How do you explain the illogic of religious pluralism?
Comments
Ok - what if the pluralist (who has read a bit of John Hick maybe) responds: Well, you see your mother clearly but we can't apprehend God that way. We all see the divine dimly through a thick fog and because of our different cultures and backgrounds perceive different things about God. These different understandings all produce good moral change and we don't have any reason to think that God will hold it against us for understanding him differently as long as we live with integrity within our own religious worldview. So no, he can't be 5'5', 5'7 and 5'10 but if we are all slightly off then maybe he's none of those... (i know how I would respond but i'm curious about what others think).
These different understandings all produce good moral change and we don't have any reason to think that God will hold it against us for understanding him differently as long as we live with integrity within our own religious worldview.
Except when these different understandings don't align themselves with your statement here. I hope you can see the problem a little more clearly now.
What WDISTT is positing is the 51%/49% rule of effort. If you know X, and try to live by X, and do so "for the most part" then you move to the next level, whatever that is. If you know X and don't live up to it "for the most part" then you fail here or there or somewhere in between, etc.
It is not merely if you know X. It is, at the end of the day, if you believe X.
Many beliefs lead to many actions and efforts. Nothing, in this worldview, is right or wrong in itself. Right and Wrong are based simply in the content of one's belief of X. If you believe, based on your cultural nuances, that eating your neighbor is the proper action following a verbal insult, and you eat your neighbor in response to his verbal insult, you have moved a bit closer to God.
I'm not sure if this worldview considers eating one's neighbor "the production of good moral change". It seems that it must consider this as good moral change.
It would go something like this: "When I was a child, I found it difficult to eat my neighbor due to the smell and the taste, but, now, after much self control, and effort, I have brought myself to the point where I can do this without a second thought. I have made, it seems, a good moral change, and, I am now closer to God than when I was a child."
"We all see the divine dimly through a thick fog and because of our different cultures and backgrounds perceive different things about God. These different understandings all produce good moral change and we don't have any reason to think that God will hold it against us for understanding him differently as long as we live with integrity within our own religious worldview."
Uh, except He has revealed Himself in a way that leaves no room for interpretation that allows men freedom to "understand him differently". He is by definition Truth, a god can be less than God, being the servant of man, but The One True God cannot be understood as less than God without there being a failure on the part of the creature. We dont call Him Holy,Holy,Holy for no reason.
We know two and two is not seven. It is four. I think. Can I know? Are there round squares “just maybe, in some context some place?” We know Truth Statements, or, Is-Statements, are exclusive by default. We hate to be reminded of it. Love may be, or rather, is, the ultimate Ethic. Or, such a claim is illusion. Psychic phosphorescence. We know Truth Statements, or, Is-Statements, are exclusive by default. We hate to be reminded of it.
I don't know if you are referring to that bumper sticker that says "Coexist", but it seems to me that religions are pretty much coexisting in this country and have done so prior to the bumper sticker pushing a point of view. So, it would seem to me that whatever is spent for those useless decorations, would have been better spent elsewhere.
I think we have to define what we mean by pluralism. If by Pluralism we mean tolerance, live and let live, it seems there is a plethora of worldviews here in the West and no one is killing anyone here over expressions of such. If by tolerance one would mean “Don’t express views which offend” then, well, it’s a ridiculous goal as everything offends someone somewhere. “I’m offended that you’re offended by my X or Y or Z.” If by Pluralism we mean something else such as a Truth Claim that all Truth Claims of various religions are equally true, then, I am afraid the alternative to such a view is obvious.
Truth Claim X is a claim of Pluralism, that a composite of Truth Sets are all True.
Truth Claim X: A and B and C are all True.
A: (2 and 2 is 4)
B: (2 and 2 is 5)
C: (2 and 2 is 6)
The answer to the question, “What is the alternative to X” is just too obvious, it seems.
The Pluralism of the sort which states that all that matters is that we follow whatever [truth] we have in our various cultural milieus (contextual truths) and try our best to do what’s right, leads to, as described above, a real claim of real moral progress as we become more comfortable eating our neighbors despite the smell and the taste.
To replay the post above:
I'm not sure if this worldview considers eating one's neighbor "the production of good moral change". It seems that it must consider this as good moral change.
It would go something like this: "When I was a child, I found it difficult to eat my neighbor due to the smell and the taste, but, now, after much self control, and effort, I have brought myself to the point where I can do this without a second thought. I have made, it seems, a good moral change, and, I am now closer to God than when I was a child."
If by “Good” and “Moral” we mean nothing more than Contextual Semantics, then such is what we really are describing. Those who argue Contextual Semantics “exist” and thus “morality exists objectively” also seem to insist that the whole wide world is one smooth level field where everyone is on the same page, and, where we all agree, and where cannibalism, slavery, sex-trafficking, sex-slavery, murder, rape, endless wars, and more wars, and more wars, and so forth are non-realities. Sex-Slavery, oddly is on the rise. More and more; not less and less. Such moral objectivity of the relativist, using man’s “trends” as the ruler, doesn’t know what to do with such. It’s a messy world out there, and objectively so. Utilitarianism is a high-sounding form of the same, and, given finite resources and mathematics, a small bedrock of slave-labor easily gives us the least amount of pain and the greatest amount of pleasure.
Pluralism, Contextual Semantics, and other such mutable, temporal truth claims on “Good” get us nowhere. Not only are they unsuccessful, they are falsehoods for they claim something which is not just imaginary but is also easily falsified.
There is another Truth Claim: Ultimate Reality is Love Himself.
Yeah, I was referring to Pluralism as you first defined it (tolerance). However, you might want to ask the relatives of the folks who were gunned downed at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin if they agree that "it seems there is a plethora of worldviews here in the West and no one is killing anyone here over expressions of such".
The original Coexist design was for a traveling art exhibit that went to, among other places, Jerusalem, Capetown, Belfast, and Sarajevo.
The U.S. had riots between Catholic and Protestants in the 1800's and racial and religious discrimination written (legally!) into deeds until the 1960's.
Those are excellent descriptions of wars, rumors of wars, brother killing brother, and of interior problems such as killing one’s neighbor in response to mere words. I’m not sure there is a solution to Man’s Nature outside of Love Himself. I'd also add to your list of problems the Secular and the Atheistic which gave us the bloodiest century in history with the hundreds of millions lost in the last century to the wars of the Nietzschean, Atheistic/Secular hopes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hilter, Idi Amin, Lennon, and others. With the birth of Nietzsche's Super-Man and the death of God we all saw that climax of the vulgar and the violent. As one secularist commented, "If God is dead, and he is, then something must take his place. It will inevitably be Heffner and Hitler, the Phallus and the Fist.” God is Love; and He has died. And with Him, Love has died. The Vulgar and the Violent came to the fore.
Non-Violence? Do worldviews have consequences?
Ultimate Reality, and, the Ultimate Ethic, is Love. Uncreated, intrinsic worth of a man or woman’s life.
“Our weapons are not physical….”
“Love your enemies…..”
“Do not respond to evil with evil, but overcome evil with good; respond to abuse with kindness…..”
“There is, in God’s Kingdom, neither male, female, slave, free, Jew, Gentile…… In Christ all are the same….”
Or,
Tooth and Claw. The toughest survive. “Love” is an irrationally conditioned, and blind, reflex; like vomiting and yawning. “Worth” is the illusion of psychic phosphorescence, at bottom.
Yes, Worldviews are ideas, and, yes, ideas do have consequences.
This brings in the post above dealing with the irrational notion that “good moral change” can come out of Contextual Semantics or out of something like getting “better” at eating one’s neighbors despite the taste and the smell, as described above.
Love Himself tells us that the issue here is Love, and that Love will grow cold:
“There will be wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. These are the beginning of birth pains. You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated……..because of the increase of sin the love of most will grow cold……..”
The Highest Ethic is Love for the Immutable and Eternal Hard Stop beyond which there are no further Truth Claims is Love. Ultimate Reality, or God, or the Uncreated, is Love, and, our Love grows cold…………………
"May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, that you may have the wherewithal to apprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of love and actually come to know the love of God, which surpasses mere knowledge, that your whole being be flooded with Love Himself……….."
"The original Coexist design was for a traveling art exhibit that went to, among other places, Jerusalem, Capetown, Belfast, and Sarajevo."
And the original knife design was for cutting bread. So, when we find it stuck in the back of a murder victim, let's talk about the original knife design, not about how it was plunged into the heart of the victim.
I am all for Capetown, Belfast, and Sarajevo residents plastering their cars with the bumper stickers. But that was not what I raised issue with. It's that it is plastered all over cars in a country where religions are already coexisting and have done so for quite some time. If you want to have those countries have a culture that allows coexistence between religions, then please move to one of them and plaster your bumper sticker with the "Coexist" sticker. Actually, I would suggest a taleban or al-Qaeda infested regions. Then we can all take bets on how long after they figure out what that means they blast that cute little sticker along with the car and its occupants into tinny little fragments suitable for dustpan collection. Yeah, Greg is right, ideas have consequences, but you should be mindful that those consequences might not quite turn out the way you think they will when you are not preaching to the quire.
What I mean is, I do not recall the name, but somewhere around 1680 a certain person lined up his captives and, his sword on their neck, he proceeded down the line and killed any who did not bend the knee to his church/God.
The problem with the Plea is that, as per my post above, it is, outside of a certain Real-World of a certain Truth-Claim, wholly groundless. Why *ought* anyone respond to such a plea?
Tooth and Claw. Love is an irrationally conditioned, and blind, reflex, like yawning or vomiting.
If "that" is what "love" and "ought" [IS] then the plea is no more than psychic phosphorescence.
If Ultimate Reality [IS] Love, ie if God Is Love, then the Plea stands unshakable *even if* our whim disagrees with it as there is a Hard Stop over and above our various whims.
"Love is an irrationally conditioned, and blind, reflex, like yawning or vomiting."
On my understanding of the christian view of love, "Love is an unconditional, self-sacrificing desire to meet the needs of the object of love."
It would seem that this definition incorporates rational understanding of someone's needs and is not blind and does not depend on some kind of instinctive reflex, but is a well considered and thought out response that resonates with our deepest moral intuition. I'm sorry scbrownlhrm, but your version sounds a bit like something cut out of inexpensive cloth and badly constructed and hardly fashion forward that is not quite ready for the runway.
"I see no sight, no intent within purely natural processes. "
To recognize and understand the needs of another and then to respond with self-sacrifice to the point of death, being fully aware that that other continues to express his contempt for the one that has done so, in order to meet that need is not a demonstration of a natural process, but it is the ultimate expression of love. John 15:13, Romans 5:8.
scbrownlhrm, it is a problem with the fallen human nature that results in a blind spot in this area. So, I am not surprised that you would not see it. I am sympathetic.
It seems we agree. What I mean by purely natural is, the hand of Jesus up in the cloud in the sky. The cloud up there looks like the hand of Jesus, and it appears to have intent in its "wave". But it is no more than the sum of a myriad of water particles reverberating back and forth in an ever downhill cascade pushed this way and that by blind physical forces. The "wave" is an illusion for the cloud sees not, intends not, waves not. Compressing such a system into the human skull changes nothing. Mind, in a purely natural framework, is just such a system. Personhood injected into such natural processes from Uncreated Love, Who is God, brings in what we mean by volition, by intent, by will. Outside of God, I see no hope for that cloud up in the sky to ever have what we mean by volition or intent or will for it is nothing more than blind collisions the movement of which are without intent, but only downhill.
“In the debate you had with Shabir Ally about "The Concept of God in Islam and Christianity," you said that love is part of God's perfect nature. You went on to explain how the triune concept of God is more plausible than the unitarian concept of God in Islam taking this into account. Because love involves the giving of oneself to another, a unitarian concept of God falls short. The Trinity, however, does make sense of love as an essential property of God's perfect nature. This brings me to the question I want to make: why not understand love as we understand God's other perfections? For example, I take it that God's perfect justice is not expressed until some moment after His creation rebels against Him. Now, unless God's justice is expressed somehow within the three divine persons, why claim that God is perfectly just before the creation of any other being who can rebel? If we can claim that God is just without having to express it until creation, then why not claim that a unitarian God can be loving without creation (later expressing it towards created beings)?”
Thank you,
Juan
“Very good question, Juan! One could respond that justice, like love, is expressed between the persons of the Trinity. We mustn’t think of justice as simply the punishment of sin, though that is required by justice. Justice is a broader concept than that. Justice requires that we treat other persons fairly, that we not show favoritism, that we treat other persons as ends in themselves rather than as means to some end. The persons of the Trinity exhibit all those virtues. It would be absurd to imagine the persons of the Trinity involved in favoritism or partiality in their relations with one another! (Note that the subordination of one member to another in the so-called “economic Trinity” for the sake of our salvation is not a case of some sort of favoritism.)
More fundamentally, however, my argument is that it’s not enough to think of love as a mere dispositional property, the disposition to love if some other person were to exist. Being loving is not merely the disposition to give oneself away to another if that other existed. Being loving involves actually giving oneself away to another. So this disposition cannot lie merely latent in God and never be actualized. It would follow, then, that a unitarian God would have to create other persons necessarily, which is what your suggestion implies. But that contradicts what both Christians and Muslims believe about God’s freedom in creating. Therefore, God must be a plurality of uncreated persons, which is what the doctrine of the Trinity affirms.
So my argument comes down to this: love cannot be reduced to a mere disposition. Though it is at least that, it is far more than that. Therefore, the unitarian concept of God is inadequate.” WLC
Ok - what if the pluralist (who has read a bit of John Hick maybe) responds: Well, you see your mother clearly but we can't apprehend God that way. We all see the divine dimly through a thick fog and because of our different cultures and backgrounds perceive different things about God. These different understandings all produce good moral change and we don't have any reason to think that God will hold it against us for understanding him differently as long as we live with integrity within our own religious worldview. So no, he can't be 5'5', 5'7 and 5'10 but if we are all slightly off then maybe he's none of those... (i know how I would respond but i'm curious about what others think).
Posted by: what do i say to that? | October 01, 2012 at 07:04 AM
WDISAT:
What does producing good moral change have to do with Man and God?
I'm sure you see where that question leads us to...........
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 07:33 AM
Except when these different understandings don't align themselves with your statement here. I hope you can see the problem a little more clearly now.
Posted by: SteveK | October 01, 2012 at 11:53 AM
What WDISTT is positing is the 51%/49% rule of effort. If you know X, and try to live by X, and do so "for the most part" then you move to the next level, whatever that is. If you know X and don't live up to it "for the most part" then you fail here or there or somewhere in between, etc.
There are difficulties with this..........
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 12:58 PM
We can extend it further:
It is not merely if you know X. It is, at the end of the day, if you believe X.
Many beliefs lead to many actions and efforts. Nothing, in this worldview, is right or wrong in itself. Right and Wrong are based simply in the content of one's belief of X. If you believe, based on your cultural nuances, that eating your neighbor is the proper action following a verbal insult, and you eat your neighbor in response to his verbal insult, you have moved a bit closer to God.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 01:24 PM
I'm not sure if this worldview considers eating one's neighbor "the production of good moral change". It seems that it must consider this as good moral change.
It would go something like this: "When I was a child, I found it difficult to eat my neighbor due to the smell and the taste, but, now, after much self control, and effort, I have brought myself to the point where I can do this without a second thought. I have made, it seems, a good moral change, and, I am now closer to God than when I was a child."
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 01:39 PM
Uh, except He has revealed Himself in a way that leaves no room for interpretation that allows men freedom to "understand him differently". He is by definition Truth, a god can be less than God, being the servant of man, but The One True God cannot be understood as less than God without there being a failure on the part of the creature. We dont call Him Holy,Holy,Holy for no reason.
Posted by: Brad B | October 01, 2012 at 01:58 PM
Yup, they can't all be true.
They can all live and let live however.
That is, they can all Coexist.
RonH
Posted by: RonH | October 01, 2012 at 02:44 PM
That is, they can all respond in the affirmative to the plea, "Coexist".
RonH
Posted by: RonH | October 01, 2012 at 02:46 PM
Or not.
The toughest survive.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 02:59 PM
"Our weapons are not physical......."
"Love your enemies."
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 05:01 PM
We know two and two is not seven. It is four. I think. Can I know? Are there round squares “just maybe, in some context some place?” We know Truth Statements, or, Is-Statements, are exclusive by default. We hate to be reminded of it. Love may be, or rather, is, the ultimate Ethic. Or, such a claim is illusion. Psychic phosphorescence. We know Truth Statements, or, Is-Statements, are exclusive by default. We hate to be reminded of it.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 01, 2012 at 05:30 PM
RonH
I don't know if you are referring to that bumper sticker that says "Coexist", but it seems to me that religions are pretty much coexisting in this country and have done so prior to the bumper sticker pushing a point of view. So, it would seem to me that whatever is spent for those useless decorations, would have been better spent elsewhere.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | October 02, 2012 at 10:46 AM
What's the alternative to religious pluralism?
Posted by: jre | October 02, 2012 at 01:14 PM
JRE,
I think we have to define what we mean by pluralism. If by Pluralism we mean tolerance, live and let live, it seems there is a plethora of worldviews here in the West and no one is killing anyone here over expressions of such. If by tolerance one would mean “Don’t express views which offend” then, well, it’s a ridiculous goal as everything offends someone somewhere. “I’m offended that you’re offended by my X or Y or Z.” If by Pluralism we mean something else such as a Truth Claim that all Truth Claims of various religions are equally true, then, I am afraid the alternative to such a view is obvious.
Truth Claim X is a claim of Pluralism, that a composite of Truth Sets are all True.
Truth Claim X: A and B and C are all True.
A: (2 and 2 is 4)
B: (2 and 2 is 5)
C: (2 and 2 is 6)
The answer to the question, “What is the alternative to X” is just too obvious, it seems.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 02, 2012 at 02:11 PM
The Pluralism of the sort which states that all that matters is that we follow whatever [truth] we have in our various cultural milieus (contextual truths) and try our best to do what’s right, leads to, as described above, a real claim of real moral progress as we become more comfortable eating our neighbors despite the smell and the taste.
To replay the post above:
I'm not sure if this worldview considers eating one's neighbor "the production of good moral change". It seems that it must consider this as good moral change.
It would go something like this: "When I was a child, I found it difficult to eat my neighbor due to the smell and the taste, but, now, after much self control, and effort, I have brought myself to the point where I can do this without a second thought. I have made, it seems, a good moral change, and, I am now closer to God than when I was a child."
If by “Good” and “Moral” we mean nothing more than Contextual Semantics, then such is what we really are describing. Those who argue Contextual Semantics “exist” and thus “morality exists objectively” also seem to insist that the whole wide world is one smooth level field where everyone is on the same page, and, where we all agree, and where cannibalism, slavery, sex-trafficking, sex-slavery, murder, rape, endless wars, and more wars, and more wars, and so forth are non-realities. Sex-Slavery, oddly is on the rise. More and more; not less and less. Such moral objectivity of the relativist, using man’s “trends” as the ruler, doesn’t know what to do with such. It’s a messy world out there, and objectively so. Utilitarianism is a high-sounding form of the same, and, given finite resources and mathematics, a small bedrock of slave-labor easily gives us the least amount of pain and the greatest amount of pleasure.
Pluralism, Contextual Semantics, and other such mutable, temporal truth claims on “Good” get us nowhere. Not only are they unsuccessful, they are falsehoods for they claim something which is not just imaginary but is also easily falsified.
There is another Truth Claim: Ultimate Reality is Love Himself.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 02, 2012 at 02:55 PM
scbrownlhrm,
Yeah, I was referring to Pluralism as you first defined it (tolerance). However, you might want to ask the relatives of the folks who were gunned downed at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin if they agree that "it seems there is a plethora of worldviews here in the West and no one is killing anyone here over expressions of such".
Posted by: jre | October 02, 2012 at 07:23 PM
Louis Kuhelj,
The original Coexist design was for a traveling art exhibit that went to, among other places, Jerusalem, Capetown, Belfast, and Sarajevo.
The U.S. had riots between Catholic and Protestants in the 1800's and racial and religious discrimination written (legally!) into deeds until the 1960's.
RonH
Posted by: RonH | October 02, 2012 at 07:41 PM
RonH and JRE,
Those are excellent descriptions of wars, rumors of wars, brother killing brother, and of interior problems such as killing one’s neighbor in response to mere words. I’m not sure there is a solution to Man’s Nature outside of Love Himself. I'd also add to your list of problems the Secular and the Atheistic which gave us the bloodiest century in history with the hundreds of millions lost in the last century to the wars of the Nietzschean, Atheistic/Secular hopes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hilter, Idi Amin, Lennon, and others. With the birth of Nietzsche's Super-Man and the death of God we all saw that climax of the vulgar and the violent. As one secularist commented, "If God is dead, and he is, then something must take his place. It will inevitably be Heffner and Hitler, the Phallus and the Fist.” God is Love; and He has died. And with Him, Love has died. The Vulgar and the Violent came to the fore.
Non-Violence? Do worldviews have consequences?
Ultimate Reality, and, the Ultimate Ethic, is Love. Uncreated, intrinsic worth of a man or woman’s life.
“Our weapons are not physical….”
“Love your enemies…..”
“Do not respond to evil with evil, but overcome evil with good; respond to abuse with kindness…..”
“There is, in God’s Kingdom, neither male, female, slave, free, Jew, Gentile…… In Christ all are the same….”
Or,
Tooth and Claw. The toughest survive. “Love” is an irrationally conditioned, and blind, reflex; like vomiting and yawning. “Worth” is the illusion of psychic phosphorescence, at bottom.
Yes, Worldviews are ideas, and, yes, ideas do have consequences.
This brings in the post above dealing with the irrational notion that “good moral change” can come out of Contextual Semantics or out of something like getting “better” at eating one’s neighbors despite the taste and the smell, as described above.
Love Himself tells us that the issue here is Love, and that Love will grow cold:
“There will be wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. These are the beginning of birth pains. You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated……..because of the increase of sin the love of most will grow cold……..”
The Highest Ethic is Love for the Immutable and Eternal Hard Stop beyond which there are no further Truth Claims is Love. Ultimate Reality, or God, or the Uncreated, is Love, and, our Love grows cold…………………
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 03, 2012 at 02:52 AM
The path forward:
"May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, that you may have the wherewithal to apprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of love and actually come to know the love of God, which surpasses mere knowledge, that your whole being be flooded with Love Himself……….."
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 03, 2012 at 03:44 AM
RonH
"The original Coexist design was for a traveling art exhibit that went to, among other places, Jerusalem, Capetown, Belfast, and Sarajevo."
And the original knife design was for cutting bread. So, when we find it stuck in the back of a murder victim, let's talk about the original knife design, not about how it was plunged into the heart of the victim.
I am all for Capetown, Belfast, and Sarajevo residents plastering their cars with the bumper stickers. But that was not what I raised issue with. It's that it is plastered all over cars in a country where religions are already coexisting and have done so for quite some time. If you want to have those countries have a culture that allows coexistence between religions, then please move to one of them and plaster your bumper sticker with the "Coexist" sticker. Actually, I would suggest a taleban or al-Qaeda infested regions. Then we can all take bets on how long after they figure out what that means they blast that cute little sticker along with the car and its occupants into tinny little fragments suitable for dustpan collection. Yeah, Greg is right, ideas have consequences, but you should be mindful that those consequences might not quite turn out the way you think they will when you are not preaching to the quire.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | October 03, 2012 at 06:15 AM
The Plea to coexist is the right plea.
What I mean is, I do not recall the name, but somewhere around 1680 a certain person lined up his captives and, his sword on their neck, he proceeded down the line and killed any who did not bend the knee to his church/God.
The problem with the Plea is that, as per my post above, it is, outside of a certain Real-World of a certain Truth-Claim, wholly groundless. Why *ought* anyone respond to such a plea?
Tooth and Claw. Love is an irrationally conditioned, and blind, reflex, like yawning or vomiting.
If "that" is what "love" and "ought" [IS] then the plea is no more than psychic phosphorescence.
If Ultimate Reality [IS] Love, ie if God Is Love, then the Plea stands unshakable *even if* our whim disagrees with it as there is a Hard Stop over and above our various whims.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 04, 2012 at 02:02 AM
scbrownlhrm
"Love is an irrationally conditioned, and blind, reflex, like yawning or vomiting."
On my understanding of the christian view of love, "Love is an unconditional, self-sacrificing desire to meet the needs of the object of love."
It would seem that this definition incorporates rational understanding of someone's needs and is not blind and does not depend on some kind of instinctive reflex, but is a well considered and thought out response that resonates with our deepest moral intuition. I'm sorry scbrownlhrm, but your version sounds a bit like something cut out of inexpensive cloth and badly constructed and hardly fashion forward that is not quite ready for the runway.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | October 04, 2012 at 09:18 AM
I see no sight, no intent within purely natural processes.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 04, 2012 at 10:21 AM
scbrownlhrm
"I see no sight, no intent within purely natural processes. "
To recognize and understand the needs of another and then to respond with self-sacrifice to the point of death, being fully aware that that other continues to express his contempt for the one that has done so, in order to meet that need is not a demonstration of a natural process, but it is the ultimate expression of love. John 15:13, Romans 5:8.
scbrownlhrm, it is a problem with the fallen human nature that results in a blind spot in this area. So, I am not surprised that you would not see it. I am sympathetic.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | October 05, 2012 at 06:50 AM
It seems we agree. What I mean by purely natural is, the hand of Jesus up in the cloud in the sky. The cloud up there looks like the hand of Jesus, and it appears to have intent in its "wave". But it is no more than the sum of a myriad of water particles reverberating back and forth in an ever downhill cascade pushed this way and that by blind physical forces. The "wave" is an illusion for the cloud sees not, intends not, waves not. Compressing such a system into the human skull changes nothing. Mind, in a purely natural framework, is just such a system. Personhood injected into such natural processes from Uncreated Love, Who is God, brings in what we mean by volition, by intent, by will. Outside of God, I see no hope for that cloud up in the sky to ever have what we mean by volition or intent or will for it is nothing more than blind collisions the movement of which are without intent, but only downhill.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 05, 2012 at 09:38 AM
Louis,
On Love......
“In the debate you had with Shabir Ally about "The Concept of God in Islam and Christianity," you said that love is part of God's perfect nature. You went on to explain how the triune concept of God is more plausible than the unitarian concept of God in Islam taking this into account. Because love involves the giving of oneself to another, a unitarian concept of God falls short. The Trinity, however, does make sense of love as an essential property of God's perfect nature. This brings me to the question I want to make: why not understand love as we understand God's other perfections? For example, I take it that God's perfect justice is not expressed until some moment after His creation rebels against Him. Now, unless God's justice is expressed somehow within the three divine persons, why claim that God is perfectly just before the creation of any other being who can rebel? If we can claim that God is just without having to express it until creation, then why not claim that a unitarian God can be loving without creation (later expressing it towards created beings)?”
Thank you,
Juan
“Very good question, Juan! One could respond that justice, like love, is expressed between the persons of the Trinity. We mustn’t think of justice as simply the punishment of sin, though that is required by justice. Justice is a broader concept than that. Justice requires that we treat other persons fairly, that we not show favoritism, that we treat other persons as ends in themselves rather than as means to some end. The persons of the Trinity exhibit all those virtues. It would be absurd to imagine the persons of the Trinity involved in favoritism or partiality in their relations with one another! (Note that the subordination of one member to another in the so-called “economic Trinity” for the sake of our salvation is not a case of some sort of favoritism.)
More fundamentally, however, my argument is that it’s not enough to think of love as a mere dispositional property, the disposition to love if some other person were to exist. Being loving is not merely the disposition to give oneself away to another if that other existed. Being loving involves actually giving oneself away to another. So this disposition cannot lie merely latent in God and never be actualized. It would follow, then, that a unitarian God would have to create other persons necessarily, which is what your suggestion implies. But that contradicts what both Christians and Muslims believe about God’s freedom in creating. Therefore, God must be a plurality of uncreated persons, which is what the doctrine of the Trinity affirms.
So my argument comes down to this: love cannot be reduced to a mere disposition. Though it is at least that, it is far more than that. Therefore, the unitarian concept of God is inadequate.” WLC
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | October 08, 2012 at 02:18 AM