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Wozza
Guest
I’m going to have to assume that you won’t be involved in the new thread I am just about to start. But I’d prefer it if you did.Wozza:
Perhaps somebody else will address them. Thanks for the discussion. God bless.
Catholics need to sharpen our debating skills...and increase our charity
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A point of clarification, if I may:
Here are the relevant verses:
‘Say, ‘To whom belongs all that is in the heavens and earth?’ Say, ‘To God. He has taken it upon Himself to be merciful. He will certainly gather you on the Day of Resurrection, which is beyond all doubt. Those who deceive themselves will not believe ……. When those who believe in Our revelations come to you (Prophet), say, ‘Peace be upon you. Your Lord has taken it on Himself to be merciful: if any of you has foolishly done a bad deed, and afterwards repented and mended his ways, God is most forgiving and most merciful.’ (Al-An‘am: 12 and 54). Translation by Professor M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
The words ‘taken it upon’ render the Arabic ‘kataba’ This word can also be rendered ‘prescribed’ and ‘ordained’.
Shaykh Seyyed Hossein Nasr (who renders ‘kataba’ as ‘prescribed’) writes:
‘That God has prescribed Mercy for Himself (see also v. 54) indicates that although God remains absolutely free, He has nonetheless obligated Himself to act with mercy toward His creatures.
‘A well-known ḥadīth qudsī (sacred ḥadīth) conveys the same message, “When God decreed the created realm, He prescribed for Himself in a Book that is with Him, ‘Truly My Mercy prevails over My Wrath,’”; and in another ḥadīth qudsī, God says, “My Mercy has precedence over My Wrath.” The Prophet reportedly would pray during his daily devotions, “O God, I seek refuge in Thy Contentment from Thine Anger, and in Thy Forgiveness from Thy Punishment, and in Thy Mercy from Thy Wrath.’
Referring to verse 54 the Shaykh writes:
‘In a ḥadīth mentioned in connection with this verse the Prophet asks, “Do you know the right of God over the servants? (It is) that they worship Him and not ascribe partners unto Him.” Then he said, “Do you know the right of the servants over God if they do this? (It is) that He not punish them”’ (‘The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary’).
There is no justification for claiming (as certain folk do – Sam Shamoun, for example; but no Muslim scholar that I am aware of) that these verses (and aḥādīth) teach that the Exalted is mutable. He is most certainly not. They refer, not to His essential nature, but to His gifts (freely given) of mercy, in place of wrath; of forgiveness, in place of condemnation.
Mercy and forgiveness are referred to as ‘attributes of action’ (sift al-fi’l); which come to be when the Exalted intends something and acts. Attributes of essence - such as immutabity - are referred to as ‘ifat al-dhat’ or ‘sifat al-nafs’.
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Economist
Guest
What is the point of having more definitions? Good old Occam would object.
A theist is someone who believes in some “god” or “gods”. An atheist is someone who does not believe in some “god” or “gods”. A god is some supernatural entity, who (or what) is able to interact with the physical reality. The concept of “deistic” god stops right there. It does not “assert” any further attributes. The definition of other gods go into some more details. These details may or may not be internally consistent or coherent. But in order to investigate them, we need the specifics. I am more than willing to go there, and I also agree that it might be better to do it in another thread.If the definition of a god contains a logical contradiction, then that god cannot exist. If the definition of a god contains two or more mutually exclusive attributes, then that god cannot exist. If the definition of a god contradicts the known laws of nature, that god cannot exist. The more specific attributes are asserted, the easier it is to argue against that particular god.
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Neithan
Guest
To clarify semantics, of course, and enhance communication. Surely good ol’ Occam would not object to precise descriptions. You list a number of important possible points for interesting discussion. Do you accept that the supernatural is metaphysically possible? If you have not started a thread in the philosophy forum specifically, consider this an invitation.
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Economist
Guest
Yes, I agree with this principle. I just don’t see the need to do it in this instance. Of course, if you explain your motives, I will be happy to ponder them.
As for your specific question: “Do you accept that the supernatural is metaphysically possible?” I am interested in exploring that problem. Would you do the honors to start that thread in the Philosophy sub-forum, and send me a link to it? Or use my @Economist tag, which will automatically produce the link.
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Neithan
Guest
My motive is to use precise language to communicate clear meaning. Atheism is so vacuous a term that even to define it as a lack of belief in god does not make sense for everyone who uses it, as you say. I would refine the definition so that theism and atheism refers to metaphysical views that accept a meaningful understanding of the supernatural. I noticed a contradiction above that I didn’t clearly point out: someone cannot understand a concept that they think is nonsense. So the use of igtheism is a good development of language to clarify meaning. We could start a thread about this topic in particular.
I’m curious to see how you would frame the opening post. So I will throw the ball back to you.
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Economist
Guest
I see the problem here. The concept is not nonsense, the referent is. Example: “married bachelor”. Both parts are sensible separately, but together they are not. Or talking about a “perfect bullet”, which will penetrate any shield; and also talking about a “perfect shield”, which will stop any bullet. Separately both are sensible, but they are mutually exclusive.
Haha! Nifty solution. I accept the challenge. The OP will contain your user name. Of course the OP will be a copy of your question: Do you accept that the supernatural is metaphysically possible? What else is needed?
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Neithan
Guest
You could state your own position on the question, as it currently stands, and any objections you might be aware of. If you can “steel man” the points of disagreement and then demolish those, that’s always impressive! [In a spirit of charity of course.]
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Lion_IRC
Guest
There are three menu optionsMarysLurker:
No. Wherever are you getting that idea from. That is a logical non-sequitur. Just because someone does not believe does not mean that they have a reason for not believing.
God - yes (Probably/certainly - theist)
God - no (Probably/certainly - atheist)
God - maybe (lack of belief - agnostic)
Atheists either believe on faith that there is no God(s) or they have some evidentiary/rational basis for thinking atheism is true.
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GordonP
Guest
That is completely incorrect, as I and others have explained further up in the thread.
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Lion_IRC
Guest
No. It’s quite correct.
As I explained in my post
As I explained in my post
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Neithan
Guest
To call this faith is really watering down the notion; I understand you mean they give credence to some proposition (there is no god) that they have no reasoned argument for, but calling it faith confuses the difference between the theological virtue and common psychology.
The “problem” of those who “don’t know” is fair; it’s too black and white to say that anyone who is not a theist is an atheist, since the latter implies something antithetical. There are agnostic non-theists who are not atheists. In other words, I find the phrase “weak atheism” … weak, semantically.
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Lion_IRC
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From www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/a-manual-for-creating-atheists/
" Now, of course, revisionists can always choose to redefine the word as they please in an idiosyncratic way. As you know, this is what has happened with the word atheism in our generation. People are redefining the word so that it is no longer the view that God does not exist. It is a psychological state of lacking belief in God. That idiosyncratic definition just flies in the face of the traditional meaning and use of the word. If you are dealing with a person who insists on using his own idiosyncratic definitions then I think one simply has to make clear which words are being used in which way. I remember in one of my debates I said, “All right, if that is what you want to define atheism to be, then what I will be criticizing will be schmatheism. Schmatheism is the view that God does not exist. And the real question then is – is schmatheism true or is theism true?”
" Now, of course, revisionists can always choose to redefine the word as they please in an idiosyncratic way. As you know, this is what has happened with the word atheism in our generation. People are redefining the word so that it is no longer the view that God does not exist. It is a psychological state of lacking belief in God. That idiosyncratic definition just flies in the face of the traditional meaning and use of the word. If you are dealing with a person who insists on using his own idiosyncratic definitions then I think one simply has to make clear which words are being used in which way. I remember in one of my debates I said, “All right, if that is what you want to define atheism to be, then what I will be criticizing will be schmatheism. Schmatheism is the view that God does not exist. And the real question then is – is schmatheism true or is theism true?”
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Lion_IRC
Guest
The “non-stamp collector” trope is quite disingenuous in the context of a thread about AvT debates.
Non stamp collectors don’t write polemic books about NOT collecting stamps.
They don’t host Internet forums (fora) about their “mere lack of interest” in discussing the well known hobby of NOT collecting stamps.
So if you want to claim some neutral ‘lacking’ of any position with respect to the existence or otherwise of God(s) then at least allow me the reciprocal right to claim that I lack belief in atheism (schmatheism)
Non stamp collectors don’t write polemic books about NOT collecting stamps.
They don’t host Internet forums (fora) about their “mere lack of interest” in discussing the well known hobby of NOT collecting stamps.
So if you want to claim some neutral ‘lacking’ of any position with respect to the existence or otherwise of God(s) then at least allow me the reciprocal right to claim that I lack belief in atheism (schmatheism)
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MarysLurker
Guest
Right, but then comes the issue of trying to figure out which of the Almighty’s attributes are those of action, and which are those of essence. (And from that comes the well-known issue of what happens when you have one ayat/hadith that says X, and another that says not-X). Of course, that situation isn’t unique to Islam; it’s shared with Protestantism, because both have a revelational text at their core but neither a unified Sacred Tradition nor Magisterium to go with it. As in Islam, you’ll see denominational differences as different people come to different conclusions about whether the essence of Allah is disclosed by a particular verse, or whether it’s an exception to a general rule, or whether it’s a dispensation-limited rule (such as with the Jewish ritual law in the Bible), etc. And as with Islam, most Protestants will agree that the Most Holy is immutable yet have different interpretations as to what His essential attributes are, which ayat/verses disclose those attributes, which do not… because there is no consistent interpretive tradition to the Bible (Protestantism) or the Bible’s relation to the Quran and within the Quran itself (Islam). That leads to something being moral one moment (drinking alcohol, making war against people of the Book) and not the next. The net effect is that Allah is presented to be mutable in both Islam and Protestantism though that is the official position of neither.
Since the OT isn’t the permanence of God but rather charity in dialogue, and you’ve been Protestant, Catholic and Islamic, I have an idea I would like to respectfully share with you. …
(Continued)
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MarysLurker
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(Continued from above)
Because of the above, both Islam and Protestantism do have as an official teaching that there is a gap between the true Faith and either Islam/Protestantism (in both cases, that the Bible was allegedly corrupted for a time until God acted to fix the problem) (topic). The gap issue is problematic from the perspective of Divine immutability, but I think that particularly in the case of Islam, the issue is oversimplified by both sides, each accusing the other’s scriptures of being corrupt.
Yet there are elements of the Quran and Hadith that a Catholic would have absolutely no problem accepting as true: for example, the Quran teaches the Sayyida Maryam/Blessed Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception (3:36), clearly enough that some Protestants have even accused the Catholic Church of “borrowing” the doctrine from Islam! Of course, many of the Church Fathers and medieval Catholics also held to the doctrine long before the Quran, but it’s often said that “with God there are no coincidences,” so one has to wonder how Mohammad (may peace be upon him) could know that and be so confident in it. Private, personal revelation is certainly not unheard of in Catholicism. It happens all the time, but only the messsages that God intends to be shared actually go through the formal process of ecclesiastical approval. The vast majority of private revelations are never disclosed beyond the individual Catholic and his/her confessor. But it is certain that only those revelations that do not conflict with the Bible, and the Sacred Tradition and Magisterium of the Church, are true. With that in mind, one can look at the early years of Islam and see a lot of disagreement about what Mohammad actually taught. There is an alleged letter by him that promises toleration to Christians, but not all of his successors honored it, and today there’s an academic consensus that it was allegedly forged. But what if it wasn’t? Whether or not the Quran we have today (as opposed to the original) is perfect or not, I would say that the very problem discussed above is actually an opportunity for Christians and Muslims to sit down, set aside politics and history, and talk about their interpretive traditions of their respective sacred text, and to harmonize the two—and that this is a real possibility. (It makes sense that Allah, in His omniscience, transcendence and mercy, would will this.) I think this is what Pope St. John Paul II may have meant when he said, “I wish to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s respect for Islam, for authentic Islam: the Islam that prays, that is concerned for those in need.” It could also be what Pope Francis has in mind when he says that Islam itself is not violent. Given your experience, what do you think? Thanks.
Because of the above, both Islam and Protestantism do have as an official teaching that there is a gap between the true Faith and either Islam/Protestantism (in both cases, that the Bible was allegedly corrupted for a time until God acted to fix the problem) (topic). The gap issue is problematic from the perspective of Divine immutability, but I think that particularly in the case of Islam, the issue is oversimplified by both sides, each accusing the other’s scriptures of being corrupt.
Yet there are elements of the Quran and Hadith that a Catholic would have absolutely no problem accepting as true: for example, the Quran teaches the Sayyida Maryam/Blessed Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception (3:36), clearly enough that some Protestants have even accused the Catholic Church of “borrowing” the doctrine from Islam! Of course, many of the Church Fathers and medieval Catholics also held to the doctrine long before the Quran, but it’s often said that “with God there are no coincidences,” so one has to wonder how Mohammad (may peace be upon him) could know that and be so confident in it. Private, personal revelation is certainly not unheard of in Catholicism. It happens all the time, but only the messsages that God intends to be shared actually go through the formal process of ecclesiastical approval. The vast majority of private revelations are never disclosed beyond the individual Catholic and his/her confessor. But it is certain that only those revelations that do not conflict with the Bible, and the Sacred Tradition and Magisterium of the Church, are true. With that in mind, one can look at the early years of Islam and see a lot of disagreement about what Mohammad actually taught. There is an alleged letter by him that promises toleration to Christians, but not all of his successors honored it, and today there’s an academic consensus that it was allegedly forged. But what if it wasn’t? Whether or not the Quran we have today (as opposed to the original) is perfect or not, I would say that the very problem discussed above is actually an opportunity for Christians and Muslims to sit down, set aside politics and history, and talk about their interpretive traditions of their respective sacred text, and to harmonize the two—and that this is a real possibility. (It makes sense that Allah, in His omniscience, transcendence and mercy, would will this.) I think this is what Pope St. John Paul II may have meant when he said, “I wish to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s respect for Islam, for authentic Islam: the Islam that prays, that is concerned for those in need.” It could also be what Pope Francis has in mind when he says that Islam itself is not violent. Given your experience, what do you think? Thanks.
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TULIPed
Guest
Which Protestantism? Can you please show me where this is? Thanks.
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MarysLurker
Guest
We discussed it in the gap thread. The standard Protestant theory for rejecting Catholicism is that there was a Big Scary Dark Age after Emperor Constantine allegedly corrupted the Church by turning it into a Mary-worship cult in order to appease his pagan subjects. According to that theory, the reason nobody read the Bible and caught what had happened was that St. Jerome’s Vulgate Latin Bible was allegedly corrupt and everyone became illiterate after the Western Empire fell. The Eastern Empire, its contemporary golden age, its use of biblical Greek and its 1005 AD rejection of Rome but not Mary are completely ignored, as are God’s immutability (Mal 3:3), 1 Tim 2:3-4 and John 17, among others.
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TULIPed
Guest
Ok - I was looking for a direct discussion of “the gap” in a reformed document. For example - there’s this from the 2nd Helvetic Confession:
“INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HOLY FATHERS. Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises concerning sacred matters as far as they agree with the Scriptures; but we modestly dissent from them when they are found to set down things differing from, or altogether contrary to, the Scriptures. Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not have their writings equated with the canonical Scriptures, but command us to prove how far they agree or disagree with them, and to accept what is in agreement and to reject what is in disagreement.”
I am a “cradle” reformed Protestant. I’ve never been taught - or believed - anything about a “gap”. I’m not doubting your assertion - just giving another viewpoint.
Please forgive the diversion. Carry on.
“INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HOLY FATHERS. Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises concerning sacred matters as far as they agree with the Scriptures; but we modestly dissent from them when they are found to set down things differing from, or altogether contrary to, the Scriptures. Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not have their writings equated with the canonical Scriptures, but command us to prove how far they agree or disagree with them, and to accept what is in agreement and to reject what is in disagreement.”
I am a “cradle” reformed Protestant. I’ve never been taught - or believed - anything about a “gap”. I’m not doubting your assertion - just giving another viewpoint.
Please forgive the diversion. Carry on.
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MarysLurker
Guest
Thanks, but I’m not.
My conclusion is: “The surest path [to transform a culture from the inside out] isn’t through reasoned debate (too tedious) … but by colonizing and reshaping the culture’s appetites and behaviors.” This is the conclusion reached by Archbishop Chaput in the wake of the Obama-era culture shift. I hate admitting this: but the medium of debate is unsuitable for the message of the Gospel.
But after just having had Karl Marx invoked against me, I realize it’s true. “Catholicism is vulnerable to Marxism,” said the poster, for the conclusion that the Church has no better protection from liberal secularism than Protestantism. Of course, by making that statement, the other person displayed appalling ignorance of history. Not just because the Virgin Mary said at Fatima that the errors of Russia would spread throughout the world precisely to prepare the Church to confront Marxism, and not just that, in line with Her prophecy, the Church actually defeated Soviet Communism in 1991 (how soon we forget!), but because the speaker—though supposedly an enemy of Marx—had embraced the tactics of Marx in order to win an argument. The biggest threat of Marxism wasn’t the economic system it advocated (but with 98 million dead worldwide, nobody can dispute the evil of Communism) but its closing of the mind. Marx, and his disciples such as Saul Alinsky, were masters of exploiting culture by shutting down discourse by making everything personal. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Whites by defining them and their supposed capitalist economic enablers as the enemy regardless of their actual positions on the Russian government. It didn’t matter what a Kulak actually thought; by virtue of owning a farm, you were the enemy because you were a “have” and therefore a mortal enemy of the “have not.” Today, if you are a Catholic you are supposedly an enabler of child abuse or patriarchy or Mary worship and so you are automatically wrong.
The Protestant Reformation was from the beginning an anti-Catholic movement, but Protestants themselves sincerely seek God. If the problem was just ignorance, then all a Catholic would need to do is to give them the facts and let them make their own conclusions; their sincerity, along with the Holy Spirit, would do the rest. Well, this web site is full of facts, and yet also full of the unconvinced. The sad truth is that—as Mary warned—the culture is so shot through with Marxism (especially in the media and education) that debate and discourse are no longer workable at any significant scale. It’s easy enough to find a Protestant (or a Catholic) who has “won” an argument by Marxism instead of by honest discourse, and use them as an excuse to go no further in understanding the other side.
So, as the Archbishop concluded, the only way forward is the hard one, of accepting the impending collapse of the culture and building a new one. So off I go. Thanks for listening and God bless you.
My conclusion is: “The surest path [to transform a culture from the inside out] isn’t through reasoned debate (too tedious) … but by colonizing and reshaping the culture’s appetites and behaviors.” This is the conclusion reached by Archbishop Chaput in the wake of the Obama-era culture shift. I hate admitting this: but the medium of debate is unsuitable for the message of the Gospel.
But after just having had Karl Marx invoked against me, I realize it’s true. “Catholicism is vulnerable to Marxism,” said the poster, for the conclusion that the Church has no better protection from liberal secularism than Protestantism. Of course, by making that statement, the other person displayed appalling ignorance of history. Not just because the Virgin Mary said at Fatima that the errors of Russia would spread throughout the world precisely to prepare the Church to confront Marxism, and not just that, in line with Her prophecy, the Church actually defeated Soviet Communism in 1991 (how soon we forget!), but because the speaker—though supposedly an enemy of Marx—had embraced the tactics of Marx in order to win an argument. The biggest threat of Marxism wasn’t the economic system it advocated (but with 98 million dead worldwide, nobody can dispute the evil of Communism) but its closing of the mind. Marx, and his disciples such as Saul Alinsky, were masters of exploiting culture by shutting down discourse by making everything personal. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Whites by defining them and their supposed capitalist economic enablers as the enemy regardless of their actual positions on the Russian government. It didn’t matter what a Kulak actually thought; by virtue of owning a farm, you were the enemy because you were a “have” and therefore a mortal enemy of the “have not.” Today, if you are a Catholic you are supposedly an enabler of child abuse or patriarchy or Mary worship and so you are automatically wrong.
The Protestant Reformation was from the beginning an anti-Catholic movement, but Protestants themselves sincerely seek God. If the problem was just ignorance, then all a Catholic would need to do is to give them the facts and let them make their own conclusions; their sincerity, along with the Holy Spirit, would do the rest. Well, this web site is full of facts, and yet also full of the unconvinced. The sad truth is that—as Mary warned—the culture is so shot through with Marxism (especially in the media and education) that debate and discourse are no longer workable at any significant scale. It’s easy enough to find a Protestant (or a Catholic) who has “won” an argument by Marxism instead of by honest discourse, and use them as an excuse to go no further in understanding the other side.
So, as the Archbishop concluded, the only way forward is the hard one, of accepting the impending collapse of the culture and building a new one. So off I go. Thanks for listening and God bless you.
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