About omnipresence

[Fiasco]

That is obvious, it did not need to be repeated. Philosophy does not have “laws”. Logic does. Look them up.

Not ashamed of having to admit i’m not educated in this stuff. In your case, though, you act as if you’re fully qualified to bury any concept of a deity, using your rigid material/physical (or logical in your sense of the word) arguments.
Theology is not shackled by those constraints. Your fixation on logic doesn’t hold up in the supernatural “realm”.

Contempt doesn’t make your cause look any better, either.
You started this thread, and you have to put up with what others post, even if you’e disdainful of what they say. (Is that cause and effect?)

And to ask again, how much do you know about OUR understanding of God? And again, if you ignore that question, or answer it with ridicule, it’ll suggest something’s skewed. As said already, the mystery of the Trinity is not a mystery of how 1 = 3.

 

[sonofbarry]

How do we know that a god (or God, if you like) exists outside time and space?
Has that been conclusively proven?

These might be regarded as stupid questions, but I see no harm in challenging the basic premise of the argument.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

And to ask again, how much do you know about OUR understanding of God?

Been there, done it, have a T-shirt to prove it. I am not interested in your “understanding” of God. I would be interested in it, if it were logical and rational. Yes, logic “rulez” supreme, even in theology. Fortunately there are many believers who are logical. Some of them are also participants on these boards. It is useful to have a conversation with them. There are also those, whose posts I ignore. You are one post away to become a member of that “illustrious” group. Bye.

 

[yppop]

Omnipresence creates another logical problem.

1. God exists outside of space and time.
2. God exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within our space and time (also in heaven and in hell).

This is a simple logical contradiction. How can you believe in logical contradictions?

Vera
(1) Air exists outside of my house all day
(2) Air exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within my house all day.

Is this a logical contradiction? By the way I am a believer and very very logical.
Yppop

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

(1) Air exists outside of my house all day
(2) Air exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within my house all day.

Is this a logical contradiction?

Of course not, it is just a bad analogy. AIR is not an entity or a being. It is a collection of air molecules. No air molecule can be both inside and outside your house at the same time. Besides, there is no air “really outside” the house, for example on the Moon.

Moreover, the problem with God is much deeper. The two environments “within the world” and “outside the world” are logically incompatible states of affairs - unlike being inside the house and outside the house. Inside the world there is TIME, change, dynamic existence. Outside it there is no time, it is a frozen static, unchanging existence. Both of them cannot happen simultaneously - for the same entity.

By the way I am a believer and very very logical.

Good to hear. Now prove it with a logical and rational response.

 

[Vonsalza]

We do not agree. The “trinity” is just another logical contradiction, unless you talk about a mental disorder called: “schizophrenia”. You cannot “fix” a logical contradiction with stipulating another one.

First, the notion of God is predicated on being supernatural. This means that God is not bound by the same existential constraints as you and I.

“You’re God is impossibly exceptional!”
-Yes. I know.

Next, as a man who has a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia, you very obviously have no idea what the disease is. None at all.

In your erroneous fumbling, perhaps you mean multiple personality disorder? Please educate yourself a bit more on mental illness before commenting on it in the future. Your credibility will benefit dramatically from it.

By the way, infinity is just a mathematical concept, which has no referent in reality. There is a very widespread, yet erroneous assumption that you can define God into existence using some nonsensical attributes…

As God is “something wholly other”, the best anyone can do would be to describe it by using proxies. Two examples:
-First century man watches the Battle of Stalingrad and is then teleported back into his time to describe it. What language could he possibly use that would accurately convey the battle?
-A man was born blind. How do you describe “red” to him?

As to a physical referent to infinity, if you threw a rock into space and everything got out of it’s way, when would it hit the edge of the universe? Best guess is “never”.

No, I do not see any problem.

Then I’ll spoon feed you;

Man A think its wrong when X happens.
Man B thinks X is a good thing.
So which one does God serve when two people want different, conflicting things?

Your proposition is naïve. God could…

God could do a lot of things, Vera. Please don’t treat speculation as dismissive proof as is your tiresome habit.

I would make sure that everyone has the sufficient resources to flourish. And get rid of the unnecessary “desires”. Such a simple solution.

So you’d curtail free-will. Sounds like your problem is with people rather than God…

But I’m curious, what desires would God-Vera remove?

Going back to the original topic, the existence inside the space-time continuum is dynamic and constantly changing. Existence outside the world is static, frozen and unchanging. It is logically impossible to have both characteristics.

Citation, please?

And can you syllogistically show how they contradict? I’d like to see the premises unfolded.

 

[Tyrel]

I see that somebody tried their hand at a response while I was away. Let’s take a closer look.

There is only one way to read them. Words have meanings.

That would be omniscience. Which is also problematic, since the future does not exist as an “actuality”, it is only a collection of possibilities, which will “collapse” into actualities, when the proper actions are actually taken. Omniscience would be more than just knowing that the flipped coin would show either heads or tails - if actually tossed - it would also mean what will be the actual result - before it is actually tossed. And that would be the equivalent of “knowing” what the third book written by someone will contain, before the author is even conceived. In other words, knowing the nonexistent.

This would be the case only on some versions of the A-theory of time. I’m a B-theorist, and I think the B-theory is philosophically well supported, as well as clearly motivated by the Einsteinian interpretation of special relativity. However, suppose I suspend my incredulity for a moment and grant you that either C.D. Broad’s growing block version of the A-theory, or else Presentism, were true. Does it really follow that there’s a problem here? Not necessarily. There are at least two logically possible ways for God to know a non-actualized future. The first is if it is causally entailed by present states (so we think here of some version of causal determinism). The second, and more theologically viable, is if future states are logically entailed without being causally determined, as would be the case, for instance, if there were true and known subjunctive counterfactual conditionals of libertarian freedom from which God could derive what will be from what is. I think these are extravagances we don’t even need (since I’m a B-theorist about time, and agree with Einstein that there is no preferred reference frame, no ontologically privileged temporal point of view, no objective present), but they make your objection all the more difficult to run. I would also point out that even if you undermined omniscience, that wouldn’t do anything to undermine omnipresence.

And in a “qualified” sense? What would that mean? Something like the transubstantiation? Jesus is present in the “host” in a qualified sense? Not really, but in some “qualified” sense? Or by looking into the microscope you are present on the object-glass among the amoebae in a “qualified” sense?

I was pretty careful to qualify the sense of presence used in the doctrine of Ubiquity. Was I unclear? There’s nothing special about qualifications here; the Trinity is qualified such that God is one being and three persons. Those are qualifications.

With this trick of “qualified sense” even married bachelors could be possible.

… I suppose if you were to qualify these terms in really unconventional ways, sure. However, qualifying your statements is anything but a philosopher’s trick. It’s just what sophisticated people do when they realize they aren’t being sufficiently clear. It’s a way to clarify one’s position to an interlocutor. There’s no mystery about this.

Being actually present in space and time is the problem. Is God also present on the “other” side of the Mobius strip? Or “inside” a Klein bottle? Or maybe somewhere “to the north from the North Pole”?

Didn’t I answer this? I think I did.

You mean, twisting the meanings of the words into something that they do no mean, is the solution to “resolve” logical contradictions. How conveeeenient!

If somebody is using a word incorrectly, it’s entirely appropriate to direct their attention to the nearest dictionary. If somebody is using a scientific term inappropriately, it’s entirely appropriate to direct them to a source giving an appropriate technical definition of the term as it is used among professional scientists. If somebody is using a theological term inappropriately, it is entirely appropriate to direct them to an authoritative Catholic source (like the Catholic Encyclopedia) where the term is technically defined. That’s all I did. I’m just recognizing that the meaning of the colloquial term doesn’t always align with the meaning of the same term as it is used in a more technical context. The term ‘relativity’ does not mean the same thing in ethics as it does in physics. The term ‘random’ does not mean the same thing in mathematics as it does in evolutionary biology. The term ‘omnipresence’ does not mean the same thing in Catholicism as it means in your head. That’s all.

I am glad you took the time and effort to present your thoughts. The problem is that the “Catholic” understanding is itself contradictory. And that cannot be solved by stipulating a “qualified” sense. Not to mention declaring them a “mystery” - as many others try to do. This is a very serious problem which prevents mutual understanding. Wanton disregard for meanings of words is a very bad strategy when attempting to communicate.

Amen, and thank you for this interaction. I think you and I can actually make some progress here.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Man A think its wrong when X happens.
Man B thinks X is a good thing.
So which one does God serve when two people want different, conflicting things?

Such questions cannot be answered in the abstract.

So you’d curtail free-will. Sounds like your problem is with people rather than God…

Are you serious? According to your belief God was the one who gave us our free will. So the problem is with God… provided that he exists. Of course I would curtail the freedom of action for certain people. The establishment of prisons serves exactly that purpose. Also any good parent makes sure that their SMALL children are unable to do anything that the parent does not want them to do.

By the way I don’t know what your concept of “free will” might be. There are different approaches. Some people assert that the ability to “will” something, regardless of the ability to act on that will. Others consider the ability to act an integral part of free will.

Maybe one of these days someone will explain to me why do believers so adamantly argue for the existence and freedom of psychopaths, sociopaths, rapists, torturers and murderers? Why is their existence and freedom so valuable that it must be kept unchecked even at the price that the victims have to pay for it?

Citation, please?

Without time there is no change. It is called “stasis”.

---

By the way, this has nothing to do with omnipresence.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

This would be the case only on some versions of the A-theory of time. I’m a B-theorist, and I think the B-theory is philosophically well supported, as well as clearly motivated by the Einsteinian interpretation of special relativity.

The theory of special relativity has nothing to do with time. It only stipulates and proves that in the case of two non-accelerating coordinate systems either one can be considered stationery. On the other hand, accelerating, or rotating coordinate systems do not have an equivalence.

However, general relativity gives us some beautiful equations for the invariance of space-time. Those equations are subject to verification and measurement, and they pan out just beautifully, notwithstanding what the B-theory of time might assert. No one asserts (to my best knowledge) that space is also just an illusion, and the four coordinates of any particle in the Minkowski space-time x[sup]2[/sup] + y[sup]2[/sup] + z[sup]2[/sup] + (ict)[sup]2[/sup] is invariant (i = sqrt(-1) and c is the speed of light in a vacuum). Since space is objective, so it time. Besides, if one accepts the B-theory, then the question arises: “where is that illusionary past and future reside”? In our head only? Then how is it possible that our memories are almost the same?

There are at least two logically possible ways for God to know a non-actualized future. The first is if it is causally entailed by present states (so we think here of some version of causal determinism).

A causally deterministic future could be “known”, if there would be such a state of affairs. Of course in quantum mechanics there is no determinism. Furthermore, the free actions of humans cannot be predicted.

The second, and more theologically viable, is if future states are logically entailed without being causally determined, as would be the case, for instance, if there were true and known subjunctive counterfactual conditionals of libertarian freedom from which God could derive what will be from what is.

That makes no sense. If our future actions are logically contingent upon the current state of affairs, then they are not free.

I would also point out that even if you undermined omniscience, that wouldn’t do anything to undermine omnipresence.

The concept of omnipresence is invalidated by the fact that the future does not exist as an ontological entity, only as a set of possibilities.

If somebody is using a word incorrectly, it’s entirely appropriate to direct their attention to the nearest dictionary. If somebody is using a scientific term inappropriately, it’s entirely appropriate to direct them to a source giving an appropriate technical definition of the term as it is used among professional scientists. If somebody is using a theological term inappropriately, it is entirely appropriate to direct them to an authoritative Catholic source (like the Catholic Encyclopedia) where the term is technically defined.

The problem is that the “authoritative” source for Catholicism is entirely self-authenticated. If I have a problem about a technical term, all I have to do is to use the appropriate litmus test, and the ambiguity will disappear. Without the intent to hurt you, I have to point out that the claims of the church are exactly as “authenticated” as the claims of the alchemists or astrologers.

That’s all I did. I’m just recognizing that the meaning of the colloquial term doesn’t always align with the meaning of the same term as it is used in a more technical context. The term ‘relativity’ does not mean the same thing in ethics as it does in physics. The term ‘random’ does not mean the same thing in mathematics as it does in evolutionary biology. The term ‘omnipresence’ does not mean the same thing in Catholicism as it means in your head. That’s all.

This kind of problem happens all the time. In the Catholic view “love” is compatible with “genocide”, in the secular world it is not. It would be very nice to create a dictionary with would allow mutual understanding. But it is unlikely since even the most basic concepts - like “love” - are parsed differently in your world and in mine.

Amen, and thank you for this interaction. I think you and I can actually make some progress here.

Let’s hope so. I am interested.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

Oh yeah? What’s the derivative of x^2?

2 x

Now, can you give me an example of an infinite dimensional vector? Hint: don’t over-think it, just go with the closest and easiest thing.

 

[yppop]

Of course not, it is just a bad analogy. AIR is not an entity or a being. It is a collection of air molecules. No air molecule can be both inside and outside your house at the same time. Besides, there is no air “really outside” the house, for example on the Moon.

Moreover, the problem with God is much deeper. The two environments “within the world” and “outside the world” are logically incompatible states of affairs - unlike being inside the house and outside the house. Inside the world there is TIME, change, dynamic existence. Outside it there is no time, it is a frozen static, unchanging existence. Both of them cannot happen simultaneously - for the same entity.

Good to hear. Now prove it with a logical and rational response.

VL
Here is a logical syllogism the proves God exists:

Nothingness exists,
God is nothingness
Hence, God exists.
Q.E.D

Yppop

 

[Fiasco]

Been there, done it, [By the evidence, not very deep] have a T-shirt to prove it. [Lots of enthusiastic youths have (or have had) T-shirts promoting “The Cause”. Means nothing.] am not interested in your “understanding” of God. I would be interested in it, if it were logical and rational. Yes, logic “rulez” supreme, even in theology. [Niet] Fortunately there are many believers who are logical. Some of them are also participants on these boards. It is useful to have a conversation with them. There are also those, whose posts I ignore. You are one post away to become a member of that “illustrious” group. Bye.

Believe it or not, the penny dropped. The only consolation is that Salam was caught as well, if for only one post. To save irritation on your part and embarrassment on my part, you or one of your sparring partners, those with whom you have useful “conversations”, could have given me a one or two-sentence alert, instead of allowing me to go on like an idiot tilting at the proverbial windmills.

Arguing from a particular angle is one thing, but it’d pay you to be more civil to some others…as it is, Saruman’s treatment of Theoden’s sidekicks after the ents had done their job came to mind. And,please remember you’re among theists, not members of “RichardDawkins.net”.
It might be an idea to modify your signature, as well. As it is, it doesn’t necessarily apply!

It’d be fascinating to do a psycho study of that last word. There’d be a lot to extract; condescension, for a start…

Speaking of T-shirts:
The Peoples’ Cube has some interesting ones.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Here is a logical syllogism the proves God exists:

Nothingness exists,
God is nothingness
Hence, God exists.
Q.E.D

A perfect example of logically correct but logically unsound argument. If you are so inclined, here are hundreds more: godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

Of course it could be made logically sound with a minor modification:
Nothingness exists as a concept,
God is nothingness
Hence, God exists as a concept.

 

[Aloysium]

. . .Since space is objective, so it time. Besides, if one accepts the B-theory, then the question arises: “where is that illusionary past and future reside”? In our head only? Then how is it possible that our memories are almost Since space is objective, so it time. Besides, if one accepts the B-theory, then the question arises: “where is that illusionary past and future reside”? In our head only? Then how is it possible that our memories are almost the same? . . . If our future actions are logically contingent upon the current state of affairs, then they are not free. The concept of omnipresence is invalidated by the fact that the future does not exist as an ontological entity, only as a set of possibilities. . . In the Catholic view “love” is compatible with “genocide”, in the secular world it is not. It would be very nice to create a dictionary with would allow mutual understanding. But it is unlikely since even the most basic concepts - like “love” - are parsed differently in your world and in mine. . .

I am using these statements, clipped from a long post, to discuss the human spirit in relation to its Source, who is omnipresent.

:twocents:

When we say that space and time are objective, we mean that they are more than a subjective experience and that they really exist. Making such considerations, we should not ignore that someone is having this thought. What we have then, is a person trying to connect with reality, not quite sure of who and what both they and reality are about. “Subject-object” as a framework for knowing is an experiential reality that links the mystery of the knower and the known.

I am asserting that the human spirit has a relational self-other nature. Perceptually, emotionally, cognitively and in action, the knower/actor is one with the known/acted-upon, through the knowing/action. The human spirit is on a journey to love, a state in which the knowing is compassion and the act is a giving of oneself to the other, for the good of the other. In such a condition there is unity not only within the self-other, but also with its Source, Love itself - God. This would be the Beatific Vision.

The human spirit, being on this journey, experiences time as moments. Within each now, we perceive, understand and react to the world, which includes our inner states. It is in the moment that we choose and act. The moment is the reality of our free will, determining who we are. The future exists as a set of possibilities only in relation to who we are right here and now. As a result of our actions, relative to who we are now, the past has been set, immutable. The time-line may be said to exist in the mind of God who brings it into being at every point. In what is best to be considered an infinite number of relationships and interactions that occur from the beginning to the end of time, the only simulataneity would appear to be the totality. It is the human spirit that creates a past-present-future, in the same manner that it sees a here-and-there, although everything is where it is and when it is.

God is omnipresent because He is Existence, the Ground of everything. He is One here, now. there, and then as its Source. He transcends our finite experience of reality.

And God is Love. We, created as persons in time, are free to choose love or otherwise as we participate in our own creation as eternal beings, our destiny - to be in communion with God.

 

[Tyrel]

Don’t you hate it when you write out a nice long comment, only to have your comment deleted by a computer problem? Well, I’ll try to respond again.

The theory of special relativity has nothing to do with time. It only stipulates and proves that in the case of two non-accelerating coordinate systems either one can be considered stationery. On the other hand, accelerating, or rotating coordinate systems do not have an equivalence. However, general relativity gives us some beautiful equations for the invariance of space-time. Those equations are subject to verification and measurement, and they pan out just beautifully, notwithstanding what the B-theory of time might assert. No one asserts (to my best knowledge) that space is also just an illusion, and the four coordinates of any particle in the Minkowski space-time x[sup]2[/sup] + y[sup]2[/sup] + z[sup]2[/sup] + (ict)[sup]2[/sup] is invariant (i = sqrt(-1) and c is the speed of light in a vacuum). Since space is objective, so it time. Besides, if one accepts the B-theory, then the question arises: “where is that illusionary past and future reside”? In our head only? Then how is it possible that our memories are almost the same?

This comment makes me sure you know something about the special and general theories of relativity (though you don’t seem to be aware of the Neo-Lorentzian interpretation of relativity), but your comment also makes me sure that you either don’t know anything about the A- and B- theories of time, or you might just be mixing them up. On the A-theory the present is ontologically privileged. On the more popular versions of the A-theory (namely, growing block theory and presentism) the future is not actual. On the B-theory there is no ontological difference between the past, present and future; all are equally actual. Think of the Minkowskian notion of a ‘block’ universe, a space-time manifold, and you have a model which is B-theoretic. The Einsteinian interpretation of special relativity involves the denial that there is a preferred reference frame, one from which absolute time is measured. The Neo-Lorentzian interpretation disagrees on precisely this point. If the Neo-Lorentzian is right, then there is an objective ‘present’ and the B-theory is false. If the Einsteinian is right, then the A-theory is false, and the B-theorist is correct.

Your last three sentences here are so riddled with grammatical errors that I, sincerely, can’t make heads or tails of them. I don’t mean to put you down for it, but seriously, in a conversation like this one, grammar matters. I’ll take a swing at those questions if you can rephrase them (and if they aren’t based on a confusion I will have cleared up by then).

… in quantum mechanics there is no determinism. Furthermore, the free actions of humans cannot be predicted… That makes no sense. If our future actions are logically contingent upon the current state of affairs, then they are not free.

First, there are multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics (at least 11 of them), and a number of these are actually deterministic. Not everyone subscribes to the Copenhagen interpretation, and these interpretations are currently regarded as empirically equivalent. Second, not everybody agrees that being logically determined is quite the same as being causally determined. For instance, the Molinists who believe that God has, in addition to knowledge of all necessary truths and knowledge of all contingent states of affairs, a sort of ‘middle-knowledge’ which consists in what people would freely do in non-actual circumstances. If God knew, logically prior to creating the world at all, what everyone in the world he was about to create would freely do, it doesn’t follow that they don’t act freely in the morally relevant sense. In fact, most philosophers think that Molinism is compatible with libertarianism. Unless what you mean by free is something even stronger than what the libertarian means, you’ll want to rethink your statement.

The concept of omnipresence is invalidated by the fact that the future does not exist as an ontological entity, only as a set of possibilities.

… That’s true according to some versions of the A-theory… But again, first, it may be possible for God to derive facts about the future because they are causally and/or logically entailed. Even if it weren’t, why on earth think the A-theory is true, much less the specific versions of the A-theory on which the future does not exist?

The problem is that the “authoritative” source for Catholicism is entirely self-authenticated. If I have a problem about a technical term, all I have to do is to use the appropriate litmus test, and the ambiguity will disappear. Without the intent to hurt you, I have to point out that the claims of the church are exactly as “authenticated” as the claims of the alchemists or astrologers.

I should start by saying that I’m not exactly sure in what way you are using the word ‘authenticated,’ but for what it’s worth, as a convert to Catholicism myself (who took a surprise turn when I was on my way to Naturalism), I do think that there are some exceptional pieces of evidence for Catholicism. I think the claims of the alchemists and astrologers can be falsified; I do not think any of the Catholic faith has been falsified.

 

[Tyrel]

This kind of problem happens all the time. In the Catholic view “love” is compatible with “genocide”, in the secular world it is not. It would be very nice to create a dictionary with would allow mutual understanding. But it is unlikely since even the most basic concepts - like “love” - are parsed differently in your world and in mine.

This is tangential, obviously, but genocide is perfectly conscionable on secularism, as can easily be demonstrated. Although it is probably more appropriate to speak of ‘secularisms’ rather than secularism, as though it represented one neatly packaged fairly comprehensive view, it is uncontroversial that one popular secular ethic is utilitarianism. Now, on utilitarianism, the moral imperative is always to maximize the ratio of happiness to suffering overall. One tries to minimize the unnecessary misery in the world. Now, I have a myriad of problems with this view of ethics, but the relevant one is that on this view it is entirely logically possible that murdering a small child is the morally right thing to do. Imagine, for instance, that you were locked in a room with a small child by a group of insane terrorists, and these terrorists convince you that they are about to set off a nuclear bomb killing everyone you’ve ever loved in addition to a few million people. They convince you that the one way they may not set off the bomb is if you kill the small child. Should you do it? On (rule) utilitarianism, the answer is straightforwardly affirmative. These kinds of wild scenarios are so rare that the utilitarian practically never has to confront the ludicrous implications of her beliefs, but they remain obvious to the philosopher. We can push the envelope, in fact, and even give scenarios where genocide would be the morally right thing to do, on this secular ethic; for instance, if a genocide largely targeted people who would have so exacerbated anthropogenic climate change that it would have led, in the long run, to the extinction of the human race (and perhaps most other species on this planet), then that genocide may only be morally licit, but actually morally imperative. It is child’s play to run scenarios on which a secular ethic justifies genocide. We could do the same with Ayn Rand’s ethical egoism. We might even be able to do the same using Rawls’ maximin principle (though only if disconnected from the rest of his theory of justice). We can do the same with Nietzsche’s will to power. So it’s just a little too jejune to act as though this is the kind of ethical dilemma which could only arise for religions like Catholicism. All of this was, of course, an aside, but I just couldn’t let that angsty new atheist rhetoric sit there without being challenged.

 

[yppop]

A perfect example of logically correct but logically unsound argument. If you are so inclined, here are hundreds more: godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

Of course it could be made logically sound with a minor modification:
Nothingness exists as a concept,
God is nothingness
Hence, God exists as a concept.

So you accept my syllogism as a logical and rational response since logically correct implies rational, since rational generally means to reason with logic. But now it is not sound?

Let me see where we stand: in the previous post you dismissed my air/house argument as a bad analogy by reducing air, a collection, to a single molecule that couldn’t be inside and outside of MY house which you conveniently moved to Mars simple by generalizing MY house to THE house on Mars. Whoa! talk about an intellectual sleight of hand! (I have 22 grandchildren that I talk with often and get a lot of that when I am trying to undo the damage done by our education system).

But you were not finished with the sleight of hand trick when you shifted from “rational” to “unsound” logic and masterfully used my own syllogism to reduce God to a concept. Your statement that my syllogism is not sound, puts the ball in your court. Do you claim to know that my logical argument is not sound because one or both of my premises are not true? Unless you can show me that: either “nothingness exists” or “God is exists” is not true, then you have no logical or rational reason for stating my syllogism as not sound. Pick one.

Yppop

 

[Gorgias]

How do we know that a god (or God, if you like) exists outside time and space?
Has that been conclusively proven?

How would you suggest we ‘prove’ such an assertion? What methods or tools would be reasonable to utilize?

 

[Tyrel]

How would you suggest we ‘prove’ such an assertion? What methods or tools would be reasonable to utilize?

One can use philosophical and theological resources and methods to arrive at that conclusion.

The correct answer, I think, is that we can establish it with a very high degree of confidence.

 

[Gorgias]

One can use philosophical and theological resources and methods to arrive at that conclusion.

I agree. However, since [user]sonofbarry[/user] raised the question, I was hoping to hear what he would consider a reasonable approach.