Religious
Trends in Modern Philosophy
Dupre
1/21/98
The
Enlightenment had religious thinkers--including mysticism: not prophetic or ethical or arguments for the existance
of God which came out of a deistic concern; rather, it is thinking about union with God. Malebranche in France , for instance. This is not to say that there were not
thinkers then of a destructive movement.
Even atheism preserved a dialectic to the belief in God.
Four
trends in religious thought in the Enlightenment. Ironically, it was the high point in mystical philosophy. The roots of religious thought in the
Enlightenment: Descartes. The
Meditations. For Descartes,
contemplating God as the highest satisfaction inspires his philosophy. This is counteracted by that which lies at the root of atheism begun with Decartes:
namely, reality is an object; the mind is the source. The God of Descartes has its root in the
self. Also, reality is objective(God is
an object). For a contrast, see Kierk's
view that God is subject. For God to be
thought of as an object is to lessen God.
Yet Descartes has the Augustinian view valuing contemplation of
God. Descartes' proof of God: there
remains in the mind the idea of an infinite being that can't have come from the
mind itself(being finite). Thus, God
exists because I myself could not have the idea of an infinite substance
because I am a finite being. Dupre: a
fallacy. Descartes sees more reality in
the infinite substance than in the finite.
So the perception of God before himself.
This is Descartes' contemplative
movement: infinite is not just the
negation of finitude; rather, I could not see myself as finite except against
the horizon of infinity. Dupre:
unlimited time and space is not the absolute in perfection so it is not the infinite
horizon. This adds a dimension beyond
the self being the center; it makes Descartes a religious thinker. Gourier wrote on Descartes, Malebranche and
Pascal. This inspired Dupre to
write. The idea of God is in me--so the
ego is first, yet he retracts it(I am the stamp). The idea of God is consubstantial with
myself(my whole substance is an idea of God).
I am in my autonomy ('meaning' giving) an idea of God. Malebranche: everything I know, I know in
God.
Another
root: Newton .
Some influence on French thought. See:
Scaleon, bk. 1 and the last five pages of the book. Absolute space and time. Space is more than the relation between
bodies(relative space). Absolute space
is an absolute vaccum within which all relations take place; that which never
moves(absolute motion and rest is in absolute terms). Dupre: this is questionable--that he
considers this to be a reality--a big container of absolute space. Same with time: history is relative so has
nothing to do with time which is absolute. Absolute time is not
perceivable. Dupre: but what is time
without motion? True progress of
absolute time has no change. Dupre: this
is a nonsensical question. Newton : movement must rest
in absolute space and time. This time and space is infinite. If the world is finite in time and space,
even so there must be an absolute stretch of space and time. Dupre: what this is we can't even think
of. Leibniz attacked this. Absolute time and space is intermediate
between finite time and space and God(perfection). Newton 's
religious perspective: an intelligent
and powerful being must be the source of the world. The dominion of One that rules the
multiplicity of the whole universe, but not as the soul of the world(the
immanence of God in the world jeoprodizes the idea of God). Lord over all rather than a pantheistic
notion of God. To distinguish God from the world, Newton Newton , owing to Newton Newton ,
God is involved intimately with the world.
A complete penetration of God in Nature and yet God is not the soul of
it; there is the distance through the absolute.
Physics is the science of the intimate presence of God. God,
though infinitely present to all things, can only be present through the medium
of absolute time and space--the sphere within which God creates finitude. That in which God senses the world. Element
of mystical penetration and of distant causation. He used this account to make possible the
presence of God in the world. Answer to
what explains gravity(rather than taking gravity as the cause). The thesis element: that gravity can explain
by itself what goes on. The hypothesis
element: that God (unobservable) explains gravity. Active forces are not accounted for by a
closed mechanical system. The mediation
between the infinite and the finite is necessary, according to Newton , to forestall pantheism. Dupre: no.
Absolute time and space as realities doesn't hold. It is not coherent: what is time without
motion or space without bodiliness? Does
gravity require a cause? Diderot:
assuming no beginning to the universe, is a cause necessary? No reason why rest should have a priority
over motion. That motion needs no
special intervention led to mechanical atheism.
Newton 's
absolute space and time kept him from this conclusion. Whereas
Descartes' mysticism was an inward turn of the mind(infinity is based on the
idea of the infinite), Newton
1/28/98
Nicolas
Malebranche(1638-1715):
Some
of his conclusions seem outlandish, but what he is afterall is not
foolish. To what extent is he a
religious philosopher? Most of his
thesis is in Book 3, part 2, ch. 6. We
see all our ideas in God. This threatens
the idea of God's simplicity as ideas give rise to differentiation in God. He
was trying to restore the gap between Cartesian philosophy and revelation. He
had some differences with Descartes. He
saw weaknesses in him, which he saw as leading to materialism. He wanted to bring out the religious
significance of Cartesian thought.
Specifically, he wanted to show that faith shows that reason is
divine.
Sources
of religion in Malebranche: he was a
member of an Augustinian congregation.
God is all and His presence penetrates all reality. Basically, there is only really God. To
Malebranche, this meant that the human soul is closer to God than to its own
body. The soul is in direct contact with
God. Being embodied souls, we are not
divine but are close to God. He is close
to Pascal's thought here. According to
Barune, the founder of Malebranche's congregation, if God has created human beings, He has done
so for His own glory. Malebranche: so the human mind can directly see God in His
works. That God would create a
finite mind for any other reason than this would go against the notion of God's
glory(a return to God). So, God's
presence decends and the returns. The
idea of the incarnation: it was necessary even if there had not been sin because
the incarnation was necessary for the finite mind to see God. Reason demands faith. God's presence is
necessary to render humanity able to honor Him.
God is the place of minds. Not
the redemption but the purpose of fulfilling creation was behind the
incarnation. Through the incarnation,
God renders himself present to the embodied mind for the return movement rather
than to redeem mankind. The glory of God
defines the departure of creation from God and returning to him: the creation
first and the incarnation second. A
mystical trend here: reunion with God. Key: God's presence to embodied souls. God becomes intelligible in the Word: the
principle of order and harmony, for instance.
The beauty of order. The love of
God is unselfish as is love of beauty.
Ideas are in God. They are the means by which that which is
real is made known to embodied souls.
The mind is passive, being totally dependent on God. We do not know material things in themselves;
rather, the ideas of them are what is really real, lying in God because he
created them. To have intelligibility is to have reality. Ideas
are real. We know God through
ideas(the Word). The one thing we know
little about is our own minds, still less of other people's minds. The mind is passive, receiving ideas from God
and sensations from external objects.
The mind is in essence thought.
So there is more to the mind than ideas, but they are primary to
it. Sensations,for instance, are in the
mind but are not ideas. Ideas are
changeless and objective, thus being real.
Sensations and history are subjective and thus not real. Descartes, in contrast, held that all of
these are ideas.
The
finite is known only against an infinite horizon. But what kind of infinity? An
infinite series isn't necessarily divine.
Dupre: needed is a qualitative difference. God's essence is His own absolute being, and
minds do not see the divine substance taken absolutely but only as relative to
creatures and to the degree that they can participate in it. What they see in God is very imperfect,
whereas God is most perfect. God is all being, but He is no being in
particular. We conceive of infinite
being simply because we conceive of being.
In order for us to conceive of a finite being, something must
necessarily be eliminated from this general notion of being. Dupre: there is a problem here in relating
the infinite and the finite.
2/4/98
Nicolas
Malebranche(1638-1715):
He
wants to create a new synthesis of theology and philosophy; an Augustinian
synthesis on the basis of a Cartesian philosophy.
The
First Dialogue on Metaphysics is the beginning of his philosophy. It is
Cartesian. Later, he moves away from
it. Mind/body
separation is absolute. The body is only
extension. Dupre: bodiliness can't
think but is just matter. A substance is
that which can be thought of independently.
Mind and extension are substances.
So the body can't be instrumental to the production of ideas. British empiricism is here denied. There are mental operations that are not
ideas but are modifications of the mind. They are the subjective elements of
the mind. Ideas are the product of this
mental process. Descartes: no; only
ideas in the mind. The mind is the
starting-point of all ideas--even that of God.
Malebranche: no. God is
primary. Modifications are not the
origin of ideas. The mind is finite and
ideas always have the element of infinity.
key: distinguish between a changing mind and unchanging ideas. An idea has no limits. A particular idea is common to all
minds. How could we have universals and
common conclusions if ideas were created by finite minds? Because the idea is unchangable and eternal
like God. In fact, it is God. An idea is not fully exhausted for us and yet
it stays the same. Hence, the idea goes
infinitely beyond my mind because the mind is finite. Dupre: what kind of an infinity does an idea
have? Guyer: is an idea's infinity the same sort as of God's transcendent
otherness? There is nothing divine about
infinite space, for instance. If the infinity
of a universal idea is like this, then is it of God?
The
Second Dialogue: God is an idea. Plato didn't hold this. Since ideas are endowed with an infinity and
since finite minds can't create an infinity, the ideas must come from
elsewhere. This is based in Descartes'
third Meditation. It is not enough to
view God as infinite ideas. Rather, the
ideas themselves are only relatively infinite.
To see an idea is not yet to see God.
Rather, God is the substance
which contains intelligible extension (which is infinite). Dupre: he doesn't prove that infinite ideas
must be grounded in an infinite being to come together. He says, God is Being. The idea
'Being' represents the deity.
Like Aquinus: God is Being. This
is not the being that we share. There is
no idea of God. Against
Descartes.
Summary:
there is a difference between the mind's motions and ideas. Ideas are unchangable and eternal, so are
infinite, thus not produced by the mind.
They must come from elsewhere, even as our infinite ideas are tainted by
finitude. This relative infinity of
ideas must be based in an absolute infinity of which we don't have an idea
of. God
is being is not an idea but is a representation.
Dupre:
but a mind can make an infinity of numbers, so why not an infinity of
being? But our perception of such ideas
is finite. We don't know God's substance as it lies beyond ideas. Like the idea of the divine light: ideas
radiate out from God so are part of His substance, but the segments are made
for us. God is beyond the idea of Being.
Dupre: in God's expressiveness, ideas exist in an expressive way.
He
gets rid of one bad thing in Descartes: the nominalism. To Descartes, truth is that which God wills
to be true. But it could not be
otherwise.
God
as the single cause: this is a conclusion.
All causality is in God. So ideas
can only be caused in God. Motion in the
physical world comes from God. Extension
in God doesn't include matter. Spinoza:
extension is a divine idea. So
Malebranche was thought to be like Spinoza.
The question was on divine simplicity rather than on divine embodiment
for both thinkers.
God
as the sole cause has a religious ground.
The ancients saw a multiplicity of causes in the world as indicative of
a multiplicity of deities. So
Malebranche hated Aristotle. A
consistant monotheism should abandon a theory of multiple causes in the
world. Not that there are not natural
causes, but they are occasional: at the occation, God causes it. Lifting a glass, for instance. No actual power in one's arm than in one's
mind for thinking. Hume used the example
of billiard balls because Malebranche did.
The collision of two balls is nothing more than the occasion for the
will of God to give rise to a collision.
Before-after(that one thing follows another) doesn't prove
causality. The first ball is the natural
cause of the second ball's motion. But
this is merely the occasion for the will of God as the power behind the
motion.
So
what about freedom? A difference between
spiritual things and physical motion.
Spiritual: God propels the will irresistably toward the general
good. Impossible for one not to choose
the good. God constitutes that universal
good as he is perfection. In choosing
the good, the will and its intention determines to which particular good the
mind will move. God will move me--He has
bound Himself in granting freedom--to move me toward the particular good that I
choose. Freedom is the will's capacity
to discover its inclination toward a particular good. Dupre: but who makes my will move toward the
particular? A move both of my choice and
of God's motion. Is this possible? See Elucidation 15. What about intention? It is all mine, toward particular goods, but
is God's toward good in general. The
effect is all God's.
On
Grace: Most of mankind is
condemned. Dupre: consider the
historical context of Malebranche. God
has elected some to whom He gives a grace which is irresistable. God gives everyone the same light, but
predestines some. Malebranche: the grace
of feeling is given to some. Dupre: is this to say that God has one simple project
and never intervenes?
The
General Providence of God: Motion only.
It is God who pushes. God derives
his Glory uniquely through His attributes.
He can only find satisfaction in the qualities which he possesses. The laws of nature thereby come to express
this wisdom. The cosmic system is a
self-expression of God's wisdom. For God
to change is to undo his divine nature because it would imply an
imperfection. God acts only by general
decisions, simple ways, that follow from His nature. These simple ways lead to disorder and suffering. They are part of the infinite wisdom of
God. Too bad for those born before
Jesus. To make more than one decision
would not be worthy of God in His simplicity.
There is only one cause. God is
solely responsible. Dupre: no.
Malebranche: God allows people to perish before Jesus was born. God often gives insufficient grace. Dupre: if simplicity is the dominant
attribute of God, then the creation becomes impossible. NeoPlatonic view used: creation is an
expression of God.
Miracles:
exceptions in the laws of nature, but they are subordinated to the higher
order. But what is the higher
order? God let things go, but these
exceptions are interventions by God.
Particular providence seems out of line with God's simplicity. Dupre: he is undermined his own conception of
simplicity.
Conclusion:
This
philosophy is inspired by causality interpreted in the sense of the mechanistic
philosophies of Spinoza, Newton and Descarte.
Efficient causality: of motion.
Malabranche sought a union with God with regard to motion. Problematic.
Spinoza, too, wanted the absolute reunion of things with God. Spinoza
claimed that God must be the single cause and substance. Everything that happens in Spinoza happens
through God. Christians thought there
are many substances. How can you prove
this? If many substances but everything
must be intimately united with God and causality is the only means, then one
must say that God is the only cause.
Effective causality: where the cause is, the effect is not. It is difficult to apply this to multiple
substances and yet unify them with God.
A failure of syntheis between science and theology. Effective causality is a problem for the
unity with God: the cause is not the effect.
The problem is not causality but on the efficient type. Causality can refer to the dependence of
creation on God. But
mechanistic/efficient causation is problematic to unify God and creation. God as the efficient cause is separate from
the effects (creation). Efficient
causality tolerates no other causes. So
Malebranche's solution is artificial because there are other causes. But this is better than making modern science
into an ontology. Spinoza: there is only
one substance. This worked with
mechanistic causality and unity with
God. Infinite modes inserted so the one
substance has finite modes. Dupre: the
weak link in his philosophy.
Malebranche: ideas coincide with the simple divine substance and become
distinct only in how they relate to the human mind. But if God is the only cause, is not there
multiplicity in God or else God is totally removed and thus not united with
Creation? The problem here is really
with causality. For Augustine, causality
does not prevent the operation of secondary causes. Causality was not just one motion without
subordinate motions. But it was for
Malebranche. The impact of God to the
ancients was not a one-push affair (which would not leave room for freedom).
2/10/98
Nicolas
Malebranche(1638-1715):
Dialogues
on Metaphysics: in what sense can we be free, given that God is the only real
cause. Thinking as well as willing is
caused by God. That we have freedom
means the intention of the mind to choose particular goods. Due to the Fall,
this is corrupt. Dupre: but God alone is
cause.
Nature
and Grace: related to freedom. The Jansonist view: the divine impact is
irresistable, including particular election.
Malebranche agreed, except for particular election(against particular
providence/election because it goes against the notion that God acts with simplicity). The divine glory requires the simple
way--requires no particularities. An
efficient causality. An extension of
Newton's cosmology. The incarnation was
part of the general system. All souls
before it went to hell (and most after).
Christ as a part of the natural course of things. God can act only for his own glory. Creatures can give only the external
glory. God creates for His own
glory. Ignatius said this too.
Time
is the image of eternity; time is thus within eternity, rather than before or
after it.
Considering
other possible worlds, ours is most simple while being of God's glory: i.e. God
not intervening much.
On
particular or general volition: probably
particular if no body moved a moving body(no occasional cause). assp: everything is at rest otherwise.
Miracles possible but unlikely. Assume
movement to be the effect of an occasional cause. The notion of miracles is kept open, but it
really doesn't fit in his system. We
don't know the laws of nature, so something we can't explain may well not be a
miracle--though it could be. The laws of
nature are subordinate to the universal order, so the laws of nature can be
bent to fit this scheme. Dupre: but what
is the universal order?
Everyone
of his age identified Creation with efficient causation.
On
freedom: No freedom in the will to be happy.
Desire for happiness is builtin, and can't be sacrified. We necessarily love what we suppose to be the
true good. We cannot but desire to be
happy in what we love.
Critique: His purpose was to achieve a synthesis of
modern science and theology. His concept
of efficient causality modelled on the mechanistic view was insufficient to do
so. Restrictions on the traditional
notion of causality(which included formal and final causality) meant that I
depend on God in a mechanistic cause and effect. To the ancients, God as the cause included
the formal presence of God. The intimate
presence. Malebranche attempted to
restore this by eliminating secondary causality. God is the only cause. But what does this do to free-will? Malebranche is not able to bring God back to
the world while maintaining a mechanistic framework. Finite causes are only occasions. The divine causality is the only
causality. Dupre: Creation requires an intimate presence of God beyond that of
efficient mechanical causality. So don't
think of God as the prime mover. God
is present in every atom. The question
is how. Not in an exclusively-efficient
sense. The problem is limiting causality
to efficient in a mechanistic model.
Malebranche
was more rationalist than were the deists.
He was at least consistent.
Occasionalism is a system of signals--the finite causes condition God's
exclusive action. He preserved the
divine glory. But free-will and miracles
don't fit here. How is God glorified if
creation has no freedom?
Spinoza
is consistent too: one cause and one substance.
Christian doctrine assumed many substances. Malebranche
compromise: one cause, many substances.
The
notion of causality had changed. Formal causality: the presence of the cause
in the effect--lost in Newton and Malebranche. Efficient mechanistic causality is problematic
here: no alternatives tolerated. The
notion of participation is thrown out.
It was a key concept to Aristotle and Aquinus. The reduction began with Descartes: God as
His own cause(receives its existance from itself--in an efficient sense). Dupre: the formal sense is downplayed.
The
Philosophy of the Pure Love:
Lamy
claimed that Malebranche supports pure love: loving God without concern for
your own pleasure (now or in the afterlife).
But if this were so, one would not care about nature(not even of
temptations--leading to possible moral laxity).
So, Malebranche claimed that pure love doesn't exist. Lamy: no, this is in your text! Pure love: without any regard for your own
pleasure or salvation. To love God
without regard to yourself does not mean that it is not pleasurable; rather, the
question goes to motive. Ignatus: cease
to desire or will for my own benefit.
Renounce everything against God's will.
Pure love was the cause of the Quietists(e.g. surrender). Malebranche
maintained that love can't be detached from pleasure because good means that
which fulfils us. To love the supreme
good is to love the best thing for me.
From Augustine, though he said that it is because we participate in
it. Quietists in contrast separate one's
own goodness/pleasure from that of God.
Malebranche: pleasure is not the
end of good love; rather, it serves as the motive by which God guides us to
love Him. The motive belongs to
nature and the end surpasses it. To love
God is to love the supreme good, thus my desire for loving God becomes part of
my love for God. Augustine: the soul as
the image of God participates in it and therein fulfils itself. Malebranche, too, claims that the two can't
be separated.
Self-love
v. selfish love. Self-love is in nature
and in the will of God. Malebranche does
not refute the pure-love thesis. It is impossible not to want one's own
fulfilment, but one can have God as the primary motive. The pure love thesis: I must not love God because of one's own
fulfilment. Neither Malebranche nor the
pure love thesis say that one should not love God only in the absence of
pleasure.
Malebranche:
you can't love God without self-fulfillment.
About ourselves we have no ideas.
No self-consciousness; rather, awareness of ideas in God. We know little about ourselves. Augustinian view: sinfulness is a matter of
self-consciousness and self-love. So a
person can't know if he is of the elect.
2/11/98
Blaise
Pascal(1623-1662):
Jensenism(Augustinian--later
works): A small number elect. Humans are
created in a state of original justice (no concupiscence). Grace was part of
nature. After the fall, losing grace
meant losing one's freedom to do good(a piece of nature). The original grace is therefore no longer
sufficient for salvation because of an irresistable inclination toward
evil. A second grace, efficacious grace,
now is necessary. It involves a free
decision of God to grant it.
Predestination. A few are
elected. Not Calvinism. Once God redeems a person(by an
almost-irresistable grace), he is redeemed implicitly--so he must cooperate
through good works. This is not
Calvinist.
Arnauld,
a Jensenist, wrote five propositions which were condemned by the catholic
bishop of Rome. Arnauld denied that these propositions were in his book, Augustinus. Pascal wrote Provincial Letters to help Arnauld against the Jesuits and their
moral theories such as: if there is a probability that something is right, do
it. Pascal: a probability is not
enough. But Pascal felt he had gone too
far against the Jesuits. He had a
conversion. He then wrote an apologetic for the Christian faith. Malebranche had
written one, but in a different way.
Pascal: the question is not how to reconcile science with revelation but
is how to support revelation. He had a
pessimistic view of human nature. He was
a sickly man. Voltaire: Pascal wrote
against nature as much as against the Jesuits.
Pascal's
apologetics is anti-reason. No
reconcilation; rather, a dialectic of
oppositions that are never resolved.
Human nature as infinitely great and small. The highest and most wretched. The knowledge of the human person bears the
stamp of the creator: the infinite in the finite. But we know nothing. A skeptic. Truth: a unity of contraries that
remain related to each other. Redemption
is not following a period of suffering but is in the misery. Focus on the Passion. Suffering is never past and is the redemptive
thing itself. The dialectic with
atheism(popular in France in the later 1600s) is never reconciled. Faith
oscillates between seeing and not seeing.
An element of extreme skepticism and of total faith. There was a new awareness of the unstable
condition in the new cosmology after Galilio--a sense of moving through
infinities. The feeling of
homelessness. A consciousness of total
helplessness. Moral evil is only part of
this unsettled feeling. See #199 (Pensees)
and #68 and #198. The disintegration of the ancient view which saw things as
inherently limited rather than as passing through infinities. Against the view that the self is the center
of this. So against Descartes.
A
natural dialectic between the infinitely great and small(#199). They touch in
God and in nature. We are intermediate
characters between nature and God.
Mediation is in the dialectic. Nature is an infinite sphere where its
center is everywhere and circumfrance nowhere.
This applies to God; Pascal applies it to nature. Nicolas of Cuza had
written of the infinite in mathematics.
The human condition participates in the greatness and in the
smallness. #113-119. In these, the limitations of reason (and
science) are shown. To Pascal, ideas are
not in God. Philosophy is not the
answer. Contrary to Malebranche.
Pascal
claimed that people were bored. Dupre:
because meaning disappeared. #68.
#121-2:
the dialectic coming together in man leads to confusion --#131. Man transcends man, beyond human
philosophy. Dupre: this is
anti-cartesian. Humanity is
self-transcendent in its nature. This is
not a proof of God. There is something
in me that remains unexplained--why I am here rather than there, now rather
than then--requires not a theory but is an inevitable question. How we are to interpret this is where
religion begins. The mystery of
transcendence. #149. Religion as the interpretation of the mystery
in mankind. Pascal mistrusts the
mind--it can't understand itself as reason might suggest.
2/18/98
Blaise
Pascal(1623-1662):
Pascal's
dialectical nature. He is not attempting
a synthesis; rather, it is to place the two elements in a state of opposition
to one another. Apologetics played a
large role in that period. Malebranche
eliminated secondary causality in defense of Christianity. Berkeley suppressed the concept of matter to
defend against materialism.
Pascal:
men despise religion but fear that it may be true. Pascal shows that it is true, using
reason. His aim is to show that it is
loveable and therein true. He shows the
conflicts of reason so the mind is forced to take refuge in faith. Pascal starts close to the skeptics. Newman
followed the same strategy.
The
change in the world-picture of Pascal's day: from the closed universe, a
reaction of fear. Earlier, Bruno and
Galileo had been excited about the opening up of the universe. But we were no longer able to see ourselves
as the meaning and purpose of the universe.
See Pascal, Pensees #199. The nobility and yet smallness of human
existance. In our wretchedness, we are
aware of our vulnerability. In knowing
this, we have greatness. Man has
self-consciousness with which his wrechedness can be seen.
Pascal
is not persuaded by Descartes' absolute certainties such as that I exist as
well as anything which is intuitively certain.
Pascal sees no certainty except in faith. We don't know otherwise whether we were
created by a good God or by an evil deceiver.
The knowledges of reason and of the heart do not give certainty; only
faith does. Morality (#76): absolute
skepticism on what it is. It can't be
found. Doubts, distrusts, and our
paradoxes keep us from knowing it. But
Pascal is not a skeptic when it comes to faith.
The answer lies hidden in one's being, beyond one's autonamous
consciousness. #131: the mystery of the
transmission of sin is something which we can't have knowledge. The mystery of
sin and grace can't be understood. We
remain incomprehensible to ourselves.
How is it that people can be so bad?
The story of human sinfulness is rapped up in the story of grace whereby
the person shares the divinity.
Sinfulness and grace are not of two different orders(natural and supernatural)
to Pascal. Grace was originally part of
creation. After the fall, not even the
knowledge of the heart is enough to understand the mystery. Man
transcends man. The human being
remains a mystery that can't be explained.
Transcendence belongs essentially
to nature. Carl Jaspers wrote of
transcendence. So did Heiddeger. Pascal: Man infinitely transcends man, and
without faith remains incomprehensible to himself. #148: without faith, the person knows not
goodness or happiness. #148 is response
to the question of the perfect ethical attitude. God alone is man's true good. Grace changes us intrinsically. How can one regain the insight that is
necessary for faith? The knowledge of
faith forms itself an essential part of grace.
This knowledge can only be regiven.
The restoration of grace. What
kind of knowledge does faith reveal?
#110: by moving their hearts. It
is distinguished from a faith by reason(natural theology: e.g. proving the
existance of God). What is 'knowledge of
the heart'? Intuitive knowledge. Not a feeling such as love. The heart is said to be the point where
everything comes together. See Susan
Langer, Mind. Feeling: where everything comes
together. The heart as the wholistic
core of one's being.
Intuitive
knowledge. For knowledge of time, space and infinite numbers, for
instance. Like Descartes' 'clear and
distinct ideas'? Dupre: some overlap,
but are Descartes' ideas really clear and distinct? That matter is nothing but extention, for
instance, may not be a clear and distinct idea.
So
Pascal's knowledge of the heart is that on which reason depends. The first principles are unprovable, as they
are intuited. First principles intuited
don't include mathematical principles.
The latter are remote from ordinary uses and common sense. Intuited principles belong to common
sense. Knowledge of faith is one form of
knowledge of the heart(the infused kind).
There is also a non-infused knowledge of the heart which includes
knowledge of the first principles. These are subject to doubt: can I see the
truth when I think I see it? Infused intuition is not subject to doubt
as it is gained by faith. Where does knowledge of our wretchedness come
from? Dupre doesn't know. Guyer: from infused intuition.
To be intuitive is to seek the complexity
of something without distinguishing its elements. Reasoning: complexity by
analysis. These are not necessarily
coupled.
#424:
(infused, not natural)faith is God perceived by the heart, not by reason. Infused knowledge of the heart: #298. This is not blind faith. Pascal admits that reason must play a part. #190: not from metaphysical proofs. #418: we know that the infinite exists
without knowing its nature. Therefore,
we can know that God exists(identifying Him with the infinite which we know
exists--infinite numbers, for instance) without knowing His nature. Dupre: but this is not a proof. What god?
What is He? Pascal: there is no
common ground with God. He is without
limit or extension. It must lead to man
transcends man. Dupre: but this does not
mean God. Pascal's wager: you have
nothing to lose. Dupre: what we don't
know, we don't know, so claim ignorance. God is beyond the intellectual
game. #821: habit makes the strongest
proofs. Turn to the practical
order. Rational proofs convince only the
mind. William James: a person can
believe by adopting the habits of a cherished belief. Act as if the thing in question were real,
and it will become real. Dupre: no.
2/25/98
Blaise
Pascal(1623-1662):
Pascal's
knowledge of the heart can be of faith or of instinct. True faith is infused, rather than being just
such knowledge.
The
Wager is not the conclusion of an intellectual argument. Rather, it is to say that we must get out of
the intellectual discourse altogether.
In acting on the practices of belief, it can be understood. This is not a pragmatism but is a matter of
practice: do as if, rather than just wishful thinking. Dupre: practice is not sufficient to incur
belief. If it were that simple, then why
doesn't everyone believe? Pascal: if one
practices, God might elect him, infusing him with grace.
#418:
we may well know that God exists without knowing His existance or essence
because God has neither extention or limits.
Dupre: but what content is there in Descartes' idea of infinite being. This is not a very full description. Reason plays a role. The test of reason.
#110:
a natural faith possible through reasoning.
But this does not result in an adequate knowledge of God. Revelation needed. Without it, left with 'infinity', absolute
truth,the Good... We don't even know if
they go together. To what extent does
this correspond with the Christian God?
Philosophy deals with universals; Jesus was an individual. So natural theology is insufficent. To know God truly, I have to know
myself. It is not enough to use
reason. The knowledge of the self comes
only from the knowledge of God. So, God
can't be known as the Christian God by arguments.
So,
two stages. One attainable by reason,
the other only by faith but supported by reason. The second stage transforms what we know
naturally. It includes knowing our
wretchedness and the historical revelation/intervention of God. The rational element is for the outsider(to
justify the existence of God). The
insider knows by faith, complimented by reason.
#913: God of Abraham and Issac, Jacob and Jesus Christ, not the God of
scholars. The God of philosophy is of a
different nature. #189: We know God only
through Jesus Christ. Philosophical
proofs don't go far enough and come up with a God of a different nature. There is a historical proof of the truth of
revelation. Prophesies of Jesus. #149: Miracles of Jesus. Natural reason is inadequate, but reason in
the authority of Christ works. A proof
of Christ's authority. So some use for
natural reason in Pascal's system.
Dupre: but flaws in the fulfillment of the prophesies. Eyes of faith necessary. Symbolic anticipations. These are not logically compelling. A prophesy in the Hebrew scripture is not a
prediction but is a warning to change your life. #228: The prophets anticipate Christ, but
this can be seen only by those who have been elected. Many will stumble on them. Divine predestination. #255: The purpose of the prophesies: to make
the Messiah seen by the elect and hidden to the wicked. Divine illumination is only for the elect. 'With the eyes of faith': #500. To see all of history through God's
grace. Peguy, a French poet, wrote on
world history: all of history is going toward Christ in history. That all history would be sacred.
So
Pascal is not after rational proofs from scripture. Grace either penetrates one's mind or does
not, though he does include rational proof in establishing the authority of
Christ. Dupre: rational proofs are based
on a world without God, so they fail.
Locke does not insist on having to have the eyes of faith. Natural reason is sufficient for Locke to
know of God.
#189:
We know our wretchedness because God is our redeemer from it. Natural knowledge does not get at the full
knowledge of God and of my wretchedness.
So my misery is essential to know God, because it is necessary to know
my natural distortion to know what is right with its object. Grace, through revelation, with the eyes of
faith. A divine mediator is
necessary. Someone between my corrupted
mind and God. A redeemer required, who
can restore to some extent the pre-fall condition. The mediator reveals not only the nature of
God's relation to man, but also man's wretchedness. #215: Christianity tells one of his
wretchedness and introduce one to the knowledge of God. #417: without scripture whose only object is
Christ, we can see nothing of the nature of God or ourselves. So self-knowledge of corruption requires an
awareness of our relation to God. This
relation can only be revealed because our state of wretchedness hides our
relation to God and our own nature as well as God's. In faith, the opposition between human
greatness and wretchedness begins to make sense. Recognition of sickness is necessary before
one can seek a redeemer. The
wretchedness is a result of our greatness.
The Fall is a presumption based on human greatness: pride. #149: greatness led to pride and thus the
fall. Sinfulness: the love of oneself to
the contempt of God. Refusing to
recognize that man is essentially relation to God. The pride converts his greatness into a
lowliness. He who wants to be an
angel(beyond his natural state) becomes a beast. The repitition of original sin is a fact of
life. Augustine: our pride is constantly converted into wretchedness. We
continue to glorify our own greatness.
Those who claim to help us through the miseries of life had been thought
to be philosophy or theology. In some
sense, immortality. #149: Do the
philosophers cure this presumption of pride?
They say to withdraw into ourselves and find our own good. #143: no good to do this. Withdrawl is to one's own misery. #149: philosophers prescribe a remedy which
is the cause of the illness.
Philosophers are afraid of death, so conduct a diversion. Distracting oneself is getting involved with
activities which have no goal except themselves. Philosophy is like this. Its end is in itself; no purpose outside
speculating for its own sake. Seeking to
become like God, fearing death.
Philosophy is in fact done out of fear.
#136: We are so scared of our condition that we seek distractions, such
as seeking immortality. Kierkeggard on
Hegel: it is a distraction--building of a system--to keep one away from reality
and existence. Aristotle: something is
noble which has an end in itself. #136:
idle activity is the result of fear. All
gratuitous activity is escapism.
Dupre: there is fear in
compulsive gambling, but not so for philosophy.
Aristotle: there is something divine in the activity of philosophy
itself.
It
is only revelation that discloses the truth of these diversions as
diversions. Revelation also makes known
God's nature. God is in hiding. Stressing our estrangement with the divine,
Christianity alone can say why God is hidden.
#242. Only Christianity knows why
religion is in decline: because God is hidden to the non-elect. Due to sinfulness, God cannot but be
hidden. Jensenism emphasizes failure
whereas Calvanism leaned toward success(e.g. wealth as a sign of
election). Calvanist countries have been
very successful. #448: if there were no
appearances of God, it would be a case for atheism. But if God has appeared to one person at
least, he is seen by the elect.
Dupre:
to what extent can we speak of a mystical strain in modern thought? Negative quality of Pascal: he does not use
efficient causality to see the relation between man and God because he deflates
the route of natural reason. There is a
complexity in the relation that can't fit within efficient causality. The
positive mystical element in Pascal: the rupture with previous times was that
the soul had become independent of God which was called the supernatural. Pascal does not separate these two. The Reformation felt that the supernatural
should not have been dominant and separate from nature in Christianity. The anti-naturalism of Luther is an attempt
to bring God back to earth.
3/4/98
Theme
of the course is not to develop an argument for the existence of God; rather,
we are looking for the religious thought in writers of the Enlightenment.
Berkeley(1683-17??):
What
in this life is a sign of God's presence?
This is not a proof. In a proof,
the notion of God is not in the premises as it is here. According to Berkeley, to be is nothing more
than to be perceived. The reality of the
material world (not of a human mind or of God) consists in that which is being
perceived. I don't know anything more than that which my perceptions can give
me. Kant establishes that we only have a
phenomenal knowledge of the outside world; no knowledge of the things in
themselves. Kant: I know nothing of
things beyond what I perceive. Berkeley:
there is no beyond. Materialism had become
a problem. Hobbes, for instance. If Berkeley could abolish matter, he thought
he would destroy materialism. Ralph
Perry, a follower of Wm. James,--see his biology on James, said: I can't think
of something without seeing it as an idea.
Dupre: but this is not to say that a thing is no more than an idea. How is it that there is agreement on
ideas? For instance, that a thing is a
certain kind of thing. Berkeley has to
come to grips with the fact that folks can agree on an idea. The unifying
factor is that the ideas are impressed on my mind by God. Human minds can come up with ideas of
imagination. But when an idea is
impressed upon me with which I have no option, it is done so by God.
Berkeley
is an empiricist. Immediate
sensations--but they are only the occasions.
No universal ideas--but there are universal meanings. So he is not really much of an empiricist as,
say, Locke. The origin of universal ideas.
Locke: universal ideas are abstractions.
Berkeley: there are only particulars.
No universal ideas. A universal
idea is a concrete idea in which some things are at focus. No construction. Language has universal terms, but they are
short-cuts for particular forms of attention.
Attention to a particular aspect.
He wants to reduce Philosophy to common sense.
Berkeley's
theory of signs. Berkeley claims that signs
show the presence of God. In any
theory of symbols, the assumption is always that something is participating in
the reality of the symbol. The cult of
the icons. Something of the sacred
participating in the symbol. Berkeley is
far from this view. The sign is an arbitrary connection to the thing signified--from
nominalism. Berkeley's view. Dupre: Berkeley's
account is in the end an argument for the existence of God because the sign
does not participate in God. It is
in using signs that his argument breaks down.
Signs refer, but don't have an inherent meaning. That which they refer to is different from
them. Colors and shapes refer to but are
not 'distance'. Vision along is not
enough; it is a sign. Touch is also
necessary. No particular sensation is
sufficient to give one an idea; they are merely signs, or instruments. The
reality of the world is an idea by God impressed. I can only contribute to the
construction. The signs are not sufficient. To have the full idea of something is
thus a divine impression. We have no idea of God because we have no
sensation of Him. So too the
self. To be is to be perceived or to perceive. Distance is a question of experience.
Copleston:
Berkeley claims that distance must be brought into view by another idea
immediately perceived.
Associations. Sensations as mere
signs, or references, rather than having substance. Outward signs having no resemblance
or necessary connection with the things they stand for. Dupre: how are signs going to indicate God's
presence? The order of signs shows God
exists, but not God's presence. Dupre:
so this is not mystical, but is an argument of God's existence.
Language:
a complex of signs which have no meaning in themselves. An arbitrariness, through which God
speaks. This is not to say that God is
visible in the world. Speech is more of
a distance. God speaks because there is no meaning in speech. It is that the world makes sense even though
nothing in the world makes sense. His point:
there is a meaning-giver. Not that God
is the meaning. Berkeley takes a
nominalist theory of signs and insists that in the totality the meaning comes out of God rather than in
the signs themselves. The presence of
God is in the fact that the signs can be used to make meaning. Dupre: but is this presence enough?
Sensations
are signs, so have no meaning in themselves.
God arranges our sensations such that there is meaning. God is as present as meaning is.
Does
the world stop existing when there is no one?
Berkeley: yes. No material
world. The continuity is preserved by
God holding the ideas. In God, the ideas are archetypes. Not fragmented in God. No distinctions in God.
4/1/98
Berkeley(1683-17??):
Considering
phenomena, to be is to be perceived;
existence is in their being perceived.
Appearances relate to God only as direct signs. We perceive no ideas; we perceive only light,
colors, and images. Ideas don't
originate in sensations(agn. Locke's empiricism). Rather, ideas
are given by God. Not that God is the
content of ideas. So ideas are not
directly related to sensable phenomena, nor are ideas universal or abstract;
rather, all ideas are particular. Dupre:
but that ideas are not abstract doesn't necessarily mean that they are not
universal. We can have universal words,
but these are artificial. Words are not
ideas but are verbal signs. Why? Because ideas are not in themselves
universal. Also, words don't always
clearly represent ideas. Words can refer
to things other than ideas. God, for instance, is not an idea but is a
notion. A notion denotes an active principle, but is not clear and
distinct. God makes ideas. Grace is not an idea either.
So
why pay attention to sensations? They
show signs--points of reference made by God, rather than being the content of
ideas. Phenomena are not causally related to ideas. Rather, the phenomena are occasions.
Alciphron : a new theory of symbolism. Phenomena in terms of symbols of God. The question is how phenomena relate to the
idea of God. Berkeley, unlike Malebranche, does not see all things in God; rather,
ideas are given by God. More
distance here. Berkeley is an empiricist
in the sense of claiming a dynamic system through the signs. We reflect on signs and to what they refer. There are two series--one of phenomena and
the other of ideas. One indication (not proof) of God's existance:
that phenomena are contingent and yet line up in an order to which our ideas
correspond; that there is a coherence between ideas and phenomena suggest an
intelligent being. Signs are on two
levels: phenomena and words. Signs on
the phenomena level correspond to ideas and expressions of emotion. Signs on the word level may correspond to
ideas or may signify beyond ideas. What
is the content of ideas? Not God. God is a notion. Rather, the
content of ideas is of the material world.
So ideas have no origin in phenomena but are conditioned on it.
Siris :
Chain of reasoning; chain in phenomena.
On
signs:
#252:
look at the world. a coherence.
#253:
sense knows nothing. No understanding in
the phenomena; just colors and forms.
Ideas are necessary to know the meaning of signs. Ideas are about relations/causality. Phenomena are only effects rather than being
causal themselves. The ideas are from
God. Analogy--by a theory of symbolism into a sign. Evidence is in the reference of the
sign. God is totally unknown. Analogy is an indication of God rather than
being a proof. Malebranche, Pascal,
Berkeley and Butler are all weary of proofs of God.
Mysticism(Dupre):
from Plotinus. Presence of God
known. Increasingly mysterious as one
gets closer to God. Starts with an
awareness of God preceding one's own.
Malebranche, for instance, began by seeing God, then deduced what he
himself is. God is there. How does God lead me to the world and to
myself is the question of mystics.
#254:
There is a natural regular and constant connection of signs with the things
signified. This connection forms a
rational discourse rather than proving that God exists. In this discussion of relations, the
phenomena become signs (rather than a cause) of God's presence. Reason is the way of seeing the coherence of
phenomena rather than the cause.
That
Berkeley takes phenomena seriously makes him an empiricist, but otherwise he is
opposed to Locke's empiricism(e.g. Locke claims that ideas originate in
phenomena). Berkeley starts with
appearances but does not find the basis of ideas to be in them. Instead, phenomena are signs. The ideas given by God are the occasion of
the phenomena.
#261:
Signs are not necessary for God.
#262:
Plotinus: a coherent series of signs--either they indicate the totality being
itself intelligent(pantheism) or the intellect lies beyond the world. If the former, the world as an organic entity
having a soul(the world soul). But this
is not where intelligibility comes from.
The intellect, one of three divine principles, is God beyond the world. The
One is beyond Being which is beyond intellect.
#264:
Sense and experience say only how things appear. Reason is needed to speak of phenomena as
signs and introduces one to a knowledge of their causes. There is something beyond the world-soul.
#266:
No absolute space. God does not need it
to create. Plotinus: the world is in the
Soul. The Soul is higher than the world
and is of which the world participates.
#285: the world as contained by the soul, and not the soul by the world.
#274:
Creation is a chain. #303: There runs a
chain throughout the whole system of beings.
...The meanest things are connected with the highest.
Guyer
adds:
#274:
The Intellect is the divine principle beyond the world. So the world is not self-governing.
#279:
One presiding mind gives unity to the infinite aggregate of things. #326: mind or intellect is understood to
preside over, govern, and conduct, the whole frame of things.
#287:
all things are One. One and the same
Mind is the universal principle of order and harmony throughout the world,
containing and connecting all its parts, and giving unity to the system.
#289:
God knoweth all things as pure mind or intellect; but nothing by sense.
#294:
Those things that before seemed to constitute the whole of being, upon taking
an intellectual view of things, prove to be but fleeting phantoms.
#295:
what he took for substances and causes are but fleeting shadows; that the mind
contains all, and acts all, and is to all created beings the source of unity
and identity, harmony and order, existence and stability.
#296:
oppresssed and overwhelmed, as we are, by the senses, through erroneous
principles, and long ambages of words and notions--to struggle upwards into the
light of truth...
#310:
Aristotle considered the soul...to be the proper place of forms. Themistius' commentary: it may be inferred
from this that all beings are in the soul.
The forms are the beings. The
mind is in all things; it becomes all things by intellect and sense. ...the soul is all things.
#316:
Platonic philosophy supposed sensible qualities to exist (though not
originally) in the soul, and there only.
#318:
According to these philosophers, matter is only a pura potentia, a mere
possibility. #319: matter is conceived
only as defect and mere possibility, (whereas) God is absolute perfection and
act. #320: The force that produces, the
intellect that orders, the goodness that perfects all things, is the supreme
being.
#322:
Augustine: the soul is the power or force that acts, moves, enlivens. Not blindly or without mind, or that it is
not closely connected with intellect.
#324:
When (Plutarch) concludes that...God is a Mind...a really existing Spirit,
distinct or separate from all sensible and corporeal beings.
#328:
God is the cause and origin of all beings.
#335:
In Plato's style, the term idea
signifies the most real beings, intellectual and unchangeable, and therefore
more real than the fleeting, transient objects of sense.
#341:
there is both a universal Spirit, author of life and motion, and a universal
Mind, enlightening and ordering all things.
#342: Plato--God is He who truly is. Evil scatters, divides, destroys. Good, on the contrary, produceth concord and
union, assembles, combines, perfects, and presirves entire.
#343:
The Good or One is not the light that enlightens, but the source of that light.
#344:
God remains for ever one and the same.
Therefore God alone exists.
4/8/98
Berkeley(1683-17??):
A
theory of signs. Not an analogy(of
proportionality). Nor even a straight
analogy: similarity due to things referring to the same thing. He does not speak as if he has direct access
to the referant(God). Nor does he have a
theory of images of God. Origen, Gregory
of Nyssa and Bonivenure: the soul is in the image of God. Berkeley makes no claims to a direct
knowledge or reference to God. The
phenomena of the world are not ideas or signs, but are sensations. An image is a constructed structure of sensations. He allows for this. Images become signs of and through
ideas. These ideas which we have infused
are compared. We find order. Signs are the finding of the bringing
together of ideas that we have at the occasion of images. There must be a structure in ideas that is
given by God. Not that all our ideas are
ordered by God. Laws of nature are
given. We discover them. Siris
#294: the reality is the ideas. To do
science, structured ideas are necessary(#295).
The signs are the structuring of ideas which come from God. Language originates in the structuring of
ideas. Ideas can't be abstract but are
particular. Words can be particular or
abstract. Words depend exclusively on
use.
So,
four levels: sensations, ideas, signs, words.
See #303. #308: rejects
empiricism--sensations are merely occasions.
There are notions--deal with things that are not ideas. The content of ideas is the world. The content of notions are ideas. Where do we get our notions from? Dupre: perhaps, God.
His
ideal: reality is nothing but to be perceived. Ideas go together with
sensations. Perception is more than
sensations. But what happens to the
table when there is no one to perceive it? God still perceives it. Platonic idea that all reality exists ideally
in God. Augustine: God creates the world according to His ideas. Berkeley: my reality is in God. The reality is not only in God but is in the
expressions of God. Seems close to
Malebranche: we see our ideas in God.
Berkeley: we really don't know God.
To be is to exist as an idea in God.
I participate in that divine ideal via my knowledge. My perceptions are only a participation in
the divine ideas. Are ideas in God's
Intellect but The One lies beyond ideas?
Dupre: perhaps.
Insufficiency
of causality. Hume ran with this. Berkeley: signs depend on God. If there is heat and water, there will be
boiling. I have no control over this. It
is due to God's operations. The
connection among ideas are signs which find their origin in God. The succession of ideas in irreversible order
is from God.
Joseph
Butler:
Butler
uses analogy to find a new way of talking about God without saying more than he
can know about it. The problem of saying
more than you know about God is avoided here by using symbolism. The literal speech is never sufficient. Dupre: if the symbolic meaning were to be
separated from the literal in Xnity, the cat would be out of the bag! Butler has a developed sense of analogy that
is not just ideas but is symbolism.
Aquinas's analogy: ideas only.
Tracy: the analogy is spread out in all things, even the
imagination. Butler uses the language of
correspondences. Things that correspond.
Not causal or on account of similarity.
See: Blake. This is not the
language of Newton and Descartes.
Butler
presupposes the idea of God. Signs in
nature are shown to show correspondances to religious ideas such as the
immortality of the soul as well as rewards and punishments after death. It is not a one-to-one relationship.
He
wants to disspell doubts by believers rather than to provide an apologetic.
Introduction. Against the idea of rationalism,
probability. This is the way life is
lived. Accumulated presumption through
analogy. An analogy between revelation
and what our reason and perception show us.
A correspondance. Dupre: without
direct knowledge of God, we can only speak of analogy via symbolism.
Ch.
1: the soul can survive the body. The
body doesn't count for much.
Catapiller/butterfly analogy. Dupre: nonsense. But he really wants to say that the soul
should not be defined in terms of the body.
Dying is not going to sleep.
Rather, it is a transformation to another reality. He is trying to show by analogy that there is
an afterlife. Dupre: his assumption that
the soul and body are separate is wrong.
He
uses deist theology in approaching natural religion by analogy: the immortality
of the soul, the rewarding of good/punishing evil, God orders the universe(the
moral government), the freedom of humans.
These are Deist beliefs.
Ch. 2:
our future life's happiness depends upon our behavior in this world. In this world, we see that present behavior
has to do with future outcome. But he
admits that folks can get away with things.
But he is speaking on tendencies.
Ch.
3: the moral government of God. About
this life: what we do is going to be rewarded or punished in this life. But he admits that the wicked can
prosper. There is a system in this
world--so God is not arbitrary.
Ch.
4: this life is painful. A trial. A time of probation. A time to grow and improve. A time of growth and education. By analogy, a child grows into an adult. So too, we grow and develop spiritually.
Ch.
6: freedom. Collins was a Deist:
everything by necessity. Butler: we are
treated as if we were free. We act by
analogy.
Ch.
7: the inadequacy of the human mind to know God. This relativizes what he has written about
God. This chapter is important. The truth of a fact does not prove its
goodness. Analogy can only show things
to be true and credible. See it as a
system in order to see that things somehow come together--to suggest only
indirectly that God has a scheme. Dupre:
but there must be some order. Butler:
but correspondences in the different areas.
We can't know what God is or what it takes to create and run a
world.
Ends
and means. Ends are obtained by means in
the natural government.
We
are placed in a progressive scheme. The
future of that progress lies beyond our grasp.
Yet we assume an intelligent author and look for indications. Not a proof of God's existence. Instead, it is enough to trust it.
4/15/98
Joseph
Butler:
Three
contradictions in his work. First, it
takes the form of apologetics, but it assumes the existence of God. Second, the first part is devoted to the theses
of Deism(immortality, free-will, reward of good/punishment of evil). But the second part is a refutation of Deism.
Revelation is necessary in order that natural theology will not turn into
superstition. He assumes Xnity to be the
only revelation. Revelation bestows upon natural religion a divine
authority. But reason is the only
authority in natural religion.
Revelation gives us new forms of truths that we wouldn't have otherwise,
by reason alone. For instance, that God
is not only the Father, but is the Son and Holy Spirit too. The notion of adding truth to natural
religion separates Butler from Deism. To
presuppose the existance of God places him outside Deism. Third, Butler uses analogy of religion, but
the body of his work denies the possibliity of speaking directly about God, so
analogy is out of the question. So,
three contradictions in Butler.
There
is something problematic about analogy.
It assumes the possibility of a direct knowledge of God.
The
world develops; so does Xnity. A sense
of evolution here. There is a hidden
thread. A greater scheme which is
progressive. Like Newman and Berkeley, a
hidden neo-Platonism. Symbolism is
salient rather than proofs. This is not
scientific. Nature is a mystery which
constantly develops.
Butler
suggests a way of looking at things. The
religious person has a different view on this world--seeing nature as more than
nature. Seeing more there than what
appears. How totally present God is in
the world. This is not provable. Religious people see the infinite against the
finite. But this is not to prove the
existance of God. The faith is
there. Dupre: there must be reasons (but
not a proof) for one's belief.
So
reason is unable to judge the truth of revealed religion according to
Butler. The story of Abraham must appear
foolish. Butler accepted his church's
literal reading of the Bible. He admits
that there might be mistakes in the Bible.
So we have no more than an accumulation of probabilities. Christianity is the top of the providential
course of history because it adds something to it. Dupre: but there is no evidence for
this. The impact on Christianity on
history is not known. But there is also
an unknown in nature(e.g. stillborn births).
But this is not to say that there is not a providential scheme
(Xnity). He presents his proofs as
probabilities which only when taken together amount to certainties. Probable evidence admits of degrees. Don't throw it out because it is not demonstrative. How much probability is for you evidence?
Like
Berkeley, Butler withdrew from literalist efficient causality. Butler did a symbolic mystical view of the world: a view of divine
ignorance/negative theology, but the world itself has to look symbolic. What does this mean? Dupre: in the Catholic Church, there has been
a battle between symbolic and analogy.
Aquinas: Analogy of Being. But
the theory of sacraments was of symbols.
Pius X condemned the symbolic view.
But it revived. Symbolic interpretations
in Blondel and Karl Rainer. Butler is
not doing the sort of analogy(such as proportions) which assumes a direct
knowledge of God. Instead, he has an
older conception in the mystical thought (Platonic) which assumes that the
admission of an absolute principle is subjectively and objectively
necessary. The desire for God is an
essential thing in the human mind.
Descartes: we see the finite only against the infinite. Maricel: the mind seeks to grasp
infinity. Dupre: yes. There is something more to the world than
there is in it. Same applies to
myself. This principle comes from
Plato. Love and knowledge go beyond
reason so nothing in the mind can convey the nature of the transcendent
principle. God is what is closest and what is furthest. Creatures are traces, not images, of
God(Boniventure). Developed by Ekhart
and Nicolas of Cusa: there is no similarity between God and the creatures. If we are beings, then God is not a
being(Ekhart). An inverted analogy. If God has created the world, this must be in
some sense of the general presence of God.
Symbols don't pretend to give a direct access to the transcendent. The creature is in no way like God. See: Dupre's book, Religious Mystery and Rational Reflection. God is manifest even though no analogy
describes this. But if God is completely
different, then you must relativize your own negation. Even when I deny, I should not be sure of
myself. Divine transcendence is not
found above creation but in it which is unlike him. Dupre: the total otherness leads to total
identity in so far as God is the Creator--the one who negates my
negations. Not a question of likeness;
rather, of identity. Yet Christians say
God is knowable. Likeness is not between
'manifest' and 'hidden'. In the analogy
from the creature to God is only likeness within dissimilarity. A sign of identity within distinction.
'The
soul as the image of God' is not to say that the soul is like God. Rather,
consider image as presence. An image is
a presence. Xn Mysticism is about union
rather than likeness.
Butler
does not use mystical language. Rather,
he is a rationalist. But his negative
theology is clear. For instance,
consider his refusal to take any indication to be a firm conclusion. Rather, he uses the language of conjectures. Hamann and Blake use this language too. Butler does not admit of a passage from this
world to the transcendent. A modern flaw
is hereby avoided. The relation from God
to the creature is not of efficient causality.
For Butler, creatures though not
images of God are intrinsically signs, referring by their nature to the God
which they in no way resemble. The
miracles and the life of jesus, for instance.
The old testament provided types(prefigurations). A reading of the prophasies as indicating
that Xnity is the literal fulfilment.
Efficient causality and literalism characterizes modernity(Dupre) which
has thrown out symbolism.
Christianity
is not possible without the symbolic; literalism misses the meaning of the
Bible. The literal is symbolic. Pascal went against Descarte's
literalism. Butler is ham-strung by his
literal innerancy. Butler: religion is a
matter of deduction and inference.
Dupre: no. A rationalist
epistemology. But, Butler: things are
not less real for not being objects of science.
But he uses tedious apologetic arguments.
4/22/98
Johann
Georg Hamann(1730-1788):
Malebranche
and Pascal both struggle with the efficient causality view of religion. Berkeley breaks with the straight line
analogy from the creature to God. He
brought in a complication. He struggled against the efficient causality
principle. Butler: no straight line. No direct analogy. Nicholas of Cusa had said this in the 1500's:
there is a complex system of relation between God and the creature--only
concordances, not based on scholastic analogy.
God's essense is not related to His existance as our essence is related
to our existance. What, then, can we say
about God? We can use analogy, though
not like the equation-analogy of scholasticism.
It does not make sense to say that everything relates to a single point,
God, when we don't know anything about God.
Berkeley is in transition, but Butler has a negative theology. He did not use the principle of causality.
Third
stage. Germany. Hamann, a German philosopher, theologian, and
literary critic; friends with Kant.
Hamann had an influence on Kierkeggard's use of irony and paradox. Hegel wrote two articles on Hamann. Hamann wrote Socratic Memorabilia in 1759.
A frontal attack on the prevailing rationalism, it portrayed Socrates as
a forerunner to Christ rather than a forerunner to the Enlightenment. It was written after he converted from the
Enlightenment to an evangelical Christianity.
Poetic as opposed to religious.
The book is subjective. Hamann uses a meta-schematic, a procedure
that substitutes objective facts (e.g. of Socrate's life) for personal,
existential involvement.
Kierkeggard: if the existential truth is subjective, it can't be
directly communicated. Not that there
is no objective truth; rather, how can you directly communicate sadness? Hamann and Kierkeggard: any communication
with God must be subjective. No straight
line. Hamann: this takes the form of a
story (his personal involvement with God).
The story is not only meta-schematic, but is typological: the nature of
the story is such that the hero is a type of Christ. Indirect.
An exegesis method exists which views the O.T. material as types
prefiguring Christ. Dupre: this creates
problems. What is typology? The idea of prefiguration had come to be
taken as a literal intended prophesy of Christ.
In contrast, Hamann: all history
is more mythology--a riddle that can't be solved by reason. The meaning must be gained by faith. History and nature will look different from
above. Anticipations of Christ in
Socrates are seen by Hamann. Socrates'
poverty, professed ignorance, and wrongful death. Christ who relied on divine wisdom. Even
the style of Hamann's writing is a type.
Socrates, inner beauty was hidden as was Christ's divinity, so too
Hamann writes with the meaning being hidden. Hamann's style is cryptic, which contrasts
with the seriousness of the content. Paradox. Why?
Anything said about God does not fit into straight reason. His style is a repellant, throwing the text
back on the reader. An ususual awareness
of religious expression here. All religious language begins with ordinary
things, then throws in a twist, making it paradoxical. Paradoxical language as a type suggesting
religious expression.
Butler
and Hamann: the Christian response to the Englightenment. Attacking the
Enlightenment on interpreting access to God as linear and in terms of efficient
causality.
Hamann's
text. Socrates was a religious thinker, pious.
To the Enlightenment, he is seen as an attack on religion based on
reason. But he was not. So Hamann puts Socrates' life up to counter
this view. The idea of divine ignorance
is in the story of Socrates. The
foolishness of Socrates in terms of reason.
The literary form used by Hamann reflects the paradox of Socrates as
well as Kierkeggard. Kierkeggard's two
paradoxs: socratic(subjectivity is the truth) and christianity(subjectivity is
the untruth because we live in sin). Hamann's style: the more elevated the
concept, the more is the juxtaposing to it of that which is lowly, eccentric,
or even trivial. The text says
something else than what it seems to say.
A text has to be different than it appears to be in matters of
religion. Language going beyond this
world has to speak in paradoxes.
The
text(Hamann): 'For the Two'. First
Section: Socrates was modest,
sculpting(thinking is getting rid of dead wood) rather than thinking himself
wise in indolence and pride. He chipped
away at ideas, and was feared to be a bad influence on kids, so he was
sentenced to die. Type on Christ. Simplicity of a natural modesty. Content in the chipping away of the
dead-wood. The oracle said he was a perverse man. Dupre: God selects sinners rather than the
prideful. He was elected because of his
humility; he was aware of his own vice.
God picks the lowly; the suffering servant. The paradoxical character of the
messiah. God can only speak
indirectly. Socrates took his fellows
out of the labyrinths of the Sophists to a truth in the inward being, to a
wisdom in the secret heart to the worship of an unknown God. Dupre: turning inward, in subjectivity. The Sophists were the prorunners of the
Enlightenment. If you are not willing to
give up your earthly wisdom for this, you are not going to get it. Not safe
with the gallows.
Herder:
Influenced
by Hamann and a pupil of Kant. See Frei,
ch. 10. Herder speaks of the O.T. The problem was literalism. Christianity in the beginning did not view
the typology literally. The problem
began in the 1600's when things were interpreted literally. The only reading is the literal one. If Christ did not literally fulfill the O.T.
prophesy, Jesus can't be vindicated as the messiah. To see Christ as the messiah is to make him
not comprehensible. The title of messiah
is not the essence of what Christ is. So
no O.T. passage directly applies to Christ.
Herder
argues against Winston and Collins (literalist typology). The
sum of the O.T. and N.T. is Christ and his kingdom. So each O.T. figure need not be recognized as
a type of Christ. It is in the
distance of time that we see David as an archetype. So the Jewish interpretation of the O.T.
figures is correct. It may be seen as a
general typological ascent to Christ.
Pre-figurations make no sense except in retrospect. Butler used typology. Herder overcomes the literalness of
pre-figurations. Prophesy: only a
gradual fulfilment of them of the O.T. in the N.T. Indirect, by the direction of history. This comes from Herder's book on ideas for a
world history. History is intrinsically
prophetic and symbolic. History is a symbol of God's work, but is
only seen this way from above. History is the development of humans to
full humanity. Essential to this is
religion. One can't be fully human
without being religious. History of
humanity is guided by and shows the signs of providence. Tradition operates by thought and
language. Symbols. Nothing but symbols,
but they are themselves established on the divine wisdom. At the end, the proof is incomplete. The point is to see something, and then to
risk something for it. To make that
commitment to trust God, then to look back on the world--then the world looks
divine.
Conclusion:
It is a pardox that it took the rationalism of Enlightenment to come to some of
the most authentic religious positions that we have. To get away from proofs yet not to act
without grounds. Reason can be used to show that you can't be human without
transcendence. That we are greater
than ourselves. Transcendence is part of existence.
Trust is necessary in order to do something with this. One can trust a revelation--a book, personal
illumination--but not a rational proof.
Herder: history from below is no good.
But looked at as symbolic, where meaning can be religious, the world is
quite another thing. The development of
humanity goes with this. Humanity to
Herder is in the image of God. To see
the image--if I know of God and providence--then I can see it in human
progress.
4/23/98
Western culture has become secular. 1700's: for the first time, the secular
became dominant. Still, the
culture/language was saturated with religion. 1800's: anti-theistic campaign by
an elite. Still, ties with religion in
the general culture. A secular culture,
of beneign atheism. For instance, Marx, Freud, and Neit. Religion was thought to be a passing
phenomenon. Niet: a new religion without
God. Today, culture has become the real
religion of our time, absorbing religion.
Even believers have become secular: God no longer matters absolutely.
But faith must integrate elements of culture to survive. Religion must be a matter of ultimate
concern. If religion is not everything,
it must die altogether. Xnity has become
one element of society. The unifying
element of the culture today has been lost.
We live on several levels of meaning.
An hour of church stands outside of our working life. We expect no answer from faith for worldly
problems. Instead, we look to
science. Thus, we lack the vision that
holds the various aspects of our life together.
We are not bound by one particular meaning, but we need some
coherience. Fragments of meaning must be
integrated. Some turn to reactionary
religions. Inauthentic. Nor should one look to religious nastalgia to
bring back the religion of the middle ages.
The traditional modes or pervayers of religion are no longer relied
upon, nor can they be. We must now
personally do the following: define the ultimate meaning of our existance. Not from society or tradition. But this does not mean a solely solitary life
of turning inward. By its very nature, a spiritual life is transformative of
all aspects of one's life, including one's relations to other people. There is an obligation to an integation of
the otherness (of the other) within one's own faith. Not just dialogue, but exchange. Buddhism can be part of one's Christianity
without betraying one's own religious identity.
Greek church fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa borrowed on neo-Platonism,
for instance. The silenceness of the
Buddhist may help the Christian into an experience of the mystery of God. Analogies between religions. Not resemblances, but vague similaries. This is not to say a religious buffet is the
answer. The self as the center brings
the language of transecenden down to the level of human choice. A faith is not a choice but an absolute
summons. To relativize faith is to
subvert its divine character. What is needed is an interiorization that
embraces the world. This is not to be engaged
in polemics with the secular world. The
renewed spiritual life originates in the self from an inner call--the inner
voice. Today, faith requires an inner
life. Awareness of a divine presence:
mysticism. The element of experience is
important. This experience has become
ambigious in modern culture. No longer
specificaly religious. That inner voice is being drummed out by the noise that leaves no room for silence. Spiritual emptiness is our major problem of
our time. A symptom of our religious poverty,
but an opportunity for deepening one's spiritual life. An unexpected event can strike, bringing back
the disclousre. Calls from the abyss. Mystics have felt the emptiness. An intense feeling of absence, knowing God to
be present though felt absent. In our
emptiness, we have nowhere else to turn but to start our spiritual journey from
within. Confrontation with our silent
sense of absence. To call for the absent
present one. Emptiness is the space of
transcendence. Leaving the known for the unknown--not for the catecism. Anything we know is totally unlike God. Spiritual life rests on symbols and
analogies, as Butler
said. Listening is important. How can I listen to stories from a culture so
distanct from our own? Biblical
criticism is important. Don't lose the
the literal meaning, though don't use it to cut off the symbolic. The spirit within the letter. Not a disjunction. Literal and symbolic meanings must both be
held. To hold one without the other is
problematic.
Experience
belongs to the essence of religion.
Personal experience is necessary now for a faith.
