Hume's Misconception about Miracles

David Hume (1711-1776)



Hume is revered by the atheists as though he is the only philosopher they will listen to. Even those who say "Philosophy is bs" love and laud Hume. One of the most cherished things that Hume had to say was his misconceptions about miracles. Atheists treat that famous passage as though it has canonical status, for them it does. But Hume gets it wrong on both counts: he doesn't understand miracles, nor does he understand "laws of nature." Both observations are apparent form the opening line of the passage:

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature;

The problem here is that science no longer regards nature as run by prescriptive laws. Every time I would argue that physical laws prescriptive, the atheist guru HRG (CARM ath) would tell me that this no longer the case. They are just descriptions of what happens. They are not real laws. But this in fact contradicts completely what their other guru, Hume, tells them. In fact they have to take this contradictory position if they want to argue against my third God argument Fire in the equations. It's also necessitated in their argument against final case. In fact Has was exaggerating, it's not as though no scientist still holds for prescriptive laws. the truth of it is there is a dispute in science between "regulaterians" and "Necessitarians." Nevertheless, those who say they are not prescriptive are contradicting Hume and rendering his point null. How can miracles violate laws if they only describe what happens? If they only describe, then miracles could just as well be part of the description, so there is noting to prevent them.


Actually laws of nature are not the confused with scientific laws or natural law.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Laws of Nature are to be distinguished both from Scientific Laws and from Natural Laws. Neither Natural Laws, as invoked in legal or ethical theories, nor Scientific Laws, which some researchers consider to be the scientists' attempts to state or approximate the Laws of Nature, will be discussed in this article. Instead, this article explores issues in contemporary metaphysics. Within metaphysics, there are two competing theories of Laws of Nature. On one account, the Regularity Theory, Laws of Nature are statements of the uniformities or regularities in the world; they are mere descriptions of the way the world is. On the other account, the Necessitarian Theory, Laws of Nature are the "principles" which govern the natural phenomena of the world. That is, the natural world "obeys" the Laws of Nature. This seemingly innocuous difference marks one of the most profound gulfs within contemporary philosophy, and has quite unexpected, and wide-ranging, implications.



That throws up an even greater problem for the atheist. How many atheist told me that metaphysics is just fairy tales and that we don't need philosophy? Yet here is their great guru Hume using philosophy and Metaphysics no less! Be that as it may, here is a contradiction for them. If laws of nature or "laws of physics" in science (ether one) are merely descriptive, then where is the basis for standing against miracles?

Moreover, I say that Hume says miracles are a violation of the laws of Nature, but that is a misconception of the concept of miracle. First of all, it's a misconception of the supernatural to believe that supernatural means "breaking into the natural," or a "contradiction" to laws of nature. Supernatural is not a contradiction to the the laws of nature, they are framework in which the laws of nature make sense and in which the laws of nature have their warrant. The concept of the supernatural has been misconceived in modern times. It was first degraded in the Renaissance, and this process began with the dissolution of the medieval synthesis. See my pages on the Supernatural, (Doxa). Thus miracles are not violations of anything. They are, as C.S. Lewis put it occasions where the lower law bends to the higher (see his book on Miracles, sorry I don't have a page number or link). An example of what he's talking about is seen in Martin Luther King's speech ("I have a Dream") where he says "The arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward Justices." what is the talking about? The Supernatural is the ground and end of the natural. That's the framework, when I the SN is a larger framework in which the natural plays out, that's what I mean. The natural is rooted in the SN as it's origin and it is moving toward SN end which are set by the higher protocol. Thus when SN effects happen, it is because the lower is obeying the higher, not because the higher is breaking in.

Miracles are also contextual.It's almost meaningless to talk about them. Miracles could naturalistic because the dichotomy between SN and N is artificial and the creation of this modern era which sought to destroy religious thinking and to create a fixed standard of science as the umpire of reality and rule out all that is not part of their naturalistic ideology. The difference between miracles and "anomalies" is merely that miracles have a religious connotation. When an anomalous event happens and produces verification of a religious belief it's a miracle.

The nature of science as paradigm driven is also a major theoretical reason to quite thinking in terms of this dichotomy between N and SN. Science is not cumulative, scientific facts are stacked up until they equal truth. As Thomas Kuhn says, When the paradigm shifts the former anomalies in the old paradigm become the proofs of the new paradigm. The facts of the old paradigm become anomalies under the new. So facts are not stacking to equal progress, they are relative to the paradigm. The current paradigm is naturalism; that will change in some way eventually. when it does change the arguments and facts used to back naturalism will be extent,t hey will no longer be regarded as facts but useless anomalies. Hume's statement can't hold any real cogency for us because its entirely relative to the paradigm. It's already looking pretty out of date since the prevailing wind seems to be blowing in the direction of the descriptive laws of nature crowd. If laws are only descriptive, miracle can be part of the description. There is nothing to prevent them.

Hume goes on:

and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.




Here we have the essence of circular reasoning. Now any atheists have to tried to sell this passage on the basis that he's not saying that laws of nature are prescriptive laws but that our experience of them is unalterably. In fact he is saying nothing more than, as they would have us believe: we never see miracles so we must assume they never happen, they are not part of the description. I think it's clear he's not saying that. I think it is clear that he's saying laws of nature (and thus "the laws of physics") are prescriptive and unalterable. He speaks of unalterable. Now it's true he says the experience is unalterable. But it's the experience of the laws he says. So he is saying that the laws are unalterable and thus our experience of them is as well. If not, then there could some day be an exception. If one saw a miracle at some point that would still have to invalidate all the observations of the past, unless one assumes that there is a prescriptive element and that's why the observe rations are always the same.

The circle in reason is here: we do see miracles. There are thousands of claims of miracle. There are 4000 remarkable cases at Lourdes. That means they are amazing, they can't explained. They fail to be declared official only because of some technicality. But Hume would, at least in the interpretation of most atheist, we must discount hose cases because according to our experiences they don't happen. So those must be hoaxes. Yet, they do happen according to our experiences, becasue these are the ones' that people have experienced.

This is so obviously circular reasoning:

X doesn't happen because we never see X

we can discount claims that people have seen x because:

we never see x.




Hume:

Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them?



Here he clearly appeals to the authority of the laws of nature, they prevent them, to happen they must be agreeable. That means his views are metaphysics, they validate the need for metaphysical observation. They are also outmoded and relative to the philosophical discussion still progressing. I've seen atheist vow and declare that his argument is totally about the regularity of our observations, not prescriptive laws. Here he clearly says whatever happens must agree with the laws.

Hume:

Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature.



Here I take issue on the grounds that he doesn't understand the true concept of the supernatural.Miracles are contextual not "factual."


It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen.



Here he intentionally blurs the discretion between the perspective nature of laws and the observation of frequency of behavior. I think he is purposely blurring the distinction. He shifts it back over to what he sees happen because it's the only basis he has for denying the resurrection. He can't argue that there's a physical law against it, except by the implication that we never see it, as argument from sing. He has the weight of common experience, and yet it is only argument from sign, thus dangerously close to fallacy. There is no "structural reason" from the laws of nature that would prevent it.

But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation....




Doubly fallacious because miracles are supposed to be contradictions to what we see. In trying to say it can't happen because it's not naturalistic he's merely evoking the ideology of naturalism in order to impose the circular reasoning that naturalists accept axiomatically.

Hume's logic:

Atheist: The Res couldn't happen because it violates what we observe

Believer: but some people did observe it, so it is part of what we observe

Atheist: no it can't because we never observe such things.

But of course, we did that time. It's a circular reasoning that is used to ignore counter proofs on the premise that they can't exist because if they did they would be counter, we can't have that! The truth of it is there are millions of claims that miracles are seen and that they happen.


The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish....'



Of course this is meaningless prattle. It's more circular reasoning. He is saying that because miracles contradict our ordinary observation (which of course they should because that's their definition) then to establish it it would have to be more amazing that it would not be true." But of course if that was the case then would would have to say "that X isn't true contradicts our regular observation of the world." Now how could it be that miracles not being true could ever be so obscure a condition that they would contradict our normal experience? In such a case our normal experience would be miracles. thus they would not be miracles. This is so like the dictum about extraordinary evidence. I'm sure that's Sagan got it. The problem with that is it's absurd because no one can say what "extraordinary" evidence is. It's just a trick so atheists can keep raising the bar. Of course this what they always do. No evidence is ever good enough.



When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed, that the testimony, upon which a miracle is founded, may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy: But it is easy to shew, that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.



In fact this quote basically says "our ideology rules out miracle a priori so ignore any evidence because it's ideologically improper." By the circular reasoning of the ideology any contrary evidence must be ruled because it is contrary.

Clearly the more rational standard would be to take whatever cannot be explained, having been documented with sufficient evidence to establish veracity, as assumed miraculous if violates our sense of "normal" reality, with out any biased pre determination as to the possibility of such events. By definition miracles are anomalies. Anomalies are absorbed into the paradigm until so many have been absorbed that the paradigm can no longer hold them, then the paradigm shifts. Kuhn establishes that when paradigms shift the supporters of the old regime defend it just as though and in the same way as supporters of the old guard stave off a mounting resolution. For this reason we can expect the paradigm to be defend by an ideology, and one that unfairly rules out any change. Such is clearly the case. We see that the paradigm has shifted from "materialism" to naturalism and physical ism. This is because materialism couldn't hold the anomalies. The paradigms they are shifting from physicalism to property dualism and other smile face versions of physicalism which are closer to being miracle friendly. This I will take up next time.

Finding God is not like finding a new animal in nature

the so called "God particle."

As long time readers know that I have this idea of God as Being itself, as Paul Tillich, John Macquarrie, and Has Urs Von Balthasar discussed. Atheists are slow in learning the nature of it. Those I've argued with over the years still make the same mistakes they made about it years ago becuase they don't listen and they don't care. I have evoked in my understanding of the nature of God and reality to the point that I don't think of God as a single think separated from other things and put over against reality as an item on a list in nature, like a single tooth brush or a single rock or tree; I see God as more like a category. That doesn't mean I think of God as unreal or unconscious. I still relate to God as a loving father. I am aware that my image of "father God" is metaphor for I can't possibly understand in it's entirety. For me God is the eternal necessary aspect of being; the part of being that has always been and will always be; we are temporal products of being produced by that eternal aspect. The eternal aspect itself is a mind. We are like thoughts in that mind.

The Corollary to this idea is that being is not merely a surface level affair which can be understood by summing up the existence of individual items. As Tillich says "being has depth." the full quote goes:

Paul Tillich, The Shaking of The Foundations

"The name of infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of our being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not."

That being has depth means that belief in God is not merely adding a fact to the universe. Being is more than just surface appearance but has hidden aspects. God is the foundation and thus the depth of the depth. God is not just another thing in creation alongside a hunk of cheese or a swizzle stick. God is the basis of what it means to be. Thus we can't compare proving God's existence to that of finding an new species of animal. For this reason amputates such as those of Dawkins or Victor Stenger to set up conditions hey think are initiative of a God and then showing that other things account for it, no more disprove or summarize the odds of their being a God than disproving the existence of Bigfoot could disprove biology. Yet one still finds atheist speaking as though scinece can rule out god merely by realizing that it doesn't provide proof for God. Karl Popper tells us that scinece is not about proving things. Popper is the one philosopher of scinece who scientists actually seem to respect a lot. On this latter point see also. Yet there ar still plenty of atheists who are involved in scinece and should know better, who take this approach:

science is the only trust worthy way to know reality

science doesn't prove to us that God is real

therefore, we should assume God is not real.

Yesterday on CARM I had an exchange with one of them. Harry C is apparently or claims to be a real Zoologist who works with primates. This began as his denunciation of the validity of Philosophy. Many atheists think that since God arguments are primarily philosophical arguments then if they trash philosophy they trash the ability to prove God exists. He latter shifts his argument when it's made clear that naturism is a philosophy.Instead he tries to argue that God is not a proper object of knowledge for philosophy. He begins to imply that philosophy is ok it just can't talk about God. That is a total shift form his original position.


Originally Posted by Harry C View Post

Philosophy is a completely inappropriate method to determine the existence of any being, supreme or other.

Meta:
that's because you concept of what is being done as "determine a being" is foolish. that is not the nature of belief in God.

(1) God is not a being

(2) we don't determine his existence a though he's a bug under a microscope.

that's the whole point of this depth of being jazz. it's not adding a fact to the universe it's not like proving Bigfoot. It's coming to an understanding of the nature of being and our place in it.

It's no different then discovering zen. It's awakening to a different orientation to being.


Originally Posted by Harry C

Im a I’m a zoologist who works with gorillas. Ten or twelve years ago an expedition to the central Congo reported that they had found chimp/gorilla hybrids. The photos they took were not all that good as they couldn’t get close enough.
I would really like to know if such beings exist but no one has gotten back there since. I’d love to go but it is too dangerous and frankly I’m too old.
So tell me, if philosophy is an appropriate method to determine if beings exist or not what philosophy should I use to find out if these apes are what is claimed or not? You would save me the trouble and expense of doing the science.

the mistake you are making is in trying to make God the object of knowledge as though he's thing in the universe and you are going to go examine him. you can't treat the foundation of reality as a thing in the unites like toothpaste or a a money or some object that you can examine.

Meta:
Your statement would be like saying "I'm going to examine nature to see if it exists."

I say "but nature is all around, everything is nature."

You say "I don't see a label saying it's nature, how do you know it is? until i see nature under the microscope I can't believe in it."


Originally Posted by Harry C

And I answered you by requesting that you name a philosophy that was appropriate.

for what? no aspect of philosophy is going to tell you about the hybrid chimp. That doesn't mean that tit's not good for the questions it's designed to answer.

Meta
One that I would suggest for you is philosophy of science. You like Popper? he's a philosopher. do you like Denntte? He's doing philosophy.

Harry C

My car has a perfectly fine speedometer . The fact that it is inappropriate to use this speedometer to determine if it is raining in no way takes away from its value.

why don't you consider the way analogy backfires? you are the one trying to use the speedometer to see if it's raining. you are trying to measure Philosophy by scinece.

The fact that philosophy cannot be used to determine if a chimp/gorilla or if a God exists likewise in no way takes away from its value. You need to use appropriate methodology. In these cases a barometer for the rain and science for the apes and the God.

Meta:

Philosophy does prove God I've demonstrated this. It also warrants belief I've demonstrated that several thousand times.

stop trying to approach God as he's just another fact in the universe. look at your words?you put it right in the same sentence with the chimp. those are two totally different things.

what you are saying is like comparing finding the hybrid to finding God. that's comparing finding the hybrid to finding nature. Or finding the turth of zen.

I find it surprising that he admits some value to philosophy the way he was talking it seemed like he saw none.

Originally Posted by HRG

"The task of philosophy is not to establish the truth of propositions, but to clarify their meanings" (L. Wittgenstein). IOW, how do we distinguish "good" philosophical arguments from "bad" ones ?

Of course that's Wittgenstine, who felt embarrassed about not being taken seriously by scinece. He tired to work out an anti-philosophical philosophy that would be of use to scinece without having to embrace anything messy like metaphysics (which of cousre is a metaphysical approach to thinking) and wound up destroying all value in art, literature, philosophy, science, any kind of knowledge.

Poly

A sensible distinction is that the former make use of plausible premises and conclusions which necessarily or probably follow from those premises, whilst the latter do something else. I would have thought that this was not in need of clarification.

Originally Posted by Harry C

Then you would have already had to know which premises and which conclusion were plausible and the philosophy would only be telling you what you already know.

You are using philosophy every time you think scientifically. When you decide finding a new chimp is your job and not that of some other discipline your using codes of taxonomy that exist becuase the inverters of modern scinece were also philosophers.

Meta:
why has it not occurred to you that the reason you don't see the use of philosophy is because you haven't studied it enough or learned to use it right?

One problem is that apparently you decided the only kind of question worth asking is the that you can pin down and get a precise answer to according to your field and nothing else matters.

why would you decide that philosophy should be used in zoology? you are not even willing to consider it on it's own turf. as though your field is the only valid way to think.


Originally Posted by Harry C

We aren’t talking about “belief” we are talking about science & philosophy and what each is capable of.

"belief" is code for atheists meaning "the straw man." In reality you use belief every single day. You have belief in reductionism and naturalism and you work on the premise of that belief all the time.

You are talking about God as an inappropriate object of knowledge and what I said was that it's not the same kind of knowledge that zoology gives us.

Yes, we are all familiar with you new age who ha that the Supreme Being isn’t a being…and no one cares.

you are calling to "new age" to make fun of it, but you are totalitarian truth regime is not valid and you can't make it valid by calling my things names.

Harry C.

The scientific mythology is the only viable method to determine whether or not this God exists. That the answer we get doesn’t appeal to you is your problem.

The position they really employ is the "second rate" understanding of life. That's my name for it it means something similar to "default." "this is the best we can do, it's not good but it's the best we can do." Yet the whole reason for being the best we can do, science and naturalism and ruling out God o the premise that we can't prove it with scinece so it we can't trust it, this the true pessemistic postion lurking behind the forthress of facts. that's why I call it "second rate." They usually come on first with the proud arrogance of the fortress of facts, then settle for this second rate position when the fortress of facts has been exposed. The fortress of fact is the idea that science is fact finding and we stack up a huge pile of facts for materialism and none for God belief. Yet confronted with Poppoer's relaity that science is not about proof but disproof into the second rate position, this is the best we can do. Not even the Dawkins and Stenger kind of thinking is real. This appraoch is clearly window dressing for the second rate option. They want us to think they are ruling out the only possible avenue for God to exist by showing that God is not needed to explain the universe as we know it. When we peal back the layers of provado and realize that they merely advacing their own straw God arguemnts by second guess what God would do if he was stupid enough to things they way they would have him dot them, we see what they are really arguing is "this is the best we can do..."

The problem with the second rate appraoch is it's not the best we can do. It's the best we can do if we accept the premise that being is only surface level and the question about the existence of things in reality on the surface is the end of inquiry about existence. By "best we can do" they mean "and prove it by the methods we accept as valid and final." Yet those methods are not about proving things but disproving them. Science cannot disprove God it has no business even separation of God. God is beyond the domain of scinece. So the second rate approach is begging the question and creating a straw God argument in the first place. Trying to compare finding God to finding a new animal species is like comparing finding a single species to finding nature. If i said "science can't find nature so nature must not exist" that would be more analogous to finding God. Now the skeptic might say "that's nonsense, we know nature exists and it's all around us, everything proves nature." Well being is all around us and we are part of it, and we know it exits, things exist. So the foundation of being must exist too but you can't "find it" anymore than you can find nature. That prefectly analogus becuase I am saying God is not a thing in the world along side other things but is the basis of all things, being itself.

God is Transpersonal: My Dialouge with Dave and Kristen

Dave and Kristen are two of the long time readers of the blog who have contributed comments on and off throughout the years. In this lattest round of disaluge with the two we have piled up a huge aount of text, far too much to use more than just one passage from each. I will focus on one issue, the personal/impersonal nature of God. Dave accuses me of sneaking anthropomorphism in through the back door with the concept of "trans-personal" (God is at least personal but on a higher level) While Kristen just reverses the charge: Dave is sneaking in an impersonal God. He's not sneaking it he's making frontal assault really.

Dave said...

Yes, analogies can be over-extended, but it still leaves "believers" with the inability to claim that others just don't want to find God, which is Metacrock's basic position. And it also begs the question of how important finding God is to God if God doesn't make such communication readily available to all.

I deny that my basic position is that others just don't want to find God. How could I claim that and also claim that God is working in other cultures? My habit is probably colored by my struggles with atheists over the last thirteen years. It's primarily the kind of people I find on CARM that I'm speaking of when I say things about how they don't want God. I do have good valid social scinece behind me to assume that atheists have a negative image of God connected to their own self images. The studies of Leslie Francis is a good start toward suggesting this. There's even more fundamental research on self image and God image done before Leslie.

Dave then asserts that if God doesn't make such communication viable, whatever he means by that(?) maybe he doesn't care about it either. My argument based upon the research of William James and of Robert Wuthnow assumes that revelation is primarily at a subliminal level and that there's a continuum of religious experience that can be most subtle at a level barely more overt than a tear drop or a warm fuzzy, all the way up to the kind of visions Isaiah had. This sort of communication is there all the time. Now for some it may be manifested through meditation. We think of meditation as an active thing, something we do. It's really listening. Maybe we just need to learn the language God is using to speak to us individually? Remember the Psalm "be still and know that I am God" (46:10). The first step there is "be still." It's a matter of listening to something that is unfolding in our own consciousness. It's a realization. Not "be still and hear" it's "be still and KNOW."

Dave imagines that what I mean by that is if you sit and think about it you have to be a Christian. I think no such thing. I've said before many times that we experience this communion with God at a subliminal level and then to talk about it, since it is beyond words, we must filter it through cultural constructs. That means that the Dalai Lama and Billy Graham are both experiencing the same reality but understand it in two radically different ways. The difference is in culture not in the divine. For a fuller explanation and Biblical evidence see my essay on "Salvation and Other Faiths." Yet, this does not preclude that reality manifesting itself in the flesh as a man from Nazareth. The man form Nazareth modeled divine love for us so we can see it up close and expressed in a human way. At the same time he never said "Join my social club."

Dave:

Thus it makes much more sense to not think of God as a being with a personality and a personal will, because all the problems people have with God (from theodicy on down) stem from this image. "God wants", "God thinks", "God feels", "God wills". It's just human projection onto the divine that makes God either impotent, incompetent, incoherent, or immoral. If these personified views of God were themselves seen as over-extended analogies of the divine, God would have no qualities of planned action or volition except as realized in sentient beings.

I've said in the past that I don't use the term "personal" as it complicates the issues by dragging personality into it. This is hinting at the nature of trans-personal. Personality implies personal hang ups. In psychology personality theory is about what's wrong with people. That casts God in the role of big man in the sky and reduces him to human dimensions. So don't disagree with Dave here except in two ways: (1) there's a distinction between "personal" and conscious; (2) there's a distinction between willfull will or arbitrariness, and purpose. We speak of the will of God that's party an attempt to communicate the grandeur of the monarchical model of God's presence. Yet that is just a metaphor. If God was literally a king it would be a great come down from "that which nothing greater than can be conceived." Consciousness can be other directed and has to do with awareness; yet it does include self awareness. If God can distinguish between himself and us then he has a will different from our own. Purpose is not reduced to mere "will" becuase will can be stubborn and arbitrary and petulant, but purpose can be elevated and eligant and unselfish.
Dave:

If "God" is instead a reaction to a recognition or realization or perception of some more inclusive and profound aspect of reality, that is, a cultural construct or image to capture the reaction to this new orientation to existence, then these other problems are avoided. God really does go beyond human language and categories of "personal" and "impersonal". Unlike mere claims that God is beyond these things which then turn around and try to sneak this anthropomorphic, personified "God" in through the back door: "Oh, God is beyond human categories and labels, but God wills this and God does that."

Here I think Dave is trying to herd all consciousness phenomena under the same rue-brick. He's not distinguishing between cultural constructs and consciousness itself. Nor is he being fair about the concessions we have to make to our own corporeal nature, or that God would have to make for us to understanding something. We can escape the need to understand and communicate by just falling in too silence and having mystical union. That's more than merely communicating, ti's communing. Yet we are still sentient beings, we are still social beings, we have to talk about it. We should put the "personal" in trans-personal. We have to deal with God through the construct or ewe can't talk about "him" at all. We can only related to things that can be said in words. All thinking is words, all words are culture. Everything that we can put into words is a cultural construct. That means even mathematics is such as this. I don't think Dave would suggest that doing mathematics si sneaking anthropomorphism in through he back door.

Then of course there is the concept of Godprophorphism. Can't some aspect of our consciousness and awareness be the image of God we think we are made in? That's not a real word by the way, that "Godpromorphism." If real term in Christina context is Imago Dei. I see not reason to exclude totally the Imago dei from an understanding of God. Both major types of musical experience are constant throughout all cultures and faiths. There is the sense of the numinous. This includes the Idea of the Holy and the all pervasive sense of love. Even eastern mystics go through a stage where they experience love and Bhuddists make a big deal out of the compassion of the Bhudda. No doubt they don't build it up the way we do as the expression of a personal God. Yet it's hard to see how love can exist apart form a mind or a consciousness or a purpose. The purpose of love is the will to the good of the other, definition of agape. So love very much involves purpose. There is also the the mysticism proper where one senses the undifferentiatd unity of all things. That's what westerners emphasize most in the east. That tends to be impersonal and to see like a void. Yet both are experienced by the same mystics all over the world. That is an absolute contradiction unless we realize that ni the trans-personal we have "personality plus," rather, getting away form personalty, consciousnesses and purpose and univeral mind (so that god is in all our minds--but not directing our thinking all the time) and yet behind all of that. God is conscious and beyond consciousness. This love is in God and he can relate to us (slumming) but he can also transcend our level and be totally beyond anything we can know. I can play with my cat, Vincent. Oddly enough he actually seem to understand the difference in a book (which he has not torn up yet) and a scarp of paper which he loves to tear up. Even though he has not torn up a book (if he touches one Legion of Superheroes out he goes) he's nto much a dialogue partner, he never discusses Tillich with me. The dog Arnie he wa a great dialogue partner. Everything I said about Tillich he agreed with and licked my face to prove it.

Dave:

Lastly, some scholars suggest that belief in an afterlife and in resurrection became popular in Judaism after the Babylonian captivity because it was clear that the righteous weren't receiving justice in this life. Hence a new life was needed to settle accounts. But even in the time Jesus taught, as I am sure folks who read this blog know, there were still many in Judaism who did not believe in an afterlife.

I try to live in an eternal now. I relate the present moment to eternity. Now is what matters but now has a place in relation to forever.

Dave:

Even among those who favor some notion of an afterlife in the Judeo-Christian tradition, before the whole "this world is nothing only the next world counts" attitude became common among some Christians, it was (and in many cases still is) very important not to make too much over such distinctions. As one monk said, what matters isn't whether you live in the next world but whether you are alive in this one.

That attitude is an ancient part of historic Christianity. We can trace it back to the 300s and St. Anthony the first monk in Egypt. I think i'ts a hold over from Gnosticism.

Dave:

And to to some extent that is important even for those centered on the "next life". That is, either one must come to know God in "this life" to have an afterlife (or one without torture) or one actually comes to know that there is no afterlife per se, simply finding the true depth of life within this temporary bodily experience.

Anything we say about this is pure speculation, that goes as much for eastern models as Western. I invision it in a number of differnt ways. I hope it's a replay of my childhood but I doubt it. I think it may feel that way. Who cares? that can't be anything more than speculation. I envision a sort of eastern Nervonic unity with Christ in God.

Dave:

Even those who favor the "this life"/"afterlife" scenario without hell or eternal damnation recognize the value and importance of what people learn and how much they grow and mature in "this life". So claims that everyone will come to know God, even if it isn't in this life, ring hollow. It sounds just like the claims of those who needed to believe in divine justice by believing in an afterlife or resurrection so that they could maintain a view of God consistent with their pre-established beliefs.

We need to be careful not to mistake our own sense of disillusionment with eastern maturity. We can talk about what others "need to believe" that's a way of hiding what we need to believe. I don't necessarily agree with the universalist senerio that everyone will believe and be saved. Yet I don't see why it would ring hallow?

Dave:

Again, if "God" is just a personified construct of some deeper experience of consciousness and if consciousness is the ground of being, then all of these rationalizations and theological assertions about why God would or wouldn't do X, Y, Z become moot along with much of the distinction between "this life" and an "after life".

Why rationalizations? He seems to just be condemning the "known" end of the spectrum of analogical language. All religious language is analogical. Does he think the east get's it literally right and we are the only one's with a metaphor? The Buddhists are literaizing the metaphors too. They hav etheir fundies. If you think not you should hear Sakai Goki devotees talk about eh Hinayana style of Buddhism. We have endless string of metaphors that lead inexorably close and closer to the literal truth of God and yet never get there. We can't go thinking that we are so much closer than the others just becasue your metaphors are different. We can't stop using the metaphors because that's what we have to navigate by. That's why they are there so we can relate to something we know.


I meant to deal with Kriesten's statements but I'll have to do that next time.

Answering Atheist Divide and Conquor: Why so Many Different Views of God?

I find atheists making htis mistake all the time, willfully. They base a strategy on it. They try to divide differing religious views so it looks like they are not 3% of humanity trying to dictate to 90% what they can believe, but dividing and conquering they reduce the 90% to the nearest and most objectionable 10% of fundamentalism. They treat any difference in views of God, however trivial, as a belief in a totally different God.

This is in response to a post on CARM by "Lance." Part of what he says is this:

This is quite damning for organized religion, though, since it's very very rare that the lay man religious folk makes any attempt to defining or clarifying their concept of God. Why would we even consider two people who believe in "God" to be of the same religion, merely because they've named their beetles by the same word?

This is merely arguing from ignoarnce. It's a dedicated refusal to examine the basic concepts that animate almost all religious belief around the world and to impose upon them a phony sense of rigor that they neither need nor illicit. That is to say that is totally uncalled for and is antithetical to what religious belief is about. The concept of God is standard and unified through religious belief. The same reality of the divine stands behind all religions. The problem is God is beyond our understanding. Religious doctrines are merely verbalization of a particular form of religious experience known as "the feeling of utter dependence" (Schleiermacher). Since we can't know about God directly we fill in the gaps. Most of those fill-ins are based upon cultural constructs. We experience God at a non verbal level and to talk about it we filter the experience through cultural constructs. It's the culture that makes religions different form each other, and makes views of God different. Yes I am saying that even people who don't believe in God experience God as some level, however slight, they don't pay attention. That is not far form what William James said about levels of experience.

crash course in the nature of comparative religion:

all religion is about three things:

(1) identifying the "human problematic" the problem at the heart of being human;

(2) resolving the problematic by means of ultimate transformational experience (UTE) and;

(3) medicating between the two with some form of ceremony or consciousness raising devise.

To that extent anything that a religious tradition identifies as the object of UTE is a prori the object of the tradition. That is to say the Transcendental signified; the thing at the top of the metaphsyical hierarchy that defines all meaning and makes things what they are.

The UTE is in relation to the TS. TS brings the UTE. That means that whatever does this is a prori God. "God" is the short hand term for this function.


Basic assumption:

We experience God at the subliminal level, beyond words. This is a prelude to the transfomative state. So we can't speak of it directly because it's beyond words. To speak of it we load the experience into constructs. The constructs in our minds come to us form culture. So we filter God experience through culture. It's the cultural elements that makes religions different. This is also what makes it hard to make different concepts of God stack up. There constants.

(1) Creator

the most basic constant is that of creator.

(2) Transcendental Signifier

the term "God" is used to mark the transcendental signified. that is to say the thing at the top of the metaphysical hierarchy. This is true for all religions. the thing at the top can be correlated to that religions understanding of God. Even in religions where there is no clear God concept per say, Buddhism or Vedanta, there is a TS.


(3) eternal

All religions have an eternal God. due to problem of English language there are some that have little g "gods." These would be the Olympian gods in Greek myth (also nature gods such as Pan as well as Titans). they all have one big creator God who is at the top of the metaphysical hierarchy. What the NT calls "'O theos." We could replace the term "God" with 'O Theos and be saying the same thing. (pronounced "haw Th-ae-os" with hard a in the middle). rough breathing mark at the beging has H sound.

(4) Being itself.

All religions correlate in some way their object of ultimate concern, with being itself. In Buddhism the notion of Buddha mind is correlated--Tillich himself says this.

All of these corrolations of different religions with 'O Theos can be understood easily by looking at their concept of the top of the metaphsyical hierarchy functionally.

Lance's comments about my ideas

It' plainly obvious that there is no one conception of "God" that is held by most Christians.

again why should there be? Anything that is beyond our understanding is going to veg and interpretations will vary. The constants are all there they can all be accessed functionally. Look for what that group thinks created all things and makes all things what they are, defines all truth and stands at the top of any metaphysical hierarchy.

Lance Kierkegaard would tell you that you are the man regarding the wig rather than the man.If you don't know that story it's just that simple, you are looking at the trappings rather than the person.

Consider how different Metacrock's 'ground of being' is to a fundamentalist Christian's big man in the sky. Or a God that loves everyone, and a God that loves only a few.

That is just a difference in sophistication. For both of us God created all things and makes all things what they are and determines the nature of right and wrong, is the origin and source of love, meaning and truth. No fundies will ever deny those things.

Remember what I said about the M scale. when you take the words out the experience are all the same.

A God which is so powerful he can bring about contradictions, and a God who's so powerless he must use human actions to guide history.

I agree with fundies that God is powerful enough to guide history, and probalby is in some sense. Although I'll let you know after the elections if I still agree.

Fundies believe that God can do logical contradictions that doesn't prove that the Christian tradition says that. You are trying to base your understanding of the tradition upon its' most ignorant representatives. that really makes your argument a straw man. That's really the old atheist move of the atheist straw God argument.

There are some who's beliefs, upon analysis, turn out to be practically atheistic; like someone who believes God is everything or everyone. What is the difference between the atheist who says there is no god, and the theist who says their god is everything there is? Clearly the difference between the two is how comfortable one is in having an object of worship, but not one of any metaphysical nature.

you are trying to create a theological norm that favors your debunking rather than trying to understand the true nature of theological norms. You figure if some ignorant group think god has a mustache then any hint that he doesn't means they have a different God in mind. That's just trying to create a theological institution where there is none. who says those are the issues that determine the difference between a doctrine and some idiot's misunderstanding?

If you try to write an authoritative definition of science you find there is none. They all differ and some of them can take one into opening up philosophical fissures that question the very nature of science. I don't know if you understand Derrida or not. You are basically employing the first step in Derridian deconstruction and it can be used to disentangle and undo all verbal connections. So any idea even the most solid seeming can be deconstruct i this way.

The basic mistake you are making is that you are not looking for the connections. you are looking for differences only and you assume that any difference at all will unravel the whole concept. with that approach you can destroy scinece and mathematics and everything. Anything that can be put into words can be decontrolled and that's all your doing.

Language is metaphorical. all language is metaphorical. Without making the connections in unspoken and tacitly known and implied ways on can deconstruct anything that can be put into words. As long as the basic aspects are met for the primary qualities, the attributes of God that mark God as uniquely God, then we are talking about God. This is becuase they can't be shared by any other. As with Spinoza's noting of the triangle, any triangle shape is a reference to the actual shape. Multiple representations of the triangle are not different competing shapes, they are all references to the same ideal shape. A trangle on a black board, the thing you rack up the pool balls with, reference to two people competing for the love of a third person, all references tot he same shape, they are different shapes competing to exist each other.

Are We all Atheists?

There is an argument one hears atheists make quite often. It's stated as well as any by a poster on Atheist Watch:

"Jake" a poster on Atheist Watch

we are all atheists of some form. Christians are hindu atheists, Hindus are Muslim atheists, and I am an everything atheist. We all know what it is like to no believe in a certain doctrine, so the fact that we are not all born as omnireligious or polyreligious nutbags, suggests that belief is part of the indoctrination process.

The problem with this argument is two-fold: (1) it uses not the modern ideological definiton of atheists which internet atheists will always use religiously (lack of belief), but the old first century pre modern definition that was used of Christians in the beginning, those who fail to acknowledged the right gods. (2) The second problem is that the basic assumption it makes demonstrates a real lack of understanding about the nature of belief in God. I say this because it seems to me that the original statement comes out of an assumption that belief in God is about choosing between a host of little personalities. God is a big man in the sky and all beliefs about God revolve around which big man is up there; is it Zeus? Jehovah,, Juptier, Brahamin, or whomever?

This is not the basis of belief in God. Belief in God is not about choosing between a host of little personalities. All of those personalities are merely place holders, they designate something beyond of all them. God is the ground of being, the basis of all reality, there can't be two of them. It's not a context between little personality figures, those are merely place holder that point to the one true reality beyond all of them. Individual personality gods are merely personifications of concepts, all the concepts pertain to the same basic idea. The only real questions are two fold:

(1) What does God want?
(2) which tradition best mediates relationship with the divine?

The second question assumes that the first question is answered by some notion of unity with the divine.

A Hindu is not an atheist to a Christian. I don't think of Hindus as atheists, I think of atheists as atheists I think of Hindus as people with a different understanding of what God wants. That's a pretty good give away that the atheist argument is wrong, because if I don't see Hindus as atheists then they probably don't see me as one either. Of course atheists resist this kind of understanding about it because they are losing several rhetorical helps at this point. First, they are always looking for ways to bolster their numbers and this allows them the illusion that everyone is an atheist and thus their position is really dominate after all, it's just a matter of realizing it. Secondly, it allows them to play divide and conquer agaisnt religious people, which they are always doing. They try to leverage one religion against them all on the pretext that since we can't prove one is true and all others false then one can be true.

When we point out that all can be true in some sense, as I show above, they go to pieces. That is one approach they can't handle, that accounts for the atheist viciousness to all of my theological positions. They focus upon the minutia of a religious tradition, ceremonies, and formalities, theology, and ignore the experience of the living presence of God that individuals experience, which is the same all over the world.

Hand in hand with this argument that we all born atheists because we are born without belief. That in itself is begging the question. There are lots of reasons to supposes that we have an intuitive sense of God and we are born with it. I present a lot of data in my argument on religious instinct and demonstrate the position in many ways, from the dawn of per-human history to genetic evidence.

The argument actually says that the fact of a religious species is far too coincidental to be merely the product of random chance. Why why would it be that we are fit to be religious, that it is our instinct and our way of life? That would indicate that an object of religious devotion designed religiosity into humans. In summation the following factors indicate that religiosity is part of human nature:

a) Historical Tendency:

The vast Majority of Humans have been religious as far back as we have evidence of humanity (50,000 years) [see above A. 3]

b) Believers have always been vast numerical majority

That is not appeal to popularity, it's an argument about behavior which indicates an innate condition. Almost 90% currently of world population are rleigious believers in some sense.

c) Trans cultural

When anthropologists see a behavior that transcends culture they assume it is innate. There has never been a culture that was atheistic. Every culture we have ever seen or found traces of on earth going back as far as we can has been religious in some way.

Even in cultures such as China where the government attempted irradiation of religious belief there are still 51% religious and many more undecided but not "anti-"religious

d) Physical fitness for religion

Our bodies work better when we are religious, it is the major factor in health and far more of a motivator than any other trigger of the Placebo effect [see above C.3]

e) Archetypes Universal

Archetypes are natural part of the human psyche (see the next argument). Also see Jesus Chrsit and Mythology page II. Archetypes are psychological symbols which point to transcendent ideal beyond the material realm. Studies show that they are natural to all people and emerge under a broad variety of psychological techniques.Maslow says that they are found among all people using ever technqiue of psychoanalysis. [above B.3]

f) Psychologically fit for religion

Psychological factors, relgious believers have far less depression and incidence of mental illness so the human mind works best when religious. [above C]

g) Transformative power

IF the appeal of the argument were merely popularity, it would not turn on things other than popularity. Obviously these reasons I'm giving here are not popularity. But, the transformative power of religious experience is another aspect of the argument which proves that it' not merely an appeal to popularity. Religious experience transforms lives, it gives people life affirming experiences which makes them better as people and makes life worth living. Not all psychological factors are capable of doing that. We are so constituted as a species that we respond to these experiences in such a way that they do transform our lives. That proves that we are fit to be religious, and that is not an appeal to popularity.[see also point C above on psychological normality and self actualization]

h) brain wave patterns

Brain wave patterns are changed by religious experience. We go from Alpha waves to Beta and to other levels of Brain wave patterns when we have these experiences.

i) "God pod" (God module in the brain)

Scientists have identified a cluster of neurons in the brain which, when stemulated, produce feelings 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.

j) Sense of the Numinous universal

the studies I've talked about intently have demonstrated that around the world mystics experince the same phenomena in the presence of God inspite of the doctrine of their traditions.

Moreover, infants should not be counted as believers in any sense. We should hold the title of "believer" in abundance for infants and young children. No one is born with an intellectual theological thesis or is capable of stating a systematic belief. But most people come closer to having innate beliefs in God than to being without of any kind of belief.

ask God to prove himself to me.

the atheist concept of Revelation

On CARM (atheist message board) Vladimir posts:

Could I request something from any believers here, who have a good relationship with God and who regularly pray to God for guidance and direction and who hear God's voice (no matter how subtle)?

Next time that you pray, could you ask God to tell any of the non-believers here something profound?

A message from God himself for the non-believers here would be appreciated.

I'm being serious. Not joking.

I'm sure this sounds perfectly reasonable to many atheists. It's like a scientific test, what better way to prove that no one is "up there answering prayers?" There are some problems with approach. The irony is I remember an atheist on CARM who had as a signature some quote about "if God revealed himself to me I would not believe my senses." So he's saying een if God revealed himself I wouldn't believe is. So why ask? I know all atheists aren't saying that, but at least for that one guy it's a real pretense to ask questions like this.

The major problem is it's a means of circumventing the search in the heart that God has designed belief to be. The search is real imporant becuase it enables us to interlace the values of the good. If God did force his presence upon the world in such a way that no one could doubt many would resent it. the more lib service they felt forced to give the more deeply they would resent it. But those who seek for the truth and find in a leap of faith have a personal commitment of love. It's that existential aspect that people most fear, and this is most necessary to the search; the point whereon realizes the nature of ones own being is that of content upon God. That's the moment of truth, the only choices are get "real" with God in your heart (repent and change) or reject the whole thing and live in pretense telling yourself "i'm a smart tough cool skeptic."

Meta:

the evidence is he communicated with us. your evidence that he doesn't is just that you haven't open enough to receive it. that is not a disproof. your narrow mindedness is not a disproof of God.

Originally Posted by A Hermit

Then you have no reason to expect anyone else to believe, do you?

I never said I EXPECT anyone to believe me. I expect people to listen and think about my reasons but so atheist ever do.

META:

Those are a rather different order of belief though; I have a mother and brothers and went to school too; on the other hand you're telling me that the almighty, all loving creator of the universe chooses to talk to you, but not to me; or on the other hand that I'm too stupid/ignorant/selfish/small minded/evil/not fully human enough to measure up to your standards when it comes to appreciating the depth and beauty of life because I don't choose to embrace you language for it.

"talk" here is metaphor right? I didn't say God wont communicate with you. You are decided to ignore and pretend it's unreal the communication that he did do and to close off the possibly of future communication. that's your deal.



Yes you do or you wouldn't work so hard at convincing me and others, or react so strongly to something as innocuous as my last comment...



I'm not out to destroy or damn anyone or anything; just to suggest an alternative point of view. Why does that make you so angry?

Originally Posted by Electric Skeptic

God is (supposedly) omnipotent. If he tried to communicate to anyone, he would do so. Claims that he tries but fails mean that he is not omnipotent.

If you believe God to be not omnipotent, fine. If you do not, you are contradicting yourself.

No, you do not prove God at all.

Meta:

I have discussed in the past the problem with the concept of omnipotence and how it's an anti quested concept. that's become your excuse. the one thing God requires you to do is the one thing you refuse to do.

becuase you refuse to do it your big excuse is "it's God's fault I rejected him because he didn't make it so overwhelming enough I couldn't deny it."

that's an excuse. that's not searching.

"you don't prove God at all!" can't you see what an excuse that is? I say over and over again. Its' not about proof, can't prove it because God is beyond understanding. the battle is in the heart. you have to search in your heart and when God reveals himself that's where he iwll do it."

your answer to all that is "but he didn't do it MY WAY so I'm absolved of all responsibility!"

as long as you refuse to repent and seek God in the heart! there ant gonna be no revelation.

why should the king existence surrender to your terms? YOU surrender! you take his terms!

The Atheist Charge of "a smoking gun"

This is all predicated upon a post by person on CARM message board:

Vladimir:

"Mark 16:8 is a smoking gun.

Mark 16:8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. [B]They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.[/B]

Mark's gospel, written at least two decades after the supposed resurrection explains why none heard of the resurrection of Jesus. That's because the women told nothing to anyone.

The idea of a smoking gun, that you are going to find some passage that reveals a secret hint about the events and disproves the gospel is foolish. The versions we have are the not the first version of the Gospels ever written. Any "smoking gun" is probalby redacted in and not part of the original story. There's no way to prove it is or not. I have demonstrated many times that modern scholars, such as Helmutt Koester, John Dominick Cross, and others do no hold to the idea that the Gospels were written for the first time by Mark. For a long time, well back before the 20th century scholars assumed that the Gospels were circulated first as oral tradition. Now we know that the Gospels we have as canonical were not even the first versions in writing.

My essay on Gospel behind the Gospels demonstrates a wealth of material documenting scholarly evidence of this fact. My essay on historical validity of the Gospels shows at least eight different levels of trajectories of transmission through which the material reached the communities that produced the canonicals. The four canonical gospels and Peter all use that original work. Each one organizes it along with other materials. Each one leaves out and emphasizes different things.

We can't assume Mark writes the accurate first version and all the others degenerate form Mark. Matt may be more accurate than Mark because he may combine Mark with better primary sources. All of the gospel communities (communities that produced the gospels) drew upon their own eye witnesses so they are all accurate. likewise they are all mixed up.

There are smoking guns that prove the Gospel story but they don't turn on proving the literal nature of some event. For example the fact that Paul alludes to materials in the Gospels that weren't even written when he wrote any of his epistles is a dead give away that the material was circulating before Mark wrote his Gospels. That takes the resurrection accounts back to mid first century. That's withyin the life span of eye witnesses.


Paul's use of Jesus' teachings indicates that he probably worked from his own saying source which contained at least aspects of Q. That indicates wide connection with the Jerusalem chruch and the proto "Orthodox" faith.

Parable of Sower	1 Corinthians 3:6	Matt.
Stumbling Stone	Romans 9: 33	Jer 8:14/Synoptics
Ruling against divorce	1 cor 7:10	Mark 10:11
Support for Apostles	1 Cor 9:14	Q /Luke 10:7
Institution of Lord's Supper	1 Cor 11:23-26	Mark 14
command concerning prophets	1Cor 14:37	Synoptic
Apocalyptic saying	1 Thes. 4:15	21
Blessing of the Persecuted	Romans 12:14	Q/Luke 6:27
Not repaying evil with evil	Romans 12:17 and I Thes 5:15	Mark 12:12-17
Paying Taxes to authorities	Romans 13:7	Mark 9:42
No Stumbling Block	Romans 14:13	Mark 9:42
Nothing is unclean	Romans 14:14	Mark 7:15
Thief in the Night	1 Thes 5:2	Q/ Luke 12:39
Peace among yourselves	1 Thes	Mark 9:50
Have peace with Everyone	Romans 12:18	Mar 9:50
Do not judge	Romans 13: 10	Q /Luke 6:37

The Jesus Narrative



Paul's allusions to the narrative relates to many points in the Gospels:

He was flesh and blood	(Phil 2:6, 1 Tim 3:16)
Born from the lineage of David	(Rom 1:3-4, 2 Tim 2:8)
Jesus' baptism is implied	(Rom 10:9)
The last supper	(1 Cor 11:23ff)
Confessed his Messiahship before Pilate	(1 Tim 6:13)
Died for peoples' sins	(Rom 4:25, 1 Tim 2:6)
He was killed	(1 Cor 15:3, Phil 2:8)
Christ Crucified	(1 Cor. 2:2)
Buried	(1 Cor 15:4)
Empty tomb is implied	(1 Cor 15:4)
Jesus was raised from the dead	(2 Tim 2:8)

Resurrected Jesus appeared to people	(1 Cor 15:4ff)
James, a former skeptics, witnessed this	(1 Cor 15:7)
as did Paul	(1 Cor 15:8-9)
This was reported at an early date	(1 Cor 15:4-8)
He asceded to heaven, glorified and exalted	(1 Tim 3:16, Phil 2:6f)
Disciples were transformed by this	(1 Tim 3:16)
Disciples made the Gospel center of preaching	(1 Cor 15:1-4)
Resurrection was chief validation of message	(Rom 1:3-4, Rom 10:9-10)
Called Son of God	(Rom 1:3-4)
Called Lord	(Rom 1:4, Rom 10:9, Phil 2:11)
Called God	(Phil 2:6)
Called Christ or Messiah	(Rom 1:4, Phil 2:11

In terms of the particular smoking gun talked about above, the brevity of Mark's ending and the assertion that Mark's Gospel was written so long after and this accounts for why we don't hear of the resurrection before. That's based upon a lot of false assumptions. First of all there's a great deal of evidence that the story circularizing before Mark was written. Not only due to the allusions in Paul Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, and other material that illustrates this. See the links above. Other problems:

(1) We don't have must evidence for the first century for anything. There is not much servicing form that century. Its' not realizatic to expect to find something talking about a belief that probalby circulated among the lower illiterate levels of society.

(2) The ending of mark was lost. the bit we have that is being quoted is just where the lost ending starts. We don't know what Mark said the women did. In fact there are several different endings used at different times.

Mark 16:9-20 has been called a later addition to the Gospel of Mark by most New Testament scholars in the past century. The main reason for doubting the authenticity of the ending is that it does not appear in some of the oldest existing witnesses, and it is reported to be absent from many others in ancient times by early writers of the Church. Moreover, the ending has some stylistic features which also suggest that it came from another hand. The Gospel is obviously incomplete without these verses, and so most scholars believe that the final leaf of the original manuscript was lost, and that the ending which appears in English versions today (verses 9-20) was supplied during the second century. Below are some excerpts from various scholarly sources that conclude that the verses are a later addition.

Does God's Trnascendent Nature Prevent Us From Understanding Anything AT All About God?

On the blog article I wrote: "demand for evidence of God unfair and misplaced"
the blog piece itself.

StewPiD MoNkEy had some questions for the comment section:

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Metacroc,
Hello again. Had to have a name change due to copy right laws. But any way, there is a slight problem with your logic. You say, "God is beyond our understanding." In the third paragraph yet later you go on to say, "God wants the search". Which one is it? Since you are bringing up epistemology, this question is directly towards the subject. If your God is "beyond you understanding", then how can u state what he/it wants? The whole concept of being in gods mind directly states that he is non material (how you get to a mind that does not have a brain based in matter is another story). Since by your standards he is non material there is no seperating what he is from that he is. If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable. So to claim to know anything about your God, i. e. He wants u to search, is to claim knowledge of the unknowable. This negates its unknowable status. If its known then your God should be quantifiable. How do you reconcile this glaring contradiction?

Let's break it down:

"God is beyond our understanding." In the third paragraph yet later you go on to say, "God wants the search". Which one is it?

Both. God does not ask us to understand him, he asks us to seek and find him. What we are finding is a personal relationship with the source of our being and our place in being. We can know experimentally things we don't understand intellectually. I don't know that much about how a tv works, how my computer works, even how the lights work, other than the average amount of surface knowledge that most people possess. Yet I use all of these things. In terms of relationship I know and like or love various people who do I don't understand psychologically. Of cousre there is a certain degree of understanding that comes from experiencing the reality of a person or of God. In terms of God experience that is called the "noetic quality" of religious experience. That's not really what is being talked about when we say God is beyond our understanding. noetic qualtiies are part of the sense of hte numinous which is basic aspect of religious experience. That's the sense people get that the experience of the divine imparts some of kind of knowledge. It's not scientific or intellectual knowledge. The sort of thing one gains from the noetic aspects of religoius experience is the intuitive sense that life has meaning and that God loves us.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Since you are bringing up epistemology, this question is directly towards the subject. If your God is "beyond you understanding", then how can u state what he/it wants?

He can tell us. The noetic qulaities also impart a degree of knowledge of this sort. We know form the sense of love that comes with the sense of the numinous that God wants to have a love relationship with us. In addition to this, in the Christian tradition, we believe that Jesus was modeling God's character for us and Jesus tells us this.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

The whole concept of being in gods mind directly states that he is non material (how you get to a mind that does not have a brain based in matter is another story).

Not necessarily. I have things in my mind and I'm material. Yet I accept that God is not material. In fact I suggest that the divide bewteen material and spiritual is illusory. In my view, taking my ques form German philosophers, spirit is mind. In fact while most people focus on the definition of the Greek term for spirit, pnuma, as "wind" or "breath" most overlook the fact that "mind" is also part of the definition. In fact matter breaks down as well. Matter is energy, and mind is energy. There may be a point at which the two meet. We don't really know what energy is. If you look at the things science says about it, energy is made up of sub atomic particles. What are particles? They are not little balls like the models of atoms suggest, they are "charges." So atoms and subatomic particls are made up of little bitty atoms, so to speak. They are all charges and those charges are made up of more charges. If we ask "what is a charge" the answer really in literal is "more charges." Matter is just a different form of energy and it's not all that clear what energy is. If reductinoists are right and mind is just an organized matrix of electrical charge than it seems that mind and energy are really pretty much the same substance. That suggests that matter and spirit meet at a certain conjunction.


StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

Since by your standards he is non material there is no seperating what he is from that he is.

That's a tautological statement and it's true of everything.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

If one aspect of your God is unknowable, then all aspects are unknowable.

Conclusion not in evidence. It's also contradicted by any number of empirical instances. For example if I don't know what the submerge part of an ice berg holds that doesn't mean that I don't understand the part that's above water. If I don't know what caused the big bang that doesn't mean I don't undersatnd certain aspects of the expansion. If I don't know some details of a friend's past I can still have a basic understanding of that friend's psychological make up.

StEwPiD_MoNkEy said...

So to claim to know anything about your God, i. e. He wants u to search, is to claim knowledge of the unknowable. This negates its unknowable status. If its known then your God should be quantifiable. How do you reconcile this glaring contradiction?

At this point you are just making a pedantic error. Once its' been explained to you the different senses in which the terms are used (such as "to know" fore example) it should be clear two different senses are involved. The Eastern Orthodox chruch makes the distinction between the unknowable nature of God through conventional means, and the personal or spiritual recourse to experiential knowledge of God. This distinction is preserved in apaphatic theology, the practice of only say what God is not, and that of mystical union where one understands through experience but speaks metahoricallly about it.

Eastern Orthodox Church. Timothy Ware wrote a fine book, The Orthodox Church that does a good job of introducing Western Christians to the Eastern Church.[1]

Ware explains the great schism and how the gulf between east and west continued to grow. He wants to explain the ways in which the east contributed to the gulf. He says that nothing was so radical as the scholastic “revolution” but he lists as the eastern counterpart the Hesychast controversy (pg2). 14^th century Byzantium. This involved God’s nature and the method of prayer. To explain the controversy he goes back to history of eastern mystical theology, back to Clement of Alexandria (early third century) and Origen (mid 3d). The Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa and also Evagrius, a monk in the Egyptian desert (d399) developed the ideas of Clement and Origen. This entire tradition depended upon an apophatic approach, especially as developed by Clement and Gregory. God is beyond our understanding. We cannot speak accurately about God because we can’t understand God and we don’t know if our experiences of God are so very encompassing or just fragmentary. Therefore, the mystics of the Eastern Church use negative language of God rather than positive. That is to say they concern themselves with what God is not, rather than what God is.[i2] (63)

“The true knowledge and vision of God consists in this—in seeing that he is invisible, because what we seek lies beyond all knowledge, being wholly separated by the darkness of incomprehensibility.” –Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 11, 163 (377A).

The Height of Negative theology is reached in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. (unknown writer lived in Syria toward the end of the fifth century). Saint Maximus the Confessor (662) compassed a commentary on these writings and assured their place in the Eastern Church. [3]

He is also an influence on the west, as Ware points out, as Aquinas quotes him heavily in Summa Theologica. The concept of God as Being itself is ratified by Vatican II and is a major premise of modern Catholic doctrine.[4]

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[1] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, New York: Penguin books, 1963 (1993 edition).

[2] Ibid. 63

[3] Ibid. quotes John of Damascus from On the Orthodox Faith 1,4 (P.G. Xciv, 800b

[4] Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Thomas A. Carlson Trans. 1991 (original language publication 1982). xxii.