The notion of a 'simple' God, and other such words used by classical theists, has led me to the (tentative, as always) view that Thomism is actually a form of mysticism. I expect many Thomists would fervently disagree, and the popular image of Thomas is as an analytic scholar.

I don't mean 'mysticism' in a pejorative way, by the way. I regard mysticism very highly and am trying to cultivate it in myself - although along different lines from Thomism, that are more suited to my temperament.

The reason I see Thomism as mystical is that it relies on various words that have no definition that can escape either circularity or triviality, of which 'simple' is an example. Others are 'contingent', 'conditioned' and 'immaterial'. They mostly seem to be based in ontology and connected to the Aristotelean idea of essence - another term that one either finds meaningful or one doesn't. Since no definitions are available, people either find themselves naturally accepting them as if they mean something, or they don't. I am in the latter camp. But I have great respect for Thomists in that they have, over the centuries set up such a rich, fascinating worldview. It's only when they get start insisting that theirs is the only possible correct view, and that all others should adopt it, that it becomes irritating. And, to their credit, that sort of triumphalist evangelism is not a characteristic of most of the Thomists I have encountered.

The God that I would generally defend is a radically transcendent one, a God that's radically Other - with philosophers like Kierkegaard and Levinas. — Marty

What do you mean "radically" transcendent?

As in the God depicted as Otherwise Than Being. A part of the philosophy of Levinas that attempts to get away from intentionality in the early phenomenological tradition.

God without Being á la Jean Luc Marion?

He's a part of that tradition, I think. Although, I personally haven't read much on Jean Luc Marion.

What will hold them together? — Agustino

This is in fact one of the key reasons why my impression is the opposite of yours. Staying together to ride out the ups and downs that happen even in the best partnership is generally a good thing and, in my experience is practised by both believers and non-believers. It is much more a function of wisdom and maturity than it is of religious beliefs.

But it is often the case that people form a partnership that is bad for both of them, because their personalities and aspirations are simply not compatible. Untold misery is then caused when religious dictates make such a couple remain together.

Staying together to ride out the ups and downs that happen even in the best partnership is generally a good thing — andrewk

It depends - some things ruin the value of the partnership, and make its aim impossible to achieve.

But it is often the case that people form a partnership that is bad for both of them, because their personalities and aspirations are simply not compatible. Untold misery is then caused when religious dictates make such a couple remain together. — andrewk

Yes that is a problem because (1) people are not willing to change for each other, (2) they pick each other without judgement, (3) they don't share the same aspiration as you said. But if they believed in God - then their aspiration would have been to serve God, and they would share it. Hence, it would still end up as I have stated - such a partnership will intrinsically be more likely to succeed. Granting of course that the two people do honestly love God first, before loving each other. Indeed - it is this other love that makes their own love stable.

He's a part of that tradition, I think. Although, I personally haven't read much on Jean Luc Marion. — Marty

How is your radically transcendent God different than the Thomistic conception of God then?

Obviously in the sense that God doesn't have Being if he's radically Other. It also doesn't offer us a teleological explanation, explain the problem of evil, or makes God explainable in terms of essence, existence, or any properties whatsoever which would delimit God.

Obviously in the sense that God doesn't have Being if he's radically Other. It also doesn't offer us a teleological explanation, explain the problem of evil, or makes God explainable in terms of essence, existence, or any properties whatsoever which would delimit God. — Marty

Okay. Rudolf Otto in the Idea of the Holy presents a similar conception of divinity. May I ask you, in your opinion, what is the ethical import, if any, of this conception of God? How do you - as a believer in a God who is Ganz Andere, how do you live your ethical life as a Christian? Are there differences in comparison to someone who is a Thomist?

Something I've contemplated is whether or how God could "fit" in a human mind. A simpler analogy would be with a spiritual guru. We can't know the guru concretely or in fact until we have become the guru and posesses his insights as are own. Before that moment there is the hope or expectation of such a moment. But it's like a empty negation. "I know there's is something I don't know (that the guru knows.)" But how is this knowledge established? How does the guru have authority before he is understood? The point is that he's not fully real for the disciple until he is contained in the disciple as an insight or realization.

Reasons are just explanations for things, which can be merely casual. It follows the PSR, and if that's true, then all things need a reason for their being. Such as a red ball that's in the middle of a forest needs an explanation, or as something as vast as the sun needing a reason for being there casually and contingently. Even if we don't know the epistemological reason for why things are why they are, and how they got there, the fact remains that they must have a reason - the opposite would mean it's reasonless. Which to the Thomistic is absurd. — Marty

I can't take the PSR as an axiom. Perhaps it's just an implicit acknowledgement that explanation depends on the projection of necessity. But of course top-level necessities are contingent (why exactly these necessities or laws?), unless one hands them to God, but then God is contingent, unless ...?

As to the totality, maybe that's equivalent to God as Being.

Okay. Rudolf Otto in the "Idea of the Holy" presents a similar conception of divinity. May I ask you, in your opinion, what is the ethical import, if any, of this conception of God? How do you - as a believer in a God who is Ganz Andere, how do you live your ethical life as a Christian? Are there differences in comparison to someone who is a Thomist? — Agustino

It's meant to place The Other as the metaphysical foundation of ethics, as ethics as first philosophy that comes prior to ontologizing. Which more plainly means to place it outside of the reach of human reasoning.

The tradition comes mainly from a reply to Heidegger's fundamental ontology as the beginning of philosophy, but also as a reply to most of Western philosophy since Descartes whom places the I as the authority, and determination of all knowledge - which include ethics. So it paves the way for ethics to be ontology, to describe the good as a being, and a being that we can understanding inside ourselves since it obviously has a homogenous relationship with reason. I mean, you might even be able to find this within Plato and Socrates who relate knowledge to a moment of recollection (anamnesis), and the good was always within ourselves but lost.

But if you're skeptical of these things - the ability to concretize an ethical system that everyone has a duty towards, in which we place ourselves ourselves as a duty towards our own ethical standards - then you place ethics beyond that domain, into something otherwise than being.

Of course the explanation requires a lot more than I can possibly provide, I think you might be able to see it's a way of humbling yourself and also of seeing the good isn't within ourselves to grasp, but something that always lies within futral possibility.

Something I've contemplated is whether or how God could "fit" in a human mind. A simpler analogy would be with a spiritual guru. We can't know the guru concretely or in fact until we have become the guru and possesses his insights as are own. Before that moment there is the hope or expectation of such a moment. But it's like a empty negation. "I know there's is something I don't know (that the guru knows.)" But how is this knowledge established? How does the guru have authority before he is understood? The point is that he's not fully real for the disciple until he is contained in the disciple as an insight or realization. — Hoo

Because I rarely do it I wanted to quote Descartes on this. It's a passage Levinas really likes:

"And I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the infinite by a true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, in the same way that I comprehend repose and darkness by the negation of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I clearly perceive that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the finite, and therefore that in some way I possess the perception (notion) of the infinite before that of the finite, that is, the perception of God before that of myself, for how could I know that I doubt, desire, or that something is wanting to me, and that I am not wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more perfect than myself, by comparison of which I knew the deficiencies of my nature?" — Descartes

I can't take the PSR as an axiom. Perhaps it's just an implicit acknowledgement that explanation depends on the projection of necessity. But of course top-level necessities are contingent (why exactly these necessities or laws?), unless one hands them to God, but then God is contingent, unless ...?

As to the totality, maybe that's equivalent to God as Being. — Hoo

I think the laws are contingently so in the sense they could have been otherwise, and rely on each other for their function to be such. But this only means they must be contingent (conditioned) by something that is not-contingent. This would be God, as a perfect being is a necessary being.

But if you're skeptical of these things - the ability to concretize an ethical system that everyone has a duty towards, in which we place ourselves ourselves as a duty towards our own ethical standards - then you place ethics beyond that domain, into something otherwise than being. — Marty

The reason for having ethical systems in the first place though is to create order - both in the soul and in society (the latter being merely man writ large as per Plato). If you're skeptical of it, then you slide into an ethics which is very dangerous - because it gives free reign to everyone to decide and judge by themselves, which is anti-thetical to happiness, especially once you realise that one's own happiness is always in part dependent on society and others, and hence demands harmony. Harmony can only be achieved through collaboration, which requires a shared understanding - not caprice.

But Levinas never says ethics is up for grabs. That's why justice is radically Other. So if Justice is radically other they can't be for everyone to decide and judge what justice is.

I'm also not sure how being skeptical of ethics in the normative sense is dangerous. The attempt to deconstruct ethics functions like anarchy philosophy. All it means is to go against (an) ground (arche). All ethics are, if you buy into the argument, groundless. Which means it's an absolute duty for us to challenge them constantly from the "ground" up.

All it means is to go against ground. All ethics are, if you buy into the argument, groundless. Which means it an absolute duty for us to challenge them constantly from the "ground" up. — Marty

This is contradictory. If they are groundless, then they cannot be challenged from the ground up because there is no ground.

But Levinas never says ethics is up for grabs. That's why ethics are radically Other. So if they're radically other they can't be for everyone to decide and judge. — Marty

Then how do we access ethics if they are radically Other? How does a priest for example teach ethics to his congregation in such a case? If ethics are radically Other, then it would follow that even the ethics illustrated in the Bible are not "real".

This is contradictory. If they are groundless, then they cannot be challenged from the ground up because there is no ground.

Yes. They're challenged for being grounded. But they're not grounded.

Then how do we access ethics if they are radically Other? How does a priest for example teach ethics to his congregation in such a case? If ethics are radically Other, then it would follow that even the ethics illustrated in the Bible are not "real".

Ethics are shown in the absence of being, in what it's not. In the sense of what haunts us in the world isn't whats there, but in what's not in the world. A possibility not actualized.

Yes. They're challenged for being grounded. — Marty

Ok.

Ethics are showed in the absence of being, in what it's not. In the sense of what haunts us in the world isn't what there, but in what's not in the world. A possibility not actualized. — Marty

Can you give a specific example to illustrate what you mean here? Also how can such an ethics create order in society and in the individual soul? It seems to me to be very close to arbitrary and debatable - precisely because it cannot be decided upon rationally.

It seems to me that the fine-tuning arguments tend to exemplify the diallelus.
Can there be answers that do not admit further questions, even in principle?
Doesn't really seem like it, in which case we may just find ourselves on some indefinite path of inquiry.
Except the religious variety terminates such inquiry (seemingly artificially) with a specific answer, as expressed by Swinburne (the British theologian):

If God is defined as 'explaining everything else,' then God wouldn't be God if there were an explanation of his existence. God to be God is 'the ultimate truth.' That's just how it is. We can't go further than that. — Richard Swinburne

Go ahead and try to exhaustively explain why π — defined as a circle's circumference divided by its diameter, in the Euclidean plane — is not 3. Or whatever else you might fancy.

Anyway, this is a sidetrack.

The reason I see Thomism as mystical is that it relies on various words that have no definition that can escape either circularity or triviality, of which 'simple' is an example. Others are 'contingent', 'conditioned' and 'immaterial'. They mostly seem to be based in ontology and connected to the Aristotelean idea of essence - another term that one either finds meaningful or one doesn't. Since no definitions are available, people either find themselves naturally accepting them as if they mean something, or they don't. I am in the latter camp. — andrewk

There is a tradition in philosophy for philosophers to develop the meaning of a term. This means that one has to read much of the philosopher's work to understand fully the application of the word, how it applies to related concepts. I think that Plato started this with his dialectics. The interesting thing which Plato demonstrated is that the philosopher doesn't even really know the meaning of the word. Instead, the philosopher will take a word, which has much inconsistency in current usage, and try to produce a coherent concept. Plato did this with many words including "idea", Aristotle with "potential", and "form", Aquinas with other words including "contingent".

But any cosmological argument is merely going to state that all we need is a contingent world. — Marty

Yes. that's pretty much the point. Contingent means requiring a cause. If we accept the premise that all things require a cause, then "cause" is necessarily prior to "thing", and there is a cause which is prior to all things. One could assume an infinite regress, but this is contrary to the philosophical disposition, as the desire to know, because it renders the wold unintelligible.

Can there be answers that do not admit further questions, even in principle? — Jorndoe

What about' What does 2 + 2 equal'?

It sounds trite, but in that case, '4' is the terminus of explanation. There is no point asking 'why does 2+2=4'; it is simply the case.

In the understanding of classical theology, the first cause is real in the same sense, i.e. the terminus of explanation for the question 'why does anything exist'?

The mistake most atheists make in asking 'who made God, then?' (usually with a triumphant crossing-of-arms, as if it's a knockdown argument) is that it fails to grasp the 'uncreated' nature of the first principle. In other words, it attempts to situate the first principle on the same level, or within the same domain, as phenomena. Hence all of those arguments about flying spaghetti monsters and orbiting teapots - which see the first principle as an 'imaginary cause', without understanding the sense in which a 'first cause' is on another level altogether. Dawkins is typical of that, in saying that 'anything that creates must be more complex than what is created, ergo 'a God' must be much vaster and more complex than the entire universe'.

No wonder he thinks theism is absurd; if God were as he thought, then it would be.

'Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, ever since René Descartes promulgated his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".'

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

There is a tradition in philosophy for philosophers to develop the meaning of a term. This means that one has to read much of the philosopher's work to understand fully the application of the word — Metaphysician Undercover

That corresponds with my understanding of certain sorts of philosophy (eg classical theism, Heidegger) and that's why I see those sorts of philosophy it as mysticism. Plato sometimes sounds non-mystical but I find him to be mystical in much of his work.

There's no way that reading several books can be necessary to comprehend a definition. The definitions and rules of quantum mechanics could be written in no more than ten pages, so I figure anything that takes longer than that is poetry rather than logic. That's not a criticism. I find much of the best philosophy to be poetry. It's just that it would be futile for us to try to interpret it as logic.

The mistake most atheists make in asking 'who made God, then?' (usually with a triumphant crossing-of-arms, as if it's a knockdown argument) is that it fails to grasp the 'uncreated' nature of the first principle — Wayfarer

It's just hard to find any conceptual "meat" in this first principle. It seems to point beyond the rational/dialectical enterprise. This first principle "doesn't need to be explained" because it is seemingly defined as that which doesn't need to be explained. (I don't think the totality can be explained.)

The mistake most atheists make in asking 'who made God, then?' (usually with a triumphant crossing-of-arms, as if it's a knockdown argument) is that it fails to grasp the 'uncreated' nature of the first principle. In other words, it attempts to situate the first principle on the same level, or within the same domain, as phenomena. — Wayfarer

That putative atheist argument can be viewed in a negative or a positive way, just like how Peter Singer's arguments for animal rights can. Anti Singerians protest 'you're trying to reduce humans to the level of animals' to which Singer would reply 'No, I am trying to raise animals to the level of humans'.

Similarly in this case, the theist protests 'you are vastly underestimating God' to which the atheist can reply 'No, you are vastly underestimating the universe'.

Which one is right? Maybe we'll never know.

There's no way that reading several books can be necessary to comprehend a definition. — andrewk

It's not definition which I am talking about, it's more like description. It is to describe how a word is used. So perhaps it is closer to poetry than to physics. In the case of many words, how they are used in the public domain tells us more about the meaning of the word then how it is defined in a scientific manual.

Right @Michael, only 1-3 is deductive (a syllogism), whereas 4 is Craig's eventual conclusion/goal.
Don't think he's going for an ordinary, natural, plain explanation. :)
By the way, that was why I included the Aquinas reference @Marty, which was just intended as a more historical, sociological example of tradition, if you will.
To some, if you say "first cause", then they automatically think "God" — a sentiment successfully promoted by Aquinas it would seem — though 4 does not follow from 1-3.

As an aside, the kalam/cosmological argument is sort of common out there.
I know a reasonably intelligent, mild mannered theist, that would vote "Yes" in the poll.
Maybe I'll invite him over; he's a good guy, though of course he's wrong, and I'm right. ;)

if there was a definite earliest time (or "time zero"), then anything that existed at that time, began to exist at that time, and that includes any first causes, gods/God, or whatever else — jorndoe

The first cause doesn't have to be temporal. It's an instantaneous cause. — Marty

I'm not sure that makes sense...
The terms "instantaneous" and "cause" are already temporal, and "before time" is incoherent.
So, if said "first cause" did not begin at the definite earliest time, then what?
You could redefine "cause", but that would most likely be special pleading for the occasion.

This would be God, as a perfect being is a necessary being. — Marty

The subjunctive modalities, and Anselm's ontological argument, are separate arguments.
Stitching them all together may not be trivial.

I suppose you could show existential justification by existence and uniqueness:

1. characterize whatever is claimed so there's something to go by (thereby answering ignosticism)
2. existence: show the evidence thereof
3. uniqueness: show that it's not evidence of something else

If you define God as something necessary, then you might just end up with the usual (archaic) Platonic realm.
For that matter, you may end up with that just from defining God as somehow "atemporal", surely not something living, or thinking, or whatever the usual God of theism is.
Craig has a different goal with his argument, though (as mentioned earlier in the thread) the kalam/cosmological argument clearly fails (at least) on uniqueness.