Presuppositional apologetics

[Tone]

This makes my question of how one could reliably distinguish what you are calling God from something that you are merely imaging, come to the fore.

Something I am imagining? Am I so unique?

Have you considered the historical record?

Do you consider imagination a faculty of your being?

Not that I rely solely upon it (imagination), but my belief in God--Yahshua the Messiah, specifically, has led to a wholeness (shalom) of being that I did not have prior to my encounter.

*Which means I'm more than just intellect.

 

[durangodawood]

Well, existence is a collective noun denoting everything that exists. Some things that exist have a distinctive smell or taste or feel or sound but existence as a whole does not. Now if you ask me how specific existent smells or tastes or feels I could tell you as long as you have the concepts of sensation that I do such as "sweet" or "rough" or "high pitched". So you have dodged answering the question by asking a question. Surely you can tell me at least what it looked like. If you can't then I'm going to doubt that you perceived anything.

We are speaking of the Creator of all things.

Tone, it sounds like youre asserting an additional perceptive sense. We could call it "the spiritual sense" or whatever. I say this because of your claim of perception but your inability to describe the experience in terms of the 5 material perceptive senses. Is this right?

 

[Tone]

Tone, it sounds like youre asserting an additional perceptive sense. We could call it "the spiritual sense" or whatever. I say this because of your claim of perception but your inability to describe the experience in terms of the 5 material perceptive senses. Is this right?

Some things that exist have a distinctive smell or taste or feel or sound but existence as a whole does not.

I am asserting something similar to the above.

If existence as a whole does not have a distinctive taste, etc..., How much more would/wouldn't the Creator of it?

I have to qualify this again, by saying I am considering this line of thought from a kind of Aristotelian perspective.

The Bible will ascribe to Elohim many of the same senses as we have, as a kind of Personification.

But, to be completely accurate, the Son (The Messiah) did possess (and does in glorified form) all of the same senses as us and He could be touched, smelled, seen, and described just like we can (If all of these things are intact for us) just like us.

Which brings up a point. There is an account of a blind man who met the Messiah.

You are correct that I didn't encounter Him using all of my material senses.

I'll ask you a similar thing I asked @The happy Objectivist .

Have you met me here on CF?

I would say yes, yet you didn't smell me right, or see me in person, or anything like that right?

So would you consider this spiritual?

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Of course, I perceive it directly.

You believe your senses are trustworthy?

 

[Tinker Grey]

You believe your senses are trustworthy?

Trustworthy enough.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

You believe your senses are trustworthy?

Sorry, it took me so long to reply. I've been extraordinarily busy with work.

I trust my senses completely. Does this mean that I think the senses are infallible? No. I can trust my senses to bring me awareness of things within their range and I can trust them to act according to their nature. I don't expect them to identify what they perceive though. That's the job of the reasoning faculty. I think people confuse identification with perception and this is where this notion of the senses being untrustworthy comes from. Again a good theory of concepts will fix this problem, specifically one that identifies the nature of the relationship between perception and concept formation.

My senses are my primary and only contact with reality. Without them, I couldn't trust anything. The only alternative I have to my senses and reason based on them is some non-sensory, non-rational means of knowledge. So really your question of whether I can trust my senses commits a fallacy known as the stolen concept. This happens when you use a concept while denying or ignoring a concept that is at it's root. In this case, the concept trust is being used while at the same time questioning the trustworthiness of the senses upon which all concepts, including the concept of trust, necessarily rests. So "trust" is a stolen concept and makes your question invalid.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Sorry, it took me so long to reply. I've been extraordinarily busy with work.

I trust my senses completely. Does this mean that I think the senses are infallible? No. I can trust my senses to bring me awareness of things within their range and I can trust them to act according to their nature. I don't expect them to identify what they perceive though. That's the job of the reasoning faculty. I think people confuse identification with perception and this is where this notion of the senses being untrustworthy comes from. Again a good theory of concepts will fix this problem, specifically one that identifies the nature of the relationship between perception and concept formation.

My senses are my primary and only contact with reality. Without them, I couldn't trust anything. The only alternative I have to my senses and reason based on them is some non-sensory, non-rational means of knowledge. So really your question of whether I can trust my senses commits a fallacy known as the stolen concept. This happens when you use a concept while denying or ignoring a concept that is at it's root. In this case, the concept trust is being used while at the same time questioning the trustworthiness of the senses upon which all concepts, including the concept of trust, necessarily rests. So "trust" is a stolen concept and makes your question invalid.

So, are there no imperfections whatsoever in Ayn Rand's philosophy?

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Something I am imagining? Am I so unique?

Have you considered the historical record?

Do you consider imagination a faculty of your being?

Not that I rely solely upon it (imagination), but my belief in God--Yahshua the Messiah, specifically, has led to a wholeness (shalom) of being that I did not have prior to my encounter.

*Which means I'm more than just intellect.

This does not answer my question.

 

[Tone]

how one could reliably distinguish what you are calling God from something that you are merely imaging, come to the fore.

Wouldn't one have to also be imagining the contents of the Bible which reveals God and, by extension, existence itself?

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Wouldn't one have to also be imagining the contents of the Bible which reveals God and, by extension, existence itself?

This does not answer the question. No, I don't have to imagine existence. I experience it every day.

 

[Tone]

This does not answer the question. No, I don't have to imagine existence. I experience it every day.

Now you are on to something!

I experience the God Who the Bible speaks of every day. This is how I know I'm not just imagining it.

*But, imagination is not cut out of my experience either, neither should yours.

 

[Tone]

There is a story in the book of Matthew where a Canaanite woman actually surprised Jesus.

She used her imagination to add on to an illustration He gave her...an illustration that could very well have discouraged her.

He called what she did "great faith".

*Matthew 15:21-28