Christianity Illogical?

  • Thread starter Thread starter IvanKaramozov
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
crowonsnow said:
More like a logical train wreck.

So we should believe in a god? Remember that this god has no explanation.

So unless you’ve misrepresented Aquinas, Aquinas is saying that if something can be explained, we should now believe in something that can’t be explained.

I don’t see any value there.
Click to expand...
Aquinas would never have said God couldn’t be explained. The explanation of God is that it is His *nature *to exist–he’s the essence of existence. And He’s required as an explanation because existence is not intrinsic to the nature of anything else, therefore everything else is contingent upon that being Whose nature it is to exist.

Who did say God couldn’t be explained? Any Catholic who said that is in material heresy (go look it up before you offer an opinion about that); it’s de fide that God is rationally knowable, to some extent (as a perfectly simple substance our composite minds aren’t really capable of grasping Him, but that’s beside the point).
 
crowonsnow said:
More like a logical train wreck.

So we should believe in a god? Remember that this god has no explanation.

So unless you’ve misrepresented Aquinas, Aquinas is saying that if something can be explained, we should now believe in something that can’t be explained.

I don’t see any value there.
Click to expand...
Seriously, you’re just cheating yourself intellectually. You’re like the fundamentalist Protestant who does not believe in evolution because he simply does not want to believe, and instead, churns out throwaway rebuttals like “why are there still monkeys then!?!”.

You can accuse St. Thomas of many things, but bad logic is not one of them. A honest investigation would do you some good.
 
Hastrman said:
Who did say God couldn’t be explained? Any Catholic who said that is in material heresy (go look it up before you offer an opinion about that); it’s de fide that God is rationally knowable, to some extent (as a perfectly simple substance our composite minds aren’t really capable of grasping Him, but that’s beside the point).
Click to expand...
We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable,*** incomprehensible***, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.
Click to expand...
You might want to look up the word “incomprehensible”.

Source:vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p1.htm#I

Being knowable, and being explicable, are not the same thing.
 
crowonsnow said:
More like a logical train wreck.

So we should believe in a god? Remember that this god has no explanation.

So unless you’ve misrepresented Aquinas, Aquinas is saying that if something can be explained, we should now believe in something that can’t be explained.

I don’t see any value there.
Click to expand...
The value is in seeing the relative capabilities of your mind to know.

If God is omniscient, then he is completely knowable or comprehensible to Himself or any other intelligence with an infinite capacity to “know.” However, for human beings to know God would be sort of like, but infinitely more than, to use Peter Kreeft’s analogy, a slug trying to understand the mind of Einstein. To a slug, Einstein is incomprehensible, but to an intelligence capable of knowing Einstein, comprehensible.

Similar to this is our capacity to know God. He is incomprehensible to us, but comprehensible in Himself.

Our reason points us to its own limits. Knowing that we can only understand “to a certain limit” points in the direction of God being rationally knowable if we had the capacity to do so.

This is a lesson about “our place” in creation. We are not all-knowing and sufficient unto ourselves to explain or understand all there is to know. In the final analysis God and creation are completely comprehensible, but not to human minds because of inherent limitations; in particular, that “information” must be “filtered” by limitations of our senses and processed by the limitations of our “reason.”

Do you believe yourself to be in possession of all knowledge? I assume the answer is “no.”
Do you believe your senses provide “full-disclosure” of everything going on around you? I assume the answer is no, again.
Do you believe your reasoning ability provides you with perfect understanding? Again, no. Right?

Therefore, some “things” about God and creation can be known by you, but His infinite intelligence is inexplicable and beyond you. Also, many things about creation cannot be known by you without some special arrangements by God to bring you to “know” fully.
 
Sideline said:
Clever play on words there.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Notice how it points out the shallowness of your “abundantly clear” definition of “Putin is a human being”? You actually didn’t accomplish much since now you’re in a position of having to explain what a human being is. (There’s one of those pesky existential statements again.) Doing so requires more than recourse to just biology, but must delve into at least psychology as well.

Likewise, “God is a divine being.” requires study and explanation. Theology is to God what biology and psychology are to human being.

There are oodles of good sources out there much better suited to the study and explanation of theology than permitted in the limited back and forth medium of a message board with somewhat draconian word-count limits on posts.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
mlchance said:
Thanks. Notice how it points out the shallowness of your “abundantly clear” definition of “Putin is a human being”? You actually didn’t accomplish much since now you’re in a position of having to explain what a human being is. (There’s one of those pesky existential statements again.) Doing so requires more than recourse to just biology, but must delve into at least psychology as well.
Click to expand...
You’ve seen one, right? A human being? You know that they are big-brained primates with the ability to speak, create cultural artifacts and live in complex social systems? That they conform, more or less, to a generalized pattern of appearance and behaviours?

I’m willing to accept even this most generalized view of a god.
Likewise, “God is a divine being.” requires study and explanation. Theology is to God what biology and psychology are to human being.

There are oodles of good sources out there much better suited to the study and explanation of theology than permitted in the limited back and forth medium of a message board with somewhat draconian word-count limits on posts.
Click to expand...
Oh, I know. I’ve read many of them. Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Plantinga. The problem is that their definitions are all different. Perhaps if you were to tell me the right one, I will focus my study on them.
 
Sideline said:
Oh, I know. I’ve read many of them. Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Plantinga. The problem is that their definitions are all different. Perhaps if you were to tell me the right one, I will focus my study on them.
Click to expand...
Um…so Aquinas and nobody else, then?😃

Try Adler, “How to Think About God”.
 
Mirdath said:
Why ask atheists when you can read Hebrews 11:1 and have it from Paul himself?

Don’t think ‘illogical’ is a slur. Not caring about logic is one of Christianity’s greatest strengths, and one of the worst things one can do for the faith is to try to justify it through logic.
Click to expand...

**Absolutely 😃 ! If it’s logical, that makes it no different, save in degree, from “religion within the limits of pure reason” :eek: **​

**And what possible use is that ? **It’s full of paradoxes, but logical it is not - if it were logical, it would not jump up & down upon reason in the way it does. It never stops mugging & battering & belabouring reason 🙂
 
crowonsnow said:
By “account for” I mean “to explain.” You know the oft posed question, ‘why is there something instead of nothing?’ The Christian response - correct me if I’m wrong - is that a god made it.

But that leaves the god unaccounted for. So I naturally respond, ‘why a god instead of no god?’

So to account for the universe the Christian response is to imagine something else that cannot be accounted for, instead of just accepting that the universe needs no explanation.
Click to expand...

**That something else would in turn be God - which would leave us with an infinite regression. God cannot be “accounted for”. 🙂 **​

 
IvanKaramozov said:
Right, I constantly hear atheists claim that Christianity “illogical”
Click to expand...
well for one thing, humanity has been around for like 200,000 years and Jesus only decided to come down 2,000 years ago. thats not exactly logical. he shouldnt have wasted too much time. much less the fact that in the first 1,000 years only some arabs and europeans benefitted.
 
AgnosTheist said:
well for one thing, humanity has been around for like 200,000 years and Jesus only decided to come down 2,000 years ago. thats not exactly logical. he shouldnt have wasted too much time. much less the fact that in the first 1,000 years only some arabs and europeans benefitted.
Click to expand...
that has absolutly nothing to do with logic.
 
Another reason why Christianity is Illogical is because its arguments commit several logical fallacies. Like circular reasoning. Appeal to emotion. Appeal to authority. etc. etc.
 
AgnosTheist said:
oh yeah for you something is logical only if you see the letter U sideways.

oookaaay 😃
Click to expand...
No, however when I ask what is illogical about Christianity, and you point to something that has nothing to do with logic, there is something gone wrong
 
AgnosTheist said:
Another reason why Christianity is Illogical is because its arguments commit several logical fallacies. Like circular reasoning. Appeal to emotion. Appeal to authority. etc. etc.
Click to expand...
I agrea that many of Christianities apologitics are flawed, that has nothing to do with Chrisytianity itself being internally contradictory
 
How can something be logical if it is based on a contradiction? And in case you wonder, I am talking about the concept of the Trinity. It is not a “mystery”, it is a clear contradiction.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top