The Inclination Towards "Filling In The Blanks"

Gestalt psychologists have pointed out the interesting tendency of human brain to fill in the blanks in order to achieve an understanding of the world or sense data. Humans are incessant interpreters. They are all the time trying to figure out what something means.

One sees a CIRCLE and a BOX. However, these are just lines that could possibly not even be related. But, the brain makes a figure out of them.

This quest and inclination has a helpful hand in enabling man to make a sense of things he cannot understand. He inputs data from his own previous experiences into otherwise seemingly meaningless data. Man is a puzzle solver and his attempt through hypothesizing and associating data with other data has given rise to a plethora of philosophies and ideologies. Especially, when the conjectures appear to be pragmatic and working well, the interpretations usually become sealed for posterity until someone is able to find a loophole in it.


The negative aspect of this inclination could be false suspicion and negative doubt. This process has been illustrated in many a novel and play of tragedy in literature. It also follows from a desire to make a sense of things happening; however, bad data and a wrong process of reckoning lead to false conclusions.

This is even more important in the context of spiritual faith. The spiritual man compares spiritual matters with spiritual matters. The natural man is not able to make any sense out of spiritual things. The Bible does not encourage blind faith; however, without faith one cannot even know God at all.

Kumarila Bhatta's (660CE) Foundationalism (or Intrinsic Reliability)

The 7th century Indian philosopher and proponent of Purva Mimamsa (realistic view based on the pre-upanisadic Vedas) argued in favor of Vedic fideism in lines similar to what the Reformed Epistemologists, especially the Foundationalists, are arguing. Following is an excerpt from an article on this philosopher in Standford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy:

...if it is thought that any cognition finally counts as a reliable doxastic practice only insofar as it can be demonstrated to be such (for example, by appeal to a subsequent cognition of the causes of the initial one), infinite regress ensues; for the subsequent, justifying cognition would, as itself a cognition, similarly require justification, and so on. Or, as Kumārila here suggests, if the initial cognition isn't credited with the intrinsic “capacity” for conferring justification, then no further cognition could be able to bestow that, either—unless, of course, the further cognition is itself credited with immediately having that capacity, in which case, why not simply allow this with respect to the initial cognition? As Kumārila's commentators like to put it, if it is thought that we must await second-order justification before thinking we are justified in crediting first-order cognitions, then “the whole world would be blind.”

Alvin Plantinga's "basic beliefs" Foundationalism may find significant affinities in Kumarila's arguments, though the latter argued in favor of the Vedic ordinances. 

The basic principle seems to show the limit of skepticism, whether evidence is warranted on every belief one holds, or whether it is necessary to start with doubt before coming to believe. The answer, obviously, is no. Humans do not usually start with doubts; they start with faith. And, certainly much of our "knowledge" acceptance is based on this.

However, this does pose problems for contradictory positions and this is where one needs to recognize the importance of proofs and the varieties of verification criteria.

Placebo and the Philosophy of Mind and Matter in Drug Research

A placebo is a non-therapeutic substance administered under the camouflage of medication to deceive patients into believing that they are receiving medications; this done solely for psychological and not for physiological effects. Placebo may usually be used to compare its effects with the effects of other drugs in drug research.

Let's take the case of an experiment that tries to establish whether a particular drug, say to treat weariness, is genuine or merely has the effects of a placebo. Suppose 20 candidates are chosen for this experiment. 10 are given the drug and the rest are put on a placebo while they are told that the placebo is a genuine medication. They need to make sure that the deception is well carried on for the success of the experiment. If both the groups make similar improvements after taking the treatments, the new drug seems to only function as a placebo in effect.

The basic hypothesis of the placebo raises the question of mind over matter. Of course, this pushes the question into the domain of philosophy. If the dualism is strongly affirmed, one implication can also be that sometimes physiologically active drugs may not be effective when hindered by psychological conditions.

But, what is the nature of this "dualism"? Is there a limit of interaction? How far can one push the mind? Is it ethically justifiable to deceive patients to use placebo? How can knowing (even being deceived) affect therapy? What is the nature of faith and its relation to therapy?

Researchers continue to probe these questions.

Philosophy of Medicine Vs Medical Philosophies

It's proper to understand the difference between "Philosphy of..." and "...philosophies". For instance, philosophy of religion refers to the philosophical study of the epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical aspects of the phenomenon and concept of religion, including questions raised by it; whereas a religious philosophy is a particular philosophical viewpoint of a particular religious tradition--examples include samkhya, yoga, advaita, shunyavada. There are religious philosophies in the same manner that there are secular philosophies. While the start point of the former is revelation, tradition, or faith, the start point of the latter is reason. Following are some examples of the above distinctions:

1. Philosophy of Religion - Existence of God, Essence of Divinity, Death and Afterlife, Knowlege of God, etc.
Religious Philosophy - Calvinist Epistemology, Advaita, Yoga, Zen

2. Theology of Religion - Essence of Religion, Goal of Religion, Salvation
Religious Theology - Catholic Theology, Hindu Doctrine of Rebirth, Sikh Theology
Secular Theology - Panentheism, Deism, Existential Theology, Political Theology

3. Philosophy of Science - Epistemology of Scientific Method, Matter and Mind, Definition of Life
Scientific Philosophy - Darwinism, Utopianism, Scientism

4. Philosophy of Medicine - Epistemology of Medical Research, Mind and Matter, Ethics of Medical Practice
Medical Philosophy- Allopathy, Homeopathy, Taoist Medical Philosophy, Chi Philosophy, Ayurvedic Philosophy, Yoga

Plato's Political Theory of Music

Ref: The Republic

Gymnastic is for the body, and music is for the soul.

Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life.

Music includes literature and literature can be true or false. Therefore, censorship is necessary.

When modes of music change, the laws of the State always change with them.

The music style must be more narrative than imitative; the artist, willing to imitate only the good and virtuous.

A song or ode has three parts--the words, the melody, and the rhythm. The melody and rhythm must depend upon the words

The State must not allow mixed styles that create confusion.

The State must banish melodies that express lament and sorrow, and also banish instruments such as flute for promoting such melodies. Thus, only the lyre and harp are allowed.

When a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears sweet and soft and melancholy airs, and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior.

And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he was.

The end of music is the love of beauty.

Simplicity in music is the parent of temperance in the soul; simplicity in gymnastic, of health in the body.

Is God Temporal or Timeless?

The rationalists would answer that God is timeless; the empiricists, that God is temporal. So, what is the truth?

I think we must first begin by admitting our limitations. If we are yet having difficulty understanding metaphysics, theology is even a more impossible arena, unless, of course, God intervenes to reveal Himself. However, we also know that He only reveals to us in the limits and the terms that are understandable to us. More importantly, the Bible emphasizes on knowing God personally through a loving and obedient faith. But, it doesn't mean that if a question regarding the nature of God arises, we are not required to give an answer. I wish to present some thoughts here.

For a pure rationalist, ultimately, time itself is illusory, as all experience is (as in monism and non-dualism). For a rationalist who accepts divine revelation and the validity of empirical knowledge, God is atemporal or timeless; He is beyond time; He is transcendent to time: however, at the same time, God is also temporal; He is immanent in time as the God who acts in time. Now, by the temporality of God we do not mean the temporality that the theory of relativity talks of; God is Spirit, not matter. By the temporality of God we only mean that our phenomenal talk of God’s acts in the universe are always temporal (Is there any other way to account for events? Yes, there is the tenseless theory of time which implies that God created the whole set of events which are just there—Wait! No, God and the events are all just there (for “God created” assumes the tensed-theory: evidently, the tenseless theory is theologically untenable). At the same time, we will not say that both these concepts of timelessness and temporality define the reality of God. We only say that as far as our rational and empirical understanding (and their limits) is concerned, and as far as the revelation of God is concerned, we cannot but think that God is timeless in His being and also temporal in relation to acts that He does. In that sense, to even say that God created time (conceptual, not the physical time which is relative to created things individually) assumes that He created time in time. But, is it not contradictory to think of divine timelessness and divine temporality at the same time? I think it is not impossible to find an analogy in our experience. For instance, we know that the statement “The sun rises in the east” is true and very practical: people can know where is east by looking where the sun is rising in the morning. Of course, a compass will help us to have more accurate understanding of North or South. But, nevertheless, the idea that the sun rises in the east is not also false, phenomenally speaking. However, in “reality”, the case is that the sun doesn’t rise; it is the earth that rotates on its axis; the sun is static (timeless?), though relatively. And, this knowledge is also useful. Yet, still, there are further theories to explain the earth-sun relationship and our solar system’s relation to the universe. But until this juncture, the statements “The sun rises in the east” and “The sun doesn’t move, but the earth moves” are both true in phenomenal terms. I think that talk of divine temporality is something akin to this (that is with reference to how far our rational-empirical sense is concerned).

Again, we know that God is Spirit, which also means that the laws of relativity don’t have any significance for Him and are external to His being. The empirical view cannot find the timeless view of God intelligible in any empirical terms. There is nothing in experience analogous to atemporality of being. Of course, there are the laws of logic that are considered to be atemporal; however, God is not “laws of logic” or a set of necessary-universal-immutable-atemporal a priori propositions. But, Scriptures tell us that He is Logos who existed in the beginning, the Personal-Creator Logos; thus, conjoining both the idea of personhood and the idea of necessity in Him. I think this could be a good way of talking about Him, though, I must confess, in our present experience, we are still limited in our understanding of God as Spirit. We think that we got some objectivity when we discovered that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. But, we know that is only like a second-level objectivity. So, it is safe to conclude that as far as our rational understanding can accept, God is timeless, and as far as our empirical categories permit, God is temporal; yet, we know that God is beyond all this and the perfect vision is still to come; that cannot be without the resurrection.

Still, however, one must be careful to not fall prey to the lure of pragmatic theology.[See Article]. The Bible clearly speaks of God as the Eternal One. The Bible also tells us that God is unchanging and all-knowing (His knowledge of the future being perfect). However, our phenomenal talk of God’s acts in the universe are always temporal.

---

Pertinent Discussions
Steve Bishop, God, Time, and Eternity
William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity

Last updated on March 8, 2016

Aristotelian Realism and the Catholic Doctrine of Transubstantiation

Transubstantiation is a Catholic doctrine that states that the whole substances of the bread and the wine, during the Eucharist, convert into the body and the blood of Jesus. The metaphysical explanation of the doctrine borrows from Aristotle's doctrine of substances and accidents. Substance, according to Aristotle, is the defining essence of a thing, what it is in essence. Accidents are properties like color, weight, length, etc that are not essential to the definition of the substance. For instance, skin color, height, weight, size, etc are not essential properties of the definition of "man"; they are only accidental properties. Aristotelian doctrine of substance and accidents was employed by Thomas Aquinas to explain the doctrine of transubstantiation.

According to Aquinas, in the conversion of the bread into the flesh of Jesus, the substance of bread is changed into the flesh of Jesus but the accidents (like the smell, taste, color, quantity) of the bread remain the same. This is considered a mystery; however, for certainty the substance of the bread does not remain the same, he thinks. Accordingly,

Some have held that the substance of the bread and wine remains in this sacrament after the consecration. But this opinion cannot stand: first of all, because by such an opinion the truth of this sacrament is destroyed, to which it belongs that Christ's true body exists in this sacrament; which indeed was not there before the consecration.....

Secondly, because this position is contrary to the form of this sacrament, in which it is said: "This is My body," which would not be true if the substance of the bread were to remain there; for the substance of bread never is the body of Christ. Rather should one say in that case: "Here is My body."

Thirdly, because it would be opposed to the veneration of this sacrament, if any substance were there, which could not be adored with adoration of latria.

Fourthly, because it is contrary to the rite of the Church, according to which it is not lawful to take the body of Christ after bodily food, while it is nevertheless lawful to take one consecrated host after another. Hence this opinion is to be avoided as heretical.

....
It is evident to sense that all the accidents of the bread and wine remain after the consecration. And this is reasonably done by Divine providence. (Summa III.75)

One view contrary to Aristotelian realism is nominalism (with its various sub-views). Nominalism basically rejects the doctrine of substance and accidents and the idea that properties exist independently as universal or abstract objects. It considers these properties as just names that humans give to things or ideas or appearances in order to be able to speak of the world. For instance, when Adam gave names to animals, he didn't give particular names but universal names: Thus, Elephant is a generic name for a class of animals that are elephants. Similarly, when he called his wife, Woman, it was a name by which all women in history were going to be known. Later, he gave her the specific name Eve. The idea of "man" or "woman" does not exist apart from men and women. To abstract the idea from the particulars and treat it as a separate entity in itself (though perfect as it could seem) is the error of Platonic realism. Aristotle rejected Platonic realism; however, his own idea of substance and accident in which accidents are realities that are instantiated in substances found entry in Catholic theology. Of course, religious language can often get riddled with confusion of treating metaphors and symbols as literal realities. The doctrine of transubstantiation is one such example among many.

In the Council of Trent in 1545, the division between Catholic Thomistic realism and Protestant nominalism became evidently clear. Affirmation of Thomistic realism made it possible for the Catholic church to explain how it was possible that the bread and wine appeared to have all the properties they had earlier and yet had converted to the body and blood of Jesus. Catholicism rejected nominalism. Some think that nominalism (in the legacy of William of Ockham) was the cause of increasing skepticism, individualism, and secularism in Western civilization.[See Olson, What's in a Name]. Of course, that has to be justly established.

It certainly is evident that treating concepts as abstract realities independent of concrete being only create more confusion. For instance, while we can talk of love, grace, anger, justice, and peace objectively and abstractly (as in "love is patient", "love is kind"), it is erroneous to suppose that the love of God is an object in itself independent of God (as in Platonism) or even that love is instantiated in God (Aristotelianism). In contrast, the Bible declares that God is love (1John 4:8).

Are Abstract Objects Real? or Did God Create Abstract Objects, If There Are Anything Like That?

Christian philosophers have debated this issue for some time. Some believe that abstract objects exist; others, that they don’t exist; still others, that the question is meaningless. Views such as Platonic realism hold that abstract ideas and objects (such as the laws of logic and mathematical objects) have objective existence independent of minds. Some Christian theologians believe that abstract objects cannot exist independently; for if they did, they would nullify the doctrine of divine aseity, which states that there is nothing that is co-eternal with God. But, what about the view that abstract objects were created and are part of the invisible creation of God? For example, can it be possible that numbers don’t exist (not number of things, but the numbers themselves)? If numbers don’t exist, how can numbers be the object of our knowledge and how can mathematical propositions be called true if they do not correspond to reality? If knowledge a subject-object relationship, how can one know a thing if the object doesn't exist objectively?

Let’s take the example of the laws of logic. We know that these laws are self-evident, self-explanatory, self-sustaining, universal, necessary, transcendent, and immutable. One will need to affirm them in order to even attempt to deny them. Suppose the laws of logic exist in reality, they would immediately possess ontic infinitude, in which case one faces the question: Are these laws co-eternal with God or does God Himself submit to the laws of logic?

One problem with realism is the gap between the abstract and the concrete. For instance, Platonic realism cannot satisfactorily explain how concrete things participate in the eternal forms and ideas. We can talk about one mango and two mangoes, but what does it mean that one and two exist independently of things? We may use symbols to represent these numbers and when we try to imagine numbers we imagine those symbols, but do these numbers exist by themselves independently of things? Similarly, we think of shapes, of triangles, squares, and circles. We can conceive of these and use symbols to state propositions; however, does it mean that these propositions are only true because there are real abstract shapes to which these correspond (especially since one claims that there is no perfect triangle, square, or circle in the physical world)? Why not say that they correspond to the design of this world or the way in which God created this world to function in the way that He designed it to function? And so, the ideas or principles don’t exist by themselves but only in relation to the design of things? In other words, they are our discernment of design, order, similarity, and harmony in the world of things.

But, what about the laws of logic? Aren’t they invisible realities that necessarily exist out there? “Out there” is not sufficient; one needs to specify where this “out there” is? Nobody knows where the Platonic world of ideas exists, anyway.

The laws of logic only tell us how terms relate to each other and how we may infer those relations. In other words, the laws of logic are the way our mind is designed to reason in order to draw inferences regarding the relation of terms to each other. In drawing inferences, the mind recognizes similarities, differences, and several other modes of relation. Without terms, the laws are empty and meaningless. For instance, if I want to state the law of identity as “A=A”, then at least the term A has to be pre-supposed in order to state the law of identity. If no such term exists, then the law of identity will itself be the term it is identical with. For any terms A and B (A and B as we understand in our spatio-temporal experience), the laws of logic will show the relation between both of them. These terms may be names (or pronouns) of concrete objects (Socrates) or abstract objects (Man). Thus, the laws of logic are similar to the laws of nature. The relation between an object and air is a matter of the laws of aerodynamics. Similarly, we have hydrodynamics and thermodynamics. The theory of relativity tries to tell us the relation between objects and space-time. Similarly, the laws of logic tell us how terms relate with each other.

In this sense, the laws of logic are intrinsic to reasoning minds, the way minds are designed to think in order to know facts about the world they live in. However, they are just formal causes and not efficient causes. Therefore, minds err in reasoning. Laws of logic cannot cause right thinking because they are not objects out there. The efficient cause is the thinker himself and his act of processing thought-data. Therefore, in dreams, thoughts can sometimes go berserk and things that look consistent within dreams are shockingly realized to be inconsistent in the waking state (Of course, there are dreams which have deep consistencies too). There are no laws of logic outside of thinking minds. Invalid reasoning can lead to false conclusions in the same way that wrong flying can lead to wrong results.

What does this imply? First of all, it implies that the laws of logic are relative to the way we are designed to perceive and know this world. Let’s say that they help us to see the world as it is with the help of the limited faculties of perception we have; the faculties designed by God for purposes we are created to fulfill.

Secondly, it implies that the laws of logic are universal with reference to only our world. At least, we can say that they only relate to the concept of terms which have conceptual significance only in our world of experience. In that sense, they help us to gain a true understanding of reality as far as our conceptual faculties allow. However, if one tried to apply logic to anything more, the results would lead to paradoxes. For example, we may divide space into feet, and feet into inches; however, if we separate reason from experience and try to apply divisibility to the idea of space itself, the result would be infinite divisions (and conflicts with experience). We know of some philosophers who dumped the validity empirical data because they thought experience stood in conflict with reason. Just because reason can conceive of perfect shapes and infinity of numbers (not that it can conceive infinity, for infinity is disallowance of limit in our mental imagination) and infinitude of objectless space does not mean that these concepts exist as objects out there, somewhere.

Thirdly, it means that God designed the world in His wisdom; it does not mean that He created the design itself as an abstract reality that was independent of Him. We need to be careful to not idolize our speech about God. If it were not for the revelation of God, there was no possibility to know of God in the way that Christian theology talks of Him. We know that design and order are eternal concepts, but they don’t exist as objects out there. We know that God is love, but that doesn’t mean love exists as an eternal immaterial object, independent of God. One can only talk of the creation of something if it exists as an object of reality.

Fourthly, it means that the abstract ideas that we have are nothing but the names that our mind gives to generalizations (laws, state of affairs, events, properties, etc) in order for knowledge to be possible; for knowledge is nothing but an understanding of the relation of one term to another (the relation between the subject and the object). Propositions are statements about a particular's relation to a universal (e.g. Socrates is a Man) or a particular's relation to another particular through a universal (Alexander was the son of Philip) or a universal's relation to another universal (Love is Patient), and the various modes and complexities of relations (variety, modes, complexities, relations are all abstracts).

What are the implications of this for theology? There should be many. For instance, this would make questions like "Did God create Sin?" "Who created Evil?" meaningless. God did not create abstract objects like Sin or Evil. Sin is a relational term, so is Evil, both of which refer to reality but not in the sense of possessing objective reality independent of phenomena. Also, this will help us to more clearly understand statements such as "He condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom.8:3). This sin was not some cosmic object out there, but human sin against God condemned in the flesh of Christ, when he bore the punishment of our iniquities. Sin is not just an abstract idea, it is a concrete act positively deserving condemnation. The moral law is the way moral (volitional) beings are meant to relate to each other. Volitional violation of this relation is sin, sin against all affected by this relational violation, primarily God. The moral order is not just a set of commandments, but the way persons relate to each other ("the way they ought to" being the knowledge of the moral law present in the hearts of volitional beings, given as the a priori basis for moral choices). It is the same order in which the Three Persons in the Divine Godhead relate to each other (in love). When God created the world, it was a natural world; but, when He created man, the world became a moral world with man possessing moral freedom to be towards or against God in his moral relation. When Adam disobeyed, sin entered the world (not as an abstract object but as a concrete act), since Adam sinned. When Christ obeyed, sin was destroyed in His flesh (not as an abstract object but as a concrete act); also sin was judged (for He took the concrete punishment for all our concrete sins) in His flesh.

---

Related Web Content:
Abstract Objects (Stanford Encyclopedia or Philosophy)
Three Views on Creation, Causality, and Abstracta: A discussion between William Lane Craig, J.T. Bridges, and Peter Van Inwagen
The Theory of Abstract Objects: Supports scientific realism and the existence of abstract objects.

Does Reason Mirror Divine Attributes?

In his recent and quite informative book Logic (2013), Vern Sheridan Poythress observed that God's attributes were also attributes of reason. For instance, universality, immutability, truth, transcendence, and infinity are characteristics of reason, so are they of God. In Epistemic of Divine Reality (Doctoral dissertation, 2007), it was argued that rational approaches ultimately can only land one, at the most, on such an understanding of God. Stretched a bit further, this will lead to monism or non-dualism as the rational categories are in conflict with the empirical ones of plurality, change, immanence, and so on. The latter, as we know, are the characteristics of empirical theologies such as polytheism, pantheism, and panentheism.

Poythress admits the uniqueness of Christian theology that sees God as both transcendent and immanent and thinks that this is true of reason as well. He looks at our participation in logic as an imitation of God's nature. For instance, speaking of transcendence, he observes:

We can always consider the option of stepping back from what we were doing a moment earlier. We can reflect on what we were doing, and then reflect on our act of reflection, and then reflect on that. We can go on until we become confused!

This standing back already exists when we mention a word rather than merely using it. We are, as it were, standing back to look at the word rather than unself-consciously using the word to look at something else. This standing back is a kind of human form of transcendence. We can transcend our immediate situation by reflecting on it. And we can transcend our reflections by reflecting on them. We can take a kind of God’s-eye view, viewing ourselves from above, as another human being might see us or as God might see us.

This transcendence is then one way in which we think God’s thoughts after him. God is transcendent in an absolute sense. He is infinite. We are creatures. But we do have a kind of imitative, creaturely ability to transcend our immediate environment or our immediate thoughts or our immediate speeches. And we use this transcendence when we investigate logic. Every time we think, we imitate God’s thinking. Every time we think about logic, we also imitate God’s transcendence over the immediate.¹

There is substance in this argument. The rational necessity of conceptual infinity (which we can't conceive of and yet cannot not conceive of) is an amazing ability in man. Solomon wrote that God "has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."(Eccl.3:11) Augustine talked of our hearts being restless until they find rest in God. God gave humans the capacity for awe, wonder, and amazement, the ability to glorify and worship God; and this is spiritual. However, if it were not for divine revelation given to us in the verbal testimony of Scriptures, this quest would either have nothing but the rational ideas or the empirical concepts. Revelation gives us a glimpse of God as the Eternal One and yet the One who Works in Time, as the One who is beyond the universe and yet in the universe. Yet, one must be careful to not conclude that the characteristics of reason are the very and only characteristics of God, though in concrete.

In all classical formulations of theology, the rational characteristics have been admitted as attributes of God; the only difference: reason is noetic tool, but God is that He is (The I AM THAT I AM). However, how can one be sure if we are not just imposing the limits of our mind onto theological understanding? Certainly, understanding can't be had beyond the characteristic capacities of reason.

Where reason fails to make sense of things, especially when experience cannot supply it with content, then it stands in need of revelation knowledge. Theology is more an attempt to rationally understand revelation. But, faith makes living by revelation possible. The just shall live by faith; we walk by faith. Faith is able to understand and perceive what reason cannot accept; for instance, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God and that the universe was created out of nothing (Heb.11:3). Both the ideas of concrete creation by verbal speaking and something being created out of nothing are not ideas that can be rationally understood or explained. But, by faith we understand, says the writer of Hebrews.

The Bible doesn't begin with a systematic presentation of theology. However, it does tell us who God is and what His nature is. For believers, reason can help to practically understand who God is and  is like or is not like. Experience provides concrete categories, but reason also insists that God is not like this world; so does Scripture warn us to not create idols of our vain imaginations.

The recognition of this fact is crucial to any theological reasoning.

The importance of systematic theology lies in its putting together of divinely revealed facts in an orderly manner. The New Testament presents examples of this when, for instance, Paul gives a systematic biblical argument for justification by faith in Romans and the writer of Hebrews brings to light facts of the Law to speak of the superiority of Jesus. 

The value of reason lies in ensuring consistency and unity of faith, correction of errors, and clarity of understanding.

---

¹Logic, p.78

Time Theories and the Limits of Reason

We have earlier noted that the conflict between reason and experience has sometimes led to either reason jettisoning experience or vice versa. Examples of rational cosmologies are non-dualism and monism, if not some form of idealism that denies the reality of empirical perceptions. Examples of empirical theories are anything ranging from pluralistic realism to logical positivism and the like theories that reject the validity of non-empirical postulates.

We also noted that Zeno's paradoxes are epistemic paradoxes of conflict between reason and sense-experience.

Rational Problems:
1. Aristotle's Time Paradox. Regarding Time, he writes in his Physics,
"the following considerations would make one suspect that it either does not exist at all or barely, and in an obscure way. One part of it has been and is not, while the other is going to be and is not yet. Yet time-both infinite time and any time you like to take-is made up of these. One would naturally suppose that what is made up of things which do not exist could have no share in reality."

In other words, Aristotle is stating that something cannot be made up of nothing. But, when one thinks of time, the past is not there and the future is also not there (is still to come); the present itself is gone before we can talk of it; so, if none of its parts can be said to exist at the time they are said to exist, time is made up of non-existent parts; however, non-existent parts make a non-existent thing, something that doesn't exist.

2. John McTaggart's Unreality of Time Argument. In his 1908 essay, "The Unreality of Time", McTaggart argued that time must be unreal. According to him, positions in time, as they appear to us can be identified as either "Past, Present, and Future" (A-Series) or "Earlier and Later" (B-Series). For something to be earlier, it must always exist as earlier. For something to be later, it must always exist as later. Earlier can never become Later since Earlier is always Earlier. But, if this is true, then one event cannot change into another, because M (Earlier) has to be M always and N (Later) has to be N always in their positions in time. However, if one adds the Past-Present-Future order to this, then an event in the future becomes an event in the present and an event in the present becomes an event in the past; thus, one event changes into another. But, the problem is that in order to be able to talk of an event as an event that is present, that will be in the past, and that was in the future, one must already pre-suppose the reality of Past-Present-Future (i.e. the A-Series); otherwise, "will be" and "past" are incompatible, "was" and "future" are incompatible; one can only speak of was (past-tense) and past, is (present-tense) and present, will be (future-tense) and future. In order to say that an event is "present in the present, future in the past, past in the future" one must already presuppose the A-series to account for such speaking; but, this is question begging. However, if the A-Series cannot be established, we have already seen that the B-Series is contrary to our perception of time. To reject the A-Series is to reject the reality of time.

Responses:
B-theorists reject the A-series of Past-Present-Future and, as in eternalism, consider events to just be there without any flow of time or change. Events are fixed as Earlier and Later. The B-theory tries to bridge the rational-empirical chasm by trying to retain immutability at the expense of unity for the sake of pluralistic realism; but, this is half-way logic. This may allow a tense-less universe to exist. Our experience of past-present-future is an illusion; in reality, they say, events just are; they don't happen. While there are some who think that this view has the support of the theory of relativity's rejection of absolute simultaneity (at least, as far as perception is concerned), the theory of relativity doesn't reject the notion of happening; an event is an happening; at least, happenings (motion, shrinking) are presupposed for the theory of relativity to be. But, if an event is a happening, and "happening" implies "change", then B-theory cannot actually talk about events, it must only talk of the universe just there. But, if B-theory cannot talk of events, what is it talking about? One may respond by saying that an event itself is composed of event-parts; however, aren't those event-parts (events in themselves) infinitely divisible into a Former and a Later. In such case, they must still first resolve the mereological paradox: Each part is divided into a former and a later part. Each former and the later part have a former and a later part of their own respectively, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, the size of the part would be zero and unlimited, which is paradoxical. Ted Sider's Stage Theory to explain temporary intrinsics or change tries to resolve the contradiction of stages other than S existing, but S itself possessing the temporal property of "I myself will be bent" (of futurely being bent by virtue of having a temporal counterpart tomorrow that is bent). I don't see how such a property makes S continuous with its supposed other stages. It does not explain how is it that the counterpart is bent "tomorrow". "Will be" of McTaggart's A-series brings us back to his original problem, I think. The B-theory has taken recourse to tenses, which cannot be avoided when one talks of time.

To say, for instance, that one can conceptualize t (e.g. July 12, 2015) is a set of x events, so that if trans-temporal vision was possible one could see x events happening at t is not enough; because, this doesn't repeal the fact of "happening". The only resolve would be to divide t into more parts, and so ad infinitum, in which case, by means of  infinite rationalization of reality, one is logically compelled to deny the authenticity of phenomenal experience. Ultimately, such rationalization will only support some rational cosmology.

The eternalist view may appeal to those who may find in it some sort of explanation of how God knows the future before it has come to pass. But, again that would mean attempting to interpret God in temporally conceptual terms that are disputable. One can say what this may mean from the rational point of view and what it may mean from the empirical point of view, and perhaps use a via negativa method of speech to recognize what foreknowledge is not. However, attempts to logically explain divine foreknowledge would be like attempting to empty an ocean into a small hole. Mathematics may help us arrive at necessary, universal, mathematical principles; but, these mathematical principles are not divine attributes. And,  when it comes to empirical concepts like knowledge, perception is limited by finitude.

Perhaps, among the many purposes of philosophy is also to help us recognize our epistemic limits. In the ultimate sense, temporal beings still don't have the objective vision of what it means to be trans-temporal. Then, how can they make a judgement about the nature of time? The antinomy of temporality is unavoidable. But, this doesn't mean that from their perspective they are not able to tell what at least time is not.

---

Check: W. L. Craig on A and B theories
See Also:Space as Non-Reality, Zeno's Arguments

Modified Feb 20, 2016.

Alexander Pruss' Responses to Objections to a Necessary Being

The first objection is that only propositions can be necessary; for instance, "Bachelors are unmarried men" is a proposition having necessary value: it would be self-contradictory to assert that "Bachelors are married men". The proposition is necessary. However, can this be said about beings?

Pruss answers in the affirmative: Yes, because the statement "God is a necessary being" can be claimed to be a necessary proposition (as in the ontological argument).

But, it is often claimed, the notion of a necessary being is absurd. For it is propositions that are necessary, not beings, and hence talk of a necessary being is a category mistake. However, this is an uncharitable argument, since the claim that A is a necessary being can be translated into the claim that the proposition ∃x(x=A) is necessarily true, or perhaps that there is some individual essence E of A that is a property that only A can have and that is such that ∃x(x has E) is necessarily true. Talk of necessary and contingent beings will henceforth usually be understood in this way, though there is also a Thomistic model on which a necessary being is one whose esse and essentia are identical.¹

The second objection proceeds from conceivability. If one can conceive anything to exist, one can also conceive the same to not exist. However, Pruss counters this by raising the fact that there are propositions which are necessarily true, and their veracity implies their existence.

A better argument against the existence of a necessary being is that by a principle of Hume, anything that can coherently be thought to exist can also be thought not to exist. This by itself does not yield a satisfactory argument, however. It is not obvious that the totality of all existing things can be thought not to exist, that it could have been that there is nothing in existence. Moreover, this would imply that propositions, mathematical objects, and properties have merely contingent existence, an implication that may well be thought to be absurd since the proposition that 2+2=4 would be true no matter what, and it could not be true unless it existed, as nonexistent things lack properties, even properties such as truth. Moreover the proposition that there is a solution to the equation 3x²+x−7=0 is also necessarily true.²

Pruss, of course, notes that this only established the existence of abstract objects, not the nonabstract God.

Of course, even mathematical propositions cannot be co-eternal with God if the doctrine of divine aseity is to be maintained; they are only true with respect to the world we are in and are contingently related to it, in which sense they don't possess necessity in the absolute sense of existing "necessarily", even abstractly. In fact, they have no existence or being of themselves. We find very conflicting results when we attempt to overstretch mathematical tools to understand reality (cf. Zeno's paradoxes vs. Pythagoreanism,  Kantian antinomies), proving their epistemic limits of applicability.  A rival cosmology would be Platonism that believes in the existence of eternal, immutable, plural ideas, which Christian theologians do not at all find to be compatible with the Biblical doctrine of creation.

---

¹Alexander R. Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.84
²Ibid, p.84

Modified Feb 20, 2016

The Neo-Polytheism of Hubert Dreyfus: A Rational Fideist Analysis

Hubert Lederer Dreyfus (b. Oct 1929) is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has contributed much to the interpretation and analysis of Heidegger's philosophy. In recent times, his choice of an experience-based epistemic methodology has tended more towards a very pluralistic, anti-nihilist view; in fact, a reveling in Homeric polytheism as an inspiration for modern, revisited, or neo-polytheism.

In Epistemics of Divine Reality, the conflict between reason and experience in the history of  the philosophy of religion has been identified. The conflict usually results in reason's tending to expel the empirical categories and choose a very metaphysical and, usually, monist or via negativa view of God. On the other hand, it also results in experience's tending to expel the rational categories and choose a very concrete, plural, this-wordly view of self and the universe.

 

Epistemics of Divine Reality - Philosophical from Domenic Marbaniang

Dreyfus' studies in Husserl's phenomenological method and Heidegger's existentialism in addition to Merleu Ponty's filling-in-the-gaps of what Heidegger failed to address, viz a philosophy of being in body, seems to culminate in a celebration of Homeric polytheism and Melville's Moby Dick view of self and the divine. Dreyfus considers Protestantism's departure from the Catholic metaphysical God of the philosophers (of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes) as a major contribution which paved the way for the Nietszchean annunciation of the death of that "non-biblical" philosophical God. To the metaphysicians, God seemed to always be in the present and objectified. But, to him God is like the whale of Moby-Dick that is not as much available to philosophical exegesis as the seeming hieroglyphics on the whale's body. According to Dreyfus, the God of the Bible is not that Pure Being that the intuitionists or mysticists (similar to the rationalist monists) talked about; He was the God of the burning-bush.  But, Dreyfus fails to notice that this same God who appeared in the burning-bush also announced His name as being "I AM THAT I AM". In All Things Shining, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly collaborate to introduce the new polytheism of empirical metaphysics. Samuel Goldman from Harvard makes the following observations:¹

In All Things Shining, philosophers Hubert Dreyfus (of Berkeley) and Sean Dorrance Kelly (of Harvard)...claim, “The gods have not withdrawn or abandoned us: we have kicked them out.” This expulsion, they say, is by no means permanent. The gods are ready to come back if only we are willing to “hear their call.” The first thing to note about this startling claim is the plural. Dreyfus and Kelly urge us to open ourselves to the return not of the God of the Bible but of gods. And not just any gods. On their view, the revival of the Greek pantheon offers the most promising alternative to nihilism. ......

...Dreyfus and Kelly....also contend that in recognizing the role of gods, we gain access to sources of meaning that would otherwise be obscured. Polytheism relieves us of the burden of choosing what we should do. In place of the modern struggle to establish one’s freedom, polytheism encourages an attitude of joyous gratitude. Like the Greek, they argue, we can experience our lives as a succession of unasked gifts that we do not need to earn or understand to cherish and enjoy. All things are “shining” with divinity and promise once we are open to living that way.

..... Rather than confronting this objection, Dreyfus and Kelly subtly revise Heidegger’s account of nihilism. The problem is not so much that “God is dead” as that the Judeo-Christian God is reduced to one option on the cultural menu. Many people do find meaning in Biblical monotheism. On the other hand, there at least some are who can’t or won’t. Polytheism, therefore, turns out to be a specialized product for a niche audience rather than a solution to the decline of the West. It is the spiritual equivalent of the pseudo-antique espresso machines sold to people who just aren’t satisfied with their old percolators.

Goldman considers All Things Shining's goal as failing in not being able to provide what it promises:

Polytheism, then, is a provocative way of describing one way of experiencing the world. But it fails to provide the access to meaning or values that Dreyfus and Kelly promise. This failure is the consequence of their rejection of the philosophical tradition on the one hand and biblical religion on the other. For all their disadvantages, both recognize that access to the meaning of life involves separating ourselves from our own moods and actions and evaluating them from an external standpoint. This isneasy. But at least it acknowledges that what we regard as the most admirable actions are not only shining with intensity, but also morally right.

It is worth remembering that Homer depicts the Greeks engaged in war of conquest and that his characters express profound gratitude to the Olympians when they have successfully taken their enemies’ lives, women, and property. Even in a disenchanted world, theirs are not the gods that we are looking for.

One can't attempt to find meaning once one has obliterated the existence of the possibility of the transcendent absolute. As Wittgenstein submitted in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, "The sense of the world must lie outside of the world." Plato's Euthyphro pronounces the problem very well when it argues that ethics cannot be absolute if we turned to the pluralistic gods for a deontological answer. The Euthyphro dilemma was: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" To which the answer was that a plurality of gods with their finite experiences cannot determine the nature of the good. The resolution consisted in a turning towards reason. The Platonic argument cannot be dismissed. In fact, Plato considered Homer (his stories of the gods) as dangerous to politics and ethics. In his Republic, Plato argues for the outlawing of the Homer that Dreyfus looks to for inspiration. To Plato, a strong republic cannot be built on false stories and flawed personalities as depicted by Homer and Hesiod. And, while Plato does understand the practical importance of the narratives, he doesn't allow these narratives to claim authority above reason: which is, of course, also impossible for cogency demands that the rational be intact, without ignoring the empirical.

---

¹Dawn of the Idols, The American Conservative, May 2, 2011.

Kant's Table of Judgments of Reason and the Categories of Understanding

The Critique of Pure Reason (German: Kritik der reinen Vernunft) by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, attempts to resolve the conflict between rationalism and empiricism by proposing a new angle of approach, viz. phenomenalism.

Kant called his middle way a Copernican Revolution in epistemology since, contrary to the traditional approaches, Kant's theory proposes that it is not the mind that conforms to reality (that is sees things as they are), but it is reality that conforms to the a priori forms and categories of our understanding. Thus, we only see things as they appear (phenomena) not as they are.

Kant borrowed the term "categories" from Aristotle, but with the concession that Aristotle's own categorizations were faulty. He thought that Aristotle had no guiding principle for the discovery of the categories and so randomly picked them up; consequently, his table remained imperfect. The imperfection is apparent from his inclusion of "some modes of pure sensibility (quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul), also an empirical concept (motus), none of which can belong to this genealogical register of the understanding."

Kant's divisions, however, have a guiding rule: the a priori and the a posteriori distinction. The categories had to be a priori. They are the ones that make all synthetic a priori judgments about experience possible. The processing unit involves the following components:

FUNCTION OF THOUGHT IN JUDGMENT	CATEGORIES OF UNDERSTANDING	PRINCIPLES OF PURE UNDERSTANDING
Quantity	Quantity
Universal Particular Singular	Unity Plurality Totality	Axioms of Intuition
Quality	Quality
Affirmative Negative Infinite	Reality Negation Limitation	Anticipations of Perception
Relation	Relation
Categorical Hypothetical Disjunctive	Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens) Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect) Of Community (reciprocity between the agen and patient)	Analogies of Experience
Modality	Modality
Problematical Assertorical Apodeictical	Possibility-Impossibility Existence-Non-existence Necessity-Contingence	Postulates of Empirical Thought in General

From The Critique of Pure Reason (1787)( SS5. Sec.II and SS6. Sec.III

The Moral Basis of Indian Law

Now, while the debate exists in the philosophy of law about the relationship between political laws and the moral law, attempts to base the laws on anything other than the moral law sooner face problems of justifiability. While it may be the case that reductionism of politics to ethics is not totally feasible, resort to anti reductionism is only self-defeating. And, then authority arguments that try to derive validity of laws from higher laws, which in return try to derive their validity from a much higher one (e.g. Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law), will have to strike ceiling at some point ( See Marmor, A. Philosophy of Law, Princeton, 2011). For instance, the judges under Hitler's regime could not be absolved upon the relativist presumption that they were only conforming to some law of a sovereign nation. The question of validity and justice could not be anchored in such "sovereign" authority alone.

However, this doesn't mean that authority doesn't count. In fact, authority does often prescribe laws in many cases, but the laws are only instrumental towards a much larger cause. Thus, we have law-givers such as Solon, Moses, and Manu. However, the validity of the prescriptions are based on a deeper intent. The intent or the spirit of the law is what matters. It also means that where laws fail to serve the intent, they must fade away and give place to the new.

Plato's elaborative study of justice as an ethical virtue in the analogically larger Republic is based on the same understanding that ethics and politics are inseparable. Similarly, his disciple Aristotle didn't see any reason to separate the both. In the Biblical tradition, the entire Mosaic Law was based on the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments, which were the essence of the Law. Jesus pointed out that they all hung on the two Great Commandments: To love God absolutely and to love one's neighbor as oneself. Of course, Paul, later submitted that the Law was only a revealer and a restricter. It revealed human sinfulness and it was meant to restrict the lawless (it was given for the lawless). Jesus pointed out that certain laws (for instance, the law of divorce) were only permissive because of the hardness of human hearts, but didn't reflect the original intent of human creation.

Looking, now, into the Indian Constitution, one asks what is Indian Law based upon ultimately. The Preamble makes the democratic nature of the Republic clear. And, so it is the people's government for sure. But, the moral philosophy is indicated in words like "humanism" and "scientific temper", featured later on under Fundamental Duties. While the temper is scientific, the philosophical ground is humanism and its philosophy of man is condensed in the section called Fundamental Rights. The Law exists to ensure the protection of these fundamental rights of every Indian citizen. Consequently, any law that is inconsistent with these rights is automatically annulled.

The Fundamental Rights are not prescriptions to the people but declarations of humanism. These declarations are prescriptive only to the laws, since the laws are expected to conform to them. Thus, they not only inform but also serve as reference points, as absolute foundation, for the laws. As such, we may refer to them, with regard to humanism, as the intent, or spirit of the laws; perhaps even as the Law of the laws since they serve as the measure of all laws.

But, how do we know that these declarations are true? Perhaps, it is similar to asking about the laws of logic, "How does one know whether they are true?" The answer is: by using them or trying not to use them. One cannot deny them, but then one cannot deny anything without using them. Similarly, one cannot deny the Fundamental Rights without himself losing the rights.

Some Keys to Hegel's Phenomenology of the Mind

Based on Hegel's Preface to his Phenomenology of the Mind

Key Definers
1. Nothing is False or True. Reality is Negativity. The dialectical view anticipates this principle. Reality is grasped in the (dialectical) process.

The more the ordinary mind takes the opposition between true and false to be fixed, the more is it accustomed to expect either agreement or contradiction with a given philosophical system, and only to see reason for the one or the other in any explanatory statement concerning such a system. It does not conceive the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive evolution of truth; rather, it sees only contradiction in that variety. The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereby the life of the whole.... But contradiction as between philosophical systems is not wont to be conceived in this way; on the other hand, the mind perceiving the contradiction does not commonly know how to relieve it or keep it free from its onesidedness, and to recognize in what seems conflicting and inherently antagonistic the presence of mutually necessary moments (Preface to Phenomenology of the Mind)

Truth and falsehood as commonly understood belong to those sharply defined ideas which claim a completely fixed nature of their own, one standing in solid isolation on this side, the other on that, without any community between them. Against that view it must be pointed out, that truth is not like stamped coin that is issued ready from the mint and so can be taken up and used. Nor, again, is there something false, any more than there is something evil.

2. Hegel, thus, cannot denounce any system and one will expect his view to integrate all, denounce all, affirm all, reinterprete all. Thus, it is logically absurd to try to find argument for any view in Hegel.

3. Hegel's view is self-defeating; since, by his own principle of approach, an approach opposed to his view can also be valid.

4. Hegel's view is to raise philosophy to the level of scientific system. The system, thus, becomes inductive rather than deductive. But, science is still an infant....

5. Reality is the process of its own becoming, the process of mediation. Mediating is self-identity. Reality is pure negativity, the process of bare and simple becoming. Mediation is reflection.

6. The ego, or becoming in general, this process of mediating, is immediacy itself. Moves towards reflection.

7. Reflection is the positive moment of the Absolute. In reflection. the contrast between the conclusion and the process of arriving at it is dissolved.

8. Nature and reason aren't different. Reason/nature is purposive activity. In nature, purpose is immediate, is its existence for itself, or pure negativity -- reality.

9. Spirit alone is Reality

It is the inner being of the world, that which essentially is, and is per se; it assumes objective, determinate form, and enters into relations with itself−it is externality (otherness), and exists for self; yet, in this determination, and in its otherness, it is still one with itself−it is self−contained and self−complete, in itself and for itself at once. This self-containedness, however, is first something known by us, it is implicit in its nature (an sich); it is Substance spiritual. It has to become self−contained for itself, on its own account; it must be knowledge of spirit, and must be consciousness of itself as spirit. This means, it must be presented to itself as an object, but at the same time straightway annul and transcend this objective form; it must be its own object in which it finds itself reflected. So far as its spiritual content is produced by its own activity, it is only we [the thinkers] who know spirit to be for itself, to be objective to itself; but in so far as spirit knows itself to be for itself, then this self−production, the pure notion, is the sphere and element in which its objectification takes effect, and where it gets its existential form. In this way it is in its existence aware of itself as an object in which its own self is reflected. Mind, which, when thus developed, knows itself to be mind, is science. Science is its realization, and the kingdom it sets up for itself in its own native element.

10. A self having knowledge purely of itself in the absolute antithesis of itself, this pure ether as such, is the very
soil where science flourishes, is knowledge in universal form.

11. The ascent into this is the Phenomenology of the Spirit. The Phenomenology of the Spirit is negative or contains what is false.

Is Dialetheism True?

Dialetheism is a thesis about truth that certain statements can be be both true and false at the same time. Motivations for such come from cases such as the Liar's Paradox:

"This sentence is false."

To assert that the sentence above is true is to also assert that it is false at the same time. Similarly, to assert that it is false is to also assert that it is true at the same time.

Similarly,

The statement in this box is false.

Other motivations include the paradoxes of Zeno in which both reason and experience seem true (The arrow seems to be moving, empirically speaking; but, rationally, an arrow that occupies any set of points in space-time isn't moving at all).

Nonsensical Statements
This refers to semantic issues in dialetheism. In the two cases cited above, of course, the Liar's paradox is about the meaningfulness of the statement; we ask the question: Does it make any sense? Does it communicate anything? If it doesn't convey any sense of meaning, then it is nonsensical. Falsehood can only be predicated of some assertion being made, but in the statement "This sentence is false", the sentence is empty of the assertion that needs to be falsified. It is a vacuous statement, devoid of meaning.

Of course, dialetheism is not the use of ambiguous statements (statements that carry two meanings because of the many meanings of the terms used). For example, in the statement, "I like tablets", one can ask for clarification regarding what "tablet" means (pill, gadget, or tile).

Phenomenal versus Essential Statements
To say that the sun rises in the east would be both true and false at the same time. It is true epistemically, phenomenally. But, does it really rise in the east? Phenomena must not be confused with essential form. To call a stone red is a claim regarding phenomenal truth (it appears red). But, whether the stone really possesses any colors is an essentialist (ontological) issue. While statements must be interpreted in the context of their literary genre (poetic statements are to be interpreted as poetical, for instance), the various contexts of the use of words also cannot be ignored.

The phenomenal versus essential problem is an epistemological issue. This doesn't mean that reality is ambiguous and open to any interpretation. However, paradoxes don't prove that the Law of Non-Contradiction doesn't apply in some situations. They only prove that the paradox arises because the Law is evidently not-contradicted.

Is Philosophy Dead? Is Science All That Is?

In Epistemics of Divine Reality, I have argued how the empirical approach to knowledge would attempt to jettison metaphysics. In the early 1920s, a group in Vienna called the Vienna Circle tried to annunciate the death of philosophy by founding a school of philosophy called logical positivism. The group was composed of mainly mathematicians, physicists, sociologists and economists, but no professional philosophers. So, their utter dislike of metaphysics can be understood. But, it is interesting that one attempts to overthrow philosophy by constructing a school of philosophy. But, that contradiction in terms is natural to any form of empiricism that seeks to avoid the rational. The Law of Verification that they proposed was what dealt a death-blow to the theory itself. It was itself unverifiable (of course, because the philosophy was not empirical itself). The two World Wars did reveal, if not anything else, this one thing that philosophy was not dead. Nazism might have some evolutionary scientific tinge, but it was a philosophical system after all, and one with disastrous consequences making the best use or misuse of science to further its goals. Nations and people are governed not by the discoveries of science but by philosophies and ideologies that they hold to be rationally true. Logical positivism soon went into the grave.

Recently, Stephen Hawking has been quoted as saying that philosophy is dead having been overthrown by Science. Again, it is a statement by an empiricist scientist against the rational, speculative disciple. But, again, empiricism is itself a philosophical perspective; only, that it fails to fully answer the rational demands of knowledge. If the physicist can’t escape granting eternity to at least the physical and empirical Law of Gravity (though it is not necessitated at all), he, of course, also ought not to refuse acknowledging the eternality of some non-empirical Laws of Logic (which aren’t provable by science, though invoked by it). Philosophy couldn’t be dead after all. However, with all the scientific advancements, discoveries, education, and predictions, it is still worthwhile to ask if philosophy is truly dead. Let’s consider the following:

1. What is it that still governs politics and legislation in a nation? Is it science or some ideology?
2. Where do ideas of morality and justice come from?
3. Where do people get their ideas of rights? Does science tell one that rights are fundamental?
4. Where do people get the concept of crime and justice? Are the concepts scientifically discovered? Can their truthfulness be determined by science?
5. Where do people get the concepts that motivate their engagement in charity and welfare work?
6. Where do people get their ideas of freedom of will, Truth, and validity of knowledge, since science holds to a deterministic view of the universe?
7. Where does one get the idea of sufficient evidence in order to be able to make a claim as omnisciently negative as the one that “God does not exist”?

Obviously, science is not all that is.

Four Principles of Rational Fideism

From Epistemics of Divine Reality

Principles of Rational Fideism

Four principles of rational fideism will be discussed here. The principles follow from the subjective-objective hypothesis of rational fideism and the discussion of the Indian criterion. The principles are as follows:

Consistency is not the same as conceivability. The rationality of Revelation requires the consistency of its content. However, the inability to conceptualize the Divine as reported by Revelation cannot be qualification for its rejection as being inconsistent. Conceptions are basically empirical. Therefore, an attempt to conceptualize the Divine is tantamount to doing empirical epistemics and not rational fideistic epistemics. To cite as an example, it is evident that the doctrine of Trinity must not be approached empirically. For that will only lead to frustration. Consistency is not the same as correspondence; for in that case, the positivist law of verification would determine theological justifiability. But this law has already been shown to be inapplicable to theological epistemics owing to its failure to be applicable to itself in the first instance. The law transcends itself and proves the non-empiricality of itself thus violating its own proposition. Experience doesn’t provide a sure basis for divine knowledge and possess a high degree of ambiguity and probability. In addition, truths that transcend the limits of ‘present’ experience cannot be sourced from experience. For instance, one can know nothing about the truth of the origin of the universe, if Revelation reveals of it, since no one has witnessed any origin of the universe in order to know what it is like with which the revelatory content must be in correspondence. Consistency, however, means that the revelatory content must not conflict with itself on any given point. However, this doesn’t mean that divine reality can’t find any conceptual analogy (though misty) in experience.

Faith must anchor in the ultimate. Existential fulfillment must be anchored in the knowledge of divine reality. However, divine reality cannot attract faith unless it manifests itself as concerned with human reality. Unless God is concerned with humans, all human striving is pointless. Further, unless God reveals Himself to man, faith as nothing substantial to base itself on. Rational faith cannot build castles in the air. It needs a solid ground on which it can stand. Therefore, Revelation must give some ultimate basis in which faith can lay its anchor. Consequently, any Revelation that assumes ultimate reality to be a transcendent negative (as in non-dualism) or an immanent anything (as in pantheism or polytheism) offers no ground for rational faith. A transcendent negative equals nothing and an immanent anything is not only dispersive ground but also an attempt to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps, for human reality is itself co-immanent with everything else. Therefore, Revelation must provide a content to the transcendent ideal. As seen earlier, two necessary anchoring attributes of the transcendent must be personality and concern without which a meaningful I-Thou relationship is impossible. To say that the transcendent cannot be known is to obstruct the epistemics of divine reality. Further, in that sense, Revelation itself is no revelation at all: it reveals nothing but that nothing can be known. Therefore, it is argued Revelation must provide a positive, yet transcendental anchoring ground for faith.

Supernatural phenomena do not serve as data for rational fideism. Faith may wish to be strengthened by phenomenal religious experience of signs, wonders, visions, and miracles. However, supernatural phenomena in, of, and by themselves have no revelatory content to serve as unambiguous data for rational fideism. Such phenomena can serve as data for empirical epistemics but not for rational fideism; and the results of empirical epistemics have been discussed at length to conclude that it leads us nowhere beyond the horizons of our experience alone. Such empirical epistemics can ultimately lead only to some form of naturalism, even if qualified by the ideal of divinity. Further, there is no reason to doubt that the supernatural phenomena might be designed in such a way as to mislead humans. This possibility is heightened by the biblical proposition that the spirit-world is divided into two antagonistic kingdoms with a political system and strategies, of which one kingdom is all set for deceiving humanity to believe its lie.  In such a case, it is almost or absolutely impossible for humans to really know whether he is being deceived or not. Thus, no supernatural phenomena, even religious experience such as visions of ‘God’, can be the grounds for the rational fideistic epistemics of divine reality. This has already been demonstrated earlier. It needs only to be added here that only when supernatural phenomena is given an interpretive revelatory content can it assume the status of ‘proof’, though in a relative sense; however, it can never assume the status of data for theologizing in the rational fideistic epistemics.

Rational fideism is not fusion epistemics. On the other hand, it is harmony epistemics. The only fusion possible is at the dispensing of the other. Harmony is the gaining of value not from within the system of contingent being but from without. Fusion, it has been seen, either leads to the attribution of the transcendental attributes to the empirical world or the contentment with the empirical attributes as constituting reality. Thus, reason, as in non-dualism, looks at all empirical reality as illusion, while experience sees the pluralistic and contingent nature of reality as self-evident and regards the concept of rational or metaphysical reality nonsensical, useless, and in Hume’s words, consignable to the flames. Reason and experience cannot fuse together absolutely to form some new epistemics. However, they can be harmonized in their distinctions as distinct tones are harmonized in music. The question of rational fideism is whether any revelation can provide such harmonizing content to resolve the paradoxical disharmony between reason and experience in the existential person. This also defines the inquiry of rational fideism.

Truth & Reality: Epistemology & Ontology

From Marbaniang, Domenic. Epistemics of Divine Reality © 2007. p.31

EPISTEMOLOGY is related to knowledge while Ontology is related to reality. Epistemology seeks to understand the nature, sources, and scope of knowledge; Ontology, to understand the nature of reality. Epistemology deals with the meaning of Truth; Ontology deals with the meaning of reality. True or false is predicated of statements only. Real or unreal is predicated of existence. Therefore, logic and semantics are important issues in the study of truth. Truth is mental; reality is essential. Truth is dependent on reality; reality is independent of truth. Truth is usually contextual. There are different kinds of truths that are truthful only within their contexts. For instance, there are poetical truths expressed in statements that would appear total falsehood in any other linguistic context or genre.  Truth is that which is known about reality. As such, therefore, truth, in common experience, is substantial.

© Domenic Marbaniang, 2007

Zeno's Arguments for the Irrationality of Plurality and the Rationalityof Monism

From Marbaniang, Domenic. Epistemics of Divine Reality © 2007.

To the attacks of the pluralists, Zeno of Elea, disciple of Parmenides offered several arguments in form of paradoxes that demonstrated the utter absurdity of commonsense realism. Since absurdity is a sign of falsity, it is false that reality is many. Hence, Zeno argues that reality must be one. It may be noted that the paradox may also mean, contrary to Zeno’s contention, that reason is false and experience is true. However, since it is difficult to label reason as false without the use of reason itself, the certainty of rational reality looms over that of experience. Few of Zeno’s most famous proofs are as follows:

The Paradoxes of Plurality

The Argument from Denseness

If there are many, they must be as many as they are and neither more nor less than that. But if they are as many as they are, they would be limited. If there are many, things that are are unlimited. For there are always others between the things that are, and again others between those, and so the things that are are unlimited.[1]

The paradox is that things appear to be as many as they are, that is as limited, whereas rationally speaking they must be unlimited; a pair of two is separated by a third, which pairing with its next is separated by a fourth, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, the view that reality is many, or numbered plurality, involves a rational impossibility.

The assumption is that it takes something to separate an other. That means that if the ‘separator’ theory is abandoned the paradox doesn’t exist. Why can’t it be said that the things are separated by the void? In that sense, the void (meaning nothing) could rationally not separate anything; for to be separated by nothing is not to be separated at all. However, if empirically understood, the void (space) separates things in the sense that in between things there is the void. Thus, the rational-empirical paradoxical situation is not resolved but heightened by the different meanings of void by reason and experience. The paradox, consequently exists because the rational (immaterial) is applied to the empirical (material) and the fusion creates an either/or situation in which experience is ultimately dismissed as illusion.

The Argument from Finite Size

… if it should be added to something else that exists, it would not make it any bigger. For if it were of no size and was added, it cannot increase in size. And so it follows immediately that what is added is nothing. But if when it is subtracted, the other thing is no smaller, nor is it increased when it is added, clearly the thing being added or subtracted is nothing.

But if it exists, each thing must have some size and thickness, and part of it must be apart from the rest. And the same reasoning holds concerning the part that is in front. For that too will have size and part of it will be in front. Now it is the same thing to say this once and to keep saying it forever. For no such part of it will be last, nor will there be one part not related to another. Therefore, if there are many things, they must be both small and large; so small as not to have size, but so large as to be unlimited.[2]

The first part of the argument which purports to show that if there are many things they cannot possess size is missing. The second part shows that if they do not possess size they are nothing. The third part shows that if reality is plural and, thus, composed of different parts, the following paradox results: Each part is divided into a front and a rear part. Each front and the rear part have a front and a rear part of their own respectively, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, the size would be zero and unlimited, which is paradoxical.

The Argument from Complete Divisibility

1. If a line segment is composed of a multiplicity of points, then the line segment is infinitely divisible; that is to say an infinite number of bisections can be made in it. One cannot come to a point where further bisection of the line segment is not mathematically possible. No singular point can thus be found. Therefore, a line segment is not composed of a multiplicity of points.
2. The line, which is made up of points, has a particular measurement (just as many points as it is and nothing more) and so is limited. It is a definite number, and a definite number is a finite or limited number. However, since the line is infinitely divisible, it is also unlimited. Therefore, it's contradictory to suppose a line is composed of a multiplicity of points.[3]

Speaking thus, then, the existence of plurality is rationally impossible. For, according to each of the above the paradox of the limited and unlimited can be seen. Rationally speaking, things, if not one but many, involve infinity by divisibility. However, they must of necessity be limited in order to be numbered as many. Thus, the phenomenal experience is proved to be rationally untenable.

The Paradoxes of Motion

The Dichotomy

The first asserts the non-existence of motion on the ground that that which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.[4]

Suppose a runner is standing at point A and must reach point B in order to finish the race. The only way he can reach point B is by reaching the halfway point, say A_1, between A and B, before reaching B. But then the only way he can reach halfway point A₁ is by reaching the halfway point, say A₂, between A and A₁, and so on ad infinitum in order to finish the course. Thus in order for the runner to reach point B, he will have to traverse an infinite number of points in a finite time, which is impossible. Therefore, motion is absurd.

Achilles and the Tortoise

Suppose Achilles and a tortoise begin a race. Achilles allows the tortoise to have the head start since he is confident that the slow tortoise will never win the race. But now in order for Achilles to get past by the tortoise, he will first have to reach the point left behind by tortoise; but by that time the tortoise would have already gone by farther from the point, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, if A₁ is the point where the tortoise is presently and Achilles has to reach this point before he can overtake the tortoise, by the time Achilles would have got to point A₁ the tortoise would have gone a bit away and be at point A₂ which would then become the next point which Achilles would have to reach in order to overtake the tortoise, but by the time he gets to A₂ the tortoise would have gone a bit more farther, and so on ad infinitum. In this way, logically Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. But empirically Achilles is seen to overtake the tortoise, and therein lies the paradox. Empirically Achilles overtakes the tortoise but logically he cannot. And since overtaking the tortoise is seen as logically absurd, it cannot be true.

The Arrow

Consider an apparently flying arrow, in any instant. At any given moment, the arrow occupies a particular position in space equal to its length. But for an arrow to occupy a position in space equal to its length means that it is at rest. However, since the arrow must always occupy such a position in space equal to its length, the arrow must be at rest at all moments. Moreover, since space as quantity is infinitely divisible, the flying arrow occupies an infinite number of these positions of rest. But the sum of an infinite number of these positions of rest is not a motion. Therefore, the arrow is never in motion. The absurd conclusion would then be that the flying arrow is ever at rest, which is impossible. Therefore, motion is false.

The Stadium

The fourth argument is that concerning equal bodies [AA] which move alongside equal bodies in the stadium from opposite directions – the ones from the end of the stadium [CC], the others from the middle [BB] – at equal speeds, in which he thinks it follows that half the time is equal to its double…. And it follows that the C has passed all the As and the B half; so that the time is half … . And at the same time it follows that the first B has passed all the Cs.[5]

The stadium is an argument from the relativity of motion to the absurdity of motion. Stumpf [6] has a good illustration of passenger cars  for this argument. Imagine three passenger cars of equal length on tracks parallel to each other, each car having eight windows on a side (see Figures 1 & 2).

One of the cars is at rest; the others, moving in opposite directions at the same speed. In order for the two cars (B & C) moving in opposite direction of car A, to come to the position in Fig. 2, car B’s front has to cross one more window of car A, while car C has to cross two windows of car B. Each window represents a unit of distance, and each such unit is passed in an equal unit of time. Since car B went past only one of car A’s windows, while car C went past two of car B’s windows, and since each window represents the same unit of time, it would have to follow that one unit of time is equal to two units of time or that one unit of distance equals two units of distance, which is absurd. The mathematical solution to this third paradox is as follows:

Speed of car B towards A	=	S m/s
Speed of car C towards A	=	S m/s
Speed of car C towards B	=	2S m/s
Distance to complete motion	=	2D (2 windows or units)
Time needed to complete motion	=	2D/2S
	=	D/S = 1unit of time

Therefore, one unit of time was needed for car C to cross the two windows of car B. The paradox is, thus, resolved; nevertheless, at the expense of absolute motion. The only way this paradox is solved is by accepting that no absolute motion exists. Motion is relative. The speed of car C, thus is seen to be twice greater in relation to car B, than car A. But saying that no absolute motion exists is similar to saying that motion does not exist. What may seem to be motion to one may not seem to be motion to another, and so on. Thus, no absolute statement regarding motion can be made. Thereby, then, Zeno wins.

Thus, the phenomenal world of empirical plurality is shown to be false. The main parts of the arguments of Parmenides and Zeno are summarized as follows:

1. Being cannot arise out of non-being, for then it would have to be even before it arises out of non-being; therefore, being is eternal and ungenerated.[7]
2. Being is indivisible, for it cannot divide itself from itself.
3. Being is one and not many, for if it were many it would have to be diversely differentiated by something other than being, namely non-being, which means to be differentiated by nothing.
4. Being cannot be falsified; for if spoken of, it must be; if not spoken of, then nothing is spoken of. If being is not, then nothing is.
5. Being is indestructible, for change cannot be predicated of it, it being absolute.
6. The phenomenon of plurality is absurd, for it involves the paradox of the limited and the unlimited in the one divisible unit.
7. The phenomenon of change is absurd, for it involves completion of an infinite series in a finite time, as Zeno’s paradoxes show.

Thus, reality is one, eternal, indestructible, immutable, and thus, absolute.

Implications for Divine Existence

Either of the following implications results from the supposition that being is eternal and singular:

1. God is being and the only one reality; all plurality of selves is an illusion.
2. God as an ontological distinct does not exist, for reality is one.
3. God is not, only being is; if the individual definitions of ‘God’ and ‘being’ are to be retained and not confused.

However, though Parmenides and Zeno have attempted to solve the ontological problem of the nature of reality, they have left the cosmological problem of the same unanswered. If reality is one, what accounts for the plurality that is manifest; or why does or how did reality come to appear as many? To this Parmenides and Zeno remain silent, and since a theory that doesn’t take into consideration the whole avenue of the subject in question cannot be considered to be complete and unified, attention must be turned to the Indian philosophers to see whether they have a rational answer to this cosmological question. Nevertheless, this far the contradictions between reason and experience have been aptly demonstrated by the Grecians. And the culmination of their rational search in the Eleatics was anticipated; for if reason alone is trustworthy, then experience must be dispensed with, as Zeno clearly showed

---

[1] Simplicius as cited in “Zeno’s Paradoxes,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/

[2] Ibid.
[3] “Zeno of Elea,” http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/z/zenoelea.htm
[4] Aristotle as cited in “Zeno’s Paradoxes,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/
[5] Aristotle as cited in “Zeno’s Paradoxes,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/
[6] Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Socrates to Sartre, p. 20
[7] Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Socrates to Sartre, pp. 16, 17

© Domenic Marbaniang, 2007