1446.Challenge

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This is to challenge the point of view expressed in Notebooks, 12 August 2008 (attached). 

Granted that God qlla the universal individual never has become real and can never cease being real, it is still correct to say that for X to be real for God is for X to be real "for something else that either has become or is in process of becoming real." VVhy? Because "to be real for God" is an inexact way of saying "to be real for God IlOW," for God qlla God has now become or is in process of becoming in God's latest de facto state, as distinct from God qllil the universal individual. 

In other words, "God," like "world," or "reality," is a token-reAexive term, in that it has a significantly (however slightly) different meaning every time it is used. 

Just how this challenge and the point of view it challenges are to be reconciled; and just what difference, if any, taking both of them into account would make to any statement of my position are questions to be pursued on some later occasion. 

1 April 2009 

On "Logical-Ontological Type Differences in Outline: Ten Theses"

There is a serious problem with the way these ten theses have come to be formulated (as of 3 June 2008).

To be real for Cod is flot "t,o be real for something else that either has become or is in process of becol1)\1g real"-at least not il1 the same sellse in which this may be said of being real for anything other than for Cod. 

Although Cod becomes, Cod's becoming has never begun nor will it ever end. Cod never became the Cod who becomes, any more than Cod will ever cease being the Cod who becomes. 

This means that Cod has never become real and is never in the process of becoming real-although, being a concrete individual, Cod is primordially and ever1asting consequent as well as primordial and, in that sense, has never begun becoming real and can never cease becoming real, but is eternally becoming real. 

I n this respect, my earlier formulations of the first thesis are much to be preferred to the later. CL, e.g., Document 5: "Transcendental Metaphysics in Outline: Ten Theses" (Summer 1985): 'To be real in the most general sense of 'reality,' which contrasts with 'unreality,' 'mere appearance,' or 'fiction,' is to be real for somethig else that is real in the same general sense." 

12 August 2008