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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Theologians don't "reinvent" God in terms of apparent human logic, only describe him in those terms. |
I suggest you to get acquainted with theology. Theologians do not just decribe YHWH in logic, they need to establish a proof for such an entity.
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Theology is mostly analogy. |
What?
There's a lot more to theology than C.S. Lewis.
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
And God makes decisions not on what you do so much as who you are. What you have chosen to make of yourself. His foreknowledge of your choice does not anull its existence. Nor does it make free will irrelevant. |
If God is omniscient, He knows who I am. He knows what I have chosen. In fact, He knows how I will choose. IOW, my deeds have been done and my choices have been made even before I know anything about them.
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Even in an open-and-shut trial with an airtight case, where everybody knows the defendant is guilty, it's still important to go through the trial for its own sake. The defendant cannot say he wasn't given a chance. |
Faulty analogy. No judge nor jury has perfect foreknowledge.
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Not to mention that, again, you're all assuming determinism...the point of a living, thinking being is that it can grow beyond what it was made to be. |
Unless you admit that the Judeo-Christian god is not omniscient, determinism is the only possible conclusion.
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
The standard response to this is that God exists outside of time, and that talk of him knowing something "before" it happens is therefore misconceived. |
But that doesn't hold water either. The act of creation is, by it's very nature, temporal. At some point, there was nothing, and then there was something. That's what time is - a continuous line of before and after. So even if God himself exists outside of time, he needs to enter into the temporal world to create anything. Additionally, humans exist within time and are utterly and completely bound by it. Presumably, God created this time if he created everything and understands how we work within it. So, for all intents and purposes, it really IS foreknowledge.
quote:
But I don't see how it would follow from God's omniscience that your actions were determined. Someone might know that I will choose to go to the bank tomorrow, but does that make their knowing the cause of my going to the bank?
Similarly, someone can claim to know that tomorrow water will still boil at the same temperature it does today. Does that make their knowing this fact the cause of its doing so? |
Two issues here. First, it's important to keep in mind that it's only "determined" from God's perspective - no one elses. And, for the sake of the religious argument, that's all the matters. Absolutely infallible knowledge of forthcoming events precludes any REAL choice from God's perspective. I mean, if from God's perspective there is literally zero probability that you will not murder your best friend on July 29th, 2036, how could you not? There is no set of actions that can possibly stop that from happening if an omniscient diety knows it's going to happen.
And that segues into the second issue. The very term omniscient implies that God knows not only the choices, but also the reasons behind them. If he didn't, he wouldn't be omniscient. The water boiling analogy fails here because that someone is not omniscient. Also, they did not create the conditions under which water will boil at a certain temperature (ie: the physics behind it), so they really can't claim any superior knowledge over it.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Kontiki
But that doesn't hold water either. The act of creation is, by it's very nature, temporal. At some point, there was nothing, and then there was something. |
Well, what about those people who think it is senseless to speak of a time before the Big Bang, time being a feature of the universe?
quote:
That's what time is - a continuous line of before and after. So even if God himself exists outside of time, he needs to enter into the temporal world to create anything. |
Why? If one does not understand time this way, then why should one admit to it.
quote:
Additionally, humans exist within time and are utterly and completely bound by it. Presumably, God created this time if he created everything and understands how we work within it. So, for all intents and purposes, it really IS foreknowledge. |
That would be false. If God exists outside of time, then it follows that there is no point on your timeline at which God engages a state of knowing that something will happen three days hence.
quote:
Two issues here. First, it's important to keep in mind that it's only "determined" from God's perspective - no one elses. And, for the sake of the religious argument, that's all the matters. Absolutely infallible knowledge of forthcoming events precludes any REAL choice from God's perspective. |
No it doesn't because his knowledge is not the cause of your acting, in mainstream theology it is your free will that determines the choice.
I don't see any difference between this and a hypothetical example of someone having a machine that allows them to see what people are doing tomorrow. His seeing what they choose and when they choose it is not the cause of their choosing it.
quote:
I mean, if from God's perspective there is literally zero probability that you will not murder your best friend on July 29th, 2036, how could you not? There is no set of actions that can possibly stop that from happening if an omniscient diety knows it's going to happen. |
But that is not incompatible with my having free will, since the causal chain of events leading up to the murder are caused by me, not by God.
quote:
And that segues into the second issue. The very term omniscient implies that God knows not only the choices, but also the reasons behind them. If he didn't, he wouldn't be omniscient. The water boiling analogy fails here because that someone is not omniscient. Also, they did not create the conditions under which water will boil at a certain temperature (ie: the physics behind it), so they really can't claim any superior knowledge over it. |
But that doesn't make the slightest difference. The point here is that someone can know something will happen without their knowledge causing it to be so. God may well know your reasons for acting, but, unless you are a determinist, your choice is conditioned only by free will. If God allows creatures free will, then he can't be omnipotent because he can't stop people choosing what they wish to do, but this doesn't prevent him from knowing what people are going to do, since he sees all time as an eternal present.
You need to show why God's knowledge of my actions is the determining cause of them, otherwise your argument does not follow through. God notices what we do, he does not cause it.
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Bereta_Eder
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you can choose between moral or religion class in school so clearly they are not the same.
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
Well, what about those people who think it is senseless to speak of a time before the Big Bang, time being a feature of the universe? |
Dunno. Ask them. I'm only working under the traditional context of the Judeo-Christian belief. And AFAIK, that is a rather large debate topic surrounding the whole Big Bang theory.
quote:
Why? If one does not understand time this way, then why should one admit to it.
That would be false. If God exists outside of time, then it follows that there is no point on your timeline at which God engages a state of knowing that something will happen three days hence. |
A. How could God not understand it if he created it and is omniscient?
B. How is it logically possible for creation events to happen the way you are implying? I'd really like to hear you explain this to me.
quote:
No it doesn't because his knowledge is not the cause of your acting, in mainstream theology it is your free will that determines the choice.
I don't see any difference between this and a hypothetical example of someone having a machine that allows them to see what people are doing tomorrow. His seeing what they choose and when they choose it is not the cause of their choosing it.
But that is not incompatible with my having free will, since the causal chain of events leading up to the murder are caused by me, not by God.
But that doesn't make the slightest difference. The point here is that someone can know something will happen without their knowledge causing it to be so. God may well know your reasons for acting, but, unless you are a determinist, your choice is conditioned only by free will. If God allows creatures free will, then he can't be omnipotent because he can't stop people choosing what they wish to do, but this doesn't prevent him from knowing what people are going to do, since he sees all time as an eternal present.
You need to show why God's knowledge of my actions is the determining cause of them, otherwise your argument does not follow through. God notices what we do, he does not cause it. |
All of which misses the point. Causation in and of itself doesn't really matter. As I said before, the point of free will in the religious sense is that we can freely choose to sin or not, and our choices and actions will ultimately be judged by God. And if he knows in advance (from our perspective) how things are going to play out, then you can't deviate from that path. To you and everyone else around you, it looks like you are making choices. But since God has already seen it, there's no surprises. You can hit a point where you have a choice to sin or not. You can debate that all you want - God already knows what you are going to do. If he has seen you sin, you're going to sin. He needn't be the cause of it, but if he has seen that you will sin, you will sin. There's nothing you can do that will stop you from sinning. If there was, God would be wrong.
Go back to your machine that sees the future. If you see that at 8:00am tomorrow morning, Bob takes a left on Main Street, and there is literally zero chance that your machine is wrong, then tomorrow at 8:00am, Bob is going to take a left on Main Street. Did you cause it? No, but who cares. Bob can debate the hell out of which way to go - in the end he HAS to go left or your machine was wrong.
Perhaps you're mixing me up with UR. I think he's arguing for determinism - I'm not. I'm just saying that if God has perfect foreknowledge, then you can't surprise him.
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
But then you are arguing for a tautology. What's the point in that? |
How so? I'm arguing that an omniscient God with necessarily perfect foreknowledge invalidates "free-will" choices that will have an impact when we die. I'm not arguing that we don't have free will, nor am I arguing that we live in a deterministic universe. I'm just pointing out the problem with assuming both an omniscient God and a "free-will" to sin.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:37
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Free will is supposed to be the one point in existence that is independent of God. A free will is unconstrained by normal physical causality-human beings have the same existential freedom as God himself in terms of emotions and beliefs. That's why it's so important in the Christian faith.
This concept seems to be eluding you people, so I'll say it flat out: what God makes us to be in terms of physical vessels does not bind our decisions. The independence we are given is true independence, not bound by the circumstances of his initial input. We were made to be more than consequences of his original action. We are quite literally in "the image and likeness" of God that way, as this freedom is the only thing distinguishing us from the rest of creation.
And theology has to be analogous by its nature. God is a cause, not an effect. Any attempts to describe the divine are at best a caricature of an inventor derived from his inventions. A theologian stupid enough to think his work is some form of absolute science is not worth reading, whether his name is C.S. Lewis or not. What I say is, to my knowledge, the understanding of the Orthodox formed over several centuries based on the various scriptures.
I've read theology outside of Lewis, by the way, but most of it was shamefully ill-guided and smug. Bunch of crap that read like a sociology report, only less aware of its own tentative nature. Making up a God as the maker would like him to be, then condescendingly wrapping him in a package marked "YHWH" or "Allah." So I went back to C.S. Lewis, and the works of Kallistos Ware, and other people who realize they're essentially talking in postulates.
Yeah, I'm opinionated and self-satisfied. So are you. So what?
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The standard response to that is such an argument is not backed up by anything in the bible and thus even more a load of hogwash than the usual fare.[QUOTE]
Sure, it's not in the Bible, but then again neither are many accepted Xtian doctrines. It is however a staple in Greek philosophical thinking about God. In the Timaeus time is a property of the created universe which is a "moving image of eternity".
One can get into convoluted metaphysical arguments about the nature of time if one wishes to do so, but the idea of a God existing timelessly in the manner of the Parmenidean One Being is an idea that predates Christianity by centuries and was appropriated by the latter in its cross fertilization with neoplatonist doctrines.
[quote]Your actions were determined does not mean that the knowledge of your actions caused those actions. This does not follow, Aggie. You should know better than that.  |
I don't quite understand your point. I don't believe in free will, nor God for that matter, but the omnisicence argument is misguided.
Determinism simply states that every action is determined by its cause. This includes human decision making and therefore human action. Standard Free Will doctrine holds that determinism is false: some actions (human decisions and actions) are not causally conditioned in this fashion, or at least do not operate according to the same physical laws as everything else.
quote:
Take your example. You have your reasons to go to the bank, but you will still go to the bank nevertheless. Which means whatever you are going to do has been decided even before you make the decision, even before you are born, even before your grandparents are born, etc. |
The cause of my going to the bank is my choosing to do so. The fact that God knows about this does not change the fact of my decision. God does not exercise causal influence over our decisions, he merely perceives them. In fact he perceives every event past, present and future as an eternal present (acc. to the theory explained above). It's simply not the case that God sees what I will do before I do it.
It's not that God sees now what I will do then. It is more as if God sees now what I do now and then what I do then, but he sees these all at the same time because he is not bound by time in the way that we are. The difference is simply that God has a different mode of cognitive access to the world than we do - he sees the whole of history at once, we do not. It does not follow logically from that, that our choices are determined.
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With omniscience requires determinism. Determinism is the nemesis of certain central tenets of Christianity, because we cannot be held responsible for our actions. |
I agree, determinism spoils the whole thing. But, having said that, this argument is not a good one because it forces on the Xtian a particular conception of these matters that they do not have to endorse.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:37
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Finally have the time to tackle this thread!
Loinburger:
quote:
So, in order for this argument to defeat dualism, we'd need to presuppose that humans cannot differentiate between, e.g., benevolence and malice, without being explicity told by some outside force "this is benevolence, and this is malice."
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This does not work. For example, how could you distinguish the benevolent force from the malevolent? It could be the malevolent force telling you that something is benevolent, when it is not.
In fact, I see no other way around this than to presuppose some form of a conscience given to us by God. Ergo, humans can differentiate between benevolence and malice through their conscience without the requirement of outside intervention.
This argument also allows one to show how God could save those before Christ came to Earth, as well as how he could save those who have never heard of Christ.
quote:
An alternative implication is that good an evil cannot exist without each other.
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Yeah, I get your bifurcation, but you are left with the puzzle. Are the natural numbers named the way they are arbitrarily? Or do they represent something else, and would otherwise have arisen precisely the same way, even given different conditions?
For example, consider the base 10. We use it because we have 10 fingers, but not all cultures or societies have used base 10, some were quite fond of base 60.
This would seem to imply, regardless of the base, you will always end up with a system of numbers that favours the natural numbers first, before any definition of rational, irrational, imaginary or transcendent.
Now, supposing good and evil existed independently, I believe it would be entirely impossible for us to distinguish between the two of them. For example, how could you explain the existence of a conscience, if the evil power and the good power were equally strong? Why would one permit the other to write a law in our hearts?
quote:
Then the idea of a law being written on our hearts is unnecessary -- the law might as well not exist.
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But it does.. It's something that exists, that we see in ourselves. The task is how do we explain how it comes about?
quote:
The point is that a conscience given us by a creator is equivalent to lessons learned from adults/peers/etc. if we need to relearn everything in our consciences anyway. The morality == religion argument doesn't apply.
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Innocence can often see what experience cannot. Therefore conscience is not the same as the lessons we learn from our peers, and often experience and conscience act as opposing forces.
quote:
Not at all. I can say that one runner is faster than another runner without having some absolute concept of what the "fastest" runner would be, similarly, I can say that Hitler was more evil than Mother Theresa without having some absolute concept of what the "most good" or "most evil" person would be.
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But do good and evil work the same way?
If you had two runners, running alongside each other, it is easy to see which one is faster. However, what if you did not see the beginning of the race? Or if you saw them running off in opposite directions? It would not be immediately clear which was the fastest.
You would need some way of objectively measuring the two in order to confirm the fact that one runs faster than the other, a measure that exists independently of the participants.
Any experiment in science demands such a measuring rod, which is why we get into problems with Heisenberg, when to measure something affects the object in which we are measuring.
Just as one needs an objective measure for speed, in order to establish conclusively whether or not someone is faster, so you need an objective measure in order to conclusively establish whether or not someone is better than someone else.
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You're left with following God based on the amoral belief that he is eternal, and assuming that he must therefore have a good nature because you've already agreed to accept his definitions of "good" and "evil."
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Well, some things flow from the concept that God is eternal. It is not an amoral preposition, in that it has moral consequences.
For example, it refutes dualism, in that one of the two exist independently and simultaneously, and the one that existed for eternity must also be our creator, and the author of our conscience.
For if the eternal one did not write our consciences, then why would he permit the evil one, who he made to do the same? It makes much more sense, that he would write our conscience.
Thus, it seems reasonable to me that the one who is eternal, also have a good nature, rather than an evil one.
quote:
Why not? You said that I'd have everything with which to raise a child, and that includes instruction that would bestow a perfect knowledge of good and evil.
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Because the instructor would also have to be perfect, and so on...
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True, but there are bound to be moral problems for which no perfect solution exists, unless you were to change the definition of "perfect" to mean "most satisfactory."
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Why so? Perfection is difficult, but only because we are limited.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:37
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quote:
Why not? Darth Vader was evil, despite having some good in him
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Who could say that the evil outweighed the good? And why?
We see things as they ought to be, yet we cannot make things work properly.
quote:
God is part of nature. Everything is part of nature, by definition.
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Hence the term, supernatural. There exist things beyond nature, including God.
If God were part of nature, then how did he come into being? Why should we worship a God who is simply part of nature, over a tree or anything else?
Why not worship ourselves, since we are a good deal more clever than the things we see in nature.
Objective morality, by definition, is not subject to temporal constraints.
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loinburger
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Sweet Sauce Jones
Jul 1999
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
This does not work. For example, how could you distinguish the benevolent force from the malevolent? It could be the malevolent force telling you that something is benevolent, when it is not. |
The terms "benevolent" and "malevolent" aren't just arbitrary labels. Just compare their dictionary definitions for starters -- "wishing/doing charity" is not the same thing as "wishing/doing harm." A murderer or rapist or whatever could tell me that he is benevolent, but unless I'm morally incompetent I wouldn't believe his self-applied label regardless of how powerful he is.
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In fact, I see no other way around this than to presuppose some form of a conscience given to us by God. Ergo, humans can differentiate between benevolence and malice through their conscience without the requirement of outside intervention. |
What you're describing is not differentiation without outside intervention, what you're describing is differentiation with the assistance of divine programming.
quote:
This would seem to imply, regardless of the base, you will always end up with a system of numbers that favours the natural numbers first, before any definition of rational, irrational, imaginary or transcendent. |
The natural numbers are the same regardless of what base they are written in -- there's no such thing as a "base-2 natural number system" or a "base-10 natural number system" or whatever have you, there's just the "natural number system." So I'm not quite sure what argument you're trying to make here.
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Now, supposing good and evil existed independently, I believe it would be entirely impossible for us to distinguish between the two of them. |
Do you mean to say that you could not distinguish between love and hate, or between assistance and harm, unless some divine being told you the difference?
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But it does.. It's something that exists, that we see in ourselves. The task is how do we explain how it comes about? |
What precisely exists? You seem to be arguing that we have this innate knowledge that we cannot access unless we are taught it, but that doesn't make any sense. That's like saying that everybody innately has a full stomach, but that they can't access their full stomach until they eat a large meal.
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Innocence can often see what experience cannot. |
A pithy saying does not an argument make.
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If you had two runners, running alongside each other, it is easy to see which one is faster. |
Similarly, if you compare two possible solutions to a moral quandary side-by-side, you can compare the two.
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However, what if you did not see the beginning of the race? Or if you saw them running off in opposite directions? |
How are these situations analogous to the comparison of good and evil?
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You would need some way of objectively measuring the two in order to confirm the fact that one runs faster than the other, a measure that exists independently of the participants. |
Not if they're running the same race.
What you're essentially arguing here is that you can't accurately compare the moral worth of two different courses of action if you introduce too many additional variables. I agree -- you can't accurately compare anything if you introduce too many additional variables. All you can do is account for the unknowns as best as you can to reach an estimate.
quote:
For example, it refutes dualism, in that one of the two exist independently and simultaneously, and the one that existed for eternity must also be our creator, and the author of our conscience. |
Leaving aside the problem with your definition of conscience, there's still the problem that if somebody authored our consciences then somebody must have authored our temptations as well, leaving the dualism problem intact.
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Because the instructor would also have to be perfect, and so on... |
Then you're using circular reasoning. "Humans can't be morally perfect because they can't learn moral perfection, because humans can't be morally perfect." Well, it's not entirely circular, since it all begins with God creating a morally imperfect being in the form of Adam in the first place.
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Why so? Perfection is difficult, but only because we are limited. |
The problem with throwing around terms like "perfection" is that they're pretty meaningless in almost all circumstances, unless they're given the meaning "most satisfactory" instead. F'rinstance, the concept of a being who is "perfect" in moral terms is just as nonsensical as the concept of a being who is "perfect" in terms of weightlifting. Besides using a circular example along the lines of "God is morally perfect and moral perfection is God" or whatever, there's no meaningful way to define moral perfection just as there's no meaningful way to define weightlifting perfection.
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Objective morality, by definition, is not subject to temporal constraints. |
Not true -- "Absolute" is not the same as "Objective." F'rinstance, world records change all of the time, but nobody argues that the processes used to measure these records are arbitrary or subjective or whatever.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:37
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I want to say two things: My own views and a few words about Hindu morality.
I don't think there is any absolute morality. I define morality as what you want people to do to you, and immorality as what you don't want them to do to you. That's obviously subjective, which means I don't believe in 'good' or 'evil', as absolutes.
About Hindus: If you read the Mahabharatah, you should understand that the one thing which will lead you to heaven instead of hell is to follow your dharma. I didn't say 'the' but 'your' dharma. There is a god called Dharma, so this god is morality itself. So from a morality point of view, Hinduism (at least in the Mahabharata) is monotheistic (there's a single god who defines morality).
Still, the only absolute is to follow one's Dharma, which is very vague. There is one character in the epic who doesn't follow his dharma, and thus acts against Dharma (the 'bad guy', Duryodhana). Consider Karna for example. His dharma is to help Duryodhana. This means it is good for him, and he will be rewarded in heaven, to help an evil man further his ends. Consider the use Duryodhana makes of terms translated as 'good': "Haven't I been a good king?", to which the Pandavas can only answer that yes he was a good king.
Morality doesn't have anything to do with good and evil. It is about how people should behave. It is possible that some people should behave in an evil way (Karna) and behaving in a good way is not necessarily enough(Duryodhana).
Morality is not about good and evil, but about how one should behave (you can also take the example of geasa in Irish myths - they aren't good or evil, but it's immoral to break a geas, a bit like a taboo- which can be personal or put on a group of people).
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08-07-2004 04:15
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