极速赛车168官网 Comments on: God: Eternity, Free Will, and the World https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/ A Digital Areopagus // Reason. Faith. Dialogue. Wed, 01 Dec 2021 16:18:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 极速赛车168官网 By: VicqRuiz https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-225007 Wed, 01 Dec 2021 16:18:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-225007 In reply to Tommy E.

Wow, a reply to a four year old post! Only on SN.

To your point, I think you can make those statements as plausible inferences, but I'd have to see it demonstrated that you could get there by pure deductive reasoning.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Tommy E https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-224999 Wed, 01 Dec 2021 06:49:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-224999 In reply to VicqRuiz.

One can reason to the point that because God creates all things out of His own goodness, and because we are rational beings who can choose to adhere to the goodness God ordained to us according to our natural, the best possible thing God could do to direct our own acts towards perfect our Nature is for him to manifest Himself in human form and exemplify what it truly means to live as a perfect human.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Tommy E https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-224998 Wed, 01 Dec 2021 06:29:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-224998 In reply to Jim (hillclimber).

As a perfectly good being, God wills that which is perfectly good for Himself.

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极速赛车168官网 By: BCE https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-196801 Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:37:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-196801 In reply to Vince.

I don't think so.
Like sets.
A super-set is one single thing, regardless of multiple sub sets; even new things are assumed into its wholeness
It can appear that the supper-set changes, but it's not a number of things, it
is always whole.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Vince https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-196789 Wed, 13 Feb 2019 01:01:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-196789 Thomism really doesn't have a good answer on how to reconcile Divine freedom, Divine omnipotence, Divine simplicity, and the contingency (in the modal sense) of the actual world. You switch back and forth between what is the case given that God created the actual world (in which case yes, it's impossible for Him to "change His mind" and create another) and what is the case merely given God (in which case other worlds are possible), and it is the latter which is at issue.

I'll define "cworld" as created world - meaning everything except for God.

And here are the following aporetic premises.

There are possible worlds in which God creates a different cworld then the actual cworld. (Otherwise the actual cworld is modally necessary (modal collapse), and God's will to create this cworld is necessary).

God's will to create differs across those possible worlds (since His will to create in any world entails that particular cworld).

God's essence is identical across all of those possible cworlds (Divine aseity - otherwise "God" is not a necessary being if different Gods exist in different worlds).

God's essence is identical to His will to create (Divine simplicity).

And the last statement, which entails that God's will to create is identical across possible worlds, contradicts the second, which says it is not.

So the choices are to accept modal collapse, accept non-determinative causation, deny Divine aseity, or deny Divine simplicity.

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极速赛车168官网 By: IdPnSD https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-196007 Wed, 19 Dec 2018 02:15:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-196007 “God’s existence is that God is the Uncaused First Cause. Since God is uncaused, he cannot be the subject of motion or change, because whatever is moved or changed must be moved or changed by another.” – This definition has two problems: (1) It cannot mean that the God is the creator of the universe. Every soul has the above same property, every object has a soul, and that soul has created that object. (2) Changing does not mean someone is changing it. It only means a soul is experiencing knowledge by interacting with physical objects. Reincarnation of subtle body makes a soul knowledgeable.

Bible says – “God is spirit”, and a spirit is same as soul. Bible also says “we are made out of dust.” This dust is nothing but the cosmic dust, and is known as the root material in Vedas. This dust is also in uncaused. Every object is created by a soul from this dust. Thus there is no God that created the entire universe. For more on destiny and yogic power take a look at the free book on soul theory at https://theoryofsouls.wordpress.com/

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极速赛车168官网 By: Skeptic_Thinking_Power https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-194144 Sun, 14 Oct 2018 23:36:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-194144 A response to your post has been provided here:

http://www.atheismandthecity.com/2018/10/god-eternity-free-will-and-world.html

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极速赛车168官网 By: Karun Sagar https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-192828 Sat, 11 Aug 2018 05:18:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-192828 Untill you prove that god grants free will, god is utterly irrelevant to free will. It is just as sound to claim god annihilates the possibility of free will.

Also, "free will" as you're defining it isn't "choice", it's "choice independent of who you are".

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极速赛车168官网 By: Jim the Scott https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-192193 Tue, 31 Jul 2018 05:05:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-192193 In reply to Alvin Kimel.

Hello Father.
Dr. B sent me to chime in on this one. First what is modal collapse? I lifted this definition off the net.

God is traditionally taken to be a necessarily existing being who is unsurpassably powerful, knowledgeable, and good. The familiar problem of actual evil claims that the presence of gratuitous suffering in the actual world constitutes evidence against the existence of such a being. In contrast, the problem of possible evil claims that the possibility of bad worlds constitutes evidence against theism. How? It seems plausible to suppose that there are very bad possible worlds. But if God exists in every world, then God exists in those, too. And if God exists in very bad worlds, some say, God is culpable for not ensuring that they are better.

My responses channeling my inner Fr. Brian Davies and general Thomism.
1) The premises are all wrong. There is no such thing as the "best of all possible worlds". Only God alone is perfect and if He makes a world He can always make a worst or better one then the one He actually makes. Aquinas proved God is not obligated to make any particular world and that there is no world so good God is obligated to make it and none so bad that as long as it participates in being God should refrain from making it. 2) Heaven is not the "best of all Possible worlds" since Heaven is basically the saved soul gazing at the Beatific Vision(or if you prefer participating in the divine energies) which you should know Fr. Kimel is uncreated & divine omnipotence means having All Powers. There is no "power" to "create the uncreated" as that is incoherent and a contradiction. Thus God is still omnipotent & yet can't do something. 3) God is not a moral agent unequivocally compared to human moral agents as such God thought metaphysically good and ontologically good (thus being the Good in all good things) has no obligations to His creatures. (see Davies). 4) I've read your blog in the Past Fr. Kimel and in short this whole argument presupposes a Theistic Personalist view of God that a Catholic Thomist like myself and an Orthodox Priest like yourself rejects. Speaking personally I hate Theistic Personalism with the fire of ten thousand suns as I hate all idolatry. Go Classic Theism! Long Live the God of Abraham, Aquinas and even Palamas! Cheers Father. Pray for me a sinner. In summery there is not such thing as either "the best or worst of all possible worlds". Whatever world God makes he can always make a worst or better one then He has made & He is not obligated to make any of them.

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极速赛车168官网 By: Alvin Kimel https://strangenotions.com/god-eternity-free-will-and-the-world/#comment-192166 Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:55:00 +0000 https://strangenotions.com/?p=7494#comment-192166 Dr Bonnette,

I find myself returning to this article again and again, as I struggle with the question of divine freedom and divine creation. I have found the section "Objections Answered" particularly helpful. Thank you. I have a couple of questions, but I shall ask them in separate comments. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

In my readings on this topic of divine freedom, I keep running into the objection, considered by some (many?) to be a decisive, namely, modal collapse (https://philarchive.org/archive/MULSIA-2v1). I find myself struggling to really understand what it really entails. I was hoping you might help me get a better grasp of this objection and then respond to it directly.

Fr Alvin Kimel

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