I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Darwinian]

No, but I couldn't resist using a quote from Galaxy Quest where Sarris tells Jason Nesmith to explain to Mathesar that they are really actors and not hereos at all. The Thermians have no concept of deception.

[amw79]

The reference becomes clear. Slightly ironic that i needed it explaning though!

[Darwinian]

Why? Where you in it? Can you introduce me to Missi Pyle



Please

[Jon Paul]

Come on then JP, one more time. Succinctly explain or put forward this argument without resort to entangled definitions or theological presumptions, references, definitions and assertions. In English if you can.

After hundreds of posts (253 in specific, and many from others in the thread), most of which I have spent elaborating on exactly this topic, if you still haven't gotten the idea yet, then I'm not going to waste any more time and can only reference to my 252 posts out of which at least a hundred probably deal with this.

[amw79]

Why? Where you in it? Can you introduce me to Missi Pyle



Please

Heh heh, ironic that I was talking about explanations, then needed one. As for Missi Pyle, you can keep her! Not my flavour....

[Edwardo Piet]

I have already given long and thorough explanations of A), what the word God signifies, and B) why God exists. Within the first ten pages of the thread I presented several reasons why. You have virtually only addressed the TAG; the argument from potency/actuality you haven't addressed at all, though it is fundamental to my understanding of God.

I have seen you go on about different definitions, I haven't seen you give any evidence. How does God exist? What evidence? Where?

He is still just as complex

You have failed to demonstrate that and only managed to repeat it using your fallacious definitions.

Failed to demonstrate what? Fallacious definitions? If he arose from chance that would be extremely improbabel, this is why he's complex. To say is nontemporal does nothing. How does being nontemporal make him any more simple? He still needs evidence.

And have you actually wondered why? I never said that merely postulating that a thing is nontemporal proves that it exists. What kind of straw man is that?

You keep making a strawman out of me by repeating that I am using strawmans when I've never given one I never said such a thing. I said I have seen nothing else. I am not misrepresenting you, I'm saying that how you define him makes no difference, not that you are defining him differently - it's just irrelevant till you give evidence that's all!

I am saying God is nontemporal because that is what the argument from potentiality/actuality mandates.

How? When? Where? Where is the actual evidence? Where? You can call God what you like but you still need evidence for him.

I have already laid out my reasons to think that God exists. Again you misrepresent me. TAG is not the only argument I gave.

I didn't say it was. So you misrepresent me with all these false strawman accusations - a strawman on your part!

But my activity for the last ten pages has not been proving Gods existence, but answering questions. Now you made a postulate that God was complex. This was not about my evidence; I have not seen a refutation of the given evidence,

How can I refute it if there isn't any or I don't know where it is? What evidence? Where?

Saying you've given evidence doesn't make it evidence. What evidence if you have some, where?

I made a postulate that God was complex because you don't just get God out of nowhere. He needs an explanation - a big one. He's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. And if he's nontemporal that doesn't make any difference untill: A. You can show that he's none temporal, and B. You can show that this makes him any less complex and any more probable. And then C. You still have to properly evidence God of course. (D. If you want to).

and now I am elaborating on what God signifies in relevance to your claim he is complex, not proving he exists (if you want evidence for the notion of God I have presented, read again my argument from potentiality/actuality).

Not only have I read the argument here but I've read you speak of it on MSN too. I don't see any explanations, I see alot of talk of why he's potenital/actuality without evidencing it!

I've been through why God is complex here in this post and on others.

It is not irrelevant to your argument. Your argument was not about the evidence for Gods existence, but about the complexity of God. I categorically refuted your fallacious Straw Man which you tried to use as evidence that God is ontologically complex.

No because your accusation of strawman is false, and even if I had made one it is irrelevant to my argument Untill you provide evidence that nontemporal makes him any less complex and that he is nontemporal, whether you call him temporal or not is irrelevant to the reason I gave that he's complex if he's temporal.

What strawman? As I have said: 1. If he was temporal and arose from chance alone this would be complex 2. This is analogous to him 'being there from the beginning', he's just as complex and requires just as much an explanation untill evidenced otherwise 3. Nontemporal also applies untill you give me evidence that it should be any different.

And it would also be nice if you'd apply evidence for him being nontemporal.

You are saying that you can analyse a temporal ontology and by that prove that God is complex,

1. I never said this. 2. I never spoke of proof. 3. I said that there's no reason to believe nontemporality makes any difference untill you've shown otherwise. I said that whether he's temporal or nontemporal is irrelevant to my argument...I did not say that he istemporal. I've never said this and if you can find where I said this I apologize!

Untill then I will assume that you're repeated false accusations of a strawman fallacy...is a strawman on your part!

which is categorically a Straw Man fallacy, since you are addressing the ontology A and pretending to make significantive conclusions about the ontology B in addressing the mutually exclusive ontology

A strawman fallacy is when I misrepresent your argument and fight that instead. I'm not doing this - what I am doing is I'm saying, whether it's temporal or nontemporal, what difference does it make? Why should I move from my definition when the problem is the same untill you've evidenced otherwise?

A temporal ontology is fundamentally different from a non-temporal one. A temporal probability of a thing to come into existence is completely irrelevant to the existence or non-existence of a nontemporal being,

It's called an analogy. If God were to come by chance alone then that would be very improbable - this is his complexity right there. And you have to demonstrate that he's any less complex by being nontemporal and therefore outside of time. I am not saying that God would have to arise out of chance when he's nontemporal! I'm saying what difference does it make? It's analogous in the sense that it still has the same problem untill you evidence otherwise.

The measure of complexity is not temporal in a non-temporal ontology. It is not potentiality in a non-potential ontology. The measure of complexity in a non-temporal being is not about the probability of ontogeny (an irrelevant statistical issue of the likelihood of a potentiality to become actual, impertinent to an ontology with no potentialities), but about essential and purely actual ontology (composition of parts or lack thereof).

Untill you've evidenced it then the analogy of God being complex if he were to come out of chance - doesn't fail. To say that he's outside of time so he therefore isn't arising out of chance, does no good untill you actually provide evidence. I'm not saying that he is to arise out of chance, I'm saying the complexity issue is analgous to it and he requires just as much evidence untill you demonstrate otherwise.

To go on about his essence being different and how he's nontemporal doesn't make it so untill you provide evidence.

EvF

[amw79]

Come on then JP, one more time. Succinctly explain or put forward this argument without resort to entangled definitions or theological presumptions, references, definitions and assertions. In English if you can.

After hundreds of posts (253 in specific, and many from others in the thread), most of which I have spent elaborating on exactly this topic, if you still haven't gotten the idea yet, then I'm not going to waste any more time and can only reference to my 252 posts out of which at least a hundred probably deal with this.

Ha ha! Yes, I've read those 253(4 now) posts, of which the initial post was a tangled, wordy, theologically defined assertion (which you have since claimed to be "evidence"). You have subsequently spent the next 252 posts re-defining every word, idea and argument to your own ends.

I was wondering whether, since you explicitly said that "the argument from potency/actuality.....is fundamental to my understanding of God.":- you could succinctly clarify this argument - clearly you can't (or won't - giving you the benefit of the doubt).

As I said earlier on in this thread, many of the greatest ideas of all time can be expressed (and understood) in straightforward language (e.g theory of evolution by natural selection, theory of relativity, theory of special relativity, germ theory). However you seem unable to describe the basis of your beliefs in such a manner

[Jon Paul]

You have failed to demonstrate that and only managed to repeat it using your fallacious definitions.

Failed to demonstrate what? Fallacious definitions?

(...)

If he arose from chance that would be extremely improbabel, this is why he's complex.

That's what I have been addressing all along.

To say is nontemporal does nothing. How does being nontemporal make him any more simple? He still needs evidence.

No. I never said that he is nontemporal makes him simple. The reason why he is nontemporal is the reason why he is simple; namely, that he is pure actuality, with nothing of potentiality and composition. That he is non-temporal makes a difference to the measure of complexity, whereas the essential simplicity lies in his pure actuality.

How? When? Where? Where is the actual evidence? Where? You can call God what you like but you still need evidence for him.

I will point to the posts I've already written about why the state of affairs of impure actuality necessitates that there be pure actuality (God). Here, here, here, here.

I made a postulate that God was complex because you don't just get God out of nowhere. He needs an explanation - a big one. He's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. And if he's nontemporal that doesn't make any difference untill: A. You can show that he's none temporal, and B. You can show that this makes him any less complex and any more probable. And then C. You still have to properly evidence God of course. (D. If you want to).

A; a fact of him being actus purus, B, a fact of him being actus purus.

And again, you conflate two separate issues. Whether God as an entity is ontologically complex in theory has nothing to do with whether God exists. If it did, you would not claim that God is complex in theory without conceding his existence; but you do, because it's not a matter of evidence, but of the implicit ontology even in hypothesis.

No because your accusation of strawman is false, and even if I had made one it is irrelevant to my argument Untill you provide evidence that nontemporal makes him any less complex and that he is nontemporal, whether you call him temporal or not is irrelevant to the reason I gave that he's complex if he's temporal.

Him being non-temporal has nothing to do with him being complex or not, but with the measure of complexity in his ontological plane.

What strawman? As I have said: 1. If he was temporal and arose from chance alone this would be complex 2. This is analogous to him 'being there from the beginning', he's just as complex and requires just as much an explanation untill evidenced otherwise 3. Nontemporal also applies untill you give me evidence that it should be any different.

You claim that if an atemporal being (actus purus) was temporal and arose from chance alone, this would be complex. I reply: no, it is a self-contradiction, it cannot be even in theory nevermind in praxis, because it contains a contradiction in terms. The only way you can claim that it is possible either in theory or practice to consider the scenario that "if God was temporal and arised from chance alone", is to address a God who is not actus purus, because actus purus necessitates nontemporality (e.g. God is not a potentiality which is actualised/an entity that "arises"). If you do that, then you are addressing a temporal ontology which is not actus purus, and thereby not God, and this equals to the straw man or non-sequitur of pretending to make significantive conclusions about the status of actus purus complexity by addressing the status of complexity of something which is not actus purus. Since it is not actus purus, it would have none of the other attributes of God, either; such as omnipotence, omnipresence, eternality, omniscience, etc, since all of these attributes are ultimately equal to actus purus, and are not arbitrarily predicated, and do not exist without actus purus. In other words, God cannot be temporal and "arise by chance", and still be God. A random object with a spatiotemporal and material ontology can.

[amw79]

Quoting Jon Paul

The reason why he is nontemporal is the reason why he is simple; namely, that he is pure actuality(evidence please), ]with nothing of potentiality and composition (evidence please). That he is non-temporal (evidence please) makes a difference to the measure of complexity, whereas the essential simplicity lies in his pure actuality (evidence please).

[Jon Paul]

Quoting Jon Paul

The reason why he is nontemporal is the reason why he is simple; namely, that he is pure actuality(evidence please), ]with nothing of potentiality and composition (evidence please). That he is non-temporal (evidence please) makes a difference to the measure of complexity, whereas the essential simplicity lies in his pure actuality (evidence please).

I have pointed to the posts in which I substantiate those claims in the very post you quoted. And as I've already said, the issue of whether God is ontologically complex is not about whether God actually exists; if it was, EvF would not claim that God is complex in theory without conceding his existence; but he does, because it's not a matter of existence, but of the implicit ontology in hypothesis.