PhD: Twitter quote 112

PhD: Twitter quote 112

Photo: Granada, Spain, Planet Earth, December 22, 2021 

2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter 

Saturday, September 19, 2020 PhD Full Version PDF: Theodicy and Practical Theology 2010, Wales TSD

Twitter version I 

Mill theorized of a God that resembled the ‘Platonic Demiurge'. Carey (2002: 116).

Twitter version II

In The Utility of Religion from 1874, Mill explains that Christianity offers rewards in the next life for good conduct...

Twitter version III

In contrast, the Religion of Humanity would be superior as human virtue would exist for unselfish reasons. Mill (1874)(2002: 16).

Twitter version IV\

A demiurge is a Greek term meaning ‘artisan’, ‘craftsman.’ It is a deity that develops the material world from ‘preexisting chaos.

From PhD

A demiurge is a Greek term meaning ‘artisan’, ‘craftsman.’ It is a deity that develops the material world from ‘preexisting chaos.’ Plato introduced the concept and term in his text Timaeus. The perfectly good demiurge wishes to present his goodness and shapes the chaos as best he can, and the present world results. Wainwright (1996: 188). The demiurge is a limited, non-omnipotent God, that did not create original matter. Wainwright (1996: 188). Blackburn (1996: 98). 

Although I reason Christians should do what is good and right, just because it is good and right, and not primarily for a possible reward, Mill does not demonstrate in my mind a conclusive argument in how human beings, as they are, can or will ever operate with completely unselfish motives. Is all selfishness wrong, or does some degree of human self-concern and a desire for self-benefit remain an integral part of how God intended humanity to be? 

BARTH, KARL (1932-1968) Church Dogmatics, The Doctrine of Creation: Volumes 1 and 3. Translated by J.W. Edwards, Rev. O. Bussey, and Rev. Harold Knight, Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 

BARTH, KARL (1932-1968) Church Dogmatics, The Doctrine of God: Volume 2, First Half –Volume, Translated by J.W. Edwards, Rev. O. Bussey, and Rev. Harold Knight, Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 

BAVINCK, HERMAN (1918)(2006) Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation, John Bolt (gen.ed.), Translated by John Vriend, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids.

BAVINCK, HERMAN (1918)(2006) Reformed Dogmatics Volume 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, John Bolt (gen.ed.), Translated by John Vriend, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids. 

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

CAREY, GEORGE W. (2002) ‘The Authoritarian Secularism of John Stuart Mill’, in On Raeder’s Mill and the Religion of Humanity, Volume 15, Number 1, Columbia, University of Missouri Press. 

FRAME, JOHN M. (2002) The Doctrine of God, P and R Publishing, Phillipsburg, New Jersey. 

GORDON, DAVID (2000) ‘John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control’, in The Mises Review, Volume 6, Number 1, Auburn, Alabama, Ludwig Von Mises Institute. 

MILL, JOHN STUART (1789-1861)(2003) Utilitarianism and On Liberty, Mary Warnock (ed.), Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. 

MILL, JOHN STUART (1825-1868)(1984) Essays on Equality, Law, and Education, John M. Robson (ed.), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, University of Toronto Press. 

MILL, JOHN STUART (1833)(1985)(2009) Theism: John Stuart Mill The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume X - Essays on Ethics, Religion, and Society, Toronto, University of Toronto Press. 

MILL, JOHN STUART (1874)(2002) The Utility of Religion, London, Longman, Green, and Reader. 

MILL, JOHN STUART (1874)(1885) Nature the Utility of Religion and Theism, London, Longmans, Green and Co. 

MILLBANK, JOHN, CATHERINE PICKSTOCK, and GRAHAM WARD (2001) Radical Orthodoxy, London, Routledge. 

PLATO (360 B.C.)(1982) ‘Timaeus’, in Process Studies, Volume. 12, Number 4, Winter, pp.243-251. Claremont, California, Process Studies. http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2514

POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company. 

SHEDD, WILLIAM G.T. (1874-1890)(1980) Dogmatic Theology, Volume 1, Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers. 

SHEDD, WILLIAM G.T. (1874-1890)(1980) Dogmatic Theology, Volume 2, Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers. 

WAINWRIGHT, WILLIAM J. (1996) ’Demiurge’, in Robert Audi, (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Metaphysics v Positivism

Metaphysics v Positivism

Lights covering trees in Riverview, N.B. Global News, December 21, 2021 

Preface

Sunday, November 04, 2012 Metaphysics 

I edited and reformatted the 2012 article Metaphysics and placed it on Facebook (image lead) and my Facebook Business Page, yesterday.

I received some good feedback, including: 

Gina Leanne Cia: Great read! (end)

There is some material I can add. But first, some background from the 2012 article.

Defining Metaphysics

Louis P. Pojman defines metaphysics as beyond physics. The study of ultimate reality, which is not accessible/available through empirical senses. He lists free will, causality, the nature of matter, immortality and the existence of God as being within the study of metaphysics. Pojman (1995: 598). 

Simon Blackburn explains the term was used for three books from Aristotle after 'Physics' and is a term that raises enquiry about questions that cannot be answered by science and its empirical methods. Blackburn (1996: 240). 

Physics Aristotle

Physics Aristotle: Wikipedia

Cited 

The Physics (Greek: Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις Phusike akroasis; Latin: Physica, or Naturales Auscultationes, possibly meaning "lectures on nature") is a named text, written in ancient Greek, collated from a collection of surviving manuscripts known as the Corpus Aristotelicum, attributed to the 4th-century BC philosopher Aristotle. 

I will cite two versions of this work as cited sources.

Versus Metaphysics

Blackburn mentions the hostility to metaphysics throughout modern times especially as David Hume mentioned having it 'committed to the flames' in 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding' book xii Pt 3. Hume (1748) Blackburn (1996: 240). It is assumed by some naturalists that the scientific method would be the only way to answer any real questions that would arise within metaphysics. Blackburn (1996: 240). 

Panayot Butcharov defines it generally as the philosophical investigation of nature, and its reality, in how it is constituted. The study of non-physical entities, for example God, would be addressed. Butcharov (1996: 489). Metaphysics would be rejected by positivism on the basis of being meaningless. Since it is not empirically viable. Butcharov (1996: 489). 

Positivism being a form of empiricism viewing empirical science as the means of gaining knowledge and metaphysics, theology, and even aspects of philosophy as being viewed as questionable in obtaining knowledge. 

Positivism

Referencing 

Wednesday, August 07, 2013 Positivism

John Kent states positivism is a philosophical position belonging to the empirical view according to which humankind can have no knowledge of anything but phenomena, and that is only what is apprehended by the senses empirically. Kent (1999: 454). The concept would be that positive knowledge is associated in particular with the sciences as in things must be observed and there is no questioning of knowledge beyond. Kent (1999: 454). Therefore other fields such as theology and metaphysics would be regarded as speculation. Kent (1999: 454). 

The term 'positivism' was introduced by French socialist Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and noted by his student Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Both of these men rejected traditional Christianity and its working with the existing social system. Kent (1999: 454). Comte held that the highest or only form of knowledge is the description of sensory phenomena. Blackburn (1996: 294). This being the empirical. He held to three stages of human belief the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. It is a version of traditional empiricism. Blackburn (1996: 294). 

Paul Weirich writes that Comte was influenced by Kant and held that the causes of the phenomena (or that phenomena realm one could state, my add) in themselves are not knowable. Comte was critical of speculation on such matters. It is stated that he went beyond many empiricists by denying knowledge other than from observable objects. Weirich (1996: 147). In other words he was a strict empiricist.

Tuesday, May 11, 2021 Logical positivism: Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte referenced

Comments 

Positivism appears to me to at least risk at times to be what Blackburn describes related to the pejorative term of ‘scientism’ which categorizes things in the natural sciences as the only proper form of academic inquiry. Blackburn (1996: 344). In other words, positivism risks being a form of scientism. (please see archives)

Back to Pojman, he lists free will, causality, the nature of matter, immortality and the existence of God, as being within metaphysics. Positivism, a strict use of empirical senses, can measure problems of suffering, physical and mental, to degrees. For example, if a person jumps from a burning building, the physical damage to that person can be measured through empirical, medical science and data. But, the academic disciplines of philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology, psychology as examples, are required to deal with worldview issues associated with problems of suffering and problems of evil.

As I have noted previously, the existence of God, cannot be adequately dealt with empirically. John 4: 24 from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) states:

24 God is [a]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”  Footnotes John 4:24 Or Spirit

It is intellectually and academically, wrong-headed, to attempt, or expect to, empirically prove the existence of the infinite, eternal, first cause, that existed before finite, time, space and matter. This entity is the creator of all finite and physical realities. According to the New Testament, God is spirit and cannot be measured empirically as God is not physical.

Saturday, May 11, 2019 Claim: The existence of God is not provable or disprovable

Biblical Studies, biblical, divine revelation, theology and philosophy of religion serve as the main academic disciplines and practical means by providing proofs for the existence of God.

ARISTOTLE (1936) Physics, Translated by Apostle, Hippocrates G. (with Commentaries and Glossary). Oxford: University Press.

ARISTOTLE (2018). Physics,  Translated by Reeve, C. D. C. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company. 

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) ‘A priori/A posteriori’, in Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 21-22. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

BONJOUR, LAURENCE. (1996) ‘A Priori’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 

BUTCHAROV, PANAYOT (1996) ‘Metaphysics’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 

EDWARDS, PAUL AND ARTHUR PAP (1973) (eds), ‘A priori knowledge: Introduction’, A Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press.

GUYER, PAUL AND ALLEN W, in KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1998) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

HUME, DAVID (1739-1740)(1973) ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’, in Paul Edwards and Arthur Pap (eds.), A Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press. 

HUME, DAVID  (1748) (1910)(2014) 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding', text derived from the Harvard Classics Volume 37, 1910, P.F. Collier & Son, web edition published by eBooks@Adelaide. Last updated Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 13:38.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

HUME, DAVID (1779)(2004) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Lawrence, Kansas.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1998) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 

KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, London, Macmillan. 

KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1997) Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1898)(2006) The Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, London, Longmans, Green, and Co. 

KANT, IMMANUEL (1791)(2001) ‘On The Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’, in Religion and Rational Theology, Translated by George di Giovanni and Allen Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 

KENT, JOHN (1999) ‘Positivism’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd. 

POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company.

WEIRICH, PAUL. (1996) ‘Comte, Auguste’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Rebel

Photo

Today, it was very good to see my niece, Candace, from Arizona. Even as it is during a sad time as my older brother, her Dad, passed away suddenly last month. My Dad found this old photo, today. It is me, before I realized I needed sunglasses most of the year and my Aunt Jean, from Scotland, visiting us in Pitt Meadows. Candace, my then 'baby niece', is sticking out her hand, and here is a rare photo of the legendary Rebel. Rebel knocked Aunt Jean on her bottom that trip...

Rebel, out of Port Coquitlam, (according to his first keepers, was rejected by the RCMP for not being mean enough) was known for breaking out of backyards by going through or over fences. He then, after looking for our cat, 'posted parcels' on neighbourhood lawns and then headed to the park. Life was a wild party for Rebel. Within an a hour or two he was back, sitting on the front door doormat with his ears down, sheepishly. I took him for many walks, although at first, he was able to drag me on grass, and once almost concrete.

Image 3: Facebook