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billcu1
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Does the church ascribe to or deny determinism?
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Prodigal_Son
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I would expect that the Church has no position on physical determinism, since physical determinism is compatible with free will (and miracles).
But people must be free in a morally meaningful sense, so a Catholic cannot believe in comprehensive determinism. We must be able to decide freely to do or refrain from certain actions, to take or avoid certain attitudes. Comprehensive determinism would be imply that (presuming hell is populated) God condemns some people to hell unjustly.
But people must be free in a morally meaningful sense, so a Catholic cannot believe in comprehensive determinism. We must be able to decide freely to do or refrain from certain actions, to take or avoid certain attitudes. Comprehensive determinism would be imply that (presuming hell is populated) God condemns some people to hell unjustly.
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empther
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Determinism, in the sense that Calvinists say, would be if God chose who would be saved and who would be damned.
In that case, people would not have free will.
The Calvanists will say all have sinned and so all deserve hell.
Oh, really? Infants who die at birth have sinned enough to deserve hell? The retarded deserve hell? The insane deserve hell?
So God knows who will be damned before he creates them. Is this determinism?
No, because God gives everybody sufficient means to save themselves.
There is a necessary contradiction between creating a person with free will and not creating somebody who God knows will sin enough to be damned. God could not not create somebody he knows will be damned. Why? Because if God doesn’t create a person, he cannot know what that person would have done. This knowledge is unknowable. Actually, there is no knowledge about what this person would do because there never is a person. So God’s hands are tied because we have free will.
In that case, people would not have free will.
The Calvanists will say all have sinned and so all deserve hell.
Oh, really? Infants who die at birth have sinned enough to deserve hell? The retarded deserve hell? The insane deserve hell?
So God knows who will be damned before he creates them. Is this determinism?
No, because God gives everybody sufficient means to save themselves.
There is a necessary contradiction between creating a person with free will and not creating somebody who God knows will sin enough to be damned. God could not not create somebody he knows will be damned. Why? Because if God doesn’t create a person, he cannot know what that person would have done. This knowledge is unknowable. Actually, there is no knowledge about what this person would do because there never is a person. So God’s hands are tied because we have free will.
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Glomung
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I’ve had that discussion with a few Calvinists. It invariably leads to the Calvinist cursing me as a Godless heathen and various other insults. They don’t seem to take well to their notion of determinism being challenged.
That was always my point, how can a just and merciful God create a person solely for the purpose of torturing said person for eternity?
That was always my point, how can a just and merciful God create a person solely for the purpose of torturing said person for eternity?
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billcu1
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Personally I don’t believe in a eternal torture. Torturing is my yourself to your self. But Jesus did pray about those you have set aside for me.
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AndrewW94
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If by determinism, you mean (newadvent.org/cathen/04756c.htm), the Church teaches that we have free will.
If however, you refer to matter, I don’t know of any official teachings on the subject. I can give you my understanding of the Thomistic point of view:
Every change must have a cause, so there must be an efficient cause of the changes (movements) of matter.
The cause must be able to produce the effect, so as Aquinas says (newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm ST I-I, Q. 2, Art. 3)
“For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it.”
and here’s where it is just my opinion:
Something cannot be at the same time be actually hot and actually cold, but the actuality is necessary for it to cause the change. So, I don’t thing you can have non-determenism. At least not with something like heat.
If however, you refer to matter, I don’t know of any official teachings on the subject. I can give you my understanding of the Thomistic point of view:
Every change must have a cause, so there must be an efficient cause of the changes (movements) of matter.
The cause must be able to produce the effect, so as Aquinas says (newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm ST I-I, Q. 2, Art. 3)
“For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it.”
and here’s where it is just my opinion:
Something cannot be at the same time be actually hot and actually cold, but the actuality is necessary for it to cause the change. So, I don’t thing you can have non-determenism. At least not with something like heat.
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empther
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etc etc
OK. There’s cause followed by effect, but it’s not precise.
Rather, it’s unpredictable.
There’s something called the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. Basically it says that the precise speed and direction of a particle can’t be predicted with precision. The particle may go here or there.
What this means is that there is an element of chance in everything that goes on in the physical world. When this idea was proposed around 1927, Einstein rejected the idea making his famous remark, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe”. But eventually there was so much evidence for it poor Albert had to yield.
So everything we see is the result of chance, not determinism.
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Prodigal_Son
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So far as we know.
This is an epistemic claim, not a metaphysical claim. The speed and the direction may be determinate, but WE can’t determine it. Those are very different things.
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empther
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I’ll pass it on to a million scientists.
( It’s not about the observer’s inability to know everything to the nth decimal. It’s the phenomenon itself that’s uncertain, whether or not there’s an observer. )
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Prodigal_Son
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I know that physicists say this. They cannot prove that there is no determining cause, however, since such a proof is logically impossible.
Even if there were an indeterminate event in the universe, we could never know that it did not have a cause – only that **we **cannot find a cause.
(If you think I’m a philosopher with an axe to grind against physicists-who-think-they’re-metaphysicians, yeah, guilty as charged.)
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empther
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Only in a “philosophy section” can we find statements like this! :bigyikes:
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Prodigal_Son
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Blame the likes of Stephen Hawking, who claims that physics disproves God.
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billcu1
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Are you serious? I’ve never heard that Dr. Hawking says that physics disproves God. How could it? Where does he get this conclusion?Blame the likes of Stephen Hawking, who claims that physics disproves God.
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Prodigal_Son
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It’s relatively easy to find on Google. The basic idea is that God is unnecessary to explain the Big Bang (or anything else), therefore God doesn’t exist. This is an obvious logical fallacy, but it hasn’t stopped the mainstream media from giving him lots of undue attention.
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billcu1
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I don’t see how science can disprove God. Not any science that I know of. Philosophy and science are two different methods and to my knowledge science deals with what you can see. God is a completely different ballpark. His reasoning is flawed then I agree. The “big bang” to me is caused by God. I do agree though that God doesn’t, and correct me if I’m wrong, exist or not exist. God is beyond existance and non-existance.
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Prodigal_Son
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And even if the Big Bang wasn’t caused by God, either (a) one of the causes of the Big Bang was caused by God, or (b) the series of infinite events preceding the Big Bang was caused by God.
Absolutely, science can’t disprove God. Philosophers – even atheistic philosophers – get really annoyed when scientists try to.
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billcu1
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I believe that if something happens we at some point brought it on ourselves or God has allowed it for a purpose. Is this determinism?
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Prodigal_Son
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Probably not. If we brought it on ourselves, that means we had ultimate control over it, so it is a case of free will. And free will and determinism seem to contradict each other – though there is a vocal minority that disagrees.
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