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Wesrock
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Newton thought laws of nature were divine physical laws. Does that undermine his physics?
Why you should think that the First-Cause has to be an Intelligent Cause
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AlNg
Guest
According to Aristotle there are four types of causes: the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause and the final cause.
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IWantGod
Guest
Yes, these are the definitions Aristotle used to characterize causes.
I am not using those definitions in my demonstration.
While these definitions are important in understanding the work of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, It is still correct for me to point out that there are only natural causes and intelligent causes. This does not in any way contradict the concept of a material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, or final cause if you understand what is meant by those concepts. Only the context has shifted in my claim. I am not presenting a counterclaim.
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Vonsalza
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My statement doesn’t change - absolutely no way to test it as there are two or three impossible steps you’d need to take to set up the experiment.
As our base set of axioms (or “brute facts” in quasi-scientific sales-speech) are slightly different, I doubt I’ll “get my head around it” from exactly the same paradigm you do. [Mutual] Pity, right?
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Hugh_Farey
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I do agree with you, but Bradskii doesn’t. Certainly something set the universe in motion, but did it have to have “knowledge” of the future? Or “purpose”? These are human attributes which I think can be attributed to whatever it was who activated the universe, but I can understand an atheist not accepting that these particular attributes necessarily apply.
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AlNg
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You don’t need an experiment to show that 1 plus 1 equals 2. It is more or less the definition of 2. For the Mayans one dot means one and two dots means two. So if you put one dot beside another dot you get two. Similarly with Chinese. One horizontal line segment means one. and if you place another line segment on top of the first one, you get the number two. similarly with Roman numerals. I means one and II means two. Get it? You put one I beside another I and you get II which is two. I hope that is not too difficult to understand.
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Bradskii
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I’m looking for opinions, not to set up an experiment. But here’s what we’ve got:Bradskii:
My statement doesn’t change - absolutely no way to test it as there are two or three impossible steps you’d need to take to set up the experiment.
One plus one equals two.
Do you think that that situation was set up by God (in that one plus one could have been something other than 2) OR was God constrained in that to get two of anything He HAS to add one plus one.
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Vonsalza
Guest
Ummm…Vonsalza:
You don’t need an experiment to show that 1 plus 1 equals 2. It is more or less the definition of 2. For the Mayans one dot means one and two dots means two. So if you put one dot beside another dot you get two. Similarly with Chinese. One horizontal line segment means one. and if you place another line segment on top of the first one, you get the number two. similarly with Roman numerals. I means one and II means two. Get it? You put one I beside another I and you get II which is two. I hope that is not too difficult to understand.
*rubs face and drinks coffee
You’re missing it.
What he’s asking is if those things are still the case… if there is no God. Or, I guess, outside of God and/or it’s dominions. Thus in order to actually test that, you’d need to complete the tasks that I outlined.
To quote you-
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Vonsalza
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I’m sure we agree that a theist would argue the former. But since it’s not able to be tested, I just don’t see where we can really go from here.Vonsalza:
I’m looking for opinions, not to set up an experiment. But here’s what we’ve got:Bradskii:
My statement doesn’t change - absolutely no way to test it as there are two or three impossible steps you’d need to take to set up the experiment.
One plus one equals two.
Do you think that that situation was set up by God (in that one plus one could have been something other than 2) OR was God constrained in that to get two of anything He HAS to add one plus one.
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STT
Guest
They are, otherwise they are not called truths.
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STT
Guest
That is not true. 1+1=2 regardless if there is anyone knowing it or not.STT:
Truth, knowledge that conforms to reality, requires a being that is knowing.
Where do you get this from?STT:
The First Cause exists.
The First Cause knows.
This doesn’t follow.
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Hugh_Farey
Guest
The thinking mind abstracts what is already there to be abstracted. 1 + 1 equalled two long before there was anybody there to say so.
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STT
Guest
Does truth value of 1+1=2 depends whether there is somebody to imagine it or not? No. Therefore Truth is eternal.
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o_mlly
Guest
That statement is just a truism . If any abstraction is true then it is always true as a concept.
That any particular abstraction is true or false is irrelevant to the action itself.
For instance, it is an abstraction to claim that black is the absence of all colors. It is also an abstraction to claim that red is the presence of all colors. The former is true, the latter false. But both are abstractions following the apprehension of concrete colored things.
To abstract is to draw away something.
That “something” must exist and be present before the thinking mind can apprenhend and draw from it.
The concrete precedes abstraction.
The truth of 1+1=2 depended on the number of fingers man had with which to count concrete things. 1 + 1 = 10 in binary.
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IWantGod
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What do you think of Aquinas’s fifth way?
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.
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IWantGod
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Slavery was either always wrong or it was never wrong.
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AlNg
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And torture? Was it wrong during the Inquisition?
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IWantGod
Guest
Are you asking my opinion on torture, or are we having a metaphysical discussion about truth?
The point is, if something is truly wrong, then it has always been true that such a thing is wrong, regardless of whether anyone has ever committed the act or knows if it is wrong. Sometimes people reason erroneously and end up justifying something wrong and sometimes people get confused and end up thinking that something good is wrong. But that is not evidence of the idea that all truth or moral truth is subjective and relative. It is merely evidence of human ignorance.
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