What's Up With The Trinity

[mfbukowski]

Another error in bowtie's website's argument:

First, Christianity claims that absolute truth exists. In fact, Jesus specifically says that He was sent to do one thing: “To testify to the truth” (John 18:37). Postmodernism says that no truth should be affirmed, yet its position is self-defeating – it affirms at least one absolute truth: that no truth should be affirmed. This means that postmodernism does believe in absolute truth. Its philosophers write books stating things they expect their readers to embrace as truth. Putting it simply, one professor has said, “When someone says there is no such thing as truth, they are asking you not to believe them. So don’t.”

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/postmodernism-dangers.html#ixzz38ijx0UJY

Pardon for me using the term, but this is "untrue" and misses the point entirely.

 

The hypothetical professor above makes exactly the same error Boghossian does.   Relativists don't say "there is no such thing as truth"- they say that truth is relative to a specific context and is a property of language, not the world.

 

No one disputes that A=A is "true"- or that mathematics is "true", just that math doesn't deliver meaning on its own.  Equations are just that- statements that one thing equals another.  A will always equal A because what we mean by A, IS A.

 

It is true "by definition" and is therefore a priori true, but is not a very useful truth.

 

The real question is what makes useful truths "true" and what that means.

 

Only linguistic statements can be true or false, so truth is fundamentally dependent upon language, and language is by its very nature ambiguous because it is symbolic and symbols vary in interpretation.

Edited July 28, 2014 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Yes, and observing is how this is done. Would you not agree that in just several years, a critical thinker can gain more information by paying attention than one who does not think critically? Go to church on Sunday, and see how many people say things like "I know the church is true." Its ridiculous. They know nothing about epistemology, logic, philosophy, etc, (And I didn't when I made the connection) and they say that they know? Then go and read about confirmation bias, self-hypnosis and other psychological phenomena and their effects and you'll see that they've deluded themselves. You can't know anything with 100% certainty. Did I read this in a textbook? No. I thought critically about what I had observed in my environment and connected it with what I knew about psychology. There are 30 year olds I see getting up there and saying "that they know." Age really isn't all that relevant. Its how critically you think, how much knowledge you have intellectually, and how well you pay attention. Knowledge about how the world works does grow with age, but is not dependent on age. I think you're assumption is unwarranted. 

I would wonder if you "know" that it is wrong to kill babies for fun and how you prove that.

[mfbukowski]

And further, just for the record, this is the theory of truth I subscribe to

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

 

Go ahead and deflate it if you like.

[MiserereNobis]

We have no evidence for God- so theists must believe that it is reasonable to believe ideas without evidence.

 

Only if you think that material/scientific evidence is all that matters.

 

I have lots of evidence for God, but it's not objective/material.  So I still hold that to believe an idea there must be evidence, but evidence is more than just material/objective.

[mfbukowski]

Only if you think that material/scientific evidence is all that matters.

 

I have lots of evidence for God, but it's not objective/material.  So I still hold that to believe an idea there must be evidence, but evidence is more than just material/objective.

Oh yes of course I do too.

 

But that would be classified as "emotional nonsense" by folks who only saw scientific evidence as counting as "evidence"

[MiserereNobis]

Oh yes of course I do too.

 

But that would be classified as "emotional nonsense" by folks who only saw scientific evidence as counting as "evidence"

 

Yes, they would probably think that.

 

But non-material/objective evidence is not necessarily emotional.  In fact, I think my personal evidence for God is neither material nor emotional.

[saemo]

(PS I'm wondering why this topic got tagged "evangelical" when we Catholics formulated and expounded on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity for about 1500 years before Evangelicalism appeared on the scene... )

Is the OP Evangelical?

[mfbukowski]

Yes, they would probably think that.

 

But non-material/objective evidence is not necessarily emotional.  In fact, I think my personal evidence for God is neither material nor emotional.

You can't leave us hanging like that!  Please expand on that.

 

I actually agree- for me it is not "emotional" but is describable perhaps that way in that it involves feelings.  I think we have an internal capacity to "feel the spirit" which is not emotional per se.  Ultimately I think that is "material" in the Mormon ontology of what "spirit" is- as "matter more refined".

 

I think that describes some kind of field or force which is as yet unknown to science but in principle could be discoverable, though I think in principle it will never be called "the spirit" by science unless science changes radically- which I also think will happen eventually.

 

I think eventually mankind could in principle have a predictive and experimental understanding of how all this works- but it will require a few major paradigm shifts to attain that level of understanding.

 

Have you read any Rupert Sheldrake?  I think both that he is some kind of quack but also that he is on to something.  There is a glimmer of truth there I think shining through the weirdness.

[mfbukowski]

Science Fiction Story:

 

Maybe both Mormons and Catholics could subscribe to this kind of description

 

The Force exists throughout the universe.  It is called by various names- Spirit, Intelligence, the light of Christ, or Substance.  It is an as yet undefinable "force field". 

 

It is made of what Mormons would call "matter more refined", using 19th century language.

 

For Mormons it is defined as "material" but for Catholics and others it is seen as "immaterial" but really the distinction doesn't apply since it is neither really material or immaterial, but perhaps like a plasma or the fire of a flame.   Is fire material or immaterial?   Obviously the categories do not apply.  Is light a wave or particle?  Similarly, the categories don't really describe it correctly.

 

This Force is the vehicle by which matter is organized- it makes up the "rules" of how the universe works.  It has its own laws and rules, which are still unknown.

 

For organized matter to "exist"- using another poorly described category, The Force must first channel itself to make itself what we call "material"

 

There are three persons we call "God" who channel this power.  They are in some sense composed of this Force themselves and control how the Force manifests itself and themselves.

 

We won't go into their "history" here or where they came from- let's bracket that question for now.

 

These three persons/beings are perfectly unified in their thoughts, because what we call "thoughts" are manifestations in one form of The Force itself.

 

Because of this, it makes sense both to speak of them as being "one" being or "three" beings- because again the word categories are not sufficient to describe this relationship.

 

They can be said to be "one in purpose" because they are indeed one in purpose, it can be said that they have "one mind" because that also is a good description, or if we want to describe them physically we might say they are of one "force" or "Substance", acknowledging that none of these words really describe what is "really happening" here.

 

We know that one of these persons at least, has taken upon himself a physical material body- how he did that remains obscure, but there are many theories.

 

From the fact that one such being has done that, we may infer that it is possible that the other beings either have done so, or might do so in the "future" if time references even apply to describing such beings/persons.

 

We don't know really "what happened" to that physical body- or whether or not he can manifest it physically as he wills or not.  But regardless of their physical manifestations, they are still of one mind and purpose and "really" made of the same "stuff"- The Force.

 

 

 

How's the story going so far? 

[Calm]

Just so long as it is not midi-chlorians.

Edited July 28, 2014 by calmoriah

[mfbukowski]

Just so long as it is not midi-chlorians.

Heck no.

 

Too dualistic.