Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Does the Munnchausen trilemma prove brute facts and disprove the PSR

**Posted by Callum** 10/25/2017 2:38 pm

Camoden wrote:
Callum wrote:
Ok, i'll be able to post properly later, but heres one quick question;

The choice God has between creating a world and not creatin5a world is not the same as the old Buddhist donkey experiment, where the donkey has two pales of hay on either side of equal distance apart and died of starvation because he couldn't choose?

If the donkey did choose it would seem to be a brute fact which one was chosen. Is it the same for God creating or not creating? Or does he have something intrinsic too him (omniscience say) which would make one choice over the other the better choice?
Well Leibniz denies Burdian's ass is even possible in his discourse with Clarke. He believes in the identity of the indiscernibles. I agree at some point the differences between worlds will become minuscule, but the God who numbers the hairs on your head (Luke 12:7) has wisdom that extends even to these ordinarily small matters. Augustine argued that the number of saved souls, and the types of souls that were saved was a great reason for creation. I am inclined to believe this is at least warranted.

Ahh ok. The analogy of Burdian's ass (thanks for letting me know what it's called) doesnt translate well to God's decision to create because there may be no equal choices?

Quick question regarding Leibniz, didn't he subsribe to deism and dismiss the possibility of miracles or am I making that up?

**Posted by Camoden** 10/25/2017 2:55 pm

No, that isn’t quite right. Miracles were treated different by Leibniz. But no, I have never gotten the deistic elements of Leibniz’s theology, except that preestablished harmony is a thing. This makes his treatment of miracles different, but not inherently un Christian. Leibniz’s view is that God’s general will is that each thing behave in a general fashion, but that things often do turn course from this based on God’s particular will.

Last edited by Camoden (10/25/2017 3:43 pm)

**Posted by Callum** 10/30/2017 5:10 pm

UGADawg wrote:
The sort of hypothetical necessity in question isn't incompatible with God being free. For one thing, recall his action is still free at least in the sense that it is not caused by anything prior to him. For another thing, understand that when we make a choice we (a) have some goal or end in mind; and (b) we think we know the means of achieving that end. Now, given God's nature, he has some specific goal or end in mind, and given his omniscience, he knows with absolute certainty how to achieve that end. For God to do anything to the contrary, then, would literally be for him to act irrationally, and it's absurd to suppose God isn't free merely because he doesn't behave irrationally.

See Lloyd Gerson's paper Two Criticisms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

More time to reply properly now.

Wouldn't God need to be unconstrained from anything external to him AND his nature in order to call him free? It's obviously important to maintain God's freedom to dodge neccetarianism?

**Posted by UGADawg** 10/30/2017 6:35 pm

Think of it like this: given divine simplicity, how could God's choice be anything other than necessary? To say the choice is contingent seems to imply God has a necessary part (his nature or whatever) and a contingent part (whatever is associated with the contingent choice) which is contrary to classical theism. And I don't see any reason to think this implies he isn't free, perhaps unless you prefer some libertarian free will (though, even then, the choice isn't due to prior causes, as was mentioned).

And I don't really find necessitarianism objectionable. It's really no more objectionable than run-of-the-mill determinism.

Last edited by UGADawg (10/30/2017 6:36 pm)

**Posted by Callum** 10/31/2017 3:22 am

UGADawg wrote:
Think of it like this: given divine simplicity, how could God's choice be anything other than necessary? To say the choice is contingent seems to imply God has a necessary part (his nature or whatever) and a contingent part (whatever is associated with the contingent choice) which is contrary to classical theism. And I don't see any reason to think this implies he isn't free, perhaps unless you prefer some libertarian free will (though, even then, the choice isn't due to prior causes, as was mentioned).

And I don't really find necessitarianism objectionable. It's really no more objectionable than run-of-the-mill determinism.

Sure I see where you are coming from, but necessitarianism is a tough pill to swallow. It's an interesting point that determinism may follow the same route anyway. However, it still seems that God isn't free. Would you say the PSR rules out libertarian free will or divine simplicity rules it out?

This would obviously seem to shake tue foundations of religion too.

Last edited by Callum (10/31/2017 1:02 pm)

**Posted by UGADawg** 10/31/2017 6:25 pm

Well, suppose you prefer state of affairs X to Y, and you know exactly how to bring either state of affairs about (and have the ability to do so, of course). If that's true, would it make sense to say you'd ever pick Y over X? To me it seems the answer is "no," and in fact if you did pick Y over X given the conditions here, it means you prefer the former to the latter (which is contrary to the initial assumption). Yet it's not clear to me how any of this would imply the choice of X over Y wasn't free, even though we'd never choose otherwise and, in a sense, couldn't choose otherwise given the assumptions.

Last edited by UGADawg (10/31/2017 6:27 pm)

**Posted by Callum** 11/01/2017 1:54 pm

UGADawg wrote:
Well, suppose you prefer state of affairs X to Y, and you know exactly how to bring either state of affairs about (and have the ability to do so, of course). If that's true, would it make sense to say you'd ever pick Y over X? To me it seems the answer is "no," and in fact if you did pick Y over X given the conditions here, it means you prefer the former to the latter (which is contrary to the initial assumption). Yet it's not clear to me how any of this would imply the choice of X over Y wasn't free, even though we'd never choose otherwise and, in a sense, couldn't choose otherwise given the assumptions.

Yeh, I see your point.

What about our free will? Is that compatible with classical theism then?

**Posted by UGADawg** 11/01/2017 7:24 pm

Probably not in the libertarian sense, though it's surely consistent with compatiblism.

**Posted by Callum** 12/28/2017 12:28 pm

UGADawg wrote:
Probably not in the libertarian sense, though it's surely consistent with compatiblism.

Apologies for the late reply. Would you say Aquinas was a compatiblist? Feser's exposition of the will in 'Aquinas' sure did sound like compatiblism to me

**Posted by Miguel** 12/30/2017 11:54 am

I am frankly unimpressed by the Münchhausen trilemma. I see no problem whatsoever with self-evidence. There is no infinite regress involved, and no axiomatic postulation whatsoever. Rather, the proposition is self-evidently true.

The principle of non-contradiction is a self-evident truth. We know it is true with 100% certainty; it cannot be doubted and just by grasping its meaning we already know it describes a necessarily true fact. So?