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10.2.5
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10.2.6
Questions for a Catholic
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
If God were to come down from heaven, and tell you that Jesus was not the son of God, and that Catholics were way out of touch, and that you should be following the teachings of Muhammad, what would you do? Let's also say this being that presented Himself could demonstrate to you beyond a reasonable doubt that He was God.
Yes.
Faith is a grace though, so I can't guarantee I'd believe unless he gave me that too.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
They knew he deserved unquestioning obedience.
Nothing deserves unquestioning obedience.
God does.
He's wise, of course, and gives us reasons of his own volition.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I am going to bed, but I think many people that read this discussion would find it funny that you attacked me for arguing in a loop when in fact most of Catholic teaching is based off a loop namely- this is correct because God wants it to be correct ---> God wants the Catholic Church to know what he views is correct --> Therefore he tells certain members of the faith what his will is ---> A council is called in which the Church, lead by the Pope's infallibility, passes this correct view --> this view is not incorrect in any way because God wants it to be correct--> God wants the Catholic Church to know what he views is correct....
EDIT: I'll leave you with more thought food, I read this and it bothered me: "It is impossible to define morality without the concept of God."
How is what you described circular? It all leads back to God.
And you can't define morality without reference to natural law, you can't define natural law without reference to eternal law, and you can define eternal law without reference to God.
So, yes, that quote is correct.
Post by
TheMediator
God does.
Why? I reject entirely the idea that certain things aren't for us to know. That sort of logic is why the dark ages were so backwards.
I find the whole "working in mysterious ways" to be a total cop-out. It seems like a case of the wizard of oz telling you not to look behind the curtain.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I reject entirely the idea that certain things aren't for us to know.
Who ever said anything about that?
Our final end is perfection in God and full knowledge of him.
That doesn't change the fact that
qua
God, he can command us without tell us why.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
@ Squish. I wrote a fairly detailed dissertation involving free will a couple years ago in college. I pulled it up and was going to edit it to be more on topic with your questions; but for some reason I can't concentrate enough to think straight for more than a couple minutes, so I'm going to do it tomorrow.
Post by
Squishalot
If God were to come down from heaven, and tell you that Jesus was not the son of God, and that Catholics were way out of touch, and that you should be following the teachings of Muhammad, what would you do? Let's also say this being that presented Himself could demonstrate to you beyond a reasonable doubt that He was God.
Yes.
Faith is a grace though, so I can't guarantee I'd believe unless he gave me that too.
How is that an answer to 'what would you do?'
How is what you described circular? It all leads back to God.
It presumes that you step into the circular loop with the assumption that God exists. As your morality argument. You can define a moral code without reference to God, as we've done in other threads.
@ Squish. I wrote a fairly detailed dissertation involving free will a couple years ago in college. I pulled it up and was going to edit it to be more on topic with your questions; but for some reason I can't concentrate enough to think straight for more than a couple minutes, so I'm going to do it tomorrow.
That's cool, looking forward to it. The unedited version would be interesting too - by no means is my interest defined solely by the questions I put forward above.
Is it from a philosophical PoV, or the interaction with Christianity, out of curiosity?
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
How is that an answer to 'what would you do?'
I read 'would you do it' for some reason.
What would I do? I'd do whatever he told me to do.
It presumes that you step into the circular loop with the assumption that God exists. As your morality argument. You can define a moral code without reference to God, as we've done in other threads.
I've maintained since the beginning that God's existence is not an assumption, but a demonstrable fact.
And, @ morality. My point is that any definition of morality that can't be linked back to God is not a complete definition of it. You can go and define it however you want, but you'll hit a brick wall eventually if you have no ultimate Divine source.
Is it from a philosophical PoV, or the interaction with Christianity, out of curiosity?
Moral Theology. In connection with the above point, human freedom cannot be fully understood without reference to God.
Post by
Squishalot
Sounds good, looking forward to hearing from you.
Post by
R1TeR
What does Jesus think of Budda?
Post by
165617
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Skyfire
I would like to thank the youtube user, "QualiaSoup" who I borrowed quite heavily from.
I knew I recognized the argument.
Post by
165617
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Here is what I pulled out. If it seems kind of disjointed, that's because it is; the paper itself was on teleology and I only brought in a discussion of the will as needed. I also tried to trim off all direct references to God, but some parts were still necessary.
...
Before delving into the discussion of free will, a distinction must be made between free and voluntary. Voluntary comes from the Latin
voluntas
(will) and this is the meaning being applied here. Thus, it follows that every act of the will is voluntary, regardless of whether we are speaking about a free will or not. Now freedom can mean two things: autonomy or freedom as a perfection of nature. The former is what is thrown around nowadays, but in reality that's not how humans usually think about freedom. Take two men: one has a broken leg, while the other is perfectly healthy. The unbroken leg is ordered in a very specific way with very little room for autonomy, yet it has a perfection of its nature and thus can achieve its end (to cause the man to walk). The broken leg has a potentially infinite number of possible ways of being broken—it is completely autonomy to any ordering—yet its nature is not perfected for it cannot achieve its end. That brings us to the real question: which man is more free? From the reasons given above, the man with an ordered body seems to be more free than the man with the broken leg.
So we can now define freedom the ability to act in accord with a thing's nature. Thus, we can say that every free act is voluntary, but not every voluntary act attains the perfection of human freedom. That every free act is voluntary follows from the fact that our nature is ordered towards an end, and we can only move ourselves toward an end by virtue of our will (as informed by reason). That not every voluntary act attains the perfection of human freedom is made obvious just by looking at particular human acts; humans fail to achieve certain ends all the time.
There is a further issue to look into. Does the fact that we are ordered to an end make our actions less free? Some would say yes, but if one really understands that freedom is a perfection of nature then it cant be so. I am not confined by my nature, I AM my nature; and as long as I am free to act according to that nature, I am free.
An interesting tangent arises. One question that often surfaces in discussions of freedom is whether God is free? Now people normally ask that with the concept of autonomy in mind. Could he have commanded us to hate one another? they ask. Could he have made us to hate him? If one merely thinks of this according to autonomy, the answer would have to be yes. But that is a very paradoxical view of God, that an infinitely perfect God could command evil, all in the name of freedom and autonomy. However, now take the question from the perspective of freedom that has been discussed up till now. God's nature is The Good, to act according to it is the most free thing God can do. And since God is perfect, his will is perfectly in line with his Nature and his Divine Wisdom; so any act contrary to his Nature or Wisdom would be an imperfection. So even God acts according to his nature, but neither is he any less free because of it.
Humans are a different story. We are imperfect and often act in dis-accord with our nature. Now, as has been already stated, are will is the cause of any (rational) action that we perform, so even those acts that are in dis-accord with our nature are voluntary, but it follows from are definition of freedom that they are not free actions. Yes, we always act for the good, but not always with right reason. The man who acts for the good by killing people really thinks he's acting for the good, but he reason is wrong. So a misinformed reason is in fact a cause of a lack of freedom, which makes sense. If we as humans knew perfectly how to achieve our end, we would all do it, yet we wouldn't call that a lack of freedom; it's, again, our misinformed reason that is the lack of freedom.
Now, a short consideration of human end is necessary. Our end can be no finite good, because any finite good can be seen a lack of good (insofar as it is finite); more good can always be added to a finite good. Thus, if our end is infinite good, no finite good can compel our will. This, it would seem, is the closest one can get to the modern notion of autonomy. Even if someone is holding a gun to your head, the good of your continued well-being does not compel you; you can move your will in any direction.
A further point arises when you consider Divine Providence. As Aristotle rightly stated, a thing cannot move itself from potency to act except by virtue of something in act. Divine Providence is that 'first mover' or that act by which we act. That, however, does not diminish the fact that we are still the ones doing the acts; the will is the cause of its own willing—but to be the cause of something, one need not be the first cause. So, yes, our will is moved in principle by God; yet our will is still contingent with respect to finite being. To will something outside of the Divine Providence is to will something contrary to ourselves.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Now, apply this to a larger scale, the universe, which is real like the cube, and a realm of existence that you cannot reach and is inaccessible.
But it is accessible, to an extent. I know I exist. Therefore there is existence, and therefore the cube is not a vacuum. I could go on, but that's enough. There are things we
can
know.
You could say, there is Heaven, but that would be based off of nothing whatsoever, there is no facts to back this.
Facts aren't the only thing that things are based off. My knowledge of the female psyche is a knowledge by analogy. The only things I have to work on are my own psyche and the products of both the male and the female psyche. So the only way I can come to know anything about it is by analogy.
The argument of faith is therefore invalid because there is no valid justification and because there is no valid justification, there is no reason to accept this claim.
Why is there no valid justification? There is no factual justification for it, there is no factual justification against it, therefore by your own logic you can't accept it nor deny it. But facts are not the only thing valid as was said above.
Now again, your confusing Philosophy and Theology. I have maintained and I still do, that the existence of God can be demonstrated philosophically, yet you continue to dismiss that claim based on it being 'faith' without a single philosophical argument to the contrary.
The argument that there is a Divine Being is just as valid as saying that aliens created the universe and blew themselves up when they created it.
No, because there is no valid philosophical proof for the latter.
Since at this most basic level, that there is no possible way that you can prove that there is a Divine Being
Again, where's your argument?
there is no way that the arguments you have presented earlier in this thread are valid because they are based off of flawed reasoning, just like my brother and the laptop.
"It's flawed because I say so" isn't enough.
So all the arguments you have presented or could also present, such as the argument of complexities, the Ontological Argument and so on are all based off of false premises and/or false conclusions and unjustified presuppositions.
Yet you refraim from actually attacking the arguments themselves.
And so your 12345 invalid arguments do not equal a correct one.
Neither does yours.
Finally, you run into an issue of defining God- the more specific you get, the more you have to justify, there are more numerous logical problems and therefore, the ideas are tossed out. Attributes you give to God cannot be justified because you are again, basing it off nothing that can be proven.
Adam and Eve (or ape-man and ape-woman) couldn't prove the Pythagorean theorem, yet it was true. According to your line of reasoning it wasn't true.
Which brings up the point of God being nonphysical- that claim cannot be quantified, tested or perceived even in principle. So once you put up a nonphysical being, God(s) X,Y or Z, you are basing it off of something that cannot be reliably examined or quantified even in principle. Therefore, you remove the two structures that would hold up this being, those being logic and evidence. Once you remove those, there is nothing you can base your argument off of.
Again, "I can't see X therefore it
cannot
be true" is a fallacy.
Post by
165617
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
You know, for someone who dislikes arguing about definitions, you sure did a lot of it in your dissertation :)
Let's see now....
So we can now define freedom the ability to act in accord with a thing's nature.
Is that really freedom? Consider the case of a computer program that has the ability to act in accord with its nature. Is it free? In the same way that a person is free when their leg is intact, is a tree 'free' when its branches are intact and capable of acting in accord with its nature?
Of course, perhaps it's because I see 'freedom' as autonomy. Did you address free will in the context of 'freedom = autonomy', as opposed to acting in accord with its nature? I'm not sure if that's one of the things you chopped out, or whether it was a gap in your paper.
That every free act is voluntary follows from the fact that our nature is ordered towards an end, and we can only move ourselves toward an end by virtue of our will (as informed by reason).
The fact that we move by virtue of our will can be considered voluntary. But I believe that that's because you've defined voluntary in reference to one's will. If you define voluntary as 'having the ability to make a different choice', then you can suggest that nothing we do is voluntary, as our 'will' is programmed in a deterministic way - that is, our 'will' is merely a consequent event of a series of precedent events.
Can we think any differently to the way we do? No. Can you change your mind? Yes, but you would only ever do so as a result of changing stimuli. Can you change your mind just to spite me? Absolutely, but again, you'd be doing so because of billions of precedent events that caused you to be the way that you are, not because you somehow have a 'choice' to be what you are. You can argue that a conscious choice can influence future events, but that conscious choice is predetermined, and unchangeable.
So in response to the first half dealing with free will (since the rest is really built up in part on that) - I disagree with your definition of free will from a philosophical perspective. I can agree that 'will' should be defined as the ability to make voluntary choices, but I disagree that:
a) 'freedom' can be represented as 'perfection of nature', on the grounds that a man would not call a tree 'free' (in the same style of argument as you make);
b) 'perfection of nature' is a suitable measure of freedom anyway, on the grounds that it is a subjective measurement that differs from person to person; and
c) 'voluntary' can be defined as being 'of the will', on the grounds that all conscious 'wills' are, in essence, 'involuntary' (from a colloquial definition - out of our control).
You use a colloquial argument to obtain your 'perfection of nature' definition of freedom. This is dangerous, as it opens you up to colloquial challenges. Is a computer or a tree 'free' by your definition? Does a computer have a will? If it doesn't have a will, then can we say any moreso that humans have a will, if we are simply a complex program of our past experiences?
And if a computer has a will insofar as it can take action towards its perfection of nature, and it can make voluntary choices as to what actions it takes (in line with its programming and past experiences/data), much the same as humans, does it therefore have free will, by your definition?
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Firstly, the argument is since you cannot prove the existence of God through facts or logic, therefore you cannot prove in anyway that there is a God.
And you missed the point where I denied your first premise and your hidden second premise.
As to the last thing you stated, how is that a fallacy?
'I can't see X therefore it may not exist' is the correct form.
'I can't see X therefore it cannot exist' is a fallacy because you are making something subjective into something objective.
Post by
Squishalot
The argument that there is a Divine Being is just as valid as saying that aliens created the universe and blew themselves up when they created it.
No, because there is no valid philosophical proof for the latter.
Flying Spaghetti Monster has just as much philosophical proof as Christianity does. Note:
Now again, your confusing Philosophy and Theology. I have maintained and I still do, that the existence of God can be demonstrated philosophically, yet you continue to dismiss that claim based on it being 'faith' without a single philosophical argument to the contrary.
Any such demonstration (which I still disagree with, but anyway) can only demonstrate that athiesm is incorrect, not that Christianity is correct. So if anything, it supports agnosticism. That the agnostic god is the Christian God is beyond your philosophical argument.
Post by
165617
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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