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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Sin, forgiveness, and the rules of golf
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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 ]
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961
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Posted
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.
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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.
If only.
Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004
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Pooks
Shipmate
# 11425
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Posted
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.
Posts: 1547 | Registered: May 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
I can relate to that, LC, thanks. Would you call that process 'sanctification' (as per Mr C, above)? Can anyone explain what sanctification is?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
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.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
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
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
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.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
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?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
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.
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
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?
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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.
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"Is X coherent with other things the speaker claims about God?" (check)
Relevant only if X is consistent with other independently-believable claims.
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"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.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
"foot"prints all over the thread. Scroll down, shipmates!
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Okay, I give up. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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)
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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"...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Okay, I give up. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Ingob's first name: Foot.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
Ingob's first name: Foot.
It isn't and this isn't Hell. Keep it clean.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
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.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
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.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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?
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
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.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
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.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
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.
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
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.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
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.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
Posts: 11285 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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 ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
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.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
"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).
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
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.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
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.
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