Sorry man. I’m a lifetime member of the Lord’s Swath team (special weapons and theology? =] )
From a while back that I never finished like I’d hoped, but good nuff fer now"
[quote]groo wrote about a month ago:<<< I am not an objectivist but I am not sure if thats what you are asking exactly. Constructivist is probably closest to where I am in thinking about knowledge. I’ll grant you that this at least socially reduces to relativism which I do find troubling .I definitely don’t think the infallibilist definition of knowledge is correct. You can probably know all synthetic analytic statements, but at the base of these it would be claimed there is some inference. I’d certainly say we all act like we know these things. >>>[/quote]You are treating us to a combination of attempted impression with the scope of your philosophical erudition and a somewhat wise intuitive reluctance to allowing yourself to be exposed to potential vulnerability by committing to anything too specific until you see where I’m goin. Judging by the rest of your post, which I did read but didn’t quote, I’d say it’s a bit more of the former than the latter.
I am not trying to trap you with interrogational trickery. My point is very simple. Until we settle HOW we know anything at all, the question of WHAT we know is meaningless. Ethics are down the road from here. I’m not even dealing directly in that currency at all for the moment. I’m asking you to name for me just one piece of knowledge of any kind the certainty of which you consider unassailable. Once you do that (if you do), I will ask you by what intellectual mechanism you have come to so regard this object of knowledge. We will politely (I think, you seem a pleasant enough fella) wrangle back and forth for a few posts trying to establish what exactly I mean by that too, but eventually you will settle on the conventions of logic.
You will no doubt declare that without logic no discussion of anything whatsoever can be made intelligible. I will agree, but ask you to explain how YOU are certain of even this, at which point you, being a rather astute lad, will then realize in earnest the towering profundity of your previous statement concerning certainty. “Or at the very least I act as if I believe this. Pragmatically everyone does.” Ohhh that’s a HALLELUJAH worthy bullseye right there my friend. At this point, in your case I’m bettin I can stop talkin for a while (which will thrill BodyGuard) because you, also having a dose of intellectual honesty by the common grace of God, will then take yourself the rest of the way home. You will realize that the bedrock first principles, beyond which your intellectual autonomy will not allow you to go, are entirely ill equipped to provide you with the very pragmatic certainty that you yourself have proclaimed as a universal truism among us human critters.
Now having been robbed of objective certainty in the only place it really matters, you will then be left to ponder from whence arises this pragmatic certainty under which you are forced to inescapably live lest you begin experimenting with objectionable pastimes such as leaping from tall buildings to see what happens (a humorous hypothetical). It will be about here that you will find knocking on your forehead the distasteful and disgusting conclusion that this certainty that you find yourself universally and incessantly dependent upon is apprehended wholly by faith and a faith no more objectively rational, even from your own autonomous standpoint than that of us idiot Christians.
But AHA!!! You may possibly retort with something like “yeah but at least I have science and modern discovery to make what I believe MORE certain than what you believe”. Poppycock and balderdash I say. Science and modern discovery depend upon the very logic you will have already concluded is uncertain for both their method and interpretation. In the realm of ultimate questions UNcertainty is as good as falsehood because were dealing with like the ultimate ya understand. Might be certain or even probably certain ain’t cuttin it.
Now to today’s exchange:
[quote]groo wrote:<<< There are philosophers that think you can know things beyond a doubt. >>>[/quote]I know. Elder Forlife would manhandle every one of em. I mean that. My hat is off. From within the sinful realm of human autonomy he is the most invincible warrior for truth I think I’ve ever seen. His methods and conclusion are unassailable if you guys are right. For all the razzing I give Pat, he only goes scattered n braindead when dealing with me because he absolutely despises what I believe to the point of irrationality. Pat’s a very intelligent guy though who gets the tip of my hat fairly often as well for different reason than Elder Forlife does. However before he beamed out for a few weeks here Elder Forlife was spanking Pat’s little pink autonomous Catholic bottom. Not because Pat’s a moron, but because he’s defending the utterly indefensible which is moral and ontological/teleological certainty on the foundation of an uncertain contingent god which puts him right square in the middle of Elder Forlife’s own world of autonomy.[quote]groo wrote:<<< Some of them would say the facts of reality are self evident. >>>[/quote] Would they now? And you don’t find this to be a statement of faith? [quote]groo wrote:<<< The Tractatus is like this. It presents no arguments really. Its mostly stated as a series of self evident facts that Wittgenstein felt should be obvious to anyone intelligent. >>>[/quote]Or this?[quote]groo wrote:<<< You keep bringing up statements of arithmetic as things you know to be true everywhere. This isn’t exactly the way they are understood. Its not a paradox for example to state something like: 2+2=4 in this room but in that room 2+2=5. [/quote]Fine. Yes I’m aware of “modified” addition and other such mental masturbation. Try n live any part of your life or engineer a space voyage to a place where 2+2=5 in a reality not based on the fact that it equals 4. I’m not interested in hypothetical brain games though some will surely accuse me of incessantly engaging in exactly that.
Instead of trying to impress me with how much reading you’ve done (which is quite impressive btw) please tell me what YOU believe. Not, “well this school says this and this dude has some points about that”. No, what do YOU believe to be true about anything and why?
And now part of Cortes reply at the time, (the part I liked best btw lol) and my further response. It’s all here.
[quote]Cortes wrote:<<< But, it was, I repeat, a damned good summary of the absolute core of what pretty much every religious discussion we’ve had on this board over the past year or more has been leading to. [/quote]Why thank you Cortes. But don’t ya see,(Van Til always said that) this is the absolute core of EVERY discussion, even if only unconsciously assumed, which is usually the case. Not just religious, but philosophical and scientific as well. People everywhere simply meander through life making universal uninterrupted use of a set of intellectual rules without even once ever questioning either their origin or validity. They simply proceed as if it’s a preeminent given that logic governs their reality in such a way that not one coherent thought word or deed would be possible without it.
My contention is… hang on… they’re right!!! With one fatal flaw. By every "religious’ definition there is, they worship logic itself instead of the super-logical God who has created us in is image and in so doing has lent us a finite derivative version of HIS logic. Only He has the full version. That’s why when someone asks “how can God decree evil and not be it’s author and thereby responsible for it?” or “How can God choose individuals to save and damn and those individuals still be free and responsible?” my profound, goose bump inducing answer is… “I dunno” LOL!!! I don’t even pretend to try n know.
Seriously. I use the same logic everybody else does, except that by His grace I’m freed to operate it properly under His divine tutelage with Him defining it’s parameters to me and not the other way around. “Why that’s just a circular statement of blind faith”. From our limited standpoint? Of course it is. I have flatly stated that myself.
I do not and have never claimed to know everything, but I do KNOW that HE knows everything and that is where my certainty derives from. Once again. A child does not know what his father knows, but he knows that his father knows it. He has no idea how Daddy’s grown up world operates. He simply trusts that Daddy does. I do the same. Jesus Himself said that we must come to Him as little children.
Is this what He meant? You better believe this is what He meant. I don’t understand MOST of the skull popping statements God makes about Himself in the bible, but I know He does. Let’s try just one. “And God said ‘let there be light’… and there was light”. WoohooHOOO!!! LOL!!! Lemme know when yer thesis is done on that one LOL!!! (I’m not laughin at ya BTW). I’m sure you get my point.
I don’t have a “problem of evil” for instance because intellectually speaking evil is no problem for me. Why is there evil? (or why did God create Satan?) Because almighty God decreed it to His own glory. He orders it so that He can display both His love, mercy and tenderness on one hand and His holiness, wrath and justice on the other.
Couldn’t He have created so as to avoid all this suffering and accomplished the same thing? I don’t know that either. I just know that He didn’t and therefore this way is better for Him which by definition makes it better period because everything and everyone belongs to Him.
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:36. Romans is the King’s feast of the truth of Jesus Christ. That book could be studied for 10 lifetimes.