The Upper Room

GratefulDisciple

05:09

@curiousdannii I find the question rather perplexing, coming from a Christian. Why don't a Christian want to be a realist? To really know God, even if in this world we can only see "through a glass, darkly" (1 Cor 13:12, KJV)? But God is known to increase the light of faith given to us if we are persistent and if He deigns to give us "early access" as He did to several saints? That Jesus himself, our model human nature, had beatific vision, so it is humanly possible?

From theological perspective, philosophy is truly a handmaiden. The Queen gives revelation, so philosophy can describe this revelation via the instrument of the human soul uplifted with grace. Yes, if philosophy wants to be independent from faith, like Kant, then philosophy is forced to limit the horizon of "analyzable" reality, just like empirical science needs to satisfy herself with empirically verifiable subset of reality.

But theological realism is a wider possibility for a Christian, a science whose data encompasses more than that, hence the medieval characterization of theology as "science of God" and as "queen of the sciences" of other disciplines. To limit this "science of God" at the level of language game or conceptual analysis of scriptural data rather than including ontological exploration by the saints who truly know and experience God would be to impoverish theology, I think.

I came across this 2021 dissertation Towards a Realist Conception of Theology: An Account Based on the Works of Bavinck and Plantinga whose Chapter One can provide contemporary background for realism vs. anti-realism approach to theology.

GratefulDisciple

05:33

Page 19 of Chapter 1 offers Christopher Insole's litmus test of realism in theology (all 4 criteria must be held):

> I understand any approach to the practice of religion to be anti-realist if and only if it denies at least one of the following four criteria for a realist construal of religious discourse:

> A) there is an indispensable core of religious utterances that are fact-asserting, not merely expressive (from here on I will refer to this core as “statements”),

> B) statements are made true by a non-epistemic state of affairs (the way the world is, rather than by standards of “ideal justification”),

> C) what is the case is independent of human cognition,

> D) we can, in principle, have true beliefs about what is the case independent of human cognition.

> Religious anti-realism involves a denial of at least one of these claims for religious statements.

C) is the metaphysical dimension, D) is the epistemological possibility, A) & B) is the semantic dimension.

@curiousdannii If you're arguing for the anti-realist camp, which criteria are you not comfortable with?

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple Someone could be persuaded of realism (indeed, a 5 minute youtube video was enough to convince me not to be a nominalist), but it seems odd to me that someone would really truly want to be a realist. None of what you've said has anything to do with Christians wanting to be realists. And indeed I can't see any reasons particular to Christianity for wanting abstracts or universals to be real.

If anything our doctrine of aseity should probably push us to conceptual realism. Universals existing, but only in the mind of God, that sort of thing. The Classical Theist view of simplicity where all universals are the essence of God is so skeevy to me.

GratefulDisciple

BTW, I forgot to actually answer the question. I want to be a realist because I want to contemplate God, which (in Aquinas's analysis of happiness) is the ultimate activity. I find this Thomistic Institute lecture The Search for Happiness: Wisdom from Aquinas and the Classical Tradition very helpful.

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple I don't see the connection of those 4 statements to realism. Are we talking about a different kind of realism?

@GratefulDisciple You don't have to be a philosophical realist to want to contemplate God... or to appreciate past Christian Philosophical Theology (or Theological Philosophy)

GratefulDisciple

@curiousdannii Yeah, probably. I'm still new to the realism vs. nominalism debate, including the debate about universals. From what I gather so far, Thomism is moderate realist, between Plato and Ockham.

@curiousdannii "all universals are the essence of God" sounds fishy to me as well. That's why earlier I asked the question of whether only the standard 3-4 transcendentals qualify to be included in the essence of God.

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple I don't want to be a Classical Theist kind of Realist because I want the love of God to actually be a meaningful idea/statement, and not just another phrase for the justice of God, the eternality of God, the omnipresence of God.

@GratefulDisciple Are the 4 transcendentals the four points from Insole?

GratefulDisciple

05:51

@curiousdannii No, I'm referring to this.

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple Hmm. I'm not sure I really want to equate them to the essence of God. But I haven't read the arguments for that yet.

But I'm pretty sure according to Classical Theism that no, all universals, concepts, etc is the essence of God.

@GratefulDisciple Not least of which is that I want to be able to distinguish between the truth, beauty, and goodness of God.

GratefulDisciple

@curiousdannii Aquinas (who adopts some of Aristotle's philosophy) doesn't believe in the existence of universals like Plato. Since Aquinas is a classical theist, I don't think being a classical theist commits one to a theory of universals.

curiousdannii

In my understanding (which is limited and could be wrong), it's not simply that these things are in the essence of God, but that they are the essence of God. But the essence is simple and so all those things are equivalent.

@GratefulDisciple It may just be people after him then. I don't know who first coined the label of Classical Theism.

GratefulDisciple

@curiousdannii From skimming various articles, it seems classical theism is a lot more tightly linked with Divine simplicity, God outside time and space, and God as the ground of all being, in which rational creatures has "more" of him since we are made in the image of God, RATHER THAN a position regarding universals.

From my limited skimming, I just felt Classical Theism is a descriptive label for thinkers adopting the above.

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple It may only come out in the explanations of simplicity.

GratefulDisciple

06:05

@curiousdannii To me, love is a Person, the proper name of the Holy Spirit, so I include Trinitarian divine mission in my understanding of love. So love cannot be captured in a concept, but we can approach greater understanding of love by refining the concepts.

In other words: love is experienced first, then we write poetry about it. Some aspect of the poetry can be narrative (as in the Bible), some can be philosophical (where concepts predominant), and some can be mystical (experiential).

curiousdannii

when we say that a man is wise, we signify his wisdom as something distinct from the other things about him—his essence, for example, his powers, or his existence. But when we use ‘wise’ when talking about God we do not intend to signify something distinct from his essence, power or existence. When we predicate ‘wise’ of a human being we, so to speak, circumscribe and define the limits of the aspect of human beings that it signifies. But this is not so when we predicate ‘wise’ of God … So, it is clear that we do not use ‘wise’ in the same sense of God and people, and the same goes for all o…

@GratefulDisciple Do you go for the idea that the Spirit is the personification of the love between the Father and Son?

While I don't like that idea, I am okay with God being not just the epitome of love, not just the greatest doer of love, but in some way love itself. But I don't like the idea of equating it with his essence.

GratefulDisciple

@curiousdannii I have to be careful with my terminology (you can help me). What I'm trying to communicate is that Love (as the proper name of the Holy Spirit) is the Trinitarian life given to me as "new life" (born again), with whom (personal relationship) I communicate and also receive (as a being, hence the analogy of opening the door to one's heart) to elevate my natural love to be supernatural love (agape).

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple Yeah I'm not persuaded that Love should be particularly associated with the Spirit. I've never seen any Biblical support for such an idea. I've been meaning to ask a question on the site about that...

@GratefulDisciple In particular, the Christian's New Life is the life of Christ, not the Spirit.

GratefulDisciple

@curiousdannii Again, I have to be careful with my terminology. I don't want to say God's essence is in me, rather, the divine economy in "sending" the Holy Spirit to each believer has the Trinitarian life dynamic in what is being sent. I think God's essence should be transcendent, but the LIFE can be immanent and Trinitarian.

@curiousdannii So in my understanding, the Life of Christ is identical with the Trinitarian life. Some gradation of the transcendent and immanent life of God is truly in us. The same dynamic of love in the Trinity is alive in us as Love animating our "new life" (in a believer's soul).

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple This is one of those things where there can be two very different ideas of a topic and it doesn't have to be only one is true. I would say our New Life is primarily the new resurrection human life of Christ, not his divinity. But through Union with Christ we are united to the divine life too. So... porque no los dos?

GratefulDisciple

06:21

This then, enable me to meaningfully say that Christ is truly present in me as a friend (human to human), the Holy Spirit is truly present as the Love that I know and desire and experience (i.e. when I managed to forgive my enemy, or when my compassion is kindled for the oppressed), and the Father as my adoptive father to whom I have been made right by virtue of Christ's sacrifice, so I can call him "Abba, Father".

@curiousdannii Sure. I agree that both ideas can work as different spiritual theologies. What I just described I learned from Catholicism.

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple While we can experience/participate in the divine life of Christ, no questions about that, I suspect that a detailed word study of "new life" in the scriptures would associate it with just one idea. (May or may not be the one I said.)

But I have no issue with saying that our theological terminology can have different meanings than how terminology is used in the scriptures. The classic example of that is sanctification, where our (Protestant) theological use is normally focused on the progressive aspects of salvation, compared to justification which is seen as a state, while the scriptural uses of both words are both progressive and stative.

This discussion has been good, got me enthused to study theology again!

GratefulDisciple

@curiousdannii Sure. I'm in the phase of reading more Catholicism so it's no surprise that they interpret some key verses differently. At least it has pedigree and can be trusted as one orthodox option.

@curiousdannii That's great !

It's getting late here, gotta go for now. Hope you have a good weekend.

curiousdannii

@GratefulDisciple See ya

Lee Woofenden

13:25

@GratefulDisciple Swedenborg is speaking specifically of the biblical prophets. Most of the books of the Bible were not written by prophets. Moses, for example, was a lawgiver, not a prophet. Nor were the books between Deuteronomy and Isaiah written by prophets. The Gospel writers were also not prophets, though John did write the book of Revelation in a prophetical style, and could be considered a prophet as the writer of that specific book. Prophets should not be confused with biblical authors.

I should add that the question was whether Swedenborg viewed himself as a prophet. As such, the relevant definition of "prophet" is Swedenborg's definition of a prophet. Personally, I don't accept Swedenborg's view of the prophets 100%. I think they were more aware of what they were talking about than Swedenborg thought they were. But the key point for a Swedenborgian is that all of the books of the Prophets have a deeper, spiritual meaning throughout.

GratefulDisciple

15:49

@LeeWoofenden Thanks for clarifying further what you wrote in the answer. Yes, mainstream definition of a prophet is broader, and the central idea is not the mode of communication (to the prophet) nor whether the content has deeper meaning (to the community), but the central idea is an authentic spokesperson for God. Yes, not all Biblical authors receive special experience (like vision, dream, etc.) but they are all considered prophets because their writing are inspired.

God can speak for various purposes as testified in the Bible: message of judgment, consolation, the giving of laws, very specific circumstances in times of war, God's promise for future actions, God's action in the past (Genesis is a after-the-fact theologizing), etc. Some today believe there can be prophets for comfort, rebuking, direction, etc., although not to add to the Biblical teaching.

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