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Bradski
Guest
If omnipotent meant very powerful, then you may have the beginning of an argument.
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PRmerger
Guest
It means powerful enough to do all possible things.
So, yeah, someone who creates ex nihilo is pretty much…omnipotent.
So, now we have agreed that the entity that creates the universe ex nihilo is omnipotent.
Just through…
good old-fashioned…
logic.
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PRmerger
Guest
And remember our definition of God by St. Anselm? (God is that which no greater can be imagined)…
So, if you can imagine an entity more powerful than the creator who creates ex nihilo, can you offer what that would be?
What’s an example of an action more powerful than creating all that exists from nothing?
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Bradski
Guest
But it doesn’t logically follow that if you create something then you have any control over it. So IF something created the universe (we’re just allowing that for the sake of argument) it doesn’t necessarily follow that whatever that was is omnipotent. That is an assumption.
It would seem that the only way you can get around that is to again skip straight to the conclusion: ‘But God created it and He IS omnipotent’.
But that’s what you have to prove. You can’t use it as an argument.
I hope you are not going to say: ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ which would kill the discussion stone dead.
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Bradski
Guest
It’s a schoolyard argument. And again, it uses the conclusion in a proposal which is meant to lead to the conclusion. I have never understood why people grant it any weight whatsoever.
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PRmerger
Guest
You have “never understood”? Really?
'Cause I’m pretty sure that you never even heard of St. Anselm’s proposition prior to coming here in 2011.
Of course, I will trust you, as you have shown yourself to be an honorable man, (as far as virtual conversations go) if you say that you were fully versant in the philosophical treatises of St. Anselm prior to visiting our Catholic forum.
And I will then retract the above.
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PRmerger
Guest
Incidentally, I am having what is called…faithOf course, I will trust you, as you have shown yourself to be an honorable man, (as far as virtual conversations go) if you say that you were fully versant in the philosophical treatises of St. Anselm prior to visiting our Catholic forum.
in you here, Bradski, based on our prior interactions. Based on our relationship, virtual though it may be.
That is, the Catholic understanding of faith, which is:
an act by which one person says to another: “I choose to trust you and believe you."
It is not, as some really, really moronic atheists have asserted in a recent Facebook dialogue I had: “believing without evidence”.
I have faith in you. I have faith in the Church.
You have faith in your airline pilot. You have faith in the elevator engineer.
We all have faith, despite some folks’ putative rejection of the virtue…because we have…
evidence for it.
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PRmerger
Guest
Incidentally, Bradski, I’m still waiting for an example of an immaterial, non-sentient thing that’s created something.
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PRmerger
Guest
It does if you’re omnipotent.
And remember, if you can imagine an entity that’s more powerful than creating all of existence ex nihilo, what would that entity be able to do?
I can’t imagine anything more powerful than creating all that exists ex nihilo, and that makes this entity omnipotent.
And therefore if it’s possible to control creation (and it certainly seems imaginable to control it), then an omnipotent entity could control creation.
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Bradski
Guest
That’s quite an odd assumption. And off by very many years indeed.
Now, how do we get from something that created a universe to proving that same entity has complete control over the whole shebang. Without jumping to conclusions and telling me that it appears obvious. Or should we assume it to move on?
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PRmerger
Guest
Fair enough.
I retract the above and say: I was wrong about assuming that Bradski had never heard of Anselm’s proposition.
As I’ve already asserted: if the entity creates something ex nihilo, then this entity must be, by LOGIC, omnipotent.
Unless you can provide an example of something more powerful than an entity that creates all of existence ex nihilo? If so, what would that be? What does that look like?
Well, I’d rather like to discuss some points that were not yet addressed by you: namely, how is it that you can propose that a non-sentient, immaterial entity could create all of existence, when you don’t have evidence, AT ALL, of such a thing ever happening?
In fact, does it not sound absurd to you to think of an non-sentient immaterial entity–i.e. a number–creating the universe?
Also, I have asked: if the entity which created all that exists out of nothing isn’t all powerful, that means you can imagine something MORE powerful than this entity.
So what does this look like?
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Bradski
Guest
No, that’s the conclusion you are trying to reach. You cannot use it as an argument. You are saying nothing more than: ‘It must be omnipotent because…well, it just is’.
That’s much more accurate. Good to see a few conditional statement: ‘If it’s possible…’, ‘It certainly seems imaginable…’, ‘then it could…’.
I have no objection to any of those statements. But as you must realise, they are not proofs. They are simply propositions.
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PRmerger
Guest
sighs.
No, luv. Saying “it certainly seems possible” needs to be understood in the context of “we can imagine it”. Not as a measure of probability.
That is: it is possible to imagine an entity which creates the world and controls it.
NOT: maybe an entity which creates the world can control it.
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Bradski
Guest
I’ve no problem with that. Of course we can imagine it. And there is no probability associated with that statement in any way whatsoever. But equally we can imagine an entity which creates the universe and has no control over how it unfolds.
Consequently, simply imagining it to be so gets you nowhere to proving that what you imagine is the case.
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Solmyr
Guest
Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”… which translates into: “believing without evidence”.
I would prefer to see some minimal courtesy and not call someone “REALLY, REALLY MORONIC ATHEISTS” who happen to quote the scriptures correctly. Of course you can get away with such an uncharitable comment, while us, heathens would be punished for it, and justly so.
Anselm’s naïve “reasoning” has been rejected EVEN by Catholic philosophers, who understand that “existence” is not just another ho-hum “attribute”, which is either present or absent. (If you actually KNOW Anselm’s argument)
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e_c
Guest
The foregoing counterarguments go to prove the original thesis about misunderstanding radical primacy. Basically every error about God in natural theology comes down to it.
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e_c
Guest
Also, with regards to Anselm, the “definition” more or less works, but the claim of self-evidence must be qualified… It is only self-evident after it becomes clear that there is such a thing (which renders the argument itself rather poor)… There is a non-sequitur in the original form that Thomas calls Anselm out on.
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Solmyr
Guest
I was curious as to what you might mean when you talk about “radical primacy”, which is not an expression I ever heard. So I googled it… guess what - there NOT ONE hit on it. Not one paper, not one article, not one instance of mentioning it - on the whole world-wide-web. Then I tried “radically first”, and the result is the same… or shall we say, the lack of result?
It looks like you developed a brand new vocabulary, which may be meaningful only to you, but not to anyone else. Not much of a foundation for a dialog. Then, to add insult to injury, you keep on promising to get into the details… but it never happens.
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Bradski
Guest
I seem to remember a prog rock band called Radical Primacy. Didn’t I see them at the Isle of Wight many years ago? Too pretentious for my tastes…
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Bradski
Guest
Or maybe he’s confusing it with radical prostatectomy…
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