Not necessarily impossible, but highly unlikely. A government needs the de facto recognition of authority of the general population in order to substain itself. If the population of a democracy (again, are we talking system of voting or something including rights and political ideology beyond just voting) decides that it no longer wants a democratic government and are willing to vote for a totalitarian dictatorship, then I heavily question the de facto authority of that government if it decides to break democracy to defeat the would-be dictator. The population would lose all respect for the government and the totalitarian's allies have a lot of ammo to use against the established system.

I'm saying that a government system can only be maintained by its continued support by the population. Once enough people are willing to topple that system, the system is in trouble. I'm not sure if killing the dictator and blaming it on a rogue third party would prevent the inevitable.

Assumption: democracy is inherently good, not just a decision-making procedure. — Pneumenon

First, you have to define what you mean by democracy. Technically, all it means is that, in some way, the citizens are allowed to vote for their government. In the United States, so long as you are of legal age (and pass some other criteria), you can vote. Democracy has nothing to do with the values of the state: one could have a liberal democracy or a libertarian democracy, for example.

I am an instrumentalist when it comes to political systems: I do not believe democracy is inherently good. Rather, its goodness comes from its outcomes (or, rather, its outcomes overall when compared to other political systems overall).

I tend not to like meddling in the affairs of other countries, as it usually ends poorly or comes back to haunt us later, so I am not a fan of "spreading" democracy in any favorable way.

In regards to the example you gave with a totalitarian politician, the only way it would work is if you could assassinate the politician and shift the blame entirely away to something external. In any state, the state is assumed to have de facto authority. The people must buy into the authority, even if their values and beliefs run contrary to the laws of the state. If you postpone the election, you risk having rebellion, as you not only went against the will of the people, you destroyed the democratic basis. You can't say you are protecting democracy, because you deliberately broke up democracy.

1) Your claim that U is self-contradictory is false. — TheMadFool

I provided an argument showing U is actually incoherent when you analyze it. Modal facts about logical possibility are facts. The statement "it is logically possible that it will rain tomorrow" can be true or false. "Unicorns are logically possible" can be true or false.

"U is logically possible" can be true or false. If this statement is false, then it is no threat to omniscience. If it is true, my argument shows it self-contradicts, as I know facts about U.

Can you clarify. — TheMadFool

God (under common definitions) cannot gain knowledge via learning. To do so would mean God did not know something at some point in time, meaning God was not omniscient at some point in time. God's knowledge is simply known. There was never a time when God had to work to access knowledge.

Also thanks for your criticism. I think it would be better to define U as something about which something can't be known instead of U = something about which nothing can be known. If you like we can go with definition viz. U2 = something about which something can't be known. — TheMadFool

If there is nothing, there is not something. They operate indentically. U2 is a rephrasing of U.

You don't read replies, do you?

Just because you know something is possible doesn't mean you know it in the general sense of the word ''knowledge''. Knowledge is a justified true belief. As you can see U isn't known to be true (it's only possible) and so doesn't count as knowledge or something known. — TheMadFool

Aside, your definition of knowledge is highly suspect. I'll roll with it for now.

Modal facts about possibility, contigency, necessity, and impossibility are facts.Take a unicorn, a horse-like being with human cognitive abilities, a horn on its head, and magical powers. Unicorns are logically possible, as they are concievable and not self-contradictory. To use possible world semantics, there exists a possible world in which unicorns exist. This possible world does not have to be the actual world. Unicorns may not be contigent (actual), but they are possible. From this, we can list a number of things about unicorns. Unicorns:

1) are horse-like beings.
2) have horns.
3) have human cognitive abilities.
4) have magical powers.
5) are logically possible.

All these statements are true, per how I defined unicorns. Just because something is logically possible does not mean we cannot have justified true beliefs about it. Onto U. Assume U is true. U:

1) is something about which nothing can be known.
2) logically possible.

The first statement is true by the definition provided. The second statement, according to you, is true because there is nothing self-defeating about U. Therefore, in the same way I know about unicorns, I know facts about U. I can add another fact to the list of facts about U. U:

3) is something about which something is known.

The third statement contradicts the first statement. Therefore, U is logically impossible, as U is self-contradictory.

O can't check all universes, which I've shown is infinite, for the existence of U. So, O is NOT omniscient. If U exists then O is not omniscient. — TheMadFool

If the omniscient being is similiar to God, then the being does not need to search for any true statement. The being just knows it all already.

I was just thinking about it, and I realized that in the case of Antietam, Lee probably could have ran away and gotten away with it, given that the opposing commander was George McClellan, a man so cautious that Lee probably could have spent three months vacation while McClellan pondered whether Lee's retreat was a feint or not.

To be fair to Lee, from my understanding, by the time he arrived at Gettysburg, a good portion of his forces were engaged in fighting and retreating at that point was not really in the cards. Of course, these points are taken away for deciding to attack the middle of the enemy forces over open ground. With Antietam, again, I don't think you could disengage the enemy that easily and regroup like you could in more modern wars. At best, Lee would have to retreat and give the control over to the Union forces as to where the battle should take place.

What's self-contradcictory about O?

Also, you didn't address my point. I know something about U- that U is logically possible.

But why? Why should U take precedence over O?

Yes, we did, but if U is unknowable, then we shouldn't be able to talk about U. We should not even know if U is logically possible, as, again, this is a fact about U, meaning we know something about it.

U can't be known but U can exist. My argument depends only on the possibility of U's existence. — TheMadFool

If U can't be known at all, then how can we talk about U?

U contradicts itself. "U is something about which nothing can be known" tells us something about U. In other words, I gain knowledge about U and what U is. Therefore, U is logically contradictory.

I have not read the essay, but I will tomorrow. However, I have a feeling Van Inwagen is responding to the Problem of Evil as an argument against the existence of God. If so, then all he is saying is that the line of permissible evil is arbitrarily decided by those making the argument. Let's say that the line does exist and that at X level of evil, God is not justified to create the world. Therefore, if we know X level of evil exists, God does not exist.

So, how do we know what X level of evil is? How does the person proposing the Problem of Evil as an argument against God know we have reached X level of evil without arbitrarily deciding it to be so? In other words, how does the atheist know that the X level of evil is reached and actually exists? How would we identify the X level of evil and differentiate it from levels of evil below X? How much evil is too much and how do we know that it is too much? Is a single death justifiable? How about five? Ten? Thousands? What is the support for this conclusion? Anyway we support our conclusion appears arbitrary. Thus, the Problem of Evil is not a charge against the existence of God.

Apologies if this is not what he meant.

The Kalaam faces many issues. There are two big issues for me. First, because of premise 2, the argument is tied heavily with science and scientific discovery. This makes it dependent of scientific trends and to the winds of change. The cutting edge of scientific discussion will change the various aspects of causality, but also the nature of time itself. In other words, unless you constantly update the thing and hope the science continues in your favor, you are going to face a problem. Further, this makes it pragmatically useless to discuss in most cases because you need to understand the science behind it. Without the science, you effectively are just appealing to whatever authority you like.

Second, and probably most importantly, the argument must turn into a different argument in a very short order. You will need to go back and defend another cosmological argument or similar proof of god because the premises are highly questionable. The argument takes an observation about what occurs in our universe- "Things that begin to exist have a cause,"- and then applies this observation to the nature of reality outside of the universe. It is currently unknown how reality outside of our universe would operate, if it exists at all. I could go on, but I think there are enough criticisms of the argument that stick to make it problematic.

The uncaused cause is God. That would be Craig's point. If you find it sensible I guess we'll agree to disagree. — fishfry

How does the fact that the premise used is specifically picked to make the argument work make the argument any less valid or sound? Let's say that Craig admits that he made his version the Kalaam argument by working backwards from more basic cosmological arguments in order to avoid criticisms and point towards God. What exactly is wrong then? Most philosophical arguments develop that way. The entire point of the rephrasing is to avoid the problem with saying "everything has a cause," as God would have no cause. That's it. Beyond that, the argument is a pretty standard fare cosmological argument, just with a lot more science to discuss.

I never said China doesn't have interests in the region. I said that China has no reason to invade or somehow take control over North Korea. They have little reason at all, in fact, to get involved that much. China's only interest is that war does not break out and cause economic damage.

North Korea, as pointed to above, operates under strict military power, constantly in a heightened state of war. Honestly, I think Kim Jung Un wants a MAD scenario with the United States because it gives North Korea a lot more bargaining power and leeway. With threat of nuclear war, North Korean leadership gets both more international power through threats and further support internally as it looks like North Korea is rubbing shoulders with the big countries on equal terms.

The problem being that China has no reason to invade, as the costs outweigh the benefits. What does China get out of it besides a bunch of dead soldiers, expended resources, and potential international backlash? A wartorn undeveloped land with an extremely unpredictable population that does not want them? And that's not even including the nuclear threat.

There is a difference between logical fatalism and determinism. It is logically possible that the past could have been different. There is nothing logically incoherent about the idea of the past being different if the starting positioning of the universe was different, so, in this sense, it is modally possible. There is a possible world in which the past is different from our own. This differs from logical fatalism, which requires every event to be necessary in the modal sense.

Of course, I doubt most people who identity as fatalists really mean that they think all events are logically necessary, so it is a moot point to me.

I am familiar with this notion, but what they are discussing is logical possibility. It is logically possible that the universe had a different starting state or that the rules governing a deterministic universe were different, but this only means that it was logically possible to have had different outcomes. Ignoring the metaphysical questions like "is it possible that the rules of the universe could have been otherwise," I feel like this distinction between fatalism and determinism is splitting hairs by using a definition of fatalism that ties it with logical necessity.

The main reason we intuitively do not like fatalism is that it declares the past, present, and future events as fixed. The emphasis is on our own inability to change the way things are. We could not have done otherwise to change the past, what we are doing now must have occured, and what will happen in the future will occur, with us being unable to actually change the outcome. The notion that things must logically be the way they are, in the sense that 2+2=4 is necessarily true, is false. However, I do not see how determinism fares much better here. Yes, it is possible the starting position of the universe could have been different, and it is possible that the laws governing deterministic results could have been different, but I do not see the core of fatalism disappearing.


We could not have changed the past, given prior causes and the laws of the universe. We could not be doing other than what we are doing now, given prior causes and the laws of the universe. The future will happen and must happen, given the past causal history and the law of nature. Given determinism, this is all true, so I do not see how we avoid the main thrust of fatalism (things are set in stone, as far as we are concerned) without appealing to some compatibilist notion of free will/moral respobsibility.

I do not like the disinction between determinism and fatalism that much either. There is a difference under certain definitions. For example, one could be a fatalist about certain events in the future but not a determinist about other events. However, I agree the same problem fatalists have on the existential level is shared by those who do not believe in morally significant free will, such as hard determinists.

Sorry, I completely wasn't thinking and didn't put a sarcasm indicator. It is really just supposed to be stupud and take the thread title literally in a modal logical sense- "necessary" means "is true in all possible worlds".

Is evil necessary?

In response, I say: does there exist a possible world in which evil exists?

If yes, then evil is not necessary.

If no, then evil is necessary.

My gut says there is such a possible world, as there appears to be no contradiction in existence, even our own, containing evil. :P

Let's see a definition of free will and how it relates to determinism:

Free-will: The free-will doctrine, opposed to determinism, ascribes to the human will freedom in one or more of the following senses:

(a)The freedom of indeterminacy is the will's alleged independence of antecedent conditions, psychological and physiological. A free-will in this sense is at least partially uncaused or is not related in a uniform way with the agent's character, motives and circumstances.

(b)The freedom of alternative choice which consists in the supposed ability of the agent to choose among alternative possibilities of action and

(c)The freedom of self-determination consisting in decision independent of external constraint but in accordance with the inner motives and ideals of the agent. — FreeEmotion

Free will libertarians usually believe a combination of (a) and (b). They think agents can, in some situations, choose between different options. If faced with the option to divorce someone, a person could divorce or not divorce. Both options are actually open to them; it does not just appear from their perspective that they have this power. They think (c) is important, but is more of necessary condition that is needed to make (a) and (b). Also, (a) and (b) are required for moral responsibility.

Determinist reject (a) and (b). They think that our ability to choose is an illusion and that there is only one actual option that results. The decision we reach when we decide whether to divorce or not is the result of prior causes that will dictate the outcome. Determinists, obviously, believe there is a sense in which (c) is true- there is a difference between a person caused by drugs that behaves out of character and a person who is not under the influence of drugs that behaves in character- but find it irrelevant to moral responsibility.

Compatibilists focus on (c). They think that the libertarian position is incorrect in that they think moral repsonisibility does not depend on (a) and (b) because, on a more critical reflection, phrases like "freely choose" and "possibility" do not mean what the libertarian does in terms of moral responsibility. They think the truth of determinism is irrelevant to moral responsibility and what we should use the term "free will" is compatible with determinism beibg true.

It gets complicated since God has already decided and has the final say. — Rich

God, in their minds, does not decide what they will do, at least in the sense that precludes moral responsibility. God could determine actions, but refrains from doing so to preserve creaturely freedom. Again, the compatibilist thinks that moral responsibility and determinism are compatible with each other.
Unrepentant murderers do not go to heaven.

But not too worry, it's better than determinism that has us all killing each other because some gene it's obsessed with surviving. — Rich

Not all determinists are materialists. And I do not see what this has to do with anything I said. It seems like you are just saying things to try to get a rise out of people.

I think I see what you are getting at. Let's compare life to a maze. To me, I am walking through the maze, constrained by the walls, at the same time making limited choices whether to stop or go on. The exit point is pre-determined, lets' say I have some control over how long I take to get there.

This, to me is determinism + free choice. Compatibilist. This may be an imperfect example, but let's use it for now. — FreeEmotion

It is not. Free will libertarians do not believe in pure freedom. I am not free to gain magic powers if I will them, for example. Just because I am in a maze with only one eventual outcome a the end of the maze does not mean I make decisions inside the maze. The libertarian believes that, at some points in my life, I have the ability to actualize one of many possibilities in a given scenario. When faced with a forked path, I can choose to go right or left. If I go right, I did not need to go right- I could have gone left if I so chosen. In other words, even if everything had been the same (same chain of events leading up to the forked path), I could have gone left. This ability is what the libertarian calls free will and what they view as needed for moral responsibility.

The determinist thinks that prior causal events dictate what will occur, so there is only one course of action that will result. If I go right, in a sense, then I must go right. Given a particular chain of events, only one outcome results. Determinists reject free will and the moral responsibility along with it.

Compatibilists think that free will exists, but they do not define it like the libertarian does. They think the relevant use of words like "choose", "could have done otherwise", and "free will," does not require the ability to actually be able to do something different given a specific chain of prior causal events. They think that their definition of free will allows determinism to be true. In short, being free for the compatibilist does not mean determinism is false. They can think there is only one possible outcome for a given situation and that free will and responsibility still holds.

Indeed, this it's how religious people think of responsibility, God, and life. Heaven is their destination picked for them by God and it matters naught how many people they let, steak, cheat, and even kill along the way (maybe kill is not allowed). — Rich

This is insulting to the religious person, even to the more Calvinistic Christians I know. Some religious folk are compatibilists; they think responsibility holds even if determinism is true. There are those who are free will libertarian as well, so they think that determinism is not true and they effectively choose their fate. Neither believes one can break the laws of their religion and get away with it. They are not fatalists about salvation. A person who murders, cheats, and steals will not go into heaven, even from a Calvinist perspective.

What is the importance of the free will debate, in your eyes? In mine it is one of responsibility- the metaphysics only interest me insofar as they inform the notion of responsibility. If responsibility is the main focal point, then one can be a compatibilist even if determinism is false because the free will the compatibilist is concerned with is one of responsibility, not metaphysics.

I can credit them with seeing the blind spots of both libertarians and compatibilists, whereas those two traditional opponents usually only see each other's blind spots, not realizing that they themselves are paying too high a cost. — Pierre-Normand

Because hard determinists and hard indeterminists have not noticed the problem with both sides of the debate for a long time.

I do not think the compatibilists is unaware of what they are accepting. In fact, it would appear, on the surface, they view themselves as critically analyzing what we consider "free" and "responsible" to mean beyond the naive notions we commonly hold.

Do you have the actual power to do otherwise and believe this power to do otherwise is somehow necessary for moral responsibility? Then you are not a compatibilist, but believe in libertarian free will.

Regarding moral responsibility- first, the issue is not whether morality exists, but whether we are morally responsible for our actions. In other words, can I be blamed or praised for my actions in such a way because I am responsible for them? So, for example, a hard determinist would say no, because we lack free will and what happened must have happened, given the prior events that led up to our actions.

Regarding a single possibility- what Kreeft sounds like he is responding to is the problem of foreknowledge and free will, which is related to the free will debate, but does not comprise all of the debate. If there is only one possibility available to us to do, then we could not have done otherwise. If we could not have done otherwise, then in what sense is there free will?

Of course, there is compatibilism (free will, properly understood, is compatible with determinism), but that follows a different definition of free will than what is commonly referred to.

It is irrelevant that the claim is an empirical one, as the point was to show that, sometimes, it is rational to suspend judgement and claim one does not know. Likewise, there may be cases, like the one above, where one can argue that there is no way of currently knowing what Michael's great grandfather ate for lunch on such and such day, though this claim is stronger and requires more argument to support.

To point to a god claim (let's stick to the god of classical theism for simplicity's sake), one could be agnostic in one of two ways. First, in the weaker sense, an agnostic could be someone who looks at both sides of the theist-atheist debate and finds the arguments lacking. Neither side met the criteria necessary to claim knowledge, so the agnostic decides to suspend judgement and claim "I do not know." The agnostic is not closed off to further argument, much like any good theist or atheist is not closed off, but, at the current time, the agnostic sees no reason to think either side is right, so remains neutral. Note that this has nothing to do with being lazy, a charge that can be placed on anyone, theist, atheist, or agnostic.

In the stronger sense, the agnostic may claim that the status of god's existence is unknowable. This is a much stronger claim and is, therefore, harder to defend, so I won't list some hypothetical scenario, beyond that this agonstic must show that the theistic and atheistic arguments are fundamentally flawed, such that a god is unfalsifiable from our human perspective- we can easily imagine our world with a god, while we can also easily imagine it without a god.

At certain time, someone had access to the fact of what your great grandfather ate on Jan 1st 1945, or whether he ate at all that day. That is empirically provable. Someone knew it at some time, even if it was just the great grandfather himself. Same does not apply to metaphysics. It can't be said that someone had more access to the question of God at certain time and space. Such questions are not answered in the same way as the question of whether your great grandfather had a fish on that day or not. — Coldlight

The question of knowledge is from Michael's perspective, not some hypothetical person who has access to the empirical evidence. Yes, someone really did know what his great grandfather ate that day, but they are not us. The question is one about us. Michael cannot know what his great grandfather had for lunch if there is no evidence or way of knowing. So, short of a dated photograph or a journal showing what Michael's great grandfather had for lunch on a particular day, Michael is rationally required to suspend judgement and say he does not know.

If one is agnostic about god claims, it could mean that:

1) After examining both sides of the argument, one has found neither sides' case meets the requirements for knowledge and, thus, one suspends judgement on the existence of a god.

2) After examining the issue of god's existence, one finds the answer cannot be known from our perspective, due to the nature of god and our state of affairs in this world.

The first agnosticism is the result of applying an uncontroversial epistemological principle of suspending judgement in certain cases. The second requires an argument to motivate it.

But why is splitting sufficient? Consider the following scenarios:

1) Yesterday, I had a full brain. Today, I have a full brain. I am the same person I was yesterday in terms of identity.

2) Yesterday, I had a full brain. Today, I lost the one hemishpere of my brain. I am still functional and, though I have some problems, I retain enough of my traits that psychological continuity is not broken. I am the same person I was yesterday in terms of identity.

3) Yesterday, I had a full brain. Today, I under went an operation and had the two hemispheres of my brain seperated and put into cloned bodies of me. Neither of these two clones are me, as psychological continuity is broken.

You need to explain why 2) is okay while 3) is also okay. Each clone maintains psychological continuity with the original me, such that if you to hypothetically remove one clone from the scenario, we would be in an identical situation as 2).

How do you handle splitting problems when it comes to personal identity? For example, it is theoretically possible to split the brain and put them into cloned bodies of yourself. So, which one is you, Leftie or Rightie?

I don't know.

I just wish everyone would come around and agree with my excellently reasoned viewpoint.

Define "God." Gods that require free will in order to be internally coherent. No. Gods that are like what Calvinists believe in? Completely fine.

By natural order I mean the laws of nature, which is currently the domain of science. By miracle I mean the violation of natural order. Note that natural order and miracles are contradictory with respect to each other. — TheMadFool

Miracles presuppose a natural order to violate though. You can't ignore big differences between statements; you can only apply a negation in logic if the statement is effectively the same, but with "not" in front of it. Both arguments start from the same first premise:

1) Natural order exists.

The teleological argument goes:
2) Natural order indicates intelligence to make it.
3) Intelligence indicates a creator.
Therefore,
4) Natural order indicates a creator.

The argument from miracles goes:
2) There exist events (miracles) that clearly violate the natural order.
3) The best explanation of these events is to appeal to supernatural origin.
Therfore,
4) Miracles indicate a supernatural realm.

The argument will usually go on to tie this supernatural realm with a god, for, by example, pointing to miracles in their religion. Also note that miracles do not wipe out natural order, but only violate it temporarily. They are nonrandom events credited to a divine being. If miracles were random, they would violate the first premise.

None of the premises after the first one are shared in any way, so the arguments do not put forth a premise that contradict each other. You have to argue that the argument from miracles is internally invalid and contradictory, making it a bad argument.

So, if I were to play a coin game with you the condition being heads i win and tails you lose, you would accept??!!! — TheMadFool

It should be clear that I do not think the analogy holds and that the situation of teleogical arguments and arguments from miracles are not mutally exclusive.

Something's not right.

What is it? — TheMadFool

Your reasoning. A god creates order. The teological argument states that this order indicates an intelligent being created it (often it is argued this being to be a god. Isaac Newton sees this order and finds it so special that it makes him believe the divine did it.

Isaac Newton also believes in Christianity. Christianity has miracles written into its scriptures. Miracles suspend the natural order. In order to completely overcome the laws of the universe, one would need to be above them. This goes against the face of modern materialism. If one claims that this ability comes from a god and the only miracles are those related to this god, it lends credance to the idea that these miracles come from this god, who is above the natural order.

I don't see why Isaac Newton cannot hold both ideas at the same time. They are seperate lines of reasoning.

I never said that the arguments were convincing or good. The teleological argument is, in my opinion, the weakest "official" argument for some type of god (besides ones that are outright invalid or obviously poor). The argument from miracles depends on whether you think miracles occur, which is the topic of much debate amd whether miracles indicate a god or just something beyond the physical.