The author states:
If there is something, however, which can be identified as not being logical yet cannot be
identified as being illogical, then it likely transcends logic.
Throughout the entire article he asserts that the "sublime", or the limit of human reason, somehow transcends logic. yet he never proves this, and still maintains that, it is not in fact, illogical.
Logic is binary. If something cannot be proven to be illogical, then it is logical.
And he rejects Aquinas, which of course he must do in order to make such an absurd claim. Grace does complete nature.
calvinist wrote:
You're points about musical notes and mathematical symbols being "words" are exactly right. And I commend you for that insight, but you're assuming that when I write music I'm thinking in musical notes. I don't. I visualize the music in my mind, usually as textures and colors. I visualize it in my mind as various relationships and levels of tension. Words or any symbol are really inadequate to describe it. Much of my music is never put into standard notation. I record it myself and usually don't notate it. If I do notate it, it's a secondary task and I actually have to sit down and spend a lot of time figuring out which symbols are required to notate it. My point is that music notation is not music, it's just a convention for expressing music to others and for preserving ideas in a written form. When I look at a sheet of music, I don't know what the music sounds like just by looking at the sheet music. The symbols don't indicate the music to me, they just indicate the particular notes that I need to play. There isn't a direct correlation between music notation and music as there is in spoken language where we hear a word and instantly associate it with the idea. In music it takes years of practice to acquire that skill, which proves that the symbols are entirely secondary, and they are totally unnecessary for writing music. There are many people that write music and can't read music notation and don't even know the names of the notes.
First of all, no arrangement of audio frequencies in a particular cadence can convey truth. Mathematical symbols can. 1+1=2 is true. A chord progression such as C#m A B E, reveals nothing about the world or the nature of reality. In this way, Math is more like a language than music. Music might evoke certain emotions, but they are subjective to the listeners senses and memories, and not universal. Not everyone enjoys or appreciates Jazz for instance. Mathematic equations are universal. Musical notes are indeed a convention for replicating musical compositions, but they are linguistic only in an aesthetic sense.
calvinist wrote:
As far as the Trinity is concerned, let me clarify my position. Your analogies are helpful and interesting. My point is that there is nothing in reality like the Trinity. It's not like water. Water can be in three forms, but the Trinity is not one God in three forms/modes, that was declared a heresy by the early church, it was called "Sabellianism." Also, one molecule of water can only be in one form at one time. All of the analogies used to illustrate the Trinity are of one of two kinds: part/whole or aspect/whole. The persons of the Trinity are not parts of a whole God, and they are not modes/aspects/ways of being( (liquid/gas/solid)/perspectives of the one God. The doctrine teaches that Jesus Christ is God, period. Not that he is just a person of God, or that he's a mode of God, but that he is God. Jesus is God, and another one is God, the Holy Spirit, and another one is God, the Father. There are three that are God, and there is one God. Not just three persons that add up to one God, but three that are God, and yet one God. I believe we should just leave it at that and not try to "prove" it by analogies.
Analogies do not "prove", they point. I am simply, again stating that there is nothing illogical about the doctrine of the Trinity. Also, one molecule of H2O is, I suppose, always a solid. Yet, we could also say that a glacier is solid, and ocean water is solid that flows through our hand, and fog is solid because under a microscope it is in fact a dispersion of very tiny solid water droplets.
The Trinity does not state God is one being, and three beings. . .that is illogical. It states that God is one being, shared by three persons. 3 in 1, not that 3 & 1 are the same number. Distinct but not separate. There are many things in the physical world that correspond to that by way of analogy.
calvinist wrote:
I find it hard to believe that you really think that a person with an identity disorder has multiple human souls inside one body. So God creates say 4 or 5 humans souls and binds them into one body? So the person is really not a person, but a people. I'm one person and have many identities. I play different roles depending upon the genre of music I'm working with and even my voice/accent/style/personality changes to fit the music. There's only one soul in this body though. I think some of your views are a little mixed up, but then again, who am I to say?
I don't. You are equating the soul with the personality, and I do not. One soul can have more than one persona. The soul is the breath of God, the essence of life within a human being.
calvinist wrote:
The LNC is a useful tool, but it can be very deceptive at the same time. "
Something cannot be both A and not-A." At one time I thought I could solve all the riddles of reality with this little tool... I've matured. The problem is that reality is hardly ever in such clearly delineated pieces. Things overlap, they intertwine. The world we live in isn't a collection of disparate pieces, rather all things are connected to other things through various relations which can make the LNC not as easy to use as it might seem at first glance. The LNC is useful in something like this: Either Jesus is God or he isn't. It works here because the terms
Jesus and
God have infinitely narrow definitions here. By Jesus is meant only one man, Jesus of Nazareth, and by God is meant only the God of Christianity, not just any "god". But check this out: A Ford Explorer is either a car or it isn't. In this case we have quite a dilemma. It all depends on how precisely we define the term "car". But relegating the word "car" to some technical description is unnatural. Probably half of native English speakers would gladly call it a "car". Others may say it's a "truck" and not a "car". Others may say it's a "truck", but also a "car", and so forth. Many logical arguments reduce to this type of thing. In the end we don't really learn anything about reality, rather we just learn precisely what the author means by his 'terms'. If we define a car as something different from a truck, and then we define an SUV as a type of truck, and then we define a Ford Explorer as an SUV, well then of course a Ford Explorer can't be a car. But all we did is build our own complex system of definitions that leads to the result. It's a form of circular reasoning. We could just as easily say that a choge is different from a blunkat, and then define a wukabid as a type of blunkat, and then define a Ford Explorer as a wukabid, and of course then a Ford Explorer can't be a choge. It has nothing to do with reality, it's just semantics. That's the problem with the LNC. Furthermore, I don't know why we should use Greek philosophy, or any philosophy for that matter, to inform our interpretation of the bible. (The LNC comes from Aristotle)
Oh, also, Kierkegaard is an example of both a philosopher and theologian who embraced contradiction. His book
The Sickness unto Death is an amazingly brilliant examination of the fallen nature of man. It was a life-changing read for me.
All trucks, cars, bicycles, skateboards, etc. . . are modes of transportation. Just because language is fuzzy does not mean we cannot speak truth. If we carefully define our words, logic works every time. Lets go back to the water example. I will throw out three words: rain, fog, mist. When I typed those you thought of what they mean and have a mental image of the difference. Scientifically, the difference is irrelevant. Because in fact they are only describing different sizes of water droplets. There is just no poetry in looking out the window and saying, "Wow, the dispersion of water droplets in the air today is very expansive and thin." Logically, we could say rain is not mist. We can also say, rain and mist are the same in essence but different in form. This is what the Father, Son, and Spirit are, the same in substance, but different in subsistence.
You should know that I hold Aristotle to be the greatest philosopher, and Aquinas to be the greatest theologian.
This is why the rabbit hole will never end between you and I brother. I fundamentally reject the thinking of the Enlightenment and everything after.
I just do not think it is fair for anyone reading this thread to think that Christianity is an irrational faith.
If the Bible is true, God communicated that truth it in a way creatures can understand, and therefore be able to receive eternal life. In fact, He became incarnate in order to explain it better than He did through inspired prophets in the past. And He died to show us how to live.
Grace and Peace.