I am baffled, please explain

[Lily_Bernans]

What about you as the mother? Still no responsibility?

It’s a hypothetical. No human is omniscient.

I’ve said before, you can’t compare a Deity and a human. It’s like comparing a human and a mule.

I would have the child. I have faith in God, and I would love my unborn child. No, I am not responsible for the choices another human being makes.

If you knew your BELOVED girlfriend or wife intended on killing someone and the only way you could stop her from doing it was to kill her, would you?

 

[Bradski]

It’s a hypothetical. No human is omniscient. I’ve said before, you can’t compare a Deity and a human. It’s like comparing a human and a mule.

I would have the child. I have faith in God, and I would love my unborn child. No, I am not responsible for the choices another human being makes.

I’m not comparing anyone to anything. I’m not suggesting you are responsible for the choices anyone makes. I’d just like to know (as a hypothetical) if you would have the child.

If you knew your BELOVED girlfriend or wife intended on killing someone and the only way you could stop her from doing it was to kill her, would you?

So I can’t ask hypotheticals, but you can? I can’t say that one knows that something will definitely happen but you can? And I’m not talking about killing anyone to prevent an evil act. Or whether you would love a son IF he committed evil acts. I’m asking would you have a son KNOWING that he would commit evil acts.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

It’s a hypothetical. No human is omniscient.

Gotta love these attempts to wiggle out from answering tough questions.

I’ve said before, you can’t compare a Deity and a human. It’s like comparing a human and a mule.

If that “mule” would be an intelligent being then the comparison would be correct.

I would have the child. I have faith in God, and I would love my unborn child. No, I am not responsible for the choices another human being makes.

Yes, you would be responsible for the result of your own creation. If you would raise and train a dog to attack others, you would be responsible for its actions. If you would raise and teach your child to become a terrorist, you would be responsible for his actions.

If you knew your BELOVED girlfriend or wife intended on killing someone and the only way you could stop her from doing it was to kill her, would you?

The relationship is irrelevant. If my child would turn out to become a terrorist and the only way to stop him would be to execute him, that is what I would do. If I would be granted a temporary omniscience and would KNOW that the child WOULD turn into a terrorist, then the only proper way is to refrain from siring that child.

---

So I can’t ask hypotheticals, but you can? I can’t say that one knows that something will definitely happen but you can?

Of course! It is a game of hypocrisy. The believers are free to say how wonderful and loving God is, but the skeptics are not allowed to be critical… come on… haven’t you already figure that out?

 

[jc4751]

For God there are no unforeseen events, no surprises. The conclusion is very disturbing: God deliberately chose the sequence of events which lead to the “fall”, God wanted us to fall. That is not how a “loving” father behaves. No loving father would put a bowl of poisoned candy (tasting of which leads to death) on the table and command his child not to taste it. A loving father would not place that candy on the table, he would make sure that the candy is inaccessible.

**The next question is: **
If a father “tricks” his children into an act of disobedience with the explicit aim / desire to teach him a lesson, then the test cannot be a “lethal” one. Moreover, the failed test must be followed by an immediate and minor punishment, which must be followed by an unconditional, free pardon. And, of course, the punishment cannot be extended to other ones, least of all to those who have not even born yet.

There is no need to go one into reconciliation process of God’s self-sacrifice (in the form of Jesus). If there would be no original sin, there would be no need for reconciliation.

So the whole story just does not compute. Unfortunately the concept of original sin is the cornerstone of Christianity. So, there…

I simply don’t get it.

I apologize for being a little late to this thread, but I’ve thought about the question for a number of years, after watching Donnie Darko (of all things).

The problem, obviously, is the question of causality, and the limits which humans operate under with regard to time and space. At first glance, causality and free will cannot be reconciled – this is a fair assertion, if we consider our own frame of reference.

However, and I think this holds true for most people, even most Christians, there is an understanding of the nature of God which is missing, because we inevitably frame these questions in terms of what we understand and how we would act. For example, the question of suffering is a classic, but do we ourselves rush out to fix all acts of suffering in the world, or do we sit back and condemn God while not taking action to fix them? Likewise, with the classic question of the “immovable object” and “irresistible force,” we do not see that we are implicitly places limits on an omnipotent being, so our own definition of God is lacking when we ask such a question.

Back to the point of causality, imagine looking at a tapestry, perhaps the Bayeux tapestry that narrates an event, through an eyepiece which allows you only to see one sliver at it at a time. You see a vavasor on a horse, but are at a loss to determine how or why he got there, and also where he’s going in the future or who he’s fighting. Remove the eyepiece and you would see the entire tapestry as a whole, both what led the vavasor to be at his current place, and also where he’s going.

The omniscience of God perhaps works the same way – by definition, an omniscient being would see all – but the difference is that God sees the outcome of the actions we take, as well as their antecedents. In this case, imagine having a switch hooked to a light. The color of the light is determined by the setting of the switch, which you freely determine. You set the switch to green, the light turns green. An observer is able to both determine the event and the cause, experiencing it essentially as a simultaneous event, without having to reconcile either the turning of the switch or the color of the light.

Likewise, God can see the action I take now and the effect of that action, as a single unifying event (call it metaphysical spooky action at a distance, perhaps), without violating causality. In this sense, the outcome of the actions we take are known as we take them, and we are free to take what actions we want, with the outcome changing as we take them.

Anyway, I hope that provides something to ponder, without addressing all the points you originally made, for the sake of focusing in on what has been a crucial question. Obviously – and I mean this with love, not judgement – you’re looking for answers to these questions, and trying to understand and convince yourself, rather than others. I would simply suggest that because our own limitations, we tend to see these things through our own frame of reference, not God’s. Perhaps we describe God’s omnipotence and omniscience as a form of the Platonic ideal, but I also tend to think that the Apostles experienced something a little different from a philosophical dialog. Maybe step back a bit and look at things on God’s terms, not ours. Regards.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, you would be responsible for the result of your own creation. If you would raise and train a dog to attack others, you would be responsible for its actions. If you would raise and teach your child to become a terrorist, you would be responsible for his actions.

The relationship is irrelevant. If my child would turn out to become a terrorist and the only way to stop him would be to execute him, that is what I would do. If I would be granted a temporary omniscience and would KNOW that the child WOULD turn into a terrorist, then the only proper way is to refrain from siring that child.

There is something very strange about your “temporary omniscience.” If true that you “know” that your child would turn into a terrorist and that knowledge is infallible, it seems to me that there would then be nothing you could do to stop him, not even refrain from siring “that child,” because if you could refrain from siring the child then you wouldn’t have really “known” what would transpire infallibly since you could change the end result by not siring him. If you could change the end result in that way then there is nothing stopping you from changing the end result in a multitude of ways up to the time he actually turns into a terrorist. Your apparent “omnscient” knowledge would not be omniscient because the content of what you think to be “known” would be quite changeable.

Stopping your son from becoming a terrorist could, therefore be accomplished in a number of ways. In fact, the “temporary omniscience” you were gifted with would also provide you with the knowledge of why he decided to become a terrorist in the first place and THAT would or should be your primary focus for stopping him, not killing or refraining from siring him.

The reason, I suspect, that you ignore the other plausible alternatives to killing or not siring your son is because you want to constrain God to a similar course of action rather than admit God’s omniscience could be much more dynamic than you want to admit. God would not be limited to two choices - creating or not creating each individual, instead God’s permanent omniscience could set up a dynamic tension between each every choice you make and God’s omniscient knowledge concerning where each of those choices would lead you.

He could then dynamically respond by setting into effect a host of persuasive means (without compromising your free will) to try to alter your negative future choices for the better by using the people, events and consequences to persuade you in every instance towards the good.

This is the idea of God’s eternal perspective intersecting with your free will such that he gives you (and every other human being on the planet) every possible opportunity to choose the good.

So you see, God’s omniscience does not limit him to making a binary create/not create decision before any human being is born. Rather, his omniscience allows him to interact dynamically at every moment of every person’s existence to sway them towards choosing the good in a way that affords their autonomy every opportunity every second they are alive to take advantage of his omnibenevolence and mercy.

It isn’t God making the decision whether any person should be created or not, rather the “decision” is one that is made by each person themselves through time as a result of the dynamic between one’s personal autonomy and the omniscience of God acting moment by moment in our lives.

Perhaps this life is illusory or “temporary” in the sense of God giving us the opportunity to decide whether we will actually be “created” with permanence, i.e. eternally. In effect, this means the binary option of created/not created is exactly what is happening right now played out in the mind of God by your choices in this temporal sphere. This could be your hypothetical world where God works out the create/not create option by your responses. Obviously, he has to be completely fair and just (he is omnibenevolent after all) so he has to cross every t and dot every i in terms of finding out for certain whether you ought to be created with permanence (eternally) or not.

Perhaps the idea of hell is merely there to make sure we take the entire enterprise seriously and to throw in a variable such as “threat of eternal punishment” just to see how we will respond to it. Another aspect of determining worthiness. After all, God makes no promises about how many will end up there or whether some might not just be uncreated after all - just keeping us mindful of what is at stake if we don’t take the question of our existence or goodness seriously.

There are probably grammatical errors in this post, but I don’t have the time to proof it. You’ll have to read it as is for now. Or you could just ignore it.

 

[Bradski]

There is something very strange about your “temporary omniscience.” If true that you “know” that your child would turn into a terrorist and that knowledge is infallible, it seems to me that there would then be nothing you could do to stop him, not even refrain from siring “that child,” because if you could refrain from siring the child then you wouldn’t have really “known” what would transpire infallibly since you could change the end result by not siring him.

The question about having the child or not is a simple device to ascertain if you thought it would be a good idea or not. Your complaint that the hypothetical doesn’t really make sense is yet another attempt to avoid answering it. What have we had so far?

1. It doesn’t make sense.
2. You can’t ask hypotheticals.
3. People aren’t omniscient.
4. You can’t compare God to humans.
5. The Eternal Now makes it nonsensical.
6. Omniscience doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means.
7. Redirecting the question back to the person who asked it instead of answering.
8. Rephrasing the question and answering their own version.
9. Asking other, totally unrelated hypotheticals as opposed to answering.
10. Totally ignoring the question entirely.
11. Posting Class A, 24 carat non-sequiturs.

Tell you what. I’ll answer the question. After all, it’s pretty straightforward.

NO – I would not bring a child into this world if I knew he was going to cause such death, terror, anguish, guilt and misery.

There ya go. Pretty straightforward really. Not hard at all. Because let’s face it, you’d have to be mentally unbalanced to even consider it. Now how that relates to God - if indeed it does, and how we can compare that to God – if we dare compare mortal thought processes with God’s will, and whether there are processes at work here which we simply don’t understand, then feel free to discuss them.

BUT…the fact that no-one has wanted to even come close to answering these blazingly simple questions can only mean one thing. Those refusing to answer ARE drawing comparisons with God. And no-one, but absolutely no-one, wants to go there. Because there lies…what? Doubt? Confusion? An unsolvable problem? Having to say: I have no idea what the answer is?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Tell you what. I’ll answer the question. After all, it’s pretty straightforward.

NO – I would not bring a child into this world if I knew he was going to cause such death, terror, anguish, guilt and misery.

Some answers are not simple, they are simplistic. The question from my last post is whether the kind of knowledge you claim to be straightforward may not be.

Again, if you can know (assuming omniscience) your child was going to cause death, you would also know the factors that led to your child causing death. Now, why on earth would you target the child and not those factors? Why not mitigate the reasons that your child chose to cause death rather than terminate the child? Are you assuming your child is a reprobate and beyond saving because you “know” he will cause death? No questions? No allowances for mitigating circumstances? No mercy? Just judge and jury - doesn’t deserve to live. Is that what a loving parent would do and the only option available?

Again, the problem for your simplistic answer is that God’s omniscience does allow HIM to interact from outside of time with all factors in time that could lead to a child causing “such death.” You have no idea what God does or does not do through the entire course of the child’s life to alter the course of events while respecting human autonomy.

The options for God are not merely should not be born/should be born there are an infinite number in between the two that make the choice not as “simple” as you presume.

You also don’t know how many potential serial killers, rapists and who knows what were changed in time from serial killers, rapists, etc., to decent, law abiding citizens or even saints by God’s intervening actions owing to his omniscience.

What you are doing is taking a slice of time and making that slice the whole of your argument. That is simplistic, not merely simple.

 

[Bradski]

Again, the problem for your simplistic answer is that God’s omniscience does allow HIM to interact from outside of time with all factors in time that could lead to a child causing “such death.”

The options for God are not merely should not be born/should be born there are an infinite number in between the two that make the choice not as “simple” as you presume.

You also don’t know how many potential serial killers, rapists and who knows what were changed in time from serial killers, rapists, etc., to decent, law abiding citizens or even saints by God’s intervening actions owing to his omniscience.

Badda Bing. Thanks, Peter.

You have confirmed that God’s omniscience allows him to interact. That God intervenes. That people are changed from one type of person to another (serial killer to saint). His omniscience allows Him to do this. He has a direct effect on what happens. He’s not just a bystander watching to see how things unfurl. He chooses the path, as Lily said. And these are your words, Peter. Not an argument that I’m putting forward. I am actually repeating what you said above.

Which, and this might actually come as a surprise to you despite I don’t know how many posts, is my entire point. You will accept that God is responsible for changing rapists to law abiding citizens but if the reverse happens, then it’s the Three Wise Monkeys. Fingers in the ears and do anything at all to ignore the obvious conundrum.

Seems like God is only responsible for the good things in life. Just like when a sportsman thanks Him for helping out (but only when he wins). And armies praising God when they are victorious (were all the other guys atheists?). And some dork climbing over the burnt bodies, singing God’s praise as they carry the only survivor out of the wreckage.

No, I don’t know how many serial killers He’s changed to saints. But I know that you believe He’s responsible for every one of them. And that is the whole point.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Badda Bing. Thanks, Peter.

You have confirmed that God’s omniscience allows him to interact. That God intervenes. That people are changed from one type of person to another (serial killer to saint). His omniscience allows Him to do this. He has a direct effect on what happens. He’s not just a bystander watching to see how things unfurl. He chooses the path, as Lily said. And these are your words, Peter. Not an argument that I’m putting forward. I am actually repeating what you said above.

Which, and this might actually come as a surprise to you despite I don’t know how many posts, is my entire point. You will accept that God is responsible for changing rapists to law abiding citizens but if the reverse happens, then it’s the Three Wise Monkeys. Fingers in the ears and do anything at all to ignore the obvious conundrum.

Seems like God is only responsible for the good things in life. Just like when a sportsman thanks Him for helping out (but only when he wins). And armies praising God when they are victorious (were all the other guys atheists?). And some dork climbing over the burnt bodies, singing God’s praise as they carry the only survivor out of the wreckage.

No, I don’t know how many serial killers He’s changed to saints. But I know that you believe He’s responsible for every one of them. And that is the whole point.

You presume too much. I never claimed God is SOLELY responsible for changing sinners into saints, I claimed the process was a dynamic one between God’s actions (grace) and human free will where human autonomy is respected by God.

 

[Gorgias]

There is NO official philosophy in the “body of doctrine”. Thomism is not part of it. The philosophy of Aristotle or Plato or Duns Scotus or Anselm… etc. are not part of it. And yet, people keep referring to Thomistic or Molinistic principles.

And yet, we can find Thomas and his ideas – as well as the bases for these ideas, which are found in these others – in the doctrine of the Church. My challenge is simple – and reasonable: please demonstrate that Molinism is represented in the doctrine and/or dogma of the Church. If it is, I’ll concede this point. It’s your claim that the Church teaches these things, so it’s your responsibility to prove your claim. Fair enough?

But there is the concept of “omniscience” as knowing everything, past, present and future, whether it is actually happens, or only hypothetical. Will you deny that, too? On what grounds?

On the grounds that not all – whether affiliated with the Church or not – agree that this is what ‘omniscience’ means. Whether or not you realize it, PA, you’re setting up a straw man: you’re attempting to knock down an assertion which only you say is what the Church teaches.

Not everything that the church teaches is spelled out explicitly.

On what basis do you make that claim?

As a matter of fact, “omnipotence” IS spelled out, and it explicitly says: “with God ALL things are possible”.

That’s a pretty weak proof-texting argument.

No exception for logically incoherent actions.

So… you’re saying that you were explicitly wrong, when you excluded logically incoherent actions from your definition of omniscience? OK… I’m willing to let you admit your arguments are invalid.

It is very convenient to say: “but that is not part of the official doctrine”, when there is NO official doctrine.

It is very convenient to say that there is no official doctrine. How can you make such a claim? There is no single tome of doctrine; but that does not imply that there is no official doctrine…

You just play the usual hide-and-seek game. But omniscience IS part, so my thought experiment works as stipulated.

You just asserted that your thought experiment is based on a logical inconsistency. That means that your argument is logically inconsistent. That means that your argument is flawed and must be rejected. Thanks for clearing that up for us…

Just like he eliminated all sorts of “sins” which would have happened in another possible world, which was never actualized. By actualizing one particular world, God eliminated all the other (infinitely many) possible worlds, along with their “possible sins” .

There’s a critical difference, though: in your ‘possible world’, God eliminated sins qua ‘sin’; in others, He did no such thing. Therefore, by His choices in your ‘possible world’, God chose determinism over free will; in other words, your assumption – ‘free will without sin’ – was not present. Your argument fails.

You can’t have it both ways. In this world, Oswald decided kill Kennedy, in another world he did not. Did God “force” Oswald by actualizing this world, in which he “freely” decided to assassinate Kennedy?

Immaterial, since your ‘possible world’ is not determined by one choice, but by the sum total of all choices. A world in which sin is not possible is a world that is governed by determinism, not by free will.

What is your problem?

My problem is that your thought experiment leads to inconsistency and paradox.

Very bad argument. The “free will” of the person who selected that card, was not interfered with. The only way to interfere with free will is to perform a brain-washing. The magician cannot do that. And yet, the outcome was predetermined by the magician.

Through illusion and trickery. If your argument is that God provides the illusion of free will, your case fails – since ‘the illusion of free will’ is not ‘free will’, and your thought experiment requires true ‘free will’. I’m willing to concede that your argument works if free will is an illusion. Of course, that means that your argument fails if you wish to talk about reality and not illusory constructs.

Whether it is a the magician, or God who predetermines the outcome is of no relevance. Free will is compatible with having predetermined outcomes. Especially according to your assertion - namely that it is not necessary to be able to ACT on one’s “will”, it is sufficient to have the “free will”, even if it cannot be actualized. (Your prior argument sure comes back and bites you on your behind. )

Watch out – it’s not my behind that’s getting bite marks. Your argument here doesn’t require a predetermined outcome – that is, that the card I chose is the card the magician shows. Rather, it only requires that the face value of the card I chose is the face value of the card he shows. In other words, it appears that he chose my card, but in reality, he didn’t – he just chose one that has the appearance of my card. Alternately, he chose the card I picked – but he used trickery to do so, such that he determined my choice and misrepresented my ‘free will’. Either way, your argument fails to hold.

Except that we are not aware of the “alternate” choices.

No – we’re just aware that our particular choice ‘magically’ fails to actualize; in other words, we learn in a real hurry that we really don’t have the ability to freely choose, if our choices, when not constrained in their actualization, are unable to come to fruition. By this reality, we learn that we are completely unable to actualize our choices, and therefore, free will is illusory. In other words, even this construct reduces to the farce of your magician example.

 

[Bradski]

You presume too much. I never claimed God is SOLELY responsible…

I presume nothing of the sort. I have never argued or suggested that God is SOLELY responsible for anything at all. I have been constantly asking if God bears SOME responsibility for what happens. That, thanks to your last post and the comment above, has been decided.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I presume nothing of the sort. I have never argued or suggested that God is SOLELY responsible for anything at all. I have been constantly asking if God bears SOME responsibility for what happens. That, thanks to your last post and the comment above, has been decided.

Sure, God bears responsibility for the possibility of actualizing positive outcomes because he is Pure Act by definition. That leaves responsibility for cooperating with God’s grace and opting for those positive outcomes squarely on our shoulders.

In other words, God always makes possible the best option given all live considerations, but it is our autonomy that allows us to go with those or not since they are available to us but do not determine our choices. That is what I mean by “dynamic.”

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Bradski:
So I can’t ask hypotheticals, but you can? I can’t say that one knows that something will definitely happen but you can? And I’m not talking about killing anyone to prevent an evil act. Or whether you would love a son IF he committed evil acts. I’m asking would you have a son KNOWING that he would commit evil acts.

Brad, I answered your hypothetical. It’s you who didn’t answer mine. I would have the child even if I knew he would turn to evil. I would love him, but I would condemn his evil actions. I can’t say that I would associate with him when he grew to adulthood, though.

Now, maybe you will answer my hypothetical.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Gotta love these attempts to wiggle out from answering tough questions.

If that “mule” would be an intelligent being then the comparison would be correct.

Yes, you would be responsible for the result of your own creation. If you would raise and train a dog to attack others, you would be responsible for its actions. If you would raise and teach your child to become a terrorist, you would be responsible for his actions.

The relationship is irrelevant. If my child would turn out to become a terrorist and the only way to stop him would be to execute him, that is what I would do. If I would be granted a temporary omniscience and would KNOW that the child WOULD turn into a terrorist, then the only proper way is to refrain from siring that child.

---

Of course! It is a game of hypocrisy. The believers are free to say how wonderful and loving God is, but the skeptics are not allowed to be critical… come on… haven’t you already figure that out?

The only one who is wiggling is you, PA, and you’re not doing a very good job of it. Giving illogical responses, ignoring questions addressed to you, giving one answer then backpeddling and giving its opposite, etc., etc. But that is the atheistic view of things.

Talk about wiggling. I asked you many pages ago how you believe the world and everything in it came into being, and, after much prodding, you finally replied, “Atheists believe the world just is!” That’s no answer. Something had to be the Uncaused Cause, whether one believes in God or not. Nothing just “is” except God, and you don’t believe in him. So, how did the world and everything in it get here? And please don’t say “the Big Bang.” I happen to be a devout Catholic, and I believe in the Big Bang. I believe it was part of God’s plan. St. John Paul II believed in the Big Bang.

And NO ONE has replied to my logical argument (lifted from Peter Kreeft) that God can be nothing but good. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that you atheists have NO response to that because there is none.

Your responses are illogical. For one thing, a mule cannot reason like a human. A mule does not know right from wrong.

Yes, I would be responsible if I trained a dog to attack, but again, a dog cannot reason and does not know right from wrong. Surely you can do better than that. Or maybe not.

I am NOT responsible for the actions of a grown adult whether I “trained” him or not. He has the capacity to reason and the free will to turn away from evil. I was taught some things in my childhood that were untrue, but I turned away from them once I could figure things out for myself. I was told for twenty years that some races were superior to others. I did believe that when I was a small child, but as a teenage girl I learned that some people are superior to others, not some races. I took responsibility for my own actions and beliefs. You seem to want to advocate everyone clinging to his or her childhood “toys” and beliefs like he or she was a child all his life. It’s time to stop passing the buck. No one is responsible for a mentally sound adult except himself or herself.

And atheism does not bother me. I am not an atheist. I can’t be swayed by illogical atheistic thinking and failure to answer valid questions.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Seems like God is only responsible for the good things in life. Just like when a sportsman thanks Him for helping out (but only when he wins). And armies praising God when they are victorious (were all the other guys atheists?). And some dork climbing over the burnt bodies, singing God’s praise as they carry the only survivor out of the wreckage.

No, I don’t know how many serial killers He’s changed to saints. But I know that you believe He’s responsible for every one of them. And that is the whole point.

I once taught a student who acted quite impulsively. His parents put him into Judo to help him develop better control over his actions and greater self-discipline. At the time, I wondered whether they were doing the right thing and thought this was rather like putting a dangerous weapon into the hands of someone who would eventually misuse it. Given his penchant for impulsivity and lack of self-restraint, I thought it would be only a matter of time before he would hurt someone. His parents thought otherwise. They hoped he would develop control over his impulsive ways and be better able to deal with those immediate challenges that triggered reactions.

Well, the foreseeable became actual when he “put down” a girl who openly doubted his ability to do a judo throw and challenged him to try on her. By the rules of the Judo club, he had, by that action, disqualified himself from receiving any more training. In fact, I was the one who informed the judo Master. His parents appealed to the Master and eventually persuaded him to allow their son to continue.

I wondered at the time whether this was the right thing to do. It is certainly true that giving any autonomous agent a power of any kind makes possible an abuse of that power, otherwise the power wouldn’t be much of a power at all. The power to effectively protect oneself from attack means the person is also – by virtue of the same power – capable of doing serious harm.

Obviously the judo master was aware of this but was also confident that focusing on developing discipline and self-control would offset the boy’s potential for doing harm. The master was working with the boy to train him over time. The master’s intimate knowledge of the boy and his willingness to take the time to help the boy overcome his shortcomings meant the master saw the endeavor as one worth pursuing. He didn’t just write off the boy based upon one incident - the kind of zero tolerance you are advocating.

I don’t think God is constrained to looking at one slice in a human being’s life and writing them off based solely on that slice. Like the judo master, God is not a mere observer and judge, he is with us each moment in time. The “one slice in time” manner in which human beings might do things, even while claiming that is what omniscience ought to do, is not the only option, which is why I emphasize that omniscience means certain knowledge of all events, all internal states of all individuals in all times and places, not just writing people off based upon one act from one slice of time.

God’s omniscience and omnipotence together mean he would have done everything logically possible to bring human beings to their best self possible. That would mean he does his part, the rest is on us.

The judo master, even with omniscient knowledge would put in effect a dynamic set of moment by moment strategies to “test” responses and implement counter strategies. This would have to be the way of it if human beings have autonomy of will. Which means space-time and physical constraints limiting actual harm would be a necessary requirement for an adequate determination of worthiness to be handed down at a controllable cost in terms of harm.

In other words, this world is precisely the kind of evidence gathering mode God would require to collect the factuals needed to determine worthiness. Now the fact that this process seems to take years and years from our perspective does not mean it can’t also be instantaneous from the eternal perspective of God. General Relativity doesn’t preclude that possibility.

In other words, this life could actually be the very process that PA claims God must carry out in order to ascertain whether to “create” a human being or not and before endowing qualifying humans with eternal existence or not.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

And yet, we can find Thomas and his ideas – as well as the bases for these ideas, which are found in these others – in the doctrine of the Church. My challenge is simple – and reasonable: please demonstrate that Molinism is represented in the doctrine and/or dogma of the Church. If it is, I’ll concede this point. It’s your claim that the Church teaches these things, so it’s your responsibility to prove your claim. Fair enough?

Since there is no available TOME of the doctrine it is impossible to read it from end to end and find the presence or absence of anything.

On the grounds that not all – whether affiliated with the Church or not – agree that this is what ‘omniscience’ means. Whether or not you realize it, PA, you’re setting up a straw man: you’re attempting to knock down an assertion which only you say is what the Church teaches.

Well, well… so omniscience is just another undefined attribute that God may or may not possess? Sounds so “magnificent”, but lacks meaning?

That’s a pretty weak proof-texting argument.

Yes, I know… if something contradicts your claim, it is incorrectly interpreted, so the actual text must be discarded. The apple is not apple any more… right? This is the kind of intellectual dishonesty that I find impossible to respect.

So… you’re saying that you were explicitly wrong, when you excluded logically incoherent actions from your definition of omniscience? OK… I’m willing to let you admit your arguments are invalid.

It really would be nice if you actually “proofread” what you are about to post. You just mixed up omnipotence and omniscience. The logically incoherent actions are excluded from the definition of omnipotence, not omniscience. Omniscience is not about “actions”, it is about knowledge. Omnipotence is mentioned 3 times in the catechism, omniscience is not mentioned at all.

In the definition of omnipotence (read again, omnipotence) it is explicitly stated that “with God everything is possible”. And I am quoting from the catechism not some wayward writ of some irrelevant theologian.

Now, since the catechism fails to define what is omniscience, we must do the analysis ourselves, using pure logic. So, here comes:

Omnipotence is to be able to create anything and everything - as the catechism says. I will be kind and add: “provided that it is logically coherent and does not contain contradiction”. Now to create something without knowing what is to be created, and without taking the alternatives into consideration is lunacy. That is why omnipotence is impossible without omniscience, without being able to discard the unwanted alternatives. Pretty simple, I would say. So omnipotence leads logically to the “middle knowledge” of Molina. As such the Molinist concept of “middle knowledge” is not mentioned explicitly in the catechism, but it is right there as the logical corollary of omnipotence. You promised to concede if I can show that Molinism is represented in the doctrines. I just did. The ball is in your court.

It is very convenient to say that there is no official doctrine. How can you make such a claim? There is no single tome of doctrine; but that does not imply that there is no official doctrine…

Where?

Through illusion and trickery. If your argument is that God provides the illusion of free will, your case fails – since ‘the illusion of free will’ is not ‘free will’, and your thought experiment requires true ‘free will’. I’m willing to concede that your argument works if free will is an illusion. Of course, that means that your argument fails if you wish to talk about reality and not illusory constructs.

How do you tell the difference? To paraphrase good ol’ Forrest Gump: “free will is as free will does”.

 

[Gorgias]

Since there is no available TOME of the doctrine

I’m confused – are you actually asserting that Catholic doctrine is not written anywhere? You’re correct in asserting that it’s not in one place, but there are many places in which doctrine is found! The Catechism is a good start. So are the writings of the various Councils. (It’s important to understand how to read each of these, of course: the Catechism is written for theologians and clerics, and therefore it presumes that the jargon it uses and the phrasings it employs are familiar and already understood. Therefore, for a first-time-read, the US Catholic Catechism for Adults is more approachable. I’d recommend it to you, if you wish to understand what the Catholic Church teaches. The documents of the Councils are important, too; but they aren’t simply flat, context-free, academic essays: they address a particular question or set of questions, and therefore, their statements are always directed toward a particular context. When people forget that dynamic, it’s easy for them to misinterpret what they’re saying.) If you want to find what the Church teaches, these two sources are an excellent starting point for you…

Well, well… so omniscience is just another undefined attribute that God may or may not possess? Sounds so “magnificent”, but lacks meaning?

No, I’m not saying that ‘omniscience’ is not defined. I’m just saying that your definition – which you ascribe to the Church – is neither what the Church teaches nor what omniscience is.

Yes, I know… if something contradicts your claim, it is incorrectly interpreted, so the actual text must be discarded.

No, not at all. I never said that this “actual text [of the Bible] must be discarded”…! Rather, you’ve picked a single line out of the Bible, outside of its context, and used it as if it applies to your argument. That’s proof-texting, and it’s an invalid approach.

If you’re asking what that verse really means, I can enlighten you: in both places in which it appears, the context is surprise at something that humans are unable to do (in Luke 1, it’s the virgin birth; in Matthew 19, it’s human salvation). It’s not an assertion – as you want to claim – that God knows all counterfactuals.

The apple is not apple any more… right? This is the kind of intellectual dishonesty that I find impossible to respect.

For me, it’s difficult to respect argumentation that cannot hear that his premises misconstrue the sources he cites, and then refuses to address that glaring error.

The logically incoherent actions are excluded from the definition of omnipotence, not omniscience.

Nice dodge. You make an argument for logical incoherence, in the context of a discussion in which you yourself said that the only reason to reject an argument is logical incoherence… and when I call you on it, you claim that I can’t proofread. The problem, my friend, is you are now failing to recall what you yourself have said in this thread, and you are hoist by your own petard.

Now to create something without knowing what is to be created, and without taking the alternatives into consideration is lunacy.

For a human, you’re spot on. We do not have perfect knowledge, and therefore, for us, it’s pretty important to play “what-if” games and to think things through. However, the definition of God asserts His perfection: He does not have to think “if I do this, will it be imperfect? I better plan carefully.” Rather, His nature implies that His will – which He actualizes – will be perfect. There’s no “exit strategy” that He has to formulate… by the very definition of what it means to be ‘God’.

So omnipotence leads logically to the “middle knowledge” of Molina.

Says you. Other philosophers disagree. I’ve rehearsed just a couple of their objections for you; objections which, IIRC, you completely avoided addressing.

As such the Molinist concept of “middle knowledge” is not mentioned explicitly in the catechism, but it is right there as the logical corollary of omnipotence. You promised to concede if I can show that Molinism is represented in the doctrines. I just did. The ball is in your court.

No – you made a bald claim that Molinism is implied in the definition of omniscience, and pointed to the definition of omnipotence as if it proved your point. Big difference. That’s like standing in a football stadium where a concert is going on and pointing to the sign that IDs it as a football stadium, and concluding that there’s a football game going on inside. “Bait and switch” is more like it.

In any case, I asked not for an interpretative dance that brought the concept of Molinism to mind through creative flourishes – I asked for a Church document that stated that the Church teaches Molinism. This, you have not done. The ball is still lying at your feet, waiting for you to pick it up. Will you? Can you?

How do you tell the difference? To paraphrase good ol’ Forrest Gump: “free will is as free will does”.

Aah! Yet, again, context comes back to bite you! :sad_yes:

I claimed that a world without sin was a world without free will; you disagreed. Yet, right here, you assented to my claim: if we can’t tell the difference, then we cannot claim it is present. I really appreciate you taking the time to prove my claims and in the process, demolish yours. Thanks!

(And, by the way, yes, we can tell the difference in the case of magic: each trick can be explained such that the illusion is destroyed and the actual reality exposed. So, unless you want to go way off the rails and start to claim “free will is an illusion”, it appears we’re done here. )

 

[Pallas_Athene]

No, I’m not saying that ‘omniscience’ is not defined. I’m just saying that your definition – which you ascribe to the Church – is neither what the Church teaches nor what omniscience is.

So what is it? And where is it stated? Not in the catechism. Where is the officially declared definition of “omniscience”? Chapter and verse, please. Unless you can do that, the definition of omniscience stays: “to know everything, whether it is actual, or merely hypothetical”.

No, not at all. I never said that this “actual text [of the Bible] must be discarded”…!

No, I picked the quotation from the catechism (not the Bible), which would be the perfect place to put it into “context”. Yet you try to blame me for the omission of the details. I did not write the catechism.

Nice dodge. You make an argument for logical incoherence, in the context of a discussion in which you yourself said that the only reason to reject an argument is logical incoherence… and when I call you on it, you claim that I can’t proofread. The problem, my friend, is you are now failing to recall what you yourself have said in this thread, and you are hoist by your own petard.

Dodge? You incorrectly refer to what I said (confusing omnipotence and omniscience), and accuse me of “dodging”? Some nerve…

For a human, you’re spot on. We do not have perfect knowledge, and therefore, for us, it’s pretty important to play “what-if” games and to think things through.

That is the one and only way to go. Whether it happens at our slow speed or the lightning fast of God is unimportant. One must know all the alternatives if one speaks of “omniscience”. And not just the actual outcome, but also the possible outcomes, too.

However, the definition of God asserts His perfection: He does not have to think “if I do this, will it be imperfect? I better plan carefully.” Rather, His nature implies that His will – which He actualizes – will be perfect. There’s no “exit strategy” that He has to formulate… by the very definition of what it means to be ‘God’.

You try to define things into existence, and you wish to talk authoritatively about God’s inner workings. That will not fly. Since we cannot know how God’s information gathering strategy works, the only way to speak about it is using the only available method: “think it over, contemplate, and choose the best one”. The “method” that God allegedly employs, is not important. Whether he needs to sift through the alternatives and pick the one he prefers, or he simply “knows” which is the best without going through the details is not the question. Omniscience is the knowledge of all the possibilities, whether actualized or hypothetical. And that is called the “middle knowledge”. (You know: “Omni”… what does it mean?)

In other words, he must be aware of the alternatives in order to choose which one to actualize. What you try here is to say that God is somehow, magically is aware of all the alternatives, and / or instinctively chooses the right one, without being aware of his own selection process. Not much of an “omniscience”.

What you said is even worse. God makes a selection without even thinking it through, and by definition it is declared to be the “best”, the “optimal” option.

Says you. Other philosophers disagree. I’ve rehearsed just a couple of their objections for you; objections which, IIRC, you completely avoided addressing.

Actually, you did not. Not one philosopher, and not one objection. All you said that “some philosophers” disagree. Who? Why? Not stated.

No – you made a bald claim that Molinism is implied in the definition of omniscience, and pointed to the definition of omnipotence as if it proved your point.

And it does - in a fully logical fashion (unlike your allegorical football stadium). In order to be omnipotent God must know what is he doing. And to know what one is doing implies the knowledge of what one is not going to do. This is really elementary, my dear Watson. Omnipotence implies omniscience, and omniscience means the knowledge of all options, be they actual or hypothetical. You can try to deny it until you become blue in the face, but that only shows your stubborn refusal of reality.

Where is the “official” definition of “omniscience” among the official documents issued by the church? And does it explicitly say that omniscience does not include the alternative options?

 

[Pallas_Athene]

And NO ONE has replied to my logical argument (lifted from Peter Kreeft) that God can be nothing but good. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that you atheists have NO response to that because there is none.

You are free to believe whatever you want. If you need the security blanket of being superior to the atheists, be my guest.

I am NOT responsible for the actions of a grown adult whether I “trained” him or not.

You just don’t get it. You would be directly responsible for his existence, and as such indirectly responsible for his actions. And if you had complete foreknowledge of his future actions, and still decided to bring him into existence, then you would be fully responsible for his actions, too. Your only excuse is the lack of foreknowledge. But that excuse is not available for God. Case closed!

 

[Gorgias]

So what is it? And where is it stated? Not in the catechism. Where is the officially declared definition of “omniscience”? Chapter and verse, please. Unless you can do that, the definition of omniscience stays: “to know everything, whether it is actual, or merely hypothetical”.

Where is the “official” definition of “omniscience” among the official documents issued by the church? And does it explicitly say that omniscience does not include the alternative options?

OK: so, what you’re saying is that, in the absence of a Catholic definition of omniscience, you get to tell the Church what she believes? Umm… that’s reasonable… :nope:

No, I picked the quotation from the catechism (not the Bible), which would be the perfect place to put it into “context”.

And yet, you plucked it out – sans context – and used it to say something that it does not say. “Proof-texting”: look it up. You’re already pretty good at it.

Dodge? You incorrectly refer to what I said (confusing omnipotence and omniscience), and accuse me of “dodging”? Some nerve…

Yep – 'cause you used this little tempest in a teapot to distract attention away from your argument that had already been fraying at the edges.

That is the one and only way to go. Whether it happens at our slow speed or the lightning fast of God is unimportant.

Read what I wrote: I did not say that God thinks quickly; it’s that, by the definition of what it means to be ‘God’, He does not ratiocinate as we do, and therefore, there is no enumeration of possibilities. There is His will, and His justice, and it is perfect. From the Catechism: “God’s almighty power is in no way arbitrary: ‘In God, power, essence, will, intellect, wisdom, and justice are all identical. Nothing therefore can be in God’s power which could not be in his just will or his wise intellect.’” (CCC, #271)

You try to define things into existence, and you wish to talk authoritatively about God’s inner workings. That will not fly. Since we cannot know how God’s information gathering strategy works, the only way to speak about it is using the only available method: “think it over, contemplate, and choose the best one”.

In all charity: you need a bit more time reading up on philosophy. Aquinas would be a good start. So would Aristotle, if you care to go back that far, in order to understand the bases for Aquinas’ thought. God does not have the need to “gather information” – He is the source of all that is! There’s no need – in an all-Good, all-Knowing, all-Powerful God – to “think things over”. That’s a human characteristic, and you’re unreasonably attributing it to God.

Omniscience is the knowledge of all the possibilities, whether actualized or hypothetical. And that is called the “middle knowledge”. (You know: “Omni”… what does it mean?)

Again, my challenge stands: show me where the Church defines this in its definition of God’s omniscience.

In other words, he must be aware of the alternatives in order to choose which one to actualize.

I’m amazed that you do not see that you’re anthropomorphizing God.

What you try here is to say that God is somehow, magically is aware of all the alternatives, and / or instinctively chooses the right one

He doesn’t have wisdom; He is Wisdom. He doesn’t do ‘magic’, or simply have ‘instinct’. You’re grossly misunderstanding what it is to be ‘God’, and that skews your arguments.

What you said is even worse. God makes a selection without even thinking it through

Yep – I saw that one coming.

We need to “think things through” – but only because we do not have perfect knowledge. God does, though – and therefore, there’s no need for a process of “thinking things through”: He already knows. You’re building another straw man. Have fun knocking it over…

Actually, you did not. Not one philosopher, and not one objection. All you said that “some philosophers” disagree. Who? Why? Not stated.

Do your own homework, PA. Read up on ‘middle knowledge’ and ‘Molinism’. Google is your friend…

And it does - in a fully logical fashion (unlike your allegorical football stadium). In order to be omnipotent God must know what is he doing. And to know what one is doing implies the knowledge of what one is not going to do.

Does it imply the knowledge of each consequence of what is not done? Not just the path not chosen, but also, the other choices consequent to that choice, and so on and so on and so on? That’s what’s in play here, and you’ve done nothing to support that claim (except assert – without support – that it’s true. Freely asserted, freely denied, remember?)

Omnipotence implies omniscience, and omniscience means the knowledge of all options, be they actual or hypothetical. You can try to deny it until you become blue in the face, but that only shows your stubborn refusal of reality.

Again, in all charity: do a bit more reading.