The Atheism vs Theism Debate: I'm frustrated

[M0nkey]

Peter Kreeft tells me if I have a longing for God, there then must be a God (!).

It’s called the proof of desire, if you are hungry, then it follows logically that there must be food. Hence, if you thirst for Him, it follows that He must exist. There are numerous one, take First Cause for example.

What do you recommend?

God has to touch you first, it seems He’s giving you time to think, but don’t cease on knocking. Just think, God is logic (“logos”), so in order to reach to a logical conclusion of His existence He must show you Himself first.

 

[liquidpele]

It’s called the proof of desire, if you are hungry, then it follows logically that there must be food. Hence, if you thirst for Him, it follows that He must exist. There are numerous one, take First Cause for example.

God has to touch you first, it seems He’s giving you time to think, but don’t cease on knocking. Just think, God is logic (“logos”), so in order to reach to a logical conclusion of His existence He must show you Himself first.

I thirst for a magical pink unicorn… surely a unicorn must then exist?

 

[Touchstone]

It’s called the proof of desire, if you are hungry, then it follows logically that there must be food. Hence, if you thirst for Him, it follows that He must exist. There are numerous one, take First Cause for example.

Yes, I’ve seen the Kreeft articulation of it before, and of course I recognize that from Lewis, way back. But this isn’t even a little persuasive, and I can only think this a happy little musing for those who are already committed to the conclusion. There’s no reason at all to think that all of our natural, pervasive desires must have real satisfactions, just by virtue of having those desires.

That only works if you assume that some god has designed the world by that rule. And if you already think that, there’s no need for this argument. If you don’t embrace the idea that God has a design rule that says natural desires must be matched on for one with satisfactions, this looks like a stark non-sequitur. Doesn’t follow at all.

God has to touch you first, it seems He’s giving you time to think, but don’t cease on knocking. Just think, God is logic (“logos”), so in order to reach to a logical conclusion of His existence He must show you Himself first.

Well if he’s reified just by the intution that man’s inner longing for a relationship transcendant being, it’s a complete non-starter. That is anti-logical. That’s engaging in cartoon-universe level subjectivity… reality as something that fundamentally transforms and reconfigures itself around my ego-centric desires.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

What do I have to do to set you up with a really nice God right now? All joking aside, you have not told me why you dislike craig.

I’ve attended one Craig debate, and heard them all, save one or two – all that are available for free or for paid access. I’ve not heard Craig v. Parsons form last year – my MP3 file got corrupted somehow, and I’ve not gone to track down a replacement. But I’m very familiar with Craig via debates and his books, and his column/answers at LeaderU.

Just to throw my two biggest beefs out there, quickly – we can spin them into threads if you want to pursue:

1. If God doesn’t exist, objective morality doesn’t exist. Objective morality exists, ergo God exists.

People actually applaud this from Craig. It’s embarrassing. To add intellectual insult to intellectual injury, he takes time when he can get it into to argue that evil is an argument fro God, as if there is evil, there must be objective morality, hence God. And he keeps a straight face delivering this. Amazing.

1. Cosmological argument (Kalam). Probably a dozen complaints against his formulation and argument of it. Actual infinities can’t exist because it produces absurdities with operators (like addition) we apply to cardinal numbers. Whoops, infinities and transfinites are not cardinal numbers, Bill. Craig is well aware of Cantor, and what Cantor means to his premise. But he just supposes the audience won’t know any better, and that it’s dang hard for any opponent to show this in a 12-minute rebuttal. And Craig is quite right in that understanding.

This is sophistry.

uh huh… are you saying Aquanis is begging the question?

Tell me, what is the difference between an accidental series of efficient causes and an essential series of subordinated efficient causes? I want to make sure you actually understand the argument first, and this is where most people screw up.

“Essential” establishes ontological dependency, and “subordinated” makes the chain hierarchical (thus ontologically hierarchical). Aquinas allowed that “man begetting man” cold stretch back to infinity (horizontally infinite), but if one allows that man depended on the sun, and the sun on stardust, etc., Aquinas denied such a dependency chain (vertical) could be both actual and infinite.

I have never heard Kreeft, but I this is a bit of mystical theology. You do understand that most people don’t form a belief in God from philosophical argument. right?

I do, and it’s easy to see why! This is particularly poignant in the case of Craig, philosopher king of Christian philosophical apologetics (at least on stage, maybe Plantinga wins in print). He’s as mystically, non-philosophically founded as a Christian as any you’d meet. It’s just his job to lay suppressing philosophical fire down to keep the infidels (who much more commonly do form beliefs based on structured arguments) at bay.

My experience tells me there is a story behind this. I know two people, who reject God primarily because they prayed for God to save their childhood friend from cancer, and he didn’t, and now they don’t believe He exists.

Well, I hope that’s not the case. That’s a totally bogus reason to suppose God doesn’t exist. As Craig will occasionally (and correctly) jab, that requires sitting in God’s lap to slap his face.

-TS

 

[Matthias123]

1. If God doesn’t exist, objective morality doesn’t exist. Objective morality exists, ergo God exists.

I always thought he was weak on the moral argument. Although the 19th century atheists do agree.

Actual infinities

You say actual infinities exist in reality? Craig has responded to that (if I remember correctly) and he claimed that these do no exist in reality, but as abstract mathematical objects that are useful.

In the first place, the argument does not try to prove the logical impossibility of the existence of an actually infinite number of things, but its metaphysical impossibility. I have emphasized that the argument does not in any way deny that Cantor’s set-theoretical universe is, given its axioms and conventions, logically consistent, in that no contradiction has be shown to follow from its axioms.

That took me 2 seconds to find.

reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5911

“Essential” establishes ontological dependency, and “subordinated” makes the chain hierarchical (thus ontologically hierarchical). Aquinas allowed that “man begetting man” cold stretch back to infinity (horizontally infinite), but if one allows that man depended on the sun, and the sun on stardust, etc., Aquinas denied such a dependency chain (vertical) could be both actual and infinite.

 

[Touchstone]

You say actual infinities exist in reality? Craig has responded to that (if I remember correctly) and he claimed that these do no exist in reality, but as abstract mathematical objects that are useful.

Hey, movie night here, so no time for more than this in response tonight, but NO, that’s not what I’m saying. Denying Craig’s claim that actual inifinities (as would dismiss the Kalam) CANNOT OBTAIN is untenable, indefensible, per Cantor (among other reasons). That is NOT a claim from me that such infinities can, do or must exist. Craig’s premise simply fails, as it does not have a leg to stand on. If I say “green chickens cannot exist” as a premise, my premise does not stand so long as noone produces a green chicken. My premise holds on its own merits – why should we think that true? Even if no green chickens exist, such a claim as “green chickens cannot exist” is bogus, as it may be possible and they just don’t. Or perhaps it’s possible and they do exist, and we just aren’t aware, etc.

Your response, oddly, is the same as Craig’s. “They do exist? How do you know?”. The onus isn’t on me at all for that. Rather, Craig must support his premise positively, why they CANNOT exist. In light of Cantor, good luck. And he’s a smart guy. He knows he’s hosed there. But he keeps on with it… it’s for a good cause.

That took me 2 seconds to find.

reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5911

Yeah, that’s really lousy stuff - if you’d like to defend Craig and that article, I’d relish taking that bit on with someone who thinks its defensible. It takes longer to take apart than the two seconds it took to find it, but it falls apart completely (I wouldn’t be taking the same route as Swinburne, however, and I don’t have time to go chase it down just now, but Craig elsewhere addresses Cantor and sets more directly (leaderU?) ).

More anon.

-TS

 

[Matthias123]

Hey, movie night here, so no time for more than this in response tonight, but NO, that’s not what I’m saying. Denying Craig’s claim that actual inifinities (as would dismiss the Kalam) CANNOT OBTAIN is untenable, indefensible, per Cantor (among other reasons). That is NOT a claim from me that such infinities can, do or must exist. Craig’s premise simply fails, as it does not have a leg to stand on. If I say “green chickens cannot exist” as a premise, my premise does not stand so long as noone produces a green chicken. My premise holds on its own merits – why should we think that true? Even if no green chickens exist, such a claim as “green chickens cannot exist” is bogus, as it may be possible and they just don’t. Or perhaps it’s possible and they do exist, and we just aren’t aware, etc.

Your response, oddly, is the same as Craig’s. “They do exist? How do you know?”. The onus isn’t on me at all for that. Rather, Craig must support his premise positively, why they CANNOT exist. In light of Cantor, good luck. And he’s a smart guy. He knows he’s hosed there. But he keeps on with it… it’s for a good cause.

Yeah, that’s really lousy stuff - if you’d like to defend Craig and that article, I’d relish taking that bit on with someone who thinks its defensible. It takes longer to take apart than the two seconds it took to find it, but it falls apart completely (I wouldn’t be taking the same route as Swinburne, however, and I don’t have time to go chase it down just now, but Craig elsewhere addresses Cantor and sets more directly (leaderU?) ).

More anon.

-TS

How about we let Craig defend himself? Saying “that whole response is garbage” means nothing to me.

reasonablefaith.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=1180&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS

Give him everything you have. With your knowledge and rhetoric I am betting he will respond.

 

[teachccd]

Well, I was a Christian for 30 years and more. My whole family was and still is a devoted group of Christians. Most of my friends outside of work are Christians, because my social life has been all about church community for 20 years now. I am a homeschooling Dad with six kids, and have formerly part of “leadership” of that large group (heh. Can’t quite sign the statement of faith for that group anymore, which puts me in the same boat as Catholics who otherwise would like to join the group). I went the whole way, the full ticket. And abandoning Christianity is pure insanity, social suicide for me, save for my conscience, and the developing courage (better late than never) to stand up and say the Emperor Has No Clothes…

What do you recommend?

-TS

While I formulate my recommendation, might you enlighten me as to what was the catalyst for your pulling away from Christianity after 30 years? Was there an event, an influence, a hurtful experience? What initiated your detour? Your answer will help me with my recommendation as well as provide me with the insight needed to springboard my experiences in my response. Thank you…teachccd

 

[Matthias123]

Whoops, infinities and transfinites are not cardinal numbers

Are not aleph-null, aleph-one, and aleph-two cardinal numbers?

 

[Matthias123]

Next of all Cantor himself said that his theory, the philosophical and theological understanding of God, were one. He even believed transfinite numbers were revealed to him by God himself. (Dauben 2004, pp. 8, 11 & 12-13)

 

[Areopagite]

OK, that’s a response I get consistently, and understand. It’s straightforward, and fair as far as it goes. But in my case, I would say I had the experience of revelation, not just the background intuition of God, but some distinct sorts of “flares of intuition”.

Yeah, I did too. I went through a definite period of thinking that I had moments of revelation, when in fact, I was exaggerating things to myself (or simply making it up presumptively). It was not until I admitted to myself (and God) that I didn’t know anything … and that’s when I had the capacity to receive some kind of divine insight.

Looking back, those moments of intuition were not wrong … it was my analysis of them that were wrong. But maybe that’s just me.

But that’s where I ran into the brick wall some time later: why do I call that knowledge? I had confused the two – intuition and knowledge – as many seem to, for all that time, but when confronting myself, and asking others (knowledge is a team sport!), what made that “knowledge”, I was persistently unable to come up with anything that would stand up to even small amounts of scrutiny.

Once again, I would not separate intuition from knowledge. Intuition is a kind of knowledge. Discursive or reasoned-out knowledge is another kind of knowledge. This must be accepted, otherwise, rejecting intuition as knowledge entails rejecting all other kinds of knowledge. I know that one can erroneously claim to “know things by intuition” that aren’t actually true, but this is no argument to reject intuition as a kind of knowledge.

Now, it is possible that your supposed intuitions were not intuitions at all. If you honestly doubted (opposed to willfully and sinfully doubted) those supposed intuitions, then they were not intuitions. One cannot honestly doubt one’s knowledge (unless they unnaturally choose to do so). Thus, if you had no ill will in doubting your “experiences of revelation” but honestly found reason not to take them seriously, then they were not intuitions, not knowledge, and not any kind of divine revelation.

In reasoning about it, it was just far simpler to understand that these intuitional flares were just that.

Faith is not a flare. It has a permanent component of knowledge to it. You may have mistaken certain emotional feelings with faith. That’s one possibility at least.

Right, and if you press me hard, you can reliably force me to reduce my epistemology to its bedrock intuitions: Why is reality real? Because I have the (insuperably) strong intuition that it is! But the distinguishing factor for me, and I think this is available to all is: *what of these intuitions is not just compelling, but unassailable? *The reality of reality cannot be overcome. Everything I do proves I embrace the intuition, and I cannot do otherwise. The intuition that basic logical rules obtain – the law of non-contradiction – are simply too overpowering to let go of.

Well, to play the skeptic, I would respond to the claim “reality cannot be overcome” is dependent on assuming reality exists (it’s a tautology). Likewise, “accepting the law of non-contradiction because nothing makes sense otherwise” is also assuming the law of non-contradiction is true (and so that’s a tautology as well). These things must be accepted on faith. They cannot be proved (but you already agree to that).

That’s good that you have strong intuitions that these are true. But the truths of the Catholic faith can be just as strongly intuited as well. Obviously, to varying degrees, depending on one’s level of faith.

But the God intuition, waxing an waning though it might from one point in life to another, was never that way. It was never necessary, lest I die, or be reduced to a babbling fool in the corner of the bedroom closet, like denying the reality is real intuition, or the intuition that the law of non-contradiction obtains.

There have been numerous modern philosophers (some of distinguished academic standing) who have denied reality or the principle of non-contradiction, and are not reduced to fetal positions.

Also, one’s faith only waxes and wanes by one’s choices (i.e. by their sins or increases of grace). Now, it’s possible that some people mistake emotional sentiment (or something) for faith, and thus makes it seem that their faith is waxing and waning without their consent. But if it’s true faith, it will stand firm, so long as one does not reject it in any way.

 

[Areopagite]

Yes, but that assertion itself is nothing more than a hunch. How would you distinguish that claim from a hunch, an intuition about your intuitions, when you’ve just said this “knowledge” came by way of intuition (or maybe you want to call it ‘revelation’… in any case, not from rational processing)?

Still … not sure what you’re saying here.

Not if they truly are first principles. If they are transcendentals, then they are not hypotheses, but axioms, “truths by necessity”. And I again say this is where theism breaks down in rational terms, because the God hypothesis is NOT an axiom, not a necessary truth we cannot help accepting up front, and since that is the case, it does stand as hypothesis, subject to the jury of experience and reasoning. Same algorithm applies to any putative “first principle”: what is necessary is accepted of necessity, what is not is provisional hypothesis, subject to validation or falsification.

I agree that the existence of God is not self-evident (and in that way theism is not an axiom or first principle). But I would say that the existence of God is necessary (for all of existence) … as Aquinas’ Cosmological proof shows.

And yet it’s true that theism is not something we need to accept upfront (and in that sense, theism is not necessary). However, just like certain advanced mathematical formulas are not necessary in that sense, they still are true, just like the existence of God is true (as Aquinas proof argues).

But this is a separate debate because this does not concern divine revelation (which is what we’re talking about … simple theism and the Cosmological proof does not claim to deal with divine revelation).

So the question is, “Can intuitions that do not pertain to first principles or any knowledge that is necessary for other knowledge be counted as legitimate knowledge?” Well, going off of Aristotle’s definition of intuition (“immediate knowledge”), I would definitely say so. I can look at a chair and not bother to reason out what it is … rather, I can immediately identify it as a chair. That particular knowledge is not necessary for all other knowledge, and so the claim “Can intuitions that do not pertain to first principles or any knowledge that is necessary for other knowledge be counted as legitimate knowledge?” is most definitely false.

Now, you may accuse me of making a devious strawman or something … but … I don’t know what your exactly arguing here perhaps.

Yes, what Kant (and many others) would call “analytical reasoning” toward “analytical truth”. That’s good and valuable stuff – I’m a software guy that works on math-intensive stuff – but it’s not connected to the real world, until I make those attachments.

That’s fine, but it’s crucial to point out that “local truths” in those systems say perfectly nothing about the real world, untill they are connected to the real world.

So here you are saying that inductive knowledge is the only knowledge that pertains to reality, whereas deductive knowledge is only logical knowledge (i.e. knowledge about things that do not exist outside the mind, yet can sometimes have foundation or relevance to reality). Hence, you say that all knowledge about reality is knowledge that can be tested.

There are a couple examples to show how knowledge about reality does not need to be tested in order to be knowledge about reality: 1) The example of the guy flipping the coin and getting tails ten times in a row … him witnessing that is knowledge enough for him … he doesn’t have to test it later on. 2) I could read and thus gain knowledge about Asia, and yet never visit Asia to make sure it even exists.

Also, I would ask why the scientific formulas gathered from experiments would be considered real knowledge … since the formulas are abstract and don’t actually exist in reality.

Also, there is the whole can of worms about the uncertainty of the consistency of physical laws. Just because we tested the behavior of a certain physical substance (and perhaps many times too), what guarantee do we have that it shall continue that behavior under similar conditions? There are some atheists who will say that knowledge of physical laws is no knowledge at all … but merely prediction … educated guesses.

It is true, at least, that inductive reasoning is very imperfect reasoning indeed.

Well, what comes to mind immediately is our subject here: on one hand, God is derivable by reason, as knowledge produced by objective evidence and reasoning from it. On the other hand, Christians “know” God exists – the knowledge is given by revelation, the gift of faith. But “revelation as knowledge” is contradictory – an equivocation on that totally undermines the very concept of knowledge, and renders it meaningless. In the Christian model, believers “know without knowing”, having knowledge which obtains neither by necessity or via reasoning on the evidence of experience and observation.

I might be misunderstanding you, but the claim that the truths of the faith are not only supernatural truths (truths that cannot be discovered by natural reason) but also contain natural ones (which are required for understanding the supernatural ones). It is true that it is claimed that God’s existence can be known by natural reason (without the assistance of faith), but faith contains more than merely this fact … it gives (or begins to give) one understanding of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church, and the significance of them to one’s soul (for example).

 

[Satonamat]

Miles and miles and piles and piles of…nothing. As one of you states “I could argue about this for days”

Exactly, anthing but what you need to do, provide a shred of proof.

All the intellectual phony arguments in the world are meaningless unless you can do that.

Can any of you point to such evidence? Silence is accepted as a big NO. Rubbish replies quoting this “expert” and that also accepted as a big NO.

Proof, you understand the word? Not hope or belief, factual evidence.

All I see on this forum is waffle, hair splitting and attempts to ine up each other about something that does not exist. Haven’t you ever considered the alternative?

To the idiot who asked if I’m indifferent why I am here the answer is simple, I got an email from the administrator aying I hadn’t posted for ages and would I like to. Logged in and this question was there. 5 minutes spent. That’s indifferent.

 

[tonyrey]

Exactly, anything but what you need to do, provide a shred of proof.

Demonstrate what you can prove…

 

[M0nkey]

I thirst for a magical pink unicorn… surely a unicorn must then exist?

The God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is unlike any “magical pink unicorn.” Surely, you must render evidence that you long for such a thing, if you can’t, then it does not exist.

That only works if you assume that some god has designed the world by that rule.

There’s evidence that nature is ordered in this way, can you render proof otherwise? As an example, babies have a sucking reflex, it follows that nursing must exist. Not the most “persuasive” argument I know, but I don’t see how it’s a non-sequitur.

Well if he’s reified just by the intution that man’s inner longing for a relationship transcendant being, it’s a complete non-starter. That is anti-logical. That’s engaging in cartoon-universe level subjectivity… reality as something that fundamentally transforms and reconfigures itself around my ego-centric desires.

Here lies the problem, to say a transcendent reality exists is to say that it is objective. It cannot be subjective for the same reason that we don’t normally experience such a reality through senses. Think of Plato’s cave, you are only seeing the shadows of what you *subjectively *think is the real world, but outside the cave, which is transcendent of the cave lies the real *objective *world. Or think of a rock that is out in the horizon, just because you cannot subjectively experience the rock doesn’t mean that it doesn’t objectively exist.

To the idiot…

I take it you subscribe to the likes of Dawkins and his new atheism of hate. Tell me this, how can you be more “enlightened” when all that comes out is irrational hate?

 

[teachccd]

Exactly, anthing but what you need to do, provide a shred of proof.

Proof, you understand the word? Not hope or belief, factual evidence.

Prove to me that love exists. Do you believe that love exists? Without giving me the characteristics of what love might “look like” (as I can do that with faith in God) give me factual evidence that love exists. How do I see love? Where is it contained? Exactly when does love begin and when does it end? Do you love anyone? Prove it to me. I need factual evidence. I need proof that love exists.

Post your undeniable evidence showing the tangible essence of love. Perhaps you can mail me some in a petrie dish…teachccd

 

[Touchstone]

What initiated your detour? Your answer will help me with my recommendation as well as provide me with the insight needed to springboard my experiences in my response. Thank you…teachccd

After years of growing doubts about Protestantism – God was never a question – I stopped going to church. This is not a good lifestyle for one’s faith so after a year or so of being '“unchurched”, much of that spent in heavy dialog with thoughtful, committed Catholic friends I’d known for a long time, I decided to take a serious look at becoming a Catholic, “swimming the Tiber”. I was already “pre-Catholic” in significant regards, accepting that *sola scriptura *was a bogus idea, accepting the Catholic formula of faith and works in terms of justification, sanctification and soteriology (see Francis Beckwith’s conversion to Catholicism around that time – similar kinds of convictions on those issues).

If I was going to make the switch, and try to convince my family to come with me, I wanted to make sure I could make it stick, and could unreservedly commit to life as a devout, practicing Catholic. It was very important that Catholicism was not just another bit of “religious flailing” for me.

So that triggered for a process of critical review – starting from “first principles” with everything on the table – as a way to get things lined up for becoming a Catholic, enrolling in RCIA, and making that last. Part of that was a “square one” review of why I believed in God in the first place, engaged in part with friends who were thoughtful Catholics, well educated in their faith. This was not a test of if I believed in God, but why, as the basis for accepting the role of the Catholic Church’s teaching and authority.

That caused a complete crisis I was totally unready for. Building up my case for God caused a panic. I had an intuitive sense of God, and a “faith life” that was rich in “supernatural experience”, but I had come to know through science and real life, just how dubious intuition was – great as hypothesis, but not knowledge itself. I considered myself an evidentialist, along the lines of Lee Strobel and William Lane Craig, and turning to them to save me from my doubts just pushed me further over the edge, reading their arguments and realizing how woefully inadequate they were.

My Catholic friends tried all sorts of things – the Five Ways and Thomistic philosophy, which makes God look even more like a sham than it ever had (and I was already familiar with them, and considered them a big strike against Catholicism as “the truth”). I was encouraged to pray, meditate, seek, and get busy with charity and giving, all of which I did, and thought to be a rewarding experience, but yet a godless one, a process where my “asking” just made God’s silence and absence all the more conspicuous.

Reading posts here at CAF really pushed me over the edge – in a good way, I think now, but in a terrifying, oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-ruin-my-life-and-lose-my-marriage-and-family kind of way. Hanging out with Protestant evangelicals for the previous years, searching, thinking, testing, had shown to me that the chances that they were fooling themselves and simply believing what they wanted, because they wanted, were very high. One key problem in evangelicaldom is that thinking, rational Christians cannot resist the truly delusional faction, the young earth creationists, fundamentalists, the pharisees, the self-idolizers.

CAF is much more skewed toward thoughtful Christianity, but intense dialog with Christian friends (offline) on this, and reading a lot at CAF (and other places) produce the same conviction: Catholic is better at fending off rank foolishness than conservative Protestantism is, but only just; in the end, Catholicism cannot distinguish itself from foolishness that wants to be deluded any more than Protestants can.

Foolish self-delusion does NOT disprove God. Finding hostility toward reason and love of one’s own intuition over all else does not justify atheism. But what it does do is convict an honest man – when you see it in others, you can see it in yourself. These extreme examples – see the evolution denialism going on here right now, for example – are useful as a “mirror” of sorts. In them, I was shown my own folly, how deeply committed to fooling myself about God and the soul and eternity. I hadn’t been that extreme since my “rabid fundy” days as a young adult, but I was doing the same thing, and was just putting an intellectual veneer on it. If anything, I was more foolish and dishonest then the crazies. At least they were clearly identifiable. I was a “crypto-crazy”, one who was just as committed to fooling myself about God and religion, but also committed to being dishonest about it.

That was it. That tore it. I pleaded with friends, Protestant and Catholic, to help me find a way to falsify my convictions that I’d been willfully fooling myself for so long. Their valiant efforts only served to reinforce the conviction, to show how they were fooling themselves, too, alas. Even with my marriage, family relationships and social circles hanging in the balance – that’s a lot to work to maintain! – the “routes to God” I had maintained, intuitive, revelatory, evidential, all were closed off, untenable.

There was no “death in the family” or personal crisis like that near this. I was quite excited, frankly, to be approaching a faith I could believe in in a way that matched my faith in God himself. Indeed, becoming an atheist was as terrifying and costly for me as it was unexpected. In trying to “rebuild my base” for a switch to the “next 30 years” for me as a Catholic, that analysis revealed my intuitions, my claimed evidence, and my sense of the supernatural to be much more efficiently and robustly explained as naïve creduility toward instinct, emotional desire, and my pseudo-reasoning sophistry about the evidence for God.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Yeah, I did too. I went through a definite period of thinking that I had moments of revelation, when in fact, I was exaggerating things to myself (or simply making it up presumptively). It was not until I admitted to myself (and God) that I didn’t know anything … and that’s when I had the capacity to receive some kind of divine insight.

OK, well that’s the difference then. Admitting I don’t know anything would be massive over-correction in the other direction, it seems (and I realize you use the term advisedly, and reserve the claim to knowledge that not only do exist, but that you can drive a car, and all sorts of other mundane things…). Saying “I know nothin’” in that arena is fine, but that’s a big problem for when divine insight or revelatory knowledge is received. If I didn’t know how to qualify things before, how is this new divine insight qualified as such? The answer seems to be “I just know”. Which is the very problem that got me off the rails in the first place…

Once again, I would not separate intuition from knowledge. Intuition is a kind of knowledge.

I’d say it’s “in the mix”, but in the way a hypothesis is scientific. It’s a “front-end” feature of the process, not the back end result. This is easily shown just by reviewing how many of our intuitions do not bear out in real world testing. Many do, but many fail, and badly. And we don’t have a way to tell the successful ones from the failures up front, just as we don’t know until we test various hypotheses what merit they have as descriptions about the real world.

Discursive or reasoned-out knowledge is another kind of knowledge. This must be accepted, otherwise, rejecting intuition as knowledge entails rejecting all other kinds of knowledge. I know that one can erroneously claim to “know things by intuition” that aren’t actually true, but this is no argument to reject intuition as a kind of knowledge.

That’s the strongest basis to reject it as knowledge. Such a rejection does not mean intuitions cannot be promoted to knowledge through testing and validation – many are, and many succeed with flying colors that way. But categorically, refusing to recognize the categorical distinctions of intuition and qualified knowledge is to confuse hypothesis with tested theory.

Theories can be, and are shown to be wrong, or “off” in some way. But theory and knowledge is a method, a heuristic, not a guarantee of truth itself. An incorrect theory is still epistemically advanced beyond intuition – Newtonian physics are still basically valid for many practical purposes, and even though it has been superseded by GR, it was always way more than intuition by virtue of the empirical validation it did have.

Now, it is possible that your supposed intuitions were not intuitions at all. If you honestly doubted (opposed to willfully and sinfully doubted) those supposed intuitions, then they were not intuitions. One cannot honestly doubt one’s knowledge (unless they unnaturally choose to do so). Thus, if you had no ill will in doubting your “experiences of revelation” but honestly found reason not to take them seriously, then they were not intuitions, not knowledge, and not any kind of divine revelation.

Perhaps, but if that’s the case, it doesn’t seem to help matters. Even on that view, I’ve now got “pseudo-intuitions” that are impossible for me to distinguish from veridical intuitions, unless I qualify them by evidence and reason. Which doesn’t help me at all.

It’s well known, for example, that humans have strong, erroneous intutions about statistics and probabilities. I work in that area a lot, so I have experience with both a) my strong intuitions about chance and probability and b) objective knowledge that shows those strong intuitions to be bogus. Even over decades of overturning my intuitions, the same ones I see indulged here regularly (see the “life is too improbable to happen by chance” meme, for exampel), those intuitions do not go away. They appear to be quite innate, and scientific literature I’ve read on this supports this a common feature of human pyschology.

So I have these intuitions, and I can’t make them go away. But I doubt them as knowledge, because the predictions, distinctions and judgments those intuitions generate for me turn out to be systematically wrong, and widely so. Over and over and over. Am I honestly doubting my intuitions on this?

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Areopagite:

Faith is not a flare. It has a permanent component of knowledge to it. You may have mistaken certain emotional feelings with faith. That’s one possibility at least.

Right. I think a major epistemic problem is finding a principled and objective way of separating one from the other. I am unable to find any process of judging that isn’t completely vulnerable to my own subjective biases either way on judging that.

Well, to play the skeptic, I would respond to the claim “reality cannot be overcome” is dependent on assuming reality exists (it’s a tautology). Likewise, “accepting the law of non-contradiction because nothing makes sense otherwise” is also assuming the law of non-contradiction is true (and so that’s a tautology as well). These things must be accepted on faith. They cannot be proved (but you already agree to that).

Yes, but no. Faith in the pedantic sense that it is “belief without evidence”, but not faith in that is non-optional, necessary. See my persistent raising of the “cigarette lighter test” for any who suppose reality isn’t real. An open flame under the hand shows quite vividly that even the most staunch denier of the reality of reality refutes his own claims when the flame hits his palm.

These beliefs are accepted of necessity, and that makes labeling it “faith” an empty, and possibly just misleading statement. What we commonly mean by “faith” is some choice made beyond the merits of the evidence to a belief.

That’s good that you have strong intuitions that these are true. But the truths of the Catholic faith can be just as strongly intuited as well. Obviously, to varying degrees, depending on one’s level of faith.

I have no way to evaluate that. Every man is an island, in that case. The reality of reality is a universal intuition – demonstrably, and one that cannot be refused except on pain of death, quickly and violently, all too often. That suggests its a feature of human nature. But the God intuition, as pervasive as it is in children (and I think it is a ubiquitous feature of child psychology) does not obtain and persist like that. God elects whom he will, I guess, on that view.

There have been numerous modern philosophers (some of distinguished academic standing) who have denied reality or the principle of non-contradiction, and are not reduced to fetal positions.

Yeah, but their claims are falsified trivially - just follow them around for a few minutes, and you will see overwhelming proof that they do, in practice, proceed on the operating principles of the reality of reality and the efficacy of the law of non-contradiction. It’s amusing to encounter people who deny these, and then immediately proceed to behave on principles that affirm what they just denied.

Theistic intuitions are not transcendental like that.

Also, one’s faith only waxes and wanes by one’s choices (i.e. by their sins or increases of grace). Now, it’s possible that some people mistake emotional sentiment (or something) for faith, and thus makes it seem that their faith is waxing and waning without their consent. But if it’s true faith, it will stand firm, so long as one does not reject it in any way.

How do you know this? Is this an example of “intuition as knowledge”?

-TS

 

[Joe_Brown]

First, can you explain why you reject the first way? Also, I would recommend sending a PM to JDaniel. He apparently has his PhD in physics, and was a very convinced atheist himself at one time.

Woops, this is Matthias123, I didn’t know my brother was logged in.