Friday, March 12, 2021

Lacordaire on the existence of God

Preaching on theological topics is a tricky business.  The more substantive and rigorous a sermon, the greater the danger of its being inaccessible to the average listener.  But the more accessible it is, the greater the danger of its being woolly and banal.  (In our egalitarian and mawkish age, the latter vice is by far the more common one.  Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon that exhibited the former vice.)   The 19th-century Dominican theologian Henri-Dominique Lacordaire was famously able to strike the right balance.  Like other writers of the period, he has a style that to the contemporary reader is bound to seem a bit purple and prolix.  But, I think, he stops short of excess even on that score – indeed, the tone is, if anything, refreshing.  Whereas rhetorical excess in contemporary preaching tends to pull our attention downward, to our own petty sentimentalities, Lacordaire’s flourishes raise it up to God.

Theism or pantheism

Let’s consider the first of a series of sermons on that topic he delivered at Notre Dame in Paris.  The theme is God’s existence, and Lacordaire’s takeoff point is the first article of the Creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.”  Lacordaire proposes the striking thesis that the only alternative to this conviction is the contrary affirmation: “I believe in nature, the mother almighty.” 

Given that our age is prone both to naturalism and to feminism, one might well wonder whether there is some connection between them.  I think that there is, but that is a topic for another time.  For, notwithstanding his arresting formulation, that is not in fact Lacordaire’s own theme.  The accent in his use of the phrase “nature, the mother almighty” is on the word “almighty,” for what he has in mind is a pantheistic conception of nature.  And the upshot of his striking thesis is that some kind of pantheism is the only alternative to the theism affirmed in the first line of the Creed.

Contemporary readers will find that surprising.  Surely, it will be suggested, atheism is an obvious third alternative.  But I would suggest that to understand why Lacordaire says what he does, we need to keep in mind the way in which the great classical theist tradition conceives of the divine, and how it differs from the excessively anthropomorphic way of thinking about God that prevails in modern times (a tendency that Brian Davies has labelled “theistic personalism” and David Bentley Hart calls “monopolytheism”).

For classical theism – the tradition represented both by Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy and by the greatest minds of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theology – the starting point for understanding what God is is to think of him as the ultimate reality, and the source of all other reality.  Most classical theists also regard God as personal insofar as he has intellect and will, but that has to do with the nature of God rather than with his existence.  Now, if you take this as your starting point in thinking about God, then the thesis that the ultimate reality is just nature itself is naturally going to smack, not of atheism, but rather of pantheism – of collapsing God down into the world, as it were. 

Now, for more anthropomorphic conceptions of God, the starting point for understanding what God is is instead to think of him as a person like us, only without our limitations.  He’s like Zeus or Odin, but without a body or the petty foibles and restrictions on his power that the gods of the pagan pantheons have.  At the same time, though, he is not conceived of in the terms by which classical theists have hammered out what being the ultimate reality entails – subsistent being itself, pure actuality, absolute simplicity, and the like.  Hence, for “theistic personalist” types, God ends up being more or less like a pagan deity after all, except for being unique, stronger, smarter, and better behaved.  Hence Hart’s apt label “monopolytheism.” 

Now, if your approach to conceptualizing God is of that sort, then it is understandable why a view that denies the existence of any gods so conceived of would seem most fittingly labeled atheistic rather than pantheistic.  And the fact that most atheists today also conceive of God in theistic personalist rather than classical theist terms is one reason (I don’t say it is the only reason) why they tend to think of themselves as atheists rather than as pantheists.

(Long and bitter experience has taught me that at this point I need to reiterate that the dispute between classical theism and theistic personalism is not about whether God is personal or impersonal – even if some people seem hell-bent on perpetuating this misunderstanding.  Again, most classical theists, and certainly all Christian classical theists, affirm that God is personal.  They would not only acknowledge, but insist, that there is intellect and will in God, and that he is three divine Persons in one substance.  The dispute is instead about divine attributes such as simplicity, immutability, and eternity, and about whether God can be said to fall into any genus.)

It is worth adding that, though contemporary naturalists and atheists are certainly not the most reverent of personality types, even some of them are known to rhapsodize over the beauty of nature and the fundamental laws that govern it, in a way that really does not make much sense if you think of it all as just a big pile of particles differing only in size rather than significance from the little pile of dust and cobwebs that sits in the corner of your bedroom.  What this amounts to, I would argue, is an inchoate and distorted expression of our natural inclination to affirm the reality of and worship a divine first principle – a natural inclination which, due to original sin, gets manifested in all kinds of distorted ways not only in the history of religion, but also in the history of irreligion.  Naturally, the atheist will dismiss all this as a cognitive illusion generated by an overactive propensity to attribute agency to phenomena, blah blah blah.  The point, though, is that the inclination is there, however one wants to explain it.  And it lends further plausibility to Lacordaire’s thesis.

Four ways to God

Lacordaire does not, in his sermon, put forward rigorous proofs of God’s existence, as a Scholastic philosopher would in a metaphysical treatise.  The reason is precisely that he is giving a sermon rather than writing a metaphysical treatise.  But he does summarize what he takes to be four fundamental considerations that point to the truth of theism rather than the pantheism that he regards as its only realistic alternative.  They have to do with: nature, truth, conscience, and society.  Readers with a deep knowledge of the classical theist tradition will recognize in his remarks summaries of lines of argument that have indeed been developed more thoroughly and rigorously in that tradition.  Here are a summary of, and some comments on, these four considerations:

1. Nature: Lacordaire first emphasizes that when we consider the natural world, we find that it is limited and subject to physical law.  It therefore simply lacks the ultimacy that a first principle would have to have.  The world is of this nature rather than that one; it is governed by these laws rather than those.  Why?  It could have been otherwise, yet it isn’t.  Hence it needs an explanation beyond itself, and therefore cannot itself be the ultimate reality.  Nature thus points beyond itself to a source that is infinite and subject to nothing outside itself.  It points away from pantheism to theism.

We can think of this as a generic formulation of the cosmological argument for God’s existence, which can be spelled out more rigorously and in detail in several different ways.  The versions I think the most powerful are what I have called the Aristotelian proof, the Neo-Platonic proof, the Thomistic proof, and the Rationalist proof, and I have expounded and defended them in Five Proofs of the Existence of God.  Lacordaire’s exposition is more loose and popular than any of those arguments, but there is nothing per se wrong with that given that he was, again, giving a sermon (any more than a popular exposition of any subject – whether quantum mechanics, restorative dentistry, or automotive repair – should be faulted on the grounds that it fails to satisfy the rigorous demands of the expert).

2. Truth: Lacordaire next discusses how the human intellect is able to arrive at knowledge of a body of truths that is infinite in contrast with the natural world’s finitude, and of which the natural world is but a shadow.  Anyone familiar with the classical and Scholastic traditions in philosophy will recognize that he is here alluding to the Platonic idea that in our knowledge of mathematics and of the essences of things, we are tapping into a realm of infinite, eternal, and necessary truths that outstrip both the material world and any finite mind or collection of finite minds.  And when Lacordaire goes on to argue that the reality of this realm in turn presupposes a divine mind, the knowledgeable reader will recognize in this a version of what I have called the Augustinian proof of God’s existence (and which I have also expounded and defended in Five Proofs). 

3. Conscience: The third consideration raised by Lacordaire has to do with the idea that our consciences take justice to be an objective feature of reality, and that we cannot ultimately make sense of this unless we recognize a divine lawgiver.  In other words, he is giving a version of the moral argument for God’s existence.

That is not an argument that I have myself defended or said much about.  That is not because I think it is wrong.  To be sure, and as I have often said, I think that at least the fundamental principles of natural law and their rationally binding force can be known just by studying human nature, albeit human nature as interpreted through an Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics.  You can do a great deal of ethics without having to bring theology into it, just as you can do chemistry and physiology without having to bring theology into it.  However, I would not deny that a complete system of natural law requires appeal to natural theology, for reasons I discuss in the last section of chapter 5 of my book Aquinas.  And those reasons do indeed provide the basis for a version of the moral argument for God’s existence.

The reason I have nevertheless not talked much about that sort of argument myself is this.  In order to spell out such an argument, you need to defend the reality of teleology as an intrinsic feature of the natural order, since that is absolutely crucial to making sense of natural law.  And in order to make sense of the notion of conformity to the divine will as the ultimate standard of the goodness of a human will, you need to spell out the sense in which the divine intellect is ultimately what orders things to their ends.  But by the time you’ve done all that, you’ve more or less spelled out the key ingredients of Aquinas’s Fifth Way of arguing for God’s existence – his version of a teleological argument.

Hence it has long seemed to me that the moral argument, rightly developed, is essentially a riff on or a corollary of the Fifth Way.  And in that case, one might as well just defend the Fifth Way itself (which I have done in several places, most thoroughly in my article “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’s Fifth Way,” reprinted in my anthology Neo-Scholastic Essays).

I don’t mean to imply that the moral argument has no value.  On the contrary, there are no doubt contexts in which moral considerations are the appropriate ones to begin with in arguing for God’s existence.  But it seems to me that those would be contexts in which one’s audience is already prepared to acknowledge the objective reality of natural teleology and of moral goodness.  That was, needless to say, likelier in Lacordaire’s time than in ours, so that the moral argument seems to me less effective in current cultural circumstances, and in any event a less fundamental argument than the others I’ve mentioned. 

The astute reader may have noticed that Lacordaire’s first three approaches to establishing God’s existence roughly correspond to three of what Scholastic philosophers call the transcendentals – namely being, truth, and goodness.  In Scholastic thought, these are convertible, the same thing looked at from different points of view.  Hence, just as God is being itself, he is also truth itself and goodness itself.  And thus, just as we can arrive at knowledge of God through the first transcendental (by arguing from what merely participates in being to that which just is being itself, as in the different versions of the cosmological argument I referred to above), and through the second transcendental (by way of the Augustinian proof), so too, it stands to reason, should we be able to arrive at it through the third (e.g. by way of a moral argument). 

But that requires our having a sufficiently firm grasp of goodness as an objective feature of reality.  And though it deludes itself that it is especially morally enlightened, our age is in fact so extremely morally depraved and blind to natural goodness that the latter is no longer a very effective avenue by which to draw the mind upward to God.  (To revise Chrissie Hynde’s revision of Oscar Wilde, we are all of us in the gutter… and some of us seem quite happy to stay there.)

4. Society: Similarly more difficult to deploy today than in Lacordaire’s time is his fourth and final avenue of arriving at knowledge of God.  Lacordaire points out that skepticism about God’s existence and about the objectivity of truth and of justice have, historically, largely been confined to a small minority of society – namely the powerful and educated elite, who out of pride delude themselves into thinking that they have no need of such ideas, and are able to develop clever sophistries to rationalize their rejection of them.  The vast majority of society do not have the luxury of such delusions, and thus have been far less likely to fall into them.  The pain of ordinary life that has been the lot of most people historically has been such that they have had no desire to try to talk themselves out of what we are by nature inclined to believe – that there is a divine cause of the world, that truth is absolute rather than relative, and that there is an objective moral order to which we are answerable.

But even if this is so, how, it might be asked, could it give us rational grounds for believing in these things?  Doesn’t it amount to a fallacious appeal to majority?  No, it does not.  What Lacordaire sketches out here seems to me best read as a version of what is sometimes called an “argument from desire” for God’s existence.  Such an argument first tries to establish that the inclination to believe in and desire God is built into our very nature.  The appeal to what most people have thought historically functions as evidence for this thesis.  The argument then appeals to the Aristotelian thesis that a natural inclination cannot be in vain – that is to say, that we cannot be directed by nature toward some end unless it is possible to achieve it.  The argument then concludes that given our natural desire for God together with this Aristotelian thesis, we can conclude that God really does exist.

Needless to say, such an argument would need a lot of spelling out in order to make it remotely plausible to most modern audiences.  Now, as I have said elsewhere, I think arguments of that sort can indeed be spelled out in a way that shows them to be plausible.  The trouble is that doing so requires so much in the way of defending various background metaphysical assumptions that by the time you are done with that, you will already have effectively laid the foundations for establishing God’s existence by some other and more direct argument (such as the arguments I defend in Five Proofs).  And in that case, the argument from desire will be otiose.  In short, Lacordaire’s fourth line of argument, like his third, is not wrong, but rather simply less effective as a way of drawing most contemporary readers’ minds up to God. 

But it isn’t just that intellectual error has made it harder for modern people to understand, much less see the force of, such arguments.  It is that the material prosperity that was once confined to a relatively small elite is now enjoyed by a vastly larger portion of society, which has the wherewithal to maintain itself in lifelong comfort, to distract itself with endless amusements, and thereby to deceive itself into thinking it has no need of God.  Christ famously said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, and the reason has to do with the latter’s prideful sense of self-sufficiency, and the deadly vice of acedia that material prosperity tends to foster.  Hence the majority which, in Lacordaire’s day and in previous eras, hadn’t the luxury to entertain the sophistries he decries, is a much smaller majority today – and, in the contemporary West, perhaps not a majority at all.

249 comments:

  1. If you thought Pachamama was bad before, well hold on to your crucifix...

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  2. You know, the connection between classical theism and pantheism is pretty interesting, i never thought about that. On top of what you noticed, Ed, i think that we can add that on a intelectual arena where classical theism is common, essencialist metaphysics will probably be widely believed, so most would find the atheistic belief in a non-inteligent cosmos pretty dumb.

    Meanwhile, a place where neo-theism* is common will likely have mechaniscism as the standard metaphysics, so the pantheist/panentheist idea of a Logos in nature will just look like a sexy analogy or something.


    *theistic personalism leads to the misunderstandings you complained and monopolytheism, while funny and clever, probably offends, so lets go with neo-theism

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    1. and monopolytheism, while funny and clever, probably offends,

      I agree the term is funny, but its cleverness is most likely exhausted just in that humor. It is also likely to widely misunderstood, one two different directions: (1) as any one of the many early Christian heresies about God and the Son and the Spirit (e.g. before the word "trinity" was settled upon); and (2) as a snide and disparaging comment on the trinitarian concept itself. Certainly some of our more boorish commenters here have claimed that the idea of the trinity is nothing less than the oxymoronic claim that God is one and God is three, and hand-waving to pretend that it is not an oxymoron.

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    2. Exact, it is too likely to cause problems to be used outside of a joke.

      Not to mention "neo-theism" lets pretty clear that this view is historically a new thing that the cool kids of old would find bizarre, so it is important that the term get used a lot.

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    3. Also, trying to expand my original post a bit, do you guys think that it would be possible to believe at the same time in classical theism and the more modern metaphysics(nominalism, mechanicism, you know) or believe at the the same time in neo-theism and the more classical metaphysics(essencialism and all that)?

      I remember trying to follow the discussion between William Lane Craig and classical theists like Ed and wondering if Dr. Craig metaphysics prevented him from seeing why classical theism is believed, i also remember Dr. Feser saying that one can't arrive at God unless act and potency is used. Maybe your metaphysics will decide your view of God? Seeing the arguments for classical theism and the responses of neo-theist i wonder if that is the case.

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    4. Hi Talmid,

      I guess a large factor contributing to Craig’s rejection of Classical Theism is his view of the Bible and his interpretation of biblical text (a bit like open theists’ rejection of Classical Theism and Craig’s version of theism, and their embrace of Open Theism).

      I strongly suspect we can still have metaphysical demonstration for Classical Theism’s God even without using act and potency. For example, we can go the route of using “conditional existence” and “unconditional existence”, either via an a-posteriori basis by analyzing what any ordinary object’s conditional existence entails, or via an a-priori basis by demonstrating that the very mere possibility of an “unconditionally existing being” entails the actual existence of it. And then by further analysis we can discover that there can in principle be only one such being, The Unconditioned, and that it has attributes such as Simplicity, Aseity, Immutability, Omnipotence etc. From there we conclude that “this every classical theist understand to be GOD”.

      :)

      Cheers!

      johannes y k hui




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    5. I agree that Dr. Craig readings of Scripture do play a part on his rejection of classical theism, but his metaphysics also seems to do their part. Take a look on this question where Dr. Craig discuss Divine Simplicity:https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/proof-of-divine-simplicity/

      He would probably deny the real distinction that St. Thomas defends, for instance, so it seems that Craig metaphysics do block classical theism for him.

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    6. I agree that Craig's metaphysical commitments are a wedge dividing him from classical theism. But I never got the sense that the ORDER of his thinking was first to land on those metaphysical commitments, and THEN to arrive at his neo-theist version of God. I always had the sense that it was the other way around: he first adhered to neo (I would suggest, anthropomorphic) theistic ideas, and later realized (to a degree) what sort of metaphysical requirements this would entail, and accepted them. I don't think he conceived those metaphysical commitments and argued to them independently (or successfully, for that matter.)

      (Mind you, I have not read deeply and broadly of his stuff, because every time I have dabbled in his work I came away thinking that his was an excellent second-rate mind, who never actually got attuned into the truly foundational issues that first-rate mind pick out and address. I don't have a first-rate mind either, but I can recognize one when I see it, (like Augustine and Aquinas, especially when the Church helps by telling me so), and Craig just wasn't up to the level to dispute with Aquinas on the metaphysics. Obviously, that's just my opinion.)

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    7. But would you say that one can be, for instance, a classical theist with Craig metaphysics or a neo-theist with Aquinas metaphysics? I have the impression that the theist metaphysics will play a large part on one view of God and vice versa. Take a look at Dr. Craig answer to a classical theist argument in the link i posted, he will never agree with our arguments to, say, divine simplicity, with that type of metaphysics.

      About Dr. Craig mind, while i think that he is very, very smart, i agree that he does not seems that good at getting at the fundamentals. His discussion with classical theists seems to show to me that he just can't "get" the medievals paradigm, except if he took some time to study it more. But his target seems to be the atheists, so i doubt that it will happen.

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  3. Could one argue for God's existence on the basis of the possibility of existential causation? Here's a potential argument:

    1) If nothing contingent existed, it would at least be possible for something contingent to be CAUSED to exist, even if existence could also become actual without cause or explanation

    2) Causation is specifically inherently rooted in a deeper actuality, since act grounds potency

    3) So there is an actuality of some sort that grounds the causative possibility of the sheer existence of things.

    Of course, that actuality exists necessarily.

    This is somewhat similar to the weak-PSR that starts out with the possibility that contingent existence has an explanation, but doesn't try to make a modal shift whereby a possible necessary being becomes necessarily existing through conversion of possibility and necessity in their modal operators.

    Also, this argument doesn't seem to require the thesis that something is possible if it can also be caused, which is what Alex Pruss defends; namely that modal possibility is grounded in being causable in some way. In fact, you could admit brute facts and that things can exist with no cause here - so long as it's also possible for the existence of things to be caused as well, the argument goes through.

    What do you think?

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    1. JoeD

      If there is nothing to cause a contingent being, then that contingent being cannot be caused.
      Once you admit brute facts, a necessary being is impossible.

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    2. I tend to agree with Walter, to this extent: for any metaphysical reality in which a brute fact exists, in such realm it is probably also inconsistent to have a necessary being. But at the same time, I think that there are no brute facts, and there cannot be brute facts, and that the incompatibility between brute facts and a necessary being lands ultimately in favor of the latter.

      However, I also suspect that a lock-solid PROOF that a brute fact and a necessary being are metaphysically incompatible would only be manifest by also establishing just such intermediate steps as would also stand as the intermediate steps by which we prove (starting from the real things we actually know), that there must be a necessary being. That is, only someone already pretty close to accepting that there is a God is likely to be ready to grant as established that a brute fact and a necessary being are metaphysically incompatible.

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    3. Tony

      To be clear, I do not claim that brute facts are possible.

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    4. @Tony, I don't see the inconsistency though. It's not as if brute facts compromise other necessary things like necessary truths, for example.

      You could maybe argue that if a necessary being existed then he could cease keeping the world in being for no reason, or that his omnipotent power would fail no reason - by itself these possibilities are interesting.

      But one could also say that the necessary being and general power over existence is segregated in such a way that since a necessary being is omnipotent, it makes any brute influences impossible for the NB.

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    5. JoeD

      I'm guessing your argument is basically a very modest cosmological argument, like Joshua Rasmussen's and Christopher Weaver's argument from "it is possible for there to be an explanation to a totality-event of contingent things".


      I guess with 1 you are introducing a modest PSR-like principle; with 2 you are introducing a modal theory such as Pruss's, only more limited to the case of things-being-caused.

      You should also leave it open for the conclusion to simply follow through S5. If someone rejects S5 they might accept the Pruss-like modality, but if they reject that, others may accept S5 (actually, the vast majority of philosophers accept S5 and it is quite uncontroversial that possibly necessary entails necessary, therefore actual).

      Walter,

      Your point is completely wrong. Brute facts being possible do not entail that contingent things in the actual world have no ultimate explanation (that is, the possibility of brute facts does not entail that brute facts are real in our world). Our world can still have a cause in a necessary being while brute facts are still a possibility.

      Also, given the very modest principle "it is possible for a collection of contingent things to have a cause", said possibility would be necessarily possible, so even if brute facts are possible the possibility of the limited principle would entail a necessary being.

      "Contingent things could possibly fail to have explanations" (brute facts are possible) does not entail "contingent things cannot have explanations".

      A necessary being is compatible with brute facts and I don't know a single philosopher who disagrees. Your comment is wrong on multiple levels.

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    6. And this is just on the topic of cosmological arguments. A necessary concrete being could still exist without its having to be the cause of contingent things.

      Metaphysical possibility of brute facts does not entail metaphysical possibility of necessary beings not existing. No one defends that. It's illogical, it just doesn't follow, unless you have some actual deductive argument for that.

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    7. @Anonymous or Unknown, Thanks for the S5 suggestion!

      I take it from this that the argument is most likely sound and so follows through. In that case, it would seem most of the objections to it would be directed to premise 1 to dispute that existence can even be caused. Premise 2 seems, at least to me, to be similar to the principle that act grounds potency - and specifically for causation, since a cause is actual with respect to its effect.

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    8. @JoeD

      I don't know if it works as a separate argument from Rasmussen's or Pruss's. To clarify: First, I think your argument needs a principle like Rasmussen and Weaver's - that is, that it is possible for a totality-event of contingent things to be caused. Just stating "it's possible for something contingent to be caused" wouldn't work in your argument, because you could get this instead: Contingent Thing 1 pops into existence uncaused, as a brute fact, and then causes another contingent thing.

      You need a causable event or thing that can only be caused by a non-contingent thing. That would be a "totality-event" of contingent things, such as a beginning of existence of all contingent things in a possible world, or the existence of all contingent things in a world, or the event of there existing (or coming to be) exactly one contingent thing in a possible world, and so on. So the first premise in your argument needs to be like Rasmussen and Weaver's.

      The second premise is more interesting; I suppose one could try to weaken Pruss's modal theory and limit it to existence or coming-to-be. But wouldn't people who accept that already have grounds to accept the broader modal theory? You're trying to argue that "this specific X is possible = this specific X is causable" but what would make X relevantly different from other possible events that could be grounded as such? In other words, I'm having a hard time differentiating between what you're saying and what Pruss's modal theory encompasses. What is it that would make your P2 relevantly more modest than Pruss's causal theory of modality?

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    9. Well I did state in the first premise that IF
      nothing contingent existed then it would at least be possible for something contingent to be caused to exist. So that would be somewhat similar to a totality-event condition.

      As for the second premise, it isn't specifically meant to be a weakened version of Pruss' modal theory, just the idea that causation by its nature requires a higher actuality that can cause what is causable or ground the causable. Generally speaking, if something can be caused, then that means that there is something that could cause it, or at least there could be.

      One doesn't need to ground all possibility in causation for this, such that for X to be possible means it can also be caused. For example, this argument is indifferent to brute facts, which presumably means that a possibility can obtain for no reason as long as it's possible, meaning it's not possible because it can be caused (though there is also the debate of whether or not brute possibilities are properly distinguished from causable possibilities - or if one and the same possibility is both a brute possibility and a causable one; so on Pruss' view maybe one could admit brute possibilities and say they are still primarily modally grounded in also being causable, which likely implies that one and the same possibility is both the subject of bruteness and causability).

      As I see it, the argument could easily be compatible with different views of how modality is generally grounded, as by itself it stays silent on that.



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    10. "Well I did state in the first premise that IF
      nothing contingent existed then it would at least be possible for something contingent to be caused to exist. So that would be somewhat similar to a totality-event condition."

      But how could that possibility be satisfied? It seems it could be satisfied by a contingent thing 1 popping into being uncaused and causing a contingent thing 2. There was nothing, and it was possible for something to be caused, and that's what happened. It was possible for a contingent thing to pop into being uncaused and cause something else. That satisfies the possibility condition but doesn't get you to a necessary being. This is why you need something like a totality-event.

      With premise 2, if your point is just that the possibility of something being CAUSED depends on something being able to cause, then that's trivial. Yes, the possibility of causation must be grounded in a cause. If you can't have a cause, you can't have causation, and vice-versa. Of course the possibility of X being caused requires the possibility of a cause of X.

      But if 2 is to make any work in getting us to a necessary being (moving from possibility to necessity), it'd have to be something more akin to a modal theory. You'd have to argue that "this X being possible means this X being actually causable", by actually causable I mean "there is something in the real world with the causal power to produce X". This would be something like Pruss's modal theory.

      If it doesn't require the actual existence of a Cause as a Ground for the possibility of a possible Effect, then I don't know how you can derive actual existence from P2 apart from an appeal to S5 (in which case P2 does no work at all and you should just make a modal cosmological argument instead). Because if it doesn't require the actual existence of a Cause as a Ground for the *possibility* of X, then X could be possible in the absence of an existing potential cause, and X could come into being simultaneously with its cause (like in the example I gave against premise 1), in which case the cause of X would be contingent.

      To move from possibility to necessity, you either need something like S5, or a modal theory which grounds possibilities in actualities (like Pruss's Aristotelian modality).

      All in all, I'd say we should just stick with modal cosmological arguments (like Rasmussen's) or Augustinian-like arguments from powers (the possibility of contingent things existing is grounded in an existing potential cause).

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    11. 1) Well in that case a contingent being would actually exist, which contradicts the supposition that nothing contingent exists. The causability is still there precisely in the absence of any and all contingent things.

      2) I don't see though why it would require a modal theory applying to possibility universally. For example, saying that it is possible for something to be caused is different from saying that to be possible JUST IS to be causable. The former doesn't seem to require the latter.

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    12. 1) no it doesn't, unless you are already framing your idea in terms of a totality-event. The thing is, "there is nothing at all. But even then, a contingent thing could be caused" > a contingent thing 1 could come into being uncaused and simultaneously cause another contingent thing. This would satisfy the possibility that a contingent thing is causable even if there were nothing at all. Unless you are thinking of it in such a way that the possibility cannot be satisfied simultaneously with the emergence of another contingent thing - then it would be a scenario in which a totality of contingent things begins to exist, pretty much. Then your premise would be just like Rasmussen's modest principle.

      2) So, think of it like this. Assume we accept Rasmussen's principle, which is what your P1 should be, I think. But then assume that S5 isn't true, so possibly necessary doesn't entail necessarily true. We still need to get from the possibility of a Necessary Cause to the actual existence of a Necessary Cause - without assuming S5.

      If P2 doesn't attempt to *ground* the possibility of something being caused in the *actual* existence of a potential cause, then we cannot bridge the gap from possibility to existence.

      Because if you're just stating (trivially) that X being possibly caused entails the possibility of a cause of X, that still doesn't tell us whether the potential cause of X exists or not. You don't insist on the actual existence of a "grounding" for possibility here, in concrete truthmakers, you're just stating a bare and trivial possibility and its entailment relations (if X is possibly caused, that would entail it's possible something could cause X). This doesn't bridge the gap from possibile to actual.

      If, however, you insist on a Ground for possibility, for an actual, existing Truthmaker for the possibility of something being caused, then you can bridge the gap as follows: "X being causable" entails the actual existence of something in the world which can cause X. If "X being causable" is always possible in our world, then there is an actual cause in our world which grounds this possibility by being able to cause X.

      The thing is, it seems to me that if one accepts this kind of grounding relation for the possibility of "X being causable", then one is already likely to accept Pruss's modal theory, so that there isn't much to be gained from the modesty here. If someone doesn't accept such modal theories, it is likely that one thinks the possibility of X being causable would just be like a Platonic proposition (or someone who adopts David Lewis's extreme modal realism).

      In which case, even if if the Platonic proposition's becoming true (that is, X being concretely caused) would involve the existence of a cause for X, this cause wouldn't have to exist in our world. X could just come to exist in another world. Because if one rejects S5 (and we're assuming that we're rejecting S5) then why should one believe that what is possible is necessarily possible?

      So I think it's better to just roll with S5 and a modal cosmological argument (and skip the whole grounding issue), or to just defend a grounding theory in which the possibility of X being caused must already be grounded in the actual existence of something in our world which can cause X. (But then someone who accepts that would probably already accept something like Pruss's view of modality; and those who reject Pruss's view wouldn't accept your P2 since they'd be more inclined to think of possibility in terms of Platonism or Extreme Modal Realism).

      (By the way I'm not even sure if we could have the argument work without S5 anyway. You'd have to argue for X being possibly causable *in our world*, since you couldn't just assume that whatever is possible is possible in every possible world, that seems to me attached to S5. In any case, denial of S5 is quite stupid, I think, and rare).

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    13. 1) Yeah, I think that's what premise 1 was supposed to get that, so this would be similar or identical to Rasmussen's principle. As an aside, another avenue to approach this with would be to argue that contingent things can't cause the very existence of things ex nihilo, but that would be beside the main point.

      2) Yeah, I think the intuition behind P2 is that causability presupposes something actual that can cause things - which is what the whole "rooted in a prior actuality" part of P2 is about. For example, if we accept P1 and then say that there actually isn't anything that could cause something to exist, just a possibility of it, then that would seem to contradict P1 - it would amount to saying nothing can actually cause this.

      Usually when we deny that a concrete cause for something exists, we take this to mean that a specific thing can't be caused.

      However, I don't think this necessarily requires Pruss' modal theory to work - that theory is specifically about grounding general possibility as a whole in terms of causability. But it seems to me that all one needs is to say that causability as such needs an actual grounding - one could ground possibility in general differently, but causability specifically requires an actual ground.

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    14. How do you think a Platonist would react to the idea of causability needing a real ground? This is the issue, in my opinion. If someone rejects Pruss's view, (Aristotelianism in general), it is unlikely that they'll think "X being causable" requires a real grounding in the concrete world. A Platonist would think possibilities simply refer to self-standing abstracta. The possibility of something being caused would, for them, be something like a proposition in a platonic heaven that refers to both the form of the thing and the form of the potential cause.

      For David Lewis or an Extreme Modal Realist, the possibility of something being caused would be that thing being caused in some other actual world which is spatio-temporally removed from us.

      These views strike me as bizarre, but then again, I'm more of an Aristotelian anyway.

      So the thing is, if someone doesn't accept Pruss's modality, or an Aristotelian view of modality in general, they are unlikely to be swayed by the idea that causability requires a grounding in an actual thing that can cause stuff (however plausible and even obvious this idea strikes me). So we might as well just argue in favor of a realist, Aristotelian modality and then argue that possibilia need to be grounded in at least one necessary being.

      Another point which I only briefly alluded to in my last post was that I don't think your argument wouldn't work without S5 in any case. Because things already exist in our world; there isn't nothingness in our world. "But there could've been nothing, no contingent things, so some necessary thing would have to exist in that case to ground the possibility of contingent things coming to be", sure, but if we reject S5 and there wasn't "nothingness" in our world, that possibile scenario in question would only refer to another possible world distinct and removed from our actual world, and if we reject S5 why should we think possibility applies to all possible worlds? According to S5, whatever is possible is necessarily possible. But if we're rejecting S5, we won't accept that. So you'd actually have to argue that in our world it was possible for there to have been nothingness (I guess you'd have to argue, then, that the past is finite, or that all things in our world really could be destroyed, all of them). It gets complicated. Might as well just adopt S5 and skip all that; it's possible for there to be a cause to a totality or totality-event of contingent things; said cause would be a necessary being; therefore it is possible there is a necessary being; therefore a necessary being exists.

      Rejecting S5 is stupid, anyway.

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    15. @Unknown

      "Augustinian-like arguments from powers (the possibility of contingent things existing is grounded in an existing potential cause)."

      Did St. Augustine make that kinda of argument? I did not want to interrupt the exchange, but that got me curious.

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    16. A Anonymous of 1:19pm:
      Walter,

      Your point is completely wrong. Brute facts being possible do not entail that contingent things in the actual world have no ultimate explanation (that is, the possibility of brute facts does not entail that brute facts are real in our world). Our world can still have a cause in a necessary being while brute facts are still a possibility.


      Anonymous, I think that at least ONE level of difficulty is found not so much by directing attention to the possibility of there being a cause (and its effect), as to the epistemological problem. This problem comes about as a result of 2 corrolories that (I think) come along with a brute fact-type universe: (1) once it is admitted that there can be brute facts in the universe, there is no principle that can limit their number or percentage to some portion of the facts. We can have no a-priori basis for thinking that there are several, or many, or MOST facts having causes rather than no causes. (2) It would be epistemologically difficult (or even impossible) to distinguish between a case of A causing B (when A is of the sort that A could cause B), or B coming about as a brute fact in the near presence of A. It may be that if there are brute facts like B, it would be impossible even in theory to establish with certainty that A was the cause of B rather than B having no cause, as a brute fact.

      And in a universe where reasoning from (apparent) effect to cause is thus nullified (or at least rendered far more difficult and perilous), I for one must doubt just how much of a metaphysics we can even arrive at. My worry would be that most of our approaches (both the ones we are familiar with from A-T, such as act and potency; or the ones we are familiar with from natural scientists) would be awash in quicksand. At best, we cannot merely assume that we could successfully arrive at the kind of metaphysics JoeD is relying on. Heck, would we be rightly confident of the principle of non-contradiction? Or the other rules of logic?

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    17. Tony,

      Sure, brute facts could bring problems to epistemology, and how we can tell whether something is a brute fact or not. But how on earth does that make any actual difference with respect to the metaphysical issue of whether there is a necessary being or not? It doesn't. I'm discussing whether an NB is metaphysically incompatible with brute facts, and the answer is that it isn't incompatible. And as a matter of fact, many arguments for the existence of an NB (including cosmological arguments, in modal versions) would still work under the assumption that brute facts are possible.

      Walter is wrong, and so are you if you agree with him. Regardless of how difficult it would be for us to identify what would be caused and what wouldn't in a brute fact universe, and what "percentage" of things are explained in a given universe, this doesn't change the fact that, metaphysically, if brute facts are *possible*, things can still have causes. And even if brute facts are possible, a necessary being can still exist. And in fact, if brute facts are possible, an argument from possible causes of contingent entities to a Necessary Cause can still work.

      A Necessary Being is a being that exists in every possible world, or, a being that must exist and cannot fail to exist (thomists would take such a being to be pure existence, pure acatuality; neoplatonists would take such a being to be absolutely simple; etc). This doesn't change if there is some contingent thing in the world that has no cause. Nothing changes if 99% of contingent things in a universe have no cause, either. In fact, nothing changes if 100% of contingent things in a universe has no cause: if a necessary being exists, its existence isn't dependent on its causing any contingent things.

      Walter seems to be presupposing that the definition of a Necessary Being includes the idea that it is the cause of all contingent things in any possible world in which it exists, but this is bizarre and is not part of the definition of a Necessary Being. A Necessary Being is simply a self-sufficient, purely actual (at least wrt its existence) concrete being (that is, it has some causal power). Of course, theists typically attribute other divine properties to the NB, but these are also compatible with brute facts. Literally the only issue is that most religious theists would probably be uncomfortable with the idea of there being any objects which happen to not be caused by God/the NB, but still, the basic notion of an NB (even the basic theistic notion) is metaphysically compatible with the possibility of brute facts.

      It would be up to Walter to demonstrate the metaphysical incompatibility between a Necessary Being and any brute facts. Again, I have never even seen *any* philosopher defend such an idea, because it's just clearly false. If a necessary being exists, this fact wouldn't change if (per impossibile) it were to turn out that a bowling ball or some particles could come into being with no explanation.

      And as I pointed out, modal cosmological arguments would still work - if it's possible for a totality of contingent things to have an explanation (even if it doesn't *have* to have one, brute facts being possible), then it would be possible for there to be a necessary being that explains said totality.

      Heck, the possibility of brute facts doesn't even metaphysically imply that there are any brute facts in our world; it could be that all contingent things in our world are caused by a necessary being even if they could have come into being uncaused. One could even make a standard, non-modal cosmological argument with a *defeasible* principle of sufficient reason, something in abductive or inductive form...

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    18. Really, I shouldn't have to say that the possibility of a contingent thing existing without a cause is NOT the same as the idea that contingent things *cannot* have causes, either. It doesn't affect tons of versions of the cosmological argument. Just because contingent things or events don't have to have explanations doesn't mean that they *cannot* have explanations or that every contingent thing or event is impossible to cause. Such an idea is bizarre and far less modest than the notion of brute facts itself.


      And all of this is just with respect to the cosmological argument. There are many arguments for a Necessary Being that do not even make use of any kind of PSR or weak-PSR, such as arguments for a Necessary Being as the ground of abstracta (possibilities, mathematical truths and objects, forms, propositions, etc.) such as the Augustinian argument, and Ontological Arguments.

      And even if we had no argument for a Necessary Being, that wouldn't show that a Necessary Being doesn't exist. The idea that "if brute facts are possible, a necessary being cannot exist" is just false on multiple levels.

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    19. Metaphysical possibility of brute facts does not entail metaphysical possibility of necessary beings not existing. No one defends that. It's illogical, it just doesn't follow, unless you have some actual deductive argument for that.

      Unknown, I think the problem is more visible going the other way: it is the very nature of reality that requires (a) that there be a necessary being and (b) that all other facts derive their factness from necessary being. A supposed "metaphysical possibility of brute facts" is not merely counterfactual in the sense that "they don't HAPPEN to exist in this universe", it is counterfactual in the sense that reality itself cannot tolerate brute facts, there is no possible version of a universe that admits of brute facts. So we must more properly argue from the "metaphysical impossibility" of brute facts, not from some imagined but (ultimately) oxymoronic "metaphysical possibility of brute facts."

      This is, I think exactly the import of philosopher Ed Feser:

      Note that on the classical theist view of ultimate explanation, there are no inexplicable “brute facts.” Things that require causes require them because they have potentials that need to be actualized and parts that need to be combined. To say of a thing that it has parts and yet lacks any cause which accounts for their combination, or has potentiality yet lacks any cause which actualized that potentiality, would be to make of it a “brute fact.” (of which, he just said, there are none.)
      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-is-there-anything-at-all-its-simple.html#more

      And That principle can be formulated in different ways, but the most fundamental formulation states that no potency can actualize itself, but must be actualized by something already actual.
      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/12/nagel-and-his-critics-part-vi.html#more

      As an aside, I think that a brute fact X that, as a fact, COULD have been the result of cause N, (but is not, in this instance, actually the result of any cause), is the only sort of brute fact that qualifies. If a fact is of such a nature that it COULD NOT EVEN IN THEORY be caused by any cause, it would be, arguably, a necessary being instead. But if an X is true as a brute fact while it COULD have been caused by N, this would directly contradict Feser's point about things that MIGHT be caused NEEDING causes - having parts and needing a cause of combination, or having potential and needing to be actualized. A thing that neither has parts nor has potential...is not contingent.)

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    20. @Unknown,

      1) I agree that a Platonist for example could also deny that causable possibilities have an actual ground, and are just free-floating possibilities. But I don't think that this makes the P2 useless, since it seems to be just a more modest and restricted version of the causal grounding of all possibility to just causal possibility in particular - it's NOT the same thing as Pruss's universal view where all possibilities are such because they are causable; rather, specifically causability requires an actual ground. One could actually say in this case that possibilities in general are grounded differently or not strictly causally, but causability specifically implies an actual ground.

      Just because someone who rejects general grounding of possibility in a cause could also reject it for causability specifically doesn't mean everyone will do so - some might instead accept that the specific case of causability is unique and does have an actual ground, whilst leaving the general grounding of possibility alone; or that it's more acceptable because it doesn't make an exclusive claim about all possibility in general.

      In that case, this might look something like saying that the Platonic proposition of possible causation also necessarily entails the proposition that an actual ground exists - maybe on the basis of the intuition that if no brute facts are involved, and nothing actual exists in any way but only the possibility of caused existence and a cause, then the causal possibility doesn't even make sense anymore since there is nothing that could cause it. It's like having a glass of water in a room and nothing in the room that could physically drop the glass on the floor - if we exclude things outside the room, this would amount to saying the glass can't actually be dropped down.


      2) Yeah, I agree S5 strenghtens the argument, and in fact it was also likely one of the intuitions behind it - P1 was inspired by Rasmussen's principle that it is possible for things to have an explanation, for example. As you mentioned before, we could also make two different arguments for this - one with S5 as P2, and another with a more limited modal principle about causability being grounded in an actual source.

      As for arguing for possible nothingness in the absnece of S5, I think a promising way to do this would be to point out that things are contingent in such a way that they could stop existing at any moment, which would mean nothingness is a real possibility at the present even in our world.

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    21. Can someone please show why, if a brute fact is possible, a possible world containing only brute facts would be impôssible.
      Where is the contradiction once you allow for brute facts?

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    22. Walter,

      "Can someone please show why, if a brute fact is possible, a possible world containing only brute facts would be impôssible."

      This has nothing to do with anything. The possibility of brute facts does not entail that there can be a possible world in which nothing but brute facts exist. That should be obvious.
      The possibility of brute facts only entails that brute facts exist in at least one possible world - that is, there is at least one possible world in which a contingent thing exists without any explanation whatsoever. This says NOTHING about the possibility of a Necessary Being. And it does not entail that there must be a possible world in which nothing but brute contingent things exist.

      And if there *is* a necessary being, then it is impossible for there to be a possible world containing only brute contingent things.

      The mere possibility of brute facts says nothing about the metaphysical possibility of necessary beings, however.

      Again, you're just wrong. On multiple levels.

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    23. Tony,

      That doesn't affect what I said. Brute facts lead to problems in epistemology, yes. That doesn't change the fact that if they're possible, that does not entail that a Necessary Being is impossible. And again, even if brute facts are possible, they might not even be real in our world.

      For the record, I think brute facts are impossible and ridiculous. I agree that acceptance of the possibility of brute facts would lead to all sorts of problems in science, ordinary reasoning, and so on. I also think the PSR is self-evident. But none of this changes the fact that IF brute facts were possible, that still doesn't entail that a Necessary Being is impossible, or that there is a world with nothing but brute contingent things. It doesn't even block many versions of cosmological arguments - if it's still *possible* for there to be an explanation to a totality of contingent things in any world, that entails there would be a Necessary Being, for instance.

      I don't know how much more clear I can be. Brute facts are not metaphysically incompatible with the existence of a Necessary Being. You might think that "that all other facts derive their factness from necessary being", and I'm inclined to accept that as well, but this is not part of the definition of a necessary being, and if brute facts were (per absurdum) possible, this would not entail that there is no necessary being; that there can be no explanation to a totality of contingent things; that there is a world with nothing but brute contingent things in it; or anything of the sort. It would just entail that contingent things could exist without a cause, i.e. that there is at least one possible world in which a contingent thing exists without a cause. That does not entail the impossibility of a Necessary Being.

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    24. @Unknown,

      Also, what other objections are there to modal arguments like that? Aside from denying S5 or actual grounding for causable possibilities, that is? I'd imagine it's trying to cast doubt on P1 and saying that contingent existence isn't causable - which might depend on the intuition that the sheer existence of things can't be caused since it's a fundamental and basic thing where causality just can't apply to it. Or that it's not immediatly obvious that existence is causable because of this, and because it would require transcendent causality that's beyond all other types of causation.

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    25. @JoeD

      Almost no one rejects S5. By far, S5 is the least controversial part in any modal cosmological argument.

      Some people will still reject very modest causal principles. I think that's a dead end, but some atheists still try to hold their ground against very modest principles.

      I think the best bet for an atheist would be to accept there is a Necessary Being, but try to reject Stage 2. It seems this is what is happening in philosophy now; more and more atheists are starting to accept there's a Necessary Being, but they reject that it's God. In particular, they'll try to resist the idea that it's a personal being. That's the best option for the atheist, I think.

      It's just too hard to consistently avoid the existence of a necessary concrete being. For instance, check out Rasmussen's survey at www.necessarybeing.com to see how hard it is to avoid an NB.

      @Talmid

      Augustine's argument was based on eternal truths, forms and the like. But an argument from "powers" is similar to that. Basically, it would be about grounding abstracta in concreta. Possibilities are abstract objects; a theory of alethic modality which grounds possibilities in existing causal powers grounds abstracta in concreta.

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    26. I see. I love the argument from eternal truths, actually. I seems that read your post wrong, i was thinking it was another argument.

      About negating stage two, Graham Oppy does that, no? If Dr. Feser ever finish the debate trilogy with him this has to be the theme.

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    27. Unknown

      "The possibility of brute facts does not entail that there can be a possible world in which nothing but brute facts exist."

      So, again, where is the contradiction in a world with only brute facts?
      If you can't point to a contradiction, then we have a world w that is not contradictory and that is, by definition, a possible world.

      "And if there *is* a necessary being, then it is impossible for there to be a possible world containing only brute contingent things."

      This is question-begging.

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    28. Walter,

      The point is that the possibility of brute facts does not, by itself, entail the possibility of a world in which no necessary being exists and only brute contingent things exist. Unless you're logically illiterate.

      The possibility of brute facts only entails that there's at least one possible world in which a brute fact is real.

      "So, again, where is the contradiction in a world with only brute facts?
      If you can't point to a contradiction, then we have a world w that is not contradictory and that is, by definition, a possible world."

      You're the one who's claiming possibility for a world with nothing but brute facts - something which is *not* entailed by the possibility of brute facts -, so where is your argument for the possibility of such a world?
      Logical possibility does not entail broadly logical (or metaphysical) possibility. The fact that you can't see a logical contradiction in a world with only brute facts does not entail that such a world is broadly logically possible.

      By the way, one could do the same thing for the possibility of a Necessary Being, thus leading to a stalemate. But this is beside the point anyway, since mere logical possibility does not entail metaphysical possibility - with metaphysical possibility one would have to consider whether there could be other things in the way of such a world, such as, for instance, a Necessary Being.

      "This is question-begging"

      Yes, and so is your possible world with nothing but brute facts (which, again, is not entailed by the possibility of brute facts). If a Necessary Being is real, or is possible, then there can be no such world where a NB does not exist. You have not demonstrated the metaphysical possibility of such a world. And it does not follow from the possibility of brute facts.

      Again, you're wrong on multiple levels.

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    29. "You're the one who's claiming possibility for a world with nothing but brute facts - something which is *not* entailed by the possibility of brute facts -, so where is your argument for the possibility of such a world?You're the one who's claiming possibility for a world with nothing but brute facts - something which is *not* entailed by the possibility of brute facts -, so where is your argument for the possibility of such a world?"

      My argument is that, since a brute fact is possible, there is no non-question-begging contradiction in a world with only one brute fact (and nothing else).
      And, judging by what you said, you are unable to provide a non-question-begging contradiction either.
      So, I stand by what I wrote.

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  4. “And the fact that most atheists today also conceive of God in theistic personalist rather than classical theist terms is one reason . . . why they tend to think of themselves as atheists rather than as pantheists.”

    And why I think an atheist who is not a Naturalist is a null set.

    “the reason has to do with the latter’s prideful sense of self-sufficiency, and the deadly vice of acedia that material prosperity tends to foster.”

    I don’t disagree but gone are the days of mere mediocrity; now we have a full-fledged war on reality. The rational appeal only works on those who place reason above the worship of self. No doubt this is the reason that sermons today are just platitudes about being nice.

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    1. "And why I think an atheist who is not a Naturalist is a null set."

      I can't answer for it but I feel like this used to not be the case in history (before enlightenment europeans), but I can't think of any examples at the moment. Am I mistaken that atheism and naturalism haven't always been synonyms?

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    2. Does someone like Schopenhauer fits the "non-naturalist atheist" description? Dude was a idealist and did believe in a ultimate reality, but i don't think he counts as a pantheist seeing how pathetic and non-divine the Will is to him.

      Another group that could count would be jainists. These guys believe in a soul, karma, omniscience but they don't seems to have a concept of ultimate reality, so no pantheism here.

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    3. There's J.M.E. McTaggart, author of the famous paper 'The Unreality of Time'. He was an atheist but also an idealist who believed in the immortality of the soul. A pretty good demonstration that the metaphysics plays a big part in the conclusions you come to about the big questions.

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    4. 2 good replies, thanks.

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    5. To me theism vs atheism is decided on whether the ultimate reality is personal or not.

      While naturalism might effectively be the only live alternative to theism for most of us, technically speaking one could still be an atheistic non-naturalist (but I think it doesn't work well - I think it leads to arguments which ultimately entail theism).

      If the ultimate reality - the purely actual mover, say - were impersonal, most atheists would remain atheists. I myself wouldn't care about such a mover. I think it would be *lesser* than me, in fact. A human being would be greater than such a "God", more valuable and more powerful - we can understand things, know, "swallow the universe" with our minds as Pascal might put it, love, and control our own actions with rationality through free will, instead of being mere billiard balls or pawns of destiny.

      An impersonal purely actual being would be quite unimpressive. Like a mineral or a rock, or a star, except without the usual limitations, and being self-sufficient. Ironically, it would be kinda like how Feser describes the theistic personalist God - "like Zeus, except better behaved, without the usual limitations" etc. But even Zeus would be greater than an impersonal, dumb, ignorant, blind purely actual thing, I would say.

      (I'm a classical theist, btw.)

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    6. Agreed. That is a problem that i have with the more pantheistic side: the impersonal ultimate reality is not very ultimate to me.

      A interesting thing is that this kinda draws my lazy side to these views. If i did believe in a impersonal "god", them i would try way less to be virtuous. If there where no personal God, no loving Father that i want to love back and hate to disapoint, them my standards would probably be lower.

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  5. Great arguments. These remind me of the final chapter of Robert Spitzer's brilliant book "New Proofs for the Existence of God", he gives similar transcendental arguments (inspired by Bernard Lonergan) to the effect of God being the end of human desire and present to human consciousness. Since God is pure existence, He is also pure truth; as existence and truth are convertible terms (they both mean "what is"). When pursuing truth or understanding, even when humans has perfect knowledge in one field, they always have an awareness that there is more to be known - that perfect intelligibility has not been achieved. Where does this awareness of "perfect intelligibly" come from? It can't come from anything less than pure truth, since anything less than pure truth/existence will leave questions about itself unanswered - such as the question of its existence. It must come from existence itself, truth itself. The Divine Essence must be present to human consciousness has a backdrop, or horizon. He then goes on to argue very convincingly that the same is true for the human desire for the other transcendentals perfect goodness, perfect beauty, perfect love, ect. It's a very engaging read.

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  6. Quick unrelated question which books are easier to read from Ed Feser. The Last Superstition, Five Proofs, and Aquinas a beginner's guide. Please rank from easiest to hardest.

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    1. Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide is definitely the hardest out of the three, even though it's the shortest. (Dr. Feser has commented on this in the past; it really wasn't intended as a beginner's guide, but the editor decided at the last minute to include it in that book series.)

      Concerning the other two, I'd say The Last Superstition is easier, but not by much. I'd still recommend to read it first, since it covers more topics and so IMO serves best as a general introduction, whereas Five Proofs delves much more deeply into a single matter (though the other subjects are touched upon whenever needed).

      All of them are excellent and absolutely worth reading and studying carefully.

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    2. I know for sure that TLS is the easiest - it's as full of irreverent humour and poking fun at the New Atheists as it is of sound philosophy (though it has plenty of both). It also has the most layman's-terms descriptions of its content. Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide is much more scholarly but attempts to go through all fields of Aquinas' thought (at least in broad terms) IE it covers natural theology, ethics, etc. I haven't read Five Proofs myself, so I don't know how accessible it is, but since it's trying to focus specifically on the Five Ways it's more narrow in scope.

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    3. Cantus: just, to clarify, the Five Proofs don't focus on the Five Ways, but on selected five proofs from different philosophical traditions (Aristotelianism, Platonism, Thomism etc). So it's much wider in scope and I guess that's one of its strengths - gives you an overview of some of the most powerful arguments for God's existence from different backgrounds.

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  7. I would start with

    1-Philosophy of Mind
    2-Aquinas
    3-Five proofs
    4-Last superstition

    The I would recommend reading Scholastic Metaphysics then reread Aquinas. Doing that really deepened my understanding of Aquinas.

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  8. TLS is not just polemical against atheism, but against aspects of the liberal world too, and as such is likely to be read only by those already generally sypathetic to his position. So if Feser's hope was to reach a significant new audience, his lack of self discipline will have torpedoed that immediately. The problem starts on the very first page, where he effectively and ludicrously equates gay marriage with sodomy, and so ensures that the book will be immediately cast aside as the ravings of a reactionary loon by thousands and persued no further.That was true of myself for example - I only returned to TLS much later to placate a friend , who insisted that some of it was worth reading after all.

    Dawkin's book 'The Last Superstition' by contrast, although clearly unlikely to be read by many of a religious disposition, was devoured by huge numbers of ordinary modern people who were not atheists either.

    Books by Dawkins always hugely outsell Feser's, but in the case of the contrasting pair in question, this was partly down to Feser's stupidity.

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    1. I think to a certain extent, you are right about The Last Superstition. It is not aimed at a wider audience, but at the home team, so to speak.

      There is a tension in the U.S. in particular that is born out of its founding. The mainly Judeo Christian moral order was wed to a love of freedom. Freedom was supposed to be grounded in a Christian moral order. But more and more that Christian moral order has been abandoned in favour of greater and greater freedoms that are often directly in contradiction with that Christian moral order.

      Ed's book Locke is a good analysis of this fundamental tension in American society. Its primary purpose is to give an introduction to Locke's thought, but it also sheds light on its weaknesses. Locke, as per Ed, is "..universaly acknowledged to be one of the founding fathers of the liberal tradition in political thought..."

      What is becoming clearer is that the freedom that was so fundamental to the American project has now for many become synonymous with freedom from all moral constraints and especially religiously grounded moral constraints. More and more, this will become unnacceptable to those who truly love their faith and they will seek better alternatives to liberalism.

      Bear in mind, this does not necessarily mean bloody revolution and civil war! It just means that the underlying political principles are starting to shift. New boundaries are being drawn. New political theories are being explored.

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    2. At 1.47am I attributed the book 'Last Superstition' to Dawkins, when of course I meant 'The God Delusion'. Sorry Richard!

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    3. Daniel at 8.59am.

      If it is true that Feser was not seeking a wider audience with TLS, but simply playing to the home crowd, he was unbelievably foolish and missed a golden opportunity to promulgate his ideas. Are you sure about this? Or might it not be as I suspect, ie that Feser could not hold back his stinging, sarcastic tongue, and so made the book all but unreadable to anyone not already sharing his archaic mind set?

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    4. In an old blog post from 2009, Ed says this:

      "This is unjust. As I make clear in the book and have made clear in earlier posts here, I take the tone I do with the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, et al. because they have been “asking for it.” I would never take such a tone (“immediately” or otherwise) with a serious atheist like Quentin Smith, J. J. C. Smart, or the late J. L. Mackie – regardless of whether doing so would “advance [my] metaphysical/social/political ideals.” Perhaps the reader in question also believes that policemen returning fire toward armed bank robbers who are shooting at them contribute to the crime rate just as much as the latter do. If not, I would ask him to consider that sometimes it matters “who started it,” and that in issues of public controversy as much as in maintaining law and order, rough tactics must sometimes be used against thugs who would otherwise trample upon the innocent. (The “innocent” in the case at hand being unwary non-specialist readers who might be deceived into thinking that the New Atheists must, given their bravado and public stature, have at least something of interest to say.)"

      So the innocent here is the home team, as far as I can tell. I would also say that Ed would likely never have achieved any measure of popularity (noteriety) had he not written this book. He would have been just another nice accademic. I mean honestly, how many people have read Locke, where he carefully analyzes and critique's Locke's positions? Barely any.

      And its not like Dawkins, Dennette, and other new Atheists have not set the tone by their acerbic critiques of religion - they take potshots at stupic caricatures and are rightly ridiculed for it. More importantly, they mock and deride anyone who, for example, believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman, or that traditional sexual morality should be upheld. Its not like they aren't using these subjects to bludgeon their oponents. So from my perspective, his tone was necessary and it was a service to all men and woman of faith who uphold the Judeo/Christian moral order.

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    5. Daniel,

      I agree that Feser's tone with people like Dawkins, Dennett and the like was warranted. (At least as far as when their arguments delve into philosophy). I mean...Dawkins' idea of a rebuttal to the first three of Aquinas' Five Ways was to say that 'each of them postulates an infinite regress and invokes a designer to terminate it. They make an entirely unwarranted assumption that the designer is immune to the regress'. Come on.....

      However, I could have done without the overblown language referring to same-sex marriage as 'making a sacrament out of sodomy' and that sort of thing. It would have been perfectly fine for him to get into natural law arguments without resorting to rhetoric like this.

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    6. DrYogami,

      That same-sex marriage makes a sacrament out of sodomy is literally what it does. No hyperbole necessary.

      But in any case, Feser has already made defenses of polemics in previous posts that you probably should read.

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    7. Unknown,

      It's amazing that the progressives on here ALWAYS make arguments from popularity. "You're not popular, therefore you are wrong and stupid" is not an argument. If the majority of people can't handle the hard truth of theism and conservatism, so much the worse for them. That's what I say.

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    8. Mister Geocon,

      'That same-sex marriage makes a sacrament out of sodomy is literally what it does. No hyperbole necessary.'

      This is an uncharitable way of putting the pro-same-sex marriage argument and you know it. It's as offensive as saying heterosexual marriage makes a sacrament of penis-in-vagina f---ing. It's the kind of thing D.H. Lawrence would say.

      And I've read Feser's defense of polemics. If you had read me carefully, you'll note I did not take issue with his polemics as far as the philosophical arguments of Dawkins, Dennett and so on.

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    9. Mr Geocom frequently invents things that people have supposedly said , then attacks them. Such is the case yet again above.

      Although all of you apart from Dr Yogami are in denial of it, it is perfectly obvious that by allowing his acerbic rhetoric to range against various aspects of the liberal world, instead of restricting his fire to Dawkins, Dennet et al, he lost precisely that part of his potential audience that would have been most valuable to him. That is because he is a gobby, sharp tongued idiot who could not resist playing to the crowd. Most of you here are completely oblivious to that fact.

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    10. Hey DrYogami,

      Understood about the tone. Perhaps it was due to the fact that gay marriage had only just been approved in California that Ed was so acerbic.

      Having said that, my only gripe with the term is that it was too focused on homosexuality. He should have added the sacraments of pornography, masturbation, and abortion to the list. At least that way everyone would have been equaly offended (indited).

      And who would have thought that by 2021 we could add the sacrament of transgenderism and euthanasia to the list!

      The way I see it, Ed is being blunt and prophetic. That is necessary in today's age to 1-Fortify the unwary, and 2-to warn the unbelievers. I think it is our duty to do so as Christians. We need to warn the world against the moral chaos they are bringing into existence, and also in addition to that, preach the message the Christ saves. Whether our curse is same sex attraction, gender dysphoria, looking at pornography, or masturbation. And I think the time for being nice and not hurting people's feelings are past. The most we can do is be consistent and not myopically focused on just one type of fallenness.

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    11. Daniel

      It would have been wonderful if Feser had raged against masterbatiom too in TLS - it would have singled him out as an even greater crank, and ensured that he lost even more potential readers ( including very many moderate Christians too ). This was meant to be a book attacking and refuting the New Atheists, but he self indulgently turned it into a tendentious moral sermon. So good you like that Daniel, in your obvious theologocal virtue signalling way.

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    12. So the innocent here is the home team, as far as I can tell. I would also say that Ed would likely never have achieved any measure of popularity (noteriety) had he not written this book. He would have been just another nice accademic. I mean honestly, how many people have read Locke, where he carefully analyzes and critique's Locke's positions? Barely any.

      And I would wager that a non-trivial percentage of those who have read it read TLS first and then went looking for other books by Feser.

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    13. This is an uncharitable way of putting the pro-same-sex marriage argument and you know it. It's as offensive as saying heterosexual marriage makes a sacrament of penis-in-vagina f---ing. It's the kind of thing D.H. Lawrence would say.

      I mean... marriage does, in fact, make a sacrament out of sexual intercourse. The conjugal and familial life provides a context in which that intercourse is sanctified.

      Unknown,

      Mr Geocom frequently invents things that people have supposedly said , then attacks them. Such is the case yet again above.

      This is yet another of your unsubstantiated assertions, right? Oh wait, this is a blatant lie. I see.

      Although all of you apart from Dr Yogami are in denial of it, it is perfectly obvious that by allowing his acerbic rhetoric to range against various aspects of the liberal world, instead of restricting his fire to Dawkins, Dennet et al, he lost precisely that part of his potential audience that would have been most valuable to him. That is because he is a gobby, sharp tongued idiot who could not resist playing to the crowd. Most of you here are completely oblivious to that fact.

      Yet ANOTHER unsubstantiated assertion. Why should Feser appeal to the tender sensibilities of modern liberals when those sensibilities are based on false beliefs, beliefs he shows are false in the book?

      If you aren't arguing something like "Feser isn't popular with people who think like me, therefore he's an idiot," then what is it that you're actually saying? What is the point? You just seem to hate him just because he isn't a liberal.

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    14. @Unknown

      "Dawkin's book 'The Last Superstition' by contrast, although clearly unlikely to be read by many of a religious disposition, was devoured by huge numbers of ordinary modern people who were not atheists either."

      To be fair, the average person today seems more likely to hear someone attacking religion and them not caring that see someone attacking LGBT stuff and them not caring. Dawkins sucess is more because he was probably more well know, is a scientist, and because he speaks the things that more people want to hear or don't mind hearing.

      But i agree with others here that while Feser tone on that book likely closed the door to some liberal-minded it did help make the man more know in reacionary circles. Seeing how Dr. Feser seems pretty know on the thomist sphere, even on ny country, i suppose than that did well to his popularity.

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    15. *my country

      And, no offense, but catholic reactionaries seems way more likely than liberals to care about metaphysics and ethics, so Dr. Feser polemical tone was probably a smart move if he wanted to be read and studied, even if he did not know back them that it would happen in that way.

      Funny thing: i was a pretty progressive libertarian-minded guy when i was introduced to Feser work, who helped me a lot to see what i consider now to be failures in that view. i don't remember if i saw his polemical side before i changed my views, thought.

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    16. Yes, you might be right Talmid - Feser's acerbic tone and polemics against the liberal world in TLS may well have been a conscious, self serving attempt to garner notoriety and so attention. He has become a medium sized fish in the small pond of Thomism and has a public platform, whereas he would otherwise be unknown plankton in the vast ocean of world philosophy. Crafty move.

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    17. Unknown,

      Does Feser's acerbic tone prevent him from reaching a larger audience, making him an idiot? Or is it something craftily done to increase his notoriety in an underhanded way?

      When your critiques of the man not only lack all substance but contradict each other, it becomes clear that you are motivated solely by irrational hatred. I speculate that you are a liberal ideologue who doesn't like smart people criticizing your pet ideology, so you feel the need to come up with reasons to dismiss that person out of hand. But that's just my speculation based on what you've said. Let me know if I got that right or not.

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    18. Well Geocon, I obviously have no idea which scenario is correct, but both are plausible. To begin with I clearly thought that Feser had lost all self discipline, and stupidly undermined what should have been a great opportunity to reach ordinary moderns in order to counteract the new atheists, but then an alternative presented itself. I did not promote both simultaneously as you well know - I suggested one, then mused about the other. Either may well be correct.

      By the way Geocon, not long ago -I can find the reference if you wish - you and a co-superstitionist called Grogriges ( or similar ) were caught up in some unpleasentness or other with an atheist that completely derailed the thread. Grogriges withdrew his inflammatory comment, and you grovelled to Feser, promising only to post in response to arguments in future. If you have any integrity you will keep your promise and we will hear much less from you.

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    19. Unknown, if you're referring to Papalinton, he and StardustyPsyche are not exactly the best representatives of atheism that have ever wandered into this combox. Having said that, I do wish people would stop responding to certain posters when it becomes clear that they don't contribute anything significant.

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    20. @DrYogami:

      The atheist in question was called Unknown who was cheering for Papalinton.

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    21. @Unknown

      Dr. Feser could have done that as consciouss decision, we can't read minds, after all.

      But i find that unlikely, for by reading the man, specially how he reacts to agressive comments, i do think that he has a pretty polemical side and that he thought that the New-Atheists deserved the tone. I also remember that, pretty close to TLS release, homosexual unions where legalized where Ed lives, so the guy was probably extra pissed.

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    22. That is all very reasonable Talmid. You are very likely correct in what you say, especially given the then recent legalisation of gay marriage where Feser lived. I was not aware of that.

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    23. "ludicrously equates gay marriage with sodomy"

      I'm not sure how anyone could respond to this effectively. Some comments are just invincible...

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    24. Teppy

      That is because you are a brachiating ape Trippy.

      Do you think that straight marriage can be equated with vaginal screwing? Thought not. There is far more to a marriage commitment than sex, indeed sex can take place quite swimmingly without marriage. So why is it not ludicrous to equate gay marriage and sodomy, if straight marriage isn't just an ( unnecessary ) excuse for copulation?

      Besides, in your inmocence and ignorance you seem to think that all gay men enjoy anal sex, either actively or passively ( or at least the ones that get married do ). Are you quite sure about that?

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    25. "Do you think that straight marriage can be equated with vaginal screwing?"

      Yes. I mean, of course. Obviously.


      " you seem to think that all gay men enjoy"

      Silly. As a rule, speculation about what other particular people 'enjoy' is bad taste and prurience. But I have a feeling you are eager to share with us what YOUR weird, unpopular sexual desires are like, and I can speak for all that we would prefer that info to remain Unknown - we don't care.

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    26. Tippy

      Oh dear Tippy, you are completely off base here.

      Straight marriage does not equal virginal screwing, although that may take place within it. I am familiar enough with the Christian conception of marriage to know that it has a significance far beyond - but including -that. Perhaps some of you Christian theists should write in to enlighten Tippy.

      As regards gay men and anal sex, my comment was relevant as you were making an unwarrented assumption about what all gay men do. I mean, gay marriage cannot equal sodomy if some gay men do not enjoy anal sex right? Just a matter of logic Tippy.

      As regards my own sexual practices, although I have my little kinks and ideosyncracies , they are generally of very popular kinds ie not allowing for the possibility of procreation, and directed towards consentual pleasure with my partner ( or with myself if the inclination takes me ). I think that you will find that your own highly regulated and restrictive sexual practices are of the unpopular kind Tippy.

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    27. Unknown, nevermind. Like your figurative sex partners, I should have known better than to waste my time on an unfruitful, pointless, one-sided intercourse.

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    28. Teppy

      Sex partners? I have one partner - other than myself occasionally - and our intercourse is anything but one sided I can assure you.

      I have enjoyed interacting with you very much, and go away having learned that according to Christians straight marriage is equivalent to vaginal screwing. I never knew that, but according to you ' Yes of course it is. Obviously' ( 2.05pm ).

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    29. What's the point of that post, anyway? Dawkins is more popular than Feser; he sold a lot more books. Yes. The Last Superstition is also a lot more technical and philosophical (even though it's an easily readable popular book), reflecting Feser's background expertise in philosophy.

      But so what? Who cares if Dawkins outsold Feser? Is it to point out that new atheism is more popular than thomism or something? Well that's obvious. But who cares? Do you come to this blog to discuss popularity contests, or arguments?

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    30. To Unknown at 6.12PM

      I do not know if you are willfully mistepresenting me, or if the point of the post ( and much of the discussion ) has just escaped you.

      It was my contention that Feser had misfired in writing a book attacking the new atheists which was also acerbic and rude about modern liberal life in general, as it tended to limit his audience to those of a reactionary disposition. I would have thought that in combating Dawkins et al he would want to reach the widest possible audience. It is in that context that sales figures were mentioned.

      Do you come here to discuss what has actually been posted, or to invent things then respond to yourself?

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    31. But Feser wasn't simply trying to attack New Atheism in his book, he also wanted to show how certain traditional views in ethics are also defensible, as he believes most attacks on traditional ethical principles are also part of the "last superstition". It was his intent to also show how one could use the metaphysics in the book to defend traditional ethical views, even if making that argument would limit the audience of the book somewhat. He wasn't simply trying to reach the broadest audience to talk about new atheism; he was also interested in the ethical issues he discussed. So it wasn't like he "misfired" with that book.

      Also, who the hell cares? This has nothing to do with the post, and it really does seem like you're just going after a popularity contest or something. Are you here to discuss arguments or to discuss popularity? Geez.

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  9. Er, apogies ( to Richard in particular ), but Dawkins' book is 'The God Delusion ' of course! See previous post by me.

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  10. Atheism is close to pantheism because pantheism, or naturalism, hates the idea of a personal God. Pantheism, and views of an impersonal "something out there" (Plotinus) don't bother atheists much because nothing strictly follows, from a religious point of view.

    All the atheist wishes to avoid is religion. A personal God that intervenes by creating and speaking to his creatures is what the atheist is truly allergic to, because that is how religion arose.

    No religious person believes in the straw man of God as a person in the same way we are. Every religious person knows God is personal, as in fact we are personal, but in an analogous manner; not just personal, but the perfection of personality, as St Thomas Aquinas wrote.

    That's why Lacordaire places opposite Pantheism/atheism the God who reveals, and not what most of the grab-bag here labelled classical theism was able to arrive at.

    Establishing the preambles of the faith is another matter.

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    1. Your third paragraph is twaddle Cervantes. I know many very many religious people, and to them God is like a big best friend in the sky, very much a person like you or I, but with various superlative qualities. I am afraid that among the great mass of Christians ( in oppose to some intellectual types ) theistic personalism rules supreme.

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    2. Indeed. The God of Classical theism is very much the philosophers' God. The vast majority of Christians believe in a big best friend in the sky.

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    3. Walter, like the vast majority of Catholics, St. Thomas Aquinas also believed we have a big best friend "in the sky"; such a belief does not compromise divine simplicity. We are able to think of God that way, because that is what he wants.

      The fact that he ascended into that same sky, like so many other things that make up Revelation, help us to understand or be closer to what can't really be approached or understood in any natural way. The vast majority of Catholics at the time of St Thomas Aquinas had this view of God.

      Trouble comes from professional philosophers whose overactive minds come up with propositions that contradict divine simplicity etc. To call them theistic personalists at a time when the main danger in the West is a tendency towards impersonal pantheism and naturalism is counterproductive, because the term in itself (while superfluous) does not convey any erroneous connotation. Indeed, I had a short discussion with Dr. Feser on this comments section over a year ago where he concluded the term was not a ideal, and suggested another term which would be better. I can't remember what that term was now but I wish he would use it.

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  11. "4. Society: Similarly more difficult to deploy today than in Lacordaire’s time is his fourth and final avenue of arriving at knowledge of God. Lacordaire points out that skepticism about God’s existence and about the objectivity of truth and of justice have, historically, largely been confined to a small minority of society – namely the powerful and educated elite, who out of pride delude themselves into thinking that they have no need of such ideas, and are able to develop clever sophistries to rationalize their rejection of them. The vast majority of society do not have the luxury of such delusions, and thus have been far less likely to fall into them. "

    So material prosperity and its distractions leads to skepticism about the objectivity of truth, justice, and the existence of God. And the comforts and sense of self sufficiency leads to sloth (acedia). Interesting.


    So what does that imply about the ideal society? Do we seek to escape material prosperity because it likely leads to such vices? What is a better social and political alternative? I take it for granted that no one wants to live in Plato's city of pigs.

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    1. Thomas defines sloth as sluggishness of mind that neglects to begin good. An oppressive sorrow that so weighs upon a person’s mind that they want to do nothing.

      The sorrow falls into two categories:

      1-Sorrow is evil in itself if it’s object is actually good. In this case it’s object of sorrow is spiritual good.
      2-Sorrow is evil in its effect if, although its object is a real evil, the sorrow is so excessive that it draws the person away from doing any good deeds. Thomas quotes from 2 Cor where he does not wish those who repents to be “swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.”

      So sloth, as Thomas understands it, is sorrow on account of spiritual good (sorrow that is evil in itself) and sorrow that leads to paralysis of action (sorrow that is evil in its effect).

      I think a large portion of society see actual moral virtue as evil now a days (Sloth type 1) – and I think this is the type of sloth that Ed is talking about in this post. However, many Christians are so overwhelmed by the mountain of sins they see in the world around them and in themselves, that they are paralyzed from acting against it (sloth type 2).

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    2. Interesting - the opposing virtue to sloth is Charity as in the love for God, as per Thomas. And the proper effect of this love of God is joy. So the antidote, so to speak, to sloth type 1 and sloth type 2 is charity (love God above all things). A certain amount of sorrow is allowed if it spures us on to greater love for God, but that sorrow becomes venially or mortally sinful if it starts causing paralysis.

      Thomas's discussion of Joy is really interesting. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3028.htm

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    3. And does not the rate of depression, anxiety, mental disorders, and suicide in Western societies not glaring evidence for this thesis? Material prosperity cannot lead to joy. And this is not a truth only known to Christians, but also to eastern religions as well, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

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    4. Daniel, I found all this quite concise and insightful. Thank you for being such a blessing to us all. Pax! Kyle

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    5. Thanks Kyle! Pax to you also!

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    6. Kyle is right, that was awesome! While i think that other factors like, say, having divorced parents do play their part in a lot of people with mental disorders, having cool things is not enough.

      And i can't believe that i forgot that sloth is cured by charity! That would be helpful to remember...

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    7. Thanks for your kind words Talmid. I’m literally learning as I go, so I appreciate any feedback/pushback on these ideas.

      “While i think that other factors like, say, having divorced parents do play their part in a lot of people with mental disorders, having cool things is not enough.”

      So the connection with material prosperity and distraction is that it leads to skepticism about the objectivity of truth, justice, and the existence of God, which leads to sloth type 1. That is sorrow for actual good things. Treating a good as though it were an evil. (He also mentions pride and I’ll get to that later).

      So, for example, the person who is struggling with gluttony and obesity, might have a literal aversion to exercise and dieting. The very idea of exercise and dieting might cause that person a great deal of sorrow. Even though they intellectually know that exercise and dieting are good for them, they treat it as an evil. Or maybe they intellectually know that exercise is good for them and want to give up excessive eating, but are so overwhelmed with the difficulty in getting started, that they wallow in paralysis and never get started in the hard work to overcome their habits. This would be more of a sloth type 2.

      Now gluttony and obesity are vices that are more likely to occur in a region where there is much material prosperity, distraction, excess availability of food, the possibility of a sedentary lifestyle, etc… and sloth type 1 or type 2 is just one of many possible responses to these vices (evils). There are admittedly, many other vices and evils (and many other responses other than sloth) that are more likely to be experienced in wealthy and affluent nations that are less likely to occur in poorer nations. One might be tempted to think that poorer nations are better off from a moral perspective than the rich (blessed be the poor?). Of these vices, our education system allows us to entertain all sorts of ideas and thoughts in the name of freedom that might be objectively wrong and even harmful to those convinced by these ideas. I’m not saying that freedom, per se, is a bad thing at all, just that in affluent countries, evil ideas or ideas that are more likely to take root and be propagated than in poorer countries. Ideas, for example, that lead to specific results like a massive increase in divorce and single parenting, which have a whole slew of documented negative consequences attached to them, as you brought up.

      I’ll take a look at pride in my next post.

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    8. Ed said:

      “Christ famously said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, and the reason has to do with the latter’s prideful sense of self-sufficiency, and the deadly vice of acedia that material prosperity tends to foster. “

      Pride is complex … Thomas has a lot to say on the subject. For now, I’ll just mention this one quote:

      “...humility observes the rule of right reason whereby a man has true self-esteem. Now pride does not observe this rule of right reason, for he esteems himself greater than he is: and this is the outcome of an inordinate desire for his own excellence, since a man is ready to believe what he desires very much, the result being that his appetite is borne towards things higher than what become him. Consequently whatsoever things lead a man to inordinate self-esteem lead him to pride: and one of those is observing of other people’s failings, just as, on the other hand, in the words of Gregory “holy men, by a like observation of other people’s virtues, set others above themselves. ””

      He goes on to mention that pride, although it is a kind of appetite, is primarily intellectual in nature. Intellectual sins leading to unbelief presuppose education, and countries that are materially prosperous with lots of free time for such pursuits. Prosperity is required to make education systems like this a possibility common to the majority of the population.

      Of course, this description is not an argument at all. Lots more needs to be fleshed out. The atheist and agnostic could very easily flip this description on beleivers. Same things goes for sloth.

      I need to go deeper into the section on pride and the sections on humility, as pride's opposite virtue.

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    9. The connection between material prosperity and the vices you mentioned does make sense. Since we don't want and very likely should not give up our tech and material goods, maybe the solution would be in how we structure society. I think that the modern social organization does play a important role in the individualism we see, if we could change somethings them the modern ideologies would probably find the average person harder to conquer.

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  12. I think I'm going to start talking about YHWH in the anthropomorphic terms the Biblical texts describe him in, so that when Thomists insist YHWH ought instead to be understood in the terms of classical theism, I can ask how come the same courtesy is never extended by them to Pagan Deities.

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    1. Yes, YHWH obviously did not have promulgating classical theism in mind when supposey revealing himself to humans!

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    2. Dillon/Unknown,

      To be fair, He did say things like "I am who am". If not intended as a promulgation of classical theism it still seems suggestive of it.

      That said, understanding the Bible as a whole in light of classical theism and in light of Catholic dogma on Divine Inspiration does seem to me to be a huge stretch. I.e., if classical theism is true and divine inspiration of scripture is true, then to me the Bible is quite different than what we'd expect.

      ...I can ask how come the same courtesy is never extended by them to Pagan Deities.
      LOL. This is a good point.

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    3. Albinus

      I completely agree that understanding the Bible as a whole in light of classical theism and Catholic dogma is a huge stretch. The rationalisations generally offered are implausible to put it mildly, and are merely apologetic efforts to maintain belief.

      There are a few mysterious sounding phrases in the Bible that are suggestive of classical theism , but that is to pick out grains in a huge beach that does not.


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    4. On the last point, I would suggest reading Augustine's the City of God. The first 10 chapters takes on a variety of pagan point of view on their deities, including some that would ascribe ideas akin to classical theism to the pagan pantheon.

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    5. Dillon, I think you are incorrect - at least as far as my reading goes, my impression is that the God of classical theism (whose proponents are Thomists among others) is in many ways received from the abstractions given down to us by a range of polytheistic pagan philosophies. My impression is that classical theism is much bigger than Thomism - though Thomism today represents a main branch of it's development. I have a sense that the bulk of the work of classical theism was prepared in the BC rather than by some medieval monks.

      As to coherence between a putatively correct philosophy and some hill tribe political and religious lore, I don't see how we could expect one to justify the other. They seem like different genres to me.

      I'm frequently mistaken but no doubt someone here will correct me before too long if I am egregiously so.

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    6. @Unknown,

      In your opinion, which Biblical descriptions of God would you have in mind for this?

      And specifically, how do the common explanations of these in relation to classical theism fail, in your opinion?

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    7. @Dillon

      I wonder, how are we actually supposed to understand Zeus or Odin in terms of classical theism? As far as I know, classical theism as understood “around these parts” and independently of cultural background of some of the esteemed philosophers entertains the existence of only one Deity.

      Also, in light of the supposed parallels obtaining between the Biblical descriptions of God and that of the members of the respective pantheons (at least the two named by Dr. Feser) as they appear in myth, permit me to ask you about a different sort of anthropomorphysing device: what salient theological significance for a naturally pious classical theist do intrinsically immoral actions (such as rape) performed by these divine personages have, and is there something comparable in Catholic Scripture?

      Provided you agree with my estimation that the incidence of this is significantly higher in Hellenic or Norse myth, would you not agree that the employment of such devices in these traditions make a comparison with the Biblical account somewhat forced?

      As regards the fragment in the main post that seems to have offended you, I'm sorry if it does, but I'm not convinced your grievance is objectively legitimate.

      Ever since Our Lord commandeered the Roman Empire for His purposes, later inducing her federates and their neibours into joining the Romans in forsaking the pax deorum, the not-indubitably-plausible parties to the latter agreement were not “hosted” by a single minimally competent corporation, and hence entered into the cultural heritage of the baptised peoples of Christendom, subsisting largely under the guises they had in myth that Christians preserved and transmitted.

      Under such circumstances, if perchance you'd prefer Thomists to conscientiously and by default employ these names while referring to conceptions of divinity that are more to your liking – apart from establishing the truth of a corresponding theology, of course – I think that you either have to argue that they are uniquely historically authentic, e.g., that we have to read an Homer or an Ovid (let alone Snorri) through a Plutrarch or a Iamblichus to properly understand the material, and/or take over the relevant existing cultures, recovering these names and stories for polytheism.

      Let's just say that, if were to ask me, you have your work cut out for you, whatever path(s) you choose.

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    8. Corrigendum:

      ...make a comparison with the Biblical account on in terms of the degree of anthropomorphisation somewhat forced?

      Thomas Gavisus

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    9. @ Unknown
      Classical theism was established by Plato first, and Plato was unapologetically a polytheist. In reading his work the Parmenides, his One isn't an individual, but is instead a principle of individuation. To quote Dillon: "Saying that "the principle of all things" is itself a particular thing is like saying "the odd number" is itself a particular odd number." The "rape" that is committed by a deity is a circumstance where the individual does not have choice, where the individual Hero or Heroine is subject to necessity of one kind or another. It's not like the actual Deity has a penis or a vagina. So far as it goes for comparison between the Bible and Norse and Hellenic myth, it's not much of an issue at all. You didn't choose God as your Father, it's necessary that He is that for you, and you have no choice about that what so ever. It's not a matter of volition for you but is done to you before you can even choose anything.

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    10. @Unknown: Thanks for the reply. Let me begin by saying that I'm not offended by what Feser said. Thomists rarely mention Pagan Deities except to contrast them with "God." It's to be expected, and I don't read anything more into it than honest misunderstanding.

      As to the relationship between classical theism and revelation, I would say revelation is first and foremost symbolic: nothing can so capture the divinely simple as to represent it, like a picture of a person; things can only symbolize it. John Dillon drew the distinction by pointing out that Cinderella's glass slipper was not an *image* of Cinderella, it was a symbol of her.

      With that principle in mind, every aspect of a revelation should be thought to symbolize something: from temporal sequence to events. No one should read a revelation and think that a Deity literally had sex, died or quarelled. The question just shouldn't arise in the first place. The fact that it does suggests an understanding of revelation that is not entirely appropriate for the classical theist.

      Classical theists have spilled much ink harmonizing text with philosophy, but undergo a strange amnesia of this exercise when confronted with similar texts from religions they do not belong to. As if they hadn't spilled all that ink, and the exercise is suspect and foriegn to their sensibilities. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

      As to whether Thomists "should" be consistent with their hermeneutical principles by acknowleding their applicability in principle to other religious texts, even if ultimately clarifying that they should not in fact be applied to them; yes, I think they should be more consistent.

      Do I have my work cut out for me to justify my positions to monotheists, or do monotheists have their work cut out for them to justify their positions to me? Maybe a little of both.

      All I'd like to see more of is a...professional courtesy extended to polytheists that is extended by Thomists to other classical theists, such as tose of a Jewish or Muslim persuasion. Is it possible to be a "classical theist" and believe there are many "capital G" Gods? Well, that'd be the discussion to have. But for as long as I've been beating this drum, no such discussion is entertained: the handful of arguments for monotheism given by guys like Aquinas are just definitive, no questions asked.

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    11. @Unknown: Thanks for the reply. Let me begin by saying that I'm not offended by what Feser said. Thomists rarely mention Pagan Deities except to contrast them with "God." It's to be expected, and I don't read anything more into it than honest misunderstanding.

      As to the relationship between classical theism and revelation, I would say revelation is first and foremost symbolic: nothing can so capture the divinely simple as to represent it, like a picture of a person; things can only symbolize it. John Dillon drew the distinction by pointing out that Cinderella's glass slipper was not an *image* of Cinderella, it was a symbol of her.

      With that principle in mind, every aspect of a revelation should be thought to symbolize something: from temporal sequence to events. No one should read a revelation and think that a Deity literally had sex, died or quarelled. The question just shouldn't arise in the first place. The fact that it does suggests an understanding of revelation that is not entirely appropriate for the classical theist.

      Classical theists have spilled much ink harmonizing text with philosophy, but undergo a strange amnesia of this exercise when confronted with similar texts from religions they do not belong to. As if they hadn't spilled all that ink, and the exercise is suspect and foriegn to their sensibilities. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

      As to whether Thomists "should" be consistent with their hermeneutical principles by acknowleding their applicability in principle to other religious texts, even if ultimately clarifying that they should not in fact be applied to them; yes, I think they should be more consistent.

      Do I have my work cut out for me to justify my positions to monotheists, or do monotheists have their work cut out for them to justify their positions to me? Maybe a little of both.

      All I'd like to see more of is a...professional courtesy extended to polytheists that is extended by Thomists to other classical theists, such as tose of a Jewish or Muslim persuasion. Is it possible to be a "classical theist" and believe there are many "capital G" Gods? Well, that'd be the discussion to have. But for as long as I've been beating this drum, no such discussion is entertained: the handful of arguments for monotheism given by guys like Aquinas are just definitive, no questions asked.

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  13. Albinus, no mental gymnastics are required. It just depends on what you mean by classical theism. If you mean irreligious or naturalistic versions of it then you're right. If you mean the understanding St. Thomas Aquinas had of philosophy then you won't have any more difficulty than he did. As Chesterton explained, it wasn't until the Catholic Church that religion and philosophy travelled together.

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    1. Cervantes,

      no mental gymnastics are required

      I beg to differ. :-)

      For example, explaining Jesus' prophesy in Matthew 24:33-34 without engaging in mental gymnastics (or without making at least one catholic teaching false / vacuous) is a tall order.

      If you mean irreligious or naturalistic versions of it [classical theism] then you're right

      Not sure what you mean here because it seems to me that a naturalistic version of classical theism (i.e., classical theism is true but God has never given a supernatural Divine Revelation) avoids the difficulties entirely. If there's no Divine Revelation, then surely the question of reconciling the Bible with classical theism and Catholic dogma never even arises?

      If you mean the understanding St. Thomas Aquinas had of philosophy then you won't have any more difficulty than he did.

      Actually, I think my difficulties arise precisely on account of Aquinas's understanding of philosophy, theology, faith/reason etc.

      To be clear, I think Aquinas' understanding of these things are, by and large, correct, it's just that I think he gives greater certainty to the demands of Faith than the evidence (claims of miracles) warrants and thus is satisfied when Apologetics merely shows no demonstrable contradiction between faith and reason.

      But if the motives of credibility (the miracles such as the Resurrection etc) can only be established with, at best, a high degree of certainty (i.e., moral certainty) then efforts to show no demonstrable/necessary contradiction/error in Catholicism is insufficient. Rather, the only reasonable course of action would be to weigh the motives of credibility against the difficulties, viewing Catholicism as an outside unbiased observer, and striving to determine what overall is more plausible:
      (1) the miracles are true therefore Catholicism true therefore there are good solutions to the difficulties therefore as long as we can show no necessary contradiction we're good OR
      (2) The difficulties are strong enough to cast sufficient doubt on Catholicism therefore the miracles probably didn't happen or else don't necessarily point to Catholicism's truth.

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    2. it's just that I think he gives greater certainty to the demands of Faith than the evidence (claims of miracles) warrants

      That is correct: it's why we call it "faith" and not "science" - it remains an act of belief rather than an act of knowledge. As in life in general (where we also engage in acts of belief, though not God-inspired ones), the whole category of acts of belief consist in acts which are credible but unproven, where the evidence is good but insufficient for full-on knowledge, and where there are no necessary contradictions to the proposed claim. To reject such a proceeding out of hand would be to reject it throughout life, and this is untenable (and nobody actually does it anyway).

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    3. Tony,

      But in order to not be contrary to reason, faith/belief must have greater evidence in its favor than against. Merely showing credibility in some respect and showing that no necessary contradiction is involved does not thereby show that a particular belief is more credible overall than not.

      It is not my intention to impugn faith/belief in itself as if it were worthless since it's not knowledge of the strict sort. I realize that almost everything I accept involves some level of faith/belief/trust...there is no escaping that.

      However, for me to not be guilty of a sin against reason, the overall argument in defense of a particular belief must be stronger than the overall argument against.

      Merely giving a credible argument "pro" and showing that belief doesn't involve a contradiction is insufficient and, well, irrational.

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    4. Albinus

      Thank you for your contributions, which tend very much in the direction of my own thoughts at the moment.

      I think that the various philosophical arguments advanced by Thomists and others for classical theism are worthy of the closest attention and scrutiny, and I take them very seriously indeed, but even if successful they do not establish Christianity, let alone Roman Catholicism, and I find the arguments offered for these things to be risible - more a case of apologetic propping up of what was going to be believed come what may.

      Could I inquire if you accept bare classical theism, and what ( if any) your ontological/theological framework is beyond that, and why?

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    5. "Not sure what you mean here because it seems to me that a naturalistic version of classical theism (i.e., classical theism is true but God has never given a supernatural Divine Revelation) avoids the difficulties entirely."

      That's a very narrow definition of a 'naturalistic' classical theism. Actually, I'm not sure how to make sense of a classical theism that's 'naturalistic' in the strictest sense of the word. It seems to me that once you've got something that has intrinsic being, that is immaterial and isn't bound by laws of space and time and gives rise to the natural world, what you've got is pretty clearly something that is quite literally super-natural. Or maybe 'supra'-natural would be an even better term.

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    6. Unknown,

      Glad to hear I'm not the only sane one! (just kidding everybody else...hehe!)

      Could I inquire if you accept bare classical theism, and what ( if any) your ontological/theological framework is beyond that, and why?

      I think something like classical theism is true. I think that some things are contingent (like matter) and that this contingency necessarily points to a Necessary Being that serves as the ultimate explanation. I find that to make a lot more sense than "brute facts" or the idea that everything is necessary.

      It also makes sense to me that there could only be one Necessary Being and that this Being would be absolutely simple and would contain within itself all perfections (in some sense at least) and be the source of all existence. At least, absent a strong reason to think otherwise, I feel that this is the default and logical position to take once one admits a Necessary Being.

      In face of the Problem of Evil, lack of convincing evidence of supernatural activity, as well as concerns over free creation as infringing on divine immutability/simplicity, I tend to think of this Necessary Being / First Cause as something like "The One" of the Neo-Platonists. Such a being doesn't intervene in the world because it can't. Thinking it would or even could is to make a category error. This Being transcends that sort of thing. So the PoE goes away and this further explains the "problem of divine hiddeness".

      I am sympathetic to the idea that there is some being that necessarily proceeds from this First Cause. Something like a Trinitarian procession but "ad extra". This "Second Cause" (or perhaps some other further emanation), being "unburdened" by the divine attributes could then serve as the cause of the contingent qua contingent without infringing on God's immutability/simplicity.

      Beyond that, I'm not sure how much can be said about such a mysterious Being.

      Somewhat related, I guess I'll also add here that I think there is an immaterial aspect to my being, in particular in terms of my intellect, will (along with free choice) , and consciousness. As far as ethics goes, I think there is a real sense in which morality is "objective". Something like "natural law" is valid I believe, at least at the level of general principles. I think Aristotle/Aquinas etc basically got it right: our purpose in life is happiness / "human flourishing" through a life of virtue/excellence.

      That's basically the totality of my thoughts...Ha! All subject to revision based on new information or arguments I haven't considered. Where do you stand?

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    7. Dr Yogami,

      Valid point. I tend to include "immaterial" in "natural" and think of "supernatural" as mostly synonymous with "miraculous". Like you, I think a materialist classical theism would be a contradiction in terms so I interpreted "naturalistic" in "naturalistic classical theism" in the way that I did, but I suppose we would need Cervantes to clarify what he meant. He did juxtapose it with "irreligious" so there's that.

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    8. Albinus

      I am very impressed by the provisional nature of your positions, rather than them being set in stone as things to be believed in and defended at all costs, which is very much the mind set of most people who contribute on this site.

      Until recently I was an unreflective physicalist, but now appreciate the very many difficulties that
      plague this metaphysical position, and so am inclined to think that the physical world either does not really exist ( and that some form of idealism is correct ) or that it is rooted in an ontologically very different kind of reality. I too can only make sense of the contingent world if it is rooted in something necessary, and this leads via a plethora of arguments and considerations to what we might call basic classical theism. I am afraid that is as far as I have been able to go so far, and I am not remotely convinced ( in fact I am strongly inclined to the opposite ) that the necessary being has revealed itself to humans, has moral concerns and actively operates in our lives in any way. I see religions as being purely human creations, which in their
      centralised, hierarchical forms can be hugely oppressive and a constraint
      on our legitimate freedoms and liberties which must be fought tooth and nail. I think that the shift from basic classical theism to Christianity say, let alone Roman Catholocism, is completely unwarrented, and can only be attempted by employing a moutain of apologetic machinary which to an outsider appears delusory.

      I do not think that morality is objective, though there is a great deal of agreement about ethical matters across time and cultures because of our shared nature as a social animal. I see no reason to think that the necessary being has conciously micromanaged natural processes with the intention of generating humans with a particular telos.

      Well, as with yourself , I am always learning, and hold these positions tentatively and provisionally. Thank you for sharing your perspectives.

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    9. Unknown,

      Thanks for the response.

      The proper role, if any, for religion is something that has been occupying my thoughts a lot lately. I am currently doing some reading on the "traditionalist school" / "perennialism" to see whether there's anything to that. Related, on the value of religion in the classical sense of myth, or in terms of ritual, or mysticism, or as a school for growth in virtue, etc. In other words, whether there is some non-literal, non-dogmatic, non-propositional interpretation of religion that is worth preserving...something along the lines of what Joseph Campbell said: "Religion is true in the way that poetry is true".

      That said, I do recognize by bias here...I was raised traditional Catholic and my family / social circles are still thoroughly Catholic so I know I *want* to find a reason to justify my continued participation more or less. And, you bring up a good point on the abuses that religion can cause. That said, I want to ensure that I don't carelessly throw out the bathwater before checking if there's a baby there.

      By morality being "objective" I meant I think that because humans have a common nature, we can independently come to the same valid conclusions about morality based on this common nature. In other words, what's moral isn't just a matter of taste but is grounded in something objective and universally accessible: human reason. I agree that there is no need to posit divine micromanagement of natural processes or arbitrarily choosing humans to have this telos as opposed to that.

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    10. "in order to not be contrary to reason, faith/belief must have greater evidence in its favor than against."

      This is just self-defeating. That statement itself has no evidence for or against it. You would have to conclude it is contrary to reason to believe it, thus undermining itself.

      Imagine you are trekking a snowy mountain, you are following the visible path. Then, suddenly, a snow storm comes along and your vision of the path is obscured. Every so often you get subtle glimpses of what you think *might* be the path, but you can't be certain at all.

      What do you do?

      You could stop and wait for the storm to clear and the path to become visible. However, you have no good reason to believe the storm will clear in time and that suffers the risk that you will freeze to death beforehand.

      OR

      You take what evidence you have, however lacking credibility, and continue walking in the direction that makes the most sense to you. Sure, you might be mistaken about your glimpses of the path and you run the risk of walking off a cliff. But even if you aren't perfectly right about every glimpse or even if glimpses seem to contradict, you may still end up walking out of the storm.

      If there is no concrete evidence to work with, both options are pretty reasonable. It would be unreasonable for the one sitting their freezing to death to claim any rational superiority over the one who decides to walk.

      Nonetheless, I would say there is more than enough evidence to show that Christianity is true without it being like walking in a snow storm. I'd say part of the problem for some in seeing this is merely the incorrect background assumptions they make, like the one from you that I quoted.

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    11. "For example, explaining Jesus' prophesy in Matthew 24:33-34 without engaging in mental gymnastics (or without making at least one catholic teaching false / vacuous) is a tall order."

      Why do you think the verse was included in the Bible?

      My thinking is this: obviously, somebody thought this happened already and indeed was evidently true and would be resonating to hearers who would remember it as true - otherwise why meticulously a falsified prophecy? That age and this one are littered with false and forgotten prophesy - it seems reasonable to me that all such things happened (to the satisfaction of the writers at least) and we're preserved in the Bible to identify Jesus as a true prophet, not a false one.

      Since Catholic teaching is alleged to follow from the Bible, and not the other way around, I would not expect them to conflict automatically, as you seem to think. But then, I don't know what possible conflict you have in mind here or what 'gymnastics' you believe you are seeing.

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    12. Billy

      Take the proposition ' It is not reasonable to believe X if the evidence against X is greater than that for it. This is surely at heart a statement of logic and follows from the meaning of the words 'reasonable' and 'evidence'. To ask what evidence we have for the truth of the proposition is to ask what warrent have we to be logical. Now THAT is self defeating, not the proposition in question, which is sound.

      The scenario you describe is a forced choice, in which glimpses of something that could be a path have to be investigated as the alternative is death ( there is no reason to think that the storm will clear ). This is not a case of weighing up evidence, but of maximising ones chance of survival .

      With faulty thinking like the above, it is no wonder that you are under the bizarre delusion that ' there is more than enough evidence to show that Christianity is true'.

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    13. Billy,

      "Unknown" has responded very well to your comment so I will leave it at that.

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    14. Albinus, if that prophecy about "this generation" causes you to doubt the Faith, set your mind at rest. The scriptures are from the Church and not vice versa, so it's the Church who is best able to explain what they mean. Even non-religious experts come up with several perfectly plausible interpretations that don't include people alive in the first century.

      Naturalistic versions of theism see God exclusively as a motor of the natural world, which he is of course. But this can't be separated from what God has said and done in human history (the Summa Theologica). This is even more certain than what we are able to establish through reasoning, as St. Thomas Aquinas says; not that humans aren't able to arrive at certain conclusions, but what God reveals is more certain yet (the proof being that, without revealed religion, no two philosophers are able to completely agree on God - or anything else. Therefore, thankfully, philosophers have never yet been able to cobble together a religion!).

      OK, we weren't there when these things were done and said and we all need the Faith, and the reasons that support it. But that is our affair and does not alter what God has said.

      Avoid traditionalist philosophy if you can. It is occultist and, in 2021, people can be more original than that. Religion is not true in the way that poetry is "true", because it's not something that changes according to the subject. Without dogmas, there is nothing; everything is subject to modification and discussion, or else is simply myth. Traditionalists, atheists, pantheists, naturalistic theists; it's amazing to what lengths people go to avoid doing what they've been told to do.

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    15. Teppy,

      Why do you think the verse was included in the Bible?

      I have no idea, but according to Catholic teaching on Divine Inspiration of Scripture (cf. Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus) it was included *because God wanted it to be there.* That's the relevant point.

      ...it seems reasonable to me that all such things happened (to the satisfaction of the writers at least) and we're preserved in the Bible to identify Jesus as a true prophet, not a false one.

      Teppy, did you read the verses I referenced and the surrounding context? Jesus is clearing referring, in part, to the Second Coming. This is not something that the writers thought already happened. Just look at how the Church Fathers dealt with this passage.

      I would not expect them to conflict automatically, as you seem to think.

      Of course not. Why would I think they automatically conflict?

      But then, I don't know what possible conflict you have in mind here or what 'gymnastics' you believe you are seeing.

      The conflict arises once you accept the following:
      (1) What the Church teaches about divine inspiration of Scripture, namely that the human authors wrote down what God wanted and only what God wanted in such a way that God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, is the Primary Author of Scripture.
      (2) That, if Catholicism is true, God would not want us to think that Jesus uttered a false / gravely misleading prophecy.
      (3) That the passage clearly has Jesus talking of the signs that will precede his Second Coming. He states that when the signs take place, the Second Coming will be very soon: "nigh, even at the doors" and then He says that "this generation will not pass until all these things take place". And yet, two *thousand* years later, the Second coming has not yet occurred.

      Granted, there are ways of attempting to reconcile all this. Again, just look at the Church Fathers. But such attempts miss the big picture. As I stated in another comment, mere reconciliability or ability to show no strict contradiction is insufficient; besides, non-Catholic religions do this just the same. Instead, one must look at what is most plausible:
      (A) Miracles, therefore Catholcism is true, therefore divine inspiration of scripture is true, therefore we know a priori that there is some good solution to this passage. We don't have to even come up with one. But we can if we like, maybe pick one from the Church Fathers or else just say "it's a mystery".

      OR, reasoning like this:

      (B) If Catholicism were true, God would not inspire the human authors of scripture to quote Jesus as saying he would come SOON after the signs and that the generation wouldn't pass until the signs took place, even though He hasn't come in 2000 years. God wouldn't want to cast doubt on the credibility of Jesus and He could have easily avoided such a grave misunderstanding. He wouldn't have made it so that the Church Fathers would have to come up with ad hoc solutions to save the appearances. Thus, Catholicism is false or at least unworthy of belief, either on account of divine inspiration of Scripture or on account of Jesus making a false prophecy or on account of God misleading us or undermining our ability to distinguish the True Religion from all others.

      So, which is it? In my mind, the only way that 'A' could prevail over 'B' would be if the evidence for miraculous support of Catholicism was nearly overwhelming. The evidence of the miracles would need to be stronger than the doubt of Catholicism's truth caused by 'B'. But alas! That doesn't seem to be the case, not by a long stretch.

      I should also note, of course, that the difficulty here is caused just by a single passage that I brought up as an example. There are many other difficulties (both Scriptural and otherwise) that the miracles need to be weighed against which makes comparing 'A' and 'B' even more lopsided.

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    16. Cervantes,

      Please see my reply to Teppy for a more detailed explanation of the difficulty.

      Positing the Church as the sole authority of interpreting Scripture doesn't help here. Unless, of course, you want to also say that it doesn't really matter what Scripture says because the Church will tell us what it really means no matter how seemingly absurd.

      OK, we weren't there when these things were done and said and we all need the Faith, and the reasons that support it. But that is our affair and does not alter what God has said.

      Of course it doesn't alter what God has or hasn't said. And yes, it's our affair. That precisely it...it's *our affair* to determine whether the argument that God has made a Revelation is stronger than the argument that He has not.

      Traditionalists, atheists, pantheists, naturalistic theists; it's amazing to what lengths people go to avoid doing what they've been told to do.

      Even when at issue is whether we've actually been told anything?

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    17. Why does having the Church as sole authority for interpreting its scripture not help? The alternatives haven't been very impressive.

      There is more and more good work and argumentation for the veracity of the early accounts, which you must know about. Those against agree on nothing but their own anti-Chriistian conclusions.

      What is not disputed is the existence of the Church and its account of its beginnings in a series of public and historical events. They're all pretty clear about what we've been told. My point is that the alternatives to dogma are all very contrived, the work of human hands. By definition, if they claim to be an alternative to orthodox religion, they are dangerously futile.

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    18. Cervantes,

      Having the Church as the Interpreter of Scripture doesn't help in this case because there is no interpretation that the Church has offered on this subject that solves my difficulty. If you are aware of one, please provide it.

      Suppose you are right, that all alternatives to orthodox religion are "dangerously futile". That doesn't make my difficulty go away and doesn't make orthodox religion reasonable to believe.

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    19. @Albinus,

      "Related, on the value of religion in the classical sense of myth, or in terms of ritual, or mysticism, or as a school for growth in virtue, etc. In other words, whether there is some non-literal, non-dogmatic, non-propositional interpretation of religion that is worth preserving...something along the lines of what Joseph Campbell said: "Religion is true in the way that poetry is true"."

      I think Jonathan Pageau's channel might be interesting on that front: https://www.youtube.com/c/JonathanPageau/featured

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    20. @Albinus,

      "He wouldn't have made it so that the Church Fathers would have to come up with ad hoc solutions to save the appearances. "

      Are you referring to Preterism?

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    21. JoeD,

      Thanks for the youtube link...will check it out.

      I didn't have Preterism in mind for the Church Fathers per se, no, though Preterism is a great example of, I believe, post hoc rationalization.

      For the Church Fathers, I had in mind things like interpreting "generation" as referring to, say, Christians as a whole (Origen, Chrysostom) or even simply to humanity or the Jews (Jerome). I am relying on Aquinas' Catena Aurea for this.

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    22. @Unknown,

      "or that it is rooted in an ontologically very different kind of reality."

      Could you go into more detail about that? Assuming matter truly does exist, what would it's fundamental ontology be?

      As far as I know, the classical hylemorphist answer to this is that matter is what limits form - though that's more the case for prime matter, and quantitative matter and physical extension (along with qualia) don't seem to be purely limitations (from the limited amount I've read, I'm willing to be corrected on this).

      Of course, even idealism would have the same problem - because we have both an immaterial reality that is NOT quantitative or physically extended (i.e. universals, concepts, immaterial truths, the souls of humans if not animals etc.), and one which DOES have the anomalous properties of having bodily extension and quantity, which is radically unlike the former.

      So we need some way of reconciling these two either way - we seem to have two different types of being, especially if the material type is itself not just a limitation but is its own type of being that has its own content.

      One tentative solution that comes to mind is to point out that even quantity, mass and physical extension are types of real being, and so necessarily have forms which are their principle. And what gives those material properties their concrete material character is the fact that these material forms are actualised - they have actuality. So while quantity and physical extension are truly real types of being, they still have an immaterial structure to them that is actualised which is what explains their concreteness in daily life.

      So on that front, matter would still be a limited type of being precisely because it is definite - it has certain properties which make it a finite actuality. Which is why God and other immaterial beings don't need to have matter in order to be higher actualities - they are in a sense less defined than matter. So for something to be immaterial doesn't mean it's impotent and lacking in a type of positive reality - namely quantity and extension; rather, it means it is less definite and so less limited by other forms.

      What do you think?

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    23. @Albinus,

      Regarding preterism - do you have anything specific in mind as to what's incorrect or post hoc in relation to it?

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    24. JoeD,

      I don't see how preterism is warranted by the text. It strikes me rather as a rationalization, after the fact, (i.e., after the first generation of Christians died) to avoid Jesus uttering a false prophecy.

      Matthew 24 starts off with the disciples asking Jesus to tell them about the *signs that would precede the Second Coming*: And, in this context, Christ goes on to talk about various signs and then mentions how the angels will summon the elect from the four ends of the earth, and how He will come on a cloud from Heaven etc etc.

      It doesn't seem that the Second Coming and Final Judgment have already occurred, so Preterism strikes me as a radical rationalization. Something that would only occur to believers after their expectation of an imminent return of Christ never materialized.

      At the very least, if Preterism is true, then I think Matthew 24 runs into grave difficulties with Divine Inspiration of Scripture (i.e., God seemingly needlessly misleading us through His Word, since Preterism does not seem to be warranted by the text at all).

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    25. @Albinus

      Maybe this can help: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/was-jesus-a-false-prophet

      I remember seeing once someone quoting a few church fathers that did associate the text with the temple destruction, but i failed to find it before.

      Of course, i don't expect this to change your view. The preterist explanation looks way more convincing for me that for you because we have very diferent relevant presupositions. But maybe it can make the view seems less ad hoc.

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    26. Another thing to remember: apocalyptic literature is hard as hell to understand, just look at the bunch of ways the prophets and the Apocalypse can be understood, so we should not be that convinced that we get the text. Again, this does not means that you are wrong.

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    27. Albinus, having the Church interpret its scriptures deals with "the" difficulty, but you say the problem is your difficulty. This is something I cannot fix. Ultimately, we all have to do our best to conform to what's right and this isn't always easy. If you want a long discussion about biblical exegesis though, I can't help much. However, the matters you've brought up have surely been answered in full so many times.

      If you look at Jonathan Pageau, you'll see why esoterism and the occult are so dangerous to Christianity. They adopt Christianity and graft it onto their worldview. He claims that Christ is the fulfilment, not only of the Old Testament, but all the myths of paganism; typical traditionalist nonsense.

      The great thing for these creeps is that by talking about art and symbols instead of doctrine, they can get the most dangerous errors to pass. Heresy with smells and bells, so to speak. Beauty should reflect the truth, just as contemplating creation should. However, thousands of years of mankind looking at nature without knowing of the supernatural left him wallowing in darkness and helplessness. Artists, likewise, are often among the worst when it comes to knowing the truth, though it ought to be otherwise. As Chesterton wrote, "take away the supernatural and what remains is the unnatural".

      Pageau, in his discussion of occult symbols, claims that it is the ideas behind them and the way they are used that is important, and that they have no good or evil value in themselves. But he then provided an apology for the ideas of occultism:
      He laughs at people who think the Kabbala is evil and says it contains insights worth looking at. Freemasonry, apart form having benign symbols, is not criticised for its ideas, but because for a member of the Orthodox Church, it would mean "giving loyalty to another secret organisation". "Another"? Yes, because the early Church was a Church of "initiates", for him the same meaning as occult. He attacks the "medieval" Church for insisting on a transcendent God, and says we become God "and not just metaphorically", and creation is not really distinct from God.

      The usual boring list of neo-pagan esoteric "traditionalist" notions goes on, all beautifully illustrated with charming Christian art (whose symbolism is just another version of "universal" "types".

      It's all radically anti-Christian. Christianity is unique and has no parallel with other religions. The unity is among the false religions it replaced. That is the unity that attracts traditionalists and occultists like Pageau. How dopey do we have to be to be taken in by that?

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    28. @ Albinus

      First, on a personal note, I used to be tormented by this very problem before and then again some time after my conversion, so I can definitely relate.

      I believe the solution, however, is rather simple and has been present there all along in Catechism 101, so to speak, if implicitly, and hence easily missed by me. Please recall that the formal motive of faith, as asked of Catholics, is the authority of God revealing. The Act of Faith goes as follows:

      „<...> I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.”

      Now, as you correctly note, the motives of credibility as regards the fact of Revelation can provide only moral certainty. However, God's inability to deceive or be deceived, as established through natural theology, is metaphysically certain, and therein lies the warrant for the kind of unreserved assent the Church demands of us.

      1) What God reveals is necessarily true.
      2) God reveals X to be the case.
      3) X is necessarily true.

      The major is metaphysically certain, the minor can only ever be morally so, and obviously the resulting conclusion can also be only morally certain. But provided the certainty is there, one can be morally certain that something is -necessarily true-.

      In the case of revealed truths concerning contingent, historical matters, say, the question of the divine inspiration of the 7th chapter of the Book of Micah, or Adam-Eve monogenism, a Catholic who thus professes these truths does so not on the basis of some necessarily 'forensic', post hoc reconstruction based on the available evidence, but rather on the basis of 'eye-witness' testimony by Credibility and Trustworthiness Themselves.
      And, ceteris paribus, for witness testimony to be credible, preponderance of positive forensic evidence in support of the claim attested is not required, mere consistency is enough (but more on that shortly).

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    29. When choosing between competing reconstructive hypotheses, the more probable is to be preferred.
      None is, by nature, necessarily true, and their truth depends on the quality of the arguments presented. However, the assent of faith does not commit one to any such hypothesis on any given issue.

      For example, my belief in Adam-Eve monogenism does not commit me to any given detailed historical account of human migration and genetics, let alone adhering to an improbable theory in the face of competing more probable ones: I believe in the fact of Adam-Eve monogenism because I'm morally certain God revealed this to be the case, and as long as the truth of the testimony is allowed for by the avaible evidence, my moral certainty is none the worse for having little to no independent positive forensic corroboration.

      Nor should the fact that my initial moral certainty is based on a historical hypothesis cause any worries, as there's no necessary connexion between the two objects of investigation: the paucity of positive material evidence for Adam-Eve monogenism has no bearing on the evidence for the historicity of Christ's teaching and its divine approbation through miracles. Unlike say, chemistry, here we are not dealing with identifiable substances with definite natures and hence predictable behaviours that one can use to make general probablity judgements: there is no natural tendency in the things around us or the world in general to maintain a consistently satisfying amount of historical evidence for each and every historical reality in which we might be interested; without relying on such a tendency, any demand for uniform and systematic attestation is question-begging and unreasonable. Thus, the paleontho-/archaeological improbability of said monogenism cannot, by itself, be transfered to the motives of credibility. “Little forensic evidence for Adam and Eve” simply does not mean “Little (or less) forensic evidence for the historicity of Christ's time on Earth”, even if accompanied by a thousand parallel cases.

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    30. The same goes for any other comparable worry, including an exegetical one, or so I'd argue: if you have independent reason to believe that a given text, necessarily, contains only true statements, one has prior reason to dismiss any readings of it that entail this being false, even if these appear, internally, more probable. Thus, a Catholic can pick any other reading of Matthew 24:33-34 that he deems probable, no matter how contrived the solution might appear, provided the historicity of the account constituting the motives of credibility is not thus rendered improbable, which is, arguably, not the case: 1) after all, the appeal to the motives of credibility in no way presupposes the inerrancy of the Gospels as historical accounts, let alone their perfect perspicacity, the two attributes nobody actually looks for in historical accounts; 2) a generally truthful account can contain ambigious or even erroneous statements without automatically losing said quality.

      It is ultimately on the basis of the God's revelation through the agency Church that Catholics hold the books of Sacred Scripture to be inspired, inerrant etc., not any perceived internal perfection (which would be by nature insufficient anyway), as Miguel Cervantes correctly noted, I believe.

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    31. I myself believe that the chapter describes both the Second Coming and its prototype, the Destruction of Jerusalem, and so refers to both the members of the literal contemporary generation and us Catholics; I think it's not at all contrived to see it that way, especially given the clear parallels in terms of horror and „apocalypticness” of events (amply attested by Josephus), the universal significance of Jerusalem for the formerly elect people and Christ's intimation of the future destruction of the city of murderers by the irate king's armies in the parable of the Marriage Feast containted in the same Gospel, notably, not ending the story there (Mt. 22:1-14)
      But this is beside my main point.

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    32. Further, you write:

      “if classical theism is true and divine inspiration of scripture is true, then to me the Bible is quite different than what we'd expect.”

      Although I can certainly see where you're coming from, given what we know through natural theology about God, this statement is somewhat bewildering, as it seems to translate into “If I were God, I'd write the Bible this way...”. How can we, the limited rational animals that we know ourselves to be, even begin to ask ourselves that? We have very limited knowledge of both the subject and the object of God's self-revelation. Besides this general consideration, on the level of fittingness arguments, given that the revelation here considered is not primarily about God as knowable through reason, one would arguably expect the not-directly-classical-theism-related-content to predominate. Having provided us with the Book of Nature, why would God focus on the same themes in revelation proper? Combining the two Books precludes understandings contrary to reason and is explicitly recommended in Scripture, so what, specifically, would warrant the conclusion that Scripture is suboptimal in its divinely intended role?

      Especially in light of the fact that the latter is also something of which we have only a general notion, and also the consideration that even among us humans communication through language is used for a plethora of different sub-purposes?

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    33. The same, pardon the clunkiness of the expression, excessive cataphaticism is, I believe expressed in this statement:

      „If Catholicism were true, God would not inspire the human authors of scripture to quote Jesus as saying he would come SOON after the signs and that the generation wouldn't pass until the signs took place, even though He hasn't come in 2000 years. God wouldn't want to cast doubt on the credibility of Jesus and He could have easily avoided such a grave misunderstanding. He wouldn't have made it so that the Church Fathers would have to come up with ad hoc solutions to save the appearances. Thus, Catholicism is false or at least unworthy of belief, either on account of divine inspiration of Scripture or on account of Jesus making a false prophecy or on account of God misleading us or undermining our ability to distinguish the True Religion from all others.”

      Apart from the concerning regarding ad hoc solutions, which I believe I've addressed above, you seem to think that allowing an ambiguous statement to remain in Scripture on God's part is tantamount to inducing misunderstandings, misleading us or undermining the credibility of the Faith. Again, this would only be the case if there were no valid external considerations for picking a different reading. Any banality notwithstanding, I'd like to note that one shouldn't rush to conclusions upon failing to see God's purpose in any particular case of a perceived lack of being, and this restraint is, I believe, sufficiently suggested by the findings of natural theology alone.

      Thomas Gavisus

      P.S.

      I'm the "Unknown" responsible for the latest "Unknown" comments in this thread.

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    34. @Albinus,

      "Matthew 24 starts off with the disciples asking Jesus to tell them about the *signs that would precede the Second Coming*:"

      And that is just question begging. Whether or not Matt 24 talks about the Second Coming and/or to what degree is precisely the issue here, and is what Preterists deny in the first place.

      To summarise, here are some of the arguments preterists bring up to show that it isn't about the Second Coming / Final Judgment, relating to the points you bring up, which you may or may not be aware of:

      1) The "angels" summoning the elect aren't actually divine beings, since the word there is primarily to designate the function of messenger by itself, and is used for humans in other conexts such as for John the Baptist and the Disciples. The action of collecting things isn't a quick act, but in the ancient world presupposed a longer time for harvest - and with the fall of Jerusalem in view, it would mean Christians spreading the Gospel to the rest of the world beyond just the Roman Empire over a longer period of time - which is what "world" means in prior verses, being "oikoumene."

      2) The coming on a cloud thing is not literal as it calls back to Daniel 7 where it mentions the Son of Man going towards the Ancient of Days to be enthroned - the primary meaning being a vindication and victory over enemies. Matt 26:61-64 is relevant to this where Christ mentions the same thing in connection to His prediction about the Temple being destroyed, meaning that fulfillment of the prophecy would vindicate Him and His claims of being the Son of Man coming in the clouds.

      3) The very beginning of Matt 24 shows how the disciples asked the question of the end of the age and His coming because Jesus predicted the Temple's destruction, meaning the Temple's destruction was one of the major things that the other statements are supposed to connect to, and what the "coming" and "end of age" are about - so finding fulfillment of at least a part of this in 70 A.D. is natural.

      4) And it does say end of the age, which is about the Jewish age of the Law, after which comes the age of the Messiah, so the destruction of the Temple would end the Law age and fully begin the Messiah age. It's not about the second coming in the sense of final judgment and general resurrection.


      So yeah - while a superficial reading might somewhat understandably incline one to think Matt 24 talks about the Second Coming / Final Judgment or that all of it is meant to point in that direction, there are many other arguments that show it's not necessarily the case after further study. At least that's what Preterists claim.

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    35. Talmid,

      Thanks. To me, taking a preterist view still falls afoul of Divine Inspiration of Scripture unless it can be shown that non-preterist ("futurist") interpretations are implausible (which is difficult to do, considering the number of Church Fathers, saints, and theologians who understood the Olivet Discourse as referring at least in part to the Second Coming.)

      After all, it seems highly implausible that God would inspire Matthew to put in Jesus' mouth words that could easily be understood in a way that would make Jesus a false prophet. He could have avoided that and it seems he would have been "motivated" to do so.

      I agree that a preterist take is not necessarily ad hoc (at least if we're abstracting away from Catholic teaching on Divine Inspiration).

      Another thought: suppose Jesus really had wanted to say that the Second Coming / Final Judgment / Apocalypse would take place within the Apostles' lifetime. If that were the case, what would we expect him to say? Something like what we find in Matthew 24? Or, similarly, like what we find in Matthew 16:27-28?:

      "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom"

      It is highly implausible to me to interpret the passages "preteristly" if the words are exactly what we'd expect if a non-preterist "futurism" is true. Whereas, if preterism were true, we wouldn't expect Jesus to speak in such a way that he knew could (and would) cast doubt on his credibility / omniscience etc.

      Wasn't it CS Lewis who referred to this passage as "the most embarassing verse in the Bible"?

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    36. The link Talmid posted seemed very convincing to me.... https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/was-jesus-a-false-prophet

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    37. Cervantes,

      However, the matters you've brought up have surely been answered in full so many times.

      My main issue concerns not biblical exegesis (which, yes, has been treated ad infinitum from day one) but rather weighing the motives of credibility against the motives of "incredibility", or the grounds of belief vs the grounds of disbelief. I have actually never seen anyone (whether an ancient or modern author) treat this issue as it relates to Catholicism at any length though it seems so fundamental. Rather, what one finds the apologists doing is first a focus on the motives of credibility. Once they have established to their satisfaction that, say, the Resurrection and other miracles necessarily point to Catholicism's truth, then all that's left to do is explain away any difficulties (like apparent contradictions in Scripture etc). Nowhere have I seen an apologist who allows these difficulties to feedback into the conversation over the motives of credibility. And yet, that seems to be the rational thing to do before declaring that it is morally certain that Catholicism is true.

      Thanks for your perspective on Pageau and traditionalism. I would need to do further research to be able to say much in response.

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    38. @Albinus,

      "Nowhere have I seen an apologist who allows these difficulties to feedback into the conversation over the motives of credibility. And yet, that seems to be the rational thing to do before declaring that it is morally certain that Catholicism is true."


      I don't think that's necessary, because those difficulties can easily be taken care of in their own context, ignoring other evidence for or against. If the solution to some difficulty is correct and good, then that solves the problem independently and on its own terms, whether or not there is other strong evidence that shows Christianity is true and is more clear than the difficulties themselves.

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    39. @Miguel Cervantes,

      "He claims that Christ is the fulfilment, not only of the Old Testament, but all the myths of paganism; typical traditionalist nonsense."

      By that reasoning, C. S. Lewis' argument that the old pagan myths were imperfect reflections of the truth that is truly fulfilled in Christ is also traditionalist nonsense.


      "He attacks the "medieval" Church for insisting on a transcendent God, and says we become God "and not just metaphorically", and creation is not really distinct from God."

      Could you provide where he actually claims this? Because it's possible this might be a misunderstanding of discussions about theosis and becoming God by grace NOT by nature, which isn't metaphorical either but a true share and participation in the divine nature as a gift.

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    40. Thomas Gavisus,

      If one can be morally certain that God has revealed X then any difficulties that follow upon X can be waved away. We can either come up with good solutions to the difficulties, or failing that, simply say "it's a mystery".

      And that's fine....if one truly is morally certain.

      I concede that nature doesn't give a hill of beans over preserving consistent evidence. But I deny that the God of Catholicism can be unconcerned about it. If God wishes our belief in Catholicism to be reasonable then he necessarily must provide us with a total set of evidence that points to Catholicism rather than against. We should expect God to arrange things such that the evidence we observe isn't in tension with what He has revealed. At the very least, we need sufficient motive that to any reasonable person would outweigh the tensions.

      ...no matter how contrived the solution might appear, provided the historicity of the account constituting the motives of credibility is not thus rendered improbable...

      The problem with this, though, is that it makes the Divine Inspiration of Scripture artificially unfalsifiable. Does it not seem odd that God would arrange things such that we must simply accept a priori (on account of the motives of credibility) that nothing in Scripture can call Divine Inspiration into question no matter how much the textual evidence itself might scream to the contrary? God could have easily avoided such a bizarre arrangement and, as rational people, we should think that He would want to. If one comes to absurdities when drawing conclusions the logical course of action is to re-examine the premises to see what went wrong. If we do this, perhaps it turns out that we were mistaken in thinking we were morally certain that God has spoken.

      (continued below...)

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    41. (continued from above...to Thomas Gavisus)

      Now maybe additional difficulties are then created concerning the motives of credibility (if they actually do imply the truth of Catholicism) but at that point we're left with deciding, as I've pointed out in different comments, which of the following is more plausible:

      (A) The miracles (or other motives of credibility) make us sufficiently certain that Catholicism is true. Thus, we should believe a priori that any difficulties that follow upon Catholicism being true have a good solution no matter how contrived any particular solution may appear.

      OR

      (B) The difficulties that follow upon Catholicism being true makes us sufficiently certain that belief in Catholicism is unreasonable. Thus, if the motives of credibility imply the truth of Catholicism, we should believe a priori that there is some good non-supernatural (or at least non-Catholic) explanation to the evidence surrounding the motives of credibility no matter how contrived such explanations may appear.

      That's where the focus needs to be. On deciding between A and B. It comes down to weighing the motives of credibility against the difficulties that follow upon Catholicism being true. And, I'd argue, the motives of credibility would need to be much stronger than they are in order to be proportional to the difficulties. Since it is absurd to think God would have a good reason for misleading us or for doing something that would cause us to call into question whether His Revelation is a true one (in fact that idea itself undermines our ability to give a rational account of belief), the motives of credibility would need to be absurdly strong. And yet, all we have are accounts of accounts. It is not radically implausible that there could be good naturalistic explanations to these claims of miracles, even if we don't know what the particular explanation is in a particular case just as the believer doesn't have to know what the particular solution is to a partiuclar, say, Scriptural difficulty. And, God could have made the motives of credibility easily outweigh the difficulties if He so chose (and we should believe that He would) and yet it doesn't seem that He did.

      ...so what, specifically, would warrant the conclusion that Scripture is suboptimal in its divinely intended role?...ne shouldn't rush to conclusions upon failing to see God's purpose in any particular case...

      I believe what I've said above addresses this so I hesitate to make this already lengthy comment any longer except to note that there is a fundamental difference between God doing something that seems mysterious to us (that's fine and should be expected) and God doing something that seems self-defeating as far as the fact of Revelation is concerned (this is not fine and should not be expected).

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    42. JoeD,

      I believe my other comment deals with why merely showing how Preterism is a plausible reading of the text is insufficient.

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    43. Daniel,

      Yes, I had also read the link Talmid posted. But it only shows (arguably) how a Preterist interpretation is a plausible reading. It doesn't show how a non-preterist interpretation is implausible, which, as I've argued in other comments I think is necessary to avoid tension with Divine Inspiration and/or with God's omniscience or infinite goodness (seeing how these passages would cause such misunderstanding and God not seeming to care). The article doesn't deal with this aspect of the difficulty at all.

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    44. @Albinus,

      I think some of the arguments mentioned previously might imply ways in which a Preterist interpretation is more plausible.

      For example, the fact Christ first mentioned the destruction of the Temple which caused the disciples to ask about it, how the chapter specifically talked about the end of the age which most likely refers to the Jewish age of the Law, and Matt 26 where Christ links the Son-of-Man-in-the-clouds as being vindicated by the fulfillment of the Temple's destruction.

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    45. JoeD,

      Do you see how though it could also be plausible to interpret the passages "non-preteristically"? If so, I think my difficulty remains.

      Further, what do you make of Matt 16:27-28 which I quoted above? Note in particular the all caps part. Does not that imply a Final Judgment and its juxtaposition with v.28 imply that a non-preterist interpretation is not at all implausible?

      I don't see the link you're seeing in Matt 26. How does Christ's words there to the high priest tie in with the Temple's destruction?

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  14. Professor Feser mentioned the transcendentals of being, goodness, and truth in his post. I have usually heard the three transcendentals identified as "goodness, truth, and beauty." I have tried to find the reason for this disparity, but without success. Could a kind and informed reader of this blog disabuse me of my ignorance regarding this matter? Thank you, JOB

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    Replies
    1. Check out Ed's intro to Aquinas.

      "Being is also what is called in Thomistic philosophy a transcendental, something above every genus, common to all beings and thus not restricted to any category or individual. The other transcendentals, on Aquinas's account, are thing, one, something, true, and good, and each is "convertible" with being in the sense that each designates one and the same thing - namely being - under a different aspect."

      With regard to beauty, I think some folks add it, but it is often considered a subset of the good, which is the aspect of being that related to its desirability in so far as it is perfect.

      If I remember correctly, John Paul II used this concept in his book, Love and Responsibility. Also, it appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but that book is not trying to explain the actual transcendentals.

      "319 God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory. That his creatures should share in his truth, goodness and beauty - this is the glory for which God created them."

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    2. Albinus 1.27pm

      I just wanted to say how much I admire your courage and integrity in embarking on the intellectual exploration you are engaged in when raised and socialised as a Catholic, and still moving in Catholic circles. This must be very difficult for you on a personal level and generate much resistance, or do you keep your doubts and concerns secret from those immediately around you? You seem to be very well informed and have ready responses to your critics on here, so I am guessing that you studied philosophy or theology at university. Maybe the intellectual level of your concerns is not something that the 'ordinary' believers around you are party to.

      I was raised in a thoroughly secular family in England, studied physics at university and became embroiled in left social activism while still a teen, and have never seen religious traditions as anything other than an often oppressive fairy tales. So whereas you have to be aware of your bias in wanting at some level to remain part of what you have always known, I have to be carefull not to fail to see something true and valuable that has always been in front of my nose so to speak. Recognising out biases and doing out best to counteract them is no easy thing.

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    3. Unknown

      You seem to be under the impression that criticism of theism or Christianity is always met with some kind of hostile resistance here. That just isn't true. I would say that the absolute peak of this blog combox were when it was dominated by three commenters: dguller, Scott and Rank Sophist.

      Dguller was an atheist but was absolutely brilliant at sparring with others, eventually coming around to something like the classical theist position. Scott was a Reform Jew who converted to Catholicism (on this very blog) and Rank was undecided between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy before eventually becoming Orthodox. They were no less brilliant than dguller. This idea that this blog is all a bunch of Catholics sniping at unbelievers and refusing to engage with them is simply untrue.

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    4. Agreed. I miss Scott in particular. May he rest in peace.

      Some of us have more ... emotional baggage than others and so come off as more reactionary.

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    5. For my part, I was raised in a very liberal Catholic home where the Catholic morality, especially those surrounding sexual morality, were completely rejected. The hypocrisy of their type of Catholicism led me to abandon the faith. I only came back to it in University. It was not an easy conversion, and there was much pain involved. It would have been so much easier to just accept their way of understanding things. But through bitter personal experience, I become utterly convinced that the sexual revolution was the source of great evil in this world, and something I needed to fight. Trust me when I say the social pressure to accept Catholicism in my context was non-existent. In reality, secular liberalism ruled the day in my childhood. Relativism. Syncretism. Skepticism. Especially from my father, who was raised on Sartre, Camus, Simon de Beauvoir, and so on.

      One of the key aspects of my conversion back to Catholicism was my study of Jung, Freud, Hegel, Victor Frankle, and William James, and subsequent to them, the Greek and Roman philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

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    6. Dr Yogomi 6.01am

      I did not have the blog in mind at all, but was referring to resistance from friends, his church and family, all of whom must surely be mightily alarmed at Albinus persuing a trajectory which might well end in him rejecting the faith entirely. His doubts and issues seem pretty wide ranging and foundational, and are unlikely to be fixed by apologetic sticking plaster.

      It strikes me that having made a deep commitment to something like Roman Catholic Christianity, it must be virtually impossible to get out, regardless of its truth or otherwise. Significant and sustained doubt would likely generate guilt for potentially failing and being unfaithfull in a personal relationship, as well as deep fear and dread at the possibility of getting things wrong and ending up damned and devoid of hope for ever. I imagine that guilt and fear are enough to keep most of you in line and ensure your continued adherence to the script, so it is mightily impressive to me when someone is courageous enough to book the trend.

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    7. Unknown

      I see. So, you're from England? My understanding is that religious belief has all but died out over there. You have any idea why that might be? I ask because some of the greatest Christian writers came out of England: people like G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Graham Greene and the like...

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    8. I have some vague ideas about this, but do not know nearly enough about the history to say anything insightful. It is quite true that England is a very secularised country, with very low religiosity. There are aspects of the situation which keep activists such as myself and the BHA occupied though, such as partial state funding of faith schools, explicit religious representation in our upper political chamber and the continued existance of a state church. The Church of England though is a very liberal 'big tent', and is not very strong on doctrine and dogma, so I think that many of you would be pretty appalled by it. While growing up and at university I never knew personally any religious people at all, and it came as a great surprise to me to eventually discover that there exist intellectually serious religious people who think carefully about and try to rationally justify what they believe.

      What about you Dr Yogami, where do you hail from?

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    9. I'm American, from the rural Midwest. Grew up and was raised by Catholic working class parents who had no knowledge of philosophy.

      I have no particular painful memories of the Church itself. On the contrary, I'm nostalgic about the fantastic cathedrals, the monasteries and the rosary beads gifted to me by my very Catholic grandmother. However I developed an intellectual skepticism when I got into my late teens and throughout my twenties, and pretty much got into what I call the 'Prometheus Books' stage, identifying as an atheist.

      I got into philosophy in my twenties and got into Bertrand Russell. I remember reading his History of Western Philosophy and being baffled by his entry on Aristotle, mentioning that he was on a radio show criticizing the Stagyrite and all manner of Catholics wound up calling in in protest. No Catholic I had grown up with ever mentioned him or Aquinas. That led me through a number of paths and eventually to Feser and classical theism : )

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    10. Unknown,

      Thanks for the kind words! I am in the process of gradually sharing my doubts with those around me, which I don't find particularly easy, as on the one hand I do not want to be hypocritical or otherwise overly sugarcoat it and on the other I do not want to needlessly offend or ostracize family and friends. I am an engineer by trade, but I spent a few years in the seminary.

      That is interesting to hear about your background. Thanks. I find your perspective here valuable and have been impressed with many of the points you have made in your comments (concise and well-written to boot) though many times I have had to do a double-take since there seem to be several who go by "Unknown" on here!

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    11. Daniel,

      Interesting. Would you care to elaborate on what it was about Jung (etc) that brought you back to Catholicism? Did the evidence for/against miracles play any role in your conversion?

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  15. Dear Prof. Feser,

    Wouldn't A-T make more sense to current people if the terms form, idea, essence or universal were replaced with information?

    For example, when investigating an object, if it is its form we upload in our minds while its matter stays there, then form is really information, the information content of the object, its properties, both quantitative and qualitative.

    When we are 3D printing a toy dog, we are really mixing matter with information. Well, not quite prime matter, the plastic powder has form, but that information content is rather useless to us.

    That information we feed into the 3D printer is what makes the toy dog what it is (essence).

    If we print ten toy dogs, the information is the universal that is instantiated in the particulars. Size, shape etc.

    Maybe it is not terribly accurate. But for a denizen of an information age, and for a guy who works with software, this way it does make sense.

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    1. Hey TheDividualist,

      The problem with doing this is that these terms are ill defined in current parlance, and in some sectors of philosophy, have been coopeted. For example, you can review Eds discussion of computational paradigms for understanding matter, the mind, dna, and so on. Whether information is purely syntax or if sematic content is also real. When the brain should be thought of as hardware and the mind as software. If Thomists were to redefine Thomist concepts, as you suggest, they would spend half the time redefining these terms to align with what they actually mean by these terms. It might be a good way to go, but it is by no means unproblematic or an easy way of going.

      You should check out Philosophy of Mind or Aristotle's revenge for a review of some of these ideas.

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    2. Dear Daniel,

      I know this would be terribly imprecise, but it would at least make it imaginable, as it is hard for moderns to imagine all this.

      Similary to how Curtis Yarvin said that if we would live in a computer simulation, the sysadmin running it has all the traditional properties of God. Well we are not living in a computer simulation, but it is a useful idea because moderns imagine God as Russels Teapot and this makes the idea of the traditional sense of God imaginable, that reality has a programmer (author) and occasional maintainer (miracles).

      We are not living in a computer simulation, because it is a complete non-idea. It would mean the actual computer simulations we have are the big simulation partially simulating itself in them. So it is not the universe is like a computer simulation, but the computer simulation is partially like the universe. But that is precisely why we call them simulations and not videogames, and with that the idea collapses.

      But it helps realizing that a lot of things we think are matter are actually information.

      As for the brain and the mind. Feser teaches all our faculties we have in common with dogs are in the brain and die with the body. Only abstract intelligence is supernatural. But abstract intelligence needs those faculties to do anything useful.

      Especially memory. Since animal brains can store memories, no reason to assume the abstract intelligence can do so. Hence every time we follow a longer abstract thought, the abstract intelligence has to keep reading and writing the memory storage in the brain. Thus it can only operate in steps between two remembered ideas in the brain. It reads "all humans are mortal", it reads "Socrates is human", and writes back "Socrates is mortal". Then it reads out "Socrates is mortal", and writes back "a poisoned cup can kill him".

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    3. Hey TheDividualist,

      I'll redo my response to your original post to get to some specific problems. I was too general in my first response. :)

      So you originally proposed replacing the terms idea, essense, and universal with the term information. I am not a computer programer myself, but I am a tech writer, and I often have to describe code chunks in my documentation, so I know that this term does not simply translate to different programing languages. And I think in a similar way, the terms you mentioned used in AT philosophy are equally complex.

      For example, Form cannot be properly understood appart from its place in the four causes. Matter and form make up the intrinsic principle of a thing, and efficient and final make up the extrinsic principles of a thing. Together the four causes are key aspects of a total explanation of a thing. You don't really get a complete picture of a thing (or complete information) without looking at all four causes.

      Now, with regard to your second post, you mention how tightly connected the hylomorphic mind is to the body. Agreed. This distinguishes hylomorphic dualism from substance dualism. So there is a sense that the brain opperates like a computer. The brain stores memories, yes, but it is the memories of particular images and sensations. Concepts, abstract ideas, judgements, and universals, of that sort cannot in principle be stored as particulars. This is the semantic content of the mind. The mind is so tightly connected to the brain that its immaterial functions truly depend on it to function as well, but it is not reducible to those material processes of the brain.

      Anyway, I think you agree with all of this, so I won't go into it too much more. It really comes down to a question of philosophy of mind. Have you read Ed's Philosophy of Mind intro book?

      Cheers,
      Daniel

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  16. Hey Miguel,

    Just a quick side thread on this comment you made:

    "Avoid traditionalist philosophy if you can. It is occultist and, in 2021, people can be more original than that."

    Can you be more specific? Do you include Ed in this category? Or by traditionalist, do you mean FFSP?

    And as a follow up, who would you recommend instead who whomever you include in the category Traditionalist.

    God bless,
    Daniel

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    1. Ah, I see you were responding to something Albinus mentioned. Neveremind

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  17. Albinus,

    I noticed that you mentioned the Traditionalist School. If I may beg your indulgence ...I think the principle of a transcendent unity of religions is one of the best explanations for the plurality of the world's spiritual Traditions. It seems to me that that one of their central doctrines, the distinction between the Pure Absolute (Formless) and "relative" Absolute (Form) has something of an Aristotelian character? The Pure Absolute deploys as a Form of the Formless , that is, as a revealed Religion. But, on this POV, no particular Form can fully exhaust the Formless Absolute. Is that your understanding?

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    1. Have you considered the possibility Chris that the best explanation for the great diversity of the world's spiritual traditions is that they are invented by humans in different historical, sociocultural and other circumstances and refer to nothing 'out there' at all? That seems to me to be an obvious starting point, and is a model that automatically gives you the phenomemon observed.

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    2. Unknown,

      It's less about what they don't have in common and, instead, what they do have.

      It's like watching all sorts of cultures produce all sorts of customs and traditions surrounding the use of water, and deciding its proof its all made up and there is no real basis for why water plays such an important role in human lives.

      Another point is with purpose. If there is no real ultimate purpose out there, it doesn't explain why the very idea of purpose is so prevalent among so many cultures. Even without knowing the importance of water for humanity, just the obsession with water across various human cultures is exactly what you would expect if there is a genuine importance of water. Similarly, just the obsession with purpose, afterlife, morality, the divine, etc can't just be dismissed as pure fiction, given how ubiquitous these are. If anything, it hints at the opposite.

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    3. Billy

      The fact that many humans have an obsession with something hardly means that such a thing exists. This may be so with water - a varifiable biological necessity for our survival- but not necessarily with something else, such as supernatural entities for example. In any case , there are plausible psychological reasons for this obsession, such as the desire to explain the world, make sense of it and to some extent control it through propitiation, and the desire to survive and evade annhilation, even through death.

      The fact is that the range of completely incompatible spiritualities that humans have generated is truely staggering, so if our species is responding to a real 'signal' it is fantastically weak and easily drowned out by circumstance and culture, so we end up with anything from monotheism to animism to something like Buddhism.

      A good starting point is always to go with the simplest explanation first. Here we have endless disparate and incompatible spiritualities, with no indication at all that they are misperceptions of something real but 'beyond', so the obvious first question that seems to escape you is ' what do we know about the psychology of humans which might explain this?' You are straight off into the stratosphere without any warrent for your flight ( of fancy ) at all.

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  18. Chris,

    Seems fine to me. I mean, even in the traditional (not traditionalist/perennialist) framework there's something to be said for this along the lines of pseudo-Dionysius / Aquinas and the "Divine Names" where all our predications about God can only be analogous at best. If a religion, then, makes claims about God it can only be using analogous/limited language and thus necessarily falls short of exhausting the Absolute.

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  19. Do you think pseudo- Dionysius was, in fact, a classical theist? Or do you think his view was more esoteric, perhaps more akin to the unqualified nondualism of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta?

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  20. Chris,

    Certainly I'd say Dionysius was a classical theist, but unfortunately I don't know enough about Hindu philosophy (or Dionysius for that matter) to do justice to your question.

    Perhaps someone else here will see this and chime in.

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  21. Unknown,

    Certainly....
    In fact, The Perennialist perspective nods in the direction that you are partial to. On this "traditional" pluralistic point of view, Divine Truth is one , timeless , and eternal. As this single Truth reverberates through all times and places in human history, it manifests in different civilizations so that "the different religions are but different languages expressing that one Truth." So, each of the world religions are basically "Divine descents" and are "colored" over time by the particular human psychologies that receive them. This is Tradition.
    I suppose that these ideas would not commend themselves to someone who is inclined to reject the principle of Revelation.

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    1. You are correct Chris, they do not. They are not required to explain the phenomenon and are simply concocted to preserve a completely unnecessary belief.

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    2. Chris,

      What would you say is the strongest reason to believe that a transcendent Divine Revelation is behind the various religions rather than believing that the origin of religions is purely human, as "Unknown" is saying more or less?

      Seeking an answer to this has been my motivation in beginning to read the perennialist authors so if you can cut to the chase for me and reduce my reading list that would be much appreciated!

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    3. Chris

      Even in its own terms, how could the 'model' you suggest be correct? Religeous and spiritual truth claims from different traditions frequently contradict each other , so in what sense can they be expressing the 'one truth' , unless you are suggesting that though responding to 'the truth' they often get things flat wrong.

      Why set up this convoluted model in the first place? Why not suppose that in trying to explain aspects of their world and their position in it, humans generate a vast array of approaches and analysis which are all mutually exclusive because they are simply in error?

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  22. Concocted and unnecessary if one is also inclined to reject the evidence of natural theology and/or spiritual experience.

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    1. Even if you accept a ' bare bones' theism, partly because of evidence from natural theology say, that hardly necessitates that any revelation has occurred. The simplest explanation for the diversity of mutually contradictory religious and spiritual traditions is still that they are humanly generated. Why do you think otherwise, and why in your view has the transcendant divine revalation been so weak and lacking in fidelity as to render humanity divided into mutually incompatible faith camps, often with tragic consequences?

      As to alleged spiritual experiences, these are as notoriously contradictory from one to another as are the knowledge claims of different traditions, so in the absence of any evidence at all to the contrary I do not think that we are warrented to see them as having any 'supernormal' content at all.

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  23. Unknown,

    You are correct - a bare bones theism does not necessitate that any Revelation has occurred at all.

    Albinus,

    I think worldwisdom.com is a good resource.

    Cheers

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  24. As I read through the commentary I am so starkly reminded how easily we default into English christian speak. We blithely accept notions such as 'Divine Truth' [capitalised no less], revealed religion, Revelation, Sacred Scripture, Divine inspiration, the ultimate explanation, etc etc, conceptions that only acquire a semblance of tenability if spoken in 'Christianspeak'. These words and notions like so many others have been appropriated by Christianspeak over centuries. We forget we are playing on christian religious turf as if it were the normal. We forget that many of the familiar secular freethought terms we use today were only created relatively recently. John Summerville ["The Secularisation of Early Modern England: From Religious Culture to Religious Faith", 1992] tells us that "....words like 'skeptic', 'deist', 'rationalist', 'investigate', 'criticism', 'analyze', 'consciousness', and yes even 'atheist' were only introduced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, giving people for the first time a vocabulary which could express real unbelief" (As cited by Dr David Eller). Can one imagine doing secularism without them or more matter-of-factly doing religion with them? Therefore many if not most secular and/or non-believing interlocutors argue from a position of disadvantage. As Eller notes, "After all, we must face and advertise, the fact that religion has already pervaded and commandeered everyday English as part of its comprehensive colonisation of experience." The colonisation of human experience covers the whole gamut of that lived experience, our individual and collective critical life events, (from inception, to birth, early childhood, adulthood, marriage, death), space, time, language, everyday habits, bodily habits, to mention a few.

    As an example, words such as 'spirit', 'belief' or 'believe' have been appropriated to refer to a raft of christian concepts that have no ontological or epistemological foundation, developed only through the hearsay of revealed religion.

    Indeed an important element of dialogue on this site is to challenge these somewhat arcane and historically patched ideas and to appropriate, and in many cases, re-appropriate, words from religion that were appropriated by christianspeak in the first place.

    We are slowly but inexorably redressing that imbalance in everyday English to being a more inclusive and encompassing mode of communication reflecting the increasingly diverse and multicultural nature of today's communities. What was once the unchallenged hegemony of christian dominion is no longer a sociologically nor philosophically grounded paradigm to meet the many challenges into the future.

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    1. Hi Papalinton

      Just curious about where you stand on the question of' how come existance?'Of course, you may not think that any of the solutions that have been advanced work, and that it is a puzzle to be lived with, at least for the time being, but it is possible that you incline in some particular direction or another. I am probably not being exhaustive, but possible answers to the question might be that the existance of the physical universe with its particular laws and temporal history is just a brute fact, or that it is necessary, or that it is contingent but derives from something ontologically distinct from it which is itself necessary. Of course, the latter option does not necessarily imply adherence to any particular religious tradition, so I really am not trying to catch you out here.

      I am genuinely curious to know what your inclination is as regards the most general solution to this important question.

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    2. Unknown

      I think you'll find that Papalinton has very little respect for philosophy, considering metaphysics to be twaddle and word games. He's been on this blog for years. I mean YEARS. I don't know why. You'd think he'd get bored after awhile of saying the same variation on the same thing time and again.

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    3. Just curious to know what his take is on the question, which seems to me to to be a perfectly legitimate and meaningfull one to ask, though if he thinks not ( ie that the question is somehow ill framed or bogus ) I was hoping that he would explain that too.
      Just wanted to get his positive take on a very specific metaphysical issue, as one of the atheists who regularly posts on this site.

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    4. Unknown, fair enough. Just know that even the atheist Dguller that I mentioned earlier finally got exasperated with him and told him off years ago. I quote:

      "Papalinton,

      Cry me a river.

      I am an atheist, and I am appalled by my compatriots wasting everyone's time with critiques that do not attack their opponents on their strongest possible terms and without even trying to understand those terms at all."

      That was from 2012. Here's the link:

      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-divine-intellect.html

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    5. Judging from Papalinton posts, i maybe his answer is that this question will be answered someday by the cosmologists or something? Except in a bit cooler writing* He does not strike me as a metaphysical type, not at all.

      I'am right, Papa?

      *serious, the guy does have some passion

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    6. @Unknown: re this of yours, "I am genuinely curious to know what your inclination is as regards the most general solution to this important question."

      While we wait for Papalinton to answer your question, I am yielding to the temptation to say what pops into my head. Which is: is there a good case for the response that "how come existence" is a string of words, each of which is meaningful, but that as a question it's really a pseudo-question? Or maybe that response just cashes out as "it's brute fact."

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    7. Do you really think that? What makes you support that option over others, such as that existance is necessary?

      The motivation for me asking the question of Papalinton was to hear reasoned perspectives which do not account for the world by reference to a necessary being distinct from it ontologically.

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  25. Dear Prof. Feser,

    Please recommend a book or article on how Dante's ideas and their extreme popularity have distorted in the popular mind what Christian ideas are. On the soul for example, on Hell etc.

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  26. Those who received God's revelation had absolute certainty and no need for syllogisms. But even for the rest of us Catholics, the faith is still more certain than physical sciences etc, because, as St Thomas explains it is conditional on divine grace, not rational evidence:

    " To the seventh objection one should reply that 'certitude' can convey two things. One is a firmness of adherence, and in this sense faith is more certain than any understanding or knowledge, since the first truth, which causes the assent of faith, is a more powerful cause than is the light of reason, which causes the assent of understanding and of knowledge. But 'certitude' also conveys the evidentness of that to which one assents, and faith does not have certitude in this sense, whereas understanding and knowledge do. And this is why understanding does not involve cogitation.” (De Veritate, q. 14, a. 1,ad 7).

    Of course, as objections and difficulties arise, we should deal with them rationally, following the model of Aquinas.

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