Is There One Sound/valid Syllogistic Argument For The Existence Of God?

[Foxfyre]

The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time. And that 100 years from now it will be highly probable that much of what we accept as probable truth now will be shown to be quite different than what we now perceive.

?

LOL. What I mean is that rational logic is always open ended leaving the door open for new information that can change our perceptions and/or understandings. To say that we understand as well as we can with the information we have is to be logical. To say this is the way it is period is not logic but dogma.

My practical self goes with the knowledge I have to function in my world and generally that knowledge is sufficient to accomplish whatever I need to accomplish at the time.

My scientific self knows that I know only a teensy bit of what there is know about anything which makes life always exciting because we never know what else is possible. And if I had been born 100 years from now, I'm quite sure my perception and understanding about many things would be different than they are now because humankind will likely have advanced many times over what it has done in the last 100 years.

Will our perceptions about God have changed too in the next 100 years? I have to suspect they will as they have certainly changed over all the past millennia of recorded history.

The problem I had with your first post was the statement that "The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time." That's an understanding, not a logical absolute, derived from the logical absolutes of human thought. From where I'm standing that's part of Q.W.'s confusion.

Well I probably didn't state it clearly. But my intention was to state the logical absolute that we know a tiny fraction of all that there is to know. In my opinion, that is far more than just an understanding. That's a fact.

Is it demonstrable? Of course not because we cannot demonstrate what we do not yet know.

Or quantify it, which means it pretty much cannot be a "logical absolute."

Sure it can if one accepts that reason and logic can arrive at truth and that all truth is not necessarily demonstrable or quantifiable.

 

[Foxfyre]

The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time. And that 100 years from now it will be highly probable that much of what we accept as probable truth now will be shown to be quite different than what we now perceive.

?

LOL. What I mean is that rational logic is always open ended leaving the door open for new information that can change our perceptions and/or understandings. To say that we understand as well as we can with the information we have is to be logical. To say this is the way it is period is not logic but dogma.

My practical self goes with the knowledge I have to function in my world and generally that knowledge is sufficient to accomplish whatever I need to accomplish at the time.

My scientific self knows that I know only a teensy bit of what there is know about anything which makes life always exciting because we never know what else is possible. And if I had been born 100 years from now, I'm quite sure my perception and understanding about many things would be different than they are now because humankind will likely have advanced many times over what it has done in the last 100 years.

Will our perceptions about God have changed too in the next 100 years? I have to suspect they will as they have certainly changed over all the past millennia of recorded history.

The problem I had with your first post was the statement that "The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time." That's an understanding, not a logical absolute, derived from the logical absolutes of human thought. From where I'm standing that's part of Q.W.'s confusion.

Well I probably didn't state it clearly. But my intention was to state the logical absolute that we know a tiny fraction of all that there is to know. In my opinion, that is far more than just an understanding. That's a fact.

Is it demonstrable? Of course not because we cannot demonstrate what we do not yet know.

Of course. For all we know our solar system is just an atom in another unimaginably huge universe.

LOL. My son used to come up with such concepts that really make you think. He postulated a similar thought one time that who knows whether each atom contains a whole other universe and is, as you suggest, a component in a much larger one and so on. He suggested it gives you a whole new perspective when you throw another log on the fire.....all those universes. . . . .

 

[Foxfyre]

?

LOL. What I mean is that rational logic is always open ended leaving the door open for new information that can change our perceptions and/or understandings. To say that we understand as well as we can with the information we have is to be logical. To say this is the way it is period is not logic but dogma.

My practical self goes with the knowledge I have to function in my world and generally that knowledge is sufficient to accomplish whatever I need to accomplish at the time.

My scientific self knows that I know only a teensy bit of what there is know about anything which makes life always exciting because we never know what else is possible. And if I had been born 100 years from now, I'm quite sure my perception and understanding about many things would be different than they are now because humankind will likely have advanced many times over what it has done in the last 100 years.

Will our perceptions about God have changed too in the next 100 years? I have to suspect they will as they have certainly changed over all the past millennia of recorded history.

The problem I had with your first post was the statement that "The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time." That's an understanding, not a logical absolute, derived from the logical absolutes of human thought. From where I'm standing that's part of Q.W.'s confusion.

Well I probably didn't state it clearly. But my intention was to state the logical absolute that we know a tiny fraction of all that there is to know. In my opinion, that is far more than just an understanding. That's a fact.

Is it demonstrable? Of course not because we cannot demonstrate what we do not yet know.

Of course. For all we know our solar system is just an atom in another unimaginably huge universe.

Whoa! Man, my mind is blown. Pass me that joint.

Oh come on. Surely you aren't so jaded and stuffy that you haven't contemplated the 'what if' scenarios that our mind is capable of conceiving? I personally believe much scientific knowledge evolved from just such creative mind games.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Citing the behaviour of photons in a double-slit experiment as being illogical is faulty. Quantum mechanics is perfectly logical, as is how a single atom can exist simutaneously in different positions (the aforementioned temporal coexistence.) Your lack of understanding doesn't bear out the statement the universe is illogical.

Sigh.

Logic is a framework for argument. By definition, quantum mechanics falls outside that framework because it is part of the real universe, and not subject to human devised rules of reasoning. Just because you do not understand that simple fact does not mean the rest of the universe is bound by your ignorance.

You and I are apparently talking about two different things.

In any event, the fundamental laws of thought/apprehension (collectively, the logical principle of identity) in and of themselves are not man made, QW! That’s patently false! The logical principle of identity is the indispensable mechanism by which we deductively or inductively decipher and assimilate data. It's absolute, a universally intrinsic component of our nature.

It's the organic foundation for propositional logic (mathematical/symbolic), first-order/predicate logic and the laws of inference, and a syllogism, for example, is just a framework for channeling logic.

Earlier you observed that it's possible to derive invalid conclusions from a logical framework or from some course of seemingly consistent logic. Sure. The reason that's true, of course, is that one or more of the premises is false, or they are all true, albeit, incongruently mated; and the mechanism by which we detect these kinds of problems or any number of logical fallacies is the logical principle of identity.

 

[dblack]

LOL. What I mean is that rational logic is always open ended leaving the door open for new information that can change our perceptions and/or understandings. To say that we understand as well as we can with the information we have is to be logical. To say this is the way it is period is not logic but dogma.

My practical self goes with the knowledge I have to function in my world and generally that knowledge is sufficient to accomplish whatever I need to accomplish at the time.

My scientific self knows that I know only a teensy bit of what there is know about anything which makes life always exciting because we never know what else is possible. And if I had been born 100 years from now, I'm quite sure my perception and understanding about many things would be different than they are now because humankind will likely have advanced many times over what it has done in the last 100 years.

Will our perceptions about God have changed too in the next 100 years? I have to suspect they will as they have certainly changed over all the past millennia of recorded history.

The problem I had with your first post was the statement that "The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time." That's an understanding, not a logical absolute, derived from the logical absolutes of human thought. From where I'm standing that's part of Q.W.'s confusion.

Well I probably didn't state it clearly. But my intention was to state the logical absolute that we know a tiny fraction of all that there is to know. In my opinion, that is far more than just an understanding. That's a fact.

Is it demonstrable? Of course not because we cannot demonstrate what we do not yet know.

Of course. For all we know our solar system is just an atom in another unimaginably huge universe.

Whoa! Man, my mind is blown. Pass me that joint.

Oh come on. Surely you aren't so jaded and stuffy that you haven't contemplated the 'what if' scenarios that our mind is capable of conceiving? I personally believe much scientific knowledge evolved from just such creative mind games.

Not at all! I was just being a little goofy. Infinite possibility out there. We should never quit considering it.

 

[Foxfyre]

LOL. What I mean is that rational logic is always open ended leaving the door open for new information that can change our perceptions and/or understandings. To say that we understand as well as we can with the information we have is to be logical. To say this is the way it is period is not logic but dogma.

My practical self goes with the knowledge I have to function in my world and generally that knowledge is sufficient to accomplish whatever I need to accomplish at the time.

My scientific self knows that I know only a teensy bit of what there is know about anything which makes life always exciting because we never know what else is possible. And if I had been born 100 years from now, I'm quite sure my perception and understanding about many things would be different than they are now because humankind will likely have advanced many times over what it has done in the last 100 years.

Will our perceptions about God have changed too in the next 100 years? I have to suspect they will as they have certainly changed over all the past millennia of recorded history.

Q.W.'s post doesn't make sense to me. It seemed you agreed with it.

I took his post to mean that the Bible doesn't support that everything is already determined and planned out and we are just characters in a script that is already sealed and unchangeable. If that is what he was saying, then I do agree with him. But my point wasn't focused on whether everything is already programmed and decided, but looks ahead to all the surprises that await us out there and ahead of us. Not only do I think we're all going to have a good laugh when we get to heaven and find out how much we got wrong theologically, but the scientists a hundred years from now are likely to look at this period in our history as a scientific dark age.

This entails the intimate things of God that are not objectively or universally apparent. These are the additional things that God has revealed via inspiration. These things can of course be objectively weighed, but they're not intrinsically apparent to all.

The God of the Bible is omniscient without exception. The Bible unmistakably asserts a doctrine of predestination, yet it simultaneously holds that creatures have free will. What do we do with this?

There are two views that I'm aware of: the "Foreknowledge" and the Calvinist view.

The Foreknowledge view holds that God simply foreknew that a portion of the angels would reject Him, that humanity would fall. Knowing this He predestined that He would provide a means of redemption . . . for mankind. But the terms predestined and foreknowledge go to our perspective of time, not His. There is no past or future for God. Everything is now for Him. From our perspective of time, everything that has ever happened, is happening or will happen, is happening right now for Him. The contention is that His knowledge of what we will do, from our perspective, is what we are doing right now, from His perspective. He is viewing those things we will do, according to our sense of time, in the same sense that I'm viewing this screen right now, knowing precisely what I intend to say. I'm free to write what I will, but He's here, with me, right now . . . right now . . . one hour from now, right now, if you follow, viewing my thoughts and intentions. He is here with me at this very moment ten years ago, for example, from my perspective.

The Calvinist view holds that God predestined, without regard to His foreknowledge, who he would create to choose Him.

I opt for the Foreknowledge view as it seems to reconcile the whole of scripture, but I don't pretend to know if it works based on my limited understanding.

I know this won't be satisfactory for many. It remains mysterious to me. The Foreknowledge view is the closest I can get to making sense out of it all. But I do believe from other evidence that there is "a unifying principle" that is rationally coherent in the light of all the pertinent facts that are simply beyond my ken from this side of heaven.

Again setting aside the heavy theology that is mostly an alien language to probably most on this thread, I go back to the KISS principle.

For every passage asserting the omniscience of God, you can find another stating that God relented, God had compassion, God changed his mind. For example, the scripture would suggest Abraham was able to bargain with YHWH to have the life of Lot and his family spared when God destroyed Sodom. And later God wanted the people to depend on Him for what they needed, but they clamored for a king until God finally gave in and gave them one.

Exodus 32:9-14:
(Following the people making the golden calf when Moses was on the mountain). . . .
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.​

I personally cannot square a concept of free will against a concept of a life and universe in which it is already scoped and planned and determined from beginning to end. I can't see how that would make us more than puppets forced to go through it all without purpose since the outcome is already determined. If everything is already decided, there is no real purpose in repenting, in changing, in doing things better or being more wise, or in prayer that we are commanded to do without ceasing. Despite the joy and blessings given us, there is also great suffering and cruelty of the most horrible kind. I can't square the loving God I know up close and personal with one who would have planned all that out.

I have to believe that free will includes the ability to change things and make a difference; otherwise I can reason no purpose for going through all this at all.

So for want of a better explanation, I see God's omniscience as being able to see what will happen if we continue on the course we are on, but who loves us enough to allow us to love so we do have the ability to change our circumstances and our destiny.

I kept it simple. That's as simple as it gets. The Bible asserts the following things: (1) God exists in the eternal now, (2) God is omniscient; (3) creatures have free will; (4) God predestines history/historical figures. The Foreknowledge view is the best way that I know of to square all these things.

We'll have to just accept that we have a friendly disagreement on that one. I do not subscribe to the Calvinist doctrine and while I do believe God has a grand master plan, I don't pretend to be privy to why he calls who he call to implement it. And my mind cannot conceive of free will and a future that is already set in granite. Once the movie is in the can, the actors cannot alter it in any way. I just don't see us an actors in some kind of cosmic movie being played out for all of what we call eternity.

 

[BreezeWood]

The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time. And that 100 years from now it will be highly probable that much of what we accept as probable truth now will be shown to be quite different than what we now perceive.

that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time.

... limited by

what a defeatist, crossing the void and finding the land on the other side as Christopher Columbus is not by chance but the necessity required by the Almighty's Commandant of Remission to the Everlasting, available for any creature so desiring the voyage.

at any time ...

.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

That's so weird, maybe you're autistic. I answered it several times, and for being a dickhead and pretending I* didn't, you can apologize or you're dismissed.

. . . Because the converse, is that a NON all knower KNOWS that he or she is NOT all knowing, because if they WERE all knowing, they'd necessarily HAVE that knowledge."

This is the only thing that is relevant to my question. The rest is noise, especially the Jakevellian, obtuse-as-a-pile-of-bricks banalities regarding what are nothing more than purely academic objections that make no difference to what matters.

But this is still not a direct answer to my question.

The fact that you don't recognize the reason I'm asking you to define the terms of the exact expression of the absolute you asserted about the all-knowing knower further underscores the fact of just how little you understand about the necessities of logic and rational discourse.

Further, I don't need you to explain to me what you were trying to communicate with the statement in the above—which is the INVERSE! not the CONVERSE!—of your statement regarding the all-knowing knower as such.

I asked you—due to your inability to comprehend that your alleged refutation is a conflation of knowledge and existence and your shape-shifting blather—to affirm your statement about the all-knowing knower for the purpose of defining terms, not about any other kind of expression of that idea or ultimate beliefs about that idea whatsoever!

An all-knowing knower would necessarily know everything there is to know about everything that exists, including knowing that it does in fact know all things there is to know about everything/everyone that exists? ​

Is this essentially the same idea you had in mind regarding the all-knowing knower or not, Mr. Inverse-Not-Converse?

Or is the real reason for your evasions the dawning of the Sun, i.e., the instinctual suspicion, as it's doubtful that it could be conscious, that your very own assertion regarding the logic of the all-knowing knower has implications that would wipe out your obtuse irrelevancies?

Let's just cut to the chase. I'll take your inverse-not-converse expression as a yes. You agree with the expression in the above; that's what you were telling QW about the all-knowing knower. And, yes, the reason I zeroed in on that expression of your idea, not the inverse-not-converse expression of it, is because the implications do wipe out your obtuse irrelevancies, which you might be able to see without the doh! that you imagine to follow from your inverse-not-converse expression obstructing your view.

 

[Foxfyre]

Q.W.'s post doesn't make sense to me. It seemed you agreed with it.

I took his post to mean that the Bible doesn't support that everything is already determined and planned out and we are just characters in a script that is already sealed and unchangeable. If that is what he was saying, then I do agree with him. But my point wasn't focused on whether everything is already programmed and decided, but looks ahead to all the surprises that await us out there and ahead of us. Not only do I think we're all going to have a good laugh when we get to heaven and find out how much we got wrong theologically, but the scientists a hundred years from now are likely to look at this period in our history as a scientific dark age.

This entails the intimate things of God that are not objectively or universally apparent. These are the additional things that God has revealed via inspiration. These things can of course be objectively weighed, but they're not intrinsically apparent to all.

The God of the Bible is omniscient without exception. The Bible unmistakably asserts a doctrine of predestination, yet it simultaneously holds that creatures have free will. What do we do with this?

There are two views that I'm aware of: the "Foreknowledge" and the Calvinist view.

The Foreknowledge view holds that God simply foreknew that a portion of the angels would reject Him, that humanity would fall. Knowing this He predestined that He would provide a means of redemption . . . for mankind. But the terms predestined and foreknowledge go to our perspective of time, not His. There is no past or future for God. Everything is now for Him. From our perspective of time, everything that has ever happened, is happening or will happen, is happening right now for Him. The contention is that His knowledge of what we will do, from our perspective, is what we are doing right now, from His perspective. He is viewing those things we will do, according to our sense of time, in the same sense that I'm viewing this screen right now, knowing precisely what I intend to say. I'm free to write what I will, but He's here, with me, right now . . . right now . . . one hour from now, right now, if you follow, viewing my thoughts and intentions. He is here with me at this very moment ten years ago, for example, from my perspective.

The Calvinist view holds that God predestined, without regard to His foreknowledge, who he would create to choose Him.

I opt for the Foreknowledge view as it seems to reconcile the whole of scripture, but I don't pretend to know if it works based on my limited understanding.

I know this won't be satisfactory for many. It remains mysterious to me. The Foreknowledge view is the closest I can get to making sense out of it all. But I do believe from other evidence that there is "a unifying principle" that is rationally coherent in the light of all the pertinent facts that are simply beyond my ken from this side of heaven.

Again setting aside the heavy theology that is mostly an alien language to probably most on this thread, I go back to the KISS principle.

For every passage asserting the omniscience of God, you can find another stating that God relented, God had compassion, God changed his mind. For example, the scripture would suggest Abraham was able to bargain with YHWH to have the life of Lot and his family spared when God destroyed Sodom. And later God wanted the people to depend on Him for what they needed, but they clamored for a king until God finally gave in and gave them one.

Exodus 32:9-14:
(Following the people making the golden calf when Moses was on the mountain). . . .
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.​

I personally cannot square a concept of free will against a concept of a life and universe in which it is already scoped and planned and determined from beginning to end. I can't see how that would make us more than puppets forced to go through it all without purpose since the outcome is already determined. If everything is already decided, there is no real purpose in repenting, in changing, in doing things better or being more wise, or in prayer that we are commanded to do without ceasing. Despite the joy and blessings given us, there is also great suffering and cruelty of the most horrible kind. I can't square the loving God I know up close and personal with one who would have planned all that out.

I have to believe that free will includes the ability to change things and make a difference; otherwise I can reason no purpose for going through all this at all.

So for want of a better explanation, I see God's omniscience as being able to see what will happen if we continue on the course we are on, but who loves us enough to allow us to love so we do have the ability to change our circumstances and our destiny.

I kept it simple. That's as simple as it gets. The Bible asserts the following things: (1) God exists in the eternal now, (2) God is omniscient; (3) creatures have free will; (4) God predestines history/historical figures. The Foreknowledge view is the best way that I know of to square all these things.

From where I'm standing the solution is beyond us and like you say we don't have all the facts yet. My reading of the good Book is that we are to trust God with these things in the meantime. I believe it'll all make sense later.

That's it. My understanding of God is that I do have free will to love or reject, to choose well or to choose badly, and the choices I make do make a difference either in the here and now or in the grand scheme of things or both. But I figure anybody who thinks they have God all figured out must believe in a very small God. But even though it is all fascinating to me and I have devoted a good deal of my life seeking answers to those things we now can have answers for, I don't pretend to even speculate on how it all works. But I do have a long list of unanswerable questions and all I ask to take with me when I leave this mortal body is that list. Because I'm really curious about the answers.

 

[Foxfyre]

The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time. And that 100 years from now it will be highly probable that much of what we accept as probable truth now will be shown to be quite different than what we now perceive.

that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time.

... limited by

what a defeatist, crossing the void and finding the land on the other side as Christopher Columbus is not by chance but the necessity required by the Almighty's Commandant of Remission to the Everlasting, available for any creature so desiring the voyage.

at any time ...

.

So you think God required Columbus to sail west from the Port at Palos in Spain that fateful August day? Or what are you saying?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The presuppositional apologetic, also known as the tag argument, is reduced to a circular argument based on a naked assertion.

God *is* such and such, such and such exists, therefore God.

Circular.

Logic and moral absolutes are also circular in origin; however, their existence is currently testable within our realm of existence and works. It's not based on a naked assertion, because you can see that, and why, it works. You cannot see or test this with god, unless you beg the question -> define him however conveniently/dishonestly you'd like, etc.

That's what it all boils down to. You can type 70 paragraphs whining about that it's not true, but the tag argument is and has been inept. Fucking google it. Or, just think about why it's a naked assertion. I don't know.

What do I need to Google? Why did you need to Google anything?

The objections you're yammering on about for the umpteenth time are on this very thread, thoroughly addressed by ME!

Looky here:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/is-there-one-sound-valid-syllogistic-argument-for-the-existence-of-god.376399/page-27#post-9877513
http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/9883604/
http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/9892385/


I'm well aware of the potentially legitimate objection in terms of ultimacy, which in and of itself is not justifiable knowledge due to the fact that the claim in the major premise of the argument is independently and objectively verified by the conventions of logic!

And the allegation of circular reasoning/begging the question is an even more pathetically irrelevant objection.

Once again, I've already addressed these objections on this thread, and you have yet to demonstrate any awareness of that fact, let alone attempted to refute the annihilations of these objections, which means that like Jake you don't read or think about anything that challenges your preconceived and unexamined biases.

In the meantime, you unwittingly presuppose the universality of the principle of identity in terms of ultimacy, which necessarily means that you presuppose the major premise of the teleological argument to be true, JUST LIKE THE KNOW-NOTHING MORONS ON THE INTERNET WHO DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THE CENTURIES-OLD ANNIHILATIONS OF THESE OBJECTIONS, WHICH ARE DISCUSSED IN THE POSTS WRITTEN BY YOURS TRULY (SEE LINKS IN THE ABOVE) AND DON'T KNOW THE FOLLOWING EITHER:

Though, in fact, the claim has been asserted by various authors of the Bible over the centuries, Kant was the first to formally assert the transcendental argument. It has never been falsified! It can't be falsified, a well-established analytical fact in academia. But more to the point, it's not impervious to falsification just because it's expression is logically coherent or just because the essence of its ultimate Object is not immediately accessible, as so many of you mistakenly believe. If that were all there were to it, nobody would care. The reason it's important is because, eerily, any argument launched against it will actually prove the major premise is logically valid.

Hence, the only potentially legitimate objection to the claim made in the major premise is the bald, logically unsupported assertion that it might not be true, ultimately, outside of our minds. Fine. But let us be clear: There is no independently verifiable ground whatsoever to believe this is true outside of our minds under the conventional standards of justifiable knowledge or the conventional standards of logic, which allow that the premises of presuppositional arguments are justifiable knowledge if proven to be logically valid due to the inescapable exigencies of human cognition.

. . . the claim in the major premise is not merely an axiom, but a demonstrably incontrovertible theorem, as, once again, any attempt to refute it is a "counterargument" that is in reality the major premise for a complex, formal argument consisting of multiple axioms/postulates that invariably lead to a "discovered" proof that the truth claim in the major premise is logically valid. ​

In the face of that independently and objectively established fact of human cognition regarding the major premise, the blather about circular reasoning is moot. The historical illiteracy and mindless, sheep think of post-modern materialism polluting the Internet does not overthrow the centuries-old, incontrovertible, logical proof.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Q.W.'s post doesn't make sense to me. It seemed you agreed with it.

I took his post to mean that the Bible doesn't support that everything is already determined and planned out and we are just characters in a script that is already sealed and unchangeable. If that is what he was saying, then I do agree with him. But my point wasn't focused on whether everything is already programmed and decided, but looks ahead to all the surprises that await us out there and ahead of us. Not only do I think we're all going to have a good laugh when we get to heaven and find out how much we got wrong theologically, but the scientists a hundred years from now are likely to look at this period in our history as a scientific dark age.

This entails the intimate things of God that are not objectively or universally apparent. These are the additional things that God has revealed via inspiration. These things can of course be objectively weighed, but they're not intrinsically apparent to all.

The God of the Bible is omniscient without exception. The Bible unmistakably asserts a doctrine of predestination, yet it simultaneously holds that creatures have free will. What do we do with this?

There are two views that I'm aware of: the "Foreknowledge" and the Calvinist view.

The Foreknowledge view holds that God simply foreknew that a portion of the angels would reject Him, that humanity would fall. Knowing this He predestined that He would provide a means of redemption . . . for mankind. But the terms predestined and foreknowledge go to our perspective of time, not His. There is no past or future for God. Everything is now for Him. From our perspective of time, everything that has ever happened, is happening or will happen, is happening right now for Him. The contention is that His knowledge of what we will do, from our perspective, is what we are doing right now, from His perspective. He is viewing those things we will do, according to our sense of time, in the same sense that I'm viewing this screen right now, knowing precisely what I intend to say. I'm free to write what I will, but He's here, with me, right now . . . right now . . . one hour from now, right now, if you follow, viewing my thoughts and intentions. He is here with me at this very moment ten years ago, for example, from my perspective.

The Calvinist view holds that God predestined, without regard to His foreknowledge, who he would create to choose Him.

I opt for the Foreknowledge view as it seems to reconcile the whole of scripture, but I don't pretend to know if it works based on my limited understanding.

I know this won't be satisfactory for many. It remains mysterious to me. The Foreknowledge view is the closest I can get to making sense out of it all. But I do believe from other evidence that there is "a unifying principle" that is rationally coherent in the light of all the pertinent facts that are simply beyond my ken from this side of heaven.

Again setting aside the heavy theology that is mostly an alien language to probably most on this thread, I go back to the KISS principle.

For every passage asserting the omniscience of God, you can find another stating that God relented, God had compassion, God changed his mind. For example, the scripture would suggest Abraham was able to bargain with YHWH to have the life of Lot and his family spared when God destroyed Sodom. And later God wanted the people to depend on Him for what they needed, but they clamored for a king until God finally gave in and gave them one.

Exodus 32:9-14:
(Following the people making the golden calf when Moses was on the mountain). . . .
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.​

I personally cannot square a concept of free will against a concept of a life and universe in which it is already scoped and planned and determined from beginning to end. I can't see how that would make us more than puppets forced to go through it all without purpose since the outcome is already determined. If everything is already decided, there is no real purpose in repenting, in changing, in doing things better or being more wise, or in prayer that we are commanded to do without ceasing. Despite the joy and blessings given us, there is also great suffering and cruelty of the most horrible kind. I can't square the loving God I know up close and personal with one who would have planned all that out.

I have to believe that free will includes the ability to change things and make a difference; otherwise I can reason no purpose for going through all this at all.

So for want of a better explanation, I see God's omniscience as being able to see what will happen if we continue on the course we are on, but who loves us enough to allow us to love so we do have the ability to change our circumstances and our destiny.

I kept it simple. That's as simple as it gets. The Bible asserts the following things: (1) God exists in the eternal now, (2) God is omniscient; (3) creatures have free will; (4) God predestines history/historical figures. The Foreknowledge view is the best way that I know of to square all these things.

We'll have to just accept that we have a friendly disagreement on that one. I do not subscribe to the Calvinist doctrine and while I do believe God has a grand master plan, I don't pretend to be privy to why he calls who he call to implement it. And my mind cannot conceive of free will and a future that is already set in granite. Once the movie is in the can, the actors cannot alter it in any way. I just don't see us an actors in some kind of cosmic movie being played out for all of what we call eternity.

Are you reading my posts? I don't subscribe to the Calvinist view either, but I don't hold to the notion that absolute omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive either. I don't think that follows at all. The Foreknowledge view is something else. That's my view. Predestination is asserted by the Bible at the very least in terms of a grand master plan and also in terms of certain historical figures, it also asserts free will. I don't know of any serious, orthodox scholar who disputes any of these things. This doesn't mean that Calvinist's view of predestination necessary follows, and I don't believe it does.

 

[Foxfyre]

I took his post to mean that the Bible doesn't support that everything is already determined and planned out and we are just characters in a script that is already sealed and unchangeable. If that is what he was saying, then I do agree with him. But my point wasn't focused on whether everything is already programmed and decided, but looks ahead to all the surprises that await us out there and ahead of us. Not only do I think we're all going to have a good laugh when we get to heaven and find out how much we got wrong theologically, but the scientists a hundred years from now are likely to look at this period in our history as a scientific dark age.

This entails the intimate things of God that are not objectively or universally apparent. These are the additional things that God has revealed via inspiration. These things can of course be objectively weighed, but they're not intrinsically apparent to all.

The God of the Bible is omniscient without exception. The Bible unmistakably asserts a doctrine of predestination, yet it simultaneously holds that creatures have free will. What do we do with this?

There are two views that I'm aware of: the "Foreknowledge" and the Calvinist view.

The Foreknowledge view holds that God simply foreknew that a portion of the angels would reject Him, that humanity would fall. Knowing this He predestined that He would provide a means of redemption . . . for mankind. But the terms predestined and foreknowledge go to our perspective of time, not His. There is no past or future for God. Everything is now for Him. From our perspective of time, everything that has ever happened, is happening or will happen, is happening right now for Him. The contention is that His knowledge of what we will do, from our perspective, is what we are doing right now, from His perspective. He is viewing those things we will do, according to our sense of time, in the same sense that I'm viewing this screen right now, knowing precisely what I intend to say. I'm free to write what I will, but He's here, with me, right now . . . right now . . . one hour from now, right now, if you follow, viewing my thoughts and intentions. He is here with me at this very moment ten years ago, for example, from my perspective.

The Calvinist view holds that God predestined, without regard to His foreknowledge, who he would create to choose Him.

I opt for the Foreknowledge view as it seems to reconcile the whole of scripture, but I don't pretend to know if it works based on my limited understanding.

I know this won't be satisfactory for many. It remains mysterious to me. The Foreknowledge view is the closest I can get to making sense out of it all. But I do believe from other evidence that there is "a unifying principle" that is rationally coherent in the light of all the pertinent facts that are simply beyond my ken from this side of heaven.

Again setting aside the heavy theology that is mostly an alien language to probably most on this thread, I go back to the KISS principle.

For every passage asserting the omniscience of God, you can find another stating that God relented, God had compassion, God changed his mind. For example, the scripture would suggest Abraham was able to bargain with YHWH to have the life of Lot and his family spared when God destroyed Sodom. And later God wanted the people to depend on Him for what they needed, but they clamored for a king until God finally gave in and gave them one.

Exodus 32:9-14:
(Following the people making the golden calf when Moses was on the mountain). . . .
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.​

I personally cannot square a concept of free will against a concept of a life and universe in which it is already scoped and planned and determined from beginning to end. I can't see how that would make us more than puppets forced to go through it all without purpose since the outcome is already determined. If everything is already decided, there is no real purpose in repenting, in changing, in doing things better or being more wise, or in prayer that we are commanded to do without ceasing. Despite the joy and blessings given us, there is also great suffering and cruelty of the most horrible kind. I can't square the loving God I know up close and personal with one who would have planned all that out.

I have to believe that free will includes the ability to change things and make a difference; otherwise I can reason no purpose for going through all this at all.

So for want of a better explanation, I see God's omniscience as being able to see what will happen if we continue on the course we are on, but who loves us enough to allow us to love so we do have the ability to change our circumstances and our destiny.

I kept it simple. That's as simple as it gets. The Bible asserts the following things: (1) God exists in the eternal now, (2) God is omniscient; (3) creatures have free will; (4) God predestines history/historical figures. The Foreknowledge view is the best way that I know of to square all these things.

We'll have to just accept that we have a friendly disagreement on that one. I do not subscribe to the Calvinist doctrine and while I do believe God has a grand master plan, I don't pretend to be privy to why he calls who he call to implement it. And my mind cannot conceive of free will and a future that is already set in granite. Once the movie is in the can, the actors cannot alter it in any way. I just don't see us an actors in some kind of cosmic movie being played out for all of what we call eternity.

Are you reading my posts? I don't subscribe to the Calvinist view either, but I don't hold to the notion that absolute omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive either. I don't think that follows at all. The Foreknowledge view is something else. That's my view. Predestination is asserted by the Bible at the very least in terms of a grand master plan and also in terms of certain historical figures, it also asserts free will. I don't know of any serious, orthodox scholar who disputes any of these things. This doesn't mean that Calvinist's view of predestination necessary follows, and I don't believe it does.

I am reading your posts--well, maybe not every single word of the really long technical ones--but I'm getting the gist of them I think. I didn't mean to imply that we disagree on everything in this context. But we may have some degree of disagreement on the free will/omniscience part. I'm not sure that you and I see that in the same way. And it makes not one whit of difference if we do disagree.

 

[Justin Davis]

[

Citing the behaviour of photons in a double-slit experiment as being illogical is faulty. Quantum mechanics is perfectly logical, as is how a single atom can exist simutaneously in different positions (the aforementioned temporal coexistence.) Your lack of understanding doesn't bear out the statement the universe is illogical.

Sigh.

Logic is a framework for argument. By definition, quantum mechanics falls outside that framework because it is part of the real universe, and not subject to human devised rules of reasoning. Just because you do not understand that simple fact does not mean the rest of the universe is bound by your ignorance.

You and I are apparently talking about two different things.

In any event, the fundamental laws of thought/apprehension (collectively, the logical principle of identity) in and of themselves are not man made, QW! That’s patently false! The logical principle of identity is the indispensable mechanism by which we deductively or inductively decipher and assimilate data. It's absolute, a universally intrinsic component of our nature.

It's the organic foundation for propositional logic (mathematical/symbolic), first-order/predicate logic and the laws of inference, and a syllogism, for example, is just a framework for channeling logic.

Earlier you observed that it's possible to derive invalid conclusions from a logical framework or from some course of seemingly consistent logic. Sure. The reason that's true, of course, is that one or more of the premises is false, or they are all true, albeit, incongruently mated; and the mechanism by which we detect these kinds of problems or any number of logical fallacies is the logical principle of identity.

That's it in a nutshell. The rules of thought are organic. This is common knowledge. Since when have philosophers, theologians or scientist done anything at all without the organic logic of our minds?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The problem I had with your first post was the statement that "The only logical absolute that we can be certain of is that we have so little knowledge compared to all the knowledge there is to be had, that our logic and understanding will always be limited by what we can know, reason, discern, envision now at this time." That's an understanding, not a logical absolute, derived from the logical absolutes of human thought. From where I'm standing that's part of Q.W.'s confusion.

What makes you think I am confused?

 

[dblack]

I don't hold to the notion that absolute omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive either. I don't think that follows at all. The Foreknowledge view is something else. That's my view. Predestination is asserted by the Bible at the very least in terms of a grand master plan and also in terms of certain historical figures, it also asserts free will. I don't know of any serious, orthodox scholar who disputes any of these things. This doesn't mean that Calvinist's view of predestination necessary follows, and I don't believe it does.

I am reading your posts--well, maybe not every single word of the really long technical ones--but I'm getting the gist of them I think. I didn't mean to imply that we disagree on everything in this context. But we may have some degree of disagreement on the free will/omniscience part. I'm not sure that you and I see that in the same way. And it makes not one whit of difference if we do disagree.

This reminds me of Wolfram's concept of Computational Irreducability. Which is based on the observation that science is largely a process of identifying 'shortcuts' - formulae and laws that let us predict the outcomes of physical processes in idealized situations. But the vast bulk of real-life processes are anything but idealized, and chaos theory has shown that most processes aren't accurately predictable with these shortcuts.

Wolfram concludes, that even with perfect knowledge, any system purported to be able to perfectly predict the future, would be at least as complicated as reality itself - with representations of the mass and momentum of every single subatomic particle - and that it couldn't possibly perform its calculations any more efficiently than the unaided unfolding of time. In other words, the fastest, most accurate way to see what will happen in the future is to let it happen.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

[

Citing the behaviour of photons in a double-slit experiment as being illogical is faulty. Quantum mechanics is perfectly logical, as is how a single atom can exist simutaneously in different positions (the aforementioned temporal coexistence.) Your lack of understanding doesn't bear out the statement the universe is illogical.

Sigh.

Logic is a framework for argument. By definition, quantum mechanics falls outside that framework because it is part of the real universe, and not subject to human devised rules of reasoning. Just because you do not understand that simple fact does not mean the rest of the universe is bound by your ignorance.

You and I are apparently talking about two different things.

In any event, the fundamental laws of thought/apprehension (collectively, the logical principle of identity) in and of themselves are not man made, QW! That’s patently false! The logical principle of identity is the indispensable mechanism by which we deductively or inductively decipher and assimilate data. It's absolute, a universally intrinsic component of our nature.

It's the organic foundation for propositional logic (mathematical/symbolic), first-order/predicate logic and the laws of inference, and a syllogism, for example, is just a framework for channeling logic.

Earlier you observed that it's possible to derive invalid conclusions from a logical framework or from some course of seemingly consistent logic. Sure. The reason that's true, of course, is that one or more of the premises is false, or they are all true, albeit, incongruently mated; and the mechanism by which we detect these kinds of problems or any number of logical fallacies is the logical principle of identity.

That's it in a nutshell. The rules of thought are organic. This is common knowledge. Since when have philosophers, theologians or scientist done anything at all without the organic logic of our minds?

When has anyone ever done anything without the fundamental mechanism of human apprehension? Like I said, I don't know if QW rightly understands what I'm talking about. There's absolutely nothing controversial about this fact of human life.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

TAG's premises are naked assertions based on presupposition.

They don't need to be debunked, they've yet to be supported.

You don't go from we have knowledge, to we'd like for some knowledge to be absolute, to therefore god in any sound/rational way shape or form. It doesn't work

Your basic problem is you are assuming that you know what you are talking about. Unfortunately, for you, the premises of TAG as presented in this thread are actually based on logical arguments that are valid, which invalidates your claim that the premise is based on presupposition. The foundational premise of TAG actually a lot more basic than you think.

I am conscious of the identity of myself as the subject of different self-attributions of mental states.​

Ultimately, that premise is based on the single premise that almost everyone knows, I think. There is a whole chain of reasoning behind TAG that has not even been discussed in this thread, and you are assuming that TAG, as presented here, is wrong simply because you are ignorant of everything behind Kant's argument.

Not that facts will actually make a difference to you, but they might sway someone who, unlike you, doesn't think he knows everything.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Or quantify it, which means it pretty much cannot be a "logical absolute."

How many times do I have to explain that logic does not apply to the universe?

That said, I challenge you to show me anywhere in the rules of logic that something has to be quantifiable to be true.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

That I can agree with! There seems to be something more wrong with Q.W.'s thinking about logic and philosophy as it relates to science but I can't quite put my finger on it. I'll have to think it about it more.

Perhaps the problem is your misunderstanding of the difference between logic, which is a structure of formal argument, and is often used in math to define proofs, which makes it useful in a limited way for science, and philosophy, which is based on the idea that the universe is not only explainable, but that humans can actually understand the why behind everything if they think about it the right way. Why do you think Aristotle insisted that God had to be perfect, and then was stumped when challenged to explain the imperfections of the world he lived in? Or why scientist/philosophers urged the church to suppress Galileo's writings because they challenged Aristotle's teachings about the perfection of a geocentric solar system?