How is Truth possible?

[Godmachine]

You are implicitly claiming that you actually know or possess the truth that no one you have ever met actually does know or possess the truth!

No one has ever demonstrated to me that they actually do know the truth.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Godmachine
**
No one has ever demonstrated to me that they actually do know the truth. **

Can you demonstrate to anyone that what you have just said is true?

 

[Godmachine]

Godmachine
**
No one has ever demonstrated to me that they actually do know the truth. **

Can you demonstrate to anyone that what you have just said is true?

I do not claim to know or possess any kind of divine “truth”.

 

[DCNBILL]

I do not claim to know or possess any kind of divine “truth”.

Note that one can not “possess” truth, truth is transcendent of the human being. The only way that a human can experience truth is by participation in the only Being that contains truth. As mentioned earlier truth is necessary, it is also universal and eternal, there is only one Being with these attributes and it is only because we participate in His creation that we can know of truth.

 

[fred_conty]

“What is truth?” The question is asked by Pontius Pilate just before he sentenced an innocent man to death.

I often meditate on this in my own search for “truth”.

I ask myself if I am searching for truth or searching for a reason to reject truth.

Helenrose, I had a different understanding of this passage.

John 18,37-38
“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him,“What is truth?”
When he had said this, he again went out to the Jews and said to them,“I find no guilt in him.”

Notice that Pilate says,“What is truth?” not “what is THE truth?”

To me when Pilate said “what is truth?”, he was thinking about all the philosophers standing on every street corner saying they had the truth. Everybody thinks they have the truth. So what? Noone has a monoply on having the truth. That is nothing to condemn a man for because if so, lots of people would be condemned to death. This is nothing but a trivial matter. So then right after Jesus said this, Pilate said, “I find no guilt in him.”

Just a thought.

 

[Godmachine]

Note that one can not “possess” truth, truth is transcendent of the human being. The only way that a human can experience truth is by participation in the only Being that contains truth. As mentioned earlier truth is necessary, it is also universal and eternal, there is only one Being with these attributes and it is only because we participate in His creation that we can know of truth.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in truth; in fact I think truth is all that really exists. But is an elusive concept. It’s kinda like trying to catch a river in your hands.

 

[DCNBILL]

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in truth; in fact I think truth is all that really exists. But is an elusive concept. It’s kinda like trying to catch a river in your hands.

This is interesting for it is one of the “proofs” of God. Since truth can only exist in something “like a mind” there must a being that is, in fact, truth itself. And if we believe that this truth is the only real being from whom all else issues forth then in fact your statement there is essentially correct.

 

[HelenRose]

Helenrose, I had a different understanding of this passage.

John 18,37-38
“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him,“What is truth?”
When he had said this, he again went out to the Jews and said to them,“I find no guilt in him.”

Notice that Pilate says,“What is truth?” not “what is THE truth?”

To me when Pilate said “what is truth?”, he was thinking about all the philosophers standing on every street corner saying they had the truth. Everybody thinks they have the truth. So what? Noone has a monoply on having the truth. That is nothing to condemn a man for because if so, lots of people would be condemned to death. This is nothing but a trivial matter. So then right after Jesus said this, Pilate said, “I find no guilt in him.”

Just a thought.

Your approach is valid. I also think that Pilate was refering to the street corner philosophers and truth in general. He knew that Jesus was an innocent man. It is possible that he used the expression “what is truth” as a cynic would. He washed his hands and sentenced Christ to be tortured and hung on the cross.

I believe that human’s long to understand truth but we get lost in a maze of ideas.

For me the fundamental starting point is whether or not God exists. I phrase the question in these terms.

We are creatures. We are created.

Did our creator possess intelligence and desire - the intelligence to plan the universe and the desire to do so? Or, was our creator simply pure chance and the laws of physics?

These are the fundamental questions and each one of us has to face these questions and each one of us has to make his or her choice.

Pilate chose the second option. I have chosen the first.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Godmachine
**
I do not claim to know or possess any kind of divine “truth”. **

But you were talking about demonstrable truths. You apparently do believe there are natural truths (unlike divine truths) that are not demonstrable. I would agree with that. But if there are natural truths that are not demonstrable, why can’t there also be divine truths that are not demonstrable? You know, sort of like rivers of truth running through our souls, not easy to grasp and say, “Here is the river.”

 

[Godmachine]

This is interesting for it is one of the “proofs” of God. Since truth can only exist in something “like a mind” there must a being that is, in fact, truth itself. And if we believe that this truth is the only real being from whom all else issues forth then in fact your statement there is essentially correct.

As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. But the fact is, the existence of a god is not so obvious to everyone, and those who believe are not in agreement on what it is. So based on what I know I could conclude:

A) God does not exist
B) God exists but does not care whether people know or believe it exists
C) God exists but is incompetent
D) There is some other explanation

I do not deny the possibility of the existence of a god. But that is not the same as saying I believe a god exists. When I listen to believers (even believers who all follow the same faith) talk about “God”, it becomes obvious very quickly that different people have different concepts of “God”. How can all of these concepts be the one “truth” these people claim to know?

 

[davidv]

As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists.

Everyone has the capacity to know that God exists.

II. WAYS OF COMING TO KNOW GOD

31 Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments”, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These “ways” of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.
32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7 And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material”,9 can have its origin only in God.
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”.10 35 Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. But the fact is, the existence of a god is not so obvious to everyone, and those who believe are not in agreement on what it is. So based on what I know I could conclude:

A) God does not exist
B) God exists but does not care whether people know or believe it exists
C) God exists but is incompetent
D) There is some other explanation

I do not deny the possibility of the existence of a god. But that is not the same as saying I believe a god exists. When I listen to believers (even believers who all follow the same faith) talk about “God”, it becomes obvious very quickly that different people have different concepts of “God”. How can all of these concepts be the one “truth” these people claim to know?

Your conclusion is based on a faulty argument. Knowledge of God does not compel acceptance. Satan is the primary exhibit. He had perfect and complete knowledge of God yet rejected him.

One objective reality exists. Each persons subjective experience of reality varies, thus their explanations of it will also vary.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Godmachine

**As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. **

Not necessarily. Because God gives us free will, God must remain just hidden enough from us to be free to accept or reject Him, to choose virtue or to choose sin. If God were as obvious as the sun and the moon, God would have to be a physical being.

That notion of God doesn’t sail.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Godmachine;

I do not deny the possibility of the existence of a god.

The creation of the universe is history, God the creator of the universe either exists fully and totally, or there is no God. The God that cannot exist is the probable god, how can there probably or possibly be a god, the only answer is yes or no.

If God the creator of the universe exists fully and totally, then there is the need to search for God.

Blessings

Eric

 

[Qoeleth]

As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. But the fact is, the existence of a god is not so obvious to everyone, and those who believe are not in agreement on what it is. So based on what I know I could conclude:

A) God does not exist
B) God exists but does not care whether people know or believe it exists
C) God exists but is incompetent
D) There is some other explanation

I do not deny the possibility of the existence of a god. But that is not the same as saying I believe a god exists. When I listen to believers (even believers who all follow the same faith) talk about “God”, it becomes obvious very quickly that different people have different concepts of “God”. How can all of these concepts be the one “truth” these people claim to know?

When I initiated this thread- I had envisaged that the possibility (or lack thereof) of assured truth could be examined philosophically. Introducing theology tends to kill philosophical exploration, insofar as it relies on argumentum ad fidem, which is permits no real further dialogue.

Since, we have become theological, let’s proceed. Godmachine seems to be right when he says believers (even of the same nominal faith) have different concepts of God. It would seem that the wisest course is not to be too dogmatic- to sustain faith, it is enough that something about God seems, to one individual to be (probably) true, at a one point of time. Alternatively, ‘faith’ can exist even in the face of something held improbably to be true (in the light of Pascal’s Wager).

For a person who has a very strong faith, they may feel they “know” something about God. But this type of “knowing”, which generally comes from a personal experience of God, cannot really be used in a philosophical argument, since it is meaningful only to the knower.

An alternative way of proceeding is just to assume, “God exists”, in the same way one might assume “Good is preferably to bad.” Having assumed this, basically as a definitional or linguistic basis, one then proceeds to work out things about this God (this unknown X) that by definition, exists. OR, one could state from the basis that “God exists”, and then formulate a definition of what “exists” means.

Basically, there is no agreement about what either “God” or “exists” means, so the truth (whatever that might mean!) of the statement “God exists” is something which one can legitimately decide for themselves, without reference to evidence. The terms of the proposition can then be defined afterwards.

 

[DCNBILL]

As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. But the fact is, the existence of a god is not so obvious to everyone, and those who believe are not in agreement on what it is. So based on what I know I could conclude:

A) God does not exist
B) God exists but does not care whether people know or believe it exists
C) God exists but is incompetent
D) There is some other explanation

I do not deny the possibility of the existence of a god. But that is not the same as saying I believe a god exists. When I listen to believers (even believers who all follow the same faith) talk about “God”, it becomes obvious very quickly that different people have different concepts of “God”. How can all of these concepts be the one “truth” these people claim to know?

Another option may be that God is so far beyond human comprehension that it would be impossible for us to grasp Him. Maybe the only way that we could understand God is if He actually became a part of His Creation and interacted with us as such and demonstrated to us the love that He has for us by some say, sacrificial way.

 

[Godmachine]

Godmachine

**As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. **

Not necessarily. Because God gives us free will, God must remain just hidden enough from us to be free to accept or reject Him, to choose virtue or to choose sin. If God were as obvious as the sun and the moon, God would have to be a physical being.

That notion of God doesn’t sail.

Not believing is not the same as rejecting. And it is not a choice. This god who you say must remain “just hidden enough” seems kinda sneaky and even a little creepy to me. Like some guy who lurks in the shadows to spy on people.

And as far as god being a physical being, isn’t that what Catholics believe? You seem to change god from a physical being to a spiritual being at your own convenience.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Godmachine

**And as far as god being a physical being, isn’t that what Catholics believe? You seem to change god from a physical being to a spiritual being at your own convenience. **

No, only to confuse you!

**This god who you say must remain “just hidden enough” seems kinda sneaky and even a little creepy to me. Like some guy who lurks in the shadows to spy on people. **

No, that’s what a godless universe does to you. It sneaks up on you and POOF! You’re gone back into the eternal Zip, Zero, Zilch! How’s that for creepy?

 

[Godmachine]

Godmachine

**And as far as god being a physical being, isn’t that what Catholics believe? You seem to change god from a physical being to a spiritual being at your own convenience. **

No, only to confuse you!

Was/is Jesus a physical being or not? Was/is Jesus also God? Did or did not Jesus’ physical body ascend into Heaven?

Perhaps I am just confused.

No, that’s what a godless universe does to you. It sneaks up on you and POOF! You’re gone back into the eternal Zip, Zero, Zilch! How’s that for creepy?

I spent the entire age of the universe before I was born, billions of years, in a blissful state of nonexistence. I have not a single bad memory of that time. If that’s where I go back to when I die, what have I to fear? What’s really creepy is the thought of having to spend all eternity in someone else’s afterlife.

 

[davidv]

Was/is Jesus a physical being or not? Was/is Jesus also God? Did or did not Jesus’ physical body ascend into Heaven?

Perhaps I am just confused.

I spent the entire age of the universe before I was born, billions of years, in a blissful state of nonexistence. I have not a single bad memory of that time. If that’s where I go back to when I die, what have I to fear? What’s really creepy is the thought of having to spend all eternity in someone else’s afterlife.

Yes you are confused. But not to worry. Even though the Incarnation is mystery, it can partially be explained.

If you didn’t exist, how could you have a memory? Now that you do exist, you will live forever, though not much of that time will be spent on earth in your current physical state.

 

[HelenRose]

Was/is Jesus a physical being or not? Was/is Jesus also God? Did or did not Jesus’ physical body ascend into Heaven?

Perhaps I am just confused.

I spent the entire age of the universe before I was born, billions of years, in a blissful state of nonexistence. I have not a single bad memory of that time. If that’s where I go back to when I die, what have I to fear? What’s really creepy is the thought of having to spend all eternity in someone else’s afterlife.

That kind of reminds me of my grandmother’s saying, “The good Lord took care of me before I was born. He will take care of me when I die.”