Re: [asa] Goedel's theorem and religion

On 10/13/06, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
>
> As a logician, I have to say that any study that involves logic beyond
> the level of the sentential, is affected by Goedel's theorem. It does not
> interfere with derivations within limits, as it also does not restrict a
> proof in geometry or number theory. But it presents a strong claim: there
> are true statements in all these areas that cannot be proved true.

Yes, but do you not agree that the proof of Goedel's theorem is simply an
existence proof by provision of a counter-example, and furthermore that the
counter-example belongs to a particular class of self-referential statements
of the form "This statement is formally undecidable"? It cannot imply the
existence of formally undecidable propositions that don't have this explicit
form of self-reference.

I'm struggling to see how any theological statement could fit into this
category.

Iain

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Received on Fri Oct 13 01:59:34 2006