Atheists - prove it.

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Given that your "addressing" is actually not at all, but a complete failure to grasp the argument, I have nothing more I need to say than to reiterate my point. Failed arguments require nothing more than doing just that.

You are better off looking at the idea of a rock that heavy as being a logical contradiction.. God is not required to do the logically impossible. He can no more make that rock than create a married bachelor or a square circle.

Well, if a maximal quality entails this, then yes, God by definition would be required. This, of course, would undermine the idea of maximality in that category.

Why would maximal greatness entail being about to do the logically impossible? If it did, then you could not trap the concept using logic. You do not seem to appreciate this fact.

For example. If a perfectly moral being has to choose between x and x+1 and it choses x. Then there is no logically possible being which could choose x+1 since the first is already morally perfect. Its sufficient reason would by nature of its moral perfection be sufficient. Your argument is contingent on us accepting the possibility of a morally perfect being that can do more than a morally perfect being (which is a logical contradiction). You can argue all you like there is always a more perfect choice, but it naturally follows that a morally perfect being already chose it and has a sufficient reason in line with its purposes.

Because maximal greatness has a logical coherence problem. That's the issue.



That's kind of the problem as x+1 is better by definition than x, so a morally perfect being picking x over x+1 would thus be engaged in a contradiction.

My argument is contingent upon the possibility of an infinite scale of better choices. If there is such an infinite scale, then x+1 exists for all x's and these x+1s are all morally better choices by definition. They are also all logically possible choices. As such, a morally perfect being cannot exist with that. As well, a morally perfect being just picking x *WOULD BE* a Principle of Sufficient Reason problem, as such a being COULD NOT have a sufficient reason for picking X over X+1, as X+1 is by definition better.

I mean.... 91, your rationalizations are ridiculous, as you are denying a clear internal contradiction in your reasoning by asserting it's coherence, which is just an intellectual failure.

You do not seem to understand that your inference is irrelevant. Once you assert a logical contradiction you can infer whatever you want from it. Your scale, choices and all of it are irrelevant. A morally perfect being who choses X means there can be no being who choses x+1 since one is already perfect. The only way you inference would be justified is if your denied the principle of explosion. Your entire inference is based on the assumption that a being could choose +1 more than a morally perfect one.

The problem is that there is no contradiction in saying that a being can pick x+1, and there is no reason why a morally perfect being *wouldn't* pick x+1, thus the entire notion of a best possible being falls into absurdity. We can easily conceptualize a being better than the best possible being, something that is incompatible with the existence of a best possible being. This means that a best possible being is absurd.

If there are infinite better choices, then YES, a being could always choose more than any other preconceived being. That's just basic. The idea that a being can pick X and be called morally perfect, when X+1 is an actualizable, and objectively better option is ridiculous and commits us to absurdity. It ought not be taken seriously at all, and the fact that you don't seem to recognize the problem is pretty problematic. I mean, let's just put the issue more clearly:

1) It is less good to pick an option worse than another option.
2) There is a better option than this world.
3) A being created this world.
4) This being is less good than it could be. (1-3)
5) To be maximally good, requires that one not be less good than any other logically possible being.
6) The being that created the world cannot be maximally good. (4 and 5)

This gets exactly the same intuitions being used earlier, and yet doesn't involve the problems you keep on saying exist... which.... kind of means that the real issue is that you were acting in an obtuse manner. (like usual)

^^^^

No you don't understand. If a morally perfect being picks x then it does not follow than any being could be more perfect and pick x+1. I have pointed this out to you repeatedly. The 'Underachiever Problem' is so dead that I have a hard time thinking anyone in their right mind, who claims a philosophical education would bring it up... it is dead parrot dead.

Your overly complicated argument is best put like this:

1) If God were all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, then this world would be the best possible world.
2) But surely this world is not the best possible world.
3) Thus, God is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good.

The issue you don't get is that God would not be obliged to create the best if there were no best world. There might be no such world if the series of possible worlds formed a continuum of increasingly good worlds ad infinitum. And if there were no such best world, we cannot fault God for failing to create the best since to do so is as impossible as, say, naming the highest number. Thus, God simply chose arbitrarily to bring about one among the range of morally acceptable worlds.

From this you are then arguing that a morally perfect being having arbitrary chosen is able to be outdone by another logically possible being. Hence you are inserting a logical contradiction to the underachiever problem in order to infer its conclusion. The principle of explosion (that if you assert a logical impossibility you can infer anything from it), by default, takes your argument out.

Actually, the idea of "morally perfect" is subjective in only one direction, and "up" is not that direction. So, here is what we really have:

A sovereign being who "chooses X" -- a truly silly proposition even at all -- has thereby (nevertheless) decided the matter, thereby further making any "x+1" speculation of any subject of said being completely irrelevant apart from the matter of said subject's/subjects' personal entertainment.


Agreed.


... at least open for speculation.


... at least wondering why.


Agreed: In the face of sovereignty, there is no point.

Oh? I never said that God violating logical laws was a viable solution. The point is to learn to think of faith in God in terms of totality--a COMPLETE faith in God's power. It's the same way one might still find value in reading and comprehending the Talmud or studying Zen koans. If you can develop the capacity to believe God has the power to do anything, even something apparently silly--like moving mountains--then you've arrived at the proper understanding of that faith. If you say to a mountain "be picked up and thrown into the ocean" and then proceed to climb over that mountain, the whole time believing the mountain really isn't there but actually thrown into the ocean (because you said so), you are able to understand God's power and even use that same power in executing God's will on earth.

To put it another way, it's an unthinkable thought--and yet we're daring to think the unthinkable!

"Would" and "could" are two different words. Just because God CAN do something is no reason to think He WILL. I don't believe it is in God's nature to violate His own nature. For example, God is good. Therefore God will not do evil. God is loving (but not ALL-loving), therefore He opens the door of salvation to all people. God is just, therefore He allows those who reject Him to suffer eternal punishment. A "loving" God and a "just" God are not contradictions, though the end results appear contradictory.

God is eternal. So can God die? Depends on how you look at it. Spiritual "matter" cannot be destroyed--analogous to the energy of the physical universe--though it apparently can be created. No one "created" God, there is nothing/no one "greater" than God, and God is eternal and cannot be destroyed. However, if God takes human form and allows Himself human vulnerabilities, then, yes, God can suffer death. The death is a physical death, not a spiritual death. It is physically impossible to bring someone back from the dead. But God can also restore the physical body and re-inhabit it. In a sense, while it is not usual for God to violate His own nature, God DOES violate His own nature by coming in human form, dying (which God supposedly cannot do), and bringing Himself back to life (physical impossibility).

So there is your stone that is too heavy for God to lift--AND the lifting!


Yeah. So I choose to stick with theology rather than hard science. It's what I know! I have nothing AGAINST science. I just know that there are people out there much more talented than I am in that field. You don't have to have a PhD to understand the words of Christ.


Not sure why your faith would be contingent on God "staying in His place." You even admit that God is responsible for your recovery from alcoholism. If God does not continue to interact in His creation, then you cannot rightly claim that God helped you in your own intervention.

I also think of the "laws" of physics and so on to be "man-made" laws. By that I mean we observed certain things to be consistent and we wrote down those observations in terms of what we believe are "laws" that consistently explain the fabric of the universe. Physical laws have nothing to do with God other than establishing some kind of usual order to the universe. But that order was made for US, not for God. By God, but not FOR God. It's not a stretch to believe God can go against what WE think of as the "natural order." The OT is filled with things that things that just don't seem "right," not to mention the miracles worked by Jesus followed up with His death and resurrection.

Ah, so it is okay to speak an untruth as long as you do not say something worse, eh?!

Since you only later explained why you had said what you had said, please respond to this question:

How many of the people who might have heard you say God actually could make a rock too large for Him to move and then just go right on ahead and move it anyway might never again drop by here and/to hear you explain why you had first spoken such nonsense?


Rubbish! No such damnable "silliness" is needed to let people know "mountains" in Scripture are governments, and that God certainly can "move" any and/or all of them (and even all of them at once) anytime He wishes, if He does! To wit:

What has been the eventual, overall affect of what God did to the Pharaoh?


Insane.


My own point, exactly, and yet He neither could nor would in the specific case at hand.


Then why mess around with little minds games -- mental masturbations -- even considering such a thing?


Whew. What can I even say here ...


You really need to get a life, bro!


In a non-sense, maybe, but not in any actual sense!


Yeah, right ...


Where did you ever get any kind of idea I might have been thinking scientifically here?!


No, but you sure do need to know the nature and character of His Father!


I never said any such damned thing. I only essentially said I would go insane if anyone ever proved Him to be the kind of phony you have illustrated Him to be.


Says who?


No, but you own imagination in relation back to Him sure blows me away.

No, you don't understand. If X+1 is better than X, then no morally perfect being can select X over X+1, the very notion of this is contradictory.

Even further, it isn't dead. I presented the same argument to a philosopher of religion awhile back, and he admitted that this was an intellectual problem for theism in that it showed theism to have a counter-intuitive tendency.


Possibly, but I don't think this framing gets at the problematic issue. The problematic issue is that X+1 is better than X.


The problem is that we can fault God for not creating X+1, when he created X. Choosing X over X+1 is clearly a moral failing, as X+1 is definitionally better.

Even further, an arbitrary choice by God arguably is questionable by the principle of sufficient reason. God can never have a sufficient reason for his particular arbitrary choice because that choice is defined as arbitrary. After all, what logical process can God use to make an arbitrary decision.


Except a being who picks X+1 over X is logically possible, it is just that when we examine the situation more, we notice that this being is better than a morally perfect being.

I am sorry, but this is sufficient for defeating your argument. If choosing X+1 is better than choosing X, then we can fault any being who chooses X for not choosing X+1. Whether this ends up with the issue of "best possible world" is irrelevant, as we aren't actually requiring a being to make an impossible choice, we're requiring a being to make a possible choice, and recognize that when taken consistently, the requirements of all of these rational choices end up being impossible. X is still worse than X+1 though for any value of X.

Uh..... no, morally perfect is basically "the best possible moral being"


No, that argument is stupid and misses any point. A being chooses X, which is worse (by definition) than X+1. It doesn't matter how we want to add or subtract traits.


No, it means such a being is impossible. Nothing can be better than the best possible being, and if we can imagine something better for each and every possible being, then.... such a being is not possible.


No, no wondering is justified.


Leejosepho, sovereignty, in the bounds of this discussion, has no point. We've already established definitions that isolate the only variables in place here. Sovereignty doesn't even interact with this equation.

The logical contradiction lies in your own assertion that a choice by a morally perfect being can be improved upon by x+1. You seriously need to understand this. From this contradiction you can infer anything using the principle of explosion. X+1 might be a better choice but there is no logically possible being who could chose it. It is like arguing that a God who doesn't exist and still brings the universe into existence is better than one who does exist and brings the universe into existence. It might be greater, but it is not possible. So unless you care to suggest that something is logically impossible is logically necessary you must abandon this line of argument.

I have since lost track of the initial thought there, but "perfect" is an idea imposed by man and never actually claimed by "God", as far as I know.


I do understand that, but I did not want to see your and 91's exchange fall into complete nothingness ...

Please excuse the ring!

I really have no idea who reads what I write and takes me seriously and who does not. Here's the thing: What we're talking about here really is a pretty stupid word game. There's no way that I can see that we can discuss this in any serious, literal sense. You believe God is powerful enough to cure your alcoholism--or at the very LEAST is wise enough to point you down the path (that He created) that you can rid yourself of your malady. Either way, whether it is your work that He facilitated or whether it was God alone active in your recovery, or maybe even a combination of both, You yourself have felt God's hand in your life. You've experienced the power of God, and you've placed your faith in God. So if God really is omnipotent, what really is there that God CANNOT do? There are two sides to this: 1) God can work through nature to effect His will; 2) God can work any way He wants, even in extraordinary ways that we have no hope of understanding. How can God make a stick with one end? How the heck should I know? But I have no doubts in my mind whatsoever that God can bring about ANY result, and I mean ANY result that suits His will EVEN IF that result appears to us to be a contradiction. This isn't an issue of logic, philosophy, or the human mind. It's an issue of God's nature. If it is not within God's purpose to, say, make a square circle (which we probably would agree would be a pointless exercise), then I doubt God ever WOULD. I mean, why? To what end would God do something essentially useless? The law of non-contradiction applies. However, the Bible records that God HAS brought about the physically impossible. Whoever or Whatever God IS, I know He must be bigger than any "unthinkable thought" I or you or anyone else can come up with.


Ok... I really didn't want to go there with you on this, but...

Evidence, please? You said, "'mountains' in Scripture are governements," etc. Where is it written? Yes, I understand what you're getting at with Pharaoh, and I don't doubt that applies. I don't dispute that you can apply this to any proverbial "mountain" in life, such as your struggle with addiction or my struggles with, well, everyone as well as my own personal demons (no, not literal).

However, when Jesus taught, He used images that were readily available that people could immediately grasp and understand. Jesus was not subversive to any government, whether the Roman government or the religious establishment in Jerusalem. When Jesus mentioned the "mountain" in the "mountain-moving faith" speech, given the terrain in the area He was probably talking about an actual mountain nearby. He was talking in exaggerated terms to help drive home the point of what a "big faith" is. Jesus never directly opposed any governing institution, but rather taught as did His disciples that people ought to be respectful and obedient (to an extent) to ruling authority. People are even to respect the authority of their own religious leaders even when they disagree with them when they fail to practice what they preach. "Moving the mountain of government" is a mere possible reading in a metaphoric sense, and certainly Christians have moved mountains of governments throughout our history. But I think the "mountain-moving faith" has to do with moving from a very cautious, "prove it" attitude to a bold, 100% sold-out attitude towards complete trust in God alone. This is a difficult thing for a lot of us to do since we are accustomed to demanding evidence for EVERYTHING. However, if one can establish for oneself that what God has said and done in the past and in one's personal present, then there is nothing at all about which one cannot believe in the power of God, especially the power to rescue from sin.


And I'm sure many in Jesus' time accused Him of the same given many of the things He taught!


For starters, I'm not the one who initially brought it up. You can look a few posts back to see how this got started, but I really don't care to myself. Do you doubt that everything is possible with God?


Well? Exactly what is it you have a problem with?


I have eternal life, so I've got that covered.


Well, depends on how seriously you wanna take the word-game. I've said all I care to on the matter.


Well?


But I know other people DO tend to think scientifically.


"With men, these things are impossible. With God, everything is possible..." It's a profound statement about a profound Father. And I see no shame at a certain point in my relationship with that Father in suspending disbelief. I know these things to be true. Why limit ones faith to the physical realm? Is God not sovereign in heaven as well as in earth? Did God not create the universe and give order to it?


Exactly how have I shone God to be a phony? "All things are possible..."


Does God NEED the physical universe in order to exist? No, although God CAN manifest physically in order to directly relate to us if the situation calls for it (the Exodus, for example, as well as being born a physical being in Jesus). But God existed before the created physical universe. We are made physical beings, so until we are stripped of the physical body in death we are dependent on the physical world. The soul being a permanent entity, we certainly have hope of enjoying eternity in God's presence independent of a physical body in the "next world" (although I do believe the resurrection is a bodily resurrection). Thus the physical order was not established for God to survive in, but rather as a framework that will support our physical existence.

The "whole thing" was made for the purpose of God's pleasure, but not to supply any need for God's survival. We need it to survive. God doesn't. I would think that would be fairly self-evident, but perhaps it isn't.


Why? Because I can mentally conceive something above which nothing greater can be conceived? Because I can look at the world around me, even the universe that is visible to us, and comprehend that God is bigger than all of that? Because I feel I can TOTALLY put my faith in God?

Look, I'm not trying to be self-righteous or a better "believer" than anyone else. I'm just trying to follow the teachings of Jesus as best I can and seek for myself the ideal of faith in the Son and the Father. There's really nothing else in this life that I really want more than that. I want everything I do in life to point heavenward. I live out my dreams and fantasies through sound, and I suppose any imagination I have is dependent on a lifetime of imaginative exploration in unusual directions. If any of that is "rubbish," then I'm sorry you feel that way. I am confident in the humanly incomprehensible greatness of God and His power to do the "impossible." I see nothing at all wrong with that.