cbostrum (04/09/83)
Perhaps we can solicit more participation or give up, I am getting tired. Seems to be just Don, Ralph, Dave and me. I am sorry. I still dont see what can be meant by omnipotent. Ralph says that "I am explaining what we believe" (including Dave) but what he says doesnt square with Daves "logical impossibility of pleasing oneself", showing how even they who *believe* are having trouble getting the notion worked out. If we take omnipotence, as I believe Don suggested, to be the ability to produce any space time configuration of mass distribution, lets see what happens. (We are not taking it to imply knowledge of the consequences, necessarily). It seems to me that this implies the thing being omnipotent to be outside of space-time yet still acting on it in a very physical way, which seems incoherent because space-time as we conceive it would allow us to concieve of anything that makes a difference as sitting inside of it. I would certainly accept a very powerful being inside space time (or any conceivable scientific development of that concept) as potentially meaningful, but "outside" like this is not something that makes any sense to me. One other thing: I graciously granted the holy side of this discussion that God need not be able to do the logically impossible in order to be considered omnipotent. I am ready to withdraw that at any stage on the basis of Quines arguments that there are no analytic truths. I am somewhat unwilling to do so because I dont think any of us know too much about Quine and philosophy of language in general. (If any of us do I wish they would speak up!) All of this is far before we even get to omniscience benevolence and "free will" as well as the possible meanings of "good". And all that working out consistently is far before we get to considering the possible truth of religious claims. To be true, a theory must be much more than just consistent.
djhawley (04/10/83)
"Logical impossibility of pleasing oneself" ? I wonder what I meant ? ( I couldn't find it in any of my recent articles ) I think I'll disagree with myself, when I said what I don't remember saying. David ( Help! Somebody disconfuse me ) Hawley