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Okay, @zippy2006 let's clear up the concept of "knowledge" before I get back into that response.
God, being omniscient, knows all things, even things that He can't experience. For instance, God knows what it feels like to make a mistake, even though He can't make mistakes to experience what it feels like, correct?
I explained in my post 111 why it is not possible to create a being (make it instinctive to a being) with Godly type Love. An instinctive "love" would be like a android loving you which you programmed to love you.
Personally, I find it odd that anyone could choose to do so without intent ... under normal social circumstances.
That's kind of the point. If I have the ability to choose to do horrible action X (I'm not physically constrained from doing so), but I never would because the thought of it is anathema to me, do I have free will?
If I do, then an omnipotent god could have created everyone so that no one would do horrible action X.
If I don't, why should I care that I don't?
I'm programmed by evolution to love my child. If that makes me an android in your eyes, then I'm fine with that.
That's great! I don't find that I have those inclinations either, quatona.I have little to none inclination to harm other persons, or to cut off my legs. Can´t say I miss this "freedom" or that I would feel more "loved" if I were equipped with those inclinations.
Possibly. Or, we may want to realize that the Church had people in it who took earlier forms of Grecian philosophy and used these forms to construct what they thought were more logical and/or reasonable concepts by which we might think about the Biblical God. In the process, they may have altered some concepts that were left by the Hebrews to the province of 'mystery' as to the full nature of God. Some like Aquinas tried to concretize things about God by using Grecian philosophical concepts that..........we have never really known.Well, someone must have come up with the (human) term "omnipotent" as a descriptor of the god of they concept. I am naturally assuming they meant to communicate something with it. Maybe we take theologians too seriously?
Yes, that is definitely the question that many [Christians] don't ask.Again, 'ominpotence' is a word. The question is: What did the person using it mean by it?
For other Christians, maybe. It's not disappointing to me. That's just the nature of the philosophy of "how the cookie crumbles," as we say.Yep, that would be very disappointing to learn.
Yes. To an extent it is. At least that's how theology works out in actual practice, despite what Christian Apologists often try to say to the contrary.I am under the impression that theology (and the discussion of theological explanations) is about what makes sense to/for US.
Fair enough. I guess that helps understand why I get suspicious when believers try to tell me what´s the truth/Truth/TRUTH (!!!).Yes. To an extent it is. At least that's how theology works out in actual practice, despite what Christian Apologists often try to say to the contrary.Everyone has to pull out two fist fulls of pieces from the thousand piece puzzle and make of them what they can.
So experiential knowledge can be had without the experience, yes? I would say that an omnipotent, omniscient God can create an omniscient being. Is that possible, if not why not?Yes, that seems accurate. He knows what a human feels like when they make a mistake.
So experiential knowledge can be had without the experience, yes?
I would say that an omnipotent, omniscient God can create an omniscient being. Is that possible, if not why not?
I don't see why that is, but I don't see how debating that matters to the conversation. Is that the only thing that creature created by God can't know?In my estimation a creature could not be omniscient. To be omniscient is to know all things perfectly, and therefore to know God perfectly, but only God is capable of knowing himself perfectly.
I am. Initially you defined free will based on desire, then you shifted to knowledge/rationality. You've made a lot of claims about "the only way to have such and such knowledge" in this thread and even the Mackie's World thread, and I'm trying to figure out whether your claims about how to attain knowledge are true or not. Based on this:At this point in our conversation there are two posts you have decided not to reply to (49 & 110), and therefore the dialogue is two branches away from the topic of the OP. This means that if you are to bring us back on topic you will need to provide thorough and clear arguments that bring us all the way back to the start.
Sure, by God or by a special gift of infused knowledge.
I don't see why that is, but I don't see how debating that matters to the conversation. Is that the only thing that creature created by God can't know?
I would say that they are not.
I'll go back through your posts and find all the times you said we have to learn things to have knowledge. I'm not doing them all at once though. This one seems to be at the heart of your argument though:And you are welcome to present an argument for your position, hopefully one that takes into account the large gaps you have left in the conversation.
The fact that meriting reinforces central truths of creaturely existence provides a sufficient reason for why God's plan of salvation includes merit. The reinforcement helps to teach us who and what we are, especially in relation to God. If the reinforcement were not present we would have less of this kind of knowledge.
Now this was your reply to that quoted section from my previous post, but it's just stating the question again. Why is it that the labor of our hands can contribute to creation for ill? What purpose does that "central truth" have? The "labor of the hands" of God never create ill, only good, and that's a good thing. Why is it good for us to be able to create ill if God can't?Who knows? One of the "central truths" I referred to could well be the truth that we play a role in our destiny, that the labor of our hands contributes to creation for good or for ill. An unmerited 'reward' would exclude this truth.
I'll go back through your posts and find all the times you said we have to learn things to have knowledge. I'm not doing them all at once though. This one seems to be at the heart of your argument though:
Learning and teaching are obsolete with specially infused knowledge.
If we can ever have knowledge of something, then God can specially infuse it without teaching it to us. Therefore we can have all of this type of knowledge without having anything "reinforced". We don't need to experience dependence to know that we are dependent.
Tell me how "teaching" and "learning" matter one whit to an omnipotent creator that can specially infuse knowledge?
Now this was your reply to that quoted section from my previous post, but it's just stating the question again. Why is it that the labor of our hands can contribute to creation for ill? What purpose does that "central truth" have? The "labor of the hands" of God never create ill, only good, and that's a good thing. Why is it good for us to be able to create ill if God can't?
And yes, if it was all a gift (unmerited reward) then yes, this wouldn't be a central truth. You're supposed to be telling me why this "central truth" is good.
Are you kidding me? I just quoted you doing it, you do it again in this post, and we just went over "special infusion" of knowledge. You want to move forward with this faulty premise that there is some knowledge that God is incapable of infusing, but we're not going to do that until you show that premise is true. Here's that quote again with bolding this time:I don't recall any place in the conversation where I said that knowledge requires learning, but it would not bother me if I did.
The fact that meriting reinforces central truths of creaturely existence provides a sufficient reason for why God's plan of salvation includes merit. The reinforcement helps to teach us who and what we are, especially in relation to God. If the reinforcement were not present we would have less of this kind of knowledge.
Again, bolding added by me so that you notice yourself claiming we need to learn things.There are two things I've highlighted that infused knowledge fails to realize: natural merit and causal efficacy. There is no merit in infused knowledge, and it does not teach us that we are causally efficacious (i.e. that what we do matters and has effects on the world and on us). The means to knowledge is important. Therefore we have good reasons to see why God did not simply supernaturally infuse knowledge of the things we learn naturally. Infused knowledge is also less common because of the Fall and Original Sin.
We're talking about giving knowledge. In your story, the father gives money, and you ask if it results in the son having knowledge. That's a switcheroo if I ever saw one. Giving things does not have the same effect on our knowledge that giving knowledge does.Not true. Suppose a father makes his son get a job to learn the worth of work and the value of money. Now suppose he gives him a gift of $50 on his birthday. Has the father "made obsolete" the reasons he had for wanting his son to work? Of course not. An exception does not undermine the rule. A gift does not undermine the value of the norm.
Are you kidding me? I just quoted you doing it, you do it again in this post, and we just went over "special infusion" of knowledge. You want to move forward with this faulty premise that there is some knowledge that God is incapable of infusing, but we're not going to do that until you show that premise is true. Here's that quote again with bolding this time:
And again, God has knowledge of everything, He didn't learn any of it (because He can't learn things) so there is no knowledge that requires learning to be had.
If God is omnipotent, He can infuse any knowledge that we can ever have (we can safely ignore the knowledge we're incapable of ever holding).
But here you make the same error again:
Your analogy fails:
We're talking about giving knowledge. In your story, the father gives money, and you ask if it results in the son having knowledge. That's a switcheroo if I ever saw one. Giving things does not have the same effect on our knowledge that giving knowledge does.
Do you read the things you write? Nigh on everything you've said comes back to knowledge. Even meriting, which you now claim doesn't have anything to do with knowledge, is about knowledge to you. For the third time in a row, I'm going to post your own words to you. Read them closely now. Why is meriting good?Since you utterly failed to meet my request of connecting this to the larger conversation, I will show how faulty it has been:
Nick: Why free will?
Zip: It gives us an opportunity to cling to God, to enter into covenant, to realize what is at stake, to merit, to come to knowledge of our causal efficacy, etc.
Nick: If God can infuse knowledge, then why is any of this necessary?
Zip: The only two things that infused knowledge could be substituted for are realizing what is at stake and coming to knowledge of our causal efficacy. Infused knowledge provides no way of accounting for the other three things. And what if God thinks it is good that the farmer has a greater understanding than the 2nd grader? What if he thinks it is better to learn about your abilities by exercising them than being told you have them? What if the normal way he provides to gain knowledge is more fitting than just infusing knowledge of everything? That something is possible does not mean it is better.
The fact that meriting reinforces central truths of creaturely existence provides a sufficient reason for why God's plan of salvation includes merit. The reinforcement helps to teach us who and what we are, especially in relation to God. If the reinforcement were not present we would have less of this kind of knowledge.
Since the ultimate goal is to become as Godlike as possible, I'm going to continue to appeal to the supernatural until you show me that it is inappropriate to do so. Simply because it is inconvenient to your argument is insufficient.And we are not God.
Feel free to post an argument that shows my statements to be untrue. I laughed out loud at your use of agriculture as an example. You do remember that the original intent was for agriculture to be unnecessary in a garden that produces all the food we need with no work right?You say, "God can miraculously infuse knowledge, therefore knowledge doesn't require learning." This is sophistry that makes the miraculous the norm. It's like saying that God can miraculously produce a full ear of corn, therefore agriculture is unnecessary. Or God can make bread out of rocks, therefore the rock collector is a baker. Or God can make someone levitate, therefore shoes are no longer necessary.
Let me put it this way: The insistence that God should have made human beings in a way where they have free will but without any motivational impetus to cause harm to other people is ... too simple of an idea. For us to say this would then mean that we 'know' what omnipotence "actually is," if it exists. My contention is that (despite what Christians often say and what atheists often assume philosophically)............... we don't know what omnipotence is or how it would work. It's just a word that WE fill with ill-begotten meaning because we ignore what the Bible indicates epistemologically.
Although I was speaking about a fairly traditional definition of the word omnipotent, I'm all for abandoning that notion, and positing that an existent god that is necessarily benevolent couldn't have known the extent of suffering in the universe (or that god wouldn't have created anything at all) and also doesn't have the power to have created things differently, or change things after they're created.
This situation would make that particular god the most tragic figure imaginable.
Lol! Well, that option wasn't quite the one I was implying, either.
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