This is one of the main problems which keeps on reoccurring with these guys. They like to make dogmatic statements about things of which they have absolutely no understanding. I mean, when somebody has the audacity to question the reality and meaning of “potentiality”, and then behaves as if Catholics are stupid faith heads, its hard to take such a person seriously; intellectually speaking.
I think 1) is not widely accepted within the catholic community. Some scholars argue that Adam and Eve represent men and women, so we could descend from a set of humanoids. Actually this is disputed among scientists. I have a scientist friend from that field who says that currently people are inclined to accept that we all descend from an early humanoid couple, eventually with some additions later on from slightly less evolved creatures.
Actually I heard some highly qualified opinions stating exactly the opposite, that is, it is possible that we all descend from a very limited set of common ancestors, or even a couple, with later additions from slightly less evolved creatures. Still, the question is, I believe, in the end unanswerable because of the impossibility of repeating the procedure.
If you weren’t worried about Yahweh you wouldn’t have made 663 posts here.
Wait! The Big Bang (actually a term coined by then atheist Fred Hoyle) was proposed by Georges Lemaître (a Jesuit priest and astronomer at Universiteit Leuven) to explain certain observable features of the Universe. Positivists, atheists and agnostics of the time espoused in overwhelming majority the steady state theory, which said Universe always existed and would always exist. This view was obviously more comfortable to atheists because they would not have to think about “a beginning”, so they espoused it. The problem of course was it was wrong. Completely wrong. So perhaps you (and other atheists) are incurring now the same mistake of pushing the polygenic view to public acceptance. I have heard highly qualified people stating exactly the opposite: we might actually all descend from a single couple. Charles Darwin himself believed monogenesis was necessary for his evolution theory. I agree with you that the Genesis view is perfectly compatible with polygenesis. So I think the best attitude is to let scientists discuss the topic and then accept the consensus if it ever emerges. Anyway, I don’t think this question is really answerable and will remain in the immense gallery of questions impenetrable to human reason.
Zzzzzzzz.
Well, go with what suits you. As long as it doesn’t harm or interfere with the freedoms of others, go for it. And I have no doubt that Christianity can be and is a substantial upgrade from the mentality and lifestyle of many unbelievers, something like the way an impudent slacker getting off to miltary school can turn a new leaf and make good headway by having that imposed on him. You gotta swallow a lot of bogus stuff with Christianity, but I do not deny you get things out of it as well. And of course, there’s the in-group community benefits, which are valuable, and social resonance. If you’re an aimless twentysomething overcome by disabling ennui, it may well be an upgrade, no doubt.
I think you’re misunderstanding Plato here, Touchstone. Plato was saying that everything people pursue, they pursue because it is good – that is, because it is perceived to be good. This was an analytic definition of good, if you will: “Good is what everyone pursues” or “Good is the object of desire”. Telos = Agathos, in Greek.
It should matter. Here’s why: that billboard along the highway that reads: Praise Darwin. Evolve beyond belief, and that sign on the bus: Man created God. What if sometone told you to evolve beyond belief? Or asked you if you think man created God? What would you say?
I agree that Plato and Paul similarly distinguished empirical interests and real interests – this is human nature, to have local passions and appetites compete with long-term and more noble interests. But Paul co-opts the “real interests” that Plato identifies, pointing those interests at God, where Plato points them at “the form of the Good”. There can’t be a bigger transfer than that – Plato’s rational self-interest, mastering base appetites to focus on virtue, pursuing Knowledge of the Good, is hijacked by Paul, where the “form of the Good” is replace with “God as good”.
This gets confused with and bogged down by the issue of “empirical interests”. As above, Paul and Plato (and I and you) would agree that empirical interests are a fact of human nature to deal with, but once we get past that and focus on the object of man’s real interest – the objects of those interests couldn’t be more different. Here the Euthyphro dialog sheds light on this. Paul comes down hard on the side of “piety is that which is loved by the gods (er, God in his case)”. Euthyphro and Socrates (this is Plato writing) agree that the God is independent of the gods, and the gods love the Good because it is good.
Indeed, Paul is trying to co-opt Plato’s philosophy, and to graft it onto Yahweh and the Jesus cult.
Plato is rejecting the “through a glass darkly” idea for the clear-thinking man. Paul says no, we do see through a glass darkly, due to the noetic effects of the Fall, and only later in the afterlife will we see clearly, “face to face”.
I’ll grant that my raising of Paul’s invocation of Isaiah (Rom 3) there was overly brief, and obscured by the semantics of “righteousness”. For Paul, righteousness was following the Law of Moses, then upon Jesus’ resurrection, faith in the atonement that offered. But all of that is predicated on his transferal of the Good, from Plato’s principle to Yahweh’s. “Good” for Paul is something drastically different than it was for Plato, and the object of each man’s “real interests” lay at opposite ends of the Euthyphro’s Dilemma.
OK, so the distinction here is between being oriented toward a) one’s best interest, or b) the will of some other being. I agree that, at face value, this seems a significant distinction. However, I think this thinking is characterized by a reductionist understanding of God, and an untenable reading of Plato.
I’m not foolish enough to think I can solve the Euthyphro problem, on an informal message board. Perhaps “God is good” is an analytic truth, although I don’t think so. I tend to think that God is good with reference to something (probably something in His own character, or perhaps something fully external). If you can show me the passage where Paul says that God and goodness are perfectly identical and coextensive, I’ll lend an ear. I myself have few doubts that orthodox theology is occasionally mistaken on the details, but that it is much better than the alternative.
And in Plato, how many men are clear thinking?
I looked, and I couldn’t find where Paul said this.
Nothing is real but God: this is the key similarity that you’re missing. Man’s real interests lie in the path of the real. I am not claiming that Plato and Paul are saying the same thing, however, only that Paul was not misrepresenting Plato.
Yes, and that “although” admits the core of my argument here; “the Good” is principle to Plato, not person. This is as big an ontological change as one can make, between the objective (principle independent of mind, divine as sublime), and the subjective (the will as source of all).
It’s not trivial, for the reasons you get at above. Man must separate out his real interests from his empirical interests, and must pursue that divine through reasoning and principled virtue.
Yes, but here Paul has again just effected a “transplant”, a counterfeit-Platonism, ripping out divine principle and stuffing in a personality where the principle was. This is radical surgery, and produces a much different beast – a thoroughly subjective beast where Plato’s was an objective one.
The one that springs to mind is:
Euthyphro is the divide between Plato and Paul. Where Plato exalted impersonal, divine principle, Paul exalts person, diving God. Paul says piety is piety because it is God’s nature. Plato contends (via his “puppet” Socrates) that piety is pious in its own right, and the gods love it because of that.By the way, I consider your response a bit of a dodge: Your original point was that Christians cannot say that everyone always pursues the good, and I gave an explication of how that point was wrong, to the effect that everyone pursues God. I don’t see how you have contradicted me. Instead, you bring up the Euthyphro problem – which doesn’t make your point, but does certainly lead to theistic consternation.
Oh, few to none, then or now. But that’s no more here than noting that the sky is blue on sunny days. It’s a fact of nature. What both men are focused on is what gets pursued when those appetites are set aside and man reckons seriously what his objective is.
Yes, but that just makes my point – Paul isn’t promoting any such epistemic optimism or super-rationality or rationality at all, but fideism via the regenerative influence of the Holy Spirit.
I looked, and I couldn’t find where Paul said this.
There ya go, the unknown god I referred to earlier. Acts 17.
Paul was not disagreeing directly, so much as being presumptuous in his religious zeal that Yahweh was what Plato was really talking about, but poor Plato just didn’t know any better – see the quote from Acts 17. Plato was a smart guy and all, Paul knew, but that doesn’t take you very far in this world. Paul had a leg up, a visit from God on the Damascus Road. Paul, we are told by Paul, got to skip over that whole “glass darkly” thing the rest of us have to struggle with (include old Plato), and go rigth to revelation. Not just your average garden variety revelation, mind you, but a full-blown theophany.
I wish I knew Plato as well as I know Paul. Thanks for the interesting exchange.
This is an interesting topic. However, there is no historical evidence that I am aware of that would support your comments about Paul and his relation to Platonic philosophy. Furthermore, there is no internal evidence in Paul’s writings that support your assertions. Many statements you have made are gross misrepresentations of Pauline doctrine. So, that’s my take on your posts.
I cited an example for just that reason, upthread, to support that point – I Cor 13, where Paul says we now “see through a glass, darkly”. This is a reference to *Phaedo, *using Plato’s phrase ‘through a glass, darkly’. If that isn’t internal evidence, I can’t think what would be. I agree a thorough treatment of the subject would need at least its own thread, but Plato’s influence on Paul is not controversial – what gets debated is degrees and depth. Google it a little and you’ll find lots of hits to sort through on the topic if you are interested.
Ah yes, no true Scotsman, indeed.
You like to play offense, and offer critiques, but you are apparently unable to articulate and support your views – here is a good example, this post doesn’t even amount to lazy support for your critiques. Having read a lot of your posts now, I know what to expect – unsupported critiques, lazy dismissiveness, and a consistent failure to lay out your argument and supporting argument for evaluation and criticism.
Hurling personal insults cannot strengthen your weak position, but it weakens your personal character.
I never said there was nothing to indicate a Platonic influence on Paul. Read my post again. In fact, Paul’s writings are not the only NT writings that exibit the influence of Greek philosophy. The questions are not just a matter of what degree of influence, as you claim, but the nature of that influence. And so far, you have not been able to explain it with any reasonable accuracy. I gave one instance of that fact in my previous post. There are many more instances, too, but I guess I would be wasting my time discussing this topic with someone who feels safer resorting to ad hominens.
Funny: a Catholic uses his/her faith exactly to illuminate the need to do all those things, for they glorify the Creator. And then there’s the downside. Without a clear scatological sense, those same things supposedly left undone can be “justice left undone”, “no offense foregone”, “no humiliation left ungiven”. Remember that people are not necessarily like you or, I dare saying, me. They are not good or bad in your framework. They just are. And you can’t even tell if they’re wrong or right. They might actually be right, for in the end it doesn’t really matter in the immense process of the Universe. They might just think that humans are destroying the planet and killing animals and plants which, again in your framework, have the same intrinsic value as them. So they might think that the best thing for the general purpose of things is to get rid of people altogether. Now, this is an extreme example, but Christianity forbids you to think on these terms. Christianity is a powerful moderator of human behavior because it forbids you to kill people. This again is an argument for the usefulness of Christianity. The other is, as you said, whether it is true or not. This has been defended by brilliant minds and I’ll leave that aside.
Don’t agree with this. Anyway, it shouldn’t bother you because in the end it doesn’t matter and eventually we’ll all be atheists…