Atheist misconceptions about Metaphysics

Atheists have many misconceptions about the term. Most of the time they seem to think it means some special way or argument for God, or that's synonymous with their screwed up understanding of "supernatural" (which is not the right definition of that term either but that's another story).

standard misconception that Metaphysics is about "things beyond the physical" that's not true. AT least not necessarily. For exampel the question of free will is a metaphysical question and the will is a real thing it's not a concrete thing in the physical. The question about mental vs physical is a metaphysical question.

Stanford encyclopedia.
"Metaphysics"

It is not easy to say what metaphysics is. Ancient and Medieval philosophers might have said that metaphysics was, like chemistry or astrology, to be defined by its subject matter: metaphysics was the “science” that studied “being as such” or “the first causes of things” or “things that do not change.” It is no longer possible to define metaphysics that way, and for two reasons. First, a philosopher who denied the existence of those things that had once been seen as constituting the subject-matter of metaphysics—first causes or unchanging things—would now be considered to be making thereby a metaphysical assertion. Secondly, there are many philosophical problems that are now considered to be metaphysical problems (or at least partly metaphysical problems) that are in no way related to first causes or unchanging things; the problem of free will, for example, or the problem of the mental and the physical.

Conversely the idea that metaphysics is just making things up is also obviously false since the will and the mental and the physical are not made up.

Misconceptions:

I. Metaphysics is about magic, supernatural or made up stuff

That's was disproved in the things said above. In Heidegger's version of metaphysics scinece is a form of metaphysics.

II. we can't test or verify anything about metaphysics

Modal logic is a limit on any metaphysical construct. Other kinds of logic as well, also assist. We don't need to empirical investigation to know that there are no square circles. We can rule them out with logic. so logic can tell us things. Obviously we are not going to build a rock with just logic. We can use logic to screen metaphysical ideas.

III. That metaphysics is about magic and psychic powers.

Nope it's not, not at all. As I said in Heidegger's view science is metaphysics.


IV. That Christians have to support metaphysical thinking.

false. Especially if one is a Heideggerian Christian because in Heidegger's terms metaphysics is a bad thing. For Heidegger metaphysics is herding or grouping sense data into pre conceived categories. That's actually what reductionism is doing. Reductionism and naturalism are both metaphysics.

There are two major thinker's whose views of metaphysics I go by. One is Heidegger the other is Bruce Wiltshire.He is a professes emeritus at Ruttger's University.



He wrote a book called Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosphy

He defines metaphysics as talk about talk about the world. That's tricky because you might think it's just "talk about the world." It's not talking about the world, it's talking about how to talk about the world. so metaphysics for him is a methodological procedure.

I think what both of these views have in common is that they are about how to organize knowledge about the world. For me that's my idea of metaphysics how to organize knowledge, organizing it in a way that it's all put into preconceived categories.

So the same reasons that make me dislike reductionism also make me dislike metaphysics.
For me as with Heidegger the alternative is phenomenology, which means allowing the sense data to suggest their own categories.When one says "Metaphysics is no good it's just making things up," Or "there's no God" or "scinece is the only form of knowledge" one is doing metaphysics. You guys don't even know it but most of you are doing metaphysics all the time.

An example of metaphysics would be Tillich's ideas about the depth of being. Tillich's theological method, is a good example of metaphysical work that's almost scientific and offers more than just speculation. Depth of being is an example of metaphysics.

Tillich equates knowing that being has depth with knowing that God is real. This will be the basis of the “realization” that is the end goal and object of my work in this regard. The development of an alternative to endless arguments that must be taken on faith before they prove anything is moving toward an understanding of realization as the alternative to argument. We have seen this quotation before but I will use it here again:

"The name of infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of our being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not."[i]

This is not a literal one-to-one correspondence. When one concludes that being has depth one has not proved the existence of God in the sense that the ontological argument is supposed to do. This is not a priori truth. It is more than just a “rhetorical” statement. The statement is hermeneutical and ontological although not literal. The quotation itself tells us why he says that if we know being has depth we can’t be atheists. He equates depth of being with the source of being, the source of life, and he tells us that the term “God” means depth. Literally the word “God” does not mean “depth.” He’s saying that the concept of God in modern theology and in the Christian tradition has always been that God transcends the level of mere things in creation. Depth of being means that being is not just the fact of things existing, nor is it only a surface understanding of the causes of things around us. The depth of being is the big picture, the idea that being is more than what we observe empirically, it is the spiritual sense, depth in in profundity. He actually uses the term “depth” in more than one sense; suffering as in depth of despair, profundity, as in “deep meaning,” and transcendence, beyond the surface level. All of these uses are embodied in his essay.[ii] According to this statement, when we come to realize that there’s a lot more to being than just surface fact of existence, then we understand that God is real. Thus God and the depth of being are equated. This is because God is not a big man in the sky, but rather, God is the power of being, that to say the ground upon which all is has come to be and in which it coheres and continues. In the last chapter I discussed the possibility that this is the power of mind to perceive or to think the universe. The connection between the possibilities of consciousness as the basis of reality and the philosophical questions raised by this notion, as well as others related to it, form the basis of a good place to start exploring the depth of being.

In the previous chapter I discussed the hard problem of human consciousness. In the opening chapter I discussed philosophical questions at the epistemic level that science cannot answer. The fact that these questions cannot be answered by empirical research or observation is a good indication that there is a depth being beyond the surface of things existing. This in and of itself proves that being has depth. The fact that we have these questions to ask, they mean something to most people, and we can answer them through science, which is to say, through empirical observation of the surface of fact of existence or thing-hood, indicates that there is a depth there that be probed through reason. The hard problem of consciousness is one of those issues. There are many focal points that highlight these kinds of questions and demonstrate the depth of being. Many of these can be used as God arguments, and the traditional God arguments can be used as focal points for reflection upon the depth of being. In the subsequent chapter I will deal with God arguments. For now I want to focus upon the major issues of the depth of being. The point is that in understanding the depth of being one is forced to confront the realization of the reality of God. Since my overall point is to produce a theology of the realization toward a new apologetic, these “focal points,” are like stepping stones that lead us down the path to realization.

In his essay The Shaking of the foundations,[iii] Tillich discusses depth of benig and some things have been said about that already (chapter 3). At this point, however, I will depart from Tillich’s organizational scheme but not from is basic thought and intent. There are what I like to call “deep structures” in reality that can be observed, or teased out. These deep structures can be organized into ideas that might serve to illustrate the point of depth of being, or might ever serve the function of arguments either for the reality of God or for the rational nature of belief. This is what I call the “focal points,” or a term of my invention I also like, “signifiers of depth.” The signifiers of depth highlight the deep structures. These consist of Tillich’s ontological categories. These categories are empirically derived forms of speaking. Because they are ontological, considered with the nature of being, they are in everything, not limited to religion. We make our world out of the categories, which determines the content. When I say “our world” I mean the world of our constructs, the world in our minds that consists of what we understand and how we understand it. The cause of the big bang is not part of this world because we don’t understand it or observe it. The attitudes we perceive in others may be mysterious or they may be understood wrongly or rightly but what we perceive about them is part of the world of our constructs because we perceive and it registers upon our understanding in some way. It is out of this amalgam of understood constructs that the categories are forged. This is all empirically deduced by Tillich.[iv] The categories do not include the unconditioned (God) because it transcends our understanding. But we have ideas about God that are derived from experiences and teachings and these are part of the categories, but they are not the uncontained, they are not the reality of God they are perception of God.

The categories are:

Being and non being, and the forms finitude.[v]

The forms of finitude:

*time: central to finitude because it limits being

*space: to be special is to be limited by the possibility of non being

*causality: determinate of being enables symbol and logical interpretation

*substance: the nature or mode of being

When Tillich gets even more specific forms of finitude include at some point self and the world. Much was said about self and the world in chapter 3. Tillich teases out problems of insecurity relating to each category:

*temporal (finitude) = we die.

*spatial = limitation of space (another form of finitude) remind us that we are limited in duration and in reach.

*causality = remind us of being and non being

*substance = we limited to accidents of being;

All of these produce anxiety at the prospect of non being (death). This is where Tillich plugs in the object of ultimate concern. The fact that we have an ultimate concern and that we can be bothered by the prospect of our finitude and cessation of being points to the deep structures of reality; it shows us that there’s more there than just the fact of existence, there’s the fact of cessation of existence and that it bothers us. Sometimes atheists try to deny that they have an ultimate concern or that they care about death. Even if one doesn’t feel the ultimate concern it’s logically there, and all one need do is to read the literature of the world to know that for most of humanity death is the ultimate concern.

Some atheists or skeptics might be inclined to say this is all just speculation and can’t be proved. Actually there is no reason to doubt any of this so far. We can deduce all of this; Tillich says it’s empirical, from the universally expressed observations and aspirations of humanity. These ideas, there is time, there is space, there is ultimate concern, time and space are forms of finitude and they remind us we are going to die, this is hardly arcane metaphysics or the ravings of a mad man. These are things most great writers throughout human history have said in one way or anther. The relationship of duration to finitude is deductive and hardly brain surgery. From these categories, that are more or less universally understood, we derive equally basic epistemological questions. These basic epistemological questions are indicative of the meaning and nature of being; they are born out of the way our insecurities about our own being strike us. We caused to reflect upon what we know and how we know it. The fact that we are caused to reflect upon such basic aspects is indicative of deep structures in being; since being is more than just a surface inventory of things that exist, but must be understood in relation to how we know what we know, there is reason enough to consider that being has depth. These questions may sound silly to the uninitiated in philosophy, but they have a serious purpose in being asked. This has already been presented in chapter 1. Questions such as “why is there something rather than nothing?” “Why am I here?” “What is life about?” The very fact of these questions, and that they are asked seriously and at times with great longing indicates to us the depth of being.

Deep s

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[i] Tillich, Shaking of the foundations 0p cit, (see chapter three) 52.

[ii] Ibid, 52-53

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Tillich, Systematic I. 197

[v] Tillich, Shaking… op cit 197=200

Do God's Omniscience and Omnipresence Contradict?

Atheists think it is. I've seen many a knock down drag-out fight, multiple threads, lasing for days, accomplishing nothing. I wrote that dilemma off years ago before I was an internet apologist, so long ago I don't remember when. I wrote it off because at an early date I read Boethius who, in his great work The Consolation of Philosophy (circa 524), puts to rest the issue by proving that foreknowledge is not determinism. In this essay I will demonstrate not only that this is true but the atheist error about omniscience and omnipotence contradicting are actually hold overs from the pagan framework which Boethius disproved.

___________________ 

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

(480?-524)
 Aurthor The Consolation
 of Philosophy
___________________

For years my debates on the matter were marked by silly repetition. I would constantly argue that just knowing that someone does something is not controlling it. But atheists were always cock sure that it was. I used the follow analogy: I know how the Alamo turned out. Travis and the men stepped over the line and chose to stay and die. I know they did that, does my knowledge of it mean that I made them do it? Of course the atheist say "O of course not, but you are not in the past, you are knowing this by a look back in history to see what they already did." Of course, but God doesn't know about events before they have happened in time, he knows about them because he's beyond time and he sees everything in time as a accomplished fact. From our perspective in time God's knowledge is "foreknowledge" becasue it is for us. But it's not foreknowledge for God, he doesn't know before it happens, he knows about events because form an eternal perspective its a done deal. Just as my knowing what the men at the Alamo already did does not give me control over their choices, so God's knowledge of facts we have already accomplish does not give God control over our choices.

Of course, predictably, the atheists dismiss this idea as "nonsense" and go right on asserting that to know of an action is to control, but they can't tell me why. They can tell me a  theoretical reason but they can't tell me why if my knowing about the Alamo ex post facto does not control those actions why would God's knowledge of a past even already done control the past event? Why are these not analogous if God is outside time and sees all things in time as accomplished facts? They can't tell me but they are certain the idea is nonsense. The reason they give initially is this. Say that God knows today that I will go to the store tomorrow. That means that i can't tomorrow morning decide "I don't want to go tot he store, I hate the walk." I can't decide that and follow it because God already knows I went so I have to go. But the problem is they are not following a modern concept of God knowing becuase he's outside of time. They are still stuck in the pre Christian framework which has clung to modern Western Philosophy lo these many centuries. That frame work can be clearly seen in Boethius because that's what he was arguing against. The fame work is the Greek Gods were controlled by the fates, but they also had foreknowledge, so they were trumping the fates, to whom they were really subject. That creates an issue. Moreover, foreknowledge was about things that had not yet taken place, thus that is a contradiction; it hasn't taken place, how can it be known what one will do, to know it is to set in stone and thus not free will. But that only holds in the case of god in time not outside of time. It doesn't apply to the idea of God transcendent of time and thus that's why they can't answer me, but because they know the philosophers they read still assert the old Greek idea they must cling to it.


We can see the exact kind of thinking the atheists use in the Consolation and it is the framework against which Boethius toils. This quotation is form a summary in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The summary is by John Marenbon.

The first point which needs to be settled is what, precisely, is the problem which Boethius the character proposes? The reasoning behind (7) seems to be of the following form:

9. God knows every event, including all future ones.
10. When someone knows that an event will happen, then the event will happen.
11. (10) is true as a matter of necessity, because it is impossible to know that which is not the case.
12. If someone knows an event will happen, it will happen necessarily.(10, 11)
13. Every event, including future ones, happens necessarily. (9, 12)

The pattern behind (8) will be similar, but in reverse: from a negation of (13), the negation of (9) will be seen to follow. But, as it is easy to observe, (9–13) is a fallacious argument: (10) and (11) imply, not (12), but

14. Necessarily, if someone knows an event will happen, it will happen.

 (emphasis mine)

 The summary of the problem he's working against indicates exactly the problem I frame it, that the atheist (following the Greeks) is not assuming transcendence of time but is working on the assumption that God's knowledge is prior to the completed nature of the action. This was framework in which Boethius found the problem in his own contemporary scene which came from the pre-christian Hellenistic world. Even when the philosopher writing the article sums it up he still speaks form the same perspective:

The fallacy, therefore, concerns the scope of the necessity operator. Boethius has mistakenly inferred the (narrow-scope) necessity of the consequent (‘the event will happen’), when he is entitled only to infer the (wide-scope) necessity of the whole conditional (‘if someone knows an event will happen, it will happen’). Boethius the character is clearly taken in by this fallacious argument, and there is no good reason to think that Boethius the author ever became aware of the fallacy (despite a passage later on which some modern commentators have interpreted in this sense). None the less, the discussion which follows does not, as the danger seems to be, address itself to a non-problem. Intuitively, Boethius sees that the threat which divine prescience poses to the contingency of future events arises not just from the claim that God's beliefs about the future constitute knowledge, but also from the fact that they are beliefs about the future. There is a real problem here, because if God knows now what I shall do tomorrow, then it seems that either what I shall do is already determined, or else that I shall have the power tomorrow to convert God's knowledge today into a false belief. Although his logical formulation does not capture this problem, the solution Boethius gives to Philosophy is clearly designed to tackle it.

He's speaking form the perspective of future events which have not yet happened, being known before they happen. But that leaves out the assumption that's God's is not actuality foreknowledge so much as translucence eternal knowledge that sees the events as an accomplished fact because it sees the the end result from a perspective after the event is accomplished. That's the wider perspective. Transcendent eternal knowledge is the knowledge of all time as the "eternal now" not "foreknowledge" in the sense of known only prior to the doing of the event. Then there is also an issue about the nature of the knower. This is a point Boethius may be making but it's hard to say. God knows form the standpoint of eternity but he speaks within times arrow to us so it appears to be foreknowledge, knowledge of that which has not yet transpired. Thus the illusion of determinism is created. But the fact of it is the knowledge comes from viewing all events as accomplished facts. It's in the perspective of timeless transience which only God can have.

This latter issue of the nature of the knowledge is marked by the summary and by the text itself as "modes of cognition." The Constolation of Philosphy is the old fashioned Philosophical dialogue which no one writes anymore, the kind Berkelely write (out of date in his day--early 1700's).

Erronious: "hi fallacious how's it going?"
Fallacious: "great, I'm now considering a new idea"
Erronious: "prey tell good sir what idea might that be?"

And they go on to discuss and provide endless house of fun writing Monty Python style paradiges of themselves. Then burst into a course of "Rene Descartes was a Druken fart, 'I drink therefore I am.'

But before they do that they discuss issues and the philosopher places his arguemnts in the mouth of the character. In the Consolution the Charactor Boethius is agonizing over philosphy when Philosophy personfie as a beautiful woman comes to him and gives him the answers. That's the context in which this reviewer states the following:

Her view, as she develops it (in V.5 and V.6), is based on what might be called the Principle of Modes of Cognition: the idea that knowledge is always relativized to different levels of knowers, who have different sorts of objects of knowledge. Although she initially develops this scheme in a complex way, in relation to the different levels of the soul (intelligence, reason, imagination and the senses) and their different objects (pure Form, abstract universals, images, particular bodily things), for most of her discussion Philosophy concentrates on a rather simpler aspect of it. God's way of being and knowing, she argues, is eternal, and divine eternity, she says, is not the same as just lacking a beginning and end, but it is rather (V.6) ‘the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unbounded life.’

Boethius did not have the knowledge of modern cosmology, the big bang, quantum theory or any of the other scientific data that we have so he did not possess the concepts of being outside of time. He did however have an understanding of eternity that came form his own spirituality, and it seems to coincide remarkably with the modern notion. What's he's saying is that God an eternal perspective. He can see the events of what to us are the future but to him is an eternal now. So he's not knowing something that hasn't happened yet, he knows something that to him has happened, but to us has not yet happened. Without the big bang Boeithius still has the concept of God being outside of time and he saw that as the basis of non-deterministic events in time which known to God as completed events due to God's unqiue persective.

A being who is eternal in this way, Philosophy argues, knows all things—past, present and future—in the same way as we, who live in time and not eternity, know what is present. She then goes on to show why, so long as God knows future events by their being present to him, this knowledge is compatible with the events’ not being determined.

Through the mouth of philosophy Boethius speculates that there two kinds of necessity. The first is:

Simple necessities are what would now be called physical or nomic necessities: that the sun rises, or that a man will sometime die. By contrast, it is conditionally necessary that, for instance, I am walking, when I am walking (or when someone sees that I am walking); but from this conditional necessity it does not follow that it is simply necessary that I am walking.

Although some philosophers disagree,  she is not noting the scope fallacy above but is actually using Aristotelian modality to argue about the eternal perspective. All things are known to God as though they were in the present. Future events for God are necessary in just the way that present events are necessary for us. What I'm doing writ now I am necessarily doing because I'm really doing it. But because it's my choice to do it and I'm doing it now (as opposed something I already did five years ago) my will to do it is not negated. I can stop doing it and so something else. But I can't go back five seconds ago and stop doing it in the past. All moments are known to God from this perspective.

Now so far so good. But there are two problems:

(1) Most philosophers today do not accept this reading of the issues.

It is important to add, however, that most contemporary interpreters do not read the argument of V.3–6 in quite this way. They hold that Philosophy is arguing that God is a-temporal, so eliminating the problems about determinism, which arise when God's knowing future contingents is seen an event in the past, and therefore, fixed.

That's going to be a problem for me becasue it means that timeless state of "beyond time" would mean God is "frozen" unable to act and thus can only act in time and thus the temporal problem. Rather, God sees as past and while may not control past is also not free to act in the past becuase it is a done deal.

(2) Philosophy seems to swing to a predestination view at the end.

She make God the determiner of events. There are also interpreters who see the Consolation as a satire that should be called "the insufficiency of philosophy." The only problem for me is that atheists will read this part of hte article and say "O see Metacorck is stupid because he didn't read the whole article." Marenbon argues that Boethius purpose is complex it can't be summarized as either "philosophy is insufficient" or "the whole issue is decided." what he's really saying is that philosophy is an ongoing concern. The true consolation of philosophy is not that such issue can be put to rest and summed up easily in nice little easy to understand phrases that only take a few syllables but we can have partial solutions and we can continue to work on problems and continue to seek answers and the act of so doing is a consolation even if we never find clear and easy answers. The interpretation of the Consolation is a literary problem, not a theological one. I will, therefore, bracket that until such as a time as I work on literary criticism.

The first problem is of much greater concern but I have an answer. I think I've analyzed Boethius' claims in the section where philosophy answers the issues of foreknowledge,I think I have that right and it works. It doesn't seem to work when we extract it form the framework of his day and place it in the world of modern cosmology, but it works again when we extract it from the framework of modern cosmology and place it in the framework of my theology (the Berkeley-Gaswami argument). My theological frame work differs from the modern cosmological in this way: I do not see God as a big man in the sky existing beyond the big bang which is a timeless void. I see God as the mind that thinks the universe, and the universe is therefore, analogous to a thought in a mind. I say "analogous" becuase it's a metaphor. If it was literal it might be more deterministic than any other view because it would mean that all events are thoughts in the mind of God in a litteral sense. I do not think that. The Gaswami part comes in where I take a page form the book of physicist Amit Gaswami (a Hindu vedantist who teaches physics at University of Oregon. Like Gaswami I see mind as the fundametnal stuff of the universe rather than energy or mater. I don't mean that in the sense of the universe being a mind, but that is related to mind in the way that a thought is related to a mind. I take that as a metaphor because like
Bishop George Berkeley I accept the premise "to be is to be perceived." God is the observer that collapses the wave function and causes the universe to be by beholding it. God is observing a thought that he has set up to run on it own. He's not making it happen or thinking every event at a microscopic level.

Two analogies that will clarify the difference. In the standard view God's relation to the world is like that of a man standing in a big room holding a world globe. The room is the timeless void beyond our space/time. The man is God, of course, and the globe is our space time. That puts God as a thing in "creation" or at least a timeless void, it makes God subject to the laws of physics and the problem of time. It makes God out to be a big man in the sky, although really far up in the sky. My view we have the room and the globe, no man. The room is the mind of God. the globe and the empty void of "timeless" are both thoughts in the mind of God. What this means is God is not subject to either time or the problem of non time. Both are pseudo problems for God because they are just ideas he thought up to create a framework for our world, which is a further thought of that preliminary thought in his mind. God is no more subject to the problems of time or even non time than we are to our day dreams and momentary fleeting fantasies that cross our minds.

This has many implications that have to be weighed. For one thing we just forget about the issues surrounding the omnis,, let them go completely. Not that God is not all knowing or all powerful, but the concepts "all knowing" and "all powerful" are hazy shadowy concepts that do more to confuse us than to help us. These are Aristotelian ideas and they hold overs from Greek philosophy. These things enter Western philosophy from Greek thought and they preserved by the prejudices of Western European philosophers. Modern philosophers still think the Greeks were the summit of human civilization, even the Church adopted ht language of Greek philosophy to discuss doctrine so we should look to the Greeks. The Hebrews were corn pones and the early Christians were Greeks themselves so Greek ideas hang on in philosophy. Thus the older meaning of "foreknowledge" and it's problems adhere to all modern discussions. The chruch began to use the language of Aristotle after the Apostolic age so we continue to speak of "omnipresent." "Omnipotent" even though the Bible doesn't so speak. We should scrap the language of "all knowing" " all powerful" because it communicates badly. Rather than these we should say, not that God is the "most powerful" that's a mistake too (from a Tillichian perspective) but that God can do whatever is logically doable. God knows whatever is logically knowable.

The problem is ni speaking of God as "doing" and "knowing' we give the importation of God as a big man and God's knowledge as the kind of knowledge city zoning board use to plan things. All of this anthropomorphic language is bring God down to the level of a thing in creation. It's not preserving the transcendent nature of God's knowledge which so different form ours we can't even know what it's like. What we can be sure of is that God has left us free will and he's not violating it. God knows whatever is logically knowable. It may not be logically knowable for God to know how it feels to be not God. But at the same time, he does know empathy, he knows the heart he knows the mind, he can take a much better intuitive feel of what that might be like than even we can ourselves. He doesn't know first hand what it's like to be human.

God does not have to make rocks he can't lift. That is a childish trap set for eighty grade apologetic hobbyists in Sunday school classes. I know because I'm still smarting from falling for it in eighth grade.God can't smell next Tuesday because days don't have smells. The eager beaver atheist can say "there's something God can't do." I say "so?" God cannot do nonsense, ok so what? We need to redefine the omnis and come up with a new term  ( I don't like "maximal greatness" too easy to confuse with "most power being"). The import this has for this issue is that there is no contradiction between omniscience and omnipotence because those are not helpful words and they don't really mean that much so they don't really describe God's attributes well. Since God is beyond the problems of either time or non-time he is not in the big room of timeless void so he's not frozen. Thus God's knowledge can come form all perspectives, from the eternal now and from time's arrow.

Might there actually be aspects of time God chooses not to see? The problem with that question is it assumes God is a rubber-necking tourist roving the expanse of all  existing matter and observing it as one would observe the country side of France from a  train window. Because God is not a big man in the sky, not anthropomorphic we can come up with other metaphors to compare God to, and that indicate that God's relationship to time is one we can't understand. Compare God to the strong force, to the unified field, to the laws of physics, the Hegelian dialectic. The Zeitgeist. I don't believe that God is impersonal but I do think it's a good exercise to think of him that way at times just to break the habit of thinking of God as a big man in the sky.

Such a God cannot waste his time worrying about conflicts between one badly worded phrase that doesn't really describe him and another badly worded phrase that doesn't describe him. Thus the problem is now reduced to a pseudo problem. It' an antiquated problem because it's rooted in the pre-Christian Greek understanding of God and time and the world, and it's also rooted in thinking of God as a big man in the sky rather than the transcendent and immanent ground of all being that God is.

The Question of Being: Brute Fact or Deep Scturcture

This came up for me on CARM the other day when someone made an argument trying to show God is would have to create brute facts. Ohter atheists chimed in saying God w would be a brute fact.


The meaning of the controversy is the difference between Paul Tillich's view of God as being itself, and the atheist understanding that "the universe just is." Tillich said that if we know that being has depth that it's not just "surface only" then we can't be atheists (Shaking of the Foundations, chapter seven). The atheist understanding has long been their answer to arguments like the cosmological argument. When theists divide up mobes of being into necessary and contingent,the atheist merely says "well what if being just is, it has no meaning or reason for being its' just there?" Of course that's a possibility but it doesn't answer the question, and saying it doesn't make the depth we can see in being go away. What is meant by "depth" of being is that there more to being than just the surface fact of things existing. That's what the concept of "the universe just is" tries to convey, the idea of no reason, not no scientific cause necessarily although they do sometimes try to say that too. These are two totally diametrically opposed understandings. The atheist view says being just is, no reason, nothing to consider or worry about, it's just there for no reason, absurdity. The theists seems more to the nature of being than meets the eye from the surface level. There has to be more to it than just the fact of things existing.

The cosmological argument, for example has different versions, but in generally all CA's assert that there must be final cause to account for the existence of the whole of reality. The atheist's often counter this final cause with an infinite series of contingent causes such as the oscillating universe of big bangs and big crunches. This is called an ICR (infinite causal regression). The atheist asserts that the universe just happens to be for no reason and it's made up of a series of little universes that come in and go out of existence. The whole chain, contingent though it may be (some deny validity of the category "contingent") passes on existence to the next version in the form of a big crunch that then expands avian in another big bang. Some argue that the crunch (contraction of gravitational forces) becomes a blog hole and "punches out" the other side as a new big bang. This is not the only mechanism for ICR. They also posit the notion of quantum tunneling and string membranes. The oscillating universe, however, is the most popular form of ICR becuase it's the only one with proven potential, even though the evidence disproves it (scroll down to (2) Cyclical Universe). As ICR for origin of the universe quantum tunneling invovles self causation where the singularity, or some original element or fragment of reality keeps tunneling back to cause itself at another point in time. This would involve being just having no logical origin but causing itself over and over eternally. String membrane in the sense of ICR is more or less the idea of a floating dimension just drifting along, bashing into another floating dimension and causing a third dimension. Since it posits the idea of a dimension just floating for no reason (2 actually) why bother with the mess? Why not say the universe needs no origin?

There's no absolute proof in any of this. If we want to get technical there's no actual proof that we are even living in a state of "reality." We assume the reality of the world, and thus our ability to study it and formulate hypothesis that "explain it" but if we want to start special pleading about explainations we don't like and just asserting the unproved nature of origins to hedge bets on those we do then we cant' be too picky when the other guy calls our bluff and says "now it's the skeptic's burden of proof." Why? Because presumption is on the side of explainations. Science assumes we need them. No one ever hears a scientist say "we don't need to explain that, let's forget it." The problem is atheists fool themselves. They demand science so much when they need to reach back to philosophy (Kant--the question about brute facts begins with Kant) it's reaching beyond science to philosohpy, which most atheists condemn anyway. There's a loss of credibility there. More importantly, they have already promised explainations then special plead and say "we don't need them in this area." Hey, for religious experiences we need them and they must be naturalistic!

The idea of "the universe just is," in philosophical terms is called a "brute fact." It means there is no reason it' just there. The problem with brute facts is that philosophers usually avoid them excusable they are meaningless, they are provoking and they beg the question. They are not satisfying. As stated, the explainable has been established as the proper procedure for dealing with unknowns, yet in this one reach of the metaphysical nature of being they are willing to just let it go. It's a true case of special pleading. The unsatisfying nature of the brute fact is set off against the basic intuitive sense of being meaning one finds in the question of existence. Meaning is part of the depth of being and we sense the depth of being in even asking the question "where did it all come from?" The issue seems like an arbitrary stand off, either there is a reason or not. Either there is meaning or not. We can't really tell why think there is when the only thing that we can be sure of is the blind random existence of what is? The scietnific evidence does suggest bind random accident and evolution.

The problem is the brute fact in terms of ICR or universal origin is just made up of contingent things. The states of bang and crunch that make up the oscillating universe, for example, consist of constituat parts such as space-time, gravitational field, and naturalistic things. Naturalistic things are contingent. To posit the whole totality of all universal meaning, eternal truth, the nature of all that is upon a meaningless happenstance that just happens to be, while everything else about existence requires explaining and implies something greater than itself (such as truth) creates a state of dissatisfaction. If we are disatisfied metpahyically we have the right to question that state. ICR and brute facts don't answer the questions we ask. The atheist is content to lose the phenomena and pretend there is no meaning and no answers but in so doing is no better off or no more intellectually justified than the faithful making excuses about "no one knows the mind of God." There is a deciding factor or two and they are a prori part of the basic fabric of the question. There's an aspect to the nature of the contingent happenstance that makes up the brute fact of existence that suggests depth of being in a greater sense.

The eternal and necessary nature being suggests the distinction between being as a brute fact and being as depth. The very mechanism the atheist seeks to ply aging final cause is the disproof of the brutish nature of fact. To explain this I must explain the difference in my CA and that of others. For example the Kalam argument is a version of the CA. This says anything that beings to exist needs a cause. That argument, therefore, turns upon the nature cause. Thus arguments about Kalam revolve around efficient cause in nature, and thus ICR (if allowed to stand) is a valid answer. ICR contains cause even though it means an endless series of meaningless cause the whole of which cannot be explained, our own particular universe has its cause then in the previous big crutch and it's blowing back out as a big bang. My version of the CA, however, the Argument from Cosmological Necessity doesn't turn upon causes but upon attributes of God. The argument turns upon demonstrating that the attributes that make up the God concept already exist and are known to us as aspects of reality, thus it's just a matter of understanding their relation to being we can see that they spell out something deep inherent meaning in being that disproves brute fact. After all if being has a deep inherent meaning it can't be a brute fact, that is a prori truth. The deciding factor is the eternal nature of being. There is another version of the argument that turns upon the eternal nature of being.

The reason it's not a moot stand off between the two concepts is because the ICR itself has to be eternal. the individual aspects of the regression that move from one universe to another are contingent and temporal, but the whole string in so far as it must stretch back eternally is both eternal and infinite. Both states evoke the sense of the numinous. That means it's a fit object of worship because anything that evokes the sense of the numinous is a fit object of worship since that state is the very reason religion exists in the firs place. That's what worship is, its the nature being moved by the sense that there is something profound and special in being. The atheist protest that "the universe just happens to be" is self negating becuase it's eternal and infinite nature suggest the quality of the numinous and are thus more in and of themselves than they perpetual to be. That in itself is depth of being. In seeking to posit the whole they actually must suggest something that triggers religious devotion and thus prove the depth nature of being.

Atheists logically should have to support the concept the universe moving from a state of absolute nothing. This is because the ICR just moves the problem back eternally but never really confronts the issue of origins anyway. Since the atheists affirm the idea of brute fact, meaningless accident, irrational existence, and so on they should actually just take their lumps in abandoning ratinoal explanations. This is not all there, however, the issue is not a done deal. We can't just leap from eternal being triggers the sense of the numinous to "therefore God is real." We have to deal with the other attitudes. Even though they all actually flow out of the eternal nature of being, necessity is the more independent one of the lot. The attrubites I emphasis are:

Eternal
necessary
ground of being
first cause

I am also challenged by atheists constantly to include "consciousness" or "personal being." There is no necessity in theology to assume God is personal. Even though I do assume so that is not a priamry quality because other things are personal as well. I'm concerned with the qualitaties that make God God and that God can't share with anything else. Whatever is eternal is by definition necessary (at least ontologically so) because it's not dependent and can't cease to exist. Nothing else really is necessary in the sense that God is (totally, no nature as the effect of a prior cause), so these are primary qualities. If there is eternal necessary being then by definition it is the ground of being. That would only be logical to assume that it is the first cause since nothing else is on a par with it ti would be the best candidate to assume that all else has it's origin in that which is eternal and necessary.

That brings us to the issue of necessity. This is a very important issue because the whole about ICR includes a large part about necessity vs. contingency. That will be discussed on Monday.

Are Atheits Immune to the Gosepl?

Bill Moyers once did a special about the song Amazing Grace. He included on that special (PBS) an interview with Judy Collins. In 1971 she did the album Whales and Nightingales which included her rendition of "Amazing Grace," it was a big hit at the time and over the years has become a classic. Her version still defines the song for a lot of people, it's near Iconic status. It really made Collin's career even though she was very popular and had many hits before. Not to take away form her subsequent triumphs such as her version of "send in the clowns." Collins is my favorite singer (or is it Joan Baez?). Amazing grace is my favorite religious song. When I saw Moyers' interview on You tube Collins came across to me as sharp, deep, insightful, compassionate and a survivor of a hard life. I moved moved by the interview and wanted others to hear it.

Two most powerful concepts in Christianity are redemption and transformation. I don't know Collin's spiritual ideas. I have no idea if she thinks of herself as a Christian or not. She is a profound thinker and things she in this interview are great, they are just what I wish I could get across of all of you. It's not specific to Christianity but it touches exactly on the heart of the Gospel.

I asked the atheists on CARM to listen and think about it. She talks about the life transformation thing too. that's why made me think to put it up here. I put this up becuase I like the way she talks about these concepts. It's not specifically Christian and I don't know if she is a Christian. I pointed these things out.


Interview part 1

part 2


Original recording by Collins of Amazing Grace
from Whales an Nightingales album (1971)

Here was the atheist reaction:

Harry C

Yes, once they have you convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, that you are a “wretch” and you need to be “saved” to be “transformed” then they have caught you hook line & sinker. Then you are easily separated from your cash for the snake oil to cure the imaginary problem.

That’s the “good news” of Atheism. You aren’t lost. You don’t need to be saved, or redeemed, or transformed or any such nonsense. There is nothing really wrong with you, even if Judy says there is.

Madmax

I reserve my anger for arrogant, assuming theists who insist on including me in their insecurities and pet fears. You want to believe your a wretch? Have at it, but speak for yourself and don't presume to speak for anyone else. You theists just look foolish when you try.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

atheist hate themselves. that's proved by studies. that's the motivation of atheism.

What a load of crap. I am living proof that this is entirely false, I do not hate myself, and I'll wager there are many atheists like me who don't hate themselves and don't have any such motivations.

So the idea that God loves them makes then angry...

Another false pile of crap. Such an idea would not in any way make me angry, I simply don't don't believe it's true.

We are all ok we also all wrecked. Its' the anger of the self heating one who can't admit he's wretched.

the more rational Sun of my Soul

I think you are missing the point of his post meta (my humble apologies if i am wrong)
his post was not in anyway an attack on you.

But rather on the idea that Christianity teaches and instructs that we are all evil...(regardless of what we do or do not) just because we are born...
(and this is a necessary teaching in order for the necessary salvic atonement belief..one is hingent upon the other)

Now I don't think we are all okay....but i do think some of us are.
Christianity doesn't allow for this....for someone to be....okay, sane, healthy and happy, productive and good....
atheism does.

Moving beyond CARM

Austine Cline: "myth: atheists and atheists world view don't
allow for forgiveness."
About.com

If anything, it might be argued that the concept of forgiveness has much more significance for atheists than for some religious theists and some Christians. After all, Christians ultimately only need to be forgiven by their god — and according to them, their god will forgive absolutely anything with just a single requirement, which is to accept Jesus Christ. Christians also believe that, in the end, their mistakes will be fixed or made up for by their god. There is nothing they can do which would thwart their god's plan for humanity and the universe, and that's what's ultimately important.

For atheists, though, there are no gods to seek forgiveness from and certainly no gods who will fix any mistakes. For atheists, the only forgiveness that can exist must come from the people around us and from ourselves. Atheists can't presume that if some god forgives them, then it doesn't matter what others around them think because we humans are all that really count in the end. Penn probably put it best:

Debating Christianity message board
Dr. Phyiscs Jan 9, 2011

"is the Victorious Redemption of Jesus Moral?"

(lets assume the the crucifixion happened as the christians say it does for this thread)

the crucifixion of jesus christ was brutal and bloody. if i were present i would feel the need to STOP the bloody human sacrifice. this act of vicarious redemption is equivalent to scapegoating. is this not immoral and barbaric?

"you can serve my sentence in jail, but you cant take away my responsibility... after looking at the offer (of jesus' sacrifice) and considering it, i would rather decline the offer of this lamb's blood, but thanks anyways...... - whats that? if i dont accept this offer you will KILL ME?! and send me to hell for eternity? is that a THREAT?" (Christopher Hitchens)

This Christian god IF he exists does NOT give me or you a choice, but rather is blackmailing us into following him. The christian idea of god is a "supernatural dictatorship in whose court you have no repeal, with a leader you can not overthrow, and whose supervision you could never escape." (hitch)

i either must worship this being which i think is IMMORAL for performing and/or participating in human sacrifices (among other atrocities) OR burn in hell for eternity.. this is not an offer of a moral creator.[/b]

This array of atheist views gives a clear indication that at least one segment of their community is so bitter and cynical about religious belief they can't even hear a great song with coming unglued with anger. They can't accept what every single culture and ever major writer in history has said. It's so universally recognized that there's a problem with being human we have a standard phrase for it, "the human condition." Yet these guys are livid about denying that there is a human condition. We all ok, just do what you do. They are prefect they can't even admit they make mistakes. To me that says self hatred, it screams self hatred. They can't accept themselves, therefore they can't accept their maker. This is what studies show. (for part 2 see here).

A friend of mine insists that it's the fundies. The Churches have made them this way by failing to communicate the love of God. While I think that's true, it's also the case, and my friend doesn't deal with atheists so she doesn't know, atheists gear a great deal of their socialization to nursing their anger and building further hatred. A huge portion of their time and energy consists of railing about the evils of religion. Atheists build up the anger and feelings of rejection, in fact their socialization process thrives on finding boarder line people who feel lonely and rejected by the chruch then ridiculing them into submission. That ploy could not work if they had the chruch to fall back on. Since they feel they don't, in a sense is the fault of the chruch. It' also the fault of the people who purposely design to "deconvert others." I feel that most Chrsitians don't understand that this is a major focus of the atheist movement. A lot of the problem comes from inadequate proclamation of the Gospel

Sun of my Soul expresses the idea that "we are all born evil." That was her understanding of the Gospel when she was a Christian? She is a recently "deconverted." Or did she just get brain washed to believe it. I know she would claim that was her understanding. I've seen this happen before. A Christian one week says "no we are not taught that we are all evil we are made in the image of God." then next week after becoming an atheist says "we are all taught that we are born evil." All the good answers she gave one week forgotten the next. It's enough to make you wonder if they are growing giant pods with people in them. I think the truth of it is we are taught both. The Gospel does affirmed "no one is righteous, no not one" and "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." A rejected loner who is on the edge of faith and feels alone may be countering that sense of self loathing with the counter balancing doctrine of the image of God. We are so made. Then when she goes off the edge she apt to lean to the "we are taught we are evil" side of it.

The idea of letting go of the guilt and accepting self loathing is so great that it appears to be a release but it doesn't lead to transformation because they studies show that those with mystical experience have the transformation more so than those who don't. I have in the past given a little test of my own devising to atheist who claim to have been "strong Christians." They never turn out to be as strong as they claim. I think boarder line people who have a poor sense of self esteem and blame God for being as they are and no strong support in the chruch and feel they don't have a support group of Christians to turn to are apt to fall away and they to emphasize the side they secretly feared rather than using the counter balance that is in the Gospel. In other words they gravitate to the "the Bible says we are all evil" side of the dilemma.

Cline argues above that forgiveness is more real for atheists becuase Christians believe they have to forgive or be forgiven to get into heaven but atheists do it because it's good not to get anything. Yet Cline is an active professional missionary for atheism. He's sowing seeds to extract the borderline lonely people from the faith. He's not interested in understanding what the Gospel really has to say. His argument is stupid on face value. He's really saying forgiveness is better if you have to earn it. Since you can't earn it, it can only be an aspect of God's grace.

Cline's statement is indicative of someone who doesn't understand what forgiveness is. Forigivenss cannot be earned, it's not a matter of brownie points. Its' a matter of love. Atheists don't like love, they don't believe in it. If you don't feel God's love (which you are not going to when your waking hour is about how deeply you hate people who believe in God) then you can't understand the nature of something like forgiveness that is essentially an act of love. Of cousre it's not a true description of all atheists, but all atheists don't believe that forgiveness must be earned. I suspect that the atheist fundamentalist, the "Dawkies" or the "Hitchenistas" understand niether love nor forgiveness.

Are they immune to the Gospel? Atheists come in all varieties, some may be. Even Charles Finney had his burned out areas where his message couldn't get through. He was such a strong evangelist that people who would drop to their knees and start begging God to save them just becasue Finney came to look at their factory. Ah yes but remember Madmax expresses distaste for the idea of begging God. Of course that's the misunderstanding. People beg God becuase they don't understand God's love. They don't understand God wants to help us. They think they have to beg God and the great distaste for that shows us two things. One thing it shows us is that they don't understand love, they don't know God. The other is that they are engaged in a battle of will. They refuse to accept that there could anything greater than their egos that has a claim on their lives. This is probably the self esteem issue at work again.

The only thing we can do is to make sure that we, the chruch, communicate the Gospel clearly, accurately and show them God's love. They will mock and ridicule and kick us in the teeth, and I am the worst about showing love. This is, nevertheless, what the chruch must face. We have done a stinky job of doing this and it needs doing more than ever.

Further Response to Anonymous on Modal Argument

Anonymous comes back on the discussion on the modal argument. This argument really totally unnerves some people they become livid and have to disprove it even if they don't undersatnd it.

It is clear from this conversation who has "studied this stuff" and who has not.

That is most uncool. If you are so uncertain of your self worth that you are desperate to crunch the other guy's ego in an argument then you are not in a position to evaluate the arguments fairly or to particulate in a meeting of the minds. One of the primary requirements for such a meeting is good well, not a desperate need to prove one is superior. I admit I am not an expert on modal logic, I never claimed to be. I think I understand the gist of the argument pretty well and I'm discussing because I enjoy discussing such things. My aim is not run you down or prove I'm better than you. I'm sorry you are not mature enough to understand an adult approach to thought.


Here's a source that documetns a kind of logic called Propostion and it is not modal:

Internet encyclopedia of Philosophy

Propositional logic, also known as sentential logic and statement logic, is the branch of logic that studies ways of joining and/or modifying entire propositions, statements or sentences to form more complicated propositions, statements or sentences, as well as the logical relationships and properties that are derived from these methods of combining or altering statements. In propositional logic, the simplest statements are considered as indivisible units, and hence, propositional logic does not study those logical properties and relations that depend upon parts of statements that are not themselves statements on their own, such as the subject and predicate of a statement. The most thoroughly researched branch of propositional logic is classical truth-functional propositional logic, which studies logical operators and connectives that are used to produce complex statements whose truth-value depends entirely on the truth-values of the simpler statements making them up, and in which it is assumed that every statement is either true or false and not both. However, there are other forms of propositional logic in which other truth-values are considered, or in which there is consideration of connectives that are used to produce statements whose truth-values depend not simply on the truth-values of the parts, but additional things such as their necessity, possibility or relatedness to one another.

A normal person, she/he sees someone communicated wrongly say "O it's a mistake ok that's fine. Let's fix it." It's the little desperate fool who can't live with himself until he feels better than other, hating himself, who has scream about being superior whenever a mistake is made. why can't you relay and explore the world of thought? you are not in it to learn you are in it to prove to yourself that you are worthy. Just take it easy.

Of course in that last paragraph when I said "propositional logic," I was referring to propositional modal logic.

Ok I'll put on my mind reading hat next time.

Your claim that Hartshorne's argument isn't trying to prove that God exists seems clearly false--the conclusion of the argument is 'g', which, interpreted, means "God exists."

You really don't know this stuff at all. Have you read anything by Hartshorne? The man himself said that his argument doesn't prove the existence of God becasue that's not the goal. The modal argument is part of a larger argument called "deep empiricism." It fills the bill on one aspect it's no mean to be an absolute proof in its own right. Plantinga also says that he does not argue that the argument proves the existence of God but that it demonstrates the rationality of belief. I've seen many references to that.

You may not think there is any such thing as metaphysical necessity, but it's not a "made up concept" if by that you mean I made it up. It's a philosophical concept that is used quite often.

I'm not particularly concerned with weather or not you made up the term. You can't probably find someone somewhere who says it. I don't really find the people are knowing for wring about the modal argument referring to it in connection with the argument. I suspect there's another term for it. I often find that I'm out of touch with the modern terms. It is the case that are two types of necessity involved in Hartshorne's thinking.

How Firm a Possible Foundation?
Modality and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism
Donald Wayne Viney

Hartshorne’s theory involves two concepts of necessity—necessity as what is
common to every possible worldstate
and necessity as it pertains to the
unalterability of the past. Richards also uncritically accepts the concept of
possible worlds as a basis for his critique, but Hartshorne’s arguments cast doubt
on the coherence of this idea. While questions remain about Hartshorne’s modal
theory, Richards’ arguments against it are unsuccessful.

Meanwhile anonymous goes on:

Hartshorne's proof attempts to show that God exists, using just the tools of modal propositional logic. I have explained why that can't be done, and Plantinga, as quoted by you, agrees with me. (By the way, you should have simply asked me for a copy of his email to me, as I invited you to do--the one he sent you turns out to be almost identical in wording to the one he sent me.) He agrees that you can not derive a contradiction from "God does not exist" using just the tools of propositional logic. This, in turn, means that Hartshorne's proof fails if it is meant to be a proof that God exists--and I don't see how it can be interpreted otherwise.

This shows the true state of your confusion. I told you that netiher guy (Hartshorne or Plantinga) believes that this argument proves the existence of God alone by itself as an absolute proof, but that it does some kind f duty in a larger argument structure and ultimately should be argued as rational warrant for belief. You say "O no, they do too, you don't know anything." O you say that about Hartshorne. Here you try to say that Plantigna doesn't bleieve the believe the argument proves God, as though he really thinks it's stupid and useless and does use it. why doesn't it occur to you that you are just observing what I told you he says; that doesn't believe it as a proof he doesn't use it as a proof? He uses it as a rational warrant. Therefore, it's it more liley that Hartsnorne felt the same since most of what Plentinga does comes from Hatrshorne anyway? That makes perfect sense, but you are trying to spin it into a disproof of the argument than make hay on insulting me and running down my knowledge, when in fact I told you that to begin with!

Using Hartshorne's argument, by the way, one could just as easily prove "-g" in exactly the same way.

No, because he doesn't say it's proof. he says it's a warrant for belief in a larger scheme of deep empiricism.

One could also prove both that the Goldbach conjecture is true and that it is false.

Then make an argument. Muttering about "one could prove" would could pull his head out of his ass too. That's not a proof.

(BTW I'm bothered by this--it looks like we can prove a contradiction from true premises using propositional modal logic. That's odd!)

you are just like so many atheists, you are trying to twist the meaning not content with truth. You can't prove any of that. the modal argument cannot be reversed and I've proved that. It makes no sense to prove the contrary because possiblity minus contingency has to result in necessity. The reserve of that would be the impossibly of God. There is no such argument nor can one be made. No atheist even attempts it. Not based upon the concept of God itself apart from doctrinal qualifications.

The assertion that an argument can prove something considered unprovable as a disproof of that argument is a dicey prostitution at best and usually entails a fallacy. It's not proof of anyting to say that however so let's see it.

The argument form simply doesn't work if we try to interpret "g" as involving concepts like existence and truth. Some other logical system needs to be used, if any will work.

Again, main points:

God's necessity isn't provable using propositional modal logic.

Of cousre your only proof of that is to demonstrate your lack of understanding about the nature of the argument. My answer was that there are two necessities in the argument. I proved that above with the quote and your argument is not even aware of the two concepts. You are totally talking past any direct clash because you don't undersatnd anything I've said and you are jut flat out ignorant of little things like the purpose of the argument in H's thinking (little stuff like that). You can't seriously claim that you have proved anything about God's necessity if you don't even know the two types at work in the argument.

But Hartshorne's proof is an attempt to prove God's necessity using propositional modal logic.

Therefore, Hartshorne's proof doesn't work.

Since you don't understand the way the argument functions in his overall scheme and since you are ignorant of the two types of necessity, then you really don't have a clear idea at all of what you say.

And God's necessity must be cashed out in some sense other than "necessary according to propositional modal logic."

which is neither here nor there. since you don't what the two types of necessity are you can't really say anything.

I suggest no logic will get you God's necessity. You'll have to look at something like "metaphysical" or "absolute" necessity. Plantinga suggests you could prove god's necessity in second-order logic, but I don't know how that's supposed to work.

typical little atheist ignorance, revues to read to theology and don't listen to what religious thinkers say. You need so desperately to prove that you are really superior after all.You don't understand what Plantinga wrote to you either. Your argument doesn't even apply you have the totally wrong idea of what he said. you think his strategy of not arguing absolute proof is a denunciation of the argument.

Here you introduce the term "abolute necessity" with no doucments about it's use by H no thought as to what it might mean or change in meaning in relation to H's over all project. You know H has process theology right? That means he thought God is diploar and one of those polls is in fulx. So that means it's going have a totally different notion of possible in relation to the over all meaning, thus necessity is going to be changed in connotation isn't it? you have not even begun to think about this stuff. While you are dropping terms to prove you took a logic class or that you have a math background why don't you read some Hartshorne?

God has to be necessary. Anyone who doesn't understand that just get the basic Christian concept of God. The fact that you don't seem to understand the relationship of the terms necessity, impossibility, actuality, contingency demonstrates that you really don't really understand any of this. God can be proved necessary in several different ways.

Answering an Argument that God Need Not Exist Necessarily

Charles Hartshorne: A Natural Theology
For Our Time


Remember the Modal Argument from a few days ago?

Hartshorne's version goes like this: (actually forest Baird's)
1) God can be analytically conceived without contradiction.
2) Therefore God is not impossible.
3) By definition God cannot be contingent.
4) Therefore God is either necessary or impossible.
5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.
6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorum must necessarily exist.



Argument:my version

1) God can be analytically conceived, as eternal necessary being, without contradiction.

2) Therefore God is not impossible,(because no contradiction).

3) By definition God cannot be contingent (becasue God is eteral).

4) Therefore if God exists, God's existence is necessary, if God does not exist, it is because God is impossible.

5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.

6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorum must necessarily exist.

An anonymous poster (who says he's not an atheist) calms to disprove the premises that God must exist necessarily. I don't see how anyone who is a Chrsitain can fail understand the essential aspect of this doctirne. That's basically denying who God is. The only alternatives to God existing necessarily are that God is impossible and can't exist at all, or that God is contingent, in which case he can't be the Christian God. A contingent God would be no better than superman. Superman could go nuts and deiced to be worshiped and force everyone to prya to him and call himself God he would be just as much God as a contingent God of the Bible would be. Of course the phase "contingent God of the Bible" is a contradiction in Terms becasue the Bible makes it clear God is not contingent, thus he has to be necessarily becuase those are the only choices.

There are four choices only, as streamlined as it can be: Two on the necessary side and two on the contingent side. Each two represent polar opposites:

(1) Necessary vs. (2) impossible

(3) exists contingently v. (4) fictional (contingent non existent)

It should be unthinkable to a Christian that God could be contingent. Yet this guy does some fancy foot work to manipulate the language of s5 modal logic to try and "demonstrate" just that. Before I ansser it want to challenge to find one single theologian other than a Derridian somewhere or a Postmodern, who asserts that the Christian God is contingent. I don't believe anyone ever has. Its' so obviously well known that the Christian God is always thought of as existing necessarily I don't think you can find a theologian form any time prior to the rise of Postmodernism who would say that. Of course I mean a believing theologian.

Here is the opening of this guy's gambit:

I'll try to rephrase my objection for clarity.

Hartshorne's statement of the argument begins with the line:

g --> N(g)

Which, interpreted, (remembering that the arrow stands for the _strict_ conditional,) means "Necessarily, if god exists, then necessarily god exists."

That is just a straightforward statement that if God exist he exists necessarily." No magic there.

This statement is false, and I can prove it.

O pshaw! I dare you! I dare you even.

To show that a statement of the form "Necessarily, X" is false, you must show that there is a possible world in which X is false. So my claim is that there is a possible world in which "g -> N(g)" is false (where this -> is not the strict conditional but the material conditional instead).

Not exactly mystical truth yet. Just a basic statement that to show false hood it must be the case that God exist in a possible world where he exits in a way that is not necessary. That doesn't tell us how he's going to prove there is such a possible world. It sounds like he really knows what he's doing but returned with the Holy Grail yet.

In order for a material conditional to be false, it must be that its antecedent is true and its consequent false. So my claim must be that there is a possible world in which god exist but does not exist necessarily.

What did I tell you? How will he demonstrate that there is such a possible world when it contradicts the concept of God in Christian thought? Reemmber now we are not talking about empircal knowledge, we are not talking about parallel worlds that exist, we are talking mere hypothetical possibilities.

Cashing out what "necessarily" and "possible" mean in standard interpretations of modal logic, (assuming S5 here) we have now a statement of my claim in detail:


There is a maximal set of propositions containing no contradiction which contains the proposition g, and there is a maximal set of propositions containing no contradictions which contains the proposition not-g.

Not so fast there man. This the lack of contradiction has not been demonstrated for -g nor can it be. It is not great trick to prove that the concept of the Christian God is that of necessarily being. Its' in all the theology going back to the beginning it's all over the Bible and it's all over the major doctrines. Aseity, reity, eternalness all of this implies necessary.

Since the concept of God is linked with necessary being then to raise the possibility of a possible world in which this is not the case is in and of itself a contradiction. It's a contradiction on the same grounds that the law of identity is not a contradiction.

Let A be "official definition of X is X."

If you say "i can think of a possible world in which A is not the case, then you are saying X is not X. How can X not be X? By definition X = X.

In terms of the modal argument this is not equivocate as defining God into existence. That's so beaus we are not talking God's actuality we are talking about the defintion of the concept. Sicne the concept to be true would require that there not be a possible world in which it was false you have to prove such a possible world on some other grounds tan the claim that your statment is without contradiction because it is. I suggest it woudl have to be proved on empirical grounds,which of course can't be done without travel to other dimensions.

Presumably you agree about the first part. My task then is to prove that there is a maximal set of propositions containing no contradictions which contains the proposition not-g.

I'm not sure what you are calling the "first part" if you mean the basic understanding of what modal logic is and the relation to possible worlds and contradictions in same, then yes.

But this is trivially proven, simply by reference to commonplaces about how logic (much less modal logic) works. For any proposition not-X whatsoever, we can build a maximally consistent set of propositions around it simply by running through every propositional variable a, b, c and so on, assigning it to either 'true' or 'false', and then constructing every possible propositional statement with connectives and determining its value from those of its constituent propositional variables.

Sorry, doesn't work that way. It's already beaten coming out of the shoot. That is so because it's a contradiction to the basic concept of God in Christianity. No way to maintain a possible world where it's contradiction because to contradict it is a contradiction to the concept we are working with. you are merely contradicting the concept of God. Running through variables isn't going to prove anything when the basic concept is being contradicted.

This is a standard lemma at the basis of every system of modal logic--take any propositional expression whatsoever, and you can build a maximally consistent set of propositions around it.

that sounds real impressive, but no magic. It's just the manipulations of terminologies to cover the fact that you didn't prove your argument. The fatal falw in your argument, if you are a Christian I suspetct in your faith is taht you don't know who or what God is.

here is the Answer Plantinga sent me in email

I think you friend is mistaken. He says:

But this is trivially proven, simply by reference to commonplaces about how logic (much less modal logic) works. For any proposition not-X whatsoever, we can build a maximally consistent set of propositions around it simply by running through every propositional variable a, b, c and so on, assigning it to either 'true' or 'false', and then constructing every possible propositional statement with connectives and determining its value from those of its constituent propositional variables.

This is a standard lemma at the basis of every system of modal logic--take any propositional expression whatsoever, and you can build a maximally consistent set of propositions around it.

He says: for any proposition not-x we can build a max cons set of props around it . . .; but this won't work for -(pv-p) for any p.

Maybe he means: for any proposition -X, where X is noncomplex. Here the answer is that we can build a set or props around it that doesn't formally entail a contradiction in first order logic. For example, we can do that with -(2+1=3). Still, -(2+1=3) is necessarily false, even tho you can't deduce a contradiction from it in first order logic. Those who, like me, think God is a necessary being, think the proposition -G is necessarily false in the same way that -(2+1=3) is. That's true, even if you can't deduce a contradiction from it in first order logic.

Atheist says good bye

remember atheist from the last couple of posts? She had one final rejoineder.

Hey, Metacrock. You must be under some misguided illusion that I wanted some futher discussion with you. Sorry, you are too full of yourself for me.

I will try it one more time and see if it works this time. BYE.

At least she promises it's the final one.

Now would make her think that I would expect more dialogue with someone whose major argument is "you use big words, so you are wrong."

Answer to Atheists's Rejoinder: Another Version of Argument from Indcredulity

see below. I am creating this because I left the title off the first time so I don't know the emials will reflect this answer.

Answer to Atheists's Rejoinder: Another Version of Argument from Indcredulity

from Adherence.com

The poster known as "atheist" made a longer and more involved rejoinder. I don't intend to make answering this person my life's work but it does afford an opportunity to clear up some long held atheist ignorance.

You are a typical theist who uses a lot of words to dance around the simple and undeniable facts. Using a lot of words as a smoke screen is really all the theist has to work with in his little arsenal of deceptions.

Translation: I have the educational background to really understand Metacrock's arguments but the brain washing tells me I must be right so I"m just going to assert it.

Of course I simply ignore the atheist bashing that is so typical of militant theists. The ad homs just make you look angry. I might be a bit angry too if I didn’t have anything to support my beliefs.

What has she really said so far? The opening gambit about "big words" is a frank admission that she doesn't have my education level and doesn't really understand my arguments. She's trying to use anti-intellectual feelings to cast suspicion upon a fine education and sophisticated thinking. In this comment she's trying to establish atheism (3% of U.S. Pop--and 3% world) as the status quote and portray Christians as some fringe hate group that are always rude. The opposite is the case.
Atheists are the fringe hate group, the overwhelming majority of people around the world the world believe in some notion of God, belief counts in favor of belief. The fact that religious traditions have different concept doesn't not count against Christianity it counts against having no concept.

She quotes me:

metacrock: “Of cousre this is not a guarantee that the particulars of one's beliefs are true, yet no one sets out to believe falsehood.”

Then responds:

But it does, in fact, show that they do not know the truth. If you knew the truth you would have no need for the belief/faith.

This is obviously a fallacious line of reasonnig that plays off of literalism. She wants, or the brain washing of the atheist ideology leads her to believe that a strident, arrogant line is a mark of having truth. She wants the brash bully approach "I am right, I hae the truth! my ideas are not mere beliefs they are facts." This is what I call the great atheist fortress of facts. We see it on carm all the time. Our world view is a big pile of facts guaranteed by scinece so therefore everything we say is true and right. Of this is just a ruse, a facade, it's a rhetorical appeal not a fact in itself. The so called "facts" of the fortress is all selective, it excludes tons of facts that disagree with their view. For example it is a fact that 200 empirical studies done by psychologists and published in peer reviewed academic journals say that religion is physiologically very good for you. Of the atheists on carm have creaetd a mythology of lies claiming "they've all been disproved" when in fact ehy have not read a single study. That's the natre of the entire lie about the fortress of facts. there is no fortress of facts, in fact, point of fact, it is not scientific. The concept of the fortress of facts, everything we say is a fact, is not a scientific concept. Science does not believe only things that are proved, if it id it couldn't hypothesize.

Moreover, the pathetic rhetorical appeal she is using (that's just what it is, not logic, not facts, rhetoric) turns on a misuse of the concept of belief.She totally misses the meaning of my argument. I said belief is not used as a euphamism for "made up" it's used as a humble substitute for narrow mindedness. In other words, rather than say "we have the all the truth" (as some theists have been know to say) to say "it is our belief that" is a means of beng humble and giving respect to other ideas. We don't claim to have all the truth,we don't claim we are always right, we don't say we can't learn form other people. She is saying those things of her own group by inditing that 'If you have the truth you would be arrogant in your appeal.'

Atheists complete misconstrue the nature of faith. Faith is placing confidence in a hypothesis. It doesn't mean making stuff up, it doesn't mean believing without evidence or without reasons. No believes anything without a reason. Something leads people to conclusions about religious belief that "something' is a reason. Atheists denude faith and belief of their rational and humble dignity and turn them into dirty words. That's the only way the fortress of facts lie can work is by asserting that he who is not being a bully must be a weakling. This is the philosophy of the fascist. It's part of the Orwellian nature of atheism. Of course there are atheists who don't think this way just as there are Christians who are not followers of Pat Robertson. We need to work with fellow liberal counter parts in atheism to skew extremism rather than joining the extremists in name calling. There are certainly Christians that lean toward the fascistic side of things, but there are such atheists too.

Now she tries to get tricky:

Since you went through all the trouble, I will use some of your post to clarify my position. I will use the three example of belief from Webster Dictionary.

these are examples from the Webster definition I used for belief.

1: There is growing belief that these policies will not succeed.

she says:

(There would be evidence that the policies will not succeed, perhaps they have failed in the past)

no there doesn't need to be evidence, but the statement quoted as an example by dictionary is not excluding the possibility of evidence. The person writing the dictionary article is not aware that this is going to be used by a narrow minded dawkie so the author desn't spell out the possibility of evidence. The point of quoting the definition was that it shows us that anything you think is true is a belief. The idea that you don't believe in god because you see no evidence is a belief. The idea that the Bible is contradictory of itself is a belief, even if you have example, even if you can prove it. Anything you think is the case is a belief. Because doesn't belief does not mean "false." Nor does it mean "to accept something without evidence." notice those two were not in the definition.

2: He gets angry if anyone challenges his religious beliefs.
(He likely displayed previous anger when someone challenged his beliefs)

That's a hate group assumption based upon disparaging concepts about religious people and the atheist brain washing that caters to the need to feel superior. Remember the studies I showed that demonstrate the major reason for being an atheist is poor self esteem. Dawkametnalists need to tell themselves constantly that they are superior as a means of feeling better about themselves. Let's remember Atheist opinions are beliefs.

3: We challenged his beliefs about religion.
(His beliefs were of an unbelievable nature so we challenged them)

See that is how belief works. There has to be some evidence to support it.

Of cousre this is ingeniousness because when support is given the atheist throws a tantrum and says "this doesn't fit the atheist template so it can't be a true proof." Then they impose the argument incredulity "I refuse to believe it no matter what."

I went out and got 200 empirical studies from academic journals that say religion is good for you and the atheists refuse to read even one article because they can't understand them and they are afraid to be disproved. That is a fortress of facts. 200 studies is a fortress. I have the fortress of facts atheist do not. Yet of cousre they refuse ever accept a single pro faith fact because they can't. Their ideology is so constructed that if they accepted one fact that would destroy the fortress of fact concept for them.

e.g. I believe my brakes will stop my car because they have stopped me in the past. I believe there is life on other planets because there is life on earth. I believe it will be cold out tomorrow because that is what the weatherman is predicting and he has successfully predicted the weather accurately many times in the past..

See how all of these have a "because" in them? Now lets try it with a god.

This is even more disingenuous of course because seems to assert that theists have arguemnts for God, no reason to believe in God. Do we really need to belabor that point? IF this person thinks there are no pro God arguments are facts, and Christians never have any reasons to believe then why does she start out talking about my use of big words and my arguments and so on? This is just another version of atheist incredibility, which actually the only argument they know how to make. The basic incredultiy arguemnt says "I refuse to believe, therefore it can't be true." This one says theists arguemnts are also weak it's like they don't have any so I'll just assert that they believe for no reason. That manifests itself in the atheist bromide "faith is belief without evidence.

I believe Zeus exists because _______
I believe Allah exists because _______
I believe God exists because _______

See, there is nothing tangible to put in the blanks of these statements that is valid. To believe for the sake of belief is invalid. Go ahead, you try to fill in the blanks and see what you come up with.

This is priceless. Seldom have a I seen such brash display of illogical and special pleading. This "person" actually constructs a straw man argument then it dumb enough to think because she didn't fill in the blank in a straw man argument then there is no theist anywhere in the world who has an actual reason to believe. Look at the facts, she's making a straw man argument, why would she put something of good substance in the blank? It's obvious the blanks have nothing in them becuase she doesn't it in there.

Like most bullies she's a coward and thus is afraid to use real arguments.

that defintion again:

be·lief
noun \bə-ˈlēf\
Definition of BELIEF
1
: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2
: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3
: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

Belief is placing confidence in a hypothesis, the reason for doing so is open ended. It neither rules out nor explicitly acknowledges evidence or logic as a reason for confidence. Of course the fact is, and it is a fact, believers have reasons for belief. Nothing in that definition says anything about being without evidence. The actual empirical fact is people do have reasons for believing. My initial reasons are discussed on my website Doxa, and over time I have developed 42 reasons. In fact there are thousands of reasons. I'm now working on the concept of personal realization of God's reality which invovles thousands of reasons. Atheists need things spelled out concretely especially the Dawkamatnalists, the atheist fundies, becasue they are not subtle people.

Thus I can say "I believe in Jesus because I have 200 studies, empirical, academic, published in peer reviewed journals, that show that religious belief gives one transformation.*

I have 42 arguments proving that belief in God is rationally warranted.
_________________

*watch for my coming book which will discuss these studies at length. The whole book is about the studies and the arguments I construct from them. In the mean time nd read all the links at the top.here's some material that plays off of that body of work. Be sure a

More on the stuides

see also empirical evidence of the Supernatural

Several hundred more studies showing that religious participation is good for the individual and society.