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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/27/2012 11:15 AM (GMT -6) |   | Let me explain what logic books define as "causal reasoning" or "explanation." To explain something has 2 senses. Naturally speaking, we say that some finite set of conditions instantiated at time 1 are sufficient and necessary to predict some finite set of conditions at time 2 if this pattern predictably obtains every time we test it. Now, this doesn't prove there may not be more to it, like for example CC. It just means we can "explain" subsequent conditions at time 2 in terms of antecedent conditions at time 1 because of the inferred REGULARITY of OBSERVED event sequences.
Then, there's the deductive sense of necessary and sufficient conditions. By that approach, a SOFA at time 2 must be able to be DEDUCED from conditions at time 1 in terms of the causal properties believed to be instantiated in the SOFA of time 1. The point is, we BELIEVE those event sequences are instantiated at time 1 and time 2. We don't OBSERVE it. So what causal capacities existing in God at time 1 can be used to deduce that He will continue to exist? Once you state the answer, you will see you are just re-asserting your belief in CC in different words. YOu're not explaining anything in a way that shows MY view is false.
That's the point. We argue to see if our views are coherent. If they're BOTH coherent, we need a normative criteria to see who's is best. I've avowed the criteria I use. It's parsimony/analogy/breadth of explanation. If I've failed by that criteria, fine. But I'm not yet seeing that. If there's another criteria out there that humans or Christians universally use that I'm unaware of, let me know.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 5/27/2012 11:32:33 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/27/2012 11:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's the problem I have with CC, besides a seeming parsimony violation. Existence can fail to obtain in an infinitesimal amount of time, it would seem. If causality is, at bottom, conscious, as I think, then it's hard to imagine how a conscious act of causality can occur instantaneously. For instantaneous consciousness seems, mathematically, to be equivalent to UNconsciousness.
So I see 3 problems with CC. It doesn't seem as parsimonious way to account for our category of causality to me. It seems to imply causality is, at bottom, unconscious. And I have no intuition for CC in the first place. Indeed, I was never even aware of the view until I read others who held it.
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One Love
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| Posted 5/27/2012 11:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Here's the problem I have with CC, besides a seeming parsimony violation. Existence can fail to obtain in an infinitesimal amount of time, it would seem. If causality is, at bottom, conscious, as I think, then it's hard to imagine how a conscious act of causality can occur instantaneously. For instantaneous consciousness seems, mathematically, to be equivalent to UNconsciousness.
So I see 3 problems with CC. It doesn't seem as parsimonious way to account for our category of causality to me. It seems to imply causality is, at bottom, unconscious. And I have no intuition for CC in the first place. Indeed, I was never even aware of the view until I read others who held it.
I'm having trouble all of this language. I'm not that much of a logician, I suppose. Break this down 6th grade level for me.
What does CC posit that seems so problematic? Does this have something to do with occasionalism?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 5/27/2012 12:04 PM (GMT -6) | | | I got a sec more. Waiting on other parties. And I thought about something. There is ONE other thing required to render ownership God's alone. And that's the fact that ALL volitional beings will be held ACCOUNTABLE for how they SHOULD have used God's gifts. This is not deism I'm arguing for in benevolent/competent teleology. Deism is not distinguishable from atheism in terms of warranted belief.
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One Love
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| Posted 5/27/2012 12:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
For material entities, what would they cause if their very location, shape and volume at all times is due to being CC'ed RIGHT WHERE THEY'RE AT by God?
Found this. I like the way he articulates it...
The Doctrine of Continuous Creation is akin to the idea of God’s preservation. God has created all that exists out of nothing by the Word of His power. In creating all things, He also upholds all things. He holds them all together throughout their existence. The Bible is very clear on this (Col. 1:17; Acts 17:28, etc.) The providence of God’s preserving power covers every area of the created order. Now, Continuous Creation exists as a further thought of what preservation teaches. Not only does God preserve the created order, but that God’s preserving things in existence is no different from His continuously creating them. This is where it is important to make a distinction. It is very easy to believe that God made the apple tree and then, by His power, He continues to hold it together, otherwise it would cease to exist. God is the power behind the apple tree’s consistency.
In the paper, he mentions Jonathon Edwards on this issue. What's interesting is that Greg USES Edwards' ideas in T&P while dealing with the causation issue, via the dispositional model. Did you see that in T&P, Jeff?
Edwards then says, “God’s upholding created substance, or causing its existence in each successive moment, is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing, at each moment, because its existence at this moment is not merely in part from God, but wholly from him; and not in any part, or degree, from its antecedent existence.” God, then, continually recreates the apple tree in each moment that it exists. Its existence hinges on the reality that God continues to create it in that manner. Its past existence does not hold the existence of the tree in its present state, thus God must recreate the tree instantaneously moment to moment. Edwards explains this “philosophically” in this way, “If the existence of created substance, in each successive moment, be wholly the effect of God’s immediate power, in that moment, without any dependence on prior existence, as much as the first creation out of nothing, then what exists at this moment, by this power, is a new effect; and simply and absolutely considered, not the same with any past existence, though it be like it, and follows it according to a certain established method. And there is no identity or oneness in the case, but what depends on the arbitrary constitution of the Creator; who by his wise sovereign establishment so unites these successive new effects, that he treats them as one, by communicating to them like properties, relations, and circumstances; and so, leads us to regard and treat them as one.”
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 5/27/2012 12:53:16 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 5/27/2012 12:56 PM (GMT -6) | | The only option that I see to Continuous Creation is to say that Creation has "properties, relations, and circumstances" that exist relatively autonomously ALONGSIDE God, such that Creation, from it's initial states, grounds it's own successive existence and movement into the future, WITHOUT God directly empowering the process. IOW, Creation doesn't NEED God's continuous personally willed creative activity to exist.
This sounds like "Eep Ock Ork Ah Ah" to me. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 5/27/2012 1:00:02 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 5/27/2012 1:05 PM (GMT -6) | |
Something though. From the above thing... "The question arises, though, is this really a preserving, or is it a recreation of the same substance continually?"
If it's the case that creaturely causation is impossible without continuous communication of being from God, then the preserving/recreating difference is essentially without real distinction as far as causation is concerned.
I think the example I used before was a electromagnetic field that occurs when electricity runs through a certain metallic object: The field's sustanance is related to the electricity. Stop the electricity, stop the EM field. Same way with Creation (as I see it) where God's continuous personal activity of creative will that communicates being to Creation is the electricity and Creation is the EM field.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 5/27/2012 1:10:07 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/27/2012 1:47 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Edwards: "And there is NO identity or oneness in the case, but what depends on the arbitrary constitution of the Creator; who by his wise sovereign establishment so unites these successive new effects, that he treats them AS one, by communicating to them LIKE properties, relations, and circumstances; and so, leads us to regard and treat them AS one.”
Jeff: IOW, Edwards doesn't even believe fundamental particles existing at any given moment have histories? It adds nothing to posit CC. You haven't explained one practical difference it makes yet. We own nothing in the sense you mean whether or not CC is true.
D: If it's the case that creaturely causation is impossible without continuous communication of being from God, then the preserving/recreating difference is essentially without real distinction as far as causation is concerned.
J: First of all, how do you know creaturely causation is impossible without continuous communication of being from God? You haven't explained that yet. Second of all, I'm not worried about causation if I don't even know that I am being PRESERVED for a "good" future. A "recreated" "Jeff" does me no good at all. Warranted belief requires that things work out benevolently for all ULTIMATELY. If "I" exist for only an infinitesimal moment, "I" have no future hope after all.
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Asher
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| Posted 5/27/2012 2:47 PM (GMT -6) | | If you have free will...you own something. No way around it. It's the VERY NATURE of free will! It's something beyond ANYONE'S control! Even God. And if you believe God created us with free will, you have to believe there is something about that that HE wants. To deny it, is to deny what God wants. So, at least to this measure, I disagree with you Dwayne. This has largely been the very place of all of our disagreements.
If free will just reduces out to some kind of illusion, then we are right back in the quagmire of having no justified warranted beliefs about anything.
A one-storey view can either be achieved by having one Person completely dominate everything...or the Ultimate can be so lovely, that once obscuring obstacles are dealt with, the underlying oneness is chosen by free beings. Hitler tried the first route. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 5/27/2012 3:04 PM (GMT -6) | | The only thing I'm trying to convey the the EM fieldelectricity analogy is radical dependence, I suppose. I'm trying to say that Creation is RADICALLY, UTTERLY dependent on God's willed activity for it's existence...such that it cannot "stand" on it's own apart from that willed activity at any time.
And Asher. I'm saying that our "free will" is GIFTED TO US CONTINUALLY by God. I believe that it is NOT ours inherently by some self-sustaining created existence inherent to some ontologically autonomous human nature...like what Jeff seems to be saying. We are RADICALLY, UTTERLY dependent on God for our ability to self-dispose. Surely, you do not disagree with that.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 5/27/2012 3:15:58 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 5/27/2012 3:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I would say that with regard to existence PER SE God need do nothing to keep creation in existence with it's attributes.
What is Creation's method of ontologically sustaining itself without God's activity, then? Please describe this for me. If it's not God who keeps it in existence at every moment, HOW is Creation doing it by and for itself?
I'm hearing you say that Creation is not radically dependent upon God's Presence and Activity.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 5/27/2012 3:19:01 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 5/27/2012 3:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Again...
The only option that I see to Continuous Creation is to say that Creation has "properties, relations, and circumstances" that exist relatively autonomously ALONGSIDE God, such that Creation, from it's initial states, grounds its own successive existence and movement into the future, WITHOUT God directly empowering the process. IOW, Creation doesn't NEED God's continuous personally willed creative activity to exist.
But I cannot make any friggin sense of that. At all.
Why do you help me here, Asher? Do YOU agree with Jeff on this?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 5/27/2012 3:27:57 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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