Do Catholics Believe God Follows Laws

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sidbrown said:
What about the laws of logic. Would not God be bound by he laws of logic?
Or the laws of mathematics, say 1+1 = 2?
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God is the very reason that there is such a thing as logic. Gods intrinsic nature is the antithesis of nothing.
 
zebbediahdaniel said:
I think I may not be clear…referencing

By this I mean, perhaps Spinoza’s assertion God is limited only by the necessity of His existence is those limits are what we would call ‘natural laws’, or 'the Fullness of the Gospel"?
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Physical laws are not the same as the necessary laws of logic. Physics works within a frame work of necessary logic which is intrinsic to fundamental reality. But physical laws are contingent and can be changed. There is no necessary reason why a hedgehog couldn’t suddenly change in to a giant blue elephant that can speak and can produce logical arguments, or why physics couldn’t behave in a manner that is different to our current experience of it.
 
sidbrown said:
However, according to Avicenna:“Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.”
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:rotfl:

Langdell has unfortunately been infected by postmodernist rubbish.
 
My mind somehow automatically goes to thinking of this along the lines of the differences between classical physics and the atomic/nuclear physics of the 20th Century.

God has created his own set of natural laws, a framework if you will, for the normal operation and order of the world. These are followed by the natural world always, they’re those “classical physics” examples like the laws of motion etc.

God, being God, however is not necessarily bound to always follow those laws. One could easily think of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus to see this supreme example. Obviously there were some “natural laws” being broken there, our minds cannot comprehend just exactly how Jesus could be born given his unique circumstances … it’s not natural, it’s supernatural.

To close the physics portion of it, God has the power to bend these natural laws to fit his will. I would think that the miracles of Christ are examples of just such instances where the veil between this world is torn and the Creator operates of his own will. In such particle physics, we see things then as probabilities. 99% of the time the world follows certain natural paths (and inherent in the Incarnation, Jesus himself in humility obeys these laws!) and laws, but there is a small probability in which there exist cases where the natural laws are not observed at all.

I think it’s another fitting example of God our Father weaving his creating spirit into our natural world. We can look to science to see how it mirrors or examples his own work in this world.
 
cojorgensen said:
My mind somehow automatically goes to thinking of this along the lines of the differences between classical physics and the atomic/nuclear physics of the 20th Century.

God has created his own set of natural laws, a framework if you will, for the normal operation and order of the world. These are followed by the natural world always, they’re those “classical physics” examples like the laws of motion etc.

God, being God, however is not necessarily bound to always follow those laws. One could easily think of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus to see this supreme example. Obviously there were some “natural laws” being broken there, our minds cannot comprehend just exactly how Jesus could be born given his unique circumstances … it’s not natural, it’s supernatural.

To close the physics portion of it, God has the power to bend these natural laws to fit his will. I would think that the miracles of Christ are examples of just such instances where the veil between this world is torn and the Creator operates of his own will. In such particle physics, we see things then as probabilities. 99% of the time the world follows certain natural paths (and inherent in the Incarnation, Jesus himself in humility obeys these laws!) and laws, but there is a small probability in which there exist cases where the natural laws are not observed at all.

I think it’s another fitting example of God our Father weaving his creating spirit into our natural world. We can look to science to see how it mirrors or examples his own work in this world.
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this is interesting, but it raises a few questions.
For example, what is the relation between physical laws and the laws of nature?
And are physical laws actual laws of the real world or are they more like mathematical models which are curve fitting the data in question?
 
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
 
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