Thought I’d post a bit about Greg’s introduction to TP (Trinity and Process) and summarize the central thesis of his work. There’s not a lot in the intro to debate, but it’ll be nice to know where our future discussions are heading.

From Intro i.3:

“It is the central thesis of this work that Hartshorne, as well as others who argue that the orthodoxy doctrine of the Trinity is philosophically useless or even inherently ‘irrational’, if fundamentally mistaken. To the contrary, we shall argue that Hartshorne’s own metaphysical system, when purged of certain misconstrued elements, actually requires something like the classical trinitarian view of God as internally relational and self-sufficient in this relationality. We shall demonstrate that Hartshorne’s metaphysics, when revised at a fundamental level (viz. his view of what is and is not a priori) reveals that the doctrine of the Trinity (in broad outline) is actually necessitated by the a priori features of human rationality. Hence, we shall in this work be arguing that, while there is a great deal about Hartshorne’s metaphysics (including his view of God) which is sound, there are aspects of his system which are not. And it is the latter characteristics of his system which render it inherently anti-trinitarian. When these misconstrued elements of his system are revised, however, his system becomes not only open to a trinitarian conception of God—it actually requires some such conception.” (p. 2)

Greg talks about the significance of CH and the demise of the ‘substantialist’ world view and the general challenge to orthodox Christianity of making trinitarianism intellectually plausible.

He also talks a bit about philosophical theology as methodology and why it’s legitimate and needed. He gives a nod to Barth and claims he’s not essentially trying to get to God through human reason. Here Greg says:

“We are not attempting to suggest that the explicit doctrine of the Trinity, formulated and preached in the Church, can be proven a priori. What the church believes about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as they are eternally related in the one God and as they operate in the work of creation and salvation can be known only on the basis of what God himself has told us: it can, in short, be known only by revelation. What we are proposing, however, is that this proclamation does not contradict the necessary categories of reason, but rather confirms them.” (p 16)

As I read through this work I concluded that Greg is doing much more than just proposing that trinitarianism doesn’t contradict the necessary categories of reason. CH believes he succeeded in making a rational case for the necessary existence of a personal God. If CH conceded to have not “proved” it, that’s not because he believed his arguments lacked an additional act of revelation. It’s because he agreed that what is necessarily true a priori may not always be obvious. Given our imperfect intellects we may be less than certain about ourselves. So, so far as Greg is reconstructing CH’s metaphysics, he really is proposing to have shown by reason that there exists a necessary personal being (God) whose being is necessarily related. True, Greg doesn’t suggest that he’s proven the relatedness of God is trinitarian in nature. He just argues that God is in Godself, necessarily related and ‘social’ (carefully understood). My point is, Greg’s doing more than saying, “The trinity doesn’t violate the dictates of reason.” He seems to be saying (because it’s inherent in CH’s system) that the dictates of reasons and a priori truth require a perfectly related personal being such as God.

Tom

I guess no one is gonna start without me! So here's what I think about the few pages I've read.

First of all, I don't see how we can rid our thought of the notion of beings/entities. I don't know how that's possible.

Second, I'm not sure what Greg is calling a priori and categorical if he thinks they can change with the times. To my mind, what is a priori and categorical is either essentially human, or human epistemology/metaphysics is not doable. I would agree with Daniel on that point. I contend that we may emphasize different categories at different times. But we never abandon any of them.

Third, CH is not the first western philosopher to explain the human conception of God in terms of the a priori. Noah Porter did as well, for one.

Back to my grind! Hope to do some reading this weekend when I'm gonna do some traveling.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 4/12/2011 6:53:23 AM (GMT-5)

Tom: Greg talks about the significance of CH and the demise of the ‘substantialist’ world view.

Jeff: That, combined with what little I read made me infer that Greg was agreeing with those who think a substantialist world view has met some kind of demise. But it hasn't. And I'm glad to hear Greg agrees that it hasn't. HUMAN categories can only be wrong if HUMAN epistemology/metaphysics is impossible altogether, in the first place.

Post Edited (Tom) : 4/18/2011 7:20:59 PM (GMT-5)

Sounds good. While we're on that topic, late me make clear here that I agree with Porter that the teleological causal relation is a priori. The inference to particular ends are not.

But some inferences will inevitably (because naturally) be made on an on-going basis, if not consistently. The natural, non-volitional inference that apprehension is an end of certain mental activity is irresistable except for rare instances of skepticism. But insomuch as that inconsistency is inevitable for the determined skeptic, that life is not a rational one. The only way one can persistently be deductively consistent while being inductively parsimonious is to embrace the inevitable inference that some mental activity is designed to correspond to actual relations we don't cause between actual beings.

I haven't got quite that far, but I think I agree with what you're saying. Noah Porter says it this way: He says the judgment is the fundamental unit of human thought . But judgments are only intelligible in terms of the concept of being and various relations--these are not derivable from raw conscious experience, so they must be supplied a priori.

Before we consciously apply analysis to judgments, we don't realize that being and relations can only be known if they have some universal sense to them. But upon analysis, we realize that if they were not universal in the relevant senses, we could know nothing. And in that sense, they are necessary truths--necessary for there to be knowledge at all. So, yes, they are applicable TO all kinds of conscious activity.  But in another sense, they are, therefore, HOW we know things inferentially.

But they also imply (per Porter's view) that nothing can come from nothing. Thus, there can be no time for which there is NO being whatsoever. Porter argues that because

1) we must think of our involuntary conscious experience as teleological to make any inductive sense of it, and

2) we couldn't absolutely cease to naturally infer inductively if we wanted to,

our involuntary conscious experience has to be, given our categories, ultimately due to a teleological being. One can doubt the very law of identity or the LNC, of course. But they have just exited the stage of meaningful discourse and have nothing to contribute to what most people think has relevance to the human business.

Apart from a priori concepts/relations, all belief is just blind faith. And in that case, no one's belief is knowably any better than anyone else's. Indeed, we can't even know there is anyone else, in that case.

I hear you saying pretty much the same thing. The argument worth having is always about what ARE the HUMAN a priori concept(s) and relations and in what sense are they universal, not whether belief is blind if our natural a priori cognition is ultimately of no epistemological value. 

If there is no set of HUMAN a priori concepts/relations, that's a show-stopper for meaningful communal activity. This is the problem of denying universality in every sense. It proves too much. NO ONE can live consistently with that denial. It is at war with the social and teleological nature of the human soul. And I can't take seriously one who has no qualms with living inconsistently. That means they might sanction murder tomorrow.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 5/7/2011 12:28:57 PM (GMT-5)

And virtually no one claims that killing=murder. Very few do.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 5/8/2011 7:22:20 AM (GMT-5)

Asher, I'm not saying that I have no reason to BEGIN a debate with an atheist. I'm saying that when they get to the point of asserting, as they have to me, that even the LNC is tentative, there's no point in going on. If they assume that certain propositions are just obviously true, then we can argue as to whether any proposition could be obviously true if we weren't designed to know/apprehend by a competent, benevolent designer.

IOW, some atheists see the error in their position. Some don't. Some resort to a degree of skepticism that can't be penetrated by logical, honest debate. Those you have to give up on. Because you've realized that they never brought the conditions of argument to the table after all.