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Niblo View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Niblo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 June 2018 at 9:47am
Originally posted by Al Masihi Al Masihi wrote:

.....................


You write: ‘Actually what Thomas Aquinas says is that you cannot say something is only man and only a donkey at the same time.’

Permit a former Thomist to tell you what Aquinas says:

‘On Whether God Is Omnipotent?

‘It remains therefore, that God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely; which is the second way of saying a thing is possible. For a thing is said to be possible or impossible absolutely, according to the relation in which the very terms stand to one another, possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey.’ (Summa Theologica: Part 1; Question 25; Article 3).

Message: God cannot create a man who is, at the same time, a donkey. Why not? Because not even God can create what is intrinsically impossible (i.e. that which is a logical contradiction).

If a man cannot be both man and donkey; then how can he possibly be both man and God?

You write: ‘The doctrine of hypostatic Union doesn’t say Jesus is only God and only man at the same time and in the same respect, since they are two natures there is no contradiction.’

Throughout this reply let ‘man’ be ‘A’ and let ‘God’ be ‘not-A’:

The teaching of the Catholic Church (and of most other Trinitarian churches, come to that) is that Yeshua is both a man ‘A’ and God ‘not-A’:

St Augustine writes: ‘From the moment in which He began to be a man (‘A’), He is also God (‘not-A’)’ (‘On the Trinity’; Thirteen; 17, 22).   

Claim: Yeshua is both a man and God (no quibble about their respective natures, just a plain statement).

‘(This Council) holds, professes and teaches that one and the same Son of God and of man, our lord Jesus Christ, is perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity; true God (‘not-A’) and true man (‘A’)….’ (Council of Basel: Session 13).

Claim: Yeshua is both a man and God (no quibble about their respective natures, just a plain statement).

‘For the right faith is, that we believe and we confess that our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, is God (‘not-A’) and man (‘A’)’ (Athanasian Creed)

Claim: Yeshua is both a man and God (no quibble about their respective natures, just a plain statement).

These are the words of folk who share your beliefs. They are not my words.

According to these folk, Yeshua is both man and God…..both man and God……both man and God; no quibble about their respective natures, just a plain statement of faith.

I repeat: If a man cannot be both man and donkey (‘absolutely impossible’, according to Aquinas); then how can he possibly be both man and God? He can’t.

Unless you come up with argument not yet discussed in this 'debate' I propose we end it here. It is not the best use of our time to waltz around in circles.
'Sometimes, silence is the best answer for a fool.' (Alī ibn Abī Tālib‎)
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DavidC View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote DavidC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 June 2018 at 11:25am
So Niblo, you are saying God is of the same substantia as a donkey.   One of the class of things created and not the creator? What is next? God cannot coexist within creation? God is limited by time and form?

We have God appearing as a cloud over Muhummad. Was God somehow present only in the cloud, or absent outside of it?

I think al-Ghazali is correct when he states that the best similitude for God is light.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Niblo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 June 2018 at 11:58am
Originally posted by DavidC DavidC wrote:

So Niblo, you are saying God is of the same substantia as a donkey.   One of the class of things created and not the creator? What is next? God


Please don't be silly. I am saying no such thing. Do try and think (carefully) before you write.

Put simply: If a man cannot be a donkey...a created being like himself...how can he possibly be God...the One uncreated Being?
'Sometimes, silence is the best answer for a fool.' (Alī ibn Abī Tālib‎)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote DavidC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 June 2018 at 1:50pm
Your logic is flawed at its core. All predcates in any syllogism must be of the same substantia. God's presence as man, or as a cloud over Muhummad, or the possibility of a veridical Hijra, cannot be excluded logically because God and man and smoke and flying horses are all of different substantia. This is basic Aristotle.

One may reason these possibilities are unlikely, but logical exclusion is not possible.
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Niblo View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Niblo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 June 2018 at 2:45pm
Originally posted by DavidC DavidC wrote:

Your logic is flawed at its core. All predcates in any syllogism must be of the same substantia. God's presence as man, or as a cloud over Muhummad, or the possibility of a veridical Hijra, cannot be excluded logically because God and man and smoke and flying horses are all of different substantia. This is basic Aristotle.

One may reason these possibilities are unlikely, but logical exclusion is not possible.


Source? While you're looking it up, ask yourself: Is the statement 'A thing cannot be 'A' and 'not-A' at one and the same time' a syllogism?
'Sometimes, silence is the best answer for a fool.' (Alī ibn Abī Tālib‎)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote DavidC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 June 2018 at 6:42pm
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is available on the internet.

Your statement is a gross oversimplification. No thing is ever only A or only not-A. All things contain multiple categories. God, I believe we can agree, is infinite in category with the 99 names of Allah a poetic yet specific allusion to God's infinitude.

How can you cradle this marvelous pearl in your palms and tell me God must be only A or not-A?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Niblo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 June 2018 at 11:36pm
Originally posted by DavidC DavidC wrote:

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is available on the internet.

Your statement is a gross oversimplification. No thing is ever only A or only not-A. All things contain multiple categories. God, I believe we can agree, is infinite in category with the 99 names of Allah a poetic yet specific allusion to God's infinitude.

How can you cradle this marvelous pearl in your palms and tell me God must be only A or not-A?



The law of non-contradiction is not a syllogism, and so the conditions set out in your earlier post do not apply.

The law states that a thing cannot be both ‘A’ and ‘not-A’ at one at the same time, and in the same respect (sense). This includes God, of course. I think you will agree, for example, that He cannot be infinite and finite at the same time; or exist and not exist; or be omnipotent and weak; or omniscient and ignorant.

In order to understand what is meant by ‘in the same respect’ consider this statement:

‘Jack is alive in body but dead in spirit.’ There is no contradiction in this example, since we are not referring to his body and his spirit in the same respect. When we speak of his body we are speaking literally; when we refer to his spirit we are speaking metaphorically, as a means of criticising some aspect of his behaviour.

As you know, the Church claims that Christ is ‘truly man’ and ‘truly God’ at one and the same time, and in the same respect. The Church is not speaking metaphorically; moreover, it demands that this doctrine be accepted as fact. The doctrine is a clear violation of the law of non-contradiction; which means that it cannot be true.     

Denial takes numerous forms: claiming exception to a general rule (as when the law of non-contradiction is applied, as now, to the doctrine of the incarnation); or simply refusing to believe proof when it’s shown to us, are but two examples. To deny something, and then to imagine that this denial constitutes a fair rebuttal is the weakest form of argument.
'Sometimes, silence is the best answer for a fool.' (Alī ibn Abī Tālib‎)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tim the plumber Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 June 2018 at 1:34am
Originally posted by Niblo Niblo wrote:

Originally posted by DavidC DavidC wrote:

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is available on the internet.

Your statement is a gross oversimplification. No thing is ever only A or only not-A. All things contain multiple categories. God, I believe we can agree, is infinite in category with the 99 names of Allah a poetic yet specific allusion to God's infinitude.

How can you cradle this marvelous pearl in your palms and tell me God must be only A or not-A?



The law of non-contradiction is not a syllogism, and so the conditions set out in your earlier post do not apply.

The law states that a thing cannot be both ‘A’ and ‘not-A’ at one at the same time, and in the same respect (sense). This includes God, of course. I think you will agree, for example, that He cannot be infinite and finite at the same time; or exist and not exist; or be omnipotent and weak; or omniscient and ignorant.

In order to understand what is meant by ‘in the same respect’ consider this statement:

‘Jack is alive in body but dead in spirit.’ There is no contradiction in this example, since we are not referring to his body and his spirit in the same respect. When we speak of his body we are speaking literally; when we refer to his spirit we are speaking metaphorically, as a means of criticising some aspect of his behaviour.

As you know, the Church claims that Christ is ‘truly man’ and ‘truly God’ at one and the same time, and in the same respect. The Church is not speaking metaphorically; moreover, it demands that this doctrine be accepted as fact. The doctrine is a clear violation of the law of non-contradiction; which means that it cannot be true.     

Denial takes numerous forms: claiming exception to a general rule (as when the law of non-contradiction is applied, as now, to the doctrine of the incarnation); or simply refusing to believe proof when it’s shown to us, are but two examples. To deny something, and then to imagine that this denial constitutes a fair rebuttal is the weakest form of argument.


Reasonable for a situation where the terms in use are suitable for the thing being described.

The example I gave of a super intelligent computer/space ship having a part of its' self as a human would not really be able to be described back in 700AD. The closest you could get may well be A and not A at the same time.

Similar to the 2010 film wher the space man who disappeared into the alien ship/universe/big black slab thing at the end of 2001 reappeared and said that all that had been the origional spaceman he was and so much more.
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