God(s) and Mathematics

[Loddfafner]

If there are any gods out there, they must, almost by definition, exist outside of the framework of space and time. If so, then are they also outside of the framework of possibility laid out in mathematics?

Many of the effects attributed to deities as well as the expectations people hold of them are matters of probability: for example improving the odds of surviving a severe illness, or communicating with humans through highly improbable events.

If god(s) exist outside mathematics, however, consider this implication: that it does not matter if there is one god or many as that is merely mathematical question.

Anyways, that was my thought for the day as I was walking home from work.

[ikki]

Either its measurable, and therefore subject to mathemathics... or its existance/nonexstance utterly meaningless.

[Psychonaut]

If there are any gods out there, they must, almost by definition, exist outside of the framework of space and time. If so, then are they also outside of the framework of possibility laid out in mathematics?

Why would they necessarily be extra-mathematical?

Different theologies have been reconciled with what was considered contemporary mathematics in their day. I'm thinking of Leibniz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz) (reconciling monotheism and calculus) and Whitehead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead) (panentheism and mereology) in particular. A certain forum member is currently working in this direction in regards to polytheism. ;)

[Liffrea]

I think before that question can be answered you need first to define God(s).

Our scientific knowledge is at the level now where we could be reasonably confident in saying that there are no such thing as Gods within nature i.e. the physical universe we live within and as we understand it. Pythagoras spoke of numbers within harmonies as the basis of existence (not a million miles away from the outer edge of theoretical physics).

If you are inclined to believe that only the physical universe exists then you would probably be correct in asserting that God(s) do not exist, so much that was credited to God(s) from human creation to thunderstorms are now understood in far more mundane scientific processes (admittedly science by it’s nature is a subject working from ignorance to theories that may or may not be true, but it is hard to see what would cause the demise of the Newtonian-Maxwellian-Einsteinian universe or of Darwinism). Then again there are many things within the physical universe we don’t understand, we can explain how DNA encodes for amino acids that encode for proteins that make a human but we are looking at the building material, so far nobody understands how the plan came together, there is no explanation of the form of man or of a leaf.

However if you believe in metaphysical concepts and the somewhat crude division of Descartes between mind and physics then you would perhaps be more open minded, personally I believe the physical universe is only one layer of reality and that there are many more, I believe that the God(s) didn’t come to be shepherds or wipe our noses they came to be teachers and to give us a gift to use or abuse. I don’t think mathematics has much place in that side of things. Plotinus believed a man could understand God (he meant the first cause or the “One”) by his intellect, that we could reason, we could see the pattern (who knows our physical knowledge may lead us to an inescapable conclusion of purpose and intent) but to know God was to know him from the depth of our soul that which is largely indescribable and that connects in a way beyond intellect.

[Psychonaut]

I think before that question can be answered you need first to define God(s).

Would you really have to? Unless you could isolate one of them in a lab, I don't see how you're ever going to figure out for sure what they're "made of". If anything, Husserl's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl) phenomenological method of inquiry has shown that more can be gleaned from the way in which things are perceived, present themselves and relate to us than from any kind of metaphysical theorizing. This quote from Sokolowski's Introduction to Phenomenology (p. 127):


The self recognized in phenomenology is not a point that stands behind or outside its perceptions, memories, imaginations, choices, and cognitive acts; rather, it is constituted as an identity through such achievements.

could easily be altered to suit our current discussion:


The deity recognized in phenomenology is not a point that stands behind or outside its being-perceived, its being-remembered, its being-imagined, its being-chosen and its being-cognized; rather, it is constituted as an identity through such achievements.

[Lutiferre]

Why would they necessarily be extra-mathematical?

Different theologies have been reconciled with what was considered contemporary mathematics in their day. I'm thinking of Leibniz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz) (reconciling monotheism and calculus) and Whitehead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead) (panentheism and mereology) in particular. A certain forum member is currently working in this direction in regards to polytheism. ;)

Not to mention Kurt Gödel (possibly one of the greatest mathematicians of all time) and his modal logic version of Anselms ontological proof (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof).

If there are any gods out there, they must, almost by definition, exist outside of the framework of space and time. If so, then are they also outside of the framework of possibility laid out in mathematics?
Mathematics is not a framework of possibility. Mathematics is dealing numerically with quantities. Mathematics does not prescribe reality. Logic rather, is a framework of possibility, or at least closer to it, but does not prescribe reality, either; reality and coherence already exisiting, it simply defines some principles on which all thinking about that reality and coherence must operate, and according to which all coherence in reality is founded on and applies to, but is not thereby the prescribor of reality or coherence but rather a reiterator of it for our abstract conceptualization.


Many of the effects attributed to deities as well as the expectations people hold of them are matters of probability: for example improving the odds of surviving a severe illness, or communicating with humans through highly improbable events.
But that has nothing to do with the deity in se, but only with what the deity does in our observation.


If god(s) exist outside mathematics, however, consider this implication: that it does not matter if there is one god or many as that is merely mathematical question.
God exists outside mathematics, because mathematics is a descriptive, and not prescribing, human discipline and science.

This does not mean God exists outside of logic, or rather, outside of what must be apprehended by logical coherence. Because the only sense in which God is beyond that, is in his essence apart from what he does (ousia), and there he does not "exist" in any sense, since the ousia is even beyond existence; so he does not ever "exist outside of logic." But his essence apart from what he does cannot have any effects to be seen directly or indirectly (since it is apart from any activity which would result in such an effect), and has no similarity or connection with anything else which is a fact of his being respective of what he does/his activity, since we are speaking of his ousia irrespective of his act of being (essentia). The ousia is therefore beyond any numerical quantity like 1 or 2, and any other concept, like existence, which all conceptually proceed from the order of actuality/act of being. It makes no sense to speak of either one or many there; he is beyond the one and many in his transcendent ousia irrespective of his act of being, and is neither.

In his act of being, however (his essence ad extra), he is subject to "logical truth", existence, and numericality, since logical truth is simply how we apprehend any (potentially or actually) existing or acting agent or object, and in his act of being, he is acting or existing. For a Christian, we therefore say God is one in his act, because if there were two Gods in their act of being, and they were both truly God, there would be nothing to distinguish them in their act of being, and hence they would both be the one and same God, and not two Gods, but rather two hypostases of one act of being; or else, they would not be god at all. Since God in the order of existence can only be act, pure actuality, and can have nothing of potentiality (since anything which is potential is contingent upon being actualised and that ultimately by God, and hence, is not God, but is contingent on God, and hence, falls into the created, not the uncreated order; in the uncreated order, essence and existence are without distinction) there would be nothing at all to distinguish them, then, in their being, and hence, they would be one being rather than two beings. Rather, they can be two hypostases of that one being, but that does not make them different beings, unless either one or both is not truly God. We believe the procession of the divine intellect (the intelligence/coherence/the Logos) and of the will (love/the Spirit) make for three hypostases, the one unoriginated and the two that proceed, and that after intellect and will, there is no other actual or even logically possible hypostases of the divinity.

Either its measurable, and therefore subject to mathemathics... or its existance/nonexstance utterly meaningless.
This kind of naive reductionist realism has been debunked long ago. Mathematics cannot encompass a complete representation of reality, as proven by Gödels incompleteness theorems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems).

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre
Not to mention Kurt Gödel (possibly one of the greatest mathematicians of all time) and his modal logic version of Anselms ontological proof.

Interesting but is that really a proof for the existence of God(s) within a physical universe or the use of mathematics to argue the existence of God(s), which isn’t necessarilly the same thing?

[Lutiferre]

Interesting but is that really a proof for the existence of God(s) within a physical universe or the use of mathematics to argue the existence of God(s), which isn’t necessarilly the same thing?
It's a proof strictly speaking for monotheism (the ontological argument), and entails transcendence, but also immanence in the sense of being omnipresent in it's omniscience and omnipotence.

[Psychonaut]

It's a proof strictly speaking for monotheism (the ontological argument), and entails transcendence, but also immanence in the sense of being omnipresent in it's omniscience and omnipotence.

IMO, since no less than five a priori assumptions are explicit in this proof, it's quite weak (as are most ontological proofs).

[Lutiferre]

IMO, since no less than five a priori assumptions are explicit in this proof, it's quite weak (as are most ontological proofs).
It's not "quite weak" simply because there are a priori assumptions, but only weak if they are obviously or demonstrably false, which is not the case. But it's debatable, and of course you can simply deny it's veracity based on your own a priori assumptions. You could also look to Harshornes version (http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2009/08/hartshornes-modal-argument.html). But I posted it more for the sheer significance that a mathematician can rationally engage in logical discourse around metaphysical questions like Gods existence.

[Psychonaut]

It's not "quite weak" simply because there are a priori assumptions, but only weak if they are obviously or demonstrably false, which is not the case.

It is not only weak if the assumptions are demonstrably false. It is, in this case, weak if the assumptions are, by their very nature, unobservable and unprovable.

[Lutiferre]

It is not only weak if the assumptions are demonstrably false. It is, in this case, weak if the assumptions are, by their very nature, unobservable and unprovable.
It can be argued whether they are so. I would say they aren't necessarily unprovable, since the only major common premise for all ontological arguments is that of possibility, which can be proven or evidenced with some certainty by looking at the actuality being postulated and whether it has any contradictions, incoherences, or whether it is coherent with reality and logically consistent.

[Psychonaut]

It can be argued whether they are so. I would say they aren't necessarily unprovable, since the only major common premise for all ontological arguments is that of possibility, which can be proven or evidenced with some certainty by looking at the actuality being postulated and whether it has any contradictions, incoherences, or whether it is coherent with reality and logically consistent.

Until you get God(s) in a laboratory, making definite statements about what he is (they are) are unobserved and unproven. IMO, you're much better off talking about the things that are observable, and drawing your data from phenomenal and phenomenological sources rather than pure rationalism.

[Lutiferre]

Until you get God(s) in a laboratory, making definite statements about what he is are unobserved and unproven.
This just shows you don't understand the issue at hand by bringing up something which is completely irrelevant to it. We are not speaking astronomy or forensic science here, and the modal ontological proof for Gods existence has nothing to do with observational data "of God". This in no way invalidates it, since it's assessment cannot be undertaken by observational means, but rather has to be undertaken by logical means which indirectly involves how we observe reality, but does not involve a direct observation of a thing. The same is the case for many major discoveries in physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and even in particle physics.


IMO, you're much better off talking about the things that are observable, and drawing your data from phenomenal and phenomenological sources rather than pure rationalism.
I think putting the two up against each other as a dichotomy between pure rationalism or simply anti-rationalism is unhealthy. You need a balanced view, with neither too much confidence in human knowledge, or too much disdain.

[Psychonaut]

This just shows you don't understand the issue at hand by bringing up something which is completely irrelevant to it...

No. Saying, "God is omnipotent" is making a claim which is currently unobserved and unproven. By making this (and similar a priori statements) central to your proof, you are making it completely dependent on things that are not only scientifically unproven/unobserved, but are also unproven/unobserved in human experience at large. In my opinion, that makes for a rather weak proof, since your result is contingent upon things that have never been seen, only imagined.


I think putting the two up against each other as a dichotomy between pure rationalism or simply anti-rationalism is unhealthy. You need a balanced view, with neither too much confidence in human knowledge, or too much disdain.

Are you familiar with Phenomenology and its critiques of pure rationalism?

[Loddfafner]

DAMN! I am out of Ibuprofen.

[Lutiferre]

No. Saying, "God is omnipotent" is making a claim which is currently unobserved and unproven.
Now you are simply begging the question by presuming the arguments invalidity, because if the argument is not invalid, then it is the case that Gods omnipotence is proven. That Gods omnipotence is a conceptual part of what is implied by God, is because God in this context means the maximally great and transcendent being. There are other religious contexts (such as polytheism) in which "god" has a completely different meaning which is not to be confused with other contexts.

Besides, you keep speaking about direct observation of God or even an attribute of God (which is predicate of his act of being), to which I can only laugh. It is not a matter of direct observation and that especially not in the case of omnipotence which only speaks of what is possible for Gods operations. You have fundamentally misunderstood the whole thing by misplacing an abstract logical proof with an empirical direct observation; for instance, we can deduce some facts about the universe in physics (or almost any other science) without directly observing the fact in question but by proceeding from general principles in deduction or induction from specific (other) facts which lead to a fact.


Are you familiar with Phenomenology and its critiques of pure rationalism?
Yes. But I am not a pure rationalist, anyway.

[Psychonaut]

Now you are simply begging the question by presuming the arguments invalidity

Liar. All I've said is that it is unobserved and unproven, not that this attribute is an impossibility.


because if the argument is not invalid, then it is the case that Gods omnipotence is proven.

So what you're saying is...

If A (the argument) is true, then O (God's omnipotence) is proven. Yet, O is a central point to the assertion of A. So, in effect you're using O to prove (via A) that O is true. What wonderfully bad logic!

[Lutiferre]

Liar. All I've said is that it is unobserved and unproven, not that this attribute is an impossibility.
It is not a matter of observation to begin with (just like many other facts arent).


O is a central point to the assertion of A. So, in effect you're using O to prove (via A) that O is true. What wonderfully bad logic!
Actual omnipotence is not even a part of the premise; the only part of it is the consideration of the possibility of what a transcendent (maximally great) being involves, to which omnipotence only proceeds as an attribute which is identical to the being, (like existence) and to which omnipotence is not actually proven insofar as the being is only proven in it's actuality, which is not the case in the premise.

[Psychonaut]

It is not a matter of observation to begin with (just like many other facts arent).

Your assertion that observation and experience does not enter into this betrays your acceptance of pure rationalism! Have fun intending (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality) what you think God is rather than intending the noema (http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/glossary/glossary.html#noema) itself.

[Lutiferre]

Your assertion that observation and experience does not enter into this betrays your acceptance of pure rationalism! Have fun intending (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality) what you think God is rather than intending the neoma (http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/glossary/glossary.html#noema) itself.

I never said it (experience and observation) does not enter into the question of God. Specifically, experience is crucial for it; and many other arguments for Gods existence rely on empirical observation (many cosmological arguments). I said it does not enter into the modal ontological proof, which is not the end-all of philosophical thinking about God, or experience of God. Noesis, or, theoria, is just as important, but these are two different things.

Again, I will repeat:


This just shows you don't understand the issue at hand by bringing up something which is completely irrelevant to it. We are not speaking astronomy or forensic science here, and the modal ontological proof for Gods existence has nothing to do with observational data "of God". This in no way invalidates it, since it's assessment cannot be undertaken by observational means, but rather has to be undertaken by logical means which indirectly involves how we observe reality, but does not involve a direct observation of a thing. The same is the case for many major discoveries in physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and even in particle physics.

[Psychonaut]

I said it does not enter into the modal ontological proof, which is not the end-all of philosophical thinking about God, or experience of God. Noesis, or, theoria, is just as important, but these are two different things.

They are only two different things if you, in the absence of observation, satisfy yourself by making unfounded a priori assumptions about the nature of the thing you're proving within your logical proofs.

[Lutiferre]

They are only two different things if you, in the absence of observation, satisfy yourself by making unfounded a priori assumptions about the nature of the thing you're proving within your logical proofs.
No. It is not in the "absence of observation". It is simply irrelevant to observation. There are other arguments that rely on empirical a posteriori knowledge for evidencing Gods existence; this one happens to rely on apriori knowledge. Both a priori and a posteriori knowledge is necessary.

And that is besides the point. The reason why they are separate is that noesis or theoria is itself involved in how we argue logically, but does not itself depend on extrinsic evidence or logic, whereas any evidences or proofs do.

[Psychonaut]

No. It is not in the "absence of observation". It is simply irrelevant to observation.

So it's OK to base your argument on and then assert its veracity in relation to the real world on constituents that are possibly false (unobserved/unproven) in the real world (not in your thought experiment)? I'm well aware that you're defining God in the terms stated in the argument, but if I were to formulate an ontological proof of Micky Mouse based on "the fact" that he's omnipotent/omniscient/omnipresent/transcendent/immanent/etc., although it may be a logically sound argument on purely rational grounds, it does not correspond reality. You cannot just assert that G's qualities are A, B, and C and that his existence is proven by the fact that he is constituted by A, B, and C and expect your proof to mean anything outside of the realm of the imagination. That is circular logic and does not at all escape the little imaginary scope of rationalism and break free into the real world.

[Lutiferre]

So it's OK to base your argument on and then assert its veracity in relation to the real world on constituents that are possibly false (unobserved/unproven) in the real world (not in your thought experiment)?
No. They are not possibly false because they are "not observed", because they are not facts that are subject to observation. They are logical facts, which can only be indirectly observed in relation to how we observe reality in general, just like even some physical phenomena, like black holes, can only be indirectly observed, in relation to how they absorb light which makes direct observation impossible.


I'm well aware that you're defining God in the terms stated in the argument, but if I were to formulate an ontological proof of Micky Mouse based on "the fact" that he's omnipotent/omniscient/omnipresent/transcendent/immanent/etc., although it may be a logically sound argument on purely rational grounds,
It is not sound. Mickey Mouse is a corporeal character and certainly not in any representation of what his character is or implies or refers to, the transcendent being, which is by necessity of being transcendent incorporeal.


it does not correspond reality. You cannot just assert that G's qualities are A, B, and C and that his existence is proven by the fact that he is constituted by A, B, and C and expect your proof to mean anything outside of the realm of the imagination.
You clearly cannot comprehend the argument. This is not what the argument does. It does not arbitrarily predicate any qualities but proceeds from the core being of transcendence (maximal greatness/transcendence), from which all attributes proceed. It does not thereby prove it; it only does so through the possibility of this transcendence, in it's actual existence, to it's necessary (actual) existence. To understand this, you must first understand the modal logic involved in it.

[Psychonaut]

No. They are not possibly false because they are "not observed", because they are not facts that are subject to observation. They are logical facts, which can only be indirectly observed in relation to how we observe reality in general, just like even some physical phenomena, like black holes, can only be indirectly observed, in relation to how they absorb light which makes direct observation impossible.

Aaaaaand that, sir, is a cop-out. Am I omnipotent? That is a question that can be answered by observation of what I am capable of doing. If the God you're talking about exists, he too would be subject to a falsification or verification of his abilities if he were to consent to being observed. Pretending that something which can be observed (potency) in the objects that surround us could not under any circumstances be observed in God is just intellectually dishonest. Good day.

[Lutiferre]

Pretending that something which can be observed (potency) in the objects that surround us could not under any circumstances be observed in God is just intellectually dishonest. Good day.I never said that "Gods omnipotence could not under any circumstances be observed", since I believe they can, but only a posteriori (in several Thomistic arguments; notably from contingency/potentiality), since any such observation is a posteriori.

What I did say was that it is not subject to observation in this argument, because it is a priori, and does not deal with any observation.

A further (metaphysical) correction: God has no potency in his being; he is pure actuality. Omnipotence does not refer to potencies in God, but to the unrestrainedness of his capability to actualize any potentiality outside of himself (create any "potency").

[Psychonaut]

I never said that "Gods omnipotence could not under any circumstances be observed"

ORLY? So you didn't say, "They are not possibly false because they are 'not observed', because they are not facts that are subject to observation."


What I did say was that it is not subject to observation in this argument, because it is a priori, and does not deal with any observation.

Don't be dense. An object's observability is not dependent on what kind of argument you're trying to make about it.

[Lutiferre]

ORLY? So you didn't say, "They are not possibly false because they are 'not observed', because they are not facts that are subject to observation."
Yes, I did, and I maintain that, but only within the modal ontological proof, which relies not on observation directly, but on logic which in turn, is founded on how we observe and understand reality in general.


Don't be dense. An object's observability is not dependent on what kind of argument you're trying to make about it.
First, no, but it's observation is a different kind of knowledge than was being proposed in the modal argument. Second, God is not "an object", but a being or existence or transcendence.

As to the a posteriori knowledge we have from observation: you can observe Gods omnipotence in every actuality outside of him (or more accurately, every potentiality which has become actual), since each and every potentiality is contingent upon pure actuality (God) for it's actualization and for not remaining merely potential.

[Psychonaut]

you can observe Gods omnipotence in every actuality outside of him (or more accurately, every potentiality which has become actual), since each and every potentiality is contingent upon pure actuality (God) for it's actualization and for not remaining merely potential.

:yawn:

Yet another "proof" that hinges upon its result being true.

[Lutiferre]

:yawn:

Yet another "proof" that hinges upon its result being true.
No, it's not a proof or an argument. It's an example of how omnipotence can be observed which is of course contingent upon there being a such thing as an omnipotent being, and therefore, contingent on that truth.

The actual argument is the other way around, and instead traces every impure actuality (contingent potentiality) to pure actuality.

[Psychonaut]

No, it's not a proof or an argument. It's an example of how omnipotence can be observed which is of course contingent upon there being a such thing as an omnipotent being, and therefore, contingent on that truth.

Either way you're, again, assuming that your data supports your view of the subject simply because you've postulated (in the absence of direct observation of the subject) that said data is one of the subject's constituents.

[Germanicus]

Mathematical Proof of God?
The death of someone you love deeply is life’s most devastating experience, and none of us can avoid it. When it occurs we’re often surprised at how we respond.
Although I had been a lifelong Christian, the death of my father in 1995 shattered my faith. I continued to attend church services, but I struggled with all my might just to function normally. Somehow I managed to do my duties at work without any major mistakes, but in my personal life, I was lost.

My father had been my hero. As a combat infantryman in World War II, he stepped on a German land mine in Italy. The explosion blew off part of his foot and sent shrapnel through his body. After two years of surgery and recuperation in a veterans’ hospital, he was able to walk again but had to wear a built-up, orthopedic shoe to do it.

When I was diagnosed with cancer at age 25, the example of my father’s quiet courage and determination in overcoming his disability gave me the strength to endure surgery and 55 grueling radiation treatments. I beat the disease because Dad had showed me how to fight.

Life’s Worst Emptiness
Cancer claimed my father’s life when he was 71 years old. By the time the doctors arrived at a diagnosis, it was already too late. It had spread to his major organs and he died within five weeks.
After the funeral and the paperwork the following week, I returned to my home, about 100 miles away from my mother and brother. I felt a numbing emptiness, as if my world had caved in.

For some unexplainable reason, I developed a strange nightly ritual. Before getting ready for bed, I walked out in the back yard and just stared up into the night sky.

I wasn't looking for heaven, although my faith told me that’s where my father was. I didn't know what I was looking for. I didn't understand it. All I knew was that it gave me an odd sense of peace after 10 or 15 minutes of looking up at the stars.

This went on for months, from autumn into mid-winter. One night an answer came to me, but it was an answer in the form of a question: Where did all this come from?

Numbers Don’t Lie—Or Do They?
That question ended my nightly visits with the stars. Over time, God helped me accept my father’s death, and I moved on to enjoy life again. However, I still think about that nagging question from time to time. Where did all this come from?
Even in high school, I couldn't buy the Big Bang Theory for the creation of the universe. Mathematicians and scientists seemed to ignore a simple equation familiar to all grammar school children: 0 + 0 = 0

For the Big Bang Theory to work, this always-true equation had to be false—at least once—and if this basic equation is unreliable, so is the rest of the math used to prove the Big Bang.

Dr. Adrian Rogers, a pastor and Bible teacher from Memphis, TN, once challenged the Big Bang Theory by putting the 0 + 0 = 0 equation into more specific terms: "How can nobody plus nothing equal everything?"

How indeed?

Why Atheists Have a Point
If you do a search at Amazon.com on "God +mathematics", you get a list of 914 books that supposedly prove the existence of God through various formulas and equations.
Atheists remain unconvinced. In their reviews of these books, they accuse Christians of being too stupid or naïve to understand the higher math of the Big Bang or Chaos Theory. They painstakingly point out mistakes in logic or probability assumptions. They believe that all these calculations in all these books come up short in proving the existence of God.

Oddly, I have to agree, but not for the same reason.

The most brilliant mathematicians using the most powerful supercomputers in the world would fail to settle this question for one simple reason: You can’t use equations to prove the existence of love.

That’s what God is. That is His essence, and love can’t be dissected, calculated, analyzed or measured.

A Proof Even Better Than Math
I’m no math expert, but for more than 40 years I have studied how people act and why they do what they do. Human nature is remarkably consistent, regardless of the culture or era in history. For me, the best proof of God depends on one cowardly fisherman.
Simon Peter, Jesus’ closest friend, denied knowing Jesus three times in the hours before the crucifixion. If any of us had faced possible crucifixion, we probably would have done the same thing. Peter’s so-called cowardice was completely predictable. It was human nature.

But it was what happened later that causes me to believe. Not only did Peter come out of hiding after Jesus’ death, he began preaching the resurrection of Christ so loudly that the authorities threw him in jail and had him severely beaten. But he got out and preached all the more!

And Peter wasn't alone. All the apostles who had been cowering behind locked doors spread out across Jerusalem and the surrounding area and began insisting that the Messiah had been raised from the dead. In the following years, all of Jesus’ apostles (except Judas who hanged himself and John, who died of old age) were so fearless in proclaiming the Gospel that they were all murdered as martyrs.

That is simply not human nature.

One thing and one thing only can explain it: These men had encountered the real, solid, bodily-resurrected Jesus Christ. Not a hallucination. Not mass hypnosis. Not looking in the wrong tomb or any other silly excuse. The flesh and blood risen Christ.

That’s what my father believed and that’s what I believe. I don’t have to do the math to know that my Savior lives, and because He lives, I fully expect to see both Him and my father again some day.


quote;Germanicus;
Good story, but everyone believes in whatever they want to when they need answers and comfort?

[Lutiferre]

Either way you're, again, assuming that your data supports your view of the subject simply because you've postulated (in the absence of direct observation of the subject) that said data is one of the subject's constituents.
No. There is direct observation of what leads to the conclusion of pure actuality, namely actualised potentiality or impure actuality.

But just like we can never directly observe what our physics formula can tell us, either in the quantum world or the grand scale of inflationary universe or black holes, we can never directly observe God, either. We can only conclude his existence a posteriori -after the effect- as a necessity for the origin of (impure/potential) actuality in contingency.

[Psychonaut]

we can never directly observe God, either. We can only conclude his existence a posteriori -after the effect- as a necessity for the origin of (impure/potential) actuality in contingency.

RATIONALIST!!! Thou dost reveal thyself!!!

Many people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience) (myself included) would say with noetic certainty that you are making a claim of error.

[Lutiferre]

RATIONALIST!!! Thou dost reveal thyself!!!

Many people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience) (myself included) would say with noetic certainty that you are making a claim of error.
You've been arguing rationally until now, about the rational unsoundness of my viewpoint, but now that you realize you cannot just sweep it off the table from a rational perspective, you go back to denouncing rationalism. Good escape clause. My view is neither completely rationalistic nor anti-rationalistic. It is a mixture of both.

[Lutiferre]

RATIONALIST!!! Thou dost reveal thyself!!!

Many people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience) (myself included) would say with noetic certainty that you are making a claim of error.
Besides, I was speaking about observing God in a verifiable sense, like we observe the sun. I was not speaking about experiencing God.

We can experience God, in his energies, but not in his essence. We can never "see" his divine ousia (no part of us has the capability to do so; not even the eye of the soul, the nous, which can only experience his energies/presence) since it is completely transcendent.

[Psychonaut]

You've been arguing rationally until now, about the rational unsoundness of my viewpoint, but now that you realize you cannot just sweep it off the table from a rational perspective, you go back to denouncing rationalism. Good escape clause. My view is neither completely rationalistic nor anti-rationalistic. It is a mixture of both.

Sorry, when I cry RATIONALIST, I'm talking about the kind of Cartesian Rationalism (capital "R", not lower case "r") that you've been espousing with these ontological proofs that are devoid of and are, according to you, outside the domain of observation and experience.


Besides...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lHPPhOSC0bk/SmUpJXx6HdI/AAAAAAAAEyM/fXW85nXCHC8/s400/varvel_impressive_backpedaling.jpg

[Lutiferre]

Sorry, when I cry RATIONALIST, I'm talking about the kind of Cartesian Rationalism (capital "R", not lower case "r") that you've been espousing with these ontological proofs that are devoid of, and according to you, outside the domain of observation and experience.
It is not devoid of observation just because it is not direct observation (like many other scientific facts are not directly observed). And also, anything which comes from a human has something to do with human experience. But that doesn't therefore mean that the proof is an appeal to human experience as such.

[Lutiferre]

And then, I was just speaking about the modal ontological argument. In the case of the argument from potentiality/contingency, we use direct observation of the world as the starting point.
No. There is direct observation of what leads to the conclusion of pure actuality, namely actualised potentiality or impure actuality.

But just like we can never directly observe what our physics formula can tell us, either in the quantum world or the grand scale of inflationary universe or black holes, we can never directly observe God, either. We can only conclude his existence a posteriori -after the effect- as a necessity for the origin of (impure/potential) actuality in contingency.

[Psychonaut]

It is not devoid of observation just because it is not direct observation (like many other scientific facts are not directly observed).

What you are talking about is only "observation" if and only if the premise that you're using the "observational data" to prove is itself true. Assuming God's omnipotence is an unproven a priori postulation.

[Lutiferre]

What you are talking about is only "observation" if and only if the premise that you're using the "observational data" to prove is itself true.
Again, you fail to understand what I am talking about.


Assuming God's omnipotence is an unproven a priori postulation.
And again, here your misunderstanding repeats itself.


Actual omnipotence is not even a part of the premise; the only part of it is the consideration of the possibility of what a transcendent (maximally great) being involves, to which omnipotence only proceeds as an attribute which is identical to the being, (like existence) and to which omnipotence is not actually proven insofar as the being is only proven in it's actuality, which is not the case in the premise.


You clearly cannot comprehend the argument. This is not what the argument does. It does not arbitrarily predicate any qualities but proceeds from the core being of transcendence (maximal greatness/transcendence), from which all attributes proceed. It does not thereby prove it; it only does so through the possibility of this transcendence, in it's actual existence, to it's necessary (actual) existence. To understand this, you must first understand the modal logic involved in it.

[Lutiferre]

For a deeper understanding of the question and argument, one should look to Leibniz' work (http://www.springerlink.com/content/h8m7m546x22r4371/) on the ontological argument (which Gödel to an extent based his modal logic representation on) and this long elaboration (http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/Godel.final.revision.PDF) of Gödels argument. Numerous other versions of Gödels argument have also been proposed, but logicians, mathematicians, metaphysicians and philosophers certainly agree that the argument has merits and cannot be dismissed on any of the terms that you have suggested. It's not a circular argument, for one, since it does not begin with the premise of Gods existence or possible existence, but arrives at it. It's uncontroversial that Gods possible necessary existence (per axiom S5 (http://home.utah.edu/~nahaj/logic/structures/axioms/CMpLMp.html)) leads to his necessary existence; Leibniz' great achievement in this regard was to show a way in which his possible necessary existence can be evidenced.