The logically possible action must be compatible with God's nature. For example, a created human person can kill himself. But God can't commit suicide since he's timeless and eternal.

Did you read the article about the Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano, Italy before your wrote your potentially insulting note?

1 Corinthians 11:27 says, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord." How do you profane something that isn't there?

How do you interpret John 6:52-53?

How do I profane something that isn't there?

No, Francis didn't teach infallibility about the death penalty. The Church still supports it despite his politically progressive opinion. That's all it is, his opinion.

Sure, there are many interpretations of various interpretations of various Bible passages and of many doctrines. But in the end, it's for the Magisterium to settle disputes when it must. Protestants have no Magisterium.

Consider the dogma that during Holy Mass, bread and wine become Christ's body and his blood. Protestants usually think Our Lord speaks metaphorically about that change in John 6. They'll tell us that we're idolators who "worship wafers."

That's partly because they believe Luther's novel "sola scriptura" doctrine. It's novel because he invented it. You won't find it in any document from the Early Church. But if you read St. Ignatius of Antioch's 2nd-century letter to the Smyrnaeans where he warned them to avoid anyone who denied that bread changed into Christ's body and blood.

He wrote:

"Chapter 6. Unbelievers in the blood of Christ shall be condemned

Let no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in heaven, and the glorious angels, and rulers, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which is worth all is faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.

Chapter 7. Let us stand aloof from such heretics

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils."

St. Ignatius's letter to the Smyrnaeans

If Dr. Craig rode a Time Machine to St. Ignatius's diocese, people there wouldn't have thought he was a Christian. Instead, they would have believed he was a heretic.

Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano, Italy

Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano, Italy

Catholics pay attention to what the Early Church believed. But many Protestants ignore it because they believe sola scriptura.

Years ago, I emailed with a Seventh-Day Adventist about "soul sleep." I quoted St. Justin Marty's 2nd-century First Apology to show that he believed that disembodied souls stayed awake. So, the Adventist replied, "That doesn't matter. We have the Bible."

Justin's First Apology

In my previous reply, I agreed with what you said just now.

Please don't expect me to explain the incarnation when I know too little about Christology. Anyhow, I suggest that when we say that God in the world, we mean that he sustains it and makes events happen in it. If I'm right, we need to use the word "in" in a non-spatial sense.

No, Dr. Ott isn't the Magisterium. But the doctrine about absolute divine simplicity is a dogma. So, each Catholic has a duty to believe it. If he denies it, he's a heretic. Catholics believe that a heretic will go to hell if he's to blame for his heresy when he dies.

Some Protestants, especially Calvinists, believe that after they accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, they'll still go to heaven, no matter what terrible sins they commit after that. That doctrine seems immoral because it promotes license. It also contradicts Mark 16:16, where Our Lord says, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be damned," See that verse in the KJV. If Calvinists are right, I can stop believing and still reach heaven. But then Our Lord was mistaken, he lied, or at least one falsehood got into Sacred Scripture.

I don't mean to insult anyone. But it would be absurd for me to become a Protestant. Protestants tell you that Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired, error-free, and infallible. Sadly, though, interdenominational disagreements have splintered Protestants into about 40,000 sects. That makes the idea of divine inspiration seem absurd to secularists, How do inerrancy, divine inspiration, and so forth make Christianity believable if no one knows what the Bible means? That's why Protestant private judgment makes divinely revealed truth hard to discover.

I meet Protestants who believe they understand the Bible because they can quote it from memory. But to interpret a passage accurately, you must know what the divinely inspired writer meant by it. When I merely repeat a memorized passage, I'm like a talking parrot who merely repeats what he hears when he has no idea what it means.

I'm not sure what you mean by "hollow." I enjoy reflecting on abstract ideas, the problem of universals, numbers, data structures I computer science, and more. Maybe that's because I prefer theory to practice. But I still strive to interpret the dogma about divine simplicity, too. And it's always a joy to think about Our Blessed incarnated Lord.

For me, it's important to ponder the divine nature, immortal souls and the divine nature to avoid theological mistakes, For example, Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, believe that God the Father has a material body. I've even heard that for them, each saved human person will live on his own plant where everyone else will worship him.

I'm a big fan of the Intelligent Design movement, too, because it show that God is probably real. Science fascinates me, too, especially microbiology. Since I don't know enough math to understand physics, I usually ignore most of it. But I'm eager to learn as much of it as possible.

Maybe you've read parts of St. Alphonse's de Ligouri's collected works. I'm reading then now because I proofread for a publisher that's republishing those works. I'm too emotional too often. So I don't enjoy the effusive parts of that saint's books. He'll write page after page telling God how much he loves him. Then after five or six mushy pages in a row, I long to study the abstractions again. In fact, I love computer science partly because I can reflect serenely on it without feeling too much emotion.

Here you go.
God is timeless without. creation.

I don't know whether you're a a Catholic, Gregory. But by Catholic standards, your comment is heretical. Ludwig Ott writes: "That is simple which is not composed, and on that account also not divisible" (Ott 31).

That's an unusual question. The Big Bang produced space-time. With or without time, God the Father is still the first person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son is still the second one, and the Holy Ghost is still the third one. You use "before" in a timeless sense when you remind me that 2 comes before 3 in the set of positive integers.

In Fundamentals of Catholic Dogama, Dr. Ludwig Ott writes, "Eternity is duration without beginning and without end, without sooner and without later, a 'permanent now'. . . The essence of eternity is the absolute lack of succession" (Ott 36).

That's why medieval philosophers say there's a difference between an eternal thing an everlasting one. We say Gd is eternal partly because he never changes, An everlasting thing lasts forever after it begins to exist. For example, God created your immortal soul when your dad's sperm fertilized your mom's egg. So that soul will aways survive.

Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Ed. James Canon Bastible, D.D. Trans. Patrick Lynch, Ph.D. Charlotte: TAN Books, 1974.

I'm familiar with some things Sungenis said about that. Try my friend Eleanor Stump's book The God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers. It's a tiny 103-page book and she's an Aquinas scholar who explains how our divinely simple God can talk with Jonah, say. Eleanore is philosophy professor at St. Louis University.

She also wrote Aquinas, a brilliant book including a brilliant chapter about divine simplicity. I know God can speak. The question is how he does that when he's absolutely simple. Catholics must believe the doctrine about divine simplicity because it's a dogma.

The God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers

Wayfarer, thanks for quoting Feser, an excellent Thomist. I spent hours writing a post that earned excellent grades from ProWritingAid. But the document got too long.

Let me sum up my point about a vicious infinite regress. In a YouTube video, Dr. Craig says that without creation, God is timeless and temporal after it. On the other hand, classical theists believe that God is absolutely simple with no parts of any kind. And potentials are metaphysical parts. So, if God is purely actual, there's no potential in him. But Dr. Craig implies that God is metaphysical parts when he, Craig, says that God went from being possibly in time to being actually in it. Any object with potential is a composed object. And each composed object needs cause to put the parts together. So you end up with infinitely many composers but no composed object.

Naturally, I'm taking the PSR for granted. Although Prof. Paul Draper rejects it, he agrees with me that Craig's theistic personalism implies a vicious infinite degree if Thomistic metaphysics is true.

I'm still waiting for Dr. Craig's reply because I emailed him my argument.

Everyone,

I'm sorry about. the delay because my argument is turning into a description. So I'll post it when I can.

Thank you, Arne. I hope that reply will be easy to comprehend. Some people believe writing is my forte. But I'll let you philosophers decide. I've always admired Ayer, Quine and Russell for their prose styles. So those talented writers give me something to aspire to. Quine was a wordsmith or maybe even a word maven. If my prose begins to sound like Heidegger's, please suspect severe brain damage. :wink:

You're the first one to tell me that, Wayfarer. So I don't see how it can be true when St. Thomas believes that God's nonexistence is at least metaphysically impossible. That's why they'll say that God can't fail to exist.To explain why I agree with Aquinas I'll describe what he teaches about both what's possible and about what's actual. That's because he doesn't use "possible" and "actual" in the modal logician's senses.

When you know what it is Thomas possibility and actuality, you'll also see why he thinks there can be only one God and why you need to use "god" in another sense to describe Zeus, Aphrodite, Kali, Thor, and the other pagan deities.

Besides, we need to reflect on the difference between a a primary cause and a secondary one to know what may be wrong with Craig's theistic personalism.

Yes, I'm a heavy one. So here's what I say about that.

Donald Fraser's Amen

Now you know I'm an opera buff.

Arne, I'll try to write simple prose. Then blame me if it confuses you. Either way, I'll answer what you asked about God and heavy lifting when I doubt that it'll help me falsify Craig's kind of theism.

Can an all-powerful God make a rock that he can't lift? No, he can't do that. The question implies that though he can do anything, there's something he. can't do.. It implies a self-contradiction. But that's alright because classical theists believe that God can do any logically possible thing that his nature allows.

Hi, wonderer1,

I've been well, thanks. But we'll see how I'll feel after you guys criticize my argument. :smile:

Thank you, Wayfarer. It's good to meet you. After I've slept long enough, I'll write in detail. Meanwhile, please forgive this night owl for making you and the other experts wait. Darn, there's no yawning emoji. :smile: