yandex99
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I say Novel,because although these arguments are from the Mahayana tradition,they are unknown to secular philosophers and western atheists,despite being really potent arguments.
1.If God is a eternal,permanent,self-subsisting being he would be utterly changeless as the neoplatonists said,but something still in it's true sense cannot endure throughout time(I don't mean the measurement of motion per se,but rather continuance),and to be the sustaining cause of anything would require endurance throughout time,and thus motion which brings us to #2.
2.Anything that moves,is by nature dependant on motion to be a mover.if you say the motion and mover are identical,as some 'absolute theistic'traditions(Kashmir Shaivism comes to mind)say,then anytime there is a new motion,there is a new agent,which is absurd,and would prove radical impermanence anyway.in any case a permanent self-subsisting being cannot 'move'or act.
3.As Vasubandhu said,if there is a permanent being with a permanent essence,and it has cognitions,number one it would be constantly changing and thus not permanent because it's cognitions of what is cognized change,as cognized things(The world,reality)are in constant flux.another reason is if it thus has changing attributes or motion,but is permanent,where do the fluctuating desires,cognitions,wills and actions come from?they cannot come from the permanent and unchanging essence,as it is permanent.how can God thus be a coherent being or entity?it would be made up of parts,the permanent and impermanent,and thus not self-sufficient in it's essence,as it would depend on it's parts to exist.it would also be two distinct entities in one.
4.If God has other-knowledge,his essence cannot be self-sufficient or independant,as any knowledge of a thing outside one self is dependant.why?think about it,if X cognizes or knows Y,then it is dependant on Y to have a certain type of knowledge or knowledge concept.
Knowledge-by-Correspondence involves the apprehension of the known through something other than the known : a knowledge-form or concept present within the knower that seeks to represent the known to the knower, and therefore, implies an ontological distinction between the knower,the known and knowledge .For instance, the apprehension by a knower X of an external reality Y, through a concept or knowledge-form B, is an instance of knowledge-by-correspondence. But knowledge-by-correspondence results in the knower’s dependence upon another :a knowledge-form or concept.So any knowledge other than Self-knowledge is DEPENDANT.Hence,any self-sufficient,independant being cannot interact with anything outside itself.
5.I'd like to share something from Nagarjuna's karika commentary to why something still cannot exist(A monad for example,the logical culmination of philosophical theism is neoplatonism afterall,as anything self-sufficient would be completely 'still')
22. A static existent does not endure.55
A nonstatic existent does not endure.
Stasis does not endure.
What nonarisen can endure?
Here Nagarjuna emphasizes
that the moment between the arising and ceasing of a momentary
phenomenon—an event—has no temporal extent. So a thing that we might
conventionally refer to as static literally does not endure with identity
through time. But of course neither does something that is not even
conventionally static. And finally, since as a consequence of these two
premises stasis is not instantiated in any phenomenon, it itself does not
endure. So, Nagarjuna concludes, stasis fails to exist over time in any sense
and so is no candidate for an inherently existent phenomenon.
25. Stasis cannot endure through itself
Or through another stasis.
Just as arising cannot arise from itself
Or from another arising.
This verse recalls the discussion of VII: 13–19 and has an important echo
in VII: 32. Nagarjuna argued earlier that we cannot analyze arising either as
sui generis or as dependent upon some other arising. In the first case, we
beg the question; in the second we invite an infinite regress. He now points
out that the same is true of stasis. We can’t, in order to demonstrate the
inherent existence of stasis, argue that it endures because of itself. If this
kind of reflexive explanation were possible, we would not need to posit
stasis in the first place as an explanation of the continued existence of
empirical phenomena. Each could count as self-explanatory. But if we say
that stasis, like other static things, is static because of its possessing a
distinct stasis, we are off on a vicious regress.
Fire does not come from something else,
Nor is fire in fuel itself.
Moreover, fire and the rest are just like
The moved, the not-moved, and the goer.
Though, as verse 12 grants, fire exists only in relation to fuel, it would
not be correct to assert that fuel as an independent entity somehow produces
fire. The analysis and the conclusion are strictly analogous to that regarding
motion and the mover. We neither can say that motion is the same as the
mover nor that they are different entities. We cannot say that motion is
present in the unmoved, the moving, or the yet-to-move. Similarly we
cannot say that fire is the same as the fuel nor that it is different. Nor can we
say that it is present in the unburned, the burning, or the yet-to-be-burned
fuel. The next verse emphasizes this point:
14. Fuel is not fire.
Fire does not arise from anything different from fuel.
Fire does not possess fuel.
Fuel is not in fire, nor vice versa.
15. Through discussion of fire and fuel,
The self and the aggregates, the pot and cloth
All together,
Without remainder have been explained.
The fire and fuel example is used as an analogy for a number of different
cases of relations between bases and their attributes, including the relation
between the putative self and its aggregates—that is, the components of the
personality. But there are other stock examples—the relation between the
pot and its properties and between the cloth and its thread—that are used to
try to defend these asymmetrical dependence relations between inherently
existent bases and the properties they support. Nagarjuna is simply asserting
the complete generality of this argument: It applies, mutatis mutandis, to all
of these cases.
the point above is that EVERYTHING is dependant.the still,the moving,the ceasing,the arising,the abiding.NOTHING can be logically self-sufficient.
1.If God is a eternal,permanent,self-subsisting being he would be utterly changeless as the neoplatonists said,but something still in it's true sense cannot endure throughout time(I don't mean the measurement of motion per se,but rather continuance),and to be the sustaining cause of anything would require endurance throughout time,and thus motion which brings us to #2.
2.Anything that moves,is by nature dependant on motion to be a mover.if you say the motion and mover are identical,as some 'absolute theistic'traditions(Kashmir Shaivism comes to mind)say,then anytime there is a new motion,there is a new agent,which is absurd,and would prove radical impermanence anyway.in any case a permanent self-subsisting being cannot 'move'or act.
3.As Vasubandhu said,if there is a permanent being with a permanent essence,and it has cognitions,number one it would be constantly changing and thus not permanent because it's cognitions of what is cognized change,as cognized things(The world,reality)are in constant flux.another reason is if it thus has changing attributes or motion,but is permanent,where do the fluctuating desires,cognitions,wills and actions come from?they cannot come from the permanent and unchanging essence,as it is permanent.how can God thus be a coherent being or entity?it would be made up of parts,the permanent and impermanent,and thus not self-sufficient in it's essence,as it would depend on it's parts to exist.it would also be two distinct entities in one.
4.If God has other-knowledge,his essence cannot be self-sufficient or independant,as any knowledge of a thing outside one self is dependant.why?think about it,if X cognizes or knows Y,then it is dependant on Y to have a certain type of knowledge or knowledge concept.
Knowledge-by-Correspondence involves the apprehension of the known through something other than the known : a knowledge-form or concept present within the knower that seeks to represent the known to the knower, and therefore, implies an ontological distinction between the knower,the known and knowledge .For instance, the apprehension by a knower X of an external reality Y, through a concept or knowledge-form B, is an instance of knowledge-by-correspondence. But knowledge-by-correspondence results in the knower’s dependence upon another :a knowledge-form or concept.So any knowledge other than Self-knowledge is DEPENDANT.Hence,any self-sufficient,independant being cannot interact with anything outside itself.
5.I'd like to share something from Nagarjuna's karika commentary to why something still cannot exist(A monad for example,the logical culmination of philosophical theism is neoplatonism afterall,as anything self-sufficient would be completely 'still')
22. A static existent does not endure.55
A nonstatic existent does not endure.
Stasis does not endure.
What nonarisen can endure?
Here Nagarjuna emphasizes
that the moment between the arising and ceasing of a momentary
phenomenon—an event—has no temporal extent. So a thing that we might
conventionally refer to as static literally does not endure with identity
through time. But of course neither does something that is not even
conventionally static. And finally, since as a consequence of these two
premises stasis is not instantiated in any phenomenon, it itself does not
endure. So, Nagarjuna concludes, stasis fails to exist over time in any sense
and so is no candidate for an inherently existent phenomenon.
25. Stasis cannot endure through itself
Or through another stasis.
Just as arising cannot arise from itself
Or from another arising.
This verse recalls the discussion of VII: 13–19 and has an important echo
in VII: 32. Nagarjuna argued earlier that we cannot analyze arising either as
sui generis or as dependent upon some other arising. In the first case, we
beg the question; in the second we invite an infinite regress. He now points
out that the same is true of stasis. We can’t, in order to demonstrate the
inherent existence of stasis, argue that it endures because of itself. If this
kind of reflexive explanation were possible, we would not need to posit
stasis in the first place as an explanation of the continued existence of
empirical phenomena. Each could count as self-explanatory. But if we say
that stasis, like other static things, is static because of its possessing a
distinct stasis, we are off on a vicious regress.
Fire does not come from something else,
Nor is fire in fuel itself.
Moreover, fire and the rest are just like
The moved, the not-moved, and the goer.
Though, as verse 12 grants, fire exists only in relation to fuel, it would
not be correct to assert that fuel as an independent entity somehow produces
fire. The analysis and the conclusion are strictly analogous to that regarding
motion and the mover. We neither can say that motion is the same as the
mover nor that they are different entities. We cannot say that motion is
present in the unmoved, the moving, or the yet-to-move. Similarly we
cannot say that fire is the same as the fuel nor that it is different. Nor can we
say that it is present in the unburned, the burning, or the yet-to-be-burned
fuel. The next verse emphasizes this point:
14. Fuel is not fire.
Fire does not arise from anything different from fuel.
Fire does not possess fuel.
Fuel is not in fire, nor vice versa.
15. Through discussion of fire and fuel,
The self and the aggregates, the pot and cloth
All together,
Without remainder have been explained.
The fire and fuel example is used as an analogy for a number of different
cases of relations between bases and their attributes, including the relation
between the putative self and its aggregates—that is, the components of the
personality. But there are other stock examples—the relation between the
pot and its properties and between the cloth and its thread—that are used to
try to defend these asymmetrical dependence relations between inherently
existent bases and the properties they support. Nagarjuna is simply asserting
the complete generality of this argument: It applies, mutatis mutandis, to all
of these cases.
the point above is that EVERYTHING is dependant.the still,the moving,the ceasing,the arising,the abiding.NOTHING can be logically self-sufficient.
