RE: I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!
August 13, 2009 at 11:38 pm
(This post was last modified: August 13, 2009 at 11:42 pm by Jon Paul.)
(August 13, 2009 at 8:52 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Logic doesn't have to exist other than a concept measurement.A conceptual measurement of what? Of how things in the real world actually are, which patterns, laws, rules they behave according to? And if not of how things in the real world actually are, then of how they are not? Obviously not, for that is not what we use logic for knowing.
So if it is a measurement, then it is one of a reality. Then it does exist as a conceptual reality, because it is in human minds simply a reflection of the rules, patterns and laws that apply in the world outside the human mind; yet, it is not itself matter, energy, space, or time, and yet it is a reality that applies to matter, energy, space and time, the real world and we comprehend this reality only as a conceptual one, and so it can only rightly be called conceptual.
(August 13, 2009 at 8:52 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: There's no reason for an 'objective mind to exist', or anything transcendent at all. A 'mind' at the beginning of the universe, yes indeed is more complex than if the universe just began with blind forces and there as no "God" at all.You would have to point out in which sense God is complex; because this doctrine of a "complex" God is categorically rejected by the orthodox Christian understanding of God
And no, God is not "a mind at the beginning of the universe". You still haven't understood transcendence. God exists, wholly transcendent to the temporal dimension, and to any temporal designation.
That God is of an intellectual nature does not make him complex. Intellection really means apprehension; and apprehension is an abstract actualisation of an either abstract or material object, however incomplete we actualise our apprehensions as human intellects. God, being pure actuality, is the apprehender and followingly actualiser of all things; his act of intellection is thus identified with his real actualisation (divine simplicity).
We must distinguish between the potential intellect, also called the passive intellect, and the active intellect, to further demonstrate and understand the differentiation between a simple (divine) and a composite/complex (human) intellect. The active intellect is that by which we apprehend the essence of something, however incompletely; when I see a dog and think, “That’s a dog,” it is the active intellect at work. The passive, also called the possible/potential intellect, is like the intellect’s memory. If I see a dog, and I’ve never seen or heard of a dog before, I apprehend it with the active intellect as some kind of animal I’ve never seen before. Gradually, as I learn about dogs, all of the things that go along with being a dog accumulate in the passive/potential intellect and become available to be apprehended by the active intellect. Then, when I see a dog I can move quickly from “this animal before me” to “Man’s best friend.” Now, Gods intellect is one which we call purely active intellect, because whatever he actively apprehends (abstractly actualises) the essence of, he does so in a manner which is itself defining for that essence; and thus, he does not need a potential intellect, like humans, to inform him with the intelligible forms achieved through sensory faculties and sensory knowledge of the already-actualised world, that he himself has actualised by apprehension.
We can see that, there could be no potential or possible intellect in him, exactly because there is nothing potential with which to inform him, apart from his own actualisation of it which thus informs it, the actuality of that essence or thing, rather than the other way around. No potential knowledge for humans isn't ultimately a result of Gods actualising apprehension. He is not a human mind; he is not intellectual in the same sense as a human is intellectual.
It is rather the human intellect which is only analogous to the divine intellect. The human intellect is a complex intellect, composed of two parts, the active and the potential intellect; just like we exist in a realm composed in complexity of potentiality and actuality. Whereas God is complete non-composite; completely simple - in a term, purely actuality, and God has only the purely active intellect, and is not informed by potential intellect as he is transcendent to time and is himself the apprehensive actualiser of all things. In other words, the human intellect falls completely short of the divine simplicity in the divine intellect, and isn't comparable beyond the remote analogy of intellect that allows us to realise this great differentiation. The human intellect has thus been developed in the universe in complexity and composition between potentiality and actuality, a teleological fact of generation (final causality/natural selection), which God has ordained, in creating humanity in his likeness, with intellect; that humanity might be as gods.
(August 13, 2009 at 8:52 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: If these two antonyms don't mean any difference to you, then no wonder i'm having problems with your semanticsThey do, but all I meant was that it depended upon what you will, whether will is free or not was not my point.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton