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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Those are the ones who will not be atheists for long.
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reggieM
Guest
Yes, I see your reasoning. All Catholics are atheists.
Like I said elsewhere - you can believe absolutely anything and still be considered an atheist.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Which gods are you not strongly atheistic toward?
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reggieM
Guest
Could you let us know which gods you think might exist and why you think there is more evidence for them than the God of the Trinity?
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goout
Guest
No, not “ie”.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE WORD “TRANSCENDENT” MEANS?
No, you don’t.
And if you don’t understand transcendence, you seriously shouldn’t comment on his post, AND put words in his mouth.
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Vera_Ljuba
Guest
Agreed.
Also agreed.
But my concern is not about scoring brownie points. I don’t care WHY is a person kind, loving and helping, what matters is THAT the person is kind, loving and helping. WHY is irrelevant, it is the person’s internal business. A hungry beggar does not care WHY did you give him food. If he would say: “before I accept your donation, I want to know why do you wish to help me. I am not interested in accepting your donation, if you just wish to feel good about yourself, or want to be praised for your kindness” - what would your answer be? My answer would be: “You are an idiot”, and I just would walk away, without giving him a penny.
Atheism is nothing but a LACK of belief in God, or some god, or some gods. The lack of belief in anything supernatural. As a matter of fact I don’t even like the term “super”-natural. Since we don’t talk about “sub”-natural, the simplest phrase would be “un”-natural.
I disagree. The “morals” of cavemen (who were also humans) is not even close to the “morals” in the humans in the stone age. And definitely worlds apart from the “morals” of today.
We call a person “moral” if she acts in accordance to our personal moral code.
Let me ask you: “what is the difference between the evaluation of the act of a freedom fighter or a terrorist”? Both commit acts of violence. Sometimes even against non-combatants, maybe even children. The difference in the evaluation is simple: “if you agree with his agenda, he is a freedom fighter. If you don’t agree, he is a terrorist”.
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
I would never say that, at least not about the Catholic God. After all the Catholic teaching is newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm#article2
I’m also not relying on empirical science to criticize the catholic God.
I mean, there are some potential issues with the concept of omnipotence itself, but most are resolved without too much difficulty. It is weird to me, though, that you’re super eager for me to make an argument you’re familiar with and can make fun of. Its almost like you’d rather have some kind of stuffed sparring dummy who couldn’t hit back. Some kind of straw man.
On my part, I’ve done my best to base my arguments on real actual Catholic teachings (with sources cited and everything!)
So in this discussion thread there were what, like 4 or 5 Catholics? And it wasn’t even a random sample, these were Catholics who like to talk about their religion and philosophy in their spare time. And out of those 4 or 5 Catholics, one evidently thought the Catholic God was made out of parts like a car.And the Trinity? 1.2 Billion Catholics believe it and it has been part of Catholic teaching (formally) since Nicaea, taught by Christ in the New Testament – but I guess there are just a lot of gullible people out there.
It’s too bad St. Pope John Paul II never got to see your syllogism. That really would have opened his mind to the truth of things!
My point is that when everyone here was making a big to-do about how hard it is to know what the church teaches, they are correct! In fact, they are so correct that I am willing to bet that as many as 1 in 4 Catholics believe something heretical about the trinity and don’t even know it. And that’s only of the Catholics who care enough about the religion to talk about it in their spare time. Among Catholics who don’t, the vast majority probably haven’t even thought enough about the trinity to say that they have any particular belief. They might say that they agree with the church, but they wouldn’t be able to tell you what it was they were agreeing to.
You’ll say “so what?” and I’ll say “this is an appeal to popularity of the worst kind.” The reason being that most of the people appealed to can barely be said to have an opinion on the matter in the first place, and among those that do, many of them will have opinions that are outright invalid.
And so lets return once again to Feser. He is a competent guy, and studies philosophy professionally. If he knew of a solid defense of the trinity doctrine, we would have seen it. Instead, all he does is assert that attempts to show that the doctrine is self-contradictory fail because of mystery. And so I will simply assert that Feser’s argument is the best that the church can come up with. If someone out of that long history of 1.8 billion believers had come up with a better defense, Feser would have used it.
And so what I am saying is that you were right when you laid out your four-step “justification of belief” program. By the time people are willing to assent to the revealed truths of the catholic church, they are invested enough in the whole thing that a vague appeal to mystery is enough to gloss over any apparent difficulties in what they are assenting to.
I also invite you to see Aquinas endorsing my approach of using doctrine as a basis for reasoning.
newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm#article8
See also:
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
Transcend either means reason doesn’t apply (which he has denied) or it does not (in which case it is irrelevant and he needs to address my reasoning about the trinity.)
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
The God of the Philosophers.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Are you a Deist? Or do you not strongly oppose Deism?
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reggieM
Guest
The uncaused cause is an exception to the logical assumption that everything that exists must have a cause. Human reason has no direct experience of a beginningless thing. A thing that exists must have begun to exist, except for the uncaused First Cause.
The uncaused First Cause is infinite and since whatever is comprehended by knowledge, is bounded by the comprehension of the knower and that infinite things have no boundary - the infinite uncaused cause cannot be comprehended by human reason. In the same way, in order to compare one thing to another one must be able to circumscribe both things - the infinte uncaused cause cannot be compared with another. It also cannot be measured.
It is a thing that Transcends space, Transcends time and Transcends the capability of human reason to comprehend it.
If you’re ok with all of that – well, you’re on the right track, but I think you should put aside all of your previous complaints about Catholicism and Reason.
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
I’m strong-agnostic with respect to the God of the Philosophers (assert that it is impossible to know.) If I were forced to choose an “ism” I would probably look to naturalistic pantheism (the sense that God is just another name for the universe) first, pandeism (the sense that God becomes the universe) second, and deism third.
I’ve put them in order of increasing metaphysical complexity (that is to say, how much “extra stuff” they require you to believe about God.) Naturally, I wouldn’t get along well with the people who hold those beliefs in a neo-pagan context.
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PRmerger
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JapaneseKappa
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Which I pointed out was irrelevant. I am not claiming that the trinity is invalid due to lack of logical proof.
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reggieM
Guest
I was offering a comparison. Using philosophy - human reason, as if it can fully comprehend the nature of a Being that, logically, transcends reason - is the same kind of error as claiming that God can be understood by empirical science.
No, I was comparing your repeated (deliberate?) misreading of what I said with the common arguments we see. No, God is not restricted to the use of arms and legs. And yes, God cannot contradict his own nature. Your claims have insistently declared that the nature of God must be fully comprehended by human reason. You can’t seem to get past that point. It is, very much like saying, “if you can’t give me exact measurements on the size of God, then He doesn’t exist”. God cannot be measured with human instruments. God Transcends (you don’t seem to like that word) the physical.
This comment is unjust.
A fair number of Catholics around the world, through no fault of their own, are illiterate. Catholic schools in many countries have tried to overcome that. But you should factor that in when it comes to sophisticated questions on theology. The belief is held by Catholics, as it has been for centuries – and yet, part of the teaching is that the Trinity cannot be fully comprehended by human Reason. People don’t have a problem with that because – and I will repeat – they place their trust in Jesus Christ, whose life proved that He knows God and He is God.
When God told Moses that His name is “I am Who am” – do you think Moses’ first thought was “can you put that in a syllogism for me”?
You either believe God spoke directly to Moses, or He didn’t. How can logic prove this either way?
Catholicism is not about having detailed knowledge about the nature of God. Catholicism is not an intellectual exercise for the elite. It’s a path of Faith, meant to lead believers to God. St. Patrick converted the British Isles from paganism to the Trinity – using one example, a shamrock with three leaves on one stem. A good example? No - but people didn’t need to know the logic. It was by the power that St. Patrick exhibited, many miracles, that people assented to a belief (the Trinity) that none of them could fully understand.
Where did Patrick’s miraculous power come from, precisely? How did God put that power in him? It came from God. That’s all anybody knew or cared about.
That’s actually not a bad explanation although worded cynically.
By the time people are willing to assent to the revealed truths of the Catholic Church, that require Faith to accept (The Trinity, the Resurrection, the Holy Eucharist, the Forgiveness of Sins in Confession, Purgatory, Hell, Heaven, the Intercession of Saints, The Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth) – they have seen the reasonableness of other foundational truths, and they are convinced that Jesus Christ is God, He established one Church on earth, and that Church has the authority to proclaim and teach Revealed Truths that could, in no way, be derived by logic or reason. They accept (not gloss over) that there are necessary paradoxes when trying to understand a non-contingent Being who created all things since we are contingent beings who were never there at the beginning of the world.
The book Job said it well:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angelsa shouted for joy?
None of us was there at that beginning and none of us can speak for the mind of God. We can only receive knowledge about that. Some knowledge we can derive from observations of nature (things that exist have causes and have beginnings). But other matters of Faith- we cannot observe. They come from heaven.
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reggieM
Guest
That is an excellent reference and I’m delighted that you shared it - thank you.
Let’s take a look at this, which should make things clear:
St Thomas says:
This is what I’ve been saying.
Mathematics does not prove it’s first principles. They are not concluded by reason, but they’re Given as necessary assumptions (you agreed that all rational processes require this).
Notice what St. Thomas says in the bolded text.
Theology (he considers a science of God) – starts from “principles of Faith”. These are revealed teachings. From there, it goes on to “prove something else”.
What would be an example?
Revealed teaching: Jesus stated “I and the Father are one”. “If you see me, you’ve seen the Father”. “I am God’s Son”.
That is a starting point of data - accepted by Faith, not by reasoning.
From there, however, we can “prove something else” about what the Trinity is. It took 325 years to fully define the relationship of the Persons in the Trinity.
We can continue. St. Thomas says:
Hence Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation;
Unfortunately for us, JK - you are not an opponent who admits some of the truths obtained through divine revelation.
But note - we can’t prove those truths through logic. If we could, St. Thomas certainly would have. But instead, you have to accept them as Faith-Based.thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue from another.
This is exactly what I said before. Catholics can argue with Heretics (Muslims) who deny an article of faith (the Trinity) by arguing from another article of faith which they accept (that Jesus was a prophet of God, or that God revealed Himself to the Jews, etc).
If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith.
Ding, ding, ding!!! Helloooo! JK are you listening?
Right there - as clear as can be. Take a look. If our kind opponent believes nothing of divine revelation (I think we know someone like that around here) there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith. See what I mean? He simply says it. You have to accept some faith-based points. Not All! Notice, St. Thomas will use the first 13 chapters to argue from Reason Alone. But that’s what is called Philosophy. It doesn’t require Faith. Just logic. However – when we start getting into the religion more deeply. Yes, after we have “invested” in various truths proven by reason alone - we can accept Faith-Based teachings. Then, we use Reason upon those. But their first principles? They come from Faith. In this case, Faith that Jesus Christ is God and He taught truthfully.
Notice, nowhere in the Bible does it use the word Trinity. That term was derived from the Revealed Teachings of Christ - Plus phiilosophy. So, there was Some amount of logic used. But it also necessarily required faith.
Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.
St. Thomas goes on to say – Revealed Teachings which we can only access, accept and assent to by Faith, are actually infallible truths. They cannot be argued about.
Just to close and re-afffirm:
You can start from articles of faith that you accept, and then derive other truths. But faith is a starting point in that process.
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
Right.
But:
- I am not demanding that you prove the articles of faith by reasoning.
- I am asking you to answer my objections against faith, like Aquinas says you should be able to do.
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CHRISTINE77
Guest
So you believe in the “God” of Plato?
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JapaneseKappa
Guest
I’m *pretty *sure I can’t believe in a God I’m strong-agnostic about, but if I’m wrong please let me know.
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reggieM
Guest
Concluding that Introductory Question in the Summa, where St. Thomas sets the stage and answers whether Theology is a science (he says it is)
This doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made.
Again, I think we heard someone (me) say this. We accept the doctrine because of the auhorty of the Revelation-Giver. In this case, Christ.
Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity. Hence the Apostle says: “Bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were able to know the truth by natural reason, as Paul quotes a saying of Aratus: “As some also of your own poets said: For we are also His offspring” (Acts 17:28).
That is excellent and I hope you will reflect on it.
keep in mind, you were suffering from the Either/Or scenario. It’s either reducible to Logic-Alone, or it’s irrational. But no, we can use philosophy “in those questions” (Some, not all) where we can know the truth by natural reason. Notice the difference. Some truths we can know by “natural reason”, others we can’t. Natural reason means, “unaided human rationality” (unaided meaning not miraculously inspired by God - just normal human thinking).
Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable.
Reason gives probability of the truth. Scriptures gives incontrovertible proof (requiring Faith - if Faith is absent, there’s no sense discussing it). The doctors of the Church (theologians) also probable truths.
For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors. Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): “Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them. But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning.”
So, even in the Canonical Books, which require Faith to accept, the great minds have needed to reason about them and evaluate them.
This doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made.
Again, I think we heard someone (me) say this. We accept the doctrine because of the auhorty of the Revelation-Giver. In this case, Christ.
A philosophical argument based on authority (Richard Dawkins said it, so it must be right) - is the weakest. We know that. However, an argument based on an authority that gives divine revelation is the strongest! Why? Because by Faith, we believe he is speaking God’s word.
I could show you my comment that said the same thing. If we could derive our religion by logic and reason, there would be no need for faith. That’s exactly what he says.
Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity. Hence the Apostle says: “Bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were able to know the truth by natural reason, as Paul quotes a saying of Aratus: “As some also of your own poets said: For we are also His offspring” (Acts 17:28).
That is excellent and I hope you will reflect on it.
keep in mind, you were suffering from the Either/Or scenario. It’s either reducible to Logic-Alone, or it’s irrational. But no, we can use philosophy “in those questions” (Some, not all) where we can know the truth by natural reason. Notice the difference. Some truths we can know by “natural reason”, others we can’t. Natural reason means, “unaided human rationality” (unaided meaning not miraculously inspired by God - just normal human thinking).
Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable.
Reason gives probability of the truth. Scriptures gives incontrovertible proof (requiring Faith - if Faith is absent, there’s no sense discussing it). The doctors of the Church (theologians) also probable truths.
For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors. Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): “Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them. But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning.”
So, even in the Canonical Books, which require Faith to accept, the great minds have needed to reason about them and evaluate them.
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