Is God's omnipotence compatible with His impeccability?

Omnipotence is typically defined as God's ability to do anything that is logically possible. So, it is logically impossible for God to make a square circle, or for God to make a married bachelor.

Impeccability is typically defined as God cannot sin.

So there appears to be an inconsistency here, God can do anything but sin. So, if God is impeccable it appears that He cannot be omnipotent. I think the most helpful way to think of this problem is to analyze sin as a negative action. Meaning that it is more difficult to refrain from sinning than it is to sin. In fact, if we define sin as missing the mark, or falling short of our goal, then we need omnipotence not to sin.

I would like to claim that for a being that is omnipotent and impeccable it is logically impossible to sin. To use an analogy, consider an omnipotent basball player. This baseball player can do anything he wants when he is at bat. Sometimes this baseball player chooses to strike out when he is at bat, full well knowing that he can hit a home run at any point in time. If we add a stipulation that this player must play his best at all times, then he can no longer strike out. We certainly wouldn't consider the ability to strike out something that we can do, rather we would consider it a failure. That is how we ought to conceive of God's sinning. God sinning isn't the ability to do something, rather, it is a lack of ability to refrain from sinnning.

Working the Brain Muscles

Mondays I always plan on working out after class. However, I have my philosophy of religion survey course from 3 to 6 then from 7 to 10 I have a seminar on vagueness. What's vagueness about you ask??? Well, allow me to tell you what it is about. We are attempting to ascertain whether vagueness is a semantic, ontic, or epistemic feature of the world. But those aren't the only theories of vagueness, oh no! There is also a discussion of whether there is such a thing as higher-order vagueness. Higher-order vagueness is the idea that there are borderline borderline examples - or vague vagueness. Then you have borderline borderline borderline cases. Myself I'm an epistemicist, which rejects higher-order vagueness. After that there are logical solutions to vagueness. Needless to say on Monday nights after vagueness I'm exhausted by all of the thinking.

... yet, I think it's good for me to think

The Allergy Season

My left ear is plugged up again. This is more annoying than anything else. For whatever I think that the type of pollen in the air effects my ear. Yesterday the pollen count was low - my ear was fine. But Wednesday and today the pollen count is high - my ear is stuffed. . This is what weatherbug has to say about the pollen count.

Predominant Pollen: Ragweed, Grass and Chenopods.

Today
The amount of pollen in the air for Thursday will be falling into the very low range. The cause for the falling pollen levels is falling temperatures, rising humidity and heavy rains in the morning and evening which tend to wash pollen out of the air.

Outlook
The quantity of pollen grains in the air for Friday will be greater than today's levels in the high range. This increase is due to seasonally normal weather conditions which are favorable for the production and dispersal of pollen. If you have these allergies, tomorrow will likely be more difficult outdoors.

Allergy Fact
Ragweed pollen grains are highly sculpted and have surfaces covered with large spines. Interestingly, this menacing appearance has nothing to do with its ability to cause hay fever

Emergent Church

So, my friend from Austrailia took the theology quiz and scored as emergent postmodern. This was a week or two ago so I figured that I would eventually comment on this, though a little belatedly. Simply put, the emergent church wants first century Christianity without absolute truth. That isn't very helpful (sorry). So I will try to further eloborate on my position. The emergent church wants to hold that all positions are true, so someone who is in the emergent church would say that they are a protestant and a Roman Catholic. So, all of the contradictory positions in the theological world and emergentist would hold to. The emgergent church movement is also very experiential when it comes to worship - almost touchy-feely. Instead of relying upon revelation (the Bible) to learn about God they rely upon their feelings and experiences to learn about God.

I'm sure that there are other things for me to help better explain what emergent theology is but I need to read a paper on reduction for my naturalism class. So, I'll post more thoughts on emergentism later.

Sorities Paradox

The problem of vagueness is derived from the sorities paradox. Here is a typical example of a sorities paradox:

(1) One grain of sand is not a heap.

(2) If one grain of sand is not a heap. [n + 1 is not a heap]

(3) Therefore, 100,000 grains of sand is not a heap.

The step that I reject is (2) maybe 3 or 4 grains of sand is a heap but there seems to be some point at which several (many) grains of sand becomes a heap. Another move made is the reverse march.

(4) 100,000 grains of sand is a heap.

(5) If 100,000 grains of sand is a heap, then 99,999 grains of sand is a heap [n - 1 is a heap]

(6) Therefore, one grain of sand is a heap.

I'm not quite sure where grains of sand become a heap, but there definitely seems to be some type of cutoff where sand becomes a heap.

Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

For my phil. of religion survey we began by reading a survey of the ontological arguments for the existence of God. I think that this argument is a logical proof that God exists. However, I don't think logical arguments necessarily aid one in evangelism. By the way, ontological is a study of being.

(1) God is the greatest possible being: (i) God is all-powerful; (ii) God is all-knowing; and (iii) God is morally perfect, i.e. all-loving.

(2) The greatest possible being does not depend upon its existence from anything else, i.e. it self-exists or it necessarily exists.

(3) Therefore God exists.

Though this argument looks weak and simple the premises are very resillient. The move that the atheist has to make is that it is impossible for there to be a greatest possible being with the attributes in (1). This is why so much of philosophy of religion has depended upon defending God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence.

I'll post on my vagueness class later on ;)

School is in session

ahh, school is starting in 14 1/2 hours today (it's 12:28 AM) don't know if I'm ready for it or not though...

Liturgical Baptists

I have spoken to a couple of friends about this topic. Now I am very intrigued, I would like to see a liturgical Baptist church started. Why? Because churches have become self-help resource centers. A church lives and dies based upon a pastoral staff's ability to recruit and give a sales pitch. The liturgy is based upon the Gospel and is God-centered not man-centered. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still holding to distinctive Baptist theology. However, the Baptist style of worship is becoming bankrupt and is not about God.

What are some differences between a liturgical service and a typical Baptist service. A liturgical service would have the Lord's Supper every week, recite a creed, responsive readings, perhaps incense, group prayers/confession, and would not have any musical solos.

Most Baptists claim to be non-creedal people, yet all the creeds are is a summary of what the Scriptures teach. I would suggest that if one cannot affirm the early church creeds (specifically the Nicene creed) then one is not a Christian. Creeds allow new believers to discern between heresy and biblical teaching. They are a confession of the community of believers beliefs. I don't know how creeds are any different from the sinner's prayer that all Baptists are supposed to pray before they get saved. Speaking of which...

Another reason to recite creeds during church service is to allow people to determine if they will side with the community of believers or not. We are saved through belief in Christ, not praying the sinner's prayer. Most people say, I was saved when I did X - usually X is praying a prayer. Hence putting the focus upon the individual who prayed. Yet, what if we recite a creed every Sunday and one of the lines in the creed mentions belief in Christ who died for our sins. If all the people confess this aloud and really believe it and mean it when they say it but haven't prayed the sinner's prayer are these people saved? I would suggest that they are saved. This is one more method to allow people to profess their belief in Christ. Altar calls are not the only method of having a non-believer to become a believer.

I also think that a liturgical service puts a greater emphasis on the community of believers than the preacher. There is a set order of service and people come to Church with a reverent attitude, rather than an attitude of looking to be entertained.

I'll post more on this later.

Class Schedule

As the title says =)

Mondays:

3PM - 6PM Philosophy of religion survey: topics covered - problem of evil, ontological argument, and religious ethics

7PM - 10PM vagueness: problem of the heaps, if 1 grain of sand is not a heap, and if 2 grains of sand is not a heap, and if 3 grains of sand is not a heap, etc.... then 10,000 grains of sand is not a heap


Wednesdays:
7PM - 10PM Philosophical naturalism: how can we have objective standards for art, beauty, religion, knowledge, etc. if there isn't anything that transcends the physical world?

Speaking of God

I think one of the key questions for Christians today is whether Christians and Muslims refer to the same God. Both Muslims and Christians would agree that they worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However the problem is that the Christian God is a Triune God and the Muslim God is not Triune - in fact Muslims strongly explain how God is not a Trinity.

Since Christians would claim that God is necessarily a Triune God I will use this fact to explain how Christians worship a different God than the Muslims.

One thing I have yet to resolve is natural law or General revelation. I'm not sure what to do with this subject yet.

Find the nearest book

Here's something I found on another blog. Do this:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

(1) The Blessed Hope by George Eldon Ladd
(2 - 3) What Christ has accomplished on His cross is a finished work, but the salvation of God's people is not complete and will not be brought to consummation apart from the glorious return of Christ.

Life in General *thinks of MxPx album*

I have decided to post more mundane details about my life on my blog because all too often people comment that there are many posts on my blog that they don't read due to the philosophical nature of the post.

Anyway, today I didn't set my alarm and I slept til' 11:20 or so. I've set my alarm for the last 3 weeks even on Saturdays and last night I was so tired that I decided that I needed to sleep until my body felt like waking up - as opposed to allowing a pre-arranged time (alarm) to wake me up. Though, in the future I will continue to use my alarm clock to wake me up, regardless of what day of the week it is.

Shifting Gears

All this summer I have had things in a pretty low gear ... well now it's time for things to start shifting into a higher gear. I have one more free week before school starts. After that, it's going to be a very, very, busy semester.

Going back to Colorado

Well in about 8 hours my mom and I will drive to Breckenridge CO. I look forward to getting away and breathing the thin mountain air. I also look forward to getting lots of reading done. Hopefully I'll have many insightful comments and posts after getting back from CO.

Cell phone

So, I have caved into pressure and now own a cell phone.

Did I sell out?

Sleeping Schedule

This week I've been trying to alter my body's clock - by getting up every morning at 9:30am. So far I have been able to get up at 9:30am every morning, but I just feel out of sync. I've been getting up, previously before I began to alter my schedule, at 11:30am to 1pm. So this is a significant change for me - but nonetheless one that I needed to make.

I'm off to go read now... hopefully I'll stay awake *crosses fingers*

Who is richer?

I'm meeting (at least supposed to meet) some guys tonight for our discussion group concerning intelligent design. I need to read two articles that we are discussing tonight so I really shouldn't be procrastinating and writing on my blog, but oh well...

I just finished watching season 3 of Smallville and I have just recently watched Batman Begins. Now, here is a question: who is richer Bruce Wayne or Lex Luthor?

I think the answer is Lex Luthor and here is why. Bruce Wayne is not concerned with accumulating wealth, all Bruce Wayne needs money for is to continue to fund the projects and weapons development along with research for Batman. So insofar as Bruce Wayne needs money to help him fight crime, that is what he needs to accumulate wealth for. Whereas Lex Luthor is attempting to take over the world. The means by which he is attempting to take over the world involves monetary gain. So, Lex Luthor needs all the money and power that he can get and control - he is seeking to gain an infinite amount of wealth and power. This is why I believe Lex Luthor is richer than Bruce Wayne. Lex Luthor may not be as smart as Bruce Wayne but he is able to spend all of his time and resources accumulating wealth, while Bruce Wayne spends a majority of his time and resources fighting crime.

Posterior Analytics

This summer I have been attending a reading group for Aristotle's Posterior Anaylytics. The Posterior Analytics along with the Prior Analytics deal with formal logic. Since I am interested in logic I decided to make attending the reading group a priority of my summer. Aristotle is very difficult to understand so it is good to slowly read through the Posterior Analytics - but here is the catch - the reading group is reading through the Greek text of the Posterior Analytics. Nonetheless, reading a challenging philosophical text along with working through some Greek is helpful for me and good for me.

This is why our country is in trouble

The seriousness of traditional churches scared many parishioners away, Osteen said, but the warm hug delivered by megachurches like his is bringing them back.

One time I was praying at this big event here in town and there were several other ministers there with me and the man that went right before me--He is a very well respected leader in the community and a very fine gentleman. But, he prayed about the most depressing prayer that I think I have ever heard. He said, 'God, you know how unworthy I am to even stand up here before you. God, you know what a wretched sinner I am. I don't deserve your goodness--and God how could you even use anybody like me?' On and on--man by the time he got finished I felt like I needed to go repent. I felt like I was about that tall. I just wanted to hang my head in shame. So let me ask you, how can we expect God's blessings? How can we expect His goodness if we go around feeling wrong about ourselves? I wanted to ask him afterwards, 'Did you really mean what you prayed?' You said you were 'Weak. You were defeated. You were an old sinner. You were unworthy.' Listen, I'm not going to declare that kind of junk over my life!...Well, you say, 'Joel, we are just all old sinners saved by grace.' No, the truth is we were old sinners--but when we came to Christ we are not sinners anymore. We are sons and daughters of the Most High God...Sure, we may sin every once in awhile. You may make some mistakes--but that doesn't make you a sinner. You've got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

(Joel Osteen, "Receiving God's Mercy," Tape #262. Daystar Television, April 17, 2005)

So, Christians no longer sin once they are Christians? That is news to me, I think it's news to Paul also. What about Romans 7? So is Joel Osteen a better Christian than Paul?

Is Anakin Skywaker Darth Vader (Part 2)

After careful consideration I have decided that 'Anakin Skywalker' is a rigid designator. This means that regardless of who Anakin Skywalker is, he is identical with himself, and the term 'Anakin Skywalker' refers to Anakin Skywalker. Now, it's possible that Anakin Skywalker could have been called 'Jim Jones' but Anakin Skywalker would still have all the properties of Anakin Skywalker, even if he were named 'Jim Jones'. This is what a rigid designator is, it is a name that refers to an object itself, but a rigid designator is not a description of the object. If we try to describe Anakin Skywalker as the person who became Darth Vader, it is possible that Anakin Skywalker never turned to the dark side, so that would be a incorrect description of Anakin Skywalker. Or if we said that Anakin Skywalker is the father of Luke Skywalker it is possible for Luke to have never been born so this would be an incorrect description if Luke were never born. Thus, a rigid designator is not a description, it is a term that picks out an object. 'Anakin Skywalker' (picks out) refers to Anakin Skywalker and the term 'Anakin Skywalker' does not have any descriptive content.

Now if two different rigid designators refer to the same object then the rigid designators are identical. Here is an example: Mark Twain is identical with Samuel Clemons. Two objects are identical if they share all of the same properties. Here is the problem with Anakin Skywalker being identical with Darth Vader. It is not a necessary property of Anakin Skywalker to have turned to the dark side of the force. Yet, by definition Darth Vader is a sith and all sith necessarily have turned to the dark side of the force. So, Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker do not share all the same necessary properties. Using the dark side of the force is a contingent property of Anakin Skywalker. It appears that 'Anakin Skywalker' is a rigid designator, but 'Darth Vader' is not.

I propose that 'Darth Vader' is a partially descriptive desginator. 'Darth' implies that something is a sith lord. So, this is how Darth Vader can be identical with Anakin Skywalker because 'Darth Vader' is not a rigid designator but a partially descriptive designator.