Thread: Purgatory: Sin, forgiveness, and the rules of golf Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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In the thread on changing atheists by magic, the dark and mysterious business of the forgiveness of sins has arisen. I know this is a much-discussed topic on these boards, but I’m interested in learning more about one particular aspect- from a position of deep ignorance.
In that thread, I suggested it’s hypocritical of Christians knowingly to sin whilst expecting to be forgiven for it when they confess and repent. I mooted the chief ‘purpose’ of such confession is to receive forgiveness, but it was pointed out here that this is wrong, and that the acknowledgment of sin is more importantly a means to improving oneself in the here and now, rather than a means to any other end.
My name’s Yorick. I’m a golfer.
The rules of golf are extremely complicated and often seem quite petty, however the purpose of the rules is to ensure the game is played fairly, which ultimately serves the enjoyment of the game (since it’s utterly pointless [and no fun at all] when people cheat). The thing about golf, and the reason I make the analogy, is that its rules are self-refereed. Golfers have no umpire to enforce the rules- they must (ordinarily) observe them themselves and call their own fouls. Thus, it’s extremely easy to cheat and get away with it, and the only reason people don’t is because it truly ruins the game. (I once lost an important club match by calling a penalty on myself for dislodging a single leaf from a twig whilst swinging to pitch out of some woods- having been completely unobserved, and with having gained absolutely no unfair advantage by breaking that rule. The rules are incredibly strictly observed for the sake of the game.)
Because we’re Fallen, we inevitably sin (only Jesus was entirely perfect, as I understand it). Anyway, Christians do, often, break their own rules and sin all over the place- probably just as much as your next-door heathen. Unlike in golf, however, there is a referee: God; and He knows everything so you cannot cheat and get away with it. If you break the rules He knows all about it, so confession is ostensibly redundant in the sense of informing the rule-breach to the referee. No, it’s not for that purpose that you acknowledge your sin.
As far as I can see, it can only be for the purpose of either, a) maintaining the integrity of the game, or, b) for redemption and ultimate salvation.
The argument in that other thread was that the acknowledgment of sin serves the integrity of the game, but this doesn’t make sense, and here’s why.
God guarantees forgiveness if you confess your breach of the rules and repent (I’m told that particular contract was signed with a cross). In this way, a person may break the rules, suffer no penalty and still win the match! The integrity of the game is therefore ruined by the forgiveness of sins. If you break the rules and don’t confess, it’s brimstone for you my lad- you lose because you cheated knowingly by yourself and by the referee. But if you break the rules and confess, well, don’t worry- you win anyway!
So, I want to know why Christians confess their sins if it’s not for salvation. It cannot be for the benefit of playing the game. What is the purpose of admitting and confessing sin when its forgiveness is guaranteed by absolute promise? What is the purpose of having rules in the first place, if the game itself is completely pointless and lacks all integrity?
[ 15. June 2016, 18:50: Message edited by: Belisarius ]
Posted by Mr Clingford (# 7961) on
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You're fixated on salvation and can't see sanctification, the latter I think is what the creation of the universe and us is all about. The development of selfless, giving, relational beings. Repentance is about being honest, acknowledging areas of weakness and turning away from them to something better.
Sanctification, instead of believing the right things or saying the magic words as one's get out of hell free card.
Posted by Pooks (# 11425) on
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Yorick, I think it would be helpful, if you can get what the definition for the Biblical concept of sin is first.
Trust me, it is not quite the same as breaking the rules of golf.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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First of all, I DO confess as part of the forgiveness process. Not that I think my confession CAUSES forgiveness or earns it in some way. It's just part of what forgiveness and reconciliation naturally includes.
Have a fight with your wife sometime. You hopefully love each other enough to forgive whether either of you confesses to screwing up or not. However, it's usually much smoother when you acknowledge your fault (or she hers, or both of you, yours) and it's out in the open and dealt with. Nobody likes to think an important relationship problem is just being swept under the rug, all unacknowledged. It makes you wonder whether the other person even understands/admits that it was wrong and that it hurt you--and whether they are likely to go ahead and do it again BECAUSE they don't really "get it."
I've been in a few fights where the other person screws up, clearly doesn't understand why I'm having a problem with X behavior, but quickly and insincerely apologizes just to get me off their back. That just makes me madder. I want him/her to recognize that X IS a problem, that it hurt me, and at least to try to resolve not to do it again (whether this works out or not). Chances are good that they'll break this resolve, but at least having them acknowledge the damage they've done makes me feel better.
And when it's me who's doing the hurting, I feel better having gotten rid of the lies I was attempting to hide in, honestly admitted the screw-up, and cleared the air between us. Otherwise you live with a constant low-level queasy feeling, wondering if the person is still holding a grudge against you, and are they planning to bring it up at some unpleasant point in the future? Bleah. Full and honest confession avoids this "What is s/he thinking about me" problem. You'll find out--and hopefully mitigate it.
Now, since God is a person, most of the above applies when I sin against him. Better for me to get my fault out in the open though he knows it already. Better for ME, that is. Living in denial isn't healthy, whether the other party has forgiven you or not.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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I can relate to that, LC, thanks. Would you call that process 'sanctification' (as per Mr C, above)? Can anyone explain what sanctification is?
Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on
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At the risk of using evangelical jargon Yorick, I think the bit you're missing is that Christianity is about your relationship with God rather than a set of rules.
To expand a bit, the model of soteriology to which I subscribe is that God wants each of us to enjoy eternal life - that is, enjoy eternal life with Him, for, well, eternity and ultimately the only way that can come about is if we become creatures who enjoy and are in tune with heavenly things. The rules and regs then become a road map towards becoming this kind of creature rather than a game which you pass or fail according to your final score. And I note in passing that Christians are never told the pass mark for such a test. Divine forgiveness fits into this because, well, without it the process of growing into a right relationship with God is impossible. If God isn't committed to it, we have no chance.
Now you might well ask what the point then is of confessing - whether to a priest or privately to God. People have covered this well already but for me it's about a) actively acknowledging to myself and to God that I screwed up, setting a marker of intention to try and do something about it and appealing for help to that end, and b) actually asking for forgiveness, which it seems to me is necessary for any relationship to flourish after one party's hurt the other.
Other Christians will find other models of sin, judgement and salvation more helpful and/or true to scripture and tradition and experience, no doubt.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
So, I want to know why Christians confess their sins if it’s not for salvation. It cannot be for the benefit of playing the game. What is the purpose of admitting and confessing sin when its forgiveness is guaranteed by absolute promise? What is the purpose of having rules in the first place, if the game itself is completely pointless and lacks all integrity?
The integrity is in the repentant sinner. Confession alone is not enough if you don't regret the sin and resolve to do your best not to do it again. God is always holding out forgiveness, but we cannot receive it without genuine repentance.
That phrase 'do your best not to do it again' shows the nature of the problem. As you said in the OP, we are fallen. We keep doing things we shouldn't. If we keep committing the same sins and confess them with genuine contrition, God will help us turn away from them. This is what sanctification is about.
Moo
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
If you break the rules and don’t confess, it’s brimstone for you my lad- you lose because you cheated knowingly by yourself and by the referee.
Excuse me, but this is wrong.
Whether you go to Heaven or not has nothing to do with whether you've confessed sins. At least, not in the Protestant tradition. Catholics have a belief in Purgatory, which is still not the same thing as Hell.
'Winning', as you put it, is based on acknowledgement of Jesus as the son of God, not on confession of sins in the sense of admitting particular breaches of the rules. It may be based on admitting you are a SINNER, a rule-breaker, but that is not the same thing.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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First, I think you really do not understand repentance, confession and in particular the associated psychology. In order to repent, you must actually be sorry about, and wish to do no more, the sins you have done. Without evidence for this absolution of sins should not be granted by the priest in the first place. And even if it were, without this the grace of absolution will not actually be received by you. Ideally you should be sorry about having offended God, but if you are merely sorry about being in danger of hellfire that will do. In either case though this is a lot more than a formal application for sin-cleansing.
If there are indeed Christians who consciously plan to sin, confess, be forgiven, then they are just deceiving themselves. For it is simply not possible to force yourself emotionally to be genuinely sorry, or at least genuinely afraid, in cold blood. Thus either they will not be absolved, or if they lie sufficiently in the confessional, they will be formally absolved but not actually receive forgiveness. (Mind you, it can be different with compulsive sin, where one sins again and again against one's sincere intentions.) The Christians which you consider "hypocritical" are actually merely delusional.
Furthermore, confessing your sins to a priest forces you to face your issues explicitly. It is not pleasant and very few illusions about yourself remain after having to verbalize again and again just what you have done wrong recently. The idea that someone makes an ongoing empty ritual out of this is somewhat laughable. I'm sure that this used to happen, but really only while very strong cultural constraints forced people into the confessional. Nowadays, few people would do an "empty" confession more than once or twice. That would be like going to the dentist as a hobby. Thus even if someone planned on faking the "sin, repent, confess, be forgiven" cycle over and over again, I think after very few iterations he would just stick with step one.
Second, I do not think that you understand sufficiently the consequences of sin and the effect of being forgiven. There is a big difference between temporal and eternal punishment. And again there are different kinds of temporal punishment, at least concerning their apparent source. Those temporal punishments due to other humans generally stay untouched by God's forgiveness. Someone may have repented of a murder and received God's forgiveness, but he still sits in death row. Christianity does not teach that such "human" concerns are (or should be) swept aside by God's grace. To the contrary, dealing with them properly is a part of the process of reconciling with God. For example, someone confessing a murder in the confessional would be told to confess the crime to police as necessary part of the process of receiving God's forgiveness in future.
Next, there are temporal punishments due to setting things right with God, not just other people. Again, these are not wiped out by absolution alone. Incidentally, the whole issue about "indulgences" centers on that. Namely, the Church can decide to take over some or all of your temporal (not eternal) debts towards God. This she usually does in the connection with you doing something particularly holy, and always on the condition that you take care of the eternal side of things. But anyway, these temporal punishments can either come in this life. Then this is a bit like "bad karma": your life may take a turn to the worse as punishment for what you have done. Or it may come in the next life, in Purgatory, where you will have to suffer until every penny of your debt is repaid.
But maybe you think that the promise of an eternity with God really makes all that seem quite besides the point. And in some sense that is so, hence the angels rejoice over the deathbed conversion of the hardened sinner, and that sinner will (eventually) rejoice with them in heaven. However, (traditional) Christianity does teach that there are degrees of participating in the joys of heaven / new creation. I think a good analogy are the talents we are given in this life, minus the envy. Some people simply are smarter, faster, more musical, etc. We all have our limits as compared to others, and so it will be in the next life, too: How well you do in this life in being virtuous and avoiding sin determines the quality of your life with God in the next. Not that anybody making it to heaven enjoys anything less than perfect happiness in the beatific vision of God. But just as you can be perfectly happy listening to some pop music and Bach can be perfectly happy composing a fugue, there can be objective quality differences in the sort of happiness enjoyed. There will be a clear sense of "better" in heaven, without however all the negative consequences that has on earth.
Third, I think you lack a proper sense of habit formation on one hand and of death as an instant decider on the other. In spite of all just said, you may still wish to proceed with cycling between sin and forgiveness somehow. However, what you do now to a large extent determines what you do next. Losing a tendency to sin is typically as difficult as stopping to smoke. Some people can do it overnight, but it is much more common that it requires a long struggle. And the older and more ingrained the habit, the harder to kick it. So twenty cycles of sin and forgiveness later, you may find it quite hard to stop sinning even if you can intellectually understand that it would be a good idea now. One of the reasons why it would be a good idea to stop is because of death drawing close. For (traditional) Christianity teaches that at the point of death, your eternal fate is sealed. And this immediately points to the fundamental weak point of gambling with sin: you do not know when you will die. If death gets you after (mortal) sin and before repentance, confession and absolution, you are eternally screwed. (Actually, perfect contrition would do to save you, but for a gambler in sin contrition will likely not be perfect...) The chance to be run over in mid-cycle by a car may be comparatively small, but since the odds are infinite, you may still consider this to be too risky.
Fourth, I think you are not understanding properly what Christ has done for us. He has not simply removed all our sins, He has rather made it possible for us to deal with them. Imagine that to make a quick buck you sold fake medicine to many thousands of people. Many of them get sick or even die, and then you are found out. Forgetting about jail sentences for the purposes of the analogy, you suddenly are required to pay many billions of dollars reparations. You not only do not have that kind of money, you do not have any money left at all. Furthermore, you accidentally drank from your own medicine, you are dying, and the hospital is refusing treatment unless you cough up some money. Then a rich man steps in, uses almost every penny he has to pay off your lawsuits, puts the remaining money in your hands and as he joins the ranks of beggars tells you "Use this to be cured." Are you going to use that money to pay off the hospital, or are you going to blow it on a last visit by a hooker? An offense against God, a sin, incurs debt according to God's standing, i.e., infinite debt. You cannot pay that. Not only did Christ pay for you with the infinite value of God sacrificing Himself, He then gave you all necessary graces (and sent the Holy Spirit) so that you may also remove the stain of sin from your own life and live eternally.
Posted by Seeker963 (# 2066) on
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I'm kind of glad you brought this up, Yorick, because I found myself a bit confused by your assertion on the other thread.
I like your golf analogy. My answer would be: "Yes, of course it is for the sake of the game and for salvation". "Salvation", in my definition, is not being beamed in the transporter to another world called heaven, but ultimately creating a Game that is always played fairly for the sake of the Game. Maybe "here" on earth in this space-time continuum, or maybe somewhere else called The Land of Ultimate Golf in another space-time continuum.
Moving away from the golf analogy, someone once said to me that there is one purpose of guilt and one purpose only: to change one's behaviour and start behaving as one ought to do. The person explained that sitting around wallowing in guilt instead of doing what is right helps no one. That, in my view, is the purpose of forgiveness: to be able to move away from guilt and do what is right.
Now it seems to me that many people, atheist and Christian and Buddhist and etc. etc., are able to do this. It also seems to me that we all get stuck in guilt sometimes. And it also seems to me that we (mostly) all have High Ideals that we fail to live up to. So, forgive me (!) if I fail to see how atheists are less hypocritical than Christians. The only difference I can see is that you don't use the word "sin" when you screw up.
Posted by Gildas (# 525) on
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Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
So, I want to know why Christians confess their sins if it’s not for salvation. It cannot be for the benefit of playing the game. What is the purpose of admitting and confessing sin when its forgiveness is guaranteed by absolute promise? What is the purpose of having rules in the first place, if the game itself is completely pointless and lacks all integrity?
Let's run with your golf analogy, a bit. Now there are plenty of people who are cheerfully oblivious to the moral law. In golfing terms they are like me and regard it as a good walk spoiled. Let's say that I advance to the next stage and become a beginner at golfing. This could be seen as being akin to understanding that for the first time there is such a thing as the moral law and it demands our allegiance. So I go out onto the fairway, plant my tee into the ground and put my golf ball upon it. I take a golf club take careful aim and swipe. Alas, my aim is not true and instead of sailing graciously, as I had intended, towards the first hole instead it flies through the window of the clubhouse and lands in the Colonel's gin and tonic.
Now, if I am going to progress further I am going to have to do something about this. The thing, specifically, I am going to have to do is to find out what I was doing wrong, acknowledge it to myself and correct the fault. Otherwise I will progress no further in the game of golf. Now the game (be it golf or be it being human) is a fairly difficult business and I am going to get bits of it wrong on a fairly regular basis. The only way I can correct this is to try and understand where I went wrong and attempt to amend my behaviour so as not to repeat this. Some bits of it I am going to be congenitally bad at and I am going to find myself getting them wrong repeatedly. That bit of gorse at the thirteenth hole and I am going to get very well acquainted before I finally get the knack of not slicing the ball into that bit of the rough. Confession in this context is about acknowledging that I was holding the club incorrectly, or whatever, in order that next time I strike the ball it heads towards the hole and not in a random direction. If I am going to improve I am going to have to take ownership of my fuck-ups and not blame them on freak gusts of wind or claim that the club is invariably faulty.
Does that help?
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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As mythologies go, the Roman Catholic package is at least as comprehensive and cohesive as any I'm aware of. It's the archetypal embodiment of traditional Christian religion. If we think of religion in terms of simply providing an explanatory framework for human experience, it clearly 'works'. Substitute the unknowable in that experience with historically acceptable speculation, find reassurance in the Church's massive institutional affirmation of its rightness, and I guess with some metaphorical license life within this framework could reasonably be considered a golf-like exercise.
But it's a very outdated solution. God as a human-behaviour-weigher is a bizarre stretch of the imagination, understandable as a temporary idea for making sense of a particular situation but otherwise rationally indefensible. The whole sin and need for God's forgiveness foundation falls apart without it. This is old Christianity. It will doubtless be around for while, but I don't know for how long it can continue to be taken seriously.
Forward-thinking church will look to reality and the person of Jesus for its identity, providing the focus and the inspiration for networks of open communities based on eternal values. Perhaps life as a golf-like game with God will become a role-play exercise, with institutions that cling to a literal interpretation looking increasingly irrelevant.
With new Christianity the gap between our expectations and what we achieve will be recognised as a natural incentive towards the individual and shared creativity that defines our humanity. Rather than joining a club and playing the game, the focus will be on working with governing bodies, building the next generation of courses, transforming the environment for players and non-players alike. With a bit of luck, sin will become a forgotten word.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
Does that help?
Actually, I think it does, as do the posts above (jeez, this place can be excellent at times). You’re all correct that I simply do not understand repentance and confession and sanctification and my misconceptions of these were strawmen, but I’m sort of getting the general idea here- thanks to the trouble you’ve all taken. IngoB, of course I understand the difference between sincere and insincere remorse, but your essay (esp. on the Catholic understanding of temporal punishment and debt) is quite amazing, though rather terrifying- thank you for taking such great care with it.
I’m still in serious imbibition mode here, so my apologies for having no immediate responses. Just wanted to say thanks.
Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I once lost an important club match by calling a penalty on myself for dislodging a single leaf from a twig whilst swinging to pitch out of some woods- having been completely unobserved, and with having gained absolutely no unfair advantage by breaking that rule.
blimey, scruples like that put many saints to shame!!
Although I do not play golf, I understand from those of my acquaintances who do, that rule-breaking, if discovered, can lead on to *disciplinary proceedings* before the Club Committee. According to the analogy, God would be the Committee - if that body had CCTV which covered every possible angle of the course and if it sat reviewing every single round.
Whether a Club Committee would give a member a pardon if s/he 'fessed up prior to being found out, I have no idea.
Interesting concept, dear Yorick - thanks for raising it.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God as a human-behaviour-weigher is a bizarre stretch of the imagination, understandable as a temporary idea for making sense of a particular situation but otherwise rationally indefensible.
This is pure assertion, without the slightest rational argument in sight. And frankly, there's no way traditional Christian views can be rationally indefensible here. Upon the statement "God is/does X.", one can ask "Is X even logically possible?" (check), "Is X coherent with other things the speaker claims about God?" (check) and "Can X be motivated from sources which are authoritative to the speaker and not provably false?" (check) And that's basically the end of rational inquiry. Other kinds of arguments about these claims may be viable, but are not purely rational.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
This is old Christianity. It will doubtless be around for while, but I don't know for how long it can continue to be taken seriously.
I don't know either. But then I think that the Apocalypse will not begin before the whole earth has had a reasonable chance of hearing the gospel (Matt 24:14). I would speculate that there's at least a century left to come, but the mass media and globalization are not helping to prolong history. Certainly social conditions will become very unfavorable towards Christianity close to the end (Rev 13), but I doubt that your "new Christianity" will be what the beasts favor...
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Forward-thinking church will look to reality and the person of Jesus for its identity, providing the focus and the inspiration for networks of open communities based on eternal values. ... With new Christianity the gap between our expectations and what we achieve will be recognised as a natural incentive towards the individual and shared creativity that defines our humanity.
I'm sure that you can flesh that out so that it becomes more than dreamy, vacuous drivel?
Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[ quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Forward-thinking church will look to reality and the person of Jesus for its identity, providing the focus and the inspiration for networks of open communities based on eternal values. ... With new Christianity the gap between our expectations and what we achieve will be recognised as a natural incentive towards the individual and shared creativity that defines our humanity.
I'm sure that you can flesh that out so that it becomes more than dreamy, vacuous drivel?
Or perhaps The Fall is a metaphor for what happens when we pick (and eat) the low-hanging fruit, instead of thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope?
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Or perhaps The Fall is a metaphor for what happens when we pick (and eat) the low-hanging fruit, instead of thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope?
Funny, I would say that "think outside the box and push the envelope" is just what the serpent recommended in actual scripture. Not that I know what this is supposed to tell me here either way...
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[God being a human-behaviour-weigher as a bizarre stretch of the imagination] is pure assertion, without the slightest rational argument in sight.
Well, yes. It's starting from the generally accepted. Is there any verifiable evidence for believing there is such a God?
quote:
there's no way traditional Christian views can be rationally indefensible here.
Of course there's a way. The foundational axioms can become no longer credible.
quote:
Upon the statement "God is/does X.", one can ask "Is X even logically possible?" (check)
As is that teapot in orbit around Pluto.
quote:
"Is X coherent with other things the speaker claims about God?" (check)
Relevant only if X is consistent with other independently-believable claims.
quote:
"Can X be motivated from sources which are authoritative to the speaker and not provably false?" (check)
There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis, apparently.
quote:
that's basically the end of rational inquiry. Other kinds of arguments about these claims may be viable, but are not purely rational.
Rationality requires the application of logic to our choice of starting points as much as to how we argue from them. Relying on the authority of a powerful religious institution for belief in, say, the incarnation because it is unfalsifiable is no more rationally defensible than the teapot's existence.
quote:
Certainly social conditions will become very unfavorable towards Christianity close to the end (Rev 13), but I doubt that your "new Christianity" will be what the beasts favor...
I don't think you're quite getting what I mean by new Christianity...
quote:
I'm sure that you can flesh that out so that it becomes more than dreamy, vacuous drivel?
If open-ended thoughts on as yet unclear possibilities is only vacuous drivel, then probably not. New Christianity is not mine to pontificate about or defend, but seems to be happening as a result of the overwhelming dissatifaction at least in the UK with the traditional institutions. I don't know what the outcome will be, or what shape if any it will take. But I see only marginalisation and irrelevence for old Christianity. Which is a shame, because I like the good bits.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Is there any verifiable evidence for believing there is such a God?
In the sense of an empirical measurement here and now? No. And?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Of course there's a way. The foundational axioms can become no longer credible.
Foundational axioms are precisely non-rationally credible (or not). No rational discourse can touch them other than as launching pad.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
As is that teapot in orbit around Pluto.
Yes. Is there any point to your regurgitation of Atheism 101? Perhaps you are setting your hopes in a kind of spiritual mimicry - such that if you appear enough like an atheist, they will not come and eat you?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Relevant only if X is consistent with other independently-believable claims.
True, I missed that one. (check)
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis, apparently.
A source which you are unlikely to consider as authoritative and which is anyhow provably false. And your point is?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Rationality requires the application of logic to our choice of starting points as much as to how we argue from them.
If one could apply logic to the starting points, then they would not be starting points. Rather then what one applied logic from were the true starting points.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Relying on the authority of a powerful religious institution for belief in, say, the incarnation because it is unfalsifiable is no more rationally defensible than the teapot's existence.
Not that anybody quite does that in reality. But if anyone did, then it would be rationally defensible - if for no other reason than that you cannot launch a rational attack on it.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I don't think you're quite getting what I mean by new Christianity...
Right, I'm not. Mostly because it does not appear to be Christian.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If open-ended thoughts on as yet unclear possibilities is only vacuous drivel, then probably not.
OK, fine. Do let us know when your thoughts have arrived at anything concrete.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
But I see only marginalisation and irrelevence for old Christianity.
Perhaps true. I just don't see any evidence whatsoever for a "new Christianity" replacing it.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I can relate to that, LC, thanks. Would you call that process 'sanctification' (as per Mr C, above)? Can anyone explain what sanctification is?
Sanctification is IMHO the process of the Holy Spirit creating a family resemblance in you to Christ. It has nothing to do with earning salvation or forgiveness or anything like that. It is a result, not a means to an end.
And from a human viewpoint, it is very much a slow slow slow process, with many fits and starts, and long periods when it appears nothing is happening--or things are getting worse.
Compare it to remodeling a house while you keep living in it (that'd be me, then). As far as my neighbors know, right now things are getting worse, not better, at Chez Lamb Chopped. The lawn is going to hell, there are random bits of construction debris mysteriously strewn about, and yet the house looks no better--maybe even worse, as the outside trim has started to peel with neglect.
Inside, of course, it's the same (no, it's not really--I just couldn't resist typing that.). INSIDE the house, you can see that the crappy old cabinets in the kitchen have been removed, the dingy wallpaper scraped off, the new appliances installed and the sink moved. Even gutted, the kitchen looks a million times better than it did before. And by next month, we should have a shiny new floor, newly painted walls, and be on the way to having REAL cabinets and countertop for the first time in lo these many years.
But Mrs. X next door doesn't see any of that. Instead, she's whining to the city code people about her nasty neighbors. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In the sense of an empirical measurement here and now? No. And?
You are therefore using an incoherent concept of God. One that represents both the metaphysically justifiable first cause, but also this human-behaviour-weigher characteristic that does not follow from what you already know about the same reality, and for which there's no verifiable evidence.
quote:
Foundational axioms are precisely non-rationally credible (or not). No rational discourse can touch them other than as launching pad.
That's only true for unitary, irreducable axioms. The incarnation as a concept, for example, the creator and a creation being identical, can be logically evaluated against human reality outside of traditional Christian theology. The outcome in terms of rationality feeds into the rationality or otherwise of any theory based on it.
quote:
I just don't see any evidence whatsoever for a "new Christianity" replacing [old Christianity].
I understand that. Your personal preference is for the old religion, so the unrealised potential of the new provides no incentive to work for or support change. It's the understandable if disappointing political reality in all the mainstream churches.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I once lost an important club match by calling a penalty on myself for dislodging a single leaf from a twig whilst swinging to pitch out of some woods- having been completely unobserved, and with having gained absolutely no unfair advantage by breaking that rule.
blimey, scruples like that put many saints to shame!!
Yeah, well my profanities would have put the devil to shame.
Thanks everyone for taking the trouble to explain these concepts. I feel I do better understand the basic principles behind the aknowledgement, confession and forgiveness of sins now, and of course it makes much more sense than my misconception.
Cheers.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
You are therefore using an incoherent concept of God. One that represents both the metaphysically justifiable first cause, but also this human-behaviour-weigher characteristic that does not follow from what you already know about the same reality, and for which there's no verifiable evidence.
It's the word "incoherent" that is misleading. The different kinds of sources and arguments I make for my beliefs certainly integrate in manifold ways without any logical problems, so they are not incoherent. I think you merely mean here that there are different kinds of sources and arguments I use. And in your case, there is only one kind.
The first problem with this is that you are incorrect about yourself. Your belief is still "incoherent" in the same sense (though perhaps less so by the number of constituents), since you accept both physical and metaphysical arguments from empirical data. Whatever else one may say about these arguments, they certainly are different. Your response might be that they are however both "rational". And I would agree. But then metaphysical argument is not "simply" rational. Hence in practice the clear distinction you see to other arguments (for example from historical accounts) is not so clear at all.
What do I mean by "simply" rational? In physics, all one does is to determine the proper relationships between observables. In mathematics all one does is to employ the proper relationships between axioms. If one assumes that observation provides self-evidence and axioms are arbitrary as long as they do not self-contradict, then these thought systems "close". On the upside this means that one cannot argue against them, only within them. On the downside this means that they are very restricted in their scope (and for example tell us diddley-squat about God). Metaphysics is not similarly closed. Here one takes relationships gathered from observables, abstracts them to a conceptual core, and then employs these concepts to derive statements which can go beyond observables. If you like, it's a sort of conceptual mathematics based on physics. This is necessarily an open thought system - hence one can argue against it, not just within it (and atheists do). I do not think that metaphysics is irrational or even non-rational, yet it is not "simply" rational because one must make the assumption that concepts extrapolate beyond their original base.
Thus if you wish to claim that your sort of belief represents the minimal extension of rationality from "simple" to "non-simple" which still supports statements about a god, then I will happily agree. I for myself have allowed quite a number of additional ways of opening up my thought system for reasons that are basically non-rational (though not, I think, irrational). The basic motivation there was hope, or as an atheist would say, "wishful thinking".
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
That's only true for unitary, irreducable axioms. The incarnation as a concept, for example, the creator and a creation being identical, can be logically evaluated against human reality outside of traditional Christian theology.
It can, but all you can conclude there is that it is not in any provable way incompatible. Incarnation as "faith axiom" is consistent with all known "physics axioms". This does not mean that it is true, it merely means that it cannot be shown to be false.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Your personal preference is for the old religion, so the unrealised potential of the new provides no incentive to work for or support change.
That may be true, but it is not what I said. I said that I see no evidence for this "new religion" being on a self-sustaining rise anywhere. Frankly, it sure looks like a decay product to me, whose fortunes strictly depend on how much old religion is still around decaying.
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
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"foot"prints all over the thread. Scroll down, shipmates!
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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Okay, I give up. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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Well I'm very impressed with all your analysis of sin and forgiveness. Am I the only one left thinking, after all that, am I really a Christian? There's a whole other side to it which goes more like 'Hey, chill, we do our best, I'm sure that God understands....'
(Sorry to put a spanner in your works, Yorick)
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The different kinds of sources and arguments I make for my beliefs certainly integrate in manifold ways without any logical problems, so they are not incoherent.
In this context, the integration of beliefs from different sources doesn't imply coherence. It's only stuffing various strands of meaning into a conceptual container labelled "God". The incoherence becomes apparent when someone unfamiliar with the package attempts to extract meaning from it.
For example, a stranger in a church service might first encounter "can be spoken to", followed by "all powerful", then perhaps "first cause" as implied by "creator and sustainer". While traditional Christianity delights in this kind of thing, for someone attempting to make sense of God from scratch the result is likely to be cognitive dissonance. Some strands of meaning contradict others, unable in human experience to belong to the same referent. That's conceptual incoherence.
Of course if the solution adopted by traditional Christianity - name the contradictions as paradoxical mysteries - is acceptable, the incoherence can be ignored with others who are happy to do the same. But the problem remains when speaking of God with anyone else.
quote:
The first problem with this is that you are incorrect about yourself. Your belief is still "incoherent" in the same sense (though perhaps less so by the number of constituents), since you accept both physical and metaphysical arguments from empirical data.
I don't think so. Incoherence arises not from a concept having multiple strands of associated meaning but when strands are perceived as contradictory. The essence of at least useful metaphysics is consistency with the physics. As far as I'm aware my theology doesn't break that.
quote:
I for myself have allowed quite a number of additional ways of opening up my thought system for reasons that are basically non-rational (though not, I think, irrational).
Me too. But without the rational foundation, I see no grounds for including this kind of thinking in any public justification. It's the stuff of story and song, the inspiration and content for art, our own imagination's take on what might be.
quote:
I said that I see no evidence for this "new religion" being on a self-sustaining rise anywhere. Frankly, it sure looks like a decay product to me, whose fortunes strictly depend on how much old religion is still around decaying.
I've not used the phrase "new religion". I doubt most of new Christianity will look very religious, because it's the religious-looking bits of old Christianity that are mostly causing the decay. But insert a few words in the liturgy that make sense of the ontological claims of the old - "in the Church's story" in the right places might do it - and all the familiar rituals could become one expression and an integral part of the new.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
In this context, the integration of beliefs from different sources doesn't imply coherence. It's only stuffing various strands of meaning into a conceptual container labelled "God".
I don't accept your use of the word "incoherent" and I think you are overstating your case. However, it is correct that my faith draws on a wide range of sources and arguments.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The incoherence becomes apparent when someone unfamiliar with the package attempts to extract meaning from it. For example, a stranger in a church service might first encounter "can be spoken to", followed by "all powerful", then perhaps "first cause" as implied by "creator and sustainer".
Yet an all-powerful first cause that can be spoken to is not "incoherent" at all. Little confusion would arise over this even for the unintiated. Only "first cause" may require some explanation, but the combination of these features is unproblematic to the mind. Church services may be confusing to a stranger, but so because they are not actually intended to optimize information transfer about God.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
While traditional Christianity delights in this kind of thing, for someone attempting to make sense of God from scratch the result is likely to be cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonances are unlikely, because we are used to dealing with this kind of situation. Constructing a "profile" of a person, or then a Person, is perhaps impressionistic, but does not cause cognitive difficulties in most people.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Some strands of meaning contradict others, unable in human experience to belong to the same referent. That's conceptual incoherence.
It is difficult to talk about human experience and its epistemological and metaphysical consequences. I'm a trained quantum physicist. Does the wave-particle duality of an electron cause conceptual incoherence in me, or not? I certainly can and do operate as if not.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Of course if the solution adopted by traditional Christianity - name the contradictions as paradoxical mysteries - is acceptable, the incoherence can be ignored with others who are happy to do the same.
This is really quite false. There is an infrequent use of apparent paradox in traditional Christianity, in cases where the human mind can supply a thesis and antithesis about God, but cannot fully grasp their synthesis. The classical example is to talk of God as being both perfect Mercy and Justice. But your example, a "first cause that can be talked to", involves no such apparent paradox. There is no contradiction here at all, not even an apparent one, if one merely assumes that God is a Person. That a Person can be talked to is unsurprising, and that the first cause is a Person does, if at all, demystify "first cause" somewhat. (Since we have experience of people exercising "free will causality", and the creation of persons is metaphysically less problematic if a Person does it.)
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Incoherence arises not from a concept having multiple strands of associated meaning but when strands are perceived as contradictory.
No, not when they are perceived as contradictory, but when they are contradictory.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The essence of at least useful metaphysics is consistency with the physics. As far as I'm aware my theology doesn't break that.
I'm afraid you'll have to actually read what I wrote about the relation of physics and metaphysics above. Metaphysics is not consistent with physics in the peculiar sense that you apparently require for a "coherent" religion.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
But without the rational foundation, I see no grounds for including this kind of thinking in any public justification. It's the stuff of story and song, the inspiration and content for art, our own imagination's take on what might be.
But religion is not just metaphysics. If inspiration is not what you are looking for, then I'm afraid religion is just not your thing. It is however mine, and not for a lack of rational reasoning capacity or proven scientific acumen... I can hardly think of anything more detrimental to religion than reducing it to a purely reasoned foundation. This is even worse than the rejection of rationality by some religious folks. A computer is matter calculating, an angel has wings to soar with: you are a human, a half-breed, your calculations must fly.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
But insert a few words in the liturgy that make sense of the ontological claims of the old - "in the Church's story" in the right places might do it - and all the familiar rituals could become one expression and an integral part of the new.
Dude, you are slower than the sodding Vatican at actually writing any "new liturgy"...
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Okay, I give up. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Ingob's first name: Foot.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
Ingob's first name: Foot.
It isn't and this isn't Hell. Keep it clean.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Only "first cause" may require some explanation, but the combination of these features is unproblematic to the mind. Church services may be confusing to a stranger, but so because they are not actually intended to optimize information transfer about God.
That selection of examples wasn't the best. I was illustrating multiple strands of meaning associated with God coming out in a typical old-Christianity context. For clear inherent contradiction the obvious choice is Jesus as man and God.
quote:
Cognitive dissonances are unlikely, because we are used to dealing with this kind of situation. Constructing a "profile" of a person, or then a Person, is perhaps impressionistic, but does not cause cognitive difficulties in most people.
Your experience of hearing non-church (and an awful lot of church) people talk about God must be very different to mine. I can't think of a better choice of example for reliably incoherent self-expression.
quote:
I'm a trained quantum physicist. Does the wave-particle duality of an electron cause conceptual incoherence in me, or not? I certainly can and do operate as if not.
Of course. Both aspects of the duality are backed by repeatable observations. There are good empirical reasons to believe both are correct. There's precisely no evidence for believing that Jesus was God.
quote:
Metaphysics is not consistent with physics in the peculiar sense that you apparently require for a "coherent" religion.
What I said was that useful metaphysics requires consistency with the physics. Anyone can invent a philosophical theory that has a physical component - an eternal spaghetti monster inhabiting every serving of pasta source, perhaps. It's a metaphysical claim, but hardly a useful one. quote:
religion is not just metaphysics. If inspiration is not what you are looking for, then I'm afraid religion is just not your thing.
By your definition of religion, you're probably right. I don't remember saying it was.
quote:
your calculations must fly.
Not in the same way as you seem to mean. That's always been our difference, I think. You want the calculations formalised and legitimised, your religion dogmatised in a doctrinal blueprint for a system you hope will fly. What I'm talking about is a diverity of faith that is already in the air, generating hope from experience that rejects the posturing of religious authority. It laughs and celebrates with God the joy and pain of creation, but refuses to confine its identification with the values and attitudes of Jesus to the tired old word and sacrament formula.
I know that's alien to old Christianity. It's not like your religion. It might not seem religious at all. But it's at least as authentically Christian.
quote:
Dude, you are slower than the sodding Vatican at actually writing any "new liturgy"...
Hah! You have me confused with someone who has more than a passing interest in liturgy.
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
So, I want to know why Christians confess their sins if it’s not for salvation.
Yorick, most Shipmates are Protestant. They have inherited the ancient practice of confession, but it's to be expected that they have adapted the theology behind it to fit their relatively modern theologies. So, by asking them what they mean by confession, you will not get an answer about what confession meant in antiquity, when it was established as a practice of the church.
Secondly, most are of a liberal bias, which means that they will not admit that you have to be a Christian of a good standing in order to get saved. This theology no longer sells among most people, so the religious marketing has changed to adopt a more moderate approach. Of course, this leaves many ancient beliefs and practices without a firm basis, but most Christians will not concern themselves with that.
Thirdly, most Christians disagree with each other as to what baptism and eucharist mean. If you can't have an agreement about those foundational practices of Christianity, you can't expect agreement on the newer and much less well-explained practice of confession.
That said, and since the rule of prayer is supposed to be the rule of faith, here's something from the Orthodox prayer of absolution:
quote:
May God who pardoned David through Nathan the prophet when he confessed his sins, and Peter weeping bitterly for his denial and the sinful woman weeping at His feet and the Publican and the Prodigal Son, may this same God forgive you all things through me a sinner both in this world and in the world to come, and set you uncondemned before His fearsome judgment seat. Having no further care for the sins which you have confessed, depart in peace.
So, confession does play a role in removing condemnation from the faithful in front of the "fearsome seat of judgment", and hence it is used for the salvation of the individual, objections from Shipmates notwithstanding.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
For clear inherent contradiction the obvious choice is Jesus as man and God.
Well, no. It is not a contradiction, since you cannot in fact show that there is any logical incongruity in the claims made. It is a mystery, since nobody can explain fully how this may be the case. There is a difference between showing that something is wrong and not being able to show that something is true. If your complaint about Christianity is that it is based on mysteries then I cannot but agree with you. Yet I see no good reason why something involving God should not be full of mysteries. God is after all not an object of ordinary experience. I would actually say Christianity is rather minimalistic concerning mysteries...
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Your experience of hearing non-church (and an awful lot of church) people talk about God must be very different to mine. I can't think of a better choice of example for reliably incoherent self-expression.
I guess that depends on what you expect. It is true that careful theological reasoning about fundamental principles is not what most people would engage in. However, I think that (sincere) talk about God is usually very coherent indeed, albeit on an entirely different level. I also think that it is false to make the modern "pressure to apologize" the leading factor in developing pastoral concepts. While some of the more obvious prejudices have to be dealt with in order to reach our peers at all, faith cannot be reduced to ecclesial gong fu.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Both aspects of the duality are backed by repeatable observations. There are good empirical reasons to believe both are correct. There's precisely no evidence for believing that Jesus was God.
Nonsense. There's no empirical evidence for Christ's Divinity, at least not of the "experimental" kind following the "scientific method". But there's absolutely no good reason either why one should expect such evidence. There's plenty of historical evidence, in particular in the gospel, from the early rise of the Church, and from its ongoing success. There's plenty of experiential evidence available now from many believers. There's even a kind of empirical evidence from the miracles that keep occurring (though these events are too rare and unsystematic to allow proper "scientific" investigations). Finally, there's a kind of aesthetic evidence from the mind that investigates theology, Christ's Divinity "makes sense" in many ways. Naturally, all this is circumstantial evidence, building a possible but not compelling case to unaided reason. Faith in Christ is in the end a grace from God.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What I said was that useful metaphysics requires consistency with the physics.
And I said that no metaphysics can remain in the "empirically secure" realm of physics, a point expressed by the word "meta".
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Not in the same way as you seem to mean. That's always been our difference, I think. You want the calculations formalised and legitimised, your religion dogmatised in a doctrinal blueprint for a system you hope will fly.
This is a weird answer, given what I actually said. (Please do read it again.) I was not taking you to task for your failure to dogmatize, formalize or legitimize. While these failures are glaring, I consider them as a sort of "engineering problem". One may be worried about flying with a plane designed by sloppy engineers, but the first step is to wish to fly, and the second step is to invent the plane. Without these steps, engineering is of no particular relevance. I was taking you to task for trying to reduce religion to a purely reasoned foundation. That is fundamental failure at the first two steps.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What I'm talking about is a diversity of faith that is already in the air, generating hope from experience that rejects the posturing of religious authority.
This is rather amusing. If you had stopped your sentence after "experience", you would not have betrayed your dogmatic commitment - which I expect to be a lot more calcified than mine.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
It laughs and celebrates with God the joy and pain of creation, but refuses to confine its identification with the values and attitudes of Jesus to the tired old word and sacrament formula.
Again, the word "tired" was just that one word too much. Ideology is not limited to tradition.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Hah! You have me confused with someone who has more than a passing interest in liturgy.
Well, that at least is one thing we share...
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There's no empirical evidence for Christ's Divinity, at least not of the "experimental" kind following the "scientific method". But there's absolutely no good reason either why one should expect such evidence. There's plenty of historical evidence, in particular in the gospel, from the early rise of the Church, and from its ongoing success. There's plenty of experiential evidence available now from many believers. There's even a kind of empirical evidence from the miracles that keep occurring (though these events are too rare and unsystematic to allow proper "scientific" investigations). Finally, there's a kind of aesthetic evidence from the mind that investigates theology, Christ's Divinity "makes sense" in many ways. Naturally, all this is circumstantial evidence, building a possible but not compelling case to unaided reason. Faith in Christ is in the end a grace from God.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
As a lawyer, it bugs me whenever people use "there's no evidence of..." to mean "no compelling proof" or "no evidence which I personally accept". It is, I think, pretty obvious that an honest and intelligent equirer could examine the case for (traditional) Christianity and remain wholly unpersuaded, but to claim that there is no evidence for it at all is, indeed, nonsense.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[Jesus as man and God] is not a contradiction, since you cannot in fact show that there is any logical incongruity in the claims made.
It depends what you mean God. If simply the metaphysical first cause, then the contradiction is clear: a man who existed as a result of the first cause cannot also be the first cause. If you include other characteristics (for which there is no justification in physical reality), then any unfalsifiable claim is possible. Calling such claims mysteries devalues the naturally awe-inspiring wonders in the fabric of the universe that are necessarily beyond our understanding.
quote:
There's plenty of historical evidence [for Christ's divinity], in particular in the gospel, from the early rise of the Church, and from its ongoing success. There's plenty of experiential evidence available now from many believers.
So exactly what kind of experience indicates that a man is the first cause of the universe, that is not in some shape or form a consequence of wish fulfilment on the part of the observer?
quote:
And I said that no metaphysics can remain in the "empirically secure" realm of physics, a point expressed by the word "meta".
I don't disagree. That does not, must not if it is to be useful in the sense of faith-worthy, preclude consistency with physical reality.
quote:
I was taking you to task for trying to reduce religion to a purely reasoned foundation.
I'm not trying to reduce religion to anything. Religion is not my goal. I'm interested in making the best sense I can of human reality. Whatever kind of community-based system will do.
quote:
If you had stopped your sentence after "experience", you would not have betrayed your dogmatic commitment
I guess you could call commitment to a rationally-derived reality-based world view a dogma. I don't think it's anything more.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
It is, I think, pretty obvious that an honest and intelligent equirer could examine the case for (traditional) Christianity and remain wholly unpersuaded, but to claim that there is no evidence for it at all is, indeed, nonsense.
As a lawyer, then, I'd welcome your take on my question to Ingo. What evidence would cause you to conclude that a man on the clapham omnibus was in fact also the first cause of the universe?
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If simply the metaphysical first cause, then the contradiction is clear: a man who existed as a result of the first cause cannot also be the first cause.
Ah, I see. You have not understood the Incarnation. The unity of Jesus, the man, and Logos, the God, is not one of essence, but one of Personhood. Jesus, body and soul, is a creature created by the eternal, omnipresent God (including the Logos) at a certain time and in a certain place.
Perhaps an analogy would help. Take a dog. You can imagine "being a dog", barking, running around, sniffing, etc. Now assume that a lot of technological breakthroughs occur, and we can actually fully interface a newborn puppy with your brain, wirelessly and continuously. The puppy will grow essentially as normal, but whatever you may wish to call that which shapes its "dogness" into "this particular dog" will not form in the dog but rather in you. This does not turn you as human into a dog, though you will experience dogness. But you can still fully function as a human. This does not turn the dog into a human either, it still behaves like a dog: it barks, it does not speak, etc. Nevertheless, in some sense that dog is you: if the brain interface would be switched off, that particular dog would cease to be (and likely that dog would literally die, not being able to establish a "dog persona" instantly).
The dog - if it could think and speak - could reasonably claim to be you, because even though it is a dog doing dog things, it also is dog according to what you want. And if someone starts to kick this particular dog to death, then in a sense he has killed you: you as a dog. Something of you will die, your dogness. Finally, this dog will likely have your favor. For example, if you as dog are hungry then you are hungry as dog. Hence likely you as human will give you as dog food. To other dogs - if they could think and speak - this may well appear as a kind of magic: somehow you as dog can command a human overlord to do as you please. Yet from your perspective all that is happening is that you as a human and you as a dog are both you and hence act as one.
It's just an analogy, with several weaknesses, but perhaps it serves to illustrate the difference between unity of nature and unity of personhood.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
So exactly what kind of experience indicates that a man is the first cause of the universe, that is not in some shape or form a consequence of wish fulfilment on the part of the observer?
A man is not the first cause of the universe, because the Logos as man did not create the universe, the Logos as God did.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
That does not, must not if it is to be useful in the sense of faith-worthy, preclude consistency with physical reality.
Sure, but the sort of consistency that can exist between metaphysics and physics is not fundamentally other than the consistency that can exist between religion and physics.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What evidence would cause you to conclude that a man on the clapham omnibus was in fact also the first cause of the universe?
If He commanded the elements, healed the sick at will, turned water into wine, etc. - and then claimed to be God, clearly knowing what He is saying - that would be a start.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
As far as I can see, it can only be for the purpose of either, a) maintaining the integrity of the game, or, b) for redemption and ultimate salvation.
Going back to the beginning, I think that it is simpler than everyone is making it.
Forget about the rules and "salvation". The point is to have fun, just as it is in golf. The whole point is that "sinning" and "cheating" are not as fun, in the long run, as doing it right.
If you cheat in golf, or simply play badly, the game is not ruined forever. You can just play better next time. The whole point is improvement that results in a more rewarding game.
The only purpose of "repentance" and "forgiveness" is the message that improvement is possible. Being "bad" doesn't ruin life forever, you can always work to change things. If you do then life is more enjoyable.
It is easy to see that if everyone was reasonably honest, hardworking, kind, faithful, etc. life would be much more rewarding and fun. "Repentance" and "forgiveness" are an easy way to understand how to get from here to there.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
The only purpose of "repentance" and "forgiveness" is the message that improvement is possible. Being "bad" doesn't ruin life forever, you can always work to change things. If you do then life is more enjoyable.
It is easy to see that if everyone was reasonably honest, hardworking, kind, faithful, etc. life would be much more rewarding and fun. "Repentance" and "forgiveness" are an easy way to understand how to get from here to there.
Being good is more enjoyable than being bad and it is easy to see that the virtuous life is much more rewarding and fun. Yeah, right. Meanwhile, in the real world there was that little incident with the serpent, Eve and Adam. And it follows that even the middle class of a culturally Christian society can only maintain the outer appearance of the above with any significant degree of success. But look inside, and you'll see the rot also there...
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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I guess you don’t play golf, Ingo.
Freddy’s right, of course (and his way of putting it was quite touching): the better we live our lives, the better our lives (our corruption notwithstanding).
Thanks, Freddy.
BTW, Ingo, your dog analogy of personhood was very illuminating indeed. Ta.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What evidence would cause you to conclude that a man on the clapham omnibus was in fact also the first cause of the universe?
I agree with what IngoB said, basically (hence the ).
'Evidence' would be any secondary fact which, if accepted, positively influences the probability of the primary fact. So if you have a man who claims to be (at least) the primary agent of the First Cause, is understood by those who knew him best as claiming divinity, who teaches and practices a high standard of morality, who is credibly reported to have done miracles, who continues to be the basis of real and beneficial spiritual experiences, and whose cult persists for at least two thousand years, that is evidence of the truth of those claims. Note - "evidence", not "proof". There are alternative hypotheses to account for those facts, and a rational observer might well conclude that they are insufficient to support such an extraordinary assertion, but they are still consistent with, and supportive of, a claim to be God.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
In that case, there must be some threshold by which such accumulated anecdotal evidence leads you to the conclusion that it’s probably true. I guess the man on the Clapham bus fails to cross the threshold for you, but what was the tipping point for Jesus? The reports of his miracles? The two-thousand year cult? The fact that your dad told you it's true? All of the above?
Isn't it all a bit, well, arbitrary?
Posted by Dal Segno (# 14673) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Can anyone explain what sanctification is?
As it was explained to me, it is a three-stage process:
Justification - which happens once, at conversion; it can be thought of as forgiveness of sins, the slate being wiped clean, a fresh start. Perhaps like deciding to take up golf and join a club.
Sanctification - which happens throughout life; it is can be thought of as the process of being made Christ-like. It seems to involve making lots of mistakes, picking yourself up, and trying again. Something like learning how to play the game. It explains why some Christians seem so awful: they started from a very low point and they haven't progressed very far yet. They are like a hack golfer who refuses to listen to advice, refuses to get lessons, but continues to hack around the course in 145 every Saturday morning, getting in the way of everyone else.
Glorification - the end process, at death, going to be with Christ. I think the golf analogy fails at this point. I think there's an opinion expressed in one of Paul's Letters that the "self" that gets "glorified" will have all the residual crap burnt out. I think that is supposed to motivate us to aim to be Pro Christians rather than remain Hack Christians.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
In that case, there must be some threshold by which such accumulated anecdotal evidence leads you to the conclusion that it’s probably true. I guess the man on the Clapham bus fails to cross the threshold for you, but what was the tipping point for Jesus? The reports of his miracles? The two-thousand year cult? The fact that your dad told you it's true? All of the above?
God knows.
Would I still be a Christian if:
...I was as sceptical of the Biblical miracles as I am of (many) contemporary report? Probably not. I could lose a few healings, exorcisms, water-walkings and so on, but the resurrection is pretty important.
...it was a new religion without the 2000 year history? No idea.
...I had not had a Christian upbringing? I hope so.
No, I don't know what the tipping point is.
quote:
Isn't it all a bit, well, arbitrary?
Necessarily so.
Analytical ability is, essentially, a free resource to God. It's a good thing, but not, as far we we know, the thing he cares most about. If Christianity is right he wants much more to have people "hunger and thrist for" his righteousness. And he wants everyone, not just the smartest, best informed, and most rational.
The evidence for Christianity therefore has to be such that a great fool should be able to believe it, and the cleverest person in the world to disbelive. And vice versa. The evidence wins a hearing for God - it removes intellectual obstacles to faith, but can never create faith. The actual seeking for God that God desires isn't primarily intellectual (though it requires our best use of the intellect and everything else), and it is, I suspect, much more important to care about getting the answer right than actually to get it right. God can correct mere mistakes much more easily than he can cure indifference.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The evidence for Christianity therefore has to be such that a great fool should be able to believe it, and the cleverest person in the world to disbelive. And vice versa.
Now there's a sig quote if ever I saw one.
A commendable post- I admire your humility (and wish I had a bit of that meself). Cheers.
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The evidence for Christianity therefore has to be such that a great fool should be able to believe it, and the cleverest person in the world to disbelive. And vice versa.
Yet we see God in Genesis creating man with knowledge of God. No issues of faith or whatever were raised. And man was still able to go his own way away from God. Why the ambiguity now?
This is a double standard. When no evidence exists, it "has to be" that way. When the stories say people knew God because he interacted with them casually, it's alright too.
I think we are using too much brain power to cover for the absence of a personal all-loving all-powerful deity.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Ah, I see. You have not understood the Incarnation.
I understand the Incarnation. It's the consequence of a pact in the early church, the settlement by the bishops who gathered at Nicea on a single formulation of "beliefs" for the Emperor Constantine's Christendom. From that point, institutional Christianity became before any other consideration the expression of allegiance to the outcome of this very particular political necessity.
Now thanks to 1600 years' worth of efforts by the best church thinkers to make sense of this choice in their generations, the political nature of its origins has been replaced by rationalisations. Your dog analogy is a nice illustration of what you mean, but it represents the Incarnation as a reality. You rightly note limitations, but not that all such allusions must fail in principle, not least because the time-bound essence of human (and dog) existence precludes the possibility of any meaningful unity with a first cause that must by definition be outside time.
quote:
the sort of consistency that can exist between metaphysics and physics is not fundamentally other than the consistency that can exist between religion and physics.
That would depend entirely on the nature of the religion.
quote:
Originally post by Eliab:
'Evidence' would be any secondary fact which, if accepted, positively influences the probability of the primary fact. So if you have...
...
There are alternative hypotheses to account for those facts, and a rational observer might well conclude that they are insufficient to support such an extraordinary assertion, but they are still consistent with, and supportive of, a claim to be God.
I'd hope an opposing lawyer wouldn't let you get away with that. What you would have evidence for is a God who has moral standards, who breaks the consistency of otherwise reliably consistent laws of nature, and can be recognised from the religious behaviour of people over time. None of these characteristics relate to God as first cause; they reflect an other, separate, implicitly-defined idea of God onto which first cause is appended for completeness.
Your evidence is only for aspects of God that cannot be shown to be actual features of God. It's a circular justification for the God of traditional (and "folk") Christianity that may be unfalsifiable, but so is the Spaghetti Monster.
[cross-posted]
[ 23. March 2010, 18:00: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Being good is more enjoyable than being bad and it is easy to see that the virtuous life is much more rewarding and fun. Yeah, right. Meanwhile, in the real world there was that little incident with the serpent, Eve and Adam.
Sure being naughty can seem to be more...interesting. But you surely don't think that it really is.
The usual view is that Adam and Eve made a mistake, and it negatively impacted their state of happiness and contentment in life.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
"Made a mistake" is a bit of a euphemism. Try "fucked up."
Odd, I just had that discussion last Sunday--the one about vice being more fun than virtue. Overall I'd say that's not true--virtue is in the long run more fun (though there are occasionally incidentals like martyrdom, which can really ruin your whole day).
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'd hope an opposing lawyer wouldn't let you get away with that. What you would have evidence for is a God who has moral standards, who breaks the consistency of otherwise reliably consistent laws of nature, and can be recognised from the religious behaviour of people over time. None of these characteristics relate to God as first cause; they reflect an other, separate, implicitly-defined idea of God onto which first cause is appended for completeness.
Your evidence is only for aspects of God that cannot be shown to be actual features of God. It's a circular justification for the God of traditional (and "folk") Christianity that may be unfalsifiable, but so is the Spaghetti Monster.
I understand your point now.
I don't think I agree with it. The purely metaphysical idea of a First Cause seems to me to be an abstraction derived from the idea of a personal god, rather than the other way around. In any event I would argue that if the First Cause is conceived a god-like being at all (rather than merely "what came first, whatever that happens to have been") then there are good metaphysical grounds for plausibly supposing it to be ethical (it is reasonable to believe that a moral statement can be true, and therefore such a being could perceive its truth) and at least potentially active within the universe (what can be built can be tinkered with).
Jesus's claims to be at the very least the agent of that being are evidenced (not proven) by his miracles and his moral teaching and practice. It is, of course, possible to accept the gospel record as basically true, but to conjecture that Jesus was in actual fact the agent of an ethical and powerful entity who was not God-in-the-sense-of-First-Cause. There is no obvious disproof of that hypothesis, but personally I find it much more speculative, less plausible and less satisfying in every way than the account given by traditional Christian doctrine.
quote:
Originally posted by El Greco:
Yet we see God in Genesis creating man with knowledge of God. No issues of faith or whatever were raised. And man was still able to go his own way away from God. Why the ambiguity now?
This is a double standard. When no evidence exists, it "has to be" that way. When the stories say people knew God because he interacted with them casually, it's alright too.
I wasn't intending to disparage or deny any real experience of God. I believe that God can and does interact with people - and that sometimes it may be absolutely vital that he does so.
My point is that there is a very large class of people for whom that is not the norm. Many Christians, I think, would claim to have had some sort of encounter with God, but I cannot think of many whose faith was solely founded on such a meeting. Most, if not all, Christians I know have at some point needed to think hard about their reasons for belief.
If God does use that sort of process to make us his disciples (and if Christianity is true he plainly does) then for the large class of people that God works with in that way, the evidence would have to be such that it raised no insurmountable obstacle to belief, but did not remove the need to seek God with one's whole heart. Otherwise the process couldn't work - there would be either no need or no reason to seek God at all, and it seems very probably to me that it is the seeking that God most wants.
Sure, the Bible records God appearing to work differently with a few special cases. St Paul's conversion looks pretty irresistable to me (though I wonder if it was to Paul - or what internal struggles had brought him to the point where God could successfully meet him in that way) and yes, I do say that is alright too. God is entitled to take special measures with other people. I'm not talking about those people - because those people don't have the same issues about ‘evidence' that Dave M is referring to. I don't expect every Christian to have the same experiences as Paul nor do I think that was promised us.
Also, I think you overstate the case even for the Biblical exemplars of faith. There are stories - plenty of them - where God seems to drop in for a chat with his favourite humans, but I don't see that this is expected as normal for every believer, even those who are highly regarded in the Scriptures themselves. Nathanael (a true Israelite in whom there is no guile) seems to have come to believe on very slender miraculous evidence. King David (a man after God's own heart) saw few or no clear acts of divine power in one of the most detailed scriptural biographies.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The purely metaphysical idea of a First Cause seems to me to be an abstraction derived from the idea of a personal god, rather than the other way around.
I disagree. "First cause" is simply the alternative to "no first cause" in any theory of how the universe came to exist. It's a free-standing idea unrelated any religious beliefs.
quote:
I would argue that if the First Cause is conceived a god-like being at all (rather than merely "what came first, whatever that happens to have been") then there are good metaphysical grounds for plausibly supposing it to be ethical (it is reasonable to believe that a moral statement can be true, and therefore such a being could perceive its truth) and at least potentially active within the universe (what can be built can be tinkered with).
I'm not suggesting the first cause of the universe is a "god-like being", only that the idea of God needs to be grounded in what is verifiable if it's going to have any generally-applicable explanatory value. To make consistent sense, other features of God need either to follow from God as first cause, or have at least as good a basis in reality.
"First causing" seems to imply a nature that is ultimately consistent and absolutely selfless, but not an ethical being. The tinkering with the universe idea relies on history being a linear block of time. Yet all we ever experience is the cosmos as it is now, with the cummulative effect of the changes in all prior nows imprinted on it. A past and future reality that God might tinker with is entirely a product of our human interpretation of becoming. We have no grounds for thinking the passing of time has any reality outside our recollection of it.
Jesus on the other hand is the church's unique interpretation of the ultimate potential of humanity within time. Confusing him with the essentially first-cause-like understanding of God he inherited and re-interpreted I think loses the essence of his story and its value for today.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I guess you don’t play golf, Ingo. Freddy’s right, of course (and his way of putting it was quite touching): the better we live our lives, the better our lives (our corruption notwithstanding).
No, I don't play golf. The problem with Freddy's statement is the word "better". To realize just how problematic that word is in practice is to realize something crucial about the human condition. (That's not a new insight, but it is always a special insight, because we really don't want to know this.)
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
In that case, there must be some threshold by which such accumulated anecdotal evidence leads you to the conclusion that it’s probably true.
The problem is that you are treating the existence of God as if it were some arbitrary factoid, like the existence of penguins in South America. But once you discover the God-shaped hole in your soul (and believe me, there are many ways to find it ... don't think yourself "safe" just because you would never think, say, or do X), this is just not the case anymore. The question becomes more akin to "Does she love me?" or "Should I sign up to defend my country?" or "Can I make a living as artist?" or "Do I want a child now?" etc. Factual probabilities certainly play a significant role. But they are evaluated within a psychological framework that has value, purpose and urgency.
This is not about God calculus, this is about faith. This is about your beloved saying softly "Will you marry me?" or your king shouting "Dogs, would you live forever?" or the last boarding call to the plane to Paris etc. Whatever the "correct" answer may be, "Well, it's about 50:50, I would say." just won't do, even if it were true.
quote:
Originally posted by El Greco:
Yet we see God in Genesis creating man with knowledge of God. No issues of faith or whatever were raised. And man was still able to go his own way away from God. Why the ambiguity now?
Your exegesis is weak, as usual. God is not "before their eyes" when Adam and Eve make their decision (He returns Genesis 3:8-10). And they sin in His absence by disobeying what God has asked them to do, trusting in their faith in Him and His benevolence (Genesis 3:1-6, the fruits "before their eyes" were delectable, God's command appeared arbitrary and the serpent supplied "good" reason for eating).
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I understand the Incarnation. It's the consequence of a pact in the early church, the settlement by the bishops who gathered at Nicea on a single formulation of "beliefs" for the Emperor Constantine's Christendom. From that point, institutional Christianity became before any other consideration the expression of allegiance to the outcome of this very particular political necessity.
That's not showing any understanding of the Incarnation, it's merely a Bulveristic argument using simplistic history.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
You rightly note limitations, but not that all such allusions must fail in principle, not least because the time-bound essence of human (and dog) existence precludes the possibility of any meaningful unity with a first cause that must by definition be outside time.
If you had any actual argument for this unsupported assertion, I assume we would by now have heard it. As my analogy clearly showed, personal unity does not require unity of nature. The deficiencies of my analogy are essentially on the side of combining man with dog, not on the side of combining God with man. I can imagine arguments against the former, which however would not by analogy apply to the latter, due to principle limits to human power. If you wish to make a case based on contrasting eternity and time, then I think the only possible argument you have is to deny the possibility of eternity interacting with time, full stop.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What you would have evidence for is a God who has moral standards, who breaks the consistency of otherwise reliably consistent laws of nature, and can be recognised from the religious behaviour of people over time. None of these characteristics relate to God as first cause; they reflect an other, separate, implicitly-defined idea of God onto which first cause is appended for completeness.
More a God who gives moral standards. Which means that all these features are eminently compatible with God being the first cause. God is the first cause of morals (He created people with a moral sense and helps them apply it correctly); God is the first cause of all that happens, hence only He can do something that stands out against what He usually causes to happen (natural law); and God is the first cause of the religious instinct in people (same comment as for morals).
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
That's not showing any understanding of the Incarnation, it's merely a Bulveristic argument using simplistic history.
Nonsense. It wasn't intended to be an argument but a description of an understanding. That it is different to the Roman Catholic Church's mysterious alternative, and happens to have a rather prosaic basis in history, doesn't mean it's not correct.
quote:
If you wish to make a case based on contrasting eternity and time, then I think the only possible argument you have is to deny the possibility of eternity interacting with time, full stop.
If eternity means something like beyond time, it doesn't interact with anything. It's a conceptual container for time, a context within which we assert that no time-bound rules apply. God operates from this context but by definition does cause the universe, so I'm not sure what case you're imagining.
But the nature of our humanity is only expressed through the sequential foundation of time-bound meaning. If God's nature is eternal, nothing time-bound can be involved. What basis can there be for any incarnational unity?
quote:
God is the first cause of morals (He created people with a moral sense and helps them apply it correctly); God is the first cause of all that happens, hence only He can do something that stands out against what He usually causes to happen (natural law); and God is the first cause of the religious instinct in people (same comment as for morals).
You're assuming God has an overview of history. There are no good grounds for relying on such a model of reality.
[ 26. March 2010, 16:09: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The problem with Freddy's statement is the word "better". To realize just how problematic that word is in practice is to realize something crucial about the human condition. (That's not a new insight, but it is always a special insight, because we really don't want to know this.)
Are you suggesting improvement isn't really possible? ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If eternity means something like beyond time, it doesn't interact with anything. It's a conceptual container for time, a context within which we assert that no time-bound rules apply.
It is pretty difficult to talk about eternity, so I'm prepared to make allowances for that. But your definition is both incoherent and not the one traditionally used by Christianity. First, the incoherence: eternity cannot be a conceptual container for time if within it no time-bound rules apply. Rather, if time is contained within eternity, then necessarily are time-bound rules. Or if time-bound rules are not within eternity, then time isn't either. Second, the tradition: Boethius, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas etc. consider eternity to be something other than time, rather than its container. Eternity is timelessness rather than everlastingness. The best analogy to eternity that can be found in time is then not a fantastically long stretch of time, but exactly the opposite, an instant in time. For God exists and lives "all at once", something which experientially we can associate best with "living in the moment". The whole of time is then to the eternal God as the present world is to us.
quote:
Boetius "Consolation of Philosophy"
God is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. Let us, then, consider what eternity is. For this word carries with it a revelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge. Now, eternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single moment. What this is becomes more clear and manifest from a comparison with things temporal. For whatever lives in time is a present proceeding from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace the whole space of its life together. To-morrow’s state it grasps not yet, while it has already lost yesterday’s; nay, even in the life of today ye live no longer than one brief transitory moment. Whatever, therefore, is subject to the condition of time, although, as Aristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or end, and its life be stretched to the whole extent of time’s infinity, it yet is not such as rightly to be thought eternal. For it does not include and embrace the whole space of infinite life at once, but has no present hold on things to come, not yet accomplished. Accordingly, that which includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once, from which nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped, this is rightly called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present to itself in full self-possession, and hold the infinity of movable time in an abiding present.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
But the nature of our humanity is only expressed through the sequential foundation of time-bound meaning. If God's nature is eternal, nothing time-bound can be involved. What basis can there be for any incarnational unity?
Simple, and as stated several times now: Personal unity that leaves the respective essences unmixed, exactly as claimed by Christianity. This requires nothing of God as God other than that He be capable of acting in time. For if He can divide the Red Sea before the Israelites (and thus is capable of directing His powers to matter in a specific spatiotemporal position in His creation), then in principle nothing stops Him from being the Personal agent that makes the man Jesus Christ speak a blessing or take a crap. For this it is not required at all that Jesus Christ be "eternal" in His mind and body, which is indeed non-human. But through the personal union Christ could in some sense partake of the eternal perspective in a time-filtered manner, for example "see the future". Now, it is difficult to think about how precisely such an "activity mapping" between eternity and time should occur, largely because we cannot properly think eternity. Philosophers do beat each other up about that (e.g., Stump & Kretzmann vs. Swinburne). But once more, not knowing how something works is not the same as showing that it cannot work.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
You're assuming God has an overview of history. There are no good grounds for relying on such a model of reality.
This wasn't actually a major assumption in what I said, as far as I can see. And it appears to be your game here to make strong assertions, and when called upon it, switch to a different assertion. If God is Creator, then it follows naturally that He will have an overview of history. Just as a painter has an overview of his painting due to having painted it. And worked in reverse this analogy gives good grounds indeed to assume that God is Creator (a creating Person of some kind). For in our experience, only people can make something new by their own choices, rather than merely flowing into new patterns according to natural law. Only persons are ever seen to be truly creative. Creation from nothing however can by definition not occur through any regular flow of events, since there is nothing to flow from. Thus our experience provides most grounds for a Creator, a creative "Person" in some sense, rather than for example some non-personal cause.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Are you suggesting improvement isn't really possible?
Indeed, by human nature alone improvement isn't really possible in any fundamental sense. What one can do is to arrange matters to minimize the damage our flaws cause to ourselves. Certainly considerable progress is possible that way, and some has been achieved. But neither is it possible to eradicate human failings altogether by any natural means, nor does much stability inhere in even our best efforts to get close to that goal. With human means, there is no "end of history" in sight where people live happily ever after. There's only the never-ending work of keeping the shit from hitting the fan in new, creative ways... We are Sisyphus.
Posted by Ondergard (# 9324) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I once lost an important club match by calling a penalty on myself for dislodging a single leaf from a twig whilst swinging to pitch out of some woods- having been completely unobserved, and with having gained absolutely no unfair advantage by breaking that rule. The rules are incredibly strictly observed for the sake of the game.)
That's funny. I thought that was Bobby Jones at the Master's in Augusta in the 1920's. Or, at least, according to the late Alistair Cooke it was Bobby Jones.
"You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank"
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Are you suggesting improvement isn't really possible?
Indeed, by human nature alone improvement isn't really possible in any fundamental sense.
I'm thinking I must be confused about what your point is. I can agree that that is true of human nature alone, but don't you think improvement is possible with God's help? Are you saying that repentance and forgiveness are not enough to make it possible for God to help us improve?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
Yorick writes in his OP:
"So, I want to know why Christians confess their sins if it’s not for salvation."
IngoB as is his wont, has pointed out that a proper understanding of one's position before a holy God leaves one little choice.
I confess my sins too. It is a Biblical injunction that in doing so one ceases to be able to kid oneself about oneself. (just like one's prowess at golf which I play very badly.)
I also confess my sins with the understanding that, as has already been pointed out so ably, that some absolution is possible, such as provides a new beginning for me based on sacrifice by God of his son at calvary.
Without the seeking, obtaining and accepting of this forgiveness, my sin is a heavy burden of guilt indeed. And if, conversely I refuse to acknowledge my sin, the book of Romans and John's Ist letter actually state that I am making God a liar.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I can agree that that is true of human nature alone, but don't you think improvement is possible with God's help? Are you saying that repentance and forgiveness are not enough to make it possible for God to help us improve?
Hmm. This is really tricky. I think it is more the case that the sequence of repentance, confession and forgiveness, plus the knowledge that there always is some problem and an ability to find it (*), which is already the decisive improvement due to God's grace. That's not to deny real growth of a person. But I would say that it is the current strength of this growth, rather than its accumulated result up to this point, which is of importance. In this life.
(*) Scrupulosity isn't holiness though...
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I can agree that that is true of human nature alone, but don't you think improvement is possible with God's help?
Hmm. This is really tricky.
Ingo I wasn't sure if your point was that improvement isn't possible. Was it?
Your response here seems to be that perfection isn't possible. Improvement, just so you understand, isn't perfection. It's about incremental change - even the tiniest tick in a positive direction. "Better" does not mean "best." And of course, as Mr. Hyatt notes, it is God's help, not our own power, that makes it happen.
So was that your point in saying: quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The problem with Freddy's statement is the word "better".
Is there no such thing as "better"?
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
eternity cannot be a conceptual container for time if within it no time-bound rules apply. Rather, if time is contained within eternity, then necessarily are time-bound rules.
If I had meant that time was contained within eternity, I would not have referred to it as a conceptual container. Time is our experience of becoming. Eternity is simply whatever might lie beyond, conceptually "outside", that experience. Therefore no time-bound rules can be assumed "within" eternity.
quote:
Second, the tradition: Boethius, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas etc. consider eternity to be something other than time, rather than its container.
As was I.
quote:
quote:
If God's nature is eternal, nothing time-bound can be involved. What basis can there be for any incarnational unity?
Simple, and as stated several times now: Personal unity that leaves the respective essences unmixed, exactly as claimed by Christianity. This requires nothing of God as God other than that He be capable of acting in time.
My point is that God cannot be capable of acting within time, if act in this context implies intention. To be eternal, beyond time, by definition means does not "experience within time". God therefore has no basis on which to formulate an intention to act within time.
quote:
For if He can divide the Red Sea before the Israelites (and thus is capable of directing His powers to matter in a specific spatiotemporal position in His creation), then in principle nothing stops Him from being the Personal agent that makes the man Jesus Christ speak a blessing or take a crap.
This is story, though, like all the miracles. If you include them in your case for God you undermine any claim to be attempting to model reality.
quote:
Now, it is difficult to think about how precisely such an "activity mapping" between eternity and time should occur, largely because we cannot properly think eternity. Philosophers do beat each other up about that (e.g., Stump & Kretzmann vs. Swinburne). But once more, not knowing how something works is not the same as showing that it cannot work.
But we can be careful with our terms and avoid inconsistencies. The problem for traditional Christian thinking is this inconsistency surrounding the incarnation cannot be excluded, and provides the justification for various other speculations simply on the grounds they are unfalsifiable.
quote:
quote:
You're assuming God has an overview of history. There are no good grounds for relying on such a model of reality.
This wasn't actually a major assumption in what I said, as far as I can see. And it appears to be your game here to make strong assertions, and when called upon it, switch to a different assertion.
For God to "give moral standards" as you suggested implies a God who "knows about" the experience of morality in action. From eternity this would require perception of the sequential unfolding of time. No game involved, merely pointing out an underlying objection because it seemed easier than responding directly to your points.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
. Eternity is simply whatever might lie beyond,My point is that God cannot be capable of acting within time, if act in this context implies intention.
How extraordinary.
The creator of time is incapable of acting within it?
Hebrews Ch 1 explains that God in Christ invaded time. He brought an eternal presence within time and by the Holy Spirit..it is still here..or there.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
My point is that God cannot be capable of acting within time, if act in this context implies intention. To be eternal, beyond time, by definition means does not "experience within time". God therefore has no basis on which to formulate an intention to act within time.
Your argument fails on multiple levels. First, God does not "formulate an intention" anyway. He does not have a discursive mind like you and His powers are unlimited. That what He wishes to be simply is, including anything within spacetime. Second, God "sees" all of time at once (or more accurately perhaps, all of time is as He wants, and He knows what He wants). Clearly this is a much more comprehensive information basis than any experience within time could possibly afford. Hence God's basis for action within time is much larger than ours. Third, it is per se unclear that spacetime-internal information is the most meaningful one about spacetime. Luckily I can save myself complicated argument there by simply pointing to "The Matrix". That God's actions have spacetime consequence and meaning does not per se require that God arranges for this in spacetime terms in the first place. Fourth, I see no particular reason anyhow why God's mind could not operate in spacetime terms if He wanted to. My mind is flexible and powerful enough to operate with fairly arbitrary rule sets, e.g., Nine Men's Morris establishes it's own peculiar spatial geometry (the board with its positions) and time (number of moves), yet I can easily form intentions within this game framework.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
This is story, though, like all the miracles. If you include them in your case for God you undermine any claim to be attempting to model reality.
No, I don't - because you have not proven that this miracle was not reality. But it was not my point to directly justify the Incarnation from the dividing the Red Sea. My point was rather first that the Incarnation presents no principle difficulty if God can act in time. And then I used the dividing of the Red Sea as illustration that the concept of God acting in time certainly is old and widely accepted.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The problem for traditional Christian thinking is this inconsistency surrounding the incarnation cannot be excluded, and provides the justification for various other speculations simply on the grounds they are unfalsifiable.
You have failed to shown any inconsistencies so far, and your excuse cannot be that these inconsistencies are unfalsifiable. Theories can be unfalsifiable, but inconsistencies are falsifications themselves! So if there were any inconsistencies here, then you would have falsified the Incarnation - at least partly. But you haven't, and you won't. The simple fact of the matter is that you are making a choice here, a choice that is in spite of your incessant advertising to the contrary has little to do with reasoned argument.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
For God to "give moral standards" as you suggested implies a God who "knows about" the experience of morality in action. From eternity this would require perception of the sequential unfolding of time.
As mentioned above, (a) this is false anyhow, but (b) there is no real reason why it should not be possible.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
How extraordinary. The creator of time is incapable of acting within it?
Given the meaning of eternity that Boethius, Augustine and Aquinas seem to have used, and if act implies some kind of intention on God's part, it would appear not.
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Hebrews Ch 1 explains that God in Christ invaded time. He brought an eternal presence within time and by the Holy Spirit..it is still here..or there.
Oh, right... I guess that explains your surprise.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Ingo I wasn't sure if your point was that improvement isn't possible. Was it?
Define what you mean by improvement, precisely, and I will tell you whether I think it is possible (naturally).
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Your response here seems to be that perfection isn't possible. Improvement, just so you understand, isn't perfection.
Thanks, but I'm neither stupid nor was that my response.
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Originally posted by Freddy:
Is there no such thing as "better"?
Sure there is such a thing as "better". But that does not imply that you are correct in saying that X is better than Y.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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Originally posted by IngoB:
First, God does not "formulate an intention" anyway.
Agreed.
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He does not have a discursive mind like you...
We have no grounds for thinking God as first cause of the universe has a mind at all. A nature that causes to become, yes, but that doesn't imply a mind.
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... and His powers are unlimited.
The only power we know God has is the means to cause as our universe is being caused.
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Second, God "sees" all of time at once (or more accurately perhaps, all of time is as He wants, and He knows what He wants).
This is the assumption for which there is no basis in our experience of reality, and no reason from observation to make. Now is all we ever experience. Reality as a process is a philosphically credible alternative to the more intuitive but illusory idea of time as a block history.
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Third, it is per se unclear that spacetime-internal information is the most meaningful one about spacetime.
It happens to be the source available to us. Of course we can make no claim to its completeness, but it is our only verifiable connection to anything more. Basing extensions on anything else will give us precisely no grounds for confidence in their reality.
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Luckily I can save myself complicated argument there by simply pointing to "The Matrix".
Your faith in the capacity of computer software to present minds with a flawless replica of space-time is impressive. My take is that while Neo had some nice moves, God is in an entirely other league.
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That God's actions have spacetime consequence and meaning does not per se require that God arranges for this in spacetime terms in the first place.
I agree. But without an eternal experience of being time-bound, consequence and meaning within time do not cross over to eternity as we are defining it. I can vaguely imagine identity in terms of what has been created offering some kind of continuity from spacetime to eternity, but nothing the other way.
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Fourth, I see no particular reason anyhow why God's mind could not operate in spacetime terms if He wanted to.
Only if you step outside of any reality-based model.
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No, I don't - because you have not proven that this miracle was not reality.
I don't need to prove it, only point to its inconsistency with verifiable human experience. The vast relative insignificance of any credible claims for counter-natural events when compared to the natural order would I suspect satisfy any other statistical requirement for certainty. It is only religious fervour of one sort or another that ever doubts that.
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The simple fact of the matter is that you are making a choice here, a choice that is in spite of your incessant advertising to the contrary has little to do with reasoned argument.
When you show with reasoned argument that my choices are inconsistent either internally or with verifiable reality, my view will change. But I do choose not to rely on religious authorities for my perceptions.
[ 27. March 2010, 23:42: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
We have no grounds for thinking God as first cause of the universe has a mind at all. A nature that causes to become, yes, but that doesn't imply a mind.
Of course we do have grounds. As mentioned, the only causes we know that act creatively are persons with a mind. Hence it is a natural extrapolation from experience to assume that the most creative act ever, creation, was performed by a Person with a Mind. Further, we need the mystery (and I say mystery here as neuroscientist, not as believer) of free will and consciousness to explain the mystery of creation. For it is illogical, nay, insane to assume that any deterministic cause can connect truly nothing to something. From nothing nothing can be caused. But a deterministic cause cannot exist alone, because it would then not be determined by anything. Therefore a lonely cause must be non-deterministic in some way, like free will appears to be. Finally, there is also a metaphysical argument that a cause cannot cause anything that is essentially greater than itself. But mind is essentially greater than non-mind. Therefore whatever caused mind to be must at least be mind itself, or greater than mind. Still more arguments exist, naturally.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The only power we know God has is the means to cause as our universe is being caused.
It is however unlikely that a power which can cause all cannot cause some. Rather it is likely that a power known to cause all, can cause some, and also can cause more, all the way up to causing all.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
This is the assumption for which there is no basis in our experience of reality, and no reason from observation to make. Now is all we ever experience. Reality as a process is a philosphically credible alternative to the more intuitive but illusory idea of time as a block history.
Your vocabulary constantly makes claims that you cannot maintain with argument. Or can you show that "block history" is illusory? No, of course not. And if this idea is "more intuitive" then per definition because it has a better basis in our experience of reality. The god of Whiteheadian process theology remains one about which one can reasonably ask "And who made god?" The answer "Nobody made God." does not come for free.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Basing extensions on anything else will give us precisely no grounds for confidence in their reality.
But I am basing my comment on the limits of spacetime on experiences in spacetime. I can play Nine Men's Morris in spacetime, for example.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Your faith in the capacity of computer software to present minds with a flawless replica of space-time is impressive. My take is that while Neo had some nice moves, God is in an entirely other league.
I have no such faith, as you well know, and you are simply being evasive by insult. The point was that the code of the matrix is not the matrix as experienced by those in the matrix, but nevertheless the code is in fact more informative and decisive concerning the matrix than those experiences.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
But without an eternal experience of being time-bound, consequence and meaning within time do not cross over to eternity as we are defining it.
This claim has no support, it is mere assertion. And furthermore it is unclear whether it is even relevant, if it were true. But I've explained this twice before already.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Only if you step outside of any reality-based model.
Nonsense. A lot of models can be based on reality, maybe even yours.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The vast relative insignificance of any credible claims for counter-natural events when compared to the natural order would I suspect satisfy any other statistical requirement for certainty. It is only religious fervour of one sort or another that ever doubts that.
But of course, much religious fervor claims to have been caused by the observation of miracles, rather than causing their observation. Clearly you have a bit of an observational bias problem on your hands there...
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
When you show with reasoned argument that my choices are inconsistent either internally or with verifiable reality, my view will change. But I do choose not to rely on religious authorities for my perceptions.
Well, likewise, except that I consider it wise to listen to the authorities in a field.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
How extraordinary. The creator of time is incapable of acting within it?
Given the meaning of eternity that Boethius, Augustine and Aquinas seem to have used, and if act implies some kind of intention on God's part, it would appear not.
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Hebrews Ch 1 explains that God in Christ invaded time. He brought an eternal presence within time and by the Holy Spirit..it is still here..or there.
Oh, right... I guess that explains your surprise.
Quite. I have a choice of believing you..or the scripture.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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Originally posted by IngoB:
the only causes we know that act creatively are persons with a mind. Hence it is a natural extrapolation from experience to assume that the most creative act ever, creation, was performed by a Person with a Mind.
If as you do here you assume a universe that has been created, you implicitly dismiss the basis from which I am arguing: that there has been no one creative act of God. Instead, if the now of reality as we experience it, the changing of space with time, is an ongoing the "act of creation", God in essence is simply the motivating cause.
As far as I can see, that precisely fits how we observe human reality to operate at the metaphysical level. The traditional, intuitive alternative, that time is a progression through an "already created in eternity by God" history of the universe, fits significantly less well. Such a model requires the speculative extension of now in both directions to account for a past and a future that (unless you believe Tardis-like time travel is other than fiction) have no present reality.
It may well be a natural extrapolation from experience to assume that past and future nows all "exist somewhere" in the Mind of a Person who lovingly crafted the universe, but is that any good reason to believe it's an even partially adequate representation? What little I know of chaos theory and quantum mechanics suggests not. On careful observation and analysis of the physical data, it seems wonderful wierdness is our underlying reality.
We have evolved to survive. Is it any wonder that our intuitive perceptions hide such things behind linear ordered representations that had to work for our evolutionary ancestors?
I see no justification for thinking that God as the cause of the transformation of every sub-atomic particle from one instant to the next does not operate entirely at that level, enabling the forms that make up our perceived reality to emerge fractal-like from some eternal substrate. What would an eternal Mind directing such a process add to the cosmological, geological, and biological evolution that has occurred "naturally"? None that I can see.
The arguments you're drafting in are all in one way or another distractions from consideration of this process view of reality. I don't find the Whiteheadian system helpful as theology, but I suspect the process paradigm is the key to a credible future for God in contemporary thinking. Sadly, it doesn't look like that will be happening much in either of our Churches in the forseeable future.
[ 28. March 2010, 14:26: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If as you do here you assume a universe that has been created, you implicitly dismiss the basis from which I am arguing: that there has been no one creative act of God. Instead, if the now of reality as we experience it, the changing of space with time, is an ongoing the "act of creation", God in essence is simply the motivating cause.
If God is a motivating cause, rather than just a cause, then He still must be a Person. Motivation is a feature of personhood. But anyway, the god that you propose is merely a kind of demiurge. Anything that does not answer "Why is there anything at all?" cannot count as God proper.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
As far as I can see, that precisely fits how we observe human reality to operate at the metaphysical level. The traditional, intuitive alternative, that time is a progression through an "already created in eternity by God" history of the universe, fits significantly less well.
I have not been able to make much sense of your first sentence. Your second sentence is yet another assertion lacking any support in argument or data. Explain the cost function of that fit, please...
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Such a model requires the speculative extension of now in both directions to account for a past and a future that (unless you believe Tardis-like time travel is other than fiction) have no present reality.
Are you denying here that there is a past and a future, or are you still following the erroneous assumption that eternity is some kind of infinite extension of past and future?
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
It may well be a natural extrapolation from experience to assume that past and future nows all "exist somewhere" in the Mind of a Person who lovingly crafted the universe, but is that any good reason to believe it's an even partially adequate representation? What little I know of chaos theory and quantum mechanics suggests not.
Well, I will admit that thinking about contingent events and free will in the traditional picture is a bit mind-bending. But then one takes the tough road here out of commitment to clear principles elsewhere. And similarly, you "process theology" may have it easy here, but then you need to struggle hard to avoid turning God into a demiurge. Or at least you would have to, if you were to think things through.
Now, events are contingent with regards to their proximate causes, not with regards to the ultimate cause, God. An analogy. Say in a movie someone throws a die. If he throws a six, he wins a million dollar. But he throws a one and ends in the gutter. From the perspective inside the movie, the movie world, this is truly contingent. It could have been the six, but it wasn't. But as far as the movie director is concerned, this is just what he willed. In fact, the movie director willed this to be the contingent fate of the character, and therefore it was necessarily contingent. The mind bending thing is the lack of any fake where God is concerned. Reality does not pretend to be, as a movie does, it really is. The die really rolls on six in reality. And that really is contingent. Yet God choses that the reality be actual where the die rolled contingently on six, not the reality where the die rolled contingently on one.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I see no justification for thinking that God as the cause of the transformation of every sub-atomic particle from one instant to the next does not operate entirely at that level, enabling the forms that make up our perceived reality to emerge fractal-like from some eternal substrate. What would an eternal Mind directing such a process add to the cosmological, geological, and biological evolution that has occurred "naturally"? None that I can see.
God as continuity then? But continuity of what? There is an arrow in continuity that points somwhere, say from A to B. Somebody must have made it so that it points from A to B, not to C. The mode of this is of no importance, call it fractal or what you like. It remains the case that if you look at the world, it is this way, and not another way. Even if you declare that all continuity is chaotic, random, you thereby declare a choice which is neither random nor chaotic. "Let there be chaos" is no less a command than "let there be light".
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The arguments you're drafting in are all in one way or another distractions from consideration of this process view of reality.
Are they? I think I'm mostly just pointing out that you are not actually talking about God. This does not mean that it is not important, just that you've got the label wrong.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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Dave Marshall:
"God in essence is simply the motivating cause."
Platonic thinking Dave. How is it relevant to the personal God of the Bible?
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'm not suggesting the first cause of the universe is a "god-like being", only that the idea of God needs to be grounded in what is verifiable if it's going to have any generally-applicable explanatory value. To make consistent sense, other features of God need either to follow from God as first cause, or have at least as good a basis in reality.
I think that needs unpacking a little, because I suspect that's at the core of our disagreement.
Do you mean that that features that necessarily follow from God's nature as first cause (or are equally demonstrable characteristics of a God so defined) are:
a) the only features that God could possibly have?
b) the only features that we can possibly know for certain that God has?
c) the only features that we could ever have good grounds for supposing that that God has?
I would agree with (b), I think, for a suitably strict definition of certain. I can see no basis for (a) - indeed if (b) is true, it precludes (a), because the statement "God has only the features that follow from his nature as first cause" does not itself necessarily follow from God's nature as first cause.
(c) is the real question. I think that we can have very strong grounds for believing things which are not absolutely compelling as a matter of logic, about God as much as about anything else. I think that my perception that I have a moral sense, gives good presumptive evidence that my creator (if I have one) also has a moral sense - but it doesn't absolutely prove it.
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Jesus on the other hand is the church's unique interpretation of the ultimate potential of humanity within time. Confusing him with the essentially first-cause-like understanding of God he inherited and re-interpreted I think loses the essence of his story and its value for today.
That strikes me as being a more dogmatic and illiberal statement than anything which traditional Christianity would require me to believe.
It is dogmatic, because you seem to be saying not just that the evidence for Jesus's divinity is deficient in his particular case (ie. that it has insufficient force to persuade you) but that the claim itself is of such a nature that no possible evidence or phenomenon could support it. You seem to be excluding a priori statements about how God has operated before the evidence is even up for assessment. That is not something that traditional Christianity asks me to do.
It is illiberal, because you are purporting to tell the overwhelming majority of those who have tried to follow Jesus that they have missed the whole point, and that their interpretation of his story has lost its value for today. Traditional Christianity does not oblige me to say of your (or anyone's) honest view of Our Lord that it has no contemporary value. I think you are wrong (obviously) but I could never contemplate saying that in seeing in Jesus the potential of humanity you have either lost the essence or the value of his story.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If God is a motivating cause, rather than just a cause, then He still must be a Person. Motivation is a feature of personhood.
A bit clumsy and not quite right. But you're struggling with the scope of this process idea. I probably thought a touch of personal-sounding redundancy might clarify the overall picture.
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the god that you propose is merely a kind of demiurge.
Not if read in the context of a process-based world view.
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Anything that does not answer "Why is there anything at all?" cannot count as God proper.
No. That's the fallacy at the heart of traditional Christian theology. It's a philosophical question that leaves all that relies on it with no necessary connection to reality. God as first cause of the universe avoids that problem.
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I have not been able to make much sense of your first sentence.
I suggested there has been no one act of creation by God, that instead the "now" of reality as we experience it is God's ongoing act of creation, and that this model precisely fits what we observe if we're interested in the metaphysics behind the observation.
What we actually experience over time is change in all the particles of space of which we are aware. There's no evidence to support the idea that the prior and subsequent states of all those particles have any reality other than their accumulated effects on "now". What grounds do we have for assuming they're all stashed in a Mind? Only the entirely speculative claims of those who want to believe that God is a Person.
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Are you denying here that there is a past and a future, or are you still following the erroneous assumption that eternity is some kind of infinite extension of past and future?
A comically false dichotomy. If eternity is beyond time, it is obviously beyond past and future. Part of understanding the process paradigm is getting your head round continuity rather than completion as the basis for reality.
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Well, I will admit that thinking about contingent events and free will in the traditional picture is a bit mind-bending. But then one takes the tough road here out of commitment to clear principles elsewhere.
Which principles would they be, I wonder.
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you need to struggle hard to avoid turning God into a demiurge. Or at least you would have to, if you were to think things through.
Alternatively, your commitment to the RC model has you thinking on tram lines. A process-based approach requires a complete reconnection of all the metaphysical dots from a traditionalist world view.
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Now, events are contingent with regards to their proximate causes, not with regards to the ultimate cause, God. An analogy. Say in a movie someone throws a die. If he throws a six, he wins a million dollar. But he throws a one and ends in the gutter. From the perspective inside the movie, the movie world, this is truly contingent. It could have been the six, but it wasn't. But as far as the movie director is concerned, this is just what he willed. In fact, the movie director willed this to be the contingent fate of the character, and therefore it was necessarily contingent. The mind bending thing is the lack of any fake where God is concerned. Reality does not pretend to be, as a movie does, it really is. The die really rolls on six in reality. And that really is contingent. Yet God choses that the reality be actual where the die rolled contingently on six, not the reality where the die rolled contingently on one.
As with your Nine Men's Morris references, I think you're assuming a level of complexity (perhaps necessary from a traditional Christian perspective) that is not present with a process view. God is no longer one step removed from temporal reality, controlling and intervening by remote instruction from a Mind that is other than creation. Instead there's a directly interactive interface between God and now, with us as co-creators through our every conscious choice.
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God as continuity then?
No, God's ultimate consistency provides continuity.
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But continuity of what?
Continuity of the becoming of creation. In a process-based world view, the essence of reality is creativity. As gravity causes masses to attract, God's creativity causes what is to become. In God we live and move and have our being.
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I think I'm mostly just pointing out that you are not actually talking about God. This does not mean that it is not important, just that you've got the label wrong.
Who knows whether any of this is important. I wouldn't say more than it happens to be something that interests me.
Whether the label is correct depends on your starting point. If the teaching of your religion, you can find departures (although I suspect very few that need require any change of traditional practice). If on the other hand religion is about making sense of human experience, and God is understood as an aspect of that reality, a better theory will only enhance the value of that religion.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Do you mean that that features that necessarily follow from God's nature as first cause (or are equally demonstrable characteristics of a God so defined) are:
a) the only features that God could possibly have?
b) the only features that we can possibly know for certain that God has?
c) the only features that we could ever have good grounds for supposing that God has?
I would reply no, yes, and no.
quote:
I would agree with (b), I think, for a suitably strict definition of certain. I can see no basis for (a) - indeed if (b) is true, it precludes (a), because the statement "God has only the features that follow from his nature as first cause" does not itself necessarily follow from God's nature as first cause.
Agreed.
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(c) is the real question. I think that we can have very strong grounds for believing things which are not absolutely compelling as a matter of logic, about God as much as about anything else. I think that my perception that I have a moral sense, gives good presumptive evidence that my creator (if I have one) also has a moral sense - but it doesn't absolutely prove it.
Although I would also answer no to question (c), I don't think subjective interpretations of experience provide sufficient grounds for adding characteristics to our understanding of God. I've been wrong about such things too many times.
With the particular case of a moral sense, we've had a couple of fairly detailed discussions here that have convinced me that a) morality can be fully accounted for as an evolved social contract, and b) it's a time-bound idea and therefore will have no meaning for a God who by definition is beyond time.
I see no reason not to imagine other features if they're consistent with each other, with God as first cause, and with verifiable human reality. But only if they're logically transferrable to a timeless context, and we don't claim them as other than speculative.
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It is dogmatic, because you seem to be saying not just that the evidence for Jesus's divinity is deficient in his particular case (ie. that it has insufficient force to persuade you) but that the claim itself is of such a nature that no possible evidence or phenomenon could support it. You seem to be excluding a priori statements about how God has operated before the evidence is even up for assessment. That is not something that traditional Christianity asks me to do.
Is it dogmatic to require verifiable evidence for a claim? Technically, I guess, but not I would have thought unreasonably so. Traditional Christianity is built on unverifiable evidence, so it's in no position to object to a fairly broad range of new claims.
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It is illiberal, because you are purporting to tell the overwhelming majority of those who have tried to follow Jesus that they have missed the whole point, and that their interpretation of his story has lost its value for today. Traditional Christianity does not oblige me to say of your (or anyone's) honest view of Our Lord that it has no contemporary value. I think you are wrong (obviously) but I could never contemplate saying that in seeing in Jesus the potential of humanity you have either lost the essence or the value of his story.
I'm not purporting or obliging you to say anything. I've noted why I think some of traditional Christianity's claims are wrong, and outlined other ideas I find make better sense. A liberal tradition endorses that kind of plurality and dialogue. A church controlled by conservatives, on the other hand, will concot just about any excuse to avoid opening up their beliefs to meaningful challenge, including emotional blackmail of the kind you seem to be employing here. It's not a pretty sight.
But I agree that changes in a church's position on core beliefs need careful handling.
[ 29. March 2010, 22:13: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
the god that you propose is merely a kind of demiurge.
Not if read in the context of a process-based world view.
Nice opening statement, now for the argument...
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Anything that does not answer "Why is there anything at all?" cannot count as God proper.
No. That's the fallacy at the heart of traditional Christian theology. It's a philosophical question that leaves all that relies on it with no necessary connection to reality. God as first cause of the universe avoids that problem.
That's a confusing reply, since of course God as first cause of the universe is nothing but an answer to "Why is there anything at all?" Furthermore, the philosophical question asked there is about reality. Finally, unless you believe in Divine inspiration, nothing any human ever says has a necessary connection to reality. Hence it seems rather pointless to mention that some philosophy leaves things as they must be.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I suggested there has been no one act of creation by God, that instead the "now" of reality as we experience it is God's ongoing act of creation, and that this model precisely fits what we observe if we're interested in the metaphysics behind the observation.
That's nice to hear, since of course the idea of God continuously keeping the world in existence with His creative power is quite traditional. For example
quote:
"Aquinas and the Big Bang" by William E. Carroll:
The key to Aquinas' analysis is the distinction he draws between creation and change. The natural sciences, whether Aristotelian or those of our own day, have as their subject the world of changing things: from sub-atomic particles to acorns to galaxies. Whenever there is a change there must be something that changes. The Greeks are right: from nothing, nothing comes; that is, if the verb "to come" means a change. All change requires an underlying material reality.
Creation, on the other hand, is the radical causing of the whole existence of whatever exists. To cause completely something to exist is not to produce a change in something, is not to work on or with some already existing material. If, in producing something new, an agent were to use something already existing, the agent would not by itself be the complete cause of the new thing. But such a complete causing is precisely what creation is. To create is to give existence, and all things are totally dependent upon God for the very fact that they are. God does not take nothing and make something out of "it." Rather, anything left entirely to itself, separated from the cause of its existence, would be absolutely nothing. Creation is not some distant event; it is the continuing, complete causing of the existence of everything that is. Creation, thus, is a subject for metaphysics and theology, not for the natural sciences.
The original sources are not as easy to read, but see for example ST Ia q45 a2 ad2.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What we actually experience over time is change in all the particles of space of which we are aware. There's no evidence to support the idea that the prior and subsequent states of all those particles have any reality other than their accumulated effects on "now". What grounds do we have for assuming they're all stashed in a Mind? Only the entirely speculative claims of those who want to believe that God is a Person.
I have given other reasons above to believe that God is a Person, and you have not addressed them. What you say here is weird, it sounds as if we are supposed to be some sort of dream in God's Mind? That's not at all the traditional position. Further, I do not know how subsequent states can have an effect on "now": are you claiming a-causality, or was that just sloppy? Finally, the problem of existence is not one of cause and effect in the regular sense. God is not primarily a theory about why things change the way they do. God explains why there are any things that can change in some way or the other.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Part of understanding the process paradigm is getting your head round continuity rather than completion as the basis for reality.
Completion? Who was talking about completing what? Anyway, continuity of the now strictly implies past and future. For otherwise the now would have nothing to be continuous with.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Which principles would they be, I wonder.
Essentially those denying that God is a demiurge. For example, God's creational power must be necessarily unlimited. For in the (logically) prior instance of God alone existing, nothing exists that could limit Him. Thus His creation cannot limit Him other than to the extent that He wished to limit Himself.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God is no longer one step removed from temporal reality, controlling and intervening by remote instruction from a Mind that is other than creation. Instead there's a directly interactive interface between God and now, with us as co-creators through our every conscious choice.
This paragraph works just fine if one removes the words "no longer" and "Instead". That presumably goes to show that your thoughts require a more detailed and precise expression...
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
No, God's ultimate consistency provides continuity.
I'm sure this means something. But what?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Continuity of the becoming of creation. In a process-based world view, the essence of reality is creativity. As gravity causes masses to attract, God's creativity causes what is to become. In God we live and move and have our being.
So far, so traditional.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Is it dogmatic to require verifiable evidence for a claim? Technically, I guess, but not I would have thought unreasonably so. Traditional Christianity is built on unverifiable evidence, so it's in no position to object to a fairly broad range of new claims.
That's not what I'm criticising you for.
Your position (unless I have profoundly misunderstood you) is that because of metaphysical arguments that you find compelling (the whole time/eternity thing) the nature of God, so far as it is possible to know it, precludes any such involvement in history as is alleged by the traditional doctrine of incarnation.
You don't seem to be saying that having considered the reliability of the texts, the consistency of the reports, the uncertainty about what Jesus actually claimed for himself, that you are unpersuaded by the evidence that he is God - you seem to be saying that even with the best texts, the most compelling reports and the clearest statements, you would consider such claims unfounded.
I think that your position is dogmatic, not because you want better evidence (who doesn't?) but because your starting point seems to be a philosophical position which no reasonable standard of evidence looks at all likely to shift.
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I've noted why I think some of traditional Christianity's claims are wrong, and outlined other ideas I find make better sense. A liberal tradition endorses that kind of plurality and dialogue. A church controlled by conservatives, on the other hand, will concot just about any excuse to avoid opening up their beliefs to meaningful challenge, including emotional blackmail of the kind you seem to be employing here. It's not a pretty sight.
Except that I'm not really a conservative. I'm liberal about some things, conservative about others - just like 90+% of Christians of my acquaintance. I'm all for plurality and dialogue, and I welcome any meaningful challenge to my beliefs.
What I don't do is tell other Christians that their different opinions about the faith have lost contemporary value - for two reasons: one, it's downright rude, and two, it will almost always be untrue. Ideas that are sincerely held as a means of engagement with God may be mistaken or confused but they are not out-of-date and they are not worthless. To write-off a contrary opinion as having lost value for today (as you did) is to say that the many people who believe it or are helped by it are irrelevant anachronisms.
In calling you on that, I'm not trying to close off debate about why you say the traditionalists are wrong as a matter of evidence or argument (nor is it emotional blackmail - an absurd charge: for a start you are much too thick-skinned for there to be any point). I'm objecting to you saying that those people who have found God through the traditional doctrines have nothing of value for today - those people are as much a part of today's world as you are, and traditional Christianity is plainly of value to them. If you think you have something of more value - more true or worthy or pleasing or good - then you ought to be about to propose it without unwarranted denigration.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think that your position is dogmatic, not because you want better evidence (who doesn't?) but because your starting point seems to be a philosophical position which no reasonable standard of evidence looks at all likely to shift.
Dave will surely answer for himself, but I'd like to know how you define your 'reasonable standard of evidence'. Reasonable to you? Reasonable to him? Reasonable to science? What?
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Dave will surely answer for himself, but I'd like to know how you define your 'reasonable standard of evidence'. Reasonable to you? Reasonable to him? Reasonable to science? What?
Defined thus: If everything that traditional Christian claims about the historical Jesus were true, what phenomena consistent with and supportive of those claims could we reasonably expect to exist?
The point being that if you demand as proof of Jesus's claims something which you wouldn't expect to exist at all, even if he was right - that is, if there is no realistic way in which the evidence could ever establish to your satisfaction that he was right - then your position is dogmatic. Not necessarily wrong, or even unreasonable, but certainly dogmatic.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Defined thus: If everything that traditional Christian[ity] claims about the historical Jesus were true, what phenomena consistent with and supportive of those claims could we reasonably expect to exist?
Er, what?
You claim Dave’s position is dogmatic because his ‘starting point seems to be a philosophical position which no reasonable standard of evidence looks at all likely to shift’. I asked you what counts as a reasonable standard of evidence.
I don’t understand your reply.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
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I honestly can't see what's unclear about it.
Dave has reached a philosophical (rather than evidence-based) conclusion about the nature of God - that he (God) is outside time and cannot interact with it at all in the way that traditional Christianity claims he did in Jesus.
That conclusion is therefore not susceptible to being disturbed by evidence for the gospels being true. Archeologists could did up St Peter's photograph album tomorrow, and see Jesus actually walking on the water, and Dave M could still say with as much coherence as he does to the gospel account of the same thing, that this does not support the assertion that Jesus was divine. There is no reasonable-expected evidence which Dave M, while holding to his philosophical position, could prove that Jesus was who I think he was.
My criticism is that this makes his complaint that there is no evidence for the truth of traditional Christianity just so much smoke. Given Dave's starting point, there never could be anything that he would accept as evidence.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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Okay, I didn't get that from your earlier post, but I see that's what you meant now. I'll let Dave answer it himself, of course, though I obviously have my own personal thoughts on the matter of what constitutes reasonable evidence. As it happens, I don't see how having a philosophical basis for a belief equates to dogmatism, and I'm pretty sure Dave would accept your (verified) photo album as reasonable evidence. But we'll see.
Thanks for clarifying.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
That's a confusing reply, since of course God as first cause of the universe is nothing but an answer to "Why is there anything at all?"
Anything is nothing in particular. God as cause of some unspecified things leaves God able to cause anything that takes our fancy. That's good if we have a particular thing in mind, an incarnated God-self for example, but useless for starting from what we know.
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unless you believe in Divine inspiration, nothing any human ever says has a necessary connection to reality. Hence it seems rather pointless to mention that some philosophy leaves things as they must be.
A rather pointless objection then, as our humanity is defined by language that assumes precisely that kind of connection. Otherwise we'd never act on anything we heard or read.
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the idea of God continuously keeping the world in existence with His creative power is quite traditional.
If Carroll's take on Aquinas is a fair reflection of that tradition, it's not what I'm describing. Aquinas is apparently at pains to distinguish between creation and change within it. In the model I'm talking about, there is only change and causes of change. Aquinas's "creation" is only an interpretation by those of us whose beings are in fact (characteristics? properties?) of particular sequences of changes to make sense of our experience.
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I have given other reasons above to believe that God is a Person, and you have not addressed them.
Your reasons were so flawed it seemed kinder to let them pass. Take the first, "the only causes we know that act creatively are persons with a mind". Why should the universe require its first cause to "act creatively" as human persons do? You've assumed what you are trying to justify. "We need the mystery of free will and consciousness to explain the mystery of creation"? Hmm. Define three terms as "mysteries", assert a need to use two of them to explain the third, then claim that's a reason to believe the cause of one requires the other two? That's a lot of unknowns. And your finally, "a cause cannot cause anything that is essentially greater than itself". Mind is essentially greater than non-mind? On what scale? Only an essentially arbitrary one.
I don't doubt these and worse get wheeled out. But if someone is relying on this kind of logic, are they really going to be swayed by any rational argument?
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What you say here is weird, it sounds as if we are supposed to be some sort of dream in God's Mind?
A dream in the Mind of a first cause I'm proposing doesn't have a Mind? I don't think that follows from anything I've posted.
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I do not know how subsequent states can have an effect on "now": are you claiming a-causality, or was that just sloppy?
Half-sloppy, but half not closing off the possibility.
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Finally, the problem of existence is not one of cause and effect in the regular sense. God is not primarily a theory about why things change the way they do. God explains why there are any things that can change in some way or the other.
Not if God is defined as first cause of the universe. God is no longer a theory but a feature of reality. What God explains depends on what we discover about that reality and how we use what we learn.
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continuity of the now strictly implies past and future.
Continuity is the perception within time of the creativity in eternity.
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God's creational power must be necessarily unlimited. For in the (logically) prior instance of God alone existing, nothing exists that could limit Him.
There seems to be a need to "get" process for it to make sense. "Existing" is becoming, "reality" is the "experience of being" within the "constant" creative "change" of eternity. I don't think the implications need be that far from traditional in a lot of ways, but the metaphysical dots fit together very differently. Sometimes beautifully so.
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your thoughts require a more detailed and precise expression...
More time, more energy, yeah. I could live with that.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think that your position is dogmatic, not because you want better evidence (who doesn't?) but because your starting point seems to be a philosophical position which no reasonable standard of evidence looks at all likely to shift.
It depends, as Yorick noted, what you mean by a reasonable standard of evidence. How do you think I've arrived at my "philosophical position"? If you provide credible evidence that it's inconsistent either internally or with physical reality, my position will change. The key is the credibility of the evidence.
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I'm all for plurality and dialogue, and I welcome any meaningful challenge to my beliefs.
That's good to know.
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What I don't do is tell other Christians that their different opinions about the faith have lost contemporary value
Two points. One, posting here seems significantly different to "telling other Christians" anything. Two, I'm not sure how you have meaningful plurality without accepting that kind of open challenge to a dogmatic status quo. You seem to be inventing a personal attack where none was made or intended.
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Ideas that are sincerely held as a means of engagement with God may be mistaken or confused but they are not out-of-date and they are not worthless.
Not for people who still find them credible, obviously. But for a good majority of the UK population at least, especially the under-40s, (the lack of) church attendance suggests traditional Christian understandings of God have no value whatsoever.
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To write-off a contrary opinion as having lost value for today (as you did) is to say that the many people who believe it or are helped by it are irrelevant anachronisms.
Of course it doesn't. It acknowledges that certain beliefs are irrelevant anachronisms for most people who don't already hold them.
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I'm objecting to you saying that those people who have found God through the traditional doctrines have nothing of value for today
I haven't said that. If I've correctly located what you're referring to, I said "Confusing [Jesus] with the essentially first-cause-like understanding of God he inherited and re-interpreted I think loses the essence of his story and its value for today". If you object to that in the context of a discussion on the Ship, you might want to revise your claim to be "all for plurality and dialogue" to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
A rather pointless objection then, as our humanity is defined by language that assumes precisely that kind of connection.
Hardly. Most books are fiction.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
In the model I'm talking about, there is only change and causes of change. Aquinas's "creation" is only an interpretation by those of us whose beings are in fact (characteristics? properties?) of particular sequences of changes to make sense of our experience.
Yes. Your god is a demiurge and you are ignoring the question creation answers. My point was however that the ongoing nature of creation is not a novel insight of process theology.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Take the first, "the only causes we know that act creatively are persons with a mind". Why should the universe require its first cause to "act creatively" as human persons do? You've assumed what you are trying to justify.
You are the one going on about how we should base our assumptions about God on real world experience. And when I do, as here, then you complain... It remains however the case that all creative acts that we know are personal, and the more creative the more personal. Hence it is reasonable to assume that the most creative act, making everything, is the most Personal.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
"We need the mystery of free will and consciousness to explain the mystery of creation"? Hmm. Define three terms as "mysteries", assert a need to use two of them to explain the third, then claim that's a reason to believe the cause of one requires the other two? That's a lot of unknowns.
It should be clear - from my own choice of words - that I'm keenly aware of the unsatisfactory nature of explaining a mystery with a mystery. However, this is far from a content-free statement due to the word "need", i.e., it is only with this mystery that we can explain that mystery. For example, the typical "non-mysterious" (though highly speculative) "explanations" atheists invoke - initial quantum fluctuations, multiverse, whatever - do not help, because first something must explain the possibility and the rules for, e.g., having a quantum fluctuation. A quantum fluctuation is not nothing, it is more a modern philosophical equivalent to "prime matter".
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
And your finally, "a cause cannot cause anything that is essentially greater than itself". Mind is essentially greater than non-mind? On what scale? Only an essentially arbitrary one.
Well. I would consider you to be essentially greater than a brick. Am I wrong?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave IngoB:
I do not know how subsequent states can have an effect on "now": are you claiming a-causality, or was that just sloppy?
Half-sloppy, but half not closing off the possibility.
And that's based on reality in what manner?
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Not if God is defined as first cause of the universe. God is no longer a theory but a feature of reality. What God explains depends on what we discover about that reality and how we use what we learn.
It seems to me that you have redefined the meaning of "first cause" in some idiosyncratic manner. That's generally a bad idea for terms that have enjoyed a clear meaning for many hundreds of years. But if you insist on using the term differently, you should at least give a reasonably detailed definition.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Continuity is the perception within time of the creativity in eternity.
That probably means something.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
How do you think I've arrived at my "philosophical position"?
Hmm, a honest use of scare quotes there.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Most books are fiction.
Made possible only by the fact that language implicitly alludes to realities from a common human experience.
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you are ignoring the question creation answers.
If you find your answers to a question make no sense, isn't it at least reasonable to wonder if you're asking the right question?
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My point was however that the ongoing nature of creation is not a novel insight of process theology.
I don't think I've suggested it is.
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all creative acts that we know are personal, and the more creative the more personal. Hence it is reasonable to assume that the most creative act, making everything, is the most Personal.
As far as I'm aware, there's no evidence for input from a Mind or a Person. My impression is the sequence goes from singularity (Big Bang) through simple matter (hydrogen atoms) to complex chemistry (proteins) to basic life (single cell organisms) to sentient life (us). The indications seem to be that science is explaining the whole physical chain. But the "creative act" it all depends on is the progression of time from one instant to the next, the becoming of the entirety of space. I see no parallel for that in the output of human personhood.
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I would consider you to be essentially greater than a brick. Am I wrong?
A classic case of not even wrong, I'd have thought. There is no non-arbitrary relationship between me and a brick for which "greater than" has any meaning.
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And [how subsequent states can have an effect on "now" is] based on reality in what manner?
The recognition that my knowledge of it is incomplete.
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It seems to me that you have redefined the meaning of "first cause" in some idiosyncratic manner ... if you insist on using the term differently, you should at least give a reasonably detailed definition.
I thought I had provided a definition: "first cause" is simply the alternative to "no first cause". What's idiosyncratic about that?
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[Continuity is the perception within time of the creativity in eternity] probably means something.
Think of it as a clue. You seem bogged down in the complexity that traditional Christianity, especially the RCC, has accumulated in its attempts to justify its dogma and claims to authority. A process view of reality is in essence beautifully simple.
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honest use of scare quotes
Lifted from a different conversation, of course. But yes, I find a philosophical work in progress much preferable to the unverifiable assertions of a religious institution.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Made possible only by the fact that language implicitly alludes to realities from a common human experience.
Sure, but that's true for anything that is intelligible, and hence trivial. The claim you are trying to make is that talk about the Divine must be a lot "more real" than merely alluding to realities. Otherwise absolutely any creation myth would be OK, because every one of them is after all intelligible. The problem is that what you consider as obviously "more real" is not so obvious to me...
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
As far as I'm aware, there's no evidence for input from a Mind or a Person.
That very much depends on what one counts as "evidence", of course. A simple question: what would you count as "evidence" for the Personal nature of creation?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
My impression is the sequence goes from singularity (Big Bang) through simple matter (hydrogen atoms) to complex chemistry (proteins) to basic life (single cell organisms) to sentient life (us). The indications seem to be that science is explaining the whole physical chain.
Well, science certainly doesn't do that now! Far from it. The claim that at least in principle it could is a philosophical extrapolation, it is not a scientific statement.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
But the "creative act" it all depends on is the progression of time from one instant to the next, the becoming of the entirety of space. I see no parallel for that in the output of human personhood.
The parallel is one of non-deterministic novelty. In your model, is the becoming of the universe in the "creative act" something new (ever again at every "time step")? This does not exclude that one sees links between A now and B later, but it does mean that the time arrow from A needs the "creative act" so that it has in fact something to point to. A->B if, and only if, the "creative act" happens as well. This is in contrast to saying that A->B is causally self-sufficient, i.e., that B will be is alone due to A being now. In the former case the "creative act" is a non-deterministic novelty which supervenes on A->B. The only experiential analogy we have to this is human creativity. Because there, too, it seems that the transition form A->B does not completely reduce to the brute fact that A is now. We feel that the human mind has somehow supervened on A->B to produce something which is novel (though clearly there is plenty of causal "background"). If however you say that this is not the case, that A->B is all there is, then I would like to know why a mere collection of A->Bs, even if it is so huge as to contain the entire universe, deserves the special label "creative act".
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
There is no non-arbitrary relationship between me and a brick for which "greater than" has any meaning.
I can own a brick, and then smash it whenever I like. Can I own you, and then smash you whenever I like? If not, then why not?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The recognition that my knowledge of it is incomplete.
But your knowledge is not so incomplete that likewise the traditional God is possible?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I thought I had provided a definition: "first cause" is simply the alternative to "no first cause". What's idiosyncratic about that?
That's indeed not idiosyncratic. Unfortunately, it is also no definition. It is merely the principle of contradiction.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
A process view of reality is in essence beautifully simple.
But insufficient.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The claim you are trying to make is that talk about the Divine must be a lot "more real" than merely alluding to realities.
Is it? I thought I was simply relying on language to describe reality. Your objection as I understood it was that the meaning of words can be disputed or misunderstood, so reality cannot be reliably described. I'm pointing out that's nonsense: how would science (for example) operate without reliable reality-describing language?
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what would you count as "evidence" for the Personal nature of creation?
Any verifiable information that made better sense when interpreted for the universe having a Personal rather than a non-Personal cause.
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The claim that at least in principle [science is explaining the whole physical development of the universe] is a philosophical extrapolation, it is not a scientific statement.
Alternatively, there's no in principle reason why, given sufficient time and resources, science should not explain any part of the physical universe.
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In your model, is the becoming of the universe in the "creative act" something new (ever again at every "time step")?
A time step A to B is the result of the creativity of the first cause, combined with A and the creativity of any secondary causes at A, in the manner determined by the nature of the first cause.
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I would like to know why a mere collection of A->Bs, even if it is so huge as to contain the entire universe, deserves the special label "creative act".
I put quotes around "creative act" because I was using your phrase to reply in the terms of the question, not because I have any attachment to the label. I'd probably use "the becoming of the universe" or something similar.
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I can own a brick, and then smash it whenever I like. Can I own you, and then smash you whenever I like? If not, then why not?
No, because I would take steps to prevent you. My point was that "essential greatness" is a meaningless quality. It's relative worth depends on a scale of greatness. If material hardness, the brick would be greater. If complexity, I would be greater. There is no scale for essentialness.
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your knowledge is not so incomplete that likewise the traditional God is possible?
Hah. It only needs enough knowledge to identify inconsistencies to reject any claim, whether for the traditional God or anything else.
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["first cause" as simply the alternative to "no first cause"] is indeed not idiosyncratic. Unfortunately, it is also no definition.
Why does that matter? First cause of the universe seems fairly unambiguous.
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[A process view of reality is in essence beautifully simple] but insufficient.
Insufficient for what?
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The claim you are trying to make is that talk about the Divine must be a lot "more real" than merely alluding to realities. Otherwise absolutely any creation myth would be OK, because every one of them is after all intelligible. The problem is that what you consider as obviously "more real" is not so obvious to me...
A further thought. It's not a question of "more real" or if it's obvious but of having a credible underpinning for God. A process explanation provides that, not in opposition to Christian mythology but to its corruption as traditional Christian dogma. If it also debunks Christian superiority, all well and good. The Jesus story just happens to be the one that gave rise to the Church - we can celebrate and make the most of that without clinging to outdated interpretations.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Your objection as I understood it was that the meaning of words can be disputed or misunderstood, so reality cannot be reliably described. I'm pointing out that's nonsense: how would science (for example) operate without reliable reality-describing language?
My objections was rather that nothing we say is necessarily true. As for a "reliable reality-describing language", it depends on what you mean by that. But I think this is taking us off-topic.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Alternatively, there's no in principle reason why, given sufficient time and resources, science should not explain any part of the physical universe.
I'm not aware of any principle reason why it should. (At least not any non-religious principle reason.) But I'm aware of many pragmatic reasons why it is highly unlikely that science will come anywhere near that goal.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
A time step A to B is the result of the creativity of the first cause, combined with A and the creativity of any secondary causes at A, in the manner determined by the nature of the first cause.
I guess that's a "yes".
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'd probably use "the becoming of the universe" or something similar.
Who cares what you call it. My point was simply that your "first cause" introduces non-deterministic novelty to the being of the universe. A->B, where A is of the universe now and B is of the universe then, is not sufficiently explained by A alone. That's where you get the analogy to human personhood (for of course, if we call God a Person it's merely by analogy). Because in our experience, the only things in this universe that at least appears to be irreducible to A->B type determinism are persons and their creative acts. (And no, quantum mechanics is no exception: it is strictly deterministic, but in a stochastic sense.)
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I can own a brick, and then smash it whenever I like. Can I own you, and then smash you whenever I like? If not, then why not?
No, because I would take steps to prevent you. My point was that "essential greatness" is a meaningless quality.
Thus if I can overpower you, and hence make you my property and smash you whenever I wish, then that's perfectly OK? Because you claim there's no "essential greatness" in you as compared to a brick. Hence the only problem here is the practical one that your resistance to me is greater than that of a brick, which is of course a problem that can be overcome. Since you can be put in a position where you'll find resistance to my whims impossible, or at least futile and/or prohibitively self-harming.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
It only needs enough knowledge to identify inconsistencies to reject any claim, whether for the traditional God or anything else.
That's not quite right anyhow, proper reaction to inconsistencies say in the sciences is hardly that binary. But the problem is that the inconsistencies that you see are not sufficiently independent of the hypotheses under consideration. The topics we are discussing here simply do not have the easy objectivity of the empirical measurement.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
First cause of the universe seems fairly unambiguous.
Well, obviously not. At least I do not believe that we really mean the same thing by those words.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Insufficient for what?
Explaining existence.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
It's not a question of "more real" or if it's obvious but of having a credible underpinning for God.
I do not believe that you have a credible underpinning for God. Largely because I do not believe that you are talking about God much, partly because your underpinning is much less secure than you believe it to be.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
A process explanation provides that, not in opposition to Christian mythology but to its corruption as traditional Christian dogma. If it also debunks Christian superiority, all well and good.
Yes, indeed, it also seems to me that the "process explanation" is more an ideological attack against than a coherent alternative to traditional Christianity.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
My point was simply that your "first cause" introduces non-deterministic novelty to the being of the universe.
Yes. This is the creativity that when expressed as part of the nature of the first cause results in creation.
quote:
That's where you get the analogy to human personhood (for of course, if we call God a Person it's merely by analogy).
No. An analogy works if a feature of one thing is recognised as illustrating a similar feature in another. There is a similarity here - both first cause and human personhood exhibit creativity - but the differences are so much more obvious (the entire set of human features minus one) that such an analogy does not work for God as first cause.
To make the analogy work you have to assert that God also has other features from the human personhood set - typically mind and consciousness - for which there is no basis in reality.
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Thus if I can overpower you, and hence make you my property and smash you whenever I wish, then that's perfectly OK? Because you claim there's no "essential greatness" in you as compared to a brick.
The only objection is one of morality. Bashing a brick would be a-moral - morality doesn't apply. You seem to be using "essential greatness" as label for the difference. I don't see the justification.
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I do not believe that we really mean the same thing by [first cause of the universe].
I'm referring to a cause with a single effect that we happen to experience as time. Perhaps you're splitting the effect into an initial creation logically followed by ongoing maintenance? The only ambiguity I can see is if you're interpreting my use as if it were part of the traditional model.
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[Insufficient for] explaining existence.
What in terms of the metaphysics does my model not explain?
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I do not believe that you have a credible underpinning for God. Largely because I do not believe that you are talking about God much, partly because your underpinning is much less secure than you believe it to be.
Yet all you are able to show is that it is different to the traditional underpinning. The one that relies on convincing people of their sin, claims to Divine authority, and the theological rightness of massively powerful religious institutions.
quote:
it also seems to me that the "process explanation" is more an ideological attack against than a coherent alternative to traditional Christianity.
A process explanation certainly undermines traditional Christian theology. It makes no nature-breaking claims, relies only on reality-based metaphysics, and is consistent both internally and with a scientific view of the universe. Whether that counts as an ideological attack I'm not sure.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
There is a similarity here - both first cause and human personhood exhibit creativity - but the differences are so much more obvious (the entire set of human features minus one) that such an analogy does not work for God as first cause.
Once more, this is a unsubstantiated assertion. You have presented neither argument nor evidence that God has few features analogous to the human mind. Rather, we have now agreed - thanks to my argument based on experiential evidence - that there is at least one feature the human mind and God share analogously. Furthermore, the human mind is the only "object" in the world which appears to have this analogous property. Hence the analogy is unique.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
To make the analogy work you have to assert that God also has other features from the human personhood set - typically mind and consciousness - for which there is no basis in reality.
This is wrong, technically. The whole point of making an analogy is to deduce something new about the unknown part of the analogy (in this case, God) by comparison to the known part (in this case, man). Of course, analogy is not conclusive proof. But it is a valid way of arguing likelihood and fittingness. Here we are using a unique analogy: if the analogy to the human mind fails, then apparently we have no further experiential handle on God whatsoever. However, if the analogy holds - and there is no evidence that it doesn't - then we can potentially conclude something about God. For example, we know that human creativity is intimately connected with free will. Hence we can posit now by analogy that God has Free Will.
As far as I can see you will not say anything about God's creativity other than that it makes the universe become in time. There's nothing in this as such that would reject a "larger than one feature" analogy to the human mind. Parsimony may be a concern, but the added features have predictive value. For example, I have claimed by analogy that God's creativity is governed by Free Will. Hence I can predict that God can create other than He usually does, i.e., I can predict the possibility of so-called miracles. Principles of parsimony should not eliminate hypotheses with predictive value.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The only objection is one of morality. Bashing a brick would be a-moral - morality doesn't apply. You seem to be using "essential greatness" as label for the difference. I don't see the justification.
That I may not own and smash you like a brick is not a feature of you, individually, but a feature of what you are - namely a human being. Hence this is an essential feature. You impose a greater reduction of my freedoms on me, i.e., you eliminate a larger portion of my potential action-space than a brick does, and in that sense you are greater. Thus you possess essential greatness as compared to a brick.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'm referring to a cause with a single effect that we happen to experience as time. Perhaps you're splitting the effect into an initial creation logically followed by ongoing maintenance?
It's more that you seem to claim that the "first cause" just causes time progression, a bit like a CPU clock causes computing. Whereas I think that's insufficient. It may sort of explain why A->B, but it does not explain why there is an A, why there is a B, and indeed why there is a ->.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
What in terms of the metaphysics does my model not explain?
Existence. That there is anything and that it is such.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The one that relies on convincing people of their sin, claims to Divine authority, and the theological rightness of massively powerful religious institutions.
That's rhetorical crap, and you know it. I've not argued by authority against you.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
A process explanation certainly undermines traditional Christian theology. It makes no nature-breaking claims, relies only on reality-based metaphysics, and is consistent both internally and with a scientific view of the universe.
Well, no. What process theology does is jettison understanding of creation in order to minimize conflict with scientific positivism. This indeed undermines traditional Christianity, since people in the West nowadays grow up in an environment of unreflected scientific positivism and get taught to suppress intuitive approaches to describing nature (which generally are more metaphysically than physically correct). In short, process theology is the easy option. What stops process theology from ruling the day is simply that it is so completely irrelevant. Why give a damn if there is a kind of "CPU clock" of the universe? That's something for a Trivial Pursuit card, or perhaps for some obscure department of an university, but it motivates no further action by regular people.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Once more, this is a unsubstantiated assertion. You have presented neither argument nor evidence that God has few features analogous to the human mind.
You're misrepresenting analogy. If we have argument or evidence we don't need analogy, we simply argue from the evidence. Analogy illustrates, not substantiates. It either works or it doesn't, depending on whether the similarities between the known and the unknown are recognised as sufficient to support the proposal we're making.
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Rather, we have now agreed - thanks to my argument based on experiential evidence - that there is at least one feature the human mind and God share analogously.
We have agreed nothing of the sort. I'm using what seems to be a fundamental feature of reality - creativity - to describe the first cause of the universe. There's no analogy involved.
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Furthermore, the human mind is the only "object" in the world which appears to have this analogous property. Hence the analogy is unique.
I don't know what a unique analogy is. I'm making no claim that creativity within time is only found in human personhood. I don't think Whitehead and Hartshorne do either.
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The whole point of making an analogy is to deduce something new about the unknown part of the analogy (in this case, God) by comparison to the known part (in this case, man).
Again, you're misunderstanding analogy. It relies on a clear recognition of similarity between the known and the unknown in order to justify a proposed further similarity. You believe there is such a similarity between the God of Roman Catholicism and the human mind, but for someone who doesn't, or for God as simply first cause of the universe, there is no such clear recognition.
It's like saying a football is round and so is my head, therefore the football has a mind of its own. It may seem that way when I try to kick it in a particular direction, but most people would see that as a limitation in my ball skills, not a good reason to give human rights to footballs.
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As far as I can see you will not say anything about God's creativity other than that it makes the universe become in time.
Yes, by definition. As well as exhibiting creativity, God must also be absolutely selfless and ultimately consistent in order to cause the universe. These additional characteristics can't be integral to creativity, or no secondary causes (like that in human personhood) would be possible.
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There's nothing in this as such that would reject a "larger than one feature" analogy to the human mind.
Even leaving aside the analogy problem, there is: for God there is no time. I don't think mind or free will (for example) make sense outside a spacetime context. Any analogues with human characteristics will be more different than similar because of that.
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Parsimony may be a concern, but the added features have predictive value. For example, I have claimed by analogy that God's creativity is governed by Free Will. Hence I can predict that God can create other than He usually does, i.e., I can predict the possibility of so-called miracles. Principles of parsimony should not eliminate hypotheses with predictive value.
God as a hypothesis? It's better than a dogmatic truth claim, but there's no verifiable evidence I can see to separate such 'predictive value' from wishful thinking. It's no credible underpining for God.
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you possess essential greatness as compared to a brick.
I'm aware of no other example of a "greater than" operation being defined for "essence". The only use I can see for it is to arbitarily justify a preference.
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It's more that you seem to claim that the "first cause" just causes time progression, a bit like a CPU clock causes computing. Whereas I think that's insufficient. It may sort of explain why A->B, but it does not explain why there is an A, why there is a B, and indeed why there is a ->.
Explain in terms of what? God as first cause is the bottom line. God explains reality, we don't explain God. There is B because there is God and there was A. That's the limit of our competence. Anything more is speculation.
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What process theology does is jettison understanding of creation in order to minimize conflict with scientific positivism. This indeed undermines traditional Christianity, since people in the West nowadays grow up in an environment of unreflected scientific positivism and get taught to suppress intuitive approaches to describing nature (which generally are more metaphysically than physically correct).
Process theology usually refers to Whitehead and Hartshorne's system, which in some respects will be significantly different to my thinking. But what grounds do you have for this assertion? Only I suspect the widespread rejection of traditional religion.
Last I heard, the open-ended expression of intuitive approaches in various alternative forms of spirituality was booming. That suggests not scientific positivism (as in the exclusion of non-positivist understandings) but simply rejection of the authority of religious institutions to set the intuitive/spiritual agenda. Hence the need for a credible reality-based metaphysical framework around which we can weave the mythologies of our communities and traditions.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
You're misrepresenting analogy.
Nope. You in fact say exactly the same thing about analogy as I did: "It relies on a clear recognition of similarity between the known and the unknown in order to justify a proposed further similarity." You are merely now denying that there is a clear similarity to work with, whereas before you admitted it.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
We have agreed nothing of the sort.
You first admitted "There is a similarity here - both first cause and human personhood exhibit creativity", and then you tried to take that back "- but the differences are so much more obvious ... that such an analogy does not work for God as first cause." But of course, by your own definition of analogy (quoted above) the mere existence of differences, no matter how obvious, is insufficient grounds for rejection. If everything was the same, then one would not need an analogy. Rather you would have to show that features strictly predicted by the analogy are unequivocally not present. Then the analogy would fail. But you are of course entirely and utterly incapable of proving anything of that sort. That is precisely the problem with God, we have no "experimental control" over him. For example, the analogy predicts that God has Free Will. You may believe that this is not so, but you cannot prove that He hasn't. Neither can I prove that He has, of course. Yet there is a key difference between us then: I have an analogy on my side, you do not.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I don't know what a unique analogy is. I'm making no claim that creativity within time is only found in human personhood. I don't think Whitehead and Hartshorne do either.
Well, then the analogy would not be unique. Which does not mean that it therefore cannot hold. It remains as true or false as it happens to be if it is not unique. The only thing that changes is that we then would be able to draw analogies from additional entities. Which ones do you have in mind, by the way?
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
It's like saying a football is round and so is my head, therefore the football has a mind of its own. It may seem that way when I try to kick it in a particular direction, but most people would see that as a limitation in my ball skills, not a good reason to give human rights to footballs.
No, it is not like that at all. Because it is rather simple to show by practical means that the football has no mind of its own, and that therefore the analogy fails. Whereas to say anything definite about God is very difficult indeed.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God must also be absolutely selfless and ultimately consistent in order to cause the universe.
These statements seem somewhere between nonsense and trivial at first glance. I probably should remember what you mean by them, but I don't. But let's not prolong the agony by getting into that as well.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
for God there is no time. I don't think mind or free will (for example) make sense outside a spacetime context.
That's a general problem, which however threatens your theories just as well. There is also no time available within which God could cause A->B, which as you say we experience as time. Causing time is necessarily a-temporal, but we do not have any experience of anyone or anything causing a-temporally. The solution is always the same: something can be logically prior even if it is not temporally prior. One cannot say that God was before the universe in a temporal sense, because there is no time before the universe. But one can say that God was before the universe in a logical sense, because without Him there would be no universe but without the universe there would still be God.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Any analogues with human characteristics will be more different than similar
Actually that is a declared dogma of the RCC: "Between the Creator and the creature there cannot be a likeness so great that the unlikeness is not greater." (4th Lateran Council, 1215, Canon 2) Yet of course this does not mean that any likeness that in fact exists is useless for us to contemplate concerning its consequences.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I'm aware of no other example of a "greater than" operation being defined for "essence". The only use I can see for it is to arbitrarily justify a preference.
It's rather unfortunate that you will immediately revert to this "arbitrary" preference in practice, and make use of the fact that this "arbitrary" preference is universally shared by mankind. Otherwise I could simply beat the shit out of you as proof of principle for my argument...
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God as first cause is the bottom line. God explains reality, we don't explain God. There is B because there is God and there was A. That's the limit of our competence. Anything more is speculation.
The problem you have is in the "... and there was A." How did A come about then? (Note that this is not a temporal question, but a logical one!) You have not explained existence at all, merely offered a hypothesis how existence changes. And that has been just my point. By the way, there is no more or less "speculation" involved in assuming that God is a proper first cause (also responsible for A). You, too, must assume that the human intellect can validly operate on observables (physics) to go beyond them (metaphysics). Nothing else is involved in the (philosophical aspects of the) traditional model either.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Only I suspect the widespread rejection of traditional religion.
And the lack of inroads process anything is making. There's not much joy for either of us in the way things are going currently, as far as I can tell.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You in fact say exactly the same thing about analogy as I did: "It relies on a clear recognition of similarity between the known and the unknown in order to justify a proposed further similarity." You are merely now denying that there is a clear similarity to work with, whereas before you admitted it.
Nope. You're claiming analogy relies on similarity. In fact it relies on a recognition of similarity in the mind of someone else. If the analogy works, that recognition will allow them to see your inference of further similarity as reasonable. Equally, if they do not find the inference reasonable, the analogy does not work for them.
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You first admitted "There is a similarity here - both first cause and human personhood exhibit creativity"
One point of similarity. Not an analogy.
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then you tried to take that back "- but the differences are so much more obvious ... that such an analogy does not work for God as first cause."
Take it back?? I've noted that in opposition to the similarity, the differences (the entire set of human features minus one) are too great for the analogy to work.
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by your own definition of analogy (quoted above) the mere existence of differences, no matter how obvious, is insufficient grounds for rejection.
I haven't defined analogy. I've tried a couple of times to explain how it works, and until now resisted the temptation to provide a link to dictionary.com.
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If everything was the same, then one would not need an analogy. Rather you would have to show that features strictly predicted by the analogy are unequivocally not present.
Analogy does not predict, it illustrates. Any inference you want to make based on an analogy will a) be speculative, and b) only make sense if the analogy works. That means who the analogy is intended for (and here I'm assuming that's a random person on the street) must already recognise "first cause of the universe" and "human personhood" as similar before any further similarity can reasonably be inferred. Simply pointing out that both exhibit creativity seems unlikely to provide sufficient grounds for most people to decide the two are in fact similar enough for the person analogy to work.
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we then would be able to draw analogies from additional entities. Which ones do you have in mind, by the way?
If I remember correctly, Whitehead and Hartshorne have all matter exhibiting creativity. But consciousness, perhaps life itself, might be more than a passive response to the creativity of the first cause.
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It's rather unfortunate that you will immediately revert to this "arbitrary" preference in practice, and make use of the fact that this "arbitrary" preference is universally shared by mankind.
I'm not aware of having used "essential greatness" in any context other than to dispute its validity. Although your use of it here could be an appeal to absolute morality, which is maybe what you're getting at? If so, I'll refer you to a couple of past threads that convinced me there is no such thing.
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The problem you have is in the "... and there was A." How did A come about then? (Note that this is not a temporal question, but a logical one!)
If you think about it in process terms, here you've constructed a logical fallacy. How A comes about is easy enough: it's the result of the time step preceding A. And so on. The fallacy is assuming that for some step there was no preceding step. That would require the first cause to not exhibit creativity, requiring a change in the nature of the first cause, a contradiction in terms.
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You have not explained existence at all, merely offered a hypothesis how existence changes.
I disagree. I have explained existence, but in terms of change. That is all we experience; time does not stand still. It is the hypothesis that existence can be explained in terms of a beginning that in fact needs justifying, however counter-intuitive that might seem.
[ 09. April 2010, 15:45: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I've tried a couple of times to explain how it works, and until now resisted the temptation to provide a link to dictionary.com.
You can easily educate yourself about how analogy actually works in reasoning, even by just going to Wikipedia, which is OK on the subject. The modern approach to analogy from the cognitive sciences essentially amounts to that of classical philosophy and theology. The link Wikipedia mentions to the paper by Prof. D. Gentner is good, that's an easy and appropriate read.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Although your use of it here could be an appeal to absolute morality, which is maybe what you're getting at? If so, I'll refer you to a couple of past threads that convinced me there is no such thing.
I just think this one is best settled practically. I'm sure you'll quickly change your tune once you get treated no different from a brick.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If you think about it in process terms, here you've constructed a logical fallacy. How A comes about is easy enough: it's the result of the time step preceding A. And so on. The fallacy is assuming that for some step there was no preceding step. That would require the first cause to not exhibit creativity, requiring a change in the nature of the first cause, a contradiction in terms.
Well... There are serious conceptual problems with declaring that the number of causal steps to get to a particular point is infinite. And unlike for motion I doubt infinitesimals are of pragmatic help here. Furthermore, this is really not relevant anyhow and I've tried to avoid this misunderstanding by pointing out "(Note that this is not a temporal question, but a logical one!)" If you insist that there is an infinite chain of becoming universes, the question still remains why this infinite chain is there at all, rather than not. There is a logical prior to the existence thereof. In order to break the logical force of the question "Why is there anything rather than nothing?" you must rather declare an entity that logically necessarily Is. And that's precisely why Aquinas says that God's essence is Being.
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Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I have explained existence, but in terms of change. That is all we experience; time does not stand still.
There is constant change of what exists how, but there's no change that something exists. We do experience existence, and it is different from change. Existence is, if you like, the medium of change. For a river to flow it must have water.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You can easily educate yourself about how analogy actually works in reasoning
I already know how analogy works, but in ordinary language. That's what I use to construct my world view. Retreat into the jargon of cognitive science is a retreat into abstraction, breaking the link between language and reality. That's no doubt useful and necessary for a theoretical physicist. For the rest of us, it doesn't help make sense of anything.
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I just think this one is best settled practically. I'm sure you'll quickly change your tune once you get treated no different from a brick.
If a high velocity brick smashes through your skull, I hope you retain the capacity to appreciate that your essential greatness was a delusion.
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If you insist that there is an infinite chain of becoming universes
I've posted nothing to suggest that I would.
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the question still remains why this infinite chain is there at all, rather than not.
For you, perhaps. A better question would be how to think about an alternative view of reality.
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There is a logical prior to the existence thereof.
That doesn't mean it has any real representation. You're looking for neat theoretical logic, the kind that is simple, elegant and even if not wrong, is misleading and unhelpful.
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In order to break the logical force of the question "Why is there anything rather than nothing?" you must rather declare an entity that logically necessarily Is.
Or simply recognise that there is no logic to the question.
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There is constant change of what exists how, but there's no change that something exists. We do experience existence, and it is different from change.
No, we experience reality as change. What is of interest is how best to make sense of that experience. The key is to ask the right questions.
[ 09. April 2010, 23:16: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I already know how analogy works, but in ordinary language.
I did not have the impression particularly, but I'm glad to hear that.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
If a high velocity brick smashes through your skull, I hope you retain the capacity to appreciate that your essential greatness was a delusion.
Why should I think that? I did not claim magical invulnerability.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I've posted nothing to suggest that I would.
You said: "The fallacy is assuming that for some step there was no preceding step." If that does not indicate an infinite chain (extending from the past), then I do not know what it is supposed to mean.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
You're looking for neat theoretical logic, the kind that is simple, elegant and even if not wrong, is misleading and unhelpful.
How can something simple, elegant and not wrong be misleading and unhelpful?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Or simply recognize that there is no logic to the question.
Sure, that's the Bertrand Russel approach. It is the only actually valid "argument" for atheism (or like thought systems). It works because it is fundamentally irrational, in the literal sense: it claims that the human mind can come up with well-formed questions that have perfectly fine semantic content, which nevertheless are logically invalid. One cannot reason against the assumption of cognitive failure, hence the discussion ends there.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
No, we experience reality as change.
Speak for yourself. I don't. I experience change happening in and to reality.
Look, it seems to me that only we two are talking here now, on a topic that is only marginally related to the OP. Furthermore, I'm quite satisfied with the current state of the discussion. Feel free to comment on the above, but unless you explicitly ask me to respond to something I will assume that we are then finished here.
Posted by Dave Marshall (# 7533) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You said: "The fallacy is assuming that for some step there was no preceding step." If that does not indicate an infinite chain (extending from the past), then I do not know what it is supposed to mean.
You said "an infinite chain of universes". I guess that's one possibility, but what I've been describing is universe as a logical progression of change that results in our temporal experience of reality.
quote:
How can something simple, elegant and not wrong be misleading and unhelpful?
A logical construction may appear to support what is misleading or unhelpful if suitably presented.
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that's the Bertrand Russel approach ... it claims that the human mind can come up with well-formed questions that have perfectly fine semantic content, which nevertheless are logically invalid. One cannot reason against the assumption of cognitive failure, hence the discussion ends there.
That's not what I was saying. The question "Why is there anything rather than nothing?" implies nothing is a real possibility, which would mean the question did not exist, which is clearly false. The logic fails at the level of reality, in the framing of the question.
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unless you explicitly ask me to respond to something I will assume that we are then finished here.
Yeah, probably time to call it a day.
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