The great hallucination

[ffg]

Thanks Picky,

Thanks for the links, interesting reads.

I have been trying to respond all week, but kept getting interrupted.

We’ll be leaving tomorrow for a couple weeks, I’ll try and get the response in while we are gone.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

Hi Picky,

Sorry it’s been so long, crazy last couple of months. I figure I’ll jump right back in…

Let’s see, we have from your last 3 items:

~Wright’s thoughts on the Trilemma (actually a seeming book report on ‘Mere Christianity’, inclusive of a paragraph of Trilemma analysis).

~Fr. Riccardo going in circles.

~Ken Brown’s take on the Tri-Lemma.

I appreciate you sharing the links, good food for thought.

As for Fr. John, it seems to be a misunderstanding, one that you may have already cleared up for yourself. I think it would be safe to say a circular conclusion is not what he intended when presenting and surely they wouldn’t post an accidental flub for the masses. Clarity being desired is always a great thing. We can revisit, unless you have already taken a second listen to iron out the logic.

Seeing these writings from Mr. Wright and Mr. Brown, it is much clearer to me the problem with the trilemma.

It’s the attention on the number.

If Jesus is not God, it doesn’t matter if he is 2 or 3 or 100 or 1000 other characteristics, including His contextual history (Wright) or myth or more (Brown).

If it was known as the logic-lemma, or the reasonable-lemma perhaps the critical audience would focus their attention on the foundational details that build the theory.

It seems people see the easy numerical term (trilemma) like a layer cake L-L-L.

First critical response seems to be “add another layer, see the cake still stands”.

Mr. Wright wants to add a layer or two to the bottom of the cake, Mr. Brown wants to top it off.

Both missing the point – analyzing the ingredients of the cake right in front of them - **and finding the most tasty layer. **

I can’t eat what I don’t have (Brown’s myth or more), and I’m not going to reject and rebuild the cake because I didn’t include enough flour or lemon flavor (wright’s contextual arguement).

The cake in front of me is what I have, that’s what I have to deal with today.

A few of the ingredients of the cake in front of us have been presented in our discussion, but not wholly analyzed. Perhaps we should pick one and sift.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

I do want to tie off our earlier subject.

We can provide reasoning and specifics now to the concept that we can’t use causal analysis, as you pointed out earlier. I think it was more of a comment about not using it in apologetics in general.

As we’ve learned here we do not share the same definition with regard to the cause-effect relationship.

For this reason, in our particular conversation here, causal analysis is not helpful. Though I would want both of us to think about, if there is a correct, who is closer -

1. causes cause causes going backwards and effects cause effects going forwards.
2. every effect has a cause.

If I’m ever in a discussion with someone who agrees with me that every effect has a cause, I don’t think it would be a poor idea to analyze ‘first cause’. Since for me it’s quite simply because every effect has a cause.

As a fun side note, this AM I was driving the kids to school and the sun was behind some thick fog so you could look right at it and one of my kids said “if the big bang started matter in motion in space where there is no gravity, and things need a force to change direction, how did the sun stop?”

I thought that was pretty funny, and a good question.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

I do want to tie off our earlier subject.

We can provide reasoning and specifics now to the concept that we can’t use causal analysis, as you pointed out earlier. I think it was more of a comment about not using it in apologetics in general.

As we’ve learned here we do not share the same definition with regard to the cause-effect relationship.

For this reason, in our particular conversation here, causal analysis is not helpful. Though I would want both of us to think about, if there is a correct, who is closer -

1. causes cause causes going backwards and effects cause effects going forwards.
2. every effect has a cause.

If I’m ever in a discussion with someone who agrees with me that every effect has a cause, I don’t think it would be a poor idea to analyze ‘first cause’. Since for me it’s quite simply because every effect has a cause.

As a fun side note, this AM I was driving the kids to school and the sun was behind some thick fog so you could look right at it and one of my kids said “if the big bang started matter in motion in space where there is no gravity, and things need a force to change direction, how did the sun stop?”

I thought that was pretty funny, and a good question.

Take care,

Mike

Hi Mike, good to hear from you: I’d been concerned you might have been having a rough time.

You will not be surprised to hear that I disagree with almost everything you say (except of course for the bit about kids being unknowingly profound).

I’m almost lost from civilisation at the moment – no, that’s not true, I’m actually in the cradle of civilisation – no, not London, although I tend to think that’s true, but wonderful Greece. That won’t stop me replying, but it will slow me down. Life is wonderfully slow here.

Great to hear from you again.

 

[ffg]

Just thinking about Greece makes this box I’m in a little more nice. Glad you get that opportunity.

On the date I last wrote, Saturday July 26th, I had to figure out how to get 8 people across the country the next day for a funeral and surrounding events, of which there were many starting Tuesday.

Who’d have thought it would be difficult to catch a flight for the next day, for 8 folks?

We ended up having to leave from an airport 3.5 hours away (huge cost difference), fly through the worst hub in the world, and eventually make it to our destination.

With regard to our discussion, I thought this Fr. John talk was an interesting perspective with substance around how the Apostles may have felt and what they did in those times surrounding the ressurection.

If you have the time - Start at time 29:45. There are 2 talks in the hour.

(Second Talk on this title: Christ is the Answer – September 3, 2014: You Have Been Anointed) - is the second talk in the list on the website as of now.

avemariaradio.net/archive-categories/christ-is-the-answer/

In the least this gives us another perspective from which to hack apart.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

Hi Picky,

Sorry it’s been so long, crazy last couple of months. I figure I’ll jump right back in…

Let’s see, we have from your last 3 items:

~Wright’s thoughts on the Trilemma (actually a seeming book report on ‘Mere Christianity’, inclusive of a paragraph of Trilemma analysis).

~Fr. Riccardo going in circles.

~Ken Brown’s take on the Tri-Lemma.

I appreciate you sharing the links, good food for thought.

As for Fr. John, it seems to be a misunderstanding, one that you may have already cleared up for yourself. I think it would be safe to say a circular conclusion is not what he intended when presenting and surely they wouldn’t post an accidental flub for the masses. Clarity being desired is always a great thing. We can revisit, unless you have already taken a second listen to iron out the logic.

Seeing these writings from Mr. Wright and Mr. Brown, it is much clearer to me the problem with the trilemma.

It’s the attention on the number.

If Jesus is not God, it doesn’t matter if he is 2 or 3 or 100 or 1000 other characteristics, including His contextual history (Wright) or myth or more (Brown).

If it was known as the logic-lemma, or the reasonable-lemma perhaps the critical audience would focus their attention on the foundational details that build the theory.

It seems people see the easy numerical term (trilemma) like a layer cake L-L-L.

First critical response seems to be “add another layer, see the cake still stands”.

Mr. Wright wants to add a layer or two to the bottom of the cake, Mr. Brown wants to top it off.

Both missing the point – analyzing the ingredients of the cake right in front of them - **and finding the most tasty layer. **

I can’t eat what I don’t have (Brown’s myth or more), and I’m not going to reject and rebuild the cake because I didn’t include enough flour or lemon flavor (wright’s contextual arguement).

The cake in front of me is what I have, that’s what I have to deal with today.

A few of the ingredients of the cake in front of us have been presented in our discussion, but not wholly analyzed. Perhaps we should pick one and sift.

Take care,

Mike

As to Fr Riccardo, I took some trouble to assert that I imagined his circular reasoning was unconscious, not intended. It seems to me evident, though, that the early Church, having determined that Jesus was divine, fed that understanding back into the interpretation of the scriptures, the editing of the scriptures, and the selection of the canon. That circularity is clear to me in what Fr Riccardo says.

As for Lewis, it’s odd to say that Lewis isn’t handling logic, when he clearly makes his point in a statement designed to appear logical: Jesus can be reasonably regarded as L1 or L2 or L3, but he can be reasonably regarded as nothing else. Now it so happens that I and many others find it possible to reasonably regard Jesus as L4 or L5. I don’t have to be right: my reasonably regarding him as L4 is enough to make Lewis’s argument collapse on the spot. It is kinder to his reputation to leave it where it lies.

Hope you are recovering from your time of trouble.

Picky

 

[ffg]

Thanks Picky, Great stuff.

Considering your last line, perhaps you just introduced a new topic!? The differences with dealing with tragedy from our perspectives may be a good one. (My wife actually brought that up at one point before we left for the funeral, that it would be an interesting topic for you and I)

With regard to the circular note:

The Church wouldn’t have lasted too long if on one hand it says “we know by revelation” and on the other hand it acted by “determine XYZ with regard to the divine”. In other words, create it’s own revelation.

(Though I think this explains branches of religions in general (or spin off groups of any subject). Humans determining XYZ vs. accepting foundational teachings, etc. . We are a selfish bunch.)

Since most people like to say “prove it!” , such a goof would be easily identifiable (one would hope) and wouldn’t take 2000+ years and billions of people to figure it out.

We see in the early church the ‘prove it!’ mentality constantly. It’s normal to question and not hidden by the Church.

This might be a repeat in this discussion: If the Church ‘edited’ scriptures to shine a better light on ??? (itself?), it did a really poor job. Folks are constantly walking away from the source of the Church, Jesus, in the documents the Church uses to teach.

I see Lewis’ argument as a stepping stone to what I mentioned earlier, ‘If Jesus is not God, I don’t care if you have L1000, it doesn’t matter’.  

I understand your point in that regardless of even truth, there could be more to the L’s hence L4+ make ‘L1-3 ONLY’ fall, thus, Lewis is -]wrong/-] not housing all options in L1-3. 

If Lewis had built the theory to L100 and provided sound reasoning still concluding with L3 as the only possibility, I think many would still find L101+ to point out.

I do hope you get a chance to listen to that last talk I mentioned. I think it gives us some more firewood to burn around the life of an apostle. I think this is a key point for us.

In the meantime, shall we introduce a new topic?  Dealing with tragedy? Perhaps why the compilation of the Bible exists? ( that was an interesting listen a while back)

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

In an effort for clarity on that Lewis response I gave yesterday, my conclusion from a few days ago still stands as we just proved it out in this most recent back and forth.

Focus on the #'s is missing the point.

There is so much depth to the analysis that is sidelined by a numbers focus.

If one’s goal is to simply point to holes in the cheese wondering where the food went and blaming the cheese maker, they’re going to continue to be hungry.

 

[Picky_Picky]

I’m afraid I regard the Synoptics as works written a lifetime or two lifetimes after the events they describe, by people whom we cannot identify, but who were not themselves witnesses to those events, written to be read to people who were not themselves witnesses, compiled from a number of sources, all now lost or destroyed, and exposed to editing, interpolations and redactions, and, at each iteration, to the orthodoxy of that group at that time. You and I are not going to agree, I fear, on their historicity by 21st C standards.

Tragedy? Well I fear the arrival of the Problem of Pain, but press on, my friend, by all means.

As to C S Lewis, I don’t see how we can ignore the question of numbers when a limit on the numbers was utterly central to what he argued.

Onwards!

 

[ffg]

Awesome. Thanks Picky,

Talk about destroyed. The world is losing a lot of history in the Mid. East and Africa. Churches and archives within being blown up. Not to belittle the loss of Human life, the most important problem currently. Pretty sad stuff. But, in a 2000 year perspective, this is a constant with Christianity. Otherwise we wouldn’t have a Calendar full of Saint feast days.

The Bible sitting alone can be ripped apart, and has been ripped apart for centuries in all different manners and focus from messaging to logistics and beyond. This is a sign that there must be more than just the Bible to support a strong foundational leap of faith to Christianity. Otherwise a leap is ripe for change.

The Bible is like a picture window on a large ship, where we are present. From afar we can see there is a window, but might not notice what is happening on the other side of it because of the glare of the sun through it and our focus on standing on our own two feet while in rough water.

But as we get closer to the window, the glare dies down and maybe we notice a smudge or a cob web. We can clean those up. Finally, we look through and see the support ships that are there in the rough seas keeping our ship steady.

Without that window, we might learn at the end of our journey about the support, but knowing the support is there during the journey, allows us to focus on our duties in confidence.

Risk…Have you ever played the board game? I loved it. In fact, now that I’m thinking of it, I might go buy it for the family today.

Anyway, risk is what the apostles took by starting to follow Jesus. It’s what all of us non-witnesses seem to be doing from afar. A leap of faith sure seems like a risk.

Ah, but we must remember we build faith through reason. And we get more reasonable through deeper understanding.

Simply, what is within the binding of a Bible is for the benefit of folks to gain understanding, so they can go about their business in confidence.

If confidence wasn’t important (to God, for God’s creation to behold), there would be no need (for God) to reveal Himself.

There is some weird and tough to understand stuff written in the Bible, this stuff only illustrates the need for something other than the Bible as guide. Most of us are not biblical scholars cutting back to original text and translations and building an understanding. We need help with understanding, thus the Church.

Now, we should note your last point in the paragraph is very important. It is a big scar on Christianity that we are not all under one roof. Ah, humans.

Side note: I just saw on my calendar here that today is the feast day of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, the Patron Saint of Mariners. Though I like the Seattle Mariners, I’m sure the reference is to the captains of the seas, than the baseball field. The ship analogy above was built before I knew I was writing on the Mariner’s day.

Happy sailing!

Mike

 

[ffg]

Maybe we’ll start a new trend here and cover each subject separately per post.

With regard to Lewis, we certainly haven’t been ignoring the numbers. But I think we stray from the purpose of Lewis’ work by doing so.

We should be able to agree the core question Lewis is trying to help answer for folks with the tri-lemma –

‘Who is Jesus?’

His goal isn’t simply - ‘Jesus is three possibilities, the end’. He argues details that move from 3 possibilities to point to 1.

So the key is his argument journey to the 1, not simply the identification of the three.

The action of adding to the pile of possibilities does not work toward an answer to the above question.

Rather it’s an answer to ‘Can you add to the pile of possibilities’, and if so please list? Sure L4+

After we’ve exhausted piling up the list, we still have ‘Who is Jesus?’

Can you imagine if he put to writing all the possibilities (he could think of) and an analysis for each? (assumingly all still journeying to 1)

Luckily he drops everything into a small lot of possibilities for those of us who don’t have time or don’t want to read forever.

Have a good one!

Mike

 

[ffg]

Tragedy? Well I fear the arrival of the Problem of Pain

Hi Picky,

Just so I interpret this properly, you mean like bodily pain, like changes from age / activity?

Or in general like pain or stress from external things like financial or family matters?

In that clarification, I’d be curious on your analysis of ‘why you think you fear’ (whatever becomes the focus of the definition of ‘Problem of Pain’).

I’m off again today to take care of my father for a couple days.

Hope to catch you next week!

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

Hi Picky,

Just so I interpret this properly, you mean like bodily pain, like changes from age / activity?

Or in general like pain or stress from external things like financial or family matters?

In that clarification, I’d be curious on your analysis of ‘why you think you fear’ (whatever becomes the focus of the definition of ‘Problem of Pain’).

I’m off again today to take care of my father for a couple days.

Hope to catch you next week!

Take care,

Mike

Sorry. Mike, no, what I meant was we might discuss Christian and non-Christian attitudes to tragedy; and I might be tempted to take the track of “Yep, but why does God organise the world so that it is so full of tragedy?” and then we’d be on the well worn trail of the problem of why God allows pain.

I’ve heard that debated by better men than me without a resolution.

But I’m not trying to restrict you.

By the way, I read your St Nicholas comment while sitting about 200 yards from the church of Aghios Nikolaos.

 

[ffg]

Thanks Picky,

Wild about the St. Nicholas Church!

Talk about my swing and miss eh? I had a great conversation on a tragedy / suffering last year with someone on a different site, I’ll see if I can find it.

Agreed, the path is quite worn with regards to -“If there is a God, he seems quite mean to allow suffering”.

Or, “How can God be ‘all-loving’ with such a mess of a world full of tragedy and suffering?”

A worn path, but not between you and I yet! Let’s walk!

Let’s go real slow with this one, so we can build on each other’s logic, or at least stay within understanding of each other.

So to start - Do we agree that in general - Tragedy (and suffering from it) seems to be sourced from what looks like two sources (for lack of a better term)?

1. by our nature, aka a function of the world’s working parts (or our working parts) (tornado, earthquake, Alzheimers or other material decay of the body)
2. by our neighbor, aka human on human created tragedy and suffering

The reason I want to start here is because if we get into examples, we will get buried as there is always an example. In order to make headway and move forward in the conversation, we have to lump examples into like buckets.

If you can add to our bucket list, please do.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

Hi Picky,

To move our walk into a light jog down the path of ‘Why God? as it relates to tragedy and suffering’, I’ll throw a little more out there for food for thought, to help build our foundation.

Before we get to ‘Why the tragedy, God?’, we have to set a foundation which I think should start with ‘Why does God create?’.

Coming to an understanding with this last question will help us answer our target question by adding context and will help bat away illogic, as both questions would have to jive to keep reason in order.

So following is a thought process for ‘Why does God create?’

I can’t say God has an external motivation or force to create. That would go against God being the only thing in existence before ‘created things’.

God must create out of an internal desire.

Desires tend to have targets and it takes action to get to those targets.

God’s action would be ‘creating’. God’s target would then be the result of ‘creating’.

Folks like to tell kids when they lose at sports ‘the key was having fun playing’, this is just a method to minimize the importance of a win (the target of desire) and make a kid feel better (it doesn’t).

Surely God hits the target of his desires every time through the action of ‘creating’.

God wins every time. He’s God!

Since it is not logical to desire something we do not want, we can conclude God wants the result of ‘creating’, his creation.

Thus, ‘Why does God create?’ – Because he wants creation.

He wants you and I.

The next step would be to define that ‘want’ before we get to ‘Why tragedy?’. However, to know God wants us, helps us bat away some illogical reasons for ‘Why tragedy?’, like God hates, or doesn’t care. We can clear some weeds.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

Hi Mike, sorry about the delay. Here goes with your two latest posts.

Tragedy

Nope, I don’t go along with your classification of tragedies by source. It seems to me quite arbitrary. I note that non-human life doesn’t seem to appear – lumped in with the volcanoes?

*A man pursues an animal. Eventually, weakened by terror and exhaustion, it succumbs. He spears it, then slits its throat, and takes it back for his family to eat.

A cheetah pursues an animal. Eventually, weakened by terror and exhaustion, it succumbs. She leaps on it, then tears out its throat, and takes it back for her family to eat.*

In each case the prey suffers a tragedy. I see no distinction between the tragedies that would justify us putting them in different categories.

The fact is that tragedy is endemic to the world. Ever since the first creature evolved that was capable of experiencing pain, suffering has been the hallmark of life. Existence is suffering, the Buddhists tell us, and they are not far wrong.

God’s motivation

Well, this passes me largely by, but I must say I am astonished by your confidence in expressing your knowledge of God’s rational and emotional life. I will just note these (in my view) unevidenced assumptions:

(1) God exists; (2) God acts, and among those acts is creation; (3) God acts because of motivations, similar to those that lie behind our own acts; (4) God reacts with emotions, similar to those with which we react ourselves; (5) God’s existence, acts, motivations and emotions are capable of being inferred by humans.

 

[ffg]

Welcome back Picky!

This has been so interesting.

The point of the categories was not to spend a great deal of time on examples since they can be draining.

Many times in this topic someone will start to understand suffering from one perspective (through an example), but then get lost in another example.

I didn’t like that post anyway, so I did my last with a different approach that will hopefully be easier to build from.

With regard to confidence, we’re just thinking here. I hope you see the irony in that poke, then listing your 5 (especially considering #5).

Now to compare our thoughts -

Main focus on #3 “God acts because of motivations, similar to those that lie behind our own acts;”

It is possible (and probably desired by God) for us to act with a similar motivation as God might, as that would seem normal that creation learns from and does in the spirit of Creator’s desires. But we have to find the ‘God verb’ so we can imitate it.

However, before created things, in a place outside of time where there is only God, his motivation couldn’t be similar to that of his creation. Once creation is made, there might be an alignment available to see.

This would be a good time to define that ‘want’ that God must have for his creation. It’s cliché, but the ‘want’ of God we could define as ‘love’ (the ‘God verb’?).

The problem is that the definition of ‘love’ in this tragic world can vary amongst people. For instance, there is a person recently in the news in the USA that really thinks beating his child is love.

So to try to set a foundation for Love in the simplest form, I would hope we would agree that love does not force. It can’t make another love back. Nobody can force the heart to act.

As God would be perfect, his motivations could be different from our own because of our freedom to not return ‘love’.

The other day I heard a good ‘God’ example. He’s like a guy knocking on our door. He’s never going to open the door and force his way in, we have to open the door.

This aligns well with a God who does not force a returned love / respect.

What I find most interesting about the way you laid out your 5 is how the relation is God to Human, as if God learns from his creation. (at least this is the appearance I see)

I’ll be off to take care of my dad (a good example of this subject matter) again here this weekend and out for a week. I’ll catch you when I return.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Picky_Picky]

Yes, sorry about the “confidence” bit – it was cheeky.

Love cannot force love in return? Quite so. That bloke St Paul, on the whole, said some sensible things about love when he was nagging the people in Corinth.

Picky

PS: God is knocking at the door, it is up to us to open it? Does that not have a hint of Arminianism? Are you allowed that as an RC?

 

[ffg]

No problem Picky, I’ve been called a lot worse than confident.

This is great! We’ll get back to the love part since we at least agree it can’t be forced. Later we can add to the earlier logic and bat away a few more illogical ideas to who God is in relation to tragedy and suffering.

With regard to Arminianism with the whole door bit ( I love how you pulled this up by the way). I didn’t take it far enough or the message wasn’t clear.

The opening of our hearts door to the ‘knocking God’ is simply allowing God into a relationship with us, it does not speak of an ability to save ourselves.

In fact, as we learn more about ourselves through our relationship with God, our sinfulness is what gains clarity, quite the opposite of controlling our destiny to a positive outcome.

This might be why the Church as described as a hospital for sinners is most appropriate vs. a house for saints.

How often do we look at others and see what we don’t have, where we are incomplete? How amplified would this be in a relationship between God and man?

The claim of free will in the Arminianism way in that they are attributing free will toward a final salvation is opposite of the Church’s view of free will.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (second half of P 1853)- “The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the teaching of the Lord: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man.”128 But in the heart also resides charity, the source of the good and pure works, which sin wounds.”

The Church teaches our free will holds the ability to sin - to reject that which might conclude in salvation, not an ability to be saved by using it.

I’m off for a three hour drive.

Take care,

Mike

 

[ffg]

Hi Picky,

Sorry it’s been a while, I’ll be able to summarize our thoughts to this point on tragedy and suffering and move to the next step probably next week.

But on the 7th I ran into this talk by Fr. John, which might be the same one from earlier in our talk, but might be a new one. It was good to listen to, as it circles us back to our original purpose - avemariaradio.net/audio_archive/christ-is-the-answer-october-7-2014/

My point of posting now though is that in the beginning of this talk he mentions this book - amazon.com/Handbook-Christian-Apologetics-Peter-Kreeft/dp/0830817743 which includes a section on the ‘problem of evil’, our current subject.

I have not read the book yet, but will try to at least read what is appropriate for our current discussion this week…

Take care,

Mike