Author: MetaChristianity

Slavery In The Christian Metanarrative Is Defined As A Swath Of Privations Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A Pro Slavery Verse Much Less A Pro Slavery Any-Thing

Christianity and Slavery: Does It Mean Jesus Isn’t Good After All? https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2020/08/christianity-and-slavery-does-it-mean-jesus-isnt-good-after-all/

How Good Was Jesus if He Didn’t Eliminate Slavery? http://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/10/how-good-was-jesus-if-he-didnt.html

Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

Disappointing: Seidensticker’s Atheist Critique Not Even Semi-Serious After All https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2020/09/disappointing-seidenstickers-atheist-critique-not-even-semi-serious-after-all/

Biblical Argument Against Slavery, by Colin Green at both https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/biblical-argument-against-slavery-by-colin-green-post-copy.pdf and at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/07/gods-complaint-against-slavery-in.html

Jennifer Glancy And Slavery In The Pauline Churches – A Curious Case (…looking at Glancy’s Slavery In Early Christianity…) in PDF here at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/review-of-glancys-slavery-in-early-christianity-by-colin-green.pdf as well as at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-strange-case-of-jennifer-glancy-and.html

‘In the image of the Image’ Gregory of Nyssa’s Opposition to Slavery by Adan Couchman https://www.amazon.com/Image-Gregory-Nyssas-Opposition-Slavery-ebook/dp/B0CBNHC6FN/

The Whole Humanity Gregory Of Nyssa Critique Of Slavery In Light Of His Eschatology – by David Bentley Hart the-whole-humanity-gregory-of-nyssa-critique-of-slavery-in-light-of-his-eschatology-by-david-bentley-hart

Does The Bible Teach That Slaves Can Be Beaten And Mistreated? http://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/12/does-bible-teach-that-slaves-can-be.html

Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. on Being, Non-Being, & The Summum Bonum Of Life https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-4300257193

Christianity’s Anti-Slavery Narrative Isn’t Exactly “New” News ((…including Philemon…)) https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-5031811299

Paul’s Letter To Philemon: Manumission Or What? —by Colin A. Green via PDF at both http://jgrchj.net/volume18/JGRChJ-18_Green.pdf and also here at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/pauls-letter-to-philemon-manumission-or-what-by-colin-green-pdf.pdf

Segues Amid Racism In America & Social Justice https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-4993890642

First-Century Anti-Racism vis-à-vis The Book of Acts https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/force_is_required_to_override_belief_in_reality/#comment-3027550452

In The OT & NT Faith Outdistances Both Biology And Sin https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/force_is_required_to_override_belief_in_reality/#comment-3017575605

Faith Is The Offense That Outreaches Both The Outsider & The Infidel https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/do_christians_and_muslims_worship_the_same_god/#comment-3426344202

WVW: Does the Bible Support Slavery – Leviticus 25:44-46 https://www.bibledingers.com/post/wvw-does-the-bible-support-slavery-leviticus-25-44-46

Historian or Assyriologist who supposes Scripture condones slavery? See the PDF of Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

A Secular Jew Makes A Surprising Discovery About Christians And American Slavery https://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2019/04/17/secular-jew-makes-surprising-discovery-about-christians-and-american

Ten Reasons the Bible Has It Right on Slavery https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/08/ten-reasons-the-bible-has-it-right-on-slavery

On Christianity and Slavery: You Would Think… https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2013/02/on-christianity-and-slavery/

Metaphysics Of Race (9 Part) Series: https://www.parableman.com/blog/metaphysics-of-race-series

Slavery’s Only Absolute – Ceaseless – Antithesis: Trinity ((…a bit esoteric but writing has to be fun sometimes…)) https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/08/ten-reasons-the-bible-has-it-right-on-slavery/#comment-104642

The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery As A Swath Of Privation’s Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A “Pro-Slavery” Verse Much Less A “Pro-Slavery” Any-Thing https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/okay-so-laura-ingalls-wilder-was-a-racist-now-what/#comment-5031847118

See: BibleViolence Deficiency Of Being, Old Testament Violence, The Metaphysic of Privation, And Christ Crucified https://metachristianity.com/old-testament-violence-the-metaphysic-of-privation-and-christ-crucified/

Saying “Some Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” *vs* Saying “I Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” https://randalrauser.com/2019/11/blame-the-victim-conservative-christianity-and-a-culture-of-shaming-women/#comment-4706516949 *NOTE that this specific link is copy/pasted a few paragraphs down from here. It is from a discussion about a common pattern of some who are forever first asserting “The Bible Condones Slavery” and then when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “The Bible Says Such & Such” and when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “Well but SOME SAY it say….” And so on.

See: RACISM.BIBLE —Race, Racism, And Antiracism Resources

Scholastics Contra Racism by Edward Feser https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/09/scholastics-contra-racism.html

The Nelson Hackett Project https://nelsonhackettproject.uark.edu/

The Nelson Hackett Project/Documents https://nelsonhackettproject.uark.edu/the-documents/

The Religious Roots Of Abolition https://americainclass.org/the-religious-roots-of-abolition

American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists — Conscience of the Nation http://www.americanabolitionists.com

Atheist/Non-Theist Tim O’Neill comments: “Like most things in history, the abolition of slavery was a gradual process and involved many factors. But if I were to single out one religious tradition that was most influential, it would be Christianity.” There are related segues from him ((…in his informative blog/website…)) in the following: https://historyforatheists.com/2020/01/tom-holland-dominion

Preaching Deliverance to the Captives: Particular Baptist Sermons on the Abolition of the Slave Trade — by Matthew Roe at https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Deliverance-Captives-Particular-Abolition/dp/100893254X

The Bible Against Slavery: An Inquiry Into the Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human Rights —by Theodore Dwight Weld at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1440046336 and also at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1975745507

Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? — by Isaac Allen at https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Sanctioned-Bible-Isaac-Allen-ebook/dp/B0082RZQIY

A Condensed Anti-slavery Bible Argument — by George Bourne 1780-1845 — at https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/bourne/menu.html and also at a PDF at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/condensed-anti-slavery-bible-argument-by-george-bourne-1780-1845.pdf and also at https://www.amazon.com/condensed-anti-slavery-Bible-argument/dp/B002YT8P48

The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony Benezet, 1754-1783: An Annotated Critical Edition — by David L. Crosby at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/080715475X

To Preach Deliverance to the Captives: Freedom and Slavery in the Protestant Mind of George Bourne, 1780–1845 — at https://www.amazon.com/Preach-Deliverance-Captives-Protestant-Antislavery-ebook/dp/B07Z8FC326

“Is The Bible Pro Slavery?” from Gavin Ortlund Excerpts of his YouTube Video – at PDF at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/is-the-bible-pro-slavery-from-gavin-ortlund-excerpts-of-his-youtube-video.pdf

The Misreading of Slave Passages in the Bible – Part Two – by Ben Witherington ((…this is a multi-part series with more than two parts but Part 2 is placed here as a general reference…)) which is at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2023/08/01/the-misreading-of-slave-passages-in-the-bible-part-two/

Avoiding An Obvious Category Error — The following quote is from “Christianity and Slavery: Does It Mean Jesus Isn’t Good After All?” —by Tom Gilson at https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2020/08/christianity-and-slavery-does-it-mean-jesus-isnt-good-after-all/

“…We’d started out talking about whether Christ was good, and I let myself be sidetracked into talking about whether Christians are good…”

ALSO NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks there and in a few other places in the content here will go to STR’s ((https://www.str.org/)) old format an read as “error” but they are being left in as “place-holders” because the threads are still in disqus format and perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links for that specific comment ((…Saying “Some Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” *vs*…)) are from the following:

—Primer 1 of 3:

From “GM” is the following for the larger context on the topic of “Slavery” and one of the ways “Sub-Narrative” vs. “Meta-Narrative” can never be conflated in any coherent sense:

Quote:

“This is part of the problem of this whole conversation. One half is to accurately describe what was going on in the Old Testament…. and one is the moral vision of the Old Testament as a whole. It’s absolutely vital to understand that the Mosaic law was not God’s ideal, it was God working with a certain people group in a certain cultural context to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of bringing a certain kind of blessing to the world (a savior and kingdom of God). That the law was not God’s ideal is apparent in the narrative of the development of the law, God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….. ……the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative……. the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force “endorse” into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” End quote (by GM).

—Primer 2 of 3:

The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery As A Swath Of Privation’s Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A “Pro-Slavery” Verse Much Less A “Pro-Slavery” Any-Thing. “Sub-Narratives” never can “become” “Meta-Narrative”. The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

—Primer 2 of 3 Continued:

The following is described as “continued” because it is a topic that fits well withing the concept of the Whole of Scripture aka The Christian Metaphysic and how that is so often expunged from folks who conclude that scripture condones slavery. Part of that is why these early sections are still a “Primer” as they have to do with “critical thinking” if we mean to “map reality” and so then we come to the following PDF:

Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

Before moving into Primer 3 perhaps the following latticework vis-a-vis logical identity, semantic architecture, epistemological content, and metaphysically irreducible termini:

Scripture’s© Singular® Metanarrative© & Thematic® Lines© find no Malleability in the Epicenter as all definitions and meaning-makers must survive the traversal and demands of Being-Itself as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life. Ultimately our Meaning and Life and Wholeness in Existence converge in the Singular Terminus of Self-Giving ||| Reciprocity. Non-Theism’s terminus in Being as Irreducible Indifference and Terminal Non-Distinction contradicts all that we call *sight* even as our terminus in Trinitarian Being as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving affirms all that we call *sight*.

—Primer 3 of 3:

Divine Command Theory breaks down and collapses into a logical absurdity as we follow through with its premises and push through to their endpoints as we traverse 1/ Logical Impossibility and 2/ The Good and 3/ Reason’s Obligation and 4/ Reason’s final terminus and 5/ reality’s irreducible or concrete furniture vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life. Such preliminary premises are required to expose the error of some of our Non-Theist friends in their treatment of “Moral Excellence” outside of our own perfection of being. Ontology obviously beats rhetoric and we find therefore that anyone who equates ((1)) the pains of Privation vis-a-vis all things Adamic ((…slavery for example and etc…)) to ((2)) The Good // The Moral Ideal of Timeless and Eternal Kingdom Metrics ((…the perfection of being…)) is theologically and metaphysically and emotionally uninformed. Evil is not a positive substance but is instead a deficiency of substance ((Being, Good, Etc.)) — Evil is therein a Hollow or Vacuum of said substance — and that is Evil in the sense of “The Privation of The Good” — as “The Good Minus Something”. The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery as Privation’s Pain **therefore** The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have a “Pro-Slavery-Verse”. Our Non-Theist friends too often go about their criticism of the Christian Metaphysic by selectively expunging both reality as it actually is and also expunging the Christian’s metaphysical landscape of Privation. Perhaps the assumption is that doing so is going to help their premise/premises do (real/ontic) work but of course one cannot invent Non-Christian landscapes and then claim one is exposing problems with Christian premises. Regarding Divine Command Theory ((DCT)), first, recall the “NOTE” earlier about the various Links which go to “error” and then see related context on DCT in Divine Command Theory Collapses Into A Metaphysical Absurdity — at https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/

Irreducible Consequences of Primers 1 & 2 & 3

We are Social Beings for an ontic reason – as it is the case that our own being begins and ends within the contours of a full-on metaphysical Full-Stop as per the Necessary Being – that is to say within the contours of Being Itself. The term “Normal” and the term “Moral Excellence” cannot have a semantic intent which begins or ends outside of Reality as per Reality’s Concrete Furniture and in the Christian Metaphysic we find that we are to be the living Imago Dei created off of the Blueprint of Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life. The Christian Metaphysic is in the end a thoroughly Trinitarian metaphysic and, therein, we find that “Being” in fact “is” Being Itself in Timeless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Irreducible Diffusiveness of Being in totum. It is that Terminus at which we find The Always & The Already, that which is ceaselessly Beneath and Above – namely Timeless Reciprocity & Necessity as on Ontic Singularity – that is to say – Love & Necessity as an Ontic Singularity.

It is there that we find in the Christian metaphysic the intellectual and moral grounds for affirming the term, “Love Himself” vis-à-vis the A and the Z of the Trinitarian Life with respect to the Divine Decree of the Imago Dei and all that necessarily comes with “that”. That is to say, it is there that we find nothing less than the immutable love of the Necessary Being – and all that comes with “that”. That is to say, it is there in nothing less than Being that we find The Always and The Already constituting Being as Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Ontic Diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum, and all that necessarily comes with “that”.

It is THAT explanatory terminus which is reality’s rock-bottom, reality’s irreducible substratum – the A and the Z of every Possible Ontic, of every Possible Sentence – of all Possible Syllogisms.

The Shocking ‘Slave Bible’ ~ Parts Were Deleted to Manipulate Slaves:

F. Sanders commented on that: “I’ve spent some time with this terrible 1807 American “Slave Bible” in the last year or so. It’s a perverse document that sets itself a hard editorial task: If you hand the Bible to slaves, which parts do you need to omit in order to keep it “safe?”

Our Non-Theist friends may not see the relevance of that (sinful) move by Christians expunging Scripture’s *actual* Metanarrative. Leviticus is removed entirely, which reveals the comical sloppiness of the Non-Theist’s exegeses who seem unable to read more than a few verses at a time. More informed Christians who knew the Wider/Actual “Meta-Narrative” of Scripture see “Leviticus” and REMOVE it with the goal of HIDING parts of Scripture which encourage thoughts of Fairness, Liberation, Justice, Freedom, Covenant Value vis-à-vis God transcending Tribe/Biology, and so on, and so on.

It’s a simple fact: Sub-Narratives never can “become” Meta-Narrative. “But Leviticus! But Sinai!” is fine to work off of, but again that is a common manifestation of a failure of basic reading comprehension:

“When I said “arbitrary,” I was referring to the idea that the interpretation of the verses is some kind of arbitrary choice—as if both options were equally valid. They’re not, for the reasons I explained. And my point from the beginning has been that only a person who did not understand the Bible as a whole, including all the background information of the Law, could use the verses that way. No honest English reader could read the Bible as a whole and come up with their interpretation. The verse says what it says as part of a specific narrative, not as some kind of stand-alone fortune cookie. It’s not my apologetic. I didn’t make up the rules of reading comprehension.” (by Amy Hall)

Reading Comprehension and Catcher In The Rye:

Critics will often point to Mt. Sinai’s Law, describe something in it, and then this: Full-Stop. Well, given that method we can, in reply, suggest that they take any book like, say, The Catcher In The Rye. Let’s say in paperback it had 300 pages. So the Critic, to repeat the method by which he treats Sinai, would do the following — Take out pages 1-50 and then leave pages 51-99 and then also remove pages 100-300. Then base every definition and every sub-narrative solely on pages 51-99. That’s not Catcher In The Rye, but, instead, it is [Catch] “Full Stop”. Scripture or the bible is much larger and so they would want to rip out the 1st 300 pages of a book, read 10 pages, rip out the last 500 pages, & then weave for us a tale all about what the book says about such & such. And? Well on the basic rules of reading comprehension that is either uninformed or else dishonest.

The following is a quote of “A fuller extract from Gregory of Nyssa on the evils of slavery” by Roger Pearse at https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2019/01/24/a-fuller-extract-from-gregory-of-nyssa-on-the-evils-of-slavery/

Begin R. Pearse Quote:

A few years ago I found online an extract from Gregory of Nyssa against slavery which I wrote about here. Today I came across the full text of the translation, and the passage is rather longer than I had thought, and well worth giving in full.

The passage appears in the Homilies on Ecclesiastes, homily 4. Gregory is working his way through the text of Ecclesiastes, and the various ways in which Solomon attempted to fill his life with stuff, rather than with God. In Ecclesiastes 2:7 he starts listing his possessions, which include slaves.

Note that the biblical Greek text on which Gregory commented is sensibly translated at the head of the passage, as it is not always the same as our modern texts which are based on the Hebrew.

Ecclesiastes 2:7 –

I got me slaves and slave-girls, and homebred slaves were born for me, and much property in cattle and sheep became mine, above all who had been before me in Jerusalem….

334.5. We still find the occasion for confession controlling the argument. The one who gives an account of his doings relates one after another almost all the things through which the futility of the activities of this life is recognized. But now he reaches as it were a more serious indictment of things he has done, as a result of which one is accused of the feeling of Pride. For what is such a gross example of arrogance in the matters enumerated above – an opulent house. and an abundance of vines, and ripeness in vegetable-plots, and collecting waters in pools and chanelling them in gardens – as for a human being to think himself the master of his own kind? I got me slaves and slave-girls, he says, and homebred slaves were born for me.

Do you notice the enormity of the boast? This kind of language is raised up as a challenge to God. For we hear from prophecy that all things are the slaves of the power that transcends all (Ps 119/118,91). So, when someone [p335] turns the property of God into his own property and arrogates dominion to his own kind, so as to think himself the owner of men and women, what is he doing but overstepping his own nature through pride, regarding himself as something different from his subordinates?

335,5. I got me slaves and slave-girls. What do you mean? You condemn man to slavery, when his nature is free and possesses free will, and you legislate in competition with God, overturning his law for the human species. The one made on the specific terms that he should be the owner of the earth, and appointed to government by the Creator – him you bring under the yoke of slavery, as though defying and fighting against the divine decree.

335,11. You have forgotten the limits of your authority, and that your rule is confined to control over things without reason. For it says Let them rule over winged creatures and fishes and four-footed things and creeping things (Gen, 1,26). Why do you go beyond what is subject to you and raise yourself up against the very species which is free, counting your own kind on a level with four-footed things and even footless things? You have subjected all things to man, declares the word through the prophecy, and in the text it lists the things subject, cattle and oxen and sheep (Ps 8,7- 8). Surely [p336] human beings have not been produced from your cattle? Surely cows have not conceived human stock? Irrational beasts are the only slaves of mankind. But to you these things are of small account. Raising fodder for the cattle, and green plants for the slaves of men, it says (Ps 1041 103,14). But by dividing the human species in two with ‘slavery’ and ‘ownership’ you have caused it to be enslaved to itself, and to be the owner of itself.

336,6. I got me slaves and slave-girls. For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling the being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness (Gen 1,26). If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable (Rom 11,29). God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God’s?

336,20. How too shall the ruler of the whole earth and all earthly things be put up for sale? [p337] For the property of the person sold is bound to be sold with him, too. So how much do we think the whole earth is worth? And how much all the things on the earth (Gen 1,26)? If they are priceless, what price is the one above them worth, tell me? Though you were to say the whole world, even so you have not found the price he is worth (Mat 16,26; Mk 8,36). He who knew the nature of mankind rightly said that the whole world was not worth giving in exchange for a human soul. Whenever a human being is for sale, therefore, nothing less than the owner of the earth is led into the sale-room. Presumably, then, the property belonging to him is up for auction too. That means the earth, the islands, the sea, and all that is in them. What will the buyer pay, and what will the vendor accept, considering how much property is entailed in the deal?

337,13. But has the scrap of paper, and the written contract, and the counting out of obols deceived you into thinking yourself the master of the image of God? What folly! If the contract were lost, if the writing were eaten away by worms, if a drop of water should somehow seep in and obliterate it, what guarantee have you of their slavery? what have you to sustain your title as owner? I see no superiority over the subordinate [p338] accruing to you from the title other than the mere title. What does this power contribute to you as a person? not longevity, nor beauty, nor good health, nor superiority in virtue. Your origin is from the same ancestors, your life is of the same kind, sufferings of soul and body prevail alike over you who own him and over the one who is subject to your ownership – pains and pleasures, merriment and distress, sorrows and delights, rages and terrors, sickness and death. Is there any difference in these things between the slave and his owner? Do they not draw in the same air as they breathe? Do they not see the sun in the same way? Do they not alike sustain their being by consuming food? Is not the arrangement of their guts the same? Are not the two one dust after death? Is there not one judgment for them? a common Kingdom, and a common Gehenna?

338,14. If you are equal in all these ways, therefore, in what respect have you something extra, tell me, that you who are human think yourself the master of a human being, and say, I got me slaves and slave-girls, like herds of goats or pigs. For when he said, I got me slaves and slave-girls, he added that abundance in flocks of sheep and cattle came to him. For he says, and much property in cattle and sheep became mine, as though both cattle and slaves were subject to his authority to an equal degree.

The Greek text translated is that in the modern Gregorii Nysseni Opera (GNO) series, (volume 5), and page and line numbers are indicated.

The translation itself is by the excellent Stuart G. Hall, and Rachel Moriarty.^[1] The latter contributes a preface indicating that unfortunately the translation has been tampered with in order to make it “gender neutral”. The translation of the homilies is followed by a series of useful studies, and I could wish that others adopted such a format.

It’s obvious, in context, that Gregory is not preaching an abolitionist sermon, but an expository one. He’s not calling for the institution of slavery to be abolished. Indeed his hearers might not have been prepared for anything that radical. But Gregory is worrying away at the idea. The germ of the idea that led to abolition is present.

Useful to have this, and it is perhaps not as well-known as it might be.

—End R. Pearse Quote—

“The Bible Condones Slavery”

Not when we read WHOLE metanarratives. Even Slave Owners in the 18th/19th centuries knew they had to remove huge slices of the Old Testament in order to carve out and hide God’s Wider definitions of Good/Ideal (…see the earlier section headed with The Shocking ‘Slave Bible’ ~ Parts Were Deleted to Manipulate Slaves etc…).

Two more examples:

First:

Biblical Argument Against Slavery, by Colin Green at both https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/biblical-argument-against-slavery-by-colin-green-post-copy.pdf and at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/07/gods-complaint-against-slavery-in.html

Second:

The following is a Copy/Paste of https://randalrauser.com/2019/11/blame-the-victim-conservative-christianity-and-a-culture-of-shaming-women/#comment-4706516949 It is from a discussion about a common pattern of some who are forever first asserting “The Bible Condones Slavery” and then when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “The Bible Says Such & Such” and when pushed on details and consistency they pull back further to “Well but SOME SAY it says….” And so on. NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks there and in a few other places in the content here will go to STR’s ((https://www.str.org/)) old format an read as “error” but they are being left in as “place-holders” because the threads are still in disqus format and perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links for that specific comment are from the following:

The Copy/Pastes is fairly long so it will begin and end with Centered Headers to make its Start/Stop transitions distinct from its internal copy/paste/excerpts and so on:

—Begin Copy/Paste Of “Some-Say-Said vs. It Says” —

— SOME SAID vs. IT SAYS — You never tell us. That is why your comments at http://disq.us/p/25qc3ut and at http://disq.us/p/1f368wg are worth taking a look at a tenth-ish time — for despite going to seminary you still don’t seem able to progress past fairly basic intellectual concepts when it comes to WHAT your actual claim IS with respect to A through G as per the following:

*A. Racism
*B. Scripture
*C. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion on (a) vs. (b)
*D. Exegetical Error

*E. Your observation of “But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Condone Racism”
*F. Your possible/apparent claim that Scripture DOES in fact Condone Racism/Slavery/Etc.
*G. Your possible/apparent claim that you are NOT claiming “F” that but rather you are MERELY only trying to point out “E” ((…“But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Affirm Racism”…))

You never tell us if you mean “F” or if you mean “G”. Why not? Well — let’s be clear/precise:

For years now your pattern is the same as you come roaring in going on and on about how Scripture condones / likes / defines-as-good the stuff of Racism/Slavery/Etc. but then when pushed on the fact that Narrative / Meta-Narrative / Sub-Narrative actually matter you “sort-of” pull back from what WOULD sum to such a bold exegetical commitment on your part with things like “…I specifically made a point that they were verses that some other people understand mean that….and that’s all….”. That would work if it were not for what you then predictably do next and so another “but-then” cannot be avoided. So but then in the next breath you continue chastising Christians who affirm Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion as-if-they-are-getting-it-wrong and/or as-if-they-are-being-dishonest.

Well which of those many and varied and sloppy half-attempts of yours is it?

It’s been years and you still can’t stop that same Dancing-Hedge routine. So far in THIS thread you’ve not addressed [A] http://disq.us/p/25oj10q nor your earlier hints that Good Christians really ought to CONDONE folks waking into Gay Bars and mass-shooting Gays as per [B] http://disq.us/p/25ok6zs and as per its request for clarification on that point with “Feel free to correct any errors Etc.” in this thread’s http://disq.us/p/25phwro — and by the way you have not yet replied to the actual questions in that which is therefore our [C] http://disq.us/p/25phwro — nor have you replied to [D] http://disq.us/p/25qm045

You opine along the line of “…..but there are or have been different conclusions within Christendom….” and YET you’ve not replied to the content in [E] http://disq.us/p/25qm045 which asks specifically about that.

Instead you shout “Dishonest!” and, so, that brings us to the list under review – namely:

*A. Racism
*B. Scripture
*C. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion on (a) vs. (b)
*D. Exegetical Error

*E. Your observation of “But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Condone Racism”
*F. Your possible/apparent claim that Scripture DOES in fact Condone Racism/Slavery/Etc.
*G. Your possible/apparent claim that you are NOT claiming “F” that but rather you are MERELY only trying to point out “E” ((…“But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Affirm Racism”…))

Before we get to what must be the tenth time addressing your Favorite-Dishonest-Christian-Racism-Link in that thread of 257-ish comments, two simple questions:

[1] Who got it right with respect to Scripture and Racism? Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. *OR* the various misuses and abuses housed within the sins of various Christians and Non-Christians? NO ONE disagrees with the fact of those abuses and misuses, but you seem to think we are being dishonest when we FAIL to find PRO-Racism verses in Scripture’s ANTI-Racist metanarrative. But HOW is that dishonesty on our part even possible and WHY did you choose that term (dishonest) to describe that FAILURE on our part? Can we SAY what a verse SAYS for you with some examples you may like to list? Give any example you would like. Think it through. PRO-Racist verses CANNOT be found in an ANTI-Racist metanarrative…. and as such as per the link http://disq.us/p/1f368wg you provided within that thread’s 257 comments, don’t count on me to just dance to evasive questions and thereby indirectly help anyone dial-up any other implicit or explicit conclusion about what ANY “verse” in fact SAYS.

[2] Who got it right with respect to defining what God Tolerates vs Condones: Those who define terms in and by the premise of, “Sinai is God’s Ideal for Mankind” (…such as in your constant appeals to Moses/Law…), or, instead, others who define those same terms by the premise of, “Sinai is not God’s Ideal for Mankind”? Thousands of years of both (a) Messianic Jews and (b) Christians both converge “there” with respect to Sinai/Tolerate/Condone ((…as per the necessary Means/Ends related to the Perfection of Being / of the Adamic…as alluded to in earlier comments in this thread…)).

That was half-ish from-ish http://disq.us/p/1hzzaho btw for reference. Of course again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list.

Speaking of “general/basic” questions, the following excerpt asks a few more which have been long-standing with respect to your general pool of fallacious sound-bites:

Still beating the drums of Sinai Full Stop, eh? After all these years too. Why? Hair as Glory of Woman “vs” Woman as Glory of Man and all of that “as-if” Men are not allowed to wear real hats on their real heads? Why? I thought you went to seminary, yes? Didn’t they discuss basic metaphysics? Category errors? Contingent vs. Necessary?

Also — Did you ever imply that *Christians* ought *not* find a moral problem ((given Christianity)) with going into bars and mass shooting Gays?

If so then apparently nothing has changed wrt your exegetical elimitivism. Or was that someone else there at STR….? Feel free correct any error on that premise and/or person who floated it ((Etc.)).

Did you ever imply that “a verse” is enough to define Racism as The Good via your own exegetical argument beyond your usual [someone once said so]?

You went to seminary, yes? Surely then you must actually believe that one of several interpretations gets closer than the others to “X” — whatever you believe “X” on Christianity “is” vis-à-vis the Cruciform Lens ((…or vis-à-vis the body of Scripture and so on…)).

Or is this all merely still you continuing your yesteryear shouts about how / why Christians ought not mind mass-shooting / open-firing in Gay Bars? Or was that someone else & not you? Been awhile so perhaps the recall is imprecise. Feel free to correct any errors Etc.

While you’re at it perhaps you can explain why thousands of years of Messianic Jews & Christians converge with Scripture defining Sinai as lacking both the Means to Moral Excellence and also the Ends of Moral Excellence. Messianic Jews & Christians converge there – where did they all go off the proverbial rails?

Also — why do you float/suggest premises by which we are to literally believe that literal males cannot wear literal hats on their literal heads ((*on *Christianity))?

With respect to your trend of multiple years of avoiding giving us an answer as to whether you, as one who went to seminary, mean to land on “F” or else on “G” from the above list, we see that same dance of yours occurring both Before & After your favorite link/comment as that SAME question of “F” vs. “G” leads us into it and as that SAME question of “F” vs. “G” then follows it – each time left unanswered by you.

Recall the list of “A” through “G” as it will be referenced as we move forward:

*A. Racism
*B. Scripture
*C. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s exegetical conclusion on (a) vs. (b)
*D. Exegetical Error

*E. Your observation of “But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Condone Racism”
*F. Your possible/apparent claim that Scripture DOES in fact Condone Racism/Slavery/Etc.
*G. Your possible/apparent claim that you are NOT claiming “F” that but rather you are MERELY only trying to point out “E” ((…“But Some Christians Have Used A-Verse To Affirm Racism”…))

Quick Example before looking at your Favorite-Dishonest-Christian-Racism-Link:

From here at RR’s Blog:

Me: http://disq.us/p/239voui
You: http://disq.us/p/239wf7h
Me: http://disq.us/p/23ah6n6

Me Two Years Ago: http://disq.us/p/1qhhc5t
Me again asking you a question and reminding you not to invent excuses: http://disq.us/p/23fvuxb ((…ried twice http://disq.us/p/23f72l1 …))

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list.

Example:

Regarding Racism/Slavery vs. Pastor King’s Exegetical Conclusion vs. Your refusal to tell us if you mean “F” or “G” from the earlier list:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

Metanarrative is fundamental. Without Metanarrative you’ve / we’ve no rational “metrics”. Therein one cannot pretend that one’s wider metaphysic is superfluous. Where on lands with respect to Being & Reason & Mind & Contingency & The Perfection Of Being & Change/Becoming & A….Z ((…and so on…)) will necessarily stomp all over one’s semantic intent with respect to Perception & Knowledge & what counts as rational metrics and what counts as rational inquiry ((…and so on…)). YET you quote verses which you <say> condone Racism/Slavery ((…is it “F” or is it “G” from the earlier list??…)) and all while acting “As-If” the contingent abstractions of contingent minds of contingent beings are all one needs – Full Stop – and THEN you ask us to <say> what those verses <say>. And? What has our ((…the Christians in the following links / threads…)) reply always been? Well we grant you your wish and, so, we repeatedly *do* tell you want “that-verse” in fact “says”. We quote those SAME verses you demand that we “Be-Honest” about and then proceed to tell you how they DON’T affirm/condone Racism/Slavery ((Etc.)).

So? Where is the *dishonesty*? Do you WANT us to expunge the first 1000 words, the last 1000 words, and then “interpret” the remaining 54 words in the middle? Did you want us to <say> something <else> besides what we <said>? If so, why? How is it possible for there to be a Pro-Racist *verse* in an Anti-Racist *Metanarrative*?

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

Since context is everything, we find “therein” on that same topic that we have an actual history of a Before/After “Comment History” vis-à-vis your favorite link/comment as follows.

[RECALL / NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks will go to STR’s old format an read as “error” but they are being left in as place holders because the threads are still in disqus format perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links are from ((A)) https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/believing_biblical_doctrines_requires_humility_not_arrogance/ and ((B)) https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/if_naturalistic_evolution_is_true_people_are_not_equal/ and ((C)) https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/force_is_required_to_override_belief_in_reality/#comment-3027550452….]

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. So for reference the first of those is copied here for context:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

Here’s my comment to you from there, and it’s actually relevant to “interpretation” as being discussed in this thread (…. P. Kirkpatrick’s say vs. mean is again in play etc….). So perhaps this is helpful after all. Here’s the quote (of me to you) from the other thread:

Begin quote:

It is your claim that Scripture, the Bible, has no (rational) support for racism, and that’s fine, but, once again, you also “chastise” with this,

“Again, you can try to explain what it “really meant” or that it “no longer applies to us,” but to deny what it literally says is dishonest.”

This statement by you claims that “what it really meant” (as claimed by Amy and others here etc.) and “what it literally says” are at odds / do not agree. And it claims so much that you even call the failure to acknowledge the difference (not same) as dishonest.

So tell us, AG, why is Amy (and others here etc.) dishonest if she (we, etc.) is/are in fact saying what Scripture literally says?

We are saying that Scripture literally does not justify racism. Now, are we being dishonest by *not* acknowledging what Scripture actually says?

You also say “you can try to explain… BUT…..”, again forcing a wedge of disagreement / difference between the explanations of what Scripture literally says (per Amy and others etc.) as opposed to “what it literally says”.

Your own personal beliefs about racism are not part of this discussion. Rather, your claims about this supposed difference and this supposed dishonesty is what is in review. You’re the one making these claims.

If in fact we are being dishonest for failing to affirm this difference well then Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. in fact got it wrong with respect to his exegetical (scriptural) conclusions. If in fact this supposed difference is fallacious “at bottom“, well then it does not exist, and non-existence just is non-being.

End quote.

I could be mistaken but I don’t recall a response from you there.

That said, that discussion was another good example of this business of interpretation, and also of zooming in so close (“Holy Race”, etc.) that one fails to see the entire narrative.

Lastly notice the opening acknowledgement: “It is your claim that Scripture, the Bible, has no (rational) support for racism…”

That wasn’t the contention. The issue was your stark contradiction of that by all the rest. Hence the following:

Your own personal beliefs about racism are not part of this discussion. Rather, your claims about this supposed difference and this supposed dishonesty is what is in review. You’re the one making these claims.

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. Occasionally you get ((…at least for a few comments before hedging…)) quite specific and say that you do NOT disagree the accuracy of Pastor Martin Luther King’s exegetical conclusion. A basic item from that is the second link ((… http://disq.us/p/1f6ogz7 …)) from the list which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

You Say:
But to deny that it literally says “X” when I quote it saying “X” is dishonest.

My Reply:
But there are no verses that literally support racism.

We agree, correct?

If we agree then you have no point to stand by.

How can a pro-racist *verse* exist within an anti-racist *narrative*?

You can’t have it both ways. Unless you refuse to interpret. You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do* as we unpack the anti-racist narrative of Scripture. Where then is the *dishonesty*?

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. So the third item ((… http://disq.us/p/1f6zx1v …)) continues the theme and is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

I never once claimed that there are verses which *you* understand to support racism.

You accused Amy (and the rest of us in that thread) of being *dishonest* when we say that there are *no* verses which literally support racism. You stated that the reason we were all *dishonest* when we make that claim about what Scripture literally SAYS is because we were NOT saying what Scripture literally SAYS.

You stated,

“Again, you can try to explain what it “really meant” or that it “no longer applies to us,” but to deny what it literally says is dishonest.”

You seem to believe there are verses which literally SAY that God and/or God’s agenda is racist, and that, therefore, when Christians disagree with that then they are *dishonest*.

But there are no verses that literally SAY / support racism.

How can a pro-racist *verse* exist within an anti-racist *narrative*?

You can’t have it both ways.

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

More context then with the following:

Similar Problems In Your Analytic:

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. Instead you hint of accusing Christians with the crime of defamation/libel for seeking clarification/distinction of terms in the same context. So there is ((was)) http://disq.us/p/1f6hrd5 which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

On interpreting OT verses:

I asked you then and will ask you again here: Was Pastor MLK Jr. correct about Scripture affirming our equality and not supporting racism?

You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do*. So where is our *dishonesty*?

What did *you* mean when you said Christians (MLK?) are *dishonest* because on that issue (racism) Christians (MLK?) don’t say what Scripture REALLY SAYS? It seems you’ve got Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. pegged as *dishonest* or else misguided. Of course asking for clarification then didn’t lead to any forthcoming clarifications from you. Why?

Or, perhaps wording it differently:

Why do (did) *you* say (claim) that Christians are *dishonest* and why are Christians not saying what scripture REALLY SAYS when they affirm Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s conclusions? What is the interpretative disagreement you have with their (dishonest?) conclusions? You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do*. So where is our dishonesty?

You’ve been asked for clarification multiple times then and now here. You like to call quoting you in that context and looking for distinction / clarification in that context a (legal) criminal offense. Interesting.

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

More context then with the following:

Similar Problems In Your Analytic:

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. You take a verse, expunge Narrative & Metanarrative, insist that is what it “literally” means, and then “Stop” there at “F”. But do you stop there? When challenged you Flip-Flop and pull-back to “G” ((…again “F” and “G” from the earlier list…)). Therein there is http://disq.us/p/1f67yqk which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

You Said:
Again, you can try to explain what it “really meant” or that it “no longer applies to us,” but to deny what it literally says is dishonest.

My Reply:
Why would I help you promote your claim that Pastor Martin Luther King Jr.’s intellectual assent to Scripture’s affirmation of equality was misguided? Your claim that what Scripture “REALLY SAYS” affirms God’s racist agenda was there (as here) void of interpretation. It’s demonstrable. Thank you for the reminder of yet another example of your flawed methodology in this arena. Or, do you disagree with those who have interpreted differently than MLK? Your use of “REALLY SAYS” didn’t seem to leave that option open.

Panning the lens out is the ticket. You ask us to <say> what those verses <say> and we repeatedly *do*. So where is our *dishonesty*?

**End Excerpt/Copy-Paste.

More context then with the following:

Similar Problems In Your Analytic:

Again you never flat out tell us as one who has graduated seminary whether or not you mean to stop at “F” or else “G” from the earlier list. Recall that when Scripture describes an ax head floating on water or Peter walking on water, you opine that such is absurd. But when it’s pointed out to you that we as causal agents suspend things on top of water all the time, you again opine that we cannot invoke God as Causal Agent when reading Scripture. But of course the writer’s intention/meaning DID “MEAN” / “Believe” in the God Who Is Above Nature and so all the semantic intent of Being Itself comes into play. Your response? You expunge Narrative / Metanarrative / Author’s intent / and the Genre/Goal of the Communique under review given that SAME “Being Itself” and so on. So a bit of that is alluded to in http://disq.us/p/1hz2nf3 which is copied here:

**Begin Excerpt/Copy-Paste:

Misdiagnosing Reality: That you believe it is impossible to keep objects on top of water (…causal continuum, being, intentionally manipulating nature’s fundamental particles…) is peculiar.

That and similar kinds of evidence-free beliefs of yours — and your emotional commitment to your a priori of No-God — all force you to so misread reality and all lead you into misguided modes of interpreting not only our experienced reality through time as human beings but of course also the unavoidable variations of descriptions of that experienced reality occurring across and beneath differing conceptual ceilings through time. All of that cumulatively stifles your analytical range.

Whereas, the Christian is forever open to new data points as they come streaming in. Temporal beginning? No problem. No temporal beginning? No problem. Molecules to Body? No problem. Immaterial else absurdity? No problem. Brutally repeatable moral experience? No problem. The irreducible self? No problem. Logic’s lucidity over forced absurdity? No problem. Intelligibility/reality? No problem.

Such intellectual liberty to follow all modes of all evidence wherever said evidence may lead is refreshing.

Fortunately technology has greatly increased our ability to rapidly cross-reference [1] large numbers of scientific observations and [2] large numbers of documents and texts which cumulatively span thousands of years. Such technologies have helped us to more accurately map necessary and unavoidable topographic features of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis both Cosmos and Conscious Observer.

Of course, your entire range begins and ends with something far less robust.

—End Copy/Paste Of “Some-Say-Said vs. It Says” —

Recall from the beginning of this post/essay the following four items:

—Primer 1 of 3:
—Primer 2 of 3:
—Primer 3 of 3:
—Irreducible Consequences of Primers 1 & 2 & 3

The following continues within that same content:

Meaning Makers:

Making “a verse” or making “a chapter” the source of all Meaning Makers in one’s argument only after ripping out the 400 pages which come before it and the 400 pages which come after it displays a lack of understanding surrounding the rules of basic reading comprehension and subnarrative and metanarrative and far more. All of Privation is Evil and that is a part of the “Why” behind parts of Scripture defining Sinai as housing elements God Hates just as it is a part of the “Why” behind parts of Scripture defining Sinai as the Ministry of Death just as it is a part of the “Why” both the Old Testament and the New Testament speak of Sinai as that which pales in comparison to the Far-Better yet to come ((in Christ)). When we fail to read WHOLE “Metanarratives” we are simply not rising above intellectually sloppy reading.

Meaning Maker:

It really is basic reading comprehension and basic logic: All Metanarratives — and [Reality] just is a Metanarrative — arrive in and by this or that Metaphysical Wellspring of all ontological possibility and that Singularity forces One Terminus and hence One Meaning Maker which all definitions must necessarily stream-from and pass-through and – upon interpretation (Etc.) – either survive or fail-to-survive.

Meaning Maker: See The Christ Key: Unlocking the Centrality of Christ in the Old Testament by Chad Bird.

Meaning Maker: Christ = Epicenter In all the heat and noise the [Epicenter] provides Man with two unbreakable pillars:

[1] What God is like — the Trinitarian Life — three distinctions — the Triune God — wherein we find Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving.

[2] What it is that keeps Man in relation with God and/or gets Man back into relation with God — namely Pour||Drink vis-à-vis God Himself as All Sufficiency Himself in His Own Self-Outpouring. The Epicenter holds through all of Man’s possible worlds — both with & without “Man in Privation”.

Once again: Slavery In The Christian Metanarrative Is Defined As A Swath Of Privations Many Pains. Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A Pro-Slavery Verse Much Less A Pro-Slavery Any-Thing.

Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf

Metanarrative, Subnarrative, Endorse, and Definitions Once Again:

The two excerpts below are from Hurtado and their general context is scripture defining slavery as evil and assigning slaves the status of Christ’s Body and so then of Brother, of Family, of Full Partaker in the Kingdom. Before the two excerpts it is worth noticing an insightful reply by someone who was discussing these quotes on why that content of Scripture and its narrative is expected:

“Considering that slavery was social de-personing and that crucifixion was the ultimate means of depersonalization, that makes sense.”

Here are the two excerpts:

“….also noteworthy is the extended exhortation and encouragement to Christian slaves in 1 Peter 2:18-25, where the author likens any unjust sufferings that they may bear, likely as Christian slaves of pagan masters, to the sufferings of Christ (vv. 21-25). This linkage of the suffering of slaves with Christ effectively ennobles the situation of slaves, at least at the level of the discourse, a striking step in a world in which slaves typically counted for little as to dignity. Of course, this did not amount to the abolition of slavery or even securing the freedom of slaves, at least at that point. But this sort of compassionate rhetoric addressed to slaves was unusual, if not unique, in the Roman world….”

—&—

“….although it may seem to comfortable moderns that the early Christian texts are morally deficient in failing to summon slaves to rise up in revolt and in failing to demand that Christian masters immediately free all their slaves, neither was actually a realistic option at the time. But the point to underscore is that, despite the various limits on the scope of their actions imposed by their social situation, Christian wives, slaves, and children were addressed as moral agents in early Christian texts and, perhaps just as importantly, as fellow members of the body of believers in which these various exhortations were delivered. We should not discount too hastily what this, even this modest conferral of dignity, could have meant in that ancient setting to those who were otherwise unable to change their situation….”

—both excerpts are from: Hurtado, Larry W.. Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World . Baylor University Press.

Continuing With Metanarrative, Subnarrative, Endorse, and Definitions Once Again:

Given the topic of Genesis 3 → John 3, the concept of 1. “narrative” and of 2. “sub-narrative” and of 3. “meta-narrative” is from time to time, quite selectively, even intentionally (…it seems…) lost on our Non-Theist friends. Treating Sinai as “The-Good” and thereby expunging Scripture’s own metrics – and thereby creating a straw-man.

Genesis 3:15-17 just is John 3:15-17 in the literal Descriptive-Prescriptive of the Christian Metaphysic. It’s not complicated → Teens in youth groups can see the obvious here:

The amalgamation of Genesis 3:15-17 and John 3:15-17 house all currencies as Man’s Privation actualizes (…whether within Time and Physicality or by any other mode…). We find BOTH Genesis’ promise of that terrible topography of the “Dark Outside” rapidly ensuing AND Genesis’ promise of the topography of our emancipation within and by amalgamation as John 3:15-17’s fulfillment of Genesis 3:15-17 actualizes. Therefore we find that Scripture’s [A to Z] forces us to define (…the descriptive, the prescriptive…) all the business of Slavery, of Domination, and of all such Moral Landscapes as the “Dark Outside” – or on definition all such “Hellish” topographies – that such contexts and subtexts actually referent landscapes which are far less than God’s Eternal Ideal for “The Adamic”.

Brief divergence:

While it’s off topic here it is helpful to note that “The Edenic” landscape in Genesis 3 houses two “Doors” within Eden and they both face outward. One faces outward into “Eternal Life” and one faces outward into “Privation” ((our current reality)). The radical “ontic change” from Eden to Eternal Life is nothing less than Categorical and that is why “Outward Facing Door” is the right syntax. Whatever “Eden” was it was neither Privation as we know it here in the Privation of Good nor was it Eternal Life vis-à-vis the Perfection of Being. That’s off topic but regarding all definitions and Good and Evil and Innocence and Culpability and all the rest we must take Genesis 3 and the entire height and breadth and width of the Christian Metaphysic on its own terms.

End brief divergence.

Our Non-Theist friends will forever cherry pick it seems – “a” verse or chapter here or there – full stop – as if that is how “Reality” “Works”. Too often that is a road block that will not permit such discussions to take place based on all of Scripture.

Even Worse:

As our Non-Theist friends preach of love and write of love and theorize of love they merely attest to their assent that, in fact, in spite of their Atheism, they really do believe otherwise, for they forever push all ontological regressions – they try to – into what their own paradigm denies them, namely that they can and do have Semantic Intent that has a Rational Terminus – which provides Metaphysical Closure – and not a kind of “Eternally Open-Ended Non-Distinction” – but in fact a Metaphysical Terminus of – oh – say – something akin to the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis Irreducible Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving amid Self/Other. Notice that while the Trinitarian Life DOES provide them their hope for such an ontology they freely and knowingly choose something other than that lucidity vis-à-vis Reason and her Explanatory Terminus – notice that they instead choose a bobble termed reductio ad absurdum and YET it is all in the (now unavoidably) irrational attempt to reach the same End Point. https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity/

Genesis 3:16 is proof that God’s own stated end-points in scripture’s [A to Z] describes enmity between Male/Female as the Dark Outside. John 3:16 restores such. It is nothing less than a Downhill Ontic from the Edenic to all things Sinai which is why Leviticus gives to us a lens wherein we find all the same endpoints when it comes to Sons and Slaves and everything in between.

The Language and Definitions Pre-Fall is very different from the Language and Definitions after our fall into Privation (…some say into the isolated Self….out of “Other” as in out of “God”…). Also, the Language and Definitions and syntax Post-Resurrection, where Man is again offered the Way into “Other”, are all once again that which is found Pre-Fall – no difference in male, female, Jew, Gentile, slave, free, and so on…all are His Beloved… and so on…and so on.

This business of slavery and male/female and all of that is an “issue” only because our Non-Theist friends do not take God at His Own Word in scripture’s own self-described End-Points, or [A to Z]. It’s easy to fuss against Straw-men of course – nonetheless the “A” and the “Z” of all definitions stream from nothing less than the Trinitarian Life – Who is the Beginning and End of all things – of all definitions – vis-à-vis timeless reciprocity vis-à-vis that same “A” to “Z”.

Repeating Layers: We run into “Behold, I make all things new” and before John 3:16 we find inequality, bloodshed, dark, and, in the reverse direction, before Genesis 3:16 we find equality, life, light. And again: after Genesis 3:16 but before John 3:16 we find God’s Own, “….I have no desire of this. Prepare for me a Body…”.

God ENDORSES?

All of this brings us again and again and again into the incoherence of the Critic’s “Scripture Endorses”. It is by 1000 different avenues that Scripture’s vectors define all things Outside of Eden as the Pains of Privation and all things Sinai as Less-Than that Far-Better yet to come regarding both the Means and Ends of Moral Excellence, and so on, and so on. Jesus “justified” Divorce in Codified Law even as He (God|Jesus) also Hated it and notice a few things about what God Hates regarding Less Than Moral Excellence and The-Ideal and The Far-Better Yet-To-Come:

[Regulating Hated X’s] Does Not Equal [Endorsing X’s]

The Non-Theist or Critic who insists God Endorses Slavery has given himself away because SINAI really IS “The” metric of Endorse in his assessment. The amount of hiding-of-one’s eyes, so to speak, one has to do in order to make that work is unfortunate. That is to say that one has expunged far too much, especially the OT, such as Genesis in which [A] the Far Better than Sinai in fact precedes Sinai and [B] the OT Prophets in which something Far Better than Sinai is going to leave Sinai behind, and far, far more. Sinai-As-The-Metric is a fool’s errand which has jettisoned half of the OT to get to half-of-a-narrative to do half-of-the-work.

The OT itself and the NT with it define both the reality of [C] “God-Hating-X“ and simultaneously the reality of [D] “God-Regulating-Different-Forms-Of-X“ (via Law/Sinai). Why? Those are just four places where the fallacy of “Endorses Slavery” expunges huge swaths of what is right there in black in white. It would be better for the “Endorses Slavery” advocate to interact with reality as it actually is, rather than with some sort of something that he wishes it to be, but isn’t. Dialectical wishful thinking:

“…the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative…… the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force *endorse* into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re expressly told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” (by GM)

But that’s obvious because freely choosing to avoid interacting with Scripture’s Metrics until one has first expunged half of Scripture just is a product of wishful thinking. The Endorses-Slavery Advocate often suggests,

“Either God is still wrong today, or His position has evolved…”

Given that the Far Better first precedes all things Sinai according to the OT, and given that the Far Better also outdistances, outperforms, and leaves behind all things Sinai according to the OT, they are referring to their own invention of some sort of Non-Old-Testament Map. As for the NT, well, it’s all the same.

So what about all things Sinai? So far what we find the Non-Theist doing with Sinai ((other than autohypnotic dialectical wishful thinking)) is something like the following:

God is evil on my terms — because Sinai.
God is evil on God’s own terms — because Sinai.

Both fail for the obvious reasons discussed so far and also discussed in “Divine Command Theory Reduces To A Metaphysical Absurdity” at https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/

What we are doing is using a “lens” for “Good” and the Non-Theist is using “Sinai” and “The Bible” as if either of THOSE is “the metric” in the Christian Metaphysic. But NEITHER of those is the Metric Of or Standard Of or Source Of The Good. Saying The Good is based on (…it’s ontics and so on…) the Bible is like saying Physics “comes from” (…the Ontic and so on…) the physics book over there on the shelf. But “Good” is *not* based on the Bible. Not according to Scripture at least. Just as “Physics” does not “come from” that Physics Book over on the shelf. There is something FAR WIDER/THICKER. Notice the KEY problem for the Critic of Scripture using this fallacy: It is a giant strawman to claim that within Christendom The Good in fact “comes from” something Created and/or World-Contingent ((Sinai / The Bible)) given that “it” (The Good) just is *GOD* (in Christendom).

Remember that this applies to all things Sinai given that Moral Excellence is defined (in Scripture) as that which precedes, outdistances, out-performs, and leaves behind, all things Sinai. While it is understandable that discomfort compels the Non-Theist to avoid reality as it actually is and thereby invent and then argue against various Non-Christian, Non-Old-Testament, and Non-Paradigmatic Start/Stop points or premises, it would be better for our Non-Theist friends to interact with the real world as it actually is. https://randalrauser.com/2018/04/the-complementarian-dilemma/#comment-3858775297

A Critic once changed from Slavery to the Hebrews and Capital Punishment for the disobedient child. It is apparent that he elected not to read, or include, the context of Hebrews there. Why? Well, first, he needs to read up on the fact that, since every child disobeys, the Jew clearly did not read it as he did and had they done so they would have gone out of existence as a people since all children disobey. So it’s obviously something quite different and while that IS a BIG problem there is STILL the problem that he is appealing to Sinai as Scripture’s Metric. AGAIN. “Leapfrogging between Commands” so to speak never gets outside of those cul-de-sacs.

Metanarrative As Sinai Can’t Restore Life — It Only Restrain Death

Muddied waters with respect to ON THE ONE HAND: what Scripture means by Restraining/Containing Death ((…Law/Sinai/Etc…..)) and then on THE OTHER HAND Birthing/Giving Life ((….God’s Own Self-Outpouring or All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring because nothing less can solve the nature of the “Problem” of “Privation” which just is a “Deficiency of Being” and, so, nothing less than “Being Himself/Itself” Pouring Himself Out/Into that Vacuum/Hollow will or can provide any full on metaphysical closure….)).

The fruit of that confusion in so many of our Non-Theist friends manifests with the following sort of errors:

When knowledge [widens] it is evidence of No-God.
When knowledge [fails to widen] it is evidence of No-God.
When knowledge [narrows/falls] it is evidence of No-God.
When knowledge is [static / stagnating] for long periods, well, that too is evidence of No-God.

Knowledge as the means…..

“….[back then]…. such things were done in-line with those groups’ understanding of their directives from god at the time. To reinterpret now does nothing to change the source of their “legitimacy” then…”

The problem with the critic’s syllogism of legitimacy is along the lines of:

Legitimacy: Is Sinai God’s Ideal for Mankind according to Scripture? The Messianic Jews tell us that the Jews “then” “knew” of the “Far Better” “yet to come” and so on “too”. Follow closely: IF the answer is, “Well NO Sinai is NOT God’s Ideal” THEN Moral Excellence is defined (and found) by a different metric and the premise which defines changes in knowledge and/or changes in sight-lines as a redefining of Moral Excellence is both uninformed and uninformed. The legitimacy of definitions is entirely dependent on the moral narrative of Scripture. The Christian metaphysic presents us with Scripture’s actual metanarrative which is instead in the form of the following:

[1] Widening and changing trajectories with respect to Man’s knowledge of God and Life affirm Scripture’s topography (…from the get-go…).

[2] Real-time peaks and nadirs within the knowledge of good and evil, of God and Life, is therein part of that topography (…from the get-go…).

[3] Sinai never was God’s Ideal for Mankind (…from… the… get.. go…).

Basic Rules Of Reading Comprehension Once More:

A more fruitful method is to read whole books, from the A to the Z and recall that, when it comes to the proverbial [“a” verse] strawman, all such content is in fact a slice of a much larger, wider, narrative and hence the terms of Metanarrative and of sub-narrative arrive. All sub-narratives are from the get-go unable to outreach or out-define the definitions of the far wider Metanarrative. Without the right *metanarrative* the verse which such fallacies are quoting actually cannot “say” anything at all.

Scripture’s [~Pro-ABC Metanarrative~] cannot – by simple force of logic with respect to round squares – contain any [~Anti-ABC content~]. Think “sub-narratives” and “metanarrative”.

One more time:

That is NOT a Christian apologetic but is, simply, the affairs of basic reading comprehension. An example of such in one particular context, which holds – by simple force of logic with respect to round squares – through all contexts:

“And my point from the beginning has been that only a person who did not understand the Bible as a whole, including all the background information of the Law, could use the verses that way. No honest English reader could read the Bible as a whole and come up with their interpretation. The verse says what it says as part of a specific narrative, not as some kind of stand-alone fortune cookie. It’s not my apologetic. I didn’t make up the rules of reading comprehension.” (by A.H.)

Brief Snapshots From The 1800’s Pro-Slavery & Abolition Discussions

The following is borrowed from Bradly Mason https://alsoacarpenter.com/ It is an outline with 1800’s enslavers’ claims ((each titled “Claim”)) followed by 1800’s Abolitionists’ answers/replies ((each is “lettered”)) in the following:

Begin Excerpt:

Claim: “Abraham owned slaves”

We do not know the exact character of this “slavery.”
The actions of the saints recorded are not prima facie normative.
God often allowed for actions and institutions which were contrary to His own moral Law and natural law, though He regulated them with the end to (1) diminish their abuses, then (2) eliminate the practices altogether (see marriage/divorce in OT vs. Jesus in NT; “because of the hardness of their hearts, Moses allowed it…”).

Claim: “Israel was allowed to own slaves and the Law of Moses sanctioned it.”

All indenture among Hebrews was to be temporary, primarily for the sake of paying debts, injury was prohibited, breaking up families prohibited, diminishing resources prohibited, the poor of all classes were to be relieved, etc.
Permanent slavery was solely to be in lieu of war and as the only alternative to death. Only the nations of Canaan were under the “ban” and therefore to be conquered. War, beyond this redemptive historic commission, was ONLY to be defensive. (Many examples given.)
Thus, “slaves” were temporary indentures among Israel, permanent only among those “under the ban” in one-time commissioned warfare, or those spared their life when unjustly attacking Israel.
Further, as Israel kept the Law and trusted in the promises of God, each of these categories would become increasingly unnecessary, ultimately eliminating the institution altogether.
Israel began to enslave even their own brethren, through fraud and violation of God’s commandments, in part leading to Israel’s punishment and exile to be “slaves” yet again for a time in a foreign land.
In short, Israel was once enslaved, slavery is bad, redemption would eliminate both war and slavery.

Claim: “Neither Christ nor the Apostles condemned slavery”

The coming of Christ, His death, resurrection, and ascension obliterated the wall of separation, thereby forever abolishing the distinction between Israel and the Nations. Hence the only allowable permanent slavery in the Old Covenant is forever abolished. As redeemer, He ended slavery, as was the intent from the beginning.
The Apostle Paul did not desire for a small group of people, within a vast empire that sanctioned slavery, to attempt to subvert the social order by force, but rather to destroy the institution through gospel and ideology.
Thus, he declared no difference between Master and Slave before God, all are one in Christ, that Masters were slaves to Christ, and Slaves freeman in Christ; he encouraged Philemon to release Onesimus and called out his hypocrisy; he told Christians to get their freedom if they could; he said that no one owned by Christ should be owned by men; etc. All of which did in fact destroy the institution among Christians.

Claim: “Modern enslavers are no different than Abraham, etc.”

The new African Slavery little resembles OT slavery or even Roman slavery.
Slavery is not natural to any “race” or people group; all are equal by birth.
Manstealing warrants death.
Those who buy, sell, or harbor stolen human property are guilty of manstealing.
The current institution violates nearly EVERY SINGLE commandment and is a “National Sin” which will lead to God’s hot judgment.
The Scripture, the arc of redemptive history, the laws of nature, the Gospel, and the command to “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” condemn the institution and all Christian men everywhere ought to oppose it.
Some, not all: Those suffering under the institution can by right rebel and revolt, since, being contrary to both God and Nature, Masters and Governors have no right to enforce. (“To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world,” *wink, wink*)
The West is destroying Africa, turning peoples against each other, filling them with alcohol, corrupting them with greed, and pilfering and exploiting both their resources and people, all due to unrestrained, unchristian, avarice.

End Excerpt. ((Brad comments, “Yes, it’s a rough summary. But maybe it’s time to get familiar with 200 year old arguments for why we know it’s wrong to own people?”))

Recall from earlier the historical content linked through “The Abolition Project” at http://abolition.e2bn.org/index.php

The following is also borrowed from Bradly Mason:

Begin Excerpt:

A taste of how Christian Abolitionists dealt with enslavers’ appeals to the Apostle Paul, from, “An Essay on Slavery Proving from Scripture its Inconsistency with Humanity and Religion” by Granville Sharp

“If I have vindicated the law of Moses, much easier can I vindicate the benevolent apostle Paul, from Mr. Thompson’s insinuations, with respect to slavery; for he did not entreat Philemon to take back his servant Onesimus, in his former capacity, as Mr. Thompson has asserted, in order to render bondage consistent with the principles of revealed religion,—but St. Paul said expressly, ‘not now as a servant, but, above a servant, a brother beloved, &c.’ So that Mr. Thompson has notoriously wrested St. Paul’s words. IN the other texts where St. Paul recommends submission to Servants, for conscience-sake, he at the same time enjoins the master to entertain such a measure of brotherly love towards his servants, as must be entirely subversive of the African trade, and West-Indian slavery. And though St. Paul, recommends Christian patience under servitude, yet, at the same time, he plainly insinuates, that it is inconsistent with Christianity, and the dignity of Christ’s kingdom, that a Christian brother should be a Slave. ‘Can’st thou be made free? (says he to the Christian servants) choose it rather, for he that is called of the Lord, being a servant, is the freeman of the Lord; and, in like manner, he that is called, being free, is the servant of Christ, —Ye are bought with a price; BE NOT THEREFORE THE SERVANTS OF MEN.’

The apostle, indeed, had just before recommended to his disciples to abide in the same calling, wherein they were called, and, ‘being servants, not to care for it:’ That is, not to grieve on account of their temporal state; (for if, instead of thus enjoining submission, he had absolutely declared the iniquity of SLAVERY, tho’ established and authorized by the laws of temporal governments, he would have occasioned more tumult than reformation among the multitude of SLAVES, more striving for temporal than spiritual happiness); yet it plainly appears, by the insinuations, which immediately follow, that he thought it derogatory to the honor of Christianity, that men, who are bought, with the inestimable price of Christ’s blood, should be esteemed servants; that is, the Slaves, and private property of other men; and had Christianity been established by temporal authority, in those countries where Paul preached, as it is at present in these kingdoms, we need not doubt but that he would have urged, nay, compelled the masters, as he did Philemon, by the most pressing arguments, to treat their quondam slaves, NOT NOW AS SERVANTS, BUT ABOVE SERVANTS—AS BRETHREN BELOVED.”

(Granville Sharp as well as others did in fact effectively deal with the Old Testament quite well, as he indicates at the beginning, without denying the inspiration and authority of the Scripture.)

End Excerpt/Quote.

The following is borrowed from Bradly Mason https://alsoacarpenter.com/

Quote/Excerpt:

“…Thomas Aquinas’ answer to, “Is Christ the Head of all mankind?”, Summa III, q. 8, a. 3, is also very important to developing a proper social doctrine. His answer is, of course, yes, Christ is the Head of ALL humanity, not just some. He presumes, to begin with, that Christ is incarnate for ALL mankind, which is unquestionably true according to the ecumenical Creed’s and council’s of the Church. Assuming this premise, Thomas can rightly argue to Christ’s headship of all mankind. In sum, by bearing the substance of man, the human nature, Christ was made like all men—whether predestined to glory or not—in every respect, save sin. As such, all men in this life are potentially His brethren, being of like nature with Him. Just as we all have shared the like nature of the first Adam, so Christ has become the “Second Adam” and the “Last Adam” by assuming the same nature into His own person. As all men share in the self-same human nature that Christ even now bears, so all men are capable of union with Him and thus are all potentially so, should they only receive and believe His gospel. While only those predestined will ultimately be united to Christ by faith and love unto glory (reducing the natural potentiality to mystical actuality), the fact that Christ has borne the flesh of all mankind unites the whole of humanity around the new and perfect man, the Head of all creation, our Lord Jesus Christ. So, what does this have to do with social doctrine? It means that all mankind, whether in Christ mystically or not, are united with Christ and under His headship according to their very humanity—that is, according to the human nature that all men share with Jesus. As such, ALL HUMANS also share equally in the dignity of His human nature, fully displayed in His Incarnation, death, and resurrection. The Gospel does not destroy the unified image of God in man. Rather, the Gospel brings this image to its ultimate end, viz., our Lord Jesus Christ. And even as our incarnate God now bears the human nature itself, so He bears the nature of the Jew, the Greek, the African, the European, and any other category of Adam’s offspring we care to construct, WHETHER IN OR OUT OF THE CHURCH. As Christians, we must therefore share the same ethic of our Savior toward all men, whether Christian or not. He who “loved the world” and therefore “gave His only begotten Son” to bear the nature of every tribe, nation, and tongue in turn explicitly requires the same self-sacrificial love of us: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-48). To be sure, if we limit the scope of Christ’s person and work to the Church and the already redeemed, we are likely to limit the scope of His common grace to all mankind. As He has borne the flesh of all, He has thereby dignified the nature of all, making every member of the human race not only a fit object of His redemption, but also a fit object of every Christian’s reconciliatory affections and energies…”

End Quote/Excerpt.

A Brief Look Into Genocide? Canaanites? And A Bit More:

A few paragraphs down from here this is looked at more but it is worth inserting here a brief look at the obvious:

Total Destruction: There is the obvious case of God using the same language of Total Destruction with Israel first as a condition should they fall into sins (etc.) and then as the fulfillment of that promise.

Israel is, like the “Cancer” too, totally destroyed.

In-Genocide-Like-Fashion-Utterly-Destroyed-By-God and so on. In fact THAT did happen and THAT Promise WAS kept in that God DID “utterly destroy” Israel and such was vis-à-vis that proverbial Exile. Israel is absorbed into other nations, alive and well, overcome, conquered, retaining their identity in many senses, losing it in many senses. Neither the facts of history, nor the actual metanarrative, nor ancient biblical and extra-biblical “linguistics” support any sort of “Full-Stop” appeal to “Genocide” (which is what God would have done to Israel).

For added context the following is an excerpt from God Sending Lying And Evil Spirits? Abraham And Isaac? Cyrus And Isaiah 45:7? The Greater Good Fallacy? — at https://metachristianity.com/god-sending-lying-spirits-god-n-sending-evil-spirits-n-abraham-n-isaac/ and the specific part is at the bolded/labeled “Part 9 Genocide? Amalekites? Canaanites? Marry One’s Rapist? Etc.?

Begin Part 9 Excerpt:

We’ll start with a brief look at some excerpts from the following three which cover a wider range of topics but have several segues here:

Begin Excerpt:

Even in the little section on the Amalekites, the description of the situation doesn’t even come close to what we consider ‘genocide’ today. Most (but not all) things considered genocide today involve groups internal to the country in question, and they were either killed outright by their own government (sometimes slowly through torture and abuse) or deported to a place of sure-to-kill-them environment. Academic definitions of genocide exclude combat deaths and noncombatants that die as a by-product of military action. It generally denotes the deliberate killing of someone solely because of their indelible group membership (indelible is the term used for race, ethnicity, nationality etc.–that characteristics that are ‘indelible’). [For one of the major authorities on this subject, see the work of R.J. Rummel at www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel.]

Consider some of the better-known cases:

The government of the Ottoman Empire deported two-thirds or more of its estimated 1-1.8M Armenian citizens during WWI. They were forced into the deserts of present-day Syria, and most died due slowly to starvation and dehydration. This was an internal groupthat was forced out of the country into the desert to die.
The Nazi genocidal actions against the Jews, the Roma, etc. were also initially targeted at internal people.
During WW2, the government of Croatia killed an estimated 200-350K of its internal Serbian citizens.
Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia killed 31% of its own population, apprx 2 million people (although some of this would be considered ‘democide’ and based on ‘delible’ characteristics such as political alignment, instead of ‘genocide’ proper).
In Rwanda, between 500k-1M of the Tutsi ethnic group (all internal) were killed by the Hutu ethnic group (fighting had been going on between them for some time).

Notice how extremely different these are from the case of the Amalekites:

They are NOT an internal group
They are NOT a minority group
Amalekites are NOT targeted because of their Amalekite-ness (since they were welcome as immigrants in Israel)
They are never under the government control of Israel.
They are not pursed and hunted in other countries for extermination.

…..What this means–although it would not bear on the main ethical sensitivity here–is that it is historically inaccurate to label this military action as ‘genocidal’. (This is still the case, EVEN IF one ONLY is talking about the killing of the families of the warriors. There are none of the defining elements of genocide–as the term is used by experts–present in the accounts of this initiative.) Let’s be clear on this–I am not exploring how to “justify a genocide”, because in the first place, it is NOT genocide. [Interestingly, the only case we have in the bible of something approaching genocide is in the book of Esther. Haman, a prominent official, develops a plot in which the internal people will be allowed to attack, kill, and plunder the internal Jews in the nation. This is very close to genocide, and it is quite ironic that Haman is called an Agagite, and said to be an Amalekite by Josephus in Ant. 11.209.]

End Part 9 Excerpt.

R. Rauser has “The Bible depicts God commanding moral atrocities. Should we believe it?” at https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/the-bible-depicts-god-commanding-moral-atrocities-should-we-believe-it/#comment-3958500420

With respect to what Scripture defines as evil he seems to agree with the OT and NT in defining all murder and all rape and so on as evil. That’s fine as far as it goes. However, one cannot read, say, Винни-Пух and apply the same premises when one is reading, say, Война и мир ~ After all, if “Winnie The Pooh” equates to “Tolstoy” well then…. But that’s silly. Instead, there’s the oh-so-obvious contours of real, actual humanity and real, actual evil and real, actual “necessary means” if we are going to talk either about love’s egalitarian form or about the necessary means v. the perfection of being and so on, as those just are the proverbial Christian Narrative.

Recall: “GM” offers context and it’s really not that complicated. The “range” or the “degrees of change” from what many term “The Edenic” to that of the “New Creation” is far, far wider than any one-verse or one-chapter “slice” of “Sinai” (or any other X). As mentioned already, all “definitions” begin and end in the egalitarian topography of the Trinitarian Life.

Quote:

“This is part of the problem of this whole conversation. One half is to accurately describe what was going on in the Old Testament…. and one is the moral vision of the Old Testament as a whole. It’s absolutely vital to understand that the Mosaic law was not God’s ideal, it was God working with a certain people group in a certain cultural context to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of bringing a certain kind of blessing to the world (a savior and kingdom of God). That the law was not God’s ideal is apparent in the narrative of the development of the law, God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….. ……the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative……. the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force “endorse” into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……” (by GM)

End Quote.

R. Rauser has The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: A Review at https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/the-lost-world-of-the-israelite-conquest-a-review and if we are careful we find that the book corrects one error and then commits the same error. It corrects the error of expunging all context from a box labeled [one phrase] which is [“kill all that breathes”] so that the [LITERAL FULL STOP] box is rightly shown to be ridiculous. Then the book unfortunately commits that SAME error as it expunges all context from its own [one word] box which is [“Heram”] so that then that [LITERAL FULL STOP] box is left as the New Ridiculous. Therein the book’s premises get a bit muddied.

Cultural mindsets certainly don’t define reality. At least on the Christian Metaphysic. Basic example: Sinai is X, but X isn’t the Beginning & End of The Good & The True. The inverse error is to claim that regardless of our particular cerebral and moral ceilings God simply never transposes anything regarding The Good & The True. The Trinitarian Life finds not only Being pressing in as we are created to be the living Imago Dei but more specifically the fact that The Adamic was/is created off of the Blueprint of Being as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving.

That of course feeds definitions into all possible frames and, therefore, the key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

As we navigate “linguistics” a brief observation ~ the notion that [burning kids alive] and various other sins — and so on — were A. ignored by God for several hundred years and were B. in fact NOT a part of the causal architecture behind the forced regime changes in Caanan are both false. And in fact it is one “category” within the narrative which demonstrates that with respect to both – as follows:

First, God did intervene and then tore down that landscape (…Israel displaces Canaanites Etc…) and, also, sins/evil were not the Whole Reason behind the forced change, but that they were a key part of the causal architecture behind the forced regime change is obvious and it is the following category of scriptures, which houses many examples like the following, which demonstrates both:

“….It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you…..” (Deut. 9:5)

And so on. Then to the topic of linguistics and literary construction, the following is from https://www.str.org/w/the-canaanites-genocide-or-judgment-#.XOCBPhYpDDs

Begin STR Excerpt:

“…God gave the directives, to be sure (the Jews hadn’t thought this up on their own), but one must accurately understand God’s intention before he can accurately assess God’s commands.

First, the wording should be understood in the context of ancient Near Eastern military narrative, the argument goes. Ancient writings commonly traded in hyperbole—exaggeration for the sake of emphasis—especially when it came to military conquest. The practice is evident throughout battle reports of the time. “Joshua’s conventional warfare rhetoric,” Copan writes, “was common in many other ancient Near Eastern military accounts in the second and first millennia B.C.”

Therefore, phrases like “utterly destroy” (haram), or “put to death men and women, children, and infants”—as well as other “obliteration language”—were stock “stereotypical” idioms used even when women or children were not present. It decreed total victory (much like your favorite sports team “wiping out” the opposition), not complete annihilation.

Second, Copan argues, women and children probably weren’t targets since the attacks were directed at smaller military outposts characteristically holding soldiers, not noncombatants (who generally lived in outlying rural areas). “All the archaeological evidence indicates that no civilian populations existed at Jericho, Ai, and other cities mentioned in Joshua.”

Third, on Copan’s view the main purpose of the conquest was not annihilation, but expulsion—driving the inhabitants out—and cleansing the land of idolatry by destroying every vestige of the evil Canaanite religion[8] (e.g., “You shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.” Deut. 7:1–5).

Further, this process would be gradual, taking place over time:

“…The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you…” (Deut. 7:22).

Finally, the record shows that Joshua fully obeyed the Lord’s command:

“….Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded…. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses….” (Josh. 10:40, 11:15)

Still, at the end of Joshua’s life it was clear that many Canaanites continued to live in the land, left to be driven out gradually by the next generation (Josh. 23:12–13, Judges 1:21, 27–28). According to Copan, if Joshua did all that was expected of him, yet multitudes of Canaanites remained alive, then clearly the command to destroy all who breathed was not to be taken literally, but hyperbolically.

If these arguments go through—if God did not command the utter and indiscriminate destruction of men, women, and children by Joshua’s armies, but simply authorized an appropriate cleansing military action to drive out Israel’s (and God’s) enemies—then the critic’s challenge is largely resolved, it seems….”

End STR Excerpt.

Additionally the following from M. Flannagan:

“….A similar phenomenon occurs with the case of the Amalekites, the Babylonian invasions, and the sacking of the Jebusite city of Jerusalem. In each case a battle is narrated in totalistic terms of complete destruction of all the people, yet later narration goes on to assume matter-of-factly that it did not literally occur. The fact that this happens on multiple occasions in different books rapidly diminishes the probability that these features are coincidental or careless errors. Why is it that almost every time a narration of “genocide” occurs, it is followed by an account that presupposes it did not happen? These facts significantly raise the probability that this is a deliberate literary construction by the authors….” (Matthew Flannagan)

And so on. As alluded to earlier, in the book “The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest” there are various references to syntax of something akin to “…like a cancer…” but they do not make sense if left standing in mid-air given the following fact, quoted from another source:

“….Israel’s own occupation of the land was conditional; Israel too would be “..utterly destroyed..” if it engaged in the defiling practices of the Canaanites (Lev. 18: 25– 28 ). Indeed, later the Israelites would be judged— removed from the land through exile— because they violated the terms of the covenant….”

And yet notice that Israel is not “the-proverbial cancer” and, also, still again Israel is not “In-Genocide-Like-Fashion-Utterly-Destroyed-By-God” in that “exile”. But what about “Utterly Destroyed?” That happened to Israel? Well yes. “THAT” did happen and that Promise WAS kept in that God DID “utterly destroy” Israel and such was vis-à-vis that proverbial Exile. Israel is absorbed into other nations, alive and well, overcome, conquered, retaining their identity in many senses, losing it in many senses. Neither the facts of history, nor the actual metanarrative, nor ancient biblical and extra-biblical “linguistics” support any sort of “Full-Stop” appeal to “….like a cancer…” nor to any “Full-Stop” appeal to what any of us mean by “genocide” because, again, Israel gets the SAME PROMISE of “utterly destroyed” carried out ON THEM as they practice their Faith under their various rulers and have their various cities and so on all under their various rulers. That is why/how Canaanite populations and interactions are still in the later narratives of the Old Testament long after these earlier narratives. History, Scripture, and Fact affirm what modernity describes as “Regime Change” and not what modernity describes as “Genocide”. Regarding the “why/how” behind the fact that all such violence, even Justified War, is defined by Scripture as Ugly/Bad see www.BibleViolence.com which goes to Deficiency Of Being, Old Testament Violence, The Metaphysic Of Privation, And Christ Crucified https://metachristianity.com/old-testament-violence-the-metaphysic-of-privation-and-christ-crucified/

Covenant Theology finds Canaanites and proverbial outsiders in Shechem within Joshua chap. 8 vis-à-vis the covenant renewal ceremony, which mirror’s Israel’s own future experience in Israel’s exile. No identity is ever “Utterly Destroyed” nor can we find any supposed Outsider/Insider missing from that seamless Stream of Ancestry within Christ. We find there that the two notions of a. “Sin was all up in the whole show as the reason for all of Israel taking over Canaan….” and of b. “Sin had nothing to do with any of it” are both leaving out definitive chunks of Narrative, as, all over again:

“….The point here is this: God doesn’t play favorites. God said that he raised up Israel in part to judge the Canaanites for their sins. (Deuteronomy 9:5) But then God turned around and judged Judah when they did the same thing by letting other nations conquer them. (2 Kings 21:10-16)

That is from the essay “Killing the Canaanites: Why can’t atheists like Richard Dawkins tell the difference between genocide and justified capital punishment?”

Similar observations are from “God of Violence Yesterday, God of Love Today? Wrestling honestly with the Old Testament” by Helen Paynter:

“In contrast to other ancient Near Eastern deities, the God of Israel does not support whatever battle the leader picks. Similarly, there are surprising themes of God not being on Israel’s side and of God favoring Canaanites and condemning Israelites.”

Similarly, Actual War was not All-Or-None with respect to our own “Modernity’s Old English Literalism” as the deliberate literary constructions used (…and which Modernity’s Old English Literalism muddies up…) are neither “spooky” nor “just-da-bible” but are historically defined in both Biblical and Extra-Biblical manuscripts.

Question: “…don’t you believe in literal interpretation…”

Answer: I think you mean to affirm a non-literal interpretation, yes? If you believe that “All That Breathes” is a bit of syntax that is mysteriously immune to the facts of history then you believe that we are to read about a fiction (…God commanded the killing of all that breathes…). But we know better. So it’s not clear what you mean by “literal”. That word isn’t supposed to mean “historically-uninformed”.

Slavery & Violence & Discussion Hall #1 & Discussion Hall #2 https://randalrauser.com/2019/08/four-pitfalls-for-apologists-defending-biblical-violence/#comment-4578894509

More segues into the fact of Non-Genocide in the book “Jesus Loves Canaanites” https://randalrauser.com/book/jesus-loves-canaanites/ and also reviewed at https://strangenotions.com/did-god-command-genocide-in-the-old-testament/

The text is either in the Genre of Modernity’s News Reports and is historically accurate “in that sense” and so we find that scores of cities & peoples survived the so called “genocide” – in which case there was no genocide – or – the text is in a different Genre where the author’s intents and literary devices take over. Most agree that what we find is that the “Genocide” within Joshua is Historical Fiction and the authors all knew that just as they knew the “sense” in which they wrote and the authors all had different literary constructions/devices throughout history and so our job is to extricate and apply those constructions/devices.

In Closing:

Recall that “Sub-Narratives” never can “become” “Meta-Narrative”. The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

With some of that in mind the following are a few vectors I put together in 2014 which are a bit esoteric but, well, it has to be okay to have SOME sort of FUN every now and then with one’s writing (etc.) ~

Begin Esoteric-ish Copy/Paste:

Slavery’s Only Absolute – Ceaseless – Antithesis: Trinity

Absurdity:

Deep in the mire of unrecallable eons metaphysical naturalism finds her faceless god named Blind Indifference relentlessly falling forward, nurturing, rearing any potpourri of molecular happenstance worthy of yet one more step of genomic multiplication. The hodgepodge arrays of irrationally conditioned reflexes summing into the psychedelic inclinations we call “slavery” across various insect speciations is found ever worthy, highly favored and therein declared part of god’s fitted kingdom. Kaleidoscopic cascades falling forward ever outward, ever wider across fitted eras carried the kingdom’s self-serving heartlessness into yet other, even more successful species – effervescing into the ever irrationally conditioned psychic phosphorescence within the skulls of a more recent biped arrival. The bipeds immersed in their many and varied conditional – arbitrary – delusions each declare with fists raised that their own particular conditioned – arbitrary – delusion is the fact of the matter an all others are the “real” delusion. In a world of neurons awash in an ocean of blind molecular reflex antirealism’s ontological pluralism sits at god’s right hand – his expressionless name being Absurdity and god is his A and his Z. The bipeds are unaware that these too – these varied notions of trueness – are yet other crafty bits of stealth which god has laced deep into his array of reflexive feedback loops ever lurking beneath the surface compelling her mechanistic genomic duplications to spit out yet again. She always wins, eventually, across the eons as her beloved psychotics adrift in their ocean of conditioned – arbitrary – delusions ever shuffle this way and that way feverishly sprinting towards inevitable extinction there in what is the moral landscape of god’s kingdom.

Sanity:

Our brutally repeatable moral experiences intellectually and existentially coincides with Scripture’s Meta-Narrative – each affirming that Slavery is in all possible worlds – at every conceivable juncture – that which is – in existence’s full and final essence – the Ought-Not, the Outside, the Dark, the Ugly, such that once the universe’s fateful reorganization within its quantum change-of-states (energy’s absurd infinite regress) fluxes yet again and evolutionary morality is non-entity, there will yet be – still left standing – that immutable Objective Moral Object inside of love’s volitional grain amid personhood – still left standing – in all that is love’s I-You / Self-Other there as the final mediator, Actuality’s ceaseless envoi. The inescapable – unending – value of, beauty of, worthiness of Person, of Other there – we will see how – ends all regression – ad infinitum. This meta-narrative is the fact of the matter, is the state of affairs on the issue at hand – slavery – and that in all possible worlds, therefore – it is self-evident – we must look beyond both methodological and metaphysical naturalism’s inseparable identities with the kaleidoscopic fluidity of the arbitrary, the phantasmagoric, the amoral, the indifferent for in that hopelessly indifferent paradigm ontological pluralism wrapped up inside of antirealism’s variegated oscillations awaits all lines and while in such absurdity all may be the stuff of psychosis adrift in an ocean of irrationally conditioned delusion, all assertions just are an impossible case in such a world of delusion-laden psychosis. Naturalism as a metaphysics – not as a methodology of the study of the created order – accumulates here ever more hemorrhaging in what ends in fatality, and, in this issue now at hand, leaves SLAVERY ever intact as just one more bit of The-Real in that endless chain of bits within quantum indeterminism’s absurd infinite regress that just is energy’s change-of-state – that just is atheism’s god.

Spying Freedom:

Once out of metaphysical naturalism’s nihilism we find that Mind’s I-exist is declared actually intact – free of enslavement’s absurdity – where logic’s A in fact is not logic’s B as logic’s finger outreaches the edges of the natural universe and man’s own mind, his own living-i-am there awakes within an ocean of ontological contours which all begin to fuse as we move into the arena of our brutally repeatable experiences, into all that is logic, into all that is the beloved, into all that is love. We find at the end of these many lines all that is personhood’s necessarily triune real estate of the I’s motions amid all that just is the milieu of Self-Other-Us and there mind’s living-i-am’s perceive yet farther. In all these junctures that same triune real estate of personhood, of the I’s motions, is found seamlessly fluid in His Image, that ontological – moral – landscape that is the ceaseless reciprocity within the immutable love of the Necessary Being, there – in God – in Trinity.

Emancipation:

God – Immutable Love – Trinity – articulates, “Let Us make man in Our Image” and Genesis’ Actuality is the OT’s Actuality, is the NT’s Actuality, as Actuality finds Man in the lap of Personhood’s inescapably triune milieu of Self-Other-Us within the ceaseless reciprocity of the immutable love of the Necessary Being. Therein – in Trinity – love’s timeless Sacrifice, pouring out, of all which we call Self – amid and among the timeless Filling of all which we call the Beloved/Other forever begets within such living waters all which just is the singular Us – and this ad infinitum void of what we call First, void of what we call Last, void of what we call Thirst. Such triune contours within the immutable love of the Necessary Being bring us to the ends of what Man can call sight as he peers into He Who first precedes, then endures, and finally outreaches, outdistances, all possible worlds. The exegesis of filiation, of the eternally begotten as a proper and orthodox semantic paradigm is there forever housed within the Triune, that is to say, within those motions which both the intellectual and existential affirm as comprising love, Who Scripture affirms is Himself God. A key that unlocks: Man is by necessity the Contingent Self, fashioned in His Image – in God’s, the Triune’s, Image – and therein Man’s Means and Man’s Ends just are those motions found within Trinity by which all his (man’s) hope – all his (man’s) means and ends – are reduced to one word: Other.

Slavery’s End:

The geography amid Contingency and Necessity never changes as all that is the state of affairs of the contingent self’s volition amid self/other finds him in motion and such unpacks the affairs of volition’s delight, of volition’s trust within love’s many embraces and we find that should such motion be into the contingent’s own self he will there find – necessarily – insufficiency, lack, want, and this ad infinitum in the un-free permanence of the un-whole. Whereas, that same business of volition – of motion – into what just is Immutable Love finds the non-free of the non-whole fading into non-entity as – ad infinitum – He fills us full with our true and final felicity. All the OT’s assessment of means and ends across all those millennia just always were those same means and ends assessed in the NT which all these millennia just always have been all these affairs of His Love enunciating across all that just is the history of man that it is the case that in fact – actually, finally – no person shall need to be taught of love by man ever again – as it will be Immutable Love Himself Who fills us, Who we spy face to face. The Necessary Means here becomes the Necessary Being Himself as – it is self-evident – nothing less houses the reach required to tie up all such metaphysical ends in Actuality’s Paradigm. All-Sufficiency emerges as what must be the contingent’s hope: God Himself pouring Himself out for – pouring Himself into – we the contingent in all that just is the affairs of Amalgamation, all that just is Timelessness/Time, Immaterial/Material, Incorporeal/Corporeal, Word/Flesh, in all that just is the affairs of God-In-Man, of Man-In-God – of incarnation. By such All-Sufficient Means an unspeakable liberty will emerge in our Ends as wherever we shall there freely motion within Actuality’s Triune, whether into what lay beneath our feet, or into what sails above our heads, or into those possible worlds within our chests, we will find that beautiful freedom called Permanence.

End Esoteric-ish Copy/Paste ((…from https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2014/08/ten-reasons-the-bible-has-it-right-on-slavery/#comment-104642 …))

Slavery: The Christian Metanarrative Defines Slavery As A Swath Of Privation’s Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A “Pro-Slavery” Verse Much Less A “Pro-Slavery” Any-Thing. That’s the bottom line. As per the following:

http://www.Slavery.Bible

END

“Science and Theology: Where the Consonance Really Lies” by David Bentley Hart

The following in its entirety is a quote/excerpt of David Bentley Hart. The consonance or agreement/compatibility amid science and theology is discussed with interesting segues into causality, physicalism, intentionality, consciousness, realism, and (of course) much more. See https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/science-and-theology-where-the-consonance-really-lies

Begin Quote/Excerpt:

When we ask, as some of us occasionally do, whether it is possible to discover or establish a true consonance between the modern sciences and theology, we are asking a question prompted first of all by nostalgia. We are casting a perhaps somewhat forlorn glance back, on the one hand, to a period four or five centuries ago, before any estrangement had begun to take shape between “natural philosophy” and theology, and before mechanistic models of the physical order had begun to evolve into a metaphysical naturalism (the firm philosophical conviction, that is to say, that there can be no reality beyond the closed continuum of physical exchanges of matter and energy); but also, and much more essentially, we are looking back to an almost timeless moment of innocence, at once immemorial and yet intimately known to each of us, when we were as yet unaware of any distinctions between different spheres of inquiry, let alone any dissonances among them. We all remember, without being able quite to recall it with any immediacy, the first dawn of wonder within us: that instant when the infinitely open question of everything posed itself to us all at once, but when it had not yet become a specific question about anything as such. Every attempt to know the truth of the world in later life—empirical, theoretical, hermeneutical, critical, speculative, spiritual—begins for all of us in an instant of naïve surprise before the mystery of being, an unanticipated experience of the sheer fortuity and givenness of the world, a sudden fleeting moment of limpid awareness when one knows simultaneously the utter strangeness of everything familiar and the utter contingency of everything presumed. This is that existential amazement that, as Plato and Aristotle both affirmed, first awakens us to the love of wisdom: an aboriginal summons to which, so long as we recall even the faintest shimmering trace of its uncanniness, we must remain faithful all our lives. And, at first, this primordial vocation is the same for everyone, as are the first stirrings of a response; no alienations are yet possible. But the initial moment passes: boundless possibility contracts into a multitude of finite and divergent actual paths; habits of thought and decisions of the will make the luminous simplicity of the original experience ever more difficult to recollect; and at last, the mystery is lost somewhere amid the tangles of our methods and our prejudices. The day is long; the light of dawn soon fades from memory.

If we persist in asking the question long enough to allow that initial wistfulness to dissipate, however, and begin to pose it in more concrete terms, we all at once conjure up a host of ancillary questions, the most obvious of which is what precisely we think our words really mean. “Science,” even more than “theology,” is an abstraction, however disposed we may be today to imagine that it names a clearly defined realm of practices, comprising exact rules of method and comprehensive principles of evidence. Moreover, “modern science,” in particular, is a distinct culture, with all the historical, linguistic, and conceptual conditionality that this entails; and every culture incubates within itself, even if only tacitly and tenuously, certain metaphysical presuppositions: what, for instance, constitutes reason; what the limits of knowledge are; what questions ought to be asked; which methods of inquiry should be presumed to reflect reality and which should be regarded only as useful fictions. And it is here, at the level of culture, that the truly irreconcilable conflicts between scientific and theological thinking are inevitably found; for in most circumstances it is not what we can prove, but what we presuppose, that determines what we think we know or imagine we have discovered. Before we can pose the question of the consonance between theology and the sciences, therefore, we must first make sure that we know what territories these cultures properly encompass, and whether there are still any to which both at once might be able to lay some legitimate claim. Otherwise we are likely to careen across boundaries we do not even know exist.

For what it is worth, these days the most inept incursions and encroachments tend to come more often from the side of the sciences. Perhaps theologians have by now been sufficiently chastened by the memories of theology’s past trespasses and so can see the lines of demarcation with greater clarity. At least, it would be a very poorly trained theologian indeed who produced anything as philosophically confused or as engorged with category errors as Lawrence Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing (2013), or who exhibited a comparable ignorance of the difference between aetiological queries about our universe’s origin from an antecedent physical state and modal queries about the possibility of physical existence as such—between, that is, cosmology and ontology. Nor can one imagine any serious theologian venturing interventions in the sciences as reckless as Richard Dawkins’s maladroit attempts to master Thomas Aquinas’s quinque viæ (at which one can only wince in pity and then look away). From whichever side the interlopers come, however, our first impulse when confronted by the conceptual disasters they perpetrate is, naturally enough, simply to reassert proper boundaries. To avoid the ghastly spectacle of Richard Dawkins attempting to philosophize, we are all too happy to adopt something like Stephen Jay Gould’s strict discrimination between two “non-overlapping magisteria” one concerned with facts, the other with values. But this achieves only the consonance of segregation—and at the cost of intolerably reductive accounts of both spheres. After all, the sciences invoke questions not only of physical origins, properties, and processes, but also (even if only indirectly) of their intrinsic intelligibility, rational coherence, and even modal plausibility, which inevitably touch upon questions that classical theology asks as well. Yes, quite obviously, the physical sciences have nothing to say about dogmatic theology—say, Trinitarian doctrine or Chalcedonian Christology—which concern hermeneutical approaches to particular historical events, social practices, personal and communal experiences of salvation, or allegedly revealed truths. But there is also theology in the wider sense, as delineated by, say, Proclus or the Pseudo-Dionysius or Shankara or Nicholas of Cusa or Mulla Sadra, which embraces a set of logical and speculative claims about reality as a whole, and about an ultimate coincidence between its rational structure and its actual existence. And each of these claims entails still further deductive claims regarding the divine ground of all that is: that, when reduced to its deepest source or most irreducible ontological premise, nature proves to be contingent ultimately not on some material substrate or order, but much more originally upon something analogous to mind, spirit, Geist—something, moreover, that is not simply yet another force among forces or being among beings, but the infinite plenitude of both being and rational order, in which all finite things participate. And in regard to these deductions, curiously enough, the sciences are not irrelevant, even if they are in some sense only preliminary. (But I shall return to this below.)

“We are no less dogmatic than our ancestors; we merely have fewer clear reasons for the dogmas we embrace. The older physical logic was coherent, though speculative; the newer is incoherent, though empirical.”

Rather, then, than discrete magisteria absorbed in absolutely discontinuous regions of concern, it might then seem better to adopt something closer to Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between theology and philosophy (including natural philosophy), and say that we are concerned here with two autonomous practices of understanding, each of which encompasses vast areas of investigation concerning which the other has no competence, but both of which occasionally converge upon the same area, albeit each according to its own idiom and constraints. Thus, for Aquinas, both natural philosophy and theology may have a great deal to say about God (for instance), though the former might do so chiefly in terms of a Prime Mover or primary causality while the latter might do so chiefly in terms of the creator of heaven and earth or the Father of Christ. Even here, though, we risk making the issue of consonance too easy, if for no other reason than that a solution drawn from the high Middle Ages presumes a unified intellectual culture that, for better or worse, no longer exists. In a sense, the “scientistic” polemicist who stumbles across unseen disciplinary boundaries in an ultracrepidarian stupor is not always entirely in the wrong; there are now in fact contested territories where the dissonances are quite real. Certainly, before all else, there can be no accord reached between any theistic logic and the tacit mechanistic or physicalist or emergentist materialist metaphysics that so deeply informs much of the culture of the sciences today. And if we are seeking a consonance that consists in more than a few sporadic embassies between two otherwise alien realms, we have to interrogate precisely those cultural premises that now truly divide us. This is a rather delicate matter, naturally, because it involves a confrontation at a level that many in the sciences do not even acknowledge exists: that of their own metaphysical presuppositions. The first task, then, is to make the hidden metaphysical horizon of the modern sciences appear to view, and then perhaps to call it into question: not of course by simplistically conflating the cosmological and the ontological, as Krauss and Dawkins do, but rather by asking whether that essentially mechanistic picture of reality is adequate even to the realm of the physical. And I suspect that the best way to do this is to consider and reconsider the language of causality.

Excluding “Higher Causes”

The extraordinary fruitfulness of modern scientific method was achieved, before all else, by a severe narrowing of investigative focus; and this involved the willful shedding of an older language of causality that possessed great richness, but that also seemed to resist empirical investigation. The first principle of the new organon was a negative one: the exclusion of any consideration of formal and final causes, and even of any distinct principle of “life,” in favor of an ideally inductive method purged of metaphysical prejudices, allowing all natural systems to be conceived as mere machine processes, and all real causality as an exchange of energy through antecedent forces working upon material mass. Everything physical became, in a sense, reducible to the mechanics of local motion; even complex organic order came to be understood as the emergent result of physical forces moving through time from past to future as if through Newtonian space, producing consequences that were all mathematically calculable, with all discrete physical causes ultimately reducible to the most basic level of material existence. And while, at first, many of the thinkers of early modernity were content to draw brackets around physical nature, and to allow for the existence of realities beyond the physical—mind, soul, disembodied spirits, God—they necessarily imagined these latter as being essentially extrinsic to the purely mechanical order that they animated, inhabited, or created. Thus, in place of classical theism’s metaphysics of participation in a God of infinite being and rationality, they granted room only for the adventitious and finite Cosmic Mechanic or Supreme Being of Deism or (as it is called today) Intelligent Design Theory. But, of course, this ontological liberality was unsustainable. Reason abhors a dualism. Any ultimate ground of explanation must be one that unites all dimensions of being in a simpler, more conceptually parsimonious principle. Thus, inevitably, what began as method soon metastasized into a metaphysics, almost by inadvertence. For a truly scientific view of reality, it came to be believed, everything—even mind—must be reducible to one and the same mechanics of motion. Those methodological brackets that had been so helpfully drawn around the physical order now became the very shape of reality itself.

It was always something of a fantasy, of course. For one thing, even as a method, the mechanical model extends only so far. Pure induction is an impossible ideal. In the life sciences, for instance, organisms can only very rarely be investigated without any hypothetical appeals to purpose whatsoever, or without treating organic structures as intentional systems; and it is only a metaphysical prejudice that dictates that explanations referring to purpose are no more than a useful and dispensable fiction. Moreover, before “higher causes” like form and finality could be excised from the grammar of the sciences, they had first to be radically misconstrued. Even such residual Aristotelian terminology as remained in the sciences had already, by the late sixteenth century, been mechanized, so to speak. One need only read Francis Bacon to confirm this. Form and finality had come to be seen as physical forces or influences extrinsic to a material substrate that in itself was not the pure potentiality of “prime matter” but merely a universal, subtle, ductile, unarticulated physical substance. The elements of nature were not imagined, as they had been in the classical and mediaeval synthesis, as having an intrinsic disposition toward order or vital integrity; they were seen simply as inert ingredients upon which formal determinations were adventitiously impressed, under the external guidance of final causes that operated merely as factitious designs. And so, seen thus, form and finality soon came to seem not only superfluous suppositions, but little more than features of an inferior and obsolete mechanical model.

But, of course, one cannot really reject something one does not understand. Neither Aristotle’s concept of an aition, nor any scholastic concept of a causa, actually corresponds to what we—following our early modern predecessors—mean when we speak of a “cause.” A better rendering of aitia or causae, in the ancient or medieval sense, might be “explanations,” “rationales,” “logical descriptions,” or (still better) “rational relations.” The older fourfold nexus of causality (Aristotle’s material, efficient, formal, and final causes) was not, that is to say, a defective attempt at modern physical science, but was instead chiefly a grammar of predication, describing the inherent logical structure of anything that exists insofar as it exists, and reflecting a world in which things and events are at once discretely identifiable and yet part of the larger dynamic continuum of the whole. It was a simple logical picture of a reality in which both stability and change can be recognized and described. And these aitia or causae were intrinsic and indiscerptibly integral relations, distinct dimensions of a single causal logic, not separated forces in only accidental alliance. A final cause, for instance, was an inherent natural end, not an extrinsically imposed design; and this was true even when teleology involved external uses rather than merely internal perfections (as in the case of human artifacts); it was at once a thing’s intrinsic fullness and its external participation in the totality of nature. Thus, in the Liber de Causis (that mysterious digest and theological synthesis of the metaphysics of Proclus that entered Western scholasticism from the Islamic philosophical world) one of the principal “causes” of any isolated substance is the taxonomic category in which that thing subsists, the more “eminent” rational structure to which it belongs. In a sense, a causal relation in this scheme is less like a physical interaction or exchange of energy than it is like a mathematical equation, or like the syntax of a coherent sentence. Admittedly, this is a picture of reality that comes from ages in which it was assumed that the structure of the world was analogous to the structure of rational thought. But, then again, this was an eminently logical assumption—if only because there appears to be a more than illusory or accidental reciprocal openness between mind and world, and because the mind appears genuinely able to penetrate the physical order by way of irreducibly noetic practices like mathematics and logic.

In any event, perhaps it really was necessary to impose the discipline of this impoverished causal language upon the scientific intellect, if only to direct its attention to the finest and humblest of empirical details. But even so, as Hegel so brilliantly demonstrated, one can never really reason purely from the particular. Once the notion of causality has been reduced from an integral system of rationales to a single kind of local physical efficiency, it becomes a mere brute fact, something of a logical black box; description flourishes, but only because explanation has been left to wither. So it was that Hume, having seen the spectral causal agencies of the schoolmen chased away, found causality itself now to be imponderable, logically reducible to nothing but an arbitrary sequence of regular phenomenal juxtapositions; even mathematical descriptions of events now became nothing more than reiterations of an episodic narrative without clear logical necessity. And this is indeed where we remain. Wherever induction fails to provide us with a clear physicalist narrative for especially complex or exceptional phenomena (like life or consciousness), we now must simply presume the existence and force of physico-mechanical laws sufficient to account for the emergence of such phenomena; and we must, moreover, do so no less casually and vaguely than those schoolmen of old supposedly presumed “obscure” or “occult” formal and final causes. We are no less dogmatic than our ancestors; we merely have fewer clear reasons for the dogmas we embrace. The older physical logic was coherent, though speculative; the newer is incoherent, though empirical. When mechanistic method became a metaphysics, and the tinted filter through which it viewed nature was mistaken for an unveiling of its deepest principles, all explanations became tales of emergence, even in cases of realities—life, consciousness, even existence itself—where such tales seemed difficult to distinguish from stories of magic.

A False Model of Nature

Nowhere is the essential arbitrariness of this picture of reality more obvious than in the alleged principle of the “causal closure of the physical”—the principle that there simply cannot be any kind of “causality” in nature other than brute material forces—which is so often invoked as a scientifically established truth, on the rather thin basis of the fixed proportionality of matter and energy in the universe, but which is merely a metaphysical dogma, and one that even otherwise sophisticated theorists often translate into the crudest kind of physical determinism. I have known learned physicists who still talk as if something like Laplace’s fantasy holds true: a demon of superlative intelligence, knowing at a given instant the precise location and momentum of every atomic particle in existence, could both reconstruct the entire physical history of the universe and foresee its entire future. True, these physicists might all have granted that statistical thermodynamics probably dictates that this would not be literally possible; but still they spoke as if, in principle, all events at higher levels of physical organization must be reducible—without remainder—to lower, more particulate causal moments. Hence, if our demon could somehow account for irreversibility or quantum indeterminacies—maybe by a perfect grasp of maximum entropy thermodynamics or by an occult knowledge of quantum hidden variables—he could, from the dispositions of all the atoms and molecules composing me and my environment last Wednesday at noon, have infallibly predicted my presence here today, because everything we do is the inevitable macroscopic result of the ensemble of impersonal physical forces underlying our formal existence.

“It is absurd to think that a model created by the willful exclusion of all mental properties from our picture of nature could then be used to account for the mental itself.”

And yet we know this to be false. This is the special absurdity of allowing an artificial method appropriate to an isolated perspective upon reality—nature considered as a machine, which is to say nature considered as though devoid of anything analogous to purposive intellect—to hypertrophy into a universal judgment on all of reality, including those of its aspects(—such as, obviously, those instances of purposive intellect that actually exist)—to which such a method cannot possibly apply. To whatever degree I am a physical system, I am also an intentional “system” whose mental events take the forms of semiotic (symbolic, interpretive, “meaningful”) determinations, and whose actions are usually the consequences of intentions that are irreducibly teleological. As such, these intentions could appear nowhere within a reductive account of the discrete processes that constitute my actions as physical events; for final causes are not visible within any inventory of the impersonal antecedent physical events composing me. Simply said, I have reasons for being here, and reasons are qualitatively unlike mechanical forces, even when inseparably allied to them. Any good phenomenological description of my choice to be here would be one that could never be collapsed into a physical description of atomic, molecular, or even brain events. Yes, of course, at the level of the exchanges of matter and energy—or of their interchangeable mathematical values—the natural order may always have to even out into an inflexible equation. But the movement of those material and energetic forces is also directed by causal (or rational) relations of a different kind, which impose upon the flow of physical events formal and final determinations that are not merely the phenomenal residue of those events, and that are not visible to those aforementioned physical inventories. The obvious physicalist riposte to this, of course, is to claim that all intentionality is in some sense illusory, or reducible to complex electrochemical brain events, which are in turn reducible to molecular description, and then to atomic description, and so on. But that too is obviously false. Not that I have the time here to argue the point comprehensively (even if I thought it necessary). I will simply note that, over the past few years of my research in philosophy and science of mind, I have become more than convinced that every attempt to fit mental phenomena—qualitative consciousness, unity of apprehension, intentionality, reasoning, and so forth—into a physicalist narrative must prove a total failure. If nothing else, mental intentionality—in the full philosophical sense not only of determinations of the will, but of every act of the mind in orienting itself toward specific ends, meanings, aspects of reality, and so on—is clearly a part of nature, and yet one whose irreducibly teleological structure is entirely contrary to the mechanical picture. This is why, among devout philosophical physicalists, such wild extremes as eliminativism and materialist panpsychism (with or without the supplement of the currently fashionable pseudo-science of “Integrated Information Theory”) are ever more in vogue. The mental, it turns out, is no more reconcilable to the modern picture of material nature than it was in Descartes’ day.

Nor need we confine ourselves to the realm of the mental to call the mechanistic picture into question. It may well be that a conception of causality richer than what materialist orthodoxy can provide will ultimately prove just as necessary for molecular and evolutionary biology. At least, this is where a more diverse causal language seems constantly to be attempting to assert itself—top-down causation, circular causality, epigenetic information, symbiogenesis, teleonomy, convergent evolution, systems biology—even as traditional genetocentric neo-Darwinism strives to contain that language within its more linear narrative. And this is not simply on account of the failure of the human genome project to yield the master key to the entire mystery of life, from protein-folding to my love of Glenn Gould or Ella Fitzgerald. Life appears to be structurally hierarchical not only because evolution is a cumulative process, in which more complex levels are gradually superposed upon lower, self-sufficient levels, but because every discrete organism possesses a causal architecture in which there can be no single privileged level of causation; each level depends on levels both above and below it, and none of these levels can be intelligibly isolated from the others as a kind of causal “base.” At least, such is the contention of Denis Noble, perhaps the subtlest champion of systems biology or (as he also calls it) “biological relativity.” Maybe there was a time when one could innocently think in terms of a master ground or center of life, with the DNA molecule as the primordial genetic repository of information (whatever that means). And perhaps it seemed to make sense to understand life in terms of a very simple dichotomy between replicators and vehicles (those clever selfish genes and the organic “robots” they program for their survival). Now though, argues Noble, we can scarcely even define a gene, let alone identify any genetic explanation of the entirety of living systems; nor can we ignore the degree to which DNA sequences are passive causes, variously informed and given expression as determined by the organism and its environment. And for Noble there is a special kind of beauty in the exquisite complexity of organic life; he positively delights in the interdependent simultaneity of all of life’s functions, the way in which each level at once assembles the components of an immediately lower level while itself constituting a component of an immediately higher level: atoms, molecules, networks, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, holosomatic systems, complete organisms, populations, species, clades, the physical environment. He even, daringly enough, talks freely of natural teleology—in part, because he understands that such teleology, properly understood, is an intrinsic rational determination within a complex system, not a factitious purpose extrinsically imposed by some detached designing intelligence; but in larger part because there clearly are levels of explanation at which purpose constitutes not just an illusory epiphenomenon of inherently purposeless material processes, but a real causal power. An organ, no matter how stochastic its phylogenetic history, exists within an organism because of the purpose it serves, apart from which it would not exist. And these levels are not reducible to one another, but exist only as a totality. Within the hierarchy of relations, there may be discrete levels of organization, but no independent causal functions. The entire structure is a profoundly logical and purposive whole.

Now, maybe this intentional structure somehow emerges—biochemically and phylogenetically—from very primitive causes, which then become ingredients in a recursive system of interactions that were originally random or chaotic, and is therefore still reducible to a state prior to “purpose.” But, unless we are using the word “emergence” as a synonym for “miracle” or “magic,” we are still obliged to assume that the formal determinations of organic complexity—or, as we now call it, their “information”—are already present in those causes in at least latent or virtual form, awaiting explication in developed phenotypes (and other “molar” or “macroscopic” forms); and so we are also obliged to assume that whatever rational relations may exist in organisms (including form and finality) are already present in those seemingly random states. That is to say, we need not assume that, prior to the complex unity of a living system, some extrinsic “design” existed within its material substrate like a kind of algorithm programmed by an intelligent designer; but we cannot doubt that everything that enters into the structure of a living system is already constituted by those rational causal relations that cause discrete purposive systems to arise. Even if we cannot say how life began, or how self-replicating organisms became available for natural selection, we can certainly doubt that those “higher” causal relations are accidental accretions upon some single isolated aspect of their relations. “Irreducible emergence” is a logical nonsense; whatever properties appear in an effect, unless imposed adventitiously, are already implicit in its “lower” causes, even if only in a kind of virtual state. Perhaps even matter, then, in its barest constitution, already has something of the character of mind.

Even Noble, I should note, does not appreciate quite how radical the consequences of a hierarchical view of life might prove. At one point in his book Dance to the Music of Life, he invokes the old experiment of placing, say, a dozen metronomes on a wooden table and setting each in motion independently; over time, the initially asynchronous oscillations of the metronomes will become perfectly synchronized, solely as the result of the chaotic interactions of the vibrations passing between them through the resonant material of the table. This, he argues, is a splendid example of an “initial disorder becoming highly ordered by interaction.” But this is wrong. Actually, it is a case of an initial complexity, stochastically but intricately syncopated, reduced over time to uniformity—which is to say, maximal equilibrium achieved by subsidence to a minimal expenditure of energy. This is not the emergence of order, but a descent into an entropic state, which preserves only such order as it cannot entirely eliminate (though in time, if left undisturbed, even this order will vanish, as table and metronomes alike resolve into dust). To fit the picture that Noble’s account of life adumbrates, the oscillations of the metronomes would have to arrive not at perfect synchrony, but at something like the contrapuntal intricacies of a Buddy Rich cadenza or of Javanese and Balinese Gamelan.

“No physical science can answer or explain away the mysteries that here come into view; neither can any theology; but both would do well to recognize the threshold upon which they stand.”

Then again, perhaps one need not look either to molecular and evolutionary biology or the phenomena of mental life to see that the mechanical model of nature is defective. Really, perhaps, it is enough simply to consider the seemingly indivisible relation that exists between them in the very encounter between nature and mind: the intelligibility of the world and the power of thought to lay hold of it. Perhaps all we need consider is how the inherently formal and intentional structure of rational thought seems to correspond so fruitfully to the rational structure of the world. This by itself invites us to reconsider something at least like the causal language proposed in the Aristotelian tradition, in which (again) nature’s deepest rational relations are more like the syntax of a sentence, or mathematical equations, than like mere accidental concrescences of physical forces. Perhaps modern prejudice has the matter backwards; perhaps it is mechanism that should be regarded as the dispensable methodological fiction, while the purposive language we use to isolate specific organic functions is the true reflection of reality. Perhaps mechanistic models never were anything more than artificial constraints, by which discrete processes might be prescinded from a whole that, in itself, has something like the structure of intentional thought. After all, it is absurd to think that a model created by the willful exclusion of all mental properties from our picture of nature could then be used to account for the mental itself; and yet the mental is quite real, and quite at home within the natural order. If, then, one presumes a reductively physicalist model of all reality, but is then confronted by any aspect of nature that, as in the case of consciousness or intentionality, proves utterly resistant to mechanical description, the only responsible course of action is to abandon or suspend the model in regard to the whole of nature. If the phenomenon cannot be eliminated, the model is false.

Nor can we stop there. Once again, a certain principle of logical parsimony asserts itself here, and then invites or even obliges us completely to reverse our original supposition. Reason abhors a dualism, as I have said; ideally all phenomena should be reducible to a single, simpler, more capacious model of reality. Far from continuing to banish mind from our picture of nature, then, perhaps we should reconsider the ancient intuition that nature and mind are not alien to one another precisely because nature already possesses a rational structure analogous to thought. Perhaps the ground of the possibility of regular physical causation, in the energetic and mechanical sense, is a deeper logical coinherence of rational relations underlying all reality; and hence mind inhabits physical nature not as an anomaly, but as a revelation of the deepest essence of everything that exists. The intentionality of mind then is neither a ghostly agency inexplicably haunting a machine, nor an illusion reducible to non-intentional and impersonal forces, but instead the most intense and luminous expression of those formal and teleological determinations that give actuality to all nature. What makes us believe we should—or, for that matter, can—think otherwise?

The Limits of Inquiry

What difference might all this make for the sciences, practically speaking? Little or none, really. The sciences need not aspire to total exhaustive explanation; they are often most powerful when they consist largely in local and narrow investigations, and then in theoretical interpretations of very particular discoveries. For the culture of the sciences, however, as well as for a true consonance (rather than a mere amicable segregation) between the sciences and theology, it could scarcely be more consequential. For one thing, it is always salubrious to be reminded of the limits of our methods; and, for anyone committed to the search for truth, it is always wise to think about the universal frame of reality within which one’s investigations take place. If one does this, one may approach a place where the deepest aspirations of the sciences and the most essential affirmations of theology prove to be both irresistibly apposite. When we think seriously about the complex rational structure of reality and the way in which it seems to be reflected in the structure of rational mind, we enter the realm of spirit, of intellect, of a formal and final logic in nature already analogous to mind or rational thought. Perhaps only for this reason can the veil of Isis be lifted, and nature be revealed to mind, and perhaps it is also only for this reason that mind can inhabit nature. Here the physical sciences themselves urge us toward a certain metaphysical supposition. It may be that, pursued to its logical terminus, the very enterprise of scientific reasoning suggests or even secretly presumes that the being of the world—the ontological horizon within which it takes shape and exists—is something like an act of thought. Here the questions of science and those of theology converge upon the same mysteries, not through some maladroit confusion of two incompatible kinds of causal narrative (the cosmological and the ontological, say), but quite naturally, because the very concept of causality itself still demands for itself the full richness of all its possible logical acceptations. No physical science can answer or explain away the mysteries that here come into view; neither can any theology; but both would do well to recognize the threshold upon which they stand.

All the labors of the scientific intellect are undertaken within the embrace of a structure of intelligibility that the sciences need not pretend to understand, penetrate, or encompass, but that nevertheless sustains them in all their labors. That intelligibility is the transcendental horizon toward which they necessarily strive, even when they hew faithfully to the limits of their proper remit. It shows itself to be nothing other than that original experience of the radiant mystery of being that first awakens the desire for truth, but now translated into a fixed orientation of the rational will. The sciences venture all their energies upon the reality of this ultimate rational intelligibility—upon the wager that the world’s being and its structure of rational order are one and the same event. Thus they undertake their perpetual journey toward an end that perhaps, in principle, they cannot reach: to disclose a perfect reciprocal transparency between mind and world, and hence an ultimate reality where existence and perfect intelligibility are convertible with one another because both subsist in a single unrestricted act of spiritual intelligence. This, in theological terms, is one of the paths of the mind’s journey into God. And this is also, at least in its ultimate intentions, a place where the consonance of scientific and theological reasoning is restored, on the far side of a provisional separation that at times has become an alienation. Both pursuits set out originally upon their different paths from the same innocent instant of existential amazement, and both together end, after all their several peregrinations, at a place where description fails, but where that primordial wonder finds its final consummation in wisdom: the threshold of that mystery—the cause of causes, the explanation of explanations, the holy of holies—toward which both are forever turned. And, however different the paths by which they have reached this sanctuary, each approaches it at the end ideally not as a stranger in a far country, but as a pilgrim entering a long-sought holy land.

End Quote/Excerpt.

Recovering The Hierarchy Of Being ~ by David Oderberg ~ Transcript

Transcript PDF transcript-of-recovering-hierarchy-of-being-by-david-oderberg—

Edward Feser Post https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/05/oderberg-on-hierarchy-of-being.html

Humane Philosophy Host https://www.humanephilosophy.com/single-post/2020/01/06/26-February-David-Oderberg-Recovering-the-Hierarchy-of-Being

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUV9dfmIr8I&feature=youtu.be

Christianity And The History Of Science

“Science History & Christianity” isn’t merely Science History & Christianity, but, rather, it is Scientific Realism and the Christian Metaphysic and History and therein all lines must pass through either (A) Brute Fact / Reductio or else (B) Necessary/Self-Explanatory. Trajectory and Accumulation are not problematic in the category we call [Knowledge] simply because Discovery and the pains of Privation (Fragmentation) and Temporal Becoming are, first, predicted and, second, not sufficient for the End/Terminus. Calculus piggybacks off of Multiplication/Division which in turn piggybacks off of Addition/Subtraction, which in turns Piggybacks off of Perception and Conceptual Ceilings, which in turn…. And so on, and so on.

NOTE: The Header/Image is in part borrowed from https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/uploaded/ch134s.pdf which is included a few paragraphs down along with other items from The Christian History Institute. Additionally the PDF is here as well at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/christian-history-how-the-church-fostered-science-and-technology-post-pdf-copy.pdf

Science & Christianity therein moves from Pre-Christian Mysticism’s Unintelligibility because The God’s Play & The People Pay, as per from the Brut Fact, the Unintelligible, and to Karma’s Animism, and to Reality as Intelligible via God as Good & Christ as Incarnate, then back into Aristotle again, and to Kalam & Islam, and to William of Conches, and to Anselm, and to the Condemnations of 1277, and to denser/thicker swaths of Reciprocity amid Sight secondary to denser/thicker Travel, and to Universities, and to the fact that [Calculus] Piggybacks off of [Addition & Subtraction] is a feature which in fact affirms BOTH any such Calculus AND any such Addition/Subtraction, and, still ever in motion, to a narrative of The Genesis of Science, to the Culmination and Convergence across what became the Christian Middle Ages, to a Scientific Revolution. But wait. What about NOW?

NOW we find through Non-Theism various swaths of Modernity Falling out of Intelligibility and into an Abyss of Unintelligibility via Non-Theism’s only Option of all things Brute-Fact and, so, having traveled “Full Circle” from where Mankind started and back again into the Chaos that is the God’s Play & the People Pay as, once again, Man returns to Mysticism’s Absurdity-As-The-Only-Option vis-à-vis All-Things-Brute and thereby Mankind ((…well…Non-Theism…)) completes the Full-Circle back into the Chaos of All-Is-Illusion — into Non-Theism’s metaphysical terminus of Cosmic Indifference amid the Irreducibly Mindless wherein all “layers” are *necessarily* void of the fundamental nature of “I-AM” as The-Self is in fact terminally illusory as the inverse would just be, by definition, Theism.

The Philosophy of Science Cannot Evade The Philosophy of Mind:

In fact “science” just is a “thing” which takes place vis-à-vis Mind. This *is* a narrative of epistemology and conceptual ceilings and the collective consciousness of humanity. The [Scientific Realism] which replaced [The Gods Played & The People Paid] did so for specific/historical reasons as Calculus piggybacked off of Multiplication//Division which in turn piggybacked off of Addition//Subtraction, and so on. Modernity’s Christian retains the metaphysical requisites for said Scientific Realism and Ultimate Intelligibility even as Modernity’s Non-Theism/Atheism races to return again into Reality as, finally, Brute Fact & the Self as, finally, Illusory and, therein, once again traveling full-circle back into Yesteryear’s Reality as ultimately Unintelligible – for in fact the Gods Play and the People Pay ((…given Non-Theism…)). So much for science. Whereas, as before, so still again, Scientific Realism flourishes in the Christianized Mindset. WHY does Science flourish in said mindset? Well that is briefly described in upcoming links, but for now, a few more layers to add.

Epistemology = Mind. The ToE (Theory of Everything) which “…brings into harmony the greatest number of ascertained facts and disposes of the greatest number of difficulties with the least amount of strain…” is the T.O.E. which carries the highest degree of plausibility. Therein the following:

NOTE: The Hyperlinks in this post are formatted Blue but they are NOT formatted (yet) to open in a new tab, therefore, in order to not lose your page here one should “right-click” on the hyperlinks and select “open in new tab” for easier back-and-forth navigation.

So, that said:

Consciousness, Emergence, Intentionality, Searle, Reason Atop The Irrational, And Naturalism’s Egregious Deficiency https://metachristianity.com/consciousness-emergence-intentionality-searle-reason-atop-the-irrational/

From the Christian History Institute:

NOTE: The following hyperlinks are NOT (yet) formated to open in a new tab, and so it is easier to “right click” the hyperlink and select “open in new tab” in order to avoid exiting this page:

Continuing with Christianity, History, and the Philosophy of Science:

Have You Bought Into The Copernican Myth https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2016/01/have-you-bought-into-the-copernican-myth/
Flat Earth vs. Aquinas vs. Dante vs. Galileo vs. Scripture vs. Science https://metachristianity.com/flat-earth-vs-aquinas-dante-galileo-scripture-science
Putting Nature On The Rack http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/putting-nature-on-rack.html
Review of Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” by E. Feser, which he calls EN-DARKEN-MENT, at https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/endarkenment-later/
Omnibus Of Fallacies by Edward Feser, a review of “Faith versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible” (Jerry Coyne) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/02/omnibus-of-fallacies
Fallacies Physicists Fall For, by E. Feser, at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html
“Science and Theology: Where the Consonance Really Lies” by David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.com/science-and-theology-where-the-consonance-really-lies-by-david-bentley-hart/
Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Allegory, Metaphor, Divine Communique, Transposition, And The Heavy-Meta-Bible https://metachristianity.com/genesis-quantum-worlds-allegory-metaphor-divine-communique-transposition/

A Few Items On The (so-called) Dark Ages:

“There Were No Dark Ages” borrowed from John Dickson: “Studying grammar, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, music, and astronomy in 8th-9th century Europe was considered an act of devotion to the all-wise God. It was learning about the “wisdom” the Creator had imprinted upon the world. For Alcuin and his circle (AD 790s), and the many schools they established, this involved knowing not just the Bible and the Church Fathers (Augustine, Gregory the Great, Jerome, and Ambrose), but also all of the ancient Greek and Roman (classical) authors they could get their hands on. From Alcuin’s own catalogues, his letters, and the surviving manuscripts of this period, we know this included Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Pliny the Elder, Cicero, Seneca, Virgil, Livy, Ovid, and at least 50 other pagan writers. The breadth of learning is remarkable. I have a PhD in Ancient History from a well-resourced state university, and I confess that I have not read all of the authors these masters of Charlemagne’s court absorbed. And I certainly cannot quote them… Alcuin routinely does in his poems and letters–from memory! The story of a “dark ages”, when the Church suppressed secular knowledge, is a perverse myth invented in the Enlightenment, and is only sustained today because no one reads about the birth of schools in Europe in the 700s…”

Six Reasons the Dark Ages Weren’t So Dark: https://www.history.com/news/6-reasons-the-dark-ages-werent-so-dark
“The Dark Ages” – Popery, Periodisation And Pejoratives” at History For Atheists (by Atheist Tim O’Neill) at https://historyforatheists.com/2016/11/the-dark-ages-popery-periodisation-and-pejoratives/
The Dark Age Myth: An Atheist Reviews James Hannam’s “God’s Philosophers: How The Medieval World Laid The Foundations of Modern Science”. Amazon is at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S6UW1E/ and the aforementioned review is at https://strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/ “One of the…. hazards of being an atheist and secular humanist who hangs around on discussion boards is to encounter a staggering level of historical illiteracy.”

How The Enlightenment Ideology Obscured Our Historiographical Imagination: https://theneomedievalist.blogspot.com/2021/01/how-enlightenment-ideology-obscured.html with the following:

“I’m a graduate in Medieval Studies, and when I try to explain some myths about it, people look at me as if I was insane. The Enlightenment propaganda is so strong, that telling the truth about Medieval era sounds like a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory. And this is a serious problem. Many school textbooks, media, etc. promote most of these myths, which are inherently biased and dangerous, because they distort the truth. The Enlightenment historiography is still the most successful propaganda ever made; it refused to die, because the [anti-Christian] sentiment which these thinkers had promoted seems to be popular ever since. Demonizing the Other is the best way to begin a fight, because it gives you the feeling of the moral superiority. In our case, this has been done by distorting and misinterpreting historical facts, and inventing myths and false villains and heroes. This genius propaganda has affected and influenced most of us, therefore it’s not surprising how our imagination has been constructed. For example, when we think or talk about [the] historical horrors, the vast majority will think of the those ‘dark’ Middle Ages. Ironically, we rarely realize that the most morbid and inhumane crimes were committed during the Enlightenment and Modern era. Concentration camps, gulag, genocides, eugenics, racism, reign of terror, totalitarianism, etc. The aforementioned catastrophes are a result of the ideology which promoted the cult of progress, reason and science, which ended becoming the cult of irrationality, regress and crimes. But of course, rarely will we hear that being denounced, because we still live in that era, where one of the most criminal and bloody act of history [the French Revolution] is presented as ‘glorious’ and ‘good’. The Enlightenment way of thinking may have ‘freed’ people from believing in religion or God, but at the very moment when this philosophy rose, ideologies were born. So, today, many don’t believe in religion because they consider it dogmatic, but unconsciously and even dogmatically believe and follow ideologies as Enlightenment.” — Albert Bikaj

Another Look At The God’s Play And The People Pay:

Recall earlier the description of Non-Theism’s painful returning again into the abyss of All Things Brute, of Reality as Unintelligible. Another lens by which to see that is that of Retorsion, but, before the upcoming quote/excerpt (Retorsion), perhaps see the following:

Logic Itself Is Being Itself Contra The Fallacy of Presuppositionalism https://metachristianity.com/logic-itself-is-being-itself-contra-the-fallacy-of-presuppositionalism/ regarding the notion of Reductio Ad Deum and Reductio Ad Absurdum. Here’s E. Feser from https://strangenotions.com/ama-dr-feser-answers/ discussing his book Proofs of God and the concept of Retorsion:

Begin Excerpts:

“…More importantly, we can defend them by the method of retorsion, which involves showing that one cannot deny them on pain of self-contradiction or incoherence. This method is sometimes misunderstood. Some people think it merely involves showing that we can’t help *thinking* a certain way, but where this leaves it open that this way of thinking might nevertheless not correspond to reality. In other words, they think that retorsion arguments are essentially about human *psychology*. That is not at all the case. Rightly understood, such arguments are a species of *reduction* *ad* *absurdum* argument. They involve defending a claim by showing that the denial of the claim entails a contradiction, and thus cannot as a matter of objective fact (and not merely as a contingent matter of human psychology) be correct… …The word “proof” has, historically, been used in different senses. Naturally, I don’t mean that the arguments are proofs in exactly the same sense in which a mathematical proof is a “proof.” They are mostly not *a* *priori* arguments, for one thing. But I used the word deliberately, and I certainly claim a high degree of certainty for the claim that God exists. For example, I would claim that it is as certain that God exists as it is that the world external to our minds is real and not an illusion foisted upon us by a Cartesian demon or the Matrix. How can I say that? Well, the point of the book to show this. The arguments are “proofs” in that, first of all, the conclusion is claimed to follow *deductively* from the premises. They are not mere probabilistic inferences, arguments to the best explanation, or “God of the gaps” arguments. (I hate “God of the gaps” arguments.) The claim is that the arguments show, not merely that God is the most likely explanation of the facts asserted in the premises of the arguments, but rather that God is the only possible explanation in principle of those facts. Second, the premises are knowable with certainty. The premises include both empirical premises (for example, the premise that change occurs) and philosophical premises (for example, the premise that everything has an explanation or is intelligible). The premises in turn can be defended in various ways that show them to be beyond reasonable doubt. For example, some of them can be defended via retorsion arguments (which, again, are a species of reductio ad absurdum argument). That is to say, such arguments try to show that anyone who denies such-and-such a claim is implicitly contradicting himself. So in arguments of the sort I am defending, the conclusion is claimed to follow necessarily from the premises, and the premises are claimed to be knowable beyond any reasonable doubt. That sort of argument fits one traditional use of the word “proof.”

Naturally, I am aware that some people will nevertheless challenge the arguments or remain doubtful about one or more of them. But that’s true of every single argument one could give for any conclusion, even mathematical proofs. A determined and clever enough skeptic will always be able to come up with *some* grounds for doubt, even if the grounds are bizarre or far-fetched. That doesn’t mean that the grounds are, all things considered, going to be reasonable ones. Anyway, my calling something a “proof” doesn’t entail that I think every reader, even every fair-minded reader, is immediately going to be convinced. What it is meant to indicate is the nature of the connection between the facts described in the premises and the fact described in the conclusion. It is a *metaphysical* claim, not a *sociological* claim. Too many people mix these things up. They think that as long as a significant number of people are likely not to agree with some argument, you can’t call it a “proof.” That just misunderstands the way the term is being used…”

End Excerpts (…from https://strangenotions.com/ama-dr-feser-answers/ …)

Knowledge, Discovery, Privation, and Temporal Becoming:

Recall from earlier the observation that “Science & Christianity” isn’t Science & Christianity — it’s Scientific Realism and the Christian Metaphysic and History and therein all lines must pass through either (A) Brute Fact / Reductio or else (B) Necessary/Self-Explanatory. Trajectory and Accumulation are not problematic in the category we call [Knowledge] simply because Discovery and the pains of Privation (Fragmentation) and Temporal Becoming are, first, predicted and, second, not sufficient for the End/Terminus. Calculus piggybacks off of Multiplication/Division which in turn piggybacks off of Addition/Subtraction, which in turns Piggybacks off of Perception and Conceptual Ceilings, which in turn…. And so on. Therein:

Context of Discovery vs. Context of Justification: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/05/context-isnt-everything.html
Objective, Subjective, Third Person, First Person: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/09/objective-and-subjective.html

A Consolidation Of A Discussion In A Comment Section:

The title of one of T. Gilson’s essays at https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/ is “FAITH VS. FACT? NO, JERRY COYNE’S THEOLOGY VS. WHATEVER”. As all threads/comment boxes do, that thread eventually began to morph into another sub-topic, which was this: That science flourished in Western culture in a way it did nowhere else is without question…. but why…?

The goal of this section is to consolidate a few of that thread’s comments for reference regarding that question, which comes up often. However, before doing that, the following paraphrase (with a bit of levity to make a point) of a D.B. Hart quote to demonstrate what is too often the Non-Theist’s pure assertion, as per the following:

“The Christian needs to know that our (Non-Theists) defense of “rationalistic” values require the denial of the existence of reason, but that’s okay, because we assert it’s okay. The causally closed paradigm which maps to Physics has to be enough for us, and so it will have to do for you too. Why? No reason. No good ones anyway. You should also know, dear Christian, that our own intellectual consistency obliges us to believe that reason is parasitic upon purely irrational physical events, and that it may well be the case that our nonexistent consciousness is only deluded in intentionally believing that there is such a thing as intentional belief. Once again, we assert that that’s all okay. We don’t argue it. We just assert it. Despite physics. Besides, what you the Christian have mistaken for your rational convictions and ideas are actually only a colony of diverse “memes” that have established themselves in the ecologies of your cerebral cortices given that you are not, as we are, mystically immune to the causally closed paradigm which maps to Physics. Now, if you were a Non-Theist like us, you too would be mystically and inexplicably immune to the causally closed paradigm which maps to Physics. That is the mystical autohypnosis that just is the “why” of our “…you should believe our assertions…”, but don’t ask too many questions please. Just believe. Like we do.” End Paraphrase.

So, then, several of the comments from https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/ are consolidated regarding the little sub-narratives within that discussion/comment-section on the question of “….science flourished in the Christianized mindset….but why…?”

NOTE: The Hyperlinks in this post are NOT formatted Blue (yet) and they are NOT formatted to open in a new tab (yet), therefore, in order to not lose your page here one should “right-click” on the hyperlinks and select “open in new tab” for easier back-and-forth navigation.

A1. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115673
A2. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115485
A3. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115745
A4. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115751
A5. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115786
A6. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html
A7. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-natural.html

B1. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115715
B2. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115496
B3. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115516
B4. https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115754

C1 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115737
C2 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115738

D1 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115757
D2 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115762
D3 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115783
D4 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115787

E1 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115810
E2 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115812
E3 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-115947
E4 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-116015
E5 https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2015/06/faith-vs-fact-jerry-coynes-theology-vs-whatever/#comment-116019

Segue: Define Faith https://metachristianity.com/define-faith/

End.

The Flat Earth vs Aquinas, Dante, Galileo, Scripture, and Science

In looking at the Flat Earth “thing/fallacy” vs Aquinas, Dante, Galileo, Scripture, and Science we can start with something from a brief look at inerrancy:

A — From the specific comment/link: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/standtoreason/morality_from_nature_audio/#comment-3379010783

B — It starts off with: “5 Quotes On Biblical Inerrancy… Quote #1….”

C — Quote #4 in that list is the following:

Begin Quote #4:

“Inerrancy (probably unjustly) has too much literalistic baggage associated with it that brings out ignorant objections like “the Bible says that the number PI is 3, and it is not exactly 3, therefore the Bible is not inerrant.” This baggage comes along with the claim “I believe the Bible”. Honestly Austin, if you are looking for the phrase that will satisfy irrational unbelievers so that they don’t associate idiotic views (that virtually no one holds) with Christianity, that phrase is “I give up, you are sooooo much smarter and more ‘scientificy’ than me!” I go ahead and embrace the phrase “inerrancy”.

Should someone try to say that number of digits of precision given for the size of Solomon’s cast sea is germane, I point to the doctrine of inerrancy as defined by the Chicago Statement which is easily available online. If they persist, they are attacking some view, but it’s not the doctrine of inerrancy. I also take the time to answer the objection. First, no number given will correctly equal the ratio of circumference to diameter. Would 3.1 satisfy the Bible-denier? Probably not.

What about 3.14? 3.142? 3.1416? 3.14159? 3.141593? Or this (a link to the first 100K digits after the decimal in PI) ? And if any of those do satisfy the Bible denier, why shouldn’t the approximation with one fewer significant digit serve as well? And if that, then why not 3, also a correct approximation of the ratio, serve? Or is it the contention of the Bible denier that in a description of a room, the God should have inspired the author to launch into a discussion of real numbers in order to avoid some dimwit construing an error at some later stage. Now, some, Bible-deniers may persist in saying that it should at least have said 3.14.

Why? Because atheism.

Well, even for these ‘thinkers’, it turns out that sea is described as having a flared rim. What would be the simplest way to measure the circumference of such a vessel? You would stretch a rope around the un-flared body and measure the rope. And what would be the simplest way to measure the diameter? Maximize the chord with the rope across the top of the sea (which would include the flared rim). Now measuring thus in the simplest way, the measurements come out to 10 cubits in diameter, or about 180 inches. And 30 cubits around, or about 540 inches. That’s assuming the typical 18 inches to the cubit. The flare of the rim is described as being one hand wide. That’s about 4 inches. When you maximize the chord, you’ll be measuring the width of the rim flare twice, so the inner diameter, given a measurement of 180 inches, is 172 inches. The ratio of 540 to 172 is about 3.14.”

End quote. (by WisdomLover)

Another item on the Flat Earth:

“This week, reading Aquinas & Dante w/students, talking literature & theology. Both texts happen to presuppose a spherical earth. Aquinas mentions it as something obviously knowable, and (the point of his illustration) demonstrable via two distinct sciences. In Dante, you can’t even start a rudimentary diagram of Inferno before noticing that it only works if you can theoretically go straight through the center of the sphere & come out on the antipodes. And once you add the planets & fixed stars, it’s even more obvious. Neither author is interested in teaching the sphericity of the earth; they presuppose it on their way to more interesting things. Students are often struck by this: How could authors who died in 1274 and 1321 know this fact, even taking it for granted? The answer, as it dawns on them, almost seems like a conspiracy theory: The idea that the medievals thought the earth was flat is a bit of propaganda devised by moderns who were counting on nobody reading any primary texts from the period. Sometimes students will try all sorts of explanations to avoid this conclusion: maybe only elites knew it; maybe they forgot it later on in the dark part of the dark ages; etc. But it makes more sense to ask if there’s any primary text evidence for the alleged flat belief.”

That is from Fred Sanders and the following was given in reply by Joe Rigney:

“[CS Lewis] loved to do this to people. Numerous essays where he quotes Ptolemy about the minuscule size of the earth relative to the cosmos, and then puts in the mouth of his modern ill-educated interlocutor, “They knew that then?!?” And the implications come crashing down like waves.”

Segues With Science, Bad History, and the Flat Earth:

Did Bible writers believe the Earth was flat? https://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c015.html
Who invented the idea of a flat Earth? https://christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c034.html
Have You Bought Into The Copernican Myth https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2016/01/have-you-bought-into-the-copernican-myth/
Putting Nature On The Rack http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/putting-nature-on-rack.html
Who Refused To Look Through Galileo’s Telescope? https://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2006/11/who-refused-to-look-through-galileos.html
Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674057414/ref=nodl_
The Enduring Lesson of the Galileo Myth https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/galileo-myth/
History For Atheists https://historyforatheists.com/ This is a blog by an Atheist seeking to help Atheism by stopping it from appealing to such bad/fallacious history “…because rationalists should not base their arguments on errors and distortions…”

The following is from the now closed blog newtheist.org and was written by Matt Bilyeu:

Begin Quote/Excerpt:

The Galileo Controversy

Atheistic scientists have long painted the picture of religion as a suppressor of science and truth. They describe history as illustrative of the great divide between science and faith. Martyrs for science pay the ultimate price for their commitment to rational inquiry while an unjust and close-minded religious establishment tolerates no dissent and suppresses any discovery that can be perceived as a challenge. Chief among these martyrs, they say, is Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).

Galileo was born in Pisa in Italy on 2/15/1564. He later studied medicine at the university of Pisa but left before completing his studies. His family was well connected, however, and they secured a professorship for him at the university in 1589. It was during this time that he used the experimental method to demonstrate that objects of different weights fall at the same time. This was important as it also demonstrated the superiority of the experimental method over “armchair philosophy”. Galileo is attributed with developing this mode of experimentation into what we now know as the scientific method. He later left to work at the University of Padua. In 1610 Galileo wrote Sidereal Messenger, which publicized the discoveries that he had made with his telescope and made him an international sensation. Later Galileo would move to Florence. It was here that he wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: The Ptolemaic and the Copernican in 1632, which led to his trial in 1633. He lost the trial, and was sentenced to house arrest for life, which lasted 9 years until his passing in 1642.

Galileo was chiefly influential for his defense of heliocentrism (the belief that the sun was at the center and everything orbited it). He also developed the scientific method, as previously discussed, while working on laws of motion. His took the Bible not to be a scientific work, famously saying that, “The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.” He felt that references to the solar movements in scripture were mere phenomenological language, such as our description of a “sunset” or “sunrise”. Such descriptions were not to be taken literally as scientific descriptions of the heavenly bodies but merely to be the observation of the author, much like we observe the “sunset” although we know that the sun does not literally set behind the horizon each day.

Galileo’s ideas relied heavily on those who came before him. He didn’t actually prove heliocentrism, it was Kepler who did that, but Galileo only popularized it with his literary works aimed at non-experts. Although Galileo is credited with using an experimental method to demonstrate that objects of differing weights fall at the same speed, John Philoponus had already made the discovery in the sixth century and later Thomas Bradwardine would say that this was true in a vacuum. Galileo also relied on John Buridan’s concept of impetus in his attempts to explain projectile motion. Finally, as we have already suggested, Copernicus was the primary support for Galileo’s ideas about heliocentrism.

The two major opponents of Galileo were Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) and Maffeo Barberini (1568-1644) who became Pope Urban VIII. Bellarmine was originally a Jesuit Professor who was noted for his role in the Inquisition in general and for his handling of the case of Giordano Bruno in particular. Bellarmine was a religious fundamentalist who believed in a literal interpretation of scripture. He felt that science should be based on the Bible, and that if the Bible did not speak to a particular scientific question then that question was not answerable. He felt that the scriptures should be read literally until forced to do otherwise. You might say that he felt there should be a presumption of literalism when reading scripture. As a result of this attitude toward scripture, Bellarmine officially warned Galileo that he could not defend, hold, or teach the views of Copernicus (which Bellarmine deemed to be in conflict with scripture, and therefore false). Bellarmine later died before Galileo’s official trial.

Pope Urban VIII called for the trial of Galileo. Originally Urban was an admirer, and enjoyed another work of Galileo’s, the Assayer. Urban even seemed to protect Galileo when the Congregation of the Index tried to have his book censored. Pope Urban VIII believed that it was impossible for man to know how the heavens really worked, because God, using other means, could achieve whatever result man might see in the heavens. Urban also took a lax attitude toward Copernicanism, which he felt was not formally heretical and which could not be proven conclusively.

Galileo tried the pope’s patience a little too far, as it turns out. In the previously mentioned Dialogues, Galileo presented heliocentrism as a proven fact (rather than just a theory) in direct violation of the warning given to him by the Inquisition and in conflict with the views expressed to him by the pope himself. Furthermore he presented the Pope’s argument about our inability to know how the heavens worked in the mouth of a character named Simplicio, who was the book’s simpleton. It is unclear why Galileo would take such rash measures to attack the pope who admired him and who had previously protected him from the Congregation of the Index’s censorship. Predictably, Pope Urban VIII did not take Galileo’s attack well and called him to trial. Galileo may not be the martyr his present day disciples make him out to be, as his initial defense was to reject Copernicanism and say that he had disproven it in his book (although he fooled no one). Ultimately Galileo lost his trial and was sentenced to house arrest.

As we have seen, Galileo’s trial was more about politics than it was about science. Pope Urban VIII was satisfied to maintain a relaxed attitude toward Copernicus until Galileo personally attacked him. This case also shows that the conflict is not between the Bible and science, as Galileo affirmed the Bible. The chief difference between him and Bellarmine were their attitudes towards scripture. Bellarmine insisted upon a literal interpretation of scripture unless and until forced to interpret it otherwise while Galileo assumed that scripture was not intended to be instructive on how the heavens operate and could be presumed to be figurative when speaking on the topic. It seems that although Galileo was closer to interpreting scripture correctly, a small modification may be in order. Although it is true that scripture’s primary purpose has little to do with the natural sciences; it is not the case that scripture has nothing to say about it. Until recently, modern science believed in an eternal universe without any beginning. It seems as though Galileo’s interpretation would have taken Genesis 1:1 to be figurative, which would have been a mistake. When scripture does make a clear statement about the world, such as claiming the world had a beginning, we should take such statements seriously.

In any event, Galileo’s trial shows not that there is a conflict between science and faith but that there is often a conflict between people over their worldviews, which can be intensified through aggressive and insulting language. This is hardly surprising, and should not pose a serious challenge to one’s faith or force one to choose between their faith and their minds.

End Quote/Excerpt.

The following: Christianity And The History Of Science https://metachristianity.com/christianity-and-the-history-of-science

That helps the transition into the following:

Science takes place inside minds. Mapping epistemology, conceptual ceilings, and the collective consciousness finds us within [Unintelligibility] which is the Child of [The Gods Play & The People Pay]. That was replaced by [Scientific Realism] for specific and historical reasons. That is why the History of Science just is THAT history — of those Two Mindsets — which in turn just is the History of Theism/s. Every culture took steps and yet every culture would simultaneously pull back. It is there that we find the question, “….Science flourished in the Christianized mindset… but *why*….?” That is looked at in the specific comment at https://randalrauser.com/2018/02/biblical-god-ignorant-science/#comment-4138241674 which opens up with: “…Science flourished in the Christianized mindset… but why…?”

The dual history of science and conceptual mindsets helps bring to light the following:

The Myth Of Religious Neutrality ~ An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories || Revised Edition || by Roy A. Clouser https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Religious-Neutrality-Revised-Theories-ebook/dp/B01D4TAXXC

Chapter 25: The Founding Myth of Atheism: Galileo, Copernicus, and the Church — in the book “Is Atheism Dead?” by Eric Metaxas. The following are borrowed from that same book:

Modern science [is] a legacy, I might even [say] a child, of Christianity. —C. F. von Weizsäcker
“…In ‘The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy’ Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton make the case particularly compellingly, explaining that it was the worldview of the Christian faith that uniquely enabled science to emerge and flourish…”

David Bentley Hart looks at “Science and Theology: Where the Consonance Really Lies” at https://metachristianity.com/science-and-theology-where-the-consonance-really-lies-by-david-bentley-hart

Lastly, there IS ONE batch of faithful believers who DO believe in a Flat Earth ~ in a manner of speaking ~ as per the following:

Atheism: The World Is Flat – The None, The Non-, The Non-Theist https://metachristianity.com/atheism-world-flat-none-non-non-theist/

—END—

Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Allegory, Metaphor, Divine Communique, Transposition, And The Heavy-Meta-Bible

What has come into the consciousness of Mankind in and by and through the uncanny Metanarratives of the Ancient Hebrew are without comparison as we approach the Story or Meta-Narrative of A. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and B. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer. A brief example of what and how it is that “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind, and how that actually necessitates Transposition with reach, and how that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible:

“…the people who wrote the Psalms had no clue what space was…. what part of that is entertaining…. So that is my point. There is no reasonable excuse for the laughably bad cosmology….”

These first few sentences up to this point are a brief excerpt from a section further down and it is placed here at the top because it zeroes in on the question at hand, namely what exactly *is* the Bible’s “Genre”? What is the agenda of Omnipotence in employing that mode of Story and of Narrative – in giving that form of a Divine Communique given the reality of the many pains of Man in “Privation“? More to the point – why did Omnipotence Decree and Create the Imago Dei? Infinite Consciousness transposes into Frail and Mutable Consciousness and we arrive – there – and nowhere else – upon a Divine Communique which never changes from start to finish, which transposes through all Time and all Circumstance whether such transposes through the written or through the spoken or through – in all worlds – Incarnation. We will break off from this brief excerpt from a section further down in order now to begin looking at HOW and WHY it is the case that Genesis Arrives In Divine Communique And The Heavy-Meta Bible even as Non-Theism is left in the turbulence of Metaphor And Allegory. As per the following ~

WHENCE TIME & TIMELESSNESS?

Whence Timeless Procession ↔ Timed/Tensed Motion? Whence the B-Theory of Time ↔ A-Theory of Time? Whence all such vectors given the relentless force of logic which reminds us that there are no such things as “ontological cul-de-sacs”? The interface amid the A Theory and B Theory of Time forces absurdity if one holds to either A Full Stop or else B Full Stop as one must expunge far too much in either case. Whereas, in and by Logos we expunge neither as we set sail and traverse that which in fact owns and also drives both. The Christian is not choosing between a. Presentism and b. Eternalism and for all the same reasons the Christian is not choosing between a. God In Time and b. God Outside of Time. Instead, the Christian is (…as per https://strangenotions.com/why-an-infinite-regress-among-proper-causes-is-metaphysically-impossible/#comment-3646646137 …) choosing from among the four following options and note that “Theistic” there is in reference to the Trinitarian metaphysic afforded by Christianity and, so, in fact the Christian affirms both “c” and “d” as per:

A—Non-Theistic Presentism
B—Non-Theistic Eternalism
C— Theistic Presentism
D— Theistic Eternalism

**Along the way one can add Perdurantism and/or Endurantism if so inclined.

According to the A-theorist, temporal becoming is a real and objective feature of the universe; transience is essential to the nature of time, a truth expressed metaphorically by saying that time “flows.” Temporal properties of events cannot be adequately analyzed in terms of earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than alone, but must include reference to past, present, and future, which are not merely indexical expressions but are irreducibly tensed. The present represents the edge of becoming, and future events do not merely not yet exist, rather they do not exist at all. ((…see https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/divine-eternity/god-and-real-time/ …))

According to the B-theorist, temporal becoming is mind-dependent and purely subjective. Time neither flows nor do things come to be except in the sense that we at one moment are conscious of them after not having been conscious of them at an earlier moment. Things simultaneous with different moments on the time-line are equally existent and are tenselessly related to each other by the relations of earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than, to which past, present, and future can be reduced. Anything that from our perspective has, does, or will exist in the universe in fact simply exists (tenselessly). ((…see https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/divine-eternity/god-and-real-time/ …))

SPACE-TIME is emergent, and, also, emergence does not mean “timelessness becoming time”. There is no actual becoming/changing — and so to conflate Emergence with Becoming is to falter – which is to say that to conflate Emergence with Change/Changing is to falter. Emergence reduces to entanglement/superposition and not to “becoming” / “change” / “changing”. Time/Change/Becoming ((per the weight of physics)) reduces to Non-Being and is illusory vis-à-vis ALL “fundamental natures” anywhere. This is why Non-Theism is hopelessly committed to changing metrics. It can’t retain both Timelessness and Time as one must reduce to illusion. More detail will come later in the section titled “Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 1 of 3” which explores ((…in all three parts)) several excerpts from Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds And The Emergence Of Spacetime“.

Richard Dawkins complained that “Philosophy failed to predict Darwin”. That is an uninformed complaint as there’s no need to think anyone would begin or end with evolution. The ontological history in question is one of becoming with respect to Cosmos and Conscious Observer. But Space-Time isn’t ontologically basic ((irreducible)) and we find that Temporal-Becoming/Change/Changing ((evolution)) arrives only in Metaphor/Allegory via Non-Theism’s attempt at Transposition at first and, as we push into Entanglement and Superposition, we find that Temporal Becoming ((and thereby all semantic intent embedded in Change/Changing/Evolution)) descends out of Metaphor/Allegory and fades into Non-Being all together.

The [Beginning Of Time] just is the [Beginning of Change]. Yet we find that “Time” never does BEGIN because it never does BECOME and that is so because we find that “Changing” never does BEGIN because in fact it never does EXIST ANYWHERE and so of course it never does BECOME. The ontological history of the becoming of Cosmos & Conscious Observer cannot be a narrative of Time/Space. It is unavoidably a Metanarrative populated with ontic referents landing in the Eternal/Immutable/Timeless as, again, Space-Time is “emergent” as the required entanglements & superposition testify. We arrive at the logical impossibilities of trying to equate “A” to “Non-A” as we discover that neither Logic nor Modernity’s semantic intent cannot transpose the Irreducible & Immutable into the space beneath our conceptual ceiling circa 2020 ((…given Non-Theism that is…)). Physics demonstrates this as it isn’t new information that the Map cannot be a narrative of Temporal Becoming Full Stop — of Years & Space & Time Full Stop *IF* it is a Communique regarding the ontological history of becoming of what we call [Cosmos] & [Conscious Observer]. Entanglement and Superposition cannot provide any such Ontic Hard Stop – any such Ontic Map.

The nature of the problem is that Modernity’s most precise “semantic intent” cannot even in principle transpose the Irreducible & Immutable into the space beneath our conceptual ceiling circa 2020 in and in fact in ANY “Circa” ((so to speak)). Physics demonstrates this and Scripture predicted this from the get-go even as Sean Carroll ((and others)) speaks of “language” in “layers” as the truth value of all language fails to traverse from layer to layer to layer through to the End/Terminus while keeping all Reference Frames intact/coherent. This isn’t new information of course and we find again that Genesis 1/2/3 CANNOT be a narrative of Temporal Becoming IF it is a Communique regarding the ontological history of becoming of what we call Cosmos and Conscious Observer. And of course “that” is exactly the Genre of Genesis 1-3.

We cannot shoehorn the Emergent: Physics and the Christian metaphysic tell us why we simply cannot shoehorn the Emergent-Anything into the Terminus/Driver’s Seat of Reality. Modernity is catching up as physics testifies that such is the case with respect to any possible occupant of said Driver’s Seat. The Non-Theist’s common error with respect to the nature of emergence vis-à-vis space-time is the fixed, false belief that the genesis of space-time ((emergence)) is a narrative reducing to metrics of space-time. That’s anti-scientific given all available data, and it is logically impossible both with respect to Identity and with respect to Non-Contradiction.

The Past Eternal Universe

While Physics forces the Emergence of Space-Time and so leaves the Past Eternal Universe ((Eternal Presentism / Eternal Temporal Becoming)) behind we can pause here to make a few brief comments.

Despite the problem of Science ((Physics/Emergence)) the proverbial Hold-Outs For Past Eternal Temporal Becoming here also have to face the fact that, say, non-accelerating reference frames and Special Relativity and so on are by no means anywhere close to a ToE or T.O.E or Theory Of Everything, just as the B-Theory of Time is not itself, by any metric, an explanatory terminus. Nor is Hawking’s South Pole nor the 4D block universe and so on.

From E. Feser, perhaps http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/07/carroll-on-laws-and-causation.html context with this:

“…..what allows us to speak the language of causes and effects” has nothing essentially to do with tracing series of events backwards in time. Here again Carroll is just begging the question. On the Aristotelian-Scholastic analysis, questions about causation are raised wherever we have potentialities that need actualization, or a thing’s being metaphysically composite and thus in need of a principle that accounts for the composition of its parts, or there being a distinction in a thing between its essence or nature on the one and its existence on the other, or a thing’s being contingent. The universe, however physics and scientific cosmology end up describing it — even if it turned out to be a universe without a temporal beginning, even if it is a four-dimensional block universe, even if Hawking’s closed universe model turned out to be correct, even if we should really think in terms of a multiverse rather than a single universe — will, the Aristotelian argues, necessarily exhibit just these features (potentialities needing actualization, composition, contingency, etc.). And thus it will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, require a cause outside it. And only that which is pure actuality devoid of potentiality, only what is utterly simple or non-composite, only something whose essence or nature just is existence itself, only what is therefore in no way contingent but utterly necessary — only that, the classical theist maintains, could in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation, whatever the specific scientific details turn out to be…”

Past Eternal Universe: Infinite Time Sums To The Infinite Contingency

One must follow through. Granting “Time” in “weee-little-bits” or granting “Time” as the “eternal contingency” both fail as a rational terminus as we find that in all cases and in all “Degrees” we are left either with “weee-little-bits” of various Contingencies or else with an Eternal Contingency and that is why Theologians in various times and places did not find it problematic to either Defend or else Grant the Past Eternal Universe.

“….But the catch is that the causality of each intermediate is *not* fulfilled in its prior cause, since that cause, too, is dependent on yet a prior cause to fulfill its causality. Regression to infinity means that the causality never gets completely fulfilled, and thus, the chain fails for want of an uncaused first caused….” ((..by Dr. Bonnette))

That quote of Bonnette alludes to the fact that Physics-full-stop, rationally followed, leads one beyond physics-full-stop. What typically follows is a. various sorts of category errors related to some flavor of the fallacy of composition / god-of-gaps, b. the pains of brute fact, and, c. at some ontological seam somewhere, Non-Theism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] in ANY “Fundamental Nature of X” forces the end of reason itself which lands not in the convertibility of the necessary transcendentals with respect to being but, rather, in the illusory shadows of non-being. Which is to say that reason, rationally followed, leads one beyond one’s own unavoidably contingent reason and into the Necessary & Irreducible vis-à-vis Reason Itself. The Divine Mind presses in. From there, well, the nature of the entire discussion ((given Non-Theism)) immediately hits a hard “Y” in the road, wherein on one arm the Non-Theist is eager to abort lucidity’s necessary means and ends, while the Theist refuses such reductions to absurdity.

**Again more detail will come later in the section titled “Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 1 of 3” which explores ((…in all three parts)) several excerpts from Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds And The Emergence Of Spacetime“.

Past Eternal Universe: Intermediates Between T1 & T2 (Part 1 of 2)

This section is NOT looking at reasons that the Past Eternal Temporal Becoming is a problem, but rather it is to look at just a few reasons why “Time With No Change” is a problem and that may seem odd – because it is odd and that is why we must think about “T1 or T2 Yet No Change” and so avoid a subtle error.

The following is false:

“X1 exists at T1” + “X2 exists at T2” is sufficient for us to say “change” is “real”

Why is it false? Well first the Christian is not discussing two options but four options and of the four the Christian Metaphysic fully funds both C. and D as per:

A—Non-Theistic Presentism
B—Non-Theistic Eternalism
C— Theistic Presentism
D— Theistic Eternalism

**Along the way one can add Perdurantism and/or Endurantism if so inclined.

Regarding “X1 exists at T1” + “X2 exists at T2” is sufficient for us to say “change” is “real” we have to be specific with what we are referring to because what either IS or IS NOT missing in the “Intermediates” is Being-In-Continuum.

“Is change real“? Too often on the content of “our perception changes” the replies that are given tend to skip right over the change ITSELF, or over the intermediates THEMSELVES ((…there are no intermediates as we’ll see…)). If change is actual then Time must be akin to a “solid” when it comes to reality’s concrete furniture in that it is actual, seamless, gap-less such that between T1 and T2 there is not non-being, but, instead, there is being.

Let’s take the verb “learning” as an example. [Knowledge-AB] exits at T1 and [Knowledge-ABCD] exits at T2. However, too often our Non-Theist friends pretend that the interim, the transition, can be ignored. But of course the change itself just is the whole discussion, just is the interim, the intermediates. If the claim is that scientific realism is valid on Non-Theism and that said realism is telling us change is real well then change is real – because science – because perception. But then so too it is the interim itself, the transition itself which is actual, seamless, gap-less and [T1][T2] are not sufficient.

To achieve the Necessary/Sufficient we must reject “gaps-in-being” in totality. In fact the very concept there of “intermediates” or “gap” between T1 and T2 is an absurdity in the form of [T1 being] [gap in being – which is non-being] [T2 being]. The mere fact that [Knowledge-AB] exits at T1 and [Knowledge-ABCD] exists at T2 is not sufficient to account for Real Change. It is the syntax of continuum / seamlessness or else it is Sean Carroll’s (Etc.) fateful syntax of illusion and/or “useful but not true”.

If our Non-Theist friends wish to foist what amounts to a fallacious brand of scientific realism (… http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html…) well then “X1 exists at T1” + “X2 exists at T2” is necessary but not sufficient. What is needed is being in continuum.

What that means for Reason Itself is catastrophic for Non-Theism. “I think therefore I am” runs into the following:

My Past-Self…. real?
My Present-Self….real?
My Future-Self….real?

Intermediates Between T1 & T2 (Part 2 of 2)

Again here as in Part 1 of 2 the section is NOT looking at reasons that the Past Eternal Temporal Becoming is a problem, but rather it is to look at just a few reasons why “Time With No Change” is a problem and that may seem odd – because it is odd and that is why we must think about “T1 or T2 Yet No Change” and so avoid a subtle error.

From https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/tenseless-time-and-identity-over-time/

Begin Excerpt (…bold mine…)

Your perceptive question, Daniel, is one which I’ve addressed in my essay “McTaggart’s Paradox and the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics,” Analysis 58 (1998): 122-127. For those who are unfamiliar with the background of Daniel’s question, let me explain that, broadly speaking, there are two competing views of the nature of time: the tensed view, which holds that temporal becoming is a real, objective feature of the world, and the tenseless view, which holds that all moments of time, whether past, present, or future, are equally real and existent, so that temporal becoming is an illusion of human consciousness…. Now what Daniel has noticed is that the tenseless view has a very strange implication. Consider some entity x that exists at two different moments of time. Rather than an electron, let x be you yourself, to sharpen the paradox. It follows from the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals that you are not the same person who existed just one minute ago! For on the tenseless theory of time, these are two distinct objects occupying different locations in spacetime. Moreover, they have different properties: the later person may have a slightly different shape or a few less molecules. So they cannot be identical, since they have discernible properties.

What this implies is not that the tenseless time theorist must abandon the principle of identity, since that is a necessary truth of logic, but rather that the tenseless time theorist must hold that intrinsic change is impossible and that nothing actually endures through time! These consequences are generally acknowledged by tenseless time theorists. They hold that what we call persons are just three-dimensional slices of four-dimensional spacetime “worms”. The various slices are different objects, just as the different slices of a loaf of bread are. One slice does not turn into another, nor does any undergo intrinsic change. The appearance of change arises because the various temporal slices have different intrinsic properties. There is no more intrinsic change in objects over time than in a loaf of bread which tapers from large slices at one end to small slices at the other.

I agree with you, Daniel, that this seems really crazy. I have every reason to believe that there is at least one thing which endures through intrinsic change, namely, I myself. I existed a second ago, and despite the changes which have taken place in me, I still exist now. No sane person really believes that he is not the same person who existed a minute ago. Moreover, the tenseless view is incompatible with moral responsibility, praise, and blame. The non-conscious, four-dimensional object of which I am a part cannot be regarded as a moral agent and is therefore not morally responsible for anything. One might say that the spatio-temporal slices or parts of such objects are moral agents. But then it becomes impossible to hold one slice responsible for what another slice has done. How can one person be blamed and punished for what an entirely distinct, different person did? Why should I be punished for his crimes? By the same token, how can moral praise be given to a person for what some other, no longer existent person did? Why should I, who have done nothing, get the credit for the heroism of some other person? This argument has serious theological ramifications, for Christian theism affirms not only that people are responsible moral agents but also that God is just in holding them responsible for their deeds.

Your second objection about the explanation of the illusion of temporal becoming is also a pressing problem. On the tenseless view mental events themselves are strung out in a tenseless series just as physical events are and are all equally real. My now-awareness of tomorrow is just as real as my now-awareness of today. The experience of the successive becoming of experiences is illusory. Experiences do not really come to be and pass away. But that flies in the face of the phenomenology of time consciousness. It denies that we experience the becoming of our experiences. For if we do have such an experience, then we must ask all over again whether that experience is mind-dependent or not, and so on. To halt a vicious infinite regress, the tenseless time theorist must deny that we do experience the becoming of experiences. But such a phenomenology is obviously inaccurate.

I’m not sure why you say that the tenseless view implies materialism with respect to human beings; but tenseless time theorists are for the most part wedded to naturalistic epistemology and so would in any case be ill-disposed to any mind-body dualism.

So why does someone like Stephen Hawking espouse a tenseless view of time? I think that the main reason is that physics finds it useful to treat time and space as a four-dimensional entity called spacetime in which temporal becoming plays no part. Relativity Theory in particular becomes perspicuous in such a context. Unfortunately, far too many physicists, having never studied philosophy, naively take this geometrical representation as a piece of metaphysics rather than as a merely heuristic device. One therefore has to be very cautious about the statements of physicists when it comes to the nature of time.

End Excerpt (…bold mine…)

Feser makes the following observation regarding the notion that ALL change is illusion as the Self comes into focus:

Quote:

“First, what we would have in this case is one more instance of the common strategy whereby science (as the moderns have defined “science”) attempts to unify phenomena by relativizing the apparent differences between them to the observer. Hence “heat,” “sound,” “red,” “green,” etc. are redefined so that what common sense means by these terms (features which are irreducibly qualitative rather than quantitative, and which can vary from perceiver to perceiver) is relativized to the “mental” or “subjective” point of view of the observer, and what is allowed to count as “objective” or “physical” heat, sound, or color is only what can be captured in a quantitative model – the motions of particles, compression waves, surface reflectance properties, and the like. So too, time and change, when treated as if they do not really exist in the external world, are relativized to the mind of the observer as mere projections onto external reality. But the observer himself remains. And as Popper pointed out, there is no getting around the fact that change really occurs at least within the observer’s consciousness itself. To deny this is implicitly to deny the very empirical evidential base on which physical theory is supposed to rest [….in the blog itself there is a link here to Democritus’ Paradox….]. Hence if Einstein really were Parmenides redevivus, his position would face incoherence just as the Eleatic philosopher’s did, at least if the Minkowskian interpretation is correct and if we want to say that the conscious subject is a part of a natural world that is purportedly free of change. Alternatively, we could adopt a dualist view according to which the conscious subject is not a part of that world. That will save the Minkowskian view from incoherence, but at the cost of merely relocating change rather than eliminating it…..”

End Quote.

While the topic here is not specifically centered in the philosophy of mind, the problem which arises from the fact that one’s ontology fails to actually value Becoming/Experiencing/Changing there is of course far more with respect to that same deflationary truth value in and of all First Person Data such as Intentionality and the Experienced Self as per “i-think” / “i-am” and so on. For content and segues into those “Maps” as it were see “Consciousness, Emergence, Intentionality, Searle, Reason Atop The Irrational, And Naturalism’s Egregious Deficiency” at https://metachristianity.com/consciousness-emergence-intentionality-searle-reason-atop-the-irrational/

TIME IS REAL ON ETERNALISM

Time is real in Eternalism ((as it is in Presentism)) and as we say there are problems if we want “Change” ((temporal becoming)) to be “Ontologically Solid” within Eternalism’s Map. Time is real BUT NOT IN THE SENSE OF “FLOW” / “BECOMING”. Sean Carroll describes Change in terms of the Magic of Entanglement / Superposition and as we will see Time/Change thereby is not ontologically real. It’s an entirely illusory construct and an entirely mental construct which the mind takes as reality. Recall that said “Conscious Observer” must itself be “one-with” the 4D Block or whatever “Map” we use here.

Time via the past is real in that it is on ontological par with the present and with the future. Time is “real” because all events past and current and future are eternally real, right now. We begin to discover that said Map abolishes Temporal Becoming/Change. Yesterday and Tomorrow are “as real as today” and this is where Causality as we know it is abolished.

There is NOT “something” “causing” the cup to shatter. The “cup sitting there” is eternally real just like the “1/3 shattered cup” sitting here, just like the “1/2 shattered cup” sitting here just like the “fully shattered” cup sitting here. And so “Time is real” in the Block Universe ((in Eternalism)) but it is Real in THAT sense and NOT in the “tensed/becoming” sense.

Discovery of what isn’t at each step helps clarify: Recall earlier the problem of “T1” and “T2” and Dr. Craig’s problem of Temporary Intrinsics and Dr. Craig’s Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals and the problem of the missing “Intermediates” which turned out to be Missing Being – as in holes caused by Non-Being. All of that is what carries us to the loss of “Tensed” where we find the loss of “Temporal Becoming” and that is then where we find the loss of Change which is then where we discover the loss of Causation.

So we see then the fact that “Nothing Changes” and “Nothing is Caused” and “Nothing Causes”. It’s a “Static” Block — as in “Stasis” or “Stagnation”. That is “Timelessness” ((…given Non-Theism…)). The trick is to realize that the phrase “there is a past” regarding Time is true but it’s wholly irrelevant. The Key is NOT the eternally real Past/Now/Future because that’s all a wash, all are eternal and all actual. The Key is that both Change & Causation are ontologically expunged. The Non-Theist is slowly closed in upon by subtle hints of semantic intent faintly reminiscent of Pure Act. Recall that BOTH Timelessness AND Time/Tense are fully funded vis-à-vis the Christian Metaphysic. Recall from earlier:

Genesis Arrives In Divine Communique And The Heavy-Meta Bible

Non-Theism Arrives In Metaphor And Allegory

A brief example of what and how it is that “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind, and how that actually necessitates Transposition with reach, and how that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible:

“…the people who wrote the Psalms had no clue what space was…. what part of that is entertaining…. So that is my point. There is no reasonable excuse for the laughably bad cosmology….”

What exactly *is* the Bible’s “Genre”? What is the agenda of Omnipotence in employing that mode of Story and of Narrative – in giving that form of a Divine Communique given the reality of the many pains of Man in “Privation“? More to the point – why did Omnipotence Decree and Create the Imago Dei? Infinite Consciousness transposes into Frail and Mutable Consciousness and we arrive – there – and nowhere else – upon a Divine Communique which never changes from start to finish, which transposes through all Time and all Circumstance whether such transposes through the written or through the spoken or through – in all worlds – Incarnation.

We land – there – in the irreducible at some ontological seam somewhere – in the interface of the Immaterial God with the Immaterial Adamic. There – and nowhere else – we find the end of the matter. It is not merely about “Go out and subdue physicality…” – and all that comes with that. No. Rather, it is about Transposition across Time and Circumstance, it is about “Come in and know – Taste and see – Behold and become….” – and all that comes with that.

The irreducible interface of Immaterial God / Immaterial Adamic houses all Sub-narratives and the entire Meta-narrative – it is about that which now does in fact out-distance Cosmology just as it is about that which will then outlast Cosmology – even as it is about that which now does in fact out-distance Physics just as it is about that which will then outlast Physics. It is about that which will outlast the gift of Prophecy – and the gift of Knowledge – and the gift of Healing – and all that goes with such temporal vectors. It is about the ontological real estate which saturates the agenda of Omnipotence in employing that mode of Story and of Narrative – in giving that form of a Divine Communique given the reality of the many pains of Man in “Privation“.

The A – Z of the Meta-narrative: Infinite Consciousness transposes into Frail and Mutable Consciousness and we arrive – there – and nowhere else – upon the unchanging Divine Communique which transposes through all Time and all Circumstance whether such transposes through the written or through the spoken or through – in all worlds – Incarnation. It is about the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis reality’s only full-on Blueprint of Love’s Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving termed Imago Dei.

It also about the free and informed and willful rejection of all Necessary Transcendentals which stream from the metaphysical wellspring of all ontological possibility – from the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis reality’s only full-on Blueprint of Love’s Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving termed Imago Dei. By that we mean the knowing and intentional conflation of Timelessness for Time, the knowing and intentional conflation of Emergence for Becoming, the knowing and intentional conflation of Entanglement for Change, the knowing and intentional conflation of Superposition for Causing/Caused, the knowing and intentional conflation of Mind for Non-Mind, the knowing and intentional conflation of Irreducible Reciprocity/Self-Giving for Irreducible Indifference such as, say, something akin to the following:

“…the people who wrote the Psalms had no clue what space was…. what part of that is entertaining…. So that is my point. There is no reasonable excuse for the laughably bad cosmology….”

All of that is fairly common and amounts to our Non-Theist friend’s demanding the proverbial Billion Page Bible to cover all the bases and all cultural margins from ten thousand years of ten thousand conceptual ceilings and ten thousand reference frames.

It is inevitable of course that “Raqia & God hammering out the stuff up there” is all just too cryptic for such folks as they would need to drop their Cosmology and bring in what Scripture is actually discussing:

The “ontological history of becoming” with respect to Cosmos and with respect to the Conscious Observer in the Adamic, the reality of Self/Other with respect to God/ The-Good as such relates to the Trinitarian Life, the Necessary, the Contingent, and far, far more. That secondary portion which speaks to Man of going out and subduing physicality is merely the Book’s end-band and turn-in, its inner-hinge and spine, its board attachments and liners – all of which can be any of a thousand different colors and a thousand different forms – and as any first grader knows – that is neither the Sub-narrative nor the Meta-narrative as the Book’s Content is elsewhere – only millimeters away – on the flip-side of such colors and forms – in the transposition of irreducible interfaces vis-à-vis Communique.

The Divine Communique will – given the Christian metaphysic with respect to Privation, Knowledge, Perception, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil – in fact reach into the consciousness of mankind throughout all of the following:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

From A to Z our Non-Theist friends will have to put their money where their proverbial mouth is and go into any grade-school class room and, while staying within their conceptual ceilings afforded them, transpose/communicate not Time and Years and Days and Space-Time but instead Timelessness and Eternalism and Entanglement and Superposition.

As we move forward and find that it is odd how everyone knows that neither Physics nor Cosmology are convertible with Ontology and yet our Non-Theist friends expect to find in Scripture the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming regarding both Cosmos and Conscious Observer populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology.

Even worse, they do NOT expect said Communique to be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures. Such wrongheaded thinking perhaps explains their own befuddlement when it comes to that actual Nature of and Function of Speech.

Is physics ontology?
Is cosmology ontology?
Is Mathematics ontology?

Of course not. Neither is convertible with ontology and yet our Non-Theist friends insist the ontic referents populating Genesis’ ontological history of becoming with respect to Cosmos & Conscious Observer ought to land in physics, cosmology, or mathematics.

The intriguing part is that there is no such thing there as “Allegory” or as “Metaphor” on the Christian’s part and yet there is just that landscape of the illusory within the Non-Theist’s attempt to locate such ontic referents in physics / cosmology.

Think that through: given the non-convertibility of that which is Physics/Cosmology (…and QM / mathematics ….see http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html …) for that which is Ontology we find that ANY so-called Meta-Narative which is in fact constituted of ontological referents which land within Physics / Cosmology is in the end all the stuff of Allegory and of Metaphor, WHEREAS, any Meta-Narrative which is in fact constituted of ontic-referents which land in that which is actually Ontic as per Being & Existence & Reason & (Etc.) is in the end a Communique which is anything but Allegory or Metaphor.

“Scripture” *is* “Metanarrative” *is* “Communique” *is* “Transposition” *is* as per https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

Our Non-Theist friends expect to find in Scripture the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Conscious Observer all populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology even as they expect Scripture’s Divine Communique to be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures.

Why would Scripture conflate physics and/or cosmology for ontology? Why would the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Conscious Observer all be populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology? Why would Scripture’s Divine Communique NOT be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures?

Everyone knows that Physics and Cosmology are not convertible with Ontology and while Non-Theists have various ways of expressing that we can say that what that “looks like” in the syntax of the Christian Metaphysic is something akin to the following:

Pure Act ((Being Itself)) Creates and we have there the Self-Outpouring of Logos and, so, Logos there in what is always the Downhill Ontic references all things “Adamic” and of course all things Adamic are World-Contingent ((not Necessary)). As for God/Logos we find Being Itself and of course such ipso-facto cannot be World-Contingent. Therefore it is Logos which supersedes all things Adamic and not the other way around. Therefore to land in the World-Contingent just is to land outside of Ontology vis-à-vis “ontological history of becoming” and for all the same reasons to land within Physics or Cosmology or Space-Time ((with one’s ontic referents as beginning/ending said narrative)) just is, again, to land outside of Ontology. The category of Description is not the category of Explanation.

So, when our Non-Theist friends insist that Ontology is ad-hoc to Cosmology we must remind them that in their treatment of Genesis and of Science they are actually building an upside-down edifice. They pretend and speak “As-If” Cosmology is convertible with ontology and “As-If” Physics is convertible with ontology.

So we ask: does one “Explanatory Terminus” equate to another “Explanatory Terminus”? Do we find the Terms and Syntax within Cosmology/Physics to be convertible with the Terms and Syntax within Ontology? Of course not. But then why would Scripture conflate physics and/or cosmology for ontology?

The ontological history of becoming vis-a-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-a-vis the Conscious Observer speaks to the immutable and timeless referents vis-à-vis Being and Existence vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life – and they haven’t changed – and they continue to populate the ancient Hebrew’s conceptual ceiling.

That brings us again, from another direction, to the same questions for our Non-Theist friends: Why would Scripture conflate physics and/or cosmology for ontology? Why would the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Conscious Observer all be populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology? Why would Scripture’s Divine Communique NOT be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures?

In the same way: The “Divine Communique” v. “Genesis” is entirely populated with terms & syntax which land within and upon ontological termini all of which specifically referent the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer.

In the same way: The conceptual mindsets and ceilings of ALL Times and ALL Cultures are included — EVEN those of Modernity. Multiple times we’ve challenged our Non-Theist friends to ALSO INCLUDE Modernity’s conceptual ceiling with respect to what Physics gives us regarding its dissolution of Presentism and its demands for Eternalism and all of that with respect to Ontology. The result is that they merely opine about Genesis all while evading the problem of compatibility of Modernity’s Conceptional Ceiling as it relates to what physics is telling us vis-à-vis Emergent Time and not Fundamental Time and vis-à-vis the 4D Block Universe as Change (Time) ultimately lands in the illusory shadows of non-being.

Modernity’s conceptual ceiling cannot even in principle avoid logical reductio’s both with respect to Identity and with respect to Non-Contradiction as Physics chases our entire epistemology out of Change and out of Scientific Realism. The “Conscious Observer” itself is there as the embedded unintelligibility in all available termini. Yet God in His current interaction with us speaks Coherently and Lucidly to us in and by Transposition as described earlier in per https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

Genesis all over again:

The challenge our Non-Theist friends face is to justify why they actually believe that [A] Scripture’s Divine Communique in Genesis 1 and [B] God’s Divine Communique now in Modernity is any DIFFERENT with respect to the testimony of PHYSICS. Their accusation of “ad hoc” only works if they expunge modern physics from THEIR analytic whereas the Christian’s analytic is, from A to Z, all-inclusive with respect to 1. all possible reference frames and 2. all possible levels of knowledge and 3. all possible cultures in 4. all historical times.

The Non-Theist will need to point to something in Cosmology void of Change/Time which captures the origin of all things and then juxtapose that alongside of “Conscious Observer” void of Change/Time which captures the origin of all things. They will then have to justify the absurd premise of [Physics = Ontology].

‪That will unmask several errors in their analytic where they are working off the premise that Ontology is ad-hoc to Cosmology as we discover that bizarre reality that our Non-Theist friends expect to find (in Scripture) the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis both Cosmos and Conscious Observer populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology. That leaves them as the only members sitting at the table who are actually drawing a Map which sums to an inexplicable Upside Down Edifice. Just as bad is the bizarre fact that THEY do NOT expect Scripture’s Divine Communique to be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures ((…the Christian DOES expect that…)). Such wrongheaded thinking perhaps explains their own befuddlement when it comes to that actual Nature of and Function of Speech.

It’s not impossible to knowingly embrace the reduction ad absurdum ((…and so reject “Proofs of God” as per Retorsion https://randalrauser.com/2018/09/does-christianity-need-the-homoousion/#comment-4117374727 …)) and, yes, our Non-Theist friends must do so either in their syntax with respect to their own landing zones and metrics and referents or in the landing zones and metrics and referents which they fallaciously shoe-horn into Strawman-Narratives in order that they can then foist them as Scripture’s “real” Meta-Narrative.

The error with respect to the nature of emergence vis-à-vis space-time is the fixed, false belief that the genesis of space-time ((emergence)) is a narrative reducing to metrics of space-time. That’s anti-scientific given all available data, and it is logically impossible both on Identity and on Non-Contradiction. Even MORE than “just” “that” there is still the whole problem of Writing Structure, Literary Device, Genre, Semantic Intent, and so on. Typology may in fact show that entire swaths of scripture are not so much “Newspaper Narrative” as they are large replaying thematic melodies:

Genesis, Matrix, And Typology:

Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Divine Communique, Transposition, & Heavy-Meta-Bible

Recall: SPACE-TIME is emergent, and, also, emergence does not mean “timelessness becoming time”. There is no actual becoming/changing — and so to conflate Emergence with Becoming is to falter – which is to say that to conflate Emergence with Change/Changing is to falter. Emergence reduces to entanglement/superposition and not to “becoming” / “change” / “changing”. Time/Change/Becoming ((per the weight of physics)) reduces to Non-Being and is illusory vis-à-vis ALL “fundamental natures” anywhere. This is why Non-Theism is hopelessly committed to changing metrics. It can’t retain both Timelessness and Time as one must reduce to illusion. Recall that entanglement/superposition reduce to unchanging layers viewed from different perspectives ((…the problem of the Conscious Observer isn’t the topic here but of course the Non-Theist cannot salvage coherence in that arena, unlike the Christian Metaphysic wherein Being Itself as Reason Itself as Absolute Consciousness Itself deliver reality’s concrete furniture…)).

For the Christian Metaphysic we predict that physics will lead the rational mind to the awareness that something “Timeless” & “Unchanging” and “Invisible” and “Everywhere” and which is in fact Actual. The Non-Theist can get there but unfortunately he hits a dead end in not only one avenue but multiple. Thus Presentism (Temporal Becoming is ontologically real — contra Eternalism) is for the Non-Theist an ontological anathema while in the Christian Metaphysic both Presentism and Eternalism are fully accounted for.

The evidence weights heavily towards [Eternalism] over [Presentism] such that Time is ontologically emergent — it is not an irreducible feature of reality’s fundamental nature. No longer is “Contingency Or Not” the question as Non-Theism’s “Time” vis-à-vis “Change” becomes a Currency devoid of value such that Metaphysical Naturalism becomes a Narrative found only through what must be no more than the Allegorical and the Metaphorical.

Again the [Beginning Of Time] just is the [Beginning of Change] and of course there is no “Beginning” for there is no “Change” and that is true from A to Z given the Non-Theist’s Toolbox. Non-Theism’s scramble to embrace the full-on Reductio of Brute Fact is predictably placed in this discussion as whichever way Non-Theism runs we find that BOTH Eternalism/Presentism force reductions to absurdity within Metaphysical Naturalism while BOTH comport with the Christian Metaphysic. It is elegant to observe Modernity converging with the Christian’s syntax and all of that funds predictive power and thereby Explanatory Power.

Helpful insights into the why’s and how’s are in Dr. Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime” which is at both A— https://www.amazon.com/Something-Deeply-Hidden-Emergence-Spacetime-ebook/dp/B07NTYJJDX/ and also B— https://strangenotions.com/is-the-passage-of-time-real-or-just-an-illusion/

Any metanarrative which seeks to communicate the facts surrounding the ontological history of becoming of the universe — but then tries to speak “as-if” Time (Change) is a Metric of actual value — and then stops “there” — ipso facto fails. Then, Metaphysical Naturalism embraces the peculiar and painful circularity in the Conscious Observer’s attempt to describe his own ontological history of becoming as a narrative encased in or bracketed by Time/Change. We find then a Narrative which is — at bottom — Allegory/Metaphor.

1— What do Scripture & Physics Both tell us about Time (Change) as a metric regarding the actual ontology behind the universe?

2— Is Time (Change) the metric/source which God is communicating into the consciousness of Man according to the Christian’s body of premises?

The term “Metanarrative” is helpful and both Physics & the Christian Metaphysic converge. God isn’t communicating an ontological narrative of Time in Genesis. Our Non-Theist friends unknowingly agree with the Christian’s body of premises regarding the fact that old documents were written by folks way-back-when and that same Narrative populates man’s consciousness through history’s array of conceptual ceilings as the Narrative of Time & Ontology affirms Christianity.

Transposing “Metaphysical Wellspring” down into “The Contingent Abstractions Of Contingent Minds” involves both [A] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html and [B] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

Time is neither the Absolute nor the Absolute’s Reference Frame and therein ALL syntax which sums to something less than the Absolute’s Own Frame of Reference is irreducibly contingent. Notice that for any Metaphysical Wellspring applying for the job of CEO the Absolute Reference Frame cannot be less than Self-Reference ((…that is not the focus here but vectors vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Metaphysic converge there…)).

From Non-Being Into Being: God vis-à-vis Existence Itself vis-à-vis Being Itself reveals the Christian Metaphysic’s “Metaphysical Wellspring Of All Ontological Possibility” and fully funds any voyage from non-being to being. Regarding the term “God” our Non-Theist friends out to avoid fallacious “straw-men” terms as described at https://metachristianity.com/god-vs-a-god-vs-gods-vs-the-gods-vs-sky-daddy-vs-santa-clause/ In the Christian metaphysic we find the “Principal of Proportionate Causality” as defined in https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/first-without-second.html when we discuss The Free Act of Being Itself (God) in Creating Ex Nihilo. We find there a journey into the irreducible constitutions within the voyage from non-being traversing an ocean of proportionate causality and crossing into being. That voyage will always end in a cheat and an equivocation for our Non-Theist friends. Whereas, such cheating is not the case with reality’s ontological history of becoming in and by the final ontic-referent in the Christian term “GOD / Being Itself“. It’s not hard. There’s God. There’s non-being. Then there’s causality proportionate to the effect as per the previously described “Principal of Proportionate Causality“. Then there’s being. One can swap “nothing” for “non-being” given the Philosophical Nothing under review.

Briefly: Blind Faith & Nothing

A faith in the potential for a metaphysic somewhere / somehow in which nothing or non-being births universes or being is fine – it just isn’t evidence based. Regarding the term “irreducible”, that’s just pointing to non-being or nothing as terms which are not reducible to an equivocation such as being or such as something. A small but fundamental key: Should one think to appeal to the conceivability of and/or sight of the “in principle possibility” in some world somewhere of Round-Squares vis-a-vis [A = Non-A] well then one must claim to see what actually ends up as Non-Being – as described in https://metachristianity.com/logic-itself-is-being-itself-contra-the-fallacy-of-presuppositionalism/

Briefly before continuing with Quantum Wave Functions:

Divine Freedom In Creating And Does God Change If He Creates? https://metachristianity.com/divine-freedom-in-creating-and-does-god-change-if-he-creates/

Creation Ex Nihilo, The Principle Of Proportionate Causality, Seamelessness In Being From Pure Act To The Contingent And From I Am To Imago Dei https://metachristianity.com/creation-ex-nihilo-the-principle-of-proportionate-causality-seamelessness-in-being-from-pure-act-to-the-contingent-and-from-i-am-to-imago-dei/

Emergence And Formation by David B. Hart https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/consciousness-and-emergence-and-formation.html

The Illusionist ~ On Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back ~The Evolution of Minds ~ By David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.com/the-illusionist-on-daniel-dennetts-from-bacteria-to-bach-and-back-the-evolution-of-minds-by-david-bentley-hart/

Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 1 of 3

Simply as a matter of giving context the following is a brief list of a few excerpts from Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds And The Emergence Of Spacetime“.

Quote: “In other words, there’s not “really” time in the superposition state, which is completely static. But entanglement generates a relationship between what the clock reads and what the rest of the universe is doing. And the state of the rest of the universe is precisely what it would be if it were evolving as the original state did over time. We have replaced “time” as a fundamental notion with “what the clock reads in this part of the overall quantum superposition.” In that way, time has emerged from a static state, thanks to the magic of entanglement.” End quote.

From that quote notice the TRIO of “Static” ((what IS vis-à-vis Being as opposed to Non-Being)) and the ((supposed)) verb “Doing” and the ((supposed)) verb “Emerge” and notice that all three are used “as a set” ((and therefore incoherently)). Notice that “Real” is “No-Do-“ing“” and “Emerge” then gives birth to “Not-Real-Do-“ing“” which is what is called Change ((Time)). “Emerge” does not equate to “Evolve Into Existence” but instead it is about perception vis-a-vis relations among different perspectives via the entanglement (QM) and juxtaposition (QM) of “layers”. Each layer is itself void of change and so shifting how they are “viewed” is where “emergence” happens “thanks to the magic of entanglement”. But there is no “change” in any each layer itself and there is no “evolving of real/ontological Time from Non-Time“. Instead, the mathematical equations are just being written out longhand from different “angles” along different “layers” and those “DIFFERENCES” create the illusion we perceive as “CHANGE”.

Continuing/Excerpts:

1— “….the right way to think about the causality is “some microscopic process happened that caused branching, and on different branches you ended up making different decisions,” rather than “you made a decision, which caused the wave function of the universe to branch”….”

2— “….First, “free will” versus “determinism” isn’t the right distinction to draw. Determinism should be opposed to “indeterminism,” and free will should be opposed to “no free will”….”

3— “….Even in textbook quantum mechanics, human beings are still collections of particles and fields obeying the laws of physics. For that matter, quantum mechanics is not necessarily indeterministic. Many-Worlds is a counterexample. You evolve, perfectly deterministically, from a single person now into multiple persons at a future time. No choices come into the matter anywhere…..“

4— “….As far as quantum mechanics is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether you are a compatibilist or an incompatibilist concerning free will. In neither case should quantum uncertainty affect your stance; even if you can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement, that outcome stems from the laws of physics, not any personal choices made by you. We don’t create the world by our actions, our actions are part of the world….”

5— “….Maybe quantum mechanics and consciousness are somehow interconnected; it’s a hypothesis we’re welcome to contemplate. But according to everything we currently know, there is no good evidence this is actually the case….”

6— “….though far from certain — that the rates of various neural processes in your brain depend on quantum entanglement in an interesting way, so that they cannot be understood by classical reasoning alone. But accounting for consciousness, as we traditionally think about it, isn’t a straightforward matter of the rates of neural processes. Philosophers distinguish between the “easy problem” of consciousness — figuring out how we sense things, react to them, think about them—and the “hard problem”— our subjective, first-person experience of the world; what it is like to be us, rather than someone else. Quantum mechanics doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the hard problem….”

7— “….It’s perfectly conceivable that some subtle quantum processes in the brain, involving microtubules or something completely different, affect the rate at which our neurons fire. But this is of no help whatsoever in bridging the gap between “the firing of our neurons” and “our subjective, self-aware experience.” Many scientists and philosophers, myself included, have no trouble believing that this gap is very bridgeable. But a tiny change in the rate of this or that neurochemical process doesn’t seem to be relevant to understanding how. (And if it were, there’s no reason the effect couldn’t be repeated in nonhuman computers.). — Everettian quantum mechanics has nothing specific to say about the hard problem of consciousness that wouldn’t be shared by any other view in which the world is entirely physical. In such a view, the relevant facts about consciousness include these: Consciousness arises from brains. Brains are coherent physical systems. That’s all. (“ Coherent” here means “made of mutually interacting parts”; two collections of neurons on two non-interacting branches of the wave function are two distinct brains.) You can extend “brains” to “nervous systems” or “organisms” or “information-processing systems” if you like. The point is that we aren’t making extra assumptions about consciousness or personal identity in order to discuss Many-Worlds quantum mechanics; it is a quintessentially mechanistic theory, with no special role for observers or experiences. Conscious observers branch along with the rest of the wave function, of course, but so do rocks and rivers and clouds. The challenge of understanding consciousness is as difficult, no more and no less, in Many-Worlds as it would have been without quantum mechanics at all….”

[8/Eight is a bit long and is then followed by one segue before moving to 9/nine…]

Begin Excerpt 8

“…It’s only when the outcome of a measurement is perceived by a human being that (in this way of thinking) the wave function absolutely has to collapse, because no human being has ever reported being in a superposition of different measurement outcomes. So the last possible place we can draw the cut is between “observers who can testify as to whether they are in a superposition” and “everything else.” Since the perception of not being in a superposition is part of our consciousness, it’s not crazy to ask whether it’s actually consciousness that causes the collapse. — This idea was put forward as early as 1939, by Fritz London and Edmond Bauer, and later gained favor with Eugene Wigner, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on symmetries. In Wigner’s words:

“All that quantum mechanics purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent impressions (also called “apperceptions”) of the consciousness, and even though the dividing line between the observer, whose consciousness is being affected, and the observed physical object can be shifted towards the one or the other to a considerable degree, it cannot be eliminated. It may be premature to believe that the present philosophy of quantum mechanics will remain a permanent feature of future physical theories; it will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality.”

Wigner himself later changed his mind about the role of consciousness in quantum theory, but others have taken up the torch. It’s not generally a view you will hear spoken of approvingly at physics conferences, but there are some scientists out there who continue to take it seriously. —— If consciousness did play a role in the quantum measurement process, what exactly would that mean? The most straightforward approach would be to posit a dualist theory of consciousness, according to which “mind” and “matter” are two distinct, interacting categories. The general idea would be that our physical bodies are made of particles with a wave function that obeys the Schrödinger equation, but that consciousness resides in a separate immaterial mind, whose influence causes wave functions to collapse upon being perceived. Dualism has waned in popularity since its heyday in the time of René Descartes. The basic conundrum is the “interaction problem”: How do mind and matter interact with each other? In the present context, how is an immaterial mind, lacking extent in space and time, supposed to cause wave functions to collapse?….”

End Excerpt 8.

A brief segue off of 8 before moving to 9/nine:

In number eight there is a question, “In the present context, how is an immaterial mind, lacking extent in space and time, supposed to cause wave functions to collapse?….”

First recall that extension into time and space is merely a useful description of one particular slice of the much larger Quantum Wave Function, or even of Many Worlds and as such is not binding at all with respect to larger [fields / waves / branches / whatever]. Second, again regarding extension into space as it relates to Mind, the following four are comments near the end of a discussion in which that very problem presents its own problem for this or that [QM-Full-Stop] Non-Theism (Etc.).

End segue off of eight.

9— “….There is another strategy, however, that seems at once less clunky and considerably more dramatic. This is idealism, in the philosophical sense of the word. It doesn’t mean “pursuing lofty ideals,” but rather that the fundamental essence of reality is mental, rather than physical, in character. Idealism can be contrasted with physicalism or materialism, which suggest that reality is fundamentally made of physical stuff, and minds and consciousness arise out of that as collective phenomena. If physicalism claims that there is only the physical world, and dualism claims that there are both physical and mental realms, idealism claims that there is only the mental realm. (There is not a lot of support on the ground for the remaining logical possibility, that neither the physical nor the mental exists.)….”

10— “….For an idealist, mind comes first, and what we think of as “matter” is a reflection of our thoughts about the world. In some versions of the story, reality emerges from the collective effort of all the individual minds, whereas in others, a single concept of “the mental” underlies both individual minds and the reality they bring to be. Some of history’s greatest philosophical minds, including many in various Eastern traditions but also Westerners such as Immanuel Kant, have been sympathetic to some version of idealism. — It’s not hard to see how quantum mechanics and idealism might seem like a good fit. Idealism says that mind is the ultimate foundation of reality, and quantum mechanics (in its textbook formulation) says that properties like position and momentum don’t exist until they are observed, presumably by someone with a mind….”

11— “….If it weren’t for quantum mechanics and the measurement problem, all of our experience of reality would speak to the wisdom of putting matter first and mind emergent from it, rather than the other way around. So, is the weirdness of the quantum measurement process sufficiently intractable that we should discard physicalism itself, in favor of an idealistic philosophy that takes mind as the primary ground of reality? Does quantum mechanics necessarily imply the centrality of the mental? No. We don’t need to invoke any special role for consciousness in order to address the quantum measurement problem. We’ve seen several counterexamples. Many-Worlds is an explicit example, accounting for the apparent collapse of the wave function using the purely mechanistic process of decoherence and branching. We’re allowed to contemplate the possibility that consciousness is somehow involved, but it’s just as certainly not forced on us by anything we currently understand. Of course, we will often talk about conscious experiences in our attempts to map the quantum formalism onto the world as we see it, but only when the things we’re trying to explain are those experiences themselves. Otherwise, minds have nothing to do with it….”

12—“….Idealism isn’t something that’s easy to disprove; if someone is convinced it’s right, it’s hard to point to anything that would obviously change their mind (or Mind). But what they can’t do is claim that quantum mechanics forces us into such a position. We have very straightforward and compelling models of the world in which reality exists independently of us; there’s no need to think we bring reality into existence by observing or thinking about it….”

End excerpts.

Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 2 of 3

Brief primer:

While I’m not a big fan of straight up Hylemorphism, the following is helpful in discovering where it is that there is no such thing as a “GAP” but rather there is either being or else non-being with respect to the concrete rock-bottom which is the referent of our semantic intent. A few years ago S. Carroll’s The Big Picture was helpful in similar areas as it helped reveal the illusory ends of the concept of “….our term X is useful but not true….”. What is Ontic, Real, Actual, Irreducible is the Elementary Particles (in that book) and now what is Real, Ontic, Actual, Irreducible is the Singularity that is “The Quantum Wave Function” (in this new book about to be quoted). And, so, as we explore “….the fundamental nature of X….” we observe that there are no Gaps. There is only being and non-being. The Self (…i-am…) and the Act of Choosing (…i-choose….) are, in the end, non-being as our Epistemic/Perceptual Duo is finally deflationary in total. Why? Well because when we arrive at reality’s concrete furniture we discover (….given the tools of Non-Theism….) that the Epistemic/Perceptual Duo trades on non-being in order to claim, emerge into, arrive at, being (…a metaphysical impossibility…. hence the phraseology of “useful but not true”….). Recall “I choose but I do not choose what I choose….” (S. Harris) and so on.

End brief primer.

So now a brief discussion/observation:

“In a classical universe, identifying a single individual as a person aging through time is generally unproblematic. At any moment a person is a certain arrangement of atoms, but it’s not the individual atoms that matter; to a large extent our atoms are replaced over time. What matters is the pattern we form, and the continuity of that pattern, especially in the memories of the person under consideration. The new feature of QM is the duplication of that pattern when the wave function branches….. We just have to adjust our notion of personal identity through time to account for a situation that we never had reason to contemplate over the millennia of pre-scientific human evolution….” (…Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime”…)

It seemed odd to find such an appeal to “Form” via “Pattern”. In a manner of speaking. It seems Form may have something to offer after all. As for the rock-bottom of “Identity” we can’t go so fast. But that is okay. The reason is that all branching wave-functions are superseded by, subsumed, by the Singularity that is The-Wave-Function. In ad odd way that is as predicted given the Christian Metaphysic, however, some such as Carroll (Etc.) may not be aware of that. Obviously the realism with respect to identity vis-à-vis the self/”I” summing to something other than atoms and/or elementary particles isn’t NEW. In fact it’s actually OLD.

What becomes of the Conscious Observer, not behind/ahead, not eventually, but Always & Already, is where, in fact, wave-function and illusion and realism actually “speak”. The trouble with the irreducible any-thing, such as Carroll’s Singularity that is “The-Wave-Function” as the explanatory terminus, the Source of All, and so on, is the following:

The claim that such a Singularity gives rise to All Natures (plural) followed by the claim of being able to locate non-illusory v. irreducible distinctions among the fundamental natures (plural) of many things (plural).

Well why is that a problem? Well notice what the Reducible & Mutable “therein” actually is as opposed to the Irreducible & Immutable “therein” – which is to say notice (therein) that which is, and is not, the concrete, the Always & Already, the Explanatory Terminus, the Source of All.

It is there within the contours of Reducible/Irreducible where we begin to discover what is and is not coherent with respect to ANY vector tagged with “the fundamental nature of X – namely ANY/ALL X’s.

What is the fundamental nature of X? It’s unavoidable and to see why we only have to point out that there is no such thing as “immunity” in this or that “metaphysical cul-de-sac” (so to speak) where “some nature x” can “hide” from the metaphysical wellspring of all ontic-possibility and, thereby, we discover that all syntax – all semantic intent – must – at some ontological seam somewhere – Begin & End with a totality of indifference to all but One Fundamental Nature – and that One is the fundamental nature “The-Wave-Function“.

Form seems retained or important by QM. That’s odd but not entirely unexpected. However, we seem to find “here” the very same problem of “the illusory” which we found in Carroll’s “The Big Picture” when we begin to look for actual / ontic distinctions between the fundamental nature of Mind/Self and that of Non-Mind/Non-Self.

Again that is as predicted. The Conscious Observer as per the Always & Already is the only distinction that matters and it seems the predictive power of the Christian Metaphysic finds two data points here converging with it’s topographical map with respect to the nature of both being and self.

Briefly to close, one further observation on the above topic:

That there is something more than Form-Full-Stop is looked at by E. Feser in his discussions of Survivalism vs. Corruptionism and isn’t problematic. QM takes it pretty far, but when it counts it has to give-way to Being Itself as Mind Itself. The ONLY way for QM to sum to the whole show is to remove all transcendentals such that “in-fact” we find only Non-Distinction between the fundamental nature of Self & Non-Self // Mind & Non-Mind. The illusion of Self (there) presses in, though not in the Christian’s paradigm:

A— Non-Theism / Metaphysical Naturalism: The Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] vis-à-vis [Reality’s Fundamental Nature] from the Top Down, or from the Bottom Up, and all vis-à-vis the fundamental nature of Reason vis-à-vis Being vis-à-vis Mind vis-à-vis Intention vis-à-vis Self.

B— Theism / Divine Mind v. The Christian Metaphysic: The Necessary Conservation of [The-Great-I-AM] vis-à-vis [Reality’s Fundamental Nature] from the Top Down and all vis-à-vis the fundamental nature of Reason vis-à-vis Being vis-à-vis Mind vis-à-vis Intention vis-à-vis Self.

As it turns out those are the only two options. There just are no other options. Again I am NOT a fan of straight up Hylemorphic (Hylomorphic) Dualism. That said, a few items for context:

A— http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/08/vallicella-on-hylemorphic-dualism.html

B— https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/08/vallicella-on-hylemorphic-dualism-part.html

C— Corruptionism & Survivalism: IF “form” was “ALL” or the WHOLE SHOW (so to speak) then of course we’d have to expunge too much and so there is https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/so-what-are-you-doing-after-your-funeral.html

Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 3 of 3

Is Dualism In The Quantum Wave? Sorry. No.

Dr. Bonnette makes the following observation:

“My whole point is that an act of perception does what it does precisely because it is NOT extended in space. Saying that an extended representation somehow produces a perception, and then, that the rules of extension do not apply to that perception is to grant that the perception is NOT extended in space, which is exactly my point. As to whether an extended in space representation (or neural pattern) can generate a perception that is not extended in space is a distinct question. The answer to that is “no,” for the simple reason that the perception is doing something that no physical thing can do (as per the argument), and hence, does not have the quality of “existence without extension” needed to give it to the perception. This pertains to a secondary issue, known as emergent materialism. That is, can material bodies make things that do not have physical characteristics. But, by definition, things that lack physical characteristics do not belong in the space-time continuum, and hence, materialism is defeated again.” (Dr. Bonnette)

Dualism Entails Two Irreducibly Distinct Natures such that ontic referents within the syntax of Rolling Stones (…rocks rolling downhill…) are irreducibly (ontic) distinct from the ontic referents within the syntax of “X Designed Y” (…Mr. So-And-So designed that laptop…). Notice the multiple excerpts of Dr. Carroll listed earlier in this essay ((…and earlier, less edited version is at https://randalrauser.com/2013/04/substance-dualism-as-atheistic-heresy/#comment-4611673645 FWIW…)) and how they relate to that question of Irreducible Distinction vis-à-vis Nominalism vs. Actuality (Realism Etc.). Intentional, Volitional, and so on come to the forefront.

So then we arrive at extension into space which is interesting in this context of Mind and Naturalism. In Sean Carroll’s new book “Something Deeply Hidden” where he is discussing a problem regarding Mind / Matter interaction he comments as follows:

“In the present context, how is an immaterial mind, lacking extent in space and time, supposed to cause wave functions to collapse?….”

That’s interesting and seems to imply that Dr. Bonnette has hit the nail on the head (…for context regarding that and the Self and Choice (and Mind by default etc.) see the twelve excerpts of Dr. Carroll listed in the above hyperlink…).

The problem here is that Dr. Carroll’s discussion of extension into space seems to turn upon itself. How so? Well because when it comes to “extension into space” we must account for “space” and for “extension”. And Dr. Carroll does so in other places in the book wherein he describes space/time as emerging out of [bracketed mapped layers] created by observation/mapping or, more specifically, by superimposing different quantum states.

Two questions arise:

Question 1 of 2: Regarding observation and perception and mapping (…superimposing different quantum states…) actually “creating” anything, we have Dr. Carroll’s thoughts:

“…..The point is that we aren’t making extra assumptions about consciousness or personal identity in order to discuss Many-Worlds quantum mechanics; it is a quintessentially mechanistic theory, with no special role for observers or experiences. Conscious observers branch along with the rest of the wave function, of course, but so do rocks and rivers and clouds….. even if you can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement, that outcome stems from the laws of physics, not any personal choices made by you. We don’t create the world by our actions, our actions are part of the world……”

When we “map” this or that “layer”, nothing is being created and in fact we are not actually observing the show but are “the-show” in singularity with the Rolling Stones and Waving Tree-Branches-In-The-Wind (etc.). So far we’ve not found the “generation of / emergence of space-time” located within the “observing/mapping” which “happens” by superimposing several layers or several quantum states.

Question 2 of 2: Once the Observer is removed from the equation we must still account for the Emergence of Spacetime. The question now becomes this — Is [emerge] a verb as Carroll means it? At first we thought that it seems to arrive as a function of which layer is observed, described, & mapped in a [useful] fashion — but observation creates nothing, as we just…observed… (….yeah…) …and, for context on that:

“….the right way to think about the causality is “some microscopic process happened that caused branching, and on different branches you ended up making different decisions,” rather than “you made a decision, which caused the wave function of the universe to branch”….”(S. Carroll)

Now, recall that THOSE “microscopic processes” are THEMSELVES an “emergent layer” but we must leave that problem of “Whence Those Layers?” to the side because we are still looking for the “Whence” of the “emergent layer” that is Spacetime.

So far, in general, as we look for whether or not “Emerge” is a VERB wherein Cause/Effect or wherein Actual Change “happens”, we are still left in a place where the layers and/or branches seem to “already be there”. Then, without pausing, Dr. Carroll tells us that as we pan the viewing lens “X-ward”, the “X” “emerges” as we map this or that “layer”. Did we just go in a Circular journey in our description of the “emergence” of Spacetime?

A Brief Quote:

“One way that might work was suggested by Don Page and William Wootters in 1983. Imagine a quantum system consisting of two parts: a clock, and everything else in the universe. Imagine that both the clock and the rest of the system evolve in time as usual. Now take snapshots of the quantum state at regular intervals, perhaps once per second or once per Planck time. In any particular snapshot, the quantum state describes the clock reading some particular time, and the rest of the system in whatever configuration it was in at that time. That gives us a collection of instantaneous quantum states of the system.

The great thing about quantum states is that we can simply add them together (superposing them) to make a new state. So let’s make a new quantum state by adding together all of our snapshots. This new quantum state doesn’t evolve over time; it just exists, as we constructed it by hand. And there is no specific time reading on the clock; the clock subsystem is in a superposition of all the times at which we took snapshots. It doesn’t sound much like our world. But here’s the thing: within that superposition of all the snapshots, the state of the clock is entangled with the state of the rest of the system. If we measure the clock and see that it reads some particular time, then the rest of the universe is in whatever state our original evolving system was caught in at precisely that time.

In other words, there’s not “really” time in the superposition state, which is completely static. But entanglement generates a relationship between what the clock reads and what the rest of the universe is doing. And the state of the rest of the universe is precisely what it would be if it were evolving as the original state did over time. We have replaced “time” as a fundamental notion with “what the clock reads in this part of the overall quantum superposition.” In that way, time has emerged from a static state, thanks to the magic of entanglement.”

End Quote.

Prior to that quote we left off with the sentence – Did we just go in a Circular journey in our description of the “emergence” of Spacetime? Apparently so because Dr. Carroll seems to infer that Space (and so extension into space) is a useful way to describe an observed “layer” which is itself one of our superimposed series of quantum states superimposed upon other superimposed quantum states, the Whole-Of-Which houses no Evolution / no Change. Here we come to the question of Dr. Carroll’s nominalism vs. realism when it comes to Time / Change. Dualism permits more than One Irreducible Fundamental Nature vis-à-vis “Reality’s Fundamental Nature” and notice that the Irreducibility of Time has ALREADY been sacrificed by Dr. Carroll vis-à-vis The-Whole ITSELF housing any such Fundamental Nature. “IT” “begets” entanglement but THAT “begetting” must ITSELF be void of Change, void of Cause-Effect, void of Evolution, void of Time. So, then, we arrive at the following:

“…The jury remains out on whether the energy of the universe actually is zero, and therefore time is emergent, or it is any other number, such that time is fundamental….”

Keep that quote in mind as we move forward here. Recall that we are looking for the “Whence” of the “VERB” that is “The-Emergence-Of” Spacetime and so far we have the Singularity that is the Quantum Wave Function Full-Stop, and, then, we have THAT singularity ITSELF Begetting Entanglement. The Quantum Wave Function accounts for All Possible Worlds and “ITSELF” is void of Change, Time, Evolution (…and cause/effect…). That is the Fundamental Singularity which begets to All Worlds the Fundamental Nature which IT irreducibly “houses”.

Now, any possible world which is thusly begotten cannot ITSELF house a Fundamental Nature which is In Excess Of or which is in fact A Logical Contradiction Of all which we find housed within The-Whole which is Begett—ing, such as….oh…say… Self / Intention / Volition / i-am / Self-Giving / i-think / Choice / and Etc. vis-à-vis the First Person Experience of being vis-à-vis “I” vis-à-vis i-am. So, gain, we recall the last quote:

“…The jury remains out on whether the energy of the universe actually is zero, and therefore time is emergent, or it is any other number, such that time is fundamental….”

When we speak of Open and Closed and of Energy summing to Zero vs. Non-Zero, and so on, we find all of that ALREADY made of no account whatsoever by Dr. Carroll’s commitment vis-à-vis Begetter / Begotten. All which is Begotten finds Dr. Carroll’s nominalistic touch, while the “Singularity” that sources all possible worlds (….the Quantum Wave Function…), which is the Begetter, attracts his Realist touch. The fate of the Embedded Conscious Observer is forever sealed within the illusory shadows of non-being and we find that we MUST make the following observation, or perception, or map:

Naturalism’s brand of extension into space is itself coherent within a discrete layer or cul-de-sac where it is neatly tucked in and surrounded by soft bundles of nominalistic padding. But wait…..

There’s only room for One Nature. Apologies but one of the two will have to leave. Will it be the Fundamental X that is THE Quantum Wave Function or will it be THE cul-de-sac? Recall again that The Quantum Wave Function accounts for All Possible Worlds and “ITSELF” is void of Change, Time, Evolution (…and cause/effect…). That is the Fundamental Singularity which begets to All Worlds the Fundamental Nature which IT irreducibly “houses” and ANY possible world which is thusly begotten cannot ITSELF house a Fundamental Nature which is In Excess Of or which is in fact A Logical Contradiction Of all which we find housed within The-Whole which is “doing” the Begett—ing, such as….oh…say… Self / Intention / Volition / i-am / Self-Giving / i-think / Choice / and Etc. vis-à-vis the First Person Experience of being vis-à-vis “I” vis-à-vis i-am. So, again, we arrive at Nominalism within the illusory shadows of Non-Being vis-à-vis the following question:

There’s only room for One Nature. Apologies but one of the two will have to leave. Will it be the Fundamental X that is THE Quantum Wave Function or will it be THE cul-de-sac?

Regarding that concept of a cul-de-sac in ANY Possible World, we find in any appeal to a cul-de-sac an appeal which cannot actually “Stop There” because to Start/Stop “there” (….in/at said cul-de-sac…) just is to trade upon non-being in order to obtain being when it comes to Self / Intention / Volition / i-am / Self-Giving / i-think / Choice / and Etc. vis-à-vis the First Person Experience of being vis-à-vis “I” vis-à-vis i-am. It’s obvious that the rock-bottom “there” cannot RETAIN TWO IRREDUCIBLE “Fundamental Natures” because that attempt is accounting, or banking-on, a logically impossible state of affairs – namely a metaphysical cul-de-sac wherein the INSIDE houses ONE Metaphysic which is some IMMUNE TO a SECOND Metaphysic which is OUTSIDE of said cul-de-sac vis-à-vis Begetting & Begotten.

Conclusion:

The attempt at the metaphysical cul-de-sac always and already and necessarily collapses into a reductio ad absurdum. We find only Two Possibilities with respect to the Embedded Conscious Observer and that is Metaphysical Naturalism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] from the Top Down / Bottom Up – or else – that which is found in all of the Great Metaphysical Systems of the world, namely, the Necessary Conservation of [The-Great-I-AM] from the Top Down / Bottom Up.

There is no third option. Notice too that Eternal Time (…no T-zero anywhere…) or Beginning of Time (…T-zero somewhere…) changes none of it. Quote:

“….the concept of being is one of power: the power of actuality, the capacity to affect or to be affected. To be is to act. This definition already implies that, in its fullness, being must also be consciousness, because the highest power to act — and hence the most unconditioned and unconstrained reality of being — is rational mind. Absolute being, therefore, must be absolute mind. Or, in simpler terms, the greater the degree of something’s actuality, the greater the degree of its consciousness, and so infinite actuality is necessarily infinite consciousness. That, at least, is one way of trying to describe another essential logical intuition that recurs in various forms throughout the great theistic metaphysical systems. It is the conviction that in God lies at once the deepest truth of mind and the most universal truth of existence, and that for this reason the world can truly be known by us. Whatever else one might call this vision of things, it is most certainly, in a very real sense, a kind of “total rationalism….”

End Quote ((—by David Bentley Hart))

In Closing: Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Divine Communique, Transposition, & Heavy-Meta-Bible

Describing Covalent-Bonds cannot address Scripture’s claims on the ontology of the Adamic for two reasons. First, Scripture’s narrative is not one of Physicalism and so any Map of Man which begins/ends “there” is not addressing the Christian Metaphysic vis-v-vis “The Adamic”. Secondly, all discussions of [Covalent Bonds] reduces the ontological history of becoming surrounding the Conscious Observer to a Map which terminates in Space-Time ((Years, Days, Temporal Becoming)). But neither Physics nor the Christian Metaphysic testify of any such Map as the wellspring of the reality we perceive.

SPACE-TIME is emergent but that does NOT bring us to “becoming time” because remember there is no actual Changing and thereby no actual becoming/changing. So we do not have a situation where “No-Time” as in “Non-Being” undergoes “emergence” and then, on the other side of “emergence” there is Space-Time. What we perceive as Change/Space/Time ((Etc.)) goes back and reduces first to Emergence and Emergence goes back and reduces to Entanglement/Superposition and NOT to Changing and so not to “becoming”. Superposition/Entanglement is not “becoming”/“changing” and if one is not careful one will gently slide into using language for one when one is actually speaking of the other.

Time/Change/Becoming reduces to Non-Being in the sense that it does not exist – which is to say that it is illusory in and of and at ALL “Fundamental Natures Of X” anywhere. This is why Non-Theism is hopelessly committed to changing metrics. The ontological history of the becoming of the Cosmos and the Conscious Observer CAN’T be a narrative of Time/Space/Days/Years and if one is left with or given Non-Theism vis-à-vis the Experienced Self and all First Person Data vis-à-vis Mind/Perception then there is no Syntax/Narrative which can even in principle fit beneath All Conceptual Ceilings In All Cultures In All Times (Etc.) as it is, rather, a narrative of Entanglement/Superposition. We have what is necessarily a Heavy-Meta-Narrative populated with ontic referents landing in the Eternal/Immutable/Timeless.

When we say that Space-Time is emergent we mean that Spacetime is not “ontologically irreducible” or it is not “ontologically basic” or it is not “fundamental reality”. Notice that this is not a problem with respect to “Reading Genesis” because Genesis is about an ontological history of becoming (Cosmos & Conscious Observer) and so all we need to do is follow the science. That means Genesis CANNOT be a narrative of Space & Time & Years & Days & Physical/Temporal Becoming. The irreducible “Ontic Referents” which we find in Genesis do not “land at” or “terminate in” any of those Metrics but instead we find a Narrative in which Timelessness Begets Time and “Space-less-ness” ((Etc.)) Begets Space ((…and time / temporal becoming and so on….))

The uncanny Category of Termini we find populating Genesis are placed there Intentionally ((by God)) to fit seamlessly beneath all possible reference frames and traverses all possible levels of knowledge throughout all possible cultures amid all conceptual ceilings. Philosophically that “Communique” of the More-Complex/Higher down into the Less-Complex-Simpler with respect to Conceptual Ceilings is equivalent to “Transposition” akin to the following: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

The nature of the problem is that Modernity’s most precise “semantic intent” cannot even in principle transpose the Irreducible & Immutable into the space beneath our conceptual ceiling circa 2020 in and in fact in ANY “Circa” ((so to speak)). Physics demonstrates this and Scripture predicted this from the get-go even as Sean Carroll ((and others)) speaks of “language” in “layers” as the truth value of all language fails to traverse from layer to layer to layer through to the End/Terminus while keeping all Reference Frames intact/coherent.

This isn’t new information of course and we find again that Genesis 1/2/3 CANNOT be a narrative of Temporal Becoming IF it is a Communique regarding the ontological history of becoming of what we call Cosmos and Conscious Observer. And of course “that” is exactly the Genre of Genesis 1-3. It IS just that Communique and both Physics and the Christian metaphysic tell us why we simply cannot shoehorn the Emergent-Anything into the Terminus/Driver’s Seat of Genesis 1/2/3 ((…and Reality…)). Modernity is catching up to the Christian Metaphysic as physics testifies that such is the case with respect to ANY possible occupant of said Driver’s Seat. Therefore: The veracity of Genesis 1—3 stands intact ((…without any need to affirm YEC and so on….)).

Shall we preach with terminology fit for Year 2050 BCE? The year 2050 CE? Shall we preach with terminology fit for Year 3000 BCE? The year 3000 CE?

Allegory?
Metaphor?
Literalism via Scripture?
Literalism via Physics?

Shall we preach with terminology fit for [1] all possible reference frames and fit for [2] all possible levels of knowledge and fit for [3] all possible cultures and fit for [4] all historical times? Is there ANY conceptual ceiling which does not “GET” Genesis 1? WOULD “God” in fact “Thusly Speak” so diffusely to a “World” especially given the Hard Ontic Fractures of Privation ((…whether it is Privation via a Fall and then an Incline Godward or whether it is Privation via a Perpetual Incline Godward from the get-go does not change such metrics…)).

Modernity’s conceptual ceiling has no syntax which survives the ascent out of Presentism and into Eternalism and yet our Non-Theist friends opine about conceptual ceilings with respect to Genesis – and thereby reveal a complete unawareness and disconnect from the whole of Physics and Theology. There’s no evidence that Time is ontologically irreducible and in fact all available evidence leads us to conclude that it is not ontologically irreducible. Therefore “our” “universe” requires the ontic equivalent of T0 ((T-Zero)). Once we exit Presentism and interface with Eternalism the sort of metaphysically-heavy termini required are simply not available in any Non-Theistic topography. Whereas, that is not the case given the Christian’s unique peculiarities vis-à-vis Pure Act, Logos, and Ontological Possibility.

The Non-Theist should opt for the Non-Metaphorical and Non-Allegorical which the Christian Metanarrative affords us. Instead the Non-Theist embraces what is forced into pure Metaphor and pure Allegory vis-a-vis his Non-Theism. The Christian agrees with Hawking with respect to other ontological possibilities but not in the sense of Hawking’s full-on Ontological Pluralism, which is really just an extreme version of Antirealism. That said, the Christian and Scripture and Science all obviously agree that “Our Current Map Called Physics” is not the only Possible World ((….and therefore….wait for it… not the only possible physics….)).

Recall from earlier the fact that Richard Dawkins complained that “Philosophy failed to predict Darwin”. That is an uninformed complaint as there’s no need to think anyone would begin or end with evolution. The ontological history in question is one of becoming with respect to Cosmos and Conscious Observer. Space-Time isn’t ontologically basic ((irreducible)) and we find Temporal-Becoming/Change ((evolution)) only in Transposition as Metaphor/Allegory at first and, as we push into entanglement and superposition, we descend out of Metaphor/Allegory and fall into Non-Being all together. The error with respect to the nature of emergence vis-à-vis space-time is the fixed, false belief that the genesis of space-time ((emergence)) is a narrative reducing to metrics of space-time. That’s anti-scientific given all available data, and it is logically impossible both with respect to Identity and with respect to Non-Contradiction.

Notice that we have yet another demonstration as to why and how it is that contingencies such as Time/Circumstance fail as “explanatory termini”. What we have is the state of affairs in which there is no available syntax for Non-Theism to use in communicating Reality’s Concrete Furniture via Transposition. To “speak of” “real cosmology” and to “speak of” “real physics” vis-à-vis Scientific Realism ((…see both [A] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/01/maudlin-on-philosophy-of-cosmology.html and also [B] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html …)) is something that Non-Theism cannot coherently “do” and that is true “Here Inside The Metaphor” as well as “There Outside of the Allegory”. Modernity’s conceptual ceiling cannot contain “Actual” Cosmology nor “Actual’ Physics as all the Non-Theist has available to him hits a brick wall and he is done: Reductio/Absurdity.

We arrive at that which forces a seamless convergence of facts which press inward regarding Genesis. God’s Communique will be a Transposition ((…https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html…)) of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos & Conscious Observer and THAT cannot reduce to Cosmology / Physics Full-Stop. Genesis need not and will not “Cram” the Emergent Anything into the space beneath the conceptual ceiling of the ancient Hebrew – and in fact our syntax cannot even in principle “Cram” the Emergent Anything into the space beneath the conceptual ceiling of Modernity. We cannot in principle or otherwise shoehorn the Emergent-Anything into the Terminus/Driver’s Seat of Reality and any possible occupant of said Driver’s Seat.

Lastly: Given all of the above and keeping all of it in mind…. the following excerpt from a Twitter Thread adds layers. It’s from a discussion so some of the “your/you/I/my” lingers with some editing and because of its length its start/stop is demarcated here with “Twitter Conversation Excerpt”.

As follows, recalling that we must keep the previous content in mind as we read it:

Start “Twitter Conversation Excerpt”

Author’s Intent & God As Author

That which we call “Man” or “The Adamic” is not ((in the Christian Metaphysic)) a physicalist’s terminus so physical measures such as days/years/material/molecules can’t capture the whole ontology of “the-becoming-of-the-Adamic”. Even worse for Non-Theism is that Space-Time is emergent ((and therefore NOT ontologically irreducible)) so ANY narrative that starts/stops in “Years” and “Days” ((Etc.)) is already in trouble. Physics & Scripture converge as Space-Time just is Contingent/Reducible ((*Emergent*/Etc.)) and yet the Non-Theist still believes that both 1. the opening chapters of Genesis and 2. our own First Person Experiences are both constituted entirely of Ontic Referents that actually land in “Days” and “Years” as if Days and Years and First Person Experiences of Temporal Becoming ((…and Self and “i-am” and Etc.)) are just “somehow” Irreducible or that the Fateful Equivocations needed are of no consequence to veracity.

The question for the Non-Theist is this: “Do you understand the narrative in Genesis? Do you understand that God is revealing an ontological history of becoming regarding the material universe and the material/immaterial Adam? Given what we know from Physics, do you believe reality begins & ends with the ontological hard stops of “Days” and “Years” and “Becoming” ((temporal becoming))? Physics & Christianity both say “No”. You?”

A Christian objection to Non-Literalism: “The human author cannot mean something, be wrong, and still be inerrant. Authorial intent is the final authority and the primary objective of all hermeneutics.”

We must be careful here because it is easy to miss the fact that that objection is based a misunderstanding – namely the assumption that “Day” is being used here to mean something other than “Day” when in fact it CAN be a 24 hour period OR NOT because EITHER WAY what the objection misses is the fact that EVEN ON Non-Theism the vast weight of evidence from Physics is that Space-Time is, at bottom, *Emergent* – meaning Space-Time ((Day, Year, Temporal Becoming)) is not ontologically irreducible and so “Day” and “Year” and “Space-Time” can never be convertible with the REAL “Start/Stop” “Point” of the TRUE Metanarrative about “the source and history of all things”.

A reply of sorts to that Christian Objection to Non-Literalism went as follows:

The Human author wasn’t wrong though, just as we in Modernity are not wrong to employ 1. terms of Days and Years and 2. terms of Entanglement & Superposition by which Physics reveals that Space-Time is emergent — as in not ontologically irreducible. Moses means what God means — and God is the author. The Author’s Intent is to Speak of the Ontological History of Becoming ((how things came to be)) vis-à-vis both Cosmos ((the material universe)) and Conscious Observer ((the Material/Immaterial “Adamic”)). Surely we agree.

But to be sure we can ask the question: DO YOU ((as a Christian)) AGREE that the Author’s Intent is to Speak of the Ontological History of Becoming ((how things came to be)) vis-à-vis both Cosmos ((the material universe)) and Conscious Observer ((the Material/Immaterial “Adamic”))?

Non-Theism/Atheism seems to posit ((…is forever forced into…)) measures of physical reality such as Days/Years ((Time, Temporal Becoming)) as being either Inexplicable or else just seem to “somehow” reduce to “something-else-entirely”. We avoid the term “Magic” on charity as no one believes in Magic but “illusion” and “illusory” and “Useful But Not True” are all totally deflationary vis-à-vis truth-value and too often Non-Theism seems “content” with such explanatory termini in this or that Reductio Ad Absurdum. The “Reason” they do that is because they HAVE TO ((…else Theism creeps in…)). Physics forces them to that Reductio because Physics reveals what Scripture affirms and what the Christian has always known — that Space-Time is not irreducible. But the Christian has at his disposal a far more robust ontology regarding the Metaphysical Wellspring of all Ontological Possibility.

The Christian objecting to taking A. “Space-Time Is Emergent” and applying it to the ontological weight of B. terms like “Day” and “Year” end up trying to get Scripture to contradict itself — How? Well because they have God confused on their read of Scripture because in Genesis God pretends Space-Time is ontologically irreducible and in fact is the Start/Stop of The Source Of All whereas in the REST of Scripture God speaks as if Space-Time is a mere Vapor — wholly insignificant regarding the Start/Stop of The Source Of All. That is Double-Talk in their read of Scripture. But God is the Author and God is revealing ONE Metanarrative to Mankind — and in fact to all of Mankind regardless of Mankind’s ever shifting Conceptual Ceilings.

The Christian who thereby refuses to fuse all of Scripture into ONE Metanarrative ((and who ends up rejecting Physics by his refusal to do so)) insists on a “One-Chapter” exegesis and so expunges both 1. the REST of Scripture regarding the Start/Stop of The Source Of All and 2. the testimony of Physics regarding the Start/Stop of The Source Of All ((which agrees with Scripture’s Metanarrative)). So again in Genesis the Human author wasn’t wrong just as we in Modernity are not wrong to employ A. terms of Days & Years and B. terms of Entanglement & Superposition by which Physics reveals that Space-Time is emergent — as in *not* *ontologically* *irreducible*.

Also: Notice that the Christian objecting to taking A. “Space-Time Is Emergent” and applying it to the ontological weight of B. terms like “Day” and “Year” NOT ONLY ends up trying to get Scripture to contradict itself BUT ALSO ends up foisting a “Source Of All” which agrees with Atheists who believe measures of physical reality like Days/Years ((Time, Temporal Becoming)) just seem to “somehow” reduce to “something-else-entirely” ((…which the Atheist must do because Physics forces them into that Reductio…else God…)).

Question: How is “Day” or “Year” relevant to “The Source Of All” when the “The Source Of All” is Timeless and Spaceless? The REST of Scripture informs us of the Author’s Intent because 99 Chapters by One Author outweighs 1 Chapter by that Same Author. Hermeneutics – Yes – and also Physics reveals what Scripture affirms – that Space-Time is not irreducible. That is the Narrative the Author is Speaking/Writing. The 99 Chapters OUTSIDE of Genesis reveal the SAME Metanarrative by the SAME Author vis-à-vis the TIMELESS & SPACELESS.

JUST AS the Non-Theist/Atheist cannot fashion his Map of Ontic History by referring to Days/Years SO ALSO the Christian cannot fashion his Map of Ontic History by referring to Days/Years. Note that as Christians we needn’t fear because Theists & Non-Theists *agree* that Time is not ontologically irreducible. The difficulties surrounding Mind, the First Person Experience, Illusion, & Veracity is wholly Non-Theism’s forced Reductio Ad Absurdum. The Christians Metaphysic encounters no such forced Reductio. Recall again the following question: What contradiction are you speaking of ((complaining about)) when the Christian agrees with Sean Carroll regarding the fact that Temporal Becoming (Day, Hour, Year) carries us into the semantic intent of Entanglement||Superposition? You keep saying there is a contradiction. Where? What is Time? Is it Ontologically Irreducible? Is it a contradiction to refer to H20 as Oxygen & Hydrogen?

Any One-Chapter Hermeneutic isn’t sound and it is forcing folks to ignore/expunge/evade/avoid both 1. the REST of Scripture and 2. Physics which converges with Scripture’s Metanarrative. ANY One-Chapter Hermeneutic is rationally rejected. WHY reject any One-Chapter Hermeneutic? Well it’s simple: Because if we believe “it” we must force ourselves to ignore/expunge/evade/avoid both 1. the REST of Scripture and 2. Physics which converges with Scripture’s Metanarrative. One-Chapter Hermeneutics are rationally rejected. The ontological irreducibility of Day & Year & Space-Time is fiction for Atheism – but we are not Atheists and so the Christian errors in expunging so much Scripture ((and Physics)) as doing so forces the Christian to knowingly Start and Stop his History of the Universe and of Man at the same location as the Atheist. His One-Chapter Hermeneutic rejects 99 Chapters written by the same Author and, so, why believe in it? A Hermeneutic in which 99 Chapters informs 1 Chapter is a proper hermeneutic and we are doubly reassured because we find — as predicted — that the Author’s Intent is held firm.

From others, a few segues looking at “THE AUHTOR’S INTENT” and how to weigh that. Brandon Smith makes the following observation:

Quote: “Authorial intent is important and historical/social background studies help us understand certain things. But it’s short-sighted at best and dangerous at worst to place “reading like a first-century person” at the center of interpretation for two main reasons:

First: Scripture is the very revelation of God. It’s not a mere historical artifact of its time with meaning only rooted in its context. Of course, importance should be placed there, but not *solely* there. And unless you have a time machine, that’s not fully possible anyway.

Second: Scripture is a 66-book canon. As such, even the authors/audiences didn’t fully grasp the full telos of progressive revelation right in front of them. Imagine John saying, “Welp, I doubt these prophecies are about Jesus since Isaiah’s audience didn’t know who he was.”

Again, authorial intent is vital to interpretation. But if we say, “if the original audience must be able to understand any interpretation of the text,” we deny basic orthodox affirmations about Scripture’s ongoing application and reception across time and space. This is not even to say there are “multiple meanings.” Rather, a *Christian* reading of the text requires an affirmation of progressive revelation, the Spirit’s work in church history, and rejects a kenotic hermeneutic that empties the text of God’s revelation then and now. It’s worth noting, too, that nothing I said above has been remotely controversial in church history aside from a few sporadic/isolated periods e.g. some late medieval allegory and recent hyper-“literal” historical-criticism.” End quote.

Tim Bertolet adds to Brandon Smith’s observation, “….especially the use of OT in the NT, the original context is not the final context or the ultimate telos…”

Again recall the following question: What contradiction are you speaking of ((complaining about)) when the Christian agrees with Sean Carroll regarding the fact that Temporal Becoming (Day, Hour, Year) carries us into the semantic intent of Entanglement||Superposition? You keep saying there is a contradiction. Where? What is Time? Is it Ontologically Irreducible? Is it a contradiction to refer to H20 as Oxygen & Hydrogen? Note that as Christians we needn’t fear because Theists & Non-Theists *agree* that Time is not ontologically irreducible. The difficulties surrounding Mind, the First Person Experience, Illusion, & Veracity is wholly Non-Theism’s forced Reductio Ad Absurdum. The Christians Metaphysic encounters no such forced Reductio.

End “Twitter Conversation Excerpt”

What has come into the consciousness of Mankind in and by and through the uncanny Metanarratives of the Ancient Hebrew are without comparison as we approach the Story or Meta-Narrative of A. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and B. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer. “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind and that necessitates Transposition with reach, and that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible

Nominalism & Realism

A review of Sean Carroll’s book The Big Picture was done by William E. Carroll https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/09/17886/

It is copy/pasted here:

Poetic Naturalism and the Way Things Are

By William Carroll

Can one find a way to describe the world in all its features—including references to consciousness, thinking, purpose, meaning, and morality—while maintaining that there is nothing more to the fundamental constitution of the universe than what the contemporary natural sciences tell us? Sean Carroll, the distinguished theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, thinks the answer is yes. His new book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, offers a defense of what he terms “poetic naturalism.”

A distant anticipation of Carroll’s approach is the famous materialist epic of Lucretius, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), written in the first century B.C. To those who find the implications of a universal materialism especially grim, Lucretius tells us that he will:

“….rim the lesson, as it were, with honey,

Hoping, this way, to hold your mind with verses

While you are learning all that form, that pattern

Of the way things are….” [I. 947-50 ]

Although Carroll’s defense of materialism is in prose, he, like Lucretius, hopes to persuade us of the “big picture” that contemporary science unfolds. Carroll also wishes to offer “existential therapy” for those who would doubt there can be meaning in the universe he describes.

Carroll’s commitment to a materialist philosophy of nature is unwavering. He tells us that science provides an “indisputably accurate” Core Theory, according to which everything about the world is reducible to its quantum wave function, which is comprised of the interaction of fermion and boson fields. In their various instantiations, fermions are subatomic particles that account for the solidity of matter; bosons are force-bearing particles that are the source of macroscopic fields such as gravity and electromagnetism. In an appendix, Carroll provides an elaborate analysis of the Feynman path integral, a single mathematical formula that “encapsulates all that we know about the quantum dynamics of this model.” The Core Theory is not a complete account since it has yet to include dark matter, but the theory does necessarily exclude any immaterial things.

Poetic Naturalism

The details of Carroll’s description of the quantum mechanics of the “big picture” are not so important as the broader philosophical claims that he makes. His “big picture” is ultimately a philosophical narrative that incorporates the insights of contemporary science. It is a narrative that seeks to plumb the “deepest layer of reality,” at which level there are no oceans, mountains, living organisms, or anything else we experience in the macroscopic world. There are not even electrons and photons: it is just quantum wave function. “Everything else,” Carroll observes, “is just a convenient way of talking.”

Carroll wants to avoid the conclusion of eliminative materialists who, accepting the materialism thought to be required by contemporary science, argue that purported non-material realities (consciousness, mind, free will, purpose, morality, and the like) are illusory. He also rejects the views of those who add immaterial features to reality, such as the claim that mental states are real and distinct from physical states. In rejecting both views, Carroll offers an alternative:

“Poetic naturalism sits in between: there is only one, unified, physical world, but many ways of talking about it, each of which captures an element of reality. Poetic naturalism is at least consistent with its own standards: it tries to provide the most useful way of talking about the world we have.”

These different ways of talking contain vocabularies created for specific purposes, and we need to be careful that they do not contradict the fundamental thesis that there is only one world and that at its deepest level it is only a physical reality. Carroll describes three interrelated types of stories that together offer an account of the “big picture.” The first and most fundamental is the scientific description of the particles and forces that account for the universe at the microscopic level. The second is made up of what he calls “emergent” or “effective” descriptions about macroscopic “collections of stuff that we group into individual entities: from ships to living organisms, including human beings.” The third is discourse about values, “concepts of rights and wrongs, purpose and duty, beauty or ugliness.”

At what Carroll calls the deepest level of reality, there are neither “purposes” nor “natures,” only patterns that operate in purely impersonal ways. It is from these operations that the macroscopic world emerges. One aim of his narrative is to offer an explanation of how a “purely physical universe made of interacting quantum fields is actually able to account for the macroscopic world of our experience.” How is it that order and complexity “arise in a world without transcendent purpose?” How do we make sense of consciousness and subjective experience “without appealing to substances and properties beyond the purely physical?” In a universe that at its core is without purpose, can we have meaning and moral rectitude in our lives? Answers to these questions are the burden of the final three parts of Carroll’s book.

One example of how Carroll thinks we need to understand the foundational role of the primary narrative—especially that of quantum mechanics—is evident in his discussion of discourse about body and soul. He rejects any account of the mind and soul as separate substances, since there is no place for such substances within the Core Theory. Indeed, for a poetic naturalist, “mind” is “simply a way of talking about the behavior of certain collections of physical matter.” To speak of life after death is meaningless. “Life is a way of talking about a particular sequence of events taking place among atoms and molecules arranged in the right way.” “Life” is only a label we use to describe certain kinds of processes.

Even a key notion like causality does not fall within the fundamental features of reality; causality is a way of thinking that functions within certain individual theories about the world. Cause, Carroll tells us, is a term “that we invent in order to provide useful descriptions of the macroscopic world.” Cause and effect relations flow from the temporal character of our universe—the arrow of time; these notions emerge as we move from the microscopic level to that of everyday experience. “Different moments in time in the history of the universe follow each other, according to some pattern, but no one moment causes any other.” This view of causality is heavily influenced by David Hume and narrowly restricts it to temporal sequence.

Emergence of Complex Structures

To explain the relationship between the elements of the Core Theory and the macroscopic world, Carroll employs a broad notion of emergence. This concept traditionally refers to the ways in which higher level properties (e.g., those of water) emerge from the combination of more elementary constituents (e.g., hydrogen and oxygen). He claims that as time passes and entropy increases,

“…the configuration of matter in the universe takes on different forms, enabling the emergence of different higher-level ways of talking. The appearance of something like “purpose” simply comes down to the question: “Is purpose a useful concept when developing an effective theory of this part of reality in this particular domain of applicability?”

“Consciousness” and “understanding” are concepts “we invent in order to give ourselves more useful and efficient descriptions of the world.” These concepts are not illusions, but accepting their reality does not mean a rejection of the laws of physics. All such concepts “are part of a higher-level vocabulary we use to talk about the emergent behavior of the underlying physical system, [they are] not something separate from the physical system.” This general mode of explanation allows the poetic naturalist to argue the following:

“….we are collections of vibrating quantum fields held together in persistent patterns by feeding off of ambient free energy according to impersonal and uncaring laws of nature, and we are also human beings who make choices and care about what happens to ourselves and others….”

Realism and Nominalism

If materialism is true, what is the “element of reality” that trees, persons, causes, consciousness, thinking, and moral judgments all share? This element, Carroll says, is the result of a certain way of talking about the macroscopic world. These concepts emerge as we move from the world of the quantum wave function to that of our ordinary experience. Is there a new reality to which these concepts refer, or is the only reality the concepts themselves and the way we use them? In the end, are the various sciences of the macroscopic world only concerned with terms and concepts? This is a kind of nominalism that is radically different from the realism that Carroll grants to the scientific study of the microscopic world. That study, which is expressed in the Core Theory, is concerned with the way things really are.

For poetic naturalism, the reality of concepts like consciousness, causality, and organism is only linguistic; they perform functions in particular narratives. The discussion is thus a nominalist discussion about concepts, not a realist discussion of what is true about nature. Yet, when Carroll turns to fermions, bosons, and the quantum wave function, he does think that these terms refer to the fundamental furniture of the universe. At this level of discourse, he is a realist; whereas in other areas he is a nominalist. For Carroll, what emerge from the microscopic world are concepts, not things. Is the science of biology, that studies cells and organisms, for example, only a convenient “way of talking”? Thus, in discussing our knowledge of the way things are, he seems to be at once both a realist (when referring to particle physics) and a nominalist (with respect to other natural sciences). Eliminative materialism (which Carroll rejects) seems more coherent than poetic naturalism.

Carroll presupposes that particle physics and quantum mechanics concern the deepest level of reality. Employing an epistemology based in the probabilistic methodology of Thomas Bayes (1702-1761), Carroll argues that all claims to knowledge and belief begin with “prior credences” that we “apply to every factual proposition that may or may not be true about the world.” Beginning with these prior credences, we reason to the likelihood of what will happen or be the case, and then “update our credences on the basis of what we observe.” Following this process, and employing the information provided by contemporary science, Carroll thinks that we ought to reject claims for the existence of immaterial entities (such as the soul), for God, and for the view that the universe is created.

Deeper Than the Core

For Carroll, the Core Theory is in a sense prior to our particular prior credences. It contains the information that we must use to “update” all other credences. This judgment of priority is in the philosophy of nature and metaphysics concerning what is the deepest or most profound approach to the world. It is also a judgment that presupposes that there are only two basic options in our approach to the world: an empirical, materialist view that the physical world is all there is, or a dualist view that affirms the existence of both physical and non-physical substances. We might, however, in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, entertain a third possibility: that the world the natural sciences study embraces matter and form, not as separate substances but rather as co-principles of all things in the world.

We come to study nature first through those sciences based on sense experience. Yet this temporal priority in our knowing the world, including knowledge of microscopic quantum processes, ought not to be confused with an ontological priority. More fundamental for any grasping of the way things are is the analysis that is properly carried out in the philosophy of nature and metaphysics: an analysis in terms of the very principles of natural things, including what motion, change, and causes are. We should judge claims about the broad implications of the Core Theory, as well as a more general commitment to materialism, in the deeper discourse of philosophy of nature and metaphysics. In this sense, Carroll’s big picture is not big enough.

We may very well find the impressive scope and details of Carroll’s Big Picture to be compelling. The book is a significant achievement in describing the current natural sciences and how they can be employed in realms beyond what are traditionally those of these sciences. Furthermore, Carroll eschews the more vulgar atheism of other famous scientists, such as Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. Yet, in a culture so pervasively informed by the allure and authority of science, we need to be aware of the honey with which Carroll, like Lucretius, rims his account.

About the Author: William Carroll https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/william-carroll/ is Research Fellow in Theology and Science at the Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford.

End Postscript / End copy/paste of W.E.C’s book review.

Segues: “The Spiritual Was More Substantial Than the Material for the Ancients” by David Bentley Hart https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-spiritual-was-more-substantial-than-the-material-for-the-ancients/

Segues: Necessitarianism, Unintelligibility, PSR//Principle of Sufficient Reason, Necessary Being, Contingent Being, Brute Fact, Intelligibility, Reductio, and the PSR-Free World — note that the first few paragraphs are borrowing in part from https://twitter.com/TDisputations and from https://twitter.com/AleMartnezR1

“To deny the principle of sufficient reason is to affirm that a contingent being which exists, though not by itself, can be uncaused or unconditioned. “Now, what is uncaused or unconditioned exists by itself. Therefore, an uncaused contingent being would at the same time exist by itself and not by itself—which is absurd.” (Garrigou-Lagrange)

Question: “Is there a world where there were only contingent entities even possible? Is there an atheist willing to concede this much, to keep his atheism alive?”

Reply/Answer: “A brute fact, properly considered, wouldn’t be contingent or necessary (those are sufficient reasons). In fact, if reality were built on brute facts, everything would be a brute fact because something without intelligibility can’t impart intelligibility to anything else. We couldn’t even say this ends up in necessitarianism, since that would imply necessary connections between events that aren’t justified in a PSR-free world. In reality, it would be most absolutely radical form of indeterminism.”

Appeals to Brute Fact are invariably followed by appeals to still more bizarre linguistic games as if absurdity is softened by equivocation. As E. Feser observes supposing the set of IOU’s counts as real money as long as you stack them high enough expunges *Explanation in full. One’s Chain of IOU’s has now expunged *Explanation not merely *by* our syntax but also *from* our syntax (wait for it) and the chain of IOU’s has no ceiling — finding nothing but the Inexplicable as its fruit – meaning that even just the [*not *even *in *principle] syntax is not available to it – at all – in the full-on ontic sense of Unavailable and therefore in the full-on ontic sense of Unintelligibility.

Non-Theism has to face Contingency and her hand is forced by “physics’ testimony” weighted heavily in the affirmation that Time is neither an Absolute Reference Frame nor the Absolute’s Own Frame of Reference. The evidence weights heavily towards [Eternalism] over [Presentism] such that Time is ontologically emergent — it is not an irreducible feature of reality’s fundamental nature. Contingency-Or-Not isn’t the question as (Non-Theism’s) “Time” v. “Change” becomes a Currency devoid of value & Metaphysical Naturalism becomes Allegorical//Metaphorical. The [Beginning Of Time] just is the [Beginning of Change] and Non-Theism’s scramble to embrace the full-on Reductio of Brute Fact is predictably placed in this discussion because whichever way Non-Theism runs we find that BOTH Eternalism AND Presentism force reductions to absurdity within Metaphysical Naturalism while BOTH comport with the Christian Metaphysic. Dr. Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime” is helpful. Many Christians DO defend Presentism and yet Christians do NOT affirm [PRESENTISM FULL-STOP] but — rather — the ontological means to BOTH concrete Presentism AND concrete Timelessness ~~ and so on regarding Necessitarianism, Unintelligibility, PSR//Principle of Sufficient Reason, Necessary Being, Contingent Being, Brute Fact, Intelligibility, Reductio, and the PSR-Free World.

Segues regarding Metaphor and Allegory and Semantic Intent are found in the following:

Summary:

What has come into the consciousness of Mankind in and by and through the uncanny Metanarratives of the Ancient Hebrew are without comparison as we approach the Story or Meta-Narrative of A. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and B. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer. “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind and that necessitates Transposition with reach, and that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible

—END—

Indefeasible Inner Witness, Holy Spirit, Properly Basic Belief, Solipsism, Idealism, Eliminativism, and Absolute Consciousness

Some will on occasion mistakenly claim the following: “Some such as W.L. Craig say the Holy Spirit is what convinces us – Full Stop. No need for Evidence.” Notice the intentionally ((…not always…)) left out “Other Half” of what “Convinces” in addition to the Holy Spirit.

Notice it is not One-Or-The-Other – but “Both/And” and that is actually FORCED when we arrive at any Standoff/Armistice with, say, the Muslim and Mormon and Christian and the Solipsist and the Idealist all attesting to the “Inner-Witness”. Before looking at that Armistice/Standoff, another brief look at that “Both/And” which we find in the Christian Metanarrative:

Context: In the brief video at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/short-videos/god-can-use-arguments-and-evidence-to-convince/ titled “God Can Use Arguments And Evidence To Convince” William Lane Craig recounts the experience of a non-theistic physicist who came to be convinced of God by the testimony of argument and evidence vis-à-vis natural theology ((…cosmology & physics in this case…)). And of course that narrative is recanted throughout the centuries and in fact Scripture affirms that coterminous union of “Testimony” plus “Nature” yielding a “Communique” which speaks to reason’s eye on various levels. None of this is said with the intention of BISECTING the Both/And “Whole that is (1) The Holy Spirit’s Work & Inner Testimony and (2) Reason’s Eye with respect to Perception vis-à-vis Mind with Argument and Evidence.

Context from “Coronavirus, Valuing Science Converging With Valuing Faith, And Jesus On Hand Washing” which is at https://metachristianity.com/coronavirus-valuing-science-converging-with-valuing-faith-and-jesus-on-hand-washing/ as per the following….

Begin Excerpt:

The error of Scientism is an error born of Non-Theism and yet that same error ((Scientism)) infects Christian premises as it leads Christians to follow suit and take [1] God’s Commission of “Come In And Know Me” ((…Prayer, Theology, Intimacy in & with Him…)) and pit it against [2] God’s Commission of “Go Out & Subdue The Earth” ((…master the created order, the physical sciences…)).

The Non-Theist’s error of Scientism just is the Christian’s error of “Commission-1 Pitted Against Commission-2” vis-à-vis Faith “vs” Science ((…wait…. for… it….)). Notice that the second half of God’s Dual-Command “just is” to appreciate & unpack and master and subdue the Created Order. It “just is” Science. Science Flourished In The Christianized Mindset. But Why? https://randalrauser.com/2018/02/biblical-god-ignorant-science/#comment-4138241674

Historically the [set] of beliefs we are operating out of with respect to reality as intelligible have not always been with us ((well, not in full)). Realism and Antirealism and “Reality Is Intelligible” all arrive out of a history of “becoming” — out from former contours of “The Gods Play & The People Pay So Reality Isn’t Intelligible”. As Jennings reminds us with a quote of William M. Walton: “The metaphysician knows that his task is to search for the ultimate foundation of the intelligibility of things.”

End Excerpt

So then, recall again that it is not One-Or-The-Other – but “Both/And” and that is actually FORCED when we arrive at any Standoff/Armistice with, say, the Muslim and Mormon and Christian all attesting to the “Inner-Witness”. The Strawman arrives at that Standoff/Armistice and pretends “That’s It!” “Everything Stalls-Out!” “Everything Stops!”

But of course that’s false. It WOULD be true IF the “Other-Half” of Craig’s/Christianit’s/Etc. were not “simultaneously present” but notice that in the Armistice/Stand-Off it is actually the Strawman ITSELF which Stops/Stalls-Out while the actual Claims/Premises presented within Craig’s content and the Christian Metaphysic all push ahead into Evidence & Logic & Argument as “That Which” finally Tips-The-Weight and Breaks the Standoff/Armistice.

Epistemic History Wins Out Over Inner Witness

Every claim of Ya/Na is born out of an epistemic history unless one is essentially a neonate and Craig points specifically to the strengths of the epistemic history which Solipsism and Idealism and Mormonism and Islam and Christianity and Non-Theism and Pantheism all bring to the table as “the thing” this is going to pinpoint the Warranted beliefs and the Properly Basic beliefs. Craig pushes this all the way when he comments as follows:

“….if holding that the witness of God’s Spirit is indefeasible leads to some epistemic misstep…. then I’ll gladly give up that claim….” and follows with, “…but I don’t see that you’ve identified any epistemic transgression so far…” ((bold added))

The “weight” of “veracity” lands on that Epistemic History vis-à-vis that Epistemic Misstep vis-à-vis that Epistemic Transgression. And the reasons why that is the case become obvious as we follow through with all First Person Experience/Perception.

“Internal Knowing” by itself as a stand-alone presents us with nothing circular just as there is nothing circular in “…someone’s reporting that he does experience the reality of the external world or the presence of other minds…” ((…so far that is…. purely as a stand-alone / by itself…)) and that point is made by Craig when he discusses the question of his rather Hard-Semantic push on the Heavy-Weight which the Inner-Testimony of the Holy Spirit “sums to” in his description. One must be careful to fill in the rest of the narrative on what outweighs what and include all included avenues by which Light/Convincing arrives/breaks through ((…see the many essays on this at reasonablefaith.org as Craig is often asked to explain/qualify….)).

The problem of Circularity MAY/CAN arrive IF/WHEN that stand-alone Self-Report is challenged by, say, the full-on Berkeley-Idealist or by full-on Solipsism or the full-on Non-Theist carrying his Non-Theism to its unavoidable terminus within the full-on Elimination of Mind/Self.

So what is one to do there? Well that’s straightforward.

First, notice that the Non-Theist thinks he is Free-Of the Münchhausen Trilemma ((Agrippa’s Trilemma)) and/or in some case he may insist that he is Free-Of the Elimination of Mind/Self by some sort of Non-Reductive-Hope – but of course all of these “Self-Reports” and in fact ALL “Self-Reports” such as one’s own “Inner Knowing” vis-à-vis “I” / “Self” / “i-am” / “i-reason” / “i-exist” reduce to the SAME terminus – and that’s fine “As-Is” in that is at that point still a “Stand-Alone”. It is THERE and THEN that we will soon find that it is nothing less than Logic & Lucidity & Reason which will first precede, and then overtake, and then subsume, and finally outdistance other variables to win the proverbial day.

In Craig’s own accounting of the Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit he describes the proverbial Standoff/Armistice when other folks have their own Inner Witness and so then what? Well then he ((rightly)) moves into Evidence/Argument to Tip-Over / Break the Armistice. But why should Craig or the Christian ((Etc.)) do that if the Strawman “gets it right”? Well because the Strawman is a half-narrative of sorts – and even fallacious as presented. We find that “Evidence And Arguments To Convince” is something that is Valid/Alive/Part-Of-The-Whole. Recall again that “Convinced” by such vectors is a narrative which is recanted throughout the centuries and in fact Scripture affirms that coterminous union of “Testimony” plus “Nature” yielding a “Communique” which speaks to reason’s eye on various levels – even to the point of “It Was That Which Convinced Me”.

A few quotes of Craig from a few different places for context:

“….the Muslim can say the same thing, and we have a standoff… here my distinction between knowing our faith to be true and showing it to be true becomes relevant…..the Muslim can say the same thing and engage in Muslim apologetics… Great! Bring on the debate!””….What your question underlines is that the theistic arguments constitute a cumulative case such as a lawyer presents in a court of law in which independent lines of evidence reinforce one another to support the overall conclusion not implied by any single argument….””….This raises the question, “how do we know these arguments refer to the same explanation?” Though much could be said about this, I think that the simplest and wholly adequate answer to this question is Ockham’s Razor….. We shouldn’t multiply causes beyond necessity…. One of the impressive virtues of theism is its explanatory scope: it unites so many diverse things under a single explanatory ultimate…..”“….What’s at issue here, rather, is whether holding that the witness of God’s Spirit is indefeasible leads to some epistemic misstep. If it does, then I’ll gladly give up that claim. After all, that claim is not essential to Reformed Epistemology, much less Christianity. But I don’t see that you’ve identified any epistemic transgression so far.”

Notice with that last quote that Craig is open to dropping the Inner Witness. One needs only to demonstrate the epistemic transgression he points out. But to do that one must demonstrate one’s own 1. Warranted Belief in a System which 2. successfully demonstrates Craig’s epistemic transgression.

Notice also that we find the possibility of a stand-off with the Idealist & Solipsist & Mormon & Muslim and Craig points out that epistemic strength with respect to Perception (Mind) is on occasion that which allows one to move forward in such cases. A brief observation on why that would be the case with Mormonism is that Mormonism finds Contingencies in God….. and so “Reason Itself” “as” “Being Itself” suffers in several key layers as it does in Non-Theism & Idealism & Solipsism. It is never about “One Part” because there is no “slice of” any “System/‘ToE’/Theory-Of-Everything/Etc.” which lives in vacuum but, instead, it always comes back to whichever System/‘T.O.E.’ is under review as each comes as a body of statements which do not exist in a vacuum but are in fact immersed in the whole of reality. See “Miracles In Other Religions? Eyewitness Testimony? Mermaids? Alien Abductions? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Zeus? Thor? Copycat-Gods? Celestial Teapots?” which is at https://metachristianity.com/miracles-in-other-religions-eyewitness-testimony-mermaids-alien-abductions-flying-spaghetti-monster-zeus-thor-copycat-gods-celestial-teapots/

The fallacious strawman of “Inner Witness Of The Holy Spirit” is fallacious not because “that” is not a “Valid” “Part” but because it is presented as the [Full-Stop] when in fact we have the following in play:

— 1— The claim that Evidence & Argument CAN be & ARE used to CONVINCE

— 2— The Epistemic Standoff/Armistice & the solution to break the Armistice

— 3— Spirit’s Inner Witness

— 4— Opened to dropping Inner Witness if shown Epistemic Transgression ((“…if holding that the witness of God’s Spirit is indefeasible leads to some epistemic misstep… then I’ll gladly give up that claim…”))

It’s obvious why Craig makes the move of including Solipsism when unpacking “inner knowing”. If one is not careful one may miss how that opens up the whole fallacy and empties it of all solvency. We find the Inner Witness of one’s own “Inner Knowing” vis-à-vis “I” / “Self” / “i-am” / “i-reason” / “i-exist” vis-à-vis the First Person Experience reduce to the SAME terminus which just is the same solipsistic arena as the Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit which just is Properly Basic. I experience the outer world and I experience other minds and I experience “i-am” – and so on. As we have to move step by step we find that at “that step” or at “that point” so far all Inner-Witnesses are non-circular and equally footed. So far we have another Armistice. Another Stand-Off. The solution?

The solution is Evidence & Arguments according to centuries of Christianity ((& Craig when he unpacks this topic)). Interestingly those arguments & evidence weight significantly within and towards the Philosophy of Mind and Absolute Consciousness ((Divine Mind)).

Inner Witness: Our Non-Theist friends attest to their properly basic belief / inner witness of their perceived “Irreducible i-am” as per “I” / “Self” / “i-am” / “i-reason” / “i-exist” vis-à-vis the First Person Experience. Unfortunately our Non-Theist friends will at time ALSO ((…sometimes in the same sentence…)) affirm that at bottom all of “that” sums to Illusion as they Circle inside of Agrippa’s Trilemma amalgamated with mind’s eliminative ends within the shadows of non-being.

The Irreducible Nature of the First Person Experience vis-à-vis “i-am” vis-à-vis the Intentional Self/Mind vis-à-vis “i-reason” / “i-think” / “i-exist” is a Nature which cannot be retained except by an explanatory power outside the reach of Non-Theism. IF there are “Degrees” of “X” in a Universe which is necessarily void of X — well THEN God. “Just a little intentionality” ((Etc.)) is a cheat, an equivocation akin to “Just a little bit of being from non-being”. There is no room for “Degrees” of “Irreducible Mind / Intentionality” in the universe of Metaphysical Naturalism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] whether we move from the bottom up or from the top down in ANY “Fundamental Nature of X”.

Think it through: That final Terminus of all Non-Theistic “Ends” is unavoidably forced by Metaphysical Naturalism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] in ANY “Fundamental Nature of X”.

The Conscious Observer’s Irreducible Nature lands in “non-being” with respect to any appeal to “degrees” or “design” or “intentionality” given that aforementioned Necessary Conservation. Else God. The notion of any such “Ontic Incline” vis-à-vis “Degrees” collapses into a metaphysical absurdity given that aforementioned Necessary Conservation. Else God. Appeals to the perceived Irreducible Self will again and again force all semantic intent into the perception of non-being/no-thing — as in illusion — else God.

Dr. Dennis Bonnette makes the following observation:

“The seventeenth century French philosopher, René Descartes, insisted that what we first know is expressed as “Cogito, ergo sum” ~ “I think, therefore, I am.” In so doing, he recognized that, in the act of knowing, there is reflexive consciousness of the self as an existing knower. But what Descartes missed is that in every perceptive act of knowing – the kind first experienced in sensation – what is immediately known is given as an extramental object. The equally French contemporary Thomistic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, corrects Descartes’ omission by restating the initial proposition as “Scio aliquid esse” ~ “I know something to be.” In so saying, he affirms what is first and primarily known is something presented to the knower as an extramental sense object. It is solely in knowing such an object that I become conscious of my own act of knowing – and thereby, reflexively, of myself as the knower. In fact, direct experience tells us that both intra-mental and extramental objects are known clearly and distinctly, while they are also known as radically distinct from each other.”

The following two items overlap with segues there: [1] Comments WRT Realism vis-à-vis Meta-Narrative & Two Smart Guys – at https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/comments-wrt-realism-vis-vis-meta.html and [2] The Trajectory Of All Ontological Arrows Part 1 – at https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-trajectory-of-all-ontological-arrows-1.html

A brief excerpt from “The Trajectory Of All Ontological Arrows” linked above:

The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

The following is also helpful:

“…..The reason is that for the classical theist, whatever else we mean by “God,” we certainly mean by that label to name the ultimate source, cause, or explanation of things. Properly to understand classical theism, the hostile atheist reader might even find it useful to put the word “God” out of his mind for the moment – given all the irrelevant associations the word might lead him to read into the present discussion – and just think instead of “the ultimate source of things” …….” ((.. https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-is-there-anything-at-all-its-simple.html ..))

BEGIN: Thinking Through Reality’s Irreducible Hard Stop “vs.” Presuppositionalism

Irreducible Being? Moral Fact? Logic Itself? Reason Itself? Mind as per Absolute Consciousness? Abstraction’s Transposition? Are THOSE reality’s concrete furniture? One way to see why that in fact IS the case is to look at the following:

Our Non-Theist friends often Challenge Logic along the same line as they Challenge Moral Fact and while that is honest on their part it is interesting that the they seem unaware ((…or unconcerned…)) with the cost of that choice. And it is a choice of course as other options are immediately available.

The Form of the Challenge which our Non-Theist friends present with respect to the fundamental nature of Logic typically shows up along the following lines:

A— “….If Logic ends in God then God must be subject to Logic and so God is not God, or else God is metaphysically free to be Non-Logic and therefore able to make round-squares such that [A = Non-A] is true in some possible world….or something like that….”

B— That which is “Logic Itself” is either 1. itself under the Laws of Logic or else 2. It (logic) can be, or is metaphysically free to be, Non-Logic.

Notice that the problem with that approach in [A] and [B] is the same problem with all contingent abstractions of all contingent minds and that is true whether one makes the attempt with Logic Itself or with Being-Itself or with The-Good Itself or with Reason-Itself or with Mind Itself and — lest we move to fast — it also holds if/when one makes the attempt with “I/Self” or with one’s First Person Experience vis-à-vis one’s one perceived “Irreducible-I-Am” vis-à-vis that which is nothing less than “Self” vis-à-vis “i-am” / “i-reason” / “i-intend” / “i-exist” and so on.

Notice that in both [A] and [B] the challenge redefines that which “God-Is” into that which “God-Has” such that THEN — and ONLY then — it can be said that Something Is Above/Beneath Something Else such that “…God must be subject to Logic and so God is not God, or else God is metaphysically free to be Non-Logic…” and so on as per [A] and [B] above. When the Christian speaks of “God” as “Being Itself” it is for a reason as that which “Has Being” cannot be ((…in any coherent sense…)) the Ground of All Being.

Obviously both [A] and [B] employ the syntax of the following:

A2— Logic-Is-Subject-To-Logic and/or

B2— Logic-Is-Beneath-Logic and/or

C2— Logic-Is-Metaphysically-Free-To-Be-Non-Logic or else Logic is not Logic.

Which then forces / sums to the following:

D2— “X Is Subject To X“ akin to
E2— “X Is Beneath X“ akin to

F2— “Being Itself Is Subject To Being Itself” akin to
F2— “Being Itself Is Beneath Being Itself” akin to

G2— “X Is Metaphysically Free To Be Non-X” akin to
H2— “Being Itself Is Metaphysically Free To Be Non-Being”

Those are of course are nonsensical identity claims and we rationally say of all such syntax:

— 1— None of them have anything to do with the Christian Metaphysic

— 2— All of them are themselves logical absurdities

Notice that “Getting In Behind/Beneath Oneself” is not coherent such that “We Mean To Apply Logic’s Force To Pre-Logic” is not coherent. “Presupposition” is not possible UNLESS and UNTIL the Critic can coherently pull-off A2 through H2. But of course the Non-Theist cannot pull-off those Nonsensical Identity Claims. It is not clear what our Non-Theist friends mean with respect to Reason/Mind when they accuse the Christian of Pre-Supposing by getting in Pre-Being and getting in Pre-Mind and getting in Pre-Reason and getting in Pre-Perception vis-à-vis getting in Pre-The-Intentional Self.

Think It Through: It becomes unavoidable as to WHY the Christian does not and in fact CANNOT Start/Stop in any such Pre-ANY-thing given that the very notion of Pre-Being collapses into a metaphysical absurdity. Indeed once we apply the UNDOING of those Nonsensical Identity Claims of A2 through H2 ((…which were only the result of fallacious re-inventions / fallacious strawmen of actual Christian premises/definitions…)) we find the express Start/Stop or the express A—Z of the Christian Paradigm vis-à-vis Reason Itself as Being Itself vis-à-vis Goodness Itself as Being Itself vis-à-vis Logic Itself as Being Itself vis-à-vis Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving as Being in totum || Being Itself vis-à-vis All Processions as The Trinitarian Life.

Think It Through: We are forced to find Being Itself and I-AM as a metaphysical Singularity and here there are no options for any Non-Theistic Map of the Underived/Derived. The question of “The Fundamental Nature of X” vis-à-vis Intentionality, Reason, Self, Mind, and Being/Existence in/of i-exist/i-am in and of the First Person Experience forces us to ask, “From Whence The Fundamental Nature of i-am?” That question is what is on the table and the Christian Metaphysic alone houses all such semantic intent in and by the Principle of Proportionate Causality (…not to be confused with the PSR…) as per the following:

“…The idea is perhaps best stated in Platonic terms of the sort Aquinas uses (in an Aristotelianized form) in the Fourth Way. To be a tree or to be a stone is merely to participate in “treeness” or “stoneness.” But to be at all – which is the characteristic effect of an act of creation out of nothing – is to participate in Being Itself. Now the principle of proportionate causality tells us that whatever is in an effect must be in some way in its cause. And only that which just is Being Itself can, in this case, be a cause proportionate to the effect, since the effect is not merely to be a tree or to be a stone, but to be at all…” (E. Feser)

With that same Principle of Proportionate Causality in hand we realize that without any such (actual/ontic) Being To (actual/ontic) Being seamlessness there is no seamless ontology for the fundamental nature of Being/Existence vis-à-vis i-am/i-exist in ANY Non-Theistic “explanatory terminus” as in all such ((Non-Theistic)) termini one must attempt the metaphysically impossible — as alluded to in the following:

One must willfully trade away one’s self as/in being instead of retaining being when one’s own First Person Experience in/as being never led one to do so ((how could it?)).
One must willfully trade away one’s self as/in reason instead of retaining reason when one’s own First Person Experience in/as reason never led one to do so ((how could it?)).
One must willfully trade away one’s self as/in intention instead of retaining intention when one’s own First Person Experience in/as intention never led one to do so ((how could it?)).
One must willfully trade away one’s self as/in existence instead of retaining existence when one’s own First Person Experience in/as existence never led one to do so ((how could it?)).
One must willfully trade away one’s self as/in i-am instead of retaining i-am when one’s own First Person Experience in/as i-am never led one to do so ((how could it?)).
Trading For Non-Being 1 of 3: One must willfully trade away what one Sees not only for what one Cannot See but for what one cannot see even in principle, which is to say one must trade away Being for Non-Being ((but how?))
Trading For Non-Being 2 of 3: One must willfully trade away that which both Is & Can-Be, namely Lucidity, for that which not only Is-Not but that which Cannot-Be even in principle, namely Non-Being vis-à-vis the Metaphysical Round-Square — namely Non-Being vis-à-vis the Reductio Ad Absurdum ((but how?))
Trading For Non-Being 3 of 3: One must therefore stop one’s Evidence Based Act of Walking Forward for one must stop placing one’s foot atop the Next Stepping Stone out in front vis-à-vis that which one in fact Sees because one must instead turn one’s gaze backwards and make one’s bizarre appeal to the Pre-I-AM vis-à-vis Pre-Being vis-à-vis Non-Being vis-à-vis the Presupposition in order to “pull it off” ((but how?))

Think It Through: In one’s i-am/i-exist First Person Experience it is that very Consciousness as Intentional-Being which must willfully trade away i-am/i-exist vis-à-vis the Irreducible First Person in Reasoning as Intentional-Being when it is in fact impossible for one in/as i-am/i-exist vis-à-vis the Irreducible First Person Experience of Being/Existence to do/make any such Trade/Giving. The very notion of Reasoning Being ((Illusion)) following Reason In Being ((Illusion)) and thereby on the Force of Reason Itself ((Illusion)) giving away Reason Itself ((Illusion)) to Non-Reason/Non-Being ((Non-Illusion)) collapses into a metaphysical impossibility. But then that just is the Circularity & Question Begging & Reductio-Ad-Absurdum of all Non-Theistic “Ends” given Metaphysical Naturalism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] in ANY “Fundamental Nature of X”.

The Compulsory A—Z as Logic Itself Sums To Irreducible Being: In simplicity and in seamlessness we arrive in that which is free of all Non-Being and thereby free of Pre-Being and thereby free of all Pre-Supposition and therein we arrive at the same A—Z which we arrive at through Natural Theology which [A] starts off with nothing but the Presupposition-Free Neonate + Perception + Self + the External World + Change ((Etc. Etc.)) and which eventually [B] terminates in nothing less than the Principle of Proportionate Causality vis-à-vis Being Itself vis-à-vis Divine Mind vis-à-vis Pure Act vis-à-vis the Christian Paradigm and all of that of course in arrives in seamless singularity as the Christian Metaphysic vis-à-vis Reason Itself as Being Itself vis-à-vis Goodness Itself as Being Itself vis-à-vis Logic Itself as Being Itself vis-à-vis the Reference Frame of Totality — or The Absolute’s Own Reference Frame — which necessarily saturates (1) all possible reference frames within all possible worlds and (2) all actual reference frames within all actual worlds vis-à-vis Logos void of Potentiality and so in nothing less than Pure Act as the Fountainhead of all ontological possibility which necessarily streams from nothing less than all possible Procession & Communique amid The Infinite Knower & The Infinitely Known in Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving as Being in totum compelling us – carrying us – into the Map of The Underived.

The Compulsory A—Z therefore unavoidably Maps as follows: [Logic Itself] sums to [Irreducible Being] if and only if [Being Itself = Pure Act] and therefore is Itself the Metaphysical Wellspring of [All Ontological Possibility] — and therefore is Itself the Metaphysical Wellspring of [All Possible Propositions] in All Possible Reference Frames — and therefore is Itself the Metaphysical Wellspring of [All Possible Syllogisms] in All Possible Frames of Reference — and therefore Itself necessarily saturates all possible reference frames within all possible worlds and all actual reference frames within all actual worlds vis-à-vis Logos void of Potentiality in Timeless Processions vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life.

Being Necessarily Displaces Non-Being It is helpful to look at Perception/Sight as it relates to the Reductio Ad Absurdum and to Evil and to Logic in the following 3 steps/phases:

Step/Phase 1 of 3 is the concept of Privation: There is that which “IS” such that there is there what we all “Being” and there is that which “IS NOT” such that there is not there what we call “Being” but we would instead say “Non-Being” as in the Philosophical No-Thing. A helpful bridge to explain that concept is the Christian Metaphysic’s definition of Evil. Evil is not a positive substance such as, say, “Goodness Plus X” but is instead a deficiency of substance ((…deficiency of Being, of Good, of Life, of Mind, and so on…)) or we can say that Evil is a Hollow or Vacuum of said Substance/Ontic as in “Goodness Minus Something”. Evil “Exits” in that “Goodness Minus Something” in fact “Exists”. That is what the Christian Metaphysic means when it speaks of The-Good and then in turn speaks of “The-Good-Minus-Something” which is to say “Evil is Good’s Privation” or “Evil is a Privation of Good” which is to say “A Deficiency Of Being”. It is not No-Thing, nor is it The Whole Thing, but instead it is “The Whole/Good Minus Something”.

Step/Phase 2 of 3 is Sight/Perceiving: When one “Sees/Perceives” that which is “Evil” one is seeing that which “IS” such that there is what we call “Being” but notice that what IS and what is Seen/Perceived is “Something Good With A Deficiency”. We see a “Part Of What Is Left” such that there is what we call “Being” ((though Corrupted/Deficient)). We do NOT See/Perceive an “Illusion” or “No-Thing” which is to say we do NOT See/Perceive that which “Is Not” which is to say we do NOT See/Perceive “Non-Being”. And so the following arrives intact:

Step/Phase 3 of 3 is Logic, Being, and the Reductio Ad Absurdum: We can claim to follow what we “Perceive/See”, however, that which is in the box/category named “Reductio Ad Absurdum” or in the box/category named “Contradiction” is in fact the metaphysical equivalent of “Non-Being” or the Philosophical No-Thing. For example, the Round Square ((Reductio)) is not a “Thing That Exists” and it cannot even in principle exist, and therefore it referents a Non-Thing — or the “Being-Less” — that which “IS NOT” such that there is NOT there what we call “Being” nor even Being-Minus-Something but we would instead say “Non-Being” as in The Philosophical No-Thing.

Here it helps to think of “Privation” in the same way we think of “Evil” as Being-Minus-Something or a Deficiency Of Being. To “See Evil” is to see “Something” rather than “No-Thing”. However, that is not the case with “Seeing/Perceiving” the Reductio and/or the Contradiction and that is because when it comes to “Following Reason” and “Following what we can in fact Perceive/See” we do not and cannot even in principle in fact “See/Perceive” “Non-Being”.

Combining All 3 Steps/Phases:

There are metaphysical maps or decision-points when the Reductio Ad Absurdum and/or the Contradiction are Chosen/Followed “rather than” some other option such that “Illusion” and therefore “The Philosophical No-Thing” and therefore “Non-Being” are claimed to occupy some part of some Map at the expense of some other option which is NOT itself the Reductio Ad Absurdum and/or the Contradiction. Notice that this “other option” need not be “Whole” in order to actually be “something” and so win out over and above the “No-Thing” of the Reductio and/or the Contradiction and so notice that Being wins out over Non-Being merely by summing to ANY-thing more than No-Thing, even a mere “Privation” ((Being-Minus-Something)).

The Conscious Observer in the Map of all Non-Theistic Paradigms finds that very move/decision point given Non-Theism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-Am] in ANY “Fundamental Nature of X” whether we move from the Top Down or from the Bottom Up. Therein ALL First Person Data vis-à-vis “i” / “i-reason” / “i-think” / “i-exist” / “i-am” must die the death of a thousand equivocations and finally forfeit the Irreducible Hard Stop that is The Self / Conscious Observer and trade it away for what cannot even in principle take its place. One ends up “Equating” something like, say, “Gravity” for “i-reason” ((…and so on as Non-Theism must finally Honor the aforementioned Necessary Conservation …)) which of course collapses into “Non-A Equals A” which of course collapses into a Contradiction and the Reductio Ad Absurdum vis-à-vis the Total Illusion that is the First Person Experience. And so the following arrives intact:

It is a metaphysical and logical impossibility to “See/Perceive the Philosophical No-Thing” which is to say that it is a metaphysical and logical impossibility to “See/Perceive Non-Being” – which is to say that Being necessarily displaces Non-Being at any/all “decision-points”. When we say that we “Follow Reason/Evidence/Sight” we mean we follow that which “IS” to wherever it may lead us and therein we will find that all strong vectors converge in nothing less than the full-on syntax/semantic intent in and of The Great I-AM. ((…see more at https://metachristianity.com/logic-itself-is-being-itself-contra-the-fallacy-of-presuppositionalism/…))

Think It Through: The essay “The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic” by James N. Anderson and Greg Welty is at https://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf and is 22 pages long. A brief excerpt offers context and segues of obvious relevance here is below. Recall first that it’s only an excerpt and also recall that the Pains of Platonism fail to do the necessary work here for the reasons described in https://metachristianity.com/platonism-and-be-ing-and-do-ing-and-pure-act-and-counterfactuals-and-moral-facts/ — Here’s the excerpt from Anderson and Welty’s argument for God from Logic:

“….In any case, the laws of logic couldn’t be our thoughts — or the thoughts of any other contingent being for that matter — for as we’ve seen, the laws of logic exist necessarily if they exist at all. For any human person S, S might not have existed, along with S’s thoughts. The Law of Non-Contradiction, on the other hand, could not have failed to exist — otherwise it could have failed to be true. If the laws of logic are necessarily existent thoughts, they can only be the thoughts of a necessarily existent mind….. The laws of logic are necessary truths about truths; they are necessarily true propositions. Propositions are real entities, but cannot be physical entities – they are essentially thoughts. So the laws of logic are necessarily true thoughts. ((…recall the failures of Platonism…)) Since they are true in every possible world, they must exist in every possible world. But if there are necessarily existent thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind; and if there is a necessarily existent mind, there must be a necessarily existent person. A necessarily existent person must be spiritual in nature, because no physical entity exists necessarily. Thus, if there are laws of logic, there must also be a necessarily existent, personal, spiritual being. The laws of logic imply the existence of God….”

Notice again that regardless of one’s “….metaphysical wellspring of all ontological possibility…” it is the case that “Getting In Behind/Beneath Oneself” is not coherent such that our earlier D2 “X Is Subject To X” akin to our earlier E2 “X Is Beneath X” are metaphysical impossibilities when we speak of ANY “Fundamental Nature” and for all the same reasons we here again find that “We Mean To Apply Logic’s Force To Pre-Logic” is again incoherent. “Presupposition” is not possible UNLESS and UNTIL the Critic can coherently pull-off those earlier/aforementioned A2 through H2. But of course the Non-Theist cannot pull-off those Nonsensical Identity Claims. It is not clear what our Non-Theist friends mean with respect to Reason/Mind when they accuse the Christian of Pre-Supposing by getting in Pre-Being and getting in Pre-Mind and getting in Pre-Reason and getting in Pre-Perception vis-à-vis getting in Pre-The-Intentional Self. The principle of proportionate causality, the metaphysic of Being Itself, and the fallacy of Presuppositionalism are perhaps segues into ((…or out of…)) the following:

“The most basic pedagogical decision to make in presenting the doctrine of the Trinity is whether to begin the exposition with the temporal missions and reason back from them to the eternal processions, or whether to take the opposite approach, beginning rather with the eternal processions and then working out and down to the temporal missions. Both procedures have much to commend them.” (Fred Sanders: The Triune God – New Studies in Dogmatics)

We know that whether we speak of Presentism or whether we speak of Eternalism it is the case either way that Time is neither the Absolute nor the absolute reference frame nor the Absolute’s Own Reference Frame. The Absolute’s frame of reference cannot even in principle *be* Self-Explanatory unless and until the Absolute is in fact Self-Referencing. We also know by both reason and logic that at the end of all explanatory termini we are forced into either A. final absurdity or else B. the Self-Explanatory in and of and by the Absolute’s Reference Frame, which must by necessity be Self-Reference and the reason why is found in both the necessity of Totality and in the necessity of Identity as each reveals (….forces else reductio ad absurdum…) all over again that the Absolute’s frame of reference cannot even in principle *be* Self-Explanatory unless and until the Absolute is in fact Self-Referencing — which is a metaphysical absurdity but for the Triune God who meets us in Genesis.

The I AM identity: There is no frame of reference for “Self” but for the fact of “Other”, as the Absolute’s Self-Reference presses in through the eons of the “I AM” traversing history:

“….. we are forced to conclude that these are relational qualities and have no meaning in isolation. In other words, in God, qualities of personality can be actualized only if there is an actual, eternal relationship in him prior to, outside of, and without reference to creation. Only in that way would God be a personal being without being dependent on his creation. When Moses asked God for his name, the answer he got was least expected: I AM (Ex. 3:14). This amazing mystery of the name (identity) of God solves a problem that we may not always be aware of: God is his own frame of reference. We have already considered the fact that the infinite cannot be defined with reference to the finite. God, therefore, must be self-referencing. This would be an absurd proposition but for the fact that, in the being of God, there is a plurality of infinite persons and each can define himself with reference to the other. God can truly be said to be self-existent only because he is the all-personal, all-relational being…” (L. T. Jeyachandran)

END: Thinking Through Reality’s Irreducible Hard Stop “vs.” Presuppositionalism

Not entirely of course but for the sake of referring to sections and reference we will segue here to the following before closing:

Disqualification vs. Falsification: Most of what we believe is not falsifiable in any heavy weight sense. “Explanatory power” and “robust reach” all reach a certain critical mass at some point, either in affirmation of an X or in disqualification of an X. Yet the lesser/milder “disqualification” is not always the stronger “falsification”. Though, there ARE times when that is the case.

Certainty / Uncertainty: Notice that uncertainty has never disqualified a premise, but what is clear is that when this or that premise forces a reduction to absurdity and/or a Brute Fact the premise itself is (then) rationally rejected (it’s been falsified) on pains of the “not possible even in principle” to “see” that which sums to “non-being“.

Certainty / Uncertainty: They cannot always help us decide – or more precisely – certainty/uncertainty do not necessarily and rationally compel reason (…in her role as truth-finder…) into A vs. B. vs. C., as it were. All that is left then is that painful “Y” in the road between the forced reductio ad absurdum and/or brute fact (…on the one hand…) and reason’s lucidity (…on the other hand…). What is clear is that when this or that premise forces a reduction to absurdity / brute fact, the premise itself is (then) rationally rejected — and falsified rather than “only” “disqualified” ((…general context via https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/overcome-your-cognitive-bias-with-the-50-50-rule/#comment-3967551213 …)).

Factoid: Reason Itself is falsifiable when unpacked through the Non-Theistic lens. It just eats itself alive. That is WHY it MUST “PRE-Suppose” the very being itself of reason itself. Whereas, should we allow logic and reason to carry through to lucidity, we arrive within the various contours of the Divine Mind.

Brief Digression On Semantic Intent: Univocal & Equivocal & Analogous & Semantic Intent

Question from https://twitter.com/polyphilosophy/status/1275904659169972225?s=20 “If God is Pure Act, and God cannot act upon Himself, then the Act can only be discerned via the bringing about of contingency. As every cause has an effect as part of its intelligibility, even the First Cause can only be discerned via its effects. But contingency by its very nature does not need to exist at all, that is what it means to be contingent. So you have a situation where the contingent is a requirement for God to be God. Hence, monotheism begs relation to be intelligible. ….Is ANY cause intelligible when it is separated from its effect?”

It’s fine to affirm the trio of Univocal, Equivocal, and Analogous just as it is fine to affirm Negative Theology, just as it’s find to affirm the reality of this or that “Reductio Ad Adsurdum” when we see it. What is not fine is to conflate or equate “Negative Theology” ((what it entails)) with “Reductio Ad Adsurdum” ((what it entails)) as that would be a “False Identity Claim”.

With respect to the comment of, “….the contingent is a requirement for God to be God. Hence, monotheism begs relation to be intelligible….” We can start with this: Things are not metaphysically free to Be/Inform apart from [Being Itself||Pure Actuality] ((…which will be [B-I||P-A] moving forward…)) but, that said, that fact isn’t relevant to the coherence of omnipotence. We’ve still the question of what [B-I||P-A] stands in relation to “in order to be God and/or Intelligible” and so on. Recall that the explanatory terminus of “Necessary Being” and the Tri of Omnipotence, Omnipresent, and Omniscient are not the starting point but the Explanatory Terminus which is logically compelled ((…else reductio ad absurdum...)).

There can’t coherently be a “Necessary-Juxtaposition” to the “Non-Necessary” ((…Contingent isn’t Necessary…)) “Two Necessary Beings” is also incoherent. “Contingent Things Are Necessary” is also incoherent and so any claim of this or that Necessary Juxtaposition between The-Necessary & The-Non-Necessary collapses into a metaphysical absurdity. Contingent Things are not metaphysically free to [Be/Inform/Communicate/Self-Account] apart from [B-I||P-A] and the proposed “Necessary Juxtaposition” which Omnipotence has with the [Non-Necessary] doesn’t make sense especially given that Contingent things are in fact Contingent ((…and hence the Creative Act was not / is not a Necessary Act…)).

“Is the First Cause or ANY cause intelligible apart from its Effect?” It depends on the Cause. In Physical systems Physics tells us Change ((Cause/Effect)) is fundamentally illusory and so one cannot mean to refer to “there” unless scientific realism is somehow salvaged Alternatively, if the question is about “Know” & “Causality” vis-à-vis Logos as Divine Progression vis-a-vis Pure Act||Absolute Consciousness then the question isn’t a valid question there ((“Can Knowledge-Itself Know Itself?” etc., etc.)). Regarding the contingent abstractions of the contingent minds of contingent beings — they’re not metaphysically free to [Be/Inform/Communicate/Self-Account] apart from [Being Itself||Pure Actuality] and so we have Language and Syntax and Semantic Intent all on the table so to speak. That’s also one of the reasons everything necessarily testifies of both of the following:

((1)) the insolvency of [Physics Full Stop]. The reason is because that Map runs into Reductio or else Brute Fact and cannot “even in principle” avoid one of those two fates given what is “not-present” in any “Non-Theism” regarding Mind, Reason, and Being.

((2)) the many & varied contours of [Being Itself||Pure Actuality] and as D.B. Hart calls it, “Being, Consciousness, and Bliss”. Others have used the phrase “The Always & The Already“.

That said, ((2)) & ((2)) aren’t contrary to Omnipotence and they don’t explain why we should expect any “Necessary Juxtaposition” between Omnipotence ((The Necessary Being)) and Contingent Things ((The Non-Necessary)).

Lastly: Relevant Content From E. Feser and W.L. Craig:

Batch 1 of 5

Consciousness, Emergence, Intentionality, Searle, Reason Atop The Irrational, And Naturalism’s Egregious Deficiency at https://metachristianity.com/consciousness-emergence-intentionality-searle-reason-atop-the-irrational/

Theology and The Analytic A-Posteriori at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/06/theology-and-analytic-posteriori.html

The Particle Collection That Fancied Itself A Physicist https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-particle-collection-that-fancied.html

Post Intentional Depression https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/01/post-intentional-depression.html

Rosenberg VIII http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/03/reading-rosenberg-part-viii.html

Rosenberg IX http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/04/reading-rosenberg-part-ix.html

Rosenberg X http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/04/reading-rosenberg-part-x.html

Batch 2 of 5

Eliminativism 1 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/eliminativism-without-truth-part-i.html

Eliminativism 2 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/eliminativism-without-truth-part-ii.html

Eliminativism 3 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/eliminativism-without-truth-part-iii.html

Mad Dogs And Eliminativists http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/mad-dogs-and-eliminativists.html

Batch 3 of 5

Churchland 1 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/churchland-on-dualism-part-i.html

Churchland 2 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/churchland-on-dualism-part-ii.html

Churchland 3 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/churchland-on-dualism-part-iii.html

Churchland 4 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/06/churchland-on-dualism-part-iv.html

Churchland 5 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/09/churchland-on-dualism-part-v.html

Batch 4 of 5

Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought – at https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pdf

Animals Are Conscious. In Other News, The Sky Is Blue – at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/animals-are-conscious-in-other-news-sky.html

Against Neurobabble – at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/against-neurobabble.html

Other Minds & Modern Philosophy — https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/07/other-minds-and-modern-philosophy.html

Batch 5 of 5

Properly Understanding Properly Basic Beliefs – at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/properly-understanding-properly-basic-beliefs/

Answering Critics of the Inner Witness of the Spirit – at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/answering-critics-of-the-inner-witness-of-the-spirit/

Is Appeal To The Witness of the Holy Spirit Question Begging? – at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/is-appeal-to-the-witness-of-the-holy-spirit-question-begging/

Indefeasibility and Openness To Evidence – at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/indefeasibility-and-openness-to-evidence/

—END—

The Ascension Of Jesus Up Into The Clouds And 3D Imaging And Quantum Wave Functions

On occasion the question of “Up Into The Clouds” is used as “evidence” that Scripture’s metanarrative has gone off the rails. That stems from some who are unfamiliar with science and still believe that 3D imaging constitutes perception of reality’s concrete furniture. After all that physics has revealed one would assume that one should let go of such “fairytales” regarding reality’s “rock-bottom”.

It’s interesting what Physics tells us with respect to Change & Time ((Temporal Becoming)) vis-à-vis both Presentism and Eternalism. The growing majority ((by far)) of physicists affirm Eternalism over Presentism which is fine for the Christian Metaphysic given what is entailed in and around Being as Pure Act and Logos but of course it’s a problem for Non-Theism should any sort of scientific realism be one’s appeal. That observation is relevant given some of our Non-Theist friends and their reference to the report of Christ’s Ascension. Many such criticisms take Old English Literalism to new extremes and all while expunging BOTH the perceived termini afforded by Science AND the perceived termini afforded by the Christian Metaphysic. The Ascension in light of modern physics shatters our Non-Theist friend’s sort of comic-book version of Old English Literalism regarding appearances and the conceptual ceilings of the first century. But then that is why “a” single verse or “a” single chapter is never enough. Regarding what is never enough in that sense, see https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-trajectory-of-all-ontological-arrows-1.html

Avoiding the “one-verse-metaphysic” silliness of our Non-Theist friends: The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us hat just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.

To claim that God is thereby Fooling His Puppets with “Up Into The Clouds” one will need to explain why the growing majority of physicists weight heavily in favor of the claim that Time is not ontologically irreducible and therein Time/Change is “at bottom” illusory. For Non-Theism we find Metaphor & Allegory subsuming the whole show moving forward from there. Yet in the Christian Metaphysic there is no Allegory nor Metaphor – no forced deflationary truth value as the Christian finds Negative Theology at worst, which is quite different than Non-Theism’s Brute Fact and Reduction To Absurdity.

One must interface the science there with the conceptual ceiling of the 1st century Palestinian Jews Etc. and also with Being and with Timelessness and with our own mutable and contingent abstractions with respect to perception. It’s painfully obvious that all of that is relevant to any sort of “one-verse strawman”.

The following are a few excerpts from a brief discussion:

Non-Theist: “On your view, was the ascension at least in part an accommodation to their view of the universe at the time?” (Twitter’s @AlchemistNon)

Christian: “That’s certainly possible, but I think the greater significance is his leaving surrounded by clouds, a reference to how the Son of Man is pictured in Daniel.” (Twitter’s Sam Stephens in reply etc.)

Non-Theist: “I think that pushes my point back though, because one could argue that the Hebrew Bible assumes a three tiered universe pretty easily, so it seems you are stuck with accommodation either way. But I see what you are getting at.”(AlchemistNon)

Christian: “I don’t have a problem with accommodation. I think it’s necessary. I’m just not sure it’s the main significance here. It’s also important his body was visible until he was physically out of sight, establishing the bodily resurrection and glorification of the saints. The crucial truth of Christianity was not that a man was God so much as that God became a man. A lot of emphasis is placed on his body’s being flesh and bone. It was important to demonstrate that his return to heaven wasn’t a rejection of his physical body.” (Sam Stephens)

((…Observation: Sam’s observation is helpful as we recall the agenda of God in Christ — Redemption — and it is THAT which pushes back to Prophecy rather than our appeals to Metaphysics and 3D Imaging as both work against the Non-Theist’s premises…))

Christian: “I suspect that it requires thinking of spatio-temporal realities in more than four dimensions.” (Twitter’s @JohnMBauer1)

Christian: “I’m not sure a glorified body is exactly physical. Jesus appeared and disappeared without normal limitations.” (Twitter’s @DarthCalculus)

Non-Theist: “How do you make sense of a *physical* body in a non-spatial realm?” (AlchemistNon)

Christian: “How do you make sense of a resurrected body that walks through walls? (Paul calls it a “spritual body” in 1 Cor 15.)” (Twitter’s @joshmrowley)

Christian: “Lewis answers that he didn’t become “shadowy” relative to the hard material world, but in resurrection he became “more real,” and the material world became shadowy relative to him.” (Twitter’s @paulthomasloan)

From That Same Discussion:

Non-Theist: “I’ve always been curious about why God allowed these people he’s revealing “spiritual” things to remain ignorant of actual cosmology since he knew that these issues of ignorance would later be a stumbling block to conveying his omnipotence to unbelievers? Seems counterproductive.” (by @Zenaphobe on Twitter)

A Reply: The reply to that is straightforward: That can’t work once we realize that Cosmology is not ((and cannot even in principle be)) convertible with Ontology. One may want to explore the how/why of that and also overlay it with the apparent consensus among physicists that Time is not ontologically basic ((not ontologically irreducible)). The “Divine Communique” that is “Scripture” is populated by definitions which speak of / land in what we can describe as “The Ontological History of Becoming WRT Both Cosmos & Conscious Observer” – and “THAT” “History” is not convertible with Physics/Cosmology ((…it is a distinction that is often missed…)).

Non-Theist: “How about I just stick with my observation that and all power and intelligent deity couldn’t bother to drop some accurate info about some basic concepts concerning the universe while he was giving them their “revelations”…”(by @Zenaphobe on Twitter)

A Reply: What was inaccurate? Change/Time? The “Divine Communique” that is “Scripture” is populated by definitions which speak of / land in what we can describe as “The Ontological History of Becoming WRT Both Cosmos & Conscious Observer” – and “THAT” “History” is not convertible with Physics/Cosmology ((…it is a distinction that is often missed…)).

Literalism via Scripture? Literalism via Physics?

“The Bible Should Be An Instruction Manual” is a strawman ((but a popular notion to be sure)). The ontological history of becoming of Cosmos & Conscious Observer isn’t an instruction manual on how to vote in 2020 or ANY other world-contingent [Starting Point || Stopping Point] — so to speak. The tedious part is bringing people up to speed on a key principle: The box that is [Cosmology/Physics] can never “become” the box that is [Ontology] — That box is not convertible with ontology and it cannot be — not even in principle.

Scripture is ((in the Christian Metaphysic)) a “Divine Communique” and the “Topic” is quite specific and it is NOT a History of Time or any other World-Contingent Box but rather it is a Testimony On The Source Of All Being – and its end is our True Good – our Final Felicity which just is the perfection of being – which just does carry us into/towards…. …nothing less than… A Testimony On The Source Of All Being. The “Divine Communique” is a Metanarrative on the ontological history of becoming of Cosmos & Conscious Observer and the irreducible “Ontic Referents” within that “Communique” are Intentionally crafted to fit seamlessly beneath all possible reference frames and traverses all possible levels of knowledge throughout all possible cultures amid all conceptual ceilings. Philosophically it’s akin to “Transposition” as per https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

The question for the Critic is this: Why would we expect anything LESS?

It turns out that it is Metaphysical Naturalism which must suffer her full on Allegory & Metaphor as Time gives way to Change which gives way to that which is NOT Ontologically Basic ((Ontologically Irreducible)) — whereas the semantic intent of the Christian retains truth value as one exits Time/Change and therein never does embrace Allegory/Metaphor with respect to that same ontological history of becoming of both Cosmos and Conscious Observer. Sooner or later Physics & Cosmology & Causality & Consciousnesses & Reason & Logic all suffer their respective Reductio’s vis-a-vis Presentism-Full-Stop and we can stop there if we want to but most keep going – compelled into Eternalism — where AGAIN Non-Theism AGAIN suffers its respective appeals to Brute Facts and other Reductions To Absurdity. Whereas, such is not the case with the Christian Metaphysic.

Non-Theists here are forever trying to shoehorn one conceptual ceiling ((Modernity)) into another conceptual ceiling ((4000 BCE Etc., Etc.)). In doing so they are assuming that our own conceptual ceiling / interpretation is immune to invalidation and deflationary truth value and that shows up by attempts to shoehorn modernity’s conceptual ceiling into all conceptual ceilings across all cultures in all Times – but that’s irrational and in fact unhelpful – which is why God gave something far BETTER – as per the following:

Literalism v. Scripture? Literalism v. Physics?

Part 1 of 2 https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/fundamentalist-apologetics-comes-of-age-a-review-of-evidence-that-demands-a-verdict/#comment-3954120224

Part 2 of 2 https://randalrauser.com/2018/06/fundamentalist-apologetics-comes-of-age-a-review-of-evidence-that-demands-a-verdict/#comment-4373292762

An essay from the book Inquiétude: Essays for a People Without Eyes is titled “Educating Jesus” and brings into focus still more ways in which Jesus transcends our own contingent and 3D imaging: http://www.biblematrix.com.au/educating-jesus/

Suggestion for the Critic:

Read Sean Carroll’s book “Something Deeply Hidden” and read it as a pure physicalist and, then, add in ((A)) the fact that pure physicalism does NOT present the problems the Critic seems to think show up here with respect to “Ascension” and 3D Imaging given where the book lands, and, then, also add ((B)) the fact that pure physicalism DOES still end up eliminating the express being of and veracity of the entire First Person Experience vis-à-vis Self & Intention ((…Intentional-Self..)) as all that is the Intentioanl Self/Mind first makes demands of Non-Theism’s Toolbox and then suffers Non-Theism’s only option: Eliminativism.

—END—

GOD vs A GOD vs GODS vs THE GODS vs Sky Daddy vs Santa Claus vs Imaginary Friend vs Being Itself vs Existence Itself vs Metaphysical Wellspring Of All Ontological Possibility

“It is not enough simply to remain indifferent to the whole question of God, moreover, because thus understood it is a question ineradicably present in the very mystery of existence, or of knowledge, or of truth, goodness, and beauty. It is also the question that philosophical naturalism is supposed to have answered exhaustively in the negative, without any troubling explanatory lacunae, and therefore the question that any aspiring philosophical naturalist must understand before he or she can be an atheist in any intellectually significant way. And the best way to begin is to get a secure grasp on how radically, both conceptually and logically, belief in God differs from belief in the gods.” ((—from The Experience Of God by D. B. Hart))

“Obviously, then, it is God in the former— the transcendent— sense in whom it is ultimately meaningful to believe or not to believe. The possibility of gods or spirits or angels or demons, and so on, is a subordinate matter, a question not of metaphysics but only of the taxonomy of nature (terrestrial, celestial, and chthonic). To be an atheist in the best modern sense, however, and so to be a truly intellectually and emotionally fulfilled naturalist in philosophy, one must genuinely succeed in not believing in God, with all the logical consequences such disbelief entails.…” ((—from The Experience Of God by D. B. Hart))

A few excerpts from Dr. Salviander:

“…If you begin with “a god” it is a tip-off that I can’t take you seriously. I don’t believe in “a god.” If you don’t understand the distinction, there’s no point to having a discussion. If you want to talk to theists about God in a serious way, read Eve Keneinan’s “God vs. The Gods” https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/god-vs-the-gods/ As she points out, if you don’t understand this distinction, you will literally never understand what serious theists are talking about. I am not sure what I’m supposed to take away from all these [folks] jetpacking in here to demonstrate that they not only don’t understand the point being made, but REFUSE to understand it. It’s like trying to discuss physics with flat-earthers who refuse to learn anything about physics. You don’t have to literally believe the God of the Bible exists to understand and acknowledge the philosophical nature of the claims being made. If you’re going to argue against something, you have to actually know what you’re arguing against. Sun Tzu, people. I automatically ignore anyone who refers to God as “a god.” Not because doing so shows disrespect, but because it shows abject failure to understand the nature of that which is being discussed. Atheists who do this, thinking they’re cleverly exposing theology as a take-what-you-want ideological buffet, are committing the same category error as someone who insists there’s no difference between a universe and a galaxy. Meaningful discussion with them is just not possible….”

End Excerpts.

And, then, a few excerpts from Six Day Science https://sixdayscience.com/about-us/faqs/faqa/

Begin Excerpts:

“….I enjoy interacting with people on social media. However, I’m not inclined to throw away my time on comments and questions from people who are not truly seeking answers. If you’re an obvious time-waster, I’m most likely going to ignore you, block you, or feature you as a “Don’t Be This Guy” to my followers…. Among other things, I’ll know you’re a time-waster if you use phrases like:

“sky daddy”
“sky fairy”
“imaginary friend”
“invisible friend”
“your god”
“there’s no evidence for god”
“where’s your proof of your god?”
“the burden of proof is on you”
anything that smacks of scientism
any dial-a-fallacy nonsense
etc.

—or if you engage in sarcasm, mockery, insults, posturing, tone-policing, or trot out any of a multitude of creaky old atheist talking points. If this is how you communicate with Christians, odds are you’re not interested in a sincere exchange of ideas. I simply don’t have the time or patience to engage with people who are not serious….”

End Excerpts.

A brief observation about the phrase Sky-Daddy: If the Non-Theist is right and the Sky-Daddy Brand of God is God then God does not Exist in which case Reality Itself is without Existence and without Being. But then the Non-Theist must practice affirming his own Non-Being||Non-Existence and in fact Reality’s own Non-Being || Non-Existence. That of course is non-sense and so he joins the Christian and both the Christian and the Non-Theist practice a more “Non-Daddy-In-The-Sky” metaphysic. However, the Christian affirms Being Itself & Existence Itself and, so, once our Non-Theist friends get wind of said affirmation well they – by pure impulse – then deny “that” given that “that” just is the Christian’s paradigm vis-à-vis “GOD”. So, then, the Non-Theist is left with, perhaps, his own unique brand of Sky-Daddy rather than with Being/Existence, which is, on the trade, nonsense. Tangentially related is the observation that IF the Non-Theist genuinely insists on the Sky-Daddy brand THEN the A-Theist’s hope to use what he calls “A-Theology” finds its terminus in that same reduction to absurdity.

Edward Feser and others will on occasion employ the phrase Explanatory Terminus and with that thought in mind E. Feser gives advice to the proverbial Hostile Atheist Reader:

“The reason is that for the classical theist, whatever else we mean by “God,” we certainly mean by that label to name the ultimate source, cause, or explanation of things. Properly to understand classical theism, the hostile atheist reader might even find it useful to put the word “God” out of his mind for the moment — given all the irrelevant associations the word might lead him to read into the present discussion — and just think instead of “the ultimate source of things.” Feser

Given “the ultimate source of things” as per “God” we find, then, that should the Non-Theist “SAY” that “There is no God” what the Christian then “HEARS” ((..and what logic demands given the fact that “words” have “semantic intent” / “meaning”…)) with respect to Being Itself and Existence Itself and Absolute Mind Itself amounts to “…there is no ultimate foundation of/for “Reality” even as there is no Being and no Existence and no Mind….”

Before moving on to David Bentley Hart and several of his criticisms of the stock string of fallacies inside of the God vs. gods vs. The Gods discussion, the following links help focus our lens on a few other areas of the question:

- One God Further Objection https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-god-further-objection.html
- Further Thought On The One God Further Objection https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/04/further-thought-on-one-god-further.html
- Why Is There Anything At All? It’s Simple https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-is-there-anything-at-all-its-simple.html
- God vs. The Gods https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/god-vs-the-gods/
- Which God Exists https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/which-god-exists/
- Science And Theology: Where The Consonance Really Lies by David Bentley Hart at https://metachristianity.com/science-and-theology-where-the-consonance-really-lies-by-david-bentley-hart/
- On Intuitions by E. Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-intuitions.html
- Unintuitive Metaphysics by E. Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/08/unintuitive-metaphysics.html
- Theological Non-Cognitivism https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/theological-non-cognitivism
- The Spiderman Fallacy https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2017/01/27/the-spiderman-fallacy-argument-against-christianity/
- The Spiderman Fallacy https://www.gotquestions.org/Spider-Man-fallacy.html
- Some Of Us Just Go One God Further Part 1:
  A. https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/some-of-us-just-go-one-god-further/
  B. https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/07/some-of-us-just-go-one-god-further.html
- Some Of Us Just Go One God Further Part 2: https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/some-of-us-just-go-one-god-further-2/

Quote 1 of 2 from David Bentley Hart:

“…There are two senses in which the word “God” or “god” can properly be used. Most modern languages generally distinguish between the two usages as I have done here, by writing only one of them with an uppercase first letter, as though it were a proper name— which it is not. Most of us understand that “God” (or its equivalent) means the one God who is the source of all things, whereas “god” (or its equivalent) indicates one or another of a plurality of divine beings who inhabit the cosmos and reign over its various regions. This is not, however, merely a distinction in numbering, between monotheism and polytheism, as though the issue were merely that of determining how many “divine entities” one happens to think there are. It is a distinction, instead, between two entirely different kinds of reality, belonging to two entirely disparate conceptual orders.

In fact, the very division between monotheism and polytheism is in many cases a confusion of categories. Several of the religious cultures that we sometimes inaccurately characterize as “polytheistic” have traditionally insisted upon an absolute differentiation between the one transcendent Godhead from whom all being flows and the various “divine” beings who indwell and govern the heavens and the earth. Only the one God, says Swami Prabhavananda, speaking more or less for the whole of developed Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, is “the uncreated”: “gods, though supernatural, belong … among the creatures. Like the Christian angels, they are much nearer to man than to God.”

Conversely, many creeds we correctly speak of as “monotheistic” embrace the very same distinction. The Adi Granth of the Sikhs, for instance, describes the One God as the creator of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. In truth, Prabhavananda’s comparison of the gods of India to Christianity’s angels is more apt than many modern Christians may realize. Late Hellenistic pagan thought often tended to draw a clear demarcation between the one transcendent God (or, in Greek, ho theos, God with the definite article) and any particular or local god (any mere “inarticular” theos) who might superintend this or that people or nation or aspect of the natural world; at the same time, late Hellenistic Jews and Christians recognized a multitude of angelic “powers” and “principalities,” some obedient to the one transcendent God and some in rebellion, who governed the elements of nature and the peoples of the earth. To any impartial observer at the time, coming from some altogether different culture, the theological cosmos of a great deal of pagan “polytheism” would have seemed all but indistinguishable from that of a great deal of Jewish or Christian “monotheism.”

To speak of “God” properly, then— to use the word in a sense consonant with the teachings of orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Bahá’í, a great deal of antique paganism, and so forth— is to speak of the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things. God so understood is not something posed over against the universe, in addition to it, nor is he the universe itself. He is not a “being,” at least not in the way that a tree, a shoemaker, or a god is a being; he is not one more object in the inventory of things that are, or any sort of discrete object at all. Rather, all things that exist receive their being continuously from him, who is the infinite wellspring of all that is, in whom (to use the language of the Christian scriptures) all things live and move and have their being. In one sense he is “beyond being,” if by “being” one means the totality of discrete, finite things. In another sense he is “being itself,” in that he is the inexhaustible source of all reality, the absolute upon which the contingent is always utterly dependent, the unity and simplicity that underlies and sustains the diversity of finite and composite things. Infinite being, infinite consciousness, infinite bliss, from whom we are, by whom we know and are known, and in whom we find our only true consummation.

All the great theistic traditions agree that God, understood in this proper sense, is essentially beyond finite comprehension; hence, much of the language used of him is negative in form and has been reached only by a logical process of abstraction from those qualities of finite reality that make it insufficient to account for its own existence. All agree as well, however, that he can genuinely be known: that is, reasoned toward, intimately encountered, directly experienced with a fullness surpassing mere conceptual comprehension.

By contrast, when we speak of “gods” we are talking not of transcendent reality at all, but only of a higher or more powerful or more splendid dimension of immanent reality. Any gods who might be out there do not transcend nature but belong to it. Their theogonies can be recounted— how some rose out of the primal night, how some were born of other, more titanic progenitors, how others sprang up from an intermingling of divine and elemental forces, and so on— and according to many mythologies most of them will finally meet their ends. They exist in space and time, each of them is a distinct being rather than “being itself,” and it is they who are dependent upon the universe for their existence rather than the reverse. Of such gods there may be an endless diversity, while of God there can be only one. Or, better, God is not merely one, in the way that a finite object might be merely singular or unique, but is oneness as such, the one act of being and unity by which any finite thing exists and by which all things exist together. He is one in the sense that being itself is one, the infinite is one, the source of everything is one. Thus a plurality of gods could not constitute an alternative to or contradiction of the unity of God; they still would not belong to the same ontological frame of reference as he.

Obviously, then, it is God in the former— the transcendent— sense in whom it is ultimately meaningful to believe or not to believe. The possibility of gods or spirits or angels or demons, and so on, is a subordinate matter, a question not of metaphysics but only of the taxonomy of nature (terrestrial, celestial, and chthonic). To be an atheist in the best modern sense, however, and so to be a truly intellectually and emotionally fulfilled naturalist in philosophy, one must genuinely succeed in not believing in God, with all the logical consequences such disbelief entails.…” (italics added)

End Quote 1 of 2 from David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God

DBH alludes there to a problem too often left unaddressed:

“…it is the transcendent God in whom it is ultimately meaningful not to believe….. To be an atheist in the best modern sense, and so to be a truly intellectually and emotionally fulfilled naturalist in philosophy, one must genuinely succeed in not believing in God, with all the logical consequences this entails….”

For segues into that problem of Non-Theism vis-à-vis Non-God vis-à-vis something like “NONE-What-Coherence-Needs” so to speak, see perhaps [A] ATHEISM: THE WORLD IS FLAT – THE NONE, THE NON-, THE NON-THEIST at https://metachristianity.com/atheism-world-flat-none-non-non-theist/ and also see [B] THE TWIN-FALLACIES OF NOTHING-BUT NON-BELIEF AND OF DEFAULT-ATHEISM at https://metachristianity.com/the-twin-fallacies-of-nothing-but-non-belief-and-of-default-atheism/ Quote 2 of 2 picks up where the first left off and is as follows.

Quote 2 of 2 from David Bentley Hart:

“…It is not enough simply to remain indifferent to the whole question of God, moreover, because thus understood it is a question ineradicably present in the very mystery of existence, or of knowledge, or of truth, goodness, and beauty. It is also the question that philosophical naturalism is supposed to have answered exhaustively in the negative, without any troubling explanatory lacunae, and therefore the question that any aspiring philosophical naturalist must understand before he or she can be an atheist in any intellectually significant way. And the best way to begin is to get a secure grasp on how radically, both conceptually and logically, belief in God differs from belief in the gods.

This ought not to be all that difficult a matter; in Western philosophical tradition, for instance, it is a distinction that goes back at least as far as Xenophanes (c. 570– c. 475 BC). Yet the most pervasive error one encounters in contemporary arguments about belief in God— especially, but not exclusively, on the atheist side— is the habit of conceiving of God simply as some very large object or agency within the universe, or perhaps alongside the universe, a being among other beings, who differs from all other beings in magnitude, power, and duration, but not ontologically, and who is related to the world more or less as a craftsman is related to an artifact.

At a trivial level, one sees the confusion in some of the more shopworn witticisms of popular atheism: “I believe neither in God nor in the fairies at the bottom of my garden,” for instance, or “All people are atheists in regard to Zeus, Wotan, and most other gods; I simply disbelieve in one god more.” Once, in an age long since vanished in the mists of legend, those might even have been amusing remarks, eliciting sincere rather than merely liturgical laughter; but, even so, all they have ever demonstrated is a deplorable ignorance of elementary conceptual categories. If one truly imagines these are all comparable kinds of intellectual conviction then one is clearly confused about what is at issue. Beliefs regarding fairies are beliefs about a certain kind of object that may or may not exist within the world, and such beliefs have much the same sort of intentional shape and rational content as beliefs regarding one’s neighbors over the hill or whether there are such things as black swans. Beliefs regarding God concern the source and ground and end of all reality, the unity and existence of every particular thing and of the totality of all things, the ground of the possibility of anything at all. Fairies and gods, if they exist, occupy something of the same conceptual space as organic cells, photons, and the force of gravity, and so the sciences might perhaps have something to say about them, if a proper medium for investigating them could be found.

We can, if nothing else, disabuse ourselves of belief in certain gods by simple empirical methods; we know now, for example, that the sun is not a god named Tonatiuh, at least not one who must be nourished daily on human blood lest he cease to shine, because we have withheld his meals for centuries now without calamity. God, by contrast, is the infinite actuality that makes it possible for either photons or (possibly) fairies to exist, and so can be “investigated” only, on the one hand, by acts of logical deduction and induction and conjecture or, on the other, by contemplative or sacramental or spiritual experiences. Belief or disbelief in fairies or gods could never be validated by philosophical arguments made from first principles; the existence or nonexistence of Zeus is not a matter that can be intelligibly discussed in the categories of modal logic or metaphysics, any more than the existence of tree frogs could be; if he is there at all, one must go on an expedition to find him, or at least find out his address. The question of God, by contrast, is one that can and must be pursued in terms of the absolute and the contingent, the necessary and the fortuitous, potency and act, possibility and impossibility, being and nonbeing, transcendence and immanence. Evidence for or against the existence of Thor or King Oberon would consist only in local facts, not universal truths of reason; it would be entirely empirical, episodic, psychological, personal, and hence elusive. Evidence for or against the reality of God, if it is there, saturates every moment of the experience of existence, every employment of reason, every act of consciousness, every encounter with the world around us.

Now, manifestly, one should not judge an intellectual movement by its jokes (even if one suspects that there is little more to it than its jokes). But exactly the same confusion shows itself in the arguments that many contemporary atheists make in earnest: For instance, “If God made the world, then who made God?” Or the famous dilemma drawn, in badly garbled form, from Plato’s Euthyphro, “Does God command a thing because it is good, or is it good because God commands it?” I address both questions below (in my third and fifth chapters, respectively), so I shall not do so here. I shall, however, note that not only do these questions not pose deep quandaries for believers or insuperable difficulties for a coherent concept of God; they are not even relevant to the issue. And, until one really understands why this is so, one has not yet begun to talk about God at all. One is talking merely about some very distinguished and influential gentleman or lady named “God,” or about some discrete object that can be situated within a class of objects called “gods” (even if it should turn out that there happens to be only one occupant of that class)…” (italics added)

End Quote 2 of 2 from David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God

Overlapping Segue:

“Miracles In Other Religions? Eyewitness Testimony? Mermaids? Alien Abductions? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Zeus? Thor? Copycat-Gods? Celestial Teapots?” at https://metachristianity.com/miracles-in-other-religions-eyewitness-testimony-mermaids-alien-abductions-flying-spaghetti-monster-zeus-thor-copycat-gods-celestial-teapots/

Another Overlapping Segue:

Necessitarianism, Unintelligibility, PSR//Principle of Sufficient Reason, Necessary Being, Contingent Being, Brute Fact, Intelligibility, Reductio, and the PSR-Free World — note that the first few paragraphs are borrowing in part from https://twitter.com/TDisputations and from https://twitter.com/AleMartnezR1 as per the following:

Question: “Is there a world where there were only contingent entities even possible? Is there an atheist willing to concede this much, to keep his atheism alive?”

“…the OT predicts the coming of Jesus in the book of Isaiah, and…all throughout the Torah and the rest of the OT. The New Testament does not predict the Quran or the Book of Mormon…” ((…from Twitter’s @J_Lopeli…))

—References—

- Sarah Salviander, Ph.D. — Six Day Science https://sixdayscience.com/about-us/faqs/faqa/
- Eve Keneinan — God vs. The Gods https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/god-vs-the-gods/
- Eve Keneinan — Which God Exists https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/which-god-exists/
- Strange Notions — The Santa Claus Proof For God’s Existence https://strangenotions.com/the-santa-claus-proof-for-gods-existence/
- One God Further Objection https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-god-further-objection.html
- Further Thought On The One God Further Objection https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/04/further-thought-on-one-god-further.html
- Why Is There Anything At All? It’s Simple https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-is-there-anything-at-all-its-simple.html
- God, Gods, And Faries https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/06/god-gods-and-fairies
- Science And Theology: Where The Consonance Really Lies by David Bentley Hart at https://metachristianity.com/science-and-theology-where-the-consonance-really-lies-by-david-bentley-hart/
- On Intuitions by E. Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-intuitions.html
- Unintuitive Metaphysics by E. Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/08/unintuitive-metaphysics.html
- Theological Non-Cognitivism https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/theological-non-cognitivism
- The Spiderman Fallacy https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2017/01/27/the-spiderman-fallacy-argument-against-christianity/
- The Spiderman Fallacy https://www.gotquestions.org/Spider-Man-fallacy.html
- Some Of Us Just Go One God Further Part 1:
  A. https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/some-of-us-just-go-one-god-further/
  B. https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/07/some-of-us-just-go-one-god-further.html
- Some Of Us Just Go One God Further Part 2: https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/some-of-us-just-go-one-god-further-2/

—END—

Consciousness, Emergence, Intentionality, Searle, Reason Atop The Irrational, And Naturalism’s Egregious Deficiency

Consciousness And Emergence And Formation by David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/consciousness-and-emergence-and-formation.html

Intentionality, Mental States, Searle, Networks, and Causal Backgrounds https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/intentionality-mental-states-searle.html

Reason Itself: The Parasite Upon Irrational Physical Events & The Colony of Memes In the Ecology of Cerebral Cortices https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/reason-itself-the-parasite-upon-irrational.html

The Most Egregious of Naturalism’s Deficiencies https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/most-egregious-of-naturalisms-deficiencies.html

Total Rationalism, Total Intelligibility, And Perfect Bliss https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2021/09/total-rationalism-total-intelligibility-perfect-bliss.html

The Illusionist ~ On Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back ~The Evolution of Minds ~ By David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.com/the-illusionist-on-daniel-dennetts-from-bacteria-to-bach-and-back-the-evolution-of-minds-by-david-bentley-hart/

The Unity Of Mind Is The Unity Of Being Even As The Irreducibility Of Mind Is The Irreducibility Of Being – By David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.com/the-unity-of-mind-is-the-unity-of-being-even-as-the-irreducibility-of-mind-is-the-irreducibility-of-being-by-david-bentley-hart/

Consciousness In Unity, Irreducibility, Indivisibility, And In Being https://metachristianity.com/consciousness-in-unity-irreducibility-indivisibility-and-in-being

This Page is www.Mind.Bible and/or https://Mind.Bible etc.

The following is from “Conjuring Teleology” at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/conjuring-teleology.html

“….Hence to write many paragraphs about the scientific banishment of teleology from everywhere else in nature while insisting that teleology is real in the case of human beings, and then casually to insinuate that the history of that banishment gives hope that someday a scientific explanation of the teleology of human consciousness will also be possible… to do that is something of a conjuring trick, a bit of sleight of hand….”

Mind vs Abstraction vs Representation vs Extension In Spacetime via Four Quotes from Dennis Bonnette Ph.D. and one item on Thomistic Realism https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dennis-bonnette-phd-four-quotes-regarding-mind-vs-abstraction-vs-representation-vs-extension-in-spacetime-and-one-thomistic-realism-item.pdf

Philosophy of Mind:

Consciousness, Emergence, Intentionality, Searle, Reason Atop The Irrational, And Naturalism’s Egregious Deficiency at https://metachristianity.com/consciousness-emergence-intentionality-searle-reason-atop-the-irrational/
Theology and The Analytic A-Posteriori at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/06/theology-and-analytic-posteriori.html
The Particle Collection That Fancied Itself A Physicist https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-particle-collection-that-fancied.html
All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life –by David Bentley Hart https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-Are-Full-Gods/dp/0300254725
Post Intentional Depression https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/01/post-intentional-depression.html
Rosenberg VIII http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/03/reading-rosenberg-part-viii.html
Rosenberg IX http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/04/reading-rosenberg-part-ix.html
Rosenberg X http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/04/reading-rosenberg-part-x.html
Eliminativism 1 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/eliminativism-without-truth-part-i.html
Eliminativism 2 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/eliminativism-without-truth-part-ii.html
Eliminativism 3 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/eliminativism-without-truth-part-iii.html
Mad Dogs And Eliminativists http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/08/mad-dogs-and-eliminativists.html
Churchland 1 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/churchland-on-dualism-part-i.html
Churchland 2 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/churchland-on-dualism-part-ii.html
Churchland 3 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/12/churchland-on-dualism-part-iii.html
Churchland 4 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/06/churchland-on-dualism-part-iv.html
Churchland 5 http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/09/churchland-on-dualism-part-v.html
Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought – at https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pdf
Animals Are Conscious. In Other News, The Sky Is Blue – at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/animals-are-conscious-in-other-news-sky.html
Against Neurobabble – at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/against-neurobabble.html
Other Minds & Modern Philosophy — https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/07/other-minds-and-modern-philosophy.html
On Intuitions by E. Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/07/on-intuitions.html
Unintuitive Metaphysics by E. Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/08/unintuitive-metaphysics.html
Objective & Subjective https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/09/objective-and-subjective.html
Context of Discovering vs. Context of Justifying https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/05/context-isnt-everything.html
Make-Believe Matter by E. Feser https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/09/make-believe-matter.html
The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy) —by Ralph Stefan Weir ~ Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Body-Metaphysics-Routledge-Contemporary-Philosophy/dp/1032457686/
The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism —by Brandon Rickabaugh and J.P. Moreland —Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1394195486
Who Are You, Really? A Philosopher’s Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Persons — by Joshua Rasmussen https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1514003945/
Augustine On The Immateriality Of The Mind –by Ed Feser at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/11/augustine-on-immateriality-of-mind.html and somewhat related: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-immateriality-of-mind.html
The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis —by Mark K. Spencer https://www.amazon.com/Irreducibility-Human-Person-Catholic-Synthesis/dp/0813235200
Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature – by Edward Feser via Editiones Scholasticae https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2024/05/immortal-souls.html

Philosophy of Mind: Computationalism || Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence And Magical Thinking https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intelligence-and-magical.html
The Absurdity of Mind as Machine –by David Bentley Hart https://iai.tv/articles/the-absurdity-of-mind-as-machine-david-bentley-hart-auid-2479
Kripke Contra Computationalism https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/05/kripke-contra-computationalism.html
Popper Contra Computationalism https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/02/popper-contra-computationalism.html
Can Machines Beg The Question? https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/10/can-machines-beg-question.html
Computers, Minds, And Aristotle https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/01/computers-minds-and-aristotle.html
Intentionality, Mental States, Searle, Networks, and Causal Backgrounds https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/intentionality-mental-states-searle.html
Against Neurobabble – at https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/against-neurobabble.html
Aquinas, Vanilla Sky, And Nozick’s Experience Machine https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/02/aquinas-vanilla-sky-and-nozicks.html
Stop It, You’re Killing Me! https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/stop-it-youre-killing-me.html
Materialism Subverts Itself https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/01/materialism-subverts-itself.html
Accept No Imitations https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/02/accept-no-imitations.html
Reading Rosenberg, Part VIII https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/03/reading-rosenberg-part-viii.html
Reading Rosenberg, Part IX https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/04/reading-rosenberg-part-ix.html
Stoljar On Intentionality https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/06/stoljar-on-intentionality.html
Mind-Body Problem Roundup https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/05/mind-body-problem-roundup.html

Philosophy of Mind & Segues:

The Illusionist ~ On Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back ~The Evolution of Minds ~ By David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.com/the-illusionist-on-daniel-dennetts-from-bacteria-to-bach-and-back-the-evolution-of-minds-by-david-bentley-hart/
Creation Ex Nihilo, The Principle Of Proportionate Causality, Seamelessness In Being From Pure Act To The Contingent And From I Am To Imago Dei https://metachristianity.com/creation-ex-nihilo-the-principle-of-proportionate-causality-seamelessness-in-being-from-pure-act-to-the-contingent-and-from-i-am-to-imago-dei/
1 of 2 ~ Properly Understanding Properly Basic Beliefs – at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/properly-understanding-properly-basic-beliefs/
2 of 2 ~ Indefeasible Inner Witness, Holy Spirit, Properly Basic Belief, Solipsism, Idealism, Eliminativism, And Absolute Consciousness at https://metachristianity.com/indefeasible-inner-witness-holy-spirit-properly-basic-belief-solipsism-idealism-eliminativism-absolute-consciousness/

Science And Theology: Where The Consonance Really Lies by David Bentley Hart at https://metachristianity.com/science-and-theology-where-the-consonance-really-lies-by-david-bentley-hart/
Plan for a Book on the Science of Mind – by David Bentley Hart https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/plan-for-a-book-on-the-science-of-mind
Neuroscience Disappears When the Complex Whole Is Decomposed –by Patrick McNamara https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/reducationism-isnt-good-neuroscience/
The Spiritual Was More Substantial Than the Material for the Ancients – by David Bentley Hart https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-spiritual-was-more-substantial-than-the-material-for-the-ancients/
The Phenomenology of Christ in Flesh and Bones – by Emmanuel Falque https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/christ-in-the-flesh-and-bone/

Realism vis-à-vis Meta-Narrative & Two Smart Guys (…several twitter threads…) https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/comments-wrt-realism-vis-vis-meta.html

A Few Observations:

The following is from The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism ~https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1394195486

“Chalmers observes,

“I think that substance dualism (in its epiphenomenalist and interactionist forms) and Russellian monism (in its panpsychist and panprotopsychist forms) are the two serious contenders in the metaphysics of consciousness, at least once one has given up on standard physicalism. (I divide my own credence fairly equally between them)…”

“…That a leading philosopher of mind would consider substance dualism among the two serious contenders would be unthinkable in the early 20th century. And as we will argue in a moment, specific panpsychist commitments make resisting substance dualism very difficult….”

That said perhaps the following two JPEG Images regarding Consciousness, Subject, Object, Being, and Intermediates for overlapping zip codes:

Thinking It Through:

Irreducibility/Ontological/Metaphysical? Where is any such Irreducible Hard Stop of I/I AM/I Speak/I See/I Perceive?

The Hard Problem Of Consciousness JUST IS the Problem of Metaphysical Naturalism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] Hard-Stop in/at/of Reality’s own Hard Stop — the problem of the illusory — of ultimate equivocation before reaching rock-bottom. After all the Hard Stop of [I-AM] would just be, well, Theism.

Therein we arrive, always, sooner or later, at the following:

Reason from Non-Reason just is Being from Non-Being

Those are the same thing.
The same Reductio Ad Absurdum.
Because: Principle of Proportionate Causality

The Hard Problem of Consciousness? Same thing. Same Reductio. Being from Non-Being.

Thereby we find that those willing to trade away lucidity/closure for absurdity/round-squares cling blindly to Non-Theism. Those unwilling to make the trade simply follow-through on sight to Unity/Singularity/Closure.

Theism is unavoidable. Because Logic/Being.

The alternative:

Equivocation & Reductio all…the…way…down… (Non-Theism) and that cashes out as…Non-Being.
But Non-Being isn’t an available option.
Literally.

Once we arrive inside Theism? Well, the options are few as Absolute Consciousness, Logic, Being, Reciprocity, and more press in upon all semantic content and syllogistic structure.

Lastly The Following:

With some intended levity perhaps we can say something like the following:

The aforementioned items amount to basic physics and basic philosophy of mind. It’s basic Churchland, Carroll, Rosenberg, Harris, Dennett, and so on. There’s no need to blame God for the problems of incoherence and eliminativism’s fateful Cliff or Edge over which Reason Itself inevitably plummets. The Non-Theist wants his Flat-Earth and, so, he has it https://metachristianity.com/define-atheism/ After all, no one is forced to trade away lucidity in exchange for absurdity. There’s just no reason to ever make any such trade.

Mind.Bible