-
The Christian narrativeThe bit where you attack me instead of addressing the issue. Again.
If your objection has naught to do with the diagram, then give your objection without the diagram. — Leontiskos
From Father = God and Son = God we are usually able to derive Father = Son but instead we find not(Father = Son). Apparently, according to Tim, this is becasue the "is" of doctrine is not the "is of "=". — Banno
:roll:
For Tim, the answer seemed to be both that we had to understand the account analogically, and yet there could be no analogically account of God, he being so transcendentally different to his creatures. That doesn't seem very satisfactory to me.
_________
The actual argument Leon is presenting is not dissimilar to that in the article he presented in his thread:
St. Anselm's Proof: A Problem of Reference, Intentional Identity and Mutual Understanding (G. Klima)
His animosity perhaps follows from my dismissal of the argument there.
Klima's finishing point is that those who have not agreed with his argument do so becasue they do not have an adequate understanding of god; and that their understanding is inadequate is shown by their not accepting the argument.
Presumably, that's what Leon is suggesting here; that the proper understanding of "is" in the Dogma of the Trinity is dependent on having spent time reading Catholic doctrine and praying lots.
Again, not that satisfactory.
_________
Leon, we are up to the part where you usually tell us that you already gave the answer, and won't give it again. -
The Christian narrativeAgain, I do not want to attack Catholic Dogma. I want a coherent account of the Trinity. But that you see my doing so as an attack speaks loudly to the overarching theme here, that you already have your answer and any rational account given is mere ad hoc rationalisation. Certainly not philosophy.
Folk here can plainly see your misrepresenting me as objecting to a mere diagram. I am pointing to the denial of the transitivity of identity shown in that diagram, and asking for an explanation.
From Father = God and Son = God we are usually able to derive Father = Son but instead we find not(Father = Son). Apparently, according to Tim, this is becasue the "is" of doctrine is not the "is of "=".
So, the obvious question - what "is" is it?
How does it work?
That's the elephant in your lap. -
The Christian narrativeNo, dumbass. — Leontiskos
Thanks for that.
Presumably, I can now proceed to present any number of accounts of the Trinity, and for each, you will say "that's not it, Dumbass!"
But you will not put up your own account.
We all may have underestimate the extent to which this is a thread filled with seething trolls, indeed. -
The Christian narrativeOk, so set out what is Trinitarian dogma, and explain to @Wayfarer, who offered the diagram, why it is inadequate.
Put up. -
The Christian narrative, the diagram shows clearly the denial of transitivity. It's that denial, not the diagram, that is at issue.
Again, that you see this as an attack is down to you. But this is how you respond, universally, to those who disagree with you. You attack them personally, then misrepresent their arguments, then pretend to have already answered their objections.
If you have an argument as to how it is that the dogma can coherently deny the transitivity of identity, set it out for us.
Otherwise, what use are you? -
The Christian narrativeNow you quote yourself! Not your most noble habit.
If pointing to the consequences of your doctrine is, for you, an attack, that's about you, not me. I'm just pointing out the logical problem of the breach of transitivity.
It was the elephant in the corner, but now you have made it the elephant in your lap. -
The Christian narrativeQuotes are part of your religion; you and Tim use them to bury objections, not to address them. Quotes are not arguments.
If you are in agreement with Tim, then set out for us how "is" is used in the Trinity, such that it is not subject to transitivity. -
The Christian narrativeYou have nothing but ad hominem attacks? "You mother wears army boots" and "My Daddy is a policeman"?
Where's your logic, man!?
Operating in this way does no service to Christianity. -
The Christian narrativeI asked for a quote from Peirce wherein he say his semiotics were inspired by Augustine. — Janus
Might be so.
https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6893ead2b2448191918a398bb89f8439
Unverified - might be confabulation.
Of course the main critique of that approach is that it takes all communication as signage - as referential; and that is the exact reason Wittgenstein used a quote from Augustin to begin his Investigations. So in so much as Peirce borrows from Augustin, they share in a compromised view of language. -
The Christian narrativeThat's sort of what Geach is trying to do, to invent a logic that will give a consistent account of intransitivity.
It's legitimate if the goals is accepted - if one already accepts the Trinity, and is looking for a coherent account.
But if one does not already accept the Trinity, there is no reason to think much of the logic.
It's special pleading - making up an exception when your claim was shown to be false. That's what Tim does when he says "is" has a special use when talking about the Trinity.
And then adding more exceptions as the discussion proceeds.
Digging the hole deeper.
A better approach might well be to accept that the Trinity is a mystery, and not to look for coherence. If that's your point, I'll agree. -
The Christian narrative's usual attack on the messenger rather then the message.
Tedious.
@Wayfarer presented the diagram as an explanation of the Trinity. I'm just pointing out the consequences of that diagram. -
The Christian narrativeYep.
Further, transitivity is essential to set theory; it's a fundamental result of extensionality.
Set theory is a mystery to some. I don't think 's approach is a great help. If the trinity is a mystery, then leave it as such, without trying to make it fit into this or that logical frame. It just doesn't fit. -
The Christian narrativeYep. Pretending that it is coherent when it plainly isn't.
I'd be happy for you to give a different account of "is" that will satisfy the criteria you set, and yet allow a coherent logic. As things stand, you seem to think it fine to just specify that it is not the "is" of identity and leave it at that.when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity." — Count Timothy von Icarus
If you are sung a word in some novel way it's up to you to explain that use. And open to others to simply reject that use if it is unexplained or inept.
What you have done is to claim that Christ is God, The Holy Spirit is god, and the Father is God, but that Christ is not the Father, nor the Holy spirit, nor is the Holy spirit the Father; and when the logical consequences of this are pointed out, you say that the "is" here is not the is of identify, "=", but some other "is".
And some how this is not an ad hoc compromise. -
The Christian narrativeSo it seems you have gone with adding the premise: "classical theologians are wrong about what they think they are saying, and have been wrong since the Patristic era, because when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity." — Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, no. -
The Christian narrativeAnyhow, as John Deely never gets tried of repeating, the sign relation is "irreducibly triadic." It is defined relationally, just as the Trinity is. A sign isn't an assemblage of parts, since each component only is what it is in virtue of its relation to the whole. The sign and the Trinity aren't perfect images of each other, the idea is rather that all of creation reflects the Creator, and thus the triadic similarity shows up even in the deepest structures, yet no finite relations can capture the Trinity. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Just noticed this. Here Tim claims significant similarity: "...all of creation reflects the Creator, and thus the triadic similarity shows up even in the deepest structures". Then immediately withdraws it: "no finite relations can capture the Trinity"
So what is it that is similar? If there is no relation, how is there a similarity?
It's a mystery, a sophisticated way to say it's not contradictory without actually resolving any contradictions. -
The Christian narrativeIt's "one nature, three persons." Consider the analogous case of human nature:
Mark is human. (A is B)
Christ is human. (C is B)
Therefore Mark is Christ. (A is C)
This is obviously false. Leaving out that all predication vis-á-vis God is analogical, you would still need to assume a properly metaphysical premise like:
"More than one person cannot subsist in the same nature."
Traditionally, in "the Holy Spirit is God," "is God" refers to the Divine Nature. I suppose another premise that would work is: "'is God' must refer to univocal, numerical identity." However, this is exactly what is denied. As noted earlier, numerical identity is taken to be posterior to (dependent on) God, the transcendental property of unity, and measure. Numerical identity is a creaturely concept. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It's very hard to see what you are trying to do here, or how it might help your case. I had presumed you would be seeking to defend trinitarian dogma, but your example serves more to highlight the problem.
Presuming we read "Mark is human" and "Christ is human" as that Mark and Christ participate in a common nature, then we are not here talking about identity. That is, you have moved from identity to predication. If we were to follow that, you would end up with Christ and The Holy Spirit merely participating in godhood in the way that Mark, Christ and Tim participate in being human. You would have three gods, not one. Your conclusion would be polytheistic.
You seem to think that you can avoid this by claiming "numerical identity is a creaturely concept". But that is exactly the issue; classical logic does not permit us to just drop transitivity without contradiction. Your suggestion amounts to saying that logic does not apply to god - to claiming mysticisms.
That idea, "participates in a common nature", is a presumably Aristotelian or Thomist? It seems to be a way to render a relation as a predication. The idea is that individual substances (like Mark, Christ) "participate in" or "instantiate" universal natures or essences (like humanity). Instead of saying:
The scholastic tradition reformulates this as predication:Mark stands in the relation of instantiation to human nature
Now traditional trinitarianism requires identity, not participation - it requires that the Holy Spirit literally is God.Mark is human
Frankly you seem to be using the ambiguity of "is" to make an invalid logical move seem plausible. Either "is God" means identity and contradiction ensues, or it means predication and polytheism.
____
Your comments on analogical reasoning are similarly puzzling. It doesn't address the issue - even if granted, it leaves aside whether analogical reasoning can actually do the logical work required. You would have it that God is so transcendent that normal logical categories don't apply, and yet claim analogical reasoning somehow captures this transcendence. How?. Your aim may be to preserve the Trinity and avoid contradiction, but how you do this remains unexplained. How could "Analogically, the Holy Spirit is God" be represented logically? - and if it can't be, then it is illogical. Ok, so god is not just another creature - he is special; and again, what this amounts to is the claim that logic does not apply to God!
What you have set out does not help Bob derive the Trinity form first principles, nor show me how to understand the special kind of identity in "Christ is god, The holy spirit is god, but Christ is not the holy Spirit".
It just changes the topic.
____
But moreover, adding more and more assumptions and explanations to an already ad hoc account is not helpful. You seem to be simply digging a deeper hole. -
Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body@Sam26, do you at some stage consider what it is that survives death?
-
Measuring Qualia??Is "burj" supposed as an example of a qual?
I'd understood that a qual was this sensation, here, now, present to me... that sort of thing. That the qual I have on looking at the red folder is not the same as the one I had looking at the folder yesterday - the light, the position of my head, being slightly different...
And so since "burj" occurs on multiple occasions, it is not a qual... perhaps it is a sensation, or a memory, or a pretence, but not a qual.
But that's the problem, isn't it? It remains so unclear what a qual is. -
The Christian narrativeI doubt I can improve on 's reply, but since seemed to have trouble with transitivity, I'll throw in a bit more.
A relation is transitive if, for that relation, if A relates to B, and B relates to C, then A relates to C.
Identity is taken as being transitive.
If A=B, and B=C, then A=C.
Identity is also taken as reflexive, A=A, and as symmetrical, if A=B then B=A.
Indeed, taken together, this is a classic definition of identity. This holds in classical and most intuitionistic logics. One exception is Geach's demand that identity always be related to a sortal, which was pretty explicitly an ad hoc defence of his Catholicism. It is very rarely used outside of theology.
My previous comments kept the modal context in order to show that modal collapse ensues from denying transitivity to identity. But this is simply a result of those modal systems having accepted predicate logic, and so transitivity.
To that we might now add that Geach's logic risks in modal collapse. It seems to require that all possibilities are necessities in order to avoid contradiction.
And again, the overarching observation that the task folk here set for themselves is not to see where the logic goes, but to invent a logic that supports the Christian narrative. Even if that means dropping basic principles of classical logic, elsewhere held sacrosanct.
Shall we say that thinking you can derive the trinity from first principles is... ambitious? And this supports the contention from the OP, that there is much tht is problematic in the Christian Narrative. -
On emergence and consciousnessYes, that's a much clearer approach than a reliance on the merely physical.
-
The Christian narrative
I didn't say your argument was pseudo-logic. I said Peirce's was a pseudo-logic. But analogically reasoning cannot be put into deductive form without ceasing to be analogical.I don't see how my argument is pseudo-logic because it uses analogical reasoning. — Bob Ross
This is not so. I explained why. Any system in which ◇□p →□ will no longer be able to differentiate between possibility and necessity. Collapse occurs at the syntactic level, not at the semantic level of possible worlds.With respect to S5, possibility collapses into necessity because they are using the possible world theory. — Bob Ross
Only if you presume S5. Which is of course to beg the question. And there's no need for the possible world interpretation, since you conclusion is presumed.If something is possible IFF it exists in at least one possible world and necessity is to exist in all possible worlds, then it logically follows that a possibly necessary being must exist. — Bob Ross
So what. Even if you are correct, it would not help. Augustine's Trinity involves a metaphysically mysterious unity-in-distinction that explicitly defies normal logical categories. Peirce's semiotics involves functionally distinct elements in a process. These are categorically different kinds of "three-ness." nails the core issue.
Bob Ross is still trying to deduce the Trinity through invalid modal reasoning that leads to modal collapse. Tim's historical scholarship might be interesting for intellectual history, but it's irrelevant to the logical critique provided. -
The Question of Causation
It'd require it's own thread. For Davidson, while mental events are identical to physical events, there are no strict laws governing mental events in the way there perhaps are for physical events. It's to do with their being different descriptions of the very same thing. There's a lot of background.Donald Davidson who has been mentioned and about whom Banno knows a lot, is an example of non-reductive physicalism. — Wayfarer -
The Christian narrativeThe point concerning analogically reasoning is that it is invalid - one is not obligated to accept the conclusion of an analogical argument, in the way presumed in a deductive argument.
S1 through S5 are syntactic systems, not interpretations. S5 is the semantics that allows nesting of modal operators. The modal collapse that ensues from Anselm is a result of the syntax, not the interpretation. It's got nothing to do with possible worlds.
Basically, the Anselm's proof wants to move from god's being possible to god being necessary. But any system in which ◇□p →□p is true collapses possibility into necessity - everything would be necessary.
That is transitivity. Just drop the modal operator if that helps you.I was expecting the transitivity version of this — Bob Ross
The overarching point remains - you have your conclusion and are looking for a logic that supports it. To that end you might indeed be better served by the pseudo-logic of Peirce's semiotics. However Peirce's semiotics (sign-object-interpretant) was developed in a completely different intellectual context from Trinitarian theology. Retrofitting it to "explain" the Trinity is exactly the kind of post-hoc rationalisation I've been criticising. Peirce's triadic structure is about how signs function in communication and cognition, not about the metaphysical structure of divine being - finding three-ness in both doesn't establish any meaningful connection. Even if you accept the semiotic framework, there's no logical bridge from "signs work triadically" to "God exists as three persons in one substance." It's the same invalid leap I been pointing out in your modal arguments. This kind of move - taking a fashionable 19th/20th century theoretical framework and using it to rehabilitate ancient doctrines - has become common in certain theological circles, but it's more about appearing sophisticated than actual logical rigour.
But of course, that's what I would say. So go and do as you will. -
The End of WokeI very much appreciated your rendering this in terms of aesthetics.
But I've found it's all up to what you value... — George Harrison -
Measuring Qualia??I'm reluctant to say much more. @Hanover and I have had this chat before, but it repeats, like not-quite-right fish. I don't think Hanover has quite got the point of the private language argument down, mis-presenting it somewhat. But it seems we talk past each other, since here it is again.
I don't think that quite fair. Have another look at the first few paragraphs of Quining Qualia. Dennett is trying to deal withe the notion as it is presented by those that use it, but running in to the difficulty that they themselves do not agree as to what qualia are. Dennett is pointing out the consequences of their own usage.Dennett, you will note in all of these "intuition pumps," makes the attempt to remove qualia from meaningful talk by reducing qualia to contextual affairs of meaning making, in which a quale is precisely not accessible, by definition. — Astrophel -
The Mind-Created World
Curious. I'm in a discussion about the present nadir of quality threads. In desperation I even contributed to the Shoutbox.Very much enjoying the forum at the moment, there are many very interesting discussions, and I'm learning a lot. — Wayfarer -
The Mind-Created WorldThe urge to devour and assimilate what is not oneself. — Jamal
Jack adopted this form of life. To be fair, when a kitten he was hit by a car or bike and lost for a few weeks, only to be found emaciated and wounded. He was eating the maggots on his legs.
After that he ate everything.
Returning to his goatish essence. -
Opening Statement - The ProblemThere are those who arrive with their Philosophy, and expound it at length, explaining The Way The World Is, to the benefit of every one of the unenlightened. They often seem shocked into incomprehension when someone comes back with a quibble about how their story doesn’t quite follow, contradicts itself, doesn’t match what is plain to all, or derives an “ought” from an “is”. They will complain of straw men, of trolling, or simply of rudeness, apparently being astonished that folk could be so discourteous as to be critical of their work. — Banno
-
An unintuitive logic puzzleThat a simple puzzle such as this can go for twelve pages explains so much about the forums.
-
The Christian narrativeI didn’t really follow this: can you elaborate with an example? — Bob Ross
I see two key logical issues here. The first is the use of an existential predicate in first order logic. The second is modal collapse.
Existence is usually dealt with in first order logic by treating it as a quantifier - the familiar "∃" in "∃(x)...". You'll have heard the standard existential arguments for the existence of God at the response that existence is not a predicate? This is the sort of thing that results from the use of a first order logic; that's kind of why most of it comes from Bertrand Russell.
Folk try to get around this by making use of an explicit first order predication, usually written as "∃!". The results are mostly dealt with in what has been called free logic. However, one of the conclusions found in free logic is that one cannot conclude from an argument that something exists. However, one of the conclusions found in free logic is that one cannot conclude from an argument that something exists. Existence seems to have to be presupposed by the argument.
Put simply, if your argument concludes “and therefore this thing exists,” but the existence of the referent is not already presupposed, then your inference is invalid.
This presents problems for things popping into existence at God's will.
This is a genuine issue. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-free/#inexp
For example, consider
- God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
- Therefore, He must exist.
- Therefore, He must exist necessarily.
- Therefore, He must be pure act, or simple.
The second issue is not unrelate. Modal collapse will occur when necessity and possibility are rendered the same, when what could be is the same as what must be. The problem of intransitivity, related previously, that the Father is god, and the Son is god, but the Father is not the Son, results in the distinction between necessity and contingency collapsing.
☐(Father = god)
☐(Son = god)
And so
☐(Father = Son)
But the assertion is, instead,
~☐(Father = Son)
And we have a contradiction.
Also, this last is identical to ◇~(Father = Son) with which you would doubtless disagree.
Some theologians resort to non-classical logics in an attempt to avoid these issues. Doing so looks rather ad hoc. -
The Christian narrative
I don't think so. The analogical reasoning you employ - arguing that because two things are similar in some respects, they're likely similar in others - is not up to the task of providing a proof. The best you might achieve is an understanding of what you already take as true, along the lines that Tim is suggesting.Now we are getting somewhere! — Bob Ross
I don't see that what you have added avoids the critique already made. It repeats the same errors. -
Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the BodyExcellent stuff.
This sets up a novel enquiry into an odd phenomenon, which even a sceptic such as I might find interesting.
There's a long way to go, but you present an interesting starting point. -
Measuring Qualia??... and that maybe makes a dozen or so different definitions given here...
"Parts of consciousness"...?
Folk here are almost desperate for qualia to make sense.
Banno
Start FollowingSend a Message
- Other sites we like
- Social media
- Terms of Service
- Sign In
- Created with PlushForums
- © 2026 The Philosophy Forum