Instead they must argue for the conclusion that religion is irrational, using premises that are acceptable to their interlocutor. — Leontiskos

Precisely - that would be a discussion. You begin with whatever is agreed, lay out your logic and conclusions, and you can dispute/discuss/disagree/agree with the logic and conclusions. But If you dispute the premises already agreed upon, you are either begging to start a new/different conversation, or just hiding some other intention in bad faith, pardon the pun.

↪Banno Sorry, I'm not sure what this is referencing. — Tom Storm

Tom, Banno was telling you not to suffer fools.

the atheists require that every religious discussion must be reduced to a discussion (or assertion) about whether God exists. — Leontiskos

Yes. And, despite all the offers to discuss God and uses of “God” in their sentences, they already seem to know that God cannot exist, whatever “god” refers to anyway. But they keep asking about God, and saying what they think about it, and what they think about those who believe in God.

There is no actual interest in or curiosity about gaining some sense of what an experience with faith and God are to people who actually have faith, and who pray to God.

They don’t seem to respectfully think “that person is rational, thoughtful and able to form clear sentences, yet they believe in God - how is that? Maybe I should see what they say about God.” One minute we believers sound rational and can do the same math and logic as any good atheist/scientist would, but the next minute we jump off the deep end and say “God is”. With no curiosity, most atheists seem to immediately see our reason was a facade; our authentic, irrational, childish selves actually annimate all of our now debased arguments. Any sort of distinct “faith” and actual “god” that the believer experiences can have nothing to do with it. And our ability to be rational is downgraded to amateur-hour at best.

It’s frustrating to me, because I like any clarity, especially when it comes from some other point of view - I think, “it is amazing how the same wisdom can be made clear in so many different voices and mouths - atheists, Christians, children, even modern philosophers once in a while display wisdom.” I get wisdom out of many seemingly irreconcilable places and people. That always amazes me. There are clearly many smart people around here that don’t see God. When they see other things I see, I am amazed at how perfectly they can see them without seeing God.

Atheists don’t seem amazed at how believers see some things as exactly they do, but also still see God. Atheists seem to think if someone doesn’t agree with them, about God, then that person isn’t really reasoning, which is amazing to me in itself - like willful blindness (which is a metaphor and a paradox but apt nonetheless).

No curiosity, so no respect needed, and no real conversation. Frustrating bummer here on TPF.

I see this as asking whether the better society needs enforceable laws setting limits to our speech, or whether the best society should agree there can be no legislated limits on speech.

I’d break speech into two parts:
- what it says, or it’s content, what it is about.
- what it does, or the consequences of the act of “calling out X content.”

My answer is essentially what is the law in America. We can regulate speech based on its consequences, but we can not, with narrow exception, regulate speech based on its content.

Consider libel and slander laws.

Someone goes to the town square and yells: “X is a pedophile and has murdered three people!”
Then X gets fired from his job, loses his home, all because of those words.
X says “that’s not true - I am not a murderer pedophile.”
Now the question is whether the accusations were slander.

So this is four prongs to slander: 1 harm, 2 caused by, 3 words, 4 that are not true. (In court you would probably argue it in the following order: speech, that is untrue, that causes, harm.)

You need all four, but if you have all four, it seems like a legitimate and necessary function of government that, in order to resolve this conflict and make slander illegal, we place certain limits on speech. The court could demand a public retraction, forbid people from saying those words like that again, and make people pay for the money lost and damage caused.

You can say that looking at whether the words are true is looking at the content of the speech. But it can be slander to accuse anyone of anything that is not true. “He was at a MAGA rally.” Then he was fired, his Tesla burned, etc…”. It doesn’t matter what flavor or color the slander takes, it just has to be any words, that are not true, causing damages.

What about straight fraud?
“This snake oil will cure your cancer - give me $1000 and you will be cured.” We can’t let the guy who spends his money based on those words remain without recourse because the salesman says “I have the right to free speech.” Fraud is a type of speech that must be limited by law.

“Fire!” in a crowded building is another case. It’s the stampede that makes the harm because of words of incitement. “Riot starts at the police department!”

So we need laws to address direct harms caused from recklessly false or intentionally false speech, or speech that directly incites crimes.

BUT - laws against the content of speech in itself, regardless of consequences??

That is Orwellian. Newspeak. State controlled media. The end of all possibility of political, societal freedom.

Nevertheless, we still regulate speech based on content, even though it immediately tends towards totalitarianism.

Making pornography illegal for people under 18 years old is regulation of speech based on the content. Only by saying “that is pornography” can we then enforce a law for providing such content to a 12 year old. So with such laws on the books, we are on the slippery slope towards Big Brother telling everyone what they can and cannot read and say to others.

I agree that we want to keep spaces free for audiences of all ages, and that requires content regulation, because not all content is for all audiences. So some minimal type of content based speech limiting laws are permissible. Protect minors is a good guideline to allow for narrow laws.

We want to protect religious speech spaces, and keep public spaces non-sectarian, meaning no specific religious or atheist or other “beliefs” can be favored by law.

Another content based speech limit is the law against threatening the life of the president. I don’t like that law, because a political opponent has to be able to say out loud “we will crush him, and his whole party in the next election!”

But it is probably a matter of how such a law gets enforced, because for someone to threaten the life of the president, if that was someone in the room with him, that might be like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

But anyway, the instant a law limiting speech based on content has the slightest possibility of influencing political speech, or any art, as long as that speech doesn’t also incite actual “fire!!”, that law must not be allowed and the speech must be protected.

In summary, intending to incite nothing but maybe more discussion, fuck off if you don’t like my thoughts on free speech.

whether the "such a thing as a definition" is meant to refer to our innocuous, stipulated-for-the-purposes-of-discussion definition, or something more permanent and indisputable. — J

With respect to what is a definition, the only difference to me between the stipulated version, and the more permanent, to me, is a matter of degree. The stipulated version is likely weak, vague, minimally helpful, easily used imprecisely, and/or just bad (or accidentally good but need further investigation). The more permanent version is closer to useful and reflective of the thing defined.

It’s a question of degree, not some sort of difference in kind, between a stipulated definition or a more solid definition. So it’s all the same thing - a definition.

If we define “faith” as “not corned beef” we have a sort of silly limit case. But that’s the whole ballgame. We have a clear bright line between at least two things. We have a definition shaping up. We know a difference. If we want to look further at “corned beef” we should not look towards “faith”. That is to be treated as absolute, “indisputable, and permanent.”

This is just wildly unhelpful if trying to say anything more about either faith or corned beef.

This silly limit provides no good definition to either thing; but because I know “not faith” tells me something about “corned beef”, further investigation might bring me to a deli as opposed to a church. By the time I am pointing to “pastrami” and to “corned beef”, seeing where they overlap and where they differ, now my definition of corned beef might be starting to approach the essence of some thing. I’m much closer to something permanent and indisputable that might actually also function (use) to allow for communication to happen.

The stipulated definition isn’t innocuous in my view. It’s just likely a poor definition of the two things on either side of the limit, and, if still interested in discussing either of those two things, this limit needs further scrutiny and revision and detailed observation and wording that enables communication about those two things.

And now I realize I haven’t had a Reuben in months. What is “travesty”?

I honestly havn't been able to follow — Banno

:rofl: I know! That is so you! But thanks for saying it again.

If you are interested in my responses, please, as a common courtesy, link my name in your posts. — Banno

First, I didn’t think you could understand me, so why bother.

Second, There are fifty things prior to my posts with Leon that you didn’t respond to. Linking your name is no use, is meaningless, towards any interest in obtaining an honest response from you.

Third, Seems muddle-headed for you expect courtesy from me.

this is a lot harder than it looks.

I'll try to come back to this . . . — J

Telling ya… The rub of all philosophy. How can we say something about anything.

I don’t have the time, energy, brains or education to do it, but it’s never going away, from me, or human nature. The desire the know. Why is there something?

some criterion of relevance. — J

Setting some criteria of relevance, to me, is a sibling to just saying there is such a thing as a definition.

But words do not exist primarily in some Platonic realm, or in dictionaries. They exist foremost on the tongues of speakers, and it is the speaker who must be queried in the first place. They may answer the query with idiosyncratic usage, and we may walk away after deciding that communication with such a person would be unduly burdensome, but it nevertheless remains the fact that the meaning of a word is found in the person who speaks it. — Leontiskos

Yes.
Some may say this justifies meaning as use, but that would misinterpret what you expressly said. No need for interpretation.

“the meaning of a word is found in the person who speaks it.”

And to the listener who listens, the meaning can then be received and reworded. So that meaning, words and persons, are all distinct objects immediately present when language is…happening.

I appreciate the response and dialogue.

Usually, when people talk about defining something, I think they have in mind more like a dictionary definition, an agreed-upon use of a word which makes it correct. But you've said, and I agree, that "stipulating a definition for the purposes of discussion" isn't like that. It's more like drawing a temporary distinction in terms so that two people can converse intelligently. I'm not sure what's elephantine here. — J

I agree when discussing “truth” or “reality” or “faith” - a dictionary won’t do. I agree about what stipulated definitions are, namely, never to be simply judged “correct.” They are tools to facilitate or maybe start a conversation.

But I also think a few other things, particularly when the conversation is directly asking for something that a definition would address - like, a “what is faith” conversation.

Banno said when people use the word “faith” they don’t normally say “corned beef” as well. Without saying it, Banno shows what I think, and that is, there must be something incorrect about relating “faith” with “corned beef” in normal uses if these terms. Just plain incorrect (according to me, not to Banno - I dont know what Banno actually thinks). It’s a false fact that faith involves corned beef (actually I think it can be a Kosher meat, so we might squeeze corned beef into a way too long conversation about faith, so pretend Banno said “socks”’instead of corned beef.)

Likewise, and we can continue to debate this, in my view, we are not going to get away from a discussion about what faith is, without addressing “trust” (another can of worms), and I think “knowledge and belief” (cans mounting, stipulations begging for entry). And in the end, we are not simply “drawing a temporary distinction in terms so that two people can converse intelligently,” but we are conversing itself for reason, and doing so to identify bright lines like where faith ends and corned beef and socks begin. We may never say of our definition “it is finished and it is correct” but we can say “Faith has at least something to do with trust and belief in someone or something - and it would be incorrect to exclude trust and belief when considering ‘what is faith’.”

So while I don’t disagree with what you are saying, I don’t think you’ve said enough, or as much as I am saying.

I still believe I am seeing bright lines between identifiably distinct things that are worth noting in a conversation as clearly as I see them, as in “faith always involves trust, among other things.” That’s correct to me. It’s not all faith involves so I have no reason to celebrate. But it’s my first bright line in the neighborhood of faith, and a beginning to the correct definition of faith.

It makes it sound as if you have to address them all, and all at once, in order to get any philosophical work done. — J

This is precisely where I am in my philosophic growth. I currently believe the only way to discuss epistemology is to also discuss metaphysics (which includes language use) while expressly admitting your ontology (which includes physics).

What is. (Metaphysics)
How it is to me. (Epistemology)
Whether it is. (Ontology)
They all beg each other, answer each other, and each cannot be asked without asking each other.

This is way off topic but your sense of where I am coming from was right on. It is flabbergasting, but unfortunately, I think it’s the only way forward, and it is the reason philosophy is stuck (since the 1800s), and is why all of these threads meander back to these same questions.

We back into the starting gate unless we behave more like a mystic (much to the chagrin of the modern scientist.). I, unfortunately, have concluded that we scientists must treat the absurd and the paradoxical, the impossible to say, as if physical objects, if we are to say or simply know one thing.

I’m way off towards Pluto at this point. Makes one long for a simple conversation about “faith”.

If they know what they mean by it then they will be able to tell you what they mean by it. If they don’t know what they mean by it then they are talking nonsense by literally saying meaningless things. If they refuse to tell you what they mean by a word but yet continue to pretend to use it, then they lack good faith and will not provide meaningful engagement. — Leontiskos

Spot on. I appreciate you weighing in. I guess not everything I said is muddled-headed to everyone. (I actually know that, but appreciate your reply.)

I keep thinking Banno is smart enough to display some wisdom, or something interesting, even accidentally, in response to me, so I engage anyway. But, minimal happy accidents, many cliche and tiresome parrots channeling St. Wittgenstein, and maximal frustration strike again.

Banno doesn’t seem to understand he’s being squarely challenged by many around here and he keeps failing to respond. At all.

It is fairly miraculous how all the “muddle” never reflects on him or his methods or his “uses of words.” It’s also quite amazing to me how little self-awareness of his condescension he has, and more importantly, how little awareness of how contradictory he is, like when he “refuses to tell you what [he] means by a word but yet continues to pretend to use it.” Pretend. Like gaming. Spot on.

<Religious persons are irrational because faith is irrational, and I can’t say what faith is beyond associating it with irrationality>. — Leontiskos

I like all of your restatements, but I like this one the best. I like it best because Banno can’t see that this describes the essence of his beliefs on “faith”. All puns intended.

In my thread <here> I point out the difference between an assertion and an argument. — Leontiskos

I remember reading that. I had high hopes it would be instructive for some people. Alas…you must have confused them by using the word “difference” or something, or worse, you offered a definition (God forbid!).

Hopefully this highlights what is actually going on in the thread. It has nothing to do with definitions; it has to do with arguments, — Leontiskos

Yes, you are right. This is why Banno keeps trying to talk past me. I haven’t really gotten to the arguments. I’m just trying to establish trust and grounds for a genuine exchange, where he looks at everything like it’s a linguistic trap, or beneath his dignity as high judge of all muddle.

Banno has at long last stumbled upon his own rationale:

1b. Obstinacy is irrational
2b. (Religious) faith involves obstinacy
3. Therefore, (Religious) faith is irrational — Leontiskos

You are kind enough to use his favored analytic methods. I agree, his necessary connection between faith and obstinacy is the weakness.

I made that point with Galileo. When Galileo was arrested, he was obstinate in his beliefs under strain and duress. So, was he being a man of faith, starting a new religion? Banno dismissively said Galileo recanted. Totally missed the point. That only means Gallileo lost faith then (according to Banno’s use/definition of “faith”). Didn’t address my point, at all, as usual, which was simply that there must be something else, something more specific to faith if we are to distinguish what Gallileo held versus what a faithful person holds.

Or maybe Gallileo really almost was a martyr in Banno’s religion. Fell from grace by recanting.

I would feel like I’m being mean-spirited, but I don’t think my thoughts register in the lofty heights of Banno’s world, up above all of the ladders.

“Unless we first”

“Have at hand…in order to”

These place things in order of some priority. How hard is that to follow?

I keep forgetting you are willfully blind, and blinding, in your rigorous faith in Wittgenstein.

You don’t want to see how you can’t throw away the ladder and communicate.

You don’t want to communicate, just pontificate.

Don’t know how I am using definition? I wish I could define it for you.

So much for successful discussion despite no prior essence ready to hand.

Demonstrable failure to communicate.

concepts will always inhere in something else. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hi Timothy.

I see us all breaking things down into so many parts. “Inhere” could be problematic. Is this a better way of saying “participate in the forms” or my “concepts are always concepts of something”?

More general principles will tend to be harder to define because they can be analogously predicated under many aspects. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But does that mean definitions should be, or even can be, avoided if we want to ensure communication of ideas among people?

While the two go together, there can be flight without flapping or flapping without flight. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Like there might be “faith” with or without “persistence into death” or “persistence into death” with or without faith.

That is the kind of meaning as use issue that arises, begging the pursuit of something even more essential to the notion of “faith”.

You go on to mention “trust” (which I did way back in the thread as well) may be a part of what is faith. And there other aspects.

I don’t think anyone has carved out the noun “faith” which is more like a religious creed, from the act of “having faith in something” which can be more generically had. The more generic “having faith in” can just mean anything from following intuition, to trusting the words of someone else, to believing in some end without seeing the path that will get you there.

But I believe, I have faith in, our ability to define something of the essence of faith. I don’t believe Banno will suffer my resistance to Wittegensteim-speak in avoidance of definitions much longer, but I want to believe Banno could see some of my points.

I also believe, there are long, precise paths we must take to answer questions about meaning, and definition and essence, but if our answers in the end don’t make sense in some simple and naive manner as well, they are astray. We can’t forget the naive question by the time we arrive at the complex answer. We have to be able to answer “what is faith” with “faith is x, y, etc…”. Or why bother “communicating” about it, or why conclude anyone else knows what we know?

I'm not getting much out of your repeatedly misunderstanding what I write. — Banno

I appreciate the organized response. The numbered paragraphs.

But I’m forced to mostly respond on your terms again. Because you don’t make many direct connections to what I actually said.

First, we do not need to have at hand the essence of some thing in order to talk about it. See the "mum" example given previously. We use words with great success without knowing the essence of whatever it is they stand for. Demonstrably, since we can talk about faith wiothout agreeing on the essence of faith.

Thinking we can't use words unless we first fix their essence is muddle-headed. — Banno

“we do not need to have at hand the essence of some thing in order to talk about it.”

You keep placing the essence or definition prior to the thing, or the word about that thing. You also said:

“Thinking we can't use words unless we first fix their essence is muddle-headed.”

“Unless we first”. I didn’t say that. I’m not giving any priority among the word, or its definition/essence, or the “some thing” the word is about.

I think your causal type prioritization of the pieces, that you think comes from me, is your own doing, it’s how you think, not me. And I can see how that would distort my meaning. I don’t drink the Wittegensteinian cool-aid, as thirstily.

I’m just saying words about things have definitions.

Words-about things-defined.
Definitions-of words-name things/concepts.
Things-defined-in words.

It is precisely the inability to place one of these as prior to the others that demands we can’t avoid defining things, if we want to actually communicate, actually deliver a concept, in words, to another. Definitions emerge as words distinguish things and distinguish themselves in use.

So you aren’t addressing what I said. You are recharacterizing with new elements, adding concepts to what I’m saying and in so doing, not seeing the essence of what I’m saying.

“We use words with great success without knowing the essence of whatever it is they stand for. Demonstrably, since we can talk about faith wiothout agreeing on the essence of faith.”

Ok, maybe, but just because we can do these things, this doesn’t address what I am saying either.

Just because we can identify words to use without “knowing” definitions doesn’t mean definitions aren’t there. So this is, to me, is a non-sequitur, or a fallacious argument. It doesn’t mean that we should have have to avoid defining our terms in a discussion that asks “what is X”.

But with “great” success? I disagree anyway. As is demonstrable in our inability to really communicate.

“we can talk about faith without agreeing on the essence of faith.”

I agree with this clause. We don’t need the whole essence or complete definition. But not with great success. And we can go through your “uses of faith” exercise or my hash out the essential elements exercise to confirm actual “success” as you say.

But overall, I disagree with your analysis quoted above. And I showed you specifically how I disagreed.

The following two mistakes are muddling your assessment of my meaning: 1 attaching some sort of causal priority to definitions/essences, (I don’t) and 2 thinking I am saying we need the full definition with all necessary sufficient conditions, or without it we have no definition at all. (never meant that either) These are features of how you think “essence” or “definition” is being used, but is not how I have used them.

Some of the other things you say deserve attention, particularly your dismissive comments on the aboutness of all words, but what do you think of the above first?

I've not said there are no definitions, just that there are few good ones. — Banno

I have to infer this by your manner saying "I've not said no," but if you are saying "there are definitions," then we agree perfectly.
And if you are saying there are few good definitions, then we also agree (and would be agreeing with Plato's Socrates as well. Precious few.)

A stipulated definition cannot set out the necessary and sufficient conditions for the use of "faith" — Banno

Ok, but must we abandon all hope for any small piece of the essence of "faith", abandon all hope for some small portion of some of those conditions that are necessarily tied to "faith"?

a better approach is to look at how the word is actually used. — Banno

That, to me, is a method for defining. It doesn't avoid a resulting definition for faith. You can avoid saying it provides a definition, but that, to me, is like doing all of the math for a complex equation, but refusing to write down the resulting answer. We are solving for X, mapping uses, but never just stating what, therefore, X is.

Not all words are nouns, so not all words name something. — Banno

Yes, and no.

Obviously there are many parts of speech besides nouns. And words like "yes" function uniquely from the basic parts of speech. I'm not talking about grammar.

When we speak, we speak about. Right? Speaking is always speaking about. We never speak (qua speaking) without speaking about some other thing.

There is the word, but, if it is a word, there also what the word is about, what the word is being used for (to use your/Witts vernacular).

Like a name. A use of "Banno" is something about you. A use of "use" is something about something else.

When I say "yes" I am doing something - it's not a noun, and there is no normal naming. But if someone else can't tell what I am doing when I say "yes", they still know what "yes" is about. They have to know what "yes" is about to be confused or satisfied with my use. "Yes" names or points to a particular use-function or meaning. If they ask "Do you want vanilla or chocolate?" and I just say "Yes", they might be confused, because they know how "yes" is normally used, and in response to "vanilla OR chocolate", a simple "Yes" names or points in a direction that does not account for the "or". Unless there was a bag full of random Strawberry or Mango ice creams, and a second bag full of vanilla or chocolate ice creams, and the person asking the question wanted to see if I want to risk a strawberry or mango surprise, or a vanilla or chocolate surprise - then "yes" to "vanilla or chocolate" makes perfect sense. But all along, "yes" pointed to or named the function of "agreement", all along, "yes" was about something. (If words have meanings/defintitions/dare-I-say-essences.)

Here is a better example. If you listen to a song sung in some language foreign to you, you might love the sound of the singer's voice, and hear the rhyme of the syllables, but none of those "words" can even be called "words" - none of the lyrics are about anything to you. It might actually be jibberish, and no language at all. But, as soon as I find what the words are about, as soon as I see how they have been used to point out something else, I can name similar words in English that might express the same meaning of the song. Translation is possible because all words name, all words point to, all words are about.

As usual, we are talking past each other.

How can you speak about anything of substance on this forum without delineating distinctions? How is any delineation not some form of definition? And now, once you admit to defining, why persist in raising "cannot set out the necessary and sufficient conditions" as if you aren't defining your terms all of the time anyway?

I know you think a person of faith, acting on their faith qua faith, is not being rational, and that faith qua faith can be used to support heinous evil. All of that may be true, but then, why would you think you have not defined something of the "rational" and given some border and color to "evil"? If one challenges your commentary, you resort to "you shouldn't define terms".

Why would you think you understand other's uses of faith if faith is something you have no use for?

You need to say more to defend your position AND/OR to deconstruct mine. You just snipe. You can do better, I think.

Take care.

words and concepts are quite distinct — J

But we can let it go. — J

"Concepts" versus "words" versus "whatever content X" (here, "faith"). This is the nub of all philosophy, no?

It is really difficult to step outside of language, and talk about language, using only language to do it. That's the rub of the nub.

(And it's the irony of our disagreement over words.)

This conversation is a close cousin to questions like "do you support a mind-independent reality" and "what are the forms". It's where philosophers end up when talking "what is" anything, such as "metaphysics" as you mentioned above. It's all a convoluted mess with the mind, with thoughts about things, or with language about thoughts about things, and further convoluted when we try to get two people to agree on the language about thoughts about things. It's why so many threads devolve into this same issue - "what can be said clearly, at all, ever, about anything?"

And while having these conversations, to downplay the function and necessity of words having/acquiring/being given their own definitions...seems as vain as many seem to think defining a word is vain.

My point is, we shouldn't try to avoid definitions when addressing questions "what is X". And, we, in fact, can't avoid defining our terms (which is why we shouldn't try).

You, who I am assuming think we don't need so much reliance on definitions to communicate, in reference to "discovering a definition" you said the phrase "universal agreement within a particular community." This is a definition of "definition." Right? It's too late to avoid it. Since we are now talking about my use of "definition" and you want to differ with me, you were forced to draw a clear line, provide a provisional, cursory, placeholder definition of "definition" to show a distinction between your concept of things and mine.

That is all my point is. We define when we speak. If we are to speak, we must define. Once we define, once we have communicated a concept, a definition exists, in the word, out in the world among human beings, written in stone.

We dance around the elephant we keep inviting into the room when we think we are not defining things as we speak about things.

I truly appreciate the patience with me, because I know there are many technical ways you want to use words like "concepts" and "definitions" - but technical according to Aristotle, or Wittgenstein, or Augustine, or Quine, or Dostoevsky?

There is no way to have this conversation briefly.

It's the question of "how do we know." It's "what is truth?" It's "What is meaning?" It's "What is a thing?". Same ultimate issues presented. Words-concepts-communication.

And I don't expect you to just say "wow - I never thought of it that way." We started with "what is faith' and ended up with "what do any words do?"

I have no problem saying our words give our concepts definition, and I seek that definition. That's the unspeakable elephant I dance with.

definitions that can be shown beforehand to be correct, — J

What is with the “beforehand” and the “correct”? Banno said “foundational”.

The post asks “what is faith”. So the foundation is a question.

Beforehand, we have no definition.

We will be incorrect as we speak “faith” trying to define it.

Our final understanding of faith will likely be incomplete, contain imprecision, contain error, need further revision.

But we can’t avoid defining faith if we want to distinguish “faith” from other things. (Or use “faith” in a sentence that can be understood.)

Rather than arguing about a word, why not keep looking at the concept, the idea, the thing under discussion, under whatever name or description? — J

Looking at a single concept, an idea, is looking at a word. Words name concepts. So there is no difference between arguing about a word and communicating about a concept.

Now if you want to call that "discovering a definition," I can't stop you, but I think definitions are established by universal agreement within a particular community, not by the sort of ameliorative process I just described. — J

If you don’t want to call what you just did here defining the word “definition” I think you merely handicap our ability to communicate, our ability to share concepts from one mind to another.

We are playing semantics with the definition of “definition” to painstakingly avoid using definitions of words. Ridiculous way of exchanging thought.

Definitions are secondary and derivative — Banno

But not non-existent. Not to be painstakingly avoided when trying to communicate.

You just contradicted yourself. If “definitions are” then my work is done.

Take care.

someone can of course have reasons for choosing something that isn't their preference. — flannel jesus

The clearest example of a free choice is a choice made against and despite all biases, drivers, necessities and forces. Choosing the cake that no one wants, that you don't need, that you think will taste horrible, that you are told not to choose, that will kill you, and without any need to choose anything at all - choosing that cake, can only be an act of freedom. Giving ones life can be an act of freedom.

There are gradations of course. Choosing the cake that you hate but for someone else who loves that cake, knowing that other person doesn't expect or even know about the cake (so no cake is needed), this might be a cake chosen out of free will and no outside forces.

So what is freewill then - what is left to drive the choice if one is choosing outside of all biases, drivers, and forces?

I don't know, but describe it this way - we create the thing called "will" in the same instant we choose against forces that demand we choose something else. When we seek all three cakes, see our drivers and biases towards this cake or that one, and then choose something else, the choice is the physical manifestation of the now created "my will" that consents to that choice belonging to "me".

I understand what you mean, but why not do both? — J

I actually think all of us philosophic thinkers, do both at the same time.

In order to speak, we are metaphysicians, taking ontological objects, in an epistemology.

To do metaphysics, we posit objects related through epistemology.
To do epistemology, we posit objects related through metaphysics.
To posit objects, we universalize (meta), our perceptions (existing particular things - ontological objects).

To focus on any one area, we must focus on all three at once. We don't peer into epistemology without a metaphysic and ontology supporting us. We don't peer into metaphysics witihout an epistemology supporting us.

The fourth thing we do, because we speak to others about our metaphysical, ontological, epistemological mental activities, is language itself. Language, to me is metaphysics, for the sake of epistemology. Words refer to, like knowledge is knowledge of.

Which is why it is dissappointing when people raise a topic, make some points about that topic, and then leave it all at "that cannot be defined". They have already denied the inability to define it by speaking "it" and not "that".

What I'm calling the "wrangle" begins when someone tries to claim that the stipulation is correct. — J

I agree with everything you said.

I would clarify that the wrangle as we are now wrangling here, begins when someone tries to claim there are stipulations at all.

I get the Wittgensteinian observations that ask the question:

what can be usefully defined. — J

I get it.

I don't get seeing "faith" is one of those things that cannot be usefully defined, and then continuing to talk about faith. Ridiculous. No one can ever say anything, nor says anything, nor said anything, without reference to differences and distinctions and definitions (or essences if you so choose to name them), by creating a reference point like "faith" and trying to distinguish what has been said from what has not been said. So are the anti-essentialist, non-definers saying anything at all about anything, or what? What recourse could we have to answer that question without defining things and revealing definitions?

There is no need or ability to once and for all clarify the distinct definitions that separate fairy elves from fairy godmothers. If you think "faith" is a word like "fairy elf", that points to nothing ultimately defineable, why try to speak about it all?

But if you think there is something, anything, specific to faith that would distinguish it from anything else you think about specifically, then you must be able to define that specific, line approaching "faith" and leaving "fairy elf" behind.

When talking about “x”, such as “faith” or “metaphysics” or “cats, not mats”, we can either talk about “x” using definitions, or we can talk about the difficulties of “talking about x” and avoid talking about x and instead talk about talking.
— Fire Ologist

I understand what you mean, but why not do both? — J

I think it is essential to do both in order to do the science of philosophy. Talking about talking is more like epistemology. It wonders about the ontology of the connections between my mind, the words my mind creates, and the objects about which my mind is directed and about which my words refer. We need to do this.

Talking about "faith" or "cat, not mat" is more like metaphysics, which is more like physics. It wonders about existing things, not how they are knowable or spoken of. It just says them. "Atoms make chemical combinations." To continue speaking, one needs to define atoms as distinguished from chemical combinations - one needs to do physics and metaphysics.

In other words, when I hear someone say "faith cannot be defined", because that person said 'faith' and not some other thing, all I heard them say is "I don't know the definition of 'faith'." If "faith" cannot be defined, than they haven't said anything at all yet, but jibberish, like "elf" when they said "faith." So if they want to continue asserting things like "that is not 'faith', or 'they don't understand how to use 'faith' in a sentence", then you must merely be saying, about "faith", that they don't know how to define it; they are not actually saying "faith cannot be defined" at all.

If you question whether the assertion "atoms" refers to anything that can approach a definition, you have to instead talk about how we can talk about "atoms" at all meaningfully, and we are back to the same, more epistemological conversation that could care less about the distinction between atoms and chemical combinations. Like here, talking about "predication, versus definition" which could care less about "faith" or any other particular object, like "metaphysics" was on the other thread.

interestingly, is very similar to the point I made about "metaphysics," over on the "Hotel Manager" thread, where we began discussing whether "a wrangle over definitions" is usually useful or not. — J

It’s the same conversation on so many threads. Same exact conversation. Which is a good conversation, but without definitions, a conversation about “faith” and a conversation about “metaphysics” become the same conversation about “conversation.”

When talking about “x”, such as “faith” or “metaphysics” or “cats, not mats”, we can either talk about “x” using definitions, or we can talk about the difficulties of “talking about x” and avoid talking about x and instead talk about talking.

I agree it is hard to define certain ideas, like faith. But admitting the difficulty in fixing one permanent all inclusive definition of things like “faith” is not the same thing as admitting “there are no definitions, or essences or meanings of words to define.”

If one marks any line between any two directions, if one says “this” to clarify “not those”, definitions emerge. Otherwise, without definitions of words to track against the things those words speak of, Speaking “this” while meaning “not those” would not be possible.

If we deny this, we might not have said “this” in the first place; but we already did say ‘this’, we already did say ‘faith’, we are already speaking and partially understanding each others’ partial definitions and blurry but nevertheless clarifying lines.

But speaking is always speaking of. We need what comes after the ‘of’ in ‘speaking of..’ in order to say we are speaking at all. We speak, and communicate our minds to other minds, so definitions must emerge between us.

You said “… we began discussing whether "a wrangle over definitions" is usually useful or not.”

Like “faith”, what is a “wrangle”?

We can’t avoid the essence we speak of and speak of ‘this’ and not ‘that’. We can’t avoid definitions without having the same conversation about all things (as if there are no differences to speak of.)

predications, not definitions. — Banno

“Predications” as distinct from definitions. There goes the goal post again. Or there you go pulling the ladder out from under yourself.

Just more words to struggle to avoid defining (while predicating and presumably relating mappable elements) and while we avoid defining “faith” instead.

How are you able to speak and think you are not giving me definitions? Not forcing definitions down my throat with each predication, not definition, you distinguish and speak of??

It’s literally preposterous to me, or a lie. If you know what a lie is (as opposed to knowing how to use “lie” in a sentence.)

“Here, let me now explain how there are no such things as words. For some reason, it is best if I use words to do so, so just bear with me, we may never get there, but I will keep talking about wordlessness until there is no further need of explanation…”.

Or, “watch as we approach the goalpost of ‘faith’, as soon as I bring you near to it, I will move it and replace it with some other goal post, like ‘mapping use’.”

It’s why Wittgenstein had to explain the ladder he built was to be thrown away. He had to say that out loud to avoid our confusion at the structure and definition he built.

Here is where we should agree:

Defining things (what I like to do) is as absurd as talking about undefined things (what you do).

Maybe I shouldn’t start speaking until I clarify what an essence is, or what a definition does for speech.

But maybe you should not start speaking until you can show something can be said about anything without having thus defined that thing.

If you don’t see meanings of words, meanings in your mind to define as you speak about those words (ie faith), that’s fine, but I say to you, without essential definitions, without discernible, perceptible distinctions between things in mind, you can’t speak.

You aren’t communicating, or you are lying, if you say you don’t see the meaning of the definition of “faith” here:

“

Faith […] is persistence under conditions of strain, doubt, or suffering — Banno

It doesn’t matter how you mean those words, or where those words came from, or if they are complete; they are now the objects used, with others, to define “faith” in this discussion. They are useful words when speaking of the essence of “faith”.

It’s unnecessarily impractical to handicap a discussion by avoiding definitions for each and every term we say to each other. It is unhelpful to painstakingly avoid definition, while predicating.

Otherwise you are wasting your time making up your uses for words so that once anything concrete is established we will remind ourselves we have only been “mapping uses” and not found anything fixed by ‘this map.’

We are all stuck with ‘this’ and ‘not that’ - like “predications, not definitions.” Why deny it? Or more precisely, why deny it, while trying to speak about ‘this, not that’??

Not following you here at all. — Banno

That seems to be your rule of engagement, perplexity at other minds saying things you wouldn’t say.

I've been at some pains not to present a definition — Banno

Right, you never do, but you keep talking anyway.

If you aren’t trying to define things, why did you say:
“Faith is…”
“Faith is not…”
“Definitions that ignore this…”

???

Why are you bothering with “definitions” then? You said it.

Why say what something like “faith is” and think you can avoid definition?

Seems odd... — Banno

Exactly.

God was understood as transcendent but also rational. The universe was seen as ordered in a way that human reason could, at least in part, comprehend—since human reason reflected the divine logos. — Wayfarer

I usually cringe at philosophic notions of God. (And I hypocritically philosophize about God, so, no judgment!) I think what you just said here somewhat paraphrases me before. But it strikes me now - how do we know God cares about the things our reason cares about? It makes sense that if there is any logos, there is one logos and if logos is to be known, divine or human, logos is logos. So it clarifies nothing to refer to divine logos in a philosophic manner. What is that?

I see knowing the divine or the transcendent as equivalent to knowing another person. We can know the other person perfectly, but i only to the extent they reveal themselves to us. I now know something of what Wayfarer thinks. You said it, and so I know something of you. I don’t know everything about Wayfarer, but I know something. That is how God knows Wayfarer too (it is always particular knowledge when knowing a person, and God also knows much more than maybe even Wayfarer knows about Wayfarer); and this is how Wayfarer knows God. This is what any knowledge is like - the other, revealed, to me.

It’s easy to know a physical thing - we can use our sense and invent tools to measure it. But to know the transcendent, like God, or like a person, words and revelations of a person to another person, these are most intimate and can be much more true than senses and, as a Christian, they are whole ball game, the purpose of knowing anything. Knowing he person of God who knows the person of me - that is the purpose of everything.

the question of free will and divine determinism. Protestantism involved at its core fideistic, denying free will in order to preserve God's absolute power. — Christopher Blosser

your comment, about trusting God because nothing makes sense, actually reflects a deep-standing thread in Christian culture —a move away from the idea of a rationally ordered universe toward a faith based on trust in God’s sheer will. — Wayfarer

Interesting.

God gave me reason so that I could use language and understand what he says when he says “my will is x” - but not reason enough to understand whether what God wills makes sense towards achieving whatever God says he is trying to achieve. We need reason to understand what “go bind and sacrifice Isaac” or “build an Arc in a field” means and reason to put together all the pieces that carry out those commands, but not enough reason to understand how these are good acts reasonably connected to a future for life with a loving God.

My opinion is, when God makes a request that we do not understand, we should trust God and comply with the request regardless of our understanding, because we already understand that it is always good to trust God. But there is nothing intrinsic to God’s will and command that I am unable to understand it. God wants me to understand Him. That includes His will when he reveals his will to me. But if I do not understand, even more than me stopping to use my reason and intellect to seek to understand why God wants what he wants and how what God wants is good, I should not stop and trust God, trust his perfect goodness, and follow him wherever he seems to me and my limited intellect to be going.

The point, to me, about not being able to understand God is, God is so big and unique, I will forever have more to learn - I will never know it all (much like another person’s soul). There will forever be vast oceans of more to know and fulfill my desires to know you.”

So when I say “nothing makes sense” it is more like an acknowledgment that nothing fully makes sense, yet. God isn’t waiting for me to figure him out, so when he bridges the gap between me and him, I am always taken off guard and shown things I can’t understand - like someone giving Newton the formula e=mc2, and telling him to trust it and figure that out. God built me to figure him out (to a similar extent we figure out anyone we love). We can’t ultimately figure him out all on our own - we need grace and gifts to come to God (revelation), but our intellect is not going to be abandoned and left to our own devices forever. So I hope.

Hume’s condemnation at the end of his Treatise actually applies to the Treatise. — Wayfarer

Love it! Hume’s understanding of things is a miracle.

Similar motifs can be found in other spiritual traditions … But from a philosophical perspective it’s the convergences that are interesting, — Wayfarer

I agree. Much to ponder peering into the wisdom that overlaps cultures, religions, times.

purity of motive, lack of attachment, abandonment of craving, — Wayfarer

they are agreeing … about something — Wayfarer

I agree as well. And I see Aristotle and Heraclitus everywhere too, as well as I see God everywhere. We are all after the same thing. I’m not afraid to call it wisdom, or more directly, truth, and more practically, admit it is universal to persons who love other persons. Love is at the heart of all. Motion, being, becoming, unity, community, knowledge and truth (unity of mind and object), and language itself - the deepest personal expression of love in the one who truly means “I love you” to another…

idea is that the rational soul of man (psuche) has insight into the formal causes, which themselves arise in the Divine Intellect. I know there are many ways to criticise that philosophy and that it is overall regarded as superseded in the Western tradition, but I’m not sure how many of those who criticise it really understand what they’re rejecting. — Wayfarer

I see a philosophic leap too far when you or Aquinas end up “…in the Divine intellect.” I know God can be an essential ontological feature of many philosophies, but I think it is a scientific cop-out (so far in our experience) to use “God” in philosophy (again, so far in human history, not even Aristotle settled such an assertion) (and not that that is what you are trying to do). I hope you follow me here.

I like where you said, “the idea is that the rational soul of man (psuche) has insight into the formal causes.” I’d say “ the mind sees the formal.” Like the eye senses light. And leave it at that. I haven’t yet explained the formal ( though we obviously keep seeing it in mind) just like I haven’t fully explained light or eyes seeing light consciously… though I obviously “see”.

different mode of knowing and being to that of the detached observer of states of affairs in the world. — Wayfarer

And here, in my view, there is one mode, one knowing. It may take complexity to lay down the science of it all in a language, but if it all doesn’t end up how it starts, with the naive, hand-in-hand with all things in the world, we have lost our way.

Illusion stands out against its only possible context, namely, reality. We can’t bemoan illusion until we know something else, namely the real, so we need to recall and rejoice, for however illusion has been delivered to me, it came with the real!

reference to entering the divine presence, nowadays generally understood as something that happens only at the time of death, but in the mystical sense, corresponding with the advent of the beatific vision. — Wayfarer

I feel like here, in this forum, we are miles away from a more measurable, more strictly philosophical conversation. We’ve leapt into mysticism at its most universal (and more TPF friendly form), or something more like theology in more particular form, and neither are too comfortable here at TPF (and that’s ok with me).

Personally, I see what Aquinas meant when he said his philosophic thoughts about his beloved Father in heaven were straw. The beatific vision will come as a gift and a surprise and I would expect it to be utterly unlike anything I could expect. God’s visage, to me, is different than the aspirations of mystical enlightenment. Enlightenment can be sought and found through one’s own effort (or one’s own complete quelling of effort). To me, in the end, it is only because God wants me to see him that I would ever come to be able to see him and then actually see - and in the end, when it comes to God, I’d rather just look for his own words first, see if God will come to me, then discuss my interpretations (again probably better received in some other forum).

I think we have a similar approach to this thing of ours - this love of wisdom.

And see how far I stray from the problem of evil where “God” is falsely taken as an object that can be fixed in a syllogism that concludes “God is not”; I feel obliged to save God from the fiery pits of Hume’s “to the flames!” Or Nietzsche, or Russell..

But then I recall, philosophy is its most pure when it remains science first and foremost, so it is likely no one cares God has been spared by me.

Anyway, always interested to know what you think. Cheers.

Faith, unlike ordinary belief or trust, is best understood through its persistence under conditions of strain, doubt, or suffering. It is not a rigid refusal to change, nor merely trust in authority, but a form of commitment that reveals itself when it is hardest to maintain. Definitions that ignore this pragmatic and temporal dimension fail to capture the lived meaning of faith.

Seems odd that religious folk seek to deny this. — Banno

Deny this aspect? You said yourself faith is “a form of commitment that reveals itself when it is hardest to maintain.”

That tells us where to look to see faith revealed, but doesn’t tell us what faith is. It doesn’t tell us what precisely is revealed, only “when” or where we might look to point to what faith is.

So I think people are denying this aspect speaks to the question of what faith is qua faith.

The grace under pressure aspect you find essential to the “lived meaning of faith” could be deceptive.

Galileo persisted in his beliefs about the solar system/galaxy in the face of duress, but for the sake of empirical science, which I’m sure you don’t equate with faith.

So pointing out beliefs maintained under duress may show you where to look to seek the “definition” (as you reference it) of faith, but maybe not. There must be something else entirely that defines faith, or you might have to say that Galileo under arrest was possibly trying to start a new religion.

a higher intelligence makes perfect sense, but sense that we’re not able to apprehend - after all we see ‘through a glass, darkly.’ — Wayfarer

Because there is such a thing as “making sense”, I agree it therefore makes sense that there is a being that makes all sense of everything. And I agree, such a being is not one of us, so we may never apprehend it, or will never make sense of everything.

And absurdity creeps in when we think, until it all makes sense it remains possible that “making sense” is a house of cards and so nothing ever made sense in the first place. Meaning, if we admit we don’t know everything, we must admit we haven’t yet learned the one thing that would undercut all that we thought we knew, so maybe we never know anything.

But I also think there is a possibility that, in our likeness to God (the higher one), we sometimes apprehend things completely, that when we know something, we know the same thing God knows. We will forever pursue all-knowledge, but along the way, possess particular knowledge the same as any knowing being would possess. That makes sense to me - that I am not God, but that I can know God anyway (because of God, not my own discoveries).

I am always moved/inspired by the existential embrace of the absurdity of being a person. Kierkegaard is good reference.

I hope God does come between you and anything else one day. I’m actually sure God will, and expect that will be a pleasant meeting. But not today. Cheers!

I don't 100% believe there is no afterlife, but it really is nothing more than a fantasy, — Janus

I am a Catholic, so I hope and believe in an afterlife, but it all sounds impossible to me. The body supports my consciousness and my consciousness is where I live and breath, so if my body dies, where and how could I exist anymore? Stuff of fantasy for sure.

But I believe anyway. Because God makes no sense either, and really my own existence with all of its questions and knowledge of illusion, makes no sense either. None of it makes sense, so, to me, there is plenty of room to trust God anyway.

moving away from philosophy and into a world of faith, dogma and doctrine. — Tom Storm

God is obviously a big puzzle piece in the history of philosophy and on this forum. I get it. But it is just as reasonable to conclude this “God” doesn’t exist, as it is to conclude we must not understand this “God” in the first place, and, using this same reason, neither can be proven to be the sounder conclusion, or premise. About “God”. God doesn’t exist, or even if God exists and his existence makes no contradiction, we may not understand God anyway - both are sensible estimations of this “God” in philosophy.

What becomes the point of further discussion using this “God” in our arguments if we can’t use religious sources and experiences to make further distinctions? We would have to ignore that this God might not exist to clarify “God and suffering in the same good world.” Ignoring the fact that God may not exist is not reasonable if on the other hand one isn’t sure one has any idea what “God” means. So we are stuck. Without saints and some other religious experiences to draw from besides our words and arguments and logic, we are stuck.

“God” becomes a placeholder in such philosophic discussions that once directly analyzed seems interchangeable with “everything” and “nothing” or “the one” or “truth” or “being itself”, or “Self” - so I would rather talk about those other things as a philosopher talks, and only talk about this God as one who believes this God actually exists talks.

Hindu Uber driver who was incensed at 'stupid Christianity' with its superstitions and held that his gurus lives and the scriptures and how these aligned with science clearly demonstrated the superior truth of Sanātana Dharma. — Tom Storm

That all sounds silly. Interesting uber ride though. But there is no superior truth. Just truth. Christianity and Hinduism, and Buddhism and Taoism, and Islam, and Judaism, at base, agree on this. Just one truth if “truth” is to have any meaning. Many schools of Hinduism ultimately value the truth of love above all, which, like Christians, seems the “superior” value to me. Again, what good metaphysician or epistemologist or logician would care to parse all of that? And what believer in God would find fruit doing the parsing with no recourse to the experience of other believers, and to do so with people who don’t believe?

And what does he mean his religion aligns better with science? Which science is aligned to which religion, and when? Science today, or science from 500 years ago, or science as it will be in 500 years? Aligned with which eternal wisdom, in a superior manner? Silly. Reincarnation aligns with being born again in Christ. Does reincarnation of one eternal soul align with any science better than simply rebirth in heaven?

There is nothing about Christianity that requires the repudiation of any empirical laws or scientific facts and observations. The problem of evil is a valid syllogism. It’s just not sound. Because it misunderstands any tangible, lived experience of “God” for sake of some hypothetical “Omni-being” thing called “God”. That need not exist for sake of argument.

And of course, you don't have to play the game, but there will be consequences. — Banno

Why assume that? There may not be consequences. Or must there be consequences? Must there be effects? What causes that?

if one is talking logically — Banno

How do you mean that inside of modus ponens? Where are you standing to observe “if one is talking logically”?

Is that supposed to answer any of my questions?

Draw a starting line without anything transcendent referenced in it and then move forward. Give me an example. You don’t even have to define anything.

I don’t think you can. Because you have to use language.

But why should we presume that there is such a thing as the form of the table — Banno

There's a logical gap between “I can’t imagine it being otherwise” and “this must be how it is” that's found in transcendental arguments of all sorts.

It's a transcendental argument becasue it goes: things are thus-and-so; the only way (“I can’t imagine it being otherwise") they can be thus-and-so is if forms are real. Hence, forms are real. The minor premise is the problem - how you can be sure it's the only way?

But there is also a different criticism here, the the transcendental argument also presumes hylomorphism in the major premise - the "Things are thus and so" just is the presumption that hylomorphism is correct. — Banno

So how do you get out of the starting gate with any inquiry into anything, on any terms?

How do you avoid being one of the ones you criticize, and proceed to speak at all?

Should the most honest scientist admit there is no point to science? There is no real solution possible because there is no real problem possible.

I agree there is a gap between whatever must be and whatever I cannot imagine otherwise, but how do you even make this distinction and speak about it, without the formal, the essential, the hylomorphic identity of some thing distinguishable from the other thing?

If we throw all metaphysics out, seems to me, to be consistent, we have to throw out language. When we speak, forms and essences emerge, as do objectivity, universality, meaning, truth, in addition to all of the things we speak about. It is an unavoidable consequence of asking any question that we appeal to, or presuppose, or invoke, or construct, a metaphysic.

Why fight it, if we choose to speak and communicate our ideas at all?

This is not to say some sort of platonic form of “language” is eternally floating around waiting to be participated in when we speak “English”, but, however it works, language only seems to work, where meaning and truth and essential definition are invoked.

But of course, those who want to believe in a just personal God will always construct some kind of exculpatory theory or version of God in which suffering is either necessary, the result of some contamination, or entirely unrelated to the deity. — Tom Storm

Nothing is that simple for us anymore. Mental struggle and conversational suffering.

It's very shallow indeed if that's your "whole way of thinking about the problem of evil". — Janus

Ok. So it’s my whole way of thinking about the argument/syllogism called “the problem of evil.”

My whole way of thinking about God and suffering includes thoughts of what is “sin” and what is free will, what is the heart, what is love, why did God become a man and die, on a cross….

Anyone who might decide there must be no God because they think they understand the syllogism, had a shallow understanding of “God” or “all-good” or “suffering” or all of the above.

This forum, to me, is not really the place to account for God and suffering, as that would take Bible quotes and histories of saints and in the end, we will only be able to answer how God allows suffering by asking God, so if there is no God to you, there is not only no need to ask the question, but no need to think there would be an answer discoverable through our own reason.

I find myself again at least philosophically more drawn to the Catholic philosophers:

Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they must be conformed to the truth of things given in creation. And such conformity is possible only as the moral virtues become deeply embedded in our character, a slow and halting process. We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. The full transformation of character that we need will, in fact, finally require the virtues of faith, hope, and love. And this transformation will not necessarily—perhaps not often—be experienced by us as easy or painless. Hence the transformation of self that we must—by God’s grace—undergo “perhaps resembles passing through something akin to dying.”
— Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher

Amen to that. — Wayfarer

Amen to that Amen.

complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll: — Wayfarer

Essentially, my whole way of thinking about the problem of evil. :100:

The argument concludes the premises on which this conclusion was based make no sense, so why would anything concluded based on those premises be able to be held soundly?

if there is no god and no meaning then needless suffering actually makes sense? It’s what you’d expect to see in a world with no inherent purpose - struggle, chaos and suffering, — Tom Storm

This makes sense to me too. In a way, it’s a tautology and doesn’t really say anything. I can reword it this way: In a world with no meaning, meaningless suffering makes sense (like everything would be meaningless in a world with no meaning.). The tautology is: world with no meaning = all aspects or parts of the world (such as suffering) have no meaning.

But even in this world with no meaning, it still means (sorry) for us here in this conversation that we exist, we suffer, and that there is no power or person (no God) who can change those realities. (So we have to bring into existence meaningful/logical arguments to speak of a world with no meaning, meaningfully to each other, which is a contradiction itself, but I digress into some other, linguistic game. I raise this because that is the main point - we are creating contradictory conclusions in order to defeat the premises we created for n the first place.)

But if creation is about genius design and magnificent order and if God cares for us and wants a relationship with us, then suffering by apparent design does not make much sense. It seems contradictory. — Tom Storm

In an effort to show that I’m following you, I’ll take ‘genius’ as all-knowing, ‘magnificent order’ as all-powerful (organizing, creating physical force), and ‘God cares’ as all-good. Now, if we invent such a God, the formerly meaningless suffering from the formerly Godless world seems to take on a meaning the suffering doesn’t have. It means God is purposely inflicting the suffering on us, or he at least doesn’t care. And so the contradiction arises inside our definition of God. The contradiction is squaring God’s goodness with my own estimation of suffering as badness; God must be bad if I suffer, but God must be all-good if God is God, so God contradicts himself if he inflicts suffering on me and I suffer, so God must not be.

So I see the contradiction. Creator all-powerful good God and my bad suffering shouldn’t co-exist.

What I’m saying is this seeming contradiction arises because of my own invention of who/what God is, and my own invention of the meaning of suffering is that only arises when I assert my invention of who/what God is.

So yes, if we presume to know how God operates, and presume an all-good God would by definition care for my suffering, and presume I know what “all-good” actually means, and I suffer, then either my presumptions are false OR God doesn’t exist.

And so, if my presumptions about God may be false, it is not logically necessary to conclude God does not exist. Therefore, the conclusion of the problem of evil argument that “God does not exist”, is not necessarily a sound estimation of what actually exists and what suffering actually means. The problem of evil is a logical exercise, but not a sound estimation of God and suffering proving anything either exists or does not exist.

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How should God build bliss from scratch? Since we a judging the process of creation/evolution for improvements.

If we would all call God truly “all-good” had this God created us from our first moment of consciousness to know only perfect bliss and zero suffering, aren’t we just eliminating the process of growth? How is bliss physically built up from nothing? Of bliss is to born from not-bliss, don’t we need not-bliss too? Wouldn’t any process, along the way towards eternal bliss, carry suffering, struggle and process behind it? Does bliss feel blissful in a creature that can’t or doesn’t feel pain, that can’t even remember suffering and struggle and chaos ever? Maybe. Or maybe not as blissfully?

So my conclusion is, if we play God ourselves, invent and create our “God” to be all-good/powerful/knowing, invent our feeling that we know what this even means, it makes sense that we would judge this new God we’ve created as failing to do good or failing to know or have power to do good by me, because I suffer. That does make sense. But I’ve merely stacked God’s deck against himself to rule him out of existence. The animating force behind the problem of evil is our own judgement that God is Not good for allowing or inflicting my suffering, but this same suffering is meaningless (neither good nor bad) without God, so maybe there is a middle ground, where an all-good God and my suffering can coexist (as in a world where God will bring redemption, but I digress again).

Bottom line, there is no logical need for us to be such a harsh judge of God or a harsh judge of our own suffering. Maybe suffering can seem good (as in hard work and growth) and maybe God can seem bad (as in children with cancer, and seemingly unexplainable suffering), and instead of eliminating the seeming contradictions by eliminating the presence of God and eliminating the presence of meaning to my suffering, we simply need to further investigate the meaning of both God and suffering in a world where we can imagine bliss.

When you {plural} use the word "God" are you referring to A) the triune God of Christianity, one aspect of whom is a person capable of empathizing with human suffering? — Gnomon

I think I may have been unclear using the word “justified”. I meant accounted for.

With whatever conception of God there is that fits the all-good-powerful-knowing God of the argument, I am asking why is it we can’t account for all the pain and suffering if there is such a God, but we can account for it without God? Why is it we are fine adjudging “An all-good God would not want there to be any suffering let alone all of the gratuitous suffering, but nature needs there to be all of this suffering in order for it to function at all.’ ??

My answer: we don’t know God; we can’t say “an all-powerful God would be able to prevent all suffering, or an all-good God would not want there to be any suffering.” Those who accept the Problem of Evil argument and conclude there must not be such a God are willing to leave suffering as it is and move on to continue their lives in the presence of no-God, but unwilling to live those lives as justifiable in the presence of God.

Basically, God must be a jerk if he doesn’t immediately end suffering as it might arise (or before suffering), but more likely, God must not even exist. OR, we maybe don’t understand God at all. AND therefore, the argument proves/means nothing.