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DCNBILL
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Hey! You leave my mama’s socks out of this!
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Pallas_Athene
Guest
Thank you for your thoughts. You just made my day.
I suggest a book for your reading pleasure: Rabbi Harry Kushner’s “When bad things happen to good people”. He examined the “problem of evil” and gave a very logical answer, the one and only I have ever encountered.
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Pallas_Athene
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Certainly.Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, PA.
Step by step here.
Can you first acknowledge that you don’t do the things you should do and do things you shouldn’t have done?
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Or, more likely, there is something awry with what purports to be human ‘wisdom’ in this age and it simply isn’t as effectual as it claims to be.
I realize you won’t like this very much, but reason grounded on self-Interest is always going to come up short and see reality through a particular kind of filtered lens. If we try to reconcile what self-interest, unaided, insists must be true, with what omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence reveals, there will always be a bafflement precisely because it isn’t “all about us” nor the way we will it to be.
I am baffled every day because I do not create the universe or reality, but must accommodate myself to it.
Ask Bradski about the bafflement found in quantum physics. Things are not always as they appear and if you want to insist they must be, you will soon discover your view doesn’t hold much past the confines of your own skull. The question is, “What is the truth?” no matter how difficult that is to reconcile with what I think.
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PRmerger
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Annnndddd…that was either the mother of all nonsequiturs…
Or…you meant that since some people are delusional you know that people at Mass cannot be experiencing intimacy with God.
Which was it?
That 'splains a lot.and stop calling me “Surely”.
#anotherexampleofpeoplenotbeingallrationalallthetime
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Peter_Plato
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Of course I don’t think a lack of reply indicates any kind of agreement, I think the more obvious inference is also more likely to be true: The lack of a reply means you don’t have a reply to offer and you cover that deficiency with a story about how selective you are about reading my posts and you “just happened” to come across this one and others that you can reply to, but conveniently - for you - missed reading the ones you can’t.
You’ve made this claim about “not reading” my posts “anymore” before, but seem to reply to every post for which you have what you think is a compelling answer but not when you don’t. Selective scanning apparently.
Careful about telling the truth - we ought not be “selective” or “subjective” with regards to the foundation of the truth, because that only gets us into trouble. Oh, what a tangled web… and all that.
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PRmerger
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Yep. Pretty much.
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PRmerger
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PumpkinCookie
Guest
Hmmm, I don’t understand? Are you saying we should believe something precisely because it doesn’t make sense? That can’t be right? Well, if you did mean that, then I suppose you shouldn’t attempt to explain it since it doesn’t make sense and I guess is a sign that it should be believed?
My own view is in my skull? What? I suppose you think my mind is physically located in my skull and that my beliefs are metaphorically located in my mind? Where else would they be? Seriously? Where are your beliefs? I don’t get it.
Yes, that passage of Paul, among others ("lean not on your own understanding…), serves to undermine common sense and rational thought (or the request for physical evidence). Consider what he is saying though! “Here: believe this. Yes, it doesn’t make sense. No, there is no evidence. But, you should believe it!” Is this really what God expects of us?
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Aloysium
Guest
God does not have tenses; He does not have a past present and future.
He creates all time. He exists in every moment as Father of all creation.
We are in time because we are transforming ourselves spiritually as our bodies decompose.
We make of ourselves who we are through our actions.
So, the past is what we have done, and is thus unchangeable.
The present is where we change.
And, the future remains undetermined, because we have not chosen yet what to do.
This is our free-will in action, generating time as we know it.
At the end of our lives, the book is complete; we have chosen in our time who we are.
If we are love, we are in paradise. If not, we are somewhere else.
So, God is here
as He “was” in terms of this particular time, and “is” in terms of the totality of all time, at our birth,
and “will be” according to us here, and “is” in eternity, witnessing our final prayer.
That He is here and everywhere does not make Him responsible for our actions, which we freely choose.
He creates all time. He exists in every moment as Father of all creation.
We are in time because we are transforming ourselves spiritually as our bodies decompose.
We make of ourselves who we are through our actions.
So, the past is what we have done, and is thus unchangeable.
The present is where we change.
And, the future remains undetermined, because we have not chosen yet what to do.
This is our free-will in action, generating time as we know it.
At the end of our lives, the book is complete; we have chosen in our time who we are.
If we are love, we are in paradise. If not, we are somewhere else.
So, God is here
as He “was” in terms of this particular time, and “is” in terms of the totality of all time, at our birth,
and “will be” according to us here, and “is” in eternity, witnessing our final prayer.
That He is here and everywhere does not make Him responsible for our actions, which we freely choose.
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PumpkinCookie
Guest
OK, that’s possible. Please explain how a timeless, personal God can relate to time?
Excellent discussion of this problem here: reasonablefaith.org/god-time-and-eternity
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PRmerger
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Why *couldn’t *a timeless, personal God relate to time?
He is, after all, the creator of time. So surely if he created it he could relate to it.
Just because a watchmaker isn’t a watch doesn’t mean he can’t tell time, no?
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Peter_Plato
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Of course not! That WOULD be preposterous!
We don’t believe things BECAUSE they don’t make sense, but their not “making sense” to a limited little brain in a tiny little body does not mean there isn’t sense to be made. To a slug, Einstein’s General Relativity Theory doesn’t “make sense,” but that limitation is almost fully on the side of the slug, not the theory. Imagine a slug raising the objection that GRT doesn’t make “sense” to it, that wouldn’t be much of an objection, now would it?
Shouldn’t we, like the slug, count it as a point in favour of Christianity that it “doesn’t” – like the slug’s view of GRT – make sense to us. We wouldn’t expect the deepest, most profound aspirations of the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God to be “simple” and “sensible” to us. Aquinas thought all his work to be “straw.” He was on the right track.
Although, perplexedly I suspect that their profundity lies precisely in the fact that they are probably much more simple and direct than we expect – which is why the builders with high aspirations and complex calculations overlook the corner stone.
Ironically, your question mark at the end of that statement can’t be right.
Well, that doesn’t make sense now, does it?
Notice the proper use of a question mark
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PRmerger
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Perhaps you forgot you are on a Catholic forum in discussion with knowledgeable Catholics?
As such, you ought to know that Catholics take the Word of God in its entirety. Not just snippets of verses here and there.
You might know, then, that there are numerous Bible verse which command us to use our intellect.
One that comes to mind is from Isaiah: Come, let us REASON together!
Another one, just off the top of my head is from Matthew: love the Lord your God with our entire MIND.
And another one (just because I’m on a roll here
) is from Peter: always have a REASON for the hope that is within you.
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DCNBILL
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He created it.
Look, if you create a diorama, you can look at any part of it any time you like, right?
This is how God is with all of time, outside of His creation able to view any part of it past present or future and He has all of eternity to do it. The eternal instant.
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PRmerger
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PumpkinCookie
Guest
Would it make sense for Einstein to demand that the slug believe his theory of general relativity in order to be in the right relationship with him and go to slug heaven? Does that seem fair?Of course not! That WOULD be preposterous!
We don’t believe things BECAUSE they don’t make sense, but their not “making sense” to a limited little brain in a tiny little body does not mean there isn’t sense to be made. To a slug, Einstein’s General Relativity Theory doesn’t “make sense,” but that limitation is almost fully on the side of the slug, not the theory. Imagine a slug raising the objection that GRT doesn’t make “sense” to it, that wouldn’t be much of an objection, now would it?
Shouldn’t we, like the slug, count it as a point in favour of Christianity that it “doesn’t” – like the slug’s view of GRT – make sense to us. We wouldn’t expect the deepest, most profound aspirations of the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God to be “simple” and “sensible” to us. Aquinas thought all his work to be “straw.” He was on the right track.
Although, perplexedly I suspect that their profundity lies precisely in the fact that they are probably much more simple and direct than we expect – which is why the builders with high aspirations and complex calculations overlook the corner stone.
Ironically, your question mark at the end of that statement can’t be right.
Well, that doesn’t make sense now, does it?
Notice the proper use of a question mark
Are you saying that the knowledge of God is esoteric? How can it be “written on our hearts?” Are our hearts outside of us and only accessible by those with special training or knowledge?
I like to put question marks at the end of my sentences even if they’re grammatically questionable (ha ha?). I do this to signify that I am not making a pronouncement but merely questioning. Maybe you do think God requires us to affirm the truth of things that are unintelligible or appear to be contradictory. Is that so?
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PumpkinCookie
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Does God know what you’re doing right now? What you’re doing right now has a “tense” if God does not have a “tense” how can he have knowledge of things that are taking place now (a tense). How can one who is without tense know about a thing which is tensed?Why *couldn’t *a timeless, personal God relate to time?
He is, after all, the creator of time. So surely if he created it he could relate to it.
Just because a watchmaker isn’t a watch doesn’t mean he can’t tell time, no?
Imagine (as some have suggested) that the universe and God are like two parallel lines. God is an infinite line that stretches in both directions forever. The universe is like a line segment of finite length. “Now” is an infinitesimally small point that is always moving forward along the line segment. However, if God exists at all points on the infinite line parallel to the line segment, how can he “cross” the space to the parallel line segment to know what is happening “now?”
Does only a little part of him cross the gap? Then how can he be infinitely simple? Does he entirely cross the gap? Then how can he be called timeless?
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PRmerger
Guest
Yep.
I don’t see why He can’t.
It’s like asking: how could Henry Ford have knowledge of a motor engine when he isn’t actually a motor engine?
Answer: ummm…because he created it? I mean, that seems pretty obvious, no?
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Pallas_Athene
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Actually, this is exactly what Tertullian said, in his sometimes misquoted words. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credo_quia_absurdum “Credo quia absurdum est”… believe it because it is absurd.
The verbatim quote is available at the link provided. Of course these days it is out of fashion. But words of Paul are still a scathing diatribe against reason in biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+1
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks** foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Believe even if you think it is nonsense, because you are ignorant to know otherwise. The correct phrase is, of course: “blind faith, blind obedience”.**
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