CADRE Comments

In the previous post I commented on Sean Carroll, astro-physicist and atheist soldier who wave the banner of scientism. He writes an article: Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists   [1] Actually, he offers no data on the views of cosmologists. I offered reasons in the previous post as to why I think the title here is hyperballe. Good data shows that the majority of scientists believe in God  [2]   While it may not be true of cosmologists I have no reason to believe it is not. But this is not the real issue. he real issue is that Carroll's arguments are merely ideological/ all he's doing is imposing a naturalistic ideology upon epistemology and then insisting that he has the mystique of science to back  it up. In other word it's just propaganda. Let's start with his conclusion: The question we have addressed is, ”Thinking as good scientists and observing the world in which we live, is it more reasonable to conclude that a materialist or theist picture is m...

It's that time of year again, when I post a link to back to my 2008 Cadre article on the philosophically unique connection between trinitarian theism and freedom. 2009's repost picked up some interesting and polite discussion on the Resurrection of Jesus (between myself and counter-Christian apologist Spencer Lo), and those can be found here -- but they aren't comments about the article per se. God’s hope to all our readers, around the world, this holiday season!

My yearly Independence Day link back to my 2008 Cadre article on the philosophically unique connection between trinitarian theism and freedom. God’s hope to all our readers, around the world, this holiday season!

A couple of months ago, Julian Baggini presented a proposal for a "Heathen Manifesto" in the electronic (and maybe print) pages of the United Kingdom magazine The Guardian . Having recently heard of it, and reading it through, I have very few complaints, none of them more than trivial--except of course where we principly disagree on metaphysics, as supernaturalist theists and naturalistic atheists logically do. I warmly recommend readers check out the article at the link above; and then click on the jump for some commentary.

My yearly Independence Day link back to my 2008 article on the philosophically unique connection between trinitarian theism and freedom. I'm posting it Friday this year for the beginning of the weekend. God’s hope to all our readers, around the world, this holiday season!

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, continuing chapter 29, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes chapter 29, "Resolving The Grand Paradox".] You may have noticed I have often insisted throughout my book that opponents are not entirely wrong, but rather they're not entirely right; that they do have some good points, but they're taking them a bit too far or not taking them far enough or putting them together the wrong way. I have recently granted this in the case of pantheists and vitalists, for instance. In the case of atheistic naturalists, I think they are actually on the right trail when they discuss aggregations of natural events as the source of our rationality. Their pivotal error, as I have deduced, is that they put these observations and conclusions into service of a nonsensical proposition: that non-initiation produces initiation ability, that reactions produce actions, that the non-rational can be rational. Th...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, starting chapter 27, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes chapter 27, "My Relationship To Creation And To God".] Here you and I are, reasoning together. The fact that we two derivative entities are doing this, leads me to conclude that one way or another this must reflect some (probably very many) true intentions of God when He created. Specifically: what would God have to do, in order to get us into this position? The answers will tell us useful truths about the reality that overarches and encompasses you and I. (Notice, by the way, that I am once more applying the Golden Presumption, looking to deduct propositions which conflict with it.) Whatever it means for me (and for you) to be an act-er, and yet be apparently derivative, and however God managed to accomplish this (which I am setting aside again just a little while longer), I am here. Thus God intended (at least generally speaking) ...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, chapter 25, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes chapter 26, "God's Relationship To Nature".] Although I was unable (yet) to deductively remove from the option list the concept that what we call 'physical Nature' is God, I will remind you now that my own status as either a rebel (even if only occasional rebel) or as a deluded victim of illusion, indicates (even if nothing else did) that I am not fully divine in and of myself; and this indicates that at least two levels of reality, or two substantially different systems, exist: God and (in one way or another) not-God (namely myself). Therefore, although I could only give a conceptual strike (not deduction) against 'practical pantheism' in the previous chapter, I do think I have deductively argued that pantheism must technically be false: not everything is fully God, because--as far as it is possible for me to tell--I a...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, chapter 24, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes chapter 25, "Supernaturalism".] By comparing my behaviors and characteristics with what I have discovered about God so far (and despite the wide-reaching implications, the actual number of details I have developed is still quite limited), I find that one way or another I must not be an entity with fully divine status. I am not God. I may perhaps be partially divine (whatever that means--and it's a topic I will get back to), but even the concept of being 'partially' divine necessarily indicates that a distinctive level of reality must exist which is not itself God. This means a distinctively real supersystem/subsystem relationship exists; and I seem to be representative of the subsystem. As I explained last chapter, this strikes a serious blow, in a technical sense, against pantheism. Either everything is equally God (including ...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the conclusion of chapter 23, can be found here. ] [This entry constitutes chapter 24, "Creation or Creator?".] I have been discussing the application of principles of self-generation, which must be the most basic possible action of the Independent Fact. By such an action, God begets Himself; and because His property characteristics include rational sentience, which implies consciousness, then I think it must be true that the begetting and begotten unity of God must be a unity of distinctive Persons. This is admittedly a rather difficult concept to picture, but I think it can be most usefully analogized by saying that God the Father eternally begets God the Son, Who eternally submits in self-consistency back to the Father. The Son is of one mind with the Father and does the Father's will, and indeed does nothing except what the Father does, being the very action of God Himself. The Son may be...

[Note: the contents page for this series can be found here. The previous entry, the second for chapter 21, can be found here. ] [This entry concludes Chapter 21, "Some Detours", and also concludes Section Two.] In philosophy, there is a relationship that may be described as agent-to-patient. The 'agent' acts; the 'patient' receives the action. When philosophers of old described this relationship, they quite naturally put masculine pronouns on the side of the agent, and feminine on the sides of the patient. This reflected the most basic of male/female relationships: biologically speaking, when a child is conceived, the male gives and the female receives. 'Action', in this human situation, does not necessarily have its full philosophical rigor: it might only indicate one very particular cause/effect relationship. [See first comment below for footnote here.] Yet true actions do still exhibit this relationship. If I act, and you react, then for that inter...