Determinism, Compatibilsm, Free Will, Ex Nihilo

[seven7up]

So you're still making the assumption that an entity with the capability of knowing everything would choose to know everything.

Classical theism says that God perfectly knows everything that will ever happen, even before God ever brought anything into existence Ex Nihilo. I am criticizing that theology.

That is the kind of What's the point of existence for such a being? Any goal it would have could be achieved in less than a second. Even if its goal was to bring forth humanity out of love, as is often claimed, any involvement could be set ahead of time with interference being "pre-recorded".

Well, I agree with you that if God is creating Ex Nihilo, then why make a millions/billions year process? He could make it all happen instantly.

But the Goal of God is not to gain novelty, it is to bring imperfection to perfection, an amazing accomplishment...., to glorify His children, which brings glory to God.


-7up

[seven7up]

He is outside of our time.

Sure. That makes more sense than God being outside of time altogether.


Exactly.

Now, God even knows which persons will have godly love. Why not just create those ones, and refrain from creating the ones that deny godly love.

If God can do anything imaginable, then why not create beings with a better nature, more wisdom, who make better choices? You believe that Jesus has free will, don't you? Why not create a world of Jesuses? .....or at the very least, a world of Noahs, Marys, Enochs, Peters, etc.

God refraining from creating people who God knows will end up in hell would not take away the free will of those who choose godly love.

There are problems here with ex nihilo theology. The real question is whether or not you are willing to acknowledge them. That's all.

If anyone could have had it (godly love) from the first (their creation) than Adam and Eve would have had it. It by definition of Godly type Love that a being could not be created with this Love.

Adam and Eve were disobedient, ignorant and easily deceived. Seems to me that those are serious design flaws, IF God could create any kind of being that is logically possible.

I quoted Blake Ostler , who wrote, "{The "free-will defence" of evangelicals} assumes that God must create morally fallible persons if he creates them free. However, that is not true given evangelical assumptions. If God creates ex nihilo, then he can create any persons that it is logically possible to create. He certainly could have created more morally sensitive and rational persons than we are. Indeed, Francis Beckwith, in his contribution to NMC, argues that perfectly rational beings are perfectly good even though free to choose evil if they wish. If Beckwith is correct, then the fact that a person rationally chooses to always do what is right is not incompatible with libertarian free will. Given the creedal view, there is no reason that God could not have created perfectly rational persons who will always see by the light of reason that always choosing what is right is the most rational course. Thus, God had open to him the possibility of creating more intelligent and morally sensitive creatures who would bring about less evil than we do because of sheer irrationality. God is thus morally indictable for having created creatures who bring about more evil than other creatures he could have created from nothing."

Mature adults can obtain this Love and thus have it, but I do not find where people were born with this Love or even how that would be possible, so please give me your scripture?

Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

All Christian have this Love since they accepted the gift.

Non-Christians don't love anybody?

7up: Are you saying that God's love, which is instinctive, is just robotic?

We are talking about the NATURE of God. If God wanted people to have a better nature, or a loving nature, then why create inherently flawed creatures from nothing? As explained above, having an inherently loving nature does not mean that you have no free will.

7up: Who is holding the shotgun at God? When instinctive and genuine love are inherent in an individual, that does not mean that it is forced.

True, but I gave two alternatives one being instinctive (robotic) and the other being forced on the being, so neither of those work for obtaining Godly type Love.

But we have established that instinctive love, inherent love is not forced.

You are essentially claiming that inherent and instinctive love must be obtained, however, if God is creating any kind of being that is logically possible from God's own mind, and in a blink of an eye bring anyone into being, ... then a process simply is not necessary.

Forgiveness would not be necessary if God created infallible beings of free will, which IS logically possible if God is creating Ex Nihilo.

-7up

[Bill the Cat]

Yes, and according to you, he knows it eternally even before he creates the temporal copy of it? So in what sense are you, the temporal copy of gods eternal idea of you, the cause of your own actions? And please don't just assert free will, unless you can logically explain how free will comports with that argument.

Because I am the source of the eternal idea. He knew I would exist, therefore I exist. I exist, therefore He knew I would exist. It's a symbiotic relationship. Knowledge and knowing.

How can they change that which is eternal?

They can't. That's the entire point I am making! God can't change what He knows.

Sorry Bill, but you are not making a single iota of sense.

I am making it as clear as I can. Making a claim that if God knows a bad outcome, He can change it is nonsensical.

Of course god knows, he's known it from eternity, which means that it is deterministic and that he is the cause. You can't describe a deterministic system and then incorporate free will. Your argument is self contradicting.

No it isn't. If the parameters of that causation are bound to a specific set of instructions. He causes inside our timeline based on our actions that He knows outside of it.

Again thats totally illogical Bill. What came first, the eternal idea or the temporal copy?

That's a silly question. Since the eternal idea exists simultaneously in all points of eternity, that's like asking which came first in geometry, the line or the separate line segment.

Are you free to change gods eternal idea of your temporal existence, or are you bound by it.

Again, that's nonsensical. God's eternal idea of my temporal existence is a product of His knowing my temporal actions perfectly. "Changing" is illogical because it would break the cycle of what He knows about what I am doing. I am bound by what I have decided to do right now, which can't be changed once it is done, and God is bound by what He knows about it.

Bill, you are putting the cart before the horse so to speak. Your entire life, according to your argument, existed as an idea in gods mind before you even existed.

And during, and after. There is no "before" with God in eternity.

If that were true, then you have no free will, you are just fulfilling the role you've been created for.

Because the role was written by me as I made decisions, which God knew.

God didn't get the eternal idea of you and your life from watching you, because you didn't yet exist.

From God's perspective, everything exists as "now"

And how do you provide god with that knowledge when he already possesses it eternally before you even exist?

Because the phrase "eternally before" is nonsensical.

I know that you are trying hard to justify omniscience of the creator and free will in the created, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You need to go back to the drawing board.

It works fine if you don't make God experience our time the way we do.

Your flaw is just as illogical as 7up's in that you think that your entire life span exists in the mind of your creator before you actually exist, before he actually creates you, and that you still somehow have free will.

Where do you think the knowledge in God's mind comes from then? If He knows everything about you, down to the smallest strand of hair on your head, where does He get that knowledge? If we posit a God who already knows our entire life because of the choices we make, why is it illogical to ascribe the action to us and the knowledge to Him?

Whatever you think of Mormonism is irrelevant, your own argument needs to make sense. It doesn't.

Not true. It's part of the reason I even looked into this subject. I looked at how prophecy worked in the scriptures, and what the ramifications were if God didn't know the future, and how free will would affect prophecy and foreknowledge. I'm not extremely interested in defending the existence of God. 7up's presence in this thread and his mention of the goofy dice nonsense was the sole reason I joined.

[Bill the Cat]

I never said I know what kind of foreknowledge God has.

But you sure don't mind proclaiming what kind He DOESN'T have...

People can believe in God having perfect foreknowledge without God having total control of outcomes.

As I do

As long as God isn't creating Ex Nihilo, God isn't determining outcomes,

He isn't even WITH ex Nihilo.

because with creation Ex Materia, God is doing the "best possible with what God has to work with", which is eternally-existing non-divine entities.

And why do the "eternally-existing non-divine entities" even submit to work with him? He is the same as them, just evolved a bit further for some nondescript reason of chance. Is he just the means to an end for them to get where he is?

[Psychic Missile]

Classical theism says that God perfectly knows everything that will ever happen, even before God ever brought anything into existence Ex Nihilo. I am criticizing that theology.

Fine.

Well, I agree with you that if God is creating Ex Nihilo, then why make a millions/billions year process? He could make it all happen instantly.

But the Goal of God is not to gain novelty, it is to bring imperfection to perfection, an amazing accomplishment...., to glorify His children, which brings glory to God.

-7up

What properties does that process possess that make it impossible for even a God to accomplish instantaneously?

[JimL]

I am saying that the example of dice is not meant to address anything about "How God rolls the dice". God is not even rolling the dice in this example. The dice are "rolling themselves so to speak". The example simply has the dice being truly random.

Then you can make the parallel, "Even IF each person had true free will, a God creating Ex Nihilo still determines outcomes, because God can decide which persons to create (or not create) out of infinite possible possibilities.

And where do you see free will in either of the above scenarios, because I don't see it? Also, if god creates the die/person, then he also is the cause of-sets it/him in motion.

I am saying that Ex Nihilo places the responsibility onto God, not foreknowledge.

I never argued that foreknowledge itself was the cause, I only argue that if foreknowledge exists then the foreknowing creator is the cause, is responsible.

Well, I think you are referring to my second argument. This is where I was telling Bill that God creating ex nihilo determines outcomes because the created characteristics of each individual (characteristics that God created from God's own mind) will lead an individual in a specific path to a certain outcome.

What difference does ex-nihilo make, and what is the alternative you have in mind?

[bling]

Exactly.

Now, God even knows which persons will have godly love. Why not just create those ones, and refrain from creating the ones that deny godly love.

If God can do anything imaginable, then why not create beings with a better nature, more wisdom, who make better choices? You believe that Jesus has free will, don't you? Why not create a world of Jesuses? .....or at the very least, a world of Noahs, Marys, Enochs, Peters, etc.

God refraining from creating people who God knows will end up in hell would not take away the free will of those who choose godly love.

Adam and Eve were disobedient, ignorant and easily deceived. Seems to me that those are serious design flaws, IF God could create any kind of being that is logically possible.

I quoted Blake Ostler , who wrote, "{The "free-will defence" of evangelicals} assumes that God must create morally fallible persons if he creates them free. However, that is not true given evangelical assumptions. If God creates ex nihilo, then he can create any persons that it is logically possible to create. He certainly could have created more morally sensitive and rational persons than we are. Indeed, Francis Beckwith, in his contribution to NMC, argues that perfectly rational beings are perfectly good even though free to choose evil if they wish. If Beckwith is correct, then the fact that a person rationally chooses to always do what is right is not incompatible with libertarian free will. Given the creedal view, there is no reason that God could not have created perfectly rational persons who will always see by the light of reason that always choosing what is right is the most rational course. Thus, God had open to him the possibility of creating more intelligent and morally sensitive creatures who would bring about less evil than we do because of sheer irrationality. God is thus morally indictable for having created creatures who bring about more evil than other creatures he could have created from nothing."

"Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
A child will easily accept pure charity as charity, since they are not self-reliant, they do not mine being reliant on others. They can have an extremely strong child for parent type Love which is as good as they can get at that point, but they do not have Godly type love. Godly type Love is the result of a free will choice, which an immature mind cannot make.

We need to come to God/Christ as humble children willing to accept charity and then we can get Godly type love.

Non-Christians don't love anybody?

7up: Are you saying that God's love, which is instinctive, is just robotic?

We are talking about the NATURE of God. If God wanted people to have a better nature, or a loving nature, then why create inherently flawed creatures from nothing? As explained above, having an inherently loving nature does not mean that you have no free will.

7up: Who is holding the shotgun at God? When instinctive and genuine love are inherent in an individual, that does not mean that it is forced.



But we have established that instinctive love, inherent love is not forced.

You are essentially claiming that inherent and instinctive love must be obtained, however, if God is creating any kind of being that is logically possible from God's own mind, and in a blink of an eye bring anyone into being, ... then a process simply is not necessary.

Forgiveness would not be necessary if God created infallible beings of free will, which IS logically possible if God is creating Ex Nihilo.

-7up

[firstfloor]

[Jichard]

It's not ridiculous. From a theistic standpoint, it makes the most sense.

No, it's ridiculous even to many theists. Hence occasionalism being such an unpopular position. Your position entails a whole bunch of hilariously off-base things, such as AIDS denialism. After all, on occasionalism, HIV doesn't cause AIDS; God causes AIDS. Similarly so for AGW denialism; since God caused climate change, humans didn't cause climate change. In fact, there simply is no AGW; only GGW (God-caused global warming). Also, humans are not responsbile for anything they do, since humans are not apart of the cause of what they do.

That it doesn't play well with naturalism is not my problem.

Has nothing to with naturalism. Even non-naturalists and many theists, can admit that occasionalism to ridiculous.

Which I readily admit, as with the painter analogy. That's why they are analogies, not exegesis.

They're not good analogies. They're false analogies, since they don't actually establish the point for which you introduced them. You introduced the analogies to make a point about causaal relationships, yet your example (the builder / blueprint) is not an example of a causal relationship. In fact, your own examples undermine your point. After all, on your examples, the human builder caused the building to exist, and the human painter caused the painting to exist. Yet if your occasionalism is correct, then neither human builders nor human painters cause anything in reality. Instead, God caused all paintings and all buildings. Which is absurd.

Just as, from God's perspective of exhaustively knowing everything that will ever happen, His knowledge of our decisions describes exactly how He temporally creates us.

You missed the point. The point is that description/depicting/represention is not the same thing as causation. So, for example, my knowledge of a dog's existence mentally represents the dog, without causing the dog to exist. Parallel point for God; God's knowledge can mentally represent reality, even if God's knowledge does not cause reality's existence.

If the foreman is bound to follow the blueprint exactly, as God is bound by His foreknowledge exactly, the blueprints direct the foreman on exactly how to "cause" the house.

False. You're using the term "bound" here to again confuse causal relationship, with non-causal relationships. God's foreknowledges not cause me to do anything; it does not "bind" me in a causal sense. It doesn't constrain me. Instead, God's foreknowledge bears many non-causal relationships with me, such as the depiction/representation relatioship I mentioned before. And God's foreknowledge bears a logical entailment relationship with my actions. To see why, note that (propositional) knowledge is defined as including true belief. Thus, if someone:

knows that I will do X

then that logically entails that:

it is true that I will do X

on standard definitions of propositional knowledge. And logical entailment is a non-causal relationship, as philosophers have known since at least Hume. So you could not use this to claim that God's foreknowledge causes the reality what God knows.

Anyway, in your foreman example, the foreman causes the building's existence. If you want to work the blueprint into the causal story, then you would do say by saying that the blueprint is a (partial) cause of the builder's actions (ex: the blueprint causes various mental states on the builder's brain). This is not the same as saying that the blueprint is the real cause of the building's existence, and the builder isn't a real cause of the building, so this does not support your occasionalist point.

Considering the US preceded the map of it, that analogy is false. Blueprints are not made after the house is built.

Irrelevant. Since even if I made a map of the US before the US existed (or made a map of an island before the island existed), then it would still be the case that my map depicted/represented USs (or the island's) existence, instead of causing its existence.
Also, you can make blueprints of a house after the house is built.

And that reality is known by God, therefore He creates reality to facilitate those choices that the human wills.

Again, one's knowledge of X, need not cause X.

God doesn't force the human to will something, He simply makes it solely possible for the human to will what He knew they would will.

Tha'ts not what your occasionalism says. On occasionalism, God causes what people think, will, do, and so on. The human will is not a cause of anything. Instead, God causes all of reality (except for God itself).

And God, foreknowing that you would do so, created you, the objects, and the room just as He foreknew it would happen. Had He foreknew you would also move a leg lamp, He would have created that exact leg lamp in that precise location for you to move it. But because He foreknew you would not have one, He did not create a specific leg lamp for you to move.

Again, on occasionalism, I don't cause lamps to move. God does. So if you think that I cause objects to move, then you're contradicting occasionalism.

But YOU were caused by God. The material to make the room and stuff was caused by God at the exact time it was needed. The material to build your house was caused by God. And the circumstances that resulted in you moving things around were all created by God precisely to allow you to do exactly what you did.

Irrelevant. You again seem to be assuming implausible principle 6:

6: If X causes Y to exist, then X is the real causal factor, while Y has no genuine causal effects

I already explained why principle 6 makes no sense. So even if I were caused to exist by God, that does not change the fact that I cause various things in reality, not God. Similarly, if an engineer makes a knife, and that knife punctures someone's foot, it is the knife that caused the hole in the person's foot, not the knife's engineer.

Also, the material to build my house was not caused to exist by God. For example, God did not cause the wood, brick, etc. to exist. Instead, those things were made by humans from pre-existing materials, like trees; that is: the brick, wood, etc. was made via creatio ex materia. Now, one can suppose, for the sake of argument, that God did create some distal causal precursors of these materials. But that's not the came thing as causing the materials to exist, anymore than an asteroid causing the existence of some ice X on Earth 50 million years ago is the same thing as the asteroid causing the cooling of a soft-drink that ice X is placed in today.

You and I are using the term "cause" in a different manner, I think. I am referring to creating, not influencing.

Influence is a form of creation, since in influencing reality, one creates a different reality. For example, when I causally influence someone to think something, I create an aspect of reality by creating a new mental state in that person's brain. This is fairly standard creatio ex materia: I act on acting on pre-existing materials to cause a new state. This is how every known existence of creation occurs. Period. Creatio ex nihilo is some ad hoc, unevidenced notion. I doubt that creatio en nihilo is even coherent.

God created the physical laws when He created matter, including gravity.

Nope. Even if one is a theist one can't claim that, since on even on contemporary physics, there was a state of affairs at which the modern laws of physics (including those for gravity) break down. So laws of gravitation would not apply at that state of matter. Furthermore, God didn't create physical laws. You seem to think physical laws are some separate thing, distinct from matter, which need to be created alongside matter. That's false. The phrase "physical laws" refers to either one of two things:

1. various regularities, patterns, relationships, etc. in the behavior, properties, etc. of physical stuff
2. terms, concepts, etc. one used to refer to the regularities mentioned in 1

So, for example, if you say that:

"E = mc²" is a physical law

you could be describing a relationship between three physical parameters (energy, mass, and the speed of light), or you could be discussing the description you use for describing that relationship. Anyway, once one makes matter, that matter will behave in whatever way that matter behaves. And that will suffice for the physical laws. Thus, the physical laws aren't something separate thing that needs creating above-and-beyond the existence of matter.

God set the laws in place where, when the proper conditions are met, gravity affects other things.

Made-up claims for which you have no evidence.

No they didn't.

Yes, they did. My parents caused me to exist via creatio ex materia. I am the result of biochemical reactions between sperm from my dad, an egg from my mother, and a whole bunch of other materials from my mom, dad, and other places. If you don't know this, then I suggest you open up a basic textbook on embryology or developmental biology. There isn't some special gap in this biological process, where God magically came in and made me. I have no more reason to think that God made me, than I have for thinking that invisible pink pixies created me or that the gods cause lightning strikes.. These aren't the Dark Ages. We don't need to invent supernatural causes for natural occurrences.

They met the necessary conditions for you to grow and develop according to the laws God set up. HE caused you to exist. And for precisely the reason that He knew they would make you.

No, God did not cause me to exist. Once again, you're confusing causing a distal causal precursor of X to exist with causing X to exist. The two aren't the same. And you still don't seem to get the idea that Y can be a real cause of Z, even if Y was caused to exist by something else. You seem to running afoul of what proximal cause is, or maybe you just don't know what it is.

But if God "ceased to exist" exist (which is a logical impossibility since He is necessary in a theistic framework), so would you.

False; if God did not exist, then I would continue to exist. Furthermore, God's existence is not logically necessary on most versions of theism, for at least three reasons. First, you seem to be confusing logical impossibility with metaphysical impossibility (or broadly logical impossibility). The two aren't the same. Even folks like Plantinga, Craig, etc. make sure to make that clear. And it's metaphysical modality that many theists tend to define God, not the logical modality you're using. Second, you can't claim that it's logically impossible for God to exist just because some theists define God as necessary. That's pure nonsense. By that logic, I could shown that it's impossible for any old thing to not exist, just by defining it in a certain way. For example, I could show that it's logically impossible for pixies not to exist, just by defining pixies as logically necessary. It's absurd. You'd not only be fallaciously defining things into existence, but you'd be going even further and defining them into logically necessary existence. Third, you're committing a mistake common to this sort of ontological argument; you're conflating definitional contexts with ontologically-committing contexts. The former is used when defining terms, concepts, etc., while the latter is involved in making concrete claims about what one thinks actually exists or does not exist. For example, I can say that:

It's impossible that a red apple exists

where the term "red" is used in a definitional context just to describe the sort of thing (an apple) I'm discussing, while the term "impossible" is used in a ontologically-commiting context to state what I actually think is the case. Since the "red" is being used definitionally, I'm not committed to the existence of red apples; anymore than I become committed to the existence of Santa, when I define the term "Santa Claus". Now, this same distinction can be applied to your claims. I can coherently say:

It is possible for a necessary deity to not exist

since the "possible" here is used in an ontologically-committing way, while the "necessary" is used definitionally. You only claim otherwise, since you're conflating definitional contexts with ontologically-committing contexts.

Well, as I said, you are using "causal" as meaning to make something happen, while I am using it as "cause to exist".

I'm using "causal" in just the sense it's used in mainstream philosophy. And as I already explained about, making something happen is a form of causing something to exist, since it involves causing some new occurrence in reality to exist.

[Bill the Cat]

No, it's ridiculous even to many theists.

Then I must not understand the nuances it is describing, because what you are ascribing to it is not what I believe, nor what I have been explaining.

Hence occasionalism being such an unpopular position. Your position entails a whole bunch of hilariously off-base things, such as AIDS denialism.

No it doesn't...

After all, on occasionalism, HIV doesn't cause AIDS; God causes AIDS.

Well, it's a good thing that's not what I believe then. God created (caused) the material and mechanisms that allow the HIV virus to interact with the human body to cause the human body to develop a deficiency of autoimmune responses. When I say "God caused", I mean He is the ultimate source for the actual existence of something, not the actual cause of any decision or interaction (beyond being the source of how things interact)

Similarly so for AGW denialism; since God caused climate change, humans didn't cause climate change.

Well, humans didn't CAUSE it. We are merely contributing to it, if the current science is to be accepted. But that's an aside. AGW is merely us facilitating processes that are already in play. We did not create the processes, we are merely taking advantage of them.

In fact, there simply is no AGW; only GGW (God-caused global warming). Also, humans are not responsbile for anything they do, since humans are not apart of the cause of what they do.

Again, I never argued that. You are beating up on a strawman.

Has nothing to with naturalism. Even non-naturalists and many theists, can admit that occasionalism to ridiculous.

Whatever. Since that's not what I am arguing, I really don't care.

They're not good analogies. They're false analogies, since they don't actually establish the point for which you introduced them.

Sure they do.

You introduced the analogies to make a point about causal relationships, yet your example (the builder / blueprint) is not an example of a causal relationship.

It is an example of "building to a known concept". I never said the blueprint was actually what did the building.

In fact, your own examples undermine your point. After all, on your examples, the human builder caused the building to exist, and the human painter caused the painting to exist.

Meaning they produce what they know per the instructions.

Yet if your occasionalism is correct, then neither human builders nor human painters cause anything in reality. Instead, God caused all paintings and all buildings. Which is absurd.

If occasionalism means what you described above, it isn't mine, so

You missed the point. The point is that description/depicting/represention is not the same thing as causation.

Oh, I agree. And that's the point I made to 7up.

So, for example, my knowledge of a dog's existence mentally represents the dog, without causing the dog to exist. Parallel point for God; God's knowledge can mentally represent reality, even if God's knowledge does not cause reality's existence.

Exactly. As I said, that knowledge is the parameter with which He creates reality. It does not create, but limits what is explicitly created to its instructions.

False. You're using the term "bound" here to again confuse causal relationship, with non-causal relationships. God's foreknowledges not cause me to do anything; it does not "bind" me in a causal sense.

I didn't suggest it did. I said what you do binds GOD to what He creates. In that, He causes me to exist in the exact time that what He knows will happen actually happens.

It doesn't constrain me. Instead, God's foreknowledge bears many non-causal relationships with me, such as the depiction/representation relationship I mentioned before.

Again, I am not referring to "causation" as anything more than actual physical creation. God's foreknowledge and His creative activity are complementary. Everything He knows, He causes to exist.

And God's foreknowledge bears a logical entailment relationship with my actions. To see why, note that (propositional) knowledge is defined as including true belief. Thus, if someone:

knows that I will do X

then that logically entails that:

it is true that I will do X

on standard definitions of propositional knowledge. And logical entailment is a non-causal relationship, as philosophers have known since at least Hume. So you could not use this to claim that God's foreknowledge causes the reality what God knows.

Sorry, you lost me. What are you arguing here? That just because God's foreknowledge itself is not what actually does the creating, as I have said myself, that God does not exactly create BASED ON what He knows?

Anyway, in your foreman example, the foreman causes the building's existence.

Not what I mean. The foreman moves things around into specific pattrerns. He does not "create" the material used to construct the house. Nor does he deviate from what is on the blueprint.

If you want to work the blueprint into the causal story, then you would do say by saying that the blueprint is a (partial) cause of the builder's actions (ex: the blueprint causes various mental states on the builder's brain). This is not the same as saying that the blueprint is the real cause of the building's existence, and the builder isn't a real cause of the building, so this does not support your occasionalist point.

Considering that wasn't what I claimed... The blueprint is merely the known instructions the builder (creator) is following. The instructions in and of themselves are powerless to do anything, but the builder can not create anything without them and the materials to move around.

Irrelevant. Since even if I made a map of the US before the US existed (or made a map of an island before the island existed), then it would still be the case that my map depicted/represented USs (or the island's) existence, instead of causing its existence.

Well, that's true. But we are talking about God creating the US based on a map, not a pre-existing US. If the US didn't exist until the map did, then whoever created it would be the cause of its existence while the map would be the parameters of how it should look.

Also, you can make blueprints of a house after the house is built.

But that's not foreknowledge, so that's an irrelevant point.

Again, one's knowledge of X, need not cause X.

But if one's knowledge of X is absolute, there is no way that Y can happen if X =/= Y.

Tha'ts not what your occasionalism says. On occasionalism, God causes what people think, will, do, and so on. The human will is not a cause of anything. Instead, God causes all of reality (except for God itself).

Then you've ascribed something to me that I don't believe.

Again, on occasionalism, I don't cause lamps to move. God does. So if you think that I cause objects to move, then you're contradicting occasionalism.

Good. Because I don't believe in that.

Irrelevant. You again seem to be assuming implausible principle 6:

6: If X causes Y to exist, then X is the real causal factor, while Y has no genuine causal effects

I already explained why principle 6 makes no sense. So even if I were caused to exist by God, that does not change the fact that I cause various things in reality, not God. Similarly, if an engineer makes a knife, and that knife punctures someone's foot, it is the knife that caused the hole in the person's foot, not the knife's engineer.

You are using "caused" in a way that does not imply "creation" as I am using it. Holes aren't "created", nor are knives, in the classical theist definition I am using. What you are describing is moving things from place to place.

Also, the material to build my house was not caused to exist by God.

Yes it was.

For example, God did not cause the wood, brick, etc. to exist.

He caused the elements they are comprised of to exist.

Instead, those things were made by humans from pre-existing materials, like trees; that is: the brick, wood, etc. was made via creatio ex materia. Now, one can suppose, for the sake of argument, that God did create some distal causal precursors of these materials.

Which is what I am claiming. And as a result of His creating them, He also sustains their existence in reality as their cause.

But that's not the came thing as causing the materials to exist, anymore than an asteroid causing the existence of some ice X on Earth 50 million years ago is the same thing as the asteroid causing the cooling of a soft-drink that ice X is placed in today.

No one is claiming otherwise.

Influence is a form of creation, since in influencing reality, one creates a different reality.

Not how I am describing it.

For example, when I causally influence someone to think something, I create an aspect of reality by creating a new mental state in that person's brain.

No, you merely changed what was already there. Nothing was created.

This is fairly standard creatio ex materia: I act on acting on pre-existing materials to cause a new state.

It's still the same materials, just changed from their prior placement.

This is how every known existence of creation occurs. Period. Creatio ex nihilo is some ad hoc, unevidenced notion. I doubt that creatio en nihilo is even coherent.

Without a creator, of course it is incoherent. But "eternal matter" is just as incoherent, if not more so.

Nope. Even if one is a theist one can't claim that, since on even on contemporary physics, there was a state of affairs at which the modern laws of physics (including those for gravity) break down.

Laws still exist. What changes is our understanding of them.

So laws of gravitation would not apply at that state of matter.

But some other law that governs that state of matter will apply.

Furthermore, God didn't create physical laws.

By creating all matter and energy ex nihilo, yes He did.

You seem to think physical laws are some separate thing, distinct from matter, which need to be created alongside matter.

Not alongside. More like a consequence of how matter is created and how it exists. Matter could not be created without consequences to govern its existence.

That's false. The phrase "physical laws" refers to either one of two things:

1. various regularities, patterns, relationships, etc. in the behavior, properties, etc. of physical stuff
2. terms, concepts, etc. one used to refer to the regularities mentioned in 1

So, for example, if you say that:

"E = mc²" is a physical law

you could be describing a relationship between three physical parameters (energy, mass, and the speed of light), or you could be discussing the description you use for describing that relationship. Anyway, once one makes matter, that matter will behave in whatever way that matter behaves.

Precisely. Consequences of creating it.

And that will suffice for the physical laws. Thus, the physical laws aren't something separate thing that needs creating above-and-beyond the existence of matter.

I agree.

Made-up claims for which you have no evidence.

And you have none that I am wrong. I don't really care if you accept what I am claiming. I made the comment for support of the rest of my argument's coherence.

Yes, they did. My parents caused me to exist via creatio ex materia.

No they didn't. Every single atom in your body has existed since God created the universe. Your parents simply adhered to a physical process that allowed for your atoms to come together in a specific pattern. God created your atoms, and He created your soul. Your parents created nothing.

I am the result of biochemical reactions between sperm from my dad, an egg from my mother, and a whole bunch of other materials from my mom, dad, and other places. If you don't know this, then I suggest you open up a basic textbook on embryology or developmental biology.

I do know that. And if you don't know that your atoms existed prior to your conception, then you need to go back to 4th grade Science class.

There isn't some special gap in this biological process, where God magically came in and made me.

Never claimed otherwise.

I have no more reason to think that God made me, than I have for thinking that invisible pink pixies created me or that the gods cause lightning strikes..

You assume that matter is somehow eternal. That the "stuff" that makes up your atoms has always existed in one form or another. I do not. I believe there was a specific time in history that every single atom in existence came about by creative decree of God out of nothing but His power and foreknowledge. Whether you agree with me or not is wholly immaterial. I'm not arguing your POV. I am arguing against 7up's.

These aren't the Dark Ages. We don't need to invent supernatural causes for natural occurrences.

Never said otherwise.

No, God did not cause me to exist.

Since I believe in the human soul, I believe He did. And since I believe in creation ex nihilo, I believe He created every atom in your body, thus ultimately "causing" you to exist.

Once again, you're confusing causing a distal causal precursor of X to exist with causing X to exist. The two aren't the same. And you still don't seem to get the idea that Y can be a real cause of Z, even if Y was caused to exist by something else. You seem to running afoul of what proximal cause is, or maybe you just don't know what it is.

Not going to lie. I really don't. It makes sense at a basic level that if we are talking about existence, then there is no other cause except God. If we are talking about actions and concepts, then there are many "causes". But, again, I am not talking about non-material things like motion when I refer to "creation". Those are consequences, which are not "created".

False; if God did not exist, then I would continue to exist.

No you wouldn't. There would simply be nothing. Because God would have never created anything in the beginning.

Furthermore, God's existence is not logically necessary on most versions of theism, for at least three reasons. First, you seem to be confusing logical impossibility with metaphysical impossibility (or broadly logical impossibility). The two aren't the same. Even folks like Plantinga, Craig, etc. make sure to make that clear. And it's metaphysical modality that many theists tend to define God, not the logical modality you're using. Second, you can't claim that it's logically impossible for God to exist just because some theists define God as necessary. That's pure nonsense. By that logic, I could shown that it's impossible for any old thing to not exist, just by defining it in a certain way. For example, I could show that it's logically impossible for pixies not to exist, just by defining pixies as logically necessary. It's absurd. You'd not only be fallaciously defining things into existence, but you'd be going even further and defining them into logically necessary existence. Third, you're committing a mistake common to this sort of ontological argument; you're conflating definitional contexts with ontologically-committing contexts. The former is used when defining terms, concepts, etc., while the latter is involved in making concrete claims about what one thinks actually exists or does not exist. For example, I can say that:

It's impossible that a red apple exists

where the term "red" is used in a definitional context just to describe the sort of thing (an apple) I'm discussing, while the term "impossible" is used in a ontologically-commiting context to state what I actually think is the case. Since the "red" is being used definitionally, I'm not committed to the existence of red apples; anymore than I become committed to the existence of Santa, when I define the term "Santa Claus". Now, this same distinction can be applied to your claims. I can coherently say:

It is possible for a necessary deity to not exist

since the "possible" here is used in an ontologically-committing way, while the "necessary" is used definitionally. You only claim otherwise, since you're conflating definitional contexts with ontologically-committing contexts.

That's ridiculously over-complicating what I said. And I mean RIDICULOUSLY so. From most theistic frameworks, if God/gods had never decided to create in the beginning, there would be nothing created. Therefore, God/Gods is necessary in order to begin the process of creation.

I'm using "causal" in just the sense it's used in mainstream philosophy. And as I already explained about, making something happen is a form of causing something to exist, since it involves causing some new occurrence in reality to exist.

Occurrences are not created things in the same way ex nihilo means the term. They are merely the consequences of earlier temporal actions. Moving a lamp does not create the lamp in the new location. It merely changed its location. And "moving" isn't a tangibly created thing. It's an action with consequences.

[seven7up]

7up: I never said I know what kind of foreknowledge God has.

But you sure don't mind proclaiming what kind He DOESN'T have...

When? Where?


7up wrote: because with creation Ex Materia, God is doing the "best possible with what God has to work with", which is eternally-existing non-divine entities.

And why do the "eternally-existing non-divine entities" even submit to work with him?

Because they recognize that God is vastly superior: more wise, more intelligent, more loving, more powerful, more capable, etc.

He is the same as them, ...

The same?

Bill,

You believe that the Damned will be in Hell, FOREVER. You also believe that the Saved will be in Heaven, FOREVER. Your statement above is like saying that since both will be FOREVER ... then it is "the same". Um, no ... it clearly isn't.

The quantity of how long we have been existing, or how long we will be existing is not the same of the quality of that existence.

He is the same as them, just evolved a bit further for some nondescript reason of chance.

Where do you get that it comes from "chance"? Where do you get that it is evolved "a bit further"?

How can you get all of this wrong over, and over and over?

-7up

[seven7up]

7up wrote: But the Goal of God is not to gain novelty, it is to bring imperfection to perfection, an amazing accomplishment...., to glorify His children, which brings glory to God.

Fine.


What properties does that process possess that make it impossible for even a God to accomplish instantaneously?

Everything about it. While God may experience time differently than we do, I believe God still exists in a temporal reality. I believe that God has to live according to the laws of existence (ie: there are things that God cannot do).


-7up

[seven7up]

7up wrote: I am saying that the example of dice is not meant to address anything about "How God rolls the dice". God is not even rolling the dice in this example. The dice are "rolling themselves so to speak". The example simply has the dice being truly random.

What difference does ex-nihilo make, and what is the alternative you have in mind?

Imagine that there are six-sided cubes that ALREADY EXISTED. God did not create them.

Also, if god creates the die/person, then he also is the cause of-sets it/him in motion.

7up wrote: Well, I think you are referring to my second argument. This is where I was telling Bill that God creating ex nihilo determines outcomes because the created characteristics of each individual (characteristics that God created from God's own mind) will lead an individual in a specific path to a certain outcome.

[JimL]

7up wrote: I am saying that the example of dice is not meant to address anything about "How God rolls the dice". God is not even rolling the dice in this example. The dice are "rolling themselves so to speak". The example simply has the dice being truly random.




Imagine that there are six-sided cubes that ALREADY EXISTED. God did not create them.



7up wrote: Well, I think you are referring to my second argument. This is where I was telling Bill that God creating ex nihilo determines outcomes because the created characteristics of each individual (characteristics that God created from God's own mind) will lead an individual in a specific path to a certain outcome.

You've lost me 7up. What is the point that you are trying to make? At this point I'm not sure if you advocating atheism or theism.

[seven7up]

The best God could do, in making any kind of being that is logically possible, is make two ignorant , disobedient, and easily deceived people?

They did not know they were naked. They appeared to be in a child-like state of innocence.

Why wasn't knowledge of good and evil "needed"? God knows good from evil, so that means it isn't a bad thing. If they were being asked to make a moral choice (good or evil), then what makes you think it wasn't needed?

Man has to really be pushed into humbly accepting pure charity

Why? Sounds like God should have made people to be naturally more humble.

7up wrote: You believe that Jesus has free will, don't you? Why not create a world of Jesuses? .....or at the very least, a world of Noahs, Marys, Enochs, Peters, etc.

[QUOTE=bling;274825]So, you believe that God is NOT omniscient?

Why create the ones that He knew were going to Hell?

So, you believe that when people get to Heaven, they will no longer sin ... because God will take away their ability to sin? Take away their free will?

7up quoted Blake Ostler , who wrote, "{The "free-will defence" of evangelicals} assumes that God must create morally fallible persons if he creates them free. However, that is not true given evangelical assumptions. If God creates ex nihilo, then he can create any persons that it is logically possible to create. He certainly could have created more morally sensitive and rational persons than we are. Indeed, Francis Beckwith, in his contribution to NMC, argues that perfectly rational beings are perfectly good even though free to choose evil if they wish. If Beckwith is correct, then the fact that a person rationally chooses to always do what is right is not incompatible with libertarian free will. Given the creedal view, there is no reason that God could not have created perfectly rational persons who will always see by the light of reason that always choosing what is right is the most rational course. Thus, God had open to him the possibility of creating more intelligent and morally sensitive creatures who would bring about less evil than we do because of sheer irrationality. God is thus morally indictable for having created creatures who bring about more evil than other creatures he could have created from nothing."

Choosing between eternal damnation and eternal salvation seems like a pretty obvious choice to any rational being. Choosing Heaving is good for God, good for your family , and yes ... it is self-seeking because it is good for you too!

People were created with a needed survival instinct, which requires self-awareness and a self-seeking motivation (our living on, has to have value). This also seems to develop into some self-esteem and even selfishness. This works against being humble (we have our ego to protect) and we desire others to love us for how we want them to perceive us to be and not in spite of whom we really are.

Again; seems like God created us with some design flaws. Your theology demands that it is God's fault ... not ours.

-7up

P.S. Post is getting long. Will finish later.