Critical Thinking vs. Philosophical Thinking

[Halbhh]

Can critical thinking lead a person to believe in Christianity?

No, but it can help in time a person that is truly seeking God to be able to discard mere assumptions against God embedded in a variety of popular ideas/memes. One can critically examine the popular meme, and then often discard it as circular reasoning, for instance for very many. (Example: "If there is a God, then why can innocent children die from cancer, or famine, etc.?" the popular meme that suffering and death prove God cannot be omnipotent and omniscient and good all, but critical thinking will reveal the circular reasoning and assumptions used, and then the illusion in the argument can be seen through, and removed, allowing one to then consider God can indeed exist at the same time as also exists the deaths of innocents in mortal bodies.) So, critical thinking can't allow a person to find God, but it can help remove some barriers, some illusions.

 

[RDKirk]

Actually an important feature of critical thinking is to realize when your reasoning is culture-specific and correct yourself. From what I have read, logic or philosophy is a tiny subset of critical thinking. Critical thinking includes ideas like Occam's Razor and listening to alternative ideas from other cultures, etc. Critical thinking strives to help people make decisions that are good for the world. Maybe it is connected with Humanism a little bit. IDK

Why should someone using Greek epistemology "realize his reasoning is culture-specific and correct himself?" That actually makes no sense--he'd come to the incorrect conclusion for that culture.

You keep using that phrase "critical thinking." I don't think it means what you think it means.

It's just logic.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Actually an important feature of critical thinking is to realize when your reasoning is culture-specific and correct yourself. From what I have read, logic or philosophy is a tiny subset of critical thinking. Critical thinking includes ideas like Occam's Razor and listening to alternative ideas from other cultures, etc. Critical thinking strives to help people make decisions that are good for the world. Maybe it is connected with Humanism a little bit. IDK

More specifically, realizing that our reasoning is often (although not always) culture-specific is a central part of doing that other thing I keep mentioning, Hermeneutics, all of which is yet another aspect of ... you guessed it, critical thinking! But, somehow, I get the feeling that many people don't realize that hermeneutics is a part of critical thinking as well.

Critical thinking, if extended out to it's fullest application, would also include the analysis of one's one assumptions and methods of measurement, or even of the specific philosophical tools one is using, such as is done when we may conceptually analyze Occam's Razor and the use of the Razor itself. All of this kind of thing is what differentiates higher, "2nd Order" thinking from more basic "1st Order" thinking.

In reflecting even back on Occam's Razor, I find it interesting that William of Ockham (or Occam) was himself a Christian....................and for some reason or other didn't find it necessary to razor out God from his worldview. Yet today, we do.

 

[cloudyday2]

In reflecting even back on Occam's Razor, I find it interesting that William of Ockham (or Occam) was himself a Christian....................and for some reason or other didn't find it necessary to razor out God from his worldview. Yet today, we do.

That's an interesting point. I would guess that Occam's decision to allow God to keep His beard might be explained by the larger God-gap in his time?

 

[KCfromNC]

I think the modernist approach to various critical methods to be more undermining of faith then affirming.

You say that like it is a bad thing.

 

[apogee]

But most things don't stand the test.

I suppose really I was making reference to the fact that differing presuppositions and evidence, will inevitably produce differing conclusions. Hence why lawyers are so well paid.

 

[Hieronymus]

I suppose really I was making reference to the fact that differing presuppositions and evidence, will inevitably produce differing conclusions. Hence why lawyers are so well paid.

But there's a difference between seeking to win and seeking truth.

 

[Silmarien]

Yes I should have said logic instead of philosophy. Philosophy can be various things and often overlaps with religion. Occam's Razor is a heuristic. Although I have read about a mathematical proof that attempts to support or explain Occam's Razor using Kolmogorov complexity.
Here is a link:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-formulate-Occams-razor-in-terms-of-Kolmogorov-complexity

It's the other way around. Religion often overlaps with philosophy due to the nature of the questions it explores. Philosophy is much, much bigger than that and overlaps with everything, including mathematics. Those high level mathematical proofs also fall within the realm of logic and therefore philosophy.

You'll see the religious applications of philosophy more often around here because that's obviously what most people are interested in on a religious forum. But there's considerably more to it than that.

 

[apogee]

But there's a difference between seeking to win and seeking truth.

There is, I'd say that lawyers attempt to intentionally reverse engineer the process, (for obvious reasons) but it still remains that the process is subject to the variables involved, whether we are concious of them, or not.

 

[Uber Genius]

Of course philosophical thinking might mean anything, but what I mean is the typical thinking I see when (for example) apologists claim that some "obvious" assumptions imply the existence of God.

What I mean by critical thinking is the techniques that lead a person to doubt the existence of Big Foot (for example).

It seems to me (knowing little about critical thinking or philosophical thinking) that these strategies are different. Do you agree? If they are different, then why does it seem that apologists rarely speak of critical thinking? (Or is that my imagination?)

Can critical thinking lead a person to believe in Christianity?

Critical thinking would be the foundation stone, philosophical arguments would utilize critical thinking and rules for deductive, inductive, or abductive reasoning to argue for the truth or probable likelihood of propositions.

but if by philosophical you mean natural theology arguments like the Kalam then those are not necessary. In fact Kant and late Kierkegaard were skeptical of the type of natural theology coupled with mans reason could be a reliable guide to knowledge of many things, let alone God.

Existentialism as it relates to Christian tradition has a focus on one's experience rather than a analytical description of the features of our world. Many who initially follow Jesus did so based on profound other-worldly private experiences that could not be shared evidentially by others. I'm thinking here of Paul's experience on the Road to Damascus in Acts 9. Now how could he prove that experience, even to those who were with him?

 

[HitchSlap]

Even informal presentations of the gospel would

IMO, whatever 'critical' thinking modes used to accept the gospel, would allow one to accept any religion.

 

[Silmarien]

IMO, whatever 'critical' thinking modes used to accept the gospel, would allow one to accept any religion.

How so? I can acccept that both Mohammed and Paul had visions of some sort and thought they were chosen to deliver God's message, but the Pauline Epistles seem to depict someone who has undergone a genuinely positive transformation whereas Mohammed went around putting rival clans who wouldn't follow him to the sword. My critical approach to the literature of Christianity and Islam does not allow me to accept both of them. As for Asian religions, they don't have any historical claims to investigate at all, so it would be strange to approach them in a similar critical mode. The fact that I do believe strands of Hinduism have theological merit is irrelevant to the claims Christianity makes.

 

[HitchSlap]

How so? I can acccept that both Mohammed and Paul had visions of some sort and thought they were chosen to deliver God's message, but the Pauline Epistles seem to depict someone who has undergone a genuinely positive transformation whereas Mohammed went around putting rival clans who wouldn't follow him to the sword. My critical approach to the literature of Christianity and Islam does not allow me to accept both of them. As for Asian religions, they don't have any historical claims to investigate at all, so it would be strange to approach them in a similar critical mode. The fact that I do believe strands of Hinduism have theological merit is irrelevant to the claims Christianity makes.

Right, this is what people from the US say about Christianity.

 

[Silmarien]

Right, this is what people from the US say about Christianity.

That they're former anti-theists who used to agree with Christopher Hitchens's assessment of the religion? That they still think Western Christianity by and large fell off a cliff and the fullness of the faith is found within the walls of the Eastern Orthodox Church? That they lean somewhat towards Neoplatonism and recognize that Christianity might be the fulfillment of Greek philosophical thought?

Seriously, very little of what I say about Christianity is typical for people from the US, so don't pull that with me. Most of my cultural prejudices are against Christianity.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

IMO, whatever 'critical' thinking modes used to accept the gospel, would allow one to accept any religion.

Really? How so?

 

[HitchSlap]

Really? How so?

People are really good at justifying their beliefs, even to the point of denying reality.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

People are really good at justifying their beliefs, even to the point of denying reality.

And here I thought that the whole process of delineating the various structures involved in the justifying of beliefs (which is specifically the area of epistemology, and epistemology only) was one fraught with extremely maze-like complexities [and complications] for all kinds of beliefs.

Personally, my own theology is such that my religious beliefs can't be completely justified, even for myself, alone for another person. But here I am, living among credulous fellow mortals, on both sides of the divide of belief and disbelief, who seem to be utterly confident of this and that about Jesus and God. Well, well!

 

[cloudyday2]

How so? I can acccept that both Mohammed and Paul had visions of some sort and thought they were chosen to deliver God's message, but the Pauline Epistles seem to depict someone who has undergone a genuinely positive transformation whereas Mohammed went around putting rival clans who wouldn't follow him to the sword.

I guess Moses and Muhammad are similar IMO. Paul is the odd-man-out among the three Prophets. Jesus also doesn't fit.

 

[HitchSlap]

And here I thought that the whole process of delineating the various structures involved in the justifying of beliefs (which is specifically the area of epistemology, and epistemology only) was one fraught with extremely maze-like complexities [and complications] for all kinds of beliefs.

Personally, my own theology is such that my religious beliefs can't be completely justified, even for myself, alone for another person. But here I am, living among credulous fellow mortals, on both sides of the divide of belief and disbelief, who seem to be utterly confident of this and that about Jesus and God. Well, well!

Yep, sometimes our need to believe outweighs our need to know.

 

[apogee]

Yep, sometimes our need to believe outweighs our need to know.

whilst there is undeniably a truth in this statement, it doesn't actually account for religious beliefs.

Take for instance first century Christians that were routinely sliced, diced and sautéed for their religious beliefs, if we are going to establish a hierarchy of needs I'm thinking existential angst is pretty far down the list. In fact, I'm struggling to identify any psychological crutches that aren't.