"Lo Here" and "Lo There" are the Cries of Subjectivism

[Saint Bonaventure]

"Lo here" and "Lo there" is the cry of the subjectivist.

St. James did not teach Joseph Smith that if he lacked wisdom, he should ask a critic or apologist. The instruction is not, if any of you lack wisdom, go ask John Dehlin.

When Joseph went to the forest, wisdom was already speaking to him through the sounds of the animals, through the rustling of the wind in the leaves, through natural law, through creation's witness of it's creator. 

I don't know what happened to Joseph Smith in the forest, or in many of the other situations I've read about in the Rough Rolling book. I'm not trying to make any claims about any of those.

I believe that no man has seen the face of God, as per Exodus 33:20, because, according to reason, there is no subjective position that can withstand the objective truth of God. This is attested to in the Bible, from Adam and Eve hearing God walking in the Garden and hiding from his face, all the way through Revelation. This is a consequence of The Fall and the Indiana Jones movie has this right (I referred to this in the thread about the gold plates).

A man much wiser than me taught that it was a mistake to divorce reason from reality, to reduce it to a subjective map of the mind wherein we "impose" meaning upon an unknown and unknowable reality. That's the path of Kant, and it winds up with Nietzsche and the foolish, subjective, narcissistic, postmodern proclamation that one is god. 

No, reason has foundations in objective reality. There are foundational principles such as the law of noncontradiction, and these principles point to natural law, objective reality, and God. As I think about the Book of Mormon's gold plates, and about the many miracles about which we just don't know (Catholic, Mormon, and many other purported miracles), I'm reminded of the words of a wise fellow. He said:

Quote

One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit. Anyone who does otherwise does not understand the force of reason. Some men run counter to these three principles, either affirming that everything can be proved, because they know nothing about proof, or doubting everything, because they do not know when to submit, or always submitting, because they do not know when judgement is called for.  

He's identified three flavors of fanatic:

• A rationalist who lacks doubt. Descartes, I'm looking at you. 
• A sceptic who lacks faith. Montaigne, you needed to spend time with Father Abraham (Romans 4:13).
• A naïve who lacks reason. He or she should have a pint with Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, and, of course, Bonaventure. Surely there's a Latter-day Saint with a balanced, reasoned approach. I apologize for not knowing whom that could be.

He's also identified vices of deficiency and excess:

Quote

 

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural.

 

And also:

Quote

If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.

There's an Aristotelian Golden Mean here, but there's also some St. Thomas Aquinas in that Aquinas taught that:

Quote

Some of the tenets of the Christian faith (for example, the Trinity) cannot be discovered, adequately understood, or proved by human reason, but are "mysterious and supernatural"; and that others (like monotheism) can; and that all of them at least do not "offend the principles of reason", that is, none can be refuted or disproved by reason....Not all of Christianity can be proved, but some of it can, and none of it can be disproved. If it could, faith would indeed be "absurd and ridiculous." (Kreeft, 1993, 237) 

So there's no need to be beholden to subjectivism's "Lo here" and "Lo there" or to the ceaseless demands to submit to obedience and to a particular narrative from academic, apologetic, and critical authorities. In the circumstance of the gold plates, and in many other circumstances, one can always follow St. James and seek wisdom. When one does that, one can then 1) chalk them up to a mystery that cannot be disproved, faithfully awaiting the heavens to proffer them in a supernatural manner that obliterates the critics and apologists (think of everyone dying before the Ark in the Indiana Jones movie), or 2) Attempt to articulate objective proof (this seems unlikely in the case of the gold plates, just as it is in some other religious circumstances. I'm not trying to pick on the plates here). 

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts while I take in the lovely sunrise this morning.

[Stargazer]

I'm not sure Descartes lacked doubt. "Cogito, ergo sum" does not seem to say "sine dubitatione." 

I've reached a point in my life that, while I do not yet have knowledge, my faith is quite strong. But not yet without doubt. I don't expect to ever reach that point of "sine dubitatione" while in mortality.

11 hours ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

Surely there's a Latter-day Saint with a balanced, reasoned approach.

What is a balanced, reasoned approach? It seems that there may be some LDS who do not have what we tend to call a "strong testimony", but who think the project seems reasonable and can commit to it. Even if they haven't yet had that "road to Emmaus" experience. I've known a few.

Very interesting thoughts you have there!

I was particularly tickled by this:

11 hours ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

St. James did not teach Joseph Smith that if he lacked wisdom, he should ask a critic or apologist. The instruction is not, if any of you lack wisdom, go ask John Dehlin.

 

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

"Lo here" and "Lo there" is the cry of the subjectivist.

St. James did not teach Joseph Smith that if he lacked wisdom, he should ask a critic or apologist. The instruction is not, if any of you lack wisdom, go ask John Dehlin.

When Joseph went to the forest, wisdom was already speaking to him through the sounds of the animals, through the rustling of the wind in the leaves, through natural law, through creation's witness of it's creator. 

I don't know what happened to Joseph Smith in the forest, or in many of the other situations I've read about in the Rough Rolling book. I'm not trying to make any claims about any of those.

I believe that no man has seen the face of God, as per Exodus 33:20, because, according to reason, there is no subjective position that can withstand the objective truth of God. This is attested to in the Bible, from Adam and Eve hearing God walking in the Garden and hiding from his face, all the way through Revelation. This is a consequence of The Fall and the Indiana Jones movie has this right (I referred to this in the thread about the gold plates).

A man much wiser than me taught that it was a mistake to divorce reason from reality, to reduce it to a subjective map of the mind wherein we "impose" meaning upon an unknown and unknowable reality. That's the path of Kant, and it winds up with Nietzsche and the foolish, subjective, narcissistic, postmodern proclamation that one is god. 

No, reason has foundations in objective reality. There are foundational principles such as the law of noncontradiction, and these principles point to natural law, objective reality, and God. As I think about the Book of Mormon's gold plates, and about the many miracles about which we just don't know (Catholic, Mormon, and many other purported miracles), I'm reminded of the words of a wise fellow. He said:

He's identified three flavors of fanatic:

• A rationalist who lacks doubt. Descartes, I'm looking at you. 
• A sceptic who lacks faith. Montaigne, you needed to spend time with Father Abraham (Romans 4:13).
• A naïve who lacks reason. He or she should have a pint with Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, and, of course, Bonaventure. Surely there's a Latter-day Saint with a balanced, reasoned approach. I apologize for not knowing whom that could be.

He's also identified vices of deficiency and excess:

And also:

There's an Aristotelian Golden Mean here, but there's also some St. Thomas Aquinas in that Aquinas taught that:

So there's no need to be beholden to subjectivism's "Lo here" and "Lo there" or to the ceaseless demands to submit to obedience and to a particular narrative from academic, apologetic, and critical authorities. In the circumstance of the gold plates, and in many other circumstances, one can always follow St. James and seek wisdom. When one does that, one can then 1) chalk them up to a mystery that cannot be disproved, faithfully awaiting the heavens to proffer them in a supernatural manner that obliterates the critics and apologists (think of everyone dying before the Ark in the Indiana Jones movie), or 2) Attempt to articulate objective proof (this seems unlikely in the case of the gold plates, just as it is in some other religious circumstances. I'm not trying to pick on the plates here). 

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts while I take in the lovely sunrise this morning.

I think we are misunderstanding the word "objective", using two different language games.

To me "objective" means approximately "scientifically verifiable".

Which of these "truths", using what theory of truth, can be scientifically verified?

If none, please give me your definition of "objective" which justifies your thesis

I do not accept Dehlin's views, and he knows it from the days when he posted here.

Descartes' dualism is easily refuted, which destroys the argument that statements can " correspond to reality.

Is a table solid wood, or is it swarming with moving atoms, and mostly space?

It depends on how you look at it.

Is that objective truth to you? 

And how does someone get out of the realm of human appearances to get to reality as it is, when all we can observe are APPEARANCES ?

How does human perception get out of human perception to check? Even microscopes, telescopes EXTEND human perception but still require human intelligence to read/interpret the results.

Please show how I am wrong.

And yes, these views did start with Kant's synthetic apriori.

My prof, Dr Bob Solomon

Edited September 27, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Duplicate 

Edited September 27, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

In the off chance anyone wants to read more about qualia and the logic of my view, and its weaknesses here it is

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

The short story is that we may know objectively ALL there is about HOW the brain works, like what chemicals effect or cause what feelings, etc. without knowing what it's like to HAVE those feelings!

Suppose there was a blind person who studied all there is to know about vision etc., and still have no understanding of what it is "like" to EXPERIENCE the color red.

One can know every objective theory/paradigm about theology without the EXPERIENCE of having a testimony 

Ultimately one could say that every human experience is subjective, even if they are shared, and so we say we have "the same experience" as another.

So we would have two people agreeing that a color is "red", but it is actually two instances of different people agreeing on the description of two private subjective experiences. We call that "objective", but it is really two separate instances of the private experience, described with the same words 

Edited September 27, 2022 by mfbukowski

[pogi]

On 9/26/2022 at 6:11 AM, Saint Bonaventure said:

"Lo here" and "Lo there" is the cry of the subjectivist.

St. James did not teach Joseph Smith that if he lacked wisdom, he should ask a critic or apologist. The instruction is not, if any of you lack wisdom, go ask John Dehlin.

When Joseph went to the forest, wisdom was already speaking to him through the sounds of the animals, through the rustling of the wind in the leaves, through natural law, through creation's witness of it's creator. 

I don't know what happened to Joseph Smith in the forest, or in many of the other situations I've read about in the Rough Rolling book. I'm not trying to make any claims about any of those.

I believe that no man has seen the face of God, as per Exodus 33:20, because, according to reason, there is no subjective position that can withstand the objective truth of God. This is attested to in the Bible, from Adam and Eve hearing God walking in the Garden and hiding from his face, all the way through Revelation. This is a consequence of The Fall and the Indiana Jones movie has this right (I referred to this in the thread about the gold plates).

A man much wiser than me taught that it was a mistake to divorce reason from reality, to reduce it to a subjective map of the mind wherein we "impose" meaning upon an unknown and unknowable reality. That's the path of Kant, and it winds up with Nietzsche and the foolish, subjective, narcissistic, postmodern proclamation that one is god. 

No, reason has foundations in objective reality. There are foundational principles such as the law of noncontradiction, and these principles point to natural law, objective reality, and God. As I think about the Book of Mormon's gold plates, and about the many miracles about which we just don't know (Catholic, Mormon, and many other purported miracles), I'm reminded of the words of a wise fellow. He said:

He's identified three flavors of fanatic:

• A rationalist who lacks doubt. Descartes, I'm looking at you. 
• A sceptic who lacks faith. Montaigne, you needed to spend time with Father Abraham (Romans 4:13).
• A naïve who lacks reason. He or she should have a pint with Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, and, of course, Bonaventure. Surely there's a Latter-day Saint with a balanced, reasoned approach. I apologize for not knowing whom that could be.

He's also identified vices of deficiency and excess:

And also:

There's an Aristotelian Golden Mean here, but there's also some St. Thomas Aquinas in that Aquinas taught that:

So there's no need to be beholden to subjectivism's "Lo here" and "Lo there" or to the ceaseless demands to submit to obedience and to a particular narrative from academic, apologetic, and critical authorities. In the circumstance of the gold plates, and in many other circumstances, one can always follow St. James and seek wisdom. When one does that, one can then 1) chalk them up to a mystery that cannot be disproved, faithfully awaiting the heavens to proffer them in a supernatural manner that obliterates the critics and apologists (think of everyone dying before the Ark in the Indiana Jones movie), or 2) Attempt to articulate objective proof (this seems unlikely in the case of the gold plates, just as it is in some other religious circumstances. I'm not trying to pick on the plates here). 

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts while I take in the lovely sunrise this morning.

Good points about seeking wisdom from john Dehlin and other critics.  Very well said.  Like Mark has noted, I think there is probably some disconnect in definitions of subjective and objective.  for me personally, I agree 100% that spiritual/religious wisdom is to be had through divine inquiry.  The answer/testimony we receive through spiritual assurances/evidences from the divine is by definition subjective.  Personal faith is a matter of subjective experience.  It is not objectively falsifiable.  It therefore falls in the realms of subjectivity and not objectivity.

To quote the scripture you hint at:

Quote

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).

These are clearly the words of a subjectivist!  "The kingdom of God is within you".  As I see it, the "lo here" and lo there's" come from objectivists pretending to have some objective authority on faith, or against it.

I am therefore confused at your concerns with subjectivism.   Can you elaborate more?  How does one obtain an objective faith?   Is such a thing even possible?

Can you elaborate more on what you think "objective reality" is, and how one can know it?  Where is the intersection of faith and knowledge of objective reality?

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

These are clearly the words of a subjectivist!  "The kingdom of God is within you".  As I see it, the "lo here" and lo there's" come from objectivists pretending to have some objective authority on faith, or against it.

Yes, exactly!

The Kingdom IS within and cannot be observed scientifically which is required by the word "objective" meaning that the word supposedly modified by that adjective is an " object". 

Beliefs and testimonies are not "objects" to be observed by others.

Such an idea is meaningless. One would have to literally be a mind reader to observe another's thoughts.

[Pyreaux]

On 9/26/2022 at 7:11 AM, Saint Bonaventure said:

I believe that no man has seen the face of God, as per Exodus 33:20, because, according to reason, there is no subjective position that can withstand the objective truth of God. This is attested to in the Bible, from Adam and Eve hearing God walking in the Garden and hiding from his face, all the way through Revelation. This is a consequence of The Fall and the Indiana Jones movie has this right (I referred to this in the thread about the gold plates).

Good post but my reason dictates Theophanies from Genesis to Revelation defy your interpretation of Mosaic Law. The Seers were transfigured when they, in no uncertain terms, "saw God ", they did not defy the Law as they were not "men" when they saw him, nor did they "live" having died and revived in the blink of an eye by transfiguration. If them writing they saw God was not exactly in a fashion that Moses deemed an inhuman feat, why did they fear they might die? Not to derail... I'll make another topic about this soon.

[mfbukowski]

27 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Good post but my reason dictates Theophanies from Genesis to Revelation defy your interpretation of Mosaic Law. The Seers were transfigured when they, in no uncertain terms, "saw God ", they did not defy the Law as they were not "men" when they saw him, nor did they "live" having died and revived in the blink of an eye by transfiguration. If them writing they saw God was not exactly in a fashion that Moses deemed an inhuman feat, why did they fear they might die? Not to derail... I'll make another topic about this soon.

No derail! Thanks!

😁

[Meadowchik]

I don't see how Biblical writings are less subjective. Tradition doesn't equal objectivity. And Joseph Smith wouldn't be the first or last person to hear truth in the wind or feel it in the earth.

In other words, it looks to me like your making a point without seeing it's broader ramifications. We're all in the world, with sight, feeling, and perspective. No one has a monopoly on objectivity.