Kant's Critique of the Cosmological Argument

Excerpted from Epistemics of Divine Reality (2009, 2011), pp.105-107

b. The Cosmological Argument: As stated by Kant himself the cosmological argument runs as follows: If anything exists, an absolutely necessary being must also exist. Now I, at least, exist. Therefore, an absolutely necessary being exists.^[1] Since an infinite series of contingent causal relations is impossible an uncaused, unconditioned, necessary cause must be posited as the cause of the universe. However, Kant reasons that this argument too, as the former one, attempts to prove the existence of the transcendent from the empirical, which is impossible. If God were a link or beginning of the series then He could not be separated from it and thus also conditioned by causality. However, on the other hand if it were argued that He is separate from the series, there remains no way reason can find to span the gap between pure and contingent existence.^[2] Nothing beyond the world of senses can be definitely known to us. This argument is epistemically flawed since it misapplies the transcendental principle of causality beyond the bounds of the phenomenal world. In Kant’s own words:

This principle is applicable only in the sensible world; outside that world it has no meaning whatsoever. For the mere intellectual concept of the contingent cannot give rise to any synthetic proposition, such as that of causality. The principle of causality has no meaning and no criterion for its application save only in the sensible world. But in the cosmological proof it is precisely in order to enable us to advance beyond the sensible world that it is employed.^[3]

The chief error of both the ontological and the cosmological arguments is that of projecting the subjective transcendental principles on to reality. Thus, infinity and causality are misconstrued as physical or external conditions of reality while in reality they are concepts of the mind by means of which objective reality is subjectively apprehended. Moreover, one cannot attribute necessity to anything in the phenomenal world, as the cosmological argument does in its inference of the necessity of an uncaused cause, since necessity is a formal condition of thought found in our reason and not applicable to external reality. In the words of Kant, ‘The concept of necessity is only to be found in our reason, as a formal condition of thought; it does not allow of being hypostatised as a material condition of existence.’^[4]

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^[1] The Critique of Pure Reason (trans. N.K. Smith), p. 508
^[2] Ibid, p. 519
^[3] Ibid, p. 511
^[4] Ibid, p. 518

Kant's Critique of the Ontological Argument

Excerpted from Epistemics of Divine Reality (2009, 2011), pp.105-107

Kant resolutely argues that the traditional arguments for the existence of God, viz. the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological (teleological) arguments are based on false premises. They proceed from the false assumption that quantity, quality, relation, and modality are inherent in the universe and not merely subjective to the knower alone. The arguments against the arguments for the existence of God are as follows:

a. The Ontological Argument: The ontological argument of St. Anselm (1033-1109) proceeded from the assumption that God was ‘that than which a greater cannot be conceived.’ However, if this God did not exist then everything conceived of would be greater than the conception of God for reality is greater than an idea. Therefore, God as ‘that than which a greater cannot be conceived’ must of necessity exist. Rene Descartes had his own form of the ontological argument in which he argued that since God is by definition the supremely perfect being, He cannot lack existence, for that would mean that He was not a supremely perfect being; and since existence is a necessary attribute of perfection, God exists necessarily.^[1]

Kant argues that though the inference from contingent existence to necessary existence is correct and unavoidable, the conditions of the understanding refuse to aid us in forming any conception of such a being.^[2] Thus, the ontological argument is correct as far as words are concerned; but when it comes to actually forming a concept of the absolute and necessary being the argument fails. Further, the argument rests on judgments alone and cannot thereby alone establish the reality of anything. In Kant’s own words: ‘the unconditioned necessity of judgments is not the same as an absolute necessity of things.’^[3] Alluding to Descartes’ analogy of the triangle^[4] Kant writes that though to posit a triangle and yet reject its three angles would be self-contradictory, there is no contradiction in rejecting the triangle with its three angles together. To put it the other way, if suppose in the analytical statement, ‘all bachelors are unmarried men’ the subject ‘bachelors’ implied the predicate ‘unmarried men,’ it still does not conclusively prove that there really are unmarried men or bachelors in the world. The statement is just a verbal one and is not corroborated by empirical evidence. In the same manner, though the subject ‘the supremely perfect being’ implies the predicate ‘has existence as an attribute,’ yet it does not conclusively prove that there really is a supremely perfect being in accordance to the words.^[5] One can reject both the subject and predicate and still commit no contradiction. In addition, all existential propositions (that declare the existence or non-existence of the subject) are synthetic and not analytic and, therefore, the rejection of the predicated would never be a contradiction:^[6] ‘all bachelors are unmarried men’ is not the same as ‘all bachelors exist.’ On the other hand if existence was to be considered as an attribute of anything, it is clear that this could not be true since an attribute adds to something and thus modifies it, but to say that something is does not really add anything to it. ‘The small word “is” adds no new predicate, but only serves to posit the predicate in its relation to the subject.’ ^[7] Therefore, existence cannot be an attribute. Even grammatically, it is understood that the words ‘is’ and ‘exists’ are not adjectives but verbs.
However, even more difficult is the attribution of existence to an idea having a priori and not a posteriori status. Kant says:

Whatever, therefore, and however much, our concept of an object may contain, we must go outside it, if we are to ascribe existence to the object. In the case of objects of the senses, this takes place through their connection with some one of our perceptions, in accordance with empirical laws. But in dealing with objects of pure thought, we have no means whatsoever of knowing their existence, since it would have to be known in a completely a priori manner. Our consciousness of all existence (whether immediately through perception, or mediately through inferences which connect something with perception) belongs exclusively to the unity of experience; any [alleged] existence outside this field, while not indeed such as we can declare to be absolutely impossible, is of the nature of an assumption which we can never be in a position to justify.^[8]

Thus, since the idea of God as a perfect being cannot be empirically justified, it is impossible to certify whether such a perfect being exists or not in reality. Here it may seem that Kant is leaning towards empiricism, but it must be noted that he is only saying that necessity and strict universality can only be applied to that which is a priori and, thus, to the forms of intuition and the categories of thought alone. To extend these to anything beyond these is to go beyond justification. One can be sure that the statement ‘every cause has an effect’ is true since causality itself is a category of the mind and cannot be thought off. However, the same cannot be said of the existence God or any other being in the world. The distinction between the a priori constituents of the mind and the a posteriori world of senses once understood, the ontological argument cannot stand any longer. Thus, the ontological argument is dismissed.

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^[1] “Ontological Arguments,” Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments)
^[2] The Critique of Pure Reason (trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn; internet edition)
^[3] The Critique of Pure Reason (trans. N. K. Smith), p. 501
^[4] That as the three angles are integral to the conception of a triangle, existence is integral to the conception of perfection.
^[5] “supremely perfect being” are just words and have no accompanying conception.
^[6] The Critique of Pure Reason (trans. N. K. Smith), p. 504
^[7] Ibid, p. 505
^[8] Ibid, p. 506

Arithmetic of Foreknowledge

In humans, the future exists as possibilities. The past exists as actualized (fulfilled) events.
However, in God, the future is as real as the present and the past - as actualized; because, time is not independent of God, God holds all things together.
But, while He holds all things together, He does not determine each thing; for to do that, He must exist prior to future; but, that is not the case because future, as both present and past, is coterminous with Him - "In Him we move, and live, and have our being." God is eternal.
Therefore, God's foreknowledge is perfect and yet non-deterministic.

In humans, future is not out there.
Future is what becomes of the world and us; but, it is yet not out there.
Which means that the future is non-existent at the moment.
Then, how does God foreknow the non-existent?

For God, the future is in Him because He holds space-time together in Him; but, He is neither determined by time nor determines it; God is not in the process of becoming (in opposition to Process Theology); God's being is complete and actualized.
God is not in time, subject to the flux and possibilities of a future-anything. But, time is in God.
Therefore, the future is not non-existent to God; in fact, the split of past, present, and future does not apply to divine fore-knowledge since He is trans-temporal.

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Related Posts
Does God Know the Future? Epistemic Concerns and Rational Fideism
Aristotle’s Temporal Logic and the Problem of Foreknowledge in Jesus’ Prediction of Peter’s Denial
Reliability, Predictability, and Paul the Octopus
Aristotelian Determinism: A Solution

How Can Jesus Be Fully God and Fully Man At the Same Time?

Answer 1:

A contradiction can be defined in the terms "A=not-A"; a non-contradiction, in the terms "A≠not-A".
• The statements "Jesus is fully God" and "Jesus is fully man" don't involve such a contradiction, i.e, they don't say "Jesus is fully God," and "Jesus is not fully God" at the same time.
• Christian theology doesn't claim to say that Jesus is not God when it says Jesus is Man; likewise, it doesn't clam to say that Jesus is not man when it says that Jesus is God.

Answer 2:

• The divinity of Christ is eternal and immutable; therefore, in the Incarnation He was fully God. He was not created; He pre-existed. He was not born out of a man-woman relationship; but, was born of a Virgin; because He incarnated, He didn't come into being - there was not when He didn't exist.
• In the Incarnation, God partook of human nature; He could do that because He created the world and so the world belonged to Him and He sustained it. The world didn't cut off from Him in a way that God and creation were unrelated to each other. The world had not become a "wholly other" to God. The world was not closed out to God, as if it were an infinite and absolute entity by itself. The fact was that the world was contingent on Him. The world couldn't restrict His power. In fact, it was He who held it by the word of His power (Heb 1:3). The world is not eternal; it is temporal; therefore, it is impossible for the world (including man) to become God. That would be a contradiction of terms. However, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity did become man, because His creation was not beyond His reach. The temporal exists within the eternal; and the finite within the infinite (not vice versa). "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28). This is not pantheism or panentheism. It doesn't say the world contains God as its soul or the world is God; but, that the world is contingent upon God, therefore not beyond His reach. Miracles are possible, Divine intervention is possible (the universe is not closed) and the Incarnation is the greatest example of God's intervention in human history.

Further Reading:
The Humanity and Divinity of Christ
The Logic of Faith

The Rational Anticipation Principle and the Doctrine of Trinity

The third criterion of Revelation in Indian philosophy is Rational Anticipation (Hiriyanna: Indian Philosophy); the first two being the principle of not-this-worldly (alaukika) and the principle of non-contradiction (abadhita; i.e. revelation must not contradict known facts).

The question is whether the doctrine of Trinity meets the principle of Rational Anticipation?

We'll quickly look at two arguments to check out the same.

1. The Argument from the Possibility of Knowledge

a. If God exists, He must be an intelligent being (or else, intelligence is an accident and truth is impossible- but, to say truth is impossible is to contradict self; therefore, truth exists and has its eternal ground in God).
b. Intelligence involves Knowledge and Knowledge involves a Subject-Object distinction.
c. Eternal intelligence must involve eternally a Subject-Object distinction.
d. This distinction must be internal and eternal (since, nothing can be infinite and eternal outside the Godhead - God is by nature infinite, and there cannot be more than one infinite).
e. Complete distinction requires at least three persons (I, You, He/She/They).
f. Therefore, possibility of knowledge rationally anticipates the Three Persons in a Subject-Object relationship.

2. The Argument from Morality
a. If God exists, He must be a moral being (or else, morality is a temporal category and ultimately and eternally meaningless).
b. Morality involves community (Without community, morality is meaningless; for where there is only one person there is no moral obligation to anyone because there is no other person).
c. A community involves persons who are morally responsible to each other.
d. Responsibility involves a witness (which in turn requires the community to be composed of at least three persons, necessarily speaking: beyond that is not-necessary).
e. Therefore, the existence of morality rationally anticipates the Three Persons in an eternal Community relationship.

7 Epistemological Approaches

1. Informative (Revelational)
2. Inductive (Empirical)
3. Indefinitive (Skeptical)
4. Interpretive (Hermeneutical)
5. Integrative (Synthetical)
6. Inferential (Rational)
7. Intuitive (Mystical)

© Domenic Marbaniang, 2000, 2012.

Drishti-sristivada, Srishtidrishtivada, and the Hermeneutics of Theatre

An interesting example of contradictory interpretations is borrowed by G.P. Deshpande [1] from Indian philosophy to evaluate the ambiguous nature of the play and its production.

"There are two texts by Shankaracharya: one is called Sarirakabhasya while the other bhasya is a commentary on Gaudapadakarika. There is a basic contradiction in both....drishti-srishtivada and sristidrishtivada.... These two terms represent the schools within which the Vedantins are divided. The problem is whether what you see defines reality (drishtisrishtivada) or whether what exists defines your vision (srishtidrishtivada).

"It is a typical theatre problem.... Suppose you take that text to be a srishti. Then the director looks at it in a particular way, and the actor looks at it in a particular way. When happens next is the case of drishtisrishtivada. The vision or the way the text is looked at ultimately decides its character. And that is why you have different productions of the same play, productions apparently using the same text but so different that they appear to be based on different texts."

Deshpande, from the Indian viewpoint, is exploring what Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) had philosophically deeply examined, the issue of pre-understanding and the fusion of horizons. Recent hermeneutics has strongly focused on trying to get at the author's intent and limit the text to just that. However, getting to the author's intent is a horizonal problem. Our understandings only fuse where our pre-understandings intersect. Yet, in a way, the text does have the ability to change one's pre-understanding as well; and so vice-versa.

Deshpande continues:

"But is it really the case of drishtisrishtivada? That, after all, it is the drishti that determines the srishti? Perhaps not quite. The srishti also made that drishti possible. There is always enough room in a given text to make it so..... The interrelationship between the text and play I am talking about can be related to the contradiction in Shankaracharya's to bhasyas, and the contradiction between the two vadas. Vendantins also could not come to terms with them. Drishti or srishti taking prominence remained an unresolved question."

To note is the fact that both the schools of interpretation look to the Vedas and Upanisads as their source of authority and, yet their interpretations are contradictory. Does this mean that the text itself is contradictory in nature? Or does it mean that one or both of the interpretations may be wrong? The aim of hermeneutics should be chiefly that: to guarantee the right interpretation of the text in its syntactical-grammatical-historical originality.

Glossary
bhasya. Commentary
Drishti. Sight
Srishti. Creation
Vada. Argument. Theory.
Gaudapadakarika. The statement of doctrine in verse form by Gaudapada, the teacher of Sankaracharya.

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[1] G.P. Deshpande (b.1939), retired Professor of Chinese Studies at JNU.
Cit. Dialectics of Defeat, Calcutta: Seagull, 2006.

Hamartiology - Potentiality/Actuality of Sin (Notes)

Potentiality/Actuality

Determinism rules the analytic situation of amoral existence.
The seed determines the fruit. Essence defines existence.
E.g. (1) Man is a social being. Man is a sexual being. Man is a rational being. Man is a moral being (in the sense of capability).
(2) Man can’t but be social. Man can’t but be sexual. Man can’t but be rational. Man can’t but be moral.

Freedom rules the synthetic situation of moral existence.
The choice determines the consequence. Decision defines existence.
E.g. (1) He killed the man. He forgave the man. He loved her. He hated her. The son rebelled against the father’s discipline. The son submitted to the father’s discipline.
(2) He is a murderer. He is merciful. He is full of love. He is full of hatred. He is a rebel. He is obedient.

Death and Actuality
In Adam, death was actualized, mortality was finalized. Therefore, death rules over the entire Adamic race.  Man became a mortal being (not that he was created immortal, but that through his choice of rejecting the life-principle of God to rule his life, separation finalized mortality in him. He also became the sinner, transgressor by this choice. But, though he passes on the mortal nature to all his descendents (a physically mortal can’t pass on immortality for sure), he doesn’t pass on his sinful actuality. Each descendent is still presented with the choice to accept or reject the life-principle of God. Therefore, though Korah's rebellion brought destruction to him, his children could be saved and become the worshippers of God; though one generation perished out of unbelief in the wilderness, the next generation entered the Promised Land.

Involuntary Potentiality Vs Voluntary Potentiality.

Sin is not ontological. Sin is moral. It is not essential to nature, it is a decisional act. Judgment is on the basis of what one has done, intentionally and volitionally, and not on the basis of what one is, essentially speaking. Judgement is on the basis of what one has chosen to be, morally speaking. The potentiality of morality is ambivalent: one can either do good or do bad. It is not deterministic, but open.

Enslavement
Enslavement is the result of voluntary yielding and the choice to let sin overpower self. Enslavement leads to the habit of sin. Each act weakens the power of choice by the deadening of conscience and weakening of will.
E.g. A cigarette smoker, an adulterer, a murderer, a thief, etc.

July 14, 2012

Death - Was Adam Created Immortal? - Excerpt

(Excerpt from Hamartiology (Notes), 2006)

God created humans as mortals.[1] Mortality was known to Adam, or else reference to it in the command would have meant nothing to him. The world is Christo-centric, not anthropo-centric or eco-centric. The statement ‘let us make man…’ must be seen in this context. God did not create humans as males and females to remain so eternally. In the divine purpose, man is created to be glorified and transformed into the image of the Son. In this sense, then human creation must be seen as real but not final. As far as the creation of the animal kingdom was concerned, it was final; however, the creation of human was not final. Adam was not the complete man. He would only be complete when mortality puts on immortality. Human creation can only find finality in Christ.

Then in what sense, death passed from Adam to all men? It means that although God created humans as mortals, that mortality was not finality. The finality would be the absorption of mortality into immortality. However, through Adam’s disobedience and choice of autonomy (physical well-being), mortality reached finality in Adam and Adam became the first mortal. Thus, it is not the tree that finalized death,[2] it was the choice to disobey God and turn to nature for fulfillment that finalized death. This is the birth of natural religion, of idolatry. Finality also means eternality. Thus, the curse of death on Adam was eternal. Following physical death, his soul was doomed to a resurrection of Godless existence.

Since the command was directly given to Adam, and God first addressed Adam as responsible for the act (‘I commanded thee’), Adam’s disobedience counts primarily here. That Eve’s eyes were not opened before Adam ate the fruit seems to point to the finality of the decision in Adam from whom she was taken.

The divine statement ‘lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:’ (the use of also) seems to indicate that Adam and Eve had not eaten of it. Obviously, it is impossible for the tree of life to reverse the given verdict of death. ‘Forever’ thus must be taken in the sense of the possibility of prolonged life of a sinner, immune to almost all decay. There is, however, no indication that the fruit of life could render the human body indestructible[3] (as if even God could not destroy it). Long life of continuing sinfulness might have been meant here. Even if they had eaten it earlier, the death edict could not be reversed though life be prolonged; eventually, death would take its toll.

The reign of death (Rom. 5: 14) was the effect of Adamic sin. Hence, though people do not have the Law of Moses, and thus the knowledge of sin (and though they do not sin after the similitude of Adam), yet sin reigns over them through death because of Adam’s disobedience and act of unrighteousness. It is not the physicality of death that is fearsome; for all will be resurrected; rather, it is the Godlessness of a death that is condemned to the finality of banishment from the divine presence (and kingdom) that is fearsome. It is the death that misses the glory of God for which man was made. It is the death that leads to the resurrection of condemnation, of darkness, of indignation, tribulation, and anguish. The crucifixion of Christ destroyed the reign of sin through death in his flesh (Rom.8:3). Death could no longer have any effect on the Last Adam. The resurrection of Christ inaugurated the newness of life, of fellowship with God. He rose again as the Second Man to give life everlasting. To live according to flesh is to live by faith in the self and its ability to live the law of God. Man can live human laws (anthropocentric ethics by tree of knowledge). He could never live divine laws (Christocentric ethics by the Lordship of Christ and the empowering of the Spirit). To live according to the Spirit is to live by faith in the Son of God. This faith overcomes the world (the system of Godless autonomy and satanic reign).

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[1] (1) If man were created immortal, death could not be predicted of him in any condition. For “immortality” implies inability to die (physically). (2) If man were created immortal, the Tree of Life would be a meaningless addition to the Garden. Perhaps, a safer proposition might be “God created humans as neither mortals nor immortals” because of the condition of non-finality. [Sep 14, 2010]
[2] Human death or Adamic death is evil only because it is a death that is not absorbed by the eternal life of Christ. Death in itself is not an evil, it is evil insofar as it fails to find a purpose. A death that lacks a purpose produces dread and anxiety, but hope in Christ produces joy.
[3] Indestructibility will be a quality of the spiritual body given to the believer on resurrection or glorification: the source, Christ (1 Cor.15:42-49). [Sept 14, 2010]

Three Divisions of Philosophical Theology

Also discussed as "God of the Rationalist or God of the Empiricists" at Philpapers.org

Philosophical theology can be basically divided into three classes: Rationalist theology, Empirical theology, and Intermediate Theology.

Rationalist Theology includes isms such as monism (e.g. Parmenides and Zeno) and non-dualism (Advaitins of India) whose assertions are usually supported by arguments that rationally dismiss experience as false and irrational. This they do with reference to ultimate concepts such as unity, necessity, infinity, immutability, and transcendence (none of which can be predicated of the things of experience). Thus, God becomes the "wholly other" transcendent reality that can only be talked about via negativa.

Empirical Theology, on the other hand, is quite the opposite of the previous. It actually brings religion down to the earth. The gods and goddesses are more human like, and earthly; and, of course, positively understandable in empirical categories. Animism and polytheism are examples of such. In some of them, there is the concept of a Creator who, however, only creates out of pre-existing material. The atheistic religion, Jainism, is more a pluralistic realism in itself and has no place for any special creator God. They retain the idea of the world (including gods, if any) as pluralistic, contingent, finite, mutable, and immanent. Empiricism usually attempts to jettison the rational (e.g. the Logical Positivists attempt to eradicate metaphysics).

Kant tried to bring some union between the two poles.

Intermediate Theology, then would be something that stands at the meeting place of Rationalist Theology and Empirical Theology. The nature of the union may be diverse. I guess we can classify pantheism, panentheism, and probably Buddhist nihilism as the intermediates somewhere between the gods of the mountains (reason) and the gods of the valleys (down to earth experience). Historically speaking, in India, the Buddhist revolt is sandwiched between a very materialistic and Vedic polytheistic age and the Upanishadic non-dualistic age.

A fourth form of theology, however, is Revelational Theology, which doesn't fall in the field of Philosophical Theology, since it is not founded on philosophical arguments (either on rational or empirical) but is based on some kind of "Divine Revelation". Systematic theologians usually use a branch of theology called apologetics to provide arguments for this, a branch which is usually called Natural Theology.

Note: Barth and Brunner usually had referred to Natural Theology as the same as Philosophical Theology (and Barth is noted for calling Natural Theology as demonic.)  However, as Mortimer J. Adler has shown, the two are actually distinct. We see that Philosophical Theology usually leads to other conclusions that those affirmed by Revelational Theology.

Note (15 June 2012): John Hick, however, had interpreted Philosophical Theology as the philosophy of the Christian (See quote below from Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion, 2001, p7):
"these developments, which are technically superb and constitute
impressive philosophical exercises, are however seriously limited, in my
opinion, by very conservative theological presuppositions. They belong
to philosophy of religion in the now old-fashioned sense in which this
is understood to be the philosophy of the Christian (or at most the
Judaeo-Christian) tradition, and they do not face the problems created
by the fact that Christianity is one major world religion among others.
Indeed Alston, Plantinga, Swinburne and the many others who are
working solely within the confines of their own tradition are for the
most part really doing philosophical theology rather than philosophy
of religion."

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Intermediate Theologies usually tend towards either rationalism (where all sense-experience (phenomenal reality) is deemed illusory) or tend towards empiricism (where contingency, plurality, immanence, et al. become important themes).


Follow the complete thread of discussion at Philpapers.

The Anthropic Principle and Epistemic Issues

Pre-Reference:
Anthropic Principle, Wikipedia

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines the Anthropic Principle as "the cosmological principle that theories of the universe are constrained by the necessity to allow human existence. In its ‘weak’ form the principle affirms that a universe in which living observers cannot exist is inherently unobservable. ‘Strong’ forms take this line of reasoning further, seeking to explain features of the universe as being so because they are necessary for human existence."

In this note, I would like to just highlight the chief epistemic issues associated with this Principle.

Related Topics: Hegelian Dialectical Idealism (the Phenomenology of the Mind: Evolution of Consciousness); Schopenhauer's philosophy of the Will, Advaitin Philosophy, Madhyamaka (Sunyavada), the Heisenberg Principle and Consciousness, Naturalism, Determinism, Aristotelian Logic, Process Philosophy, Creationism, Cosmological Argument, Teleological Argument, Intelligent Design, Multiverse Theory.

Chief Epistemic Issues 

1. If the Anthropic Principle is applied to evolutionary theory, then the result is self-contradiction: the laws are deterministic, while evolutionism is founded on chance, probability, and randomness. In addition, the mind that is the end result of the deterministic process is also part of the deterministic whole; therefore, "truth" is not transcendent; as a result, the "observer" cannot exist: but, this is not the case (or at least should not be) if the anthropic principle is posited at all and we claim to be the intelligent observers of the universe. In brief, if the anthropic principle is applied to evolutionary theory, then science would become impossible due to the immanent determinism involved -- which is self-defeat.
2. On the other hand, if the observer is magnified above the perception of objects (as in Advaitism), then the universe or pluriverse as objective reality ceases to really exist: in which case, again, science is ultimately invalidated. (Ref also discussions on the Heisenberg Principle: the observer determines the phenomenon observed)
3. However, even if one opts for nihilism and the doctrine of emptiness of both the observer and the objective universe (as in Madhyamaka), then again science as an objective discipline is invalidated.
4. The Anthropic Principle involves a conflict of idealism and materialism. The question involved is "What is the world ultimately composed of and how do we know it?" Unless that is solved, the debate is unresolved.
5. The idealistic theory would suggest that the world is composed of ideas observed by the mind; therefore, the "anthropic principle" is ultimately subjective. Even the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant posits a mind that possesses the categories and rules by which the world is understood. As such then, the "anthropic principle" would merely be a principle imposed on reality by the mind.
6. The materialistic theory, however, would land us in problem no. 1 discussed earlier.

There is certainly a mind-matter conflict involved.

Christian Theological Viewpoint

1. The universe is intelligently designed with a purpose by God, the Intelligent Designer.
2. The earth is unique habitat of physical life and Man is the only creature who has freewill and the ability to know truth and choose his actions in accordance to reason.
3. Therefore, Truth is transcendent and human actions are moral (not deterministic+bearing eternal consequences).

The Trinity and the Existential Paradox of Reality

From Epistemics of Divine Reality (2007, 2011)

pp. 213-214

The Trinitarian perspective of the Divine as Triune (Unity in Trinity) and the image of God in man as a social unity of plurality (‘male and female…multiply…have dominion’) has been seen as one way of resolving this existential dilemma of unity-plurality. The Divine Community created the human community in its own image of unity in plurality, a concept that cannot be explained fully in either rational or empirical terms. The existential element that harmonizes the paradoxical senses is the divinely rooted gift of Love. Love is neither rational nor irrational, it is trans-rational, it is spiritual (‘the fruit of the Spirit’). It flows from Divine Nature, the Trinity, and resolves the confoundedness of sin-stricken humanity.

Sin brings confusion,^[1] according to the Bible, because of its revolt against relationships for the sake of the ego, that wants to be autonomous. It begins with a revolt against the Divine Community, which also means a revolt against community. As a result the unity-plurality lose existential harmony. Confusion is related to the experience of shame. Shame is the sense of disharmony between self and community. Shame is the result of spiritual lovelessness, of the hesitancy of transparency, the emotional awkwardness of unrelatedness. According to the Bible, the permanency of inner disharmony owing to the presence of sin and the factuality of total depravity rationalizes shamehood. Shamehood can only be dispelled by the experience of infinite death. Dignity can only arise in the New Creation. Thus, shame is not sinful, since it is the existential emotion arising out of the in-built failure to harmonize the dilemma of the sense of unity and plurality within the community through spiritual love. Shamelessness is sinful, since it is the suppression of a justified metaphysical sense in revolt to the harmonizing gift of Love. Shamelessness is Love crucified. Romans 1: 18-32 tells that shamelessness is characterized by the sacrifice of the metaphysical for the physical, by the obfuscation of the plural with the real. It can also be the obfuscation of the non-plural with the real. Biblically, however, the real is a harmony of both the plural and non-plural, of the unity-plurality. Thus, the Bible, in essence, attempts to resolve the problem of unity-plurality through Love.

pp.223-225

Following is an illustration of how the rational-empirical paradox may be resolved in the biblical revelation of divine reality:

i. Unity-Plurality and Divine Tri-unity. The biblical God is essentially a unity-plurality that possibilizes his relationality. He is not a monad, nor is the God-head made up of three gods. On the other hand, the God-head is a trinity. Accordingly, oneness is the attribute of the three and threeness is the attribute of the one. Thus, the Trinity is seen as a harmony of both unity and plurality, in the sense that the Trinity is both a unity and a plurality. It is not one at the disposal of the other, but one in harmony with the other. The existential bond of the Divine Community is secured by Divine Love. The existential distinction is preserved by personality, the divine is three persons, which is the condition of love.

ii. Necessity-Contingency.  God is essentially a necessary-contingent being which possibilizes his relationality. As necessary, God is absolute; as contingent, the three persons within the Godhead work in unamity and love. There is no egoistic centre. Contingency can be seen within the Holy Trinity in the sense that each person within the Divine Community is related to the other.

The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.

…The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

…the Spirit of truth…shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. ^[2]

iii. Immutability-mutability. God is essentially immutable and dynamic which possibilizes his relationality. He is the eternally unchanging God. And yet, He ‘comes down’ to meet His people, He ‘visits’ the poor, He walks on the waves of the sea, and discourses with man in His inner being. The Bible begins with an acting God: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’^[3] A God who works is a God in motion. God is certainly the God who doesn’t change in essence. However, He is also the God who creates, repents, judges, and saves. The Incarnation is a major example of this. In the Incarnation God did not change in essence but still took on a permanent nature of the human. The Word became flesh doesn’t mean that it was no longer Word but only flesh. The hypostatic union, in this case, secures both the divinity and the humanity of Christ. The noteworthy fact, however, is that the Word became flesh in some point in time and has remained so ever since. Thus, in essence God is unchanging but in His relation He is changing. He is essentially unchanging God who is dynamically active.

iv. Transcendence-Immanence. God is essentially a transcendent and yet immanent being which possibilizes his relationality. God is not only beyond the universe but also in the universe. He is not only Spirit but also the Omnipresent Spirit. He is not only the ‘wholly Other’, but also the ‘wholly Present’; ‘the mystery of the self-evident, nearer to me than my I.’^[4] God is everywhere and yet not everything. God transcends the universe, He is not the universe. In contradistinction to the pantheistic and panentheistic position, the biblical God, in His essentiality, is not affected by any change in the universe since He also transcends it as Spirit.

v. Infinity-finitude. God is essentially infinite and finite which possibilizes his relationality. He is infinitely infinite and infinitely finite. Therefore, the infinitely finite division of space is not devoid of the personal presence of God. God is infinite in power yet He cannot do many things, like He cannot destroy Himself or be the cause of his own destructibility as in the polytheistic myth of Bhasmasur.^[5] Also, He cannot sin, nor can He justify the wicked. Thus, He cannot do many things. The infinity of God, further, does not disallow the existence of the world. Neither is the infinity of God prevented by the existence of the world. Moreover, God is also seen as involved in temporal historical time and yet transcending the temporality of historical time. Thus, God is infinite, but not in the material sense, for that would be empirically impossible. He is spiritually infinite in being, power, and knowledge. However, He can involve Himself in the finite spatio-temporal world. He cannot be contained in a temple made of bricks and stones. But He is said to indwell the heart of a believer. Thus, in divine reality the infinite-finite find harmonious co-existence.

A few illustrations of Biblical theologizing by the existential application of the principles of rational fideism have already been given in the section on the subjective dimension of divine epistemics. Hopefully, such applications will eventually serve to unravel an understanding of the divine not just in the objective dimension but also in the subjective dimension. Thus, also hopefully, the objective cognizance of God will be met by a subjective anchoring in Him. And such anchoring will constitute the substantiality of the faith in divine reality which is not of things seen (empirical) but of things unseen. Thus, according to rational fideism, in matters of knowledge pertaining to divine reality, ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’^[6] Such a view of faith as not only existential but also rational will finally lead theology into a discovery of both subjective and objective meaningfulness in Revelation

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[1] Cf. Daniel 5: 8: ‘O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face…because we have sinned against thee.’ (KJV)
[2] John 3: 35; 5: 19; 16: 13-14 (KJV)
[3] Genesis 1: 1 (KJV)
[4] Martin Buber, I and Thou, p. 79
[5] Bhasmasur, a demon, was given the boon of turning to ashes anything by laying of hands; however, he in turn attempted to lay his hands on the god who gave him the boon which made the god take to his heels to protect himself from destruction.
[6] Hebrews 11: 1 (KJV)

© Domenic Marbaniang, 2007, 2011

Metaphysical Emotions: Emptiness, Anxiety, Boredom, Rootlessness, Bewilderment

Excerpt from Epistemics of Divine Reality, p.227, 2007

Metaphysical sensations involve the accompanying sense of the paradoxical, which gives rise to metaphysical emotions. The various paradoxes are the paradoxes between reason and experience, viz., transcendence-immanence, infinity-finitude, immutability-mutation, necessary-contingent, and unity-plurality. The inability of reason and experience to solve the paradoxes generates negative emotions. As has been already seen, neither reason nor experience, which are in reality, by combination, the source of the problem, can bring about a solution. For that would mean in each case to lift oneself by one’s own bootstraps. The only solution reason brings in is the rational which nullifies the empirical, ultimately leading to non-dualism. The ultimate that experience can do is the relativizing of truth to the chagrin of reason. The dissatisfaction of any such solution is bound to generate emotions that are negative; for man is not just conscious but emotionally conscious. The negative emotions that accompany the turbulent condition of Being-as-care’s (to borrow Heidegger’s notion of the existential human as Dasein) failure to harmonize the rational and the empirical, may be identified as void or emptiness, anxiety, boredom, rootlessness, and bewilderment.

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Spirituality and the Meta-emotions

Emptiness- The epistemic experience of void resulting from the self's failure to experience the Love of the Spirit through Faith.
Often caused by a turning towards the things of the world (sensations) or towards the things of the self (narcissism)
Anxiety - The epistemic experience of uncertainty resulting from the self's failure to experience the Hope of the Spirit through Faith.
Often caused by trying to find certainty in the present through mere mental reasoning or sense-experience.
Boredom- The epistemic experience of lag resulting from the self's failure to experience the fullness of joy in the Spirit through Faith.
Often caused by not feeding the passion for God and His work.
Rootlessness- The epistemic experience of aloneness resulting from the self's failure to experience the peace of Divine Fellowship in the Spirit through Faith.
Often caused by a disconnection from prayer and meditation on God's Word.
Bewilderment- The epistemic experience of confusion resulting from the self's failure to experience the goodness of God in the Spirit through Faith.
Often caused by attempts to reconcile worldliness with spirituality. Leads to sin, bitterness, and confused anger.

© Domenic Marbaniang, April 2011

Simone Weil's Original Kenosis

In the Foreword of his book Jesus Rediscovered, Malcolm Muggeridge, referred to the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909– 1943) as "the most luminous intelligence of our time". Despite her brief life, much constrained by ill-health, she made important contributions to the field of philosophy and philosophical theology.

One key concept of Weil's philosophy of God was "Absence". I quote from Wikipedia:

Absence is the key image for her metaphysics, cosmology, cosmogeny, and theodicy. She believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation—in other words, because God is conceived as a kind of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except where God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in part.

This is, for Weil, an original kenosis preceding the corrective kenosis of Christ's incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to original sin as such, but because to be created at all we had to be precisely what God is not, i.e., we had to be the opposite of what is holy.

This notion of creation is a cornerstone of her theodicy, for if creation is conceived this way (as necessarily containing evil within itself), then there is no problem of the entrance of evil into a perfect world. Nor does this constitute a delimitation of God's omnipotence, if it is not that God could not create a perfect world, but that the act which we refer towards by saying "create" in its very essence implies the impossibility of perfection.

However, this notion of the necessity of evil does not mean that we are simply, originally, and continually doomed; on the contrary, Weil tells us that "Evil is the form which God's mercy takes in this world."[14] Weil believed that evil, and its consequence, affliction, served the role of driving us out of ourselves and towards God--"The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it."

More specifically, affliction drives us to what Weil referred to as "decreation"--which is not death, but rather closer to "extinction" (nirvana) in the Buddhist tradition—the willed dissolution of the subjective ego in attaining realization of the true nature of the universe.

The chief underlying concept that compels this view of reality is the view of reality as substance. Divine infinity is viewed as substantially infinite, and the kenosis or withdrawal is imposed to accomodate creation of an "other", i.e. the world. The "other" is neither the same nor the opposite, to keep on the via negativa tangent. Evil, therefore, is almost synonymous with contingency.

However, this concept doesn't accord with the Biblical declaration. The Genesis record declares that when God created the world He declared it to be "good". The term "good" certainly means "perfect".

Also, we have philosophical complications. If God withdrew to accomodate the finite and contingent, the substantial view would force even the finitude and contingency of God, which is logically inconsistent with the notion of necessity.

However, there is a path-breaking notion in seeing contingency as a thrust towards the absolute fulfillment in God. Only God can satiate the human existential void.

With regards to the concept of Original Kenosis, there wouldn't be a need to infer an accomodative withdrawal if Divine perfection were regarded as transcendental and non-spatio-temporal. That certainly assumes apophatic terminology; however, that also shows that infinity isn't contingent on space-time-matter. It is infinite as it is.

Domenic Marbaniang, Sept 2010.

Hamartiology: Comment on Human Body Indestructible

There is, however, no indication that the fruit of life could render the human body indestructible (as if even God could not destroy it).
Hamartiology, p.11

Indestructibility will be a quality of the spiritual body given to the believer on resurrection or glorification: the source, Christ (1 Cor.15:42-49).

Hamartiology (Philosophical Theology of Sin, 2006) - God Created Humans As Mortals

God created humans as mortals. Mortality was known to Adam, or else reference to it in the command would have meant nothing to him....
...through Adam’s disobedience and choice of autonomy (physical well-being), mortality reached finality in Adam...."

Hamartiology, p.10

(1) If man were created immortal, death could not be predicted of him in any condition. For “immortality” implies inability to die (physically). (2) If man were created immortal, the Tree of Life would be a meaningless addition to the Garden. Perhaps, a safer proposition might be “God created humans as neither mortals nor immortals” because of the condition of non-finality.

Gaudapada's Karika and Christian Theology

Sri Gaudapada, spiritual teacher of Sri Sankaracharya, wrote a Karika (expository treatise) in the early 8th century A.D. It was meant to provide a systematic and rational exposition of the main teachings of the Upanisads. It argues for the doctrine of non-dualism, which basically states that reality is non-dual (the Indian philosophers hesitated to use the term “monism” since they thought that reality can only be talked of via negative). It must be remembered that salvation or liberation in Hinduism is chiefly from the cycle of rebirth; that is one reason why the Christian term “born again” might not be preliminarily understood by certain Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists – since, for them salvation is a liberation from the bondage of being reborn again and again.

In the Karika, however, there is nothing like emancipation from physical rebirth. In fact, all such phenomenal concepts of birth or rebirth are denied as false. Liberation or salvation is synonymous with a renunciation of the empirical outlook and the scientific postulate of causality through realization of the truth of non-dualism. Liberation is not the achievement of physical freedom from the chain of cyclical time, but is the mental realization of empirical negation; in other words of all subject-object, cause-effect differentiations (i.e. of non-dualism).

Everything seems to be born because of the empirical outlook; therefore there is nothing that is eternal (IV.57).

As long as there is mental preoccupation with causality, so long does the worldly state continue…. (IV.56).

There is no dissolution, no origination, none in bondage, none striving or aspiring for salvation, and none liberated. This is the highest truth (II.32).

That highest Bliss is located in one’s own Self. It is quiescent, coexistent with liberation, beyond description, and birthless…. (III.47).

Two chief arguments are as follows (for details please consult my online manuscript Epistemics of Divine Reality, pp. 73-84):

1. Argument from Dream: As objects in dream state can’t be discerned as false, so can objects in the waking state not be discerned as false (Whatever be the arguments, one can’t escape the box of idealism) – Mandukya Upanisad speaks of four states of consciousness: dreaming, waking, dreamless sleep, and pure consciousness (without subject-object differentiations).
2. Argument from Being: Being cannot come into existence (for it already is), neither can non-being come into existence (for what is not cannot be); therefore, being is eternal. Applying the Cartesian principal of doubt here, only the non-dual (indubitable) Self exists, and its perception of all plurality and causal phenomena is false, in the rational sense.

To solve the problem of “causality” (though it is denied in the purest sense) as to how the Self “comes” to be self-deluded, the doctrine of Maya is introduced. Maya is similar to magic, which also means that it “has no reality” (IV.58); therefore, the empirical phenomena it “produces” are also as unreal (as in magic). In fact, in the absolute sense, it does not produce anything – this is only an accommodative explanation; for where an explanation is anticipated, a duality of subject-object is already presupposed; therefore, the answer uses empirical analogies. There is nothing like personal salvation, since “persons” don’t exist; and, there is nothing like the salvation of Brahman (Being), since Brahman can’t be liberated from anything – for It alone exists, then from what would it be delivered; secondly, it is immutable. Therefore, apologists are wrong when they contend that liberation of one individual should mean the liberation of Brahman (cf. Vishal Mangalwadi, World of Gurus).

Obviously, this is too far from common-sense realism and from the practicability of life. Therefore, the Karika confesses:

Instruction about creation has been imparted by the wise for the sake of those who, from the facts of experience and adequate behavior, vouch for the existence of substantiality, and who are ever afraid of the birthless entity (IV.42).

The doctrine of creation and dissolution in popular Vedic religion, however, is not considered to be untrue; it is only relatively true and has its function within the practical game of phenomenal religious life. This is where the Vedic deities in all their empirical plurality, diversification, attributes, and finitudes blend with the realm of humans, animals, and demons. This is the world of causality, naturality, plurality, modality, and immanence. In other words, this is the world of Maya.

Thus, the paradoxical doctrines of non-dualism and pluralism are made parallel.

The Significance of Christian Theology as an Answer

1. It posits God as transcendent and yet immanent in relation to creation – thus, eliminating the ontological problem of being and causality. He is always eternal and created the world out of nothing.
2. It posits God as infinite and yet limited in relation to creation – thus, eliminating the need of a misty doctrine of Maya.
3. It posits God as One and yet a Trinity – thus, eliminating the epistemic problem of rational and empirical truth-conflict. In the non-dualist concept, truth is objectively impossible since the object doesn’t exist as different, while the doctrine of Trinity teaches an eternal subject-object relationship within the God-head. This also eliminates the didactic problem of lesser truths or a need for folk theology.

Does God Know the Future? Epistemic Concerns and Rational Fideism

From the Appendix of Epistemics of Divine Reality (2007, 2009), pp. 197-199.

Divine foreknowledge refers to God’s possession of the knowledge of future. The problem is whether God’s omniscience entails that He actually knows our future free actions. Rational fideism sees that the paradox is because of the distinct lines of rational and empirical epistemics by which theologians approach the issue. For instance, Norman Geisler in the rationalist way, and appealing to transcendence and infinity, argues that “An infinite, eternal God knows what we know but not in the way we know it. As an eternal being, God knows eternally.’ This kind of an approach, however, bears no meaning for an empiricist, since it refers to a non-empirical way of knowing. On the other hand, in the empirical way, Gregory A. Boyd has argued that God does not foreknow future free actions because there is ‘nothing definite there for God to know’. In other words, knowledge entails a subject-object relation. However, since future free actions do not exist at the present, there is no reason to suppose that God’s not knowing them implies He is not omniscient. He can only know what is really existent and future actions do not exist in relation to the present. This view, obviously, is a purely empirical approach to the problem. Thus, the problem of divine foreknowledge is a result of a clash of methodological perspectives: rational and empirical.

One way of solving this problem would be by asking whether knowledge is, in dimension, rational or empirical. If it is rational, then it must be in non-conflict with unity, transcendence, infinity, necessity, and immutability. However, if it is empirical, then it must be in non-conflict with plurality, immanence, finitude, contingency, and mutation. In the rational picture of God, knowledge is never thought as acquired, which assumes mutation. God doesn’t come to know. Knowledge is static and devoid of subject-object relation; which also means that there needn’t be anything definite there for God to know – He doesn’t come to know in a subject-object relation but as unity. Knowledge, thus, is static and uniform not dynamic and plural. In that sense, ‘foreknowledge’ is with reference to us, humans, and not with reference to the divine perspective. Devoid of the Revelation of God as a distinct reality from this-worldly-reality, however, this rationality of ultimate reality can mean that the Divine has no phenomenal knowledge (or delusion).

It may be noted from the discussion on the rationalist non-dualism that omniscience is not an attribute applicable to the non-dual Self in whom all subject-object distinctions cease; consequently, the delusive influence of phenomenal knowledge is obliterated. From that point of view, then, logically the Absolute can know nothing phenomenal. However, this non-dualistic nature of the non-dual cannot be applied to the Christian notion of the Godhead which, by grace of revelation, has been able to see the divine as triune. Revelation has shown that the Godhead is transcended to and not synonymous with this-worldly-reality. And so, phenomena need not be assumed as an illusion. Thus, as transcending phenomenal reality and yet being the hypostasis of it (of all spatio-temporal existence), it is not irrational to suppose that for God, all knowledge is coterminous. For instance, He doesn’t need to read a book page by page to know its contents: the knowledge of its contents are coterminous to Him.

In the empirical picture, however, knowledge is acquired. God does come to know. Knowledge is dynamic subject-object relation. The researcher believes that the statement ‘God saw that it was good’ (Genesis 1: 10) must be seen in the empirical perspective and not in the rational perspective. Does this mean that God cannot foreknow? Obviously not, for the rational dimension is uniform with knowledge. Then in what way is divine foreknowledge to be understood? How can God know and still come to know? The answer is that God knows in the non-temporal sense (as the transcendent hypostasis of temporality) and comes to know in the temporal sense (as immanent to temporality).

But, it may be argued that time does not exist apart from events; then in what sense can God be the ground of temporality and of the temporal events in a way that the events are coterminous to Him, even before the events come to be? The answer is that since all events, including free actions, are contingent upon the necessary being of God, and the being of God is essentially a unity (spatio-temporal divisibility being inapplicable to it); therefore, at least rationally speaking, contingent reality is never accidental to God. They are only accidental empirically speaking. Thus, from the contingent viewpoint of human reality, all events in the world are accidental. From the viewpoint of divine reality, all events in the world are not accidental. Does this mean that humans do not have freewill? Obviously, not. For contingency doesn’t imply determinism. And of course, in the statement that ‘God knows world-events, including human free actions, as coterminous,’ it is implied that God knows it not as something He determines to be but something as it is, i.e., coterminous. The rational part of the argument may this far suffice.

However, the empirical part of the argument cannot be ignored. God is not just beyond the world but also within the world. Revelation tells us that He is not just immutable but also dynamic. He creates, destroys, informs, interferes, and saves. The biblical God is not the unconcerned, inactive homogenous reality ‘out there.’ He is a God with whom men have talked, walked, and had relations. This God is a person; a tri-personality. He listens to the cries of the poor and answers out of the whirlwind. He is the God of silence and the God of thunder. He is the God of human experience. He knows all things; yet seeks the true worshippers. He rejoices and gets grieved. Obviously, He is the God of paradoxes; but in Him, all paradoxes turn to ‘wonder’ and ‘awe’, into ‘worship’ and ‘adoration’. Because, in His rationality and relationality does one find order and harmony for the human heart, a heart that is torn between the eternal and the temporal, a heart that can only find rest and solace in the arms of the eternal and yet personal and living God.

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See Time Theories and the Limits of Reason

Aristotle’s Temporal Logic and the Problem of Foreknowledge in Jesus' Prediction of Peter's Denial

In his On Interpretations, chapter 9, Aristotle raises an important issue that relates to the application of the rules of bivalence and contradiction to statements about future. If the statement “there will be a sea fight tomorrow” is true now, then it implies that a sea fight is bound to happen tomorrow – though one may say that the statement is not the cause of the event, but only an assertion. Its contradictory statement “there will not be a sea fight tomorrow” would, therefore, be necessarily false.  Thus, necessity is predicated of both the statements: one is necessarily true while the other is necessarily false. This would mean that all events (past and future) are necessary and not fortuitous, meaning there were no unactualized possibilities. This went against Aristotle’s theory of potentiality and actuality; so, he considered propositions related to future as excepted from the rule of contradiction.

If so, Jesus’ statement, “You will deny me thrice,” would not be subject to the law of contradiction at the moment it is said; while “Peter denied him thrice” as actualized event fits therein. In that sense, there is at least this one statement among many of such future statements of Jesus that is neither true nor false (in Aristotle’s words “that which is not always existent or not always nonexistent”) – unless the truth of statement is known as an actualized possibility already (or is in the past). However, Jesus’ statement evinces necessity in meaning “It cannot be that you would not deny me thrice”. While one may contend about modality issues, the issue of whether Jesus was speaking the truth or not still exists.

In reply to … Jonah’s prophecy, as well as that to Hezekiah, were altered since they were open to conditionality. Could it be said that Jesus’ statement here was also open to conditionality – obviously, it is not, unless one could linguistically explain away the meaning of the words “Verily I say unto you…”

If God Knew that Man would Sin, Why Create Man?

If God foreknew that man was going to fall in sin, then why did He create the world?

Answer # 1: The alternative positions to Christianity must be considered, first of all.

1. Atheism. According to it God doesn’t exist; therefore, the problem of ‘why’ He created the world also doesn’t exist. However, the atheist must admit that ultimately ‘why’ the universe exists also is a meaningless question. Thus, lacking any eternal and absolute ground of existence, morality and justice are illusory concepts. In fact, the above question presupposes morality; for the question implies that God, by creating the world despite foreknowing its misery, appears to be evil rather than good. However, if an absolute such as morality doesn’t exist, then it would be meaningless to either convict or justify God. Thus, the question itself would be meaningless. In that sense, the atheist would have to rid himself absolutely of any moral obligation at all.


2. Pantheism. According to it all is God and God is all; therefore, evil is a part of the nature of God. Consequently, there is no ultimate line of division between good and evil.


3. Polytheism. According to it a motley of deities exists; therefore, since the deities are imperfect and not omniscient, imperfection is expected in their enterprise.

Answer # 2: The question commits the error of applying space-time categories to the infinite God. First of all, the word ‘foreknowledge’ is conceived in terms of someone knowing something beforehand, that is, in the past. However, God cannot be considered to be conditioned by past, present, and future. Therefore, since the question is wrong, an adequate answer cannot be expected. For if the value of the question is zero, the value of its answer will be zero as well.

© Domenic Marbaniang, 2007

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Does God Know the Future? Epistemic Concerns and Rational Fideism