Unprovable as objective truth

[Ismael]

Nor did Jesus, in the gospels, praise Thomas for his demand of empirical evidence,but rather said, “blessed are those who believe without seeing.” I don’t think he meant to say, “blessed are those who believe without seeing, because they have logically inferred that the existence of that which they do not see is incontrovertible”

Rather, I think he was referring to the virtues of faith and trust.

There I agree.

Thomas the Apostle saw the miracles of Jesus as the others. He heard his words. The others testified seeing him as well (they had no reason to lie to him).

Thomas lacked faith and trust in Jesus. After seeing all that he had seen, he still failed to trust Jesus.

To note that the other apostles were also skeptical: they did not believe the women initially either.

It was not a statement about ‘blind faith’, but rather about reasonable faith, one could say.

 

[Portofino]

I think you are confusing ‘reason’ with ‘empirical science’…

Just to clarify, I don’t mean to say that nothing that is not empirically verifiable is “meaningless”, as the logical positivists would put it. I realize that mathematics and logic are not themselves subject to empirical verification.

The question, I think, is whether metaphysics ought to be grouped in the same category as mathematics and logic, or whether proof of metaphysical claims (e.g., limbo exists) would, rather, be dependent on some form of empirical verification.

It would appear that limbo is not capable of being proven a priori, independently of empirical verification. Limbo cannot be seen, cannot be experienced while on earth; cannot be measured or detected. Its effects cannot even be perceived, unlike – though subject to controversy, certainly – claims of miracles or divine visitations. So it would seem that limbo falls into the category of those propositions which, as they are not empirically verifiable, can neither be proven nor disproven (assuming one does not place the burden of proof on those who would maintain that limbo exists).

That’s where I think much of the disagreement comes – it’s as if you have the empirical verification camp (the natural sciences, as well as history) on the one side, logic and mathematics on the other, with “metaphysics” kind of hanging in the balance. The believer maintains that metaphysics ultimately belongs in the “logic/mathematics” camp – it doesn’t require empirical verification – while the non-believer tends to maintain that metaphysics ultimately belongs in the “in need of empirical verification” camp.

Just so, someone who says that the the proposition “when humans leave the room, the dolls and stuffed animals come to life” cannot be empirically verified, so can neither be proven nor disproven, is not necessarily a logical positivist. He is simply saying that for that particular knowledge claim (unlike a proposition of pure logic or mathematics), empirical verification would be necessary.

 

[polytropos]

I don’t think he was saying prima facie that there is no proof of any religion so much as observing that, insofar as religion deals with the super-natural or extra-natural, it is by definition beyond both empirical verifiability and empirical falsifiability (as Popper may have said, if I understand him correctly).

I don’t think that’s quite what he said. But, in any case, claiming that “insofar as religion deals with the super-natural or extra-natural, it is by definition beyond both empirical verifiability and empirical falsifiability” and therefore cannot have a proof is still begging the question in favor of athiesm (or agnosticism, or some form of fideistic theism), if only by way of assuming a particular metaphysical system in which “proof” can only come through empirical verifiability and empiirical falsifiability.

Thomistic proofs, for instance, begin with observations from sense experience that necessarily lead to the conclusion that God exists. The observations are obviously verifiable and falsifiable (a premise “Change occurs,” for instance, can be directly verified and in principle falsified). Then if the conclusions follow from the premises logically, they are true; the conclusions are therefore falsifiable insofar that the premises are false or insofar that one can attempt to demonstrate that there is a flaw in logic.

Take a question such as, “is there life after death?” The closest one can have, in terms of empirical verifiability of the answer to this question, is via near-death-experiences, when an individual was clinically dead. Yet there is an important difference between an individual who was clinically dead, and had a near-death experience, and an individual who “stayed dead”, as is the eventual fate of all of us. We do not know for sure what happens to an individual’s consciousness when he does not come back, when he remains dead.

I don’t see how religion can answer this question, with certainty (or philosophy, for that matter; Plato tried). Before we die, we’ll never know for sure.

For example, does limbo exist? Reason cannot tell us, which is why the Church admits that it doesn’t know. Does heaven exist? Reason cannot tell us, either, but the Church believes that revelation has told us. But revelation is more in the realm of faith, than of reason. You can provide compelling evidence for why you believe revelation has occurred, but you cannot definitively, incontrovertibly prove it.

Another example – does a zygote have an immortal soul? Again, reason cannot tell us, because it is beyond the realm of empirical verification. Even the Church admits this; these are metaphysical questions that reason cannot discern, and for which no definite revelation claims to have been given.

I’m not really saying that there is a religion, all of whose confessed truths can be demonstrated. I am saying that it is in principle impossible to claim that a religion cannot be proven. With regards to Catholicism in particular, one does not require a demonstration of every truth, although the most important truths can be demonstrated.

I think, under the consideration of modern science, Thomism demonstrates that zygotes have immortal souls beyond any reasonable doubt, since the soul is just the substantial form of a rational animal, and a zygote has rationality in potency, though not in act. The only reason St. Thomas didn’t argue as much is because he lacked scientific information about when individuation occurs. It is not a part of the deposit of Catholic faith, but it can actually be demonstrated without any appeal to tradition at all. (It could actually be demonstrated without having any characteristically Catholic commitment to the world.)

 

[polytropos]

A good question would be why consensus seems comparatively more achievable in science (e.g., evolutionary theory) and history (e.g., that the American Revolutionary war occurred)-- despite arguments and disagreements – than in religion and philosophy. My own intuitive answer is because the latter tend to put forth truths that are non-empirical in nature, thus cannot definitively be either proven, or disproven.

I think the issue is more complicated. The Aristotelian metaphysics used in the medieval period applied a valid, truthful epistemology in which first principles are obtained through sense experience and other conclusions are derived from those premises. The conclusions themselves (whether the existence of God or the existence of an immortal soul) do not need to be empirically verified anymore than the existence of individual electrons or quarks need to be empirically verified - we know that they are there because we have rationally inferred it from what we can observe.

The Protestant Reformation constituted a departure from the idea that faith could be rationally justified, and it necessarily led to competing religious claims, which led to the wars of religion. The early moderns mainly abandoned Aristotelianism because it seemed to entail Catholicism, and they (Locke, for instance) wanted to create political states modeled off of the toleration of, for instance, the Netherlands.

Certainly, there were attempts to refute Aristotelianism, although I think they fall short and replaced it with less sufficient substitutes. The empiricist notion of reality, it could be argued, has fallen apart; science often looks for “laws” and would seek reasons as to why an electron, by nature of being an electron, behaves the way it does (hence modern science is, perhaps more than it realizes, committed to the search of Aristotelian formal causes). Relatedly, modern biology attests to the existence of Aristotelian final causes (for example, the “information” encoded in DNA that is directed toward the “end” of reproduction, etc. - whether its “potential” to reach that end is “actualized” or not).

The fact that philosophical claims are non-empirical does not mean that they cannot be definitively proven, it just means that people can reject them and still maintain some feeling of coherency (even if that feeling of coherency is illusive). For instance, the evolution of humans is not fully empirical; we can’t actually observe substantive evolutionary change in humans (although we can in bacteria etc.), although we can rationally infer it from the evidence. Yet some intelligent design advocates are able to reject it by claiming that the same principle should not be extrapolated to human evolution. It does not mean that they are being rational or that evolution has not been proven, it just means that there is not something happening right in front of their eyes which they are not allowed to deny.

But this whole issue of proving religion through reason is confusing, to me, because it is not only saying there is no contradiction between science and religion, but – at worst – it is reducing the dogmas of a religion to a science.

If this were true, faith would be absolutely redundant and unnecessary, and religion could be scientifically, rationally verified with one’s neutral, reasoning intellect.

I didn’t get the impression, reading the epistles of Paul – for example - that this was what Christianity was “all about”…

Nor did Jesus, in the gospels, praise Thomas for his demand of empirical evidence,but rather said, “blessed are those who believe without seeing.” I don’t think he meant to say, “blessed are those who believe without seeing, because they have logically inferred that the existence of that which they do not see is incontrovertible”

Rather, I think he was referring to the virtues of faith and trust.

Well, in the strict sense, scientia is knowledge, and both philosophy and theology are modes of knowledge. So any philosophy (including those that demonstrate the existence of God) is a science, by virtue of its being a philosophy.

But I think you are taking an extreme, dichotomous attitude towards faith. Reason can demonstrate the existence of God, but it simply doesn’t follow that faith is therefore subservient to reason. (Incidentally, right before I reverted to Catholicism, I felt the same way.) The first thing to note is that faith can be had without full demonstration of the existence of God; reason helps some and can add to one’s understanding of God, but it is not necessary for faith; since reason is not necessary for faith, it follows that it cannot be “redundant and unnecessary.” It might be more accurate to say that reason is one way of arriving upon faith, but not the only or necessary way. The other, more significant thing to note, is that there is still much for faith to do. My reason tells me that it is just for me to pray, but prayer is an act of faith.

I think your biblical examples are a bit misleading. No one is saying faith is not necessary. But Jesus and Paul similarly never said that faith must be held against reason. One, perhaps, should not make a habit of finding every little reason to doubt.

 

[Portofino]

The Protestant Reformation constituted a departure from the idea that faith could be rationally justified, and it necessarily led to competing religious claims, which led to the wars of religion.

Although I’m not convinced by this interpretation, it is nonetheless intriguing. If anything, I’ve read critics who have taxed the Protestant reformers with their rationalism – for example, their disbelief in holy relics; their rejection of transubstantiation; their disbelief in the intrinsic efficacy of the sacraments. In other words, it’s been said that their skepticism ultimately led to the secular Enlightenment; they wished to resolve all of the mysteries and paradoxes, all of the seeming contradictions of Christianity, until they diminished faith more than they purified it. The early Unitarians even rejected the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, as well as miracles and the notion that the Bible is inerrant word of God.

In all sincerity, differences of opinion always existed in Christendom; the Cathars, for example, were squelched in the Middle Ages, before the Protestants ever existed. I think that wars of religion took place because there was, for the first time, a more equal distribution of political power between the Church and its opponents. Luther had the protection of some powerful princes, for example. Calvin had political power in Geneva. Heretics, traditionally, had no political organization and little recourse to armed, organized resistance.

Voltaire had written, regarding the English experience of religious pluralism (in the 18th century): “If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other’s throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.” It was a balance of power such that no one faith was tempted to grab for the golden ring.

The early moderns mainly abandoned Aristotelianism because it seemed to entail Catholicism, and they (Locke, for instance) wanted to create political states modeled off of the toleration of, for instance, the Netherlands

Here again, although I’m not convinced that the early moderns abandoned Aristotelianism because it seemed to entail Catholicism, I nonetheless find it intriguing as an idea. Certainly, they may have associated it with the “old guard” of approved Church teaching, and seen it as an impediment. It certainly would be, of course, if Aristotle was quoted as an authority, as someone who could not be questioned (including in those ways in which the Church itself had not questioned it).

My impression was always that the early modern scientists did not like Aristotle because he exemplified a kind of “common sense Realism” – things are what they appear. Epicurean atomism fit better with the notion of “primary qualities” and “secondary qualities”, appearance (sense observation) versus reality (atomic particles).

From what I understand, they also suspected Aristotle of introducing intentionality into the physical world, through his notion of “final cause”, for example.

But I admittedly have not read much of Aristotle these days; I only know that an ironic champion of Aristotle was the novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, and I always felt that she did not seem to grasp the relationship between primary and secondary qualities, did not seem to grasp the “problem of perception.” Kant obviously understood the problem of perception very well, distinguishing between phenomena and noumena, between things as they appear and things-in-themselves.

Reason can demonstrate the existence of God, but it simply doesn’t follow that faith is therefore subservient to reason.

I’m kind of at an impasse, personally – reason both tells me that a higher power of some kind must exist; even though I cannot prove it, it is simply inconceivable to me that some higher intelligence does not exist in the universe. The odds against having ever been born, having ever become conscious – not merely in general or as a species, but for myself as an individual – are staggering, indeed inconceivable.

I don’t see this as proof, per se, merely my saying that it is all but inconceivable to me that a higher power does not exist. At the same time, it is ultimately a wash, in my mind – not because of the problem of evil, per se, but because of the seeming problem of randomness, of contingency and blind chance. At times, I discern a kind of providence in the world; many other times, though, nature appears to be blindfolded. Not malevolence, but chance and hazard seem to carry the day.

Chance even thwarts our views of morality and justice – the individual who doesn’t care anything about kids, who is in fact quite irresponsible regarding having children, conceives a child almost the first time he or she has intercourse. Meanwhile, a couple who wants nothing more in life than to have a child, finds itself unable to conceive. The kindhearted person is stricken with some horrible misfortune, while the person who seems to least deserve it lives into advanced old age (as some like to joke, perhaps it’s that even the devil does not want them).

These paradoxes are exhaustively explored in Job and Ecclesiastes – at times, it seems as if there is no one at the wheel, that the wheel of fortune is spinning at random; that chance rules the universe.

The silence of God, and the silence of the dead, are of course another challenge. Even those who believe nonetheless can appreciate that God is both silent and eloquent, both present and absent.

The silence of the dead, of course, if it is an illusion, is also among the strongest of all illusions. If the dead go to God, then they also come to assume the attributes of God – a profound, an unbroken silence.

 

[mek42]

Portofino, by chance have you read, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner?

 

[meltzerboy]

Portofino, by chance have you read, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner?

Although his book has helped many people overcome the death of a loved one, including no doubt Rabbi Kushner himself, he falls into heresy by suggesting that G-d, while benevolent, is not omnipotent.

 

[TheHolyGhost]

Humans need oxygen to live. That is an objective truth and it is provable.

Next question?

 

[TheHolyGhost]

I don’t think he was saying prima facie that there is no proof of any religion so much as observing that, insofar as religion deals with the super-natural or extra-natural, it is by definition beyond both empirical verifiability and empirical falsifiability (as Popper may have said, if I understand him correctly).

Take a question such as, “is there life after death?” The closest one can have, in terms of empirical verifiability of the answer to this question, is via near-death-experiences, when an individual was clinically dead. Yet there is an important difference between an individual who was clinically dead, and had a near-death experience, and an individual who “stayed dead”, as is the eventual fate of all of us. We do not know for sure what happens to an individual’s consciousness when he does not come back, when he remains dead.

I don’t see how religion can answer this question, with certainty (or philosophy, for that matter; Plato tried). Before we die, we’ll never know for sure.

For example, does limbo exist? Reason cannot tell us, which is why the Church admits that it doesn’t know. Does heaven exist? Reason cannot tell us, either, but the Church believes that revelation has told us. But revelation is more in the realm of faith, than of reason. You can provide compelling evidence for why you believe revelation has occurred, but you cannot definitively, incontrovertibly prove it.

Another example – does a zygote have an immortal soul? Again, reason cannot tell us, because it is beyond the realm of empirical verification. Even the Church admits this; these are metaphysical questions that reason cannot discern, and for which no definite revelation claims to have been given.

Objective empirical truth is knowable – does a place called “Cleveland” exist – but objective metaphysical truth is not knowable…not through the senses, at least, nor through any instruments acting as extensions of the senses. We have no empirical way of knowing whether limbo exists, or not; nor, by extension, whether an afterlife exists or not.

A good question would be why consensus seems comparatively more achievable in science (e.g., evolutionary theory) and history (e.g., that the American Revolutionary war occurred)-- despite arguments and disagreements – than in religion and philosophy. My own intuitive answer is because the latter tend to put forth truths that are non-empirical in nature, thus cannot definitively be either proven, or disproven.

But this whole issue of proving religion through reason is confusing, to me, because it is not only saying there is no contradiction between science and religion, but – at worst – it is reducing the dogmas of a religion to a science.

If this were true, faith would be absolutely redundant and unnecessary, and religion could be scientifically, rationally verified with one’s neutral, reasoning intellect.

I didn’t get the impression, reading the epistles of Paul – for example - that this was what Christianity was “all about”…

Nor did Jesus, in the gospels, praise Thomas for his demand of empirical evidence,but rather said, “blessed are those who believe without seeing.” I don’t think he meant to say, “blessed are those who believe without seeing, because they have logically inferred that the existence of that which they do not see is incontrovertible”

Rather, I think he was referring to the virtues of faith and trust.

If God has revealed several objective truths to us that exist here on earth which are all verifiably true as well, why should we have any reason to doubt the revealed objective truths that are outside of this earth?

 

[mek42]

Although his book has helped many people overcome the death of a loved one, including no doubt Rabbi Kushner himself, he falls into heresy by suggesting that G-d, while benevolent, is not omnipotent.

Jewish heresy?

 

[meltzerboy]

Jewish heresy?

Yes, there is such a thing. Some Orthodox Jews consider Conservative and Reform Jews, or at least their “rabbis,” to be heretics. Since Rabbi Kushner is Conservative, he is a heretic to begin with.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

I was a science and math major who escaped with only one or two humanities classes during my entire college career. Neither of these was a philosophy class.

Would someone please explain to me how something inherently unprovable may be claimed an objective truth that all must be subjected to regardless whether they agree?

Actually Judeo-Christian theology doesn’t teach that our truths are “objective” in the sense of “objective proofs” as discussed in scientific methodology. If our convictions were based on things then we had unquestionable objective evidence for, then they how could they be even considered “convictions”? We wouldn’t be people of faith, would we, and that is what Jews and Christians have been known to be for centuries. You don’t need faith for something which you have objective evidence for, do you? So first off your question shows you misunderstand something about our religion and what we believe in.

Secondly, no one believes that science and mathematics can sufficiently give us all answers and prove all things. To illustrate:

A woman asks her boyfriend: “Do you love me?”

He answers: “Yes, I do.”

“Prove it,” she tells him.

He hands her a scientific report filled with mathematics in his attempt to prove his love for her.

She looks at him coldly. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Tell me. Can the scientific method or mathematics prove his love to her? If it is objectively true that the man loves the woman, shouldn’t science and math be able to prove it? Shouldn’t such a report (if it existed) be enough to satisfy the woman?

I am not arguing that science and math cannot open our eyes to many truths. They can. But they are not the tool for every job.

Since most religions believe in a deity that is beyond measure and that transcends our physical universe, would it be reasonable to suggest that methodologies which depend on measurement and that subjects being studied exist within the physical universe be the tools to use in this case?

No. Your mistake is that you have a preconceived idea about what we believe in. We don’t believe because we have objective evidence, but as Scripture says, “By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God.”–Hebrews 11:3.

And next time they ask just try and prove to your significant other how much you love them by using only the scientific method and mathematics, and see if you don’t end up in the dog house!

 

[Aloysium]

the above post illustrates how when dealing with persons and that sort of truth, things are not proved; rather, they are revealed

 

[Linux]

I was a science and math major who escaped with only one or two humanities classes during my entire college career. Neither of these was a philosophy class.

Would someone please explain to me how something inherently unprovable may be claimed an objective truth that all must be subjected to regardless whether they agree?

What are you asking exactly?

Are you asking if we can know for certain that something is objectively true without employing the scientific method?

 

[Portofino]

Portofino, by chance have you read, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner?

Thank you for the recommendation. It seems to me that Judaism has confronted the problem of evil head-on, through the books of Job and Ecclesiastes; and, more recently, through the fate of the Jewish people during the Shoah. On reflection, it seems that this is something of a unique attribute to Judaism; Christianity inherits it, of course, and certainly reflects on it (theodicy), but no part of the New Testament explicitly addresses the problem of evil, unless you want to count the agony in the garden and Christ’s saying, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (an extraordinary statement).

 

[polytropos]

Although I’m not convinced by this interpretation, it is nonetheless intriguing. If anything, I’ve read critics who have taxed the Protestant reformers with their rationalism – for example, their disbelief in holy relics; their rejection of transubstantiation; their disbelief in the intrinsic efficacy of the sacraments. In other words, it’s been said that their skepticism ultimately led to the secular Enlightenment; they wished to resolve all of the mysteries and paradoxes, all of the seeming contradictions of Christianity, until they diminished faith more than they purified it. The early Unitarians even rejected the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, as well as miracles and the notion that the Bible is inerrant word of God.

The Protestant Reformation is a complex issue, of course. The rejection of transubstantiation and sacraments as “contradictions” is largely a consequence of rejecting Aristotelianism (or at least becoming distanced from it). That is not really to say that they cannot be questioned or prodded as objects of theological study, but they mainly come to be seen as problematic when they are not viewed in an Aristotelian light.

Here again, although I’m not convinced that the early moderns abandoned Aristotelianism because it seemed to entail Catholicism, I nonetheless find it intriguing as an idea. Certainly, they may have associated it with the “old guard” of approved Church teaching, and seen it as an impediment. It certainly would be, of course, if Aristotle was quoted as an authority, as someone who could not be questioned (including in those ways in which the Church itself had not questioned it).

Well, the early modern philosophers (Descartes, Locke) were educated within a broadly Aristotelian framework, since it was the “default” philosophy of the academy. It was not really quoted as something which could not be questioned, though. Aquinas did not agree with everything that Aristotle wrote. There were also plenty of notable Scholastics who disagreed with Aristotle (and Thomas) on important points: John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, etc.

Perhaps Scholasticism did make more direct appeals to tradition by the early modern period, which begot the perception that it characteristically does so.

My impression was always that the early modern scientists did not like Aristotle because he exemplified a kind of “common sense Realism” – things are what they appear. Epicurean atomism fit better with the notion of “primary qualities” and “secondary qualities”, appearance (sense observation) versus reality (atomic particles).

From what I understand, they also suspected Aristotle of introducing intentionality into the physical world, through his notion of “final cause”, for example.

I agree, that does constitute much of the reason for their dislike of Aristotle. Edward Feser likes to quote Moliere to illustrate the early modern attitude toward Aristotle; Moliere ironically said that, according to Aristotelianism, opium causes sleep because it has a “dormitive power,” implying that such a statement is tautological. Feser notes that the statement is not quite tautological, since it shows that there is something in the nature of opium that causes sleep (it would be similar to saying that opium causes sleep because it has a chemical structure that causes sleep). It is, of course, not fully descriptive, but such statements about final causality are only meant to be a partial explanation of an object anyway. Any modern scientific explanation involving chemical structure is fully compatible with Aristotelianism (and would flesh out the opium’s formal cause, material cause, and efficient cause - what its structure is, what it’s made of, and how it came about).

But I admittedly have not read much of Aristotle these days; I only know that an ironic champion of Aristotle was the novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, and I always felt that she did not seem to grasp the relationship between primary and secondary qualities, did not seem to grasp the “problem of perception.” Kant obviously understood the problem of perception very well, distinguishing between phenomena and noumena, between things as they appear and things-in-themselves.

I think there are a lot of things Ayn Rand did not grasp, one of which is Aristotelianism.

Primary and secondary qualities, I think, become fairly problematic in the materialist conception of mind initiated by early modern thinkers. Many of the early moderns maintained some sort of distinction between mind and matter, which, though in itself inexplicable, allowed them to write off certain phenomena (secondary qualities) as subjective species of the mind. Later modern thinkers have gone to reject any distinction between mind and matter, but they have largely let the distinction between primary and secondary qualities remain, even though all secondary qualities necessarily would have to be materially explicable if the mind were another part of the world.

This dilemma is reflected in the fact that forms of dualism are supported even by some atheist philosophers (John Searle, for instance), who are aware of the seeming impossibility of explaining subjective qualities in materialistic terms.

 

[Portofino]

Thank you for the recommendation. It seems to me that Judaism has confronted the problem of evil head-on, through the books of Job and Ecclesiastes; and, more recently, through the fate of the Jewish people during the Shoah. On reflection, it seems that this is something of a unique attribute to Judaism; Christianity inherits it, of course, and certainly reflects on it (theodicy), but no part of the New Testament explicitly addresses the problem of evil, unless you want to count the agony in the garden and Christ’s saying, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (an extraordinary statement).

Although his book has helped many people overcome the death of a loved one, including no doubt Rabbi Kushner himself, he falls into heresy by suggesting that G-d, while benevolent, is not omnipotent.

As an outsider, as it were, this actually strikes me as a comforting thought.

New Agers have their own form of responding to the problem of evil, whereby they say that it is we, humanity, that have chosen the human adventure as we know it, with all of its attendant challenges and difficulties (they believe that the soul pre-dates its incarnation in a body). That it is we who consented to hang these enormous weights on ourselves, not in a masochistic sense but in the sense of wanting to strengthen, to grow. Just as a work of art that portrayed no dramatic conflict, and no hardship, would be sterile, so would a life in which the effort of making choices was not necessary, because everything was already perfect.

Some of them say that accidents, contingencies – things beyond our control, situations that we never chose in the first place – ironically help us to make choices; not that we freely choose everything that happens to us, but that we learn to become better “choosers” in how we respond to unexpected contingencies (you wanted to go to a restaurant which turns out to be closed; now you have the burden of choosing, in the moment, what you are going to do about it, indeed you find you have more choices, more possibilities, than you had imagined; or you’ve planned a day outdoors and now it is raining, and you have to “decide what to do” about it).

 

[polytropos]

I’m kind of at an impasse, personally – reason both tells me that a higher power of some kind must exist; even though I cannot prove it, it is simply inconceivable to me that some higher intelligence does not exist in the universe. The odds against having ever been born, having ever become conscious – not merely in general or as a species, but for myself as an individual – are staggering, indeed inconceivable.

I am, in some sense, the opposite. I generally don’t feel that there is a higher power. It is also very difficult for me to imagine any sort of life after death (probably because, as an atheist, I allowed myself to become content with this life being the only life) - but I am young, so who knows.

 

[polytropos]

On reflection, it seems that this is something of a unique attribute to Judaism; Christianity inherits it, of course, and certainly reflects on it (theodicy), but no part of the New Testament explicitly addresses the problem of evil, unless you want to count the agony in the garden and Christ’s saying, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (an extraordinary statement).

Christ’s statement, of course, was a recitation of Psalm 22, so Christ was praying even in his suffering.

To me, this is why I do think that the New Testament approaches the problem of evil in a rather poignant way. Christ suffered for us despite having done nothing to deserve it. He suffered out of love for us and love for God. His passion was brutal, but now he is seated at the right hand of the Father. In Christianity, any worldly evil cannot even compare to the beatific vision.

The beatific vision is impossible to imagine, of course. (As I’ve said, I cannot fathom the idea of life after death.) But this might be why atheists take the problem of evil to be much more significant than Christians do. The other issue, I’m sure, is that Christians hope to go to heaven, while atheists know that they would go to hell (granted, they do not believe). The atheist, having only this life, understandably learns to live it as if it is everything.

Other attitudes of Christ, I think, address the problem of evil as well. His saying that we should “turn the other cheek” seems to admit that we will, at times be wronged by others.

 

[Portofino]

The Protestant Reformation is a complex issue, of course. The rejection of transubstantiation and sacraments as “contradictions” is largely a consequence of rejecting Aristotelianism (or at least becoming distanced from it). That is not really to say that they cannot be questioned or prodded as objects of theological study, but they mainly come to be seen as problematic when they are not viewed in an Aristotelian light.

Those Aristotelian arguments are interesting (accident versus substance) even though – of course – their use by Christian theologians post-dated the actual doctrine of transubstantiation. From what limited reading I’ve done in the works of the fathers of Protestantism – Calvin and Zwingli, in particular – it seems they hung their hat on statements such as “the poor you will always have with you, but I will not always be with you,” connecting it with “remember, I will be with you always” and “wherever two or more are gathered, I am there.” They reasoned that “I will be with you always” was referring to the spirit of Christ, which indeed is omnipresent, but that the body of Christ had ascended into heaven and would return again only on the Last Day. So, Christ was present in the Eucharist, but not physically present (“God is a spirit, and those that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth”). I think Zwingli also talked about how when Christ said, “this is my body,” he couldn’t have been speaking literally, since his body was seated next to them at the table at that very moment. This reasoning may seem “dense”, too literal-minded, yet Christ himself invoked the principle of non-contradiction, reasoning quite plainly and common sensically when he said, “* how can Satan drive out Satan? A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He also said, of course, “no man can serve two masters at once.” So there does seem to be an important sense in which “even” Christ argued that, “something cannot both be, and not be, at the same time and in the same respect.”

For Calvin, I think, denial of transsubstantiation was part of his general icono-clasm (literally); he believed that ascribing the physical presence of Christ to the physical host was akin to idolatry, kind of like when a Christian might bristle at a panentheist saying “God is in the tree.”

notes that the statement is not quite tautological, since it shows that there is something in the nature of opium that causes sleep (it would be similar to saying that opium causes sleep because it has a chemical structure that causes sleep). It is, of course, not fully descriptive, but such statements about final causality are only meant to be a partial explanation of an object anyway.

Interesting ; perhaps these early modern thinkers illustrated this “the devil is in the details notion.” They wanted to roll up their sleeves, dig down further instead of remaining at the level of language and logic (which is ironic, given that Aristotle did seem to value empirical observation, if not the experimental method).

I found a citation regarding one of Aristotle’s critics, the French philosopher-priest (and Catholic Epicurean) Pierre Gassendi, and it seems to speak to this accusation that Aristotle’s answers were often only clever paraphrases of the question (from a book titled “Explanations, Inferences, and other Frustrations”):

"One of the great achievements of the scientific revolution, according to its adherents, was the banishment from modern science of the Aristotelian schemes of explanation which had dominated Scholastic studies. Aristotle was derided as a cuttlefish, a squid: the ink he discharged cast everything into obscurity. Consider one typical case, Pierre Gassendi in his Exercises against the Aristotelians (1624). Gassendi complains that Aristotelian explanations fail to explain. About the definition of motion as “the act of being in potentiality insofar as it is in potentiality,” he remarks: “Great God! Is there any stomach strong enough to digest that? The explanation of a rather familiar thing was requested, but this is so complicated that nothing is clear anymore . . . The need for definitions of the words in the definitions will go on ad infinitum " (book 2, exercise 4, article 4).
…The science of the Scholastics was involved in endless quarrels about words and very little actual investigation, in large part because it tried to explain the behavior of things by reference to their natures. But knowledge of natures, according to the new empiricists of the scientific revolution, is forever beyond our grasp; it is divine, not human. As Gassendi argues, it is not possible for mere humans to know “that something is by nature and in
itself, and as a result of basic, necessary infallible causes, constituted in a certain way” (book 6, article 1). Rather, “it can only be known how a thing appears to one or another” (book 6, article 6).
It is on account of this twofold fact that the Aristotelians got into useless debates over meanings: on the one hand, natures stood at the core of explanation for them; on the other, these natures were intrinsically unknowable. According to the empiricists, then, the Aristotelians inevitably resolved things into qualities that were occult; they could never be genuinely understood but only grasped by definition. Invariably this leads to a total circularity of explanation. The favored example is that of gravity. Glanvill tells us:
That heavy bodies descend by gravity is no better account than we would expect from a rustic; that gravity is a quality whereby a heavy body descends, is an impertinent circle, and teaches nothing. (Scepsis Scientifica , chap. 20)”*