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    Once Parmenides has lectured, even an omnipotent agent ca... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
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    Once Parmenides has lectured, even an omnipotent agent cannot bring it about that (c) obtains.

    Divine Attributes
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Prior to Parmenides's first lecture, an omnipotent agent can bring about (c).
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    • 2.No agent can have power over what is past.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.God's eternal mode of existence places God outside of time, such that past, present, and future are equally present to the divine intellect.
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    • 2.An agent who stands outside temporal succession is not bound by the asymmetry between past and future that grounds P2.
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    • 3.Therefore, an eternalist God could actualize (c) by acting on the relevant moment from an atemporal vantage point, never confronting it as 'past'.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Alvin Plantinga and others distinguish between hard facts about the past and soft facts, where soft facts are only partly about the past moment.
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    • 2.The fact that Parmenides lectured without (c) obtaining may constitute a soft fact, since its modal status depends on future-directed counterfactuals.
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    • 3.If the fixity of the past applies only to hard facts, P2 does not straightforwardly entail that an omnipotent agent is barred from retroactively securing (c).
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    Alvin Plantinga and others distinguish between hard facts about the past and sof...An agent who stands outside temporal succession is not bound by the asymmetry be...God's eternal mode of existence places God outside of time, such that past, pres...If the fixity of the past applies only to hard facts, P2 does not straightforwar...
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    No agent can have power over what is past.Prior to Parmenides's first lecture, an omnipotent agent can bring about (c).The fact that Parmenides lectured without (c) obtaining may constitute a soft fa...Therefore, an eternalist God could actualize (c) by acting on the relevant momen...

    Similar

    Prior to Parmenides's first lecture, an omnipotent agent can bring abo...89%No agent, not even an omnipotent one, can bring it about that (a) obta...86%Plato, as a non-omnipotent agent, can freely bring it about that (f) o...83%Definition (D3) does not unduly limit the power of an omnipotent agent...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: omnipotence
    View source passageHide passage
    Note that (a) is a past state of affairs. Presumably, it is not possible for an efficient cause to occur later than its effect. However, an agent’s bringing about a state of affairs is a kind of efficient causation. Therefore, it is not possible for an agent to bring about anything that is in the past. In other words, it is impossible for any agent to have power over what is past. Hence, no agent, not even an omnipotent one, can bring it about that (a) obtains. Likewise, despite the fact that (b) can be brought about prior to \(t\), the impossibility of an agent’s having power over what is pas...

    Details

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