On the necessity of one Supreme God side, Lightgigantic.
On the possibility of multiple Supreme Gods side, Cris.
Opening statements, gentlemen.
On the possibility of multiple Supreme Gods side, Cris.
Opening statements, gentlemen.
One v. Multiple Supreme Gods - LG v. Cris
- Thread starter Prince_James
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*stalks out of theater, demands money back*
Ok what the heck.
There is no logical reason why there must be only one god as proposed by monotheists.
LG’s objection is that the definition of such a god requires that it be the cause of all causes and that it makes no sense to have multiple gods causing all causes.
My objection to that is twofold –
(1) The definition is at fault because it erroneously assumes there can be only one god and does not consider other possibilities. I.e. it is this very assertion that we are debating. Naturally with the assumption there is only one god then of course it reasons it would be the sole cause of all causes.
(2) Causing all causes is not part of a definition or a quality of a god but is an action it can perform.
In essence multiple gods are logically possible even with identical capabilities of causing all causes, but that doesn’t mean that all gods must exercise those powers concurrently.
We also assume that such gods are uncaused.
There is no logical reason why there must be only one god as proposed by monotheists.
LG’s objection is that the definition of such a god requires that it be the cause of all causes and that it makes no sense to have multiple gods causing all causes.
My objection to that is twofold –
(1) The definition is at fault because it erroneously assumes there can be only one god and does not consider other possibilities. I.e. it is this very assertion that we are debating. Naturally with the assumption there is only one god then of course it reasons it would be the sole cause of all causes.
(2) Causing all causes is not part of a definition or a quality of a god but is an action it can perform.
In essence multiple gods are logically possible even with identical capabilities of causing all causes, but that doesn’t mean that all gods must exercise those powers concurrently.
We also assume that such gods are uncaused.
Lightgigantic, your opening statement, if you might?
If one is working with the idea that the cosmic manifestation is completely controlled by a divine force (which is what the standard definitions of god point to, namely being omniscient, omnipotent and all powerful) then the only logical option is for there to be one god who is the cause of all causes.
If there are two or more entities operating out of the same capacity, clearly you have problems because
1) one "god" could have a difference of opinion with another "god"
(Cris attempts to circumvent this point, saying they would have a mutual consensus by dint of omniscience. To carry through with that he would have to give more specific information about how merely having access to knowledge equals a consensus or somehow pacifies the sense of seperateness that blossoms with ego - like for instance there are numerous conflicts in the world where the issue is simply conflicting egos - the resolution won't come from acquiring more knowledge, on the contray more conflict comes from acquiring more knowledge because it is used as a tool to get the upper hand) ... th e only way omniscience creates a consensus is if they are all omniscient to the degree that they are the exact same personality (I address this at the end of this post)
- in essence however, two or more entities that are supremely omniscient, omnipotent and all powerful raises issues about how they maintain the status quo
(Ironically this is the proposition of polytheism - that there are several gods equally potent, and they manage things in the medium of material nature, so it ends up being material nature that is the superior force of existence, since such "gods" meet with varying degrees of success and failure by dint of the co-operation or conflict of others in the assembly, through the medium of material nature)
2) difficulties arise when one tries to determine who (or what) caused the environment that the two or more gods interact in - The god who caused the phenomenal world would be more greatly omnipotent than the other god/s that didn't. Even if these marginalized gods engineer another aspect of the phenomenal world at a later date, they would technically owe their cause to the god that caused the original phenomenal world which obliged them their capacity to act. This point leads to the idea that being the cause of all causes is the quality that omnipotence, omniscient and being all powerful are contingent on. Cris attempts to negotiate this by saying that the gods were all uncaused but it doesn't answer the question of what is the relationship of the phenomenal world with a group of equally supremely omnipotent gods
3) Omnipotent means having all potency - just like there may be many candles that may be lit by one candle, but it is the original candle that is "omnipotent" - so if it is engineered that all these gods could somehow operate out of an identical potency, if one of them exhibits a potency seperate from the others (like for instance causing a blade of grass in a particular time place and circumstance to sprout) then they would have defied the capacity of other gods to fit the bill as "omnipotent" (a potency would have been exhibited by another entity that was beyond the jurisdiction of the other apparently omnipotent entities) - in other words the whole concept of having several supremely omipotent and independant all powerful personalities is an oxymoron
Thus if one wants to advocate that there are many omnipotent etc gods one is relying on a corruption of terminology for one's arguments (either not using the proper definition of god as the cause of all causes or not using the proper definitions of omniscient etc)
The other alternative is that there could be many such omnipotent gods but they would all be operating out of the same ego - so the problems of forming a consensus amongst such personalities is addressed - this is actually the viewpoint of the Vedas with the numerous incarnations and expansions of Visnu.
If there are two or more entities operating out of the same capacity, clearly you have problems because
1) one "god" could have a difference of opinion with another "god"
(Cris attempts to circumvent this point, saying they would have a mutual consensus by dint of omniscience. To carry through with that he would have to give more specific information about how merely having access to knowledge equals a consensus or somehow pacifies the sense of seperateness that blossoms with ego - like for instance there are numerous conflicts in the world where the issue is simply conflicting egos - the resolution won't come from acquiring more knowledge, on the contray more conflict comes from acquiring more knowledge because it is used as a tool to get the upper hand) ... th e only way omniscience creates a consensus is if they are all omniscient to the degree that they are the exact same personality (I address this at the end of this post)
- in essence however, two or more entities that are supremely omniscient, omnipotent and all powerful raises issues about how they maintain the status quo
(Ironically this is the proposition of polytheism - that there are several gods equally potent, and they manage things in the medium of material nature, so it ends up being material nature that is the superior force of existence, since such "gods" meet with varying degrees of success and failure by dint of the co-operation or conflict of others in the assembly, through the medium of material nature)
2) difficulties arise when one tries to determine who (or what) caused the environment that the two or more gods interact in - The god who caused the phenomenal world would be more greatly omnipotent than the other god/s that didn't. Even if these marginalized gods engineer another aspect of the phenomenal world at a later date, they would technically owe their cause to the god that caused the original phenomenal world which obliged them their capacity to act. This point leads to the idea that being the cause of all causes is the quality that omnipotence, omniscient and being all powerful are contingent on. Cris attempts to negotiate this by saying that the gods were all uncaused but it doesn't answer the question of what is the relationship of the phenomenal world with a group of equally supremely omnipotent gods
3) Omnipotent means having all potency - just like there may be many candles that may be lit by one candle, but it is the original candle that is "omnipotent" - so if it is engineered that all these gods could somehow operate out of an identical potency, if one of them exhibits a potency seperate from the others (like for instance causing a blade of grass in a particular time place and circumstance to sprout) then they would have defied the capacity of other gods to fit the bill as "omnipotent" (a potency would have been exhibited by another entity that was beyond the jurisdiction of the other apparently omnipotent entities) - in other words the whole concept of having several supremely omipotent and independant all powerful personalities is an oxymoron
Thus if one wants to advocate that there are many omnipotent etc gods one is relying on a corruption of terminology for one's arguments (either not using the proper definition of god as the cause of all causes or not using the proper definitions of omniscient etc)
The other alternative is that there could be many such omnipotent gods but they would all be operating out of the same ego - so the problems of forming a consensus amongst such personalities is addressed - this is actually the viewpoint of the Vedas with the numerous incarnations and expansions of Visnu.
I'd like to point one thing out:
Polytheism often has a hierarchy of Gods. There is a story, for instance, of Zeus being able to essentially win a tug-of-war with all the other Olympians united together. Zeus was thus several orders more powerful than his brother and sister Gods.
Polytheism often has a hierarchy of Gods. There is a story, for instance, of Zeus being able to essentially win a tug-of-war with all the other Olympians united together. Zeus was thus several orders more powerful than his brother and sister Gods.
Monotheism operates on the principle that no one possesses greater strength, beauty, wisdom, wealth, renunciation or fame than god - in other words god has all opulences in full and thus never runs the risk of being "over turned" (this inability to be over turned is why god can also exhibit the greatest degree of renunciation, which is unlike our experiences with opulent persons of the material world who are attached to their opulences that they are likely to lose)
You are correct. Monotheism does affirm this.
Several personalities cannot equally possess the opulences attributed to the montheistic god
LG,
Lg – all you have done is invented contrived nonsense, and rambled on about what these gods might think or how they might organize themselves but you have not offered a single logical argument that shows why there must only be a single god.
That is what is being questioned. There is no logical necessity for there to be only one god. An assertion above doesn’t make it so.
What same capacity? You make up this gibberish as you write. There is no reason to believe that there would be a finite capacity that only one god can use. This is an entirely contrived suggestion that has no bearing on the discussion.
Who friggin cares what they think? This is entirely irrelevant to whether there can be more than one god or not.
Again, entirely irrelevant to whether there can be more than one god or not.
A totally misleading and irrelevant analogy. There is nothing in the definition of omnipotent that implies that it can only have a single origin. You are again inventing contrived nonsense.
Again, an entirely contrived notion without logical support.
Again, who friggin cares about their egos, what they think, or how they organize themselves. That is all irrelevant to whether multiple gods could exist.
Lg – all you have done is invented contrived nonsense, and rambled on about what these gods might think or how they might organize themselves but you have not offered a single logical argument that shows why there must only be a single god.
Cris
All of this that you have given us in the way of responses till here appears to be formed out of a corruption of the definition of god - why don't you give us a definition of the qualities/characteristics of god so we determine if we are even talking about the same phenomena
In determining the logical reality of a set of objects doesn't in require an analysis of their functional capacity? - like for instance can I advocate doing water colour renditions on ice cubes and write off all sorts of criticism as irrelevant?
All I can offer is that you have a very loose definition of god and thus the issues I raised to not appear pertinent - I think from here you are required to give a definition of god because it appears we are talking about two different things
All of this that you have given us in the way of responses till here appears to be formed out of a corruption of the definition of god - why don't you give us a definition of the qualities/characteristics of god so we determine if we are even talking about the same phenomena
correct - that is why the candle analogy indicates what it is in an assembly of candles that distinguishes the candle that possesses all potencies (ie omnipotence)
seems like another terminology issue
In determining the logical reality of a set of objects doesn't in require an analysis of their functional capacity? - like for instance can I advocate doing water colour renditions on ice cubes and write off all sorts of criticism as irrelevant?
All I can offer is that you have a very loose definition of god and thus the issues I raised to not appear pertinent - I think from here you are required to give a definition of god because it appears we are talking about two different things
To say that God is perfect is to say that there is no way in which God can be better. As with all else that it is, it is infinite in it's perfection.
It matters not what facet of God we examine, there we find no blemish, no mark, no defect, no lack of anything.
it is that it itself is perfect and, therefore, all that it says or does is perfect. God cannot issue forth from itself anything that is imperfect, for imperfection does not dwell within it. Not even the possibility of imperfection can be found within it's being.
do we agree, here.
there are some elements of truth in what you are saying but you also have a few problematic premises as well - its quite complicated and given your stance on theism I can see it will take a bit of effort to thresh out, but anyway, here goes
The sun is a great source of light and heat. Due to the influence of the sun we can see things, including the sun itself - the influence of the sun also causes evaporation and forms clouds in the sky - the clouds in the sky block our vision and reduce the influence of light and can even make the sun invisible in the sky - in other words due to the multifarious potencies of the sun that have the capacity to interact with each other we get a variety of phenomena that can both increase and decrease the visibility, (to the extent of even making the sun invisible). But all this seeing and not seeing is relative to us. Despite what ever may be going on in our atmosphere the sun continues as a fully potent source of immense heat and light.
In the same way god has many potencies that can interact with each other and present the image of imperfection, but this is all relative to our perspective - in other words the nature of the imperfection lies in our perspective (since god or the sun continues to exist independant and seperate from the energies that emmante from it)
Okay that was a bit of a mouthful, but complex inquiries warrant complex answers (admittedly I haven't had a great deal of luck using asuch analogies with atheists and agnostics of late - for some reason they seem respond to such explanations by blowing their top and flinging an array of ad homs)
so as I understand it, god is perfect regardless of what happens here or to us, ie: we may have imperfect things happen, but this is not because of god directly, (one cause causes another cause etc etc.(there is no action without an equal and opposite reaction, right.))
audible
the idea is that imperfection happens in the medium of imperfection (like the inability to see the sun is only an issue if you are beneath the cloud line - if you were above the cloud line, if there were clouds or no clouds, you could see the sun no problem))- the implication is that we desire to exist in the medium of imperfection even though we may abhor the concommitant results of our decision to reside there (thats why the material world is created by god - to give the living entity the opportuntity to be seperate from god - and because this is not our constituitional position, the material world is perfectly imperfect - ie its impossible for us to make a perfect arrangement for living here, no matter how hard we try)
yes - a unique quality of god that distinguishes him is that he is completely independent
the idea is that imperfection happens in the medium of imperfection (like the inability to see the sun is only an issue if you are beneath the cloud line - if you were above the cloud line, if there were clouds or no clouds, you could see the sun no problem))- the implication is that we desire to exist in the medium of imperfection even though we may abhor the concommitant results of our decision to reside there (thats why the material world is created by god - to give the living entity the opportuntity to be seperate from god - and because this is not our constituitional position, the material world is perfectly imperfect - ie its impossible for us to make a perfect arrangement for living here, no matter how hard we try)
so we've established that god is perfect, then why did it create, it had no need(perfect), lets put it another way, it had no necessity to create, it would be flawed to do so. therefore it must be imperfect.
It seems that perfection does not belong to god. For we say a thing is perfect if it is complete, But it does not befit god to create, therefore it is not perfect.me said:
