The act creation is logically impossible

[mytruepower2]

That most believe the paper to be mistaken shows that it is not mistaken.

This is called an Ad Populum Reversal, and it commits the same reasoning flaw as the original Ad Populum fallacy. Namely, it appeals to popular opinion to determine its findings; not to the facts, as it should.

 

[Ryuji_Yamazaki]

This is called an Ad Populum Reversal, and it commits the same reasoning flaw as the original Ad Populum fallacy. Namely, it appeals to popular opinion to determine its findings; not to the facts, as it should.

You have not read the PNAS paper. The paper does report empirical findings to the effect that the masses, in consequence of social influence, have homogeneous & stubborn beliefs that are false.

Now were masses convinced of the truth of the paper, that would be a counterexample to it. But, as seen in you & others, the opposite holds: an example of what the paper shows.

 

[Bahman]

Incorrect. When I refer to past events, I don’t mean “events that I remember,” but rather “events which causally effect my present.” Nothing can causally effect anything else unless both things exist.

What you decide to do at the spot change your state of being.

That’s like saying that we can’t measure a two-dimensional line because we’re not two-dimensional.

Nah, it is different. God being is state of timeless cannot know and measure time since it is in state of timeless.

I’m confused. Which premise of my argument are you arguing is false?

1. On the tensed theory, the measuring of moments is little more than a fiction, since only the present moment exists.
2. I know that my watch is right when it counts three seconds in a row.
   C. Therefore, the tensed theory is not true.

You seem to be arguing against the second premise, but this premise is always confirmed and never disconfirmed, so you will need some powerful evidence in order to disprove it in any sort of reasonable way. I await your evidence eagerly.

It is not a fiction, since state of moment is state of new events and changes. What we observe are events from a large series, one comes after another in contentious manner at spot and we are able to observe a part of it. Imagine yourself as an observer in a creation that nothing changes. What would be the perception of time?

Your “focal attack point” is simply too weak, as it rests on a fallacious theory of time.

It is not. Once the truth is fixed/determined from God point of view then it is fixed in its nature. I believe that our decisions could not be known by God, hence omniscience is subject of change. Please read prophet argument in the following.

God is utterly transcendant in relation to creation. As for creating and interacting with creation, this is not a limitation for God, because creation and interaction are both -results- of the same -single, divine action.- Therefore, this is not a serious limitation.

Creation and interaction are different in their essences one is not subject of our action/wishes another is, so they could not be performed at the same point.

Accepting that the future is real in no way results in the claim that -future happenings are inevitable,- which would indeed result in determinism.

I’ve said, again and again, that Gods knowledge is -not a causal factor at all,- and so does not prevent certain events from happening.

What do you mean by “does not prevent certain events from happening”? If future is true we always have one option true and the rests false. Is it possible do perform a false action, an action which was not supposed to happened, striving to power of prophecy? I mean, if I had access to a prophet the first question I would ask is what I am going to do in a couple of second from God point of view then do opposite!

Now, that’s a good question, but it’s not relevant to the issue at hand. The issue, and you’ve yet to refute this, is that knowledge alone does not restrict what may or may not happen. Even if I can predict your every reply, that doesn’t mean that you lack free will, or other such nonsense.

I ask a prophet what would happen?, team X win the game is the answer, players in team X refuse to play well and lose, which is against God’s omniscience. In fact prophet argument is very strong in challenging Gods omniscience.

On the contrary, as I outlined, effects of an action are -very rarely- simultaneous with the action itself. For example, a car crash. The action is that you react to someone entering your lane by swerving to the left. The result is a crash with the car to the left of you, which doesn’t take place until a second and a half -later.- This is a knock-down argument against your position on this subject. Therefore, if you want us to believe that you’re right about this, you must first prove that a car crash -does not- happen later than the decision to swerve (not merely assert that it doesn’t,) and then present some good evidence that all decisions are simultaneous with their effects. Until you do this, your position can’t be considered a reasonable one to hold.

No action no changes. The car crash in this example is the result of driver action. The result depends if driver perform an action either go straight or swerve to the left. “No changes” in here means that outcome would be same, crash of first two cars. Of course the result of action, accident as you defined which is different from swerving to the left which is immediate, happens a while later.

 

[Bahman]

Gods view of temporal reality(creation) sees all existent reality at once, what we would call past, present and future all at once. This does not deny free will, there is no determinism here. There is a difference between seeing all actual and possible events and then determining each outcome. God sees what we will do with our free will (To use a poor analogy if every moment of temporal existence were represented as a photograph, God sees each photograph in their individuality and sees them all at once, like some sort of massive collage of creation. He doesn’t decide which order they go in, like they were dominos.)

Free will is an delusion once omniscience is accepted following prophecy argument. I would ask a prophet about my future action in a couple of second whatever s/he says I would do the opposite. Free will becomes an delusion if I cannot do the opposite.

 

[Theophorus]

Free will is an delusion once omniscience is accepted following prophecy argument. I would ask a prophet about my future action in a couple of second whatever s/he says I would do the opposite. Free will becomes an delusion if I cannot do the opposite.

The Prophet argument?? So some guy tells you team X will win, you believe him and then they decide to throw the match, and this somehow proves free will vs omniscience?
I must apologise but the logic in this is unclear, especially as I explicitly rejected the possibility of determinism vs. free will in my previous post.

Assuming your prophet is not a conman/woman and they can indeed predict the future, that is still not omniscience, rather that is a particular act of limited individual foreknowledge(for example they do not know what you will do if/when you receive this knowledge etc.). The ‘prophet’ is still a person who exists in time in a finite way, the argument is not applicable to the Catholic understanding of God as pure act.

God as eternal Being, knows all possible and actual events in an eternal ‘no-time’, not as some two-bit rent-a-prophet who him/herself changes. The prophet argument as applied to God is logically flawed.

 

[Bahman]

The Prophet argument?? So some guy tells you team X will win, you believe him and then they decide to throw the match, and this somehow proves free will vs omniscience?
I must apologise but the logic in this is unclear, especially as I explicitly rejected the possibility of determinism vs. free will in my previous post.

Assuming your prophet is not a conman/woman and they can indeed predict the future, that is still not omniscience, rather that is a particular act of limited individual foreknowledge(for example they do not know what you will do if/when you receive this knowledge etc.). The ‘prophet’ is still a person who exists in time in a finite way, the argument is not applicable to the Catholic understanding of God as pure act.

God as eternal Being, knows all possible and actual events in an eternal ‘no-time’, not as some two-bit rent-a-prophet who him/herself changes. The prophet argument as applied to God is logically flawed.

Foreknowledge is an important part of omniscience.

 

[Theophorus]

Foreknowledge is an important part of omniscience.

Your argument equates foreknowledge with omniscience, and they are not exactly the same thing. In fact I do not believe that you could even argue that foreknowledge is apart of omniscience at all.

Foreknowledge, if/when it occurs takes place in a finite temporal situation, it is predicting the future/future events. If we look for examples of foreknowledge being exercised by humans we must look to the Old Testament prophets. When they predicted the future it often changed events altered possible outcomes. That is not what Catholics speak of when we discuss omniscience.

Omniscience as Catholics understand it in relation to God is an atemporal reality, it is not seeing the future, but rather it is God seeing all[not just what we delimit by time and space] of reality at once. God on our view sees reality in its totality.

From our point of view(we need to use temporal terms analogically here) that is seeing each individual moment/act that ever was can or will be in the particular, all at once and eternally. [The image of the painting in the Mind of the painter, whether it gets painted or not, remains a useful if limited analogy here]

(from a metaphysical point of view, I don’t see how any being but God could be omnisciencent)

 

[Bahman]

Your argument equates foreknowledge with omniscience, and they are not exactly the same thing. In fact I do not believe that you could even argue that foreknowledge is apart of omniscience at all.

Foreknowledge, if/when it occurs takes place in a finite temporal situation, it is predicting the future/future events. If we look for examples of foreknowledge being exercised by humans we must look to the Old Testament prophets. When they predicted the future it often changed events altered possible outcomes. That is not what Catholics speak of when we discuss omniscience.

Omniscience as Catholics understand it in relation to God is an atemporal reality, it is not seeing the future, but rather it is God seeing all[not just what we delimit by time and space] of reality at once. God on our view sees reality in its totality.

From our point of view(we need to use temporal terms analogically here) that is seeing each individual moment/act that ever was can or will be in the particular, all at once and eternally. [The image of the painting in the Mind of the painter, whether it gets painted or not, remains a useful if limited analogy here]

(from a metaphysical point of view, I don’t see how any being but God could be omnisciencent)

What we experience is a part of reality, God seeing all reality at once is omniscience hence what we experience is part of omniscience. God should be able to know a temporal event that will happen for us from the whole reality it sees at once otherwise what God knows/sees is not knowledge. In this regards foreknowledge is a part of omniscience.

 

[mytruepower2]

What you decide to do at the spot change your state of being.

There can be no “change” without a “before” and an “after,” and therefore a state in which “before” and “after” both exist, and can be compared.

Nah, it is different. God being is state of timeless cannot know and measure time since it is in state of timeless.

Prove it.

It is not a fiction, since state of moment is state of new events and changes. What we observe are events from a large series, one comes after another in contentious manner at spot and we are able to observe a part of it. Imagine yourself as an observer in a creation that nothing changes. What would be the perception of time?

So it’s premise 1 you’re arguing against, in other words.

The problem here is that “new events and changes” are not the same thing as “moments.” Furthermore, I don’t see how you can say “one moment” comes after “another moment,” if there is no state of affairs in which both moments exist, and can be compared in this way.

It is not. Once the truth is fixed/determined from God point of view then it is fixed in its nature. I believe that our decisions could not be known by God, hence omniscience is subject of change. Please read prophet argument in the following.

Wrong. God’s knowledge of something is not the same thing as fixing or determining it. Have you read any theology on this subject?

Creation and interaction are different in their essences one is not subject of our action/wishes another is, so they could not be performed at the same point.

These things may be different to us, but not be different in God, so this is hardly strong evidence.

What do you mean by “does not prevent certain events from happening”? If future is true we always have one option true and the rests false. Is it possible do perform a false action, an action which was not supposed to happened, striving to power of prophecy? I mean, if I had access to a prophet the first question I would ask is what I am going to do in a couple of second from God point of view then do opposite!

The actual existence of the future just means that future moments are real, just as past and present moments are real, but it doesn’t mean that the -events,- which inhabit those moments are necessary. The events may be contingent instead. The only way for God’s knowledge to fix future events would be if his knowledge was of -each event propositionally,- but as I said, that’s false. That’s not what God’s knowledge is like at all. Just because God is a necessary being, it doesn’t follow that all propositional things that fall overarchingly into his non-propositional knowledge are also necessary.

I ask a prophet what would happen?, team X win the game is the answer, players in team X refuse to play well and lose, which is against God’s omniscience. In fact prophet argument is very strong in challenging Gods omniscience.

Actually, no. Not really. Look at the prophet Jonah, who basically did exactly what you’re describing. Yet, what Jonah failed to understand was that far from being committed to fulfill the -events- that he’d predicted, God was providing knowledge of how things -would be- if the people didn’t change. When the people -did- change, so did future contingent events based on that.

I suggest a thorough investigation into the nature of contingent events and divine middle knowledge.

No action no changes. The car crash in this example is the result of driver action. The result depends if driver perform an action either go straight or swerve to the left. “No changes” in here means that outcome would be same, crash of first two cars. Of course the result of action, accident as you defined which is different from swerving to the left which is immediate, happens a while later.

Right, so how can we compare these things, since, on the tensed theory, there’s no state of affairs in which both the action and its consequence -really- exist?

 

[Bahman]

There can be no “change” without a “before” and an “after,” and therefore a state in which “before” and “after” both exist, and can be compared.

There can be since what happen on the spot is changes otherwise everything is freezed hence the concept of before and after make no senses.

Prove it.

To measure/observe changes one need a mind which could change, God’s mind is static/changeless so God cannot observe changes hence could not have any impression of time.

So it’s premise 1 you’re arguing against, in other words.

The problem here is that “new events and changes” are not the same thing as “moments.” Furthermore, I don’t see how you can say “one moment” comes after “another moment,” if there is no state of affairs in which both moments exist, and can be compared in this way.

Our minds are unphysical entities hence they could absorb changes without any delay since time is attached to physical beings. Our bodies however act like a bottleneck absorbing a part of events which leads to concept of time. It is the fact that our physical beings cannot adopt itself with the fast changes.

Wrong. God’s knowledge of something is not the same thing as fixing or determining it. Have you read any theology on this subject?

Yes, I have read a lot. The main problem with omniscience is that it lead to determinism from God point of view hence God is aware of everything, in another word things are determined from God point of view so they are determined in their nature. Another problem with omniscience is that it could be contingent subject to our knowledge so it is not true. I mean how something could be true and its trueness is subject to pure ignorance!

The actual existence of the future just means that future moments are real, just as past and present moments are real, but it doesn’t mean that the -events,- which inhabit those moments are necessary. The events may be contingent instead. The only way for God’s knowledge to fix future events would be if his knowledge was of -each event propositionally,- but as I said, that’s false. That’s not what God’s knowledge is like at all. Just because God is a necessary being, it doesn’t follow that all propositional things that fall overarchingly into his non-propositional knowledge are also necessary.

So what are saying is that God’s omniscience could be subject of change if we have access to it?

Actually, no. Not really. Look at the prophet Jonah, who basically did exactly what you’re describing. Yet, what Jonah failed to understand was that far from being committed to fulfill the -events- that he’d predicted, God was providing knowledge of how things -would be- if the people didn’t change. When the people -did- change, so did future contingent events based on that.

I suggest a thorough investigation into the nature of contingent events and divine middle knowledge.

But God’s omniscience cannot change.

Right, so how can we compare these things, since, on the tensed theory, there’s no state of affairs in which both the action and its consequence -really- exist?

That what makes free will a very interesting quality, we do X or Y depending on how do we decide at the spot and things follow accordingly.

 

[Ryuji_Yamazaki]

Bahman, your philosophy is such that whatever conclusion you reach, you will have to overthrow it for otherwise you will have to confess that something changes not, namely your conclusion. As a matter of fact, your very philosophy, should be overthrown. Otherwise it is inconsistent.

If you believe that everything changes then notice that the aforementioned belief, itself, changes not.

 

[Bahman]

Bahman, your philosophy is such that whatever conclusion you reach, you will have to overthrow it for otherwise you will have to confess that something changes not, namely your conclusion. As a matter of fact, your very philosophy, should be overthrown. Otherwise it is inconsistent.

If you believe that everything changes then notice that the aforementioned belief, itself, changes not.

The conclusion is the title of the thread. How a thread evolves is however not up to me. You can open your own thread on a topic and see how discussion forks into many different topics since most important topics are related and a discussion related to them are needed. It would be a very difficult task to merge different discussions and conclude something from it. Thanks for your advise anyway.

 

[dshix]

Bahman, your premises are flawed. I generally don’t post on your threads because I find it to be a fruitless exercise, but perhaps you could redeem yourself a bit by actually proving your premises, such as the premise that a being cannot know something outside of its experience. How can you prove that God can’t know something he hasn’t created yet?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Bahman lives in Plao’s cave, now I get it.

Linus2nd

 

[Bahman]

A being cannot know something outside of its experience.

It depend whether what is experienced has free will or not. Either God knows what free will is or not.

In first case, God could know what would be our actions which is consistent with God omniscience. The main question is whether we can do the opposite of what is known having access to God omniscience. This opens to two scenarios, 1) We cannot: This means that the knowledge of God about our action cannot help us to do the opposite which turn us to simple devices since our action depends solely on the situation hence the concept of free will is a delusion. 2) We can: This means the omniscience is subject of the change depending on whether we decide to do opposite or not. In this case the knowledge depends on experience which God could not have prior to this experiment hence the concept of omniscience in broad sense that God knows our actions is a delusion.

In second case, we have two problems here too 1) How God could create something that it doesn’t know? 2) Assuming that God could create something does not know how it could have omniscience? Since assuming that that omniscience is true leads to contradiction meaning that God could not create beings with free will.

This leads to conclusion that either free will or omniscience (in strong form) is a delusion.

How can you prove that God can’t know something he hasn’t created yet?

Following the previous discussion God cannot know creation with free will, it hasn’t created yet. This however has consequences namely either God is in state of timeless/changeless which means that God is causally separated from creation hence omniscience is changeless since otherwise the knowledge of state of creation with free will require changes in state of changeless which is a contradiction or God is in state of time and is casually related to creation with free will. This however requires that God mutate from state of timeless to time at the moment of creation.

 

[ephesians4]

“Omnipotent is having unlimited power to perform any act which is logically possible.”

Why is an omnipotent being constrained to things we understand to be logically possible? Isn’t that definition broken?

 

[Aloysium]

Our understanding as to whether something is logically possible is not part of the definition.
God created circles whose circumference is pi times the diameter.
He could have created a universe without circles but given that he did, that relationship can only be what it is.
It may be a circular argument, lol, since He created something, it is logically possible.

 

[Bahman]

“Omnipotent is having unlimited power to perform any act which is logically possible.”

Why is an omnipotent being constrained to things we understand to be logically possible? Isn’t that definition broken?

Since it is logically impossible to have omniscience at the point of creation knowing that omniscience itself is subject of change once it is known by an agent with free will. In another world it is the problem of omniscience not omnipotence.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I wonder how many Bahmanites there are in the world? What it boils down to is that there is no God and the world simply is a " hard fact, " for which there is no explanation. And that is not reasonable, Indeed, in such a world, reason would be impossible, because in that world there would be no mind by which to reason.

Linus2nd

 

[Aloysium]

Since it is logically impossible to have omniscience at the point of creation knowing that omniscience itself is subject of change once it is known by an agent with free will. In another world it is the problem of omniscience not omnipotence.

I am not omniscient but I have got a modicum of understanding about human nature.
I am telling you that you will continue to utter this sort of nonsense, either on this forum or elsewhere. This will be the case until you undergo a conversion (have a realization, achieve enlightenment/transcendence, etc.)
You will carry on because you choose to remain as you are.
I am just some random idiot on the Internet, but perhaps God is speaking to you through me.