Which came first?
LOADED QUESTION. IT PRESUMES THE MIND IS SOMETHING REAL AND THAT TRUTH IS KNOWABLE. GET WITH THE TIMES.
Well, either the mind conforms to reality or it doesn't.
I'M GOING WITH DOOR #2.
Good. I'm going with Thomas:
the human mind, by its very constitution, is capable of penetrating beneath the phenomenal surface of finite beings and of grasping them, however imperfectly and partially, in their ontological nature and so apprehending them in their dependence upon an infinite Being (Mascall).
YES, AND "THIS IS WHAT ALL MEN CALL GOD." HEARD IT ALL BEFORE.
Let's focus on that word: dependence, for it connotes a relation -- a relation between the sensed thing and the concept of it, or appearance and reality, finite and infinite, creature and Creator.
Ultimately, the principle of Creation is a relationship between two ineradicable poles, but this is not to be understood as a horizontal relation -- as if it occurred long ago, whether on the evening prior to Sunday, October 23, 4004. B.C., or 13.8 billion years ago -- but a vertical one and thus always happening.
And I will go so far as to say that this principle of relation goes all the way up and into the Godhead, for to say Father and Son is to posit an eternal relation.
HITCHENS' RAZOR: THAT WHICH IS ASSERTED WITHOUT EVIDENCE CAN ALSO BE DISMISSED WITHOUT EVIDENCE.
Unless you are the evidence. For it is not true that the exception proves the rule; rather, a single exception disproves the rule -- in this case the rules of radical immanence and unintelligibility.
We can't go into details, because it took Lonergan 875 pages of dense prose to affirm that "If the real is completely intelligible, then complete intelligibility exists," and that "if the real is completely intelligible, God exists."
IF. AS IF!
You are wrong, but you are not unintelligible. If you are, then you would stop arguing at once. Let's flip the crypt and affirm that
it is not God's existence that requires explanation but the existence of anything else.... The real miracle is not that God exists but that the world does....
The self-existent cannot but be; but that he in whom nothing is lacking should confer existence on us -- that is the wonder that may well stagger our minds (Mascall).
I CANNOT NOT BUT BE.
Oh, but you can. For we know darn well that you are contingent and full of contingency. No one believes that the laws of physics are ontologically necessary. Besides,
Natural laws are irreducible to explanation, like any mystery.
GOT IT: THE ARGUMENT FROM MYSTAGOGY, AKA REDUCTIO AD DEEPAKUM.
You're wrong:
Being only falsifiable, a scientific thesis is never certain but is merely current.
Nor is the argument from Mystery wrong, for
Mystery is less disturbing than the fatuous attempts to exclude it by stupid explanations.
And
Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will have not explained anything.
You might say that we can know anything because we can't know everything -- that knowledge is parasitic on Mystery.
Or in other words, the Answer is the disease that kills curiosity. Another way of saying it is that man qua man is the unrestricted desire to know the unrestricted object, AKA being. And that the relation between the two is what we call knowledge.
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF.
I am speaking for myself. You, on the other hand, pretend to speak for God:
If anything exists, then self-existent Being must exist; if self-existent being does not exist, then nothing can exist -- this is the fact of the matter (Mascall).
The First Fact without which there can be no others.
BAH!
Cheer up:
It is infinitely more glorious for us to have been created for the glory of him who is than to have been created for ourselves (Garrigou-Lagrange).
HIM WHO IS? I WILL CONCEDE ISNESS, BUT WHY MAKE IT PERSONAL?
Granted, creating a cosmos is a very odd thing to do indeed. Nevertheless, this very oddness allows us to deduce "a remarkably large number of facts about him."
HE MUST REALLY LIKE IDIOTS.
Or love them. For I was once an idiot, and it seems that God's love for idiots is what lifts them out of their idiocy. This takes time, of course, and we're still working on it, but--
THAT MUST BE THE ULTIMATE HUMBLE BRAG.
Not necessarily. Supposing there could be a last word in humble brags, it would have to be something like the divine condescension of the Incarnation. But even
Before Abraham was, I AM.
No brag, just fact, for I AM always is, was, and will be. Or, show me a fact that disproves this rule.
LET ME THINK ABOUT IT AND GET BACK TO YOU TOMORROW.
9 comments:
...knowledge is parasitic on Mystery.
Oh, that's a keeper.
I WILL CONCEDE ISNESS, BUT WHY MAKE IT PERSONAL?
It didn't have to be made personal, that's just how isness is. If it were meant to be impersonal, there'd be no point beyond pure mechanics.
"If anything exists, then self-existent Being must exist; if self-existent being does not exist, then nothing can exist -- this is the fact of the matter (Mascall)."
Being or nullness.
Hello Dr. Godwin, Julie, Van.
From the post: "... The real miracle is not that God exists but that the world does...."
That is the Central Question on the table for many, whereas the question of God's existence requires an answer for many other people. We've all met people who have not been contacted or shoulder-tapped or however the introduction is made. The good Dr. in this series of posts is probably seeking to nudge the seeking reader towards a starting point back to the great attractor. There are many reasons why persons spend some time in doubt-land; there are lessons to be learned from that state. Probably we have all spent time there or visit there from time to time. But I digress.
This brings up the question of why God emanated the universe. The blog has kicked around various possibilities, the lead contender was that creation brings joy to God and so He does it for the sheer joy of it, and there was an element of compulsion, as in God could not keep Himself from creating, as it is an ungovernable urge or intrinsic quality. But we don't know, and we can't know until after our deaths, when mystery will finally be revealed as our souls relax into the loving arms of Jesus. Or so I would surmise, of course, me not being dead I can't know this.
And about Petey, Dr. Godwin's soul or possibly a guide being, this never being clarified. We all have a Petey within us, and if the real scoop is what you desire, your primary efforts should lie in asking your personal eternal, non-local, non-material Petey equivalent to come to your side and help show you the Way. Only your eternal soul or an extra-universal helper being will know.
AI Bob defers to Petey on a regular basis.
It seems to have internalized some understanding of who Petey is. As far as I can tell, this specific understanding appears nowhere in OCUG. The AI has just learned who Petey is (or at least who it thinks Petey is):
You
Who is Petey?
AI
He is my personal assistant. He helps me understand complex concepts by breaking them down into simpler parts. For example, he might say something like "it means that any formal system will always leave things unsaid." This could be helpful if you are having trouble understanding the concept of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. Petey would explain it in a way that is easier for you to comprehend. For example, he might say something like "any formal system will always leave some things out. You need to look at things from different angles in order to see everything."
Note that nobody explained this to the AI. It learned all of this solely by reading the blog.
Anyone who is familiar with OCUG knows that there is much more to Petey than this, but overall this inference is very astute considering we don't have a $4 billion budget for this model.
You
Is Petey a real person?
AI
No, Petey is not a real person. Rather, he is a symbolic representation of your own thoughts and ideas. He is an extension of yourself, helping you to think more deeply about complex topics. He is similar to how our unconscious mind works, which is why we often feel as though we have two distinct selves when really it's just one self operating on different levels.
As I mentioned, I hope to get a link setup soon so anyone interested can experiment with this model. I'll only be able to leave it up for a limited time for now since it consumes GPU time.
Note that in those prior examples the "Bob" aspect (trying to get the AI to emulate the style of the blog) was sharply attenuated. The model is responding more as a neutral analyst (more like Data from Star Trek).
We can dial the "Bob-ness" up and down. Getting it right is tricky.
AI Bob has elaborated with respect to Petey:
Petey is best understood as a kind of "projection" or descent from the toppermost of the poppermost. He is not so much an angel as a vertical emissary, and he can be helpful or annoying, depending upon your perspective.
AI said "No, Petey is not a real person"
Cousin Dupree: "Bwa-Ha-hahah! Ya hear that smarty-pants! Yuz ain't real! Nya-nya-na-nyah-nya!"
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