Deism makes no sense to me. How can an effect be totally ontologically different and separate from its cause? Total paradox there. Don’t you think the cause has to remain within its effect to produce its effect?
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Deism makes no sense to me. How can an effect be totally ontologically different and separate from its cause? Total paradox there. Don’t you think the cause has to remain within its effect to produce its effect?
[/quote]
Explain a little further.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Deism makes no sense to me. How can an effect be totally ontologically different and separate from its cause? Total paradox there. Don’t you think the cause has to remain within its effect to produce its effect?
[/quote]
Explain a little further.[/quote]
In deism, it looks like to me the cause and the effect are totally different. Nothing in common. The cause doesn’t exist anymore once it makes it effect.
The cause has to in a sense breathe into and move its effect to keep it going to speak a little more metaphorically which deism fails to explain.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Deism makes no sense to me. How can an effect be totally ontologically different and separate from its cause? Total paradox there. Don’t you think the cause has to remain within its effect to produce its effect?
[/quote]
Explain a little further.[/quote]
In deism, it looks like to me the cause and the effect are totally different. Nothing in common. The cause doesn’t exist anymore once it makes it effect.
The cause has to in a sense breathe into and move its effect to keep it going to speak a little more metaphorically which deism fails to explain.
edit: Or even if the cause does continue to exists, it has nothing to do with its effect.[/quote]
What you are getting at is God’s sustained upholding of contingent reality, were he to not sustain it contingent existence would cease to exist nor is there anything about contingent existence that would sustain its own existence. This is in contrast to deism where God caused the effect and let it be where in reality the effect wouldn’t be if it were not for his continual upholding.
Not sure if you watched this you tube vid before.
Hebrews 1:3 indeed brother Joab. He upholds all things by the Word of His power.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Deism makes no sense to me. How can an effect be totally ontologically different and separate from its cause? Total paradox there. Don’t you think the cause has to remain within its effect to produce its effect?
[/quote]
Explain a little further.[/quote]
In deism, it looks like to me the cause and the effect are totally different. Nothing in common. The cause doesn’t exist anymore once it makes it effect.
The cause has to in a sense breathe into and move its effect to keep it going to speak a little more metaphorically which deism fails to explain.
edit: Or even if the cause does continue to exists, it has nothing to do with its effect.[/quote]
What you are getting at is God’s sustained upholding of contingent reality, were he to not sustain it contingent existence would cease to exist nor is there anything about contingent existence that would sustain its own existence. This is in contrast to deism where God caused the effect and let it be where in reality the effect wouldn’t be if it were not for his continual upholding.
Not sure if you watched this you tube vid before.
Yes! Even Aquinas made some sort of mention of a sustaining cause. I’d like to make a quote or mention a work but I completely forgot. Sorry about that. This is where the holy spirit comes into play for Christians. Right?
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Yes! Even Aquinas made some sort of mention of a sustaining cause. I’d like to make a quote or mention a work but I completely forgot. Sorry about that. This is where the holy spirit comes into play for Christians. Right?[/quote]
No, at least not in orthodoxy. That would be modalism.
God does this, not just the person of the Holy Ghost.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Yes! Even Aquinas made some sort of mention of a sustaining cause. I’d like to make a quote or mention a work but I completely forgot. Sorry about that. This is where the holy spirit comes into play for Christians. Right?[/quote]
No, at least not in orthodoxy. That would be modalism.
God does this, not just the person of the Holy Ghost.[/quote]
What is the role of the holy ghost.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:<<< What is the role of the holy ghost. [/quote]I’m curious what you mean by this Fletch?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:<<< What is the role of the holy ghost. [/quote]I’m curious what you mean by this Fletch?
[/quote]
What is the holy ghost and why does He/It exist? What’s the Holy Ghost’s purpose? Not sure if I should be using It or He on that one.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:<<< What is the role of the holy ghost. [/quote]I’m curious what you mean by this Fletch?[/quote]What is the holy ghost and why does He/It exist? What’s the Holy Ghost’s purpose? Not sure if I should be using It or He on that one.[/quote]That’s OK and a great question Fletch. Unfortunately it’s late and I just cannot tackle a question like that now. Try this. http://carm.org/holy-spirit for an overview that probably Chris won’t disagree with much of either.
I’m now curious myself, what did you think I might have meant?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
What about an oscillating universe? Then the big bang is irrelevent. Why can’t that universe have God like properties?[/quote]
An oscillating universe? As in it goes through multiple big bangs?[/quote]
Yes[/quote]
Then it would still seem to have a beginning, which would demand a cause.
I believe it also goes against ockham’s razor. [/quote]
“Seem”.
Come on Chris.[/quote]
Well it’s a laughable theory anymore in the first place. But it still doesn’t answer the fundamental questions about it. Why is it there, why does it ‘oscillate’? What’s the mechanism of action behind all of that?
What people fail to realize is when they supposedly answer a question about ‘the begining’ they didn’t really solve the ‘how’ or ‘why’, they just kicked the can further down the metaphysical road. Even if we know exactly and precisely how and what caused this universe, we still don’t know what caused that.
For instance, say Dr. Krauss is right and dark energy and ‘the laws of physics’ caused the big bang and hence the universe, okay, what caused the dark energy? Where, or how did it get there? What caused the ‘laws of physics’? Solve that and then you have to ask the same things about those solutions… [/quote]
I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying his “rebuttal” is idiotic.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:I’m now curious myself, what did you think I might have meant?[/quote]I honestly didn’t know. It was a great and meaty question though. Everybody talks about God, even in the Fatherly sorta sense and the Son Jesus Christ all the time, but nobody’s ever asked who and what is the Holy Spirit.
I once owned a book by the 17th century theologian John Owen which had on it’s a title page a fabulous formulation of the content of the book that I never forgot and use to this day. He spoke of the redemption of the hearts of men as being “Conceived by the Father, Achieved by the Son and applied by the Holy Ghost”.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Yes! Even Aquinas made some sort of mention of a sustaining cause. I’d like to make a quote or mention a work but I completely forgot. Sorry about that. This is where the holy spirit comes into play for Christians. Right?[/quote]
No, at least not in orthodoxy. That would be modalism.
God does this, not just the person of the Holy Ghost.[/quote]
What is the role of the holy ghost. [/quote]
Role? as in creator, redeemer, sustainer? All three.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:<<< What is the role of the holy ghost. [/quote]I’m curious what you mean by this Fletch?
[/quote]
What is the holy ghost and why does He/It exist? What’s the Holy Ghost’s purpose? Not sure if I should be using It or He on that one. [/quote]
Holy Ghost is tricky with pronouns, but He is fine. More traditional.
The Holy Ghost is the spirit of the Father and the Son, the best example of the Trinity is a family. When a husband gives himself fully to his wife and the wife gives herself fully to her husband, that love is shown in a third person.
In the case of the Holy Trinity it is that the Father loves so completely his Son and continually gives himself fully to the Son and the Son loves so completely his Father and continually gives himself so fully to the Father, that out of that love comes the Holy Ghost. The purpose is without three persons in the God head perfect communion would not be possible or evident, just like a man and woman’s love for each other is evident through their children.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:[quote]Tiribulus wrote:[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:<<< What is the role of the holy ghost. [/quote]I’m curious what you mean by this Fletch?[/quote]What is the holy ghost and why does He/It exist? What’s the Holy Ghost’s purpose? Not sure if I should be using It or He on that one.[/quote]That’s OK and a great question Fletch. Unfortunately it’s late and I just cannot tackle a question like that now. Try this. http://carm.org/holy-spirit for an overview that probably Chris won’t disagree with much of either.
[/quote]
Why would I disagree with Bible verses?
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Deism makes no sense to me. How can an effect be totally ontologically different and separate from its cause? Total paradox there. Don’t you think the cause has to remain within its effect to produce its effect?
[/quote]
Explain a little further.[/quote]
In deism, it looks like to me the cause and the effect are totally different. Nothing in common. The cause doesn’t exist anymore once it makes it effect.
[/quote]
That is one kind of causation, but that’s an empirical and temporal form. When you’re talking about dependent causation, usually the cause is sustained. For instance, you need rubber and roundness to get a tire, when you have the tire the rubber it depends on and the roundness it depends on still exist. These are contingencies…
The temporal causation you mentioned is the stuff of science. You add baking soda to vinegar you get CO2 and something else forget but you not longer have vinegar and baking soda. HOVEVER, what did sustain is all the stuff the baking soda and vinegar are made out of, like the atoms, did sustain and survived the change. So not only does it depend on what your talking about, it depends how deep you go into it…
This also speaks to why I say frequently that a ‘scientific’ proof of God would actually weaken the argument. Hume was desperately trying to dismantle causation and one thing he did succeed in, was showing that the temporal, empirical, observable causal relationships are only a matter of correlation. Correlation deals in matters of degree and more and less likeliness based on past experience…In other words it’s less reliable. But it’s an aposteriori form and we’re dealing with a priori matters.
It doesn’t have to, for the reasons I stated above. Prior to physical matter, time and space weren’t a problem, everything is eternal in that realm.
For instance, the an atom may have been the result of another cause that ceased existing, at least in that form, to become said atom, but the the laws the atom follows and indeed the laws that allowed the cause and effect to occur are static, eternal, and causal. The atom does what it does because the laws that govern it will not allow it to do anything else. That metaphysical component of the atom is how we understand things. Their physical state is the result. But the atom and the laws that govern it’s behavior exist simultaneously. And even if something acts on the atom to morph it or destroy it, the laws remain…
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[/quote]
I did. You said, “that probably Chris won’t disagree with.” Why would there even be a possibility?