“The image of homo religiosus is that of a man who craves to flee from the concrete, empirical world and escape into the realm of eternal being.” — Hanover

This got me wondering if I'm homo religiosus or not. In my case, it's not that I crave to flee from the concrete, it's more that my homebase is in timelessness, but you can't live that way. You have to tune your psychic radio to the practical.

Are you homo religiosus?

this self-narration in order to try to salvage one's past utterances is obviously not philosophy. It's just a vain attempt to save face. — Leontiskos

Yeah, that was weird. This post has been sarcastic, jaded, ironic from the start.

It almost became a discussion between two sides of an issue a couple times, but earnestness is hard to fake on TFP.

It's the little word puzzles that are interesting, more than that it relates to god — Banno

Not really. Unless it relates to God, the puzzles do not become so stark, so exaggerated, that they demand interest. The stakes are raised too high for you to ignore. Absolutes set every stage. It can appear delusional to ignore them all of the time.

But then, this sounds absolute:

[talking about talking] that's what Philosophy is. — Banno

Banno, like a god, making his usual intervention.

Are you homo religiosus? — frank

No. I see that leading to asceticism, austerity, seclusion, and, you know, other monklike shit.

I believe in doing right because it is right and watching myself and the world becoming right. Spiritual uplifting from doing, living.

The other option is cognitive man, who lives by reason and observation alone. Boring fuck.

I agree that it's not my job to tell other people what kind of relationship they should have to religion, but somewhere short of actually getting offensive, challenging a belief can shed light. Maybe it doesn't shed light on strict philosophical issues, though. Maybe it's more about psychology.

I agree that it's not my job to tell other people what kind of relationship they should have to religion, but somewhere short of actually getting offensive, challenging a belief can shed light. Maybe it doesn't shed light on strict philosophical issues, though. Maybe it's more about psychology. — frank

I think you have to challenge a belief from within the dictates of the belief system. I think both sides have said it here a number of times, which is to stop telling me how your belief system (whether it be anglo-analytic versus Christian or whatever) says things are. From a Catholic perspective, you have the Trinity entirely wrong, and your opponents have it entirely wrong from your perspective.

I'm not arguing relativism here. You can debate on a meta-level if you want what is the best episimological system (which, by the way, need not be the one that best discovers "truth" in some ontological sense, but it could very well be the one that imparts the greatest meaning), but that is an entirely different argument. It would actually be about hermaneutics generally.

The point here is that none of us care to argue the esoteric points of Catholicism to determine whether the trinity is sustainable within the dictates of that logical system and to otherwise point out the tensions from within that system. That's the stuff of seminary school. By the same token, no Catholic really needs to prove the trinity works from a secular perspective. They may stubbornly insist it does, but it's hardly relevant if it doesn't. They're still going to mass on Sunday (or at least on Easter and Christmas).

I guess what I'm saying is that you're about as likely to shake lose their viewpoint by the sheer force of your conviction as they would yours to theirs. And to be sure, they want you to come to their position far more than you really care about them coming to yours.

I agree. But I would say that if my interlocutor had been Kierkegaard or Nietzsche or Heidegger or Plato, etc., a fairly fascinating discussion might have fallen out of the OP. None of them would have felt threatened by the question. They all would have listened to what I actually said instead of responding to demons in the ether. Or maybe that's just how those figures loom in my mind.

The point here is that none of us care to argue the esoteric points of Catholicism to determine whether the trinity is sustainable within the dictates of that logical system and to otherwise point out the tensions from within that system. — Hanover

This is the point I have been trying to make from the start. If the two interlocutors do not share an overarching norm then one's critique of the other will not be intelligible. The only real norm that Analytic Philosophy is consciously capable of is the norm of consistency (which is apparently the avoidance of being "illogical").

That's fine as far as it goes. Catholics also hold to the norm of consistency. But to show that the doctrine of the Trinity contains within itself a contradiction is a tall task, and I don't find a serious attempt at it within this thread. @frank's most recent attempt was to skip the "discovery" phrase and just declare that Catholics themselves hold that the Trinity is illogical. The problem with such an approach is basic: Catholics, like everyone else, simply do not hold that their own beliefs are illogical. Frank's claim about what Catholics hold is just false, and obviously so. Note too that in the extremely dense and complex history of Trinitarian controversy, the charge of internal self-contradiction is incredibly rare. The Analytic's desire to avoid metaphysics makes his whole approach extremely impotent in the face of real life philosophies, such as religions.

It is a tug of war between the substantiality of the norm and the communicability of the norm. Between the Atheistic Analytic and the Catholic the communicable/shared norms tend to be insubstantial, and the substantial norms tend to be incommunicable/unshared. This is why the whole approach of the OP is misguided. The Analytic, with his tiny set of norms, must ultimately admit that pretty much everything passes muster, at least on Analytic grounds. This is not so with a Muslim, for example, who has a metaphysical conception of God that is at odds with the Trinity.

God, holy spirit, jesus.
Water, ice, steam.

Same substance, different form.

Yes, these threads have very little value when folks just want to tell us what their beliefs are. — Hanover

Perhaps; perhaps. seems to think the wounds worth keeping open. I wonder if that's why he commits to these fora.

The Trinity isn't stupid, worthless, or even nonsense — Hanover

I'll again make explicit that I agree. It has a place in a language game, a use. So it is not meaningless, if meaning is use; nor is it worthless, not for the faithful, and not for those who might try to understand them. And without sense, if we are to understand that in terms of coherence - the contradiction in the Trinity is what leads to the ad hoc self-justification of Thomism and such.

What stands is the view expressed in the OP, that the acceptance of such convolute, complex reasoning, apparently in order to achieve some semblance of coherence, is puzzling.

One question here is surely whether the Trinity is to be understood as a starting point, as a hinge proposition, not to be doubted; or as a deduction from first principles as @Bob Ross would have it; or if those accounts that supposedly render the Trinity coherent can have wider application, or are to be kept only inside the room in which we talk about God.

Same substance, different form. — DingoJones

Number 1.5, Divine Life Streams, in the Stanford General Catalogue of Variations on the Trinity?

It almost became a discussion between two sides of an issue a couple times, but earnestness is hard to fake on TFP. — Fire Ologist

Right. I think there are cases where religious discussion can be quite fruitful:

• Interreligious dialogue between contrasting religious approaches
• Responding to critiques from those who are knowledgeable about religion or who are willing to put in the effort to learn (including atheists)
• The application of a religious tenet or concept to another field
• Genuine inquiry

Obviously this doesn't happen too often on TPF, but it is possible.

...you are always more interested in talking about talking, rather than in what is actually being said. — Fire Ologist

Ok. But is that all it is? — Fire Ologist

No, but it might be all that can be said.

Right. I think there are cases where religious discussion can be quite fruitful:

Interreligious dialogue between contrasting religious approaches — Leontiskos

It has been fruitful. I've picked up quite a bit about the ancient Greeks from Christians on TPF.

It has been fruitful. I've picked up quite a bit about the ancient Greeks from Christians on TPF. — BitconnectCarlos

:up:

Yes. Even recently you've shown me a lot of moves I suspected Jewish theology would make but had never concretely witnessed before.

The Analytic, with his tiny set of norms, must ultimately admit that pretty much everything passes muster, at least on Analytic grounds. — Leontiskos

The sanctification of rules results in their analysis being a pursuit of the divine. The point being that the analytic tradition need not be atheistic. If we assert the Talmud a hinge belief, for example, you create a framework for an analytic theology. Analysis becomes a form of worship.

I just point out that both sides to our hearty debate are being myopic if they think analytic thought entails atheism. What entails atheism or theism is worldview, which relates to form of life.

Both analyze, yet one calls it secular philosophical reasoning and the other calls it prayer. Very different languages they're speaking.

Analysis becomes a form of worship. — Hanover

I disagree with that, but I don't know how far afield this would take us. Analysis can be worship, but it need not be. I suppose much of it depends on what you mean by "asserting the Talmud a hinge belief."

the analytic tradition need not be atheistic — Hanover

Agreed.

I just point out that both sides to our hearty debate are being myopic if they think analytic thought entails atheism. What entails atheism or theism is worldview, which relates to form of life. — Hanover

So when I said "Atheistic Analytic":

Between the Atheistic Analytic and the Catholic... — Leontiskos

...I meant an Analytic philosopher who is an atheist, thus implying that not all Analytic philosophers are atheists. Perhaps that was confusing.

Atheism is a very different thing to analytic method. It is surprising to me that this needs mention.

There are whole worlds between theism and atheism.

The sanctification of rules results in their analysis... — Hanover

Analytic philosophy as the sanctification of rules...

Not so much. Wittgenstein is traditionally read as an overcoming of the rules of the various language games. A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs does much the same thing from a very different perspective.

Obviously, any such generalisation will fail to capture more than part of the analytic approach. It's not monolithic. But it is ubiquitous. You and Leon both make use of analytic methods.

@Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm curious if we can start over without hostility or mistrust. If you will, read the following from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, and see if you can understand how a person would get the impression that the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be beyond human understanding. There is definitely some ambiguity to the concept of mystery, and that's mentioned here. Mystery is not synonymous with incomprehensible. The very fact that they point this out demonstrates that some have taken the word to mean that, but it goes on to say that everything we know is incomprehensible if you dig deeply enough. So the Catholic Church does warn that the mystery at the foundation of all things is unknowable. On the one hand, a believer can be said to know the Trinity, because it has been revealed, but on the other hand, the Trinity is above finite intelligence. We can only grasp it by using analogies. We can't directly understand it.

In conformity with the usage of the inspired writers of the New Testament, theologians give the name mystery to revealed truths that surpass the powers of natural reason. Mystery, therefore, in its strict theological sense is not synonymous with the incomprehensible, since all that we know is incomprehensible, i.e., not adequately comprehensible as to its inner being; nor with the unknowable, since many things merely natural are accidentally unknowable, on account of their inaccessibility, e.g., things that are future, remote, or hidden. In its strict sense a mystery is a supernatural truth, one that of its very nature lies above the finite intelligence.

Theologians distinguish two classes of supernatural mysteries: the absolute (or theological) and the relative. An absolute mystery is a truth whose existence or possibility could not be discovered by a creature, and whose essence (inner substantial being) can be expressed by the finite mind only in terms of analogy, e.g., the Trinity. A relative mystery is a truth whose innermost nature alone (e.g., many of the Divine attributes), or whose existence alone (e.g., the positive ceremonial precepts of the Old Law), exceeds the natural knowing power of the creature.... — New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

In this passage, there is an attempt to refute Christian Rationaists. Notice

The existence of supernatural mysteries is denied by Rationalists and semi-Rationalists. Rationalists object that mysteries are degrading to reason. Their favourite argument is based on the principle that no medium exists between the reasonable and the unreasonable, from which they conclude that the mysterious is opposed to reason (Bayle, Pfleiderer). This argumentation is fallacious, since it confounds incomprehensibility with inconceivableness, superiority to reason with contradiction. The mind of a creature cannot, indeed, grasp the inner nature of the mysterious truth, but it can express that truth by analogies; it cannot fully understand the coherence and agreement of all that is contained in a mystery of faith, but it can refute successfully the objections which would make a mystery consist of mutually repugnant elements. — New Advent

In other words, they're drawing a distinction between incomprehensibility and inconceivableness. At first glance, it doesn't seem that such a distinction is supportable. Don't these two words mean the same thing? When the topic is mystery, the answer is no. A mystery is incomprehensible, but not inconceivable. They're denying that the Trinity is a contradiction, but they admit that it's superior to reason. Another way to say that is that it is beyond reason.

I think it's probably the case that the reason the word "contradiction" is rejected is that this makes it sound like the Trinity is impossible. Though the "mind of a creature cannot, indeed, grasp the inner nature of the mysterious truth" knowledge is available through analogies. An analogy is like the handle on a coffee cup. Your mind is the index finger that holds the cup by as much as the finger can grasp.

I am willing to start over with no hostility on an honest answer about whether “the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be beyond human understanding”.

But I’d ask for a small step back from you as well in some form of confession that your original post with it’s reference to lobotomies and belittling caricatures of Christianity might have been a factor in the hostility on the thread. No big deal to me - Maybe I don’t know your personality and you meant no offense - but dude… I go to Catholic Mass every week. I consider myself fairly reasonable and intelligent and not in any need of a lobotomy to make sense of my faith. Do you really want to speak with me or not?

No, but it might be all that can be said. — Banno

Yes.

But isn’t that statement itself, outside of, maybe better said, running parallel to, the ubiquitous analytics of language?

“All that can be said, makes use of analytics, or, is about language.” This is a metaphysical observation about being human, because we are the ones who say things. Such statements are not possible to avoid making. They are always present with the contents of language - language is not just about itself.

Must we hold that all statements about the world cannot be trusted? Sense certainty cannot be trusted analytically, yet we survive by it.

There must be more philosophy can say about this predicament.

More IS said when we say things like “it might be all that can be said” so why not embrace this and find new ways to test our theories besides the internal analytics that set out these theories?

If we subject your statement “might be all” to analytics: “might” means “maybe is, maybe is not”. So “may be all that can be said” means “may not be all that can be said”, which means there may be more that can be said. So even your statement does not foreclose all that can be said.

What more can be said about language and about what we say, than something spoken about the world and we speakers in it?

We must do better on two fronts.

Analytic philosophy as the sanctification of rules...

Not so much. — Banno

I agree. It’s not a sanctification or even a reification, because the object of analytics is not some thing to reify. It analyzes what reifying humans say. The object of analytics is speaking and analyzing, the act of signifying through language.

But it does not refute the ubiquity of analytics to say what I am saying either. The ubiquity of analytics is why one seeks to show the logic of the Trinity. Logic is ubiquitous to speakers of language. So if one such speaker wants to speak about a “Trinity” one doesn’t abandon logic (that is impossible); one is simply saying there exists something in the world, in human experience that language makes difficult to say. It can only be impossible to say if “analytics might be all that can be said.”

So if you really only thought language might be all that can be said, you would no longer be curious to speak about things like “trinities” or “what is a painting” or even what are the limits of what can be said - none of those things could truly be said the way analytics says things. But you referenced one of these impossible things to say (namely “the limits of what can be said.”). We all need to speak about the world and its truth for all. Let’s embrace that.

...I meant an Analytic philosopher who is an atheist, thus implying that not all Analytic philosophers are atheists — Leontiskos

Atheism is a very different thing to analytic method. — Banno

Right, which is why I am suspicious of this thread here on a philosophy forum instead of a theology forum. It gave license to performance art and mockery.

If we’d all be a bit more mature and forgo judgment, atheists might have no issue finding the reasoning inside of a belief in the Trinity, and theists might have no issue finding such analytic reasoning lacking. Proving one side need not be a judgment against the other because belief in God or not is a wholly different thing than what is reasonable.

It is precisely the fact that reason is a separate function than belief that one can believe before seeing reason (which we all do every day when we take risks), or require reason first before belief (which we all do every day as well when we figure out what to do next).

But I’d ask for a small step back from you as well in some form of confession that your original post with it’s reference to lobotomies and belittling caricatures of Christianity might have been a factor in the hostility on the thread. — Fire Ologist

Sure. All cards on the table, the inspiration for the OP was the fact that there were two open threads attacking the OT, one on the basis that some of the folktales in it don't seem possible, and one complaining that the OT deity seems vengeful. I was like, did you guys think the NT makes sense? Because it doesn't.

As for whether I'm responsible for the hostility of others, that's a complicated question. Everybody gets stressed, and sometimes a certain attack is the last straw. Emotional immaturity takes over, and a counter-attack is inevitable. That aspect of humanity shows up at the heart of the message of Jesus. He was saying that you don't have to let other people control you in that way. You're free. When someone attacks you, just stop and see that they're just like you. Maybe they have taken on the last straw, and they're passing it on to you. Break the cycle. Stand up out of that web of grief and rage. You do it by the grace of God. You do it through love. One of the advantages of this is that when you drop your own rage, you can see people more clearly for who they are.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.

17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have[e] regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. — Paul in Romans 12:14-21

Or, the frank-approved MSG version:

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. — MSG version

did you guys think the NT makes sense? Because it doesn't — frank

Yes, legit questions. But you didn’t ask them in a way that sounded like you thought you could possibly get an answer. You asked potential lobotomy patients to respond with a coherent thought.

Turn the other cheek says it all. I tried that and kept getting insulted. But…whatever. Always happy to be reminded of the message of the Bible, so thanks for that.

And I don’t think you are responsible for the hostility of others. Just your own belittling way of framing things…But again, whatever…. You seem earnest enough now, possibly open to respecting my response, so the rest is up to me.

The question is:

whether “the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be beyond human understanding — Fire Ologist

You quoted the following to support that the church does hold the Trinity to be beyond understanding:

Theologians distinguish two classes of supernatural mysteries: the absolute (or theological) and the relative. An absolute mystery is a truth whose existence or possibility could not be discovered by a creature, and whose essence (inner substantial being) can be expressed by the finite mind only in terms of analogy, e.g., the Trinity. A relative mystery is a truth whose innermost nature alone (e.g., many of the Divine attributes), or whose existence alone (e.g., the positive ceremonial precepts of the Old Law), exceeds the natural knowing power of the creature.... — New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

So the church says we don’t simply figure out through observation and logic that God is the Trinity, and we do not understand this mysterious revelation more deeply through observation and logic either. But the church doesn’t say we don’t continue to understand the Trinity more deeply and more deeply, and the church doesn’t say observation and logic are not present and necessary when we come to understand the Trinity more deeply. The church says merely that the Trinity is a truth “whose existence or possibility could not be discovered by a creature, and whose essence (inner substantial being) can be expressed by the finite mind only in terms of analogy.”

I am sympathetic to an argument that expressing my understanding of the Trinity in language will yield many analogies; and analytic statements will be hard to come by. BUT, that does not mean: 1. I am not thereby understanding the truth (because analytics fail to prove out the analogy may just point a failure of language and not the non-existence of that which language attempts to say), and 2. it does not mean there is nothing analytic whatsoever to be said (indeed you need to understand identity, transitivity, logic, analytics, in order to behold the Trinity as mystery, and in order to create accurate analogies about it.)

So I disagree with the New Advent quote above where it says “can be expressed…only in terms of analogy.” That is not dogma and I don’t have to believe it. The Trinity is a mystery whose depths will never be fully fathomed to be recaptured and restated in syllogism. But there are true things I can know about it and false things I can logically demonstrate about it, now that it has been revealed to me.

Like I can know it is false to say God the Father is the true God, and the Son and Holy Spirit are derivative. Though this seems to fix the contradictions, it is false because the Son is eternally begotten, as the Holy Spirit always proceeds from them. The three persons are immediately one God. So it is false to defeat the contradictions of the Trinity in this way because although a son logically follows after a father, in God, father and son have always immediately been the case.

Human logic needs time to go from premise to conclusion. In God the premise IS the conclusion, and the logic plays out in the instantaneous presence of eternity.

So the analytic empirical scientist could say “but what is this object called God with its eternal existence, and why would you need to find some new logic to know this God…that is all preposterous.” All the theist can say is “yes, but then why did you ask me about God and the Trinity - these objects were revealed to me, like any other currently unexplainable, mysterious experience is revealed to us. If you want to know what I understand of my experience of this revealed thing, the above is how I can speak about it.”

So I agree with you and @Banno that the Trinity strains credulity. But that is not the same thing as saying it is devoid of all logical analysis and not able to be said in any true sense of the word “said”.

(And this is why I believe, because now we see another mystery revealed - “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” How can God be with Himself - this is all consistent with the notion of eternally begotten Son and its curious relationship with logical language. And in Genesis God creates by his word “And God said ‘let there be light’…”

Language and logic are ubiquitous indeed. But mysterious in how they can be shared with you and me, and in you or me. Language itself, analytics itself, is born out of mystery. Personally, I dont think the writers of the Bible figured this out - they were inspired to write what makes no sense to say because it is what makes sense to God and is for us, not from us. So the absurdity and its consistency with experience is like evidence of its source being from God, not merely from men who speak a language. But this is all perhaps more psychology, or epistemology, than it is the metaphysics/ontology of which you are asking.)

Thanks for the response. I don't have anything to add.

If you will, read the following from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, and see if you can understand how a person would get the impression that the Catholic Church holds the Trinity to be beyond human understanding.

...

In other words, they're drawing a distinction between incomprehensibility and inconceivableness. At first glance, it doesn't seem that such a distinction is supportable. Don't these two words mean the same thing? When the topic is mystery, the answer is no. A mystery is incomprehensible, but not inconceivable. They're denying that the Trinity is a contradiction, but they admit that it's superior to reason. Another way to say that is that it is beyond reason. — frank

I think Count already addressed this:

Something does not need to be contradictory to be a mystery. Indeed, I'd argue that if something is contradictory, in a strict logical sense, it is simply absurd, not a mystery at all. To say, in a univocal, properly logical sense, that God is both numerically one and not-numerically one, and that the Father is the Son and also is not-the Son, isn't a statement of mystery, it is nonsense. It is nonsense because we are saying something, and then negating it, and not in the fashion of apophatic theology, where we affirm in one sense, and then negate the creaturely sense, but in the strict univocal manner appropriate to logic, so that we are actually not saying anything at all, because everything we have said has been negated.

But, there is a difference between strict contradiction and merely apparent contradictions, or contradictions that arise through equivocation, or not making proper distinctions. And there is a difference between what is beyond human reason, or beyond the domain of logic and of univocal predication, and what is contrary to reason (contradictory). — Count Timothy von Icarus

What's curious here is that many Analytics would agree with this claim:

all that we know is incomprehensible, i.e., not adequately comprehensible as to its inner being; — Mystery | Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

Another way to say this is to say that nothing that we know is fully comprehended, or fully comprehensible.

So if you think that "incomprehensible" and "inconceivable" have the same meaning—itself a dubious linguistic claim—then what would follow from this quote is that nothing is conceivable. This too looks absurd.

This argumentation is fallacious, since it confounds incomprehensibility with inconceivableness, superiority to reason with contradiction. — Mystery | Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

Are you claiming that there is nothing which is superior to reason that is not at the same time contradictory? That everything which is superior to reason is contradictory?

Sure. All cards on the table, the inspiration for the OP was the fact that there were two open threads attacking the OT, one on the basis that some of the folktales in it don't seem possible, and one complaining that the OT deity seems vengeful. I was like, did you guys think the NT makes sense? Because it doesn't. — frank

Do you find it odd that you didn't bother to reference the New Testament? One cannot make arguments against the New Testament without consulting the New Testament, just as one cannot make arguments against Catholicism without consulting Catholicism. So the consultation of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia is certainly a step in the right direction, even if it is only occurring on page 19.

So I disagree with the New Advent quote above where it says “can be expressed…only in terms of analogy.” — Fire Ologist

One can understand what that encyclopedia means by 'analogy' by consulting its entry on analogy. It's different from how we now use that term colloquially.

It is precisely the fact that reason is a separate function than belief that one can believe before seeing reason — Fire Ologist

I think a good starting point for this is the quote I gave from Peter L. P. Simpson.

So I agree with you and Banno that the Trinity strains credulity. — Fire Ologist

I think the whole notion that "the Trinity strains credulity" is premised upon the contentious idea that the Trinity is discovered through natural reason. Something which does not pretend to be demonstrated by natural reason cannot really strain the credulity of natural reason.

For example, suppose a highly intelligent man told you, "I have developed technology capable of catching the rocket boosters from a rocket launch." Does that "strain credulity"? It depends on how intelligent you believe him to be. Whether the claim is credible depends on the man. To say that what he says "strains credulity" is to either hold that he is not sufficiently intelligent, powerful, or honest, or else to hold that what he testifies to is logically impossible.

The problem here is that folks like Banno simply haven't asked the question of where the Trinitarian doctrines come from:

One question here is surely whether the Trinity is to be understood as a starting point, as a hinge proposition, not to be doubted; or as a deduction from first principles as Bob Ross would have it; or... — Banno

In fact Christians believe in the Trinity on the testimony of God. It isn't a "hinge proposition"* or any such thing. The implicit premise for Banno which says that God cannot testify is an atheistic petitio principii.

What I said towards the end of <this thread> is very much on point here. There are only two logically valid attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity: 1) The Trinity is self-contradictory; or 2) The Christian's reasons for believing in the Trinity are insufficient. Both attacks require actual work.


* Incidentally, a "hinge proposition" in the way it is usually understood is a philosophically incoherent idea, whether or not Wittgenstein even held to it.

As I mentioned, it's been said that God is like a coffee cup. The handle is an analogy. The mind is the index finger. In other words, the mind can only grasp God in a limited way.

Analogy in the knowledge of the mysteries of faith. The Fathers of the Church always emphasized the inability of the human reason to discover or even to represent adequately the mysteries of faith, and insisted on the necessity of analogical conceptions in their representations and expressions. St. Thomas, after the Pseudo-Dionysius and Albertus Magnus, has given the theory of analogy so applied to the mysteries of faith. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, Theol., I, Q. i, a. 9; Q. xxii, a. 1; In Librum Boëthii De Trinitate Expositio.) The Vatican Council set forth the Catholic doctrine on the point. (Cf. Const., Dei Filius, cap. iv; cf. also Conc. Coloniense, 1860.) (1) Before Revelation, analogy is unable to discover the mysteries, since reason can know of God only what is manifested of Him and is in necessary causal relation with Him in created things. (2) In Revelation, analogy is necessary, since God cannot reveal the mysteries to men except through conceptions intelligible to the human mind, and therefore analogical. (3) After Revelation, analogy is useful to give us certain knowledge of the mysteries, either by comparison with natural things and truths, or by consideration of the mysteries in relation with one another and with the destiny of man.

As I mentioned, it's been said that God is like a coffee cup. The handle is an analogy. The mind is the index finger. In other words, the mind can only grasp God in a limited way. — frank

Yes, that's something of the idea. :up:

Since everything is knowable according as it is actual, God, Who is pure act without any admixture of potentiality, is in Himself supremely knowable. But what is supremely knowable in itself, may not be knowable to a particular intellect, on account of the excess of the intelligible object above the intellect; as, for example, the sun, which is supremely visible, cannot be seen by the bat by reason of its excess of light. — Aquinas, ST I.12.1

This is often captured by the idea that what is infinite (God) cannot be comprehended or encompassed by what is finite (man).

I guess no one wanted to take up Hanover's comment?

Yes, that's something of the idea. — Leontiskos

The perennialists sometimes bring up the parable of the blind men and an elephant.
Might be better suited for pluralism.
A conjunction of religious faiths does not leave much behind anyway.

I guess no one wanted to take up Hanover's comment? — jorndoe

I don't know where his either/or is coming from.

The perennialists sometimes bring up the parable of the blind men and an elephant.
Might be better suited for pluralism. — jorndoe

Right, and a pluralism thesis is different from an incomprehensibility thesis, although that parable does leverage incomprehensibility. The key difference for a Christian claim or any revelatory claim is that some truth is entrusted to man by God.

So according to the Hindu/Buddhist elephant-parable contradictions are considered acceptable because it is assumed that they resolve at a deeper level. For Christianity there is no "deeper level" which supersedes divine revelation. Thus the phenomenon of contradiction is being approached differently by the two traditions, albeit with the significant caveat that the epistemic reliability of the claims in question is markedly different. Nevertheless, there are similarities insofar as Christians believe that various tensions and confusions will be resolved in the end. Still, the Christian would be careful to distinguish a tension from a contradiction.