Faith and empirical reason

[son_of_angels]

So here are some thoughts I've been having. Give me your response....

[quote]1st there are truths about things- Empirical knowledge and theological knowledge, i.e. Those things whose explanations can be naturally experienced and those things that can only be supernaturally experienced.

Science, like theology, proceeds according to one conditional maxim, "If the world exists as I experience it, then (enter fact) this must be true." Theology proceeds along a similar maxim "If God is exists as he has been revealed, then (fact) this must be true."

However, we approach these things through faculties which are really simply expressions of logic, i.e. "explanations of terms" which are really bound up in who we are as rational human beings.  For example, in order to understand the regularity of an orbit around the sun I utilize a mathematical formula.  In order to understand the nature of cause and effect, I utilize principles of causality.  All these things exist DESPITE experience.  From these it is impossible that one should either (a) deny the existence of God, or (b) deny the existence of the world, because both of them assume a nature that is purer than our ability to experience either of them.  Hence we have no true concept of one, but we utilize it nonetheless to explain the world.  We have no concept of ultimate cause, but we use it to explain the nature of God.

These expressions of human reason do not really amplify our knowledge of the world, for they do not increase our experience of them, taken as concepts of themselves.  One can stare at a painting by Michaelangelo all day and write the precise mathematical formula for that painting, and the functions therein, but staring at the formula will not impress a concept of beauty, or even look remotely like the painting itself.

Finally there are descriptive theologies, just like there are descriptive sciences.  Science often tries, in physical terms, to describe the theology of the masses as psychological functions, etc. Yet this does not do justice to the regularity, the application of reason, etc. to the principles of divine theology.  It pretends to offer a cause, but avoids the cause of the science itself.  Moreover theologies like the "theology of the body" are really also descriptive theologies, which utilize physical phenomena to explain a noumena that is other than physical.  Hence it also avoids the physical causes that could be utilized to explain such phenomena.  There is no argument against these, only that these descriptive "sciences" are really more studies in perception than in the objects themselves.  Both begin from a worldview which acknowledges a particular cause as superimposed on the cause taken of itself.  This makes them secondary to the above empirical forms of knowledge.


Can the Christian arrive at God through empirical truth? No, because empirical truth does not assume the existence of God, just as theological truth does not necessarily assume the existence of the world.  One needs descriptive theologies and sciences in order to justify the existence of either in its particular field.

Can the Christian arrive at God through rational truth? Yes, because man is created in the image of God.  The more one understands about reason, the more he really understands about himself, and improves himself.  This has as its ultimate object the Ultimate Cause, the Perfect One, the Moral Objective, the Categorical Imperative, etc. Hence through the improvement of oneself in the exercise of reason on arrives at the perfection and existence of God, which can be used as base principles in the understanding of all Theology and Science.  Yet it should be understand that this is not in relation to knowledge about any particular thing, but only to knowledge of and for itself.  Hence as soon as reason is applied to God, the existence of the world becomes, not contrary, but extraneous.  As soon as it is applied to the world, the existence of God becomes extraneous, though not provably untrue. So the pursuit of reason in relationship to the improvement of oneself towards perfect Happiness will result in a certain knowledge of God.

Can the Christian believe all is created for the glory of God, although physical empirical knowledge does not specifically acknowledge this?
First of all, once one has explained their particular theology, they can then make it descriptive, through analogies to the common life and experience. Hence ideas like the "theology of the body."  These allow one to place their Creator as a cause for something physical and thence to understand the meaning of God more and more in its Creation.  Thus, in as far as these results are true and not repugnant to good theology, the creations become a worthy explanation of God (the object of theology) itself.

Secondly, one does not experience because of reason, but rather experience is explained through reason.  Hence if I get four apples, two from one friend and two from another, it does not follow that if I write down the equation for this transaction I will experience the four apples more or less. My point here is that the experience is separate from the reason behind the experience.  Hence, if I see something beautiful, or I observe some person in pious prayer, my experience of it is not enhanced by my theological or empirical explanations of it.  Rather my taste for it, I find, decreases and I become bent on an explanation for everything.  The thirst for such malnutritious fruit is insantiable to the human mind.  My experience of it is its "glory."  In other words, one may indeed believe all has been created for the glory of God, because that glory is enhanced through, likewise, my experience in the revelation of God, though it be physical matter.  The reason behind it is something I bring to the table for my own satisfaction, but God rather through his will, independent of my own, a particular EXPERIENCE of it. So, all things may still be for the glory of God, in as far as I experience them. [/quote]

[son_of_angels]

bump

[morostheos]

i'll have to come back to this when i have more time to get my head around what you're saying