There are two logical laws that G.W. Leibniz formulated and held:
(1) The Indiscerniblility of Identicals: If x and y are identical, then they have all the same properties.
(2) The Identity of Indiscernibles: If x and y have all the same properties, then they are identical.
The first is pretty uncontroversial, I’ve yet to meet anyone that denies it. All it really says that if you compare something with itself, it will have all the same properties as itself.
One question that I have always pondered is whether numbers exist or not. I’m tempted to think no they don’t. What would it mean for a number to exist? How would a number exist? The number 3 sure looks like a particular, but it also looks like it can be a universal. There can be 3 apples here in my room and 3 bananas in your room. Does that mean they both possess threeness? There is a view called Fictionalism about numbers. This view says numbers are useful fictions that we invent. Thus, strictly speaking, 3 + 3 = 6 is literally false because there are no such things as 3 and 6. This seems like an absurd consequence but I think that Fictionalism can account for this by just reinterpreting “3 + 3 = 6″ as “in the natural system of numbers, 3 + 3 = 6.” This leaves the option open as to whether the natural system of numbers is a fiction or not.
In honor of Jeremiah’s birthday, I will post here for the first time in a long time. Game on!
So I’m a little upset with myself that I really haven’t been on here to type for awhile. I don’t have any deep thoughts for the moment though I wish I did. I have just been too busy to sit down and think philosophy with having accepted this youth pastoral position. Not to say that I’ve been in this position since my last blog entry, but I know I would like to continue working on this page but am becoming busier with the addition of this new calling to my life. Maybe I’ll figure out a way of integrating the two…
Aristotle thought that the universe was infinitely old and that it will continue to exist infinitely. John Philoponus, a Christian, argues against this by saying that this is impossible. It goes like this:
(1) If the world had an infinite past, then it got to today by traversing an infinite number of days
(2) It is impossible to traverse an infinite number of days
(3) The world has not traversed an infinite number of days
(4) Therefore, the world is not infinitely old, but finitely old
(2) is the crucial premise and is doing all the work. It can be illustrated like this though: If I asked you to travel to a place that was infinitely far away, could you ever actually get there? I think Philoponus is right, if the universe really was infinitely old, then we would never have gotten to today, but we did so it’s not.
Some people think that this is similar to one of Zeno’s paradoxes. And if kind of is. Zeno thought that you couldn’t walk across a room because if you walked half the distance every time, you would approach the limit of the other side of the room, but never cross it. From this he concluded that there is no change and the real world was static, much like Parmenides. Can this be applied to this argument? The problem with Zeno’s paradox is that if we just make the distance we travel constant, then we can cross the room. But either way we cut the infinite distance, we are still going to have to cross and infinite. Half of an infinite is still an infinite.
So I think this is a good argument.
Zach’s thought experiment on God and prayer is an interesting scenario. For those familiar with Open Theism, result (2), about our prayer changing God, is one of the axioms of the belief. Our relationship and actions with God results in a change of what future events take place. That’s why something may seem troubling here. Open Theism has many avenues that Christians fear to travel down because it has an understanding of who God is that is counter to most traditional understandings of God‘s nature. Basically, this understanding of God and His “open” relationship with us is counter all of Christianity’s traditional teachings. I’ll have to explain more about this at some other time when I‘m better studied on the position.
In result (1) of Zach’s thought experiment, God is said to be outside of time, and being outside of time He is then immutable. God does not change as a result of the man’s prayer but only gives him the job after the prayer. But what about the man’s prayer? If God were unchanging, it would require that before time, God intended to give that man a job at t20 despite his prayer. Or was it in spite of his prayer? With this result, one thing that needs to be recognized is that the man receiving the job at t20 is fixed, but so is the man praying at t1. It doesn’t follow otherwise. For t20 to occur, t19 must happen. And for t19 to happen, t18 must happen, etc…. Somewhere between t0 and t19 is the man applying for the job, the board reviewing his application, and the decision for that man to receive the job. All of these things must occur for the man to get the job. Thereby, they are all fixed at their appropriate times. The result is a determinism. So God has orchestrated every event before time and set it into motion. It could still be considered that God acted in response to the prayer, but God had planned the prayer as well. This idea of determinism is very controversial amongst philosophers and theologians.
Perhaps a great method for understanding this would be to watch the movie Tron. In this movie, you have computer programs functioning the way they were designed to, but in the computer world they were just like humans. They thought they did all of their actions by their own power and choice. They even have a religion known as “The Users.” In reality they function how they were programmed to. So if my computer were this way, when I move my mouse, the computer responds by moving the cursor. The computer thinks when it is moving the cursor, it is doing so by its choice. My “divine” influence of moving the mouse corresponds to the computer desiring to move the cursor. The computer acts in response to my influence. Do I actually move the cursor though? I move the mouse. The computer responds by moving the cursor. And with any computer system, there exist bugs that cause it to malfunction. Likewise, sin is “bugs” in the human system. If God moves us but we have a sin, then we malfunction. God provides “patches” through grace. And we must remember that I’m working within a determined system, so everyone who will receive grace from God has already been determined. This is a very similar concept to what Martin Luther talks about in his book The Bondage of the Will. There are flaws in this argument, and much more that could be elaborated to generate a better understanding about this system of determinism, but I will not do that here.
Unfortunately, I also see the open theist position as resulting in a determinism. It’s just that this determinism was not foreknown and planned by God, but is set in place by God throughout time. If a man were to pray to receive a job, God would then have to control the hearts and minds of the hirers to choose the man who prayed. Thus, God controls and determines the outcome by His supreme authority over the earth. But what if two men prayed fervently for the job? Does God then just pick His favorite?
Some other things to think about is that if God is in time, then is He eternal? Or is time eternal with God? He does call Himself the beginning and end. So time is perhaps situated in Him. Our Medieval class is about to discuss some of this, Zach. Perhaps Aristotle, Augustine, and the rest will have some advice for us about time and God.
On my way to my first day of spring classes today, I passed by a Methodist church with a sign our front, the kind that you can change the letters. And it read, “Seasons change but God is constant.” What could this mean? I think it can be understood in two ways:
1. That God never changes, he is outside of time and the creator of it. If there is no time, there is no change, so if God is not in time, He doesn’t change. He sees all events at once before Him, and none of them affect Him in any significant way.
2. That God’s character stays the same. His character is always holy and good so that He couldn’t one day just decide to do evil things.
I am interested in the first kind of change. In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard writes about prayer and has a section discussing if God changes in response to prayer. He says that he was brought up in a tradition that thought that God is not affected by prayer and He would do things anyway even if no one had prayed for them to occur. He now rejects that lin eof thinking and says that God does change in response to prayer. What are the consequences of this? Let’s do a little thought experiment:
Imagine yourself sitting down to pray right after you get up in the morning. You decide to pray that God would help you find a new job today. What happens when you pray? I think there are multiple possibilities:
1. Since God is outside of time and never changes, he sees that at point t1 in the time-block, you will pray for a new job. Then a awhile later, say at t20, you get a new job. In this scenario, God doesn’t change but gets you the new job. However, He doesn’t give you the new job in response to your prayer, he just gives you one after the time at which you pray.
2. God cold be in time and thus experience time along with us. He sees you praying and is touched by your heartfelt prayer. He decides that later in the day, he will grant you a new job, and does so. In this view, God is acting in response to your prayer. The prayer moves God to act.
Dr. Willard seems to prefer the latter view, while the former has pretty much been held for a long time, and has been the standard. It seems to me that the latter view does seem to make prayer more meaningful, but there is something lurking behind the surface. If God is acting in response to your prayer, does that mean he didn’t have all information relating to your wants and needs right before the prayer? What does it really mean for your prayer to “change God?” In this view, it doesn’t seem that the prayer just moves Him emotionally, which it certainly does, but it also prompts God to act. I don’t know what it is but something just seems troublesome there. I can’t put my finger on what it is though.
Prayer has always confused me. There are multiple factors that can affect the way one view’s the nature of prayer and what it does. Proponents of the traditional view are fond of saying, “Prayer doesn’t change things, prayer changes you!” I understand that one of the purposes of prayer is to align our character more with Christ’s, but is this the only purpose? It seems like God does act in response to prayer. I’m not sure, what do you think?
The Mac operating system is tons better then Windows. Windows is slow and huge whereas Mac OS X is quick and small. This Macbook is way cooler than any pc. So everyone should get a mac, including you Jeremiah, even if you have to save for a year.
Hello, it’s been awhile. I just got a new macbook laptop and now I am using it to blog here for the first time in a while. I am sitting in the business school at OSU finishing up some work and waiting for my 3:30 Personal Finance Final, and then I will be done! I had an Ethical Theory Final earlier at 9:30. It was composed of two essays and it was alright. My wife and I are going to Florida on Saturday night to visit my parents. We will stay until Wednesday night. Have a good Spring Break!
Lately in my own personal musings I have been contemplating free will. I guess my thoughts naturally revert back to this subject for some reason or other. Anyways, I started reading Anselm of Canterbury’s article on free will and he proposed an idea I hadn’t really thought about, though I recognize it to some degree from Luther’s The Bondage of the Will. The idea is thus: God has perfect, unhindered free will, but God cannot sin. So could it follow that free will has nothing to do with sin?
Theologians and philosophers argue over the existence of free will, asserting that if free will is what allows a man to sin without putting the burden of sin and evil upon God. To hold the view that mankind does not have free will would mean that mankind was predestined to sin, meaning evil was caused by God, and that God is not just and merciful because He condemns people for the sin which He inflicted upon them. Obviously this is a difficult view to hold if one were to be a Christian and believe God merciful and just, etc…
This position that Anselm brings to view is very intriguing. What if free will doesn’t have anything to do with choosing to sin? If God has perfect free will and CANNOT sin then maybe our understanding of free will is skewed. To be free is to be unhindered or unrestricted, being capable of choosing for oneself. A person’s will is what they desire or would choose. So free will is unrestricted, voluntary choice or action. Scriptures speak of sin as being something that is binding and that all men are born into sin. Paul goes as far to say in the book of Romans that we are slaves to sin. Jesus says to His disciples that He no longer calls them slaves, but friends. What if sin actually limits our free will instead of by our free will we choose to sin. God’s grace is to free us from the burden of sin. Being freed from our sin we are then to fulfill God’s will, which is the plan set forth by the only perfect and ultimate free will. That being the case, sin doesn’t allow us to function with free will as opposed to the common view that free will allows us to sin.
Some more thought needs to be put into this…
 | Gabriel Perea Waisma… on Do Numbers Exist? |
 | Tani on Russell and Price Discuss Univ… |
 | Zach on An argument for Purgatory |
 | Miah on An argument for Purgatory |
 | Scission on Piety |
