Strong Natural Theism: An Alternative to Mainstream Religion
Strong Natural Theism: An Alternative to Mainstream Religion
This OP aims to briefly summarize a theistic position from natural theology which I believe to be a viable alternative to mainstream religion which avoids atheism. I will include a link at the bottom to a work-in-progress essay I am writing on this position which goes into more depth on this topic; and I will be continually writing it as I hear peoples thoughts herein.
Thesis
Strong Natural Theisms central thesis is comprised of two claims: (1) God can be known through the application of reason to empirically demonstrable aspects of the ordinary and natural world, and (2) this knowledge is sufficient for understanding and justifying living a proper and good life.
Overview
Natural theology can reasonably provide a natural theistic position where:
1. Classical theism is true;
2. Objective morality exists and the richest sense;
3. It can justify all the cardinal natural and theological virtues (as well as many others);
4. It can provide a basis for a supreme justice (in terms of both getting proper rewards and punishments);
5. It provides a perfect synthesis of justice and mercy that necessitates the practical and reasonable acquisition of salvation;
6. It provides for animal justice; and
7. Reconciles our intuitions of the problem of evil with Gods absolute goodness.
Advantages (Over Mainstream Religion)
This strong natural theistic view is immune to:
1. Issues with historicity;
2. Having to depend on historical, Divine Revelation for morality;
3. Having to depend on the passing of tradition onto the next generation;
4. Requiring to accept the writings or reject the whole theory of all the religious scriptures passed down as canon (in whichever religion we are talking about);
5. Having to depend on faith (viz., trust in an authority to verify, at least in part, its position); and
6. Having to accept the Divinity of any given person in order to be saved (such as in Christianity).
What I Ask of You
This position is no where near complete; and I would appreciate it, though, if people could engage with me on this position and its claims to help further or kill the ideas in it.
For those that are interested, <here's a link to the document I am writing>.
This OP aims to briefly summarize a theistic position from natural theology which I believe to be a viable alternative to mainstream religion which avoids atheism. I will include a link at the bottom to a work-in-progress essay I am writing on this position which goes into more depth on this topic; and I will be continually writing it as I hear peoples thoughts herein.
Thesis
Strong Natural Theisms central thesis is comprised of two claims: (1) God can be known through the application of reason to empirically demonstrable aspects of the ordinary and natural world, and (2) this knowledge is sufficient for understanding and justifying living a proper and good life.
Overview
Natural theology can reasonably provide a natural theistic position where:
1. Classical theism is true;
2. Objective morality exists and the richest sense;
3. It can justify all the cardinal natural and theological virtues (as well as many others);
4. It can provide a basis for a supreme justice (in terms of both getting proper rewards and punishments);
5. It provides a perfect synthesis of justice and mercy that necessitates the practical and reasonable acquisition of salvation;
6. It provides for animal justice; and
7. Reconciles our intuitions of the problem of evil with Gods absolute goodness.
Advantages (Over Mainstream Religion)
This strong natural theistic view is immune to:
1. Issues with historicity;
2. Having to depend on historical, Divine Revelation for morality;
3. Having to depend on the passing of tradition onto the next generation;
4. Requiring to accept the writings or reject the whole theory of all the religious scriptures passed down as canon (in whichever religion we are talking about);
5. Having to depend on faith (viz., trust in an authority to verify, at least in part, its position); and
6. Having to accept the Divinity of any given person in order to be saved (such as in Christianity).
What I Ask of You
This position is no where near complete; and I would appreciate it, though, if people could engage with me on this position and its claims to help further or kill the ideas in it.
For those that are interested, <here's a link to the document I am writing>.
Comments (95)
What you describe seems to express the view of Deism, a collection of views from the Enlightenment that welcomed a certain view of creation but questioned the idea of God as a direct agent in human affairs.
Do you see your effort in the context of that history?
Quoting Paine
:up:
@Jamal removed it but I worked it out with them so that this time they hopefully won't.
Not really, to be honest. I see God as being perfectly capable of intervening if He wants to. Can you elaborate?
Can you elaborate on Spinoza's critiques of classical theism?
I think God is Being itself; so perhaps Spinoza's "Substance" is another way of describing it: what do you think?
The Deists did not agree with your assessment. The idea was central to the separation of church and state in America.
Read his Ethics - Part 1 "Of God" pp. 1-31 (iirc)
I agree.
:up:
Question for @Bob Ross: if god is being itself, and there is no real separation (as opposed to conceptual distinction) between being and beings then there is no separation between god and nature.
Quoting Bob Ross
The idea of god intervening just is an idea of separation. Also since nature is not gendered, not a person at all, why refer to god as "He'. Doing this and the idea of an intervening god seem to place you more in the context of scriptural theology than natural theology.
:up: :up:
Reminds me of a passage:
Of course, Bakker can make up whatever sort of connotations he wants for his presumably unique fantasy languages, but in English this seems only partially true. "It" is used for the person of the Holy Spirit (and for Christ as Logos) by some writers and the capitalization seems to be enough to avoid this connotation, although it is true that the neuter pronoun does carry a certain connotation of lacking experience or at least intellect. Hence the creation of "xe," "ze," "xir," etc. rather than people uncomfortable with "he" or "she" advocating to be referred to as "it." If "it" is disrespectful for men, how much more so for God?
My guess is that "He" only seems strange to us now because of the quite rapid move to gender neutral language in the past half century. "Man" was long a possible synonym for "human," and "they" a plural pronoun only used in the singular when it was supposing for an anonymous referent that thus included a plurality of possible referents (e.g., "I don't trust someone that says that they never lie.") Hence, "he" is a sort default (plus the cumbersome "he or she" doesn't work for a definite referent).
I have seen mixed opinions on this, both that "It" makes God seem to foreign and inanimate, but also that it ought to be preferred because it avoids anthropomorphizing God, with "he" being reserved for the Incarnation or specific person of the Father (obviously, in the Christian contexts). Or some even use "she" to signify feminine aspects but this is rare, although "she" is often used for God's Wisdom, Sophia, who in some traditions is read as Christ the Logos, resulting in he, she, and it being applied to the Son/Word depending on context.
My thought is that this is an attempt to justify Christianity upon rationality alone without reliance upon revelation, perhaps because you believe rationality is a firmer basis for belief than revelation or faith alone. Your views on the Trinity, incarnation and sacrifice, grace, mercy, and justice, and the distinctions between heaven, hell, and purgatory are clearly Christian. Suggesting that we could arrive at those ideas without introduction to and indoctrination to Christianity, but that we could arrive at that through reason alone will not ring true to anyone but a very devout Christian.
You do move away from Christian orthodoxy in some places, like hell not being eternal, with the possibility of posthumous salvation, purgatory taking on a more traditional hell-like state, you seem to redefine original sin, you describe a purely rational state when we go to heaven (which seems consistent with your desire to prioritize rationality as an attribute), and you see this propensity to prioritize the rational with the way you describe atonement, which I didn't completely follow.
If I had to offer a single assessment, it would be that you're trying to sort out your very Christian beliefs and orientation in a way that comports with your philosophical leanings. It presents an account of your religious journey, which I think would be well received by a pastor with philosophical leanings and who isn't overly orthodox in his views, but less so to a conservative minded priest.
To the average reader with no Christian leanings (me, for example), I don't find it all persuasive in terms of convincing me that your views might arise without an a priori commitment to Christianity. The person who might find this interesting is a Christian who is troubled with some of the consequences of Christianity, so he's doing like most religious people do who are otherwise devout believers: they modify the doctrine in a personally palatable way and often convince themselves that they have uncovered the truer form of the religion lost somewhere in time.
That is a lot of material. I think you need to open a thread on each topic!
I think this is right.
Is this a premise?
Your OP seems focused on morality. Are you defining God as nothing more than the foundation of objective moral values? That may be all you need, and it lightens your burden of proof.
This is an interesting endeavor, Bob Ross. :up:
I think the most fruitful things to pursue would be those things where you disagree with traditional Christians, in particular over whether some doctrine is accessible through natural reason (i.e. apart from revelation).
With that in mind, this seems like the most difficult thesis:
Quoting Bob Ross
The difficulty here is that "salvation" is often understood as a Christian term, and in that context it is not something we can achieve on our own power. Supposing you are not using the term in that way, I would want to know how you are using the term. (Nevertheless, I have not looked at your document in any detail.)
Quoting Bob Ross
I think 's observation is insightful, as usual. For example, if we have a non-Deistic God who interacts with creation, then it is very intuitive to move into the idea that God has spoken and men have listened (i.e. faith). If God is interacting (and speaking) but these interactions have no special import, then the question arises of why God is bothering to interact. The marriage between Deism and Christianity seems fraught.
Anyway, I hope to have a closer look at your document in the near future.
"18. Therefore, a first cause of change is a changeless being.
19. A part of a whole is something which contributes to the whole but is not identical to it.
20. Anything which has parts has potential (to be affected by way of its parts being affected).
21. A purely actual being, lacking any potential, being changeless, must have no parts
whatsoever because parts imply having potential and this kind of being lacks all potential.
22. A purely actual being, then, is absolutely simple.
23. Therefore, there must be at least one purely actual and absolute simple being which provides
the first, pure act of change."
It seems that you are leaping ahead, identifying a being, rather than just an eternal permanence that 'IS' (has being), such as the quantum vacuum, that is absolutely simple, but never still, providing for change.
:smirk:
In any case, according to that understanding the breath of God animates the material world. God is the Father and the material world the impregnated (with the seed or breath of god) Mother. I don't think is any coincidence that there are similarities between mater and matter, material, matrix.
This vision of an animating God is fundamentally a dualistic vision it seems.?God is above and also "inscrutably" within the external matrix?he breathes life into it, so it only finds its being in God.
No doubt there is more complex story to be told than the simple one I have imagined here. The main point would be that God is radically "other', radically transcendent, and that the material world is not God, even though it finds its being in Him. It seems all we can know of God is gained by reading the book of the world and by revelation to human prophets, but what is understood from the study of the world must not contradict the revelations of scripture according to this vision.
So, to repeat what I said earlier, I think this vision of an interventionist God is very much a child of scripture, not of natural theology
I've read his Ethics and it seems to me like he believed in a form of deism; but, crucially, I don't see how it is incompatible with historical classical theism (like Aristotle's). Can you elaborate on what you mean by classical theism being outdated but Spinoza's Substance is not?
Whether or not the idea of separation of church and state was primarily motivated by deism is a completely separate topic. However, it is clear that not all the founding fathers were deists or atheists; and they did not establish a separation of church and state. The first amendment refers to congress, which is federal---not state--and state's had sanctioned churches for a long time afterwards. It is an interesting topic, though: Thomas Jefferson seemed adamantly in favor of a full separation like the one you noted.
God is subsistent being itself; which means that He exists before and independently of anything which depends on Him. Therefore, there is a separation between Being and beings; although beings would be dependent and thusly intimately related to Being itself.
This really gets into a much richer and far mysterious topic of what being is. The more Ive thought about what being itself is, the more complicated it gets. I would ask you: what do you think self-subsistent being would be like? This is distinct from something which just happens to exist (viz., a contingent being like a chair).
Good question. It is metaphorical for God giving life to everything else, like a male gives life and a female makes life. Theres nothing particularly wrong with describing God as He, She, They, or just God: the only one that wouldnt make any sense is it because God is a person.
By strong natural theism, I was noting a position that is confined to the knowledge have of God naturalistically that is strong because it takes the position that we can sufficiently know God this way; however, it is not incompatible with revealed theism either. It is not a dilemma.
We can know, through natural theology, that God could intervene if He wanted to because He is omnipotent and unaffected by anything external to Him; however, I do believe He also has to choose what is best, so if what is best is to not intervene at all then in effect He cannot intervene.
Exactly what I did is demonstrate that we can, and I in fact have, determined various aspects of Gods nature and His creation without appeal nor indoctrination into any major world religion because they all depend on Divine Revelation. Even if all the scriptures for all religions were found to be utterly false; my arguments would remain unimpeded.
This is because I am not ad hoc rationalizing Christianity. I am not a Christian. I am going where reason applied to mundane things takes me (such as the nature of change, contingency, composition, etc.).
Rationality is not distinct from faith: that would imply that to have faith is always irrational. I have faith that germs make me sick because doctors told me so and I trust the curriculum I had in school. I did not verify faithlessly that germs make me sick.
I do, however, to your point, prioritize faithless over faith-based understanding because faith requires trust in someone else to provide verification that one does not do themselves. So, of course, verifying something myself without the need for trust in anyone else is going to be more convincing for me than otherwise.
The reason that perfect knowledge is a part of our heavenly state is because reason is our highest faculty, because it (1) resembles God most and (2) it guides our actions, and its natural end is to know everything absolutely. Thats the whole point of intellect.
I genuinely am not trying to sort out Christian beliefs in the paper: I am just following the logic to where it takes me unbiasedly. If that takes me to conclusions a Christian might accept, then so be it.
I understand where you are coming from; but I would challenge you to find fault with the writings themselves that I posted, because I didnt depend on Christianity for my arguments. I began with natural theological arguments for Gods existence from change, contingency, composition, and essences.
It is a part of my thesis.
I think providing an accurate depiction of goodness and, by proxy, morality is vital to any metaphysical theory; however, I dont think my OP is limited to that: it also provides a basis for ordinary things like change, contingency, composition, intelligibility, etc.
I noted mostly benefits that tie to our moral intuitions in the OP because I think those make the theory most advantageous.
I have no idea what self-subsistent being would be like. I also cannot see how anything in our investigations of nature could inform us about what self-existent being is like or that it gives us any reason to believe in self-existent being, unless by that term you mean something like "the totality of what exists" or just the sheer fact that something always exists. The idea of self-existent being meaning a being that exists when nothing else exists makes no sense to me at all. How could our investigation of nature (natural theology) tell us that something could exist when absolutely nothing else exists?
Quoting Bob Ross
Here again I am left with no idea what it is about nature that leads you to conclude that God is a person.
Quoting Bob Ross
You say we can know through natural theology that God is omnipotent, but you don't explain how natural theology enables us to know that. Is natural theology different than revelation for you?
The proofs of God are of course well-known by now, and not convincing at all IMO. We can go through them each individually but I'll bet they all have past threads on the philosophy forum.
Then the proof of the trinity...it always makes me a bit sad to read these, because it's always obviously arbitrary post-hoc rationalizing (rather than anything approaching first-principles reasoning), and I don't get how some people can't see it.
If we were in the "song of fire and ice" universe (with the seven forms of God), there'd be a "proof" of how God must be made of 7 elements, because "that which is perfect must perfectly encapsulate love, justice, hope...<7 total aspects>"
It just doesn't work, and that's evident from the fact that it's only people who already believe in a trinitarian god that claim this reasoning; you never hear someone from another faith wonder why there aren't three godheads.
Hegel tackles this early in the Philosophy of Right. I think you can actually trace a dialectical move from this contradiction up to a sort of "freedom of excellence" through several stages.
On the demonstration of the Trinity, one issue I thought of is that the distinction between God's will and God's intellect is generally considered to be merely conceptual. It is a distinction that appears for us, but it isn't a real distinction (else God would not be simple). It's the same way "good" and "true" apply to being generally, but don't add anything to being; they are being as considered from some perspective. But then it would seem that the distinction would have to be real if it is generating subsistent relations, no?
The 'god of deism' is transcendent ontologically separate from the universe in contrast to Spinoza's immanent substance that is not ontologically separate from the universe. Read Spinoza more closely, Bob.
Well, actually, Spinoza's substance is incompatible with "classical theism (like Aristotle's)" because e.g.
(A) it does not intend final causes (i.e. no telos, no moral laws),
(B) it is not a volitional agent (i.e. not conscious) and
(C) it is not ontologically separate from the universe or any other substance (i.e. not transcendent).
I said deconstructed (i.e. shown to consist of inconsistent or contradictory predicates), not "outdated". Again, ...
Quoting 180 Proof
So, you like that all these materials are discussed in a single thread?
An objection to Trinity: God/mind to me is defined as an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and create. Such a God experiences His Knowledge. He can create the universe as well. Therefore, the tree substance/Trinity is unnecessary.
Under this view, we cannot achieve repayment of our sins on our own; but God has to freely choose to save us by sacrificing Himself. Salvation here is referring to the restoration of the sinner into the proper order of creation.
Sounds good. Heres some differences and you can choose what you want us to discuss.
Stereotypical Christianity vs. Bobism
1. One must accept Christ in order to be saved; whereas one must sufficiently act in accord with God to be saved.
2. Justice is retributive; whereas justice is restorative.
3. The Great Sacrifice is freely chosen in a way where it could have been otherwise; The Great Sacrifice is a necessity of Gods freedom.
3. The Trinity, the good life, the path to salvation, etc. is revealed; all of those are naturally determinable.
4. Humans are the most loved by God; Persons of pure form are the most loved by God.
5. Unrepentant sinners go to eternal hell (viz., the lake of fire where there will be gnashing of teeth and great weeping); unrepentant sinners go to an indefinite hell that punishes them appropriately to get them to realize that their sins are bad until they repent.
6. The animal kingdom largely is ordered towards what is perfectly good (e.g., the lion eating the zebra is not bad); the animal kingdom is largely polluted with evil due to the Great Fall.
7. Humans caused the Great Fall; a person which existed prior to most if not all of evolution caused the Great Fall.
8. God can and has committed (retributively) just punishments without giving mercy; whereas God has to synthesize (Restorative) Justice and Mercy.
Etc.
Yes, but it isnt necessary in order to understand everything that is vital to living a good life is my point. God does have to intervene in my view (such as to save us), but I am not sure exactly how often He would intervene. It seems to me that God doesnt intervene much
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
It is true that many different beliefs agreed to the First Amendment establishment of religion clause. The toleration of differences was a rejection of the wars of religion that had consumed the English Civil War and its resolution. That spirit of Liberal rights was broader than just what was expressed by the self-declared Deists of that time.
As a Constitutional matter, the adjudication of States who required their citizens to comply with the taxation and practices of a particular religion were overturned through the use of the 14nth Amendment that restricted the scope of what States could do in view of the individual rights given in the First:
Quoting Constitution, 14nth Amendment, Section 1
A good summary of this process is given in the Supreme Court decision, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), where the State was permitted to reimburse some costs separate from any advocacy for a particular church.
Okay, understood. :up:
Quoting Bob Ross
Okay, interesting. It looks like there are misunderstandings at various places. We can come back to these topics, but rather than getting into those I think a good starting point might be analogy. This is something that is more fundamental and might be more interesting to others.
In your document you say things like this:
What do you mean by this, and why do you hold that we are (or should be) speaking analogically and not univocally when we say such things?
-
Let's also take up your 3:
Quoting Bob Ross
Here are two quotes from Aquinas:
Quoting Aquinas, ST I-II.99.2 - Whether the Old Law contains moral precepts?
Quoting Aquinas ST I-II.100.1 - Whether all the moral precepts of the Old Law belong to the law of nature?
Aquinas' idea here is that God will give moral instruction via divine revelation even in some cases where the moral instruction could be known without the divine revelation. This is because the instruction is helpful both on account of our sinful and ignorant state, and because only the few have the time or intelligence to understand the proper moral road. Or in other words, even though the moral life is accessible to natural reason, only a tiny percentage of people would ever be capable of such knowledge. The absence of revelation on this score would seem to result in a kind of elitism, where only the select few are able to know the moral way forward.
Thats what the four proofs of Gods existence are setting after: reasons for believing in self-subsisting being and what it would be like (analogically).
Its in the link I shared in the OP. Did you read it?
Yes. The field of study denoted as natural theology is distinct from revealed theology: it is what we can know about God through reason applied to the natural world around us (devoid of divine revelation).
Why are they unconvincing to you?
Thats a completely unjustified ad hominem and straw man. These arguments convinced me of Trinitarianism: I was not a Trinitarian before coming up with them.
Yes, @MoK appears to be overlooking this distinction I have made and collapsing the discussion into free will.
Keen point. My response would be that you are absolutely right that His thinking and willing are the same; so when He wills the good of Himself it is identical to thinking of Himself as good. However, I would say that, as noted in my makeshift document in the OP, there are two and only two objects of Gods thought about Himself: His self-unity and Himself as that unified faculty. His faculties collapse ontologically into each other; and so it is one and the same faculty which God is; but this oneness, for God to know Himself perfectly, is distinct from knowledge of Himself in terms of that faculty. This thusly produces two objects of His thought, one the Holy Spirit and the other the Son.
Got it: thank you for the elaboration. So Spinoza is an atheist IMHO: I remember now. God refers to a Divine Person historically: this Substance is not a person. He would be right to classify it not as God, like Schopenhauer does with his universal will.
Well, its one view: mine. I want people to discuss the strong natural theism I came up with. Naturally, worldviews contain many underlying materials to discuss.
The Trinity argument I gave presupposes a classical theistic sense of God, which most notably does not experience: God is not conscious in the same sense we are. He does not have subjective experience. Consequently:
He knows Himself: He does not experience Himself.
Also, this idea of Him knowing/experiencing His knowledge/experience leads to an infinite regression.
Nothing about what you said demonstrated that the Trinity is unnecessary. In fact, the OPs argument for the Trinity claims that Gods self-knowledge is what causes the Trinity.
:up:
Can't you just tell me?
Novalis' "god-intoxicated man" is an acosmist (as I've pointed out ), not "an atheist".
My model is simpler since it requires only one substance. To be honest, I cannot comprehend your God. Is your God unconscious?
Quoting Bob Ross
How could he know if He is unconscious? You are unconscious when you don't experience anything.
Quoting Bob Ross
How? I even have certain knowledge. I cannot experience all my knowledge at once, but only a small part of it at any given moment. I think that is because I am a conscious mind with a limited memory. The subconscious mind, however, has a huge memory. Therefore, I can conceive a God whose Knowledge is present to Him through experience.
I am a free agent Bob, so I have freedom of indifference and freedom of excellence. Are you saying that God does not have freedom of indifference and therefore cannot sin? If yes, why did God create creatures with the ability to sin?
By analogical predication, I mean when one predicates a property of a thing by way of an analogy that is in no way meant to be taken as one and the same (viz., univocally) or completely different (viz., equivocally):
-- (https://amymantravadi.com/2020/03/26/the-analogy-of-being-in-the-works-of-thomas-aquinas/)
I think it is important when specifically speaking of God to use analogical predication; because God's nature is not known to us as He is in Himself but, rather, is known to us by way of analogy to His effects. He is known from what He is not that He produces and not what He is.
Gods true nature is not apparent to us, as it is in-itself, exactly because He is never afforded to our senses (nor could He be) and is always the necessary precondition, as Being itself, for all things sensed.
I think it is reasonable to conclude that many people may not, in practicality, reach knowledge through philosophy of God; so Divine Revelation may be fitting. I will say that I dont think the arguments I give are highly technical nor something that a laymen is not smart enough to comprehend: I am making ordinary arguments from ordinary things in the natural world (e.g., change, contingency/necessity, etc.). However, this is not incompatible with the strong natural theism I expounded: the central thesis merely claims that we can know through reason applied to the natural world around us about Gods natureit could be equally true that God could expedite the process by just telling us.
I will say that knowing God through reason applied to the ordinary world is stronger and richer than if God were to reveal it to us; because epistemically it would be much less certain with Divine Revelation and it comes with many other disadvantages (such as requiring faith, tradition, etc.) unless we are talking about God supernaturally infusing us with immanent knowledge.
Sure, this is the portion of the argument that addresses omnipotence:
(Strong Natural Theism, 1:E)
So, for Spinoza, God is all that exists and God is not a person? Is that the idea?
Yes, but the goal is to explain the relevant data without multiplying entities without necessity; not come up with the simplest answer.
A conscious being, as I understand it, has a qualitative experiencequalia--such that there is something to be them experiencing the world. In a literal sense, this would require a being with complexity: with parts to facilitate a mediated interpretation of reality.
If God is conscious, it would be in a far weirder and incomprehensible way of knowing things immanently with no mediation. God, then, would not be conscious like we are: we are conscious because our brains facilitate the mediation of sense-data and our understanding of the world around us. There is something it is like to be us experiencing because we have mediated knowledge: we have faculties that cognize what is in reality. God, on the other hand, just knows reality and is intimately interrelated with it.
Because His experience of His experience is an experience. So if He has to experience His experiences, then He would also have to experience His experience of His experience and so on.
You would be a free agent in the sense of freedom for excellence if you cultivated the virtues, you have sufficient knowledge of what is good, and your environment is conducive to your flourishing as a human.
Freedom of indifference and freedom for excellence are incompatible theories. The former holds that freedom fundamentally consists in being able to choose from contraries; whereas the latter holds that freedom fundamentally consists in having a state of being that is conducive to flourishing.
If one accepts freedom for excellence, then God is and is the only possibly perfectly free being because He is has perfect knowledge of what is good, is unimpeded by anything external to Him, and has the power to actualize what He wills; whereas if one accepts freedom of indifference, then God is and is the only possibly perfectly unfree being because He cannot will what is bad (or, depending on the view, He may not be able to do otherwise whatsoever).
You are introducing unnecessary substances.
Quoting Bob Ross
No, God can be simple and yet experience everything. He just needs to be omnipresent.
.
Quoting Bob Ross
We perceive a substance when we experience something. The same applies to God, so no regress is involved.
I don't understand why they are incompatible. I can choose to always do right, given the fact that there are at least two right options available to choose from; otherwise, no decision is involved, since I have only one choice. At the same time, I can choose to do wrong. I am a free agent in the end.
Quoting Bob Ross
That is a very odd position, but granting it, then why did God create creatures with the ability to do contrary?
Doesn't it seem to radically redefine what one means by God to refer to a being that is not a person? What kind of definition is Spinoza using (to decipher if his Substance is meaningfully identifiable as God or a god)?
It's consistent with historical usages of Hindus (e.g. Vedanta), philosophers (e.g. the absolute, the infinite), Scholastics & Thomists (e.g. necessary being), JCI 'mystics' (e.g. ground of being), ... deists.
Spinoza does not conceive of God as "a person" (just as those mentioned above don't either).
Spinoza uses "God" as the folk name/title for Nature (i.e. natura naturans), what human beings have always called reality (i.e. substance), or the fundamental power that causes all things to exist.
Again, for Spinoza's "definition of God" ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Classical theism, by contrast, sees God not as a being but as Being (ipsum esse subsistens), the source and ground of all. God is not less than personal but more than personal: the transcendent fullness of intellect and will, whose knowing and willing are identical with His essence, not discursive or contingent as ours are. This avoids the opposite error of treating God as an impersonal force or abstract energy, since God is the very ground of personality, consciousness, and agap?. In short, where theistic personalism projects human categories upwards into God, classical theism emphasizes Gods radical transcendence as the living source of all being, without collapsing Him into either a cosmic individual or a faceless principle.
But a more generaous hermeneutic could see theistic personalism as amenable to certain personality types or stages of spiritual development (somewhat analogous to the concept of 'dharma doors' in Buddhism, which are different kinds of teachings suited to beings on various levels of development.)
Afaik, the vast majority of religious believers are not "classical" theists in practice and instead worship a personal God (or gods). As Pascal says
Read the most ancient religious scriptures; they all refer to God as "Him".
Pre-modern atheism was also well represented by e.g. the C?rv?ka & ?j?vika schools of Hinduism, Confucianism, classical atomism (e.g. "The Epicurean Paradox"), Sextus Empiricus, etc ...
[quote=al-Ma'arri, 10-11th CE]The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains.[/quote]
:smirk:
More easy targets for you, 180 ;-)
Is the personalist god really a modern idea? Obviously, polytheistic religions are much more prone to this viewpoint (it's hard to justify multiple ontologically necessary gods). But among monotheistic religions, the philosophical god conceived by scholars of the church were much later additions to a traditionally personalist god. Ever since then, the god of the scholars and the god of the parish have remained two very different conceptions.
Concepts of God(s) are notoriously difficult to define with any precision. What I had in mind with Feser and Hart were these kinds of critiques.
Feser says that theistic personalism tends to reject divine simplicity, a core tenet of the classical tradition. In classical theism, God isnt composed of parts; rather, God is being. Theistic personalism, by contrast, portrays God as a being with distinct attributes (like intellect, will, power), effectively making God composite in a way classical theists view as metaphysically untenable. Theistic personalists (he's discussing William Lane Craig here) depict God essentially as a person with amplified human-like qualitiesleading to what Feser sees as anthropomorphism: imagining God as a super?creature rather than as the source of being ref
As for Hart:
[quote=Source;https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2021/07/07/perfect-being-theology-theistic-personalism-and-the-eclipse-of-the-apophatic-3]Many Anglophone theistic philosophers , reared as they have been in a post-Fregean intellectual environment, have effectively broken with classical theistic tradition, adopting a style of thinking that the Dominican philosopher Brian Davies calls theistic personalism. I prefer to call it monopolytheism myself (or perhaps mono-poly-theism), since it seems to me to involve a view of God not conspicuously different from the polytheistic picture of the gods as merely very powerful discrete entities who possess a variety of distinct attributes that lesser entities also possess, if in smaller measure; it differs from polytheism, as far I can tell, solely in that it posits the existence of only one such being. It is a way of thinking that suggests that God, since he is only a particular instantiation of various concepts and properties, is logically dependent on some more comprehensive reality embracing both him and other beings. For philosophers who think in this way, practically all the traditional metaphysical attempts to understand God as the source of all reality become impenetrable.[/quote]
Of course, this may not be at all relevant to the God 'of the pews', but this is a philosophical discussion.
In other words, "the God of the pews" doesn't hold up under logical or metaphysical scrutiny and therefore is ontologically eliminable; the speculative or supernatural fiat of 'classical theism' is an unparsimonious, ad hoc X-of-the-gaps, apologia rationalized superstition (à la Spinoza et al).
When do you theorize that the "addition" began?
Looking at abrahamic religions, it seems that the desire for rationalization grows as religious movements turn from their prophetic and/or tribal origins. As religious institutions grow, they require more orthodoxy and more universal justifications for their existence. Scholars of the church and scripture emerge, providing the rigor and intellectual legitimacy that pure spirituality lacks. Sometimes this is a conscious, top-down decision to push for a more centralized orthodoxy; other times, it's a subconscious development.
Early debates were often restricted to matters of scripture and religious practice, rather than philosophical defenses of monotheism in general. After all, having a coherent and unified theology is a much more pressing matter than validating what your followers already believe (monotheism). Scholarly investigations into god's precise metaphysical nature is not something that concerned your average churchgoer; however, they were logical development to this spirit of inquiry.
Most christian churches continue to parade around these two very different ideas of god. In parishes and in the scripture, god is personalist, but in religious scholarship, he is a metaphysical necessity. People don't go to church for metaphysics, but if you dedicate your entire life to one religion, I suppose it's inevitable that you search for more intellectual justifications. Ironically enough, in doing so they create a deity that nobody would really care about, because it is so detached from their parishoners' beliefs and needs.
I think you're dealing in a lot of false dichotomies and historical inaccuracies. In every community there will be more and less rigorous presentations of the life, whether intellectual or otherwise. That doesn't mean, for example, that the intellectual who believes that God is immutable suddenly stops believing that God is personal, nor does it mean that the non-intellectual who believes that God is personal is barred from believing that God is immutable.
Does theological precision come "later" as an "addition"? Yes and no. All natural developments come later, but they are always present in what came before. The myth you are espousing always struggles to identify an actual moment when the "addition" occurred, because there is always an antecedent that the neat theory ignored. Heck, Christians were originally deemed atheists in large part because they had more in common with philosophical groups than ancient religious groups.
To choose a single moment of initiation would be reductive. The addition of the metaphysical onto the spiritual was gradual, yet that does not mean that no addition occurred. You can see a marked difference between Jesus' humanistic teachings, first century christian apocalyptics, the discussion of christian doctrines and practices among the church fathers, and the scholasticism of the medieval church which explored metaphysics and the fundamental grounds of monotheism. This culminated with the deistic god of the enlightenment. Similarly, Jewish and Islamic theological scholarship were much later additions to tribal and scriptual origins.
Quoting Leontiskos
Sure, the developments are causally linked as all things are, but that does mean that Scholastical metaphysics were secretly upholding Jesus' teachings in the first century? Probably not. More likely, the Scholastics used their religion as a guide to (or made it the ends of) their philosophy, and from it developed a new orthodoxy.
Quoting Leontiskos
Admittedly, you can believe in both (see the catholic church). However, I think that they have different motivations for their belief. The "god of the parish" addresses the human tendency towards religion (fraternity, moral certainty, explanations and relief, etc.) while the philosophical god was a way to justify that tendency and/or the product of metaphysical investigations. That doesn't discount the philosophical god in any factual way, but it is nevertheless important to acknowledge. After all, even if a deistic god is entirely plausible, it does not mean that the god of the parish is (hence my point that conflating the two might be subconsciously beneficial to organized religion). On its own, a philosophical god would very likely seem soulless to most church goers
Okay. Interesting article. :up:
Quoting Bob Ross
Fair enough. That seems like a good account.
(Sorry, I sort of forget where I was going with this. :blush:)
Quoting Bob Ross
Okay.
Quoting Bob Ross
Sure, and Aquinas would agree that knowledge by sight is more satisfying than knowledge by faith.
I suppose I would argue that there is a continuum between the two, in much the same way that a child will begin to refine its understanding as it grows and matures. There is a difference between the layman's and the theologian's understanding of God, but I don't see them to be in conflict. I don't see that they believe in two different Gods.
The problem with this is is that it is your creation, a god of your creation -- and you know it. How do you respect such a god? How do you trust such a god? How do you fear such a god? What use is such a god or belief in such a god?
I didn't create God, baker. You are confusing coming to understand something with creating something.
What exactly do you understand? Wherefrom did you get what you understand?
Without revelation, or at least the notion of revelation, one is dealing merely with the artifacts of one's own mind.
That which exists is not the same as existence itself. (ST I, q.3, a.4)
If "atheism" denotes rejection of theism, then nothing seems wrong to me; however, "disbelief in God(s)" is cognitively indistinguishable from "disbelief in ghosts".
Perhaps in theory but not in practice. To neither believe nor disbelieve (out of ignorance, indecision or indifference) is existentially indistinguishable from disbelieving. An agnostic is, at best, just an uncommitted atheist.
:up: :up:
They are separate in the same sense that a true fact, 2+2=4, is "separate from" truth.
If you live in a society where the people who have some power over you (e.g. your employer, family members) believe in God or at least profess to believe in God, then you've got a big problem being an atheist.
It's different for someone who lacks belief in God out of becoming exhausted with the search for God. That has a different existential quality than being ignorant, indecisive, or indifferent (although monotheists are unlikely to acknowledge that). For such a person, the God issue becomes an unintelligible mass over which they feel overwhelmingly powerless.
I want to show you that the "God of philosophers" (which is, basically, what you're arguing for) is impotent and inconsequential.
The God you're arguing for:
Do you pray to him?
Do you thank him for everything in your life?
Have you joined a community of people who also believe in the God you believe in?
Do you ask this God to destroy your enemies?
Do you destroy your enemies in the name of this God?
What is the relevance of this God of yours in your life, other than that it's a concept connecting some metaphysical dots?
I completely disagree: saying "i don't know if there's a god", but accepting that there could be one, is different from saying "there is no god, look at the horrendous stuff in the world", or, "the christian god is illogical and for that reason can't exist". Im not commenting on what i think (as in a way it's not very interesting), just on the differences between agnosticism and atheism.
However, i should point out that to an extent Greek pagans agreed with you: Protagoras himself said something like "we can't possibly know whether the Gods exist, the matter is kind of vague", and folks from his time period angrily reacted, burning his books, and scaring him into self-imposed exile.
Quoting baker
I understand that, but i was wondering why OP thinks it's better to avoid atheism, and i was wondering if that to them, it's a form of dangerous nihilism or something that comes from a vacuum of belief...
But again there is no truth without true facts, or true facts without truthso I'm not seeing any genuine separation. A possible conceptual distinction does not entail real separation.
:up: :up:
Quoting Colo Millz
Wet is not the same as liquid, yet they are physically inseparable. Likewise, existents (i.e. things, facts) are discrete properties (i.e. events, fluctuations) of existence.
Agreed. A person's reasons for theistic or atheistic inclinations are connected to their particular life circumstances. It's not clear whether generalizations in these matters are meaningful at all, regardless of how eager both the theists as well as the atheists are to make such generalizations.
:up: Yep, more good examples.
That is an unfeasible question to answer briefly: you are asking essentially for the entire historical development of my consciousness.
I would say one can know God through natural theology. For more on the arguments I would give, please see the link in the OP. I outline it in detail there.
The concept of God argued in the OP is the classical theistic version of God; which is the metaphysical basis for the major theims in the West, such as Aristotles, Platos, Aquinas, etc.
It provides, in-itself, a sufficient theory of ethics and an understanding of reality to live a good life. I dont think one needs divine revelation for this (for the most part).
This is a derailment, though. Personally, I am a Christian now; but none of the above is required in order to live a sufficiently good life. Natural theology is sufficient.
The aspect of theism that is the most important is not worship: it is ethics, which governs politics, economics, and practical life.
Metaphysics is not some abstraction that is meaningless for practical life: it informs it by giving a clearer understanding of the natures of things. Understanding the natures of things helps with understanding what is objectively good and bad; and this informs what is right and wrong.
What is good for you? What is good for society? How should I treat my neighbor? What should I do with my life? All of these are informed by ethics.
CC: @Janus, @Colo Millz
It may help your conversation to note that virtual properties/distinctions are different than real properties/distinctions; and, for Scotists, there may be a third 'formal distinction'.
Triangularity and trilaterality are conceptually (virtually) distinct; but are not really distinct.
Thus you have a theism on *your* terms, *not* on God's terms. That's the problem with "natural theology".
Divine revelation, even if accepted merely as a concept, is necessary in order to overcome "natural theology". Because "natural theology" is self-centred with God merely as an object in it. Not only is in existing monotheisms theology structured top-down (God reveals himself to his underlings), it also logically follows that if one is to consider God properly (in his almighty creative and controlling power), then one's religiosity has to be on God's terms (ie. involving revelation), not on one's own.
This is also why you have a problem with "Old Testament evil": You're evaluating God on *your* terms, not on God's terms. If you accept that God is the Creator of the Universe, the Lawmaker, then you have to accept that he can do with it as he pleases, including killing infants.
There has to be a point where a monotheist says something along the lines of, "Surely God had a reason for doing what he did, and even though I don't understand it or personally approve of it, I still have faith in him and submit to his will."
If all one ever does is rely on one's own reasoning about God, one doesn't actually believe in God, or one's idea of God is god as an impotent and inconsequential being.
Natural theology is the application of reason, and Her Principles, to the natural world God created to determine Gods existence and nature. Theres nothing about this that is personal or subjective.
Our reason is an image of the Divine Reason; which gives it its legitimacy.
Natural theology is an attempt of determining Gods existence and His nature: it is not self-centered at all; other than being the attempt at acquiring truth, which is equally true of anything Divinely Revealed being accepted by people.
That is begging the question: you are assuming it is Divinely Revealed. I was using my analysis to determine if it is Divinely Revealed in the first place.
Any attempt of verifying the OT legitimacy will fall prey to your critique. E.g., well you method of verifying the OTs historicity to verify that it is Divinely Revealed is a bottom-up, self-centered, and on-your-own-terms attempt; so it is illegitimate.
No, that would require a divine revelation of your own, ie. God revealing to you, personally, whether something you wondered whether it is a divine revelation or not, is in fact divine revelation.
Your approach lacks the fideist element so typical for traditional monotheistic religions.