Sunday, May 26, 2013

Can An Actual Infinity Exist? A Quick Argument In Support Of Actual Infinities


If an actual infinite number of events is impossible as per the philosophical justifications of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) then isn't it problematic that the number future events is eternal and god has knowledge of all these events? If the number of future events is infinite, and god has knowledge of all these future events (as per his all-knowing property) then wouldn't god's knowledge of every future event consist of an actual infinity and not a potential infinity? It seems that this would contradict the theist's claims when justifying the KCA on philosophical grounds that an actual infinity cannot exist. They must, it seems, make an exception that god can have knowledge of an actual infinity of future events and that seems to me that actual infinities can exist. 

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, this seems to be present in every version of the cosmological argument as far as I have seen. It's impossible for something to be infinite, except God is infinite. They'll make up some excuse "God's immaterial" or "God is outside of time". Alright fine, now that we've established that things can be immaterial or outside of time, why can't the multiverse have that property. Mostly they seem to try to redirect the conversation away from this type of questioning, because they don't have a good answer. It's special pleading, pure and simple.

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    1. Yeah, if infinities don't exist, god can't be infinite and his knowledge can't be infinite, but if the future is eternal, as pretty much all theists believe, then god can't have knowledge of the future - because it's infinite. The only way for the theist to save their ass, is to believe that god doesn't know the future and essentially demote him.

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  2. God's omniscient knowledge of this infinite series of events might not, in and of itself, constitute an actual infinite (since a distinction is usually made between mathematical/mental and "actual" infinities).
    However, God's omniscient knowledge of these events DOES mean that they exist in reality in some sense, since they cannot fail to occur, and when viewed from eternity do in fact occur (and *must* occur, given that God cannot be wrong).

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