Thursday 16 December 2010

Theology needs more Logic!

Attending a Catholic University has its benefits. One of them is being surrounded by very intelligent people who are willing to engage in 'larger than life' debates about hugely important issues. I spend my days discussing metaphysics, ethics, political theory, economics and, very often, theology. Theology is, as far as I can tell, a branch of philosophy which limits itself to the study of God and the world as a relation to God. Most people, however, seem to think of theology as something very separate from philosophy. There is also an important repercussion to this branch having broken itself from the philosophy tree. Philosophy itself is actually a very exact art, akin to mathematics. Slight mistakes here and there can lead to utterly disastrous results. This is because both mathematics and philosophy, as conceptual creations of the mind, have the same roots. They are rooted in the process of logic. As I said, theology has broken somewhat with this tradition. Theologians often say things which simply cannot be true.
For example, let us consider a very basic tenant of the Christian faith which seems perfectly fine until it is examined with thorough logic. Namely - God is omniscient and omnipotent. I myself never considered this to be a conflicting or wrong statement, until reading the following passage in Ludwig von Mises' Human Action:
"Are omnipotence and omniscience compatible? Omniscience presupposes that all future happenings are already unalterably determined. If there is omniscience, omnipotence is inconceivable. Impotence to change anything in the predetermined course of events would restrict the power of any agent."
The logic is clear as day, an omnipotent being cannot be omniscient and vice versa! But theologians place quite a bit of their other reasoning on this contradiction-in-terms being true. There are countless examples of such mistakes throughout theological arguments. I would not single theology out so much from other branches of philosophy if not for the fact that it claims itself to be so key. Theologians can rarely see beyond the tip of their own nose. Sadly, most people follow their teachings as if they were sheep. People never question anything with regard to theology out of fear of being branded as disbelievers. But belief is by all means a most overestimated virtue...

9 comments:

  1. omniscience is the knowledge of all possible outcomes of every action.
    omnipotence is the ability to choose an arbitrary one.

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  2. No, omniscience is knowledge of everything, not just all possible outcomes.

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  3. If God can do anything and can choose what he wishes then that is not contradictory to knowing all... But when theologians use the term omnipotent, I do not think that they use it in the tricked sense ( which you may consider as a misuse), as they do not mean that He can do absolutely anything but rather to demonstrate the range of His power

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  4. Theoretically it could mean that God already presupposed everything that exists, so in essence he is omnipotent. However, most theologians would say that God can act. And in a presupposed universe action cannot exist because nobody can make choices (including God). This would contradict the whole “free will” doctrine that Christians keep talking about.

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  5. Well yes, God can act and knows the consequences of those action he knows how He will react to future problems.

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  6. That is logically impossible because God is omnipotent - he can determine the consequences of his actions. He can do, in essence, anything wuth anything! He can take nothingness and transform it into a planet. But if he was omniscient, he would already have known where and when he will create this planet. He would have no choice but to create it. Omniscience cancels out free will. The existence of omniscience means EVERYTHING that will ever happen is already determined.

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  7. You said "No, omniscience is knowledge of everything, not just all possible outcomes."

    Fine with me. Still, my case stands. God knows all that could happen (thus also what can't). However, not all of that can happen (some things in the set of those possibilities got to be mutually exclusive). That's why he also have the power to choose which of those paths are followed.

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  8. Actually omniscience is not just knowing all that could happen. That would be less knowledge than knowing what could happen AND what will happen. The question here is what is the definition of omniscience. It is either knowledge of everything, or not knowledge of everything. If it is knowledge of everything exactly as it was, is, and will be, then my case stands.

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  9. How does it rule out free will, if what happens is the consequence of His free will and that is the right choice then how knowing this makes Him not have free will?

    Although the question is if God knows all, can do all, but is benevolent, just, loving and merciful - can He really do all or is He limited in what He does by His love?

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