The greatest coincidence

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

I am questioning if God sustain the creation since what should be created according to our decisions must coincide with what should be created according to what God knows.

We shaped (rather than created) things by our decision to in this case burn a tree. God’s foreknowledge of the tree and of its potential to not be reshaped by our burning it, as well as its potential to be reshaped by our burning it, doesn’t interfere in His sustaining of anything or all things, including us, and even including things that may (God forbid) threaten us.

Gorgias’ post no. 16 explains this.

In philosophy the meanings intended in the words of the “formulae” need to be examined, rather than formulae trotted out with no more ado. That’s why I - personally - so much enjoy rephrasing issues in my own words.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Really? Cause I think that biologists can give a really good description of what makes a horse a horse and not a cow. That answer is easily out there, wouldn’t you say?

Nope, they cannot. And they are not even interested in this question. Of course it is easy to point out that a “cow” is not the same as a “horse”, but this distinction does not say anything about the “cowness” and the “horseness”. It only says that cows and horses have different characteristics, but it does not say which are “essential” and which are “accidental”. Only philosophers are interested in “cowness”, biologists are not. And they are unable to “pin it down”.

Not sure why you’re comfortable with ‘characterizations’ and not with ‘forms’.

I did not say “characterizations”, I said “categorizations”. As a matter of fact, biology is a descriptive science. The whole caboodle of hierarchical “boxes” (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species), taxonomy is a set arbitrary distinctions. They have nothing to do with “essences”.

The problem (as always) comes at the borderline cases. Unlike the ancient ones, we are now aware of evolution (except the ID-ers) and we know that mutations occur. The question is: "how many mutations will create a new “-ness”? The usual distinction of being able to procreate is also arbitrary. If we contemplate a series of mutations, which will create a totally new human, with abilities we consider “super-human” (mind reading, living for ten thousand years, etc.) at which point shall we cease to call this new creature “human”?

No, I would disagree with you there. Why would ‘knowledge’ impinge on decisions? Just because I see you in a bathing suit, wearing water wings and applying suntan lotion, and therefore know that you’re heading out to the water, doesn’t mean that I’ve affected your free will in any way!

It is not “foreknowledge” which makes free will impossible, it is what makes foreknowledge possible. In your example, the conclusion of “heading to the beach” is NOT knowledge, it is a guess. AND, it is based upon observation. Only fully deterministic processes can be “foreknown”. And in a deterministic system there is no free will. This is what makes “foreknowledge” and “free will” incompatible.

Yet, we would assert that God exists outside that framework, and therefore, sees it all simultaneously.

You already argued the opposite, referring to angels and saints. Just because you imagine God outside our timeline, it does not mean that the whole “time” is visible for him. Can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Moreover, if God’s knowledge would be contingent upon observing the whole timeline, it would again, be contingent.

I would posit a third possibility. God knows our actions because He created everything and knows it all fully. His action is the primary cause, but he’s created us in a way that we can cause things to happen ourselves. God doesn’t create our actions. Since he knows them (not by observation, but by the fact that he sustains creation actively), he has access to them without either causing the actions or ‘waiting’ to observe them.

“Not by observation” you say? To “sustain” something will not rescue your argument. One has to know what to sustain.

Sure I did. My contention is that knowledge isn’t the information itself, but the possession of the information. And, if your definition asserts a particular style or means of possessing, then it’s already specified who the possessor is. And therefore, (since it does so specify), the definition has limited itself to a discussion of human knowledge.

Ah, yes. Possession of information, which is just a different word for “internalizing” the information. Which is again incompatible with God’s “simplicity”.

One major problem that you wish to use a different “language” when talking about God. We only have ONE language. If you have a problem with applying the categories to both humans and God, then you are unable to communicate. If you wish to say anything about God, you must use human language. Certainly, words can have different meaning based upon the subject. A human “loyalty” is different from a dog’s “loyalty” - but not diametrically so.

If you say that in a human environment a word means “X”, but when applied to God, the same word means “Y” (where X and Y are diametrically opposite), then your communication becomes incoherent. If God’s “whatever” (say: goodness) is fundamentally different from human “whatever”, then one of them is without meaning.

 

[goout]

As a matter of fact, biology is a descriptive science. The whole caboodle of hierarchical “boxes” (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species), taxonomy is a set arbitrary distinctions. They have nothing to do with “essences”.

The word arbitrary is out of place here.
Science is not arbitrary. It leads to specificity and order. It searches for truth. Science observes what is real and it uses logic and reason to express it.

Bottom line: faith and reason are integrated in a whole person. Neither should be arbitrary. They are “well grounded” in wholeness.
Likewise, a person’s existence, or essence, is bound up in body and soul, as a whole human being.

Both/And
Catholic

 

[Gorgias]

What should be sustained is what was created.

Of course. God does not sustain what does not exist.

On the other hand, it seems to me that you’re attempting to express a different assertion: that God sustains in its ‘current’ form, and therefore, either interferes in the actions of his created beings or divinely props up these actions.

That, however, is simply not true. When we say that God sustains me, as well as the peach tree in my yard, it does not mean that He sustains the peach tree as it exists in any particular moment in time. God does not (nor is He required to) prevent me from picking all the peaches off the tree, or pruning the branches, or cutting the tree down altogether and burning it or making a chair out of it. Rather, He simply sustains it; in other words, it does not simply go out of existence.

Therefore, there’s no problem here: God is not required to take any action with respect to any of His creation, based on the actions of any part of creation; rather, His sustenance keeps creation in existence – in whatever form that may take. Sometimes, that form is nudged along by natural processes (trees grow from seeds; trees grow large; trees produce fruit; trees sometimes get hit by lightning and fall down). Sometimes, that form is nudged along by direct action by other created beings (humans cut down trees; bugs infest trees and cause them to die). However, we aren’t suggesting that God’s hand causes the action, or even affirms it (i.e., that God – seeing our action – creates corresponding states for the tree when we chop it down).

Does that help?

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… And in a deterministic system there is no free will. This is what makes “foreknowledge” and “free will” incompatible. …

In a deterministic system yes, but that is not what is being offered by all the responses to the enquiry which which STT was eliciting.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Quandaries around an aquinist “essence” concept don’t alter the orifginal question

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

I think that biologists can give a really good description of what makes a horse a horse and not a cow

Nope, they cannot. And they are not even interested in this question.

That seems quite the odd assertion to me. I cannot conceive of a biologist who cannot describe what makes a horse a horse and not a cow. I cannot perceive of a raison d’etre for biology if it does not deeply care about distinctions in biological beings and attempts to describe them appropriately (not arbitrarily, but in an ordered and logical sense). I’m not certain that I get how you can make this assertion. Seriously?

Of course it is easy to point out that a “cow” is not the same as a “horse”, but this distinction does not say anything about the “cowness” and the “horseness”.

It says precisely that thing! However, you’re correct in pointing out that biologists and philosophers use different professional jargon: biologists talk about sub-systems and functions and philosophers talk about esse.

I hate going to dictionary definitions in a discussion, since often, then are too generic and miss the “jargon” distinction, but let me quote a definition for the word animal from the Biology Online Dictionary, since it does address the jargon of biology:

A living organism belonging to Kingdom Animalia that possess several characteristics that set them apart from other living things, such as:

(1) being eukaryotic (i.e. the cell contains a membrane-bound nucleus) and usually multicellular (unlike bacteria and most protists, an animal is composed of several cells performing specific functions)
(2) being heterotrophic (unlike plants and algae that are autotrophic, an animal depends on another organism for sustenance) and generally digesting food in an internal chamber (such as a digestive tract)
(3) lacking cell wall (unlike plants, algae and some fungi that possess cell walls)
(4) being generally motile, that is being able to move voluntarily
(5) embryos passing through a blastula stage
(6) possessing specialized sensory organs for recognizing and responding to stimuli in the environment

So, if we’re to believe this dictionary, then what biologists do is precisely what I’m claiming they do: they distinguish characteristics which set animals apart from other animals. That is to say, they do exactly what philosophers are doing in their discussions of esse (and ‘horse-ness’).

It only says that cows and horses have different characteristics, but it does not say which are “essential” and which are “accidental”.

And yet, I provided a heuristic which can accomplish precisely that goal. Remember – the philosopher is not interested in doing the work of classifying each kind of animal, but rather, simply develops the philosophical framework which justifies such classifications and through which the classifications might be developed. Otherwise, you’re requiring philosophers to do not only philosophy, but also biology, chemistry, physics… and that’s not a reasonable request.

The problem (as always) comes at the borderline cases. Unlike the ancient ones, we are now aware of evolution (except the ID-ers) and we know that mutations occur. The question is: "how many mutations will create a new “-ness”?

This is a good question. A really good philosophical question. But it really is its own subject. Maybe you might consider starting a new thread posing the question of the implications of species mutation on the philosophical concept of esse?

The usual distinction of being able to procreate is also arbitrary. If we contemplate a series of mutations, which will create a totally new human, with abilities we consider “super-human” (mind reading, living for ten thousand years, etc.) at which point shall we cease to call this new creature “human”?

Now… this smells like a question for biologists to me. In fact, they have already examined this question in the evolution of man, distinguishing between humans throughout the history (or, more accurately, pre-history!) of our existence.

Time to stop here, and then take up the rest of your response in a separate post…

 

[STT]

We shaped (rather than created) things by our decision to in this case burn a tree. God’s foreknowledge of the tree and of its potential to not be reshaped by our burning it, as well as its potential to be reshaped by our burning it, doesn’t interfere in His sustaining of anything or all things, including us, and even including things that may (God forbid) threaten us.

Gorgias’ post no. 16 explains this.

I think God sustain what is supposed to be actual, in this case it is burnt tree if I decide to burn it. If He sustain all things which are potential then how He could have foreknowledge?

 

[STT]

Of course. God does not sustain what does not exist.

On the other hand, it seems to me that you’re attempting to express a different assertion: that God sustains in its ‘current’ form, and therefore, either interferes in the actions of his created beings or divinely props up these actions.

That, however, is simply not true. When we say that God sustains me, as well as the peach tree in my yard, it does not mean that He sustains the peach tree as it exists in any particular moment in time. God does not (nor is He required to) prevent me from picking all the peaches off the tree, or pruning the branches, or cutting the tree down altogether and burning it or making a chair out of it. Rather, He simply sustains it; in other words, it does not simply go out of existence.

Therefore, there’s no problem here: God is not required to take any action with respect to any of His creation, based on the actions of any part of creation; rather, His sustenance keeps creation in existence – in whatever form that may take. Sometimes, that form is nudged along by natural processes (trees grow from seeds; trees grow large; trees produce fruit; trees sometimes get hit by lightning and fall down). Sometimes, that form is nudged along by direct action by other created beings (humans cut down trees; bugs infest trees and cause them to die). However, we aren’t suggesting that God’s hand causes the action, or even affirms it (i.e., that God – seeing our action – creates corresponding states for the tree when we chop it down).

Does that help?

I think I was clear in post #15. My issue by God’s foreknowledge however remains since I can always do the opposite of what He says that I am going to do. I don’t understand why you don’t like this argument.

 

[davidv]

I think I was clear in post #15. My issue by God’s foreknowledge however remains since I can always do the opposite of what He says that I am going to do. I don’t understand why you don’t like this argument.

There would be no issue if it was realized that God does not have foreknowledge.

 

[STT]

There would be no issue if it was realized that God does not have foreknowledge.

Not only that. God doesn’t also sustain the creation. The creation is self-sufficient.

 

[davidv]

Not only that. God doesn’t also sustain the creation. The creation is self-sufficient.

Really? Nothing provided leads to those conclusions.

 

[goout]

The creation is self-sufficient.

This makes no sense.

1. It’s merely a bald assertion with nothing to back it up
2. We know by common sense that we did not create ourselves. We are not exactly self sufficient if we can’t even come “to be” of our own power and will.
3. We know by common sense that we will also die. Not very self sufficient.

Please rebut with some substance.

 

[STT]

Really? Nothing provided leads to those conclusions.

Really? How do you resolve this paradox?: You can ask God in Heaven about what you are going to do and do the opposite.

 

[davidv]

Really?

Yes

How do you resolve this paradox?

What paradox?

: You can ask God in Heaven about what you are going to do and do the opposite.

And?

 

[STT]

This makes no sense.

It will make sense hopefully.

1. It’s merely a bald assertion with nothing to back it up

We know that everything is made of particles some, electron for example, are stable and others unstable, neutron for example.

1. We know by common sense that we did not create ourselves.

Yes, you are looking for the beginning. I can show that the beginning cannot be initiated. The argument is very simple. The process of the creation or Big Bang from nothing has two steps one follows another. This means that we need time before the act of creation. Putting that with this fact that time is a part of creation leads to a paradox.

We are not exactly self sufficient if we can’t even come “to be” of our own power and will.

You need to show that matter which moves based on laws of nature in causative way could breaks the causality and self-causes something with itself. That is to me is irrational. Therefore the will is an illusion in materialism. Dualism has its own problem.

1. We know by common sense that we will also die. Not very self sufficient.

What dies is the only the experience of subject matter in this realm.

Please rebut with some substance.

Please let me know if you have any issue with my arguments.

 

[STT]

Yes

What paradox?

And?

The foreknowledge is a wrong concept because the future cannot be in the way you decide and at the same time the way that God sees if you decide to do the opposite of what God sees.

 

[davidv]

The foreknowledge is a wrong concept because the future cannot be in the way you decide and at the same time the way that God sees if you decide to do the opposite of what God sees.

There is no paradox here. It is simply an unsupported allegation.

 

[STT]

There is no paradox here. It is simply an unsupported allegation.

Did you get what I said?

 

[davidv]

Did you get what I said?

Yes. You have made bold claims about God without any evidence and with faulty logic. A number of posters have asked for logical reasoning to support the claims, Rarely are sound arguments provided. Especially in this case.