The great hallucination

[Picky_Picky]

I have a couple minutes. Thought we could summarize to this point -

If God exists:

1. Creation knows God exists only by action(s) from God.
2. Why does God care to share this info (that He exists)? God wants creation to know because of Love and want for His Creation.
   Reason 1 of I’m sure many, but the key is we can continue evaluating, rather than cut-off due to concluding there is no reason God would want to let Creation know about Him.

I think we’ve laid the groundwork to enter the ‘deducing God’ section. We’ll have to remember to test our threads to this point to ensure we want to keep them or throw them away as we build our blanket.

If you don’t think you’ll listen to that recording, let me know and I’ll kick us off with the logic (probably in very short form). Then we can bat it around.

May well be able to listen to the recording. Bear with me.

So far: no, I’m not in agreement.

God could exist without our knowing it. If he does exist and we do know about it, we could perhaps have been told about it by someone else ( another god). Or he could exist, and we do know about it because he wants us to know about it, but that doesn’t come from love but from, say, hate, warning, wish to cause fear, self-regard, a game, a wish to interfere, etc etc. Or, of course, he exists but we have no certain way of knowing. Or he doesn’t exist at all.

If he does exist, and if he does want us to know it, I have suggested three ways he could let us know. I still think they are fair. Of course I think he hasn’t chosen any of them (and I think I know why that is), and you think he has chosen at least one of them.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Excellent.

It’s probably about time to pull from what is thus far the best logical process to deduce God I’ve heard. To save a lot of words, if you have the ability to download the talk from the following site and listen to it, we can discuss the thought process without laying the long bit of logic all out here…

lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/speaker/fr-michael-schmitz
(Third selection down on the page, the picture of the talk is just a white background with the words “Jesus is… __________.” (note, I have no gain in the advert., it’s just good information)

If you are not interested, let me know and I can try and compact the thought process as we go forward. But this guy does a great job as he explains an encounter.

Mmm, sorry, I think you’d better try and compact the thought process if you feel up to it.

 

[eddie_too]

blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

why do some believe and others do not? that is one of the great mysteries of faith and life.

is there any reason to believe that a human being can experience the gifts that result from faith without first receiving that faith?

this creates quite a dilemma for the non-believer. for, the non-believer rejects what the believer has personally experienced. the non-believer is placed in the position of telling the believer that the transformation that is occurring in the life and heart of the believer is not real, even though the non-believer has no experiential knowledge of this transformation.

millions and millions have testified to the reality of the transformation that begins with the first “I believe”. still the non-believer persists in trying to convince the faithful that their experience of transformation is not real.

imagine the conundrum created for the person who says that what you are experiencing is not real because I am not experiencing it; and, then to assert such a claim to the hundreds of millions who testify to the contrary!!!

 

[ffg]

May well be able to listen to the recording. Bear with me.

So far: no, I’m not in agreement.

God could exist without our knowing it. If he does exist and we do know about it, we could perhaps have been told about it by someone else ( another god). Or he could exist, and we do know about it because he wants us to know about it, but that doesn’t come from love but from, say, hate, warning, wish to cause fear, self-regard, a game, a wish to interfere, etc etc. Or, of course, he exists but we have no certain way of knowing. Or he doesn’t exist at all.

If he does exist, and if he does want us to know it, I have suggested three ways he could let us know. I still think they are fair. Of course I think he hasn’t chosen any of them (and I think I know why that is), and you think he has chosen at least one of them.

I hope your time in the real world was fruitful. It’s good to get away from this world of blinding backlit headaches.

We had some chaos in our family that drove me to change my signature, which by default, outs me from behind the false sense of anonymity in this world of 1’s and 0’s. Thus, I am Mike from now on.

I love your first full paragraph, I think it opens even more doors if you wish to continue discussing.

As a start of response, I think what I wrote in this other thread might tie in a little as we progress. It at least adds another bullet point to think about… (post 21 on this linked thread)

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=12068599#post12068599

I’ll have to return for more thoughts on this post.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

Mmm, sorry, I think you’d better try and compact the thought process if you feel up to it.

Will do.

Sorry it didn’t work out. I assume from your note it wasn’t a technical problem.

His style is tough to follow, he is addressing a younger crowd and moves really fast.

I was hopeful.

 

[Picky_Picky]

blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

why do some believe and others do not? that is one of the great mysteries of faith and life.

is there any reason to believe that a human being can experience the gifts that result from faith without first receiving that faith?

this creates quite a dilemma for the non-believer. for, the non-believer rejects what the believer has personally experienced. the non-believer is placed in the position of telling the believer that the transformation that is occurring in the life and heart of the believer is not real, even though the non-believer has no experiential knowledge of this transformation.

millions and millions have testified to the reality of the transformation that begins with the first “I believe”. still the non-believer persists in trying to convince the faithful that their experience of transformation is not real.

imagine the conundrum created for the person who says that what you are experiencing is not real because I am not experiencing it; and, then to assert such a claim to the hundreds of millions who testify to the contrary!!!

You identify a real difficulty — one which attends equally, of course, on the encounter of a believer of one faith with the believer of another. Unfortunately you suggest no resolution to this difficulty, and no inferences to be drawn from it.

 

[ffg]

May well be able to listen to the recording. Bear with me.

So far: no, I’m not in agreement.

God could exist without our knowing it. If he does exist and we do know about it, we could perhaps have been told about it by someone else ( another god). Or he could exist, and we do know about it because he wants us to know about it, but that doesn’t come from love but from, say, hate, warning, wish to cause fear, self-regard, a game, a wish to interfere, etc etc. Or, of course, he exists but we have no certain way of knowing. Or he doesn’t exist at all.

If he does exist, and if he does want us to know it, I have suggested three ways he could let us know. I still think they are fair. Of course I think he hasn’t chosen any of them (and I think I know why that is), and you think he has chosen at least one of them.

Hi Picky,

I’m glad we are not in agreement, this would be pretty boring for folks to read if we were cheerleading for each other!

I’m with you on your first point of the first paragraph, God could exist without us knowing. I mean, being God would definitely come with the power to inform, or not. And ‘not’ could definitely be chosen.

I also concur on the second point that folks other than God would / could do his communicating for him, be it other gods (God would have had to make these), or maybe other spirits God made, or humans communicating for him even, yuck!

In any case of the ‘middleman’ - it would take God to get the ear of the middleman, which by default in such an action - is knowledge of God’s existence.

I would guess a middleman would feel pretty obligated to get the information out too, considering working for the boss of all bosses, the middleman would want to keep God on his side. Even if getting the information out is a real pain (literally).

If there are folks in Heaven, I bet a few of them are looking down seeing ‘White Out’ and keyboards cringing that they didn’t have such luxuries when they were writing in hiding with their necks being hunted!

Argh. Scanning back through the posts, I can't find the name of the gentleman you mentioned who posits our original discussion point on the likelihood of hallucination (my word) over miracle. His name is slipping my gray matter.

But I was thinking we could apply that concept to your main paragraph, to logic that God is a loving one.

It seems much more likely that if God exists I am here because he wants me to be here and that His nature doesn't allow for corrections, otherwise I would have been erased a long time ago. If He did not want me, why would the most logical being to exist make me? Seems illogical.

I feel like this is a bit of a rehash, but - if God exists, surely He is one being that does not error, waste, or do what he does not want to do.

We as humans try to only do what we want to do, what we like to do, avoid discomfort. Surely if God exists, his doing is the most pure form of doing what one likes. 

Speaking of the three ways of communication you mentioned, we never got back to a confirm on if we can keep all types of communication under an umbrella for now. We can then work on the means of communication later. I think it's tough to discuss the form of communication when we haven't made it to the 'He does communicate' stage (I somewhat addressed this stage in this post).

I think I know why you think you know why God has not chosen any of the communication methods, we can keep it our secret.

Say that one 3 times fast!

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

Hi Picky,

I’m glad we are not in agreement, this would be pretty boring for folks to read if we were cheerleading for each other!

I’m with you on your first point of the first paragraph, God could exist without us knowing. I mean, being God would definitely come with the power to inform, or not. And ‘not’ could definitely be chosen.

I also concur on the second point that folks other than God would / could do his communicating for him, be it other gods (God would have had to make these), or maybe other spirits God made, or humans communicating for him even, yuck!

In any case of the ‘middleman’ - it would take God to get the ear of the middleman, which by default in such an action - is knowledge of God’s existence.

I would guess a middleman would feel pretty obligated to get the information out too, considering working for the boss of all bosses, the middleman would want to keep God on his side. Even if getting the information out is a real pain (literally).

If there are folks in Heaven, I bet a few of them are looking down seeing ‘White Out’ and keyboards cringing that they didn’t have such luxuries when they were writing in hiding with their necks being hunted!

Argh. Scanning back through the posts, I can't find the name of the gentleman you mentioned who posits our original discussion point on the likelihood of hallucination (my word) over miracle. His name is slipping my gray matter.

But I was thinking we could apply that concept to your main paragraph, to logic that God is a loving one.

It seems much more likely that if God exists I am here because he wants me to be here and that His nature doesn't allow for corrections, otherwise I would have been erased a long time ago. If He did not want me, why would the most logical being to exist make me? Seems illogical.

I feel like this is a bit of a rehash, but - if God exists, surely He is one being that does not error, waste, or do what he does not want to do.

We as humans try to only do what we want to do, what we like to do, avoid discomfort. Surely if God exists, his doing is the most pure form of doing what one likes. 

Speaking of the three ways of communication you mentioned, we never got back to a confirm on if we can keep all types of communication under an umbrella for now. We can then work on the means of communication later. I think it's tough to discuss the form of communication when we haven't made it to the 'He does communicate' stage (I somewhat addressed this stage in this post).

I think I know why you think you know why God has not chosen any of the communication methods, we can keep it our secret.

Say that one 3 times fast!

Take care,

Mike

Hi Mike

The gent was David Hume.

I’m happy to keep the three methods under one umbrella so long as the rain doesn’t get too heavy.

One of the problems I have with the points you make is that you seem to be assuming an awful lot about God’s nature. Why would he necessarily be logical? Why should we assume that he doesn’t err or waste or do what he doesn’t want to do? And why would other gods or spirits necessarily be made by God (didn’t you say elsewhere that Satan was not necessarily made by God?).

The Greek, Roman and Norse gods don’t seem to fit your view of God. And while this is not the time, perhaps, to discuss things like the Flood, that event doesn’t exactly speak of an inerrant God of pure logic (please don’t answer that point now! I’m just using it as an example of how I think you are making unproven assumptions about God’s nature).

Normally I wouldn’t query what you say – I would just tell myself “Ah, he’s talking about a single creator God who is the ultimate in logic and love” and talk on that basis. But you are about to build a case on the back of your assumptions, so I need to point out now that they are as yet unagreed.

Picky

 

[ffg]

Picky_Picky:
Hi Picky,

Thanks for the Hume note.

A pub and face time would sure be easier, no? Sorry about the length here, but I don’t want a response to linger and don’t know how much time I’ll find in the coming days. This is a lot. I will exclude your text as folks can just look up.

What timing we have today. I’m driving in and the link in this post is on the radio. It touches on variances between pagan gods and the God as described in Genesis. Start at minute 15, if the first few make you itchy. If you can hang in the first 15, I find it interesting that he reads what will be a read at his funeral.

This is not the same guy as the guy you tried to listen to previously. It is the same guy I mentioned a long time ago, does quite a bit of analysis.

No download, no cost - Titled: June 11, 2014: The Next Necessary Step #2-Fear & Anxiety

avemariaradio.net/archive-categories/christ-is-the-answer/

As you would have noted by now, I’m not big on throwing Bible quotes around since they have to be understood in a context that aligns with the person or group that has the authority and knowledge to determine context. Obviously, this comes from an assumption that said person or group has that authority because it was given to them by authors or the like, or they are the authors. (Of course, which the Church is for the Bible)

Thus, I don’t think it’s fair, and only can confuse someone unfamiliar with the teaching authority and it’s role in the written document.

But to use the Bible for comparative sake as done in the above link and if necessary here, I think is fair since the Bible would be the source of support for one side of the comparative. Though obviously, not the only source, the one we can get to the quickest for evaluation.

As I am unfamiliar with what would be the pagan source(s), lucky we have it, in the link a pagan source is read for us so we can compare.

Certainly, in a bubble, God's nature seems too far away to analyze. Thus, to not work in a bubble, we must consider what we have discussed, and incorporate what we have not discussed much or at all, to have comfort in the analysis.

This will be much easier if we stake ourselves to a central point and spread our evaluation from there. That stake being something in our nature, would be grand.

If you and I were discussing 2100 years ago or longer, we could discuss all gods as disconnected from us humans. Though there might be things we were taught or knew about claims of God’s work in the world that would be interesting discussion points, it would be most possible for us to not have something where we could say ‘God is here in our nature’.

Then comes Jesus, where, if trustworthy and true, we can say ‘God is here in our nature’ and start to build an understanding of God and his nature.

Thus the stake seems to be Jesus.

So a fair evaluation of God’s existence might need to include many ‘what if’ questions and logic surrounding and including Jesus’ life and actions.

In many discussions with Atheists, it seems the assumption is common that one must first believe  in God, before concluding Jesus is God.

This seems backwards to me, for - If Jesus is God, he would have come to share most certainly that - There is a God, before other action. 

His public works would then be used as support for such a claim 'There is a God' first and foremost. 

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

It’s probably about time to run through that existence thread. I’ll do my best to stay close to what was presented of which you didn’t get to listen.

So to start this side conversation, I want to make sure we are on the same page with some items…

Can we concur a simple definition of ‘matter’ for this discussion as:

1. All things physical, anything with an atom
2. Anything with atom’s bases : protons, neutrons, and / or electrons (Electricity for example)

Just want to make sure when I use the term ‘matter’ you and I are on the same page. Essentially - ‘stuff’.

Do we concur (simple definition for this discussion) Gravity is a relationship between atoms, a push-pull friendship pending various factors (distance, velocity, time, etc., that physics stuff).

Do we concur Newton’s first law of motion is a true statement (this time defined as taught) - An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Hopefully simple enough.

Thanks and take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

It’s probably about time to run through that existence thread. I’ll do my best to stay close to what was presented of which you didn’t get to listen.

So to start this side conversation, I want to make sure we are on the same page with some items…

Can we concur a simple definition of ‘matter’ for this discussion as:

1. All things physical, anything with an atom
2. Anything with atom’s bases : protons, neutrons, and / or electrons (Electricity for example)

Just want to make sure when I use the term ‘matter’ you and I are on the same page. Essentially - ‘stuff’.

Do we concur (simple definition for this discussion) Gravity is a relationship between atoms, a push-pull friendship pending various factors (distance, velocity, time, etc., that physics stuff).

Do we concur Newton’s first law of motion is a true statement (this time defined as taught) - An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Hopefully simple enough.

Thanks and take care,

Mike

Well, well, this sounds good!

No, no, I think Newton was an absolute idiot! Sorry, that was a joke. Well of course there are arguments about whether electricity falls into that category; or gravity is a relationship between atoms rather than one of those warp things Captain Kirk was so fond of; or the circumstances in which Newton’s laws of motion can be held to be true. But since my ignorance is too great to go beyond school-level physics, I shall take it that your definitions are those a reasonable amateur like me would apply, and agree with them.

I’ve survived the first 15 minutes of that broadcast you suggested, by the way. I’ll let you know if I manage to make it through the meat of the thing.

 

[ffg]

Well, well, this sounds good!

No, no, I think Newton was an absolute idiot! Sorry, that was a joke. Well of course there are arguments about whether electricity falls into that category; or gravity is a relationship between atoms rather than one of those warp things Captain Kirk was so fond of; or the circumstances in which Newton’s laws of motion can be held to be true. But since my ignorance is too great to go beyond school-level physics, I shall take it that your definitions are those a reasonable amateur like me would apply, and agree with them.

I’ve survived the first 15 minutes of that broadcast you suggested, by the way. I’ll let you know if I manage to make it through the meat of the thing.

Great!

Now if only I can find the time.

I have to run out early to go care for my Father for a few days. I’ll be back Tuesday.

I’ll listen to the audio again of the “Jesus is ___” CD on the drive to catch up on the logic. He talks so fast, every time I listen I catch something I missed before because of thinking about a previous point.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

OK, I’ve listened to Fr Riccardo. Speaks well.

 

[ffg]

OK, I’ve listened to Fr Riccardo. Speaks well.

Hi Picky,

Fr. Riccardo is an easy listen. He does a good job with logic.

His history, or that of his family’s is very interesting. His dad ran Chrysler Corp. and was the one who hired Lee Iacocca.

He is on during my drive in the morning. the one I heard this AM, I thought of you. But I don’t want to irritate you by throwing talks your way. I like that website where you don’t have to download the talks.

So this week, I’ve been working on that summary of the ‘Jesus is ___’ CD. I think it’s ready to paste in here. 3 ‘Word document’ pages worth. Not sure how many posts it will take.

I’m thinking if the summary is of interest, and if you didn’t delete the download, the summary might help cut through Fr. Mike’s style, help follow along, if you want to get the full context.

The summary I’ll paste in now cuts out much of the examples and such.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

1 of 2

This is a summary of the full talk for context. The talk seems to be about 10 parts. Perhaps there is enough here that might allow you to follow the talk (if you didn’t delete it and want to give it another shot).

The ‘Jesus is ___’ talk Summary

Talk by Fr. Michael Schmitz and can be found on Lighthouse Media’s site. All credit to Fr. Mike.

First the speaker (Fr. Mike) brings up when Jesus asks his Apostles who people think Jesus is after doing works in public. They essentially report to Jesus that people think he is a reincarnation of past ‘good workers / teachers’ (Moses, Elijah). Key point being a ‘good man’ (This comes into play later).

Secondly, he stakes a simple definition of truth – ‘what is’ and uses the phrase – ‘an accurate reflection of reality’.

Then he goes through an objective / subjective lesson, essentially to tie in the first and last points of the talk with the initial question of Jesus.

The subjective illustration used was a time when he was in an art museum looking at a very plain piece of art, a red square, and a couple men came up to him wondering what he ‘saw’, essentially getting to the point that his thoughts don’t bring meaning to the art. He was interested in what the artist intended more than what ‘he sees’.

The objective illustrations are examples that there can be truth about something, regardless of if we like it, know it, or believe it.

He then goes over the principle of non-contradiction – A thing cannot both exist and not exist at the same time, and in the same way.

Then he introduces the topic of an encounter through a comment by someone online as ‘if God exists, or does not, what difference does it make?’.

Then he goes into the encounter… A man approached him wondering about the existence of God.

The man says to the priest ‘no one can know if God exists’.

So the priest walks him through much of what he setup above –

1. Truth is ‘what is’ - a statement is true to the degree it accurately reflects reality.
2. Some statements are subjectively true, some are objectively true.
3. God exists can’t both be and not be at the same time and in the same way.

The man then says ‘prove it’. To which the priest replies, ok.

 

[ffg]

2 of 2

The priest mention’s Stephen Hawking’s theories related to the universe not needing God, then mentions Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts on causality. The following website was a quick and interesting read on Aquinas. Aquinas’ motion theory, is eerily similar to Newton’s, 400 years earlier.

thatreligiousstudieswebsite.com/Religious_Studies/Phil_of_Rel/God/five_ways.php

So the priest goes through how everything moving, ‘the effect’, had a cause that moved it. He uses an example with a class where he had each kid line up behind each other, and when the first felt a tap on the back, they could tap the person in front of them and on down the line. Obviously, no matter how many people he had in the line, no one did any tapping until – as the teacher, he declared he would be the ‘thing’ that did not need to get tapped (the uncaused cause), and thus was the cause for the first student to action.

The next example he goes into is chains. They obviously need to anchor to something to hang, they don’t suspend themselves.

Then the guy asks the question the priest saw on the website – what difference does it make?

The priest replies - If God doesn’t exist, all that is – is matter…

He then touches on the big bang theory, first how as Catholics we can believe it. Just that we believe there was a big banger.

However, he says, let’s say all there was - was matter - there was a super-condensed ball of mass that at one point, for whatever reason, it decided to move.

He says, at the moment of the big bang all that matter begins to expand at a certain speed and temperature, so at that moment on, everything is physics. If we had a computer big enough at that moment, we could calculate the future.

He uses pool balls as the example, a cue ball hit in a certain direction at a certain rate of speed will always move in a calculable way. So will the balls it hits.

Similarly, if there is only matter, all future action is calculable.

He goes on - Consequences to ‘only matter’ - If there is only matter, we are not free.
We are not thinking our thoughts, they are happening to us. Matter is just moving. Atoms hitting atoms, hitting atoms. Our decisions are an illusion.

Second Consequence – If we are not free, there is no right or wrong. We can’t be punished for doing something wrong, or rewarded for doing something right, it’s just physics, we are just pool balls, moving in a calculable way.

He uses an example of dropping a CD as our freedom. No matter how many times he drops the CD, the result is always the same, it’s just gravity. The CD can’t decide to say no to physics or gravity.

Then he says: ‘Tell that to someone who was beaten.’ It’s not bad, it’s just physics. It’s just ‘what is’.

If all there is – is matter- there is no difference between me and this chair I’m sitting on, just atoms in different form. It’s just physics. Destroy the chair, destroy me, no difference, just matter.

Final Consequence – If there is no God, there is no freedom and no right or wrong, this life is meaningless. Not even that meaning that we might bring to something (like the red square art).

If there is no God, our choices don’t matter. If there is no God, we don’t matter.

So after this analysis, the guy says ‘If there is no God, I’m not free to think this thought. But I am thinking this thought’.

And?

So there must be God?

Yeah.

He goes on – ‘So we get to this point where we learn there is a God, which means this life has meaning. It means there is right and wrong, and we are free.

We are free when Jesus asks “who do you say that I am”.

We are free to get that answer right, and free to get that answer wrong.

He then enters into an analysis of ‘who is Jesus’. Many people think he was a good man.

Jesus cannot be just a good man, a good teacher. This is impossible.

Would a good man claim to be God? Would a good teacher lead people down a path that results in people thinking he is God? Would a good man not correct the slightest misunderstanding?

The gap between reality and Jesus claiming to be God is the widest margin we can get. Wider than myself telling you I’m a butterfly.

Jesus cannot be ‘not God and a good guy’. Jesus is either God, or is a bad man. CS Lewis says the only thing Jesus can’t be is a holy man.

He then dives into the classic tri-L-emma, obviously concluding Jesus is ‘Lord’ (If you are not familiar, let me know).

He talks about how people would have expected some evidence. Many times we think people were different and just dumb out accepted things without caution 2000 years ago. Of course they would want evidence.

He then touches on ‘Why did God come to Earth?’ Essentially concluding - Jesus is the bridge that was (is) necessary to happen to repair the relationship between God and Man.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Oh my ears and whiskers, Mike, you’ve done some work here – how am I to deal with this? – I feel quite a fraud.

There was a time I took some interest in questions like free will and determinism, but eventually I came to the conclusion I wasn’t really understanding what I was reading; and if some of the world’s best alpha-plus brains had been prodding away at the subject for centuries without getting very far I was lost anyway; and that (and I think this is probably still my opinion) whether free will exists, and whether determinism is valid, really don’t matter.

Fr Schmitz is a brave man to think he can knit a finished garment out of all that wooly philosophy. But that’s for later. I must just say a few words about Fr Riccardo.

Of course the main part of his homily was about the nastinesses of life, and they being sent by God to test our faith. (I am prompted to tell God that since I don’t have faith I’d be obliged if he’d leave off testing mine.) But you were pointing to his comparison of God with the Roman and Greek gods. Now we’ll both accept that Fr Riccardo knows a load more about this than I do. I can only record that what he had to say doesn’t mesh well with my own understanding.

He said the Greek gods were in a pantheon, the Jewish God was not; the Greek gods had human passions, God had not – instead he had immeasurable, incomprehensible love for mankind; the Greek gods made Man to serve them, God made Man to be his friends.

That ain’t how I see it. Surely Jehovah and El and Baal and the rest were a pantheon of gods; and surely Jehovah did have human passions – jealousy and anger, for instance. Surely Jehovah ***didn’t ***make mankind to be his friends, he was concerned solely with Israel. In an agreement which confirms that Jehovah was just one of several gods, he made a sort of commercial deal with the Israelites that if they ignored the other gods and just worshipped him, he would be their tribal god and would lead them as a god of war, enabling them to destroy other tribes, massacre their women and children, and steal their lands. Surely he ***did not ***love mankind: he was a god of war and destruction, and a god who would destroy populations with flood and plague.

You may detect that I am unconvinced by Fr Riccardo’s description.

 

[Picky_Picky]

I hope all is well with you, Mike. Trusting that it is, I’ll press on to deal totally inadequately with your hard worked posts.

I’m going to chop Fr Schmitz’s argument right down. If I misrepresent him horribly, let me know (of course I won’t do justice to him in this short space). Well, it seems to run like this (with, of course, my comments) …

1 The material world is causal. Agreed

2 There must have been a First Cause. Not agreed.

3 Because the material world is causal, if one had stood at the Big Bang with a powerful enough computer, and if the universe were purely material, one would have been able to predict the whole future of the universe. Not agreed.

Firstly it is probably the case that one could not fashion such a computer. That’s not just a picky point, it’s important because it means that whether the material universe is completely predictable or not, it is not completely predictable by us.

Secondly quantum mechanics teaches that we cannot predict anything with certainty, only with some degree of probability.

4 We have free will. Well, we have the sensation of free will.

5 Free will and a completely predictable universe are incompatible, therefore the universe cannot be purely material: there must be something else that renders the material universe contingent on exercises of free will; that something is God. Not agreed.

Firstly a compatibilist might ask what a free will decision could possibly look like if it were not based on causes: my genetic inheritance, plus all the experiences I have had, including my education, my family, my religion if I have one, such ability as my brain has developed to think logically, my emotional development, the people I have loved, the things I have lost, what I have found good, my mood today – these will be among the things that channel my decision.

Secondly, we have too little knowledge of what “free will” is to understand it. We know it is connected in some way with consciousness, but then we don’t understand consciousness either. We can’t make far-ranging conclusions on the basis of such ignorance.

Thirdly we have shown in any case that the material universe is not completely predictable (point 3).

Fourthly if free will and a completely predictable universe are incompatible, then free will must be incompatible with an all-seeing all-knowing God.

…

My own view is that we are dealing with a problem here that doesn’t matter.

The universe may or may not be predictable, but we know that it is not completely predictable by us – chaos theory would tell us that, and our personal experience confirms it. We cannot, in other words, distinguish between the universe we have and a universe which is not completely predictable. If we cannot distinguish between them, they are the same for all human purposes.

Free will may or may not exist, but we know that even if our decisions are causally based the causes are so intricate and complicated that we could not predict completely how they would determine our decisions. We cannot, in other words, distinguish between a universe in which free will is unfettered and one where free will is causal. If we cannot distinguish between them, the difference cannot be relevant for any human purposes.

I may be talking nonsense, but my little brain is content with that outcome.

 

[Picky_Picky]

By the way, as to C S Lewis’s three Ls, that was how this thread, or rather its predecessor, started! Some of us questioned whether Lewis’s choice-of-three covered all the possibilities. It doesn’t, of course, and as an example I suggested Jesus was a preacher and healer whom the authorities executed, and in the wake of which tragedy his followers began to see visions, around which myths formed. You said something like “Ah, the daft old hallucinations theory” … and here we still are, growing older but not wiser, still chewing the fat.

 

[ffg]

So I finally had a chance to get back here, wrote a bunch and it didn’t post. I forgot to copy it first and it’s lost.

Now I’m just frustrated.

But yes there is some chaos here that is putting Catholic.com lower on the priority list, but I’ll see if I can garner up the motivation to re-write this weekend / early next week.

Thanks,

Mike