WL Craig on God's foreknowledge

[OLDMAN]

I always assumed " Everything happened at the instant of creation." It is all a done deal. Our perspective is one of being part of his creation traveling through time to get to the end of time, where God is waiting for us...knowing all that has happened. Some people sense God, (his essence or spirit) in his creation, some of us don't. We are too skeptical. Free will doesn't exist because of our make up, making the whole exercise pointless. God will probably laugh at all of us...and crack a cold one.

 

[bilby]

Anyone who stops and thinks about it knows that God is not outside time, but outside logic.
....
You stupid atheists don't understand because you're so illogical.

Illogical -- in other words, god-like.

I wouldn't go as far as to say I am completely God-like.

I exist.

 

[apeman]

I think that Occam's razor demands that we take the God theory seriously. It is far simpler ,in terms of an explanation, to consider that the only "thing" that exists is thought. The world around us is composed from God's thought, we are also composed from His thought but He has given us a certain autonomy,our minds are a sub-set of His mind that has a degree of freedom from Him (though obviously utter dependence on Him).

This theory also does away with all that cause and effect nonsense, what we are actually seeing is correlation, nothing more ...like in a dream of kicking a ball, the kick doesn't cause the ball to move because there is no physical cause and effect.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think that Occam's razor demands that we take the God theory seriously. It is far simpler ,in terms of an explanation, to consider that the only "thing" that exists is thought. The world around us is composed from God's thought, we are also composed from His thought but He has given us a certain autonomy,our minds are a sub-set of His mind that has a degree of freedom from Him (though obviously utter dependence on Him).

How do you get from the premise that the only thing that exists is thought to the conclusion that one and the same mind is thinking both your thoughts and mine, let alone to the conclusion that this joint mind has whatever additional characteristics, tri-omni or whatever, that make you think "God" is an appropriate term for it? Going by Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation for why I can't read your mind and you can't read mine is not that the two are one and the same mind with an artificial, deliberately constructed, and deliberately hidden mental wall between the two subsets. The simplest explanation is that they are actually two minds.

This theory also does away with all that cause and effect nonsense, what we are actually seeing is correlation, nothing more ...like in a dream of kicking a ball, the kick doesn't cause the ball to move because there is no physical cause and effect.

But cause and effect still happen in dreams. Causality is just another name for information copying. And, regardless of whether thought is the only thing that exists, we can easily verify by observation and experiment that the universe contains multiple copies of the same information -- you can demonstrate the reality of cause and effect within the comfort of your own figment-of-your-imagination armchair. Whether the mechanism of causality is physical or only mental is beside the point -- it's still more than mere correlation.

 

[bilby]

I think that Occam's razor demands that we take the God theory seriously. It is far simpler ,in terms of an explanation, to consider that the only "thing" that exists is thought. The world around us is composed from God's thought, we are also composed from His thought but He has given us a certain autonomy,our minds are a sub-set of His mind that has a degree of freedom from Him (though obviously utter dependence on Him).

This theory also does away with all that cause and effect nonsense, what we are actually seeing is correlation, nothing more ...like in a dream of kicking a ball, the kick doesn't cause the ball to move because there is no physical cause and effect.

I think you have misunderstood what constitutes 'simpler' in the context of Occam's Razor.

A house is not simpler than a breeze-block, just because 'house' only needs five letters to describe it and 'breeze-block' needs eleven plus a hyphen.

'God' is a short word, but is far from being a simple idea.

 

[apeman]

How do you get from the premise that the only thing that exists is thought to the conclusion that one and the same mind is thinking both your thoughts and mine, let alone to the conclusion that this joint mind has whatever additional characteristics, tri-omni or whatever, that make you think "God" is an appropriate term for it? Going by Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation for why I can't read your mind and you can't read mine is not that the two are one and the same mind with an artificial, deliberately constructed, and deliberately hidden mental wall between the two subsets. The simplest explanation is that they are actually two minds.

This theory also does away with all that cause and effect nonsense, what we are actually seeing is correlation, nothing more ...like in a dream of kicking a ball, the kick doesn't cause the ball to move because there is no physical cause and effect.

But cause and effect still happen in dreams. Causality is just another name for information copying. And, regardless of whether thought is the only thing that exists, we can easily verify by observation and experiment that the universe contains multiple copies of the same information -- you can demonstrate the reality of cause and effect within the comfort of your own figment-of-your-imagination armchair. Whether the mechanism of causality is physical or only mental is beside the point -- it's still more than mere correlation.

If thought is considered a substance in the way that we consider physical material a substance, it is easy to conceive how such a substance can have divisions within it. Since we know thought definitely exists and that divisions within in it are no more inconceivable than divisions within physical matter it stands to reason that the theory that requires thought alone is a simplification over physical material+thought.

The cause and effect theory rests on the premise that the objects involved are the source of the cause/effect, whereas the idealist view is that the effect requires an underlying will....like in the dream of kicking the ball...such an event (dream of kicking a ball) requires an underlying will (the dreamer) in order to happen.

 

[apeman]

I think that Occam's razor demands that we take the God theory seriously. It is far simpler ,in terms of an explanation, to consider that the only "thing" that exists is thought. The world around us is composed from God's thought, we are also composed from His thought but He has given us a certain autonomy,our minds are a sub-set of His mind that has a degree of freedom from Him (though obviously utter dependence on Him).

This theory also does away with all that cause and effect nonsense, what we are actually seeing is correlation, nothing more ...like in a dream of kicking a ball, the kick doesn't cause the ball to move because there is no physical cause and effect.

I think you have misunderstood what constitutes 'simpler' in the context of Occam's Razor.

A house is not simpler than a breeze-block, just because 'house' only needs five letters to describe it and 'breeze-block' needs eleven plus a hyphen.

'God' is a short word, but is far from being a simple idea.

No I haven't. If the world can be explained in terms of thought alone creating reality, that is a simplification over a material world mindlessly creating mindful beings .

And to have God (will) as the building block of reality is not more complex than having mindlessness as the building block of reality.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And to have God (will) as the building block of reality is not more complex than having mindlessness as the building block of reality.

But you go from having say, five people in a world to having five people living in a sixth person's thoughts. You've added an entity and call it simpler?

Doesn't the razor suggest we minimize the number of entities involved, not add them until it's absolutely necessary?

 

[Kharakov]

If the world can be explained in terms of thought alone creating reality, that is a simplification over a material world mindlessly creating mindful beings .

No idea that points towards consciousness as the foundation of all being can be accepted by a religiophobic antitheist.

Even if physics points towards the unification of all forces (consciousness being a force), or there are various reasons to see fundamental particles as fundamental consciousnesses, a religiophobe must fight against any acknowledgement of these ideas, as they believe the idea of fundamental consciousness will give religions a firmer foothold in the minds of their adherents.

Keep in mind that religiophobes have various reasons for their rejection of religion. They "are" religiophobic antitheists because they believe in scientific and social advancement, and correctly perceive that certain ignorant elements in religion are against both (although it isn't religion that is the problem, it's idiocy in general, including that of some otherwise intelligent antitheists).

 

[Kharakov]

And to have God (will) as the building block of reality is not more complex than having mindlessness as the building block of reality.

But you go from having say, five people in a world to having five people living in a sixth person's thoughts. You've added an entity and call it simpler?

Doesn't the razor suggest we minimize the number of entities involved, not add them until it's absolutely necessary?

We've been through this subject matter before. A conscious entity assuming that other entities (such as electrons, or whatever) are non-consciously reacting is violating parsimony: non conscious reactions are not required to explain any reaction of something to something else.

Beings can be unaware of the emergent behaviors of their reactions to one another, but this doesn't mean there are any non-conscious reactions occurring. 2+2 summing to 4 on Wolfram Alpha doesn't indicate that the electrons whose behaviors are being used to calculate the summation are aware that they are part of a summation, but their possible lack of awareness of being part of the summation does not indicate they lack consciousness, or react without consciousness.

There is no indication that any response of anything to anything else is non-conscious. The product of conscious responses can be non-conscious, and one can use non-conscious responses as building blocks to create interesting thought forms, but there is no indication of any non conscious response anywhere.

There is no reason to violate parsimony and make up non conscious responses. In your computer, it isn't 2 reacting to 2 (2 non conscious things reacting to one another) it is many consciousnesses reacting to one another whose emergent behaviors combine to form the thought of 4 in your consciousness.

The thought of 4 isn't conscious, but at no point in its formation did you ever witness the existence of or the need for a non conscious response to explain it.

 

[Bomb#20]

If thought is considered a substance in the way that we consider physical material a substance, it is easy to conceive how such a substance can have divisions within it. Since we know thought definitely exists and that divisions within in it are no more inconceivable than divisions within physical matter it stands to reason that the theory that requires thought alone is a simplification over physical material+thought.

Why are you arguing for your premise? That's not what I disputed. Whether that's simpler than unconscious physics is an aesthetic judgment not really provable one way or the other. I challenged the conclusions you drew from it. Supposing thought exists and has divisions, how do you infer that the divisions are artificial barriers put in place by a higher-level consciousness, rather than there simply being multiple chunks of thought substance?

The cause and effect theory rests on the premise that the objects involved are the source of the cause/effect, whereas the idealist view is that the effect requires an underlying will....like in the dream of kicking the ball...such an event (dream of kicking a ball) requires an underlying will (the dreamer) in order to happen.

If no underlying will, no dream; if no dream, no ball movement. That's cause and effect, right there: the will is the cause of the movement. The cause and effect theory doesn't rely on the foot being the cause of the ball's movement; it relies on something being the cause. If the something is a will instead of a foot, that's still cause and effect.

 

[apeman]

And to have God (will) as the building block of reality is not more complex than having mindlessness as the building block of reality.

But you go from having say, five people in a world to having five people living in a sixth person's thoughts. You've added an entity and call it simpler?

Doesn't the razor suggest we minimize the number of entities involved, not add them until it's absolutely necessary?

Adding another "entity" as you put it isn't as complex as adding another, different, creative (mindless) process on top of the type that we already know about (entities).

 

[apeman]

If the world can be explained in terms of thought alone creating reality, that is a simplification over a material world mindlessly creating mindful beings .

No idea that points towards consciousness as the foundation of all being can be accepted by a religiophobic antitheist.

Even if physics points towards the unification of all forces (consciousness being a force), or there are various reasons to see fundamental particles as fundamental consciousnesses, a religiophobe must fight against any acknowledgement of these ideas, as they believe the idea of fundamental consciousness will give religions a firmer foothold in the minds of their adherents.

Keep in mind that religiophobes have various reasons for their rejection of religion. They "are" religiophobic antitheists because they believe in scientific and social advancement, and correctly perceive that certain ignorant elements in religion are against both (although it isn't religion that is the problem, it's idiocy in general, including that of some otherwise intelligent antitheists).

I agree that people tend to philosophise in a way that supports their own prejudices...but I can see that the mind only version of the universe is simpler than the matter +mind theory.

Also ,there is no reason for supposing that science is not just as useful in the mind only theory.

 

[apeman]

Why are you arguing for your premise? That's not what I disputed. Whether that's simpler than unconscious physics is an aesthetic judgment not really provable one way or the other. I challenged the conclusions you drew from it. Supposing thought exists and has divisions, how do you infer that the divisions are artificial barriers put in place by a higher-level consciousness, rather than there simply being multiple chunks of thought substance?

The cause and effect theory rests on the premise that the objects involved are the source of the cause/effect, whereas the idealist view is that the effect requires an underlying will....like in the dream of kicking the ball...such an event (dream of kicking a ball) requires an underlying will (the dreamer) in order to happen.

If no underlying will, no dream; if no dream, no ball movement. That's cause and effect, right there: the will is the cause of the movement. The cause and effect theory doesn't rely on the foot being the cause of the ball's movement; it relies on something being the cause. If the something is a will instead of a foot, that's still cause and effect.

I come to the conclusion that there is a reality outside of us (that in this theory is necessarily produced by a mind) because I have no sense whatsoever that I , myself, am creating the reality outside of me...other than a small amount of input that I sense I have.

In this theory there is no separation between cause and effect, they don't exist as such, there is only will. Put it this way, if there is a God then all causes and all effects come down to His will. I guess He lets our small minds have a little bit of will (causation) built into them, so that we are not complete slaves to circumstance.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So, you're taking this vastly complex, supernatural being that we have absolutely no evidence for and then just calling it simpler than the natural world which we do have evidence for in order to say that Occam's Razor points towards it?

 

[Wiploc]

Also ,there is no reason for supposing that science is not just as useful in the mind only theory.

Science is imaginary in the mind-only theory.

 

[apeman]

So, you're taking this vastly complex, supernatural being that we have absolutely no evidence for and then just calling it simpler than the natural world which we do have evidence for in order to say that Occam's Razor points towards it?

Why do you suppose that a reality made of mind is necessarily more complex than one made of non-mind . We all know the power of the mind to create, we know that even with our own puny minds we are capable of being amazingly creative.

To believe that this reality around us is somehow more simply explained if we believe it is mindlessly creating itself is a misunderstanding of how complex that mindless causation theory really is.We have no experience of inventing anything without thought, your theory of no-thought invention is therefore necessarily going to be a complex one.

Why is it more complex to see will as the foundation of reality rather than unthinking energy? At least we know will exists.

 

[apeman]

Also ,there is no reason for supposing that science is not just as useful in the mind only theory.

Science is imaginary in the mind-only theory.

But no less real ...obviously.

The laws of nature would still exist as our reality... a dream with rules where the rules create the reality.

 

[Keith&Co.]

[
Why is it more complex to see will as the foundation of reality rather than unthinking energy? At least we know will exists.

How do you define 'complexity?'

 

[bilby]

So, you're taking this vastly complex, supernatural being that we have absolutely no evidence for and then just calling it simpler than the natural world which we do have evidence for in order to say that Occam's Razor points towards it?

Why do you suppose that a reality made of mind is necessarily more complex than one made of non-mind . We all know the power of the mind to create, we know that even with our own puny minds we are capable of being amazingly creative.

To believe that this reality around us is somehow more simply explained if we believe it is mindlessly creating itself is a misunderstanding of how complex that mindless causation theory really is.We have no experience of inventing anything without thought, your theory of no-thought invention is therefore necessarily going to be a complex one.

Why is it more complex to see will as the foundation of reality rather than unthinking energy? At least we know will exists.

I think your main problem here is a failure to understand the position of those against whom you are arguing.

I for one do not believe that anything "is mindlessly creating itself".

The universe is. There is no 'creating' going on. There might have been some 'creating' or 'arising' in the dim, distant past; or the stuff we see might always have been there.

If you misunderstand the counter-arguments at such a fundamental level, then it is unsurprising that you find your own argument so compelling.

Perhaps if you try to let go of the idea of 'creation', and imagine how things might look without that concept, you will have a better chance of grasping what atheists are trying to say - and at least then you could try to come up with some less obviously flawed rebuttals. Rebutting a position your corespondent does not hold never advances your argument.