Pretty much. The reasoning used in the simple theology hereabouts is low-hanging fruit for an analytic approach. It's the little word puzzles that are interesting, more than that it relates to god - but these threads always get a good audience, and plenty of kick back, which is fun. I'm supercilious and condescending, and despite, or perhaps becasue of that, you, dear reader, are here browsing my posts. Are you not entertained?

That, and that the OP was by Frank, who is at the least earnest in his posts.

Leon is helpful in these threads becasue he is so predictable. When someone disagrees with him he will variously denigrate them personally, misrepresent what they have said and claim to have already provided the answer. It's a pattern seen across many threads and against many different posters, and is the reason that he is ignored by so many of the more competent folk hereabouts.

He also borrows a strategy from Tim, to bury the discussion in appeals to specialised theological metaphysics, to insist that those who do not engage in the same texts as he does cannot understand his profundity. At heart this is an appeal to authority, together with a refusal to engage charitably.

Tim of course has a better background in all this than any of us, and so never descends to plebeian stance of actually presenting an argument. Hand waving and eloquence is sufficient for him to maintain his circumstance.

Fire Ologist presumes that the posts here are trying to learn about Christianity. That's not something I'm much interested in, given it's ubiquity. Olo is right that what is said in this thread is pretty irrelevant to the beliefs of the faithful. It's apparent that it's equally irrelevant to the beliefs of us Pagans.

So is this just performance art? Public onanism?

What if Banno's point is more Wittgensteinian, or Davidsonian - that there need be, indeed is, no explicable final answer in the way that theology presupposes? Then the arch of his assault here is in showing that all Leon and Tim and the others are doing is also a distasteful display of inappropriate behaviour? That in the face of the ineffable and the infinite, any finite discourse must fail?

But he's not cleaver enough to be doing that, now, is he.

Perhaps it's not a good idea to post these musings. But I'll do it anyway. These interminable threads make my point far more eloquently than I ever could. — Banno

No, this sort of ad hominem psychologizing and self-portrayal that you often resort to reveals how desperate you are to try to spin a narrative that has gotten away from you, in yet another thread where you have embarrassed yourself. In this case the embarrassment stems from your refusal to move beyond a diagram.

(I quoted your whole post so there's no need to try to edit it away. It's a gem.)

Again, you are confusing identi[t]y relations with predication. When I say "The Son is God" I am not referring to something analogous to "S = G". — Bob Ross

:100: :up:

These uses of "=" have caused confusion, not clarity.

- :up:

I agree with that. I will say Banno was trying to be precise, pointing out specific contradictions. — Fire Ologist

The other thing we have to reckon with is the question of how much any given explanation or account is meant to bear. The diagram that Banno has decided to scrutinize is not meant to bear scrutiny from the hardened anti-religious. It is at best a heuristic tool to help believers remember some basic ideas relating to the Trinity, or to sketch the silhouette of the doctrine. It just doesn't make sense to take refined philosophical weapons and go to war against a simple heuristic diagram.

I do think, in some senses, the Trinity, and even Christ on the Cross, do not make sense. These are valid questions for reasonable people to ask, and the answers are not satisfying to the one who only experiences this subject through logical syllogism.

Like explaining why a song is beautiful - some things said will only make sense to someone who heard the song. — Fire Ologist

I think what has happened at points throughout the thread is an accumulation of several minor equivocations. For example, someone who cannot even read music might look at a musical score and move from predication to predication:

• Not beautiful
• Not satisfying
• Not logical

What has happened in this thread is that the shift continues:

• ...Ugly
• ...Dissatisfying
• ...Illogical

One might say that the Trinity is "not logical" in the (somewhat idiosyncratic) sense of "not able to be demonstrably proven by natural reason," but this does not suffice to infer, "illogical." The root problem is that a claim like "not logical" is vague and ambiguous, as it has a very large semantic range and could even be construed in positive or negative ways. It lacks precision and is therefore an unwieldy predication, especially when it is to be leveraged as an accusation.

---

To quote C.S. Lewis from The Problem of Pain: — Count Timothy von Icarus

He is very eloquent. :up:

:lol:

This is quite the thread.

:up:

And that is why these threads are tedious. "Catholics hold that the Trinity is illogical and I am not willing to offer any evidence for this implausible claim of mine." Or else seizing upon the most simplistic diagram and interpreting it in the most uncharitable sense possible in order to try to score a point against Christianity.

- I'll take that as a "no."

Your quote does not state that the Trinity is illogical. Care to try again? Care to try to present evidence for your thesis that the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be illogical?

I disagree. — frank

And you consistently refuse to present any evidence whatsoever for your claim that the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be illogical. This sort of thing is why you haven't been taken seriously in this thread.

Does anybody want to take a shot at this question? If it's illogical, does that mean it's impossible? Or would limiting the world to my own concepts be a kind of idealism? — frank

You are falsely representing the Catholic Church by claiming that the Catholic Church holds that the doctrine of the Trinity is illogical. You have been misrepresenting the Catholic Church over and over throughout this thread, beginning with the very first post.

Because you conflate these, you think doctrinal statements to the effect of "the Trinity is a mystery," somehow support, "the Trinity is contradictory." These aren't taken to be the same thing. Nor is it the same thing to say: "logic does not show that the Trinity involves a contradiction," as to say: "the mystery of the Trinity can be explicated through logic." "The Trinity is not a contradiction," is an apophatic statement. And indeed, this is actually the far more typical fideist and nominalist response, to stick to the strictly apophatic, and claim that the mystery cannot be explicated, only accepted by faith. That is, however, something distinct from affirming that it is a contradiction, and then affirming the contradiction.

I can give you a more common example. Suppose we can agree to "love and beauty cannot be explained by logic." It does not follow then that "love and beauty involve contradictions," or that "to say one is in love, one must affirm a contradiction." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. :up:

I know you got into some of this earlier, but there are different schools on these sorts of questions even within Catholicism. Nevertheless, all of the Catholic schools agree that any faith-based doctrine can be successfully defended from charges of contradiction or incoherence. There is a common opinion found especially among Thomists that something like the Trinity cannot be demonstrated from natural reason, but it does not follow from this that the Trinity is somehow illogical or incoherent.

@Banno has a better sense of what @frank does not understand:

As I said, Thomists will be able to mount a defence for each of these objections. — Banno

That's what I thought. This is why you think drawing attention to the logic of the Trinity is an attack on Christianity: because you think if God is a trinity, and trinity is illogical, then God is impossible. — frank

No, I think the people who never miss a beat when it comes to an anti-religious topic are deeply invested in attacking religion. The statistics tell that tale.

For the most part, Banno couldn't care less. — frank

The statistics don't support your thesis.

So consider taking the Catholic Church at its word, and accepting that the Trinity is beyond comprehension. It's not logical. — frank

Consider trying to quote a Catholic source instead of engaging in lazy misrepresentation. Here is Thomas:

as regards others it suffices to prove that what faith teaches is not impossible — Aquinas, ST I.32.1

But it should come as no surprise to you that Catholics do not believe the impossible to be possible. That such a thing is a strawman should be evident.

Do you believe that anything that defies logic is impossible? — frank

I believe that what is logically impossible is impossible.

But do you see how implausible it is for deflationists of the kind found on TPF to try to establish an immutable truth and then apply it to God? Folks around here routinely dismiss the law of non-contradiction, and therefore I don't see how they are going to manage to disprove the religious doctrine du jour with some firm and unchanging truth. As I said:

Banno clings to "pluralism" whenever someone critiques him, and then he is all of the sudden a proponent of "monism" as soon as he is doing his anti-religious schtick. — Leontiskos

Called. — Banno

Called? You say that we cannot discuss the Creed without bringing in Thomism. This is obviously false, but ignoring that for a moment, you haven't the slightest interest in discussing Thomism. I provided you with three central texts from Thomas, and pointed you back to them twice, and yet you refuse to touch them. You aren't interested in the Creed, or Thomism, or any specifically Christian theology. The only thing you are interested in is a simplistic diagram and your hostile translation of its meaning. You know that if you go beyond that diagram then your strawmen will fall to pieces.

The creed doesn't help make sense of you and Tim, of itself. We need the Thomism as well. — Banno

On that thesis it would be very difficult to understand how Christians got along without Thomism for 900 years. Or how non-Thomists got along even after Thomas. Like before, you are trading in factual inaccuracies.

As Count Timothy von Icarus pointed out, it's heresy to suggest that God is a category that the three hypostases belong to, as dogs, cats, and mice belong to the category of mammals, rather, each hypostasis is fully God. — frank

Sure, but did you catch the other half, where viewing "God" and "hypostasis" as belonging to the same univocal genus is also erroneous? Is it really so odd to think that in the Source of all created being there is a reality that transcends the distinctions commonly found within created being? Isn't that pretty much what everyone would expect to find? That's how analogy cashes out when applied to God. It means that there is not a one-to-one mapping between what is found in creation and what is found in God. It means that there is more in God than there is in creation. None of this is incoherent.

Yeah, the Creed doesn't help much unless you also take on board the whole Thomistic metaphysics of essence and personhood and so on. — Banno

This would be a great take if not for the fact that the Nicene Creed predates Thomism by some 900 years. When religious topics are broached on TPF the level of both historical and general ignorance is breathtaking.

Isn't this the same thing that always happens with Banno? He takes his parochial, historically ignorant version of Analytic Philosophy... — Leontiskos

For those with an interest in background stuff, the diagram, which Leon says is most certainly not a representation the Trinity, can be found in the Wiki article on The Shield of the Trinity, where there is a bit of historical background. — Banno

I already told you that the Nicene Creed would be the ideal source. If you want to use the Athanasian Creed, on which the diagram is based, be my guest. Do some actual work in understanding what you wish to attack. Use a source that is not so open to misrepresentation by the hostile.

It's odd that you think a straightforward account of Catholic doctrine — frank

What's odd is that you think the crazy shit you're whipping up is a straightforward account of Catholic doctrine, but this has already been pointed out to you quite a few times.

So tell us what your account is! — Banno

"Tell me what you believe so I can shit all over it."

The correct answer to this request is, "Fuck off," or some variant thereof.

If you guys want to want to attack Christian theology, you'd better have an understanding of Christian theology beforehand. That you don't underlies the problem and the mauvaise foi of this whole thread. If you want to attack a real theological source I would likely defend it, but I am not going to defend heuristic diagrams from trolls.

When someone who is serious offers a critique of Christianity, it is engaged (for example). In such a case there is a serious and charitable understanding of the thing being critiqued. It is also possible that someone genuinely interested in Trinitarian theology would start a thread intending to learn more about it. But in neither of these two cases would the OPs name be "Banno" or "frank."

Frank, no one takes you to be an authority when it comes to Christianity, much less Trinitarian theology. Sorry to break it to you. You'll have to do better than, "It's true because I said so."

That's the Trinity, dude. — frank

frank said so. How could it not be true?

Klima's finishing point is that those who have not agreed with his argument do so becasue they do not have an adequate understanding of god; and that their understanding is inadequate is shown by their not accepting the argument. — Banno

That's a pretty idiotic misrepresentation of Klima, but anyone who has looked at the thread is already aware of this. I guess if you don't know how to do philosophy then misrepresentation is the next best strategy.

From Father = God and Son = God — Banno

Where are these premises coming from? I don't know of any Catholic theology which says, "Father = God and Son = God..." Oh, right: they are coming from the all-powerful diagram that your whole argument revolves around!

Nice. I might be interested in that reading group. I will download the chapter and give it a look. :up:

Again, I do not want to attack Catholic Dogma. — Banno

We all know better.

Look in the mirror. You will see a man who is too lazy to take the time to understand what Christians believe, and is at the same time deeply committed to attacking Christian beliefs. Think about that for a few minutes.

Folk here can plainly see your misrepresenting me as objecting to a mere diagram. I am pointing to the denial of the transitivity of identity shown in that diagram, and asking for an explanation. — Banno

If your objection has naught to do with the diagram, then give your objection without the diagram. You can't. Your objection is obviously an objection to what the diagram represents. As I have said, the diagram is not a reliable representation of the Trinity at a philosophical level, and no one thinks it is.

So given that you are hell-bent on attacking the Trinity, you will have to find a real theological source in order to first understand what the Trinity is. Go inform yourself that you may then satisfy your anti-religious passions. Come back when you have something more than a heuristic diagram.

Presumably, I can now proceed to present any number of accounts of the Trinity, and for each, you will say "that's not it, Dumbass!" — Banno

For the third time:

You seem to be specifically attacking your construal of a popular diagram. That diagram is not Trinitarian dogma. If you want to attack the Trinitarian doctrine you would have to find a theological source to engage.* Else, in that alternative universe where a serious Banno exists, he would actually look at the Council of Nicea.

* If someone is actually trying to critique Thomism, then they probably want to engage Thomas. The easiest place is the first part of the Summa Theologiae, particularly questions 30, 31, and 32. — Leontiskos

So if you want to attack Catholicism then you should be objecting to something specifically Catholic, such as the Council of Nicea or the Catechism or a doctor such as Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, etc. I literally pointed you to the Thomistic texts.

Your objection to a diagram is ridiculous. No one thinks heuristic diagrams such as that one are meant to be theologically rigorous, or are meant to repel anti-religious attacks.

The whole thread may have been given too much credit. It's fairly hard to salvage a thread that begins that way. — Leontiskos

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. — Wayfarer

Indeed. :up:

You have to know when someone is genuinely trying to understand something, and when they're not.

Ok, so set out what is Trinitarian dogma, — Banno

No, dumbass. If you are going to criticize Trinitarian doctrine, then the onus is on you to say where your concept of Trinitarian doctrine is coming from. If your only answer is, "This diagram I found online," then we will have a good laugh and be on our way. Besides, I already gave you the Thomistic texts that your anti-Thomism would supposedly be interested in.

explain to Wayfarer, who offered the diagram, why it is inadequate. — Banno

Wayfarer may have underestimated the extent to which this is a thread filled with trolls seething to invalidate Christianity. The diagram is a highly simplified heuristic, and one which will consistently backfire when set before a troll (Mt 7:6).

the diagram shows clearly the denial of transitivity. It's that denial, not the diagram, that is at issue. — Banno

That diagram is not Trinitarian dogma. — Leontiskos

Your whole approach requires hyper-focusing on a random internet diagram and ignoring everything else. You clearly have no interest in looking at actual theological expositions of the Trinity. Surely you see how absurd your approach is?

Now you quote yourself! — Banno

No need to restate what you have already failed to answer. If you want to attack the doctrine of the Trinity, you have to tell us what you are attacking. If it's nothing more than a diagram, then who cares? That level of laziness and unseriousness is precisely what everyone has come to expect from you. Stop turning a philosophy forum into your infantile anti-religious playground.

Quotes are part of your religion; you and Tim use them to bury objections, not to address them. Quotes are not arguments. — Banno

So you will attack a diagram but you won't look at quotes from religious sources? :yikes:

Are you attempting to attack Trinitarian dogma? What do you take it to be? You're obviously ignorant of Christianity, Thomism, and all the rest of the things you pretend to have conquered. You seem to be specifically attacking your construal of a popular diagram. That diagram is not Trinitarian dogma. If you want to attack the Trinitarian doctrine you would have to find a theological source to engage.* Else, in that alternative universe where a serious Banno exists, he would actually look at the Council of Nicea. Yet even to read the diagram charitably is to not assume that "is" is being used numerically, which you obviously have not managed.


* If someone is actually trying to critique Thomism, then they probably want to engage Thomas. The easiest place is the first part of the Summa Theologiae, particularly questions 30, 31, and 32. — Leontiskos

You have nothing but ad hominem attacks? "You mother wears army boots" and "My Daddy is a policeman"?

Where's your logic, man!? — Banno

I provided you with actual texts from Aquinas to help you with your so-called refutation of Thomist Trinitarianism. I was hoping that would get us out of the preschool mindset of attacking diagrams. ...Well "hoping" is much too strong a word, to be fair. It's no coincidence that you're doing nothing more than attacking a diagram. Don't expect a serious response if you have nothing serious to offer in the first place.

I'm just pointing out the consequences of that diagram. — Banno

Serious work, that. An attack on a diagram. :roll:

No one denies that children can play nonsense games together. — Janus

You, @frank, and @Banno are surely proof of this.

I asked for a quote from Peirce wherein he say his semiotics were inspired by Augustine. — Janus

"If you don't have a quote from Peirce saying its true then it doesn't count!"

How infantile is this thread? How clownish and desperate are these anti-religious hacks?

A Catholic accepts the doctrine of the Trinity, which says the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. A Catholic also accepts the doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice, as outlined in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"

Put the two together, and we have God sacrificing Himself, to Himself, to save us from Himself. — frank

:lol:

What more hackneyed attempts at "gotchas" are still in store for this thread?

That’s fair. I think letting them starve, all else being equal, is better than murdering them. — Bob Ross

Okay, understood.

But couldn’t God just drive them out? Why would God murder a child when He could just command the demon to leave the child’s body? Jesus drives out demons all the time in the NT. — Bob Ross

Sure, except that the case in question is not a matter of possession. It is not a demon inhabiting a non-demonic inhabitant, but rather something which is inherently demonic. This is so because the sexual cultic rites were actually meant to create a bond with certain demons through worship, and to result in the procreation of a demonic race. The demonic attachments that Jesus encountered are considered different in that way. So the cases are different, but as I said earlier, I am still not sure how to "objectively" assess the "rights" of such beings.

I would say no; for example, a judge that knows it is wrong to steal cannot advise to a citizen to steal irregardless if the citizen themselves understand it is a crime. (We are assuming here) God knows it is immoral; so He cannot command it. — Bob Ross

This all gets a bit tricky, and it may take us too far afield. Nevertheless, I think you are on safe ground when you talk about commands proper. Even if it is generally permissible to advise in that way, it is probably not permissible to command in that way.

That’s interesting, I will have to take a deeper look into that. — Bob Ross

Yes, and I think it is something that our Protestant culture misses. The Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura has a tendency to see all of Scripture as completely equal (and would thus be unable to "single out" the Pentateuch in the way that @BitconnectCarlos is able to do). Granted, in Catholicism you get some of that too, but it is strongest in Protestantism and that is our culture context here in the U.S.

Yes, but then, again, you have to deny that murder is the direct intentional killing of an innocent person. You cannot have the cake here and eat it too.

If you do deny that definition, then I would like to hear your definition that is consistent with this view that God does not murder when killing innocent people. — Bob Ross

I think the problem here is a sort of reductio. God and the Angel of Death are not generally deemed murderers, and therefore if one maintains a notion in which they are murders then an abnormal semantics is in play.

There are different approaches here. Some would say that God simply does not murder, some would say that no one is innocent before God, etc. The general problem is the negative connotation of murder. For example, the Angel of Death does take life, but because it is his job to do so he is not transgressing in the process. Not even in a mythological sense would it make sense to bring the Angel of Death before the judge and accuse him of murder.

Those examples you gave are relative to the individual so they are not examples that support group culpability. E.g., a person or group that aids or abets are culpable because they themselves did something that is involved with that practice—an innocent person who did not aid or abet but happens to be a part of the group would not get charged unless they demonstrate they themselves did aid and abet. — Bob Ross

But the contention is that everyone who is part of the group is implicated, and that no one can just "happen" to be part of the group. That's how human communities tend to work. There aren't really communities that one only "happens" to be a part of, given that mutual influence is always occurring within a community. This is precisely why the one who expels an evildoer from the community is praised: because they have protected the group from contamination.

Fr. Stephen De Young must be in my YouTube algorithm now, because I stumbled upon <this short video on messiness>. I think his advice is salutary. Granted, his advice will be more directly applicable to Christians, but a reflection of it still holds for those such as yourself who are investigating Christianity or religion. The key point is that, wherever you do end up, you must eventually be aware of the complexities of reality that we are not always consciously aware of. In some sense an argument against injustice can sidestep that advice, but in another sense it cannot, and I think @BitconnectCarlos' points highlight why it cannot be altogether sidestepped.

For someone honestly "interested in what Christians believe," you sure don't seem particularly interested in what Christians have to say about your description of their beliefs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that the OP was a clear rallying cry for bad faith anti-religionists to engage in insults and trolling. The pre-redacted OP itself was just a bunch of insults pretending to aspire to something more. The whole thread may have been given too much credit. It's fairly hard to salvage a thread that begins that way.

I think it would be a mistake and a superficial reading to decontextualize the command to kill the Amalekites and use that as an injunction against God. The command is given by Samuel, speaking on behalf of God. — BitconnectCarlos

:up:

Martin Buber argues that Samuel mistakes his own will for God's, which I imagine would be easy to do for a man who selects kings and possesses a special relationship with the divine. The divine voice in this book is more removed than in earlier books.

In Torah, you'll hear, e.g., "And God said to Abraham...." In the book of Samuel, this doesn't happen, and instead, it's Samuel telling Saul to put Amalek under the ban. The key here is Samuel. He could be correctly and perfectly conveying God's will, or he could be mistaken, or he could be deceiving. The clarity of Torah, where we see God's words openly dictated, is no longer present in Samuel. — BitconnectCarlos

Interesting. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Yes. I suspect the former idea is earlier, the latter idea (seen in Chronicles) is later. Biblical authors struggle to deal with this. Each view has its strengths and weaknesses. I find the notion that God allows evil to fester and build until it's ripe for destruction to be a fascinating and non-modern one. My favorite theodicy is Job. We can engage in apologetics, but ultimately, I believe the existence of evil and suffering in this world is beyond human comprehension. — BitconnectCarlos

:up:

So it seems you have gone with adding the premise: "classical theologians are wrong about what they think they are saying, and have been wrong since the Patristic era, because when they use "is" it must refer to numerical identity." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah. :up:

Isn't this the same thing that always happens with @Banno? He takes his parochial, historically ignorant version of Analytic Philosophy and pretends that it is somehow the One Ring to Rule them All? It's the same old game of pretending to refute metaphysical positions without engaging in metaphysics.

Relevant:

Was the OP just an attempt to supply an argument for the predetermined conclusion that religious thinking is bad? It doesn't seem to have succeeded.

The irony here is that Banno does a 180 when he goes after religion, relying on unimpeachable principles that religion has supposedly transgressed. "Any stick to beat the devil." — Leontiskos

Banno clings to "pluralism" whenever someone critiques him, and then he is all of the sudden a proponent of "monism" as soon as he is doing his anti-religious schtick.

-

I had presumed you would be seeking to defend trinitarian dogma — Banno

Are you attempting to attack Trinitarian dogma? What do you take it to be? You're obviously ignorant of Christianity, Thomism, and all the rest of the things you pretend to have conquered. You seem to be specifically attacking your construal of a popular diagram. That diagram is not Trinitarian dogma. If you want to attack the Trinitarian doctrine you would have to find a theological source to engage.* Else, in that alternative universe where a serious Banno exists, he would actually look at the Council of Nicea. Yet even to read the diagram charitably is to not assume that "is" is being used numerically, which you obviously have not managed.


* If someone is actually trying to critique Thomism, then they probably want to engage Thomas. The easiest place is the first part of the Summa Theologiae, particularly questions 30, 31, and 32.

What about respecting their decision as a free agent and not trying to impose upon their will by modifying it through rehabilitation, but instead giving them their just dessert? One ought be rewarded for bad behavior and good.

As C.S. Lewis says, "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ought to have known better, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image." — Hanover

Great. :up:

Anyhow, as John Deely never gets tried of repeating, the sign relation is "irreducibly triadic." It is defined relationally, just as the Trinity is. A sign isn't an assemblage of parts, since each component only is what it is in virtue of its relation to the whole. The sign and the Trinity aren't perfect images of each other, the idea is rather that all of creation reflects the Creator, and thus the triadic similarity shows up even in the deepest structures, yet no finite relations can capture the Trinity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up: :fire: