Theology Club: The Big Picture

[Clete]

Is that so? Or is it that a logical tautology is an example of the Law of Identity?

Fascinating question!

I guess you could say that both are true but its sort of ridiculous to say the latter. I mean, everything that is true is an example of the law of identity (or one of it's corollaries) and so it would be making a distinction without a difference.

Yes, I have only been using tautology in the logical sense because while I had been aware of its rhetorical sense, I have never personally either used it that way nor heard or read anyone else do so, and I presumptuously supposed that this was the case for most everybody else. My bad.

:up:

"The boss is in charge" is a definition. Do you take definitions to be instantiations of the Law of Identity, as I take them to be tautologous?

It is not a definition, it is a self-repetitive statement (see what I did there?). The definition of the word "Boss" would be slightly different. It would be, "The person who is in charge." The difference being subtle to be sure but quite important, at least in a discussion where tautologies are the subject.

A rhetorical tautology is a statement that is true MERELY based on the fact that it is stating the same thing twice with different words. The Greeks made fun of it because it simply amounts to repeating yourself and acting as if you've said something important. It's like describing someone as being a dark-haired brunette or explaining how you visually saw something or how a statement is "self-repetitive". It's just kind of a silly thing to say.

The law of identity is quite a different thing. It's stating that existence is real, which, as you can readily see, looks tautologous except that it is stating a first principle and as such is stating something meaningful and not merely repetitive. This is the difference between a logical tautology and a rhetorical one.

I don't know. I know that Wittgenstein latched onto the word and popularized its use in that field.

The Wikipedia article goes into it in some detail.

I didn't know I was being offensive, my apologies.

No offense! Just potential confusion, that's all.

Can you suggest another word instead, that denotes exactly the same things? I'm not stuck on tautology, I considered platitude, but they platitudes are not all derivations of the Law of Identity.

The term is fine. I suggest simply adding the word 'logical' or 'rhetorical' to the term depending on which sense of the word 'tautology' you are using.

And do you equate derivations and instantiations of the Law of Identity, or are they different things?

I think logical tautologies are very specific things and while 'A is A' fits the definition (as do all the laws of reason), I can't say that all logical tautologies are derivations of the law of identity, although they may well be. It's a sort of confusing question because I've never heard the term 'logical tautology' used outside the context of formally stated formulas and truth tables.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[patrick jane]

I think common sense rules the day

 

[TIPlatypus]

Clete

What about the old dilemma, I forget what it is called:

If, over time you replace, all the planks,and all the nails and all the sails and all the ropes and rigging on a ship over time, is it still the same ship?

What if you used the original parts of the ship to make a completely new ship. Is the new ship the same ship as the old ship?

 

[Clete]

Clete

What about the old dilemma, I forget what it is called:

If, over time you replace, all the planks,and all the nails and all the sails and all the ropes and rigging on a ship over time, is it still the same ship?

What if you used the original parts of the ship to make a completely new ship. Is the new ship the same ship as the old ship?

The more classic form of the same question is...

Consider a candle flame. It's obviously the same flame from one moment to the next but its constantly changing, does that make it a different flame?

The answer depends on what the person giving the answer means by the word "change". Given a specific meaning of all the terms in the question, there is only one true answer, thus the law of excluded middle holds.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Arsenios, I also was thinking about this:
1324 The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.

Thomas Watson, The Lord's Supper - pages 1 and 2.
"'The celebration of the Lord's Supper is the commemoration of the greatest blessing that ever the world enjoyed', says Chrysostom. A sacrament is a visible sermon. And herein the sacrament excels the Word preached. The Word is a trumpet to proclaim Christ, the sacrament is a glass to represent Him."

I take Watson to mean that by "herein the sacrament excels" to mean "in this particular way." Not in any or every way. And Watson further explains the way he has in mind: as a trumpet cannot show what the glass is capable of showing in its own inimitable way.

I am sure Watson would set the preached word as the most indispensable of the divine gifts, Christ himself excepted. But there is one advantage to a foundation and a thing of immense utility; and another kind of special advantage to a tool of special utility that reaches its object after the effort of the first. In just that way, the latter "excels" the first. It is not "greater" in the sense that it could be used whether or not for the first. There is a connection.

AMR

 

[Arsenios]

Clete

What about the old dilemma, I forget what it is called:

If, over time you replace, all the planks,and all the nails and all the sails and all the ropes and rigging on a ship over time, is it still the same ship?

What if you used the original parts of the ship to make a completely new ship. Is the new ship the same ship as the old ship?

In the same river, different water flows - Heracleitos - 6th Century BC

Change is the unchanging first principle...

Which crucifies the Law of Identity...

Arsenios

 

[Nihilo]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about equivocation recently. And with it, these other terms: ambiguity, and homonyms.

From the link today:

“In non-technical contexts, the term "homonym" may be used (somewhat confusingly) to refer to words that are either homographs or homophones.[1] The words row (propel with oars) and row (argument) and row (a linear arrangement of seating) are considered homographs, while the words read (peruse) and reed (waterside plant) would be considered homophones; under this looser definition, both groups of words represent groups of homonyms.”
​

I think that this second paragraph is equivalent in every way to saying that homonym is a homonym.

I feel that there is a lot of trouble communicating within the same language with others because of these issues, and that equivocation frequently occurs inadvertently and unconsciously.

DR and I differ over existence and reality. By existence I mean logical existence (may or may not be real) and actual existence (real, may or may not be fictional). By reality I mean either fictional or not fictional, or both fictional and not fictional.

What I would consider existent and unreal is that which is logically possible (synonym to logical existence) but is utterly unimagined and consciously both unapprehended and unexpressed. That which is named is real, and exists, both; even if fictional.

"The War of the Worlds" exists logically and actually, and is real; and is fictional.

It's false to say that anything fictional is therefore necessarily insignificant and unimportant.

That which logically exists but is unreal cannot be said because it is that which is logically possible but is as yet unimagined and unobserved and unexperienced and unexpressed. Fermat's last theorem, up til recently, sort of, for example.

Logical existence complements actual existence with this condition: everything that actually exists is assumed to also simultaneously logically exist. And everything that actually exists is real, whether fictional or not, or both fictional and not.

The most obvious manifestation of this is when we put into our own words what our interlocutors are saying---IOW, what we think they're saying, how we hear and read and otherwise interpret what is being said.

So frequently, the discussion/argument degenerates immediately into retorts like, "I never said that," and, "That's not what I meant."

I think it's a plague. I don't have a solution.

I was wrong about all this.

 

[Clete]

In the same river, different water flows - Heracleitos - 6th Century BC

Change is the unchanging first principle...

Which crucifies the Law of Identity...

Arsenios

:rotfl:

That's the stupidest post on TOL this month - easy!

It not only does it do nothing at all to the Law of Identity it crucifies your own doctrine!

That is unless you DON'T count God as the immutable, unmoved mover that nearly all Christians believe Him to be. Come to think of it, I don't know anything about what you believe. Are you even a Christian or are you some sort of eastern mysticism "both/and" idiot or what?

 

[TIPlatypus]

The more classic form of the same question is...

Consider a candle flame. It's obviously the same flame from one moment to the next but its constantly changing, does that make it a different flame?

The answer depends on what the person giving the answer means by the word "change". Given a specific meaning of all the terms in the question, there is only one true answer, thus the law of excluded middle holds.

But the law of identity doesn't. I am not disputing the validity of these rules, merely the extent to which they can be meaningfully applied to the real world.

This is because as soon as you make a statement about something, you are change the definition of it, even if your statement is as trivial as "A is A."

What these laws of logic really are, are descriptions of how the mind works. In fact, at least at this level, these laws of reason are the only method we have of describing the universe. So when talking about the universe, saying that it follows the laws of reason is not saying anything. Because the laws of reason are our method of describing the universe.

As with the example of the candle flame and the ship, these rules need something more to keep them meaningful.

 

[Arsenios]

:rotfl:

That's the stupidest post on TOL this month - easy!

Thank you for the kindness of your words and thoughts...

It not only does it do nothing at all to the Law of Identity

When something is what it is, then it is not what it is not...

When it changes, it becomes what it is not in a specific way...

Things all change...

Therefore they all are what they are not...

As human beings, we treat them as if they are the same without change from one moment to the next so that we can regard them logically...

The paradoxes of Zeno are only answered empirically...

Logically, they are frozen...

it crucifies your own doctrine!

Christ crucified is my doctrine...

That is unless you DON'T count God as the immutable, unmoved mover
that nearly all Christians believe Him to be.

Christians KNOW God as Three Persons...

Immutable unmoved movers are creatures of pre-Christian pagan philosophers...
This one being Aristotle...

Come to think of it,
I don't know anything
about what you believe.

Glory to God! We finally agree on an opinion!

Are you even a Christian

Oh yes...

or are you some sort of eastern mysticism "both/and" idiot

I am just a sinner who loves God and who treasures you...

or what?

Pretty much...

The etiology of existence and change is the will of God...

Reason is a feature of fallen human existence...

Knowledge being the conceptual possession of a subject that has reference to objects through perceptions is a VERY defective kind of knowledge...

Life Eternal is the ONTOLOGICAL KNOWING (eg as in conjugal) of our Creator...

I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian...

I used to teach Ayn Rand's philosophy...

I am your friend, like it or not!

Arsenios

 

[Clete]

Thank you for the kindness of your words and thoughts...

Hey! I call it as I see it! You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.

When something is what it is, then it is not what it is not...

Exactly.

When it changes, it becomes what it is not in a specific way...

Nope! It's still is what it is, even if what it is now isn't what it was before.

Things all change...

Change is what it is.

Therefore they all are what they are not...

Stupidity.

Seriously. I'm not gratuitously insulting you. That is genuinely stupid. If this post is what passes for proper thinking in your mind, it throws everything you think you know into question.

As human beings, we treat them as if they are the same without change from one moment to the next so that we can regard them logically...

No, we do not! What planet are you from?

You think an apple tree stops being an apple tree because it blooms in spring?

Some things are more dynamic that others. How in the world could such a truth do any harm to the law of identity? Dynamic systems are what they are - dynamic!

You might argue that to one degree or another, all systems are dynamic. If so, then that claim is either true or it is false (law of excluded middle).

In short, that fact that things change (or the fact that they have any other property that you can think of) does not do any harm to the laws of reason. You wouldn't even be able to say, "Things change." and understand what you said if the laws of reason didn't work.

The paradoxes of Zeno are only answered empirically...

Logically, they are frozen...

Not so! Zeno's paradoxes of motion have no empirical counterpart. They are not physics problems at all. That is the error in the logic! They are in fact mathematical problems and find their solution in Calculus. It's not even good math, really because infinity is not a number, its an idea. Not that it matters for this discussion. The point is that there is, and has been for a long time now, a really well understood resolution to Zeno's paradoxes of motion.

Further, even if it were true that they had not been resolved, it wouldn't matter because they are paradoxes, not contradictions. There's no way you're going to understand the difference but suffice it to say that there are very good reasons why paradoxes (of which there are many) do not destroy logic, chief among them being the fact that without logic, a paradox is undetectable, not to mention hopelessly unsolvable.

Christ crucified is my doctrine...



Christians KNOW God as Three Persons...

Immutable unmoved movers are creatures of pre-Christian pagan philosophers...
This one being Aristotle...

I agree with you! The death of God on the Cross is the most profound and important change that has ever occurred, followed closely by God having become a man.

I was responding to your statement that, "Change is the unchanging first principle..."

That comment flies in the face of easily 90% or more of what Christians believe. Nearly all of Christendom teaches that God Himself is the immutable first principle and that your comment equates the concept of change with the Creator. The fact that you believe God is not the immutable unmoved mover is rather astonishing. Do you reject the rest of the Augustinian doctrines that are logically derived from this premise (i.e. Omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, predestination, total depravity, etc.)

I am just a sinner who loves God and who treasures you...



Pretty much...

The etiology of existence and change is the will of God...

Reason is a feature of fallen human existence...

Knowledge being the conceptual possession of a subject that has reference to objects through perceptions is a VERY defective kind of knowledge...

Life Eternal is the ONTOLOGICAL KNOWING (eg as in conjugal) of our Creator...

I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian...

Then you believe that God is immutable!

Come on! What do you take me for? You no more believe that change is the unchanging first principle than you believe that the moon is made of cheese! Practically your entire theology proper is based on Augustinian nonsense that he got from reading Plato! Not to suggest that your faith takes those ideas anywhere near to the extreme that Calvinists do but simply to say that, insofar as your theology of God is concerned, you're essentially identical to Catholics which means you believe that God is immutable, that He knows everything whether He wants to or not, He exists everywhere (even places He doesn't want to be and places that do not exist), etc.

Was this just an intentional waste of my time or what?

I used to teach Ayn Rand's philosophy...

I DO NOT believe you! You don't even understand the most basic principles upon which her philosophy was based! If you got paid for such teaching, you aught to do the right thing and refund the money.

I am your friend, like it or not!

Arsenios

Why wouldn't I like it?

Grow a thicker skin and you'll like me a lot more. If you say something laughably stupid, I'm going to laugh and say that what you said was stupid. That doesn't mean I consider you an enemy.

 

[Clete]

But the law of identity doesn't.

Yes it does! :bang:

The flame (or whatever dynamic system you which to talk about) is dynamic by definition. If it weren't dynamic it wouldn't be a flame in the first place.

The dynamic is dynamic. A is A!

I am not disputing the validity of these rules, merely the extent to which they can be meaningfully applied to the real world.

To do the later is to do the former. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

This is because as soon as you make a statement about something, you are change the definition of it, even if your statement is as trivial as "A is A."

Does that include the statement you just made?

That question answers itself, by the way.

You cannot escape the laws of reason. No matter how hard you try. The laws of reason are simply derived from the nature of reality. To deny the laws of reason is to deny reality. And as Rand so rightly pointed out, reality is not to be wiped out, it (reality) will merely wipe out the wiper.

What these laws of logic really are, are descriptions of how the mind works.

NO NO NO!!!!

People do and say irrational things all the time! This is not the way the mind works, its how REALITY works and therefore how you aught to FORCE your mind to work.

"[Reason] is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort." - Rand​

In fact, at least at this level, these laws of reason are the only method we have of describing the universe. So when talking about the universe, saying that it follows the laws of reason is not saying anything. Because the laws of reason are our method of describing the universe.

This is just so false, I don't even know where to begin. They aren't "our" method, they are THE ONLY method. You cannot even postulate or even begin to communicate another method without using the laws of reason to do it.

As I've been saying, you cannot escape the laws of reason. Every syllable you use to undermine them, uses them.

As with the example of the candle flame and the ship, these rules need something more to keep them meaningful.

No, they don't. See above.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Arsenios]

Hey! I call it as I see it!
You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.
​​​​​​

I would encourage you to think more deeply into these matters...

Logically, Zeno cannot leave A, let alone get to B...
Empirically, we step from A to B...

Therefore: Logic does not encompass existence...

​​​​​​

Existence still is what it is,
even if what it is now
isn't what it was before.
​​​​​​

Then it is what it isn't, because it now isn't what it was.

​​​​​​

Change is what it is.​​​​​​

Change it movement from what is to what is not...

That which changes cannot change without having what it has not...

​​​​​​

In short, that fact that things change (or the fact that they have any other property that you can think of) does not do any harm to the laws of reason. You wouldn't even be able to say, "Things change." and understand what you said if the laws of reason didn't work.​​​​​​

You are affirming the absolutism of reason to apprehend reality,
and I am affirming the falleness of the reality apprehended by reason...

Reason as an existent is a minutely small item in what is real...
Reality is greater than reason...

​​​​​​

I was responding to your statement that, "Change is the unchanging first principle..."​​​​​​

I feared as much - I did say that, but it was in response to, and a differently similar parallel, to another poster's point, showing that he had been anticipated in 600BC - The statement summarized both his and Heracleitos' understanding, and in that understanding, "Change is the unchanging first principle", which does indeed have certain cognitive consequences... But you are right, I do not hold to this view at all... I affirm philosophic nihilism, or: "Philosophy is intrinsicly nihilistic"...

Not to mention boring...

​​​​​​

The fact that you believe God is not the immutable unmoved mover is rather astonishing. Do you reject the rest of the Augustinian doctrines that are logically derived from this premise (i.e. Omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, predestination, total depravity, etc.) ​​​​​​

I reject logical derivation in Christian doctrine...

​​​​​​

I DO NOT believe you!
You don't even understand the most basic principles upon which her philosophy was based!
If you got paid for such teaching, you aught to do the right thing and refund the money.​​​​​​

Too funny! I was not paid to teach Objectivism - It was a student club at SDSU back in the 60's and early '70's... I knew Nathaniel Branden... I was an atheist under her tuteledge and Nathan's until I suffered Aquinas' fate and encountered God... It is all straw, my Brother... Every word of it...

​​​​​​

Why wouldn't I like it?​​​​​​

I don't think you like stupid, that's why!

​​​​​​

Grow a thicker skin and you'll like me a lot more.​​​​​​

I like you fine right now - And besides, I am taking sensitivity classes, and am not supposed to grow thicker skin, lest I flunk out... I used to live in the Objectivist ethereals where you are hanging out right now... In my 20's... 50 years ago... You are familiar to me...

​​​​​​Arsenios

 

[Clete]

Anyone who debates Arsinios after having read his last post is a fool.

Talk to him about pin wheels and butterflies. Talk to him about whether a steak tastes better well done or medium rare. Talk to him about anything trivial or opinion based but do not debate him. He has removed his head.

 

[Arsenios]

Anyone
who debates Arsinios
after having read his last post
is a fool.

Words are futile!!

But you may notice that I am no Wesley Mouche...

God cursed the ground upon the fall of Adam and banished him from the Garden...

Holy Tradition finds Adam not leaving the gates of Eden, into which he was unable to re-enter, the entirety of the span of his lifetime - More than 900 years...

HE knew what he had lost...
YOU and I not so much...

So I have a proposal! Screw debate! You can just talk to me!

I mean, what a concept!

Talk to him about pin wheels and butterflies.
Talk to him about whether a steak tastes better well done or medium rare.
Talk to him about anything trivial or opinion based
but do not debate him.
He has removed his head.

I know - YOU want to talk about REAL, SOLID, OBJECTIVE EXISTENCE...

But consider this:

Have you ever changed your mind?
As in a major turn-around of thought?
I sure hope so...

I have too...

The whole Rand corpus of understanding rests on the premise of the SUBORDINATION of thought to MATERIAL EXISTENCE, does it not? That is perfectly reasonable, and provides the person a baseline for judgement... But IF you live in such a world, then you are SUBJECT to MATERIALITY, which is CREATED by God... And the whole point of the Christian Faith is to NOT BE SUBJECT to creation, but to God Who created creation...

And in this means that if one clings to the logical apprehension one has acquired in dealing with OBJECTS, in one's apprehension of God, one will not be able to avoid apprehending God qua creation, eg as created... Objectivism is fine for apprehending objects, you see... Trains and quarries of stone and dynamite and objects of art - Haut Cusine anyone? - But it cannot effectively engage issues of the mind which are not objects... And in the heart of fallen man exist good and evil, and dealing with evil is NOT merely a matter of judging evil as evil and turning away to the good... We are WAY deeper than that...

Which is why the Gospel reads:

Be ye repenting...
And be ye baptized...
Because...
The Kingdom of Heaven...
IS at hand...

You see, you CAN, if you so choose to do so, focus your mind on the very process of thinking...
For the Kingdom of Heaven is within you...
And so is hell...
And purification of the Heart is repentance...
It is discipled in the Body of Christ...
By those who have acquired it...

You can talk with me...

Debate is for the screw-tape-isters!

And Ayn Rand died alone and bitter...

Arsenios

 

[Desert Reign]

I use the law of gravity as an analogy and if you like you can drop the word 'law' if you wish.

OK, thanks for acknowledging this. However, I think that your following paragraphs indicate that the habit dies hard.

I am not talking about ink on paper or any description of reality but rather reality itself. No understanding of which is at all possible unless A is A. And in the same sense that you cannot walk off a cliff and expect not to fall to the bottom, you CANNOT reject, ignore or undermine the fact that A is A without a similar fate.

Now, you can write it down or not; you can call that a law or not, it is what it is because A is A regardless of what we call it or whether we call it anything or even bother to acknowledge it.

All of which, by the way, I am quite certain you agree with so I still can't figure out what your point is.

Excellent. I am glad you are seeing the difference between a law - a form of words used to describe a perceived reality - and the reality itself.

No, I mean both. A is A. Attempt to refute that and you'll have to use it as though it were true in order to make your argument. It is utterly, totally, completely and in all ways and in all contexts irrefragable - period.

Clete, you are preaching to the converted. I already acknowledged the validity of your principles of logic.

That's what makes it a law, DR! There are people who insist that they are aliens from another planet, that doesn't it true! You know why it doesn't make it true? It's because no amount of irrational stupidity can counteract 'A is A'!

But this is where you are going wrong. When reality is perceived, there are many things you can say about it. You don't have to say A about it. You can say B. Both can be true. The fact that you are not an alien from another planet is not because you are something else.

You could be a teapot and yet still be an alien from another planet. A planet where all the inhabitants are teapots. Living, reproducing, socialite teapots. All you can say is this: IF it is agreed that this is A, then it is not NOT A. This is what I mean by constraint. A constraint is something negative. Constraints arise in a shared environment. A constraint limits what you can say about some shared thing. But it doesn't dictate what you actually do say about it. Constraints arise from a shared language. You can say this is a chair but you can't say it is a cupboard. You can say it is a sofa or an armchair or a sea of comfort but you can't say it is a stool or the Atlantic Ocean. The reason for this is not only because of what the thing is in itself but because of the language we share when we make statements. Such statements are not for ourselves only. They are for all (potentially) sharers of your language. And you even assume that your statements are for all future users of your language and for all non-speakers of your language where such speakers speak a different language which can be translated into your own. However, there is an even more basic assumption at work here. It is that if the universe is one, then the reality we experience is capable of being experienced across reality as a whole. And so you assume that the language you use, because it is a language intended to be shared, is actually completely universal. It is this universality of language across reality that produces (or at least allows) conscience.

Nature is not self-contradictory. It does not break its own laws because it cannot break its own laws. The law of gravity is merely an analogy.

You seem to be lapsing back to old habits. The laws are not nature's. They are yours. The reason why nature doesn't appear to disobey them is because when you formulated them, you used, as you had to, language that was universal.

I get that Fg = G x ((m1 x m2)/ R2) is not gravity itself but merely an idea expressed to describe it. The laws of reason are a bit different though because they are ideas not objects or forces of nature. 'A is A' PERFECTLY communicates the law of identity and cannot be wrong in any context. I'm not sure that I understand what the actually difference is between the words 'A is A' and the meaning those words convey. Ideas cannot be communicated except through language so what's the point of even making the distinction? Whether I write it down or simply understand conceptually that A is A, what's the difference?

Above, I referred to the universality of language. I asked you earlier what you meant by mind when you said that the laws of reason governed the mind. You gave a somewhat dismissive answer. But it is of extreme importance. Because we have already agreed that the universe is all that is real. If this is so, then language needs to be both written on and interpreted by something that is also real. Try to understand that I am not asking you about the rationale behind the laws of reason. We have to move on from there. We need to ask what are we physically (I mean in reality) doing when we make some statement like 'This is a chair'. And what are we doing also when someone else says it to us. You pointed to vague notions of the mind but surely we should be a lot more concrete and specific than that? To avoid long posts I shall continue in another post. I suggest you wait for it.

 

[Clete]

The fact that you are not an alien from another planet is not because you are something else.

I will respond only to this single sentence for now and will wait for your next post to respond to anything else.

Your statement is not always true. Being what we Earthlings would call a blue insect, for example, may be compatible with being an alien from another planet but being a human being born of human parents in America is not.

"A is A" is an AFFIRMATIVE statement, not a negative one. As such, the laws of reason are not merely "constraints" as you call them. The constraint you refer to is nothing at all other than a statement of the law of contradiction. Contradictions are false, by definition and as such if there is an established fact that is in contradiction to the notion of one being an alien from another planet then it is BECAUSE of that fact (perhaps among others) that you can know that he is not an alien from another planet. That's how reason works. That the only way reason can work. And it works that way every single solitary time with no exceptions ever - period. Thus the term LAW is valid in all contexts and in all languages whether spoken or written or otherwise conceptualized.

Can someone please explain what this has to do with morality?

 

[Nihilo]

It's still is what it is, even if what it is now isn't what it was before.

...Nearly all of Christendom teaches that God Himself is the immutable first principle

...Then you believe that God is immutable!

...you believe that God is immutable

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "immutable."

For one thing, if our Maker is not immutable, then when I say "our Maker" now, there is no way to definitively correlate this "our Maker" with the "our Maker" from the first century, nor with "our Maker" from the time of Moses or Job, nor with "our Maker" from Genesis chapter one. (Unless there is a detailed and intricate map of sorts, that traces His changes throughout time, so that we can definitively correlate Him now with Who He used to be at each point in history. And such a map would need to be as authoritative as Sacred Scripture itself in order to be of any use to the faithful, since otherwise it must all boil down to opinions.)

And for another thing Sacred Scripture (James 1:17) specifically says concerning our Maker, "with whom is no variableness."

 

[Clete]

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "immutable."

For one thing, if our Maker is not immutable, then when I say "our Maker" now, there is no way to definitively correlate this "our Maker" with the "our Maker" from the first century, nor with "our Maker" from the time of Moses or Job, nor with "our Maker" from Genesis chapter one. (Unless there is a detailed and intricate map of sorts, that traces His changes throughout time, so that we can definitively correlate Him now with Who He used to be at each point in history. And such a map would need to be as authoritative as Sacred Scripture itself in order to be of any use to the faithful, since otherwise it must all boil down to opinions.)

This is all entirely false. You have changed in many ways since you were born but you don't have to have some third party source of information to definitively correlate the you of today with the you of your youth.

Further, the classical understanding of God's immutability is NOT in the bible at all. The Classical understanding of the term does just mean "unchanging", it means incapable of ANY change WHATSOEVER. It is entirely antithetical to scripture and would in fact falsify Christianity in particular.

And for another thing Sacred Scripture (James 1:17) specifically says concerning our Maker, "with whom is no variableness."

Yes, it does but again, the doctrine of immutability goes much further than what James says. James is simply saying that God is invariably good, that He is unalterably righteous. James, in other words, is talking about WHO God is, His character. But you'd have never heard of James if God could not change AT ALL as the doctrine of Immutability teaches. God BECAME a man (and remains one to this day). God died for you sins and mine! God rose to life from the dead by His own power. (John 10:17 - 18)

And that isn't the only way God changes. God changes His mind (Exodus 32:14). God is pleased at one time (Matt. 3:17) and angry at another (Exodus 32:10). God deals with mankind in one way and then does something entirely different later on (i.e. Law vs. Grace). Etc.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Nihilo]

You have changed in many ways since you were born but you don't have to have some third party source of information to definitively correlate the you of today with the you of your youth.

But the me of my youth was actually a different person than the me right now. We think differently, feel differently, have different habits, different preferences. There are things that are the same, sure, but there are also a lot of distinctions. This is true with everybody.

Further, the classical understanding of God's immutability is NOT in the bible at all.

I didn't bring up this classical understanding.

God BECAME a man (and remains one to this day). God died for you sins and mine! God rose to life from the dead by His own power. (John 10:17 - 18)

I'm not sure it's correct to say that our Maker died. But we agree essentially on everything else (and we may even agree on our Maker dying; I just need to study what the Holy See says about this, if anything).

And that isn't the only way God changes. God changes His mind (Exodus 32:14). God is pleased at one time (Matt. 3:17) and angry at another (Exodus 32:10). God deals with mankind in one way and then does something entirely different later on (i.e. Law vs. Grace). Etc.

OK.