Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 5:58 am
I did not prepare replies to every chapter because it would be grossly redundant to my recent reply to The End of Christianity. Enjoy!
The Christian Delusion, ed. Loftus; Reply to Chapter 5
The Christian Delusion ed. Loftus, Part 1; Reply to Chapter 6
The Christian Delusion, ed. Loftus, Reply to Chapter 7
The Christian Delusion ed. Loftus, Reply to Chapter 12
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 10:49 pm
I am going to add this as a permanent page on this blog.
The End of Christianity ed. Loftus, Reply by Drake; Introduction
The End of Christianity ed. Loftus, Reply by Drake; Reply to Introduction
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus; Reply to Introduction B
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus; Reply to Chapter 1
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Chapter 2 Reply
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus; The Filioque Heresy; Second reply to Chapter 2
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus; Third Reply to Chapter 2
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus; First Reply to Chapter 3
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 3 Part 3-Final Reply
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 4
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 5
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 6
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 7
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 8 and 9
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 10
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus Reply to Chapter 11
The End of Christianity, ed. Loftus; Reply to Chapters 12, 13 and 14
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 8:22 am
This one was too long to post on the blog. See it at The Kings Parlor:
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 5:31 am
II. Personal Identity After Death
This issue is dealt with in detail by Dr. Clark in his book Behaviorism and Christianity by Gordon Clark (Jefferson, Maryland.: The Trinity Foundation, 1982) The essential issue involved here is the definition of a “person” which I gave in detail in section I. If indeed a person is essentially his consciousness then the question is, does thought require a brain? Our answer is no. Dr Clark says, “If thought is simply the product of the brain, no doubt it cannot contradict nature; but then on this basis no thought can contradict nature, and insanity is as natural as any other state of mind. If all thought is thus natural, there is no logical reason to believe that some thoughts, ideas of dialectical materialism rather than of absolute idealism, are more natural, more true, or more valuable, than others.” [Gordon H. Clark, Thales to Dewey (Unicoi, Tennesse.: The Trinity Foundation, 1957, Fourth edition 2000), 376]
1. The first demonstration that any atheist psychological scientist must provide is how sensation produces thought whichClarkmade a career of refuting. Here is a list of questions and required demonstrations that must be met before they can tenably construct a theory that thought requires a physical brain:Define sensation; Show how sensation produces perception; Then show how perception produces abstract ideas. When atheists are confronted with the obvious problems deducing a philosophy of language from empiricism, they will say that they simply use words as they are generally accepted and determined by the English Language. This supposed answer has one major flaw: It isn’t true. Behaviorists use words like mind, perception, observe, fear, rage, love and thought etc. They are not using these words like the average English speaker uses them. What he means by these words is chemistry. Therefore, his deceit is exposed When you mean see (sensation), is this one sensation or thousands? Does each rod and cone in the retina have the sensation?
2. Do all people have images? It is an assumption not a fact. Is this assumption not a conviction of your solipsism? Do you ever not have a sensation? How do you know that? Is a lack of sensation itself a sensation? Then, do you sense that you are not having a sensation? Remember your own scholars have denied the possibility of you having a memory. John B. Watson says, “The behaviorist never uses the term ‘memory.’ He believes that it has no place in an objective psychology” (Behaviorism by John B. Watson pg. 177) Yet my opponents use this term frequently when I ask them if they have ever not had a sensation. They will rely on memories of past experiences and their effects.
You cannot rely on memories or on their effects to answer this.
3. If thought is dependent on substances and physical laws, why is it that humans are the only species with dictionaries, grammar books, geometry and mathematics? William James says, “Were we lobsters, or bees, it might be that our organization would have led to our using quite different modes from these of apprehending our experiences. It MIGHT be too (we cannot dogmatically deny this) that such categories, unimaginable by us to-day, would have proved on the whole as serviceable for handling our experiences mentally as those which we actually use.” (Pragmatism in Focus, Page 88) Those who have such faith that they “see” the external material world, I ask: How do you know that your method of vision represents reality while other animals have different and often superior vision than you? Clark says, “Possibly the world has no color and the dogs see it correctly; we human beings have color hallucinations.” [Gordon H. Clark, Religion, A Christian View of Men And Things (Unicoi, Tennesse.: The Trinity Foundation, 1952, 1980, Fourth edition 2005), 202] What about bat vision? A bat “vocalizes and hears” to “see” with his Echolocation. Trichromatic insects in some respect have superior vision than we do. On an empirical model I am wondering why you don’t believe these insects are the most enlightened beings on this planet. Trichromatic insects can see frequencies of light that are invisible to human beings. The empirical world leans so hard on lighting. How do you not know that these insects “see” a level of reality you are totally ignorant of and would send your precious science prophets back to the drawing board? Watson says, “In the unlearned sounds made by the infant we have all the units of responses which when later brought together (By conditioning) are the words of our dictionaries” (Behaviorism, Watson, pg.185). Clark says, “But if all this is merely ‘manual,’ why cannot animals enter this field? Many of them have bodily parts almost as complicated as ours, and their chemistry is equally good.” [Gordon H. Clark, Behaviorism and Christianity (Jefferson, Maryland.: The Trinity Foundation, 1982), 15]
4. How do you have memories? In the empirical world everything is in motion and is therefore changing. When a man “sees” a statue and then a few days later recalls the “memory image” (If he has images) to his mind, he is not the same man as when he “saw” the statue and neither is the statue. Therefore, the present experience is not the past experience. Therefore memory gives no knowledge. Basing knowledge on sensory memory depends on the assumption that the future will be like the past. Previous sensations of the smell of milk followed by nourishment do not prove that future sensations of the smell of milk will be followed by nourishment. The future milk could be out of date and be followed by vomiting. Clarksays, “All empirical philosophers, an exception would be hard to find, claim, like Aristotle, that abstract ideas are produced, somehow, by means of images. Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell assume that all men have memory images.” [Gordon H. Clark, Clark Speaks From The Grave (Jefferson, Maryland.: The Trinity Foundation, 1986), 23] British scientist Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), rejected the idea that all men have imagery. Did we prove the solipsism conviction again? If indeed thinking is imagery, how can blind people, and even in the case of Helen Keller who was deaf and blind think and in some cases think very well? It is contradictory.
5. Behaviorism can claim to explain the creation of sounds through physiology but in no case can vindicate a sound’s meaning. Different sounds may have the same meaning i.e. general synonyms, and the same sound have different meanings, i.e. “plain.” One sense has a geographical use and the other has a general adjectival use relaying the idea of a lack of qualities or ornamental attributes. This is a great difficulty for Behaviorism and is admitted by Ryle. Later, Ryle (The Concept of Mind, New York: Barnes and Noble, 1949, pg. 172) admits even more problems with it in reference to the feigned behavior of hypocrites and charlatans. What is the chemical formula for hypocrisy again? If my opponents use an appeal to emotion here I will answer: On your worldview, a good electrician can identify a circuit that causes a certain light bulb to behave a certain way; Why can’t you do the same?
One of the advantages ofClark’s theory is that sensations can never be experienced again, yet propositions may be re-thought over and over again. Not only so, the proposition in my mind is the same in yours. Even on your own model of plausibility, isn’t our view simpler and clearer than yours? Rationality is therefore the essence of personhood and it is not dependant on physical substances. Though I have a body, it is in a sense, my mind’s tool. Moses held a conversation centuries after his brain decomposed in the soil (Mat 17:3) and so will I.
III. The Goodness Of An Omnipotent God In The Presence Of Massive And Ubiquitous Human And Animal Suffering
The fundamental issue here is the nature of the fall. The Westminster Confession Chapter 6 says,
I. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptations of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit.[1] This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.[2]
II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God,[3] and so became dead in sin,[4] and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.[5]
III. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed;[6] and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.[7]
See scripture proofs here: http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
Here we see that death and suffering are a consequence of man’s sin. But wasn’t this only Adam’s sin? Isn’t this unjust?
Girardeau says,
“Now, it is a fundamental principle of God’s moral government that none but the guilty are held liable to punishment. Before one can be justly punished it must be proved that he did some wrong act, or is the culpable author of some wrong disposition inherent in him.” (Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism, 227)
Turretin says in expounding our participation in Adam’s sin, Institutes, Vol. 1, 9th Topic, Q.9
“XXX. He who was in Adam in no way, neither in power nor in act, cannot be said to have sinned in him. But although we were not in act and personally in him, yet we were in power, both seminally (inasmuch as we were contained in him as the root of the whole species, Acts 17:26) and representatively (inasmuch as from the order of God he bore our person and God made the covenant with the whole human race in him). Thus although we were not actually in Christ when he died for us, still his death is properly imputed to us on account of the union existing between us and him.” (pg. 625) (See Hebrews 7:4-10)
Whether Turretin meant something physical or immaterial is debatable. I affirm both. As a traducianist, I affirm an abstract participative identification with Adam. The “stuff” of my soul participated in the sin of Adam as did my seminal-physical “stuff”. Original sin has different aspects to it: ontological and representative. The positive aspects to original sin on the Reformed view are the imputed guilt of Adam’s first actual personal transgression in the genus of ethics, and the corruption of nature in the genus of being, whereby the nature of man now has a tendency to sin.
How then does Adam make us guilty? First, as a Traducianist I do affirm that the “stuff” of my soul did participate in the Sin of Adam. This was not a personal actual transgression, for that belonged to Adam. Abstractly, my soul participated in that sin. Girardeau says, “he [Adam] must have been more than a father.”(230-231) He was a public person, a federal representative for his physical seed.
Girardeau gives a two-part definition of Reprobation as a passing by and to those critics who ask how that can be a positive ordination he continues in saying “there is a judicial act of God, by which they were in his purpose ordained to continue under the sentence of the broken law”. Concerning Reprobation, Girardeau explains two parts, preterition and condemnation. God does not cause the fall and sin in the sense that he positively implants a principle of evil in men, but that he withholds some persevering grace from man and man freely sins of his own agency. Robert Shaw, Commenting on Chapter 6 Section 1 of the Westminster Confession said, “He did not withdraw from man that ability with which he had furnished him for his duty, nor did he infuse any vicious inclinations into his heart,—he only withheld that further grace that would have infallibly prevented his fall.” However, God’s withholding of grace is considered causal, in that God is governing (WCF 5.1) his creatures to make the outcome certain without positively or immediately implanting principles of evil in them.
But doesn’t Paul forbid us to cause people to sin in 1Cor 8:13? Yes, but God and man do not have the same moral obligations. There is no abstract external standard to God that he must be subject to. When God caused Judas to betray Christ this was good and righteous not because “it was right” but it was right because God did it. To sin requires a law and a higher authority which forbids God to efficaciously cause people to sin. There is no such standard or law. God does forbid men to cause other men to sin (1 Cor 8:13). However, God is not subject to the same standard as men are. An example: God forbids men to steal in the 8th commandment. Can God steal? No. God has created all things therefore by definition as the creator and owner of all things, stealing is a nothing to him. Therefore, God can cause people to sin and at the same time forbid us to cause people to sin. Calvinism is the only theology that can answer this problem.
So God then created millions of people for the purpose of torturing them forever in hell? No. God created man perfectly righteous in the genus of being. His constitution was completely directed to good. This is why Adam’s sin was so heinous. Not all of God’s decrees are efficacious. Some are permissive, even though he does govern his permissive decrees. Because of man’s sin, as the federal head of his creation, God cursed the ground (Gen 3:17-18). Romans 8:22 tells us that the whole creation groans and suffers under this sin. To dispel another myth, God does not work all things together for good, for everyone. Rom 8:28 tells us that God works everything together for good to the elect-those who love God.
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 1:21 am
I have received consistent complaints about making these replies in video form so I am now switching to written form.
The following quotes from Loftus will be from The End of Christianity (Prometheus Books: Amherst, New York, 2011).
On page 78 Loftus complains,
“Christians have the task of showing how philosophy can make coherent sense of their doctrines (like Trinitarianism, the incarnation, atonement, personal identity after death, and the goodness of an omnipotent God in the presence of massive and ubiquitous human and animal suffering).”
I accept Loftus’ challenge. I already went into detail about the trinity in my reply to Chapter 2 of this book. With respect to the Hypostatic Union I want to preface by saying that the following reply is not some off the cuff brain child that I came up with this afternoon. I have easily 3000 hours of study into this issue and I as a Clarkian, have the best explanation of this doctrine.
I. Hypostatic Union
It was Dr. Gordon Clark’s insistence that man was made in God’s image and could thereby univocally participate in God that jettisoned him as a Reformed Philosopher because of his distinct position at this point. All Western Theologians go wrong on this point: if man is not in some metaphysical category that is identical with God then a hypostatic union is by definition impossible. The reason why Western theologians go wrong on this point is due to their Scholastic doctrine of Absolute Divine Simplicity (Which Clarkians reject: See http://olivianus.thekingsparlor.com/theology-proper/divine-simplicity-and-scripturalism and http://olivianus.thekingsparlor.com/theology-proper/divine-simplicity-and-scripturalism-part-2-by-drake) Dr. Clark explains,
“Thomas developed the theory of analogy far beyond the simple observation of Aristotle, and it took on major proportions when the subject was God. Thomas held that the simplicity of the divine being required God’s existence to be identical with his essence. This is not the case with a book or pencil. That a book is and what a book is are two different matters. But with God existence and essence are identical. For this reason an adjective predicated of God and the same adjective predicated of man are not univocal in meaning. One may say, God is good, and one may say, This man is good; but the predicate has two different meanings. There is no term, not a single one, that can be predicated univocally of God and of anything else.” (Three Types of Religious Philosophy by Gordon Clark [The Trinity Foundation: Jefferson, Maryland, 1989], pg. 63)
Because of ADS a metaphysical distinction had to be made between Divinity and Humanity. Herman Reith wrote a very helpful book titled, The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1958) to help us understand Aquinas. Reith touches upon the anthropology of Aquinas’ theory a bit when he notes that Thomas refuses to, “put God and the creature in the same category and set up a definite measure of distance between them.” (Reith, pg. 51) The most devastating problem for Western Anthropology is the fact that the Image of God in man is designed not to participate in divine nature but only created nature. This eliminates the metaphysical framework needed for the hypostatic union. If man’s knowledge of God comes only from created and empirical means then by definition participation in uncreated divine nature is impossible. A true metaphysical connection between humanity and divinity is ruled out and by strict logical necessity so would the incarnation.
The logos of man’s image then must be something uncreated. That is, there must be something about man that is identical to God to provide a framework from which a hypostatic union can be made. It is the logos of man’s “being” to partake of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:3-5).There have been two answers to this in the history of Christianity:
1. The Eastern view which posits some kind of distinction between essence and energy. The metaphysical category by which man metaphysically connects to God is the energy. Robinson comments in We Have Met the Enemy,
“There is a difference between the uncreated image in terms of a set and members of that set. It doesn’t follow that if the set is eternal, that the members of the set are. Let me see if I can clarify for you. Since humans are made in the divine image and that is the logos of our nature. The logos is a divine energy or predestination.”
2. Clark’s view asserts that rationality is uncreated: logic and language are uncreated, ergo man’s logos is to participate really and univocally in God, while distinguishing the objects of God’s knowledge from the manner of God’s knowing (See The Answer pg. 20) as to avoid becoming God in essence. The Western view of metaphysics, Aristotelian, make this completely impossible. The rational faculty of man is his divine image.
Where the East, at least on this issue, distinguished between participation at the level of nature and a second participation at the level of person the Scripturalist distinguishes between general revelation or special revelation. The former gives knowledge that there is a God and of our duty to him, the latter writes him upon the heart ontologically. Not that unbelievers can understand nothing of scripture, for they can, but they cannot believe it as to have it written upon their heart by the Spirit [ontological connection]. Therefore our metaphysical foundation has been laid. Now to some definitions:
Definitions:
Person: Dr. Clark says, “Accordingly the proposal is that a man is a congeries, a system, sometimes an agglomeration of miscellany, but at any rate a collection of thoughts. A man is what he thinks: and no two men are precisely the same combination. This is true of the Trinity also, for although each of the three Persons is omniscient, one thinks ‘I or my collection of thoughts is the Father [etc.]”…[Footnote] Some bright sophomore who has studied Hume and Kant may here wonder aloud how there can be a collection without a collector. Must there not be a transcendental unity of apperception? Then an uneducated farm lad comes along and tells how a hundred hornets collected under the eaves of the barn.” Gordon Clark, The Trinity. ( Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation, 1985), pg. 106.Vincent Cheung says in his Systematic Theology, “God the Son took up a human nature, and a human nature must include a human soul or mind. Although a “person” is defined in terms of the mind or intellect, the doctrine is that Christ remains one person even though he possesses two natures. This is so because of the definition of a person as a system of consciousness, and because of the nature of the relationship between the divine mind and the human mind.” (pg. 143) “System of consciousness” is then the definition of person. In Dr. Clark’s philosophy, all things are sets of propositions. When I am referring to Christ I am referring to a complex set of propositions. Just as in the ancient philosophy that was used by the Ecumenical councils I still see a distinction between nature and hypostasis. Dr .Clark affirms it when he affirms the distinction of greater connotation and lesser extension. (The Trinity, by Gordon Clark, pg. 50). The nature is at the level of necessary predication of a genus, and person/hypostasis is at the level of greater connotation and lesser extension. In this case the complex set that is Christ has only one hypostasis that hypostatizes two natures.
When I was brought to the understanding that both minds think to themselves, “I am the Messiah” this was a clear indication of a personal union. Cheung says,
“Whereas the divine mind has complete control over the human mind, the human mind does not have free access to the divine mind, but it receives special information and capabilities only as granted by the divine mind.”
Lastly, personality should be understood of the intellect because there is no separation between believing in someone and believing what that person says. Thus the following verses:
John 4:21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
John 8:31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
John 5: 46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.47 “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
Predication: All the actions of Christ are of the divine Logos, there is only one agent in him, one subject. The Logos utilizes the natures available to him with all their faculties. Natures do not act; persons act. It is Nestorian to apply actions to either nature. However, each nature provides the energy and will for the Logos to appropriate personally. The source of action is from the natures but only one agent acts in both or either nature. I agree with the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia when it says,
“St. Sophronius, and after him St. Maximus and St. John Damascene, showed that the two energeia produce three classes of actions, since actions are complex, and some are therefore mingled of the human and the divine.
(1) There are Divine actions exercised by God the Son in common with the Father and the Holy Ghost (e.g. the creation of souls or the conservation of the universe) in which His human nature bears no part whatever, and these cannot be called divino-human, for they are purely Divine. It is true that it is correct to say that a child ruled the universe (by the communicatio idiomatum), but this is a matter of words, and is an accidental, not a formal predication — He who became a child ruled the universe as God, not as a child, and by an activity that is wholly Divine, not divino-human.
(2) There are other Divine actions which the Word Incarnate exercised in and through His human nature, as to raise the dead by a word, to heal the sick by a touch. Here the Divine action is distinguished from the human actions of touching or speaking, though it uses them, but through this close connexion the word theandric is not out of place for the whole complex act, while the Divine action as exercised through the human may be called formally theandric, or divino-human.
(3) Again, there are purely human actions of Christ, such as walking or eating, but these are due to the free human will, acting in response to a motion of the Divine will. These are elicited from a human potentia, but under the direction of the Divine. Therefore they are also called theandric, but in a different sense — they are materially theandric, humano-divine. We have seen therefore that to some of our Lord’s actions the word theandric cannot be applied at all; to some it can be applied in one sense, to others in a different sense. The Lateran Council of 649 anathematized the expression una deivirilis operatio, mia theandrike energeia, by which all the actions divine and human are performed.” (Monothelitism and Monothelites)
I also affirm this statement from the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s Definition of Faith,
“We glorify two natural operations indivisibly, immutably, inconfusedly, inseparably in the same our Lord Jesus Christ our true God, that is to say a divine operation and a human operation”…For we will not admit one natural operation in God and in the creature, as we will not exalt into the divine essence what is created, nor will we bring down the glory of the divine nature to the place suited to the creature.”
I therefore, affirm three operations in Christ.
Metaphysical Classification: It can be confusing to discuss how the union in Christ is metaphysical. Metaphysics have two primary levels. Nature and hypostasis. In this context Person/hypostasis can be defined as a system of consciousness comprehending “greater connotation and lesser extension” than Nature. There are different levels of classification as Clark himself admits. The essence is at the level of necessary predication of a genus, and person/hypostasis is at the level of greater connotation and lesser extension. (The Trinity, by Gordon Clark, pg. 50. It’s on his section on Augustine about 4 pages in.)
Human Nature: Dr. Clark said in his The Biblical Doctrine of Man (The Trinity Foundation: Jefferson, Maryland, 1984),
“Realism of course asserts the real existence of the human genus. This is an idea in God’s mind and it is a real object of knowledge. But it is hard to imagine any Realist identifying the perfect eternal idea with a temporal and imperfect individual. The relationship of Adam to the Idea is precisely the same as the relationship of any other individual man to the Idea. The individuals ‘participate’ in or are all ‘patterned after’ the Idea; but the notion that one individual is ‘physically and numerically one’ with the Idea, or that any other individual is ‘physically and numerically one’ with Adam is enough to send poor Plato to his grave in despair. This misunderstanding of Realism vitiates much of Hodge’s argumentation.” (pg. 49)
From the Definition of Human Nature above it is important to consider the extent of the Incarnation. I affirm the same with Turretin when he comments on the relationship of the entire Trinity to the human nature of Christ. He denies that the entire Trinity became incarnate. The human nature is incarnate, “mediately and in the person of the Son…Thus the incarnation is a work not natural, but personal, terminating on the person, not on the nature.” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol 2.13 pg. 305) As Dr. Clark describes above in the definition of human nature, Adam was not physically and numerically one with the Idea of the human genus. Clark says, “But these indubitable truths do not justify an assertion of the numerical and physical unity of each human being with Adam.” (The Biblical Doctrine of Man, pg. 50) This is a denial of the Eastern view of the Incarnation which posits an infusion of life into the human genus as Christ Incarnates it and Redeems it. I affirm a particular and a temporal human nature to Christ whose actions are efficacious to the elect as a representative in a Covenant, not as an Ontological Identifier with the Human Genus. This is not to say that nature and hypostasis are really distinct as if they were two different things. If this were the case the Godhead would be a quaternity: 3 persons and 1 nature. The distinction between nature and hypostasis is logical or is a distinction in meaning. The human nature of Christ receives a hypostatization in union with the Logos. Normal human persons have their own human hypostasis but the human nature in Christ receives hypostatization in union with the Logos. You cannot think of the human nature outside of union with the Logos. The two minds of Jesus are two consciousnesses but the divine one is the hypostasis for the human. It is because of his two minds that Christ can be said to grow in wisdom and grace (Luk 2:52) and offer prayer to God in his time of need (Heb 5:7). Cheung says,
“Whereas the divine mind has complete control over the human mind, the human mind does not have free access to the divine mind, but it receives special information and capabilities only as granted by the divine mind.”
It is not as if the divine nature and hypostasis united to a human nature and hypostasis to create a third Christic nature. Therefore, my construction posits two natures in one person. This does not mean that two natures came together to create the person. It means that the Logos, the concreted Eternal Second Person of the Trinity assumed a human nature. So by “two natures in one person” this is not to mean that the human nature becomes divine nature or is somehow spatially brought into the Godhead, but as the human nature is hypostatized in the Logos it is in the Logos. Therefore, I affirm the traditional term “enhypostasis.” Some object that this is the famous third man fallacy. First, I am not saying that the Logos is the Idea that the human nature is patterned after. Second, there is no third man needed to explain how one mind is hypostatized by another because there are not two persons, or two men to begin with. The rational faculty is at the level of nature for the human aspect in Christ. The human receives a hypostatization in union with the Logos. Normal human persons have their own hypostatizations but the human nature in Christ receives hypostatization in union with the Logos. Again, I deny that the divine nature and hypostasis united to a human nature and hypostasis to create a third set.
Sure, all of us receive our hypostasis from the Logos in the sense that he created everything, but he gives me my own hypostasis. The union of the two natures does not form anything new. The Eternal Logos who has always existed becomes the person of his assumed human nature. There was no time before the human nature was that he was not incarnated or in union with the Logos. A rational faculty is not necessarily and logically a person, it must be hypostatized “before” it is a person. There is no chronological moment when a rational faculty has no hypostasis but logically speaking a rational faculty can be considered in the abstract. Just because different minds think the same thoughts does not mean that similar minds hypostatize each other. Each Person in the Trinity thinks the same essential propositions but are different persons. The thoughts that overlap in the Trinity reflect nature, not hypostasis as Clark makes very clear in his book on the Trinity. The Incarnation was not eternal. The “existence” of the human nature began 2011 years ago or so, and at no time either at the point of conception or after that was it not hypostatized by the Logos. At the point of conception and all throughout the everlasting future, there is only one subject of adoration and worship to the Logos, the Person of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. Only persons think, yet the person in question (Christ) has two minds personally united and the Logos is the person who thinks. And yes, it was the person of the Logos in his human mind that did not know when the last day was in Mat 24:36. This is not a paradox for in his divine mind he knows all things. What I am saying is that we can classify propositional thoughts according to what level they apply to. The difference between a normal human person and Christ is that in Christ, the rational faculty of the human nature has no human hypostasis but a divine hypostasis. According to Traducianism the human soul that was formed in the body of baby Jesus was of like character as ours. This does not mean that he was a human person. The human soul of Christ was at the moment of conception hypostaized by the Logos. Some may object, “How is a ‘system of consciousness’ different from a mind?” In some cases nothing. In the case of Christ, system refers to an “integrated whole.” Do two minds thus combine in Jesus to form a system of consciousness? I refuse to believe that Jesus was born a human person who after a period of time enters into union with the divine. Christ is conceived one theanthropic system of consciousness. This is not one theanthropic nature, but one theanthropic person. Therefore, the union is not accidental in the sense that the human cannot be thought of without union to the Logos. However, the union is not essential in the sense that the union is at the level of nature/essence. The union is at the level of hypostasis. I affirm this statement from The Council of Constantinople 553, The Capitula of the Council VII says,
“If anyone using the expression, “in two natures,” does not confess that our one Lord Jesus Christ has been revealed in the divinity and in the humanity, so as to designate by that expression a difference of the natures of which an ineffable union is unconfusedly made, [a union] in which neither the nature of the Word was changed into that of the flesh, nor that of the flesh into that of the Word, for each remained that it was by nature, the union being hypostatic; but shall take the expression with regard to the mystery of Christ in a sense so as to divide the parties, or recognising the two natures in the only Lord Jesus, God the Word made man, does not content himself with taking in a theoretical manner the difference of the natures which compose him, which difference is not destroyed by the union between them, for one is composed of the two and the two are in one, but shall make use of the number [two] to divide the natures or to make of them Persons properly so called: let him be anathema.”
I also affirm what Aquinas says in Summa Theologica Part Three, Incarnation, General, On the Union Itself, Article 2. Whether the union of Incarnate Word took place in the Person?
“to Objection 1. Although in God Nature and Person are not really distinct, yet they have distinct meanings, as was said above, inasmuch as person signifies after the manner of something subsisting. And because human nature is united to the Word, so that the Word subsists in it, and not so that His Nature receives therefrom any addition or change, it follows that the union of human nature to the Word of God took place in the person, and not in the nature.”
Therefore, in four points, Christ must be only one person because: 1.There are not two Messiahs. 2. Because the Covenant of Redemption has two parties not three. The party that agreed to the terms of this Covenant in Eternity is the same person who suffers. If he could not suffer in a human nature, he could not agree to the terms of this covenant. 3. A human person cannot bequeath the Righteousness of God. 4. Col 1:15-29 (vs. 22 “body of his flesh”, vs. 18 “firstborn from the dead”) and Eph 3:9 (By Jesus Christ) refer to the human nature of Christ creating the world. This must be the Logos not a created human person. The most powerful objection I had to this doctrine while studying it was the difficulty in understanding how a divine person could assume a human nature without change being predicate of him and therefore denying his eternality. The solution is seeing that the humanity connects at the level of person/hypostasis not at the level of nature as to assert a metamorphosis.
I was thinking through the implications of understanding person as consciousness and at the same time seeing only one person in Christ who has two minds wondering if I could ever present a good example of what I’m talking about when I remembered back in my teen years my obsession with Japanese Anime. The one that came to my mind was the well known Anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. In this multi-episode series mankind is being attacked by Angels who seek Adam, a proto-Angel at the center of the Earth that is now protected by the man-made underground military base Nerv. As their defense, mankind utilizes Angels of their own who are clones of this proto-Angel Adam. Armed with bio- mechanical armour and weaponry, human pilots control these angels through hypostatization of the Angel’s rational faculty. As the Angels exist in an impersonal comatose state they present for us a perfect example of a single agent who has hypostatized their impersonal/generic rational faculty and becomes now the sole agent of action and operation. Two natures, one person but two minds-one concrete; the other generic. As a side note let the reader observe how Shinji the primary Eva Pilot experiences the pain of the Eva nature even though his own nature is not being harmed at all. In this same way the Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal Son of God, Eternally Begotten of the Father with no capability of suffering in his divine nature suffered in and through a human nature. It was not as if only an abstract nature suffered but a divine person suffered in and through human nature. I found this example helpful after reading other examples using the Avatar movie. The Avatar movie is a poor example because it presents only a body with no rational faculty. The Avatar body has no rational faculty of its own through which man must synchronize or hypostatize. In this wise Neon Genesis Evangelion improves:
Video 1-See last 5 minutes:
| http://www.veoh.com/veohplayer.swf?permalinkId=v36981312fpJ7P2W&id=anonymous&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0 | |
| Neon Genesis Evangelion Ep 1 Eng Sub | |
Video 2 See first few minutes:
| http://www.veoh.com/veohplayer.swf?permalinkId=v3706174KcpPJbxN&id=anonymous&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0 | |
| Neon Genesis Evangelion Ep 2 Eng Sub | |
Video 3
Start at 17:00
| http://www.veoh.com/veohplayer.swf?permalinkId=v37061717Tf3W7eS&id=anonymous&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0 | |
| Neon Genesis Evangelion Ep 7 Eng Sub | |
Loftus boasted on page 78 that this could not be done. He has been refuted. Loftus next demands explanation of the atonement which will be given in my reply to Chapter 7.
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted and Scripturalism 6:15 am
Third reply to Chapter 2
First Reply to Chapter 3
Induction Link: http://isgodimaginary.com/forum/index.php/topic,50397.0.html
Alfred Russell Wallace Link: https://eternalpropositions.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/alfred-russell-wallace-the-apostate-heretic-of-the-atheist-establishment-an-embarrassing-figure-for-the-scientific-usurpation/
A Christian Challenge to Empirical Science; Ten Questions for a Secularist: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,21668.0.html
Evidence for the Nicene Christian God and the Divinity of the Bible; The Apologetics of Prophecy: http://isgodimaginary.com/forum/index.php/topic,50398.0.html
57 Theses Against Empericism: https://eternalpropositions.wordpress.com/57-theses-for-the-atheist/
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 6:22 am
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) Discourse 3.64-66
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.html
Separation of Church and State in George Gillespie’s Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, ed. Drake
http://olivianus.thekingsparlor.com/politics/separation-of-church-and-state-i…
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 2:47 am
1. What is your answer to the Pre-Socratic era of Greek Philosophy, and Zeno’s Paradox? Zeno of Elea (490-430 B.C.) brought the Pre Socratic era to a close with his devastating arguments against sensation, space and motion. First, was his famous Paradox. To be brief, Zeno’s argument, in essence, is that in order for Achilles to move from point A to point B he must come at least half the space. If so then he has to come at least a tenth; a hundredth; a millionth, etc. He must pass through an infinite number of points in a finite segment. Motion is therefore impossible and space is indefinable. (The essence of his argument is not a relation of motion to time but the impossibility of exhausting an infinite series. Neither is his argument that Achilles has to exhaust the series to the last point for there is no last point. Also, one cannot divide an infinite series. To do so one must assume that the object in motion stops in mid-motion to create a mid-point. The mid-point then is only potential and not actual. I admit that it is possible to exhaust an infinite series of potential points, but not actual points. Also, you cannot appeal to imaginary, indemonstrable units of measurement like Plank Units to answer this paradox.) In a further complaint against the concept of space, Zeno argued that if atoms and motion required space there must also be super-space for space to exist in and another super-space for that, ad infinitum. Zeno also refuted the idea of sensation in the Atomistic system which denied qualities to atoms. In an exposition of Zeno’s criticism of Democritus’ Atomism (Later to dominate the Scientific Revolution) Dr. Clark says,
“When an ocean wave ‘thunders’ against the rocks, no atom produces an audible sensation; but the wave is nothing but atoms; therefore, it produces no sound.” (Ancient Philosophy, 272)
This failure to construct a material/corporeal reality was the formal cause of the atheistic Sophist movement that immediately followed. Protagoras’ Man Measure Theory was the new fad and the idea of truth was buried as impossibility. If Zeno cannot be refuted, the entire Anti-Christian scientific secular enterprise is impossible to demonstrate and should be removed from the category of demonstration and kept in the category of operation.
The Christian answer to the Pre-Socratics is found in Saint Augustine’s Book Concerning the Teacher, where he admits the impossibility of empirical knowledge and asserts that knowledge comes from the Second Person of the Trinity (The Teacher): an immediate and uncreated revealed light.
2. How did science recover from the second refutation of atomism (Zeno produced the first) in the 1930s, namely the splitting of the atom? This question is by no means intended to question the existence of atoms. Atomism is a philosophy of reality developed early in Greek philosophy primarily by Democritus to buttress the possibility of corporeal unchanging objects of knowledge. If you want to say something that means the same thing 5 minutes after you say it you need something changeless through qualitative change. My question hits at science’s objects of knowledge. What are they now, post-split? The question has to do with the nature of reality and the objects of knowledge.
3. How can the planet earth qualify for the laws of physics since it is not in uniform motion?
4. How do you explain the universe? Dr. Clark in an exposition of Parmenides presents an ancient dilemma for all philosophies saying,
“Being cannot have originated or come into being. It cannot have come from non-being, for non-being never has existed for anything to come from it. Nor can Being have come from Being, for Being is Being without any coming. Therefore origination is impossible and Being is eternal, immutable, and changeless.” (Ancient Philosophy, 269)
The Christian answer is found in the Trinitarian debate with the Arians where Athanasius distinguishes between God’s nature and God’s will. How do you answer this?
5. How do you define sensation and show how sensation produces perception and abstract ideas?
6. What language should we use to talk about the material world? Mary Louise Gill refuted all attempts made to provide a theory of individuation in Aristotle (Making Logic [The Law of Contradiction] impossible; thus making language impossible.) in her article: “Individuals and Individuation in Aristotle” (Unity, Identity, and Explanation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).
i. If we take matter to be the principle of individuation how do we individuate one unit of matter from another? Some will say, “the spatio-temporal location”. Yet this is circular. How do we individuate spatio-temporal locations? By the matter contained in that space. So the matter is individuated by the space and the space by the matter.
ii. Some have tried to use matter and quantity as the principle of individuation. Gill replies, “this criterion will not work for identical twins, two drafts of water from the same fountain, or Max Black’s pair of spheres, which have qualitatively identical matter.” (pg. 62)
iii. Another attempt has made material continuity the principle of individuation. Gill speaks to this issue on page 66,
“If two statues of Socrates are made out of the same bronze at different times, the statues are distinct because the time during which the matter constitutes the two is interrupted. In the interval the bronze survives the destruction of the first statue and the generation of the second…If this is Aristotle’s answer to the puzzle about material migration, then continuity of matter is not sufficient even to account for weak individuation. Continuity of time is also required.”
iv. Some have tried to use form as the principle of individuation. Gill replies,
“But it is not very good evidence…Some defenders of the thesis will respond that the forms of Callias and Socrates differ because they are realized in different parcels of matter. But then form is not after all the principle of individuation, since the matter, rather than the form, differentiates the particulars.” (pg. 68-69)
7. How the philosophy of science known as Operationalism (My position as a Protestant Christian) would eliminate the possibility of utility in the different fields of science?
8. If all knowledge comes through sensation, and if behavior and genetic progression is caused by universal laws, why is it that humans (Whose sensory capacity is often inferior to other creatures) are the only species that has the rational capacity to have written language, grammar books, dictionaries and mathematics, etc.? This was the fundamental problem Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913 A.D.) faced. He was a British Naturalist who proposed the first theory of natural selection that Darwin, a colleague through correspondence, praised and used to promote his own theory of natural selection. In the year 1858, Wallace was thoroughly convinced of natural selection. In 1861 he wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, stating his utter disbelief in God and the soul stating they were not beliefs from “intelligent conviction”. However, Wallace began studying Spiritualism in 1865 and soon after rejected the theory of Natural Selection. Outside of the racist implications of the theory which Wallace was very troubled by, Wallace argued that natural selection could not explain a number of phenomenon in the world and Darwin was quite distressed by it.
9. Do you have a complete theory? Traditionally, human Philosophy is divided into 4 main heads: 1. Metaphysics (Theory of Reality-Includes the Philosophy of Science) 2. Epistemology (Theory of Knowledge- Includes the Philosophy of Language) 3. Ethics 4. Politics (Includes a Philosophy of History). As a Protestant Christian, with the writings of Early Greek Christian Fathers, Protestants like Gordon H. Clark, the Protestant Westminster Assembly (1640s) and the accompanying Political Revolutions that Presbyterianism produced (The exposing of the tyranny of Roman Catholicism [Which has again been openly vindicated by their cruel and unforgivable protection of child predators in America in the last 10-15 years], the refutation of the Divine Right of Kings, and the affirmation of representative rule: that rulers must have the consent of the people to rule lawfully through lawful elections-per Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex) I have a complete Philosophy to guide, protect, progress and unify a human civilization. Our country is fragmented into thousands of confused pieces. We live in a nation that has no clue what to believe and its politicians deceive the people as they argue over arbitrary tastes and opinions with no absolute objective standard of law (Protestant Absolutism) to appeal to. This has left the door wide open for the Roman Catholic Church (Tyrannical Absolutism) to once again gain influence in our country. This leads to my next question.
10. How you are going to unify the American people in an effort to remove the Roman Catholic Church from our country? The Roman Catholic Church with its Jesuit Assassins has been kicked out of dozens of countries in the past few centuries for political intrigue and attempts to overthrow these nations’ governments. They are doing the same thing again, as their Roman Catholic, once Professor at the Jesuit Georgetown University, Viet Diem wrote his tyrannical Patriot Act which was passed by that Papal coadjutor George W. Bush. This legislation basically overturns Basic Human Rights that have been acknowledged in both The United Kingdom and the US for over 300 years. Right before our war of Independence we had the Great Awakenings, which were Protestant Christian religious revivals. This was important to identify what King George was up to with his Papal coadjutating Intolerable Acts, which clearly revealed to colonialists (Now revived by Protestant principles) that he had been bought by Rome; especially his Quebec Act. Protestant revivals provided the unifying energy to overcome Roman Catholic tyranny over 200 years ago in our country. Do you seriously believe that Secularism is going to do this for our country? If you cannot provide a principle of unification for our country, you should again see how inhuman it is. How are you not taking us back to the dark ages? Also, if you take Bart Ehrman’s criticisms of the New Testament how is this not a complete denial of human literature and historiography in toto?
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 10:26 pm
Atheism and John Loftus Refuted 11:19 pm
In a recent post I asked John Loftus 8 simple questions:
1. Your answer to the Pre-Socratic era and Zeno’s paradox?
2. How science recovered from the second refutation of atomism in the 1930s, namely the splitting of the atom?
3. How the earth can qualify for the laws of physics since it is not in uniform motion?
4. How you get around the inconsistency of general relativity’s relationship to mechanics and electro magnetism?
5. How the philosophy of science known as operationalism would eliminate the possibility of utility in the different fields of science?
6. How you are going to unify the American people in an effort to remove the Roman Catholic Church from our country (assuming you are american)? If you can’t how are you not taking us back to pre-common era times? Also, if you take Bart Ehrman’s criticisms of the new testament how is this not a complete denial of human literature and historiography in toto?
7. How you explain the universe: Dr. Clark in an exposition of Parmenides presents an ancient dilemma for all philosophies saying,
“Being cannot have originated or come into being. It cannot have come from non-being, for non-being never has existed for anything to come from it. Nor can Being have come from Being, for Being is Being without any coming. Therefore origination is impossible and Being is eternal, immutable, and changeless.” (Ancient Philosophy, 269)
How do you answer this?
8. How do you define sensation and show how sensation produces perception and abstract ideas?
…Answer the questions John or stop posing like you are a truth seeker.
Loftus replied:
Drake, I can and I have
[citing his book Why I Became an Atheist]
It is you who are not interested in the truth.
[citing an article that had nothing to do with my questions]
I replied
So you are saying that your book Why I Became an Atheist answers my 8 questions? You have a section on Zeno, Parmenides, how the earth qualifies for the Laws of Physics, etc. or is this just another diversion from the questions?
“it is you who are not interested in the truth. See this:”
Not a single word about Zeno, not a single word about Parmenides or the Pre-Socratics or the Earth’s relationship to the Laws of Physics. You are avoiding the questions John.
Articulett (John Loftus’ right hand lady replied with her own list of questions dodging my questions completely to which I reply below BECAUSE AT THIS POINT MR. LOFTUS KICKED ME OFF HIS BLOG)
“1. Why do you have invisible penises growing out of your head?”
>>>Define invisible.
“2. What new and verifiable knowledge has theism ever lead to?”
>>>Define verifiable. The propositions of scripture are demonstratedlogically from the postulate: the canon of scripture. Euclidean demonstration.
“3. If there was no such thing as souls would you want to know?”
>>>To cognate without a soul would be meaningless thus your questions is as well.
“4. Why do you believe in certain invisible beings but not others?”
>>>Define invisible. I am not denying that there is vision but I just don’t know what it is amongst many attempts to find out.
“5. Why should anyone else?”
>>>Augustine answered why there are invisible realities (maybe not persons) in his debates with the skeptics. Augustinesays in Concerning the Teacher
3.10.22
“There are two statements made by the Academicians which we decided to argue against to the best of our ability. (a) nothing can be perceived; (b) one should not assent to anything.”
3.11.25
vs. 35 “Accordingly, prove that either this inference or those disjunctions given above can be false because of sleep, madness, or the unreliability of the senses! If I remember them when I wake up, I’ll admit that I’ve been beaten. I think it’s now sufficiently clear what falsehoods seem to be so through sleep and madness, namely, those that pertain to the bodily senses. For that three times three is nine and the square of rational numbers must be true, even if the human race be snoring away!”
3.13.29
vs. 10-15 “If there are four elements in the world, there are not five. If there is only one Sun, there are not two. The same soul can’t both die and be immortal. A man can’t be simultaneously happy and miserable. It isn’t the case here that the Sun is shining and that it is night….These and many other things, which would take too long to mention, I’ve learned to be true through dialectic. They are true in themselves regardless of what condition our senses are in.”
Here we have an admission that sensation does not give knowledge. However, the rational light of the apriori structures does. Again we have here the admission of logic (Tuth: Not verifiable by thesenses; whatever those are) as innate in men and an indisputable proof of the reality of truth.
“6. Why would a loving being create a place of infinite torment?”
>>>He’s not all loving. God also hates evil (Psalm 5) and has ultimately caused evil people to exist to glorify his justice in destroying them everlastingly.
“7. If god can just poof things into existence, why all the sex? Is he into cockroach sex? Clownfish hermaphroditism? Does he watch?”
>>>God likes intimacy. The Song of Solomon was written specifically to typify the intimate relationship between Christ and the Church.
“8. Is there any theistic explanation that can explain the world better than science explains it… for example why would an intelligent designer make a mutated vitamin C gene in apes and humans but not the other mammals?
>>>You have no explanation of the physical world and neither do I. Ecclesiastes 8:17 and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, “I know,” he cannot discover.
That is my point. You guys originally usurped Christianity during the Enlightenment with the theory of atomism, then your own people refuted the theory and now you are 80 years removed from a full refutation of your beliefs (Actually Zeno refuted it about 2400 years ago but this more fresh version leaves you even more without excuse) and it has yet to get into your head.
Second you are confusing the categories of operation and demonstration.
“9. How do you unbrainwash people who imagine they are saved for believing stupid things and damned for doubting them?”
>>>You beg the question.
“10. What do you do with people who imagine their loaded silly questions (that they don’t really want answered and are too stupid to understand the answer to) imply something about their 3-in-1 invisible zombie god being real?
>>>I love to read atheists resorting to insults when they have no answers.
“11. Why do theists think the creator of the universe wrote such a lame book?”
>>>The prophecies:
“12. What are the theistic answers to your questions?”
>>>Depends on what type you are talking about. #6 is answered by a return to Protestantism. #7 I answer here: https://eternalpropositions.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/making-sense-of-creation-from-what-fount-doth-creation-spring/
Augustinian Realism/Clarkian Scripturalism is based off none of these problems but proclaims a revealed knowledge and so we don’t need to answer many of these. Our doctrines are based off none of the problems involved.
“13. If people had real evidence for their supernatural beliefs wouldn’t they present that evidence so that scientists could test, refine, and hone that evidence for their own benefit instead of theists just playing endless word games that obfuscate the situation just enough for them to keep believing their sky fairy is really really real?”
>>>WE already have with the revealed prophecies. The best your people have done is say that the book of Daniel was written after the fact which many Church Fathers and Archer ripped to shreds already:
“14. Why should anyone not threatened by the fear of hell believe in your god (or any god)? What sort of god punishes people for not “believing in him” anyway? That sounds like a man-made god to me.
>>>The prophecies. A God who hates and punishes evil
“15. Why does god answer prayers identically to a milk jug?”
>>What?
The strange thing was, his forum was actually impressed by these replies. Unfortunately, John kicked me off the blog at this point. I don’t think people realize how much confidence they give me when they cannot answer my questions or arguments and resort to insults and/or kicking me off their blogs. This has happened numerous times with the Scholastic Deformed and now the atheists are doing it as well. Don’t they understand that this makes me even more Philosophically Bloodthirsty?
One gentleman was actually brave enough to answer the 8 questions:
“I asked 8 questions which you people cannot answer”
Well, some of your questions cannot be answered because they are semantic nonsense, the ones that are actually intelligible are leading questions that illustrate your abysmal understanding of physics.”
>>>I got them straight from the mouth of a popular secular Physicist Richard Wolfson.
“1. Your answer to the pre-socratic era and Zeno’s paradox?”
This questions makes as much sense as “How do you answer to the swinging sixties ?”
>>>Oh, I love it. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
“2. How science recovered from the second refutation of atomism in the 1930s, namely the splitting of the atom?”
=> What has been shown is that atoms are not fundamental particles, this does not disproof the notion that fundamental particles do exist. Maybe the current fundamental particles in the standard model of particle physics are actually composed out of smaller particles – but even if this is the case, why should we care ? The standard model of particle physics does describe reality to an amazing degree of accuracy (should the Higgs-Boson actually be found, this would be a spectacular validation of this model) and this (describing reality) is all that science cares about.”
>>> You didn’t understand the question. Atomism is a philosophy of reality developed early in Greek philosophy primarily by Democritus to buttress the possibility of unchanging objects of knowledge. If you want to say something that means the same thing 5 minutes after you say it you need something changeless through qualitative change. My question hits at science’s objects of knowledge. What are they now, post-split? My question had nothing to do with whether or not atoms exist now. The question has to do with the nature of reality and the objects of knowledge.
“3. How the earth can qualify for the laws of physics since it is not in uniform motion? ”
=> Again, grammatically correct but semantic nonsense. Were you homeshooled in physics ? Do you even know what uniform motion is?”
>>>Dude, I got the argument from Wolfson, a well known Secular Physics Professor. I am sure these issues are terrifying for you but OTF man OTF.
“4. How you get around the inconsistency of general relativity’s relationship to mechanics and electro magnetism? ”
=> I would guess that you are talking about quantum gravity here, but your question is far too vague to be certain (what “mechanics” and “inconsistencies” are you even talking about?)”
>>>Listen to the video man.
“5. How the philosophy of science known as operationalism would eliminate the possibility of utility in the different fields of science? ”
=> Grammatically correct, semantic nonsense.”
>>>Do you even know what operationalism is? Do you even understand the difference between an operation and a demonstration?
“6. How you are going to unify the American people in an effort to remove the Roman Catholic Church from our country (assuming you are american)?”
=> Who wants to do that ? Why would anyone want to do that ? And what the f*** does this have to do with anything ?”
>>>Read this: https://eternalpropositions.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/a-dynasty-of-intrigue-history-of-the-jesuits-and-rome/
“7. How you explain the universe: Dr. Clark in an exposition of Parmenides presents an ancient dilemma for all philosophies saying,”Being cannot have originated or come into being. It cannot have come from non-being, for non-being never has existed for anything to come from it. Nor can Being have come from Being, for Being is Being without any coming. Therefore origination is impossible and Being is eternal, immutable, and changeless.” (Ancient Philosophy, 269)How do you answer this?”
=> I´d answer that you can empirically show how “being” comes from “non-being”, check the wikipedia articles for “virtual particle” and the “Casimir effect”.
>>>You didn’t answer the question with either of these. The first begs the question entirely, the second is irrelevant.
“8. How do you define sensation and show how sensation produces perception and abstract ideas?”
=> Nobody knows, and since scientists do not yet perfectly understand how the brain works, this proves that science is completely worthless, right?”
>>>Wrong. You again confuse the categories of operation and demonstration.
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Anglo Judaizer 