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

[sealybobo]

Everything has entropy, no? Maybe a rock doesn't but even a rock will eventually die when this world expires. So everything you see will be gone one day if it isn't already gone. NOTHING lives forever. Nothing we know about YET anyways.

Nothing physical. That's the point. You cannot argue physical things never required creation if physical things have entropy. So we know because of entropy, physical things must have started somewhere, they must have had a beginning, something must have created them.

Logic tells us that nothing physical is capable of creating itself. It may be able to reproduce itself or regenerate itself, but it cannot create what it isn't here to create to begin with.... following me? So if physical nature couldn't create physical nature, and physical nature must have been created because it has entropy, then what could have created physical nature? The only rational explanation is something not physical in nature, something metaphysical, or spiritual.

quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together help us understand how universes could have formed out of nothing.

Above my pay grade.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together help us understand how universes could have formed out of nothing.

Above my pay grade.

And your comprehension, what you said is total bullshit.

 

[sealybobo]

quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together help us understand how universes could have formed out of nothing.

Above my pay grade.

And your comprehension, what you said is total bullshit.

I didn't say anything. I just posted what people a lot smarter than you or I believe.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I didn't say anything. I just posted what people a lot smarter than you or I believe.

There is absolutely no evidence that there was nothing before the Big Bang.

Just to show you I actually know what the fuck I am talking about, here is Stephen Hawking explaining his views on the origin of the universe. Since he is arguably the smartest man alive, and he doesn't believe the universe came from nothing, I see no reason to believe lesser intellects you think are qualified to discuss the matter, especially since no physicist alive says anything remotely close to that.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

You did not successfully explain the emboldened at all; rather, you were roundly refuted with more to come.

If you are referring to your childish attempt to use the laws of thought to explain sub atomic particles, I refer you to the definition of thought.

No. I'm referring to the all grown up fact that the principle of identity is not contradicted by the existence of any given A that is simultaneously two or more things. The organic laws of logic readily and coherently allow for that and even anticipate the possibility that such things exist in the material realm of being. Conceptually, the Majorana particle is not as you claimed A and ~A; rather, its A = A (X and Y simultaneously). That goes to thought. Understanding the properties and the behavior of sub atomic particles goes to scientific inference and the processes of falsification . . . as directed by the laws of thought, which, of course, can be applied mathematically in other forms of logic, in both alternate-world forms and amplificatory forms.

[Dude, the principle of identity is about how we think, not how the universe works.

No. That does not follow. Neither you nor anyone else in history has ever shown that the way we think is not transcendentally synchronized with how the universe works. In other words, the universe doesn't work the way it does because of the way we apprehend it. Rather, the way we apprehend things and the way the universe works and are lined up by God because He is the Principle of Identity, the ground of existence and has primacy over the cosmological order. You're saying that's not possible? Based on what? You're misconstrued notion of the principle of identity and your false predication of the Majorana particle?

Yep, they are right there in the Book of Bullshit, AKA The Sayings of People Who Cannot Find the Things They Insist are in the Bible.

The Bible declares that God is the Principle of Identity. It is in Him that the cosmological order, respectively, lives and moves and has its being.

Other forms of logic are fine as long as they are faithfully bottomed on the principle of identity, which, by the way, you just asserted in your distinction. You cannot escape it. It can't be refuted. You can't opt out. You never have and never will.

Because only your opinion matters in what type of logic is valid, right?

That's not what I said. My opinions don't have primacy over the principle of identity or over the ground of existence. You seem to think your opinions do without a shred of evidence.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Correct on both counts. The fact of the matter is that Aristotle's organic logic was rock solid insofar as its unaided analysis of the raw sensory data went. This was not a breakdown in logic. This was merely mathematically unamplified logic, essentially, insufficient data. All the while the organic principle of identity was doing precisely what it's supposed to do, including eventually alerting us to the actual nuts and bolts of the problem. Ultimately, the real problem was simply a lack of knowledge, not a problem of logic at all.

But QW knows these things . . . except when his ill-considered expressions confuse the matter, as in his FYI that there are things that exist that our brains can't detect, which, ultimately, is the same thing as saying that our senses limit us. Yet we know these things exist! How? Because as he tells us we can imagine the existence of things (via the organic principle of identity) and build technology that magnifies our senses that we might perceive/measure the effects of their presence, which was initially conceived to be in our minds because of other effects that we were able to perceive/measure due to other forms of technology. But then who in their right minds believes that we can reliably explain things based on what our senses convey alone in the first place?

No one who understands the principle of identity believes that for moment.

Yet Copernicus, with that same rock solid analysis of sensory data, reached a different conclusion, and used math to prove it.

What did Aristotle use again?

That's right, he didn't use anything. Why? Because philosophers think their brain is better than science.

Actually, more accurately, they both used sensory data and math, but there's a twist here, which I really didn't want to get into, but since you seem to think I'm doing extracurricular philosophizing, which I'm not, or defending such. . . .

First of all, I don't know why you keep saying Aristotle didn't use sensory data. That's false. That's mostly what he did use. Aristotle was not the Idealist. Plato was. Aristotle was the classical inspiration for the empiricists of the Enlightenment era: Locke, Hume, Berkeley and others. . . . Aristotle's blank slate is Locke's tabula rasa, which, by the way, has been mostly falsified too.

What led Aristotle astray was his extracurricular philosophizing in violation of the recommendations of the principle of identity. Ironically, as you alluded earlier, he got it into his head that the perfections of the Logos (God)—which, according to him and the latter empiricists, are inferred by our minds upon experiential reflection rather than from innate ideas directly—that those "heavenly movements" that didn't line up with the perfection of geometric circularity must be miscalculations. He had the information he needed to get it right all along!

(Now of course the latter empiricists didn't make the same astronomical mistake; one had nothing to do with the other. Besides, Copernicus' model, improved by Brahe and Kepler and affirmed by Galileo, was well-established, and Newton was in the mix by then.)

In other words, the classical empiricist Aristotle wasn't entirely free of his teacher's influence; however, the bulk of the mathematical calculi based on the sensory data of the unaided eye from an earthly perspective worked. He simply decided to disregard those aspects of the sensory data on the peripheral of his "ideal model" in spite the fact that the principle of identity was telling him there was a problem.

Copernicus, on the other hand, refused to "square that circle." He paid attention to the recommendations of the principle of identity and took Averoes' criticisms of the Ptolemaic model seriously. He intuited a heliocentric model and found that its mathematics squared all the data.

I'll say this again. Philosophy is not bullshit. It's indispensable to science, and it precedes science. It deals with the what. What is it metaphysically and, thus, what is it definitively? We can't do conceptualization or language without it either. The problem arises when people abuse philosophy, or science for that matter!

They both have strict limitations, and we may know what they are via the principle of identity.

Abuse or disregard the recommendations of the principle of identity and you will drive off the road into a ditch. The principle of identity is indispensable to theology, philosophy and science. It's the fundamental tool of apprehension and the assimilation of data. That's all it is. The principle of identity is reliable. It's the tool that tells us that only so much about the why and the how can be had relative to the data at hand, and philosophy is not the right medium for getting at the deeper truths of the why and the how.

I understand what the principle of identity is. I understand how it works. I don't disregard it or misconstrue it. That's why I don't do "philosophical bullshit."
That's why I don't imagine that things like the Majorana fermion violate it when they don't. That's why I don't harbor any illusions that the major premise of its logical proof can be refuted given the fact that the principle is necessarily asserted by the arguer in the very act of trying to refute it.

That's why I embrace the concepts of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence and the ramifications thereof as they come at us without bias. That's why I don't countenance the "philosophical bullshit" that would arbitrarily impose a limitation on the unadulterated perfection of the Eternal Now's ability to create an infinite number of dimensional states of being wherein free will would readily thrive without conflict. In other words, I don't pretend to know that I'm not in such a dimensional state that would be perfectly compatible with the principle of identity which allows for A = A (X, Y, Z simultaneously).

Overly technical?

Coercive?

Whaaaaaa?

I'm not the one suggesting God has to be something less than absolutely omniscient, i.e., must necessarily withhold Himself from knowing things absolutely in some way or another in order for free will to actually persist!

The interesting thing about this assertion from theistic philosophy is that it's actually predicated on the organic laws of logic, albeit, as misconstrued to preclude that any given A cannot be simultaneously X and Y. But that notion is false, and given the fact that professional philosophers know that (I'll get to Intuitionistic logic tomorrow.), one wonders why some of them don't simply allow that they are treading on ground that belongs to theology.

 

[Boss]

Everything has entropy, no? Maybe a rock doesn't but even a rock will eventually die when this world expires. So everything you see will be gone one day if it isn't already gone. NOTHING lives forever. Nothing we know about YET anyways.

Nothing physical. That's the point. You cannot argue physical things never required creation if physical things have entropy. So we know because of entropy, physical things must have started somewhere, they must have had a beginning, something must have created them.

Logic tells us that nothing physical is capable of creating itself. It may be able to reproduce itself or regenerate itself, but it cannot create what it isn't here to create to begin with.... following me? So if physical nature couldn't create physical nature, and physical nature must have been created because it has entropy, then what could have created physical nature? The only rational explanation is something not physical in nature, something metaphysical, or spiritual.

Something may have very well created everything you see. We could have come from another black hole. But I see what you are saying. What created the black hole or all the matter, planets and stars? Something can't come from nothing. I know what Hawkins says but he hasn't convinced me yet.

I like your point though and I do get it finally. Pretty deep. I know you've been trying to explain it to me for awhile and I finally get it. I'll have to think about it more and do some research on the idea that nothing physical is capable of creating itself.

Is something non physical capable of creating itself? I'm thinking about how clouds are made and how they create lightening.

I still don't think this creator gives a rats ass about you or me and there is no heaven unless frogs and goats get to go too. Just like when a star dies that's it, same for you and me. What happens to your spirit? Nothing. It dies with you, I believe.

Those last two words are very important... You believe.

I'm glad you get what I have been trying to explain. The OP asks for a syllogistic argument and that is it in a nutshell. There is no "proof" for God because God is outside the physical. Any evidence for God is spiritual evidence and subject to whether or not you accept spiritual evidence.

Is something non physical capable of creating itself?

I don't understand what you mean by the question. Do you mean, can something non-physical create itself in a physical manifestation? Because "create" is understood to mean, physically brought into a state of existence. Regardless of whether spiritual nature can do this or not, it doesn't have to and there is no reason for it to. However, one might argue that is precisely what "physical" is, the manifestation of spiritual nature in a physical dimension.

 

[BreezeWood]

No human could honestly answer "yes"? Where do you get these ideas?

the yes to what is the question not it's existence.

.

 

[hobelim]

Those last two words are very important... You believe.

I'm glad you get what I have been trying to explain. The OP asks for a syllogistic argument and that is it in a nutshell. There is no "proof" for God because God is outside the physical. Any evidence for God is spiritual evidence and subject to whether or not you accept spiritual evidence.

Copra sanctum!

That dog ain't dead yet?

 

[Boss]

Those last two words are very important... You believe.

I'm glad you get what I have been trying to explain. The OP asks for a syllogistic argument and that is it in a nutshell. There is no "proof" for God because God is outside the physical. Any evidence for God is spiritual evidence and subject to whether or not you accept spiritual evidence.

Copra sanctum!

That dog ain't dead yet?

Nope, the dog ain't dead. It doesn't matter what we're talking about, if you can't accept the existence of something, you can't accept evidence it provides. If I said the Denver Broncos don't exist, you can take me to Denver, show me the stadium, tour the facilities, meet the team, shake hands with the coach, watch a game... I am still going to find ways to dispute the existence and explain away all the "evidence" as anecdotal. I have to first believe that it's possible the Denver Broncos exist, then I am able to evaluate the evidence objectively.

 

[hobelim]

Those last two words are very important... You believe.

I'm glad you get what I have been trying to explain. The OP asks for a syllogistic argument and that is it in a nutshell. There is no "proof" for God because God is outside the physical. Any evidence for God is spiritual evidence and subject to whether or not you accept spiritual evidence.

Copra sanctum!

That dog ain't dead yet?

Nope, the dog ain't dead. It doesn't matter what we're talking about, if you can't accept the existence of something, you can't accept evidence it provides. If I said the Denver Broncos don't exist, you can take me to Denver, show me the stadium, tour the facilities, meet the team, shake hands with the coach, watch a game... I am still going to find ways to dispute the existence and explain away all the "evidence" as anecdotal. I have to first believe that it's possible the Denver Broncos exist, then I am able to evaluate the evidence objectively.

You have it all bass ackward.

If you could demonstrate proof, even logic, I would accept your argument.

It doesn't go the other way around.

If something existed, anyone would accept the evidence provided that proves that existence..

All you do is claim that one has to believe in what has not been proven to exist to accept proof of its existence..

That is simply absurd.

So you may never become a great thinker. At least you tried.

 

[Boss]

You have it all bass ackward.

Nope. I've gotten it right.

If you could demonstrate proof, even logic, I would accept your argument.

How can you ever accept something as "proof" if you don't believe in what it supposedly proves? I don't understand what the hangup is with this, it's not that complicated. Anything you can think of... If I do not accept or believe that it can or does exist, then nothing you will ever be able to show me is going to be viewed as evidence that proves it's existence. Sorry, just how things are.

Look... I tried giving you an example of something we both understand clearly exists... the Denver Broncos. I tried to explain how, you can show me all kinds of "evidence" they exist, but if I stubbornly refuse to believe they exist, I am never going to accept your evidence as such. Apparently, you didn't get that. So let's try using something more dubious... Aliens visiting from outer space. If you don't believe in aliens, or don't believe aliens have visited, it does not matter how many things I show you and call "evidence" you'll find some way to explain those things, rationalize them in some logical way, to avoid accepting them as evidence. Now, it can be evidence as clear as day to me, but to you it's just coincidence or fluke... doesn't prove a thing to you.

It doesn't go the other way around.

If something existed, anyone would accept the evidence provided that proves that existence..

Not so. Let's take an example here... the O.J. Simpson case. Clear evidence existed that OJ was at the scene of the crime, his DNA was there, his victim's DNA was in his truck and on his fence, the case was laid out an all the evidence presented to a jury. Did everyone accept the evidence that was provided and find OJ guilty? No, because "evidence" means something different to each individual who looks at it, depending on perspective. The jurors held the belief that OJ was framed by the police and the evidence was tainted.

All you do is claim that one has to believe in what has not been proven to exist to accept proof of its existence..

That is simply absurd.

So you may never become a great thinker. At least you tried.

Hey, I've been through this entire debate with Moonbat in another thread a few months ago, I don't have to go through it all again. If you're not comprehending what I am saying, I can't explain it any differently. I understand what you are trying to hear me say, and I keep correcting you but you're not listening, and it's almost like it's on purpose.

I've never said you have to believe in what's not been proven to exist. I said that before you can begin to accept evidence for something, you must first acknowledge that 'something' can exist. If you don't believe that it can, it doesn't matter what is presented, it isn't evidence.

I'll pose the same challenge I gave Moonbat back then... Give me one example of something you absolutely do not believe is possible to exist, yet you can cite credible evidence that it does exist? You see the problem there, right?

You're hung up on this idea that I am asking you to first believe whatever the evidence is supposed to prove, and that's not what I've said. So what the fuck do I need to do, slap you upside your goofy head with a board? Get with the program, that's not my argument here.

 

[Picaro]

Funny thing, using logic I can prove anything I want,

Exactly. It's merely semantic gamesmanship.

""The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil"-Bertrand Russell.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I notice every time us atheists make a good point I notice none of you ever reply back.

What's the problem? We are talking about the evidence and the reasoning for your idea of God.

 

[Justin Davis]

No human could honestly answer "yes"? Where do you get these ideas?

the yes to what is the question not it's existence.

.

I have no idea what that means.

 

[hobelim]

How can you ever accept something as "proof" if you don't believe in what it supposedly proves? I don't understand what the hangup is with this, it's not that complicated. Anything you can think of... If I do not accept or believe that it can or does exist, then nothing you will ever be able to show me is going to be viewed as evidence that proves it's existence. Sorry, just how things are.

Are you serious? Many atheists clearly admit the possibility that God might exist but a belief in a possibility is not proof. If you presented any verifiable evidence at all that would support such a possibility they would believe in God as surely as they believe in gravity. What you do is present evidence that is not evidence and then expect people to believe in what has not been proven and then say they don't believe the evidence which is not evidence, because they don't believe in God which is bullshit.

For instance your previous assertions that a spiritual reality exists because the evidence shows that people have always worshiped God is a non sequitur based on an unfounded assumption that is simply untrue because many people have always worshiped things that we now know beyond any doubt are not God. People used to worship trees, or the star and moon, or animals, or made up mythological creatures which are not gods and have no existence or basis in reality and the historical worship of that which does not exist does not prove the existence of anything and is not evidence of the existence of spiritual reality or God..

You also never addressed the fact that by and large most people who ever lived were only pretending to believe in what ever god was being worshiped at the time out of fear and self preservation because if they didn't act like they believed they were shunned, made anathema, banned from the synagogue, beaten, persecuted, imprisoned or killed.

Believe whatever you want to believe, but don't act so bewildered when you encounter other people who just don't have what it takes to be so gullible.

 

[Picaro]

There is a growing body of evidence that points to religious speculations have a biological base. If it is found, it doesn't prove religious beliefs are false, nor does it prove there is no God and that concept is a delusion, either. Just because somebody doesn't believe in creationism doesn't mean they are obligated to believe in evolution. These are beliefs, not empirical evidence. Both are similar in general concept; one isn't 'superior' to the other, nor are those who believe in the first 'dumber' than those who believe in evolution. On the other hand, one contributes greatly to sociological and cultural strengths and progress over time, while the other doesn't contribute anything to those. As far as any evidence goes, it's not going to harm children if both intelligent design and evolution were taught in schools, any more than it ever did in the past, as long as they come to understand both are not proven but are just hypotheses.

 

[Foxfyre]

There is a growing body of evidence that points to religious speculations have a biological base. If it is found, it doesn't prove religious beliefs are false, nor does it prove there is no God and that concept is a delusion, either. Just because somebody doesn't believe in creationism doesn't mean they are obligated to believe in evolution. These are beliefs, not empirical evidence. Both are similar in general concept; one isn't 'superior' to the other, nor are those who believe in the first 'dumber' than those who believe in evolution. On the other hand, one contributes greatly to sociological and cultural strengths and progress over time, while the other doesn't contribute anything to those. As far as any evidence goes, it's not going to harm children if both intelligent design and evolution were taught in schools, any more than it ever did in the past, as long as they come to understand both are not proven but are just hypotheses.

For many of us, knowledge/assurance of God is based on empirical evidence and is something quite different from pure faith. Where the faith comes in is trusting God beyond what we have experienced. But you are quite right that much of the scholarly concepts that are speculated, promoted, suggested, demanded, and bloviated about God are pure hypothesis and to choose to accept them is also of necessity faith based.

Because of our limited mortal existence, Evolution is not something that is empirically experienced, so most of us accept on faith that the scientific information about it that is available to us is trustworthy. We trust it based on our own ability to reason and understand logic, but it is faith based nonetheless.

While I do not promote intelligent design being taught as science, I agree that it does not harm students in the least to be honestly informed that many, including esteemed scientists, do see an order in the universe that logically goes beyond mere chance or accident and therefore there is justification for some sort of intelligent design in the process. And even though science currently has no means or process to investigate that, and the students should know that too, to allow the mind to embrace and consider it all is truly liberating and expands all possibilities to be explored.

 

[hobelim]

There is a growing body of evidence that points to religious speculations have a biological base. If it is found, it doesn't prove religious beliefs are false, nor does it prove there is no God and that concept is a delusion, either. Just because somebody doesn't believe in creationism doesn't mean they are obligated to believe in evolution. These are beliefs, not empirical evidence. Both are similar in general concept; one isn't 'superior' to the other, nor are those who believe in the first 'dumber' than those who believe in evolution. On the other hand, one contributes greatly to sociological and cultural strengths and progress over time, while the other doesn't contribute anything to those. As far as any evidence goes, it's not going to harm children if both intelligent design and evolution were taught in schools, any more than it ever did in the past, as long as they come to understand both are not proven but are just hypotheses.

For many of us, knowledge/assurance of God is based on empirical evidence and is something quite different from pure faith. Where the faith comes in is trusting God beyond what we have experienced. But you are quite right that much of the scholarly concepts that are speculated, promoted, suggested, demanded, and bloviated about God are pure hypothesis and to choose to accept them is also of necessity faith based.

Because of our limited mortal existence, Evolution is not something that is empirically experienced, so most of us accept on faith that the scientific information about it that is available to us is trustworthy. We trust it based on our own ability to reason and understand logic, but it is faith based nonetheless.

No, when a person claims that the world is no more than 6000 years old and has nothing but a collection of bronze age stories as evidence and another says that the world is billions of years older and points to the overwhelming geological and archeological evidence and gives you a human skeleton 200,000 years old to examine is is not a faith based belief but a verifiable fact based on verifiable evidence.

The two positions are not equal.

One is right, the other is wrong.

 

[Justin Davis]

But the failure to consider the unlimited possibilities or modes of existence due to God's unlimited power is the sort of thing that lets fuzzy thinking jam Him into a box in my experience, not the a careful definition of these implications. If God can do anything but something that would contradictorily deny Himself then what stops Him from being totally omnificence and there being total free will at the same time? What I'm getting from you and Q.W. is that you flatly reject that possibility base on our conception of time.

I don't see how my concept limits God in any way. I base my perceptions on what God has revealed of himself to me personally, however limited that may be. That I do not require God to be this or that is not coercive of God nor does it restrict him to any particular character or state of being, but it is simply what I believe he has revealed to humankind. To insist that God MUST be this or that seems to me to be much more coercive.

To insist or to know from what God Himself has revealed? Once again, it is not I or Justin, as far as I can tell, who is putting God in chains around here. Though, admittedly, I haven't been able to read all of his posts.

I'm sharing with you what's self-evident to all from the general revelation (the cosmological order beginning with our own reflections upon the problem of existence and origin) should they take the blinders off and open up their minds. These are the very same things asserted about God in the Bible, and the Bible tells us they are self-evident from reflection on the contents of our minds relative to the principle of identity too. There in the Bible! The Bible tells us they may be seen without scripture, but scripture backs what I'm telling you.

I have nothing to do with what is being revealed. I have nothing to do with stamping the Image God on your mind. I'm sharing with you the universally apparent attributes of God in terms of their entire upper range without limitations of any kind whatsoever, save one: God will not and cannot violate the principle of Identity, as He is the ultimate Principle of Identity: God = NOT-God for obvious reasons cannot be.

That's coercive? That's requiring Him to be something He's not or must be? I don't know what your imaging, but that's the only limit I'm talking about. There is no other limitation on Him or full, unrestrained expression of His attributes whatsoever.

For example, Foxfyre, there is no reason to believe that absolute omniscience and free will cannot coexist. The Bible utterly rejects that contention! That restraint. That length of chain. God does not have to limit His knowledge in any sense whatsoever for free will to thrive.

The principle of identity does not tell us that's impossible and neither does the Bible. Illusion. That's not a movie in the can--your chain on Him. Illusion. QW is wrong. I just falsified his notion that existents cannot be two or more things simultaneously according to the principle of identity. False. The principle of identity readily and coherently apprehends such things with no problem at all.

Perhaps if you were to take a look at that fact, you'd realize that it's you who are believing something that originated, by the way, from secular philosophers making baby talk, trying to put God into their models of being.

I have looked at that fact and still draw my own conclusions with the reason and logic that God gave me. You obviously have been very well educated in theology and I do not question your motives or intentions here. But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments, and not always charitably or without insult, and sometimes I think that weakens your own arguments. Is it possible that you have adopted one particular theory of theology and have closed your own mind to other possibilities? One thing I have learned about God is that anytime we think we have God all figured out, we are most likely to have it wrong.

From where I'm standing I'm seeing a lot of claims being made that can't be objectively backed by rational experience of by the Bible. I'm a young Christian, new to the faith but I'm not new to the Bible. I was raised in a Baptist church that my mother attended with us kids. I just went along but I do know the Bible as I had to do all those Bible studies for years. Of course reading the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit is a whole other level of understanding from just the intellectual level. The idea that the basic attributes of God are known from the act of thinking about the possible ultimate source of existence being intelligent and spiritual rather than being material, that humans can perceive what that would mean in the highest sense is biblical. David, Moses, the prophets and the apostles talk about that and why God did that to our minds constantly. Some of the best affirmations of this are found in the Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Daniel, Job, the epistles and the gospels. The very things that can be known about God by thinking about the issue of origin are specifically named by the inspired writers also. I have no problemfollowing what M.D.R. is saying. What he calls the "imperatives of the problem of origin" that come to our minds when we think about the idea of God without the Bible are in the Bible. The Bible teaches that these things can be seen without the Bible and what they are. I don't get what arguments you think he's rejecting out of hand. I still don't really know what you're saying about free will. All I can get out of what you said is that you believe free will happens. M.D.R. believes free will happens. I believe free will happens. I believe the same way he does that total omniscience and free will can be at the same time. You seem to be saying that these two things can't happen at the same time but you don't really say why that can't be, except that for some reason you think that means everything is mapped out.

If you were given limited omniscience that allowed you to see every second/minute/hour of what you would be doing, thinking, speaking, believing, hoping during the next 24 hours, is not that 24 hours already determined? There is nothing you can do to change it. It is fixed already in time in that the past/present/future already exists. How then do you have free will within that concept? For what purpose is this existence if your present has no ability to alter or change your future?

I understand the reasoning of the supposed philosophical paradox. What I don't understand is why Christians think it's a problem since organic rules of logic from God and the Bible tells us God is the deity of infinite simultaneousness. What I learned from my awful encounter with that atheist is that you can't defend the cosmological argument or explain anything else if you abandon complete divine omniscience. What you get is a multitude of contradictions, paradoxes much bigger than what is really not a problem at all. Everything unravels and I mean everything. That's the first thing he asked me, if I believed I had free will like the Bible says. The he asked me how I could have free will if God knows everything like the Bible says. Easy I said. God can do anything, which was the right answer but I didn't have the understanding to explain how in this case. Then he asks me if God contradicts Himself. All I'm telling you is that there's no good reason to limit God. The understanding that God lives in the eternal now and the understanding of God's logic which we have and by which we can see that an infinite number of states of existence can exist simultaneously is all we need to know to see that the paradox of secular philosophers if a false dilemma and the Bible backs all of this.