OK, let's assume a creator

[JDaniel]

Yes, it’s been a while!

I don’t think that’s what the article refers to. Time can be infinite in the sense of having no beginning and no end, and this is still distinct from the infinity of God (whether time is actually like that is moot). An infinite time would not be bound by limits on its continuance, but it would still be bound by its particular nature, i.e. an infinite time is still distinct from a rock. The infinity of time does not mean that time encompasses all distinct things. The infinity of time is not the reason for all things. In contrast, the infinity of God means that God encompasses all particular ways of being, and is in of itself the reason for all other things. A rock is a way of being, and the infinity of God means that all ways of being are ultimately rooted in and metaphysically justified as an existing thing by God. God is pure existence, with no qualifiers. The infinity of God is a metaphysical infinity, as opposed to a physical infinity.

“But although time is not the same thing as motion, time is never without motion.” - Summa Theologica, I, q. 10, a. 1

Without the existence of motion, there can be no time. Time is the measure of motion according to motion’s prior and posterior. According to current cosmology, the universe was created by God a mere 16.7 billion years ago. Prior to its creation - no time. And, accordingly, the universe will entropy at some time in the future. This scenario does not equal infinite time. It equals finite time. Even if the universe did not end at some point in the future, it would still be potentially infinite. That which has no beginning, no middle, and no end, is infinite. But, time had a beginning. That beginning is called the Big Bang.

This isn’t Hinduism, because Hinduism says that all things are identical in their being. The infinity of God as pure existence does not mean that all individual expressions of existence are the same as God. All particular existent things are contingent upon existence itself (obvious), but they are still individual things distinct from existence itself. For example, a particular minute of time is distinct from time itself as a universal (of course, there are some problems with this analogy).

The great neo-Thomistic scholar Etienne Gilson described it in the following way:

The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, pg 53

His book is an excellent overview of this kind of stuff.

The physical order is necessarily subsumed by the metaphysical order by default. God’s existence is the root and reason for all forms of being, even the physical. Existence itself and the individual manifestations of existence are distinct, but they are not unconnected. I suppose you may mean this by “compenetrate” but it would be incorrect to say that physical things exist without having their metaphysical reason and origin in existence itself.

I read lots of Gilson, in the past, and like him a lot. What I was making sure to avoid was the smack of “pantheism”. God, being actually infinite, means that there is no space, place, or matter that is without his presence. His essence is a different order of “matter” (call it “metaphysical” if you will). Nevertheless, it takes up all space, place and matter - without displacing physical matter. That is what I mean by “compenetration”, from John of St. Thomas.

God bless,
jd

 

[Sarpedon]

“But although time is not the same thing as motion, time is never without motion.” - Summa Theologica, I, q. 10, a. 1

Without the existence of motion, there can be no time. Time is the measure of motion according to motion’s prior and posterior. According to current cosmology, the universe was created by God a mere 16.7 billion years ago. Prior to its creation - no time. And, accordingly, the universe will entropy at some time in the future. This scenario does not equal infinite time. It equals finite time. Even if the universe did not end at some point in the future, it would still be potentially infinite. That which has no beginning, no middle, and no end, is infinite. But, time had a beginning. That beginning is called the Big Bang.

I think you are reading more into the Catholic Encyclopedia article than is there- the article is drawing a comparison between physical infinity and metaphysical infinity, without commenting on what time is actually like.

I read lots of Gilson, in the past, and like him a lot. What I was making sure to avoid was the smack of “pantheism”. God, being actually infinite, means that there is no space, place, or matter that is without his presence. His essence is a different order of “matter” (call it “metaphysical” if you will). Nevertheless, it takes up all space, place and matter - without displacing physical matter. That is what I mean by “compenetration”, from John of St. Thomas.

I’m suspicious of this division of being you seem to be making. God is pure being, and all other things are different contingent units of being. While it’s true that there is a very real distinction here between pure being and particulated contingent being, I’m not sure that such distinction is due to differences in being itself. God is existence, and real things are real because they exist, drawing their reality from existence itself- but at no point does the “substance” of existence change. There are not two orders of existent substances- otherwise God and creation would both exist under the existence of two existences, (God and creation), which is contradictory to the nature of God.

 

[Spock]

Can you imagine the hard drive array - even with compression?

The problem that I see has to do with the speed of the hard drives in the array.They would have to approach infinite speed. As would the wiring from the peripherals to the RAM, then to the hard drives. Not to mention RAM and how big that would have to be! This technology exists?

None of that is necessary. No “infinite speed”, no “infinitely large” storage mechanism. Look up here: history-computer.com/Library/VonNeumann1.pdf or just Google “theory of self-reproducing automata”. Or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codd’s_cellular_automaton

 

[Los_Angeles]

Spock,

I have to tell you that I was rebuked by someone in the Apologetics forum and I found this in the Catechism of the Catholic Chruch:

36
"Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God."12

So now I have to admit that I was wrong and some of the “proofs” for the existience of God must be correct. My understanding of them must have been incorrect at some point. Sorry, but I must go back to disagreeing with you.

If anything I have said is against the Catholic Church, let it be anathema.

 

[JDaniel]

I think you are reading more into the Catholic Encyclopedia article than is there- the article is drawing a comparison between physical infinity and metaphysical infinity, without commenting on what time is actually like.

Sarp:

I’m not sure what article you are referring to. I have read nothing in reference to this in the Catholic Encyclopedia. I am going by my memory of the philosophy, metaphysics, and morality classes I had at St. Thomas University. Aquinas is explicit and expository about Time. There is no equivocation about it: it is the measure of motion and change. He admits to the possibility of infinite time precisely because it was thought, at his time, that the universe might be infinite, even though he had dispatched that idea from logic prior to that. He was unwilling to presume that God could not make an infinite universe, or at least that’s how some read him.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

I’m suspicious of this division of being you seem to be making. God is pure being, and all other things are different contingent units of being. While it’s true that there is a very real distinction here between pure being and particulated contingent being, I’m not sure that such distinction is due to differences in being itself. God is existence, and real things are real because they exist, drawing their reality from existence itself- but at no point does the “substance” of existence change. There are not two orders of existent substances- otherwise God and creation would both exist under the existence of two existences, (God and creation), which is contradictory to the nature of God.

Sarp:

To be sure, I am not saying that God is different in his “being.” I am saying that his “matter” (analogously) is not physical matter, i.e., the matter that we know and that is somatic. Our material is “somatic” - it can be sensed. His is a matter analogously. However, he is infinite. But, he is not infinite in some other place. And, he is not infinite in some other space. Nor is he infinite in some dimension. He did not blow a bubble inside him in which the physical universe now exists, although analogously he did. He is truly infinite. And, his “infinity” is a rather important determinant. Because of this notion, the pantheists believed that he was in everything and a part of everything. From our understanding of revelation, while he “compenetrates” all else (including all other beings), he is not at all any part of them. His is a different order of material, again, used analogously. I hope I’ve made myself a little clearer.

God bless,
jd

 

[Sarpedon]

Sarp:

I’m not sure what article you are referring to. I have read nothing in reference to this in the Catholic Encyclopedia. I am going by my memory of the philosophy, metaphysics, and morality classes I had at St. Thomas University. Aquinas is explicit and expository about Time. There is no equivocation about it: it is the measure of motion and change. He admits to the possibility of infinite time precisely because it was thought, at his time, that the universe might be infinite, even though he had dispatched that idea from logic prior to that. He was unwilling to presume that God could not make an infinite universe, or at least that’s how some read him.

I was commenting on the encyclopedia article line by line, and you objected to my commentary. Thus, I thought you were objecting to my explanation of the article.

 

[JDaniel]

I was commenting on the encyclopedia article line by line, and you objected to my commentary. Thus, I thought you were objecting to my explanation of the article.

Nope. I was just trying to bring your excellent post into alignment with my understanding of Time and God’s being. I have found that even many Catholics, herein, do not understand some of these concepts. Time, as you know, is not something correlative with God, as he is without parts, thus, without motion, thus without Time. He is of infinite duration. And, he is of infinite magnitude.

God bless,
jd

 

[Sarpedon]

Nope. I was just trying to bring your excellent post into alignment with my understanding of Time and God’s being. I have found that even many Catholics, herein, do not understand some of these concepts. Time, as you know, is not something correlative with God, as he is without parts, thus, without motion, thus without Time. He is of infinite duration. And, he is of infinite magnitude.

Exactly- metaphysical infinity, not physical infinity.

 

[JDaniel]

Exactly- metaphysical infinity, not physical infinity.

True, but he precludes all of physical space, which, of course, is not infinite. The other point I was trying to make is that there can be no “bubble” within God: no “universe bubble”, no “creatural bubbles”, and no “matter bubbles.” All of which are meant analogically. He permeates everything, but, not in the way we think of permeation. You see, “place” is defined as the “innermost immobile surface of a surrounding body”. That is not how we are compermeated by God. God is not merely “a surrounding body.” By being compermeated by God, he, then, remains the Prime Mover or First Cause (which have to do with change as a simultaneous event, from (First) Cause to Effect).

God bless,
jd

 

[Spock]

Spock,

I have to tell you that I was rebuked by someone in the Apologetics forum and I found this in the Catechism of the Catholic Chruch:

Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason." Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God.

Disagreement is fine.

My problem is that the Cathecism’s argument is “empty”. It does not say “how can one know God’s existence with certainty”. It just says it can be known. Without explicitly explaining the “how”, it is just another unsubstantiated assertion. Maybe it refers to some of the arguments of Aquinas, or some variant of the “greatest conceivable being”, or, who knows what? There are so many “proofs” of God floating around, and none of them can stand the light of reason. Here are a “few”: godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm - written tongue-in-cheek, of course. But regardless of the light-hearted style, they summarize the futility of finding a “non-revelation” type of argument for God’s existence. There is none, no matter what the Cathecism “says”.

 

[Sarpedon]

Disagreement is fine.

My problem is that the Cathecism’s argument is “empty”. It does not say “how can one know God’s existence with certainty”. It just says it can be known. Without explicitly explaining the “how”, it is just another unsubstantiated assertion. Maybe it refers to some of the arguments of Aquinas, or some variant of the “greatest conceivable being”, or, who knows what? There are so many “proofs” of God floating around, and none of them can stand the light of reason. Here are a “few”: godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm - written tongue-in-cheek, of course. But regardless of the light-hearted style, they summarize the futility of finding a “non-revelation” type of argument for God’s existence. There is none, no matter what the Cathecism “says”.

Such dogmatic scepticism!

I’m sure you already understand the futility of proving a negative, so I’m not sure why you try to do that…

Also, I have less confidence in your assessment when you fail to respond to the arguments I make.

 

[Spock]

I’m sure you already understand the futility of proving a negative, so I’m not sure why you try to do that…

But I am asking the exact opposite! The cathecism explicitly says that the God’s existence can be known through reason alone, but it does not say how it can be known. Which one of the hundreds of “proofs” is endorsed by the church? One or more or all of them? Where do I ask for proving a “negative”?

 

[yppop]

Disagreement is fine.

My problem is that the Cathecism’s argument is “empty”. It does not say “how can one know God’s existence with certainty”. It just says it can be known. Without explicitly explaining the “how”, it is just another unsubstantiated assertion. Maybe it refers to some of the arguments of Aquinas, or some variant of the “greatest conceivable being”, or, who knows what? There are so many “proofs” of God floating around, and none of them can stand the light of reason. Here are a “few”: godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm - written tongue-in-cheek, of course. But regardless of the light-hearted style, they summarize the futility of finding a “non-revelation” type of argument for God’s existence. There is none, no matter what the Cathecism “says”.

My Dear Spock,

I am truly amazed at the tenacity with which you persist, with a polite and condescending pretentiousness, to dismiss with hand-waving responses any post with which you disagree, which apparently is any post suggesting the existence of God.

You find as “empty” the Catechism’s statement regarding the ability to know with certainty** how **can one know God’s existence. With this I agree. Yes, we theists, especially those arguing from an Intelligent Design point of view, do fail to explain HOW God might exist and worse still when one does find a possible explanation for God’s existence, there is no one that I have run into in this forum that is willing to expend the intellectual effort to understand such.

On the other hand, because the CERTAINTY with which you proclaim the futility of finding a “non-revelation type” argument for God’s existence exceeds the CERTAINTY with which one can know God’s existence, your position stands on the fine line of hypocrisy.

Furthermore, where you confronted with an argument proposing HOW God might exist, I am CERTAIN that you would dismiss it with a hand-waving response, which I would attribute to the lack the seriousness for a truly intellectual dialogue or the lack of the intellectual wherewithal to engage one.

I offer in evidence for my opinion posts #30, #60, and #84 on this thread.

Post 30 is an outline for the beginning of an argument for HOW God exists.

Post 60 is your hand-waving dismissal.

Post 84 is my response to your hand-waving dismissal.

YPPOP

 

[Sarpedon]

One or more or all of them? Where do I ask for proving a “negative”?

When you say:

"But regardless of the light-hearted style, they summarize the futility of finding a “non-revelation” type of argument for God’s existence. There is none, no matter what the Cathecism “says”

I also find it dubious that you have personally analyzed every single argument for God, under professional tutelage, and deemed through the perfect use of your reason that all are faulty.

But I am asking the exact opposite! The cathecism explicitly says that the God’s existence can be known through reason alone, but it does not say how it can be known. Which one of the hundreds of “proofs” is endorsed by the church?

The Church does not endorse a highly specific argument, because she leaves it up to reason, which is a human trait. It is our responsibility to use reason to determine whether God exists.

The Church’s statement on reason affirms that reason is a valid tool to examine the question of God. This is directed against proponents of fideism, who believe that blind faith is the only legitimate way to approach religious matters. Blind faith is abhorrent to Catholicism, and that’s why the Catechism affirms the legitimacy of reason. However, you are factually incorrect to claim that the Catechism does not explain how reason should be used. Consider the following (scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c1.htm):

 

[Sarpedon]

II. WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD

31 Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments”, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These “ways” of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7
And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material”,9 can have its origin only in God.

34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”.10

35 Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH

36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created “in the image of God”.12

37 In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone:

Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. The human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful.13
38 This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by God’s revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also “about those religious and moral truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error”. 14

 

[Sarpedon]

IV. HOW CAN WE SPEAK ABOUT GOD?

39 In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.

40 Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and thinking.

41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. The manifold perfections of creatures - their truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures" perfections as our starting point, “for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator”.15

42 God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God–“the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable”–with our human representations.16 Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God.

43 Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that “between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude”;17 and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him."18

The Catechism does lay out the basic groundwork for using reason to consider the question of God. It does not endorse a highly specific argument, such as one of Aquinas’ arguments, because such matters are the domain of human reason and not divine revelation.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Ouch. Maybe we were talking past each other. Would you please link to the post where you defined superior and inferior? Too many pages, you know…

The defintion I use is: an entity “A” is superior to entity “B” in relation to attribute “X”, if “A” has that attribute to a “higher degree” than entity “B”.

Well, I could not find the page. Oh well… I disagree with your definition though. (It is not a definition though. It is just an example with variables. Perhaps, the “higher degree” is your definition?) I am not superior to you in martial arts. I am just better. I am not superior to you in playing and teaching trumpet. I am just better. As far as creator/creation goes, I am not superior to my mom or dad in martial arts. I am just WAY better. Trumpet also.

I do not think we will ever agree on the definition. How about we debate on this definition of superior: Of a higher nature or kind? This is the one I am using (kind of).

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Disagreement is fine.

My problem is that the Cathecism’s argument is “empty”. It does not say “how can one know God’s existence with certainty”. It just says it can be known. Without explicitly explaining the “how”, it is just another unsubstantiated assertion. Maybe it refers to some of the arguments of Aquinas, or some variant of the “greatest conceivable being”, or, who knows what? There are so many “proofs” of God floating around, and none of them can stand the light of reason. Here are a “few”: godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm - written tongue-in-cheek, of course. But regardless of the light-hearted style, they summarize the futility of finding a “non-revelation” type of argument for God’s existence. There is none, no matter what the Cathecism “says”.

Admittedly, that site was pretty comical. But, as you stated, none of those are nowhere near what the argument says. There are “non-revelation” types of arguments out there. (I will assume that “non-relevation” means “non-biblical” but correct me if I am wrong.) There are plenty of them. But, when it comes to proving God, the intellectual assent is unsatisfactory. I have never heard of anybody saying, “This argument is irrefutable. Therefore, God exists.” There are irrefutable arguments out there but those means squat when it comes to actually believing mostly because of the argument’s conclusion (which is the part of the argument that actually matters). It may be the intellectual assent that begins the believer’s life, but it cannot be the end all be all.

And your last sentence says your conviction already. There is nothing any being in existence can do about that… Or is there?

 

[JDaniel]

All of you are way off the mark. I do not argue about the creator being necessarily inferior to its creation. You argue that the creation is necessarily inferior to the creator. All I am saying, that there is no logical necessity which would say that any and all “created entities” must be inferior to the creator. The creative process is not a degenerative process.

The examples I brought up are just that, examples, which show that at least in some respect the created can surpass the creator. And if the creation can surpass the creator in some respect, then it can surpass it in every respect. Again, there is no logical necessity which would declare that the abilities of any beings are inversely proportional with each other.

Spock:

There are, for the Catholic, two different kinds of causation. The first, and most primary type is that of creation. (And, I already proved to you that the definition a Catholic uses has considerably more propriety than any of the newer derivatives.) Allow me now to begin by explaining the difference between a cause and a principle. A principle is that from which anything flows in any manner whatsoever. - Summa Theologica, I, q. 33, a. 1. “Principle” comes from the Latin word principium, which means “beginning”. For example, a point is the beginning or principle of a line. A principle, therefore, is a source or starting point. It implies a process and an order within that process. A principle is not necessarily a cause, although it may be a cause as a parent is a cause of a child. But, as in the earlier example of the point and the line, the point is not the cause of the line.

A principle implies orderly origin; but it does not imply dependence. Cause, on the other hand, necessarily involves dependence. Indeed, a cause is a principle, but it is a principle from which anything proceeds with dependence. In other words, the effect depends upon the cause for its being or for its coming-to-be. Now, that which is dependent upon its antecedent for its being or coming-to-be cannot be greater than its antecedent. It may be or become superior in some respect, but, not in any essential respect. For example, a child may grow to be taller than his father.

Although it seems as though we ought to be able to use a computer building another computer as a counterexample, we cannot. The procedent computer is dependent upon the antecedent computer, if not completely for its being, it is at least dependent upon it for its coming-to-be. With the exception of the universe’s dependence on its creator for its being, this is precisely the relationship the universe has with its creator. It is dependent upon its creator not only for its being, but also for its coming-to-be.

While the procedent computer may be said to be greater than its antecedent, it can’t be – precisely because it is dependent upon it for its being or its coming-to-be. It is illogical to conclude that the antecedent computer is somehow less superior than its effect if the effect is dependent upon it for its being or its coming-to-be.

In the same way, either computer is dependent upon its maker(s). It is dependent upon its maker(s) for its being and for its coming-to-be. A maker can unplug it and smash it to smithereens, or, the maker can simply refuse to build it.

The creator of the universe must be greater than its creation. (In anticipation of an obvious rebuttal, by asserting that the universe is self-sustaining, I would suggest that this would be nothng more than a naked assertion, devoid of logic, and devoid of science.)

God bless,
jd