Catholics and William Lane Craig

[MindOverMatter2]

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

Are you talking about the particular contents of experience, or the act of experience? I am talking about the act of experiencing ones being. You are already accepting the fact of experience, not by faith, but by knowledge it. Experience is telling you that you are having experiences, simply because you are having them. The word experience wouldn’t have any meaning to you otherwise, since it wouldn’t be based on anything. Knowledge of its meaning is a manifestation of experience; not rational argument. It is immediately evident to me that I have experiences of being, it is on that bases that I begin reasoning about what and how being is.

It depends on what you mean by words like faith. Faith has meaning in so far as one lacks immediate experience of an object inferred. Unless that’s what you mean, I have no idea what you are talking about, since it is in my immediate knowledge that I exist; I require no faith of it. Faith only becomes meaningful to me when I want to know a **specific ** kind of existence for which I have no immediate knowledge. Thus faith is a function of knowledge, or rather, a lack of knowledge. Also, the question of “illusion” is only meaningful to us because we have experienced examples of it. Illusions are not absolute. I can mistake a piece of what we call a rock for a piece of gold, or what we call a deer for a goat, but we are still left with that which has an existential “act” nonetheless. While we can say that this or that thing is an illusion, this does not change fact that we are “experiencing” an illusion. This would mean that in-order for scepticism or faith to have any meaning at all to us, we first have to have an experiential reason to question existence in the first place. We can do this because we have self evident knowledge of existence; are very definition of truth is based on it. That is why absolute scepticism is meaningless. The same problem arises with your use of the word “nothing”. Nothing, is only meaningful to us, because we have direct knowledge of its opposite. It is the act of experiencing being that we have been able to conjure up the idea of an opposite; that’s how we discover logic. Therefore all inferred Knowledge, whether that be inferred by faith, science or rational argument, begins with the immediate experience and knowledge of being in general; this is to say that we have pre-rational knowledge.

There is a different epistemological argument to which your scepticism is perhaps better suited, and that is not the question of whether there is an act of reality, but whether or not there is a universe outside of our mental projection. If you are asking why should I accept that I am seeing a ball outside of my imagination; then this is very different to epistemological context of existential experience, since you are now talking about “how” things exist in relation to the mind and the appearance of being. I cannot determine what exists outside my mental projection or whether outside is meaningful with out using logic. But this is a different context of knowledge that has no relevance to the question of how one determines the existence of being in general; that there is existence is a very different question to whether or not an appearance is representative of objective realities outside of our imaginations or minds.

The fact that you have experience is self proof of the existence of experience. Its self evident; that is to say that it lacks no knowledge of the general act we call existence.

You are using the very things you are trying to justify to prove itself.

You use the self evident fact of your experience to justify faith. Immediate experience in general does not require evidence because it is self evident. I am experiencing something; this is what we are referring to when we use the word existence or existing. Given that knowledge I can know what my experience is not. When you say that I am not experiencing, I know that this is contrary to my experience in general, and thus I can disagree without need for faith. I do not have faith that a square cannot be a triangle; I know it cannot be because I have experienced the distinct natures of their relationship to one another, and I can conclude on that basis that they cannot be the same thing so long as they are distinct, because they are evidently not the same thing. Logic is not something that is detached from our experience of being. The proof of logic is grounded in our experience of the evident fact that distinct natures are not the same thing; and the evidence of that is in our experience of their distinctiveness or difference. Like J Daniel said; it is self proving. Thus it is not a circular fallacy, even though it may appear so.

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.

So I have to reason and make rational arguments in-order to know that a ball is round? I can’t experience the nature of a triangle, but rather I have to logically infer the nature of a triangle?..Rubbish. I know a ball is round because I have pre-rational experience that a ball is round.

 

[ddarko]

Like J Daniel said; it is self proving. Thus it is not a circular fallacy, even though it may appear so.

As far as I know, there is no such thing in logic as self-proving. I think you mean to say internally consistent. But internal consistency does not mean it is true or false.

Also, can I not choose to believe what I experience or disbelieve what I experience? Or are you saying we are all FORCED to be Rational?

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

As far as I know, there is no such thing in logic as self-proving. I think you mean to say internally consistent. But internal consistency does not mean it is true or false.

Also, can I not choose to believe what I experience or disbelieve what I experience? Or are you saying we are all FORCED to be Rational?

God Bless

Firstly, that you do not know of something, is not relevant to whether its right or wrong. Your dismisivness is just a will to ignorance and nothing more. Be sure that you read what I say in context, instead of making a straw-man.

We can choose to ignore what is evidently an objective expression of reality. We can certainly choose to ignore distinction and difference, but that doesn’t change the evident fact that two distinct things are not the same thing. Experience of distinction and difference tells us that.

 

[ddarko]

We can choose to ignore what is evidently an objective expression of reality. We can certainly choose to ignore distinction and difference, but that doesn’t change the evident fact that two distinct things are not the same thing. Experience of distinction and difference tells us that.

Sure, but only if you choose to accept human experience right?

Like what you seem to say is that, ‘one should accept human experience because the contrary view is not consistent with the results of accepting human experience’. But thats obvious right?

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Sure, but only if you choose to accept human experience right?

Like what you seem to say is that, ‘one should accept human experience because the contrary view is not consistent with the results of accepting human experience’. But thats obvious right?

God Bless

What are you talking about? Do you bother to read anything I say, or would you rather continue to make straw-men. The contrary is not experience, it is therefore dishonest to be in denial of that which is self evidently experience.

 

[ddarko]

What are you talking about? Do you bother to read anything I say, or would you rather continue to make straw-men. The contrary is not experience, it is therefore dishonest to be in denial of that which is self evidently experience.

Ok calm down. I am not here to disprove you. Either we have a civil conversation or you just tell me to accept you on faith.

So what I understand as you saying is

If we discard human experience. We would be believing in a lie because human experience tells us there is distinction for an example.

Correct or no?

All I am saying is that once you accept human experience, it obviously is contradictory to not accepting human experience.

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

What are you talking about? Do you bother to read anything I say, or would you rather continue to make straw-men. The contrary is not experience, it is therefore dishonest to be in denial of that which is self evidently experience.

Hey, ok, so to not frustrate you anymore, can you just point me to a good text on this matter?

Thanks,

God Bless

 

[JDaniel]

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)?

Ddarko:

It’s not a view, unless we agree that it comes to us by our senses, I guess. What I am speaking about is the human child. The human child intuits (Origin: late 15th century (originally used of sight, in the sense ‘accurate, unerring’): from medieval Latin intuitivus, from Latin intueri) by the absolute condition of being an object and sensing other objects. The human child does not rely on faith, but he does rely on some sort of reasoning. He reasons relations, relationships, categories, species, unsophisticated reifications and universals, reifications of pain avoidance, conclusions such as “if I eat something, my hunger will go away,” etc., etc. These are unquestionably reasonings. They are a part of ratiocination well before the primary faith-in-faith experience(s).

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”?

Do you think a small child goes through such a process? Or, do you rather think he grasps many things immediately?

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.

Again, how does the child accept it?

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, we truly know the effects a priori to believing the universe to be intelligible, don’t we? Later, upon certifying that our knowledge is correct, we can them make additional claims about gravity, claims emanating from considering gravity from the vantage point of abstraction.

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?

You are correct about that. This pre-ratified knowledge is science but in its most elementary, or, general, form. As we later get into a specific science of material being, for example, we would still do well not to forget from whence we came. Unless we can finally arrive at a pure and cogent induction via a proper and cogent dialectic, it is not going to be science. But, our reasonings inevitably bring us to that science that is, in a real sense, less and less intelligible than when we initially apprehended it in its most general form.

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?

On the contrary. I believe that what you say here is true. As I said above, and in another way of saying it, the more we descend into the structures of things, the less truly knowable the things become to us. Thus, we tend to continue to further explore the structures of things only to discover that what we are able to know is from, well, I guess I can only call it “faith.” How else would one say he “knows” virtual particles, for example? Or, electrons? He postulates them from effects. That is precisely what you call “acceptance by faith,” isn’t it?

God bless,
jd

 

[ddarko]

On the contrary. I believe that what you say here is true. As I said above, and in another way of saying it, the more we descend into the structures of things, the less truly knowable the things become to us. Thus, we tend to continue to further explore the structures of things only to discover that what we are able to know is from, well, I guess I can only call it “faith.” How else would one say he “knows” virtual particles, for example? Or, electrons? He postulates them from effects. That is precisely what you call “acceptance by faith,” isn’t it?

God bless,
jd

Thanks JDaniel for your patience and reply, this clarified things greatly.

I have one more question (or more like a point of clarification), so just as we go in to Faith when we go forward in our knowledge (like ‘faith’ in virtual particles etc), is it wrong to see Faith as necessary in going backward? As in when I was growing up, I had human experience and I accepted things just by knowing. But can I question my basis for that knowledge now from what I know? Or is that very act of questioning invalidated by the fact that I am questioning it?

Like here is what I mean. I know, from human experience, that people I know are real. I never question this as an infant and a child growing up. But is that valid justification that they are? Like I always came to the conclusion as me having faith that they were real and faith in God that they are indeed persons. In the other way around, just as the people I know are real to me, God is also just as real a person. Because in both cases, all I have is faith that they exist. Is that valid reasoning?

Thanks again,

God Bless

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Like here is what I mean. I know, from human experience, that people I know are real.

No you do not. You are now talking about the particulars of experience. People are apparently real, but we know of examples where people could be a figment of ones imagination or it could be the case that false information is being fed to your mind. While it is “practically” unreasonable to hold to such a view, I still cannot know for certain that the universe is objective. But I know that my experience of what we call a universe is real. My experience of people is self evidently real.

 

[ddarko]

No you do not. You are now talking about the particulars of experience. People are apparently real, but we know of examples where people could be a figment of ones imagination or it could be the case that false information is being fed to your mind. While it is “practically” unreasonable to hold to such a view, I still cannot know for certain that the universe is objective. But I know that my experience of what we call a universe is real. My experience of people is self evidently real.

So that particular example is a metaphysical truth that is not in the same class as self evident truths? And is it appropriate that I say that one needs Faith to believe in such truths?

God Bless