The Original Christian Concept of the Supernatural

For years I've been arguing that the modern world has hold of the wrong concept of the supernatural (SN). The concept of the supernatural that atheists love to mock and ridicule and that people think modern scinece disproves is the highjack version that came about in the enlightenment as a result of pressures from both philosophes and Calvinists. In this paper I more adequately explore the nature of the original Christian version of the Supernatural.

Secular thinking writes SN out of reality as primitive and superstition and unscientific. They justify this by pointing to the ability of science to amass a huge fortress of facts while no facts can be found that prove the existence of a Supernatural realm or any Supernatural events. Yet the problem is that the original concept of the SN was about a set of experiences that are empirical and that have easily documented to exist and to have effects that make them unique.

The supernatural is the tendency of divine encounter to raise human nature to a higher level (which means human consciousness). This means the scientific fortress of facts is a house cards because it’s self selected and ideological motivated. The object of opposition for this fortress of facts is a counterfeit and false premise. The actual supernatural is empirically documented to exist.

Therefore, secular skepticism is ideological and not scientific, it uses the mystique of science to interject its’ own metaphysical assumptions while triumphing over the assumption of a straw man argument. One of the major aspects of the atheist ideology, even though it plays off of historical developments stemming form Christian thought, is the distorted concept of the supernatural and the war atheist wage against what really amounts to a straw man. The new atheism makes “the supernatural” into a construct that bares the brunt of all their criticism about the unscientific and un-provable nature of religious belief. Atheists expositors have constructed their own ideas of what “supernatural” means and then use that to attack the concepts of religion which they fill into it. For a popular understanding of what supernatural is constructed into by atheists we can turn to Austin Cline, blogger and atheist talking head:

Belief in the supernatural, especially gods, is one of the most obvious characteristics of religion. It's so common, in fact, that some people mistake mere theism for religion itself, yet that is incorrect. Theism can occur outside of religion and some religions are atheistic. Despite this, supernatural beliefs are a common and fundamental aspect to most religions, while the existence of supernatural beings is almost never stipulated in non-religious belief systems.

According to supernaturalism, a supernatural order is the original and fundamental source of all that exists. It is this supernatural order which defines the limits of what may be known. Something that is supernatural is above, beyond, or transcendent to the natural world — it is not a part of or dependent upon nature or any natural laws. The supernatural is also commonly conceived of as being better, higher, or more pure than the mundane, natural world around us.[1]

No religions are atheistic. Calling Buddhism “atheistic” is a trick of atheist on message boards who try to bolster the numbers of atheist in the world. That is not reason to associate Buddhism with Dawkins and his cronies. He’s got the idea that Supernatural is an overlay or a superstructure which determines the nature of reality; he apparently sees it as a realm beyond. We will see that this is only half right. While Superanture is the ground and end of the natural, it is also I the natural it’s not necessarily only transcendent of it and it’s not a realm. It’s not a world beyond this world. Christianity has posited the idea of worlds beyond worlds that doesn’t make them the supernatural.

Richard Dawkins writes about quasi religious experiences of scientists and an extrovertive mystical experience of a Priest who was once one of his teachers, he then builds upon this in undertaking to explain the nature of religion:

Much unfortunate misunderstanding is caused by failure to distinguish what might be called Einsteinian religion from supernatural religion. The last words of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, "For then we should know the mind of God", are notoriously misunderstood. Ursula Goodenough's The Sacred Depths of Nature clearly shows that she is just as much of an atheist as I am. Yet she goes to church regularly, and there are numerous passages in her book which seem to be almost begging to be taken out of context and used as ammunition for supernaturalist religion. The present Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, goes to church as an 'unbelieving Anglican', 'out of loyalty to the tribe'. He does not have any supernatural beliefs, but shares exactly the sense of wonder which the universe provokes in the other scientists I have mentioned. There are many intellectual atheists who proudly call themselves Jews, and observe Jewish rites, mostly out of loyalty to an ancient tradition but also because of a confusing (in my view) willingness to label as 'religion' the pantheistic sense of wonder which many of us share.[2]

In making these statements Dawkins pays no heed to the work of Ralph Hood Jr. or to any of the empirical scientific studies that have been done on religious experience. He’s created a phony distinction works along the lines of his likes and dislikes in juxtaposing two different kinds of religious experience; something he calls “Einstein religion” vs what he calls “supernatural.” He has no data and no empirical basis in study of religious experience stet up this dichotomy. It’s clear constructed based upon his scientific heroes’ vs his religious foils. Why shouldn’t we think of this “Einstein religion” type of experience as another sort of supernatural experience? There’s good reason or doing that since it’s a well known form of mystical experience called “extrovertive.” We can see that his fist example is that of someone who became a priest so it does lead to religious belief. That he can produce a variety of people who don’t accept organized religion and who had these kinds of experiences he takes to be proof that it’s not supernatural but that’s clearly just because the uses the term as a catch phrase for the organized religion he doesn’t like.

Atheists segregate reality into realms of natural and supernatural. They so construct the situation so as to screen out any sort of evidence for supernatural on the basis that such evidence would have to be supernatural. Popd cast: “Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling discuss whether there can ever be evidence for the supernatural in an unmoderated, unrehearsed armchair discussion. The event was sponsored by the British Humanist Association, and organized as a part of Oxford Think Week by the Oxford Atheists, Secularists and Humanists (OxASH) in conjunction with Oxford Humanists, Oxford Skeptics in the Pub and Oxford Sea of Faith.”[3] The major idea expressed is that any evidence supernatural must be natural therefore can’t really be of any value. The point being that no evidence for supernatural could ever exist because it would have to be supernatural but it can’t be so because we have no evidence to prove that it exists. The assumption here is that supernatural is an unwelcome visitor crashing into a party given by nature at which it’s not welcome. In reality, however, the experiences of which Dawkins writes so fondly,a strange love for nature growing though a child’s fascination with bugs in the grass, is actually a certain type of supernatural.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman writes about the dichotomy between natural and supernatural and how unnecessary it is. He quotes a question ask him form the general public, a question that shows the extent to which supernature has been discredited and slandered:

The supernatural seems irrational, superstitious, archaic and primitive. So far, the natural world has provided explanations for the previously mysterious unknown: social psychology, psychiatry, chemistry, mathematics, biology, medicine, physics, astronomy, geology and history have aided humanity and preserved our mental and physical health and extended our lives.

So why do we refer to G-d to as a supernatural being? Where is the evidence that the supernatural exists, or has any bearing on our lives? Does the word "supernatural" even mean anything, other than "I don't understand this (yet)"?[4]

Here we see several of these misconceptions about the supernatural, not only because it’s linked to superstition, which it clearly has nothing to do with, but also the idea that God is “a supernatural being” (whatever that is) and that there’s no evidence for it, when in reality the evidence everywhere, in the previous article Dawkins gives us a bunch of it, even though he thinks it’s disproving supernatrue. The questioner puts this dichotomy in terms of the known (nature) and the unknown (supernature). The Rabbi’s answer takes off along these very lines; known and unknown. “Superntural” he deduces is based upon whatever doesn’t’ fit the categories of knowledge listed; all of course are scientific categories. That’s the only form of knowledge that atheists will think about or accept. Everything must be scientific or it doesn’t exist. Dawkins concept of a rational form of religion is a scientific (“Einstein”) religion.

The Original Concept of Supernature

All of these objections assume a certain version of the supernatural. The supernatural has become a catch-all for anything non materialistic or naturalistic that scientistic types want to snub without really having to disprove it. Supernatural today means anything from ghosts, Bigfoot, UFO to psychic powers, and angels and demons and God in heaven. Not so with the original concept. In the early centuries of Christian philosophy the original Greek fathers thought of God as transcendent but they did not necessarily conceive of that as “supernatural.” The Supernatural was something very different then than it is now. This is important because that original meaning, which Christian spiritually was predicated upon, is empirically probable and completely naturalistic and can be shown to be real by simple scientific means. We have to understand the original concept, there are two thinkers who tried to restore the concept to it’s original form and we need to listen to what they tried to say. The first one was Matthias Joseph Scheeben (born, 1 March, 1835; died at Cologne, 21 July, 1888.) His major work was Nature and Grace.[5] Scheeben was a mystic who contemplated and studied divine grace and hypostatic union. He was also of greatly accomplished academically and was a fine scholarly of scholastic theology. He studied at the Gregorian University at Rome and taught dogmatic theology at the Episcopal seminary

at Cologne. Scheeben was the chief defender of the faith against rationalism in the nineteenth century.

In the summer of 1888, Scheeben died in Cologne, having spent most of his fifty-three years teaching dogmatics and moral theology in the archdiocesan seminary there. He was Germany's most persuasive defender of Vatican Fs decision on papal infallibility and an impassioned advocate of religious freedom in the Kulturkampf, Bismarck's determined but finally unsuccessful effort to subject the Catholic Church to the control of his new German state. He was also the author of three major dogmatic works: Nature and Grace (1861), The Mysteries of Christianity (1865), and the massive Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics, left unfinished at his death.

The generations that followed Scheeben regarded him as one of the greatest minds of modern Catholic theology. His books were repeatedly republished in Germany up into the 1960s and translated into other European languages, including English (the Dogmatics, alas, only in highly truncated form). Since the Second Vatican Council, though, he has mostly been neglected by theological teachers and students who have wrongly imagined the nineteenth-century Catholic tradition to be a period of antimodern darkness.

The Catholic world of a hundred or more years ago was quite right, I think, to see the Cologne seminary professor as perhaps the finest modern Catholic dogmatic theologian. His writings not only yield rare insight into the mysteries of Christian faith, they draw the attentive reader ever more deeply into the mysteries themselves. Scheeben is more important now than he has ever been. He can teach a theological generation that has sold its inestimable birthright how to restore and renew dogmatic theology.[6]

The other thinker is Eugene R. Fairweather (2 November 1920-) was Anglican scholar and translator of Church fathers from Ottowa. MA in Philosophy form University of Toronto (1943) Ordained priest in 1944 and became tutor at Trinity college Toronto same year. He studied theology at Union theological seminary and earned his Th.D. in 1949. He had an honorary doctorate from McGill University. At the time he wrote his article “Christianity and the Supernatural” he was editor of the Canadian Journal of Theology and professor of dogmatic theology and ethics at Trinity College, Toronto.[7] Fairweather quotes Scheeben and bases part of his view upon Scheeben’s.

Fairweather’s view of the supernatural is contrary to the notion of two opossing realms, or a dualism. He uses the phrase “two-sidedness,” there is a “two-sidedness” about reality but it’s not a real dualism. The Supernatural is that which is above the natural in a certain sense but it is also working in the natural. There are supernatural effects which in the natural realm and make up part of human life. Essentially we can that “the supernatural” (supernature) is an ontology. Fiarweather doesn’t use that term but that’s essentially what he’s describing. Ontology is a philological description of reality. Supernature describes reality in that it is the ground and end of the natural. What that means is unpacked by Fairweather to mean that it is an ordered relation of means to immediate ends with respect to their final ends. “The Essential structure of the Christian faith has a real two-sidedness about it, which may at first lead the unwary into a dualism and then encourage the attempt to resolve the dualism by an exclusive emphasis upon one or the other [side] of the severed element of completely Christianity.”[8] He explains the ordered relation several times through paring off opposites or supposed opposites: human/divine; immanent/transcendent; realm of Grace/realm of nature. All of these he refers to as “ordered relations.”[9] If this was Derrida we would call them binary oppositions. In calling them “ordered” he is surely saying one is ‘above’ the other in some sense. They are not necessary oppositions because that’s his whole point, not a true dualism.

Supernature is working in nature. It’s not breaking in unwelcome but is drawing the workings of nature to a higher level. Fairweather describes it as the “ground and end of nature.” In other words is the basis upon which nature comes to be and the goal toward which nature moves. Now it’s true that science removes the teleological from nature it doesn’t see it as moving toward a goal but that’s because it can’t consider anything beyond its own domain. Science is supposed to be empirical consideration of the natural realm and is supposed to keep its nose out of the business of commentary on metaphysics. Of course modern science does the opposite it become a form of metaphysics by infusing itself with philosophical assumptions and then declaring there is nothing beyond the natural/material realm. That is to say, when it is dominated by secularist concerns that are the direction science is put in by ideological interests. Be that as it may, theological we can take a broader view and we see a goal oriented aspect to the natural. Supernatural effects draw the natural toward supernature. That is to say human nature responds to the calling of God in elevating humans to a higher level of consciousness. Another example of the ground and end of nature that Fairweather doesn’t give, but I like to use, is Martin Luther King’s statement about the arch of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. Nothing in nature bends toward justice, if by “nature” we mean rocks and trees but there more to the natural realm than just those aspects that science studies. Humans are part of the realm of the natural and it’s part of our social world that we understand concepts of justice. Due to our own purposive nature we bend the arch of the moral universe toward justice.

The term Supernatural (SN) comes to us from Aquinas.[10] He gets it from John Scotus Erigena and Burgundio of Pisa, who in turn take it from Pseudo-Dionysius and John of Damascus.[11] The latter used the adverbial form Supernaturaliter. This is coming from the Greek hyperphuos.[12] “From an early period the concept of ‘that which is above nature’ had been seized upon by Christian Theologians as an appropriate means of stating the core of the gospel, so far example, Origen tells how God raises man above human nature…and makes him change into a better and divine nature.”[13] John Chrysostom speaks of speaks of humans having received grace “health beauty honor and dignities far exceeding our nature.”[14] “In the West the most concise expression of the idea is to be found in the Leonine prayer ‘grant us to be partakers of his divinity who deigned to become partakers of our humanity.’”[15] “In these and a multitude of patristic texts the essential point is just this, that God, who is essentially superntrual perfects with a perfection beyond creaturely comprehension. Nevertheless elevates human creatures to a true participation in divine life an indwelling of God in man and man in God.”[16] The important point here is that human nature is being raised to the higher level of divine. We can see this manifests itself through the experience commonly known as “mystical.” That I will take up shortly, First, let’s turn to Scheeben to document further that is the nature of the supernatural. Supernatural is the power of God to raise us to this higher level.

Scheeben deals with the distinction between natural and supernatural faith. Throughout his writings we see this typified in terms of the tendency of the power of God to elevate humanity to a higher spiritual level. This means consciousness as well as habit. He speaks of “supernatural effects,” the effect that the pull of the supernatural has upon the natural. This is why it’s valid to think of the supernatural as an ontology, it’s a description of reality, or what is. Empirically that description tends toward the realization of human consciousness reaching to a higher level as a result of certain kinds of experiences. Scheeben expresses this in terms of “higher nature.” Super nature is the higher nature to which human nature is being elevated.

If the lower nature is raised in all of these respects to the level of a higher nature, and especially if this nature modifies the lower nature so deeply and affects it so powerfully that the limits of possibility are reached; if God, purest light and mightiest fire, wishes through to permeate his creature with his energy, to flood it with brightness and warmth to transform it into his own splendor, to make the creature like the father of spirits and impart to it the fullness of his own divine life, if I say, the entire being of the soul is altered in the deepest recesses and in all its ramifications to the very last, not by annihilation, but by exaltation and transfiguration. Then we can affirm that a new higher nature has come to the lower nature, because it has been granted a participation in the essence of him to whom the higher nature properly belongs.[17]

He seeks in one point of his work to resolve a fine point of difficulty between the Thomist-Molinist dicthotomy. Scheeben didn’t like dichotomies and thus seeks a third way. His solution is to see the natural as a mirror of the divine. The dichotomy deals with predestination, grace and free will. That’s not the issue I don’t want to get off into that. For Scheeben the authority of God is the sole formal object of faith. Thus faith is divine both in its source and object.[18] According to this position faith is neither the result of rational self interest nor a consequence of the human spirit. We must not mistake the manifestation in experience for the motive of faith. Faith is the result of obedience to the drawing power and call of God.[19] Nature (Greek Physis, Latin natura) is the realm of life from life, according to Scheeben. Super nature is the overarching principle toward which nature strives

The whole point is that the life of the children of God is directed to such specific objects and ends as cannot be striven for or attained, at least in a way that corresponds to their loftiness, except by acts of a supernatural perfection, that is, of a perfection unattainable by nature, —in other words, by acts which are kindred and similar to the proper life of God in its loftiness.[20]

We can see in his answers to the Thoamsit/Molinist issue the basis of the claim that Super nature is the power of God to rise us to a higher level. This is how Schebeen construed it. In summarizing Murry speaks of “power which flow from the new nature,”

that is his starting point(16). One conclusion follows immediately: the new powers which flow from the new nature must themselves be “an image of the divine vital powers”(17), i.e. the specific perfection of the divine vital powers must reflect itself in their working. That is Scheeben’s “Grundanschauung”, on which rests all his theorizing about supernatural acts. In a word, to the divinization of man’s nature corresponds a divinization of his activity(18). And Scheeben is occupied wholly in drawing out the nature of this divinization and its consequences. The immediate consequence, in which I am here interested, is that man’s divinized activity must be directed to objects of the specifically divine order. The essence of Scheeben’s thought is revealed in this sufficiently characteristic passage:[21]

The passage in Scheeben to which he refers:

If we have truly become partakers in the divine nature, and by this supernature have become most intimately akin to the divine nature.... then we are taken up into the sphere of its life; then the Godhead itself in its immediacy and in its own proper essence as it is in itself becomes the object of our activity. Then we shall know God Himself, illuminated by His light, without the mirror of creatures; then we shall love God immediately in Himself, no longer as the Creator of our nature, but as One Who communicates His own nature to us, —penetrated as we are by His fire, and made akin to Him in His divine eminence . . . In a word, if we become partakers of the divine nature, our life and our activity must be specifically similar to the divine. To this end it must’ have the same specific, formal, characteristic object as the divine activity has.[22]

Murryay summarizes again:

This one passage, out of many(20), is sufficient to show how the theory of the supernatural object enters into Scheeben’s system, namely as a consequence of (or if you wish, as a postulate for the completion of) his favorite parallelism between the divine life of God Himself and the life of grace in His creature(21). That parallelism suggests the formula that man’s supernatural activity is “an image of the divine activity”, and this formula in turn commands on the one hand the introduction of a supernatural object (i.e. “God as He is in Himself”), and on the other hand dictates the consistent use of the term “immediate” to characterize the nature of the union with God that is effected by supernatural knowledge and love(22). In this last detail, — that supernatural activity unites the soul immediately to God, — Scheeben’s theory culminates. The idea appealed immensely to him, though practically speaking it merely means that “God as He is in Himself” is the immediate object of supernatural activity. Its contrary is that natural activity effects no immediate union with God, since it reaches God only through the medium of creatures, and not “as He is in Himself”[23]

In all of these descriptions we see one standard concept: that supernature is a life, an experience, an inner relation between the divine and human nature. He says supernture is that which we partake of divine life. Human nature is elevated to the higher level by super nature and this primarily the way Scheeben speaks of supernature. This is what super nature is, the power of God to elevate to a higher level. There is an indication form what is said that “the supernatural” is a level of being above he realm of the natural. That must be the case because the power of God to elevate would surely be centered upon a higher level than then natural. That doesn’t mean that we are free to associate the supernatural with psychic powers and ghosts and unexplained phenomena and anything “x-files” like. The sense that the supernatural is above the nature is an implication of the ontology; the ground and end of the natural would sure be on some higher level in a sense. The more important aspect that all of these writers speak of is “participation” in divine life. Shceeben speaks directly of super nature just that, the divine life in which we are elevated to participate in.

The important aspect of all of this in relation to science is that super nature is not some juxtaposed belief in the unseen that has no analogy in the empirical. The experience of being raised to a higher level through contact with the divine life is clearly empirical. It may be a matter of interpretation as to the cause of the effects, but the effects of what is called “religious experience” are certainly empirical. It’s not hard to link those experiences with the divine; the content of them is that of God and the divine relation to the world. This is what most of those who experiences these things think they experienced.

---

[1] Austin Cline, “Religion is Belief in Supernatural Beings—How Religions Involve Theism.” About.com; Agnostiicsm/Atheism, blog URL http://atheism.about.com/od/religiondefinition/p/TheismGod.htm viisted 1/23/2012

[2] Richard Dawkins, “Einsteinian or Supernatural” The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, 5/15/2006. on line source URL: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/123-religion-einsteinian-or-supernatural visited 1/23/2012.

[3] James O’Malley, The Pod Delusion “Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling Discuss Evidence for the Supernatural This week At Oxford. 2/23/2011.URL http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2011/02/23/richard-dawkins-ac-grayling-discuss-evidence-for-the-supernatural-at-oxford-thinkweek/ visited 1/23/2012

[4] a reader writing to Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, “What is the Supernatural?” Chabad.org Essentials. Blog URL: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/356494/jewish/What-Is-the-Supernatural.htm visited 1/23/2012

[5] Matthias Joseph Scheeben, Nature and Grace, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2009 (paperback) originally unpublished 1856.

[6] Bruce D. Marshall. “Renewing Dogmatic theology.” News Edge. Blog URL: http://dialog.newsedge.com/portal.asp?site=2007100814443105593225&searchfolderid=pg2007100814522209759333&block=default&portlet=ep&nzesm=on&display=Religious+Cults&action=sitetopics&mode=realtime&nzenb=left&criteria=[topic%3Dcults]&searchID=730376&datetime=[t-minus%3D7]&hdlaction=story&storyid=[storyid=zFhV9A4ingKfyJKkM7SYF60h7bzyuSst6cpLFPeF_KF10rs2TkU8gQnIhJL0BsKdSpTF6QIOR0rsVM2GIwVDyw**]&rtcrdata=on&epname=EFORE&

Visitied August 14, 2012. Bruce D. Marshall is professor of Christian doctrine at Perkins School of Theology.(c) 2012 Institute of Religion and Public Life

[7] Editor’s introduction to Eugene R. Fairweather, “Christianity and the Supernatural,” in New Theology no.1. New York: Macmillian, Martin E. Marty and Dean G. Peerman ed. 1964. 235-256.

[8] Ibid. 237

[9] ibid

[10] Fairweather,ibid, 239

[11] ibid

[12] ibid

Pseudo-Dionysius Ep 4, ad Caium (PG 3:1072)

[13] Fairweather, ibid (239).

[14] ibid

[15] Fairweather quoting Leonine prayer, ibid.

[16] ibid

[17] Maithias Jospeh Scheeben quoted in Fairweather (239-240). Fairwether fn Scheeben the version he uses. M.J. Scheeben, Nature and Grace, St. Lewis: Herder, 1954, 30.

[18] Avery Dulles, S.J. An Assurance of Things Hoped for: A Theology of Christian Faith. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, 90.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Scheeben, quoted in Works by John Courtney Murray Chapter II “Natural and supernatural Faith.” Website, Woodstock Theological Center Library. P100 URL: http://woodstock.georgetown.edu/library/murray/1937-2.htm visited August 14, 2012

Mathias Joseph Scheeben on faith, Doctoral Dissertation of John Courtney Murry

Woodstock Theological Center Library.

This volume in the Toronto Studies in Theology reproduces the doctoral dissertation John Courtney Murray, S.J. (1904-1967) completed in the spring of 1937 at the Gregorian University in Rome. From then until now, the Gregorian University archives contained the original typescript of “Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s Doctrine on Supernatural, Divine Faith: A Critical Exposition”. A carbon-copy was incorporated into the Murray Archives housed by the Woodstock Theological Library in the Special Collections Room of the Joseph Mark Lauinger Library at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. John Courtney Murray eventually published the third chapter, modified and disengaged from its original context (1). The complete, original text is published here for the first time.

URL: http://woodstock.georgetown.edu/library/Murray/1937.htm

[21] John Courtney Murray summarizing Scheeben, ibid.

[22] Scheeben quoted in Muarry, ibdid, p101

[23] Murray, ibid.

The Fall of Humanity: Not An event in History

Recently an atheist, call him "George," on a certain Message board was outraged and alarmed by my habit of looking at the fall from a different perspective than the one he knew as a fundamentalist. In his mind there's only one possibility for view points, that's the one he's into at the moment. Of cousre he sees the fall as a historical event, so he assumes that if the Genesis creation myth is wrong (as in evolutionary) then all of Christianity is wrong becuase then there's no fall, we don't need redemption the point of having a religion is blown. My answer alramebed becuase it wasn't the fundamentalist banter he expected. I discussed. What rally "blew his mind" as we used to say, was the idea I advance that it's actually a coming of age myth. Maybe I'm over the top in calling it that, perhaps I should clarify that I don't mean it in a form sense, but it does have overtones of being a coming of age myth.

First, let me set out exactly how I deal with the fall, how it can still be a valid category even though it's not an event in history. My view was influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr whom I read in seminary; Niebuhr was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, and the more concise and insightful of the Niebuhr boys.* Reinhold Niebuhr sets out his view in his great work The Nature and Destiny of man Volume I. He separates the fall from the historical view derived from the text in Genesis and based that upon Augustine's understanding of the nature of sin. Sin is an inherent aspect of sentient being. Augustine understood sin as a response to anxiety. I wont go into that I merely mark that in the lectures of Dr. Carney this was the frame for the issue. Niebuhr modernizes the concept of anxiety and sin by casting it in terms of self transcendence. We project into the future by remembering the past and extrapolating. So we think "If I don't get my rent paid I'll be on the street, that will be very miserable I know form past experience I don't like pain." So this sense of anxiety leads us to steal to pay the rent. Of course this is a very simplistic example and motives can get much more complex.

The basic sense is that the fall is something that happens in each of us as we grow. That's where the coming of age bit comes in. Rather than see it as a point in time that marks human history the action of one man became part of something like the genetic code the actual real life fall is distributed throughout all of history and marks the lives of each on an individual basis. It can be described as a fall in the sense that it represnts the loss innocence. We move form the state of being blameless due to youth to being blameworthy because we have come of age (or the "age of accountability"). We can pull back from seeking to resolve the anxiety through injustice ot others and and seek to resolve it through faith. That's the hard part because faith requires confidence to be placed in God, and that is much easier to come by once we have already experienced God's grace. So that's where redemption comes in.

By this account falling from Grace is just a natural part of life. It comes with the territory of growing up, thus I call it a "coming of age myth."Of course this outraged George the atheist. I'm not quite sure why. He produced a quote saying that all modern scholars are sure the authors of Genesis understood it as literal history. The quote actually spoke about six day creation not the fall. It did not say "there is no mythology in Genesis." It's pretty clear the redactors of the text were working form pagan myth such as the Sumerian and Babylonian/ Akkadian creation myth. Cornfled shows that the outlines are the exactly same event for event (see Genesis). It has all the ear makrs of mythology including non specific mythical time frame ("in the begining") an enchanted world (talking serpent--God Walks with man in the cool of evening). Clelarly we are dealing with a mythological text. According to Campbell mythology is a technique o dealing subconscious truth through archetypes. The selection of archetypes need not be conscious.

Tom Collin's Interview
with Campbell:Context
Institute

Tom: What does myth do for us? Why is it so important?

Joseph: It puts you in touch with a plane of reference that goes past your mind and into your very being, into your very gut. The ultimate mystery of being and nonbeing transcends all categories of knowledge and thought. Yet that which transcends all talk is the very essence of your own being, so you’re resting on it and you know it. The function of mythological symbols is to give you a sense of "Aha! Yes. I know what it is, it’s myself." This is what it’s all about, and then you feel a kind of centering, centering, centering all the time. And whatever you do can be discussed in relationship to this ground of truth. Though to talk about it as truth is a little bit deceptive because when we think of truth we think of something that can be conceptualized. It goes past that.

It doesn't matter that the redactors thought the events in the Genesis story really happened. Myth functions at a psychological level and the symbols are not necessarily chosen knowingly.


Joseph Campbell: from Interview
with Bill Moyers on Myths-Dream-
Symbols.

Experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What's the meaning of a flower. There's the Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifeted a flower. There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called "the one thus come". There's no meaning. What's the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of a flea? It's just there. We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about....Read the myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols.

There is no statement in chruch council that the events of the Genesis creation myth are literal history.There is no chruch council that mandates that we believe Genesis literally as history. The only we have this feeling that it's some kind of holy law that we must understand it this way is because it's been drummed into the culture since the nineteenth century by the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists largely exist today because they represent a visceral reaction to the modern world and resistance to Darwin. It's only because they drummed it into our heads that we think we have to support it as literal history.

*see H Richard Niebuhr
see Reinhold Niebuhr

The Modal Argument (Part 2) What does Tillich Do for the Modal Argument?.

If you did not see part 1 Or can't remember it, please go back there are read. In part 1 we said that if God exists he must exist necessarily, this is becuase God cannot be contingent. If God deos not exist then his existence is impossible; meaning not only that there could never be a God becuase the concept of God would be contradictory, it also means that if there is no God now there could never come to be one. Necessary means cannot cease and could not fail to have existed. So if there is no God one can't come into being. It's not a matter of there might have been a God one must missed being formed. It is the case that if there is no God it could only be becuase there can never be one. If God is not a contradictory concept and if its possible there could be a God then there must be a God because God is not a contingency; it can't be that God is only a possibility. If God is possible then he's a certainty.

This argument has drawn a lot of fire. There are many criticisms some valid some not so valid. It strikes me that one which I have not heard but which occurs to me is that it does a bait and switch in jumping from "if God exists he must exists necessarily" to "ok so then he must exist if he's not a contradiction." It looks like impossibility of God is still an open choice it's just not possible to know by means of an ontological argument. Now Paul Tillich is not known for his contributions to the ontological argument. In fact quite the contrary Tillich didn't like the argument and tried to say that demotes God to the level of an individual. He felt this was the case becasue it speaks of God in those terms "if God exists..." as though he's just another factor to be considered rather than being itself. Yet Duane Olson wrote an article for Quodlbet Journal
arguing that Tillich makes an implied ontological argument. I have made my own blog piece developing "Tillich's implied argument."

Remember from chapter 4 that Tillich identified God with truth based upon God’s eternally necessary nature and the eternal and transcendent nature of the Platonic forms and God’s self revelation in Exodus 3:

(1) Tillich understand’s God to be the unconditioned, eternal, transcendent, ground of all being;

(2) Truth is an unconditioned norm based upon the correspondence theory; truth is correspondence between subject and object.

(3) The norm of truth is self verifying sense; truth as a concept cannot be untrue unless the concept of truth is affirmed in contrast to the possibility of untruth. Any particular truth can be doubted but not the concept of truth itself.

(4) Due to this unconditioned, necessary, and indubitable nature the norm of truth is understood to be transcendent of subject and object, and transcendent of any particulars of nature.

(5) The transcendent unconditioned is equated with God in Tilich’s understanding of being itself (from 1); the existence of such a norm is demonstrated in the nature of the norm of truth.

(6) Therefore, we have a rational warrant for understanding the ground of being as synonymous with Tillich’s understanding of “the divine.”

Tillich basically makes the argument himself, in Theology of Culture where he talks about God construed as truth (see chapter 4, Augustine on Being itself). Then he says:

Augustine, after he had experienced all the implications of ancient skepticism, gave a classical answer to the problem of the two absolutes: they coincide in the nature of truth. Veritas is presupposed in ever philosophical argument; and veritas is God. You cannot deny truth as such because you could do it only in the name of truth, thus establishing truth. And if you establish truth you affirm God. “Where I have found the truth there I have found my God, the truth itself,” Augustine says. The question of the two Ultimates is solved in such a way that the religious Ultimate is presupposed in every philosophical question, including the question of God. God is the presupposition of the question of God. This is the ontological solution of the problem of the philosophy of religion. God can never be reached if he is the object of a question and not its basis.[vii]

This is the part not quoted in previous chapter:

The Truth which is presupposed in every question and in every doubt precedes the cleavage into subject and object. Neither of them Is an ultimate power, but they participate in the ultimate power above them, in Being itself, in primum esse. “Being is what first appears in the intellect…” this being (which is not a being) is pure actuality and therefore Divine. We always see it but we do not always notice it; as we see everything in the light without always noticing the light as such.

According to Augustine and his followers the verum ipsum is also the bonum ipsum because nothing which is less than the ultimate power of being can be the ultimate power of good.[viii]

Tillich never calls this “my ontological argument.” He may or may not hint that it is somewhere but I have not seen that. He does not, to my knowledge, put this over as a version of the OA. Yet I feel that it is and it’s essentially what Olson is talking about.

---

Tillich's argument can be worded in different ways than this. The crucial point of it is his statement that "if we know that being has depth we know there must be a God:" The reason is that God is the depth of being. That's what "ground of being" means; that is linked through the concept of God as truth.

Tillich's famous quote says:

"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."

Atheists have always sought to reverse the argument. They seek to reverse the premise of the modal argument "If God exists then he must exist necessarily."

Originally Posted by Tyrrho

But that's not your argument. That's just part of your definition of God.

Your argument is that "if it's possible for God to exist, then God must exist."
The reversal is that "if it's possible for God to not exist, then God must not exist."

Of cousre they assume "I don't believe in God now. I don't see one anywhere. so it must be possible for God not exist." It doesn't occur to them they are begging the question because they are wrong and God is real. They thinking of God as an addition to the universe. They think let's just imagine the universe as I think to be anyway, with no god. If being has depth then God is real and they are ignoring the depth. God is not just an addition to the universe. God is the basis of reality.

Here's how I answered the argument above by my friend Tyrrho, which assumed my version of Hartshorne's modal argument:

That's exactly what I said can't be reversed. It's true and it's in the first premise that if God doesn't exist his existence is impossible that's already stipulated. that doesn't that just saying 'I think it might be possible that there's no God" then evokes the "impossibility" clause. that's where I said you are trying parle that clause into an actual done deal. The reason it's not possible goes back to the notion of the depth of of being. God is not must adding a fact to the universe. The universe of god and the Godless universe are totally different worlds. It's not like the extraction of one element a guy called 'God.' It's the difference in a ground of being and no ground of being. It's the difference in being as surface only (just x exits period) or depth of being where reality is not seen and goes way beyond the surface.

You can't just assert that God's lack of existence is possible merely becuase you look out the window and don't see God. You can't assert it just based upon the idea of it. Moreover, if we do assume that God is being itself we are saying that since God is the depth of being then any being points to God. God is not just another factin the universe, not adding a fact to the universe, but is the basis of reality. It's no more possible for God to not be than it is to have a universe without being. Being is indicative of God just as tails of a coin indicates heads.

There are many possible differences for wording of such an argument. The point is Being has to be. Being implies God, therefore, the necessary aspect of being points to the necessary aspect of the divine. I have hybrid argument that combines the cosmolgical argument with ontological overtones in the vein of Tillich's implied OA.

(1)Nothingness as PSA is marked by its own contradiction,

A.True absolute nothingness and PSA are contradictions because nothingness means nothing at all, and PSA is something.

B.True nothingness would lack any essential potential for change; no time, no potentiality, noting at all; therefore, no change, no becoming.

Therefore: (2)Being, in some form, as the alternative to nothingness must obtain to a state of aseity.

(3)Aseity implies eternal and the infinite.

(4)Human being is contrasted by finitude.

(5)The awareness of our finitude in contrast to Aseity of Being creates a sense of the unbounded condition; which evokes our sense of the numinous.

(6) The sense of the numinous creates religious devotion, thus we have an object of religious devotion and theological discourse in Being itself.

(7) An object of religious devotion and theological discourse is a rational warrent for belief.

If you find this hard to take or understand, here's a simpler version:


(1) Sense of the Numinous evokes religious devotion

(2) The sense of the numinous is the sense of the special nature of being

(3) Thus being itself, the ground of being, is the object of religious devotion

(4) whatever is the fit object of religious devotion (the thing that evokes it at the core in the first place) is defined as "God."

(5) since we know this special sense of being existing then QED God exists.

My Analysis of this argument can be found here.

The Modal Argument (part 1)

Charles Hartshorne 1897-2000
Modern Champion of the modal argument

I'm re-publishing this piece because I did a good job of explaining all about the argument, but I have more to say about. The background to the argument is complex and hard to summarize. This is a necessary first step to understanding the real issue which is "What does Tillcih do for the Modal Argument." That part 2 will come on Friday.

What follows is one of the most challenging subjects you will ever hear about. It is the best way to get a head ache, but I think it proves the existence of God. The problem is it requires a very specialized background to understand it. First you have to understand modal logic.

Modal Logic is so called because it turns upon the use of so called "modal operators." It's called "modal" because it is the logic of modes of being. "modes" as in what type of existence something exits in, weather it is dependent upon other things, weather it can cease or fail to exist and so forth. The modal operators are "necessity," "contingency" "impossibly," "possibility."

Necessity and contingency lie at the base of our modern understanding of cause and effect. They come from scholastic notions of logic, but the distinction between the notion our modern notions of c/e and the scholastic ones in the middle ages is not that great. The scholastic had more levels of cause, efficient cause, final cause and several others. But one could everything we have done in modern science using the scholastic ideas of c/e.

Necessity doesn't mean God has to exist. It doesn't mean God is necessary to the existence of the world (except in so far as if God exists then of course God is necessary to the world as creator--without God there would be no world). The modal argument does not begin with the assumption that God has to exist. It begins with the assumption that there is a valid distinction between necessity and contingency, which there must be.It proceeds along the lines of hypothetical consequence that obtain from different scenarios of God's existence. It concludes that is necessary. But by "necessary" it means not contingent, or not dependent upon something else for its' existence.

This is often misconstrued by atheists and taken to mean the argument proceeds from God's existence as an assumed first premise. This is not the case, the first premise is either/or. Either God's existence is necessary or it is impossible. This allows for the possibility that there is no God. So the argument does not begin by "defining God into existence."

Necessity means either non dependent or cannot cease or fail. By "fail" I mean there could not not be a God. That is the conclusion of the argument, not the premise.

Contingent means the opposite: that a thing is dependent upon a prior thing for existence, or that it could cease or fail to exist.

Impossible means logically impossible, something in the structure of the idea contradictions, such as square circles.

one of the sore spots that atheists get stuck on is the idea that God cannot be contingent. They will always leap to the conclusion that this is defining God into existence, because they don't understand the concept of God. God, by the nature of the concept, carriers certain parameters just as the existence of any human assumes humanity, or the existence of any tree assumes that the tree in question is a plant. To have to define that God is not contingent should not even come into it. The idea of God is that of eternal creator of all things. Thus God cannot cease to exits and cannot be dependent upon anything (or he wouldn't be the creator of all things). Atheists usually assume that all knowledge has to be empirical. they will argue this is defining God into existence. maybe God is contingent.

Maybe there is a begin like the one we talk about but he's not eternal or the creator of all things, but that means he's not the God we are talking about.



Hartshorne's version goes like this:

1) God can be analytically conceived without contradiction.
2) Therefore God is not impossible.
3) By definition God cannot be contingent.
4) Therefore God is either necessary or impossible.
5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.
6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorem must necessarily exist.

Argument:my version

1) God can be analytically conceived, as eternal necessary being, without contradiction.

2) Therefore God is not impossible,(because no contradiction).

3) By definition God cannot be contingent (becasue God is eternal).

4) Therefore if God exists, God's existence is necessary, if God does not exist, it is because God is impossible.

5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.

6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorum must necessarily exist.


A. The logic of the argument:

This argument is analytical, it proceeds from the basis in logic to argue that the concept of God is such that if we understood the meaning of the terms we would have to conclude that God must exist. Naturally that is a very controversial position. Many Christians and other theists reject the ontological argument on the grounds knowledge must be somewhat empirical. Nevertheless the argument has been used for a long time, and despite its many apparent deaths, it keeps returning in one form or another. Perhaps the best book on the subject is The Many Faced Argument by John Hick. Somehow the ontological argument just wont die. I feel that this is not so much because the argument itself is true as a proof, but because it gets at something deeper than proof, something to do with the way to think about God, and it strikes a deep cord in our consciousness, even though as a proof it may fail. For this reason alone it is important to know, if only to know the concept itself.

1) God can be analytically conceived without contradiction.
2) Therefore God is not impossible.
3) By definition God cannot be contingent.
4) Therefore God is either necessary or impossible.
5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.
6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorem must necessarily exist.

(This is actually my re-statement of what Hartshorne is saying).

Hartshorne's actual modal logic looks like this:

The OA: an assessment:

by Ed Stoebenau

http://www.eskimo.net/~cwj2/atheism/onto.html Hartshorne's ontological argument is based on Anselm's second argument and claims that God's existence is logically necessary. Hartshorne's argument is given here, where "N(A)" means "it is logically necessary that A," "~A" means "it is not the case that A," "-->" is strict implication, "v" means "or," and "g" means "God exists":

g --> N(g)
N(g) v ~N(g)
~N(g) --> N(~N(g))
N(g) v N(~N(g))
N(~N(g)) --> N(~g)
N(g) v N(~g)
~N(~g)
N(g)
N(g) --> g
g



This argument is valid. Furthermore, given an Anselmian conception of God, premises one and five are sound. Premise two is just the law of the excluded middle, and premise three is a law of the modal logic S5. Premise nine is obviously sound, so this leaves premise seven as the only premise to question. Premise seven says that it is logically possible that God exists.



Yes, those funny lines, "g-->N(g)" are the argument, those are the formal symbols used in modal logic.

B. God's Possibility vs. Impossibility.

The argument turns on the distinction between necessity and contingency, and upon the distinction between mere possibility and the nature of necessary being as not mere possible. In other words, God is either necessary or impossible. If God exists than he is ontologically necessary, because he is logically necessary by definition. But if he does not exist than it is ontologically impossible that he exists, or could come to exist. This is because God cannot be contingent, by definition. A contingency is just not God. So if God is possible, he can't be "merely possible" and thus is not impossible, which means he must be necessary.

God is conceivable in analytic terms without contradiction:
The universe without God is not conceivable in analytical terms; it is dependent upon principles which are themselves contingent. Nothing can come from a possibility of total nothingness; the existence of singularities and density of matter depend upon empirical observations and extrapolation form it. By definition these things are not analytical and do depend upon causes higher up the chain than their being (note that the skeptic at this point probably denies the validity of analytic proofs but to reverse the argument must accept such proof).

Since the concept is coherent and not contradictory and is derived from analytic terms, to reverse the argument the atheist must show that God is impossible since the burden of proof is now on the one arguing that a contingent state of affairs could produce a universe in which being has to be.

D. Answering Objections:

1) The argument can be reversed

Atheists have tried to reverse the argument merely by saying:

1) either God exists or he doesn't
2) God is either necessary or impossible. Necessary if he exists, impossible if he does not
3) God is impossible
4) Therefore God does not exist.

But of course this is merely stipulation. They assume that what the argument is doing is just stipulating everything that has been said about God, but on the "Modes of Being" page I show that each of these modalities of existence are logical deductions.Either a thing exists or it does not. One can equivocate about the meaning the term "existence," but here I clearly mean concrete actual existence in the "real" world. If a thing does not exist it is either that it could, but just doesn't happen to exist, or that it cannot exist because it is a conceptual contradiction, such as square circles, or round triangles and so on. Therefore, if it does exist, it is either that it exists contingently or that it is not contingent but exists necessarily (that is it could not fail to exist without contradiction). These are the four most basic modes of being and cannot be denied. They could be subdivided, for example fictional contingency, such as Sueprman or Dick Tracy, that which would be contingent if it had real concrete actuality, but is merely a fictional concept. But the four modes are the basic logical deductions about the nature of existence.

The idea that the argument can be reversed just by switching the lines and declaring God impossible merely begs the question. Is God really impossible just because we can utter those words? Is God logically necessary just because we can utter those words?. No, but that's not what is being said. God is logically necessary as a concept. That is the nature of the God-concept, that's the idea of God. To deny that would be like saying "how do you know that tables are things to put things on?" Or "how do you know that triagles have three sides?"The question is one of actuality, so if it is possible that God exists than God is ontologically necessary and thus has real concede existence because since God is not contingent it cannot be that God is "merely possible." If it is at all possible that God exists, than it's not impossible. To show that the argument can truly be reversed the atheist must show why God is impossible, and to do that he/she must show that God cannot be understood analytically without contradiction.


Another attempt at reversing the argument, which is always used on message boards when I make this argument: just to put not in front of each line. "It is possible that god does not exist." The premise is they don't have to prove God is impossible, but just that the possibility of God's not existing reverses the argument.

The problem is, the premise is false. If god is not analytically impossible (contradictory) then God must exist. Thus it is not ture that it is possible that God does not exist. The logic works like this:


(1) If God is indeed possible, the God cannot be impossible.

(2) to say God is not possible is the same as saying god is impossible.

(3) if something is possible, it can't be impossible.

(4) you must show why God is impossible.

(5) I have shown why God is possible, becasue God is conceivable without contradiction.

(6) anticipating answer on entity and consciousness, consciousness is not a primary quality of God. Other things are consciousness, that is not something uniquely establishes God as God, logical necessity is such a thing.

(7) If God is possible, and can't be impossible, and can't be contingent, then to be possible for God is to be logically necessary. Thus it does not work to say God is not possible because it isn't true, thus it's a false premise.



To make good on any reversal they must show a contradiction in the concept of God. To this they always retort "well you can't prove that God is not contradictory." But I don't have to prove that. One can assume that if there is no contraction it is not contradictory. They are the one's seeking to make the reversal, so it's their burden of proof. But to prove that God is possible all one need do is conceive god analytically without contradiction. what else could one do to prove a possibility?


2) The assumption that we are merely loading the concept with terms that make it necessary, or that the definition of God as necessary is arbitrary.

This is really the same argument one must make to reverse the argument of necessary being. This is what atheists always argue. The first thing they say bout it is that we are just arbitrarily sticking on the term "necessary" and playing word games. Some go so far as to try and demonstrate this by sticking the term necessary on other things, such as "purple cow" or anything they think of, and that's supposed to show what we are doing. I regard this move as nothing more than a demonstration that they do not understand the concepts The necessity of necessity and why it must be applied to God is demonstrated on the "modes of being" page. Moreover, this move is nothing more than the perfect Island argument. It can't work because it merely enthrones contingencies. Our reason for saying that God is necessary is much more logical and organic and is much more than a mere word game.

While it is true that God as being itself is a pre-given postulate and is independent of proof because it is part of the definition of God, the realization that being has t be means that this must be the case.

3) The assumption that we are lending existence to a fictional being.

This is merely an assumption. The necessary existence of God is implied in the possibility of God's existence and the realization that the the only alternative is impossibility. God is possible and thus necessary. Some have tried to argue that they are breaking up the four categories with a 5th not seen, that of "fictional" but that applies to the category 4 that of non-existing contingency.

4) Equivocating between types of necessity.

The argument says that to say God is necessary as a postulate of definition is speaking of ontological necessity, than to assert the actuality of it is moving from logical to ontological necessity.

To say that a thing is logically possible is to say that it might have existed in the past or may exist in the future. But for God to exist he must always have existed; in the past, in the future, or all time. Given logical necessity the logical possibility of God 's non existence is impossible. Therefore, ontological necessity implies logical necessity. One implies the other and it is a rational move from one to the other.



This argument may seem like merely a trick of words, and modal logic may be controversial, but it turns on very basic logic, such as modus tolens or modus ponens which is accepted by all logicians. On Argument 1 I document Antony Flew saying that the logical categories of "Necessary" and "contingent" truth are accepted by all logicians.

TrentDougherty
Concise intero to the Modal Ontological Arugument for The Existence of God.

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/ontol.html

TERMS

‘Modal’ – Pertaining to the modes of existence (de re) or of propositions (de dicto) as necessary or possible. ‘Necessity’ is a mode of being for a thing or proposition as is ‘Possibility’.
‘Ontological’ – from Greek ontoV for being.
‘Argument’ – designed to logically support a proposition (not to be confused with persuasion which is a psycho-social phenomenon, not a philosophical one).
Throughout this description I shall use standard notation and notation used when the font is restricted to a single typeset as in a text only document for HTTP purposes on the Internet.

The modalities are symbolized as follows:
A square or in typeset [] preceding an expression means “It is necessary that…” or “It is necessarily the case that…” or simply “Necessarily…” e.g. as applied to a propositional function.

Ps/[]Ps – “It is necessarily the case that s is P” where s is a constant referring to some individual and P is a predicate.
A Diamond à or in typeset <> preceding an expression means “It is possibly the case that…” or “It is possible that…” or simply “Possibly…”

SEMANTICS

Possibility is defined as consistency. àPs/<>Ps reads as “Possibly, s is P” and means that there is no contradiction in attributing P to s. Necessity is defined as “not possibly not the case”. If something cannot not be, then it must be.

Psº~à~Ps or []Ps=~<>~Ps
THE CALCULUS

There are many different ways to axiomatize a logic, just as there are different ways to axiomatize geometry. Axioms in some systems will be theorems in others, but since axioms and theorems have the same validity it is only a matter of formal difference. One of the most used systems of modal logic is called S5. There is an interesting theorem in S5 called Brouer’s Theorem.
(PàP)à(àPàP) or (P-->[]P)-->(<>P-->P)
This theorem is derivable in weaker systems as well.
The modal ontological argument for the existence of God is just a substitution instance for this theorem. There are only two propositions needed.
THE PROPOSITIONS

First comes the definition of God as a being who, IF he exists, does so necessarily, i.e. a Necessary Being. This is only the definition of what God would be like IF he existed. The proposition is formalized as
GàG or G-->[]G
“If God exists, then he necessarily exists.”
The other proposition is the assertion that it is possible that God exists.
àG or <>G
“Possibly, God exists.”
RULES OF INFERENCE

The only rule of inference needed is Modus Ponens.
PàQ “If P, then Q”
P
Therefore Q
Now we are ready to put the argument together.

THE ARGUMENT
1. (GàG)à(àGàG)
2. GàG
3. àG
4. àGàG
5. G
(Theorem, sub G for P)
(Def of God)
(premise)
(1, 2 MP)
(4, 3 MP)

or
1. (G-->[]G)-->(<>G-->G) (Theorem, sub G for P)
2. G-->[]G (Def of God)
3. <>G (premise)
4. <>G-->G (1, 2 MP)
5. G (4, 3 MP)

COMMENTARY

It is quite a simple argument which makes it hard to understand its fullness. The simple is packed with meaning. As you can see, there is one and only one premise, that it is possible that God exists. If this be granted, then his necessary existence follows. Since all efforts to show that the concept of God is contradictory have failed heretofore I conclude, somewhat reluctantly, that God exists. Kai Neilson tried to argue this in his debate with J.P. Moreland, but didn’t make much progress.

Now I realize that to the average person, this seems like a trick, but the average person is not particularly accustomed to following logical arguments at all, much less highly specialized forms of logical calculi developed by professional philosophers. Most professors at the University level don’t even know modal logic and many have never studied it and some have never heard of it. What do those who know it, but don’t believe in God say? They say that the concept of God is incoherent. I have not yet seen an even slightly plausible argument to that effect. Until I do, the OA will be cogent to me. I might add that I am a convert on this argument. I argued for years that the ontological argument was flawed until someone showed me the modal version. I have always followed Reason wherever it lead and, as usual, it lead to God.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Robert M., _The Virtue of Faith_, esp. “The Logical Structure of Anselm’s Arguments,” Oxford University Press: 1987.
Moris, Thomas V, _Anselmian Explorations_, esp. “Necessary Beings,” University of Notre Dame Press: 1987.
Plantinga, Alvin, _The Nature of Necessity_, esp. “God and Necessity,” Oxford University Press: 1974, 1992.
Plantinga, Alvin, _The Ontological Argument_, Anchor Books, 1965.
Swinburne, Richard, _The Coherence of Theism_, Oxford University Press: 1977, 1993.



Oddly enough that quotation is linked to a site by an atheist named Adrian Barnett who is attacking my older version of this argument, but he was gracious enough to put this quotation, which I think works against his argument, by a philosopher in the UK.


About Hartshorne


Hartshorne Lived to be 103, at the time of his death in the Fall of 2000, he was known as "the greatest living Metaphysician." Hartshorne was one of the major forces in the "back to God" movement in Philosophy (a term coined by Christianity Today in a 1979 article. His first and greatest calim to fame is as the second most influential voice in process philosophy, along with Alfred North Whtiehead, but he is also credited as the man who brought the Ontological argument back from ignominious defeat by Kant almost two centuries earlier. Hartshorne was also a recognized authority on birdsong, and an authority on bycicles, having never driven a car a single time in his centogenerian lifespan. Hartshorne devoted the last years of life to waging a letter's to the editor campaign to advocate social issues such as medical care.

The Feeling of Utter Depednece: Frederich Schleiermacher's Implied Ontolgoical Argument

Frederich Schleiermacher, (1768-1834)

The Feeling of Utter Dependence

Frederich Schleiermacher, (1768-1834) in On Religion: Speeches to it's Cultured Despisers,Christian Faith. (aka The Glaubenslehre) sets forth the view that religion is not reducible to knowledge or ethical systems. It is primarily a phenomenological apprehension of God consciousness through means of religious affections. Affections is a term not used much anymore, and it is easily confused with mere emotion. Sometimes Schleiermacher is understood as saying that "I become emotional when I pay and thus there must be an object of my emotional feelings." Though he does venture close to this position in one form of the argument, this is not exactly what he's saying. In the earlier form of his argument he was saying that affections were indicative of a sense of God, but in the Christian Faith he argues that there is a greater sense of unity in the life world and a sense of the dependence of all things in the life world upon something higher. and the

What is this feeling of utter dependence? It is the sense of the unity in the life world and its greater reliance upon a higher reality. It is not to be confused with the stray-sky-at-night-in-the-desert feeling, but is akin to it. This phrase “unity in the life world” is important and will be explored latter. An example of the “feeling of utter dependence,” I used to notice a certain kind of feeling when I would sit in my back yard by the garden late at night. I could hear the sounds of the freeway in the distance, and on a clear summer night smell the sage I grew and watch the stars. It all seemed to be a great harmony of purpose. It was all unified. There seemed to be some higher sense of unification upon which it all hung. That's just a short hand for those of us to whom this is a new concept to get some sort of handle on it. Nor does "feeling" here mean "emotion" but it is connected to the religious affections. In the early version Schleiermacher thought it was a correlate between the religious affections and God; God must be there because I can feel love for him when I pray to him. But that's not what it's saying in the better version. Many people understand this feeling, or “God consciousness” as a reaction of the romantic rebellion against enlightenment rationalism. “Influenced by romanticism and his own early exposure to Moravian Pietism…the feeling…is the heart of the religious defined at the deepest level of self consciousness and awareness in contrast to the enlightenment preoccupation with beliefs and morals.”[i] There’s more to this than just a romantic rebellion. Schleiermacher rebels against Kant. For Schlieiermacher there is no Kantian dualism but an underlying unity and foundation of both knowledge and action. He battles Kant on two fronts, the account of consciousness and the account of God and experience. For Schleiermacher, consciousness is not simply non cognitive as with Kant but is immediate, original pre theoretical consciousness of reality. Feeling is part of consciousness so one is not just having random emotional states when having feelings, but a form of consciousness that is an immediate experience of reality. This experience is also pre-theoretical meaning its prior to thinking about. It’s a experience of reality before we reflect and do a bunch of philosophizing about the nature of reality. [ii] “Knowing and doing are more determinate, circumscribed and mediated modes of consciousness, which presuppose feeling or immediate self consciousness.”[iii]

The reason this phrase “knowing and doing” or “knowledge and action” keep popping up is because prior to Schleiemracher and with Kant religion was reduced to being thought a jumped up form of ethics, or an ethical form of philosophy. Kant recommends the use of God in practical reason as a means of regulating ethical practice.[iv]

Unlike Kant and with Husserl Schleiermacher believes that theoretical cognition is logically founded upon pretheoretical intersubjective consciousness and its life world. The latter cannot be dismissed as non-cognitive, for if the life world praxis is non-cognitive and invalid, so is theoretical cognition. Schleiermacher contends that religious belief in God is pretheoretical: it is not the result of proofs and demonstrations, but is conditioned solely by the religious modification of feeling, namely the feeling of utter dependence. Belief in God is not acquired though intellectual acts of which the traditional proofs of God are examples, but rather from the thing itself, the object of religious experience. If, as Schleiermacher says, God is given to feeling in an original way, this means that the feeling of utter dependence is in some sense an appreciation of divine being and reality.This is not meant as a Barthian fideism or an appeal to revelation but as a…religious a prori[v]

In other words, this is the “realization of the reality of God.” This concept of the life world has come up again. The feeling is said to be (above) a reflection of unity in the life world.

Unity in the Life world

"Life world," or Lebenswelt is a term used in German philosophy. It implies the world of one's culturally constructed life, the "world" we 'live in;’ this is life as we experience it on a daily basis. The unity one senses in the life world is intuitive and unites the experiences and aspirations of the individual in a sense of integration and belonging in the world. This is what Heidegger is talking about when he says "a being in the world." Schleiermacher is saying that there is a special intuitive sense that everyone can grasp of this whole, this unity, being bound up with a higher reality, being dependent upon a higher unity. In other words, the "feeling" can be understood as an intuitive sense of "radical contingency." The life world is an inter-subjective socio-cultural world the existence of which we take for granted.[vi] Since it is “subject relative” it can be given in intuition at least in principle. Yet It is not only subjective, but also inter-subjective, meaning something that is in principle subjective but not just subjective and, therefore, dismissed as either unimportant or impossible to understand, but is understood, albeit subjectively by others uniformly and somewhat universally and the sheer commonalty of the experience transcends the subjective nature. It’s like the way we all just know what it means to say “you had to be there, “ yet we can’t really put into words why being there would make a difference. Moreover, the life-world consists of general features that are more than subjective.[vii] On the one hand the life world is the “correlate of transcendental consciousness in the sense that belief in the life world is the transcendental condition of possible experience. On the other hand the life-world is experienced as a determinate social and cultural world.”[viii] Thus the life-world can be approach from either a phenomenological perspective or a concrete social perspective rooted in the social sciences.

Schleiermacher’s Implied Ontological Argument

As with the Tillich-implied OA, Schleiermacher did not say “this is an ontological argument.” Williams points that it is one, however, it is so by virtue of the correlation between the feeling and it’s object, or the co-determinate. The correlation (think about Tillich’s theological method discussed in chapter 2) is presupposed by the immanent in “historically determinate religious experience” At the base of the correlation is Shcleiermacher’s ontological approach to the question of God.[ix] For Schleiemracher revelation and person disclosure are part of God’s’ nature. “He accepts the ontological principle that God is the presupposition of the idea of God, and believes that the idea can be identified with nothing less transcendent non mundane whence of utter dependence…Schleiermacher,” says Williams, “presents a pre theoretical reflective version of the ontological argument.”[x] He adds that God is more than religious consciousness and a doctrine of God can be constructed, not merely a postulation as with Kant or Feuerbach. What he means is that Kant appealed to the concept of God as a regulation for ethics, and Feuerbach argued that God was just a construct designed to mask the true interest of society, money. Williams is saying that Schlemeriamcher believed God’s self revelation in the feeling of utter dependence is indicative of an actual God not just a theoretical reference point.

The ontological principle, God is the presupposition to the idea of God, what does this mean? Whitehead explained it this way:

That every condition to which the process of becoming conforms in any particular instance has its reason either in the character of some actual entity in the actual world of that concrescence, or in the character of the subject which is in the process of concrescence. This category of explanation is termed the ‘ontological principle’…[xi]

In other words the idea of God is such that God must really exist in order for the idea to make sense. If the idea doesn’t make sense then why is it that it does make sense in terms of it’s correlation to actual experience? In the early crude form of the argument he was saying things like “I feel love for God so there must be a God for me to love.” That’s because he saw feelings as disclosures rather than self deceptions of useless wastes of energy. I can also be compared with the principle of sufficient reason. Putting it in Tillich’s terms if we sense the reality of being as eternal, infinite and necessary and our place in being as contingent upon this infinite reality, then this the correlation of our experience to God. We are realizing the reality of God in the realization of our place in being which comes to us from an understanding that the experience of the divine is correlation between God’s discourse and our realization. Williams links it to the Ontological Argument. Schleiermacher is sensing intuitively before he thinks about it what Anslem came to conclude in his reflection upon the fool. Williams is quoted above as saying “presents a pre theoretical reflective version of the ontological argument.” In other words before its thought about and formulated into a theoretical argument it’s a realization or an experience of the divine in raw reality, unformed and unedited. With this in mind I propose that this is really what Anselm thought of, but without the language of phenomenology he had to settle for putting it into theoretical terms.

There's also a corrolate with the cosmological argument, since the feeling is actually a sense of the contingency of the life-world upon a higher reality. The feeling is not proof of God's existence but a rational warrant for belief since it validates both CA and OA.

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[i] Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, Hugh S. Pyper. The Oxford Companion to Christian Though:Intellectual, Spiritual and Moral Horizons of Christianity, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, 483 (on line page number). On line copy URL http://books.google.com/books?id=ognCKztR8a4C&pg=PA483&lpg=PA483&dq=What+is+Schleiermacher%27s+%22feeling+of+utter+dependence?%22&source=bl&ots=WZvlE1z5vM&sig=QFo4uYB74aZnRuacLNHYTHFaUtg&hl=en&ei=AImsTaODNsfL0QG_nd34CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=What%20is%20Schleiermacher%27s%20%22feeling%20of%20utter%20dependence%3F%22&f=false

visited 4/17/11.

[ii] Robert R. Williams, Schleiermacher The Theologian: Construction of the Doctrine of God, Philadelphia: Fortes Press, 1978, 5.

[iii] Ibid. 4

[iv] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Kant’s Philosophy of Religion, First published Tue Jun 22, 2004; substantive revision Fri Jul 31, 2009. Copy Right Philip Rossi. online version URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/ visited 4/19/11.

[v] Williams, ibid, 4

[vi] Ibid, 31

[vii] Ibid

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid 4

[x] Ibid, 5

[xi] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, an Essay in Cosmology. New York: The Free Press Corrected Edidition, ed David Ray Griffin Donald W. Shureburne, 19878, 24

Theology is Respected by the Academy Around the World

young Paul Tillich (right) at Science
Conference with Einstine (second from left
back row)

Atheists are always bad mouthing theology, but the vast Majority of them have never read a single page of real theology. They have no concept of what a real theology is about, they probably think it's like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. They know nothing about it but they are so sure it's stupid. The bad mouthing began with Dawkins trying to overcome his deficit in theology without having to learn any. People who criticize his swill with the attack "he knows nothing about theology" which means his books are worthless when they attack theology. So he came up with the extremely inane response that "theology is stupid so I don't have to know about it to know its' stupid." Obviously if he doesn't know about it then he can't know it's stupid. I've seen atheist say "well it's about God so that's how I know it's stupid," That proves someone is stupid. Can you say "circular reasoning?" The attitude toward bad mouthing theology is no where more prevalent than on CARM the atheist boards.

Originally Posted by Rainydays

This is no debate club, and there is no need to enter an arm's race. Let the maker of the positive claim come up with a serious case. I'm not even talking about this forum. If there was a good case, it would already be all over academic literature. I agree that a firm ''no'' is not always wise. I stick to the academic principle. If there are no positive results, a hypothesis cannot be accepted. This doesn't say a whole lot. It just means we will continue ''as if nothing happened'' until something changes.

ahahah My friend. I don't want to insult you. I really don't. Please don't take this the wrong way but you really need more exposure to the academic. IT is all over the academic world! First of all I think he actually got that line from me. I'm always saying "if you had an argument to disprove my position you would make it rather than just call the position names." The statement he makes there is so absurdly silly becuase there are many many dynamite cases for the existence of God and the validity of the Bible made all over the internet all the time. I have 42 of them myself. That's right, I got 42 so I could say this: The answer to God the universe and everything is these God arguemnts.

Do you not realize that every major university on earth has a theology department? Harvard, Yale. Tubingen, Northwestern, Georgetown, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, McGill University in Montreal, ect ect. Even state schools in America can't have theology they have religious studies and philosophy of religion or even Bible chairs.

the vast majority of great writers and thinkers have been believers in God. The list of believers in God in the academic world reads like a list of the greatest thinkers in history it's like ten times longer than the atheist.

Numerous professors at every school I was at told me that theology is respected theologians are respected. you are getting your opinions from atheist web sties. If you Google people like Paul Tillich it will say he's considered one of the most Brilliant men of the 20th century. It will never sy "stupid theologian who didn't know nothing." My Greek professor whose earned his Ph.D. from Yale told me "you would be surprised where one finds Christians around academia, they are in all fields and all levels of academia." Another professor in graduate work, who taught Heidegger and Hermeneutics, said that the philosophers at Tubingen follow with great interest what Jurgen Moltmann does. They are not snidely ignoring theology becuase they think it's stupid.

Many major scientists have been Christians, some even theologians as well (Polikinghorne quite science to become a priest).

Fritz Shafer, nominated for Nobel Prize in Chemistry, University of Georgia, himself a Christian:	"it is very rare that a physical scientists is truly an atheist."
Martin Rees at Cambridge:	"The possibility of life as we know it depends upon a few basic values which are constants. And it is in some aspect remarkably sensitive to their heir numerical values. Nature does exhibit remarkable coincidences."
Arthur Schewhow, Nobel prize winner from Stanford, identifies himself as a Christian.	"We are fortunate to have the Bible which tells us so much about God in widely accessible terms."
Charlie Towns Nobel prize winner:	"The question of science seems to be unanswered if we explore from science alone. Thus I believe there is a need for some metaphysical or religious explanation. I believe in the concept of God an in his existence."
John Pokingham, theoretical physicist at Cambridge, left physics to become a minister.	"I believe that God exists and has made himself known in Jesus Christ."
Allan Sandage, The world's greatest observational cosmologist , Caregie observatories won a prize given by Swedish parliament equivalent to Nobel prize (there is no Nobel prize for cosmology) became a Christian after being a scientist,	"The nature of God is not found in any part of science, for that we must turn to the scriptures."

That list originally came from an article by Firtz Schaffer years ago on Leadership University. Martian Rees is not a Christian but he recently won the Templeton award for creating understanding between religoius thinkers and scinece. He is well known for respecting religion.

www.shamash.org/

Drawing from Judaism's sacred texts as well as great thinkers such as Mordecai Kaplan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Paul Tillich, Gillman traces his ...

www.irishexaminer.com/.../seanad-should-respect-irelands-diversity-...

Mar 2, 2012 – Seanad should respect Ireland's diversity ... who hold an attentiveness to the "beyond in our midst" as the great thinker Paul Tillich put it, as well .

www.suite101.com › Mind & Soul

Great Thinkers, Page: 3. ... Paul Tillich, Alfred North Whitehead, and Hans Jonas point to a God whose being is linked with our own. Jul 28, 2011 – John .

www.rickross.com/reference/general/general679.html

Sep 5, 2004 – ... attracting some of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century: Historian Arnold Toynbee, theologian Paul Tillich and two-time Nobel ... that would eventually influence the nation: a respect for mind-body connections, holistic ...
www.answers.com › Library › Literature & LanguageHe (Tillich) became respected for his lucid preaching and his Systematic Theology, 3 vol. ... Together with thinkers such as Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich ... The best known of these, translated into English as The Religious Situation ...

Whitehead invented Process theology, Toynbee was a Christian, Tillich, Barth, Bultmann all liberal theologians in the Christian tradition. Sorry but it is the case that the major figures theology are respected as great thinkers.


what you are refusing to take seriously is the idea that most academics now that ultimate answers are not easy to come by.Most scientist don't buy into the fortress of facts. Carl Popper says scinece is not about proving things. Science can't prove things but atheists are always implying that their world view is backed by a huge pile of facts while religious belief is backed by no facts. this is what from true. I've researched a vast body of empirical research that shows that religious experience is the product of any kind of pathology and has dramatic transformation effects upon the experience.

My answer to Moral Realism

self giving nature of love and being

This is a discussion form my message boards with a poster I first met on CARM called "Lance." he's a moral realist meaning he asserts the moral reality of axioms a prori with no basis in an agent of bounding, meaning in that view one need to appeal to God as a means of grounding morality. He's never actually answered my question about how one determines the goodness of an axiom.


Lance:

In particular, this thread is an answer the the moral argument posed as an argument to the best explanation. The argument might look something like;

(1) There exists a moral principle P who's truth-value or truth-aptness requires explanation.
(2) On theism, an explanation for P's truth-value or truth-aptness is available to us
(3) On atheism, there is no available explanation for P's truth-value or truth-aptness
(4) Therefore, by inference to the best explanation of P, theism is supported over atheism.

Now this argument certainly has problems, the most obvious of which is that premise (3) can very easily be objected to by merely adopting a metaphysical theory of ethical truths, or a theory of ethical truths respectively. Examples of these might be Platonism or Kantian ethics. Now the argument would then reduce to a quibble over whether the atheistic theories were significantly worse than the theistic ones which, I do not think the theist could actually support. Though this becomes a messy debate and the winner would just be who ever knows more about metaphysical theories of ethical truths, or theories of ethical truths. There's a much simpler solution;

Theists, in general, look very favorably upon the principle that metaphysically necessarily true propositions require no explanation for their truth-value or truth-aptness, but can be explained in virtue of the propositions own necessity. Such a principle is widely used in Leibnizian cosmological arguments as support for the existence of a god so certainly we can say, at least, that by denying this principle theists are making their position significantly weaker. It's also notable that theists typically use this explanatory principle to demonstrate that, if God exists, his existence is a brute fact. Now if they're going to deny this explanatory principle but then turn around and try to argue that the atheist is irrational for believing in moral truths without being able to explain or "ground" their existence, likewise they are going to be irrational for believing in God without being able to explain or "ground" God's existence. Without arguing that it's irrational to accept some ontology without being able to explain or "ground" that ontology, though, It's not at all obvious how exactly the theist would conclude that the atheist is being irrational.

Let's break this down:

Lance:Now this argument certainly has problems, the most obvious of which is that premise (3) can very easily be objected to by merely adopting a metaphysical theory of ethical truths, or a theory of ethical truths respectively. Examples of these might be Platonism or Kantian ethics. Now the argument would then reduce to a quibble over whether the atheistic theories were significantly worse than the theistic ones which, I do not think the theist could actually support. Though this becomes a messy debate and the winner would just be who ever knows more about metaphysical theories of ethical truths, or theories of ethical truths. There's a much simpler solution;

Meta:That's cheating in a sense. Kant was a Christian he made a moral arguemnt for bleief in God which says we need the concept of God as a regularity or concept for morality. To then turn around and assert that Kantian ethics can be used as an independent ethics that allows us to escape belief in God is somehow like a violation of the OT injunction not to cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

Platonism also can be construed in a sense as a theistic view, or at least if not theistic as a not an obvious alternative to theism. Since Augustine put the forms in the mind of God he sort took Platonism on board as a form of Christian theology.

Lance:

Theists, in general, look very favorably upon the principle that metaphysically necessarily true propositions require no explanation for their truth-value or truth-aptness, but can be explained in virtue of the propositions own necessity.

That is becuase it contains the explanation in self evident form. Not the same as saying it has no rational.

Lance
Such a principle is widely used in Leibnizian cosmological arguments as support for the existence of a god so certainly we can say, at least, that by denying this principle theists are making their position significantly weaker.

Meta:Can you quote this from Leibnitz So I'll know what you are talking about? No offense but I have a feeling you are confusing a self evident proposition with one that has no rationale.

Lance:
It's also notable that theists typically use this explanatory principle to demonstrate that, if God exists, his existence is a brute fact.

I don't think God's existence is ever understood as a brute fact. Brute facts have no basis in rationality they conform of any kind of metaphysical rationale or sense, they just are. NO one thinks God's existence is irrational or that it's just some arbitrary fact with no relation to rational truth. You seem to be confusing self evidence with lack of rationale. The existence of God is not an arbitrary brute fact in my view. Yet the explanation of it's alteration is self contained and self evident.

God has no higher rationale than itself becuase it is the nature of being to be, and God is the basis of being, being itself, what it means to be. That doesn't mean it has no rationale. The rationale is found in both the principle of being and that of love, the self giving out or resistance to nothingness.

Lance:
Now if they're going to deny this explanatory principle but then turn around and try to argue that the atheist is irrational for believing in moral truths without being able to explain or "ground" their existence, likewise they are going to be irrational for believing in God without being able to explain or "ground" God's existence.

Meta: that's what I'm saying God's existence is grounded in the nature of being. Which is to say its' self grounding. that is not the same has having no ground.

Lance:Without arguing that it's irrational to accept some ontology without being able to explain or "ground" that ontology, though, It's not at all obvious how exactly the theist would conclude that the atheist is being irrational.

Meta:Theistic or Christian ontology is self explanatory, which is part of the necessary nature of God. Not arbitrary and inexplicable. It's expalined in the nature of being and in the nature of love.

Lance:It then becomes an easy appeal to intuition, and thought experiments about other possible worlds, to show that moral principles are metaphysically necessary. It seems to me, at least, that if there ever was a contender for metaphysical necessity, it would be moral truths.



If moral truths are metaphysically necessary and metaphysically necessary truths do not require an explanation or "grounding" to be rationally accepted, then premise (1) of the moral argument is demonstrably false. On the other hand if the theist argues that moral truths are not metaphysically necessary they have a burden of proof that I'm quite sure they could not meet. Lastly, if the theist denies that metaphysically necessary truths do not require an explanation other than in virtue of their necessity, they are not only forfeiting a great many arguments which could make their case much stronger, but they can no longer accept God's existence as a brute fact.

Meta:that proves my point. you are just conflating necessity with brute fact. Being necessary doesn't mean being arbitrary it means being self evident. the rationale is part of the self evident aspects of necessary truth.

Husbands are married men not becuase they just happen to arbitrarily so but because that's what it means to be a husband.

Good is good because it's a logical implication of love, and love is the basis of reality because it's part of the core of being. It's the nature of being itself to love, which is exhibited in the self giving aspect of both being and love. This is the background of the moral universe. That is grounding. that in and of itself is grounding.

Theistic moral truths have no escaped grounding they have escaped a long complex grounding that can't be readily understood. They are grounded in the eternal necesasry nature of God's being and in the self giving aspect of God's character.

Saying that axioms can escape grounding because they are self explanatory is like saying all husbands re not married men becuase that's what a husband is but just for some arbitrary irrational reason where by husbands are construed as married men for not reason at all.

If moral truths are metaphysically necessary and metaphysically necessary truths do not require an explanation or "grounding" to be rationally accepted,

In my view that that is the mistake that lies at the crux of the whole argument. That's what Lance's whole view rests upon and it explains why find his view mistaken.In my view saying this is a huge mistake becuase the necessary aspect of propositions is not an excuse to avoid grounding, but contains it's grounding within the self evident nature of it's necessity.

The self evident nature of moral axioms can only be asserts with the moral grounding agency of a transcendental signified to give it authority. Saying that self evidence isn't grounding is like saying married men aren't husbands becasue that's what husbands aer, but that they are just arbitrary husbands for no reason. It just happens that for no reason at all married men seem to gravitate toward husbanding.

The choice of the signifier "husband" to describe the state of marriage for men is arbitrary. It could be called "Pentecost" it cold be called "frog breath tree hopper" or anything else but the meaning of the signifier is not arbitrary. its' set by the context and the context in which we understand the term "Husband" is that of being a married man.


Now it might work to say to make the arguemnt Lance makes if one dealt with a form of theism such that God was construed as a big man in the sky. Yet it doesn't' work at all for eternal necessary being, since the necessary nature of moral axioms as the expiation of love, the background of the moral universe, is expressly self evident with eternal necessary being.

This is so becuase we are not dealing with the will of some figure and the divine command theory that "truth is true becuase God says it is." Rather we are dealing with an expression of the nature of being which manifests itself in love as it's primary axiom, and which is at the same time a self expression of the very nature of being (God's character). Thus there's nothing arbitrary about it, it simply happens to be an axiom derived from the self evident nature of being (ie God's love).