Humility: Good or Bad?

[Probius]

No.  Because the "laws" are Him in a sense, since He is the cause of all order and Truth.  So if one of His truths is that miracles exist, then they exist.

But, God cannot contradict himself.  If God is the natural law, then his breaking the natural law would contradict himself.

If you owned a pizzeria and you had a rule that you would serve only coke no pepsi...but one day you saw you could save money by switching to pepsi...you would not be contradicting yourself by switching.

You're confusing the metaphysical from the man made.  Put in other terms, you are confusing natural laws from man made laws.  Man made laws can be changed on a whim, they are not eternal.  Natural laws are eternal and couldn't possibly be any other way, gravity for instance.

[voxxpopulisuxx]

No.  Because the "laws" are Him in a sense, since He is the cause of all order and Truth.  So if one of His truths is that miracles exist, then they exist.

But, God cannot contradict himself.  If God is the natural law, then his breaking the natural law would contradict himself.

If you owned a pizzeria and you had a rule that you would serve only coke no pepsi...but one day you saw you could save money by switching to pepsi...you would not be contradicting yourself by switching.

You're confusing the metaphysical from the man made.  Put in other terms, you are confusing natural laws from man made laws.  Man made laws can be changed on a whim, they are not eternal.  Natural laws are eternal and couldn't possibly be any other way, gravity for instance.

No I am speaking of eternal verities of authority....which you ridiculously reject while at the same time appealing to them within your own person. The Pizzeria owner has the AUTHORITY to change the coke/pepsi rule because he is the AUTHOR of the rule. God is the AUTHOR of nature therefore nature can be changed by Him with zero contradiction. And last I checked the natural world as we Know it is provably finite and non eternal.

[Probius]

No.  Because the "laws" are Him in a sense, since He is the cause of all order and Truth.  So if one of His truths is that miracles exist, then they exist.

But, God cannot contradict himself.  If God is the natural law, then his breaking the natural law would contradict himself.

If you owned a pizzeria and you had a rule that you would serve only coke no pepsi...but one day you saw you could save money by switching to pepsi...you would not be contradicting yourself by switching.

You're confusing the metaphysical from the man made.  Put in other terms, you are confusing natural laws from man made laws.  Man made laws can be changed on a whim, they are not eternal.  Natural laws are eternal and couldn't possibly be any other way, gravity for instance.

No I am speaking of eternal verities of authority....which you ridiculously reject while at the same time appealing to them within your own person. The Pizzeria owner has the AUTHORITY to change the coke/pepsi rule because he is the AUTHOR of the rule. God is the AUTHOR of nature therefore nature can be changed by Him with zero contradiction. And last I checked the natural world as we Know it is provably finite and non eternal.

Authority over your own person is vastly different from authority over others.  You have no right to rule over another man, as you are not his superior.

You're still doing the same thing.  The pizzeria owner can change his rule, he could sell Coke today and Pepsi at some future date.  Natural laws are true laws in that they cannot be changed; if they could, they would not be laws.  Gravity is a law; every time I drop an object, it will fall.  The object will never go flying into the air, because gravity will never cease to be.  This is true no matter where in the universe we go.  Even if we traveled to the farthest ends of the universe, the natural laws would still be the same.  This is because we live in a logical world governed by natural laws; which are immutable, uncreated, and eternal.  They are necessary metaphysical facts of the universe and they cannot change.  Natural laws are fundamentally different than human laws.

[voxxpopulisuxx]

The author of the laws have authority over the laws

[james03]

Natural laws are fundamentally different than human laws.

Correct, because God authored them.  He therefore has the authority to change them or suspend them.  When He suspends them, we call that a miracle.  As far as we know, He has never changed them, but maybe He has.

[JuniorCouncilor]

You're still doing the same thing.  The pizzeria owner can change his rule, he could sell Coke today and Pepsi at some future date.  Natural laws are true laws in that they cannot be changed; if they could, they would not be laws.  Gravity is a law; every time I drop an object, it will fall.  The object will never go flying into the air, because gravity will never cease to be. 

Yet any time we wish, human beings can cause objects to "defy gravity" by picking them up, throwing them, kicking them, etc.  In a similar way, God can cause objects to "defy gravity."

I think perhaps the confusion is that you are assuming that we understand all "natural" laws à fond.  That is not true, and probably never will be true-- we will always be able to understand them more perfectly.  At any rate, we will never understand them anywhere near perfectly if we do not first understand that most fundamental of all laws, that God is the Ruler of Nature.

[Probius]

When you throw a rock into the air, your action does not cause gravity to disappear, nor does it cause gravity to cease acting upon the rock.  The rock is still being acted upon by gravity, and when the rock loses the forward momentum from your throw, it will fall.  One might even claim that an airplane defies gravity, yet we know this to not be true.  The airplane uses lift and thrust to stay in the air, all the while gravity still exists and acts upon the airplane.  If the plane pulls up sharply, it will lose lift and the nose will drop.  For a few seconds the plane has ceased to fly, this is a stall.  Once the nose falls, the plane picks up speed and lift, and returns to flying.  The plane also needs fuel to remain airborne, once the fuel runs out, it will cease flying.  Gravity never ceases acting upon objects.  If God can only defy the natural laws in this manner, he is not really defying them.

I am speaking of metaphysics here, not epistemology.  Things are what they are, and natural laws are what they are.  If men don't understand a natural law completely, it is man's knowledge which is insufficient and not the law.  Natural law does not change when our knowledge of it changes.  If a miracle involves a natural law that is not known to men, then it is not a miracle.  This would mean the phenomenon is being governed by a law men don't yet understand, not that it has broken the natural law.

[Non Nobis]

It seems that natural (physical) law is like God for you - eternal, unchangeable, the cause  of all physical things; this is a dogma for you.  But I think natural law is the ordinary course of physical affairs, the usual causality that God planned for the physical world.  But God is the author of the usual causality, and can work outside and beyond it.

God is not natural (physical) law, and could have changed it at creation (come on; does gravity have  to be eternal?)  But  God has (is) various attributes:  e.g. goodness and truth. Moral (natural) law is rooted in an unchanging God.

[voxxpopulisuxx]

When you throw a rock into the air, your action does not cause gravity to disappear, nor does it cause gravity to cease acting upon the rock.  The rock is still being acted upon by gravity, and when the rock loses the forward momentum from your throw, it will fall.  One might even claim that an airplane defies gravity, yet we know this to not be true.  The airplane uses lift and thrust to stay in the air, all the while gravity still exists and acts upon the airplane.  If the plane pulls up sharply, it will lose lift and the nose will drop.  For a few seconds the plane has ceased to fly, this is a stall.  Once the nose falls, the plane picks up speed and lift, and returns to flying.  The plane also needs fuel to remain airborne, once the fuel runs out, it will cease flying.  Gravity never ceases acting upon objects.  If God can only defy the natural laws in this manner, he is not really defying them.

I am speaking of metaphysics here, not epistemology.  Things are what they are, and natural laws are what they are.  If men don't understand a natural law completely, it is man's knowledge which is insufficient and not the law.  Natural law does not change when our knowledge of it changes.  If a miracle involves a natural law that is not known to men, then it is not a miracle.  This would mean the phenomenon is being governed by a law men don't yet understand, not that it has broken the natural law.

You remind me of the jungle tribe who saw an airplane once and made a god out of it.

[Probius]

"Nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated . . . it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the law of identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given—i.e., the nature of nature is outside the power of any volition."  - Ayn Rand

I love this quote by Ayn Rand, it sums up beautifully her metaphysics.  The universe is explained adequately by the law of identity, it is what it is.  The universe also cannot be what it is not.  As Miss Rand explains, the law of causality is the law of identity in action.  Everything that is has an identity and acts according to its nature.  For a thing to act against its nature would violate the law of causality, and thus the law of identity.  To act against its nature is to be what it is not.  If a natural law was broken, it would not be a natural law, it would only be a tendency.  As Francis Bacon said, "nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

I don't accept dogma, I only accept reality.  The truth is the one thing that really matters, and that is based upon reality.  I do think of nature in a similar manner as you think of God, except nature has no volition and cannot change its laws.  Nature in itself is neither true nor false, it simply is.  My idea of nature can be either true or false depending on how my ideas conform to nature.  In order to come to truth, I must accept nature as it is.

[voxxpopulisuxx]

"Nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated . . . it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the law of identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given—i.e., the nature of nature is outside the power of any volition."

I love this quote by Ayn Rand, it sums up beautifully her metaphysics.  The universe is explained adequately by the law of identity, it is what it is.  The universe also cannot be what it is not.  As Miss Rand explains, the law of causality is the law of identity in action.  Everything that is has an identity and acts according to its nature.  For a thing to act against its nature would violate the law of causality, and thus the law of identity.  To act against its nature is to be what it is not.  If a natural law was broken, it would not be a natural law, it would only be a tendency.  As Francis Bacon said, "nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

I don't accept dogma, I only accept reality.  The truth is the one thing that really matters, and that is based upon reality.  I do think of nature in a similar manner as you think of God, except nature has no volition and cannot change its laws.  Nature in itself is neither true nor false, it simply is.  My idea of nature can be either true or false depending on how my ideas conform to nature.  In order to come to truth, I must accept nature as it is.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5iqYuFmzqg[/yt]

[Probius]

Voxx, your replies add nothing to what has otherwise been an interesting discussion.  Have you anything new to add?

[red solo cup]

Have you ever read anything about Rand's personal life CF ?

[Probius]

Have you ever read anything about Rand's personal life CF ?

I have read a little about Ayn Rand's personal life.  She didn't live the best life, and didn't always follow her own philosophy.  Miss Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905.  She lied to the Soviet government in 1926 in order to get into the US.  She told the Soviet government that she wanted to be a director and make propaganda films for the Communist Party.  The Soviet government gave her a 6 month visa to study films in the US, she spent this 6 months in Chicago watching films for free in a theater owned by her cousins.  After her visa ran up she moved to Hollywood to be an extra in movies.  Shortly after arriving in Hollywood she met Cecil B. Demill and became involved in the industry.  Around this time she met Frank O'Conner, whom she would marry.  This marriage lasted over 50 years until his death in 1979.  Sometime in the late '40's Miss Rand met Nathaniel Branden and began a long lasting affair with him, until he ran out on her with a younger woman.  This somehow didn't end her marriage with Frank O'Conner.  She never had children, but I have never read anything as to why not.  She died in 1982 and was buried next to her husband Frank.  She lived a good life for the most part, though the long affair with Nathaniel went against her own philosophy.  She had to have felt guilty about that.  That's about all I know.

[Kaesekopf]

She sounds like a lying mooch.