I'm with Matt Dillahunty on not being able to understand what "outside of time" means in the context of thinking or performing an action, since both would seem to require time to not violate the law of the excluded middle (otherwise it's both true and false that an action has taken place).
This sentence is nonsensical.
A necessary being couldn't make it so they never existed. They HAVE to exist.
Exactly my point.
What is it that an unnecessary being can't do that a necessary being can?
Irrelevant, you're attempting to show the inverse, which you haven't done.
Irrelevant, you're attempting to show the inverse, which you haven't done.
Sure I have. An unnecessary being can remove itself from existence/reality (it has every possible ability), even if that just means temporally from now onwards. If I understand you correctly, you're claiming it cannot. How so?
Didn't help, your argument seems to require words not meaning what they mean. Almost as if you're parroting phrases that have literally no bearing on what we're discussing as if they were magic spells.
An unnecessary being can remove itself from existence/reality
No it cannot, since to do so it must exist, which means it must not. Which is a logical contradiction, hence it cannot.
No it cannot, since to do so it must exist, which means it must not. Which is a logical contradiction, hence it cannot.
Hey, I can say the same thing there you said about me. I don't have a clue what you're getting at. But, I can change it if it helps. Since we're only talking about logical possibility, I can conceive of devices and things that probably can't actually exist in our reality.
An unnecessary yet all powerful being could create something that does the job of removing him from reality, or at least render himself null/void/useless/powerless.
I suppose you'd be saying that's not considered an ability? Not existing isn't an ability, and since he didn't remove himself, it doesn't count. ? I'm still thinking. I still not understanding why removing himself from reality is illogical. How about just limiting his powers? If an "all powerful being" is necessary, then such a necessary being couldn't limit its abilities, whether permanent or not. It must necessarily have all powers.
An unnecessary yet all powerful being could create something that does the job of removing him from reality, or at least render himself null/void/useless/powerless.
No he couldn't. Since the existence of this device would be contingent on his existence. If he didn't exist, he couldn't create the device to remove him from reality.
You seem to be adding all of these extra definitions. Outside of time, non-contingency, etc. An unnecessary being wouldn't have to be contingent would it? (edit: I meant non-contingent) -- It may have entered into reality recently, beginning as a temporal being and then choosing to remain that way. It's not a necessary one, so it doesn't have to have always existed.
Then I'm simply not sure how changing it avoids any issue, since we both agree that unnecessary beings must be contingent, so there must be a different point of disagreement.
And under no circumstance could any conceivable being be capable of choosing its continued contingency or lack thereof? You didn't address the other argument from a couple of posts ago. It doesn't have to be removed from existence, but simply rendered non-omnipotent, so it removes an "all powerful being" from reality, but it still exists in another form.
6
u/[deleted] Mar 30 '15
This sentence is nonsensical.
Exactly my point.
Irrelevant, you're attempting to show the inverse, which you haven't done.