I am baffled, please explain

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

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!
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Case far from closed. Foreknowledge does not equal a lack of free will.

I am a Christian and a Catholic. Therefore, I do not need “security” blankets. You have confirmed my suspicions that you failed to answer the post because you have NO answer. You do not know how to answer the post, or you would have taken great delight in picking it apart, even with your brand of illogical “logic.”

I get it. You would like to “make” me responsible for every adult I come into contact with because you would like to “make” God responsible for the faults of the entire human race. However, God is not responsible. Every human being who is past the age of reason is responsible for his or her own actions. That’s why we don’t put bad parents in jail when their adult kids do something wrong. That’s why bad teachers don’t go to jail along with the college students who wrecked their dorm. The parents and the teachers are not responsible for the bad actions and choices of adults. Neither is God. God is not responsible for the sins of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are responsible. They were born sinless. They chose, of their own free will to sin, even knowing the consequences.

As this thread goes on, your arguments get weaker and weaker.
 
Gorgias said:
Again, in all charity: do a bit more reading.
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Gorgias, and I mean this in all charity, too, I do not think she is up to comprehending Aristotle yet. I was going to suggest Plato and his forms, but that is too difficult if she can’t even handle the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I’ve asked several times where an atheist thinks all this “stuff” in the world came from. How did the planets and the stars get here, the material for the Big Bang, human beings? The best answer she could give me was, “Atheists believe the world just is, okay?” She came here to “take us down” but didn’t count on Catholics being so educated in their faith. I guess it’s sad, but somehow I can’t work up much sympathy.
 
Gorgias said:
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:
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I am asking for the official definition of omniscience, and all I get is silence. Par for the course.
Gorgias said:
Again, my challenge stands: show me where the Church defines this in its definition of God’s omniscience.
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Is there an official catholic definition of omniscience? Where is it? I am only aware of the real definition: “to know everything, whether actual or hypothetical”.

If you have the official definition, I would be delighted if you shared it with me. If you don’t, be honest and admit it. But stop this effort to try to send me on a wild-goose chase, because I am not willing.
 
This thread is moving too fast. Catching up on older posts:
Bradski said:
. . . So it is blazingly obvious that God knows, despite the exercise of your free will, what you are going to do. Because you were always going to do it, you are always going to do it and you will always do it. As far as God is concerned, it has already been done, it is being done and it will be done.

So if he knows what you are going to do, then He obviously knows what everyone else is going to do. He has brought us all into existence with that knowledge already in place. He is responsible for everything.

Yet if I ask if He bears any responsibility for any given event, there is a deathly silence.
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:twocents:

No, we were not always going to do what we have done. We do what we do when we do it.
What you have yet to do, lies in the as yet undetermined future. You will do what you will do, in its time.
You will not always do it; it is all done once in its moment.

It does all exist within the timeless vision of God, who is at the centre of every moment as its Creator and with whom all creation exists in relation.
He is the Cause of everything; nothing exists without Him and His knowledge of it.
God is responsible in this sense only.

He is not responsible in the sense of judgement, since He is the Judge.
What got us in this predicament is precisely our making ourselves gods without Him
To be God-like in reality means being loving.
It is only He who is Love, who can truly judge.
But, you can do what you will.

Adam blamed Eve.
Eve blamed the snake.
Atheists blame a god they don’t believe in.
. . . meh

I find that questions answer themselves. If there is silence, the problem is with the question. And, sometimes people do not want to hear the answer.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
Gorgias, and I mean this in all charity, too, I do not think she is up to comprehending Aristotle yet. I was going to suggest Plato and his forms, but that is too difficult if she can’t even handle the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I’ve asked several times where an atheist thinks all this “stuff” in the world came from. How did the planets and the stars get here, the material for the Big Bang, human beings? The best answer she could give me was, “Atheists believe the world just is, okay?” She came here to “take us down” but didn’t count on Catholics being so educated in their faith. I guess it’s sad, but somehow I can’t work up much sympathy.
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Lily, in all charity, your posts are coming off as arrogant and condescending. Atheists and Christians alike have very good points and weak points. These arent black and white issues.
 
SonOfMan said:
Lily, in all charity, your posts are coming off as arrogant and condescending. Atheists and Christians alike have very good points and weak points. These arent black and white issues.
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Being a devout Roman Catholic, I cannot agree that atheists have valid points; however, I can say that they have questions that deserve to be answered.

If my posts sound arrogant they were not meant to be, and I apologize.

The problem for me is that while I’m willing to answer any questions an atheist asks me, PA refuses to answer any question to which she has no answer, even to the point of saying, “I don’t know.” “It just is,” is not an answer. If there’s a post she doesn’t want to deal with, she just ignores it like it wasn’t there. It’s her right, but until she agrees to actually engage in conversation, the conversation can make no headway. It’s at an impasse.

I would genuinely like to know where atheists think the cosmos and all that’s in it came from, what the Uncaused Cause was if it was not God? I’m not trying to be arrogant or flippant. No atheist has ever given me an answer, and I would really like to know. It didn’t just appear one day, and even if it did, how did it just appear?
 
Aloysium said:
Try Google: “Catholic Understanding of Omniscience”.
youtube.com/watch?v=Re72di5phM0
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Yes, indeed. The usual level of informational content one can expect around here… chirping of the crickets. 🙂 Why am I not surprised?
But I looked into the Catholic Encyclopedia newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm#IID and found this:

In the first place He knows and comprehends Himself fully and adequately, and in the next place He knows all created objects and comprehends their finite and contingent mode of being. Hence He knows them individually or singularly in their finite multiplicity, knows everything possible as well as actual; knows what is bad as well as what is good.
Also:
God knows creatures and their acts, whether there is question of what is actual or merely possible both of which clearly indicate the knowledge of counterfactuals… in other word, the molinist “middle knowledge”. Is the Catholic Encyclopedia “official enough”?

It is also interesting to see the end:

Whichever way we turn we are bound ultimately to encounter a mystery, and, when there is a question of choosing between a theory which refers the mystery to God Himself and one which only saves the truth of human freedom by making free-will itself a mystery, most theologians naturally prefer the former alternative.

By calling it to be a “mystery” the Church admits that it does not know what it is talking about when attempting to reconcile the divine foreknowledge and human free will. Another instance when I fail to be surprised.

However, the end trumps it all:
But one must be careful to avoid implying that God’s knowledge is in any way dependent on creatures, as if He had, so to speak, to await the actual event in time before knowing infallibly what a free creature may choose to do. From eternity He knows, but does not predetermine the creature’s choice.
So on one hand, God’s foreknowledge does NOT depend on what we do, and our actions are NOT dependent on his foreknowledge… what we have here is a colossal, truly astronomical, incredible coincidence… it just so happens that God’s knowledge and our actions are independent, yet they happen (magically, I suppose) coincide. The probability of this lucky break is much less than winning all the different lotteries around the world a million times in consecutive drawings.

Well, I think I learned enough for one day.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
I would genuinely like to know where atheists think the cosmos and all that’s in it came from, what the Uncaused Cause was if it was not God? I’m not trying to be arrogant or flippant. No atheist has ever given me an answer, and I would really like to know. It didn’t just appear one day, and even if it did, how did it just appear?
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I think most atheists dont have a problem with attributing creation to an infinite regress of causes or the possibility of a multiverse.

Saying God is the Uncaused Cause isnt really helpful, because God is also something that needs to be explained.
 
I can accept that answer, thank you.

No one can tell you, or anyone else, what God is because while we feel we can prove *that *God exists, we do not believe we can know what God is (what substance). God’s fullest revelation of himself was in Christ, but of course, flesh-and-blood is not his true nature.

You probably do not understand how anyone can believe in God. It is not a “security blanker” as PA asserts. Far from it. To believe in God means conforming oneself to Christ, which is very difficult and demanding.

Believers, on the other hand, have a difficult time understanding how anyone can deny the existence of God. Monkeys typing randomly really could produce Shakespeare faster than order could come out of a chaotic universe.

You are, however, entitled to your opinion, as is PA. Her habit of calling Christianity a “security blanket” and telling us we are illogical gets tiresome, though, that’s all. I don’t mind at all if someone holds an opinion that differs from mine. I just don’t like being called names and told I’m “illogical” because I believe differently than they.

Thank you for answering the question.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
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.
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With respect, you didn’t finish answering. The question ended:
Bradski said:
If you did, do you think that you might bear some responsibility for what happens, knowing what was going to happen?
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If you were confronted by a man who says that your murdered his wife, killed their baby girl and shot his young daughter as she ran away, do you tell him that you knew all this was going to happen? Do you tell him that you had a son despite knowing that he’d kill so many? Would you feel any responsibility at all?
Lily_Bernans said:
Now, maybe you will answer my hypothetical.
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Was that killing a loved one if I knew they were going to kill someone else? Well, you might have noticed a subtle difference between my hypothetical and yours. One is killing to prevent a crime – the other is not doing something which will result in a crime. The answer to yours is: I have no idea. I have no idea who they were likely to kill or why they would do it. I’d like to suggest you fill in some details so I can give you an answer, but maybe you could first tell me why you are asking the question in the first place.
Lily_Bernans said:
I would genuinely like to know where atheists think the cosmos and all that’s in it came from, what the Uncaused Cause was if it was not God?
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Not really on topic, but the very short answer is: I don’t know. The longer answer discusses the problem in stating that if we don’t know, then it must have been…God. And an even longer answer still addresses why what you then call God is the personal god of the Catholic religion. But it is waaaay off topic in any case.
 
Bradski said:
Not really on topic, but the very short answer is: I don’t know.
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Sorry to butt in, but not all questions are valid, even if they are syntactically correct. One can ask: “what exists to the north from the North Pole”, and that is an invalid question. Just like asking: “what exists outside the universe”, or “what happened before the universe came into existence”, or “what caused the existence of the universe”? None of these questions are valid, because “space, time and causation” are only defined (and definable WITHIN the universe, they are not applicable to the universe. The half-educated people (who are usually very arrogant) try to confuse others with presenting invalid questions, and when they get no replies, they happily declare “victory”. Let them have their little “victory”… it s not worth the time and effort to educate them.
 
Pallas_Athene said:
Sorry to butt in, but not all questions are valid, even if they are syntactically correct. One can ask: “what exists to the north from the North Pole”, and that is an invalid question. Just like asking: “what exists outside the universe”, or “what happened before the universe came into existence”, or “what caused the existence of the universe”? None of these questions are valid, because “space, time and causation” are only defined (and definable WITHIN the universe, they are not applicable to the universe. The half-educated people (who are usually very arrogant) try to confuse others with presenting invalid questions, and when they get no replies, they happily declare “victory”. Let them have their little “victory”… it s not worth the time and effort to educate them.
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I can’t say that I’m surprised you failed to answer the question, PA. When you can’t think of an answer that contradicts the truth, you simply ignore or attempt to insult the person asking the question.

Honestly, your posts have devolved into attempted insults and illogical statements. You can try to insult me, but you will never succeed. That is something you can never have.

I could say “I’ll keep you in my prayers,” but honestly, I won’t. I’ll forget you in a day or two. I certainly wish you no ill, though. I feel really sorry for you.
 
Pallas_Athene said:
I am asking for the official definition of omniscience, and all I get is silence. Par for the course.

Is there an official catholic definition of omniscience? Where is it? I am only aware of the real definition: “to know everything, whether actual or hypothetical”.

If you have the official definition, I would be delighted if you shared it with me. If you don’t, be honest and admit it. But stop this effort to try to send me on a wild-goose chase, because I am not willing.
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Since I did not get any response, I submitted the question to the “Ask the Apologist” forum, and I received the answer here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=967892 If you do not want to follow the link, here is the question and the answer.

Here is the question:
I am trying to find the official definition of omniscience employed by the Church. I tried to find it in the catechism, but it is not mentioned. I am only aware of this definition: “omniscience is the knowledge of everything, past, present and future, actual or possible”. Is this correct?

Please help. Thank you very much in advance.
And here is the answer:
Hi,

Yes, that is correct and only God has it!

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

So, read it and weep. The official Catholic definition of omniscience includes the knowledge of counterfactuals, in other words the molinist “middle knowledge”. As such my little “program” of how to create a world with free individuals and no sin - stands.
 
:bighanky:

Seriously dude, you need to get a life.

The only way one can know God is through a relationship with Him.
He is always right here and definitely within ear-shot.
In order to build on the relationship, to truly know Him one must endeavor to become ever more loving.
This requires prayer, not only because it facilitates the dialogue, but because it is difficult to actually be loving, impossible without the grace of the Holy Spirit.
It requires self-sacrifice to grow in the Way that is Jesus Christ.
It definitely requires works of charity.
Within the Church He founded, one finds the quickest most sure-fire way to Christ through the mass and the Eucharist.
I don’t know what God experiences other than He is Love.
I know He knows me through and through, every nook and cranny and with infinite compassion.
I know I am like everyone else in this regard.
I try to meet my responsibilities as they are understood through an informed conscience, seeking to implement in action His will which is to love.

Yes God knows who you can be; will you be a disappointment?
 
Pallas_Athene said:
Since I did not get any response, I submitted the question to the “Ask the Apologist” forum, and I received the answer here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=967892 If you do not want to follow the link, here is the question and the answer.

Here is the question:
I am trying to find the official definition of omniscience employed by the Church. I tried to find it in the catechism, but it is not mentioned. I am only aware of this definition: “omniscience is the knowledge of everything, past, present and future, actual or possible”. Is this correct?

Please help. Thank you very much in advance.
And here is the answer:
Hi,

Yes, that is correct and only God has it!

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

So, read it and weep. The official Catholic definition of omniscience includes the knowledge of counterfactuals, in other words the molinist “middle knowledge”. As such my little “program” of how to create a world with free individuals and no sin - stands.
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A direct denial of your claim is found in the Catholic Encyclopedia at NewAdvent.

newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm

Read the section on Divine Knowledge.
Thus there is no predetermination by the Divine of what the human will freely chooses; it is not because God foreknows (having foredecreed) a certain free act that that act takes place, but God foreknows it in the first instance because as a matter of fact it is going to take place; He knows it as a hypothetical objective fact before it becomes an object of the scientia visionis — or rather this is how, in order to safeguard human liberty, we must conceive Him as knowing it. It was thus, for example, that Christ knew what would have been the results of His ministry among the people of Tyre and Sidon. But one must be careful to avoid implying that God’s knowledge is in any way dependent on creatures, as if He had, so to speak, to await the actual event in time before knowing infallibly what a free creature may choose to do. From eternity He knows, but does not predetermine the creature’s choice. And if it be asked how we can conceive this knowledge to exist antecedently to and independently of some act of the Divine will, on which all things contingent depend, we can only say that the objective truth expressed by the hypothetical facts in question is somehow reflected in the Divine Essence, which is the mirror of all truth, and that in knowing Himself God knows these things also. Whichever way we turn we are bound ultimately to encounter a mystery, and, when there is a question of choosing between a theory which refers the mystery to God Himself and one which only saves the truth of human freedom by making free-will itself a mystery, most theologians naturally prefer the former alternative.
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Here’s a longer answer:

I’m reasonably mathematically minded. I could prove Pythagoras’s Theorem in a few lines if required. But anything beyond that is beyond me. I haven’t spent a lifetime studying maths, physics and cosmology. I haven’t got the ability to mentally grasp deep time, vast distances, large numbers and more dimensions than 4. I know how to work my iPhone but I don’t even know how my iPhone works. If Socrates was right and the only true wisdom comes from realising how little we know, then I am becoming a very wise man indeed.

There are concepts involved in describing the beginning of the universe that can only be explained, and understood, in mathematical terms. And there are very few people indeed who even come close to understanding those terms. If you try to imagine how everything started then your mental picture of it will be wrong. If you try to describe in words how everything started, then that description will be wrong. In fact, I think I’m on pretty solid ground in saying that anything that we think we know about how everything started is wrong.

Here’s a quote attributed to Neil Bohr: “There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”

One of the greatest scientists we have letting us know that this is not really a subject to be bounced around with any authority on an internet forum. In other words, to the question of how everything started, the honest answer, for almost everyone on the planet, quite possibly for literally everyone on the planet, is simply to say: I do not know.

But from that, we have almost all Christians declare what they see to be a simple logical construct:

‘Ah ha. So if you don’t know, then it must have been God’.

As you wish…
 
Creation is not a default answer rooted in ignorance; it’s truth has been revealed in Genesis.
The minutiae of that truth belong to the realm of science.
We can actually get along quite well not knowing them.
We don’t do so well when we forget who we are and why we are here.
 
Bradski said:
Here’s a longer answer:

I’m reasonably mathematically minded. I could prove Pythagoras’s Theorem in a few lines if required. But anything beyond that is beyond me. I haven’t spent a lifetime studying maths, physics and cosmology. I haven’t got the ability to mentally grasp deep time, vast distances, large numbers and more dimensions than 4. I know how to work my iPhone but I don’t even know how my iPhone works. If Socrates was right and the only true wisdom comes from realising how little we know, then I am becoming a very wise man indeed.
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Socrates is often misunderstood regarding the claim of true wisdom.

What he didn’t mean is that wisdom is merely thinking that you know very little, what he meant was the only way you could know for certain that you know very little is by being in the presence of the complete Truth itself. In other words, being surrounded by the Truth in such a way that you know it ain’t you. A candle in the Sun kind of knowing. It is only in that way that you would know in any true sense that you have come to KNOW how little you know, or KNOW without a doubt that you don’t know.

The wise man lives in the light of Truth, he does not claim the little light he has comprises great wisdom.

This is to be distinguished from the foolery which insists it knows little based upon nothing in particular. In that case, such a person would not KNOW how little they know but would only be engaging in a kind of willful ignorance about everything and taking great pride in that ignorance.
 
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