Catholics and William Lane Craig

[ddarko]

I don’t think that’s true. I think many atheists do respect faith, but within a rational context. They do not respect blind faith. Many people have been convinced of Gods existence through rational arguments; and I don’t believe that I can expect anything more from an atheist. I can expect an atheist to be honest, if they believe in rational discourse. But while it is true that people must have faith in certain things like the objectivity of the physical universe, it is not self-evident that one must have faith or ought to have faith in “God”. We only acquire that knowledge because we first “reason” that this must be the case. That God must exist in-order for logical arguments to be valid or in-order for morality to make objective sense is itself a logical argument. Even the belief that one is better of with faith than not, is a product of practical reasoning. We can have faith because we are first rational animals.

“We can have faith because we are first rational animals.”

I don’t think that is correct. Because what does it mean to be rational if we first do not have FAITH in REASON?

So I think the correct line is that we are animals of BOTH FAITH and REASON. We can’t just be creatures of just either FAITH or REASON.

Therefore the true atheist is always in trouble because you can’t reach God by REASON alone. If they analyze any argument deep enough, they realize it hinges on FAITH and then they will simply refute it on that basis.

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

“We can have faith because we are first rational animals.”

I don’t think that is correct. Because what does it mean to be rational if we first do not have FAITH in REASON?

So I think the correct line is that we are animals of BOTH FAITH and REASON. We can’t just be creatures of just either FAITH or REASON.

Therefore the true atheist is always in trouble because you can’t reach God by REASON alone. If they analyze any argument deep enough, they realize it hinges on FAITH and then they will simply refute it on that basis.

God Bless

We know of rationality because we are rational animals. It is self-evident. Its not a matter of faith and shouldn’t be. Just like the fact that we know that we exist. Its self evident that we cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. I do not need faith in order to know this. The act of being as opposed to none being is objectively rational. This is absolute certain knowledge. I can know Gods existence with certainty on this foundation.

 

[ddarko]

We know of rationality because we are rational animals. It is self-evident. Its not a matter of faith and shouldn’t be. Just like the fact that we know that we exist. Its self evident that we cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. I do not need faith in order to know this. The act of being as opposed to none being is objectively rational. This is absolute certain knowledge. I can know Gods existence with certainty on this foundation.

Ok I have heard this line of reasoning. But is it just not true that you are referring to something as replacing the word Faith (which is general) with something specific like “self evident”? In the end, does it not belong to the general class of “Faith”?

You also keep saying act of being is rational etc. But what does rational even mean? Do you have “Faith” in self evident logical axioms that determine what is rational? Or how else do you know that self-evident truths are indeed reasonable to be held as true?

God Bless

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ddarko

*Therefore the true atheist is always in trouble because you can’t reach God by REASON alone. If they analyze any argument deep enough, they realize it hinges on FAITH and then they will simply refute it on that basis. *

You have hit the nail on its proverbial head.

Where possible, Reason and Faith can accommodate each other. Reason is useless to prove absolutely the existence of God, the nature of the Trinity, the Eucharist, etc. Any so-called Catholic who says his Faith must be “reasonable” in every aspect is a fool. Faith comes first. Without it, Reason is only the serpent slithering through the brain. First it dines on doubt and heresy; then, for dessert … atheism.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Ok I have heard this line of reasoning. But is it just not true that you are referring to something as replacing the word Faith (which is general) with something specific like “self evident”? In the end, does it not belong to the general class of “Faith”?

You also keep saying act of being is rational etc. But what does rational even mean? Do you have “Faith” in self evident logical axioms that determine what is rational? Or how else do you know that self-evident truths are indeed reasonable to be held as true?

God Bless

To say that I require faith in the fact that I exist is evidently irrational. Its an irrational doubt, because it is self evident to me that I exist. To be irrational is to suggest something that is contrary to that which necessarily true. Faith in the way you use it suggests the possibility of doubt. The word rational is a symbolic word that we give to something we experience in the fundamental act of our being. It is possible to doubt the objectivity of the physical universe, but it is impossible for me to doubt my existence as an ontological act of being. Rationality is fully expressed in the act we call existence. Anybody that is a rational being experiences it even if they deny it.

 

[ddarko]

To say that I require faith in the fact that I exist is evidently irrational. Its an irrational doubt, because it is self evident to me that I exist. To be irrational is to suggest something that is contrary to that which necessarily true. Faith in the way you use it suggests the possibility of doubt. The word rational is a symbolic word that we give to something we experience in the fundamental act of our being. It is possible to doubt the objectivity of the physical universe, but it is impossible for me to doubt my existence as an ontological act of being. Rationality is fully expressed in the act we call existence. Anybody that is a rational being experiences it even if they deny it.

Ok maybe I am stupid. But I am really not getting what you are saying.

You are telling me that you don’t need faith to justify your existence. All that is fine if I already accepted what it means to be rational by FAITH. Otherwise what does it mean to say I am irrational?

You also say it is impossible for me to doubt my existence because it is ontological. But how do you know it is ontological? Is it not by reason?

Like, I am sincerely asking, how do you know what is rational to begin with? It appears that you accepted

1. What it means to be rational based on self evident truths
2. You accept self evident truths because it is rational

Now this appears to be circular. So at one point I am arguing that you used FAITH to break the cycle.

What am I missing?

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

ddarko

*Therefore the true atheist is always in trouble because you can’t reach God by REASON alone. If they analyze any argument deep enough, they realize it hinges on FAITH and then they will simply refute it on that basis. *

You have hit the nail on its proverbial head.

Where possible, Reason and Faith can accommodate each other. Reason is useless to prove absolutely the existence of God, the nature of the Trinity, the Eucharist, etc. Any so-called Catholic who says his Faith must be “reasonable” in every aspect is a fool.

It must conform to logic in every aspect if it is to be taken seriously. And there is no reason for anybody to take it seriously if there are aspects of it that are evidently irrational. Plus, nobody said that all of what is understood as catholic must or can be known with absolute certainty. But Gods existence can be known with absolute certainty.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Ok maybe I am stupid. But I am really not getting what you are saying.

You are telling me that you don’t need faith to justify your existence. All that is fine if I already accepted what it means to be rational by FAITH. Otherwise what does it mean to say I am irrational?

You also say it is impossible for me to doubt my existence because it is ontological. But how do you know it is ontological? Is it not by reason?

Like, I am sincerely asking, how do you know what is rational to begin with? It appears that you accepted

1. What it means to be rational based on self evident truths
2. You accept self evident truths because it is rational

Now this appears to be circular. So at one point I am arguing that you used FAITH to break the cycle.

What am I missing?

God Bless

Do you know that you exist or not.

 

[ddarko]

It must conform to logic in every aspect if it is to be taken seriously. And there is no reason for anybody to take it seriously if there are aspects of it that are evidently irrational. Plus, nobody said that all of what is understood as catholic must or can be known with absolute certainty. But Gods existence can be known with absolute certainty.

Oh I agree. You can discard certain Gods and ideas if they are Irrational. But what I disagree with you is that there has to be a purely rational reason behind everything. That I think is incorrect.

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

Do you know that you exist or not.

I believe I exist because it is the conclusion of self evident truths I put my faith on. Now I would appreciate if you address how you break the cycle that I pointed out in the previous post?

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I believe I exist because it is the conclusion of self evident truths I put my faith on. Now I would appreciate if you address how you break the cycle that I pointed out in the previous post?

God Bless

I do not address self deception, dishonesty or invincible irrationality. Rationality is evident in the act of being and your knowledge of it, and does not require faith; but I do require your honesty if we are to have rational discourse.

The implication that cannot know with absolute certainty that I exist is not worthy of further consideration, since I must first exist in-order to consider it…

Peace and God bless.

 

[ddarko]

I do not address self deception, dishonesty or invincible irrationality. Rationality is evident in the act of being and your knowledge of it, and does not require faith; but I do require your honesty if we are to have rational discourse.

Peace and God bless.

? I don’t understand. Now you are calling me as being insincere.

I am asking you a simple question. How do you break the cycle I pointed out in the previous post?

Instead you keep telling me that Rationality is evident in the act of being. Thats all nice but that itself is a rational conclusion from the act of being!!! So either you believed in self evident truths by faith or you are just refusing to tell me how all of this outpouring of truths started for you.

Or just simply show why there is no cycle and why exactly I am being irrational. Or do you want me to just believe I am irrational by faith?

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

? I don’t understand. Now you are calling me as being insincere.

I am asking you a simple question. How do you break the cycle I pointed out in the previous post?

Instead you keep telling me that Rationality is evident in the act of being. Thats all nice but that itself is a rational conclusion from the act of being!!! So either you believed in self evident truths by faith or you are just refusing to tell me how all of this outpouring of truths started for you.

God Bless

That which is truly and ontologically self evident, does not require faith or evidence. The act of being tells us that we exist. You know you exist because you are not nothing. You require being in order to think. This is not a circular argument as I am not trying to argue for that which is not already evident. I simply gave you an argument to show you why you know that you exist. Any honest or rational person can see these distinctions, even if they don’t know how to express it.

 

[ddarko]

That which is truly and ontologically self evident, does not require faith or evidence. The act of being tells us that we exist. You know you exist because you are not nothing. You require being in order to think. This is not a circular argument as I am not trying to argue for that which is not already evident. I simply gave you an argument to show you why you know that you exist. Any honest or rational person can see these distinctions, even if they don’t know how to express it.

But you see this is my problem. Is it not true that you are already asserting what is rational to come to those conclusions? That is what I refer to as being circular. Do you see what I am saying?

In other words, what does it mean to be truly and ontologically self evident WITHOUT using REASON? So you are pre-supposing REASON which is the very thing derived from self evident truths. Like what part am I missing here?

1. Are you saying that Reason is based on self-evident truths?
2. Are you saying that it is Reasonable to hold self evident truths?

If the answer to the above (1) and (2) is Yes, then is it not true that your position is circular?

Now also note, I am not saying Faith is all that is required. I am simply saying that there is a tight coupling of Faith and Reason. One without the other leads to no knowledge.

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

1. Are you saying that Reason is based on self-evident truths?

I am merely stating that which is evident to my immediate knowledge.

1. Are you saying that it is Reasonable to hold self evident truths?

You know that you exist because you experience it, and you experience of it causes you to say that you exist. Your thinking is rationally ordered, and we are aware of that only by experiencing the fact of thinking. We didn’t make up rationality. Existence presents rationality to us. Immediate Knowledge of the act of being and the awareness of essential distinctions is the root of rational knowledge (knowledge gained by rational thinking). It is evident to the immediate experience of your existential act that rationality is an objective function of being. How? Because by experiencing the act of being, we can know that it is in fact contrary to our experience to think that it is true that you are not experiencing. We become aware of rationality because we become aware of the fact that we can state contrary things to what is evidently and certainly otherwise. We are aware of essential distinctions. Distinctions exist and present themselves to our immediate experience. Rationality as a discipline is merely a product of these distinctions we find in our knowledge of being. We know that an apple is not a car; a square is not a triangle, a being is not a non-being…etcetra. Thus we become aware of necessity, what is possible and impossible. All of these are ultimately rooted in our immediate experience of being itself.

You cannot not know that you exist, simply because you experience and know existence. But this knowledge is not a result of a rational argument, but rather it is evident to our immediate experience and in the fact of our experience.

If the answer to the above (1) and (2) is Yes, then is it not true that your position is circular?

No, because, as I have explained, I am merely stating what is already evident to you. That I am using rational syllogisms merely presents the illusion of a circular argument. You have given me no choice but to use rational examples of what you know to be true because you are refusing to admit certainty of that which is a fact of your immediate knowledge. You have then twisted it around in-order to claim that I am committing the circular fallacy.

Now also note, I am not saying Faith is all that is required. I am simply saying that there is a tight coupling of Faith and Reason. One without the other leads to no knowledge.

God Bless

You have absolute knowledge of your existence. Any honest person will find that fact impossible to doubt. I think therefore I am.

 

[ddarko]

You have absolute knowledge of your existence. Any honest person will find that fact impossible to doubt. I think therefore I am.

Yes, the key word here is you are telling me how a “rational” person behaves.

I honestly think you are avoiding the question.

Take your claim “You know that you exist because you experience it, and you experience of it causes you to say that you exist.”

That is a conclusion you arrived from reasoning. You are implicitly using the principle of contradiction and perhaps the principle of identity.

So I do not understand why you don’t see the problem. You are

1. Saying self evident truths are the basis of REASON
2. It is REASONABLE to hold self-evident truths

So this is a circular argument. My position is as follows

1. Self evident truths are accepted on FAITH
2. These truths define REASON
3. Reason affirms that FAITH is logically necessary (so affirms that FAITH does not contradict REASON but is an integral part of it)

I am not sure why me or any rational person should abandon their position for yours. Unless you are once again calling them to do it on FAITH that your Ontology and experience on Reason as being intrinsic to human beings is correct. But ironically that just disproves your own position anyways.

Either way, I cannot see a way out but to accept that somethings are by Faith at some logical point in your epistemology.

I am also not sure what you mean here “You have given me no choice but to use rational examples of what you know to be true”. I am asking how I know something is true. You are telling me it is because it is self evident that it is true. Now I am just asking you again, why should I believe that self-evident truths are true? Note that at this logical point in time when I am asking this question, I do not yet have any means to say what is reasonable. So I cannot even say that I should just terminate my questions at the answer of self-evident truths because it is reasonable (for that will once again be circular because I am thinking what is reasonable).

What I am essentially saying is that at the birth of ANY epistemology, there is a very tightly coupled interaction of Faith and Reason. Do you think that is reasonable at least?

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Take your claim “You know that you exist because you experience it, and you experience of it causes you to say that you exist.”

That is a conclusion you arrived from reasoning. You are implicitly using the principle of contradiction and perhaps the principle of identity.

If I see a round circle, I don’t have to reason that it is round, since it presents its roundness in its nature; I experience it as round. If I see a square, I don’t have to make a logical argument in-order to know that it is not a circle, because the square evidently does not have the nature of a circle; I experience it as a square. in other word I perceive difference. I don’t have to reason that there is difference, and that’s because there is difference in my experience. I don’t have to reason that being is rational, because being presents itself as rational in the very nature of its act and thus I experience being as such. I don’t have to reason that I am existing in order to know that I exist, because I immediately experience myself existing, I experience that nature of being real. It is not a rationalisation; Its a fact of experience.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

Originally Posted by ronnie bonigli
…started barking insults at me just like on this thread. Poor guy, his faith is lost without his arguments.

I haven’t really been any more insulting than you have. All I did was state facts and backed them up with arguments. You found those facts insulting. And yes I probably would lose faith without those arguments.

Poor guy, well at least you admitted it. Of course we should have known that already after your earlier statement; “William lane Craig has done much to move Christianity outside the realm of fairy tales in to the realm of something that is to be intellectually respected”. Two thousand years of saints and Doctors of the Church from Augustine and Athanasius to Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and in your mind it took an Evangelical protestant apologist in the twentieth century to rescue Christianity from the “realm of fairy tales”. That’s just sad, and again backs up my concerns in the OP. Thanks for serving as an example, I’m sure everyone now understands the point I was making.

 

[ddarko]

If I see a round circle, I don’t have to reason that it is round, since it presents its roundness in its nature; I experience it as round. If I see a square, I don’t have to make a logical argument in-order to know that it is not a circle, because the square evidently does not have the nature of a circle;

I don’t understand how you are not seeing this. You are telling me that you don’t have, you have to to etc by using REASON. All these things that you told me are only possible after you established a certain epistemology or accept REASON as meaning something by FAITH.

If you are starting from SCRATCH, you have nothing to begin with. That is where I am arguing from. So unless you accept somethings by putting faith in them, there is no meaning to ANYTHING. So for an example, your statement that square circles are meaningless objects is in it-self meaningless if you don’t hold the principle of contradiction and accept human experience as anything of value. You are already accepting these things as TRUE but you somehow seem to miss it.

I really don’t understand why you insist in decoupling Faith with Reason so much. To me it seems REASONABLY impossible.

God Bless

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Perhaps what is getting lost in the shuffle here is that neither faith nor reason are true or false.

They are both mental acts (tools) that lead us to the truth, or that deceive us about the truth.

Faith is consent to a truth or a falsehood. Reason can lead to a truth or a falsehood.

There is no automatic opposition between faith and reason. Faith can be rational or irrational. Reason can be irrational and based on faith.

The fact of the matter is that the Gospels preach both faith and reason. We are asked to suspend all rational doubt in accepting the miracles of Jesus. By the same token, Jesus uses parables to teach us how rational it is to have faith. He invites us to use reason as a path to approach God.

But you first have to have faith that there is a God. Jesus does not offer any of what we call the traditional proofs for the existence of God. They are not necessary. The Holy Spirit has planted in all of us a natural faith in God, a faith that can be perverted or denied by the human will, but even so will persist in plaguing us through life no matter how diligent we may be about using reason to destroy that natural faith.