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Certainty of Belief in God

Certainty of Belief in God

jdrw
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/07/08 - 02:05 PM:	#1
Christiangoth wrote: Incidentally, and I'll stress first the fact that what I am about to state is logically inconsequential to the original argument of this thread, I actually do assert my belief in God with certainty. How can I possibly justify this? My belief is that God created logic. Thus He exists outside of logic (I use the past-tense to reflect God's constancy and position beyond time, but because of that same position beyond time any tense is somewhat inadequate). Existing outside of logic, He is not limited by it; He can do the logically impossible. This does not mean He always does, nor that creation itself is not organized in such a way as for logic to be generally useful in its conceptualization. However, in being able to do the logically impossible, He is certainly able to bestow an experience that provides absolute certainty of His existence, rather even than the very high degree of belief that would come from sight or sound. Whether God is “outside of logic” or not is entirely irrelevant. Your claims are not outside logic, and it is your claims that we can analyze and determine to be logical or not. Since certainty in its logical sense is possible only if the argument is tautological, and certainty in its logical sense is not possible in arguments about contingent reality, then your claim (in the logical certainty of your belief that God exists) is false. Your certainty about your belief can meaningfully indicate your emotional or psychological disposition toward your belief, but it cannot mean certainty in its logical sense. Thus, that your claim is false has nothing to do with the subject of your claim (God), nor with his alleged attibutes (outside of logic). Rather, the falsity of your claim lies in the fact that it is not in the category of claims about which it is possible to be certain in the logical sense of certain. (Just as you've correctly noted that the falsity of an atheist’s claim to be certain that God does not exist in the logical sense of certain lies in the fact that such a claim is not in the category of claims about which it is possible to be certain in the logical sense of certain.) (Christiangoth, if you think this is too much of a tangent to the main thrust of your thread, just let me know, and I’ll break it off into it’s own thread.) Cheers. jd EDIT: This thread was split from the thread "The Impossibility of Proving the Existence of God by Evidence" Edited by jdrw on 05/07/08 - 07:55 PM
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

quickly
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Posted 05/07/08 - 08:46 PM:	#2
He is certainly able to bestow an experience that provides absolute certainty of His existence, rather even than the very high degree of belief that would come from sight or sound. I'm not sure I understand this. If all experience is sensory experience, or similarly one could say semiotic experience - implying the empirical possibility of being indicated, pointed to, gestured at, or signified, how can supernatural realities manifest experiences which are supersensual? Experience is by definition linguistic, or language implies the possiblity of describing all empirical contents of experience, i.e., all of experience. How does God allow one to experience nonexperience? You [christiangoth] seem to be implying that you can discuss levels of reality which are hyperlinguistic, but retain language while doing so, which is what jdrw pointed out. If you are, you want to be talking ideogrammatically or symbolically, but even then, your claims and experiences are designated. And have the possibilty of possible designation. But at least then you aren't submitting notions and intuitions to the circular claim that they are and are not experienced, since the ideogram designates only part of experience, indicates another existence, or is semiotic in the sense that it's object is always "absent," or always subject to the interpreter. But then you aren't talking sense, again, you're talking non-sense, if nonsense such as non-sense is possible to talk about. It's the same paradox you have when discussing levels of reality, ontologically, for instance, with axis mundi. If the mountain, the tree, the shaman's tent, or any other passageway, is construed according to specific geometrical rules (the compass rose, intersections of the cosmos), but also according to ontological rules (as the omphalos, the world's navel, for instance), you are discussing the symbol in terms of sense. All reference back to sensory experience, and higher or lower ontological realities are construed through mythic, social, and existential discursive practice, in order to make intelligible the notions of non-sense, or of sense beyond sense, hypersense - that is, beyond the ontological, beyond the semiotic/linguistic. Edited by quickly on 05/07/08 - 09:01 PM
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

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Posted 05/08/08 - 12:09 AM:	#3
Yes, that certainty that Jd pointed out, that was what Wittgenstein said about many of things we say we are certain of. It amounts to conviction. Christiangoth's post is conviction of his belief, but not the certainty that necessity requires.
_____________________ So, you've finally figured out how reality works. Have a glass of muriatic acid, everyone.

Christiangoth
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0 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/08/08 - 01:58 AM:	#4
Allow me to address all of the comments broadly by simply explaining what I wrote: My belief pertaining to God is that He is omnipotent. This is true according to the literal definition of the word, "all-powerful." He can do literally anything. He has arranged reality as we know it to be ordered after logic. One of the consequences that comes out of this ordering is that we find that we can not be literally certain, that is, have truly 100% confidence, in anything at all. However, if God can do anything than God can bestow a genuine certainty, even in opposition to everything that is known about logic and the limitations that are consequences of it. Such a certainty would exist in defiance of issues regarding the limitations of certainty pertaining to one's mechanisms for evaluating reality, such as sensation or thought. This certainty would simply be, if it was so granted. quickly asks "how can supernatural realities manifest experiences which are supersensual?" Putting aside for a moment the possibility that there exists a supernatural sense that is not normally ever used which is infallible and which is manifest in such a way so as to be rightly 100% confidence inspiring (the idea that it never errs and we lack the option to disbelieve it), and also putting aside the important assumption that logic actually works, which assumption I know no way to prove, the key issue in God's omnipotence, if such omnipotence exists as I believe, is that omnipotence requires no how. Actions performed by genuine omnipotence are able to simply bypass mechanisms for accomplishing their ends and skip right to those ends. This is because if omnipotence really is associated with the ability to do anything, then it need not be conceived only the power of achieving a specific end, but also of specifying how that end comes to be, and one such specification could be by no means at all. Now I understand that such a definition of omnipotence is not generally considered a boon to philosophy. If God can do anything and totally ignore everything we know about both logic and its consequences, then the whole school of philosophy seems bust. Not so, as I do not believe that God's omnipotence is manifest in His direct action regarding most things we examine. I believe He created logic, and that He did so for a reason, to let it work! Regardless, an important issue is that the fact that I believe in a God with such omnipotence does not force me to resort to claims of "God did it" whenever a logical question arises; healthy debate can still be held with me while I hold the claim. For me, the idea of a God limited by anything, even what humans can conceive by logic or reason, seems like no God at all. If logic was, to use a Christian theological term which goes beyond the temporal meaning it may sound like it implies, coeternal with God, then issues of where logic came from arise, as does the question of whether or not God is truly God of all. A God that is God of all is not coeternal with logic, and thus has a mastery of it which allows actions we can not conceive. In Christ, ~~Christiangoth P.S. If the idea of omnipotence is confusing or frustrating then blame jdrw for starting the thread. I'm j/k.

quickly
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Posted 05/08/08 - 02:29 AM:	#5
One of the consequences that comes out of this ordering is that we find that we can not be literally certain, that is, have truly 100% confidence, in anything at all. However, if God can do anything than God can bestow a genuine certainty, even in opposition to everything that is known about logic and the limitations that are consequences of it. I don't see how construing (together) finite subjectivity and semiotic-ontological indeterminancy is anything but a tautology. Essentially you're just saying that God is all powerful and has the ability to supervene in reality, since God is unconstrained by the laws of his created reality. Now, what I have absolutely no idea about is your claim that "certainty would exist in defiance of issues regarding the limitations of certainty pertaining to one's mechanisms for evaluating reality, such as sensation or thought." It makes no sense, although given your assumptions it fits into a comprehensible pattern of words. Sense is the baseline of experience, of all - of is - of being as it can possibly be known. I don't understand how you can hold these two propositions: "Experience constitutes all possible knowable things." "A possible unknowable thing can be given to experience." So my questions are: what is a supernatural sense? Why is it repressed, underused, lax, or however you want to construe it? Why does it provide no cognitive content, but only reassures already-constituted thoughts? Why does this sense not permit our disbelief? Actions performed by genuine omnipotence are able to simply bypass mechanisms for accomplishing their ends and skip right to those ends. This is because if omnipotence really is associated with the ability to do anything, then it need not be conceived only the power of achieving a specific end, but also of specifying how that end comes to be, and one such specification could be by no means at all. So you're saying that reality can be modified without reality being modified by any of the possible ways in which reality could be modified?
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

jdrw
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/08/08 - 10:12 AM:	#6
Christiangoth wrote: Allow me to address all of the comments broadly by simply explaining what I wrote: My belief pertaining to God is that He is omnipotent. This is true according to the literal definition of the word, "all-powerful." He can do literally anything. He has arranged reality as we know it to be ordered after logic. One of the consequences that comes out of this ordering is that we find that we can not be literally certain, that is, have truly 100% confidence, in anything at all. However, if God can do anything than God can bestow a genuine certainty, even in opposition to everything that is known about logic and the limitations that are consequences of it. Such a certainty would exist in defiance of issues regarding the limitations of certainty pertaining to one's mechanisms for evaluating reality, such as sensation or thought. This certainty would simply be, if it was so granted. Your so-called God-generated “genuine certainty” can mean whatever you stipulate it to mean—except that it cannot mean what we mean by “logical certainty” unless you can demonstrate that it follows the rules of logic by which we define what “logical certainty” means. You cannot violate the rules of logic that define what “logical certainty” means and then insist that your claim nonetheless really is logically certain because it’s a God-generated “genuine certainty.” Your “genuine certainty” either meets the definition of “logical certainty” or it doesn’t. Unless you can demonstrate that “genuine certainty” includes what we mean by “logical certainty” your claim that your belief in God is certain-in-the-sense-of-genuine-certainty is an entirely different claim than the claim that your belief in God is certain-in-the-sense-of-logical-certainty. All you’ve managed to do is to equivocate on the meaning of “certainty” by redefining it to mean something other than what we mean by “logical certainty.” Your argument then reduces to this: I believe that God exists. I am certain about my belief that God exists. My certainty about my belief that God exists is a genuine certainty supernaturally created in me by God. Supernatural genuine certainty trumps logical certainty. Therefore God exists. Which is mind-bogglingly inane. quickly asks "how can supernatural realities manifest experiences which are supersensual?" Putting aside for a moment the possibility that there exists a supernatural sense that is not normally ever used which is infallible and which is manifest in such a way so as to be rightly 100% confidence inspiring (the idea that it never errs and we lack the option to disbelieve it), and also putting aside the important assumption that logic actually works, which assumption I know no way to prove, the key issue in God's omnipotence, if such omnipotence exists as I believe, is that omnipotence requires no how. Actions performed by genuine omnipotence are able to simply bypass mechanisms for accomplishing their ends and skip right to those ends. This is because if omnipotence really is associated with the ability to do anything, then it need not be conceived only the power of achieving a specific end, but also of specifying how that end comes to be, and one such specification could be by no means at all. You can “bypass mechanisms” all you want, but you cannot bypass what a concept means and then claim that you’ve met the definition of that concept. You can stipulate whatever definition for “genuine certainty” you’d like, but you cannot also claim that “genuine certainty” includes what we mean by “logical certainty” unless you can show that the definition of “logical certainty” has been met. Your so-called supernaturally bestowed genuine certainty is merely another unsupported claim. In order for anyone to count it as evidence corroborating your original claim that God exists, you’d need to provide compelling logical argument (or God forbid actual empirical evidence) that “genuine certainty” actually is a supernatural gift from God. As I said before, such certainty seems to mean an emotional or psychological disposition toward your claim—rather than what we mean by “logical certainty.” Or, if you prefer, a supernatural or spiritual disposition toward your claim—rather than what we mean by “logical certainty.” In any case this so-called “genuine certainty” is not “logical certainty.” Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

WW_III_ANGRY
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Posted 05/08/08 - 10:29 AM:	#7
Ever been certain and wrong? I think we all have.

jdrw
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/08/08 - 01:15 PM:	#8
Christiangoth wrote: For me, the idea of a God limited by anything, even what humans can conceive by logic or reason, seems like no God at all. If logic was, to use a Christian theological term which goes beyond the temporal meaning it may sound like it implies, coeternal with God, then issues of where logic came from arise, as does the question of whether or not God is truly God of all. A God that is God of all is not coeternal with logic, and thus has a mastery of it which allows actions we can not conceive. The point is not about whether or not God is limited by logic, the point is that you (and I and everyone else) are limited to logic. Which means that anything that we claim to be the case is intelligible only if it is conceivable within the constraints of logic. Any claim that violates the constraints of logic is literally unintelligible, devoid of actual cognitive meaning. We cannot possibly understand what such a claim even means. Such claims are mere strings of words with no actual cognitive meaning. Therefore whether or not God himself is beyond logic is entirely irrelevant, because your claims about God are not. Not only that, but even your concepts about God are limited by logic, because you literally cannot conceive of something that violates the laws of logic (such as self-contradiction.) You can say the words, but you cannot form the actual concepts, because to conceive means to conceive within the constraints of logic. Even your claim that “God is beyond logic” is just words, because you cannot possibly conceive of what it even means to be beyond logic. To be beyond logic would mean that A and ~A are the case at the same time and in the same sense. You can say those words, but you cannot possibly conceive of what it would mean for something to be and not be at the same time and in the same sense. You cannot possibly conceive of what it would mean for something to be itself and not be itself at the same time and in the same sense. Thus, you cannot defend the illogic of your claims and arguments by insisting that they’re about a being who is not constrained by logic. The alleged attributes of that being are irrelevant. What are relevant are your claims, and these can be logically analyzed and evaluated. Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

itry2brational
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Posted 05/11/08 - 08:40 PM:	#9
I think I get it. I made an image to represent what I think jdrw's and quickly's points are. Does this image make sense for what you are explaining? If God exists outside of time, space, and even logic and reason then there is no way to know anything about God. It would be like contemplating non-existence? Or like contemplating what lies north of the north pole? But this is only if we are to take christiangoth's explanation or description of God. Let me know if its a reasonable representation of what you guys are saying.

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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/11/08 - 11:45 PM:	#10
itry2brational wrote: If God exists outside of time, space, and even logic and reason then there is no way to know anything about God. It would be like contemplating non-existence? Or like contemplating what lies north of the north pole?
_____________________ If faith is irrational, then it is rational to dismiss "faith-based claims" out of hand. If faith is rational, then "faith-based claims" must be testable and/or sufficient -- but they are neither. If faith is a-rational, then "faith-based claims" are inexplicable and thus cannot explain anything.

Bambi
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Posted 05/13/08 - 01:28 PM:	#11
But isn't faith just that, certainty without proof?

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Posted 05/13/08 - 02:17 PM:	#12
Bambi wrote: But isn't faith just that, certainty without proof? Yes. It's an assertion without truth-conditions (e.g. fantasy, hallucination, feeling sexy, etc). Or "faith" is merely tautological (e.g. "I believe in god because I believe in god" ...)
_____________________ If faith is irrational, then it is rational to dismiss "faith-based claims" out of hand. If faith is rational, then "faith-based claims" must be testable and/or sufficient -- but they are neither. If faith is a-rational, then "faith-based claims" are inexplicable and thus cannot explain anything.

Bambi
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Posted 05/14/08 - 03:36 PM:	#13
Ok, so this has been bothering me for some time. How can there be a philosophy (a knowledge based, rational, or at least semi-rational, practice) or religion (a faith based practice). Aren't the two completely irreconcilable?

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Posted 05/14/08 - 09:32 PM:	#14
Bambi wrote: Ok, so this has been bothering me for some time. How can there be a philosophy (a knowledge based, rational, or at least semi-rational, practice) or religion (a faith based practice). Aren't the two completely irreconcilable? Such suggestions are often greeted with the label "intolerant". I tend to agree that for the most part, the epistemological practices of religious belief are prima facia irrational. The realization of that was one of the major epiphanies what turned me from an agnostic or apathetic non-believer to a (hopefully reasonable) vocal atheist.
_____________________ Vivian Jaffe: Have you ever transcended space and time? Albert Markovski: Yes... No... Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about. I Heart Huckabees (2004)

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