Derridian Background of the TS argument part 2

This is a summary of Derrida on the Transcendental Signifier and why it "proves" the existence of God (in my special sense of "proof" that I use as "for practical purposes").


Derrida was from French North Africa, 1930-2004. here are two articles on him that will give you a basic run down:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida


http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/derrida.htm



Derrida was a student of Martin Heidegger. Derrida is the best known philosopher of recent times. Heidegger was an existentialist, then dropped that and began to call himself a "phenomenologist." Everything Derrida says came from Heidegger. Every move of decontracution is found in Heidegger, but Derrida put it together in a different package than Heidegger's.

"Deconstruction" was Derrida's babby. He invented it although one can find it's roots all over Western letters. He's plugging in elements from Heidegger, Sartre, Brintano, Nicholas of Cuza, Charles Sanders Pierce and all over the place.This is the run down on [B][I]Deconstruction.[/I][/B] I was taught Derrida by someone who had been his student in Paris in the late 60s before he moved to Yale.

Phenomenology is an attempt to place the observer at the center of awareness to allow sense data to be understood in ways that are not predetermined by preconceived categories. The idea is that the data will form its own categories. Attempts to gather sense data and heard it all into pre selected categories biases reality. In vernacular one might say "don't pigeon hole but remain open to possibilities for everything no matter how familiar or or obvious we think it might be. This attempt to pre select categories of knowledge is what Heidegger calls "Metaphysics." In this sense even science is metaphysics!

Derrida wants to explicate the end of western metaphysics,(his phrase). What does this mean? It means he, and most postmoderns, believe that the paths along which western metaphics have led us are dead ends. We have run out of metaphysics. We haven't run out of science, in the sense that there plenty of facts to look at, but in a way we have because reductionism has lowered our expectations about what we will find. But Derrida's beef is not with science. A Major segment of of postmodernists tried to attack modern science, but they were swept aside with the Alan Sokal stuff. Derrida was never one of them.

Derrida argues that Western metaphysics has always been predicated upon an organizing principal that orders reality and organizes sense data. William James Sums it up well in his Gilford Lectures:

"Plato gave so brilliant and impressive a defense of this common human feeling, that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has been known as the platonic theory of ideas ever since. Abstract Beauty, for example, is for Plato a perfectly definite individual being, of which the intellect is aware as of something additional to all the perishing beauties of the earth. "The true order of going," he says, in the often quoted passage in his 'Banquet,' "is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which one mounts upwards for the sake of that other Beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute Beauty, and at last knows what the essence of Beauty is." 2 In our last lecture we had a glimpse of the way in which a platonizing writer like Emerson may treat the abstract divineness of things, the moral structure of the universe, as a fact worthy of worship. In those various churches without a God which to-day are spreading through the world under the name of ethical societies, we have a similar worship of the abstract divine, the moral law believed in as an ultimate object."

Derrida begins with Plato's theory of knowledge, this is the basis of Western metaphysics. Plato says that prior to birth we are in contact with the forms, thus knowledge is a matter of remembering, no learning for the first time. But then the question arises is speech closer to what we remember, or is writing? Socrates says the spoken word is closer to the ideas inside us, the memory of the forms, thus spoken word is better (more true, closer to reality) than written word. As he puts it "a writer dies his written words are like orphans since he is not there to defend them." This supremacy of the spoken word sets up a hierarchy of meaning and importance in western culture. We have come to value reason as the organizing principle of truth, as the "natural light" because it's an extension of the concept of this true Platonic knowledge. Reason becomes this overarching truth regime (Faucault's word) that organizes all reality. Everything is paired up into hierarchies, little hierarchies that fit into the big over all hierarchy, these are called "binary opossitions." They they take the form of couplets, consisting of the "true" or "correct" term and it's supplement; the false term or the unimportant addition to the "real thing." Examples are: up/down, black/white/ true/false/ male/female. Reason is construed as male and this resutls in "phalologocentrism."

Derrida's goal is to destroy hierarchies, to show that there is no truth, there is no meaning. We can't know anything. Derridian postmodernism is like archaeologists who try to piece together fragments of a broken vase. Some say "there is a vase here, we just have to fin out how the peices fit." Another says "there may be two vases." The postmodernist says "we don't have all the pieces, they may not have been a vase, it may be 16 vases, we can't know, there is no final answer, it's always going to be a jumble. The Deridian position is a good philosophical justification for nihilism. The difference being a nihilism takes too much effort.. The logical conclusion of Derridianism if one were consist would be to sit in a chair and say nothing until one starves to death. Of course Derrida himself was not consistent. He was one of the most prolific writers. His overall project was to tear down hierarchy and destroy the concept of the TS. Here is his argument against reason:


He asks "does reason ground itself?" Can we use reason to prove reason?

"Are we obeying the principle of reason when we ask what grounds this principle [reason] which is itself a principle of grounding? We are not--which does not mean that we are disobeying it either. Are we dealing here with a circle or with an abyss? The circle would consist in seeking to account for reason by reason, to reason to the principle of reason, appealing to the principle to make it speak of itself at the very point where, according to Heidegger, the prinicple of reason says nothing about reason itself. The abyss, the hole, ..., the empty gorge would be the impossibility for a principle of grounding to ground itself...Are we to use reason to account for the principle of reason? Is the reason for reason rational?"(Derrida in Criticism and Culture, Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schlefflier, Longman 1991, 20.)

The Maslow Default

The atheists argue that atheism (which they construe as lack of religious belief or belief in God(s)) is the "default" position. In the absence of absolute positive proof one must fall back upon no belief at all. I can't recall atheists using this term int he 70's before personal computers existed. I think it came out of the internet, but no matter. Atheism is not the true default. I have the true default, what is termed "the perennial philosophy." This basically amounts to mystical theology, but I call it "Maslow Deafult," as it was Maslow who inspired my thinking on this.


The proper default is demonstrated by Abraham Maslow, himself an atheist and great sociologist, in his book Peak Experience. Maslow was one of the first major social scientists to take religious experiences serious enough to study it empirically. He did some of the first good scientific studies on the outcomes of experience.

Since Maslow there are have been hundreds of empirical studies, (see also here) and three measuring devices (surveys, scales, not physical devices) which measure the extent to which one has a valid religious experience. The best one of these is called the "M scale" or "Hood scale." Due to all of this study it is absolutely demonstrated empirically that the results of RE are dramatic, real, and positive. Lives are totally transformed by the kind of experience known as "mystical." Due to this reality it should be absolutely proven that there is something, some aspect of reality that stands out form the mundane daily grind and transfigures lives when one realizes it.


Maslow was an atheist. But he leaned toward the Buddhist end of things and he knew that reality comes in a verity of possibilities. So understood the supernatural as real, but he located it in the natural. The supernatural was, for him, an aspect of physical world and reality which transcended the mundane. He did not see God as personal, he didn't think of a higher power. But he did say "atheists and religious people can go a long way together before there must be final parting and their paths diverge."

what he meant by that was we can view this "something" this aspect of reality that stands out as "holy being" or as "God," or just as transformation that is a natural part of the universe. It's a picture can be viewed as negative or positive. Either way you are looking at the same image. This is the true default and that's what we should be talking about when we speak of a "default." Then the discussion is all just a theological discussion to interpret the data.

the picture analogy works like this:

Religious experience is mystical experience. it consists of undifferentiated unity. In other words, in that state one sees the world as all one thing, no differentiation. Now we can view that as our connection to God as creatures made in God's image, or we can view it as reducing God to a natural process that is just the holistic side of physical world. We can see it as discovering unity and oneness with nature, or as "the divine." Either way, there is something there and that can't be denied. that "something" is the basis of all religion. Huston Smith and others demonstrate that this sense of the numinous stands behind the development of all religion!


The Default aspect is that we should be willing to understand the basic default as this "soemthing," at least in the negative, the aspect of reality that offers transcendence above the mundane and tranasformative power in our lives. ATheism is not a default. Many atheists like to say that we are born atheists. But we are not bor atheists. Of course that is assuming their propaganda line that atheism is nothing more than the absence of a belief. That's what they say before they start talking about bag pipes, spegitti monsters, and default assumptions, "O we don't say the same things" they all say in unison. WE are born with an innate concept of God. That is proven by the studies on the God part of the brain. Many think those studies mean that we react to works we learn but that's the only word that gets that reaction. The word God and God talk is the only kind of speech that gets the big light-up on the dial. The true default assumption needs to be the assumption that some aspect of reality stands apart from the mundane and can transform our lives, and this well proven.

Exposition on proposition 3 on my TS argument.

Zeabnuts on CARM asked me to explain this.

remember my argument:
Transcendental Signifier?



Preliminary Observations:

(1) Any rational, coherent and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity presuppose an oranizing principle which makes sense of the universe and explains the hierarchy of conceptualization.

(2) Organizing principles are summed up in a single first principle which grounds any sort of metaphysical hierarchy, the Transcendental Signifier (TS)

(3) It is impossible to do without a Trancendental Signifyer, all attempts to do so have ended in the re-establishment of a new TS. This is because we caannot organize the universe without a princinple of organizing.

(4)TS functions Uniquely as Top of The Metaphysical Heirarchy.It's function is mutually exclusive.

Argument:

P1) TS's function is mutually exclusive, no other principle can superceed that of the TS since it alone grounds all principles and bestows meaning through orgnaization of concepts.

P2)We have no choice but to assume the relaity of some form of TSed since we cannot function coherently without a TS
P3) We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since the universe does seem to fall into line with the meaning we bestow upon it.

P4) The logical conclusion would be that There must be a TSed which actually creates and organizes the Universe.

P5) The sifnifier "God" is one version of the TS, that is to say, God functions in the divine ecnomy exacly as the TS functions in a metaphysical hierarchy.

P6) Since "God" is a version of the TS, and since TS and God concept share a unique function which should be mutually exclusive, the logical conclusion is that: God and TS share identity.ie "God" concept is description of the Transcendental Signified.

P7)Since the TS should be assumed as real, and TS and God share identity, we should assume that God is the Transcendental Signified, and thus is an actual reality.

rational warrant for belief in God's existence, QED.

This person wanted deeper illucidation upon p-2-4. but especially three:

Quote:P2)We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since we cannot function coherently without a TS

P3) We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since the universe does seem to fall into line with the meaning we bestow upon it.

4 just follows from 2-3. If 2-3 pull then four is the logical conclusion to draw.


First of all, let me summarize the argument:

I am saying that our understanding of reality as a coherent, organized procession of sense data relating to a reality that can be perceived and understood rationally depends upon the existence of a grand organizing principle which gives meaning to and makes sense of all data and all thought. Because this principle is so necessary and pervasive we must assume it is real not merely an illusion we project upon the universe. Having understood this we can then assume to call it "God" because it functions in the way that God does in the metaphysical schemata that employ that concept.





Let's look at 2:

Quote:P2)We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since we cannot function coherently without a TS

In what sense is this true? First of all Derrida and Heidegger both tell us that language is metaphysical. Because of this they both assert that it is impossible to escape metaphysics. Now why would this be?

(1) Language is metaphysical in the Heideggerian sense because in that view Metaphysics is the organizing of all sense data under the rue brick of a single organizing principle. Thus language is metaphysical because it organizes thought under its own principle of grammar.

(2) Language is not merely talking, it is thought. Language is any sort of thought share in an organization of meanings by two or more beings. Thus it is organized, it defines all of reality to the extent that it gives names to all objects, creates correspondences between things, and defines the relationships of these things. That is organizing reality. Just diagram and sentence and you see definition of things, and the corrosponding actions; noun, verb, pro nouns so forth.


(3) Language is thought. when we have no choice I mean because we can't think without language. Language is not just an artificial veil we place over the world, it is the essence of our ideas about the world, the nature of what things are is given to us in the words we use to mark them. Thus we do have no choice but to assume the that the principle is real since without it we could not think. Thought is not wordless feelings. It is ideas and concepts which can only come to us through language.

Thus because we have to use this principle of organizing in order to even understand organizing, to understand anything, we have to assume there is something real out there and that some organization exists.


P3:

Quote:P3) We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of transcendental signified since the universe does seem to fall into line with the meaning we bestow upon it.

I am not trying to take a position lauding the theory of correspondence in language. But it seems fairly obvious that at some level the correspondences seem real since we can navigate in the world by them. Correspondence between the words we use to describe the world, and what we find happening in the world, is fairly crucial and without assuming a reality there we could not get up out of a chair without the gravest fear and trepidation.

Think about it. you want to go to a job interview. You call the place and say "O you are located at 459 Fahrenheit drive? I don't know how to get there." they give you directions, you go there, you find the job. what do you assume? You say to yourself "well, those directions are not really the way to get there, they are just an order my mind is imposing upon the universe and its' just dumb luck that I found the place?" Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume that there is a connection between the words used to describe the route, the route itself, and the location of the actual job?

Here I mean to use the idea of navigation as a broader metaphor for any kind of intellectual exploration of the world. In that sense we do navigate the world and our navigation works. We do not find ourselves in a Tower of babel where no one can communicate because no two vocabularies are the same and there's no correspondence between what we say and the nature of things. WE must, therefore, assume that there is a correspondence. It's not all just a big trick of the mind that results from imposing an order that is not there. The universe really works by a certain order. that's how it is that our exploration and navigational attempts usually pay off.


One other point needs explication. Most people begin to think about this argument by trying to read into any form of organization the basic organizing principle (OP) that I am speaking of in the TS. Thus atheists will often counter this argument by saying "here's my shopping list, where's the organizing principle?" Other will say there is more than one principle. Of course there is more than one principle of organizing. I'm talking about all organizing, not just any list you can make. The transcendental signifier is not in your shopping list. I'm talking about the major, overall, grand organizing that makes sense of out of the whole, think in terms of things like the dialectic, math, reason, and so on. Not just any activity that employs these but the things themselves.

One example that was used to counter my argument was by a computer guy, an analyst who had a bi-polar tree tracing some problem back to two principles, randomness and math. There are two principles there, everything doesn't just go back to one principle. There is something that has two. But the problem is that's too specific. He's talking about a particular problem he had to solve and I'm talking about all organizing, the whole of what organizes the universe in grand terms. So his project itself falls under a heading, and can be reduced to something like "programing" which is reduce able to something like "math" which reduce able to reason and so on.



With all of this in mind we can assume p3 with no problems. I think, if my navigational thing is working.

God and Being Itself part II

see previous installment for part 1


The question is, was God more than just a Spinoza-like "ground of understanding" for Tillich? My reading of Tillich sees him as patterning his notions after the great Mystics of the Eastern chruch and that of Mraciea Eliade. Some readings see it as more of an impersonal principle. God is the "unbounded condition," "being itself," and being itself can't be "a person." Instead, Tillich calls god the personal itself. In other words, god is the ground of the personal, he basis upon consciousness can be found in the universe. We should not expect to recognize God as "a person" in the sense that we are persons, not with personality problems, and a limited perspective of isolation and epistemological uncertainty, but this does not preclude the conscious. God would contain the basic structure of consciousness and thus would be able to have volition and personal awareness.

I contend that all of that is conditioned by Tillich's high theological parlance and it's a matter of decoding a very dense set of terms, but once they are decoded they do not so much reveal an impersonal force as God, as they reveal an apophatic approach to understanding a view of God that embraces the mystical and cannot be defined according to human logic.Like the Buddhist notion, Tillich's God is "neither a person nor a non person" (Buddhist = neither mind nor non-mind).

Christian Concept?

This may not sound very orthodox, but it is extremely orthodox.God is not just a big man on a throne, he is not the Zeu Patter(Jupiter,"Sky Father") of Pagan mythology. The great theologians of Christian faith, the Orthodox Church, and theologians such as Paul Tillich and John McQuarrey, believe, as Timothy Ware (The Orthodox Chruch , New York: Pelican, 1963) quoting St. John of Damascus says, "God does not belong to the class of 'existing' things; not that he has no existence but that he is above existing things, even above existence itself..." The Jewish Virtual Library tells us, "The name of god, which in Hebrew is spelled YHWH, is difficult to explain. Scholars generally believe that it derives from the Semitic word, "to be," and so means something like, 'he causes to be.'"


Tillich is not the only modern theologian to think of God in this way.John McQuarry says that God is Being itself, while Tillich says God is "The ground of being." These are actually just about the same concept, I wont go into the distinction here. The important thing to remember is that God is not along side other beings in creation, is not a being at all, but is on the order of being itself. God is the overarching principle that defines and predicates the universe and in fact of being as a whole. If you consider what it was like before God created anything. There would be nothing else but God. God, therefore, would be the same as being because all being would be defined as God. The only being that ever came to be flowed out of the will and the energies of God, therefore, God is beyond the chain of cause and effect, God is on a par with being itself.


In his discourse on Luther he loads in all the Tillichian terms:


"Luther's concept of God is one of the most powerful in the whole history of human and Christian thought. This is not a God who is a being beside others, it is a God who we can have only through contrast [Cuza, coincidence of opposites--dialectical, apophatic, Eastern orthodox mystical influences--what is hidden before God is visible before the world and what is hidden before the world is visible before God...Luther denies everything which can make God finite or a being before other beings [very very Tillichian/MacQurreyesque way of speaking] He makes the great statement that God is nearer to all creatures than they are to themselves [Augustine!]'God is at the same time every grain of sand totally and nevertheless in all above all and out of all creatures.' In these formula the old conflict between the Pantheist and theistic tendencies in the doctrine of God is resolved." (Ibid. 24)


OR again he says:

".And I would say very dogmatically that any doctrine of God which leaves out one of these elements does not really speak of God but of something less than God." (History of Christian Thought p24). All of that is so heavily loaded with Tillichian language I don't see how he could be describing any view but his own! Clearly he found these elements in these thinkers and they shaped his view.



Tillich's reading of these thinkers is a good description of what my own View. My Theology embraces the God that Tillich describes as seen in these great classical theologians of the Christian tradition.

So in terms of the question "can Being Itself Be understood as "a personal being?" No, because Being Itself is not "a being" and is not personal in the sense of human finitude. Now does that mean that "it" (God = Being Itself) can't will, can't be motivated by volition and can't love, Tillich's view would allow for all of these, that Dionysius' view, that of Augustine and Luther and many others would allow for these things. God does love and does will.



Tillich's langauge, while not really apophatic in the traditional sense I think is functioning in that way, rather than just being merely equivolcal. He's trying to guard the mysteries because after all if he pretended to explian everything he would not be presenting a view which is Heteronomous. To that he must have a view which works within the mystery, and while shedding light, doesn't try to expose the mystery itself.

First he makes the point (Systematic Theology vol I) (p240) that religious symbol "has nothing to do with the empirical assertions involved in it, be they physical psychological, or historical." He goes on to say that a religious symbol must express a correlation between the relation of the symbol and the thing it symbolizes and it is true if it adequately expresses the relation some person with final revelation. "Religious symbols are double edged, they are directed toward the infinite which the symbolize and toward the finite through which they symbolize it." But than he says: as an example of the above, "If God is symbolized as father he is brought down to the relationship of father and child, but at the same time this human relationship is consecrated into a pattern of the divine human relationship."Than he begins to examine basic qualities or attributes and how they fit his notion of symbol.



"The basic ontological structure is transcendent in the divine life without providing symbolic material. God cannot be called a self, because the concept of self implies separation from everything that is not self. God cannot be called the world even by implication. Both self and world are rooted in the divine life, but they cannot become symbolic for it...But the elements which constitute the basic ontological structure can become symbols because they do not speak of kinds of being (self and world) but of qualities of being which are valid in their proper sense when applied to all beings and which are valid in their proper sense when applied to Being ITself..."


Furthermore, he goes on right after this, still explaining how these ontological forms can work when God transcends them, still speaking of the problem that God is not a person, but is he the ultaitme person itself, and he says:



"The Solution of the difficulties of the phrase "personal God" follows form this. Personal God does not mean that God is a person, it means that God is the ground of everything personal and that he carries within Himself the ontological ground of personality.He is not a person,But he is not less than personal"...and goes on... "God is the principle of individuation as well as the principle of participation.The divine life participates in every life as its ground and aim. God participates in everything that is..."(Ibid, 245)

God and Being Itself

We tend to think of God as a big man with a beard, or some sort of powerful "person" like a human being, although one who can do amazing things. This is just the childish version, it is conditioned in our thinking by a pedestrian approach to religion.

There are religions that don't have a "God" per se, such as Buddhism. Essentially, there is no reason to think of God as a person, certainly not one with a corporeal body. That image, which is hinted at tin the Bible, is merely metaphor. Depending upon the religious tradition, however, one can have very abstract views of God which have nothing to do with a father figure or a mother figure.

There is a more abstract way to think about God: that is "Transcendental Signifier;" the notion of a metaphysical first principle that organizes everything into a metaphysical hierarchy. This is the more sophisticated view of God, and most of the works of the great Christian philosophers hint at notions of God in these abstract terms.

Anselm defined God as "that which nothing greater than can be conceived." He ended all of his arguments by saying "this thing we call God," as a means of keeping the exact nature of God open ended. This is because God is beyond our understanding, as the Bible says, but we can leave a "place marker" for the concept of God by understanding that the ultimate logical function of the God concept is that of the transcendental signifier.


Ground of Being



One of the sophisticated concepts used by great Christian theologians is that of "The Ground of Being." This concept indicates, not that God is the fact of things existing, but that God is the basis for the existence of all things. God is more fundamental to existing things than anything else. So fundamental to the existence of all things is God, that God can be thought of as the basis upon which things exist, the ground their being. To say that God is The ground of being or being itself, is to say that there is something we can sense that is so special about the nature of being that it hints at this fundamental reality upon which all else is based.


The phrases "Ground of Being" and "Being itself" are basically the same concept. Tillich used both at different times, and other theologians such as John McQuarrey prefer "Being Itself," but they really speak to the same concept. Now Skeptics are always asking "how can god be being?" I think this question comes from the fact that the term is misleading. The term "Being itself" gives one the impression that God is the actual fact of "my existence," or the existence of my flowerbed, or any object one might care to name. Paul Tillich, on the other hand, said explicitly (in Systematic Theology Vol. I) that this does not refer to an existential fact but to an ontological status. What is being said is not that God is the fact of the being of some particular object, but, that he is the basis upon which being proceeds and upon which objects participate in being. In other words, since God exists forever, nothing else can come to be without God's will or thought, and since there can't even be a potential for any being without God's thought, all potentialities for being arise in the "mind of God" than in that sense God is actually "Being Itself." I think "Ground of Being" is a less confusing term. God is the ground upon which all being is based and from which all being proceeds.





How Can "a Being" be Being Itself?

Part of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what is being said. I say that God is 'necessary being' not "a necessary being," not because I forgot the "a" but because God is not "a being." He is above the level of any particular being that participates in being, but exists on the level of the Being, the thing itself, apart from any particular beings. There is Being, and there is "the beings." This is a crucial distinction, but it leaves one wondering what it means and how it could be. I think the answer lies in the fact that God is ultimate reality. God is the first, and highest and only necessary thing that exists, and thus, had God not created, God would be the only thing that exists. Could one somehow ponder a universe in which God had not created, in which God was all that was, one might well ask "what is it to be in this universe where there is only God?" In such a universe the only conceivable answer is "to be is to be God." In that sense God is Being Itself.



1) Distinction Between Being and Existence.

The argument stems largely form the work of The great theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich said that God is "being itself," above and beyond the mere fact of any particular being. But Tillich uses the term being in a certain way, not like that of other theologians.

http://www.faithnet.freeserve.co.uk/tillich.htm
From website no longer on life
visited 6/20/01.


"Existence - Existence refers to what is finite and fallen and cut of from its true being. Within the finite realm issues of conflict between, for example, autonomy (Greek: 'autos' - self, 'nomos' - law) and heteronomy (Greek: 'heteros' - other, 'nomos' - law) abound (there are also conflicts between the formal/emotional and static/dynamic). Resolution of these conflicts lies in the essential realm (the Ground of Meaning/the Ground of Being) which humans are cut off from yet also dependent upon ('In existence man is that finite being who is aware both of his belonging to and separation from the infinite' (Newport p.67f)). Therefore existence is estrangement."



"Although this looks like Tillich was an atheist such misunderstanding only arises due to a simplistic understanding of his use of the word existence. What Tillich is seeking to lead us to is an understanding of the 'God above God'. We have already seen earlier that the Ground of Being (God) must be separate from the finite realm (which is a mixture of being and non-being) and that God cannot be a being. God must be beyond the finite realm. Anything brought from essence into existence is always going to be corrupted by ambiguity and our own finitude. Thus statements about God must always be symbolic (except the statement 'God is the Ground of Being'). Although we may claim to know God (the Infinite) we cannot. The moment God is brought from essence into existence God is corrupted by finitude and our limited understanding. In this realm we can never fully grasp (or speak about) who God really is. The infinite cannot remain infinite in the finite realm. That this rings true can be seen when we realize there are a multitude of different understandings of God within the Christian faith alone. They cannot all be completely true so there must exist a 'pure' understanding of God (essence) that each of these are speaking about (or glimpsing aspects of)...."

"... However in many cases his theology has been misunderstood and misapplied and this most notably with his statement that God is beyond existence (mistakenly taken to mean that God does not exist). Tillich presents a radically transcendent view of God which in fairness he attempts to balance with an immanent understanding of God as the Ground of Being (and the Ground of Meaning) but fails to do so. In the end, as we cannot speak of the God above God we cannot know if any of our religious language has any meaning and whether ultimately the God above God really exists. Certainly, according to his 'system', we cannot test Tillich's 'God hypothesis'. However an interesting dialog may be had between Christian humanists who posit that God is bound within language and does not exist beyond it (E.g. Don Cupitt) and Tillich who posits that our understanding of God is bound within language yet presumes (but cannot verify) that God exists beyond it."(Grenz/Olson p.124)


2) Tillich's refusal to prove God.

Tillich believed that God was such an exhausted concept that the attempt to prove was to deny him. He refused to try and prove God but merely asserted his being. I feel that this is a holdover from the days of Frederick Schleiermacher (see eperince argument) and is based upon the origins of modern liberal theology in phenomenological attitude. I disagree with that approach. The great theologians of the Greek Orthodox church also said that God was on the order of being itself, and that stands as the basis of all Western thinking about God in the Jeudeo-Christian tradition. I therefore, choose not to accept it. Making arguments to prove that there is a God, weather successful or not, is often the best way to stimulate thinking about God and to refine one's theology..But I must acknowledge that while I am drawing upon the thought of Tillich, I am also going counter to one of the basic principles of his Theology.


Meaning of Phrase "Being Itself?"

Most people, when first confronted with this phrase, "being itself" assume that it means that the fact of our existence is the same as God. Naturally, that would be a nonsensical notion. How could the fact that this desk in front of me, the computer I am writing on, and the lamp that illumines the screen, the mere fact of all the things I see around me and i myself existing be God? Some have concluded that by this Tillich meant that God is just a regulative symbol for the fact of existence. But I will argue that this is not at all what Tillich or any of the other theologians to use this phrase mean. We, as temporal beings limited by our finitude cannot help but think merely of the fact of existence as the nature of being. But being must be more than that.


1) Being and God.

Tillich sees a fundamental connection between being and God. This connection is primarily phenomenological in nature. We can see the same idea expressed by Gabriel Marcell in the Existential argument. When we ponder the nature of being we come up with the answer of God.



Link to a really good website explaining more in depth about Tillich's Theology.




2) Being vs. The Beings.

John McQuarrey in his famous work Principles of Christian Theology, distinguishes between "Being" and "The beings." Being Itself is not the being of any particular thing in existence but stands above the level of individual existing things in creation.This is being in the Abstract. W heather or not it is merely an abstraction and has no actuality apart from the the beings, will be discussed below. But McQurrey does say that being is "present and manifest in the beings." This means that we only apprehend being in so far as it is exhibited in the beings, yet the distinction is very important.

Quote:

James Wu:


"Non being is experienced as the threat to being, which generates a sense of finitude. In other words, finitude unites being with non being. Thus, the fundamental questions are of being and non being, namely, to be and not to be. Haman's finitude is incomprehensible without the concept of non being because finitude is experienced on the human level. Nevertheless, we have the capability to operate our imagination to surpass our finitude and to point to infinity. Therefore, we are able to be aware of infinity. This awareness presupposes the question of God. Yet, this awareness of infinity is rooted in our awareness of finitude. The concept of the finitude is necessary for Tillich's works because this concept drives him to the question of God. For Tillich, we are able to ask the question of God, because we are aware of infinity. "The question of God is possible because an awareness of God is present in the question of God. This awareness precedes the question" (206). "The question of God must be asked because the threat of nonbeing, which man experiences as anxiety, drives him to the question of being conquering nonbeing and of courage conquering anxiety. This question is the cosmological question of God" (208). Accordingly a quest for God is inevitable for human beings.


God is the answer to the question implied in the human awareness of the finitude. God concerns us ultimately. Whatever we grasp as our ultimate concern we call "god." "god" must be encountered by us in concreteness (214). Tillich uses the lowercase "g" to stress the necessity of concreteness over against ultimacy in the idea of god. Yet, our ultimate concern must transcend every concrete concern. Therefore, Tillich uses the uppercase "G" to stress the transcendent dimension over the concrete concern. However, in transcending the finite, our ultimate concern breaks off the concreteness of a being-to-being relationship with us. This is the indispensable inner conflict in the idea of God. For Tillich, this conflict is the guide to examine the history of religion.




Page 2 of Ground of Being

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Empirical evidence of Supernatural part II

The Supernatural is not magic realms, ghosts and psychic powers and fairies. It is an ontological framework; meaning it is hypothetical and philosophical. In practical terms it is the power o God to vivify (make more alive) and enhance the human nature. God's power to enhance human nature can be seen in many areas of life. Now of course the atheist would be right in arguing "prove that this is the power of God." That connection is provided in my argument about the co-determinate. These kinds of effects that emerge form religious experience are the co-determinate.

Empirical evidence of the supernatural is not big amazing miracles like the parting of the red sea. We don't have to prove ghosts and esp and amazing violations of the laws of physics because that's not what the supernatural is.



Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo

(http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html)

"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding."

What Amaro is saying above is that the way the human uses archetypes and the concept of the supernatural is normal and to not understand that use is pathological. He's not speaking of an actual divine intervention, but the psychosocial understanding of archetypal symbols.

Sketched out below are eight areas where I feel scientific evidence of the Supernatural might be had. The most "wavy gravy" topic among them is ESP, but some might be surprised to see the absence of Ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. In my view the Supernatural is not about those things. Supernatural is a philosophy, an ontological understanding of the structure of reality, not some invisible realm of ghosts and unexplained phenomena. Be that as it may, these areas sketched out below indicate some aspects of Supernature which are found affecting areas of normal life, and thus they may yield indications or "rational warrants" for a Supernatural belief. NOTE: I am not making the argument that these are "proofs" Of God's existence. Some skeptics have met this page with the assumption that I'm saying "because these things can't be explained this proves God." This is very far away from what I"m saying. I am saying that these things are indicative of what I call Supernature. They don't prove that Supernature is of God, but they offer a rational reason to believe.

the logic is that of the "co-determinate."


Peak experience is validated through a variety of data. It is proven to be a true consciousness change. Moreover, it has powerful and positive affects which last a life time. Since it is an experience of "something" (transcendence at least if not of "God") we must conclude that there is a real external cause at work producing the experience. Religious experience is experience of something, something we usually call "God," thus it is logical to conclude that there really is a God to be experienced. At this stage we cannot argue that this is the God of the Bible, but that will be established on other pages. Religious experience is not merely a change in feeling or a veg indefinable sense of niceness set off by beautiful clouds or something of that nature, if that were the case it could not be life changing. That is is subjective is obvious, but that is merely subjective is belied by the fact that is and has been shared my millions of people (in fact on some level by the vast majority of people) throughout human history.

This notion applies to the feeling of utter dependence, but it can work also with mystical experiences. In this argument I'll focus just on mystical experience. The argument says:

*There are real affects from Mystical experince.

*These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.

* Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explanations we should assume that they are genuine.

*Since mystical experince is usually experince of something, the Holy, the sacred some sort of greater transcendent reality we should assume that the object is real since the affects or real, or that the affects are the result of some real higher reality.

* The true measure of the reality of the co-determinate is the transfomrative power of the affects.

This last point of course will be hotly disputed, but the reasoning is well documented and based upon the previous two arguments. Since we have seen that religious experience is highly efficacious in terms of its transformative effects, that it is nomrative and that it represents a dimension to human being that empirical reductionism reifies and misses, we should assume that the extent to which religious experince is transformational is a measure of its efficacy. To put it simply, it works, it changes lives, why shouldn't we assume that it is the affect of something real?



for complete understanding, see my essay on "The Religious a priori"

______________________
(1) God Pod
______________________

Scientists have identified a cluster of neurons in the brian which, when stimulated, produce feelings of extacy and thoughts about God and the transcendent. This is too great a coincidence that nature would just produce this by random chance, especially when taken together with all the other ways in which we are fit to be religious. It's an evidence of design, we are made to be a religious species.

http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/browse/html97/reli_102997.html NATION © 1997 The Seattle Times Company Wednesday, Oct. 29, 1997 Brain region may be linked to religion, Robert Lee Hotz
Los Angeles Times

Quote: "It is not clear why such dedicated neural machinery . . . for religion may have evolved," the team reported yesterday at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans. One possibility, the scientists said, was to encourage tribe loyalty or reinforce kinship ties or the stability of a closely knit clan.

The scientists emphasized that their findings in no way suggest that religion is simply a matter of brain chemistry. "These studies do not in any way negate the validity of religious experience or God," the team said. "They merely provide an explanation in terms of brain regions that may be involved." Until recently, most neuroscientists confined their inquiries to research aimed at alleviating the medical problems that affect the brain's health, and to attempts to fathom its fundamental neural mechanisms. Emboldened by their growing understanding of how the brain works, however, scientists are now investigating the relationship between the brain, human consciousness and a range of intangible mental experiences.

Craig Kinsely, an expert in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Richmond in Virginia, called the new study "intriguing." "People have been tickling around the edges of consciousness, and this sort of research plunges in," Kinsely said. "There is the quandary of whether the mind created God or God created the mind. This is going to shake people up, but (any conclusion) is very premature."

God Pod = Evolutionary Instinct

God Module" found in human brains. Sunday Times, 11/02/97 http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/97/11/02/stinwenws01014.html?1339720 by Steve Connor Science Correspondent

Quote:

SCIENTISTS believe they have discovered a "God module" in the brain which could be responsible for man's evolutionary instinct to believe in religion. A study of epileptics who are known to have profoundly spiritual experiences has located a circuit of nerves in the front of the brain which appears to become electrically active when they think about God.

The scientists said that although the research and its conclusions are preliminary, initial results suggest that the phenomenon of religious belief is "hard-wired" into the brain.

Epileptic patients who suffer from seizures of the brain's frontal lobe said they frequently experience intense mystical episodes and often become obsessed with religious spirituality.

Reaction only to God

http://marigjuana.newscientist.com/ns/971108/nreligion.html New Scientist Planet Science [Archive: 8 November1997] Touched by the word of God Alison Motluk

Quote:

a specific part of the brain handles religious experience, claim scientists in California.

People with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) often become obsessively religious. It could be because seizures strengthen neural connections between the inferior temporal cortex and the amygdala, the emotional arbiter of the brain, so that everything takes on special meaning. Alternatively, seizures might alter neural circuits that deal with religious experience.

To test these ideas, Vilayanur Ramachandran and his colleagues from the University of California at San Diego studied people with TLE, highly religious volunteers and people whose religious status was unknown. They showed them 40 words including neutral ones, such as "wheel", sexual and violent words, and religious words. As they read, the team measured the conductance of skin on their left hands--a gauge for arousal and an indirect measure of the amount of communication between the inferior temporal lobe and the amygdala. Only sexual words gave the apparently non-religious subjects sweaty palms. Sexual and religious words excited religious controls. But the TLE patients were disproportionately aroused by religious words, says Ramachandran. "The surprise was that there's selective enhancement to some categories and not others." He speculates that the seat of religious experience is in the temporal lobe.

Newberg Proposes God as Answer

from Newberg's webstie

visied 4/17/05

The answer, proposes Dr. Andrew Newberg, may be found in the very nature of our minds, in the neurological architecture of our brains. Our brains may, in fact, be naturally calibrated to spirituality. While acknowledging that neuroscience cannot unravel the puzzle that perpetually entrances the human psyche—did God create our minds or did our minds create God?—Dr. Newberg does maintain that neuroscience can elucidate the nature of mystical experiences, their importance in human evolution, and why the abiding need for a concept of God is imperative for the survival of the human species.

Andrew Newberg, MD, is Director of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Director of NeuroPET Research, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1993, Dr. Newberg trained in Internal Medicine at the Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia—serving as Chief Resident in his final year—and subsequently completed a Fellowship in Nuclear Medicine in the Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Board-certified in Internal Medicine, Nuclear Medicine, and Nuclear Cardiology.

Dr. Newberg has presented his research at national and international scientific and religious meetings; his numerous published articles and chapters cover the topics of brain function, brain imaging, and the study of religious and mystical experiences. In addition to the extensive press he has received, he has appeared on ABCÂ’s World News Tonight and is co-author, along with Eugene G. dÂ’Aquili, MD, of the book The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Belief (Fortress Press).

Materialist Attempt at Explanation

God Module" found in human brains. Sunday Times, 11/02/97 http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/97/11/02/stinwenws01014.html?1339720 by Steve Connor Science Correspondent

Evolutionary scientists have suggested that belief in God, which is a common trait found in human societies around the world and throughout history, may be built into the brain's complex electrical circuitry as a Darwinian adaptation to encourage co-operation between individuals.

The problem here is why not just attach the "good vibes" to feelings of organization and cooperation, why associate it with "religion" which requires a much more complex conceptual framework? If the "God Pod" was just the amalgam of cooperative feelings it looks like simpelr cooperative feelings would trigger the effect, and it doesn't.

Moreover, this in a sense assumes that the brain has understanding of the concept of cooperation, and that it knows that religion requires a higher level of social structure and cooperation.

______________________________________________
(2) Maslow's Data on Arch Types
______________________________________________

Overview on Maslow:

BACKGROUND: Maslow studied with or was heavily influenced by Alfred Adler, Max Wertheimer, Harry Harlow, Erich Fromm, and anthologist Ruth Benedict.

HUMANISTIC OR "THIRD FORCE" PSYCHOLOGY stresses what is positive and hopeful in us. It was in part a reaction against the behaviorists' mechanistic, deterministic emphasis, and the gloomy, destructive character of psychoanalysis with its emphasis on the dark and destructive sides of human nature.

MASLOW'S PSYCHOLOGY: He wanted to develop a psychology that would deal with the best and highest potentials in human nature. He emphasized belongingness, love, affection respect for others, and building self-respect, noting that "all of these are largely outside the money economy altogether; they can be given to the poorest family."

POTENTIAL PRESENT IN ALL AT BIRTH: Stressed that despite unfortunate early experiences, we can change, grow, and become healthy. The potential for psychological growth and health is present in every person at birth.

INNER NATURE. We have an essentially biologically based inner nature that is intrinsic, unchanging, and uniques. It is not evil but rather neutral or good and therefore it is best to bring it out and encourage it. Suppressing it can lead to psychological or physical sickness. It is forever pressing fora actualization but is delicate and easily suppressed by cultural pressure and habit. If it is permitted to guide our life we grow healthy, fruitful, & happy. (Dare I call it "The Force" within us?)

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS. We each have a hierarchy of needs that ranges from "lower" to "higher." As lower needs are fulfilled there is a tendency for other, higher needs to emergy. Maslow's theory states that people tend to fulfill needs in an order of survival, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, self-actualization, and finally spiritual or transcendence needs.

EMERGENCE AND PRESENCE OF NEEDS. As in the Gestalt concept of figure-ground, just one need emerge into the foreground at a given time. Which one deends on which othe have been satisfied.

NEEDS IN THE HIERARCHY INCLUDE:

Physiological: food, water, air, sleep, sex. Safety: Security, stability, protection, order, freedom from fear and anxiety. Maslow thought we all need some degree of routine and predictability. For healthy persons, safety needs are not overwhelming or compulsive. If a person does not feel safe, growth becomes a secondary factory as safety needs dominate.

Belongingness and love needs. Intimate, caring relationships; affiliation with a group. Esteem needs: Esteem from others, he thinks, precedes self-esteem.It's hard to think well of ourselves unless we believe that others think well of us. Need for self-actualization: The Army slogan "Be all you can be" borrowed from Maslow's view. The full use of all our qualities and capacities, the full development of our abilities.

Needs to know and understand. Appeared in Maslow's later writings. (Perhaps related to having studied under Harry Harlow, for whom curiosity and the exploratory motive was a central interest.)

Maslow's point about Archetypes barrows form Jung.


Jung's Theory of Archetypes

Clayton E Tucker-Ladd
Metal Health Net 2000
"Understanding parts of our
Personality."

As you read more about personality theories, you will find other notions that give you insight into your self. For instance, Jung had a creative mind and besides describing the personality types above, suggested there are several parts of our personality beyond the id, ego, and superego. He believed that humans are innately prone to act certain ways and have certain beliefs, e.g. young children and animals are seen as "cute," almost every culture has created the notion of God and an after life, all societies have heroes and heroines, spiritual-mystical powers are thought to influence the weather, crops, health, etc., and the same children's stories are heard in all parts of the world (see Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth). These universal beliefs or themes were called archetypes by Jung. Instincts and archetypes make up our "collective unconscious," which is this tendency for all of us to view the world in common (not necessarily accurate) ways.

In Jungian theory, there is a part of our personality called the persona which includes the masks we wear when relating to others--it isn't our real self. In contrast to the publicly acceptable masks (Jung looked for opposites), there is the shadow which, much like the Enneagram, is our dark and evil side--our sexual, greedy, aggressive, and power-hungry needs which are difficult to control. If a normally well controlled person suddenly had an angry outburst, the Jungian might assume it is the work of the devilish shadow. Yet, the shadow is always there; it compliments the conscious ego; a wise person will understand, accept, and consider (but not give in to) the shadow's needs.

Maslow Makes use of Jung's concept



Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences, Abraham H. Maslow
Appendix I. "An Example of B-Analysis."

Maslow points out that the same universal symbols emerge in all people across culture. He confirms this connection emerges with the use of all psychoanalytical techniques.

"Now that may be taken as a frank admission of a naturalistic psychological origin, except that it involves a universal symbology which is not explicable through merely naturalistic means. How is it that all humans come to hold these same archetypal symbols? (For more on archetypes see Jesus Christ and Mythology page II) The "primitives" viewed and understood a sense of transformation which gave them an integration into the universe. This is crucial for human development. They sensed a power in the numinous, that is the origin of religion."

"In Appendix I and elsewhere in this essay, I have spoken of unitive perception, i.e., fusion of the B-realm with the D-realm, fusion of the eternal with the temporal, the sacred with the profane, etc. Someone has called this "the measureless gap between the poetic perception of reality and prosaic, unreal commonsense." Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I."

Studies backs Jungs theory as valid

Philip Penny

A brief look at whether the Collective Unconscious is a figment of JungÂ’s imagination, and whether it has any successful role to play in modern Psychotherapy.

Copyright © Philip Penny

This is all very well of course, but it simply serves to prove further that there is little to justify the notion that the theory of the Collective Unconscious is an invalid one. There is much to support the notion that there are Archetypes, or inherited characteristics of human nature, and true to say that models of human psychological process based on this assumption may prove invaluable in a therapy situation. The question of whether this theory is an aspect of JungÂ’s imagination is a philosophical one and as stated previously it is beyond the scope of this literature to explore this adequately. The conclusion of the question therefore is left up to the reader as to conclude further may well simply result in stating a figment of my own imagination.

Maslow was an atheist. His view was closer to that of Buddhism and he leaned that way. But he is unique among atheists because he subscribed to what is called the perennial philosophy which is basically a way of saying mystical experince is where its at. He was one of the social science greats of the twentieth century. Here is a website where most of his book on "Peak Experience" is housed on the web.

Maslow's Peach Experience




_______________________________________________________
(3) BB cosmology = realm beyond nature
*BB = no physical cause.
_______________________________________________________



Even though I don't subscribe to the simplistic view that the SN is just a physical location beyond the realm of nature (another physical location) I think the fact that there may be a physical realm beyond our known realm of space/time (nature) is a good indication that there probably is more to the universe than we know, and we should not be arrogant enough to assume "there is no supernatural because we have no evidence of it."

John Barrow, professor of astronomy at the University of Sussex in England, states that the traditional Big Bang picture, with its initial singularity of infinite density "is, strictly speaking, . . . creation out of absolutely nothing."[ John Barrow, The Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. 113.]

In a recent article by Tom Ulsman, he cites Cambridge University Professor Neil Turok who says:

"The problem we have is that every particle in the universe originated in the singularity . . . That's unacceptable because there are no laws of physics that tell you how they came out of it" ("Give Peas a Chance,"Astronomy Magazine, September 1999, p. 38).

*There can be no physical cause in the standard model;The Singularity is beyond space/time.

Quentin Smith, a philosopher of science at the University of Western Michigan, says in Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology (1993):

"It belongs analytically to the concept of the cosmological singularity that it is not the effect of prior physical events. The definition of a singularity entails that it is impossible to extend the space-time manifold beyond the singularity. This effectively rules out the idea that the singularity is the effect of some prior natural process."

That in itself proves a realm of some sort, beyond the "natural." Now it doesn't prove the classical conception of heaven, of course. That realm ["beyond the BB] could be merely mathematical, or it could be another sort of "physical realm." But the "physicality" of it doesn't matter, we conceive of the "natural realm" as our four coordinate system of space/time. That something can be beyond that is a priori an indication that the "material realm" such as we know it, is not all there is to reality.



___________________________________________
(4) Downward Causality in
brain/mind research
___________________________________________



Rosenberg (Ibid.)

"Take the matter of 'downward causation' to which Harman gives some attention. Why should this be an issue in brain dynamics? As Erich Harth points out in Chapter 44, connections between higher and lower centers of the brain are reciprocal. They go both ways, up and down. The evidence (the scientific evidence) for downward causation was established decades ago by the celebrated Spanish histologist Ramon y Cajal, yet the discussion goes on. Why? The answer seems clear: If brains work like machines, they are easier to understand. The facts be damned!"[Miller quoting Rosenberg, Journal of Consciousness Studies, op. cit.]

see evidence


______________________________________________
(5) Religious (Mystical) Experince
______________________________________________



This is indicative of Supernatural because Supernature is divine nature which draws human nature unto itself and vivifys it and renovates it infusing us with power to live Godly lives. The content of these experiences is religious, and the outcome fits the nature of Religion's transformational task. Thus, it is rationally warranted to understand such experiences as possible examples of the supernatural.This is examined in greater detail both in the pages linked above, and in the following pages.


Evidence



_________________________________
(6) Empirical Miracles
_________________________________




The Miracles: A Medical Doctor Says 'Yes' H. Richard Casdroph. Logos Books Int. 1976. Scientific documentation of miracles is hard to get because doctors and technicians are afraid. But it does exist.In fact it is gathered all the time. See the book (above) Before and After X-ray photographs of healing. X-Rays are empirical scientific evidence, doesn't have to be a "study." X-ray evidence is direct scientific proof of healing and Casdroph offers such evidence form his own practice. Placebo effect could not repair a broken leg immediately.


Read all my miracles pages

there are eight pages, I hope you read them all. But here are the two major pages for evidence:

Lurdes

Protestant miracles: Casdroph


___________________________________
(7) Near Death Experience
___________________________________



See the Argument on NDE.

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Is There Empirical Evidence of the Supernatural? Part I

To answer this question we must know what is meant by "supernatural." Thus part I will deal with the issue of defintion and the logic of evidence, part II with actual empirical evidence.

On CARM atheist board Apostate Abe commenting on post by Occam 1/3/08



Abe says: "I was made aware of a post that Occam made back in August. He was challenged by Matt Slick to give reasons for being an atheist. He gave three reasons, and the second one was this:"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Occam View Post

2) It's impossible in principle to find empirical evidence that could count as a warrant for belief in the supernatural.
Suppose tonight you look up at the sky and see that the stars have all shifted. Now, in consecutive constellations, the words "MATT SLICK, I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD." are spelled out above your house. Evidence for a supernatural intervention? Occam's razor says no. There are other, more parsimonious, explanations for this phenomenon. The kids down the block may have set up a big black tent over your house, poking holes for the stars and shining light through the holes, to give but one example. The fact is, there will always be an explanation for a given empirical phenomenon that doesn't invoke the supernatural. Even if there wasn't, you would still be perfectly justified in saying, "I don't know why it happened. Let's try to find out!" and then going to look for a natural explanation.

Is it impossible in principle? If the stars shifted would that not be good indication? This is an absurdity for several reasons, but before listing them, the major point I want to prove here is that it is easy to give empirical evidence of the Supernatural and I do it all the time. But before we can can understand this several things have to be in place:

(1) The concept of the Supernatural which most atheists reject is not the concept the Chruch teaches as Supernatural, and it is not which Christian mystics first began calling "supernature" with Dionysus the Areopoagite the 500's.

(2) If the stars shifted it would certainly be evidence of supernatural power, especially they spelled out a Biblical message; of course it would be easy to verify that the stars had actually shifted, there would be no danger of being food by children that would be quite easy to verify. The star painted tarp would be detected very quickly.

(3) The extent to which one might raise doubt as to the origin of this miracle would be the same extent to which one can doubt own existence, or the rising of the sun tomorrow.

(4) All Occam has really done here is to demonstrate the impossibility of proving anything.

That kind of sophomoric argument is not impressive. Yes we can doubt anything, has za! Is that really a reason to doubt God? This is the kind of amazing realization that fascinates philosophy 101 students when they are Freshmen.

But wait Occam is not through:

There will, I fear, be accusations that I'm irrationally, indefensibly biased against the use of the supernatural as an explanation. I will be accused of constructing this principle just for the sake of closing my eyes to any and all evidence. That simply isn't the case, and to demonstrate that it isn't I will give the basis for the argument here: my argument above is based upon the following principle: any explanation for a phenomenon that doesn't invoke violations of natural regularities will be more parsimonious than one that does. This principle is clearly valid.

Actually, this principle is clearly circular. All he's really said is "you can't prove the supernatural because its not naturalistic and so by definition it can't exist because we can only accept naturalistic concepts as existent." Where does he say? when he says anything that doesn't evoke violations of natural regularity, he's actaullyk saying Only natural regularities are valid as existent. which is the same as saying (just the reverse order of putting it) any supernatural order has to be ignored from reality a prori. Hence all he has really said is "there can't be empirical evidence of the supernatural because by definition we wont allow it!"


Thus his dictum is merely circular: there is not proof of the SN because it's excluded by the rules,and the rules exclude it because there's no proof of it. How could there be proof of it when you don't allow to begin with? Not content to just use circular reasoning, Occam argues from analogy:

Your wallet goes missing, what's more likely: fairies stole it, or there was a massive CIA conspiracy to take your lunch money? Convoluted as the second one sounds, it is the more parsimonious of the two. The fact is that there is no rational, objective criterion by which to say that an empirical event was supernaturally caused. So, we must now constrict our search for God-evidence to the realm of the a priori.

This is argument from analogy because he expects us to believe that sense this case has a parsimonious naturalism then all cases of parsimonious naturalism must be true. Of course this case is merely defend as true because we are told up front that all naturalistic causes must be more rational than supernatural regardless of how inane they are. What Occam says sounds logical to an atheist, because atheists don't think about logic, they think about opinion. They think 'O I don't believe in faeries, we know the CIA exists, even thought hey wouldn't want your lunch money that makes more sense than faeries. The total lack of evidence for faeries is a fine reason not to believe in them, that is why the CIA is a more parsimonious answer, not because its' naturalistic and faeries are supernatural. We know that the CIA exists, even though ti probably doesn't need lunch money. We don't know that faeries exist, thus they are not as logical a solution. We can't say that because fairies are less parsimonious than the CIA therefore supernatural is less parsimonious than naturalistic cause and effect. In the Charles Anne's Lungs the supernatural is more parsimonious because no natural explanation can explain how lungs can grow back over night. This is just not supposed to happen.(scroll down to "an old case but interesting--Society for Little flowers". We cannot rule out evidence of supernatural on the premise that it's not parsimonious. That is backwards reasoning. Being parsimonious is not an argument to justify evidence, the evidence is required to justify parsimony. To rule it out on the grounds that a priori SN cannot be parsimony is just to pre judge the case prior to evidence.


Just another case of atheists confusing their opinions with logic.

Now Here Apostate Abe joins the discussion:

Reading that, it makes a lot of sense, yes? You don't want to believe it, but it seems true.

Yes, the argument is true for an everyday environment that can be made sensible by modern scientific laws and explanations. But, I profess an alternative. If the gods made themselves an ordinary part of the human environment, then that is evidence for the gods. That means that no single "miracle" can ever work to prove the gods for a reasonable person. But, if I were living in one of the magical environments of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Genesis, Exodus or the New Testament gospels, where miracles and magical stuff happen all around and all about and all the time, then the supernatural paradigms easily supersede the naturalistic paradigm, and the gods can more easily follow.

I was watching TV, and I caught the end of the comedy film, Bewitched. The heroine, who is a powerful spell-casting witch, is in love with a TV actor played by Will Ferrell. She feels guilty that she has hidden her powers from him, and she finally professes that she is a witch. Ferrell says, "Oh, a witch, well, don't be so hard on yourself!" And she says that she can cast spells, and she attempts to prove it. She magically puts a mustache on another guy's face, she instantly puts an umbrella in Ferrell's drink, she puts an image of her face on a TV screen and makes her talk. But Ferrell is convinced only that she is a very good amateur magician. She summons a broom from nothingness, and Ferrell thinks it is a collapsible broom from her sleeve. He examines it--the grooves, he thinks, are very well hidden. And then she makes the broom fly, taking Ferrell high up to the air along with it, and he is clutching the broom for his life. He is brought down, finally convinced, and is scared sheetless. He shouts, "Have you made me pregnant? I don't wanna be pregnant!"

I figure my reaction would be similar. There can be a limit to the naturalistic explanations, and a single supernatural explanation may succeed if it becomes normal.

That's a good point, but the fact of the matter is SN does overlap with natural because the definition of Supernatural is not some alien state of affairs such that one negates the other. Atheists think Supernatural means another realm. magic, psychic powers, the stuff Harris believes in. But in fact that is not what it means. It means the power of God to raise human nature to a higher level. That power, in and of itself is of necessity manifest in the natural realm and thus has to overlap in such a way that we find material traces of it. In fact we do, before turning to that I will deal with the definition of supernatural.

See the article: * "Christianity and the Supernatural" by Eugene R. Fairweather. in New Theology No. 1 by Martin E. Marty, Dean G. Peerman

second major source: Scheeben, Mathias Joseph. Nature And Grace. trans. Cyril Vollert, ST. Louis:Herder Book

then: Willey, Basil. The Seventeenth Century Background: studies in The Thought of The Age In Relation to Poetry and Religion. London: Chatto and Windus, 1934, seventh impression, 1957.

To see a complete Bibliography look here



Author(s) of Review: Paul L. Meacham

The notion of "Supernatural" is a misnomer to begin with, because modern people construe the idea as another place, an actual location that you can go to. It's the unseen invisible world that is filled with ghosts and magic and so forth. It's in the realm where God can heaven are, we suppose. But what they don't' realize is that this is the watered down, dilapidated concept. It's not even understood well by Christians because it was destroyed in the reformation.

The term "supernatural" comes from the term "supernauturalator" or "Supernature." Dyonisus the Areogopite (around 500ad) began talking of God as the supernaturalator, meaning that God's higher nature was the telos toward which our "lower" natures were drawn. St.Augustine has spoken of Divine nature as "Supernature" or the higher form of nature, but that is speaking of nature in you, like human nature and divine nature.

In the beginning the issue was not a place, "the realm of the supernatural" but the issue was the nature inside a man. Human nature, vs. divine nature. The Sueprnatural was divine nature that drew the human up to to itself and vivified it with the power (dunimos) to live a holy life. This is the sort of thing Paul was talking about when he said "when I am weak I am strong." Or "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." The weak human nature which can't resist sin is transformed by the power of the Godly nature, through the spirit and became strong enough to resist sin, to be self sacraficing, to die for others ect ect.

This was the "supernatural" prior to the reformation. It was tied in with the sacraments and the mass. That's partly why the Protestants would rebel against it. Austine (late 300s early 400s) spoke of Christians not hating rocks and trees, in answer to the assertion that Christians didn't like nature. But the extension of the natural world as "nature" didn't come until latter. The idea of "the natural" was at first based upon the idea of human nature, of biological life, life form life, that's what the Latin natura is about.

Prior to the reformation Christian theologians did not see the supernatural as a separate reality, an invisible realm, or a place where God dwells that we can't see. After the reformation reality was bifurcated. Now there came to be two realms, and they juxtaposed to each other. The realm of Supernature, is correlated to that of Grace, and is holy and sacred, but the early realm is "natural" and bad it's myered in sin and naural urges.

But all of that represents a degraded form of thinking after going through the mill of the Protestant Catholic split. The basic split is characterized by rationalism vs feideism. The Catholics are rationalists, because they believe God is motivated by divine propose and wisdom, the Protestants were fiedeists, meaning that faith alone apart form reason because God is motived by will and sheer acceptation, the desire to prove sovereignty above all else.

The rationalistic view offered a single harmony, a harmonious reality, governed by God's reasoned nature and orchestrated in a multifarious ways. This single reality continaed a two sided nature, or a mutli-facets, but it was one harmonious reality in wich human nature was regeuvinated thorugh divine nature. But the Protestant view left Christian theology with two waring reality, that which is removed from our empirical knowledge and that in which we live.

The true Christian view of the Sueprnatural doesn't see the two realms as juxtaposed but as one reality in which the natural moves toward its' ground and end in divine nature. It is this tendency to move toward the ground and end, that produces miracles. A miracle is merely nature bending toward the higher aspect of Supernature.

but with the Protestant division between divine sovereignty, acceptation and will motivating the universe, we mistake univocity and equivocity for nature and supernature. We think nature and supernature are not alike they are at war, so difference marks the relationship of the two. But to make the Suepernatural more avaible they stress some aspect of nature and put it over against the rest of nature and pretend that makes it sueprnatuarl, this is univocity, it's the same. So will and acceptation, sovereignty, God has to prove that he is in charge, these are all aspects of univocity.

It's the natural extension of this bifurcation that sets up two realms and sees nature as "everything that exits." or "all of material reality" that sets up the atheist idea that supernatural is unnecessary and doesn't exist.

Historical Overview: SN and Rise of Science



The medieval Christian doctrine of the supernatural has long been misconstrued as a dualistic denigration of nature, opposed to scientific thinking. The concept of supernature, however, is not a dualism in the sense of denigrating nature or of pitting against each other the "alien" realms of spirit and matter. The Christian ontology of the supernatural bound together the realm of nature and the realm of Grace, immanent and transcendent, in a unity of creative wisdom and purpose, which gave theological significance to the natural world. While the doctrine of supernature was at times understood in a dualistic fashion, ultimately, the unity it offered played a positive role in the development of scientific thinking, because it made nature meaningful to the medieval mind. Its dissolution came, not because supernatural thinking opposed scientific thinking, but because culture came to value nature in a different manner, and the old valuation no longer served the purpose of scientific thinking. An understanding of the notion of supernature is essential to an understanding of the attitudes in Western culture toward nature, and to an understanding of the cultural transition to science as an epistemic authority.

The ontology of supernature assumes that the natural participates in the supernatural in an ordered relation of means and immediate ends, with reference to their ultimate ends. The supernatural is the ground and end of the natural; the realm of nature and the realm of Grace are bound up in a harmonious relation. The Ptolemaic system explained the physical lay-out of the universe, supernature explained its theological relation to God. The great chain of being separated the ranking of creatures in relation to creator. The supernatural ontology is, therefore, separate from but related to cosmologies. This ontology stands behind most forms of pre-reformation theology, and it implies an exaltation of nature, rather than denigration. This talk of two realms seems to imply a dualism, yet, it is not a metaphysical dualism, not a dualism of opposition, but as Fairweather points out, "the essential structure of the Christian faith has a real two-sidedness about it, which may at first lead the unwary into dualism, and then to resolve ... an exclusive emphasis on one or the other severed elements of a complete Christianity...such a dissolution is inevitable once we lose our awareness of that ordered relation of the human and the divine, the immanent and the transcendent, which the Gospel assumes." Yet, it is this "two-sidedness" which leads unwary historians of into dualism.

In his famous 1967 article, "The Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," Lynn White argued that the Christian belief of the Imago Dei created "a dualism of man and nature;" "man shares in God's transcendence of nature." This notion replaced pagan animism, it removed the "sacred" from the natural world, and with it, inhibitions against exploiting nature. Moreover, by the 12th century, nature became a source of revelation through natural theology. In the Latin West, where action prevailed over contemplation, natural theology ceased to be the decoding of natural symbols of the divine and became instead an attempt to understand God through discerning the operation of creation. Western technology flourished, surpassing even that of Islamic culture (although they still led in theoretical pursuits). Thus, White argues, medieval theology did allow science to grow, but at the ultimate expense of the environment.

The insights of feminist scholarship, however, suggest an even more subtle argument for the denigration of nature. Feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruther, argued that there is an identification between the female and nature, the male and transcendence. Women have been disvalued historically through the association between female sexuality and the "baseness" of nature. Londa Schiebinger, calls attention to the fact that the Judeo-Christian cosmology placed women in a subordinate position. Gender was more fundamental than biological sex, and it was a cosmological principle, "...Men and women were carefully placed in the great chain of being--their positions were defined relative to plants, animals, and God." The subordination of women was predicated upon their position in nature. "Male" and "Female represented dualistic cosmological principles penetrating all of nature, principles of which sexual organs were only one aspect. One might suspect that the place of women on the great chain of being is indicative of the true status of nature itself in Christian ontology; an overt denigration of women indicates a covert denigration of nature.

God and Time part II: Loftus' comments on Helm

back to the future

Debuncking Christianity John Loftus write:

An analysis of Paul Helm’s “God and Spacelessness,” Philosophy 55 (1980).

Lofuts says:

Helm begins with two authors who made similar claims against the timelessness of God. J. R. Lucas made this claim: “To say that God is outside time, as many theologians do, is to deny, in effect, that God is a person.” He reasons that to be a person is to have a mind, and to have a mind requires that it be in time (i.e., thoughts require a sequence of events, etc.). A.N. Prior claimed that a proposition such as “It is raining now” is not equivalent in meaning to “It is raining on Tuesday,” and that an omniscient God who knew the latter would not necessarily know the former, and would not know it if he were timeless, since he could not be present on the occasion on which it was raining.”

I really don't mean to critique my friend John in an insulting way. But I find so many atheists doing this. He will attack one person's understanding of something and then imply that he has somehow rendered all ideas of Go incoherent. Perhaps he doesn't mean to give the impression, but he does give it. As so many times i find, this is just a simple case of atheists focusing one idea and not doing their homework to learn that there are more ideas.

But these concepts are based upon the conventional understanding, the big room, God is the man int he big room. They assume that Time is real that it is a formidable barrier for God, rather than a conventional point of reference used for God for our benefit, and does not limit God. Thought requires sequential order, which requires time. God does not necessarily need to think. God's reality does not necessarily require time int he way that we do. The analysis about time and thinking assumes a world in which th laws of physics govern. But in God's world it is only God's imagination that rules. Moreover, it may be true that God would not understand "it is raining now" in the way that we would. That is only a problem if you have to have to have an omniscient God and if you define omniscience as the knowing of all sorts irrelevant crap.

Helm argues against both authors by merely showing that such a claim also entails the denial that God is spaceless, which in turn denies that God is infinite--something these authors want to maintain. Helm writes that “the arguments used to show that God is in time, in effect support the view that God is finite, and so anyone who wishes to maintain that God is infinite, as the traditional theist does, will either have to find other arguments for the view that God is in time, or eschew the idea of God being in time altogether”—this is the dilemma Helm presents to these authors.

Of course this also assumes the big room and the man in the room (scroll down to previous post--Part I). If what we call "reality" is just a thought in the mind of God then this is a meaningless non problem; God is not in time, but time is present to God because time is in God. God observes the unfolding of time as it runs on its arrow because God is the constantly observer whose observations cause reality to be. But God is not limited to just that, the temporal dimension. In fact even in the old conventional framework one of my major concepts was God's immanence and transcendence. Since God is both immanent and transcendent God is both in time and beyond it. Every once and a while some unimaginative person would ask "how can God be both in time and beyond it?" Well one way to do that is if the world is a just part of a mental construct generated by God. Loftus is so, like so many atheists, so content to allow the slightest problem stand as an impenetrable barrier to belief.

Helm does not try to show that God is in fact timeless, nor is his purpose to show that the logic of these two authors is wrong. He admits that he doesn’t even fully understand what it means to say God is both timeless and spaceless. He’s only claiming that a denial of God’s timelessness is also a denial of God’s spacelessness.

Which is a totally unnecessary concept. God doesn't have to be infinite in a spacial sense if the world is a thought in his mind. He would be infinite in relation to our world and our understanding because whatever infinite expanse our world contains in its unboundedness, God is bigger than any spacio-temporal void we might imagine, and thus is unbounded in relation to our boundaries. But of course Loftus is only too happy to end investigation on note of hopeless skepticism:

After making his arguments he leaves the reader with three alternative consequences to choose from:

1) The belief in God is even more incoherent than previously thought, in that it requires unintelligibilities such as a timeless and spaceless existence;
2) Recognize that since the belief in God requires an infinite and spaceless God there must be something wrong with the current arguments against the timelessness of God; or,
3) The burden of proof is on these authors to present an argument against God’s timelessness that does not also apply to God’s spacelessness.

Or of course the obvious, given the theory they are not willing to consider, that atheists are unimaginative, and too lazy to read theology. Well, ok too lazy to read
Berkeley anyway.

Loftus:

That is, one can either, a) Deny (or accept) the unintelligible existence of both a timeless and spaceless God, b) Accept the consequences of a God who is both in time and finite, or, c) Supply other arguments on behalf of a God who is in time which does not also deny God’s spacelessness. Not being able to do (c) presents the dilemma of choosing either (a) or (b).

Or we could expand our consciousness and take up some new ideas for a change. For some sources on Immanence and Transcendence of God we turn to "Christianity and the Supernatural," Eugene R. Fairweather New Theology NO.One (1964). But Fairweather doesn't tackle the Goswami ideas. For that we can turn to the Goswami himself.

"Scientific Proof for The Existence of God"
An Interview with Amit Goswami, by Craig Hamilton

What is Enlighement magazine.
Issue curret as of April 7, 05.

"Goswami is convinced, along with a number of others who subscribe to the same view, that the universe, in order to exist, requires a conscious sentient being to be aware of it. Without an observer, he claims, it only exists as a possibility. And as they say in the world of science, Goswami has done his math. Marshalling evidence from recent research in cognitive psychology, biology, parapsychology and quantum physics, and leaning heavily on the ancient mystical traditions of the world, Goswami is building a case for a new paradigm that he calls "monistic idealism," the view that consciousness, not matter, is the foundation of everything that is."

"A professor of physics at the University of Oregon and a member of its Institute of Theoretical Science, Dr. Goswami is part of a growing body of renegade scientists who in recent years have ventured into the domain of the spiritual in an attempt both to interpret the seemingly inexplicable findings of their experiments and to validate their intuitions about the existence of a spiritual dimension of life. The culmination of Goswami's own work is his book The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. Rooted in an interpretation of the experimental data of quantum physics (the physics of elementary particles), the book weaves together a myriad of findings and theories in fields from artificial intelligence to astronomy to Hindu mysticism in an attempt to show that the discoveries of modern science are in perfect accord with the deepest mystical truths."

"Quantum physics, as well as a number of other modern sciences, he feels, is demonstrating that the essential unity underlying all of reality is a fact which can be experimentally verified. Because of the enormous implications he sees in this scientific confirmation of the spiritual, Goswami is ardently devoted to explaining his theory to as many people as possible in order to help bring about what he feels is a much needed paradigm shift. He feels that because science is now capable of validating mysticism, much that before required a leap of faith can now be empirically proven and, hence, the materialist paradigm which has dominated scientific and philosophical thought for over two hundred years can finally be called into question."

Notice that the latest theories about the state of universe beyond event horizon pot no space, no time, and dense mass in a state we cannot imagine.


Sten Odenwald, NASA

Astronomy Cafe, 2004.

If the pre-Big Bang state was timeless, what is the best guess as to what it was like?

We don't know.

All we can do is watch our best current theories predict what this could have been like.

Without including quantum mechanical effects, the Standard Big Bang model predicts an incomprehensible singularity state of infinite density and zero space and time. Physicists and cosmologists during the last 20 years have attempted to add quantum mechanical effects in various ways, and have come up with an initial state called the Planck Era when the scale of the universe was about 10^-33 centimeters at a time 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang. This is an absolute horizon to cosmology because 'before' this era, all properties were determined by acausal, quantum fluctuations in some indeterminate quantum state. There was no time or space then, not at least in any intuitive way of thinking about the situation.

If we ever develop a true unified field theory that includes gravity, we may have more to say about what this state may have been like. But that seems to be a very far off goal, especially in so far as actually testing such a theory is concerned. If you can't test it, or in principle falsify it, then it is not science that you are doing, but philosophy!

Still, speculating about this initial state is fun, and very few of us in the Profession can avoid thinking and writing about this question.

two important points to be made here:

(1) they do not just attribute the universe to poping out of nothing. No one seems to think that is a viable idea.

(2) this uknown state that is no time and no space would be compatible with the mind of God. If our reality is a thought in some giant mind it's origin point might look like that, no time, no space, some indefinable state.

Loftus needs to realize for once that his argument is simply beaten!