>btfos internet thomists and tradlarpers at large
>has actually read and translated the new testament
>could actually write using le analytic autistic syllogisms but doesn't want to
>actually makes a sounder logical case than analytic larpers while not even trying
>calls everyone who disagrees with him stupid instead of getting into a midwitted debate
>only reads highly mystical, basically icomprehensible authors like Eriugena
>still knows Aquinas better than most thomists
>knows that all will be saved
will Thomists ever score a win against that man ?
 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
 CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
This Black person's translation of the New Testament is the comfiest shit I have ever read.
post excerpt
An excerpt doesn't do it justice. Basically he translated it in an extremely literal form, without trying to smooth over the imperfections of the original texts (most translators embellish ehat is usually very poor Greek). So when you read Mark, you FEEL Mark's style very clearly. When you are reading Paul, you can almost see the man behind the letters. Different authors have very different styles in his translation, it's almost as if he was metamorphosing into every author while translating it. I highly recommend it.
I've been reading it since I saw this post and I'm really enjoying it so far, you get a much better feel for the styles--or lack thereof--of the authors of the new testament.
the constant "but look"s in Matthew really made me feel like I was getting lied to by some fast talking israeli electronics salesman, 10/10
Post his best argument in favor of the existence of the Christian God.
Still waiting
I don't know that he has (or that there are) very strong arguments for the Christian God specifically. I'm not a Christian so I've not really studied the subject. Although I am under the impression that Christianity can be shown to be remarkably non-contradictory, and even "positively coherent" with what is known of God through natural theology. (and here of course there are very robust proofs)
Philosophically may as well separate Protestantism and cathlicism
>Although I am under the impression that Christianity can be shown to be remarkably non-contradictory
Only a zoomer would be young enough to say this. Holy fricking shit man, do you not remember the mid-00s when it was practically a sport to point out contradictions in the Bible? It's like Jesus fricking Christ man, there are good arguments for the theological correctness of Christianity but a lack of contradictions in its holy texts is not one of them.
>there are people who weren't alive for New Atheism and the creationism debates using the Internet now
Is this how Boomers feel every day?
you're the boomer now Mr. MySpace
Almost every fricking "contradiction" the New Atheists pointed out was either overblown or false. Sometimes it was a later passage of the Bible being predicted by an earlier passage, for example, which only INCREASES the idea that Scripture is true.
God if you exist please do not turn me into one of these middle aged incels. I don't care if he's married. He's a fricking incel. Make me a real intellectual or give me the humility to just be a wagie. Anything but a tHeOlOgY fedora tipper. Anything but a Christian apologist. Please. Amen.
If you're this emotional about it your course is already set, you'll be an overzealous convert and you'll like it.
you people are cringe beyond belief
Good. Why do morons like you even pretend you can think? Deep down you know you can't, you operate like women based on memes about what is "cringe" instead. You can't begin to say anything about any subject because you don't understand how to.
Like this moron
Theology is just the OG troony discourse. 2+2=5, bigots. Credo quia absurdum.
Give me a qrd. How does he BTFO Thomism and why does it matter? What do we lose in appreciating God’s grace by accepting Thomism?
tbf I said he btfos internet thomists, not thomism per se. the main reason I guess is that thomism can mean a variety of things. there are palatable 'thomists" like Josef Pieper. Even thomists of a more "manualist" and strictly aristotelian bent I personally find okay though not very interesting. I will admit that I am annoyed with thomism mainly because of tradzoomers, who are in many ways (mainly cringe-wise) the "new atheists" of belief in God.
But I guess Hart does btfo all thomisms (that I know of) on the specific question of everlasting Hell though. It's a notion that very obiously does not make sense, and it's very strange to see all those thomists (whom one might suppose are commited to an intellectualist model of free will) talk about one's "free" rejection of God as such, which doesn't make sense even on a grammatical level (using the thomist's own philosophical grammar, no less).
>everlasting Hell
It makes sense in a specific manner. What is punished is sinfulness, and not sin, which is a contingent act which proves sinfulness. Thus, it is the sinner's essence which is punished, not his temporal actions. What is punished is wrong as long as it exists, it is nearly pure evil. However, the sinner can, through hell be purified and distinguish himself from this evil essence. So he will be free, through repentance in hell. But what is punished is forever punished.
I don't get the impression this is any infernalist's stance t b h, although it is one I have "charitably" tried to attribute to them.
but on closer inspection, what does it mean ? as we know evil does not have an existence of its own, much like absence of a thing is not presence of some other manner of thing. there is no "pure evil", it is an accident of creation. we have no "evil essence" to speak of. if "we" are saved, then there is no longer imperfection in us, and imperfection in us (insofar as it is in us) is all evil can be.
all this can be taken to be, ultimately, is that evil is, forever and everywhere, not what is loved, that evil is not good, and that evil is "condemned" as nonbeing, which verges on tautology or definition, but which at least, we all agree with.
if this is eternal hell then of course I should have no trouble accepting it
>as we know evil does not have an existence of its own, much like absence of a thing is not presence of some other manner of thing. there is no "pure evil", it is an accident of creation. we have no "evil essence" to speak of. if "we" are saved, then there is no longer imperfection in us, and imperfection in us (insofar as it is in us) is all evil can be.
can't believe I share a board with children like this
read the bittaker transcripts and try posting this fricking twaddle you baby b***h moron
I know enough about what these are to not read them.
Of course, we are tempted when faced with such wickedness to conclude that some people are "essentially" evil, or drawn to "evil" as such. This is in fact, the first conclusion anyone (including, and most of all children) comes to in life. Some sort of crude dualism would no doubt lurk in there.
But I will say this, that truth is sometimes hard to accept, and this can be for a variety of reasons. In your case, I think, it is because wrath darkens the mind.
as charity and prudence dictate you should not presume that others have not considered your arguments, but should yourself consider that they might have considered and discarded them.
>has nothing to say
pussy
I don't understand your reaction, to be honest. I have replied to your (less than courteous) message as best I could, but you have not given a very clear view of why you disagree with what is said, other than your strange assumption that universalists are not aware of the horrors of the world or that they try and ignore them, which I have replied to. Not that it is something that calls for a very long or elaborate reply.
As far as long and elaborate replies go, I have ITT given some of my own, regarding other topics. Though the replies are mine, the ideas or at least the premises, are of course not original with me, and are most of them uncontrovertial, so if you truly want to engage with them and find nothing of interest in what I have written here, maybe read somebody more well-versed than me.
I feel I would be remiss not to reiterate my advice that you be more charitable and prudent.
Evil isn't always non-being, and non-being isn't always evil. Sometimes evil is a sick exultation in health and the perfection of the human senses, since man is the most perfect animal. Maybe it's we that lack something that demons have in abundance.
If God is the Good as such there is really no way of asserting evil's independent existence without having to postulate some genus of which God would be a part, some analytical explanation for Him other than Himself. But this is absurd since He is specifically arrived at by postulating that there must be "something" that requires no such explanation, that doesn't stand under anything. There can't be a conceptually symmetrical foil to God, and this is why there can't be a conceptually symmetrical foil to truth or good either.
The only way I can see of trying to salvage this is of course to assert somehow that God "creates" both "good" and evil, that they are both just things that stand under him. So then to deny that God is the Good as such. (this is unfortunately the view that most uninformed self proclaimed theists tend to profess).
But then what is God ? Precisely the only ways we have to know about His existence is that there is something that is Good as such (or Power as such, or Truth as such), and that it is what is meant when speaking of God. The God who is Being itself and Truth itself is the God that is Good itself. So we have no meaning for that word now, and no way of arriving at God. Nothing can be said of him other than that He is some unknown that is not the reality and "source" of those things, but a sort of Will that arbitrarily creates not only one thing, but its opposite. This is ultimate voluntarism of course, and renders everything unintelligible by definition.
To be sure, the primacy of "god" has been preserved as opposed to what followed from my first paragraph, but at the cost of severing any analogical ties, any way of asserting anything about ultimate reality. We have preserved the primacy of a god that means nothing, and creates a non-cosmos he has no meaning to give to.
Many people believe in the idea of substantial evil simply because it is how they are able to rationally reject God. I think this is actually extremely symbolic, given that there is virtually no other reason to do so, and in fact there are plenty of agnostics who do not believe that evil is "substantial." The belief in evil, even if one still opposes the perceived evil, is itself a corruption of the mind, so that even pure ideas can cause corruption.
>The belief in evil, even if one still opposes the perceived evil, is itself a corruption of the mind
>scale of valuation/knowledge of good and evil is a corruption of the mind
So evil isn't evil? Grim
"He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." Isaiah 33:10-17
One does not need to "know evil" in order to know Good, because in the former case there is nothing to be known, only ambiguity.
That's the right answer, so why aren't you a dualist? Why does God or divine teleology or whatever need the Fall for redemption?
>But I guess Hart does btfo all thomisms (that I know of) on the specific question of everlasting Hell though. It's a notion that very obiously does not make sense, and it's very strange to see all those thomists (whom one might suppose are commited to an intellectualist model of free will) talk about one's "free" rejection of God as such, which doesn't make sense even on a grammatical level (using the thomist's own philosophical grammar, no less).
It makes perfect sense. Wrath at evil is a positive property. God possesses all positive properties, furthermore, all such properties must be exhibited. Rejection of this good merits infinite punishment.
I really don't see your point. First off, no sense can be made of this:
>Wrath at evil is a positive property
I have of course defended (not that it needs defending because it is universally accepted in religious discourse) the privation theory of evil.
so wrath is a sin and thus a privation (and not a positive property, not that there really are negative properties anyway, only privations). there is no analogical language about God that can fail to preserve this. so no, there is no wrath "in God". there is of course no anger "in God" either as anger is a passion.
what God can be said to "possess" (quotes for keeping in mind divine simplicity), is love for the Good, that is, love for Himself, which is the only thing I can think you mean when you talk of "wrath at evil". It is true that he "posesses all positive properties" and that there are exhibited (I take this to mean that there is no potential in him, of course). But since wrath (at "evil" or anything else, which really must be taken to "mean" a privation "directed" to privation, which is fitting as only nothing can point to nothing) doesn't exist in God, this proves nothing.
We have an insight into another maybe quicker way of asserting the PTE as the only way to make sense of God. God really is his attributes, and cannot be really one thing and its opposite (because of course He is intelligible). Since God is all things positive, things that are in pairs seemingly of parallel substantial opposites such as Love and Hatred, Good and Evil, are really one (positive) reality and its absence.
furthermore, as I have endeavoured to explain (I am merely expounding on vary basic principles accepted throughout classical theism), it makes no sense to say that one rejects God stricto sensu (God qua God), much less freely of course. This is actually one of the common misunderstandings. The intellectualist model (which is of course intimately linked with the privation theory of evil), which is the only valid one, precludes the possibility of an "infinite" trespassing of that sort. The matter of punishment in such a case in not of interest, because, it is a logical impossibility anyway.
all in all I don't see how the parts in your argument relate to each other t b h
Really I don't know how to engage with this view other than like I just did. It makes no sense right out the gate. But like I said to some other guy, and I'm not saying this in jest, maybe I'm the one being unclear (I'm ill), so if I'm not convincing you, please read some more capable people who might.
>here is of course no anger "in God" either as anger is a passion.
Isn't God's wrath depicted multiple times in the OT? Maybe we should say "punishes wickedness" is the desired property, instead.
>“You must know that I believe all conscious beings possess spiritual natures and have spiritual destinies, and that beasts partake of rational spirit. I’ll admit”—I shrugged—“I sometimes have my doubts about certain kinds of Thomist. I mean, I’ve known a few who, if they have souls, keep them well hidden. But that’s the exception that proves the rule."
>“That’s what happens when people trained in analytic philosophy perpetrate exegesis of sacred texts, I suppose. Or when they try to make sense of poetic imagery. And Thomists—what can one say?” I coughed. “Traditionalist manualist Thomism is an emotional pathology, not a philosophy. You have to be so twisted to…” I paused, cleared my throat, and rubbed my eyes, now becoming resigned to remaining awake. “Well, it’s a system of thought that attracts an unsettling number of borderline sociopaths. I’ve never met one of them with a fully developed moral intelligence.”
>“They still cling to this fatuous doctrinaire scholasticized Aristotelianism that says that human beings are the only animals with ‘rational souls’ or with logos, in the sense of either reason or language. But the sciences have shown that this absolute partition between rational and animal souls is simply nonsensical, and really rather degrading to everyone involved. Even language, if one doesn’t assume that only human language is language properly speaking. We know so much about, oh, elephants, and grey parrots, and orcas, and whales, and apes, and… dogs."
>“I know,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, the only dogs not fitted for eternal life are the domini canes"
this guy calls people sociopaths therefore he is a LIB and a NORMIE
Idk why someone this intelligent tries to salvage and redeem Christcuckery. He would be better off promoting Vedanta or even reviving paganism or a Greek mystery school. Not even Universal Reconciliation can save moral turpitude Christcuckdom or any other form of Abrahamism.
Islam is trash too.
Just look at Eastern traditions. Were Theravadans and Mahayana slaughtering each other to the extent of the Arians, Albigensians vs. the Catholic Church? Were Daoists and Confucians slaughtering each other to the level of Shia and Sunni?
Why is Abrahamism only like this? Is it because it's incompatible with any ethnic identity besides (Spiritual) Ar*be and J*ws?
Why did Buddhism meld well with the traditional folk animist beliefs of Japan, Vietnam, and China, but that wasn't the case with Abrahamism?
There is no such thing as an European Christian.
There is no such thing as an Iranian Muslim or Turkish Muslim.
It's time these Abrahamic traditions die and we revel in the blood of the Levantines, israelites, and Arabs! Enough is enough.
>save moral turpitude
eliminate the moral turpitude of*
>He would be better off promoting Vedanta
yeah that's my favourite font too
chud incel
touch grass
>Metaphysical truths are contingent upon ethnicity, real, yet also one of the most flexible and variable elements of human identity across space and time.
This is why sometimes is very hard to take you neo larpagans seriously. You pretend to believe in the supernatural and the gods, but in reality your only god is race and bloodline. It feels insincere.
does he actually argue that other animals have the same capacity for language and reason as humans do? there are problems with defining a human that way, but most classical philosophers aren't viewing language as merely an expressive mode of communication, or reason as merely intelligence...
The most basic definition of intelligence is the ability to solve new problems and invent novel solutions to old ones. Abrahamists are not intelligent at all. The only thing they're good at is creating unprecedented, unsolvable problems such as the cancer of industrialization. Therefore, truly intelligent people see the best solution is to slaughter every single last Abrahamist without exception. They can cry about israelitesus, Muhammad, or Moses all the way to hell.
He makes half decent poetic insults
I thought Roland in Moonlight was comfy and fun, so it inspired me to read The Experience of God.
I like his style, but I'm still not convinced by his arguments.
kek it's strange because I don't like his style all that much, or his demeanor for that matter, but I found the Experience of God to be solid. But this could be because I had already had exposure to everything that was said in that book, so it already made sense to me and I didn't really need spelling out. It was well put is what I mean, but maybe not "well explained" for someone with no prior exposure to these ideas.
t b h it is strange to read the thomists' very illuminating account of God, the meaning of that word, our relation to what it designates and whatnot, only to fumble so badly by asserting such absurdities.
I find it particularly ironic since in my case, like many others, I was first drawn to "classical theism" through Feser and the like, and among the very first conclusions that I came to was the idea that one obviously cannot reject God qua God, and that even when it comes to chosing some particular evil (privation of a particular good), one cannot be said to do so "freely" or "fully knowing" what it entails. actually came to these conclusions reading only thomist and scotist, aristotelian and platonist authors. without spelling out the other reasons, I became extremely perplexed as to why anyone would believe in an eternal hell, specifically.
After 2 years or so I became more and more puzzled as to why so many of my thomist acquaintances, and some renowned authors, seemed to espouse views that were so blatantly incoherent with what aristotelian and thomists so clearly profess. I would routinely hear that people "willingly and in full knowledge" reject God, and the like.
Whenever I pointed out that it made no sense they would lash out and throw the usual trad-cuckservative slurs at me, everything but the kitchen sink, you name it. "Modern", "kantian", "nihilist", "cynic" and such. I'm not even sure how they came to see my position as approximating those (since to me it seemed a commonsense, broadly "socratic"/medieval position), but still. I'm not a christian so I guess they were wary or something.
then I found Hart and learned that this was actually a very common phenomenon, apparently he's been a victim of this for 30 years or so, and his conclusion is that it just cannot be helped for some reason.
anyway, it's mainly on that specific point that he could be said to "btfo" thomism at large, but as he himself points out, it doesn't take a genius because it's extremely obvious.
>I became extremely perplexed as to why anyone would believe in an eternal hell, specifically.
Despite finding Neoplatonism and the Socratic wisdom = virtue maxim attractive, there are three main reasons why I find universal salvation hard to accept.
1) It destroys the stakes of committing evil in this life.
2) It is hard to conceive of some kinds of evil as not having its own polarity and directionality. It can’t just be a spectrum of nothing to goodness, can it?
3) If God grants us free will, couldn’t somebody choose to do wrong forever? God’s infinite grace ends up becoming a rule-bending deus ex machina (kek) when it saves us from our own choices.
I understand (I think) what you are saying.
However I think it is no harder to accept than the other things that the intellectualist model seems to "destroy" for us. Really it does not destroy anything, it merely redefines. Some people, upon receiving this notion, call it bleak and depressing, I too have felt this, but I think we in reacting thus we fall victim to some modern view that *already* separates the transcendentals (I mean this as in, the doctrine of convertibility of transcendentals, I don't know how well known it is, but I think if you don't know it already you would find it very interesting).
Truth we regard as cold, uncaring, and merely the object of the natural sciences. When we collapse the good and true into each other, we cannot help but feel we "strip" moral goodness of its vibrancy, of it "romantic" quality and try to look at morality as through a microscope, when really we could well take the opposite view, that we come to look at science as dealing, in a way, with goodness and love. So what I mean is that in seemingly giving "intellect" the primacy, we are not, as some might rightfully fear, forging an alternate path to scientism, but really we are merely explaining better what these transcendentals mean. We pick intellect so as to underline the fundamental idea that all is intelligible. We really pick intellect as opposed to "will", so as to remind ourselves that voluntarism is not some other conceptually symmetrical view, but really, just an absurdity.
That is the way I see it at least, we affirm not that things are good because they are true, but also that they are true because they are good, that it is really one and the same thing. However, since all that is asserted and assented to is in intelligible form, in discourse we are intellectualists, but it is perhaps not so different from being "aesthetists" for instance, when it comes to those inexpressible aspects of our inner lives.
On a simpler note, I really do think that anyone who is not mentally ill is actually tangibly, subjectively rendered unhappy through sin (apart from being objectively "unhappy" from a teleological standpoint). As Augustine put it, their hearts would be restless. We as humans never rest content dwelling in error, regardless of whether we might feel that we do.
I do not clearly understand what you mean by your second point btw lol
As for your third, I think we really have no solid view of what infinity is like. I will illustrate with two examples: it is common, in mathematics, to say that parallel lines cross at infinity. It is also a common definition among Aristotelians that truth is what intellect arrives at given infinite time (this is obviously more relevant). This is not to say that at any moment along an axis, say, parallel lines converge. "eternity", in my view, must be taken to be completely outside of time.
>I do not clearly understand what you mean by your second point btw lol
You know how evil is taught as merely the privation of good, right? That is Neoplatonic.
yeah
but so what you mean specifically is that you sometimes find it hard to believe, is that it ?
i don't think it's specifically neoplatonic, I get the impression it's a view broadly espoused by pretty much everyone between the 4th century BC and the 14th century AD (apart from "gnostics" and the like)
The thing is, evil tends to beget evil. That doesn’t make sense if it is a mere lack. Think of temperature. Cold is the lack of heat. If you have a cold spot, it certainly steals heat from its surroundings. But then it becomes warm itself. This makes no sense as an analogy evil is self-perpetuating. What happens in reality is that the evil stays evil even as it steals from its surroundings when left to its own devices. It has both polarity (beyond absence of good—negativity in its own right) and directionality. Therefore, you can’t make a spectrum of good and lack of good. It has to be good and evil. But that’s an untenable dualism.
I'm still not sure I understand (sorry)
Is your point that a true privation would eventually be "filled in" as it were ? Because in the case of evil, then, I agree. But I just think we should look at it the other way around: since evil is a temporary and "insubstantial" privation, and since good is superabundent, then ultimately evil is conquered and none remains.
But I'm not sure this is what you mean so this may have nothing to do with it.
In particular, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "What happens in reality is that the evil stays evil even as it steals from its surroundings". Of what kind of "evil" are you talking about ? and how does it "steal" from its surroundings ? I assume you mean moral evil, so basically the error within us, but I don't see how it steals from it surroundings while remaining the privation that it is.
not trying to be socratic or tell you you're being unclear, I just really don't follow kek
a minor quibble I have is that in the case of cold (or evil for that matter) I wouldn't say it steals since what is nothing does nothing, I would say rather that heat or love are given.
>Is your point that a true privation would eventually be "filled in" as it were ? Because in the case of evil, then, I agree
There are two hypothetical definitions of evil that we’re contrasting here. One of lack of good, the other being the opposite of good. Let’s go over some similarities
>in the end they’re “filled in”
Applies to both.
>steals from its surroundings
Applies to both. I mean this in a sense that the presence of evil tends to beget more evil, siphoning good from its landscape. It’s also a great way to think about sin—it’s never satisfied.
>what kind of evil?
To be fair, I think it’s worth considering natural evil to be a privation of good, and that’s not controversial to me. There can always be a better order, at least conceivably.
>moral evil
Returning to the contrast of hypotheses, if evil were merely the lack of good, then sin could be satiated. Once the good is siphoned away by evil, the evil is restored out of evil at the cost of its surrounding evil. But the problem is that the evil stays evil, regardless of how much it siphons, and sin always begets more sin, in oneself and in others. In the self because we’re never satisfied, we always have a lack. In others both because harm disrupts the order and because it inspires and tempts by being an example to copy.
The privation model doesn’t work because the privation never fulfills itself through its privation. It instead becomes more depraved. It is a bona fide parasite, a black hole, a negativity infinity,… an opposite as opposed to a mere absence. I can’t help but think there is a dualism in practice.
I still don't see how that is incompatible with the privation theory t b h
It is no secret that some goods build upon other goods, and that in this way error can be said to "spill over", since failure somewhere can endanger the possibility of some other, later or dependent good. This is what I was referring to when talking about the error within ourselves, I was speculating that what you meant is specifically than evils can be said to "spread within us", as opposed to "in the world" for instance. That sin "darkens" the mind, so to speak. I guess it is what you meant.
So to clarify for instance if you take a test and you give a bad answer, and it's one of those tests where the later answers depend on the earlier ones, it is perhaps more likely that the later answers will be bad as well, but I don't think we'd be justified in thinking that the falsehoods you wrote down have a "principle" of their own, that they proceed from some sort of conceptually symmetrical "foil" to truth itself. Rather, they are simply an unfortunate *partial* (emphasis on the fact that it is always partial) misrendering of that truth, which is all that can be said to truly "be".
Of course, we could reply that this "foil" to truth itself is the very fact of "imperfect" instantiation. But really this is no more than createdness. And even then, the difference between Creator and creation is temporary, illusory, otherwise, as you say, we would really have some dualism. As we "proceed from", so we "go back to", I really think this is the only way to make sense of creation insofar as it is dynamic in any way.
It’s more than just making a mistake. It’s making a mistake that you deliberate know is a mistake, and then enjoying it. The inversion of right and wrong has its own directionality to it that can’t be a mere lack. It’s a consequence of people being ends in themselves and having free will. I don’t think you can just hand wave it away.
>It’s making a mistake that you deliberate know is a mistake
but this is exactly what the intellectualist model teaches us is impossible
as I said yesterday, I fully agree that it is hard to accept but I don't see why we shouldn't follow the argument
it's not like it's a logical absurdity or anything, rather, it is a redefinition, through which, in my opinion, we come to have a better understanding of the transcendentals
It’s the soul that rebels, not the intellect. And knowledge has to be ingrained into every fiber of one’s being to be truly knowledge. Otherwise it is a mere possession of facts.
>It’s the soul that rebels, not the intellect.
nothing rebels really, on that view
and (still on that view) there is no movement of ours (no voluntary movement), that is not first guided by our intellect, however misguided it might be
>And knowledge has to be ingrained into every fiber of one’s being to be truly knowledge. Otherwise it is a mere possession of facts.
I agree both that it is true and that it is central.
but does this not fit very neatly with the intellectualist view?
namely, in that it utterly dissolves to that old so called "paradox", "I know X is wrong but I do it". X in that case is not truly in the intellect. Its parts might be, but not its form, not X itself. For instance, if one steals while professing that stealing is wrong, what can be presumed is that one knows for instance, that the endoxa on the matter is that it is wrong, that one ought to profess that it is wrong, and other such facts. One might know what stealing consists of, what the consequences generally are and that those are generally regarded as bad, but it cannot be said that the assertion in its truth truly is in the intellect. The parts are here, or some of them at least, but the form of the whole is missing, just like you said.
I’m just not convinced. I think there’s something missing from the proof. Thanks for the conversation though.
Why are you bothering with this Greek and Scholastic rubbish post Kant and Schelling? No Platonist has an explanation of radical evil, privation of good arguments are not sufficient to explain evil.
>privation of good arguments are not sufficient to explain evil.
Why not?
Also I'm not by any means a Thomist by the way.
I know it's not Thomist, it's a naive Platonist conception of evil best articulated by Proclus in On the Existence of Evils. I'd start with Schelling's freedom essay against the Platonic privation conception of evil:
https://germanidealism.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/schelling-fs-english.pdf
Kant on radical evil
>Kant holds to the following rigoristic thesis: Ethically, human beings are either wholly evil or wholly good by virtue of whether or not an agent has adopted the moral law as the governing maxim for all of his or her maxims (Religion 6:22-23). For either the moral law is the governing maxim for the choice of maxims or it is not; making the moral law the ground of our maxims is sufficient for moral goodness. This thesis turns on a second thesis: An individual with a morally good character or disposition (Gessinnung) has adopted a moral maxim as a governing maxim, and incorporates the moral law as a basis for choosing all other maxims. If an agent has done so, then by virtue of making all other maxims compliant with this maxim, these subsequent maxims will be consistent with the moral law. Nevertheless, when an alternative maxim—that of self-conceit—is chosen as a governing maxim, then this egoistic alternative becomes the basis for maxim choice and the moral law is subordinated to an alternative governing maxim along with every other maxim.
>Consequently, the ethical choice facing the moral agent is either to subordinate all other maxims to the moral law, or to subordinate the moral law with every other maxim to an egoistic alternative. The fact is that human agents, although conscious of the moral law, nevertheless do in fact incorporate the occasional deviation from it as part of their individual maxim set. When an agent mis-subordinates the requirements of morality to the incentives of self-conceit (however small it may be), the result is radical evil (Religion 6.32).
https://iep.utm.edu/rad-evil/
See also Kierkegaard's short work 'Reptition' against the Platonic (called Socratic therein) theory of ethics as recollection of knowledge for similar problems.
Finally someone who has read this essay on lit. I fricking hate privatio boni homosexuals
QRD
>Schelling criticises Augustine’s (Platonic) insistence that evil entails a privation of being by developing an original account of metaphysics and, by extension, evil that maintains that being entails an autopoietic process whereby a dark, chaotic, differentiating abyss (ungrund) expresses itself in actual, empirical being. By associating evil with this dark abyss, Schelling holds that ‘evil’ not only has actual being, but forms the differentiating foundation of actual existence.
Evil only exists as a unique "pole" in opposition to good from a temporal perspective. Since with evil comes death, all evilness (defined as self-generating absences of good) eventually expires, and the definition of evil as the absence of good holds up over the long term.
>evil is a self-generating nothing that has such-and-such properties
Word games posted by a sheltered pseud moron.
What about my definition triggered you?
I just greentexted it. Fricking moron
It just sounds like you're not very good at these kinds of discussions, anon. The difference between good and evil in the temporal world is not about good versus the absence of good but rather the orientation of your soul and the path you take. In the temporal case, less good is the opposite of more good, and good versus evil has the appearance of a duality rather than a gradient.
>trying to dunk on Schelling's essay with this pseudo-new age twaddle
moron
Anon, I was agreeing with Schelling and dunking on Augustine. You need to work on basic reading comprehension before you get involved in theological debates.
this is just them stating their position (begging the question). can you sum up the arguments they give very quickly ? I have never read any of these authors.
>"naive"
>"rubbish"
>proceeds to get mad
>"IT'S STUPID IT'S STUPID REEEEE"
is this the power of modern philosophy™ ?
gee those ancient greeks and stupid scholastic philosophers sure can't hold a candle to that.
shit, meant to quote
, not
Read Schelling's freedom essay linked there, it's short and approachable.
Proclus has a better account of the privation argument of evil as parasite of the good, but neither do justice to actual evil or the universe.
You're forgetting the Platonic physics from which the ethics is ontologically derived. Plato's universe is eternal, ordered, and constantly empowered to the performance of good. The universe extends only to the solar system, the planets and stars are perfectly spherical, orbit in perfect circles, have no inertia and therefore their self-moving souls are constantly moving and renewing the perfect circular orbit of their bodies, and will do so for all eternity. The concept that evil is merely a small blemish of privations of the Good down here on sub-Lunar Earth where the One's emanations get misdirected in more appealing in such a unuverse that is eternal, has perfect heavens, and continual emanation of power towards moral perfection in movement and shape of its heavenly bodies. But it's not the universe we live in and we can not derive Platonic ethics from the ontology of the universe we now have knowledge of.
>Read Schelling's freedom essay linked there, it's short and approachable.
Thanks, I'll try and look into it, hopefully the thread will still be up.
As to the second part of your post, I've never understood where the strength of that sort of argument lies. To me, the best it could hope for is to show that the physics of the time "made it easier" to accept the metaphysics, but certainly not that the veracity of the latter depended on that of the former.
But even that is a bad formulation because it proceed backwards: in reality they start out with metaphysics, and then do physics. The intelligibility of being, the necessity for aesthetic value in true theories are metaphysical view of course. How could you do physics without metaphysics ? How can you study change, coming to be and passing out of existence, without having any clear ideas of those concepts or their being well founded ? Is it surprising that, lacking pretty much any technical mean, they defaulted to the simplest (and most aesthetic) theory they could find keeping in with phainomena ? this is simply what making hypotheses is about. It is because our metaphysical assumptions are bound to underpin our formulations of things in natural science that the metaphysics seem to appear in even a faulty physics, and that we may get the wrong impression that they are somehow derived from the latter and dependent on it.
So all we are left with, then, is that they had some faulty theories in natural sciences. I fail to see how it is any different than the joke about Aristotle being wrong because of the teeth counting thing. Or even more common examples, like people somehow believing that modern science or evolution has (or can) "disprove" anything about the existence of God.
Our physics and the like have evolved, but all classical theists and platonists are of course aware of it, explain why it changes nothing to the matter (a lot of them like to go into the specifics of physics which I'm not a fan of, as it's of little value other than maybe as an example), and deplore at length the political and psychological reasons that have led people to believing otherwise. (Hart does so in the Experience of God, incidentally)
The things you have mentioned (the orbits not being perfect circles and the like) change very little, because they simply show that the ancient greeks were too simplistic about some specific existing things. What they do not show, however, is that they were too simplistic in positing that the universe is lawful and that all being is, as a matter of definition intelligible. Like all modern people interested in classical thought, I am obviously of the opinion that the discoveries of natural science, the beauty and harmony found at all scales, the awesome lawfulness of the physical world, at best points to the truth of classical thought. No advance in modern physics can disprove that, much like neuroscience cannot, prove that the soul or what have you doesn't exist.
this
is not me but I share his perplexity.
The only decent aspect of Kant is his metaphysics and epistemology. His ethics is literally worthy of being completely thrown into the trash.
You will never harmonize greek metaphysics and biblical revelation. You will always create a monstrous ad hoc incoherent system. Your methodology for biblical exegesis is no different from a tyromancer. Your intellectual pride has destroyed the foundations of christianity.
maybe. then again i'm not a christian so I don't really care.
I felt the everlasting hell thing would "prove" that christian doctrine is false, but according to Hart christianity doesn't teach everlasting punishment, so it would seem christianity is safe once again.
Neither am I. I would say a "proof" of apocatastasis is devastating to christian theology since it would mean the doctrines of every church with some claim to apostolic continuity with the original church has been teaching an erroneous doctrine and that only the most torturous interpretation of christian history would be capable of reconciling that fact.
idk, Hart's whole point is precisely that it would mean no such thing. Apparently the Eastern orthodox chuch has no clearly defined position on the matter, and some oriental churches (syriac iirc) seem to teach universalism, or have taught it at some point.
but on a more technical note, there is really no meaning in our having a final cause that we can in principle never reach. it would make no sense. God always provide. even if one were to get into the debate on obedential potency, it would still mean that we have this inherent potency, that is obviously pointing towards our higher end and thus our end proper, that is never actualized. Actually claiming that it can only be actualized by God makes little sense because, though posessing causal powers is a kind of act, their exercise is a kind of potency, and God is pure act.
>though posessing causal powers is a kind of act, their exercise is a kind of potency
Isn’t it the other way around? I’m confused
apparently in scholastic thought the reasoning is that posessing a power is a kind of act, for instance a lighter "actually" has the power to generate flame, and has it at all times. however it can also be said that actually exercising that power is a kind of potency, because a lighter is not perpetually generating flame, this is all I meant.
Wait, how does that make any sense? Where is that reasoning come from? It sounds like an inversion of classic Aristotelianism.
I don't see how, this hardly seems like saying anything new to me. Seems to be the standard scholastic view anyway. Appears in Feser's scholastic metaphysics iirc.
Possessing a capacity for something sounds like potential to me. Maybe it’s actual potential. Idk. Potential is always the realm of possibility, ideas, etc., and actual is the realm of existence, action, etc., for me. That’s how I understand Aristotle and what he means by infinity only being potential and not actual, for the actual cannot be infinite by definition—actual implies a completion, but infinity is never complete. You can always add one more.
Why don’t you share some arguments?
maybe it's just semantics but I find it pretty clear: a lighter is actually a flame-producing artifact even when it is not producing flames. it is actually flame-producing, and we have no trouble understanding this as saying that it potentially produces flames.
maybe "actual potential" is a good way of putting it, yeah.
note that in scholasticism this is only valid for the causal powers, and not the passive potentialities.
>note that in scholasticism this is only valid for the causal powers, and not the passive potentialities.
Why?
don't care about this fat burger
I do
It's devastating for Christendom really.
not for Christianity itself
omg omg
why do you think truth is so arbitrary?
mistranslations of the words "eternal," and "everlasting" from Greek. apparently the word is supposed to mean Age instead, so a finite time.
>omg omg
???
>mistranslations of the words "eternal," and "everlasting" from Greek. apparently the word is supposed to mean Age instead, so a finite time.
iirc the greek word ("aionos") can mean eternal sometimes but most of the time it doesn't.
but the interesting thing is that apparently Jesus uses it twice in the same sentence at one point, once for heaven and once for hell. the christian "infernalists" say that it would be odd for this word to have to be taken differently when used twice in the same sentence. but there was an explanation for this as well, basically that the common interpretation implied that everyone already grant a difference in meaning anyway.
Show me how he has actually impacted the world. There's nobody I could care less about than an intellectual who's done or inspired nothing.
absolute pleb tier take, thank you anon
>Eriugena
>Incomprehensible
You’ve never read Eriugena
no, never even tried. seems like too difficult a read. if there were an "eriugena for dummies" book I'd give it a try, otherwise I can't be bothered
the majority of philosophers are more difficult than him
I mean he seems more opaque than anything I've read and I've read Proclus and Plotinus. Maybe I'll give it another try someday.
>universalist
He literally doesnt even understand the most direct, specific things Jesus Himself actually says about the afterlife. How on earth am I to take him seriously on anything if he fricks up something so basic?
again, not a christian so i don't care what Jesus of Nazareth said to his disciples, but Hart is a New Testament scholar and apparently gives convincing enough arguments as to why scripture teaches universalism
So I assume he just kind of glosses over all the parts where Jesus talks about unquenchable fire, and how Hell is real and to be avoided at all costs.
universalists don't deny that Hell is real or that it (or really the evil that it signifies) must be avoided afaik
only that it is eternal
again, I have no idea how the New Testament should be interpreted, nor do I care
but I get the impression that christian universalists are happy to comment on any New Testament passage that deals with the matter
Hart devotes a good portion of "that all shall be saved" to pointing out what he takes to be "infernalist" misconceptions
yes the unquenchable fire is metaphorically time which passes judgement continually, that which is truly holy does not fade. It's not a literal place.
Why do you think you know better than 2000 years of tradition? Why does Hart think he knows better?
Multiple saints have had visions of Hell. Saint Teresa of Avila had one. Our Lady of Fatima showed the three children another one. What does Hart have to compete with that? He's just an academic.
I'm not haunted by the idol of tradition, I believe in the perpetual historical revelation of the true and living God.
Are you haunted by the Holy Spirit? And by the divine spirits of the saints?
I confess one reason I have come to deeply dislike DBH is because I sense in him a lack of supernatural faith. He does not accept that maybe Hell is real because that is just how God would rather have things. He does not accept the various saints, both Catholic and Orthodox, with their visions of Hell. He seems to me to be a product of an austere and very unmystical idea of the Christian Faith, where strange things do not happen and we have the audacity to fit God into OUR conceptions of morality rather than the other way around.
Folk piety isn't always right but it seems more right here than Hart's ivory tower nonsense. The peasants and the poor folk fear Hell, and have for 2000 years. They fear Hell because they read the Gospels plainly, and Jesus tells them to fear Hell. Who are we to dispute with them? Especially when they have Church Tradition on their side? Why do all universalists seem to lack humility and have disdain for a simple reading of the Gospel? Jesus did not come to spread a gnostic Gospel. He says things pretty plainly. He speaks of Hell and how it is to be avoided. What is any attempt to avoid talk of Hell but just the recreation of the behavior of the Pharisees, who always thought they knew better than a humble reading of Scripture?
Not him but I simply do not understand the logic of "people have believed this for a long time, therefore it is true", I just don't get how that makes sense. I mean, I get that your whole worldview relies on simply disregarding logic and using faith to discover the truth, but I personally find that hard to accept.
>Not him but I simply do not understand the logic of "people have believed this for a long time, therefore it is true", I just don't get how that makes sense.
If a belief endures for a long time it's usually for a good reason.
G.K. Chesterton has a famous line: "Before you tear down a fence, you should find out why it was put up."
This became known as the Principle of Chesterton's Fence. The idea that old things shouldn't be meddled with lightly. And it's especially true where matters of God are concerned. Time is the great judge of things. What endures the test of time, and what doesn't? The grinding sands of time weather so much into dust. What lasts, what survives the ravages of time, survives for a reason. There must be something notable about things that survive for a long time, or else they would not have the ability to survive at all.
The idea of a terrible underworld, from which no man can escape, precedes even Judaism, and Jesus gives it fuller reality when he speaks of Gehenna and the unquenchable fire in the Gospels. These things endure when they had every right to fade into obscurity, or be discarded. Why shouldn't they be real, in light of that?
If an idea endures for a long time, why shouldn't it be true? So many ideas are passing fancies. They arise, they have their moment, and they fade. You can read up on a thousand philosophical and theological concepts that had their moment and then were cast by the wayside. So like anything else, for an idea or concept to ENDURE, it has an air of being true. Things don't survive for no reason. Ancient things that are still around aren't just there by accident. There is something about them conducive to suvival. And in ideas, I think that thing conducive to survival is that the ideas turn out to be true.
Hell is not an idea I would meddle with lightly. It is an idea that is older than modern civilization. And I am fearful of thinking I know better than my ancestors just because I happen to be newer. Some day I, too, will be an ancestor, and my far-distant descendants will be new. What will they think?
>The idea of a terrible underworld, from which no man can escape, precedes even Judaism
The notion of hell exists in most religious sure
But few teach that it is an eternal punishment:
>in Hinduism its equivalent Naraka is said to be temporary, followed by Reincarnation (with only a few Hindu theologians believing in eternal damnation, but only for those blacklest souls who express eternal hatred against God)
>in Zoroastrianism the concept of Hell is though to be a late development in the faith, but ultimately they believe divine compassion is stronger than its justice, so in the end even the damned will be forgiven
>everyone with the basic knowledge of knows Buddhism, knows they believe that all states of being are temporary, aside from Nivarna
>Daoism takes a alot from Buddhism, but then expands with traditional Chinese beliefs and generally the whole is actually more equivalent to the notion Purgatory
>Islam also believes hell is temporary, but since only pure souls can ascend to Heaven and since holy martyrs and saints are pure souls, that means everyone else WILL spend some time in Hell
>finally in Judaism the closest word for the concept of Hell is Sheol, which is vaguely defined but most likely just refers to the "grave" and most israeli mystic traditions define this state as essentially a "waiting room"
So all things considered the notion that Hell is something you will be for eternity is fairly exclusive to Christianity
Shit even Annihilationism is mostly a Christian thing
As I understand your post Chesterton's Fence isn't to be taken as a reason not to change ever, but not to change frivolously. Durable bad ideas can last just as long as good ideas and valuable truths are often held by those rejected in their time. Christ himself was rejected by Pharisees who made the Chesterton's Fence argument. If the Old Testament can be seen anew by humanity for its prophecy of Christ, how we implement the teachings of Christ should also be open to grow with us.
>He does not accept that maybe Hell is real
At no point does he ever make that claim and neither do universalists in general
>The peasants and the poor folk fear Hell, and have for 2000 years. They fear Hell because they read the Gospels plainly
Peasants couldn't read
And juat someone reads the Gospels doesn't mean you have a good understatingof what's being said (that's why there's thousands of Protestant denominations, each more moronic than the last)
>Jesus tells them to fear Hell.
And just because Hell might not be eternal, doesn't mean people have no reason to fear it
I don't want to experience not even 1 minute of the desolation that is Hell, let alone what might as well be a time equivalent to all the ages of the universe
>Especially when they have Church Tradition on their side?
Infernalism was only taken by the Church after Augustone popularized it
Because before him it was seen has a fringe stance, as most Christians believed in something closer to universalism
There's also the very convinient fact infernalism was the most politically useful stance to take on this issue
But still it never was fully adopted by the Church
>Why do all universalists seem to lack humility and have disdain for a simple reading of the Gospel?
>Assumimg
Oh, so now you're attacking Augustine, arguably the greatest theologian in the entire history of the Catholic Church.
Fun fact: Aquinas cites Augustine heavily. So does Bonaventure. Catholic teaching is inextricably bound up with what Augustine teaches.
But of course DBH being an Ortho it's not surprising he goes after Augustine. I'm sure he has unpleasant words to say about the Roman Church in general.
>Oh, so now you're attacking Augustine
>Assuming
nice
care to delight us with any more wonderful displays of retoric and reading comprehension
>and we have the audacity to fit God into OUR conceptions of morality rather than the other way around.
Tbh, as much as I want to buy into the romanticism of a mythical God who works in mysterious ways, and I think it is compatible with a rational God, I'm not willing to buy this quoted line of thought at all. If God is a brutal tyrant, then we're only supposed to worship Him because He'll bash our heads in for perpetuity if we don't. That's no way to engender genuine goodness in the world in the long run.
And no, this isn't fitting God into OUR morality, since I'm talking about an extremely high "human" standard that no human lives up to EVER. It's not even a question of OUR vs. HIS because it's a question of logic. Whenever I see this rhetorical strategy employed, it's usually to imply that God's morality is somehow worse than the best that humans can imagine, even though logically God's morality should be better.
If there isn't a rhyme and reason to things, then it is simply impossible to worship God. Hell, it's impossible to even worship the right God, let alone give Him the honors He deserves. beware the theologian who is too much of a tyranny-loving voluntarist that he forgets the greater glory of God.
>He does not accept that maybe Hell is real because that is just how God would rather have things.
But not even God (especially not God, actually), can do something that makes no sense. And eternal hell, it can be strongly argued, makes no sense. Not even when one starts with the assumptions dearest to the Church (broadly aristotelian assumptions).
It really is like saying that one lack supernatural faith because one asserts that God cannot create a square circle or some other such famous example.
You should really avoid such voluntarism. But voluntarism (be it in anthropological or theological form) is what even the stauchest self-proclaimed thomist will have to espouse when backed into this particular corner, as I said earlier. It always has to devolved into either "man can chose evil qua evil by some spontaneous movement of the will" (which, even then, requires that we redefine the words and suspend disbelief), or simply "it might logically contradict every truth we can come to, but this is how God wants it".
I need not remind that voluntarism of that sort was nowhere to be found in Europe until the 14th century, that it has proved particularly fruitless which is all it could ever prove to be (or rather it will bear any fruit you want it to, but they will be purely fictitious), and that, to this day, especially among catholics, it is held in special contempt and universally reviled. You should really avoid such views like the plague, there is nothing to behold in that view of God and creation, absurdity is not profundity.
Hart doesn't make the case that God should be "judged" (whatever that might be taken to mean) according to "our" standards, that would be completely absurd. What he does say, however, is that what is asserted as dogma should be measured against what can be known by our own unaided means. He means in this natural theology but other things as well, such as obvious moral truths, and aesthetics, in a broad sense. You can get there with natural theology alone, although Hart seems to consider all three ways are valid (I am sympathetic to that approach although elements of it are obviously difficult to wield in discussion).
What he is also saying is simply that the meaning of Good cannot be completely equivocal. And that he has a hard time seeing how, even with all the mental gymnastics in the world, we could assert that God is Goodness and Love as such, while creating eternal hell. I am also sympathetic to that view, after all I see it as merely a sort of extension of theories of analogy and even scotist univocity (which is analogy also, pretty much, contrary to popular belief). But the important thing is that it is not needed. Treat it like thomists treat the ontological argument: it's maybe not a proof itself, but it's a nice way to wrap things up, it's like the little bow on top.
>we have the audacity to fit God into OUR conceptions of morality rather than the other way around.
This. Faith is the basis of all other belief and Hart—who could very well be right—seems to have it reversed.
> Multiple saints have had visions of Hell. Saint Teresa of Avila had one. Our Lady of Fatima showed the three children another one. What does Hart have to compete with that? He's just an academic.
The absolute state of internet theology
Ya and muslims have had visions too, blow it out your ass.
Saints aren't capeshit. God's relationship is not one with billions people, but billions of relationships with individuals. The only absolute authorities on what a Christian MUST believe are from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit themselves. The words and deeds of saints and apostles are helpful, but faith can and should be active. The world around us is always changing and to act with Godly conduct in it our understanding of scripture must continue to grow. To assume we can look to older, equally fallible, equally mortal humans and rest our faith passively upon their labours of contemplation is ignorance.
This is common, few have a desire to be Catholics.
So, you're not a Christian, you don't care what Jesus said, nor do you care about how the NT should be interpreted, yet you're posting in a thread about a NT scholar, and all you're able to add to the discussion are a couple of impressions and "afaik's". What in the world are you here for? Because you don't care?
I am a theist and a universalist. Hart doesn't make his case based solely off the New Testament. Plus I dislike the whole neo-thomistic larp.
If you don't like people from other religions butting into your threads, don't butt into theirs.
He's an Ortho so as a Catholic I think he's wrong. The Orthos are the main ones pushing universalism and it's almost entirely because they don't have the doctrine of Purgatory and they don't have a unified center of teaching like the Roman Church has.
Has he ever debated Feser?
not directly
they have had heated exchanges, which is how I found out about Hart
Feser's replies seemed really weak which is why I investigated the matter further. I admired him greatly and so was very surprised to see that his whole argumentation was calling Hart a heretic, quoting encyclicals and whatnot, and, when giving the actual arguments, either giving a sketch as if he knew that they wouldn't prove anything if spelled out, or just flat out giving bad arguments.
Hart behaved like the pompous autist that he probably is, I have to say, but at least truth was on his side.
But the whole exchange was underwhelming, since Hart is for some reason unwilling to give structured accounts of his thought (I think it's because of the whole orthodox mystical thing, he almost makes a point of not being overly "logical" or rigorous), and Feser was unimpressive (or rather, perhaps he was as impressive as one can be when defending something that is wrong).
>. I admired him greatly and so was very surprised to see that his whole argumentation was calling Hart a heretic, quoting encyclicals and whatnot
Those are pretty good arguments and Hart openly stated that if we are assuming Christian orthodoxy as held by the universal Church, he is a heretic. So yeah, Feser proved his point, Hart is not a Christian and is working in a different framework, posturing as a Christian.
>Those are pretty good arguments
I don't see why.
If you aren't a Catholic they obviously wouldn't be good. But proving no Christian should take Hart seriously because he is not a Christian at all is good enough for a start. At that point we can stop pretending we share anything in common and start discussing fundamental metaphysics and not the New Testament.
Hart is dishonest and a weasel. Feser did good seeing through his masquerade. If were going to discuss this as Christians, we need to discuss it starting from a Christian framework, if we are rejecting it, we can have the discussion as those who do not accept it. Hart playing it both ways, pretending to be a Christian at times, only to admit he isn't one later on just makes the exchange pointless.
>If you aren't a Catholic
but neither is Hart so I don't know why anyone would quote encyclicals at him. all that does is maybe prove that Hart is not a catholic. I wouldn't even say that this proves even catholics should stop listening to him. Did not Aquinas himself draw upon greek pagans and muslim philosophers ?
I don't know that Hart has ever "admitted" to not being a christian, it would certainly be odd. I know that he has said that if it turned out that christianity did teach "infernalism" then he would stop being a christian, which is a fairly sane position.
>At that point we can stop pretending we share anything in common and start discussing fundamental metaphysics and not the New Testament
I agree, obviously. But Feser failed to impress in that area as well. I'd have to go back and read the exchange again but his arguments were a mess.
>I don't know that Hart has ever "admitted" to not being a christian
He did, in his debate with Feser.
>I don't know why anyone would quote encyclicals at him
For his Catholic audience. It's a good learning experience for the reader. After all, the encyclicals are a lot more important than the writings of Hart.
>Did not Aquinas himself draw upon greek pagans and muslim philosophers ?
He did not base his theological arguments on their religious premises.
>I know that he has said that if it turned out that christianity did teach "infernalism" then he would stop being a christian, which is a fairly sane position.
It does teach infernalism.
>He did, in his debate with Feser.
I find that hard to believe. Got a quote ?
It's in the debates, look it up for yourself. The last exchange from a few years back.
Post some key quotes in the thread Black person, especially the one where Hart claims he isn’t a Christian
Why does this happen in every Hart thread? I'm interested in theology and in potentially becoming an Orthodox Christian so I check out these threads when I see them, and without fail in every single thread there's an anon who claims that Hart said he wasn't a Christian, then gets pressed for a quote, and responds with "go look it up yourself". Every single thread this exact exchange occurs for like the past year.
As Hart notes (and as I have noted here
), there is a specific type that will always react that way, and it is very hard (it can't be impossible of course) to reason with them once they get going. They will throw out all basic assumptions and all necessary premises rather than agreeing with you. They will read what they want to read in what you are saying (preferably something they can refute or liken to an objectionable position). I think what you are reffering to is essentially one instance of this phenomenon: I don't think this particular guy is lying on purpose, I think he's just one of those people who goes temporarily insane when such matters are discussed.
he probably means the point where he'd rather drop Christianity than universalism
You're better off just talking to your local priest in person than discussing this stuff online. OrthoLARPers and crypto-heretics like DBH aren't worth listening to if you're interested in what the EOC actually believes.
>It does teach infernalism.
Only after Augustine, in fact in those early centuries that was the fringe position and the majotity were contrary to it
It's also quite convenient that stance is the most politically useful one...
"Someone disagrees with you? Just bully him with the dread of eternal hellfire until he submits."
Catholics aren't Christian. And the catholic cult fulfilled Daniel 7:25 in claiming power of God to change his laws and times.
What was the first lie Satan told Eve? "ye shall not surely die".
God says the soul that sins shall die. The catholic cult calls God a liar. Read the King James Bible, it's the best English translation, period. It's hated by the prostitute and her harlot daughters because it cuts through their lies and deceptions.
>his whole argumentation was calling Hart a heretic, quoting encyclicals and whatnot, and, when giving the actual arguments, either giving a sketch as if he knew that they wouldn't prove anything if spelled out, or just flat out giving bad arguments
come on now
the whole "post mortem fixity of the will" thing is so confused too.
not to mention that the will (made clear with the concept of the natural will in maximus, but really it's the voice of the primordial conscience or synderesis which even Thomas and Albert wrote about and which is taken to ALWAYS be right, ALWAYS oriented towards the good) does not ever change its object, not even within the most wicked of murderers. since it can't change its basic orientation it follows that it can't stay "frozen" in an unnatural orientation. so obviously what is meant is some kind of fixity of the intellect, as in it either does not receive form from reality or stays frozen in the state it was at death. (which for some people is also a very sad lookout)
This really is intellectualism 101 but you still get a LOT of internet thomists telling you that wicked people have fundamentally "maloriented" wills, that they "chose evil" and such, which isn't so much wrong as it is devoid of any meaning, it just gramatically doesn't make sense.
at this point we could also wonder why we should take any such fixity to be so obvious as is claimed t b h, but even if we grant it, then what ? what is the sort of suffering that we are talking about ? it can't be sorrow, or guilt, because those are rational ailments, and our intellect is fixed.
so what, we suffer like animals ? but we have no physical form. plus, the obvious question here is why ? why would we assume that we end up as still somehow sentient semihumans receiving something analogous to physical torture ? because this is the picture we arrive at if we follow the argument. i could have bought hell being eternal sorrow (as apparently one of the greek words used in the NT would indicate) or some such thing (although, on account of the final cause thing, this view would have to be discarded, the "eternal" part I mean). but this doesn't even make any sort of sense. it is as Hart says, once we arrive at this bizarre conclusion that really we would not even have considered if we didn't think the eternal suffering thing was worthy of consideration, we conclude it's wrong and we move on.
not to mention that any unqualified talk of subjective experience in the afterlife is dubious at best
all in all, it really doesn't matter which way you come at it from, it is always absurd. and it is strange to see thomists larpers coping and clinging so hard when it's really so easy to arrive at even from their premises.
I've only read one of his books but I think he does serve an interesting purpose in pointing out that ultimately the presence of Buddhism forces Christian leaders to be more precise about what the mercy of God looks like and where it is. Plus why an individual seeking religion shouldn't go for Buddhism if they dare to hope for true ultimate justice and final reconciliation after mortal life if they believe there is more. He doesn't have to be correct to be useful in raising those kinds of questions.
Even though Buddhism technically isn't directly hostile to Christianity, Christianity as a religion has to be able to confront questions raised by a pretty major rival
I wonder if any universalist ever addressed Daniel 12:2, or if they hide it by just basing the "argument" off the NT exclusively.
Yes, that's the first verse everyone points to as a "gotcha". You can go ahead and google it, there are a bunch of arguments on this topic.
Also it seems to me that when you (I think) speak of sin, and of how it darkens the mind, we should keep in mind that, as I said, "it is perhaps more likely that the later answers will be bad as well", it's just likely, but not certain. The reason I say this is that anything can be deduced from falsehood, including truth (as is shown by what is sometimes called the "principle of explosion"). So it is "perhaps more likely" in the very limited sense that subsequent truths will not come about through valid syllogistic reasoning, but this is a crude diagrammatic rendering of the movements of our intellect anyway imo.
So our intellect, never resting content in error or incompleteness (and thus never resting at all, while we are not reunited with the Creator), will eventually stumble upon some truth, even if some of the intermediate premises that would have aided it are not known. So even when we start from the abyss of ignorance (of which sin is merely, at most, an expression) we will "get infinite opportunities to hop back on", because it should also be said that we can know truth when we see it. Actually, when extended to the eternal afterlife (I know this isn't what we were talking about initially), this ties into what I was saying, that we cannot possess this capacity for knowing truth and eternally fail to seize the opportunity once and for all, given that infinity is properly understood as where parallel lines cross and where any intellect arrives at truth. Really those definitions of parallel and truth, for what it's worth, may as well be taken to be definitions of infinity itself.
And so when you say that sin is never satiated, I think that on some understanding of it, it is true: sin is never satiated because it lacks any proper object; it is aimless and cannot be "satiated", but really this is an argument in favor of the privation theory, imo (or at least one way of stating it)
However my understanding of it is that what sins consists of is the unchastised satiation of some lower appetites of ours, and as such, even if it is not proper to talk of sin's "satiation", the appetite undeservedly placed above right reason is in fact satiated in a sense. What is not satiated in any sense, rather, is ourselves, since the satiation of such appetites above all else is not our end proper. Sin leaves us "restless", again. And in that restlessness, we will inevitably come to crawl out of the pit of error, even if "as if by chance".
>And so when you say that sin is never satiated, I think that on some understanding of it, it is true: sin is never satiated because it lacks any proper object; it is aimless and cannot be "satiated", but really this is an argument in favor of the privation theory, imo (or at least one way of stating it)
So close, yet so far away with truly engaging with the point. It not only fails to get satiated, but it GROWS in intensity. See greed, power, addictions, etc. It can’t be a mere privation when it has an “engine” of its own.
yeah, but I don't know that this is any different from how the falsehood in your test tends to "grow" after you introduce one wrong answer.
if anything I see this immediate (albeit ultimately ephemeral) snowballing as more of a testament to the validity of the intellectualist model.
since, in those matters less evident to us, we tend to rely on the "per se nota" validity of syllogistic reasoning, rather than having immediate sight of truth in those matters, it seems pretty fitting that some misconception should bring about some other (and, save for our ultimate and natural recognition of the first principles of right reasoning, all others); and that moreover, in the cases you mentioned, "nudged" as we are by the physical pleasure and the various substances and hormones at play, which act as poisons further clouding our judgement, our intellectual error should in a manner of speaking "reinforce itself" (really, be reinforced by the immediate consequences of the command it brings about) and give rise to more and more deplorable displays (in the immediate future, that is)
imo drugs are actually a good illustration of the compatibility of what you are saying and an intellectualist model. one starts taking them because one fails, intellectually, to recognize that one shouldn't. but in taking them he makes it harder for him to think straight.
still waiting on that guy to post proof of Hart admitting to not being a Christian
I'm high on weed, something I'm very much not used too. i'm also a born and raised Catholic ith more thn my fair share of experience with very tradcaths. I know in my heart they are fools who make Gods love too shallow. Eternal hell is not justice, unless you admit to some kind of limbo theory where hell can be an alright place. If God did send the bad boys to hell forever and the good boys to heaven forever, I just think that's moronic. Why not just give them another chance?
Hijacking this thread
Should I read this, or is there a better recommendation for the history of Christianity
Any book that tries to cover too broad of a topic over too broad of a time span is ultimately doing you a disservice methinks
the natural outcome of every theodicy is some variant of gnosticism. mainstream christianity is too determined by urban consciousness and urban humanity, too determined by an anthropocentric view of the cosmos, to be of use to anyone. I'm right because even Hart has been flirting with a gnostic turn. thomists are all soulless syllogism bots. there's something just so... fungal hivemind about all mainstream apologists
>thomists are all soulless syllogism bots. there's something just so... fungal hivemind about all mainstream apologists
they are ok really, they are as a general rule extremely apt at making distinction and untangling wrongheaded language, which is what one can expect from the analytics that thomists have become. I know in matters of "lower" importance, secondary matters the specifics of which I need disentangled, I can always turn to thomists for a satisfying answer.
however yeah they most of the time have no knack for the "big picture view", they seem to lose it somewhere along the way, maybe because as Hart says they feel compelled to defend nonsensical views as dogma.
Or maybe they give this impression, as you say, because most "thomists" one finds online nowadays are late teens/early 20s tradlarpers with very little concern for substance.
>I know in matters of "lower" importance, secondary matters the specifics of which I need disentangled, I can always turn to thomists for a satisfying answer.
>Or maybe they give this impression, as you say, because most "thomists" one finds online nowadays are late teens/early 20s tradlarpers with very little concern for substance.
Fair points, good post
I said the second part as sort of a throaway joke but it should be emphasized that there is an attitude prevalent in thomists that is completely absent from Thomas.
They have become so engrossed in their aristotelian syllogisms that they forget, as Thomas did not, that all of this is merely a tool, like a cue, or a prompt, to induce some manner of knowledge of what cannot be said properly. They also sometimes (not all and not always) seem to forget how much mystery Thomas (and Augustine for that matter) allows for.
Thomas seems way less assertive (as to the absolute necessity of putting the matter in some specific way rather than another), and also seems to concede truth wherever he can find a reading charitable enough. He was also way more "platonic" or "neoplatonic" than modern thomist larpers like to claim.
Sometimes you could quote Thomas without telling them it is Thomas and they will call you a skeptic, a "humean" or other such labels they use as buzzwords. I will admit I am guilty of having done so in jest more than once.
All in all they lose much in behaving as they do, as though they were allergic to poetic metaphor and the like. They profess a doctrine of transcendentals but sometimes seem to fall victim to a modern conception of "truth", and then take that ill conceived caricature as an ultimate guiding principle.
>as you say, because most "thomists" one finds online nowadays are late teens/early 20s tradlarpers with very little concern for substance.
What do you mean Thomists have very little concern for substance?!? Substantiality is one of the central focuses of Aristotelian metaphysics!!!
and really it's ironic because everyone (including myself) finds Hart probably a bit too "mystical"
Specifically, when you yourself call something "sick", what do you mean ? The "god" I am talking about is arbitrary power, with no command to speak of, just creation. So if good and evil are symmetrical created principles, why is good, good and evil, evil specifically ? why is good commanded or commendable ? can good and evil, on this view, be anything more than arbitrary terms that it is (again, for no particular reason) fitting to apply to one collection of facts rather than another ? It is very hard to see how that would be the case. And so, why are they any different ? What is their meaning ? What is the conceptual content of the word "good" ?
As we see, what else could good be but what is in accordance with the Good itself ? And what could God be other than the Good itself, who brings all thing forth as he sees them ? So how can any rival "principle" exist, and not be mere accident ?
It may seems as though we are destined to beg the question "against each other". it may be so. as Aquinas says, "for those without it, no evidence will suffice". But honestly I cannot really take myself to have proven, after all, that no sense can be made of this position, just that I don't see how it can be done, and that as far as I know it has never been achieved. I strongly suspect it's just because it is not possible. The meaning of the word "God", and the existence of that which it designates, must be taken to be as obvious as the principle of non contradiction.
But for that reason I am optimistic, and so I really think that, except for a vicious and timely suspension of common sense, no one truly asserts or says in their heart that the sighted lack blindness or any such thing. It is just not practical, it is just not how we think, because things are created, and so they are well created.
>Sometimes evil is a sick exultation in health and the perfection of the human senses, since man is the most perfect animal.
yes, but that is precisely an imperfection on our part, namely, the absence of truth in our intellect at some point. this does not need to go against the privation theory in any way
What I can offer (again it's not really my idea) as an alternative to evil being its own "thing", is that temporary imperfection is needed if creation is to be dynamic at all. For all movement is toward one thing, and perfect things need not move. Createdness is nothing but love going both ways, and creation just is a dynamic manifestation of it. I do not deny that it is cryptic or that createdness is ultimately a mystery, but I hope that I have at least suggested why we need not posit evil as some principle.
I remember this guy from closertotruth interviews, He was a good listen
He is moronic.
you're stupid bro
>Hartgays' umpteenth attempt to ignore scripture in order to justify what muh logic and muh heart says about Hell
who are you guys fooling lmao, Hell is real and it is eternal, and you can pull dozens of quotes from the Bible to support it.
1 Corinthians 15:22
Philippians 2:10-11
1 Timothy 4:10
drivel
>"in order to justify what muh logic and muh heart says about Hell"
I mean if scripture did contradict reason and basic moral inuitions then it would be wrong, yes. Hart however, being a christian, tries to show that it does not (and that this is his reason for being a Christian)
As experience taught me, I should hasten to insist that, contrary to a bizarre reaction that some Catholics have when faced with this view, it is not heretical or really saying anything much to say that Revelation should be read in light of reason and accepted on reasonable grounds. This has always been completely uncontroversial. I think there is something in Peter about this.
This is not to say, as much as some would like to hear it (so they can proceed to calling you a "relativist" or the like, no doubt), that the truth contained in revelation is somehow "ontologically posterior" to human reason or what the latter can know, just epistemologically posterior. It is not "taking man as the measure of all things", merely asserting the unity of Truth.
It really is strange that it often comes to having to restate this.
I remember how catholics lost their minds when Hart said something to the effect that he would sooner give up christianity than universalism. Really strange. It is really no more shocking than if one were to say that if the New Testament taught unequivocally that 2+2=5, then it wouldn't be Revelation. But go figure. I had an encounter with a guy who called himself a "traditional neo-thomist" or what have you, the whole deal, and who ended up telling me that the fact that there were "witnesses" and "miracles" was "more important" and should make us overlook any irreconciliable absurdities. So at that point I guess any crook could come along with a couple of friends, do a couple magic tricks, and those guys would believe him. And then there is nothing left to argue against.
>I mean if scripture did contradict reason and basic moral inuitions then it would be wrong, yes
It's been assumed that most people were headed to Hell (=eternal conscious torment) for >1000 years in Christendom without any significant number of people deciding that this ran counter to basic moral intuition or Reason. People just got soft after WW2.
>I remember how catholics lost their minds when Hart said something to the effect that he would sooner give up christianity than universalism.
Universalists aspire to be more compassionate than God. iirc, the Augustinian view was that all deserve Hell but God sent the Son die to for the sins of mankind, however, it would only be efficacious for a handful.
>eternal conscious torment
more difficulties. conscious how ? as I have tried to show here
, having such a torment be eternal necessarily entails very strange views indeed, and here
I have touched upon it as well.
imo what it entails is not only a crudely subjective view of the afterlife, but the fact that it is not "human souls" who suffer this torment after all, but some animals created for this purpose "vessels of wrath", as it were, maybe in proportion to humanity's previous sins, I don't know what the theory would be.
this particular view I have not tried to refute, but it would be easy enough, as even animal suffering is a sort of evil. it is of course overly complicated, unaesthetic, and anyway does not refute universalism about moral agents, much like the view that "evil" is forever "punished" even when creation has been purged of it, even though it is strangely worded, ultimately does no contradict universalism full stop.
The point of "vessels of wrath" theory is that God has absolute authority over humans as a potter does his clay. If God wants to consign the clay (humans) to eternal fire for its wickedness, He is within His right to do so.
>it makes no sense to say that one rejects God stricto sensu (God qua God), much less freely of course.
Sure it does, people do it every day when they seek out illict sexual pleasures, for example. Their conception of the Good == the Good as derived from God, i.e. their souls are disordered.
God obviously cannot do everything that can be put in words, only what has meaning. This is not a restriction, as we all know. All manner of structure that can successfuly be attributed to being as intelligible, to creation, to us, requires an intellectualist model if things are to be made sense of. This is true both of God, and of man. God cannot make something to be other than what it is. I cannot order it not to strive towards Him. Or create, if creation is properly understood, anything that does no move toward him as an horizon. Any dynamism clearly implies telos (again, if things are to be intelligible). This is not something that is said of a "god" of whom we can assert any separate, independent existence, but it is what God is, the necessity of there being such a thing, is how we arrive at him in the first place: "and this we call God". We know God by his names, and these names relate to his effects.
I assume you are a protestant, so maybe you're not been exposed to much classical theism. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the problems that arise from voluntarism, usually this knowledge is pretty commonplace, so I assume you have some, and maybe some responses too. I have spoken on it here
and here
Anyway, I am not going to repeat myself too much but suffice it to say that voluntarism is basically refuted, not as having any real incoherence within itself, but precisely because it is empty, which is what prevents it from any internal incoherence. What it attempts to call God is bruteness in facts, happenstance, maybe. But even that it cannot coherently assert, because it presenting itself as an ultimate account of things, at at the same time, it is empty. The voluntarist, like many others, is commited to asserting that nothing can be asserted. So it is refuted inasmuch as its own content or lack thereof makes it incoherent with its being asserted.
>Sure it does, people do it every day when they seek out illict sexual pleasures, for example.
You misunderstand. You are talking about an evil, a particular privation. No one denies that people do evil acts. That privations occur in creation. It is just a logical impossibility that people desire evil under the guise of evil. This really is completely uncontroversial.
Compare: is it possible to believe something under the guise (the "ratio") of false ? Is it possible, to assert not only in so many words (this is possible), but to assert in one's heart of hearts, something that is taken to be false ? This is of course an impossibility. Though you can certainly say "1+1=3", sound out the words, they will be devoid of content, and you will not believe what they express because they express nothing.
I have had conversations with people who were outraged at this idea, and pointed to self professed "satanists" or other such confused fools.
"Look", they said, "they seek out evil as such, they say it themselves !" So now we should take the words of fools for truth, and eschew logical reasoning ? It really is the exact same thing as the example I gave above.
Compare also: a musician can play wrong notes, hold his instrument upside down, and all sorts of mistakes. but one thing he cannot do, by definition, "qua musician", is give up all musical pursuit. This is true of man and striving towards God. Of course all metaphors fail to capture truly what I am saying, because, being a fundamental fact, God as telos is always "lurking" in the background, making sense of even the fictional situations that are supposed to illustrate His existence.
There is no movement without God in view, and God is that towards which all created things strive. This is not necessarily to be understood as that he is "final" in a chain of goods-as-means that culminate in him, not in a temporal sense. Rather, he is Love itself, the Love without which there can be no relational property such as x loves y.
>their souls are disordered
their intellects are limited. their conscious thoughts are disordered. but the voice of their primordial conscience (natural will, synderesis), is always uncorrupted and uncorruptible, if it were, they would not be humans, by definition.
>It's been assumed that most people were headed to Hell (=eternal conscious torment) for >1000 years in Christendom without any significant number of people deciding that this ran counter to basic moral intuition or Reason.
People can convince themselves of alot of things aren't right for a long time
For example, did you know for the entire medieval ages there was a very serious belief and tradition among monks that stinking like shit was a holy ideal
The logic went like this: the flesh is sinful(=evil) > the body is flesh > the body has needs > these needs are evil > we should avoid them > we can spend our entire lives without bathing, with no danger of death (like it happens with food) > so we shouldn't bait
Yeah, imagine the smell
>the Augustinian view was that all deserve Hell
And before Augustine death, this view was the unorthodox one held only by the minority of Christians
>where are the moral stakes if ultimately everybody goes to heaven?
The same stakes there is to comminting crime
Punishment
Just because it's temporary doesn't mean it's inconsequential
>doesn't it infringe on God's love for everybody if the perpetrators of heinous crimes like pedophilia and genocide get off relatively scot-free?
An infinite punishment to a finite action, is not justice not love
You think otherwise because we are limited beings and these evils seem unforgivable to us, but we have neither the capacity to understand infinity (an evident fact to any mathematician) nor real mercy
>Maybe we're looking at what constitutes as goodness through too much of an individualistic, one-on-one contract lens, neglecting the fact that God cares about the entirety of His creation.
What you're forgetting is that as THE Absolute entity, there is no "quantification" to God's love
The Love he "shares" with the collective is essentially equal to what the individual receives
>For example, did you know for the entire medieval ages there was a very serious belief and tradition among monks that stinking like shit was a holy ideal
Actually, yes. They viewed lice in particular as evidence of holiness iirc. Anorexia Mirabilis was also an interesting phenomenon of the time, which many prominent female Saints appear to have suffered from. They also engaged in some other unsanitary behaviors inspired by just the reasoning you described, pic rel is from Bell's "Holy Anorexia".
>Anorexia Mirabilis was also an interesting phenomenon of the time, which many prominent female Saints appear to have suffered from.
Thx, I didn't know this
Though should've suspected so, since it's only a small jump in logic from what I had described
And besides it's not like starvation is uncommon in ascetiscs
>"she carefully gathered the pus into a ladle and drank it all"
...
Why the frick would you do that?
Here's another account of a very stable individual (St. Veronica Giuliani). Catholicism in the Middle Ages was WH40k-tier at times.
Another one from the same book, St. Francesca Romana. Somewhat less disgusting than Catherine of Siena or Veronica Giuliani but only a little. After I read this book I became increasingly convinced that many prominent female Saints of the time were like the medieval equivalent of mentally ill e-girls.
Is this implying she wasn't actually doing any of those things to herself?
I'm not sure. I think the excessive fasting bit is reliable, but the book may be implying that the hot wax bit could've been a "holy fib", so to speak. picrel is such an example from the chapter on Veronica Giuliani. The general consensus in these situations was that the Devil was merely pretending to appear as (fasting girl) to sow discord in the convent. It's been awhile since I read the book but seriously do read it. It's wild and will give you a whole new perspective on Catholicism. It honestly seems like people of dubious mental stability have been over-represented in the Church in prominent positions for a long time.
With that said it's pretty sympathetic to a lot of these girls. Most of them came from fairly well-off backgrounds and were trying to avoid forced marriages, and truly aspired to holiness in their own odd ways. Self-mutilation was basically their way of trying to be holy and to preserve their autonomy using the same logic outlined in
. Interestingly many of these girls actively tried to *imitate* Catherine of Siena.
Oops I grabbed the wrong page
Well as
points out, Catherine was kind of a force of nature. It's not surprising that she had some imitators among the women of her day. It's like how in the 90s every Catholic wanted to be like John Paul II or Mother Teresa. That's how the Church works. Great figures get seized on by the masses. The entire idea behind the saints is that they are kind of a bridge between the average person and Christ. You might not be able to truly be like Jesus, but you can be like Saint Francis or Saint Therese or Saint Augustine, and through their example you CAN be like Jesus. It goes along with Paul's thing about "Be imitators of me, as I am an imitator of Christ."
More likely that her husband simply didn't pay much mind to her at that time
Well, maybe likening them to egirls is a bit unfair. Many of these young women decided on pursuing life as a nun when their parents tried to force them into a marriage, usually for political or financial reasons. Still, I think stuff like
is a bit much.
>Still, I think stuff like
>For example, did you know for the entire medieval ages there was a very serious belief and tradition among monks that stinking like shit was a holy ideal
Actually, yes. They viewed lice in particular as evidence of holiness iirc. Anorexia Mirabilis was also an interesting phenomenon of the time, which many prominent female Saints appear to have suffered from. They also engaged in some other unsanitary behaviors inspired by just the reasoning you described, pic rel is from Bell's "Holy Anorexia". is a bit much.
And eating rat shit because daddy priest told you so, or pouring burning hot molten fat on your vegana as not to experience sexual pleasure, isn't?
Even despite their tragic backgrounds, I think there must been something deeply disturbing about that zeitgeist to drive people to such acts of self-hatred
Maybe she was just incredibly holy. Catherine of Siena is one of the big-time saints, her reputation is considerable. She was able to order the Pope himself around; she's the reason the Avignon Papacy ended and the Pope returned to Rome. Also her head, which is her main relic, is remarkably well-preserved for its age and decayed only very slowly over basically a thousand years.
Also she's one of only a few female Doctors of the Church, due to her Dialogue being a major theological work.
>You think otherwise because we are limited beings and these evils seem unforgivable to us, but we have neither the capacity to understand infinity (an evident fact to any mathematician) nor real mercy
Exactly, and this is part of what makes it so ironic when "infernalists" tell "universalists" they're being naive, or they're guilty of childish wishful thinking.
Do they think the universalist is not utterly repulsed at some of the evils in the world ? Do they not think the first reaction of the unrefined mind is to think that evil is substantial, that some people are just pure evil, and to hope that they suffer forever ?
Do they think it is not humbling to admit that ultimately you have no reason to hate your fellow man as such, only, at worst, reasons to pity him ? Do they think any one of us started out with the aim of "depriving" ourselves of that childish catharsis ?
>I remember how catholics lost their minds when Hart said something to the effect that he would sooner give up christianity than universalism. Really strange.
How is that not shocking? At best, it's an incredibly risky affair, jettisoning with the "base" of religious belief to shoot for what one thinks is the spirit of it. At worst, it's admitting that one isn't truly a Christian at heart. And each and every case reveals a certain confidence, or perhaps arrogance, about matters that we may not be able to ever fully understand. I think it's a little nutty to be surprised when devout Christians push back against the idea of giving up revealed scripture entirely if it doesn't make sense at first.
>if it doesn't make sense at first.
i'm not talking about a case of "it doesn't make sense at first", I am talking about *irreconciliable* absurdities, where it doesn't make sense period.
I'm not even talking about Hart at that point. Hart was of course reasoning "per impossibile".
*If* it can be shown that something that purports to be Revelation disagrees with natural theology (or natural philosophy for that matter), plainly and irreconciliably, then of course it's not Revelation. This is uncontroversial as can be.
Of course I am sure you agree with this, and the example I have given, but maybe what you have in mind is either that Scripture cannot be shown to disagree unequivocally with what we know to be true by our unaided means (which incidentally I think Hart would agree as well, in fact that's the only way he could still be a Christian), or that we must always doubt our own reason when confronted with such discrepancy.
Now the first horn of this dilemma I would gladly take, if you have independent reason to believe Scripture truly is the word of God, then you should of course apply yourself to showing ultimate agreement between Revelation and the conclusions of natural reason. I should point out in passing that this is almost never done by those people I am talking about.
The second horn, on the other hand, makes no sense whatsoever. Revelation is first accepted (and accepted as a whole, the only way it can be accepted) on rational grounds. (one can disagree with that but as I said, there is nothing left to argue against, and this view has never been held by anyone serious).
Why then, should it "at some point" in the course of our reasoning, be taken to have *epistemological* precedence ? (again, I emphasize this, so as to avoid the usual misreading)
Does it, at some point, become a distinct judging criterion of its own in matters that *can be decided through natural means* ? Of course not. So what's its point ? I guess it is, through its manifest noncontradiction and beautiful "recapping" of natural knowledge, to be acceptable, receivable by us, so as to orient us towards knowledge of things that *cannot* be decided through natural means (dogma).
The simple point (which, I hate to have to state the obvious) is this: Revelation has to be unfalsifiable through natural means. It does not mean in anyway, when *what is said in revelation* is measured agains natural theology and the like, that God is being "judged", that we are taking man as the measure of all things, or any of that.
>I am talking about *irreconciliable* absurdities, where it doesn't make sense period.
... irreconcilable through discursive reasoning. And, as much as I want to cast infernalism into the trash entirely, there's still reasons why it may not be true.
For example, where are the moral stakes if ultimately everybody goes to heaven? The fact that we live one life, and then that's it before judgment, offers the truest test of the moral content of one's soul. If "the moral game" were made any more "clear", then faith in God would be trivial, and the meaning of faith would be utterly ruined.
Furthermore, doesn't it infringe on God's love for everybody if the perpetrators of heinous crimes like pedophilia and genocide get off relatively scot-free? Maybe we're looking at what constitutes as goodness through too much of an individualistic, one-on-one contract lens, neglecting the fact that God cares about the entirety of His creation.
>For example, where are the moral stakes if ultimately everybody goes to heaven? The fact that we live one life, and then that's it before judgment, offers the truest test of the moral content of one's soul.
I don't know if you're the same guy, but I reiterate this
.
Namely, that true is good, and it is its own reward (much like error is its own punishment, but error, being a privation, is limited, and so is the punishment), and I think a good case could be made (and I have tried to make it) that looking for some other "stakes" can only be a product of our all-too-modern conceptual dissociating of the transcendentals, and overall confusion. But I understand your reaction, having had it myself. It is like the reaction one can have towards "compatibilism", for instance. We are told meaning is one thing, and then despair when we do not find it in reality as reason discovers it. This of course cannot mean that there is no meaning, merely that we had an unrefined view of it. We come to unify the transcendentals, and then despair, because it seems to us that we have proven than the Good is "merely" the True. But such a "merely" is not necessary. For the True, on a correct understanding of it, is plenty enough and then some more.
what I mean to say it that "discursive reasoning", granting (or anyways arriving at) these principles, might fair better than you think against those things you fear.
>offers the truest test of the moral content of one's soul
it does, but we should keep in mind also that the orientation of our will (see natural will in Maximus, synderesis in Thomas, for instance), is always towards the Good, which precludes the possibility of infinite trespassing. the only other "moral content" there is to speak of, is how apt we've proven in our deliberations, and decisions (what Maximus calls the gnomic will).
this also lends strength to the fact that, as Hart asserts, "a hardened heart is its owns punishment". for what greater suffering is there for us than failing to contemplate the face of God ?
He is, after all, the only thing we move towards, or rather, what we wish to move towards, ultimately, when moving towards anything. what more fitting punishment could there be ?
Since this is the highest suffering for humans, it is fitting that it is what Hell consists of. And indeed it is. But it is of course only temporary, passing, accidental, which is all evil can ever be.
But here's the thing. The people I'm talking about play a shell game: sometimes they treat hell as a matter for natural theology, and when they fail (not because they're stupid but because it's impossible to prove falsehood), they go back to encyclicals, historicity, number, an ill-conceived idea of endoxa, what have you.
On this matter of endoxa, it is ironic that these same people do end up taking man as the measure of all thing after all, once their unfortunate (or nonexistent) venture into natural theology has failed.
Because endoxa, though reverence in face of it is commendable and shows prudence, is not merely what "a lot of people believe" or "have believed" "for a long time". That would of course make absolutely no sense. It is what is widely believed *because it has endured*, that is, it has not been falsified, it seems likely, people who have proved generally apt tend to assert it, and whatnot.
But asserting that this is the case here is merely to beg the question against, say, the universalist. For the universalist precisely denies that it has endured, and takes it to be clearly falsified. That there are fools to assert it still changes nothing to the matter.
Most people will probably profess atheism centuries from now (at least it is a real possibility), does this mean that atheism has not been refuted effectively, that it is a tenable view ? It is ironic that it is ultimately this defense that could reasonably deserve warning against "taking man as the measure of all things"
of course not. in order to assert that something truly is endoxa, one should at least be aware of the arguments against (or for, for that matter) it, and the various ways in which they can be engaged with.
The other guy mentionned "Chesterton's fence" (which really is another term for the principle of endoxa). Keeping with the metaphor, what universalists like Hart (who goes even further in asserting that infernalism is a historically marginal view, but that is a matter for scholarship), would simply claim that they have effectively proven the fence to be here for no good reason, but that the farmer (or what have you) still wants it here because he simply does not understand the explanation.
Wait, so this is an Eastern Orthodox chud hero who thinks hell isn't eternal? Odd
That's a man
good thing God warned us about perdition by doing a handful of magic tricks for illiterates in a Roman backwater 2,000 years ago
Jesus explicitly said that he was here for the lost children of Israel, not for the gentiles, which makes it all the more funny that the goyim wish to follow this religion. You goyim really crack me up sometimes.
internet thomists and tradlarpers at large
I haven't read any argument by Hart that would apply to the anti-modernity and anti-progressivism arguments made by Guenon. It seems like when it comes to politics that DBH just attacks or mocks the character of people who espouse hard right-wing/traditionalist viewpoints instead of trying to explain for his readership why the rationale for those things are ostensibly wrong.
In fact, at times he seems like someone who read Guenon, agreed with most of him, and then decided to become a low-key Guenonian writer on Christian theology but with a liberal bent, but without in fact ever overturning Guenon's points against "progress", "equality" etc
I was talking about philosophical, theological, or metaphysical arguments. Guénon didn't produce any that I know of (to his credit I don't think he ever claimed to). I don't know that he's really taken seriously outside of internet forums t b h. Maybe Hart enjoys his writings though, I don't know.
>Guénon didn't produce any that I know of
Maybe they aren't "arguments" but in "East & West" and "Crisis of the Modern World" he makes various "observations" about why the various premises that undergird progressivism etc are nonsensical when analyzed dispassionately. I just find a interesting contrast that DBH's thought seems in certain ways indebted to Guenon but DBH seems to just presuppose that progressivism is completely justified and apparently circumvents any challenging of his own presuppositions in this regard. Granted, as a writer on theology he isn't under any obligation to justify his political views to his readers, but he pours scorn on right-wing expressions of Catholic thought etc but he doesn't seem to turn his critical eye inwards or explicitly engage with reactionary-adjacent "perennialism" like Guenon even though it would be interesting and relevant for him discuss why someone who shares certain viewpoints of DBH like Guenon (eg seeing Vedantic parallels in Christianity) would take such a radically different perspective. In one interview DBH even described himself as a "crypto-perennialist" so it's not like comparing them would be out of the blue.
> I don't know that he's really taken seriously outside of internet forums t b h
He has been and continues to be taken very seriously in various Muslim countries and in some of their centers of learning.
https://traditionalhikma.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/The_Influence_of_Rene_Guenon_in_the_Isla.pdf
I get the impression he's pretty much just amused with the tendency of internet thomist tradlarpers to behave as though we can without the shadow of a doubt prove what is good with just a couple of syllogisms. The perverted faculty argument for instance, might be ultimately right, but it's also very difficult to apply. Not saying it can't be done, just that most uses of it that I've seen are very weak and unconvincing. And this, in matters where I agreed with the conclusion, but I simply found the "proof" unconvincing. Also, it doesn't matter all that much because some things are just morally obvious, and such "intuition" should not be discarded altogether.
It is one thing to be a theist and a moral realist, it is another thing to access particular moral truths. I know that thomists all grant that, but sometimes they (or rather the internet thomistic larpers) behave as though they have forgotten it.
These particular moral truths are often the object of disagreement between even people who, on principle, are in agreement on every single important matter. (I, for instance, considered Thomists extremely cucked "politically", even when I found myself agreeing with them on most important matters)
So I may be completely wrong (maybe I'm projecting my view onto his), but I seems to me (granted I don't know his politics very well because I don't care about anyone's politics) that he would have less of a problem if such political views weren't asserted as following "necessarily" from sound metaphysical or theological views.
I know he has been a fierce critic of some aspects of modern thinking obviously, like the modern conception of freedom.
But yeah regarding Guénon specifically I know nothing about it (to be honest I have a negative preconception of his stuff)
Maybe give me a quick rundown, if you care to ? (that's one thing I've never managed to get guénongays to do)
>that he would have less of a problem if such political views weren't asserted as following "necessarily" from sound metaphysical or theological views.
Here is an example of some of his hyperbole with regard to the right-wing in general that verges on the hysterical
>The failure to see the face of Christ in the poor and infirm and refugees and prisoners is the soul’s condemnation. For instance if impoverished and terrified refugees say should arrive by the thousands and our southern borders bearing their children with them driven from their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras by monstrous violence and hopeless poverty, much of it the long unfolding consequence of our own barbaric policies in Central America. And then our degenerate dropsical orange goblin of a president and the little hoard of oleaginous fascists who slid out of the spiritual sewer by his side, react by imprisoning the adult asylum seekers and abducting and caging their children, subjecting all of them to the most abominable psychological torture degradation and despair, in order to terrify other refugees who might also come seeking shelter; here we need not doubt for a moment that according to the words of Christ these persons have revealed themselves as damned at this moment.
https://stjohnoneone.com/2021/03/07/on-christians-voting-for-donald-trump-david-bentley-hart/
Caging illegal immigrants started under Obama and simply continued under Trump
>Maybe give me a quick rundown, if you care to ?
If you like DBH than there is a good likelihood that you'll find Guenon's books on symbolism and metaphysics fascinating. A quick rundown of his observations about modernity and progressivism in 'East & West' and 'Crisis of the Modern World' would be that he traces the decline of the modern mind from the time of the renaissance on downwards to the present time, noting important milestones and when nonsensical ideas became widespread and unquestioned almost like a mass psychosis. Me trying to summarize his points would not do justice to them, those two books are very well-written and are a major reason why his works are widely respected and still read in Muslim centers of learning despite the often implicitly Vedanta-centric tone of some of his works on metaphysics.
yeah I knew Hart was cringeworthy but I didn't know the extent of it.
at least I guess I'm reassured: the fact that I agree with a guy whom I find so annoying and so cucked goes to show that I'm not picking and chosing.
I've got no idea if any of that is true or not but he's obese so I shan't listen to him.
so were Aquinas and Luther, that's pretty much it for christianity.
Very cool. Now let's see him try to refute Jay Dyer.
I specify that I talk of metaphysics because this is about privation, not just moral evil, of course. Ethics is just a particular case.
Anyway, maybe there's some nuance I'm missing and it's not at all the argument you're making.