Afterthought
Puritan Board Senior
Well whoda thought? Thanks for the help! I think I'm getting it, or at least better than when I started the thread.armourbearer said:The sum is -- Chance happens; it just doesn't happen by chance.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Well whoda thought? Thanks for the help! I think I'm getting it, or at least better than when I started the thread.armourbearer said:The sum is -- Chance happens; it just doesn't happen by chance.
Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not.
I don't think it is in general. There's chance in the sense of "We don't know what caused it, but we know something caused it, and if we knew the causes, we'd be able to predict that effect." But there's also chance in the sense of "Even if we knew all the causes, we could not possibly predict the effect." And chance in the sense of "No cause or reason at all; it just happens." From what I understand from this thread, what we call chance is casual. So if we are talking about causes for what we call chance, then if we knew the causes we would know the effect, because the effect that we call chance would come from a complex of causes. So it seemed to me that ignorance would be the only way for us to call something chance, because if we knew what the causes were we would know what must follow. The other way for there to be chance from what has been discussed on this thread is if what we call chance has no necessary connection to its causes i.e., the causes of what we call chance events are do not necessarily produce those events, and so chance events could happen another way; that would not require ignorance for something to be contingent.py3ak said:Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not.
So we cannot believe in contingency for the reason that we are ignorant of its causes (so contingency isn't a matter of ignorance merely)?armourbearer said:I deny any belief can be established on the basis of ignorance.
Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not.
No. Contingency simply means that God could could have created the world such that X was not the case.
So we cannot believe in contingency for the reason that we are ignorant of its causes (so contingency isn't a matter of ignorance merely)?
So if it's not a matter of ignorance, then it's a matter of the causes not necessarily leading to their effects, and so we cannot explain those events in terms of secondary causation...(or are chance events simply events that cannot be explained by secondary causes?) I wonder then: are the extra causes that are needed to "push" those causes into producing the desired chance effect [as we would call it] come immediately from Divine power instead of God working through means? But I'll keep thinking about your example. For now though, I really should go to bed (it can be tough trying to find the right questions to ask sometimes!).armourbearer said:There is no ignorance. "Chance" is believed in because we understand that there is a Divine and Personal Power which governs the world and transcends its processes. Think of conception. The gift of life. The difference between being and non-being. "Life" simply cannot be explained in terms of secondary causation.
No. Contingency simply means that God could could have created the world such that X was not the case.
This presents contingency as hypothetical instead of real. The Confession presents it as something real; something decreed by God; something true of our freedom within the Providential order.
Well, I'll just have to take your word for it for right now. It's a fascinating idea I'll have to keep in mind when I study QM this coming semester and for whenever I learn about Bell's inequalities and all that stuff that shows QM to have real chance, in the sense of that if we knew all the causes we could not predict the effect. I'm not sure, given what this thread has said, whether QM fits from a reformed theological perspective, but your idea would indeed make it fit.
So it appears--unless I am misunderstanding him--that he is using chance in the sense of ignorance of causes (1) such that if it were possible to know all the causes, then we could predict what would happen next, although we couldn't even hypothetically know that because of the complexity of nature.
First, ignorance is culpable. Knowledge of limitation and sphere is not ignorance. Our Lord was not ignorant when He "grew in wisdom."
Secondly, "knowing all" should not come into the reckoning because it is an extension of the great temptation, Ye shall be as gods. Our happiness rests in being God's creatures.
Would it be better to speak of nescience?