Leaving Molinism with Max Andrews (Part 1 of 3)

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March 7, 2020

In this episode of Revealed Apologetics, Eli Ayala interviews Max Andrews on why he left molinism. This discussion is philosophically heavy and requires attentive listening but it is interesting and informative nonetheless. Enjoy!

(Part 2) Leaving Molinism with Max Andrews

00:01: All right, welcome to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Elias Ayala, and today we're going to be discussing the topic of Molinism, and this is typically within the discussions of...
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00:44: Invite a guest... Upload image... Okay, I've been communicating with our guest via texting, and he is having difficulty with his this text, so I'm going to invite
01:07: Max Andrews in. Just give me a moment. I'm gonna do that through email. Let's see here...
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02:09: Okay, so... We are having a little bit of technical difficulty, but hopefully our guest will be joining in just a few moments.
02:17: I sent him a link, and hopefully he can get on. Otherwise, I know you guys don't want to look at my face all morning.
02:22: So, just real quick, we'll give him a little time to do that.
02:28: He's having difficulty with his text messaging, so I assume he has to go in through his email or something like that.
02:35: Okay, so... We'll give him a few moments to come on, but in the meantime,
02:40: I'll just kind of make a couple of announcements. Again, if you guys have been enjoying the content of the YouTube channel, it would do me a great favor to subscribe.
02:50: The goal is to get a lot of interesting guests to cover some really important topics, whether it's related to theology, apologetics, or Christian philosophy, or anything like that, and so hopefully we'll be able to put some more content out there that folks will find useful.
03:07: Just as a way of focus, Revealed Apologetics is an apologetics organization that seeks to promote not just apologetics in general, but presuppositional apologetics as a methodology, and so if you guys are interested in presuppositional methodology and things related to that, you can check out some debates that I have done using that method, which is available on the
03:28: YouTube channel, Revealed Apologetics, as well as on the podcast on iTunes. All right, in regards to future guests,
03:36: I am hoping to get Professor James Anderson from Reform Theological Seminary to discuss the issue of transcendental arguments, and so those who are familiar with presuppositional apologetics will understand why that's important.
03:55: So we do have Max Andrews in the studio, so I'm going to add him in just a few moments, but yeah, so we're looking to get
04:06: Dr. James Anderson, as well as Guillaume Bignon, who is a Calvinist philosopher who wrote a book.
04:13: I think it's Blaming God, Excusing Sinners. I always get that mixed up. I don't know what's going on. So again, so some interesting guests coming up in the next month or so, and I'm looking forward to having those folks on to discuss some of these important issues.
04:29: All right, well, right now, I am going to invite Max, sorry, I did that without warning. So I'm very excited.
04:41: We have Max Andrews with us, and the topic is a very interesting one, especially for myself, and that is the topic of Molinism, and just before I introduce
04:53: Max and give him an opportunity to share a little bit about what he's been up to, I want to share with folks. People have been following me in my videos and just discussions that I've done in the past on Apologetics Live and different podcast episodes.
05:09: Folks know that I used to be a Molinist, and it's not a dirty word. It's not like I used to do drugs or anything like that.
05:17: You know, I have Molinist friends. They're great men of God. Just disagree.
05:23: And so when I was studying these issues, I came along a website, Sententious.
05:30: Am I pronouncing that right, Max? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so Sententious, and this was a website put together by Max, and this is when he was a
05:39: Molinist. And I actually heard that you might be flattered by this, but I actually heard in some circles that folks were calling you the young William Lane Craig, and it seemed as though you had a really good grasp on these issues, and you had really great resources on that website, along with,
05:54: I believe, two books. Is that correct? Yeah, there are two ebooks that went out. That's right. And so that was my first exposure to Molinism, and then, of course, you had on your website the
06:04: Molinist Directory, in which you had a bunch of other resources, and that's when
06:09: I heard of a little book. Let me see if I have it.
06:14: I might not have it in this. Well, there it is. Good. There we go. And that's what, on your website,
06:21: I found out about this book, Salvation and Sovereignty, by Kenneth Keithley, who's a professor over at Southeastern Seminary.
06:31: And when I read this book, I went into an intellectual and internal struggle as to how to make sense out of all these things, and one thing led to another, and I became a
06:43: Molinist for some time. And so that access point really was through your website, your books, and, of course, introducing me to other folks like Kenneth Keithley and others.
06:53: So then you disappeared. I don't know what happened. And then, all of a sudden, I visit the website, and it's like, website down, and I was like, oh, what's going on, man?
07:01: And then I heard that you were studying in the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and just heard things here and there.
07:08: And then, of course, I heard a long time ago you were no longer a Molinist. So I was like, what's going on here? So, so all that to say,
07:15: I have Max Andrews on the show here to discuss with us,
07:22: A, perhaps he can define Molinism for people who haven't watched my past episodes that cover that topic, and then
07:28: B, what led him to be a Molinist, and then what led him to kind of leave that position.
07:34: And at that point, you're going to go into some of the things that have been the result of your study and your research.
07:40: And so I think folks are going to be very interested in hearing what you have to say in that regard. Now, a couple more things, and then
07:46: I'm going to be quiet and allow you to take the floor here. The plan here for folks who are interested in this topic and are interested in what
07:53: Max has to say, we're going to try and do a three -part series. So Max is going to be on two other times other than this one to kind of unpack some of his findings and research and kind of take the time to explain things.
08:05: So if folks have questions, this is the beauty of live stream, you have questions, please send them in on the comments, but we're not going to address them in the first two videos.
08:17: In the last interview, we'll take, well, Max will take your questions and try to unpack them as they are relevant to the specific things that he is going to discuss with us today.
08:28: All right, does that make sense? You guys are good? All right. All right, Max, who are you? What is Molinism, and why'd you leave?
08:35: Well, I guess a brief synopsis about my academic background. I did my
08:41: Bachelor's of Science in Religion at Liberty University. I went on to do my
08:49: Master's in Philosophy there as well. And then the transition started when
08:54: I started studying my PhD in Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
09:02: So that's kind of the academic background to everything, and I don't think
09:10: I would have started identifying as a Molinist until probably the beginning of my
09:16: Master's degree, when I started putting everything together, or probably towards the end of my Bachelor's actually. And I would define
09:24: Molinism as holding on to this main tenet or this main idea that God has middle knowledge.
09:32: Now, they would say that there are three logical moments to divine knowledge.
09:38: The first one would be natural knowledge, that God knows everything that can happen. Skip the middle knowledge, go to the third point.
09:47: There's everything that God knows that will happen, or His will. And in between there is hypothetical counterfactuals.
09:57: God knows what would happen in any given circumstance. And so it would be an application of that idea of divine knowledge, that God controls everything via His omniscience rather than His power or any other attribute.
10:13: Okay. And what was the second? Well, before we get to that second question, let me kind of insert a new question that I didn't ask at the beginning.
10:23: So you define Molinism, okay, and it's a view of God's omniscience, as you suggested there, where God has three logical moments.
10:30: Natural knowledge, middle knowledge, free knowledge, and in between the middle knowledge and free knowledge you have
10:36: His divine decree, of course. And it's a very interesting way to kind of understand
10:42: God's knowledge. What is some of the historical background as to why this view was developed?
10:49: It was developed in response to the Reformation by a counter -reformer named
10:55: Luis de Molina. And his commission as a Jesuit was to try to preserve some idea of human liberty, human free will, freedom, with the idea of this determination amidst
11:15: Reformed thinking. And so he came up with this category of thought called middle knowledge.
11:23: So in nature, it was Catholic in nature, which I don't think is a good objection to it.
11:31: But it came off as counter -reformer. Right, right. And I think that's a good point that you made up.
11:37: I think a lot of people, I have my great complaint about criticisms of Molinism. It's kind of like a lot of Reformed critics of Molinism do the same thing that we claim
11:46: Arminians do to Calvinists. With that misrepresentation, they kind of simplify issues, you know. A lot of people will call
11:52: Molinism kind of a sophisticated form of Arminianism. And how can you be a
11:57: Molinist, you know? It was developed by a dirty old Catholic and not just any old Catholic. It was a
12:03: Jesuit. Basically, Jesuits are the special forces of the Roman Catholic Church. How can you follow a view that was developed within that context?
12:11: Well, that's a genetic fallacy. It's a logical fallacy. It's not a good objection. And I think that's important to keep in mind.
12:17: All right. So you were a Molinist. Now, through your studies, I think people are going to be very interested in this.
12:24: And you can give us kind of a general answer to this question and get more specific if you can, because I think people are going to want to know why did you,
12:35: I guess, what made you begin to doubt Molinism as an adequate view of God's omniscience and in the other ways that it may have applied?
12:44: What made you begin to doubt that? And then perhaps you can give us some of the, in a short snippet, some of the best reasons why you thought it was a good idea to say, eh,
12:53: I'm not sure I hold to that position anymore. I think the answer is a bit broad, but simple in the sense that I was doing my
13:03: PhD research on essentially the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics.
13:10: And I started discovering that there were grammatical reasons for, in essence, changing my worldview.
13:21: And so, you know, everything begins with how to understand everything. That sounds a bit tautological, but you know, that is, everything begins with how to understand worlds.
13:31: And so my understanding of worlds became dynamic in the sense that they're constantly splitting and reforming.
13:38: And, you know, this isn't based on physical evidence per se, but it's based off of grammatical reasons that, you know, we'll eventually get to.
13:45: And then when I held to the idea that, you know, worlds split, it had this ripple effect throughout the rest of my theology as far as, you know, the applications of it.
13:59: It, in essence, turned my worldview upside down. Now, when you talk about many worlds, for those who don't have kind of the philosophical background in possible world semantics and things like that, what do you mean by many worlds and splitting of worlds?
14:14: Some people who might not have a philosophical background might not know what you're, what you're getting at there. It's a bit nuanced.
14:21: I think that might be a question better answered later on as we get through it. That way we kind of, you know, start very simple and then build up the case.
14:30: But I guess to give a broad answer now, I would define world as a proposition or a maximal state of affairs, which is, you know, can always change.
14:42: And what is, I think, a hallmark of the theory that I'm proposing is that there's only one logically necessary proposition.
14:57: So think of, you know, the ontological argument is an argument for the metaphysical necessity of God. This isn't really an argument.
15:05: It's just putting forth specific grammatical rules for exegeting reality.
15:13: So we'll kind of build up from there. But, you know, I think that would be a good starting point. Great. Now, I think that's very interesting.
15:20: When I asked you before, what made you begin to kind of doubt Molinism as a particular view?
15:26: You said that the reasons were grammatical. I think that might sound interesting for people because we're going to be talking about some really interesting and perhaps abstract.
15:37: And it might be difficult for some people to grasp, but I think it's still reading through your outline that you sent me.
15:43: At first, I was like ontic grammar, which you'll explain what that means. What's this all about? But I think you're, as I was reading, especially when you got into the issue of the
15:52: Trinity and things like that, and we'll get there. I think you're onto something as much as I was able to understand.
15:58: So I'm very interested in seeing you kind of lay out what you mean by having grammatical reasons to kind of understand many worlds in a certain way or things like that.
16:08: Now, before we get into that kind of analysis there, revealed apologetics is when
16:17: I started this, my attempt was to promote an apologetic that is grounded in scripture.
16:24: Now, I believe philosophy and theology are, they go hand in hand. When you say
16:30: I left Molinism for grammatical reasons, and you begin to unpack these philosophical concepts, which
16:38: I think are important. Before we get there, were there any specific biblical reasons that considered with your philosophical reasons where did it make you change the way you looked at the
16:49: Bible and how you often use the Bible to defend a Molinistic position? Yeah, it, it starts with a revealed aspect of who
16:59: God is. And I guess kind of part of the backstory here is that it was
17:05: December 11th, 2016, when I first put this theory together to, and I realized what
17:13: I had before me, I was so incredibly terrified, because I knew that I couldn't escape it.
17:20: Because because of the grammatical reasons, and it starts with the revealed aspect of who
17:27: God is, in the sense that God is, I am.
17:33: And so in a sense, I tried to avoid using the synonymous
17:38: God semantic, because God can be misleading. If God is the center of your worldview, then you've got questions of, you know, who is
17:47: God? How do you define God? God is not a proposition, etc. And so the, the starting point for this theory, this worldview, is based on a revealed fact about who this
18:04: God is, as I am. And without that revelation, we would have no way of knowing this.
18:12: Okay. All right. Well, great. Well, I want to read for folks, you're very brief, you have a, a more technical abstract to your book.
18:20: I mean, you can talk a little bit about the fact that what you're about to explain is laid out in more detail in a book that I believe you said is available for free?
18:29: Right, yeah. Okay, why don't you tell people where they can find that real quick, and maybe they can get their hands on that and read through a little,
18:36: I can post the link in the chat, eventually, it's on my academia .edu
18:42: profile, academia .edu and search Max Andrews, you should be able to find me and it's under drafts.
18:49: And I also post primarily a lot of my interaction on the book. And the theory itself is through my
18:56: Twitter account, which is a spin underscore max, ICH, bi n underscore max.
19:04: And there's a link there and you can download it there as well. All right, very good. Well, I'm just going to quickly read through your general abstract.
19:11: It's just a little paragraph so people can get a context of what we are going to be diving into. All right, here is your general abstract.
19:17: You write, all of us have theories of everything. That is we all have a theory of everything, which is a worldview.
19:24: How do we overcome the indefinite article A to attain the definite article the, in this book,
19:31: I present a four sentence isomoric formalism, wherein we can achieve understanding of the theory of everything.
19:38: It is the case that if one were to deny the theory, one would need to use the theory to do so.
19:43: By trying to prove it false, the theory is proven true. Thus, the best way to learn the theory is to try and prove it false.
19:51: With an understanding of these four sentences, we can navigate the way through our entangled reality and discover truth, goodness, and beauty.
19:58: All we have to do is split the particle, which is something you can do just by using your brain.
20:03: It turns your world upside down. Okay, very intriguing. There's a lot to unpack there.
20:09: What I what I like about this is I'm, I love my spare time when
20:14: I'm bored. I want I drink, I drink lots of coffee, and I study transcendental arguments. And I know you said that you're not going to lay out an argument here.
20:22: But there's kind of a transcendental aspect to this, in that you suggest you said that by trying to prove the theory false, you the theory is proven true.
20:31: So there's kind of almost a transcendental necessity to the grammatical observations you're about to lay out such that we can't avoid it to avoid it is to demonstrate.
20:40: I think that's fascinating. Yeah, that that's a correct assessment. And I want to bring, I guess
20:45: I can call this a disclaimer, or what have you not, but a note prior to beginning, that I've had a very strong desire to be wrong about this theory.
20:56: You know, confirmation bias occurs when there's a desire for something to be true and conflicting data is ignored.
21:04: Consider this position kind of an inverted confirmation bias that is, you know,
21:09: I have a strong desire to be wrong about this. And I've spent the last three years kind of in silence from the theological and apologetics sphere, because I've been working on this theory.
21:19: And I've been trying to prove it wrong for so long. And it's been incredibly frustrating. Because I kind of feel this sense of Jonah in the sense of, you know,
21:28: I have this thing, it's true. It terrifies me. But I don't want to be the one responsible for this.
21:36: Okay. So, you know, I've wanted to be wrong about this. So, you know, harsh criticism and, and whatnot is, is welcome.
21:46: Right. Okay, well, great. And I'm sure people who are watching now, and people who will dissect this later, will be more than happy to try and offer a refutation.
21:56: And that and that's, that's really good. Now, real quick, before you unpack that, people might be interested.
22:01: So I kind of entitled this leaving Molinism. People, you don't have to go into the details of this, but leaving
22:08: Molinism. Someone said, well, I hope he is leaving Molinism for something better. So how would you define your position?
22:14: Now? How would you identify yourself? Theologically, people might be interested in that. I guess this position is quite a an original, unique position.
22:24: It's closer towards if we were you to use categories that we're already familiar with,
22:30: I would say that the application of this theory is more consilient with Calvinism.
22:38: I don't have any, any qualms with five point Calvinism. You know, you and I talked about this earlier, one of the points that I think was most obvious to me was the
22:49: L, the limited atonement. That seemed most obvious to me. I don't know why. Well, anyways.
22:56: But yeah, I think Calvinist would be closer. But if you want to be specific as to the use of the theory and the application therein,
23:04: I call it ontic grammar, you know, ontic from on toss or ontology being.
23:11: So it's the idea that, uh, that particles of speech kind of in logical space are kind of isomorphic one in the same with physical particles.
23:24: Uh, so we'll get into that shortly. Sure. So, so if this view catches on it, you know, someone could identify themselves as like an ontic grammarist, you know, or, yeah.
23:34: Okay. There we go. I adhere to ontic, uh, uh, Grammaville's of Calvinism.
23:43: That's right. I think attempting to name this, I might appear to be Pentecostal and start speaking in tongues. It's very, uh, linguistically confusing.
23:50: All right. So why don't you unpack this? So, um, I've read the general abstract. You talked about having theories of everything.
23:56: Everyone has a theory of everything, a worldview, a network of presuppositions in terms of which all of reality is, is reality is interpreted.
24:04: Why don't you begin to unpack, um, your position? If you were to, if you were in front of like an audience right now, uh, giving a paper, how would you kind of lay out your perspective?
24:15: So, um, I guess the, the thesis statement to the, uh, to the book is that the theory of ontic grammar, or this theory provides an objective grounding by which one can understand words, sentences, propositions in worlds via the logically necessary divine object, which is, uh, also known as a, a myriological singularity or a syntactic singularity, uh, which is,
24:45: I am that of the Judeo Christian worldview. So that's the thesis that I'm, I'm going to be defending throughout the book and throughout this, this outline interview.
24:54: Okay. So why don't you start unpacking that? So, uh, if someone were to say, well, what, what is this, what is this ontic grammar?
25:01: Why is it important? Why does this relate to your whole, no longer understanding Molinism, uh, in the way that you did before?
25:08: And now you're changing this perspective. Why don't you unpack, um, grammatically and perhaps even metaphysically talk about what's going on there that, uh, that we should know about?
25:18: Uh, well, I think we would have to begin with, you know, the important question. And I think the most important questions we can ask are what explains meaning and meaningless, nothing and everything.
25:30: And so when we ask what is meaning, uh, we would have to say, you know, it's the correct association of words within a language, uh, by which we can build up other words and propositions and sentences.
25:42: Uh, yeah, go ahead. So, so basically you're asking what are the preconditions for, for meaning and intelligibility basically?
25:50: Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, and then what, something that, uh,
25:56: I guess the mathematical aspect about the theory is that it deals with the universals in the sense of, uh, a restricted universal and an unrestricted universal.
26:07: So I imagine when you're going through an airport, the, uh, security agent, she might ask you, is everything out of your pockets?
26:17: And a responsible passenger should probably be prepared by that point and say, yes, everything is out of my pockets.
26:26: Um, but everything is restricted in that sense. And you don't have an elephant in your pocket.
26:33: Tokyo isn't in your pocket. You know, do you want to suck out all of the air molecules out of your pocket?
26:39: So it's very restricted in sense, but you're still using the word everything. So it's, it is a universal affirmation of something.
26:47: Or you just say, you know, I have nothing in my pockets. Um, but would also be, you know, if we want to speak in the sense of an unrestricted nothing, that's what a lot of atheists might think in the sense of, you know, there was truly nothing, you know, the universal negation of anything.
27:04: And that stands as logic, logically impossible under this theory.
27:11: So we've got a logically necessary something, which is unrestrictedly universal in the sense that it's mathematically grammatically impossible that it not exist.
27:23: And thus it's logically impossible for there to be the universal unrestricted or an unrestricted universal nothing.
27:31: And now you would say that that unrestricted universal is the metaphysical context out of which meaning itself, grammar, mathematics, or anything, without that metaphysical context, there's no meaning or coherency.
27:46: Would you agree with that? Right, right. So without this singularity, without this point by which we root all meaning, without that, then, you know, we couldn't have any type of coherence or language.
28:00: Okay, well, all right, that sounds cool. So all right, buddy, what's the precondition for knowledge, man?
28:06: Go for it. I'm packing for it. Let's see the precondition for knowledge.
28:12: I think it's the correct association or the correct semantic mapping of the reality around you.
28:23: Okay. So I would say that, you know, it's not just an issue of a justified true belief or justified, or a true belief with warrant.
28:34: I think that there has to be a correct mapping of that. And a lot of us don't have that correct association of, of words and particles around us, because we don't know who we are.
28:47: And so, in the end, it's understanding what it means for us to speak, I am or to understand
28:54: I am who I am. And so if I were to ask somebody, you know, who are you, they might say, you know,
28:59: I'm a father, I'm a dad, I'm a brother, I'm a teacher. And my name is
29:05: Max, or, you know, go on and start giving examples. But eventually, the only thing that we can know, as a starting point is that we are who we are.
29:15: And then from that point, then we can build up knowledge and understanding from that.
29:22: And there's a thought experiment at the end of the book that we'll get to in the at the end of the next episode, in which
29:30: I demonstrate, you know, to understand the theory, you kind of have to deconstruct everything that you think you know, now, understand who you are, understand what it means to say
29:41: I am who I am. And then it just turns everything back upside down, everything is reconstructed for you.
29:49: Now, when you say understanding who we are, are you kind of it almost sounded like you were starting with some sort of like Cartesian axiom?
29:57: You know, are you saying that we start with ourselves? And then in order to understand ourselves, there needs to be a broader context in which that makes sense.
30:03: And then we have to consider how the fact of ourselves relates to other facts.
30:09: And the way we speak about those facts is, is that kind of what you're saying? Or no? I suppose.
30:15: Okay. To the epistemic process may be that we understand that we exist prior to understanding that the divine object exists, that I am exists.
30:29: So the epistemic process may go take you for a little loop like that. And I think that's probably the nature of feeling like your worldview gets turned upside down, right?
30:37: You start with yourself. And then, you know, it kind of loops back towards, you know,
30:43: God, the divine object. So would this be the difference between, and I'm not sure you're familiar with this language.
30:49: But when people discuss issues of like presuppositional apologetics and transcendental arguments and worldview issues, we make the distinction between proximate starting points and ultimate starting points.
30:59: Would you say that our proximate starting point is ourselves and our epistemic equipment, but our ultimate starting point is the metaphysical reality of the ontological
31:08: Trinity, which gives context to the proximate, if that makes sense? Right. Yeah.
31:14: That language could be used here. I try to avoid using the language of metaphysical throughout the book because I think it can be misleading.
31:23: And so I typically use the two categories of just physical and logical. Okay. All right.
31:31: So again, so if we're going to relate this to Molinism, I guess the two foundations of Molinism would be
31:38: God has middle knowledge. And would libertarian free will be a key foundation?
31:44: I hear people kind of say, well, really it's just a view of God's omniscience. And although libertarian free will is connected to that, that's not necessarily what defines middle knowledge, where you have kind of a mirror
31:55: Molinism perspective. What would you say the two foundations if, or what are the foundations for Molinism?
32:03: And what is it about your view that brings you to different conclusions as to how to understand that?
32:09: Does on your view, does God have middle knowledge? How does that relate to possible worlds and contingencies and things like that?
32:14: Can you unpack that a bit? When it comes to whether or not God has middle knowledge under my view?
32:24: Sure. I've got no objection to that per se. What I do with hypothetical counterfactuals is that what
32:35: I eventually do is that I relate them to probability values.
32:41: In the sense that, because there's an analog between physics and logical space, between physical space and logical space, there's just in the same sense that some, now
32:58: I'm getting ahead of myself there. Let me not get to that analogy just yet. So I'll stop at that point.
33:04: When it comes to human freedom, in my position, I really don't have that much of an opinion about it because I don't really think it matters that much.
33:12: I would say that yes, we do have freedom, but it's not a main tenant.
33:17: That's not something that is as important. It's further down the epistemic road.
33:24: And I would say, yes, we do have freedom, but I don't really care that much.
33:30: Okay. All right. Fair enough. All right. So as I'm looking at your outline here, you kind of outline each chapter in your book.
33:37: And I suppose that you're building on a logical order, laying down the framework or the foundation rather than building off of that.
33:43: So perhaps we can unpack a little more by having you summarize. For example, you've entitled chapter one, semantic engineering.
33:51: What do you mean by that? And why is it important to talk about that at the beginning as you then continue to lay out in more detail your perspective?
34:00: Okay. So the primary question wanting to be answered in this chapter is myriological.
34:06: That is, what is the relationship between a whole and its parts? And the whole and the parts that I'm concerned with here are words and sentences, primarily propositions.
34:19: And so to define a word in linguistics, a word is defined as something that's freestanding.
34:27: Basically, you can pull open a dictionary, look at a word, and its meaning is freestanding in the sense that you can read the definition and the word can stand on its own.
34:39: But my case is that, I guess, more fundamentally that, you know, words are symbols and symbols point to other words, which are also symbols.
34:48: And, you know, words are particles of speech. But there's much more to it in the sense that words aren't simply freestanding.
34:56: We have to consider the context around them, because some words can, you know, change the semantic domains can vary widely, and you need other words to understand other words.
35:09: And so you get this sense of entanglement that everything is connected, but there's no real starting point quite yet.
35:16: So if we need this word, you know, if we look up the word symbol in the dictionary, and we read the definition, and we can say, okay, well, we don't know what the word, you know, lexicon means.
35:28: So let's look up the word lexicon. And so we go to lexicon, and we read the definition of lexicon, and then we don't know the definition or the meaning of the word language.
35:36: And so, you know, there becomes this regress of, you know, everything is kind of supporting itself here.
35:42: So where's the starting point if there is a starting point? And so, you know, in engineering, a structure is a load bearing material, something that can support weight, say, yeah, here, semantic engineering are words that can support meaning.
36:01: So if we just have this unstructured chaos to language, then everything is meaningless, in the literal sense that we're just, we're just playing with toys when it comes to our language.
36:19: And it's very unsophisticated, crude language that we use. But I don't think any of us really use language in that sense, we use words as if they actually have meaning.
36:29: And so I give, this is an epistemic chapter for understanding the relationship of words with other words.
36:37: And then, you know, starting at that point as an epistemic starting point as words that refer.
36:44: Okay. And I think that's very important also to think in terms of what what makes a good starting point for a worldview.
36:51: Yeah, it's not some, you know, oftentimes people would say a starting point, it has to be like this one thing, when in actuality, it could be a bundle of things.
36:59: If you're familiar with the reformed philosopher, Gordon Clark, he was a
37:05: Christian rationalist. And so he kind of based his worldview on axioms.
37:12: And the axiom that he started with was the proposition, the Bible is the Word of God written.
37:18: And so while that's one proposition, what's housed in that proposition, are a bundle of things, all of the concepts found within the
37:25: Bible that provide this foundational web upon which you can build the rest of your worldview.
37:31: So I think that's important when you said that words stand alone, but they really don't have a kind of an applicable meaning unless they are connected to other words in a sentence in a paragraph or something like that.
37:43: So starting point doesn't necessarily have to be one thing. But whatever it's going to be, it has to support meaning by being sufficiently connected to everything else.
37:53: Right. Okay. All right. So you're so basically semantic engineering is discussing the mere illogical nature of language, understanding how parts relate to the whole, which indirectly is another interesting point, which is related to the philosophical issue of the one and the many, which is a more fundamental problem in the study of metaphysics in ancient
38:19: Greek philosophy. So hopefully we'll get into that as well. I think people who are interested in the presuppositional approach will find that aspect of the discussion a little helpful.
38:28: But okay, setting down linguistic foundations, understanding words in the context of other words.
38:34: All right. So your second chapter is where, when I first heard this, I was kind of like, oh man, like,
38:39: I don't know what, if I read this book, I'm probably, my brain's going to fall out of my ears.
38:45: You entitled the chapter to ontic grammar. I was like, what is that? I don't even know what that means.
38:51: The ontology of grammar. Why don't you unpack that for us? Precisely. So to understand the transition between chapter one and chapter two, what we're looking for in this structure of a worldview that we have, where words are connected to other words and they're entangled together, what we're looking for is the particle, which is also the whole.
39:18: Now that might sound like a contradiction in the sense that, well, how can the particle and the whole be the same identical thing?
39:27: And so that's how, that's how we want to root our noetic structures, our worldviews, everything, our language has to be rooted in the one and the many.
39:40: So the previous chapter focuses on words that refer and chapter two ontic grammar focuses on words as a referent.
39:49: So it completes this isomorphic one in the same element.
39:54: Because when we want to think of a coherent worldview, we want to think of it as, you know, is it universal?
40:02: Does it explain subjectivity? Does it explain objectivity? Is it isomorphic?
40:08: You know, are all of the parts one in the same thing, or is there an ontological distinction between the two?
40:15: Whereas I'm saying, no, they are one in the same, you know, the particles that make up this
40:22: Sharpie pen are particles of speech, both in reference and referent.
40:28: So when we think of, now, whenever I use the semantic of God, I'm always referring to I am, for the purposes of simplicity and linguistic flow.
40:40: So some biblical source material here that, you know, kind of builds into the presuppositions here is that, you know,
40:47: God is word, John one, and this word spoke creation into existence.
40:53: So when we look at Genesis one, Psalm 33, verses six and nine. So there's kind of, you know, biblical support for the idea that, you know, everything is language.
41:08: So everything, what's the most common denominator to reality? Well, there's a little bit of biology that we know of on this planet.
41:16: Biology is chemistry, chemistry of physics, physics is mathematics, and that's very reductionistic.
41:22: But this worldview is much more reductionistic than that, in the sense that everything, that mathematics is even reduced to language.
41:29: So everything is words. And so then we get to the tenets or the axioms of reality.
41:36: And these are the main four rules that are going to drive everything for the rest of the book and for, you know, for understanding.
41:44: We've got to get these four rules down. And so I begin with Exodus 314, where God said to Moses, I am who
41:53: I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you.
42:00: So tenet one or the first rule here is that any non -divine particles are radically contingent upon the divine object.
42:09: So particles, let's go through that. So just like you said, with Gordon Clark, he had that first rule.
42:16: What was it? What was that first rule for Clark? The Bible is the word of God written. Right.
42:22: So this would be analogous to, you know, that this is my first rule. You know, particles are the components to a myriological sum or a whole.
42:31: So parts, whole words, words. So basically you're saying words, this is an axiom. Words are only have meaning within relation to, to holes, like kind of more words.
42:44: Does that make sense? Right. Yeah. We'll get into that and into chapter three with the principle of particular indeterminism.
42:52: Okay. But yeah, particles here are particles of speech. And then you just have to remember that particles of speech are physics and logical space semantics.
43:02: Okay. Now by radical, what I mean is rooted, you know, from the Latin radix. So contingent, contingent, radical contingency means rooted, dependent, grounded.
43:13: And the divine object is this myriological or syntactic singularity. When we think of structure of language, we've got syntax.
43:20: So it comes down to this point where particle equals whole. Now the divine object, when we see that I am refers to himself as I am, as his name, then that functions as an object there.
43:36: When we think about it in, if I were to say I am max, we've got subject
43:42: I, verb M, object max. And so the reflexive sense of identity would be
43:50: I am who I am. So when I say divine object, I'm always referring to I am or myriological singularity,
43:57: I'm referring to I am. So I am is what
44:02: I claim to be this myriological singularity where particle equals whole in the sense that I subject
44:09: M verb is the object, which is the proposition.
44:15: So if we think of object as the particle and whole proposition as the whole, then everything is rooted in,
44:25: I am, it's a complete sentence. It is also just a particle. So it's simultaneously one in the same, a split particle in himself.
44:36: Okay. So, and, and how does this relate to when you say the, I am the, the object of that, that statement is the triune
44:46: God. And so is there a relationship between the words where you're talking about particles and then you have kind of the one and you have the multiple other words that give context to that, the many, how does that relate to the ontological status of the
45:04: Trinity? I think the many in the one, yes, the, the ontological status of the
45:13: Trinity would be that there are three persons who are not identical to each other, who speak
45:20: I am and understand what it means to speak. I am in that sense. And they all function the same in the same way that just as the son denies himself, he affirms his father.
45:38: And so likewise, what I would suspect is that the Holy Spirit denies himself and affirms the son.
45:44: And there's this relay of, and we'll get into this in the second episode of this type of superposition of denying oneself to deny yourself is to say,
45:56: I am not. So in, but in order to say that you are not, you have to be, so you are,
46:04: I am, I am not. So you end up saying I am, and I am not. And we'll get into that in the next part, but you know, there's this
46:15: Trinitarian entanglement and connectedness that will follow from it. So you'd say that when someone says, I am not that presupposes identity, and I'm just thinking out loud, but identity doesn't make sense without a broader context, which would differentiate the thing that is being identified in the context of broader reality.
46:35: So would that, would that make sense? Right. So one of the, the pluses, I think to this theory is that, and I think it'll drive some, some people a little mad is that, you know, there's
46:47: Aristotle's law of excluded middle, that a proposition can only be true or false.
46:53: It can't be true and false, or there's no middle ground between true and false. But with this theory is that it accounts for this superposition.
47:04: And when we talk about Schrodinger's cat being dead and alive, we can revisit this issue, but in order to deny yourself to say,
47:13: I am not, which is false, you have to be to say I am, which is true.
47:19: So you've got something that's true and false. And so what, if I am is synonymous with God and I am not is, you know, not
47:29: God to say that I am and I am not is equivalent to saying
47:35: I am an atheist. So when you think about it, you know, is, is the sun teaching this type of superposition atheism in the sense that in a follower of the sun is a
47:53: Christian is an atheist in the sense that they deny themselves in a modally analogous way.
48:00: That might sound as a bit of a shock or something, but when we build up the case and the understanding that may make a little bit more sense.
48:08: Now, I think people would be interested now what you've said so far, and you could tell me if it's too early to make this connection.
48:16: How does this relate to Molinism as not being a sufficient view in light of what you're saying here?
48:24: Can you draw the connection for some people? Maybe there's something that you can kind of give an example as to why what you've said thus far makes
48:34: Molinism kind of a, I'm not sure that is a good way of understanding God, his knowledge and things like that.
48:40: Or is there no necessary connection yet? And that you're getting to that. I think we're just broaching that subject because it comes down to, you know,
48:50: I view worlds differently than the Molinist views worlds. Okay. And you know, how does the
48:56: Molinist view worlds? Why don't you go through that real quick? As a Molinist, how I understood worlds was, you know, a maximal state of affairs, a proposition, but it didn't have that logical necessity to it.
49:11: I couldn't find, as a Molinist, I couldn't find any logical necessity by which we would start by understanding worlds because traditionally someone would say, well, it's necessary that two plus two equals four.
49:25: And under this view, I would say, you know, that presupposes what
49:33: I'm trying, it presupposes these four rules, these four tenets, because numbers, for example, are necessarily adjectives before they are a noun.
49:46: So in order to have the cardinal number one, that we have to presuppose the divine object, because if the divine object is logically necessary, there has to be a first first, a first one, which is in reference to or describing the
50:03: Trinity as one object. And so it changes the way that you view mathematics.
50:10: So if you don't follow the rules here, you're going to view mathematics differently, which is going to change how you view what's logically necessary, what's logically possible, and whatnot.
50:22: Okay. So if someone did understand worlds in the sense that the Molinist does, you would say that is insufficient because of this lack of necessity that you're trying to establish?
50:37: Is that what you're saying? Right. So it oversteps what I'm arguing, well, not arguing, but stating as the logically necessary component to a worldview, because the way that the first rule is worded, you know, any non divine particles or anything that's not the divine object is radically contingent.
51:01: So it doesn't even presume that there are, there could be a world in which it is only the divine object.
51:10: And so that accounts for this contingency. And so I couldn't simply say that, you know, two plus two equals four is logically necessary without, because two is a non divine particle, which is a noun, and the conjunction of plus with the extra noun verb noun, as you start exegeting the mathematics there, that presupposes that it's not, or there is no presupposition there of making the connection to the divine object.
51:47: And so even the mathematics, the particles of speech and as they refer and what their reference are, are contingent upon the divine object or rooted in the divine object.
51:59: So you would say that understanding worlds from a Molinist perspective would not provide the necessary preconditions for intelligibility because they're, they lack that element of necessity, which grounds those other contingencies.
52:14: Okay. All right. So that's kind of like you would, you would come at like in a, in a non philosophically dense conversation.
52:22: If you were speaking with a Molinist, you would provide an internal critique and say, how is, how does the
52:28: Molinist perspective and their understanding of many worlds ground? How would you phrase it?
52:33: If you were to internally critique, does Molinism ground what?
52:39: Why don't you say that in kind of in a way that we can understand and perhaps even people listening, how might they criticize the
52:46: Molinist perspective using your understanding? How can an average person kind of form an understanding to kind of have like this snippet in a context of a conversation so that it can be useful to people listening?
52:59: Well, I think it comes down to grounding the referring word to the referent word, you know, what are you, what is the grounding for the referent of what you're speaking?
53:09: So if we stick with the mathematics example, what grounds, you know, the number two in the sentence, two plus two equals four, the, well, let's just, let's say two plus three equals five so that we don't have two twos plus three equals five.
53:27: What grounds two? And, you know, we can say we've got the referring word of two, and then we've got the referent of two.
53:36: And so here it's functioning as a noun. So what is, you know, that's a bit abstract.
53:42: What does it function as or what is it describing? And so when you think of, or here's another example if, and we'll come back to it.
53:51: If I say slippery plus rough equals slipo, we can think of something that is slippery and rough, sure.
54:02: But what happens is that we immediately try to think of something that is slippery and rough at the same time.
54:07: What is the referent to this word? Because it's, you know, it's an adjective, it's describing something.
54:14: Are you asking what is the ontological status of two? Um, well, well, two,
54:20: I'm more concerned with the function. And so the title of the book is the workings of worlds, the functions of worlds, where everything functions differently.
54:28: So, you know, what is the ontological status of two? Well, it depends on what the referent of two is.
54:35: Is it two apples? Because I'm saying that it's logically adjectival, or it's logically an adjective prior to it being a noun.
54:45: So there is no ontological one, or there's no ontological two, without it first referring to the
54:54: Trinity or the divine object in some sense. So all numbers kind of are,
55:00: I guess you could say abstracted from this myriological singularity, because the first one, the first first describes the divine object, because the first rule states that all non -divine particles are radically contingent upon the divine object.
55:18: And one is a non -divine particle, two is a non -divine particle. Now someone is, someone is asking, and I know we're not taking questions just yet, because we want to save that at a later point once you lay out your thing.
55:30: But I have to, I have to ask this one. I mean, this I think is relevant, and I think people are trying to make the connection with what you're saying with, with Molinism per se.
55:38: So I think the temptation for people who want to see the connection is just to jump to that connection without laying the groundwork.
55:45: And that's why I haven't taken the questions yet. But someone, someone asked if, if this is just the grounding objection, is this, is this kind of a version of the grounding objection that you see as a weakness of Molinism when you say, well, what grounds two on a particular
55:58: Molinistic understanding of the many worlds? Is that basically what you're saying? Um, I've kind of wanted,
56:04: I guess you could say it's within the same family of the grounding objection.
56:11: Um, I think the, it may be a critique of Molinism, um, but there's no,
56:21: I guess grounding objection in the sense of a logically necessary singularity.
56:27: There is no logical singularity or a logically necessary starting point under Molinism.
56:36: Uh, at least right there. Now that was what confused me. I always thought that, um, with the hypothetical worlds,
56:43: I mean, you have, God could, has a vast array of worlds he can possibly actualize, right?
56:49: Um, but that God is because he's necessary. He is a, he necessarily exists in any conceivable world.
56:56: So on Molinism, it seems as though he would, you would have that necessary, like God, which transcends all of these hypothetical worlds.
57:03: He's reality in all of them, right? Let's take the proposition. God exists in every world.
57:09: When you start exegeting that proposition, you've got to the first word, you know, what does
57:16: God mean? And so you've got to then take apart that, that meaning of that word.
57:22: And so, um, I think what I'm trying to communicate is much more fundamental in laying the foundations for grammar.
57:31: So I don't even use, try, I try to avoid using the word
57:36: God because it's misleading. Um, and so you come into the, you know, the issue back in chapter one of, you know,
57:44: God is, that definition of God is connected to these words. These words, you know, are connected to this word.
57:52: And so, um, you know, it, it, when you start exegeting the very proposition,
58:00: God is connected to every world or God is, you know, in every world, then you're already presuming a plurality of worlds that exist in some type of necessity in that, within that proposition.
58:13: So if you want to make those worlds contingent or contingent upon God, you've got to,
58:19: I don't know, I would say fall back onto my first tenant here. Can you repeat that again?
58:24: That sentence seemed really important when you said something about, uh, that, that if God is a necessary being in all these worlds, there seems to be some aspect of necessity to those worlds.
58:35: Can you, is that, can you repeat that again? Right. So why are there any worlds to begin with? When you put in the proposition, include that within the proposition,
58:45: God exists in every world. And so you've got to find some way to root that very proposition that you just uttered.
58:52: What roots that proposition? And so when we go through the four rules, these grammars, you'll see this looping effect and that it becomes very circular.
59:03: Um, and we need this circularity in a coherent worldview. If we don't have the circularity, then we have a theory that explains everything but itself.
59:14: Right. And you just have an, you just have an axiom. Uh, well I would consider these axiomatic in the sense that we need these in order to understand language.
59:25: Because, um, you know, if, if, uh, we were to diverge from, from, uh, these rules, you know, we would function as metaphorical divine objects.
59:36: We are, uh, modally analogous gods to our own speech, all of our speech, all of our action are rooted in ourselves.
59:44: And we'll get to examples of that when we talk about fiction, which, you know, may clear that up. Um, but there's this circular looping here, but what you're starting proposition,
59:55: God exists in every possible world, not only within the content of that proposition of, you know, what are these other worlds and why are they not rooted in him or contingent on him, but what roots that very proposition that you start with.
01:00:12: And so I could come back and say, well, what roots this very proposition of this first rule? Well, I'm rooting it in my speech, which is rooted in the divine object.
01:00:22: And I'm uttering, you know, uh, there's this circularity that starts building up to it.
01:00:28: Okay. All right. So, uh, that was a little bit of, we got, we went into a bunch of different directions and we, we started with, with ontogram and that's fine.
01:00:37: I, I, uh, I assumed we would go in that direction. Um, so chapter three, you entitled fiction and counterfactuals, and maybe this will be a little bit more related to, uh,
01:00:47: Molinism. People who are listening are more, a lot of them may be Molinists. And so they want to see this connection and they're just going to have to be patient until you get there.
01:00:55: Uh, and we already have drawn some connections already. Um, but, uh, why don't you unpack that for us?
01:01:00: Fiction and counterfactuals, what is this chapter about and what does this have to do with the whole discussion before you answer that for people who are still asking and may not have been able to identify, well, what does this all have to do with leaving
01:01:13: Molinism? It really is wrapped up in your change in your understanding of necessity, grammar, and that the, the, um,
01:01:22: Molinistic perspective does not provide a context in which can best explain, uh, issues of grammar and necessity.
01:01:29: Right. Would that make sense? Right. So it really comes down to viewing worlds differently.
01:01:35: And so worlds are, you know, linguistic in nature. And so when you start looking at the differences of, uh, you know, how they split, how they function, how they're dynamic, how they reform, you know, it's,
01:01:50: I think the best evidence for worlds that split is not, you know, quantum physics or anything like that.
01:01:59: That's just the language that we use. So for just, I guess, an example, a lot of the Molinism stuff will probably come up a little bit more in the next one, but it's much more fundamental in the sense that, no,
01:02:13: I didn't, you know, I understand Romans eight in this different way, or Romans nine in this different way. It's like, no, it was actually more philosophically rooted for me as to why
01:02:23: I left. And I think that's important because a lot of people, when they hear leaving Molinism, they're like, I want to know why you left
01:02:30: Molinism. And so in answering that question, they want to connect everything to how it relates to Molinism. When I think based upon what you said is that you're asking a more foundational question of which the reasons you left
01:02:42: Molinism is kind of an offshoot of that. It's like, you're discovering this, this other interesting thing. And in the process you're saying, well, well, now that I'm digging into here,
01:02:51: I don't think Molinism works over here. So it's, it's a concern, but not the main concern. Okay. All right.
01:02:57: So that's why you're laying the foundation first. And then we can go over to that application say, and given what you just laid out, this is the reason why
01:03:05: I don't think this works now before I give you an opportunity to explain chapter three.
01:03:10: And I think that once you finish explaining chapter three, we should stop only because I see that there are seven sections you've given me.
01:03:17: And so we can save those other sections for the next, the next one. Okay. If that's, if that's okay. Yeah.
01:03:23: Oh yeah. I think what would be, I think important to let people know as well, is that your reasons for rejecting
01:03:31: Molinism seem to be right now up until this point, very philosophical. But I think people would also want to know, are there specific biblical reasons as well?
01:03:41: And I think that's important for well, for yourself, I'm sure you hold the Bible in high regard as well, but you, you can understand why people would want to know that as well.
01:03:49: So perhaps at some point we can get into some of the biblical reasons why, if there are any, perhaps you think
01:03:54: Molinism is, yeah, it jives with scripture, but because of these philosophical problems, I don't think it's an adequate model to understand scripture.
01:04:01: So that depends which way you go there. So perhaps you can lay that out when you feel it's necessary. Right. To address that just quickly,
01:04:08: I would, I've got no problem saying that it's philosophical in nature, my objections and you know, my biblical rooting, you know, my rooting for my philosophy is rooted primarily in the
01:04:22: Bible as revealed fact. And yeah, it's philosophical in nature.
01:04:30: Okay. And that's, that's fine too. And I think philosophy is wrapped up in logic and logic is kind of the, the context out of which scripture even makes sense.
01:04:42: So if scripture is breathed out by God and the nature of this God is that he's logical, he's going to be consistent.
01:04:48: So any model that's inconsistent and we try to apply to the revelatory data, if it's inconsistent, it's not going to work.
01:04:55: So I don't have a problem for people who might not be able to make these distinctions. I don't have a problem for leaving a position for philosophical reasons.
01:05:04: Because if the reasons are that a particular perspective is logically incoherent, then that is a good enough reason to reject it.
01:05:12: Does that make sense? Right? Yeah. I'm on board. Okay. Well, cool. I hope people caught that. And I know some people there, when you have these discussions, for example, between the
01:05:20: Calvinist Molinas and Armenians, there's kind of these like staple talking points that people like to go over, but I think you're going much more deeper than just addressing the tidbits of like, well, what about this?
01:05:31: But what about that? I think you're going to the foundation that I think once we lay that down, we can then begin to have a context for, for application.
01:05:39: So that being said, so chapter three, this will be the last section here that you can unpack.
01:05:45: And then we will, we'll set up another discussion where we can cover more specifically
01:05:51: Molinistic applications and how that relates to why you no longer find it adequate.
01:05:57: Okay. So chapter three, fiction and counterfactuals. What's that all about? And why is it important? So I understand fiction as a non -actual world in logical space without necessarily having physical grounding.
01:06:12: So a fiction is something that's real, and it's true, but it's just non -actual to us.
01:06:18: Now, think of other worlds as being real. To be real is to be true.
01:06:25: To be true is to be real. And when it comes to actuality, there's only one actual world and that's our world, but other worlds are that exist, you know, it's actual to those people or to those particles within that world.
01:06:44: Now, would you say that you said fictions are real? Would you mean that in the sense that like a unicorn is real as a fiction?
01:06:54: Like if I conceive of a unicorn, that conception is real, even though it is not actual instantiated and kind of like physical actuality or something like that.
01:07:03: Is that what you mean? Right. So I guess to bounce around a little bit between the fictions and the counterfactuals issue, the question that I think will get people's minds going is the question, is magic real or is unicorn real?
01:07:19: And I would say, yes, of course, magic is real. It's just non -actual to our world. So consider the proposition for any of the
01:07:26: Harry Potter fans, Sirius Black was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange's killing curse.
01:07:33: You know, are you familiar with Harry Potter at all? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not a Harry Potter nerd, but I've seen them all.
01:07:39: And I, and I, I know, I know about it. Okay. So is that proposition true or false? Well, um,
01:07:45: I, can you say it again? Sirius Black was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange's killing curse.
01:07:52: Now I, I think so in the story that actually happens. So in a sense it's true. Right. So if I say
01:07:58: Sirius Black was killed by being thrown off the astronomy tower, is that true or false?
01:08:04: I don't remember what happens, but if it happens in the book, then it is in a sense true. Okay. So she was, she,
01:08:11: Bellatrix kills, uh, Sirius Black with the killing curse and he was not thrown off.
01:08:17: Uh, it's not true that he was thrown off the astronomy tower. Okay. Thank you. I'm getting educated on Harry Potter now.
01:08:22: Okay. Every particle of the proposition must be true for the whole to be true.
01:08:28: Thus, you know, it's false that Black was killed by being thrown off the astronomy tower. Okay. So, you know, it's, it's, um, you know, it's actual in their worlds, which is non -actual to us.
01:08:41: Likewise, we are non -actual to Harry Potter. So, um, you know, there's the question of, did
01:08:51: Frodo and Sam really take the one ring to Mordor to be destroyed?
01:08:58: In the book? Yes. Yeah. Well, in this chapter, I even talk about the differences between movies and books and how, how they're entangled with each other and, you know, who's the real
01:09:08: Dumbledore, you know, is it the book Dumbledore? Is it the red bow Dumbledore?
01:09:14: You know, you know, we've got two different Dumbledore. So what do we do when we've got like two actors who play the same thing?
01:09:20: What do we do with that? Um, and so that's some of the stuff that I talk about in there, but, um, so yeah, fictions are real, but they're non -actual to us.
01:09:30: Um, counterfactuals are real, but they're not actual because they're counter to fact. So you kind of make a comparison there. Is that what you're saying?
01:09:36: Right. And so what I do is I kind of laid the counterfactuals out probabilistically. Now, when
01:09:41: I'm going through this in the book, I've already made the connection, this, um, connection to quantum physics in the sense that, you know,
01:09:50: I've kind of allured to it already. Words kind of require other words for meaning.
01:09:56: And so, uh, in physics, you know, there's the electron cloud. You don't quite know where the electron's going to be.
01:10:03: It has possible states. Um, but we can only know probabilistically where it's going to be.
01:10:09: Likewise with, uh, singular words with exact words, think of it as like a semantic cloud.
01:10:16: We kind of know where the meaning is probably going to be, but we need more, it needs to entangle with more words so we can understand the exact meaning of the singular word.
01:10:26: Hmm. Okay. I understand. And so that kind of deals with the principle of, uh, particular indeterminism, you know, particular being the adjectival form of particle.
01:10:38: Um, you know, it states that the singular particles as grammatical objects, you know, subject, verb, object as objects, they are indeterminate in meaning.
01:10:47: So physical particles are indeterminate and location. Yeah. State value, location, and space time, just as semantic particles are indeterminate in logical space.
01:10:58: Okay. So you, they need meaning relies on this entanglement, this connecting with others, just as analogous to the quantum aspect.
01:11:08: So basically individual facts only have meaning in a context.
01:11:14: So, so if we were to simplify this ideas only have meaning in a context, words only have meaning in a context.
01:11:19: There needs to be a context, a whole of which particulars of that make up that whole have any meaning whatsoever.
01:11:28: Exactly. So two quick examples, I'm going to list some words and then you start telling me what comes to mind as we start connecting these words.
01:11:36: Hopefully I know what words you'll use. The first one is ginger. I think of a, like a redheaded person.
01:11:46: Okay. Okay. And cat, what, what do you connect with cat?
01:11:52: I think of dog automatically. I think like kind of the opposite. Okay. Now put ginger and cat together.
01:11:58: What do you think of a ginger cat? I think of a cat with reddish fur.
01:12:05: Right. Now suppose that, you know, when I put ginger and cat together, it could be the case that, oh, ginger is, you know, the root, it's a food and I carve the ginger into the shape of a cat.
01:12:21: But what I'm, what I'm really referring to is Garfield. That's right. Okay. So, uh, another example of, uh, we've got the word gold.
01:12:32: But, but, but right there, when you said Garfield, you added another word that is myriologically related to previous words that you've given me that didn't have enough context to make sense out of it.
01:12:43: So the more, the more words you added, the more connections you provided for me to make so that I can get closer to the specific object of which you're actually referring to.
01:12:54: Right. So I could, I could, uh, you know, I coordinate, um, we, we use coordinates to map physical space.
01:13:02: Likewise, I use coordinates to map logic, logical space. So I put ginger and I put cat together.
01:13:09: And so there's a pair of two points that function as a coordinate. And then I add Garfield, but Garfield is kind of, you know, what does
01:13:17: Garfield mean? And then I add John and then I add Odie and then I put those together.
01:13:23: And then I've got a greater context for the meaning of lasagna lasagna.
01:13:28: Yeah, there we go. So yeah, thank you. So, um, you know, another quick example, when you think of gold and then you think of the word bowl, and then you think of the word bowl of gold, you know, is it, you know, is this bowl of gold, is it a golden bowl?
01:13:46: Is it a bowl that's made out of gold or is it a bowl that's filled with gold? I'm not sure unless you add more words to provide context.
01:13:54: Precisely. So you start mapping logical space. And this is something that, that you get familiar with during chapter one in semantic engineering of how we connect words together.
01:14:05: Um, and so, okay, back onto the, uh, counterfactuals of how they're kind of probabilistically expressed.
01:14:13: Uh, so we can start, you know, topologically in the sense that, uh, here's, here's a proposition.
01:14:19: If I were not, I would have not been, you know, that's true.
01:14:25: If I didn't exist, then I would not have existed. Um, and then we kind of progress from something that's topological all the way down to something that's, you know, fairly probable.
01:14:36: Uh, if I were not wearing clothing, I would have been naked. And so you have the question of, well, what's clothing?
01:14:43: You know, if I'm walking around with a sandwich board sign that says the end is near, you know,
01:14:49: I'm kind of covered up, but, you know, does the sandwich board count as clothing? I'm not quite sure.
01:14:55: Does it have to be a cloth of fabric? You know, you start getting, you know, you start dissecting.
01:15:00: Right. Next one. If I were not wearing a red shirt, I would have been wearing a non -red shirt. Well, you know, that kind of follows.
01:15:08: That seems reasonable. If it's not red, then it's not red, but I wouldn't have to be wearing a shirt at all.
01:15:14: Yeah. Now, now that's interesting because I'm, I'm always thinking within the context of like apologetics and stuff.
01:15:20: So even as you're speaking, I kind of am kind of making certain connections.
01:15:26: Would you say that language presupposes one in the many categories and that the broader context of which one in the many categories, which undergirds language presupposes a metaphysical foundation that is itself one in the many?
01:15:41: Uh, I would say not metaphysical, but a logical foundation. It's more precise than just metaphysical categories.
01:15:50: Okay. It's, um, you know, that logical necessity and, and, you know, when it comes to going back to that, you know, the ontological argument,
01:16:02: I haven't seen any arguments in the history of, uh, philosophy or theology that argues for the logical necessity of, uh, of God or of some
01:16:12: God. Whereas, um, what I I'm presenting here is not an argument, but it, it presumes the logical necessity of it.
01:16:21: And so a logically necessary argument wouldn't really be an argument because you're presuming you would have to presume that logical necessity within the argument.
01:16:29: So a logically necessary argument could not be an argument. And so, yeah, it's rooted in the logical necessity.
01:16:36: Okay. All right. So, so that's chapter three, fiction and counterfactuals, and you compared fictions as being something that's real, but not actual and counterfactuals is something that's real, but not factual in the sense that it's actualized, uh, you know, it's the actual state of affairs.
01:16:56: Right. And so in chapter one, you laid down in chapter one, you have, um, semantic engineering, how words relate to broader context.
01:17:06: And you make sense of how the one, uh, makes sense within the context of the many chapter two, you have ontic grammar, which you, uh, discussed, uh, that, that I'm actually having a difficult time.
01:17:18: How would you summarize ontic grammar in like a quick snippet, like a quick summary, uh, the four rules for language, uh, as words as referent as, as, uh, having a positive ontic status that exists.
01:17:36: Okay. And then, uh, chapter three, you discussed, uh, fiction and counter factual.
01:17:42: And again, the next section, which we're going to cover is, and I think this is going to be very interesting for folks since you've laid the groundwork really of this concept of the one and the many, uh, which really is as an important philosophical issue and, and related to language and things like that.
01:17:57: But, uh, the next section that we're going to cover next time we meet is Trinity. Um, which I think, uh, people who may not have, uh, a strong philosophical background might have a stronger theological background and be able to make some important connections here.
01:18:10: So we have the Trinity and the chapter after that, you talk about the question of what is history and, uh, on living and dying chapter six, and then you have your conclusion.
01:18:22: Um, and so we're going to try to break that up in the next two videos, um, with the, uh, with the, uh, at the conclusion, take, uh, some of the questions that are asked.
01:18:31: So folks who've been listening in, if you've had questions and if you still have questions, please, uh, write them down.
01:18:37: Don't be discouraged that we didn't address any of your Molinist specific questions. Um, the, the, the questions you put in the comments, we will, uh, scroll through these and we will cover them.
01:18:47: Um, I'm just giving Max an opportunity to lay out, uh, kind of the results of his own studies.
01:18:53: Um, and of course we've seen just, uh, tangentially speaking, it relates to Molinism, but there's more there and I want to give him, uh, the opportunity to kind of lay that out.
01:19:02: So if you guys, um, thank you so much. If you guys can just be a little patient, um, but, but ask those questions and I'm going to scroll back and we're going to, we're going to cover them and hopefully he will, um, he will scratch where you're itching.
01:19:16: Okay. Um, so, uh, well, well, let's try this. Um, now that we're closing, would you be okay taking like two or three questions?
01:19:24: Would that be okay? Or some questions? All right. Let's, let's scroll all the way back to the beginning. All right.
01:19:30: Let's see what we have here. Yeah. Some, some time to get to, uh, get out the objections to compatibilism.
01:19:36: So I'm going to say the mall, those are the common things that people want to know about. Let's see here. Molinists are always fun. It's just kidding.
01:19:43: Let's see here. Someone was suggesting or asking, let me see if I could find it, that if you held to a form of necessitarianism, uh, and it,
01:19:54: I think it was based upon your comments in regards to the fact that if God is a necessary being, uh, and he has these kind of knowledge of these hypothetical possible worlds, that there's an element of necessity to those worlds.
01:20:07: Um, so someone was asking, are you a necessitarian? Uh, no, not in that sense, because it would violate the first rule, uh, that first, um, axiom, the first tenant, uh, which is that any non -divine particles are radically contingent upon the divine object.
01:20:24: So those, those worlds, which can also function as particles, something that we'll get into later, um, that no, they are contingent.
01:20:33: So there's no, um, necessity to any particles that, uh, he knows.
01:20:40: And so anything that he knows he projects out, you know, from himself, uh, they don't exist, uh, concurrently with his necessity.
01:20:53: Okay. Um, and here we'll take a two more. What one is, is just the person's frustrated and we're going to put the question up here.
01:21:01: Uh, someone says it's ridiculous. He didn't even give reasons why he left Molinism. He did. If you were listening, uh, why don't you address that again?
01:21:10: Uh, for, for the benefit of, of this person here, uh, in a simple way, why did you leave
01:21:16: Molinism? Uh, just share that with folks. So I think, uh, you gave the best answer as to why
01:21:22: I left Molinism when, uh, I started looking into some of the, uh, foundational issues into what constitutes a world.
01:21:32: What's the nature between the one and the many, um, you know, what is the language that we use to describe worlds and our worlds, you know, myriologically constant or composing, uh, of language or particles of language, particles of speech.
01:21:50: And I started looking into these more foundational categories in my thinking. And then
01:21:55: I looked back to, you know, look at the Molinistic framework and I said, no, the idea of how these worlds function and work for Molinism is not exactly the same as I see it working over here.
01:22:10: Whereas I can't really prove this one wrong. Um, so I'm just going to, you know, leave this one here and I'm going to focus on trying to prove this one wrong.
01:22:19: You know, if I couldn't, uh, prove this wrong, then I would probably still be a Molinist.
01:22:25: So, um, what I would encourage, uh, listeners or skeptics of my position to do is to go through the four rules.
01:22:33: We only went through one rule in chapter three or chapter two onto grammar.
01:22:39: Uh, so go through those rules and try to prove those rules wrong. Okay. Um, now, uh, this is a simple question, uh, and I think we kind of, uh, you know, covered a little bit.
01:22:52: He says, can we get to the objections to Molinism? The answer to that question is number one, I think he shared his objection, uh, in a general sense, uh, which you just went through.
01:23:03: And number two, no, because we lay the foundation first. So it's a yes and no answer.
01:23:11: And, you know, I'm quite saying quite fine with, you know, those seemingly contradictory propositions of a yes and a no are true and a false.
01:23:19: So, um, yeah, the yes part is what I would just explained.
01:23:25: And what have you, you Eli have explained, uh, previously and the no being, you know, if you want to get to more scriptural categories, uh, we can do that when we go through, uh, chapter five of what is history, because I briefly lay out a soteriological, uh, issue when you're, when you're going through the book and you start seeing all the, uh, biblical references and Bible verses being listed in the footnotes, that's the area that you may want to look at.
01:23:54: Okay. And, uh, someone asked also your main reasons for abandoning
01:23:59: Molinism were philosophical or theological? I think you answered they were primarily philosophical, right?
01:24:05: Yeah. Okay. And the last question here for now, and then we'll, we'll give you a breather and, uh, and we'll continue, uh, with our discussion, uh, in another episode, uh, someone was asking, is
01:24:17: Max an absolute creationist with regards to abstract objects? Does Max believe that abstract, um, uh, objects
01:24:23: I think are eternally created by God? How would you answer that? Uh, that's a really good question.
01:24:29: And I have a, I think I've got a footnote regarding this question, um, where I should probably, uh,
01:24:38: I could have devoted more, but I think I focused it on a footnote. If we understand abstract objects as existing, um, disconnectedly apart from anything else, then
01:24:48: I would say there is no such thing. Uh, and that's, you know, we look at tenant one, you know, that's the first presupposition since that any non -divine particles are radically contingent upon the divine object.
01:25:03: So there's that, that element of, okay, if triangle is an abstract object, what in the world literally speaking is a triangle, you know, trying these, these, uh, ideas in these categories are much, they're entangled.
01:25:21: The words are entangled with other words. So, you know, I put a triangle on a sphere and measure the angles.
01:25:29: The angular sum is greater than 180 degrees. You know, am I talking about that triangle or, you know, there's, even if you just say triangle, you still have to take apart the word to, you know, discover the meaning, the tri, the three, the angular aspect.
01:25:44: Uh, so, uh, if there's any type of entanglement, it does not exist independently of itself.
01:25:50: And so I think something that could give some type of, uh, mental visualization is if you go, uh, through chapter one of semantic engineering,
01:26:00: I talk about these different types of holograms for understanding, uh, the, the connectedness between words and ideas.
01:26:08: And so, um, I would say that, you know, reality is just one whole composing of many things that are the same thing.
01:26:18: Everything is connected to everything. And so there's no part of reality that is disconnected from the rest of reality.
01:26:24: Okay. So when you ask, you ask in regards to the abstract object, what is a triangle? You're, you're saying even, even that requires, uh, more words to add to the discussion, to give a context, to really understand, well, what is a triangle?
01:26:38: And so you're saying there's like linguistic, um, entanglement, you need more words to provide meaning.
01:26:44: So some of these questions generally asked are insufficient to provide an answer unless there's broader context given, right?
01:26:51: So it's kind of shifting the brain into the, into the, uh, context of even the words that you're using require some type of entanglement of other linguistic particles.
01:27:03: Okay. All right. Um, I think we're going to, uh, well, let me, let me ask you a question real quick and then we can, we can wrap it up.
01:27:13: I'm sorry. I guess that's the last question. Well, one more question. Uh, so, so let's stay on this question for example. So it's a clarify.
01:27:20: So abstract objects, are you a fictionalist in regards to abstract objects?
01:27:25: You say that they don't have a real ontological status, or would you just say that we need more words to clarify what we mean in order to answer the question?
01:27:36: Uh, I would say abstract objects as like concrete objects. No, I don't think that they exist independently from, uh, the divine object because, um, you know,
01:27:48: I guess you could go different ways. And so, uh, you know, it has to be rooted in the divine object per that first rule.
01:27:56: Um, so I would say, yeah, it's a both. And yeah, you need more particles to understand that singular particle, that abstract object.
01:28:05: And what was the other, uh, part that you said, if it's fiction? Yeah. Are they, are they, do they have actual existence?
01:28:13: Like, are you a conceptualist that these, these abstract objects are real, but they're within the mind of God or something like that?
01:28:18: Uh, no, I think that, um, the abstract categories
01:28:24: I thought were just so obviously, um, misconstrued in the debates.
01:28:29: Um, conceptualism, I guess you could say, yeah, because it's rooted. They are non -divine particles that are rooted in the divine object.
01:28:38: So I guess you could say it's more conceptualist. Okay. All right. Um, uh, Tyler, Tyler is asking, this is a fun one.
01:28:45: I have to add it in here. He says since leaving Molinism has max been told yet that he wasn't a real
01:28:50: Molinist or he doesn't understand. Isn't that how these things go? I used to be, you know,
01:28:56: I used to be a whatever. Oh, you know, you really weren't. Uh, I've kind of been expecting that, but I, I doubt it would come up.
01:29:04: Maybe it will. I don't know. But you know, this is this, um, this video, this podcast is the first time that I'm getting back involved with, uh, the apologetics and the theological sphere, because I've been disconnected working on this theory for so long for the last three years.
01:29:22: So this is my, this is the first introduction, uh, for others to be listening to this material and to come out and say, no,
01:29:30: I'm not a Molinist. All right. Well, well, thank you so much, man. Now, just a couple of things. Uh, again,
01:29:36: I'm going to say this again, if you have questions, please send them in and I promise I will look through them.
01:29:41: And at some point towards the end of, of max laying the foundation in the next two videos, we will address them.
01:29:48: And so this will be available obviously on the YouTube channel, but I will also be using the audio as the podcast, um, on iTunes revealed apologetics.
01:29:55: So you can listen to them, um, in their entirety and kind of get a fuller grasp as to what, um, max is trying to lay out here, guys, when we're doing philosophy, when we're doing theology, you need to be very careful about desiring shortcuts and, and, and, um, just quick answers to questions.
01:30:15: It is important that foundations need to be laid. And then afterwards, if you think the foundations that are later insufficient to answer the questions that you have, that's great, but the foundations have to be laid first and that's how learning happens.
01:30:28: That's how we test ideas and we, um, uh, and we're able to rationally critique the ideas that are being put forth.
01:30:35: You can't just go with the quick. I want to know this. I want to know that because I already know the background I want. Well, not everyone has the background that, that you may have.
01:30:42: And so this is laying down the groundwork here. Um, it's difficult topic. That's fine, but that's why the beauty of YouTube and, and, um, uh, and iTunes, you guys can go back, take notes and, and, and reach out to max, uh, personally, maybe he can explain in more detail something that you don't understand.
01:30:59: Of course, um, max also shared at the beginning that his book is free online. So you can, uh, download that and, and have it and take notes and, and dig in a little deeper.
01:31:09: Theology and philosophy is not always an easy topic and requires a little bit more in depth. Um, all right, well, uh, where can people find you?
01:31:17: I mean, uh, you, you just use this, you said this is your first podcast kind of after having studied all these things, someone saying free books.
01:31:25: Yes, there, there are, there are such thing as free books. They're, they're out there. Uh, he does mention you, maybe you want to mention it one more time where folks could find that.
01:31:33: Uh, it looks like some people that are interested. Yeah, there was actually a, uh, once a contract with the book, but the contract with the publisher fell through.
01:31:41: Um, so you can go to, sorry, I got a cat right here. Oh, there we go.
01:31:47: Garfield, Garfield. Yeah. That ginger cat. Um, you can go to academia .edu
01:31:53: and you can, I believe the exact website is, uh, academia or edinburgh .academia
01:32:01: .edu slash Max Andrews. And you can find it under drafts there. Um, I also have, uh, links on my
01:32:10: Twitter account. That might be the easiest way. Um, I don't really do Facebook that much. Uh, so Twitter would be probably the best route of getting ahold of me.
01:32:19: Uh, it's, uh, Ish bin max, which is I C H B I N underscore max.
01:32:27: Or if you just do a search for Max Andrews, I'm sure I'll come up. All right.
01:32:32: Well, thank you so much. Once again, subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you are liking the content, we're going to have a bunch of other, uh, interesting discussions and teachings that, that I'll be going through as well.
01:32:42: Um, and subscribe to the, uh, the podcast as well. And, uh, like us on Facebook.
01:32:48: We'd really appreciate it. And we're glad that you guys are enjoying the content and finding it edifying and interesting.
01:32:54: That's it for today's show. Max, thank you so much for, um, being on to share. And we are expecting you to come on two more times.
01:33:01: We'll give people an opportunity, a heads up on Facebook and social media when that will be. Um, well, that's all for today.
01:33:08: I'm your host, Elias Ayala. Take care and God bless. Bye -bye. And we are not yet, not yet.