Two questions: 1) what are your grounds for this assertion? 2) What do you imagine the consequences of your assertion are? (Beyond the ridiculous notion that god cannot decide.)God is pure actuality. — bahman
Two questions: 1) what are your grounds for this assertion? — tim wood
2) What do you imagine the consequences of your assertion are? (Beyond the ridiculous notion that god cannot decide.) — tim wood
And let me save you some trouble by suggesting how you might start: First, by defining your terms. Next by making clear the connections between the terms. Finally, by extracting conclusions from the parts of your thinking that you can make reasonably clear. Absent these, you're not really making sense. — tim wood
I provided the definitions. The rest should follow simply. Let me know where do you have problem and we can start from there. — bahman
Better than fair! Let's start here: potentiality is, in respect of what is potential. But whatever is potential isn't (in itself) actual. — tim wood
"God is pure actuality." This is a proposition. Usually propositions are either true or not-true. God is here undefined. Either "pure" is an adjective, or "pure actuality is a noun substantive. Because God is usually characterized as unknowable, we can only take propositions about God as hypothetical. The usual reason for positing a hypothetical is to see what the consequences might be. — tim wood
Let's suppose and assume true that [1] God is pure actuality. We can't convert this: [2] pure actuality is God is not a valid conclusion from [1]. If God and pure actuality are not names for exactly the same thing, then God and pure actuality are different, and it follows that because God cannot be less than pure actuality, then he must be more. The more can only be impure actuality and non-actuality. — tim wood
The only sense I can make of impure actuality is as an admixture of actuality and non-actuality. Non-actuality can only comprise a) that which isn't (actual) and will never be actual, and b) that which isn't actual but that could be actual, i.e., potential. — tim wood
The bridges between actual and potential usually traverse time and possibility. In as much as God is eternal (either that or there is/will be pure actuality that God is not); that in eternity everything that can be will be (if not, why not?); and that God exists outside of/transcends/is not subject to time, then the potential just is the actual for God. As a corollary, the impossibility of the impossible is also actuality, so the impossible in its non-actuality is also actual for God. — tim wood
What is a decision? A decision is an actual that actualizes a potential. From above it follows not that God can make a decision - a decision is a function of time and possibility, best understood as something that people do - but rather that God is decision, is all possible decisions, and of impossible decisions, the impossibility of them. — tim wood
If you don't agree, then I must ask you continue with your excellent practice of offering definitions by defining "God".
I leave to you working out what follows if God exactly is pure actuality. — tim wood
potentiality is, in respect of what is potential. But whatever is potential isn't (in itself) actual.
— tim wood
Good. I agree. — bahman
It might rain tomorrow. Tomorrow's rain is potential. The possibility - the potentiality - is actual.This is contrary. Potential cannot be actual. — bahman
Do you agree that there is such a thing as change? And do you believe that change is in any meaningful with respect to God - can God change or cause change? (If you do, how?)I don't agree with the proposition "God is decision" given the definition of decision. — bahman
It might rain tomorrow. Tomorrow's rain is potential. The possibility - the potentiality - is actual. — tim wood
Do you agree that there is such a thing as change? — tim wood
And do you believe that change is in any meaningful with respect to God - can God change or cause change? (If you do, how?) — tim wood
*sigh* Let's look at it again:No. As you said and I agreed potential isn't actual. — bahman
Read with me: "potentiality is, in respect of what is potential. But whatever is potential isn't (in itself) actual.potentiality is, in respect of what is potential. But whatever is potential isn't (in itself) actual.
— tim wood
Good. I agree. — bahman
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