by Kolbitar » October 7th, 2007, 4:56 pm
Hello Sir Salanor.
I’ll be straightforward and possibly a bit vulnerable here. My working philosophical diet consists primarily of two things, which at the very least perhaps both of us can consider to have indispensable nutritional value.
To begin, everything I consume is seasoned through and through with a dash of Socratic common sense. The first thing I know is that I know there are limitations to my knowledge, and that there must be limitations to it no matter how intelligent I may be. I know this as an immediate deduction from the facts; first, that there are intrinsic limitations to the type of knowledge, which is first received through the senses; second, that I possess this type of knowledge. The natures of things which only partially manifest themselves in the extended world of our senses inevitably remain opaque to our understanding precisely for that reason. Huxley (who is inexhaustibly quotable) once reflected, "Science has 'explained' nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness."
If Mr. Harris wants to press the issue of epistemology to the point of Decartes mathematically “clear and distinct” criteria, i.e., “rationalism” – I say let him. But we have every right to demand consistency. When he makes a mockery not only of knowing the existence of God but, by the same method, of believing in the reliable nature of the ongoing universe and the reality of non-quantifiable thinking subjects (i.e., thinking, feeling persons existing beyond the scope of empirical science); when he rationally destroys practical common sense will he have the intellectual discipline to stick by his consequences, or will he rhetorically relate the absurdity of his logic to his opponents, who are merely pointing it out?
So point one: Socratic common sense.
Second ingredient – meaning, value, purpose.
Why does God let bad things happen to children? I don’t know. But children mean so much to me that I find infinite value in them, thus I seek purpose. You might think -- But how subjective! Is it really though? For, on the face of it, we “subjectively” seek purpose in the universe, “Science and technology (here goes Huxley again) could not exist unless we had faith in the reliability of the universe—unless, in Clerk Maxwell’s words, we implicitly believed that the book of Nature is really a book and not a magazine, a coherent work of art and not a hodge-podge of mutually irrelevant snippets” -- and so far we’re justified. We’re justified in practice. Yet there’s some need to be justified intellectually as well, isn’t there? That’s the whole basis of the atheist critique: that belief in God does not correspond to reality. Well, intellectually speaking, does the atheist belief that nature will continue to read like a book correspond to reality? Once again, we simply don’t know. That is, without recourse to a God in whom we can trust who is derived rationally (not rationalistically) – we simply don’t know and are reduced to blind faith.
My diet, therefore, consists of a healthy portion of intellectual humility together with acepting the natural impetus which both a-priori sets my course for faith in meaning -- period, and also increasingly whets my appetite to seek an ultimate purpose for my intellect. What about yours?
Everyone has a motive for his working hypothesis. The reasons I’ve acquired to confirm my hypothesis you might automatically see as self-justified, thus you would deny their truthfulness from the start according to your hypothesis. But what if I did the same with yours? Therefore we must admit that, in principle, our dilemma (contradiction of motives) is a matter of truth. But how would a confused third party desiring to get to the truth, but convinced he’s approached an antinomy; how could such a one proceed?
I’d say to him temper your intellect with the fact that life is a mystery, and choose to live like children have infinite value which they can only possess in the context of an infinite purpose (God), or choose to live like the value you find in them is really a subjective illusion, which because it could be otherwise thus contains no purposeful meaning. In other words, choose to live like Christ taught us -- which leads to hope, or choose to live a *consistent* atheism -- which, to a sensitive mind, logically ends in despair.
Sincerely,
Jesse
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton
Sober Inebriation:
http://soberinebriationblog.blogspot.com/