Is it logically possible to move from Deism to Theism?
To define the terms.
Theism.
>Belief in the existence of a god or gods, specifically of a creator who intervenes in the universe:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/theism
Deism.
>Belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/deism
Or, to put it another way, how do you move from vaguely asserting something along the lines of "something can't come from nothing therefore there must be a Prime Mover" to "I know for certain the Creator of the Universe hates bum sex, abortion and looking at boobies".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogd-yh7orfo
>>600630
No.
>>600632
Thank you.
>>600644
You're welcome.
Those are pretty questionable definitions. Classical theism is a valid position, but that doesn't mean that it implies a belief into a inactive God, simply that we cannot gain insight into the operations of such a being other than confirming his existence.
>>600630
Given how many have done it, yeah.
As in "I have studied more about different religions function, and i have concluded X is the real deal".
Dr. Craig tries to use the historical reliability of the gospels (e.g. the resurrection actually occurred)
I don't think he does so successfully but if you could validate the claims of a supposed godman or prophet then it would be reasonable to say he's telling the truth about god. It's not definite technically, he could just be a magician or something lying about his powers but that's some pretty heavy skepticism.
>>600657
I entire, entirely agree that the defintions are questionable, but the central question remains the same.
The definitions were provided to pose the question.
>>600658
How many have done it does not in any way, shape or form suggest any have done it successfully, based on logic, in a way that is compelling.
>>600662
The historical reliability of the gospels is heavily questionable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjcseBJ7_Ns
If you try and use a methodology that says the gospels are correct and the resurrection was real then you would have to use the same methodology to claim Muhammad flew to the Moon on a winged horse, with considerably more solid evidence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33436021
I think that we can assign probabilities when it comes to God and religious claims, but certainty would be impossible without absolute, doubtless revelation.
IMO Christianity has the highest probability to be true and its historical claims can be examined quite seriously. Still, that probability isn't very high nevertheless, it's one of many possible explanations.
>>600690
I agree, the gospels are clearly pretty unreliable. My point was just that it might be one way of determining what perspective on god is correct.
So technically even if we can prove that Moses parted the red sea for example and that Moses existed at all it doesn't disprove every other religion with absolute certainty. However, it would be reasonable to assume that YHWH is the real deal and Moses wasn't lying about where he got his powers from. Being that this would be the only confirmed supernatural event in history.
>>600709
The question wasn't whether you could disprove every religion with absolute certainty, obviously you can't. The question is how religious people prove with absolute certainty their knowledge of the opinion of a "supreme being".
>>600727
Religious metaphysics can be very persuasive. Take it from someone who was quite convinced of the truth of Catholicism at some point, I was impressed by its intellectual tradition and show it merged well with my own Aristotelian leanings. When you accept a few basic principles that are reasonable, following Catholic ruoes on more wwird things like sexuality isn't that far off.
>>600727
They can't, I'm saying it's a reasonable conclusion if you can believe the evidence. If you're an Abrahamic especially you have to be on board with the idea that every other religion is false as well.
>>600739
Thank you, anon. Could you expand for me how they move from Aristotle to certain claims about condom use, for example.
>>600747
Reasonable?
In what way?
>>600630
Deism is a type of theism. The theism says "specifically" one who intervenes, not exclusively one.
I think given the massive logical jump from Classical Theism to Deism/Personalism that western Europe did it can't be difficult to simply jump away from a non-interacting God to an interacting God though. You just work yourself back to Classical Theism.
In Classical Theism, the mainstream view of God in classical/medieval Christianity, God is not an anthropomorphic being inside or outside of the universe but simply known as the ground of reality itself. From it you get very different understandings of omnipotence, omniscience, and the like. Most notably, to Classical Theism God does not let the universe just run on its own and them intervene every once in a while but rather its existence and continued existence is maintained via God's constant action. This kind of divine conservation is a direct refutation of deism.
As for God having opinions on ethics, that deals with the classical arguments for Final Causality. You can find some decent defenders of the subject via authors like Edward Feser or Etienne Gilson and such. The reality of final causality is what the basics of forming intrinsic meaning to nature is.
>>600767
If Jesus claims to be god and is able to supernaturally bring himself back to life. It's reasonable assume that he's telling the truth. Being that there is no other confirmed instance of this ever happening and no other religion can claim such a miracle.
This is of course assuming that the resurrection can be proved with the same rigor that other historical events can be proved and other religions cannot. Which is not actually the case but you get my point.
>>600644
Good looking guy, if only he took care of himself.
>>600644
;_;
>>600776
The problem is, Wolfie, that the terms were provided to frame the question. Arguing over the terms does not change the question, I agree, the defintions are arguable.
The question is that philosophical claims that there must be, indeed a Prime Mover, regardless of how solid, or not, they are, or arguments over the definition of the Prime Mover cannot be moved, based on logic, to "I know what the Prime Mover thinks about divorce"
>>600846
You can't.
>>600797
>If Jesus claims to be god and is able to supernaturally bring himself back to life. It's reasonable assume that he's telling the truth. Being that there is no other confirmed instance of this ever happening and no other religion can claim such a miracle.
There are loads of accounts from mythology and ancient history of the dead being bought back to life.
Even without delving into other mythologies I can gibe you multipe ones from Christian canon.
http://stronginfaith.org/article.php?page=114
>>600846
>The problem is, Wolfie, that the terms were provided to frame the question. Arguing over the terms does not change the question, I agree, the defintions are arguable.
Yeah, I'm aware. This is why I continue on to speak about a "non-interacting God to an interacting God".
>How do I jump from God to ethics
There are two ways. The more complex way, try to picture a large argument to go from some transcendent thing to the God of the Bible, or the direct method of arguing for the reality of final causality as I previously mentioned.
If final causality exists and God causes the world to exist by his nature then you have all the necessary basics of moving from God to God's Will.
>>600860
I know that my dude. What I was saying was if we could prove the certainty of the resurrection with good historical method we'd have a good reason to believe Christianity has the right of it.
Of course there are accounts of miracles throughout history but so far all of them have proven baseless.
I'm not a Christian and I don't think the resurrection happened. I'm just using it as an example of how you could move from Deism to Theism without relying completely on faith. Apply the same logic to Krishna or Mohammed, doesn't matter.
>>600630
God can do both
>Belief in the existence of a god or gods, specifically of a creator who intervenes in the universe
>Belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe
God can choose whether or not to intervene in situations, and we shouldn't limit God's ability to words in a dictionary.
>>600877
I don't buy that at all.
Let's say you could completely rule out every other resurrection myth ever and you could completely prove the Jesus resurrection myth to be true. Not that anyone could ever, ever come close to doing either. Then you still have a fairly minor supernatural even rather than something that proves all sorts of claims about the opinions of an alleged Prime Mover.
>>600870
>If final causality exists and God causes the world to exist by his nature then you have all the necessary basics of moving from God to God's Will.
Even given these assumptions you are making and pretending they are solid, you don't have any sort of basis for claiming you, or rather the organisation you are part of, hold the keys to heaven or the Gates of Hell or claiming condoms are bad or claiming you know "God's Will".
>>600696
>IMO Christianity has the highest probability to be true
why?
>>600930
There's definitely a leap involved but it's not a completely outrageous leap. I mean first of all it wouldn't be a minor supernatural event. ANY supernatural event that could be conclusively proven would be enormous. If a man that claims to be god or a prophet of god has god-like powers is it really so unreasonable to believe that he's telling the truth about god's ideas on how to live or our purpose?
>>600834
not taking care of himself is part of the allure
the real problem any religious person faces is demonstrating that they know gods will
I mean, even IF I grant you
>God exists
>God intervenes
>God cares about what we do
there is still an ENORMOUS amount of work to be done in demonstrating that any one specific instance where someone claims that "Gods will is X" is in fact accurate. How would one even go about confirming such a thing? I suppose back in the day if everyone was out fornicating and then suddenly an earthquake struck one could use that as evidence that God was displeased, but that isnt going to cut much ice nowadays. And given the number of apparently extremely wicked people who dont get any comeuppance in this life I guess that we are left relying on the existence of an afterlife in order to punish the bad and reward the good. But then you open up a whole other argument concerning the existence of the afterlife
>>600948
>There's definitely a leap involved but it's not a completely outrageous leap.
Of course it is an outrageous leap. That supernatural even is miniscule compared to making claims about the opinion of a Divine Creator of the entire Universe.
And just to be clear again, you are not close, not even remotely close or even getting to close to proving Jesus' resurrection AND disproving all the other resurrection stories.
>>600940
>Even given these assumptions you are making and pretending they are solid, you don't have any sort of basis for claiming you, or rather the organisation you are part of, hold the keys to heaven or the Gates of Hell or claiming condoms are bad or claiming you know "God's Will".
Half way true. If you were to argue for a type of Natural Law (the result of ethics derived from final causality) when you could make an argument for condoms.
You cannot, however, make an argument for apostolic authority held by the church by simply asserting final causality and supporting some form of Classical Theism. The argument for apostolic authority is a historic argument and also rests on Jesus the man being who he said he is. The former you can find the discourse on very easily from Google and the latter being an overall more complex argument.
The claim of Jesus being the person he said he is rests on comparable the system of Classical Theism to God as known in the Bible to illustrate it being more than coincidence and some basic historical charges for Jesus. It ends up being a theory, rather than some deductive argument.
Regardless, the basics of the Christian life are still held through the neoscholastic thinking without needing to appeal to scripture or apostolic authority.
>>600950
That's fucking stupid, though.
>>600985
no accounting for taste
women are crazy m8
>>600989
Naw, m8. Fucking stupid.
>liking the fact that they don't support their own good
>>600977
I don't see how. A man claiming to be god has proven to have the only verifiable instance of god-like powers. Therefore, reasonable to assume he is god or at least speaking for god. Not completely fool-proof or certain but well within the range of possibility.
And you don't need to further clarify that as I never entered this discussion attempting to prove the validity of the resurrection or any other religious myth.
>>600997
or hes an alien or a magician or a simple con man
indian rope trick is bretty damn impressive but i doubt anyone thinks those who perform it are gods
or what about le trashman and his bullet catch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjDcARq8ty8
>>601008
He could be a wizard. But at that point I wouldn't blame someone for taking his word that he's god.
The premise was if we could prove he did something naturally impossible. So con-man is ruled out.
>>600997
God like powers comprises of considerably more than coming back to life.
http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/23/dbbook/3resur.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXqBg1Uirbo
And coming back to life is so outrageously far from God-like, omnipotent powers it is ridiculous, not that you have come close to proving even that.
The fallacy here is that people pretend Christians think that, for example, adultery is bad only because of Christianity. The truth is that natural law philosophy works with or without a Christian framework and Christianity itself has ethics that are common with secular and pre-christian greek philosophies.
>>601050
Pretty much, but that is too much to get into or some people and the basics to establish it are contentious nowadays (such as final causality and substantial form).
>>600979
>Regardless, the basics of the Christian life are still held through the neoscholastic thinking without needing to appeal to scripture or apostolic authority.
Fair enough. so long as you are claiming they are based on pagan traditions.
>>601059
u wot
>>601033
>God like powers comprises of considerably more than coming back to life.
Correct but it's pretty damn well impossible to do. You'd either have to be a wizard, have access to technology so advanced it may as well be magic, or have some relation to the divine.
>And coming back to life is so outrageously far from God-like, omnipotent powers it is ridiculous
Explain, being able to casually violate natural laws is pretty close to god-like if you ask me. Would demonstration would satisfy you?
>not that you have come close to proving even that.
I have no idea why you keep bringing this up as we are working within a hypothetical and I've made it clear that I'm not a christian or actually believe any of this shit is true.
>>601064
Lad, posting anime and dissembling isn't going to help.
>>601079
You appear to be leaping from a a minor supernatual event thet you haven't even come close, not even close to proving happened, yet alone is unique is even close, not remotely, even slightly close to being the being that created the Universe AND divulging their opinon to you (or anyone else).
>Would demonstration would satisfy you?
I would prefer something more God-like, like blowing up a galaxies to write "I am" across the sky.
>I have no idea why you keep bringing this up as we are working within a hypothetical and I've made it clear that I'm not a christian or actually believe any of this shit is true.
Fair enough, but you have an incredibly low opinion of what "God-like" consists of. I would expect a bit more reasonable assessment of such a claim.
>>601059
It's pretty evident that Christianity is heavily influenced by greek philosophy, and in particular bases its metaphysics on Plato and Aristotle. It should however be pointed out that Christian philosophy contributed A LOT to western thinking and expanded these traditions and brought them to new directions. Nowhere was rigorous thinking and the importance of logic emphasized as much as in scholastic philosophy. Also, the passionate need to understand the works of God inspired many important works that would serve as foundations of modern science.
>>601092
So is saying confusing things.
>>601092
>Mohammad_saves_two_Brazilians_from_Argentinians
>>601021
>So con-man is ruled out.
Depends on how good he is.
>>601163
>It's pretty evident that Christianity is heavily influenced by greek philosophy
What do you mean, exactly?
>>601050
Adultery is pretty easy to prove as bad
There are things like AIDS-ridden Africans living in areas without enough water to sustain a larger population believing that condoms are bad because the Pope says so, which seem considerably harder to prove. Hell, that is the issue the other anon keeps repeating.
Of course, after that you have issues like religious tolerance and gay rights. But after that you end up with things like abortion, which have both positive and negative effects.
