Reason or Faith? (moved)

JGG · Jul 29, 2015

Soyeong said:
It has been not been your experience that resurrections happen, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible or against reason. The difference between the resurrection of Jesus and a toaster turned elephant is that we have a lot of evidence that the resurrection is an historical event, start with four eyewitness accounts.

Which four? Eyewitness accounts tend not to be very good, especially on things which are difficult to explain. We fill in the blanks the best we can, but that doesn't make the statement reliable.

I realize you have a lot of books already, but I recommend Aquinas (A beginner's guide) by Edward Feser if you're philosophically inclined. If something exists that has attributes that correspond to our idea of God, then why not label it God?

I'll look into it. But I don't know what the attributes of God are. I asked a while ago and the general consensus was that there is no consensus.

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

I have had the chance to read most of the articles by Habermas. He does not seem to have a reasonable position for the resurrection, but tends to simply argue against alternate theories.

Soyeong · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Which four? Eyewitness accounts tend not to be very good, especially on things which are difficult to explain. We fill in the blanks the best we can, but that doesn't make the statement reliable.

The four Gospels. Of course something isn't reliable just because it's an eyewitness account, they should be evaluated in the same way that we evaluate other eyewitness accounts.

I'll look into it. But I don't know what the attributes of God are. I asked a while ago and the general consensus was that there is no consensus.

Hehe, I was talking about the attributes generally attributed to the God of classical theism. While different people might have different concepts of God, if there is something in reality that has attributes that correspond to a concept, then we can label that as God.

This video assumes you are unfamiliar to Aristotelian metaphysics, so it's a little repetitive if you're already familiar. If you grant that there is a being that is pure actuality, then Feser discusses its attributes at around 33 minutes in:

PapaZoom · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Honestly, my first problem here is that I cannot reason God. God is unfathomable, and from a strict perception, unreasonable. However, even with the caveat that God is reasonable, is it not also reasonable that something else which is currently unfathomable, and not-God could have created the universe?

I am about half-way through Lewis, and a small stack of other books, but I can add this to the pile. I've read a couple of articles by Habermas and have seen him dismantle naturalistic means of resurrection, and criticize the "New Athesits" but have yet to see a reasonable view of the resurrection. Any idea where that is?

I have a kindle.

If something else created the universe that would be God.

The Case for the Resurrection of JesusPaperback – September 25, 2004
by Gary R. Habermas Michael Licona (Author)

It's on Amazon but maybe available in the library. Here is his web site: http://garyhabermas.com. Good stuff there on the resurrection. Also see this interesting man. http://www.johnlennox.org.

Dialogist · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Which to follow?

The Old and New Testament speak of different faculties of man - heart, soul, strength, understanding, mind - represented with varying degrees of ambiguity. We are urged to seek God with our whole person (e.g. Deuteronomy 6:5).

In my opinion, if we are only using one of our faculties (i.e. reason) in our relationship with God, we are breaking what the Lord said was the Greatest Commandment.

TheyCallMeDave · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Which to follow?

Both . Good reason is based on the evidences we have , and Faith is implemented when these evidences are acknowledged yet we haven't seen the Source that brought about these evidences. It takes a little bit of faith to connect the dots to the Source . Every day we operate in a faith-mode...such as when we get inside a Jumbo Jet by faith assuming we will reach our destination , we operate by faith that a particular young man will have enough integrity and morals when he takes our 17 year old daughter out on a date , and we have faith that the car mechanic who repairs our car wont cheat us or be deceptive in any way.

Im afraid that Faith gets a bum rap a lot of times as if it is a mamby pamby action ; when it comes to matters of our Universe and existence, both the CHristian and Non Christian has to take on a role of faith since we weren't there when it came into being / we cant duplicate the initial event .. therefore, we examine what we HAVE as left behind from such an event and draw rational reasonable conclusions based on sound logic and from repeatable similar events of daily living .

anonymous person · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Do you see my dilemma? I was not there to witness either event so I do not know that they happened.

How do you know the Titanic sank?

You were not there.

How do you know Abraham Lincoln was murdered?

You were not there.

How do you know that your mother was born of a woman?

You were not there.

JGG said:
I also know of no such events that have occurred since.

The birth of your mother, the murder of Lincoln and the sinking of the Titanic happened only once.

Does that mean they never happened?

JGG said:
By the same reasoning I could claim that God could cause a toaster to turn into an elephant, but I have no reason to believe it.

We have good reasons to believe God raised Jesus from the dead.

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

anonymous person said:
How do you know the Titanic sank?

You were not there.

There are pictures of it down there.

How do you know Abraham Lincoln was murdered?

You were not there.

Lincoln's murder is a matter of public record. They even caught a guy and charged him with the crime.

How do you know that your mother was born of a woman?

My grandmother told me.

You were not there.

The birth of your mother, the murder of Lincoln and the sinking of the Titanic happened only once.

Does that mean they never happened?

Of course not, but these things have happened in other instances. People have been born of women (I've seen it), people are murdered (they can die when shot), and ships can sink. None of these things defy the laws of physics or biology.

We have good reasons to believe God raised Jesus from the dead.

Okay. I don't see them.

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

PapaZoom said:
If something else created the universe that would be God.

That's fair. If we define God as simply the creator I can get on board. But we're going farther than that, aren't we?

The Case for the Resurrection of JesusPaperback – September 25, 2004

Click to expand...

by Gary R. Habermas Michael Licona (Author)

It's on Amazon but maybe available in the library. Here is his web site: http://garyhabermas.com. Good stuff there on the resurrection. Also see this interesting man. http://www.johnlennox.org.

I'm growing concerned about Habermas. Based on the review of one his books, he's more focused on showing that naturalistic explanations of the resurrection are untrue. This does not show that a supernatural explanation is true.

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

Dialogist said:
The Old and New Testament speak of different faculties of man - heart, soul, strength, understanding, mind - represented with varying degrees of ambiguity. We are urged to seek God with our whole person (e.g. Deuteronomy 6:5).

Is there a difference between heart and soul, or understanding and mind? Or for that matter soul and mind? Heart and soul, for instance are two words that seem vaguely defined. I've never understood what soul, for instance, really means to most people. Heart is an organ that pumps blood.

In my opinion, if we are only using one of our faculties (i.e. reason) in our relationship with God, we are breaking what the Lord said was the Greatest Commandment.

But others tell me that we are only to use faith.

anonymous person · Jul 30, 2015

Then you will agree with me JGG when I say that we do not have to physically be present while an event is taking place to be able to say it happened, right?

You will also agree with me that just because a specific event happens one time it does not follow that it could not have happened.

Will you agree with me on those two points?

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

anonymous person said:
Then you will agree with me JGG when I say that we do not have to physically be present while an event is taking place to be able to say it happened, right?

Right.

You will also agree with me that just because a specific event happens one time it does not follow that it could not have happened.

Will you agree with me on those two points?

Yes. However, will you agree that events that the two events we are talking about defy the laws of physics and biology? If I told you I was able to walk on water, would you believe me? If I told you that I, personally, had witnessed the birth of a child, would you believe me?

aiki · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Not really. Reason tells me that a worldwide flood could not have occurred, that virgins don't get pregnant, and people do not come back to life days after they have died. The faith of Christianity demands that I forego reason in favour of faith.

Only if you assume a priori that the supernatural cannot happen. If God exists and He has the power God should have, none of the things you've listed are in the least unreasonable to believe. In fact, it seems far more plausible for God to act at least some of the time in an extraordinary, supernatural way than not at all. I would have grave doubts about a God who only acted within the limitations of the natural world He created.

Selah.

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

aiki said:
Only if you assume a priori that the supernatural cannot happen.

No, but I also cannot assume a priori that the supernatural does happen. Otherwise, I can use the supernatural to answer any question I might have. I have no reason to believe that the supernatural is a viable explanation.

If God exists and He has the power God should have, none of the things you've listed are in the least unreasonable to believe. In fact, it seems far more plausible for God to act at least some of the time in an extraordinary, supernatural way than not at all. I would have grave doubts about a God who only acted within the limitations of the natural world He created.

Why hasn't God done so in the modern age? Surely there are people who could use help on a miraculous, supernatural level? Surely there are people who could use a sign to give them faith? Surely there is wickedness that could be struck down? But we only hear about such things in religious stories of long ago.

aiki · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
No, but I also cannot assume a priori that the supernatural does happen. Otherwise, I can use the supernatural to answer any question I might have. I have no reason to believe that the supernatural is a viable explanation.

No, you cannot just assume the supernatural does happen. But you have, it seems clear to me, assumed that it can't. Why the bias? If God exists - and I think there is very good reason to think He does - then the supernatural must be real. However, this does not lead, necessarily, to adopting a purely supernatural explanation for everything. History has shown that faith in God and the practice of science are not incompatible. Men like Johannes Kepler, Gregor Mendel, and Michael Farraday - to name just a few theistic scientists - illustrate this very clearly.

JGG said:
Why hasn't God done so in the modern age? Surely there are people who could use help on a miraculous, supernatural level? Surely there are people who could use a sign to give them faith? Surely there is wickedness that could be struck down? But we only hear about such things in religious stories of long ago.

How do you know that God is not acting supernaturally around the world? In fact, He is. But being outside the community of believers, you would not have easy access to knowledge of God's divine interventions. If you have the resources and the time, you should check out Craig Keener's 2 Volume set called "Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts." In the second volume, Keener goes into significant detail about modern miracles - credible ones - that have occurred in various countries around the world. I have my own history with God and have witnessed Him acting in the lives of others, too. The occurrence of God's providence and supernatural intervention is only a myth to those who do not walk with Him.

Selah.

JGG · Jul 30, 2015

aiki said:
No, you cannot just assume the supernatural does happen. But you have, it seems clear to me, assumed that it can't. Why the bias?

Because it is prudent to err in favor of the natural explanation. Many of the things that were once attributed to supernatural causes, have been shown to have natural explanations: Thunder, mental illness, disease, the tides...

And in this case the supernatural does not explain something, but merely asserts that something happened, that I do not know happened.

If God exists - and I think there is very good reason to think He does - then the supernatural must be real. However, this does not lead, necessarily, to adopting a purely supernatural explanation for everything. History has shown that faith in God and the practice of science are not incompatible. Men like Johannes Kepler, Gregor Mendel, and Michael Farraday - to name just a few theistic scientists - illustrate this very clearly.

Then why accept supernatural explanations if we're going to look for natural ones?

How do you know that God is not acting supernaturally around the world? In fact, He is. But being outside the community of believers, you would not have easy access to knowledge of God's divine interventions. If you have the resources and the time, you should check out Craig Keener's 2 Volume set called "Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts." In the second volume, Keener goes into significant detail about modern miracles - credible ones - that have occurred in various countries around the world. I have my own history with God and have witnessed Him acting in the lives of others, too. The occurrence of God's providence and supernatural intervention is only a myth to those who do not walk with Him.

Have you heard the phrase "one must believe to see?" Do you know what confirmation bias is?

Dialogist · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Is there a difference between heart and soul, or understanding and mind? Or for that matter soul and mind? Heart and soul, for instance are two words that seem vaguely defined. I've never understood what soul, for instance, really means to most people. Heart is an organ that pumps blood.

But others tell me that we are only to use faith.

Actually, I would like to completely reset my answer.

Your question is, I believe, whether it is better to follow faith or reason.

I am not sure that we all have a common understanding of what "faith" means and what "reason" means. I like the following definitions, which are from a glossary of Orthodox Christian spiritual writings of the 1st and early 2nd millennia entitled The Philokalia (English edition, Faber and Faber, 1979):

Faith (Gr. pistis): not only an individual or theoretical belief in the dogmatic truths of Christianity, but an all-embracing relationship, an attitude of love and total trust in God. As such it involves a transformation of man's entire life. Faith is a gift from God in Christ through which man attains salvation.

Reason (Gr. dianoia): the discursive, conceptualizing and logical faculty in man, the function of which is to draw conclusions or formulate concepts deriving from data provided either by revelation or spiritual knowledge (gnosis) or by sense-observation. The knowledge of the reason is consequently of a lower order than spiritual knowledge and does not imply any direct apprehension or perception of the inner essences or principles of created beings, still less of divine truth itself. Indeed, such apprehension or perception, which is the function of the [nous] is beyond the scope of reason.

So, according to these definitions, faith and reason are not things that are to be used interchangeably or perhaps together in varying proportions. Faith is a relationship, whereas reason is a mere faculty.

The definition for "reason" above referred to spiritual knowledge in terms of the nous, is a Greek word used by the later Greek Church Fathers that is difficult to translate into English (the Philokalia translators rendered it as "intellect", which they admit is misleading). The nous, the writers go on, is:

... the highest faculty in man, through which - provided it is purified - he knows God or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. Unlike the dianoia or reason, from which it must be carefully distinguished, the intellect [nous] does not function by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion reached through deductive reasoning, but it understands divine truth by means of immediate experience, intuition or 'simple cognition'. The intellect [nous] dwells in the 'depths of the soul'; it constitutes the innermost aspect of the heart. The intellect [nous] is the organ of contemplation, the 'eye of the heart'.

aiki · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Because it is prudent to err in favor of the natural explanation. Many of the things that were once attributed to supernatural causes, have been shown to have natural explanations: Thunder, mental illness, disease, the tides...

But this fact, by itself, does not disprove the existence of the supernatural. You are still operating from a presuppositional bias. We all do this, of course, so I'm not criticizing you. I am merely wanting to clarify that you have such a bias in operation in your thinking.

JGG said:
Then why accept supernatural explanations if we're going to look for natural ones?

But it seems you're assuming here that positing a supernatural Creator precludes a study of the processes and stuff of the universe He has created. I can look at a car and understand that it has a designer, but why should that prevent me from studying its design and figuring out how it works? Doing so might even give me some insight into the nature of the car's designer...

JGG said:
Have you heard the phrase "one must believe to see?" Do you know what confirmation bias is?

Yes, I do.

Selah.

PapaZoom · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
That's fair. If we define God as simply the creator I can get on board. But we're going farther than that, aren't we?

Not initially. We start with a Supreme Being. Then we examine who this Supreme Being could possibly be.

I'm growing concerned about Habermas. Based on the review of one his books, he's more focused on showing that naturalistic explanations of the resurrection are untrue. This does not show that a supernatural explanation is true.

We need to eliminate first the completing explanations for the resurrection to who how those explanations fall short. The one examines the many circumstances surrounding the resurrection claim and answer the question as to what is the best explanation given the evidence. But dealing with the objections comes first.

anonymous person · Jul 30, 2015

JGG said:
Right.

Awesome.

JGG said:
Yes.

Awesome.

JGG said:
However, will you agree that events that the two events we are talking about defy the laws of physics and biology?

No.

When you speak of the laws of physics and biology, you are referencing what is generally referred to as the "laws of nature". This term is a generic and broad term which encompasses such things like the laws of physics which you mentioned.

These natural laws are simply descriptions of what happens within the universe i.e, they predict what will happen in a closed system. A closed system is one in which there is no causal input into it from the outside. Nothing outside the system is causing something to happen.

But what if a supernatural agent intervenes and causes something to happen (a miracle) which does not lie within the productive power of the things in the universe?

Are the laws violated in such a case?

No. The laws of nature are not violated because they only predict what would happen in the absence of any sort of divine intervention.

The scientific laws have implicit in them ceteris paribus conditions, i.e. they predict what will happen all things being equal. So if there is no causal input into this system from without, these naturals laws are descriptions of how the universe will operate.

If there is causal input from outside of the system, these natural laws are not violated after all, for the the law has built into it these implicit conditions.

To conclude, a miracle such as a man rising bodily from the dead or a man walking on water, is not an instance of a violation of the laws of nature. Rather a miracle is an event which does not lie within the productive power of nature, and this points us to a supernatural agent.

JGG said:
If I told you I was able to walk on water, would you believe me?

I would be skeptical and look for evidence that would lend support to your claim, which incidentally, is what one will find if they look for this in Jesus' case.

Your hypothetical and the gospel accounts of the miraculous are not analogous. Your claim is not attended by other miracles. Your claim is not attended by multiple independent eyewitness accounts. You are making the claim on an internet forum, not as a first century Jew whose birth was foretold by prophets long before. Your claim does not come out of a first century Judaistic socio-historical context in which the long awaited messiah was expected to finally come.

There are many things that differentiate you from Jesus and thus, even though you may make the same claims Jesus made, your claims do not carry the same weight as His.

JGG said:
If I told you that I, personally, had witnessed the birth of a child, would you believe me?

Yes.

Reason or Faith? (moved)

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