prometheus11
Well-Known Member
Have you proved "a world of contingent beings" and/or that the universe's processes are not sufficient?
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God is simple, not complex
- Thread starter Gambit
- Start date
Have you proved "a world of contingent beings" and/or that the universe's processes are not sufficient?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
I am making a philosophical or metaphysical argument for God's existence, not a scientific one. (God's existence is actually beyond the purview of science.) If the premises of a philosophical or metaphysical argument are sound, the conclusion is sound. (The conclusion follows by the dictates of logic.)
Gambit
Well-Known Member
What in the universe isn't contingent?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
"Contingent," in the context I employed the term, means "dependent." A contingent being is one that comes into being or existence. As such, its being is contingent (dependent) on a another being.
prometheus11
Well-Known Member
Are you suggesting that everything is contingent in order to assert something that isn't? Cause that's just stupid, if so.
Reflex
Active Member
Are you illiterate? Or just too intellectually lazy to read the article I linked to, one of the "prominent atheists [who] display an almost aggressive lack of curiosity when it comes to the facts about belief"?
prometheus11
Well-Known Member
I was wanting to discuss your issues. But not anymore. Your attitude is too off putting.
So the natural argument against contingency is that that opposes cause and effect?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
If science dispenses with causality, then it has no causal explanations - just correlations and observations.
So?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
What good is metaphysical naturalism if can't explain anything?
Reflex
Active Member
The lack of curiosity some posters display with respect to the deeper elements of theology is truly remarkable, even to point of being aggressive. No less remarkable is their utter lack of insight when it comes to meaning. By their own admission, for example, something as elementary as “God does not exist but is existence itself” completely eludes them. Some, while extremely confident of their knowledge and understanding of religion, are so arrogant and superficial that its makes more sense to simply ignore them. Others misappropriate terms used for logical fallacies in order to avoid he real issues so much, that one wonders whether their real interests lies in a kind of sophistry that goes nowhere. They, too, are simply ignored.
I know, I know. I'm being sanctimonious and judgmental. That's okay. I'm not a Christian. The fact remains, forums such as this are very distracting from what should one's real aim—self-edification. Whether I'm going to stick around remains to be seen. Nevertheless, here's the problem with scientism, which many atheists here heavily rely on, spelled-out. I only hope it doesn't traumatize those still clinging to their security blanket.
I know, I know. I'm being sanctimonious and judgmental. That's okay. I'm not a Christian. The fact remains, forums such as this are very distracting from what should one's real aim—self-edification. Whether I'm going to stick around remains to be seen. Nevertheless, here's the problem with scientism, which many atheists here heavily rely on, spelled-out. I only hope it doesn't traumatize those still clinging to their security blanket.
Briefly, scientism is the view that science alone gives us knowledge of reality. Of course, that just raises the question of what we mean by “science.” One problem with scientism is that if you define “science” narrowly -- so that it includes physics and chemistry, say, but not philosophy or theology -- then scientism ends up being self-refuting, because it is not itself a scientific claim but a philosophical one. On the other hand, if you define “science” broadly enough so that it avoids being self-refuting, then it becomes vacuous, because it now no longer rules out philosophy, theology, or pretty much anything else adherents of scientism want to be able to dismiss without a hearing as “unscientific.”
A second problem with scientism is that science cannot in principle give us a complete description of the world, both because science takes for granted certain assumptions it cannot justify in a non-circular fashion (such as that perception is reliable, that there is order in the world that is really there and not just projected onto it by the mind, etc.), and because the methods of science of their nature can obscure as much as they reveal. For example, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell -- who was no friend of Scholasticism or of religion -- often emphasized, the methods of physics give us only the abstract mathematical structure of physical reality, but do not and cannot tell us the intrinsic nature of whatever is the underlying reality that has that structure.
A third problem is science cannot in principle provide a complete explanation of the phenomena it describes. Science explains things by tracing them down to ever deeper laws of nature. But what it cannot tell you is what a “law of nature” is in the first place and why it operates. It really is amazing how unreflectively atheists and advocates of scientism appeal to the notion of “laws,” given how deeply philosophically problematic the very notion is. Earlier generations of scientists were aware of the philosophical puzzles raised by the nature of scientific explanation, and some contemporary scientists (such as Paul Davies) are also sensitive to the puzzles raised by the very idea of a “law of nature” (which is actually a holdover from an idiosyncratic theology to which Descartes and Newton were committed, but which Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophers reject just as much as atheists do).
But most contemporary scientists tend not to have the general education that figures of the generation of Einstein, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg did. They don’t know philosophy well, and they also don’t know what they don’t know. This goes double for the more aggressively atheistic ones among them -- people like Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, Richard Dawkins, and Jerry Coyne. Hence they repeatedly commit very crude philosophical mistakes but also refuse to listen or respond when these mistakes are pointed out to them.
Anyway, the main reason scientism has the following it does is probably that people are, quite rightly, impressed with the technological and predictive successes of modern science. The trouble is that this simply gives us no reason whatsoever to believe scientism -- that is to say, it gives us no reason to believe that science alone gives us knowledge. To draw that conclusion you need to assume that if something is real, then it will be susceptible of a precise mathematical description that will make strict prediction and technological application possible. Now that is itself a philosophical or metaphysical assumption, not a scientific one. But it is also an assumption that there is not only no reason to believe, but decisive reason to reject, as I argue in the book. [Scholastic Metaphysics]
What the mathematically-oriented methods of modern physics do is to focus on those aspects of nature which can be strictly predicted and controlled and to ignore anything that doesn’t fit that method. As a result, physics tends brilliantly to uncover those aspects of reality that fit that method, and which can therefore be exploited technologically. But it simply does not follow that there are no other aspects of reality. To think otherwise is like the drunk’s fallacy of assuming that his lost car keys must be under the street lamp somewhere, because that is where the light is.
--Ed Feser
A second problem with scientism is that science cannot in principle give us a complete description of the world, both because science takes for granted certain assumptions it cannot justify in a non-circular fashion (such as that perception is reliable, that there is order in the world that is really there and not just projected onto it by the mind, etc.), and because the methods of science of their nature can obscure as much as they reveal. For example, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell -- who was no friend of Scholasticism or of religion -- often emphasized, the methods of physics give us only the abstract mathematical structure of physical reality, but do not and cannot tell us the intrinsic nature of whatever is the underlying reality that has that structure.
A third problem is science cannot in principle provide a complete explanation of the phenomena it describes. Science explains things by tracing them down to ever deeper laws of nature. But what it cannot tell you is what a “law of nature” is in the first place and why it operates. It really is amazing how unreflectively atheists and advocates of scientism appeal to the notion of “laws,” given how deeply philosophically problematic the very notion is. Earlier generations of scientists were aware of the philosophical puzzles raised by the nature of scientific explanation, and some contemporary scientists (such as Paul Davies) are also sensitive to the puzzles raised by the very idea of a “law of nature” (which is actually a holdover from an idiosyncratic theology to which Descartes and Newton were committed, but which Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophers reject just as much as atheists do).
But most contemporary scientists tend not to have the general education that figures of the generation of Einstein, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg did. They don’t know philosophy well, and they also don’t know what they don’t know. This goes double for the more aggressively atheistic ones among them -- people like Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, Richard Dawkins, and Jerry Coyne. Hence they repeatedly commit very crude philosophical mistakes but also refuse to listen or respond when these mistakes are pointed out to them.
Anyway, the main reason scientism has the following it does is probably that people are, quite rightly, impressed with the technological and predictive successes of modern science. The trouble is that this simply gives us no reason whatsoever to believe scientism -- that is to say, it gives us no reason to believe that science alone gives us knowledge. To draw that conclusion you need to assume that if something is real, then it will be susceptible of a precise mathematical description that will make strict prediction and technological application possible. Now that is itself a philosophical or metaphysical assumption, not a scientific one. But it is also an assumption that there is not only no reason to believe, but decisive reason to reject, as I argue in the book. [Scholastic Metaphysics]
What the mathematically-oriented methods of modern physics do is to focus on those aspects of nature which can be strictly predicted and controlled and to ignore anything that doesn’t fit that method. As a result, physics tends brilliantly to uncover those aspects of reality that fit that method, and which can therefore be exploited technologically. But it simply does not follow that there are no other aspects of reality. To think otherwise is like the drunk’s fallacy of assuming that his lost car keys must be under the street lamp somewhere, because that is where the light is.
--Ed Feser
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Pudding
Well-Known Member
According to the wiki page you provide:
Your meaning of God is simple, is that:
God's composition is only make up by one thing - A.
"Attributes" of God like his characteristics as B - omnipresence, C - goodness, D - truth, E - eternity, etc. are identical to God's composition - A.
That means A is not make up by B,C,D,E,etc. but they're equal, they're all the same in one body, they're inseparable, A=B=C=D=E=etc.
Is that why you think God is simple but not complex?
Gambit
Well-Known Member
Science is one thing, metaphysical naturalism another.
Pudding
Well-Known Member
Do God have a body?
I do not mean physical body but a body of container which itself is God.
Anyway if you think the word composition doesn't fit in here, i've revise the post to remove the usage of it.
Here it is.
According to the wiki page you provide:
Your meaning of God is simple, is that:
Let's give the God's being itself a symbol of A.
"A" stand for God's being itself.
Attributes of God like his characteristics eg. B - omnipresence, C - goodness, D - truth, E - eternity, etc. are identical to God's being A.
That means God's being A is not make up by his attributes of characteristics B,C,D,E,etc. but they're equal, they're all the same, they're inseparable, A=B=C=D=E=etc.
Is that why you think God is simple but not complex?
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outhouse
Atheistically
All you produce is polemic
Then promote Eds polemic.
Thanks for playing, but philosophy is not biblical history, nor does it give you any type of knowledge to talk down to atheist or science.
outhouse
Atheistically
You have not been here long enough to understand the first thing about the possibilities of this forum.
Your not a scholar, your just someone who likes to argue an educated argument about arguing.
outhouse
Atheistically
You act like every atheist here is one of the 4 horsemen of atheism, or that we are all anti theistic.
You have attacked me as such.
And in your mistaken polemic, you don't realize I have more passion for theism then most theist here.
Until you learn biblical scholars inside and out, and understand the middle of the academic road so to speak, knowing what is historical and what is not, your rhetoric will not fly here.
I would love for you to challenge us here. But you have not.
You hit a road block as soon as your started posting because we have argued most of your positions in full for years, and you did not realize a forum like this would level your polemic so quickly.
Sorry Charlie, fix the attitude and you would be welcomed.
Philosophy even talented, does not replace a lack of biblical knowledge. I think you have been found wanting and just don't like it.
outhouse
Atheistically
Unsubstantiated polemic.
I would eat Hart alive in a debate on god.
If I wanted to know about church fathers, I would seek his advise. It might not all be used but that is one of his stronger areas.
There is nothing immature about NOT making primitive ancient men's mistakes and repeating them add nauseam by living mythology.
Since you do not understand the concept of god, and have no credible education on the topic, why do you chose to debate against those free of the mythological bonds primitive men lived?