If propostional written communication is sufficient to infer and believe that finite personal beings exist, why would it not be sufficient to infer and believe that an infinite personal being exists?

For starters, because there is plenty of other evidence, almost constantly available every day, that finite personal beings exist. The existence of the group “finite personal beings” is not disputed by most people, so convincing someone of the existence of a specific finite personal being does not require convincing that person of the existence of the group “finite personal beings.” That’s why propositional written communication is often sufficient to infer and believe that a specific finite personal being, which would be another instance of the (already known to exist) group “finite personal beings,” exists.

I partly agree with Hanson. Verbal propostional communication would be (indeed is) evidence that God exists. On the other hand, for me it is not necessary that “the heavens open, the clouds part, revealing an unbelievably radiant and immense Zeus-like figure” to believe that God exists.

Think of how we communicate on the internet. I believe, for example, that both d and sault exist even though neither of them has ever made a dramatic appearance. I beleive that they exist simply on the basis of their written communication. Or think of people from history. For example, how do I know that Julius Caesar existed. In part I believe it because he wrote a book about his conquest of Gaul. Ancient historians, like Suetonius, living close to near Caesar’s time have corroborated what he has written in his book. Therefore, I happen to believe quite strongly that Julius Caesar really existed.

If propostional written communication is sufficient to infer and believe that finite personal beings exist, why would it not be sufficient to infer and believe that an infinite personal being exists?

“Do you realize that you are just proving my point? God can only make himself known to you according to *your* terms. ”

“Besides, even if God did personally intervene in your life in the terms you expect (e. g. in some over-dramatic way)”

I only protest on your assumption that I require an overly dramatic way.

The phenomenon you speak of is typical of a very specific type of culture and a very specific type of Christian community

But it is not limited – even in the Bible there are scenes of religious ecstasy (one aspect of the conversion experience). I understand that the “deep sleep” that Adam and Abraham underwent were forms of religious ecstasy, for instance – they saw visions, etc. In the NT, you’ve got things like Acts 10:10, where Peter went into a trance.

Religious ecstasy can be found not only in the current Evangelical movement (ie the Toronto Blessing, etc), but other denominations of Christianity… Quakers, Shakers, Southern Baptists, old-school “tent revivals” of decades past, Christian asceticism… even the Catholics have their own traditions.

In fact, Christian mysticism is a very traditional and even mainstream aspect of the belief. The very concept of confirmation by the spirit is itself a form of it (what the LDS call “the burning in the bosom”) [-- I would have preferred to link to the Mormon Wiktionary, but it appeared to be down when I tried].

False dichotomy alert.

If I do commit false dichotomy, please tell me – I’m not doing it on purpose.

The question “Through what mechanisms?” shows clearly how your unargued scientistic presuppositions vitiate this whole discussion and are like a beam in front of your eye.

Does ipsum esse subsistens preclude what appears to be the common Christian belief that there is a “natural” world and a “supernatural” realm of some kind, one of which we live in, the other in which God lives?

It seems that every mention that I’ve ever heard of heaven (God’s presence) and hell (either Satan’s presence or the absence of God) implies that they exist, and that they exist independently of this natural realm.

I look at the words that Jesus is attributed to use that were translated as hell – Gehenna, Tartarus, etc. These were Greek hells (in a certain sense of the word), and were thought of as literal places.

If these realms exist independently of this one, then when they “spill over” it has to happen somehow. Unless I drastically misunderstand, that is the view that Christianity has traditionally espoused.

My presupposition has been that if it happens in the natural realm then it is fair game to be analyzed, measured, quantified, studied, etc.

At what point, in your opinion, do I make my error? I hate to have you repeat yourself again, but I really don’t get it.

an anthropomorphic view of God is wholly inadequate

Sorry for the drastic snip, but I was hoping that you might be able to help me on this one. I do agree with you – to see God as human demeans God (at least, I think that’s the right way to say that).

At one point I remember reading about the theological position that God is love, but God is more than love… that God is justice, but God is more than justice. I can’t seem to find a reference for it, I could have sworn that it was Aquinas or someone in that vein, but I am at a loss. Does that ring any bells?

presenting the same old tiresome objections, largely based off on egregious misunderstandings, you actually learn something of what Christianity does say?

I wasn’t the one who started leading off with the same old tiresome attempts to proselytize. When I am not overcome with passion and emotion (as I can sometimes be), I do my best to ask questions… as I have been doing.

In the spirit of which… in the OP Tom writes :

He cannot allow himself to view himself as a human would. He cannot accept the information his own self provides his own self. He spurns his own self-knowledge. For the sake of science he discards all persons’ directly experienced knowledge of that sort.

But no. Emphatically no, and many times over again NO, this is not necessary for science. Science does not require that we reject knowledge.

Although I fear that he may have already checked out of the conversation, I was really hoping that Tom could explain what he meant by this.

It seems like Tom is saying that it is impossible to view one’s self as an objective third party, that we actually must view ourselves as human in order to conduct proper science.

Which puzzles me, because I thought that’s one of the accomplishments of philosophical thought – to be able to view one’s self through the eyes of an objective third party.

So, I find myself confused. I thought that I understood, but about forty or fifty comments or so ago I realized that I didn’t.

I find it humorous that you would speak of revelation being “over-dramatic”. Haven’t you ever seen Christians accepting Jesus? That highly intense and dramatic experience is an emotional catharsis that few people allow themselves to undergo.

Actually, I have not. The phenomenon you speak of is typical of a very specific type of culture and a very specific type of Christian community — hardly representative of Christianity as a whole and viewed as a continuum with a two-thousand year old history.

The difference is that I don’t need to, and I wouldn’t readily accept it even if I did… I’ve had exactly those same experiences without the need for a religious experience. I’m bipolar – I’ve experienced things due to my brain chemistry that are comparable only to these episodes of religious ecstasy that believers experience.

Do you realize that you are just proving my point? God can only make himself known to you according to *your* terms. Lots and lots of people have come to the Faith without any sort of emotionally dramatic, much less miraculous or near miraculous, experience in their lives. For a concrete example: me, who like you, instinctively distrusts cathartic experiences (in fact, is unable to deal with them) and prefers the calm orderly pleasures of reason.

I look at the accounts of the resurrection and aside from the inconsistencies I see common threads and themes that we find in other cultures, other religions, other mythologies – the savior God is hardly a unique figure to us!

Please, tell me you are not going to peddle the Zeitgeist movie (or its equivalents) on us.

If the claim is that God works in the natural realm, then how? Where? In what ways? Through what mechanisms?

These are not unreasonable questions – they are questions that we would ask in a court of law or in a science lab. Why should investigation into the Creator of Everything be any different?

They are not unreasonable questions, but I have already answered them — you either did not pay attention or you did not understood what I was saying. The question “Through what mechanisms?” shows clearly how your unargued scientistic presuppositions vitiate this whole discussion and are like a beam in front of your eye.

If the claim is that God does not work in the natural, then sure, we should talk philosophy.

False dichotomy alert.

But if Creationism/Scientific Creationism/ID are correct, then we should have natural evidence for it.

The answer depends a lot on how one approaches apologetics (that is why I added the “oblique” qualifier in my answer above). To explain my position, let me take an argument that in my judgment is a good one, the Kalam argument. It can be argued on purely philosophical basis (the preferred one), but scientific considerations can be brought to bear to bolster its premises. Nevertheless, even though I judge it a good argument, it rates below metaphysical arguments like Aquinas’ Five Ways because, among other weaknesses, it does not get us to the God of classical theism. You can see this very clearly, when for example, W. L. Craig defends it and then, in the conceptual analysis phase, he says that the Creator of the universe must be “unimaginably powerful” — but herein lies the rub. God is not *just* unimaginably powerful, for not only an anthropomorphic view of God is wholly inadequate but even a creature-morphic view is, as God is not *a* being among beings, but ipsum esse subsistens.

In fact, God is said as having acted in the “natural” numerous times throughout the Bible, not the least of which is Yeshua’s resurrection. So there is a precedent. Is there anything to go off of besides the historical account?

God’s works related in the Bible are commonly called miracles, which by definition are particular, located on the past and non-repeatable and thus not amenable to the hard empirical sciences. So, just taking the resurrection case, yes the historical account is the only one possible.

I do not know why you are surprised. Large swaths of Evolution theory are nothing *but* history, with the fossil record in the place of documents, poorly done and peddled as something passing the same rigorous tests as the hard empirical sciences — another load of tosh.

Don’t you think it is about time that instead of presenting the same old tiresome objections, largely based off on egregious misunderstandings, you actually learn something of what Christianity does say?

The difference is that I don’t need to, and I wouldn’t readily accept it even if I did… I’ve had exactly those same experiences without the need for a religious experience. I’m bipolar – I’ve experienced things due to my brain chemistry that are comparable only to these episodes of religious ecstasy that believers experience.

This is why I place so much emphasis on what is rational, what is objective, and what is tangible – I know that under times of extreme duress that you often cannot trust your senses, that the things that you see are not always representative of reality.

I look at the accounts of the resurrection and aside from the inconsistencies I see common threads and themes that we find in other cultures, other religions, other mythologies – the savior God is hardly a unique figure to us!

I think about the origin of the LDS faith (Mormons)… while really it requires a lot more coverage than I can provide here, suffice to say that it came from a context of religious revival and informed by the still newly-budding field of Egyptian archaeology. I look at Christianity, the highly charged emotional and religious context, and how it was informed by the culture (Persian, Greek, and Roman beliefs, the Essene beliefs about the Son of Man and Children of Light etc) and I can draw a direct parallel.

Studying the beginning of the Christian religion has always been something of a hobby for me – I am not unfamiliar with the debates, the differing theologies, the social context, etc. It’s fascinating stuff, actually, it really is.

I’ve got Victoria asserting that the supernatural is “spilling” over into the natural.

I’ve got G Rodriguez saying that “we *reason* (leaving revelation aside for now) from facts of our natural world to higher verities”.

If the claim is that God works in the natural realm, then how? Where? In what ways? Through what mechanisms?

These are not unreasonable questions – they are questions that we would ask in a court of law or in a science lab. Why should investigation into the Creator of Everything be any different?

If the claim is that God does not work in the natural, then sure, we should talk philosophy. But if Creationism/Scientific Creationism/ID are correct, then we should have natural evidence for it.

In fact, God is said as having acted in the “natural” numerous times throughout the Bible, not the least of which is Yeshua’s resurrection. So there is a precedent. Is there anything to go off of besides the historical account?

I was thinking of the same story – but you mean the rich man and Lazarus(who was the beggar).

(Slaps forehead)

Thanks for the correction. This is the usual outcome when I write out of my memory and without consulting the sources.

Nick: Even from a totally materialist viewpoint it is perfectly possible to have an emergent system which then then exhibits top-down causation.

Tom: Can you give an example, please? I’m really curious how something that is caused from the bottom up can exhibit top-down causation.

If the DI is wrong about this, it only takes one counter-example to prove it. That’s all I ask, though I wouldn’t object to a couple more being offered. I won’t read a hundred, and you wouldn’t either.

You’re telling us something we already knew anyway: there were some who used Scripture to support slavery. Ho-hum. Thanks anyway, but why bore us with these things?

This is entirely consistent with what the Bible teaches: that some religious people will use religion wrongly, but that where Christianity is practiced truly, it is very good.

Let me remind you:

Slavery has always been practiced in every culture whose economics would permit it. It has been eliminated in some cultures. Those cultures have one major thing in common. Do you know what it is? I’ll give you a hint. You need not look far to find it.

Thornton Stringfellow

Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery

Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, 1856.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/string/menu.html

===========================
Summary

Stringfellow’s Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery is written in two parts. The first part, “Scriptural Views,” is a reprint of the tract A Brief Examination of Scripture Testimony on the Institution of Slavery. His four major points in this essay are as follows: 1) Slavery received the sanction of God in the time of the Patriarchs; 2) Slavery is incorporated as a part of the only commonwealth expressly established by God; 3) Slavery is recognized by Jesus Christ as legitimate; and 4) Slavery is full of mercy. In support of these contentions, Stringfellow calls attention especially to Abraham, Jewish Law, and the Pauline epistles in the New Testament. Added to this essay are two shorter essays. The first responds to an attempt by a pro-abolition individual to convince him that scripture condemns slavery. Stringfellow refutes every scripture employed by the abolitionist. The second essay uses the Israelite conquest of Canaan to prove that slavery is legitimated by Mosaic Law.

The second part of this book contains the “Statistical views.” This essay uses the census of 1850 to make material claims for the expediency of slavery. Most of his material compares the six New England states with the five old slave states on the Atlantic coast. Using census data, Stringfellow asserts that the southern states are superior in religious life and material life for whites, slaves, and free blacks. The urban life of the northern states suffers in comparison with the agricultural South both in terms of general prosperity and population growth. Stringfellow’s conclusion is that despite the fact that the northern states forced the burden of slavery onto their southern neighbors, the southern states have thrived socially and religiously. Stringfellow takes this as evidence that slavery is not a curse, but a blessing.

Christopher Hill
===========================

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=origin+new+genes&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=on

Emergent structures in nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Emergent_structures_in_nature

Then the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He (Abraham) replied to him, ‘If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Well, today we have, in addition to Moses and the prophets, Jesus, the Son of God Himself…

I was hoping for a little bit better than that.

Methinks that what you “hope” is something next to a personal intervention of God in your life: while that is certainly possible, why would you think God would humor you? Do you recall Jesus’ illustration of Lazarus and the beggar? Besides, even if God did personally intervene in your life in the terms you expect (e. g. in some over-dramatic way), what makes you think that you would be swayed? If there is a lesson that the Bible teaches us is that men are proud, hard of heart, and not even a miracle will convince them.

we *reason* (leaving revelation aside for now) from facts of our natural world to higher verities

What facts?

Let us turn to Aquinas five ways:

1. Fact: motion (or change) of the natural order.

2. Fact: orderliness of the natural order via efficient causation.

3. Fact: contingency of the natural order.

4. Fact: degrees of perfection in the natural order.

5. Fact: passive orderliness of the natural order towards their ends (or final causation).

An online exposition can be found in Reality — A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought and then jump to The Proofs of God’s Existence by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. Another work of the same author: The One God — A Commentary on the First Part of St Thomas’ Theological Summa; jump to Chapter 2: The Existence of God.

warning: not easy readings.

note: by the way, just to confirm what Victoria has been saying, metaphysical, rational arguments can only take you so far. The rational underpinnings of Christianity, as distinct say from other brands of Theism, rely crucially on the historical case for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, although it is not to be viewed in isolation from said rational argumentation (e.g. in order to make resurrection plausible, that is to strengthen the priors, one needs to establish that God exists).