@@computationaltheist7267 Yeah I think in the non-purely-logical realm they are powerful. Thanks for watching and commenting!

Can God create something He cannot lift? YES...Jesus created the cross that He needed help to lift on His way save mankind.

@@lwynn9133 This isn't actually relevant to the objection which deals with God's divine nature, not Jesus's humanity.

@@lwynn9133 I think you failed to understand the content in the video.

@@gilsonrocks4740 Obviously the question, "Can God create a rock He cannot lift?" is a self-defeating question. What does "lift" mean? In the spiritual realm, I would assume there is no gravity. For example, from the top of my head, I can come up with a similarly self-defeating question, "Can God create a being more powerful than Himself?"

Analogy is very difficult - both univocation and equivocation are so much easier! :) Agreed on the POE. Plantinga pretty much wiped the floor with the logical form, but that's not where its power really lies.

Atheism is just the refusal to believe in God's existence. They have basically no arguments on anything, even embarrasses themselves in the issue of creation. Atheism / secularism is another western term for communism.

Its everything in this debate!

I am so glad you found them valuable!

I just found Lofton a whole back, I like his stuff!

Have you considered taking on forrest valkai? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mZOUq5aou63IlYE.html

Drange had a few of them yes. That's cool you got to hang with him!

Yeah this is one response I don't see that doesn't get much attention but it's a good point. If God was a moral monster, the POE becomes irrelevant.

Prove you're an atheist or that atheism even exists. Prove your lack of belief in Jesus Christ. I think you're making it up, this lack of belief.

@@Carbivore67 Ok, I proved it. Now it is your obligation to disprove that proof. I never said I didn't believe in Jesus.. I just have no reason to think he was extraordianary, nor divine.

Thank you. :)

“Scripture is true” is not an assumption here, but a prior philosophical/theological position (that I did not explicate thoroughly or argue for) is presupposed. In fact the philosophical proofs involved are from Aristotle, not the Bible. I'll likely do a video on that soon. I quoted the Psalm to magnify my point, but not to prove it. Thanks!

@@DouglasBeaumontAristotle had no means to test his model, so it appears your truth resides under the low-bar of assumption-stacking. It also seems the only options become falsely conflating logic w/ empirical testability or unfalsifiability fallacy as you seemed to be advocating.

@@brunorhagalcus6132 Aristotle didn't have or need empirical means to test logic and philosophy because that's not how it is done. He explained the principles behind empirical reality.

@@DouglasBeaumont It isn’t just physical observations; Aristotle was producing an epistemology that can’t be tested to align w/ nature. Logic made to align w/ itself doesn’t mean it aligns w/ nature. You, just like Aristotle, can only assume it does. You can logic your way into just about anything, even using the king of logic, mathematics. On the explanatory level, this means Aristotle, and you are informing nature of how it is; not being informed by nature. The success of science is predicated upon the testability you claim is irrelevant and it’s exactly why science has had singular success at adding plausibility to claims of nature which includes supplanting every god explanation that has ever entered its frontier of testability. Theistic methodology can’t disown this track record of failure. It doesn’t disprove a god, but it certainly makes arbitrary truth a consideration IMO.

@@brunorhagalcus6132 Kant really did screw up all philosophy after him. Take care!

That's very good! To add to the precision of your understanding, consider that true creation is not a change. Although we use language like "thing X came into existence" there was no "thing X" to undergo a change (i.e. from non-existent to existent). So creating is caused but it is not caused change. Cool huh? Further, only God can truly create - other creatures can only modify existing things ("make"). So yeah what we are and what we do is completely other than what God is and does!

@@DouglasBeaumont Your response to my response was "creating cause" for my response back. If God is an uncaused, unchanging causer than are we "caused changing causers"? That statement of, "So creating is caused but it is not caused change. Cool huh?" Yes, very cool, and now I have a new created thoughts in my mind I will be pondering all day. Thanks for your wisdom.

​ @Douglas Beaumont Can we correctly say that the will of man is an unmoved mover or self mover? That the freedom of the will is self moved? It seems that would be one attribute in man that is like God in that "nothing" moves the will except the will itself. This has me thinking about how it is God can not be the Willing behind sinful acts sense in order for the will of man to move it needs the Will of God to sustain the will in its existence and nothing can happen outside God's sovereign Will. Is this why we need to make distinctions between God's consequent Will and God's antecedent Will and are these even orthodox ideas? Wouldn't both attributes of these Wills in God be under His sovereignty so in essence I have solved nothing. I was also thinking about non-being to being. Wouldn't the husband and wife be participating with God in bringing a child into existence? Bringing a child into existence would be not an act of change but an act of non-being to being?

@@apostolicapologetics4829 You're getting into way deep waters for youtube comments haha, but the short answer is actually no - our wills are not unmoved (since they change and act) nor are they primarily self-moved (although they are free). Per Aquinas (ST I.83): Free-will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free-will man moves himself to act. But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself, as neither for one thing to be cause of another need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the first cause, Who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature. God is not responsible for sinful acts because although he causes the will's necessary movement toward the good generally, this does not necessitate any particular good. When we choose lesser goods (even to the point of there barely being good at all), that's on us. I think the antecedent/consequent will distinction is orthodox even if different terminology is sometimes used. All of your God-talk is ultimately analogous, so there's usually falsehood mixed in no matter how careful we are! :) The parent's role is the making of a body from pre-existing materials, God's role is the creation of the soul (from nothing).

@@apostolicapologetics4829 We do change of course, and we are true causers - just not first causers like God. There are a range of acts that are called causes (primary, secondary, efficient, instrumental, material, etc.) and we can be any of these with regard to existing things. However when it comes to being itself, only God can cause that.

I have never seen a theist who would be able to counter a single atheistic argument. I am already surprised to find a theist video without comments disabled.

@po18guy a=a not a = not a Not sure what you're asking?

That's like saying, "If you understood why anarchists reject all forms of government, you'd understand why I reject democracy." Truth is singular and by its nature excludes all other things. Further, if you understood classical theism (the point of the video), you'd see that the "gods" worshiped worldwide are not the infinite, completely distinct, creator that theists affirm. At best they are simply big creatures with superpowers. Even if those kinds of things exist, they would not be God.

@@DouglasBeaumont Hey Douglas, first of all, thx for your reply and that you have not deactivated comments so that people can discuss this theme here. It is a theme that pretty much everybody worldwide is interested in, so i think it makes sense to argue about it and try to figure out if there is a rational reason to believe in this or that god or not. And after researching and debating about this theme for decades now, i am fairly sure that there is not a single rational reason to believe in any of the pretty much endless amounts of gods worldwide. Now to what you said in your comment: Something is true when you can DEMONSTRATE it to be accurate, this given you will find no truth in religion, for sure not in Christianity, because all stories in the bible are either proven to be false or not proven to be correct or even possible. Most gods worldwide are exclusive, and yes sure, many of them have also created this world, humans or whatever you believe what your god has done. One thing they all have in common, there is zero evidence for any of them to actually be real. Talking about "big creatures with superpowers", i would not be too fast to make fun of other religions as long as you yourself believe in a god who runs around as a workless carpenter, walking on water or turning it into wine and braindead bullshit like that. Just saying! If you believe that Jesus was a god, please explain why he and not other gods such as Horus, Mythras or Chrishna? Have you ever read about the gods in named, and compared their story with the story of jesus? If not you should, maybe you will become as suspicious as i became when i first read their stories.

But he can't, so . . . :)

God can do anything, as long as it’s not a contradiction. So God cannot create a square circle.

@@kepagel There's a bit more to it than that, but correct that God cannot create something contradictory.

I'm referring to the God that created the heaven and earth. And our Lord Jesus Christ. Not some satanic demiurge or overlord creep.

I'm going to admit that I'm offended by the Monty python god depiction.

I thought it apt given that they are atheists and thinking of God like a man is what gives these kinds of arguments their force.

@@DouglasBeaumont Thinking of God like a person is a natural consequence of reading the passages where He allegedly interacted with people. He is written in the same way many fictional characters are written, so it's hard to delineate the concepts of God's being a fictional creation of people from God's interactions being described by people.

LOL! Good question! :)

That's an old Redd Foxx joke. When Sherlock Holmes died St. Peter told him with so many souls they lost track of Adam and Eve, and asked if he could find them. A short time later Holmes came back with a man and woman. St. Peter asked how he could be sure these two were the original Adam and Eve. Elementary dear St. Peter...no navals.

@@emptyhand777 Classic!

I honestly don't understand your question(s). But I'll try to respond. "Nothing" is complete non-being. I believe Aristotle said it's what rocks dream about haha. So if you ask if nothing can exist, in the sense we would mean it here, the answer is no. Would infinite nothingness negate infinite being? No, because "nothing" is just the word we use to indicate a lack of existence. It has no bearing on anything because there really isn't a "thing" - we just speak as if nothing is something because we need a referent for language to work. :)

@@DouglasBeaumont Would it be fair to say that how we can describe "nothing" is just as lacking as "infinite"? If not, why? If so, would it be fair to infer that nothing would have to be the opposite of infinite and would equally be capable or incapable of being in a finite. ie. our universe. And how can an infinite and nothing coexist? Which all leads to the biggest problem, how did an infinite create "from nothing", where/what is nothing? Does that help you understand the question(s)?

I don't think there is any implied lack in "infinite" - God's existence is unlimited, it is the very opposite of lack. nothing, however, is the lack of existence itself - it's not even a thing. The basic problem with your questions is that you treat nothing as something. :) For example, you ask, "how can an infinite and nothing coexist?" Nothing is not a thing, so it has no existence. Existence is not affected by non-existence. "Creation from nothing" affirms that God's creation was the bringing into existence of things with no prior existence in any form. In other words, God did not take any pre-existing material / stuff and make things out of it. To create "from" nothing does not mean "out of" nothing.

@@DouglasBeaumont okay so the concept of “nothing”, a complete lack of everything;be it infinite or finite, can not be. So there is only the infinite, God, and the finite, our universe. God made the universe and there is no nothing. So there is no finite before the universe and non nothing. And it is logically impossible to add to infinite. So it stands to reason finite was made from infinite, but you can not logically remove from infinite otherwise it becomes finite. Which requires a “nothing” for there to be a infinite and finite at the same time. So what is nothing? Once I can under nothing I can maybe understand god. Again this is not said being snarky nor a gotcha.

You're asking good questions and I am not reading any snark into them. :) The difficulty (and apologies if this sounds like an excuse), is that metaphysics is very complex with numerous fine distinctions that are not easy to grasp and are easily misunderstood in a forum like this. (I had to take a 45 hour graduate class before it started to sink in!) So, I will try to make progress, but you can't expect too much form a combox convo haha. :) One thing that must be clearly understood is that existence is not a thing - it is what makes things "be." Existence is the difference between Shakespeare and Macbeth. Both are human persons as to their essence (WHAT they are), but only one is actual - only one has existence (THAT it is). Next, to create a human person means to bring its essence into relation with existence such that it now is actual. But this does not mean taking anything from God (as implied in your question). Finite existence is not made from infinite existence (which, as you correctly point out, cannot happen). Rather things are brought into a relation with existence such that their essence is joined to an act of existence that is not "owned" by that thing. Existence outside of God is always received - it is not part of a thing's essence (or else that thing would also exist necessarily). Although mental images are rarely helpful in metaphysics, think of it like a pan becoming heated by fire. The fire is heat, the pan receives heat by being in relation to the fire. We can call the pan "hot" but it is not hot by nature - it must always receive heat from the fire. Yet in doing so, the pan does not take heat from the fire or change the fire in any way. In a similar way, God's bringing of essences into relation with existence such that they become actual ("created") does not change or even affect Him.

First, it in no way follows that, "Heaven does not exist because humans cannot understand what they are getting into." Many things exist that humans do not comprehend. Second, as to the state of Heaven (which is not so much a place as it is the presence of God - see "Beatific Vision" cf. John 17:3), I agree that the answer is that we will be perfect versions of our selves (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15). The notion of perfection is not up for imaginative grabs, however. Perfection is reached when a thing conforms exactly to its intended form (speaking philosophically, not structurally) and purpose. So whatever it is to be a human without flaw and fully mature is what it seems we will be. We also know there will be no suffering as the results of the Fall will no longer apply (e.g., Rev. 21:4). Pregnancy pains - which are specifically mentioned as being in this category (Gen. 3:16) - then, would not occur even if pregnancy would occur in Heaven (which it seems it will not - Matthew 22:30). Since a woman's period is not necessary for this state, I don't think they will occur.