It's all speculation when it gets this far, though, isn't it?
Actually I think dealing with the 'oblivion' question is one of the easier aspects, because actually oblivion being 'one of the alternative options' seems very unlikely to me.
We're speculating, basically, on states of existence outside time, aren't we? That's what eternal states such as Heaven and Hell are about. So that presumes, ex hypothesi, that there is some part of us which exists outside time. Otherwise when the matter of our body degrades to the point it can no longer support the form, our existence simply ends and there is neither Heaven or Hell. And that's where you get oblivion.
So in order for the question of Hell to have any meaning we must assume a component to out existence that transcends time. Very well. However, now the question is: how can something which transcends time, end? What would that even mean?
Now, I can't prove that it is logically impossible for a thing which exists outside of time to end. But it seems more likely to me that a thing outside time cannot end, but will exist outside time for -- well, for ever, where 'ever' is here understood not as 'a very very very very very long time' but 'outside all time'.
Whihc swings back around the application of Occam's Razor. I'm not generally in favour ot applying Occam's Razor to metaphysics, because it's very hard in that domain to quantify 'simpler': you can often end up with both sides claiming theirs is the one supported by the Razor (ouch) depending on their opposed, and equally plausible, definitions of 'simple'.
However, in this case, I suppose it cuts the way I want because it seems to me to be logically more complicated to try to explain how we can have a component to our existence which transcends time (and therefore exists in eternity) but can somehow either end in oblivion or not, that it is to speculate that either we do not have such a component (and our existence ends when our body dies) or that the component must necessarily continue to exist in eternity.
Basically, it seems to me that the most plausible options are either: (a) none of us survive after death or (b) all of us exist (in some way) for all eternity. The third option (c) some of us exist for eternity in Heaven and some of us don't, seems much more complicated and much less plausible.
The metaphysics requiring a universe to be set up that way is the fairly simple, and I would say plausible, premise that if it is possible for something to end, it will (because it must exist in time); and therefore if it is to be possible for something not to end, then it must be necessary that it cannot end.
In other words, God could not have created being which could survive their temporal bodies, and also left himself the option to destroy some of them. It's either-or: either we are trapped in time, or we are trapped in eternity. I can't see a middle way.
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Date: 2013-05-21 01:12 pm (UTC)Actually I think dealing with the 'oblivion' question is one of the easier aspects, because actually oblivion being 'one of the alternative options' seems very unlikely to me.
We're speculating, basically, on states of existence outside time, aren't we? That's what eternal states such as Heaven and Hell are about. So that presumes, ex hypothesi, that there is some part of us which exists outside time. Otherwise when the matter of our body degrades to the point it can no longer support the form, our existence simply ends and there is neither Heaven or Hell. And that's where you get oblivion.
So in order for the question of Hell to have any meaning we must assume a component to out existence that transcends time. Very well. However, now the question is: how can something which transcends time, end? What would that even mean?
Now, I can't prove that it is logically impossible for a thing which exists outside of time to end. But it seems more likely to me that a thing outside time cannot end, but will exist outside time for -- well, for ever, where 'ever' is here understood not as 'a very very very very very long time' but 'outside all time'.
Whihc swings back around the application of Occam's Razor. I'm not generally in favour ot applying Occam's Razor to metaphysics, because it's very hard in that domain to quantify 'simpler': you can often end up with both sides claiming theirs is the one supported by the Razor (ouch) depending on their opposed, and equally plausible, definitions of 'simple'.
However, in this case, I suppose it cuts the way I want because it seems to me to be logically more complicated to try to explain how we can have a component to our existence which transcends time (and therefore exists in eternity) but can somehow either end in oblivion or not, that it is to speculate that either we do not have such a component (and our existence ends when our body dies) or that the component must necessarily continue to exist in eternity.
Basically, it seems to me that the most plausible options are either: (a) none of us survive after death or (b) all of us exist (in some way) for all eternity. The third option (c) some of us exist for eternity in Heaven and some of us don't, seems much more complicated and much less plausible.
The metaphysics requiring a universe to be set up that way is the fairly simple, and I would say plausible, premise that if it is possible for something to end, it will (because it must exist in time); and therefore if it is to be possible for something not to end, then it must be necessary that it cannot end.
In other words, God could not have created being which could survive their temporal bodies, and also left himself the option to destroy some of them. It's either-or: either we are trapped in time, or we are trapped in eternity. I can't see a middle way.
S.