A christian philosophy would be the search for truth under the starting point of reason and observations of the natural world (like any other philosophy), and then attempt to uncover the same conclusions as the christian theology. This is explained in my video Part #3 (I will not put the link because I think the moderators of the forum don't like this). — A Christian Philosophy

Took a look at "Part #3".

Seems like the crux of your argument rests in the following:

Our goal is to get familiar with philosophy in general,
then, move on to use philosophy to examine the theological truths that are verifiable,
And then, once a trust has been built, we take a leap of faith to consider the unverifiable theological truths.

Note that this leap of faith would not be blind, but supported by reason;
Because if all the verifiable claims from a source are verified to be true, then it is reasonable to infer that the remaining unverifiable claims are also true, being that they come from the same source.

This doesn't hold water. Just because A, B, C are true, it does not reasonably follow that X, Y and Z are necessarily true.

I'd never observed a single "christian" who'd come close to living as Jesus had lived. — 180 Proof

We should make a distinction between Christianity and the christians. No doubt, some christians are bad christians; but this does not suggest that Christianity is false; inasmuch as bad mathematicians don't make mathematics a false science.

at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. — 180 Proof

Being a Christian is easy in theory: It is all derived from the two great commandments (Matthew 22:36-40).
1. Love God: Admittedly this one is hard without the instructions of theologians, but generally means go to church, pray, some sacraments, etc.
2. Love your neighbour as yourself: follow the Golden Rule of ethics. Note that many people - not just christians - do this one; which means that many people are at least 50% christian.

Special pleading.

Sounds like a good approach to me. If you already accept a being that is the First Cause, then here is a simple argument to tie it to the God of the bible:

Due to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, since nothing comes from nothing, then the First Cause must have necessary existence. In other words, its identity is existence.
Exodus 3:14: God's name is "I AM". I = my identity; AM = being or existence.

Hello.

Just because A, B, C are true, it does not reasonably follow that X, Y and Z are necessarily true. — ThinkOfOne

It does not necessarily follow, but it it reasonable. I explain this argument in the video Part #4 haha.
But I'll give you the summary here.

If all A's we can observe are B, then it is reasonable to infer that "all A's are B", because the other possible explanation, "some A's are B and some are not", fails Occam's Razor. And if all A's are B, then the A's we cannot observe are also B.
E.g. If all swans we have observed so far are white, it is reasonable to infer that all swans are white, and we expect the next swan to be white.

Here is a closer example to the argument in the video: Suppose a fortuneteller claims he can predict what will happen to you tomorrow. He claims A (something that is not reasonably foreseeable) will happen, and indeed, A does happen the next day. Then he does it again, and again for 100 days in a row. Is it not reasonable to believe his next prediction?

Sorry, which part?

A christian philosophy would be the search for truth under the starting point of reason and observations of the natural world (like any other philosophy), and then attempt to uncover the same conclusions as the christian theology. — A Christian Philosophy

I don't think so.

Philosophy is inherently critical. Any Christian philosopher worth their salt would put their efforts into disproving Christianity.

What you have posited is a recipe for confirmation bias.

Scientism, the belief that “any claim that is not provable by the empirical sciences is meaningless”, is itself not provable by the empirical sciences. — A Christian Philosophy

I never could wrap my head around this alleged self-refutation that happens with logical positivism(?). It's a meta-empirical statement and so to bring it to bear on itself is a category mistake (N/A). It's justification lies in the fact that its rejection would be problematic in terms of claims that are unverifiable which simply means propositions whose truth value can't be ascertained at all. Philosophy would then become, inter alia, a speculative field, the exploration of pure possibility; there's a not-so-flattering name for this, day-dreaming. :snicker:

Philosophy is inherently critical. Any Christian philosopher worth their salt would put their efforts into disproving Christianity. — Banno

:up: :100:

↪ThinkOfOne Hello.

Just because A, B, C are true, it does not reasonably follow that X, Y and Z are necessarily true.
— ThinkOfOne
It does not necessarily follow, but it it reasonable. I explain this argument in the video Part #4 haha.
But I'll give you the summary here.

If all A's we can observe are B, then it is reasonable to infer that "all A's are B", because the other possible explanation, "some A's are B and some are not", fails Occam's Razor. And if all A's are B, then the A's we cannot observe are also B.
E.g. If all swans we have observed so far are white, it is reasonable to infer that all swans are white, and we expect the next swan to be white.

Here is a closer example to the argument in the video: Suppose a fortuneteller claims he can predict what will happen to you tomorrow. He claims A (something that is not reasonably foreseeable) will happen, and indeed, A does happen the next day. Then he does it again, and again for 100 days in a row. Is it not reasonable to believe his next prediction? — A Christian Philosophy

Actually it isn't reasonable. X, Y and Z each stand or fall on their own accord. Since they are unverified, at best all that anyone can reasonably say about any one of them, is that it might possibly be true. Neither the number of verified claims, nor the number of unverified claims is relevant.

Keep in mind your argument: "if all the verifiable claims from a source are verified to be true, then it is reasonable to infer that the remaining unverifiable claims are also true, being that they come from the same source".

Consider the following:
Let's say a given source only makes two claims. One verifiable. The other unverifiable. The verifiable claim is verified to be true. According to your argument, if the verifiable claim is verified to be true, then it is reasonable to infer that the unverifiable claim is also true.

As a matter of curiosity, when you referred to a "single source" what did you have in mind? The Bible (Old and New Testament) as a whole? A subset of the Bible? God? The Holy Spirit?

Sounds like a good approach to me. If you already accept a being that is the First Cause, then here is a simple argument to tie it to the God of the bible: — A Christian Philosophy

Using personal Experience and innate Reason to hack a path through the jungle of religious beliefs was my only philosophical option. A common religious/political solution is to eliminate those who believe differently (excommunicate, burn at stake). Anyway, even though I had doubts about some aspects of my childhood religion, I could think of only two explanations for why-there-is-something-instead-of-nothing : A> Eternal Something (objects) or B> Eternal Potential (creative force). Before I was born, a Catholic priest proposed a controversial scientific point-of-origin hypothesis. Shortly afterward, Astronomical evidence for expansion of everything from a single speck of space-time began to pile-up. From those bits of logic & evidence, the Big Bang theory was formulated. Which called into question, the long-standing scientific & philosophical presumption that our physical world (something) was eternal, and all there is.

At first, that idea sounded heretical to most empirical scientists. Probably because, if you accept that our Something (universe) is contingent upon some Unknown Factor outside of spacetime, the notion of an intentional world-creator begins to make sense. But those opposed, on principle, to the creator-concept preferred to imagine an infinite super-universe of randomly popping Big Bangs, and space-time without beginning or end. From the premise that some essential something (e.g. matter & space & energy & time & laws) abides forever, you can reason-out the Axiom underlying the Multiverse theory. Unfortunately, that precept is no more provable than the traditional Creator & Law-Maker assumption. It has to be taken on Faith.

But to common-sense, ever-changing (entropic/self-destructive) matter/energy is an unlikely candidate for an everlasting substance or eternal essence. So, the remaining contender is the governing Laws of organization (LOGOS), that are not subject to thermodynamic decay. That seems to be a more promising postulate for the First Cause of -- and reason for -- the Big Bang. Furthermore, since Natural Laws are a form of immaterial Information*1, I think of the presumptive Law Maker as The Enformer. Which is a Causal*2, but non-anthro-morphic, concept. And that became the axiom for my personal (philosophical, not religious) Enformationism thesis. Consequently, my worldview is not exactly Atheistic, or Pantheistic, but PanEnDeistic. Moreover, since I can't prove empirically that such a super-universal entity exists, I must remain religiously Agnostic.

Even with a philosophical First-Cause-concept, I don't "tie" that god-model to the Hebrew/Jewish/Christian/Islamic/Mormon scriptures. Based on my rational/critical investigations, none of those books "rings true" as of the Word of God. Yet, all of those "Holy Books" are accepted, on faith by millions, as authentic revelations (attested to by witnesses) from God directly, or from Angels, or other Divine Beings. From an outsider perspective though, they all have the earmarks of ordinary human fiction*3. My own religion, was a Protestant sect --- a stem off a limb branched off from the Catholic tradition. Which placed its faith in the earthly authority in the Church (i.e. Pope), instead of the canonized collection of first-century writings, assembled & edited by its own in-house redactors. Ironically, by rejecting the sovereignty of the human Pope, Protestants were forced to rely on unaided fallible human Reason to interpret their inherited Catholic scriptures. And the result of that freedom of interpretation is the cacophony of Christian sects we have today.

Therefore, the foundation of my back-to-the-bible religion was undermined by my own Reasoning. So, like the Atheists, I found that I could only rely on my own personal Power of Inference, to discern the "truth" of how & why there is something-instead-of-nothing. Yet, my rational philosophical approach didn't find evidence to support the notion of accidental emergence of our self-organizing world from the random roiling of self-existent atoms & forces. Instead, it came to the same conclusion that Spinoza was excommunicated for. What Blaise Pascal derisively labeled : "the god of the philosophers" (nature god). However, Spinoza assumed that the lawful physical world itself was eternal, whereas I think it was the pre-big-bang Lawmaker (the Enformer) that logically must be self-existent. Beyond that general notion derived from "the inner light" of fallible reasoning, I have no direct revelation from the LOGOS. Hence, no mandate for a worshipful or ceremonial religion. And, I can't even say, for sure, that contrary opinions are wrong. Does that sound pathetic to you? :cool:

*1. What is Information? :
Information is the power to enform, to create
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page16.html

*2. Causal Information :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_causality

*3. It's easy to be skeptical & critical of other people's weird beliefs. But not so toward your own principles, premises & passions.
Note -- Empirical philosopher David Hume once said that "reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions". He's merely saying that reason, or logic, does not produce actionable beliefs. Apparently, he exempted freethinking philosophers from that servitude.

“Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don't know” – Bertrand Russell

“Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck” – Immanuel Kant

“Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits” – William James

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing” – Socrates

... a Catholic priest proposed a controversial scientific point-of-origin hypothesis. Shortly afterward, Astronomical evidence for expansion of everything from a single speck of space-time began to pile-up. — Gnomon

Robert Grosseteste¹ was not a 20th century "Catholic priest" but a 13th century Bishop. (re: De Luce, 1225 CE)²

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grosseteste ¹
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Big_Bang_theory ²

Hello.
Indeed, philosophy is inherently critical of everything: christianity, atheism, and everything else.
That said, even if someone is biased (e.g. they subscribe to a particular religion), they can still arrive at truth, because valid arguments are valid regardless of intents.

But here is a better way to look at all this:
Philosophy is the search for truth; thus if Christianity is in fact true, then philosophy will find Christianity. And if Christianity is not true, then philosophy will find that too.

, so you think you can deduce transubstantiation from the cogito?

Self serving twaddle, frankly.

Philosophy is the search for truth — A Christian Philosophy

But a faithful Christian starts of with the truth. So the philosophy must be disingenuous.

And another chance to share my favourite Dave Allen joke:

It's justification lies in the fact that its rejection would be problematic in terms of claims that are unverifiable which simply means propositions whose truth value can't be ascertained at all. — Agent Smith

Just because some topics are not empirically verifiable, does not mean they are not verifiable or defendable by reason alone. E.g. the scientific method cannot be defended empirically (that would be circular) but it is defended by epistemology, which is a rational science.

Philosophy is the search for truth; thus if Christianity is in fact true, then philosophy will find Christianity. And if Christianity is not true, then philosophy will find that too. — A Christian Philosophy

Not sure that philosophy is the search for 'truth' as such. Philosophy is divided on approaches to truth and some schools deny truth in any transcendent sense. Some philosopher's would already say that Christianity has been found inadequate: case closed. I am assuming you would disagree with them because you are Christian in some way? I am also assuming that to many believers truth isn't ultimately important because there is faith and emotion at work.

What would it mean to say Christianity is true? Is this a philosophical question or a historical/scientific one? Which version of Christianity would you want tested in this way?

Actually it isn't reasonable. X, Y and Z each stand or fall on their own accord. Since they are unverified, at best all that anyone can reasonably say about any one of them, is that it might possibly be true. Neither the number of verified claims, nor the number of unverified claims is relevant. — ThinkOfOne

It is simple induction (or sometimes called abduction): inference to the most reasonable or probable explanation. E.g. We do not know with certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow, yet it is very reasonable given our experience of the world up to now.

Let's say a given source only makes two claims. One verifiable. The other unverifiable. The verifiable claim is verified to be true. According to your argument, if the verifiable claim is verified to be true, then it is reasonable to infer that the unverifiable claim is also true. — ThinkOfOne

Keep in mind you could always remain agnostic. But let's say we had to choose. Then we should assume that the unverifiable claim is true, because the fact that there is a precedence for truth and not falsehood is a sufficient reason to tip the scale.

But also, the argument gets stronger with more verifiable claims; which better represents the case for the Christian claims.

Thanks for sharing. All I can respond is keep searching for truth. I'll do the same. If one of the religions is true and can be found, then philosophy, being the search for truth, will sooner or later find it.

What would it mean to say Christianity is true? Is this a philosophical question or a historical/scientific one? Which version of Christianity would you want tested in this way? — Tom Storm

Good questions Tom :up: :100:

Just because some topics are not empirically verifiable, does not mean they are not verifiable or defendable by reason alone. E.g. the scientific method cannot be defended empirically (that would be circular) but it is defended by epistemology, which is a rational science. — A Christian Philosophy

I don't understand what you're saying. :blush: Can you elaborate...please?

E.g. the scientific method cannot be defended empirically — A Christian Philosophy

Sure it can be defended – it works. The scientific method consists of an archive of practices, and is not a proposition. Compare modern medicine to "faith healing": the latter does not work anywhere nearly as well, or reliably, as the former. After all, as the abductive saying goes: nothing fails like prayer. :eyes:

Sure it can be defended – it works. The scientific method consists of an archive of practices, and is not a proposition. Compare modern medicine to "faith healing": the latter does not work anywhere nearly as well, or reliably, as the former. After all, as the abductive saying goes: nothing fails like prayer. :eyes: — 180 Proof

By works I suppose you mean that predictions (made by scientific theories) come true which is to say we have some semblance of control over our environment; we would like nothing better than to be in the driver's seat which seems to be unoccupied as far as we can tell.

What would it mean to say Christianity is true? — Tom Storm

Good questions Tom :up: — javi2541997

Yeah, I second that. There's another thread here on what truth is?

Probably. :up:

Probably. :up: — 180 Proof

:grin:

Compare modern medicine to "faith healing": the latter does not work anywhere nearly as well, or reliably, as the former. — 180 Proof

I think something more along the lines of modern healing arts vs traditional healing arts would be more fair a comparison.

By works I suppose you mean that predictions (made by scientific theories) come true which is to say we have some semblance of control over our environment; we would like nothing better than to be in the driver's seat which seems to be unoccupied as far as we can tell — Agent Smith

There is a tendency to when something works, we attribute it to the method rather than the individual, and when there is failure, to attribute it to the individual rather than than the method.

Science didn't produce general relativity theory. Einstein did.

Science didn't create the atom bomb. People did.

Einstein did. — Yohan

Indeed, the scientific method requires what Einstein himself went the extra mile to convey to neophytes and veterans in the field - imagination.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. — Albert Einstein

That Einstein was a nutter :eyes:

Robert Grosseteste¹ was not a 20th century "Catholic priest" but a 13th century Bishop. (re: De Luce, 1225 CE)² — 180 Proof

Thanks for the obscure info. I had never heard of Grosseteste. I was referring to Lemaître in the 20th century. And the oblique reference was merely intended to suggest that the notion of a sudden beginning to space-time would seem more reasonable to a Christian than to an Atheist. Ever since, Atheists have been trying to find alternative philosophical (hypothetical ; speculative) explanations for the scientific evidence of a creation event (something from nothing). And they are still at it. (see below). :wink:


The Big Bang no longer means what it used to :
The idea that the Universe had a beginning, or a "day without a yesterday" as it was originally known, goes all the way back to Georges Lemaître in 1927.
Although it's still a defensible position to state that the Universe likely had a beginning, that stage of our cosmic history has very little to do with the "hot Big Bang" that describes our early Universe.
Although many laypersons (and even a minority of professionals) still cling to the idea that the Big Bang means"the very beginning of it all," that definition is decades out of date.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/big-bang-meaning/
Note -- In place of a magical act of creation, this article is based on the magical notion of instantaneous Inflation ("Presto!") of a universe from a random "fluctuation" in a hypothetical "field" of nothing-but Potential.

Is The Inflationary Universe A Scientific Theory? Not Anymore :
Inflation was proposed more than 35 years ago, among others, by Paul Steinhardt. But Steinhardt has become one of the theory’s most fervent critics.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/28/is-the-inflationary-universe-a-scientific-theory-not-anymore/?sh=1832b18fb45e