Yes. But if they are sequential then please say what the sequence is.
what difference does it make? they could occur in any sequence you like.
Ani Ibi:
John, the point of giving you two quotes from Truthstalker is that the OP gave a definition of thinking as linear. I did not.
sure, but that’s not what
i’ve been saying; what’s more, it’s a claim i’ve been at some pains to show as irrelevant.
Ani Ibi:
How does this demonstrate that “God cannot have any thought that requires more than one temporal point to describe it”?
Can you give me a link to the Boethius source please so that I can get the context? And can you step me through your line of reasoning – so that I can follow you – starting with the premise that “eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life” and ending with “God’s thoughts are one temporal point”? Thank you.
well, the stanford enyclopedia of philosophy has a good article on “eternity” that (naturally enough) discusses boethius:
science.uva.nl/~seop/archives/sum2006/entries/eternity/
as for the argument from “complete, simultaneous, and perfect possession of everlasting life” to “god’s existence is a mathematical point”, i’m not sure i can make it any more clear than it seems to me from boethius’ own words…
temporal points determine
when something happens - the contents of a temporal point are said to have occurred
at that time. which means, of course, that, by definition, occupants of
different temporal points occur at
different times (in the same way that occupants of different spatial points occur at different places).
so. while
events can occur simultaneously (i.e. at the same time), temporal instants
cannot occur “simultaneously”; if they
did, then they would no longer be
different points in time, but rather
one and the same point in time.
thus, “the complete, simultaneous, perfect possession” of all of the temporal instants that constitute “everlasting life” entails that all of those instants occur at the
same, one instant.
Ani Ibi:
Well, you say any kind of time. Did Aquinas know that time could be space? That time could be non-linear?
There could be a kind of time in which everything God does is simultaneous. And that would be non-linear time.
time can never be space; if it was, it wouldn’t be time - it would be space. time can be
spatial to the extent that it is considered to be a dimension, but that’s not the same thing as time being space…
and aquinas (and i) would agree that god could exist in non-linear time: aquinas would say that god exists at a temporal point (although calling such a point “temporal” does violence to the standard definition of “time”)…
Ani Ibi:
Yes, I am following your logic. Still not sure about the first premise that God’s existence is like a mathematical point. The Jesuits say: God in all things. If God’s existence is like a mathematical point then that point – even if it were outside the world – would have to extend to all points in the world and you have just said that He can’t do that. So how does God get into all points in the world?
why would god have to exist at all points in the world?
even if you were right, stump and kretzmann have an interesting theory as to how one point
can extend to an infinite number of other points without thereby ceasing to be a mathematical point (imagine a line of infinite length, and a mathematical point at some distance above that line; then simply connect that one point to each point in the line; hey presto).
Ani Ibi:
In any case, some sort of slide has happened in your line of reasoning between God’s thoughts and God’s existence. Is there a relationship between the two that is important? Or can we just limit ourselves to God’s thoughts?
well, traditionally speaking, there is no distinction at all in god - between essence, existence, knowledge, love, truth, beauty, power, etc. - so to speak of one of them is to speak of them all in a very real sense.
that having been said, we can simply speak of god’s thoughts.
