unmarried men and square circles. Or perhaps, it is thought that these things, being logically impossible, are not abilities at all.
This is a bad reason, however, because it is flagrantly question begging. That is, it just supposes that logic - and not God - determines what is truly possible. Yet the whole point is that if God is all powerful then, by virtue of being all powerful, it would be God - not logic - that determines what's truly possible.
So anyway, I think most contemporary theists are seriously - seriously - confused and that an omnipotent being can do anything at all, and that there are no problems with this idea. Indeed, it just 'is' the idea of a truly omnipotent being and anyone who tries to redefine omnipotence in ways that place restrictions on God is simply replacing God with someone who is unable to do a range of things.
Comments (376)
That was what mainstream scholastic theology argued. It was called ‘intellectualism’. The position you’re arguing from is that of ‘voluntarism’ which emphasizes the power and inscrutability of the divine will. And, if you advocate the latter, then there’s little point arguing for it on a philosophy forum, if you think it through.
I do not understand your point about long term implications. For by hypothesis, they have the power to determine what implications their actions have.
They don't know what they say, because they don't know why they say it...
People are ignorant and free, because they're free, and ignorant. That's why they make statements like:
"God can be not Omnipotent, while being God"
In resume...
Some imagine God in there own image, whereas other will see God as a force of nature, like gravity.
It does not really matter what one believes, since it will not change the reality of what truly IS.
So, what 'being morally perfect' involves is determined by God. As we can see just by reflecting on what it means to be omnipotent. As such nothing stops God from being omnipotent and morally perfect, for God's omnipotence means he himself determines whether or not he is morally perfect.
"The One" of Plotinus is your God then... The problem is not Omnipotence, but if it can be limited... and here, I'll quote Plotinus himself:
"Once you have uttered 'The One' add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency."
Plotinus talks about the human perception and conception of concepts. If we try to perceive the absolute, it will be, by rule, not the most absolute of all. So:
If God is All-Powerful and wills itself to become existent, then it Is while Being;
If God is All-Powerful and we will it to exist, then it is not God but something else.
Could an omnipotent being do something that is both logical and illogical?
Quoting Bartricks
If God could simply redefine what good is, to construe anything he chose to do as good, then benevolence has no meaning. God could rape, torture, kill and maim - and just say, it's all good. How can that be a good God? Having established a moral order, a good God has to live within it - and then he's snookered behind the 8- ball of knowing all the long term implications of anything he chose to do.
Note, when we say 'torture is bad' we do not mean that torture is torture. We mean that torture has the property of badness. What, then, is that property? We can't just say 'torture!' for once more that is to reduce one's judgement that torture is bad to the empty judgement that torture is torture. We must, then, be saying more than 'torture is torture' or 'rape is rape' when we judge them bad.
The property in question, then, is the property of being a way of behaving that God does not value us engaging in. God clearly disapproves of us behaving in those ways and nothing I've said suggests otherwise. (And maybe he always has and always will - again, all entirely consistent with what I've argued).
Incidentally, it would be metaphysically possible for, say, torture to be morally good regardless of who or what determines the content of morality. Make the source of morality a platonic form, or make it human conventions, or whatever....it still remains possible, for what stops a Platonic form from overnight valuing torture, or what stops human convention changing so that torture becomes valued? Nothing.
So, an omnipotent being could be not-omnipotent (at the same time). Right?
How do you know an omnipotent being is omnipotent when it could be not-omnipotent?
But even if I could never know such things, the important thing is that God can know them - he knows everything.
I should also add, of course, that God is not in fact omnipotent and not-omnipotent. He's just omnipotent.
At any time, an omnipotent being could decide to be omnipotent, not-omnipotent, or both. God is an omnipotent being (your argument). How do you know it is omnipotent when god could be either of the three things above?
But I can know that an omnipotent being exists by means of ratiocination. There is at least one argument that establishes the existence of such a being. And by understanding that argument, I can know of such a being's existence.
And as omnipotence involves being able to do anything, I know that this omnipotent being is capable of being omnipotent and not-omnipotent at the same time. But the argument establishes the existence of an omnipotent being, not a being who is actually omnipotent and not-omnipotent at the same time. So, whether he's exercising that ability or not, is not something I know how to know. But, like I say, I don't think that's relevant.
Omnipotence, defined as being able to do anything, is a non-sensical term that has no real meaning. It is a paradoxical term, its own definition refutes it by showing a clear, inevitable contradiction. You are welcome to ignore logic but once you do that I don’t know what you are talking about anymore, and neither do you.
Because to do is to be.
And God don't be.
In case you missed it, the joke is in misreading "can God do anything?" as:
"is it the case that there is some x such that God can do x?"
(like "jeez, can't this God guy do anything at all?")
rather than the obviously intended
"is it the case that for all x, God can do x?"
What I was trying to explain to you is that the topic you've raised was the subject of a debate that went on for centuries in theology - not only Christian but also Islamic theology.
You can see that the position you assume naturally tends towards irrationalism, because it asserts that God's inscrutable will is both all-powerful and beyond all logic. Whereas the Scholastics saw reason as being operative principles of the divine intellect. The scholastic surely recognised there are truths beyond logic and reason, namely, revealed truth, but they don't say that God can (or perhaps would) contradict or arbitrarily change the rational order of things. To do so, would be tantamount to self-contradiction.
I disagree. And not merely because, I don't know if God exists or not. We are assuming the existence of an omnipotent being. You said:
Quoting Bartricks
But is this a God that designed the universe, and set it going? Because in that case - good and bad are aspects of that design? Or this this an omnipotent kid poking at an ant pile in no-space, deciding what is good or bad on an ad hoc basis?
If it's God the Creator, you're asking him to intervene in his design, and what I'm saying is, that if he's both all good and all knowing, he cannot - because any intervention would necessarily have implications that were not good, some way down the line. He's already decided what good and bad are - and set them in motion, as consequences of the design.
You say: Quoting Bartricks
That's wrong. Reality is cause and effect, and organisms evolve in relation to a causal reality. They have pain and pleasure responses that guide the organism, within the environment, as the basis of a definition of what is good or bad. Humans evolve in relation to reality, but also in tribal groups. Their physiology, behaviour and intellect are all honed in relation to reality by the function or die out, algorithm of evolution. They have to be correct to reality to survive. Moral behaviour is rewarded; and is about pleasure and pain, and truth to reality, and from there, in a social context - about honesty and justice. These are not abstract intellectual concepts subject to redefinition. Good and bad, right and wrong are premised in the relation between the organism and Creation.
Sure, there is some logic to your argument but there is a specific point of logic (the law of non-contradiction) that you are ignoring.
Also, not assertions. Being able “to do anything” leads to an unavoidable contradiction. Maybe your unfamiliar with the rock so heavy it cannot be lifted? I understand you think thats dispelled by another use of “power to do anything” that just changes the rules ad Infiniti but its not. The reason its not is because then that would mean the parameters of the original task were not met, trading one logical contradiction for another. For example in the classic “can god create a rock he cannot lift” the ability to do anything means god can create the rock he cannot lift, resulting in something god cannot do (lift the rock). Thats a logical contradiction. So to avoid this logical contradiction you can simply have god now change the rules so that now he can lift the rock. The initial logical contradiction is avoided but now god wasn't able to do something else, create a rock he couldnt lift. The concept of being able to “do anything” is incoherent, by definition including nonsense (“anything” includes the “thing” nonsense). The concept always leads to contradiction because it defies its own parameters, like the squared circle it makes no sense.
Now, you can ignore that breach of logic to your hearts content but when you do, and try discussing it, I don’t know what you are talking about. As I said before, neither do you. Thats not intended to be snide, I mean it literally. The idea of being able to do anything is firmly entrenched on the other side of human comprehension, you do not know how it could possibly work and neither do I. Its just like the squared circle, you can say it, say the words, sure, no problem but you cannot draw it and you cannot describe it because it makes no sense. So too with being able to “do anything”, the words are empty placeholders. Semantic illusions with no substance.
And why did you do that? I know it. It's irrelevant.
Why don't you address the argument I made rather than categorize things? There have been people in the past who have held my view - I mentioned two: Jesus and Descartes. Shall we list more? Shall we put a label on them and then smuggle under that label other views, tangential to that one, so as to muddy any debate we have on the issue and turn it into a label-fest? Shall we do that? Why would we do that? What would that achieve? You're a labeler, yes? When you hear a view, you like to put it in a jar and put a label on it. That's not thinking. That's not philosophy. It's just a weird kind of collecting that many people mistake for thinking.
Now, once more, a being who can do anything is not going to be bound by the laws of logic, for if they were they would not be able to do anything, but only those things that logic permits.
How could there be a being who is not bound by logic? Well, if logic itself is no more or less than the edicts of that being, then the being in question would not be bound by logic precisely because he is the source of it. As Hobbes put it "Nor is it possible for any person to be bound to himself; because he that can bind, can release; and therefore he that is bound to himself only, is not bound". So, if God is the source of the imperatives of Reason - of which those laws we call 'logic' are a subset - then God will not be bound by logic. And thus God will be able to do anything - including make contradictions true.
That is an argument. That is not a rejection of reason, but an employment of it - I am employing my reason to show that reason itself tells us that its source is God and that God is not bound by it.
The point I made was simply that this is not just the attitude of 'most contemporary philosophers of religion' but also of the Scholastics, and that it doesn't gel with your understanding of what 'omnipotence' must mean. And like a lot of people, you have a lot of strongly-held views which strike you as 'obvious', meaning that those who oppose them are 'confused' or 'deficient', of which I'm probably one, so I'll spare you the odious task of trying to set me straight.
Being able to do anything does not mean one has done everything. God 'could' make it the case that he created the universe. He could take out of existence anything that is in it. But from this we can't, I think, reliably conclude that he did, in fact, create everything that exists. But perhaps he did, I am unsure in no small part because why my reason tells me about free will implies that God did not create us. Anyway, I am simply not sure.
Re morality: as I said, what's morally right is determined by God's will. For an action to be right is for it to be an act that God is ordering us to perform (that is, God tells us - via our reason - that in such-and-such circumstances it is imperative that you do X; well that command 'is' the rightness of Xing). And for something to be morally good is for it to be valued by God. Note, rightness and goodness are not like paints that God is applying to things; for paint can exist independent of the painter, can't it? No, rightness is the property of being commanded by God (so 'what it is' for X to be right, is for God to be commanding us to do X); and goodness if the property of being valued by God.
Note, there is independent reason to think this is true (which I will not supply here), but it is also entailed by God's omnipotence, for if things were otherwise - if morality bound God - then God would not be omnipotent.
You, like so many, then suggest that this makes rightness and wrongness ad hoc. Well, it doesn't. For God is Reason and nothing is ad hoc with Reason. For what does it mean to say that something is ad hoc or arbitrary? It means 'for no reason'. But God 'is' Reason, and so to suggest that his willings and attitudes are arbitrary just shows that you don't know who you're talking about - it is like suggesting that it is just 'ad hoc' that 2 + 3 = 5. In no meaningful sense is that ad hoc.
I know. I mentioned philosophers because this is a philosophy forum and I thought it might be interesting to expose such a widely and uncritically held view as the absurdity that it is. (Pick up an introductory book to philosophy of religion and see how quickly my kind of view is rejected - it is normally dismissed in a paragraph).
Quoting Wayfarer
No, you're like most people. You prefer not to think. Not too much anyway. A philosopher would want to be put straight. Anyway, I tried putting you straight by explaining why an omnipotent would not be bound by reason.
Well, okay then. I had a go at your thought experiment, and I totally get your argument. It's "No, he's omnipotent. He can do anything" in response to everything put to you. It was fun - but as you are unable to define terms, and say whether this is an omnipotent, omniscience, benevolent "person" - or God, the Creator of the universe - and if you cannot understand why that distinction is important to the argument, then I'll just say thanks and bid you farewell. Before I go though, let me ask you this: can your omnipotent being, or God, or whatever - create a rock so big he cannot lift it?
I gave you a very clear definition of God. Then you asked if God has created the universe. I don't know. How is it relevant to the issue under discussion? It might be, of course - but how? For instance, is 'not' being the creator of the universe incompatible with being able to do anything?
The issue is that with omnipotence and omniscience, God has both the knowledge and ability to make anything happen, to prevent or set events up to occur in any other way. Such a God is a doctor with every miracle cure and the opportunity to use it. A lot of people, in this instance, are very concerned with or confused by God's culpable negligence in this instance-- God has the power to fix any problem encountered, but actively chose not to.
Logic marks out the statements that are well-formed from those that are not. That there is something an omnipotent being cannot do is not well-formed. This does not place a limitation on god, only on language.
That is, most of this thread is nonsense.
Moreover, talk of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being is quite analogous to talk of a little man who wasn't there. Were there a need, theologians would attempt to develop a coherent account of Antigonish.
Whereof one cannot speak, one writes nonsense in a philosophy forum.
edit.
The case against God would be prosecuted the crimes of the prisoners needn't to have occurred in the first place. God could have chosen a world those crimes and people never existed, instead making a version with similar people who were never dangerous, who never choose actions to hurt others with their free will (free will doesn't actually get God off the hook here, as God knows which people and their choices are going to exist).
You are thinking in almost the right direction, what's at stake is even greater than whether prisoners get released. It's whether they even get to exist at all.
God, could, indeed make a world in which these people, their crimes and their danger to others, never existed. Doing so though would have a consequence: those criminals would never exist. Worse, they would have been adjudged not worth existence by God here, for God deliberately chose to make other people instead, to avoid the criminals on account of how they exist.
Humans are sometimes, maybe even frequently for some us, in this situation. One example is making judgements on whether to complete pregnancies of children known to have certain maladies. We have the power to decide whether to have a person with Down's syndrome live or not. If we so choose, we can make it so they never live, never encounter certain difficulties or bring us their specific inconveniences. But that comes at a price: we are decreeing this instance of life not worth existence, suing our power to choose something else over it instead.
The omni God's evilness or negligence is not quite as cut and dried as it appears. In some respects, creating or allowing a less than moral world to exist is valuing the existence of those who are less than moral.
edit.
God's ability to do anything is a function of time. Does he have unlimited resources and it is quite apparent he hasn't perfected our lives yet. Existence is evil while God is not evil.
This thread is not about the problem of evil, but anyway the fact is that there are two problems of evil - the logical and the evidential. It is almost universally agreed that there is no logical problem of evil: God's existence is logically compatible with the existence of evil (my question to you shows that there are all manner of circumstances under which a good person would not give another everything they wanted). The problem of evil that remains and is debated to this day is the evidential problem.
That's important, because that means that if there is a proof of God's existence, then the evidential problem of evil disappears and becomes a mere puzzle.
So, God does not get power from time; rather, time is in God's power.
edit. I'll private message you.
I don't think so. It is sufficient to be omnipotent that one 'can' do anything. I mean, there's no difference in power, it seems to me, between a being who can do anything and created a universe, and a being who can do anything and didn't.
Finding that there exist other beings aside from one's self is not, it seems to me, incompatible with being omnipotent, for it could still be the case that one could do anything.
If that's correct, then one could be omnipotent and have created nothing. Indeed, to insist otherwise would be once more to put restrictions on an omnipotent being.
So, God could have created everything if he had so wished, but whether he actually did so or not is an open question and it is not inconsistent with his being omnipotent that he created nothing at all. Or so I think at the moment.....
I'm familiar with this argument from Philosophy 101. It admits various interpretations. The only relevant one is: "Can God deprive himself of his own powers as God?"
First, a note on the logical structure of the Boulder argument: Lack of strength is weakness. Does it make sense to argue that a strong person must also be weak in order to be strong? Not lifting something (or alternatively, not creating it) is a non-action, and by definition it is not done.
We have asserted that God can do whatever he wants, meaning he can create an arbitrarily heavy boulder and also lift an arbitrarily heavy boulder. In order to create the boulder which he cannot lift, it does not mean that he creates a super-heavy boulder, but rather that he limits his own future ability to lift that boulder. Thus, a wise person might simply answer "no" to the question about the boulder, since God could still make an arbitrarily heavy boulder and lift an arbitrarily heavy boulder. What is it that God can't do? In particular, he can't not be able to do something, which we have already assumed.
But why is god unable to not be able to do something? It is because we have assumed that he has not chosen to limit his own powers, because in so doing he would no longer be God. Then the creation of being which can't lift boulders or can't create boulders is merely the Christian genesis.
Christians are the only true atheists, because the God of Christianity has chosen to stop existing.
Ive never heard that particular argument before. Not sure any of its necessary, breaking the law of non-contradiction is enough to show the incoherence of omniscience.
Im not sure how you define atheism but I wouldn't say its a matter of anything about god per say. Its about what the person believes not about the actions or non-actions of the thing people believe in.
Religion and the belief in god are mired in cognitive dissonance (holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time), thats how you can people like Bartricks that can’t understand their error. Its not that Bartricks doesnt understand logic, its that he doesnt apply it where it interferes in his desire to believe in god. Many religious folks are like this, its a hallmark of magical thinking. (Maybe thats the layman term for cognitive dissonance :chin: ?)
Then who is he benevolent toward? Himself? That sounds like a euphemism for masturbation!
And, as I've said before, being all powerful would mean that moral directives and moral values are God's directives and God's values, otherwise God would lack the power to make anything right and anything good.
So, from God's omnipotence comes God's omnibenevolence.
Now I fail to see from that, why this would mean God has created something. I mean, it's not inconsistent with him doing so, but it doesn't entail it. God could create nothing, value creating nothing, and esteem himself as a non-creator, and he would thereby be morally perfect.
Magical thinking is simply ritual activity without full understanding. We engage in magical thinking whenever we use a microwave.
I think, perhaps, you're not taking the time to understand the view I am expressing. Again: an omnipotent being would have to be able to constitutively determine the content of morality, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do everything. Thus, whether an act is right or wrong is going to be determined by God's will.
Kant noted, correctly, that moral imperatives are categorical imperatives of Reason. He didn't, however, clarify who or what Reason was. That's what I'm doing: Reason is God. Thus, to be behaving immorally is to be behaving in a way that Reason - that is, God - categorically disapproves of.
Of course, if you meant that Robinson Crusoe is the lone person in the universe, then he'd be unable to do wrong because rightness and wrongness wouldn't exist.
Then he's not alone. Again, Robinson Crusoe is on a desert island alone. How can he be immoral?
Can you elaborate on why my belief in reality is not skeptical enough? How did you reach that conclusion, and how do you know how skeptical of reality I am?
I dont agree with how you’ve defined magical thinking here, thats certainly not I how was using the term.
Like I say, you're not taking the time or trouble to understand the view I am expressing.
Again, then. Morality - you know, moral directives, moral values - are. the. directives. and. values. of. God.
If you think they're not, fine. But a) they demonstrably are and b) this thread is about what it means to be omnipotent, and if you're omnipotent moral directives and values would have to be your own directives and values otherwise they'd not be under your control.
I am just guessing. And I provided definitions and speculation because none was forthcoming from you.
Omnibenevolence doesn't mean 'all benevolent'. It means 'all good' or 'morally perfect'. Okay?
And you obviously can be benevolent and be all alone, irrelevant though that is to this discussion (just imagine a benevolent person, and then imagine them alone.....they're still benevolent).
Fair enough. To me magical thinking is when a person just skips over inconvenient data and reasoning that doesnt support the conclusion they want to reach, like a kind of confirmation bias.
As far as being skeptical, I would say Im quite skeptical in general. I temper that with an open mind and willingness to explore things even if im skeptical of it.
You said he was an omnibenevolent being, or God, which is to say he created something to be benevolent toward, or created the universe. One cannot be omnibenevolent alone, however you define it.
He cannot redefine what is good and bad because it's established in the act of Creation.
So, the answer to the question "Can God do anything?" - is no.
God can't do anything because he would know the consequences of his actions, or the consequences of the consequences would be non-benevolent in some way, eventually.
Omnibenevolence is an absolute limitation on his omnipotence.
omnibenevolence
[??mn?b??n?v(?)l(?)ns]
NOUN
(with reference to a deity) perfect or unlimited goodness.
So now we both know what it means, I make the same argument.
Quoting counterpunch
Now try understanding the rest of what I said. I'll help - this is the first question: what does perfect goodness involve?
Someone who believes in it.
Do you mean that if you believe you're morally perfect, then you are? What would you be believing?
Conscience is coming out of science/knowledge.
Really? You can imagine square circles?
Are you able to see a square circle?
If a square circle would be presented to you, would you recognize it as such?
Just go read some Hindu theologies, and you'll have the whole gamut of options on this ...
Whereas if you say that being all powerful involves only being able to do the logically possible, then God won't be able to do a ton of things that even I can.
Here:
1. If P, then Q
2. Q
3. therefore P
I just drew that conclusion, but God couldn't. What a weed.
Saying god cannot do what is logically impossible is not putting a restriction on his omnipotence.
If it is restricting anything, it is restricting language. It is saying "let's not talk nonsense". Square circles and triangles with four sides are nonsense.
This comes back to your "Can we dispense with necessity?" thread. You showed there that you have not read much about modal logic. You are just a bit confused. Same for your thread on "Are necessary and contingent truths necessary?".
It's good to see you thinking about this stuff; it would be good to also see you learning a bit about it.
Yes it is.
Quoting Banno
No it isn't.
Quoting Banno
No, I'm not at all confused. I think necessity does not exist, so what could I learn from people who just take for granted that it does? That would be like telling someone who's made an argument for atheism "oh, why don't you just go to church and learn a thing or two about the bible before becoming an atheist?"
Quoting Banno
Thanks Pops. Wise as ever.
I like the word logos better than the word God. God implies a personality like Zues, or the jealous, revengeful, fearsome, and punishing God of the Bible. I do not believe such a god exists. However, there is universal order. I will use the word God when referring to universal order/logos because that is the word others use when speaking of the ultimate power.
However, logos can only do what is possible. Logos can not do what is impossible. I guess what god can do depends on if we are speaking reality or fantasy.
There is no human nor god that can break the laws of the universe.
*tsk tsk*
In standard monotheism, the laws of the universe don't precede God.
We'll just wait until your next toothache.
Do you mean I have to believe something that is unbelievable because that is what people who deify Jesus have done?
Well, you can make up your own religion; or, if you're going to discuss religion, work with the claims that a particular religion actually makes.
Almost but I am not comfortable with the notion that humans can know the word of God. We discover universal laws but the words we use to explain those laws are our own and our understanding will remain incomplete.
I think it is so important that in the beginning of the God of Abraham was a concept of an unknown god, beyond our comprehension. But in our humanness, we wanted a knowable, personal god. The result was deifying Jesus. Jesus was tailor-made for us and the jealous, revengeful war god became a personal, forgiving, and loving god. :heart:
But I lived in the sierra mountain range where heavy snow makes survival a challenge, and I know mother nature does not care if we live or die. She is not personal. She is just busy doing her own thing and what we do with our free will is up to us. Fortunately, we come with pretty good survival instincts but that is not always enough. Figuring out how to survive and evolving this into scientific knowledge is something only humans can do, giving them godlike powers. :wink:
:rofl: Thank you for a good laugh. I am doing my best to work with the God of Abraham mythology. Perhaps the question of what a god can do should not be asked if a person can not argue that a god can not violate universal laws nor the will of man. Considering we are dealing with a pandemic and global climate change that is leading to extinctions, we might be interested in how things work. Sacrificing animals, saying prayers, and burning candles will not make things better. A god is not going to save our sorry asses and give us another planet like earth so we can destroy that one too. We need science to do better.
Omnipotence = being able to do all that is doable. It does not mean being able to do that which is not doable. That's like saying Omniscience involves being able to know that which is not knowable (like what a round square or gsjiogjsi is)
If x is a hypothetical possibility, then God can bring it about. There are no hypothetical possibilities that God cannot bring about. If there was, then by definition, God wouldn't be Omnipotent (being able to do all that is doable).
If interested in dealing with paradoxes with regards to God's Attributes, consider the following:
https://philosophyneedsgod.wordpress.com/why-it-is-absurd-for-existences-gods-attributes-to-be-paradoxical-absurd/
Skip the first two paragraphs to go straight into Omnipotence.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” ( John 1:1 )
The implication of these two passages together, seems to be that the Word, the Creator and the Creation are inseparable - and consequently, it would have been open to the Church to accept Galileo's "hypo-deductive methodology" (scientific method) as the means to discern the word of God made manifest in Creation.
Had they done so, a scientific understanding of reality would have been pursued, and had the moral authority of God's word. Technology would have been applied in accord with a scientifically valid understanding of reality, and we would have made a paradise of the world.
Instead, science was decried as a heresy, even while technology was used to drive the industrial revolution. So science and technology was applied for military and industrial power and profit - with no regard to a scientific understanding of reality. We applied the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons, and are now barrelling toward extinction.
I love what you said. :clap:
Here is the crux to the problem. Maybe if in Galileo's day the Church had embraced his vision of reality history would have been dramatically different, but it is the protestants who developed technology and industry and they embrace science, as you said the church should have embraced science, until everyone realized the conflicts between science and religious mythology and then it was science that had to be closed out of our consciousness and this continues to this day. There was also a huge moral conflict with Prostestism. Peasants supported the great wealth of industry and they died very young, making Protestantism less moral than Catholicism which prevented economic growth.
While Catholicism was economically bust and crushed the development of capitalism and independent entrepreneurship. The problem is with the beginning of the God of Abraham religions and the notion that God is in control and our birth determines our destiny. The Church supported the feudal system which is slavery because serfs are owned and we are lying to ourselves to believe it was not as bad as the slavery of people of color. We can not judge the past with today's consciousness because we can not not think of what we know today, but back in the day there was no concept of industry and capitalism, and Christianity did not lead us to science, but the pagan temples the Christians destroyed were places of math and science. The crusades slowly brought that ancient knowledge into the present, and the middle ages gave way to modernization.
Some argue the middle ages were not dark but they were very dark. Yes, there was technological progress but that is not science!! Scientific thinking had to wait for rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman documents.
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My issue with the idea of a god in the form of human is the human capacity cannot meet these demands: when we define a human we restrict our concept by the parameters of “presence” (the space occupied by the body), “Potency” (the minimum and maximum Possible energy used by the human to survive) and sentience ( the greatest degree to which knowledge/ information that can be held by the human MinD at any one time) none of which are “omni-“ anything. We can’t be everywhere instantaneously and therefore cannot experience all information or levels of power.
However interestingly if we replace “human” with “consciousness” than perhaps it can be those things. What if we said that consciousness is fundamental to the universe just as energy is... then it is everywhere, experiences all forms, and all levels of power and information. And importantly is firmly connected to the human mind in that the human mind is a piece of it - a part that can appreciate the whole... just not fully
Only a universe can know what it is like to be a universe.
Hmm with all the technological and scientific advancement possible I still don’t think this means ultimate paradise. The creator of such things (humans in this case) are still very obviously capable of using tech and science to bad ends (atomic bomb - the most selfish and destructive invention ever).
So in order to create paradise we must transfigure ourselves from mere human to something unrecognisably beyond human nature. Maybe this is truly possible given enough time but leave it to the humans to try to prevent it haha
You're right, that after the fall of Rome in 410 AD, there was a rediscovery of Roman and Greek knowledge, but that was largely a consequence of the Crusades from around 1000 AD to 1250 AD.
Generally dated from 1300 to 1700, the Renaissance brought an end to the Dark Ages. And by the time Galileo wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems - in 1632, the Renaissance was at its height.
It's true that the Church had supported the feudal system - but serfdom was effectively ended in Britain by 1500, and finally made illegal in 1574. It was not that much different across Europe.
The banking houses of Lisbon and Amsterdam, the spice trade with the East and the Silk Road belay the idea that commerce was forbidden. Rather, the Church had a prohibition against usury - that is, lending money. Jews had no such prohibitions, and that set the subsequent tone of Christian attitudes towards Jews. We borrowed money from them and weren't particularly gracious about paying it back.
The Protestant reformation began about 1500, and drove a great deal of European colonialism, particularly to the Americas. Which brings us back to Max Weber's classic. The Protestant ethic played out in the US, while wars of religion raged across Europe for hundreds of years.
Galileo wrote Dialogue in 1632 and was received by a Church challenged on multiple fronts; and Galileo - while incredibly smart, was not terribly smart about how he presented his findings. He put the position of the Church:
1 Chronicles 16:30: Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Psalm 93:1: The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and armed with strength; indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
Psalm 96:10: Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.
Psalm 104:5:He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Job 9:6: He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble.
Psalm 75:3: When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm
1 Samuel 2:8: “For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s; on them he has set the world.
...in the mouth of Simplicio - a pun in common Italian, on Simpleton. One could argue that Galileo made it impossible for the Church to accept his proof that the earth orbits the sun, particularly given all the other challenges they faced. But it was a mistake; and one that effectively divorced science as an understanding of reality from science as a tool - used for military and industrial power.
The point of all this is not to look back in anger, but rather - to understand the causes of the challenges we face, and so, understand how to secure the future. Our mistake is simply this; we used the tools but didn't read the instructions. We need to recognise that a scientific understanding of reality is an instruction manual for the application of technology.
This thread is about whether an all powerful being can do anything - which is a philosophical question that can't be settled by appeal to the bible or anything else.
Can there be a being who can do anything? Yes, although we need to be clear that doing anything means what it means - it means anything at all.
How can there be such a being? Well, there are laws of logic. These laws tell us that some things can't happen - such as that no true proposition can also be false. But that is our only basis for thinking that no true proposition is also false. Indeed, when it comes to any aspect of reality whatsoever, our only source of insight into it - that is, into whether it truly exists and what is possible in respect of it - is our reason, yes?
So, if those laws of logic - and the other edicts of Reason - were the edicts of a person, then that person would be all-powerful. That is, he'd be able to do anything at all, including things that he forbids. For if their being impossible is itself determined by his will, then they are not impossible for him.
Thus, there can be - and is - an all powerful being. And that being can do anything.
Being able to do anything, doesn't mean 'able to do some things and not others'. It means being able to do anything. Make a square circle and then carrot it. Anything and everything.
Can God commit a fallacy? Yes. Can I? Yes. How absurd would it be for me to be able to do what God cannot? How could you, with a straight face, describe as 'all powerful' a being who couldn't do something I can do?
If you try and restrict God's abilities in anyway, then you are positing something over and above God that binds him. That's incompatible with him being God. That's incompatible with him being all powerful. You're positing some higher God, some higher power, that restricts God's movements. Again: that's conceptually confused, given that by God we mean someone who is 'all' powerful.
Quoting Bartricks
I thought we'd agreed that discussion between us is pointless. I hoped you might learn that if you're a jerk - and you are, people won't want to play with you! I don't want to. I've shown that an all powerful Creator God is unable to do anything - at all, because he is aware of the long term consequences of his actions, and intervening in the Creation must necessarily have implications that contradict his perfect moral goodness, eventually!
Allow me to pre-empt your response so you don't have to type it:
"No, he's all powerful, he can do anything!"
But...
"No, he's all powerful, he can do anything!"
Can he get you to leave me alone?
Which "God"?
Which are the laws of reason? I know about the laws of physics and many scientific laws but laws of Reason is really new man.
Quoting Bartricks
Which God? from which religion? Why only one?
Your premise of "God" is very similar to that of Plotinus and his "One":
"there is a supreme, totally transcendent" One ", containing no division, multiplicity, or distinction; beyond all categories of being and non-being. The" One "" cannot be any existing thing ", nor is it merely the sum of all things, but "is prior to all existents"."
The problem is that your concept of "God", filtered from all cultural and regional interpretations, only refers to the "Absolute". And as Plotinus had already stated:
"Once you have uttered 'The One', add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency."
Therefore, your conclusion that "God" exists, concluded that something exists, but the possibility of it being "God" is non-existent because your thesis is existing and capable of being conceived.
God is in the conclusion, not a premise.
I see no real similarity. I think you're seeing Plotinus everywhere. Just because you have a hammer, that doesn't mean everything's a nail.
Yeah, so which one is that? Yours is a descriptive attribution; but which deity (of any religious tradition!) answers to that description (i.e. (your) 'tri-omni deity' refers to ... Brahman? Cthulhu? Wotan? Jupiter? Tezcatlipoca? Allah? The Force? ...)
But of course! Your argument is completely identical to that of Plotinus - even if you had never heard of him -.
Your conclusions were made more than a 1000 years ago, and we now know that they are wrong.
Quoting Bartricks
Agreed.
Man, this is so vague. This point is the core of you post, you should have a more solid description of the laws of Reason. Which are those? I guess those are universal and well known by all the societies, it is just that I've missed them anyhow.
If you think there's a problem with the argument, use your extensive knowledge to highlight it.
How does a mind create laws of reason?
Quoting Bartricks
What does an omniscient mind do? It would be pointless for example for such a thing to think.Quoting Bartricks
A mind not bound by the laws of reason cannot be reasoned about.
Yes, god can tie off loose ends, and plug in gaps in theories! God is truly omnipotent in this regard. :smile:
By wanting us to do and believe things and by ordering or instructing us to do so.
Here's a law of Bartricks: if you have money, give me money. Not one many know about, and it doesn't have any authority over people, because most people recognise that Reason does not tell everyone to obey my rules. But that's a law of mine, it is just one that nobody obeys. How did I create it? Well, I wanted everyone's money and I just told everyone - or did my best by writing it above - to give me their money.
Quoting InPitzotl
Well, clearly one of the things he wants is for us to do and believe things, hence the instructions of Reason exist. As for it being pointless for him to think - I don't see how you get to that conclusion. Indeed, it's confused - for what is it for something to be pointless except for there to be no reason to do it? Whatever Reason thinks, there is reason for Reason to think, for a reason to think something is no more or less than a desire of Reason that it be thought.
Quoting InPitzotl
Yes it can. See above. I am not bound by what I say, but I can nevertheless tell people about myself. Likewise for Reason. Think it through!!
The error is getting to the conclusion. If we are talking of the same God, it cannot be comprehended by mortal minds, therefore, any conclusion about it, it's not about it, but of something else.
"God is absolute, therefore, this phrase is not about God, because if it was, then God was not absolute, therefore, it would not be God."
Chapeau!
So, by the way you define a law of Reason, there is a God. In other words, as you've noted, instructions presuppose an instructor. If the bone of contention is whether or not God exists, you've assumed precisely what needs to be better argued for, proven, and/or justified.
Sorry, but you didn't answer my question. That's a nice hypothetical example of your issuing a prescriptive imperative using the English language to another sentient entity who speaks English over a virtual medium via text, but how does a mind create a law of reason?
Quoting Bartricks
That does not follow. I believe there is a yellow crayon in this box sticking out just to the left of an orange crayon, and I use reasoning to believe it, but it's not clear that I followed an instruction. I tend to think I just looked at the box.
Quoting Bartricks
Well for example if I divide two numbers in my head, I might carry out the operations to figure out what the quotient is. An omniscient entity would presumably simply know; so there's no point doing the thinking. If I were playing chess, I might plan ahead. But again, an omniscient entity would presumably just know all moves, so there's no point in thinking. It's easy to say there's an all knowing mind, but such a thing is so alien to how minds work, it's questionable whether or not it even is one.
Quoting Bartricks
The mind not limited by reason could command reason and irrationality both. You would have no way of describing by reason any violation of reason commanded by this entity. Could this mind command that 1+1=3? And if so, how can you be sure he didn't? Pretty sure the only way you could be sure such a mind only commands reason is by applying a doctrine, and if you're applying doctrines you're not applying reason.
Sorry, but I did. You accept, I take it, that I did what I did: I, a mind, issued an instruction to you. I'll do it again "Give me all your money!" That's a command, yes? And I - a mind - created it.
So now we know that minds can create commands and that they can communicate this fact to other minds, like wot I did.
The imperatives of Reason are commands. That's just what an imperative is. They're not my commands or yours. But they are commands. And we know how imperatives get made: minds make them. Therefore, they are the commands of a mind.
And we know that commands can be communicated, for I just communicated one to you. So, as we are aware - some very dimly, and some barely at all - of these imperatives of Reason, we know that the mind whose commands the imperatives of Reason are, has found a way of communicating them to us.
What means? Well, we call it our faculty of reason, don't we?
It does follow. If commands express the desires of a mind, and there are commands of Reason, then those commands express the desires of a mind.
As for your example, it's an example of something else. For what you describe is a visual experience causing in you a belief, without any inferential activity on your part. So you did not 'use' reason to acquire the belief. That doesn't stop the belief from being justified, of course, for Reason, God, may still favor you having acquired the belief in that manner.
If, however, you have 'reasoned' to the conclusion, then you would have considered yourself favored by Reason believing that there is a crayon sticking out of the box.
I defined God, as a being who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. But that definition does not assert the existence of such a being.
I defined laws of Reason as imperatives and/or instructions. And I showed how there is no reasonable way of denying their reality. And I noted that imperatives and instructions require a mind to issue them.
And then I showed how the mind in question would satisfy the definition of God and would, in addition, exist.
That's a proof of God's existence. The problem is that you have a dogmatic belief that there is no such proof, yes? Plus you think that all valid arguments are just bunches of assertions and they prove nothing, yes? That way you get to believe whatever you want and you don't have ever to revise your views in light of reason.
Anyway, enough analysis of your foolishness: how about you actually address the argument I made rather than make false accusations?
That was a prescription given in a language. Reason is surely descriptive.
Quoting Bartricks
What else?
Quoting Bartricks
There's quite a bit of sapience required to relate the visual experience to such things as colors sticking out of a box and their spatial relations.
No. A description of an imperative is a description, of course. And if by 'Reason' you mean 'a description of all of Reason's imperatives" then yes, that's a description. But I am clearly referring to the imperatives themselves.
There are different ways to express the same point. Reality has a normative aspect to it, yes? That. That's what I'm talking about. The norms of Reason. They're norms, right? Directives, prescriptions, commands, instructions.
Those require a commander.
I didn't understand the rest of what you said
And I'm questioning whether laws of reasoning are imperatives.
Why? Why must a law be housed in someone's mind somewhere? Did the law of gravity not exist before Newton discovered it?
Quoting Bartricks
?
And what are you following when you reason, if not some kind of directive?
A directive requires a mind to issue it. Take this "give me all your money!" If I'm a bot, is that a directive? No. If I'm a mind, then it is. If I'm not, then it isn't.
Nope. I'm denying that someone must be commanding the laws I use to do so.
Quoting Bartricks
Certainly not instructions someone gave me in English. Except in those cases where they did, but in all such cases those were simply minds of one or more other humans. Imperatives and instructions are things humans convey to each other using language.
Quoting Bartricks
Your mistake is to stick to the substantial concept of "conclusion".
Something "absolute" cannot be the conclusion of something, only the premise, because if it turns out to be the conclusion, it is no longer absolute.
Your argument is stuck in the cycle of irefutability:
A, therefore B;
B;
Therefore, A.
But as I say:
"Someone who does not want to understand other visions will never understand."
If you do what you ought not to do, then you are doing what is forbidden - that is, what you are 'bid' not do.
Look, this is silly, the existence of norms of Reason is not in dispute. If you want to talk about something different - descriptions of norms of Reason - then that's fine. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the imperatives of Reason themselves.
The imperatives of Reason are imperatives (hence the name). And they - not something else - require an imperator. And, well, the rest follows.
And yes, obviously the instructions of Reason are not conveyed to you in English (not by Reason, anyway) - where, oh where, did my argument claim otherwise??
Quoting Bartricks
Your mistake is to stick to the substantial concept of "conclusion".
Something "absolute" cannot be the conclusion of something, only the premise, because if it turns out to be the conclusion, it is no longer absolute.
Your argument is stuck in the cycle of irefutability:
A, therefore B;
B;
Therefore, A.
But as I say:
"Someone who does not want to understand other visions will never understand."
Your pride only strengthens my philosophy, so continue with your false arguments with your false proof of God...
It's neither, because it's not a directive. "You should follow the laws of reason" is prescriptive. "People follow the laws of reason" is descriptive (and false). The laws of reason are neither of these statements.
Quoting Bartricks
The laws of reason are not directives. "You should stick to the laws of reason" is a directive.
Look, there can be directives about directives: 'do what he told you to do' for instance.
But anyway, if you're just going to ignore the arguments I give in support of my claims, there's not much I can do for you.
You could.
I assumed by the laws of reason you mean things like excluded middle, or non-contradiction. Those aren't directives. And couched ad-homs don't make them so. Your first premise makes no sense.
So, you are bid believe them and you are bid believe it by Reason which is why, if you do not believe, you are irrational. That is, you are going against Reason or ignoring her instructions.
And yes, you could force the horse's muzzle into the water - it's just a saying - but you 'ought' not, yes? Becuase there are things we ought to do, and things we ought to believe.
It does matter. Because you need them to be directives for them to require a mind. They are not directives. Therefore they do not require a mind.
In the same way that the law of gravity was still working before Newton discovered it. Even before Plato stated the laws of contradiction and excluded middle, they were still working. Even if Plato had not pointed it out, two contradictory statements still could not be true in the same sense at the same time.
And even if they were directives, it doesn't follow that the mind issuing them is God.
So, they are directives. There are directives of Reason, and no one who knows what they're talking about can deny it. Obviously you can deny it - but in denying it you go against a directive of Reason not to deny it.
And it does follow that they are directives of God, for that's precisely what the argument I presented establishes.
Let's say I'm playing chess. I "ought" to avoid moving my knight, because that can lead to a checkmate. I "ought" to consider other moves that improve my position. Those oughts are prescriptive; they are a consequence of a teleos in my own human mind... the desire to win... and the ways in which the artificial laws of chess unfold on the board. That I ought not move my knight does not require an omniscient mind commanding that this be the case. All it requires is that there is a move by my opponent that can checkmate me if I do so.
Quoting Bartricks
Give an example of an imperative of reason that requires an omnipotent mind.
Are you slow? The. Imperatives. Of. Reason. See argument above.
Quoting InPitzotl
Yes, I know they're prescriptive. If you want to win the game, you have reason to move your knight. That reason is called a 'normative reason'. It's what 'oughtness' is made of.
Now see the rest of my argument to see why a) the existence of normative reasons can't rationally be denied and b) why they entail God's existence.
You saying it doesn't make it so, but even assuming this:
Anyone giving directives on how you should reason becomes omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent by your premises. They don't have to be God. They could just be Plato.
"The laws of reason are directives. So the mind issuing them is omnipotent (since they control how reason works), omniscient (since they determine what classifies as knowledge, this is total BS. Determining what classifies as knowledge doesn't mean you actually know everything) and omnibenevolent (because morality is a matter of logic, apparently, and they control the laws of logic)"
However this doesn't distinguish between God and Plato. Since all the requirements for being omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent stem from the fact that this mind issued the laws of reason. However anyone can issue instructions and call them "laws of reason" and your argument would apply to them too. And the issuer would have the power to change his mind which, by some manner of BS, makes them omnipotent :rofl:
I'm having problems understanding whichever of these things are true:
(a) That "Are you slow? The. Imperatives. Of. Reason. See argument above." is an example of an imperative of reason requiring an omnipotent mind.
(b) Why you bothered to waste my time reading your reply if you're uninterested in a conversation with me.
No, but I have provided you with arguments for thinking them so. So it's you who, rather than addressing or acknowledging the arguments, just persists in insisting that they're not directives.
Quoting khaled
No, that doesn't follow. If I order you to do X, you do not thereby have a reason to do X, right?
So, my instructions are not the instructions of Reason.
Whose instructions are the instructions of Reason? Why, the mind whose instructions they are.
And that mind will, by dint of that fact, be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (see argument above for the explanation).
Another way to make the same point: the mind whose instructions are the instructions of Reason will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (see proof above of that). I am not omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Therefore I am not the mind whose instructions are the instructions of Reason.
Of course you are (see a).
As for b, I have my reasons.
Quoting Bartricks
It seems to me that you've given this some thought. Here's hoping you will approach the matter with sincerity to truth and reason. Whether you will or not, is entirely unknown to me. In any case, in response to your objection:
God can make you commit fallacies. You can't make God commit fallacies. God can't make God commit fallacies. None (including you) can do what God can't do because God is Omnipotent.
You still didn't give an example.
Quoting Bartricks
In the example I gave, a desire not to be checkmated, my understanding of the rules, and my ability to model the consequences of my actions.
Quoting Bartricks
Why did you bother with the thread then?
Ok, then engage with sincerity to truth and reason. I'm not here defend or criticise the bible. I'm here to discuss the semantic of Omnipotence, which both you and I are somehow magically aware of.
Correct, of course.
Quoting Philosopher19
Also correct, of course.
Quoting Philosopher19
Yes he can. I can make me commit fallacies, yes? So God can make God commit fallacies if he so wishes, otherwise I'd have a power that God doesn't have, namely the power to make oneself commit fallacies.
False. You kept restating it. That's all you did. Here were your "arguments":
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
On the other hand I've shown why they are not:
Quoting khaled
Quoting Bartricks
Not right. You, personally, yes. But depending on the person I could have a reason to do X just because they told me to. Like a robber holding a gun out for example.
Quoting Bartricks
It's a terrible explanation.
Being able to control what constitutes as reason doesn't make you omnipotent. You handwaved it as "This mind is not bound by the laws of reason so it can do anything". Idiots have minds not bound by the laws of reason. They can't lift planes all of a sudden.
Omniscience does not follow from being able to determine what beliefs count as knowledge. You handwaved it as "has power over all knowledge" but all you actually showed is that the mind who dictates the laws of reason can figure out if a belief counts as knowledge or not. That is not omniscience.
Quoting Bartricks
First premise is false.
Precisely my point. You can make YOU commit fallacies. Your power is "you can make YOU commit fallacies". Your power is not "you can make GOD commit fallacies" is it?
Do we agree on the above?
Yes, I know - it's an example from Judith Jarvis Thomson, I think - and I addressed it.
I have my own reasons for bothering with the thread, one of which is that there is always the chance someone will come up with a telling objection.
So, 'one has the power to make oneself commit fallacies'. That's true of me - I have that power. And as I cannot have more powers than those of an omnipotent being, then an omnipotent being also has that power - he can say truly, as truly as I can, that "one has the power to make oneself commit fallacies'. Yes?
Which is why God is Perfect and Omnipotent. It Handles ALL affairs. You cannot will anything except if it is also Willed by God. God's power absolute. You're only responsible for your intent (good/evil). The consequences of your actions are entirely out of your hands.
You think the handeye coordination you have to drink a glass of water is being sustained by non-existence (nothingness), or do you think that Existence/God sustains it such that very glass of water you drink, was Willed by God priori to you even intending it.
Perfection = a perfect existence. Which semantically/logically requires everyone to get what they truly deserve, which requires an Omnipresent being (aka Existence) to be Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent towards good, Omnimalevolent towards evil (as well as Infinite, and Infinite existence is better than a finite one). Hence why God necessarily exists.
How can an imperfect existence/being have any idea of what a perfection existence/being is, independently of a perfect being/existence? It cannot.
But God also has the power to make you commit fallacies too. So what power do you have that God doesn't?
Consider prediction. You have the ability to make you predict. God has the ability to make you predict. You cannot make God predict, nor can God make God predict because God is Omniscient. If God gives you knowledge of the future, then God makes it so that God did not make you predict. If God makes you pass out before you can predict, then again, God's Will was that you do not predict. If God Creates you, gives you some knowledge (but not knowledge of the future) and then exposes you to something and you willingly make a predictions, then you have only willed what God Willed you to will.
You cannot will anything except if it is also Willed by God/Existence.
If you think there's reason to think there are no imperatives of Reason, that's because you're just confused. For a 'reason to think' something is a 'normative resaon' - that is, it is itself an instruction of Reason. And my argument only requires that there be some.
But, you know, if you want to just ignore arguments and insist that I am just asserting things, that's fine. I mean, in making an argument I am asserting things, the thing to consider is whether the assertions are correct. And in my case, they are.
Anyway, I don't see anything in the rest of what you said that merits any further wasting of finger energy on this keyboard.
But if we apply your reasoning, it would go like this: I can kill myself and get someone to turn me into ashes. God Can Kill Itself and Get someone to turn It into ashes too, because anything I can do, God Can do too.
Yes, anything you can do, by definition God Can Do too. But you've got this backwards in one aspect.
God is Omnipresent. God IS Existence. Existence cannot cease to exist. Neither you nor God can make this happen. You can cease to be you. You cannot will yourself to cease to exist without God Willing It. Nothing you do is independently of the Will of God (hence Omnipotence). But God Does what is independently of your will. Existence/God can Make you cease to exist. It cannot Make Itself cease to exist. Consider having a read of this:
https://philosophyneedsgod.wordpress.com/why-it-is-absurd-for-existences-gods-attributes-to-be-paradoxical-absurd/
Skip the first two paragraphs to jump straight into Omnipotence. I sincerely believe it addresses your point in a comprehensive manner.
I can destroy myself. If God can't destroy himself, then I'd have a power God lacks. I don't, because God can do anything and so anything I can do, God can do too.
I suggest that you heed your own request and Quoting Philosopher19
Is God Omnipresent?
Look, this is about omnipotence and what it involves. It involves being able to do anything. Those who think it involves less than this need to provide non-question begging arguments for this - which is going to be somewhat hard, because all they're going to be able to do is point to ways in which being able to do anything would involve being able to do things that flout the laws of logic. Which is, of course, something that someone who can do anything can do.
I agree that the is no 'god' or human that can alter the nature of Existence. I'm not sure if this is the same as saying the laws of the universe cannot change.
The reason I asked you that question was because semantically, Omnipotence is impossible without Omnipresence. Only God/Existence IS Omnipresent. For you to claim God Can Make Itself Cease to exist, is for you to claim something can go into nothing, or that Existence can become non-existence.
Think about it, you turn to ashes, those ashes turn to something else perhaps. They do not become or turn to nothing. Existence/God cannot cease to exist. Consider being open minded regarding this issue. You seem firm in your belief, but your belief is semantically inconsistent.
Might this not be an argument from ignorance? In our experience, the laws of reason are associated with minds, namely, our own minds, which are what detects such laws. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are the product of a mind; it might simply be the case that what we interpret as ‘reason’ is a general characteristic or attribute of the Universe which we then depict anthropomorphically as ‘a being’ by way of projection.
I’m not saying this out of hostility towards theistic arguments, I’m just interested in exploring the alternatives.
Quoting Gus Lamarch
That is not a co-incidence - the early, Greek-speaking theologians, like Origen and Clement of Alexandria, adopted Neoplatonism as their philosophical framework. Not that this makes them wrong, but it’s of note that Plotinus didn’t see the requirement to name the One ‘God’. It was the theologiizing Christians who presumed that this is what Plotinus must have been referring to.
But yes, God can do anything so God can make himself disappear. That is, he can make something become nothing. Impressive, huh?
How do you think God would feel about people who keep insisting he can't do things?
That was not my argument. I did not argue that as our minds detect the imperatives of Reason, therefore the imperatives of Reason depend on a mind to issue them. That would clearly not follow.
My argument was that imperatives require a mind to issue them. That's self-evident to our reason.
My example: imagine I'm a bot. Or imagine that hail stones are hitting this keyboard and by purest coincidence they are causing these words to appear. In other words, imagine that no mind lies behind these words (or 'words'). Well, are we having a conversation? No. Is this "give me your money!" an order? No, of course not. Why? Because no mind is behind it.
So, the reason why imperatives of Reason must be imperatives of a mind has nothing to do with the fact minds detect such imperatives, and everything to do with the fact that minds have a monopoly on issuing imperatives.
It is not an argument from ignorance, then, but an argument that appeals to a self-evident truth of reason - one whose truth most would happily acknowledge in other contexts.
How do you/we know this?
So "God" is merely an abstract object (e.g. number, idea, concept, etc)?
I plead ignorance in this discussion. Would you kindly list the "laws of Reason". If this list is too long, perhaps you can supply the top 10?
It doesn’t follow. It is imperative that one doesn’t leap into flames on pain of an awful death. It doesn’t follow that you’re told not to leap into flames, but that doing so is self-evidently dangerous.
As far as moral imperatives are concerned, these don’t need an abstract ‘mind’ to underwrite them. Suppose you believe that all harm you do to others will be returned to you. Then it will be rational not to harm others, without believing this imperative is issued by a mind.
And as for that, moral imperatives do need an imperator because they're imperatives and imperatives require an imperator. But you know, deny it if you want. (And it isn't an 'abstract mind' - what on earth is one of those?? - but 'a mind'; and it doesn't 'underwrite it' but is the 'source of it').
To be 'rational' is to be following reason - yes? Following Reason's imperatives.
Either God is Omnipresent, or 'god' is not Omnipotent. You cannot be Omnipotent without having reach and access to all of Existence. And you cannot have reach and access to all of Existence, without actually Being Existence.
Quoting Bartricks
If the person has evil intent when he says what he says, then he is in opposition to Perfection/God (which is why I would advise all people to ensure that their intentions are good, and that their sincerity is pure and true to God/Perfection (a perfect existence)).
How do you think God Feels about your above question? Love/Like/Neutral/Dislike/Hatred?
With all due respect, what you describe is as meaningless as married bachelors. Perhaps when you use the word nothing, you mean something other than 'non-existence'. I don't know what meaning/semantics you are trying to convey. If by 'nothing' you mean non-existence (as in I can turn to ashes and then God can turn those into pure nothingness), then AND ONLY THEN:
What you say is not impressive. It is semantically inconsistent. One cannot be impressed by that which is contradictory. If I said I was impressed, I'd be pretending. If I sought to worship God via this, i'd be pretentious and insincere in my worship. How can I be impressed by that which is not understandable? Only when I understand something can I be impressed by it. I will not pretend to understand or worship that which is not understandable me.
Peace.
I’m an admirer of ‘the argument from reason’ but I tackle it in a different way to the way you go about it. It seems to me that your fundamental premise begs the question i.e. it assumes what it sets out to prove. Your initial premise is that reason invariably entails an originating intelligence, yet this is also what you’re endeavouring to prove. If you believe it already, then there’s no need to prove it, but if you’re determined not to believe it, then the argument is not going to be persuasive; someone who wishes not to believe it will always find a way to justify themselves.
To put it another way, you can't accuse an argument of begging the question just if its premises entail its conclusion, for that would make all valid arguments question begging and thus would render the charge vacuous.
My first premise says
Quoting Bartricks
Subsequent premises - each independently supported - entail that the mind in question exists and is God. So it certainly doesn't beg the question.
I also provided an argument in support of it. First, imperatives of Reason, norms of Reason, call them what you will, are imperatives - directives, instructions, prescriptions. That's why they're called 'imperatives' and why they're called 'norms' and why the word 'reason' that can sometimes be used as a substitute for them is called a 'normative' reason. That isn't controversial.
Then there's my claim that imperatives need a mind to issue them. That's a self-evident truth. It's hard to argue for a claim as self-evidently true as that one, for one almost invariably ends up appealing to other claims that are less self-evidently true than the claim one is trying to argue for (which is why Aristotle advised against it). But I illustrated its self-evidence by pointing out that if I was discovered to be a bot, none of this would be a real communication, precisely because these words would not be expressing the desires or thoughts of a mind.
So, my first premise does not beg any questions. Its truth is entailed by truths that are beyond dispute. And, in conjunction with the other premises - which have the same status, I think - it entails that God exists.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's false. I believe in God on the basis of the argument. I didn't believe in God before I reflected on the argument. I did afterwards, and I did precisely because I could not find any grounds for a reasonable doubt about any of its premises.
Those who think arguments are impotent to persuade people reveal, I think, something about themselves: namely that it is they themselves who have decided what's true in advance and are not interested in following Reason unless Reason tells them what they want to hear. They then tar everyone else with the same brush so that they do not have to feel too guilty about their self-indulgence. But we're not all like that.
But anyway, the fact is it is also irrelevant. A proof is a proof. It doesn't have to persuade. What's persuasive to people is a function of the psychologies of people, not a function of what's true.
Why the upper case R - it is to indicate that it is now being used to refer to the source of the imperatives, including the source of all reasons to do and believe things (the latter having a lower case r)
That's not what I think. What I think is that the laws of reason are not imperatives. They are not commands. In the same way that the law of gravity is not a command. It did not need to be issued to rocks in order to function. It is just an attempt at a description of how the world works. And so are the laws of reason. Even without any formalization or statement of the law of non-contradiction, you still cannot have two contradictory propositions be true in the same sense at the same time.
However "follow the laws of reason" is an imperative. Not issued by God though. Just issued by people. And often not followed.
Quoting Bartricks
If you think you made an argument for why the laws of reason (things such as excluded middle) are imperatives then quote it and I'll show you why it doesn't work.
>>>Core to the argument: If a given belief/theory is semantically inconsistent (as in it is hypothetically impossible for it be true) then it must be rejected.<<<
according to your limited understanding perhaps.
>>>1) Existence being infinite accounts for why all semantics are meaningful.<<<
huh? how why what?
>>>2) Round squares, married bachelors, non-existence existing, sitting and standing at the same time, these are all hypothetical impossibilities. <<<
not necessarily example being we can all stand around the square before going in the pub,
you can stand for what's morally right while sitting in a meeting, you can be married to the thought of being a Bachelor for the rest of your life.
>>>3) If something is hypothetically impossible, then it is not meaningful or understandable. <<<
ever heard of the term religion?.
.
>>>4) Given 3, If something is meaningful or understandable, then it is certainly not hypothetically impossible. To reiterate: ALL hypothetical impossibilities are meaningless and not understandable.<<<
I'm not sure why you're so confident about that?
>>>5) Perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of. There is nothing better than a perfect existence. If existence is imperfect, then perfection (a perfect existence) is hypothetically impossible.<<<
only if you are correct on your hypothesis#4 but you could be wrong.
>>>6) If perfection is hypothetically impossible, then it should be meaningless and not understandable (see 4). Again, ALL hypothetical impossibilities are meaningless and not understandable.<<<
can you show me this perfect? I've never seen one so I'm not sure it exists have you seen one?
>>>7) Perfection is meaningful/understandable, therefore, perfection is not a hypothetical impossibility.<<<
and what was it that you found to be perfect I would like to observe it
>>>8 ) If Existence is perfect, then perfection is not hypothetically impossible. If Existence is imperfect, then perfection is hypothetically impossible. We understand perfection, therefore, perfection is not hypothetically impossible. Therefore, Existence is perfect.<<<
do we understand Perfection? Please give me the guidelines for what Perfection is.
>>>Existence is perfect is the same as saying God exists. This is because a perfect existence logically entails that everyone gets what they truly deserve (it would be imperfect otherwise). This logically requires the omnipresent (Existence) to be omnipotent and omniscient. It logically requires: Existence = God (pantheism)<<<
you've obviously been shielded from reality by your parents because I can tell mommy and daddy have protected you from the unfortunates of life.
You're just going to have to deny that there are imperatives of Reason. You're going to have to deny that normative reasons exist. And that's fine - deny away. The view is one for which, by the nature of the beast, you cannot defend, for either you think there's reason to believe it is true - in which case norms of reason exist - or you think there's no reason to think it is true, but think it is true anyway (in which case you're irrational).
As to your unargued for assertion that we ourselves are the source of any and all imperatives that there may be - well, my argument proves that to be false, for if you were the source of the imperatives of Reason, then you'd be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, which you're clearly not.
Quoting Bartricks
Why doesn’t this apply to ‘the truths of reason’ which you here say are ‘imperative’?
The imperatives of Reason are demonstrably imperatives of a person, God (as my argument demonstrates). That person is omnipotent precisely because it is up to this person - to God - what the imperatives are. And so that means that no truth about what the imperatives are is a necessary truth.
So God is not bound by the imperatives of Reason, because they're God's imperatives. And no truth about those imperatives is necessary.
What is true will itself be under God's control, for when will all reasonable people be satisfied that a proposition is true and that all that has been done has been done to establish its truth? Well, when it is manifest to their reason that Reason desires them to believe it is true for its own sake. For evidence that a proposition is true itself consists in a proposition being one that Reason directs us to believe for the sake of it.
If all reasonable people will be satisfied that a proposition is true when it is clear to them all that Reason directs them to believe it, then that itself constitutes our best evidence that truth itself is that property: that is, 'what it is' for a proposition to be true is for God to want us to believe it for its own sake.
Thus once more we can see that there will be no necessary truths, for truth itself is now a function of God's will.
But then, according to you, God can arbitrarily designate what is reasonable and what is not. If there are no necessary truths, then nothing can be true ‘for its own sake’. A proposition can only be true according to God’s will. Yet somehow this can be discerned through reason.
There are laws of reason. There is no such thing as imperatives of reason (unless by that you mean “imperatives to follow the laws of reason”). Because as I say for the 3rd time and you refuse to address: You still could not have had two contradictory propositions be true at the same time in the same sense EVEN IF no one commanded this to be the case. In the same way that objects close to the ground will accelerate at 9.81 m/s^2 regardless of whether or not Newton discovered the laws of motion. And no one is commanding the objects to move as such.
Do you think the law of gravity is an imperative?
Quoting Bartricks
You’ve argued alright. But the arguments were terrible. And I can show you why they’re terrible if you quote one.
Quoting Bartricks
False. I’m just going to have to deny that God gives them.
Quoting Bartricks
Yup. God isn’t their source though. A desire to not look like an idiot is reason enough to believe the laws of reason, you don’t need God for that.
Quoting Bartricks
Your argument would show that indeed. Because there argument is fallacious. So it leads to a fallacious conclusion. Its first premise is false. It fails to show omnipotence follows. And it completely flops on omniscience. I can talk about those in detail but first I want to attack the first premise.
Why can't it be our minds "...whose laws are the laws of Reason"? Why does it have to be God's mind?
No. The upshot is that God exists. That's what the argument demonstrates. Does that mean that no reasonable person could disagree with me? No. There are all manner of ways in which a reasonable person might, while remaining reasonable, disagree with me. The evidence is that God exists, but it isn't always reasonable to follow the evidence, and the evidence isn't always well understood.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, not 'arbitrarily'. For something to be 'arbitrary' is for it to be 'without reason'. So God does not designate arbitrarily, for God's will constitutively determines what is and isn't arbitrary.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes. Describing my position in a scornful tone does not constitute a refutation of it.
It doesn't 'have to be' God's mind. It 'is' God's mind. Why? Because the mind whose imperatives are imperatives of Reason will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (see argument in the OP for why that would be). God is in the conclusion, not the premises.
Now, are you omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent? No. So you are not the mind whose imperatives are imperatives of Reason. And that goes for me too, and for all minds bar one - the one whose imperatives 'are' the imperatives of Reason.
But certainly, the way most of you argue I can see that most of you do indeed consider yourselves to be the minds of Reason, for most of you seem to think that if you think something is so, then it must be! So most of you here do seem to think of yourselves as arbiters of truth. You're not though. Thank goodness!
Are you saying that there has to be an actual perfect existence that has existed or will exist at some point in time or does there only have to be a perfect existence that could theoretically exist but one that will never actually exist? In addition, wouldn’t a perfect universe be better than a perfect existence? I’m not understanding why you think that there’s nothing better than a perfect existence.
Quoting Philosopher19
I don’t think that a perfect existence logically entails that everyone gets what they deserve because I don’t think anybody deserves anything or fails to deserve anything. When we say that someone deserves something, I think we are simply predicating this assertion on our feelings. I don’t see how there is any intellectual content to the claim that someone deserves something else. For example, if someone says that some Billy Bob deserves to be treated better by society then I think that’s about as intellectually meaningless as saying that ice cream deserves to be eaten. Given this, I think a better account of a perfect existence is that it is one that contains zero suffering and an infinite amount of pleasure. That hypothetical perfect existence could exist by some other force that is not God like karma or some crazy black hole in the universe that will make anyone that it sucks in have that perfect existence. Speaking of which, even if you’re not convinced by my initial claim that deserved-ness is predicated purely on emotion, why couldn’t there be a magical black hole that upon sucking one particular person inside gives that person a perfect existence where they get what they deserve? Why does it have to be a god specifically?
I recall making a similar argument a long time ago. If one is a master logician, all knowledge would be one's (omniscient), and given that knowledge is power, one would also be all-powerful (omnipotent). What I couldn't do, unfortunately, was establish a necessary connection between logic and ombinevolence except if one approaches the matter from a Kantian perspective.
My question though isn't about the relationship between reason/logic and the omni-attributes (I concur with you on that). My question is how reason implies the existence of god? Reason is a contingent property of minds and before we discuss properties of god's mind, we need to first prove god's existence. Basically, you can go from dog to brown dog but not from brown to brown dog. You've put the cart before the horse.
If they're 'God' Threads can you also put them into the Philosophy of Religion section. The ability to keep (subjectively) crap off the front page is a really nice feature.
Thanks!
We can do this? How?
Go to 'categories', select your chosen brand of nonsense (Philosophy of Religion, for example), scroll right to the bottom of the list of posts there's an icon of an eye, Tap that and a line will appear through it. Never again will your front page be blighted.
Unfortunately, there's no category for messianic epiphany so we just have to put up with those.
Critical is not scornful.
And thereby constitutes necessary truths.
The imperatives of Reason are imperatives and thus require a mind to issue them.
Hence this premise is true:
1. If there are imperatives of Reason, there is a mind who is issuing them.
And as the imperatives of Reason exist beyond all doubt, this premise is also true:
2. There are imperatives of Reason.
From which it follows
3. There exists a mind who is issuing the imperatives of Reason.
And that mind will have the properties of omnipotence, omniscience and omni benevolence. Thus it will be God.
You are no doubt conflating arbitrary with 'capable of change'.
:rofl: I'll take your word for it. :up:
Quoting Bartricks
This premise is shaky. It needs to be proved which you haven't.
I still don’t see what makes things like the law of non contradiction an imperative. You two seem to, if not agree, at least understand what that means. I don’t. So could you help me understand?
Seems to me like the law of non contradiction is like the laws of motion. No one needs to issue it for it to function behind the scenes. 2 contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, regardless of if anyone notices this to be the case. And no one issued a command to all propositions to work this way either.
It’s not an absolute - dialetheism shows there are contexts in which contradictory statements can both be true. But in normal discourse something can’t be both true and false (a and not a) at the same time. If we don’t have such rules of thought then nothing anchors meaning. It’s a logical imperative.
Example?
It’s not beside the point in the sense that you are defining a “person” But then let’s remove all the limiting factors of human nature/ the conditions of personhood and then call it an “all powerful person”. How do we still call it a person in this case? You have the idea of a superhuman or superhero in mind. But one could equally argue them as alien to the human condition. A human cannot live forever nor exert ultimate force upon the universe. That is understood when we use the word human - a human; dies, is of a certain spectrum of intelligence and influence, has a reasonably consistent genetic code that only permits certain phenotypical traits. If a chimp and I share more than 99% of our components with each other... this god human is surely more distant in relation to what we decribe as human.
Supposing this “human” can be anywhere or do anything at any time why would it choose to be defined as simply “human”. Why ought it to statistically choose to be this one specific animal on this specific planet living a human life. It doesn’t make much sense in being productive. What’s much more Probable is that it interacts with itself and therefore must be all humans as well as the reality we occupy.
It’s like saying can there ever be a human that is actually a box that heats up and has the ability to cook any food and can be put in the kitchen. Yes there is ... it’s called an oven. The parameters of existence have changed so too must the definition.
So no I don’t believe there can be an all powerful god like human... there can only be the state of mind that one is god, or that others believe they are god, or that they understand reality so well that they could appreciate god (if it exists) better than the vast majority of other people and can teach in human examples of how this god is - like the prophets supposedly did.
My reasoning behind pointing to consciousness is that perhaps the mind or sentience that we have as humans is shared amongst a much larger set of things than we generally assume and that maybe this conscious entity in its entirety meets the omni-abilities of a god. That would mean we are a Technically a part of god, we can understand god to a degree but we as a human are not all of god and all of his /Hers /its properties.
Maybe in death we return to this base property. The largest consciousness. But who is to say?
I don’t see how these two follow from your or bartricks’ arguments either could you explain?
Being a master logician would mean that you can tell, given premises, whether or not the conclusion is valid, not that you know everything.
Similarly, “knowledge is power” is hand waving. An omniscient person still couldn’t lift an airplane. If omniscience really did lead to omnipotence then "omnipotence" would be obsolete as an attribute of God and wouldn't have been mentioned.
Equal amount of good and bad in everything.
Has any human concept fostered more compassion and more suffering on this planet than God?
I'm sorry good sir, but you're argument is fundamentally flawed. The claim that God is omnipotent is certainly affirmed by classical theist of course, and they do believe it to have good foundation. However, we must distinguish between two very different perceptions of what God's omnipotence entails; on the one hand, there is the interpretation of the Thomist, which is that omnipotence is the power to exercise any given set of actions so long as they hold intelligibility - i.e whatever is logically possible. This follows from the idea that the divine will follows the intellect. The other interpretation is one pedaled by William of Ockham, a voluntarist, who forwarded the claim that God's omnipotence entails that all may be willed and accomplished, regardless of whether or not it is in any way intelligible. This followed from his idea that the divine intellect follows the will, and so what is willed is what is ultimately the foundation of reality, and thus the intellect conforms to the will to mark things as "intelligible".
Of course, many egregious implications are opened the moment this idea is accepted; for example, because there is not any law of logic or intelligibility that reality need conform to except for what God wills, propositions such as 2+2=6, although contradictive and incohesive, may become an accurate manner by which to conduct mathematics given that God wills it. The law of noncontradiction would of course be heavily violated, and as such undermine whatever argument William may have forwarded to bring him to voluntarism, but nonetheless it seems as if his ideas have spread further than it should, as this post seems to show.
(And I'd like to emphasize this point for present purposes. As to forward the idea of any entity or reality that can exercise the power to bring about self contridictory state of affairs would itself rely on consistency, cohesivness, intelligibility in order to be forwarded. However, that these things can be undermined results in the idea or argument which leads to such a conclusion to be defeated, as what supports the theisis that reason can reveal any truth if reality maybe unintelligible and thus "outside" the scope of reason? Indeed, any justification through rationality would itself beg the question. Of course, the only option left then is to reject the premise that leads to such result, for there is no gain for either Ockhamist, nor Scotist, nor Cartesion or even atheist in entertaining this idea, except of course the most extreme of skepticisms).
For given that you are arguing against the God of Ockham, of course these objections of "can God make a rock he can't lift" seem quite devastating - at least until you realize that Ockham would merely assert that God is not subordinate to logical cohesiveness (and not trivially but as a result of the very premise which brings us to this objection). But to a Thomist, or any one who takes the classical interpretation of God seriously, these objections are silly and can be answered quite easily: you simply do not understand omnipotence.
Omnipotence entails that what ever is intelligibly possible may be willed to occur. And as such, no, God cannot make a boulder that he can't lift because that is an unintelligible conception; it is not logically possible for actus purus (pure actuality) to be undermined in some capacity by what is a composite of potency and act. Nor can God will that a four sided triangle exist, or that the internal angles of a triangle be any more or less than 180 degrees in Euclidean space. And no, that does not mean that God is thus limited by some principle above him such as logic and thus is not highest being (which is also an absurd proposition, as highest being cannot be actus purus, only being itself can be). Instead, it is to say that the divine intellect, which is God, is first before the divine will, which is God, and as such God only acts in accordance with his intellect, which, as all perfect intellectual activities must be, is cohesive and noncontradictive.
(Again, I need to emphasize on this point in particular for the sake of the conversation. For, to be omnipotent is to be all powerful -i.e to have all the power - so to lack a power is to lack omnipotence. However, there simply cannot be a power which can bring forth contradictory state of affairs, as not only would such a power be completely incoherent and contradictory, any argumentation towards such an end would also be incoherent and self undermining, as shown above. Self contridictory state of affairs are inconceivable to the intellect and mental images not because they are beyond reason, but precisely because they are ludicrous and self defeating as it undermines any principle of sepetation between being (is and could) and nonbeing (isn't and couldn't), as what is self defeating yet exists is both in being and nonbeing. A more fundamental absurdity cannot be found, of course. As such, of course what is pure actuality - pure being itself - cannot bring forth nonbeing. Nor can anything do so, for that would require an existence - being - to be beyond being - but nothing can transcend being itself, as nothing is outside of being but nonbeing, and of course nonbeing cannot result in being. As such, pure being, God, cannot produce contridictory state of affairs, nor can anything be said to do so coherently to show something "above God". This is not because of some inherent flaw in omnipotence, but merely Ockhamist omnipotence. As such, because bringing self contridictory state of affairs is not a power for it cannot hold being, it does not participate in omnipotence and thus is not in God).
Thus, you're argument rests on more than a little questionable of a premise.
(Further, as for God's inability to reason badly, you have it all wrong. That is nearly the equivalent of saying "God cannot make himself not all powerful, which he should be able to do if hes all powerful, therefore God isnt all powerful". The theist can easily respond "no, to not be all powerful or to have bad reasoning are clearly deprivations of a power, not an "extra" power omnipotence doesn't hold. So for God to be able to do such things is to bring him down to imperfection. Such is, of course, a blatant inconsistency with God's pure actus essence; as such of course he can't and won't do these things."
As such, good sir, I believe your reasoning to be flawed and your conclusions incorrect.
You're not wrong. Bartrick's reasoning is flawed and his conclusions incorrect. I would go further still, but shall refrain - and instead thank you for your post. It was a pleasure to read. In its own terms, the logic seems irrefutable:
Quoting Questio
Yet I disagree, because the omnibenevolence of God is not considered.
Presumably, by the term "God" we are speaking of the Creator of the Heaven and the earth, and not just some random omnipient hanging out in no-space. Indeed, there needs to be a Creation for Him to be benevolent toward. One cannot be good or bad alone.
All that so, God's omnipotence is hampered by his omniscience and benevolence. Any intervention in the Creation must necessarily have consequences, that at some remove are inconsistent with His perfect benevolence - and He would know any action would lead to consequences, that lead to consequences, that lead to consequences that are bad, because he's omniscient. Thus, God is impotent as a consequence of His own nature.
There will not be more than one omnipotent being. This is because otherwise one could frustrate the other and thus neither would truly be omnipotent.
Then look up Dunning and Kruger and then ask yourself why you might be finding everything I say a bit nonsensical.
:lol:
So what you're saying is this:
People can have semantically inconsistent beliefs. People should accept semantically inconsistent beliefs/theories.
You've got this very wrong.
Does an omnipotent being exist? Yes. Our reason reveals this when properly used.
And that omnipotent being can do anything at all - anything - as our reason reveals (including, of course, doing things that reason forbids, for the omnipotent being is the source of that forbidding and thus is not bound by it).
Can the omnipotent being that exists do things that our reason says are impossible - yes. However, that does not mean that our reason ceases to be our guide to what actually exists. For being 'able' to do things is not the same as doing them.
So, though God can make a four sided triangle and a married unmarried man, we know by the light of reason that there are no such things in reality. We know this without even having to inspect the place (God saves us the trouble, by telling us that they 'cannot' exist).
Our reason says that there cannot be more than one omnipotent being, for two beings with equal powers can frustrate and destroy each other (so their powers operate as limits on each other). Thus there is only one omnipotent being.
That omnipotent being could, if he so wished, create another omnipotent being (perhaps this was what you were getting at), for he can do anything including things that our reason says are impossible (as our reason itself tell us).
But is there more than one omnipotent being? No, there is just the one. And we can know this as certainly as we can know anything.
I don't see that you've said anything to challenge that view. The problem is that you're going to have to beg the question to make a case against me. That is, you're going to have to assume that Reason restricts an omnipotent being before you can show that it does. And that's question begging. So you can go on and on about how making a four sided triangle is not an ability, but your only evidence that this is not an ability is going to be that Reason forbids it (which is not in question).
By contrast, my view begs no questions. It also stands to reason, for it is self-evident to reason that a being who can do X has a power that a being that can't do X lacks.
I'm saying Existence is necessarily at least as real as you and me. So if Existence is necessarily Omnipresent (which It is because it exists everywhere, including in dreams), then something Omnipresent is necessarily at least as real as you and me.
Nothing can become Infinite from a finite state (you cannot count/expand to Infinity), nothing can become perfect from an imperfect state (an imperfect existence cannot become perfect if it wasn't always perfect because it is better to have been always perfect, and perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of), nothing can become Omnipresent from a non-omnipresent state (as in nothing can substitute, or take the place of, or replace Existence).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Our universe is just a part of Existence. Wouldn't it be better if the whole of Existence was perfect rather than just part of it. If only a part of Existence is perfect whilst the rest of it is imperfect, then Existence is not perfect because it can be/exist better.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I agree that we cannot 100% say Jack deserves to be punished because he did y. But this is only because we cannot be 100% sure as to whether Jack's intentions were evil or not. That which is Omniscient will know Jack's intentions. Jack will know his own intentions. Where one intends evil (to harm someone that one believes to not deserve to be harmed against their will and against their best interest...as is the case with rape and tyranny and oppression), then one deserves to be treated that way (to be harmed against his will and against his best interest). I'm saying the unrepentant rapist deserves Hell, because he would forever rape to satisfy himself.
Perfection is perfectly satisfied when unrepentant evil suffers. If this was not the case, then there would be nothing evil about being evil. If I committed evil and Existence was such that I did not suffer a loss of goodness as a result of this (so I did not get a headache, or go to prison, or Hell...depending on how extreme my evil was), then there was nothing evil about me being evil. If evil people wen to heaven and good people went to hell, then that's case of it literally being evil to be good and being good to be evil. That is semantically inconsistent with the semantic of Perfection, Existence, good, and evil.
It's only evil/bad for x to be evil/bad because it leads him to a loss of goodness consequentially (despite it not immediately seeming that way). If it did not lead to this, then one cannot say that it's evil/bad for x to be evil/bad. It's only bad/evil for x to be bad/evil when it's actually bad for him to be this way (as in it's against his best interest). Given the perfection of Existence, it is certainly bad for him to be this way. x knows he is in opposition to a perfect existence (God) when he commits evil. He just doesn't care.
It most certainly does mean that he is limited by something above him. Freight what you say with as much latin as you like, the fact is you think God is limited in what he can do - you think he can't will that a four sided triangle exist. Even I can do that!!
He jolly well can will a four sided triangle to exist, and it with forthwith exist. He's God. He can do anything. If you think 'anything' means 'some things and not others' then you're just profoundly confused.
And you are, of course. The 'divine intellect' is not God. It's God's intellect. My intellect is not me. It's my intellect. And what does "God only acts in accordance with his intellect" mean if not "God does what he does"? And then you just pop in 'noncontradictive' at the bottom, out of nowhere.
That's not a case. It's just a convoluted way of saying "God can't do everything". He can do anything. Why? Because the laws of Reason tell us what is possible and what is not, and those laws are his laws and thus do not bind him.
You are just like the rest and think of God as straightjacketed. That's conceptually confused. It's also, of course, offensive to God - telling everyone that he can't do this and can't do that...the cheek of it!!
Presumably the mirth is a result of you confidently believing that both EricH and yourself are more expert than I on matters philosophical, yes? Yet I'm about as qualified as it gets, whereas from the quality of your posts I doubt either of you has even a BA in philosophy.
Not hardly
Quoting Bartricks
Truly ironic
An omnipotent being exists; therefore, all things an omnipotent being is able to do exist; that is, every possible and impossible thing exists since it can be done by an omnipotent being which exists.
There are two scenarios, either god exists or it does not. God exists. God is an omnipotent being; therefore, all things exist. All things. Not all the possible things, neither all the impossible things, but all things exist if an omnipotent being exists.
To go from 'possible to exist' to 'exists' is quite a leap.
Having a power and exercising it are different. I have all manner of powers I don't exercise.
So, how do you get from God can do X, to God 'has' done X?
In other words, since God can do X, then X cannot not exist.
God would not be all powerful if he 'had' to exist, for then he would lack a power, namely the power to take himself out of existence.
It is absurd to suppose that an all powerful being would lack powers that we have. We can take ourselves out of existence if we so choose. So too, then, can God. Rational reflection shows this: doesn't your reason confirm that it is contradictory to suppose that a being who can do anything can nevertheless not do some of the things that you can do? Whatever powers you have, God has too and then some.
Many thanks for the pleasant comment. Those were quite rare in the forum I used to post on, so it is a very welcome change.
As you might anticipate, good sir, I do indeed disagree. But before I address my reasonings for this I might preface by saying that although this particular point you bring up seems incorrect to me, there is another formulation which does indeed seem to follow the same conclusion, and with great reasoning as well. Have you ever heard of the argument from modal collapse?
First, on the topic of God's identity I refrain from calling God merely a creator, or a person with a set of awesome attributes, or any description that lies between these two or beyond as they bring forth into the conversation theistic personalism or neo-theism as its been called. This is problematic as things such as change, time, emotions, and many other features which I firmly believe are not in God are presupposed in many instances, which lead to a number of problems. Instead, as a Thomistic Aristotlean, I instead affirm classical theisms definition of God as being *actus purus* or pure actuality itself, being ultimately simple, ultimately powerful, and ultimately necessary.
Second, as I've claimed in my last post, to be omnipotent is not to have the power to do anything (which I hope to have demonstrated was absurd) but rather to do whatever is intelligible. As such, nothing can bring forth a four sided triangle, a married bachelor, or move pure actuality; all of these things are unintelligible conceptions. Now, within God there is no real divisions; as such God's omnipotence IS his omnibenevolence which IS his omnipresence which IS his intellect which finally IS his will, which IS pure actuality. Now, because what is perfect in every manner, such as pure actuality, cannot, without being marked with unintelligiblility, move or act in accordance with imperfection, he thus cannot do a lot of what men can do.
However, this is not out of any lack of ability, but rather because any imperfection or wrong or anything of the sort (such as wrong reasoning) is always (in Thomistic thought) a deprivation of what is perfect, good, and so forth; to be doing such things isn't a positive gain but a negative loss. But it follows that there is, from this deprivation, the possibility of having such a thing. Thus, to do what is imperfect aligns with potential being, while to have is in alignment with actual being.
Now, as for Bartricks, I will address your response in time tomorrow as Im at work now. I find your puzzles absurd yet interesting :)
How am I supposed to engage in a meaningful discussion with someone who believes the following is wrong:
>>>Core to the argument: If a given belief/theory is semantically inconsistent (as in it is hypothetically impossible for it be true) then it must be rejected.<<<
If x is semantically consistent, then that means it means something that is contradictory. For example, x = round square. x is a semantically phrase.
So in response to the above, you said:
Again, how can I reason with someone who believes it to be meaningful to have a belief/theory that is semantically inconsistent. I cannot.
As a human. I can’t imagine how either of those things could be done, but who am I to judge those whom believe it is possible?
Well, existence is an abstract concept so I don’t understand how it could exist like us if we are concrete entities. If existence doesn’t exist in a spatiotemporal sense then I don’t see how it even makes sense to even refer to it as being omnipresent.
Quoting Philosopher19
How can the universe be part of existence if existence doesn’t exist in space and time? I can understand that we can say that the universe has a relationship with the abstract concept of existence because it exists and it contains things that exist. But, I don’t see how a concrete entity like the universe can be part of an abstract concept like existence. Are you saying that existence is some kind of a concrete entity?
Quoting Philosopher19
I think we can reasonably define being evil as simply harming others for no moral acceptable reason. We can also propose an alternative definition for evil as behaving in such a way as to elicit moral disgust. These definitions of evil do not imply that evil people deserve to be punished and thus I do not understand why evil people going unpunished necessitates imperfection in any way. On another note, there are plenty of consequentialist philosophers who believe that punishing evil people is only justified if it creates a deterrent against evil or if it prevents vigilante justice from the victims of an evil person’s actions. Additionally, many free will skeptics believe that some people are evil and yet we are not justified for punishing them because they didn’t choose to be evil. I don’t see why those alternative viewpoints are inferior to your viewpoint on this topic to be honest.
Quoting Philosopher19
So, if someone can completely get away with rape then rape wouldn’t be evil in any way whatsoever? Doesn’t this just imply that we only have reason to act in our ultimate self-interest and wouldn’t this defeat the whole purpose of morality to begin with?
Enjoy it while it lasts! I like to start from a place of good will and fine manners - but have found that as a discussion becomes an argument, it becomes a matter of battling ego monsters - and the gloves come off, good Sir! I'm new to theological logic chopping, but not new to logical implication. It would help if you could define terms - like modal collapse, divine simplicity or actus purus as they come up.
Quoting Questio
So we're using your concept of God, and not the one set out in the opening post on page one? Probably for the best. At least I might learn something from using your definition! It will be interesting to see how my argument does against your definition - my argument being, basically, that God is like a giant in the middle of town and if He moves, He stomps on the little people.
Quoting Questio
I entirely accept logical intelligibility as not imposing a limit on God's omnipotence. Round triangles are a contradiction in terms, and the contradiction would be mine, not God's. You'll get no demands for rocks too big to lift from me!
Quoting Questio
Is actus purus the same as the doctrine of divine simplicity? Because, from what little I've read - that idea of God suffers from the Modal Collapse argument you mentioned earlier - wherein, from the necessity of His existence - and the uniformity of His being with the act of Creation, everything becomes absolutely necessary. I assume this is problematic because it denies the existence of free will and moral choice?
Quoting Questio
Fine! Can't scratch an itch you ain't got!
Quoting Questio
Okay, you've done much to define the terms of discussion - for which you have my thanks, but it doesn't address my argument. My argument is that God can't do anything - at all, because he is both omniscient and benevolent. I'll try to illustrate. In Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder" - a time traveller goes back in time, to the Pleistocene, steps on a butterfly, and the future is dramatically changed on his return. It's where the term "butterfly effect" comes from.
Now imagine an omnipotent God considering intervening in His Creation. He would intervene for the good - because He is good, but there would be a butterfly effect of implication that rolls down the years and must, necessarily, eventually entail a moral evil that would not have occurred but for His intervention. God would know this because He is omniscient. Thus, an omniscient and benevolent God cannot act - at all!
Well, it doesn't show.
Firstly, being perfectly logical implies that no fallacies are committed. A mind free of fallacies never makes mistakes i.e. the art of gaining knowledge would reach its zenith. That being the case, omnipotence is just around the corner.
Secondly, omniscience implies knowledge of how to produce a desired effect and that's just another way of saying that with omniscience one can become omnipotent.
Just around the corner is vastly different from omniscience. No amount of infallibility will allow you to deduce the current population of earth for example. Or what I’m thinking of right now. You need premises and an established body of empirical observations for an infallible logician to be useful in the least. Which is, again, vastly different from an omniscient person who would know exactly what I’m thinking of right now without requiring any extra data (because omniscience is precisely possessing all the data there is and will be)
Quoting TheMadFool
False. Some effects could be impossible to produce in practice but not in theory. For example: reducing entropy. It is technically possible for every atom in the room you’re in right now to move in such a way so as to go to a corner and become a lattice and you would suffocate. But the chances of that are astronomically small. And there is no way to artificially produce that effect without increasing entropy elsewhere.
But an omnipotent person would just be able to command that to happen. An omniscient person would only know that it is extremely unlikely, and that there is no artificial way to produce it and so would not be able to produce it or hope for it.
Or a simple example: A perfect logician cannot bicep curl an airplane when asked to and given no prep time. A God can.
An even simpler argument for why omniscience doesn’t lead to omnipotence is if it did then omnipotence would be obsolete. It’s like saying “Khaled is a being with brown eyes, who also has eyes”. The latter follows from the former and so requires no mention.
That’s not the dunning Kruger effect. People can recognize experts just fine. Because most experts can put what they’re saying in sensical terms and don’t resort to ad homs when someone critiques their position. You’ve demonstrably not done either of those things. So that’s why people don’t recognize you as an expert. I find it hard to believe despite your claims about being qualified.
If you can't imagine it, then why believe in it or assert it as possible??
Damn straight it can't!
Your objection brings to mind a Buddhist story. A great competition was held between clairvoyants and logicians. The challenge was to determine the color of an unborn calf. The clairvoyant went first, closed his eyes and became aware of the unborn calf's forehead, it was white and so he declared "the unborn calf has a white forehead". It was now the turn of the logician. He knew that unborn calves in a fetal position would have their tails curled up with the end resting on the forehead [assume this is true] and realized that the unborn calf's forehead wasn't white but its tail was and announced "no, the unborn calf's head isn't white but its tail is". They waited for the pregnant cow to give birth to the calf; lo and behold out emerged from the cow's womb a sprightly young calf with a white tail, just as the logician had said the calf would be. You may need to make adjustments to the story but not so much as to miss the point of this story.
Quoting khaled
I notice that you have a different idea of omniscience and omnipotence; your take on it is superheroish in a Superman sense - abilities that a being possesses that defy explanation in terms of what is known - but the version of omniscience and omnipotence I subscribe to is also superheroish but in a Batman sense - abilities explicable within the existing framework of knowledge. The situation is very similar to lighting a cigarette with a match or a lighter - the end result is same although the match and the gas lighter are significantly different from each other. That's all I can say.
And that point is? I honestly have no clue.
Quoting TheMadFool
This knowledge is not deducible even to a perfect logician, if he is not given premises it can be deduced from is the point. Which is why a perfect logician is not omniscient.
Quoting TheMadFool
So could your omnipotent God cause entropy to decrease? If he can't even do that (bring about a theoretical possibility but a technical impossibility) then what kind of God even is that? He/She/It wouldn't be able to do any more than a sufficiently rich and intelligent person with a lot of time and resources, and I struggle to call people like that omnipotent Gods.
Never mind.
Quoting khaled
While it's commendable that you're approaching the matter with intellectual rigor, such a strategy is unhelpful to our discussion. I'm being a bit, more than a bit perhaps, loose with the terms I'm employing. If you find that not to your liking, sorry.
Quoting khaled
Time 5,000 BC
X: My idea of god is of a being capable of doing things in ways that defy all natural explanation
Y: As for me, god's omnipotence is a matter of knowing how the universe works and working, as they say, within the system
X: Can your god make flying chariots (planes/helicopters)?
Y: ...
Sounds like a bizarre definition but you do you.
In that case, it again comes down to one's purpose for trying to prove or disprove God's omnipotence.
Can an omnipotent being create another being more omnipotent than itself? If no, then such a being is not omnipotent because there is something that it cannot do.
If yes, then you have an infinite number of omnipotent beings, each of which creates a yet more omnipotent being - and thus there is no omnipotent being.
If you want to claim that this reasoning is invalid because you have defined the word omnipotent in such a way that there cannot be anything more omnipotent, then you are carving out an exception to your position that God is capable of doing everything. But if your version of God can illogically break the very definitions of every other word in the English language (create a square circle), then God your should also be able to break your definition of the word omnipotence. You can't have it both ways.
As many people in this thread have tried pointing out to you, the very notion of omnipotence is inherently illogical. But if you are attempting to use logic/reasoning to prove that logic/reasoning can be broken - then you cannot use logic/reasoning to prove anything - since there is no way of knowing that any such "proof" is truly valid. After all - it could be that there is an evil God who has created the rules of logic to deceive you into believing such things.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Look - I have close friends and relatives who are deeply religious - and I have seen first hand that religion helps people cope with life and provides a great source of comfort. And my religious friends/relatives do not feel the need to justify their beliefs - they just live them.
Religion is deeply and profoundly illogical. That's OK. Life is absurd. But for some reason, there are folks who cannot accept this and instead attempt to use all sorts of bizarre reasoning to "prove" the impossible. People much smarter than you & I have attempted to do this and have failed. Even people who believe in God cannot agree on the most basic definitions of words.
You cannot define things into existence (whatever you mean by existence).
Take a leap of faith.
- - - - - - -
BTW - There's no doubt that you are much more knowledgeable about medieval scholasticism & the history of philosophical thought than I. That in itself does not make your points any more valid.
Now in an attempt to drag this ruined and messy thread back to something philosophical, God exists because imperatives of Reason exist and require an imperator - an imperator who will be God. And that imperator will be able to do anything - including things he forbids - because they're his imperatives.
Which still is not an imperative to join the Roman Catholic Church -- or whichever one.
IOW, the God of philosophers has no practical implications in the real world.
For certainly this is correct! However, I would like you to understand that the weight of my rebuttal was in accusing you of entertaining a self defeating proposition, and were you to bring yourself a defense of such an accusation, it would result in vicious question begging. For as I have said:
Quoting Questio
What we fall into then, of course, is nothing more than a dressed up discussion of whether or not the law of noncontradiction is applicable to reality and truth more broadly. But, as any logician would know, to ever go against the law of contradiction and be challenged on such a thing would either result in the presentation of an argument for the decision or merely reasserting the statement. To do the former of course would only affirm the case of the opposition, however, as it presupposes that coherent and noncontridictive reason may lead to truth, and as such really only leads the ladder response. But in that case, not only do we have no reason to take your point seriously, as no evidence, argumentation, or anything of the sort support your case, but your very own position is self undermining, as to even forward the idea supposes the consistency of its truth and not its contradiction. Either way, you can take this to be sufficient for intense skepticism (and if that be your case, fine by me mate), or you can admit that such a position is untenable and thus accept the law.
Quoting Bartricks
If God is logos (logic if you don't care for latin) then no, he is not limited by a principle above him, but rather he works only in conformity with his being. This follows from the intellects primacy. You might call this limiting if you like (though I would call that a rather misrepresentative, but I suppose thats a moot point), but the fact of the matter is that what I have forwarded does not lead in any way shape or form to the claim you make. The only way you could make such a claim is if you deny that the will follows the intellect, which you are welcome to do, but I have seen none of it thus far. But perhaps you aren't talking about God (as in pure being itself) but instead just a subject or entity which can do everything and is thus "beyond God". In that case I have one question. If it isn't being itself, then is it in nonbeing? Certainly not, I'd suppose, as nonbeing results in nothing. Is it beyond being? But being encompasses all that is, with only nonbeing having exclusion. So what is this entity exactly? Or perhaps you'll claim I am the begging the question by asserting that there must be some logic behind this entity? If that's so you're making a very poor point. For if we can't even know what it is how can we assert that it holds your conception of omnipotence? Or is this merely a claim we must accept? The point being that every one of these assertions really puts you in more trouble than you think, as it merely reinforces the point I made prior, that you are simply rejecting the law of noncontradiction and leading yourself to a self undermining case as a result.
Quoting Bartricks
Then you either don't know what a triangle is or the number four, (or alternatively your undermining everything you say by attempting to present your vision of omnipotence as valid in some manner even at the sacrifice of the very principle of noncontradiction it rests upon).
Quoting Bartricks
Ah, then you clearly don't know what divine simplicity means or is. You see, God is not some anthropomorphic being as many make him out to be. For if he did, and he had parts (a intellect separate from a will separate from his love, etc.) their principle of union would be more fundamental than God himself. And as I'm sure you'd agree (seeing as you don't think God is subject to rationality), its not God unless its ultimately fundamental. As such, God must be without parts, purely simple. That also means that if he has a will and intellect, they must be really indistinguishable and the same, meaning the only way we can talk about such a separation is through logic, or virtual separation as its called. So no, you may not be your intellect or your will, for you aren't supremely simple and you do have a more fundamental principle (many in fact) above. God, however, does have all these attributes in him as the same thing.
Quoting Bartricks
It means he acts perfectly intelligibly, meaning in accordance with right reason and rationality and not contrary to that, as that would be a case of an imperfect intellect.
Quoting Bartricks
Well Bartricks, is nice to know that you take the thoughts of ancient Christian philosophers very seriously and don't instead look to shoehorn a more contemporary protestant fundamentalist's interpretation of God into your philosophy... oh I'm sorry, no. My good friend, it seems as if you have a bad case of thinking yourself superior to two thousand years of Christian theistic thought and reason. Which is fine, I'm okay with that, and encourage it to some extent. Just don't claim me to be a man subverting the traditional idea of God with a much cooler and hip "new" concept, for St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, and St. Anselm would like a word with you.
As for Quoting counterpunch
I am beginning to see such. :lol:
In any case, I will respond to you when time is generous. You raise many good points, and I believe you will find some of the information on divine simplicity and modal collapse interesting.
Doubt it. Still think you’re just spouting nonsense and calling it expertise. Would welcome being proven wrong though.
Quoting Bartricks
As I said, I don’t buy that they’re imperatives. There are certainly imperatives to stick to the laws of reason. But the laws themselves are not imperatives. You claim to have argued that they are, if so quote one of your arguments and I’ll show why it doesn’t work.
To better understand what you mean: Is the law of gravity an imperative? Did someone need to will it?
Quoting Bartricks
I don’t see how being able to decide what the laws of logic are leads to being able to do anything. Because the way I see it, logic is a mental faculty, not something that is in the world itself. Changing the laws of logic to me just means changing how people think, not changing anything about the world.
And I don’t see at all how being the arbiter of these laws makes one omniscient. I’ve explained why to theMadFool.
Quoting khaled
Have I denied the law of non-contradiction? No. I think that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. I believe that as firmly as you do. If you are labouring under the impression that I deny it, then you're confused and you're attacking a straw man.
You are doing what others do. You are confusing having an ability with exercising it. God can create a true proposition that is also false. That doesn't mean he has (although perhaps he has, of course - perhaps "this proposition is false" is one....but let's not get into that as it's beside the point). So, again, in reality no true proposition is also false. You're not more confident about that than I.
Now, if you want to add to the law of non-contradiction the claim that it is 'necessarily' true that no true proposition is also false, then I deny that. For I deny that anything is necessarily true or necessarily existent. And I deny that becuase God exists and God can do anything and thus nothing is necessarily true or necessarily existent.
But denying that the law of non-contradiction is a necessary truth is not the same as denying that it is true, yes? So again: I think no true proposition is also false. I think it is 'possible' for God to bring into being such a proposition, for it is down to God that no true proposition is not also false, and thus up to him whether that continues to be the case. But there's what is the case and what can be the case.
I am begging no questions. You think I am, because you think that if I appeal to reason to establish that God can do anything, then somehow that means that what I prove with reason is bound by reason, yes?
That's just simply false, or at least I can see absolutely no reason to think it is true. That's like thinking that what I can see with my eyes is bound by my eyes, as if my eyes have power over what exists. It's fallacious. I can see lots of things with my eyes and only with my eyes, but that does not mean that my eyes exercise power over what exists.
Similarly then, what I can discover by reason is not thereby bound by reason. I can discover by reason - as can anyone who exercises it as carefully and diligently as I do - that God exists, for I can discover by reason that reason's imperatives are the imperatives of a mind and that the mind in question, by virtue of being the mind whose imperatives are imperatives of Reason, will be able to do anything.
Now, if you think I have not uncovered this by my reason, then you can simply highlight an error in my reasoning below:
"A law of Reason is an imperative or instruction to do or believe something.
But imperatives require an imperator, instructions an instructor. And only a mind can instruct or issue a command. Thus this premise is true:
1. If there are laws of Reason, then there is a mind whose laws they are
It is also not open to reasonable doubt that there are laws of Reason. For if you think there are not, then either you think there is a reason to think there are not - in which case you think there are, for a 'reason to believe' something is an instruction of Reason - or you think there is no reason to think there are laws of Reason yet disbelieve in them anyway, in which case you are irrational. Thus, this premise is true beyond a reasonable doubt too:
2. There are laws of Reason
From which it follows:
3. Therefore, there is a mind whose laws are the laws of Reason
The mind whose instructions and commands constitute the laws of Reason would not be bound by those laws, as they have the power over their content. A mind that is not bound by the laws of Reason is a mind that can do anything at all. Thus, this premise is true:
4. The mind whose laws are the laws of Reason is omnipotent
The mind whose instructions and commands constitute the laws of Reason will also have power over all knowledge, for whether a belief qualifies as known or not is constitutively determined by whether there is a reason to believe it - and that's precisely what this mind determines. Thus:
5. The mind whose laws are the laws of Reason is omniscient
Finally, moral laws are simply a subset of the laws of Reason (the moral law is, as Kant rightly noted, an imperative of Reason). And so the mind whose instructions and commands constitute the laws of Reason will be a mind who determines what's right and wrong, good and bad. As the mind is omnipotent, the mind can reasonably be expected to approve of how he is, for if he were dissatisfied with any aspect of himself, he has the power to change it. And if this mind fully approves of himself, then this mind is fully morally good, for that is just what being morally good consists of being. Thus, this premise is also true beyond all reasonable doubt:
6. The mind whose laws are the laws of Reason is omnibenevolent.
It is a conceptual truth that a mind who exists and is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent 'is' God. Thus:
7. If there exists a mind who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then God exists
From which it follows:
8. Therefore, God exists."
So, I have not begged any questions for I have not assumed that there is a being who can defy Reason, rather I have concluded that there is.
And it is also self-evident to Reason that a being who can defy the imperatives of Reason is more powerful than one who cannot. And thus it is self-evident to reason that the being you describe -a being bound by Reason - is not all powerful and thus not God.
Quoting Questio
I think St Anselm and I would get along like a house on fire. He'd bloody love my proof of God. I mean, it's better than his, isn't it? And in 2900 your future twin will be talking in hallowed terms about St Bartricks and how foolish are those who put themselves above him. I mean, it has quite a ring to it - St Bartricks. I like it.
Yes, so? Again: Dunning Kruger. You think 'they' are the experts, right? After all, they must be becuase you are and you think I'm being illogical, and they all think I'm being illogical - so I must be being illogical. Your test for expertise is "does this person think roughly like me?" That's a good test if you're an expert, but really bad if you're not. And you're not.
Now, given Dunning and Kruger, what would we predict would happen if an expert in philosophy entered a forum populated mainly - perhaps exclusively- by non-experts? We'd predict that the expert would, in no time at all, be considered an idiot, yes? His arguments would be much better than others, and he'd defend them much more ably, but most of those on the site would think his arguments were bad, and that he's defending them badly. Right? Or do you think Dunning and Kruger would predict the opposite?
So, forget other people's assessment of my arguments and focus instead on the arguments themselves. And stop assuming that they're 'illogical' just because you don't quite understand them. That isn't the test of illogicality.
You're arguing very badly. You say this:
Quoting EricH
I've already addressed this point, but I'll do so again. Yes, of course an omnipotent being can create another omnipotent being. He can do anything, so he can do that.
Does it follow from that - as you seem to think - that we'll then have an infinite number of omnipotent being? Er, no.
I have no idea how you reached that conclusion. There's a missing premise. But if I had to guess, I'd say you've confused having the ability to do something with actually doing it.
But being able to do something does not mean one is doing it. The omnipotent being has not created another omnipotent being. He can. He hasn't. He can. He hasn't. He can. He hasn't.
How do I know that? My reason tells me that if there is an omnipotent being, there is only one.
Our reason is our guide to what's what. So, if you want to know what's actually the case, consult your reason. Our reason is also a guide to what powers God actually has. And it tells us that God's powers exceed what reason says is possible.
~Daniel Boorstein
Quoting Bartricks
Ass-backwards again! :rofl:
The D-K effect refers to one not being an expert (knowing what one does not know) enough to recognize that one is not an expert (not knowing that one does not know what one does not know) ... such as YOU. To wit:
"I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not." ~Socrates, Apology (21d)
:smirk:
Quoting TheMadFool
I couldn't bother but I'm glad you did. :clap:
:up:
Is that the only point you plan on addressing? And you addressed in the form of putting words in my mouth? Because that's not what I said.
Let's tuch on say #3 which was
>>>Given 3, If something is meaningful or understandable, then it is certainly not hypothetically impossible. To reiterate: ALL hypothetical impossibilities are meaningless and not understandable.<<<
How on earth would you actually know this as a fact? Have you exhausted every thought possible? I highly doubt it so please elaborate on how you know this statement to be true and by true I mean fundamentally and not just your limited human perspective that only matters to you in your little bubble
You haven't addressed or understood anything I've argued. Now, you are manifesting the Dunning Kruger effect because you're hugely overestimating your own expertise and you think - are quite convinced, I'm sure - that I'm an idiot, yes? Of course, you won't be able to recognize that you are manifesting it until you become more expert, which is going to be hard given that experts strike you as idiots from whom you can learn nothing but who instead need educating by you.
Why don't you try actually reading the Apology rather than quoting from it.
Thank goodness someone else has joined this conversation who understands this distinction! I tried to venture it earlier in the thread, which of course was brushed aside peremptorily. I’m not an expert in the matter, but I believe it’s a fundamental distinction and you’ve made a much better case for it than I was able to do. Suffice to say, I’m more persuaded by the Thomist philosophy than that of the Nominalists.
So can the omnipotent being create another being that is MORE omnipotent than him? If yes, then that newly created more omnipotent being can create yet another that is even more omnipotent. Lather, rinse and repeat and infinite number of times.
Quoting Bartricks
So an omnipotent being cannot create another being that is equally omnipotent - that would be terribly frustrating for those poor omnipotent beings.
Why would an omnipotent being do anything? We know the universe is rather massive, I’m sure this being is rather busy observing everything! The being is likely too busy absorbing and observing to take actions, what would be the purpose or meaning of such actions anyway?
How do we know an omnipotent being isn’t doing everything, always? could “The Big Bang” be this omnipotent being? Could the constant expansion of the universe be the action of this being? If it is omnipotent, wouldn’t everything we think exists be at the behest of this being? Perhaps it’s being is entirely consistent of “doing” everything all the time. Although I suppose then we would need to discuss if that counts as “doing” if it is really “being” and if there is time at all for such a being.
I’m sorry I haven’t read every post in this thread, I hope it is okay I just jumped in.
Yes, he can do all that. Are you on a sponsored go-slow or something? He can do anything. I then explained - goodness knows why - that 'can' doesn't mean 'is'. So, he 'can' create a being more powerful than himself, but he hasn't.
He can do contradictory things. But he hasn't. He can do things that make no sense to us. But he hasn't. And so on. Now please, kindly absorb that information and stop asking he if he can do this or that. The answer is 'yes' no matter what you ask.
Quoting EricH
I didn't say he cannot do this, I said he has not done it. This isn't hard, or at least I didn't think it was.
Again: there's what 'is' the case, and there's what's possible.
Anything is possible. It is possible that you'll eventually grasp the point, for instance. But it 'is' the case that you aren't. And so on.
Our reason is our guide to what 'is' the case. But as God is not bound by reason, our reason is not our guide to what is possible, except insofar as it tells us that God, not being bound by reason but being its source, is capable of anything.
Because he wants to, presumably.
Quoting Uglydelicious
Reason and observation. Our reason is our guide to reality. And our reason tells us that some things are happening and others not and some things have been created and others not. And our reason tells us that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. And so if it is true that I exist, it is not also false that I exist. And thus I can conclude that I exist, and that an omnipotent being has not destroyed me, even though this is something he could do.
Quoting Bartricks
How do you know that He has not created a square circle in a galaxy 20 billion light years away from you? Perhaps He texted you? Or maybe He has a blog or website where He tells you exactly what He has and hasn't done.
On the face of it, it would seem not. I mean, what I am doing right now seems to be being done by me, not the omnipotent being.
As I noted much earlier in this thread (when this thread was two, much clearer, focussed threads), being omnipotent does not essentially involve having created everything.
For instance, our reason tells us that some things that exist, exist uncaused. Well, by hypothesis the omnipotent being has not created those things.
It is sufficient that the omnipotent being 'could' create all things and could destroy all things. THe omnipotent being does not, qua omnipotent being, have actually to have created everything. For not having created everything is not itself a deficiency in power.
You don't say!
Nor is Questio.
But you'll confirm each other. And that's good enough for you, yes?
If you're not an expert, why are you listening to yourself?
Why not listen to an expert?
The distinction that Questio drew is one that I drew right at the outset (and drew far more clearly). And then, despite my attempting to explain why a being who is bound by what is logically possible is less powerful than one who is not - something I'd have thought would be blindingly obvious to virtually everyone - you (and Questio) persist in mentioning this distinction again and again in the hope that somehow that'll constitute a refutation of what I've argued.
That's all you're doing. You're telling yourselves again and again that I'm unaware of a distinction that a moment's attention to anything I wrote will tell you I'm abundantly well aware of and that I am making it my business to show is a distinction between a being who is omnipotent and one who is not.
All Questio is doing with all this 'intellect' talk is suggesting that if the God's nature is fixed, then somehow this is not a constraint on the God's power. Which is obviously false.
Two problems. First: it 'is' a constraint for a God whose nature is not fixed will have greater power. Second, what, exactly, is constraining the God? God? In that case God's nature is not constrained and he can make himself however he wants. Or laws of nature are constraining it. n which case a being not constrained by those laws would be more powerful....and thus we no longer have a description of an omnipotent being on our hands.
See?
Anyway, philosophy isn't a popularity contest. We're trying to figure out what's true, right? So one needs to get over oneself and get stuck in.
And now who's more powerful - someone who can do anything, or someone who can do some things but not others?
The Dunning Kruger paradox:
...those who raise the Dunning Kruger effect are those most likely suffering from the Dunning Kruger effect!
If I define 'omnipotence' as 'a container of tea', I have not thereby shown that God is a teapot.
That's what those who define omnipotence as 'being able to do all logically possible things' are doing. They're not capturing the original concept, but replacing it with something else (as I did above).
So, who, of these two beings, has more power:
Tom God: Tom God can do all things that are logically possible.
Jenny God: Jenny God can do all things that are logically possible and all things that aren't.
Jenny, obviously.
How would one know that one is not manifesting the effect when raising it? Why, one considers whether one is an expert in the field in which one is declaring oneself to be.
If you do that, you will find that the answer is 'no'. It's 'yes' when I do it.
I agree with @Questio, that your depiction of what 'omnipotence' means is incorrect, but I will leave it at that, I won't respond further to your posts.
And as for the second part: I am arguing that the concept of Jenny God is a coherent one and that she exists.
Is it possible to have something more infinite then infinity? How could something that goes on without end, have MORE without end?
Actually....
That's exactly what you said. I quoted you directly. I literally copied and pasted what you said from your post. As for your question:
If x is a hypothetical possibility, then the potential for x to happen is there. Agree or disagree?
If y is hypothetically impossible, then the potential for y to happen is not there. Agree or disagree?
Well, I'm trying to wrap my head around this issue with little progress. What does Soren Kieriegaard mean by existence precedes essence? I know or am under the impression that his statement is supposed to be understood in the narrow sense of being about human nature but then it makes sense only if it does so in the much broader sense of existence coming before properties, essence being nothing more than a constellation of properties.
Existence, to my knowledge, supervenes on properties and by extension essences. In other words, we understand existence in terms of properties, essences (unique set of properties) and if so Soren Kierkegaard's existence precedes essence, understood in a wider ontological context doesn't add up.
For instance, how do we know that a stone exists [as a physical object]? By discovering properties unique to matter [by finding out the essence of matter]. Without an essence we can work with, nothing can be identified as existing independently for there are no properties that could be used as a contrast against the background (other things). What I'm trying to say is Kierkegaard's statement, against the backdrop of ontology itself, is self-contradictory - he simply can't talk about humans without an essence as a toehold and then, with the same breath, he denies it all.
Um no that is not what i said at all so like i said don't put words in my mouth . and as for your xyz question please use real "things" and or scenarios/situations
S.K. merely means 'that one is' manifests (i.e. embodies, becomes) 'what how who & why one is'. In other words, it's vacuous – fallacious – to reify (unsound) "ratiocinations" like @Bartricks does.
Quoting counterpunch
:up: :100:
I'm talking about one's purpose for trying to prove or disprove God's omnipotence, not about belief or disbelief in God.
By going in circles.
Can you actually see a square circle?
If you can't see it, it's moot as to whether God can make one or not.
Quoting Present awareness
Because according to our friend Bartricks, God can do ANYTHING. God can make a square circle. God can make a statement that is both true and false. God is not bound by logic. Anything means anything.
Then you clearly did not read what I said, blatantly misrepresented it, or horrendously misinterpreted me. As to the first, I wrote twice this:
Quoting Questio
Clearly what I wrote was an argument, although not in a formal deductive format. In order for you to forward an argument or even merely assert the existence of an entity which may go contrary to reason (and thus one who may establish an irrational world, or a world which abides by seemingly rational laws but isn't, or a world where we think we're being rational but aren't) would itself need such an idea to be false to be forwarded, as otherwise:
Quoting Questio
And if we can't be certain that reason leads to truth, then sorry, you don't really have a way of supporting your theisis.
As for your second blatant assertion; no, I did not use authority figures to exemplify I'm right and your wrong. Instead, I used it to rebut the accusation you made of me and others here: that we are somehow twisting the original interpretation of God for no good reason and with no historical backing, which is simply false, given the naming of the figures I did who date back as much as they do believing that God is the logos (reason, logic, rationality itself). Bartricks, our little discussion is a fun one, but for all of oursakes - especially yours given that you have to read the same points over and over - I suggest you pay your due diligence when responding to a post and no go about straw-manning the way you like to accuse some of doing.
Quoting Bartricks
Sorry good friend, but whether you like it or not your position presupposes that reason does not lead necessarily to truth, as good reason could very much lead to either false conclusions or bad reasoning to true ones (given that the law of contridiction needn't hold necessity). For, if the God of your conclusions existed he could very well make two plus two equal 7, despite reason; say what you will about whether he would do so, but so long as he could we really dont know if what we reason to is true, false, meaningless, or something in-between. And if that be so, all we could really take away from such is that reason doesn't necessarily lead to truth, nor does the law of noncontradiction stand, or any of the other laws of logic. So, despite your accusation, I'd say my conclusions of your conclusion don't seem ill founded or straw-manning (unless of course straw-manning means pointing out the obvious consequences of your position, despite your lacking in their recognition. In which, you can just call me the Mr.Fallacy guy).
Quoting Bartricks
On this subject, I'd just like to point out that the statement is neither true nor false, but simply meaningless. Its lack of certain semantic content can only conclude in its absurdity and thus lack of true meaning. As such, its not a great example of your point, but anyhow...
Quoting Bartricks
How do you know? Through reason? But if reason isn't necessarily leading to truth, as I've made in my prior point, then any reason you have for trusting reason is simply begging the question.
Quoting Bartricks
Fair enough, although I think your making a very false dichotomy between there being the necessary existence of logic and the truth it bears and God (for as any Thomist will tell you, God could be the logos - as described in the gospel - and thus logic and truth himself). But, in anycase, as I've said, you won't have much of a nice time reconcilling this with reason, given that, as I've said, your undermining your own position if you do (and frankly, even if you don't).
Quoting Bartricks
Sure, but again, how can you know when its true or if its ever true? If you appeal to reason, you beg the question. If you appeal to God, you remain in obscurity.
Quoting Bartricks
Your begging questions with every extra foot step you take over the "Logic is not necessarily true" line. Its not my fault I just so happen to point it out.
Quoting Bartricks
Not necessarily; I'm arguing that even just asserting God could make irrational truths and thus reality is possibly unintelligible undermines yourself in both forwarding an intelligible statement oriented towards truth and in putting yourself in the tightest of skeptical boxes.
Quoting Bartricks
But to see things does show that seeable things exist; the same as the intellect knowing shows intelligibility. So for one to come and say "hey guys, seeing things isn't leading seeable things" is like saying "hey guys, rationizing doesn't lead us to rational conclusions". And if you respond "of course they do, straw-manner" I'll say "how do you know? God may have made our rationality conclude in irrationality and we'd never know" to which you could say "you just used rationality to get to something rational" and I'd say oncemore "says who? You don't KNOW that". Do you see the problem here?
Quoting Bartricks
How humble :lol:. No disrespect or anything my friend, but some of us would disagree. Although I won't deny that you are a thinker of intrigue (though not for the best reasons, I'm afraid).
Quoting Bartricks
Well sure, but that doesn't mean they can't be doubted. Thats like saying "anyone who agrees with x can't disagree with x". Its a trivial truth that I think attempts to establish that you can't doubt reason, only to do so by saying one should be reasonable. I bring this up not to challange you on this but to oncemore show you how deeply in this box you are that you put yourself in. If you undermine yourself to overthrow reasons ability to find truth then theres no harm in throwing out its laws either.
Quoting Bartricks
Exactly right, except you make a nonsequiter and follow by saying "therefore this mind or being may overthrow the object of his mind". Indeed, its ridiculous to make this jump without an extra premise. Indeed, even if you did, as I hope you have seen by now, theres no way such a conclusion is tenable, as it overthrows your premises of premises: that reason leads necessarily to truth.
Also, in case your wondering how on Earth I can't make the easy jump from "reason in the mind of God" to "thus he may overthrow it" I present you oncemore with Thomism and the gospel, along with ancient and medieval philosophy which recognized the flaws in your proposal and instead recognized God not as above reason, but instead as the logos; reason itself.
Quoting Bartricks
If you were the fire burning down that poor, horrified house that is St. Anselm's faith in human thought .
Quoting Bartricks
I like your proof, though I think it needs a few patches here and there and I'd probably defend it myself. Although, St. Anselm's proof was indeed irrefutable given his platonic metaphysics, where the ideas in the mind correspond to a real and existing eternal form.
Quoting Bartricks
As much as I strongly disagree with 90 percent of what you say, I can't lie to you and say your name isn't errily fitting for sainthood :lol:.
As for @counterpunch, Im sorry for pushing back the response I owe you a little while longer. Im not too familiar with Spinoza, unfortunately, so I can't really comment on that particular part. However what I can tell you is that although divine simplicity (which is synonymous with pure actuality for the most part) seems, given a few arguments, as the best way to interpret God, modal collapse does pretty much make it necessary to create reality, although not in the way most people argue. I'll be sure to explain a little more when time is generous once more, but until then just know that its probably the best argument against the existence of God I've ever seen, and I have angered and frustrated more than a handful of catholics and Thomists on this point (and I say that as a Catholic Thomist myself!)
Seeing your post get so easily sweeped off is somewhat the reason I entered the discussion. You knew what you were saying and I understood why, but it wasn't pushed as hard as it should've been (not saying thats a problem as we're all a tad busy I presume). In anycase, I can't help but find it silly to enter into a discussion without properly understanding the historical roots of its subject and then boast of your superiority over thousands of years worth of philosophy while simultaneously championing yourself as a return to classic interpretations. No offense of course @Bartricks. I wouldn't want to do that to our future saint :).
I still feel something's wrong with the idea that existence precedes essence. I admit that from a certain angle it does look like there are no qualities that define a human and each individual, in Kierkegaard's terms, defines faerself. However, when he says, "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards", "man" in this sentence can only be understood in terms of man's essence - those qualities that set man apart from the rest and provide the contrast necessary for man to, well, stick out in the crowd so to speak.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I disagree with this. I only know you based on your writing, but based on that it is clear that you are highly informed and intelligent. You just have this blind spot, you're stuck in this "philosophical loop".
Throughout history people much, much smarter than you have attempted to explain/understand what the sentence "God exists" actually means - and they have all failed. The very concept of a deity, god, omniscient being (whatever term you choose to use) is illogical down to its core. You cannot use logical reasoning to prove something illogical.
Based on your writing I'm assuming that you hold some sort of religious belief and that your religious beliefs are important to you - and that's OK. That does not pose a problem for me. But for some reason you cannot accept that this is simply a belief. At the risk of doing an amateur psychoanalysis of someone based on their writings on an internet forum, the sense I get is that there is something inside of you that feels threatened by the notion that there is no logical explanation for your core beliefs.
There is a word for this feeling inside of you - cognitive dissonance. Your desire to believe in God and you desire for there to be logical explanations for this belief are mutually contradictory and this creates an uncomfortable feeling inside of you - a conflict if you will. But instead of rejecting one of these two contradictory notions, you are attempting to do the impossible - use logic (Reason, ratiocination, etc) to prove something illogical.
Again, people much, much smarter than you have attempted to do this and have all failed You're a smart person, but you're no St. Barticks.
Oh, wait a minute, Dunning Kruger - you're an expert and I'm someone who has a smattering of knowledge but lacks the meta-cognitive ability to recognize his limitations. Well, yes. I recognize that I am not an expert in philosophy. I would never argue some fine point about Anselm's take on, umm. . . . . well I hardly know anything about him at all. I would have to google just to remind myself who he was.
BUT - you don't need to be an astronomer to know that the moon orbits around earth and that earth orbits around the sun. You don't need a PhD in History to know that George Washington was the first president of the US. And you don't need to know the first thing about Anselm to recognize that there is no fucking way that you can use logic (Reason, ratiocination, etc) to prove this sentence is true:
There is an omniscient being who has the ability to create a square circle in a galaxy 20 billion light years away if He so chose, but He has not done this.
To use the vernacular, this is just bat shit crazy.
Why an otherwise intelligent person cannot recognize this baffles me.
BUT - maybe I'm wrong. Maybe right now - in this very exchange - I'm demonstrating a classic case of Dunning Kruger and these posts will be quoted 100 years from now. So in your response to me (and I know you will respond) please demonstrate the logic that proves the sentence just above. Give me your definitions/premises and how you arrived at your conclusion.
If you can do this then you are truly a genius of the highest caliber.
I think @EricH, that this is his argument. Whether this meets your conditions is, I suppose, for the two of you to deciede. That he made an argument, however, is certainly beyond doubt (that it proves what he thinks is certainly another case entirely).
Hence, you first needs must exist, then you choose who you are.
Existence precedes essence.
It's the core of existentialism, and contains a truth that is well worth taking on board.
Why are you cutting and pasting an earlier post?
There are enough holes in this line of reasoning to fill The Albert Hall. I did a whole back & forth with Bartricks to try to get some basic rudimentary explanation from him to fill a few of those holes but with no success. I don't have the time / energy to do yet another back & forth, so I'll give you just a few items that need clarification/answering in the first item.
Quoting Bartricks
What are these "laws of Reason"
Can you list them and/or provide a link where I can examine them. And what's with capitalizing the word "Reason" - what's up with that? Is there some implication/point being made by that capital "R"?
What is meant by the word "are"
As in "There are laws of Reason". The verb "is" (and all its conjugations) has many shades and nuances of meaning/usage. In this sentence it seems like the author is using "are" in an existential sense - i.e., he is asserting some sort of existence. I could be wrong but I doubt that the author of this sentence means that they physically exist - so it seems like he is doing some sort of meta-physical existence - or maybe he means that they only exist our minds? Not sure. But not matter what the explanation is, he has to clarify how you can assign a truth value to this statement.
Why is it "a" mind and not many minds?
And when he says "a mind whose laws they are" - to me this implies ownership - there is "a mind" that "owns" these as of yet undefined "laws of Reason". What does all this mean?
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. As I said earlier I do not have the time / energy to do yet another back & forth, so if you choose to reply I apologize in advance for not replying back.
I'm flattered, thanks. I always try to criticize the idea not the person.
I'm actually a bit embarrassed at some of my earlier comments in this thread. Bartricks insulted me with the Dunning Kruger reference.
I should have ignored it, but instead I responded in kind. That was very out of character and wrong of me.
So that I may be entertained with a response, to be frank. And on top of that, because I felt an argument was made, and I'd think it would be a terrible waste for @Bartricks to simply waste his time in reformulating it. Further, given that this is the argument, now that you've raised some fairly valid points on the matter, I'm hoping his next response stays focused on answering your questions. Entertaining for me, time saving for him, less head ache for everyone I'd suppose.
Quoting EricH
Yes, indeed I get the idea, and you raise good points. I'd raise them myself if I didn't care more on the topic at hand (intelligibility). In anycase, no need to respond to this if you don't want, I just wanted to forward some clarity on my part.
I did respond to your argument, though admittedly it was not entirely clear to me what it was. And it still isn't. But I assumed that you thought - fallaciously - that what we can discover by reason, is thereby bound by reason. Which is false. Our reason is a faculty. It brings us an awareness of the imperatives and other norms of Reason. That is, it gives us an awareness of what Reason - which my argument demonstrates to be God - wants us to do and believe. But that does not mean that Reason himself is bound by what he wants us to do and believe. And that itself is something our reason reveals to us (that is, our reason reveals to us that Reason is not bound by what he tells us). As I said, it is the same as fallaciously inferring that what we can see by sight is thereby limited by our sight, as if our sight determines what's there.
So, as far as I can tell, all you're doing is insisting in one way and another that our reason is incapable of bringing us an awareness of a being who has power over reason. I see no justification for insistence. And I am actively demonstrating it to be false. For I have provided an argument - an argument that your own faculty of reason should confirm is sound - that appears to demonstrate that God is Reason (the source of the imperatives of Reason) and exists. And that argument, as it demonstrates that God has power over the imperatives - it's up to him what their content is, for our own commands do not exercise any authority over us, their issuers - it demonstrates that God can do anything, including things that he forbids. For 'he' forbids them. And the forbidder is not prevented by the forbidding from doing what he forbids.
I will respond to the rest in a piecemeal fashion.
Again, you just keep begging the question. First, yes, of course God could make 2 + 2 = 7. Has he? Consult your reason. Oh, he hasn't. In fact, he's very adamant we should believe it equals 4, for he tell us we 'must' believe that.
So, how do you get from the fact that God 'can' make 2 + 2 = 7, to 'therefore we don't really know if it does or not"??
I could be in Paris. I mean, it is metaphysically possible. By your logic that means I can't know that I'm not. But I do, yes? I know that I'm not in Paris.
I could not exist - I do not exist of metaphysical necessity, I assume you'd agree. So, it is metaphysically possible for me not to exist. Does that mean I can't be sure I exist? No, of course I can be sure I exist.
So, God could do anything - he could make 2 + 2 = 7, hell he could make 2 + 2 = a giraffe. But has he? No. How do I know? My reason tells me 2 + 2 = 4. It tells me it 'must'. That doesn't mean it 'must' in any metaphysical sense, of course. It just means God is adamant about it.
I think I’d remember if God himself taught me math. Far as I can remember, it was my elementary school teacher that told me 2+2=4, not God. How do you explain why people can not know math then? Or not know what a valid argument looks like? If God provides this free education for all apparently (how nice of him)
And what would it look like if God decided 2+2 suddenly equals 7 tomorrow? Will we all just wake up and know it is 7? When I put 2 pens together do 5 more materialize? Does our reason update real time with the commands of God or is there some sort of delay? What of the physical laws that rely on 2+2 = 4?
Now, I gave you some examples of imperatives of Reason, didn't I? Their existence is not in dispute. Their content is.
You have described my reasoning as 'bizarrely nonsensical'. Back that up.
This argument is deductively valid, yes?
1. If there are imperatives of Reason, there is a mind whose imperatives they are
2. There are imperatives of Reason
3. Therefore, there is a mind whose imperatives they are
Does that strike you as nonsensical?
Are you seriously - seriously - maintaining that the idea of an 'imperative of Reason' is nonsensical? It isn't nonsensical. Philosophers dedicate entire careers to trying to discern their content, including Kant no less. Christ.
Is it nonsensical to suppose that an imperative requires a mind to issue it?
There's nothing nonsensical about the argument.
Now, I believe that in addition to having no expertise whatsoever in this subject, you are also someone who genuinely enjoys winding people up. Just my opinion. For you ask questions, I answer them, and then you ask them again and again and again and insist I haven't answered them. You seem to think that if you don't understand the answer, then I haven't answered it. I am going to answer your questions again - some of which I have answered before, and some of which are new. I do this fully expecting you to reject every single answer as 'nonsensical', but I do it for the record.
So, for the record, here is an imperative of Reason: if doing X is in your interests and doing it does not conflict with any other imperatives of Reason, do it.
Kant called that a hypothetical imperative. Don't dispute its contents. It's contents are disputable. But it's an imperative. That's why Kant and others call them - oo, what do they call them...I wonder...oh, it's 'imperatives'!
Here's another: don't posit more entities than you need to when explaining a phenomenon.
Again, don't cavil over the contents - the contents are not the issue. The point is that it is an imperative. It is an instruction to do something.
Now to your next question
Quoting EricH
I am asserting the existence of some imperatives of Reason. Premise 1 says "if P, then Q". Premise 2 says "P".
Quoting EricH
Not 'owns' (what does that mean - how do you 'own' an imperative?).
There needs to be a mind to 'issue' an imperative. Imperatives have minds that issue them, yes? Not mysterious. "Be smart!" That's an imperative. I issued it. To you. I don't 'own' it. I 'issued' it.
Why is it 'a' mind. Numerous reasons.
First, a bunch of minds isn't a mind. Imperatives can't be issued by bunches of minds. They have to be issued by individual minds.
So for any given imperative, there is a mind whose imperative it is.
Second, another imperative of Reason, mentioned above, is Ockham's razor: do not multiply entities beyond necessity. The default, then, is that there is 'a' mind whose imperatives are the imperatives of Reason, not multiple minds. The burden of proof, in other words, is on the person who would posit lots of minds.
How? Here's my argument again:
1. If the imperatives of Reason are the imperatives a mind is issuing, then that mind is not bound by those imperatives
2. The imperatives of Reason are the imperatives a mind is issuing (see my proof of God for that).
3. Therefore, the mind whose imperatives are the imperatives of Reason - God - is not bound by those imperatives.
No questions begged. Perhaps you think that a mind that issues imperatives is thereby bound to obey those imperatives - okay, but where's your argument for that? I mean, you need one, for it is prima facie false. "Don't go outside!" There. I issued an imperative. Am I suddenly stuck indoors now?
Of course, if I say "Don't anyone go outside!" it is entirely reasonable for you to suppose that I myself plan on staying indoors. But the point is I am not stuck indoors.
Similarly, if I say "believe I am indoors" you have every reason to suppose I am indoors, for that's the simplest explanation of why I am telling you to believe I am indoors, especially if I also say "it's very important to me that you believe what's true".
Now by your logic there would be something impossible in me being able to convey this information to you at the same time as being perfectly able to be outdoors. Yes?
Well, your logic is faulty.
Can’t each imperative have been issued by a different mind (not necessarily a 1 to 1 ratio)? And couldn’t those minds have been people's minds? What’s the issue with that?
There are lots of other reasons to think that it is one mind - and that the mind in question is not your own - but might as well stick with one for the time being.
You assume there is a set of imperatives called “the imperatives of reason” that has been issued to us by some mind or other (again, I don’t have any memory of God telling me about the law of non contradiction) and yet we somehow are still trying to figure them out? Why are their contents debatable if there were issued to all of us individually by God himself?
On the other hand I think the set of “imperatives of reason” is issued by people. Because that’s a simpler explanation than suggesting a complete set, that had already been issued, that we still for some reason have to try to figure out and argue about its contents.
Maybe we’re not “arguing about” so much as creating the contents of this set? That makes it a lot easier to explain why these imperatives of reason change over time and get updated and why we argue about them so much. Example: Occam’s razor is not an immediately obvious imperative, and one that was not widely used for the longest time even.
It also side tracks the problem of when exactly God gave us this imperative, as again, I have no memory of this and doubt you do either. I bet you learned about the imperatives of reason through people and their books like the rest of us, not through some divine inspiration.
Quoting Bartricks
Okay, so now your just dancing around the main problem at this point, which is unfortunate, as I expected a little bit more in terms of actually reading what I said and doing your due diligence given that I have explained to you how this only brings me to further the same tired point over and over again. But, if this is what you insist, I shall as well :)
Quoting Questio
Emphasis on the
Quoting Questio
If you argue that x is reasonable yet x need not be true, then how can we thus know that reasoning brings us necessarily to truth?
Quoting Bartricks
I am insisting that you are undermining yourself by forwarding the idea of a being that can break the laws of reason so much so that the laws of reason does not necessarily lead to truth and then use said laws of reason to get to the "necessary truth" of this being. This is self undermining and self defeating. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either the laws of reason do not necessarily bring truth, in which case we can't trust your argument, or the laws of reason are necessarily true, in which case your argument is invalidated.
Quoting Bartricks
Give me one set of quotes where I do so. I for one can actually substantiate such a claim. Watch:
Quoting Bartricks
So reason can necessarily bring you to truth you can trust...
Quoting Bartricks
Interesting... so the reasons you got to God are overthrown by your conclusions as we can't trust reason to take us to truth. And how do we know God hasn't done this? Well...
Quoting Bartricks
That's right, an appeal to reason... wow, that didn't work out for you did it my good friend :lol:.
Especially given the case that God could just make 2+2=6 just as rational as 2+2=4, given he's omnipotent, right? And this God can make both equally true and false, or one true and the other false, or vice versa, correct? See my point yet? If you overthrow the absolute power for reason to find an absolute truth you really can't take a ride on said overthown things back and say reason has absolutely found an absolute truth necessarily.
Quoting Bartricks
Well first, as I've said earlier...
Quoting Questio
Second, 3 contridicts the formulation, as it opens the possibility of me and you being totally rational yet not necessarily concluding in truth, which of course is the purpose of your formulation.
Quoting Bartricks
Well if God is all powerful, he can very much make it so that you are in Paris yet you think your not, despite reason as well given it takes that. Do you still not see the skeptical box you put yourself in? If so, maybe you should consider abandoning the premise or conclusion which got you here. After all, there is no justification for your idea of God's omnipotence, as I have pointed out (given its a nonsequiter).
Quoting Questio
To be honest, I don't know what you mean here and I've been charitable in assuming you mean that there is something incoherent in using reason to establish the existence of a being who can flout reason.
If that's not what you are trying to say, then why not just lay it out as a deductively valid argument? If it 'is' what you are trying to say, I addressed it. You are simply reasoning fallaciously.
Quoting Questio
I didn't say that though. I mean, I don't know what that even means. Overthrow the object of his mind??
I just keep explaining and you keep willfully misunderstanding.
Forget God and focus on me. I am sat at a computer. I want you to believe this - I am telling you that it is the case. Because of this you have reason to believe I am sat at a computer. But I can lie. I can bid you believe things about me that are not true. Does that mean you no longer have reason to think I am sat at a computer? No. You still have reason to believe I am sat at a computer.
God can make true propositions be false at the same time. But he's told us that true propositions are not false at the same time. Does the fact he's told us that true propositions are not false at the same time give us reason to believe that true propositions are not false at the same time? Yes.
A proposition - including a proposition about an imperative of Reason - does not 'have' to be true to be true. It just has to be true.
If you want to find out about Reason, consult your reason. And if you do that, you'll see that your reason tells you that Reason is a mind who can do anything.
You think that's not possible, right - that it is not possible for our reason to tell us about the existence of a being who is not bound by reason? Well, a) I've demonstrated that it is possible by actually doing it and b) that's as silly as thinking that words can only tell you about words.
Here: there are some things that can't be expressed in words. Presumably you consider that utterance incoherent?
You asked me why one mind is posited rather than multiple minds. I explained.
There are lots of other reasons why one mind should be posited, but I wasn't going to give them all when one would do. So I gave you one: Ockham's razor.
Then you have just told me that you believe that our own minds issue the imperatives of Reason. Ok, just ignore the evidence then. Posit lots rather than one. Go for it. I mean, by hypothesis, what you think is the case now is the case. If you tell yourself that contradictions are true, they will be - right? If you tell yourself that 2 + 8 = an elephant, that's true, right? You have reason to believe it and none not to. I mean, that's what you're telling yourself about what 2 + 8 = and you're now Reason.
Or are you only responsible for one or two imperatives of Reason? In which case, which ones are yours? Pray tell. And who determines whose imperatives are the imperatives of Reason? Cos that person would be Reason - that is, God, right? So it must be no-one. So, you'd have to endorse an extreme form of individual subjectivism about reason. In which case, once more, if you tell yourself that 2 + 6 = a giraffe, then it does and that's all there is to it, because you're your reason and I'm mine.
So, so silly.
But I did precisely that.
Quoting EricH
Yes, your responses do constitute a very good illustration of the Dunning Kruger effect.
Questio pasted the argument on my behalf. Then, rather than acknowledge that I had indeed presented an argument, you just insist it is full of holes and asked your inane questions once more.
After having established that imperatives of Reason require a mind to be their issuer, Ockham's razor - itself an imperative of Reason - enjoins us to posit one mind, not many. For why posit lots of minds when one mind will do?
But by the same token, we should not posit extra minds unnecessarily. So, given that we are aware of our own mind's existence (and have better evidence for its existence than we have of any other), we should start by assuming that the mind of Reason is our own mind.
However, that thesis is contradicted by the evidence. For as the rest of my argument demonstrates, if I myself am the mind whose imperatives are imperatives of Reason, then I will be God. And clearly I am not God. I cannot do anything and everything. It is evidently not in my power to destroy all things, and so on.
So, I now have extremely good evidence that I am not the mind in question. Thus, I should assume the mind is a mind other than my own.
Note, it would make no sense to suppose instead that I am the source merely of 'some' of the imperatives of Reason and other minds are sources of other imperatives. That would not be a simple thesis at all. And the same evidence that implies I am not the source of 'all' of the imperatives of Reason implies as well that I am not the source of any of them.
Again, then, I should now proceed to assume that the mind whose imperatives are imperatives of Reason is some mind other than my own.
Perhaps a bit :lol:
Quoting Bartricks
Sure; call it self-undermining, but not because I am falling into the obviously fallacious argument of saying because it is irrational for an irrational being to exist it must not exist. I am instead arguing that if you do not take reason to necessarily be oriented towards absolute truth and instead hold that good reason could still be wrong (like 2+2=6 could be true) then you aren't making much of a case, as your very case relies on such notion.
Quoting Bartricks
Fair enough I suppose:
1) Let it be assumed that reason brings us to an entity which may defy reason
2) Given such, this being may have created the world in such a way where as what is reasonable does not necessarily entail truth.
3) Given such, we may also say that the being may have created the world in such a way whereas we believe certain statement to be true via the virtue of reason, but in fact are not (such as 2+2=4 may seem true because we think it irrefutably rational, but it may be that 2+2=6 is more rational, just hidden from our intellect, or perhaps irrational but more true, or absolutely true until this being decides otherwise).
4) Thus, despite common intuition and reason, we can never know what is true because we can never know if the entity created reality as such (and if we try to show through reason that he didn't, we violate 2 or 3).
5) Thus, reason cannot be trusted as a measure or tool for truth, as truth and reason may be loose and separate (as Hume might say).
6) Reason being a trusted measure and tool which leads to truth, however, leads to 1.
7) Therefore, even 1 can be overthrown just as the necessary connection between reason and truth can.
I'm hoping you find this useful.
Quoting Bartricks
Fair enough...
Quoting Bartricks
Certainly so! However, I simply can't have certainty that you sit at a computer. And I believe thats the thing we're caught up in. Its not a matter of whether or not something is or isn't true, but rather if, given we rule out the basic tools of certainty, we can know anything to be certainly true via argumentation. Certainty lies at the core of this discussion, I'd forward.
Quoting Bartricks
But not with certainty unless we may fix onto some aspect of his nature, or from a set of certain truths, and be guided from these things to the truth of his statement. For example, I believe that God is logos via reason, thus he can never lie, so for him to tell me that would only be taken as true by me. For God to be omnipotent as you describe it, however, does not seem enough to make the point that his statements maybe taken as true (except via discussion of his omnibenevolence, yet, due to his omnipotence, we may consider that he is lying to us and also being omnibenevolent at the same time given contradictions don't effect him. Sure, he might not, but the lack of certainty simply cannot give us a proper fixed principle by which knowledge can rely on).
Quoting Bartricks
If by that you mean "there is a phone on my desk" is true, but it doesn't have to be true, then sure. But I don't think that's actually relevant (it could be and I'm just mistaken, but I'm quite sure its not), as I'm sure that certainty is the root of the problem.
Quoting Bartricks
But if perfect reason can still lead to falsehood, how can we be certain of this principle?
Quoting Bartricks
Its possible, just not tenable. All you would do is cast doubt on your own position if seen all the way down.
Quoting Bartricks
You still had a non-sequitur moving from "reason comes from a mind" to "if its in the mind of an entity, he is not constrained to act according to such", as there is the perfectly reasonable alternative conclusion without all the sticky holes you seem to fall in: "therefore reason and this mind are one".
Quoting Bartricks
Certainly; but I would call it a false equivalency as words are oriented beyond themselves while reason seems to orient itself into a closed logical system.
No.
First of all we don't know that your omniscient being (AKA God) planted these imperatives of Reason in our minds, that's one of many things you are trying to prove.
But even acting under that assumption - even if we assume that He planted these imperatives of Reason in our minds - there is no way to know that what He planted in our minds is correct. He could have planted false/bogus imperatives of Reason in our minds. Our limited human minds (which He created) would have no way of knowing that.
Or perhaps our limited mortal human minds (which He created) are incapable of processing the actual imperatives of Reason, and so your omniscient God has placed a greatly reduced and simplified version of the full set of imperatives in our minds - and this reduced/simplified set of imperatives only function properly under certain limited situations - e.g., when dealing with the practicalities of our physical existence.
Can you use your imperatives of Reason to rule out these possibilities? No, because your omniscient being is not bound by your imperatives - and so you cannot use the imperatives to prove anything about such a being since there is no certainty that the imperatives of Reason are correct and/or will lead to correct conclusions.
End of discussion.
- - - - - -
BTW - at the risk of asking too many questions at once, why do you keep capitalizing the word "Reason" and not the word "imperatives"? Is there some person, place, or thing called Reason?
Not right. We humans determine things all the time and are wrong to not stick to the agreed upon definition. Apples did not need to be called “apple” for example. We made up the word. The word could have been “eueudjw” but it is apple. So while I COULD start calling apples “eueudjw” I would be wrong to do so. In the same way that I would be wrong in claiming that 2+8=elephant is logical.
Quoting Bartricks
When did I say I issued any?
Quoting Bartricks
False. Your fallacious argument would suggest so though.
Quoting Bartricks
Because one mind won’t do. One mind would suggest two things that don’t match reality. Firstly, that there is a mind that “talked” to each of us individually and told us about these imperatives. That never happened. If anyone had memory of it no one would be arguing against you. And secondly that these imperatives are set in stone and whole from the beginning. Which contradicts the fact that we argue about their contents and why their contents tend to increase across history.
Quoting Bartricks
Very dumb. Clearly neither of us has issue with other minds existing (heck, you don’t have issue with positing a mind that tells all of us something although none of us remember its instruction) so no need to assume it’s you personally. There is plenty of evidence against that (for example, neither of us discovered logical imperatives on our own instead of being told them). And I’ve just given two pieces of evidence hinting that it’s not 1 mind that makes these imperatives in full so you don’t need to assume it’s one either.
Quoting Bartricks
If the simplest thesis makes no sense then you move on to the next simplest. One mind being responsible for all of the imperatives would not explain why we argue about their contents or why none of us remember this mind instructing us to follow the imperatives.
And others have said this objection already but I’ll say it again. You have no reason to assume that your reason actually matches the imperatives God created. You have no reason to assume God isn’t trolling you. So then you cannot assume that using your reason will yield correct results. If that’s the case your argument obviously falls apart. You don’t just need it to be the case that your argument is reasonable (not that I think it is in the first place) but you also need it to be the case that God gave us the right “reason”. And you can’t show the latter. Heck, assuming you’re correct no argument can ever be known to be right.
Yet it has never stopped the religious nor the philosophers from doing it.
If I follow his "reasoning" he is not initially attributing powers - his starting point is to simply define the words. Then he is trying to somehow bootstrap his definitions into existence.
:ok: :up: Thanks
I wonder though how Kierkegaard or Sartre can talk of people without there being an essence to people - the word "people" wouldn't refer to anything sans an essence that defines people.
Perhaps they do acknowledge that people, as a class, have an essence but both take a step further and mirable dictu they discover that whatever that essence is, it doesn't limit the acquisition of an added layer of essence that makes an individual stand out as a one of a kind.
However the assumption that in order to talk about some thing we first need to understand its essence, is fraught. See https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/495682
Sartre is doing something closer to description of a new state. Essences don't work because they substitute some type of eternal idea or concept (e.g. human nature, the nature of man, the nature of woman, etc. ), for the work of a specific being at a specific time. There is no problem with people taking certain actions or exiting with certain traits (their "choices"). They happen all the time (indeed, one of Sartre's point is we cannot escape making a choice). His point is just these are finite occurrences, a particular moment of our being, there in terms of itself. Any of them could change with any new moment, when a different moment of ourself makes some other choice. We are always are own creators in this respect.
Any of us might, in fact, possibility do anything. All it would take is a choice in the next moment. Since it is our being which performs who we are, it cannot be limited by some mere concept, by some idea of what us as being or our sort of beings are supposed to do. (given the other content of this thread, it should be noted that "possible" is being used to refer to what our being might be, not what powers for actions we are actually capable of-- we aren't all omnipotent gods just because our being defines us, even though that is something our being might do).