Double trouble!

[Gorgias]

for the record, I reject the thomistic philosophy, because it is incoherent.

Freely asserted, freely denied.

But, I get what you’re saying: current-day philosophers have a problem with Thomas.

And also for the reason that it is NOT the official catholic philosophy.

No, but much of what he says, stands in line with Church teaching. Much of what he says is quoted by the Church in its own teachings. I agree that we can’t just point to Aquinas blindly and assert “if Thomas said it, it must be right!” – but we can do so for much of what he says.

Also for the record, the catholic church has NO official philosophy.

Saying “the Church doesn’t teach this” is a beginner’s mistake in trying to understand the Church: it doesn’t teach all things because it doesn’t want to make magisterial statements about all things. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t philosophical underpinnings to support what it teaches!

If “action” means something, then there must be a “change”. If “change” means something, there must be a “before and after”. There is noting here that would require a “temporal” framework.

These are precisely the definitions of what time is all about!

Now, regardless of the specifics of the “causation”, there is an “action” there.

I would assert that the effects of God are experienced as actions within a temporal framework. Subtle difference…

Mind you, it is not required nor asserted that God’s “essence” would change. (Whatever that “essence” might be.) Just like your essence does not change when you make a decision to create an answer to this post.

This argument fails. It’s a being’s existence that change affects. (Also, note that in God, his essence is his existence.)

Yes, I heard it before. God “eternally wills” X. … the word “wills” implies an action.

Not in the context of God: God’s will is actualized, it doesn’t imply distinct action, though. If so, then God’s will would be distinct from his activity. And, if that were the case, then God would be composite. Making this distinction that you’re trying to make has the effect of changing the definition of God. That’s why, if we posit him as we do, you can’t make these assertions. You can say “well, then, if these are the results, then the premise must be bad”, but the assertions you make aren’t necessary assertions, they’re arbitrary. Therefore, if they don’t work out, you have to throw out the assertions and try again.

I say that the presented “concept of God” is incoherent. In the presented picture there is no difference between “action” and “inaction”, between “change” and “no change”, between “before” and “during” and “after”.

This is exactly what I mean: since you make assertions that don’t hold with the original premises, and the assertions don’t hold, you want to throw away the original premises. However, your assertions simply point out that God is different sort of being than us. Your implicit assumption – that the way things work for us is the way they must work for God – is what’s getting you into the weeds here. But, I can understand that, if “it ain’t worth it” for you, then you wouldn’t attempt to work with the implications of that distinction.

On one hand you argue that you are in the position of speaking “authoritatively” about “timeless” existence, and its “internal workings” (eternally wills!), you use words like “causation”, “action”, but when I point out the problems with your assertions, you say that these words mean something totally different, thereby undercutting your whole argument.

No… I’m saying that you have to consider the context, and not apply the concepts blindly as if they are identical in different contexts! I don’t think that it undercuts my argument: rather, it helps us understand what these things mean, and it helps us understand that, in different contexts, these things must have different implications!

You say that my arguments are fine in a temporal framework, but they are inapplicable to the “non-temporal” one. So we are unable to find a “common language”.

Only if you are unwilling to consider what it means to be outside a temporal framework which, apparently, you are: all of your assertions continually rely on the implicit assumption that God’s existence is within a temporal framework which is entangled with ours! You’ll need to provide a basis for this assumption if you wish us to have a meaningful discussion!

In a sense you say that one cannot say anything meaningful about the “timeless” existence (starting from a temporal frame), and then you turn around and try to say something (also starting from a temporal frame - like “eternally willed”), and you are surprised when such undefined nonsense is rejected.

No, I am not saying that “one cannot say anything meaningful about ‘timeless’ existence”: rather, I’m saying that your assertions that imply that whatever is said of temporal existence must be said of timeless existence are based on a poor foundation. Many things can be said – and have been, in this thread! – about timeless existence. However, since you continue to want to ground these statements in the context of temporal existence, you reject them, without realizing the set of unspoken assumptions you’re making!

There is a philosophical term for what you committed here. It is called the “fallacy of the stolen concept”.

LOL… if I were asserting that temporal and eternal frameworks were identical, you might have a chance of making that claim. I’m not, though…

 

[Gorgias]

If on the other hand, the bolded statement is false, then someone ought to be able to show Tyrion in a way that he can understand.

Not necessarily. I would appeal to Newman’s notion of the illative sense and say that these are issues that rely not only on pure logic, but on one’s assessment of the truth of the facts. Therefore, the conclusions reached in these matters are necessarily personal conclusions.

In other words, the lack of success in convincing a person does not imply the lack of the truth of the propositions presented to him.

 

[Ismael]

Double trouble!

I believe a careful reading of St. Thomas on the suject will quickly dispell these ‘troubles’.

Simply the fact that God is eternal and partecipates, at an ontological level, in all existence at all times (or rather everything that exists si sustained by God)

As such I offer the following experiment. I will select a few dice, and will toss them sometime in the future. Can God predict and reveal the result? How many dice will I select? With which hand am I going to do the toss? When will I do the toss? Of course, as soon as I hear the prediction, I will do something else - as long as God does not “tinker” with my free will. If God says that I will select 3 dice, then I will select 1, or 2, or 4, etc… anything but 3. If he says that I will make the toss with my right hand… then I will do it with my left hand. If he says that I will make the toss within the next 5 minutes… then I will wait 6 minutes. Since I will act only when I heard the prediction, I am in the driver’s seat.

Remember that ONNIPOTENCE means “capability to do anything that is logically possible”. (For example drawing a square ‘perfect circle’ is not logically possible. Turning lead into gold just by touching it like King Midas, your finger might be physically impossible but not logically impossible. )

OMNISCIENCE means: to know everything that can be known. (eg. you can in theory know how many atoms are in the universe at a given time. You cannot know what a pink unicorn is thinking, since no pink unicorn exists, hence he has no thoughts).

A FIRST ANSWER might be God might simply might give you an ‘answer sealed in an envelope’ (as suggested above) so that it will not influence your actions. If you are afraid God might be ‘cheating’ then you could have a third neutral party receive the answer and tell it to you afterwards.

It might be that to ‘ask what I would do’ and then ‘do something else after the answer’ is in itself a logical contraddiction.

That does NOT invalidate omnicience and omnipotence as defined. (the game you are proposing is like asking if God can create rock that He cannot lift himself)

Also the “secret answer in an envelope” test would be the CORRECT method to test omniscience as defined,

One thing is indeed to ask to ‘test omniscience’ and one thing is to ask to do something logically impossible. (maybe God can do something logically impossible, but most classical theists do not thing that as they define omnipotence in different terms).

After all I would not trust God not to modify that envelope in that locker, AFTER I made my toss.

This is nonsense. Since God might as well modify your memory. Here you are changing the question. First you ask something regarding the attributes of God, but now you are dealing with something else, i.e. honesty.

Your game however becomes pointless.

And therefore, if God has “omniscience”, then it is contingent upon NOT revealing it… of course anyone can claim omniscience, as long as he refuses to submit to a test.

I think you fail to understand what ‘contingent’ means. Contingent means a mix of actuality and potentiality, ie. something that needs to come into existence.

You also seem to confuse things.

Btw the ‘answer’ might as well be contingent. His Knowledge is NOT. There is a difference!

The contingency of the answer is based upom your contingency in receiving it.

So what you are saying is: there is a ball in a box… its color is contingent on the moment you open the box. In reality the color is always the same, what changes is YOU knowing about it or not.

So the ‘contingency’ here is a chance in you, not God.

Why would it? I could ask God to predict the movement of an asteroid… since it is deterministic, there would be no problem… actually any astronomer could do it. To predict the movement of an electron is highly dubious, thanks to the Heisenberg uncertainity principle. The prediction of a being with free will is even more problematic… but as soon as that being is aware of the prediction, he can invalidate it.

Here you assume blandly thad God is some being bound by time, a mere observer, some kind of ‘superhuman scientist’.

That’s not God. That might be Mr. Mahnattan from ‘Watchmen’… but that is not what classical theist understand as God.

So you are asking: could a creature do that? It can’t so God can’t.

You also assume God would make a prediction one even COULD invalidate by his own actions.

Also God might give you a detailed enough answer that you could not escape. Assuming that you are limited (and you are), there might be a detailed enough answer that might take in account every possibility and reaction to it, however that might be stretching it and is unecessary, since God can prove his omniscience as stated above.

 

[Ismael]

=========

It has happened many years ago that I had a conversation with someone - on this board. I asked why is it that “God always supports the free will of the rapist over the free will of the one being raped?”. The answer was so incredibly idiotic that it simply took my breath away. The respondent said that the free will of the girl being gang-raped is in no way impaired, since she is totally “free” to want/wish/will away her predicament, it is only her ability which is curtailed.

The free will of the girl is not impaired by GOD.

Having free will does not mean we can do anything we want or that we have no boundaries and that we are not bound by OTHER material things.

I have free will, but even if I will to fly to the moon like superman, it will not happen.

The girl free will will remain free, as we WILL will not be compelled. Her body will be compelled to do things she does not will, but that is different.

Again you are just confused and lack proper order in your thoughts.

The respondent said that only the freedom to make a decision is what matters, the ability to act on that decision is irrelevant.

And that is the case. As I said I cannot fly to the moon like superman, nor can you.

So I asked why doesn’t God simply take away the rapist ability to carry out his wish… after all his decision would still be free, only his ability to act on his “will” would be missing. Guess what? There was no answer.

Here again you are changing the game. First you ask about ‘free wills’, but the you ask a very different question, i.e. “why does God permit evil to occur”.

You are playing a shell game by cheating, i.e. you are not practicing logic and philosophy, but meaningless sophistry.

If you want an anser then ask about the problem of evil.

Basically you want answer but you do not even know the questions.

This same nonsense keeps coming back year after year. There is always a non-thinking nincompoop who will use the same “argument”… so very sad! As Einstein (allegedly) said: “There are two thing which are infinite… the universe and human stupidity”… and added “but I am not sure about the universe”.

I think thsi applies to YOU very well, since I have shown you do not even what you are talking about, what question you are asking, let alone follow a coherent, logical thought process.

Sorry, my friend, you are mistaken. The conversation I was referring to, happened about 7 years ago… but it sure looks like that there is nothing new under the Sun.

Indeed… and you learned NOTHING in 7 years. That quite a non-achievement. Instead of testing God maybe you ought to test yourself a bit more…

–

God is supposed to be also “omnipotent” - where omnipotence means that God can do anything that is not a logical contradiction. And there is nothing logically problematic about predicting a future action - so God should be able to do that.

There is if a future action is dependend upon the answer that precedes it. Duh!!

1. theists assert that God “acts”, or makes “changes”.
2. the metaphysical concept of action - which is independent of a temporal framework - involves a “change”. (Otherwise there would be no difference between action and inaction).
3. Any kind of change means a temporal “before” and “after”. (Without a before and an after there cannot be a change.) So it is action and change which will necessitate the introduction of some kind of “time”. Without this time the whole idea of “change” and “action” would collapse, and this would contradict assumption #1 (God acts).

YAWN… again here you keep shiofting meanings around.

Action, metaphisically, does not necessarely involve a chance in the one who acts, but only in the one acted upon…

:banghead:

1. Is traveling into the past possible?
2. Is knowledge of the future possible?

The answer is “NO”, to both of them, and a simple thought experiment can prove it.

1. If traveling into the past would be possible, then the past COULD be changed, and this change could include the destruction of the present, which made time travel possible. The good-old grandfather paradox.

1. If knowledge of the future would be possible, then this knowledge could allow to take a different course of action, which would invalidate the “current” knowledge about the “future”. If I could know that taking route “X” to work would place me into a pile-up, and thus causing my death, I would not take route “X”, and therefore the predicted future would NOT come to pass.

This is a problem only for temporally bound beings. It does not involve God at all.

=======

**I will now be making a prediction:

in 7 years you will still make the same mistakes and say the same nonesense as you are saying now and were saying 7 years ago.**

Although I do hope my prediction will be wrong and you will learn something, like logic 101 for starters.

 

[Love4All]

No, I am not saying that “one cannot say anything meaningful about ‘timeless’ existence”: rather, I’m saying that your assertions that imply that whatever is said of temporal existence must be said of timeless existence are based on a poor foundation. Many things can be said – and have been, in this thread! – about timeless existence. However, since you continue to want to ground these statements in the context of temporal existence, you reject them, without realizing the set of unspoken assumptions you’re making!

LOL… if I were asserting that temporal and eternal frameworks were identical, you might have a chance of making that claim. I’m not, though…

This is a good point. I would like to point out something that I will call the Central Dogma of Theism. It is this: God acts in history.

Now this statement either is or is not coherent. It does not initially appear problematic, until we begin to examine more deeply its terms. The trouble comes when we try to make sense of it using incomplete notions. This is the point at which this discussion finds itself with regard to Tyrion, and some others, but this is properly Tyrion’s thread.

Any entity can act in history, but the problem then becomes whether God is an entity. God is defined as Pure Act, and Pure Act can admit no shadow of change. Now here is a point whereon Tyrion vacillates. He has admitted that in principle you could act without yourself changing, but so far he will not admit the same of God. I submit that it is on this point that you may be able to make some headway with him. To that end I offer you the following.

Action involves an agent and a patient, that which acts and that which is acted upon. In any action, the patient undergoes a change, not necessarily the agent. Tyrion’s error appears to be conflating the two, failing to differentiate agent from patient, and thus denying that any change is possible which does not affect both.

It is possible for one of us to change ourselves, but in such a case, we necessarily are both agent and patient, and to the point, it is the passive part of ourselves that is changing, not the active part. The active part is the agent, the passive part is the patient, and when agent changes patient the patient changes, while the agent remains the same. Were it not so, were it the case that the agent would have to change with the patient, no agent could ever accomplish its intent, because in the process of changing that intent would also change. What is required for a change according to a will is that the will remain constant before, during, and after the change. Thus the will to make the change cannot itself change; that would be absurd. No one would ever be able to recognize that they had accomplished their will, if that will were required of necessity to change as part of its accomplishing. Now plainly, we do observe with happiness, the successes we have with our wills, which plainly indicates that the Will was the same before and after the change. And since it is the will that accomplished the change, then plainly it remains the same during it as well.

So the will of the agent cannot change in the carrying out of that will; rather, it must remain constant before, during, and after its carrying out. Now since God is Pure Act, and Utterly Simple, there is no distinction in God between His Will and Himself. Therefore if God’s Will remains constant before, during, and after a change, He Himself likewise remains constant before, during, and after the change. Thus it is manifest that when Pure Act acts, it acts as Pure Agent, with no part of Pure Act taking on the role of Patient. Just as God Himself is Pure Act with no admixture of potentiality, so God’s Will is Pure Agent with no admixture of passivity.

Tyrion also began to object based on the teaching that the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us. This is a separate issue and does not properly belong in this thread, but I wished to address it here anyway for the consolation of those who are arguing against him and to give them, perhaps, a little more ammunition in the fight. It was not the Divine Nature of Christ that suffered His Passion, it was His Sacred Humanity. The Divinity cannot suffer, as suffering is passion, and we have already established that in God there is no passion. Yet the Sacred Humanity of Christ did undergo the Passion, and the Second Person of the Trinity is the selfsame Person as Jesus of Nazareth. It is a Mystery, but there are real philosophical data furnished by the Mystery. It is a Mystery, but not a logical paradox, and not a logical contradiction. It is impossible for anyone but God to give Tyrion faith, but it is not impossible for any one of us to demonstrate that Faith is not contrary in any wise to Reason. Thus, the Union of the Divine Nature and the Human Nature of Christ is found in His Hypostasis, i.e. in His Person. It is the Person who unites the Human and Divine natures. Thus the human nature of Christ is not a special category of human nature. It is not different from our human nature, except for sin. The point of this paragraph with regard to Tyrion’s objections is that all the change that we saw Jesus undergo as a human, is not change in the Divine Word; it is only change in the Sacred Humanity. God, in fact, cannot change; but Jesus could, because Jesus is human. It would be an error to add, “. . .not God,” since Jesus is both Man AND God. But it is as Man that He undergoes change, not as God. Our Lord’s Divinity did not suffer the Passion! His Sacred Humanity did, and the selfsame Person is both, so the Person did suffer the Passion as Jesus, as the Word made Flesh, and as Who He Is — but the Divine Nature did not suffer, as the Divine Nature is not subject to change. Many words, but I wish to be as clear as I possibly can.

 

[Love4All]

Not necessarily. I would appeal to Newman’s notion of the illative sense and say that these are issues that rely not only on pure logic, but on one’s assessment of the truth of the facts. Therefore, the conclusions reached in these matters are necessarily personal conclusions.

In other words, the lack of success in convincing a person does not imply the lack of the truth of the propositions presented to him.

Either Tyrion is or is not committing logical errors. If he is not, then we all ought to believe as he believes. If he is, on the other hand, any one of us either can or cannot demonstrate that to him using the tools available to us. If he is, and we can, then we should. If, however, one of us holds that he is, but that we ourselves lack the necessary material to refute him, I submit that a dual course of action is prescribed:

1. Question yourself. Try your best to determine whether or not you may have committed a logical error in developing your own position, and
2. Step down and let others step up. Just because you might not be able to see how to refute Tyrion’s errors, does not mean no one can.

I would ask of those here, a special third consideration. If I post something that you agree with, that you think can help Tyrion, kindly do help Tyrion with it, yourself. I say so because currently Tyrion is in the grip of abject cowardice with regard to debating me directly. I can understand it, it is a little like an antelope being afraid to deal directly with a lion. But Tyrion’s abject cowardice should not necessarily be allowed to keep him from figuring out the truth of how wrong he has been.

 

[Gorgias]

God acts in history.

Just to make your assertion more accurate (and to head off at the pass anyone who might misunderstand or misconstrue your statement): God is act; the effects of God (as act) are experienced in the context of our temporal history. The presence of an effect – in time – does not imply the presence of an action that originates in that context.

 

[Love4All]

Just to make your assertion more accurate (and to head off at the pass anyone who might misunderstand or misconstrue your statement): God is act; the effects of God (as act) are experienced in the context of our temporal history. The presence of an effect – in time – does not imply the presence of an action that originates in that context.

If I read you right, the fact of a temporal effect does not necessarily imply a temporal cause; if an action in history is attributed to God, the cause is eternal, not temporal. Is that accurate to what you said?

 

[Tyrion]

Whew! I’m so glad we theists have wise overlords like you, to condescend to us and pat us on the head and tell us what we’re going to eventually realize! Oh, thank you, wise and powerful Tyrion! :bowdown:

Looks like I overestimated you. I was not condescending when I pointed out that the concept of “omnipotence” underwent a substantial overhaul, nor did I make a mistake by pointing out that some believers STILL cling to the old “definition”. It is also a true observation that MANY of the church’s teachings evolved over time. Today it is not a “burnable” heresy to abandon the geocentric worldview. like it was in the times of Giordano Bruno. I merely expressed my strong hope that eventually the ridiculous definition of “omniscience” will be abandoned, and a more rational definition will take its place. Unfortunately I am not allowed to spell out my opinion about your petty little sarcastic remark. There is no “emoticon” for it, but here comes: …|…

Saying “the Church doesn’t teach this” is a beginner’s mistake in trying to understand the Church: it doesn’t teach all things because it doesn’t want to make magisterial statements about all things. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t philosophical underpinnings to support what it teaches!

Since there is no catholic philosophy, there is nothing to be used as support. Besides to call the lack of official teachings a “beginner’s mistake” is unacceptable. There are many fundamentally important areas where the church makes no official declarations. Just to name very few. There is no “official” declaration about

• which parts of the bible MUST be accepted literally, and which parts are allegorical?
• what was the nature of the “original” sin (was there a “tree” and a “talking serpent” there - and if not, what WAS)?
• what are the requirements for non-catholics to attain salvation?
• what is the fate of the miscarried fetuses?

and zillions more, all of which would be much more important than the “teaching” that ONE un-repented masturbation will render the person to be eligible for hell (if he knew that the church condemns his practice). Give me break! And you dare to call this a “beginner’s mistake”???

These are precisely the definitions of what time is all about!

Indeed. But it is not an a-priori assertion, it is the rational and logical corollary of the purely metaphysical concept of action!

This is exactly what I mean: since you make assertions that don’t hold with the original premises, and the assertions don’t hold, you want to throw away the original premises.

That is the only rational approach. You make a hypothesis, you examine the rational corollaries, you find the corollaries erroneous, and you discard the hypothesis!! What a surprise.

However, your assertions simply point out that God is different sort of being than us. Your implicit assumption – that the way things work for us is the way they must work for God – is what’s getting you into the weeds here. But, I can understand that, if “it ain’t worth it” for you, then you wouldn’t attempt to work with the implications of that distinction.

The distinction is applicable only to the details. It is a theist assertion that we are in the likeliness of God, if not fully, but at least certain respect.

Only if you are unwilling to consider what it means to be outside a temporal framework which, apparently, you are: all of your assertions continually rely on the implicit assumption that God’s existence is within a temporal framework which is entangled with ours! You’ll need to provide a basis for this assumption if you wish us to have a meaningful discussion!

I already did. The metaphysical concept of “action” is applicable to both.

Tell me: is there any difference between action and inaction? Is there any difference between change and no change? Does the change mean a difference? None of these terms can be said to be applicable only in a “temporal frame”. On the other hand, the “eternal, unchanging, YET active” framework is simply a logical nonsense.

 

[Tyrion]

The problem can’t really be the definition of “omniscience.” Nobody here (that I have seen) has denied that omniscience includes God’s ability to foresee the future acts of all rational creatures with certainty.

That IS the problem. It is also said that God can “know” all that did not happen, but could have happened (along the lines of the Molinist middle knowledge). This can be translated into: “God knows the contents of a book, which was never written, since the author was never born, since his parents never met”. After all, the parents could have met, the author could have been born, he could have become a writer, who could have created a book… to say that God “knows” the contents of this book is sheer nonsense.

Yes, and someone who hasn’t experienced past events can still know them.

IF there is ample documentation, and IF that documentation is available, then the person CAN have SOME information about the past event. Of course that is contingent upon some agents, who actually did the observation and left some credible documentation about it.

If we use justified-true-belief as the standard (ignoring Gettier and other problems), then we certainly can know past events without direct experience.

I do not use that definition. Knowledge is information. And why should we ignore Gettier, et al?

It is either true or false that the lunar landing occurred. We have visual footage of the landing that is beyond reasonable dispute, giving justification. We believe that the moon landing occurred. We have knowledge that the landing occurred. If all you are asserting is that we have a higher degree of knowledge of the past through direct experience than otherwise, then I agree with you.

Yes, exactly. Do you know if Armstrong has sneezed during the event? Full knowledge is more then some information…

It isn’t uniformly held by philosophers that future propositions are unknowable.

Is there anything at all, which is held uniformly by any arbitrary group of people?

The truth component of knowledge becomes important ie. the correspondence theory. It shouldn’t present a problem to B-theorists if they hold that future events do exist as a four-dimensional block, because even under the correspondence theory there is a fact or reality that corresponds to the truth assertion.

Where? We are talking about actual physical objects. Where does that “book” exist NOW which does not exist on my desk, and which might be (or might not be) placed on my desk sometime in the future?

Putting the B-theory aside for a moment, there is something that doesn’t quite fit with experience when you declare that the future is unknowable. All of the empiriometric sciences, to the extent they are useful, give us information used to calculate the probability of future events. And in most instances, they do it very well.

With fully deterministic processes, if you have perfect information about the starting parameters and you have perfect knowledge about the information flow, then you can have knowledge about the future. But if the process is NOT deterministic (quantum events) or it is contingent upon the free actions of a free agent, then the future cannot be “known”.

If we speak of knowledge as a proposition which has a “true” value associated with it, then the proposition "it will rain next year (date and time provided) at the geographical coordinates (x, y, z) then it is impossible to assign a true or false value to this proposition, until the event actually happens.

 

[Gorgias]

Unfortunately I am not allowed to spell out my opinion about your petty little sarcastic remark. There is no “emoticon” for it, but here comes: …|…

I’m number one! I’m number one! Woo hoo!

(And I’m the ‘petty’ and ‘sarcastic’ one, eh? )

Since there is no catholic philosophy, there is nothing to be used as support.

There is, but you’re expecting the hierarchy of the Church to make pronouncements on philosophy? That would turn them into doctrinal statements, and that’s what the Church doesn’t want to get into!

Besides to call the lack of official teachings a “beginner’s mistake” is unacceptable.

You misunderstand me. The beginner’s mistake isn’t the “lack of official teachings”, it’s the *expectation that the Church will pronounce * official teachings on all subject matters.

There are many fundamentally important areas where the church makes no official declarations.

That’s right. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t teachings about these areas. It just means that there isn’t a centralized repository – an encyclopedia, if you will – from the Church proper, that details these things. That, of course, doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that can be said about them that is in concord with the Church.

what was the nature of the “original” sin (was there a “tree” and a “talking serpent” there - and if not, what WAS)?
*]what are the requirements for non-catholics to attain salvation?
*]what is the fate of the miscarried fetuses?

Wow… stick to what you know, ok? There are Church teachings on these:

The nature of original sin: “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. … In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #397-98)

Requirements of non-Catholic Christians to attain salvation? Lumen gentium 15 talks about this, although there aren’t requirements that are spelled out as if in a list. Of course, given that paragraph 16 says, “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience,” it would be folly to suggest that the Church is saying that Christians are unable to attain salvation!

Finally, the state of miscarried fetuses is a special case of those who die without baptism. See The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.

What’s this about a lack of teaching? Riiiiiight…

And you dare to call this a “beginner’s mistake”???

I do. Only those unfamiliar with the Church make this assumption. In the words of the comedian, “And heeeeeeere’s your card!”

That is the only rational approach. You make a hypothesis, you examine the rational corollaries, you find the corollaries erroneous, and you discard the hypothesis!! What a surprise.

You discard the hypothesis when you exhaust all the corollaries or find one that is necessary. You don’t discard it when you find one corollary you can defeat. You’ve done the latter, not the former. Therefore, you haven’t reached the point where you can discard the hypothesis.

 

[Tyrion]

You misunderstand me. The beginner’s mistake isn’t the “lack of official teachings”, it’s the *expectation that the Church will pronounce * official teachings on all subject matters.

I do expect an official teaching on all subjects that matter. Explicit, exhaustive, unambiguous listings. For example, which parts of the bible MUST be accepted as literal, and which parts as allegorical? In other words why is there no “catholic annotated bible”?

That’s right. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t teachings about these areas. It just means that there isn’t a centralized repository – an encyclopedia, if you will – from the Church proper, that details these things. That, of course, doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that can be said about them that is in concord with the Church.

Why not? 2000 years was not enough? Or is it because then it would be impossible to deny that there are revisions, changes, updates about these matters? Is the denial of the geocentric worldview still a “burnable” heresy? Accepting evolution is fine today… it was not when it was first proposed.

Wow… stick to what you know, ok? There are Church teachings on these:

Only generalities, no specifics.

The nature of original sin: “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. … In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #397-98)

These are empty words. Was there a “talking serpent” there or not? Was there a “tree” or not? What exactly transpired there?

Requirements of non-Catholic Christians to attain salvation? Lumen gentium 15 talks about this, although there aren’t requirements that are spelled out as if in a list. Of course, given that paragraph 16 says, “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience,” it would be folly to suggest that the Church is saying that Christians are unable to attain salvation!

What about those who heard the “good news” and find them unacceptable, but otherwise they lead a good life? They do not “seek” God, they see the church as a human institution (which it IS), but they are “exemplary” persons? Is there an official teaching about their fate? Spelled out in actual details. It used to be a teaching that only catholics can hope to be saved. All others are heretics, pagans, abominations, fodders for hell. That kind of iron-clad teaching is out of fashion nowadays. But the “catholics only” prerequisite has never been rescinded.

Finally, the state of miscarried fetuses is a special case of those who die without baptism. See The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.

I am very much aware of this. I asked if there is an official teaching about their fate, not what the church “hopes for”. Of course I understand why there is no real “teaching”. To state that those fetuses will be burned in hell would be politically unacceptable these days, though it was perfectly fine in older times. To change and say that those innocent “baybees” are now in heaven would require to get rid of the concept of the original sin, and this seems to be premature as of now.

What’s this about a lack of teaching? Riiiiiight… .

Yes. Right!

You discard the hypothesis when you exhaust all the corollaries or find one that is necessary. You don’t discard it when you find one corollary you can defeat. You’ve done the latter, not the former. Therefore, you haven’t reached the point where you can discard the hypothesis.

Nope. You discard your hypothesis, as soon as you find ONE incorrect corollary.

 

[Gricken]

Why not? 2000 years was not enough? Or is it because then it would be impossible to deny that there are revisions, changes, updates about these matters? Is the denial of the geocentric worldview still a “burnable” heresy? Accepting evolution is fine today… it was not when it was first proposed.

I think you need an education on these subjects. and how they relate to catholics. Especially with regards to the “Burnable heresy” part. Of course I’m almost certain I’m already blocked

 

[Tyrion]

You misunderstand me. The beginner’s mistake isn’t the “lack of official teachings”, it’s the *expectation that the Church will pronounce * official teachings on all subject matters.

I do expect an official teaching on all subjects that matter. Explicit, exhaustive, unambiguous listings. For example, which parts of the bible MUST be accepted as literal, and which parts as allegorical? In other words why is there no “catholic annotated bible”?

That’s right. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t teachings about these areas. It just means that there isn’t a centralized repository – an encyclopedia, if you will – from the Church proper, that details these things. That, of course, doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that can be said about them that is in concord with the Church.

Why not? 2000 years was not enough? Or is it because then it would be impossible to deny that there are revisions, changes, updates about these matters? Is the denial of the geocentric worldview still a “burnable” heresy? Accepting evolution is fine today… it was not when it was first proposed.

Wow… stick to what you know, ok? There are Church teachings on these:

Only generalities, no specifics.

The nature of original sin: “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. … In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #397-98)

These are empty words. Was there a “talking serpent” there or not? Was there a “tree” or not? What exactly transpired there?

Requirements of non-Catholic Christians to attain salvation? Lumen gentium 15 talks about this, although there aren’t requirements that are spelled out as if in a list. Of course, given that paragraph 16 says, “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience,” it would be folly to suggest that the Church is saying that Christians are unable to attain salvation!

What about those who heard the “good news” and find them unacceptable, but otherwise they lead a good life? They do not “seek” God, they see the church as a human institution (which it IS), but they are “exemplary” persons? Is there an official teaching about their fate? Spelled out in actual details. It used to be a teaching that only catholics can hope to be saved. All others are heretics, pagans, abominations, fodders for hell. That kind of iron-clad teaching is out of fashion nowadays. But the “catholics only” prerequisite has never been rescinded.

Finally, the state of miscarried fetuses is a special case of those who die without baptism. See The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.

I am very much aware of this. I asked if there is an official teaching about their fate, not what the church “hopes for”. Of course I understand why there is no real “teaching”. To state that those fetuses will be burned in hell would be politically unacceptable these days, though it was perfectly fine in older times. To change and say that those innocent “baybees” are now in heaven would require to get rid of the concept of the original sin, and this seems to be premature as of now.

What’s this about a lack of teaching? Riiiiiight… .

Yes. Right!

You discard the hypothesis when you exhaust all the corollaries or find one that is necessary. You don’t discard it when you find one corollary you can defeat. You’ve done the latter, not the former. Therefore, you haven’t reached the point where you can discard the hypothesis.

Nope. You discard your hypothesis, as soon as you find ONE incorrect corollary.

 

[Gorgias]

I do expect an official teaching on all subjects that matter. Explicit, exhaustive, unambiguous listings.

Sorry. That’s not the way it works. You can stand in the corner and stomp your feet and pout and cry “that’s not fair” all day long if you want… but that’s not the way it works.

For example, which parts of the bible MUST be accepted as literal, and which parts as allegorical?

The Catechism teaches from the Bible. If there’s a statement there that quotes a passage of Scripture that it takes literally, then take it literally. If it quotes it as allegory, take it as allegory. Otherwise, Catholics are free to interpret it as they see fit, within the constraints of existing Catholic teaching.

Only generalities, no specifics.

Says you.

These are empty words. Was there a “talking serpent” there or not? Was there a “tree” or not? What exactly transpired there?

I’m tempted to tell you “do your own research”, since it’s all there, but I’ll get you started, and expect that you do some reading before telling us that “it’s not in there”:

Catechism, paragraph 389: “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.”

What about those who heard the “good news” and find them unacceptable, but otherwise they lead a good life? They do not “seek” God, they see the church as a human institution (which it IS), but they are “exemplary” persons? Is there an official teaching about their fate? Spelled out in actual details.

Again, [read Lumen Gentium](http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...t-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.htmlread the document). It’s all there, in paragraphs 14 through 16. And yes, this is “an official teaching”, “spelled out in actual details”. If you have any problems understanding it, start another thread here and I’m sure we’ll help you understand what you’ve read.

It used to be a teaching that only catholics can hope to be saved.

See Sullivan’s Salvation Outside the Church: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response; the teaching was directed at Catholics. This implies that, for Catholics, one can only hope to be saved if one remains in the Church. It’s necessary to understand these statements in their context (and not just hear something that someone says, or rely on casual common understandings)…!

But the “catholics only” prerequisite has never been rescinded.

Read. The. Document. When you make statements like these, statements that are patently false, you’re just exposing the limits of your knowledge. It’s getting embarrassing.

I am very much aware of this. I asked if there is an official teaching about their fate, not what the church “hopes for”.

That is the official teaching: there’s nothing in Scripture that addresses the question directly, but one can draw conclusions from other statements in Scripture. Therefore, knowing that God wishes all to be saved, but not explicitly knowing the means by which He will do this, the Church places its well-founded hope in God and His mercy.

To state that those fetuses will be burned in hell would be politically unacceptable these days, though it was perfectly fine in older times.

Some theologians believed that (including Augustine), but – to use your terminology – that was never the “official teaching” of the Church.

To change and say that those innocent “baybees” are now in heaven would require to get rid of the concept of the original sin, and this seems to be premature as of now.

No, it wouldn’t. It relies on the concept of the mercy of God.

Nope. You discard your hypothesis, as soon as you find ONE incorrect corollary.

One necessary conclusion. If your conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow, you drop the conclusion. If all possible conclusions lead to contradiction, or one conclusion necessarily follows, then you discard the hypothesis, but not beforehand.

 

[tdgesq]

That IS the problem. It is also said that God can “know” all that did not happen, but could have happened (along the lines of the Molinist middle knowledge).

Beside the obvious fact that the Thomists disagree with Molina, I fail to recognize why God knowing what would happen if conditions were different has any import for the original thought experiment. The only question raised is whether God does know the future of free human acts with infallible certainty. And the Catholic Church teaches unequivocally that He does; a fact that no Catholic here has denied. You’ve had and assumed the only definition of omniscience necessary in order for you to disprove it. It’s just that your thought experiment doesn’t disprove it.

I do not use that definition. Knowledge is information. And why should we ignore Gettier, et al?

Three things:

1. You used that definition of “knowledge” previously, despite referring to it as outmoded.
2. Gettier problems generally involve justification issues, not truth issues; and it’s the truth component that you question.
3. Your thought experiment doesn’t display a Gettier-type dilemma.

Three good reasons I think.

Is there anything at all, which is held uniformly by any arbitrary group of people?

Hopefully, the term “philosophers” in a discussion of this type has some useful meaning. The point was that your theory of time and arguments against knowledge of future propositions aren’t givens.

Where? We are talking about actual physical objects. Where does that “book” exist NOW which does not exist on my desk, and which might be (or might not be) placed on my desk sometime in the future?

For B-theorists, there is no meaning to term “now,” except to denote a position on a timeline that we as human beings observe. I may observe objects at t=10, but objects also exist at t=1,2,3,etc (the past), particularly those we experience at those points. Objects also may exist at t=11, 12, 13, etc., (the future), although we may have little or no knowledge of them. If the four-dimensionalists are correct, then objects do ontologically exist in the “past” and the “future.”

With fully deterministic processes, if you have perfect information about the starting parameters and you have perfect knowledge about the information flow, then you can have knowledge about the future. But if the process is NOT deterministic (quantum events) or it is contingent upon the free actions of a free agent, then the future cannot be “known”.

A rare and limited concession by you, but I will take it. It has more implications than perhaps you realize. Perfect information about purely deterministic processes wouldn’t be a difficulty for God. And for human beings, there really isn’t such a thing as perfect information, even about the present. A posteriori knowledge doesn’t require perfect information, and neither does induction. Such a demand would destroy all experiential knowledge of the past and the present. So that can’t be a requirement for knowledge of the future either.

Who agreed that human decisions are indeterministic. Free will is compatible with determinism. The question is: what or who determines a person’s decisions? The question is one of causation, not one of randomness or indeterminism. So long as the locus of causal control lies with the agent (agent causation), then there is no dilemma. This is true even if an outside observer can see the “future” decision. Once again, you assume that your definition of free will (in this case the principle of alternate possibilities) is the only valid alternative.

If we speak of knowledge as a proposition which has a “true” value associated with it, then the proposition "it will rain next year (date and time provided) at the geographical coordinates (x, y, z) then it is impossible to assign a true or false value to this proposition, until the event actually happens.

Not impossible in terms of the truth component if, in fact, at t = (next year) there is rain at coordinates (x,y,z). This is just another outright rejection by you of the B-theory four-dimensionalist claim. Nothing more. Yet, even under an A-theory one tends to think I have more knowledge of whether the sun will rise in the east tomorrow (due to the rotation of the Earth) than whether Socrates actually existed. When the sun does rise in the east tomorrow, did my utterance yesterday that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow have any truth value? What does a “valid information” definition of knowledge indicate?

Finally, please concede that your thought experiment does not prove that the future is unknowable such that God can’t be omniscient.

 

[Bahman]

Beside the obvious fact that the Thomists disagree with Molina, I fail to recognize why God knowing what would happen if conditions were different has any import for the original thought experiment. The only question raised is whether God does know the future of free human acts with infallible certainty. And the Catholic Church teaches unequivocally that He does; a fact that no Catholic here has denied. You’ve had and assumed the only definition of omniscience necessary in order for you to disprove it. It’s just that your thought experiment doesn’t disprove it.

Three things:

1. You used that definition of “knowledge” previously, despite referring to it as outmoded.
2. Gettier problems generally involve justification issues, not truth issues; and it’s the truth component that you question.
3. Your thought experiment doesn’t display a Gettier-type dilemma.

Three good reasons I think.

Hopefully, the term “philosophers” in a discussion of this type has some useful meaning. The point was that your theory of time and arguments against knowledge of future propositions aren’t givens.

For B-theorists, there is no meaning to term “now,” except to denote a position on a timeline that we as human beings observe. I may observe objects at t=10, but objects also exist at t=1,2,3,etc (the past), particularly those we experience at those points. Objects also may exist at t=11, 12, 13, etc., (the future), although we may have little or no knowledge of them. If the four-dimensionalists are correct, then objects do ontologically exist in the “past” and the “future.”

A rare and limited concession by you, but I will take it. It has more implications than perhaps you realize. Perfect information about purely deterministic processes wouldn’t be a difficulty for God. And for human beings, there really isn’t such a thing as perfect information, even about the present. A posteriori knowledge doesn’t require perfect information, and neither does induction. Such a demand would destroy all experiential knowledge of the past and the present. So that can’t be a requirement for knowledge of the future either.

Who agreed that human decisions are indeterministic. Free will is compatible with determinism. The question is: what or who determines a person’s decisions? The question is one of causation, not one of randomness or indeterminism. So long as the locus of causal control lies with the agent (agent causation), then there is no dilemma. This is true even if an outside observer can see the “future” decision. Once again, you assume that your definition of free will (in this case the principle of alternate possibilities) is the only valid alternative.

Not impossible in terms of the truth component if, in fact, at t = (next year) there is rain at coordinates (x,y,z). This is just another outright rejection by you of the B-theory four-dimensionalist claim. Nothing more. Yet, even under an A-theory one tends to think I have more knowledge of whether the sun will rise in the east tomorrow (due to the rotation of the Earth) than whether Socrates actually existed. When the sun does rise in the east tomorrow, did my utterance yesterday that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow have any truth value? What does a “valid information” definition of knowledge indicate?

Finally, please concede that your thought experiment does not prove that the future is unknowable such that God can’t be omniscient.

Assinging a deterministic mind to human (or any entity with free will) is against divine justice since it reduce human being to an agent who is just aware of actions she/he perform. Human mind is not onlycomplex but infinityly complex (or at least has the potential to be infinitly complex) since as soon you assume that it follows some basic laws with well known equations and as soon as you assume that state of mind could be defined (even without mesuring it to mess with uncertainty prininciple in quanum mechanics) then the concept of free will is lost. Free will is lost since you know that how state of mind evolve over time. Simple, your mind is state of A at time t and will be in state B at time t’, so you have no control to change it and have not responsibility for it. The concept of omniscinec only apply to the current state of knowledge including our consciousness. It cannot apply to the core of our subconsciousnes otherwise the concept of “I” we are using turns into an dilusion. A person without seperate undefined subconsciousness is a person without an identy.

 

[Tyrion]

Beside the obvious fact that the Thomists disagree with Molina, I fail to recognize why God knowing what would happen if conditions were different has any import for the original thought experiment.

Since the church does not endorse either of them, this is not a problem.

The only question raised is whether God does know the future of free human acts with infallible certainty. And the Catholic Church teaches unequivocally that He does; a fact that no Catholic here has denied. You’ve had and assumed the only definition of omniscience necessary in order for you to disprove it. It’s just that your thought experiment doesn’t disprove it.

During such a long thread the focus necessarily changes, from the particular to the general. There cannot be “several, mutually contradictory” definitions of omniscience. For quite a while now, the emphasis has moved unto the general problem: “just what does the term omniscience” mean? And that question definitely includes the presented problem, namely “can omniscience include knowing an object or event, which has never happened, does not exist and will never exist”. The catholic stance here also says “yes”, albeit implicitly, when it say that “God knows all the counterfactuals”. I do not question that cathoilcs actually agree with it, or not. I met a few who understood that this assertion is nonsensical. But people in this thread disagree. The conclusion is that in their view the concept of knowledge is an incomprehensible gobbledegook, and as such,.the conversation is futile.

 

[CandideWest]

Hey, apologies for the rather long delay in replying I’ve been rather caught up on another thread and I must admit I somewhat forgot about this one.

My apologies, I misspoke previously.

No need to apologise, we all make mistakes, including me, as we’ll see below

Upon further examination I can see that it is not in the previous line that your error lies, but rather here. The previous line is actually a legitimate application of the law of distributivity. This, however, is not. This, is rather, an error in modal logic. The <> operator is not distributive as such, thus it is an illegal transformation, to go from (<>X /\ <>Y) to <>(X /\ Y).

Indeed, I did make an error there, however, you were actually right the first time. The important mistake I made was on the previous line. I wrote…

E w( (<>T(A) /\ <>G(A)) /\ (<>T(B) /\ <>G(A) ).
There exists a possible world wherein (possibly Tyrion chooses A and possibly God predicts A possibly Tyrion chooses B and possibly God predicts A)

But I should have written.

E w( (<>T(A) /\ G(A)) /\ (<>T(B) /\ G(A))
Now while from we know that although the following is not actually logically equivalent it must necessarily be true given the above.

E w( <>(T(A) /\ G(A)) /\ <>(T(B) /\ G(A)))
And then we have run into our contradiction with

~<>(T(B) /\ G(A)).

Apologies for taking two attempts to get there. But better late than never I guess.

 

[Paddy_Walker]

Since the church does not endorse either of them, this is not a problem.

During such a long thread the focus necessarily changes, from the particular to the general. There cannot be “several, mutually contradictory” definitions of omniscience. For quite a while now, the emphasis has moved unto the general problem: “just what does the term omniscience” mean? And that question definitely includes the presented problem, namely “can omniscience include knowing an object or event, which has never happened, does not exist and will never exist”. The catholic stance here also says “yes”, albeit implicitly, when it say that “God knows all the counterfactuals”. I do not question that cathoilcs actually agree with it, or not. I met a few who understood that this assertion is nonsensical. But people in this thread disagree. The conclusion is that in their view the concept of knowledge is an incomprehensible gobbledegook, and as such,.the conversation is futile.

omniscience means all-knowing.

as i said earlier, a good example of omniscience is a time-traveller. you ask him a question about the future, he goes forth through time, sees the answer, returns and tells you.
you cannot fool the time traveller because he has actually seen the answer in the future.