Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
you: They certainly do. That is why your sources are questionable to me, even if they come from "the Math whiz" himself. Two parallel lines are no longer "parallel lines" if they intersect. By definition, they are NOT parallel. To BE a parallel line, it must NOT intersect. If it intersects, it is no longer a parallel set of lines. My objections remain.
Having said that, mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences.
Indeed, I often point to the unreasonable effectiveness of math as God's copyright notice on the cosmos.
Reimannian Geometry is an excellent example. It was developed in theory long before Einstein came along and pulled it off the shelf to describe General Relativity.
The mathematics, the logic, the language is writ large across that part of God's Creation we can physically observe.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. – Psalms 19:1-3
But physical reality is not infinite. It is very much finite and thus such concepts as parallel lines if visualized in the physical sense, would not intersect. But in math theory, they do ... at the point in infinity. Think about it.
Of course God is not subject to time or space. He created them! His Name is I AM.
That is why I aver that “timeless” is a better adjective than “eternal” when speaking of God the Creator of “all that there is” whether spiritual or physical - including time!
But God’s Names are also Alpha and Omega – and Immanuel.
And as Dr. Eckleburg has pointed out, the Holy Spirit indwells us mere mortal denizens of space/time.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
One also then realizes His Names Alpha and Omega point to the First Cause and the Final Cause of “all that there is” – namely, Jesus Christ Himself:
As to points on a line and infinity, please explain to me how two points on an infinite line are distinct from each other. How is one closer to another point when there is no minimum or maximum?
Infinity is not "no quantity" like you are using it. No quantity would be "null" - not zero, but null - void, empty.
The “Line at Infinity” is the straight line on which all “Points at Infinity” lie. Mathworld
And any number sequence, e.g. -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 – can be extended or projected, in either a positive or negative direction to infinity, i.e. an unbounded quantity greater than every real number.
Moreover, from Aristotle, the concept of “time” comes from counting … 1, 2, 3.
Eternity is not “no time” or “timelessness” it is “time without end” – or as the Epistle of Barnabas put it, a time of not counting.
If it were “no time” or “timelessness” then it would be the ex nihilo - void, null, empty – which preceded God’s Creation of “all that there is” – both spiritual and physical.
The Father is not begotten. Jesus Christ is begotten of the Father. The Spirit is from the Father by the Son.
For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son [he saith], Thy throne, O God, [is] for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness [is] the sceptre of thy kingdom. – Hebrews 1:1-8
To God be the glory!
KOSTA: Knowing what he would do is not important, HD.
Not important?!? The rest of all history follows from Adam's eating off that tree; seems pretty important to me. And to God, no doubt.
You've evaded the obvious conclusion from Harley's question. God knew full well what Adam would do with that tree, and yet He planted it anyway. The Fall was certainly no surprise to God. In fact, it probably was part of His plan for creation, since God's decrees all precede any actions by His creatures.
The important thing for God was that man has free will, that we are not His robots, but His children.
Where does it say in Scripture the important thing for God is that we have free will? In fact, since it doesn't even exist in the manner most people toss the phrase around, it matters nearly not at all.
The "important thing for God" is that He is glorified by His children for the gift of grace He has given them through faith in Jesus Christ.
For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." -- Ephesians 10:19-20"And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
Here Paul tells us even the words of His faith which he utters are given to him by God, and thus, he preaches as an "ambassador in bonds."
Not a lot of "free will" going around there.
More disturbing though are those scientists who promote atheism under the color of science:
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."
Or to put it another way, a star may have sent a photon when it was merely a billion light years away from earth - but it has taken eleven billion light years to reach us. The reason it travels so far - takes so long - is that the universe itself is expanding (space/time.)
The above article explains it using the photon example as well. If God were to send a photon to us from the first Day of Creation, it would take 8 billion light years to reach us, etc.
The magnitude is intelligible by math: Powers of 10
What difference does that make - whatever that means? The concept of repenting for something you haven't done yet is ridiculous. How can you be sorry for something you haven't done yet? There can be no sorrow where there was no action done yet.
Repentance is necessary to take on life long true faith. It is not something we do piecemeal to satisfy a debt for each of our sins along the way. Jesus already took care of that. By necessary and sufficient, I mean that for you Jesus dying on the cross was needed for you to get to Heaven, but it wasn't powerful enough, not strong enough to do the job. Only you are powerful enough to get yourself into Heaven. We say that Jesus dying on the cross was SO powerful that it sealed the entry into Heaven of ALL of the elect.
Also, salvation and entrance into heaven are two different things, so I've been told by Protestants.
To my mind, it's just a timing issue. One could make a case for up to four different "times" of being saved and all be correct. Predestination, Jesus on the cross, point of belief, entry into Heaven. "Salvation" can apply to any of these.
Is the Holy Spirit God? Does the Holy Spirit work throughout our lives in real time?
"The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men's hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded." -- John Calvin.
Does the Holy Spirit provide this real-tiime function to members of the EO?
I think this is a very significant difference we have, and I can't recall whether it has been discussed much before. We have a fundamental disagreement on what a "Christian" is. We would say that a Christian is one who has been born again and has true faith in the one true Christ Jesus, etc. I believe the Apostolic view is that a true Christian is anyone who claims to be. So, for you, all those who cried "Lord, Lord" and then were sent away by Christ were all Christians. We would say that by definition they could not have been Christians. The Bible is clear about the existence of false believers, but I don't know how you would describe such a person since you call false believers and true believers both Christians. I don't see why the term "Christian" would have any significance to the Apostolic Church since you use it to refer to so many who will be lost.
Obviously, this does not ease my mind at all for when an Apostolic acknowledges me as a "Christian". :)
:) No, I was talking about reasons that I ask God for forgiveness of sins today. When I sin against my fellow man, I "usually" feel guilty too. :)
Robot slaves. Coerced love. Forced repentance. So God wishes a human hive culture to love Him and worship Him?
I didn't write it, I just live it :)
Ezek 36:26-27 : 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
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If I blaspheme the Holy Spirit, I no longer go to hell?
I was just saying that it is no longer physically possible for you to blaspheme the Spirit because Jesus is no longer physically here. And my answer was just one of many decent explanations of blaspheming the Spirit I found. I just don't see this as any evidence that true salvation can be lost. How was the prior salvation established?
Excellent analysis Harley. How in the universe is any Christian supposed to know which Bible verses apply to him under Apostolic rules? There are somewhere around 31,100 verses in the Bible, and I know no Catechism covers them all. If it's two here and three there, then no one could possibly know what's going on. I suppose it all reverts back to the Church. How convenient! :) Artificially make the Bible impossible to understand by anyone, and that solidifies the power of those who claim it. These guys certainly have had quite a ...... umm ...... "plan" going on here for a long time. :)
Thanks, it's just that when I confess it is directly to God in prayer. I also find that powerful and humbling. I'm not sure how confessing to a good man could be an improvement on confessing directly to God.
Are you saying that God created man (in His image and likeness no less!) to choose some for his "pastures" and the rest for slaughter?
We slaughter bulls for food, for hyde, for soap, for whatever use we get out of them. The "pretty" one who gets all the cows and pastures and a long life is something we have no control over. He was lucky to be born the prettiest of them all.
The others weren't so lucky, so they are used for other purpose.
But God doesn't depend on chance. His rejection of some, as you seem to imply, is because He created them with the intention to be rejected. In this case, the rejection is not a consequence but a premeditated intent.
In your paradigm, those rejected serve no other purpose. They were created solely in order to suffer.
To God, our temporal existence on earth is not important. It is important to us, as it is from here that we either go to heaven or hell.
You've evaded the obvious conclusion from Harley's question. God knew full well what Adam would do with that tree, and yet He planted it anyway. The Fall was certainly no surprise to God
You are placing artificial limits on God and not even realize it. You are assuming that God is capable of creating only one outcome, and that everything is limited to that outcome. The other way of looking at it is that God, in His infinite nature, has an infinite repertoire of choices and paradigms, and is capable of designing an infinite number of outcomes, all of which fulfill His plan.
God planted the tree to set limits and provide choices so that man could exercise his reason and be a moral being, not to bring Adam's demise. God's intentions were good. This is no different than the parable of talents.
In your theology, God knew that one servent would do nothing with his talent, and gave him a talent in order to ruin him! In other words, God designed it so that the servant would have no choice but to fail! God ruins no one.
God gives everyone choices. In order for them to be true choices, they must be made freely. The choices we make determine which path we will follow, and where we will end up. They do not affect God; they affect only us.
In your paradigm of a singular outcome, either we really do not choose but God chooses for us, or our choices affect or interfere with God's plan. I think that neither is correct. We choose, but our choices affect only us and our destiny , not God's plan: those who choose God will be saved and those who do not will be lost. Our choices do not change or affect God's plan one single bit.
The "important thing for God" is that He is glorified by His children for the gift of grace He has given them through faith in Jesus Christ
That makes Him a vain God, subject to passions, and His grace, which is given freely, is not free at all, but conditional.
Here Paul tells us even the words of His faith which he utters are given to him by God, and thus, he preaches as an "ambassador in bonds."
If everything we have is given to us then we must include also that which is evil as well, which is incompatible with the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. God gave us the capacity to know Him, and the ability to speak. Those anatomical features are indeed given to us by God. But we are also created capable of reason, and of being moral creatures. Wisdom generates words. Words project the spirit which is born in the wisdom. If our wisdom is that of God then we are but mindless shells. If, on the other hand, our wisdom is imitating God, then we are ambassadors of God in our words and deeds, fashioned after the words and deeds of God, and thus through those who are pure enough, the love of God shines for others to see.
St. Paul may have been one of God's chosen to teach others, through whom God shone on the Gentiles, and he was pure enough to make such a claim. But that doesn't mean our words are words of God or that we are all ambassadors in bonds.
Having said that, mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences
There is nothing unreasonable about mathematics. They are effective in natural sciences to the extent that they mathematics allows for working models. Working models prove nothing, They just work. Thye do not necessarily represent truth or "reality."
Infinity is an unbounded quantity greater than every real number Mathworld
In your previous post you defined infinity as bound by time and space.
And any number sequence, e.g. -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 – can be extended or projected, in either a positive or negative direction to infinity, i.e. an unbounded quantity greater than every real number
So what? Besides, positive and negative directions is irrelevant in infinity.
I am not sure what is the point you are trying to make. Can you reduce it to a single sentence or at least a paragraph?
Yes, of course. He intercedes in our lives. He does not exist in time and space.
I appreciate reading from St.Calvin & St.Knox and it is a blessing that there is so much preserved for us to read.
Why don’t YOU read Hebrews 10 which talks of burnt offerings of bulls and goats sacrificed by men; not a sacrifice performed by Christ himself.
I don’t understand why someone a thousand plus years after Christ could be understood as an expert on the Holy Spirit, why is it folks pursue the traditions and doctrines of men?!?
Nevertheless, mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences.
That term was coined by Physicist Eugene Wigner is his famous article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Math in the Natural Sciences.
Most of what will be said on these questions will not be new; it has probably occurred to most scientists in one form or another. My principal aim is to illuminate it from several sides. The first point is that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and that there is no rational explanation for it. Second, it is just this uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts that raises the question of the uniqueness of our physical theories….
As I recall, you and I have been down this road before – your mathematical worldview (and perhaps your theological belief) is Aristotlean whereas mine is Platonic. Every atheist and agnostic has an Aristotlean worldview - but not every Aristotlean is atheist or agnostic. Platonists, on the other hand have a worldview which is "beyond" space/time - so if they are not Judeo/Christian they are at least theistic in some sense or have some concept of a collective consciousness (e.g. Eastern mysticism.)
Aristotle and Plato did not resolve the debate, neither did Einstein and Gödel, neither did Hawking and Penrose. Max Tegmark (a Platonist) described it this way (formatting mine):
If the frog sees a particle moving with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined like a double helix.
To the frog, the world is described by Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird, it is described by the geometry of the pasta — a mathematical structure.
The frog itself is merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex intertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store and process information. Our universe is far more complicated than this example, and scientists do not yet know to what, if any, mathematical structure it corresponds.
The Platonic paradigm raises the question of why the universe is the way it is. To an Aristotelian, this is a meaningless question: The universe just is. But a Platonist cannot help but wonder why it could not have been different. If the universe is inherently mathematical, then why was only one of the many mathematical structures singled out to describe a universe? A fundamental asymmetry appears to be built into the very heart of reality.
Now the frog is a nominalist. He would say that universals do not exist, such things as redness, sound, threeness, and so on. He would call them language only. To him, mathematical constructs such as pi are invented by the mathematician to describe the world the frog sees. Physical laws don’t exist in themselves, they are “observations.” The soul, mind, or consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. To the frog, when a tree falls in the forest it makes no sound if no one is around to hear it.
F: Hullo! Did I hear you mention my name? How goes it on your lily pads, lady frogs?
TSB: Hello Brother Frog! So nice of you to join us! How was your trip?
F: What trip? I’m sitting here on my lily pad in my happy pond, sunning myself. Then I heard you two talking about me…. What’s up?
TFB: You are most welcome to join us. We were chatting about the differences in worldview of frogs and birds….
F: I don’t believe in birds.
TSB: (Aside to Timothy) And he doesn’t believe in you either, Timothy….
T: Be that as it may. I continue to believe in him.
Brother Frog is most welcome here. He brings a certain point of view regarding the issues you want to discuss, which promises to be important to their illumination.
And so I shall be very glad to attend to your exchange of ideas.
TFB: Well, Froggie, you know that my sister and I do believe in birds — we are birds! As I was saying (though you may disagree), the bird is a realist. He would say that universals such as redness, sound, and threeness do exist, that geometry exists and the mathematician doesn’t invent it, but comes along and discovers it. To the bird, a variable in a mathematical formula is a universal per se. The physical laws exist. The soul, mind, or consciousness exists and may be “in” space/time or “beyond” space/time — or both. And when a tree falls in the forest it makes a sound even if no one is around to hear it.
Infinity is the unbounded quantity which is greater than every real number.
I am not sure what is the point you are trying to make. Can you reduce it to a single sentence or at least a paragraph?
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. – Exodus 3:13-14
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