Thoughts on the gay cake case

[Peter_Plato]

You confuse “doctrines” and dogmas". Read it here: catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-doctrine-and-dogma I am referring to this website, where the same “catechism 88” is declared to be accepted, because it is a “divine revelation”.

I don’t know what could be clearer. I am getting suspicious… is it possible that I am more knowledgeable about your religion, than you are? Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Because the dogmatic pronouncements are NOT self-evident.

Not sure what your problem is but dogma is a subset of doctrine. Some doctrine is dogma and all dogma is doctrine.

Dogma is more narrowly defined as that part of doctrine which has been divinely revealed and which the Church has formally defined and declared to be believed as revealed.

Did you suppose they were two distinct things?

 

[PRmerger]

binding on all the faithful without exception, now and forever…

Are you operating under the misapprehension that 'without exception" is the same thing as “without question”?

If so, you need to disabuse yourself of that.

The 2 are not the same thing.

One means: every single Catholic.
The other means: well, it means you can’t question.

Do you see the difference now?

 

[Pallas_Athene]

It answers your question, PA, but you have to think in the abstract.

Since I was a math professor in some of my active decades, I have no problem conceptualizing the abstract.

The fact that you have no problem with math using the very complex and inexact concept of “infinity” yet somehow have this weird inability to understand omniscience and omnipotence (something even my 12 yr old understands, BTW) is peculiar indeed.

Your 12 years old “understands”. Wow! Well, let him or her sit down to the computer, and explain these concepts to me. I am willing to learn from 12 years old kids, if they are that advanced. After all the old geezers in the Bible were willing to learn from the 12 years old Jesus. I am willing to follow their footsteps.

But enough of this. Let me hear your kid’s understanding of what the Omni-attributes mean. Or your understanding. Because the “to know everything” and “to be able to do everything” are naïve - to say the least.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I am getting suspicious… is it possible that I am more knowledgeable about your religion, than you are? Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Even more so since you claim, “It’s all Greek to me,” and Latin is the “official” language of the Church. I don’t think that any Church doctrines are written in Greek, but I stand to be corrected.

 

[PRmerger]

Since I was a math professor in some of my active decades, I have no problem conceptualizing the abstract.

One has to wonder, then, why you seem to be so confused about omniscience and omnipotence.

Something, yes, even my 12 yr old understands.

Your 12 years old “understands”. Wow! Well, let him or her sit down to the computer, and explain these concepts to me. I am willing to learn from 12 years old kids, if they are that advanced. After all the old geezers in the Bible were willing to learn from the 12 years old Jesus. I am willing to follow their footsteps.

Sarcasm is the protest of the weak, PA.

I rarely use it.

That you are astonished that a 12 yr old can understand what you claim to be unable to understand is rather arrogant, don’t you think?

But enough of this. Let me hear your kid’s understanding of what the Omni-attributes mean. Or your understanding. Because the “to know everything” and “to be able to do everything” are naïve - to say the least.

Sorry. But I am rather skeptical of your claimed inability to understand this…all while accepting the very, very mysterious concept of infinity in mathematics.

Logic dictates that one of the 2 is a lie.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But enough of this. Let me hear your kid’s understanding of what the Omni-attributes mean. Or your understanding. Because the “to know everything” and “to be able to do everything” are naïve - to say the least.

I am not clear why omniscience (defined as having knowledge without constraints) or omnipotence (defined as having power without constraints) are so puzzling. That does not mean we fully understand what it means to be omniscient or omnipotent in some concrete or imaginable way. However, I can clearly conceive what a thousand sided figure is and that it is distinct from a 999 sided figure, but don’t ask me to visualize either one because that is beyond my capacity to do.

I am perfectly willing to grant you that I can’t visualize a thousand sided figure, but that does not mean I can’t grasp the concept of one and make distinctions based upon that concept.

You really should read Feser’s The Last Superstition, it will thoroughly dispel any assurances that you might harbor about Hume being correct on his epistemology - or lack thereof.

 

[Bradski]

I guess it’s just part of being a business owner–tolerating lots of immorality.

We have to in all aspects of life. We couldn’t function as a society if we didn’t. We all make allowances. OK, there are some aspects of immorality that we shouldn’t accept - I wouldn’t invite the neighbor around for drinks if he was a known paedophile for example.

So are people justified in not baking a cake for a SSM? In my mind, absolutely not. But are people justified in making a stand for something in which they really believe? Most definitely yes.

Which means that I’ll give you a different answer to the problem depending on how the question is asked. Kinda frustrating…

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Not sure what your problem is but dogma is a subset of doctrine. Some doctrine is dogma and all dogma is doctrine.

Of course. Some of the doctrines can be denied, can be rejected - in other words they can be questioned. The dogmas are beyond dispute, they cannot be rejected, they cannot be denied - in other words, they cannot be questioned. “Questioned” here means to “question its validity”, not questions about it - in general.

Are you operating under the misapprehension that 'without exception" is the same thing as “without question”?

No, you are the one who operates under misunderstanding. The word I am talking about is “binding”. Binding on all the Catholics, they are not allowed to doubt them, they are forbidden to reject them - in other words they are unquestionable.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Even more so since you claim, “It’s all Greek to me,” and Latin is the “official” language of the Church. I don’t think that any Church doctrines are written in Greek, but I stand to be corrected.

Now this is totally irrelevant, but my little remark about religion is simply a pun, a play on words. Pallas Athene was the Greek goddess of wisdom. And a very large portion of the New Testament was written in Greek, so many people refer to it as the “Greek Testament”, so we have another “leg” for the pun. I simply mean that I cannot comprehend how can people still be religious (no matter what flavor they subscribe to).

I am not clear why omniscience (defined as having knowledge without constraints) or omnipotence (defined as having power without constraints) are so puzzling.

Not “puzzling”, vague to the point of being meaningless. Originally, when these expressions were coined “omnipotence” was taken literally, to mean that an omnipotent being can do anything and everything. This literal meaning was abandoned, when people realized that “everything” would include logical impossibilities. So now the meaning is “toned down”, some people even prefer the word “maxipotence”, and say that it means everything that can be done. Now that is also useless, since it simply pushed the problem “back”, but not being able to define “what can be done”.

A similar problem occurs with the concept of “omniscience”. Literally it means “to know everything”. But that is nonsense. How can one “know” something that does not exist? Let’s use a simple example. Right now there is no book on my desk. The question: “what is the title of the book, which does not exist on my desk?” is lunacy. So the usual attempt to avoid this problem is “to water down” omniscience and say “to know everything that can be known”. Same problem as with omnipotence. Without enumerating what can be known and what cannot be known we have an empty definition.

An even more bizarre example. Some people (Molinists) assert the idea of “middle knowledge”, saying that God not only knows what exists, but also what does not exist but could exist. To these I present this question: “What is the title of the book which was never written, since the possible author was never born?”. Of course no answer is forthcoming.

Conclusion: there is no acceptable definition of the Omni-max attributes. It is all hand waving, and hoping that no street urchin will come by and declare: “the emperor has no clothes!”.

How lucky PRmerger is that she has a child prodigy who can understand the not very simple reasoning presented here… or maybe she is just deluded. Poor mother.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not “puzzling”, vague to the point of being meaningless. Originally, when these expressions were coined “omnipotence” was taken literally, to mean that an omnipotent being can do anything and everything. This literal meaning was abandoned, when people realized that “everything” would include logical impossibilities. So now the meaning is “toned down”, some people even prefer the word “maxipotence”, and say that it means everything that can be done. Now that is also useless, since it simply pushed the problem “back”, but not being able to define “what can be done”.

No, the meaning was never “toned down” because it was never “toned up” to begin with. Claiming that classical theists – the “people” you refer to? – at some time in the past, realized “everything” would include logical impossibilities is a fairy story you read somewhere on the Interweb or in some pseudo-philosophical writings and liked the fact that it jibed with your atheism so you subscribed to it.

Feel free to cite a bonafide classical theist who ever claimed omnipotence meant completing logically incoherent acts.

Note first that for almost all theists, “omnipotence” does not entail the power to bring into being a self-contradictory state of affairs (e.g. creating a round square or a stone that is too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift). **The reason is that there is no such power; the very notion of such a power is incoherent, precisely because the notion of a self-contradictory state of affairs is incoherent. **God’s power would be limited only if there was some power He lacked. Since there is no such thing as a power to make contradictions true, His inability to do so is no limitation on His power. (And if an atheist insists that an omnipotent being would have to have such a power, that only hurts his own case. For that enables the theist to say, in response to any possible objection that the atheist could ever raise: “Since God can make contradictions true, He can make it true that He exists even though your argument shows He doesn’t!”)
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2010/02/dawkins-on-omnipotence-and-omniscience.html

Now if you insist that omnipotence must include the power to do incoherent things, then we can grant you that. God can do incoherent things and since incoherent things are beyond your capacity to grasp and make coherent, it just means those incoherent things that God does are inaccessible to you because you are only capable of grasping coherent things.

A similar problem occurs with the concept of “omniscience”. Literally it means “to know everything”. But that is nonsense. How can one “know” something that does not exist? Let’s use a simple example. Right now there is no book on my desk. The question: “what is the title of the book, which does not exist on my desk?” is lunacy. So the usual attempt to avoid this problem is “to water down” omniscience and say “to know everything that can be known”. Same problem as with omnipotence. Without enumerating what can be known and what cannot be known we have an empty definition.

Well, no, this is not a “similar problem,” it is a similar non-issue.

God, being eternal, is not constrained to the temporal. Recall that omniscience means “knowledge without constraints.” There is no “right now” for God that does not exist. All that could exist is present to God - there is no such thing as the title of a non-existent book. Since God is the source of all that does or could exist, there is no non-existent book and therefore no title that God does not know.

As it happens, though, this is not the right way to think about divine action. From the point of view of classical theism, anyway, God is immutable and eternal. He doesn’t “change His mind” because He doesn’t change at all. Nor is there any temporal gap between His willing and His acting. Rather, God is altogether outside time. We make decisions and then carry them out moments, hours, days, or years later. God isn’t like that. When He wills that A happen at such-and-such a point in time, we might have to wait for A to happen, since we are within the temporal order; but God doesn’t, because He isn’t. For Him, the whole created order – including every event at every point in time – follows from His one creative act.
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2010/02/dawkins-on-omnipotence-and-omniscience.html

Conclusion: there is no acceptable definition of the Omni-max attributes. It is all hand waving, and hoping that no street urchin will come by and declare: “the emperor has no clothes!”.

Conclusion? From a non-existent argument? Now that’s rich.
You are relying on readers having those apparently unacceptable Omnimax attributes you deny God, i.e., the capacity to both do an incoherent thing (get a conclusion from a non-existing argument) and know something that does not exist – the conclusion of a non-existent argument.

So you are expecting from us, your readers, what you deny is even possible for an Omnimax being. Speaking of hand-waving.

 

[Rau]

On the question of the nature of Dogma:

Dogma’s can be denied and rejected, but with consequences!

An obligation on those claiming to hold the faith is: not to call into doubt, and not to reject/repudiate/deny and to fail to retract when warned. This is not intended as “thought control”, but rather to identify and express the firmest elements of the faith. Sanctions exist not to effect some kind of thought control, but to respond to and deter the promotion of heresy or lack of confidence in the faith. It is only on account of such behaviour that one can incur the earthly punishment that the Church prescribes.

The Catechism speaks of Doubt in this way:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

What is involuntary is not morally imputable. It is not sinful.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So are people justified in not baking a cake for a SSM? In my mind, absolutely not.

Why not? The government is not stopping the gay couple from buying a wedding cake nor is it stopping bake shops from making them. Since when is the government in the business of dictating to bakers what they must or must not do? Where is it written in the law that bakers must bake wedding cakes if they don’t want to bake wedding cakes? Or that they must sell particular kinds of wedding cakes for particular kinds of weddings? This is a service provided at the discretion of the bakers.

The government has no business dictating to bakers what baked goods they must sell (integral to the free market) unless what they are selling is potentially harmful to their clients (the reason for the FCC and FDA.)

Whatever happened to your promotion of the “harm principle” that consenting adults are free to do what they mutually consent to do (the baker doesn’t consent) provided it causes no one harm (the gay couple can go to another bakery so they are not harmed in the least.) Funny how advocates of the harm principle want to inflict others with more than just the harm principle.

 

[Peter_Plato]

On the question of the nature of Dogma:

Dogma’s can be denied and rejected, but with consequences!

An obligation on those claiming to hold the faith is: not to call into doubt, and not to reject/repudiate/deny and to fail to retract when warned. This is not intended as “thought control”, but rather to identify and express the firmest elements of the faith. Sanctions exist not to effect some kind of thought control, but to respond to and deter the promotion of heresy or lack of confidence in the faith. It is only on account of such behaviour that one can incur the earthly punishment that the Church prescribes.

The Catechism speaks of Doubt in this way:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

What is involuntary is not morally imputable. It is not sinful.

Excellent clarification!

 

[PRmerger]

I am not clear why omniscience (defined as having knowledge without constraints) or omnipotence (defined as having power without constraints) are so puzzling.

 

[PRmerger]

Binding on all the Catholics, they are not allowed to doubt them, they are forbidden to reject them - in other words they are unquestionable.

Nonsequitur, PA.

Binding has nothing to do with not being permitted to question.

A student is bound to accept that 2+2 = 4.
That certainly doesn’t mean that she can’t question it.

Clearly as a teacher you bound your students to conform to the truths of math.
Yet you also never, I would hope, sanction a student for questioning these truths.

See?

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Feel free to cite a bonafide classical theist who ever claimed omnipotence meant completing logically incoherent acts.

Ah, the good, old “No true Scotsman” fallacy raises its head.

God, being eternal, is not constrained to the temporal. Recall that omniscience means “knowledge without constraints.” There is no “right now” for God that does not exist. All that could exist is present to God - there is no such thing as the title of a non-existent book. Since God is the source of all that does or could exist, there is no non-existent book and therefore no title that God does not know.

Well, other people understood that something that does not exist, that did not exist and will never exist cannot be “known”. “Knowing” something is having corresponding information which has a one-to-one relationship to the existing reality. If there is no reality, then there can be no corresponding information. Elementary, my dear Watson. You are not one of those people. I am sorry I wasted so much time in trying to educate you.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Binding has nothing to do with not being permitted to question.

Playing word games, eh? If you dare the question (disagree, deny) the validity of dogma you will be an anathema. That is all there is to it. Sure you can question anything, but if you question a “de fide” revelation, then you will be excommunicated. Just like you are free to jump off the 10th floor of balcony… you just will not survive.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Ah, the good, old “No true Scotsman” fallacy raises its head.

Hello?

I am simply asking you to back up your claim that classical theists somewhere at some past time “toned down” their insistence that omnipotence means doing absolutely anything, even that which is logically incoherent.

You made the claim that “people” (assuming you meant classical theists because classical theism is basic Catholic theology) did that toning down. Well back up your claim, buddy, name some of those people. Punting to No True Scotsman is ridiculous.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, it is simply asking you to provide evidence (naming names) that your claim about theists is to be taken seriously.

Fine if you choose not to, but don’t go spouting nonsense along the way. Show some evidence - which is what you purport to believe is required in order to accept any claim.

You made a claim that theists went from proclaiming that omnipotence means “can do anything even the logically incoherent” to “well not exactly anything.” Name the names of those theists who actually subscribed to “omnipotence means: can do anything even the logically incoherent.”

To suggest this has anything to do with No True Scotsman is beyond incoherent to pretentious bafflegab.

 

[Rau]

The idea that dogmas are “unquestionable” by Catholics is not accurate.

Involuntary doubt - to which “questioning” naturally attaches - is not morally imputable. Persons do doubt in this manner because it is involuntary, and such attracts no odium. To wilfully reject is another matter (spiritually injurious to the person), and to promote heresy and lack of confidence yet another (potentially spiritually injurious to the faithful).

 

[Peter_Plato]

Playing word games, eh? If you dare the question (disagree, deny) the validity of dogma you will be an anathema. That is all there is to it. Sure you can question anything, but if you question a “de fide” revelation, then you will be excommunicated. Just like you are free to jump off the 10th floor of balcony… you just will not survive.

Hmmm. Interesting.

So you are supposing that Catholic dogma is “like you are free to jump off the 10th floor balcony” and that its repercussions are inevitable?

Why would you question it, then?

If the dogmas are not really true, then the repercussions are inconsequential. Why be bothered by the fact that they are dogmas then?

If true then the right thing would be to accept them. If false then nothing like jumping off the 10th floor will happen to you.

At least have the courage of your convictions. Quit this bellyaching about dogma, then, because it would only make a difference if it were true AND that would mean you SHOULD accept it because it is true.

Didn’t you watch the Man or Rabbit? video I linked to? Now you sound like a rabbit unwilling to give up his rabbit skin despite the fact that he knows he just might be losing something by trying to hold on to it.