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Linusthe2nd
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Sometimes philosophy can be dangerous. That is why God gave us his revelation, that is why he gave us his Church, so we will have no doubts. Have you tried reading the Catechism?
Linus2nd
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Linus2nd
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Oreoracle
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Yes, Doubtfire. Don’t ask difficult questions. Trust the philosophers and their esoteric terminology. All doubts have been settled centuries ago. Just have faith and be a good sheep. Remember, it’s part of the dogma after all! 
In all seriousness, short of the carefully constructed scheme laid out by the scholastics wherein they defined terms unconventionally to enable their “proofs”, I have never heard of any such proof. The “common sense” explanation Linus offered is indeed the only explanation ever given. All other versions are just dressed up with highfalutin terminology to make them sound more impressive.
But the argument, in essence, is always based off the bare assertions that intelligence can never develop incrementally, that other animals cannot be intelligent, and that only intelligence can beget intelligence. If you want substantiation for all of that, you won’t find it in apologetics, I’m afraid.
In all seriousness, short of the carefully constructed scheme laid out by the scholastics wherein they defined terms unconventionally to enable their “proofs”, I have never heard of any such proof. The “common sense” explanation Linus offered is indeed the only explanation ever given. All other versions are just dressed up with highfalutin terminology to make them sound more impressive.
But the argument, in essence, is always based off the bare assertions that intelligence can never develop incrementally, that other animals cannot be intelligent, and that only intelligence can beget intelligence. If you want substantiation for all of that, you won’t find it in apologetics, I’m afraid.
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balto
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Okay, I am beginning to see why you are having trouble seeing why God has an intellect. Most of the things you mentioned are specific to having a body, but intellectual activity concerns having conceptions, which may be accompanied by perceptions/emotions/feelings depending on the type of intellectual being in question. If you identify intellectual activity with corporeal actions then it is difficult to assign intellect to an immaterial entity like God, but I think that intellectual activity is something above what you have indicated.I would probably say “having thought” means… a combination of emotions/feelings, memories, desires… ???I have no clue. LOL
Let’s say I have a conception of something simple, like triangularity for instance. If my conception is true, then I can correctly apply the conception to things in the external world that are actually triangular. So if I have judged that the teacher’s whiteboard drawing of a three-sided figure, my friend’s birthday hat, and the pyramids of Giza all are instances of triangularity, then I have judged truly and have a true conception of triangularity (at least as far as we know). But if I say that a square instantiates triangularity, then I have judged falsely since my conception of triangularity does not match what is actually out there in the external world. So truth is simply “being” when viewed from the aspect of intelligibility. This is why if one accepts that God is being Itself then God is also Truth itself when viewed from the aspect of intelligibility. Truth has to have a correlation with being otherwise our intellectual thoughts do not have any connection to the external world and are therefore meaningless. Does this make sense so far? The next question to answer is what the nature of these conceptions are.
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petra22
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Wow, balto! I liked that!
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balto
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Thanks! Although I wasn’t finished and was waiting for a response from D0UBTFIRE before continuing but I guess I can wrap it up since understanding God as Truth itself doesn’t get you to Intellect right away.
You’ll notice when you have a concept of something like triangularity for instance, it is a general concept. It applies to many material instances of triangularity. This is why the concept cannot be determinately identified with a mental image, because the image is physical and would hence be particular but the concept is universal, applying equally to many particulars. When someone comes to have a concept of triangularity, since their concept has a real correspondence to the external world, they are abstracting the form of triangularity from a particular triangular object in the external world. Thus the same form that the object instantiates exists in the observer’s intellect in isolation from matter (because it is general and not particular as a concept). So the intellect in a sense sustains these abstracted forms. But these forms are a very real part of objects in the external world. By that I don’t mean that there is this thing called a form that interacts with another thing called matter, such that every object is really two things. Rather I mean that part of what it means for something to be a thing at all is that it is a thing of this type (form) rather than another type. But forms, like everything else, are only real because they are sustained in existence by God. So God, in as much as He is the sustainer of forms, is Intellect. In humans, intellection usually involves reasoning to come to new knowledge, but reasoning is not essential to intellection. God has no need to reason since everything is eternally present to Him.
Here’s an article by Prof. Feser that discusses the immaterial nature of thought and thought-as-abstraction-of-forms in more detail: Against Neurobabble
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D0UBTFIRE
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I’m not sure I’m following…you’re saying our conceptions have to have some sort of connection to the real world…in order to be considered intellect?
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D0UBTFIRE
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I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you.
I’m not sure I’m understanding your point about “forms”.
I read the article you linked to. In this sentence I think he summarizes what he’s arguing: “What does distinguish us from the brutes and entails immateriality is our grasp of concepts or universal ideas.” In other words, because we can conceptualize abstract ideas, our minds are not just (as the materialist would insist) matter, but they are made up of something immaterial - the soul. I’m not sure I buy it. I mean, maybe it’s true…but maybe we are just starting to understand how our brains work and we’re too early on in the process of this understanding to give a good enough explanation so people want to attribute something supernatural to it. Anyway, are you trying to say that we have souls - so therefor God must be intelligent?
I kinda feel like this train of thought I had in the OP here is a dead end for me. I’ve heard it claimed that you can come to know that God exist through reason alone, which is what I came here looking for, but I think I now disagree with that statement. I don’t see a solid argument laid out that I find sufficiently persuasive. Maybe some people can know God through reason alone, but certainly not all people. Philosophy is too complicated for the average joe (or jane).
I’m still not atheist, but boy am I nervous about all this.
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balto
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Kind of I guess. I was trying to get you to accept that our thoughts have a real relationship to external reality. If they don’t, then thinking is useless. I was trying to get you to accept realism over idealism. If our intellect is really just a bunch of neuron firings, then they don’t mean anything, just like the pattern of ripples generated by throwing a rock into a lake means nothing.
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balto
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It’s okay, no worries.
I don’t know that it is correct to say that our intellects are “made up” of anything. People have a tendency to view immaterial things as being made up of some ghostly matter that we just cannot view scientifically. But being immaterial just means it is not extended in space. You say that you are not sure that you buy the argument I gave, but why not? Is it logically inconsistent? Or does it just “feel” like thinking is really only material because a lot of other people happen to think it. You know what it means for something to be triangular right? Well how can that concept be identified with a specific brain pattern when the concept is universal and the brain pattern is specific?
Here’s another example: you know what it means to say that a function obeys the equation y = 2x. So let’s play a game where I give you some (x, y) coordinates and you tell me what function I am thinking of. I give you (1, 2), (2, 4), and (3, 6). Do you know for certain what the function is? No, it could be y = 2x but there are an infinite number of other functions that satisfy those points. How many points do I need to give you so you know for certain what the function is? An actual infinite amount of points. Okay, so you know that you can have a concept of a universal nature (form), that is like the function. And you know that when you think of it there is a finite pattern of neuronal firings in your brain. That is the finite set of data points. But if materialism is true, then how could it possibly be the case that this finite brain pattern corresponds to the universal concept? There are an infinite number of concepts that could potentially satisfy that brain pattern. Not only could an external researcher never know for certain what you are thinking, you could not even know. But you do know what universal concept you are thinking of, hence your thinking is at least partially immaterial.
Oh believe me, I understand this point of view because I was in the same place a couple of years ago. I was essentially an agnostic that felt like God existed, but the constant barrage of secularism at college made me very nervous that I was wrong because all these supposedly intelligent people thought otherwise. Philosophy is not too complicated for the average person. It is only made complicated by academics. Everybody does philosophy since everybody is a thinker. The only question is whether you will do it well or not. If you believe Christ when He said that “knock and the door will be opened to you” then all you have to do is honestly seek Him and He’ll give you what you need when you are ready for it (two years ago I didn’t know what that meant and thought it sounded kind of silly). If a dope like me can figure some of this out then you can too. Feel free to PM me and I can recommend some things to get you started.
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Linusthe2nd
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Why not just drop philosophical arguments and just stick to what the Scriptures say and the Church teaches. Paragraphs 37-38 in the CCC, linked below, might be of some help.
God Bless
Linus2nd
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D0UBTFIRE
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Hmmm… If I accept that our thoughts have a real relationship to external reality - is that the same thing as saying I accept realism? I’ve never heard of “realism vs idealism” so I’ll have to look it up, but for the most part I do think that our intellect is “just a bunch of neuron firings”…but is that the same as saying that our thoughts don’t have a real relationship to the external reality? I’m unclear if you’re trying to get me to accept two different points or just one and you rephrased it…the wording is out side my normal vocabulary.
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D0UBTFIRE
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Ah, I’m starting to understand a little more about what you’re thinking, but I have some serious problems with it. You might be right about an external researcher never knowing - (although, you’d be surprised at the research my husband has presented me with lately regarding brain-computer interface - he’s a computer science geek) but I think you’d only be right for right now. This reminds me of the God of the Gaps argument…or the intelligent design folks… they see an eye, for example, and they’re like well it’s so complex there must be a God…but then the scientist comes along as figures out how it works, and the argument for God in that case has nothing to stand on. Now this is different, you’re not exactly saying that because our minds our immaterial that there is a God per se - I assume you’re getting at we have souls? But it’s still gonna face the same problem if and when - and frankly I think most likely “when” - scientists ever find a natural way to explain it. Am I making sense?
Thanks.
I do know what you mean.
I’ve been doing the seeking bit since I was 12 years old. I’m 29 now. It’s been a roller coaster ride.
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Aloysium
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It’s not the complexity, it is the awesomeness. A flower gives the same message.
Some people need to have images of galaxies, supernova’s exploding with unfathomable force, to get a sense that existence is real big, really, really, really big.
And, that bigness leaves one in awe. It’s like seeing your baby for the first time.
You might find God through your intellect. I have heard people say that it was reason that led to their conversion. I see God in beauty and in love.
Truth, beauty, love, light, existence is all the same thing actually, approached in a different way.
Seek and you will find Him, in you heart, I would say.
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balto
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Yes, if our thoughts are just a bunch of neuron firings, then they cannot have determinate meaning or intentionality. Say you are walking through the woods and find a bunch of rocks arranged to look like an arrow: —>. Well it could be a sign that means something, or it could have accidentally occurred naturally. How do you know? If somebody arranged them that way you could find that person and ask them. But how can you know that they really mean what they say they mean? Look at their brain waves. But if their thinking is really just a bunch of neuron firings, then we have to ask if that neuron firing pattern really means anything or if it just happened accidentally. If you are a materialist, this is the last stop and you still haven’t figured out what the rock ----> means. So our thinking cannot mean anything. It gets even worse, because the materialist thinks that their thought that materialism is true is meaningful, but that thought cannot be meaningful if materialism is true. So they could never actually establish that materialism is true.
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balto
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Well if my argument is correct, a scientist is never going to explain it. Why? Because if my argument is correct, then human thinking is partially immaterial. Science only investigates material processes. Ergo science will never fully explain human thinking. The computer analogy is an interesting one (I am a computer science enthusiast too, so that makes your husband cool
) and maybe the brain is really like a computer. But the argument I am making is that the brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for an intellect (or at least a human one, since angels are supposedly intellectual although they lack bodies). Does a computer do anything meaningful? If you only consider the computer, no, it does nothing meaningful. It’s just moving electrons around. The only reason we say it does meaningful things is because we, as users of the computer, say that this particular pattern of pixels it outputs means this, while this other pattern of pixels mean that. Our brains produce mental images, and I am willing to concede that these images are explicable in only material terms. But the intellect says that they mean this rather than that, just like with the computer.You would be surprised. A lot of classical theists are notoriously critical of ID. The more I think about it, the more I think they are right to criticize it. But that is a separate discussion.
The fact that we have souls is not necessary to understanding that God exists. Understanding our rational souls is necessary for understanding that God is intellectual I suppose. Saying that x has a soul simply says that x is a type of living thing, not that it has some kind of mindstuff associated with it. Humans have rational souls, which is to say that they are living things that possess intellects and wills.
Yes, you are making sense. Believe me, I had all the same questions when I started trying to understand this. And that was last November, so if you set your mind to it you can start to figure this out within a year too
. Even if our thinking is partially immaterial, it still is explained naturally, since it is part of our nature to have immaterial intellects. I think what you mean to say is that scientists will figure out that it is material. But whether materialism is true is not a question that science could ever settle. You would have to make a rational argument in favor of materialism, but it will suffer from all kinds of objections like the one I raised earlier. Many philosophers have attempted to defend it though.Well I hope you find the answers you are looking for! But you shouldn’t be afraid to try to understand the philosophy behind it. The difficulty is realizing all the unexamined assumptions that we moderns make in all of our thinking. Once you isolate those, you can start to see how they stand on shaky ground. But the first step is to have a belief that there are arguments that make sense, so you will work your way trying to understand how they make sense. As St. Anselm put it: “I don’t not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. And what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.”
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petra22
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This is the perfect way to find God. Let yourself be AWESTRUCK by the world you can sense around you. And then realize it’s only an nth of the ALMIGHTY… and it couldn’t possibly be an accident!
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HoistedSheep
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Sorry to step in late here, but the topic interested me. Feel free to disregard this attempt at an answer. A possibly rational argument for the “intelligent” nature of the uncaused first cause is laid out in Aristotle’s logic. In his exploration of whether or not randomness truly exists, he argues that all decisions are caused by thought, and therefore intellect. This means that any seemingly random event is in truth accidental, since it never would have happened without the conscious decision that lead to its possibility. He uses the example of a man who decides to visit the marketplace. On his way there, he encounters a man who owed him a debt, and he receives change. This encounter is seemingly random, but in truth it never would have happened if he never made the conscious decision to visit the marketplace. This can be taken further into other examples in the modern world. A car accident might seem random, and people often refer to such incidents as “freak accidents”, but they are usually caused by a conscious decision to drive drunk or distracted. The same goes for what we refer to as " Acts of God". If a tree falls on a house, people often call this random, but in truth it could have been avoided by the conscious decision to not build a house beneath a tree, which we rationally know has the possibility of falling in a storm.
How does this all correlate to an “intelligent” uncaused first cause? Simple. The universe is not chaotic. All seemingly random events in nature are accidental to otherwise purposeful ones. For example, a tree falling in a storm. The storm has its purpose, to provide rain and nurture the rivers and plant life, but the collapse of the tree is accidental ( and its collapse might not be accidental. After all, this fallen tree can be used for other purposes. A person can concisely decide to use this tree for wood, and use their intelligence to utilize its form for shelter) . Even evolution, which you bring up as an example against the possibly of an intelligence behind the universe, is not as random as many believe. In fact, as I understand it, patterns are present in its process. If all events in the universe have a purpose and are not random, then it is reasonable to conclude that these events are caused by an “intelligence”. This is not a God of the Gaps argument, because scientifically we know that the universe is hierarchal. From germs, to animals, to human beings, each is a process of biological interaction with increasingly complex intelligence. Human beings can not be the pinnacle of this intelligence, nor they could they be the cause, since the uncaused first cause must be unchangeable and human beings are changeable.
How does this all correlate to an “intelligent” uncaused first cause? Simple. The universe is not chaotic. All seemingly random events in nature are accidental to otherwise purposeful ones. For example, a tree falling in a storm. The storm has its purpose, to provide rain and nurture the rivers and plant life, but the collapse of the tree is accidental ( and its collapse might not be accidental. After all, this fallen tree can be used for other purposes. A person can concisely decide to use this tree for wood, and use their intelligence to utilize its form for shelter) . Even evolution, which you bring up as an example against the possibly of an intelligence behind the universe, is not as random as many believe. In fact, as I understand it, patterns are present in its process. If all events in the universe have a purpose and are not random, then it is reasonable to conclude that these events are caused by an “intelligence”. This is not a God of the Gaps argument, because scientifically we know that the universe is hierarchal. From germs, to animals, to human beings, each is a process of biological interaction with increasingly complex intelligence. Human beings can not be the pinnacle of this intelligence, nor they could they be the cause, since the uncaused first cause must be unchangeable and human beings are changeable.
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idolatry
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Like you ignore the word of God
I will ignore your writing and question if you possess any intellect.
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