Thread: Law on Wittgenstein on Contradiction Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by peter damian (# 18584) on
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Here. I linked it in another post but it’s worth a separate thread.
Law’s target is the view that when atheists deny the beliefs they take to be expressed by such sentences as ‘God created the world’, they fail to contradict the religious beliefs such sentences are used to express.
It’s a long piece and by no means easy, but I was taken by his argument about creationism.
quote:
In the US, for example, polls consistently indicate that around 130 million citizens believe the Earth was created by God sometime in the last ten thousand years (Bishop Ussher famously dated creation at 4004BC, and many Christians think this is about right). Most of these Christians also believe science supports this view at least as well as it supports the Old Earth/Evolutionary alternative. Even those Christians who accept that the universe is billions of years old nevertheless often suggest that there is empirical evidence to support belief in an intelligent creator and thus God (the fine-tuned character of the universe, for example).
Law concludes ‘if Wittgenstein really means to suggest that he literally cannot contradict what most religious folk mean by such sentences, then it seems to me he is mistaken’.
[ 15. May 2016, 14:26: Message edited by: peter damian ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Law is a fabulous logic-chopper. That was most pleasant to read. Like old home week. I found bits of it rather compelling, such as the "juicer" position, even if they don't establish Wittgenstein's no-contradiction or immunity claims.
There are some things the juicer argument (applying it to the tin-ear person) does defend. While the person with the tin ear can say, "This was not composed by Mussorgsky," they cannot say, "You cannot really hear the influence of Chopin in this piece by Mussorgsky." The question of course is whether "God exists" is more like "This was composed by Mussorgsky" or "The influence of Chopin on Mussorgsky can be heard in this piece."
Great stuff.
But I'm not sure what question you're asking. What were you hoping this thread would focus on? You're not going to get many Shippies to read a huge analytical piece on Wittgenstein. It is, as you say, difficult, and of little interest to most people who don't have at least one foot (as do you and I) in the world of analytical philosophy.
[ 15. May 2016, 16:28: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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I wonder why he doesn't refer to D Z Phillips who explored Wittgensteinian approaches to belief throughout his career.
It's very interesting, because it's where I am, and where I think we have to be to properly express the nature of Christian belief today.
Stephen Law is one of those who approaches philosophy like chess, trying to see what arguments stand up or fall, rather than with any interest in exploring a topic. Who cares if you can argue for non-contradiction or not? The point is to understand what is going on in belief, doubt and disbelief. (I think, incidentally, that the question of doubt is a very interesting one, but that Law has little understanding of it.)
I would be atheist-minus and expressivist in Law's categories.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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Law talks about Denys Turner:
According to Professor Denys Turner, for example, 'God' is not the name of a 'thing' that exists in addition to chairs, tables, planets, and the universe. Turner says to the atheist: It is no use supposing that you disagree with me if you say, 'There is no such thing as God'. For I got there well before you. (2002, 19)
It's interesting how strongly we are shaped by our influences. Denys Turner, early in his career, was my philosophy lecturer in the Theology Department at Bristol. And I remember sitting in the old building we used, called the Royal Fort, when he said almost exactly the quote above (from a truly excellent and highly readable book.) "If you listed everything in the universe, God would not be on the list", he said, and I thought "Woah! You're probably right, but my brain is wobbling too much to tell."
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Stephen Law is one of those who approaches philosophy like chess, trying to see what arguments stand up or fall, rather than with any interest in exploring a topic.
In short, he's an analytical philosopher.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
"If you listed everything in the universe, God would not be on the list", he said, and I thought "Woah! You're probably right, but my brain is wobbling too much to tell."
That's an assertion that would be shared by all good cognitivist Christian, Muslim and Jewish philosophers. Turner is echoing Aquinas here. I've read his books. That includes Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God in which Turner defends the claim that Christian faith requires there must be a rational argument that proves the existence of God (even if we don't currently know what that rational argument is).
See also David Bentley Hart, the Orthodox apologist, Rowan Williams, Herbert McCabe, et al et al.
[ 15. May 2016, 22:02: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
... That includes Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God in which Turner defends the claim that Christian faith requires there must be a rational argument that proves the existence of God (even if we don't currently know what that rational argument is). ...
What is the value or relevance to us of a rational argument if we don't currently know what that argument is?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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And can't easily say what existence means in relation to God.
In his very earliest days Turner was known for arguing that Christians had to be Marxists, because no other political position offered hope to the poor.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
See also David Bentley Hart, the Orthodox apologist ....
Interesting. I've never heard of him. Asking my peeps now.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
And can't easily say what existence means in relation to God.
You say that as if we can easily say what existence means in relation to anything.
quote:
In his very earliest days Turner was known for arguing that Christians had to be Marxists, because no other political position offered hope to the poor.
Can any sane moral person be sure that's not the case?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Turner defends the claim that Christian faith requires there must be a rational argument that proves the existence of God (even if we don't currently know what that rational argument is). ...
What is the value or relevance to us of a rational argument if we don't currently know what that argument is?
Does it have to have value or relevance to us in order for there to be one?
I mean, I think he takes it that some of Aquinas' arguments are along the right lines.
But also, to take just one example, it seems to me that the existence of arguments for the existence of God is one of the things that secures us against what I've called polytheism with only one god, and Hart (in his book The Experience of God) calls monopolytheism. That is, belief that God is just one more member of the class of things in the world, albeit with particular special properties. The point is that no rational argument (with no empirical evidence) could establish the existence of a god which is just one more member of the class of things in the world. That there must be a condition, source, and ground of anything else existing at all on the other hand could potentially be established by rational argument.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Turner defends the claim that Christian faith requires there must be a rational argument that proves the existence of God (even if we don't currently know what that rational argument is). ...
What is the value or relevance to us of a rational argument if we don't currently know what that argument is?
Does it have to have value or relevance to us in order for there to be one?
Well, now, I suppose Lizzie Bennett can have value and relevance without existing. But a fictional person is not quite like a fictional argument. The thing about arguments is that in order to argue for something they have to exist. It's like people who say "Well science hasn't explained this yet, but it will, by golly, it will." It's not part of an argument. It's a promissory note for an argument.
Posted by peter damian (# 18584) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But I'm not sure what question you're asking. What were you hoping this thread would focus on? You're not going to get many Shippies to read a huge analytical piece on Wittgenstein. It is, as you say, difficult, and of little interest to most people who don't have at least one foot (as do you and I) in the world of analytical philosophy.
Actually I wasn't asking a question in the OP. I am interested in Law's underlying point that many believers don't have some sophisticated or subtle metaphysical or theological or philosophical understanding of the scriptures, and just take them at face value. I.e. the assertions about resurrection are to be understood literally, that there will be bodily resurrection and so on.
A secondary question is whether the authors of the scriptures were trying to communicate precisely that 'ordinary' understanding. Perhaps they weren't trying to communicate some complex theological point by Jesus walking on the water. They were trying to persuade the ordinary reader that Jesus had supernatural powers, and thus that the ordinary reader should have faith.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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I've always been partial to the question 'so what?' If the biblical authors and most readers or hearers, then and now, believe that Jesus was born to a virgin, walked on water, etc. so what? Opinions on stuff that happened two thousand years ago are only interesting if they have implications today.
The way I understand the Wittgensteinian no-contradiction angle is to ask if you can have the implication without the surface belief. I think you can, that it's necessary to drop the pre-modern beliefs, and that the implications, the so-what are all that anyone really believes anyway.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Actually I wasn't asking a question in the OP. I am interested in Law's underlying point that many believers don't have some sophisticated or subtle metaphysical or theological or philosophical understanding of the scriptures, and just take them at face value. I.e. the assertions about resurrection are to be understood literally, that there will be bodily resurrection and so on.
This doesn't exactly require a philosopher of Law's caliber. It's pretty damned obvious to anybody who has spent 3 minutes in theologically conservative Christian circles.
quote:
A secondary question is whether the authors of the scriptures were trying to communicate precisely that 'ordinary' understanding. Perhaps they weren't trying to communicate some complex theological point by Jesus walking on the water. They were trying to persuade the ordinary reader that Jesus had supernatural powers, and thus that the ordinary reader should have faith.
Or maybe they weren't trying to convince anybody of anything, but describing what they saw.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
In his very earliest days Turner was known for arguing that Christians had to be Marxists, because no other political position offered hope to the poor.
Can any sane moral person be sure that's not the case?
Yes. Communism, in its idealised outcome, perhaps. But Marx believed violence and oppression were necessary to achieve the end goal.
Realistically, it is difficult to see any system that meets a Christian checklist, when realised in large scale.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
In his very earliest days Turner was known for arguing that Christians had to be Marxists, because no other political position offered hope to the poor.
Can any sane moral person be sure that's not the case?
Yes. Communism, in its idealised outcome, perhaps. But Marx believed violence and oppression were necessary to achieve the end goal.
Realistically, it is difficult to see any system that meets a Christian checklist, when realised in large scale.
Firstly, Marx thought violence was necessary, since he didn't think the rich would stop oppressing the poor or give up power without a fight. I'm not sure he thought any further oppression would be needed (that's Lenin who wanted to anticipate the process). If it's true that the rich won't stop oppressing the poor without a fight, then it seems callous to think it would be morally wrong for the poor to fight.
We can all hope that it's possible to persuade the rich to give up power or to take it off them without violence. Christians might make that hope a theological virtue. But the thought that violence might be needed is something that anyone in pessimistic mood might entertain.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If it's true that the rich won't stop oppressing the poor without a fight, then it seems callous to think it would be morally wrong for the poor to fight.
Fight, yes. Violence is a debatable addition. And one, IMO, that Jesus' teachings do not support.
quote:
We can all hope that it's possible to persuade the rich to give up power or to take it off them without violence. Christians might make that hope a theological virtue. But the thought that violence might be needed is something that anyone in pessimistic mood might entertain.
Violence is visceral and the reaction is immediate. It has its appeal. But I still contend it is not supported by the Christ part of Christianity.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
We can all hope that it's possible to persuade the rich to give up power or to take it off them without violence. Christians might make that hope a theological virtue. But the thought that violence might be needed is something that anyone in pessimistic mood might entertain.
Violence is visceral and the reaction is immediate. It has its appeal. But I still contend it is not supported by the Christ part of Christianity.
I wouldn't say that any sane person can be sure that being not supported by Christianity is the same thing as being untrue.
Maybe there are some saints who see the beatific vision and know. But not so for the rest of us.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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The problem with violence for social change is that it is likely to affect the culture of the resultant society. Violence is an agent, but not a pure catalyst.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
In his very earliest days Turner was known for arguing that Christians had to be Marxists, because no other political position offered hope to the poor.
Can any sane moral person be sure that's not the case?
Yes. Communism, in its idealised outcome, perhaps. But Marx believed violence and oppression were necessary to achieve the end goal.
Realistically, it is difficult to see any system that meets a Christian checklist, when realised in large scale.
Firstly, Marx thought violence was necessary, since he didn't think the rich would stop oppressing the poor or give up power without a fight. I'm not sure he thought any further oppression would be needed (that's Lenin who wanted to anticipate the process). If it's true that the rich won't stop oppressing the poor without a fight, then it seems callous to think it would be morally wrong for the poor to fight.
We can all hope that it's possible to persuade the rich to give up power or to take it off them without violence. Christians might make that hope a theological virtue. But the thought that violence might be needed is something that anyone in pessimistic mood might entertain.
It would be morally wrong fro Christians to fight. To use violence. And no of course that doesn't include immediate self and other defence. Although I'm off to keep my hands in my pockets with Leicester's street people. Unless they lay hands on others.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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It could morally right however, situation ethics, short term utilitarianism or what have you, but wouldn't be Christian. Even though dominant Christians have justified it for 1700 years to date. Whilst paying lip service to the impossible dream of actually living like Jesus.
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
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Welcome to Wittengestein's world where words do not have literal meaning but gain meaning through the uses they are put to.
The question is not whether there is evidence for a created world but what are Christians doing when they make such statements. On the whole, they are not making statements about the nature of how the Universe came into being but are making statements about the nature of the God they believe in or probably more accurately they are doing identity work which expresses their loyalty to a particular group through key statements one of which is that "God created the Universe".
If this is the case and belief is to be understood in this way, a fairly similar form to Stringer's Situational Belief then there is no point in trotting out scientific evidence to convince them otherwise.
Jengie
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Welcome to Wittengestein's world where words do not have literal meaning but gain meaning through the uses they are put to.
For a descriptivist, that's what words do.
Posted by Zogwarg (# 13040) on
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I find the quoted part to provide statements which are a little too specific (specially compared to those provided by Wittgenstein).
- "Earth was created in the last 10'000 years"
- "There is as much scientific evidence for old earth/evolution or new earth"
These are a very far cry from a statement like: "There is a God". And probably not included in what the average Christian will mean by the latter.
Some (Christian?) statements can be refuted, and others cannot. And in a finer sense, if for an ordinary christian saying "There is a God" does include those refutable parts, then it it doesn't mean that his whole statement is refuted.
Or at the very least it shouldn't matter to his creed. (I might believe in a literal flood, that doesn't mean it is essential to my faith)
"The earth isn't spherical" is technically correct, it's an oblate spheroid with surface irregularities. But it isn't the most useful of rebuttals, since only the particulars are wrong. (And someone hearing this might understand that the speaker thinks the earth is flat !)
I might believe the earth to be a sphere, someone pointing out a mountain won't exactly change/invalidate my general belief.
That being said i agree with the conclusion:
quote:
if Wittgenstein really means to suggest that he literally cannot contradict what most religious folk mean by such sentences, then it seems to me he is mistaken.
Even from a non-informed locutor, i think "There is no Christian God" when said to a christian qualifies. (Since the statement is referential, again that doesn't make it a useful or productive utterance on it's own)
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
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The problem is not that the facts are incorrect but by replying to the statement with facts you fail to understand the purpose of the statement which is not about facts although it appears to be.
The question is what is the person making that statement trying to do. On the whole, their purpose is not usually dispute scientific facts. It may be to indicate loyalty to a group or it may be a statement about their belief in the nature of God. All those saying "These are the facts that are hard to contradict" are missing Wittgenstein's point. The facts are not wrong with respect to the purpose but irrelevant. It can be argued (I do not necessarily endorse*) that good religious language is language that brings consensus and identity to a religious community. It thereby gives both a feeling of being special and of being part of something bigger.
Jengie
*As a sociologist of religion I can see the appeal of this understanding, as a Reformed Christian dealing in that tradition I have a big "BUT..."
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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If Christ is not raised from the dead, then I am not consoled by being a member of a church or society or religious group that talks a good game. I am glad our religious dialogue unites us, but only because it unites us around something worthy of being united around.
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
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What do you mean by raised from the dead? There are many a complex understanding and I suspect you do not mean a simplistic coming to coming back to life of a dead body like Zombies.
I suspect far more important than that would be it as an expression of death's inability to contain God. That, however, is not a matter of fact or counter fact.
Jengie
Posted by Zogwarg (# 13040) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
The problem is not that the facts are incorrect but by replying to the statement with facts you fail to understand the purpose of the statement which is not about facts although it appears to be.
[...]
All those saying "These are the facts that are hard to contradict" are missing Wittgenstein's point.
But then that could be said of any statement, it could even be said of the there is no god statement. Trying to belong to truth and reason, and feeling special for totally being above religion. [In fact one might be accused of missing the point of the rebuttal]
Words might have other purpose than carrying their meaning: weather talk for one. But you're not going to say it's raining when it's not, even to make conversation and (un)make societal bonds.
I don't really want to live in world, where expressing my beliefs is just a statement of belonging, and where these beliefs can never be properly challenged. I think it kinds of demeans the whole thing.
And again I think even even the most unfalsifiable statements can be rebutted. (just saying that Law chose some very unfortunate examples.)
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If Christ is not raised from the dead, then I am not consoled by being a member of a church or society or religious group that talks a good game. I am glad our religious dialogue unites us, but only because it unites us around something worthy of being united around.
This, and then some.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
What do you mean by raised from the dead? There are many a complex understanding and I suspect you do not mean a simplistic coming to coming back to life of a dead body like Zombies.
"Like Zombies"? Really? Is that the account we get in the Gospels? Because, if not, why would you think that is the obvious/only way to conceive of an actual, bodily resurrection?
I'm not speaking for mousethief here (obviously), but for me it means, amongst other things: - The body of Christ that was laid in the tomb was gone
- Christ's body was raised "incorruptible", completely continuous with his pre-death one but gloriously transformed
- Christ in his resurrected body appeared to His disciples
- Christ's resurrected body bore the wounds of His passion
- Christ in His resurrected body ate with His disciples
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
I suspect far more important than that would be it as an expression of death's inability to contain God. That, however, is not a matter of fact or counter fact.
Sounds to me like a false dichotomy, but of course it is a matter of truth or falsity. Of course it betokens that death had no hold over God, that Christ has conquered death. But He either actually did that or He didn't. It's kind of important to know which.
If the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection amount to no more than the "expression" of a concept, and don't bear true witness to an actual, bodily, personal encounter with the Risen Christ then I for one am amongst those who are most to be pitied.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Chesterbelloc, as always when not speaking about things that divide our Churches, says what I would have said had I given it as much thought and wisdom (if I had the reserves).
Let me just add this to Jengie Jon: What do you mean by "what do you mean by raised from the dead"? This seems uncharacteristically disingenuous. What do you think an Orthodox means by "raised from the dead"? I didn't invent the words this week, and don't intend to use them in any other way than the Church has used them for the last 2000 years.
If you don't know what the Orthodox mean by it (which is also what the Catholics mean by it, and many others as well) you might try Wikipedia. Because there's nothing new about what we use those words to mean.
This used to be common knowledge. What do they teach them in these schools?
[ 04. June 2016, 00:46: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
If the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection amount to no more than the "expression" of a concept, and don't bear true witness to an actual, bodily, personal encounter with the Risen Christ then I for one am amongst those who are most to be pitied.
I also.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I also.
Let me nail my TEC colours to Chesterbelloc's mast as well. The Gospels contain accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I believe them to be a genuine historical record of something that actually happened.
I will happily affirm everything that Chesterbelloc and mousethief have said in the last few posts. If the resurrection isn't real - if it's a metaphor, or a fairy tale or whatever - then the whole thing is a pile of crap.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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The resurrection of Jesus is only something you can dramatically nail your colours to the mast about, only something you can grandly assert is crucial to your continuing faith and self identity, if it means something. That something is what Wittgenstein would say you believe in. Not the facts, but their consequences, or, before that, the facts connected into a story that offers an explanation and interpretation of those facts.
The resurrection is a weird but perhaps helpful example, because it is composed very loosely out of a collection of powerful experiences, those of the disciples, which barely fit together, are framed by deep grief and the threat of despair, and are only united by a narrative that is marked by mystery and playfulness.
Forget Wittgenstein, the resurrection is itself an invitation to abandon naive realism, to agree that even table and chairs is a metaphor and a concept. Meaning depends on how you tell it, it's a function of the story not the facts, and stories are always about us. Who did and does the resurrection happen to?
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The resurrection of Jesus is only something you can dramatically nail your colours to the mast about, only something you can grandly assert is crucial to your continuing faith and self identity, if it means something. [..] Not the facts, but their consequences
No. The facts AND the consequences. Nonfactual things - things that didn't actually happen - don't have consequences.*
And of course the Resurrection "means something" - it's the single most significant event in human history. But it's only significant because/if it actually happened. And no amount of sophisticated "nuancing" of any kind, it seems to me, can escape that.
*To anticipate: which is not to say that the fact of something's not having happened does not have consequences, obviously.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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How funny to invoke Wittgenstein to deconstruct facts, he who said:
--The world is everything that is the case.
--The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
--The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
--For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also what is not the case.
--The world divides into facts.
And so on. I know he repudiated the Tractatus in favor of a squishy philosophy of "language games," but it is still instructive that he managed to create a fiercely consistent worldview based not on things but on facts.
(BTW once again Chesterbelloc adequately states the facts.)
[ 04. June 2016, 12:32: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I know he repudiated the Tractatus in favor of a squishy philosophy of "language games," but it is still instructive that he managed to create a fiercely consistent worldview based not on things but on facts.
Given that he did repudiate the Tractatus, I don't think it is funny to invoke him.
I'm not sure I'd describe the Tractatus as a fiercely consistent worldview. It's a fiercely consistent description of what the world would have to be like if much analytic philosophy of language was correct. But you could equally regard it as a reductio ad absurdum of analytic philosophy of language.
Not that I think Wittgenstein's later philosophy altogether supports the idea that religious language's sole meaning is to create ingroups and outgroups or otherwise. That implies a boundary between different uses of language that is much more rigid than I think actually obtains.
Still there is some sense to the idea. If someone makes an assertion such as 'Obama's birth certificate is fake,' does that mean they actually believe that, that they actually think the evidence is sufficient to warrant the belief? Clearly it's possible to contradict what they're saying. But possibly you'd contradict it by saying something apparently irrelevant like 'my brother's husband is good people'.
For that matter, I think hatless' assertions about facts and meaning are better understood as self-demonstrating uses of language to mark in-groups and out-groups than as assertions about the relationship between facts and meaning.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The resurrection of Jesus is only something you can dramatically nail your colours to the mast about, only something you can grandly assert is crucial to your continuing faith and self identity, if it means something.
You (or maybe Wittgenstein) make a huge leap here. You're asserting that the reality of the resurrection only means anything if it has consequences, and so what I "really" believe are the consequences, and it doesn't matter so much about the resurrection.
Let me try and explain why I think this is nonsense.
I believe that a number of groups of people have made measurements demonstrating that neutrinos change species as they propagate through space. A consequence of this observation is that neutrinos must have mass (and the details of exactly what happens places constraints on those masses...). So because of the measurements, I believe that neutrinos have mass.
It seems that you would have me say that the important thing is my belief in neutrino mass, and you can take away the measurements and leave me unaffected. That's nonsense - the measurements are the reason why I believe neutrinos have mass. Take them away and I no longer have a reason to have an opinion either way on the subject.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The resurrection is a weird but perhaps helpful example, because it is composed very loosely out of a collection of powerful experiences, those of the disciples, which barely fit together,
OK, I can't let this one go by. "Barely fit together" really isn't a good description of the Gospel accounts. By the standards of eyewitness records, the Gospel accounts agree very well.
Eyewitnesses screw up details and interpolate things all the time. It's how people work.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The resurrection of Jesus is only something you can dramatically nail your colours to the mast about, only something you can grandly assert is crucial to your continuing faith and self identity, if it means something.
You (or maybe Wittgenstein) make a huge leap here. You're asserting that the reality of the resurrection only means anything if it has consequences, and so what I "really" believe are the consequences, and it doesn't matter so much about the resurrection.
Let me try and explain why I think this is nonsense.
I believe that a number of groups of people have made measurements demonstrating that neutrinos change species as they propagate through space. A consequence of this observation is that neutrinos must have mass (and the details of exactly what happens places constraints on those masses...). So because of the measurements, I believe that neutrinos have mass.
It seems that you would have me say that the important thing is my belief in neutrino mass, and you can take away the measurements and leave me unaffected. That's nonsense - the measurements are the reason why I believe neutrinos have mass. Take them away and I no longer have a reason to have an opinion either way on the subject.
No, I don't think that's quite right.
I don't understand why the measurements entail mass, or even what mass means at that level, but couldn't you frame it the other way round? The measurements that have been made appear to be the consequence of neutrinos having mass, or you could say, having mass is the explanation of the measurements. The mass isn't being measured directly; it is inferred from other measurements and a theory of how particles like neutrinos work. It's not the mass which is the consequence, though you could say that the attribution of mass is a consequence of the data and the theory together.
So it's a bit like saying that 'having mass' is equivalent to 'being raised', and it is indeed having mass, or being raised that you believe in, not the data or the disciples' reports of appearances.
But I think it is important that the resurrection isn't some corner of theoretical science, but is something with personal implications for us all.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The resurrection is a weird but perhaps helpful example, because it is composed very loosely out of a collection of powerful experiences, those of the disciples, which barely fit together,
OK, I can't let this one go by. "Barely fit together" really isn't a good description of the Gospel accounts. By the standards of eyewitness records, the Gospel accounts agree very well.
Eyewitnesses screw up details and interpolate things all the time. It's how people work.
It's like JFK's death, if we had no film or police reports, being described as on different days of the week, with varying numbers of people in the car, Matthew, Mark and John say it was in Dallas, but Luke reckons it was New York, meanwhile Paul, who wrote the big biography twenty years before those guys doesn't mention anything about a shooting in a car at all.
There is no overlap between the appearance stories in the gospels; the gospels stop being synoptic. Plus the appearance stories are of, as I said, a mysterious and playful character.
The evidence is of a character that should tell us not to approach it as if it were like any other evidence, and that it's probably best not to think of it as evidence at all.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Dafyd, you appear to be making a false dichotomy. Either the resurrection language is truthy/falsey, or it is in-groupy/out-groupy. As if it can't be both.
When someone says "Obama's birth certificate is fake" there is no reason to think they do not believe that the document that was demonstrated to the world and claimed to be PBO's birth certificate is not, in fact, his birth certificate.
Now it may be that the person believes this not because he has any evidence to support the claim that it's fake, but because all the people around him, the ones who matter to him, and in whose good graces he wishes to remain, believe so. But it's, imho, ridiculous to think he reasons within himself, "I wish to remain in this crowd. I'd better believe it's fake, or at least pretend to." There's no reason to think that's the direction his thinking goes at all, unless you're trying to shove his experience into a Procrustean Bed of some theory or other.
Rather he undoubtedly reasons "These people whom I trust think it's fake. They must be right. It must be fake."
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
It's like JFK's death, if we had no film or police reports, being described as on different days of the week, with varying numbers of people in the car, Matthew, Mark and John say it was in Dallas, but Luke reckons it was New York, meanwhile Paul, who wrote the big biography twenty years before those guys doesn't mention anything about a shooting in a car at all.
And if we had no film or police records, no news reports and mass media to fix the details firmly in people's minds, but were relying on the grandchildren of people who had been there writing down what their old grandad had told them, that's exactly what you'd expect.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
But I think it is important that the resurrection isn't some corner of theoretical science, but is something with personal implications for us all.
You keep saying that as if someone were denying it. No-one is.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
So it's a bit like saying that 'having mass' is equivalent to 'being raised', and it is indeed having mass, or being raised that you believe in, not the data or the disciples' reports of appearances.
But I believe neutrinos have mass because of the measurements. Take away the measurements, and I have no reason to believe in the mass.
I believe in neutrino mass because of the measurements. I believe in the resurrection because I believe that the Gospel records - that Jesus died on the cross, and subsequently reappeared and ate and drank with his disciples with an actual physical body - are broadly accurate. It's the same thought process.
quote:
But I think it is important that the resurrection isn't some corner of theoretical science, but is something with personal implications for us all.
There's nothing theoretical about neutrinos - they are real things that you can, well not touch exactly, but observe, in a completely reproducible way. They are exactly as real as a deckchair.
I picked neutrino mass because it's a small, concrete example. "Neutrinos have mass" is a straightforward statement that doesn't contain possible alternative meanings or metaphors. But there's no a priori reason to think that they have to have mass: as far as we know, you can build a perfectly satisfactory universe with massless neutrinos. So the only reason to think one way or other about neutrino mass is the experimental data.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
It's like JFK's death, if we had no film or police reports, being described as on different days of the week, with varying numbers of people in the car, Matthew, Mark and John say it was in Dallas, but Luke reckons it was New York, meanwhile Paul, who wrote the big biography twenty years before those guys doesn't mention anything about a shooting in a car at all.
And if we had no film or police records, no news reports and mass media to fix the details firmly in people's minds, but were relying on the grandchildren of people who had been there writing down what their old grandad had told them, that's exactly what you'd expect.
We have accounts of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, and the arrest, trials and crucifixion of Jesus. These set the benchmark for the degree and sort of variation we should expect. The resurrection accounts differ in ways and to a degree unlike others.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
But I think it is important that the resurrection isn't some corner of theoretical science, but is something with personal implications for us all.
You keep saying that as if someone were denying it. No-one is.
Well, Leorning Cniht likened the issue to a physics problem, and there are indeed parallels. I said what you quoted to point out that resurrection belief is an existential matter (not in the new, trendy sense of existential) and can't really be like theories and measurements.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
We have accounts of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, and the arrest, trials and crucifixion of Jesus. These set the benchmark for the degree and sort of variation we should expect. The resurrection accounts differ in ways and to a degree unlike others.
Was he born in Bethlehem or Nazareth? Did his parents flee to Egypt or settle down? Was he crucified on the Feast of Passover, or the day after? Was the cleansing of the temple late in his career or early? There are tons of conflicting data before the resurrection. You paint a far too facile black line through Easter morning.
[ 04. June 2016, 20:22: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
Leorning Cniht said
quote:
I believe in neutrino mass because of the measurements. I believe in the resurrection because I believe that the Gospel records - that Jesus died on the cross, and subsequently reappeared and ate and drank with his disciples with an actual physical body - are broadly accurate. It's the same thought process.
I think that's almost what I'm saying, too. The observations are that Jesus died, and that subsequently his disciples 'met' him, or at least that they reported having met him, in a variety of personal, emotional and transforming ways. And other stuff, like the empty tomb and angels.
But that's not yet a theory of resurrection. When you say you believe he ate and drank with an actual physical body you are starting to go beyond the evidence and moving towards a theory of resurrection, of what happened and what it was like.
As always, the word believe is a pain. You believe the gospel accounts are broadly accurate: let's call that 'believe' a judgment about the evidence. It's a sort of opinion. You arrive at it by rational historical critical methods. In my case the big argument is that something must have happened because the cross wasn't the end.
But believing in the resurrection is a different sort of belief, the sort that makes you leave home and security, perhaps, that brings a reckless joy to you. There are probably many different possible resurrection beliefs, but they are going to be about Jesus, but also the faith of the disciples and the new status of death, including our death. This is pin your colours to the mast stuff, but it's not about the tomb, not measurement stuff, it's mass of the neutrino stuff and personal with it.
A few posts ago Chesterbelloc offered five bullet points to describe his resurrection belief. I really don't know what to say. Bullet points? For me they exemplify the dead, fact bound, defend-the-certainties mentality that resurrection sets us free from.
Resurrection is not what happened to Jesus, it's what was always true about Jesus and which dawned on the disciples one by one, a sunrise that still happens to us today, not because of facts so old we can no longer check them, but because of a story unstale that invites us in.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
We have accounts of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, and the arrest, trials and crucifixion of Jesus. These set the benchmark for the degree and sort of variation we should expect. The resurrection accounts differ in ways and to a degree unlike others.
Was he born in Bethlehem or Nazareth? Did his parents flee to Egypt or settle down? Was he crucified on the Feast of Passover, or the day after? Was the cleansing of the temple late in his career or early? There are tons of conflicting data before the resurrection. You paint a far too facile black line through Easter morning.
Those are the obvious ones. The two birth narratives vary wildly in detail because they are constructs. The day of the crucifixion and the year of the cleansing of the Temple are both down to John's theological purposes.
The pluroptic (just made that up) nature of the post Easter gospels needs an explanation, and I think it should take its cue from the mischievous God revealed in the tales.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Dafyd, you appear to be making a false dichotomy. Either the resurrection language is truthy/falsey, or it is in-groupy/out-groupy. As if it can't be both.
I was just being a devil's advocate for a moment. It's hard to explain how it gets to be used as a shibboleth for a certain group if it isn't grounded in use as a way of describing the world.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
This is pin your colours to the mast stuff, but it's not about the tomb[.]
If you'll forgive me, for some of us it is very much about the tomb - because if the tomb still held Jesus's lifeless corpse the whole thing is (for us) hogwash.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A few posts ago Chesterbelloc offered five bullet points to describe his resurrection belief. I really don't know what to say. Bullet points?
Why, yes - bullet points. Bullet points can be really useful in laying out precisely the salient issues in a discussion. The fact that this is shocking to you tells me how divergent our attitudes really are. As it happens, you speak in very broad and quite ambiguous terms about what the Resurrection is for you - I still can't get my head around whether you think anything really happened outside the heads of a few followers. So what I did was try to be very specific about pointing out some things that my belief in the Resurrecion entails. At least, I think, you were able to understand me.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
For me they exemplify the dead, fact bound, defend-the-certainties mentality that resurrection sets us free from.
This, for example, means nothing to me. Is there anything more than rhetoric here? Do you mean that believing - and believing that it is important - that Christ rose bodily from the dead and met, talked and ate with His disciples is incompatible with grasping the "real" point of the Resurrection? If so, it would be useful to know why preceisely you believe that.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Resurrection is not what happened to Jesus, it's what was always true about Jesus and which dawned on the disciples one by one, a sunrise that still happens to us today, not because of facts so old we can no longer check them, but because of a story unstale that invites us in.
Once again, what on earth does that mean?
If you'll forgive me once more, it seems to me very much as if, though you do not believe in the Resurrection of Christ as a historical reality, you can't deny how supremely important a role it has always played in the Church's belief. So you still need the event to be invested with huge meaning, power and significance. But so flimsy and vague an understanding of what the "event" actually was will not bear such weight (let alone tally with the cumulative testimony of the Gospels). And it is, to me, simply absurd to try to make it carry such a burden.
Why is it, as it seems to be, inconceivable to you that Christ's Resurrection should have been a historical, observable, bodily event? Why make the "significance" of the event an enemy of it's supremely Incarnational, historical and bodily actuality? It goes without saying that you can believe what you like, but I hardly think it's fair to make the rest of us look like dry pedants who are missing the point because our version of the event makes reference to historical particulars.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The two birth narratives vary wildly in detail because they are constructs.
That is your theory and if it makes you feel good, all the more power to you. But you are stating as if it were a fact a modern spin on the facts. It has no grounding in the text.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A few posts ago Chesterbelloc offered five bullet points to describe his resurrection belief. I really don't know what to say. Bullet points?
If you can't answer them, just say it and have done with it. Why not list ideas with bullet points? It's the content of the ideas that you should be addressing, not how they were displayed on the page. This is silly. You're better than this. We deserve your best, not this.
[ 04. June 2016, 23:16: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
But believing in the resurrection is a different sort of belief, the sort that makes you leave home and security, perhaps, that brings a reckless joy to you.
Maybe this is where we're coming unjointed. For me, this is the same sort of belief. Sure, I don't leave home and security, or routinely feel reckless joy, because of a belief in massive neutrinos. But it's not the believing that's different, it's the subject of the belief.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
hatless--
Some people make the point that differences in the Gospel stories make them *more* likely to be about something that really happened. As with other real events, people remember different bits, and someone may know a crucial bit that no one else does.
I don't know what did or didn't happen. But if Jesus existed/exists, and was/is God come into the world in person,...heck, anything could happen.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
a sunrise that still happens to us today, not because of facts so old we can no longer check them, but because of a story unstale that invites us in.
There are other better stories. There's King Lear.
By any aesthetic standard except perhaps one King Lear is a better story.
The passion stories have J.S.Bach's music, but the resurrection narratives don't. What has the gospel got to offer considered as a story to compare with:
And my poor fool is hanged. No, no life?
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,
Never, never, never.
Pray you, undo this button.
Just the one thing: the gospel story may be fact-bound.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
hosting/
quote:
It's the content of the ideas that you should be addressing, not how they were displayed on the page. This is silly. You're better than this. We deserve your best, not this.
Motes and beams, mousethief, motes and beams. This is way over the personal attack line and you know it. Knock it off.
/hosting
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
I don't think I know how to respond without repeating myself. My points about the resurrection appearances seem self-evident to me, and have only met counter assertions. It's an important observation, especially when coupled with the character of the stories.
As to the nature of 'belief in' I really don't know what further to say. It seems obvious to me that you can't believe in a historical fact, you can merely believe that it is the case. And in relation to the resurrection we are talking about very old, much discussed facts about which uncertainty is inevitable. And who cares? The empty tomb is not the resurrection, and the raising of the youth from Nain is not the resurrection, whether true or false.
But there I go, repeating myself.
I'm not convinced Lear is a good alternative to the Gospel. A contrived morality tale brilliantly told. But the question is, is it true? Not did it happen, (if Lear turned out to have been a real king and to have had three daughters it would change nothing) but is it true? Is this what life is like? Is Jesus the resurrection?
And this is a sort of truth that can only be expressed in story, in the human, in art, and in poetry (apologies to Dafyd for saying the p word). Definitely not bullet points.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
As to the nature of 'belief in' I really don't know what further to say. It seems obvious to me that you can't believe in a historical fact, you can merely believe that it is the case.
* Counterexample to your assertion:
I believe in the existence of a historical Homer.
* To say, I believe in a theory, e.g. I believe in the dinosaur origin of birds is to assert that the theory is a fact, that it describes what is the case.
* If I say, I believe in a person, where the person's existence is not in question, that normally means I believe that person to be trustworthy and reliable. That is, I assert that the trustworthiness of the person is a fact.
* It is wrong to describe believing that something is the case as 'merely' believing that it is the case. People would have gone to great effort and expense to discover that it is the case that neutrinos have mass.
quote:
And who cares? The empty tomb is not the resurrection, and the raising of the youth from Nain is not the resurrection, whether true or false.
* Chesterbelloc and mousethief care.
quote:
I'm not convinced Lear is a good alternative to the Gospel. A contrived morality tale brilliantly told. But the question is, is it true? Not did it happen, (if Lear turned out to have been a real king and to have had three daughters it would change nothing) but is it true? Is this what life is like? Is Jesus the resurrection?
And this is a sort of truth that can only be expressed in story, in the human, in art, and in poetry (apologies to Dafyd for saying the p word). Definitely not bullet points.
* If there is any sort of truth that can only be expressed in poetry, then King Lear is an example of that truth.
* If King Lear is not true, then there is no truth that can only be expressed in poetry.
* The Gospels assert that if life is like the resurrection appearances it cannot be in virtue of any human or natural activity. The Gospels assert that left to ourselves, life is like the passion narratives.
* If I make a list of poems, they do not cease to be poems because I use bullet points in the list.
* To assert that stories and poetry are definitely not expressed in bullet points shows merely a failure to use one's imagination.
* Philip Hensher's Penguin Book of the British Short Story includes one of the passages from Swift's Directions to Servants, which is written in the eighteenth century equivalent of bullet points.
* Hensher says that modern writers have cast stories in the form of lists. He instances Lorrie Moore (whom I haven't read).
* An example I have seen: At the end of the Doctor Who episode Last Christmas, we see one of the characters holding a piece of paper on which is a to do list. If I remember correctly it has bullet points. (Numbered points in fact.) That list is in itself a story.
* I shall consider my cat Jeoffrey.
[ 05. June 2016, 21:04: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't think I know how to respond without repeating myself. My points about the resurrection appearances seem self-evident to me, and have only met counter assertions.
Kind of a stalemate then, isn't it? You assert one thing. We assert something else. The difference being that your points (could you list them with bullets, do you suppose?) are believed by you on the basis of their self-evidence (phone call for Mr. Descartes, line 2). We believe our bullet points based on documentary evidence and 2000 years of theological and practical reflection and development on those documents.
This may not convince you of our points, but then neither does your claim of self-evidence convince us of yours. They're not self-evident to us. Far from it.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
They're not self-evident to us. Far from it.
Indeed, I for one don't even find them comprehensible, I'm afraid. I simply don't know what truth-claims are and aren't being made by them; hatless doesn't seem to want to help me out by telling me what they do and don't imply. I just know that, for some reason, he has a downer on any historical, bodily account of the Resurrection (or is it just a downer on people beleiving a bodily account is important? - I don't even know that!).
Thing is, the truth about the Resurrection of the Lord may be poetic, but it isn't a poem. And you can't hum it, neither.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
And who cares? The empty tomb is not the resurrection[...] whether true or false.
I think the problem here is that you seem to care about the empty tomb - enough at least to deny it any significance in the face of those to whom it actually has significance. You seem not to want to admit that, if it were empty, that would have any significance - even to the point of implying that to believe in it is to miss the whole "point" of the Resurrection.
That, in my book, is very much to care about the empty tomb.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You assert one thing. We assert something else. [..] We believe our bullet points based on documentary evidence and 2000 years of theological and practical reflection and development on those documents.
One more thing: I think our account has much better explanatory power.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
Faith is not the same as propositional belief, and if you attempt to reduce it to that - "I assert the trustworthiness of that person" - you lose the heart of it. If you have faith in someone you have a personal, emotional investment in them. It's not a truth claim, it's a live relational connection with them. It is love.
Unfortunately, faith is not a verb, and the only way we can say I faith Jesus, or Boris or whoever, is to say I believe in Jesus or Boris. That doesn't mean believing facts about him, though you might, it means a positive personal commitment. But belief, the roots of which are in the word love, has come to also mean a conjecture, an opinion that is not fully supported, like believing in a historical Homer.
This use of belief has come to contaminate the understanding of faith amongst its critics and some of its adherents. The new atheists think religions are belief systems, and that they don't believe in sky fairies or invisible friends like the bonkers religious believers. And we are bonkers because we often obsess about what we do or don't believe - the miracles, faith healing, Virgin Birth, empty tomb, limited atonement or whatever. People even try to believe things, as if effort could fill in for reason or evidence.
But it's faith we need, which is a personal disposition towards Jesus. It is calling him Lord with our choices and character.
The bullet point thing was partly a joke. We all use bullet points sometimes, but I for one do it mostly when I'm trying to pretend to a clipped, analytic and impressive clarity of thought. It's a great way to dazzle your colleagues and make them think you've really thought through the new policy you are presenting. Bang, bang, bang they go, bish, bash, bosh - any questions? Didn't think so.
Bullet points are out of place in a letter of condolence, or a love letter (unless there's a special shared understanding) or an apology. They would be good in a letter to the CEO complaining about your recent experience.
Faith has much in common with the first three sorts of letters. It is best communicated in ways that maximise the human and the open interplay between us where our personhood lives. Story, testimony, and all the rich communication of silence, waiting and listening.
The appearance stories are all one-offs. They offer no collective evidence. Most of them testify to confusion and doubt as well as faith, fear and sadness as well as joy. This is the nature of resurrection and resurrection faith.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't think I know how to respond without repeating myself. My points about the resurrection appearances seem self-evident to me, and have only met counter assertions.
Kind of a stalemate then, isn't it? You assert one thing. We assert something else. The difference being that your points (could you list them with bullets, do you suppose?) are believed by you on the basis of their self-evidence (phone call for Mr. Descartes, line 2). We believe our bullet points based on documentary evidence and 2000 years of theological and practical reflection and development on those documents.
This may not convince you of our points, but then neither does your claim of self-evidence convince us of yours. They're not self-evident to us. Far from it.
I didn't merely assert, I gave reasons. Here they are again. The resurrection appearance stories in Matthew, Luke and John are all unique. We don't have two or three versions of any of them. Throughout the gospels there is huge overlap, especially between the first three gospels. Miracles, healings, sayings, incidents are often present in two, three or four gospels. When we get to the passion narrative, though the accounts vary in certain details, there is coherence. The same is true of the triumphal entry and the cleansing of the Temple. There is no possibility that Luke and Mark, say, are describing different events.
But that's exactly what we have in the appearance stories. Plus Luke says it all happens in Jerusalem, with Jesus emphasising the importance of the disciples staying there, while Mark and Matthew have angels urgently telling the disciples to go to Galilee to see the risen Jesus. John has the appearance to Mary in Jerusalem, but the appearance at the lakeside, obviously in Galilee, and mysteriously located in time. Have the disciples taken up their old trades? Did they give up on Jesus? How does this fit with Acts?
Paul refers to his Damascus road experience as a final resurrection appearance like those of Peter and the others disciples. He doesn't mention an empty tomb; you'd think it might have seemed relevant in 1 Corinthians 15.
And then there is the content of the appearances, the materialisation and dematerialisation (far too Twentieth Century words, but you know what I mean) contrasted with the carefully described eating, the recognising and not recognising, the fear and joy and the 'but some still doubted'.
The very least you can say is that these incidents were not straightforward. We also have a picture of disciples 'getting' the resurrection one by one or a few at a time, over a period.
Reading the text well requires us to take these things seriously.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Reading the text well requires us to take these things seriously.
It does not require us, however, to conclude there was no physical resurrection. None of these things do.
I mentioned before the inconsistencies with the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Indeed they're not so much inconsistent as two completely unrelated stories. Just as you claim for the post-rez stories. Yet from this you don't conclude he wasn't born. Why is that?
[ 06. June 2016, 01:01: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Unfortunately, faith is not a verb, and the only way we can say I faith Jesus, or Boris or whoever, is to say I believe in Jesus or Boris.
Fortunately, English comes equipped with the construction "I have faith in Jesus, Boris, or whoever" to mean precisely what you want.
And yes, I agree that that's much deeper, and more relational, than a mere belief in his existence, but that belief is where it starts. I can't have the faith without the foundation.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Reading the text well requires us to take these things seriously.
It does not require us, however, to conclude there was no physical resurrection. None of these things do.
I mentioned before the inconsistencies with the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Indeed they're not so much inconsistent as two completely unrelated stories. Just as you claim for the post-rez stories. Yet from this you don't conclude he wasn't born. Why is that?
Particularly since Luke at least* makes it quite clear there are many post resurrection appearances that he does not mention.
*Just read it through with my daughter and was struck by this
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Reading the text well requires us to take these things seriously.
It does not require us, however, to conclude there was no physical resurrection. None of these things do.
I mentioned before the inconsistencies with the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Indeed they're not so much inconsistent as two completely unrelated stories. Just as you claim for the post-rez stories. Yet from this you don't conclude he wasn't born. Why is that?
Do you really read the gospels to check that Jesus was born? Don't you read them to find out what he was like, and what he is like for us?
I think you are disagreeing for the sake of it.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Faith is not the same as propositional belief, and if you attempt to reduce it to that - "I assert the trustworthiness of that person" - you lose the heart of it. If you have faith in someone you have a personal, emotional investment in them. It's not a truth claim, it's a live relational connection with them. It is love.
Well, that's a bunch of propositional beliefs. Apparently we can use propositional beliefs to talk about faith after all.
Just because faith is also a personal investment does not mean it can't also be a factual belief. You keep talking as if the two exclude each other.
They don't. Indeed, I'd argue that a factual belief that excludes even minimal personal investment or a personal investment that excludes personal belief is impossible. You can't have a factual belief without personal investment both in the belief, and also in the channels by which that belief comes to you, the evidence or reason for it. And you can't have a personal investment
And I can't assent to the claim that faith is love. It is possible to have faith in someone you don't love. It is certainly possible to love someone in whom you have no faith (one of those truths perhaps best expressed in poetry).
quote:
This use of belief (as conjecture, uncertain opinion) has come to contaminate the understanding of faith amongst its critics and some of its adherents.
The 'contaminate' metaphor and similar metaphors ring alarm bells for me: there's too much conservative or indeed reactionary far right political baggage associated with them.
The question as always with 'contaminate' metaphors is how does the alien contaminant get into the previously pure substance? The answer as always is that it has its roots in what is there already.
In this case, belief as opinion of fact arose out of belief in, because they are at root the same: to believe in a fact is to make a personal commitment to the fact being so.
This seems to be always what happens when contrasts are erect, such as belief as commitment vs belief as conjecture. One side seems to always get labelled bad (in this case, 'the dead, fact bound, defend-the-certainties mentality that resurrection sets us free from'), and therefore has to be expelled. And then when as is inevitable it refuses to be expelled it gets labelled a contaminant.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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You think I might be a conservative far-right reactionary? That's very surprising.
It's not that you can't have belief in facts alongside faith in someone, of course you can, but it's the relational bit that is important and is the faith or belief-in.
And, in the case of Jesus I do think that people have often focused on the belief that and forgotten the belief in. The empty tomb signifies nothing. Believing it to be the case, or not believing it to have been the case are irrelevant to faith and a distraction from it.
You're right that you can have faith in someone you don't love, and vice versa. I was thinking of faith in Christ at that point, which I think is how we love him.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Originally posted by hatless:
I think you are disagreeing for the sake of it.
I see no reason to continue this conversation, then.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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Originally posted by hatless:
You think I might be a conservative far-right reactionary? That's very surprising.
No. I think you were expressing your ideas in a form that when scattered about becomes fertiliser in which conservative and reactionary ideas can grow.
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It's not that you can't have belief in facts alongside faith in someone, of course you can, but it's the relational bit that is important and is the faith or belief-in.
Important schmimportant. The Emperor Tiberius was important. A Jewish holy man executed for trouble-making in a provincial capital wasn't important.
Importance is relative to context. If someone is drowning, it's not important whether the person has belief-in Jesus or merely believes that or hasn't heard of this Jesus person at all. What is important is whether they help. And that they know how to swim.
Faith, belief-in, has no intrinsic importance. Whatever importance it has comes from where it is placed and from its results.
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And, in the case of Jesus I do think that people have often focused on the belief that and forgotten the belief in. The empty tomb signifies nothing. Believing it to be the case, or not believing it to have been the case are irrelevant to faith and a distraction from it.
This no doubt all looks convincing to those who share your premises.
Faith, you say, is better communicated by stories than argument. The empty tomb you say signifies nothing. Odd then that the empty tomb is not in Paul, whereas the empty tomb is in all the stories. Indeed, in Mark the empty tomb is all there is to signify the resurrection.
Ah you say - but that's not belief that the tomb is empty. But no - the stories are emphatically stories about women and men who believe that the tomb is empty.
Faith is communicated in stories. And in this case I think I have more faith in the stories than I have in you.
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And we are bonkers because we often obsess about what we do or don't believe - the miracles, faith healing, Virgin Birth, empty tomb, limited atonement or whatever. People even try to believe things, as if effort could fill in for reason or evidence.
The thing here is that all the above can just as well be explained as faith-in, rather than faith-that. What you call obsessing over is rather people having faith-in something that you don't believe that.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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Originally posted by hatless:
The empty tomb signifies nothing. Believing it to be the case, or not believing it to have been the case are irrelevant to faith and a distraction from it.
You say this despite the fact that several people on this thread have already explained that the empty tomb is highly significant to their faith - and why that is so.
Ironically, it seems to be highly significant to you too - in that it seems very important to you to assert that we're not really supposed to believe that it was empty and even that to discuss it is "a distraction from" the faith. But I can't say that I've seen a coherent argument from you as to why that should be the case.
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