believing that knowledge of God depends on revelation & faith — Agustino

I do believe this.

to believing that faith is contrary to reason — Agustino

I don't believe this.

to believing that faith is independent of reason — Agustino

Faith is dependent on will & personal experience & revelation

And perhaps not at all. — Thorongil

If the truth isn't communicable, then what is Christ's message? If the truth can't be communicated, even by God, then...?

Let me ask you a question: do you think the truth is capable of being exhaustively expressed in language? If you answer in the affirmative, then, if I asked you to express it and you declined, you would either know the truth and are merely withholding it from us for some reason or you would be obliged to say that we haven't yet discovered it all. But then notice in the case of the latter that it takes a leap of faith to believe that the truth can be exhaustively communicated through language in the future, since it hasn't happened yet. If you answer in the negative, then you already admit the existence of mystery and of the possibility of God, if he exists, to disclose certain truths, such as those about suffering, by means that are not easily or not at all capable of being communicated. — Thorongil

I don't think capital T Truth is capable of being exhaustively expressed as a certainty through the use of language. I also don't think it can be expressed in any other way, either.

An odd complaint. Can words ever make anything fully intelligible? All words are generalized, mediated abstractions from perception, not to mention wherever else they may derive. — Thorongil

If you take away verbal communication, do you really think that the complexities of, let's say in this case Christian theology, could be expressed in an accessible, understandable, and intelligible way? I don't think so. I don't think God would even think so, seeing as he sent a man in Jesus to the world in order to speak the good news, with every Christian afterward also speaking that very same good news.

If words are required in order to even get across ordinary, lowercase t truths to us mortals, then for God to withhold the reason(s) for his actions without, through words, communicating it, God wouldn't, then, be communicating anything at all.

But this is incoherent. There couldn't be a will to be or not to be, for that entails that an agent exist before he can decide to exist, which is impossible. — Thorongil

My point is that if it's logically impossible for there to exist some agent before that agent's existence, then it is equally illogical to suggest that some agent exists after said agent's existence already ceases to be. If you retort with, "one has no knowledge of whether or not one's agent ceases to exist after death!" Well, neither do you have knowledge of whether "you" had agency, or being, before you existed, either, as such can't be verified either. Yet, it would seem that agency after, but not before, is somehow more plausible, why?

No, your perspective is wrong. There is only one true perspective, and that is God's. — Agustino

>:O

Yeah, the one true perspective of God...which is only understood through an untrue perspective...

Interesting. Didn't know that. Perhaps that is why Dostoevsky had such a problem with the west. Though it is obvious that Dostoevsky experienced the problems and struggles with God that Ivan experienced... But you mean that was because of western rationalist influences? I would love to hear more about the orthodox way like that. It far surpasses everything from the western christianity already by the few words you just uttered. Why BTW do you like someone like Aquinas?

Russian distaste for Western Europe is a lot more complicated than just religion.

Faith is dependent on will & personal experience & revelation — Agustino

So, it is independent of reason, thus making you a fideist in this sense.

If so, then I'm baffled as to how you think you can "invite" people to become Christians if their becoming so doesn't depend on rational argument, but rather on will, personal experience, and revelation. What have we been doing this whole time? Why are you talking to @Beebert as well, in that case?

If you invite people without argument, then you're on equal footing with the Buddhist apologist, who, much like your metaphor of the lamp posts, has his own simile of the raft to describe the goal of Buddhism. You've given the prospective believer no means to determine why one path is any better than another.

In general, of course. I was talking about this specific part of Dostoevsky's thought in his writings.

Just keepin' you honest, mein Beebert (Y)

If the truth isn't communicable, then what is Christ's message? If the truth can't be communicated, even by God, then...? — Heister Eggcart

In the case of the truth about why God allows suffering, I'm saying that that might not be communicable, not that all truths about God are incommunicable.

I don't think capital T Truth is capable of being exhaustively expressed as a certainty through the use of language. I also don't think it can be expressed in any other way, either. — Heister Eggcart

A strange position to hold. Why can't the truth be expressed in any way? Remember, my position is that, if God exists, then the truth can be expressed in a way known only to God and only after we die (for most of us).

If you take away verbal communication, do you really think that the complexities of, let's say in this case Christian theology, could be expressed in an accessible, understandable, and intelligible way? — Heister Eggcart

I do, if it's God who's expressing them to the individual, rather than other humans. That's the context of our conversation: God may reveal certain things to certain people in certain ways not amenable to communication with other humans.

I don't think God would even think so, seeing as he sent a man in Jesus to the world in order to speak the good news, with every Christian afterward also speaking that very same good news. — Heister Eggcart

Jesus came to bring salvation, but how salvation works and in what it consists is ultimately a mystery this side of the grave.

My point is that if it's logically impossible for there to exist some agent before that agent's existence, then it is equally illogical to suggest that some agent exists after said agent's existence already ceases to be. If you retort with, "one has no knowledge of whether or not one's agent ceases to exist after death!" Well, neither do you have knowledge of whether "you" had agency, or being, before you existed, either, as such can't be verified either. Yet, it would seem that agency after, but not before, is somehow more plausible, why? — Heister Eggcart

I would make the argument that I did not exist prior to conception but that I might continue to exist after death, and there would be nothing contradictory in that.

The thing I often see in all religions, especially christianity, as it is the one I encounter the most, is that behind this faith, behind this wonderful belief that their life will continue forever, that God loves them and that life has a meaning and is created just for them, is an intense fear of death. An intense unwillingness to accept suffering as a part of life, to accept pain, to accept meaningless, to accept death. I don't see really what is so horrible about death. I wasn't born in 1800, and I wasn't and am not horrified or afraid about that fact. Why be afraid then of eternal sleep? It is something to look forward to really sometimes. Sleep is often better than being awake. No, sometimes christianity just seems to be wishful thinking, because it satisfies and comforts people in all their fears and sorrows... But for those who do not believe, christianity becomes a terror; because it threatens you not with eternal sleep, but with eternal suffering.

For a balanced, highly nuanced and profoundly philosophical view of Christianity in relation to Buddhism and Advaitism I would highly recommend The Rhythm of Being The Unbroken Trinity by Raimon Pannikar.

https://www.amazon.com/Rhythm-Being-Gifford-Lectures/dp/1626980152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499729070&sr=8-1&keywords=the+rhythm+of+being

Have you considered the possibility that once there is genuine repentance retrogression is no longer an option?

"Have you considered the possibility that once there is genuine repentance retrogression is no longer an option?"

Yes I have, why? Have I said any thing that made you think I hadn't thought about that? Or was it an answer to any of my questions?

Does he advocate a kind of universalism or does he acknowledge that said traditions, similarities between them not withstanding, actually make mutually exclusive truth claims? If "balanced" just means warmed over universalism, then I have little interest in it and would suggest Beebert avoid it as well.

So, you didn't mean to suggest that the "20 year old" you spoke of had experienced genuine repentance?

You are thinking of this in unhelpful 'black and white' terms; it's either "universalism" or "mutually exclusive truth claims". This kind of 'propositional' approach to religions will never open them up for you, and nor will it open you up for them.

Also, what makes you think Beebert needs your advice about whether he or she should read the book?

The reason I referred to the Gillespie book, is that it analyses the significance of nominalism in the overthrow of scholastic metaphysics, and the many implications of that. The crucial point was that the nominalist vision of God was such that God was not even constrained by logic - He could completely subvert logic if he so choose. God is utterly omnipotent, omniscient, and completely unknowable.
Whereas, in the Scholastic philosophy, God was in some sense rational, even if also beyond rationality. (I might not be putting that well, but it's an argument that Gillespie takes an entire book to develop and it is a very complex issue.) — Wayfarer

Yeah, but does he actually present arguments against voluntarism and nominalism or does he just bemoan their purported societal effects? It could be that they have produced a lot of bad effects, but that doesn't mean they're false. Scotus and Ockham are philosophers. Good philosophers. They present extremely sophisticated arguments for the positions they hold. It's intellectually dishonest to ignore them but still dismiss these thinkers on the grounds that some bad things seemingly happened as a result of their ideas.

Another book I have partially completed about a similar topic is Brad S Gregory's 'The Unintended Reformation' — Wayfarer

I'm still on the fence about whether I should add it to my list. Consider this book:

http://www.fortresspress.com/product/postmodernity-and-univocity-critical-account-radical-orthodoxy-and-john-duns-scotus

The author mentions Gregory as someone who buys into the "Scotus story," which tries to pin on Scotus's shoulders all the bad stuff of modernity. There's also the posts about Gregory on the following blog that are pretty damning, to me: http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/search/label/Brad%20Gregory

I'm no fan of Protestantism or its results, but I also don't like lazy scholarship of the kind Gregory seems to have engaged in. If he gets Scotus so wrong, who's to say the rest of the book is not riddled with misrepresentations? Gregory and Gillespie blame voluntarism and nominalism but then guys like Jonathan Israel have their own just-so story about modernity, in which he doesn't identify an -ism so as to condemn modernity but to praise it, that -ism being Spinozism. These accounts seem to be rather easy to compose. Find a vague idea, use it to explain modernity in a celebratory or condemnatory way, and surround it with a deluge of names, dates, etc.

Pannikar is great. It surprises me you'd recommend it, considering the criticisms you have often made of my attempts at cross-cultural comparisons in this subject. But anyway, he's certainly a great author in this area. Herewith a long quotation from his ]The Silence of God: The Answer of Buddha

Invocation—the raising of the heart in a plea for true love, the raising of the mind in a quest for salvific knowledge, and the raising of the life of the individual in a cry for real help—is becoming more and more necessary in the contemporary world, and at the same time more and more impossible.

First, it is becoming more and more necessary. We cannot bear up along under the weight of existence. Modern life is becoming ever more precarious... Individuals cannot know all things, or solve all problems, or control all of the factors that mold their life. They can place no confidence in their peers, who are as fragile and fallible as themselves. They cannot rely on society, for society is precisely one of their greatest burdens. They feel the need to ascend higher, to cry for help, to reach out to something above, to trust in a love, or a goodness, or a someone. Invocation, as emergence from oneself in order to trust, or take refuge in, or at least to contact, something or someone superior to ourselves, becomes ever more imperative.

At the same time, such invocation is becoming impossible. The God to whom this invocation is directed, the God at the acme of the hierarchy of beings, appears impotent, and from that moment forward is silent.

Surely nothing can tell us what the world is, for neither question, that of being or that of non-being, can be asked with regard to the world. Ontology is not false, it is just that it is caught in an endless circle. Ontology insists that to on corresponds to ho logos. The Enlightened One has seen beyond this. What has he seen? Nothing! Śūnyatā, nirvāṇa.

We are dealing with avyākṛtavastūni—things (literally) inseparable, ineffable, inexpressible —things "inexplicable," in the etymological sense of being so tightly intertwined as to thwart all unraveling. The principles of identity and noncontradiction, properly speaking, or primario et per se, are logical principles—principles of thought, raised to the status of ontological principles in virtue of the "dogma" of identity, or at least of the adequation, of being and thinking. The Buddha has "seen further."

... If my interpretation is correct, then it seems to me that the intentionality of the avyākṛta does not regard the logic of thought—does not bear upon a softening of the principle of noncontradiction or of the excluded third [middle], but rather points to the imperfection, the limitation, the inability to express the real, intrinsic first of all to the verb "to be" and then to the very concept of being, inasmuch as, ultimately, being itself is not deprived of membership in the kingdom of the impermanent, the changeable, the contingent. There are actually propositions that are inexpressible, owing to the limited grasp of the ontological comprehension available to us. Accordingly, although there is no third alternative between A and not-A, there is between "is" and "is not."

Were we to attempt to sketch these main lines in broad strokes, we should speak of a tissue of mythos, logos, and spirit. Humankind cannot live without myth. But neither are human beings fully human until they have developed their logical potential and spiritual capacities as well. Just as the essence of the "primitivism" of an archaic culture lies in its mystical characteristics, so the essence of the "barbarian character" of contemporary Western culture lies not in the material component of a given civilization, but in the supreme power that it confers on the logos. If there is a single concept in which we might capsulize the contribution that the Buddha could make to our times, it is the conviction that the logos cannot be divinized in any of its forms, either ontological or epistemological or cosmic. Mythos and logos can exist only in spirit. But spirit cannot be "manipulated," either by mythos or by logos.

If we look carefully, we see the the trust the Buddha asks is not a new acceptance of someone else's experience, but a reliance on our own experience once it has been enlightened. It is not a matter, then, of the renunciation of knowing, on the implicit presupposition that there is something real to know and some real subject to do the knowing. It is a question of recognizing that creatureliness cannot transcend itself, and that consequently nothing in the order of being, nothing that develops in space and time, can be included in the realization of what ultimately matters. And what ultimately matters is the orthopraxis that eliminates contingency—that is, suffering.

The human situation may appear self-sufficient in its reciprocal solidarity, but the fact remains that, shut up within its own limits, it will suffocate. Its very sacrality projects it toward the infinite, toward eternity, and unless it is willing to remain irremediably closed off within the spatio-temporal coordinates that delimit it, it will have to be able to find a mediation with an extrahuman order of salvation. This is the traditional function known by the name of "priesthood."

Without an objective something outside themselves for which to strive, human beings may fall victim not only to the self-centeredness that issues in dishonesty with their neighbor, but to the ennui that flows from the meaninglessness of a contingent life that comes to constitute its own stifling limitations. Human beings must lift their eyes to a horizon that is higher than simply themselves and their own story. What I consider that earmark of the new atheism is rather the emergence in contemporary humankind of a tendency to adopt an ideal that is personal in nature. That is, each individual consciously adopts some particular ideal in order to maintain the very need to believe.
And yet does it really seem wise to break with a tradition, a religious one as it happens, that for centuries, for better or for worse, has furnished a large part of humanity with an effective support? Indeed, have we not begun to see that the drastic solution, tested several times now in the course of history, of discarding religion, does not seem to have yielded very satisfactory results? On the contrary, it seems almost as if the "place" vacated by God has been filled up by... nothing at all—and that this "nothing" has loomed up before an unprepared modern humanity with a force that terrorizes it, threatens to swallow it whole. Only silence has filled the void left by divinity. God is gone now, and the silence seems even more disappointing and incomprehensible than the God who has been wished away.

Here our speculation will have to adopt a culturally and religiously pluralistic outlook if it is to have any hope of finding paths to a solution of the problem before it. The challenge of the present age will be to examine whether it is possible to "de-divinize" Being, and de-ontologize God, without either one suffering any detriment, so to speak. Apart from such a possibility, only one alternative remains: identification or nihilism.

God may be or appear to be no more than a handy, bourgeois solution for so many of the problems of modern human life; but at least God represented a hypothesis that, once accepted, really did solve human problems. Left to themselves, without their Gods and without God, human beings simply "don't make it." They must forge themselves every manner of idol in order to survive. Atheism is powerful when it comes to destroying a determinate conception of God; but it betrays its impotence the moment it pretends to transform itself into a worldview that would replace what it has destroyed. Now the cure is worse than the disease.

To express myself in the simplest way possible, then: persons discover that, in their deepest heart, there is a "bottomless bottom," that "is" what they largely are, and at the same time is identical to what each "other" human can likewise experience—the bottom that constitutes what is deepest in every human being, as anyone who has had this experience can attest—that same depth, moreover, that is lived, perceived, intuited as the unique source of all things, and yet never exhausted in any of them, so to speak.

The Buddha delves to the root of the problem—not via a direct, violent denial of God, not again through some harmonization of the various paths, but with a demonstration of the superfluity of the very question of God or of any ultraterrestrial world. In the Buddha we see the vacuity of any possible response, because of the nullity of the entire question. Yet we are not obliged to renounce the possibility of an outcome in terms of salvation and liberation.... Let God's existence be affirmed or denied as it may: neither "answer" will be of any importance, for both are equally invalid.
Faith, though of course comporting an intellectual dimension, is not fundamentally an act of the intellect. It is an act of the whole person. The perfect and universal formula of faith is not "I believe in God," but "I believe," as an expression of total self-bestowal, as an utterance of the abandon with which the answer given in the gospel by the person blind from birth is charged: "I do believe, Lord." Faith is an act of sheer openness. Any closure upon an object wrings it dry. The very presence of God is detrimental to the constitutive openness of faith. Neither the Buddha, nor the Prophet, nor the Christ can remain at the believer's side without representing a dangerous obstacle to that believer's leap of faith.

What matters, then, is not "God," in the classic sense. What matters is only a path, a way that leads in the direction of liberation. Ultimately our lot is in our own hands. We and we alone can deliver ourselves from the suffering that assaults us on every side. The only help available is a reliance on the experience of the Buddha himself and of the monastic community of his followers, in observance of right conduct.... When all is said and done, neither orthodoxy nor orthopoiesis matters. What saves is the refusal to entertain any ideology of philosophy that in some degree would center on God. What is of true value, what carries us beyond this nearer shore of ours is orthopraxis. Now we "arrive" indeed, but without vaulting into the arms of a transcendence that can be manipulated, one that is but the product of our unsatiated desires. The dharma is not infertile, and indeed per se. It suffices to follow it; there is no need to concern oneself with it by reflecting and willing. One need only rely on the Buddha, who has indicated the way, and on the community—that is, on solidarity.

I also don't like lazy scholarship of the kind Gregory seems to have engaged in. — Thorongil

You say, without having read it. I can assure you, his book is by no means the output of a lazy person. I didn't finish it, but only because I don't have that much interest in the subject, really. I only have so much to unscramble why Western thinking has culminated in nihilism. As for you, every single source I recommend on this forum, you seem to take pleasure in scorning. Beats me why.

//ps// interesting, that blog post. I suspect I am very interested in the Scotus issue, and I have been recommended that book on another forum.//

You are thinking of this in unhelpful 'black and white' terms; it's either "universalism" or "mutually exclusive truth claims". This kind of 'propositional' approach to religions will never open them up for you, and nor will it open you up for them. — John

Okay, so give me the "shade of grey" position. Regardless of its existence, religions still either make mutually exclusive truth claims or they do not.

Also, what makes you think Beebert needs your advice about whether he or she should read the book? — John

Because I value my own advice, just as you do yours, or else you wouldn't have advised that he read the book. :-}

You say, without having read it. I can assure you, his book is by no means the output of a lazy person. I didn't finish it, but only because I don't have that much interest in the subject, really. I only have so much to unscramble why Western thinking has culminated in nihilism. As for you, every single source I recommend on this forum, you seem to take pleasure in scorning. Beats me why. — Wayfarer

You're right. I haven't read it. But you haven't read the Scotus book or the reviews on The Smithy, have you? Will you? If you promise me you will, then I'll add Gregory/Gillespie to my list.

I'm going to look into it. I'm of the view that the advent of scientific materialism can be understood in terms of the difference between Eriugena and Scotus, the former being a neoplatonist mystic ( 1), the latter being a nominalist. The 'univocity of being', as I understand it, undermines the possibility of there being an hierarchy of being and reduces being to a binary value, i.e., things either 'are' or 'are not'.

Beebert started this thread called "Jesus or Buddha"; since the interest in comparative religion is obvious why would s/he not want to read one of the most profound thinkers on the subject? Why would s/he be interested in a prejudiced opinion as to whether s/he should read the book, coming from one who has not even read the book?

(Y) It's a deal, then, my friend.

I notice you haven't answered my question.

I reckon the Gillespie book - Theological Origins of Modernity - is far more important than the Gregory book.

Okay, so give me the "shade of grey" position. Regardless of its existence, religions still either make mutually exclusive truth claims or they do not. — Thorongil

I would say that outside the ambit of fundamentalism, they do not; but that fact does not entail the kind of universalism that is a polemic to exclusivity, which you seem to have in mind. This very polemic is itself exclusive to fundamentalist thinking, as broadly conceived.

they do not — John

A bold claim and one that is surely false. Let's test it, shall we? The doctrine of anatman, or not-self. Is this claim exclusive to Buddhism or is it accepted by all the other world religions?

Pannikar is great. It surprises me you'd recommend it, considering the criticisms you have often made of my attempts at cross-cultural comparisons in this subject. — Wayfarer

I don't understand why you say this. We have had many conversations where I have avowed my long-term interest in Buddhism and Advaita, and the phenomenology of the religious impulse in general. I do think Christianity is the highest, most realized, religious expression,and I believe that Pannikar does also, since he is an ordained Catholic priest. Thinking that is not at all to discount the value of other traditions, though.

The problem is that you are thinking of 'anatman' as a propositional claim. Actually the value of the realization of 'no-self' is present in many traditions including Sufism and Christian Mysticism. It is a matter of interpretation, though.

Also I note that you, somewhat tendentiously, omitted the "outside the ambit of fundamentalism"; I am not suggesting that fundamentalism does not exist in all religions and traditions.

The problem is that you are thinking of 'anatman' as a propositional claim — John

Yes, because, at minimum, it is exactly that. That's not all it is, though, clearly.

It is a matter of interpretation, though. — John

Mhmm, but one interpretation must be right and the others wrong, unless I'm talking to an epistemic relativist, which I don't think I am.

So, how would you describe Pannikar's book? Is he more of a universalist or does he acknowledge that religions have mutually exclusive truth claims? He would make for a very odd Catholic priest if he suggested that it didn't much matter whether one was Catholic, Buddhist, or Hindu. Maybe he's a Jesuit, though.