ManM

ex-preacher,
I apologize for the delay in posting.

Consistency is the only rock solid criteria to determine if something is problematic. I look at this as a black and white issue. Either something is consistent or contradictory. Now, I am not going to claim that my worldview is the only consistent one out there. The number of different worldviews is only limited by our imagination and creativity. Now I am no student of the IPU so I am in no place to find contradictions. However, I have studied the basics several different religions and worldviews, and from this I choose Orthodox Christianity. And this is a choice, as I have long considered metaphysical naturalism to be a coherent view.

Now the protestant tradition believes they are recapturing the old apostolic tradition. But how is this possible? All they use is one book, the bible. Now even if the bible is infallible, it is still a book that must be interpreted. Furthermore, the argument from confusion provides strong evidence that the holy spirit does not lead individuals to knowing the truth via reading the bible. So how was the bible initially interpreted? This question cannot be answered by interpreting the bible. It is a historical question, and so for the answer you have to look at historical sources. Now you provide a nice laundry list of churches that were deemed heretical. Don't you think the Christians at the time had the right to determine who was 'Christian' or not? If the early Christians did not believe these other churches were Christian, why should we? That leaves us with the Catholic and Orthodox positions. Now the Catholics believe that God became man in order to satisfy the divine justice which was offended by the sin of Adam. Now, Jesus (God) expects us to forgive while He harbors a vendetta? Of course you could always say that God is different and thus gets to play by different rules, but this whole idea just doesn't sit right with me. On the contrary, the Orthodox position is that God became man to save us, not from God's wrath, but from death. God did not create death, just as light does not create darkness. God is not the enemy, but fights beside us against sin and death. This is a much nobler view than the notion of a schizophrenic God who kills himself to appease himself.

You also bring up the question of interpretation. I am trying to avoid interpreting theology, not history. The Church interprets it's theology, and I choose the Church. I do not have the option of inventing Christianity to suit my needs. That would necessarily become my Christianity and not the Christianity of history.

Now to defend my claim about the healing nature of Christianity... Orthodox Christianity tells us that we were created in the image of God and called to attain the likeness of God. God is not one, but three persons joined together in a relationship of love for one another. Hence, attaining the likeness of God is nothing less than joining together as one through love. What strife would there be if this came about? The struggle to become like God should be the cornerstone of the Christian life. Hence, the teachings and life of the Church are meant to lead to this new way of life. This process brings about an understanding of yourself, and through yourself an understanding of humanity. The line between "us" and "them" falls away to a unified human nature. Is this not healing?

Furthermore, the idea that I "cannot deal with cold reality" is a dead end. This is like a man who cuts himself with a knife and then claims that anyone who doesn't do the same is a coward. I do not choose to give up hope in the face of death, so does that make me a coward? Now, we both find meaning in this life. However, I do not find it necessary to believe that death is the end. I plan on continuing to find meaning even beyond the grave. A naturalist cannot reasonably hope for such a thing and accepts that death is the end. This is what I meant by resignation to death.

Finally, if I find Christianity to be inconsistent then it will fall out of my possible options. At that point, I will have to weigh the value of reason against the value of "comfortable delusion". In my past I've always chosen reason, so I suspect I will continue to do so in the future. But I have yet to find a real contradiction. For example, you find a contradiction between God's goodness and our conditions of life. Do you also find a contradiction between the goodness of a doctor and the pain he is sometimes forced to inflict on a patient? I find nothing wrong with considering the doctor to be good, and so likewise I do not find fault with God.

Mad Kally

ManM,
You failed to mention my belief. I know for a fact that there is an invisible Tootsie Pop in the center of every black hole in the universe! It's the TRUTH!!! When I die I'm going to become a Tootsie Roll and start bumping off the Pops. Don't you want to join me in Disneyuniverse?

ManM

Well hey, there you go. Good luck in your fight against the tootsie pops.

ex-preacher

No problem. I prefer your thought-through responses over the rapid-fire babblings from some others.

<strong> I'm not sure if I completely understand or agree with this statement. If it includes consistency between observed fact and theory then I think I agree.

<strong> I agree.

<strong> As you know, I do not consider your worldview to be consistent. I only know of one worldview that is both internally consistent and consistent with reality.

[/QB] Well, we can agree on that last statement. All major worldviews are mutually exclusive. Only one can be completely true and the others must be false, to some extent.

Why reject naturalism? Is it simply because you wish to live eternally?

<strong> Many Protestants would say that it needs no interpretation.

<strong> I would agree and go further: the argument from confusion provides strong evidence that there is no holy spirit.

[/QB] Protestants would reply that historical interpretation is utterly irrelevant, since the Bible can be interpreted by each individual.

<strong> Whoa there. Who deemed them heretical? Surely you realize that each of those groups considered the others to be heretical. The Gnostics believed that they were the true Christians and so on. The Catholics/Orthodox won through political and sometimes military means and eradicated or exiled all "heretics." By deciding that the winners were the only true Christians you are buying in to religious darwinism.

<strong> See above for why I must reject your reasoning here.

<strong> First, I think many Catholics would offer a different interpretation. Be that as it may, all Christian theology is built around the idea that God doesn't have to play by the rules he gives to people. Thus, God can strike children, innocent adults, or animals dead at any time and still be good.

[/QB] I see now why disregarding the Bible is central to your theology.

<strong> The down side is that you create a much smaller and weaker God. I would agree that this is more consistent with reality than an omnipotent god.

<strong> Yet you have made all sorts of interesting theological judgments to reach your choice. Didn't you just say that you find Orthodox theology more palatable than Catholic theology?

<strong> Huh? Oh, yeah, whatever.

<strong> Or a man that looks out an airplane window and notices that an engine has just fallen off. He tries to alert his fellow passengers but they chide him for being too pessimistic.

<strong> I'm still waiting for a solid reason to abandon naturalism. Just so I'll feel good?

<strong> The longer you stick around here, the better your odds.

<strong> What if you knew the doctor had infected the patient to begin with in order to conduct an experiment for his own glory? What kind of doctor would that be? Oh, yeah, I forgot - God doesn't have to submit to our rules.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes. It's from GB Shaw: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

ManM

ex-preacher,
I believe we have come to somewhat of an understanding in the philosophical department, so I'll move right on to naturalism. I do have a few problems with naturalism that I find hard to reconcile. First, I don't know how to find a place for human freedom in a universe of nothing more than cause and effect. I know that many naturalists deny freedom, but this is too far removed from human experience to suit me. Secondly, and I bring a ton of presuppositions into this one, but I find a problem in the moral realm. Under naturalism, everything is necessarily natural. As such, injustice and immorality are just as much a fact of nature as goodness. The only difference is human desire. But the desire to harm is just as natural as the desire to help, so the only thing that determines morality is power. Those who have the power to impose their desires default to the 'good', while those who do not have power default to the 'bad'. This scenario doesn't sit right with me, but I feel forced into it when contemplating naturalism. When you add death into this picture you are left with something ultimately dreary. And even though I might find a beautiful flower along the way, I will never be able to escape my fate.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the argument from confusion takes the following form: If the Holy Spirit was/does A, then we wouldn't expect B, but we see B... The proper conclusion of this argument is that the Holy Spirit is not/does not do A. In order to use this argument against the existence of the Holy Spirit we must bring in another assumption, namely if the Holy Spirit exists, he must be/do A. How do you go about justifying that claim in the general sense?

Regarding Church history, I find it very reasonable that the majority would be the best tool to preserve the proper tradition of what Christianity meant. If one person added his own interpretation or teaching to the faith, then you would expect him and his followers to be in the minority when compared to the rest of the Christians. I don't think things were as politically motivated as you think either. The Arians had the political power to exile their foes, and the iconoclasts were led by a monarch for a time. Still, both of these movements were condemned in the councils. Hence I don't see much of a correlation between power and the decisions of the early Church.

Furthermore, the Catholic doctrine I'm arguing against comes straight from Anselm. I would appreciate it if someone let me know if it has changed.

It seems to me that your ideas of God are similar to Anselm's thinking. We are both thinking along the same lines when we reject this conception of God. I believe in a God who doesn't play by different rules. In fact, I suspect we would make the exact same decisions as God were we in His position. In life we sometimes have to choose between two evils, and sometimes the lesser of these involves much suffering. We know how much that choice hurts us... Can you imagine how much it must hurt God when he is forced into such a choice?

Just as you find no reason to abandon naturalism, I find no reason to abandon Christianity. I've been around these forums for about a year now, and they certainly do pose a challenge. However, I often find myself agreeing with many of the common arguments. They are simply addressing a concept of God that differs from the one I have learned.

ex-preacher

Three responses to this:

1. Free will can exist in a naturalistic world view. I want to believe that free will exists and I have seen arguments from a purely naturalistic position in favor of free will - at least in the sense that we usually use that word.

2. The problem of free will vs. determinism exists in both theistic and non-theistic worldviews. Many Christians are Calvinistic or hold other views which demand a predestined universe. It can be argued that an omniscient God is incompatible with human free will.

3. If free will doesn't really exist, wouldn't you like to know? I don't think we can choose out belief system by simply looking for something that feels good. I would rather know the cold, hard truth than live with a warm, fuzzy falsehood. How about you?

<strong> As you know, we have a whole forum devoted to morality, so there's now way I can go into much detail. My answer to this mirrors the answer above:

1. There are systems of absolute (or near absolute) morality based on naturalistic assumptions. Instead of relying on a god, we use reason and experience.

2. There are huge problems reconciling a good god with a moral system. Basically stated, do good morals stand independently from God (in which case we don't really need God to determine morality) or does God simply invent good morals (in which case they are arbitary)? In a divine command theory, morality doesn't really exist since one must merely obey, not decide.
Morality is doing the right thing no matter what you're told.
Religion is doing what you're told, no matter what the right thing is.
Further, the Bible reveals an immoral god.

3. If there is no basis for absolute morality, would you rather know that, or live in a fantasy world created by religious zealots?

<strong> In my understanding, the argument from confusion goes like this: If God exists and has communicated clearly with man (whether through the Bible or historically), we would not see such confusion among his followers. We see incredible confusion, thus God either doesn't exist or he hasn't communicated clearly.

<strong> The councils were the epitomy of politics. Just as with sausage and the law, if you love the council decisions, you don't want to see how they were made. Pure, raw political power.

If you're going to go with the majority view, it would seem that you would be a Catholic. They do have the majority you know. It seems as if you switch criteria to fit the conclusion you want - majority in ancient times, but the theology you like in modern times.

<strong> I don't know enough about Catholic theology to give an intelligent answer here. If our neighborhood traditional Catholic, Albert Cipriani, returns I would love to see you two debate Orthodoxy versus Catholicism.

<strong> I don't think I would have created a world filled with natural disasters, dsangerous animals, and disease.

<strong> God (trying to decide): Should I create mosquitoes or not? If I do, they will bring misery, pain and death to untold millions. If I don't, ummm, well, let's see, hmmmm. Oh well, I guess I will.

<strong> All we can do is keep learning and challenging ourselves. One overriding question: Are you more interested in the truth or comfort?

ManM

ex-preacher,
To begin, do you have an answer to my specific problems? Where is freedom found in the naturalistic scheme of cause and effect? If everything that happens is natural, how do we classify injustice? Can it be anything else than power? Surely you have contemplated these things before, and so I expect you have an opinion on the subjects. If you feel this is better discussed in another forum then go ahead and make a new topic.

Since I have asked for an explanation from you, I will try to concisely answer the questions you posed. First, I see no causal relationship between omniscience and our actions. We all have a limited ability to predict the actions of others. Even if a prediction of mine is correct, I fail to see how I have taken away someone's freedom of choice. On the other front, how are you defining morality? I would define it as the proper relation (which assumes 'proper' is an appropriate modifier) between persons. The proper relation is simply the relation between the persons of the trinity to one another. This makes morality relative to the spirit of love found in God. In that way it is relative to God. The commandments provide a crude behavioral description of this spirit, but does not capture morality in its entirety. Given that we were created in the image of God we can figure out proper relations on our own. And so morality is defined by the trinity, but we have access to it in our own nature. This means we have access to morality on our own, but our ability to judge was placed there by God and our judgment of morality is relative to the trinity.

Now I have provided historical events (the Arian controversy and Iconoclastic movement) as evidence that political power did not always win. Hence I conclude that power was not always the determining factor in the decisions of the church. On the other hand, I have your assertion that it was all "Pure, raw political power." I'm sorry, but the evidence does not support your assertion. You have also accused me of choosing majority in the past but not in the present. If I'm looking for historical Christianity, why would I not look toward the past? Furthermore, I have no choice in the present. The last ecumenical council recognized by both east and west was in the year 787.

Furthermore, I don't think you have even tried to understand my response to evil. You won't consider that God is forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Should the doctor not amputate, even if the consequences of not causing pain are far worse? I hope you see that any "natural evil" you propose falls under this category.

Also, your version of the argument from confusion is loaded with assumptions. If God has clearly communicated, we should not see confusion? Why am I to believe this statement? Remember, I assert human freedom. If we are free, then we would be able to confuse anything God communicated. I do not believe that we would not see confusion had God spoken clearly. Therefore, your version of the argument means as much to me as it does to a follower of the IPU.

And finally, you question throughout your post my willingness to accept naturalism if I find a contradiction in Christianity. I have said it before and I will say it again, I choose between my available options. If Christianity falls out of my reasonable options I will choose something else. I value the truth, but I have no criteria to determine "The Truth" except consistency. And so given multiple systems which qualify for "The Truth" I choose the one that feels right.

ex-preacher

I'm going to address your questions in a series of posts since each requires a detailed answer. First, free will.

Here's something borrowed from vixen.co.uk

-----------

The existence of an omniscient or omnipotent God denies Humans free will

The problem here is that God knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen. His knowledge cannot be wrong. There is not a single event that He has not foresaw. Now given that He created the Universe the way He did, do we have free will? Consider that when God made the Universe he could see every possible result of what he was doing. Which means, He could not create something without knowing what the results would be, and without knowing how it would be affected (and effect) the things around it.

Let's say that Fred has a choice that will save his life, to accept God or not to accept God and the final choice is to be made tomorrow. God knows already what choice he will make - God cannot be wrong therefore Fred cannot choose otherwise to what God has predicted. When God created the chain of events that made Fred, He also knew that He was making Fred's choice for him, and knew how the various circumstances and character would make him choose either right or wrong. Fred would go forth and make that very decision that God knew he would make, and by virtue that God knowingly set up all the factors that affected his decision, it was not up to Fred but to God, when He created the Universe, to decide how Fred would fare.

This argument does not imply that God does not exist. It leaves us with three results, two of which have to be wrong.

1. God created everything with full knowledge and we have no free will to change it
2. God does not have full knowledge
3. God did not make the Universe

The first one would mean that God is not benevolent, and we are all absolved of any guilt on our behalf. It is not compatible with the Bible's teachings, or with the "infallible" Church. The second option denies God omniscience, which is also not compatible with God being the all-knowing truth. The third option would explain things more coherently than denying God any of His powers - that God Himself is an observer but unfortunately, this leads on to polytheism. When we consider the problem of free will we see that it is impossible for the Christian doctrine of salvation, sin or choice to be true.

Christianity, if it claims these are necessary, must also be wrong.

No matter which angle we choose to look at these problems, we can see that God did not create the universe, or is not benevolent, or is not omniscient. The only logical solution to all these problems remains in these four words: God does not exist.

----------

As I said earlier, the free will vs. determinism argument is not parallel to Christianity vs. atheism since many Christians are determinists and many atheists believe in free will.

IMO, the resolution of the argument on free will does not affect the truth or falsity of either Xty or atheism thus it is irrelevant.

Is your argument for free will based simply on the fact that you want free will to exist? If so, that's not an intellectually convincing basis.

ManM

ex-preacher,
"When God created the chain of events that made Fred, He also knew that He was making Fred's choice for him..."

This argument assumes naturalistic determinism. We are nothing more than the effect of a cause. God is the cause, and hence is necessarily responsible for the effect. I think the problem here deals with the nature of freedom. God creates freedom with the knowledge that freedom will be abused. Hence the abuse of freedom is God's responsibility? Do you see how this idea is incompatible with freedom? God causes freedom. Freedom is necessarily free from further causality, and so how can you say that God causes the misuse of our freedom? I do not grant determinism and so your argument is not relevant to my beliefs.

Now you have given me no reason to believe that the Freedom/Determinism debate is not important to the Christianity/Naturalism debate. I assert freedom because I believe determinism is too far removed from human experience. You have yet to give me any sound argument which reconciles freedom and naturalism. In fact, all you have said is that some naturalists do in fact believe in freedom. This is analogous to me saying that some Christians believe in a good God who tortures people as amusement for all eternity. Yes, it is a fact that people believe that. But this fact says nothing about the coherence of that view. I am simply asking for a positive argument that reconciles freedom with naturalism. If you cannot provide one then we must agree that the problem remains and either naturalism or freedom must be discarded. Discarding freedom leads to many other problems. For example, what makes once set of chemical reactions "rational" and another set "irrational"? What judges between those two is yet another set of chemical reactions, which begs the question. How do you escape this infinite regress?

I apologize if you did not intend for me to respond to an issue before you finished your series. Please let me know what you would prefer.

joedad

How does omniscience square with free will in your understanding?

If a being is omniscient, that being would already know every choice any one of its "creations" will make long before creating it. Presents some problems, yes? It would seem that your god has no "free will" in what it creates.

Sorry if you've answered this already.

joe