The Honor Of God

According to Aristotle, first philosophy, or metaphysics, deals with ontology and first principles, of which the principle (or law) of non-contradiction is the firmest. Aristotle says that without the principle of non-contradiction we could not know anything that we do know. Presumably, we could not demarcate the subject matter of any of the special sciences, for example, biology or mathematics, and we would not be able to distinguish between what something is, for example a human being or a rabbit, and what it is like, for example pale or white. Aristotle’s own distinction between essence and accident would be impossible to draw, and the inability to draw distinctions in general would make rational discussion impossible. According to Aristotle, the principle of non-contradiction is a principle of scientific inquiry, reasoning and communication that we cannot do without.

Aristotle’s main and most famous discussion of the principle of non-contradiction occurs in Metaphysics IV (Gamma) 3–6, especially 4. There are also snippets of discussion about the principle of non-contradiction early in the corpus, for example in De Interpretatione, and there is the obscure chapter 11 of Posterior Analytics I, but none of these rival Aristotle’s treatment of the principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics IV. Below is a summary of the main interpretative and philosophical issues that arise from reading Metaphysics IV 3–6.

Aristotle’s discussion of the principle of non-contradiction also raises thorny issues in many areas of modern philosophy, for example, questions about what we are committed to by our beliefs, the relationship between language, thought and the world, and the status of transcendental arguments. Arguments from conflicting appearances have proved remarkably long-lived, and debates about skepticism, realism and anti-realism continue to this day.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-noncontradiction/

I have respect for good critical arguments, and I enjoy the truculent fervor of atheists such as Voltaire, Nietzsche and Mencken. Then along came Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins and I read patiently for new arguments against faith based upon reason… What arguments do I encounter?

Alas, instead of brilliant new presentations, faultless in their logic, my hopes for intellectually thought provoking additions to the debate were dashed against the well seasoned, or should I say, the rotten old timber of better minds from a bygone day. Our trio of atheists are simply not up to the task in either the style or the intellectual and philosophical substance that one encounters in the writings of classical atheists and agnostics. In style and content, these books are more on the level of the authors one would find on Ophra’s “the best of the New Age” list. Paradoxically, when it comes to delineating what separates Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris from the classical atheists, it is a question of their lack of the depth of knowledge and grounding in philosophy, not to mention the importance of knowing your opponent’s epistemological framework. As an example of atheism that has the depth of religious emotion, consider the statements of one eminent 19th century antichristian, Nietzsche:

If God is dead, it is we who have killed him….We are the assassins of God….How did we come to do that? How did we manage to empty the sea? Who gave us a sponge to wipe out the whole horizon? What were we about when we undid the chain that linked this earth to the sun? Are we not continually falling? Forward, backward, sideways, in every direction? Is there still an above, a below? Are we wandering as through an endless nothingness? Do we not still feel the breath of the void on our faces? Isn’t it growing colder? Is not night always coming on, one night after another, more and more?

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Nietzsche
Synopsis by Richard Schwartz
Beyond Good and Evil

1. Nietzsche believed life was a struggle in self-creativity, a “tense bow,” and therefore had his own mixture of Phenomenalism. He supported the idea that all percepts and concepts constitute the sole objects of knowledge, with the objects of perception and the nature of the mind itself remaining unknowable. Therefore rational analysis is always limited from human perceptive capabilities, filtering reality according to one’s own mind. He rejected the idea of mysterious worlds beyond those of appearance or the idea of two existing worlds (ours as an inferior copy of the other), an idea that began with Plato and carried over into Christianity, as with St. Augustine, and even into the science of the enlightenment with Descartes and others. Yet Nietzsche recognized the mystery of the “Id,” the unconscious far apart from objective, scientific analysis - something Freud attempted to do, dissecting it with natural science.

Phenomenalism:

A) The doctrine, set forth by David Hume and his successors, that percepts and concepts constitute the sole objects of knowledge, with the objects of perception and the nature of the mind itself remaining unknowable.

B) The theory which limits positive or scientific knowledge to phenomena only, whether material or spiritual.

Blogged with Flock

That is what Father Edward T. Oakes calls him in an essay written for First Things back in 1999: 

In that setting Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) emerges as the man who became, as I shall argue in the rest of this essay, “the first modern Christian.” I would even include in that judgment the deep reticence and privacy of his spiritual life, for Pascal rarely revealed the movements of his soul to any but his most trusted spiritual directors. Modernity often regards religion as a private affair of the heart and looks askance at too public displays of religious emotion; and there too Pascal strikes a remarkably modern note. Except for a few passing references in his letters, he rarely mentioned even the most important biographical milestones that determined his career. In fact, it is only because he sewed a parchment memorial of the event inside his coat pocket that history knows of the most important incident in his life-his “Night of Fire” on November 23, 1654, when for about two hours he was overwhelmed by tears of joy at the realization that the God of the philosophers was not the God of the Bible. No doubt he had always recognized what history has since come to acknowledge: that his legacy to us is due more to his thought than to his life. http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3196&var_recherche=oakes+pascal

Two quotes from Pascal that are really worth meditating upon:

[The Christian religion] teaches men both these truths: that there is a God of whom we are capable, and that a corruption in our nature makes us unworthy of Him. It is equally important for us to know both these points; for it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can cure him of it. Knowledge of only one of these points leads either to the arrogance of the philosophers, who have known God and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of the atheists, who know their wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next, make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.

 

My compliments to Father Oakes.- BJS