We cannot have a relationship with God

[Terrapin Station]

Immanuel Can, certainly you can feel that it shouldn't be standard science (and phil of science) methodology, that it's a flawed way of looking at anything, etc.*, but one of the problems you have with it is that you believe that science does in fact prove things, and you're appealing to folks like Quine, Feyerabend, Kuhn, Foucault, Derrida and Polanyi for support of that view?



* After all, I agree with Duhem-Quine, and I'm partial to Feyerabend, etc., too.

[Immanuel Can]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you believe that God is acting according to a logic and reason that is (for lack of a better word) superior to human logic and reason. I could go along with that, and it is in accord with what I posted, that I don't accept the limits of human logic for God. Also we could consider that God has a much greater base of knowledge on which to base his logical actions, if we assume that God created the universe and understands everything about it. So the actions of God, based on this greater knowledge, might not make logical sense to humans, with their limited understanding.

Quite so. Well put.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can, certainly you can feel that it shouldn't be standard science (and phil of science) methodology, that it's a flawed way of looking at anything, etc.*, but one of the problems you have with it is that you believe that science does in fact prove things, and you're appealing to folks like Quine, Feyerabend, Kuhn, Foucault, Derrida and Polanyi for support of that view?
* After all, I agree with Duhem-Quine, and I'm partial to Feyerabend, etc., too.

Oh yes.

I don't see them as "enemies of science," but rather as useful voices that impart reasoned humility to the scientific endeavour.

What Polanyi in particular did was not to denigrate science per se, but to put it on a realistic footing. There are things science does well, and things it does not really do at all. Moreover, there are reasonable limits to the conclusiveness of statements made under the banner of "science" but also unreasonable claims made through the ideology of science-worship known as "Scientism." We must never let our (warranted) admiration for science let us believe that it will deliver us all truth, all answers, and all firm conclusions. It's a complicated process, a human process, and always needs to be critiqued for human error and failures of logic.

Remember that Polanyi was both a chemist and a physicist of great repute himself. He would hardly have entertained any thought of dismissing science, and in fact his critique does no such thing. But he does a great deal to modify the naive view that paints all "science" as a sort of simple, straight road to truth. Given appropriate cautions, says Polanyi, science is a great thing: but absent those cautions, it becomes absurdly grandiloquent and presumptuous.

[bahman]

No, Western God dwells in timeless state hence he cannot decide and act. He can only perform one eternal act.

This would be what we call "Deism." Deism is really a minor tradition in Western thought, and not one very many people believe today.

I can see you're devoted to your OP, and uninterested in explanations of what is contrary to your assumptions. I suppose it's giving you some comfort, or maybe you're finding it an assurance, as if you have a defeater for Theism: I don't know. However, since you're unwilling to entertain options, I'm not sure what more I can offer to your position.

I think it's wrong, and I'm absolutely certain you've got the Western characterization of God wrong. Moreover, you seem persistently unable to see that relational change is not the same as a personal change. Those should be treated as distinct concepts: they are. I've tried to make that clear, but all explanations appear at the moment to slide off, again for some reason unknown to me.

Absent the important conceptual distinctions, though, I can see that we're not able to make further progress. This is shown by your inclination to recycle the OP in the same old unimproved form. I've shown you that it's not sound as it stands, because it contains an amphiboly. But you seem to feel it is sound, or need to feel that it is sound, for some reason. What that reason is, I cannot guess.

So I guess we'll leave it there, and move on. I can't make you let go of it.

My Deist understanding of God coming from discussion with Catholic who are majority in Christianity.

[bahman]

He cannot do logical impossible things.

So your concept of God is that God is bound by human logic, that seems a bit limiting, and I don't accept those limits for God.

1+1=2 whether you are God or human. God cannot defy logic.

[bahman]

He cannot do logical impossible things.

So your concept of God is that God is bound by human logic, that seems a bit limiting, and I don't accept those limits for God.

1+1=2 whether you are God or human. God cannot defy logic.

[Terrapin Station]

Immanuel Can, certainly you can feel that it shouldn't be standard science (and phil of science) methodology, that it's a flawed way of looking at anything, etc.*, but one of the problems you have with it is that you believe that science does in fact prove things, and you're appealing to folks like Quine, Feyerabend, Kuhn, Foucault, Derrida and Polanyi for support of that view?
* After all, I agree with Duhem-Quine, and I'm partial to Feyerabend, etc., too.

Oh yes . . .

"Oh yes" you're using those folks to support a view that science proves things (as opposed to just provisionally verifying them at best)?

[Immanuel Can]

My Deist understanding of God coming from discussion with Catholic who are majority in Christianity.

Catholics are not Deists, so I fear you've misunderstood your what your friend has told you.

[Immanuel Can]

Oh yes . . .

"Oh yes" you're using those folks to support a view that science proves things (as opposed to just provisionally verifying them at best)?[/quote]
No, my "Yes" pertained to my agreement with the critiques, not to the idea that "science proves things."

Polanyi, my for example, did not say science "proves" things: that's Verificationism. But it also doesn't "disprove" false beliefs: that's Falsificationism. As I said earlier, what it does is give us reasons to estimate the probability of our being right as higher. It reduces the chances that we're wrong: but it can never quite prove or disprove. To think so would be naive Scientism.

Did the people I listed believe what you say they believed? Kuhn...no, Feyerabend...no, Foucault...no, Derrida....no...it makes me wonder whom you were talking about.

[Terrapin Station]

Well, the reason I brought up falsificationism in the first place was that you had been talking about science proving things.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, the reason I brought up falsificationism in the first place was that you had been talking about science proving things.

Had I used that term? I can't recall having done so, but if I did it was a poor choice.

Science doesn't "prove": it indicates what is more likely probabilistically and less likely probabilistically, all else being equal. That's all.

[Terrapin Station]

Well, the reason I brought up falsificationism in the first place was that you had been talking about science proving things.

Had I used that term? I can't recall having done so, but if I did it was a poor choice.

Science doesn't "prove": it indicates what is more likely probabilistically and less likely probabilistically, all else being equal. That's all.

Yeah, this part was all in response to your comment (emphasis mine), "You're right to point out that the belief that things don't 'just happen' is not itself scientific. After all, science cannot prove it's so, when in point of fact it needs that assumption before it can prove anything."

[Immanuel Can]

...it needs that assumption before it can prove anything."

Oh, I see...you emphasized the "prove" part. Yes, my word-choice wasn't precise there...I should have said something like "conclude." It's less ambiguous. I certainly was not trying to convey the old Scientistic nonsense about "science proves" anything. Proof, in the strictest sense, is only available in maths and formal, symbolic logic. But that's because they're non-empirical, self-referential systems of symbols.

Well, my bad. I hope we're clear now.

[thedoc]

He cannot do logical impossible things.

So your concept of God is that God is bound by human logic, that seems a bit limiting, and I don't accept those limits for God.

1+1=2 whether you are God or human. God cannot defy logic.

You don't know that, and saying it does not make it so. God is not bound by human logic.

[thedoc]

My Deist understanding of God coming from discussion with Catholic who are majority in Christianity.

I once had several conversations with a Muslim about Islam, but I acknowledge (to myself) that his interpretation was only from his perspective, and may not have included all who claim to be Muslim. So your understanding of Deism may not be universal to all Deists. And Catholics may be the majority, but they may not represent the true beliefs of Christians. There have been many who have disagreed with the Catholic church's interpretation of Christianity, and many still do.