God and Reason (the Pope's latest speech)

[Fabian]

In his very controversial latest speech (Complete Text (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html)) Benedict XVI talked about more than just Islam and Violence. As far as I understand it, he essentially said that the Christian God is subject to reason:

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.[..] But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.

This seems to me very different from the common understanding among christians. "God works in mysterious ways" is often given as an explication when logic fails. In my experience most christians (including most catholics) state that God is beyond reason and cannot be fully understood by humans.

Did I misunderstand the pope? If not, is this argumentation part of the official catholic doctrine or did Benedict XVI really say something new?

[RPS]

Did I misunderstand the pope? If not, is this argumentation part of the official catholic doctrine or did Benedict XVI really say something new?It's not new at all as orthodox Christianity has never been fideist. There's an interesting analysis of the speech from a Christian perspective here (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=472).

[JamesBannon]

Seems like pretty standard RC apologetics to me. I didn't see anything targeting any specific group and he was using Islam as an example. He could just as easily have used the charismatic or evangelical movements to motivate the discussion (and I think that was at least partly his agenda).

[angela2]

Did I misunderstand the pope? If not, is this argumentation part of the official catholic doctrine or did Benedict XVI really say something new?

I seem to remember that he mentioned Greek philosophy? Anyway, my understanding of Catholic doctrine is that it is like a two story house. Philosophy is the first floor. Catholics from the 12th cen. foward have always believed that philosophy is foundational for theology.

When I read his speech, it seemed to me that he was actually gently backing away from what is commonly called the Thomistic synthesis. Thomas joined Aristole's philosophy with previous Christian teaching.

Although Protestant won't say philosophy is foundational, there is lots of it in Protestant theology. One example, the postliberal theology of George Lindbeck has affinities with Wittgenstein's concept of language games.

[Chili]

Did I misunderstand the pope? If not, is this argumentation part of the official catholic doctrine or did Benedict XVI really say something new?

Don't they have the Church Triumphant where philosophy is king?

There is nothing new about the speech if they have saints in heaven with whom they are able to communicate while they are being entertained by the folly of heretics down below.

[angela2]

Don't they have the Church Triumphant where philosophy is king?

There is nothing new about the speech if they have saints in heaven with whom they are able to communicate while they are being entertained by the folly of heretics down below.
Do you think the saints in heaven are also entertained by seeing how substantively atheists can participate in intellectual conversations?

[Chili]

Do you think the saints in heaven are also entertained by seeing how substantively atheists can participate in intellectual conversations?

Yes, and they love 'm for that. They know that it takes great courage to finally shake your head and walk away from a bad religion no matter how much you have invested in it. Now that is about the end of my intelligence, but then, I never was one to invest much of my own in anything.

[Brother Daniel]

This seems to me very different from the common understanding among christians. "God works in mysterious ways" is often given as an explication when logic fails. In my experience most christians (including most catholics) state that God is beyond reason and cannot be fully understood by humans.
In my experience, most Christians (including most Catholics) try to have it both ways. God is simultaneously comprehensible and incomprehensible. A comprehensible God can be falsified by experience, so he retreats (ad hoc) to incomprehensibility. An incomprehensible God cannot be addressed by way of any human conceptual system, so he advances (ad hoc) to comprehensibility. Thus his incomprehensibility protects him from falsification, while his comprehensibility upholds the mental structures necessary for the maintenance of faith.

If God were consistently seen as incomprehensible, then religion would collapse, for none of the claims that are made about God could ever be true. (An incomprehensible statement is not a statement at all; while a true, comprehensible statement cannot be made about something that is entirely incomprehensible.)

So God is usually seen as comprehensible, at least insofar as God is relevant to humans. That which can be argued about is that which is comprehensible.

Now, what happens when humans argue about things? In nearly every realm of human intellectual activity, we can judge the quality of an argument based on its adherence to the rules of logic and its respect for evidence. The process of reasoning is respected, and we trust that by following a good process, we will reach good conclusions.

Theology, however, doesn't usually work that way. More often, the quality of an argument is judged according to the orthodoxy of the conclusions. From a Catholic point of view, the best theologians are those who can string together impressive-looking arguments in favour of what the Church has already decided. If your reasoning process leads in a different direction, you are encouraged to be "humble" and to face the fact that better minds than yours have upheld Church doctrine, time and time again. (Of course, we have a logical circle here, since "better" is defined in terms of the already-decided orthodoxy of the conclusions. But try not to notice that.)

Similar shenanigans take place within protestantism, though often in a less structured way. Whenever a sect shows any stability, you can be sure that this mind-game is exactly what brings about that stability.

The multiplicity of Christian sects is a direct effect of the cracks in this strategy: When too many Christians sincerely try to apply reason, they will disagree with their teachers on many points, including points that are important enough to provoke a schism. Ignatius Loyala (founder of the Jesuits) predicted, apparently correctly (so far), that the protestants would continue indefinitely to split from each other.

The typical (non-schismatic) Christian attitude could be summarised thus: "God is comprehensible, at least with respect to everything that God wants me to know about Him. I know that my theology is correct, or at least mostly so, because my favourite theologians and apologists can demonstrate it logically. As for me, I'm a little shaky on some of the details of the reasoning, but that's okay." In other words, God is comprehensible in principle, but God is incomprehensible "to me". I think that is often (usually?) the attitude behind the "God works in mysterious ways" argument.

And that is roughly the attitude that the Pope wants his flock to have. The Church is the arbiter of "good theological reasoning". God is comprehensible in principle, but if you don't agree with the Church, then you're just not reasoning correctly.

It's not much of a stretch to suggest that "reason" means something different to the Pope than it does to us infidels.

[mirage]

The typical (non-schismatic) Christian attitude could be summarised thus: "God is comprehensible, at least with respect to everything that God wants me to know about Him. I know that my theology is correct, or at least mostly so, because my favourite theologians and apologists can demonstrate it logically. As for me, I'm a little shaky on some of the details of the reasoning, but that's okay." In other words, God is comprehensible in principle, but God is incomprehensible "to me". I think that is often (usually?) the attitude behind the "God works in mysterious ways" argument.

Yes that has a huge ring of truth at least in so far as the LPOE and FWD goes. There is always someone to argue that the LPOE has been comprehensively refuted by Plantinga's (who after all is extremely well respected) free will defence. It's just that they aren't quite sure what he means by X, Y or Z and haven't quite got possible worlds semantics perfectly straight in their head yet. But lots of people more erudite have. Obviously.

[JamesBannon]

Even in standard RC theology God is incomprehensible without special revelation in scripture and church tradition. He has to be otherwise He would not be God as He would be the equal of any human capable of comprehending Him. We can't have that, can we.

[angela2]

So this thread has deteriorate to the usual banal slurs.

[Malachi151]

The Pope is full of crap I'm writing a rebuttal to his speedh for my blog now.

[JamesBannon]

So this thread has deteriorate to the usual banal slurs.

Aside from the little barb at the end (added for humourous effect) what I said is standard RC apologetic argument and a variant of it is contained in the Pope's address. If you think about it, it cannot be any other way. Even in reformist theology knowledge of God is impossible without special scriptural revelation and it's in the Nicene creed. In what way is this a slur?

[Brother Daniel]

So this thread has deteriorate to the usual banal slurs.
Indeed it has, starting with post #11.

Self-referential comments are fun, aren't they? :D

[Chili]

Aside from the little barb at the end (added for humourous effect) what I said is standard RC apologetic argument and a variant of it is contained in the Pope's address. If you think about it, it cannot be any other way. Even in reformist theology knowledge of God is impossible without special scriptural revelation and it's in the Nicene creed. In what way is this a slur?

To Catholics the bible is second hand and kind of like yeast for the pharisees. They prefer bread directly from heaven which I think John 6 is all about. Catholics are a "faith only" people until they start reading the bible and that is about the time that they also get lost no matter how true the bible is.

[JamesBannon]

Regardless of the feelings of individual RC worshippers, RC theology in general is not fideistic - that's what the pope was moaning about. He applied his remarks to Islam but it could just as well have been the evangelicals or charismatics.

[Alethias]

Folks, just a gentle reminder. Lets keep the personal commentary out of this, ok? If we can keep focused on attacking someones specific arguments when we disagree with them, it's easier to stay on target.

Thanks!

Alethias,
GRD Moderator

[angela2]

Changed my mind

[EarlOfLade]

Do you think the saints in heaven are also entertained by seeing how substantively atheists can participate in intellectual conversations?

There are no saints.
There is no heaven.

What more do you need to know?

[Mageth]

There are no saints.
There is no heaven.

What more do you need to know?

I'd like to know how those supposed saints in supposed heaven are lurking on our conversations here on the Web. Must be some newfangled type of wireless link. I guess it's nice that heaven is "connected".

I'd like to see the patent on the "bridge" between the physical format and transmission media and the supernatural format and transmission media. Interesting technology that must be...

[angela2]

I'd like to know how those supposed saints in supposed heaven are lurking on our conversations here on the Web. Must be some newfangled type of wireless link. I guess it's nice that heaven is "connected".

I'd like to see the patent on the "bridge" between the physical format and transmission media and the supernatural format and transmission media. Interesting technology that must be...
If you only knew...:D

[Lógos Sokratikós]

In my experience, most Christians (including most Catholics) try to have it both ways. God is simultaneously comprehensible and incomprehensible. insofar as God is relevant to humans. That which can be argued about is that which is comprehensible.


"Mystery" is the word they use where other folks would say "contrdictory". Since God cannot contradict himself nor possibly be reduced to absurdity (reductio ad absurdum), "mystery" is their intellectual or psuedo-intellectual deus ex machina that saves faith / saves face.

That's why the Catholic Church never grows up a la Piaget.


It's not much of a stretch to suggest that "reason" means something different to the Pope than it does to us infidels.

For them, reason means using your head, be reasonable and logical, so you can feel Christianity is the summum of rationality, but you still have license to pull fairy tales outta ur ass as best suits you. :banghead:

BTW: Great post.

[Chili]

I'd like to know how those supposed saints in supposed heaven are lurking on our conversations here on the Web. Must be some newfangled type of wireless link. I guess it's nice that heaven is "connected".

I'd like to see the patent on the "bridge" between the physical format and transmission media and the supernatural format and transmission media. Interesting technology that must be...

I don't think that they care much about the details of our conversation. To them it is enough to know that we are having a conversation as professed atheist who, at least from their point of view, have failed to complete the race for one reason or another.

Those who arrived there are many but let me introduce James Joyce to you and how he described his last words before he got there.

Just go to the last line of his "Portrait" and read: "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." These words should remind you of the words Jesus spoke when he said "Father into your hands I commit my spirit."

Then if you flip back a page or two you can see his count down to day 37 when he spoke these words and that was on April 27 to show that for him new life would begin on May 1 (which to us flat-landers is when new life begins).

Really, though, one must begin to read this novel at page 1 to see all the foreshadows that lead to this event.

There is more, and there are many more like that. The problem is that when we talk about saints in heaven you immediately look up because that is where you think heaven is at.

Did I already say that there are many more like him? My point here is that if you do not recognize a saint in the above how would you recognize one if you saw one?

[Brother Daniel]

There are no saints.
There is no heaven.

What more do you need to know?
I think it's fairly clear that angela2 was asking for Chili's opinion.

Stomping on the theists with dogmatic statements like these is not helpful. To anyone. :rolleyes:

[Chili]

I think it's fairly clear that angela2 was asking for Chili's opinion.

Stomping on the theists with dogmatic statements like these is not helpful. To anyone. :rolleyes:

But that's OK, I am a good sport and happy to be here.

[Chili]

"Mystery" is the word they use where other folks would say "contrdictory". Since God cannot contradict himself nor possibly be reduced to absurdity (reductio ad absurdum), "mystery" is their intellectual or psuedo-intellectual deus ex machina that saves faith / saves face.



There is no such thing as a mystery in heaven where all is made clear. Don't forget here that they created the Christ passage and wrote the NT to support it.

[Chili]

Holy smoke mageth, I forgot to tell you that I think all Catholics are saints-in-becoming.