Does God have free will?
Premise 1: somethings are pious while others are sin.
Premise 2: God decides which is pious or not because he is all knowing.
Deduction: if God decides somethings as pious and somethings as sin, he, before hand, was endowed with knowledge. He was programmed to be this God that labels some actions as pious and others as sin. if on the rather hand he decides these things after studying human actions, the foundation by which he uses to analyze actions to label them as pious or sin, are programmed. In both cases God becomes a programmed machine. If he is programmed it begs the question who is the programmer, which we can create another god and continue to infinity with other Gods. Which makes the whole idea obsolete.
This in turn makes his existence questionable.
Premise 2: God decides which is pious or not because he is all knowing.
Deduction: if God decides somethings as pious and somethings as sin, he, before hand, was endowed with knowledge. He was programmed to be this God that labels some actions as pious and others as sin. if on the rather hand he decides these things after studying human actions, the foundation by which he uses to analyze actions to label them as pious or sin, are programmed. In both cases God becomes a programmed machine. If he is programmed it begs the question who is the programmer, which we can create another god and continue to infinity with other Gods. Which makes the whole idea obsolete.
This in turn makes his existence questionable.
Comments (553)
God is all powerful, by definition. So God can do anything. He is not constrained in any way. Thus he does have free will.
God knows everything - that is, he is in possession of all knowledge. Why does that imply he lacks free will? Note, because he is all powerful, he gets to determine what is and isn't an item of knowledge. So the body of knowledge does not operate to constrain God. God constrains what can be known, but knowledge does not constrain God.
And God determines what is good and what is bad - he wouldn't be all powerful unless this were so. So goodness and badness do not operate as constraints on God.
And God is not 'programmed', for who could program God save God himself? (And to program oneself is not to undermine one's free will, but is rather an exercise of it).
You seem to have a problem understanding the difference between being able to do something and doing it.
You are able to smash your face into the screen of your computer, yes? Are you doing that?
No, I mean he can do it. I think you don't understand omnipotence. Being omnipotent means being able to do anything. So, he can create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift. I fail to see what you're having trouble grasping.
If he did that - if he created that stone - then he'd no longer be omnipotent. Being able to not be omnipotent is an ability an omnipotent being has. It's just an ability that an omnipotent being, by hypothesis, does not exercise.
This isn't hard.
Nothing prevents him. He just doesn't. Nothing is preventing me from hurling the boiling hot cup of coffee into my own face. But I am not hurling it into my own face.
You have yet to even raise a problem. Say what the problem is, and do so in a way that does not conflate having the ability to do something with actually doing it.
That simply doesn't follow. Having the power to do something does not entail that one does it. Otherwise there would be a contradiction involved in supposing one to have the ability to do things one is not doing. Yet clearly there is no contradiction.
Imagine I can conceive of doing A. Well, I have free will over whether I do it or not. My conceiving of it does not in some way compel me to do it.
Now imagine I can conceive of all actions. Well, I still have free will over which one I perform. The fact I am now able to conceive of all actions does not in some way restrict my free will: far from it, it means I am able to do anything at all if I so choose.
Well, that would be God's situation, would it not? For were he unable to conceive of some actions, then he'd not be omnipotent - yet by definition he is. So he's as free as can be.
What will you be to those who come after you who never met you. A vague idea or visage that exists solely in faded photographs and annoying holiday conversations. You may create your own fiction, but others will create your reality long after you're unable to.
You have qualities of God, it is the other qualities that you equivalate with these that concern, believe it or not me more than you. Now, that is.
An omnipotent being can do anything. Wouldn't be omnipotent otherwise.
That means an omnipotent being has the power to cease to be omnipotent.
That's all the stone case illustrates. There isn't the beginning of a problem here.
Here's an analogy to illustrate the very confused way you think. Bachelors don't have wives. Does that mean that bachelors are unable to have wives? That, if you are a bachelor, there is a strange cosmic force preventing you from marrying?
No, clearly a bachelor 'can' marry. It is just that upon marrying, the person of the bachelor will cease to qualify as a bachelor.
So, bachelors do not have wives, but they have the ability to have them.
Similarly, an omnipotent being has the ability to create a rock she cannot lift. Were she to do so, she would cease to be omnipotent - indeed, she'd be making herself less than omnipotent as the means by which to create the rock, for until she makes herself less than omnipotent, there will be no rock she cannot lift.
Anyway, the moral of all this is that you're very confused.
That's good evidence you're not God: God doesn't know he's God.
But I don't know I'm god, I just said it for a cheap joke. :wink:
No it doesn't. It means he is not doing it. Once more, you are as confused as someone who thinks that as bachelors do not have wives, there is a curious forcefield preventing them from marrying.
Well, I consider that gibberish apart from the last question.
And yes, God can do that. He can do anything. I mean, even I can contradict myself. So it would be manifestly absurd to think that little old me can do something God can't do.
In short, where did God got their morals from? They were just there, in the spacetime- and matter-free glorious and shining realm of their holy and undeniable existence, giving us the precious gift of life. We can follow them (and assign them properties like you do) or damn them. Take your pick.
What's happening here is that you think the whole "can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift?" question must raise a serious problem for the coherence of theism, because why else do smart alecks everywhere ask that question? That's your thought, right? But I've shown that there doesn't even begin to be a problem here. It's like asking "can God make some toast?". The answer is just a straightforward 'yes'. God can make some toast. And God can make a stone too heavy for him to lift. There's no problem. If you think there is one, articulate it. And I'll then show you that you have confused being able to do something with actually doing it.
Of course, there is a problem. There's a stone and he can't lift it. If he does lift it, then he has not created one that he cannot lift. Omnipotence is a contradictory concept that people have created.
No. They are omnipotent within the realm of what's possible.
When reality is at home?
Unless you don't understand the question.
I just asked what you meant. What you mean by "unless it's in the office"? God just can't do things that can't be done. He's omnipotent in the sense that he can do all things that can be done. Which is not everything.
One question would also be what gender God is. Does he/she/it have characteristics, how one could decide that?
It's not decidable. It depends on how you view God or the gods.
So I decide which god/gods there are. Funny.
And why is "he" or "He" written then?
Who? God or human beings?
Sexism is also a vice, yes? And God is morally perfect. So, is God going to be a sexist? No, obviously not. For being morally perfect means 'not' having any vices.
Note too just what the vice of sexism involves: it involves thinking that a person matters because of the type of body they occupy. Whereas, of course, we are morally valuable irrespective of what kind of body we occupy. That's true, right? And why would that be? Because we are not our bodies, but souls resident within them. And it is our souls - us - that possess moral value, not our bodies.
You don't decide anything. The gods are there. For me there are many, for some there might be one, for others they don't exist at all.
That's not a summary of anything I have said. God is not a man or a woman, okay? God could occupy a male or female body, just as we do. But she's not a man or a woman anymore than you or I are.
How do you know?
That's what you think. I guess you are in love with the mind. And who says minds have no sexes?
But male and female brains are also (slightly) different, not only the bodies.
Quoting GraveItty
Quoting Bartricks
Engaging it is reserved for masochists. When you begin to get anywhere it will retreat to "dunning kruger" or "this is how it is present to my reason" but it will take you 70 posts to get to that point.
The only clever things that come out of its mouth are ad homs. Which I have to say are top notch.
Look, for as long as I can remember, I have assumed I have a male body. It has all the hallmarks of one. And so I describe myself as male. But it seems entirely possible that I could one day discover that I in fact have the body of a female, either because I have been hallucinating this whole time or perhaps because sex is constitutively determined by features that are not visible such as DNA (I take no stand on that matter). Anyway, the point is, I could well discover that my body is not the sex i have been assuming it was. But that discovery would not be a discovery about my mind. It would be a discovery about my body.
Quoting khaled
I know a female mind! She just entered with a bag of groceries. The number 3 next door? She's walking on the other side of town. LA woman is giving her a hard time.
If God already has no gender, why doesn't "It" stand up for women's rights more?
Imaginary? She's pretty real, let me tell you! Besides, why can't Imaginary people have minds?
Now God is suddenly female? And where exactly does Her omnipotence intervene for women's rights?
The very fact that she posses it. I'm pretty sure she's a female. Even if she pretends to be a woman. Then her mind is a pretended female mind.
Our reason - our faculty of reason - is the means by which God communicates with us. And it is manifest to the reason of most that sexism is a vice. That's her - God - telling us not to be sexists.
She doesn't intervene beyond that, admittedly. And the world is a very sexist place. From which I conclude that she hates us and that we deserve each other's company.
That is laudable that you try to explain the communication, but that does not explain WHAT God is. The core question is HOW God thinks. Does It have neurons or other nonlinear circuits?
God is a mind. Just as you are and I am.
God thinks with her mind. Just as I do and you do.
And no, neurons and nonlinear circuits are features of brains, not minds.
Note, we are straying somewhat from the OP, which is about whether God has free will.
To which the answer is that yes, God does have free will.
There is no reason to think God lacks free will (the OP provides none). And good reason to think God does have free will. Why? Well, God is morally perfect. Yet if one lacks free will, then one is not praiseworthy for being as one is. Thus, if God lacked free will he would not be maximally good, as though he could still possess the virtues, he would not be praiseworthy for possessing and exercising them. And clearly it is better to be praiseworthy for being virtuous than not to be. Thus God, being morally perfect, would be praiseworthy for his virtuous character and thus would possess free will.
Everything that thinks has nonlinear components, we know from experience. Consequently, God is not an element of experience. Thus no element for science.
Er, what? What we know from experience, boyo, is that brains have such components, not that minds do. To get from the former conclusion to the latter you would have to assume that brains are minds. Yet they're not.
What you are now going to do is point out that doing things to the brain causes changes in the mind, yes? And you think that's good evidence that the brain 'is' the mind - am I right? (It isn't).
I have just shown that God has free will. Now, a brain does not have free will. For brains are created by forces alien to themselves and thus are victims of their circumstance. My brain is the brain it is due to factors that my brain itself had no hand in. Thus, if God was a brain, God would lack free will. God has free will. Therefore God is not a brain. See how I have tried, once more, to drag this back to the relevant topic?
If she turned into male one morning, then her mind would still be female. I see her mind in relation to my (then former) wife. As such, I will try to reform her back in my original wife. If she doesn't like being a male body. Is a guy person in reality a body of opposite sex. Is a man wanting to love a man truly a man, or a woman, as he likes sex with a man? Or are we all gay in reality, wanting to make love with the opposite sex because we are of the wrong sex?
Every mind we know has a material carrier. Why should God be an exception?
Not necessarily. An alternative is that minds are certain configurations of matter (brains). In that case the statement:
Quoting SolarWind
Remains true without needing a dualism.
I have a car. I am not my car. I have some shoes. I am not my shoes. I have a house. I am not my house.
So, I am a mind, not a body. That I have a body does not alter that.
God is a mind. Does God have a body? I see no reason whatsoever for supposing him to. Indeed, bodies seem to restrict the minds that inhabit them and so I see some reason to think that God, being omnipotent, would lack a body. But there is nothing incoherent in the notion of God having a body. And so, if you think God does have a body, then I am happy to go along with that. And that body could be male, or female, or neither. But the point would remain that God himself would be sexless, just as I am sexless despite having a male body.
No you're not. You are your body and have a brain.
Brute possibilities are not evidence. Another alternative is that minds are bits of cheese, in which case minds would go nicely with crackers. But there is no evidence that mind are bits of cheese and a lot that they are not.
Likewise, there is no evidence that minds are made of matter and plenty that they are not.
One such piece of evidence is their possession of free will (if I may once more drag this back to the OP). Possession of free will appears incompatible with being a brain, for brains are arrangements of matter and thus the matter has come to be arranged in that way. That is, there was a time when one's brain did not exist and then a time when it does and some causal story to be told about how the matter constitutive of one's brain came to constitute it. If our minds are our brains, then that story will also be a story about how they lack free will, for if my mind is the creation of forces external to my mind, then my mind is not free. And that goes for God's mind too. Yet God's mind is free (so too is mine, but God is our focus here). Thus God's mind is not a brain. More formally:
1. If God's mind is a brain, then God's mind is not free
2. God's mind is free
3. Therefore, God's mind is not a brain.
Which goes to show that the mind-world is number one for you. I indeed see the mind as having the sex of the body.
How about taking away a piece of you material brain? It takes away a piece of mind too.
I didn't say that. I said their gender is determined by the gender of the bodies they are in.
No it doesn't. When you had your lobotomy, part of your brain was removed. So you went from having 100% of a brain to having 95%. But you yourself were not reduced by 5%. That's why the bank still thinks you owe it all the money you borrowed, and not just 95% of it. Your scheme failed.
Yes, but there is nothing intrinsic to the mind itself that makes it male or female. Your wife's mind in a male body would be categorized by you as a 'male' mind, and your wife's mind - the self same mind - in a female body would be categorized by you as a 'female' mind, right? So all the work is being done by the body and none by the mind at all.
Note, that's my view too, it's just that I understand it better and express it more clearly.
I am not giving evidence. I am showing this:
Quoting Bartricks
Is false. That’s just the argument you find easiest to dismantle and so you put it in the mouth of your interlocutor so you can “slam dunk” them with you water gun of logic.
Quoting Bartricks
Good thing I didn’t say minds are made of matter then did I? Configurations of matter =/= matter.
Quoting Bartricks
Not what I said again is it?
As I said, you argue against imaginary positions you believe (or worse, pretend) the opposition has said and drown out what they’re actually saying in irrelevant responses to the straw man you created.
Quoting Bartricks
Why the need for ad Homs I ask? I get being like that with me, but you’ve never even talked to this guy before. Get a therapist Bart.
Of course it does. If my visionary system is partially damaged I might not be able to see forms anymore. Though I retain the perception of color or motion. I don't break it up in quantifiable parts, as you do.
Get a sense of humour, Khaled.
Now that's a perceptive observation! :up:
That's true. If you have evidence that brains have certain components, then to get from that to the conclusion that minds have those components, one would have to add the premise that our minds are our brains.
What you said had nothing to do with what I said.
Who says I define it intrinsically? You do. I not.
Like I say, if you think there is no intrinsic difference between a 'female' mind and a 'male' mind, then your view is equivalent to mine. It's just you don't realize that you can dispense with the words 'female' and 'male' in relation to minds, as they are doing no work whatsoever.
On the other hand, if you think that there are female minds - that minds alone can have a sex regardless of what body, if any, they are inhabiting - then your view is distinct from mine and I want to know what it is about a female mind that makes it female.
Of course, I suspect that in reality you have no very clear view and will vacillate between the two very different views expressed above, as that seems to be what you've been doing up to now.
Like I said, there is no intrinsic mind. Okay, when you look at brainprocesses you can say so. But even these can always be connected to a body they are in. They just can't exist outside a living body, cut loose from it.
There are numerous differences. If you know women, you should know. You want to get to know them?
But he didn’t say brains have certain components therefore minds have them too, did he?
He said: Everything that thinks has X component, we know that from experience.
He’s not saying “minds have X component since brains have them”, but that’s how you choose to interpret it so you can get your dopamine kick from “destroying the argument with facts and logic”
Or you could be charitable. For instance he could mean:
Quoting SolarWind
Which even keeps your dualistic notion of minds and matter and I would bet would be the immediate interpretation most have.
Or he could be a monist that thinks “minds are configurations of brains”. In that case he can be saying “the physical pattern known as ‘mind’ includes having X component”. In the same way sound waves necessarily have a wavelength.
Or any number of other charitable interpretations. And this is why no one wants to respond to you anymore. Because it’s very tedious getting you to understand what they’re saying. You will always read into it what you find easy to refute. All the while complaining about how no one understands poor you.
Melvin Udall in "As Good as It Gets":
"I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."
Joking aside. Since I do not believe that there is a mind beyond matter, there is also no female mind (beyond matter).
What color is an invisible unicorn?
Let me explain my reasoning.
Where does morality come from? Is it there for God to find and set or is it set by God in the first place?
If it is God that finds it, it implies there is a higher order he obeys, and if he sets it in the first place, by what mechanisms does he reach those decisions to make some actions pious and some other sin. How does he know?
If ur answer is, he from the beginning knows it. It means he was programmed to be who he is and he doesn't have power over himself which takes away his free will. And if ur answer is he learns if after seeing the actions of humans, the same reasoning can be used to extrapolate that he is without free will.
And to answer ur question, having all powers doesn't actually mean he has free will.
Being all powerful and with out free will can go together.
I am able to do anything that is humanly possible yet I am not without free will.
:ok:
Quoting Vanbrainstorm
Being able to decide piety and impiety, God's knowledge of morality is irrelevant. Whatever he feels/thinks is good is good and whatever he feels/thinks is bad is bad - his knowledge of morality doesn't matter in the least.
Quoting Vanbrainstorm
How can he be programmed when good and bad are whatever he fancies them to be?
Also, that God is good implies God has free will. Nothing that lacks free will can be good (or bad).
Now, if someone wants to reject this idea, they have a few options: they could argue that minds, despite not being bodies, nevertheless have sexes. Or they could argue that minds are bodies and thus do have sexes. What makes no real sense, however, is to argue that minds 'depend' for their existence on bodies. For as well as being false, that would do nothing to settle the matter of whether minds have sexes or whether the bodies they depend on do.
God is by definition all-powerful. Thus God is not constrained by morality, but must instead be its creator. For if he were not its creator, then there would be something he did not control: morality.
That is one argument - an argument from God to morality. Morality is - must be - God's creation, for were it not, God would not be omnipotent. (So to your question 'where does morality come from?' the answer is clear: God).
Here is an argument that goes in the other direction, namely from morality to God. Morality is made of directives and values that have a single unifying source, Reason. That is, the directives and values of morality are among the directives of Reason (as is widely acknowledged). Now, minds and only minds can issue directives or value things. And thus the one unifying source of all moral norms and values - Reason - must be a mind. And that mind will, by dint of being Reason, be all-powerful. For Reason determines everything - what's true, what's known and so on. Thus Reason is an all powerful mind. And as Reason determines what's known, Reason will also be all-knowing. And as an all powerful mind can reasonably be taken to be exactly was she wants and values herself being, and as we have already established that moral values are no more or less than her values, Reason will be all-good too. Thus, the source of all morality - Reason - is a mind who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. God, in other words.
You can get to the same conclusion either way, then. You can reflect on the concept of God and realize that morality must be God's creation and wholly under God's control and thus not in any way something that constrains God. Or you can reflect on the concept of morality and recognize that for the concept to have something answering to it, God would need to exist and be the controlling source of its norms and values. Either way, morality is not something that constrains God.
These are just assertions, not arguments. It seems quite obvious that having all power does involving having free will, for lacking free will would be an impediment and thus would manifest a lack of power. God does have free will, then. Obviously. He doesn't have to have it - he could divest himself of it, for he can do anything. But he actually has it, for he's all powerful.
And we can get to the same conclusion by reflecting on God's omnibenevolence (an argument I made but that you have entirely ignored, so I will make again). God is, by definition, morally perfect. As such there is nothing one could do to God that would morally improve him. Yet if God lacked free will, then God would not be morally responsible for his possession of the virtues or for his behaviour. Now, as it is morally better to be praiseworthy for possessing the virtues and praiseworthy for one's behaviour, God has free will, for without it he'd be less than maximally good. That is, without free will, there would be something God could acquire that would make him even better than he is, namely free will. Yet that's a manifest contradiction: there is nothing that a morally perfect being can acquire that would make that person morally better, as if there was then they would not be morally perfect.
We can get there by yet another route too: God is Reason and thus God would not be stupid and willfully deprive himself of something he valued having. God clearly values free will, for our own reason - the faculty by means of which God communicates with us and expresses his attitudes - tells us that free will is something valuable. Thus God clearly values free will and so it is not reasonable to think he'd not have it himself, given his all-powerful nature.
God cannot overcome logic though. can he? He cannot be both omnipotent and unable to lift a stone.
Quoting Bartricks
And
Quoting Bartricks
Once again, the options you presented are simply the easiest to refute, not all options.
Quoting Bartricks
Explain. You frequently talk about how you don’t think God created everything. So why is this particular creation required to be omnipotent?
Quoting Bartricks
False. Reason does not determine everything. It determines what we have reason to believe is true, which is different from what is true.
How can the mind that determines what is reasonable, lift a rock? Or can it not? How can the mind that determines what is reasonable affect those that refuse to listen to reason such as yourself? Or can it not?
Well, your beliefs are just that: your beliefs. Justify them.
Minds are not made of matter. I have fourteen arguments for that conclusion. Do you have even one for the opposite?
And it is certain arrangements of matter that we categorize as male or female or both. Like I say, I do not even know what it means to say that a mind has a sex - it is as incoherent as saying that numbers do, or that tuesday is female whereas monday is male.
It matters because free will is intrinsically valuable, or so says our reason. And it matters as well because if we don't have free will then we aren't morally responsible for our behaviour. So, you know, it's quite important.
And God obviously has free will because God is maximally morally good, which he wouldn't be if he lacked free will.
Oh good grief, do pay attention.
Yes, he can overcome logic (whatever that means) because he can do anything. Logic must, therefore, be God's creation and its content in his gift. Why? Because if that were not the case, then he wouldn't be all powerful.
Second, there's no stone an omnipotent being is unable to lift. But an omnipotent being is able to make themselves less than omnipotent. If they couldn't do that - that is, if they were constrained to be omnipotent - then they wouldn't be omnipotent! So, though there is no stone an omnipotent being cannot lift, an omnipotent being can create such a stone that he is unable to lift, it's just that his doing so would be his making himself less than omnipotent.
Again: bachelors are unmarried men. So, bachelors do not have wives. That doesn't mean bachelors are unable to have wives. That's the silly reasoning of you and Tim and every other 8 year old who thinks there's a significant problem here despite never having taken any serious time to think about it.
Bachelors are able to have wives. There isn't some strange forcefield preventing them from going down the aisle. But if a bachelor takes a wife, then that person ceases thereby to be a bachelor. That doesn't mean that prior to doing so the bachelor is not a bachelor.
Yet this is how you reason: bachelors don't have wives......therefore a bachelor can't have a wife, therefore they lack the ability to have a wife, therefore they lack a power: bachelors are people unable to have wives.
No, bachelors are men who do not have wives.
An omnipotent person is a person who can do anything. Anything. Thus, an omnipotent person can create a stone too heavy for them to lift. They'd cease to be omnipotent at that point, just as a bachelor would cease to be a bachelor at the point at which they get married. But that's beside the point: bachelors have the power to get married, and an omnipotent person has the power to dispose of their omnipotence.
Poor analogy! If a bachelor takes a wife they cease to be a bachelor. A bachelor cannot defy logic by remaining a bachelor and at the same time taking a wife. Similarly, if God creates a stone he cannot lift he ceases to be omnipotent. The point being that God cannot create a situation wherein he is both simultaneously omnipotent and unable to lift a stone, because that would be to defy logic. If God cannot defy logic, then he is subject to logic, just like the rest of us.
I just presented an argument showing why morality is God's creation. Here:
Quoting Bartricks
And yes, I do not believe that omnipotence requires having to have created everything. But it does involve being Reason and if one is Reason then morality is one's creation. Furthermore, if morality were not the creation of an omnipotent being, then its existence would not be to the omnipotent being's credit. And that would be a fault. By contrast, that you - for instance - are not the creation of an omnipotent being does not reflect badly on the omnipotent being. Quite the opposite.
So yes, there are, I think, billions of things that the omnipotent being did not create: all those things that, were the omnipotent being to have created them, would be to that being's discredit.
It's a good analogy. There are minds. Some of them qualify as bachelors. Those that qualify as bachelors do so becasue they are inhabiting male wifeless bodies. That's sufficient to make one a bachelor. That, however, tells one nothing about the powers of that mind. It is simply a description of its current status. And clearly only a total idiot would think that as bachelors do not have wives, they must be unable to have them. They are perfectly able to have wives, it is just that were they to do so, they would no longer be bachelors.
One mind among us is omnipotent - the mind of Reason. That mind qualifies as omnipotent, for that mind can do anything. That's a description of what this mind is able to do, not a description of what it 'is' doing or has done. Now, is this mind 'able' to create a stone it is unable to lift? Yes, it is able to do that. Were it to do so, it would no longer be omnipotent. But that is no problem, for clearly an omnipotent being is able to cease to be omnipotent.
As for being able to defy logic: an all powerful being can defy logic, for were they not able to do that they would not be all powerful.
So, an omnipotent mind is able to create a stone it is unable to lift and lift it. That is, nothing prevents an omnipotent mind rewriting the laws of logic such that they can create a rock they are unable to lift and lift it. An omnipotent mind has the power to make contradictions true. For it is only by Reason that contradictions are unable to be true: that is, it is Reason that tells us that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. Nothing stops Reason telling us the opposite: that if a proposition is true, it is also false. She just doesn't. Except in some cases. Again, I stress (pointlessly, I know) that having the power to do something doesn't mean that one is doing it.
Now you're changing your story. before you said God can give up his omnipotence by creating a stone he cannot lift. Now you claim that God can create a stone he cannot lift and yet lift it, thus defying logic. All you are doing now is saying that God can do what is unimaginable to us: both lift a stone and be unable to lift it; and yet you have absolutely no rational warrant for such a ridiculous claim. You and your God sure are lousy exemplars of reason. :rofl:
That’s not what I asked for. I was asking for the “other direction”. You claim we can either go from morality to God or God to morality I’m asking for the latter. You said:
Quoting Bartricks
Explain this claim. The claims that morality is Gods creation, and that creating morality is required for omnipotence are vastly different.
Quoting Bartricks
But it requires having to create morality? Why?
Quoting Bartricks
If God is omnipotent he can make anyone do anything correct?
Also the only thing God can do is determine what is reasonable (being reason and all that)
How can God make someone who doesn’t listen to reason do something?Quoting khaled
God, come down and show yourself, and settle the issue hand to hand. Can you create a rock that you can't lift for eternity? And how long is eternity if nobody is around to verify that length?
I'm sure he is like those Jinn in Arabian nights, who gets any manner of loops holes based on the limits of language. If he can't lift the rock, can he drop it upside down, or turn off gravity, or kick it? What keeps the laws that determine the outcome of the situation from changing once nobody cares anymore, or between blinks?
No I'm not. Same story. God can do anything. So he can do that. And that. And that. And that.
Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Yes.
Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift and yet still lift it? Yes.
Does Janus understand this? No. But that's got nothing to do with anything.
Quoting Janus
Dunning and Kruger.
No they're not. Christ. What's the point in me presenting the case again when you don't seem capable of grasping it?
Once more: to be all powerful requires being Reason. And morality is essentially a subset of Reason's directives. Thus being all powerful is going essentially to involve being the creator of morality.
Again: look at the nature of morality. Morality 'is' a subset of the directives of Reason. If, then, one has not created those directives, then one is not Reason. One is merely 'subject' to those directives, rather than being the source of them. One's own goodness and the rightness of one's own deeds would not be matters under one's control. And so if one is not the author of the morality, one is not all powerful. There is something - the moral status of one's deeds and character - that is outside one control. Indeed, more than this, the very rationality of one's behaviour would be outside one's control.
Clearly an all powerful person cannot have anything about them be outside their own control, including the rational status of their actions. And thus an all powerful person would have to be Reason, and if they are Reason then they are the creator of morality.
That's going from the nature of morality and the nature of omnipotence and getting to the conclusion that an omnipotent person would be the creator of morality.
Alternatively one can focus on the nature of morality and recognize that for it to exist, there would need to be an omnipotent being. And in that way one can go from morality - and by extension, the norms of Reason more generally - and get to the conclusion that there is an omnipotent being.
That, Hugh, is what you have been saying in all of your posts, just more wordily.
I have done this several times now, but you have this firm conviction - do you not - that I am confused and talking nonsense. And this conviction is so deep rooted that it is going to prevent you from trying to understand what I say. For the instant anything I say starts dimly to make sense to you, you're going to have to find a way to misunderstand it or face the horrifying prospect that you may be quite wrong and that I am very far from confused and am not talking nonsense at all. This is the psychological quagmire you've gotten yourself in. If Bartricks is not talking nonsense, then I, Khaled, am a fool. So at all costs, I must find nonsense in what he says - my well-being depends on it.
Anyway, I am not a therapist and so I leave it to you to find some way out of that little mental mess. I will just say again that omnipotence involves being able to do anything. It doesn't involve having created everything. Indeed, it doesn't involve having created anything whatsoever. That is, there is no contradiction involved in there existing an omnipotent being who has created nothing.
But if morality exists - as it clearly does - then an omnipotent being will have been its creator.
And if Khaled exists - as he clearly does - then given his qualities, an omnipotent being will not have been his creator. Out of kindness, he does not destroy Khaled. And out of justice, he puts Khaled in a place where Bartricks is.
Morality and Khaled exists. The former is a creation of God, the latter is not.
Sure, because all you've been saying is "Look, it's true; it must be because I think so!"
No, I have never said that. Indeed, a cursory survey of what I have said will tell you that I do not believe that anything 'must' be so, as I think there is no such property of mustness. That is, I deny the reality of necessity. Because, you know, God exists and God can do anything, including destroying everything, and thus all that exists - and by extension, all truths about what exists - are contingent and not necessary. So, you know, D- for attention. Up your game, Hugh.
Oh, so, you don't claim that God must be omnipotent? In that case, how do you know he is? Have you met him?
For, if, according to "premise 1," "somethings are pious while others are sin," then, contrary to "premise 2," God couldn't have decided that "somethings are pious while others are sin," since, according to the order of the premises, the fact that "somethings are pious while others are sin" antecedes what God decides (in "premise 2").
Yes, that's right Hugh. If you'd been paying attention, you'd have noticed that I said God is by definition omnipotent. However, that's just a contingent truth about the word God.
Quoting Janus
Because God denotes an omnipotent person by definition. You do realize that a proposition can be true without having to be? It is true that God means an omnipotent person. It doesn't have to be. It is.
Quoting Janus
Not to my recollection, no.
What point? Omnipotence is a property of a person. It's not the person. It's a property of the person.
God is a person who has that property (by definition).
Can that person - an omnipotent person - create a stone he cannot lift?
Yes, obviously.
Now, explain to me how that truth implies any kind of contradiction. Don't be a twit and point out that if there is such a stone, then he's not omnipotent. That's not something I deny. Explain how this person's ability to create such a stone is incompatible with his being omnipotent.
Yes, but your book is unpublished nonsense.
Read what I have said again and explain how the fact an omnipotent being 'can' create a stone that he can't lift implies that he is not in fact omnipotent.
Does the fact I have the ability to take a wife imply that I am not a bachelor, Timbo?
Quoting khaled
No, to be reason doesn’t make you omnipotent. As there are still things you can’t do. Like lift a rock (as opposed to making reasonable people believe it was lifted) or make someone who doesn’t listen to reason do something. An inability to do those implies that deciding what is reasonable to believe does not make one omnipotent.
Now for the rest of your response:
Quoting Bartricks
Let’s assume for a second that being reason = being omnipotent. Even then:
God did not need to create the moral directives did he? He did create them, but he didn’t need to correct? Similar to the law of non contradiction:
Quoting Bartricks
God determines what is reasonable to believe and what is not reasonable, he could’ve been completely silent on the topic of what’s right and wrong and not provided us with any reasons to believe this or that is right or wrong. In that case he’d still be omnipotent yes? So it seems that creating morality is not necessary for omnipotence
As you even say yourself:
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
The above two statements contradict. One says that God doesn’t need to create anything to be omnipotent. The other says that morality must be his creation for him to be omnipotent.
And what evidence do you have that it was a singular mind that told us the imperatives of reason anyways? Why could it be a group of human minds? Where did you get the idea that all of it comes from one source?
Quoting Bartricks
Correct. Because it is what is reasonable to believe.
Quoting Bartricks
But no, I have no such fears. Even if you’re right that doesn’t necessarily make me a fool. I’ve openly admitted to being wrong on the site multiple times, but I’m not wrong in this case.
In other words, God can create a stone (s)he cannot lift - but (s)he can still lift it.
Am I getting this correctly?
Yes. Your last sentence sums it up nicely. It tends to happen with first principles: we can only get so far before we have to say "this is the way it is".
This God talk of omnipotence and omniscience is familiar enough. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to apply certain limits to such a hypothetical being. The reasoning is that, for a being to be a being, including a supreme one, it has to have a nature of some kind.
If the nature of this being is infinite, then it has infinite scope. But such boundlessness would not allow for any mechanism to develop. It's only within limits that existence is possible, otherwise the term existence loses meaning.
Not that I believe any of this, but we can substitute "Nature" for "God", and see if something comes out of it.
Confused gibberish.
Once more, I am a bachelor. Does that mean I am incapable of taking a wife?
No, obviously not.
It has nothing to do with 'all'. The world contains a lot of wives. All of them - all - are not mine. I don't have a wife. (note, that's true of all bachelors too - all the world's bachelors have none of all of the world's wives).
Now, does that mean that I am incapable of taking a wife? No. I can very easily take a wife. I have a female partner and I will simply order her to marry me and that'll be that. But I have not ordered her to marry me and so I am a bachelor; a bachelor who is entirely capable of taking a wife, despite the fact that all the world's wives are not mine.
Yes, she is not bound by the law as it is her law. But as she is telling us that no true proposition is also false, we can safely assume that it is indeed the case that no true proposition is also false. So, the law of non-contradiction is true. It is just not necessarily true. True, but it doesn't have to be. Please do not forget that it is true.
As God has the power to change the laws of Reason, for she is Reason and they're her laws that do no more than express her will, then yes, God can create a stone that is too heavy for her to lift, and lift it.
She can also create a stone that is too heavy for her to lift, and thereby render herself unable to lift it. She's quite powerful, then. There's really nothing she can't do if she wishes.
Quoting Banno
Bart's contradiction is in asserting that the LNC is true in all possible situations but contingent rather than necessary.
But it was that discussion with Bart that set me to looking at paraconsistent logic and dialetheism, and the several threads that ensued. That was worth it.
SO even a fool can have a use.
I'll just drop this here, in case someone finds it useful:
QED
Thrice the fool Bartricks is, once because you are indeed a great fool, twice the fool for engaging with Bartricks and thrice the fool for doing so repeatedly. Godsakes man, you have already done this dance and drawn the same conclusion!
Have you thought about what this implies about you? Hint: it has something to do with the love of ones own voice…
One would imagine (s)he is also the stone. The stone isn’t separate from god as (s)he is supposedly omnipresent. So the question is “can god create a portion/ part of themselves from themself” which rationally would be a yes.
Supposing god being everything means god = universe. The rock is an analogy for “singularity” as it is the concept of everything being condensed into one state/condition non separate from itself in terms of time space and energy. An actual physical rock requires too many variables in order to exist: different elements, space, time, certain forces ... some of which must not be too strong or too weak. These of course also exist outside of the rock. You couldn’t have a rock with no space or time or gravity this would be nonsense.
So one would say that if god has free will to do anything he/ she certainly enjoys order and logical relationships. Perhaps that is part of their being - a logic/ reason by which to make sense of what they are.
That's the right question.
Of course they can. They are omnipotent. They are bound though by the possibilities. If they could do everything, they can do nothing. If you can't lift a stone, then you can't. If you can't travel faster than light then you can't. If they could there lives would be chaotic. A whimsical fleeting existence. God's are not like that. Like the universe isn't, which they created in their image. Is their will free? Of course. If they don't force the wills of each other.
No, God does not decide, it's dishonorable one that accuses you of sin, and all that God does is judgement based on those accusations.
Quoting Vanbrainstorm
No, God gave free will, therefore the one that makes wrong choices is the one that labels it self.
God is love as opposite to hate, therefore God does not seduce man.
Yes, otherwise it would not be almighty.
A more appropriate question would be, why God gave free will?
EDIT:
I'm basing this on specific God, unless there is some other God you're talking about?
Do you think God should read philosophy too? He already has to read the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, all those other religious documents, and the Wall Street Journal.
God was not beforehand endowed with knowledge or affterwards endowed with knowledge. He did not sit at the table and decided as a human person would. Rather he created the world by his will and in this world some things are pious and some sinful. Why would he be programmed. He is cause sui, cause ot itself. In your language the unprogrammed programmer. So yes, he has free will, he is freedom actually. Our freedom is caused by us being material. We are not creators but created.
Lol, well Ill give you credit for trying but no Tim Wood I don’t do much tar baby grabbing myself. My comments purpose was to try and get you to stop feeding the troll, not an invitation for discussion. If I somehow, in some incomprehensible way, haven’t been clear: I do not believe there is any benefit in engaging with you, only cost. I think you are a dishonest arguer, and a fool.
But like…just stop fucking talking to that guy already. Its painful.
If I'm following correctly, B would disagree with #4. I believe B would say that God could make such a stone AND lift it if (s)he so chose - since (s)he is not bound by LNC.
To say that God is by definition omnipotent just is to say that he must be omnipotent. Unless we are merely speaking about the word 'God', that it just signifies the idea of something omnipotent and not an actual being. But then that word 'God' signifies a contradiction, since as the example of the stone shows, the very idea of being omnipotent is a contradiction.
Seriously? You do set the bar low, don't you?
You are contradicting yourself. You say they are omnipotent and yet "bound by the possibilities" and "If you can't lift a stone, then you can't".
What on earth are you on about? You think you can do anything? No you can't. You are extraordinarily limited in your powers.
An omnipotent being can do anything. That's what being omnipotent involves.
Everyone can do what they do. (Well, actually that's not strictly true - sometimes we do things we are not able to do, such as when we achieve something by luck).
But being able to do what one is able to do is not at all what being omnipotent involves.
I can do what I can do. But that does not make me omnipotent, for what I can do is very little.
God can do what God can do. But what God can do is, well, anything, as he's omnipotent.
Can God give up his omnipotence? Yes.
Can God give up his omnipotence and make it true at the same time that he has not given up his omnipotence? That is, can God make it true that he is omnipotent and that he is not omnipotent at once? Yep. Hard to make sense of that ability, admittedly - indeed, by its very nature we're not able to do so, for the tool we use to make sense of things is our reason, and our reason tells us in no uncertain terms that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. But that's just God telling us that. And God doesn't have to tell us it. He could tell us that if a proposition is true, then it is also false. And upon doing so, it would make sense to us that this is the case, for our sense-making mechanism would tell us it made sense. Or at least, it would if it worked, as it does in my case, but probably wouldn't in yours, as your reason is not tracking Reason herself at all well.
So, God has the power to give up his omnipotence. And God also has the power to make it true that he has given up his omnipotence and retained it at the same time. The former would just be consistent with what our reason tells us is possible, whereas the latter would not be. But what our reason tells us is possible is no restriction on God, for God is the author of our reason.
No it isn't. Show your working. How the hell did you get to that conclusion??
The definition of a term is a contingent truth about it.
Bachelor means 'unmarried man'. That's just contingent. It doesn't have to mean that. It just does.
And you certainly can't get from that, to the conclusion that bachelors lack the ability to have wives.
Likewise, God denotes an omnipotent person.
And by definition, an omnipotent person can do anything. That too is a contingent truth about the meaning of the word omnipotent.
But you can't get from the fact Mike is omnipotent to the conclusion that Mike is incapable of being anything other than omnipotent. That would be of a piece with stupidly thinking that if Mike is a bachelor, then he is incapable of being anything other than a bachelor.
No, that's false. If God is Reason, then God will not be bound by the laws of Reason, for they are his laws to make or unmake as he pleases.
Now, that God can do what our reason tells us is impossible, such as making square circles and such like.
Clearly a God who can make a square circle is more powerful than one who is otherwise identical but can't make a square circle, yes?
And thus if God is Reason, then God will be all powerful - for God will be able to do anything at all.
And as God is all powerful, then God is Reason. For a god who is not Reason will be bound by Reason and thus will be less powerful than a god who is Reason. A god who is less powerful than another has no business being called omnipotent. But a God who is Reason is all powerful, for there is no higher authority than Reason.
Rubbish! The definition of the God that we are discussing necessarily involves omnipotence, toss that and you have a conception of some other kind of God. Which is fine: Whitehead's God for example is neither omnipotent, omniscient nor omnibenevolent.
What follows from that is that since the idea of omnipotence necessarily involves contradiction, the idea of an omnipotent God is also contradictory and hence incoherent.
Good point. Well made.
Show your bloody working.
Words mean what they mean 'contingently', not of necessity.
Grandiose, but to me signifies nothing but the peacefulness of poetry, which God is.
I'm just saying, I'm a gnostic, and in my experience, God is not extreme.
I know enough to know that I can't comprehend it, but am aware of a higher order. We need to be fair with this higher order as well. Come as a friend. Instead of all this. All this is nonsense. God (however loaded that word has become) is a friend in every sense of the word.
Yeah, that's the usual explanation, and it has this singular advantage over Bart's illogic: it is coherent.
Back in the day I would have said "God is the sum total and expression of everything." Which some do believe, and perhaps is correct. To be honest, I dare not say it, though.
Oh really. First, it is not the usual explanation - it is contemporary theist philosophers who tend to try and understand omnipotence in terms of being able to do all things logically possible, as opposed to just all things. It has not been 'usual'. Descartes believed as I do. So did Jesus. (With God all things are possible.....not God can do all possible things). So contemporary Christian philosophers at least, are being both dumb and heretical.
The idea that an omnipotent being can do only those things it is logically possible - and at that, logically possible for him - to do is patently absurd, as a moment's reflection reveals. For it makes God constrained - constrained by logic, this now strange forcefield that exists independently of God and limits what he can do. Clearly a god unconstrained by logic would be more powerful than an otherwise identical god who was constrained by it - or can you not even see that?
Geach considers four theories of omnipotence, to dismiss each in turn, in the end in favour of god being not omnipotent but almighty. The four are:
Bart seems to be an adherent of the first sort of omnipotence.
For my part I would go along with the dismissal of each category of omnipotence, and the conclusion that omnipotence is incoherent, but just not bother with the need to go further.
I feel your fascination with omnipotence is a sign that what you're really interested in is paraconsistent logic and its more "violent" twin dialetheism. You might find this thread right up your alley :point:
Logical Nihilism. It's @Banno's thread and coincidentally Banno's post is the latest.
But hey, the writer is a lover of logic, so how else could God be for him?
Are you comparing yourself with Jesus now? All hail the second coming! Your inception of time is rather naive. It doesn't display a great knowledge of time. And that's why you are so confused. Knowledge and the truth about time can set you free!
Shall I do it for you?
Here: "hoity toity, far be it for me to hoity toity, but McTaggart was surely toity, hoity, hoity, toity toity. The great Descartes no less, held such a view, but hoity toity even the great among us make mistakes, indeed the very greatest of mistakes, so hoity toity. Anyway, I will not consider further this view of omnipotence, for it is plainly false and disreputable and only the greatest minds - who are apt, of course, to make the greatest mistakes, for there is surely no greater hindrance to understanding than to be extremely good at it - will have any truck with it and toity hoity. So let us now move on, 'hoitum toitum' as it were, to other views, having so roundly rejected this one without ever being so vulgar as to explain why."
Sound about right?
No one can compare himself with Jesus. He is the divine spirit emaculately in-, re- , and concepted by the Lord Himself, praise His Name! JEHOVA! To compare yourself with Jesus is comparing yourself with God. Hence the difficulties you have with the free will of the Holy Gracious, praise His Name! JEHOVA! You are projecting human-like features of the Holy Heavenly Father, praise His name! JEHOVAH! May His eternal glory be with you or enter you soon! To pretend to know if God is free, even to ask it, is a shameless act of mindless identity projection! How can you know what the act of creation looked like? Projecting time or will on His Pristine Being, diminishes the Good Lord, praise His Name, JEHOVAH! to the secular follies your atheistic mind wanders with. The Lord, praise His Name JEHOVA! won't tolerate! Going on like this will make it impossible for you to turn your head away from Lucifer one day. Praise His Name! LUCIFER! The act of creation is unknown. The word of the Lord, praise His Name, JEHOVA! will be known to the secular naive mind, like yours, only through the Lord-given words received by Brother Mozes, praise His Name! MOZES! Mozes itch! What the fuck I'm doing!? Goddammit! Well, seriously, how can you know the act of creation is the same as a human act of creation. Creation! Praise Her Name! ELISABETTAMYLOVE! How can you know the will of the gods is free or not? It's nice discussing it, but you place the question in a physical domain, and as such you can just as well ask if our own will is free, or if we can truly create.Hai Capito?
If all things are possible, nothing is possible. Oops! turned the sea into wine. Oops! turned the bread into fire! Watch your mouth guys! Good old J. would have a hard time, as well as God!
If allthings are possible, then try picking one of the infinite ways to choose lifting the proverbial stone. You won't succeed!
I may be, of course. Because I do think that it is possible for God to be ignorant of all manner of things, and that he will in fact be ignorant of the fact he is God, and may have made himself so by making himself ignorant of his ability to do anything. So I am not ruling out categorically that I am God. I don't think any of us can. But I don't appear to be omnipotent, and so I don't appear to be God.
Imagine you were able to lift the stone in infinite ways. Which one would you choose given the context?
Haha, at least you have a sense of humor. Well if that's how your mind works, by basing your choice on choosing a number, then I wish you the best luck! What if nr4 causes you to get smashed by the stone after you have lift it?
Not quite. Geach sets your view up as the first form of omnipotence, the ability to do absolutely everything. "As Descartes himself remarked, nothing is too absurd for some philosopher to have said it some time... Some naive Christians would explicitly assert the doctrine..."
So he suggests that it is contrary to the church fathers, and finds a quote form the bible that contradicts it, which of course is neither here nor there. But you go to the further step, it seems, in agreeing with Mavrodes, 'Well, you've stated a difficulty, but of course being omnipotent God can overcome that difficulty, though I don't see how.'
My bolding, to emphasis the similarity to your posts.
He goes on to discuss Descartes, who may have agreed with you, it seems.
My bolding, again.
The point is a simple one. If god is indeed absolutely omnipotent in the sense you propose, then they cannot be subjected to logical analysis.
And hence, your arguments are void.
It would be disingenuous of me not to state up front that I find your writings entertaining & bizarrely fascinating. It's not merely the things you say, but that you state them with such certainty and conviction. Perhaps I've overlooked it, but I am not seeing anything in your posts that indicates anything resembling humility or acknowledging the possibility that you are mistaken. If you have said such, I missed it and apologize for misrepresenting you.
That out of the way, I understand your position that God is not bound by LNC - otherwise (s)he would not be all powerful.
Would you clarify what you mean by "God is Reason"? Is "Reason" simply an alias for "God"? I.e., could we copy & paste the word "Reason" for the word "God" in your writings without any loss of meaning?
If I'm following you, I don't believe this is the case.
Jesus, Descartes and me: God can do absolutely anything
Geach: well, as I said to the Bishop of Durham, who had expressed - or should I say, expressiumed - the same idea, but that I later discovered to be a walnut credenza and not the man of god at all, if a little bit of education is a dangerous thing, think what a lot of it can do! Now, it has to be admitted that those three gentlemen are geniums of the first order, but this does not mean that everything they say is true or even that more truth is to be found in them than in others. But it must be remarked that were God able to do absolutely anything - that is, absolutariumius thingius ad meritoriam expedentialium - then God would be able to do anything. The logical problems - problarium logicarius - that this creates are, needless to say, ones I cannot name or talk about. But I think we can now move on.
Banno: boom! You just got owned, Barty!
I'm not here to teach you how to read.
Geach clearly provides grounds for rejecting your view, along with the other forms of omnipotence. I summarised it as follows:
Quoting Banno
"...as barren as a victory by an incessant demand that your adversary should prove his premises or define his terms."
If god is indeed absolutely omnipotent in the sense you propose, then they cannot be subjected to logical analysis.
Perhaps that god is not subject to analysis should be something you celebrate, as yet another example of divine omnipotence.
The Bible speaks of truth and Jesus says he is truth. The Bible says God can never fail or tell a lie. So why do you quote the Jesus to support your position?
All theists say that
You Ok there?
Why are you putting your words in the mouths of Descartes and Jesus though?
That's your view, yes? If x is possible, it is actual
Generates an actual contradiction. Your view. Not mine. Yours. You ok?
They aren't. I don't interpret them to mean God can commit suicide at least.
:rofl: Indeed. You are in the presence of God.
I suspect that solipsism is the only conclusion to the conundrum Bart has created. He may eventually realise that he alone exists, and we are but gadflies he himself has sent to prompt this realisation.
Jesus: with God all things are possible
Gregory: he can't commit suicide though
Jesus: yes he can. What did I just say??
Gregory: I think you'll find you said he couldn't.
Jesus: are you having a bloody laugh, mate? Sweet me, you are a few marbles short. Me!
False. Jesus did not say God can change.
Also: "But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of something entails that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature that he always exists is no less clear and distinct than is the case when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature" Descartes
Jesus:with God all things are possible. Are you dumb mate?
Gregory: he can't change
Jesus: I'll take that as a yes. Me almighty! I can turn water into wine, but I can't fix stupid.
Descartes: it seems, by the light of reason, that God always exists.
Gregory: so he can't commit suicide?
Descartes: for sure he can commit suicide. What you mean? He do anything. He God!
Gregory: you said he always exists. So he can't commit suicide.
Descartes: Always does not mean can't. He can commit suicide, this is okay with you, yes? He has not, he will not - umi sure of it like I sure of own mind. You are, how we say, like a ripe brie; very thick and smell as dead rat. I insult you good, no? You think, therefore you confused. Because you no good at thinking. Ha.
Lots of theists believe God can do anything yet don't believe he can commit suicide. Jesus was probably one of them and Descartes certainly was. You're the only one with the mental block about this.
If you had even read the Meditations you would know that he says God cannot deceive
But anyway, much as I love discussing Descartes with those apt to misunderstand virtually everything he says, the bottom line is that i think God can do anything, and no one has yet shown otherwise.
So I forgot there were 6? So. I don't read Descartes anymore. But you forget that Descartes says God cannot lie because he is perfect. His God is much closer to Aquinas's than yours.
"So we shall come to understand that necessary existence is contained in the idea of a supremely perfect being" Descartes
Okay, now I'm waiting for the insult that inevitably follows such statements...
Quoting EricH
Yes, because I have good arguments for them and I know what I am doing.
Quoting EricH
Ah, there it is. Knew it was coming. Yeah, yeah, I'm a bad person and you're a saint. Does it show a lack of humility to believe that 3 x 14 = 42? No. You have to reflect on it a little bit, but once you've done so, you're justified in being pretty damn certain about it. Now, how much time have you spent thinking about the nature of reason? I've probably racked up about 15,000 hours (and that's a conservative estimate). So I'm pretty sure of myself, yes. But that's no vice when you've put the hours in. I'm justifiably sure of myself, as most of us are about 3 x 14 = 42
Quoting EricH
Yes. So God is Reason, as that's how she wouldn't be bound by LNC or any other law.
Quoting EricH
The word 'God' does not mean 'Reason' anymore than water means H20. The word God denotes a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
Reason denotes the source of all normative reasons.
It's just that the single source of all normative reasons - Reason - is a person, and that person will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, and thus will satisfy the definition of God.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that God lacks the ability to cease to exist, for he can cease to be perfect whenever he wants.
You don't really understand Descartes and what he's doing. He thinks God would give us a way of knowing he, God, exists. That he finds such a way then confirms that God exists. If God exists, there would be a proof of his existence. That is, there would be a way of being certain that he exists. You need to understand what he's saying with that in mind.
You say God is contingent. Descartes says he is necessary. You say God can change. Descartes says he is changeless and always exists (not "always existed"). You don't seem to have ever had a concept of God where he can do all things but not things against his nature. You go on about how God, if he is all powerful, can do a contradiction and kill himself, but nobody seems to think this is very insightful. It's like you have an itch in the brain over omnipotency. It's not as easy as you make it out to be
Again, you've put your interpretation of omnipotence in the mouth of Jesus and Descartes. Descartes arguments for God only make sense with a necessary being who "cannot deceive", as he says
If God doesn't lack the ability to cease to exist, and in his infinite wisdom decides it's better not to exist anymore, then he won't be OO&O anymore. He will have returned to absolute divine infinite nothingness. From which there is no escape. Or is there? From his Omnipotence we can conclude this he can do, including his Omnisapience. From the perspective of his omnibenevolence it's completely understandable: to free humanity from his evil presence.
A while back I engaged in a conversation with someone who was clearly making a basic mistake in set theory and formal logic (what you call squiggles). I attempted to get him to understand his error by first gently asking him to clarify one of his formulas. We did a back and forth a few times and then I explained his error - and as well as pointing out where he could get more information on the topic. As this point I got an angry response - this person thought I was some sort of acolyte seeking knowing when in fact I was undercutting him.
I firmly believe that whenever possible ideas should be criticized - not people. I’m sort of a kumbaya kind of person. In my posts here (as well as in my personal life) I attempt to be as honest and open as possible without engaging in personal invective (OK - I draw the line at out and out racists or Nazis). But at the same time I want to be open and honest about my intentions - and there is no way I could do that with you without coming across as somewhat insulting.
It is obvious that you are very well read and intelligent. If I wanted clarification regarding some fine detail about Anselm’s ontological argument, I would consider you to be as good an authority as anyone out here. And based on your posts, I do not consider you to be a bad person or some sort of troll. Very strange? Yes indeed! Bad/evil? No.
I am trying to understand how you think. We are not going to agree on any major points, and this does not bother me (as it seems to bother many other folks out here). I do not feel personally threatened by your ideas.
- - - - - - -
All that said, I’d like to get back to my question, as I did not follow your answer. I'll try re-phrasing my question.
“God is Reason”. To my way of thinking, this sentence equates the words God & Reason and implies that they can be used interchangeably.. So, for example, here are the last 2 sentences in your response to me:
Quoting Bartricks
So if God is Reason, would it be equally correct to swap the words God & Reason in these sentences like this:
[i]God denotes the source of all normative reasons.
It's just that the single source of all normative reasons - God - is a person, and that person will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, and thus will satisfy the definition of Reason.[/i]
I.e., what is the context in which you use "God" vs. "Reason"
It's a nonsense topic!
Let's say I am the richest person in the bar, but the person I am drinking with does not know this. They just think I am Bartricks. They see that I have finished my drink and want another. They know that Bartricks wants another drink. Do they know that the richest person in the bar wants another drink? No. If you asked them 'does Bartricks want another drink?' they would say 'yes'. If you asked them 'does the richest person in the bar want another drink?' they'd say 'I don't know'.
Reason is the name for the source of all (normative) reasons. That's what it denotes. Most people don't realize it's a person. It is and this can be discovered easily enough. But there you go. Once one understands that Reason is a person, what we say about Reason makes sense (listen to Reason, follow Reason, the imperatives of Reason and so on).
God is the name of a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Reason will have those qualities. Thus Reason is God.
To go back to my analogy with myself, imagine that the person who owns the goldmine is, by virtue of this, the richest person in the bar, for that's the most valuable asset in these parts. The person I am drinking with does not know that the person who owns the goldmine is, by virtue of this, the richest person in the bar (for she does not know it is the most valuable asset in these parts). But she does know I own the goldmine. Does she know that the richest person in the bar wants a drink? No, she knows that Bartricks - the man who owns the local goldmine - wants a drink.
Similarly then, many people know that Reason wants them to do this and believe that. And many people also know that God is a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Do they know that it is God who wants them to do this or believe that? No, not necessarily - not unless they realize that Reason is a person and that the person of Reason would have the attributes constitutive of being God.
Likewise, many of those who know that Reason wants them to do this and believe that, also believe that God wants them to do this and believe that. Do they know that Reason and God are one and the same person? No. Just as my drinking partner may know that the richest person in the bar wants a drink - someone has told them - and know as well that I want a drink, yet not realize that myself and the richest person in the bar are one and the same person.
False. That doesn't logically follow.
I got more quotes from Descartes:
"When we attend to immense power of this being, we shall be unable to think of its existence as possible without also recognizing that it can exist by its own power; and we shall infer from this that this being does really exist and has existed from eternity, since it is quite evident by the natural light that what can exist by its own power always exists. So we shall come to understand that necessary existence is contained in the idea of a supremely perfect being"
"For what is more manifest than the fact that the supreme being exists, or that God, to whose essence alone existence belongs, exists?"
"Possible or contingent existence is contained in the concept of a limited thing, whereas necessary and perfect existence is contained in the concept of a supremely perfect being"
At least have the humility of admitting when you are proven wrong. As for God, I don't think you've yet understood what the word means. God is not a super alien
There's what we can conceive of, and there's what God can do.
A necessary being can do anything except kill himself or go against his nature. Those "actions" are not real possibilities. A rock God cannot pick up doesn't mean anything.
What a wordy response. You could have conveyed the exact same information with your first paragraph plus one more sentence.
Quoting Bartricks
I added in that last sentence boldface. Much simpler and to the point, yes?
Now there’s nothing wrong with your analogies, it's just that they're unnecessary to convey the point.
So why do I start off by saying this? Because it highlights the fact that there is almost no common language between the two of us. All religious writing reads to me like some form of poetry.
“The moon was a ghostly galleon”
Of course we know that the moon isn’t really a ghostly gallon, we recognize that this is poetry. Is it great poetry? I dunno - but it certainly is memorable.
So once you say that God can lift the un-liftable stone? You are speaking poetically. God is not bound by LNC but we frail human beings are.
And just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with religious writing per se. There are some great stories and beautiful writing in the Bible. And when you say:
Quoting Bartricks
I can see how for some people this might be a beautiful image.
I'll stop here. Regardless of anything else I might say, I can reasonably predict that you will reject this line of reasoning and that I will get a very lengthy response. And that’s OK too. I do have one request: in your response, would you please answer me this:
If all the things you are saying are correct? How does this affect my life? Should I sell all my worldly possessions and become a hermit? Should I spend all my money on fast women and booze? Should I take up tap dancing?
Have you noticed Bart does not use quotes? Nor any other citations?
Yes. And since he thinks God can do contradictions, maybe his God has made you and I right in these discussions and given him no truth. He would have no way to know. Not only is he a relativist, but he has an all powerful enforcer of contradictions behind everything. So I don't know why he bothers to even get on this forum
Yes. And since he thinks God can do contradictions, maybe his God has made you and I right in these discussions and given him no truth. He would have no way to know. Not only is he a relativist, but he has an all powerful enforcer of contradictions behind everything. So I don't know why he bothers to even get on this forum
That's obvious - for attention.
Like I say, you do not understand Descartes. In the meditations he is talking about himself and what he can conceive of, and thus he is not talking, strictly speaking, about what is absolutely possible (for that one finds oneself unable to conceive of something is not proof of its impossibility).
If you read his replies to objections, in particular his replies to the sixth set, then you'll find him expressing the view I and others attribute to him. (It's also contained in private correspondence with Mersenne).
Jeffrey is the name of a person who has red hair.
Henry has those qualities.
Thus Jeffrey is Henry.
God is shorthand for 'a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent' such that if you have those qualities you are God. It's like Dr. If you have a PhD, you are a dr.
*That* is the mystery of mysteries.
What "God"? Christian? Hindu? Islamic? A personal "God" ... or any other imagined, constructed "God"?
And the answer is obvious: yes, for an omnipotent being is unconstrained and thus nothing they do will be unfree unless they choose to make it so.
I've read Descartes's Replies and as I showed, he says God is necessary. He said "always exists" and "necessary". That why the ontological argument works for him. What you are referring to is that he says God's Fiat makes something God instead of something being good because it is so. That's a overly subtle scholastic point that has nothing to do with your relativism
You don't know how his two arguments for God work together
Provide the quotes from Descartes that God has no nature and can destroy himself. He said God is necessary
Every theist believes God can do anything. Destroying himself is not something
A necessary being can't die by definition
You are really incapable of understanding the answer to the rock paradox? I figured that out when I was a kid
You're an atheist plain and simple
Descartes ontological argument works for him only when God if necessary
It's the same as Anselm's
Than state how it's unique
This thread is about God and free will, not the finer details of Descartes' case for God.
Descartes said it was different from Anselm's but it's exactly the same. Necessary being must exist by definition. Ergo, God exists
Descartes had a big ego, plus another actually unique argument for God in the Third Meditation
Then explain exactly how Descartes's ontological argument is different from Anslem
Again I ask how does God create morality?
OK. An imaginary "God" then. (It was in my list! :smile:)
God is constrained by his properties. He can't change his own nature. He is with rules and regulations and he can't go against them. And if there are rules and regulations for God. U can ask where do those rules and regulations come. Which makes God without freewill. Which in a way makes him no God.
I said "in my list". And my list was: "Christian? Hindu? Islamic? A personal 'God' ... or any other imagined, constructed 'God'?".
OK?
Google "imaginary god" (1.6m results) and you'll see why I put it in my list ...
As for your definition, I don't thing it exists. There are hundreds of definitions and now one says "a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent". And, BTW, I didn't want to comment on that in the first place, but ... "person" ???
So, I advise you to look up "God" in Wikipedia.
I also advise you, before starting a discussion to study well the key terms involded in it, e.g. "God".
Then he is programmed.
Well, in his created world how did things become pious and sinful?
His nature is fixed. And he can't change them. He as all other things in the universe is a consequence and he can't change who he is. Which makes him without freewill.
God is his nature. His free will and his nature are one and good. His choices are his nature and he is necessary. A divine being can be free in that way
The nature is the purely simple union of will, essence, and existence
If it is fixed, it must be fixed by something outside of him, yes? Otherwise he's fixing it himself, in which case he can unfix it and it is not properly fixed at all.
And if it is fixed by something outside of him, then he's not God - because he's now neither omnipotent or omnibenevolent.
You don't think of God in a spiritual way as evidence that you don't understand aseity
By 'spiritual' do you mean 'vaguey waguey hippy way'?
You have a wobbly jelly of a worldview; I have a classical temple.
You believe God can exist, not exist, be bad, and be Satan himself all at the same time. Talk about acid nonsense
So if God (since you don't understand what all-power means) in your view can cease to exist while making the "appearance" of his existence remain, you have no proof God has ever existed in your life time. It's just as likely, in your view, that you are a goblin and the rest of us elves, because God can make it appear so. There is no rhyme and reason to your God, so everything whatsoever is possible. You have free will and don't have free will, are a boy and a girl, and every other nonsense, because your position allows it
You gotta stop feeding the Bart, it only encourages him. Don’t be his chump.
You're probably right
Well if you havent read his interactions with others I can assure you it is a complete waste of time engaging with Bart. Dont take my word for it, review his chats with anyone, you will see how its just going in circles, much like Barts “logic”.
Hey mods, at what point does Barts posting become low quality? I submit he hasn’t engaged or been engaged with a single quality discussion. At best they start with sime merit and quickly degenerate into something indistinguishable from trolling.
How about the boot already?
You're confused. A bachelor can't have a wife. That doesn't mean that a person who is a bachelor lacks the ability to take a wife, it just means that were he to do so, he'd no longer qualify as a bachelor.
'God' is like 'bachelor'. God is a person who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. God, qua God, cannot do evil, etc - the 'cannot' here not telling us anything about God's abilities, but just about when a word is being correctly applied.
But just as qualifying as a bachelor does not prevent one from taking a wife, likewise qualifying as God does not prevent the person of God from doing anything - far from it, by dint of being omnipotent, the person of God can do anything.
These are slightly subtle points, however.
I do not know. There are two possibilities. A. He created pious and sinful things. B. Things became pious and sinful through the choices they made. A. is problematic because why would an all good creator create sinful things? B. however, begs the question though. If they made choices that made them sinful God would know before hand and God knows its creation has the potentiality to be sinful. Therefore God created sinful things. However, how you deduce from that that God is programmed is beyond me.
How does that follow? Like so many here, you seem to have difficulty distinguishing between being able to do something and actually doing it. I can lie, yes? Yet if I say "it is raining where I am" you have good prima facie evidence that it is raining where I am.
Quoting Gregory
No, that simply doesn't follow. It's possible I am dreaming right now. That doesn't mean it is just as likely I am dreaming as that I am perceiving reality.
I think B is true.
But why think God would know how we'd exercise our free will? God can make himself ignorant of anything he wants to. And it seems positively disrespectful to pry into the private thoughts and desires of free agents. So I think it is perfectly reasonable to think that God doesn't know how free agents will exercise their free will. Not becasue he 'can't' know, but because he doesn't want to.
I don't see a problem with B, then.
And some, of course, do abuse their free will. Us, for example. And here we are: condemned to live among others who have done the same.
You may be correct about being ungrateful - I should have thanked you for your response and I didn't. I apologize for that. Seriously.
You still haven't said what fixes God's nature. Barty Bot wants to know! Tell Barty Bot.
So it is more important for God to allow free will than to protect the victims of violent acts?
One of the main reasons why we doubt our free will is our nature - our preferences not something we chose.
God is seen as having a nature viz. benevolence, in fact God's omnibenevolent. No free will!
However, God's also omnipotent i.e. he can defy his nature. Free will!
The paradox: God has free will (omnipotent) & God doesn't have free will (omnibenevolent)
No, I would imagine that it is more important to God to respect the privacy of free agents than it is to know exactly what they are going to decide to do. But there is a space between decision and action and I am sure that God - being omnibenevolent and all powerful - would intervene to protect innocent victims from a free agent's violent acts. You are too, I take it?
If you're omnipotent, then you are Reason, for then and only then would you have the power to do anything.
And if you're Reason then you are also the author of the moral law and the creator of all moral values.
And if you're all powerful - as you would be, being Reason - then you have the power to make yourself however you wish to be.
And so it is reasonable to believe that an omnipotent person will be exactly as she wishes to be. That is, she will fully value how she is and won't want to change a thing.
And when you're Reason and feel that way about yourself, then you are morally perfect, for to be morally perfect is to be maximally valued by Reason. So God is free - as free as can be, for there is nothing restricting what she does - and she fully values herself - and so is omnibenevolent as well.
You are trying to generate a puzzle, but your way of doing it turns morality into some curious external force that binds God. It is nothing remotely like that: it is an aspect of God's will.
[quote=Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World)]We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.[/quote]
What about this too :point: Lex Luthor (evil genius)?
I explained above how it is that omnibenevolence flows from omnipotence. I don't understand what you're talking about now.
Never mind!
It is more important to protect innocent people from violent acts (strange circumstances aside). And so God has done precisely that. That's the reasonable conclusion, anyway, once it is clear that God exists.
I mean, what do you think you're doing here? You think God would suffer innocent people to live in ignorance in a world like this one? Of course he wouldn't. So join the dots. He hasn't. And that you are living in ignorance in a dangerous world tells you something: you're not innocent. You're not here to be benefitted - for there is no benefit an omnipotent has to expose you to danger to give you - you're here to be punished. You're being exposed to the ignorance and attendant dangers that you would freely have subjected another to had God not prevented you from doing so. That's the only reasonable conclusion, anyway.
Your claim is debatable, that's all.
Is it? Which bit?
Does not being omnipotent require being Reason?
And does not being Reason mean that one will be the arbiter of moral value?
And does not being omnipotent imply being exactly as one values being?
Sorry, you'll have to figure that out yourself. I'm :confused:, remember?
Conversely, if you don’t have a PHD, you lose the doctorate, yes?
If God decides to relinquish one of the Os is he still God?
I thought once you lose an essence, you stop being that which the essence is a feature of. So, once you're not a wolf, and you aren't domesticated, you stop being a dog. In short an undomesticated non-wolf is a dog is nonsensical.
God is defined as an omniscient being. The moment God turns himself into an non-omniscient being he would no longer be God. The question is similar to the question whether God can create another God. Also you seem to think God exists in time similar to the way human's do and that he pries in the same way as humans pry in private affars. However God does not exist in time similar to humans as he would than be under the rule of time and hence limited. God though is an unlimited being.
We are left with an unlimited omnisicent being, qua the definition of God.
Now of course God can limit himself. He became men in the Christian vision, but he did not lose the qualities of God as God. That is why he is three in one. (trinity).
Quoting TheMadFool
Omnibenevolence does not stand in the way of free will. He can act otherwise, but he does not, he only acts in benevolent ways. This does bring the theodicy to the fore of course. Why are there sinful things in a creation of a benevolent being?
So, for the second time, you are referring to an imaginary "God"!
You don't understand either the simple thing that I am saying above or what you yourself are saying. Well, the first time this was funny but now it's sad.
So you really believe that throughout history there has not been a single case of an innocent victim being tortured to death because God would have intervened?
Please name the planet on which you live.
Even if gods are not a prime mover in some metaphysical, logically irrefutable sense, proved to transcend the entire universe, billions of humans seem to get the impression that gods have an interest in making sure life on this planet is sustained, preserving the experience we have of our own willing, giving humans what they deserve if we're behaving badly, etc.
Perhaps some humans haven't been humbled by gods such that they're willing to fully acknowledge this, but not everyone needs the experience of dodging lightning bolts in order to understand that actions have moral consequences, and gods would hold us accountable if we have what is almost common knowledge of how to effectuate a harmonious society and ecosystem, yet still willfully screw up what surrounds us.
Thinking that it is humanity's place to judge the spiritual power and prerogative of gods is the height of fallacy. The best we can do is accept our fates, make the most of our opportunities, try to improve, learn from our mistakes, and not screw up when we know what the hell we are doing.
You don't seem to be very good at reasoning. No, I think there has not been a single case of an innocent being tortured to death. God would not allow it.
Now, baby steps. People are tortured to death in this world. But God would not allow innocent people to be tortured to death. So, guess what? We're not innocent. And God doesn't care what happens to us here. He doesn't like us. Hence the torturing (which, note, he's not doing to us - we do that to each other); hence the ignorance.
Yes, that means 'all knowing'. That is, in possession of all items of knowledge.
An item of knowledge is a justified true belief.
But God determines what is justified.
So, God can make himself ignorant of something and thereby it will cease to be justified. God's will determines what is and isn't justified. Thus, God can be ignorant 'and' omniscient, for by making himself ignorant he reduces the domain of knowledge.
Quoting Tobias
I do not follow you. Yes, God could create another God. God can do anything, so he can do that.
Quoting Tobias
Yes, and yes, God does exist in time. God creates time. And God is in time. I created a jersey. And I am in the jersey. God creates time. God is in time.
Quoting Tobias
Omnibenevolent doesn't mean maximally benevolent - it means 'all good'. But yes, being omnibenevolent is in no way in conflict with having free will.
Why are there sinful beings? Well, God didn't create them - being omnipotent does not essentially involve having created everything. And free will seems to require being uncreated. So as we have free will, it is reasonable to conclude that we are uncreated.
Why is there wrongdoing? Because God values people having free will and exercising it. But he doesn't allow anyone to visit harm on an innocent. Why would he? He can prevent that. So it is reasonable to suppose he does. And has.
This argument is valid and sound:
1. If God exists, he would not suffer innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
2. God exists
3. Therefore, God has not suffered innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
4. We are living in ignorance in a dangerous world
5. Therefore, we are not innocent
God doesn't allow harm to befall innocents. Harm befalls us. We are not innocent.
Some humans have tortured innocents to death, but they are in deep dookie.
They already were - this, here, is dookie. And now they're deeper still. Once God's existence is established, and once his omnipotence is appreciated, there's no way of avoiding the conclusion: we're in clink doing life stretches.
There are some who, in love with themselves, imagine that God created this world 'for' them - that is, as some kind of treat or gift. A more foolish and self-centred view of things is hard to conceive of. This world is a dangerous place and we are born and live most of our lives knowing virtually nothing about it. The idea that God would do that to an innocent person is outrageous. And the idea that God 'needed' to subject us to life here to teach us something, or to permit us to exercise free will, is absurd, given that God can do anything and so could give us all goods without exposing us to any risk of harm whatever. To think otherwise is to think God incapable.
So, we are here because God wants us to be - and we are ignorant because God wants us to be, and we are exposed to the risk of harm such ignorance creates because God wants us to be. And why would he want us to be? Because he hates us. And why would he hate us? Because we attempted to do what he's doing to us to an innocent person or persons.
There is, I think, no way of avoiding these conclusions once one starts thinking clearly.
So then, wouldn't God be limited by the fact that he can't remain God while relinquishing one of the Os?
Quoting Bartricks
But how do you know? You would say that it's because he's omnibenevolent I bet, but how do you know that omnibenevolence entails hating and punishing the unjust?
What if God values lying and torturing the innocent. And since he values lying, he leads us to believe that omnibenevolence entails hating and punishing the unjust, which leads you to believe that no one is innocent, when they actually are. And since he values torturing, that's the real reason he puts us in this supposed hell.
Isn't this just as likely as the alternative that he isn't lying? There are no logical contradictions entailed in the above scenario.
So nature has no bearing on our freedom? I believe Schopenhauer said something to the effect that we had no choice on the matter of what type/kind of personality we are. Benevolence or goodness is God's nature is it not?
And then you ask a tedious and easily answered 'how do know?' question. The standard retort of the philosophically uneducated - make every debate about how we can know anything.
How do I know? I provided a proof. Didn't you notice? I'll do it again (and then I'll provide your response).
1. If God exists, then God would not suffer innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world.
2. God exists
3. Therefore, God has not suffered innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
4. We are living in ignorance in a dangerous world.
5. Therefore we are not innocent.
Now for your predicted response, absent the normal insults "oh, but how do you know, given that God can do anything and so for all you know that argument is invalid. Boom. You got owned!"
Yes? That's the line, right? Because it is possible that p, p. That's your reasoning. Possible.....therefore actual. Possible I am dreaming. Therefore I am dreaming. Possible I am not. Therefore I am not. Therefore I am dreaming and not dreaming, according to Khaled.
And yes "oh, but your god can so contradictions, so I am dreaming and not dreaming, boom! Owned again!"
Yes, 'can'. But 'can' doesn't mean 'does'. 'Possible' doesn't mean 'actual'. And no contradiction is actually true.
Possible also does not mean 'as likely to be true as any other possibility'. It is possible my body is made of cheese. Doesn't seem to be. No reason whatsoever to think it is and plenty to think it is not. But it is possible it is made of cheese. No contradiction in the notion. By khaled logic that means I have as much reason to think my body is made of cheese as that it isn't. Khaled logic isn't very good, is it? Or do you reserve such appalling reasoning for the assessment of my views alone?
Knowledge of good and evil already is property of omniscient property of a God.
Quoting Vanbrainstorm
Second reason (in addition to already omniscient) is:
God is "superior God" rather than "inferior God".
If God is programmed then it is inferior God.
If God is inferior then that's not God because there is God that is superior to that one.
If there is God that is superior then that (other one) is superior God.
God that is superior can't be "programmed".
Therefore God is superior.
There can't be greater God.
God is a different being than man. Man as created being is determined by something outside of himself. God as creating being is determined only by himself. Therefore he most of necessity be free, otherwise he would be determined by something outside of himself. Therefore he determines himself as benevolent, which is fitting because evil, in this scheme is the lack of goodness. God being perfectly fulfilled is therefore perfectly good.
He just knows all there is to know. The choices that people will make is something to know. therefore God knows them.
Quoting Bartricks
God is causa sui, meaning cause of himself. Read all of scholastic philosophy up to Spinoza. A God that is created is not a God, because he has a cause outside of himself. By necessity it follows that God might create another God, but that other God is identical to itself in every aspect.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes but you created that Jersey in time. God did not create time in time because if he did he would not have created time, time would already be there. Therefore his creation is timeless.
Quoting Bartricks
Well there goes God the creator of everything... God did create all things, or they must have been created from nothing which is impossible.
Quoting Bartricks
Interesting: God in all his wisdom and benevolence, values something done by something infinitesmally minute in comparison. And god quite frequently seems to allow har inflicted upon and innocent... Of course it might be that these babies that get hurt in famine and war are in some sense guilty, but that reasoning is circular. It becomes a simple article of faith and not logic anymore. The whole point of the theodicy is to find a logical philosophically sound answer to the problem of evil.
Quoting Bartricks
Everything gets harmed, so everything by article of faith must be guilty. The whole notion of innocence and guilt becomes meaningless.
No, 'omniscient' means 'all knowing'. That means he is in possession of all items of knowledge. All that is known, God knows. For God, being Reason, creates knowledge when he adopts a certain attitude towards true propositions.
What you are doing is conflating truths with knowledge. That a proposition is true does not entail that it is an item of knowledge. Thus, God can be all knowing, yet be ignorant of the truth of many propositions.
Quoting Tobias
Yes and no, as it is an ambiguous claim. First, note that the definition of God is a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Being the cause of oneself is not one of the essential divine attributes.
However, as being omnibenevolent seems to involve having free will, and free will seems to require having not been created, we can conclude that God exists a se. (We can conclude the same about ourselves, incidentally, for we have free will too). But existing a se is not the same as creating oneself. And creating oneself - unless interpreted very broadly so that one can be maintaining oneself in exsitence and thereby qualify as being 'self caused' (Descartes' interpretation) - seems to involve a contradiction, as it would require existing prior to one's own existence. And as our reason is clear in telling us that there are no true contradictions, we can safely conclude that God has not created himself. He could, of course, for he can do anything and what our reason tells us about what's possible is no constraint on God, as God is the voice of Reason that our reason the means by which he communicates with us. But if one listens to God in the guise of the voice of Reason, then he is telling us that he did not create himself.
Quoting Tobias
Why would I do that? It'd take ages and be very inefficient. Why don't you just follow the arguments I am presenting to you?
Quoting Tobias
What is necessity? Some strange force outside even God's control? No, it is nothing. There is no necessity in the world, just truths that Reason is more adamant about than others. It is heretical to believe in necessity, for God can do anything and so nothing is necessarily true. Think about it. God can do anything. So nothing exists of necessity, for God can destroy anything and everything whenever he wants (including himself). And no proposition is true of necessity, for God has the power to falsify any and all of them.
Quoting Tobias
You have missed the point somewhat. The example of the jersey was to show you that one can create something and then be in it. And so from the fact that God created time, one cannot conclude that God is outside of time. That would be as silly as thinking that because I created my jersey, I cannot be in it. Which is very silly indeed.
Quoting Tobias
I started a thread on God and time and his relationship to it and explained in that thread exactly how it can be that God created time. Anyway, God did create time. And from that we can conclude that both causation and change does not require time. Time requires causation and change, not the other way around.
Quoting Tobias
No, bad reasoning. Of anything that exists we can ask whether it came into being or has always existed.
Note, one cannot say that all things that exist have come into being. For if one says that, then one will be forced to postulate an actual infinity of things, or an actual infinity of prior causes, or suppose that some things can come into being uncaused (which you admit is not so). And you would have to say that God was created as well, but by himself despite him not existing at the time - and so you yourself would be supposing something - God - to have come into existence out of nothing, the very thing you deny is possible! So do, please, be consistent!
So, some things must exist a se. That is, some things must exist uncreated. Proponents of the first-cause argument for God then conclude that there is precisely one such thing - God. But that does not follow and all the argument actually establishes is that there exist some uncreated things or thing.
God is, I agree, one of them, for he tells us this in so many words by allowing those of us who listen carefully to him to understand that he is all-good and thus has free will and thus exists uncreated (for it is toxic to free will to have been created by external causes).
But God tells us that we too have that status, for our reason is no less clear about our own possession of free will.
Note, those who place great store by the first-cause argument for God would admit, if they are clear thinkers anyway, that the argument does not establish God's existence, but is instead one argument in a suite of arguments that together are capable of showing God to exist.
Quoting Tobias
No he doesn't. He exists and wouldn't, so hasn't. You're confusing the harm that befalls people here, living in ignorance in a dangerous world, to harm that God has allowed to befall the innocent. Follow the argument!!! He exists. He wouldn't allow harm to befall innocents. Harm befalls people here. So? Look, it's a basic IQ test. What follows? This: we're not innocent.
If you wake up in a bed, aching and covered in bandages and you look around and see that you are in a huge room with others in a similar situation to yourself, but you have no recollection of how you came to be here, what is it reasonable for you to conclude? That you are in a hospital and that something terrible has gone wrong with your health, yes?
Well, you are not in a hospital. You are in a prison. For God exists and you are living in ignorance in a dangerous world, something God would not have permitted to happen to you were you anything other than a very, very bad person. Deal with it.
It is not circular reasoning. This is circular reasoning:
1. P
2. Therefore P
This is my argument:
1. If God exists, then he would not suffer innocents to live in ignorance in a dangerous world (If p, then q)
2. God exists (p)
3. Therefore, God has not suffered innocents to live in ignorance in a dangerous world (therefore q)
That's not circular at all. It just extracts the implications of 1 and 2.
Quoting Tobias
And I have done precisely that. Are you not following? I am offering - indeed, demonstrating the truth of - a prison theodicy.
Quoting Tobias
What are you on about? Not everything gets harmed. The guilty get harmed. God exists and would not allow it to be any other way.
How on earth does the notion of innocence and guilty become meaningless? You think that if there's a prison in which every inmate is guilty, then guilt doesn't mean anything? How does that even begin to work?
Quoting Bartricks
But not being able to maintain your Godhood without one of the Os is a limitation. That too, is painfully obvious. If God has that limitation, he’s not omnipotent in the sense that he can do anything can he? He can’t be God while lacking in one of the Os. Do we agree then that God can’t do absolutely anything?
Quoting Bartricks
False. The line is: The opposite is just as likely, therefore your statement remains unproven.
“I don’t have uncharitable interpretations”…. Right….
Quoting Bartricks
But in my example given, the point is that both cases will result in exactly the same appearances. God could be lying, or he could not be. Either way, the appearances don’t change. So as far as you know, yes, they are just as likely.
If your body was made of cheese it would result in drastically different appearances.
If you can provide a reason for thinking God is not lying about our moral intuitions, then they won’t be just as likely. So go on, produce one.
What on earth are you on about? Show your reasoning. How the hell do you arrive at the conclusion that a person who is able to divest themselves of abilities is less powerful than one who is not? The latter lacks abilities the first one has, namely to divest themselves of their abilities. Christ. This is not difficult.
Quoting khaled
What?
Quoting khaled
And my body is just as likely to be made of cheese as not, as I cannot rule out the metaphysical possibility that it is made of cheese. Good one! Go you! Now I'm just going to go chop a finger off and put it on a cracker, for there's a 50% chance it's feta. Wish I had dandruff - we're all out of parmesan.
Once more (incidentally, stop assuming I'm wrong - that'll help. Assume I might - might - just know what I'm talking about): if something appears to be the case, then we have default reason to believe taht it 'is' the case.
That applies to testimony, both of people and of reason (which is also the testimony of a person).
So, "I am sat on a chair right now". There. Do you have reason to think I am sat on a chair right now? Yes. I just told you I am. Could have been lying. That's not evidence I am lying. Brute possibilities are not good evidence. Tattoo that on your hand. Brute possibilities are not good evidence. Do it.
It is possible I am made of cheese. That's not evidence I am. It is possible that when I said I was sat on a chair, I was lying. That's not evidence I was lying.
I told you I was sat on a chair. You have reason to believe I am sat on a chair.
Now, our reason tells us things. Whatever our reason tells us, we have default reason to believe to be the case.
I must have said this about 100 times now.
Note too these are general points about how to reason well and how to figure out who has the burden of proof. They'd stand even if Reason was not a person. For regardless of whether Reason is a person or not, our faculty of reason is not infallible. And that's all you're pointing out, again and again and again: that our faculties are not infallible....so how do we know anything? Could be a malfunction. It's the same point! It's not a point that arises specifically for my kind of view about Reason. It's a general point about how we know anything about anything. Yet you keep raising it. Why?
Quoting Bartricks
I did not arrive at that conclusion. The problem here is your lack of reading comprehension. I am not comparing one with the ability to divest themselves vs one who isn't. I am stating that there is something God cannot do, as you admit. That is: Remain God while not having one of the Os. He cannot do that. There is a thing he cannot do. Therefore, he cannot do everything. I'll repeat: He cannot do that. There is a thing he cannot do. Therefore, he cannot do everything. Understand? Do I need a third?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes you can. Lick your skin. It doesn't taste like cheese (though in your case it honestly might). There. You ruled it out.
Now rule out the possibility that God is lying to us about what is morally correct. Go on.
Quoting Bartricks
The irony....
Quoting Bartricks
Not really. But I won't doubt it because it makes very little difference to me.
I don’t have a reason to think so because the person reporting in this case thinks rape and torture is not an injustice. They are clearly ill. So I do not trust much of what they say.
Testimony is as reliable as its author.
Quoting Bartricks
But that's not reason enough to justify something of this scale. We're talking about our moral intuitions. These are pretty important. We'd need more reason to trust them other than simply "Someone said so". You haven’t established that this someone gives reliable testimony.
If we were trying to determine the shape of the earth thousands of years ago, and someone said "The earth is shaped like a tortoise" would that be sufficient reason to believe them? No, because we have no reason to believe their testimony is accurate in this case.
Similarly, you’ve provided no reason to believe the testimony of your God is trustworthy. Why is he the moral authority? You can say “because he’s omnibenevolent” but you’d be question begging. In order to establish his honesty about moral intuitions you refer to benevolence, but you need to assume he’s being honest about benevolence entailing honesty to use benevolence as an argument.
Quoting Bartricks
False. For instance, I can't doubt that our reason is malfunctioning without contradicting myself by using a reasoned argument.
However, I can doubt that God is lying about moral intuitions without producing contradictions.
Quoting Bartricks
It does arise from yours specifically. Because you think moral intuitions are someone's instructions, and that there is an objectively correct "moral intuition" that said person could be lying to us about. In other words, you're a moral realist. What God thinks is just, is what is just, and if you disagree you're wrong yes? The source of morality is outside of the minds of humans yes?
I am not a moral realist, and it's not a very popular view (it's different from objectivism). I don't believe the "correct" moral intuitions reside in a single mind or are etched on some stone tablet or anything to that effect. Their source isn't outside of the minds of humans.
They arise because you place the source of morality outside of humans, allowing someone to doubt how we come to access this source. In your case, the source tells us what is moral, why should we trust it? See how someone who doesn't believe moral intuitions stem from something outside of human minds doesn't have to deal with this objection?
Quoting Bartricks
It tells different people different things though. For instance, I and everyone I've spoken to thinks you're an idiot. That's how things appear to us. Does that alone make you an idiot?
How do you determine whose appearances to trust?
It appears to virtually everyone that infants are innocent. Not to you though. And you believe that if an infant was tortured to death, that no injustice took place correct? What appears to everyone is different from what appears to you, how do we resolve this?
When we have a rape, the rapist is not only having fun, but also carrying out the will of God. He does not need to have a guilty conscience. It is the victim's own fault.
You are right. If the rapist is not found, not all will be harmed.
Everything is the will of God, therefore rape is also the will of God. And the rapist is logically the instrument for it.
It might even come to a point that his free will is killed. In that case, how will his God-like qualities help him if there is no more will to apply his qualities? Will he just continue heavenly life without the will to go along? A lost will cannot be found back if there is no will to get it back.
And what if God made himself non-existent? How in heaven's name can he reappear again? You are not able to explain how he can do this, and there is a chance that he might do it one day, as he has eternal life.
Isn't the rape the will of the devil?
The devil, if he exists, is also the will of God.
How does that not contradict with God's omnibenevolent nature?
But it seems to contradict the all-goodness.
So God is bad as well as good?
Well, it actually does contradict his being good only. He just wants evil to exist for the good to be contrasted with. Good deeds will become meaningless if there are no bad deeds too. In his omnibenevolency the guy did a good job.
Unfortunately also wrong. This mistake is made by almost everyone except me.
If the "only good" would not exist, then heaven would not exist either. And that is supposed to be good par excellence.
If the only good exists, then hell would not exist. Nevertheless less, hell exists. If it was God's will that the devil came into being, he must have had some pretty evil mind. Hence God is not omibenevolent.
That line of reasoning will not work with Bart, since his version of God is not bound by LNC. Bart's God can lift the un-liftable stone and create a four sided triangle. So Bart's God can simultaneously divest himself of all of his Os - and yet still have them.
At least that's my understanding.
If God's laws and his free will are the same thing, then he is not bound by anything. Illogical things, like creating a square triangle and destroying himself, aren't really possibilities for him because he can do infinite things and all that's that *can be done*
As for hell, we have to distinguish between reason and theology. The idea of predestination comes from the Bible. Read Romans 9. That lays it out. It really relates to the whole prophecy thing. If God knows our choices before we make them, then he has control over them. Paul, Aquinas, Augustine all say this. Augustine even said unbaptized infants go to hell.
But if we are talking from philosophy alone, a good God might would allow babies to suffer so that they can latter, in this life or the next, enact a moral choice about the suffering and by this grow spiritually.
Just shows he doesn’t understand his own bullshit
What does science have to do with philosophy or conversely?
According to your logic we should dismiss all scientific theories because that's "human imagination"
Maybe you don't know but without philosophy, scientists would probably never come to idea called "God's particle"
Yes, you have a point, we need to define our terms. Philosophy created Science, there is a similar relation between myth and ritual. Myth is the story, ritual is the story enacted, so too, philosophy is the story, science is the story enacted. Differing processes of trying to relate knowledge/understanding to replace ignorance or bewilderment, to give an orientation. I need to give defining our terms a bit more thought, if you wish to kick it off with your thoughts feel free.
Vide Anthropic Principle.
There's only one world that's possible. All other worlds are impossible.
There's only one world in which life is possible. All other worlds can't support life.
This world is the only possible world and also it's the only world in which (intelligent) life is possible.
Quoting Vanbrainstorm
I believe that you should include a few very important premises before #2: that God exists and is so and so and can do this and that, etc. Or, if he doesn't really exist, you must assume that he does, otherwise you have no "game". But I can overlook this because there are more important things: the "traps" or inconsistencies in these two introductory lines of your description:
1) If God "is all knowing", he will never have to decide about anything because he knows a priori what is right or wrong, good or bad, pious or sin, etc. ("Decide" means arrive to a result or select among possible options about something after consideration and God would never need to do that.)
2) How could anyone know what God considers as right or wrong, good or bad, pious or sin? How could anyone know the will of God?
3) If you assume that God is omniscient, then most probably you also assume that he is omnipotent, isn't that so? Does then "free will" have any meaning for him, since he is assumed to always act at his own discretion?
So, according to my opinion, and I am sorry to say that, this topic is built on quicksand. It has no foundations, if no meaning at all.
Is "God" free to commit suicide?
Can "God" cease being "God"?
The fact of randomness (e.g. vacuum fluctations) precludes – negates – "theism", no?
Furthermore of randomness, I think those questions can be related to human weakness in a sense of debating about the worthy of life. Religious and theists tend to say that "Men is made of God's image" but paradoxically, we as men, can only truly debate about "ceasing" "suicide", etc... Because God is supposed to be upon all of these "weaknesses" and "sins"
It even sounds contradictory.
I don't see why not!
Quoting 180 Proof
Here too, I foresee no difficulty.
As an omnipotent being, God's capable of anything! Now, why does that give me the creeps?
Anyway, being all-powerful the word "impossible" is not to be found in God's lexicon. That's what I think anyway.
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm not a theist though at times I do [math]\downarrow[/math]
I guess I'm confused, but it doesn't bother me too much.
God is morally perfect. If he lacked free will, then he would not be morally perfect, for then he would not be morally responsible for being morally perfect. So the question is akin to "does a bachelor lack a wife?"
And God's possession of free will generates no puzzles. Is God free to commit suicide? Yes - he wouldn't be free if he couldn't. Is he free to make a rock too heavy for him to lift? Yes. Is God free to cease to be God? Yes. And so on. To any "Is God free to..." the answer is 'yes'.
Almost invariably, those who think there are puzzles here are just confused.
Is he free to lift that rock?
Bachelors are unmarried, yes?
Can bachelors get married?
Not and remain bachelors. But a person who is a bachelor can get married, it is just that afterwards he'll no longer be a bachelor.
An omnipotent person can create a rock to heavy for himself to lift. He will no longer be omnipotent if he does that. But he can do that.
Although as God has the power to do anything, God can, in fact, both make a stone too heavy for him to lift and then lift it, for God has the power to make contradictions true. But God can also, if he so wishes, create rock too heavy for himself to lift, and be unable to lift it. For God has the power to stop being God whenever he wants. He wouldn't be omnipotent if he was stuck being God, would he?
So god creates a rock so heavy he can't lift it?Then god lifts that rock?
Yes, that is one possibility for God. God can make it the case that he is unable to do something he is able to do.
That's a contradiction. And contradictions are currently false. That is, if you are unable to do something, you are not also able to do it. However, God can do anything and thus God can make a contradiction true.
Note: God can also make a rock too heavy for him to lift and be unable to lift it. He would not be God after having done so. But that's not a problem, for God has the power to divest himself of power.
So, there are at least two options available to God in respect of the rock - he can create a rock too heavy for him to lift and thereby render himself no longer God. Or, alternatively, he could create a true contradiction by creating a rock too heavy for him to lift and yet retain the ability to lift it.
Neither are problematic.
He divests himself of power so that he's no longer god and therefore no longer omnipotent? Can he become god again? How does he become god if he isn't omnipotent.
Also, while god isn't god, what is he?
Most importantly: what makes you think you know so much about god?
Yes, an omnipotent being can divest itself of power - so, it can, if it so wishes, cease to be omnipotent.
Why do you think an omnipotent being can't do this? It's obvious! Even little old me can divest himself of some power if he wants to. Do you think an omnipotent being is unable to do things even i can do?? What are you working with?
Can a formerly omnipotent being become omnipotent again? Yes, I think so. Do you think not? Why? You seem frightfully confused. Can you become less powerful than you currently are? Yes. Can you become less powerful and then regain the power you divested yourself of? Yes. You're seeing problems where there are none. I had a watch on my wrist a moment ago. So a moment ago I was able to tell the time just by looking at my wrist. But I took my watch off. And so now I am unable to tell the time just by looking at my wrist. Can I regain that ability? Yes. How? I could go and put my watch back on.
What are you having trouble with? Note too, if God ceases to be omnipotent, he would not thereby cease to be omniscient. So he'd know how to regain the omnipotence he's divested himself of, wouldn't he?
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
What sort of a question is that? A person. A person who isn't omnipotent. Dur.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Reasoning. Try it.
Let me help you: an omnipotent being is able to do anything.
If someone is able to do anything, are they able to divest themselves of some power?
Yes. Why? Because...if...they...couldn't...do....that....there....would....be....something....they....could....not.....do.
The most charitable definition of "omnipotence" I've found is this: the ability of (a) being to do anything that is not impossible, or self-contradictory, to do instantly (i.e. just by thinking) and / or which no other being can do. So "no", (an) "omnipotent" being cannot make something "too heavy" for it to move if that something is moveable; it can, however, instantly move (with a thought) anything which is moveable.
However, does "omnipotence" include the ability 'to will what it wills'? (Schopenhauer) Does such (a) being even need 'to will' at all? By definition (above), the "omnipotent" cannot lack any thing and, therefore, 'willing' doesn't function as we understand 'willing' – except, perhaps, as a gratuitous anthropomorphism (i.e. as mere superstition).
Anyway, "omnipotence" conceived of this way, "God" (so attributed) is as categorically unworthy of worship as gravity. By contrast, the "God of Abraham", for instance, is merely an ultra-technologically advanced extraterrestrial compared to humanity – superhuman, not supernatural – which, on that account, is not worthy of being worshipped either, just as humanity is not worthy of being worshipped by insects. Is any "entity" worthy of worship? What would make any "entity" worthy of being worshipped by any other "entity"? What adaptable, indispensible, function does "worship" even serve – other than as ritualized "terror management" (E. Becker)? :eyes: :pray: :mask:
You sound preposterous to me - just truly ludicrously magnificently irrevocably confused. Enjoy!
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
I can only hope you're eight years old. What have you done to your mind and to your character, my friend?
That is how the wise seem to the ignorant. The average peon does not know how to distinguish between a diamond and paste.
If I am confused, locate the point of confusion.
I know exactly in what manner you are confused. This is how you think: bachelors are, by definition, unmarried. Therefore, a bachelor is incapable of having a wife. Should a bachelor be asked by a woman for his hand in marriage, the bachelor will have to reply "no, for I am a bachelor, and bachelors are by definition unmarried, and thus much though I would love to marry you, I cannot, for I lack the ability to do so. Do you see?"
That's how you think about God and God's omnipotence, is it not? You think "God is by definition omnipotent. But were God to create a stone that he could not lift, then there would be something he would be unable to do. Yet God is by definition omnipotent. So, were someone to ask God to create a stone too heavy for him to lift, he would have to reply "no, for I am God, and God is by definition omnipotent and thus much though I would love to create a rock too heavy for me to lift, I cannot, for I lack the ability to do so - I am condemned to be all-powerful by the power of a word. Do you see?"
That's how you reason. And it's bad. Really bad.
Now, given that you are hoping I am 8, take me to school and explain to little snotty Bartricks what stops God from creating a stone too heavy for him to lift?
The wise, I imagine, are a smidge less pompous.
I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation.
I quote Khaled. He has said this on page 2 of this thread. When Khaled refers to "it", Khaled means Bartricks.
Quoting khaled
Displays the utmost clarity! :up:
If I have any issues, it's that the definition is human, too human. Just to be clear, I'm ok with that.
Quoting 180 Proof
A nuance that's beyond my ken.
[1]Human, too human!
Quoting 180 Proof
Awesome! Just curious, what is, to you, worthy of worship? Good guys only get a pat on the back and to kings, we kneel.
Thanks. :smile:
Now, I can assure you that God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift, as I explained. Indeed, I have trouble understanding how anyone can think otherwise. What thoughts lead to it? What dumb inferences might make someone think God couldn't do such thing? "God can do anything, therefore he can't do this". I think if the manifestly contradictory nature of that does not scream out to you, then you really are not cut out for philosophy , just as one is not cut out for painting if one paints with the pointy end rather than the bristly one.
What are your qualifications?
I agree with Einstein: "Spinoza's God" (maybe!) As I've recently replied to you .
Now answer my question. Why do you think God can't make a stone too heavy for him to lift? Have you thought about it at all? What thought process led you to think that an all powerful person would lack the power to do that? What reasoning got you to the conclusion that being able to do anything must involve being unable to do some things? It's such an obvious contradiction.
Do you also think that, say, if A is bigger than B, and B is bigger than C, then A is smaller than C?
I'm sorry, it's obvious you don't have a PhD.
Have fun playing at the man behind the curtain. Watch out for Toto, he's coming for you.
Now, how about 'doing' some philosophy? Answer my question. Or do you not have justifying reasons for your blurtings? In which case why are you on a philosophy forum?
No, you don't.
No, you don't.
Who are you to say, though, really. God is everything, whether you agree or not. Who am I to say?
Someone special.
It's obvious to everyone on this forum who's spent any time studying philosophy that you have no qualifications.
Everyone knows. It's obvious.
God denotes a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
It doesn't mean 'the sum total of what exists'.
If it did, then no one would dispute that God exists.
You could also ask people what they mean by 'God'. They don't mean 'the sum total of what exists'. Jeez.
God is a person? A PhD in ludicrosity?
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
So we find out what god is by asking people?
A PhD in pop theology?
No, it denotes a person who has the properties of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence.
Have you had anything published in the philosophy of religion in a peer reviewed venue?
If the answer is 'no', then shut up and be schooled.
Meaningless bald assertion, Doctor of Ludicrosity.
You can't fool us.
No serious philosophical journal has published your ludicrosities, doc.
This thread is about God and free will.
Now, tell me, what's the difference between a modest incompatibilist conception of free will and a robust modest incompatibilist conception of free will? And can you name me some contemporary defenders of each kind?
And what is a hard-line compatibilist? And can you name me a defender?
And what is semi-compatibilism - and can you name me a defender?
And what is agent-causal incompatibilism - and can you name me a defender?
And what is hard-incompatibilism - and can you name me a defender?
And what is a soft-line compatibilist - and can you name me a defender?
Like I said: I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation.
Your ridiculous assertions and the abusive pomposity in which you couch them make for easy trolling.
You can't claim you have a PhD in philosophy and then say god is a person. You gave your game away.
How can this be known?
Again, childish, ludicrous, and further evidence of your lack of credentials.
Every concept of god is that of god as a person?
There are a host of philosophical questions to be asked about God - does God have free will? Does God exist? If God exists, why is there evil? These are questions that have vexed philosophers for millennia. However, these questions - 'does a potato have free will?', 'does a potato exist?' and 'if a potato exists, why is there evil' - have not, because only a total idiot would wonder about such matters or think that God meant 'a potato' or that those debating whether God has free will are wondering whether a potato has free will.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Answer the question or shut your mouth.
What's a robust modest incompatibilist and now does one of those differ from a modest incompatibilist? And how do both differ from agent-causal incompatibilists?
Childishness.
Oh, so you don't use 'God' to denote a potato? Okay - what do you use it to mean? Do you use it to mean what philosophers of religion use it to denote, namely an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person? Or do you just not have a clue what you're saying about anything but are not letting that stop you?
Quoting 180 Proof
What about the fact that at the human level, we worship only the powerful: many so-called god-kings were a far cry from being saints, more sinners they were, and yet people worshipped them as gods.
Perhaps, god-kings were a thing when polytheism was all the rage. In polytheism, goodness was secondary to power as an attribute of divinity.
This is a ridiculously ignorant assertion and the end of this exchange.
Arrogant ignorance.
Take care.
No, it is an accurate description of what people you've never read or thought about are using the term to mean. And this is the end of this exchange. I grade your side of it F.
Or can he score a hundred runs in Chess?
What about a home run in Poker?
So "we worship only" the unworthy – ergo the world we've made for ourselvse these last dozen or so millennia. :mask:
Just out of curiosity, how did an imaginary friend (God) become his worshipful (the Lord)?
A transition from just a companion who we can rely on and converse with to a master who dictates our fate and who we have to kneel to and placate/supplicate. What, in your opinion, brought that about?
:rofl: Yes, a drafty castle.
He could hit a six in golf.
So it basically boils down to our insecurities; natural theology (the rational arm of religion) is simply us trying to rationalize what is, all said and done, nothing more than wishful thinking.
[quote=J. P. Morgan]A [1]man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.[/quote]
[1] All males, according to embryology, start off as females; it's only later during gestation that males make the switch from the phenotypic default (female) to males (dick & balls).
In short, that God is a He is not at all a case of gender bias; it actually reflects our femininity. :chin:
God cannot create such a stone. But this is not a limitation on his power because "a stone that cannot be lifted by an omnipotent being" is a logical contradiction, a non-thing. Just like an unmarried bachelor or a square circle. Speaking about these things is essentially speaking gibberish because they are non-things. And so not being able to create the stone, or create a square circle is no limitation, because they are not even things. They are non-things.
Hope this was helpful!
Yes. As I say
Quoting 180 Proof
:up:
:rofl: I've seen God then, I suffer from an anxiety disorder.
Oi Banno, yes, he can do all of those things.
Can you grasp the difference between being able to do something and doing it? God can. The average 7 year old can. Can you? And if you can grasp it, will you kindly do so.
Why not? Quoting SwampMan
There is no logical contradiction unless you are assuming God is incapable of ceasing to be omnipotent And why on earth would you assume that? I mean that is a contradiction! An omnipotent person who is unable to cease to be omnipotent is 'not' omnipotent.
An omnipotent person is omnipotent at t1. And at t1 he can create a stone too heavy for him to lift. That's an 'ability', note. To be 'able' to do something at t1 does not mean one has done it at t1.
At t2 he exercises that ability and makes a stone too heavy for him to lift. At this point he has ceased to be omnipotent - indeed, that's what he had to do in order to make the stone. He made a stone too heavy for him to lift 'by' ceasing to be omnipotent.
At t2, then, he is not omnipotent and there is a stone he cannot lift.
So, God can make a stone too heavy for him to lift. That is God can make himself not be God. He wouldn't be God otherwise! If he's incapable of ceasing to be God, he is not God.
Like, it seems, everyone else here, you are reasoning like this:
Mike is a bachelor. Can Mike take a wife? No, for he is a bachelor and a bachelor lacks a wife. Therefore, Mike is incapable of taking a wife. But this is no restriction on Mike, for a married bachelor is a logical contradiction and being unable to actualize a contradiction is no restriction.
It's extraordinarily bad reasoning. Stop it. Mike is a bachelor. But that doesn't mean he lacks the ability to take a wife. He can take a wife, he'll just stop being a bachelor when he does.
God is omnipotent. That doesn't mean he lacks the ability not to be omnipotent. He can cease to be omnipotent (he wouldn't be omnipotent otherwise!). It is just that if he exercises that ability - the ability to cease to be omnipotent (an ability only he has) - he will, you know, cease to be omnipotent.
There still seems to be an issue in that you can say of God before he creates the stone that there are potential stones that he can’t lift - there’s already a deficiency. Omnipotence understood instead as all powers that exist - like the power heat has to boil water - coming from God gets around these problems.
If God could not get rid of his omnipotence he would not be omnipotent. It's a simple point.
There's no problem here. None. There's just confusion. There's just thinking that God is somehow bound by a definition. A mistake that theists and atheists seem united in making. I keep giving the example of the bachelor. Do you too think the bachelor is incapable of taking a wife? Is there a strange force that prevents them from saying 'yes' and that comes from the word bachelor?
The two examples aren’t analogous. The possibility of marriage doesn’t affect the man’s bachelorhood, whereas the possibility of being unable to lift a stone does affect the claim of God’s omnipotence.
Being unable to divest himself of his omnipotence isn’t a deficiency if no such power exists.
Question begging. How? How does being able to do something imply a 'lack' of power rather than possession of one?
Quoting AJJ
But it does and it is.
I have powers. I can divest myself of them. For instance, I could take a hammer and smash the fingers on my right hand. Now I can't do a load of things i could before. I have the power to do that.
An omnipotent being obviously has the power to divest himself of his powers. If he didn't, he wouldn't be omnipotent, he'd be hobbled.
Good.
Then he will have no trouble friddling a bleth.
And we are left with the observation that your approach is quite literal nonsense.
It’s the being unable to lift the stone that affects the claim of his omnipotence. Unless no such power to lift the stone exists, in which case he isn’t deficient and so hasn’t divested himself of his omnipotence.
If you smash up your hand you won’t be able to pick things up. Picking things up is a power that hands have, so this would qualify as a deficiency. If hands had no such power, then it wouldn’t be a deficiency.
It is obvious that to any question "can God do..." the answer is going to be 'yes', as God can do anything.
You then decide that if God can do things that make no sense to you, this is some kind of problem (as if God is beholden to you!).
God is in charge of what does and does not make sense. Now, the idea of a married bachelor makes no sense, as does a lot else. That, note, is not something I dispute. The point, though, is that it is by reason - and so by God - that these things do not make sense. Their 'not making sense' is of a piece with their being rebarbative to Reason. But God is Reason and thus their not making sense is in his gift.
THey do not make sense. But they do not have to not make sense. THey just don't make sense.
Needless to say, you need to respond to this with 'nonsense' and more 'can God 3 a turnip?' tediousness.
Quoting Bartricks
By your account, if god can do anything, then god can even do things that do not make sense to god, not just to me.
The only thing left to do is laugh.
Yes, God can do anything. Reason constitutively determines what is and isn't possible and what does and does not make sense, and Reason is God. You have no rational criticism, just contempt. Cross little baby fists will not dent this rationality tank.
...an argument, yes, indeed.
1. If a person is omnipotent, then they can do anything
2. If a person can do anything, then they can cease to be omnipotent
3. Therefore, if a person is omnipotent they can cease to be omnipotent
4. God is omnipotent
5. Therefore God can cease to be omnipotent
I never told you. I haven't a clue - it doesn't make any sense.
Refute the argument. You know - do some philosophy!
But god can do anything...
Are you dropping that now, and saying he can't friddling a bleth?
Yes. I know. I said that.
Quoting Banno
No. Can't you read? I said I don't have a clue how he'd do it - it makes no sense.
He can do things that make no sense, for he can make what makes no sense make sense. I don't know how though - I mean, if I did, they'd make sense wouldn't they. Dur.
SO he can friddling a bleth?
That's settled, then.
Thanks for the chat.
God is omnipotent, but there are potential things that he cannot do (like lifting a certain stone).
The above statement is incongruous but it’s implicit in your idea of omnipotence.
Yes. He can do anything. So he can do that. Christ. Are you literally an infant?
Quoting Banno
You can't refute an argument by agreeing with it.
God is omnipotent, but potentially not omnipotent. What's the problem? Again, if he lacked the ability to divest himself of omnipotence, he would not be omnipotent, would he?
Would you say that once he creates the stone he cannot lift then he stops being God?
Rest assured god is at this very moment simultaneously friddling and not friddling a bleth.
Bartricks' argument places god firmly in the world of the uninteligible, the incoherent; he makes god into nonsense.
Quoting Bartricks
I'm not interested in a refutation. But repeating "God can do anything" does not constitute an argument.
No; what we have here is nonsense.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
Indeed, it would seem so. All worship the friddler of bleth! All worship he who cannot friddle bleth!
There are two ways - not one - in which God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift.
He can divest himself of omnipotence. That's one way. And in that case, he would have stopped being God (just as a bachelor ceases to be a bachelor when he takes a wife).
The other way - the more dramatic way - would be to realize a contradiction by making a stone too heavy for himself to lift at the same time as being able to lift it. That makes no sense of course, for at the moment the law of non contradiction obtains. And so it really doesn't make sense. It doesn't appear to make no sense, but really makes sense. No, it makes no actual sense. But God is in charge of what does and does not make sense and, by hypothesis, if he makes a stone too heavy for himself to lift at the same time as being able to lift it, then it would make sense. That's the nature of omnipotence - an omnipotent being has the power to make what does not make sense, make sense. Needless to say, the dumber element on this site have difficulty making sense of that. They think that in order for it to make sense that a person could transform what does not make sense into that which does make sense, it has already to make sense. Which is silly, of course.
If you say he stops being God once he creates the stone he cannot lift then you’ve effectively claimed that God can’t not be omnipotent (because in that case he stops being God).
No it doesn't. Like I say, you just can't distinguish between being able to do something and actually doing it. God is not incoherent. Try and show it, I dare you. God is able - able - to do things that currently make no sense. That does not make God incoherent. God is not his actions, for one thing. And for God to be incoherent you'd need to demonstrate an actual contradiction arises through his possession of the properties of omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolence. Do that then.
Quoting Banno
That was a premise in an argument. Do you think God is not omnipotent? Then you are misusing a word.
Huffing and puffing - it's all you've got. "Aw, but my hackneyed objections to God don't seem to work against Bartricks! What's going on? Why are they not working?? Wikipedia and Stanford - where are you? I need help!"
SO, god cannot be incoherent? But you said he could do anything.
:lol:
God is what you're called if you're omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, just as 'bachelor' is what you are called if you're male and lack a wife.
Can God - the person of God - cease to be omnipotent? Of course he can. Why would he not be able to cease to be omnipotent? How would an inability to cease to be omnipotent be a power and not a disability and thus constitute a contradictory idea? The idea that you have - you, not me - of omnipotence contains a contradiction and so is akin to the idea of a square circle. You seem to think that being omnipotent essentially involves having an 'inability'. That's a contradiction - an omnipotent being can do anything, but you are asserting that an omnipotent being can do anything and not some things. That's an actual contradiction and so actual nonsense.
You don't seem to understand English or basic logic. God is coherent. That does not mean the same as 'God cannot be incoherent'.
Do you agree that what he say here then is inconsistent? God isn’t potentially not omnipotent if under that circumstance he stops being God.
If you think it makes sense - and you should, for it does - then apply that to God and omnipotence and the ability not to be omnipotent and find the same sense there, please.
A bachelor (as opposed to a particular man who is a bachelor) does not have the potential to be married, because a bachelor can’t be married. God does not have the potential not to be omnipotent, because God is omnipotent.
Oh, ok.
SO you are saying that "god cannot be incoherent" is not placing a limit on god? How's that?
I can be incoherent. Why can't god? Have I a power that god does not?
No, the person, not the concept. Concepts don't have abilities, people do.
Now, once more, can a bachelor get married?
It's yes, right?
They won't be a bachelor after they do so.
But they can do so.
An unmarried man is a bachelor. That's true by definition.
Can the unmarried man get married? Yes. He has the ability to get married.
God is omnipotent. That's true by definition.
Can God cease to be omnipotent? Yes.
This really isn't hard! Why are you lot having such difficulties??
God is a concept, so you’re making a category error when you compare him to an instance of another concept rather than the concept itself.
Quoting Banno
The concept of God is the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person.
God himself is the person who answers to that concept.
The concept of a chair is a concept; chairs are those things which answer to the concept.
You are the one making the category error - a very common one. The mistake of confusing a concept with what it is the concept of.
If God ceases to be omnipotent - which is something he has the ability to do - then he, the person, will cease to answer to the concept of God. Which is just a convoluted way of saying that he'll cease to be God.
In the context of this discussion he’s certainly a concept.
You either don't understand English or you've had a stroke, for this really isn't hard to understand.
God can do anything. So anything you can do, God can do. Kinda obvious.
A concept is another word for an idea. God is not an idea. He's something there's an idea 'of'. Christ!
So, you think that if someone has the idea of God, then God exists??
God is NOT a concept. There is a concept 'of' God. All concepts are concepts 'of' things. It's called their intentionality. They're about things. Apart from the concept of a concept, concepts are not the things they are concepts of.
We’re talking about the concept of God. According to your concept of him he can potentially not be omnipotent. This is inconsistent with your affirmation that he stops being God when he ceases to be omnipotent. You tried to escape this by referring to a bachelor’s potential to be married, but you were referring to an instance of a bachelor and not the concept. We’re talking about the concept of God.
Ok, so god can be incoherent.
Glad that's settled.
Yes, can be, but isn't. Can be. Isn't. Can be. Isn't.
You: but can he be?
Me: yes
You: is he?
Me: no
You: can he be?
Me. Yes
You: is he?
Me: no
You: can he be?
Me: yes
You: he is?
Me: no.
No, we're talking about God. God is omnipotent. The concept of God is not omnipotent.
My chair is comfy. THe concept of my chair is not comfy.
You are a confused person. The concept of a confused person is not, however, confused.
Oh, no. I've broken Bartricks.
The core error is in your thinking that god is outside of logic, as if logic were a limit on god's powers. Logic is just grammar, it's what can be coherently stated. In erroneously defending god against logic, you have broken you own capacity to construct coherent arguments.
But I've explained this before, and you can't see it. In trying to save god from logic you have rendered god incoherent - illogical.
Banno: "this bread is broken!"
Me: "It's sliced bread. It's not broken, it is improved - you can make sandwiches with it"
Banno: "It is broken. And to make a sandwich one simply butters two loaves and combines them"
Yes, that's right - I'm so bad at philosophy I'm paid to do it.
Quoting Banno
Er, I think the exact opposite of that - as you'd know if you bothered paying any attention at all or understood what you read. God is the source of the laws of logic and is thus in no way bound by them. No point in me saying that, is there? Not going to stick.
Quoting Banno
Er, what?
Quoting Banno
No I haven't. Demonstrate, by means of an argument (no squiggling and squoggling) that the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being contains a contradiction. Do that without confusing being able to do something with doing it.
You: thanks.
Note: I didn't ask you to be incoherent. Am I to suppose that you think you are God and that the incoherence of your remark was a practical demonstration?
We’re talking about the concept of God. We can’t be talking about his instantiation, because we’ve both offered different views about what that would be, and the argument doesn’t even require that he exists at all.
And your argument doesn’t work either way.
God’s omnipotence is essential to him. Bachelorhood is not essential to a man. A man can get married and remain essentially what he is - he has the potential to be married. God cannot lose his omnipotence and remain what he his - he does not have the potential not to be omnipotent.
If God can't stop being God, he's not omnipotent because there's something he can't do!!!!!!!!!
Do you believe that God’s personhood takes priority over his divinity?
A bachelor is essentially unmarried. He can get married because his manhood takes priority over his bachelorhood.
God is essentially omnipotent. So if he can make himself not be so, then his personhood must be what is taking priority over his divinity (omnipotence etc.).
You are profoundly confused. Your reasoning is exactly the same as someone who reasons that as Tim is a bachelor and it is essential to being a bachelor that one lacks a wife Tim essentially lacks a wife. That's fallacious.
This doesn’t address what I said.
You said earlier that God stops being God once he ceases his omnipotence. Do you still agree with this?
Once more: omnipotence is a property of a person.
It essentially involves being able to do anything.
That doesn't mean that it is essential to the person who has it that they can do anything.
You are just reasoning really badly.
You are thinking Tim must essentially be unmarried - that he could not be Tim and have a wife.
And when I point out your very poor reasoning all you do is insist that the person of God is essentially omnipotent! No argument. Just an assertion.
And a demonstrably false one for it is incoherent. Once more,for the thousandth time, if you are essentially omnipotent that means you can't cease to be. Which is an inability!!!!!! Which is incompatible with being able to do anything. Sheesh, my cat can vaguely understand this, so what - what - is your major malfunction buddio?
You won't get an honest or constructive exchange with this one. Just dogma, insults and, ultimately, nonsense.
You’ve not tracked the argument.
The problem is your view of omnipotence rests on a peculiar and contentious concept of God, where he’s a person whose personhood takes priority over those traits that make him divine.
A bachelor is first and foremost a man, and this man happens to be unmarried. On your view God is first and foremost a person, who happens to have certain traits that make him God.
I was by default giving priority to God as God, not priority to some personhood (I take the classical view of God).
Do you have any actual arguments for anything you are saying?
It isn’t at all. Really, it isn’t.
What I’ve just said accepts what you’ve been saying, and points out that what you’ve been saying entails a peculiar and contentious concept of God.
Mate, I have. I’m actually a little distressed by how blind you are to it.
Then you have simply told me that my view is contentious. Ooooo, will the contentios come and get me?
Now, chum, argue something. Or point out that I am a mean and nasty person who bullies people by refuting their arguments without mercy.
I’ve said that God as God in essentially omnipotent. For the sake of argument I’ve accepted that the person of God is not essentially omnipotent.
A bachelor as bachelor is essentially unmarried. The man who is a bachelor is not essentially unmarried.
The man takes priority over his bachelorhood.
On your terms the person of God takes priority over his divine traits like omnipotence.
You’ve given God personhood and given that personhood priority. This is a peculiar and contentious view of God, and your view of omnipotence rests on it.
This is your last go. But because I dislike quitting arguments I’ll argue with anyone else who disagrees with this characterisation (not that I expect anyone to be so interested).
You think you saying stuff is an argument? You think telling me my view is contentious is a refutation? You think contentious views are false views?
Now, don't reply unless you have a reply to this argument - an argument that refutes your ignorant view:
1. If a person is omnipotent, they are able to do anything
2. If a person cannot divest themselves of some power,they are unable to do something
3. Therefore, if a person is omnipotent they are able to divest themselves of some power.
Bow out. That's my advice.
Arguments work by finding inconsistencies and entailments that cast doubt on a belief. Your replies don’t address what I’ve said, so I’m counting that as a concession in respect to your own view. You can hold it, but to arrogantly proclaim it is silly.
To support my view:
Think about the words anything and nothing. Any thing. No thing. If God can do any thing, it isn’t a limit on his power if he can’t enact contradictions, if contradictions are deemed to be no things.
2
Divesting himself of his divine traits would be a contradiction on my terms, so it isn’t a limitation that he can’t.
He’s essentially those traits. A bachelor is essentially unmarried, so he can’t be married. God is essentially omnipotent, so he can’t not be omnipotent.
Focus on the argument. You have said premise 2 is false. Show it to be.
Note, being less than all powerful is a thing - we are less than all powerful. So it is not 'no thing'.
And being unable to make yourself less powerful is an inability. It is not an ability. It is an inability. Midas could not stop himself from turning things gold. That was an inability.
Now, show me that premise 2 is false. Don't just assert your view. Your view has been demonstrated to be false - incoherent nonsense- by my little argument. So refute it.
A bachelor can’t be married because that contradicts the definition of a bachelor.
God can’t not be omnipotent because that contradicts the definition of God.
Psst, you don't have a case or a clue or, it seems, the ability to focus.
Arguments work by identifying inconsistencies and entailments that cast doubt on a belief.
God is necessarily, I’ll say instead, omnipotent. To stop being omnipotent would contradict this. Contradictions aren’t things. God can still do any thing, because contradictions aren’t things.
That’s my view.
To put it more concisely, God is omnipotent because all powers that exist come from God.
That’s my view. To argue with it you need to ask pertinent questions that seek to identify inconsistencies and entailments that cast doubt on it.
But, but, but, it's my view. God means x, y and z and so the person who satisfies x, y and z can't ever possibly not have x, y, and z, just like bachelors don't have the ability to marry. It's my view. You've explained to me why its stupid, but it's my view and I hold it in my mind and it's mine and so there.
Arguments work by identifying inconsistencies and entailments that cast doubt on a belief.
If you’d like to continue arguing, think of a pertinent question you think goes towards identifying an inconsistency or problematic entailment in the following belief: God is omnipotent because all powers that exist come from God.
I’ll give you two more goes.
One more.
And we’re done. Good talk.
And this was not a good talk. It was unpleasant. Very.
Only he who creates himself out of nothing has a completely free will.
If both the "that you are" (your existence) and the "who you are" (your character or personality) are dependent upon the will of another, the will of a creator, then, by definition, you cannot have free will. You can only be truly free if you yourself have the power to do both; to choose to exist and to choose who you shall be.
If so, then that condition could also be satisfied if one exists uncreated. For if one exists uncreated, then nothing external to you is responsible for you being the you that you are.
Correct!
Nothing external to me would be responsible for me being the who that I am.
Instead, either only I would be responsible for being the who that I am, or
not only no one, but not even I myself, would be responsible for being the who that I am.
Schopenhauer opted for the former.
As Schopenhauer noted, guilt and moral responsibility do not attach primarily to one's actions but to the who that one is. I can only be responsible for who I am if, at some point, I chose to be who I am.
Guilt, blame lies in one's character, not in one's actions.
:fire:
Excelente!
Determinism beaten...that too soundly.
Unless she's holding him back.
The mind and matter are just necessities for bodily existence. The Holy Trinity is in fact the Holy Unity surrounded by the unholy dual.
My arguments start from squawks. Your arguments are vacuous, containing no flesh. Only by assuming a holy triad squawk an argument makes sense. The argument is just an overvalued aid but I can see why it makes sense to you. It's all you value. You like having arguments. I prefer talking.
Then you need to find a talking forum, not a philosophy forum. Philosophers use reasoned argument to try and figure out what's what. They don't just squawk. Isn't twitter designed for people like you? That is, people who have nothing substantial to say but still want to tell everyone else about their inane thoughts?
A typical empty-head answer of a typical empty head person living in a typical empty head world making argument sound important because he/she thinks philosophy is all about boring arguments. Though "thinks" is too much an appraisal for automated, vapid, and vacuous processes you involve yourself in. You're not doing philosophy. You are wallowing in unreachable dreams of omnipotence while in fact being omni-impotent. Dream on brother/sister...
God by definition is Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent, Omniscient, Omnitemporal, Omnipresent and Perfect... if God by definition must necessarily be perfect... then he cannot make free choices... as he/she can only choose perfection
There is more than one definition of gods. In ancient Greece there were a lot of them living on a mountain. Why are they part of mythology and God not? Some old philosophers weren't happy with that ancient pan and replaced it with a mono containing them all, and the world is stuck with him. Why should we stick to that old definition which came after the old definition?
"Why should we stick to that old definition which came after the old definition?"
- Haglund
Well because if we use different definitions than what is commonly attributed to the major faiths, then it won't address the arguments for what a God is base on the majority adherents in the world... it's like arguing for the ability of Superman by arguing for a "superman" in a circus...