Mormonism's OA and the mighty F-S chain

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hrm. Isn’t that the basis of Catholic and some Protestants’ argument that this incomprehensible being, this God that is so big it occupies this universe, but so small that it occupies that atom - that it’s super amazeballs that this KARDASHEV SCALE SIX, or if needs be a KARDASHEV SCALE SEVEN BEING (uawau!) SO LOVED HUMANS that he took our form and allowed Himself to be murdered by Romans and Jews (HIS FAVORITE PEOPLE, REMEMBER). ISN’T THAT BIG?!? AND AMAZING?!? He satisfied the blood debt his universe demands from all sinful beings!

Cool!

I dunno. None of it makes any sense to me. I’m just trying to make their fantasy work on some sort of philosophical level.

[Gadianton]

Hrm. Isn’t that the basis of Catholic and some Protestants’ argument that this incomprehensible being, this God that is so big it occupies this universe, but so small that it occupies that atom - that it’s super amazeballs that this KARDASHEV SCALE SIX, or if needs be a KARDASHEV SCALE SEVEN BEING (uawau!) SO LOVED HUMANS that he took our form and allowed Himself to be murdered by Romans and Jews (HIS FAVORITE PEOPLE, REMEMBER). ISN’T THAT BIG?!? AND AMAZING?!? He satisfied the blood debt his universe demands from all sinful beings!

Cool!

I dunno. None of it makes any sense to me. I’m just trying to make their fantasy work on some sort of philosophical level.

The bolded isn't what Catholics and Protestants believe, it's nearly word-for-word the Mormon teaching about what Catholics and Protestants believe. Just replace "that atom" with "your heart" and this is the perfect example of a belief such as becoming Gods that is deeply rooted in every Mormon of our relative time who was raised in the church. Mormons repeat this line to each other in order to laugh at the trinity. It also betrays the deeply rooted disdain that Mormons have for "Greek philosophy", which polluted the pure teachings of the gospel, such as, God is a simple man just like us, not some complicated intellectual construct of Plato. The way you say all of this, it sounds like "working it out on some sort of philosophical level" implies the Mormon understanding of philosophy that means, "come up with some sort of total BS that sounds fancy".

I probably don't help given my tendency to write long posts and go off on tangents. But working it out philosophically implies, at least in principle, working it out very carefully. And so, a philosophical explanation would require precision in explaining what the universe is, what the heart means, what "occupying" something means, and so on. I just looked it up, and the line comes from a Christian folk song written in 1959. But Mormons understand this precise phrase as coming from the Nicene creed and representing the very apex of Christian theology, which tightly integrates the intellectual achievements of Plato.

But I think part of your frustration connects with what I'm trying to get at by isolating the first part of Anselm's argument, that God is the greatest being imaginable. To me, this definition of God captures what everyone who believes in God believes from Egypt until now. The problem is, it leaves us with something incredibly vague and subjective. What should the greatest being be like? Should it be the basis of all reality or just the greatest thing in reality? The Euthyphro dilemma pinpoints this ambiguity better than anything else. But from here, the questions keep exploding.

I'm limiting myself to a kind of relative explanation of Mormonism.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well. Aquinas is a believer in Immanence and, um, Transcendence. So…

But, yes, I’m guilty of philosophical larping, but that’s due to my mid-wittiness, so lets not blame the Mormons for this one.

Edit: Oh, and that’s why I suggested as a “fix” to the dilemma you’ve been kicking around is a structural one. If God is literally Everything, Everywhere, All at Once that makes him an electron something both in and out of dimensional constraints, a sort of Turtles All the Way Down kind of Dimensional Being that is both Eternal and Causal. Both Cause and Effect, AND outside of it being a higher dimensional Salt Bae sprinkling a bit of cosmic sodium here and there to, I dunno, look at His creation? Again. I’m back to a place of God and its nature and/or purpose seeming nonsensical.

[huckelberry]

But, yes, I’m guilty of philosophical larping, but that’s due to my mid-wittiness, so lets not blame the Mormons for this one.

Nice pun

[Limnor]

Hrm. Isn’t that the basis of Catholic and some Protestants’ argument that this incomprehensible being, this God that is so big it occupies this universe, but so small that it occupies that atom - that it’s super amazeballs that this KARDASHEV SCALE SIX, or if needs be a KARDASHEV SCALE SEVEN BEING (uawau!) SO LOVED HUMANS that he took our form and allowed Himself to be murdered by Romans and Jews (HIS FAVORITE PEOPLE, REMEMBER). ISN’T THAT BIG?!? AND AMAZING?!? He satisfied the blood debt his universe demands from all sinful beings!

Cool!

I dunno. None of it makes any sense to me. I’m just trying to make their fantasy work on some sort of philosophical level.

The bolded isn't what Catholics and Protestants believe, it's nearly word-for-word the Mormon teaching about what Catholics and Protestants believe. Just replace "that atom" with "your heart" and this is the perfect example of a belief such as becoming Gods that is deeply rooted in every Mormon of our relative time who was raised in the church. Mormons repeat this line to each other in order to laugh at the trinity. It also betrays the deeply rooted disdain that Mormons have for "Greek philosophy", which polluted the pure teachings of the gospel, such as, God is a simple man just like us, not some complicated intellectual construct of Plato. The way you say all of this, it sounds like "working it out on some sort of philosophical level" implies the Mormon understanding of philosophy that means, "come up with some sort of total BS that sounds fancy".

I probably don't help given my tendency to write long posts and go off on tangents. But working it out philosophically implies, at least in principle, working it out very carefully. And so, a philosophical explanation would require precision in explaining what the universe is, what the heart means, what "occupying" something means, and so on. I just looked it up, and the line comes from a Christian folk song written in 1959. But Mormons understand this precise phrase as coming from the Nicene creed and representing the very apex of Christian theology, which tightly integrates the intellectual achievements of Plato.

But I think part of your frustration connects with what I'm trying to get at by isolating the first part of Anselm's argument, that God is the greatest being imaginable. To me, this definition of God captures what everyone who believes in God believes from Egypt until now. The problem is, it leaves us with something incredibly vague and subjective. What should the greatest being be like? Should it be the basis of all reality or just the greatest thing in reality? The Euthyphro dilemma pinpoints this ambiguity better than anything else. But from here, the questions keep exploding.

I'm limiting myself to a kind of relative explanation of Mormonism.

I can understand the frustration as well. I think if the story were distilled into a superpowered being who sets up a moral system, then satisfies its own blood requirement, it does seem hard to take seriously.

But classical Christian thought doesn’t describe God as superhero in the universe. It’s saying that reality itself is dependent on a sustaining source, and that this source is personal—like the heart language you use. One of the ideas becomes one of self-limitation by God to achieve this personal level.

I think you are spot on about defining what would count as “greatest conceivable being.” If moral perfection is included, does that include intrinsic relational love? That’s a part of the Augustinian understanding of the trinity.

I’ll admit my initial thought was Aladdin’s genie “cosmic power, itty bitty living space!” But I just don’t think that captures the depth of thought.

[Limnor]

But, yes, I’m guilty of philosophical larping, but that’s due to my mid-wittiness, so let’s not blame the Mormons for this one.

I don’t think you’re larping at all, my view is you’re trying to make sense of it.

[Gadianton]

I just looked up Augustine's idea. It's clever, The Father is the one who loves, the son is the one who is loved, and the holy spirit is the "love". Well, I can't say it's "wrong" but it's certainly after-the-fact, a posteriori. Like, once you have your God of three persons proposed, you think of a clever way to bond them together. I'm pretty sure there is no way to derive this from minimal assumptions in symbolic logic as Goedel derived "the sum of all positive properties as necessary" from a basic set of assumptions about positive properties.

Logical proofs work from the top down, but resist with force going down very far into relatable concepts. It's one thing to decide relational love is a positive property, another to derive it as a tautological necessity. Augustine's theology is working from the bottom up. We have the ideal of one God, and God is the greatest, but then over here we have revelation that seems to say three beings. Anselm's argument is a priori. Augustine's argument is a posteriori. They'll never fully meet. You will never, ever derive Augustine's theology from Anselm's assumptions.

Let's go back to my comments to Huck. We've got three Gods and a rule that says there's only one God. What are our options?

Jehovah's witnesses go the categorically purist route and say there is only one God, Jehovah, and Jesus is a prophet and the HG is...(I don't know)

Christians say that it's really only one God. Perhaps like a neutron is three quarks that never exist independently, and held together by the strong nuclear force by the massless messenger, the gluon, we have a modern understanding of Augustine's relational love, and I've totally shot myself in the foot by suggesting it's absurd to imagine the trinity exists in the world of the lone neutron.

So comparing these two religions, on the one hand, we have the simplicity of one God being literally one God. While on the other, we've introduced a reason why that picture might be too simple.

[Limnor]

So comparing these two religions, on the one hand, we have the simplicity of one God being literally one God. While on the other, we've introduced a reason why that picture might be too simple.

For my part, these discussions serve as a way to stress test my beliefs and understanding. So it is a posteriori, and seeks to arrive at the best explanation given the information available. Which means I’m not trying to deduce the Trinity from logic, or even protect it from scrutiny. Or “win” an argument.

For me it boils down to: given monotheism, a requirement for moral perfection, the idea that love is intrinsic and not contingent on creation, and historical Christian revelation and theology, what model best explains the total set? The philosophical bit is interesting as a means to help with that stress test, but I admit I start with given data.

[Limnor]

I’d welcome a full critique of the below:

Constraint: God is “that which nothing greater can be conceived.” If you can conceive of something greater than your current concept of God, then that wasn’t God. Plantinga expands this by saying the idea is maximal greatness across possible worlds but the intuition is that God must be maximally perfect.

Definition: A maximally great being would be omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and necessary—meaning the being cannot fail to exist.

If love is a maximal perfection, then God must be perfectly loving. And if love has a relationship—the one who loves, the one who is beloved, and the bond of love between them, and that love must extend backwards into eternity, then God must reflect this, because a unitary being cannot express love relationally without creating something—because God must lack nothing and depend on nothing.

So the Trinity can be seen as the self-fulfilling of maximal greatness.

Trinity: God is one essence, three persons—Father, Son, and Spirit. Not three gods, not one person wearing masks, but one being whose nature is love. So in Trinitarian thought, the Father eternally loves the Son, the Son eternally loves the Father, and the Spirit is the eternal bond of that love.

So if you accept that God is maximally great, love is a perfection, and dependence is imperfection, then a solitary deity doesn't seem as compete as this model.

[Gadianton]

Definition: A maximally great being would be omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and necessary—meaning the being cannot fail to exist.

Criticism 1.a
The noted perfections are subjective suggestions as to what is maximal that are extraneous to the logic necessary to make existence necessary. Anselm just said "God is that which nothing greater can be thought". He leave's his personal beliefs about greatness out of it. You could just as easily stipulate God has a body, and still prove his existence is necessary.

Criticism1.b
You've created a full blown tautology by stipulating that existence must be a part of a maximal being by definition. Anselm's argument was a syllogism that took two assumptions and derived a conclusion, that God must exist. The second assumption in particular could be disputed, "something in reality is greater than in the mind"

If love is a maximal perfection, then God must be perfectly loving. And if love has a relationship—the one who loves, the one who is beloved, and the bond of love between them, and that love must extend backwards into eternity, then God must reflect this, because a unitary being cannot express love relationally without creating something—because God must lack nothing and depend on nothing.

Criticism2.a

Substitute "a body" for love and then substitute the definition of a body for your definition of love, and we'll prove God must have a body.

Criticism2.b

You stipulate love to the point of assuming a narrow definition that reads like it should be an argument. in total, you've created a masterpiece of careful circular reasoning, which actually takes talent to do and so don't take that as an insult. I mean, you were literally trying to create the circle as opposed to falling into a trap without realizing it.

But, I think if you keep working it out like this you'll hopefully, in my opinion, come to see that believing in God is better if God isn't tautologically necessary or metaphysically necessary. I think Aquinas was another one of my guys but would need to look it up.