tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post9147931386329118186..comments2024-03-28T21:43:44.433-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Trinity and mystery, Part IIEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15482813490727774112010-02-14T01:49:24.237-08:002010-02-14T01:49:24.237-08:00The knowledge/understanding that the doctrine of t...The knowledge/understanding that the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery is a metaphysical analogue to grasping the truth of Gödel's incompleteness theorem.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40281562079597972052010-02-14T01:32:50.858-08:002010-02-14T01:32:50.858-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54892456092873234172010-02-13T16:10:16.324-08:002010-02-13T16:10:16.324-08:00Hi OC,
Frankly, I found Wolpert's reply ridic...Hi OC,<br /><br />Frankly, I found Wolpert's reply ridiculous.<br /><br />He should reject Craig's arguments for the first cause, but conceding that the first cause has the properties of being nonphysical, self-created, etc. and arbitrarily (and without any argument) labelling it "a computer", gave a skilled debater like Craig the chance to expose Wolpert's fallacy (with the public's approval).<br /><br />Once you accept the first cause (in the sense of Craig's Kalam argument), it's hard to avoid the properties mentioned by Craig.<br /><br />Wolpert's reply is one of the worst replies for an philosophical argument that I've ever seen.<br /><br />By the way, and in another off-topic, in a previous comment I mentioned that final causes, if understood in a temporal sense, would pose problems for a Darwinian account of evolution.<br /><br />Surprinsingly, professor David Oderberg makes a similar point in his excellent book <i>Real Essentialism</i>:<br /><br /><b>Nevertheless, given what I will try to show about the ontology of human nature, it is certainly hard to see, on either biological or metaphysical grounds, how we could have come into existence purely by descent with modification, whether according to the lineage in Chapter 5.2 or otherwise.<br /><br />More generally, the position I will defend seems straightforwardly incompatible<br />with any purely naturalistic origin of the human essence. But if what I have to say about human nature is correct, that is a problem for evolutionary<br />theory in general and for naturalism in particular, not for the theory of human nature. Maybe the evolutionary account will need radical modification.<br /><br />Maybe it will need to be abandoned as a theory of human origins. Maybe it will need to recognize phenomena that cannot be explained in its own terms.</b> (p. 243)<br /><br />Actually, Oderberg is not arguing specifically about final causes, but about the ontology of human nature.<br /><br />But note that he perceives an incompatibility between Darwinian evolution ("a purely naturalistic origin of human nature") and the Aristotelian ontology about human nature.<br /><br />In other words, and provided I don't misunderstand Oderberg, his point is that a purely naturalistic-Darwinian efficient causation is incompatible with the ontology of human nature; that is, the current evolutionary account of the origin of human nature is at variance with the ontology of human nature (hence, the evolutionary story as currently understood is wrong)<br /><br />There is a tension between human nature's ontology and a Darwinian-based efficient causation.<br /><br />This is the point I tried to make in my previous comment in another post, even though my point was more about final causes, instead of essences (because final causes are the "cause of causes" for Aquinas).<br /><br />Sorry for the off-topic.Jimehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12817742150756784876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13509552517376060912010-02-13T13:59:24.929-08:002010-02-13T13:59:24.929-08:00Wolpert, like many net-skeptics, is suffering from...Wolpert, like many net-skeptics, is suffering from Daniel Dennett syndrome. Symptoms include: acting smug and condescending while failing to grasp rudimentary philosophical points; spouting off irrelevant empirical data to give an aura of gravitas to feeble philosophical arguments; repeatedly begging the question without recognizing it; doing religious anthropology a priori while touting the virtues of empiricism; asserting controversial methodological claims as if they were simply self-evident.<br /><br />Daniel Dennett syndrome is highly contagious. Exposure to those infected may cause you to post stupid but haughty comments in comment boxes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-16790770787905776502010-02-13T11:04:18.065-08:002010-02-13T11:04:18.065-08:00Hi Jime,
In defense of Wolpert--who is, to be fra...Hi Jime,<br /><br />In defense of Wolpert--who is, to be frank, a snide and condescending jack-ass; i.e. your typical Skeptic--I think he was attempting a kind of ad-hoc <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of Craig's divine First Cause. For folks like Wolpert, the immaterial equals the impossible. To speak of an immaterial Being, mind--or, for that matter, computer--is, for them, to simply be speaking nonsense. <br /><br />They show every outward appearance of believing this view makes them more "rational" or "scientific" than their fellow man. In fact, all it does is make them immune to the reasoning behind any theistic, and most philosophical, arguments. Their mistaken first principle, and the fact they seem to think it a species of actual knowledge instead of mere belief, renders them irrationalist to the core.<br /><br />Back on-topic in 3...2...1...O.C.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-87499800180956957032010-02-13T08:38:07.415-08:002010-02-13T08:38:07.415-08:00This is off-topic, but if you want to laugh aloud,...This is off-topic, but if you want to laugh aloud, watch this brief video where atheist Lewis Wolpert "replies" to William Lane Craig, when Craig explains the attributes of the first cause of the universe:<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R5GpV5nSRQ<br /><br />Amazing...Jimehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12817742150756784876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11676837691516535202010-02-13T03:09:17.133-08:002010-02-13T03:09:17.133-08:00What are the sources for revelation?
Does God sel...What are the sources for revelation?<br /><br />Does God self-reveal in nature? <br /><br />If so, is the behavior observed of the quanta a mystery like the Trinity?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com