Well, glad to have come across someone who actually knows who John Hick is. (And Paul Knitter.) But I don't necessarily agree that he's guilty of the kind of relativism that Nagel critiques. — Wayfarer
That's not to say I subscribe to the kind of 'many paths up the mountain' approach, either. I think there are genuine and profound distinctions to be made between different religious philosophies. But then, there are also genuine and profound distinctions between different cultures, but they're still human cultures. But, we're called upon at some point to make a decision as to which we belong in, I guess. — Wayfarer
With respect to having rational justification for believing in a supernatural entity in general, I would say no. Back then, we had very limited understanding of nature. Any test I would have been able to, plausibly, come up with, just like Gideon, would most likely be in vain: this is the same reasoning that every civilization has had for believing in their own gods (e.g., if <this-god> exists, then it will rain tomorrow and, what do you know, it rained!) and it is by-at-large very faulty reasoning indeed. However, iin principle, if there was some phenomena that could not be adequately explained naturalistically and has much positive support for it (viz., it is not enough to just posit, as a gap-like explanation, that it is supernatural because we have not explained it naturalistically; instead, the positing of something supernatural must be supported by sufficient evidence of the laws of nature and how the phenomena seemed to have truly violated those laws), then yes. — Bob Ross
Well, would we agree that Hick has attempted to eclipse first-order religious claims? — Leontiskos
Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in. Theologians do not believe that he is either inside or outside the universe, as Dawkins thinks they do. His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself (the New Testament has next to nothing to say about God as Creator), but for Christians at least, in the form of a reviled and murdered political criminal. The Jews of the so-called Old Testament had faith in God, but this does not mean that after debating the matter at a number of international conferences they decided to endorse the scientific hypothesis that there existed a supreme architect of the universe – even though, as Genesis reveals, they were of this opinion. They had faith in God in the sense that I have faith in you. They may well have been mistaken in their view; but they were not mistaken because their scientific hypothesis was unsound.
Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects. — Terry Eagleton - Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching
I won't repeat the excerpt I copied from Hick's essay but I stil say that at least it provides a framework which makes sense of pluralism. — Wayfarer
Unfortunately this genuine transcendent truth seems also to be ineffable, so we are left with a posited and theoretical alternative which can't even be described or assessed. — Tom Storm
If we say that Trump voters and Bernie Sanders voters are really just different expressions of the same truth about politics, — Tom Storm
I don't think 'eclipse' them, as much as viewing them in a wider context. — Wayfarer
The three philosophical traditions that I am at least slightly familiar with are Christian Platonism (my native tradition), Vedanta, and Mahāyāna Buddhism. Certainly, they all differ, but their distinctions can be seen as complementary rather than conflicting. — Wayfarer
Would we accept this kind of jump in other areas? If we say that Trump voters and Bernie Sanders voters are really just different expressions of the same truth about politics, I'd see this a largely fruitless simplification. — Tom Storm
If we start out with an a priori desire to seek out commonalities, then—lo and behold!—we will find commonalities, and we will come to the conclusion that the similarities are very great. If we start out with an a priori desire to seek out differences, then the opposite will occur. — Leontiskos
That's an epistemological definition of "miracle". I prefer a metaphysical definition, wherein a miracle is an event involving something unnatural (irrespective of anyone perceiving it as such).Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only what we know of nature' — Wayfarer
Quite! Your points are well-taken. — Wayfarer
What's your issue with his theory of mind? — Relativist
‘The Nature of Mind’ begins with the simple assertion that "men have minds", and Armstrong claims that modern science may be the best tool with which to investigate the nature of the mind. He says that it seems that scientific consensus is converging on an explanation of the mind in "purely physico-chemical terms". He acknowledges some disagreement on the matter, but says that dissent tends to be on primarily non-scientific grounds.
If we say that Trump voters and Bernie Sanders voters are really just different expressions of the same truth about politics,
— Tom Storm
Only one of the two has expressly stated an intent to undermine the constitution, so it's a false equivalence. Anyway that belongs in another thread. — Wayfarer
Of course Hick does not seem to be engaged in "rationalization." He is not a religious apologist. It would be more apt to call him a pluralist, or a globalist, or a cosmopolitan. — Leontiskos
...we are forced to admit that there are significant differences between religions and between religious conceptions of God, even to the point where Hick's thesis fails. — Leontiskos
Well, glad to have come across someone who actually knows who John Hick is. (And Paul Knitter.) But I don't necessarily agree that he's guilty of the kind of relativism that Nagel critiques. I would have thought in our pluralistic world that a philosophical framework which allows for many divergent perspectives would be something of value. Many here regularly say that, as all religions claim to have the absolute truth, and they all disagree with one another, then in effect that cancels out the entire subject matter (not in those exact words, but it's a frequently-expressed sentiment.) I rather like the expansive view of John Hick (and Huston Smith and Karen Armstrong, to mention a couple of other names.)
That's not to say I subscribe to the kind of 'many paths up the mountain' approach, either. I think there are genuine and profound distinctions to be made between different religious philosophies. But then, there are also genuine and profound distinctions between different cultures, but they're still human cultures. But, we're called upon at some point to make a decision as to which we belong in, I guess. — Wayfarer
Whilst l like John Hick's kantian distinction between appearance and ultimate reality. The problem is he relegates the truth claims of all world religions to the domain of appearance or mythological claims. — Sirius
Maybe, the ultimate reality doesn't abide by the laws of logic. — Sirius
however, if these laws are just nature or a part of nature, it is difficult to see how they could order nature
For instance, if there is a shovel buried in the ground, and I was like, "I need that shovel to dig a hole here" and you said to me "well just use that shovel to dig it out" then I would be puzzled, it cannot be used for the task that we have appointed to it because it is embedded in that which we are trying to apply it to.
It's just hard to take you seriously when you compare this rain example or your jumping jacks example to Gideon. It's like you're not even trying. The irony is that Gideon's grasp of "naturalism" is more keen than your own.
If naturalism is true then there must be counterfactuals which would demonstrate the supernatural, else the thesis of naturalism is entirely vacuous and unfalsifiable
If some thing in the world can be fully explained in terms of some other things, then we are able to remove that thing as a sort of ontologically basic entity (making the system more parsimonious).
But current forms of naturalism have a great many "brute facts." The more brute facts you have, the more ontologically basic things you have.
I think what makes a miracle evidence for the supernatural would be that it displays a certain type of intentionality. If a new, bright star appeared in the sky out of nowhere, defying all our theories of star formation, we would not tend to think of this as necessarily miraculous. It would be a confusing new natural phenomena.
If several new stars appeared in the sky spelling out "Allah is the Greatest," we would almost certainly take this as miraculous. To me, the difference seems to be the intentionality and the fact that it seems directed towards us for some purpose.
But one of the comparisions Murti makes is between the 'two-truths' teaching of Madhyamaka and the Kantian distinction between phenomena and the noumenal. Conventional truth, samvritti, corresponds with the phenomenal realm, paramartha is ultimate truth, but at the same time, empty of own-being and beyond predication, as it were. Nāgārjuna (who authored the principle text) said he makes no claims and holds no thesis of his own. He has no absolute truth to proclaim and writes only as a kind of propadeutic. The analogy is, words are like a stick used to stoke the fire, but once the fire is ablaze, the stick is thrown in with it.
For example, imagine, to take your example, there are five basic atoms which everything is ontologically reducible to. Imagine a theist says “this ‘atomic five theory’ doesn’t account for miracles”, and we need to posit God to explain them. IF the ‘atomic five’ naturalist can explain sufficiently such “miracles” under their theory, then it seems, to me, to be more ontologically parsimonious, even though God would provide a form of monism whereas ‘atomic five theory’ does not because the latter doesn’t have to posit a whole new category of entities.
But a thing cannot be the opposite of what it is. What are we to make of this puzzle Bob Ross?
I agree. Question for you. Can we say that Hick is a relativist of a sort? Seems to me there's an overlap between pluralism and relativism. — Tom Storm
Religious pluralism also suffers from something similar to the paradox of tolerance. Religious pluralism by definition views religions exclusivism to be wrong. So it ironically ends up excluding the great majority of religious people in this important aspect of their faith. Ofcourse, people who believe in religious pluralism won't ever likely persecute those who believe in religious exclusivism, but there is definitely an intellectual confrontation. — Sirius
I already conceded with amendment to my position in my previous post. I already conceded I was using naturalism too liberally. In principle, if a phenomena is seemingly violating the laws of nature; then, prima facie, all else being equal, that counts in favor of supernaturalism. — Bob Ross
Leontiskos, let me refurbish my earlier statement: a phenomena that consistently or demonstrably violates the laws of nature in a manner that indicates divine intentionality should be considered supernatural, all else being equal. — Bob Ross
Either way, yes, I would be inclined to say that there is a natural explanation for it; whatever it may be; for we there have been many examples similar to this that were explained naturalistically. — Bob Ross
Hick's novel thesis that everyone is worshipping the same god comes across as flat-footed. — Leontiskos
Although in Hick this normativity is very thin and subtle, on my view true relativism includes no such normative form. — Leontiskos
Whether there is one or more ‘sacreds’ is kind of a silly question, which is also the point. — Wayfarer
It seems to me that if there is only one "sacred" then everyone must be worshipping the same god; the phenomenal elements of each religion each derive from one and the same noumenal reality. Metaphysical polytheism is logically incompatible with Hick's theory, no? — Leontiskos
Is he also falling into Hick's 'barren relativism'? — Wayfarer
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.