On Dec 26, 9:51 am, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> Le 25-déc.-06, à 01:13, Tom Caylor a écrit :
>
> > The "crux" is that he is not symbolic...
>
> I respect your belief or faith, but I want to be frank, I have no
> evidences for the idea that "Jesus" is "truth", nor can I be sure of
> any clear meaning such an assertion could have, or how such an
> assertion could be made scientific, even dropping Popper falsification
> criteria. I must say I have evidences on the contrary, if only the fact
> that humans succumb often to wishful thinking, and still more often to
> their parents wishful thinking.
>
If you are not sure of any clear meaning of the personal God being the
source of everything, including of course truth, this entails not
knowing the other things too. For a personal God, taking on our form
(incarnation), especially if we were made in the image of God in the
first place, and showing through miracles, and rising from the dead...,
his dual nature (God&man, celestial&terrestial, G*&G) seems to make a
lot more sense than something like a cross in earth orbit. For
example, giving a hug is a more personal (and thus a more appropriate)
way of expressing love, than giving a card, even though a card is more
verifiable in a third person sense, especially after the hug is
finished. But we do have the "card" too: God's written Word, even
though this is not sufficient, the incarnate hug was the primary proof,
the "card" was just the historical record of it.
>
> > There can be no upward
> > emanation unless/until a sufficient downward emanation is provided. In
> > Christianity, the downward emanation is "God loves us", and then the
> > upward emanation is "We love God".
>
> Plotinus insists a lot on the two ways: downward emanation and upward
> emanation. The lobian machine theology is coherent with this, even if
> negatively. It is coherent with Jef idea that pure "theological
> imperatives" can only be addressed by adapted "story telling" and
> examples, like jurisprudence in the application of laws. But then there
> is a proviso: none of the stories should be taken literally.
>
I agree with the use of stories. Jesus used stories almost exclusively
to communicate. Either the hearers "got it" or not. But this does not
imply that stories are the only form of downward emanation. The
incarnation was the primary means. Otherwise, who would have been the
story-teller? What good are stories if the story is not teaching you
truth? How do we know that the ultimate source of stories is a good
source. Jef and Brent and others seem to be basing their truth on
really nothing more than pragmatism.
> > This is not poetry. Heidegger said to listen to the poet, not to the
> > content, but just to the fact that there is a poet, which gives us hope
> > that there is meaning. However, unfulfilled hope does not provide
> > meaning.
>
> Hope is something purely first-personal, if I can say. So I have no
> clue how hope does not provide meaning. Even little (and fortunately
> locally fulfillable hope) like hope in a cup of coffee, can provide
> meaning. Bigger (and hard to express) hopes can provide genuine bigger
> meaning, it seems to me. I am not opposed to some idea of ultimate
> meaning although both personal reasons and reflection on lobianity make
> me doubt that communicating such hopes can make any sense (worse, the
> communication would most probably betrays the possible meaning of what
> is attempted to be communicated, and could even lead to the contrary).
>
Even poetry must be based eventually on some meaning. Even minimalism
or the Theatre of the Absurd is based on some form to attempt to
communicate meaninglessness.
I am glad that your aren't opposed to some idea of ultimate meaning.
My whole argument is that without it our hope eventually runs out and
we are left with despair, unless we lie to ourselves against the
absence of hope.
> > The content of these words speak of the *actual* fulfillment
> > of the hopes of the Greeks expressed in their hypostases.? Are you talking about mystical enlightening experiences. Like
> losing any remaining doubts about immortality because you have already
> seen the whole of the eternal tergiversations all at once ?
>
By "these words" I was referring to the John quote from the Bible. The
actual fulfillment was Jesus (the Word/Logos). He spanned the infinite
gap, like you said above, perhaps analogous to hypercomputation,...all
in one step.
> >> > We have seen his
> >> > glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father,
> >> full of
> >> > grace and truth." (John 3:1,2,3,14) So the particular finite form
> >> that
> >> > we have, God somehow took on that same form.
>
>
> > It is the ultimate irony that Jesus was taken to be blaspheming when he
> > said he was "one with the Father" and "before Abraham was, I AM", for
> > "no one can say that they are God"..... the mistake is the missing
> > phrase at the end: "...except God".
>
> OK. I mean, here, that we can agree on an important disagreement,
> making both of us quite coherent with respect to my "faith" in comp and
> your faith in non-comp. Here the comp theology is simpler: "no one can
> say that they are God". The comp would add (inferring on G*): "even, if
> not especially, (a) God". No God can assert "I am (a) God", I mean,
> not in public.
>
So apparently, accepting the personal God basis would mean that you
would have to reject comp. It makes sense, even in that to accept the
personal God we have to put aside anything that we were putting in
place of Him. In fact, we put ourselves in the place of God, whether
we consider ourselves a machine or not.
> > Yes it is a mistake to say that we understand God fully, but it would
> > also be a mistake (would it not?), if God were to tell us something
> > true (but of course not exhaustive), for us to say that we do not know
> > the thing that he told us.
>
> But expressions and statements are always is need of interpretations,
> be it God's or Nature's or Colleagues' statements.
>
> As you know I am already skeptical about a "physical universe" if only
> because of lack of evidences (that is besides its lack of explanation
> power with comp), but then I am a realist so I do have faith in some
> accessible reality, by observation, introspection, dialog ... But term
> like "God" or "Universe" or "Reality" or "Truth" cannot been used in
> any sense presupposing that the utterer has some special connection
> with them (and this despite the most obviously probable existence of
> such connections).
>
This is why Jesus was the Word, the Logos. God simply shouting words
out of the sky or something would have this problem. This is why I
said that the incarnation was primary in God's communication to us.
> > It is like (in fact IT IS) the relationship
> > between a father and a child. (In fact, the earthly father/mother and
> > child relationship is a shadow/projection of the heavenly, rather than
> > the other way around.)
>
> How do you know? Are you willing to assume this clearly and build some
> axiomatization?
>
This follows from the acceptance of the personal God who is love (among
the three Persons I outlined using the hypostases) independently of
anyone/anything else.
> > I agree that it is dangerous for a child to
> > keep taking a father too literally when the father tells him/her
> > something. At first, the child should take the father/mother's words
> > at face value, trusting that the parent is saying the right words for
> > the child to understand what the parent wants them to know. But to
> > keep living with only those words, and not continue to try to learn a
> > deeper understanding and grow through more communication and exchange
> > of love.
>
> I feel uneasy to be loved by someone because that someone has been
> asked to love me. "Love" is essentially a "second" person construct.
> Again "telling stories" will go here beyond the ten thousand
> "treatises" . Love stories ok, love theories, why not. But normative
> love = end of love.
>
I agree, words are not enough. Here again, the primary communication
of love was not words e.g. a command to love, but the actually
expression by the action of incarnation and giving his life and death.
"Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends." ...and back to evil, Jesus' conquerring of death was the
solution to evil. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ."
>
> > And this can be done only on the
> > basis of the ultimate infinite Person.
>
> Again I agree. I would say the arithmetical hypostases describes such a
> person. In a precise theoretical frame where any one can verify the
> statements following from the axioms. Actually your "ultimate inifinite
> Person" is still very vague so that there are still many arithmetical
> candidates for the "ultimate infinite person" related to a simpler
> machine like Peano Arithmetic.
>
By "ultimate" I mean something that cannot be created, or generated by
upward emanation.
>
> > But on the other hand, I think that our post-Godelian ignorance results
> > in our being even more lost that before!
>
> I can perhaps imagine, at least at first sight.
>
> > The fact that now we CANNOT
> > know, if we are a machine, which machine we are, makes us even more
> > lost in a sea of meaninglessness than before.
>
> I am not sure, because we can bet. We can make act of faith. We can
> learn from our mistakes, we can change our minds and still keeping
> faith, faith corrected by reason and experiences can only grow. Only
> "bad or wrong faith" (generally based on wishful or fearful thinking)
> can fear to be "corrected".
> A bit like it is more easy for a parent to "punish" his child when the
> parent "truly" loves it.
But this hope is without an ultimate basis. Real hope has an ultimate
basis.
>
> > Our hope has become even
> > more hopeless, not that the reductionist hope was well-founded either.
>
> Why should our hope become more hopeless? On the contrary, knowing that
> we know less, we can expect more. With comp we can hope for more (and
> fear for more too, to be precise).
>
Knowledge is personal. Without an ultimate personal basis, we cannot
expect or hope for more, because we have nothing to begin with.
>
> > But you are
> > saying that we have not received ANY words from God.
>
> I have never said that. (Unless by God you mean this one, or this one,
> or this one, ...).
>
Without God putting words into a form which we can recognize as from
him (like the incarnation) where we can say "there he is", we have no
way of receiving ANY words from God, and knowing it.
> ...
> > there remains an *infinite* gap to
> > fulfill our aspirations, which will always remain unbridged.
>
> It depends on what you mean by "fulfill". Comp could be consistent with
> some complete fulfilment in some limit. It is hard to work out, and
> indeed it could be related with unpersonhood. (But the point is to take
> our theory seriously and see where we are led)
I agree.
> > By
> > working from nothing, one step at a time, we will never get there.
> > "Forever Unfulfilled", there can be no true fulfillment, only through
> > deceiving ourselves, which also leads to death...
>
> I am not sure your "pessimist" derivation is valid. One of the
> arithmetical comp hypostase (Bp & p) is both divine and personal.
> We could agree on everything except for the idea that "sacred text"
> should not be taken literally. And we could differ on that just for the
> contingent reason we have been educated differently.
> Note that I am not saying that Jesus is not the son of God, just that I
> have less evidence for that than for the *primitive* physical universe,
> in which I still don't believe either.
> I know I am demanding, concerning evidence and conviction.
Again, the "sacred text" by itself is not sufficient. The proof is in
God's actual act of love toward us. For us, love is expressed in
meeting our need, which was our being lost and dead, separated (by
evil, by definition) from truth, meaning and life.
Tom
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Received on Tue Dec 26 2006 - 13:55:08 PST