Evidence of God

[Dondi]

Universalism does not necessarily equate to God. Neither do values.

I never said that it did.

The ideas of good and bad, right and wrong in themselves depend upon there being meaning to life. You can't get from mere utilitarianism to purpose.

Why not? Athiests seem to gather that a sense of utility in their actions and find purpose. Maybe their purpose is to find pleasure before dying. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, etc, etc...

Utilitarianism has been used as an argument for many different political views. In his essay On Liberty, as well as in other works, John Stuart Mill argues that utilitarianism requires that political arrangements satisfy the "liberty principle" (or harm principle), according to which "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."[4] Prevention of self-harm by other persons was considered expressly forbidden. Instead, Mill states that only persuasion can be rightfully used to prevent self-harm...
Act utilitarianism states that, when faced with a choice, we must first consider the likely consequences of potential actions and, from that, choose to do what we believe will generate most pleasure

From wiki on CS Lewis The Four Loves

"Caritas (agapē, αγαπη) is an unconditional love directed towards one's neighbor which is not dependent on any lovable qualities that the object of love possesses. Agape is the love that brings forth caring regardless of circumstance. Lewis recognizes this as the greatest of loves, and sees it as a specifically Christian virtue. The chapter on the subject focuses on the need of subordinating the natural loves to the love of God, who is full of charitable love. Lewis states that "He is so full, in fact, that it overflows, and He can't help but love us." Lewis metaphorically compares love with a garden, charity with the gardening utensils, the lover as the gardener, and God as the elements of nature. God's love and guidance act on our natural love (that cannot remain what it is by itself) as the sun and rain act on a garden: without either, the object (metaphorically the garden; realistically love itself) would cease to be beautiful or worthy. Lewis warns that those who exhibit charity must constantly check themselves that they do not flaunt—and thereby warp—this love ("But when you give to someone, don't tell your left hand what your right hand is doing."—Matthew 6:3), which is its potential threat."

I don't think we are fully capable of exerting agape love. Our underlying motives are not pure.

As for the 'problem of evil,' my thoughts lately have been on exactly what omniscience and omnipotency can mean.

Ah yes, that is the crux of the matter, isn't it.

As I said to Paladin, and Thomas, although I used the term evidence I am not speaking in terms of proof of God. I agree with Kierkegaard that it takes a leap of faith. The 'evidence' distinguishes faith in God from faith in a teapot orbiting the sun.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." - Hebrew 1:1

Try wrapping your head around that.

Now Dondi, my arguments are open for deconstruction until the cows come home. I admit that. What I'm wondering is once you've deconstructed your worldview, where do you go from there?

What is your take on all this? Do you believe in God? Why? Do you believe in Christ? Why?

I've got a reply, but it will have to wait.

 

[lunamoth]

Hi Dondi,

Thank you for your replies and Ok, I'll play a little longer with the devil's advocate. But I will concede that when it comes to debating God's existence, no one wins.

Why not? Athiests seem to gather that a sense of utility in their actions and find purpose. Maybe their purpose is to find pleasure before dying. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, etc, etc...

Of course they do. True nihilists are very very rare I think. And of course being a moral person also does not depend upon belief in God. I'm saying is that this reality (of finding meaning and being moral) is not consistent with with a purely materialist/naturalist philosophy.

(I should probably clarify here that I know that there are atheists who are nevertheless very spiritual/metaphysical and accept that there is more to life than the material world. So, perhaps I should specifiy that I'm only talking about the view of materalism/naturalism.)

Say for example a materialist says "I find meaning in my life through my work/family/pursuit of personal happiness." That is fine and consistent. But it does not rule out using other people as means toward those personal ends.

Well, the materialist might say that is unacceptable because they also have the principle of not using people as means to an end. So they will put off their own pursuit of happiness if it involves hurting other people. Still fine and consistent, although it's starting to get tricky because we have to wonder why they would hold that principle to begin with.

Next, the materialist says to his neighbor, I also don't like it that you own slaves. And I think we should pass legislation against slavery. Now the materialist has moved out of the realm of consistency with his worldview. Why should his neighbor not own slaves if it increases his neighbor's personal happiness? How should we resolve this issue? Can we appeal to reason somehow, or is it a matter of whoever is stronger and gathers the most support gets to have thier way?

Let's appeal to reason (seems more civilized).

Where does reason come from and how do we know we can trust it to lead us to true conclusions? The materialist might say that reason evolved because it gave us a selective advantage over other species competing for the same resources, or in short it makes us more fit for our environment. It is useful. But that does not mean that our beliefs about the world are true. We might believe that all red foods are poison and in avoiding all red foods we don't eat the red berries that really are poinsonous and in this way we avoid the poison and survive. But it is not true that all red foods are poison.

The crux of the issue is, as Thomas alluded to, we can't use reason to test the validity of reason. It's always possible that our reason leads us to false beliefs and there is no way to rule this out using reason.

There are only two things that rescue reason:

1. Utility, in which case it does not matter if we are wrong as long as the predictive value of our reason is useful. But how do you apply that to the concept that materialism is true? It's true because it's useful? We're right back at the avoiding red foods stage.

2. Reason is a gift grounded in something higher than itself, the divine/supernatural, and it gives us true information about our world. But we'll discard this possibility as not necessary, for now.

So what does this mean in our disagreement with our neighbor over his slaves? Well, what is the reason that holding slaves is wrong? We can overpower some people and keep them in subjugation. This eases our work, makes it easier for us to survive. Sure, we may feel compassion for them, but we now realize that this is just a side-effect of evolution that makes us feel 'love' because we need that to make sure our own offspring make it to the next generation. But now my reason tells me my offspring will make it to the next generation better if I have slaves.

The only reason you don't want me to have slaves is because you don't like it. There is no moral high ground because we all make our own morals and meaning.

We're back to personal power and might makes right.

And we've now also seen that the meaning I've chosen is an illusion. It's a like or dislike.

And the exact same case can be made for the theist who claims to have meaning...unless the theist is right about God. The theist view is consistent. The materialist can never be right in this so meaning and morals are inconsistent with his worldview.

I don't think we are fully capable of exerting agape love. Our underlying motives are not pure.

I'll return to this later.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." - Hebrew 1:1

Try wrapping your head around that.

Indeed. I'm not sure you noticed but this has been my point all along.

 

[Snoopy]

I am not trained as a logical thinker and I cannot argue logically at all.

It's probably really dull anyway.

I am an intuitive thinker and I have flashes of knowing what I know and having a peace about that knowing.

I like that.

I realized that I started too late in life to attempt to define my beliefs with reason and logic.

I'm not sure I would...? Not exclusively anyway...

Maybe that is why I have never been comfortable on this forum and it as taken me nearly 3 years to get up the courage to post anything.

Wow, that's a long time. And now that you have...we can all value your intuitions.

I believe that the Holy Spirit is what unites all of us like a web that connects us to each other and to a God, who rather than invade our turf from above, comes to us from the temporal beyond

I think this kind of notion is found quite commonly, expressed in different ways. Perhaps, for example, Chief Seattle and Indra's Net...

s.

 

[Snoopy]

BTW, thanks for adding even more to the books and authors I haven't read yet.

Let he who is without sin cast the first recommendation.

s.

 

[Dondi]

Next, the materialist says to his neighbor, I also don't like it that you own slaves. And I think we should pass legislation against slavery. Now the materialist has moved out of the realm of consistency with his worldview. Why should his neighbor not own slaves if it increases his neighbor's personal happiness? How should we resolve this issue? Can we appeal to reason somehow, or is it a matter of whoever is stronger and gathers the most support gets to have thier way?

What if the materialist was an African American, whose ancestor were slaves?

Where does reason come from and how do we know we can trust it to lead us to true conclusions? The materialist might say that reason evolved because it gave us a selective advantage over other species competing for the same resources, or in short it makes us more fit for our environment. It is useful. But that does not mean that our beliefs about the world are true. We might believe that all red foods are poison and in avoiding all red foods we don't eat the red berries that really are poinsonous and in this way we avoid the poison and survive. But it is not true that all red foods are poison.

You haven't told me how one came to the conclusion that all red foods are poisonous? That information must have come from somewhere, perhaps a legend or tradition in the past. It reminds me of this story:

In the story, a young bride is preparing pot roast for dinner. Her husband watches as she carefully cuts each end off the roast before putting it in the roasting pan and placing it in the oven.

“Why did you cut the ends off the roast?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” she replies, “that’s just the way my mother taught me.” The next time the young woman talks to her mother, she asks about trimming the ends off the pot roast.
“I don’t know why,” her mother answers, “but that’s how your grandmother always did it.” On a visit to her grandmother, the young woman asks about the pot roast. “Oh,” replies the grandmother, “I had to do that simply because my roasting pan was too small to fit an entire roast.”

Source: Family Ancestry.com - A Recipe for History

Point being that somewhere in the past, someone had to believe the idea that red food is poisonous. Maybe the same person who believed tomatoes were poisonous. But there had to be some kind of reasoning behind the belief, i.e. someone ate some red berries and died, ergo red food is bad.

But a reasonable person would set out to prove or disprove that theory.

The crux of the issue is, as Thomas alluded to, we can't use reason to test the validity of reason. It's always possible that our reason leads us to false beliefs and there is no way to rule this out using reason.

That is why the scientific method was devised. Even the scripture tells us to "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" - I Thess 5:21. We come to the conclusion that somethings hold fast, and others do not.

Some Pentacostalists and Charismatics will tell you that healing is included in the Atonement (based on their reading of Isaiah 53:5). If that were the case, then we ought to see healings galore in the Pentacostal/Charismatic community. There ought to be no exceptions. But obviously this is not the case, based on documented cases of those that were not healed at the Benny Hinn Crusades (apparently, it wasn't their day). So the conclusion can only be that healings are not part of the Atonement. The damage that causes, of course, is doubt in God, and perhaps many will start to believe that they aren't really saved. Or if they still believe in God, they must feel that they done something wrong with them (not enough faith) or are too sinful for the healing (which kinda defeats the purpose of the Atonement, doncha think?)

There are only two things that rescue reason:

1. Utility, in which case it does not matter if we are wrong as long as the predictive value of our reason is useful. But how do you apply that to the concept that materialism is true? It's true because it's useful? We're right back at the avoiding red foods stage.

From a moral stance, perhaps not. However, if a society deemed it useful to cause the greatest good for the society, then it would be true for that society. That seems to be the logic when one comes across the passages in scripture where God has Israel wipe out whole Assyrian communities so that Israel isn't contaminated with pagan traditions. But it's the same kind of logic that caused the Holocost.

2. Reason is a gift grounded in something higher than itself, the divine/supernatural, and it gives us true information about our world. But we'll discard this possibility as not necessary, for now.

What if that something higher is merely an ideal? We'd all like to be better that we are. Wouldn't it be possible to establish some goal that we can progress towards without appeal to some divine manifest?

 

[lunamoth]

What if the materialist was an African American, whose ancestor were slaves?

It would not matter if just going by reason. No matter what your history or emotional attachment...why not own slaves?

You haven't told me how one came to the conclusion that all red foods are poisonous? That information must have come from somewhere, perhaps a legend or tradition in the past. It reminds me of this story:

It does not matter how one came to that conclusion. Sure, since this a matter of sense data they will probably will refine their ideas using a scientific approach (I am all for a scientific approach to understanding our universe). My example is just to illustrate that useful ideas are not necessarily true, as as we move away from conclusions based upon sense data and to conclusions based upon inference, the basis for finding truth becomes more tenuous.

I trust reason. I think it leads us to valid understandings of our universe. The question is why do I believe that?

If the question is: "Is reason valid?" It is circular reasoning to say "Reason is valid because my reason says it is."

You can instead say "Is reason useful?" That is a helpful question in figuring out how our world works. But then how do you know something like this is true: "There is no purpose to the universe."

Or: what is the pragmatic answer to: why value life?

That is why the scientific method was devised. Even the scripture tells us to "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" - I Thess 5:21. We come to the conclusion that somethings hold fast, and others do not.


Some Pentacostalists and Charismatics will tell you that healing is included in the Atonement (based on their reading of Isaiah 53:5). If that were the case, then we ought to see healings galore in the Pentacostal/Charismatic community. There ought to be no exceptions. But obviously this is not the case, based on documented cases of those that were not healed at the Benny Hinn Crusades (apparently, it wasn't their day). So the conclusion can only be that healings are not part of the Atonement. The damage that causes, of course, is doubt in God, and perhaps many will start to believe that they aren't really saved. Or if they still believe in God, they must feel that they done something wrong with them (not enough faith) or are too sinful for the healing (which kinda defeats the purpose of the Atonement, doncha think?)

As I said above, I agree with you (if I'm understanding your point correctly). I trust the scientific method to give me useful information about the universe, and I think we have the gift of reason to help us see that at least some faith healing is a sham and that medicine has drastically improved our lives.

I'm not questioning whether reason is useful...it clearly is.

But we make inferences about life that are not just the management of sense information. We also think about our thinking. And it is at that level of concious thought that we are not saying things are merely useful, but that they are true. What is the basis for that conclusion?

From a moral stance, perhaps not. However, if a society deemed it useful to cause the greatest good for the society, then it would be true for that society. That seems to be the logic when one comes across the passages in scripture where God has Israel wipe out whole Assyrian communities so that Israel isn't contaminated with pagan traditions. But it's the same kind of logic that caused the Holocost.

Here you are making my argument for me: the argument from "for the greatest good" comes down to might makes right. Who gets to decide what is the greatest good? And especially on a purely pragmatic basis this can be frightening in the implications, as your holocaust example shows.

What if that something higher is merely an ideal? We'd all like to be better that we are. Wouldn't it be possible to establish some goal that we can progress towards without appeal to some divine manifest?

I think it is theoretically possible and this is effectively what happens. We try to find goals and laws that we all agree on that are for 'the best.' It's not easy, and I'm not saying that accepting that 'God is consistent with our universe' gets us closer to achieving some kind of universal higher idea.

It is not a matter of appealing to the divine to give us a law. I'm getting at a much more basic question, setting aside all the 'evidence' for a theistic God and specifically a Christian God.

My 'evidence' in the OP is a testimony of faith. Reason can only take us so far. Whether we believe in God or not, to say that anything is true or false requires a leap of faith at the bottom of our reason. Once the leap is made reason is again our ally. Even people who reject God make this leap in faith in their reason.