I think the initial premise is faulty in and of itself. Saying God is omnipotent and benevolent doesn't mean He would never allow suffering.
It's like a father who lets his son burn himself a little bit on a lighter to learn not to mess with fire. The analogy itself is difficult to apply to the entire world, but it does bring up that suffering in and of itself isn't always wrong.
Also, one should also point out that the fundamental aspect of our creation was the idea of free will and human sovereignty. God didn't stop Adam and Eve from messing things up; that was the whole point of this creation--that they could mess it up. And with the exception of perhaps disease, one can easily argue that all suffering in this world directly follows from things humans do to each other or to our world. God won't step in and stop it because His whole point is to show that He'd offer salvation/grace when we mess up, not to stop us from messing up in the first place.
That's my take anyway. Sorry if I mirrored something said earlier.
If god wanted no one to suffer and was omnipotent he would get rid of suffering so he wouldn't have to even let them burn themselves to begin with.
Also as far Christianity goes the devil is the antithesis of god. So if he was really omnipotent and benevolent he would destroy the Satan. God represents all things good and Satan represents all things bad.
If there is free will how can god know the future? If he knows what I'm gonna do before I do its predetermined so there was no actual choice.
Also as far Christianity goes the devil is the antithesis of god. So if he was really omnipotent and benevolent he would destroy the Satan. God represents all things good and Satan represents all things bad.
The ultimate punishment visited upon Lucifer/Satan has long been regarded or interpreted in the Bible (and other texts that attempt to deal with this, Paradise Lost for example) as absence from God and Heaven. This is the cause of Christ's anguish on the cross in his last moments, when he asks his Father 'why have you forsaken me?' In that instance, Jesus was supposed to have experienced what it feels like to be in Hell.
No fiery lake or devils with pitchforks or anything like that. Hell is Hell, simply because it is apart from God and Heaven.
God doesn't need to 'destroy the Satan', because Lucifer/Satan is already suffering enough. Destroying him would end the punishment.
What this says about the nature of God, I leave to conjecture
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You're not your deck.
You're not how much mana you have in your pool.
You're not your half-naked, animè girl card sleeves.
You're not your DCI rating.
You're not your freaking ‘Coldsnap Prerelease’ t-shirt.
You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the Multiverse.
We're just going in circles. The only difference between "I'm confident there is an answer" and "Here is a potential answer" is the latter just picks a hypothetical. It doesn't even have to be logical because even if it isn't you can simply make up something else hypothetical to explain that, and so on. If you picked the answer "because God is sadistic" and someone said "well, that's the opposite of benevolent", all you then have to do is say "oh, well then God understands a way in which being sadistic sometimes is actually better for us in the long run".
How so? What exactly does the latter tell us the former doesn't? What good does this new information do us when any attempt to draw a conclusion based on it is always trumped by the core premises of God's omnipotence and omniscience?
To put it another way, given the premises that God is omnipotent and omniscient, what conclusions can we possibly make about God that are not automatically subject to doubt based on nothing more than our own limitations?
A proposition either is logical(ly consistent) or it isn't. God can't square a circle. He can't lift a rock that he can't lift. All the mystery in the universe can't allow God to do something that is tautologically impossible. The opponent's mission is to show that God himself is tautologically impossible. The apologist's mission is merely to show that this is not the case. Yes, the proposed omnipotence and omniscience of God are powerful weapons in the apologist's arsenal. But they're not perfect. Once the opponent has pointed out what looks like a contradiction, the burden shifts to the apologist to demonstrate that it is not one. And since not even divine powers can escape a contradiction, "It sounds impossible, but God can do it anyway" is not an adequate answer, whereas "It's not impossible, because you're forgetting blah" is.
This can go back and forth for a while; that's the nature of a dialogue. What matters is the penultimate argument, what the opponent says that the apologist concedes with an "I don't know; it's a mystery". Let's flesh out your Arguments 1 and 2 a bit, just for clarity:
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists. Apologist: You forget that suffering can sometimes lead to a greater good, as evinced by uncontentious examples like painful physical therapy. Opponent: But we can see the good at the end of physical therapy; we can't see the good at the end of the Holocaust. Apologist: We are not God; that we don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist.
In this dialogue, the apologist is professing his uncertainty of future events. The opponent, however, has not demonstrated that it is impossible for some greater good to come of the Holocaust; he has no standing contradiction with which he can say, "God is impossible". The apologist's concession of the opponent's point is irrelevant, because the opponent's point is irrelevant. The apologist has "won".
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists. Apologist: God knows things that we don't, so while I don't have an answer to this apparent contradiction, I'm sure he does.
In this dialogue, the apologist is conceding, not that he doesn't know how the future will work out, but that he doesn't know how the problem of suffering is not a contradiction. He's professing ignorance not of particular events, but of the whole argument. So the contradiction is left standing, and the opponent has "won".
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
At the same time, I can hand you a gun and tell you to kill yourself. Unless you're a seriously depressed individual with a history of suicide attempts, I already know which choice you're going to make. That doesn't mean you didn't have a choice; just that we both knew what the outcome was going to be.
The thing is you don't know if I'm depressed or not. So you do not know the outcome you assume the outcome. To know the future because it is predetermined is entirely different.
Edit:@Mephiston I understand your point I was putting the argument of omnipotent and benevolent but allows suffering argument into biblical context.
Also, one should also point out that the fundamental aspect of our creation was the idea of free will and human sovereignty. God didn't stop Adam and Eve from messing things up; that was the whole point of this creation--that they could mess it up. And with the exception of perhaps disease, one can easily argue that all suffering in this world directly follows from things humans do to each other or to our world. God won't step in and stop it because His whole point is to show that He'd offer salvation/grace when we mess up, not to stop us from messing up in the first place.
This, then, invites the question of punishment. It's one thing to say humans are allowed to mess things up, hurt each other, and hopefully find their own way to the truth, and say that's ultimately benevolent. But to also eternally punish for not finding the truth, that's not benevolent. (I personally would not argue that the existence of suffering is not compatible with a benevolent God, but I definitely would argue the existence of Hell is not compatible with a benevolent God.)
A proposition either is logical(ly consistent) or it isn't. God can't square a circle. He can't lift a rock that he can't lift. All the mystery in the universe can't allow God to do something that is tautologically impossible.
My reply: Yes He can, we just don't understand how.
In other words, you are introducing the belief that the rules of logic apply to God, which - as far as I'm aware - is in no way explicitly stated as part of the belief system. It's your own assumption. And I'll go so far as saying that certain core beliefs of Christianity directly violate logic. For example:
Jesus Christ was fully human and fully God.
If God is defined as an omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent being, and humans are at least partly defined as being not omniscient or omnipotent, that is a clear contradiction. Any justification introduced to reconcile these implicitly accept that God is not constrained by logic.
Of course you can say that assumption must be accepted in order to have a logical basis for any argument, which is true. But from my perspective there is no difference between claiming God can defy logic in a way we simply can't comprehend and claiming God can perceive in a way we simply can't comprehend.
The opponent's mission is to show that God himself is tautologically impossible. The apologist's mission is merely to show that this is not the case.
It's interesting that people keep wanting to frame the argument this way in order to put the burden of proof on someone. I'm not talking about whose argument is valid, I'm talking about whose argument is useful.
"It sounds impossible, but God can do it anyway" is not an adequate answer, whereas "It's not impossible, because you're forgetting blah" is.
But when the only restriction on "blah" is that it is not tautologically impossible it becomes practically impossible not to come up with an answer, whether or not it has any sensible basis.
This can go back and forth for a while; that's the nature of a dialogue. What matters is the penultimate argument, what the opponent says that the apologist concedes with an "I don't know; it's a mystery". Let's flesh out your Arguments 1 and 2 a bit, just for clarity:
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists. Apologist: You forget that suffering can sometimes lead to a greater good, as evinced by uncontentious examples like painful physical therapy. Opponent: But we can see the good at the end of physical therapy; we can't see the good at the end of the Holocaust. Apologist: We are not God; that we don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist.
In this dialogue, the apologist is professing his uncertainty of future events. The opponent, however, has not demonstrated that it is impossible for some greater good to come of the Holocaust; he has no standing contradiction with which he can say, "God is impossible". The apologist's concession of the opponent's point is irrelevant, because the opponent's point is irrelevant. The apologist has "won".
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists. Apologist: God knows things that we don't, so while I don't have an answer to this apparent contradiction, I'm sure he does.
In this dialogue, the apologist is conceding, not that he doesn't know how the future will work out, but that he doesn't know how the problem of suffering is not a contradiction. He's professing ignorance not of particular events, but of the whole argument. So the contradiction is left standing, and the opponent has "won".
I disagree with your assessment. The difference between the two is simply the way the points are framed, not the conclusion. Both responses ultimately appeal to human limitation; both responses do not actually provide the answer to the contradiction. The former simply elaborates on how the contradiction might be answered.
That's true, but I'm saying that God doesn't need to predetermine the future to know it. All He needs to do is know everything about you, your makeup, your history, your experiences, and what goes on in your head to know what choice you'll make every time. That's not predetermination nor is it lack of free will.
It certainly sounds like it to me. In order to actually have a choice, the probability that you will take a certain action has to be less than 1. In order to "know" something, the probability of that knowledge being accurate must be 1.
I will say, however, that God could potentially "know" what your choices are ahead of time simply by knowing every possible choice everyone could ever make throughout history and therefore "know" every action you take regardless of how you personally experience your choices.
It's interesting that people keep wanting to frame the argument this way in order to put the burden of proof on someone. I'm not talking about whose argument is valid, I'm talking about whose argument is useful.
I'm curious as to what exactly you mean here by the word "useful." Useful, to what end? To establishing the truth of things outside of this universe? To sleeping well at night? To nudging civilization towards a certain goal?
EDIT: I mean, isn't the atheist's argument hopefully useful towards propogating atheism, and the theist's hopefully useful towards propogating theism? How else ought they be useful?
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
I guess my argument is more along the lines of that the word "benevolent" is a word we ourselves tacked onto God, and thus we are defining God with traditional preconceptions handed down to us by our parents, not the Bible. Considering how many plagues He instigated, how many times He wiped out people who got in the Israelites' way (and the Israelites themselves too, once or twice), and even the people He simply struck down in the New Testament (Ananias and Saphira), I think any studious Christian has to reexamine what sort of goody-two-shoes expectations he puts on the being he worships.
That's another good way of thinking about it.
I'll agree with reexamining and my argument was mainly to point out that he can't have contradicting quality he can have one but not the other of the traits commonly given to God.
This can go back and forth for a while; that's the nature of a dialogue. What matters is the penultimate argument, what the opponent says that the apologist concedes with an "I don't know; it's a mystery". Let's flesh out your Arguments 1 and 2 a bit, just for clarity:
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists. Apologist: You forget that suffering can sometimes lead to a greater good, as evinced by uncontentious examples like painful physical therapy. Opponent: But we can see the good at the end of physical therapy; we can't see the good at the end of the Holocaust. Apologist: We are not God; that we don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist.
In this dialogue, the apologist is professing his uncertainty of future events. The opponent, however, has not demonstrated that it is impossible for some greater good to come of the Holocaust; he has no standing contradiction with which he can say, "God is impossible". The apologist's concession of the opponent's point is irrelevant, because the opponent's point is irrelevant. The apologist has "won".
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists. Apologist: God knows things that we don't, so while I don't have an answer to this apparent contradiction, I'm sure he does.
In this dialogue, the apologist is conceding, not that he doesn't know how the future will work out, but that he doesn't know how the problem of suffering is not a contradiction. He's professing ignorance not of particular events, but of the whole argument. So the contradiction is left standing, and the opponent has "won".
I'm highly intrigued by this exchange going on with Kraj and extremestan and Blinking_Spirit. Kraj, I've been strongly inclined over these pages to think that you're just missing this, except for some of the time where you'll post something which I don't understand (such as criticising something because "it just picks a hypothetical" :eyebrow:).
Anyway, I quoted this from BLinking_Spirit to suggest the following: Maybe to try reversing the order in which those two cases of contrast are presented. To emphasize how the (currently) second kind of exchange is missing something, something which one of the first kind adds, and thus switches the debate to ending in the apologist's favour.
Kraj, with the God and logic issue? The trick is that nothing is able to defy logic in a way that we can't comprehend. We comprehend exactly what logic covers, and that is everything. Logic, you see, doesn't make any statements about the world. Logic is a system of representation. Logic is a way of transforming statements so as to be understood in different aspects (such as, inferentially equivalent statements, or implications, and so on). Tautologies have the appearance of being claims, but the cool thing is that they are not. They are pedantic contrivances of word strings that, in virtue of the meanings we have for our words, are true without looking at the world.
God can't lift a rock He can't lift. Yes, that is because every statement implies itself - a rock that God can't lift is one that God cannot lift - one such that God cannot lift it. Because the thing that X cannot lift, X cannot lift it. It's what I just said. I'm not doing anything here but throwing words around on a page. It's fun if you have the disposition for it.
When you say of God not doing something tautologically impossible, "Yes He can," it just looks so stupid, I can't be nice about this. Tautologically impossible things are, precisely, not real things. They are an empty class. They don't exist. There's no such thing. It's quite hard to do one of a thing that doesn't exist.
Tautologically false statements are word contrivances that seem, to the language processors of Humans, to be statements, that might correspond to the world, but they don't. There is no such thing as my dog standing on a red colorless box. The words don't refer to anything. Even though when I say "My dog is standing on a red colorless box" you make a grammaticality judgment, there is not an event or a notion of an event that is corresponding to this sentence - even in the class of tautologically impossible things (because remember, it's an empty class!) - in any way. All I am saying to you is "I am trying to confuse you or perhaps make a joke."
What Blinking_Spirit wanted to say about what God "can't" do requires the introduction of a certain distinction. You know the idea of taking the 'subject' of a sentence out of that sentence, leaving a variable in its place? "My apple is red" becomes "x is red", etc.? Let terms such as 'My apple' be name words. They pick out, in specific contexts at least, exactly one thing, as though they were a proper name of that thing. Now call any logical object, the substitution into which of an appropriate number of name words, produces an English sentence, a formula of English.
So "x is red" is one way I may try to denote a logical object, a substitution of one name word into which, produces an English sentence (as I can verify with the sentences "John is red," "My apple is red," and "This shoe is red.")
Now I can say the following: One thing that 'God', as a name word, can't do, is satisfy any formula of English which comes from the removal of all instances of a single name word from a sentence of English which is tautologically false.
For example, God can't satisfy "x is not x." I will never have that "John Travolta is not John Travolta." If I straightforwardly evaluate the statement at once, I am talking about John Travolta, so of course that is John Travolta. Tautological falsity, without even knowing anything about John Travolta. I just need it to name something. I don't need it to be that name or that thing - I could put in 'the shoes I am wearing' or any term that refers.
When I cut out the name words I get the formula of English, and then if I put God in there I still get tautological falsity, because, and here's the cool-sounding part that keep logicians actually attracted to their jobs, the formula of English was only poised to produce such falsity. It's structure was one of contradiction. I can't say the formula is false because it's not technically a sentence, but it is a logical object whose structure can't yield truth.
Saying God can't do logically impossible things, is at first blush a lame statement about how something can't do one of an empty list of things, since logical possibility by definition picks out every thing, and so its complement is the nullity left behind once every event that is actual or possible is shaded in. But what you're really saying is that God - just like every other name - can't satisfy these formulae that, by their structure, can't be satisfied.
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Kraj, with the God and logic issue? The trick is that nothing is able to defy logic in a way that we can't comprehend. We comprehend exactly what logic covers, and that is everything. Logic, you see, doesn't make any statements about the world. Logic is a system of representation. Logic is a way of transforming statements so as to be understood in different aspects (such as, inferentially equivalent statements, or implications, and so on). Tautologies have the appearance of being claims, but the cool thing is that they are not. They are pedantic contrivances of word strings that, in virtue of the meanings we have for our words, are true without looking at the world.
Fair enough. Allow me to rephrase:
"God has attributes that cannot be described using logic."
Does that satisfy your objection with my position?
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The Golden Rule of forums: If you're going to be rude, be right. If you might be wrong, be polite.
"God has attributes that cannot be described using logic."
Does that satisfy your objection with my position?
What attributes would those be? We are, after all, capable of using logic to describe concepts (infinity comes most immediately to mind) which no human can really "wrap his mind around" if he steps outside of the logical paradigm.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
It's an impossible question to answer because any description I could use would be subject to logical scrutiny. I can still conceptualize the idea of an entity not bound by logic even if I can't describe what exactly that would mean.
I'm curious as to what exactly you mean here by the word "useful." Useful, to what end? To establishing the truth of things outside of this universe? To sleeping well at night? To nudging civilization towards a certain goal?
Not "useful" towards a certain goal, but useful in that it adds some sort of logical "value" to an argument. That the process contributes something new that immediatly appealing to the premises doesn't do.
I can still conceptualize the idea of an entity not bound by logic even if I can't describe what exactly that would mean.
No, you can't. You can string the words "not bound by logic" together, but there's nothing behind them. This is because thinking of logic as a set of rules that must be followed is a mistake.
Instead, think of a logical proposition as taking a snapshot of the world, then describing it in a certain way. Contradictory logical propositions say that their two snapshots cannot come from the same world; the "rules" tell us how to determine whether propositions are contrary or not, but they do so only in that they allow us to manipulate the symbols we use to represent the descriptions so that they're easier for our limited minds to interpret. The descriptions themselves don't change. That which follows from a proposition P isn't simply "caused by" P, in the way that a physical reaction is caused by an action. No, it is contained within P; to change or ignore it is to change or ignore P - and logic nicely sums up this situation with the phrase 'not-P'.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
How much leeway do you think a Christian has in terms of understanding the essential tennants of the faith before they become apostate -- before Jesus becomes Je-Zeus, or some other idolatrous figure? In this vein there's the matter of religious syncretism (professing Christians practicing Yoga or Feng Shui, using "energy crystals," etc.) and also of the distortion of Christ's teaching by placing improper emphases on passages or themes of Scripture (Fred Phelps's anti-gay hate-mongering that places Levitical injunctions above Love thy neighbor as thyself; Joel Olsteen's laughable "prosperity theology" that disregards the example of Christ's simple life, and his clear warning about the difficulty the rich have in entering the kingdom of heaven.)
Basically my question is, to the best of your understanding: where is the dividing line drawn at the Judgment, where Christ says to those on one side, "You got a lot of your facts wrong about who I am, but you really did have sincere faith in me, and that's sufficient;" and to those on the other side, "The thing you had faith in, to which you attached my name, was clearly unrelated to my character and my teachings. You should have, and could have, known better, but chose to persist in error -- now get out of my sight"?
To start, I think that neither of those determinations would be outside of reason. Perhaps Christ has said or will say both to various individuals.
But it seems as if you're looking for ways that we can tell, by looking at other people and their behaviors/opinions, whether or not they'll be on one side or another. That's a line we can't draw. Only God is capable of looking at every moment and molecule of a person's life and determining judgment.
Likewise, God saves according to reception of Grace, not meritorious deeds, although the latter tends to proceed from the former. So not only would the line be fuzzy anyway, but it is further fuzzified by the fact that God saves by the presence of something behind a veil of mystery.
In our limited capacity, however, it is our duty to, by the Spirit, push folks toward the side of truth. That means we attempt to cultivate an environment in which the Gospel blossoms rather than withers or is overshadowed. That means our crusade is not only adversus atheism, satanism, paganism and new ageism but also the Phelpses, Olsteens, Chicks, Hagees and Robertsons of the world. In stronger terms, we must strive to correct both the infidels and the heretics.
Our job isn't to judge the individual on matters as unpredictable as their ultimate salvation. It's to give the individual a framework of truth in which to act.
Short version: The two are fuzzy sets; we're not given a way to crisply discriminate, nor is that our duty. Our bad vision is limited to 20 feet away, so God wants us on the battlefield, not surveying from the hilltop.
On the other hand, there is a very strong current of opinion in Christian thought that knowledge about Christ is of paramount importance -- that no one has a chance at heaven without it. It's the driving force behind all missionary work. A missionary would not accept for one second the proposal that, "As long as you live a good and honest and charitable life, the nature of your metaphysical beliefs is immaterial."
I think you're thinking only of the new generation of Evangelical missionaries here.
Christian missionaries throughout the centuries have been in general more pragmatic, patient and inclusive.
"God has attributes that cannot be described using logic."
Does that satisfy your objection with my position?
LOGIC DOESN'T DESCRIBE THINGS!!
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It's an impossible question to answer because any description I could use would be subject to logical scrutiny. I can still conceptualize the idea of an entity not bound by logic even if I can't describe what exactly that would mean.
No you can't. All you're doing is thinking about the sentence "God is K and not K" or something, not going any further. Should Descartes have been satisfied with thinking "There exists a square circle"? No, he would have wanted to explore the content of that sentence even a little bit, maybe picture a circular thing that also does at least not certainly lack squareness. But every time he considered a circle (and since it's a regular figure, he can just imagine one without scale), he was sure it was not a square. Can you even begin to look at God being K and also not K? It's NOT ANYTHING.
The very way those properties mean something is in their denial of the other. I say God is K, okay, I'm saying something, maybe it's true, I don'no. One thing I'm telling you is that it's not the case that God is not K. That is in fact the entirety of what I am telling you. When I tell you God is K, what else am I suggesting other than that God is not otherwise? I'm telling you "You know this wide range of things 'true, maybe' about God? Well He's this one for sure - it is for sure that it's not true that he's some collection of these that's not K. I am telling this to you." My statement then has some content, because maybe I'm right, maybe not. It has a meaning. You get something from me saying it.
How can I make a statement that in one breath says "The world is P, oh and also I'm wrong about that and not-P." I'm *also* wrong about that? No, I'm wrong or I'm right that P. Just the same, I'm wrong or I'm right that God is K. If it's the other way, God is not K. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT STATEMENTS $% MEAN.
Back to the first point.
Logic elucidates the structure of statements that you make, but without a translation schema there still isn't a lot you're saying.
~Vx(Gx ^ Hx) -> Vy~Hy
could be a statement, if I had a schema for interpreting the symbols on the page. Without one, I have little more than a sketch of a conditional, and one that is, as it turns out, tautologically true under the assumption that there is at least one thing (which is generally considered a given; it could be this very sentence, or Logic itself, or "me," whatever).
(I was trying to find an expression that was possibly but not always false. I failed :()
So conversely, the translation schema is where all the describing consist in. . . you might say it's the semantics for the syntax.
Again, I just don't understand what you could possibly be saying. OF COURSE God can't be described using Logic, because that's just a category mistake. You're not saying anything nontrivial.
The terms may not exist that can be grasped by a Human and truly describe God or exhaustively describe God. But I'm an old hokey about logical expression and I'm going to say there is a formula of God, it exists, but maybe (a) we can't understand the elements of the translation schema, and/or (b) we can't actually write this formula (most probably because we don't know it, but maybe other difficulties like an elaborateness that defies the limits of working memory).
I can't go much farther than this, since as you know I believe God is necessarily nonexistent, so I think that this formula is one of tautological falseness.
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No, you can't. You can string the words "not bound by logic" together, but there's nothing behind them. This is because thinking of logic as a set of rules that must be followed is a mistake.
Instead, think of a logical proposition as taking a snapshot of the world, then describing it in a certain way.
But God - by definition - is not part of the world you can take a snapshot of and describe. If you could than what you are describing wouldn't be God. At best it would be a specific attibute of God, but not "God".
Contradictory logical propositions say that their two snapshots cannot come from the same world; the "rules" tell us how to determine whether propositions are contrary or not, but they do so only in that they allow us to manipulate the symbols we use to represent the descriptions so that they're easier for our limited minds to interpret. The descriptions themselves don't change. That which follows from a proposition P isn't simply "caused by" P, in the way that a physical reaction is caused by an action. No, it is contained within P; to change or ignore it is to change or ignore P - and logic nicely sums up this situation with the phrase 'not-P'.
Interesting. It seems to me that this rather makes my point, since this means it is always possible that what we are attempting to describe is not actually a contradiction at all, but that the rules we apply in order to help our limited minds understand simply fail to describe the "snapshots" in a way where the lack of contradiction is apparent. In other words, for any "P" there exists the possibility "not-P" does not exist and we are simply unable to adequately describe how or why.
That's funny, because Blinking Spirit seems to be saying that it does.
And it's pretty clear from the way you've composed you're message that you think I'm an idiot, because that's the way you are speaking to me. And so, good day to you.
Now that I have some time, I'm going to take one more stab at getting my point across.
My assertion is not that the logical answer to the Problem of Suffering fails to defeat it, my assertion is that the answer has no logical value either way.
The solution zeroes things out. It's not a net gain for Christians. It just turns a negative into a neutral.
The reason is because no matter what path the argument takes, no matter how you map it, you eventually get to the point where you introduce the irrefutable statement of "there could be a reason we just don't understand". This "out" can be inserted into the argument at any point and you automatically win it; it is the ultimate response to any logical contradiction that could be pointed out.
Incorporating this belief into the overall beliefs makes it impossible to prove any logical inconsistencies whatsoever. It doesn't even matter whether you can provide possible answers that make sense or not; all you have to do is assert those reasons might exist.
Any assertions of possible existence or veracity imply "making sense."
I think the confusing term is the word "understand." Take this sentence:
"There could be justification for this instance of suffering, we just don't understand it."
Now here are two ways to interpret that sentence:
1) "There could be justification for this instance of suffering, we just don't know if there is or not, because we don't know enough about that instance, its causes, and its full breadth of consequences to make such a determination."
2) "There could be justification for this instance of suffering, but we just don't 'get it.' We don't understand how there could be justification. It doesn't make any sense; this instance being justified is logically unfathomable."
We're not saying #2. We're saying #1. We understand how there could be justification, because we understand that any suffering can be justified by its net benefit. We just don't know if any given instance of suffering X is/has been/will be justified or not.
There's a difference between "lack of knowledge" and "lack of abstract comprehension." When the term "understanding" is used in place of both, it creates contextual equivocation, and I think that may be one of the problems we're having here.
It's an impossible question to answer because any description I could use would be subject to logical scrutiny.
I can still conceptualize the idea of an entity not bound by logic even if I can't describe what exactly that would mean.
I've never been able to settle this. I posit that something contradicts logic. What does that mean? Statements, answers, contradictions, are all of course bound by logic. In that way, you can't mean anything by it, but you can have faith in - it much as you can have faith in god.
Faith requires more than other holding-to-be-truths, like opinion or belief. The only way I have been able to pseudo-reconcile it is by assuming that faith is some faculty of the soul (similar to how sight is a faculty of the body), and that we all can "faith" god; some of us simply ignore or choose not to see it. It must come down to personal choice; and that choice cannot be made if one only considers empirical things - physical sensation and reason.
And, I think, that would be enough. We all have faith in physical sensation, and ultimately, that is all it can be, for we have not the means nor ability to assume otherwise.
From an outside perspective I can't figure out why Christianity is any more "correct" than any other religion.
I guess what I'm asking is: Why christianity? Please help me answer this question as it has confused me endlessly.
Christianity is the only religion that elegantly accounts for both my religious experience (apparent divine interaction, answered prayer, discipline and blessing, etc.) and my philosophical worldview.
Religious experience varies by individual, but with philosophy it's a little less forgiving -- some religious philosophies are simply worse than others. Christianity is the only theistic religion to subscribe to Western philosophy.
In other words:
1) I have experienced apparent interaction with a good, powerful, wise God who hears my prayers -- not mindless deity to be invoked at my whim, but a friend who has both helped me and disciplined me.
2) I consider Western philosophy demonstrably better than any other kind. Over the last 19 centuries it has given us the best possible framework in which to think about the world and our existence.
But God - by definition - is not part of the world you can take a snapshot of and describe. If you could than what you are describing wouldn't be God. At best it would be a specific attibute of God, but not "God".
But he is. If you so much as make the assertion 'God exists', then you're including him in the set of all things, a.k.a. the logical universe. If you define him out of this universe, then you define him out of existence.
Interesting. It seems to me that this rather makes my point, since this means it is always possible that what we are attempting to describe is not actually a contradiction at all, but that the rules we apply in order to help our limited minds understand simply fail to describe the "snapshots" in a way where the lack of contradiction is apparent. In other words, for any "P" there exists the possibility "not-P" does not exist and we are simply unable to adequately describe how or why.
Not exactly. Formal logic makes it quite clear what is and isn't a contradiction. If you have a proposition of the form 'P & ~P', for example, there is no way on heaven or on earth it could be true, no additional information that you could learn that would make it possible; the form of the statement itself reveals its falsity. The issue is whether certain propositions in plain English - such as 'There is suffering and a benevolent God exists' - fit that symbolic form. The problem of suffering can be written strictly as:
There is suffering and a benevolent God exists. (P & Q)
If a benevolent God exists, then there is no suffering. (Q → ~P)
A benevolent God exists. (Q)
There is no suffering. (~P)
There is suffering and there is no suffering. (P & ~P)
To which the apologist replies by explaining why (2) is not a true premise, and that the argument therefore fails to establish that (P & Q) implies (P & ~P). The apologist can do this because the proposition 'There is suffering and a benevolent God exists' is not explicitly a contradiction, and it can be argued whether it contains an implicit one or not. But if the apologist were instead stuck with defending the proposition 'God can lift this rock and God can't lift this rock', she wouldn't have a leg to stand on; the conventional meaning of that sentence can only be rendered as some equivalent of (P & ~P).
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Kraj, I don't think you're an idiot. This is frustrating only because you're an intelligent person who somehow I can't show his error. It's my failing and it's upsetting. Logic is supposed to be simple in this way, and I want to figure out why I don't know of it in a way that can make perfectly clear what I'm saying (and B_S is saying and extremestan was recently saying :sneaky:) that you doubt.
Not exactly. Formal logic makes it quite clear what is and isn't a contradiction.
I'm not sure exactly. It may be that some kind of assertion (P & Q & ~R) is contradictory, but maybe you can't derive that it's false - it just escapes the system. You certainly need other information relating two or more of those sentence letters to say so.
If you were saying Logic makes clear what is an explicit contradiction, then oh yes, for sure. By definition, heh.
One thing you are saying which I believe I can focus on, is that adding premises can't remove things that you can derive. Sure, there may be a way to rewrite P & ~P so that a contradiction is not apparent, but so long as we're still talking as though I know P & ~P, I'm handling a contradiction (in that I can derive both phi and ~phi, for some expression phi, from what I have - in this case, phi is P).
Now, Kraj if you have something like P & ~Q, where no contradiction is apparent, maybe there is one (an implicit one, as B_S said) and maybe there isn't, and maybe you can derive a contradiction and maybe you can't. You don't know if you can't derive something because it's not true, but you do know that everything you can derive is true, because Logic is valid.
You're saying that if you have the apparent contradiction, maybe you just can't represent the contradiction away because of Logic's failing. Well this is not true. You're talking about either the case that we have statements like P & Q (e.g., God exists and there is suffering), or we have something like P & ~P (God can lift this rock and He can't lift this rock). In the second case, the contradiction is there, and we know it's there. Our ability to write certain information in another form - such as: (((P & ~S) -> R) & ((~R -> W) -> ~R)) & (P & (~S or (((W -> P) -> W) -> ~W))) - does not, and can never, allow us to derive "not contradiction" if a contradiction is there. We may derive a weaker statement, such as (S -> P) - which I know because I know P by Simplificiation of P & ~P, which trivially satisfies (S -> P) - and then sure this statement can't derive a contradiction, but I just said I made it a weaker a statement, so I know nothing from just saying that this statement can't derive certain things. What I do have, though, is still that P & ~P floating around, which I can take all day to do it, but in the end, I can notice that I have P, and ~P, and that makes the "Contradiction, back up" step inevitable.
In the first case, refer to Blinking_Spirit's post. And notice this idea: that, if the critic of Christianity (the proponent of the Problem of Suffering) is right, the statement "God exists and there is suffering" is a contradiction, and that consists in the derivability from "God exists and there is suffering" of "There is suffering and there is no suffering" - an explicit contradiction. The logic is being used to say that the contradiction is there, in the (P & Q), because (P & Q) has the inferential power to say P & ~P. It is because P & Q is actually the statement P & Q & ~P, something that the logic makes look different, but it just made us realize something that was there.
And while Logic can expose things that are there after doing work, it can't make them go away with work. If the critic is right, there is a contradiction derivable from P & Q, and if you've found it, that's it.
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I read a little of what has been said on the last couple pages regarding logic and I would like to say a few (sometimes nitpicky, sometimes quite important) things.
Not exactly. Formal logic makes it quite clear what is and isn't a contradiction. If you have a proposition of the form 'P & ~P', for example, there is no way on heaven or on earth it could be true, no additional information that you could learn that would make it possible; the form of the statement itself reveals its falsity.
Under traditional use of the terms involved and following BS, sentences of the form 'P & -P' are formal contradictions. The sentence '(P -> Q) & P & -Q' is not a contradiction (ignore what Wikipedia says, for example.. the account there is oversimplified). It is, though, inconsistent. This is because there is no way to assign truth-values to P, Q, and R so as to make the whole sentence true. In the first-order case, you need to use the notion of a model to flesh out what it means to be inconsistent, but this is pretty simple.
Now sometimes, in various settings and sometimes even in philosophy, people use the term "contradiction" to mean other things. Under some notions of the term "contradiction", the English sentence "every sentence is true" is a contradiction (this is relevant in talks of "explosion" in logics, for example). The point I am trying to make here is that it is very possible that the people arguing here are working with different notions of the terms involved.
Another thing I would like to point out here, BS, is that (and I think I have bugged you about this before) you should watch bringing in modal terms like "could" and "possible" when talking about logical truth. Some introductory texts do things like that, but to do so is, strictly speaking, to do something that isn't immediately apparent.
Logic elucidates the structure of statements that you make, but without a translation schema there still isn't a lot you're saying.
~Vx(Gx ^ Hx) -> Vy~Hy
could be a statement, if I had a schema for interpreting the symbols on the page. Without one, I have little more than a sketch of a conditional, and one that is, as it turns out, tautologically true under the assumption that there is at least one thing (which is generally considered a given; it could be this very sentence, or Logic itself, or "me," whatever).
(I was trying to find an expression that was possibly but not always false. I failed :()
First of all, I think you have that conditional wrong. You seem to suggest it is a logical truth. Saying that something isn't (or that not all things are) both G and H doesn't imply that everything isn't H, even if you make the common restriction to nonempty domains. Maybe the arrow was supposed to go the other way?
Second of all, watch out for how you use the term "tautology". 'Vx (x=x)' is not a tautology; it is a logical truth. Tautologies are sentences whose associated sentential logic sentences (this needs to be rigourously defined, and is done in logic texts) have 'T's all down their truth tables. 'Fa v -Fa', for example, is a tautology, since its associated sentential logic sentence is 'A v -A'.
Instead, think of a logical proposition as taking a snapshot of the world, then describing it in a certain way. Contradictory logical propositions say that their two snapshots cannot come from the same world; the "rules" tell us how to determine whether propositions are contrary or not, but they do so only in that they allow us to manipulate the symbols we use to represent the descriptions so that they're easier for our limited minds to interpret.
What is a logical proposition, and what makes it different from a regular proposition?
On a final note, I am sort of confused about people saying things like "describing God in logic". First of all, there are a whole ton of competing logics and logics that serve specific purposes (I just say this because people are writing "Logic" with a capital "L" and I want to make this clear). Secondly, these logics don't do anything like what is being talked about here. Someone earlier called it a catergory mistake to say so, and I think that was a very good way in putting it. Logic (I am talking about the field of study here.. not a logic itself) is concerned with things like syntax, truth, consequence, etc.... not about describing the nature of God or the universe (beyond very trivial things).
Another thing I would like to point out here, BS, is that (and I think I have bugged you about this before) you should watch bringing in modal terms like "could" and "possible" when talking about logical truth. Some introductory texts do things like that, but to do so is, strictly speaking, to do something that isn't immediately apparent.
Given that we're speaking about what sorts of propositions are and aren't possibly true, I think a loose modality is sort of inevitable in this one.
Logic (I am talking about the field of study here.. not a logic itself) is concerned with things like syntax, truth, consequence, etc.... not about describing the nature of God or the universe (beyond very trivial things).
This is really what we're trying to get at - if you can talk about God, you can apply logic to what you say about him.
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If god wanted no one to suffer and was omnipotent he would get rid of suffering so he wouldn't have to even let them burn themselves to begin with.
Also as far Christianity goes the devil is the antithesis of god. So if he was really omnipotent and benevolent he would destroy the Satan. God represents all things good and Satan represents all things bad.
If there is free will how can god know the future? If he knows what I'm gonna do before I do its predetermined so there was no actual choice.
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The ultimate punishment visited upon Lucifer/Satan has long been regarded or interpreted in the Bible (and other texts that attempt to deal with this, Paradise Lost for example) as absence from God and Heaven. This is the cause of Christ's anguish on the cross in his last moments, when he asks his Father 'why have you forsaken me?' In that instance, Jesus was supposed to have experienced what it feels like to be in Hell.
No fiery lake or devils with pitchforks or anything like that. Hell is Hell, simply because it is apart from God and Heaven.
God doesn't need to 'destroy the Satan', because Lucifer/Satan is already suffering enough. Destroying him would end the punishment.
What this says about the nature of God, I leave to conjecture
A proposition either is logical(ly consistent) or it isn't. God can't square a circle. He can't lift a rock that he can't lift. All the mystery in the universe can't allow God to do something that is tautologically impossible. The opponent's mission is to show that God himself is tautologically impossible. The apologist's mission is merely to show that this is not the case. Yes, the proposed omnipotence and omniscience of God are powerful weapons in the apologist's arsenal. But they're not perfect. Once the opponent has pointed out what looks like a contradiction, the burden shifts to the apologist to demonstrate that it is not one. And since not even divine powers can escape a contradiction, "It sounds impossible, but God can do it anyway" is not an adequate answer, whereas "It's not impossible, because you're forgetting blah" is.
This can go back and forth for a while; that's the nature of a dialogue. What matters is the penultimate argument, what the opponent says that the apologist concedes with an "I don't know; it's a mystery". Let's flesh out your Arguments 1 and 2 a bit, just for clarity:
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists.
Apologist: You forget that suffering can sometimes lead to a greater good, as evinced by uncontentious examples like painful physical therapy.
Opponent: But we can see the good at the end of physical therapy; we can't see the good at the end of the Holocaust.
Apologist: We are not God; that we don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist.
In this dialogue, the apologist is professing his uncertainty of future events. The opponent, however, has not demonstrated that it is impossible for some greater good to come of the Holocaust; he has no standing contradiction with which he can say, "God is impossible". The apologist's concession of the opponent's point is irrelevant, because the opponent's point is irrelevant. The apologist has "won".
Opponent: God cannot be benevolent and omnipotent because suffering exists.
Apologist: God knows things that we don't, so while I don't have an answer to this apparent contradiction, I'm sure he does.
In this dialogue, the apologist is conceding, not that he doesn't know how the future will work out, but that he doesn't know how the problem of suffering is not a contradiction. He's professing ignorance not of particular events, but of the whole argument. So the contradiction is left standing, and the opponent has "won".
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The thing is you don't know if I'm depressed or not. So you do not know the outcome you assume the outcome. To know the future because it is predetermined is entirely different.
Edit:@Mephiston I understand your point I was putting the argument of omnipotent and benevolent but allows suffering argument into biblical context.
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That's not really the premise, that's the argument that apologetics is debunking.
This, then, invites the question of punishment. It's one thing to say humans are allowed to mess things up, hurt each other, and hopefully find their own way to the truth, and say that's ultimately benevolent. But to also eternally punish for not finding the truth, that's not benevolent. (I personally would not argue that the existence of suffering is not compatible with a benevolent God, but I definitely would argue the existence of Hell is not compatible with a benevolent God.)
My reply: Yes He can, we just don't understand how.
In other words, you are introducing the belief that the rules of logic apply to God, which - as far as I'm aware - is in no way explicitly stated as part of the belief system. It's your own assumption. And I'll go so far as saying that certain core beliefs of Christianity directly violate logic. For example:
Jesus Christ was fully human and fully God.
If God is defined as an omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent being, and humans are at least partly defined as being not omniscient or omnipotent, that is a clear contradiction. Any justification introduced to reconcile these implicitly accept that God is not constrained by logic.
Of course you can say that assumption must be accepted in order to have a logical basis for any argument, which is true. But from my perspective there is no difference between claiming God can defy logic in a way we simply can't comprehend and claiming God can perceive in a way we simply can't comprehend.
It's interesting that people keep wanting to frame the argument this way in order to put the burden of proof on someone. I'm not talking about whose argument is valid, I'm talking about whose argument is useful.
But when the only restriction on "blah" is that it is not tautologically impossible it becomes practically impossible not to come up with an answer, whether or not it has any sensible basis.
I disagree with your assessment. The difference between the two is simply the way the points are framed, not the conclusion. Both responses ultimately appeal to human limitation; both responses do not actually provide the answer to the contradiction. The former simply elaborates on how the contradiction might be answered.
It certainly sounds like it to me. In order to actually have a choice, the probability that you will take a certain action has to be less than 1. In order to "know" something, the probability of that knowledge being accurate must be 1.
I will say, however, that God could potentially "know" what your choices are ahead of time simply by knowing every possible choice everyone could ever make throughout history and therefore "know" every action you take regardless of how you personally experience your choices.
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I'm curious as to what exactly you mean here by the word "useful." Useful, to what end? To establishing the truth of things outside of this universe? To sleeping well at night? To nudging civilization towards a certain goal?
EDIT: I mean, isn't the atheist's argument hopefully useful towards propogating atheism, and the theist's hopefully useful towards propogating theism? How else ought they be useful?
I'll agree with reexamining and my argument was mainly to point out that he can't have contradicting quality he can have one but not the other of the traits commonly given to God.
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I'm highly intrigued by this exchange going on with Kraj and extremestan and Blinking_Spirit. Kraj, I've been strongly inclined over these pages to think that you're just missing this, except for some of the time where you'll post something which I don't understand (such as criticising something because "it just picks a hypothetical" :eyebrow:).
Anyway, I quoted this from BLinking_Spirit to suggest the following: Maybe to try reversing the order in which those two cases of contrast are presented. To emphasize how the (currently) second kind of exchange is missing something, something which one of the first kind adds, and thus switches the debate to ending in the apologist's favour.
Kraj, with the God and logic issue? The trick is that nothing is able to defy logic in a way that we can't comprehend. We comprehend exactly what logic covers, and that is everything. Logic, you see, doesn't make any statements about the world. Logic is a system of representation. Logic is a way of transforming statements so as to be understood in different aspects (such as, inferentially equivalent statements, or implications, and so on). Tautologies have the appearance of being claims, but the cool thing is that they are not. They are pedantic contrivances of word strings that, in virtue of the meanings we have for our words, are true without looking at the world.
God can't lift a rock He can't lift. Yes, that is because every statement implies itself - a rock that God can't lift is one that God cannot lift - one such that God cannot lift it. Because the thing that X cannot lift, X cannot lift it. It's what I just said. I'm not doing anything here but throwing words around on a page. It's fun if you have the disposition for it.
When you say of God not doing something tautologically impossible, "Yes He can," it just looks so stupid, I can't be nice about this. Tautologically impossible things are, precisely, not real things. They are an empty class. They don't exist. There's no such thing. It's quite hard to do one of a thing that doesn't exist.
Tautologically false statements are word contrivances that seem, to the language processors of Humans, to be statements, that might correspond to the world, but they don't. There is no such thing as my dog standing on a red colorless box. The words don't refer to anything. Even though when I say "My dog is standing on a red colorless box" you make a grammaticality judgment, there is not an event or a notion of an event that is corresponding to this sentence - even in the class of tautologically impossible things (because remember, it's an empty class!) - in any way. All I am saying to you is "I am trying to confuse you or perhaps make a joke."
What Blinking_Spirit wanted to say about what God "can't" do requires the introduction of a certain distinction. You know the idea of taking the 'subject' of a sentence out of that sentence, leaving a variable in its place? "My apple is red" becomes "x is red", etc.? Let terms such as 'My apple' be name words. They pick out, in specific contexts at least, exactly one thing, as though they were a proper name of that thing. Now call any logical object, the substitution into which of an appropriate number of name words, produces an English sentence, a formula of English.
So "x is red" is one way I may try to denote a logical object, a substitution of one name word into which, produces an English sentence (as I can verify with the sentences "John is red," "My apple is red," and "This shoe is red.")
Now I can say the following: One thing that 'God', as a name word, can't do, is satisfy any formula of English which comes from the removal of all instances of a single name word from a sentence of English which is tautologically false.
For example, God can't satisfy "x is not x." I will never have that "John Travolta is not John Travolta." If I straightforwardly evaluate the statement at once, I am talking about John Travolta, so of course that is John Travolta. Tautological falsity, without even knowing anything about John Travolta. I just need it to name something. I don't need it to be that name or that thing - I could put in 'the shoes I am wearing' or any term that refers.
When I cut out the name words I get the formula of English, and then if I put God in there I still get tautological falsity, because, and here's the cool-sounding part that keep logicians actually attracted to their jobs, the formula of English was only poised to produce such falsity. It's structure was one of contradiction. I can't say the formula is false because it's not technically a sentence, but it is a logical object whose structure can't yield truth.
Saying God can't do logically impossible things, is at first blush a lame statement about how something can't do one of an empty list of things, since logical possibility by definition picks out every thing, and so its complement is the nullity left behind once every event that is actual or possible is shaded in. But what you're really saying is that God - just like every other name - can't satisfy these formulae that, by their structure, can't be satisfied.
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Fair enough. Allow me to rephrase:
"God has attributes that cannot be described using logic."
Does that satisfy your objection with my position?
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What attributes would those be? We are, after all, capable of using logic to describe concepts (infinity comes most immediately to mind) which no human can really "wrap his mind around" if he steps outside of the logical paradigm.
It's an impossible question to answer because any description I could use would be subject to logical scrutiny. I can still conceptualize the idea of an entity not bound by logic even if I can't describe what exactly that would mean.
EDIT: I forgot to address your earlier question.
Not "useful" towards a certain goal, but useful in that it adds some sort of logical "value" to an argument. That the process contributes something new that immediatly appealing to the premises doesn't do.
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No, you can't. You can string the words "not bound by logic" together, but there's nothing behind them. This is because thinking of logic as a set of rules that must be followed is a mistake.
Instead, think of a logical proposition as taking a snapshot of the world, then describing it in a certain way. Contradictory logical propositions say that their two snapshots cannot come from the same world; the "rules" tell us how to determine whether propositions are contrary or not, but they do so only in that they allow us to manipulate the symbols we use to represent the descriptions so that they're easier for our limited minds to interpret. The descriptions themselves don't change. That which follows from a proposition P isn't simply "caused by" P, in the way that a physical reaction is caused by an action. No, it is contained within P; to change or ignore it is to change or ignore P - and logic nicely sums up this situation with the phrase 'not-P'.
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To start, I think that neither of those determinations would be outside of reason. Perhaps Christ has said or will say both to various individuals.
But it seems as if you're looking for ways that we can tell, by looking at other people and their behaviors/opinions, whether or not they'll be on one side or another. That's a line we can't draw. Only God is capable of looking at every moment and molecule of a person's life and determining judgment.
Likewise, God saves according to reception of Grace, not meritorious deeds, although the latter tends to proceed from the former. So not only would the line be fuzzy anyway, but it is further fuzzified by the fact that God saves by the presence of something behind a veil of mystery.
In our limited capacity, however, it is our duty to, by the Spirit, push folks toward the side of truth. That means we attempt to cultivate an environment in which the Gospel blossoms rather than withers or is overshadowed. That means our crusade is not only adversus atheism, satanism, paganism and new ageism but also the Phelpses, Olsteens, Chicks, Hagees and Robertsons of the world. In stronger terms, we must strive to correct both the infidels and the heretics.
Our job isn't to judge the individual on matters as unpredictable as their ultimate salvation. It's to give the individual a framework of truth in which to act.
Short version: The two are fuzzy sets; we're not given a way to crisply discriminate, nor is that our duty. Our bad vision is limited to 20 feet away, so God wants us on the battlefield, not surveying from the hilltop.
EDIT: You said:
I think you're thinking only of the new generation of Evangelical missionaries here.
Christian missionaries throughout the centuries have been in general more pragmatic, patient and inclusive.
LOGIC DOESN'T DESCRIBE THINGS!!
No you can't. All you're doing is thinking about the sentence "God is K and not K" or something, not going any further. Should Descartes have been satisfied with thinking "There exists a square circle"? No, he would have wanted to explore the content of that sentence even a little bit, maybe picture a circular thing that also does at least not certainly lack squareness. But every time he considered a circle (and since it's a regular figure, he can just imagine one without scale), he was sure it was not a square. Can you even begin to look at God being K and also not K? It's NOT ANYTHING.
The very way those properties mean something is in their denial of the other. I say God is K, okay, I'm saying something, maybe it's true, I don'no. One thing I'm telling you is that it's not the case that God is not K. That is in fact the entirety of what I am telling you. When I tell you God is K, what else am I suggesting other than that God is not otherwise? I'm telling you "You know this wide range of things 'true, maybe' about God? Well He's this one for sure - it is for sure that it's not true that he's some collection of these that's not K. I am telling this to you." My statement then has some content, because maybe I'm right, maybe not. It has a meaning. You get something from me saying it.
How can I make a statement that in one breath says "The world is P, oh and also I'm wrong about that and not-P." I'm *also* wrong about that? No, I'm wrong or I'm right that P. Just the same, I'm wrong or I'm right that God is K. If it's the other way, God is not K. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT STATEMENTS $% MEAN.
Back to the first point.
Logic elucidates the structure of statements that you make, but without a translation schema there still isn't a lot you're saying.
could be a statement, if I had a schema for interpreting the symbols on the page. Without one, I have little more than a sketch of a conditional, and one that is, as it turns out, tautologically true under the assumption that there is at least one thing (which is generally considered a given; it could be this very sentence, or Logic itself, or "me," whatever).
(I was trying to find an expression that was possibly but not always false. I failed :()
So conversely, the translation schema is where all the describing consist in. . . you might say it's the semantics for the syntax.
Again, I just don't understand what you could possibly be saying. OF COURSE God can't be described using Logic, because that's just a category mistake. You're not saying anything nontrivial.
The terms may not exist that can be grasped by a Human and truly describe God or exhaustively describe God. But I'm an old hokey about logical expression and I'm going to say there is a formula of God, it exists, but maybe (a) we can't understand the elements of the translation schema, and/or (b) we can't actually write this formula (most probably because we don't know it, but maybe other difficulties like an elaborateness that defies the limits of working memory).
I can't go much farther than this, since as you know I believe God is necessarily nonexistent, so I think that this formula is one of tautological falseness.
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Infidels. Heretical Christians share much of the faith with the rest of the Church, but theirs is corrupted by bad doctrine.
But God - by definition - is not part of the world you can take a snapshot of and describe. If you could than what you are describing wouldn't be God. At best it would be a specific attibute of God, but not "God".
Interesting. It seems to me that this rather makes my point, since this means it is always possible that what we are attempting to describe is not actually a contradiction at all, but that the rules we apply in order to help our limited minds understand simply fail to describe the "snapshots" in a way where the lack of contradiction is apparent. In other words, for any "P" there exists the possibility "not-P" does not exist and we are simply unable to adequately describe how or why.
That's funny, because Blinking Spirit seems to be saying that it does.
And it's pretty clear from the way you've composed you're message that you think I'm an idiot, because that's the way you are speaking to me. And so, good day to you.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
The solution zeroes things out. It's not a net gain for Christians. It just turns a negative into a neutral.
Any assertions of possible existence or veracity imply "making sense."
I think the confusing term is the word "understand." Take this sentence:
"There could be justification for this instance of suffering, we just don't understand it."
Now here are two ways to interpret that sentence:
1) "There could be justification for this instance of suffering, we just don't know if there is or not, because we don't know enough about that instance, its causes, and its full breadth of consequences to make such a determination."
2) "There could be justification for this instance of suffering, but we just don't 'get it.' We don't understand how there could be justification. It doesn't make any sense; this instance being justified is logically unfathomable."
We're not saying #2. We're saying #1. We understand how there could be justification, because we understand that any suffering can be justified by its net benefit. We just don't know if any given instance of suffering X is/has been/will be justified or not.
There's a difference between "lack of knowledge" and "lack of abstract comprehension." When the term "understanding" is used in place of both, it creates contextual equivocation, and I think that may be one of the problems we're having here.
I've never been able to settle this. I posit that something contradicts logic. What does that mean? Statements, answers, contradictions, are all of course bound by logic. In that way, you can't mean anything by it, but you can have faith in - it much as you can have faith in god.
Faith requires more than other holding-to-be-truths, like opinion or belief. The only way I have been able to pseudo-reconcile it is by assuming that faith is some faculty of the soul (similar to how sight is a faculty of the body), and that we all can "faith" god; some of us simply ignore or choose not to see it. It must come down to personal choice; and that choice cannot be made if one only considers empirical things - physical sensation and reason.
And, I think, that would be enough. We all have faith in physical sensation, and ultimately, that is all it can be, for we have not the means nor ability to assume otherwise.
Christianity is the only religion that elegantly accounts for both my religious experience (apparent divine interaction, answered prayer, discipline and blessing, etc.) and my philosophical worldview.
Religious experience varies by individual, but with philosophy it's a little less forgiving -- some religious philosophies are simply worse than others. Christianity is the only theistic religion to subscribe to Western philosophy.
In other words:
1) I have experienced apparent interaction with a good, powerful, wise God who hears my prayers -- not mindless deity to be invoked at my whim, but a friend who has both helped me and disciplined me.
2) I consider Western philosophy demonstrably better than any other kind. Over the last 19 centuries it has given us the best possible framework in which to think about the world and our existence.
Christianity is the combination of 1 and 2.
But he is. If you so much as make the assertion 'God exists', then you're including him in the set of all things, a.k.a. the logical universe. If you define him out of this universe, then you define him out of existence.
Not exactly. Formal logic makes it quite clear what is and isn't a contradiction. If you have a proposition of the form 'P & ~P', for example, there is no way on heaven or on earth it could be true, no additional information that you could learn that would make it possible; the form of the statement itself reveals its falsity. The issue is whether certain propositions in plain English - such as 'There is suffering and a benevolent God exists' - fit that symbolic form. The problem of suffering can be written strictly as:
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Also, I'm
aneuroticwriter.I'm not sure exactly. It may be that some kind of assertion (P & Q & ~R) is contradictory, but maybe you can't derive that it's false - it just escapes the system. You certainly need other information relating two or more of those sentence letters to say so.
If you were saying Logic makes clear what is an explicit contradiction, then oh yes, for sure. By definition, heh.
One thing you are saying which I believe I can focus on, is that adding premises can't remove things that you can derive. Sure, there may be a way to rewrite P & ~P so that a contradiction is not apparent, but so long as we're still talking as though I know P & ~P, I'm handling a contradiction (in that I can derive both phi and ~phi, for some expression phi, from what I have - in this case, phi is P).
Now, Kraj if you have something like P & ~Q, where no contradiction is apparent, maybe there is one (an implicit one, as B_S said) and maybe there isn't, and maybe you can derive a contradiction and maybe you can't. You don't know if you can't derive something because it's not true, but you do know that everything you can derive is true, because Logic is valid.
You're saying that if you have the apparent contradiction, maybe you just can't represent the contradiction away because of Logic's failing. Well this is not true. You're talking about either the case that we have statements like P & Q (e.g., God exists and there is suffering), or we have something like P & ~P (God can lift this rock and He can't lift this rock). In the second case, the contradiction is there, and we know it's there. Our ability to write certain information in another form - such as: (((P & ~S) -> R) & ((~R -> W) -> ~R)) & (P & (~S or (((W -> P) -> W) -> ~W))) - does not, and can never, allow us to derive "not contradiction" if a contradiction is there. We may derive a weaker statement, such as (S -> P) - which I know because I know P by Simplificiation of P & ~P, which trivially satisfies (S -> P) - and then sure this statement can't derive a contradiction, but I just said I made it a weaker a statement, so I know nothing from just saying that this statement can't derive certain things. What I do have, though, is still that P & ~P floating around, which I can take all day to do it, but in the end, I can notice that I have P, and ~P, and that makes the "Contradiction, back up" step inevitable.
In the first case, refer to Blinking_Spirit's post. And notice this idea: that, if the critic of Christianity (the proponent of the Problem of Suffering) is right, the statement "God exists and there is suffering" is a contradiction, and that consists in the derivability from "God exists and there is suffering" of "There is suffering and there is no suffering" - an explicit contradiction. The logic is being used to say that the contradiction is there, in the (P & Q), because (P & Q) has the inferential power to say P & ~P. It is because P & Q is actually the statement P & Q & ~P, something that the logic makes look different, but it just made us realize something that was there.
And while Logic can expose things that are there after doing work, it can't make them go away with work. If the critic is right, there is a contradiction derivable from P & Q, and if you've found it, that's it.
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Under traditional use of the terms involved and following BS, sentences of the form 'P & -P' are formal contradictions. The sentence '(P -> Q) & P & -Q' is not a contradiction (ignore what Wikipedia says, for example.. the account there is oversimplified). It is, though, inconsistent. This is because there is no way to assign truth-values to P, Q, and R so as to make the whole sentence true. In the first-order case, you need to use the notion of a model to flesh out what it means to be inconsistent, but this is pretty simple.
Now sometimes, in various settings and sometimes even in philosophy, people use the term "contradiction" to mean other things. Under some notions of the term "contradiction", the English sentence "every sentence is true" is a contradiction (this is relevant in talks of "explosion" in logics, for example). The point I am trying to make here is that it is very possible that the people arguing here are working with different notions of the terms involved.
Another thing I would like to point out here, BS, is that (and I think I have bugged you about this before) you should watch bringing in modal terms like "could" and "possible" when talking about logical truth. Some introductory texts do things like that, but to do so is, strictly speaking, to do something that isn't immediately apparent.
First of all, I think you have that conditional wrong. You seem to suggest it is a logical truth. Saying that something isn't (or that not all things are) both G and H doesn't imply that everything isn't H, even if you make the common restriction to nonempty domains. Maybe the arrow was supposed to go the other way?
Second of all, watch out for how you use the term "tautology". 'Vx (x=x)' is not a tautology; it is a logical truth. Tautologies are sentences whose associated sentential logic sentences (this needs to be rigourously defined, and is done in logic texts) have 'T's all down their truth tables. 'Fa v -Fa', for example, is a tautology, since its associated sentential logic sentence is 'A v -A'.
What is a logical proposition, and what makes it different from a regular proposition?
On a final note, I am sort of confused about people saying things like "describing God in logic". First of all, there are a whole ton of competing logics and logics that serve specific purposes (I just say this because people are writing "Logic" with a capital "L" and I want to make this clear). Secondly, these logics don't do anything like what is being talked about here. Someone earlier called it a catergory mistake to say so, and I think that was a very good way in putting it. Logic (I am talking about the field of study here.. not a logic itself) is concerned with things like syntax, truth, consequence, etc.... not about describing the nature of God or the universe (beyond very trivial things).
Given that we're speaking about what sorts of propositions are and aren't possibly true, I think a loose modality is sort of inevitable in this one.
Redundancy in case of Lexivores.
This is really what we're trying to get at - if you can talk about God, you can apply logic to what you say about him.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.