PDN wrote: » So, maybe you can give a straight answer to a straight question. Do you believe that philosophy and logic make it clear that the word 'omnipotent' implies impotence to make creatures who possess free will?
PDN wrote: » Maybe you would be better relying on logic rather than your feelings? That way, if a paradox exists, you could share it so we can all see it.
CerebralCortex wrote: » The evidence suggests completely the opposite.
PDN wrote: » I said love is not a physical phenomenon. Where's your problem with that statement?
CerebralCortex wrote: » I don't propose an agree to disagree on this tiring subject. But it would it be more acceptable to talk about human nature? Things like the mind and conciousness and how they don't fit with theism? For example you said before that you(PDN) didn't think love could be explained by scientific enquiry. Why?
Morbert wrote: » God determines our existence. God determines his knowledge of our existence. God determines the existence of the universe. God determines his knowledge of the existence of the universe. We determine the existence of events in the universe. We determine God's knowledge of the existence of events in the universe. In order for free-will to exist, the only condition that needs to be met is that this set of statements do not imply a contradiction. If you cannot show that these statements imply a contradiction, then you cannot claim free-will and omniscience are mutually exclusive.
CerebralCortex wrote: » I believe that omnipotence means unlimited power.
Free will implies the ability to act at ones on discretion in other words(in the theistic) willing things/states/thoughts actions into from nothing.
oh wait I feel a paradox coming on.
CerebralCortex wrote: » What's in bold shows an absurdity, a paradox and that's what I'm insisting especially in consideration of his other(logically incompatible) qualities. If he is the ulitmate cause of everything how can we do something contra that cause without him losing omnipotence you end up going senselessly round in circles, and thats before you consider his other qualities.
CerebralCortex wrote: » I'm not playing silly little semantic games thank you very much, it's quite clear from philosophy/logic what those terms mean and what they imply.
PDN wrote: » I believe in a God who is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent - but of course I'm using those terms as they have been understood and used for centuries in philosophy and theology. If you choose to define them differently then we'll probably all be better off if we avoid playing silly semantic games. Some of your posts so far (eg insisting that an omnipotent God is impotent to create creatures with free will) indicate that you use words differently from the rest of us.
CerebralCortex wrote: » Oh fair enough, so you don't believe in an omni-god. Cool.
PDN wrote: » Which is pretty irrelevant since in this forum we are discussing God as defined by Christianity. But if you want to discuss some other concept of God other than that embraced by Christianity then boards.ie also has a Spirituality Forum. And yet, despite making repeated assertions, you haven't come anywhere close to demonstrating how the properties we are discussing are logically incompatible.
CerebralCortex wrote: » You've just defined a god I wouldn't consider a God by it's definition.
Which is nonsense. It leads to other logically incompatible properties and shows how "God" is what the religious need him to be.
Morbert wrote: » If I remember, your argument was that God cannot be omnipotent if free-will exists. We could ague over which definition of omnipotence is more appropriate, but if we take your definition, it means Christians do not claim God is omnipotent, as they believe he deliberately limits his interventions to allow free will.
Wicknight wrote: » The problem with that though is that i is fixed at 9 through the process of God knowing it is. So how do we determine it is 24, or anything other than 9 for that matter.
I'm not sure the distinction between God determined the existence of us and God determined "us". Do you accept that the Christian theology is that God made us, a God that had all the knowledge of omniscience as part of that determination of what we are?
Again, the issue with that is God's knowledge is fully omniscient as part of the act of God determining our existence. Well if I'm honest I don't quite follow the symbols used in your example, but if I'm reading correctly it is simply that you have moved the knowledge determined by us out of the initial statement. This is the problem as far as I'm concerned. God's omniscients means you can't do that.
ISAW wrote: » This is just a restatement of "people cant have free will if God knows everything they will do". Just because I know you will say "yes that is true" does not mean you haven't the freedom to change your mind does it?
ISAW wrote: » "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills". - Schopenhauer And as regards "consensus" here http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2006/10/counting_heads.html is a link suggesting compatibilists are twice the number of incompatiblilists.
Wicknight wrote: » The contradiction is that you cannot separate God's will from God's knowledge. God's knowledge is a factor in him determining us. And God's knowledge is absolute and infinite. Thus it is paradoxical to say that this determination is itself reliant on our determination of what we do in this universe.
Morbert wrote: » God's knowledge in my scenario is that x=4, y=6, z=8, and i=9. x=4 and y=6, and hence the existence of z, are determined by God. z=8, and hence i=9, is determined by us. If we had instead decided, by our free will, that z=2 (and hence i=24), then God's knowledge would be x=4, y=6, z=2, and i=24. No contradiction and no paradox for any value of z or i.
Morbert wrote: » Also, you keep using the phrase "determines us". This is a premise I do not accept, and have been clear that I am supposing God determined the existence of us, but not "us". By using the phrase, you are implicitly assuming the very thing you are trying to prove.
Morbert wrote: » Instead, God determines our existence, and we determine God's knowledge.
Morbert wrote: » You might object by saying I have misrepresented your analogy. But that doesn't detract from the fact that my analogy represents a consistent set of relationships between God, us, God's knowledge, and the universe.
Wicknight wrote: » Ok, but then how can this determine God's knowledge, as defined by the x and y at the very start as essence of what was determining the z. Again you seem to be trying to separate God and God's knowledge. That seems impossible given how God is defined in the first place. The determination of ourselves will be a product of God including his knowledge. As you say we cannot determine the thing that determines ourselves. Well God's intellect determines us, it determines us one way rather than another. And God's knowledge would be a fundamental aspect of that. It is impossible for God to not know how we will be determine by him and how this determination will lead to the actions we make. Yet the actions we make are supposed to determine this. Thus it is a paradox.
Morbert wrote: » It shows that our will can't determine anything that was responsible for our existence (x and y). But i is not responsible for our existence. Our will can be free to determine i, which can represent, say, the moral choices we have made on the reel.
Wicknight wrote: » The contradiction is that you cannot separate God's will from God's knowledge. God's knowledge is a factor in him determining us. And God's knowledge is absolute and infinite. Thus it is paradoxical to say that this determination is itself reliant on our determination of what we do in this universe. Imagine God's knowledge is that x=4 and y=6. Now imagine that because of this z = 8 (this is us, determined by god) Now imagine that because z = 8 then i = 9 and y = 14. (this is our choices determined by us) See, that cannot happen, because y already equals 6. I know you don't like using the term "already" but this is purely in the determination factor, not temporal fashion, already as in I've already said y = 6. Y can only be 6. It doesn't matter what Z is because Y is already defined as 6. In this example God's knowledge is x,y, which produces z which is us and then i and y are what are determined by us. What we can or can't choose is already determined by God and his atemporal knowledge. It just is, y is just 6. It is not determined by anything but the existence of God's knowledge which itself is not determined by anything it just is. i'm sure this is not a particularly good way of describing it, but can you at least see the point i'm making
Morbert wrote: » Yes, we are a product of God's will. Our existence is determined by God. We did not freely choose to exist, so our will is constrained in this regard. But our actions along the entire reel are not determined by God. They are determined by ourselves. This simply means not all of God's knowledge is determined by God. Where is the contradiction?
Wicknight wrote: » Yes but would you say that one causes/determines the other?
It is difficult not to since eternal is the word used in the Bible to define God in the first place. Genesis 21 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Eternal God. But again I'm not in anyway objecting to removing time. It is in fact the issue, without an undetermined future we cannot have choice.
Again that is a logical paradox, because "us" comes from God in the first place, thus is a product of God's will which includes his knowledge. Whether you talk about temporal or not God creates man. You can view that in a temporal or atemporal manner, it doesn't change the problem that we are a determination of God, and thus a determination of God's knowledge.
Morbert wrote: » It is easy to do. In quantum mechanics, a Hilbert-space is generated by the Hamiltonian operator, for example. This does not mean it is created by some physical time-evolution process. Instead it refers to a non-physical, atemporal interrelationship between the operator and its Hilbert-space. The Hilbert-space is determined by the operator.
Morbert wrote: » Again, you are implicitly assuming a temporal dimension by saying "eternal". I will continue to correct you until you stop making that mistake.
Morbert wrote: » I'm assuming you misspoke here, as you are agreeing with me if you believe God can't not know something that is determined by something else.
Morbert wrote: » Indeed, God knows everything that is determined by us.
bnt wrote: » I don't believe in absolutes anyway.
