Philosophy Now Forum

Cool air wafts in...

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 10:21 pm I am sorry that your scenario fails at the first premise. The premise fails because suffering is not always caused voluntarily by "souls" but is predominantly caused by natural events such as earthquakes, genetic abnormalites, plagues, and pestilences.

Presumably, by the "failure" of my scenario you mean that it fails to refute your argument. Let's examine that.

To recapitulate, my refutation of your argument via this scenario is via a falsifying of premise three of your argument as I've semi-formalised it, that premise being, "If God intervenes in this world, God intervenes whimsically". You implicitly defend this premise by contending that the basis of God's intervention must be to (immediately) alleviate suffering. I falsified this premise by pointing out (via this scenario) that it is plausible that God intervenes on some other basis than that of (immediately) alleviating suffering - in this case, a didactic basis; a basis on which God's intervention is not whimsical but rather is consistent and thus just, leading to an eventual minimising of suffering.

Now, you seem to be contending that while my scenario reconciles the existence of God and (immediate) suffering in the case of the suffering caused by conscious beings, it does not reconcile the existence of God and (immediate) suffering in the case of the suffering caused by natural events. This is true, but, strictly speaking, irrelevant: in refuting your argument, I don't need to defend that which your argument already assumes - namely, the coexistence of God and suffering.

I'd only need to defend that if you were arguing something different: that God's existence is incompatible with suffering (particularly with the suffering caused by natural events), and thus that God does not exist, and thus that it is vacuously true that God does not intervene in reality, because there is no God to intervene. Maybe that's what you really want to argue, but if so, then why would you have instead made the argument that you did, which implicitly assumes that God does exist?

In any case, it is fair for you to point out that my scenario seems designed to reconcile the existence of God with that of (immediate) suffering, and that, as it is, it explicitly does so for only one source of (immediate) suffering. Can additions or amendments be made that include a reconciliation of the existence of God with the other source of suffering: that due to natural causes? Maybe, but I'm not convinced that any of them would succeed given the actual suffering due to natural evils that we see in the actual world, which is pretty much why I'm not a monotheist in the first place. Just for the challenge though, I'll give it a try, to see how convincing a case I can make to at least myself:

One of the reasons why souls start to make harmful choices in the higher levels of reality is that they reject the moral guidance and general knowledge of God, falsely believing that they know better. God gives such souls the (voluntary) opportunity to collectively design their own reality according to their own moral understanding and general knowledge, perhaps aided by God in certain crucial respects in which they simply - not being God - lack the effective power to implement their design (e.g., because they lack the power to literally creating spacetime and matter-energy, as well as the specific properties of spacetime and matter-energy). They then get to collectively inhabit this reality that they collectively designed and, through experiencing its flaws, learn that and why it is flawed, and why God created the higher reality to be as it is. Having learnt this lesson, which inevitably involves (temporary) suffering due to the natural causes that their flawed design entails, they are generally relieved to return to the higher reality with a newfound appreciation for God's design and moral wisdom.

Huh. Now I've gone and surprised myself: that's a more convincing case than I thought I could make. I'm still not sure that it successfully explains the actual world in which we find ourselves, but maybe monotheism is more plausible than I've been leading myself to believe until now...

God's intervention is not whimsical but rather is consistent and thus just, leading to an eventual minimising of suffering.

When?

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:16 pm

God's intervention is not whimsical but rather is consistent and thus just, leading to an eventual minimising of suffering.

When?

Oh, I didn't mean to imply the passing of time. Please substitute for "eventual", "overall".

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:20 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:16 pm

God's intervention is not whimsical but rather is consistent and thus just, leading to an eventual minimising of suffering.

When?

Oh, I didn't mean to imply the passing of time. Please substitute for "eventual", "overall".

Then He is not even as efficient as your local hospital.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:27 pm Then He is not even as efficient as your local hospital.

Here's a reminder of the constraints of the scenario:

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:35 pm For this example, God is conceived of as very powerful but not omnipotent, and very knowledgeable and prescient but not omniscient. God on this conception lacks omniscience to the extent that God is not capable prior to Creation of seeing all possible worlds so as to be capable of actualising one of the perfect possible worlds in which all beings freely choose to do good, and thus of actualising a world in which there is no suffering.

In this example, God is also conceived of as being capable only of creating conscious beings who have radical free will - radical in the sense that it supports the choice of both good and evil to any degree (that is, God is incapable of creating conscious automatons aka puppets aka subjects of hard determinism). Too, God is moral to the extent of refusing to simply kill (which in God's view would be murder) any being who desires to continue living, even when that being is choosing evil. Thus, on this conception, God must devise a way to minimise suffering and evil in a reality the inhabitants of which can choose it without being liable to being destroyed for that choice.

Maybe you can devise a more efficient way of meeting those constraints than I have. If so, please go for it and share it! I'd be genuinely interested to read it.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:31 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:27 pm Then He is not even as efficient as your local hospital.

Here's a reminder of the constraints of the scenario:

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:35 pm For this example, God is conceived of as very powerful but not omnipotent, and very knowledgeable and prescient but not omniscient. God on this conception lacks omniscience to the extent that God is not capable prior to Creation of seeing all possible worlds so as to be capable of actualising one of the perfect possible worlds in which all beings freely choose to do good, and thus of actualising a world in which there is no suffering.

In this example, God is also conceived of as being capable only of creating conscious beings who have radical free will - radical in the sense that it supports the choice of both good and evil to any degree (that is, God is incapable of creating conscious automatons aka puppets aka subjects of hard determinism). Too, God is moral to the extent of refusing to simply kill (which in God's view would be murder) any being who desires to continue living, even when that being is choosing evil. Thus, on this conception, God must devise a way to minimise suffering and evil in a reality the inhabitants of which can choose it without being liable to being destroyed for that choice.

Maybe you can devise a more efficient way of meeting those constraints than I have. If so, please go for it and share it! I'd be genuinely interested to read it.

Thanks for the invitation.

God, then, is immanent and in no way transcends nature. The immanent God does not exist in space time, cannot be measured, is not a person or self, and does not issue moral codes. The immanent God is the aspiration to live, and to seek truth, beauty and goodness. This immanent God then is hard work and needs constant nurturing.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:40 pm God, then, is immanent and in no way transcends nature.

Can you explain how you reached that conclusion?

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 9:58 pm
You might have missed my point, which was perhaps not phrased very clearly - or maybe you got it but didn't see fit to respond directly. In any case, my point - or framing - is that in one meaningful sense "science" simply is "explaining how stuff is done", and thus science inevitably bears all explanatory burdens in that domain, including explaining how God does what God does, at least to the extent that such an explanation is possible to systematically determine, which might be very limited while we're "down here".

Maybe, at some point in some disciplines, science "down here" reaches a limit, at which point all scientists can say is, "The explanation involves God, but we can't investigate and explain beyond that". Maybe, before reaching that limit, science can rule in or out (even if only probabilistically) certain properties of God such as omnipotence. Maybe, though - more optimistically - there is no such limit.

Until science comes up against a question to which the only possible answer could be God, I don't think science should even have God at the back of its mind. Religion quite often wants to have it both ways: When science supports its claims, religion is all for science, but it is very quick to discredit science when the science is not to its liking.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:44 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:40 pm God, then, is immanent and in no way transcends nature.

Can you explain how you reached that conclusion?

Thanks again.
I was indoctrinated from birth to be a liberal follower of Jesus. This has been my main motivation towards socialism. A socialist maintains that universally and without exception everyone is or should be equal in rights and needs.

I and many others have concluded the only way to adore the good, the true , the beautiful, and be morally a universalist- socialist is to nurture the immanent force for good as it's defined by Jesus and others. Jesus showed how practical God-worthship is during a historical event, Roman occupation, when God- worthship is passively opposed to colonialism.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 9:58 pmThere might have been some misunderstanding here. I do make the distinction between a story and any principles that might be abstracted from it, but I also contend that both stories and principles can qualify as metaphysical - insofar as they satisfy the criterion of "pertaining to that which transcends physical reality".

In the case of Christianity, the Story does meet this criterion and thus is metaphysical, even before any (also metaphysical) principle(s) that can be abstracted from it. Do you agree?

OK, I think then that what you are saying is simply that a story can be a metaphysical one, perhaps as opposed to one devoid of either metaphysical assertion or allusion. However, in the way I create a separation between *story* and *metaphysical principles* I therefore place story on a lower rung. Again, my reference is to the concept behind Plato's Cave. Those who are *chained* to what they see can only see the flickering images, and they must believe them real. Yet they are not real, they are images that allude to true things.

My view is that no matter where we sit (where we are located) we receive a Story and we are brought into a visualization -- let me here mention that I am thinking of the Gospel story specifically -- which we take as being real. I.e. being an actual history and a recounting of that history. Some will say "No, this really & truly happened" and another might say "It did not actually happen", but here is the key: for you and for me, those who are looking back and looking in to a recounted series of events, it does not matter if it actually happened or did not happen. Because we are engaging with a Story that is replete with principles, metaphysical principles. First, we have to identify what those metaphysical principles are, and then to decide to what degree with will align our terrestrial will with living in accord with them.

But the curious thing is that no matter what no person can live and experience that time when the principal figure in the Gospel story actually lived, spoke and acted. So how do we enter into the content? Through the engagement of our imagination. Imagination, then, receives a very special emphasis. The faculty of the imagination, or the sphere of imagining, is the metaphysical territory.

Now, I assume that what I am describing is intelligible to you and others reading. But it is important to notice the contrast between 'an imagined world' (Richard Weaver's *metaphysical dream of the world*) and the real world. The real world *out there* -- the world of nature, or vast space, or colliding galaxies, and all the phenomena, is non-metaphysical. Our earth and all its natural processes are just that, natural processes. They do not *allude* to anything else. But along comes man and man *sees* through the imagining faculty, or you could also say perceives, what we refer to as higher metaphysical dimensions. Are these *real* or are they *unreal*? What one actually is asking is are they real or are they hallucinations and false ones at that.

If one asserts that metaphysics is false then one is making declarations about what is really true, and if one denies metaphysical reality (the realness and the power of principles in our human world) one then, necessarily and without any further choice, must reduce our being to purely physical reality. When metaphysics is destroyed one walks back into a prison. The prison of a mutable, meaningless world in which one is powerless. When I say *powerless* I mean that in a world ruled by physical principles that mirror the (cruel) reality of nature, one cannot put together an argument against those who apply natural principles to your control.

A wasp of a certain species stings a spider and puts it into suspended animation. The larvae of the wasp gestate inside the body of the still-alive spider and when the larvae hatch they consume that body. What 'argument' could the spider concoct to oppose what the wasp does? Similarly what 'argument' can any one of us concoct to oppose our own (say) victimization by more powerful entities that seek to overpower us and control us?

So it has become clear & obvious to me that all value and all meaning hinge on metaphysical principles. Yet they are *invisible* or perhaps I must say *insubstantial*. Devoid of substance. To say *they do not exist!* seems to me the height of stupidity. They obviously and demonstrably exist even though they are insubstantial and abstract.

I am not saying that you claim to be Christian: I am saying that you claim to value Christian metaphysics, and that you have claimed as much for a long time, but that despite this claim of yours, you reject every essential element of the Christian Story-with-a-capital-S.

I am, then, prompting you to reflect on whether or not you continue to claim to value Christian metaphysics. I don't see how you can, because the only "Christian" metaphysics that you endorse are those principles which you have abstracted from the Story, but (in my opinion), they are so much abstracted that they no longer genuinely qualify as "Christian".

Does that make sense now? If so, does it prompt any reflections?

My position, at least largely, remains pretty much the same as when I first chimed in here: I see Christianity and Catholicism as being the bedrock, the essential material, the organizing substance, and perhaps the impetus, of our civilization. It is also the *stuff* or the structure through which our very Self has become the entity that it is. If *it* is destroyed, the Self annihilates. Why do I say this? What *evidence* do I have? That would be harder to prove through some direct evidence and what I have (and can refer to) is indirect evidence. I weave this into everything I write and especially through literary references.

When man is reduces to mere physical processes all *meaning* must collapse. And when *meaning* collapses all *value* also collapses. Or what is valued and valuable is itself reduced to stuff and quantity. But the Self and the value of the Self had been created and uplifted from out of the phenomenological mire through all sorts of metaphysical processes. I challenge you or anyone to examine this assertion. I believe you will find it true and solid.

When the Self is undermined -- that is when the metaphysical principles that undergird it are no longer seen as 'real' and validatable -- I assert that the Self begins to collapse. It falls back from being understood as being eternal (immortal if you wish) to being merely an epiphenomenon and essentially unreal. The Self and then everything human is invalidated and reduced to meaninglessness. You need not look much further for profound evidence of this when, say, you examine the core predicates of individuals like Iambiguous and Dubious. At least this has been my take-away. These are men who cannot conceive of the *realness* of metaphysical principles. Thus they cannot predicate any other world but the world of mutability and becoming (I refer here to Platonic terms). They then *fall back* or are sucked back into a prison -- the prison of the world devoid of metaphysical principle seen, understood and believed in as real.

Now, I must mention that I have been rereading a book that had a strong influence on my Rama P. Coomeraswamy's The Destruction of the Christian Tradition (1981). It is an anatomy of how the Catholic tradition was undermined and what then replaced it. It and Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences, Guénon's The Crisis of the Modern World and Basil Willey's The Seventeenth Century Background, have been the most influential in developing the *operative ideas* I now work with and which are foundational to my present view.

Now, you challenge me by saying that I hold to metaphysical principles (say those that are Christian) while I simultaneously deny or refute everything that pertains to Christian belief. But this is not quite so. There are many things I am constitutionally incapable of believing (honestly) -- and we have talked at length about these things in this thread -- but yet I find that I do indeed hold to the metaphysical constants that stand behind the story-line.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 9:05 am

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 9:58 pm
You might have missed my point, which was perhaps not phrased very clearly - or maybe you got it but didn't see fit to respond directly. In any case, my point - or framing - is that in one meaningful sense "science" simply is "explaining how stuff is done", and thus science inevitably bears all explanatory burdens in that domain, including explaining how God does what God does, at least to the extent that such an explanation is possible to systematically determine, which might be very limited while we're "down here".

Maybe, at some point in some disciplines, science "down here" reaches a limit, at which point all scientists can say is, "The explanation involves God, but we can't investigate and explain beyond that". Maybe, before reaching that limit, science can rule in or out (even if only probabilistically) certain properties of God such as omnipotence. Maybe, though - more optimistically - there is no such limit.

Until science comes up against a question to which the only possible answer could be God, I don't think science should even have God at the back of its mind. Religion quite often wants to have it both ways: When science supports its claims, religion is all for science, but it is very quick to discredit science when the science is not to its liking.

We will continually recur to the same statements that we made earler and will always make: Harbal is incapable of understanding 'metaphysical principle' and because this is so he is incapable of understanding *God* as a predicate.

Though Harbal has taken my assertions personally they were never intended as such. Harbal is emblematic of a man who has been *trained* to see in specific ways and cannot see in other ways. It is not 'maliciousness' that brings this about. It is (as I see things) a whole series of causal events, mostly originating in the intellectual world, that has brought this sort of man onto the scene of history. This man now has considerable determining power. He asserts himself in contemporary history. However, he does not and perhaps cannot see the degree to which he has become a 'termite' that eats away -- benignly, without specific care or concern -- at metaphysical structures that are the base of everything valuable and meaningful in life.

Religion quite often wants to have it both ways

Nevertheless, this is actually a true statement. But 'religion' must then be understood as a very different sort of 'imposition' that is brought out as a type of response or reaction to *the way the world really is*. Religion, even perhaps theology, then can be seen as counter-impositions against a prison-like natural system. Religious values or religious view then can be seen as metaphysical but also in a way as poetical and as a work of art. This sounds like I am reducing principles to aesthetics but that would be a far too reductive conclusion.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 2:15 pm Harbal is incapable of understanding 'metaphysical principle' and because this is so he is incapable of understanding *God* as a predicate.

We will never know if he is capable of understanding, because his interest in God is insufficient to motivate his attempting to understand.

Though Harbal has taken my assertions personally they were never intended as such.

You are free to make whatever assertions you like, and I am free to respond to them as I like. I haven't complained, have I?

Harbal is emblematic of a man who has been *trained* to see in specific ways and cannot see in other ways.

No, Harbal is a man who has no intention of being trained how to see by anybody, least of all by you.

It is not 'maliciousness' that brings this about. It is (as I see things) a whole series of causal events, mostly originating in the intellectual world, that has brought this sort of man onto the scene of history. This man now has considerable determining power. He asserts himself in contemporary history. However, he does not and perhaps cannot see the degree to which he has become a 'termite' that eats away -- benignly, without specific care or concern -- at metaphysical structures that are the base of everything valuable and meaningful in life.

You do have the ability to write in an authoritative style, which, unfortunately, allows you to come out with meaningless rubbish, and yet still seem credible. At least to those not paying much attention.

For one thing, I do not assert myself anywhere. I don't write lengthy diatribes intended to influence political and social views and opinions. That is much more your thing. As I don't make any attempt to propagate or spread my own views and opinions, but merely conduct myself in accordance with them, I don't see how I am being "a 'termite' that eats away -- benignly, without specific care or concern -- at metaphysical structures that are the base of everything valuable and meaningful in life." Although it seems that many of the "metaphysical structures" that have value and meaning to you have no value and meaning to me, I would hardly consider myself instrumental in undermining them. I do nothing more than express my low opinion of you and your views, on a minority interest internet forum. I mean, how much damage do you imagine that could do?

But 'religion' must then be understood as a very different sort of 'imposition' that is brought out as a type of response or reaction to *the way the world really is*. Religion, even perhaps theology, then can be seen as counter-impositions against a prison-like natural system. Religious values or religious view then can be seen as metaphysical but also in a way as poetical and as a work of art. This sounds like I am reducing principles to aesthetics but that would be a far too reductive conclusion.

For the powers in authority, religion has always been a way of keeping the masses in order; a way to control them. For the followers of religion, at least until anything resembling science started to emerge, it was a way of explaining nature and existence, but we hardly need it for that any longer. For those who still cling to religion in this day and age, I suppose it gives them a sense of belonging that the rest of us mage to do without, or find elsewhere. It seems there are also those who find the idea of there being no objective purpose to their lives frightening; particularly when they don't have the imagination to find their own purpose.

It serves my purposes to make statements about how I conceive your existential, philosophical, cultural and historical position, as an emblem of Ortega y Gasset’s mass man, but there is little to be gained in trying to convince you to see, think, conceive or understand in any way differently than you do.

I write relationally to you. But what I write is not addressed to you. You cannot understand what I mean and why I say the things I do say. All your responses prove this, time and again.

What I hope to achieve then is to better illustrate my own beliefs and views through relational commentary. You are merely ‘emblematic’.

em·blem (ĕm′bləm)

1. a visible object or representation that symbolizes a quality, type, group, etc, esp the concrete symbol of an abstract idea: the dove is an emblem of peace.

[Middle English, pictorial fable, from Latin emblēma, raised ornament, from Greek, embossed design, from emballein, to insert, set in : en-, in; see en-2 + ballein, to throw; see gwelə- in Indo-European roots.]

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 5:02 pm For the powers in authority, religion has always been a way of keeping the masses in order; a way to control them. For the followers of religion, at least until anything resembling science started to emerge, it was a way of explaining nature and existence, but we hardly need it for that any longer.

A statement that is the very synthesis of ignorance. Religion is (to reduce it) a set of stories that elucidate metaphysical principles. And these we need desperately.

True indeed, all authority, and what is authoritative (derived from principles) are brought to bear on men and how they live. So too is a law about crossing the street outside of a crosswalk. Or littering laws.

Education is based in structures of authority to which one reasonably assents.

Authority must exist. In one way, shape or form. The ‘masses’ require structures that order them and such structures, in one way or another, must always exist.

The actual question, the important one, is on what principles will our (or any) authority structure be built from and upon.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 9:05 am Until science comes up against a question to which the only possible answer could be God, I don't think science should even have God at the back of its mind.

And I think science should be a free inquiry, not a prejudicial one.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 9:05 am Religion quite often wants to have it both ways: When science supports its claims, religion is all for science, but it is very quick to discredit science when the science is not to its liking.

I'm not religious (in this institutional sense), so while I agree with you here, this isn't any sort of rejoinder to my own views.