Three teachings

[Vera_Ljuba]

1. God is sovereign. This means that nothing we ever do makes God “contingent”.
2. Humans have free will. This means that God does not interfere with our actions. In other words we are the primary causative agents of our actions.
3. God is not only the first cause, but also the sustaining cause. This means that God is an active participant in every action. For example, if you shoot a gun to kill someone, God sustains the bullet in existence and maintains its trajectory all the way to the victim’s body.

Question: Do you see the glaring logical contradiction here?

 

[Wesrock]

A thing can be caused and still move itself voluntarily. The effect that follows a cause need not be necessary (or deterministic). Free will is a will that directs itself voluntarily. It’s not necessary to separate God from His action in creation.

With that clarification out of the way, I see no contradiction.

Edit: To add on to that, scholasticism, and to be honest, probably many other philosophies, don’t define cause and effect in a narrow sense. So, unless we account for that, we’ll just be talking past each other.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

A thing can be caused and still move itself voluntarily. The effect that follows a cause need not be necessary (or deterministic). Free will is a will that directs itself voluntarily. It’s not necessary to separate God from His action in creation.

With that clarification out of the way, I see no contradiction.

Edit: To add on to that, scholasticism doesn’t define cause and effect in a narrow sense. So, unless we account for that, we’ll just be talking past each other.

That is not what I was talking about.

 

[Wesrock]

That is not what I was talking about.

Please clarify, then.

 

[fhansen]

1. God is sovereign. This means that nothing we ever do makes God “contingent”.
2. Humans have free will. This means that God does not interfere with our actions. In other words we are the primary causative agents of our actions.
3. God is not only the first cause, but also the sustaining cause. This means that God is an active participant in every action. For example, if you shoot a gun to kill someone, God sustains the bullet in existence and maintains its trajectory all the way to the victim’s body.

Question: Do you see the glaring logical contradiction here?

No, because while God is necessary in order for us to exist and act, to ‘live and move and have our being’, He can most certainly elect to separate our wills from His. So that our actions are controlled by our wills while enabled and allowed by Him. Free will for a created being cannot be realized in any other way, and the will takes precedence in His plan. IOW His decision to grant free will necessarily means that He participates in the act whether or not He agrees with it.

 

[Wesrock]

If the inquiry is whether God sustaining the natural order of things is itself a violation of free will (as in his involvement in sustaining the speeding bullet), I would say no. Why? Because I disagree with the definition of free will you would be using. Free will is not a matter of being separated from God’s action.

If I got the nature of the question wrong again, I’ll need clarification, because those are the only two angles of the question that came to mind when I first read it.

Edit: I suppose there’s a third angle regarding contingency/necessity in the matter, whether ours or God’s, and whether contingent events and beings can play out from the actions of a necessary being, but I don’t have time to tackle that at the moment. It is an objection tackled by the great Church philosophers; it’s not a new objection, or an ignored one. Whether you’ll find their arguments satisfactory, I can’t say.

 

[GEddie]

God sustains everything in existence, subject to the natural laws, for which this is also the case.

In your example, he sustains the killer, his state of mind, his free will, and the laws of chemistry, physics, momentum and biology. When the gun is fired, subject to all those laws, the shot strikes the victim’s body and he ceases to be as a biological being.

Of course, God could have the shot stopped by a bone in the body, or have the victim collapse at the last instant so that the shot misses. But He is not required to do that. Normally, what is maintained is the larger creation rather than individual bodily life, which comes to an end in any case.

ICXC NIKA

 

[e_c]

God lets bad things happen. Right. And He is wise enough to know what bad things should be allowed, and He is not a moral agent anyway since what He does is necessarily good.

Is that the issue? God causes acts that are bad through secondary moral agents, but He does not cause their deformity, the moral agent causes their deformity.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Sorry, none of you got the drift of the problem. You need to examine and combine the three teachings to get to the contradiction. It has nothing to do with the problem of evil. If you prefer, you can substitute the gunshot and the bullet with the process of baking a loaf of bread. The problem will be the same.

 

[Wesrock]

Sorry, none of you got the drift of the problem. You need to examine and combine the three teachings to get to the contradiction. It has nothing to do with the problem of evil. If you prefer, you can substitute the gunshot and the bullet with the process of baking a loaf of bread. The problem will be the same.

It’s hard for us to p(name removed by moderator)oint your misunderstanding () without further elaboration on where you believe the contradiction lies.

 

[Polycarp1]

1. God is sovereign. This means that nothing we ever do makes God “contingent”.
2. Humans have free will. This means that God does not interfere with our actions. In other words we are the primary causative agents of our actions.
3. God is not only the first cause, but also the sustaining cause. This means that God is an active participant in every action. For example, if you shoot a gun to kill someone, God sustains the bullet in existence and maintains its trajectory all the way to the victim’s body.

Question: Do you see the glaring logical contradiction here?

I can only see a contradiction using purely human logic which is most often not based on true reality. The reality of who and what we are and who God is. God created. Does that make him to blame for everything his creation does?

Yes God gave mankind freewill and in his image we have is spiritual souls that have the capacity to know and love. The capacity to love by necessity is accompanied by the ability to decide. Along with creation God said let there be light several days before He created the sun, moon and stars. This then was the light of reason and the “order of things” or the law of cause and effect so to speak. He gave us the capacity to make decisions but not the control of how the consequences of our decisions would unfold.

I can’t say to the car owner that it was their fault I stole their car because they left it parked on the street I was passing by. I don’t think the judge would buy that defense either.

God has both His “permissive will” and “positive will”. “Permissive will” where He allows things to happen and “positive” where He intervenes in the affairs of men. The main, but not only, example of where God has intervened in the affairs of men is in the execution of His plan of redemption to save us from our own foolishness.

 

[GEddie]

It is not a contradiction.

God allows human free will.

(Which is to a great extent, a mirage, anyways.)

ICXC NIKA

 

[fhansen]

Sorry, none of you got the drift of the problem. You need to examine and combine the three teachings to get to the contradiction. It has nothing to do with the problem of evil. If you prefer, you can substitute the gunshot and the bullet with the process of baking a loaf of bread. The problem will be the same.

Do you think people should be held morally and legally accountable for their actions? And should this depend on the existence of a God? IOW, If God exists, then are humans *not *accountable, since He’s responsible for everything by the act of creating and sustaining to begin with, whereas they are accountable if God doesn’t exist?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Nope, you all still barking up the wrong tree. The problem is with the concept of sustaining cause - and it is a purely logical question. Let’s get to the details.

A human with free will decides to perform an act. Whether it is shooting someone, or baking a loaf of bread, it does not matter. To carry out his decision, he needs to manipulate matter. But the matter would simply flicker out of existence, if God would not actively sustain it. Therefore God’s action - to maintain the matter (the bullet on its trajectory, or the bread forming from the ingredients) - is contingent upon our decision. Since God is “simple”, if his action is contingent, then God himself is contingent - which is contradicted by the concept that God is sovereign.

As I said, the problem is simply a logical one. If we are the primary causative agent, and God actively maintains the matter, then God’s action is contingent.

The problem is the “sustaining cause”. If one starts with the assumption that God created the universe AND all the laws of nature, then there is no need for the constant “maintenance”. The ball keeps rolling according to laws created by God, and then only a minimum of interference is needed, when God decides to perform a miracle. So God is NOT contingent upon our actions any more.

That was the contradiction I presented. I was interested if anyone can figure it out.

 

[fhansen]

Nope, you all still barking up the wrong tree. The problem is with the concept of sustaining cause - and it is a purely logical question. Let’s get to the details.

A human with free will decides to perform an act. Whether it is shooting someone, or baking a loaf of bread, it does not matter. To carry out his decision, he needs to manipulate matter. But the matter would simply flicker out of existence, if God would not actively sustain it. Therefore God’s action - to maintain the matter (the bullet on its trajectory, or the bread forming from the ingredients) - is contingent upon our decision. Since God is “simple”, if his action is contingent, then God himself is contingent - which is contradicted by the concept that God is sovereign.

As I said, the problem is simply a logical one. If we are the primary causative agent, and God actively maintains the matter, then God’s action is contingent.

The problem is the “sustaining cause”. If one starts with the assumption that God created the universe AND all the laws of nature, then there is no need for the constant “maintenance”. The ball keeps rolling according to laws created by God, and then only a minimum of interference is needed, when God decides to perform a miracle. So God is NOT contingent upon our actions any more.

That was the contradiction I presented. I was interested if anyone can figure it out.

God exists in eternity, so: “To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy.” CCC600 Therefore there is no contingency with Him, all is foreknown prior to creation.

 

[Wesrock]

I asked if that was your angle in post #6. What you bring up now is an ancient objection, which seems to boil down to either two possibilities:
(1) if creation is contingent, then doesn’t that create a problem where God is contingent?
(2) If that is a contradiction, and if we still accept God is a necessary being, doesn’t that make everything necessary? And what are the consequences of that for free will?

This has been addressed by philosophers, ancient and modern. I will need to brush up on their answers. Not something I can whip out a quick post on, unfortunately. Certainly Aquinas addressed it in both the Summa Contra Gentiles and the Summa Theologica, and elsewhere. Though those are quick summary documents of various points.

 

[Wesrock]

Also, many classic arguments for God are based on needing an active, sustaining creator and have nothing to do with the universe having a beginning. I’m not sure where this old ‘clock abandoned by the clockmaker’ example has come up. It’s not as if the ‘ongoing creation’ thing people speak of is just thrown in for good measure.

 

[STT]

1. God is sovereign. This means that nothing we ever do makes God “contingent”.
2. Humans have free will. This means that God does not interfere with our actions. In other words we are the primary causative agents of our actions.
3. God is not only the first cause, but also the sustaining cause. This means that God is an active participant in every action. For example, if you shoot a gun to kill someone, God sustains the bullet in existence and maintains its trajectory all the way to the victim’s body.

Question: Do you see the glaring logical contradiction here?

Yes, I see a contradiction. How an agent with the primary causative ability could exist if God sustains everything?

 

[Wesrock]

As I said, the problem is simply a logical one. If we are the primary causative agent, and God actively maintains the matter, then God’s action is contingent.

And is this problematic? By contingent, we simply mean that something could be or it could not be. Certainly theism acknowledges that the very universe we are in could not be, which means God’s action could not be what it *is *and could be something else. God did not create out of necessity. God is not like us. We think in terms of “every action must have an equal but opposite reaction.” My action affects my extension through space and time, my make up, my knowledge, and many other aspects of me. However, within God, only the created things change in themselves and in relation to God. God’s act does not change Himself. It does not change where He is in space. It does not change His knowledge. He does not change in time. It does not add to him or take anything away. Therefore, God can act and be said not to be moved by His own actions or that of anything else. God’s action is not a motion of Himself, but a motion of things external to Himself. There is no equal but opposite affect.

We can’t forget also that God has from all eternity knowledge of all things. He always knows He is sustaining that bullet that results from a voluntary exercise of will. It is not new knowledge or new action for Him. All of creation is, in a sense, one eternal act of God. Not discrete, but not passing in duration either (from His perspective, anyway). God knows all contingent futures, not because it is future to Him, but because his divine intellect is directed to all things that exist (from our perspective in past, present or future) in their present. There is no before or after in the knowledge of God. He knows the causes of all things and has knowledge of all things as they are in themselves, as they are all the result of His own act.

 

[Tomdstone]

If you prefer, you can substitute the gunshot and the bullet with the process of baking a loaf of bread.

I don;t see what gunshots and bullets have to do with baking a loaf of bread. Bread can be eaten and you can make delicious hot dip pastrami sandwiches with bread. I don’t see how you can do the same with gunshot and bullets. So to me, it is a false analogy.