Quote:
|
So a god that is both omniscient and omnipotent is contradictory.
|
Not if it's existence transcends space-time, although the idea of a being existing outside space-time contradicts the standard meaning of the term 'existence'.
But what is God except one contradictory idea after the other? What is God other than that?
Quote:
The action does not occur because the being knows it; the being knows it because the action will occur. Thus, one takes an action of one's volition, and the omniscient being knows the action will occur because it will happen.
This removes the contradiction between free will and omniscience.
|
You seem determined not to think seriously about the dilemma. Perhaps you are incapable, or just don't want to. Anyway, God's role as first cause and his omnipotence plays into this just as much as his omniscience. If God knows all, is the cause of all, and is all powerful, then how does he escape responsibility and accountability for everything that occurs? No amount of theological reasoning has ever put more than a band-aid on this problem -- moreover, all theological reasoning can do (as you have done) is throw dust in people's eyes whenever they get close to spotting how distorted theological concepts of God are.
Quote:
|
This supposes that cause and effect are not the instruments or "illusions."
|
Not really, it just doesn't make note of it.
Quote:
|
Even with a causal system that does not mean that free will has no place.
|
So you are arguing for compatibilism. There are no serious disagreements between us then, except that compatibilism is unnecessarily wordy and easily induces false impressions.
Quote:
|
The causal system, with a subjective actor, can be supposed to have free will. You are assuming that humans behave according to a pre-existent nature. But subjects have to place themselves in the world. How I view the world may very well determine how I act. Regardless, it is my choice, my arrangement of prejudices (to paraphrase James), that create my world order and my determinism.
|
Your argument seems to be, "Because there is an I, my will is free" -- this kind of thinking is pretty representational of compatibilism in general.
Quote:
|
Also, you suppose that God can perceive the world in a meaningful way. What does it mean for an omnipresent being (assuming God is omnipresent) to perceive?
|
Everything at once in every mode possible; they would perceive the whole of actuality in the manner of every existing entity, so in colors (like humans), not in colors and smell-centric (like dogs), sound-centric (like bats), as statistical data (like computers), and more -- there would also be a mode of thought possible only to God, one that no entity other than God could use, and one of course that is incomprehensible to everyone else (and thus one I cannot describe, I can only say that, logically, it should exist).
But this concept of God is a fusion between deistic and pantheistic ideas -- a pantheistic God might not think in a mode
beyond that of all entities in nature and a deistic God might not think in any mode
except one inaccessible to other entities.