The Heart of Freedom (July 4, 2008 repost)

This week, the United States will celebrate our annual Independence Day (July 4th--the day in 1776 we declared, a bit preemptorily, our independence from Great Britain).

Freedom and independence are words with great political and cultural meaning for us; and not only for us, but for the numerous nations who (more-or-less following our lead) also declared their independence from sovereign rulers whom they believed were oppressing them, both socially and (not-infrequently) religiously.

Sad to say, Christianity was just-as-not-infrequently the religious oppression the people were revolting against. To some extent this is even true of the United States: even though our own national revolution was grounded on a mixture of orthodox Christianity and nominal deism (such as Franklin’s and Jefferson’s), the history of our country’s settlement in the centuries before the revolution was typically based on fleeing religious (as well as financial) oppression in Europe. And it can hardly be argued that Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims or witches, or atheists or agnostics for that matter, were the perceived (and even the actual) oppressors; not in this case. (Resistance by flight or arms to Muslim religious oppression is an earlier story, of the Middle Ages.)

Consequently, I fully expect that our agnostic and atheistic and otherwise sceptical colleagues have a special fondness in their hearts for Independence Day--because those particular first American Christians-and-nominal-deists made a provision of the principle that a person should be free to responsibly follow his or her conscience and best judgments concerning such issues, the most important issues of all; even if that means rejecting the religious beliefs of the founding fathers themselves--whether or not such a rejection involves substituting something better, including truer, as a set of metaphysical beliefs in their place.

Nor am I writing today’s essay in order to condemn such rejections, in principle. I have always consistently (even religiously!) insisted of ally and opponent alike, that insofar as the person is walking according to what light she can see and is looking for more light thereby, then I consider her my sister, whom I should support with my life (if it comes to that), even if she does not recognize me for her brother.

(The people I have problems with are the ones who, on any side of any aisle, would mire us in fog. That attitude is worse than an attack against me, which I care little for; that is an attack on my sister-in-heart, condemning her to hopelessness. And I am not remotely tolerant of that.)


Having said all this, however: as a metaphysician, I am aware that many people are not aware, that notions such as ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ are rawly metaphysical claims about reality. They are also claims which, in regard to our relationship to the evident system of Nature in which we live, can only be affirmations not only of supernaturalism (of one or another kind), but of supernaturalistic theism (of one or another kind).


Ontologically speaking, only a self-existent fact can truly be independent. We ourselves, however, are clearly not Independent Facts of that sort: we obviously depend upon the system of Nature for our existence and abilities, to at least some large extent. What can be coherently meant, then, by freedom and independence?

The first answer must be, that since we are not Independent Facts, we are not and can never really be ‘independent’. Whatever worldview we accept, we aren’t going to be escaping from this fact, any more than we are going to be escaping from whatever Independent Fact ultimately grounds all existence. (I am setting aside, for purposes of brevity, the notion that two or some other limited number of IFs exist, independently of each other, upon all of which Facts we are dependent. If readers want to discuss this option in the comments, I will have no complaints, although I will point out first that if the proposition is that we ourselves depend on only one of those IFs, then for all practical purposes we might as well be talking about a single IF anyway. If you wish to propose cosmological dualism, you’ll have to go the distance. I discuss this more directly myself as part of an ongoing series of metaphysical argument here.)


Very well; then what if Nature is the IF? We will recognize, realistically, that we humans will not be independent of Nature in any ontological fashion. But, is there not some kind of meaningful freedom, a derivative independence so to speak, which we can still coherently propose of ourselves in relation to Nature?

To this I answer that such a derivative freedom depends, and must depend for its possibility, on the intrinsic characteristics of the IF. We are fond of using the phrase ‘to make free’. But if by ‘make’ we think in terms of force instigating reaction, then clearly there can be no freedom at all, even derivatively, in such a reality. I somewhat doubt we could even have the illusion of freedom, for the recognition of an illusion as such depends on being able to distinguish between reality and only the appearance of a reality. Such an ability to distinguish, however, depends itself upon the very freedom to act, instead of merely to react, which is now being questioned; or else the consideration has been put back one stage for no gain.

There is a crucial tension which must be resolved in metaphysical accounts of freedom, when discussing derivative creatures such as ourselves: we, our selves, are dependent for our existence and capabilities, on something other than our selves; thus any freedom we have must itself, paradoxically, be dependent on something other than our selves. But how can this be a legitimate paradox, and not an outright contradiction to be rejected?

It should be clear in any case, that if the IF’s intrinsic existence only involves mere power-effect, then only mere power-effect is responsible for our existence and capabilities. We cannot be even derivatively free, if such a reality is true.

Moreover, it should be clear that if the IF is atheistic (aside from questions of naturalism vs. supernaturalism for the moment), then there can be no doubt as to whether the IF’s intrinsic behaviors, upon which we depend, are anything other or more than mere power-effects. By excluding, per hypothesis, the notion that the IF itself has free will, we exclude the notion that the IF may in some way choose both to grant this gift to a derivative entity and also to somehow reduce its own merely direct control over the behaviors of this entity. (The two grantings might be the same grace, looked at from different perspectives.) Nature is not going to make personal sacrifices for our sake, if Nature is not a personal entity. Nor is the problem removed by proposing an atheistic supernature with either an equally non-personal natural system derived from it (in which we live) or else a personally sentient and active natural system derived from it (for that only puts our problem back one stage for no gain.)

If I take my freedom seriously, then--and I do, especially as a necessary presumption I find I must hold in order to be engaging in any argument--then I should conclude from the presumption of my freedom, that the IF must be theistic.


But does this much mend matters? The previous deadly question can be asked just as pertinently: if God is ‘making’ me free, then is my ostensible freedom meaningful in any way? If I answer, as before, that it depends on whether I consider the intrinsic self-existence of God, the final reality, to be about mere power-effect... well, we are talking about the ‘omnipotent’, aren’t we? And if we aren’t, then we’re verging into acknowledging that while we may be talking about some conscious intentional active entity, we aren’t really talking about the IF anymore, but about some subordinate entity instead. (Shades of Mormonism here! Which, incidentally, is why I have insisted that one way or another Mormons are not talking about the final IF of reality; but the IF is what I am interested in, especially as a metaphysician.)

To sceptical criticisms such as these, I am entirely sympathetic, and even ready to agree. (I feature a whole entry agreeing with such criticisms from the particular standpoint of ethical grounding here.) If God, in His own self-existence, is only an active sentience causing power-effects in whatever creations He creates, then my apparent freedom is just as illusory as it must be under atheism. It isn’t even a real-though-derivative freedom. And I am only a puppet; at best a fictional character like the characters in one of my novels.

But then, so much for the relevance of any argument I may be making, including the ones I have been making up to this point! Such a proposal violates the Golden Presumption: that I (and you, my reader) can act--that even if derivative, we still are somehow free.


Yet, didn’t I say near the beginning that the claim of our freedom and independence--a claim we celebrate in the United States every July 4th--is itself a claim not only of supernaturalism but of supernaturalistic theism?!

If I am real and am more than just a knee-jerk automatic reaction in a system of non-rational reactions and counterreactions, then I must be supernatural in some constituent way to that system of non-rational reactions (even if I am also largely constituted by that system and its behaviors). Furthermore, if I am real and more than these things, yet am not myself an Independent Fact (which is obvious), then God must also be real and must be the IF, with Nature (where I agree this exists) being a subordinately created system, along with myself. The argument only breaks down where God’s existence is regarded as being most basically the forcing of effect.

Therefore, insofar as I recognize the presumption of true (if derivative) action ability to be required for making any argument per se (whether the argument is mine or even an opponent's), I conclude that God’s existence must not be most basically the forcing of effect. But how can this be?


Here I find I need to appeal to what I think is a dichomatic option regarding the IF’s self-existence (whether the IF is God or not-God, supernaturalistic or naturalistic, in any combination of those claim-sets.) Either the IF is dependent upon itself for its own self-existence, or else the IF is not even dependent upon itself for its own self-existence. Each of these options, in its own way, resolves the problem of mere force-effect being intrinsic to God’s self-existence; but each option does so in very different fashions.

The latter position, which goes by the technical name ‘privative aseity’, essentially denies that even God’s own action is intrinsic to God’s own self-existence. If this sounds rather more like a static atheism than theism--I agree! Nevertheless, it is also, ironically, the position that has been usually taken by theistic philosophers, since the days of Aristotle. (Whether they were misunderstanding what he meant is beside the point; though the debate over whether Aristotle was a theist after all might not be entirely beside the point! But neither is it a debate I intend to engage in here.)

If the IF does not act at all for His (or its) own self-existence, then of course the IF’s existence must not be most basically the forcing of effect. But then again, a host of other problems begins to emerge which, while not immediately inescapable, will eventually resolve into effectively proposing atheism, I believe. Since I already conclude on other grounds (ones logically more prior--and ones that involve positively respecting the existence of even my opponents as responsible persons), that I should believe not-atheism to be true instead, then I am inclined to reject privative aseity and consider the other option of self-existence.

The other option, is that God’s own action is intrinsic to God’s own self-existence. (That the IF is going to be paradoxically self-existent in any case, is something we will be required to logically accept whatever else we believe to be true, once the logical math has been done; so I am passing over this potential difficulty, not without some sympathy, but for sake of relative brevity.)

On the face of it, this proposal should look more immediately theistic: even if I decided (which I would, for a technical reason I will not go into here) that I should accept positive aseity to be true, and yet still tended (which I don't) to believe atheism, I think I would find it more and more difficult to maintain that belief, the longer I consistently held to positive aseity.

But what positive aseity entails, is nothing other than that God is (borrowing biological language for a semi-anology) both self-begetting and self-begotten. We are talking at least, then, about God the Father, and God the Son, as nevertheless being the singular Independent Fact.

Normally I would discuss the option of modalism here. Instead, I will abbreviate to the result I already know (from experience) I will reach if I do: the Persons must be distinctively real as persons, even though they constitute one substance. They cannot be like two of the three or five ‘aspects of the Goddess’ in some popular mythologies; or rather, the Persons are aspects of the singular God but also more than only aspects. The persons are to be regarded as distinctively real as Persons.

What we arrive at, then, is a discovery: even though the Independent Fact does act (and so in that regard exercises power) in order to be eternally self-existent, this intrinsic action of the IF is itself an interpersonal relationship. The Father actively begets the Son, the Son actively concedes to the Father, so that the circuit of self-existence will be complete and completely active in one substantial unity.

If power-effectment then (to coin a term), is an interpersonal relationship at the most foundational level of reality, restricted only in the sense that self-existence chooses to not cease existing and cannot choose to simply exist and also not exist simultaneously (on pain of contradiction of ultimate reality, which is itself), then the first hurdle has been exceeded: my existence as a person does not depend on mere reaction to stimuli, whether atheistically or under mere monotheism. Consequently, neither would any derivative freedom I am given by God: to exist as a real boy, not as only a puppet. (Which is the hidden point to the fable of Pinnochio.)


I do not say that this is the end of the difficulties. I would (and do) need to work out other implications and corollaries from this, as a beginning of understanding the process of creation distinct from self-existence--a creation which I find includes myself (as a not-God entity).

But I can say from here, that insofar as I presuppose my freedom in some meaningful fashion--the same freedom any atheist, agnostic or other sceptic presupposes and indeed insists upon, in standing for what they believe to be correct--then I find I am robustly asserting a reality’s truth that is not only supernaturalistic, and not only theistic, but at least bi-nitarian. (I haven’t discussed a Third Person yet, because as far as the argument has gone here I do not discover such a person. This does not mean I would never reach such a conclusion from inference, however; refer to my section of chapters on "Ethics and the Third Person", especially from this entry onward.)

It is, in fact, only in orthodox Christianity that I find these precise claims also being made by people who, in turn, are drawing inferences from data ostensibly revealed in a historical story: which in fairness should dramatically increase my respect and regard for that general claim of special inspiration!

On the other hand, if (as some Christians prefer to do, though this is not my own preference) I began with the orthodox Christian metaphysical system as a presumption, then personal derivative freedom of the only sort that can be coherently available, even to a proponent of atheism, is provided for as a logical corollary of the worldview. (Actually, such freedom is necessarily presupposed even to presuppose the worldview, which leads to what I regard as major problems of circularity; so I personally do not recommend proceeding by this route. But to the extent that some Christian philosophers insist on doing so, I affirm, somewhat tautologically, that such freedom is in fact specially included in the package!)


Which leads back to the grief of my initial remarks: that Christians, who of all people ought to have known (and know) better, have still insisted on religious oppression throughout our history. Such oppression is not only immoral, it directly contravenes the very doctrines we profess to hold and cherish as truths. Sceptics are entirely correct to account us as hypocrites when we advocate, and have advocated, such things; and I cannot personally find it in my heart to blame them if they turn with loathing from the fruit we have spoiled (a fruit spoiled, I would say, by the persistent technical heresy of gnosticism, insisted upon by us as a safeguard we ourselves ought to have rejected), and reject our attempts at linking freedom--including the freedom cherished and died for by our ancestors, in order to secure the blessings of liberty today in these United States and other nations--with a system they find through simple (if occasionally oversimple) historical polling to have been, with some regularity and in some ways, an enemy and oppressor of freedom.

It is in honor of such sceptics that I am writing today’s entry. Yet it is also precisely in honor of such sceptics that I am, in fact, an orthodox Christian apologist. Against the abuses of our history, I urge now and always: please, do not give up hope.

'Christianity' is not the heart of freedom, whatever some uncautious apologists may have said to you. And you are correct to complain when Christians try to promote it as such (for this is the heresy of gnosticism, among other things.)

But God, the Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit, too) is Himself the very heart of freedom. And He gives His very life for your freedom, too: cherishing you, yourself, whoever you are--forever.


God’s hope, then, to all our readers, around the world, on this day, and every day.

Jason Pratt

How Should I Be A Sceptic -- theism or atheism

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. A continually updated table of contents for all entries so far can be found here.

In my previous entry, I introduced two different examples of attempts to propose that the ultimate reality is both atheistic and theistic. (Not to be confused with ontological dualisms which would propose two ultimate realities with one being sentient and the other non-sentient. This concept was covered in previous entries, though it'll be discussed again in later entries where applicable.)]


On one side we have this concept: the IF is a Mind, but it has no plans and does not initiate events.

On the other side, we have this: the IF is not a Mind, but it has plans (or 'purposes') and initiates events (or 'strives').

What do these propositions offer?

The first one may seem to offer an explanation for the apparent intelligibility of the universe: the universe is not completely arbitrary, and there are notions we can discover about it which we can trust to a very large degree (maybe absolutely) to be true statements of the way reality really is.

These notions could be called static, or even objective, truths, although (like a mountain that isn't going anywhere) these truths would reflect different aspects under different conditions. Two oranges and two tomatoes will always take up four spaces in your box--unless you cut the oranges into sections, after which they are arguably no longer 'two oranges'. And the observations we make about things like this, give us data from which to infer reliable truths.

It would be easy to slur 'intelligible' into 'intelligent'; it would, in fact, be one variation of the famous (or infamous) Argument from Design. [Footnote: it would also, I think, be another variation of the externalistic fallacy: just because an entity behaves intelligibly, does not mean the entity is itself intelligent.] But I don't think the Stoics did this, necessarily. I think they looked around at their lives and their world, and concluded that the entities capable of the best efficiency were capable of reasoning. Greek thinkers were very concerned with 'efficient causes', and the Stoics were no exception; thus the final (and most 'effective') efficient cause must (they decided) be capable of Reason. The 'highest' thing they (and we) meet in our world is reasoning ability; thus Reason must in some way be a function of the highest thing. [Footnote: this would be one variant of the Argument from Reason, though not one of the variants I myself employ.]

Yet the Stoics do not seem to have been proposing an entity that could give commands or introduce effects into the natural order in any fashion; they had already had quite enough of that, thank you very much, from Greek polytheism.

At any rate, I can see that if I accepted the first variation of 'sentient and non-sentient', I might have some reassurance that reality was, at bottom, at least somewhat similar to myself--and a Stoic was very properly concerned with reaching his or her full potential, which involved interfacing most efficiently with reality (which naturally would be feasible if ultimate reality shares some key characteristics with us). At the same time, I wouldn't need to worry about this Mind personally bothering me--it has no purposes, no plans, no personality. It doesn't initiate action. It isn't going to send a priest to my door asking for contributions to the temple, or for my sons in a war--or for my soul's allegiance. I can pay attention to it as a Mind when I want to, and when I feel like it; it is convenient to me. (Time to suggest new laws at the public forum? Well, let's think about how this divine Mind would try to order things if it was faced with our particular situation, and if it had intentions.)

The second proposition offers me a very similar package, despite the switch in characteristics. Instead of the cold, unfeeling mechanism of Darwin and his ilk, Nature must be alive--like me! [Footnote: remember that insofar as natural mechanism goes, the supernatural theists would also usually be included with the "ilk" of Darwin...] Nature is 'up to something', and for all I know it could be something good--if not for me, well, then for my descendants, because self-ordering is in Nature's character, so to speak. (Or, well, somewhere in Nature's character anyway, mumble mumble entropy mumble...) I am alive; it is alive. It and I are not so different. I can look back in all sorts of history, and see Nature providing just the right events at just the right times to bring about--me! At the same time, I needn't worry about Nature bothering me--it has purposes and initiates action, but it has no personality. The kind of actions it initiates are, well, really beneath my notice; too simple and basic to bother me. It isn't going to send a priest to my door asking for contributions to the local parish, or for my sons in a crusade--or for my soul's allegiance. I can pay attention to it as a Life when I want to, and when I feel like it; it is convenient to me. (Look at the past, this is the way history is going; and that means this is the way Life itself, the irreducible Fact of the universe, is striving to go. It is mankind's destiny to be part of the plan I am advocating.)

Obviously, these two ideas throw a sop to my own pride; it is (only) up to me to figure out what the Divine Nature is up to. The Divine either isn't smart enough to understand its own plans, or despite being 'rational' it doesn't have plans. It either isn't smart enough to have opinions of its own, or despite being 'rational' it cannot initiate judgments to form 'opinions' per se. The world is on automatic pilot; and the pilot is an autistic savant who happens to be pretty good at piloting! He's going to do his job, which is only worth my time noticing on the macrohistorical scale, and I'm going to do mine (vitalism). Or, he's going to do his job (except, y'know, without intentions of doing so), and I'm just along for the ride; although it makes a difference to my happiness whether I buckle-up in a first-class seat and take the ride as it comes, or pop open the hatch to crawl out on the wing (early Stoicism). Either way, the pilot isn't going to come out of the cabin and annoy me. I may have to put up with some unruly passengers, of course; but that is to be expected.

On the one hand, we have a denial of initiation ability for the IF; but it still somehow represents the necessary order of interactions between cause/effect, ground/consequent. It is unconscious, but can still produce efficient mental effects--as I can reactively answer questions under anesthesia, although I didn't choose to.

On the other hand, we have an affirmation of initiation ability, although this doesn't include the processing of efficient mental effects. Yet despite its initiation ability, it is still considered to be (quite overtly so) 'unconscious'. Thus it doesn't consciously judge--especially it doesn't judge me! The particular actions it initiates are essentially beneath my notice. For all practical purposes, it is not initiating actions at all.

An atheist, in distinctive opposition, would say: the IF does not initiate actions. It does not think. It is blind, unconscious, automatic. There is no point in saying that It has Reason if those other claims are true about It; that is just playing with words.

A theist (including, I think, some polytheists and pantheists), in distinctive opposition, would say: the IF does initiate actions. It has purposes, and plans, which It is striving to bring to fruition. It knows where it wants to go; and It knows where It wants Nature to go. And that means It knows where It wants me (and you) to go, because one way or another we are part of It. And if It has plans and purposes, then by default--by definition of what a 'plan' and a 'purpose' is--It is intentionally, actively excluding one set of potential behaviors for another set. There is no point in saying It does not have Reason if those other notions are true about It; that is just playing with words.

The n-SIF advocate (for example the naturalistic atheist) and the SIF advocate (for example a Jewish theist) both cut pretty cleanly, I think, through the contradictions of the attempt at a middle-ground. For this reason (and for some reasons involving contradictions in general, which I have already covered in previous chapters), I will eventually be required to decide, if I can, whether the IF is sentient (as an action initiator that can, among other things, actively judge the coherency of linked propositions), or non-sentient (a blind, automatic, non-purposive mechanism that initiates no actions but very effectively reacts and counterreacts).

The middle-ground pantheist (this type of middle-grounder is typically a pantheist, although not all pantheists accept this both/and proposition about the IF) may reply that she didn't literally mean the IF has Reason, or that it has 'purposes'. She was 'only' speaking metaphorically.

I note that in the way she would use this term, she means something reductive--she means the reality is less, not more, than her description implied. I also note this can only lead to a n-SIF proposition if it is followed through consistently! No one ever bothers to say they were 'only' speaking metaphorically when they denied something had active purposes or when they denied something could accurately judge abstract links of reality in what we would consider a 'cogent' manner. No one bothers to say they were 'only' speaking metaphorically when they described reality as 'blind, automatic and non-purposive'. The middle-ground proponents could turn out to be atheists (of some sort) after all; it is, at least, another example of how the attempted position collapses into one or another distinctive position when any kind of practical application is made.

On the other hand, I don't think reductionism is a very good example of what it means to speak 'metaphorically'. Although I think such reductionistic use of metaphor can represent a definite notion that its adherent is trying to get across, such a tactic can be abused to imply that whenever anyone speaks metaphorically they really mean less than they appear to be saying.

I strongly disagree with such a use, and the removal of this misconception will help some people deal with claims about 'religion'. So to the topic of metaphor I now turn.


[Next time: 'on' metaphors]

How Should I Be A Sceptic -- theism and atheism?

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. A continually updated table of contents for all entries so far can be found here.]


I have been arguing throughout this book that philosophical positions can be most cogently divided into two mutually exclusive categories: non-Sentient Independent Fact, or Sentient Independent Fact. I have reached this position mainly by tracing the implications of apparently competitive belief-systems (it turns out they were advocating one of these at bottom all the time), or by discovering that competitive theories end in self-contradictions.

But some people throughout human history would agree there is such a thing as the IF (or at least we must presume there is, in order to build philosophies and subsequent sciences) and that we can discover particular things about it (at least in principle); yet they would also propose that this IF is, in essence or in effect, sentient and non-sentient.

For instance, the early Stoics (dating back before the Christian--or, if you prefer, 'Common'--era) believed the rock-bottom irreducible Fact of reality possessed Reason. Because of this, they insisted that human laws should be drafted and polished to mimic as closely as possible what we could discover about this divine Reason. At the same time, these Stoics insisted that this Reason had no purposes. It was, after all, the physical element of Fire (which they thought was the basic building block of all reality--today we would think of it as ‘energy’); and Fire, while it clearly ‘behaves’ very effectively, has no purposes. They thus rejected the concept that the Ultimate would initiate its own agendas or plans within 'our' world or in our societies. In a way, this philosophy was a rejection of Greek polytheism, perhaps (curiously) by combining the characteristics of two of its ultimate aspects: Chaos and the Fates. Exactly how people got to this belief is not what I am concerned with, however. Some early Stoics proposed (in effect) that what I am calling the IF was really sentient, and really non-sentient.

This type of idea can be found in many cultures, across many eras. In the late 18th through early 20th centuries, as scientists and philosophers were hammering out the implications of biological evolutionary theory, some thinkers proposed vitalism to be true. The rudimentary non-reducible Fact of reality is (according to this proposition) the space-time system we call Nature (taken as a whole); but the basic irreducibly fundamental units of Nature are alive. Yet they are too simple to have a mind: it seemed evident at the time that minds (per se) could only be exhibited in the nervous clusters we call brains. The totality of Nature, considered as a whole (since it is not a 'brain'), must therefore also be considered mindless. Yet (said the vitalists) evolution could be explained as the striving of this mass of ultimately living matter to the intrinsic purpose of self-organization. Entropy might win out in the end, but the natural cohesion of matter (despite entropy in the meanwhile) illustrated this purposeful organization.

Against the vitalists were the mechanists who proposed that Nature as a whole was not and could not be alive, and certainly its most basic units were not alive; and without life (or even with rudimentary life), purposes did not exist at that level. Obviously the mechanists included atheistic naturalists; but (for what it is worth) they also included supernaturalistic theists of various stripes, trying to make sense of the new data.

Again, the scientific/philosophical combinations involved at this juncture are too numerous for me to try to trace (and frankly I haven't the pertinent information to do so). My point is merely that vitalism was another (yet distinct) example of a belief that what I call the IF is both sentient and non-sentient. [See first comment below for a deferred footnote here.]

'It really can think, but it really has no purposes and does not initiate action.' 'It really cannot think, but it really has purposes and does initiate action.' I think either version of this concept is necessarily self-contradictory at the primary level; and anything built on this concept will either carry that self-contradiction at its core, or else emphasize (perhaps accidentally) one side at the expense of the other--thus ceasing for all practical purposes to be that sort of belief.

Where self-contradictions are maintained throughout more complicated expressions of the concept, I can literally have no good reason to accept the proposition and so no good reason to accept anything developed afterwards on those grounds: the self-contradiction itself ensures (as I illustrated earlier) that there are no grounds. Advocates of this type of notion might be saying true things about reality when they get to their more complicated proposals; but they would be saying those true things despite their initial position, and this would tell me that if they do happen to be matching reality, then there should be another way to get there.

Furthermore, an attempt to begin in flagrant contradiction must (as a practical matter) collapse into either one proposition or another, in order to maintain some kind of cogency (so far as I have examined SIF and n-SIF propositions). The Middle and Late Stoics, for instance, focused increasingly on the practical application, at both the individual and state level, of the ethics derived from the ultimate Reason. Eventually, some Late Stoics began to express their views in language that hinted an approach to--or maybe even an acceptance of--the notion that the divine Reason was a purposeful, fully sentient deity; the IF was a SIF. [See second comment below for a deferred footnote here.]

This would be only another working-out of issues I have raised before (primarily why I should avoid truly contradictory claims about the IF, if I am going to bother searching for true ideas about it); except that it also has more than a passing acquaintance with some issues I will be raising later in my second section. So I will focus a little longer on these two propositions, and see what comparing and contrasting these claims can tell me about how we, as humans, perceive 'sentience'.


[Next time: trying to have and not have sentience]

How Should I Be A Sceptic -- religious belief and reasoning

[Introductory note from Jason Pratt: the previous entry in this series of posts can be found here. The first entry can be found here.

This entry concludes a fourth chapter, begun here. I highly recommend reading at least as far back as this, first.]


But some people (believer and sceptic alike) will still have problems with the concept that anything definite may be discovered about the Ultimate Reality. To the sceptics, especially the atheists who are philosophical naturalists, I reply that we discover apparent truths about Nature and its operations and character all the time, and use (sometimes incorrectly, but sometimes correctly, too) such information all the time. This is despite the fact that if non-sentient Nature is the foundation of all reality, then it must be as impossible for derivative human reasoning to fully understand it, as for us to fully understand a sentient ultimate Fact.

For that matter, it seems clear from the science of quantum mechanics that whatever Nature is--whether it is the Final Fact or a derivative entity itself--humans are not capable of completely comprehending it. Quantum indeterminacy assures us of this. But we did discover quantum indeterminacy; and it hasn't stopped us from learning plenty of useful and (as far as we can tell) true positive characteristics of Nature.

For instance, Newton's physical laws may have been transcended by quantum physics, but they have not been abrogated; we can still calculate with virtual certainty what will happen when physical bodies with characteristic set 'A' interact in fashion 'B'. So atheistic naturalists, at least, should (in principle) already understand and accept that we are not barred from discovering particular characteristics of the Final Fact merely by it being the Final Fact.

Religious believers, meanwhile, may or may not have a slightly different position on the matter. Pantheists technically advocate only one level of reality, which they believe to be sentient. Their practical position on this topic (aside from the question of sentience) is the same as the atheistic naturalists: they do have particular beliefs about the system of reality (even saying "God is not thus" declares implicitly that God has one characteristic and not another), and the status of ultimate reality hasn't stopped them from believing they have learned these things. [See first comment below for a footnote here.]

Supernaturalists, however, have an extra potential problem: the specifically 'supernatural' characteristics of 'Supernature' would seem to be inexpressible in terms of 'Nature'. Similarly, a 2-Dimensional man would have no capability of really discovering true 3-D properties via reasoning, much less perception. [See second comment below for a footnote here.]

Now we are touching on an issue that has great relevance to the start of my second section; because this illustration works by presuming the 2-D man has in fact no 3-D properties. But, if he has even one 3-D property (and if it is the correct type of property), then the door is open for him to deduce as much as he can about the properties of 3-D reality. Perhaps he cannot deduce very much, or very much that is useful; but that must wait until the attempt is made. No immediate bar is placed in his path meanwhile--except the question of whether or not he has some (discoverable) 3-D property. Thus, at worst my attempt at an accurate and useful deductive argument is put into a reserved limbo until (or unless) I can establish we have some type of supernatural characteristic.

On the other hand, we also now touch the topic of God's intentions (if any) in the matter. An atheist could easily be willing to agree, in principle, that if I could discover a thread leading out of the 'black-box' of Nature, I would not necessarily be prevented from deducing something useful and true about the Supernature the thread is attached to. This would be a fair acquiescence on her part to me, whether or not I could convince her I have found a thread--for the principle would work just as well for either of us! If she discovered (or exclusively deduced) that what the 'thread' leads to is also non -sentient, then she would remain an atheist--though she would now be a supernaturalistic atheist. She would have discovered that this newly detected or inferred ultimate level is no more sentient than the evident Nature. In any event, a non-sentient Supernature would not be capable of acting to bar our inquiry about its existence and characteristics.

But, a supernaturalistic God, being sentient and ultimately superordinate to me, could be capable of acting to prevent me (or anyone) from discovering something, or even perhaps anything, about Him.

This is certainly a possibility; but, then again, God might also decide to make it possible for me to find my way there. Almost all supernaturalistic theists claim God has in fact done this, through various means. Most of the 'faith-only' theists would claim God has done so through a Scripture (I agree); most of the 'faith-only' theists would claim God has done so through certain scriptures, and absolutely not others (I partially agree for reasons I hope to make clear very much later); many of the 'faith-only' theists would claim God has done so only through Scripture.

But even if God has done so 'only through Scripture', any knowledge we have about this still would be an instance of rational perception and judgment on our part.

In the case of the Hebrew Bible and Christian 'New' Testament, however, I want to point out once more that those scriptures themselves tell us God has used (and does use) other ways than 'pure reliance on Scripture' to get knowledge of His existence and character to us. Here are some examples:

a.) God speaks to prophets who tell other people what He said [see third comment below for a footnote here]; but the audiences for whom the message is also intended (not just the prophet) are expected to judge the prophets by using their reasoning. Does the message fit with other messages previously judged to have come from God? Does the messenger exhibit supernatural power to 'attest' (as the Greek puts it) that at least at face value the purported 'prophet' might be expected to be speaking for God? Does the prophet, in hindsight, have a 100% success rate for anything he or she predicts?

This means someone could legitimately decide an ostensible prophet was not a prophet, in which case the legitimate thing to do was reject (or even kill) the false prophet. That judgment comes from, and through, the responsible reasoning of other people, though. Which in turn, as annoying as this may be to contemplate, means a sceptic might be responsibly reasoning, too, to reject an ostensible prophet. For example, I'm not really sure I could blame a sceptic for noticing that Micah predicts that the Messiah will throw back an Assyrian invasion with the help of a special group of judge-heroes. Clearly, when the Assyrians eventually invaded, this didn't happen! (In the larger story context, a defense could be made that God provisionally retracted that expectation to be fulfilled later somehow; but if this is put forward as a reason to believe Micah to be a legitimate prophet anyway, then it becomes a fallacy of special pleading, I think.)

b.) God allows 'pagans' (non-Jews, non-Christians, non-Muslims, if you prefer) to perceive His existence and character through their own cultures and devices. The total picture these other people have may not be right, but parts of it are right. Certain rulers in the Hebrew Bible fit this category, stretching back at least as far as the priest-king Melchizedek (who evidently was superior to Abraham, as Abraham could accept his blessing in the name of God). The most famous example may be the astrologers of Matthew's Gospel who, in the story, learned of the forthcoming birth of the Messiah from their 'normal' 'pagan' activities.

c.) The Apostle Paul tells the Christian congregation in Rome that God has given to all people the knowledge of His moral character, so that all people may have at least some level of personal (not just causal) relationship to God--which they deny at their own peril. This ability is also given so that all people may realize, that whatever their creed, they know they do not follow their creed perfectly, and thus stand condemned not by the lack of a foreign knowledge but by the knowledge vouchsafed to them. [See fourth comment below for a footnote here.] This, by the way, does not mean better knowledge is not possible for them to learn, and certainly does not mean the better knowledge is not better for them: it is not a creed that all ideas of religion are equally true or even equally useful. Paul means that people cannot avoid an important knowledge of God by being ignorant of Christianity, and are thus still accountable for their actions; but this necessarily must mean that God makes provisions for at least some real truths about Him to be reached in ways which are not the 'best' ways. [See fifth comment below for a footnote here.]

My Christian, Jewish and Muslim brothers may perhaps have an advantage at understanding this point (if they will take that advantage), because despite some very serious differences between us, which we cannot all be correct about, we do share some equally serious metaphysical and even historical beliefs. If I believe metaphysical or historical proposition 'A', and two of my competitors affirm it as well, then I must either admit that God has provided the other two people with that true knowledge (whatever my opinion may be about other particulars of their beliefs) or I must pretend this agreement does not exist. We all three agree that all mankind are brothers by God's design, grace and intention; so willful blindness to recognize shared points of reality which we agree to be true, especially when it involves the fracturing of relationships between brothers, looks to me very much like a sin! I, at least, do not intend to answer to God for a willful fostering of discord.

At any rate, the Scriptures I am familiar with tell me that scriptures are important, but God is not limited to them. And if someone presents me with another proposed scripture, then how am I supposed to perceive its superiority and/or authority without comparing and contrasting in some fashion--even if, at the very least, this means comparing and contrasting its message with what my feelings (or 'inner attenuations to God' or whatever) are telling me? This comparing and contrasting, even with what might be called the internal witness of the Spirit, is still reasoning!

At the most fundamental (and fundamentalistic!) level, then, of Christian witness (and other theistic witnesses, too), I still cannot jump off that shadow. Reasoning is there; to deny it, is to cut myself off from any potential of God's witness, even to myself as a person.

If a rock cannot think, then God cannot have a personal relationship with a rock; it would be a contradiction in terms. (He would still have many different kinds of causal relationships with the rock, of course; and He could still have those relationships as a Person Himself. This is why I emphasized the word 'with'.) Throwing away or ignoring my reason, when it comes to God, leaves me in no better shape than the rock! God might as well not have raised us from the dust! Indeed, my own tradition relates, from the very beginning, how a flat-out refusal to think cogently can dramatically ruin an established relationship with God.

Satan tempted Eve, in the story of Genesis 3, not with the lure of 'knowledge' per se (the fruit gave 'knowledge of good and evil' which does not cover the total field of 'knowledge'), but with lures which could only have been far more obviously false to her (even if you want to treat this as purely a fictional story) than they could be to any of us: "You can be like God despite His intentions, and He feels threatened by your potential to do this, so He has misled you!"

I think I can argue conclusively that this lure must be incorrect, using fine-spun metaphysics. Eve, in the story, had a personal relationship to God that would have made any metaphysical arguments on my part merely funny to her, if she could hear them. We don't have that kind of relationship anymore, according to that story, because she nevertheless pretended she did not know perfectly well what would happen! (Essentially God had said, "If you cut yourself off from Me by setting yourself in opposition to Me, you will die.") And let me point out that according to the story, Adam didn't even need a discussion: he simply ate!

Both cases are examples of what can happen when people willingly ignore the fact that we can (and should) think cogently: it does not mean we become personally closer to God. It means we are hampering our ability to trust God.

I am a Christian, and I fully believe that by the grace of God--through and as Christ--we don't have to get everything right. But I remember no promise from Him that we don't have to try our best to get everything right with every tool we can find at our disposal. I remember several promises from Him of what would happen to us if we shut our eyes and ears and presume that we nevertheless 'know God'.

So. Reason and belief (even as an aspect of 'religious faith') seem to me to be inextricably linked. Reason and trust (even as an aspect of 'religious faith') seem to me to be in the same boat. [See sixth comment below for a footnote here.] In fact, it seems to me that if reason does not outright produce faith, it is at least a necessary ingredient without which no faith (in any meaningful sense of the word) can exist.

I find fideistic philosophy to be self-contradictory to its adherents' propositions, and therefore I do not accept it; although I cannot prevent an extreme fideist from essentially climbing into a void and pulling the hole in after her.

If God exists, I agree that we can never know and understand everything about Him. But then again it has become obvious that no matter our natural knowledge we will never utterly comprehend Nature, either; yet we still discover plenty of useful and true facts about Nature as far as we have gone.

It is one thing to claim that the sea is infinite; it is another to claim that because it is infinite I cannot drink from it and slake my thirst. It is one thing to claim that a mountain is infinite; it is another to claim that because it is infinite it is not crushing me within a particular strata of rock. Nature shows us that there might be (for all we can tell before we start) an infinite number of facts to be discovered, but not an ultimate impenetrability to discovery. I agree that God, as (by definition) a proposed sentient entity Who can have intentions, might intend that I never discover anything about Him; but then again, He might intend that I can, too. There is no way to tell without making the attempt; and it seems that there would always be at least one thing to discover about God ('if He exists He is otherwise undiscoverable')--which even itself would clearly breach any claim of the complete uselessness of a search for knowledge about Him.

People (even some on my own side) may tell me there is absolutely no way to find Him except through a given set of records. I reply that my own records (shared by very many believers) at least give hints that God did not leave the entire job up to the records (the story certainly tells us He didn't begin even special revelation with the records!); and that any real acceptance of a purely-Scriptural revelatory intent by God on my part would require at least some inferences from me which touch concepts and realities that are not themselves Scripture--and this tells me that at the very least God (if I accept those stories) intended Scripture to be used by us in conjunction with something else (which is also what Scripture seems to tell me); and thus the door is opened to the possibility that someone could come to God without using Scripture. At least it would be impossible to tell otherwise without making the attempt. Claiming otherwise from Scripture itself, requires even in theory that I somehow have some standard to judge Scripture's veracity that is not Scripture; and in practice this always requires that I accept inferences barely connected with Scripture's authority at all. [Footnote: for instance, my parents and teacher and preacher vouch for its authority.]

Taken altogether, this tells me (so far as I have gone) that the attempt can at least be... well... attempted! It is not intrinsically doomed beforehand to utter failure--so, let us see what I can discover.

I also grant that God could simply 'create' a psychological state in my mind that might function like a 'belief'. But it seems to me that such a situation would be incorrigibly alien to all the other instances of 'belief' He allows me to form, to the extent that calling it a 'belief' seems facetious. Furthermore, such a forced 'belief' (if we insist on calling it by that label) violates any foundation of free love that we can return to God. Granted, some of my readers won't care about that concept. But my theistic--including Christian--brothers should care. [Footnote: an active discovery up to even 100% certainty, should that be possible, would be at the least a responsible process by me, leading to my recognition of God as a Person, and would not suddenly abrogate my free choice to love Him or not. "The devils also believe!--and shudder."]

And even if some of my readers insist upon God's ability to create such a 'forced belief' as a hypothetical possibility, it seems to me to be a completely mooted point: it is patently obvious, from the umpty-three variations of religion and anti-religion in our world, that if God exists He does not choose to work that way. I don't consider hypothetical possibilities, obviously refuted by experience, to be bars to inquiry--especially ones I consider to be contradictory pseudo-problems.

This brings up one last issue on the question of whether there is something we can somehow know, before any kind of attempt at discovery is made, about the 'sheer impossibility' of reaching true and useful answers from a reasonable inquiry into God's existence and character. You, my reader, may have noticed that a not-inconsiderable bit of my rejection of this position, hinges on the proposition that even God cannot do what is intrinsically contradictory. Obviously, if I am wrong about this and God can do absolutely contradictory things (...like forcibly inciting a real 'belief' in me which is nevertheless free enough from automatic response on my part that I can truly call it 'my' 'belief' and not, say, God's belief exhibited through me; and that this can somehow nevertheless count as responsible 'knowledge' on my part that God exists and has certain characteristics; and that consequently I need no reasoning at all for purposes of coming to belief...), then my argument that I can at least try to discover something about God by abstract reasoning loses some steam.

This leads me into the question of what it means for God to be omnipotent, which also has some misunderstandings that may need to be cleared up before we continue. And it leads into the whole issue of contradictions in general, which has much more than a minor importance to my forthcoming argument.

Therefore, I think this topic will be a good bridge between these previous few chapters and the next set of 'field-leveling' chapters, as well as to my later sections of positive argumentation.

[Next week: contra contradictions]

Ethics and the Third Person--contradiction and ethical failure

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: I am here appending in several parts some excerpts from an unpublished book of mine (not CoJ incidentally), originally composed late 99/early 2000, wherein I work out a progressive synthetic metaphysic. The topic of this Section of chapters is ethical grounding; and in the first several entries I analyzed crippling problems along the three general lines of ethical explanation, including general theism. After this though, I returned to the argument I had already been developing for several hundred (currently unpublished) pages, and used those developed positions to begin solving the philosophical dilemmas I had covered in previous entries. Along the way, I ran into a potential problem last seen back in my (unpublished) Section Three; but slotting that problem into my developing argument allowed me to discover that I should believe that a 3rd Person of God exists. Having covered some introductory inferences regarding the 3rd Person's relationship to the other two Persons in the substantial unity of God, I proceeded to consider some preliminary issues in regard to requirements for personal interaction between the 3rd Person and each of us, as persons. In my most recent entry I inferred that an encouragement to avoid accepting what we perceive to be contradictory, would be the minimum communication we could expect from the Holy Spirit--which wouldn't preclude us (specifically me {s}) from intentionally accepting what I perceive to be contradictory anyway.

This entry begins chapter 35, "an introduction to the concept of sin", in my original text.

Some side commentary I would otherwise relegate to footnotes, is included below in [Footnote] text. Occasionally, mentioning the footnote in-text would be too disruptive to the flow of the argument, perhaps, and so I have chosen to put those in the journal comments instead. (These will be marked where so.)


.......[excerpt begins here]

One especially important part of a discussion of the properties of 'ethics' involves the question of 'evil'. If ethics are only a human invention, or if ethics are only a perceptual illusion based on irrational response to our environment (micro or macro), or if ethics are only a combination of those two general explanations, then any discussion of 'evil' is rendered somewhat moot. 'Evil', in these cases, means only what you and I have been automatically conditioned to treat as 'evil', and/or only what you and I happen to reject (whether for self-practical purposes or aesthetically). [Footnote: "Learning what is evil", in such cases, would mean 'learning what we have been automatically conditioned to treat as evil' or 'learning what other people have opportunistically chosen to treat as evil'.]

We still could discuss something that we (or other people not ourselves) call 'evil', and perhaps even make some rational choices concerning our own perceptions of it. But under those two theories that's as far as the usefulness of the concept would go.

Remember: the shared distinction of those two explanations for ethics, is that what is being either discovered or invented (or both) is not really 'ethical' in an objectively qualitative sense. Ethics, according to those theories, are only what we personally want them to be, or are non-rational reactions to stimuli (or perhaps are a combination of both behaviors).

Consequently, 'evil' is put into the same boat.

This can lead to some amusing inconsistencies from advocates of those two theories: I once again recall the popular atheistic naturalist who explains our concept of justice to be a mere species bias similar to racism, but who goes on later to vent against British settlers for mistreating the Australian aborigines. He expects his readers to agree that the settlers' racism was really unjust, aside from his own mere opinion about it, and thus should be decried!

When I first discussed the general kinds of ethical theory, such inconsistencies might be neither here nor there. But based on what I have argued since then, I am now in a position to fit them into the shape of my metaphysic.

So far in this book [including many chapters currently unpublished and so not found in this series of journal entries], I have argued that God exists; and subsequently I have argued that because God has certain properties necessary for His self-existence (much more for the existence of anything else, such as you or me), He also intrinsically provides the objective ethical standard.

Furthermore I have argued that it would be self-contradictory (and indeed the incurable suicide of all reality) for God to ever set aside His own internal interPersonal standard of behavior--the Personal behaviors that constitute the ultimate standards of what we call 'love' and 'justice'. God's behavior shall, will, remain self-consistent.

Consequently (I have argued), God would communicate an internal witness to all thinking people in all times and places. This witness would, at the minimum, consist of a request or reminder or urge that we as individuals should not accept what we judge to be contradictory as being nevertheless true.

[Footnote: I say 'at the minimum' because God's communication to us internally via the Holy Spirit might entail just about anything more than this. However, this would never abrogate this most basic of requirements; and of course it could never be a full-revelation communication, because you and I are not omniscient. Remember [from a currently unpublished chapter in Section One] that a notion does not need to be fully accurate to be sufficiently adequate.]

Can God force me never to accept nor to intentionally propagate contradictions?

In a way, yes He could; but it would not any longer be 'me' who was 'refusing to accept' or 'refusing to propagate' contradictions: it would only be God Himself directly manipulating (at least my body's) matter and energy to produce an effect that happens (by His choice) to take place through my body. 'I' would have no say in the matter, unless and until God ceased doing this particular action through my body; at which time I might revert back to conscious perception and action. God would have 'short-circuited' "me"; but that proposal also short-circuits the question of whether He could 'force me' to 'act honestly'. [See first comment below for extended footnote here.]

God can act "honestly" through my created form, but it would not be 'me' acting "honestly": it would not be 'me' acting at all!

In such a situation, God would also not be relating to 'me' as Person to person: only as Personal Creator to His creation. I grant that God could do this, if He wanted to; and maybe He even has, to some people, at some times, in some circumstances. But I have argued many chapters ago that He must not do this through me constantly (and also, from what I can perceive, He must not do this through me very much at all, maybe never); because I do not get the impression that I am God. Consequently, either I am God and God is lying to Himself (which is impossible, as it would break the Unity); or I am God and God is mistaken about being God (which is similarly impossible); or I am not God: meaning that I sometimes am responsible for initiating my own (derivative) actions 'myself'.

So, can God force me, personally, never to accept nor to intentionally propagate contradictions? Ultimately, the answer is no: He cannot force 'me', per se.

Does this mean God does not care whether I would do these things? No, for that would violate His own interPersonal and eternal standard of justice (and probably such a lack of care by Him would violate His love, too).

Well then, is it impossible for me to willingly accede to contradictions? Now we are getting very near the question--and the problems--of evil. Perhaps I should put it the other way around: is it possible (and can I figure out how it is possible) that I am capable of willingly acceding to contradictions?

The Golden Presumption (without which any argument by anybody to any conclusion cannot even begin, much less succeed) states that I can act. I have argued that this necessarily implies the existence of God, and that God's existence in turn does not necessarily require that I cannot act. Now, however, I am examining a proposition that seems to entail my capability to do something that, in principle, God cannot do. How feasible is this proposition; and if it is not feasible, what corollary implications does that conclusion entail?

I can distinguish between willingly and accidentally acceding to contradictions. 'Accidentally acceding' means making mere mistakes, perhaps through lack of skill, or perhaps through ignorance of data conditions. This is not something God, in His transcendent omniscience, can do; no more than He can create a boulder too heavy for Him to lift.

But not only does it seem to me that I can make accidental mistakes (I certainly can testify that I do!), it deductively follows from my existence as a non-omniscient derivatively active creature that it is possible for me to make mistakes.

The strength of this particular contention obviously rests on how successful I have been at arguing that it is not contradictory for me to exist as a derivative act-er; but if that property of my existence is not contradictory, then no absurdity would follow from concluding as a corollary that I can possibly make mere mistakes. As an entity who (or even 'which') is less than God, then my abilities would be less than God's.

But making a mistake by accident is not the same as willingly embracing what I know to be incorrect. No absurdity follows from a derivative creature possessing capabilities less than God; an accidental mistake on my part, is not a positive capability I possess.

But God, as the final fact of reality, must be presumed to be necessarily self-consistent. Consequently, God will neither produce nor advocate contradictions.

God can produce and advocate situations that we fallible humans may currently consider to be contradictory; but this is not the same thing as being contradictory. A paradox is not a contradiction; it invites us to discover the properties that resolve and account for it. Again, God can produce a boulder that He chooses not to manipulate in particular ways (for instance He may choose not to lift it); but He cannot produce a boulder that is 'too heavy' for Him to lift. God can produce a derivative creature like myself, and grant me derivative action ability; but He cannot give me free will and at the same time totally manipulate me like a puppet. Nonsense confabulated out of the grammar of language does not suddenly becomes feasible merely by affixing to it the words 'God can'.

Now, it is also utterly impossible for me to do plenty of real actions, including actions God Himself can do. Due to my physical limitations, I cannot reach out and touch the Statue of Liberty from where I am sitting. God can touch the statue from where He 'is', but that is because natural space and time utterly depend upon Him for maintaining their existence. If God incarnated (or otherwise manifested) Himself, He might still be able to touch the statue from anywhere in space/time (while retaining the Incarnated form) by opening a wormhole in space/time and sticking His arm through it. Of course, such a solution might depend on a loose definition of what it means for the Incarnated God to be in one place and not another: His arm would be in New York Harbor, while the rest of Him stood in Palestine or Tennessee or wherever. And I expect God could make a space/time wormhole that allowed me to accomplish the same feat--but that wouldn't be something I can do of my own derivative power (at least as far as I know).

But I am considering a different question: is it possible for me to willingly --not by accident--accede to contradictions?

Let us say that I know--or at least I think I know--that I cannot possibly, with my own inherent abilities, reach the Statue of Liberty from where I am sitting. Is it possible for me to assert to you that I can? Is it possible for me not merely to assert this to you, but to do so in a persistent manner with the intention of convincing you that I can reach the statue, when I know I cannot? Is it possible for me to willfully blind myself to the fact that I cannot, until through habitually active intent to ignore the fact, I delude myself into such a condition that I eventually become ignorant of the fact?

These answers may be discovered by experiment, and by experience. And I find that I certainly can act with the intention of succeeding in the first two examples; and I suspect I am entirely capable of accomplishing the third example. I am even willing to risk an assumption that you, my reader, are already very familiar with examples of this sort. The whole recorded history of the human species is rancid with act after act of intentional outright misstatement of known falsehoods as fact, including examples of pervasive self-deception.

Is God capable of any of these things?

I think that these actions, if God did do them, would be a breach of the interPersonal relationship that establishes God's self-existence and also grounds the existence of all other facts of reality. Such a breach would destroy the self-existent Unity of God's transpersonal reality; God would either no longer beget He Himself fully Himself, or else He Himself fully begotten by Himself would become something other than Himself, and thus incapable of further self-generation. Either way, it would be the suicide of God at the most foundational level possible; a suicide from which there could be no recovery. And with the total self-annihilation of God, all the rest of dependent reality would cease to exist, including all of what we call the past, present and future of our natural space/time system.

Yet you and I are still here.

I therefore conclude that God never has, nor never shall do this.

But, does that mean He cannot do this?

Is it possible for God to utterly and completely kill Himself?


[Next up: freaky but surprisingly important question to be answered there!]

[A very abbreviated and incomplete summary of the several hundred pages of argument preceding these chapters, can be found in my July 4th essay The Heart of Freedom.]

Ethics and the Third Person--the minimum standard

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: I am here appending in several parts some excerpts from an unpublished book of mine (not CoJ incidentally), originally composed late 99/early 2000, wherein I work out a progressive synthetic metaphysic. The topic of this Section of chapters is ethical grounding; and in the first several entries I analyzed crippling problems along the three general lines of ethical explanation, including general theism. After this though, I returned to the argument I had already been developing for several hundred (currently unpublished) pages, and used those developed positions to begin solving the philosophical dilemmas I had covered in previous entries. Along the way, I ran into a potential problem last seen back in my (unpublished) Section Three; but slotting that problem into my developing argument allowed me to discover that I should believe that a 3rd Person of God exists. Having covered some introductory inferences regarding the 3rd Person's relationship to the other two Persons in the substantial unity of God, I proceeded in my most recent entry to consider some preliminary issues in regard to requirements for personal interaction between the 3rd Person and each of us, as persons.

This entry concludes chapter 34, "the role of the 3rd Person of God", in my original text. I ended my previous entry with the question, "what kind of communication can we expect from the Holy Spirit to anyone at all, in any time and place?"

Some side commentary I would otherwise relegate to footnotes, is included below in [Footnote] text. In a couple of places, mentioning the footnote in-text would be too disruptive to the flow of the argument, perhaps, and so I have chosen to put those in the journal comments instead. (These will be marked where so.)

.......[excerpt begins here]

It might be suspected that this would mean all people at any time and place would hear God talking directly to them in an unambiguously clear and constant manner. However, this obviously does not happen. Why this does not happen is certainly worth consideration eventually, because it would seem to be one of the most effective means of communication--perhaps not useful for every situation, but useful enough to be a common occurrence.

So we can know from experience there are evidently some limitations to His communication with us, even at the most fundamental level of communication (through the Holy Spirit). Setting aside (only for the moment) the question of why the limitations exist, let me ask instead what the 'limitations of the limitations' would be, so to speak. In other words, what is the minimum of necessary communication we can expect from God?

This minimum shall itself be contingent on some other factors, of course: a woman in a coma might not be in any condition, while in that condition, to receive a personal communication from God. This is not because God has abandoned her: He is still there and acting in her favor, or even her body would cease to exist altogether; and He would still care about any personality that had developed before the coma or which might still develop afterward. But while she is in that state, then (as far as we know) she cannot herself relate to anything as a 'person'. [See first comment below for footnote here.] If God cares about her as a person (and He will), then we can be assured that He will not let her stay in that state forever; which is another topic worth coming back to later. All I am saying at the moment, is that special cases have special qualifications, and should not be considered the rule of thumb for gauging the normal relations between God and man. [Footnote: Although we should expect even the special cases to be dealt with on the same principles as the normal cases, even if the application may be significantly different.]

Therefore, I am defining the 'norm' as the state of rationality in which most people find themselves, at greater or lesser efficiency, throughout most of their lives. Barring special case-by-case circumstances (even in otherwise 'normal' individuals), what is the minimum necessary communication from God?

To answer this question, I think it is worth asking: what is the minimum necessary characteristic of existence itself?

If we look back to God, what shall we find as the 'lowest common denominator'? What are the properties of God's own interPersonal relationship?

I find at least two properties: self-consistent rationality; and self-consistent mutual service (the Begetting of the Son and the Abdication back to the Father forms the eternally active 'circuit of Self-Existence', so to speak).

Is one of these two qualities perhaps the characteristic I am looking for? I don't think so--although they shall certainly be the standard toward which God will expect us to attain. Yet each of these two qualities shares another quality: that of 'self-consistency'.

Literally speaking, the English term 'self-consistent' might mean the same as 'self-existent' (i.e., something 'consists of itself'); and self-existence is certainly a property of God. But I have been using 'self-consistent' somewhat more distinctively, to mean that these relationships entail no contradictions. They could not possibly entail contradictions, for no contradiction ever actually exists--if it could exist, it would not be contradictive.

An actually existent reality can never under any possible circumstances exhibit contradictions; even an atheistic reality, if it could exist, would be incapable of exhibiting contradictions. [Footnote: This, at bottom, is why I decided to reject atheism as false; its propositions entail that I accept necessary contradictions, as a fundamental part of any argument I might make.]

I conclude therefore, that under even the barest minimum existent conditions, a communication from God to us shall inevitably consist, at the very least, of a reminder; an impression; an urge; something; to the effect that we should not ever accept (or even prefer) that a state we perceive to be contradictive actually exists.

Notice I have qualified myself here. Certainly, we would be constantly reminded by God ('in our hearts', so to speak) that contradictions should be rejected. Yet we ourselves are fallible, non-omniscient beings: we make mistakes. It is entirely possible that you or I might think that something is a contradiction when in fact it is not; or, we might think a proposal is cogently self-consistent, when the proposal is actually contradictory.

We can expect God to know the real truth of these situations, and to work to correct such impressions of ours. But assuming for the moment (as our experience certainly gives us grounds to conclude) that not every communication of God to us has effects immediately recognizable by us, then it follows that God knows quite well that in any given case (maybe even in most given cases) there shall be a 'lag-time' between His attempts at instructing us and our success in perceiving, understanding and accepting the instruction.

So, what should God expect from us during that 'lag-time'? By definition, during the lag-time we shall not have perceived and understood that what we thought was contradictive really is not (or vice versa). Shall we accept what we think is contradictive then, in the meanwhile?

I believe God does not expect this of us. Our willing choice to reject contradictions in principle, is a far more primary act on our part than the correct estimation of any given proposal as a contradiction or not. If we get into the habit of accepting what we perceive to be contradictions, even as a makeshift, it will be a bad habit that can only cause trouble later--even if it happens that what we accept despite our perception of contradictoriness is in fact not contradictory.

Even in our thoughts about God Himself, shall we say, "I believe such-n-such proposition about God to be truly contradictive, but I say this is true of God anyway"? This either means saying nothing at all about God; or it means denying the reality of God.

Even if the honest person avoids this through sheer force of willed loyalty to God [Footnote: for instance, perhaps she doesn't yet understand that if contradictions could be true about God, we would never possibly have any reliable knowledge either of God or of anything else], how shall she distinguish misunderstandings and misinterpretations later? She has learned to accept propositions as true, which she perceives to be contradictive; and misunderstandings and misinterpretations are inevitably contradictive at some point (although that 'point' may be very subtle). She would be willing to accept authority over what she perceives as being cogent; or even to accept her own wishful thinking over what she perceives as being cogent.

This is a dangerous state of affairs for her; one that shall spill over into her 'non-religious' life as well. Because sometimes what she will judge to be contradictory really shall be contradictory; and yet she will have learned to accept perceived contradictions as being possibly true and useful anyway (while remaining definite contradictions).

That route leads to disaster, for her and for others.

So, I think the very most primary notion God would want to communicate to that person, if He could communicate nothing else, would be: accept reality--do not accept contradictions.

He would know that due to her fallibility, this could mean she might reject something that He knows she needs to know, something that in fact (despite her misjudgment) is not contradictory. But better for her to do this, than for her to embrace apparent inconsistencies; for at least she shall be learning good habits. And God will not let her stay in her error forever; that would be inconsistent on His part. He will work constantly (even if He must lay ages of groundwork before His work succeeds) to help her understand the truth.

Such a basic communication lies at the ground of any further possible successful communication from God: whether His method is a divinely whispered ethical suggestion, or a metaphysical revelation, or even a historical document. It leads to more efficient clarity of thinking in all topics, secular or religious. It leads to more efficient interactions with God, and with God's creation. It transcends philosophical systems; it transcends particular ethical codes; it transcends languages, cultures, and ages. The youngest thinking person can make use of it to learn more, even if he cannot quite state it; the oldest thinking person can use it to pass her wisdom usefully to younger generations. It lies at the root of what it means to 'think' in the first place; and it lies at the root of honesty.

It can also be willfully denied.

And if it is denied, then eventually the denier shall suffer the consequences of the denial; not because God is spiteful, but because if people do not efficiently interact with reality then they shall end up 'bumping heads' against something greater than they are, to their detriment (like charging a locomotive straight on)--and because if people willingly choose to accept and propagate what they know to be contradictive, then they do not leave themselves in a position to learn better: the two willed possibilities (accept what you have honestly judged to be falsehoods or reject them) are mutually exclusive.

To set one's will against contradictions, then, is to strive with (not against ) the Holy Spirit.

But to actively embrace contradictions, means not merely to speak a word against the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit (that could happen by honest accident): but to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit--to prefer, analogically speaking, the darkness of obscurity over the light of clarity and efficient accuracy. It means to willingly shut out what little light you have within you; "and if the light within you is darkness, then how great is that darkness."

I do not conclude that this urging is the only action the Holy Spirit can and does do in a person. I only conclude that this urging--to refuse what we discern as contradictions--must necessarily be the most basic, fundamental action the Holy Spirit does within each of us, in relating to us as Person to person. Only persons can have real intent; only persons can actively perceive and judge a proposition to be 'contradictory'; and certainly only a person can choose whether or not he will act as though what he perceives to be contradictory is nevertheless the truth.

God does not choose to accept what is contradictory; if He did, the unity of His self-consistency (and thus of His self-consistent existence) would be broken, and then all reality would cease--including our past, present and future. You and I are still here, so we can be assured that God never does this! At the same time, experience shows that we are entirely capable of preferring contradictions which we recognize to be contradictions.

But contradictions are not real, and are not reality. God, on the other hand, is the root and ground of reality--He is, so to speak, the 'most real' of things.

To choose as a principle to accept contradictions, therefore, eventually means going against reality: and God is the most real.

How and why is this possible? And what are the implications? In the next several chapters I will be discussing these questions.

In other words, the time has come for me to discuss 'sin'.

[Next up: and now the topical elements of the series title have finally synched together! {g} In case readers feel apt to get panicky about the discussion moving hence to 'sin', especially 'the sin against the Holy Ghost', let me reassure you I mainly mean to discuss my sinning, not other people's. Which may be un-reassuring in other ways, perhaps {g}; but I mean that I won't be launching into specific finger-pointing about the sins of you-and-you-and-you-and-them-over-there. No need to do that; my own sins are quite sufficient enough for discussion of principle, thank you. {s}]

[A very abbreviated and incomplete summary of the several hundred pages of argument preceding these chapters, can be found in my July 4th essay The Heart of Freedom.]

Ethics and the Third Person--some requirements for personal interaction

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: I am here appending in several parts some excerpts from an unpublished book of mine (not CoJ incidentally), originally composed late 99/early 2000, wherein I work out a progressive synthetic metaphysic. The topic of this Section of chapters is ethical grounding; and in the first several entries I analyzed crippling problems along the three general lines of ethical explanation, including general theism. Recently though, I returned to the argument I had already been developing for several hundred (currently unpublished) pages, and used those developed positions to begin solving the philosophical dilemmas I had covered in previous entries. Along the way, I ran into a potential problem last seen back in my (unpublished) Section Three; but slotting that problem into my developing argument allowed me to discover that I should believe that a 3rd Person of God exists. In my most recent entry, I covered some introductory inferences regarding the 3rd Person's relationship to the other two Persons in the substantial Unity of God.

This entry begins chapter 34, "the role of the 3rd Person of God", in my original text. I mentioned in the lead-out from my previous entry that my reader might plausibly expect this to have something to do with ethics, per the largescale topic for this section of chapters, plus y'know the Section (and journal-series) title. {g} I'm having to halve this chapter, though; and it doesn't start to synch up with ethicality until the end, which will now be the end of the next entry to come. So be patient a little longer please.

Some side commentary I would otherwise relegate to footnotes, is included below in [Footnote] text. In a couple of places, mentioning the footnote in-text would be too disruptive to the flow of the argument, perhaps, and so I have chosen to put those in the journal comments instead. (These will be marked where so.)

.......[excerpt begins here]

In the previous chapter [actually a few entries back], I examined a potentially damaging problem stemming from the requirements of some earlier inferences I had made [specifically in Section Three, currently unpublished]. This problem, although subtle, was severe enough that it might have unraveled quite a bit of my previous argument. However, upon close examination of the problem, I discovered that after removing certain inconsistencies from the option list, I was rewarded, not with a conclusion that much of my previous argument would need to be trash-canned (or at best redrafted), but that I should believe that there exists a 3rd Person to the self-existent Unity of God.

I had, in short, deduced the existence of what Christians call "The Holy Spirit" or “The Holy Ghost”.

So, what does this "3rd Person of God" do in relation to us?

The answer to that question depends on what it means for God to Personally relate to us as persons. Remember that I got to this point by deciding that for God to act in relation to you and me (who are persons), which He must to do in some fashion to create and maintain us as persons, He must act in a way that is self-consistent with the standard set by His own eternally self-existent interPersonal conduct: and this active interPersonal relationship, between God self-begetting and self-begotten, is the ultimate standard of what we identify as 'love' and 'justice'. This means He, our Creator, must not merely relate to us as our Creator, but as a Person Himself.

Yet (if I may coin a phrase) this is obviously not terribly obvious--otherwise we would have many fewer atheists, and they would all be recognized as completely dishonest ones!

Note carefully what I have said here: I expect there are some atheists who maintain, and even propagate, their atheism through essentially dishonest means, even to the point of being dishonest with themselves. However, that is nothing special: I am dead-level certain there are people calling themselves Christians who maintain and even propagate the faith in a similar manner! Since I know, nevertheless, there are Christians who are basically honest in intent about their beliefs (I think I am one of these myself), I am entirely willing to believe there are plenty of non-Christians (including atheists) who fall into the same category.

And I think it would be better to focus first on the situation of these honest non-Christians: for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is not something that'only applies to Christians'. There are, admittedly, some operations of the Holy Spirit, which Christians do think specially apply (or have specially applied) to at least some Christians. But I am not interested in special cases at the moment.

Coming at the topic from this direction (i.e. of metaphysical derivation), the most I can say concerning occasional special actions of the Holy Spirit in individuals, would be merely that the possibility exists. I am not grounding any of my argument on the authority of 'scriptures', because I know that the reliability (and degree of reliability) of purported 'scriptures' is extremely difficult to establish: a problem that most believers don't appreciate the magnitude of, but that nevertheless is most often a stumbling block even for honest and respectable sceptics. Therefore, I will focus instead on operations of the Holy Spirit that are common to everyone, and in principle accessible to anyone, including sceptics.

So: if I am correct in deducing that God relates Personally through the Holy Spirit to every created person, including people who don't accept my own beliefs, what can (and/or must) this mean?

Once more, anything I propose must not violate the self-consistency of God's love and justice: the way He relates to Himself is the standard for how He will relate to us.

How do persons relate to one another as persons? Put another way, how do rational entities relate to other rational entities as rational entities? What does it entail for you, as a rational entity, to relate to me in such a fashion that you intentionally call into play my own actively rational faculties as an individual?

If you give me some bread, or give me a whomp on the head with a hammer, how are you relating to me? The mere events themselves do not entail that you are thereby relating to me as being myself a rational entity: you may feed plants and bacteria, or you could hit a nail on the head, with essentially the same behaviors (even intentive ones) on your part, and possibly even with essentially similar reactions on my part. But few people consider plants to be rational agents; and virtually no one considers a nail (in and of itself) to be a rational agent. So merely doing those things to me does not necessarily require relating to me as one rational entity to another. [Footnote: my point here does not depend on denying that plants or even nails are rational agents; only that where non-agent entities are accepted to exist, these relationships demonstrate that they apply just as well to non-agent entities.]

And you would only be relating to me as a rational entity yourself if you purposefully initiated those events. Cataclysmic diarrhea while hiking will feed plenty of plants, but you might not have intended to feed them that way! If the head flies off a hammer and strikes something, it may produce results similar to a directed strike, but you might not have intended it. What you do before or afterward in contribution to those circumstances (for example, choosing to eat that second piece of seven-layer chocolate cake before the hike, and to hell with the consequences!) might constitute a rational action, but those particular subsequent events as such were mere reactions and might have entailed no conscious direction on your part.

So relating to me as a conscious entity yourself, requires active intention on your part: you decide to hit me on the head with the hammer; the hammer doesn't merely slip accidentally out of your grip at an inopportune moment.

But you could decide to hit me, or accidentally hit me, either one, without necessarily relating to me as being a rational entity myself.

There are at least three necessities, then, for you to accomplish the relationship of person-to-person: you and I must both really be persons; you must recognize me as a person, which means recognizing I am someone capable of actively judging the implications of an event to derive the 'meaning' of the event; and you must intend for me to receive at least one meaning from the event that you are (as a person yourself) initiating.

In short: to relate to me as person to person, you must at least attempt some type of communication.

Note that the intention of such a relationship is not constrained by success or failure on the part of either of us. [Footnote: although the factual success of the attempt shall certainly be constrained by whether both of us are persons or not.] As the initiator of the action, you might be mistaken about whether I am a person (even if you succeed in obtaining a favorable reaction from me); or you might be incompetent to the task and fail in communicating your desired intent(s). Or I might by circumstance or even by willful intransigence ignore or misread your intended meaning(s).

In the case of God, of course, He shall not be mistaken about which of His creations is or is not a real person; and neither shall He be incompetent to the task. But He is dealing with entities (you and I) who as active creatures (even derivative ones) might willfully ignore or misinterpret Him; and there could also be other self-imposed limitations to God's efficiency in communication, depending on what other plans He has put into effect as well as other conditions He considers to be important. [See first comment below for longer footnote here.]

Putting together the implications of what I have argued since chapter 14 [beginning Section Two--Secs 2 and 3 have not been published on the Cadre journal yet], I think this must be true; and it would still be true, whether or not our failure to understand and properly respond to Him was an accident (from our end of things) or intentional intransigence. If God wants free-willed derivative creatures, then He will have to live with the risk that at any given moment those creatures might rebel against Him or even simply misunderstand Him.

So if God will be self-consistent according to His own standard of interPersonal relationships (which as the IF He certainly shall be); and if we are rational entities ourselves (per the Golden Presumption); and if we, as such entities, have been created by God (as I have previously inferred); then He will communicate with all of us. In scriptural language, God will be the Light Who is enlightening every one who is coming into the world.

Furthermore, this communication will not be limited to any Incarnational contact He has with us, nor limited to any messages He might send to other people for them to pass on to us. An Incarnation, by being an 'Incarnation', can only be in a limited number of places and times 'at once' [see second comment below for larger footnote here] ; and inspired messages might themselves be misperceived or misunderstood or intransigently perverted by the receivers, or might even suffer normal textual corruption through subsequent copy transmission.

Moreover, and more importantly for my current analysis, communicating through 'ambassadors', so to speak, still does not entail communicating with everyone everywhere at all times, even in the case of documentary communication. [Footnote: It is worth asking why God would bother at all to use special commication routes of this sort if He can reach us through interaction of the Holy Spirit; but I will get to that later.]

So His relation to us as Person to persons will first and foremost be through the communicative operations of the Holy Spirit, His own 3rd Person. This does not mean that every action He might take concerning us personally would be only communication; but it would at least be that. [Footnote: I mean ‘at least’ in regard to us being people ourselves; insofar as we are creations, His action of creating and sustaining our existence would be more fundamental, of course.]

Moving along then: what kind of communication can we expect from the Holy Spirit to anyone at all, in any time and place?

[Next up: obviously all people at any time and place don’t hear God talking directly to them in an unambiguously clear and constant manner; so that could hardly be the minimal expected communication. Nor would that follow as a conclusion of principle anyway, as it happens. So, what would be the minimal expected communication?]

[A very abbreviated and incomplete summary of the several hundred pages of argument preceding these chapters, can be found in my July 4th essay The Heart of Freedom.]