Your argument against "many paths to God"

Freodin · Oct 15, 2017

Silmarien said:
I do not see how this particular compromise gets us anywhere. If only instinct counts and rationality is out the window, we still can't know anything.

You are right, I think I went a little too far with that. The "instinct and not always rational" part holds us back, so I'd say, but doesn't make understanding impossible.

But the main I point I wanted to make was that we are limited in our understanding. Neither perfectly capable of solving the mysteries of existence, nor incapable of finding "truth" in anything. Just limited to what we can and can not do. That would fall right in between your two options, I'd say.

None of that has to do with metaphysical materialism, though. I have no problem saying I'm materialistic in the cultural sense, but it is philosophical materialism and its bizarre dogmatism and incoherent ramifications that I take issue with.

I think metaphysical materialism is overrated. But so are most criticisms of metaphysical materialism.

I do not see how I am separating anything out as a distinct entity. I'm not suggesting a Theory of Forms with this--the only place where I really start getting at all Platonic is with the context of subjectivity, but that has more to do with personal intuition and the fact that I am uncertain that objectivity exists.

Everytime you describe something or use a term you are making use of "distinct entities". It's the way the human mind works... even if it is unjustified.

I disagree for two reasons. Most importantly, we only exist on our particular level--I hesitate to call it "complete", because that would imply that there is no picture of reality that transcends our understanding, and I don't believe that. As we only exist on this level, I do not see how we are qualified to claim that any such concepts do not appear on other levels as well.

I fear now it is you who is taking this a little too far.

I am also unconvinced that information is not a basic building block of reality. There are attempts out there to reinterpret physics as a matter of information and information flow, and there is of course the notorious example of DNA, so I do not see any evidence whatsoever that there is no trace of meaning and content at all in the nature of reality.

I was a little hesitant to use the term "information" in the paragraph. I still used it under the idea that it would be understood by the context as "certain information". Distinct entities, you remember?

But regarding meaning and content... I'd say that should be quite clear. Meaning and content is something that is given to things. It isn't inherent, and it isn't objective.

Another example (one that I discarded in my first attempt because it might sound a little too materialistic): buildings.
All buildings are material. Made of molecules. And we do give meaning and content to these buildings. Yet in the molecules, there is nothing of that meaning and content. We give it. We can give buildings the meaning of "house" and "church" and "ugly heap of stones" and "prison"... without any of these things present in either the molecules or in us. We can give contradicting meaning to the same object. We can give this meaning even to things that are not build... "mountain" and "river" and "desert" and "planet". Nothing of that is present in the stuff that makes it up.

How so? Nobody is saying (I hope) that the Christian God can be the Prime Mover but for some random reason, Allah or Brahman cannot. If you believe that non-existence is impossible, then you must also believe that something has always existed and thus need not have been caused. How is a Prime Mover special pleading but a Primal Chaos not?

Hm. Neoplatonism. The One (I hope I translated that correctly, it is "Das Eine" in German, literally translated as "The One").
Some quotes from the wiki page:
"Das oberste Prinzip wird als völlig undifferenziert beschrieben.
(The highest principle [the one] is described as uniform / undifferentiated)"
"Man kann nicht einmal wahrheitsgemäß aussagen, dass das Eine „ist“, denn das Sein als Gegenteil des Nichtseins oder das vollkommene Sein im Gegensatz zu einem geminderten Sein setzt bereits eine Unterscheidung voraus und damit etwas, was dem Einen nachgeordnet ist.
(You cannot even truthfully say that The One "is", because Being as opposite of Not-Being or perfectly Being in contrast to lesser Being is already a distinction and thus something subordinate to The One)"
"Das Eine bleibt einem verstandesmäßigen, diskursiven Begreifen prinzipiell entzogen.
(The One is on principle removed from a rational, discursive understanding)"
(all of that my translation, don't hit me for it

)

I came to this similar concept of "primal chaos" by a different way of conclusion, but I agree with the statements made here. This entity/concept/idea/feverdream/whatever is a logical/existential necessity. If non-existence is impossible - and there are philosophical and logical reasons for that - then something like that must exist. And we cannot make any statements about it. Not even that it exists. (Yes, I know that this is paradoxical. This paradox exists in Neoplatonism as well. I take it as a sign how far removed from "understanding" this concept is.)

Thus postulating such a concept cannot be special pleading... it doesn't plead for anything. But a prime mover? It uses a certain logical line of reasoning to prove something that is extempt from this certain logical line of reasoning. That is the best definition for special pleading.

Well, I don't really believe that the underlying nature of reality is a quantum vacuum and a whole bunch of inexplicable laws of physics that are just conveniently there. I do not see the universe as necessarily existing, as it is too composite for my poor, Neoplatonic brain to handle, which means that something else must necessarily exist.

If a quantum vacuum was the underlying nature of reality, then what would be the underlying nature of that quantum vacuum?

Yes, I agree with you. There must be (in my view) "something else".
It is the nature of this "something else" where we disagree. You propose a "creator" and a "creation" that "reflects" this creator. I suggest a "primal chaos" that encompasses all of that.
What you call "creation", I see simply as a "subset".

You could take a right hand turn straight into Vedanta Hinduism and claim that everything, including individual existence, is illusory and a manifestation of God, and I would not be too uncomfortable. I'm really only positing an ultimate reality that is in some sense subjectively aware of itself--there are multiple ways that makes sense to me, but in the absence of that, everything is incoherent.

That's the difference... and, if I may say so, where I seem to be more neoplatonic than you. I am positing an ultimate reality that is NOT aware of itself, in any sense. Such a concept is inapplicable to such an ultimate reality. It only makes sense in our limited reality, our limited understanding of reality.

Again, Aristotelian, not Platonist. I do not really think that we have self-aware water particles wandering around or something along those lines. I'm happy looking at this from the perspective of Act and Potency and then falling into a carefully set Thomist trap.

Hm, highly specific fields often do not translate well. I have to admit that I am not familiar with the concepts of "Act" and "Potency" in this context. Can you explain?

Freodin · Oct 15, 2017

cloudyday2 said:
@Silmarien and @Freodin , I have only been skimming bits and pieces of your posts, but it seems that "rationality" keeps coming up. I would define "rational" behavior as the behavior that we could reproduce with a computer algorithm. "Rational" doesn't seem divine to me. "Irrational"/"unexpected"/"creative" is divine IMO. Or maybe the combination of both is divine.

If it was an extremely complex computer algorithm... maybe it would come close. Rationality is a very wide term, depending on context, but basically it could be described as "what you get when you use your brain".
I don't see why something divine cannot be rational. (To nitpick: most of my objections to theological claims come from my opinion that the described event/behaviour is not rational.

)

cloudyday2 · Oct 15, 2017

Freodin said:
If it was an extremely complex computer algorithm... maybe it would come close. Rationality is a very wide term, depending on context, but basically it could be described as "what you get when you use your brain".
I don't see why something divine cannot be rational. (To nitpick: most of my objections to theological claims come from my opinion that the described event/behaviour is not rational. )

I don't think "what you get when you use your brain" is specific enough. People use their brains for everything they do, and sometimes people do things described as "irrational".

One feature of rational IMO is that the same set of inputs will generate the same set of actions.

Another feature is that if another person understands your motives and strategies then that person will generate the same set of actions from that same set of input.

That's basically computer behavior IMO. The real divine part is the creativity of deciding on a motivation and strategies maybe.

Silmarien · Oct 15, 2017

Freodin said:
I fear now it is you who is taking this a little too far.

Well, I actually am a radical skeptic, just the sort that believes that committing yourself to a position of willful ignorance out of stubbornness is a stupid idea. ^_^

So I am happy picking the metaphysics that best seem to fit what we know about the universe and all the additional ramifications that go with it.

That said, once upon a time, biologists believed that the rest of the animal kingdom was patriarchal because it was simply considered the natural default. We've rid science of some of the presuppositions, but added in others, such as the common materialistic spin that gets put on everything. That science works is certainly interesting, but what is it really doing? Are we getting closer to truth or simply going around in circles while getting better at manipulating matter? The Catholic Church is pretty insistent that human reason can grasp truth, but if rationality is just a brute fact, a cosmic accident, then I think that falls apart. And everything else with it.

Freodin said:
But regarding meaning and content... I'd say that should be quite clear. Meaning and content is something that is given to things. It isn't inherent, and it isn't objective.

Yes, but I was replying to the idea that X can come from something that has no trace of X. I would say that information at any level is a "trace" of what we understand as meaning and content.

Freodin said:
All buildings are material. Made of molecules. And we do give meaning and content to these buildings. Yet in the molecules, there is nothing of that meaning and content. We give it. We can give buildings the meaning of "house" and "church" and "ugly heap of stones" and "prison"... without any of these things present in either the molecules or in us. We can give contradicting meaning to the same object. We can give this meaning even to things that are not build... "mountain" and "river" and "desert" and "planet". Nothing of that is present in the stuff that makes it up.

Ah, yes. This is where I disagree with you quite strongly. If we are talking specifically about meaning in the context of human language, then I would agree that the words "Mountain," "Montaña," and "Berg" are not present in the mountain itself. I do not think that we can take the additional step and say that what we are referencing with those particular words is not inherent in the mountain, however, specifically because we have no knowledge of reality independent of subjective experience. Trying to strip away what we believe is subjective about our way of looking at the universe does not make what is left over somehow objective, it just makes it a different subjective angle, and not necessarily a better one.

Freodin said:
Hm. Neoplatonism. The One (I hope I translated that correctly, it is "Das Eine" in German, literally translated as "The One").

Yep! It's the One in English too.

Freodin said:
I came to this similar concept of "primal chaos" by a different way of conclusion, but I agree with the statements made here. This entity/concept/idea/feverdream/whatever is a logical/existential necessity. If non-existence is impossible - and there are philosophical and logical reasons for that - then something like that must exist. And we cannot make any statements about it. Not even that it exists. (Yes, I know that this is paradoxical. This paradox exists in Neoplatonism as well. I take it as a sign how far removed from "understanding" this concept is.)

Ahh, yes. This is all Aquinas's Third Way, the cosmological argument from contingent and necessary existence. We are very much on the same page here, as I think that this is the strongest argument out there.

As far as being paradoxical goes, yes, but some of that shows up in apophatic Christian theology as well, John Scotus Erigena, for example: "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being." Admittedly, this is a pretty extreme view, but not exactly unheard of, especially amongst those more influenced by Neoplatonism. I know some of the Eastern saints said provocative stuff like that as well, but I can't remember which ones.

Freodin said:
Thus postulating such a concept cannot be special pleading... it doesn't plead for anything. But a prime mover? It uses a certain logical line of reasoning to prove something that is extempt from this certain logical line of reasoning. That is the best definition for special pleading.

I don't think that is what it does at all, actually. It looks at a certain aspect of reality, i.e., the fact that motion exists, examines it deeply and then questions whether or not eternal regression is a possible explanation. It comes from Aristotle, who I doubt was committed to proving the existence of a monotheistic God.

If you're specifically thinking about the Kalam argument, i.e., the universe had a beginning and thus needs an uncreated creator, that's a different approach altogether and someone else will need to defend it, as my interests lie elsewhere.

Freodin said:
Hm, highly specific fields often do not translate well. I have to admit that I am not familiar with the concepts of "Act" and "Potency" in this context. Can you explain?

Not terribly well, I'm afraid. ^_^

In Aristotelian metaphysics, potentiality is the latent capacity in things to be in a different and more complete state, and actuality involves moving into that state. So your earlier example of the seed and the tree is very relevant--the seed is not the tree; it is instead the potentiality and the tree, the actuality.

It gets really interesting when you look at the implications of quantum physics, since there are people out there who argue that some of the craziness that we see at the quantum level vindicates the concept of Potency.

Ed1wolf · Oct 15, 2017

cloudyday2 said:
How would you persuade somebody who seeks God that Christianity is either the best way or the only way (without simply quoting from Christian sources that the other person doesn't yet accept)?

All the good that Christians and Christianity have produced, ie most of what is good about Western Civilization was either invented or improved upon by Christians or the principles of biblical Christianity.

DogmaHunter · Oct 16, 2017

2PhiloVoid said:
... and THAT is precisely the central focus of Pascal's Wager, i.e. whether you care about the possibilities involved with it....or not as in your case; this is the central focus.

Of course, to understand the Wager, you'd have to take into account all of what Pascal has written that relates to religion and psychology, all of which in turn provides the overlaying context FOR the Wager in the first place.

It doesn't matter.
There is nothing there that provides rational justification for believing faith-based claims.

DogmaHunter · Oct 16, 2017

Silmarien said:
It is really funny how much I disliked Pascal's Wager when I was a non-theist and how sympathetic I am to it now. Not necessarily the tongue-and-cheek version that is so infamous, but simply the fact that if you think any particular belief system is reasonable, if you think it would be personally beneficial to accept it, then what grounds do you have to reject it?

Claims fall and stand on their own merrit and wheter or not it is "personally beneficial" to accept it, has no bearing on it being actually true or false.

If Christianity is not true, Christians still gain the psychological benefit of believing it in this life.

I prefer believing true things over believing things for "psychological benefit".

Atheists may think that all God concepts are equally implausible, but theists most certainly do not agree.

No, kidding... theists don't consider their particular God concept to be implausible, or equally implausible as other god concepts that they do NOT believe in?

Who would have thought...

Dave RP · Oct 16, 2017

Ed1wolf said:
All the good that Christians and Christianity have produced, ie most of what is good about Western Civilization was either invented or improved upon by Christians or the principles of biblical Christianity.

Whilst that is true of western civilisation, what about the great civilisations of elsewhere?

Secondly what about the appalling harm that western civilisations have inflicted on the world under the Christian faith, the genocides in North and South America, the slave trade, the subjugation of entire peoples, if Christianity inspired the good, did it not also inspire the bad? I personally cannot square that circle?

Freodin · Oct 16, 2017

Silmarien said:
Well, I actually am a radical skeptic, just the sort that believes that committing yourself to a position of willful ignorance out of stubbornness is a stupid idea. So I am happy picking the metaphysics that best seem to fit what we know about the universe and all the additional ramifications that go with it.

That is kind of my point: we all are happy picking our metaphysical worldview based on what we know about the universe. This is what I called the "backward thinking". It isn't bad, per se. It works quite well, when we base our view of the universe on what we know about the universe.

But where it fails - must fail, I would say - is when we want to think about a worldview that doesn't include the universe.

That said, once upon a time, biologists believed that the rest of the animal kingdom was patriarchal because it was simply considered the natural default. We've rid science of some of the presuppositions, but added in others, such as the common materialistic spin that gets put on everything. That science works is certainly interesting, but what is it really doing? Are we getting closer to truth or simply going around in circles while getting better at manipulating matter? The Catholic Church is pretty insistent that human reason can grasp truth, but if rationality is just a brute fact, a cosmic accident, then I think that falls apart. And everything else with it.

Again something we - or I and the Catholic Church - differ. I don't think human reason can "grasp" truth. In my view, "truth" is a construct. What it is - or should be - based on is "reality". We might or might not "grasp" reality - completely we don't and never will IMO... but that is irrelevant as long as our "truth" about it is consistent.

And so I don't think our rationality is "a cosmic accident"... something that might or might not have happened. It is based on reality itself, on the consistency of reality.

Definitly not because there is a "source" of rationality out there that "grants" the ability to reason to other entities. It does not work that way. It cannot work that way.

Else you would also have to ask: "How does that source grasp the truth? It is just a cosmic accident?" And then what? More special pleading?

Yes, but I was replying to the idea that X can come from something that has no trace of X. I would say that information at any level is a "trace" of what we understand as meaning and content.

Ok.

Ah, yes. This is where I disagree with you quite strongly. If we are talking specifically about meaning in the context of human language, then I would agree that the words "Mountain," "Montaña," and "Berg" are not present in the mountain itself. I do not think that we can take the additional step and say that what we are referencing with those particular words is not inherent in the mountain, however, specifically because we have no knowledge of reality independent of subjective experience. Trying to strip away what we believe is subjective about our way of looking at the universe does not make what is left over somehow objective, it just makes it a different subjective angle, and not necessarily a better one.

Oh, I would say that what we are referencing with words is inherent in the object, in some way. Else we wouldn't have any way to distinguish it. What I contest is that this "reference" is inherent in the basics from which this object is constructed.
You might say that the "potency" of this reference is inherent in the basics... every silicone atom has the potency of "mountain" in it... but so it would have the potency to everything else. And this all-encompassing "potency" doesn't lead itself to make any definity statements about it.

That's another "thing" about my "primal chaos" concept. It is the nothing that is everything.

Yep! It's the One in English too.

Good to know that I am not a total failure at English. Though philosoph-speak is not necessarily English. Technical terms are always a problem when you aren't heavily involved in the respective topics.

Ahh, yes. This is all Aquinas's Third Way, the cosmological argument from contingent and necessary existence. We are very much on the same page here, as I think that this is the strongest argument out there.

As far as being paradoxical goes, yes, but some of that shows up in apophatic Christian theology as well, John Scotus Erigena, for example: "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being." Admittedly, this is a pretty extreme view, but not exactly unheard of, especially amongst those more influenced by Neoplatonism. I know some of the Eastern saints said provocative stuff like that as well, but I can't remember which ones.

I agree. As I said, I don't disagree with these "high level" philosophical ideas. I disagree with the - in my view illogical and unwarrented - theistic conclusions that the Christian philosophers made from it.

I don't think that is what it does at all, actually. It looks at a certain aspect of reality, i.e., the fact that motion exists, examines it deeply and then questions whether or not eternal regression is a possible explanation. It comes from Aristotle, who I doubt was committed to proving the existence of a monotheistic God.

Aristotle was certainly an intelligent guy... but he also made a lot of mistakes.

If you're specifically thinking about the Kalam argument, i.e., the universe had a beginning and thus needs an uncreated creator, that's a different approach altogether and someone else will need to defend it, as my interests lie elsewhere.

I think the Kalam fails horrible on a metaphysical level, because of that "backward thinking" is referenced.

Not terribly well, I'm afraid. In Aristotelian metaphysics, potentiality is the latent capacity in things to be in a different and more complete state, and actuality involves moving into that state. So your earlier example of the seed and the tree is very relevant--the seed is not the tree; it is instead the potentiality and the tree, the actuality.

Ah, that's better. Potentiallity and actuality are terms that I am familiar with. Potency made me think of alcohol and acts implied "actions" to me. Thank you for clarifying.

It gets really interesting when you look at the implications of quantum physics, since there are people out there who argue that some of the craziness that we see at the quantum level vindicates the concept of Potency.

I'd say, if you look closer, that the concept of Potency might be valid... but also totally useless.
Very flippantly spoken: if you have the potential for everything, you can't figure out anything from it.

Adstar · Oct 16, 2017

cloudyday2 said:
Hmmm. I don't understand how that would work. So what is the process? Does the seeker simply start reading the Bible and suddenly think "why of course that must be true, where can I get baptized"?

Well i became a Christian in my early 20's because a workmate gave me a Bible and i read it.. I never went out looking to get baptized in water because i read the Bible and the Baptisim of Jesus is not the baptisim of John the Baptist.. John said in the Bible ::

Matthew 3: KJV
11 "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:"

So from reading that and other scriptures.. I know that if one Believes Jesus and trusts in the Atonement He secured for them.. They are baptised in the Sprit with the Holy Spirit... Not water.. But anyway thats a side issue.. Sorry if it is boring to you but i like to be detailed when discussing al things Gospel.

What I imagine happening is that the reading may become mystical. Words might seem to be highlighted to the seeker and he/she begins to believe that God is confirming the truth of those words. I don't see how a person would just read the Bible and be converted without some other reasons. Honestly there isn't much in the Bible that impresses me. I'm impressed by the Bhagavad Gita, but I'm not impressed by the Bible.

..

Well even before i read the Bible i thought that God existed. But i had no real idea about God, His will and the Gospel ( good news ) of salvation.. I did ask God to guide me in my reading and give me wisdom.. Later from reading i discovered that Gods Holy Spirit does the convincing and convicting and gives one more understanding.. Yes i do understand that some reject the Message of the Bible.. Some call it evil while others call it foolishness.. The Bible revealed to me that some would reject the Gospel no matter how well ones explains it to them because they simply see it as being foolishness, others see it as evil.. Thats the great divide.. Two different people having two completely different responces to the Gospel message.. It is a great divider..

1 Corinthians 1: KJV
22 "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: {23} But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; {24} But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

2PhiloVoid · Oct 16, 2017

DogmaHunter said:
It doesn't matter.
There is nothing there that provides rational justification for believing faith-based claims.

...no one with at least half a brain should be saying that Pascal's Wager was ever intended to "provide" rational justification for believing. That isn't its purpose, and I'm not sure why this dead horse of a refutation keeps getting beaten over and over and over and over again. :doh:

Anyone who takes the time to read Pascal's Pensees could see that this is the case.

DogmaHunter · Oct 16, 2017

2PhiloVoid said:
...no one with at least half a brain should be saying that Pascal's Wager was ever intended to "provide" rational justification for believing. That isn't its purpose, and I'm not sure why this dead horse of a refutation keeps getting beaten over and over and over and over again. Anyone who takes the time to read Pascal's Pensees could see that this is the case.

Then it shouldn't even be brought up in the first place.

Ygrene Imref · Oct 16, 2017

Ed1wolf said:
All the good that Christians and Christianity have produced, ie most of what is good about Western Civilization was either invented or improved upon by Christians or the principles of biblical Christianity.

What do you consider good about Western Civilization? And, what do you consider Christian?

Much of the "good" Christianity has done in the world is certainly subjective - even to this day and hour.

cloudyday2 · Oct 16, 2017

Ygrene Imref said:
What do you consider good about Western Civilization? And, what do you consider Christian?

Much of the "good" Christianity has done in the world is certainly subjective - even to this day and hour.

There is also the issue that Western civilization was almost universally Christian, so anything good or bad that happened was influenced by Christianity somewhat.

Freodin · Oct 16, 2017

cloudyday2 said:
There is also the issue that Western civilization was almost universally Christian, so anything good or bad that happened was influenced by Christianity somewhat.

"Western" Christianity has also been formed by "Western" civilization, in all its forms, from pagan south to pagan north, from antiquity to modernism. It is quite unique, and not exclusively "Christian".

Silmarien · Oct 16, 2017

Freodin said:
Again something we - or I and the Catholic Church - differ. I don't think human reason can "grasp" truth. In my view, "truth" is a construct. What it is - or should be - based on is "reality". We might or might not "grasp" reality - completely we don't and never will IMO... but that is irrelevant as long as our "truth" about it is consistent.

And so I don't think our rationality is "a cosmic accident"... something that might or might not have happened. It is based on reality itself, on the consistency of reality.

Definitly not because there is a "source" of rationality out there that "grants" the ability to reason to other entities. It does not work that way. It cannot work that way.

Else you would also have to ask: "How does that source grasp the truth? It is just a cosmic accident?" And then what? More special pleading?

What would the source of rationality be aside from the intelligibility of reality itself, combined with evolutionary processes sufficient that creatures such as ourselves could one day make sense of that reality? Classical theists will point to that intelligibility itself as being evidence that God is intellect and see immanent teleology at work in the fact that we have become capable of understanding the workings of the universe. I do not think anyone on this side of the aisle sees reason as something that was one day granted externally by something that was merely in possession of it, so the charge of special pleading doesn't really make much sense to me here. God doesn't grasp truth; God is what it is grounded in.

I don't think it's too much different than your take, except that the intelligibility of reality is not accepted as a brute fact. I am probably about halfway between you and fullblown classical theism, though.

Freodin said:
Oh, I would say that what we are referencing with words is inherent in the object, in some way. Else we wouldn't have any way to distinguish it. What I contest is that this "reference" is inherent in the basics from which this object is constructed.
You might say that the "potency" of this reference is inherent in the basics... every silicone atom has the potency of "mountain" in it... but so it would have the potency to everything else. And this all-encompassing "potency" doesn't lead itself to make any definity statements about it.

That's another "thing" about my "primal chaos" concept. It is the nothing that is everything.

No, I agree with you. Words are references, and references are not inherent in the nature of things. The concept of 42 has nothing to do with the Arabic numerals "42", for example, but that alone doesn't commit us to an anti-realist position on mathematics.

I hate using programming metaphors because people sure like to run away with them, but I would consider language something of an operating system. A way of processing data, rather than an inherent aspect of the data being processed. So I would not say that every silicon atom has the potency of "mountain" in it, whereas I would perhaps say that every carbon atom has the potency of attributing the word "mountain" to something else.

Freodin said:
Aristotle was certainly an intelligent guy... but he also made a lot of mistakes.

Yes, but I don't think special pleading for monotheism was one of them! Perhaps special pleading for, say, Greek exceptionalism or chauvinism or something, sure.

Freodin said:
I'd say, if you look closer, that the concept of Potency might be valid... but also totally useless.
Very flippantly spoken: if you have the potential for everything, you can't figure out anything from it.

Well, that's actually the point. You're apple tree seed doesn't have the potentiality to grow into anything--it can only grow into an apple tree. You're not going to get a grape vine from it. ^_^

When we're just dealing with formless matter, I imagine that the amount of potentiality there is exponentially greater, but whether it is infinite is another question altogether.

Ygrene Imref · Oct 16, 2017

cloudyday2 said:
There is also the issue that Western civilization was almost universally Christian, so anything good or bad that happened was influenced by Christianity somewhat.

Unfortunately, imperialism is intertwined with the spread and nurturing of Christianity in the West. Similarly in the East, but not to the point of exceptionalism the West has for what it sees as a consequence of dogmatic adherence to a god unknown to most, and foreign to those who worship "it."

That is "Western" Christianity - the "culture."

However, I want to be distinct in pointing out that Christians - or more precisely, those who profess their faith in, obedience to, and love for God, and His Son Christ, are actually existent. They exist in the West, East, South and North. Many of them are on here (and a few real-life Saints are on the Recovery forums - whether they realize it or not.) But, the culture of Christianity does not align with the faith of Christianity. It does not align with those who profess their faith in, obedience to, and love for God, and His Son Christ. If it did, you could reasonably compare a human of today to a human of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob's time (in obedience, faith, love for God and fruits of the spirit.)

It is this veneer of "Christianity" - the culture and dogmatic, religious pantomimes - that gives agnostics and atheists a point. But, it is also what keeps many of them away from their Father. Their logic is undeniable, but what they are seeing is a caricature of what is a true sacred relationship between the God of gods, and His creation. The caricature includes everything from issues about what is canonical, to what it means to fundamentally be a "Christian." Most all of us have been had, because the joke is that we were never alive to begin with; at base we are dead until we reconcile the God of gods. The fallen/gods that had a hand in this mess actually got to experience what it is like to live in communion with the God of gods. Do you think they want us to find out a sliver of what we could be missing - the right way - especially after (along the way) we realize it was them that were partly at fault for keeping us from that our Father, and Life in the first place? Remember, the only humans that had communion with God, and Life, were Adam and Eve (before fall,) and Christ.

Do you think the "gods" want us to find out there is a God of gods, and that He actually cares about us, and (dare I say it) loves us? Read Isaiah 1:1-20, and tell me if that doesn't sound like a parent disciplining a child in love and righteous indignation. Israel was a spiritual derelict at this point.

I am mainly speaking to you @cloudyday2 in the context of your agnosticism, but this can apply to anyone who reads it.

Freodin · Oct 17, 2017

Silmarien said:
What would the source of rationality be aside from the intelligibility of reality itself, combined with evolutionary processes sufficient that creatures such as ourselves could one day make sense of that reality? Classical theists will point to that intelligibility itself as being evidence that God is intellect and see immanent teleology at work in the fact that we have become capable of understanding the workings of the universe. I do not think anyone on this side of the aisle sees reason as something that was one day granted externally by something that was merely in possession of it, so the charge of special pleading doesn't really make much sense to me here. God doesn't grasp truth; God is what it is grounded in.

There's one of my main objections to this "theistic philosophy" (hey, even two! In the same sentence!)
"Classical theists will point to that intelligibility itself as being evidence that God is intellect..."
First, I find the arguments that "intelligibility" means "intellect" extremely lacking, to say the least.
Second, I find the idea that "God is intellect" (instead of, say, "God is intelligent") even more lacking. Downright meaningless. See my comment about platonic realism further down.

But the main problem with this whole argument in toto is that it contradicts itself (or other parts of the "theistic philosophy".) How can life come from non-life? It cannot, so the "ground" must be "life". God is life. How can intelligibility come from non-intelligibility? It cannot... but the "ground" is not intelligible. But just in the same way we cannot say that it is "life"... we cannot make statements about the "ground"... "the One", the "primal chaos", remember?

That is, in a gist, my main problem, my main objection.
The theistic system is, at some point, always comming down to some sort of "This exists, therefore it must have come from that. If we like this conclusion, we integrate it into our image of "God"... if we don't, we ignore it." Backward thinking.

The philosophical line that I persue - and that is at least partially consistent with Neoplatonism would look more like "This exist. If we assume this does not exist, what can we say about that which this might have come from. Oy vey, not much. Nothing, in fact. It's just WEIRD, but in a very interesting way."

I don't think it's too much different than your take, except that the intelligibility of reality is not accepted as a brute fact. I am probably about halfway between you and fullblown classical theism, though.

I might say that the appearence of intelligibility is enough for us to work with. To deduce from that a general concept is... arrogant.

No, I agree with you. Words are references, and references are not inherent in the nature of things. The concept of 42 has nothing to do with the Arabic numerals "42", for example, but that alone doesn't commit us to an anti-realist position on mathematics.

(Remind me: "realism" was the philosophical position that ideas are "real" in itself - "idealism" was the position that they are just constructs based on "real". Correct? I always confuse these terms.)
(And I know that these are platonic concepts, which you might not adhere to.

)

Maybe I am lacking in imagination in the case of "realism". I simply cannot find a fitting system where "idea" (or numbers/mathematical concepts) can be "real" without a, erm, "materialistic" backing.

I hate using programming metaphors because people sure like to run away with them, but I would consider language something of an operating system. A way of processing data, rather than an inherent aspect of the data being processed. So I would not say that every silicon atom has the potency of "mountain" in it, whereas I would perhaps say that every carbon atom has the potency of attributing the word "mountain" to something else.

A labeling system, I would rather say.
But if there is no "mountain" - not even in potency - in the silicon atoms (or in the carbon atoms

), then where does it come from? It would have to come from something that, in itself, doesn't contain "mountain", correct?
So why not also say that "every carbon atom has the potency to form into a system of a specific complexity that allows it to attribute the word "life" to something else... even if "life" didn't exist in any prior system"?

Yes, but I don't think special pleading for monotheism was one of them! Perhaps special pleading for, say, Greek exceptionalism or chauvinism or something, sure.

That... is open to disagreement.

Well, that's actually the point. You're apple tree seed doesn't have the potentiality to grow into anything--it can only grow into an apple tree. You're not going to get a grape vine from it.

When we're just dealing with formless matter, I imagine that the amount of potentiality there is exponentially greater, but whether it is infinite is another question altogether.

But the carbon atoms in an apple seed are the same as those in a grape vine. Yes, that would mean the potentiality grows.
Does it get infinite? Well, I would say "yes". What could stop it?

Silmarien · Oct 17, 2017

Freodin said:
There's one of my main objections to this "theistic philosophy" (hey, even two! In the same sentence!)
"Classical theists will point to that intelligibility itself as being evidence that God is intellect..."
First, I find the arguments that "intelligibility" means "intellect" extremely lacking, to say the least.
Second, I find the idea that "God is intellect" (instead of, say, "God is intelligent") even more lacking. Downright meaningless. See my comment about platonic realism further down.

I am comfortable with "God is intellect" (whatever it might really mean) but find "God is intelligent" to be completely nonsensical. ^_^

It's tied into to the notion of divine simplicity, which I am pretty sympathetic too--I'm not sure how you feel about it, as it's very Neoplatonic and one of the most abstract things out there.

Freodin said:
But the main problem with this whole argument in toto is that it contradicts itself (or other parts of the "theistic philosophy".) How can life come from non-life? It cannot, so the "ground" must be "life". God is life. How can intelligibility come from non-intelligibility? It cannot... but the "ground" is not intelligible. But just in the same way we cannot say that it is "life"... we cannot make statements about the "ground"... "the One", the "primal chaos", remember?

Well, remember that for the most part, we're dealing with analogous reasoning here. God is "life", sure, whatever that might mean, but that does not make God the sum product of all the life in the universe, nor does it make "life" a property he shares with creatures in a direct sense.

I am not sure your comparison between life coming from non-life and intelligibility coming from non-intelligibility is really valid, though. We have reason to believe that life did develop on this planet from non-life, but I am unaware of any scientific theory that claims that intelligibility is something that developed slowly in the universe and that at one point, the laws of the universe behaved differently. So intelligibility did not come from non-intelligibility. Rationality from non-rationality, sure, but that's a bit different.

Freodin said:
The philosophical line that I persue - and that is at least partially consistent with Neoplatonism would look more like "This exist. If we assume this does not exist, what can we say about that which this might have come from. Oy vey, not much. Nothing, in fact. It's just WEIRD, but in a very interesting way."

Yeah. On the other hand, the fact that I see both existence and subjectivity as impossible means that I find it equally difficult to conceptualize both non-existence more broadly and non-subjective existence. What seems to be a single sided question for you is a double sided one for me (and most theists, I imagine--I see people bring up mind and consciousness fairly often), so the approach changes at least a little bit. Sometimes quite a lot.

Freodin said:
I might say that the appearence of intelligibility is enough for us to work with. To deduce from that a general concept is... arrogant.

Well, I do not entirely disagree. I'm pretty un-dogmatic, since I'm convinced that we are just building castles in the sand. Some are more promising than others, but at the end of the day, my favorite line by Thomas Aquinas is actually this one: "The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me."

On the other hand, I think refusing to pay any heed at all to what you consider backwards reasoning can also be arrogant, in a very different way, since there's an equal claim there that the human experience does not in any way match up to the divine reality. I'm happy playing in the realm of "maybes", which drops me straight into Pascalian territory, but that is another story.

Freodin said:
(Remind me: "realism" was the philosophical position that ideas are "real" in itself - "idealism" was the position that they are just constructs based on "real". Correct? I always confuse these terms.)
(And I know that these are platonic concepts, which you might not adhere to. )

Maybe I am lacking in imagination in the case of "realism". I simply cannot find a fitting system where "idea" (or numbers/mathematical concepts) can be "real" without a, erm, "materialistic" backing.

I am not a convinced Platonist, no. But I really need to take another look at the modern arguments for mathematical Platonism. I'm more sympathetic to the position than I used to be.

I would say that realism in this context is usually Platonism. The alternative is nominalism, the view that mathematical objects, relations, and structurse either do not exist at all or do not exist as abstract objects.

The major names I know when it comes to mathematical Platonism are Gödel, Frege, and Quine, if you want to look into it.

Freodin said:
A labeling system, I would rather say.
But if there is no "mountain" - not even in potency - in the silicon atoms (or in the carbon atoms ), then where does it come from? It would have to come from something that, in itself, doesn't contain "mountain", correct?
So why not also say that "every carbon atom has the potency to form into a system of a specific complexity that allows it to attribute the word "life" to something else... even if "life" didn't exist in any prior system"?

I think you're at risk of trivializing the problem by focusing too much on the semantics involved. There's a difference between water vapor, liquid water, and ice, regardless of the words we use to describe these things. Every carbon atom may indeed have the built in potentiality to eventually ascribe semantical meaning to things, but that doesn't make the distinction between life and non-life dependent upon our ability to distinguish between the two things linguistically.

Freodin said:
But the carbon atoms in an apple seed are the same as those in a grape vine. Yes, that would mean the potentiality grows.
Does it get infinite? Well, I would say "yes". What could stop it?

Shrinks, not grows. Well, depending on your perspective. A carbon atom would have more potentiality than a seed, yes. In fullblown Aristotelian metaphysics, this gets tied into form and matter as well, so formless matter would probably have infinite potentiality, if such a thing even exists at all. I'm not sure what the physics behind this would be, but we might be looking at concepts like vacuums and Absolute Zero.

cloudyday2 · Oct 17, 2017

@Silmarien and @Freodin ,

It seems to me that a fundamental requirement of theism is that God must be capable (and willing) to have a relationship with humans. Some of these concepts of God are too vague to meet that requirement IMO. I've heard some people say "God is being" and similar. You can't have a relationship with an abstraction can you? It seems to me that a relationship requires something more like a Turing machine. (Probably God needs to be even more sophisticated than a Turing machine for us to have a very worthwhile relationship, but a Turing machine is minimal.)

Your argument against "many paths to God"

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Other scholars got to me before you did!

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