philosophy and religion

[nebula]

Me giving up and retreating into subjectivism? It seems to me that both of us were already there. For instance, you admit that the argument from contingency is flawed, but now that you accept it as reasonable, you say that you just believe in God more, now. You say that you think the classical definition of God (the Necessary Being) is compatible with the Bible, but when I point out a number of things about the Biblical presentation of God that are at odds with it, you essentially say, “Well, there are lots of ideas about God presented in the Bible, and maybe the Israelites just couldn’t handle the truth.” When I point out that the Problem of Evil is only a problem if you posit this kind of philosophical definition of God as the “Ground of all being,” you say that’s right, but chalk it up to “the mystery of God.”

I’ve been pushing pragamatism and a sort of “dialogue” between reason and revelation all along, which inherently involves subjective judgments. I have also been trying to point out that all this business about using the “general revelation” to reason your way to the true nature of God, existence, etc., before you start interacting with special revelation, is fantasy. Your reason just can’t get that far on its own, even if you start with “general revelation.”

You’re arguing that because I can’t clinch the case 100% therefore it’s worthless to even try with reasoning. Forget it. Let’s just stick with our personal experiences, which we know to be problematic. But, if I emphasize the need to have some kind of reasonable argument, then I am relying solely on my ‘fallible reason’ and have forgotten all about personal or special revelation.

No the argument from contigency doesn’t clinch the case with absolute certainty, but it does give fairly good ground from which to reason. It’s a great piece of evidence and it’s surely better than nothing at all. Great theologians have had plenty of success using rational arguments to set up a framework for what to expect when it comes to reflecting on the nature of God- and we need it. The Bible contains within it several views of what God is like, from the possibility of monarchial monotheism, as you have mentioned, to absolute monotheism as is presented by deutero Isaiah. How do we decide which is the right view, convenience? No, there has to be some kind of standard employed.

The reality of the situation is, lots of people believe in God, even a personal God, without the help of the Bible at all. In fact Paul himself attests to this reality, and that nature itself testifies of God. Considering that Paul speaks about the ability to come to some kind of knowledge of God apart from special revelation implies that my contention that I came to a knowledge of the basics of God’s nature apart from the Bible is not fantastical, but to be expected. You assume from the outset that this can’t happen, that we are all building castles in the sky, and that at the end of the day all that matters are experiences. Well, how do you know how to interpret experiences? Where do you even get the words to interpret them? How to order them? How to speak about them? F rom concepts, from ideas. It’s inescapable. There is no place of pure empiricism where you can dwell in peace from pesky rationalism and bask in the glow of your experience. The moemnt you reflect on your experiences at all you’ve employed legions of ideas and assumptions about how the world operates.

And, furthermore, even my own subjective experiences of the divine speak of Him being an infinite Spirit. I argue this is the correct position. I argue that I can show how this position is reasonable since I realize that my subjective experiences aren’t going to prove anything to you. Furthermore I know that if this is correct, it’d better make sense.

The problem of evil doesn’t threaten God’s infinite nature. It creates plenty of ethical questions about God’s benevolence, yes, but it doesn’t threaten the ontological question we’ve been discussing and I don’t see why you think it does. Sure, Mormonism makes the problem go away by demoting GOD to god, but that’s rather like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Oh yeah, I should add now that I read your previous post about experiments being theory laden, what’s your theory? That’s what I’m trying to construct and analyze- the theory by which I interpret my personal, subjective experiences. Surely I can’t build my theory solely my experiences, to intepret my experiences, that’s entirely too circular, there has to be some kind of meta-analysis. That’s where all these arguments from in to help, from contigency and the ontological argument, even to synthesize with my experiences into a new and better position. Now you’re making me in a Hegelian, and it’s a place I don’t want to be… really…

 

[nebula]

I’ll take your word for it on the first argument, but the second one is still good. The point is not that the names MUST mean what I said, but that the documents lead many scholars to believe that they DID mean that, in this case. Part of the argument is based on the description of these angels in relation to others in the documents. Larry Hurtado’s and Margaret Barker’s books have some info on this.

So, do the Persons of the Trinity have a “real and meaningful relationship”? And are they truly free? And are they perfectly good? Is it possible for them to do evil?

The reason I’m pointing this out again is that you seem to be arguing for the Book of Mormon teaching that there “must be opposition in all things” to have meaningful existence. Certainly it doesn’t sound like you are arguing based on any classical definition of God. You closet Mormon, you.

I agree that experimentation has to be “theory-laden.” And I agree that it’s always going to be a subjective judgment to decide what is “sweet,” etc. That’s fine, because in my view, God requires us to learn to live by faith so that we can demonstrate what kind of people we really are. Placed in this situation, we will gravitate toward the true desires of our hearts, which is why Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.” So I figure I’ll see what works for me, as far as producing peace, joy, enlightenment, miracles, etc., and go with that. I can truly say “there’s something to it,” and as long as I don’t get too self-satisfied, I’ll keep gravitating toward things that produce more and more of them. Given the inherent limitations of human existence, I figure that’s about the best plan I can come up with.

As to zulah, you can look it up in the BDB if you get bored one day. I still don’t get that second argument. If humans have names with the word God built into them, and it’s clear that in the human cases it didn’t mean anything special about them, why should we be so excited to see those names in angels?

Yes, the Persons in the trinity have a real relationship with each other, and they are perfectly free. Here’s the thing though, their nature is perfectly benevolent. So, they are free to act in any logically possible manner, which doesn’t include acting outside of their nature (is a rock free to roll uphill one day because it’s tired of rolling down hill?) and therefore they will always act with goodness.

Hey, I never said that every single thing out of Mormonism is wrong , just the groundwork.

As to the last paragraph, if an atheist were to come to you and say that his way was truly freeing, and wonderful and led to a happier, more content life, would you have a reply to him? Or would you have to assume that he says he’s happy, but not really, not like he’d be in the gospel no matter what he says?

 

[mfbukowski]

I’ve been pushing pragamatism and a sort of “dialogue” between reason and revelation all along, which inherently involves subjective judgments. I have also been trying to point out that all this business about using the “general revelation” to reason your way to the true nature of God, existence, etc., before you start interacting with special revelation, is fantasy. Your reason just can’t get that far on its own, even if you start with “general revelation.”

Not surprisingly, I agree totally.

I have always had a problem with “general revelation” going before “special revelation”. How are you supposed to ascribe the beauty of nature to a maker in the first place without a “special revelation”. First comes the insight that “wow- how could all this be-- there must be Somebody” To me that is “special revelation”.

There has to be an initial “wow” EXPERIENCE for “general revelation” to occurr.

Regarding “subjectivity”, I think that this is a red herring. You can’t talk about what is truly “subjective”, and we seem to have no problem talking about stuff here.

Take for example your personal experience of “red”. How do I know that maybe the way you experience “red” is actually the way I experience “yellow”?

Now discussing this would be pointless.

But that is not the same as discussing “sweet” in Alma 32. We could discuss the actual experience of what is described as “sweet” - since clearly it is not literal. Your tastebuds don’t go off when you experience the gospel. You may have a feeling of peace, etc.

To me the real question here is “what is the nature of religious experience, and how does it differ or not differ from other experience?” Are such experiences consistent enough to actually make them “experiments”?

 

[nebula]

I think you are locking in dualism in the very way you ask the question. You are assuming that there is something “out there” that is “closer to” some metaphysical realm we cannot experience.

Part of the central insight of the pragmatists is that we really cannot know how “reality is ordered” in a metaphysical sense. They would condemn this as the old dualism re-asserting its ugly head. So there really is no vicious cycle as you suggest. They really DO believe that there is no sense talking about anything beyond experience. And experience includes logic as well. The reason logic “works” is that… well it works! It’s the only way we can see and order the world. This is why William James is seen as a psychologist as much as a philosopher. Somehow we are “wired” to look at things logically. That is itself experiential. But “why” are we wired that way?

To them the question itself would be unanswerable, and perhaps not even make sense. We cannot experience the world in any way other than one which makes a priori assertions “true”.

To seek It would be a “category mistake” and any discussion of it would be like arguing if virtue is green or blue. Virtue is neither, and arguing about it would be nonsensical. Because language allows you to ask a question, that doesn’t mean that there is an answer. So asking “why” logic works is as unanswerable as asking what color virtue is. Even asking the question implies that there IS a purpose. So ultimately, there goes the argument from contingency.

Yet such questions are important in our lives, or we wouldn’t be discussing them! So what kinds of questions ARE answerable?

“Why is it important to you that a priori assertions are always true?” is a question that is definitely discussable.

But the answer would be about individual psychology. Is that “bad”? Is discussing it from a psychological point of view somehow less “lofty” than coming up with some quasi-Thomist high-sounding argument that ulitimately doesn’t make sense?

The pragmatist attitude would be “who cares?” “This is the only way this question is discussable.”

But does this lead into a “subjectivist quagmire” that does away with further discussion? Not at all. We all experience the world, and that experience is pretty uniform and consistent. We all drive on freeways and walk down the street and ask for directions (if we’re female) without subjectivisim getting in the way at all. There’s still a lot to argue about!!

The idea that “Mormonism works better than other things” is meant to be a broad theoretical assertion. You surely wouldn’t say that the fact that coffee is good for a few ailments disproves that “God” is composed of three individual persons.

Yes Mormons have all the problems everyone else does. I know that better than most Mormons, experientially.

Yet pulling out Occams razor you have to admit that being able to take into account old testament sacrifice and harmonizing it with why we change our tassles at graduation to the right side and the possibility of life on other planets, and perhaps even string theory, anything that could give that comprehensive a world view is one pretty dang comprehensive theory! Could old Joe have come up with it on his own? I don’t see how.

Joseph was a brilliant and capable fellow, and he readily absorbed the philosophy around him. The American curiosity combined with anti intellectualism (those darned clever philosophers won’t trick us), empiricism (Alma 32) and optimism all went into what Mormonism is and what I see as influencing both you and bdawg.

I’m not a Thomist and never claimed to be one. I don’t think you can divide philosophy into pragmatist camp, and the lofty Thomist types. I’ve danced around with pragmatism and believe me there’s plenty to like about it, but it doesn’t answer the question of its own existence and it doesn’t get to wish away that question by claiming it isn’t a valid question. It’s true, I assume there is an objective reality ‘out there’ which stays the way it is even when I’m not in the room. I accept that it is the source of my experiences, no matter how convoluted the path from the object, the noumena, to the phenomena. To even claim that we are wired to think a certain way to make a supposition that noumena exists, that is, there are wires in our minds to be wired, somehow. That there are even rational agents thinking about these topics is a claim to a metaphysical reality. So the vicious cycle returns. How do we decide that it works? You say, it just works, but that is begging the question. What does it mean for a proposition to work? Unless that is just going to be nonsense that any rational person dismisses there has to be a standard. Why does it ‘work’? What does it mean for something to 'work? If you are going to use pragmatism at all those questions must be answered. Otherwise it looks like you are waving your hands and demanding that the argument from contigency (as the example in question) is an invalid question-- but first you must prove that pragmatism is the epistemology best suited to come to determine truth from falsehood.

 

[mfbukowski]

No the argument from contigency doesn’t clinch the case with absolute certainty, but it does give fairly good ground from which to reason. It’s a great piece of evidence and it’s surely better than nothing at all. Great theologians have had plenty of success using rational arguments to set up a framework for what to expect when it comes to reflecting on the nature of God- and we need it. The Bible contains within it several views of what God is like, from the possibility of monarchial monotheism, as you have mentioned, to absolute monotheism as is presented by deutero Isaiah. How do we decide which is the right view, convenience? No, there has to be some kind of standard employed.

The reality of the situation is, lots of people believe in God, even a personal God, without the help of the Bible at all. In fact Paul himself attests to this reality, and that nature itself testifies of God. Considering that Paul speaks about the ability to come to some kind of knowledge of God apart from special revelation implies that my contention that I came to a knowledge of the basics of God’s nature apart from the Bible is not fantastical, but to be expected. You assume from the outset that this can’t happen, that we are all building castles in the sky, and that at the end of the day all that matters are experiences. Well, how do you know how to interpret experiences? Where do you even get the words to interpret them? How to order them? How to speak about them? F rom concepts, from ideas. It’s inescapable. There is no place of pure empiricism where you can dwell in peace from pesky rationalism and bask in the glow of your experience. The moemnt you reflect on your experiences at all you’ve employed legions of ideas and assumptions about how the world operates.

And, furthermore, even my own subjective experiences of the divine speak of Him being an infinite Spirit. I argue this is the correct position. I argue that I can show how this position is reasonable since I realize that my subjective experiences aren’t going to prove anything to you. Furthermore I know that if this is correct, it’d better make sense.

I can’t speak for BDawg, but let me say that no one is arguing that we should throw out rationality. I agree that it is an interaction.

But what is fascinating to me about your argument is that it is really your “subjective experiences” which you discount as not rational, that is really driving your central argument. You say that your experience of God being an infinite Spirit is the “correct position” and that you “can show this position is reasonable”.

I suppose I am somewhat intentionally quoting out of context here, but IF this is what you are doing, I think ultimately we are in agreement. My position is that first we have the experience, and THEN we “show that this position is reasonable”

I have to confess that I agree with your “subjective experience of God as an infinite Spirit.” (So where is the subjectivity there if we both agree?) But the way that we make that experience reasonable is where we differ.

Experiences can fit many rational models designed to accomodate them. Lying on your back at night watching the moon and stars passing overhead, it is very easy to believe that our flat earth is at the center of the universe. But as our experiences grow due to an artifical enviroment in which we all participate – culture-- we learn that others have made observations which deny the “facts” that we have observed on our own. These observations are called “science”, but really are just more sophisticated theories based on many people’s experience instead of just our own. I think it was Royce who said “Education is learning to use the tools which the race has found indispensible”, or somethng close to that (!). The point is that cultural knowledge is seen as a “tool”. Nothing more, nothing less. If the tool doesn’t work, make another one or fix it. No big deal. It needs another bend over here, or a hook on this end.

“But that’s in conflict with our doctrine!!” If it’s not “true”, that is, if it doesn’t “work”, that “doctrine” is doomed anyway. The mortal wound has been delivered, but it’s still staggering.

We can’t afford to get too hung up on theories or rational explanations of the phenomena, because these change according to the data. If we put too much emotional stock in the theory, we can go wacko ( a technical term ) when it looks like there’s going to be trouble with it. That’s why people get so weird about evolution.

On the other hand, we have to look very carefully at the data and make sure it still fits with the theory.

So how do I handle my experience of God being infinite with the Mormon description a la King Follett?

No problem for me. I think for our experience, God is every bit the infinite Spirit described in any portion of the bible you want to quote. He absolutely IS omi-everything.

But how do we square this with King Follett?

To answer philosophically, I think that anything like “God’s previous life” is in principal unknowable. It is beyond our actual experience. It is metaphysics. All that we can possibly know or experience shows Him to be infinite and transcendent. But am I fudging on it? NO! He is infinite and transcendent in every way.

But do I get to speculate? Sorry, I haven’t turned off my rationality, just as you suggest we shouldn’t.

In quasi-scientific terms though I am definitely not a scientist, I think that what happend before the Big Bang is in principle not knowable either. Does that mean that God is the God of THIS Big Bang, or all Big Bangs? (“worlds without number…”) I don’t know. Literally. I can have a testimony that what the church teaches is true, but do I personally KNOW that God was once as we are now? Heck no. It’s not knowable.

I do have a subjective feeling that I existed before I came here. I have a subjective feeling that whoever is out there and guiding me wants me to be the very best human I can be, and that this improvement will continue past this life. These I have experiences about. And I get the usual multifarious confirmations almost daily that “the church is true”. Bible, BOM etc.

But beyond this, I have to take it on cultural evidence, just as I take science on cultural evidence. I have not ever seen Nairobi Kenya, but I believe that it exists. I have not seen pluto, but I know that a couple of years ago it was a planet, and now it is not. The "facts " have changed because the previous description was not working for reasons I don’t understand. But I accept that Pluto is no longer a planet.

Oh and check out this video if you haven’t seen it. Highly relevant and totally cool:

ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

 

[mfbukowski]

nebula

So let’s call it all “noumena” and do away with the dirty word “phenomena”

I don’t see how you keep getting this dualism into the picture. My experience is that the room does NOT change when I leave it.

Wait a minute… I have kids! And I lose my keys all the time…

Psychology does not posit some “noumena” to explain why people are sometimes “miswired” (maybe autism, schizophrenia etc.) or do you think these are “noumenal defects” caused by some spiritual phenomenon? Demon posession? I guess it’s possible, but I know you don’t believe that.

You can’t really believe that the “argument from miswiring” actually justifies the existence of noumena?

I know that debating is fun, but come on!

 

[nebula]

nebula

So let’s call it all “noumena” and do away with the dirty word “phenomena”

I don’t see how you keep getting this dualism into the picture. My experience is that the room does NOT change when I leave it.

Wait a minute… I have kids! And I lose my keys all the time…

Psychology does not posit some “noumena” to explain why people are sometimes “miswired” (maybe autism, schizophrenia etc.) or do you think these are “noumenal defects” caused by some spiritual phenomenon? Demon posession? I guess it’s possible, but I know you don’t believe that.

You can’t really believe that the “argument from miswiring” actually justifies the existence of noumena?

I know that debating is fun, but come on!

Psychology is a science that assumes the scientific method as correct. It’s not a starting place for an epistemological position, and that’s what we need, to establish a position in the first place. I would argue that science does assume the existence of reality in itself, or a noumena, and phenomena, or what we observe. Scientists gather observations, and conduct experiments, all to get closer to ‘reality as it is’. All that activity assumes there is a reality out there to be discovered through interpreting and analyzing phenomena.

What I would argue is that experience is a part of interacting with the world, and so should not be dismissed, but as soon as experience enters the mind and is thought about at all concepts enter the room. It’s not possible to speak about experience apart from a conceptual schema. Our experiences are immediately organized, taken apart by our minds so as to be understood- by, an existing framework of knowledge. The interaction between experience and rationality happens immediately, and it is unavoidable. It’s not a matter of priveleging one over the other, we don’t have the luxury of that choice. That’s why if we are concerned about uncovering the truth, it is of utmost importance to examine what our rationality looks like, what our concepts are. Asking whether or not they ‘work’ is one way to go, but as I’ve mentioned before, that opens up new questions that must be answered.

 

[mfbukowski]

What I would argue is that experience is a part of interacting with the world, and so should not be dismissed, but as soon as experience enters the mind and is thought about at all concepts enter the room. It’s not possible to speak about experience apart from a conceptual schema. Our experiences are immediately organized, taken apart by our minds so as to be understood- by, an existing framework of knowledge. The interaction between experience and rationality happens immediately, and it is unavoidable. It’s not a matter of priveleging one over the other, we don’t have the luxury of that choice. That’s why if we are concerned about uncovering the truth, it is of utmost importance to examine what our rationality looks like, what our concepts are. Asking whether or not they ‘work’ is one way to go, but as I’ve mentioned before, that opens up new questions that must be answered.

I would agree with this part. It is like those optical illusions or those Escher drawings playing with perspective. The mere act of perception is an imposition of a “mind” on “that stuff out there”. But you can’t divide how much of that is “rational” from whatever else there is in the experience. Humans like to create form from chaos. That is why it is so fascinating to look at clouds and flames, because we naturally look for patterns to make sense out of. “Oh see - it looks like a castle, and there’s a face over there”. So that’s really why I don’t make a distinction between the “rational” and “experience”; they are two sides of the same coin. It is virtually impossible to make yourself just see patches of color without seeing a red car against a white fence with a green tree and blue sky. You can’t do it unless like Jill Bolte, your wiring is somehow messed up.

So to me, any form of dualism misses this point.

And on the big picture, creating form from chaos is exactly what God does.

But science doesn’t make the distinction consciously between noumena and phenomena either. To them it is nonsense to discuss it. They’re just out there dealing with “reality”. So if you’re implying that they are dealing with noumena, I would disagree. They are dealing with empirical experience and nothing else.

I just Kant understand noumena !!

 

[BDawg]

I’m getting a little lost, here. Can we agree on these points?

1. There’s no such thing as totally separating reason from experience (contra Plato). Like nebula said, we immediately categorize our experiences in schemas, and there’s nothing to reason about until we have some experiences. (Like m said, we have no proof that “logic” works, except that it matches with our experience.)
2. There has to be some kind of dialogue between reason and experience, because even though we automatically categorize new experiences in pre-existing frameworks of ideas, we are still capable of noticing it when it doesn’t quite fit.
3. Neither reason nor experience is a foolproof basis for belief.

 

[BDawg]

Yes, the Persons in the trinity have a real relationship with each other, and they are perfectly free. Here’s the thing though, their nature is perfectly benevolent. So, they are free to act in any logically possible manner, which doesn’t include acting outside of their nature (is a rock free to roll uphill one day because it’s tired of rolling down hill?) and therefore they will always act with goodness.

You see, this is my point! On the one hand, your definition of God clearly implies that there can be a being that is perfectly good, yet free to do anything that is not contrary to this nature. You say that God is a Trinity, and the Persons of the Trinity can have a perfectly good relationship with one another, in perfect freedom, consistent with their nature. You also say that God can do anything that is logically possible. But when you get to the Problem of Evil, you pull out arguments that say a world chock full of evil was the best possible place to throw created beings, because there has to be a real choice between good and evil for these beings to freely exercise goodness and have a freely trusting relationship with God.

Well, that’s fine–if you modify your idea of God. Your own statements add up to the conclusion that it is possible to have a being that is truly free, and completely good. It is logically possible to have different “Persons” in truly and freely trusting relationships with one another, without the possibility of them committing any evil. And yet, God doesn’t create people this way. He creates them in a swamp of evil. ***Since it is obviously logically possible to do the job without all the evil, it must be that *God can’t do everything that is logically possible. Or, it must be that the presence of evil really is better than only the presence of good.

I’m fine with you saying that God knows more than us, and so maybe this is just one of those mysteries we can’t understand. But you’re the one who started off by saying we should begin our theologizing by looking at the state of the world (general revelation) and reasoning our way from there to the nature of God, the “ground of Being,” and so on. If that’s so, isn’t the presence of evil in the world part of the general revelation we’re supposed to be paying attention to? Where does that fit into the reasoning of the theologians, except as an annoying problem to sweep under the rug?

But make no mistake–I’m not trying to use this argument to bludgeon you into Mormonism. Others have come to this conclusion, too. For instance, I recently read Ian Barbour’s “When Science Meets Religion,” and he surveyed several (non-Mormon) theologians that are backing away from this idea of an “absolute” Being who is omnipotent in the sense of being able to do anything that is “logically possible.” This seems to them to fit better with current scientific theories (like evolution and quantum mechanics). And what is their argument (aside from the connections to science) for dropping a couple thousand years of tradition on this score? They point out that the classical idea of God was imported from Greek philosophy, and seems very different from how God was presented in the Bible. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

So even if you are correct about where to start, I assert that you didn’t look hard enough at the “general revelation” before you started reasoning on that basis.

As to the last paragraph, if an atheist were to come to you and say that his way was truly freeing, and wonderful and led to a happier, more content life, would you have a reply to him? Or would you have to assume that he says he’s happy, but not really, not like he’d be in the gospel no matter what he says?

I could always observe him and see whether I thought his actions matched with his rhetoric. I can take others’ points of view seriously without automatically deferring to them.

 

[nebula]

I would agree with this part. It is like those optical illusions or those Escher drawings playing with perspective. The mere act of perception is an imposition of a “mind” on “that stuff out there”. But you can’t divide how much of that is “rational” from whatever else there is in the experience. Humans like to create form from chaos. That is why it is so fascinating to look at clouds and flames, because we naturally look for patterns to make sense out of. “Oh see - it looks like a castle, and there’s a face over there”. So that’s really why I don’t make a distinction between the “rational” and “experience”; they are two sides of the same coin. It is virtually impossible to make yourself just see patches of color without seeing a red car against a white fence with a green tree and blue sky. You can’t do it unless like Jill Bolte, your wiring is somehow messed up.

So to me, any form of dualism misses this point.

And on the big picture, creating form from chaos is exactly what God does.

But science doesn’t make the distinction consciously between noumena and phenomena either. To them it is nonsense to discuss it. They’re just out there dealing with “reality”. So if you’re implying that they are dealing with noumena, I would disagree. They are dealing with empirical experience and nothing else.

I just Kant understand noumena !!

They may think it’s nonsense, and I’m sure many do, but that doesn’t change the fact that by claiming to be out there ‘in reality’ is a claim to be describing what is really real. What really exists beyond the surface. Obviously scientists don’t stop at ordinary observations of nature, they want to get deeper, always deeper, to new levels, to get a more accurate model- all to attempt to describe what is really real. That’s why physicists get so excited about getting a Theory of Everything, that theory would put them in touch with the universe as it really is, not just how we perceive it in ordinary day to day life, but how it truly exists-- that is, the noumena. I’m sure some scientists more trained in the ways of philosophy might have more to say to this, but most aren’t and many think it’s a stupid waste of time. That doesn’t mean that we can’t diagnose what they are doing even if they refuse to.

 

[nebula]

I’m getting a little lost, here. Can we agree on these points?

1. There’s no such thing as totally separating reason from experience (contra Plato). Like nebula said, we immediately categorize our experiences in schemas, and there’s nothing to reason about until we have some experiences. (Like m said, we have no proof that “logic” works, except that it matches with our experience.)
2. There has to be some kind of dialogue between reason and experience, because even though we automatically categorize new experiences in pre-existing frameworks of ideas, we are still capable of noticing it when it doesn’t quite fit.
3. Neither reason nor experience is a foolproof basis for belief.

Okay, I mostly agree. About #1 though, what about mathematics?

 

[nebula]

You see, this is my point! On the one hand, your definition of God clearly implies that there can be a being that is perfectly good, yet free to do anything that is not contrary to this nature. You say that God is a Trinity, and the Persons of the Trinity can have a perfectly good relationship with one another, in perfect freedom, consistent with their nature. You also say that God can do anything that is logically possible. But when you get to the Problem of Evil, you pull out arguments that say a world chock full of evil was the best possible place to throw created beings, because there has to be a real choice between good and evil for these beings to freely exercise goodness and have a freely trusting relationship with God.

Well, that’s fine–if you modify your idea of God. Your own statements add up to the conclusion that it is possible to have a being that is truly free, and completely good. It is logically possible to have different “Persons” in truly and freely trusting relationships with one another, without the possibility of them committing any evil. And yet, God doesn’t create people this way. He creates them in a swamp of evil. ***Since it is obviously logically possible to do the job without all the evil, it must be that ***God can’t do everything that is logically possible. Or, it must be that the presence of evil really is better than only the presence of good.

I’m fine with you saying that God knows more than us, and so maybe this is just one of those mysteries we can’t understand. But you’re the one who started off by saying we should begin our theologizing by looking at the state of the world (general revelation) and reasoning our way from there to the nature of God, the “ground of Being,” and so on. If that’s so, isn’t the presence of evil in the world part of the general revelation we’re supposed to be paying attention to? Where does that fit into the reasoning of the theologians, except as an annoying problem to sweep under the rug?

But make no mistake–I’m not trying to use this argument to bludgeon you into Mormonism. Others have come to this conclusion, too. For instance, I recently read Ian Barbour’s “When Science Meets Religion,” and he surveyed several (non-Mormon) theologians that are backing away from this idea of an “absolute” Being who is omnipotent in the sense of being able to do anything that is “logically possible.” This seems to them to fit better with current scientific theories (like evolution and quantum mechanics). And what is their argument (aside from the connections to science) for dropping a couple thousand years of tradition on this score? They point out that the classical idea of God was imported from Greek philosophy, and seems very different from how God was presented in the Bible. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

So even if you are correct about where to start, I assert that you didn’t look hard enough at the “general revelation” before you started reasoning on that basis.

I could always observe him and see whether I thought his actions matched with his rhetoric. I can take others’ points of view seriously without automatically deferring to them.

We’ll see how this goes, but as to the first argument, it seems simple to me. God is infinite, and all the Persons in the trinity are therefore infinite. I simply have to trust that God is benevolent (this is where the faith must come in, I must reflect on His works and trust that He will fulfill His promises) and since any character He holds is to the fullest degree, He is infinitely benevolent, it is a part of His nature. Since we are limited, finite beings, any piece of character we hold isn’t going to be perfected and infinite (except by God perfecting us, and He won’t force that on us, we must choose to come to Him), it’s going to be finite, a work in progress. So we can act with goodness sometimes, but evil other times. So you see, if we finite creatures are to have free will, there must be the possibility of evil in the world since any goodness we have is far from infinite perfection.

I don’t think the problem is a trivial issue to sweep under the rug. It is a profound and difficult issue to wrestle with. Part of it, I believe, is expressed in Christ’s suffering on the cross, but now I am venturing in my amateurish theologizing. What I do argue though is that the problem of evil isn’t a sufficient issue to turn around and toss out all of the accomplishments that are gained through thoughtful reflection on the created order. “There is evil, therefore God doesn’t exist, screw what seemed so reasonable with the argument from contingency, and even the argument from design, and the grand question of grounding Being in the ontological argument. I can’t figure out evil, therefore the rest of it is bunk”- that is going too far. It is appropriate to take the problem seriously under the framework already built.

I don’t get what the anti-Greek bias is about. I don’t mean you specifically here, but why many people have such a distaste for it to the extent that labeling something as “influenced by the Greeks” automatically implies invalidity. I’m beginning to think that a lot of this is really a matter of aesthetics, that some persons (whether this is true of you only you can tell) find the idea of an infinite immutable God distasteful because He seems well, so static and sterile. But is that really the case? I think of the gorgeous music, architecture, art, ritual, the ecstatic mystical experiences all ultimately inspired by this ‘sterile’ God. I agree that we aren’t giving the whole case here, online, focusing on the philosophical side of things, but God isn’t only the God of the philosophers, He’s the God of the lived religion too, and that is an important end to keep in mind lest the soul revolt against the conception of the uncaring, static, Platonic keeper of Forms and count what philosophy can clarify for us as nothing. He is the God who longs for His children, who literally suffers and dies for them, who calls for them continually, who rejoices for them and loves them with the love of a perfect mother. This too is part of the understanding and goes hand in hand with what contemplation of nature reveals to us. Nature reveals to us order, reveals to us the reality of existence, reveals to us the contingency of all things- and it also reveals to us great beauty and joy as well.

 

[mfbukowski]

I’m getting a little lost, here. Can we agree on these points?

1. There’s no such thing as totally separating reason from experience (contra Plato). Like nebula said, we immediately categorize our experiences in schemas, and there’s nothing to reason about until we have some experiences. (Like m said, we have no proof that “logic” works, except that it matches with our experience.)
2. There has to be some kind of dialogue between reason and experience, because even though we automatically categorize new experiences in pre-existing frameworks of ideas, we are still capable of noticing it when it doesn’t quite fit.
3. Neither reason nor experience is a foolproof basis for belief.

I’m in. To answer nebula on mathmatics, I see math as essentially an extension of logic. Bertrand Russell proved that in the Principia Math is deducible from logic.

 

[nebula]

I’m in. To answer nebula on mathmatics, I see math as essentially an extension of logic. Bertrand Russell proved that in the Principia Math is deducible from logic.

I think claiming that he decisively proved the matter is not something I’d agree with .

It is possible to gain synthetic a priori knowledge so I’d have to modify #1. I suppose it depends on what we need to use #1 for if this really matters or not. What if I say that #1 is typically true?

 

[mfbukowski]

They may think it’s nonsense, and I’m sure many do, but that doesn’t change the fact that by claiming to be out there ‘in reality’ is a claim to be describing what is really real. What really exists beyond the surface. Obviously scientists don’t stop at ordinary observations of nature, they want to get deeper, always deeper, to new levels, to get a more accurate model- all to attempt to describe what is really real. That’s why physicists get so excited about getting a Theory of Everything, that theory would put them in touch with the universe as it really is, not just how we perceive it in ordinary day to day life, but how it truly exists-- that is, the noumena. I’m sure some scientists more trained in the ways of philosophy might have more to say to this, but most aren’t and many think it’s a stupid waste of time. That doesn’t mean that we can’t diagnose what they are doing even if they refuse to.

I can’t say I disagree with you, but you make me nervous! There seems to be this little tendency to waffle, and the dualism seems to keep peeking through the fingers over your eyes.

I don’t think there is anything that is “really real” apart from experience as long as we define “experience” as including a mind experiencing and ordering. If you are not used to the idea, it definitely takes some getting used to. Stuff “out there” is so ingrained in western culture that it is hard at first to think any other way. So even thinking in terms of “surface appearances” makes me nervous.

We can’t know anything that is not observable in some way and at some point we just have to make the plunge and give up the dualism altogether.

You may be right that string theorists, let’s say, go around feeling all superior because they know reality as it “really” is. But they really don’t any more than a car mechanic “really” knows cars or a surgeon really knows the body.

There is always that cultural element that we personally don’t experience, but we accept as true because somebody else has experienced it. Just when we thought we really had it, some guy half a world away does an experiment that shows that we weren’t even close.

Even for the experts there is always someone else who understands it in a little different way, or another competing theory just as “real” as the theory they are working on.

And the Hegelian dialectic moves forward.

 

[mfbukowski]

I think claiming that he decisively proved the matter is not something I’d agree with .

It is possible to gain synthetic a priori knowledge so I’d have to modify #1. I suppose it depends on what we need to use #1 for if this really matters or not. What if I say that #1 is typically true?

Hey it’s a free country, but I am not a fan of the alleged synthetic apriori

It’s a cop out to keep the dualism alive. It’s like Joseph and “immaterial matter”. There ain’t any.

 

[nebula]

I can’t say I disagree with you, but you make me nervous! There seems to be this little tendency to waffle, and the dualism seems to keep peeking through the fingers over your eyes.

I don’t think there is anything that is “really real” apart from experience as long as we define “experience” as including a mind experiencing and ordering. If you are not used to the idea, it definitely takes some getting used to. Stuff “out there” is so ingrained in western culture that it is hard at first to think any other way. So even thinking in terms of “surface appearances” makes me nervous.

We can’t know anything that is not observable in some way and at some point we just have to make the plunge and give up the dualism altogether.

You may be right that string theorists, let’s say, go around feeling all superior because they know reality as it “really” is. But they really don’t any more than a car mechanic “really” knows cars or a surgeon really knows the body.

There is always that cultural element that we personally don’t experience, but we accept as true because somebody else has experienced it. Just when we thought we really had it, some guy half a world away does an experiment that shows that we weren’t even close.

Even for the experts there is always someone else who understands it in a little different way, or another competing theory just as “real” as the theory they are working on.

And the Hegelian dialectic moves forward.

You have yet to demonstrate that our experiences are the end all and be all of reality and it seems suspicious to me. I don’t disagree with how scientific consensus radically changes overnight, but that doesn’t change the fact that scientists are seeking the reality behind the curtain. You argue there is only the curtain, but then, why is there the curtain? How did it get there? If there is no reality behind it to hone in on, why waste time doing science at all… sure, scientific views of the universe change, but the nature of our technology is enough to demonstrate that something is happening, that there is a reality out there to discover and manipulate. If that’s what you mean by ‘works’ then ‘works’ intimately depends on what is actually true.

 

[mfbukowski]

You have yet to demonstrate that our experiences are the end all and be all of reality and it seems suspicious to me. I don’t disagree with how scientific consensus radically changes overnight, but that doesn’t change the fact that scientists are seeking the reality behind the curtain. You argue there is only the curtain, but then, why is there the curtain? How did it get there? If there is no reality behind it to hone in on, why waste time doing science at all… sure, scientific views of the universe change, but the nature of our technology is enough to demonstrate that something is happening, that there is a reality out there to discover and manipulate. If that’s what you mean by ‘works’ then ‘works’ intimately depends on what is actually true.

Please demonstrate what is behind the curtain, and how we could know about it.

What scientists are seeking, if you are correct, and what they will find is another thing. What you suggest is that one day, everything will be known scientifically and we will all sit on our laurels and do no more science because we have finally found things as they truly are and there will be nothing else to learn.

I think you don’t really think that is possible do you?

 

[soma]

Even though men forget and reject God, God never ceases to love and call every man to seek Him in order to find peace and happiness because He is not far from each one of us even though he transcends all creatures. We live in God’s consciousness, move and have our being in God so we must continually speak with all men, religions, philosophies and sciences about those things that exceed our understanding so we can grasp the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible and the ungraspable with our minds and representations.