One final time: freedom of will does NOT logically lead to evil actions

[tdgesq]

. . . continued

The definition you offered: “God has enormous creative power, that he created the universe, that his thoughts are incomparably above ours”… is not a rigorous definition, it simply says that God is very powerful, which is hardly a substitute for a properly formatted definition.

No, it isn’t a rigorous definition, but in order to successfully rebut your positive assertion the theist is not required to give such a definition. It is simply a diversion from the topic. As long as we know that God cannot engage in logical inconsistency that is all that is necessary.

It certainly is. In W4 there are free agents, who just “happen” to choose correctly each and every time. Could God “actualize” that world? I say he could. You may agree or disagree. Which one will it be? If you say, he cannot, point out the contradiction.

If W4 is what you are arguing, then the theist agrees. It is a logically possible world that God creates persons with free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right; and (c) There is no evil in W4. But if this is what you hold to, then who are you arguing against? Theists by and large don’t have a problem with W4 at all. Who is it that you sought to engage if this is what you meant all along? Somehow, one thinks that you were not and still are not arguing W4.

You aren’t using the language of W4 when you say that God could “actualize” that world. If God “actualizes” a world, then he “actualizes” the people in that world as well. So one suspects you mean that God out of all the possible persons to actualize could determine in advance that he is going to actualize only those persons who do what is right. But then you are back to world W3. Now God has determined in advance that he is going to “actualize” only those persons who do what is right. That contradicts free will, as previously demonstrated.

It is also interesting that you haven’t ever denied that you were arguing W3. Perhaps because it is because of statements like these:

If God wanted to, he could have actualized this world. Ours is not that world. Why God chose not to actualize that world is none of my concern. But the fact is that he did not, even though he could have done it.

(Emphasis added).
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=5423905&postcount=1

But by choosing any one of the possible scenarios and actualizing any one of them, God decides up front, who will make moral and immoral decisons. And that is strong predestination.

(Emphasis added).

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=5425485&postcount=7

He could have chosen the one where everyone freely makes only the right decisons (many of them), or the one where everyone freely makes only the wrong decisons (also many of them), or anything in-between. All the worlds are logically and physically possible.

(Emphasis added).

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=5425890&postcount=12

No, God could not have chosen to actualize a world where everyone freely makes only the right decisions. That involves a contradiction. It appears you have been arguing W3. Even if you are now arguing W4, the debate is still over, because nobody is going to argue with you about W4. By the way, even in W4 it could be the case that all possible persons freely choose to commit at least one wrong act.

Spock, your arguments are Mackie’s arguments. The problem you have is that Mackie was refuted by Plantinga’s free will defense many years ago, and Mackie admits it:

J. L. Mackie one of the most prominent atheist philosophers of the mid-twentieth-century and a key exponent of the logical problem of evil has this to say about Plantinga’s Free Will Defense:
Since this defense is formally [that is, logically] possible, and its principle involves no real abandonment of our ordinary view of the opposition between good and evil, we can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another. But whether this offers a real solution of the problem is another question. (Mackie 1982, p. 154)

Mackie admits that Plantinga’s defense shows how God and evil can co-exist, that is, it shows that “the central doctrines of theism” are logically consistent after all.

iep.utm.edu/e/evil-log.htm#H8

Unless you have something new to add to Mackie’s arguments, you aren’t going to get anywhere with W3 or make any headway with W4 that theists don’t already agree with.

 

[exoflare]

I reject free will

Does anyone else see the irony in this statement?

 

[Miles_Mariae]

Spock,

This is a purely academic exercise and doesn’t necessarily reflect my belief on this matter. Your thread has, however, led me to some thought on this issue and I would like your commentary on my reasoning:

Quaeritur: whether a world could be actualized in which all agents have free will and only perform good actions?

The only way I can think of to answer negatively is:

One agent effectively makes one decision regarding one issue with two choices I and M, immoral and moral respectively. Suppose she makes this decision over and over again because she always has to fight the urge to rebel. In other words, this is the case of making N decisions in a row depending on how long the world lasts.

Suppose the agent has a probability r of resisting temptation. R is the event that she resists temptation for all iterations of N.

P(R) = r^N
As N approaches infinity, P(R) approaches 0

Perhaps, then, a world that lasts indefinitely (N=infinity) could not have only moral actions. It would then be a logical contradiction, and so such a world would not be possible.

Objection: Decision-making is not probabilistic.

Perhaps not. It’s a plausible way to model, nonetheless.

Objection: Where is free will if the agent could not possibly have remained free from sin?

In each step of decision-making, the agent had a chance to resist temptation. The reader must decide whether the condition that agents are never faced with unsurmountable temptation has been met.

I look forward to your response.

 

[buffalo]

I don’t think the clarification (equivocation) is unwarranted. Let’s repeat the argument as stated.

(2) If God is omnipotent, he can create any logically possible state of affairs.
(a) It is a logically possible state of affairs that there are men not created by God. Therefore,
(b) God can create persons who are not created by God.

The problem is here that (b) is not a corollary of (2) and (a), though at first glance it seems to be due to its ingenious, but deceptive wording. The proper form of (b) would be:

(b’) God can create a state of affairs, where there are persons who are not created by God.

No contradiction. And of course, (b) and (b’) are not the same. They cannot be, since (b) contains a logical contradiction, and (b’) does not.

It is obvious that the thread now must deal with the proper definition of omnipotence, before we can go any further.

The original (and currently rejected) definition of omnipotence was:

(2’) If God is omnipotent, he can create any state of affairs, whether logically contradictory or not. Or, in other words, God can create literally anything and everything.

This definition is rejected these days, due to its incoherence. (Side remark: The funny thing is, that according to theists, God actually can create logically contradictory states of affairs. For example, God in not a corporeal being, and does not reside in any kind of “time”. Yet, God can assume a human form, which is corporeal, and in this form he is subject to time. To be both corporeal and not corporeal is a simple logical contradiction. To be outside of time and inside it is another logical contradiction.)

Thanks, I suspected it. Nevertheless, I am “accusing” Plantinga of playing fast and loose with words, since (b) is not he proper corollary of (2) and (a), while (b’) as suggested above - is. Proposition (b) is simply a syntactically correct and semantically meaningless proposition, very similar to the Russel-paradox.

Well, I don’t agree. However, If I provisionally accept that (2) is false, then just what does “omnipotence” mean? If God is unable to create logical contradictions, and cannot create some states of affairs which are logically non-contradictory, where does this chain of God-cannot-do-this stop?

It is also stipulated that God can create physical impossibilities (miracles) which violate the Law of Indentity. How come that the Law of Contradiction is held as “sacrosanct” while the Law of Indentity is trampled over? Also to create physical impossibilities is a violation of the Law of Contradiction, since a physically impossible event is now physically possible (since it happened).

Unfortunately the Bible is hardly a point to prove anything - for anyone who does believe in God. Can you draw the line in the sand (so to speak) in a secular manner, and define the concept of omniscience?

It is clear that a specific human is able to create problems, which he cannot solve. (Of course, others might or might not be able to solve them.) Therefore the proposition “person X is able to create a problem, which he cannot solve” does not contain a logical contradiction. What happens if we substitute “God” for “person X”? Does it become a contradiction, even though it is formally the same? It is a legitimate question.

The definition you offered: “God has enormous creative power, that he created the universe, that his thoughts are incomparably above ours”… is not a rigorous definition, it simply says that God is very powerful, which is hardly a substitute for a properly formatted definition.

So, how should one understand the concept of “omnipotence” or “maxipotence”?

Catholics as I pointed out earlier understand God to be “almighty”.

 

[Spock]

Even assuming (b’) is the correct conclusion, it still contains a contradiction – unless you insert an implied term in one of the premises and not the other. If (2) includes “ultimately create” and (a) means “ultimately create”, then (b’) now reads:

(b’’) God can create a logically possible state of affairs where there are persons who are not ultimately created by God.

Of course if God created the possible state of affairs, then he also ultimately created everything within the possible state of affairs. If you’d like, you can substitute “ultimately cause” instead of “ultimately create.” It yields the same contradiction. In any case, it appears that you no longer affirm the truth of proposition (2) whether you are convinced by this example or not.

Well, you are right, and I was wrong. I found a better example which does not hinges on the usage of “ultimately”. Here it is:

(2) If God is omnipotent, he can create any logically possible state of affairs.
(a) It is a logically possible state of affairs that there is no God and there never was God. (which is the actual state of affairs in my opinion). Therefore,
(b) God can create a logically possible state of affairs where God does not exist and never existed.

Since God cannot both exist and not exist, this is clearly a contradiction. The reason is simple: The usage of “any” (or all) allows the creation of Russel-paradox. There are many examples of that, the simplest form is “this proposition is false”.

Now, what follows from that?

Clearly, (2) can be reformatted into

(2’) If God is omnipotent, he can create any logically possible state of affairs, which does not directly contain and does not lead to a logical contradiction.

So the next question is: does a “sinless world” (for simplicity’s sake) contain or lead to a contradiction? If it does not, then God can create it.

In my last post I gave a preliminary answer to this question. It is enough for this topic to note that it is logically inconsistent to assert that free actors can exist where God determines that they always do what is right.

Uh-oh. So just what does the word “create”, “actualize”, “instantiate” mean?

The model I would suggest is this:

1. God is assumed omniscient, and “omnisicent” means that God knows everything that can be known. (For theists this includes our future, which I consider nonsensical, but that is the topic for a different thread.)
2. Therefore God can “preview” all the possible worlds, and can choose or “create” or “actualize” one of them.
3. Since your suggested W4 is one of these worlds, God can see it, and can choose to create it.

No contradiction, and it does not lead to contradiction: UNLESS you say that the mere act of creation will decide (predetermine) how people will act in that particular world. (After all, in each world, each decison is made in one way, though “theoretically” it could have been made otherwise - but that would be a different world.) However, this objection does not hinges on the morality of the actions taken.

In each world the moral agents will choose a sequence of “good” and “bad” decisions. God can see them. God created one of these worlds. His act of creation did not rob us our free will. Therefore his act of creating that “sinless” world would not rob us our free will either.

So the corollary of the OP still stands, after the necessary revision of (2). God could have created a world where our free will exists, and there is no evil.

Or, there can be a different solution: The prhase “God created the world” is a meaningless proposition. I am happy with both of them.

First, physical impossibilities are not necessarily logical impossibilities (flying pink elephants for instance.) Second, miracles do not require that physical laws be broken, much less that the law of identity be violated. At Cana, Jesus turned water into wine. A chemist could tell you theoretically how this could be done, even if we don’t have the scientific expertise to do so today.

Other posters said something similar. They also asserted that “miracles” and not really “miracles”, they are simply exploiting unknown laws of nature (of which there are many). This “degrades” God to a sleight-of-hand magician. The RCC of course says otherwise. When someone is selected to be canonized, one of the “requirements” is the perfomance of some “miracles”. So are there “real” miracles or not?

If there are, then we have a logically contradictory state of affairs, just like God being both incorporeal and corporeal at the same time. We can leave this discussion to a different thread if you so choose.

I obviously do not ask you believe anything that is in the Bible. What I do ask you to believe is that it is the primary criteria by which Christians understand the attributes of God. The most concise definition I can give you is that God can at least do everything attributed to him in the Bible.

That is fine. I always welcome the clarification of what you think. However, I cannot accept it as an argument supporting your position.

I apologize, but I don’t understand what you are asking here. I will take a crack at it if you restate it.

I thought it was obvious. It is different form of “can God create a stone which is so heavy that he cannot lift it”.

We humans, are able to create problems which are so difficult that the author cannot solve it. Therefore the proposition “person X can create a problem that he cannot solve” evaluates to be true. My question is: can you substitute “God” in the place of “person X”, without creating another paradox? Does the proposition “God can create a problem that he cannot solve” evaluate to true, or false?

 

[Miles_Mariae]

I thought it was obvious. It is different form of “can God create a stone which is so heavy that he cannot lift it”.

We humans, are able to create problems which are so difficult that the author cannot solve it. Therefore the proposition “person X can create a problem that he cannot solve” evaluates to be true. My question is: can you substitute “God” in the place of “person X”, without creating another paradox? Does the proposition “God can create a problem that he cannot solve” evaluate to true, or false?

“Person X can create a problem that he cannot solve” implies a defect and not a power. It seems that your proposition evaluates to false.

 

[Spock]

“Person X can create a problem that he cannot solve” implies a defect and not a power. It seems that your proposition evaluates to false.

The funny thing is that it does not matter. It is a defect either way. Either God is unable to create a sufficiently complex problem or unable to solve one… it is a lose-lose propostion.

The corollary is, that “omnipotence” steadily loses its meaning. Not just God cannot create logical contradictory states of affairs, but also unable to create logically possible states of affairs if they lead to a logical contradiction, but now it seems that God is unable to create a logically possible state of affairs, which do not lead to a logical contradiction.

God’s power - as indicated in some posts above - are not different in kind, merely different in degree. There are no “real” miracles, God cannot manipulate the laws of nature (he merely exploits some unknown laws), since those would lead to the violation of the law of identity and the law of contradiction.

And to top it off, it is asserted that God can create some logically contradictory states of affairs, like being corporeal and non-corporeal, by being inside and outside of time, by acting and being immutable (or static) etc…

So, as far as I am concerned, the concept of omnipotence is simply incoherent. And so is the concept of God.

 

[SonofMonica]

The problem with your hypothetical is not what it proves or disproves. It is nonsensical from the beginning. It is the equivalent of asking what a square circle looks like. Or could God create a square circle. It is meaningless as a concept and therefore cannot be used to create a “logic” proof.

 

[fhansen]

Case closed. The argument that freedom of action inevitably leads to immoral choices is null and void. Please do not use it again. Of course I am not naive to hope that all of you will read this post, or that those who read it can understand it. But be as it may, if anyone ever brings up the incorrect argument, I will only point them to this thread.

In Catholic thought the first immoral decision or misuse of free will by man was to deny Gods prerogative or authority in determining correct moral behavior. IOW, it may well be that any world actualized/instantiated would inevitably end up with immoral decisions being made for no other reason than that free will was given to less than perfect creation (the idea being that creation is inherently flawed or less-than-perfect relative to it’s creator). All other immoral decisions could flow from that first one because of the fact that moral decision-making was now disconnected from the creator but instead totally in the hands of creation.

 

[Spock]

In Catholic thought the first immoral decision or misuse of free will by man was to deny Gods prerogative or authority in determining correct moral behavior. IOW, it may well be that any world actualized/instantiated would inevitably end up with immoral decisions being made for no other reason than that free will was given to less than perfect creation (the idea being that creation is inherently flawed or less-than-perfect relative to it’s creator). All other immoral decisions could flow from that first one because of the fact that moral decision-making was now disconnected from the creator but instead totally in the hands of creation.

Of course the highlighted text contradicts the concept that we “really” have free will, if it would be inevitable that free decisions must lead to immoral decisons. More than one Catholic poster correctly pointed this out. Freedom to choose logically involves the **possibility **of immoral decisions, but it does not lead to the **actuality **of them.

 

[fhansen]

Of course the highlighted text contradicts the concept that we “really” have free will, if it would be inevitable that free decisions must lead to immoral decisons. More than one Catholic poster correctly pointed this out. Freedom to choose logically involves the **possibility **of immoral decisions, but it does not lead to the **actuality **of them.

**I’ll try again anyway. The degree of freedom in a free will can be relative. A will can be significantly-even radically-free, and therefore free enough to be culpable for its actions, but still have limitations. And if God or nature or whatever decided to create me without my consent it could also determine what should constitute correct moral behavior for me without my consent. A freedom capable of rebelling against this determined morality-against good- is not an evil in itself even if it were to inevitably result in evil-so long as evil doesn’t triumph in the end. And that’s the point-humankind, by having the benefit of time and experience, can have a change of heart-can modify their wills-and so come to choose good over evil-to make moral rather than immoral decisions. The “moral world” in this case is still actualized, but actualized over or within the dimension of time. But the will is still free-free enough to reject the order it had no part in designing. The flaw which could inevitably produce this outcome is the inherent flaw of creation lacking the wisdom to recognize the perfection of the wisdom behind the order in creation. God can’t make another God-so all are bound to “fall short”, at least while He’s “actualizing things”.
**

 

[tdgesq]

Clearly, (2) can be reformatted into

(2’) If God is omnipotent, he can create any logically possible state of affairs, which does not directly contain and does not lead to a logical contradiction.

Or, we could just use proposition (2’) that I offered in my first post:

(2’) If God is omnipotent, then God can create any state of affairs S such that “God creates S” is [logically] consistent.

Either way, we are in agreement.

Uh-oh. So just what does the word “create”, “actualize”, “instantiate” mean?

Whatever you defined them to be. You are the one who first used these terms, not me. We obviously both agree that God can do these things under the theistic worldview, at least where it does not lead to a logical inconsistency. Asking me to give you a comprehensive definition of biblical omnipotence is diversionary and unnecessary.

Other posters said something similar. They also asserted that “miracles” and not really “miracles”, they are simply exploiting unknown laws of nature (of which there are many). This “degrades” God to a sleight-of-hand magician. The RCC of course says otherwise. When someone is selected to be canonized, one of the “requirements” is the perfomance of some “miracles”. So are there “real” miracles or not?

This is similar to the caricature of God’s omniscience. I don’t know of a single scriptural teaching or dogma of the RCC that defines a “miracle” as a violation of the laws of nature. God created nature. It seems strange to me and many modern theologians that a miracle would entail such a violation. The only requirement is that God caused the miracle as a symbol of his great power, whether it is done within the laws of nature or not.

If there are, then we have a logically contradictory state of affairs, just like God being both incorporeal and corporeal at the same time.

Then so is the body/mind body/soul dualism apparently. Quite a few philosophers would disagree – even some non-theists. Surely you didn’t come here to debate the possibility of ontological dualism.

That is fine. I always welcome the clarification of what you think. However, I cannot accept it as an argument supporting your position.

It isn’t just what I think (regarding omnipotence). It’s what the majority of the Christian world teaches, and one would suppose that you are interested in actually proving that definition of omnipotence false rather than a caricature that few theists accept.

This is not meant to be insulting, but your understanding of dogmatic Catholic theology is not very accurate. What you might want to do is look up some of these issues in the Catechism of the Catholic Church if you are at all interested, recognizing that some of what you will find there are non-binding doctrinal statements.

 

[tdgesq]

The model I would suggest is this:

1. God is assumed omniscient, and “omnisicent” means that God knows everything that can be known.

This definition suffices.

1. Therefore God can “preview” all the possible worlds, and can choose or “create” or “actualize” one of them.

He can preview all possible worlds. He can choose to create one of these worlds so long as it does not result in a logical inconsistency.

1. Since your suggested W4 is one of these worlds, God can see it, and can choose to create it.

It depends upon what you mean by “God can choose to create it.” I agree that in some circumstances God can choose to create a world where all persons always do what is right, while in other circumstances he can’t because it would lead to a logical inconsistency. What are these “circumstances” I’m talking about? Let’s take a look at World Four (W4) again to see:

W4: (a) God creates persons with free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right; and (c) There is no evil in W4.

The theist agrees that W4 is a possible world. But notice that the individual property “always chooses what is right” is freely determined by those possible persons in W4. What that means is the individual property “always chooses what is right” is an indeterminate property in that it depends upon the choice the free person will make ie. not upon God causally determining it. Furthermore, since this indeterminate property depends upon the free choice of the person, its existence is contingent upon that person’s choice.

Now we can say that under these “circumstances” it is a logically possible state of affairs that God can create a world where all persons always choose what is right. And it is also true, as you pointed out, that God would seem to know who those possible persons would be and so would be in a position to only create that world as opposed to another. Here comes the problem.

On what basis does one conclude that there would ever be a possible person who always chooses what is right? The existence of the property “always chooses what is right” is contingent upon the free decision of the person. Since it is contingent upon the free decision of the person, it may be the case that every possible free person freely performs at least one morally wrong action. And if every possible free person performs at least one wrong action, then every actual free person also commits at least one wrong action. It follows that God could only create a world where persons always choose what is right by refusing to create any free persons at all.

What you seem to be missing is that the property “always chooses what is right” cannot be determined by God. It is an indeterminate property that is contingent upon the free decision of the person. But since it is contingent in this way, it could be that no possible person always chooses what is right. God’s omniscience doesn’t make any difference in this circumstance because he foresees that all persons will perform at least one morally wrong action.

In other words, W4 is only possible if there are possible persons who always choose what is right. Since that is contingent upon their free decision, and since God cannot determine that decision without logical contradiction, under these circumstances W4 is impossible.

Now you might object that Plantinga and I are just engaging in speculation here that all possible free persons would freely choose to commit at least one morally wrong action. That is true, but no more than you and Mackie who speculate that there are a bunch of possible persons out there who will never choose to commit a single morally wrong action. The point is that it is logically possible and consistent that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good and that God creates persons who sometimes perform morally evil actions.

So the corollary of the OP still stands, after the necessary revision of (2). God could have created a world where our free will exists, and there is no evil.

No, this hasn’t been proven to even be likely, much less proven to a mathematical certainty as you claimed in the OP. God could only have created a world where free will exists and there is no evil if there are a sufficient number of possible persons who freely decide never to commit a single morally wrong action. The argument in the OP fails.

I will be out of town all this coming week and won’t be able to post. It has been a pleasure discussing these issues with you, and I hope to be able to engage you again sometime in the near future.

 

[Spock]

Whatever you defined them to be. You are the one who first used these terms, not me. We obviously both agree that God can do these things under the theistic worldview, at least where it does not lead to a logical inconsistency. Asking me to give you a comprehensive definition of biblical omnipotence is diversionary and unnecessary.

As a matter of fact, I did not come up with this terminology. Philosophers and theologians use them extensively as an excellent tool to examine complex situations. (This is why I prefer to stick to the “one agent, one decision” scenario, and then use the tool of mathematical induction to examine the general sitiation.)

There is a bit of miscommunication, it seems. The concepts of “omnipotence”, “omniscience”, etc… are philosophical terms, even if they are used in theological discussions, as well. I think that a proper clarification is useful.

This is similar to the caricature of God’s omniscience. I don’t know of a single scriptural teaching or dogma of the RCC that defines a “miracle” as a violation of the laws of nature. God created nature. It seems strange to me and many modern theologians that a miracle would entail such a violation. The only requirement is that God caused the miracle as a symbol of his great power, whether it is done within the laws of nature or not.

So just what is a miracle? Or does it belong to a new thread? I brought it up, because a “proper miracle” would violate the law of identity.

An acorn does not “normally” grow into an oak tree or “miraculously” spawn a philosopher, at God’s whim. An acorn is acorn, and if God would change it into something else, then it would cease to be an acorn… It cannot be itself and also something else, which would also violate the law of contradiction. Calling it a “caricature” (or sometimes calling it a “mystery”) will not change the fact such propositions are contradictory.

Then so is the body/mind body/soul dualism apparently. Quite a few philosophers would disagree – even some non-theists.

Since the mind is the physical activity of the brain, there is no similarity to being both corporeal and non-corporeal at the same time. Or being inside time and outside it, too. Or acting in any manner, and being unchanging. (The “soul” is just another ill-defined and unproven concept, irrelevant to this discussion.)

It isn’t just what I think (regarding omnipotence). It’s what the majority of the Christian world teaches, and one would suppose that you are interested in actually proving that definition of omnipotence false rather than a caricature that few theists accept.

Until omnipotence is not properly defined, it can hardly be proven or disproven. And the number of people accepting or rejecting a concept is irrelevant to the validity of a concept.

This is not meant to be insulting, but your understanding of dogmatic Catholic theology is not very accurate. What you might want to do is look up some of these issues in the Catechism of the Catholic Church if you are at all interested, recognizing that some of what you will find there are non-binding doctrinal statements.

No offense taken. Again, I am not so much interested in the dogmas. The omnimax attributes can be examined as fully secular concepts, and if they don’t make any sense in a secular environment, then their application to theology is equally meaningless.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

So just what is a miracle? Or does it belong to a new thread? I brought it up, because a “proper miracle” would violate the law of identity.

An acorn does not “normally” grow into an oak tree or “miraculously” spawn a philosopher, at God’s whim. An acorn is acorn, and if God would change it into something else, then it would cease to be an acorn… It cannot be itself and also something else, which would also violate the law of contradiction. Calling it a “caricature” (or sometimes calling it a “mystery”) will not change the fact such propositions are contradictory.

I agree that this probably qualifies as another thread. But consider:

1. All physical laws that we know of are not necessarily physical laws. (This is entailed by our ignorance and God’s omnipotence.)
2. An acorn is an acorn. (Identity)
3. An acorn “turns into” a hat. This description is not actually accurate, however. For the first thing, the term “acorn” is used (according to many metaphysicians) inaccurately to refer to an object that is nothing but the sum of its part – atoms. These atoms could, perhaps be rearranged into a hat. But even that is unnecessary. Because…
4. Nothing can be created or destroyed. (Physical law.) This physical law is not necessarily valid – see #1.
5. The acorn ceases to exist. The hat begins to exist. You surely cannot say that this event could not be instantiated by an omniscient being?
6. No laws of logic have been violated, and yet – look, there! – it’s a hat. :tiphat:

 

[Spock]

1. All physical laws that we know of are not necessarily physical laws. (This is entailed by our ignorance and God’s omnipotence.)

I am sorry, but our ignorance is not “catholic”. Obviously we don’t know “everything”, and some of what we know is inaccurate. But that is a far cry from claiming that since we are not omniscient, **all **of our knowledge is automatically in question. That would be universal skepticism.

1. An acorn is an acorn. (Identity)

Right on!

1. An acorn “turns into” a hat. This description is not actually accurate, however. For the first thing, the term “acorn” is used (according to many metaphysicians) inaccurately to refer to an object that is nothing but the sum of its part – atoms. These atoms could, perhaps be rearranged into a hat. But even that is unnecessary. Because…

Well, my friend, then those metaphysicians should be sent back to high school to learn some elementary physics. To say that an object is merely the collection of its parts (atoms, molecules, etc…) is simply ignorance, and vulgar, too. And no, there is no soul needed to be hypothesized. Someone should teach them the concept of emerging attributes.

Consider 6 carbon atoms. Is it a graphite molecule, or is it a diamond molecule? The same carbon atoms, in different arrangement, and they are not the same. True, the carbon atoms can be rearranged into a chunk of diamond, by applying pressure, and then the hexagonal pattern would change into an octahedron.

1. Nothing can be created or destroyed. (Physical law.) This physical law is not necessarily valid – see #1.

Let’s be precise. It is not actually a law, rather a fundamental principle. It would take a whole lot to discard it, though it is possible - theoratically.

1. The acorn ceases to exist. The hat begins to exist. You surely cannot say that this event could not be instantiated by an omniscient being?

I am sure you mean omnipotent. And I doubt it. It would require a lot more than applying pressure, it would require “ex-nihilo creation” of new atoms, and reformatting their pattern into something else. If it could be done by a natural process then it would not be a “miracle”, since miracles are defined as events, which require “supernatural” involvement, not just application of insofar unknown laws of nature.

1. No laws of logic have been violated, and yet – look, there! – it’s a hat. :tiphat:

The law of identity has been violated.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

If it could be done by a natural process then it would not be a “miracle”, since miracles are defined as events, which require “supernatural” involvement, not just application of insofar unknown laws of nature.

That is begging the question. I did not define a miracle as requiring supernatural involvement. Tdgesq doesn’t think the Church does either. But for our purposes, it doesn’t matter what the Church says, because *if *the church says miracles must be “supernatural”, then it is clear that the Church hasn’t thought the matter out enough. (Sorry if that’s irreverent, but the laws of logic do trump the laws of the Church.)

There can be nothing supernatural, because nature is all there is. Nature is just a term that means “everything”. We can never know that the laws of nature are fully known to us, and science does not claim that we can. If there could be one single clear exception found to the law of gravity, we would throw out the theory. This is the scientific method.

And yeah, I did mean “omnipotent”.

 

[Spock]

That is begging the question. I did not define a miracle as requiring supernatural involvement. Tdgesq doesn’t think the Church does either. But for our purposes, it doesn’t matter what the Church says, because *if *the church says miracles must be “supernatural”, then it is clear that the Church hasn’t thought the matter out enough. (Sorry if that’s irreverent, but the laws of logic do trump the laws of the Church.)

Well, I sure do not quarrel with that.

There can be nothing supernatural, because nature is all there is. Nature is just a term that means “everything”.

Hear, hear!!! But do not be surprised if you will get flamed for this… but it will not come from me.

We can never know that the laws of nature are fully known to us, and science does not claim that we can. If there could be one single clear exception found to the law of gravity, we would throw out the theory. This is the scientific method.

I agree 100%…

 

[Spock]

It depends upon what you mean by “God can choose to create it.” I agree that in some circumstances God can choose to create a world where all persons always do what is right, while in other circumstances he can’t because it would lead to a logical inconsistency. What are these “circumstances” I’m talking about? Let’s take a look at World Four (W4) again to see:

W4: (a) God creates persons with free will; (b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right; and (c) There is no evil in W4.

The theist agrees that W4 is a possible world. But notice that the individual property “always chooses what is right” is freely determined by those possible persons in W4. What that means is the individual property “always chooses what is right” is an indeterminate property in that it depends upon the choice the free person will make ie. not upon God causally determining it. Furthermore, since this indeterminate property depends upon the free choice of the person, its existence is contingent upon that person’s choice.

If it is indeterminate, then it cannot be “foreseen” - in principle, which, of course contradicts God’s omniscience. You will deny this, but that is OK. If it is foreseen, by some process, then there are two possible worlds. If God **can **instantiate only one, then there was no “free will”. If God can instantiate either one, then there was free will, but God because responsible for making the “wrong” choice.

Now we can say that under these “circumstances” it is a logically possible state of affairs that God can create a world where all persons always choose what is right. And it is also true, as you pointed out, that God would seem to know who those possible persons would be and so would be in a position to only create that world as opposed to another. Here comes the problem.

There is no problem. Let’s play out the thought experiment of the “fall” - which is similar to my one agent, one decison scenario. Before the fall, there were two possible worlds:

W1: Adam+Eve chose to obey, and there was no fall.
W2: Adam+Eve chose to disobey, and there was the fall.

Did God foresee the outcome of the event? By omniscience he would have.
Could Adam+Eve have chose otherwise? By the free will they could have.

Now what does it mean that God “created” this world (W2) and not the other one (W1)? Does it mean anything at all?

The creation must have been a conscious process. Since both W1 and W2 are logically possible and non-contradictory, God could have chosen to “create” either one of them. If you say that only W2 is possible, then Adam+Eve did not have free will.

On what basis does one conclude that there would ever be a possible person who always chooses what is right?

It follows from mathematical induction. We can investigate it once we dealt with the situation I outlined above.

I will be out of town all this coming week and won’t be able to post. It has been a pleasure discussing these issues with you, and I hope to be able to engage you again sometime in the near future.

Have a great time! Hope to see you when you return.

 

[fhansen]

If you say that only W2 is possible, then Adam+Eve did not have free will.

But God knowing they would fall is still different than God determining that they would fall. So W2 may’ve been the only possible world.