Some reflections on those passages:

1) the world of space and time does not itself exist in space and time: it exists in Intellect (the Empyrean, pure conscious being);

Which we ourselves are - ‘tat tvam asi’, ‘thou art that’ in the lexicon of Vedanta. The source of all suffering is the not seeing of this identity due to attachment to the ephemeral pleasures and pains of existence.

2) matter, in medieval hylomorphism, is not something “material”: it is a principle of unintelligibility, of alienation from conscious being;

Which is why the conception of the ‘mind-independent object’, an object that is real in its own right, is pernicious.

5) God, as the ultimate subject of all experience, cannot be an object of experience

Appears as us, not to us, but again, we can’t see it (mindful of Eckhart’s caveat, ‘God is your being, but you are not his.’)

2)as there is nothing thoughts are “made of,” so there is nothing the world is “made of”: being is not a “something” to make things out of

Hence creation ex nihilo is happening at every moment, not once and for all at the temporal beginning. This is Jean Gebser’s ‘ever-present origin’. Hence also the ‘way of negation’ of apophaticism - that what is real is never a ‘this’ or a ‘that’ - there is a fountainhead of creation, symbolised in the cornucopia of Greek mythology.

Note that the analogy in no way implies that the world is “unreal” or a “dream” (except in contrast to its ontological ground); rather, it expresses the radical non-self-subsistence of finite reality

Buddhist principle of śūnyatā in a nutshell.

In the pre-modern vision of things, the cosmos had been seen as an inherently purposive structure of diverse but integrally inseparable rational relations — for instance, the Aristotelian aitia, which are conventionally translated as “causes,” but which are nothing like the uniform material “causes” of the mechanistic philosophy. And so the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect. Hence the mind, rather than an anomalous tenant of an alien universe, was instead the most concentrated and luminous expression of nature’s deepest essence. This is why it could pass with such wanton liberty through the “veil of Isis” and ever deeper into nature’s inner mysteries.

The Cartesian picture, by contrast, was a chimera, an ungainly and extrinsic alliance of antinomies. And reason abhors a dualism. Moreover, the sciences in their modern form aspire to universal explanation, ideally by way of the most comprehensive and parsimonious principles possible. So it was inevitable that what began as an imperfect method for studying concrete particulars would soon metastasize into a metaphysics of the whole of reality. The manifest image was soon demoted to sheer illusion, and the mind that perceived it to an emergent product of the real (which is to say, mindless) causal order. — David Bentley Hart, The Illusionist

I'm assuming that God [ground of Being] can’t or doesn’t act like a being in this world [contrary to accounts of "miracles" in religious scriptures / teachings], but instead provides the conditions that make action [e.g. "sin"] possible. — Tom Storm

It seems to me that "faith" in such an abstract, impersonal deity doesn't serve a religious function or even makes sense (despite theology/theodicy).

Such accounts seem to head towards the mystical and the murky realm of ineffability. No doubt this idea of god's infinite, unknowable and divine essence could be said to overlap with other religious traditions such as Advaita Vedanta. — Tom Storm

A lot of mystics were focused upon what they should do upon the grounds they found themselves to stand upon. The rejection of magical techniques in many cases was a rule to not sneak around and do stuff behind people's backs. Hillel's "Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself" does not speculate upon what is possible if one chooses to act in that way.

I look at the degrees of "effability" from a Walt Whitman point of view:

I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.

There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually;

It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed-it eludes discussion and print;

It is not to be put in a book-it is not in this book;

It is for you, whoever you are-it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you;

it is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest'-it is ever provoked by them.

You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it; You may read the President's Message, and read nothing about it there;

Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or the weekly papers, Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock — Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of Occupations.

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And so the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect. — David Bentley Hart, The Illusionist

This quote is very important and insightful. I think it expresses an intuition or a longing that motivates most if not all philosophy. So I don't think we should be so rigid about what is "pre-modern" and "modern," especially if modern is understood as "everything since Descartes." Just as a for-instance: What is Frege's philosophy, if not an attempt to demonstrate this very thing, the mysterious "third realm" of thought that underlies all logic and science? Whenever we ask how it can be that reality/appearance, object/subject, are not separate, we're trying to understand the unity of thinking and being. Most "modern" philosophers take that question seriously. It may be that Descartes, in raising the question in the way he does, gave the impression that res extensa and res cogitans were eternally separate in nature, and to that extent I guess that is a chimerical picture, but I don't think it characterizes most philosophy since. Or, at most, it's the starting point from which, being dissatisfied with it, we try to improve and clarify our understanding.

Er, no. Did you even read Hart's article? Reading it would remedy much of the confusion in your post, as well as the confusion on TPF. The very fact that Frege has to "demonstrate a mysterious third realm," or that we "ask how object/subject are not separate," is itself evidence that reality is not being seen as akin to intellect.

's quote is crucially important to understanding an older, more robust idea of God, and it is also important in understanding a general modern shift into nominalism et al. I can't imagine that anyone familiar with both sides would attempt to blur the pre-modern/modern distinction that Hart is highlighting.

This quote is very important and insightful. I think it expresses an intuition or a longing that motivates most if not all philosophy. So I don't think we should be so rigid about what is "pre-modern" and "modern," especially if modern is understood as "everything since Descartes." — J

Whereas I think the division is abundantly obvious, as illustrated for example in Taylor's Secular Age.

That Hart quote, in case you didn't follow the link, was in his review of Daniel Dennett's last book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back. Dennett illustrates everything that Hart and Dennett's other critics think is wrong with materialist philosophy, but Dennett's example is useful as he states his case in the most unambiguous of terms ('The excited materialism of American society abounds in Dennett's usefully uninhibited pages', wrote Leon Weiseltier.) And his is a vivid example of the 'simplistic or caricatured versions' that the OP references. Another example is provided in a review of Dawkin's 'The God Delusion':

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

@Count Timothy von Icarus has given good reasons for this state of affairs in his first response.

I suppose this perhaps comes out of a certain sort of Protestant theology as well — Count Timothy von Icarus

Tillich, who was mentioned in the OP, was of the view that to 'say that God exists is to deny Him', which seems paradoxical in the extreme. But I think he's right, and this deep misunderstanding is the outcome of particular movements in the history of Western thought. It's a huge topic, but suffice to say I believe that the whole issue hinges around objectification, and a simplistic conception of the nature of existence. For the objective mindset, only what is 'out there somewhere' is real. Only what can be encountered by the senses (or the instruments that amplify them) can be considered real. This is the philosophy of 'the subject who forgets himself', to use Schopenhauer's expression. And the change required to see that is more than conceptual in nature.

I admit I'm congenitally opposed to thinking in terms of what's modern or not, so perhaps there's something to it. But I dunno, "a certain sort of Protestant theology"? (I realize that's Count T, not you.) "Only what can be encountered by the senses (or the instruments that amplify them) can be considered real"? So you're exempting the Fregean/Quinean/Wittgensteinian tradition from modernism? Along with most phenomenology and existentialism? And Cassirer and Popper and Langer and . . . So who's left, the logical positivists and Daniel Dennett? :smile: Oh and maybe the Churchlands too! Besides, if you can include Schopenhauer among those who challenge what you're calling modern, what does that make him, pre-modern?

Well, it's not of great importance. As I say, I realize others get more out of this kind of classification than I do; just a matter of taste, no doubt. The issues, in contrast, are very alive and interesting to me. Most of my favorite philosophers are modern, in your sense, and they all seem to care very much about disputing the "out-there-somewhere-ness" of the objective mindset, as I do myself.

So you're exempting the Fregean/Quinean/Wittgensteinian tradition from modernism? Along with most phenomenology and existentialism? And Cassirer and Popper and Langer and . . . So who's left, the logical positivists and Daniel Dennett? :smile: Oh and maybe the Churchlands too! Besides, if you can include Schopenhauer among those who challenge what you're calling modern, what does that make him, pre-modern? — J

The academic philosophers and scholars are not always representative of culture at large. The changes I'm referring to are more like tectonic shifts. I've learned a lot since joining this forum, including the role and importance of phenomenologists, who are of course well aware of those tectonic shifts.

For that matter, why do you think Thomas Nagel, whom you and I both know, says in the first paragraph of 'Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament' that 'Analytic philosophy as a historical movement has not done much to provide an alternative to the consolations of religion. This is sometimes made a cause for reproach, and it has led to unfavorable comparisons with the continental tradition of the twentieth century, which did not shirk that task. I believe this is one of the reasons why continental philosophy has been better received by the general public: it is at least trying to provide nourishment for the soul, the job by which philosophy is supposed to earn its keep.' He also acknowledges in a footnote 'The religious temperament is not common among analytic philosophers, but it is not absent. A number of prominent analytic philosophers are protestant, catholic, or jewish, and others, such as Wittgenstein and Rawls, clearly had a religious attitude to life without adhering to a particular religion. But I believe nothing of the kind is present in the makeup of Russell, Moore, Ryle, Austin, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Strawson, or most of the current professoriate.'

I think Nagel in particular is well aware of what I'm calling those ‘tectonic shifts.’

So you're exempting the Fregean/Quinean/Wittgensteinian tradition from modernism? Along with most phenomenology and existentialism? And Cassirer and Popper and Langer and . . . So who's left, the logical positivists and Daniel Dennett? :smile: Oh and maybe the Churchlands too! Besides, if you can include Schopenhauer among those who challenge what you're calling modern, what does that make him, pre-modern? — J

Positivism and materialism are exemplars of influential forces in current culture. Dennett and his ilk say the quiet part out loud, that if materialism is true then humans are essentially robotic. Cassirer was a neo-Kantian, a completely different kind of thinker. Schopenhauer and the German idealists representative of a grand tradition in philosophy - despite Schopenhauer’s hatred of ecclesiastical religion, he was also a critic of materialism.

I'm also curious: if God is Being itself, what are the implications for divine action? A God who acts throughout history would seem unlikely in that case. I'm assuming that God can’t or doesn’t act like a being in this world, but instead provides the conditions that make action possible. But what exactly does that look like, beyond the obvious?

Why would it imply that God cannot act (a sort of impotency?) or would not act? I am not sure the idea of God as Being suggests any particular historical "act" on God's part, but nor would it seem to preclude one. Some of the comments in this thread seem to suggest that if "God is being itself," then God is impotent vis-á-vis creatures, insensate, irrational, etc., instead of possessing the fullness of knowledge, the fullness of rationality—as Dionysius the Areopagite says, being super-rational, super-essential, etc. Boethius famous account of the "God of the Philosophers" has a role for Providence, it just specifies no particular Providential revelation. Indeed, it need not, because, for Boethius (at least in this text) everything is Providential. And as St. Augustine says, the daily rising of the sun is no less miraculous than the temporary parting of the Red Sea. The former is perhaps more miraculous, a more splendid theophany, we have just become inured to it.

The Timaeus has been influential in the long history of seeing God as necessarily benevolent. Consider the goal of "being like God." To be wrathful, aside from being an "imperfection," would also be to have one's behavior determined by another. To be even merely indifferent to another would still be to be defined and delimited by what one is not, and so to be less than fully transcendent, and so to be less than fully "like God." Only in the positive identification of the self in the other is this transcendence achieved. And so it is, analogously, for God. God is not the finite creature, but "within everything but contained in nothing" (Augustine). Indifference implies an absence however.

The indifferent God has other problems too. If God is indifferent, then why is the creature here at all? If it is truly "for no reason at all," then God is irrational as a cause. We speak analogically of course, but this seems like a God that produces the universe as we might sneeze, less "thought thinking itself" and "will willing itself," more thoughtless, inchoate action.

Thus, Pagan conceptions of God tended to include beneficence, but in a way that washed out any concern for particularity, and so for history, or for the world of sensible particulars. These might be accounted for as illusion, less than fully real. Whereas the Abrahamic conception tended towards a God who loved creatures even in their particularity and "even when we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8-9). This in turn tended to lead to a much larger role for the passions and appetites (once properly oriented toward the Good, True, and Beautiful themselves, towards God), and so also even for the individuality of embodiment. However, the goal of "becoming like onto God," is the same as in the Pagan philosophers, but the notion of what this means has been expanded.

In the Christian tradition, theosis and deification need not imply a sort of "absorption," nor a total loss of particularity. Dante showcases individuals and world history right up to the climax of the Paradiso for instance. Instead, what is required is a transcending of finitude in love (eros leading up, agape cascading downwards onto other creatures), a "moving beyond finitutde from fininitude," as much as the creature is capable of.

Hence, the process of exitus et reditus ends not in a sort of "reabsorption" and silence, but in the deification of all creation (creation as incarnation, e.g. St. Maximus), with man becoming adopted sons and daughters in a family whose firstborn is the Incarnation, the fullness of the Divine dwelling within the finitude of flesh, born to a human woman, true Theotokos (Mother of God). And this historical "breaking in" then becomes the model for history until the "end of the ages," with man assuming the role of the Blessed Virgin, giving birth to Christ in the immanent world in thought and deed, and "birthing" Christ's mystical body, which is the Church (and which is also the bride of Christ). Creation, in which history occurs, is then not a "subsistent, separate entity" that God sets in motion and then "tweaks with miracles here and there," but is instead fundamentally sacramental (mysterious), an outward sign of inner/upward meaning, a finite ladder by which one ascends, e.g.:

12. The creatures of this sensible world signify the invisible things of God [Rom. 1:20], partly because God is of all creation the origin, exemplar, and end, and because every effect is the sign of its cause, the exemplification of the exemplar, and the way to the end to which it leads; partly from its proper representation; partly from prophetic prefiguration; partly from angelic operation; partly from further ordination. For every creature is by nature a sort of picture and likeness of that eternal wisdom, but especially that which in the book of Scripture is elevated by the spirit of prophecy to the prefiguration of spiritual things.

St. Bonaventure - Itinerarium Mentis in Deum. Chapter 2.12


This narrative is a dramatic expansion, yet it is not generally seen as a rejection of what is similar in parallel forms of thought that developed alongside it in the Pagan tradition (or in other regions of the world).

Actually, the narrative expansion and Logos theology helps clear up some difficulty left in Aristotle re the way finite things can be wholly intelligible in-themselves (it doesn't seem they can be).



There is obviously continuity between the modern and pre-modern in many aspects. But there is definitely an extremely large gap as well. I don't think Hume or Kant, let alone Wittgenstein and Quine, the key concerns and presuppositions that drive their thinking, would be (at least initially) at all coherent to earlier thinkers. Just for example, it takes and extremely different "metaphysics of appearances" and of "intelligibility" to make Kant's noumenal/phenomenal dualism a coherent concern. St. Thomas takes up the very question of "do we know things or just the phantasms they produce in us," but the problem is easily resolved by him, not because he is a "dogmatist," as the later charge would go, but because he has very different starting assumptions.

The very fact that Kant's critique could be wielded (fairly to Kant or not) as a blanket dismissal of the classical metaphysical tradition as "mere dogmatism" to this day shows the chasm. Likewise, that empiricist epistemic presuppositions that undercut older understandings of understanding (noesis/intellectus) are taken as so sacrosanct that they can lead to survey texts and historical reviews largely just glossing over earlier understandings as embarrassing fantasies, shows the shift has been, in at least some areas "tectonic." The denial of any "first philosophy" and the defacto replacement of metaphysics in this role with, first epistemology, and then philosophy of language, also is emblematic of the degree of the transition.

Modern thought has its genesis in the Reformation, a period in which theology dominated philosophy and science more than in any other epoch, so we shouldn't be surprised to find the origin of many shifts in theology. For instance, the move to exclude "natures" as previously conceived, and thus to shift towards a scientific picture of "laws" and discrete, subsistent substance (as substratum) acting according to laws, has its origins in a rejection of natures on account of the fact that they imply a role for human virtue in human perfection, which was seen as being in conflict with salvation by "faith alone," or "total depravity."

C.S. Lewis has a pretty good quote on part of this shift:

If we could ask the medieval scientist 'Why, then, do you talk as if [inanimate objects like rocks had desires]?' he might (for he was always a dialectician) retort with the counter-question, 'But do you intend your language about laws and obedience any more literally than I intend mine about kindly enclyning? Do you really believe that a falling stone is aware of a directive issued to it by some legislator and feels either a moral or a prudential obligation to conform?' We should then have to admit that both ways of expressing are metaphorical. The odd thing is that ours is the more anthropomorphic of the two. To talk as if inanimate bodies had a homing instinct is to bring them no nearer to us than the pigeons; to talk as if they could ' obey laws' is to treat them like men and even like citizens.

But though neither statement can be taken literally, it does not follow that it makes no difference which is used. On the imaginative and emotional level it makes a great difference whether, with the medievals, we project upon the universe our strivings and desires, or with the moderns, our police-system and our traffic regulations. The old language continually suggests a sort of continuity between merely physical events and our most spiritual aspirations.

The Discarded Image

But this is hardly an ancillary concern. Hume's entire argument against causality rests on presupposing the understanding of cause dominant in his era, one grounded in this "law" framework. Yet this argument played a major role in Kant's motivations for the critical philosophy. Likewise, the noumenal/phenomenal distinction rests on certain assumptions about the relationship between things and their appearances, between their being and their acts, assumptions that were radically reformulated due to the same theological concern with natures (and renewed anxiety over the Euthyphro Dilemma and Divine Sovereignty). That's just one example. It's hard to even imagine a Hume or a Kant without the deflation of reason and the emergence of Charles Taylor's "buffered self" as well for instance.

Some of the comments in this thread seem to suggest that if "God is being itself," then God is impotent vis-á-vis creatures, insensate, irrational, etc., instead of possessing the fullness of knowledge, the fullness of rationality—as Dionysius the Areopagite says, being super-rational, super-essential, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As a suggestion, you might want to then address the previously made arguments of these numbskulls or else shmucks head on, rather than talk behind their backs without giving any mention. (Here presuming this numbskull shmuck was I.)

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As to the quoted issue of impotency:

Where the priority-monism based ground-of-being as “the Good” to be a non-deity unmoved-mover of everything that is (this as I previously expressed here and here in this thread) it would be the exact opposite of impotent. It would, instead, be that which in one way or another endows potency to all agencies that occur, be these agencies deemed good or bad – very much including the agency of deities (or else of all celestial beings, e.g. archangels and lesser angels), were the latter to occur.

While it is true that such non-deity unmoved-mover could make a deity of superlative power (else agency) utterly superfluous to metaphysical considerations regarding reality at large – indeed, not necessitating the occurrence of any so called “celestial beings” whatsoever – it does not by any means then deny the possibility of the existence of such (and if they do in fact occur, prayers to such celestial beings will then have their effects). Instead, such an understanding of the a non-deity unmoved-mover of all that exists as “the Good” will entail that, were celestial beings to occur, all these will be inescapably subject to this same non-deity unmoved-mover which goes by the term “the Good” – such that, in considering those celestial beings that are far closer to the Good than any of us are, they gain their power from their very proximity to this same “unmoved-mover of all that exists” which is of itself not a deity.

To sum: the Good as the non-deity unmoved-mover of all that is can by no means be rationally concluded impotent but, instead, can then only be the source of all potency which occurs among agencies—for it is then that which in one way or another moves all these free-will endowed agencies, without exception (e.g., via such agencies affinities toward the Good or else their fear and resultant aversions in respect to it).

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As to the quoted issue of the Good thus understood being "insensate, irrational, etc.":

By its very definitions, the Good / the One, while not being a deity, would be the non-temporal juncture wherein a) no duality whatsoever between the subject of understanding and the object of its understanding will remain and b) it will be (as it has always been) qualitatively infinite (limitless) and, hence, devoid of any quantity in so being divinely simple. This thereby entailing an infinite understanding which is of itself infinite and nondualistic awareness, one which is the source of all rationalizations but which supersedes any and all duality involved in reasoning.

And, as to its reason for being, the Good / the One as actuality here becomes the sole brute fact there is, in so being being the only a-rational reality there is. (With arational being beyond that which can be either rational or irrational, thereby in no way being of itself irrational.)

And, again, the Good thus understood cannot in any way be a deity, if for no other reason because a deity entails an occurring I-ness and that which is not this I-ness, thereby entailing a necessary duality, of which the Good is utterly devoid of.

As a suggestion, you might want to then address the previously made arguments of these numbskulls or else shmucks head on, rather than talk behind their backs without giving any mention. (Here presuming this numbskull shmuck was I.)

By no means, the supposition that being "the ground of being" makes God irrelevant or impotent or both (or somehow absolutely nothing like "God") was made by many posters in this thread. I wasn't even thinking of anything you mentioned.

While it is true that such non-deity unmoved-mover could make a deity of superlative power (else agency) utterly superfluous to metaphysical considerations regarding reality at large – indeed, not necessitating the occurrence of any so called “celestial beings” whatsoever – it does not by any means then deny the possibility of the existence of such (and if they do in fact occur, prayers to such celestial beings will then have their effects). Instead, such an understanding of the a non-deity unmoved-mover of all that exists as “the Good” will entail that, were celestial beings to occur, all these will be inescapably subject to this same non-deity unmoved-mover which goes by the term “the Good” – such that, in considering those celestial beings that are far closer to the Good than any of us are, they gain their power from their very proximity to this same “unmoved-mover of all that exists” which is of itself not a deity.

Yup. And that's the understanding we see of the celesial hierarchies in general, e.g. in Dionysius the Areopagite, each angel bestowing power upon the one beneath it, while facing up to those above it (with the Seraphim and Cherubim being the closest to the Divine "in" the primum mobile, beyond the fixed stars in the cosmology of the time). And it has the helpful benefit of tracking with the intermediary role of angels in divine action in the Scriptures, although Orthodox theology tends to hold that the major theophanies involve the pre-incarnate "fleshless Logos."

By its very definitions, the Good / the One, while not being a deity, would be the non-temporal juncture wherein a) no duality whatsoever between the subject of understanding and the object of its understanding will remain and b) it will be (as it has always been) qualitatively infinite (limitless) and, hence, devoid of any quantity in so being divinely simple. This thereby entailing an infinite understanding which is of itself infinite and nondualistic awareness, one which is the source of all rationalizations but which supersedes any and all duality involved in reasoning.

Right, thus even merely angelic knowledge is all intellectus, not discursive ratio. A big project of the Enneads is explaining divine simplicity and divine freedom given the dualism in human knowing and action. E.g.:

Further, this objected obedience to the characteristic nature would imply a duality, master and mastered; but an undivided Principle, a simplex Activity, where there can be no difference of potentiality and act, must be free; there can be no thought of "action according to the nature," in the sense of any distinction between the being and its efficiency, there where being and act are identical. Where act is performed neither because of another nor at another's will, there surely is freedom. Freedom may of course be an inappropriate term: there is something greater here: it is self-disposal in the sense, only, that there is no disposal by the extern, no outside master over the act.

And, as to its reason for being, the Good / the One as actuality here becomes the sole brute fact there is, in so being being the only a-rational reality there is. (With arational being beyond that which can be either rational or irrational, thereby in no way being of itself irrational.)

But God isn't a brute fact in Plotinus or the Christian and Islamic "Neo-Platonists." We might say that in God essence and existence are unified (to borrow the later terminology). God isn't irrational, as you note, but as Dionysius says, super-rational and super-essential. I wouldn't call this arational though, and at any rate God is not a "brute fact" in the sense the term is often employed today, although the term is fitting if it only implies "not referred to anything else."

But to me, "brute fact" suggests "for no reason," or "random." This would also seem to me imply that the Good's willing of itself is in some sense arbitrary. Plotinus responds precisely this concern:

To say that The Good exists by chance must be false; chance belongs to the later, to the multiple; since the First has never come to be, we cannot speak of it either as coming by chance into being or as not master of its being. Absurd also the objection that it acts in accordance with its being if this is to suggest that freedom demands act or other expression against the nature. Neither does its nature as the unique annul its freedom when this is the result of no compulsion but means only that The Good is no other than itself, is self-complete and has no higher.

The objection would imply that where there is most good there is least freedom. If this is absurd, still more absurd to deny freedom to The Good on the ground that it is good and self-concentred, not needing to lean upon anything else but actually being the Term to which all tends, itself moving to none.

I'm not really sure what "I-ness" is supposed to mean here, or why a "deity" is defined by it. To refer to my earlier point, these notions have long been theological orthodoxy in the traditional churches, but have not been seen as precluding that God is God. God is impassible, eternal, immutable, not a being, simple, unlimited, etc. and this is precisely why God is God.

A lot of Pagan responses to this have been preserved, since they helped develop doctrine and provoked important responses. But the critique was generally not that the Incarnation was impossible (although I'm sure this objection must exist somewhere), but rather that it was unfitting, demeaning, etc.

By no means, the supposition that being "the ground of being" makes God irrelevant or impotent or both (or somehow absolutely nothing like "God") was made by many posters in this thread. I wasn't even thinking of anything you mentioned. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Alright. Got it. Slightly embarrassingly, my bad presumption, then.

I wouldn't call this arational though, [...]" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hmm, I call the Good arational because it is the only actuality for which there is no sufficient reason - thereby being the only one actuality which is of itself beyond any reason, thereby being neither rational nor irrational. Being of itself is in this sense alone absurd - but by no means random or meaningless - for there is no reason for being's being. Yet it is, occurs, all the same; and, as the Good, Being is the ground of all existence and existents, the latter alone being subject to the principle of sufficient reason and, thereby, not being absurdist (but again, this only in the extremely restricted sense of absurdism just specified).

All this might just be a different perspective regarding the same inexplicable ontic actuality which I term the Good and which can just as cogently be termed God

[...] and at any rate God is not a "brute fact" in the sense the term is often employed today, although the term is fitting if it only implies "not referred to anything else." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, this latter being in keeping with the meaning I intended to express by the term, "brute fact" in the sense of: "a thing that [here, a concept whose referent ...] is undeniably the case, but which is impervious to reasoned explication".

As to why it is so, this would be a very, very long shpeal on my part - and I'm here assuming we're both taking "the Good's being an actual ontic facet of all which can be in any way considered real" for granted (in so far as the Good is that ultimate reality upon which all others are dependent).

I'm not really sure what "I-ness" is supposed to mean here, or why a "deity" is defined by it. To refer to my earlier point, these notions have long been theological orthodoxy in the traditional churches, but have not been seen as precluding that God is God. God is impassible, eternal, immutable, not a being, simple, unlimited, etc. and this is precisely why God is God. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm of course here engaging in philosophical discourse, attempting to be as rational as I can be about the matter at hand, but am not addressing traditions of interpretation.

I-ness is a term whose referent is difficult to demarcate, and can thus be demarcated in different ways. I find notions such as that generally adopted by Kant, Husserl, and William James to be of great benefit to this issue: To use James’s terminology: where “ego” equates to “I-ness”, there is a pure ego, which is the subject of the experienced self, and then there is the empirical ego, which is that full scope of I-ness or self experienced by the pure ego. In presuming you are familiar with this basic notion, I’ll here skip the details and justifications.

The Good, then, will consist of an infinite pure ego devoid of any duality wherein the subject of experience - pivotally, the subject of understanding - of itself becomes that which is understood and thereby known (this, maybe obviously, in non-spatiotemporal manners, these of themselves requiring some measure of duality).

A deity, on the other hand (be it a supposed omni-creator deity which would by entailment be singular or else a deity of pagan polytheistic understanding which would by entailment then not be omni-anything, this irrespective of its powers) entails a pure ego embedded in an empirical ego (be the latter either utterly non-corporeal or otherwise - for the deity knows itself to be other than X, Y, and Z, this then being the pure ego's knowledge of its empirical ego) which, as such, is furthermore other in respect to, for example, those who pray or else worship it: For the deity to in any way answer a prayer, there must logically be some form of duality between a) the deity, b) the prayer it becomes aware of (the prayer being other than the deity), and c) the response which the deity gives (the deity-generated effect as response again being other than the deity's subjectivity (i.e., empirical-ego-embedded pure-ego) itself).

Hence, a deity’s occurrence entails some form of duality between the deity as I-ness (as an empirical-ego-embedded pure-ego) and that which is not this I-ness (e.g. the communication of which the deity becomes aware and this communication’s source – both of which are then other than the deity itself).

I-ness is a term whose referent is difficult to demarcate, and can thus be demarcated in different ways. I find notions such as that generally adopted by Kant, Husserl, and William James to be of great benefit to this issue: To use James’s terminology: where “ego” equates to “I-ness”, there is a pure ego, which is the subject of the experienced self, and then there is the empirical ego, which is that full scope of I-ness or self experienced by the pure ego. — javra

A footnote: the philosophical term is 'ipseity'. I saw that in the sayings of the Advaita sage Ramana Maharishi, that he would frequently draw attention to the bibical God's proclamation of His identity "I AM THAT I AM" (Ex 3:14). This, he equated with the Self as the ultimate (or only) reality.

A footnote: the philosophical term is 'ipseity' — Wayfarer

Sure, but I wanted to be as easy to understand as possible; and ipseity of itself tmk does not address the easy to overlook dichotomy between the a) pure/transcendental ego which is the knower of self and b) the empirical ego which is the self thus known.

I saw that in the sayings of the Advaita sage Ramana Maharishi, that he would frequently draw attention to the bibical God's proclamation of His identity "I AM THAT I AM" (Ex 3:14). This, he equated with the Self as the ultimate (or only) reality. — Wayfarer

Here again, though, it would only be the self as pure/transcendental ego rather than the self as the empirical ego which could be cogently understood as the "ultimate (or only) reality". El, then, would be aligned and proximate to the pure form of this ultimate reality, such as via henosis, but - by virtue of proclaiming something to someone other - could not be this ultimate reality, i.e. the Good, itself, for the Good is utterly nondualistic and devoid of any finitude (etc.) in all respects.

And, then, one could potentially interpret the pure/transcendental ego as being in keeping with no-self (this in the complete absence of an empirical ego - as the Good necessitates by virtue of being nondualistic in any manner), this as per Buddhist doctrine in relation to the issue of self.

ps. Thereby resulting in the interpretation of the Good being an utterly and literally selfless state of infinite being - one which the relative selflessness of human beings better approximates in comparison to relatively selfish human beings.

Because this is how God has traditionally been understood in classical theism. It's not an evolution; it's a return to earlier thinkers like Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor. — Tom Storm

Were they not Christians? Why not just return to Spinoza? I think his theology is more sophisticated than any Christian theology, including ideas such as identifying God with "being itself".

I'm not really sure what "I-ness" is supposed to mean here, or why a "deity" is defined by it. To refer to my earlier point, these notions have long been theological orthodoxy in the traditional churches, but have not been seen as precluding that God is God. God is impassible, eternal, immutable, not a being, simple, unlimited, etc. and this is precisely why God is God. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'll say this as an agnostic in relation to the reality of the Trinity, but here is an example of how the aforementioned could be rationally accounted for within Christian contexts, here treating the issue of the Trinity more from a comparative religions view point wherein the Good is presumed to be real, this rather then relying on dogma or any particular authority:

Instead of assuming that the Father is an omni-creator Lord which walks the earth (logically contrary to be omnipresence), which is upset by the doings of the serpent, Eve, and Adom (logically contrary to omniscience and omnipotence), and who thereby curses them all and the generations that will follow with animosity and suffering (logically contrary to omnibenevolence), assume that the Father is Elohim, the “We” of Genisis I, which is commonly understood as a plurality of beings all unified … here assume unified in their affinity and proximity to the Good (which could under certain interpretations be understood as the ineffable G-d). (Granted, in so assuming, the Lord of Gensis II onwards is then potentially be a being which formerly partook of Elohim but then presumed himself to be the entirety of, or else the superlative pinnacle of, divinity – this then being contrary to alignment toward the Good. Here echoing certain Gnostic interpretations wherein JC is conceived as an embodiment of the serpent’s spirit which, as such, attempted to bring knowledge of right (i.e., the Good) and wrong to all, this being contra the Gnostic Demiurge’s wants.)

So the Father is here presumed to be the unified plurality of celestial beings which addresses itself in Genesis I as “We”, the same which says let there be light (presumably, awareness of the Good) in a time of darkness.

Next presume JC to be in some spiritual sense unified with Elohim, this in terms of understanding, knowledge, awareness at large – such as could occur given henosis.

Next presume the Holy Spirit to be – rather than some who knows what thing or ghost – something at least akin to what C.S. Peirce termed Agapism: the universal process of agape via which universal evolution works, here, ultimately, toward a universal realization of the Good.

Then, given these presumptions, there is plenty of possibility for a logically sound Trinity to occur – wherein Elohim, JC, and the Holy Spirit, though sperate in their own right, unify into the same deity, the same identity of I-ness which addresses itself as “We”. However unfathomable such a deity might be, it as deity would yet remain extremely aligned and proximate to the Good (more Abrahamically, to G-d), the latter being a non-deity. And this rather than being the Good (else G-d) itself. The trinity will yet be endowed with some dualism, such as being other than that which is wrong (in an Abrahamic sense, call such Satan), or else in terms of hearing and responding to prayers. Whereas the Good (G-d) – that to which the Trintiy is the unfathomably proximate - will yet be perfectly nondualistic in all respects.

-----

Again, I’m agnostic about the Trinity’s reality. And I am not myself a Christian, in that I acknowledge truths in many another religion out there. Traditional interpretations, dogmas, and notions of heresy aside, I so far find that this understanding of the trinity – when allowing for the ontic occurrence of celestial beings – becomes fully cogent in manners devoid of all logical contradictions.

And, due to the wide ranging potential audience of this forum, I’ll add to the aforementioned another honest opinion: there is no reason or need to believe in celestial beings of any kind in order to uphold the ontic reality of the Good – one could just as well be a naturalistic pantheist and do so, as just one example to this effect.

cromulent — flannel jesus

Congratulations. You are the first person to use "cromulent" on The Philosophy Forum.

"Cromulent" is a made-up one that has gained recognition, especially due to its appearance in the animated television show The Simpsons. It means "acceptable".

I think the standard Patristic response here would be to object to the literal reading of Scripture. "The spirit[ual] reading gives life, the flesh[ly] profits nothing" (John 6:63). This would be to make the mistake of the disciples who turned away because they were disturbed when Jesus told them they must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood.

As St. Gregory of Nyssa puts it in the life of Moses re God "walking" or possessing a body:

If these things are looked at literally, not only will the understanding of those who seek God be dim,
but their concept of him will also be inappropriate. 302 Front and back pertain only to those things which
are observed to have shape. Every shape provides the limits of a body. So then he who conceives of God
in some shape will not realize that he is free of a bodily nature. It is a fact that every body is composite,
and that what is composite exists by the joining of its different elements. No one would say that what is
composite cannot be decomposed. And what decomposes cannot be incorruptible, for corruption is the decomposition of what is composite.

If therefore one should think of the back of God in a literal fashion, he will necessarily be carried to
such an absurd conclusion. For front and back pertain to a shape, and shape pertains to a body. A body by
its very nature can be decomposed, for everything composite is capable of dissolution. But what is being
decomposed cannot be incorruptible; therefore, he who is bound to the letter would consequently conceive
the Divine to be corruptible. But in fact God is incorruptible and incorporeal.

Or as he says more generally:

Scripture does not indicate that this [to see God’s face] causes death of those who look, for how could the face of Life ever be the cause of death to those who approach it? On the contrary, the divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet the characteristic of the divine nature is to transcend all characteristics. Therefore, he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true Being (tou ontōs ontos) to what he considers by sense perception to have being. True Being is true Life. This Being is inaccessible to knowledge …. Thus, what Moses yearned for is satisfied by the very things which leave his desire unsatisfied

Saint Gregory is fairly representative on this sort of issue. St. Paul, for his part, refers to the story of Hagar and Sarah as "allegory" in the Epistle to the Galatians, and there is no prima facie reason for us to dismiss taking him at his word here, since his interpretive style is rarely literal. Still, if we look to the Patristics as an example of ancient exegesis, they don't tend to so much dismiss the literal/historical meanings (except where they lead to absurdity) as find them unimportant, since the historical events unfolding in the cosmos are all ultimately signs whose true relevance lies in the intelligible and anagogic.

There are certainly differences with the Neo-Platonic view though. For instance there was a move by some Arian thinkers to conceptualize the Logos as akin to the Nous, and arguments against the Logos being the same as the Divine, since it contains multiplicity. But the counter is that what appears as multiplicity to us is simple unity in the Divine, which could be consistent with something like:


The One is not, as it were, unconscious, rather all things belong to it and are in it and with it, it is completely self-discerning, life is in it and all things are in it, and its intellection of itself is itself and exists by a kind of self-consciousness in eternal rest and in an intellection different from the intellection of the Intellect.

Otherwise there would be the question of how what is absent from the First Principle is present elsewhere, or how truths might obtain that are outside the scope of the First Principle.

I hadn't really been thinking about the Trinity itself though. That's a much more fraught issue. Obviously there were lots of objections to that, and from Islamic and Jewish thinkers as well, since "one essence, three hypostases," is hardly obvious in its implications.

I think the standard Patristic response here would be to object to the literal reading of Scripture. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In case it wasn't obvious, I'm in agreement with this. Still, interpolations of all sorts have been made galore, and some of these become dogma at expense of others being then deemed heretical. Aside from which, it is relatively typical for most to treat scripture as God's word, however interpreted, rather than the words of fallible humans, some of which were bound to be more aligned with the Good than others - such that the others here addressed might have been less than honest with themselves in terms of what is and is not known.

At any rate, my last post was an attempt to exemplify the implications of the previously given post. Such that the Good being utterly nondualistic and finite-less understanding, hence awareness, which serves as ground for all existence and existents cannot logically be any deity - this irrespective of the nature of the deity addressed - but which nevertheless teleologically moves the deity(ies) specified (this were deities to be in any way existent or else occurring) via either their free will guided affinities toward the Good or their free will guided aversions to it (e.g., by deeming the Good a falsehood, thereby being a false promise, thereby being an incorrect and hence wrong appraisal of what is real which, as such, can only result in both short and long-term suffering - this as can be exemplified in the conviction that love always leads to suffering or else in laughter at love, peace, and understanding).

In short, though, my last post attempted to exemplify that the Good as God cannot be a deity (but, instead, can only be that to which deities we can label "good" are teleologically aligned to - this much in the same way that relatively selfless or non-self-centered humans are more teleologically aligned to the Good than relatively selfish humans are).

All this being in keeping with your description of the One / the Good as:

The One is not, as it were, unconscious, rather all things belong to it and are in it and with it, it is completely self-discerning, life is in it and all things are in it, and its intellection of itself is itself and exists by a kind of self-consciousness in eternal rest and in an intellection different from the intellection of the Intellect. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And this as an ultimate telos rather than a deity (that for example sees and judges what we do as other) which, as such, is the only end that is not a means to any other - and which, as ultimate telos, thereby both awaits and at all times accompanies. And in this roundabout respect can then be stated to be omnibenevolent without any hypocrisy.

honestly the rest of the forum should be ashamed of themselves.

Therefore, he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true Being (tou ontōs ontos) to what he considers by sense perception to have being.

:pray:

I'm interested in conversations about more sophisticated and philosophical accounts of theism — Tom Storm

Philosophical accounts of theism are not necessarily more sophisticated, so I'd start by pushing back at that built in bias.

Theism that concentrates on logical consistency, empirical support, and scientific compatibility speak to a philosophical bent, and the suggestion inherent in that bent is that theism is an avenue for knowledge in the same sense as is philosophy. That is, to suggest that theism that aims to be philosophical is superior to theism that doesn't, is to implicitely reject theism in its own right.

I'd suggest a theistic approach is adopted to provide a way for living and finding meaning in your life. That can be done for pragmatic reasons or it might be something you accept unconditionally just as part of your upbringing, but at some level if theism works (as in it provides you a sense of fulfillment, purpose, or meaning) and you're better off for it, that would be a basis.

I don't wish to derail the thread unless you think this an interesting question, but I'd point to the Athens/Jerusalem distinction that asks to what extent reason (the Athens approach) should play in theological discussions versus duty and adherence (the Jerusalem approach). https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/three-ways-to-think-about-athens-and-jerusalem/?srsltid=AfmBOorqrJX2y74rwaP7bYPQ26fp4Klo9da7l4JyTBPAoWPegYB9cqWn

Good, this all provides a much more nuanced view, and helps me understand what you're saying. In particular, you're right that popular views, or assumptions, about what "science says" often lag behind philosophical accounts but are still very influential.

Concerning the Nagel quote, it sounds spot on to me, concerning analytic vs. continental, and of course I respect Nagel's views enormously. But I don't think we should reduce this question to "who's got a religious temperament." That longing for something to replace the religious consolations may be an important marker of those philosophers who aren't satisfied to be "modern" (using that word as I think you do), but it's not the whole story. For me, any philosopher who is unwilling to accept the apparent consequences of physicalism or reductionism, who wants an account of subjectivity that is at least as compelling as our beliefs about objectivity, should be considered part of a long tradition. For every Mill, there is a Schopenhauer. For every Carnap, there is a Cassirer. Point is, chronological analysis seems quite unimportant to me in this story. But as I've said before, I know others find more to ponder here than I do.

There is an interesting history there. There is the absolute unity in Dionysus' "Darkness Above the Light," and later conceptions would tend to play up unity even more, as in the German Dominican mysticism of the later High Middle Ages (e.g. Eckhart). And this unity would sometimes even seem to become "prior" to the Trinity in later German thinkers, e.g. Boehme. This is the "Unground," although it is sometimes associated with the Father and can risk a sort of Arianism (but not necessarily, since even orthodoxy speaks of the eternal "begetting of the Son" and "procession of the Spirit").

Other's elevate the Trinity or take a via media.

For Jan van Ruusbroec (1293-1381), a Flemish priest, the Trinity became the very essence of spiritual life. He fully shared the insight of the negative [apophatic] theologians that God resides beyond light and beyond words. But darkness and silence are no more the ultimate goal of the spiritual quest than they are definitive of God’s own life. It is precisely the mystery of the Trinity that transforms negative theology into a mysticism of light and charitable communication. Instead of considering the divine darkness as a final point of rest beyond the Trinity, as Eckhart had done, Ruusbroec identified it with the fertile hypostasis of the Father. The Father is darkness ready to break out in Light, silence about to speak the Word. Having reunited itself with the Word, the soul returns with that Word in the Spirit to the divine darkness. But it does not remain there. For in that point of origin the dynamic cycle recommences: “For in this darkness an incomprehensible light is born and shines forth—this is the Son of God in whom a person becomes able to see and to contemplate eternal life” (Spiritual Espousals III/1). Ruusbroec’s vision not only leads out of the impasse of a consistently negative theology; it also initiates a spiritual theology of action. The human person is called to partake in the outgoing movement of the Trinity itself and, while sharing the common life of the triune God, to move outward into creation.

From the compilation of mystical works "Light From Light"

Or there is the view in Ferdinand Ulrich of being itself being fundamentally "gift."

I am personally partial to a view that comes out of Saint Augustine's triadic dialectical analysis in De Trinitate where he identifies triads in the mind and in the nature of being itself. For there to be any meaning, any life at all, there must be a triadic, semiotic element of:

Ground/Object/Father
Sign Vehicle/Logos/Son
Interpretant/Spirit

Or Lover/Beloved/Love (Peirce's association of Thirdness with hypostatic abstraction works well with the Augustine analogy here).

The sign/meaning relation is not a composition. It is not composed of these parts, but is rather a union with moments. It is a nuptial union between interpretant and object, accomplished in the logos, but irreducible. Thus, the movement from pregnant silence to "anything at all" involve the triadic moments.

There are parallels between Augustine and Hegel here as well (I've always been an admirer of Big Heg).

Whether or not the Trinity violates simplicity is another question, but theologians have tended to affirm both the Trinity and absolute simplicity. The reason the God-man Jesus Christ can have a finite ipseity as Incarnation is because he is "fully man and fully God," "two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us" (as the Chalcedonian Formula puts it).

As I've previously mentioned, I'm agnostic about the Trinity - not being a Christian myself, although I admire JC a great deal in multiple ways. That said, I very much like your perspectives regarding the topic.

Or there is the view in Ferdinand Ulrich of being itself being fundamentally "gift." — Count Timothy von Icarus

In the ambiguities of the English language - which I find work wonders for poetical expressions and compositions - I often enough indulge in the double sense of the term "the present". Such that to live in the present becomes in part understood as to live in the gift. This quote reminds me of this.

I don't wish to derail the thread unless you think this an interesting question, but I'd point to the Athens/Jerusalem distinction that asks to what extent reason (the Athens approach) should play in theological discussions versus duty and adherence (the Jerusalem approach). — Hanover

This raises the question: If not "duty and adherence" to that which is accordant with "reason" (which ought not be confused with a strict adherence to today's formal logics), then "duty and adherence" in respect to what?

I maintain hopefully not a "duty and adherence" to that which is thereby utterly unreasonable in all respects.

Basically, I don't find "reason" and "duty and adherence" to be in any way antagonistic but, instead, to require each other - and this rather intimately - within the context of theological discussions. This if any semblance of theological truth is to be approached.

Then, of course, there's the issue of traditions in respect to theological issues. And, in this regard, who's to deny the presence of truth in the following - be one an atheist, a theist, or something other:

Tradition, thou art for suckling children,
Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;
But no meat for men is in thee.
Then --
But, alas, we all are babes. — Stephen Crane

Basically, I don't find "reason" and "duty and adherence" to be in any way antagonistic but, instead, to require each other - and this rather intimately - within the context of theological discussions. This if any semblance of theological truth is to be approached. — javra

I do think this is a fair response and there have been plenty of efforts to make faith compatible with reason.

As to the first question as to how one would not make the two compatible, would be someone who accepted a very strict divine command theory, where textual support or reference to oral tradition is analyzed for the rule one is to follow.

That tends to be the approach of orthodox Judaism, as an example. That's not to say that efforts haven't been made to locate the logic behind the divine commandment. My best example would be of Maimonides (born in 1135), where he infused Aristotilian thought into Judaic thought, trying to locate the logic behind each of the commandments (in his Mishneh Torah and in Guide for the Perplexed). While his logic is looked upon as important in some way, it is rejected as the basis behind the rule. It is simply his best assessment. I'll also clarify (just for the sake of accuracy) that certain Jews (Sephardic) take his logic as more significant than others (Ashkenazic).

So, why don't I murder? From the Athens persepective, because it would destroy society, it would put us all in fear, etc. That is, there are plenty of logical reasons we shouldn't murder.

From the Jerusalem perspective, Exodus 20:13 is why I don't murder.

If one takes the Jerusalem view from a non-theistic perspective and they reject the Athens view, then they would interpret tradition looking for guidance, with an acceptance that antiquity offers guidance just as the result of its historical effectiveness. That is, it is possible to be rule oriented and someone who looks to tradition for answers and who interprets the rules passed down through the generations and still be atheistic. That person would not be Hellenistic in perspective, but would more aligned with the Jerusalem approach, despite their complete lack of faith in God.

While this last suggestion might seem odd, it does to some degree describe the Judaic view, where faith in the existence of God is really not all that important from a daily living or eternal reward perspective. What is important is knowing the rule, studying the rule and following the rule. Faith, under this system, is in the righteousness of the rule, not in the existence of God himself. But always most important in not what you beleive and why you believe, but what you do.

I quite like the official Roman Catholic response, although sometimes Catholic theologians don't seem to always respect it:

155 In faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace."27

Faith and understanding

156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived".28 So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit."29 Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind".30

157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives."31 "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."32

158 "Faith seeks understanding":33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. the grace of faith opens "the eyes of your hearts"34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the centre of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood."35 In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."36

159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37 "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. the humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."38

Or the contrasting Eastern position, which tends to stress asceticism and "knowing by becoming" a bit more heavily:

The Nature of Faith

It is the Orthodox Christian faith – the faith which was once delivered unto the saints[xxi] – that will be addressed here, a faith uniquely distinct from what is articulated in other religions and other Christian faiths. Furthermore, “Faith is not a psychological attitude,” as Alex Nesteruk states, “it is a state of communion with God that provides ‘an ontological relationship between man and God.’[xxii]”[xxiii] Faith, in other words, is a way of being, a way of existing in communion with God that restores the nature of man in the deepest sense.

Let us now consider how faith relates to knowledge. Just as there is assumed knowledge particular to philosophy and science (assuming that knowledge can be sufficiently grounded and justified), there also exists knowledge that is particular to faith. Unlike the West’s project of Natural Theology, however, the Orthodox Church makes no separation between natural and supernatural revelation. For as Dimitrue Staniloae explains:

Natural revelation is known and understood fully in the light of supernatural revelation, or we might say that natural revelation is given and maintained by God continuously through his own divine act which is above nature. That is why Saint Maximos the Confessor does not posit an essential distinction between natural the revelation or biblical one. According to him, this latter is only the embodying of the former in historical persons and actions.[xxiv]

Therefore, there are those things which human reason can discover from nature only if grounded in the light of supernatural revelation, and then there are those hidden mysteries of God that require special divine revelation, without which they could not be known.[xxv] By the assistance of grace from God, faith is seen to be of a different order than the knowledge obtained from natural revelation through discursive reason, which relies on sense perception and experience, and is often assumed by those outside the faith to operate on the powers of the intellect alone.[xxvi]

In Orthodox theology, knowing (scientes) about God is done primarily through humility and ascetism...

Recall Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai when he is told that no one can see God’s face and live. On the surface this is a puzzling passage, since it causes one to wonder how God, who is Life itself, could cause death upon seeing Him. However, St. Gregory of Nyssa explains this passage and the relationship between life and intelligibility in his Life of Moses:

Scripture does not indicate that this [to see God’s face] causes death of those who look, for how could the face of Life ever be the cause of death to those who approach it? On the contrary, the divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet the characteristic of the divine nature is to transcend all characteristics. Therefore, he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true Being (tou ontōs ontos) to what he considers by sense perception to have being. True Being is true Life. This Being is inaccessible to knowledge …. Thus, what Moses yearned for is satisfied by the very things which leave his desire unsatisfied.[xxviii]

According to St. Gregory, “to think that God is an object of knowledge is to turn away from true Being to a phantom of one’s own making.”[xxix] This is why, at least in part, the West’s scholastic project of natural theology as an attempt to seek God as an object of knowledge and prove His existence using philosophy leads the West to worship their idea (the phantom of their own making) of God rather than God Himself.

https://www.patristicfaith.com/senior-contributors/an-orthodox-theory-of-knowledge-apophaticism-asceticism-and-humility/

https://www.academia.edu/45384040/An_Orthodox_Theory_of_Knowledge_The_Epistemological_and_Apologetic_Methods_of_the_Church_Fathers