Thursday, August 28, 2008

God arguments are a take on Reality

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Once again I am driven to examine my hobby of making God arguments. No atheist will ever admit that they prove anything. Actually that's not quite true. There have been a couple of people on message boards, although they may not have called themselves "atheists" who came to admit that my argument proved to them that there must be a God. While these two are rare, if they were willing to do that, there must be more who are toying with the idea. The problem is, God arguments really don't prove God's existence in the way that full blooded empiricists would like to have proven. We will prove the existence of bigfoot before we prove God that way. That's because God is not a "thing" in creation. God is not another item alongside light posts and swizzel sticks; God is the framework of reality, god is off scale for any sort of measurement. This would be like trying to prove the universal constant with a speedometer from a car.

God arguments are a take on reality

God arguments do something else entirely, something other than "proving" the existence of God in an absolute and undeniable way. In fact it really contradicts my theology to try and prove God in that sense. I proposed the soteriolgocial drama theory, which says that God wants us to have to make a leap of faith. Thus it would be self defeating if the kind of proof existed whereby God could be proven in such a way that it would be undeniable. God arguments offer rational warrant to believe. That means only that it is not irrational to believe in God. While this can be parled into a strong sense indicating a good probability, it is not the kind of undeniable proof the atheists are seeking. Atheists really want to be forced. They want to be dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God in such a way that they are overwhelmed and forced to give up and admit God is real. Of course this will never happen because it's not what God wants.

God doesn't refuse this level of proof to be mean, or to test people, or to play games. it's a simple necessity. If that level of credulity was met and atheists were forced to admit there msut be a God, even though I don't like it, they would not like it. They would resent it. God wants free moral agetns who willingly choose the good. That means they cant' dragged into it agaisnt the their will. The only way to get that is to search. Only those who have searched out the truth in their hearts, wrestled with dobut and come to make the leap of faith, can internaltize the values and seek the good because they want the good.

Belief in God is much more than just a factual question about the existence of a particular item in the universe. Belief in God is more than just a proposition to be weighed according to evidence. Belief in God is a value, an orientation toward Being. Religion is the identification of the human problematic, and the resolution of that problematic through the mediation of an ultimate transformative experience. God is that aspect of Being which forces us to face the problematic of being human and to seek ultimate transformative experience. God is that ultimate transformative power. God is the object of our ultimate concerns which we sense in our apprehension of the numinous. Thus God arguments can't possibly provide the kind of empirical evidence most skeptics seek but neither is it fair of them to expect it. That's why God arguments are ways of forcing us to evaluate and come to understand the nature of Being and our relation to the ultimate.

The only real proofs of God are those we each find in our hearts when we seek out the nature of our lives in relation to their goals and ends, and their ultimate ends. Those are not the kinds of ideas that can be subjected to objective sorts of proof. They are phenomenological apprehensions. They are existential. God arguments are existential clearifiers. They enable us to understand our own relation to the ultimate. When we make a God argument we are saying something about the rational nature of being, the meaning of what it is to be. We are making judgments about reality as a whole when we talk about reasons to believe in God. Thus, it's not a matter of proving some argument per se, it' snot a matter of demonstrating some fact, the impossibility of naturalistic cosmology, or the need for targets in anthropic fine tuning, but an understanding of reality that superceeds any particular fact or demonstrable bit of information.

I've written many times in this blog about the nature of God arguments and the need for a phenomenologicla approach. This view point must be maintanied by a stark realism about the lmiiations of empiricial science and the socially constructed nature of a materialist outlook.If beilef in God is the expression of a value about the meaningful nature of rationality in being, then the expression of lack of God belief, and it's justification thorugh empirical science must be a cyncial statement about the limiations of our ability to come to terms rationally with our own being.



God is not subject to Empirical Proof

Atheists demand proof of God as though God were some fact in nature. God is not a thing along side other things in creation. It is not strange that we can't prove God with some emprical fact because God is not given to empirical study. As I said in another post:


"There are somethings we can say about God that make sense realtive to our understanding of things. God is the foundation of all that is, so we know that God can't be compared to anything else. God is off scale for all atributes because God is the scale. Trying to measure and compare God to anything would be like trying to compare our single sun to the big bang. Even that is not apt because the BB was finite."



Traces of God


People don't come to belief in God because of arguments, and we shouldn't expect them to.
Humanity finds God in a million different places. It finds God in flowers and trees, in brooks (and in books), in grass, in each other. It finds God in storms and scary things, and in the night. It finds God in the sky and the stars in the darkness of a vast and endless expanse. It reaches out for what is there because it has been put into it to do so; not because God sat and said "I will make men and men will seek me" but because God provided for the reality of the Imago Dei to evolve and develop in whatever species reached the point where humanity has come to. God did this automatically as an aspect of self expression, as an outgrowth of consciousness. This kind of God would make a universe of the type we see around us. This type of God would also place in that universe hints so that whatever species reaches that level that God's manifestation would be waiting to show them God's solidarity with them. God would plant a thousand clues, not as a matter of deliberation like one plants Easter eggs, but as the result of being what God is--self communicating and creative. Thus we have design arguments and fine tuning arguments, and contingencies and necessities and the lot. We can find the God Pod in our heads that lights up when it hears God ideas. We can do studies and determine that our religious experiences are better for us than unbelief, because the clues are endless because the universe bears the marks of its creator.

Yet these marks are sublet for a reason. This is where the Evangelical view of God can also be a sophisticated view. The Evangelical God can also be the God of Tallish and the God of process, after all, these are all derived from the same tradition and the Evangelicals have as much right to escape anthropomorphism as anyone. The Evangelical God seeks a moral universe. This God wants believers who have internalized the values of the good. We do not internalize that which we are forced to acknowledge. Thus God knows that a search in the heart is better to internalizing values than is a rational formally logical argument, or a scientific proof. Thus we have a soteriological drama in which we can't tell if there is or is not a God just by looking at the nature of nature. That must remain neutral and must illud us because it is not given to us to have direct and absolute knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is a privilege. We must seek it through the heart, that's where it isthmian to be found. It's a privilege but faith is a gift.


Thus we should be speaking of the technology by which we can find God. Here I use the term "thecnology" in the Faucaultian sense, not as a machine or hardware, but as the manipulation of a technique. My God argument work as a God finding technology, but one must know how to apply them. You can't expect an empirical demonstration. We must find the co-detemrinate and demonstate the correlation between co-detemrinate and divine. How do we know when we find it? The Co-detemriniate will that thing which leads us to God.

God is accessable to all. We can each find God at an any time. What guarontee do we have that we have found God? Our lives will change. Atheist will baulck because it's not emprical proof. and it is not. But it is close enough that it leaves us into a transofmation. The proof is in the pudding. We know we have found it when we find it, becasue we turn on to it, our lives change, God becomes a reality to us. The that makes God a reality to us is the co-determinate. All questions about "how do you know that's really what it is" don't amount to anything, they are not negations of the expeince of transformtion.


God finder Technology: Co Deterinate


Co-determinate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisable man in the snow. You can't see the invisable man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.

We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the wrold.

The only question at that ponit is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? But that should be answere in the argument below. Here let us set out some general peramitors:

(1) The trace produced content with speicificually religious affects

(2)The affects led one to a renewed sense of divine relaity, are transformative of life goals and self actualization

(3) Cannot be accounted for by alteante cuasality or other means
.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Argument
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1)There are real affects from Mytical experince.

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

(3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explaintions we should assume that they are genuine.

(4)Since mystical experince is usually experince of something, the Holy, the sacred some sort of greater trasncendent 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 reailty.

(5)The true measure of the reality of the co-dterminate is the transfomrative power of the affects.



so rather than arguing about "Proofs" we should be discussing how to seek God in your heart.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The word "problematic" is not a noun.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Yes it is. It's used just that way in theology, not just in theology but history of ideas too.

the phrase "the human problematic" used by Professor McFarland in his lecture on Religion in a Global perspective in Jan 1999 (Perkins School of Theology)> In my notes.

If I wanted to I could dig out a half dozen other examples of writers and thinkers who speak of "problematics" as though they are things.

the idea is they are more than just a particular problem. they are a complex of problems that work together together to present more than just a problem.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

here is a link to a book published by Harvard law the title is:

"the problematics of moral and legal theory."

Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory

that is used as I used it. No difference in that and "the problematic of being human."

I say "human problematic" that's the same as "the problematic of being human." Used the same way.

tinythinker said...

That's because God is not a "thing" in creation. God is not another item alongside light posts and swizzel sticks; God is the framework of reality...

Belief in God is much more than just a factual question about the existence of a particular item in the universe. Belief in God is more than just a proposition to be weighed according to evidence. Belief in God is a value, an orientation toward Being...

God is that ultimate transformative power. God is the object of our ultimate concerns which we sense in our apprehension of the numinous. Thus God arguments can't possibly provide the kind of empirical evidence most skeptics seek but neither is it fair of them to expect it...

The only real proofs of God are those we each find in our hearts when we seek out the nature of our lives in relation to their goals and ends, and their ultimate ends. Those are not the kinds of ideas that can be subjected to objective sorts of proof...

...so rather than arguing about "Proofs" we should be discussing how to seek God in your heart.


One of your best posts of the blog. Will we see this as a theme like your civilization and philosophy posts?

Here some quotes you might find useful...


In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower, and within that can be found a small space. We should find who dwells there, and we should want to know him. And if anyone asks, "Who is he who dwells in a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower in the center of the castle of Brahman? Whom should we want to find and know?" We can answer: "The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars; fire and lightning and winds are there; and all that now is and all that is not; for the whole universe is in Him and he dwells within our heart."
-passage from the Chandogya Upanishad, the oldest of the Upanishads (~1200 yrs B.C.E.)

The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which is a little space wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye. This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which he sees all things, and through which we see Him. If the heart is not pure, the Great Spirit cannot be seen... In order to know the center of the heart where the Great Spirit dwells you must be pure and good... The man who is thus pure contains the Universe in the pocket of his heart.
-Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala Lakota of the Sioux

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love... No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us... God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
-passage from 1 John 4:7-8,12,16

If your heart is truly open then all of life, nature and experience is the mystery of interconnection and opportunity for communion.
-Anonymous

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

that's very interesting Tiny. Good quotes. I have not given any thought to doing a serious on this, but I will think about it since I see it is of interest to you. My next post should be a film review of Bermgann's The Virgin Spring Now that I have a DVD player I'll be reviewing films a lot more. Maybe I'll start a new blog. we shall see.

I am reading a book by Philosopher Wayne Proudfoot, who is a reductionist and who argues that we don't have real feeling or inner states, they are reification based upon pre conceived concepts. That he uses to invalidate all religious experince. I'm critiquing it for my book.

In fact if you want to discuss that I could use your expertise.

Anonymous said...

LOL! Every time I read "Perkins school of theology" I giggle a little bit. Did you get chicken fried steak and some coffee with your alleged degree?

And why should I--or anyone--give a shit about theology?

Anonymous said...

Wow, you're writing a book?! I hope you hired a very good--and VERY PATIENT--editor.

Kristen said...

I agree that more important than "proofs" is seeking God in your heart. However, I myself could not have come to God if people I trusted had not told me that there was a rational basis for belief-- that it wasn't just a fairy tale. I saw that intelligent, educated people could rationally believe that God was real-- which was the first step in my opening my heart to seek God in the first place.

But it was the open heart and the seeking that was most important. God can/will not reveal Himself to closed hearts and minds.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

LOL! Every time I read "Perkins school of theology" I giggle a little bit. Did you get chicken fried steak and some coffee with your alleged degree?

And why should I--or anyone--give a shit about theology?

Is there some kind of cafe or something called "Perkins?" There's nothing like that in this part of the country.

Here's what I think of your comment. On the Beverly Hillbillies Jethro used to say "your talking to a sixth grade educated brain Uncle Jed. I am expert citified six grade graduate and I know how to cipher."

The Clampets met a world class virtuoso of the violin and thought he couldn't play because he didn't know Turkey in the Straw, the also didn't know their favorite song "there's hog a jowl where my heart used to be."

compred to your ignorance they really do seem like geniuses.
that's something I never heerd a. I'm so igoerant and stupidified I have to laugh at everthin I don't understand. The unkown makes me angry and I can't accept them little paper things people put their faces in. Reed'n is just a bunch squiggles."

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

The genius of the masses: there's sop'n whut I hates. so why should I learn about it? I doesn't like it, and I don't anything about it, so it can't be worth anything, so why should I learn about it? I'd rather go on the internet and pontificate every day of my life mocking people who know things I don't know. Don't ask me to learn about the things I'm criticizing, if they were worth learning I wouldn't criticize them.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Wow, you're writing a book?! I hope you hired a very good--and VERY PATIENT--editor.

what does that mean?

you will never write a book. you don't enough about anything to write about.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

I agree that more important than "proofs" is seeking God in your heart. However, I myself could not have come to God if people I trusted had not told me that there was a rational basis for belief-- that it wasn't just a fairy tale. I saw that intelligent, educated people could rationally believe that God was real-- which was the first step in my opening my heart to seek God in the first place.

But it was the open heart and the seeking that was most important. God can/will not reveal Himself to closed hearts and minds.


that's the way it works. People with brains seek truth, they develop ideas and commit to them, the stupid one's continue to mock what they don't understand.

Loren said...

However, I agree with what Ann Druyan attributed to her late husband Carl Sagan late in his life:

About an afterlife, "I don't want to believe; I want to know."

And the same applies for whatever god(s) there might be.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

But I DO Know, you see? I really do.

Kristen said...

About an afterlife, "I don't want to believe; I want to know."

And the same applies for whatever god(s) there might be.


But knowing, I think, brings along with it a responsibility regarding how one responds to such knowledge.

Perhaps in many cases it is merciful of God to withhold knowledge?