Three teachings

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Vera_Ljuba said:
…Nope, there is another logical possibility. Time is actually a measurement of change, and it can have several manifestations; one is our time and the other one is God’s time. As soon as one accepts that God does or did something - like creating the physical world - an action takes place, which subdivides the reality into a before a during and an after…
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That is an very interesting thought. I knew that there is no sense of time when there is no action. At least that is one view. Why don’t you open another thread on this topic so you can discuss your idea with others?
 
Tomdstone said:
I don’t buy it.
“… a person who thinks that this law [of non-contradiction] is not true will become a thoroughly confused individual whose thought life is a complete mess, full of contradictions and inconsistencies.”
Please see:
toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/12/28/what-is-the-law-of-non-contradiction/
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Well- that’s the point. As human beings, we are not only immersed in contradictions, but ARE contradictions. Yes, our lives our a complete mess, full of contradictions and inconsistencies.

In others words, we are plunged on the storm-tossed sea of life, feeble and frail, sinful and weak, blind and confused.

Therefore, let us throw ourselves- blind, weak and lost- before the Cross of Christ, the Supreme God killed on a tree, the greatest of all contradictions. And pray that, uniting ourselves to the precious tears of the dolorous Most Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Mercy and Queen of Heaven, that the pierced hands of the crucified Almighty may deign to rescue us, lest we sink, submerged in this shoreless sea of sorrow, which is this mortal life.
 
Tomdstone said:
I don’t buy it.
“… a person who thinks that this law [of non-contradiction] is not true will become a thoroughly confused individual whose thought life is a complete mess, full of contradictions and inconsistencies.”
Please see:
toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/12/28/what-is-the-law-of-non-contradiction/
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That was a strange blog. I thought you cannot prove laws. He mention that if a person deny the law of non-contradiction then her denial is false and true at the same time. Laws of non-contradiction is true if the denial is false, the first case. But how about the second case?
 
Qoeleth said:
It’s no problem that religious doctrines are logically contradictory. If they were logically reconcilable, they would be scientific or philosophical doctrines. And these are often very boring and unconsoling indeed.
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If religious doctrines would be contradictory, then you could not argue that they are “right” or “wrong”. And if you cannot prove that they are correct, then you could not expect others to accept them.
Qoeleth said:
It’s like- on the one hand, God wills only good.
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This is a theological statement, but - according to your own professed principle - it is self-contradictory, so why should anyone accept it even as a “working hypothesis”?
Qoeleth said:
Conclusion- the apparent world (including ourselves) is a mere tissue of contradiction, delusion and folly, a dream told by an idiot. So, at a deeper level, there is must be a God- an absolute- into which we will fall when the delusion of self and the universe fall away- when we awake from this dream which we call ‘life’. But maybe that God is non-existent- or more precisely is totally beyond the category of existence.
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That is another theological statement… 🙂
 
STT said:
That is an very interesting thought. I knew that there is no sense of time when there is no action. At least that is one view. Why don’t you open another thread on this topic so you can discuss your idea with others?
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We can do it. But let’s finish up this one first. 🙂
 
Vera_Ljuba said:
There are only two options:
  1. Either we are cars on a railroad track - with absolutely no freedom, or
  2. We have any kind of freedom, imperfect or not, we are the primary causative agents of our actions.
If #2 is true (and it is also a dogma), then God’s actions are contingent upon our actions.
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We are on a railroad track that is rickety and many people fall off into the abyss. In addition, the train is filled with defects and cars decouple and fall into the abyss. Look! The train engineer is drunk as a skunk and the conductor kicks people off the train randomly for no reason, even though the fare was paid.

Yes, the train will eventually get to its destination somehow (heaven) - the problem is that not all the people came aboard were able to do so, through no choice of their own.

What’s free will when people are created imperfect? Buggy software will crash.
 
Vera_Ljuba said:
If religious doctrines would be contradictory, then you could not argue that they are “right” or “wrong”. And if you cannot prove that they are correct, then you could not expect others to accept them.

This is a theological statement, but - according to your own professed principle - it is self-contradictory, so why should anyone accept it even as a “working hypothesis”?

That is another theological statement… 🙂
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Religion is more like art. It’s not so much whether it’s right or wrong, as whether it has a particular resonance with a person.

I suppose a lot of people become Catholics, not so much because of any great logical force, but because they like Catholic spirituality, liturgy, imagery, etc.

This is not to say it’s not true- but rather that it’s true in a higher sense than logical.
 
Tomdstone said:
No. My life is not a complete mess. Perhaps you are speaking of your life?
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I was speaking in general. As human beings, everyone is subject to frailty and contradictions.

Perhaps if you looked a little deeper you would find this is true for you too.
 
Wesrock said:
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.
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I mentioned this in another thread:
JapaneseKappa said:
github.com/FormalTheology/GoedelGod
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Some scientists used theorem proving tools to attempt to validate Gödel’s Ontological Proof of God’s Existence. They succeeded, and found issues with several older formulations of the proof… but their theorem proving tools immediately found a corollary. Specifically, it found there are no contingent things. So far, it appears, there is no way to resolve this “modal collapse,” and accepting the validity of such proofs requires you to also accept that all your decisions are made necessarily.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
I mentioned this in another thread:

Some scientists used theorem proving tools to attempt to validate Gödel’s Ontological Proof of God’s Existence. They succeeded, and found issues with several older formulations of the proof… but their theorem proving tools immediately found a corollary. Specifically, it found there are no contingent things.
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What you said is confusing. You first mentioned that they were successful to prove God and then mentioned that there is no contingent thing.
JapaneseKappa said:
So far, it appears, there is no way to resolve this “modal collapse,” and accepting the validity of such proofs requires you to also accept that all your decisions are made necessarily.
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This is another part that I cannot understand. How our decisions could be necessary? Could you please elaborate?
 
STT said:
What you said is confusing. You first mentioned that they were successful to prove God and then mentioned that there is no contingent thing.

This is another part that I cannot understand. How our decisions could be necessary? Could you please elaborate?
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Of course. The “no contingent thing” was a corollary of their proof.

If our decisions are necessary, it means the outcomes are required (in an a-priori, logical sense) to be a certain way. We imagine that if we are presented with a slice of blueberry pie and peach pie, we could choose either one, and that we wouldn’t somehow violate the rules of logic by doing so. When our decisions are necessary, it is not actually possible to choose either one. Our ultimate decision to choose peach is encoded into the the very fabric of logic.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
Of course. The “no contingent thing” was a corollary of their proof.
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So they are dealing with a paradox?
JapaneseKappa said:
If our decisions are necessary, it means the outcomes are required (in an a-priori, logical sense) to be a certain way. We imagine that if we are presented with a slice of blueberry pie and peach pie, we could choose either one, and that we wouldn’t somehow violate the rules of logic by doing so. When our decisions are necessary, it is not actually possible to choose either one. Our ultimate decision to choose peach is encoded into the the very fabric of logic.
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Why consciousness should follow the fabric of logic?
 
STT said:
So they are dealing with a paradox?
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STT said:
I am not logician so I cannot follow their notation. It would be nice you if you could elaborate.
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Paradox: A self-contradictory proposition.

If you think that the conclusion “No contingent things exist” is a paradox, then you must have thought that it somehow contradicted some other part of their proof. The contradiction of “no contingent things exist” is “some contingent things exist.” Therefore, if it were actually a paradox, their proof would have needed to somewhere assert “some contingent things exist.” They did not assert this. It is not a paradox.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
Paradox: A self-contradictory proposition.

If you think that the conclusion “No contingent things exist” is a paradox, then you must have thought that it somehow contradicted some other part of their proof. The contradiction of “no contingent things exist” is “some contingent things exist.” Therefore, if it were actually a paradox, their proof would have needed to somewhere assert “some contingent things exist.” They did not assert this. It is not a paradox.
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God by definition is the creator so the universe must be contingent. So I cannot follow you.

And why consciousness should follow the fabric of logic?
 
JapaneseKappa said:
Paradox: A self-contradictory proposition.

If you think that the conclusion “No contingent things exist” is a paradox, then you must have thought that it somehow contradicted some other part of their proof. The contradiction of “no contingent things exist” is “some contingent things exist.” Therefore, if it were actually a paradox, their proof would have needed to somewhere assert “some contingent things exist.” They did not assert this. It is not a paradox.
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God by definition is the creator so the universe must be contingent. So I cannot follow you.
 
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