Language Event, Narrative Structure and God

July 29, 2010 3 Comments

The movement upward in this consideration as presented is fractal-esque

By: Jay 

I propose a modified form of the transcendental argument for God’s existence. Not that it’s different, but it’s an aspect to the argument I’ve never seen previous proponents take. It occurred to me while reading Alisdair MacIntyre and while considering some of what Husserl and Karl Otto Appel have said. But of course, debates get old. They get old as I get old, maybe. Anyway, the subject matter itself is still worthy of reflection, even if one chooses not to engage in debate. Didn’t debate used to be a respected art? yes. But in our INGSOC modernity, questioning is itself suspect. But to the point. 

MacIntyre points out that there is a kind of narrative structure for any meaningful conversation to take place. He makes a convincing case in his piece mentioned above. It occurred to me that for the localized instance of conversation to make sense, though, there has to be a larger narrative structure within which the localized conversation takes place. MacIntyre’s The Virtues, The Unity of a Human Life and the Concept of a Tradition gives an example along the lines of approaching someone gardening. To say a nonsense statement like “flight of the condor eats cheese wings perpetually,” has no meaning. In fact, to say even a meaningful phrase assumes some sort of context, such as, “how is the gardening coming?” or something of that nature. So why is it that we do one and not the other? Deconstructionists, relativists, nihilists, and so on, can say that it’s just utilitarian and social convention that has caused to use certain sounds in a certain way to stand for certain things, and that we evolved this way, blah blah blah. 

But this kind of simple, mundane interaction doesn’t just show a kind of appropriateness to the content of what can be said, it also evidences a narrative structure. For example, generally, such a conversation would have a greeting, middle, and climax. Granted not always per se, but even a passing hello, has a kind of narrative structure to it, with an intended meaning that one party has, that the other party receives and many or may not acknowledge. Again, the intentions obviously vary as well as the received meanings and responses, but none of this changes the loosely narrative structure of such interactions. Read more of this post

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The Failure of the One & Many Argument of Van Til

July 22, 2010 8 Comments

By: Jay

The so-called argument from the one and the many is a hallmark aspect of classical Van Tillian apologetics. Having studied this school for the last ten years, I am very acquainted with its methodology and published works. However, once one moves into patristics and Catholic and Orthodox theology, and then into other religious philosophies, the argument as constructed in writers like Van Til, Rushdoony and Bahnsen no longer works. This is not to say, however, that the argument has no relevance: on the contrary, in my estimation, it still retains its strength as a powerful signpost pointing to the Personal God of the Bible. However, I don’t think it proves the Trinity. 

There are two reasons the one and many argument doesn’t to prove the Trinity. For one, Van Til wasn’t the first to reason in this regard: many earlier Christian thinkers and church fathers had argued along similar lines, such as Origen, Irenaeus, Basil and the Cappadocian, Maximus the Confessor, and others even in other religions, as we see in the Coomaraswamy article on Vedic Exemplarism. What is interesting in Maximus though, is that from the created one and many we experience, it does not prove or point to a single divine ousia and three Persons, but rather a single rational Principle of God – the Logos, the second Person of the Trinity, in whom all the many logoi, or rational principles/meanings of things are united. So for Maximus, drawing on Origen, the many logoi are one in the one Logos of God. This argument arose historically in the context of Hellenic Christianity borrowing the Logos idea, and was transformed into an argument for the necessity of creation through the Logos. In other words, the one and many argument is an argument centered in divine exemplarism. Read more of this post

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There is No Such Thing as Calvinism

June 5, 2010 1 Comment

John Calvin's Beautiful (Purported) Grave

(Back by popular demand. -Jay  ;)

By M. B.

One thing that amazes me when I read Reformed people’s arguments against Rome is not so much what they say about us, but the gall and arrogance they have to even say anything at all.

The funny thing about the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate is that there is no such thing. What? That’s right. Calvinism does not exist, at least not any more than the Ku Klux Klan does. Oh sure, there are still several groups that run around in rural communities in the South, calling themselves everything from “The Traditional Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” to the “International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan”. But everyone knows what Nathan Bedford Forrest started over a century ago after the War Between the States has long since disbanded, only be revitalized by kooks, losers, and provocateurs trying to keep the torch aflame every other decade or so. And the ironic thing is that they’re trying to revitalize some thing that, any student of history knows, would not be blessed by the men who first established it to fight Yankees and carpetbaggers.

And it’s the same with Calvinism, with its “Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly” and “Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States ”. These amounts to little more than malcontent American whites trying to revamp a failed experiment, some thing that has long since been swept away into the dustbin of history. Read more of this post

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MP3 – Review of Benedict’s “Introduction to Christianity” (4 pts.)

April 12, 2010 2 Comments

In this second episode, I review Benedict XVI’s scholarly Introduction to Christianity and elucidate it’s Eastern emphasis, as well as the influence of Maximus the Confessor and the Logos/logoi exemplarism, Greek philosophy and Hellenism, epistemology and problems in Thomism, as well as Benedict’s refutation of the Anselmian (and by extension, classical Protestant) view of the Atonement via Cur Deus Homo.

Read more of this post

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St. Maximus, Van Til, Aquinas, & Logos/logoi

April 10, 2010 Leave a comment

By: Jay Dyer

I’m posting this because the St. Maximus section is often referred to (and it’s all St. Maximus anyway). The western corollary to the Logos/logoi is “divine exemplarism.” Both are rooted in neo-platonism. The crucial difference between east and west on this point is that the East does not stick the archetypes/logoi in God’s essence, which is absurd. They are “idea” operations of God we are told, not His essence. Aquinas’ doctrine of saying they are in God’s essence leads logically to his emanationism. Do cheeseburgers really have an archetype in God’s essence? Of course not. Does God know every fact about cheeseburgers from all eternity? Of course. Furthermore, if Thomistic ADS is true, then how are all these archetypes distinguished in God’s essence? They cannot be. Is the archetype for Plato really the same as the archetype for cheeseburgers? No, and they are not in God’s essence. And by the way, if Aquinas distinguished nature and person, he wouldn’t stick the archetypes in God’s essence, which he says must be done because of ADS.

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[As Cornelius Van Til made his few steps up the mountain of God and stopped to soothe the blisters in his Dutch wooden shoes, he surveyed the scene below. Exhausted, he slumped over to fellow beginner Rushdoony. Resting on Rushdoony's cane, he perchance peered up, beyond the fog and foliage, and there, atop the highest crags, he spotted St. Maximus the Confessor staring down at him. Van Tillians, ponder ye these mysteries. -Jay] Read more of this post

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Why the Solipsist/Matrix/Maya/Cogito Claim of “Dudes” Doesn’t Work

April 6, 2010 Leave a comment

By: Jay Dyer

We’ve all heard the nerds say it – “Dude, what if like, all of this was a dream,” or, “Man, what if like, we’re in the Matrix man?” Such has been the whim and fantasy of stoners and dudes for years, all the way back to Descartes’ speculations, as well as Berkeley and even ol Augustine himself in the Soliloquies (and Berkeley ripped this off of Augustine).

But this doesn’t work at all, is self-refuting, and destructive to the possibility of knowledge whatsoever. For example, a friend claimed:

“Perhaps the matrix is real, perhaps the evil demon hypothesis is correct. You can still be certain of at least one thing, that experience is happening. Consciousness is always a given. You can found a whole kingdom of knowledge upon it. Plus, the world outside doesn’t have have absolute existence whether it’s a hologram or a physical universe.” Read more of this post

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