Douglas J. Bender

I believe I would agree with you on this. Though I was wondering why redemption and overcoming evil would necessarily result in a "morally superior world than one in which there is no evil at all". There was no evil "in the beginning with God", yet He was and is as "morally perfect" as one could get. I imagine the reason has to do with God's infinite knowledge and uncreatedness, but I was hoping for your take on the matter.

By the way, what seminary do you attend, and what is your "major" or "majors" (if you have one or ones), and if I may ask?


In Christ,

Douglas

Thomas Ash

I think Kenny's right. But doesn't this point to an internal contradiction in traditional Catholic beliefs, at least? Because if you think that god is (a) timeless, outside the universe and (b) omniscient - and if he's timeless as opposed to just an eternal Protestant God that really must include all his future decisions to eg. respond to someone's prayers in the way you've described a couple of pages back - then how we can we be part of (c) a non-deterministic universe, which I think the vast majority of the hundreds of millions of Catholics would staunchly believe in?

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

But, as someone who accepts compatibilist determinism, you're free of this contradiction. (I have to say, I really am quite impressed by what an intelligent, self-consistent position you've worked out on this position for a Christian - and I'm not just trying to flatter you )

But... (see my next post)

Thomas Ash

Hang on, what does this mean? Are you a compatibilist determinist or not?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Kenny:

"I do not believe that any event occurs without some sort of determining causal or logical explanation, and I believe that God is aware of all such explanations."

It sounds as if you regard free will as more epistemic than metaphysical. If this is so, then for a being to know its decisions before it makes them, this being would fail to be free, I think. Is that accurate?

If you do not believe in libertarian free will, then perhaps it does not present a problem for God's freedom that God will only take one action in any given circumstance. You present a good objection in the supposition that there are occasions wherein more than one course of action would be morally perfect. However, I'm certain there are some decisions at which one course of action is clearly the best, and these instances would present a problem for libertarian free will.

"As I said, I believe that God’s natural knowledge and God’s free knowledge come into being simultaneously as part of an eternal a-temporal act."

This seems to help God's freedom to some degree, but it still makes sense to say that at certain points in the universe's timeline, God does certain things. God therefore certainly has knowledge of what He "has" done in the universe at every time He acts, but the fact that these choices are observable at all seems to suggest that they're already set. This definitely would preclude libertarian free will. As for an epistemic conception, for now I will say that it doesn't really make sense to say a being can be free if it's timeless, because its decisions do not seem to depend upon contingent stimuli.

"The reason that God cannot actualize S’ is because S’ is logically incompatible with God’s omniscience."

I think there's a better way to put this point. God can bring the soa "Thomas learns," as can I. But God cannot bring about "Thomas brings about 'Thomas learns'," because then it would really be He who is causing me to learn. Relatedly, God cannot bring about "Thomas learns without being caused to learn by a distinctly different agent," but I can. There seems to be no parallel action in God's repertoire.

I agree that S' is logically incompatible with God's omniscience. That is, God cannot bring about "God learns." But "someone or other learns" is a different and logically consistent soa. I mean, the reason McEar cannot actualize "McEar walks a dog" is that walking a dog is logically incompatible with McEar's essential property of only being able to scratch his ear. This does not seem to indicate that McEar's limitation does not preclude his omnipotence. It does make intuitive sense that God's inability to learn would preclude some logically consistent states of affairs.

Primal

This is one dillemma theists have never been able to solve to their own satisfaction.

Is God free, with all that entails about His creations and actions being arbitrary?

Or

Is God determined, and are His creations and actions then necessary?

Hence is God a necessary or free agent?

Spinoza for example, denied that God had free will as that would make God and his creations, random, arbitrary things.

Kenny

I disagree. I don’t think causation requires the passage of time. When we say A causes B, we typically mean that B finds its explanation it A, that B happens because of A. Causal chains are thus equivalent to explanatory chains, certain types of descriptions of logical connections between propositions which describe sates of affairs in the world. The interesting thing is that explanatory chains or logical connections aren’t temporal at all; they simply are.

It is true that in terms of our subjective experience, it typically seems that causes temporally precede their effects, but I see no reason why it logically must be so. The self-consistency of certain forms of time-travel scenarios (whether the laws of physics in our own universe allow time-travel or not) where effects temporally preceed their causes (and their may even be examples of this in our own universe on subatomic scales) lends support to the conjecture that there is no logically necessary reason why causes must temporally precede their effects.

In fact, I suspect the reason we perceive cause/effect sequences to occur in a temporally linier fashion (at least at our typical scale of perception) has much more to with how information storage in our universe occurs and how that affects our subjective perceptions of the world than with any sort of objective relationships between causal sequences and time. I see no good reason, at all really, to postulate the existence of time as some sort of metaphysically distinct entity, rather than just as an emergent property of how we measure relationships between different parts of our universe. Although contemporary theories of physics such as Relativity can be interpreted in a way that is compatible with the metaphysical reality of time, it seems much more eloquent and parsimonious, in light of such theories, just to do without it.

So I guess the bottom line is, I see causal relationships as having much more to do with logical connections between propositions describing the world than with anything that requires the existence of time, and I suspect that in our own physical universe the connection between causality and temporal sequences is much more accidental than necessary.

Well, I’m not quite sure how I should elaborate on this differently than I already have. I’m happy to clarify, but it is difficult to guess what someone else may see as being in need of clarification. I believe that God possess a certain kind of knowledge which is innate – His natural knowledge, which is logically independent of any choices which God makes. This knowledge includes God’s knowledge of all that is within His power to bring about, and this entails that God knows what all logically possible worlds are. God is also aware of His own purposes. God’s awareness of His own purposes in conjunction with His knowledge of all possible worlds means that God is also aware of which possible world best fulfills those purposes, and on the basis of such awareness, God chooses to actualize that world. Since God’s choice is made on the basis of His natural knowledge and His desires, God’s natural knowledge and His desires logically precede His choices (His choices find their explanation in God’s natural knowledge and His desires). As a consequence of His choice, in addition to His natural knowledge, God also knows a)what His choice was/is and b) the consequences of that choice where a) and b) together constitute God’s free knowledge. Since there is no necessary temporal duration between God’s knowledge of all possible worlds, His desires, His choices, and the consequences of His choices, however, the priorities involved are strictly logical and the actual obtaining of all these things is simultaneous.

In summary, the process involved in God’s choosing is analogous to the manner in which we make choices in that God has an awareness of His options and His desires/purposes and selects from those options the option that best fulfills His desires/purposes. It differs from the process in which we make decisions in many respects also (such as there being no temporal sequence involved), but not in way crucial to the essence of what it means to make a decision.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Kenny

That’s a very interesting observation, and one that requires more thought on my part. My initial take would be that the moral superiority of the world in which redemption occurs as opposed to the world in which it does not occur is true given the decision to create, that is, given that God has decided to actualize a world with free agents other then Himself, a world with evil in which redemption occurs is morally superior to a world in which there is no evil. However, this need not be true or applicable to the case in which God does not decide to create.

Still the question as to whether a possible world in which only God exists as opposed to a world in which God and other beings exist is a morally superior or inferior world is an interesting question, although I’m not sure that any sort of legitimate moral comparison can be made between these two types of possible worlds. Put another way, this question, it seems to me, boils down to the question of whether it was better for God to create than not to create, but I’m not sure that this question has an answer.

Like I said though, I need to think more about this.

I attend Fuller Theological Seminary (this is my first year) where I am working in a Masters of Arts in Theology. Eventually I would like to go into some field involving philosophical Theology or philosophy of religion. In my undergrad (at a secular university) I double majored in physics and philosophy/religion.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Kenny

Well, right, I think a form of compatibilist determinism is the way out here. Actually, since I think libertarian conceptions of freewill are incoherent, I don’t see any other options anyway. That being said, I am Protestant, not Catholic. I have leanings towards Reformed/Calvinistic traditions. Thanks for the compliment, BTW.

I am a compatibilist determinist in that I believe that every event has some sort of determining causal or other sort of logical explanation, that there is only one particular action that a particular free agent will take in any given exhaustive set of circumstances, but that these things are compatible with (acutally, they are necessary for) the meaningful existence of free wll. However, I am not a physical determinist in that I do not believe that all the determining causes in the world are physical in nature and that the laws of physics, by themselves, underdetermine the future state of the universe. This is because I believe that there are other types causal factors in the world (such as God and other personal agents) which are non-physical in nature. Still, when you take all the causal features of the universe into account (not just physical ones), then you wind up with a deterministic world.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Kenny

To all,

That’s all I have time for right now. I’ll try to get to the rest of the posts later. However, since I have two papers due on the same day next week, it make be slow going.

Thanks for your patience,
Kenny

HaysooChreesto!

This seems to be to me, the idea that God is unknowable. And if one claims that God is essentially unknowable to the mind of man, then one either must deny the existence of God or revert to agnosticism. So for the thinker this must constitute a decision to either believe in reason or irrationality.
At any rate Kenny, while you argue about how God's mind works, you admit that you can't conceive of Him either. Is this willful compartmentalizing?