CADRE Comments

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting chapter 29, can be found here. ] [This entry continues chapter 29, "Resolving The Grand Paradox".] God, if He creates, must first create Nature. Let us say Nature is now up-and-running. It does not have to be exactly our Nature; it could for instance be a Nature inhabited by angels or elves or whatever--but, since I am searching for an explanation that deals with you and me and our behavior and qualities, let me stick with what I know best: this Nature, the one you and I obviously inhabit in some fashion. The first not-God thing God creates (per se) must be reactive, as distinct from His active character, so that He has created and not begotten (nor generated a Person of God Who has nothing to do with God’s own self-generation--but that’s a topic for later). If God wishes to introduce further effects into this system, above and beyond the effects that this system of itself produces (alon...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. A continually updated table of contents for all entries so far can be found here. In my previous entry, I introduced two different examples of attempts to propose that the ultimate reality is both atheistic and theistic. (Not to be confused with ontological dualisms which would propose two ultimate realities with one being sentient and the other non-sentient. This concept was covered in previous entries, though it'll be discussed again in later entries where applicable.)] On one side we have this concept: the IF is a Mind, but it has no plans and does not initiate events. On the other side, we have this: the IF is not a Mind, but it has plans (or 'purposes') and initiates events (or 'strives'). What do these propositions offer? The first one may seem to offer an explanation for the apparent intelligibility of the universe: the universe is not completely arbitrary, a...

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. A continually updated table of contents for all entries so far can be found here. ] I have been arguing throughout this book that philosophical positions can be most cogently divided into two mutually exclusive categories: non-Sentient Independent Fact, or Sentient Independent Fact. I have reached this position mainly by tracing the implications of apparently competitive belief-systems (it turns out they were advocating one of these at bottom all the time), or by discovering that competitive theories end in self-contradictions. But some people throughout human history would agree there is such a thing as the IF (or at least we must presume there is, in order to build philosophies and subsequent sciences) and that we can discover particular things about it (at least in principle); yet they would also propose that this IF is, in essence or in effect, sentient and non-sentient. For instanc...