Maybe Philosophical Theology Cannot Exist
0 Comments Published by Michael on Friday, December 15, 2006 at 8:37 AM.
Chad, I have to disagree with you on your last comment, but I am thinking that we might always have to disagree, not because we are both too staunchly entrenched in our positions, but because we are in effect speaking two different languages.
You are approaching the topic theologically, which is your prerogative, and I cannot fault you for that, but your stance presupposes the existence of something that philosophical discourse cannot. I am not saying that God, in some form or another cannot be said to exist, but not the God of Christianity exactly. To prove a god exists does not take as much of a logical-leap, at least for me, as proving that this same god is one as written in one book. Theology is a worthy branch of study, and I am certainly not discounting it, but one cannot engage in a philosophical investigation by referencing the Bible. It would be like trying to have a scientific discussion of gravity and someone counter-arguing with Peter Pan's ability to fly in the children's book.
Perhaps by mixing theology and philosophy in the original premise I confused the issue. The pastor referred to sin specifically, and so I lazily used the term, but I should probably have clarified my terms before supposing they would be used by all in the same way I was using it. By sin, I was referring to depravity and lawlessness against a prevailing moral order. One need not appeal to Christianity for a notion of sinfulness in this way. I am robbing a Christian term of its autonomy as Christian-term, and I am widening its perameters for the sake of argument; lazy perhaps, but I am going to keep it as opposed to saying, "deviation from a moral-order within a given community" everytime I want to express the notion of sin.
Sinfulness, in the context divorced of exclusively-Christian connotations, cannot then, it seems to me, be anything except an effect. Sinfulness would have to result from the activity of sin, and so it struck a chord within me to hear a baby called that which it could not possibly be. I realize the context of the comment. He was not wrong, because according to the set of parameters that the church operates within, that being Scriptural-authority, it makes perfect sense, but so too does it make sense to Trekkies that Scottie can beam Capt. Kirk from one galaxy to the next. Divorced from the context of the worldview it exists under, it does not (once again, in my opinion) add up.
I also realize that, according to worldview-rationality, no one can escape presuppositions. I have mine; they are more than likely painfully obvious, but one of them is that the world is created by a god in an ordered, logical fashion. I choose not to discount miracles, which makes me a borderline 'whacko' in any philosophical circles, but apart from the miraculous, existence appears to have been ordered in an, well, ordered fashion.
I am not attempting, with few exceptions, to pick a fight in my posting, but I am trying to point out what appear to be inconsistencies that are worthy of consideration within the faith of which I claim standing.
You are approaching the topic theologically, which is your prerogative, and I cannot fault you for that, but your stance presupposes the existence of something that philosophical discourse cannot. I am not saying that God, in some form or another cannot be said to exist, but not the God of Christianity exactly. To prove a god exists does not take as much of a logical-leap, at least for me, as proving that this same god is one as written in one book. Theology is a worthy branch of study, and I am certainly not discounting it, but one cannot engage in a philosophical investigation by referencing the Bible. It would be like trying to have a scientific discussion of gravity and someone counter-arguing with Peter Pan's ability to fly in the children's book.
Perhaps by mixing theology and philosophy in the original premise I confused the issue. The pastor referred to sin specifically, and so I lazily used the term, but I should probably have clarified my terms before supposing they would be used by all in the same way I was using it. By sin, I was referring to depravity and lawlessness against a prevailing moral order. One need not appeal to Christianity for a notion of sinfulness in this way. I am robbing a Christian term of its autonomy as Christian-term, and I am widening its perameters for the sake of argument; lazy perhaps, but I am going to keep it as opposed to saying, "deviation from a moral-order within a given community" everytime I want to express the notion of sin.
Sinfulness, in the context divorced of exclusively-Christian connotations, cannot then, it seems to me, be anything except an effect. Sinfulness would have to result from the activity of sin, and so it struck a chord within me to hear a baby called that which it could not possibly be. I realize the context of the comment. He was not wrong, because according to the set of parameters that the church operates within, that being Scriptural-authority, it makes perfect sense, but so too does it make sense to Trekkies that Scottie can beam Capt. Kirk from one galaxy to the next. Divorced from the context of the worldview it exists under, it does not (once again, in my opinion) add up.
I also realize that, according to worldview-rationality, no one can escape presuppositions. I have mine; they are more than likely painfully obvious, but one of them is that the world is created by a god in an ordered, logical fashion. I choose not to discount miracles, which makes me a borderline 'whacko' in any philosophical circles, but apart from the miraculous, existence appears to have been ordered in an, well, ordered fashion.
I am not attempting, with few exceptions, to pick a fight in my posting, but I am trying to point out what appear to be inconsistencies that are worthy of consideration within the faith of which I claim standing.
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