RE: Conversion
August 11, 2009 at 4:58 pm
(This post was last modified: August 11, 2009 at 5:03 pm by Jon Paul.)
(August 11, 2009 at 4:19 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Yet curiously Arcanus argues the exact opposite! I do wish you wingnuts would fucking agree on thingsNo, he argued the same (as far as I have read).
(August 11, 2009 at 4:27 pm)Tiberius Wrote: You are simply twisting words and definitions. Saying morality simply is because of God (or is part of God's nature) is the same thing as saying morality was created by God.Saying that something is a part of Gods nature, apart from what he does, is not the same as saying that something is a result of Gods external operation and action. In that case, saying that God is good (a predication of his nature) would be the same kind of statement as saying that God created Saturn, which is a predication of his action in a potentiality outside of his own nature, not a predication of his nature independently of that action.
You are equivocating anything which is implied by Gods existence, such as Gods nature, the logical and moral order, to be equal to created, which is not the case. If it was the case, then Gods attributes would be created, and since his attributes are equal to his being (divine simplicity), that would imply that God is created. This is neither coherent nor orthodox Christian doctrine.
And more importantly, you are not addressing the actual TAG argument, but an argument about "created logic and morality", by a God who is ultimately created, which is not the TAG. The TAG specifically deals with the orthodox Christian conception of God, and specifically states that the logical and moral order is transcendent, and part of Gods uncreated nature.
(August 11, 2009 at 4:27 pm)Tiberius Wrote: They are both arguments which say that without God, we would have no morality, ergo for all intensive purposes God can be said to be the "creator" of morality in these arguments.He cannot be said to be the creator of morality anymore than he can be said to be the creator of himself and his attributes such as goodness (which really equals to the transcendent moral order), which cannot be said of the Christian conception of God.
(August 11, 2009 at 4:46 pm)LukeMC Wrote: I reject this example. More evidence was available if they chose to pursue it (foot prints, forensic evidence, odours, etc).Assuming that more evidence was available, which is an assumption you are making that is not a part of the scenario Plantinga speaks of, then until that evidence was collected, it would still be externally unverifiable and the external verifiability of an internal knowledge which is properly basic would be possible both theoretically and practically. There are real cases where people are innocent and yet the evidence is against them due to either viscious coincidences or conspiracies. The external unverifiabillity of an internal knowledge is possible and there are many actual examples of it within the very criminal system of a country like America, where people have been released up to 20 after being convicted of a crime they didn't commit, because the discovery and collection of some new evidence that wasn't previously available suddenly occured.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton