Theological implications extra-terrestrial life

Nothing I said implied any limitation on God's plan. You seem to think humans are arrogant for distinguishing between humans and chimps. It appears you were focusing on the similarities between humans and animals, and I was pointing out that there are still unambiguous and blaring differences. These differences do have theological and moral implications. This does not imply any arrogance on humanities part. The flow of the conversation on this point is clear and there for everyone to see.

I don't understand why you would ask these questions. This is not the case so why does it matter. Ultimately my meaning and significance are derived from God. Why would you want to speculate? Are you seeking to argue about the implications?

Here is your reasoning
1) Absolute truth is a truth with absolute evidence.
2) Absolute evidence is not accessible to our minds.
3) Absolute truth can not be known by human minds.

, as I've pointed out many times, is that you are depending on the absolute truth that no absolute evidence can be known by humans in order to draw your conclusion. If 2) is true then we as humans can not conclude 3).

, you define away the qualifier absolute by just claiming the bald premise(2) that we can not know things absolutely. You provide no evidence or reasoning for this universal qualification. We are just supposed to accept this based on your reasoning which we just showed was flawed.

, you seem to lump all truth into the category of empirically detectable truth. This is an important category, for sure, but there are other truths which are simply logically absolutely true. The statement that either there is life after death or there is not is absolutely true. It is absolutely true that either an atheist is correct or not regarding the existence of the supernatural.

, there are simple and easy counter examples to the claim we can not know absolute truth. There are self evident facts that are absolutely true, such as the fact that I can see I'm typing on this computer. This is an absolute truth. I know it to be the case.

Regarding absolute truths of the natural world, I will reiterate...

Empirically testable truths such as gravity are 1) absolute truths, and 2) absolutely knowable by us via experimentation. It makes no difference if we did not know about it yesterday. It does not matter if we can not mathematically describe gravity at all times and in all conditions in the universe (such as at the singularity). These are red herrings when it comes to knowing here and now. Any attempt at claiming that we do not "absolutely" know gravity exists is a silly philosophical game. Our behavior belies our true knowledge here.

Regarding absolute truths of the supernatural world, I will reiterate ...

Our belief in these truths are not whimsical, unreasoned or irrational. They do not depend on floating or moving contexts. Ultimately supernatural absolute truths require faith, but we can be lead by reason and logic (experimentation is not available) to these truths. We as humans can be further strengthened by the Holy Spirit and Divine intervention.

As I have pointed out, what matters is if we can know something to be true. It does not matter what the scale is. It does not matter that you have arbitrarily determined that you are the ultimate skeptic and therefore you self proclaim that no one can know absolute truth because you can't.

Just because you make the absolute bald claim that I can not know something absolutely does not make it true either.

No offense, but your statement does not make sense. We all still know the absolute truth called gravity.

This is a poor analogy. Our faith does not exist in a vacuum. As I said the supernatural requires faith, but it is not a completely arbitrary faith. The faith can be supported and preceded by logic and reason. All faith based beliefs are not equally sound.

All faith based beliefs are not equally sound. For example, belief in a unicorn is irrational and could be classified as a delusion. Belief in a supernatural creator is not irrational and therefore not a delusion. A supernatural creator is an example of an absolute truth.

To know something requires a direct experience of the object of knowledge, or a demonstration of it based on empirical evidence or proof of it via a valid deduction from known premises.

But imperfect knowledge is still knowledge and confident belief is still belief.

Do you include as knowledge something you would read from a book?
Do you include as knowledge something you received as testimony from a person?

But imperfect knowledge is still knowledge and confident belief is still belief.
Can you give me examples of each of these?

Most of the knowledge any of us have comes from other people or books. None of us has adequate opportunity to get all our knowledge from personal experience. If a person tells me something I ask "How do you know that?" and if the answer is reasonable (e.g "I saw it for myself.") I will take it as reliable information. If I read something in a book, I will look for the references to the source of their information.

Imperfect knowledge: I know approximately what my weight is. I know I don't weigh less than 150 lbs and I know I don't weigh more than 200 lbs. In fact I could probably estimate what my weight today is within 10 lbs. But since I have not stepped on a scale in the last month, I do not know exactly what my weight is. So my knowledge is imperfect, but it is knowledge, not belief.

Confident belief: I believe confidently in God as my Creator and in Christ as my Redeemer and in the Holy Spirit as my constant Companion and Guide. I am as sure of this belief as I am of sunrise tomorrow. But I trust in this belief by faith for I have no way of knowing it is true.

To know something requires a direct experience of the object of knowledge, or a demonstration of it based on empirical evidence or proof of it via a valid deduction from known premises.

If someone told you they saw a miracle would you consider this a belief or knowledge?

Do you consider the Bible story of the ressurrection a belief or knowledge?

It seems your distinction between belief and knowledge is strictly that belief is faith based. Am I wrong?

" The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true."
-- Wikipedia Quote (Belief)

I believe that faith is foundational to Christianity. I don't believe anyone can reason themselves into a relationship with Christ. I also believe that Christianity is rational, not whimsical and based on evidence. Of course, my definition of evidence is all plausible reasoning.

The problem with your definition is that there are other forms of evidence besides what you described. For example, inductive reasoning, probabilistic evidence and circumstantial evidence all are held by rational people as valid forms of evidence and therefore allowed as ways to increase our knowledge. Plausible reasoning does not just take the forms of direct experience, empirical evidence or deductive proof.

It would depend on what they meant. Most of the things people point to as miracles are examples of synchronicity (A cheque arrived in the mail, just when I was down to my last dollar with no prospects.)

Belief. It is an extraordinary claim for which even the early church had nothing but the apostles' unsupported testimony, and we have only the testimony of the gospels. In fact, Matthew (contrary to John) tells us that some of the apostles doubted even when they saw the resurrected Jesus in Galilee. Matt. 28: 17

I would agree with that definition. But for purposes of clarity in discerning what belief is in a theological context, I would say that when belief is knowledge as defined above, it is preferable to refer to it as knowledge so that we can focus on the unique quality of belief when the belief does not have the character outlined, especially that of evidence and necessarily plausible assertions based on evidence.

I would agree with that. Of course, you must notice how your definition differs from the Wikipedia definition. You count as evidence "all plausible reasoning" whereas their definition refers to "necessarily plausible assertions". Not all plausible reasoning is necessary reasoning. That is why science as we know it did not come into being until philosophers moved from relying only on deduction to relying on observation and induction and to testing conclusions against empirical observations. It is not difficult using deduction alone to come to reasonable conclusions which are not factual. Zeno's paradoxes come to mind.

All of these do go back to direct experience of empirical evidence. Inductive reasoning is reasoning from one or more particular instances of direct experience to a general rule about about some class of events. Probabilistic evidence is based on statistical information about large numbers of empirical events of the same class e.g. the proportion of new high school students who will go on to graduate. Circumstantial evidence is empirical evidence from which one draws a valid deduction about a larger event.

All such reasoning leads to knowledge--sometimes imperfect and uncertain--but still knowledge. But it does require both empirical evidence and sound reasoning to necessary conclusions. As such it requires no faith and so is not comparable to belief that is based on faith.

Ultimately you have to ask yourself, is my belief about the distinction between knowledge and belief knowledge or purely faith.

Plain straight forward miracles. That is, an intervention in the natural world by a supernatural God. If someone testified to you that they personally had directly experienced a miracle that defied the physical laws of nature would you, assuming you believed them, consider this your knowledge or your belief.

Do you believe miracles can happen today? A miracle being a supernatural intervention in the natural world.

Do you believe the miracles as described in the Bible occurred? Do you believe Jesus was physically resurrected and that He physically resurrected Lazarus.

No offense, but you seem to be equivocating a bit on miracles. This surprised me.

Just because you may involve in your reasoning other evidence does not mean that the evidence itself applies directly to the specific conclusion. In all three cases the specific new fact learned is not directly observed, but is implied indirectly through a reasoning method that was created specifically because we may not have direct access to the fact in question. This is an extrapolation. This is exactly why uncertainty exists in these cases. We agree knowledge can have a level of uncertainty. This uncertainty requires faith that the reasoning method provided justification for acquiring this new knowledge.

Ultimately you have to ask yourself, is my belief about the distinction between knowledge and belief knowledge or purely faith.

I'm disappointed you ignored this statement. Do you agree iwth it?

Belief. Because if I did not see it myself, the reason I would believe it to be true is that I had faith in the person who reported it. It takes faith to believe that the children at Fatima actually saw the Virgin Mary, for example.

If a person tells me something I ask "How do you know that?" and if the answer is reasonable (e.g "I saw it for myself.") I will take it as reliable information.

Plain straight forward miracles. That is, an intervention in the natural world by a supernatural God. If someone testified to you that they personally had directly experienced a miracle that defied the physical laws of nature would you, assuming you believed them, consider this your knowledge or your belief.

I don't necessarily believe them in a scientific sense. I do believe they refer to a real experience. It is worth noting that all the miracles reported in the gospel of John are laden with theological symbolism and meaning which may be more important than establishing whether an actual event occurred as reported.

Nevertheless, I think it likely that some sort of actual event occurred.

Not really. In the case of inductive reasoning, we know the conclusion is correct as long as a negative case does not occur. Even then the original observation is true within a limitation set by the new information. I see 500 white swans and conclude inductively that swans are white. Then I see a black swan. I must revise my reasoning to say that the probability that swans are white is 500:1. The last observation does not cancel out the earlier ones; it sets a probability limit to it.

In the case of probability or statistical reasoning, we can be quite certain about the statistical probability even though we cannot be certain of a specific case. It is simply a matter of mathematical calculation.

In the case of deductive reasoning applied to circumstantial evidence, we have clear rules for what constitutes a valid argument and a truthful conclusion. We know from experience that a valid conclusion based on true premises must be true. The catch is that we not often certain about the truth of the premises. And, of course, we have to be on guard against logical fallacies.

No. I don't think it is a matter of either faith or knowledge, but a matter of definition. We are defining what we mean by "faith" and what we mean by "knowledge".

You seem to be contradicting yourself.

You seem to be equivocating again. Specifically do you believe Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, as in he was stone cold, smelly, dead for three days, and Jesus raised him back to a living biological being again. Do you believe he changed the water into wine, as in H2O to drinkable wine equivalent to any wine produced through the fermenting process of the time?

The potential occurrence of an event does not constitute a direct experience of the opposite. There are cases of induction where we never expect to see a counter example, in fact, this is the norm, and why we trust the knowledge all the more. The example you provide trivializes what induction is meant to produce. Just because in your case you have incorporated a refuting observance hardly means all inductions "gracefully" incorporate refutations. In any case, it is a red herring when it comes to the point of whether inductive reasoning produces knowledge with out meeting your criteria of what constitutes knowledge.

Statistical inference is a form of inductive reasoning. It is more then simple probability. Because probability is usually calculated is another red herring We are still building knowledge about events without observing the specific event. Probability calculations can be much more then simple rote frequency calculations. These are the trivial and uninteresting examples.

Cases built on circumstantial evidence are not simple deductions. Every circumstance can be provably true and this does not in any way allow you to deduce a single logical outcome. On the contrary, rational and fair people conclude very different things based on the same circumstances.

The very fact that you need to resort to nuances to build your counter argument makes my point, to be honest. Your nuanced argument belies the subtle nature of knowledge.

I'll restate my point using the conventional definition of belief(not your definition) ...
All humans hold a set of beliefs. These beliefs become knowledge when they accept reasoning that convinces them it is true.

Some beliefs have very low, or zero, thresholds of evidence and are accepted on faith.

Absolute truth exists. Some of our beliefs do in fact represent absolute truths. We can know absolute truth in the same way we can acquire knowledge. This does not mean that everything claimed to be absolute truth is in fact true. This is true in the same sense that everything claimed to be knowledge is not true.

Definitional premises, like axioms, are knowledge. If it were not the case you could not use deductive logic based upon them. You can not deduce from faith. So the question still needs to be answered.