Yahweh Invictus

[Llwellyn]

Like the theorems of pure mathematics, Christianity is without a doubt, exactly and certainly true.  With certain scriptural abnormalities pared away, Christianity is consistent with itself.  Yahweh is no doubt what he is.  There is nothing else to which it professes to conform and thus it perfectly fulfills its promise and purpose.  It is not an instrument for investigating tangible phenomenon.  The Bible explicitly says that Christian truth is not for application:  "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."  Luke 4:12, Matthew 4:7, Deuteronomy 6:16.  There are no conceivable practical consequences that must, by necessity, result from its truth.  It may very well be that Christians generally entertain a different idea of their religion, for lack of close integration of it.   Christianity is proven by its postulation, and can be confirmed or disproven by nothing.  It is a purely gratuitous hypothesis that is truer than any truth ever known.

 

Can't think of how Yahweh can be defeated -- can you?

 

[disillusioned]

Hi again LLwellyn. I thought we might come back to this.

 

You raise a very good point about Christianity being almost tautological. Although I loathe the Christian belief system, I still am forced to admit that it is actually quite cleverly set up. It begins by asserting that there is a God who is all knowing and all powerful. He is also posited to be invisible. So it is not surprising to the Christian that we don’t see any direct evidence of His existence. Furthermore, His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts, and so we cannot really be expected to fully understand Him. More importantly, any outside criticism may be safely dismissed simply by invoking scripture. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV). Thus, it is expected that the message will be criticized, and even ridiculed by individuals from outside the faith. This is, in fact, right in the message. And the faithful are told that they must “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8, NKJV). So the belief system simultaneously declares itself to be true and unfathomable, and then proceeds to predict that it will be met with criticism. Then, of course, when it is met with criticism, this is taken as confirmation that the claims of the system are actually true. This is one of the reasons why leaving Christianity behind is so difficult.

 

It seems to me, though, that Christianity is not consistent. There are contradictions at literally every turn. For example, the God of Christianity is posited to be perfect in every way. As such, he is both omniscient and omnipotent.  Moreover, he is claimed to be loving and benevolent. I submit that this is utterly absurd. If God is omniscient, then he knows who will be damned before they are created. If he is omnipotent, he can change their fate so that they will not be damned, or, alternatively, he can simply choose to not create them in the first place. Either of these options would be more loving than creating an individual while knowing all along that this person is destined to suffer for eternity. But according to Christianity, God has not merely done this to one person, but to billions throughout history. (And yes, I know, he wants us to have “free will”. So much so that he gives us no choice at all in the matter.)

 

Another problem with Christianity is that it has, at its center, a truth claim which concerns that natural world. It is not a purely theoretical system. If Christ did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is false. It seems to me (not being, by any stretch of the imagination, an historian), that there is no credible historical evidence to substantiate this claim. That Christians are commanded not to put the claims of their religion to the test does not do anything to actually establish these claims, it merely prevents christians from discrediting them. Those who are not christians may do as they wish.

 

One final point: if one wishes to say that Christianity is axiomatically true (or, alternatively, that God exists axiomatically), then one is obligated to first provide a coherent definition of Christianity (or God, as the case may be). The problem is that there is no such coherent definition. Even the Christians can’t agree on what they do and do not believe. Why, then, should we give their beliefs any credit as a formal system? Different mathematicians and logicians may work within different systems, but within each system the axioms must be clearly defined, and there can be no dispute about what these axioms are. Furthermore, these systems are necessarily incomplete (see my signature). Thus, Christianity is in no sense a formal system, but even if it could be shown to be a formal system, that in itself would show that it is not perfect, which would be problematic.

I agree that Christianity is gratuitous, and that it serves no purpose. I also agree that it does not apply to the natural world. However, even with these caveats, I cannot see how it can, in any sense, be said to be “true”.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Llewellyn, as we've mentioned recently, I've been thinking that the main work done by TAG is to render Christianity (Calvinism) unfalsifiable. I agree with much of what you say.

 

Spinning off of some of disillusioned's remarks, I think one funny thing about van Til is his perhaps heretical view of the Trinity. This may hijack the thread, but I hope it's in the spirit of your thread, L.

 

Van Til wants to say that the Trinity solves the ancient problem of the one and the many. He thinks only Christianity amounts to a world view that can account for logic, because only the god of Christianity is a person who is both one and many. So every dialectic is grounded in God's nature.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think this works. The classic doctrine of the Trinity says that God is in three persons. God is not one person that is also three; God is one God that subsists in three persons. Within the Trinity, the Son and the Spirit proceed from the Father. So you really have a plurality of principles. From the One proceed two other principles.

 

It gets even murkier when you consider that the Orthodox refuse to allow that the Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father, while the western Church insists that it does - the notorious "filioque" clause of the western Nicene Creed, which prevents Catholics and Orthodox from ever reuniting. But on neither doctrine do we have one divine person that is also three. We have one divine person that generates two other ones. Catholics accuse Orthodox of believing in three gods. Orthodox accuse Catholics of believing in an impersonal, divine substance and then dividing that. Both are right! The result is an incoherent mess.

 

Van Til really seems to need something like Plato's two principles of the One and the Indefinite Dyad in order to account for dialectical reasoning in the way that he wants. The Trinity doesn't give him that. It gives him a ruling principle and two other principles dependent on it. Things like Mind cannot be attributed to the Trinitarian god without making it a person, but the three persons are persons, not the divine hypostasis, of which they are emanations. Van Til just makes shit up when he talks about the bundle of three divine persons as itself a higher order "person." For van Til's scheme to be right, you'd have to be able to say that the Father proceeds from the higher Divine Person. But that is starting to sound like the Moonies, not like historic Christianity. The Father does not proceed from anything.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Back to Llwellyn's OP proposal, this "incoherent mess" seems intentionally inherent in Christian theology, to keep it mysterious enough, frustrating enough, but compelling enough to seem believable by so many, and to keep people all wound up and bound up in it.

Yer durn tootin', Human!

 

I don't know that van Til explicitly phrased his Trinitarian model as "fourth meta-person". My "higher order person" phrase was my construction of what I understand of him. But van Til himself is obscure, like the theology he promotes. I used to have a bunch of his books and read parts of them. Now I don't recall where he talks about the Trinity, but I'm guessing that his Introduction to Systematic Theology may go into it.

 

Here are some notes I took from some websites:

 

The Trinity does not solve the problem of the one and the many because it is not structured according to a true dialectic. It is really a first principle and either two subordinate principles or a second and third principle. As such it is no advance on neo-Platonism and in fact falls short because it does not distinguish within the Trinity, as Neo-Platonism does, between the absolute One, of which existence is not a predicate, and the existing One. W. Gary Crampton (http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=167) says van Til was heterodox on the trinity because he held, as John Frame puts it (Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of his Thought, P&R Publishing, 1995, p. 65), that “For Van Til, God is not simply a unity of persons; he is a person” (italics Frame’s).

[♦ ficino ♦]

Like the theorems of pure mathematics, Christianity is without a doubt, exactly and certainly true.  With certain scriptural abnormalities pared away, Christianity is consistent with itself.  Yahweh is no doubt what he is.  There is nothing else to which it professes to conform and thus it perfectly fulfills its promise and purpose.  It is not an instrument for investigating tangible phenomenon.  The Bible explicitly says that Christian truth is not for application:  "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."  Luke 4:12, Matthew 4:7, Deuteronomy 6:16.  There are no conceivable practical consequences that must, by necessity, result from its truth.  It may very well be that Christians generally entertain a different idea of their religion, for lack of close integration of it.   Christianity is proven by its postulation, and can be confirmed or disproven by nothing.  It is a purely gratuitous hypothesis that is truer than any truth ever known.

 

Can't think of how Yahweh can be defeated -- can you?

Hi Llewellyn, off the top of my head: if you are pursuing Pragmatism, I don't think you want to say that a purely gratuitous hypothesis is true, do you?

 

I think Disillusioned is getting at important angles when he proposes that the belief set upon which Christianity rests entails contradictions. Christians, obviously, have strategies for trying to show up those contradictions as only apparent.

 

Then there are Bible contradictions and/or absurdities. Same deal there.

 

The amount of spin necessary to try to reduce the contradictions to mere apparent contradictions eventually makes the system totter under its own weight. Any hypothesis that suffers big fails in parsimony and simplicity ceases to do effective work. So the pragmatist would chop it off, no?

[Llwellyn]

Yay weekend!

 

You're right to say that Christianity is contradictory.  Sometimes Christianity offers itself as a system that dips at numerous points into sense-percepts, and other times it says that we can expect nothing in particular to flow into it or out of it.  I don't disagree.  I ask myself -- how can the religion be most consistently integrated?  When we harmonize the contradictions, what does it mean?  Christianity resolves to a purely metaphysical postulation.  When certain verses must be pared away in order to make it consistent as a whole, we must pare away the words that suggest a palpable connection between divine truth and human life.  

 

I agree with you that there are parts of scripture that do offer Christian truth as an instrument of the interrogation of sensation.  Christianity does sometimes attempt to play the game of giving reasons.  I'm thinking in particular of the offer of reasons in Psalm 34:8 -- "taste and see that the LORD is good."  Christianity does sometimes say that we can put it to the test, in terms of expecting that it will lead us from one area of particular experience to another in a harmonious way.  Christianity claims that it has bearing on that which "we have looked at and our hands have touched."  1 John 1.  Christianity says that the truth of its propositions is in operation even now, as us Atheists taste a curse and Christians taste a blessing.  "The LORD's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous."  Proverbs 3:32-33 .  Presumably divine curses have something to do with human suffering and divine blessings have something to do with human comfort.  Christianity offers itself as an invaluable instrument of action, a tool of vital satisfaction.  "Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32.

 

But then a moment later it says that, from God's perspective, what we mean by life is what he might mean by death, and what we mean by right is what he might mean is wrong.  "The hearts of men are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts." Ecclesiastes 9:3.  "The LORD knows the thoughts of man; he knows that they are futile."  Psalm 94:11.  "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD." Isaiah 55:8-9.   "What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight." Luke 16:15.  Christianity is clear that from a human point of view, what is potentially implicated by Christianity is every consequence and its opposite.  What Christianity resolves to is the truth that God is what God is, whatever that might be or not be.  This truth can result in no frustration or corroboration.  This is an absolute truth, which belongs locked away in the jewely box of absolute truths.

 

Contrary to Calvinist epistemology I don't think that believing this truth is necessary for a leading that is worthwhile.  Nothing must be assumed in order to conduct human inquiry.  Any assumption that is not itself subject to interrogation can only serve to block the way of inquiry.  Any truth that is described as being "that which was from the beginning," 1 John 1, can only result in serving as the end before the start.  It has always seemed to me that we don't need a God in order to guess that our experience is shot through with regularities.  The Trinity's "solution" to the "problem of the one and the many" has always looked like a parlour trick to me, one that could be performed equally as well with Hesiod's pantheon.  I do not insist that guesses and hope are never in order.  Van Til must have been the one to post the sign above us denizens of hell that we must "abandon hope."  I just claim my hope and I fully believe in the legitimacy of being hopeful.

 

But Yahweh remains undefeated, unless someone can give me a reason.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Right on, Llewellyn!

 

I still wouldn't dignify Christianity's system, or its representation of God, etc., as truth.  Perhaps we're only tossing semantics around.

 

A fundamental consequence of the principle of non-contradiction is that anything follows from a contradiction.  If A and ~A are true under the same set of relations, then all statements are true.  This annihilates discourse.  And it fails under pragmatism.  If "Tiger!" and "No tiger" are true at the same spot at the same time, it's going to be a rum do for the cave man who relies on both these communications.

 

I read somewhere that van Til said that God is not bound by logic - although van Til also wanted to appeal to God's rational nature to "account for" logic.  I think this boils down either to van Til's not knowing what he was talking about or perhaps to a habit of obfuscation.  If God "is not willing that any should perish" is consistent with God's predestining some to perish, it will turn out that Calvinists have annihilated language.

 

Someone may say that this is why God talk must be not equivocal and not univocal but analogical. As God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and God is above creatures, so creatures' language cannot univocally describe God.  There will always be a gap.

 

In that case, it is TOTALLY STUPID for God to reveal himself to all future generations in a book written 2000-3000 years ago. God should do the decent and reveal himself to each person by special revelation, beyond language, if language is such a barrier.  God's the omni-everything one here, not we.

 

 

[Castiel233]

Going some what off track here (sorry)........

 

Can Christianity be 100 disproved.....I would say not....but it does have to be 100 percent taught and that to me makes it fishy....no one ever goes outside and sees a god, no one meets Him...........if you never come into contact with a believer or the faith , you would not have an inkling on if God was there or not.....

 

I agree that generally  (biblical contradictions aside) the Christian narrative tells a broadly consistent tale of an evil and cruel god who creates creatures He hates and a world in which He intends to punish forever....does such a being exist? Its possible, but seems unlikely. Where does He get his knowledge from, or His powers, or His immortality. Why does the Bible makes claims that fail in the real world (prayer), why does so much of science stand at odds with scripture......

 

I am no Biblical scholar, far from it, but the book seems filled with stuff that simply does not seem true and stuff that defies basic decency....an all knowing, all powerful god who wants to save us from Himself and chooses as His medium a book in which even His most devoted followers cannot agree on.........  

[Castiel233]

To add:

 

My personal hero (well one of them) is Charles Bradlaugh

 

Bradlaugh was a giant in the 19th century movement, loved and hated in equal measure, he marched his views across England, promoting atheism and finding a devoted audience.

 

Bradlaugh never denied God might exist, he claimed his atheism meant that he was without God....however he said that no one could describe any god to him in any manner that could be understood with any meaning and without a clear definition of the deity offered to him, Bradlaugh rejected them all........

 

So much of the Christian faith appears at least to me to merely be word play...god is never experienced externally  it seems.

[disillusioned]

Back to Llwellyn's OP proposal, this "incoherent mess" seems intentionally inherent in Christian theology, to keep it mysterious enough, frustrating enough, but compelling enough to seem believable by so many, and to keep people all wound up and bound up in it.

 

100% agree.

 

But Yahweh remains undefeated, unless someone can give me a reason.

 

Here's a (subjective) reason: James 4:8. I drew near to God, and He did not draw near to me. From my perspective, this renders the case closed.

 

Right on, Llewellyn!

 

I still wouldn't dignify Christianity's system, or its representation of God, etc., as truth.  Perhaps we're only tossing semantics around.

 

A fundamental consequence of the principle of non-contradiction is that anything follows from a contradiction.  If A and ~A are true under the same set of relations, then all statements are true.  This annihilates discourse.  And it fails under pragmatism.  If "Tiger!" and "No tiger" are true at the same spot at the same time, it's going to be a rum do for the cave man who relies on both these communications.

 

I read somewhere that van Til said that God is not bound by logic - although van Til also wanted to appeal to God's rational nature to "account for" logic.  I think this boils down either to van Til's not knowing what he was talking about or perhaps to a habit of obfuscation.  If God "is not willing that any should perish" is consistent with God's predestining some to perish, it will turn out that Calvinists have annihilated language.

 

Someone may say that this is why God talk must be not equivocal and not univocal but analogical. As God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and God is above creatures, so creatures' language cannot univocally describe God.  There will always be a gap.

 

In that case, it is TOTALLY STUPID for God to reveal himself to all future generations in a book written 2000-3000 years ago. God should do the decent and reveal himself to each person by special revelation, beyond language, if language is such a barrier.  God's the omni-everything one here, not we.

ficino, you are on a roll here. One of my main reasons for rejecting Christianity is that establishing it requires lines of reasoning by which literally anything may be shown to be true.

 

I also have some experience with the argument that God is not bound by logic (I actually attempted to make that argument myself on a number of occasions before leaving the faith). Suppose we grant (which I do not) that the TAG is sound, and that, by extension, as the source of logic God cannot be bound by it. This still leaves us with the problem of showing that the God established by the TAG is in fact Yahweh. It seems to me that even if the TAG is sound, then all that we can safely say is that something is the source of logic/morality/knowledge etc, and we call this something "God". That this same something is all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent, loving, and personal must still be shown. That this thing created mankind fundamentally flawed, and then impregnated its own mother so that she could give birth to it, and subsequently offered itself to itself as a human sacrifice in order to satiate its anger about a problem which it itself created is an entirely different matter. Surely such drivel cannot be said to follow from mere existence.

[Castiel233]

Edit

[Castiel233]

 

Back to Llwellyn's OP proposal, this "incoherent mess" seems intentionally inherent in Christian theology, to keep it mysterious enough, frustrating enough, but compelling enough to seem believable by so many, and to keep people all wound up and bound up in it.

 

100% agree.

 

But Yahweh remains undefeated, unless someone can give me a reason.

 

Here's a (subjective) reason: James 4:8. I drew near to God, and He did not draw near to me. From my perspective, this renders the case closed.

 

Right on, Llewellyn!

 

I still wouldn't dignify Christianity's system, or its representation of God, etc., as truth.  Perhaps we're only tossing semantics around.

 

A fundamental consequence of the principle of non-contradiction is that anything follows from a contradiction.  If A and ~A are true under the same set of relations, then all statements are true.  This annihilates discourse.  And it fails under pragmatism.  If "Tiger!" and "No tiger" are true at the same spot at the same time, it's going to be a rum do for the cave man who relies on both these communications.

 

I read somewhere that van Til said that God is not bound by logic - although van Til also wanted to appeal to God's rational nature to "account for" logic.  I think this boils down either to van Til's not knowing what he was talking about or perhaps to a habit of obfuscation.  If God "is not willing that any should perish" is consistent with God's predestining some to perish, it will turn out that Calvinists have annihilated language.

 

Someone may say that this is why God talk must be not equivocal and not univocal but analogical. As God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and God is above creatures, so creatures' language cannot univocally describe God.  There will always be a gap.

 

In that case, it is TOTALLY STUPID for God to reveal himself to all future generations in a book written 2000-3000 years ago. God should do the decent and reveal himself to each person by special revelation, beyond language, if language is such a barrier.  God's the omni-everything one here, not we.

ficino, you are on a roll here. One of my main reasons for rejecting Christianity is that establishing it requires lines of reasoning by which literally anything may be shown to be true.

 

I also have some experience with the argument that God is not bound by logic (I actually attempted to make that argument myself on a number of occasions before leaving the faith). Suppose we grant (which I do not) that the TAG is sound, and that, by extension, as the source of logic God cannot be bound by it. This still leaves us with the problem of showing that the God established by the TAG is in fact Yahweh. It seems to me that even if the TAG is sound, then all that we can safely say is that something is the source of logic/morality/knowledge etc, and we call this something "God". That this same something is all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent, loving, and personal must still be shown. That this thing created mankind fundamentally flawed, and then impregnated its own mother so that she could give birth to it, and subsequently offered itself to itself as a human sacrifice in order to satiate its anger about a problem which it itself created is an entirely different matter. Surely such drivel cannot be said to follow from mere existence.

 

" this thing created mankind fundamentally flawed, and then impregnated its own mother so that she could give birth to it, and subsequently offered itself to itself as a human sacrifice in order to satiate its anger about a problem which it itself created"

 

 

Outstanding post and my favourite of the day so far.

[Llwellyn]

Yahweh is defeated in human terms by desuetude due to the fact of the irrelevance of absolute truth.  He fails the way that Homer's gods fail.  I imagine that if there is a life after death, when we arrive in the vestibule of the next world, we will find simply more humans who have posted signs on the walls saying that we must "Not Put Yahweh to the Test," but that with respect to all else we must "Abandon Hope."  Between Absolute Truth and humans there is no encounter.  Philosopher of Science W.V.O Quine discusses the relative inertness of God:

 

"I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience."