> Now, here's a question for whomever cares to join in: is this limitation on logic something that is:
> a) intrinsic to logic, an inherent limitation of its powers, or
> b) a case of humans projecting the limitations of our own capacity to think and understand onto logic, which itself is *not* limited, or
> c) something else entirely? Is the whole issue a chimera?

Hmm. Well, depending on how you define logic, it could be a), b), or a combination of the two.
The logic that you and I use in our everyday lives is limited. Logic works by using a group of "knowns" to determine the nature of an "unknown." The problem is, humans don't have any 100% certian "knowns." (I don't think Descartes was able to meet his own standards for proof when he said "I think; therefore I am") So any logical argument we make is by nature a castle built on sand. There's no way to know that the bottom isn't going to fall out of any logical argument, because it's impossible to verify the implicit assumptions the argument is based on.

Now, I suppose you could answer b) if you believed that there was some "objective" logic out there somewhere that resided in God or Plato's perfect world or something, but that would be unknowable (except to a flawed approximation) to humans.

> Here's another question: if you believe in God, do you think that God is bound by the rules of logic, or transcends logical categories and rules, or imposes a self-limitation under which God, although free from logical constraints in essence, obeys logic when dealing with creation?

Well, here again that depends on whether or not you believe in logic as something other than a human creation to describe the world.

> Here's my own 2 cents, as the question applies to the God of the Bible: God seems to follow logical rules rather than transcending them, yet those rules aren't "binding" on God in the sense of something external to his person. Rather, logic seems to be an expression of God's person, just as are love and righteousness. The way God presents his character in Scripture is quite logical in form: "I am this thing (good, just, active) and not that thing (wicked, capricious, enervate)." The way God expresses his own character "makes sense" in logical terms, because God includes logic as part of who he is. The ceiling we place on logical argument, I suppose, therefore reflects our own limited ability to understand, rather than the inability of logic in principle to illuminate God's being. (Of course, logic alone could not *entirely* define God for us, since God is many other things as well besides logic.)
>
> This is a refreshing idea for me, since I've characteristically downplayed logic as an appropriate tool for religious exposition. Now I need to think about how to admit the power of logic without lending support to people like physicist Frank Tipler, known for making bold claims like "in order to survive, theology must become a subset of physics." (_The _Physics_of_Immortality_)

He's got to be an athiest. As I've said many times before in various discussions, theology and science ask very different questions; it makes no sense to talk of the divine in terms of scientific questions.

>
> Iss "did I mention today is Vulcan Day?" achar

Bal "This Space for Rent" anthalus