DALE SAID:
Sorry, but this shows you didn't understand what was going on the post. I start with a simple, too simple formula, actually two of them. I use that to draw attention to a fundamental intuition we all have - that a thing can't at a time be and not be some way.
Of course, that oversimplifies the issue. That’s a statement of synchronic identity (“that a thing can’t at a time be and not be some way”).
But the issue for you, given your temporalist view of God, is the problem of diachronic identity. Whether one and the same thing (i.e. God) can be one way at one time and another way at another time.
And you yourself unwittingly raised this issue when you brought up 1 Cor 15:24-28. For in that passage, the Father is one way at one time, but another way at another time.
I go through a couple of obvious problems with the simple formulations, then come up with a more complex, but true one.
And after doing all that, you fall back on this formulation: “Yet, things which have differed can’t be numerically one.”
Yet in 1 Cor 15:24-28, the Father differs depending on the time-frame. During the church age, he transfers dominion to the Son; during the final state, he resumes dominion.
So, by your own logic, the Father is two different Gods.
Denying L's Law to save a cherished theological theory…
I realize that you suffer from a limited attention span, but in my various responses to you I haven’t denied L’s Law. Rather, I’ve done some other things:
i) I’ve documented your failure to show, on exegetical grounds, that divine unicity must meet that condition.
ii) I’ve pointed out that logical necessity is not worldview-invariant.
iii) I’ve pointed out that you dissemble over logic. Take your recent reply to Sam: “It's not easy to take seriously someone pushing a patently contradictory theology - that Jesus and YHWH are numerically identical, and yet differ.”
But even if (arguendo) that’s “patently contradictory,” mere logic doesn’t map a way out of that patent contradiction. Mere logic doesn’t say the Father is Yahweh rather than the Son.
If, in various ways, the NT says:
a) The Father is Yahweh
b) The Son is Yahweh
c) The Father and Son differ
L’s Law has no directional force to relieve that “patent contradiction.” L’s Law doesn’t tell you which premise is false. The exegetical data don’t yield any preferential application of L’s Law.
iv) More recently, I pointed out that your unitarian temporalist view of God fails to meet that condition.
Now, there are philosophers who do challenge the facile appeal to L’s Law, viz.
I haven’t gone into that, but your “self-evident” principle isn’t as “self-evident” as you think it is.
Yes, Kant's version of the noumena/phenomena distinction has to do with sense perception of the physical world, but Hick's distinction does not.
Which you trotted out as a diversionary tactic. And you're the one who linked the two.
If I thought you were serious, I’d ask you what you think the ‘ad intra/extra distinction’ amounts to.
Ad intra: God’s necessary attributes.
Ad extra: God’s contingent effects.
You’ve said that the EC is God's relation to the world, and inconsistently with that, you've said that it is (the sum total of?) his actions.
And that’s inconsistent…how, exactly? How do you think God relates to the world apart from his mundane actions?
But I thought you invoked 2, so as to say that one changes and the other doesn’t.
A changeless God effects change.
In any case, back to special ed for me, and back to anger management therapy for you.
You underestimate your unwitting capacity for comic relief. But that’s the fate of the straight man.
"But the issue for you, given your temporalist view of God, is the problem of diachronic identity. Whether one and the same thing (i.e. God) can be one way at one time and another way at another time."
ReplyDeleteThis is no more problematic than the existence of intrinsic change generally. Some philosophers think this is a big problem, but as I explained, I think the existence of intrinsic change is evident. (Thus, any argument that it's impossible must be unsound.)
"you fall back on this formulation"
Nice cheapshot. Anything to divert attention from the obvious truth, eh?
"by your own logic, the Father is two different Gods"
You need to go back and look at my logic (i.e. my precise formulation of L's Law) and see that it allows for intrinsic change.
Glad to see that you're not denying L's Law. Still waiting to see that your Trinity theory is in line with it.
"your failure to show, on exegetical grounds, that divine unicity must meet that condition"
L's Law applies to anything there is or can be; it is a necessary truth. (Aside: I think you're confused about what "necessity" means here; it is not "worldview-variant". Basically, a nec truth is one such that it is absolutely impossible that it not be true.) Thus, it applies to God. What *sort* of thing he is can be disputed. But that that thing will "obey" L's Law shouldn't be.
"L’s Law has no directional force to relieve that “patent contradiction.”
Put it in scare quotes all you want. You've admitted L's Law, and thus that your 3 claims are apparently contradictory, and strongly so.
No, of course logic doesn't tell you what to do now. That's a matter of considering evidence. That's what my published work on this is all about.