Ironically, The Argument Continues

Change my mind:

God is the eternal, infinite, and both transcendent and immanent source of all that exists, whose own existence is known rationally by the human intellect but whose mysterious nature and gracious purposes for creation require self-revelation to grasp (Mascall, emphasis mine).

THERE YOU GO AGAIN.

God is certain. You, on the other hand, are--

CONTINGENT?

Or mysterious. Let's just stipulate that there is Necessity and there is Contingency. This being the case, Necessity must be. It's just a matter of where we locate it, no?

For I've noticed that everyone -- no exceptions -- slips Necessity into their discourse, even if only implicitly, and even if they deny it. Likewise, we cannot eliminate Contingency:

We only get rid of the "inexplicable" at one point at the price of introducing it again somewhere else (ibid.).

It reminds me of what Robert Rosen says about the impossibility of reducing semantics -- meaning -- to syntax -- order. Likewise, you can only pretend to pull the subjective into the objective without any remainder. 

Rather, you're just deferring the deity of reckoning. Kicking the Kant down the road, as it were.

WHAT?

You heard me. Even if you say "ALL IS ONE," someone has to say it. It seems that your bottom line is IT IS, whereas my top line is I AM, and you can never derive the latter from the former. 

Once you eliminate the rabbit of subjectivity, you can't later pull it out of the objective hat. Granted, you are big hat, but you're just talking out of it. Or out of your aseity, as it were.

ASEITY?

Yes, it means self-derived, in contrast to being derived from or dependent on another; being self-existent, having independent existence.

You don't actually have that -- independent existence, I mean. 

SAYS WHO?

Says Who, that's who.

YOU ARE SO IRRITATING. I AM SURPRISED YOU HAVE ANY READERS AT ALL.

Who says I do. I hope!

This book I'm reading reviews Thomas' famous Five Proofs -- or Ways, rather -- and not only has no one ever disproven them, no one ever will, for they are as certain as Certitude itself. Put conversely, if we cannot be certain of God, then nor can we be certain of anything. Nevertheless,

It is easier to convince the fool of what is disputable than of what is indisputable.

A BOLD STATEMENT IN THESE POST-CRITICAL TIMES. YOUR NAIVETÉ IS TOUCHING.

And your absence of irony is ironic. For as the Aphorist said a couple of posts ago,

Even our favorite ideas soon bore us if we do not hear them expressed with irony, with grace and with beauty.

BUT A 13TH CENTURY PHILOSOPHER? GET WITH THE TIMES! 

There has not been an illustrious corpse that some cretin at some point did not disdain.

NO NAME-CALLING.

Besides, you cannot prove the truth by clock or calendar.

I distrust any idea that does not seem obsolete or grotesque to my contemporaries.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING.

It's called irony.

Impartiality is less attractive than the partiality that views itself with irony.

So, let's have another look at the Five Ways, but with some irony tossed in. I say they're ironic already, for God is the Great Ironist. For example,

Providence decided to give the democrat the victory and the reactionary the truth.

A CONSOLATION PRIZE?

Exactly. Ironically,

That which is incomprehensible increases with the growth of intelligence.

SO, THE MORE INTELLIGENT THE MORE IGNORANT?

You might say that. Bearing in mind that

There are types of ignorance that enrich the mind and types of knowledge that impoverish it.

WRONG.

There are those whose monosyllables are verbose.

Ironically. To be continued...