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    A less positivistic or naturalistic, more expansive crite... — Carmelics
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    Home/Divine Attributes
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    A less positivistic or naturalistic, more expansive criterion of ontological commitment is appropriate when examining omnipotence.

    Divine Attributes
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Omnipotence has robust theological and metaphysical dimensions.
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    • 2.It would be natural to assume that the Supreme Being has the power to create any number of possible worlds governed by different laws of nature.
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    • 3.An omnipotent agent's power would not be circumscribed by theoretical scientific laws governing the actual world.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Quine's criterion of ontological commitment—quantifying over entities in our best theories—applies universally, not selectively by domain.
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    • 2.Granting theology a privileged exemption from naturalistic ontology introduces an ad hoc double standard that undermines philosophical rigor.
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    • 3.If expanded ontological criteria are permitted for omnipotence, no principled boundary prevents their arbitrary application across all metaphysical disputes.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Swinburne and others in the analytic theology tradition show omnipotence can be rigorously analyzed within naturalistic modal frameworks without ontological inflation.
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    • 2.Invoking 'possible worlds governed by different laws' already presupposes a modal realist or ersatzist framework subject to standard naturalistic scrutiny.
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    Related

    An omnipotent agent's power would not be circumscribed by theoretical scientific...Granting theology a privileged exemption from naturalistic ontology introduces a...If expanded ontological criteria are permitted for omnipotence, no principled bo...Invoking 'possible worlds governed by different laws' already presupposes a moda...
    +4 moreShow less
    It would be natural to assume that the Supreme Being has the power to create any...Omnipotence has robust theological and metaphysical dimensions.Quine's criterion of ontological commitment—quantifying over entities in our bes...Swinburne and others in the analytic theology tradition show omnipotence can be ...

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    This approach can yield an adequate analysis of omnipotence.79%Omni-theists can define 'omnipotent' as optimally powerful rather than...78%What some interpret as a constraint on omnipotence is in fact a demons...77%Since omnisubjectivity follows from omniscience (or omniscience plus o...77%

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    AI-extracted
    SEP: omnipotence
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    However, a philosopher who has positivistic or naturalistic leanings might argue that one should posit transfinite cardinals of only those sizes required by prevailing scientific theories. Arguably, the prevailing theory of the space-time continuum in physics is committed to the existence of infinite sets which have the cardinality of the set of space-time points contained within such a continuum (which is at least \(\aleph_1\)). If an argument of that sort is correct, this scientific theory is, in addition, committed to the existence of the power set of the foregoing set of space-time points ...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit