Catholics and William Lane Craig

[MindOverMatter2]

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.

The ground of epistemology is established in our immediate experience of being as an act. I do not require logical arguments in order to experience difference and distinction. These things are presented to our immediate experience. I do not need to reason to the existence of nature in order to experience nature, since the nature of something - as in that which is a specific distinct thing - is a fact of experience and not reason. The nature of the things we reason about are first presented to us in our immediate experience before we reason about them. Before you can reason, you have to have something to reason about. You have to have an immediate experience of something. Pointing out that I am using reason in order to explain to you that which is certain knowledge only serves the straw-man that you are making of epistemology.

I am not reasoning to the existence of being, but rather I am presenting a rational demonstration of what you already know in your immediate experience; which is the fact that you experience - being. I am not making an inference to something that is “unknown” or not evident in the fact of your experience. We have an immediate knowledge of something. This is certain. What that something is on a scientific level is not certain knowledge, and this is where one requires reason, faith, and science, in order to categorise the causes and distinctions we experience in the nature of being. We are able to reason because in the first place essential distinctions present themselves to us, and it is in our experience of essential difference - (a square is different in nature to a circle) - that we become aware of the law of non-contradiction; for example a square cannot both be a square and a circle at the same time, in the same way, sense, or context. We discovered the law of non-contradiction. We are only able to make such rational arguments because we have first “experienced” the distinct differences of their nature and we are able to imagine that which is contrary to experience. Existence presents its self as rational and causes us to think rationally.

I don’t know why you cannot understand that.

If you are starting from SCRATCH, you have nothing to begin with. That is where I am arguing from.

I am arguing from the nature of being that we immediately experience. It does not require any faith since it is certain knowledge.

So unless you accept some-things by putting faith in them, there is no meaning to ANYTHING.

This is just an assertion; a baseless denial. Meaning and distinction is discovered in our immediate experience all the time. Only some meanings and distinctions are discovered through reason. For, example my experience of “guilt” and the intrinsic meaning involved in that experience, is not something I had to reason to in order to know that I was feeling guilty. Rather I experienced the nature of “guilt” and the meaning presented itself to me in that experience. This is called “immediate knowledge”. Its not something reasoned to or inferred, but rather it is something that is **experienced.
**

Your denial of this epistemology is baseless and contrary to experience. Rationality and logic is not just a tool; its an expression of existence.

 

[ddarko]

I am arguing from the nature of being that we immediately experience. It does not require any faith since it is certain knowledge.

In your whole reply, all I can see is this.

You hold an implicit conclusion as TRUE that your human experience is TRUE. But that is something you have faith on. THERE is NO certainty. You have faith. I just don’t know why you are not admitting this.

Otherwise, please please tell me, HOW do you know that NO justification is required for matters you conceive from human experience. Is it not true that you just assumed it was true from human experience too? See the circular logic?

Now you might even be pretty fast to point out that for me to doubt my human experience is logically contradictory (or logically meaningless). But that is once again circular. You are assuming laws of logic (which are from human experience) to justify human experience itself.

I am arguing from the nature of being that we immediately experience.

Thats very nice but how do you know this “nature of being” without using REASON in the first place to discover it? I really don’t know why you deny this.

Your denial of this epistemology is baseless and contrary to experience.

Same here. What I am asking you is WHY should MY epistemology be CONSISTENT with my HUMAN EXPERIENCE in the first place? Is it not true that the necessity is something you BELIEVE by FAITH?

That is simply what I am pointing out and I think its almost self-evident

Your call for me to “Accept human experience as justified by it-self” is a call to FAITH. Do you realize that?

God Bless

 

[Touchstone]

In your whole reply, all I can see is this.

You hold an implicit conclusion as TRUE that your human experience is TRUE. But that is something you have faith on. THERE is NO certainty. You have faith. I just don’t know why you are not admitting this.

I realize this may not be welcome support in the view of MinOvermMatter2, my agreeing with his points here, but having read this round-n-round a couple times now between you, it’s clearly you who is the confused party here. There is no faith or reason possible as the predicate for the experience of being. One may say a picture of a square, and it does not matter whether one identifies it as “square”, or its German analog “quadratisch”, or “circle”. The visual stimulus is immediate, prerational, precognitive. It is just physics.

And this is being, for physical beings. Before we process our (name removed by moderator)ut, we experience (name removed by moderator)ut, percepts from the world around us. It can’t be denied, because denying itself is an affirmation of the experience of being. Being is transcendental upon any conceptual processing. We “be” before we can think, and experience being prior to deciding what label we might fancy for the decisions that come from that (“I was reasoning”, “I was taking a leap of faith”).

Otherwise, please please tell me, HOW do you know that NO justification is required for matters you conceive from human experience. Is it not true that you just assumed it was true from human experience too? See the circular logic?

It’s pre-logical. It’s signal processing. The photons hit the retina, the optic nerves are triggered, the brain performs visual integration, “chunking”. All before anything that even makes sense as “reason” or “faith” gets into the act. Our experience underlies and underwrites all of that. It is that which cannot be denied, because “deny” and “affirm” are not even coherent labels we might apply to the process. It’s just physics at that level.

Later on, we may fancy ourselves clever, and claim to deny the reality of our sense-experience. But an fMRI would put paid to that folly, and we’d see that clever brain lighting up like a Christmas tree in all the sensory loci of the brain. Or, as I always challenge my friend tonyrey, just put your hand over an open flame for a few seconds, and you will see the reality of your belief in the primacy of reason/faith over sense-experience.

Now you might even be pretty fast to point out that for me to doubt my human experience is logically contradictory (or logically meaningless). But that is once again circular. You are assuming laws of logic (which are from human experience) to justify human experience itself.

I think the basic point you are ignoring is that humans are animals, physical beings. This ‘breaks the circle’ and bootstraps cognition, as the interface to the external world through our senses provides the start of the cognitive chain. We sense in the most rudimentary way – raw percepts — prior to any ‘cogitating’ on those percepts. And this is what is both, immediate and undeniable. If you suppose you can deny it, you’ve haven’t grasped the point, because by the point at which any proposition can be denied (or accepted on faith or any other basis) the immediate presence of that bootstrapping (name removed by moderator)ut is necessarily affirmed.

It’s a “gotcha” that you’ve overlooked, here. MOM2 made the point well, and I’m just seconding that, perhaps with a little different wording that might help you get the distinction.

Thats very nice but how do you know this “nature of being” without using REASON in the first place to discover it? I really don’t know why you deny this.

Put your hand over an open flame. Do you reason that it is hot/real/painful? No, and no faith or reason is needed, or even applicable. The sense of fire on the skin is pre-rational, pre-faith, visceral. And more – it’s involuntarily. Your brain stem will prompt your body to yank your hand away from the flame no matter what is going on in your cerebral cortex.

There is no place in the chain for ‘reason’ in your visceral reaction to flame burning your flesh. One ‘knows being’ in this way at a pure nerve ending-> brain stem level. Even if you, again, fancy yourself to be clever and deny (or affirm) the reality of the flame, your brain stem doesn’t care and works to act to preserve itself reflexively. Try it if you don’t believe me.

Same here. What I am asking you is WHY should MY epistemology be CONSISTENT with my HUMAN EXPERIENCE in the first place? Is it not true that the necessity is something you BELIEVE by FAITH?

That is simply what I am pointing out and I think its almost self-evident

Your call for me to “Accept human experience as justified by it-self” is a call to FAITH. Do you realize that?

It’s not faith by any stretch of the term. It’s one of the truly solid examples of self-evidence we can point to when we do get around to using our reasoning skills (“self-evident” gets thrown around this forum carelessly, often!). If it is self-evident, than faith is irrelevant useless. By supposing faith is involved at all (or reason, for that matter, here), one necessarily denies its self-evidence. It can’t logically be both ways.

-TS

 

[MindOverMatter2]

In your whole reply, all I can see is this.

You hold an implicit conclusion as TRUE that your human experience is TRUE. But that is something you have faith on. THERE is NO certainty. You have faith. I just don’t know why you are not admitting this.

That’s not necessary. Firstly, this is because your use of the word faith is meaningless in the context of immediate knowledge; and secondly, because I have immediate knowledge (or primitive knowledge if you prefer) of the fact that I have experiences. Whether or not it can be said that all the contents of those experiences are objective (has an extension beyond mental projection) is a different question that does not apply to experience itself. In general, I am experiencing “something”, it is something that has distinctions or essential differences, and that is something I cannot deny because it is self evident.

The idea that we know nothing before faith is in error since we evidently “know” that we are having faith, and that requires pre-knowledge of ones existential self. Faith has meaning only in the context where there is an inference of a hypothesized object or being, based on immediate experience, that does not necessarily exist, but has explanatory value. It is not evident that it needs to exist in-order to explain the immediacy of my experience in general, but it still has some probability of existence. This is where it is meaningful to say that I have a degree of faith that such an object exists.

Outside of that context, faith really has no meaning, and it is absurd to “reason” that I must have faith in that which is required for reason and faith. It is meaningless to say that one believes or has faith in that which is self evident in the fact of their immediate knowledge. Experience ontologically precedes reason and faith, not because I “believe” it does, but because it is immediately evident to me that it does. Faith and reason is an expression that proceeds the self evident knowledge of my existence.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Your call for me to “Accept human experience as justified by it-self” is a call to FAITH. Do you realize that?

God Bless

That which is by definition self-evident does not require faith, since there is no lack of knowledge. I do not lack the knowledge of the fact that I exist, and neither is it the kind of knowledge that has to be reasoned to.

If you begin with absolute scepticism, you have no justification for faith.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

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.

This is a deceptive straw-man of what I said. Perhaps if you put as much time in to reasoning as you do taking things out of context, you would be on my side.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

This is a deceptive straw-man of what I said. Perhaps if you put as much time in to reasoning as you do taking things out of context, you would be on my side.

Quoting someone is not creating a Strawman. Those are your words, again, you have served as a prime example of the point I was raising in the OP. Thanks

 

[ddarko]

That which is by definition self-evident does not require faith, since there is no lack of knowledge. I do not lack the knowledge of the fact that I exist, and neither is it the kind of knowledge that has to be reasoned to.

If you begin with absolute scepticism, you have no justification for faith.

With all due respect, will you please explain to me HOW you came to the conclusion that
“That which is by definition self-evident does not require faith”?

Like honestly, you are telling me to accept the position that “That which is by definition self-evident does not require faith” ON FAITH. Otherwise please show how you know?

All I am saying is pretty simple, there is no way to justify that “That which is by definition self-evident does not require faith”. When I am starting from scratch as a human being, I have nothing to “justify” anything. Do you understand what I am saying?

The irony here is that you keep presenting to me self evident truths and you are telling me to ACCEPT them BECAUSE they are self-evident. But why? Why can I not accept them? If you are telling me because it is the UNREASONABLE thing to do, then you are again in circular logic. You are trying to justify being LOGICAL based on LOGIC.

Otherwise, PLEASE, explain to me, WHY I should accept your premise that “That which is by definition self-evident does not require faith”. You should realize that to give me a REASON why I should DO SO, does not in-fact justify WHY I should do so. Because your support will be circular in logic. It therefore neither JUSTIFIES or REFUTES that I should accept your position.

All I can do is accept it ON FAITH.

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

The idea that we know nothing before faith is in error since we evidently “know” that we are having faith, and that requires pre-knowledge of ones existential self. Faith has meaning only in the context where there is an inference of a hypothesized object or being, based on immediate experience, that does not necessarily exist, but has explanatory value. It is not evident that it needs to exist in-order to explain the immediacy of my experience in general, but it still has some probability of existence. This is where it is meaningful to say that I have a degree of faith that such an object exists.

No you see, I disagree. Why must it be, that we KNOW we have FAITH? It is one thing to have FAITH and one thing to know we have FAITH.

Now even if we agree that “we must first KNOW we have FAITH”, what you are telling me by saying that we should discard contradictory claims to it is also based on FAITH in reason. In the end, is it not true that you are accepting somethings on FAITH?

In a way, what you are saying is impossible because it postulates a REASON for REASON. But that is obviously meaningless because how do you say something is REASONABLE without first having REASON. So it must be that you accepted REASON not based on REASON but by FAITH.

Now this might be where we are misunderstanding each other. You tell me that Man is a creature of REASON. I whole heartedly agree. What you are missing though, is the fact that Man is a creature of REASON also shows that Man is a creature of FAITH. He has implicitly accepted REASON by FAITH, without any question. He sticks to REASON because he has accepted REASON without JUSTIFICATION. In fact, to JUSTIFY REASON is meaningless. I don’t think I in anyway contradict your epistemology in that sense. I am simply pointing out that if you go a step back on your epistemology, you realize that FAITH is the foundation.

Or simply put, the chain of REASONS for REASON are terminated by FAITH.

So man is a creature of REASON because he chooses to have FAITH in REASON as opposed to choosing to have FAITH in no such thing as REASON. It’s such a tight faith that it is never even questioned. A gift by God.

God Bless

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Faith is assent to the appearance of reality, natural or supernatural. As such, it can be true faith or false faith. There is a certain faith in the sensory world that can be thoroughly misplaced. The ancient materialists believed that nothing could exist if it could not be subject to the senses. But the ancient atomists described the existence of atoms, beings so small they could not be perceived by the human eye. This was a true faith, though it was not based on sensory experience.

The senses rule to a degree … they do not rule absolutely.

There is no way to rationally explain how it is that truth can be discovered independent of sensory data … as mathematics has shown. How could the perception of tiny things lead us to deduce that some things are so tiny they cannot be seen? Reason, then, may transcend the sensory data presented to it. If we can imagine atoms, things we cannot see, and they turn out to exist, why can we not also imagine a God we cannot see with our senses but Who may exist … Who may actually be the ground of all existence?

This is the question the materialist cannot answer, nor is it a question he even wants to ask.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

No you see, I disagree. Why must it be, that we KNOW we have FAITH?

Because we do. You know it and I know it.

It is one thing to have FAITH and one thing to know we have FAITH.

Now even if we agree that “we must first KNOW we have FAITH”, what you are telling me by saying that we should discard contradictory claims to it is also based on FAITH in reason.

No, I am saying that we know that we have experience before we reason about that experience. This is evident to anybody that has self experience of their being.

In the end, is it not true that you are accepting something on FAITH?

No. “Being” is immediate knowledge. Faith is required and is only meaningful when there is a lack of knowledge.

In a way, what you are saying is impossible because it postulates a REASON for REASON.

No. It merely states what is self evident to anybody who has self experience.

But that is obviously meaningless because how do you say something is REASONABLE without first having REASON. So it must be that you accepted REASON not based on REASON but by FAITH.

I already explained how we discover the law of non-contradiction in our thought processes and in the immediate experience of being. Its not faith in the unknown, but acknowledgement of that which is presented to us.

 

[JDaniel]

I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to assume what Aquinas would think, but it actually may be a fairly good bet he’d agree with me (and the thousands of saints who had never even heard of a cosmological or teleological argument yet ***knew *God). As many know Aquinas never did finish his Summa Theologica, and on December 6, 1273 while attending Mass Aquinas fell into a profound mystical rapture. Later when urged by Chrurch officials on continue his work on the Summa, Aquinas responded back while referencing his recent mystical experience “I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw”

sounds like a pretty powerful affirmation of the power of direct experience over abstract philosophical arguments.

Ronnie:

I’m not so sure I’d be too quick to relegate philosophical arguments to the back burner. I’m not too sure Aquinas would either. Although your point is well taken, it could be said that by the inordinate amount of, and virtually complete range of subjects, that Aquinas’ years of “reasoning” guided him through, his mind was made ready to receive that direct mystical experience of God. That is not to say that others who do not undertake such a lifelong endeavor cannot also receive God, but simply, that we don’t know what might have prepared them. Perhaps purity, piety, keen awareness, or all three (plus others). If you saw the face of God (or, whatever God may have shown him) you would probably say that everything in your past was a “lot of straw”, too. That’s not necessarily a repudiation.

God bless,
jd

 

[ddarko]

I already explained how we discover the law of non-contradiction in our thought processes and in the immediate experience of being. Its not faith in the unknown, but acknowledgement of that which is presented to us.

Ok lets make this simple. Tell me why I should “**acknowledge **and **accept **what my human experience tells me”.

Please keep in mind, if you are arguing that I should do so from experience it-self or that it contradicts the ontology of existence, then it is once again circular. You are using the very things you are trying to justify to prove itself.

Don’t also give me a whole lecture on how this is the conclusion of our existence. To conclude something, you first need to have reason and logical axioms. Otherwise all you have is a collection of propositions.

Looking forward to your reply.

P.S. You might have missed my post #166.

God Bless

 

[JDaniel]

It’s a classic case of the psychological condition known as of “Projection”. It’s HIS faith that gets challenged anytime someone tries to tell him his cosmological and teleological arguments for God aren’t the slam dunk he thinks they are. He NEEDS those arguments for his faith. Just like he needed to believe an actually infinity can not exist, on another thread a last week when I told him about Georg Cantor and Set Theory he nearly had a conniption fit, started barking insults at me just like on this thread. Poor guy, his faith is lost without his arguments.

This was the danger I was pointing out in the OP

Ronnie:

Firstly, there can’t be an actual infinity. All actual numbers are speciated by the last number of the quantity, or set. With actual infinity, there is no final number speciating the quantity or set. There are but two kinds of infinity: actual or potential. Here, potential has nothing to do with energy, as in potential energy, or the occurrence of an event, such as the Steelers can potentially win the super bowl. It has to do with not being delimited. It is a quantity approaching infinity, but, is never able to stop on a final number that speciates it. Cantor knew this. In fact, you can’t have an infinity of sets. You can treat a concept as though it was a delimited number or set, and it functions well in speculative equations.

There can only be one actual infinity: which is God. God is infinite in every perfection. One of those perfections is magnitude. Now, how is God an infinite magnitude? He is an Infinite Magnitude precisely because He co-permeates every other form (Angel) or matter/form (corporeal) composition. There cannot be two infinite spiritual beings as that would mean that they would exist as ‘parts-outside-of-parts’. There would be one being beside and outside the other, effectively displacing it. Christ and the Holy Spirit are not infinite beings co-permeating God the Father. Christ arises from his concept held by God from all Eternity. The Holy Spirit arises from the outpouring of love from God and Christ by a process called ‘spiration’. The Church regards the Holy Spirit as the divine breath personified. I realize that I am speaking to the choir to you, but, others may not know.

Back to ‘infinity’. Understanding how real numbers are speciated, including how sets of real numbers are speciated is important to understanding what Cantor means when he speaks of ‘infinity’. Brackets are placed around an abbreviation in order to represent the concept of a speciated infinity. As it exists in reality, it must be understood as potentially infinite - as one number, or, one set can always be added or subtracted from whatever number or set one is contemplating.

God bless,
jd

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

Ronnie:

I’m not so sure I’d be too quick to relegate philosophical arguments to the back burner. I’m not too sure Aquinas would either. Although your point is well taken, it could be said that by the inordinate amount of, and virtually complete range of subjects, that Aquinas’ years of “reasoning” guided him through, his mind was made ready to receive that direct mystical experience of God. That is not to say that others who do not undertake such a lifelong endeavor cannot also receive God, but simply, that we don’t know what might have prepared them. Perhaps purity, piety, keen awareness, or all three (plus others). If you saw the face of God (or, whatever God may have shown him) you would probably say that everything in your past was a “lot of straw”, too. That’s not necessarily a repudiation.

God bless,
jd

I agree with what you say, arguments have their place in leading someone to God. Them, along with the word’s of other people, books you’ve read, preaching you’ve heard can help prepare you for the moment of receiving Grace. But my point here is that there is a danger of thinking The Arguments for God’s existance ARE religion, that by sitting around reading abstract arguments that you are practicing religion and that Faith is something based on abstract philosophical arguments. There’s even one or two on this thead that appear to have fallen into that trap, even going so far as to equate Christianity to “the realm of fairy tales” before the likes of guys like William Lane Craig “rescued it”.

 

[JDaniel]

“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

Ddarko:

I must say that I always enjoy your posts, but, that said, allow me to interrupt. MoM2 is, I think, speaking more specifically to ‘logic’. It is our reason that allows us to perform good dialectics, and form logical syllogisms, premises and conclusions. ‘Logic’, I think, is self-provative. It does not lie in need of Faith. One can attempt with all of one’s might to make a triangle out of a circle, but, it won’t work. One can try with all of one’s might to create a situation wherein resides a married bachelor, but, it won’t work. A priori Truth is provative of logic. The only faith we need is that we are not participating in an illusion.

Aquinas’ five ways are generally called “proofs” for good reason. All that I have ever heard or read that are purported to be refutations of the five ways are simply and inevitably not. Each so-called refutation has, as it has always turned out, been nothing more than an intentional or non-intentional red-herring, re-definition, or straw-man. Philosophy is not for the feint of heart.

Know that here I am not speaking about intellectual failures. That is, I recognize that one can abuse oneself with error(s). But, in the absence of error(s), logic stands firm without faith. Reason is reasonable precisely because of this.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

I agree with what you say, arguments have their place in leading someone to God. Them, along with the word’s of other people, books you’ve read, preaching you’ve heard can help prepare you for the moment of receiving Grace. But my point here is that there is a danger of thinking The Arguments for God’s existance ARE religion, that by sitting around reading abstract arguments that you are practicing religion and that Faith is something based on abstract philosophical arguments. There’s even one or two on this thead that appear to have fallen into that trap, even going so far as to equate Christianity to “the realm of fairy tales” before the likes of guys like William Lane Craig “rescued it”.

Ronnie:

Well said: I’m good with this.

God bless,
jd

 

[ddarko]

Ddarko:

I must say that I always enjoy your posts, but, that said, allow me to interrupt. MoM2 is, I think, speaking more specifically to ‘logic’. It is our reason that allows us to perform good dialectics, and form logical syllogisms, premises and conclusions. ‘Logic’, I think, is self-provative. It does not lie in need of Faith. One can attempt with all of one’s might to make a triangle out of a circle, but, it won’t work. One can try with all of one’s might to create a situation wherein resides a married bachelor, but, it won’t work. A priori Truth is provative of logic. The only faith we need is that we are not participating in an illusion.

Aquinas’ five ways are generally called “proofs” for good reason. All that I have ever heard or read that are purported to be refutations of the five ways are simply and inevitably not. Each so-called refutation has, as it has always turned out, been nothing more than an intentional or non-intentional red-herring, re-definition, or straw-man. Philosophy is not for the feint of heart.

Thanks, I enjoy reading your posts too

Yes, I actually agree with you. I think I might have come across as being against the idea of using reason at all. On the contrary, I am pro-proofs for existence of God and I certainly think they are valid. In fact, I am arguing that Reason shows the necessity of Faith.

However, what I believe, and what I’ve discovered is that eventually all these arguments can be ‘taken apart’ from an Atheist or Theist by simply pointing out that the premises are based on faith on certain axioms/proposition whether it may be scientific/logic or metaphysics.

So at that point, I’ve realized that they misunderstood the key idea of knowledge on anything. It all did start by faith. So to accuse, lets say, the first cause argument, as requiring Faith in the premise that ‘everything that begins to exist has a cause’ and is therefore logically invalid is false. The fact that one of the premises can never be proved does not undermine the argument. To say that it does, undermines everything we know. Therefore, I am actually arguing that “proofs” for existence of God are indeed PROOFS. The fact that the premises are from Human experience and that we consider Human experience to be true DOES NOT in anyway undermine the conclusion. The conclusion is as strong as any other knowledge we claim to have with certainty.

It is with that definition of Faith that I was arguing with MoM2 over this issue. To me, it seems like one has to first have Faith that “What is revealed by human experience is indeed TRUE”. In other words, what you so elegantly put as “The only faith we need is that we are not participating in an illusion”. Now at the same time, I think one can choose to not accept it but that leaves them at nowhere and nothing. That I believe is the major problem for atheism that is anti-Faith.

So does this not put FAITH as a requirement for reason?

To try and address your example,

“One can try with all of one’s might to create a situation wherein resides a married bachelor, but, it won’t work.”

That is certainly true. But what does it mean without any guarantee on your human experience? Therefore it appears to me that even the Principle of Contradiction would not mean anything unless we accepted Human Experience as TRUE (or non-illusive) by FAITH.

God Bless

 

[JDaniel]

No you see, I disagree. Why must it be, that we KNOW we have FAITH? It is one thing to have FAITH and one thing to know we have FAITH.

Now even if we agree that “we must first KNOW we have FAITH”, what you are telling me by saying that we should discard contradictory claims to it is also based on FAITH in reason. In the end, is it not true that you are accepting somethings on FAITH?

In a way, what you are saying is impossible because it postulates a REASON for REASON. But that is obviously meaningless because how do you say something is REASONABLE without first having REASON. So it must be that you accepted REASON not based on REASON but by FAITH.

Now this might be where we are misunderstanding each other. You tell me that Man is a creature of REASON. I whole heartedly agree. What you are missing though, is the fact that Man is a creature of REASON also shows that Man is a creature of FAITH. He has implicitly accepted REASON by FAITH, without any question. He sticks to REASON because he has accepted REASON without JUSTIFICATION. In fact, to JUSTIFY REASON is meaningless. I don’t think I in anyway contradict your epistemology in that sense. I am simply pointing out that if you go a step back on your epistemology, you realize that FAITH is the foundation.

Or simply put, the chain of REASONS for REASON are terminated by FAITH.

So man is a creature of REASON because he chooses to have FAITH in REASON as opposed to choosing to have FAITH in no such thing as REASON. It’s such a tight faith that it is never even questioned. A gift by God.

God Bless

Ddarko:

Let’s think this thing through, shall we? The first thing that we must consider is how we come to know. In order to do this, we must place ourselves back in time, to a situation when we were relatively new. As relatively new babies, our primordial sensations are limited to tasting flavors, hearing sounds, tactile feelings such as touch or being touched, olfactory-scents. We have yet to open our eyes. We receive rudimentary knowledge of all of the above including, possibly, some vague and rudimentary idea of motion as a baby may sense his/her own motion, or, his/her mother coming and going.

A few more days and we open our eyes. What do we sense? Unless there is mobile being in eye-shot, everything appears to be a colorful solid. Soon, a face appears. It is accompanied by its body. None of this is understood by us yet. It merely is. It is mere existential perception of objects differentiated from their background. The moment we perceive motion, our rudimentary interest is piqued, so to speak. As pre-rational and pre-faithful, brand new beings, we cannot even conceive yet. But, we do take notice of motion, or, more properly, mobile being.

As we slowly mature, we continue to notice mobile being(s) and we begin to acquire that which we erroneously term “faith” that certain of the repetitious motions and mobile beings are pleasing. But, we have yet to even begin to ratiocinate. We have yet to have post-cognitive faith. We simply are aware and, thus, we simply know. Neither reason nor faith are exigencies that are affective to or upon us at this time.

It is generally accepted that at around the age of seven, human beings begin to show relatively exciting (to us) signs of rationality. But, not faith yet. As we age, our rationality continues to improve, get sharper. But, not faith yet. It becomes apparent that certain things can be reasonably accepted on faith only after reasoning our ways to it. For example, a child will often put his/her hand on something that is very hot. But, usually, most sense the hot-ness before it comes to that. This is a clear expression of pure “knowing,” of pre-faith. We instantly reason that the approaching heat does not feel pleasurable. And, we back off; although some require a lesson to learn.

“Faith” is, in the early stages of our lives, something we know from repetition. But, even this is direct repetition. Faith, at first, has as its principle: cumulativity: the accumulation of known exigencies results in rudimentary faith: which then provides us with faith in faith. However, all along we have been reasoning. We have been reasoning initially from direct knowing, then from cumulative certifying repetition. One must admit that, in most areas of knowledge, it is reason that presupposes faith.

That said, as we learn to be more discriminating, as we learn to discern, we are by then comfortable with objects of faith, such that we may accept as an article of faith that which we do not know from intuition or from thinking. So, ultimately, faith and reason can eventually augment each other.

As to ‘circularity,’ I would have to admit that some circularity is not unreasonable nor is it per se bad. It is hard to merely have ‘faith’ that you love for your wife, even though your wife is expected to have ‘faith’ that, in fact, you do love her, but, it is not the same in our own minds. We require, for our own minds, more certitude. We require active knowing from reasoning.

I reason, from St. Thomas’ five ways, that there is a god: that is knowing through reasoning. I know from faith that our God is triune. I know from faith that he must possess an infinity of determinates in infinite magnitude, for infinite duration. I know that we consist of parts-outside-of-parts and, therefore, are not self-sustaining. I know that we are postulational, i.e., we can postulate a universe, or, an eternal universe. But, I also know that such postulations can be no more than speculative. There is nothing within the postulation that provides faith or reason to me, or, rather, most rational human beings. Scientism attempts to drag real science into the mix as a justifying principle. But, most of us see through that.

God bless,
jd

 

[ddarko]

Ddarko:

Let’s think this thing through, shall we? The first thing that we must consider is how we come to know. In order to do this, we must place ourselves back in time, to a situation when we were relatively new. As relatively new babies, our primordial sensations are limited to tasting flavors, hearing sounds, tactile feelings such as touch or being touched, olfactory-scents. We have yet to open our eyes. We receive rudimentary knowledge of all of the above including, possibly, some vague and rudimentary idea of motion as a baby may sense his/her own motion, or, his/her mother coming and going.

(… I took if out to keep it one post)

I reason, from St. Thomas’ five ways, that there is a god: that is knowing through reasoning. I know from faith that our God is triune. I know from faith that he must possess an infinity of determinates in infinite magnitude, for infinite duration. I know that we consist of parts-outside-of-parts and, therefore, are not self-sustaining. I know that we are postulational, i.e., we can postulate a universe, or, an eternal universe. But, I also know that such postulations can be no more than speculative. There is nothing within the postulation that provides faith or reason to me, or, rather, most rational human beings. Scientism attempts to drag real science into the mix as a justifying principle. But, most of us see through that.

God bless,
jd

Thanks, that was helpful in understanding this issue a bit more. I have some questions though.

So in your view, it seems that we first and foremost "know" things before we have neither Reason or Faith. But what kind of knowledge is this? Isn’t this knowledge based from the fact that we implicitly believed our senses without any proof (Faith) or that we justified our perception (Reason)?

Is it not true that till we justify our perception of existence by Reason or accepted it by Faith, we only “think that we know”?

So to take your example

For example, a child will often put his/her hand on something that is very hot. But, usually, most sense the hot-ness before it comes to that. This is a clear expression of pure “knowing,” of pre-faith. We instantly reason that the approaching heat does not feel pleasurable. And, we back off; although some require a lesson to learn.

Isn’t this just empirical validation? But empirical validation it-self cannot produce knowledge unless we accept that is True no? We could only think we have knowledge.

So what I am saying is that, I could be observing gravity. I will think I know. But there is nothing to stop me for believing that the same gravity will be there tomorrow (bar some physical phenomenon) or that it will just disappear tomorrow (randomly without any reason). So in this case, I **believe **that the Universe is it-self intelligible for an example. BUT, nothing stops me from **believing **otherwise. Therefore what I observe as Gravity will only be knowledge if I already believe the Universe is intelligible correct?

But yes, I think I cannot hold the view that we ***did ***indeed have faith before reason in the temporal sense. If what you say is indeed correct about Faith and Cognition, that alone does prove me wrong.
However, does this apply in the sense of building the epistemology? Is it still not true that after developing Reason, and then the child/adult looks back, he/she should perceive a need for Faith in order to hold on to anything they thought they knew? Like what I am saying is that if we are to hold on to anything as true, is there not a logical necessity to have Faith? Because how their ‘knowledge’ came in to being as they grew by it-self does not justify whether the knowledge is true or not right?

God Bless