Coakley om Thomas’ fem veier

 

Introduction: Swinburne’s brave attempt to construct a ‘cumulative case’ for theism, via a re-working of the tradition arguments for God’s existence owes much of its apologetic force to its acceptance of a ‘secular’ mode of reasoning – a ‘scientific’ rationality based in statistical probability. But herein arguably also lies its seem in religious weakness: S’s God appears to be highly vulnerable to the Heideggerian critique of ‘onto-theology’. What are the alternatives, if the classical arguments are still to be taken seriously? Answer: There is also now a variety of ways of reading Thomas Aquinas’’s ‘Five Ways’ which have been devised to counteract the presumption that they must be based on, or effective only in relation to, some ‘secular’ form of rationality. This is a wrong-headed presumption, it is argued, given Thomas’s own understanding of what the arguments are meant to achieve within the life of faith. Note then the ambiguity of the term ‘natural theology’ that follows from this reconsideration.
Thesis: The historical background of Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris (1879), Puis X’s Anti-Modernist Oath (1910), and the rise of official RC ‘neo-scholasticism’, as promulgated in seminaries and official teachings up to the 1960s, present the backcloth to a subsequent reaction in Catholic thought against the idea of a deductive rational demonstration of God’s existence as a prolegomenon to a consideration of faith nd revelation. Yet note that that same ‘neo-scholasticism’ was itself a defensive reaction to the Kantian critique of speculative metaphysics. Under the influence of the Catholic movement known as ‘la nouvelle theology’, in contrast, Thoma’s Five Ways can be read as a confirmatory of an existing faith, rather than as an attempt to ground faith in a universal (secular) rationality. Or – contrariwise – it is possible to argue that reason can, after all, establish faith, but here we must understand ‘reason’ differently from the way the secular world does.
I Anthony Kenny’s attack on Thomas’:
He reads them out of the context and reads them as straightforwards versions of similar arguments in Aristoteles. Thus he can knock them off easily.
  1. The argument from motion is untenable in a post-einsteinan age
  2. The argument from efficient causation
    1. In the case of humans we are familiar with the idea that human ‘propel’ themselves. They are autonomous.
    2. In relation to non-human entities we can now say that the evolution theory deals with causal nexuses in the non-human world.
  3. The argument rom the idea of ultimate neccesity
    • It is question begging. Only someone who already looks for the idea of a God feels the need to ask for a primal necessity
  4. The beauty and the affection of natural world suggests a gradation with an ultimate ontological source
    • It’s only convincing if you are a platonist.
  5. The teleological argument
    • This also not needed if we don’t presume the need of a ultimate course. With Kant, we can account for the directness of the world by the directness of ourselves. We see teleology, because we add it in seeing.
Btw: Every day he, in the morning, says his prayers! As a Pascalian wager!
  • This interesting! For what should these thomistic arguments do? Shall it force you into belief? Or can we say that they already have had an effect on Kenny?
II But what does Thomas Aquinas himself intend to do with the arguments? Setting the Five Ways in the context of the Summa and of Aquinas’s lifetime.
What factors have Kenny not taking into account?
(a) The subtle relationship between faith and reason
From ST 1.a 1 Q8, r2
“But sacred doctrine makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end), but to make clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine. Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity.
Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable»
There’s no doubt in the beginning in summa that revelation is primary. It is not the case we all exists as secularized bodies that wip up some arguments and step into faith. Rather, we are most likely to drawn into faith, and then later on, the believer asks himself how to rationally explain his faith to non-believers.
(b) The existence-argument (Davies, p 31)
Davies thinks that Thomas appeals to an intuition – how is it that thinks just are? Not simply how did it all started, but rather, why is there something rather than nothing? And if there is something, how can it be sustained? This is the fundamental sensibility of the five ways.
If you are blind to that kind of sensibility you are not going to get thomas
(c) The apophatic aspect
The five ways basically lineate the ways God does not exists. For God is not an object (that is the problem for Swinburne).  There’s an infinite ontological difference between God and object.
(d) The primary of scripture
The section of the five ways come after the section where the authority of scripture has been said to be primary. We cannot get away from a certain circularity here. Of the hermeneutics of scripture and reasons job of explicating and explaining.
(e) The word ‘poof’ is used
But it is used in such a way to say that ‘and this is what everybody calls God’. A certain presumption of what God is has preceded the argument.
In sum
Thomas tries to go the way between fideism and the attempt to persuade someone completely outside the realm of religious sensibility.
Coakley thinks Gilson is the most reliable person to read when it comes to Thomas on reason and faith.
People like Fergus Kerr is in danger of sliding towards the nouvelle-theologie interpretation, the ‘Barthian’ interpretation of Thomas. Where the purpose of the arguments is just to protect God’s transcendence. Thats an overstatement. Likewise with John Milbank, he has no time at all for arguments for God’s existence.
III Two ways to re-construe the force of the arguments (in an implicit riposte to Kant’s dismissal of them): a. As confirmatory of the rational nature of faith, given an existing faith commitment; and b. as establishing faith, but not as ‘secular’ reason has it.
Coakley’s view: 
  • Return to a thomist view of relation between reason and faith is where the way forwards lies. Swinburne’s attempt doesn’t work, because it presupposes no faith at all. But the other view abandons apologetics totally.
  • About Denys Turner’s book:
    • He wants to defend the statements of the 1 Vatican council. But then he does some quick footwork, as he argues that because of the apophatic has to be balanced with the kataphascisim, we have to reexamine the very nature of reason. That reason when working according to the light of faith, is always in a process of transformation.
    • This blurs the line between reason and faith, though it is a diachronic blurring.
The status of today
Natural theology can do a variety of things
  1. It can attempt to start with secular science and reason. At the best it will end up with an probabilistic approach.
  2. It can use argument to bolster up faith. But faith precedes reason. (McCabe, Gilson etc)
  3. It can explore the tensions between rational argumentation and apophatic response. By considering whether reason itself must be reconstrued. Without throwing out rational demonstration (Turner)
  4. It can argue that as a very important demand of giving an account of the faith that is in them, one has a duty to set out arguments as clear as possible for people outside the church as well as within the church. With a clear understanding that it will never go all the way, but they can lead you to a point where you have to decide: Go to church or not? (Coakley)
«Natural theology is out of fashion. Don’t follow me! I’m swimming against the tide.» – Coakley

 

C11+-+10th+lecture+_2014_

Fremtiden

Det er litt mye som skjer for tiden, så det har blitt sparsomt med blogginnlegg. Men nå kan jeg i alle fall melde at jeg har fått plass på PhD her! Plassen er betinget på at jeg får en viss karakter på masteren min. Men veilederen min sa at jeg sannsynligvis kom til å gå veldig greit.

Da blir det altså 3-4 nye år her.

Å ikke finne løsningen

I går kveld hadde vi første møte med lesegruppen hvor vi leser Merleau-Ponty. De fleste der var PhD-studenter. Det var den mest sofistikerte samtalen jeg kan huske å ha vært med på. I den grad jeg var med på samtalen. Jeg kjente i de fleste der, men det var ikke alle jeg hadde vært i dyp teologisk diskusjon med. Flere av dem hadde en enorm kjennskap til filosofihistorien (Med detaljkunnskap om før-sokratiske filosofer!) og teologihistorien. Jeg følte meg dum. Men det var også veldig lærerikt!

Midt i samtalen satt vi litt fast da vi forsøkte å reflektere teologisk i dialog med M-P. En spurte: “Men hva er løsningen her?” Da svarte en annen: “Løsningen? Vi reflekterer ikke teologisk hvis vi leter etter løsningen.”

Noe å tenke på.

Coakley: Metaphysics 2


The copernican revolution: Acheiving a form of certainty which has all the desirable qualities of being a priori, but at the same time the qualities of being true of an outside world that is coming in.
 

Introduction: What is Kant’s overall ambition in the CPR? Preface to 2nd edition:

  1. To make metaphysics ‘scientific’ (through the account of the workings of the synthetic a priori)
  2. To avoid speculative ‘dogmatism’
  3. To resist sceptical empiricism (re God, self and the world)
  4. To deny knowledge [in the matters of God, freedom and immortality] in order to make room for faith.
    • We must rethink God, freedom etc in terms of the postulates of practical reason. When we understand how we have knowledge of empirical reality, we will se that we cannot know God, freedom and the soul, but we need them. They have the role of being regulative ideas.
    • Faith is not subjective of feeling-oriented. It is truly a rational undertaking.
Does he succeed?
 
Metaphysics redefined: Uncovers the condition for true knowledge of empirical reality
 
Thesis: Kant’s desire to chasten speculative metaphysical claims to theological ‘knowledge’, and to achieve a new ‘scientific’ metaphysics by an analysis of what makes knowledge of the empirical world possible, leads him to concentrate attention on the knowing subject and to posit ‘limit’s [Grenzen] to her knowledge. The epistemological aim is to conjoin realism and idealism in a new way that guarantees the possibility of such knowledge and routs both skepticism and dogmatism; the theological result is to place the key notions of ‘God’ and the ‘soul’ in a somewhat ambiguous status, albeit with an irreducible place for ‘faith’ guaranteed in the epistemological system.
 
Possible positive theological consequence: 
  1. Skepticism is left out, room for God etc found
  2. Leaves out dogmatism  (including church authority)
    • This is of major importance for Kant.
Or fatal?
  1. He has made the individual subject the decider of the position of God. And the position of God has been made secondary to epistemological concerns. Secularization of reason.
  2. Ecclesiastical and revelatory authority has been marginalized!
 
 
I. How can empirical realism and transcendental idealism be combined?
  • The role of the ‘synthetic a priori’ and the ‘categories’ in the Transcendental Deduction
The formal conditions of any cognizance 
Kant’s argument in the transcendental aesthetic is that one cannot have insight into empirical reality without us thinking it in spatio-temporal terms. He is rejecting two previous alternatives of space and time
  1. Newton: Space is out there
  2. Leibniz: Space and time are conceptual constructs
Because space and time is the condition for any intuition, our intuition of them has to be a priori. «space and time are thus pure intuitions that contain a priori the conditions of the possibility of objects as appearances»
Note: Space and time does not really guarantee knowledge.
The transcendental deduction of categories
The conditions under which we really know. How «subjective conditions of thinking should have objective validity»
Does the object make the representation possible, or the representation the object possible?
  • If it is the former, then knowledge can never be a priori
    • Problem: Then knowledge is not universal and certain
  • If it is the latter
    • The, since the representation does not produce its object as far as its existence is concerned, the representation is still determinant of the object a priori if it is possible through it alone to cognize something as an object.
He takes the categories from Aristotle, but adjusts it slightly:
  • Of Quantity
  • Of Quality
  • Of Relation
  • Of Modality
Note how ahistorical this epistemology it is: The moment one comes into this world one has all these categories.
Faculties of the mind/soul
  • Sense: Receive the stuff
  • Imagination: The mediating role: It is the bridge between sense and the application of the categories.
  • Apperception: How the mind is able to unify everything that is coming in. Here there is a ‘meness’, which is saying that I am having these experiences, not you. Almost a mysterious unifying capacity of the soul
Problems
(a) Pragramtist’s critique: It is a very weird stuff in between the inside and the outside, this gateway between the incoming material and my knowledge of it. Maybe this was an errant moment in philosophy, which we can do with out.  (G.E. Moore: I just know this is a hand)
(b) In order for us to know about the world, how can he know about this stuff that enables this knowledge, these posits? How does he know that? Is that legitimate?
(c) In order to do this, he has opened this humility, this distinction between the phenomena and the noumena. Is Kant positing a whole another world out there that we cannot know?
 Evernote Snapshot 20140121 120546_2 Evernote Snapshot 20140121 120546_3

Kremt.

Jeg hadde et innfall for noen dager siden. Innfallet fikk meg til å smile da jeg forsto at det hele var en meget ironisk situasjon. Situasjonen jeg snakker om er da jeg kom inn på biblioteket om morgenen. Over skulderen hang veska med macen min, og i hendene mine hadde jeg sju eller åtte bøker med teologisk litteratur. Nå falt øynene mine på en bok om den Hellige Ånd. Denne boken ga meg følgende innfall: Hadde det ikke vært kjekt å lese noe skikkelig teologi en gang?

Ironien, og derav smilet, kom selvsagt av at jeg ikke gjør stort annet enn å lese teologi. Men samtidig – og dette ga ironien en bismak – var dette mer enn et intellektuelt begjær. Det var ikke først og fremst denne lysten om å lese det du ikke leser akkurat nå; å ha det du ikke har. Ikke at jeg er fremmed for dette begjæret. Men nå handlet det om noe annet. Det var lysten etter å snakke om, i stedet for å snakke om å snakke om.

Jeg vet ikke om det finnes en diagnose for dette jeg førsøker å nærme meg her. Om jeg selv kan få besteme navnet på diagnosen, vil jeg både inkludere ordet ‘meta’ og ha en eller annen etymologisk kobling til Descartes.

Et annet symptom kom til syne forrige onsdag. Jeg satt i et seminar med en rekke velartikulerte og oppegående mennesker. Vi skulle studere Exodus 3. Moses, busken og navnet. Seminarserien handler om teologisk hermeneutikk. Målet for seminaret var å eksegere teksten teologisk, ikke først og fremst å snakke om metode. Resultatet ble jo selvsagt lesninger på mange forskjellige nivåer; overlappende, komplementære og motstridende måter å lese teksten på. Det føltes skittent. Jeg var utilpass. Som om vi snakket når vi burde ha vært stille. Et seminar om teologisk hermeneutikk? No problem! Et seminar hvor vi eksegerer? No way!

Jeg innrømmer det: Nyhetsverdien i denne bloggposten er riktignok ganske lav. Dette er slett ikke noe annet enn det enhver teologistudent føler i en bibelgruppe: Et tap av uskyldighet. Troath-clearing: Harkingen overtar: “Kremt. Det er jo klart at de fleste forskere vil nok ikke…” Men ikke misforstå. Det er ikke bibelproblematikken i seg selv jeg forsøker å nærme meg her.

Det er heller denne hangen til metode, til meta-prat. Selv om jeg selv kan være et ekstremt tilfelle av denne diagnosen, er det ingen tvil om at dette er et utbredt fenomen i moderne teologi. Så utbredt at systematikker som skrives i dag (hvis de skrives) alltid begynner med en nedlatende refleksjon over hvordan prologomena ble lengre og lengre i tidlig-moderne teologi. Deretter følger enten en fullstendig avvisning av refleksjon om metode (av Barthiansk art), eller så har hele systematikken blitt omgjort til en metodisk refleksjon. En eneste lang hostekule som produserer lite annet enn slim.

Nå er jeg ikke ukjent med de idehistoriske betingelsene for denne situasjonen. De filosofiske teoriene som en gang produserte dette endeløse problemet med fundamenter, metode og prolegomena har i dag blitt syndebukkene; objekter for lite annet enn avvisning. Sånn sett er diagnosen kanskje heller av psykologisk art. Det er den patologiske tilstanden hvor man følelsesmessig er satt tilbake 300 år. Ennå ikke kommet lengre enn Descartes. Selv om man erkjennelsesteoretisk vet at sånn er det ikke.

For min egen del, da, handler det kanskje ikke om å bli enda flinkere på å snakke om å snakke, men heller å snakke. For å avslutte dette, så kommer jeg med fire forslag til unge post-moderne teologer med urovekkende diagnoser. Disse er ikke så mye teoretiske, som praktiske:

1. Teologien dør når vi slutter å snakke, fordi teologi er en samtale. Første lov må derfor være å fortsette samtalen.

2. Meta-diskurs er viktig for teologien. Teologi er i seg selv en andre ordens diskurs: Man prater om hva kirken bør si. Men faren er om teologi bare blir tredje ordens diskurs, altså bare prat om hva en teolog skal si. Det er forskjellen på om teologen skal skrive bøker om Den Hellige Ånd i ny og ne eller bare publisere metodikk. Andre forslag er derfor: Prat om Den Hellige Ånd. Og Gud. Og hva kirken skal si om dette og hin.

3. Ikke la deg stoppe av begrunnelsens snare. Vi vet jo at det er alltid nok et “hvorfor?” bak et “hvorfor?”. Det betyr ikke at teologien må være irrasjonell eller oppspinn. Men all diskurs må, hvis det i hele tatt skal være diskurs, ta noen ting for gitte.

4. Definer det gitte ut i fra dine desiderata. Anta det du ønsker ønsker at teologien skal forholde seg til og se hva som skjer. Ta for eksempel for oss sårede lutheranere og vår bibelbruk. Vi satset (nesten) alt på Bibelen og tapte. Og nå finner vi oss paradoksalt ute av stand til til å bruke den. Men om vi ønsker å fortsette den teologiske diskursen må vi fortsatt bruke Bibelen. Som om vi vet hvordan. Det handler ikke så mye om å fake det, som en magefølelse om det dette skal funke på en måte, selv om vi egentlig helt vet hvordan.

Dette er selvsagt ikke rettningslinjer for hvordan man skal ‘bedrive’ teologi. Tenk heller på det som piller på blå resept.

Forelesning om Schleiermacher 1

I dag hadde ei vennine av meg en forelesning om Schleiermacher. Vi var en gjeng postgraduates som stakk innom som moralsk støtte (og ikke minst for å lære!). Til tross for at det var hennes første forelesning noen sinne, og at vi feiret bursdagen hennes på en pub i går kveld (med … tilstrekkelig menge alkohol), var det en veldig god forelesning. Det var for det meste kontekst, siden det var første forelesning, men en del av dette er nytt for meg også. Det er bra å lære litt mer om Schleiermacher utenom fordommene vi har arvet gjennom Barth.

—

Though a thoroughly a modern person, he appropriated the Platonic structure of dialogue and dialectic. As much as he was a man of church, he was also man of the separate state and society, and also an inspiring social reformer.
1. Karl Barth
«Schleiermachers Christ bears a striking resemblance to a cultivated modern Christian who knows how to deal liberally with educated people in any position.» The theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher
«Schleiermacher seems to not have seriously considered at all the meaning of the church’s dogma before replacing it with his own substitute.» Barth
  • Schleiermacher was too accommodating. Overemphasizing human reason, to the detriment of revelation.
  • Neglected the gospel.
2. Schleiermacher’s Lectures on Hermeneutics
«The goal of hermeneutics is understanding in the highest sense.. One has only understood what one has reconstructed in all its relationships and in its context. – To this also belongs understanding the writer better than he understands himself.» Hermeneutics and Criticism and Other Writings
  • The significance of a text cannot be reduced to its content, but must be situated in a context. The texts we read are entangled into a historical web of relationships.
3. Schleiermacher’s Historical Context
(a). French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars.
«I exult in war against the tyrant, which I now think is unavoidable». «One determination only I hold fast, and that is, to follow the fortunes of my immediate fatherland, Prussia, as long as it continues to exists … Should it entirely succumb, then I will, as long as it is feasible, seek the German fatherland wherever a Protestand can live, and a German governs»
  • In the Napoleonic wars he thus expressed his patriotism
Dilthey: «The philosophy of Kant can be whole understood without a closer engagement with his person and his life; Schleiermacher’s significance, his worldview and his works require a biographical portrayal for their thorough understanding»
(b) Early Experiences of Religion and Community
  • Reformed Tradition (Calvinisim)
    • Born into a family in the reformed tradition. His own father was a reformed chaplain in the Prussian army
  • Pietism
    • A protestant movement in the Lutheran tradition.
    • Moral praxis and focus on Scripture rather than intellectual focus. Anti-hierarchical.
    • The individualistic religiosity correlated with the individualism in general culture.
    • But the ability to live a good Christian life comes from faith, not from reason.
  • His schooling with the Moravian Brethren (Herrnhuter community (Jan Huuss)
    • Roots in the 14th century.
    • Universal education, liturgy in the language of the people, married priests.
    • In the 17th century, they were persecuted by catholics and made to go under ground. They settled in Prussia in the mid 18th century.
    • It was within the Marovian community that Schleiermacher was sent to begin his formal education. In a school for boys entering Christian ministry. They were ‘protected’ from the world outside. Pushed to dedicate themselves to a simple, devoted religious life, in communion with JC.
«Here it was [in the Marovian community] that for the first time I awoke to the consciousness of the relations of man to a higher world … Here it was that that mystic tendency developed itself, which has been of so much importance to me ,and has supported and carried me through all the storms of skepticism. Then it was only germinating, now it has reached its full development, and I may say, that after all that I have passed through, I have become a Herrhuter again, only of a higher order.»
(c) Schleiermacher’s religious doubt, and his disillusioned move from the Moravians, to the University of Halle.
He left the community because of doubt. The primary catalyst for doubt was philosophy. He joined a philosophy club in secret at the Marovian school. He was acquainted with new philosophy, like Kant, Herder and Lessing. Two semester of such philosophical engagement was enough for him to request the seminary, and leave to Halle instead.
So now, his religious feeling was being challenged by Lessing’s rationalistic argument.
His father granted him to leave. In his letters to his Father he wrote:
«I cannot believe that he who called himself the Son of Man was, the true eternal God; I cannot believe that his death was a vicarious atonement because he never expressly said so him self; and I cannot believe it to have been necessary, because God, who evidently did not create men for perfection, but for the pursuit of it, cannot possibly intend to punish them eternally because they have not attained it»
The life of faith and the life of philosophical reason was presented to him as two incompatible paths.
Faith as feeling (Gefül). A feeling of absolute dependence.
  • None of the qualities connoted by feeling is worrying for theologians. If we understand faith as feeling, then faith becomes fideism.
  • However, becoming familiar with his young crisis of faith may give us nuances.
(d) The Age of Enlightenment (Growth of confidence in human reason)
Later 17th century -> Mid 19th century.
«Englithenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity» – Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment?
– As Friedrich Schiller described it, alongside the Age of Enlightenment, and with rationalization, came a state of disenchantment (Entzauberung)
  • The sense that God was active in the world.
  • A way of describing the process of secularization.
 
(e) Kant
Critique of Reason: We are unable to prove the existence through recourse to rational enquiry.
Schleiermacher was obsessed with Kant’s thought. He wrote lots of essays on him. He was sharply critical of Kant. He did not agree with Kant’s focus on morality and the individuals power of judgment.
By the time Schleiermacher had regained his faith, he preached a Christocentric Christianity, focus on God’s love. He found none of these elements in Kant.
Like Kant opposed the trend of theology towards scientific methodology, so Schleiermacher followed.
(f) Romanticism (Erly German Romantic Movement 1797-1802)
(See Richard Crouter’s introduction)
Moved to Berlin in 1796. He met a group of men and women interested in art, poetry, ancient philosophy etc. It was during his period in Berlin and his familiarity with Schleger, that he translated the complete works of Plato.
This group prioritized love for the search for truth. They were not anti-enlightenment, but they provided a corrective of the self-sufficient man. Nature imparts itself to us and shocks us. Opposed the mechanical world picture, whereby it can be cut up, analyzed and used.
Nature is organic, living and impressive. This was also tied to the fact they were metaphysical realists. Spoke of reality as complex wholes whit purposes.
Whilst on the one hand, and individual feels active and self-sufficiency, at the same time the individual feels a passivity, a dependence on the universe.
Romanticism helped pull him through. During this time he published On Religion, a defense of religion.