Discussion: somewhat theological

[liv]

I was just remarking to neonchameleon that one of the good things about lj is that people respect threading a lot more than in many other web forums. So in keeping with this, I feel I should repost this discussion of a vaguely theological bent as a new entry. It's too interesting to be left languishing in a thread that's supposed to be about a book about town planning.

I said:

I have very little time myself for the 'god of gaps' version of religion: we'll inoke a deity when our science / philosophy isn't good enough to explain something. Ugh.

Can you please stop being tempted to quote things and actually quote some of them already? This is getting far too tantalizing!

Anyway, Karen Armstrong on the same subject:

"We can learn that God does not exist in any simplistic sense... or that the very word "God" is only a symbol of a reality that ineffably transcends it. The mystical agnosticism could help us."

(A History of God, 1993)

I don't like ineffably transcends very much, but I like what she's getting at.

rysmiel replied:

The thing I dislike about this value of deity is how easily it slips into declaring certain things unknowable, the province only of deity, and how easily that in turn slips into a way of slapping down uppity types who want to explore those limits. [ "Eppuor si muove" ] Believing in a God that exists in spaces above and beyond the scope of humaworn reason doesn't work for me becuase it seems excessively early to say human reason's hit such limits.

I think this is interesting enough to be worthy of its own thread.

Comments

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

and how easily that in turn slips into a way of slapping down uppity types who want to explore those limits

I think you confuse means and ends. Slapping down uppity types will happen and is almost impossible to stop under any system- and having such a safeguard there can help prevent you running up blind alleys.

Also pretty much any definition of God I'm familliar with (there are a couple of exceptions) has as one of the definitions of God that God must be of higher order and hence higher complexity than any given human, and therefore can not be completely known to any individual. That does not ipso facto make a question invalid- part of the purpose of questioning is (under such a system) to find out which parts of God one can understand.

Francis

[shreena.livejournal.com]

"God must be of higher order and hence higher complexity"

Rubbish! If you look at the Platonist tradition, throught the pagan neo-Platonists right through to Augustine, Aquinas and that whole direction of Catholic thought, the common thread is that God is simple not complex. He's The One, He's the unifying factor in the universe, all complexity is produced by the human mind.

[liv]

Ooh, look, a real live philosopher posting in my lj! Thanks Shreena, that's a really good point, and interesting. I appreciate your sharing specialist knowledge.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

*grin* I'm getting overexcited by neo-Platonism again.

[liv]

Now, that's not a sentence one hears very often :-) I am definitely starting to see why neo-Platonism is worthy of excitement, though!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I think you confuse means and ends.

Didn't intend to suggest that this was the utmost end of the previous positions; merely that things have happened this way in history betimes.

Slapping down uppity types will happen and is almost impossible to stop under any system- and having such a safeguard there can help prevent you running up blind alleys.

Yes, but are you suggesting that for scientific inquiry to run up blind alleys is a bad thing ?

Also pretty much any definition of God I'm familliar with (there are a couple of exceptions) has as one of the definitions of God that God must be of higher order and hence higher complexity than any given human, and therefore can not be completely known to any individual.

My problem with this definition boils down to not accepting "cannot be completely known by any individual now" as equal to "cannot ever be known by any individual". [ Yep, in Catholic terms, that's a sin of pride. ]

[shreena.livejournal.com]

Does not the last bit of that depend on what you mean by "individual" and "ever". Most Catholic theology in the Thomist tradition claims that the human (body + soul) can't know God completely, but the soul (not fully human because sans body) can do so. Does the lone soul count as an "individual"? If so, you're fully consistent with Catholicism and not committing the sin of pride.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I had not actually been thinking in precisely those terms. I'm not a believer in the soul in the traditional sense - though I lean towards sentience-is-software, rapture-of-the-nerds singularitarianism. Or in other words, if humanity as a species is going to be around in the physical universe long-term [ for values of "long-term" meaning in excess of a mean species lifespan of two million years ] I don't think we'll do it by remaining stuck in bodies akin to those we have now. I'm most of the way through a novel of which this is a significant element, so I'm not minded to rant at length on it here now.

It is my position that increasing understanding of the elements of the material universe will increase our understanding of areas currently unknown to humans and possibly considered known only to deity in the same way that, for example, the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of life has provided means for the application of reason to an area which could legitimately be construed in the Middle Ages as knowable only by God.

[ I am an ex-Catholic. Not lapsed, formally abjured, which is not an easy thing to do post-Vatican II. ]

[shreena.livejournal.com]

But surely you can hold onto the idea of progress towards greater understanding of the universe and to the sphere of knowledge often considered divine knowledge, without having to claim that people could attain complete knowledge of the divine at any point.

Look at it this way: either there is an end-point to human knowledge where it isn't possible to know any more or there isn't; if there is, we haven't hit it yet quite clearly, so we're still free to progress; if there isn't and we can have full understanding/knowledge of the divine, we couldn't ever know that we had such knowledge because anyone who attained such knowledge wouldn't be able to communicate/express it to anyone who didn't have that knowledge.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Look at it this way: either there is an end-point to human knowledge where it isn't possible to know any more or there isn't;

fair enough.

we couldn't ever know that we had such knowledge because anyone who attained such knowledge wouldn't be able to communicate/express it to anyone who didn't have that knowledge.

I disagree, I think. I see no a priori reason why it is necessary that the inner mysteries of divinity should not be expressible in some simple form, once understood, that could be generally communicated.

[shreena.livejournal.com]

I think the a priori reason would run something like this: we use words to describe what we see in the world and what we can conceive also (imagination); no-one (excluding cranks) has claimed to be able to know and understand everything about God; therefore the words do not exist yet, and even if the hypothetical God-knower were to create words or try to use metaphors, because no-one would know what he was trying to talk about they wouldn't be able to understand him.

(on a side note, I'm really impressed that you formally abjured Catholicism. Go you!)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I think the a priori reason would run something like this: we use words to describe what we see in the world and what we can conceive also (imagination); no-one (excluding cranks) has claimed to be able to know and understand everything about God; therefore the words do not exist yet,

That "yet" is, I think, the crux of my difference with this argument. I will accept that such words do not exist yet while holding it possible that they may exist in future; and that their comprehensibility, although it may be to us what our most sophisticated learning would be to a well-meaning individual from too many paradigm shifts back - say, Empedocles trying to understand quantum mechanics - will be to the people of the time something easily taught as newton or the Ten Commandments are taught now.

[liv]

I like this, it sounds like the kind of eschatology I'm familiar with. We can't know God now, but we can aim towards a greater understanding and one day we will not only comprehend God but be able to talk about it. It's a nice view, it manages to accept that God is Other, yet doesn't despair of human capacity.

I might say redemption (at least I might, if I could convince myself not to be embarrassed about using explicitly religious language in public) where you say paradigm shift, but I think we're quite possibly talking along the same lines. And we're both I think drawn to a model where the impetus comes as much 'from below' as 'from above' (is it just me that reckons I could get away with mapping those concepts on to 'bottom up' and 'top down'?) Anyway something humans strive for, rather than giving up and saying, oh well, God is too far above me anyway, there's no point doing more than waiting passively for greater understanding.

Woah, eschatology. I don't do eschatology. I'd better shut up before I dig myself into a hole.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I do actually have a project in planning which contains the exchange:

"I'm with the Department of Eschatology."
"Oh, cool. Pure or applied ?"

[liv]

I am an ex-Catholic. Not lapsed, formally abjured
I hate to admit it, but I am... shocked by this statement.

Am I right in thinking that this means that you took vows (possibly at an age when you were too young to know what you were agreeing to), and then you publicly and formally declared that you weren't going to abide by said vows, and the Catholic church has a set procedure to handle this situation? That's the first interpretation that comes to mind, but I'm just doing, no, surely, that can't be, surely I must have misunderstood something!

If this is something that you're heartily sick of explaining (or otherwise don't want to discuss), then fair enough. (Knowing you it's possibly more likely that you've already explained this somewhere public that you could point me to.) But otherwise I'd really appreciate either hearing that I'm completely barking up the wrong tree, or else that I shouldn't find this as shocking as I do.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Am I right in thinking that this means that you took vows (possibly at an age when you were too young to know what you were agreeing to), and then you publicly and formally declared that you weren't going to abide by said vows, and the Catholic church has a set procedure to handle this situation? That's the first interpretation that comes to mind, but I'm just doing, no, surely, that can't be, surely I must have misunderstood something!

Nope, you have understood it correctly. It takes some digging to find the rite and someone willing to perform it, and I believe it has been deprecated since the Second Vatican Council and might not have been something the priest who performed it with me was technically supposed to do, but I did have it done. For me it's a respect and honesty issue; I will not be in a position where I can be claimed as belonging to something with which I am not in full agreement.

[liv]

Nope, you have understood it correctly
OK. Wow. I agree with shreena that this is somewhat impressive. How did you think of doing such a thing? (Friend of mine from Oxford managed to get himself declared a notorious heretic by the Catholic Church, which also strikes me as rather brilliant.)

For me it's a respect and honesty issue
Yes, I can see how a matter of living your life honestly might become more important than whether you've pronounced the magic words 'I vow'. I think what surprises me is that the set-up is such that this situation can arise.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I can see how a matter of living your life honestly might become more important than whether you've pronounced the magic words 'I vow'.

It is certainly more important to me than vows made at age eleven, IIRC, at which point I do not think I had near enough understanding to be making such commitments.

[liv]

I think that's the kind of thing that's bothering me about the whole set-up. What kind of an idea is it to allow children to make vows, while explicitly acknowledging (by having a ceremony to provide for this) that they're at least somewhat likely to need to break them later on? It doesn't exactly instill either children or adults with the sort of serious respect for vows that to me seems pretty fundamental to the running of society, let alone as a religious principle.

When I said I was shocked, I didn't mean that I was shocked by your going through a rite of abjuration. Indeed, (as far as I can say this without being interpreted as ridiculously patronizing, which isn't my intention) I have every admiration for such an action. I meant that I was disturbed by the concept of a religion which provides a rite so that people can abjure, let alone circumstances where they're likely to need such a rite.

[taimatsu]

Gosh. How do you formally abjure Catholicism? I may wish to do so at some point in the future.

[liv]

in Catholic terms, that's a sin of pride
I'm trying to think if we have any equivalent. But running through various Confessions in my head is probably not a good idea; I hadn't realized quite how conditioned I am to a certain emotional response to this kind of stuff.

We have 'haughtiness of eye' and 'stiffness of neck' and 'stubbornness' and 'deliberate perversity', which I think are all to do with pride or arrogance or putting oneself in some way above God. But I don't think any of those are quite what you're talking about.

If anything, regarding God as a thing understandable by reason is idolatry, not pride. The reason why this is frowned upon is not a slur against human reason, it's underlining the total otherness of God.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

We have 'haughtiness of eye' and 'stiffness of neck' and 'stubbornness' and 'deliberate perversity', which I think are all to do with pride or arrogance or putting oneself in some way above God. But I don't think any of those are quite what you're talking about.

I'm talking about that non serviam which is the sin of Lucifer, which is regarded [ by Catholicism, I do not believe this is the case among other Christian denominations ] as the worst sin.

[(Anonymous)]

As far as I know, there are procedures under which a vow can be annulled (I can't remember whether it needs a Beit Din or a rabbi). Not all vows are susceptible to annullment - it must have been, e.g. made on the basis of insufficient information.

A

[liv]

I think annulment is rather different from abjuration though. The former is essentially declaring that the vow was not valid in the first place. Quite possibly my reaction is similar to that of someone who might come across the whole Kol Nidrei concept out of context, I don't know.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Yes, but are you suggesting that for scientific inquiry to run up blind alleys is a bad thing ?

Not unless you are on a budget of some sort or another.

[liv]

Slapping down uppity types will happen and is almost impossible to stop under any system
I come from a (religious) background that generally favours uppity types rather than otherwise (I think I'm probably somewhat uppity myself). Religion as mind control does happen, but that doesn't at all make it either necessary or desirable.

I agree that religion in general, and careless use of mystery, ineffability, unknowability etc in particular, can be abused. But I think they can also lead to some good things, especially if one is aware of these potential pitfalls

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I agree that religion in general, and careless use of mystery, ineffability, unknowability etc in particular, can be abused. But I think they can also lead to some good things, especially if one is aware of these potential pitfalls

I am entirely with you on this; and my reactions have of course been shaped by the culture with which I grew up; I am, for example, a great deal more comfortable with the values of moving in mysterious ways associated with Wotan than with the God of the Peoples of the Book. [ Though, as Manannan says in The Broken Sword, I have no desire to get involved in the Aesir's cosmic chessgame. I must read that again actually. ]

[liv]

Mm. Very interesting point! (And look at the level of discussion you've triggered. This I appreciate.)

declaring certain things unknowable
That I think relates to my objection to Armstrong's use of ineffably; it's religious jargon, and what's worse is that its actual meaning is mystifying.

I think that saying God does not exist in any simplistic sense is (or at least can be) actually a different thing from saying God is unknowable. God is not an object like any other object; that, to me, opens up a whole set of more profound questions, rather than saying, shut up and don't ask questions!

it seems excessively early to say human reason's hit such limits
I have sympathy with a tendency to put great faith (that's not an accidental choice of word) in human capacity. The kind of mystical agnosticism that I understand Armstrong as talking about is perhaps about the human ability to go beyond reason (not: abandon reason and critical thought altogether) when it is appropriate.

Religion, regarded as a branch of science, is a pathetic thing. It's not surprising that any sensible person would prefer physics as a means of dealing with the universe. But if God is God Beyond, other than an object, other than a person (even a very powerful person), then religion (at its best) may be the very tool which does allow 'mere' humans to know God.

(And since we're being good about stating where we're coming from, I'm not any kind of mystic. Armstrong leaves me behind in that respect, but I still find her theoretically interesting.)