Subject:
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Re: One of my issues (Warning: even wordier than usual)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 16 Nov 2001 05:11:17 GMT
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Viewed:
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1220 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Brown writes:
> If you can conceive of a being that can do something that can't be done, I'm
> impressed - but I don't think you can, by definition. If a being (God or
> otherwise) can do something, then that something isn't impossible. "doing
> the impossible" is a null statement, and logically contradicts itself.
I can conceive of such a being in at least abstract terms, such as "that
being which is not bound by our definition of logical impossibility."
> Now, if you mean you can conceive of something that is impossible *as you
> understand how things work* that's in many regards very different. It's
> easy to concieve of something that is greater than my understanding.
And mine too, but I'll stand by the logical impossibility requirement. If
you have any notion at all of the Christian God, then I'd say you have at least
a few ideas about a being able to perform logical impossibilities, such as
being one entity and three entities (if you accept the doctrine of the Trinity)
or a being that existed "before" time. I don't mean to play word games, either,
since those would be beneath an infinite being; I mean literally existing as
three entities and also being one single entity, and existing *before* time,
rather than "existing in a time before our notion of time." If either of these
can be demonstrated to me, than I'll believe I've witnessed a miracle and will
become the most ardent Christian apologist the world has ever known.
Further, the very act of claiming certain things to be off-limits in this way
is to commit the falacy of the receding target:
A: "God is infinite and can do anything."
B: "Can he create a rock he can't lift?"
A: "No, but that doesn't count."
B: "Can he make two people simultaneously
taller than each other?"
A: "No, but that statement has no truth value."
B: "Can he make a square circle?"
A: "No, but that's nonsensical."
B: "Can he make a prime number evenly divisible by two?"
A: "No, but that's logically impossible."
B: "Okay, explain again how he can be simultaneously
three distinct beings and one being?"
A: "Well, he's God; he's infinite and can do anything."
> In my opinion, the (mostly synonimous) "God is that which there is nothing
> greater than"(1) and "with God all things are possible" and "God is
> omni-(whatever)" are all attempts to convey the concept or belief that God
> is greater than human understanding.
But that's really not enough, is it? If he's simply beyond our ability to
comprehend, then he's not necessarily infinite, so he's hardly the absolute
being. Someone (I'll try and find out who; his name escapes me at the moment)
once asserted that God is not only "greater than which nothing can be thought"
but in fact is *greater* than that which greater than which nothing can be
thought. So I'll say once again that anything that can commit a logical
impossibility is greater than that which cannot, and it is thus more worthy of
godhood. And, if such a being does not exist, then we're basically settling
for the next best thing.
> Taken at face value, you are stating that because morality does not submit
> empirical study, it has no value. Maybe I'm just not following the thread
> back far enough?
I may also have been unclear. I would say categorically that a phenomenon
that can be demonstrated empirically always trumps a phenomenon that cannot be
demonstrated empirically, so it is invalid to equate one with the other in
terms of existence external to man's invention. Further, if we have two
explanations for a phenomenon--one of them empircal and one of them
non-empirical--the empirical one is superior because it can be demonstrated and
requires neither faith nor the appeal to supernatural processes.
> > I don't understand how a Christian reconciles his view of morality with God
> > in terms of how each applies or relates to the other.
> I think you're making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be, or
> you are perhaps arguing to the absurd. How are you seeing a Christian's
> morality as irreconcilable with God? I really must confess that I don't get
> this last bit at all. Could you maybe provide some more depth to this?
> Your comment seems nonsensical to me, in the same sort of way that "how does
> the flavor of food relate to it's taste" seems absurd.
Well, your example question suggests that you perceive God to be inseparable
from morality, and for me that's the basic problem.
Take a No-Doze, because here's where it gets particulary verbose...
Here are three possibilities that present themselves to me, assuming that both
God and morality exist (and please feel free to offer more possibilities, since
it's late as I write this):
1. God is subject to morality
2. God is not subject to morality
3. God is morality
The benefit of 1 is that it allows us to posit an absolute morality separate
from God and inherent in existence without appealing to any one being for moral
justification. The problem of 1 is that if God is subject to morality, then he
is not greater than morality, and so his existence is not ultimate.
The benefit of 2 is that God remains superior to morality, so that nothing
exists that is greater than God, thereby preserving his ultimate status. The
problem of 2 is that, if God is not subject to morality, and since we judge
good and evil in terms of morality, then we cannot judge God to be good, since
he is above the mechanism that would allow us to judge him so.
The benefit of 3 is that it allows God to remain the ultimate being, and it
also allows morality to be inherent in existence since exists more certainly
than something that is omnipresent, such as God. The problem of 3 is that I
don't think anyone really believes it, other than in a "God is Love" sense,
which doesn't really bring us any closer to an answer. We might also invoke
Hume and point out that if we can get to morality without the need of a god,
then it's preferable to do so, since we don't therefore have to posit the
existence of any other being, much less an infinite being.
One might propose the possibility that morality is a function of God's
creation, and he chooses to allow himself to be subject to it in some ways.
But that doesn't work either, since for one thing it's circular reasoning, and
for another it still doesn't really allow us to judge his goodness.
So in essence, and all other impossibility questions aside, I'm asking how
believers know God to be good. Personal experience is frankly inadequate proof
for anyone who does not already believe, so we can refrain from those
testimonials; otherwise, we must also accept the existence of bigfoot and UFOs.
In attempting to refute God's existence, non-believers will sometimes point to
the existence of evil as a contradiction to the nature of God. First of all,
that's never actually been answered satisfactorily, but often the answer is "we
can't know his divine plan" or "we can't comprehend the infinite." I don't
intend either of these as straw men arguments, so if someone can articulate a
better answer, please do so. In any case, if we can't know his divine plan, or
if we can't comprehend the infinite, then we absolutely can't judge him to be
good, since we are by definition accepting an infinitessimally small sample of
his character as adequate representation of his whole.
> 1:...and a sentence ending in a preposition is something up with which I
> will not put. ;)
Once upon a time a young boy was tired and went upstairs to his bedroom to
sleep, and he was so tired that he didn't wish his mother to read to him, as
she often did, from the book she kept on a shelf downstairs. When he was just
about asleep, he heard his mother entering with the book, and groggily he asked
"What did you bring that book that I didn't want to be read to out of up for?"
Dave!
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