Alexander wrote:

So what? We can still use existing historical evidence as evidence even if we can't know that it won't be superseded one day.

Alexander wrote:

I do not believe that the historical evidence is powerful enough to base a faith upon it but this is due more to the nature of historical investigation and of faith than any severe defect in the evidence itself.

Exactly. In the future, I ask that you address what I actually write.

Hi Jeremy, 

Your post isn't off-topic at all[1]. I agree Platonists' response shouldn't be simply dismissed. 

Consider a scenario where we have five ideal scholars of five great religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, and Shinto respectively. They are all completely rational and have perfect knowledge of their respective religions. They are tasked with trying to find one real, unresovable conflict between any two of their religions. Are we really to believe the scholars wouldn't find even one real conflict? 

As you write, I think Platonists want to argue that all conflicts between true religions are only apparent conflicts[2], not real conflicts. For instance, the conflict between the second commandment and alleged elephant idol might be escaped by arguing the latter is really a symbol of God. Even if not, I suspect our council of scholars would find at least some merely apparent conflicts between the great religions. 

My own view is that some conflict is both apparent and real. For instance, I understand Islam is very strict that God is not triune. In contrast, for Catholics, it is de fide that God is a Trinity. God cannot be both non-triune and triune. Hence, the teachings of Islam and Catholicism cannot both be true. 

People with greater knowledge of the various religions are welcome to chime in with other examples. 

A final option is for Platonist universalists to abandon attempts at proving the great religions are compatible, and affirm that they are their own religion. I suppose, in its own way, that would be fine.  


[1]Anyway, I only care about threadjacking. Conversations don't happen in straight lines.
[2]I wrote this as prima facie conflict in my original post.
[3]As to your concerns about spatial and temporal reach, the short answer is that the Church teaches that the invincibly ignorant don't go to Hell. The longer answer will require a reply of its own.

Alexander wrote:

I think it's fairly plain that the Thomistic conception of God is unrestricted by time. Brian Davies has argued that, as Pure Act, God cannot change, making the idea of a temporal God meaningless. As Unparticipated Esse, God cannot be dependent on a reality beyond himself - if God were temporal, his being would (in some sense) be dependent on, or conditioned by, time. The idea that God is "the fullness of Being" seems to me to imply that God must not possess his being "successively", as we do. The kalam argument gives a quicker, more direct, way of inferring the timelessness of God, but I don't think it is necessary for such knowledge, and neither would most Thomists (as I understand it).

Right. Since the First Way gives a Being of Pure Act, it gives immutability and simplicity. 

On a Thomistic conception of time, time is a measure of change and not the other way around. Since God is immutable, He doesn't change. Since time is a measure of change and God doesn't change, God cannot be analyzed or measured in terms of time. This seems to me to give timelessness, especially if we look at the word as is without presuming that it means “'outside' of time”, which itself seems to suggest time is a dimension like space.

musiclover wrote:

Scott - Yes, but do you agree that a being whose essence is identical with *its* existence is not existence itself?

Not if you also claim and argue, as Thomists do, that the Being is also the ground of all other being.

Hi Mark,

Everything that exists has being and everything that has being exists. The scholastics use the terms interchangeably, as synonyms[1].

Ed distinguishes between real beings and beings of reason. Real beings have mind-independent existence. Beings of reason have only mind-dependent existence. Both kinds of beings, however, exist.

Real beings can also have properties that be in two distinct kinds of ways. Their properties can either be actual (be-in-act) or be as potencies (be-in-potency). For example, a flaming branch's property of being hot is actual, because it's on fire. In contrast, its property of being cold is a potency (a potentiality), because you could cool the branch by dumping ice water on it. Both real beings' actualities and their potencies, however, exist or have being. In contrast, beings of reason be-in-act only[2]. 

What's almost certainly meant by God having "more being" is that He is pure being-in-act, without in any way having potencies or being-in-potency. Since actualities and potencies are simply different kinds of being, I'm not sure the expression is totally correct. But that's almost certainly what's meant.


[1]Though I'm not sure scholastics actually used the word existent, the nouns existent and being are also synonyms.
[2]I'm not 100% sure about this part. I could be wrong that beings of reason cannot have potencies. Either way, it's not that important for our purposes in this instance.