RE: God is not a cat in Schroedinger's box!

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Howard J. Van Till [mailto:hvantill@sbcglobal.net]
>Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 2:49 PM

>
>Glenn, please read my posts more carefully. Your specific point was that if
>two theological or philosophical theories were both internally consistent,
>then there was no other way to rank them in value. My response was
>to say, I
>disagree. I think the situation for theology or philosophy IS SIMILAR (not
>necessarily identical) to the situation in scientific theory evaluation.
>Internal consistency, whether in science, theology, or philosophy, is NOT
>the only available basis for comparison of theories.

Then explain how we determine via observation, whether God is Allah or
Jehovah? I know of no way to do that. Since both groups have their gods
saying different things (Christianity: This is my beloved son in whom I am
well pleased. Islam: Surah 4:171 "believe therefore in Allah and His
apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only
one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in
the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for
a Protector. "

These are mutually exclusive statements. Please tell us how you determine
the truth of one of these statements via observational data.

>
>The question that needs to be addressed, then, is what criteria have a good
>track record of being helpful in the arena of theology.

Illustrate it with the statements above. I don't see how in the world you
are going to do that.

>
>I think I understand your position very well, thank you. What I am
>trying to
>do is to get YOU to take ownership of it as a _human choice_.

Howard, a CHOICE, is not a PORTRAIT. At least not in any dictionary I have.
If by portrait you merely mean choice, then I have no problem with your
position. But portrait implies understanding or knowledge of what the
object of the portrait is. Do I and you chose to be Christians and my
cousin-in-law chose to be a shiite? Sure. But that doesn't that doesn't
mean that what we know about God (the portrait) is merely a human
construction.

 Nothing wrong
>with that. No need to deny it. You willingly do it in the arena of oil
>exploration and you persuade people to spend $15 million to drill a well on
>the basis of your human judgment.

That isn't the same at all. It shows that you haven't ever tried to get
millions of dollars out of an investor. It isn't my judgement they trust.
They trust THEIR judgment. When I sell a deal, I have to convince the
investor that my observational facts are correct, that I have mapped the
data correctly, that I have not overlooked or ignored contrary data. They
will remap the data and see if they agree with me. No one gives another
human being $50 million dollars (which some wells now cost) on the basis of
"I trust that guy". NO ONE. They verify and depend on their own judgment.

>
>You now say, "I would hope .... " OK, but hope is not certain
>knowledge, is
>it?

You say you understand my "position, thank you", but the above statement
shows you don't. You ripped it right out of context and make it say
something I didn't say. My full statement is:

>> I would hope that God was able to communicate something true about His
>> nature.

That is in the nature of an assumption. If God can't communicate
successfully anything about his nature, then our portraits of him (not
merely choices of what to believe) are totally human generated.
My statement says nothing about all we have is hope nor does it compare hope
to knowlege.

>
>You then offer two "If ..." options, based on your idea of how and what God
>would communicate to you if God were both able or desirous of doing so --
>"information about Himself" (male God) to you personally, by which I assume
>you mean something specific and concrete rather that a general sense of
>God's presence and goodness.

Sigh. One can't win regardless of what one calls God. If one says 'himself'
then he is (wrongly) accused of thinking God has male genitalia, but were I
to have used 'herself', a fertility goddess would come to mind. If I said
'God itself", then there is little in the way of personality to something
that is an 'it'. So, this little rabbit trail or red herring is kind of
silly, Howard. Call God, him, her, or it, whatever you want. The language
really gives you only 3 choices all of which fall far short of God's nature.
And since he seems to be referred to as a masculine in the Scritpure, I see
no reason to argue with it. Go with the flow is my view on that.

And the revelation I spoke of is not 'to me personally' it is to the writer.

>
>You still have not answered my question about what YOU think.

Yes, I have. Everything I write is what I think. I don't write things I
don't beleive.

>
>Glenn, I'm not merely trying to pester you personally. These are important
>issues for religion and theology, and they lie at the root of deep
>disagreements about what the biblical text is able to contribute to the
>religion/science discussion.

Agreed, but if we merely say it is irrelevant, or that our religion is a
human construct. Why bother with it. Tell me how to differentiate between
the two theological statements, above (This is my son" and "far be It from
His glory that He should have a son" How do I tell which is true? If the
only way is to make a blind leap of faith, then maybe one should become a
muslim. It seems that they are going to win the world for their position and
christianity is going to lose. They are far more dedicated than the
Christians. They actually believe their Scripture.

To avoid one possible response from anyone, it seems to me that one can't
claim automatically that God wouldn't condone the beheadings etc we see
among the jihadists. They believe that God does condone those things.
Their portrait of God is harsher than ours. and this is why the question of
how to differentiate the truth value of the two statemenst above is so
important.
Received on Sat Oct 16 12:25:25 2004