Posts: 1152
Threads: 42
Joined: July 8, 2013
Reputation:
23
Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 2:01 am
Kind of on the spot, and sort of inspired by another argument I made a little while back, namely this one:
Platonic-Theodicy Dilemma Wrote:
So basically, the inspired argument goes something like this:
P1) To be absolute is to not exist in relation to anything else.
P2) If God exists, he exists in relation to his creation. [Both in terms of the properties he possesses (i.e his omnipotence vs. our impotence) and in terms of his wanting us to have a personal relationship with him]
C) Therefore, if God exists he cannot be absolute.
Might be a crap argument, but it came to mind as vaguely interesting.
Posts: 9147
Threads: 83
Joined: May 22, 2013
Reputation:
46
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 3:17 am
(This post was last modified: January 20, 2014 at 3:20 am by bennyboy.)
I think you're subtly equivocating on slightly different meanings of "absolute." If you include relational properties as a possession of an entity, then nothing in a dynamic universe can be absolute. But I'd argue if the NATURE of the relational properties is always the same, you can still call it absolute. For example, if God is a philosophical quantity, anything could flow from it, so long as the nature of things is that things equally flow back to it.
As for personal relationships-- that's just Santa Claus with a different name. The idea that God is watching teenagers rub on out in the shower and saying "Tsk! Tsk!" is really no definition of God at all, in my opinion, since God, being eternal, should not be capable of changing emotions.
Posts: 1152
Threads: 42
Joined: July 8, 2013
Reputation:
23
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 3:26 am
The problem is that God is pretty much never theologically described as being dynamic. After all, he's labelled 'unchanging' and 'timeless', with a truckload of 'justifying' Biblical passages in tow.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
Posts: 29843
Threads: 116
Joined: February 22, 2011
Reputation:
159
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 4:36 am
It occurs to me that if you consider all of space-time as a 4 dimensional manifold, it has many of the same tensions between the relative and the absolute.
I think Benny is right, though it's less equivocation than conceptual confusion, with a possible side of UME.
Posts: 9147
Threads: 83
Joined: May 22, 2013
Reputation:
46
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 5:54 am
(This post was last modified: January 20, 2014 at 6:00 am by bennyboy.)
(January 20, 2014 at 4:36 am)rasetsu Wrote:
It occurs to me that if you consider all of space-time as a 4 dimensional manifold, it has many of the same tensions between the relative and the absolute.
I think Benny is right, though it's less equivocation than conceptual confusion, with a possible side of UME.
I don't know what a manifold is, but if the 4th dimension is really a dimension, then that would support an absolute view of God, since you'd need a kind of meta-time in order for anything to be dynamic from God's perspective.
Posts: 1152
Threads: 42
Joined: July 8, 2013
Reputation:
23
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 10:09 am
(This post was last modified: January 20, 2014 at 10:12 am by MindForgedManacle.)
The 4-dimensional manifold bit essentially describes time as being static, and not dynamic. In other words, on that view there is no absolute simultaneity of events, but a relative one as per Einstein.
@Rasetsu What's UME?
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
Posts: 29843
Threads: 116
Joined: February 22, 2011
Reputation:
159
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 20, 2014 at 1:49 pm
UME == use/mention error.
Posts: 9147
Threads: 83
Joined: May 22, 2013
Reputation:
46
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 21, 2014 at 12:03 am
(January 20, 2014 at 10:09 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote: The 4-dimensional manifold bit essentially describes time as being static, and not dynamic. In other words, on that view there is no absolute simultaneity of events, but a relative one as per Einstein.
@Rasetsu What's UME?
Right. If, from God's point of view, time is like an extra physical dimension, along which objects are oriented, then God is timeless and absolute, and absolutely unable to change or to judge anything.
The Christian mess is in trying to reconcile an unchanging God with the capacity to have emotions and to take actions.
Posts: 29843
Threads: 116
Joined: February 22, 2011
Reputation:
159
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 21, 2014 at 9:20 am
(January 21, 2014 at 12:03 am)bennyboy Wrote: (January 20, 2014 at 10:09 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote: The 4-dimensional manifold bit essentially describes time as being static, and not dynamic. In other words, on that view there is no absolute simultaneity of events, but a relative one as per Einstein.
Right. If, from God's point of view, time is like an extra physical dimension, along which objects are oriented, then God is timeless and absolute, and absolutely unable to change or to judge anything.
That wasn't my point. As beings that are temporal processes, from our point of view, time is a relationship between independent moments, each distinct from the next. All references to time from our perspective are relative, stated using indexicals ('now', 'yesterday', 'next year'). However, if time is just another spatio-temporal dimension, then essentially everything that will happen has, in a sense, already happened; so globablly, time would be a static, absolute, unchanging dimension. So you have a perspectivist illusion; from one perspective, time is relational; from another viewpoint, it's absolute.
Posts: 1152
Threads: 42
Joined: July 8, 2013
Reputation:
23
RE: Argument from Absoluteness
January 21, 2014 at 10:48 am
(This post was last modified: January 21, 2014 at 10:48 am by MindForgedManacle.)
(January 21, 2014 at 12:03 am)bennyboy Wrote: Right. If, from God's point of view, time is like an extra physical dimension, along which objects are oriented, then God is timeless and absolute, and absolutely unable to change or to judge anything.
The Christian mess is in trying to reconcile an unchanging God with the capacity to have emotions and to take actions.
Well, the problem is that Christian apologists will rarely, if ever, accept this view of time which is called th B-theory. Accepting the B-theory (which is supported by the usual interpretation of Relativity) entails that there is no priviledged frame of reference. Now, apologists can't have that, because among other things it means that the universe can't have, even in principle, begun its existence, because on this view there is no "temporal-becoming", to use the retarded jargon.
|