Looking at the argument that St. Francis of Assisi presents, it looks like the argument does not follow. I believe that the conclusion you are looking for is to act compassionately to animals. I have rearranged your argument to fit that.

1. If something is weak and helpless, Jesus told people to be kind and compassionate to it
2. Animals are beings that are weak and helpless
3. Therefore, Jesus told people to be kind and compassionate to animals.
This conclusion is inferring that Christians should listen to and obey Jesus. In this way, Christians would have the responsibility to act compassionately to animals as well a weak and helpless people.

However, I would have to disagree with the first premise of this argument. I do not think that Jesus requires us all to be compassionate to everything that is weak and helpless. I do believe that humans have a certain responsibility to tend to the earth and to be good stewards of it, but I do not think that they are required to be compassionate to it. Compassion needs a certain level of sympathetic consciousness as well as the desire to alleviate that pain which I do not think is required upon us for every living being.

When looking at the question of how one would act in this kind of compassion, I would imagine that if animals are on the same level of significance that humans have if they are equally ‘beings that are weak and helpless’, they would need to be treated in the same manner. In this way, as Jesus instructs to care for and love one another, animals lives would want to be cared for and loved to the extent of our abilities. This would most likely result in not eating them or harming them unless it was for a greater purpose.

“If you think about it there are many living things in our world: humans, plants, and animals.”

@princessofdarkness
If you include plants into the equation as beings that are weak and helpless as well, then I the constraints on human life would probably be extreme. There would be no food as most all of our food sources would be ineligible to be eaten. I believe that these actions would be far beyond Jesus’ commandments for us.

It was not my intent to try to disprove numbers. I think that numbers exist as well. I simply am counteracting the argument that numbers NECESSARILY exist.

I also cannot understand how numbers or logic would not be able to exist in this world. But just because my own understanding cannot comprehend it does not necessarily make it true. In fact, I feel like it would be natural for humans to not understand what could be far beyond their abilities.

Interesting idea. Looking at your argument and your example of throwing a rock into a window, I believe that you are trying to formulate the following argument.
1. If something has an effect on other objects, people, or ideas, then it exists
2. God has had an effect on other objects, people, or ideas
3. Therefore, God exists (1 & 2 MP)
Please let me know if this is along the lines of what you are trying to say. One aspect of your argument that may need to be narrowed down is what you mean by “effect”. Looking at your statement about God, it seems like people have had some sort of change of action, belief, idea, or lifestyle as a result of God. According to your statement about God, it is these changes or differences (effect) on reality that proves the existence of God.

I would first like to comment on Premise 1. I do not think that anything which has an effect on humans or the world necessarily exists. Let’s say you used this argument on a mythical creature such as a unicorn. Unicorns affect human lives as they are in movies, used as costumes, created by people into sculptures, etc. In this way, unicorns have changed how we act, dress, paint etc and have affected our lives. However, unicorns do not exist. Although a costume or a sculpture or even the idea of unicorns exist, unicorns in and of themselves do not exist. Simply having an effect on someone or something does not bring it into existence nor is it enough to count as proof of existence. This first premise could also allow the existence of practically any god, entity, or being that you wanted to create. All one would have to do is change their lifestyle as a result of this new being and their lives would then be affected and would prove the being’s existence. This idea of people being able to bring into existence any being on a whim seems very unsound.

In addition, the conclusion of your argument has many contradictory implications. For one, under this logic, most all gods would then also exist as many religions have gods that change the way that people act and live. However, this could not be possible as many of these gods could not exist together due to their characteristics, nature, or doctrine. For example, the traditional Abrahamic God seen in the Bible clearly states that no other gods exist accept Him. Being singular without the existence of other gods is part of the Abrahamic God’s characteristic. Overall, it seems that simply having an effect on someone or something does not serve as proof that something exists.

I think this is clear unless you think omniscience transcends time and space, which I take it you do?

-Dingo Jones

I am not necessarily sure what may be entailed with omniscience transcending time and space.
However, I certainly believe that God transcends time and space. I would also believe that God’s characteristic of omniscience is not lost due to the fact that He “moves” through time and space. In this way, omniscience itself may not be able to transcend time and space, but God’s omnipotence and omnipresence (which allows God to transcend time and space) allows His omniscience to transcend time and space as well.

My question to you would be, how did empathy rise up as the dominant moral compass for humankind? I believe your argument looks like this:

1. If our core morality stems from natural selection and adaptive drives, then the basis for morality is equivalent to the proliferation of humankind
2. If people are more empathetic, is helpful to the proliferation of our species
3. Therefore, empathy a basis for morality

My argument is against premise 2. It would seem like there could be an argument that there are much better ways to increase the number of humans than direct empathy. It seems that rape and adultery could increase the number of mankind at a faster rate. However, it certainly seems that rape and adultery are not considered morally correct.

First, to clarify. I believe that in your arguments, foreknowledge means: “having true knowledge of a future action, event, outcome. God’s omniscient foreknowledge would be having knowledge of all future events, actions, or outcomes” If this is incorrect, please let me know.

I believe that you are mistaking predictions with knowledge of future actions. In your example of the firing squads, you state that you have knowledge that the man will choose the meal and that it is obvious that he would do so. However, this is not representative of knowledge of his choice. You simply would have some knowledge of the person’s possible results and the desires and characteristics of that person. You then are making a prediction about what they will choose. However, no matter how likely your prediction is and regardless if your prediction comes true, it does not constitute of actual knowledge of someone’s choice. Predicting someone’s action, no matter how likely, is not foreknowledge and would not constitute the omniscience that is being referred to.

“My foreknowledge doesnt effect your decision, the factors of the choice do.”

-DingoJones

I also believe that you make a good point that foreknowledge does not have an effect in changing your decision. However, that is not what I am arguing. I am arguing that God’s knowledge of a future event excludes all other future events from occurring besides the one He knows is going to happen. There is no changing the factors of the “choice” because God already knows every possible factor and knows what will occur from it. This foreknowledge or knowledge of future events would be precognitive and part of God’s omniscience.
It's not a lack of free will because it changes your present decision or affects your present decision in any way. It is a lack of free will because there is no choice in the action that you make. The omniscience of God excludes other actions other than the one that He knows you are going to take.

Tim 3003, this is a very interesting concept to think about and it is hard for me to imagine my life without any language in it. To better understand your points, I have attempted to put your argument in a regimented form. I believe that your argument looks like this:

1. If one does not use language, you have no knowledge, opinions, future plans of any complexity, any means of logical communication, or a ‘self’.
2. Without knowledge, opinions, future plans of any complexity, any means of logical communication, or a ‘self’, then there is not consciousness
3. Therefore, without language, there is not consciousness (1,2 HS)

Susan Schaller is an Sign Language teacher and author. Schaller wrote a book, Man Without Words, on a man named Ildefonso, a Mexican immigrant who was deaf and without a language of any kind. Ildefonso grew up in a house with parents who could not teach him sign language of any kind. All his life, Ildefonso was studying people and studying mouths wondering, ‘what is happening?’ Ildefonso grew up thinking knowing that people communicated somehow with their facial movements, but was never able to understand anything. However, it was apparent that Ildefonso was intelligent and discerning in his own actions as well as the actions around him. In this way, even without language, there was have no doubt that Ildefonso was able to acquire knowledge, form opinions, create future plans, and have a mean of logical communication. Even though he might not have been able to convey these ideas, plans, and opinions to other people, he nonetheless had them himself. In addition, it was apparent that he was aware that he existed and that others around him existed as well. My argument is against premise 1, saying that even without having any idea of language, a person can still be intelligent and self-aware. These qualities would make it seem illogical to say that Ildefonso was either unconscious or did not have a consciousness.
I agree with @Harry Hindu in that language is just ascribed to what we already believe and know.
Language is just a way to express the ideas and conceptions that you already have. It is not that a person learns the words ‘I’ and ‘You’ and then suddenly knows that he/she exists. The awareness of self and existence is not reliant upon the knowledge of arbitrary sounds and symbols.

I know which one you will choose, does that mean you no longer have a choice?

-DingoJones

It is an interesting situation that you bring up. Is it true that having foreknowledge of what the person will choose does not affect the choice the person will make? I believe that in the case of God, His foreknowledge could certainly affect the choice that one makes. I had trouble discerning what your premises to your argument might be. However, I have produced a counter-argument that may better explain my argument:

1. If you have free will to choose, then you must have the possibility to choose each of those options
2. If an omniscient God knows what you will choose, you would not have the possibility to choose anything else.
3. Therefore, if God knows what you will choose, you would not have the free will to choose (MT 1,2)

Similar to your argument, I assumed that the omnipotent God knows what you will choose. I will expand upon premise 2 as I believe that it is the most difficult part of my argument to conceptualize. To simplify the situation, let's say that you had an option between choice A and choice B. Let us also say that an omniscient God knew that you were going to choose A. When faced with these decisions, suppose you chose A. This would be perfectly fine as it is in line with what God knew you would choose. However, let’s say that you choose B. Choosing B would mean that God did not actually “know” that you were going to choose A. This seems obvious as you did not end up choosing A, so God must have been mistaken in “knowing” that you were going to choose A. In this case, God did not truly know that you were going to choose A (because you chose B instead), meaning that He is not truly omniscient. Therefore, in the cases where God is truly omniscient, choice B is not a possible choice, as God could not possibly be omniscient while incorrectly judging that you would choose A.
This would suggest that in this situation, option B is not really a possibility and that there is only the illusion that you could choose between A and B, while in reality, A is the only “choice” that could be chosen. This means that God’s omniscience really does pose an issue for free will and the ability to choose in the face of foreknowledge.

if he created it, he must know everything on a personal level.

- @Sir2u

I agree with you in that experiential knowledge by association is not truly knowing. However, I may have a better answer for how God may not know something on a personal level if He created it. In short, I do not believe that the creator of something necessarily must know everything about that created thing.

I believe a regimented form of your argument would look like this:
1. If a creator created something, the creator must know it on a personal level.
2. God is a creator and He created everything.
3. Therefore, God knows everything on a personal level (1&2 MP)

I would have to disagree with your first premise. I do not think that by virtue of being a creator, you would automatically know everything about what you created. It may be true that the creator could know everything that was put into making the creation or even knowing how it would work. However, truly understanding what it is like to be that creation or feeling what that creation is feeling is a different matter. For example, a person could build an incredibly intelligent robot with AI that would pass any Turing Test, yet the person would not know what it is truly like to feel or think as that robot. The creator might know every mechanical piece in the robot and how it works, but that would not give the creator a personal level in terms of experiencing the same things that the robot experiences. Similarly, God as a creator would not have that ability. If God did know his creations on a personal level, it would not be through His characteristic as a creator, but rather His characteristic of being omniscient. To summarize, God being a creator does not signify that He knows His creations on a personal level, that knowledge (or lack of) would fall under the question of His omniscience.

I agree that Relativist made a good point. If you are only counting singular life that Jesus lived, then God would only have the experience of that one person and would not have all knowledge of every human experience. In this regard, He would not be omniscient.

In addition, I feel that the knowledge of the God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (the Trinity) is not perfectly shared. I believe that your argument would look like this.
1. If Jesus or the Holy Spirit or God the Father has experienced something, the Trinity has had all those experiences
2. God the Father, other than knowledge of lust, envy, etc., is “omniscient”
3. Jesus knows how it is to be human
4. Holy Spirit knows people’s souls, desires, and virtues
5. If the Trinity has the knowledge of God the Father and the experiences of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, then the Trinity is omniscient
6. Therefore, the Trinity is omniscient

Against premise 5, I believe that the experiences of Jesus and the Holy Spirit still would not qualify as fully experiential as Jesus did not lust or envy (though he was tempted to), still leaving the issue of having those experiences open. In addition, the Holy Spirit runs into a similar issue where the Spirit may know our hearts and desires, but still has not experienced them itself.

I would also argue against the 1st premise. I believe that the characteristics of the Trinity are different enough that they are not able to or are not willing to share all knowledge among themselves. Simply being in the Trinity does not grant each individual being the knowledge of the other two beings in the Trinity. For example, in Matt 24:36, regarding the day of the coming of the Son of Man it is said that “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” This shows that not all information and knowledge is shared among the Trinity and that although one being in the Trinity may have certain knowledge, it does not mean the rest of the Trinity does.

Christians are limiting God by saying God can't simply forgive out of mercy, but he *needs/requires* punishment/justice to let go of the sinners.

I haven’t really thought about this issue too much before, but I’d imagine that this could have serious consequences for God’s abilities, powers, and aspects of his benevolent nature if true. If you believe that God demands justice and is truly fair, His mercy seems like it does not fit into the picture.

To put it in a logical and readable sequence, I have laid out what I think your argument might be below:
1. If God requires perfect justice, then it is necessary that sinners cannot be free without judgment
2. If it is necessary that sinners cannot escape judgment, then God cannot simply forgive these sinners only out of His free will (i.e. forgiveness through requiring the punishment of Jesus)
3. It follows that if God requires perfect justice, then God cannot forgive sinners out of His free will(1 and 2 HS )
4. God requires perfect justice
5. God cannot forgive sinners out of his free will(3 and 4 MP)
6. If God cannot forgive sinners out of free will, then He is limited in his abilities
7. Therefore, God is limited in his power to forgive out of His free will (5 and 6 MP)

I believe that there may be an issue with premise 2 and premise 6.
Against premise 2, I believe that God can offer mercy and justice simultaneously. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is both justice and mercy at the same time. It still is full justice due to the price of sin being paid in full when Jesus was crucified. However, it is also merciful in the fact that those who sin are offered divine mercy. The sinners receive mercy while the guilt of sin is accounted for. It is the sin that God hates and seeks atonement for, but not the sinners in and of themselves.

Against premise 6, due to the nature that God is perfectly just, His inability to let those sins go unpaid for is not a limitation of God’s greatness or power. If God left sin go unpunished and unaccounted for, this would signal a fault in His system of justice. This limitation is not a weakness, but an absence of a weakness. Similarly, God cannot be evil or weak, but that does not speak against his greatness. A limitation of how weak God is only speaks to His strength.