Absolute perfection is not possible

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STT said:
The mathematics proves that qualities in principle can be unbounded in reality.
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Can you please provide a reference to the relevant math
The point is that if something is bounded, such as God’s power, then there exist another point in which the power is higher.
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I do not understand this point at all. And once upone a time I did graduate studies in various types of math that often dealt with infinities and unbounded sets.

Again, you start with two assumptions, you have provided no backup for those two assumptions being true. So until you can show those two assumtions are true, no further deductions are valid l. Don’t explain it yourself, provide the mathmatical theorems you logic relies on. These days, almost all necessary math can be found on Wikipedia and it is always accurate, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
 
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Lisa and Lena, Sometimes we need to discover and digest this for ourselves. It would be easy to explain more to STT, however, he/ she would only bring it up as a point of argument.

Some things are best researched ourselves, rather then being spoon fed.

I have recommended a wonderful series that explains it all in the words of a Bishop. So much more qualified then myself to explain it all.

Am I objecting to terminology, NO.

I am pointing out the Catholic Church does not consider God a being.

The Church does not call God “a being”

Watch the series “ Catholicism a journey of a life time, written and created by Bishop Robert Barron

Word on fire, Catholicismseries.com

He was rev. Robert e. Barron at the time he did this series.
 
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STT said:
Absolute perfection requires a bound.
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I don’t believe that absolute perfection requires a bound. Anyway, the theorems of Euclidean geometry are perfect within their sphere of the two dimensional flat plane. Take for an example, the pythagorean theorem which applies to a right triangle. It is been proven in many different ways and no one has ever found a counterexample.
Here are 118 proofs of the pythagorean theorem:
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/
These proofs are all absolutely perfect. There is nothing wrong with them.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
Why never mind? If you wish to argue proof against God on a Catholic forum, you really need to understand God as Catholics do.

At this point you don’t. Because you said God is a being. That makes all your argument kind of void in this respect.
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No, you need to provide material in simple language everybody can understand if you wish to contribute. Here we discussing things in a thread. Referring a person to a book is just not appropriate for sake of discussion.
 
Its not a book, its a DVD series. If you want to learn what Catholics believe so you can attempt to refute what we believe, first learn what we believe.

At this point, you are denying what Catholics would deny also.

God is not a being. Thats what Catholics believe.

As far as saying God is all powerful, its wrong to state or think God is the most powerful of the world or universe etc. Again learn what that means.
If you are not prepared to learn what we believe, you really should not be attempting to refute what we believe. And you attempt to do so frequently in philosophy threads. And unfortunately , the errors in the concepts about what we believe is rife on those threads.
 
Richca said:
There can’t be a higher being than Being or Existence itself just as there isn’t a higher whiteness than whiteness. Nor can being be added to Being because an addition to Being would be being but Being already is. And I already showed in one way how God who is subsistent Being or Existence itself is one and undivided just as if whiteness existed by itself it would be one undivided thing, namely, simply whiteness.
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Of course you are undivided and one too. I have problem by defining God as existence since it is personifying an abstract object but regardless here we are talking about power. You need to prove that God’s power is beyond anyone’s powers even if we accept that God is existence considering the fact that power is boundless.
 
tafan2 said:
Can you please provide a reference to the relevant math
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Here is simple reading which is about a page: What is larger than infinity?
Here is more elaborate proof:
Cantor's theorem - Wikipedia
tafan2 said:
I do not understand this point at all. And once upone a time I did graduate studies in various types of math that often dealt with infinities and unbounded sets.

Again, you start with two assumptions, you have provided no backup for those two assumptions being true. So until you can show those two assumtions are true, no further deductions are valid l. Don’t explain it yourself, provide the mathmatical theorems you logic relies on. These days, almost all necessary math can be found on Wikipedia and it is always accurate, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
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The point is that quality such as power are unbound therefore there exist not a being with highest power since the highest does not exist.
 
What is required for a perfect being is to be all powerful and all wise. These qualities have no bound.
 
STT said:
What is required for a perfect being is to be all powerful and all wise. These qualities have no bound
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That is not true. The power of an all powerful perfect being is bounded by logic. The all powerful perfect being cannot make a rock he cannot lift.
 
STT said:
What is required for a perfect being is to be all powerful and all wise. These qualities have no bound.
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STT said:
something else with more power can lift the rock.
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The all powerful being is still bounded by logic. He cannot make a right triangle in Euclidean geometry that violates the pythagorean theorem. He cannot make in Euclidean geometry an isosceles triangle with unequal base angles. He cannot make in Euclidean geometry a square circle with positive area. He cannot create in euclidean geometry a line that is perpendicular to one of two parallel lines, not perpendicular to the second parallel line. He cannot create in Euclidean geometry a triangle that has the sum of the angles equal to 200 degrees. He cannot create in euclidean geometry a triangle which is simultaneously not isosceles and has interior angle measures 45 degrees, 45 degrees, and 90 degrees. In Euclidean geometry he cannot create an equiangular quadrilateral which is not a rectangle. He cannot create in Euclidean geometry a triangle which satisfies the pythagorean theorem, but is not a right triangle.
And may other things.
So, his power is bounded by logic. It cannot be an unbounded power.
 
Yes. A more powerful being cannot make triangle square. I said He could life the rock the other could not.
 
This proves nothing. You threw some math at a philosophical problems. You seem to think all of reality is reducible to the confines of you own brain and understanding. Does that make you god?
 
STT said:
Yes. A more powerful being cannot make triangle square. I said He could life the rock the other could not.
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You assume that power is for it’s own sake. Because God could make a square triangle he in fact would or should. The question is an absurd anthropomorphism, trying to contain God to your own understanding of potency and the exercise of it. But the underlying philosophy you assume is potency at all costs, even to the cost of Logos, or reason. Even to the detriment of others. You seem to believe with others that because one has ability or potency, one should be expected to exercise it. Or account for the lack of exercise of power. But God does not contradict his own revealed “nature”.

Do you see the tragedy of your philosophy? If potency is to be exercised even at the expense of reason and respect for others, what you get is tyranny, murder, genocide, etc…
(not saying you do these things, but this is the end of the power at all costs philosophy)
 
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Cantor’s theorom has nothing to do with your initial two assertions.
  1. Mathematics prove quality is unbounded. You make this claim in a general sense. Are you claiming that all measures of quality simply reduce to the size of abstract sets? That claim itself would require a proof. Besides if that is your claim, it is redundant with your claim about quantity, so I doubt that is what you initially intended.
  2. Mathematics prove that quantity is unbounded? You are actually no closer here. If you are using this to prove that God cannot exists, you must first start with the assumption that God does exist and then use your axiom to show a contradiction. To be fair, your argument implies this. But when you say that God exists, you are then talking about realities, not abstractions such as sets of numbers. Hence you really need to show that the universe is infinite. It may be, but I know of no math that proves that to be the case.
Again, your premises are by no means true, indeed IMO they are untrue. I know of no math that says either thing. But I am not up to date on all of the progress of math the last 25 years (that’s how long it is since I studied the topic), so I am open to be corrected.
 
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Are you familiar with Aquinas fourth way? Here it is: “The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.”
He talk about more, less, maximum too. I am simply questioning his first premise that there exists a maximum, in power, goodness, beauty, etc.
 
Cantor’s theorem prove that quality in reality can be boundless. In another world it is mathematically allowed. One is then making an error in his/her assumption when s/he says that there exist a being with maximum power since power as a quality in principle is boundless.

For what regards to the universe, I have an argument which states that the universe is unbounded. The argument is as following: Suppose that the universe is bounded. This means that the universe is bounded with something else, lets call this bind. The bind is either bounded, the first case, or it is unbounded, the second case. In first case the bind and the universe, the whole, are bounded which means that there exist something which binds them. This leads to infinite regress which means that the set of all binds and the universe is boundless. The bind is boundless is the second case therefore the whole is boundless as well. So we reach to the conclusion: The universe if it is defined as the whole is boundless.
 
STT said:
Cantor’s theorem prove that quality in reality can be boundless
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Again, unless you thing all measures of quality simply reduce to quantity (do you understand what it means for one problem to reduce to another from a mathematical perspective?), it says nothing of the sort. If that is your argument, please provide a proof. But I don’t think that was your initial argument because your stated two premises, not one.
“STT said:
For what regards to the universe, I have an argument which states that the universe is unbounded
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I understood that the first time and found it to be pure speculation. It is an argument, but by no means is it a mathematical proof. And your whole chain of logic rests on these two premises being mathematically proven.

You have been unable to show any mathematical basis for your two premises.
 
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