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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 12/24/2010 3:46 AM (GMT -6) |   | |
Tommy: What up Brandon? Can you see if you can get Canada to stop sending us Minnesotans their excess cold and snow?
Brandon: Well, I’m next to Detroit, so technically I’m even south of you so I could say that it’s from Michigan. But I understand your dilemma and I will speak to the government about that…as I believe in government.  Chem trails and all that. You know.
Brandon: I don't understand why the particulars have to be a part of a larger metanarrative in order to have meaningful communication.
Tom: Asher, Jeff, and I are just saying that communication can only occur because there is SOME shared context, either assumed a priori truths or intuitions or whatever. As competitive as our stories are, the fact is we DO all communicate them with each other. HOW’S that possible if all these stories are not also part of a larger meaning or narrative (even if it’s just something as simple as the laws of logic that make meaning possible, or teleology, or categories of right/wrong, justice/injustice, etc.)? I think Jeff, Asher and I want to say that some of these categories are pre-linguistic, perhaps they lie within the image of God, even if they eventually get expressed and conditioned through language and context.
Brandon: Its not just that they are competitive its that they are stories that are quite different than our own thus I’m not always sure that communication IS achievable. It may be possible, but it may not be successful. IOW, communication/linguistics are the conventions used in order for us to relay the other community’s stories but this seems to me to be quite different than saying that there is shared context or metanarrative that encompasses all other met narratives. I don’t doubt that there is SOME shared context but all that means is that there are points of agreement or points of contact between the stories.
Brandon: I really don't even understand why we have to communicate. I think that’s Jamie’s point. I think he or one of his other peeps spoke about this…
Tom: You mean they “communicated” something about it? I can’t believe Jaime doesn’t think we can, do, and must in fact communicate. How many books and articles has he published? How many languages has he learned (at least German and French besides Enlish, right?). Not communicate?
Brandon: What I mean is that AS FAR AS POLITICS IS CONCERNED, all that really matters is that a particular communities exist that they have the right to exist and that each one says that its version of reality (the met narrative that encompasses all other met narratives?) is more accurate than the others which is to say that they are all tribalistic which is to say that they are all making claims (proclamations) that they are right (more accurately describe reality) and the others are wrong (less accurate in their description of reality). This doesn’t inherently have to translate into something violent (towards the other). Yes, they all need to communicate their version of reality if not for the bear necessity of survival (but as we know [as Christians] that is not all there is to it).
Brandon: There are differing communities and particularities. All are necessarily tribal. All are necessarily proclamatory. I think this was one of Jamie's problems with Grenz's use of metanarrative. Why must one have to have a metanarrative at all in the sense that I think you are using it Tom.
Tom: What does it mean to proclaim one’s own narrative universally (and we Christians do proclaim our story universally) if not to claim that its truth is efficacious universally, i.e., universally true? This is what I don’t see postmodern Christians showing us. Assuming they have any sense of mission at all, then a) explain to me what assumptions motivate them to proclaim their narrative universally at all—ever—and then b) explain to me how proclamation/communication is universally possible apart from some universally shared category (of truths or intuitions).
Brandon: I agree. Each tribe/community/group makes universal claims and or their metanarrative is universal in scope. There may be many different reasons that motivate someone/group to proclaim that their metanarrative is THE truth. It could range from less noble motives as said above, the survival and boundaries of the group to the deep felt passion that one has grasped what they see as the truth and want to share it with others. This is something either Mouw or Stackhouse spoke of in their blog not too long ago. I never quite get what the problem is when someone is zealously selling something and others get offended because the person doing the selling is saying they have the best deal in town. I like a good deal like anyone else and I want to know if that person has the goods or not. Everyone claims that they have the best deal. So what? To your “b” I’d say that communication is possible in part because of what Jamie calls the “creational hermeneutic of interpretation.” That is, just as the interiority of our selves is not laid out bear for all to see, that is AS PURE OTHER but requires linguistics ie., speech and writing to convey the inter-subjectivity of the self, so it seems to me to be the same for each group/tribe/group’s/tribe’s metanarrative. Again, communication is possible via language/speech, but the way of connection with the other is never always successful. It is simply grounds or the field for possibility of connection and the “wild space of love.”
Brandon: Each community and particular is its own metanarrative not that there is one that encompasses all metanarratives.
Tom: Then there’s no omniscient God. For surely God’s knowledge of the universe at any given point in time constitutes a metanarrative which encompasses all our narratives.
Brandon: I’m wondering why this has to be described as a “meta-narrative?” Why can’t we say something like, “All truth is God’s truth?” That THE meta-narrative (the meta-narrative that encompasses all other meta-narratives) is the Christian one? That all other meta-narratives or stories CORRELATE to THIS one to one degree or another? But in saying this I don’t have to posit something “above” or outside all meta-narratives (including the Christian one). That God exists or that God has omniscient knowledge is really not the point. IOW, I definitely agree with Dwayne when in speaking about “ren” he says, “To me, for any Christian to deny the truth within this...and to deny that this doesn't in some way express the image of God in humanity in general...well...I don't know what to say about that…” Well neither do I. But this is simply saying that this coincides or correlates to the Christian meta-narrative. It’s a “point of contact” between competing (meta-) narratives. And it seems to me that you admit as much when you say,
“Of course, the question of whether Christians are willing to live with the fact that God’s truth may be found in non-Christian worldviews is a separate question in my mind. I’d have greater problems with the supposition that NO truth is found outside the Christian story.”
And
I’m much more inclined to believe that since God equally loves and pursues us all, and since his image is equally stamped in us all (i.e., given MY narrative), that this image is going to motivate us all in ways that God can then work with variously in our various contexts. So given their narrative (rightly understood), Christians ought to expect elements of their own narrative to crop up and surface in all other narratives.
So what I’m saying is not so much that there is some truth outside of each (meta-) narrative but rather the Christian narrative is the true one that the others simply correlate to to one degree or another because there is within said narrative the story that God works in/under/through us all. So I think what may need to be defined is what we mean by meta-narratives.
Brandon: A metanarrative that encompasses all so that we can have genuine meaningful dialogue?
Tom: Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest a full-blown metanarrative. My bad. A metanarrative would be a more complex set of beliefs or even a worldview. I only meant that we can discursively reason our way from within the shared givens of our irreducibly subjective stories/narratives what is categorically the same about them all (if even assumed), and that this is a KIND of objectivity (it’s at least inclusive of all known stories). What can be gleaned may not be a full-blown narrative; it may be just a handful of a priori truths, but let’s at least admit that much and ask what this tells us. But postmoderns it seems will allow nothing, no categorical truth, that underlies and makes possible our own individual stories.
I appreciate how oppressive modernism was and is. But there are plenty of modernist philosophers (i.e., analytic philosophers who reasoned discursively from a priori truth) who were VERY open-minded, tolerant, and pluralist. Charles Hartshorne comes to mind. So I’m suspicious of condemning a piori truth because others who believe in such truth acted violently.
Brandon: I see that categorical a priori truth as being the Christian meta-narrative. I don’t behold some “pure truth out there” beyond all meta-narratives. And I think I would have problems with saying that “shared givens are a KIND OF OBJECTIVITY” as they don’t seemed to be shared or objective to all. This is why I say that each meta-narrative is necessarily tribalistic or proclamatory. They stand over against the others. I understand that "as shared" these givens seem to be a kind of objectivity. I just don't know if all within those communities would see it that way or share the same sentiment that you do about such things.
Brandon: It seems to me the ghost of modernism (something that has to ground the communicability of all metanarratives) is hiding in your question Tommy and it is this ghost that must legitmate itself against all the other stories.
Tom: Oh, it’s not hiding. I admitted to it being there. I want it there. I don’t mind it. Like I said, I’m not prepared to flush everything ever believed by Enlightenment moderns down the tube for all the oppressive things done since the Enlightenment. I do think there are a priori truths. I do think the image of God expresses itself categorically in all our stories. And I do think Christian ‘mission’ (‘vocation’ is fine if ‘mission’ is to offensive) and proclamation means nothing if it doesn’t mean we’re inviting people in other stories to come live in our story. Now, if postmoderns admit to such an invitation but don’t want to call the Christian story we invite other to join us in a “metanarrative,” then I might say they’re splitting hairs, because what does proclaiming a story to others ‘universally’ mean if I don’t believe the story is ‘meta-’ in the sense of all-inclusive (in its offer, in its efficaciousness, in its salvation, etc.) by virtue of having its origins in God.
Brandon: If you want to say that there is a truth outside of all truth (even the Christian truth) then I think I would have problems with that. If you want to say that all stories reflect the image of God or the truth of God I would simply say that they are reflecting the Christian meta-narrative to some extent or another. Again, INVITE (which can mean appeal to those shared givens or points of contact ie., persuasion)
Brandon: What is problematic (with Lyotard) and postmodern theorists is that each metanarrative has to prove its claims or its stories via rationalistic thought and science (its not as if science is pure objectivity or isn’t a story itself which isn’t all encompassing, like Jamie says, “is there a bigger story than “On Origin of the Species?) Why can't they simply proclaim?
Tom: Let’s just proclaim. That’s cool. Let’s say I just proclaim the gospel and then sit down. Others who HEAR this proclamation then do what? They hear it. They think about it. Some are “convinced” by it and come to faith. But then let's ask, How do they become convinced? By what mechanisms within the human heart and mind does the proclamation engage existing narratives and overcome them to establish itself within peoples’ hearts volitionally? I say it only happens if what’s proclaimed is JUSTIFIED to the mind and heart of those who hear it. That’s how and why we THEN choose to accept it. Now, I wouldn’t say this happens by means of PURE reason and science. Why should I have to reduce myself to that? As you know I think aesthetics is as or more powerful a categorical argument for God’s existence than anything else. And I’ve met Muslims who came to faith through visions or dreams, some through miraculous healing—anything but pure reason and science. But not postmodernism either. I guess that makes me other than a modern. But I don’t at all see myself as postmodern either.
Brandon: I agree with most of what you say here. We’re talking about stories and meta-narratives. Stories that encompass all of reality and that are universal in nature. Thus, my story says that God (who is there and is not silent, to use Schaeffer’s terminology) works in and through creation and through other religions. Is God there? Yes. But I’m not describing a meta-narrative outside my meta-narrative as much as my meta-narrative is correlating to reality, God (or God’s truth). Not:
A) Meta-narrative above or beyond or external to my Christian meta-narrative
but rather
B) My meta-narrative is THE true actual describer of reality ie., what’s there. That
C) Other (meta-) narratives correlate to “what’s there” and thus are
D) Going to have “shared givens” with my meta-narrative.
This doesn’t fare well with a lot folk because there is no way to substantiate or justify why I can claim mine as the best deal in town. To say that these shared givens is what I can use to justify my narrative only speaks from within the narrative itself (which is the point Daniel is trying to make I think).
Brandon: And this is my issue. Each one has a right to sit at the public round table and proclaim. And I say this from within my specifically CHRISTIAN (how can a Christian allow for other stories to exist)?
Tom: Dude, maybe I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but this is utterly surprising. Of course everybody has a right to sit at the public table and proclaim? (I’ll not challenge the universal a priori nature of this claim of yours which is, strictly speaking, more modern than postmodern, but never mind that.) One doesn’t have to be a postmodern to agree with this. And who thinks other stories don’t exist? Of course other stories exist. And of course all stories are a mixture of truth and fiction. Do postmoderns think moderns don’t believe other stories exist or that non-postmodern Christians think non-Christians don’t have a right to proclaim their own stories? That’s amazing
Brandon: You want to say its more modern, but I don’t think it is from what I’m saying above. If you want to say there is an a priori categorical truth and I want to say, “reality happens” (meaning the Christian story) then we are in agreement. God is not the meta-narrative. God (Jesus, the crosss, ressurection, heaven, etc) is the reality. The meta-narrative is the story or describer of the reality that the community tells. It is the story that reflects the reality. Some stories reflect reality more accurately than others. But once I say that I become tribalistic and that doesn’t bode well for moderns or post-moderns, because they are essentially the same in their allergy towards that sort of thing. Also, try and tell a secularist that you have the right to sit at the table and proclaim that your story is best deal in town over all the rest. This is the sort of thing that many see as the root of power struggles and violence. Jeff says that “everybody having the right to proclaim” is an a priori assumption (so you are automatically playing that card). Have you read any Alistar McGrath lately? Maybe you have been out of the loop for a while. Its just now that people are starting to wake up to see the Enlightenment project for what it is: another religion at the round table.
Brandon: So for me, the question is not so much, “Are we going to have good communication?” but rather, “How do we live and let live?”
Tom: That’s not my question. For anybody proclaiming any story they believe in, the question has to be how to best communicate/proclaim their story. One doesn’t proclaim a story universally who does not believe the story ought to be believed universally and so ultimately become the only story in town. Of course we want people who of various stories to live together peacefully, but that won’t happen where good communication is lacking either. So we don’t have to choose between communicating and living together. But my end goal isn’t believers and unbeliever living together peacefully. That’s not the Christian mission. It’s A goal, sure. We want a civil society. It’s just not the END goal.
Brandon: Hmmm…yes. I agree that we want all to come into our story but I don’t even know if I can accept the premise that living peacefully together is not a part of the Christian mission. I think that’s a false dichotomy. You’re the one saying that the goal is a civil society albeit not the end goal. I see it (that goal) as relative to the Gospel. Look at this interview with Jim Skillen and pay special attention to the second last question and Skillen’s response. http://www.saet-online.org/saet-interviews-on-politics-and-theology-1-james-skillen/10/
Tom: I started out by just asking if postmodernism conceded ANY a priori truths. I remember Daniel telling me that he thought the ‘category’ of a priori truth was a priori but that there are no ‘truths’ that are true a priori. I don’t know how to keep track of the debate anymore. It makes no sense to me to say the “category” or “class” of a priori truth is universal but that no particular truths are true a priori; i.e., what’s true a priori changes from tribe to tribe. That’s just to deny that there are any a priori truths.
Brandon: I dunno. I really didn’t see that conversation. I agree. What you’re saying doesn’t seem to make much sense. Postmodernism may not concede any a priori truths. But I don’t claim to be postmodern either. I do believe there is “something there outside of my meta-narrative.” That which the meta-narrative is reflecting. If by that you mean, a priori truth then I believe in a priori truth. I definitely don’t think the text is all there is.
Brandon : By the way, when I say, that they each have a right to proclaim I'm saying, that they each have a right to say, "I'm right and your wrong." Where is the communicability in that?
Tom: The communicability is inherent in the disagreement over particulars? If I say, “You’re wrong” I’m saying, “I understand your story.”
Brandon: Right. But A) I still don’t get why this has to assume that some a priori meta-narrative, truth, or whatever has to exist encompassing all other narratives. B) When I ask “Where is the communicability in that?” I’m not simply speaking of transmitting and receiving of information in which I see the differences between stories. I’m saying that once a narrative proclaims or is kerygmatic it “shuts down” other stories. It “silences” other narratives so to speak and this doesn’t bode well for either moderns or post-moderns. As I said above, "the way of CONNECTION is not always successful." That's another level altogether. Something you hint at when you said, "I say it only happens if what’s proclaimed is JUSTIFIED to the mind and heart of those who hear it. That’s how and why we THEN choose to accept it."
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 12/24/2010 3:06:05 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/24/2010 9:22 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Some thoughts. Just thinking out loud. And these are not necessarily related or in order.
First, reason per se is by definition the work of some mind. It’s sentience per se. And that means, presumably, that all reasoning is done by subjects and thus all reasoning is subjective. So, pure reason or rationality, understood as a kind of ‘subjectless perspective’ we equate with pure objectivity, is a self-contradictory notion. There is no such perspective. Not even God qualifies. What we think of as ‘pure objectivity’ is in fact a ‘universal subjectivity’, i.e., the contents of an infallible and omniscient knower.
Second, I think ‘reason’ gets a bad wrap from Christians generally. We all have said “You can’t reason you’re way to God,” and “Reason only takes you so far,” or “Reason has its limitation.” True, reason has its “sphere” so to speak, but that’s not to disparage reason per se. To my point. My point is that reason flows FROM God. It isn’t created like us (it’s not a “thing” or an “entity”) and doesn’t flow from creation to God. It flows from God to creation. God, and everything about God, I believe, is perfectly reasonable.
Related to this second point, I often compare ‘maps’ and ‘territories’ and relate ‘language’ (propositional truth and doctrine) to being like a ‘map’ and relate ‘territory’ to pure reality and the experience of it. Reason, as I conceive of it, is a deep grammar that links the territory of human experience to maps (of conception and language). It’s what accounts for our ability to conceptualize our experience and articulate it. But it can also, given its mediating nature, enable us to conceptualize our way toward new experiences of the sublime (the ineffable). I don’t want to say that we can “reason our way” to an experience of God (through the sheer instrumentation of reason and apart from God’s initiative and open invitation). But this is the point (in the East at least)—reason IS God’s invitation. Reason flows from God, and whatever flows from God declares God and draws all that participate in it toward God. So to ‘reason’ is to participate (on a minimal level) in God. And folks, that can’t be a bad thing. So I want to be very careful about criticizing ‘reason’. Yes, it’s not in itself sufficient to inform us of all we need to know regarding faith, sin, salvation, redemption, etc. We did NEED the incarnation after all. But at the same time, so far as one participates in reason without violating the given structures of rationality (and I see this sentence being quoted by Daniel!) one participates in God and is drawn toward God. Only a violation of reason can motivate the denial of God.
How ya feeling D?
So what we need I think, is a way to articulate what are the given (a priori) structures of rationality per se and what truths or concepts flow axiomatically from them. I don’t think we’ll all ever agree on this. But I don’t think—given the Eastern approach and ontology—that one can accuse this of Enlightenment violence to plurality or of laying claim to pure objectivity. What I’m saying is that no one who believes (as the Christian narrative claims) that all our subjectivities are derived from an all-inclusive Subject, and that we're imprinted with that Subject’s image and hardwired with an operating system (reason and aesthetic appetite) that acts as the grammar that mediates between experience (territory) and language (map-making), should then claim that this narrative does violence to other narratives by evaluating other narratives in terms of its own believe in the deep grammar of rationality and aesthetic appetite per se.
I add aesthetic appetite (though it's another huge discussion) because I think aesthetic appetite and satisfaction of MORE fundamental than rationality. I remember Hartshorne objecting to Calvinism (well, determinism) on the grounds that "It's ugly."
Tom
Just saw your post Brandon. I'll get back to ya!
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 12/24/2010 10:51:01 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/24/2010 9:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
First, reason per se is by definition the work of some mind. It’s sentience per se. And that means, presumably, that all reasoning is done by subjects and thus all reasoning is subjective. So, pure reason or rationality, understood as a kind of ‘subjectless perspective’ we equate with pure objectivity, is a self-contradictory notion. There is no such perspective. Not even God qualifies. What we think of as ‘pure objectivity’ is in fact a ‘universal subjectivity’, i.e., the contents of an infallible and omniscient knower.
Second, I think ‘reason’ gets a bad wrap from Christians generally. We all have said “You can’t reason you’re way to God,” and “Reason only takes you so far,” or “Reason has its limitation.” True, reason has its “sphere” so to speak, but that’s not to disparage reason per se. To my point. My point is that reason flows FROM God. It isn’t created like us (it’s not a “thing” or an “entity”) and doesn’t flow from creation to God. It flows from God to creation. God, and everything about God, I believe, is perfectly reasonable.
Related to this second point, I often compare ‘maps’ and ‘territories’ and relate ‘language’ (propositional truth and doctrine) to being like a ‘map’ and relate ‘territory’ to pure reality and the experience of it. Reason, as I conceive of it, is a deep grammar that links the territory of human experience to maps (of conception and language). It’s what accounts for our ability to conceptualize our experience and articulate it. But it can also, given its mediating nature, enable us to conceptualize our way toward new experiences of the sublime (the ineffable). I don’t want to say that we can “reason our way” to an experience of God (through the sheer instrumentation of reason and apart from God’s initiative and open invitation). But this is the point (in the East at least)—reason IS God’s invitation. Reason flows from God, and whatever flows from God declares God and draws all that participate in it toward God. So to ‘reason’ is to participate (on a minimal level) in God. And folks, that can’t be a bad thing. So I want to be very careful about criticizing ‘reason’. Yes, it’s not in itself sufficient to inform us of all we need to know regarding faith, sin, salvation, redemption, etc. We did NEED the incarnation after all. But at the same time, so far as one participates in reason without violating the given structures of rationality (and I see this sentence being quoted by Daniel!) one participates in God and is drawn toward God. Only a violation of reason can motivate the denial of God.
How ya feeling D?
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Sounds right to me. God tried to "reason" with his people in the O.T. for their benefit. God wanted them to consider and choose life over death. God grants wisdom (which is inseparable from reason) to those who seek it. Seeking wisdom is directly linked to seeking God. Yeah. I dig it, basically. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel M
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2009
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 12/24/2010 11:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Tom,
Tom: My point is that reason flows FROM God. It isn’t created like us (it’s not a “thing” or an “entity”) and doesn’t flow from creation to God.
Daniel: Alright. I think this might be a good place to begin, because I think you're missing the post-modernist point (I might be wrong though).
The critique that post-modernists lay at modernity is that modernity thought it could attain something like pure reason and, hence, rationalize the world through, roughly, positivist methodology. The problem is that all rational frameworks begin with a faith claim, which is perhaps better described the as work of the passions of the human mind rather then the rationality of the human mind.
When you say "reason flows from God", there is a huge amount of possible bagging loading that claim. What kind of reason? Are we talking about the LNC? Because that already assumes a certain type of framework, a particular. The East may not agree with that particular. So their reason that flows from God is not the same as the reason that I see you, Jeff, and Asher defending. So obviously, the logic of the west is NOT the reason that flows to all of humanity from God. Lets call the reason that flows from God "thought" because then we move beyond all of the implications that reason invokes. I can think without following the rules of deductive logic.
I think you're slipping a particular concept of rationality in when you claim that reason flows from God and that it was not something created. Because the reason of the West certainly was something created. I just wrote a paper discussing the oscillation between Platonic and Aristotelian within Europe from the 13th century until the 18th century. Reason, as the western tradition of reason, modifies itself to accommodate the dominate perspectives at the time. The idea of there being some sort of "reason" as some universally agreed to structure of thought simply doesn't exist historically.
Tom: Reason, as I conceive of it, is a deep grammar that links the territory of human experience to maps (of conception and language).
Daniel: Okay. This is very interesting. Reason, then, would be the human capacity to articulate her experience of the world? Which would account for why, some languages have words for concepts that we don't even have in English. Our experience is limited to what we can put to words. I cannot imagine something I cannot reduce to some sort of linguistic articulation. I cannot imagine an object without color. But wouldn't this make reason all the more fractured and less universal? Reason would necessarily be particular because language is as particular as it gets. It's located geographically and historically. Plato could not have conceived of a virtual world, let alone philosophize about one. Aquinas could not have imagined mass media or its affect on groupthink, let alone employ Christianized Aristotelian philosophy to discuss it.
I think I know where you're going though. The fact that all humans (who grow up in a community, because no human can do this as an individual) use language to articulate, conceptualize, and categorize the world is the universal. But this need not be an appeal to God, it could be an appeal to our biology.
Tom: But at the same time, so far as one participates in reason without violating the given structures of rationality (and I see this sentence being quoted by Daniel!) one participates in God and is drawn toward God.
Daniel:  But where do those structures come from? I don't see them discussed in the OT or NT. How did anyone before Aristotle reason without the LNC? Rational claims don't seem to be the concern of God, faith claims, however, do seem to be God's concern. Everything flows from that. It doesn't begin with reason it begins with faith. Obviously, I have nothing against thinking but I don't see many appeals in the Bible to "just reason it out using the deductive logic Aristotle gave you, and you'll be fine." I do see a lot of appeals to "having faith." And faith being the grounding of hope, and assurance.
If that means that belief in Jesus as Christ arbitrary then so be it, that's the risk of faith. If I can reason myself to Christ, I don't see the leap of faith being something that is even possible.Post Edited (Daniel M) : 12/24/2010 10:48:22 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 12/24/2010 1:33 PM (GMT -6) | | D said: Related to this second point, I often compare ‘maps’ and ‘territories’ and relate ‘language’ (propositional truth and doctrine) to being like a ‘map’ and relate ‘territory’ to pure reality and the experience of it. Reason, as I conceive of it, is a deep grammar that links the territory of human experience to maps (of conception and language). It’s what accounts for our ability to conceptualize our experience and articulate it. But it can also, given its mediating nature, enable us to conceptualize our way toward new experiences of the sublime (the ineffable). I don’t want to say that we can “reason our way” to an experience of God (through the sheer instrumentation of reason and apart from God’s initiative and open invitation). But this is the point (in the East at least)—reason IS God’s invitation. Reason flows from God, and whatever flows from God declares God and draws all that participate in it toward God. So to ‘reason’ is to participate (on a minimal level) in God. And folks, that can’t be a bad thing. So I want to be very careful about criticizing ‘reason’. Yes, it’s not in itself sufficient to inform us of all we need to know regarding faith, sin, salvation, redemption, etc. We did NEED the incarnation after all. But at the same time, so far as one participates in reason without violating the given structures of rationality (and I see this sentence being quoted by Daniel!) one participates in God and is drawn toward God. Only a violation of reason can motivate the denial of God.
How ya feeling D?
*********************************************
Sounds right to me. God tried to "reason" with his people in the O.T. for their benefit. God wanted them to consider and choose life over death. God grants wisdom (which is inseparable from reason) to those who seek it. Seeking wisdom is directly linked to seeking God. Yeah. I dig it, basically. 
Daniel: But where do those structures come from? I don't see them discussed in the OT or NT. How did anyone before Aristotle reason without the LNC? Rational claims don't seem to be the concern of God, faith claims, however, do seem to be God's concern. Everything flows from that. It doesn't begin with reason it begins with faith. Obviously, I have nothing against thinking but I don't see many appeals in the Bible to "just reason it out using the deductive logic Aristotle gave you, and you'll be fine." I do see a lot of appeals to "having faith." And faith being the grounding of hope, and assurance.
Brandon: Kinda reminds me of Blaise Pascal who said, "the heart has its reasons the mind will never know." Sorta like the title of Roy Clouser's book, "KNOWING with the heart." I remember having a conversation with a Catholic a few years ago in which he was talking about Marion visions, dreams and appeals to aesthetic experience that he as a Catholic believed God used to bring persons back into the Catholic faith. Obviously, there is some level of reason or intuition that appeals to someone on a deeper level that seems to by-pass the structures of rationality that Tommy is speaking of, yes?
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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Daniel M
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Date Joined Jan 2009
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 12/24/2010 4:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Brandon,
Brandon: Kinda reminds me of Blaise Pascal who said, "the heart has its reasons the mind will never know." Sorta like the title of Roy Clouser's book, "KNOWING with the heart." I remember having a conversation with a Catholic a few years ago in which he was talking about Marion visions, dreams and appeals to aesthetic experience that he as a Catholic believed God used to bring persons back into the Catholic faith. Obviously, there is some level of reason or intuition that appeals to someone on a deeper level that seems to by-pass the structures of rationality that Tommy is speaking of, yes?
Daniel: I think we need to make a clear distinction between reason and intuition. intuitions are not rational, they are not the product of a reasoned argument. They are not logical formulated props whose truth value can be ascertained through deductive/inductive reasoning. Intuitions are more along the lines of what I would call a faith claim. I think we all have intuitions, but I don't think those intuitions are universal, they are thoroughly particular (which isn't a bad thing!). I have the intuition that time is linear, some cultures have the intuition that time is cyclical (like Plato). | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 12/24/2010 4:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Yeah. I hear ya. Just think'n out loud. I'm thinking more along the lines of our experiences maybe? I see the modernist project as something that says, "Hey we demand that you have to check or veryify or justify your experience intersubjectively before we can give it grounds for credibility." THAT I find to be be impossible and it is THAT structure of rationality that I think you or Jamie might go bezerk over--"Nooooo!!!!" We eventually have to have faith right?
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 12/24/2010 3:27:40 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/24/2010 5:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom: I wanna catch up first with Brandon and then wait a bit for Asher and Jeff to catch up before chatching up with Daniel.
Jeff: I'm at a loss at this point. If the LNC isn't valid, as far as I can tell we've lost intelligibility itself, never mind truth. I hear Daniel wondering how Aristotle made it without the LNC and I'm wondering if he even means the same thing by it as we do. The only reason why I think we can understand anything Aristotle wrote is because of the validity of the LNC. Whether people have a name for logical consistency or even talk about explicitly is of no relevance, as far as I can tell. What would tell me they use it is if I said something absurd (per the LNC) to them out of the blue during an otherwise meaningful conversation and watch the confused look on their face.
But I have to analogize. I have no choice. I can't function without analogizing. That can't be wrong. So I can't be wrong in inferring, analogically, that Aristotle used the law of non-contradiction. Why? Because there's no evidence that I'm wrong. People say silly stuff all the time. If that proved that humanity is as epistemologically different as Daniel is saying, it would prove way too much. It would prove that analogy fails precisely where it is profoundly important for meaningful existence, thereby rendering any other analogical inference essentially blind.
And maybe that's what Daniel is saying--that all belief is blind faith. I see no way to move beyond that. What could I possibly say to change any one's mind if that is the case? Or what could they say to change mine? And how would we know it? Sure, we could believe blindly and bat the air, so to speak. But given my beliefs, blind or not, I don't see the fruitfulness of spending time that way. I believe that almost any other "lawful/permitted" use of my time is of more value to me and, therefore, others.
BUT, aye -- MERRY CHRISTMAS PEEPS! 
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/24/2010 4:32:03 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 12/25/2010 1:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: If the LNC isn't valid, as far as I can tell we've lost intelligibility itself, never mind truth.
If you are trying to bend over backwards to accommodate postmodernists then yes, we've lost intelligibility and truth. But if you are willing to offend postmodern sensibilities then you can say this:
To deny LNC is totally intelligible when you understand that postmodernists don't care about truth. In fact, truth stands in the way of the postmodernist political agenda. An agenda that is primarily the establishment of state socialism all over the world.
When Mises writes "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" showing via logic (LNC, etc) that a socialist state faces impossibility in the ability to make economic calculations...you can affirm logic and show where Mises made a logical mistake...or you can deny logic and very simply without even engagement with his arguments continue on with your socialist agenda.
When the most fundamental of Marx's predictions about where society is headed don't come about...well, you give up logic and quit making predictions through the means of logic...you now start making predictions based on your "faith".
And because most people are going to look on in askance when you behave thusly...you have to wage your battle not in the arena of logic, arguments and reasoning...but in the arena of morality (morality divorced from logic) where it is much easier to operate. You invoke yourself as the champion of the oppressed, the poor, the needy, the underprivileged. You wrap the mantle of pacifism about yourself and decry the violence of existing systems. No matter that your methodology in economics won't ever deliver results that will change the conditions you decry, because again, logic is not your tool and truth is not your end. Your moral attacks WILL set people at unease...because those people for the most part still operate under logic and to make a moral claim undergirded by logic is a strong claim, and they don't understand that you have given up logic (ow, not that you live as if logic isn't true, just that you are no longer bound by logic and can operate even when logic says you are wrong) they don't understand that your moral claims against them is your more sophisticated version of a club. You bash them, and because people are in fact sinners...they feel guilty. And their guilt gives way to your agenda. And you accomplish the things you would never accomplish via logic.
Heinous? Yes. Unintelligible? No. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/26/2010 1:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher: When the most fundamental of Marx's predictions about where society is headed don't come about...well, you give up logic and quit making predictions through the means of logic...you now start making predictions based on your "faith".
Jeff: This is kind of what I was getting at when I was talking about the fact that people say "silly things all the time" to ACCOUNT for the possibility that Buddhists actually do use the LNC. IOW, if we are to EXPLAIN reality, we have to believe in CAUSALITY. Otherwise, there are no explanations whatsoever. But that's just affirming that our intuition of causality is used by us axiomatically all the time. But if we are going to explain much at all with any degree of parsimony, we can't get very far without positing either intellectual incompetence or intellectual dishonesty to account for certain claims. ALL people posit one or the other. Daniel and Brandon do it. They talk about people being WRONG/UNJUST! Why not apply parsimony when we do it so the "judgment" can involve SOME rational criteria?" Otherwise, "justice" and "fairness" lose all meaning in the conversation. Indeed, that's what seems to happen.
After all, what other criteria is there apart from parsimony/analogy and the LNC other than one's own satisfaction? But why criticize at all once such relativism is posited (once you chunk analogy, what is left BUT relativism?)? I find it difficult to understand how these a-rational approaches that demean intellectual criteria like parsimony and coherence won't necessarily degenerate into self-righteous elitism like that of the Pharisees, etc. A bare minimum they provide not grounds for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. If I use parsimony, however, the scripture, thus interpreted, can be seen to be averse to much of what I might have self-righteously supposed was virtue (or normatively neutral) in myself. This way, criticism is applied in a way such that I, too, am on trial. And that's what I thought fair criticism was.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 12/26/2010 8:59:02 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 12/27/2010 8:17 PM (GMT -6) | | If there are no HUMAN categorical intuitions, then all discursively-derived inferences are blind faith beliefs which have for their grounds blind faith beliefs. In fact, since the law of identity and its propositional corollary, the LNC, is one such blind faith belief, this means that it is mere blind faith that ANYTHING true is intelligible to me.
Can we honestly say that scripture is clear on the imperative of blind faith but not on the notion that HUMANS have some HUMAN knowledge of basic right and wrong? How is it that scripture is even clear on the imperative of blind faith when Jesus says things like "if you don't believe me, believe my works," and the whole notion of signs and wonders "confirming" one's word? IOW, I don't see that scripture ever commends blind faith. All scripture is prophetic, and prophets had "signs" that "confirmed" their testimony according to Deuteronomy. The same was true for Moses himself.
The criteria for accountability is this: We are required of as we are given to. If all belief is blind, God has given us nothing we can know of and therefore we aren't knowably accountable for anything. If the blind lead the blind, will they not both fall into the pit?
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