Serious The Atheism/Agnosticism thread

[Crux]

Except the claim that the spiritual exists does not depend on physical observability? Which was what my post said?

 

[DoctorGamma]

I'm agnostic. For some reason, people tend to think that that means I'm against religion, or that I'm completely athiest, or other things. Going to public school in a not-so-religious house (minus one person), it was never really a problem. We haven't been in a church in years, and it was kind of assumed we'd all be agnostic.

 

[KM]

Relevant: Mary's Room

as crux already explained, existence only equals observability if you ascribe to physicalism (which I don't necessarily). I think you'll find that there are many religious and spiritual people + groups whose idea of anything spiritual is necessarily not physical. If you live in an entirely mono-color world (let's say, blue), and you can't conceive of any other color, yet you ascribe to a belief system that there is the existence of another color that you can not sense and does not physically exist, the statement that "another color is intangible and does not physically exist" neither disproves nor proves the existence of that color.

While there certainly are religions that enforce the concept of a spiritual + physical marrying of some sort (e.g., the Eucharist is literally the body and blood of Christ, not just figuratively), this can't be applied with a broad brush. In my experience, the majority of people imagine the spiritual and the physical as overwhelmingly mutually exclusive.

 

[capefeather]

I honestly don't like this kind of argument and it was a big motivator behind my thread about philosophy. I think that people are generally really, really bad at talking about so-called non-physical concepts. Like, if I say that everything has a spirit, what does that mean? Different people just fill in the blanks based on their own experiences and then have stupid flame wars about nothing. For some people, it's a metaphor, while for other people, it's a claim about physical reality. Not to mention, very few people seem to even bother trying to properly establish what existence even means. So we have (imo) stupid and pointless divisions into atheists and agnostics and deists and pantheists and whatever other words are being used these days.

I think that it's dangerous in general to try to talk about "spiritual" concepts. Eventually, the urge overtakes you and you make a claim about physical reality. Everybody seems to eventually get the sense that, if their conception of spirits has zero relevance to anything (which is pretty much what's required to be considered outside the physical realm, especially in the age of brain scans), then maybe it has no meaning whatsoever. So they do one of two things. The first is they go ahead and make a physical claim like God heals people who genuinely pray to him. The second is they invoke or invent some spooky abstract term like "qualia" to kick the can further down the road. The former certainly seems "worse" than the latter, but is the latter even really that great to do?

So yeah, I'm not much of a fan of anything along the lines of substance dualism, not because it's "false" (whatever that means) but because it's just asking for lots of hand-waving and confusion. The Mary's Room thought experiment seems confused to me because it's saying that Mary knows everything about X but also doesn't know everything about X...? I think ultimately the dualist is forced either to make a false claim or to admit that they're invoking a non-physical substance purely for the sake of having an alternative to saying, "I don't know."

Relevant, I suppose:

 

[Ash Borer]

Except the claim that the spiritual exists does not depend on physical observability? Which was what my post said?

This is not a disproof of god or what have you, as there are phenomena which gods are ascribed to and are yet unexplained. This is merely an ontological argument that for something to exist it has to be observable.

My question for you then is if something has no obervability then what difference does it make if its there or not?

 

[Crux]

You have not done any of the work necessary to prove that argument, I don't believe you can because it will be inductive and only a general statement of a law if you were to attempt that argument.

The value is in what people ascribe to the concept, it need not have physicality. It may also only have form in another life or universe, where laws are different, that possibility cannot be ruled out which is why your position with regard to a lack of observability is dumb.

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, hope that I am able to contribute what is worthwhile with this post, though it be little more than marginalia.

If something has no effect on anything then whether it exists or not is meaningless and equal to not existing.

Whether we are able to predicate of this thing or that thing existence, seems a nonsensical question, for if even in concept this or that thing might be proposed, it must have some mode of existence, even if that mode is only ens rationis rather than ens reale or ens simpliciter.

Perhaps one of the finest explanations of this classic division of being is found in the Angelic Doctor's commentaries on Aristotle's Metaphysics.

By way of answer we have to say that the Philosopher shows that 'being' is predicated in many ways. For in one sense 'being' is predicated as it is divided by the ten genera. And in this sense 'being' signifies something existing in the nature of things, whether it is a substance, as a man, or an accident, as a color. In another sense 'being' signifies the truth of a proposition; as when it is said that an affirmation is true when it signifies to be what is, and a negation is true when it signifies not to be what is not; and this 'being' signifies composition produced by the judgment-forming intellect. So whatever is said to be a being in the first sense is a being also in the second sense: for whatever has natural existence in the nature of things can be signified to be by an affirmative proposition, e.g. when it is said that a color is, or a man is. But not everything which is a being in the second sense is a being also in the first sense: for of a privation, such as blindness, we can form an affirmative proposition, saying: 'Blindness is'; but blindness is not something in the nature of things, but it is rather a removal of a being: and so even privations and negations are said to be beings in the second sense, but not in the first. And 'being' is predicated in different manners according to these two senses: for taken in the first sense it is a substantial predicate, and it pertains to the question 'What is it?', but taken in the second sense it is an accidental predicate, ... and it pertains to the question 'Is there [such and such a thing]?'.

And also,

We have to know that this second mode is related to the first one as effect to cause. For it is from the fact that something exists in the nature of things that the truth or falsity of a proposition follows, which the intellect signifies by this verb `is', as it is verbal copula. But, since some things which in themselves are not beings, the intellect considers as some sort of beings, like negations and the like, sometimes `is' is said of something in this second way, but not in the first. For it is said that blindness is in the second way, for the reason that the proposition is true in which something is said to be blind, but this is not said to be true in the first way. For blindness does not have real being, but is rather a privation of some being.

In this way, even when we speak of the denial of the existence of a thing, that denial is said to have a certain mode of existence in the mind.

I mean this as a matter of physics, everything has some sort of degree of observability.

If you mean here by observability that our senses alone can be informed by any existent thing, for as we said above, there are numerous things that have modes of being that are insensible, and if we were to try to say that the human mind by way of its operations can conclude all that is existent, neither here do we agree, but if we say that you mean that there is a certain transcendental of being that allows for things to be known in themselves, intelligibility, here I think we could agree. Any existent thing is intelligible in itself, but not necessarily intelligible to the human mind. For if the intelligibility of things were not a matter of their being, but instead only our investigation into whether this being is, then it would seem again as though we could not agree with your claim.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[~Eon~]

I absolutely love this quote and I am surprised that people like this person lived back then, yet we live in the world how it is today.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, hope with me that whatever it is that I post is worthwhile, and where I am lacking, please, supply my want.

In the first book called Topics, the Philosopher details the beginning of a method for dialectical inquiry, that is those questions that are asked together in order to present an argument, and the beginnings of scientific inquiry, or, as he says in the Metaphysics, the "foreshadow" of science. One of the most surprising turns from pre-Socratic and Platonic dialectic to Aristotelian dialectic is the importance to avoid misleading listeners and one's self by ambiguous meanings, or equivocation.

It is useful to have examined the number of meanings of a term . . . for clearness' sake (for a man is more likely to know what it is he asserts, if it has been made clear to him how many meanings it may have).

Elsewhere, the Philosopher also teaches that when what ought to be many questions, on account of the complexity of an inquiry, are reduced to one question, we are also in danger of misleading ourselves and our listeners, for in order to conclude from a question the premise that is latent and the middle term whereby the conclusion to shown forth, any multiplication of terms beyond those makes the question ambiguous.

Unfortunately, I would charge the dilemma of Epicurus as both confused on the question of meanings and the various uses of words and on the multiplication of terms in questions.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

What precisely is meant here by evil? Before any conception of God is held by man, he knows wrongs committed by his self and towards his self, but is this precisely what is meant by evil? Epicurus here makes a contentious question, that is one that is ambiguous.

Then he is not omnipotent.

Curiously, I am not certain that even the question of power has been clearly understood in this rhetorical argument. For it is clear that there are certain things even in this finite operation or that that cannot be otherwise. For instance, the geometer cannot square the circle, for though he has the power to arrange magnitudes, it is outside of that proper object of that power to square the circle for there is no magnitude that is a squared circle.

A better investigation into the meaning of this word is necessary.

Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Without even inquiring into the nature of Goodness, Epicurus here attempts to show that the lack of an operation is antithetical. Unfortunately, this cannot stand as either clear nor conclusive.

These problems of rhetorical arguments such as this one too could be turned on those who would use rhetorical devices to demonstrate the existence of God, as is often the case, and we should indeed expect even of the rhetor that he not parade in dialectician's robes.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[~Eon~]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

What precisely is meant here by evil? Before any conception of God is held by man, he knows wrongs committed by his self and towards his self, but is this precisely what is meant by evil? Euthyphro here makes a contentious question, that is one that is ambiguous.

Well according to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evil , evil can be defined as a supernatural force of wickedness (presumably the devil or some anti-god deity) or it can be used to mean a being that is morally wrong and by extension their actions, which again are presumably the temptations of the devil. Your logic is sort of circular here. You bring up the context of man without god and ask what is evil but if there is no evil then what point is there in introducing a god? Good and evil are two sides of the same coin as in they go together. As long as a deity exists to represent good and all that is right with the world, then evil must be those that stray away from the teachings of that deity or something that tempts those to stray away from the teachings of god.

Curiously, I am not certain that even the question of power has been clearly understood in this rhetorical argument. For it is clear that there are certain things even in this finite operation or that that cannot be otherwise. For instance, the geometer cannot square the circle, for though he has the power to arrange magnitudes, it is outside of that proper object of that power to square the circle for there is no magnitude that is a squared circle.

A better investigation into the meaning of this word is necessary.

You are making a big error in your statement that is comparing god who is often described as perfection and humans who have never been identified as perfect beings. You'll have to forgive me because I don't have any quotes as I am not too familiar with holy texts but I think you understand what I mean. Your second error is bringing up geometry to someone who is a big fan of geometry. Squaring the circle is not impossible in its own right but rather constructing a square with the same area as a circle is impossible to do using a compass because a compass can only make certain bisections. You are incorrect when you say "he has the power to construct the magnitudes" a circle with area pi requires a square with side lengths of root pi. Pi has been proven to be a transcendental number (meaning that it can only be approximated as an infinite sum of rational numbers) therefore it is impossible to find the magnitude of root pi in a finite amount of bisections. Furthermore there is no contradiction when I say I cannot perform something that cannot be done, however there is a clear contradiction in saying that an omnipotent being cannot perform an arbitrary task.

Without even inquiring into the nature of Goodness, Euthyphro here attempts to show that the lack of an operation is antithetical. Unfortunately, this cannot stand as either clear nor conclusive.

These problems of rhetorical arguments such as this one too could be turned on those who would use rhetorical devices to demonstrate the existence of God, as is often the case, and we should indeed expect even of the rhetor that he not parade in dialectician's robes.

Your writing is very eloquent but I must ask for more reasoning behind your statement here. Can we agree that good and evil form a dichotomy? If so then a diety who is indifferent to evil and chooses to do nothing in the presence of it despite having the ability to do so must also be evil by default by not opposing evil (i.e acting upon goodness). You are right though in that we do not need to actually go into the nature of what is good or evil because that is in the eye of the beholder but in any case the burden of ambiguity in good and evil lie soley on those that claimed these words in the first place. If you would entertain me, can you provide a quote or a similar example which turns this argument the other way around? I am curious to see it.

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, pray with me that what I have to post both contributes what is worthwhile and does not detract from your own post.

Thank you for responding to me in such a timely way, and with many good questions.

Well according to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evil ,

While this dictionary or that dictionary can be incredibly helpful to mark various uses, especially insofar as that dictionary agrees with other dictionaries, I do not know of a scientific method, that is a method that could produce certain knowledge, that in order to denominate the various uses of a word must turn to a compiled authority such as a dictionary. Rather, the rhetor or the dialectician must have some method to denominate various uses when no such authority is available, else if that authority must itself always be available to the rhetor or the dialectician, in what way does the lexicographer avoid such an absurd problem of the beginning of his work?

evil can be defined as a supernatural force of wickedness (presumably the devil or some anti-god deity) or it can be used to mean a being that is morally wrong and by extension their actions, which again are presumably the temptations of the devil.

This might begin to suffice for the various ways in which the word "evil" is used. Curiously, though, you begin with the supernatural use, when I think that that is the least common, and you omit many other uses such as when a thing is found contemptible, or when a thing is said to be deficient in some virtue which it ought to possess, or in the way that the lack of health is called an evil, especially the lack of health by illness, and I am not sure that we have here exhausted the number of ways in which the word "evil" is used.

Now if these denominations of use are acceptable to you, it should be clear that of the various uses, there is some unity, or agreement, of meaning, but considered under various species, or differences. For instance, when some say that an artefact such that could destroy an entire city is evil, and the seductress of married man is evil, do they say here "evil" in an equivocal way, that is using the same word with entirely different meanings, or do they say so here in an analogical way, that is in a way demarcating the participation that these two different uses have in one word?

The dilemma of Epicurus, as it is presented here, has not even begun to ask these questions, nor has it gone beyond simply the questions of use to whether or not such an object is: Is there such a thing as evil? What is it?

This what that we would hope to arrive at is in a way the answer to what unifies all the various uses of "evil".

Your logic is sort of circular here. You bring up the context of man without god and ask what is evil but if there is no evil then what point is there in introducing a god?

Do you count it as my logic to say that "Before any conception of God is held by man, he knows wrongs committed by his self and towards his self, but is this precisely what is meant by evil?" In that way, would you say that I have concluded from this an affirmation or a negation that does not follow necessarily from its premises? I do not see any conclusive end to which I reached by asking this question. Rather, I have taken what we know to be the case, namely that man is not infused from the beginning with a knowledge of God, but rather comes to that knowledge either by way of instruction or investigation, and that prior to any of those investigations, it is clear that men know their wrongs. How do you mean that it is "sort of circular"? I cannot see this as more than a rhetorical device. Please, help me to see what must clearly be intended as more than rhetoric.

You are making a big error in your statement that is comparing god who is often described as perfection and humans who have never been identified as perfect beings.

I do not see how the comparison fails, especially when I have said that it is clear even on the order of finite powers that certain persons might possess a power that is itself not inclusive of what is impossible, for a power's proper object must be possible, else we'd not call it a power. Now if this is so on the finite order of things, why has Euthyphro not here discussed whether it is so with an omnipotent order, an illimitable order?

Your second error is bringing up geometry to someone who is a big fan of geometry.

I am most happy that you are yourself a fan of geometry. I have found few sciences that are as appealing to me as the geometer's, though I certainly do not think that I could claim an expertise.

Squaring the circle is not impossible in its own right but rather constructing a square with the same area as a circle is impossible to do using a compass because a compass can only make certain bisections.

I would say that on the question of whether without the use of compass and straightedge, if certain transcendental numbers might be used in order to approximate an equivalent area, I could not affirm that the non-constructable has produced any definite figure, as any definite length produced by the geometer, and not only an abstract length, is algebraic, and this is precisely what the transcendental numbers are not.

The geometer is left with the problem of squaring the circle as an impossibility insofar as in res, he finds only constructible numbers.

Furthermore there is no contradiction when I say I cannot perform something that cannot be done, however there is a clear contradiction in saying that an omnipotent being cannot perform an arbitrary task.

If it were the case that Epicurus' dilemma shows it not to be an arbitrary task, then your objection would stand; however, the dilemma does not, as it is only a cursory, rhetorical device.

Can we agree that good and evil form a dichotomy?

This would be my question! And I am glad that we have arrived at much the same question. In what way would the proposer of the dilemma say that good and evil are dichotomous? In an absolute way, such that the two cannot be present in the same subject? Or in a relative way? The answer to this question, unfortunately, is the burden of the proposer of the dilemma.

If you would entertain me, can you provide a quote or a similar example which turns this argument the other way around? I am curious to see it.

I would be glad to entertain you, but I do not know that my knowledge is that extensive that I could. I'll be happy to spend a few days looking, though, if you would rather me do the leg-work than yourself, in order to find similar rhetorical devices in the writings of theists.

Thank you for your post, and I look forward to your next response.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[Jorgen]

This fuckin guy. Seriously, TLDR: what is the definition of any word ever?

also what does this sentence even mean I have no idea

Elsewhere, the Philosopher also teaches that when what ought to be many questions, on account of the complexity of an inquiry, are reduced to one question, we are also in danger of misleading ourselves and our listeners, for in order to conclude from a question the premise that is latent and the middle term whereby the conclusion to shown forth, any multiplication of terms beyond those makes the question ambiguous.

If I'm going to get serious-town though, I'd say that this dude's charge that omnipotence only applies to the realm of the logically possible is probably his most powerful insight. Frankly, I'll take that; it means the concept of God is something that can be approached with logical insight, which is a far cry from the entirely faith-based, don't-question, "it's far beyond your feeble human comprehension" defense of theism I've seen tossed around before. Not that this guy is even defending theism; he doesn't seem to be arguing for much at all, actually.

 

[capefeather]

Re: Post 407

I don't think you or some others have understood Ash Borer's point. Ash Borer was talking in a practical sense, which he/she made the mistake of trying to present as a metaphysical argument or something, but the point is there nonetheless. What does it mean for something to "exist" in a meaningful sense? If you propose a substance that evades our ability to detect it in any way even in principle, can it be said to "exist" in any sense that merits the actions that people have taken in response to it? Does it justify special protections being given to some religious institutions but not others, for example?

One wouldn't know it from religious apologists or armchair philosophers on the internet, but philosophy has come a long way since Aristotle. The distinction between ens reale and ens rationis isn't really relevant to what Ash Borer is talking about. No one would dispute that God exists in people's minds, though a persistent form of God is more questionable. Perhaps more relevant is the distinction between the "phenomenon" (the data from our senses) and the "noumenon" (a.k.a. the "things-in-themselves"). The philosophy community by and large seems to agree with Kant that the existence of a thing-in-itself is unknowable. And what's the point of making a truth claim about an unknowable statement?

Re: Posts 409 and 411

I'm going to tackle the omnipotence argument first because it's a common way for apologists and other theist philosophers to escape the logical problems with omnipotence. What you seem to be implying is that omnipotence is not the ability to do anything that can possibly be conceived, but merely the ability to do anything that's possible, i.e. anything that doesn't contradict with one's other properties. If we go by this definition, however, then everybody's omnipotent. I'm omnipotent. Everything's constrained by various properties.

The usual counter to this seems to be that "God" can do anything that's logically possible. Yet, think about what this is really saying. To do anything logically possible, one has to lack properties, because properties constrain one's capabilities. To propose an omnipotent "God", therefore, is to describe what God is NOT, rather than what God IS. That's an extremely problematic way of defining anything. Some would go even further as to suggest that a being that has no properties is indistinguishable from nothing.

Now for the problem of evil. You ask, "What is evil?" Maybe evil can't be fully defined, but it doesn't have to be in this case. Anything that everybody would agree is an obvious example of evil would suffice. Why does God allow 150,000 people to die every day? What kind of divine plan involves a culture where a woman has to marry her rapist? What is accomplished by all the war and the suffering and the cannibalism, and so on and so forth? Is God constrained by a property that prevents him from acting on these things?

What would you think about the power of someone who wants to stop a crime, but can't?
What would you think about the morality of someone who can stop a crime without any cost to himself or others, but won't?
What would you think if someone could stop a crime without any cost to himself or others, and supposedly wanted to, but the crime wasn't stopped?
What would you think if someone had neither the ability nor the desire to stop a crime?

On an unrelated note, it annoys me when people try to emulate how philosophers from centuries or millenia ago write. It just demonstrates that these supposedly learned people are actually stuck in the past. Communication of philosophical concepts has gotten much more efficient over time, as more and more people understand them. There are standard terms for entire paragraphs and parts of paragraphs posted here and I have to wonder why they're not being used.

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, hope that my reply here is worth reading, and that I do more than write for myself, but where I am lacking, please, supply my want.

what is the definition of any word ever?

On this question, even the ancient masters are divided, modern philosophical schools too. In an old aristotelian sense, however, to define a thing is to reveal all that is essential to that thing and to omit what is not. The method then depends upon the data available, for some times what is essential will be shown deductively, and at other times it will be shown inductively.

also what does this sentence even mean I have no idea

The most fundamental argument is composed of three terms, which are themselves a subject and an affirmation or denial. The first of these is called the premise, which is in a way the principle of the argument, and it is also that in which the conclusion is virtually contained. The last of these is the conclusion, which is made known by a middle term which is linked in some necessary way to the premise, that is, that it follows from the premise.

Now these three terms are the minimum necessary for any sound argument, any uncontentious argument. When the dialectician engages a person argumentatively, he does so by way of a number of questions; the answers to which make up the affirmation or denial that completes a term. If, however, the dialectician reduces many questions to a single question without also reducing the number of subjects of inquiry, he can only demonstrate in a confused sort of way, for it becomes unclear then which terms he has developed, and also what necessarily follows from them.

. . . [the] charge that omnipotence only applies to the realm of the logically possible is probably his most powerful insight. Frankly, I'll take that; it means the concept of God is something that can be approached with logical insight

This seems to be the classical theistic position, although, with semantic care, distinguishing between analogical and univocal propositions, and also distinguishing between a via positiva and a via negativa. You can see this most clearly I think in the angelic doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, but also the other great doctors of the Church: Ss. Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, and Blessed Duns Scotus.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[Myzozoa]

there are no real definitions, dictionaries are merely reifications of white authority, but there are meanings. a word has no meaning outside of a sentence, and even that sentence's place in the larger web of signification (which is indeterminate i would argue) affects how a given word will be understood by the subject who interprets it (and that subject's position has implications for how they interpret signs).

Anyway, I feel like if you define god through logical means then you can be accused of just defining god into existence. And if you argue that god is somehow beyond various inquiries than you get accused of an epistemological double standard. What do?

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, hope with me that whatever it is that I might post is more than relevant, but also worthwhile.

I don't think you or some others have understood Ash Borer's point. Ash Borer was talking in a practical sense, which he/she made the mistake of trying to present as a metaphysical argument or something, but the point is there nonetheless. What does it mean for something to "exist" in a meaningful sense? If you propose a substance that evades our ability to detect it in any way even in principle, can it be said to "exist" in any sense that merits the actions that people have taken in response to it? Does it justify special protections being given to some religious institutions but not others, for example?

Perhaps there is a mistake here of presenting metaphysically what should only be treated pragmatically; perhaps only Ash Borer could here really tell us. I do not know.

Unfortunately, I do not quite understand your meaning here: How is it that any thing exists in a meaningful sense, as you say? Do you mean here a stand-in for purposeful? That is, in what way it can be used or to what end it affects us? For it would seem that meaning is in the conceptual powers of intellectual substances, and not latent in things, unless you mean by this an object's intelligibility, for intelligibility could be counted among the transcendental predicates, as what can be affirmed of any thing that participates in being.

If this is the case, it is clear that one could affirm that an existent thing possesses that predicate of intelligibility in itself but not in regards to a specific intellect. That is, a lower intellect might not have the power to discover all that a higher intellect does, as is the case even in our personal developmental history, but that does not preclude that a thing be knowable in itself.

philosophy has come a long way since Aristotle.

Even in the aristotelian tradition, especially as it found its way to the modern age by the schoolmen, there have been vast developments, though I am sure that many modernists would wish to deny that the tradition has continued.

The philosophy community by and large seems to agree with Kant that the existence of a thing-in-itself is unknowable.

I am not sure that I could say any thing about a philosophical community, for the various schools of the philosophers have always been divided on these questions, but I can say that from within that specifically thomistic aristotelian school, I cannot think of one that agrees with Kant's division of being's intelligibility. Garrigou-Lagrange has in his text God: His Existence and His Attributes one of the best answers to Kant that I've yet read.

What you seem to be implying is that omnipotence is not the ability to do anything that can possibly be conceived

It is clear that not all that can be conceived is properly said to be possible, for the imaginative power of man (or the phantasmal) is capable of arranging the various images with which we know things into a multitude of fictions, but these are no more possibly found in the things of this world. It is also clear that by use of these various powers that are commonly called reason, man is capable of conceiving of a number of things that are themselves impossible, namely, that he can be wrong. In this way, we must deny that omnipotence is strictly that power which extends to all that can be possibly conceived.

but merely the ability to do anything that's possible

I do not know that I could here make use of the same modifier, "merely", but I would say that an investigation into what is possible, and whether there are impossibilities that belong to the nature of things themselves, and whether among them those possibilities are themselves truly extended to all possibles even in finite things, belong to the whole number of questions that must be addressed by the rhetor that hopes to use a dilemma such as was above posted.

To do anything logically possible, one has to lack properties, because properties constrain one's capabilities.

It does not follow that there are real properties that one must be without in order to do anything possible. Please, explain this argument in greater detail that I might understand it.

To propose an omnipotent "God", therefore, is to describe what God is NOT, rather than what God IS. That's an extremely problematic way of defining anything.

In a way, the theological tradition begins with knowing that what transcends limitation cannot be defined; although, this too belongs to that philosophy that has been left behind by so many moderns. In fact, we read in what is called the shorter Summa, or the Compendium Theologiae, that God is not defined as a finite being would be, rather we make use of an analogical way, which is commonly called via negativa.

Problemata, &c.

The solutions to your questions I think could only begin to be developed if this first problem is solved, namely whether or not the existence of evil, to which is commonly also called suffering, is absolutely opposed to the existence of the good, as when two affirmations without a middle term are said to be contradictory, or if there is another way in which both an absolutely transcendent good might be that is itself that cause of all that is contingent, and from contingent things various deficiencies in goodness might be found.

On an unrelated note, it annoys me when people try to emulate how philosophers from centuries or millenia ago write.

Perhaps that is not nearly as unrelated as you might say, but, please, bear with me as I have written only what I have thought, but I will not lie that much of what I think has been affected by poor English translations of the schoolmen.

Thank you for your post and your questions.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, hope that this short addendum to my previous post is worthy of your time.

there are no real definitions, dictionaries are merely reifications of white authority, but there are meanings. a word has no meaning outside of a sentence, and even that sentence's place in the larger web of signification (which is indeterminate i would argue) affects how a given word will be understood by the subject who interprets it (and that subject's position has implications for how they interpret signs).

Insofar as the word stands for a concept, and a concept has been informed by what is, we must say that those words are meaningful, for what else is meaning? Now that this word or that word stands for this concept seems arbitrary, and I would agree with you that it would be incredibly difficult to argue that somehow the meaning of this word is bound up in the formulae of its spelling and pronunciation.

Anyway, I feel like if you define god through logical means then you can be accused of just defining god into existence. And if you argue that god is somehow beyond various inquiries than you get accused of an epistemological double standard. What do?

Curiously, I think that there are some theologians, especially those that make use of what is commonly called ontological arguments (Anselm, Descartes, Leibniz, et al.) that are simply defining a term in such a way that existence must be predicated of it, but not showing necessarily why we must define it in this way.

The better theologians, as far as I can read, are those who with some cunning take what principles they have been equipped with by their experience of the world, sometimes called first principles or primary notions, with those facts per force of observation, and work in a posterior way to the cause of those things.

Each of the sciences makes use of a primary notion of causality with which not only can it be shown that an effect proceeds necessarily from this or that, but that something of this cause can be known discursively by knowing something of the effect, but when the scientist reasons this way he does not know the cause in the same manner or to the same extent that he knows the effect, and this is why I say "something of this cause can be known", for it is an analogical way of knowing when we attempt to discover the cause of a thing by its effects.

Now I think that one of the most profound theologians who has dealt with the question of analogical knowledge, not only in theology, but in all the sciences, is Thomas Aquinas, and following from him Cajetan. These two have made firm a doctrine of analogy which I have yet to see the better. I highly recommend trying to read their more philosophical works, rather than strictly their theological works.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[~Eon~]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,


Do you count it as my logic to say that "Before any conception of God is held by man, he knows wrongs committed by his self and towards his self, but is this precisely what is meant by evil?" In that way, would you say that I have concluded from this an affirmation or a negation that does not follow necessarily from its premises? I do not see any conclusive end to which I reached by asking this question. Rather, I have taken what we know to be the case, namely that man is not infused from the beginning with a knowledge of God, but rather comes to that knowledge either by way of instruction or investigation, and that prior to any of those investigations, it is clear that men know their wrongs. How do you mean that it is "sort of circular"? I cannot see this as more than a rhetorical device. Please, help me to see what must clearly be intended as more than rhetoric.

Before I address your response I feel the need to point out that this topic is going off on a tangent to what your original post as well as my response referred to. The original topic was on the question of what is evil before the concept of god, and perhaps it was my fault for not making a distinction between good vs. bad and right vs. wrong clear. A professor of mine defined being moral as having the free will to make a decision based on reasoning. Humans by this definition are morality and will make the distinction between right and wrong on their own accord. This topic is referring to good vs. bad which will not be mistaken with right or wrong. Perhaps it is wrong to add my bias, but I subscribe to the idea that good is to bring happiness to oneself and bad is the converse. The reason why I rejected your reply as circular is for the very reason; if god is something that brings good out, then evil is something that brings out bad. To reiterate, you cannot ask a question about evil before the concept of god. You asked me why I believe that evil is a supernatural force. The reason why I defined evil that why is simply based on my observations. Forgive me for any inaccuracies, but theistic traditions that I am familiar include the act of cleansing a human to remove the evil and similar rituals of exorcisms. My conclusion that evil is a supernatural force embodying living beings is simply based off my second hand knowledge of other religions.

Moving on I completely agree with you that evil is entirely subjective. The concept of what is bad is subjective because the concept of what is wrong and right is subjective. What is unequivocal is that bad things exist because humans are not always happy, hence evil exists. I believe that the ambiguity in what evil is only strengthens Epicurus' argument. The reason is that if evil was completely defined then it can be dismissed based on different perceptions of what evil is. One final note I want to add is that in many of the most prevalent religions, there is a reward of paradise for devoting one's life to the doctrines of that deity. If evil does not exist then anywhere is paradise. If we can now confirm that evil exists, not as a well defined tangible object but as a force opposing good defined only by one's perception then you certainly can't blame Epicurus for the ambiguity that is evil. The author of the quote simply took an observation that evil exists and posed a rhetorical question. It is not my fault nor is it the fault of Epicurus that any particular theism creates these ambiguities in the first place. To conclude, the implication behind Epicurus' question is that a deity/god/savior can only save one if there is something to be saved from. Hence the question can be asked in any level of vagueness as it would be contradictory otherwise. This is the very purpose of the question; to contradict the concept of a deity.

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

I would say that on the question of whether without the use of compass and straightedge, if certain transcendental numbers might be used in order to approximate an equivalent area, I could not affirm that the non-constructable has produced any definite figure, as any definite length produced by the geometer, and not only an abstract length, is algebraic, and this is precisely what the transcendental numbers are not.

The geometer is left with the problem of squaring the circle as an impossibility insofar as in res, he finds only constructible numbers.

I'm sorry but this is just silly. Outside of compass and straightedge any numerical technique will suffice in producing the value for pi just as accurate as you can construct any circle with radius R.

I chose only to respond to the first topic we ran into because I feel that its unfair that you are debating against everyone else. If you have time maybe we can talk about the other topics. Have a good day.

 

[Myzozoa]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, hope that this short addendum to my previous post is worthy of your time.



Insofar as the word stands for a concept, and a concept has been informed by what is, we must say that those words are meaningful, for what else is meaning? Now that this word or that word stands for this concept seems arbitrary, and I would agree with you that it would be incredibly difficult to argue that somehow the meaning of this word is bound up in the formulae of its spelling and pronunciation.




may Truth and Love prevail.

I would question whether something can exist prior to being conceptually understood. It seems to me that 'what is' (ontology) is in many ways determined by epistemology (how 'things' come to be known), as has been argued by Quine, Sellars, and Wittgenstein, and now by Jorgen and myself at least once each in this very thread. This is how I understand Quine and Sellars when they assert that 'all knowledge is relational'. As such, there are no 'objects' waiting to be discovered, at which point we will form a concept attached to a name/word/term. Rather, concepts influence how we come to understand the objects in the world.

Language is acquired and learned, as are meanings. The key to understanding language is that it only functions qua language when there are shared collective meanings among individuals trying to communicate in that language. Individuals negotiate communicating through language by acquiring shared interpretations of signs through various social interactions. This is a sort of post-structuralist interpretation of tabula rasa, in some sense.

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord, MMXIV,

Please, be patient with me in my hopes of contributing only what is worthwhile with this post and every post, but, please, know that I have very much enjoyed even the briefest of your messages.

The reason why I rejected your reply as circular is for the very reason; if god is something that brings good out, then evil is something that brings out bad. To reiterate, you cannot ask a question about evil before the concept of god.

There is in certain less-developed theistic traditions, and here I think specifically of a few Southern Baptist theologians, and post-Ghazalian mohommedan theologians, an inherent divine-command problem of goodness. However, I think that in the scope of natural theology, especially that natural theology that has been well-equipped by Hellenic tools, there must be some notion of inherent goodness in things of this world that belongs to them properly and essentially, and in this way that marks Goodness to be a transcendental of Being, if the natural theologian is to ever say that he can arrive a posteriori at some absolute goodness which is their cause.

In this way, I must wonder whether in the investigations of the student of nature, he can discover this inherent goodness of being in things in the same fashion or mode that one conceptualizes evil. I, of course, side with Dionysius the Areopogite and later Augustine that evil is not properly said to be, but is instead what is lacking or deprived of what is, but, please, forgive this rudimentary summary for not immediately setting out the entirety of the argument.

In this, that I count goodness a predicate that properly belongs to things, I do not see how we could say that I must have a concept of God prior to knowing that predicate, for it would seem otherwise to me, that I must first know this predicate in things in order to arrive at a concept of God.

. . . you certainly can't blame Epicurus for the ambiguity that is evil. The author of the quote simply took an observation that evil exists and posed a rhetorical question. [ . . . ] This is the very purpose of the question; to contradict the concept of a deity.

Perhaps that I cannot blame any person for an ambiguity in question, but, without blame, I would stand in saying that the ambiguity of the question does not lead us necessarily to a contradiction, and this I think is the chief weakness of such a rhetorical device, that it does not show in a rigorous or necessary way that such a contradiction is indeed the opposition of terms without a middle.

I'm sorry but this is just silly. Outside of compass and straightedge any numerical technique will suffice in producing the value for pi just as accurate as you can construct any circle with radius R.

Please, forgive me if I have misused some term, but I would be interested in a longer conversation on this and the relation of transcendental numbers to real objects and whether those abstractions possess a constructability. Would you be interested in reading any of the work that a relatively modern Thomist has done on these questions? If so, I believe that one great text can be found at

https://archive.org/stream/ThomismA...Mathematical_Physics_Mullahy#page/n0/mode/2up

I chose only to respond to the first topic we ran into because I feel that its unfair that you are debating against everyone else. If you have time maybe we can talk about the other topics. Have a good day.

I am certainly glad that you did respond; although, I do not quite understand your meaning about fairness, but I have been very glad to read your responses and to have this exchange. I hope that we will have at least a few more conversations in the future.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[Flaccus]

In this year of our Lord MMXIV,

Please, know that I have very much enjoyed reading your comments here, and hope with me that my comments might add even a shadow of what is worthwhile.

I would question whether something can exist prior to being conceptually understood.

This fair question is one of the first, I think, in a good investigation into scientific inquiry. It would seem that no object might be conceptually understood unless it first participates in being, and, in this, we must say that existence is always prior to essence, for if an object could be concomitantly understood without first being, then we must say that we in a way understand nothing, but if this is the case, then nothing would be, but as that is clearly false, it must not be that we understand nothing.

If, however, we were to say that our concept of a thing is not itself represented by concept and referred to by that concept, then I think that we end in a similar problem that our conception then without relation to being could not in a way know that it was without that relation, but that we know that our concepts are referential but without univocity, it seems clear that some being must precede our knowing.

may Truth and Love prevail.

 

[mattj]

Re: Posts 409 and 411

I'm going to tackle the omnipotence argument first because it's a common way for apologists and other theist philosophers to escape the logical problems with omnipotence. What you seem to be implying is that omnipotence is not the ability to do anything that can possibly be conceived, but merely the ability to do anything that's possible, i.e. anything that doesn't contradict with one's other properties. If we go by this definition, however, then everybody's omnipotent. I'm omnipotent. Everything's constrained by various properties.

The usual counter to this seems to be that "God" can do anything that's logically possible. Yet, think about what this is really saying. To do anything logically possible, one has to lack properties, because properties constrain one's capabilities. To propose an omnipotent "God", therefore, is to describe what God is NOT, rather than what God IS. That's an extremely problematic way of defining anything. Some would go even further as to suggest that a being that has no properties is indistinguishable from nothing.

The Omnipotence Objection doesn't apply to the God of the Bible. "Omnipotent" is a fairly modern English word that the ancient Greek and Hebrew authors of the Bible never applied to our god. Rather, the Bible lists several actions which its god literally cannot do.

in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

These are just two examples. There are quite a few more clear limitations on what the God of the Bible can and cannot do.

For hundreds, if not thousands, of years there has been this idea that the God of the Bible can do, literally, "quote-unquote" a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. While I'm sure it sounds great over the pulpit, as you point out, if you think about it at all the idea doesn't make sense for countless reasons. While the Omnipotence Objection does apply to the "idea of God" that many people personally hold, it doesn't apply to the actual, from-the-page, God of the Bible.

Because many people actually do believe their god is "omnipotent", I wouldn't say it's a strawman argument, but it doesn't apply to the God of the Bible because the Bible never says he's omnipotent, and lists several things he cannot do.

 

[capefeather]

For it would seem that meaning is in the conceptual powers of intellectual substances, and not latent in things, unless you mean by this an object's intelligibility, for intelligibility could be counted among the transcendental predicates, as what can be affirmed of any thing that participates in being.

The thing-in-itself does not matter in what I'm saying. To keep declaring that it exists without justification (except a book reference without any further comment) is to completely miss the point I was making. Maybe you're using "knowability" in some objective way, but I'm using it to mean knowable to us, the dust mites living in this universe. If you declare something to exist even though it does not result in any phenomena (alternatively, "cannot be defined"), what's to stop me from declaring the existence of any of an infinitude of undetectable entities? An epistemology that allows that is useless.

It does not follow that there are real properties that one must be without in order to do anything possible. Please, explain this argument in greater detail that I might understand it.

An entity G is defined as having a property P. G is incapable of having the property not-P, without ceasing to be G by definition.

The solutions to your questions I think could only begin to be developed if this first problem is solved, namely whether or not the existence of evil, to which is commonly also called suffering, is absolutely opposed to the existence of the good,

This is not about the existence of "the good". It's about the existence of "God", which, by the most common philosophical definition, intervenes in our lives, among other things.

The Omnipotence Objection doesn't apply to the God of the Bible. "Omnipotent" is a fairly modern English word that the ancient Greek and Hebrew authors of the Bible never applied to our god. Rather, the Bible lists several actions which its god literally cannot do.These are just two examples. There are quite a few more clear limitations on what the God of the Bible can and cannot do.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/cando.html

I don't even like SAB all that much, but it's kind of amusing that it suffices here. Not to mention there are a few instances of God lying. But I guess this is beside the point. Apparently we're supposed to believe that God incarnate came down to earth to save it, but he did so little that it's inevitable that only a few will be saved. Doesn't sound very powerful/loving to me.

 

[mattj]

There are so many obvious problems with that list that I don't know where to start. The most important here would be Rev 19:6. In 1611 an English translator chose the word "omnipotent" to represent what John wrote in Greek. John did not write the word "omnipotent". The word he wrote does not mean what we commonly understand the modern English word "omnipotent" means.

If you don't consider creating an entire universe and giving people all the oportunity they need to recieve eternal life powerful and loving, I guess you have that right, but do understand that many people disagree with your opinion.

 

[billymills]

Flaccus, I'm limiting you to two commas per sentence.