HU Philosophy of Religion

In this post and the ones to follow, I will be focusing our attention on premises in the Aristotelian Argument that are the most controversial. I will then ask some questions that you can answer for extra credit in the comments section. Let's get started: Here are the premises that might be controversial Premise 2: Change is the actualization of a potential Here’s what this means: for something O to change it must be the case that O has the potential to change. Having the potential to change is not enough for there to actually be a change, of course. So for O to change it must be the case that O moves from having the potential to change to actually changing. And that movement from having the potential to change to being changed is a movement from potentiality to actuality. We can put this a bit more formally:             O is ~F at t1, & O is potentially F at t1, & at t2 F is actualized in O.   ...

The Paradox of the Stone The paradox, if successful, shows that it is not possible for there to be a being that can perform any task.   Since omnipotence is supposed to entail that there is no task that cannot be performed, it follows that the paradox, if successful, demonstrates that there is no omnipotent being—indeed that there cannot be an omnipotent being. Already we can see that there is some confusion.   There are plenty of ‘tasks’ that no being can perform for the simple reason that there are plenty of ‘tasks’ that, upon analysis turn out to be impossible tasks. Impossible Tasks Simpliciter: A task T is an impossible task simpliciter iff (if, and only if) T is either logically or metaphysically impossible. Examples: making it the case that 2+2 = 5; making a square-circle, making something both red and non-colored; making something both completely red and completely blue; making it the case that water is not identical with H2O (assuming that water = H2...

Here are some videos relevant to our discussion in class today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhhXCuUG2pw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JwWBxePi08 I think the second one has an error or three in it. Can you find them? If so, post them here for extra credit (points for each error detected).

Hello Students! I am looking forward to our time together this semester. Since the topics we will be discussing are amongst the most important in the whole universe, let's use this space to continue discussions that get aborted in class and generate discussions that never get started in class.  Let's get started.  What features must a being possess in order for it to count as God?