I am baffled, please explain

[PRmerger]

Human beings usurped the plans of an omnipotent being…one who knew it would happen,right? One who consented to the usurpation, right?

John

There is no “knew”. There is only the Eternal Know.

 

[oldcelt]

There is no “knew”. There is only the Eternal Know.

But that makes no difference to the deity knew/know…irrelevant to an eternal, omniscient deity. Everything, past, present and future is known in an instant, right?

 

[PRmerger]

But that makes no difference to the deity knew/know…irrelevant to an eternal, omniscient deity. Everything, past, present and future is known in an instant, right?

Egg-zactly.

And just like He didn’t cause you to write this, way back in 2014, and is in not responsible for your choice to write that, He didn’t cause A and E to sin, and is not responsible for their choice.

#itsallbecauseoffreewill

 

[oldcelt]

Egg-zactly.

And just like He didn’t cause you to write this, way back in 2014, and is in not responsible for your choice to write that, He didn’t cause A and E to sin, and is not responsible for their choice.

#itsallbecauseoffreewill

You see PR…I agree with you…but for completely different reasons. My arguments about omniscience, the creative act and responsibility have been nothing more than an exercise in logic. I truly hope I haven’t offended anyone.

John

 

[PRmerger]

You see PR…I agree with you…but for completely different reasons. My arguments about omniscience, the creative act and responsibility have been nothing more than an exercise in logic. I truly hope I haven’t offended anyone.

John

I’m glad we are agreed.

 

[oldcelt]

I’m glad we are agreed.

Have a great day!

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Hey, what do you know, we used books for those courses as well!

I’m glad they didn’t make the decision to teach you from Wikipedia, either!

 

[tonyrey]

As you said, they accept it as a given. It would be pretty difficulty to reject the evidence of one’s own existence. And having accepted it, they believe it.

Again, if you ask someone why they believe something, they will have a reason. Maybe they hadn’t given it a lot of thought. Maybe it’s the first time they would have thought about it. But there will be a reason.

Do you seriously want to suggest that people say they exist just because they CHOOSE to believe it? Abject nonsense.

I have stated the exact opposite of what you suggest. The question of choosing never enters their mind because they don’t doubt that they exist. The vast majority of people don’t indulge in metaphysical speculation and take such facts for granted!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

We are free to read Genesis as a literal description or the events leading to the original sin, or an allegorical one, with some unspecified command and disobedience. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the literal version.

1. God told Adam and Eve not to touch the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
2. The serpent tempted them, and they disobeyed.
3. God chased them away from his presence and cursed the whole creation.

Looks pretty simple and straightforward, doesn’t it? Disobedience, which leads to punishment. Happens all the time.

The problem occurs when we start to consider God’s omniscience. God KNEW that the humans WILL disobey.

The first question is this:
Could God have created a different pair, like George and Susie, who would NOT have succumbed to the temptation, and would NOT have chosen to disobey? If every conceivable human pair would have succumbed to the temptation then there is no free will; the fall would have been preordained or predestined. Sounds quite unreasonable. The existence of free will is a basic tenet.

Now if God could have created another human pair, who would not have succumbed to the temptation, then the question is: “why didn’t he do it?”. God is supposed to be free to actualize any state of affairs, which is not logically impossible.

**The second question is: **
Why did he put them to the test in the first place if he knew that they will fail? What is the point to put someone to a test which will lead to death when the person fails? There are several solutions here: NOT to place that tree there. Or do not command them not to touch it. No command or no tree - no disobedience - no “original sin” - no “fall”. Everyone wins, we would still be in the Garden.

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.

And, given the childish way you reason, you maybe never will.

 

[Bradski]

I see you only copied and pasted a portion of my post. I DID respond. I DID give you the sources. I told you all theology students also had to take several courses in philosophy (both ancient and modern) and ethics.

No, I can’t link to the sources. LOL.

Well, to be fair, I did ask you to link to the sources if they were available. Telling me that you had to take courses is not doing that.

Maybe we can discuss the various philosophers’ approach to secular morality that you studied and you can tell me what it is about their views that you disagree.

You give a purrfect example of where it is possible to accept the existence of my cat called Henry without, necessarily, believing it. It is accepted on the basis of someone’s “say-so,” which means acceptance does not imply belief in the full-bodied sense of the word (i.e., think to be true.)

This is becoming more like Groundhog Day with every post. If you ACCEPT the information that someone has a cat, then you automatically believe it to be true.

I don’t care how strong a belief it is. It can be based on trust or on a factual, demonstrable, objective truth. But if you ACCEPT the information, you then believe it to be true.

A concrete example: Mamlukman has said that he is a Souths supporter. He probably mentioned that because I mentioned rugby league in an earlier post and Souths are a team that plays in Sydney (maybe he doesn’t know that I support the Roosters, who are the mortal enemies of Souths). Anyway, At this moment I know as much about Mamlukman as I do a bar of soap. I don’t even know if he lives in Australia, let alone Sydney. But I have no reason to think that when he said he was a supporter that he was lying. So, listen carefully, I have accepted that information and THEREFORE believe it to be true.

Now, would I bet my house on that? Naturally not. Maybe Mamlukman lives in Ohio, but knows I support the Roosters and has Googled the fact that there is a degree of animosity between the two sets of supporters and is just having a laugh at my expense.

I have also accepted the information that Australia lost the first test to England last night. So do I believe that? Yes, automatically. Would I bet my house on it? Yes I would. Because I have read and listened to 3 or 4 reports about the game.

Same scenarios in both cases. Information given and either accepted or rejected. You THEREFORE believe it or not. The veracity of that belief and the strength with which you hold it are IRRELEVANT.

If acceptance and belief are not univocal, then it may be possible to accept something (i.e, giving assent to it) without believing it (i.e, having an understanding that it is so or thinking it is true.) That would depend entirely upon the will of the person to adhere to truth regarding what they choose to believe or not to believe.

Someone accepts information (because there is no logical way to reject it), yet still insists that she doesn’t believe it. That is cognitive dissonance. We’ll get to that eventually…

On the other hand, if truth isn’t valued to that extent a person may be willing to accept a host of things they don’t “believe” in the sense of “think to be true.” They merely accept them for other reasons, such as emotive ones. They have, in other words, emotional investment in accepting certain propositions even though they know the propositions are untrue or not necessarily true and, therefore, are not really “believed.”

As above. If you don’t accept something as being true and yet still say you believe it, then you have a problem. Again, give me examples and I can show where the problem lies.

I am disputing THAT on the basis of insincerity and that people have been known to be duplicitous, even to themselves. Acceptance of things known not to be true is more common than you allow.

This is where we are heading. You have to accept the fact that you need to reject information to therefore state that you don’t believe it, otherwise…as you quite rightly point out, you are being insincere and/or duplicitous. You cannot suggest that someone is being insincere and/or duplicitous without accepting the original premise.

A thief could very well believe that “Stealing is morally wrong” is true, but decides to act otherwise, thus deciding to leave the proposition in a kind of limbo with regard to his act of theft – he neither accepts nor rejects the hold that the known truth value of the proposition has on him or his actions, he just ignores it.

You have just stated that the thief believes that stealing is morally wrong. He has accepted the reasons why it is so. No limbo land there. And, as you said, he simply ignores it. So…what…? He ignores it.

Has he has accepted the reasons why stealing is wrong? Yes. Does that mean he THEREFORE believes stealing is wrong? Yes. Does he decide to steal anyway, knowing it is wrong? Yes.

Hardly front page news, is it.

Man believes global warming to be true yet still has a wood burning boiler.
Man believes smoking to cause cancer yet still smokes.
Man believes…well, you get the picture.

 

[Bradski]

IThe question of choosing never enters their mind because they don’t doubt that they exist.

So they accept the fact that they exist. Knowing they exist is not a choice they make. It never enters their mind.

OK, was there a point you needed to make? Because I can’t see we’re in disagreement here.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

And, given the childish way you reason, you maybe never will.

How “charitable”!

 

[Lily_Bernans]

How “charitable”!

He would have been more charitable if he had lied? I don’t think so!

 

[Pallas_Athene]

He would have been more charitable if he had lied? I don’t think so!

One can express disagreement in a civilized fashion. For example, using reason and logic and pointing out where the error was in the argument. In these 70 pages worth of posts there was not one, which would have pointed out an error in the OP’s argument. No one could refute the logic of it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t care how strong a belief it is. It can be based on trust or on a factual, demonstrable, objective truth. But if you ACCEPT the information, you then believe it to be true.

I don’t think accepting/believing is as binary as you suppose.

Neither do I believe the two are intrinsically linked in the way you propose them to be, your subjective experience notwithstanding.

 

[Peter_Plato]

One can express disagreement in a civilized fashion. For example, using reason and logic and pointing out where the error was in the argument. In these 70 pages worth of posts there was not one, which would have pointed out an error in the OP’s argument. No one could refute the logic of it.

…as far as you are concerned.

Hardly a wringing and impartial endorsement of the argument since the OP is yours, after all, and the one you have your entire belief system staked upon.

 

[Bradski]

I don’t think accepting/believing is as binary as you suppose.

Neither do I believe the two are intrinsically linked in the way you propose them to be, your subjective experience notwithstanding.

You’ve already given me suggestions that people can accept some information as being true yet not believe it. And indicated that you think that they are either being insincere or duplicitous.

THAT is the only time they are not linked. When people purposely deny what they cannot reject. You’ve already done it yourself. You accepted what I was saying yet stated quite blatantly that you didn’t believe it.

Which were you being?

If I am so obviously wrong, then it should be quite easy for you to give me an example of rejecting something yet believing it or accepting it and stating that you do not believe it. Without being insincere etc. Or accepting something, therefore believing it (like global warming) yet ignore the implications on a personal level.

You must have something. Surely.

 

[Lion_IRC]

One can express disagreement in a civilized fashion. For example, using reason and logic and pointing out where the error was in the argument. In these 70 pages worth of posts there was not one, which would have pointed out an error in the OP’s argument. No one could refute the logic of it.

Pallas Athene,

Do you think it mandatory that God must know everything in advance?

Surely an omnipotent being can afford to let things play out according to true random, spontaneous free will, safe in the knowledge that whatever happens, nothing will ever get out of control.

Sure, God could draw from His (omnipotent) ability to know anything He wanted, whenever He wanted, but why does God need to know in advance what Adam and Eve (and satan) will choose?

By the way, you are mistaken about Genesis. God does not chase away from His presence or abandon Adam and Eve. He punishes them but He stays with them and remains active in their marriage and growing family.

 

[Lion_IRC]

When I think about a human’s lack of trust in God’s omniscient stewardship of our future, I’m reminded of this movie quote.

‘Everything will be alright in the end. So if it is not alright,
it is not the end.’
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Do you think it mandatory that God must know everything in advance?

That is the meaning of the word “omniscience”, or “all knowing”. Knowledge is not something that can be volitionally turned on and off. There is the dogma about God’s simplicity: “God has no parts, his essence entails his knowledge”.

It is rather strange that the word “omniscience” does not appear in the catechism (and the word omnipotence only appears twice). The divine attributes are clearly stated in the dogmas theworkofgod.org/dogmas.htm and jloughnan.tripod.com/dogma.htm here:

1. God’s knowledge is infinite. (De fide.)
2. God’s knowledge is purely and simply actual.
3. God’s knowledge is subsistent
4. God’s knowledge is comprehensive
5. God’s knowledge is independent of extra-divine things
6. The primary and formal object of the Divine Cognition is God Himself. (Scientia contemplationis)
7. God knows all that is merely possible by the knowledge of simple intelligence (scientia simplicis intelligentiae). (De fide.)
8. God knows all real things in the past, the present and the future (Scientia visionis). (De fide.)
9. By knowledge of vision (scientia visionis) God also foresees the free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty. (De fide.)
10. God also knows the conditioned future free actions with infallible certainty (Scientia futuribilium). (Sent. communis.)

Observe the “de fide” dogmas. Those are supposed to be the result of direct divine revelation. The others are of lesser certainty, but they must be accepted by all Catholics.