Rorty And Mormonism

[mrmandias]

It is obvious that the notion of a transcendent God is different than a physical God

Its not obvious to me. Why can't God be both immanent (embodied) and transcendent at the same time? Obviously he can't be *wholly* transcendent if emboded, but I don't see why he can't be transcendent at all.

[The Grimace]

Its not obvious to me. Why can't God be both immanent (embodied) and transcendent at the same time? Obviously he can't be *wholly* transcendent if emboded, but I don't see why he can't be transcendent at all.

That is the challenge that is upon Bukowski.

[mfbukowski]

Question 2) Computer programmers are working on making a machine that can defy the logic Rorty "implies". If with a little imagination we are finding the way to how humans might program free will, would it not be presumptious to adopt a dogmatic position to deny that a transcendent God can do it?

Computer programmers are not transcendent beings and they get to work on things, imagine, and talk together.

Why would a transcendent God create the world in the first place? He is infinite, perfect, self-sustaining and doesn't need anything. He certainly doesn't need sinful little creatures running around causing trouble and bringing evil into his infinite perfection.

This article on Aristotle is not too bad and certainly adequate for this discussion:

The Metaphysics

Main articles: Metaphysics (Aristotle) and Unmoved movers

In his first philosophy, later called the Metaphysics, (or “after the Physics”), Aristotle discusses the meaning of being as being. He refers to the unmoved movers, and assigns one to each movement in the heavens; or more prosaically, he tasks future astronomers with correlating the estimated 47 to 55 motions of the Eudoxan planetary model, by his estimates, with the most current and accurate observations. According to Aristotle, each unmoved mover continuously contemplates its own contemplation; they have no knowledge of the cosmos, nor do they participate therein. The planets and stars, which have their source of motion within themselves (by virtue of aether, Aristotle's fifth element) aspire to emulate the uniform circular motion of their particular mover. Thus captivated, their tireless performance is entirely the result of their own desire. This is one way in which the movers are said to be unmoved. Also, because they are immaterial eternal substantial form, they lack any aspect of magnitude or volume and occupy no location; thus, they are physically incapable of moving anywhere, or of moving anything. Likewise, they must have no sensory perception whatsoever on account of Aristotle's theory of cognition: were any form of sense perception to intrude upon their thoughts, in that instant they would cease to be themselves, because actual self-reflection is their singular essence, their whole being. Like the heavenly bodies in their unadorned pursuit, so the wise look, with affection, toward the star; and hence as a role model, they inspire those who look up to them, and by whom others still, will yet find themselves enthralled, and so on, they muse… the enduring natural order of aeon, season, animal and plant.....

Aristotle's principles of being (see section above) influenced Anselm's view of God, whom he called "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Anselm thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity of judging "being" against something that might not exist, may have led Anselm to his famous ontological argument for God's existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_view_of_God

So somewhere along the line with the help of Plotinus and Aquinas we "progressed" from the Aristotelian view of God- which in itself has problems as 2500 years of philosophy has shown- all the way to the merciful Father of Christendom.

Just try mentally to square the view expressed in that quote with your merciful Father who knows you and loves you and dwells in your heart and is available to you in time of need.

It can't be done. If God is transcendent, he has no emotions, no need to create, and certainly doesn't care about little squirmy messy humans. Yuck! (Even that is ascribing some emotion to him- which isn't accurate)

But I don't want to make this thread about Aristotle- that is very very old stuff.

[Vance]

According to the LDS canon, God is omnipresent.

"God’s ability to be present everywhere through his spirit"

Not exactly what is generally understood by the word "omnipresent".

[TAO]

Well, if the Evil Team has no chance of winning, doesn't that mean the outcome is pre-determined?

To be precise, that specific outcome is pre-determined. Of course, I don't consider this as jeopardizing free will, as it isn't controlling people any more than people already control others here on this Earth.

[BCSpace]

There is no "Mormon God". When you stand at the final judgement, you will not ask him if he is a mormon.

Sure there is and sure He will. Baptism into the Mormon Church, or nearest ancient equivalent, is required for the Celestial and Terrestrial glories. If one is Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, etc. and does not accept the Mormon Church in this life or in the afterlife, then one will not have improved on one's first estate.

[mfbukowski]

Words are clumsy brushes with which to "paint". Everything about words is defined by the five empirical senses of the physical/mortal body. "God" made the world we move in to be this way. Also we have constant contact with "God", this is the metaphysical part, the infinite part. So "God" is both immanent and transcendent. The immanent relationship is one on one. The transcendent relationship is what "God In Total" knows, which is impossible for us to know without being taken into the whole "mind of God", which would effectively end our sovereign individuality. As we are individuals, and never connect to each other beyond the five senses, and only feel a connection to the transcendent because of our constant contact with "God", it seems evident that this dual existence that "God" enjoys is meant to be this way. "God" as transcendent, and "God" as immanent, as one of us, as each one of us....

I have no problem with calling it all a mystery

But then don't talk about it and expect it to make sense.

[mfbukowski]

This is to Maidservent but really it applies to more posts here as well

I do think that the knowledge you have at your disposal is beyond me. And the knowledge that *I* do have, is still beyond me to express in words which means I haven't processed it yet to get to a shareable position.

But I will attempt a few things to say.

There is no "space" where there is no Being. All is Being. There is no emptiness. There are boundaries of these Beings (US), but those boundaries serve just as much as a joining as they do a dividing (and both the joining and the dividing is joyful, ecstatic even--to become a child [dividing] and to again become a lover [joining]). Birth and marriage. Birth and embrace. (There can be some 'overlap' of Being such as I consider myself me, but I am also constituted of cells of which they are themselves without my conscious direction.)

Beings create. Beings are uncreated, but objects are ALWAYS created. ALWAYS. Something created also can BE because it becomes the body of the Being. When I create something I pour my essence into it and it is added to my identity and my being.

So if we encounter anything--it is a Being or it is that which a Being created.

It IS. We ARE. I AM.

We don't need an explanation.

We don't need a story.

Remove all the stories and still--I AM.

Or further: I AM. HERE. NOW.

But necessary or not, speak we do. Tell the story, we do.

What IS, is infinitely malleable (creatable). This can be dangerous, like a fire raging. Creation can be destructive too. Brahma and Shiva.

You don't hand this to small creatures.

So we begin to become not so small--to have the fires in our hands and know what to do with it. THIS TAKES EONS AND THIS MORTALITY IS NEITHER THE BEGINNING NOR THE END OF IT.

And in order to EXIST FOREVER AS OURSELVES AND KNOW OURSELVES WE MUST SEE OURSELVES IN THE EYES OF ANOTHER BEING FOR ETERNITY. They must tell our story and call us into existence again and again. They must NAME us, and call our NAME.

We can't know ourselves as the basis for a stable creation. We have to be known by another. They have to AGREE that we exist--forever. This is the meaning of marriage. HE knows YOU; and SHE knows YOU. And you agree between the two of you that you will exist eternally; you eternally consent to each other through every translation of Being. You know you cannot dissolve because HE (or SHE) creates you over and over again. You can be known by more than one other (known by many more), but there should be at least one you can rely on on an unbreakable basis (covenant).

God is all. God is the inhale and exhale of what IS. God is crucified and God is risen.

There is no creation out of nothing, but there is creation out of what has always been there.

In terms of mortality, truth is a property of a being--the properties of being human/child of God and of being alive. WE ARE. We try to distill that on to stone tables with more or less miserable results (but necessary for a time). We learn, finally, to inscribe that on the fleshy tables. We learn how to keep each other alive and how not to devour each other. It's called unity/GOD--everyone lives, everyone grows, everyone eats, everyone has joy, everyone creates, everyone is themselves, but they have learned how to do it without the expense of destroying another. It's not the easiest thing to learn, in fact it is THE lesson (they call it love here), and so we have to do it in a practicum, they call that earth/morality.

I'll stop there. That's too much as it is.

I always love your posts!

This is kind of a general note on the nature of discourse we are going to run into on this thread if we really get into it. and let me make a point or two about that.

The last hundred plus years of philosophy especially in the English language has been totally dominated by a general attitude called "linguistic analysis" or "Analytical Philosophy" which basically makes some presuppositions.

The central assumption is that since everything we know is linguistic- that is, it is in some language or other (math being a language as well) and since our purposes in using language are communication, our efforts in clarifying thought should be centered on the way we speak about things.

So, many confusions which appear to be philosophically heavy issues are, upon analysis, just linguistic issues.

Because nouns are modified by adjectives, one might be tempted to think that ALL nouns can be modified by ALL adjectives. A car might be red or green or blue, big or little, etc. But what color is "virtue" ?

Well virtue has no color so arguing about it would be silly. We know the uses of the verb "to be" but when we turn it into a noun we come up with "being" which really doesn't refer to any THING at all.

Yet philosophers have argued forever about "BEING" as if it is a thing. Not all verbs can be turned into nouns and make sense. "Runningness" might be an example.

What is the essence of runningness? We might actually suppose it has one, when it does not.

But the philosophical attitude I am describing here has a major problem with metaphysical discourse in most cases because it tends to not be logical discourse.

Metaphysical statements are statements like "Everything is x". When you really think about it, that statement is not very useful. What do we know about "x"? Does that statement mean that "nothing is not x"?

Usually what follows the "Everything is" is not defined very well. So when you say "All is Being", I do not understand what you mean. Is that a definition? What do you mean by "All"? Does "All" include non-being as part of being? Is non-being a "thing"?

On the other hand, in reading your post, it definitely has communicative and emotive power. Essentially I read it as I would read a poem. The function of poetry is not to convey logical meaning or define things. I have posted this before because I love it

since feeling is first

e.e. cummings

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

This is just exquisite! Does it have meaning? Of course! Is it profound? Of course! Does it inspire us? Absolutely! Does it explain much about human emotion and being human? Without a doubt! Is it a valuable piece of literature? Unquestionably!

Does it make sense logically or have a truth value? Absolutely not. Can you parse it and deconstruct it logically and have it mean anything? Nope. Is it valuable as philosophical discourse? Not even close!

We have to understand the difference between poetry and what is intended to convey logical meaning. Poetry is poetry, logical discourse, though still in some sense metaphoric because to some extent all language is metaphor, is logical discourse.

So I see all talk about God's transcendence as poetry. Nothing wrong with that, but just don't think it is anything but what it is.

God is beyond description. We can make descriptions which make sense, but they cannot capture what God is. We can make up stories- all I am saying is that if your story is supposed to be logical make it logical.

If it is supposed to be poetry, see it for what it is, and let it be that and appreciate it for what it is.

The story I am trying to write here is a logical description of God as seen by a Mormon, and how that logic coheres or doesn't cohere with Rorty's way of seeing language. That's what this is about.

[mfbukowski]

Yes to bukowski and Maidservant! Fantastic. (I'd quibble with the idea of a "patriarchal" Order, but we've been down that road before. *grin*) I really wish we'd scrape away all the Neoplatonic nonsense which has coopted "religion", which is really just about whatever "binds" people together. It's extremely telling that none of the attributes which have come to supposedly define "Godness" -- creatio ex nihilo, Absolute, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Consubstantial, Unlimited, Inerrant, Ineffable, Incorporeal, Intangible, Immaterial, Impassible, Immutable, Timeless, Transcendent, Trinity, Supernatural, Monotheism, etc. -- actually show up anywhere in scripture except through retroactive attempts to graft them in.

And I think that is an incredibly important fact. The scriptures are NOT philosophy thank God- literally. They are God's words to our hearts.

[mfbukowski]

Hi Jeremy,

In a thread about philosophy we have to restrict our words to those that are found in the Bible?

Okay, so what about bukowski? Why can he use the non-biblical word, immanent, to describe something about God he believes?

Philosophy and theology are the same as other disciplines. There always develops a technical language with small words that summarize big ideas. The technical vocabulary isn't a trick, its for brevity. We could write everything out in longer sentences and not use the technical language. I really don't think it would be more productive.

Does anyone else have an opinion on that? I'll go with what people want.

Fair question but Mormonism typically doesn't think much about Philosophy and I am generally ok with that!

Yet we have 2000 years of Christian Theology which needs to be replaced. All I am doing is making a feeble attempt at deconstructing the damage to theology already done.

The theologians picked the weapons. If they didn't like philosophy they shouldn't have tried to use it.

[mfbukowski]

I thought the same thing, too. Bukowski asserts that a transcendent God is capable of creating an entire universe, but fails to explain how that same God lacks power to create free-will. Seems to be no reason to impose this limit.

No I never said that a transcendent God could do anything. He doesn't need to. That's the whole point. He is self-existent and perfect- why would he need to DO anything at all? And of course calling such a being "he" is inappropriate anyway. Even calling him a "being" doesn't really make sense since it limits him to our idea of "existence" which is a pretty feeble concept anyway.

We can't imagine nothingness so we decide there must be a "thing" called "existence". Or an attribute or ?? What is it anyway? It's vague, I'll tell you that much. Try to define that word "existence" without mumbo jumbo. Good luck!

[mfbukowski]

Mormons see God as more than just 'Father'. They see him as 'physical being'. They see him as 'living inside the universe'. They see him as 'omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent'.

How are these views of God 'simpler'?

Ask your dad. He's all those things too. He doesn't worry about those things, why should you?

Incidentally those words are philosophical terms from the Greeks. Your theologians made them all up to describe a transcendent being. don't blame the paradoxes on me.

[mfbukowski]

Let us suppose that Deity created all the individuals on two football teams -- let's call them Evil and Good. Now they are playing football with the same rules, training, equipment, etc The same external factors.

Which side will win?

The side that Deity designates, because he created both teams and everything about those teams were created by the same deity. An illustration on how free will does not make sense in an ex nihilo world -- the outcome is pre-determined. Perhaps there is a difference in the external factors, but the players have no control over those factors.

If God created an ex nihilo universe that includes evil, then God is responsible for evil. There's no getting around it.

The answer is that God organized a universe which coheres with laws and forces which were here before this universe was. That is the Mormon solution to the problem. And it works.

[Vance]

Why would a transcendent God create the world in the first place?

For sadistic pleasure?

Oh, wait, . . . .what!

[mfbukowski]

http://louisjacobs.o.../view.php?id=62 some interesting thoughts on free will.

Indeed! Thanks!

It is, in any event, extremely unlikely that Akiba is referring to the problem of foreknowledge and free will, which he seeks to solve by stating that both are true in a way we cannot grasp. The consideration of abstract metaphysical problems of this kind is foreign to the concrete, 'organic' (2) type of rabbinic thought. Only by reading into it medieval modes of speculation can Akiba's saying yield the idea it is conventionally held to be postulating.

The concrete, organic, practical, Pragmatic way of seeing this is exactly what this is all about. A distinction without a difference is no distinction at all. We can slice and dice "substance" and free will and determinism all day long and then we will still legitimately decide if we want chicken or beef when it's time for lunch and God won't care which we pick, and for my money, it doesn't matter if he knew which we would pick or not!

It's a non-issue!

And we will still talk scripturally about the Father Son and Holy Ghost no matter what theology we dream up.

Edited February 8, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

For sadistic pleasure?

Oh, wait, . . . .what!

But in reality you have a good point- a transcendent God cannot do it for any "emotional" reason, even love. As I quoted earlier even St. Anselm knew that well!

[mfbukowski]

error

Edited February 8, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Its not obvious to me. Why can't God be both immanent (embodied) and transcendent at the same time? Obviously he can't be *wholly* transcendent if emboded, but I don't see why he can't be transcendent at all.

It's like being perfectly good and just a little evil, or just a little pregnant. Either you is or you ain't.

Besides it's the Greeks that came up with the whole idea that perfection means that you can't be embodied. Jesus said "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect", commanding us silly little humans to be perfect.

I guess he hadn't read any Plato.

[mfbukowski]

error

[mfbukowski]

What do you make of John Millbank and Radical Orthodoxy? What of the notions of analogy and participation? Apparently, we cannot speak of God, yet we do. Apparently we cannot experience God, yet we do. "We are permitted to do this," writes Simon Oliver, "because of a principle which Aquinas accepts from Neoplatonism: effects resemble their causes." If it is not a perfect experience, yet it is an analogical one. If it is not a perfect speech, yet it is an analogical one. It is true experience and true speech, even if limited. Our experience of God cannot be complete, as our speech cannot be complete; but they can be real and they resemble their cause.

Oliver continues with the metaphysics of participation: "creation ex nihilo does not refer to some kind of primordial temporal instant where God simply willed everything into being and stood aside. At every moment, creation is ex nihilo." Man is never entirely free; he cannot will himself through walls. He must act within the context that his material existence makes possible--an existence which is a continuing grace of God in which he participates.

Your view appears to be "the uni­vocity of being and an understanding of knowledge as representation." This is rejected by Radical Orthodoxy, because "whereas we might think that placing God and creation under a single univocal concept called 'being' might make God less 'other' or less 'distant', the opposite occurs. An infinite quantitative 'sea of sameness' (that is, univocal being) is established between God and creation. The consequence of this shift in the doctrine of God is that God becomes a distant object who can only be the focus of a superstitious faith which is separate from reason."

Hence the modern secularism, atheism, and nihilism. I have not presented the arguments to do them justice, but what do think of this?

Thanks for the post. I must admit that I am weak in my knowledge of theology since my training has been in philosophy at secular universities where theology is not thought, erroneously I think, to be not "rigorous". That's their problem, but I do not claim to be an expert in all that is happening in theology, so admittedly I have a lot of catching up to do there.

But one of my bugaboos is the Correspondence Theory of Truth which basically says that language "represents" reality. Long story short, I don't buy it because in order for language to "represent" reality, in order to check how well it does in fact "represent" it, we would have to magically get OUTSIDE of language, look at "reality" as it is independent of our perceptions OF reality- and essentially say "Yep- it corresponds" or "No- we got it wrong".

You can't do that. Words are words and they stand on their own. In a sense we cannot get outside of them.

Think about how you would do that. You see a cat on a mat, and say "The cat is on the mat". There is no other way of communicating that without words. You are saying something about the state of your perceptions. Because we share perceptions, we know what those words mean, but you can't get outside of the words any more than you can use words to describe the sound of running water or the sound of a trumpet or the proverbial taste of salt, or the smell of lavender to someone who has never experienced them.

We can say "It smells like onions" and know exactly what that means, but if you have never smelled an onion the sentence would be meaningless.

That is because LANGUAGE SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THE WORLD. It communicates our perceptions to others with similar perceptions but that is about all it can do. If I don't "know what you're saying" no communication can happen. Even the words "The cat is on the mat" presume that you know what the word "cat" means, that you have perceived cats before as opposed to dogs or an ostrich, or that you have at least seen pictures of cats or their descriptions or seen pictures of them.

We know what a unicorn is even though they do not "exist" in the world because it is irrelevant for something to exist to talk about it. What we talk about is our perceptions- not about the "world itself" whatever that even means.

So for correspondence or representation to work, we would have to get outside of our perceptions to see if indeed what we said corresponded to some reality independent of our perceptions and see if what we said corresponded to what was outside our perceptions.

All we have is words- I believe (note the religious word believe there) that all logical thought MUST be in words. I think that direct experience is non-linguistic, and that experience (or "appearances" if you will) ARE reality. Again this being somewhat metaphysical discourse here, it is a non-falsifiable belief about the nature of what we call "real".

So I have no clue how an "effect" can be said to "resemble" a "cause."

I presume they have dealt with the whole issue of what Hume said about causes- but unfortunately though I know Hume I don't know what these guys say about that.

In case you haven't figured out the subtle message here, I don't think Neoplatonism in any form works so well. So I am suspicious!

Edited February 8, 2013 by mfbukowski

[3DOP]

Good question.

Immanent, transcendent, tri-union, trinity, immaterial, homoiousia are out.

And, Father, son, and "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" are in.

edited to add,

And "now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. "

Thanks for your replies Vance. I really didn't understand what you were driving at with regards to the reasoning you used in a previous post to me about why creatio ex nihilo is illogical.The quoted post prompts me to ask...

You are saying that for sake of discussion, because neither theosis nor deification are biblical words, we shouldn't use them? Do you think it is necessary to write out the sentence, "now are we the sons of God, and it doth not appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is," instead of a clear, brief word that summarizes a biblical concept?

--------------------------------

I always say this and yet I don't think people believe me; I am not trying to persuade anybody that I am right. I am not trying to persuade anybody that God is transcendent. I am trying to persuade anyone that in theory, if there was a transcendent God, that the ordinary rules don't necessarily apply. Many thinkers more brilliant than any of us have held that free will and a transcendent God are compatible. How can this be? How can we hold that millions and millions of people in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition continue to adhere to a belief that is formulated by the brightest minds on the planet, but the belief is obviously intellectually bankrupt?

You think I am wrong? Fine. I expect that. I am just wondering why it seems to me that in a segment of the LDS community it isn't enough for us to be wrong. Its like we have to be totally discredited as though we are nutballs following boobies of an ancient order. We believe things that are logically absurd and obviously so. Thoughtful Muslims and Jewish have wrestled with this question too. Volgadon provides a link to an excellent article that gives a chronology of ways the Jewish community has dealt with the question up to modern times. I hope you will read it carefully. You do try to put yourself into the perspective of the position you oppose right? The belief in free will with a transcendent God has a variety of possible solutions.

I am afraid that my biggest obstacle here is that allegation of logical absurdities are always attractive for popular apologetics. Even if it is superficial work, such apologetics successfully make our opponents appear obviously ridiculous and easily dismissed. Vance, read that link from volgadon. Look he is still Mormon. He just realizes that opposing positions usually deserve more respect than just to be dismissed as though one of them defies all logic. You don't have to believe we are right, but it would seem a like a step in the right direction if you could be persuaded that we understand a syllogism and the law of contradiction. That is my modest goal.

I want to highlight one section from volgadon's link about free will and a transcendent God from a modern Jewish perspective. If I understand it, this is what I am trying to say when I deny that we have the necessary information to say it is illogical for a transcendent God to make a creature with free will:

To ask the question [if a transcendent God can make a creature with free will] is akin to asking what is the true nature of God. This does not mean, as the Rabad suggests in his critique of Maimonides, that Maimonides has been unwise in stating a problem and then replying that there is no solution. Maimonides is not, in fact, saying that there is no solution. Maimonides is saying, rather, that the solution, bound up as it is with the nature of God, is utterly beyond the scope of the human mind. Meir Simchah [d. 1926] points to certain mathematical problems that are insoluble, so that even in this world the idea of an insoluble problem is logically meaningful.

If I were LDS, I would post in this thread that it is rash to dismiss the traditional belief on the basis of the philosophical analysis so far provided.

Thanks for your consideration.

3DOP

Edited February 9, 2013 by 3DOP

[mfbukowski]

Nobody is saying that one has to be intellectually inferior to believe these positions, and I certainly did not mean to ever imply that if I ever did.

We are all part of our cultures and our times, and times and cultures change. We would never use the technology and medicine of Aristotle's time, nor would we want to live for 5 minutes in the 13th century. But it is ridiculous to think that these people were somehow intellectually deficient for thinking the way they did.

I just happen to think that when the culture has 2000 years to examine the arguments of Aristotle, some advancements have been made which I am sure Aristotle, if he lived today, would absolutely love!

He himself, and Aquinas himself, living today, would be absolutely astounded at the world in which we live. And yes, they would unquestionably be among the greatest thinkers of modern times if indeed they lived in modern times.

I just happen to believe that culture progresses, including philosophically, because as has been said before, "we are standing on the shoulders of giants" and indeed these men are the giants upon whose shoulders we are standing. They laid the foundation and groundwork and we have been able to improve on it.

If someone does not see these as improvements, they are of course free to ignore them or try to turn the clock backwards.

I for one, embrace the improvements and hope that mankind will advance from here so that others may stand on the shoulders of the great minds of today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants

Edited February 9, 2013 by mfbukowski

[The Grimace]

Ask your dad. He's all those things too. He doesn't worry about those things, why should you?

Incidentally those words are philosophical terms from the Greeks. Your theologians made them all up to describe a transcendent being. don't blame the paradoxes on me.

My dad isn't a god. And the (Mormon) God, according to canon, is ominpotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. My dad is none of those things.

What I'm getting at is your claim of a simpler description of God. A god whom you refer to as Father, who is physical and lives inside the universe, was arguably a man at some point in his creation, and has the O-O-O attributes as listed above is not simpler; he has a different set of ontological problems to overcome.

[mfbukowski]

My dad isn't a god. And the (Mormon) God, according to canon, is ominpotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

That's funny, this guy says we can't be Christian because we don't believe that God is any of those things.

http://www.isca-apologetics.org/sites/default/files/papers/Jared%20Martinez/Groza-LatterdayAtheists.pdf

Can't win for losing I guess.

My dad is none of those things.

Gosh- really? I suppose he isn't transcendent either, is he?

What I'm getting at is your claim of a simpler description of God. A god whom you refer to as Father, who is physical and lives inside the universe, was arguably a man at some point in his creation, and has the O-O-O attributes as listed above is not simpler; he has a different set of ontological problems to overcome.

And what might those be?

I fail to see what this has to do with Anselm saying that God cannot have emotions, which is the issue I was discussing. I don't dispute whether or not the "o" words (but never "omnipresent" by the way) are found in the standard works- either they are or they are not.

The question, insofar as it might be relevant, but I doubt that it is, is what the words MEAN in the Mormon understanding of those terms.

Clearly that is a debated issue. But regardless how that debate goes, it has little relevance to the issue of whether or not a transcendent God can be a kind and loving Father.

I'm just trying to follow your logic in bringing this up- and am not seeing the relevance.

[The Grimace]

I fail to see what this has to do with Anselm saying that God cannot have emotions, which is the issue I was discussing. I don't dispute whether or not the "o" words (but never "omnipresent" by the way) are found in the standard works- either they are or they are not.

Mr. Bukowski,

First, the god you are defending, the god of Mormonism, is omnipresent, according to the canon. Marion G. Romney said God is omnipresent in General Conference, 1976.

But enough of that. You aren't really making an argument so much as you are quoting other philosophers with whom you may agree.

There are a problems with the Mormon concept of a physical God:

1. A physical God must occupy a physical space. If that is the case, it is conceivable that God is detectable by suitable technological means.

2. A physical God must abide by the laws that govern the universe. If this is the case, then he must reside near this planet in order to intervene in the affairs of mankind.

Sure, one can say that 'suitable technological means' have not been developed. But consider, in order for light to travel from the sun to the earth, 4 minutes must pass. If God is closer than the sun, and intervening in human affairs, he must do so within a reasonable amount of time, brining him sufficiently close to the earth to be detected by today's technology.

Maybe God knows how to manipulate the laws of the universe so that he can be very far away while responding to prayer instantaneously. But let's make sure there is some support for that argument, and that we are not simply playing a game of "Well, if God needs to fly, then lets say he has wings".

Your claim that Mormonism's concept of God is simpler than a transcendant explanation is not sound.