tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post8471835491953543299..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Eternal nagging, endless second chances and hellAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-28652795161993240112016-04-23T20:31:15.487-05:002016-04-23T20:31:15.487-05:00There is little reason to think that someone would...There is little reason to think that someone would gain an arbitrarily large capacity memory just because I they were in a sheol or hell, so perhaps the second chance hell scenario should be conditioned by the premise that one who is in such a scenario repeats the same refusal with essentially the same past memory after a while. At that point, perhaps the chance of accepting "a kiss" remains small despite the repetition. So, if the memory incapacity allows what amounts to a modular arithmetic in the probability of the refusal, the loop within the modulus might never allow an acceptance.<br />Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533263841520213358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-13085528279593228522016-04-22T14:58:54.419-05:002016-04-22T14:58:54.419-05:001) If you never actually have an infinite number o...1) If you never actually have an infinite number of days of life, then no scenario that includes, "if you live forever" can have the robust mathematical meaning that such scenarios usually require. Mathematics about actual infinities or transfinites never cohere to actual events, even if the person in question has eternal life, because, at any given moment, that person has only yet lived a finite life.<br /><br />2) I think Craig's point is that, if God were to abolish time and resume timeless existence, it would tenselessly/timelessly be true that time HAD existed... which is a tensed truth, and so such a situation is logically incoherent.<br /><br />3) If eternal life includes that God will never abolish time, and will never abolish you, that still doesn't mean you ever actually live long enough for mathematics of the transfinite or infinite to apply.Michael Gonzalezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05279261871735286117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-57960900697502936812016-04-22T14:28:06.595-05:002016-04-22T14:28:06.595-05:00Eternal life implies that for every positive integ...Eternal life implies that for every positive integer n, there will be an nth day in your life. This certainly does not require that there will be a day on which you will have had an infinite number of days of life, if that's what you mean by "actually completing an infinite succession of finites".<br /><br />Actually, it's false to say that if time ceased, then "Alex ceased to live" would become true. For without time, there would be no becoming, and hence no becoming true.<br /><br />The argument you offer that time cannot come to an end is just like Aristotle's argument that time cannot have a beginning, and suffers from the same flaw. For it to be true that time will have an end all it's enough that there be a time at which it is false that there is any later time. It is not needed that there be a time after time came to an end. And it makes no sense to say that "then" there would be no more time, for the hypothesis is precisely that there is no "then".Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-9922514146361265652016-04-22T14:25:37.940-05:002016-04-22T14:25:37.940-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-91028372858306586062016-04-22T14:12:21.727-05:002016-04-22T14:12:21.727-05:00I'm with William Lane Craig on this one: Time ...I'm with William Lane Craig on this one: Time cannot come to an end. As a reductio: If it did come to an end, it would always be true that time DID exist, which is a tensed truth and therefore time STILL exists. <br /><br />But, in any case, I could modify my statement and say eternal life means that the statement, "then Alex ceased to live" will never become true. If time ceased, then you would cease, and so that will never happen.<br /><br />Do you really believe that eternal life implies <i>actually completing an infinite succession of finites??</i>Michael Gonzalezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05279261871735286117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-92092775789359557662016-04-22T14:05:47.440-05:002016-04-22T14:05:47.440-05:00That there will never be a day when you are not al...That there will never be a day when you are not alive does not imply that you have eternal life. Suppose time comes to end at midnight today, along with everything in existence. Then there will never be a day when you are not alive, but you will be far from having eternal life.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-54165417491893716072016-04-22T14:03:20.332-05:002016-04-22T14:03:20.332-05:00The Christian doctrine of eternal life is exactly ...The Christian doctrine of eternal life is exactly as coherent on an open view of the future as it is on any other view. There will never be a day when you are not alive. That doesn't mean you ever actually reach infinity by successive additions of finites. There are too many reasons to think that that is logically incoherent, and nothing in the doctrine that requires it to be otherwise, so far as I can see...<br /><br />Fair enough. Super long lives will eventually lead to coercion. It is an interesting puzzle. It's not relevant on my view, since the Bible seems to me to teach that recalcitrant, incorrigible sinners will simply be wiped from existence. God does not owe them more than a chance at the life Adam and Adam's offspring were meant to have. If they reject that then, just like Adam, they become dust again.Michael Gonzalezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05279261871735286117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-10192582732807225392016-04-22T13:34:07.842-05:002016-04-22T13:34:07.842-05:00Surely the Christian doctrine of eternal life is l...Surely the Christian doctrine of eternal life is logically coherent. It surely is possible that after every day there will be another day. That's all that's needed to get the argument off the ground.<br /><br />In fact, little hangs on infinity here. It is so near to certainty that within 10^googolplex years you will have kissed Jabba as one needs for any practical purposes to say that it's inevitable.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-74637312322511467902016-04-22T13:30:17.794-05:002016-04-22T13:30:17.794-05:00As with many of these sorts of scenarios, the prob...As with many of these sorts of scenarios, the problem comes at "assume you and Jabba live forever" (well... usually the "Jabba" part is conspicuously absent). You never actually do live forever. You don't even get any closer to living forever than you were millions of years ago. You literally make zero progress toward "forever". I think that answers all of these issues with infinites and transfinites. They just aren't possible to instantiate in the real world.Michael Gonzalezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05279261871735286117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-50683103152112660382016-04-20T16:03:59.950-05:002016-04-20T16:03:59.950-05:00Jabba can't stop asking, because he's mora...Jabba can't stop asking, because he's morally flawed. But a morally perfect Hutt could promise never to impose his presence on you ever again, and would keep that promise.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-8926456401965704082016-04-20T15:28:55.373-05:002016-04-20T15:28:55.373-05:00This is not Jabba's fault -- the same thing wi...This is not Jabba's fault -- the same thing will follow even if he has a small chance each day of deciding to ask for the kiss, even if ordinarily he does not want it and does not ask. So there is no question of imposing anything. It is just a question of what follows from the assumption that you are going to live forever.entirelyuselesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12422102436356978880noreply@blogger.com