Fundamentalism in the sense that it was accompanied by the dissolution of the understanding of the 'great chain of being' and the 'intelligible nature' of the Cosmos which was found in earlier theological philosophies, to be replaced by a God who was essentially unknowable and sovereign even over reason. — Wayfarer

I don't get what's particularly "fundamentalist" about this, though. Christian fundamentalism didn't exist until the 19th century and within Protestant circles.

Have a look at What's Wrong with Ockham. A similar argument is elaborated in more detail in The Theological Origins of Modernity by Michael Gillespie. Also another book mentioned in the first article, Ideas have Consequences (apparently very popular amongst US conservatives.) — Wayfarer

I'm always weary of these just-so stories that try to link things as disparate as, for example, 20th century American consumerism, to virtually unheard of debates among philosophers in the Middle Ages. It really strains credibility. Ideas do indeed have consequences, but to insinuate that all of modernity's woes are due to nominalism of all things is absurd.

please do note that I referred to two books and a journal article in support of the point, which I acknowledge would be a very hard argument to make in this medium.

Yeah, I'm just giving my general impression. I think the Weaver book is on my list, but I'm less inclined to pick up Gillespie or the Unintended Reformation guy. Those books just seem to bite off more than they can chew, judging by reviews I've read of them. Maybe that's unfair of me. I can stand to read the best book in that genre, though, and I think it's probably Weaver's. I don't know, what do you think? Have you actually read the aforementioned books?

I find it hard to say what my greatest joys were. Two come to mind. Achieving something that others thought was impossible and seeing other people inspired by it. And a time when I was 16-17 watching my girlfriend playing in the dust while I sat on a bench next to her. Very close to those two came listening to a great classical music concert, praying, attending a service on Mt. Athos, working in the field building houses for handicapped people (I used to dig ditches), other moments with my girlfriend and some similar experiences. — Agustino

Those are some nice examples, and I have had experiences similar; but they all seem to qualify as feelings of joy accompanied by the idea of an external cause or at least occasioned by an external cause. I think the salient point is that the idea of an external cause is the idea of something outside oneself; it can be interpreted as getting outside of oneself, the idea of a connection or relationship with something greater, with the world, with life, with the lover, with God. On the mundane level it can be mere sensual enjoyment of say, food, or being in nature, swimming, hiking, and so on, and at a more extraordinary level it could be an experience of mystical union with God.

Making love itself would rank after all these for me. It's intense (perhaps more intense than the other experiences), but, for me at least, followed by sadness, exactly as described by Spinoza. This is interesting. It feels similar to getting something you don't deserve, and then losing it. — Agustino

I have experienced those kinds of feelings of emptiness after sex but never when I have felt love for and communion with my lover. At those times I have felt a profound sense of peace and completion after lovemaking.

It's more that you can't really get the detail of the arguments from just reading reviews. The one I started with was Gillespie's book, which I think is a really important book. The conclusion is a bit rushed - but the overall argument, which is summarised in that blog post I linked to above, is very convincing (to me, anyway). Especially compelling were the debates between Erasmus and Luther, and Hobbes and Descartes. The other really compelling point was the impact of Franciscan theology on the 'divine unknowability' and the consequent rejection of scholastic rationalism, which sundered the link between human reason and the natural order.

The Weaver book - I have read a synopsis of it. There's a PDF summary of it out there which conveys the general drift. I like what he has to say on the loss of metaphysics in medieval culture, but he's a a bit reactionary in other parts of the book (like, hates jazz!)

The WIlliam of Ockham article is an essay rather than a book, but that is one of its strengths. It opens with a reference to the Weaver book, but I think it draws out the metaphysical implications of nominalism very well. It concludes:

Nominalism clearly has consequences for theology. When it comes to particular doctrines of traditional Christian theology, nominalism, rigorously applied, obscures or renders incoherent many traditional propositions—about the relation of nature and grace, divine and human action, the transubstantiation of the Eucharist, justification and sanctification, the divine nature, etc. But even prescinding from such particular doctrines, think about what nominalism does for the very idea of Christian faith. Christian faith once could be compelling because it could claim to be the true wisdom, in a world that already imagined that true wisdom might be possible. Today we find Christian faith marginalized as a matter of private belief—even among otherwise perfectly sincere Christian believers! Christian faith offers itself as the way—a way of life and a way of knowing—indeed, a way of life because it is a way of knowing, a kind of insight, theoretical and practical, into the intelligible order of things. Faith and theology will necessarily appear markedly different in a world which cannot even conceive of what it would be to desire or possess an architectonic and life-transforming wisdom. Just as forms and their active power secured intrinsic connections between causes and their effects, between agents and ends, and between mind and reality, so they also secured intrinsic connections between what the mind grasps by reason and what the mind grasps by faith. Ockham, the father of nominalism, is indeed a crucial figure in the history of the separation of faith and reason, not because he denied that there was truth, even truth about God, but because he deprived us of the classical means of accounting for the unity of truth, including of truth about God.

That is why I mean that nominalism gives rise to fundamentalism, or perhaps, 'fideism' - the idea that any kind of religious insight can only be a matter of belief, of 'faith in the word', which is radically other to the order of nature herself. Can't you see how deeply this is embedded in the modern weltanschuung? The whole idea of the Cosmos as being an essentially undirected confluence of events, which is the backdrop of the neo-darwinian worldview, is rooted in these developments.

One of the consequences is the deep conviction that the word 'existence' is univocal, that it has one meaning - something either exists, or it doesn't. The implicit rider to this is that whatever does exist, must be in principle discoverable by scientific method - otherwise, it doesn't exist.

Now my response to that is always: what about number? Does number exist? But the point of that question is not to elicit a yes or no answer - it is to illustrate the fact that 'the nature of number' is itself a metaphysical, not a scientific, question. And yet, modern scientific method would not even exist were it not for the rational ability to grasp numbers (which is the point of many arcane modern arguments about the 'indispensability of maths').

Now a Platonistic view is that numbers are real, but that they're not real in the same way as chairs and tables and the objects of cognition. But you will always find that this idea of something being real 'in a different way' is highly controversial and generally rejected as nonsense - something, it will be said, is either real, or it's not, it either exists, or it doesn't. (Here is where all the speculations about the 'ghostly realm of Platonic objects' begins. And that is because we have been so conditioned by naturalism to beleive that 'what is real' must be 'out there somewhere'. So if the domain of number is real, where is it? If it's not located in space and time, then it can't be real. This is a hint of what the word 'transcendental' actually means.)

I have found that much earlier philosophy understood that there were different modes, domains, and levels of being. That is illustrated by the amazing work of Eirugena, who lived and taught in what are now called 'the dark ages'. The modes of being and non-being is essential to this.

According to the first mode, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to exist whereas anything which, ‘through the excellence of its nature’ (per excellentiam suae naturae), transcends our faculties are said not to exist. According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence is said not to exist. He is ‘nothingness through excellence’ (nihil per excellentiam).

That is the basis of the kind of apophatic understanding that Paul Tillich later developed.

an affirmation concerning the lower (order) is a negation concerning the higher, and so too a negation concerning the lower (order) is an affirmation concerning the higher. (Periphyseon, I.444a)

But that hierarchical, and dialectical, understanding is what became lost in the realism vs nominalism debates. We - our intellectual culture and milieu - are very much a consequence of that.

So why I say this leads to fundamentalism, which, as you say, got started in the the early 20th century US, is because the depth provided by Platonic realism had been completely lost and forgotten. So the only way you could believe in the Bible, was literalistically - it was an actual story, real history, not symbolic. You know that both Augustine and Origen ridiculed literalism and 'creationism' at the very beginning of the Christian era, right? That's because they still retained that Platonist depth which gave them the ability to interpret scripture in more than one way. But that all became lost; now the only choice was to either believe it, or reject it, to live in an Adam and Eve fairytale world (saddles on dinosaurs!) or Jean Paul Sartre's meaningless universe. (Forgive rhetorical excess, I'm supposed to be working.)

//ps// there's a PDF summary of Weaver here, the Introduction summarises the basic drift of his ideas - which is that, once the idea of ' a real transcendent' is lost, then everything starts to collapse from the centre.

So here's another book which nobody will read, most likely: The Great Apostolic Blunder Machine by John Fry.

Fry observes that Christianity's founding documents, the New Testament, was written and/or edited by itself. From the beginning, "The Church" had a stake in how Jesus was presented, and which of his sayings and doings would be immortalized.

When Jesus says, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," in Matthew, words are possibly being put into his mouth from a century into the future. Similarly, take this bread, drink this cup, etc. may have been said by Jesus, or it may have evolved as part of a liturgy of agape meals held in house churches. In time, the liturgy became so central, it needed to be put in Jesus' mouth.

We know the four Gospels and Paul's letters are not the only accounts of Jesus and the early church in existence. We know other accounts were suppressed. The suppression isn't the point: The point is that there was an editor who decided what should be left out, and what should be included. Nothing against editing here, just that there was one. (My guess is that the editing was probably done by a committee with an executive editor.)

The church ended up in the saddle of the Roman Empire, an event that profoundly influenced how the church, churchmen, and so forth have behaved from Constantine on up to Donald Trump's prayer breakfasts. A Divine Gesture on behalf of human Kind initially involved a "diverse" group of people. It didn't take very long before poor people and women were being shoved into the figurative church basement.

It could be that way, and it definitely is that way in Christianity, however, just from the fact that God is Love it doesn't follow that God is a person in the same way you and me are persons, or that God experiences love. — Agustino

It's true that there are other ways to interpret the idea that God is Love than to take it to mean that God experiences love, that is that God cares about human doings or judges them or experiences anything at all for that matter. Love can be understood most simply as the creative and binding force of nature; and then you would have Spinoza's God, which is blind nature that experiences nothing other than what is experienced through its creatures. Thus even Spinoza's God may be love, but It cannot love us. (Re God-as-It, it is intriguing (for me at least) and I realized just recently that there is, in English at least, no non-gendered personal pronoun).

On the other hand, to say that God is a Person is not necessarily to say that God is a person such as we are; that would be ridiculous, anyway, because we are embodied, sensual creatures, and it wouldn't seem to make any sense at all to say that God is an embodied sensual creature. I don't think we have any exhaustive or even clear notion of what personhood consists in (can we even conceive of a truly ungendered personhood, for example?), in any case; personhood would not seem to consist merely, or even necessarily, in being an embodied, sensual creature.

This was pretty much my earlier point in the thread. I provided a possible scenario as well of pre-Pauline Jesus Movement vs. post-Pauline Christianity. I am sure there were other key players- especially those who edited the four canonical Gospels, and the people who changed even these canonical gospels, and then the people who decided that those particular four would be included and others would not. By the time the Gospels were written, the original Jesus Movement was out of the original players' hands, and was being run by a community with a certain slant influenced by certain people that most likely were not part of the original movement. Most likely Paul was the dividing point, and there were post-Pauline influenced churches run out of people's houses and communities that spread and eventually formed a hierarchy.

My apologies for not acknowledging your good post on the history of the early Christians. I was thinking about what you said, but was drawing on other sources than you relied on. Not better, just different.

The core of Jesus' teaching is metanoia.

My apologies for not acknowledging your good post on the history of the early Christians. I was thinking about what you said, but was drawing on other sources than you relied on. Not better, just different. — Bitter Crank

No problem.. I just wanted to draw the parallels as we were hitting similar points. The main point is that the historical context matters and that interpolation from a later point was probably rewritten into the story, thus changing the original one.

My earlier point was that it is best to reconstruct the original person of Jesus (Joshua), his very early followers, etc. by using a variety of historical and archaeological sources that provide a most likely scenario. It seems that John the Baptist started/continued some sort of Essenic interpretation of Torah law- with much emphasis against the political structure (anti-Herodian for John/ anti-Temple Establishment for Jesus). Jesus was known as some sort of miracle-worker (not uncommon at the time except the idea that his services were free and made him possibly more well known.. see Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina Ben Dosa, and other of this time).. He goes to Jerusalem in an anti-Temple Establishment tirade at the center of the Establishment. This pissed off the authorities and had him crucified for trying to foment dissent and probably claiming kingship (Messiah title).

His immediate followers were led by his family, specifically his brother James (Jacob). This group thought Jesus was not actually dead because he was too righteous. Paul becomes an interloper who reinterprets the group and their not-quite-dead messiah. He introduces ideas of mystery cults- the idea of a god that dies for sins. He also elevates Jesus to more than a righteous guy (who was believed not-quite-dead by his followers), into a literal Son of God. He introduces shades of Gnosticism and views Jesus' life and death as a complete replacement of the Torah itself. This is Gnostic in the idea that the Torah represents the old (the "physical", the "demiurge", the lesser) and the new way is the "real" path ("the spiritual", Jesus' death and resurrection is greater vehicle). These irreconcilable and monumental changes in theology brought him in conflict with the original John-Jesus-James Movement. Paul, along with his followers, go and form their own communities, either under James' nose (without his knowledge) or simply without even having his consent. His ideas mostly resonated within the Gentile communities throughout the Greco-Roman world. These Pauline communities are what will eventually become "Christianity". This Pauline Christianity will eventually create many of its own schisms, that will eventually coalesce to become dominated by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox.

The John-Jesus-James Movement, some possible subsect of Essenic Judaism (with anti-Establishment, Messianic message), becomes more obscure in the Jewish community as the Temple is destroyed by 70 CE. With the Bar Kochba Rebellion in 132-136 CE, this group becomes even more of an outcast in synogogues in the Levant as their dead messiah seems less efficacious than Bar Kochba, a general and messianic claimant who was actually beating the Romans.. The group probably lived on in the fringes of Jewish society, known as the "Ebionim" or "Ebionites" much later (meaning the "poor ones", possibly a name the original Jesus Movement called themselves).

So the Scriptures state unequivocally that God is Love and you do not believe it? What kind of other evidence would you want that Christianity holds that God is Love? — Agustino

From whatever I've read in Christian theology, God is known to be a Trinity. You can find the Trinity well described by St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and others. Augustine explains the Trinity by reference to the three parts of the intellect, Aquinas explains it as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being the relationship between Father and Son.

That wayfarer can produce an out of context quote from one of Jesus' disciples saying "God is Love", really does nothing for me. Nor does your repeated insistence that God is Love help to sway me. What I need as "evidence", is for you to establish logical consistency between "God is a Trinity" and "God is Love". For instance, you might argue that "Holy Spirit" when described as the relationship between Father and Son, is equivalent to "Love". However, I would reply that there is a physical aspect of this relationship, a temporal continuity of existence, which makes it more than just a relationship of love.

That wayfarer can produce an out of context quote from one of Jesus' disciples saying "God is Love", really does nothing for me. — Metaphysician Undercover

The context is The Bible, if that helps. It is basic to all schools of Christianity. Really as this is a philosophy forum, it is hardly the place to have such arguments.

but they all seem to qualify as feelings of joy accompanied by the idea of an external cause or at least occasioned by an external cause. — John

Yes! That's what I was thinking as well.

So I don't think love necessarily entails an external, especially from the divine point of view. — Agustino

Spinoza's definition seems accurate from the point of view of a creature. But since God must be the source of Love, and in the beginning there was only God, then it seems to follow that from the divine point of view, Love does not require an external (although even God's Love was directed outwards towards the creation that was to come).

I think the salient point is that the idea of an external cause is the idea of something outside oneself; it can be interpreted as getting outside of oneself, the idea of a connection or relationship with something greater, with the world, with life, with the lover, with God. — John

Yes, I fully agree. Breaking out of the prison of the self is what love enables us human beings to do.

I have experienced those kinds of feelings of emptiness after sex but never when I have felt love for and communion with my lover. At those times I have felt a profound sense of peace and completion after lovemaking. — John

Well personally I've only ever had sex with someone I was in love with. However sex - at least per Christianity - is an activity which belongs to the fallen flesh, which saps energy, and diminishes vitality. Jesus for example made it clear that in Heaven they "neither marry nor are given in marriage" - indeed marriage doesn't exist in the kingdom of God (and neither does sex for that matter). In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, lay believers are expected to abstain from sexual intercourse (not that most do, unfortunately) in periods of fasting and celebration. And it's not just Christianity, but all religious practices have for the most part seen sex negatively, for precisely this reason.

So I obviously can't speak about how you've felt things, but for me, I'm not referring to feeling an emptiness. No I too felt a fulfilment, but it was a weak fulfilment - it's like being at peace in weakness (because you fought too hard on the field of battle and are too tired [an analogy to a soldier]), instead of being at peace because of strength. By analogy, it's like a comparison between being at peace with whatever the result of an activity will be because (1) you have tried so hard, or (2) you know how things will go. (1) is a peace that emerges out of weakness - you did your best, you couldn't do more, so you just let go. (2) is a peace that emerges out of your own inner strength, your knowledge - there's no letting go there.

I don't consider sexual intercourse (even with a beloved) to be the highest joy because to a large extent it's still grasping after something that is external to you - it's still looking outside for satisfaction, hence why there is always some pain left behind. Whereas my belief is that all satisfaction is found inside, and can only ever radiate outwards. Therefore, so long as we are embodied beings, sexual intercourse with a beloved will be a good thing - but only if, paradoxically, we feel no need for it.

Thus even Spinoza's God may be love, but It cannot love us. (Re God-as-It, it is intriguing (for me at least) and I realized just recently that there is, in English at least, no non-gendered personal pronoun). — John

Yes, I agree on this.

On the other hand, to say that God is a Person is not necessarily to say that God is a person such as we are; that would be ridiculous, anyway, because we are embodied, sensual creatures, and it wouldn't seem to make any sense at all to say that God is an embodied sensual creature. — John

Hmm. I'm not sure. Christianity isn't clear in this regard because the second person of the Trinity - Jesus Christ - is embodied. In addition, Christianity claims that there is a bodily resurrection after death. Sure, it won't be the same kind of body as this earthly one, but it will be a body nonetheless.

(can we even conceive of a truly ungendered personhood, for example?) — John

Well I think the "ungendered" or better "androgynous" person, as referenced in the works of, for example, Berdyaev refers to someone who is complete in and of themselves - someone who doesn't need something or someone external to complete them. Men are incomplete because they need women and vice versa. If they didn't need them, they would be complete. Of course, it doesn't follow from not needing them that they wouldn't want to be together, etc.

in any case; personhood would not seem to consist merely, or even necessarily, in being an embodied, sensual creature. — John

Would you agree that intellect and will are both absolutely essential for personhood, whether we're talking about embodied or disembodied persons?

No I too felt a fulfilment, but it was a weak fulfilment - it's like being at peace in weakness (because you fought too hard on the field of battle and are too tired [an analogy to a soldier]), instead of being at peace because of strength. — Agustino

For me, it's not like that. In the times when I have experienced it. it has been what I can only call an ecstatically creative spiritual union; and there has been sensual pleasure too, of course, but it has seemed transfigured, as though there is no ultimate distinction between the sensual, the emotional and the spiritual. So the feeling afterwards has been the abatement of the intensity of the sensual pleasure only and the abiding of the feelings of spiritual love. So, although the intensity of physical feeling is abated, there is no diminishment of the sense of physicality. There is no distinction between the physical and the spiritual, and it seems as though the joyous, peaceful physical and spiritual feelings fill the whole world. I hope it doesn't sound corny, but I've done my best to describe it. Those moments are unforgettable for me.

Hmm. I'm not sure. Christianity isn't clear in this regard because the second person of the Trinity - Jesus Christ - is embodied. In addition, Christianity claims that there is a bodily resurrection after death. Sure, it won't be the same kind of body as this earthly one, but it will be a body nonetheless. — Agustino

That's true Christ is God. So, since the Father and the Holy Spirit are not embodied, God must be thought to be both embodied and disembodied. This is in keeping with the idea of the greatness of God; a God who is both enbodied and disembodied, both personal and impersonal, is greater than a God who is only one or the other. I see this as expressed also in the idea, contra Spinoza, that God is both transcendent and immanent. (Although that is only from our human point of view, from God's 'perspective' nothing is transcendent). Another thought that occurs to me is that Spinoza says that extension is an attribute of God, but it is infinite extension; whereas the idea of 'body' necessarily involves the idea of 'boundary' or finitude.

— John

Well I think the "ungendered" or better "androgynous" person, as referenced in the works of, for example, Berdyaev refers to someone who is complete in and of themselves - someone who doesn't need something or someone external to complete them. Men are incomplete because they need women and vice versa. If they didn't need them, they would be complete. Of course, it doesn't follow from not needing them that they wouldn't want to be together, etc. — Agustino

Yes, I think I had come across this in Berdyaev, but had forgotten about it. It also reminds me of Plato's idea of sexuality.

Would you agree that intellect and will are both absolutely essential for personhood, whether we're talking about embodied or disembodied persons? — Agustino

Yes, I would certainly agree with that. Therein lies the difference between Spinoza's conception of God and the Christian conception. If I remember rightly, Spinoza denies both intellect and will (which he claims would ultimately be the same in an infinite context) to God. I think it is in virtue of the idea of God in the Christian conception that God possess both intellect and will, and to an infinite degree, that He is thought of as a person.

God is love, but love is not God (Except in a poetic way, as in this poem):

Love III, George Herbert, 1593 - 1633

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44367 for annotations (and a reading - which I wouldn't call definitive).

Exquisite. I take it that he was one of the 'metaphysical poets', like Dunne?

Incidentally, on a similar theme - 'God is your being, but you are not his' ~ Eckhardt.

The context is The Bible, if that helps. It is basic to all schools of Christianity. Really as this is a philosophy forum, it is hardly the place to have such arguments. — Wayfarer

The context is John 4:8, and it is promptly contradicted at John 4:9.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

In many places John says "God loved the world", then he says "God is love". Here he says "God showed his love". So as I explained earlier, there is a big difference between the act of loving, as in "God loved the world", and love itself, as a thing, as in "God is Love".

So which is it, that you believe, does God love us, or is God love itself? One describes God as an active loving being, the other describes God as a passive thing, "Love".

But since God must be the source of Love, and in the beginning there was only God, then it seems to follow that from the divine point of view, Love does not require an external (although even God's Love was directed outwards towards the creation that was to come). — Agustino

Here, you talk about "God's Love", and that God is "the source of Love", yet earlier you claimed "God is Love". Can we settle on some form of consistency here? Is God a loving being, such that we can talk about "God's Love", or is it as you claimed earlier, that God is Love? There is nothing worse for the theological project than inconsistent principles.

it is promptly contradicted — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not a contradiction.

In the one case it is implied that "God" is equivalent to "Love", to say "God", is to say "Love", they are synonymous, "God is Love". In the other case it is implied that God is a being with the attribute of love. God showed his love". If one of these two is true, it excludes the possibility of the other (i.e., if God is Love it is impossible that God is a loving being, because "love" according to the other is an attribute, not a being). Therefore it is contradiction to say both, like saying the subject is equivalent to the predicate. It requires equivocation with the term "is".

I suggest to you, that when John says "God is Love", this is spoken metaphorically. As evidence that this is metaphor, look at how may times John uses "love" as an attribute of God in comparison to how many times John says God is Love. We should conclude that what John meant, is what he said numerous times, that God loved, God showed his love, and when he mistakenly spoke the contradiction, "God is Love", this was meant metaphorically. This is consistent with what I said earlier, which is also argued by St. Augustine, that the act of creation is the most loving act. This act causes existence for no other reason or purpose, except that it is good. It is an act which is the epitome of love. But it is a fallacy to conclude that the thing which carries out this act, "God", is Love itself.

Why can't both God is Love and God is loving be true? :s You seem to be taking a very black and white approach to the issue.

The truth of a paradox begins where reason ends.

Mathew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I believe the teachings of Jesus to be a fulfillment of the Jewish law, which can be summed up as above.

You seem to be assuming that the apostle John thought in a manner that philosophers are sometimes thought to think, rather than thinking like a poet. You seem to believe that, if he had noticed it, he would have realized that he misspoke when he declared that God is Love. Ironically it is what you say that seems contradictory, because you acknowledge that in saying this he spoke metaphorically, and yet you claim that he "mistakenly spoke a contradiction". If his declaration is taken as a metaphor, there is no contradiction.

If God holds the world in being as an act of love, if He feels infinite love for every being, if He is the source of all love, if Love is our highest Good, our highest aspiration, our very God, and if God is the ultimate object of all human love, what better way could this be poetically expressed than to say "God is Love"?

Why can't both God is Love and God is loving be true? :s You seem to be taking a very black and white approach to the issue. — Agustino

They could both be true, but this would require that "love" is defined differently for each. "God is Love", and "God is loving" can only be both true through equivocation, and equivocation is a fallacy, so they cannot both be true. One describes God as love, the other describes the activities of God as loving. Either "Love" describes the activities of God or "Love" describes God Himself, one or the other.

Since the being itself is distinct from the activities of that being, then the use of "love" to describe the being is distinct from the use of "love" to describe the activity of the being. So if "God is loving", and "God is Love" are both to be true, then this requires two distinct meanings of "love", one referring to the being, the other referring to the activities of that being.. But two distinct meanings of "love" does not allow for reconciliation between "God is Love" and "God is loving" because "love" refers to something different in each of these cases. So these two must remain contradictory.

You seem to be assuming that the apostle John thought in a manner that philosophers are sometimes thought to think, rather than thinking like a poet. You seem to believe that, if he had noticed it, he would have realized that he misspoke when he declared that God is Love. Ironically it is what you say that seems contradictory, because you acknowledge that in saying this he spoke metaphorically, and yet you claim that he "mistakenly spoke a contradiction". If his declaration is taken as a metaphor, there is no contradiction. — John

I agree that if you allow that what John said, with "God is Love", is metaphoric, then there is no contradiction. By saying that it is metaphoric we allow that "love" has a meaning different from when he used "love" the other times. So he speaks in metaphor, and "God is Love" does not really mean what we might think it means. There is no contradiction as long as we recognize that this is metaphor, and not really meant to mean God is love.

If God holds the world in being as an act of love, if He feels infinite love for every being, if He is the source of all love, if Love is our highest Good, our highest aspiration, our very God, and if God is the ultimate object of all human love, what better way could this be poetically expressed than to say "God is Love"? — John

But God isn't all there is to Love, as human beings love as well. So to express :"love" as equivalent God is inadequate, because human beings love as well, and human beings are not God.

Suppose that human beings think, just like God loves. So we say human existence "is" thinking. Well what about all those animals which think, but are not human? Now what about all those human beings who are loving yet are not God? How do we deal with that if "love" is equated with "God"/

It's a nuanced question with many possible interpretations and answers. It is said in Christian teaching that humans are made in the image of God. Spinoza says all phenomena are modes of the one substance, God. If God is love then we, just like He, do not merely love, but are modes of love, even if we do not recognize it.

It is true we are not God, but that does not mean that God is not us, or that we are anything but God. You are not your body, perhaps, but from that it does not follow that you body is not you. You have a body, and your body is (at least) a part of you, and as such is you (even if not the whole of you). It's really all down to language and the senses of the words we use.

Or again, if we accept that we are not God, but think we live and breathe and have our being in God, then if God is Love we live and breathe and have our being in love (although of course it is always possible that we do not recognize that).

This appears to have reduced it to nothing more than a mere metaphysical relation, since even if it is expressed by those that do not exist, there must even in non-existence be assigned a cause. And why rather than others? I am unsure if you have confused prop. 3, but exactly how have you isolated totality (substance) from whatever is must be in a substance and the cause of all that exists? Even 'ideas' are in this same order. — TimeLine

They're already isolated in Spinoza's distinction between Substance and modes. For modes to literally be in Substance, it would mean Substance was a mere collection of finite states, which morphed into a distinct form ever time a state of the world was destroyed and emerged.

If Spinoza was being literal in saying "in God," he would be reducing Substance to nothing more than a finite collection of states which existed: a violation of the infinite and unchanging nature of Substance.

For non-existence (e.g. logic, possible worlds) to be included within Substance, it cannot be dependent on existing states. All that has not been caused (i.e does not exist) must be of Substance too. Substance can only be a metaphysical relation if it is to include everything-- if it were defined by existence, all non-existent things would be excluded from it.

Spinoza's expression of "modes in God" isn't precise. Speaking in literal terms, it would be described by something more along the lines of: "God (as far as a relationship to modes) is in modes."

Substance is the metaphysical reaction of totality expressed by all (existent and non-existent), which is the same no matter what exists. With respect to being in world, we might say modes speak Substance. God is not the authority which determines one state to happen rather than another, but the significance of totality which an existing state cannot be given without.

It's a nuanced question with many possible interpretations and answers. It is said in Christian teaching that humans are made in the image of God. Spinoza says all phenomena are modes of the one substance, God. If God is love then we, just like He, do not merely love, but are modes of love, even if we do not recognize it. — John

Clearly, we cannot say that a human being is love. We do have love, but we have other emotions as well, and some of these contradict "love", so we cannot, under all conditions, have love. Therefore we cannot say that a human being is love. We can attribute to the human being the property of love, but we cannot say that the human being is equivalent to love.

An image images the thing in particular ways, not in every way. If it imaged the thing in every way, it would be the same as the thing, and not an image. If God is Love, then human beings do not image God in this way, because a human being is not love.

It is true we are not God, but that does not mean that God is not us, or that we are anything but God. You are not your body, perhaps, but from that it does not follow that you body is not you. You have a body, and your body is (at least) a part of you, and as such is you (even if not the whole of you). It's really all down to language and the senses of the words we use. — John

There are two principal ways that "Is" is used, One signifies predication, the other signifies equivalence. In the case of predication, one might say, "God is us", meaning that we are the property of God, but we are not God. But predication is not what we are discussing here. Aqustino explicitly claimed that "God is Love" means that God is equivalent to Love. That is the interpretation we are dealing with. However, if we interpret the "is" as predicating "love" to "God", then love is a property of God, not equivalent to God, we say "God is Loving", and the problem disappears. That is my recommendation, to interpret "God is Love" as predication rather than equivalence.

My argument is that in the Gospel of John, it is stated many times that God loved, or God loves, so this is how we should interpret "God is Love", as predication, not as a statement of equivalence.

Or again, if we accept that we are not God, but think we live and breathe and have our being in God, then if God is Love we live and breathe and have our being in love (although of course it is always possible that we do not recognize that). — John

The point though, is that our "being" is more than just love. If our being was just love, then there would be no hatred in the world. But there are such things, things which contradict "love" within our being, and we cannot deny this. To deny this, and claim "our being is love", is to produce some useless fantasy which does not represent reality at all. If human beings are the image of God, then God may have these other properties as well, so we cannot say God is equivalent to Love if human beings are an image of God. In philosophizing we must respect reality, or there is no point to the philosophy, it's just imaginary fantasy. So what's the point in saying "our being is love" when it's clearly not true? Love is one part of our being.

They're already isolated in Spinoza's distinction between Substance and modes. For modes to literally be in Substance, it would mean Substance was a mere collection of finite states, which morphed into a distinct form ever time a state of the world was destroyed and emerged. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How does that correlate with your statement that God (totality) is expressed by some actual states (those that exist) but not other ones (those which do not exist); notwithstanding the irregularities in the interpretation of his work, it is very clear that he stated God is not contingent but that all things are determined by the necessity of God’ existence, the cause of divine Nature effects all other things. There are an infinite number of finite modes and it appears counterintuitive to purport modes as separate to Substance as it resists this external causation and violates this relation. In fact, it makes no sense for you to say: "If Spinoza was being literal in saying "in God," he would be reducing Substance to nothing more than a finite collection of states which existed: a violation of the infinite and unchanging nature of Substance.”

It is an infinite collection of states - inherence or conceived in another - vis-a-vis Substance or in God (that conceived through itself), thus a fundamental unity that ties this theory together. It is unfair to claim Spinoza was or was not being literal in his attempt to explain this causal order and though we cannot conceive of Nature, it does not suddenly imply that we are not a part of it. Substance is not dependent on either existing or non-existing states, but the quality of modes to “literally be in Substance” that is, to be predicated of it implies that God is the cause of all modes.

I can appreciate the controversy of the subject of immanent causation in Spinoza’ modal theory, but to say he did not “literally” mean such and such is just bad manners.

“God is the immanent, not the transitive, cause of all things. Everything that is, is in God, and must be conceived through God, and so God is the cause of all things, which are in him.”

Can’t get any clearer than that buddy.

Immanence is the reason his "in God" is not literal. A causal state of the world is defined by seperation from everything else. The electron in my phone is different to the screen it belongs, which is different to my eye which light hits, which is different to my brain that reacts and then to my experience which is generated.

The spirit of immanence cannot be closed off and cut in this manner. We cannot say: "Immanence begins and ends in this moment. It is X state of the world which causes this other distinct state Y."

Spinoza outright says he's not being literal in the passage you quoted. God is an not transitive, not some state of the world which begins and ends in sequence. God is the cause of ALL, rather than merely a state which causes another following state.