A courteous, intelligent and informed discussion about religion

[Richard Tarleton]

whether we have the ability to choose to have faith or not is one of the biggies of theology from S Augustine onwards. Augustine endeavoured to preserve man's free will by distinguishing between prevenient grace (grace antecedent to conversion), which is a free gift of God, and subsequent grace, in which the divine energy cooperates with man after his conversion; and also by distinguishing sufficient from efficacious grace. The former, tho' adequate, is not in fact followed by its proper result, while the latter is so followed. The effect depends on the congruity or appropriateness of the grace - and that is of God's choice...

But it is a subject that has bedevilled theology for centuries, and is a key issue for such as Pelagius, Cassian, S Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Luther, Calvin; it also underlies the battles between the Jesuits and the Jansenists...

The trouble with these deliberations on the nature of faith, if I understand things correctly, is that they have always been conducted by theologians for whom the existence of God is a given - it boils down to a discussion of the order of events as between faith/grace/conversion. It's difficult to pursue a discussion with anyone who does not accept at least one of the major premises of the argument.

[vinteuil]

The trouble with these deliberations on the nature of faith, if I understand things correctly, is that they have always been conducted by theologians for whom the existence of God is a given - it boils down to a discussion of the order of events as between faith/grace/conversion. It's difficult to pursue a discussion with anyone who does not accept at least one of the major premises of the argument.

I think you have a point there. Of course the whole question as to whether one can 'choose' to have faith is also intricately connected with the hoary old discussion about free will / predestination - which can be looked at theologically, but which is also a serious issue for philosophers whether religiously inclined or not (tho' the non-religious wd probably prefer 'predetermined' to 'predestined'... )

For what it's worth I'm not religious, and I suspect that at the deepest level 'free will' is an illusion (ie we don't, ultimately, have 'choices') - but that we necessarily believe and act as if we did have free will - I don't think we have a choice!

[Richard Tarleton]

nicely put!

[StephenO]

Before things get too complicated, shouldn’t we keep faith whose definition ff quoted from OED and [religious] faith separately? But if the two are (theoretically) linked in some way, I’ll be interested in hearing about it.

In a way they are in that believers not only believe in God but also have faith in him in the sense of trusting him.

Faith itself is the central problem with circular discussions of this sort since believers (such as me) accept the existence of God but have no way of proving his existence. For us, it's a matter of faith. Almost by definition those who aren't believers don't have faith and therefore need and expect proof, a proof which can't be provided. The logical position would be to say "I don't know" but, if you have faith as I do, you can't do that because you do know. You just can't prove it.

Not sure if that makes any sense at all but...

[Don Basilio]

Don
Please ignore this if you think it is too personal but why do you have Eeyore for your avatar?

Nobody remembers my birthday.

[doversoul1]

Don


Thank you.
Tiddely pom…

[cavatina]

Cavatina: I'm devastated you should think I thought you were in any way discourteous. I can't think of anything I said to give that impression and I apologise if I did.

I remember specifically thanking you for your contribution at one point.

Thanks, that's good to know! As long as I try to stay on topic, everyone should be (more) happy. One last thing, though:

treating fellow human beings as manipulable bets in some inauthentic game of your own devising,

Wait, what? I don't do any such thing. In fact, you might say I've organised my life to avoid depending on other people as much as possible--and indeed avoid them, as I'm almost obsessively wary. But when I do have to deal with people, I make damned sure I'm well-protected by numerous and veritably Byzantine layers of psychological self-protection. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

FYI: I'm totally not into clawing and slithering my way to the top of the greasy pile, and am perfectly happy to live in my cat-filled hibernaculum with plenty of time for music, painting, reading, dreaming, and as much navel-gazing as much as I please with the company of a few friends who truly "get" me. Anyway, what kind of "cutthroat" slacks off for two months to soak up every last note of a classical music festival while standing up on the front row? Two years running?

As Schopenhauer once said, "We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people". And if everything I've written in this forum hasn't told you that I know full well how unmistakably, uniquely, irrevocably weird I am, I really don't know what to tell you.

Back "on topic" we go...just thought I should clear that up.

[Don Basilio]

I said I’d comment on Richard’s scientific outline of the universe msg 62.

I’m not a scientist or a philosopher, and the importance of my religion is not as a result of intellectual argument, although I find it intellectually consistent. It would be rash for me to try much in the way of scientific argument.

But I will say that Richard’s Newtonian universe may not leave any room for God, but God is not that sort of God, one being among others, even a Supreme Being, rather God is the possibility that anything at all can exist. Richard’s account takes space, time, consciousness existence, as givens, whereas there is the dizzying consideration that they are not inevitable and we can dimly imagine a matrix, ground of being beyond them. So all our language about God, of that matrix, is bound to be analogous. Theologians and mystics have over again stressed the unknowability of God. (Gregory Palamas’ made the distinction that we can never know God in his essence, only in his energies.)

[StephenO]

But I will say that Richard’s Newtonian universe may not leave any room for God, but God is not that sort of God, one being among others, even a Supreme Being, rather God is the possibility that anything at all can exist. Richard’s account takes space, time, consciousness existence, as givens, whereas there is the dizzying consideration that they are not inevitable and we can dimly imagine a matrix, ground of being beyond them. So all our language about God, of that matrix, is bound to be analogous. Theologians and mystics have over again stressed the unknowability of God.

Well put, DB. My view exactly.

[Don Basilio]

I'm glad to know that I've come on since I failed Religious Knowledge O level.

[Serial_Apologist]

God is not [...] one being among others, even a Supreme Being, rather God is the possibility that anything at all can exist.

This, assuming I read you correctly Don, would accord with the biblical idea that "in the beginning was the Word". From that one would deduce that, without the word, i.e. our human capacity for describing through language, there would be no beginning, or beginnings, of any kind? Likewise there would be no middles, endings, and so forth. It is just *our way* of parcelling reality up for purposes of explanation. Possibilities would also fall within the realm of abstract conceptualisation. Would one not therefrom further deduce that it is us humans who have invented God as the possibility that anything at all anything can exist? For something to exist in potentiality cannot determine its existence.

S-A

[Don Basilio]

That is a perfectly consistent position to take, s-a, and I don't want to pontificate and have the last word. I don't agree with your conclusions: I'm prepared to wager with Pascal on God for other than logical reasons.

I've said enough for today. I'll leave it to others to comment if they wish.

[Richard Tarleton]

I said I’d comment on Richard’s scientific outline of the universe msg 62.

But I will say that Richard’s Newtonian universe may not leave any room for God, but God is not that sort of God, one being among others, even a Supreme Being, rather God is the possibility that anything at all can exist. Richard’s account takes space, time, consciousness existence, as givens, whereas there is the dizzying consideration that they are not inevitable and we can dimly imagine a matrix, ground of being beyond them. So all our language about God, of that matrix, is bound to be analogous. Theologians and mystics have over again stressed the unknowability of God. (Gregory Palamas’ made the distinction that we can never know God in his essence, only in his energies.)

Don I think we agree on many things. I'm certainly not Newtonian - not entirely sure what that would entail - Darwinian more like - and I'm quite ready to accept that there are a thing or things beyond my powers of perception. It's all in Schopenhauer, as Cavatina would tell us were she here - perhaps she will later - Kant, and Schopenhauer who refined his ideas, described everything we could perceive with our senses, intellect etc. as phenomenon. Beyond that is that which we cannot perceive, and which we cannot understand, and have no language to express or describe, and which Schopenhauer (and Kant before him, slightly differently) described as noumenon. Back to that Wittgenstein quote in my earlier post. God is quite simply unknowable to us. You might have faith - but there are no commonly agreed or understood terms in which you can make Him intelligible to me. Theology (which Maurice Bowra denied was a subject at all) is a vast intellectual edifice built around the undemonstrable and unknowable.

I was out at a concert this evening - the Schubert Piano Trio D 897 ("Notturno") twitched the curtain of the noumenon for me, as Schubert often does