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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
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| Posted 6/2/2007 8:37 AM (GMT -6) |   | | I wouldn't say language is a game we made up, necessarily. It may very well be as natural as breathing for humans. And it may be that God can contingency plan without discrete or abstract apprehension. But we can't, and I don't know how to conceive of such a process. So if such a process exists, it's mystery, to my mind. I'm just not seeing the need to appeal to mystery to explain THAT. Nothing seems to be at stake if it's not mystery.
If perfect-being ontology is nothing more than a claim that God is mysterious, it has nothing to do with understanding His attributes. If God's attributes can be understood, they can't be mysterious. It seems more rational to allow for mystery and explain as much as possible without it. It seems pretty evident that God can think (or at least communicate) the way we do if He wants to. Whether He needs to think abstractly, I don't have a clue. I just know that contingency planning for humans requires abstraction. And that anything beyond that is mystery to me--and not worth troubling myself over.
But the thing about time is different. It is like open theism, to me. To suppose that God (or any being) can exist atemporally seems as non-sensical as that God can foreknow truly free events. Obviously, I could be wrong. But if time is not a being, it never came into being. Hence, a SOFA for God (or any being), sans creation, entails the same thing a SOFA does otherwise--duration. This would be true whether or not He had the capacity to self-dispose, it seems.
But if time is truly a frame of reference, it only stands to reason that no "referring" or "referencing" is being done if there is no being that is conscious. So, if God was unconscious "at some time," I suppose we could say the "frame of reference" was essentially unused. But I don't see any reason to suppose that God has ever been unconscious. Thus, God's mere self-consciousness is all the "referring" necessary to constitute a use of the frame of reference we call time. For such a reference would entail the truth of "I AM."
We could, I guess, say that God's mode of apprehension is so non-analogous to ours that He doesn't require that frame. The problem I have with that is, it seems to imply that none of our categories can be legitimately applied to God. If this is so, then neither can the category of final cause. And if this is so, I have no idea how we can know there is a God at all. In some way, our categories have to get us beyond creation to the creator. What criteria, then, would tell us which categories can be legitimately applied beyond creation? I don't know how to do that. If some one can take me by the hand, as Tom says, then.... 
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Similitude
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| Posted 6/2/2007 10:43 AM (GMT -6) | | | POW: Some categories of God have been applied to us.
Jeff: OK. Now we're getting somewhere. If our categories are a subset of God's categories, doesn't this mean that to the extent that we are thinking according to our categories, we are thinking accurately? If so, what does this imply about time and open theism to you, B?
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/2/2007 12:30 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
POW: Some categories of God have been applied to us.
Jeff: OK. Now we're getting somewhere. If our categories are a subset of God's categories, doesn't this mean that to the extent that we are thinking according to our categories, we are thinking accurately? If so, what does this imply about time and open theism to you, B? Pines are trees, but not all trees are pines.
But the next thing that we might notice is the scary endlessness of becoming like God -- how can we possibly fathom the height, or depth, or breadth of that (says Paul)?
Back to pine trees -- Not everything about creatures has to be true of the Creator of all. But when we Protestants hear about deification and becoming god by grace we get (rightly?) scared. But we should not run away from it.
Eternal life is not just a matter of duration, but of quality too.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/2/2007 12:37 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
If so, what does this imply about time and open theism to you, B?
QUOTE:
Orthodoxy differentiates between God’s essence and his activities, his self-manifestation to the world. It is axiomatic in Orthodoxy that we can not know God in his essence, for to know fully the nature of God is to be God. God in his essence is complete mystery; we can only know God in his activities, his love, his mercy, and so forth. Yet even God’s activities are mysterious: “How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out.” Essence without energy is inconceivable. As Basil the Great says: “There is no natural essence without energy, nor energy without essence. Rather, we recognize the essence by virtue of the energy, this energy manifesting and testifying to the essence. For no one has ever seen God’s essence; but we come to believe in the essence by virtue of the energy.
http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2005/06/
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/2/2007 2:22:07 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 6/2/2007 1:59 PM (GMT -6) | | |
"Essence without energy is inconceivable. As Basil the Great says: “There is no natural essence without energy, nor energy without essence. Rather, we recognize the essence by virtue of the energy, this energy manifesting and testifying to the essence. For no one has ever seen God’s essence; but we come to believe in the essence by virtue of the energy."
See what he's doing there, B? He's using his human intuition to say how God MUST BE. He must have an essence, we're told. Essence must have energy. But how can we know this but by applying the very categories God gave us. So why not apply the category of time? This was my previous question: How do I pick which categories can be applied beyond the finite world and which can not?
Help me with this, B. It's either all mystery or not. If not, what's the method? Don't pick and choose arbitrarily. Don't let other people pick and choose for you. Take responsibility for your own human reflection. For God requires it of us. He isn't going to judge you or me based on what someone else said. Where much is GIVEN, much is REQUIRED.
What has He given us, B? A mind and revelation. There are many traditions. They can not all be true. They must be judged by the mind and the revelation God has given us. Indeed, even revelation must be interpreted. The mind, with it's native modes and methods of cognition/apprehension, comes first.
No one is saying that the human mind can exhaustively model God. What I'm wondering is to what extent can our categories limit and describe God. Scripture reveals limits of God. It tells us He can't be tempted by evil, e.g. Why not the categories of our mind? As Basil said? If so, then OT can be a true limit of God.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 6/2/2007 2:12:37 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/2/2007 2:33 PM (GMT -6) | | ?=It's either all mystery or not.
What about revelation. Like: Creation, Christ, Church
?=what's the method?
Eyes, ears, heart, each other, the Spirit...
?=What has He given us, B? A mind and revelation.
Creation is given, and we turned it into occasion for sin. Redemption in Christ is given, and revelation is for that.
?=Scripture reveals limits of God. It tells us He can't be tempted by evil, e.g.
We can be tempted because temptation is a privation of dependence on and thanksgiving to God. God can't "be tempted" because there is no lack in God, for God IS Love.
?="Essence without energy is inconceivable..."
We conceive essence that we can't know directly through what we can perceive in the form of energy.
Some construe time to be within the Trinity--that that is even necessary. That is false.
And just because someone can put something into words, or that a thought is thinkable, does not make it true. Right?
Salvation is worth our attention -- what does it mean to "become god" by grace? Eternal life.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/2/2007 3:19:56 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/2/2007 3:15 PM (GMT -6) | | |
I didn't understand your last post, jeff.
.
Then, the last set of questions didn't seem sincere.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/2/2007 3:28:36 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/2/2007 4:04 PM (GMT -6) | | POW: Then, the last set of questions didn't seem sincere.
Jeff: They were sincerely rhetorical. I don't understand how you apprehend, B. You literally live in a different epistemological world than I do. I can't see or hear "energy requires essence." I don't know what "energy requires essence" looks like or sounds like or smells like, etc. But I DO have categories that compel me to attribute capacities to beings. But this is purely intellectual. It isn't a product of my senses. It is OCCASSIONED by senses in the sense that humans would never experience anything, probably, if it never first experienced sensations. But knowing that an energy is to be ATTRIBUTED to a being is not known by sense. We just see things too different, epistemologically, to converse meaningfully.
People tend to disagree on what is intuitive/categorical. But they don't tend to deny that there are such modes of apprehension that get them knowledge that can not be attained by senses, alone. Most people doubt, e.g., that animals, just by virtue of having senses, can do philosophy.
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Similitude
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| Posted 6/2/2007 4:38 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 6/3/2007 2:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | I agree, B., that God's activities are mysterious. But so are the means by which my volition translates into physical action. That's why we don't discuss such things. We just sate the obvious, which is that such things occur. But Basil's contention that energy implies essence is not something he knew by revelation or sense data. He knew the same way anyone else knows it. That was my only point.
I don't know about time or space by senses, either. I don't see, taste, hear, or touch time or space. Evidently, then, knowing about time and space is something like knowing that "energy implies essence." But you say:
?=what's the method?
Eyes, ears, heart, each other, the Spirit...
I say we don't know about time or space by any of these things. We know about them categorically. So we disagree fundamentally about that.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/3/2007 3:23 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
I agree, B., that God's activities are mysterious. But so are the means by which my volition translates into physical action. That's why we don't discuss such things. Paul wrote about it in Romans 11:33-34. You can decide for yourself whether that is significant to ponder. I'm with Paul. And for my life it is very significant.
You say you don't know about space from sight? Or time from hearing? You don't experience. That's all up to you. I see the volume of the Grand Canyon, and I hear the Doppler Effect of the local commuter train. I do.
========================
You said you were done. And I'm not trying to change your mind, or even to address any of those strange last comments where you appear to have scrambled some things I said with things I didn't.
My listing of 1 & 2 are *merely* to lay on the table two things that are significant to me, and well based. You may ignore them if you wish. Feel free to do so.
Repeat:
1. Interacting with God’s essence and interacting with his self-manifestation to the world are different things. 2. Romans 11:33-34 says: “How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out. Who knows how the Lord thinks? Who can become his adviser?”
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/3/2007 3:33:36 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 6/3/2007 3:31 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/3/2007 3:32 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 6/5/2007 6:13 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: POW…I don't think God faults me for thinking in terms of what I can actually understand. This may be a subset of what is true of Him. But that doesn't mean it is an inaccurate subset of what is true of Him.
Tom: Rock on. I’ve tried to make this point to POW a lot.
Jeff: I can't wait for that conference on modeling God. One of the questions that it is to address is whether we can even comprehensively model God. I don't think we can. But what we can know of Him can be accurate.
Tom: Oooo. What conference?
-----------------------
Jeff: I think Tom has hit the true essence of the problem. It's hard to imagine contingency planning as analogous to knowing points by virtue of knowing a line. It seems to require true abstraction to get to the plan from the SOFA.
Tom: Any knowledge of the future (and that’s what contingency planning is) would be by definition an abstraction I think. The question is, does omniscience on a greatest-being paradigm entail having abstracted all that’s entailed in known SOFAs? Are there any reasons to think all possible abstractions have been apprehended by God? On the one hand this is a nice place to dump all the infinite numbers we want to say God knows but which we can’t say God knows completely at any particular time (all the digits of Pi and stuff like that). But on the other hand I wonder just how completely a knower apprehends some SOFA if the knower has failed to apprehend what truths that SOFA grounds. What truths a SOFA grounds isn’t a little matter unrelated to the real identity and nature of the SOFA. Those truths are part of what the SOFA is, part of its relational make-up. To say God necessarily and infallibly apprehends the SOFA but only apprehends what’s true about reality because of the SOFA if he chooses to doesn’t seem right to me, especially if the SOFA is GOD. (I’m not concerned here with whether it takes “time” to apprehend the abstract truth implied in a SOFA; I’m talking about whether God apprehends those truths necessarily or contingently.)
Corey: We use the symbol Pi to represent the relation between the circumference of a circle to it's diameter. We use 3.1415926535... to numerically represent Pi. But the thing behind Pi is just a circle, which can be immediately apprehended. God has no need for all the digits of Pi; that's OUR little language game we made up.
Tom: The problem is that Pi, being infinite, suggests a non-circumscribable relation. So my question is, if the SOFA grounds Pi, what are we to conclude about the SOFA from the infinity of its representation in Pi? Can the relation between the circumference of a circle and its diameter be infinite? How so if I circumscribe it on a sheet of paper by drawing it? Seems to be that something more is going on. In other words, how do finite entities (like a circle) GROUND infinite truths (without some greater infinite entity like God figuring into the equation?
What is the real relation (the SOFA) between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, Corey? Is it spatial? It would have to be I suppose. But doesn’t God conceive of circles before creation? Are circles ‘necessary’ constructs in the divine mind? Or are they contingent creations of his mind, the stuff out of which God creates? If God can conceive of a circle sans creation, then Pi doesn’t describe a spatial relation, does it?
I’m freaking out!
Tom
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/5/2007 4:01 PM (GMT -6) | |
MANY said...
Jeff: POW…I don't think God faults me for thinking in terms of what I can actually understand. This may be a subset of what is true of Him. But that doesn't mean it is an inaccurate subset of what is true of Him.
Tom: Rock on. I’ve tried to make this point to POW a lot.
I see no reason to object to that.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 6/5/2007 4:07 PM (GMT -6) | |
MANY said...
What is the real relation (the SOFA) between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, Corey? Is it spatial? It would have to be I suppose. But doesn’t God conceive of circles before creation? Are circles ‘necessary’ constructs in the divine mind? Or are they contingent creations of his mind, the stuff out of which God creates? If God can conceive of a circle sans creation, then Pi doesn’t describe a spatial relation, does it?
I’m freaking out!
What if the potentiality of circles is created by God (in the warp and woof of all the creation), and "circle" is a secondary creation of man (part of Adam naming the animals), "ball" of boys, "basketball" of James Naismith, and "air" of Michael Jordan.
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