Pascal's Wager Argument

[Touchstone]

This is complete nonsense, TS. Meaning is not some kind of physical quality of an individual person that dies when that person dies. Meaning is nothing like that at all. Meaning is a conceptual construct.

If you read back what you wrote here, you can see you’ve given the game away, and contradicted what you’re trying to maintain above. If meaning is a conceptual construct, and I agree that it is, you have entailed mind. On atheism, there is no context for cosmic meaning, there is no cosmic mind. No God, no designer, no transcendent will or mind. It’s just as “without cosmic meaning” as the absence of a universe at all would be. And for just the reason you point out here, if unwittingly: meaning is necessariily predicated on mind. No mind, no meaning. On atheism, there’s no cosmic mind, hence, necessarily, no cosmic meaning. You’ve affirmed this yourself, right here, unless you suppose that atheism really does affirm believe in a cosmic mind, or a transcendent will, somehow.

If we can construct a God-filled universe that has cosmic meaning, we can certainly construct a Godless universe that has a cosmic meaning.

Uh, no. Not if what you just said is true, that meaning is a conceptual construct.

You must be much less educated than you pretend to be if you are really unaware of this possibility. I’m sure you’re not unaware; it’s just that you’re constantly fighting your reflex to misunderstand and dismiss.

You will have to decide – is meaning a conceptual constuct, and therefore on atheism there is no cosmic mind, no transcendent will to establish meaning, or is meaning some kind of supernatural/immaterial don’t-know-what that don’t-know-how establishes “cosmic meaning” even for those who cannot identify or recognize a cosmic mind.

Pick one.

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

And this is where we part company, because I don’t see that the conclusion follows. In order to make the claims valid a) that belief matters very much if God exists and b) that granted that it matters then it is reasonable to believe, then one has to make all sorts of assumptions about the nature of God and His putative relationship with us that cannot and are not justified within the wager. The wager gives us no warrant to think that believing in God if He exists will matter at all to us or to think that believing necessarily leads to a better outcome than not believing. To that extent the terms of the wager are unclear, unintelligible and incapable of demonstration. For the wager to work it requires us to make a leap not just from unbelief to belief, but from complete ignorance about the nature of God to unwarranted (within the agnostic and ignorant context of the wager) assumptions about His nature and how He will treat belief and unbelief in us.

I don’t think you’ve “bottom-lined” the wager enough to see its true import. You’re still searching for speculative or deductive reasons to prop it up.

Belief matters very much if God exists and is the Christian God – one who wants you to have trust and take a leap of faith, but not demonstrative/certain knowledge. Obviously, if God is really a cosmic sadist, belief in him wouldn’t seem to matter as much. But then again, such a God is not worth wagering on.

The wager is made on the Christian conception of God. There is no way to falsify the idea that “God wants you to make an act of trust.” If he doesn’t exist, then what I’m saying is just wishful thinking and a sort of God of the gaps argument. But, if he does exist and does want you to make such a movement, then it is exactly what one should expect. And so again, we come to the wager.
hec:

Furthermore, I don’t accept the proposition that one is risking nothing by belief in the event of His non-existence. To the extent that one cares about aligning one’s beliefs with reality to the best of one’s ability, then accepting the wager in its own terms is a degradation of that stance, and in a matter that in its own terms is absolutely foundational to our world view. It undermines one’s reasonable epistemology and replaces it with a process that subjugates epistemic integrity to superstition. I don’t see that as a small matter and much less do I see it as ‘nothing’.

Perhaps my language didn’t convey best my point.

I don’t think one ought to accept anything one has good reasons to think false. If you think your best reasoning shows that the Christian God is an impossibility, I think it would be a great sin (and though you’re not religious, I think you may agree) to delude yourself into thinking so.

But once the mind comes to the position where it sees that evidence does not compel either way: once, that is, reason has swept aside the contradictions in the Christian idea of God (as was the case with me), and once it sees that such an idea, though it could never be proven to be true, is nevertheless possible, then it falls in one’s lap whether they will actively believe or not.
hec:

Fearlessness in deluding yourself demonstrably leads to all sorts of bizarre and ill conclusions - when you have been fearless about the possibility of deluding yourself with regard to foundational beliefs, what rational raft is left to cling to? It seems to me that in this matter, above all others, we should fear deluding ourselves.

Again, perhaps “delusion” was a bad word-choice. I think of it as “actively believing” in what, in principle, I cannot know. And personally I see nothing wrong with that. Perhaps I am wrong? Yet nevertheless, I believe.

 

[The_Exodus]

The Exodus: In fact the outcome is the defeat of the argument i that it is “arrival” at God by wager, not love nor faith, even if it is intended that somehow in process a transformation occurs.

But actively making the wager *is *an act of faith, for one still has to go and believe what one is uncertain of. I may be led by a carrot, but I still must go down a road I’ve never been before.

 

[Betterave]

I think your confusion here should be very easily dissolved, TS. Now pay attention:

If you read back what you wrote here, you can see you’ve given the game away, and contradicted what you’re trying to maintain above. If meaning is a conceptual construct, and I agree that it is, you have entailed mind.

Who cares? Mind as such was never in question, was it?

On atheism, there is no context for cosmic meaning, there is no cosmic mind.

I already pointed this out: The context for “cosmic meaning” is the cosmos. That’s it. And that’s obvious.
(And in case you’re still confused: yes, this does refer to some mind’s apprehension of the cosmos.)

No God, no designer, no transcendent will or mind.

But not no cosmos, no universe - so that is irrelevant.

It’s just as “without cosmic meaning” as the absence of a universe at all would be.

That is pure nonsense.

And for just the reason you point out here, if unwittingly: meaning is necessariily predicated on mind. No mind, no meaning. On atheism, there’s no cosmic mind, hence, necessarily, no cosmic meaning.

As pointed out: that’s a non sequitur, surely??

You’ve affirmed this yourself, right here, unless you suppose that atheism really does affirm believe in a cosmic mind, or a transcendent will, somehow.

No, you were just confused on a very simple point - can you see that?

You will have to decide – is meaning a conceptual constuct, and therefore on atheism there is no cosmic mind, no transcendent will to establish meaning, or is meaning some kind of supernatural/immaterial don’t-know-what that don’t-know-how establishes “cosmic meaning” even for those who cannot identify or recognize a cosmic mind.

Pick one.

Option one is clearly a non sequitur. (Unless you intended to refer to any mind that grasps the cosmos as such as a ‘cosmic mind’ - but that usage clearly wouldn’t fit your purposes.)

 

[Touchstone]

Ok. So someone proposes “Ghandi is the Truth”. This is not a debasing of the language. Not at all. I’d be willing to hear his arguments as to why he believes such a thing.

Personalization necessarily “de-principlizes” the truth as a concept. A person is necessarily not a principle; insofar as a personal has a will and some measure of autonomy, she is manifestly not a rule. To extent a man is just a principle, he is an automaton, and “de-personalized”.

This is easy to see as problematic in action if you take the Ghandi case, and commit to Ghandi’s hagiography as “the Truth”, personified. Now, with that affirmation, if Ghandi announces some new policy that we would otherwise (based on a principle – correspondence theory, model performance, etc.) say is “false”, or otherwise bogus, the new Policy (“The British are inherently evil, a lesser race with less claim to human rights and dignities!”), NOW, because you’ve equivocated on truth as a principle and truth as a person, Ghandi is now, by definition correct.

There is no saying, “but wait a minute, now Ghandi’s gone off the deep end, so he really isn’t the Truth”. That’s just an admission that the idenftication of Ghandi as the Truth was never an earnest proposition. If it’s Ghandi, the same person, now promoting the Truth of British Inferiority, then that is the truth, because Ghandi is the truth.

This is how “truth” as a concept, a useful principle all around, for theists atheists, and everyone in between, is debased. It converts a principled criterion (even if there is disagreement over the particulars of the criterion) into a political matter of personal identity, a cult devotion to a person. To the extent that person is self-directed and operates on their own choices, “truth” is debased as a term of art in the discourse.

As I said, I would be willing to consider it. What arguments does someone have for saying that, say, “Stalin is the truth”?

See above. I think Stalin makes the case even more clearly, but perhaps it’s distracting because Stalin was such an extreme figure. Perhaps Ghandi as an example makes the point with less distraction.

It would be if one starts with the premise that Jesus is the Truth, as if it stands alone. There is another poster here who insists that PW must stand alone as an argument for theists. Why? What outside criterion demands this?

Similarly, why must “Jesus is the Truth” stand alone as an argument for theists?

It doesn’t have to as a matter of argument. The problem is semantic, in equivocating between a principle and a person. The only that is not problematic is if Jesus doesn’t have a will, and is impersonal. That I think an unlikely position to take, but that would eliminate the equivocation, reducing Jesus (or Ghandi, or Stalin) to just an automaton.

This is categorically not true. Truth is a principle, yet its fulfillment is a Person. They are not mutually exclusive.

Perhaps not, but the problem is conflation, not exclusion. You are just as “true” as Jesus is/was, and arguably more true, in that we can supply a whole lot more objective evidential support for your existence, behavior, ideas and actions, the truth of who you are than we can for Jesus. And this shows where the language debasing obtains. A selfish thief is just as “true” as anyone else, on the principle at work. We can formulate propositions that are more or less true (depending on how accurate we are in depicting the actual circumstance) about Joe Grifter. Does proposition X correspond with the actual state of affairs in the world? Well, yes or no, or in between, that is your index to the truth of X.

Saying “Joe Grifter is the Truth” mangles those semantics, and conflates that effective understanding of “true” with “good”, or other subjective values. You don’t have to like, dislike or even care about a proposition to affirm it’s truth: There is a rock on this table. It’s truthiness doesn’t depend on your values.

Nooooo. Clearly our “own ideas” as humans conflict with Jesus’ “own ideas”.

I’m sure that happens, but nowhere does “actual” enter into the picture here. This signals the debasement of the term. Now, on your model, “true” is detached from the actual. It’s now become a statement of political ideology. That’s debasing.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

PRMerger:

To wit: I would much prefer that my own ideas of divorce and re-marriage were the truth. It would make it so much easier! I could embrace each family member and friend with their new spouse and say, “Welcome! That vow you made before God and us is all for naught. You made a new vow now.”

But this is precisely the kind of authority you are granting to a person, a will, in saying “Jesus is the Truth”. If slavery is OK per the words of Jesus, than that is the truth, necessarily. Or the stoning of homosexuals, or the prohibition against pork, or name any position you like. It’s not subject to principled evaluation, because the person has been placed above principle. That’s what you are decrying on your own part here, but affirming as Jesus’ role!

Again,* atheism* seems to embody the conceit you describe above. My experience with atheists is that they have embraced “a way to idolize their own ideas, to place them beyond the touch of other ideas and evidence.”

As I noted above, you can easily find the same mistakes that theists make on the atheist side. But atheism requires no dogma or superstition as theism does. It’s defined as the absence or negation of those affirmation. If one says that whatever convictions one holds, even if it’s ground on evidence and rational critique, is de facto idolization, then we just have “idolization” falling victim to the debasing of the language we use, for that term signifies something profoundly different in theist’s devotion to the idea. My belief in this or that is corrigible on the evidence in a way “Jesus is the Truth” cannot be. There are no grounds I recognize for elevating an authority that high, out of reach of critical review, and that goes for even that conviction itself.

There’s a trope in Christian apologetics that finds relief in projecting theism’s commitments and “idolization” onto unbelievers – see Frank Turek’s cynical use of this in his recent book I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. That simply poisons the well in a way that helps obscure important distinctions. Catholics do rely on faith in a way atheists do not, but rhetorically, it’s useful to say “well everyone does it equally”. It neutralizes a worthy objection if you can get that claim over the transom.

Saying that atheists “idolize” reason, or whatever they value is a move in the same lane. It’s useful in that it puts up a smokescreen that obscures salient differences. Young earth creationists tell me that “science isn’t 100% certain about the age of the earth, and neither am I, so we’re equal!”.

My valuation and reliance on reason is not credulous or superstitious like my Christian faith was. It isn’t up on a pedestal the way Jesus is for Christians. It’s just a tool, a tool that is as valuable as the practical results it promotes and provides, and that’s all. It’s not magic or holy, it’s just a tool in my hand that I can use.

-TS

 

[Betterave]

Personalization necessarily “de-principlizes” the truth as a concept. A person is necessarily not a principle; insofar as a personal has a will and some measure of autonomy, she is manifestly not a rule. To extent a man is just a principle, he is an automaton, and “de-personalized”.

[etc., etc.]

I think we can easily enough cut through the frankly rank nature of all this grossly literalistic rhetoric (which seems to interpret a metaphor as an equivocation) by noting that the following is obviously a non sequitur.

“The problem is semantic, in equivocating between a principle and a person. The only [way(?)] that is not problematic is if Jesus doesn’t have a will, and is impersonal. That I think an unlikely position to take, but that would eliminate the equivocation, reducing Jesus (or Ghandi, or Stalin) to just an automaton.”

In other words: “A person can perfectly embody a principle only if that person is an automaton” - which is… a non sequitur.

 

[PRmerger]

A person is necessarily not a principle;

Fair enough. Arguable, but I shall concede the above for the moment.

But a principle could be a Person, yes?

insofar as a personal has a will and some measure of autonomy, she is manifestly not a rule. To extent a man is just a principle, he is an automaton, and “de-personalized”.

True. If you limit Truth to a principle.

Christianity has never proposed that.

This is easy to see as problematic in action if you take the Ghandi case, and commit to Ghandi’s hagiography as “the Truth”, personified. Now, with that affirmation, if Ghandi announces some new policy that we would otherwise (based on a principle – correspondence theory, model performance, etc.) say is “false”, or otherwise bogus, the new Policy (“The British are inherently evil, a lesser race with less claim to human rights and dignities!”), NOW, because you’ve equivocated on truth as a principle and truth as a person, Ghandi is now, by definition correct.

Ah, the classic Euthyprho dilemma. I think that has been answered quite satisfactorily here.

 

[Betterave]

As I noted above, you can easily find the same mistakes that theists make on the atheist side. But atheism requires no dogma or superstition as theism does. It’s defined as the absence or negation of those affirmation. If one says that whatever convictions one holds, even if it’s ground on evidence and rational critique, is de facto idolization, then we just have “idolization” falling victim to the debasing of the language we use, for that term signifies something profoundly different in theist’s devotion to the idea. My belief in this or that is corrigible on the evidence in a way “Jesus is the Truth” cannot be. There are no grounds I recognize for elevating an authority that high, out of reach of critical review, and that goes for even that conviction itself.

There’s a trope in Christian apologetics that finds relief in projecting theism’s commitments and “idolization” onto unbelievers – see Frank Turek’s cynical use of this in his recent book I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. That simply poisons the well in a way that helps obscure important distinctions. Catholics do rely on faith in a way atheists do not, but rhetorically, it’s useful to say “well everyone does it equally”. It neutralizes a worthy objection if you can get that claim over the transom.

Saying that atheists “idolize” reason, or whatever they value is a move in the same lane. It’s useful in that it puts up a smokescreen that obscures salient differences. Young earth creationists tell me that “science isn’t 100% certain about the age of the earth, and neither am I, so we’re equal!”.

My valuation and reliance on reason is not credulous or superstitious like my Christian faith was. It isn’t up on a pedestal the way Jesus is for Christians. It’s just a tool, a tool that is as valuable as the practical results it promotes and provides, and that’s all. It’s not magic or holy, it’s just a tool in my hand that I can use.

-TS

Oh boy. Your ‘rationality’ is up on a pedestal whether you like it or not. You ignore criticisms of your view with hopelessly confused and dogmatic rhetorical blechh! You present as the very picture of self-conceited irrational humbug, constantly debasing language by your irresponsible, hypocritical, unaccountable squishy schlock. If you want to say something, make an argument, say something that actually connects in a rational way. Impose some discipline on your thinking. Please! Endless flowery repetition of BS can only be amusing up to a point. At some point you have to start responding to the criticisms of the actually intelligible claims that do occasionally rise out of the morass of your emoting.

 

[PRmerger]

See above. I think Stalin makes the case even more clearly, but perhaps it’s distracting because Stalin was such an extreme figure. Perhaps Ghandi as an example makes the point with less distraction.

Actually, what you have done, TS, is provide a paradigm for what happens when one accepts that Stalin/Gandhi/Joe Grifter is Truth.

I am proposing the proponent provide arguments as for why Stalin/Gandhi/Joe Grifter *is *Truth, and then we can proceed.

Before one accepts this conceit, arguments must be provided supporting that they are the Truth.

I think the arguments for why Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life are quite compelling.

However, I would be willing to consider arguments for why any of the above are Truth.

The only that is not problematic is if Jesus doesn’t have a will, and is impersonal.

Is this a typo? Not sure what you’re constructing here, TS.

Now, on your model, “true” is detached from the actual.

Absolutely not.

 

[PRmerger]

You are just as “true” as Jesus is/was, and arguably more true, in that we can supply a whole lot more objective evidential support for your existence, behavior, ideas and actions, the truth of who you are than we can for Jesus.

This is a curious paradigm indeed.

Am I “arguably more true” than you because I have more evidence that I exist (supported by my >8000 posts compared to your 1500)?

Are you saying that you are more true than George Washington because there’s more evidence that you exist than Mr. Washington?

And that Jesus is more true than Hannibal because there’s more “objective evidential support” for His existence than Hannibal’s?

 

[PRmerger]

My valuation and reliance on reason is not credulous or superstitious like my Christian faith was.

If your faith was superstitious, then it was* not* Christian. At least, it wasn’t Catholic, to be sure.

It’s just a tool, a tool that is as valuable as the practical results it promotes and provides, and that’s all. It’s not magic or holy, it’s just a tool in my hand that I can use.

-TS

Fair enough.

And it’s a tool used by Christianity as well. We just have, as the late great Pope JPII said, “two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”

You are floundering to elevate the human mind using only one wing.

 

[Touchstone]

Fair enough. Arguable, but I shall concede the above for the moment.

But a principle could be a Person, yes?

Christian doctrine notwithstanding, I’d say no, of course not. But as a long time Christian, I’m well aware of the teaching. I think that’s the value of the teaching, though, the very thing I now identify as debasing of the language used: it coopts the principle and conflates that with a person. My hope in using Stalin as an example of why that’s a problem was to tease that dynamic out in XXL sized fashion – if you declare that “Stalin is the Truth”, it should be alarmingly apparent why that’s problematic. Once you’ve granted that to someone, it can’t be taken back. It’s irreversible, unassailable, incorrigible.

So I understand the teaching, yes, but the very appeal of “making the principle a man” is its debasing element. It puts the person beyond any kind of scrutiny, judgment, accountability, analysis, review. It’s a power play, a way to use language to consolidate a power relationship where an authority figure is “self-truthifying”, and not “true” based on some external standard.

True. If you limit Truth to a principle

Christianity has never proposed that.
.

Well, that’s common and practical semantics for the term. “Truth is a person” is really a kind of rhetorical device, a less awkward way of saying “this guy speaks the truth and represents the truth so purely he’s synomous with it”.

As above, I’m well aware of the novel semantics, and that’s precisely the problem, as I see it. The novel parts are self-serving, and inject power relationships that are Orwellian in their subjugation of the language. Words mean whatever we want them to mean, and this kind of rhetoric means “truth is whatever the power hierarchy says it is”. That should strike you as ominously Orwellian.

Ah, the classic Euthyprho dilemma. I think that has been answered quite satisfactorily here.

Ah, Feser. I’d love to deconstruct that one thoroughly at some point. That guy… .

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Actually, what you have done, TS, is provide a paradigm for what happens when one accepts that Stalin/Gandhi/Joe Grifter is Truth.

I am proposing the proponent provide arguments as for why Stalin/Gandhi/Joe Grifter *is *Truth, and then we can proceed.

Well, per Christianity, all one needs is credulous, subjective faith! That’s it. And the gig is up! Epistemic closure, no critical analysis needed. You can bypass all that right to “Jesus is the Truth” without even having to address that question. I’m happy to hear what you think that criterion or model should be, but a major problem with Christianity is that it doesn’t need or have use of that. A “revelation” that Jesus is the Truth, that a believer “just knows” is all it takes, and locks in the deal.

And it’s worse than that. There’s a Catch-22, here. If you do get to a point where you truly do accept that “Jesus is Truth”, you are caged. You can’t go back on that even if you should. Because if you do, you weren’t/aren’t earnestly accepting that Jesus is the Truth in the first place! The only way to correct an error on that, if it is an error, is to not have truly believed that Jesus is the Truth in the first place.
"it's a trap!"

Before one accepts this conceit, arguments must be provided supporting that they are the Truth.

Yes, but in doing so – which I fully support, you are erecting what must be torn down as soon as you do identify Jesus (or Ghandi, or Stalin) as the Truth. Those arguments have to be abandoned as soon as you embrace Jesus as the Truth, because they are irrelevant once you grant Jesus the personal status of “Truth”. No argument can or should stand against that. If Jesus is the Truth, no possible argument can touch it, not even a little, not ever, by definition.

So your request is good, but curious. You will abandon that which you value here, as some as you obtain it (assuming you do embrace Jesus as Truth). Then the argument simply is “Jesus is the Truth”. QED. Full Stop. Any questioning beyond that, and you are implicitly (or maybe explicitly) signalling that Jesus is NOT the Truth and is subject to some principle he gets assessed in light of.

I think the arguments for why Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life are quite compelling.

They may be. That’s not my concern here. I don’t think so, obviously, but my point is that however you get there, you have abdicated your principles that got you there, whatever they are, by embracing that belief. Now, you cannot review, analyse, or think for yourself. You have full epistemic closure on that, because you’ve traded in a principle for a personal identity.

However, I would be willing to consider arguments for why any of the above are Truth.

Truth is just an index on the correspondence of a proposition to the actual state of affairs of the world. The more closely the proposition corresponds, the more true it is. Conflating that principle with “goodness” tends to create mass confusion and debilitating dialect. Imagine trying to converse with someone who supposed that Kim Il-Sung, the “Dear Leader” of North Korea, was “the Truth”, “truth personified, the principle of truth become a person”.

How would propose to engage a person who came to the table with that kind of commitment?

Is this a typo? Not sure what you’re constructing here, TS.

Yes, sorry, that should have been:

		 				"The only **WAY **that is not problematic is if Jesus doesn't have a will, and is impersonal. 			 		"

Absolutely not.

Well, if Jesus is the Truth and tells you the sun is bound gravitationally to the earth, rather than the other way around, what is the truth? The truth, by definition, is Jesus. He cannot be wrong. So it doesn’t matter what we arrive at as “actual” in the old, boring, pragmatic sense (correspondence with evidence, measurements, tests, liability to falsification, etc.). Jesus has a power card to play on all that. And you, if you love truth, are thus divorced from the actual. The actual can’t compete with those kinds of power assertions. It’s just objects moving around according to physics 'n stuff…

-TS

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Kind of? At best. I certainly don’t think that’s clear. I think it’s more like emotively reaching for meaning.

fair enough! But would you rely on feeling alone?

Such is life. Expect it in any case. But embrace it. (That is the meaning of the Nietzschean eternal return.)

And if you have choice?

It’s not about making a difference in the long run. It’s about amor fati. That’s what the honest atheist is left with. The “long run” is a mirage for the atheist. The short run is all there is, so one has no choice but to make do with that. Whether that’s lying on a beach with a nice cool drink in hand, or incinerating Jewish corpses in Treblinka. Gotta make do. Deal with it. The dice will fall where they fall. There’s no magic here. That’s what real grown-ups all believe.

Yes, I know, and I’ve argued over this point in the past as well. Short term thinking is probably why we’re in the mess we’re in! Too much borrowing, not enough production! Irresponsibility is the inevitable reaction. Short term thinking is the ruin of most peoples lives way before the end, by which time, even the short term just gets grimmer - you can deny the passage of time, but it passes anyway…

But most atheists I know don’t seem to live so much in the short term, but in a sort of ‘clipped’ long run, as if to deny the consequences of an end, or percieve of procreation as extension of themselves, or somesuch distraction.

The continuation via imagined selves in infinite multiple realities we have no reason to believe exists except science fictional calculation appears popular as a current delusion, what with tying in neatly with tenuous explainations of our own unlikelihood to exist, but again, it’s an ideological extension of self - not a real one, and one more delusion of continuance - even if the overall scenario were real. I suppose that’s similar to Nietsche’s characteristically faulted concept of ‘eternity’ of self

 

[Mystic_Banana]

I think the only comfort I could think of in atheism that has any reality would be that nothing would really matter in the end, so there was nothing to worry about, for ourselves or others…everything will end up in oblivion for all regardless - no pain will endure etc.

Not exactly very inspiring, and there’s always the worry…

what if it does matter?

 

[PRmerger]

Christian doctrine notwithstanding, I’d say no, of course not.

This is begging the question then.

You must provide an argument as to why Truth could not be a Person. Otherwise you are simply prescribing a definition for Truth which excludes this.

But as a long time Christian, I’m well aware of the teaching. I think that’s the value of the teaching, though, the very thing I now identify as debasing of the language used: it coopts the principle and conflates that with a person.

Ok. But this is your own self-determined prescription.

It does not, by necessity, *have *to be this way.

My hope in using Stalin as an example of why that’s a problem was to tease that dynamic out in XXL sized fashion – if you declare that “Stalin is the Truth”, it should be alarmingly apparent why that’s problematic. Once you’ve granted that to someone, it can’t be taken back. It’s irreversible, unassailable, incorrigible.

Again, you’re starting this conversation from the point that one accepts “Stalin is the Truth.”

Take one step back and see where this discussion takes you when the proposer offers reasons why Stalin is Truth. Either they are rational and ought to be considered, or they can be dismissed.

I proclaim that there are no rational, reasoned arguments that support the hypothesis that Stalin is Truth.

So I understand the teaching, yes, but the very appeal of “making the principle a man” is its debasing element. It puts the person beyond any kind of scrutiny, judgment, accountability, analysis, review. It’s a power play, a way to use language to consolidate a power relationship where an authority figure is “self-truthifying”, and not “true” based on some external standard.

The above would be valid if one simply took the hypothesis “Jesus is Truth” on faith, without using reason.

Well, that’s common and practical semantics for the term. “Truth is a person” is really a kind of rhetorical device, a less awkward way of saying “this guy speaks the truth and represents the truth so purely he’s synomous with it”.

This, TS, demonstrates an extremely impoverished understanding of Christianity.

I suggest reading this. Then let’s chat!

 

[PRmerger]

Well, per Christianity, all one needs is credulous, subjective faith!

In your Christian days were you by chance an Evangelical?

 

[PRmerger]

Ah, Feser. I’d love to deconstruct that one thoroughly at some point. That guy… .

-TS

What does this mean? Are you hinting that you know Edward Feser and have had interactions with “that guy”?

 

[Touchstone]

What does this mean? Are you hinting that you know Edward Feser and have had interactions with “that guy”?

I am regularly directed to his blog. Don’t know the guy, just keep getting referred to his work. I read Stephen Law’s blog off and on, for instance, and even there, Feser pops up, this time with the ‘you don’t know classic theism’ thing…

On your other post, yes, born and raised an Arminian Protestant Evangelical, came here to get ready for RCIA about five years ago after coming to grips with the reasoning failures of sola scriptura. Things went sideways at that point, T-boned unexpectedly by unbelief, thanks in part to this forum(!). I had idealized Catholicism, and in rebuilding my faith in prep to “swim the Tiber” came to grips with the realization that the same kind of fundamentalism, credulity and self-indulgence was the same on the other side of the Tiber, and in some ways worse (some ways better), and there was no reasonable faith to be had.

But yes, was raised as Protestant, and remained a devout one until my mid-30s.

-TS