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Discerning truth
- Thread starter Penumbra
- Start date
Not violating logic is not a measure of truth it is a measure of consistency.
Consistency and demonstration, or consistency and evidence would give you truth, or at least, allow you to approach it.
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1. I don´t think there´s a method to "discern truth" in these matters.
2. However there are methods to investigate the consistency and coherence of an idea or concept, and when the idea or concept turns out to be, say, self-contradictory, illogical or otherwise demonstrably false, we can at least dismiss this one as inaccurate.
3. Then, there are those who would us accept their claim that "god is beyond logic" - actually and for all practical purposes meaning "a god concept (and, first of all, mine) can be illogical yet accurate".
In which case I wouldn´t even know what "accurate" might mean. If we are invited to violate logic in the discussion of god concepts, these concepts and their discussion can be - although not meaningful by any means - a lot of fun (particularly under the influence of alcohol or other drugs). God can exist and not exist at the same time. A god concept can be fully accurate and fully inaccurate at the same time. There could be several "one and only" gods at the same time. An entity could be 100% man, 100% god and 100% coliflower. Etc, etc.
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GrowingSmaller
Muslm Humanist
There are ways to check if God is she is imagined to be. For instance prayer experiments seems at least to indicate that God, if He is, does not answer prayers when we might expect it. But those types of experiment are not totally conclusive. It might be that He answers them, but in a secret manner.
Then, in our search for God, we have the God of the philosophers. He is meant to be apprehended by arguments like the "first cause" and "design" argument. However, the soundness or cogency of these arguments is disputed, so if you are looking for incontrovertible evidence or proof today, then philosophy is not the right point of departure (but having said that tautologies, like "A or not-A", are always true). As for His naure people continue to debate the problem of evil and whether there is any contradiction involved in the idea of a trinity.
Then, before we had the philosophical "natural theology" we had traditional "revealed theology" of scripture and prophecy (The sociologist Durkheim IIRC thought there was a inevitable progression from religion to philosophy and then science). The problem with these 'primitive' beliefs is authenticating what people say is divinely inspired. There are many prophetic candidates who teach inconsistent doctrines which all cannot be true. The same goes for scripture. I don't think that there is any final and objective test which validates a particular tradition. We would know of it by now.
Where something is apparently falsified (eg literal 6 day creation falsified by cosmology and geological record) people will either reject the proof (YECs) or reinterpret claim (Genesis is a "creation myth").
Some would say that is because God can be hidden as well as revealed, and it is a fact that believers have to live with. Calvin argued that God's nature was revealed in "contrary form" , life though death, wisdon though folly etc... maybe presence in apparent absence? The Catholic cardinal Basil Hume in a lecture series giving advice to the novice ordained said they would have to encounter and live with the "absence of God". These were religious men, but the atheists will probably say that it is immoral folly to believe without concrete evidence of high standard.
Finally alongside revelation, and similar to it, is personal witness and testimony. "Jesus saved me" can be a heart felt claim. Whatever convinced a person it was true, may well have been a powerful expeince, yet it lies far from objective science.
So in the search for something tending towards the communally indubitable, we are left with nothing (except tautologies, but you can compose a tautology about anything existent or not)...but that is not a suprise, as if there were such a proof, every rational creature would believe and we'd all be of the same creed! If a then b, not b, therefore not a!
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This is true. There are beliefs that I find to be logically consistent, but not necessarily true, because there is no evidence. I can make up a logically consistent lie but that doesn't make it true.
Any examples?
Agreed.
Good post.
But if you feel we are left with nothing (and an italicized nothing at that), then for what reason do you have a religious icon next to your name that implies you are a believer of a specific religion and denomination?
-Lyn
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No, I'm agnostic....
I consider theology a fantasy land unless God decides to come out of hiding.
My original point is that you can't obtain truth without evidence.
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I didn't mean examples of what you've been convinced of, as an agnostic hasn't been convinced of anything in religion.
I meant examples of what would be acceptable evidence to determine metaphysical truth.
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The only difference between the metaphysical world and the physical one is access. If one has access to the metaphysical, it becomes physical.
Metaphysical Truth is a contradiction. Or, either metaphysical truth is a contradiction or God has an inaccessable truth that obeys no particular set of accessible laws.
That second one is truth that you can not have knowledge of, thus can not evidence nor discern.
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I agree.
Well, it would be determining truth that was once metaphysical but is now physical if it becomes known. I think you understand my question about examples of evidence, and this semantic discussion was not necessary, though.
-Lyn
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The semantics seem necessary to me...
Examples of objective or physical evidence for God?
God could appear and show us the "how to" to make a universe.
Prayer could have significant and testable effects.
Communities that adhered to certain beliefs could have obvious and long lasting good fortune unexplainable by the practice of the actual beliefs or random chance.
A hole could open up in reality giving us access to guided tours of the afterlife.
Everyone on earth could hear the voice of God at the same time saying the same thing making the same prediction that ultimately comes true.
Ect.
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Ok, thanks for the examples. That's all I was asking for.
Would you say it's impossible to determine truth about the highest levels of existence? Going through your examples, they seem to certainly be capable of supplying reasonable belief in a deity, an afterlife, etc. But if, for instance, a deity came down and did all these things and claimed to be the top deity around, could we ever know that? We would have knowledge about something, but would be unable to determine whether it's knowledge of the largest scale.
-Lyn
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Ok, thanks for the examples. That's all I was asking for.
Would you say it's impossible to determine truth about the highest levels of existence? Going through your examples, they seem to certainly be capable of supplying reasonable belief in a deity, an afterlife, etc. But if, for instance, a deity came down and did all these things and claimed to be the top deity around, could we ever know that? We would have knowledge about something, but would be unable to determine whether it's knowledge of the largest scale.
-Lyn
Can we have absolute knowledge? No.
Knowledge is gained by experience and consistency; it is always tentative and incomplete.
Knowledge is how we approach truth not how we obtain it in it's pure form.
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I agree. Thanks for the discussion.
Mostly the thread was set up to ask theists, as they seem to believe they have truth, so it makes for a more interesting discussion. One agnostic talking to another agnostic about how to discern or determine metaphysical truth tends to be rather agreeable.
-Lyn
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Since all but two of those examples of evidence you gave are likely to seem like incredibly unreasonable expectations in the eyes of many theists, I feel compelled to provide some other examples:
The scripture could consistently make clear prophecies about the future which can be seen to be true without exercises in postdiction.
The scripture could clearly and unambiguously state several facts the authors could not possibly have known.
The deity or deities promoted by the religion could perform observable supernatural acts in a way that can be specifically attributed to him/her/them.
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GrowingSmaller
Muslm Humanist
My belief came from personal religious experience. There is no need to go into details. But I imagine that if my experience was valid it could serve as a ground for knowledge of "higher truths". It has certainly seemed so to me. As it stands I accept that I am fallible, and could be illuded, but there is a possibility that I have True Justified Belief which is the traditional epistemological model dating from Plato, or even true belief resulting from a reliable process (reliablism).
However what I am not going to argue is that my experience can ground the same level of confidence in others as I have myself. Even that is weak. I could be illuded, yes; also I could be a trickster or a fraud. So others have less reason that I do to believe in the implications of my experience, wheras I can certainly trust myself more.
So I believe that religious knowledge is possible - I am therefore a kind of gnostic. I think that it is possible that either revelation or philosophy might adequately ground true belief. Only, I will readily accept that any such knowledge depends on a good deal of luck and is highly inferential. Just as when I rely on my extremely amauterish, yet not completely useless 'weather eye' and predict a sunny day I have "lucky knowledge" also if I go from a personal religious experience, or a philosophical argument, although the grounding is not rock solid, I might again have "lucky knowledge". I might be at fault, but I might not be at fault. As it would be so speculative and inconclusive it would be at the other end of the "k-spectrum" from knowledge of my own mental states which is immediate, firm, and some even say incorrigible.
Imagine the analogy of a lowly servant. He has been raised with the belief that his master is a great king, only as a mere kitchen worker he has never actually seen him. People occasionaly report commands which are reputedly from the master, and at other times say punishments result from his master's anger at his poor service, but of course they might be decieving his gullible spirit. There may be no king after all. In fact, others will tell him he is merely in a village and the highest ranking person is his mum. If he never enters the palace's inner areas, if it is in fact there, but only sees the kitchen walls and his dormitary, what is he to believe? Is he a servant of a great king or not? I suppose that in spite of his ignorance of the final truth, he has grounds for believing that the king is real. If he were real, I imagine that we might say that the believing servant had lucky inferential knowledge. That could be contrasted with the "mystical" servant who claims to have caught a glimpse of the king, or at least his robe or crown, who could still have been decieved but would have much more of a confident claim. If his trust in some rather than other "clues" is entirely random, then I would say that the servant's belief, even if true, would not be knowledge. But insofar as there is skill involved, and a technical process that makes the servant's belief more likely to be true than false, even if the difference is small, there is a case for gnosticism. What might such a process be other than the use of logic, reason, epistemologicl heuristics like Occams razor, and evidence taken from a trustworthy source.
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GrowingSmaller
Muslm Humanist
I pretty much believe that any of the more rationalistic religious believers/attitudes, be they theist, atheist, or deist, might have knowledge.
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So you feel that experience is a reliable indicator of truth? How do you determine whether a given experience was valid or not?
By the above comment about your experience, it sounded as though you were describing a mystical experience, but now in this part of your post you seem to be contrasting that sort of knowledge from the mystical. I'm a bit confused, then, at what kind of experience you were mentioning.
If a theist and an atheist both have knowledge, then one or both of them must have substantially incomplete knowledge because of their large difference.
-Lyn
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GrowingSmaller
Muslm Humanist
I am not sure if it is possible to do that an an absolute level. If I take things to an extreme and become a full time skeptic then I would believe that knowledge is impossible, all empirical knowledge included. But if I am to trust appearances than I suppose that they can serve as grounds for knowledge, whether they be normal appearances like seeing the sun in the sky, or something abnormal like seeing an angel floating at my bedreoom window with my "3rd eye"/"second sight".
I am contrasting the mysitcal with the philosophical. The former would seem to me to depend on unusual experiences like seeing an angel or having a sense of inspiration, but the latter are more cold and rationalised attempts at grasping the divine or transcendent. IMHO all religious belief can be traced back to one of these, excepting poeple who invented faiths for fun that is. So the God of Plato is philosophical, and the God of the Biblical prophets mystical.
What I mean to say is that either could have knowledge, but not both (obviously, as you can't have knowledge which contradicts itself.) The atheist might use scientific and other rules of thumb to conclude "God does not exist", and he might thereby have true justified belief. On the other hand a theist might have a mystical experience and use other philosophical arguments to conclude that God does exist. One of them has to be right, end each is arriving at his conclusion in what seems like a skillful manner.
I am not a science expert but know that there are different theories of quantum gravity, like the loop and string theories. Whilst nobody claims to actually know the truth of the matter, or to be able to conclusively demonstrate it, it is likely that they are much closer to knowledge that I am in my complete ignorance of the field. Likewise, there is a loose analogy with theology - experts in the field have formed opinions which are closer to knowledge than complete guesswork.
It is where you draw the line and say "now that's knowledge" or "potential knowledge" that is the sticking point.
My view is that knowledge is a fuzzy phenomena with borderline cases which might or might not be regarded as knowledge, like well thought out theological beliefs, alongside the archetypal or more obvious knowledge of mainstream science (like ohms law) or maths (1 + 1 = 2 ) about which there is very little to argue about. The problem with theology is proving or demonstrating you know, but do you have to actually be able to prove you know - alongside your original arguments - in order to have knowledge? People believe weathermen "knew it would rain" even though the rain had not yet fallen. So it seems that actual verification of a belief or theory is not necessary for knowledge. Or, similarly, as someone said: you don't have to know that you know in order to know.
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