El Sheddi

Every few months, the cat sheds. His fine and allergenic fur distributes itself lightly on the air, interactively through human contact, and by direct application to whatever he brushes and rubs himself against.

As I scritched him today, I wondered what it must feel like to be a miniature human flea on the skin of such a magnificent creature. Yes, true, there would be many such fleas, but there would also be many forces beyond our perception. And the cat, the golden master of our world, he would be El Sheddi, the Lord of Hosts to us.

El Sheddi, El Sheddi
Are you feeling well-feddi?
You're an orange stripey lord
Bright of eye and eighteen-clawed
El Sheddi, El Sheddi
Daytime sees you all-beddi
But at night you're roaming free
El Sheddi

Theogony

I'm not the first, certainly not the last, to say this: for a long time, people have had superheroes, subdivinities or divinities — the principalities and powers of the world, or the worlds.

What is always interesting is the kind of world that our choice of principalities and powers reflects. In a world where Newton is the Prophet, we look towards determinism in the physical and mystery in the metaphysical, but with one reflecting the other — for Sir Isaac was an alchemical theologian as well as a natural scientist. In a world where the Hulk can pound a Norse god into immobility on the floor of a penthouse in the sky, we bridge the two and conflate power with power, bia with kratos.

I watched The Avengers, Joss Whedon's masterpiece of modern kinematography, on the cusp of Saturday night and Sunday morning. There were gods of all kinds invoked and evoked, with even Death making an appearance (in a way) towards the very end. They create an uneasy balance throughout, although the movie is so much fun that you forget this. But my focus was almost completely on Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans.

Captain America highlights one problem of his eponymous state: he looks at the Norse gods as they bicker and fight, and his thought is that his own God is not like that. Then that thought too is gone, as he has to become the umpiring principality in a battle between Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark as technotitan of electronic wizardry, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as legend of thunder and lightning. Somewhere in the background, Loki (played to the backstabbing hilt by Tom Hiddleston) wearily ponders the kindergarten-style brawling (of the don't-take-my-stuff variety).

Principalities and powers, indeed. If my foreground eye was focussed on the good Captain, my dark-adapted background eye was focussed on those psychologically warped children of the Cold War, the Black Widow (Ms Scarlet, haha) and Hawkeye. They, like Steve Rogers, don't feel as if they were ever trained for theomachy — but where Captain America sucks it up and goes to war, they grit their teeth and make the little things count. After all, 'twas an apple that started the Trojan War, and an arrow that effectively forced it to its end.

I enjoyed myself. But I couldn't help thinking such thoughts as I wandered home in the night before dawn.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

"Vanity of vanity, all is vanity," saith the Preacher, king in Jerusalem. "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upwards." And much of this wisdom was the profit of painful years, for the Preacher pondered much, and the words of the wise are as goads.

I long ago figured out why religion is trouble. The stakes are very high. If religion describes reality ontologically, then disciplines like the sciences and mathematics, which limit their outcomes and scope of knowledge by their own rigour, cannot claim a monopoly on truth.

And yet, it is by their obvious stranglehold on description, manipulation, prediction and control of reality that science and mathematics have gained their hard-won prominence and domination over the souls of men. A scientific or mathematical theory, absent a 'falsifying dream' (as Hughes's Hawk Roosting has it), has great powers to describe, explain, or predict. It is on the basis of these powers that we are masters over reality as we know it.

But mastery over reality as we know it is never 100%. As the old school joke goes, "The more we know, the less we know we know." Science and mathematics are the guiding daimonia of technology and engineering, and humans will gladly forsake those daimonia for these material fruits of application.

That is why science as religion and mathematics as technology are uncomfortably true to life. No scientist knows anything except what he knows — this is the curse of the empirical and the rule of epistemology; no mathematician knows anything except by what he believes through the working of his rules — this is the curse of the logical and the rule of rationality.

It is only the religious who believe that not only do they not know, but that they cannot know, and what they cannot know is nevertheless of the greatest significance. And if they are right, the brightness of science and mathematics is like a light without lenses or augmentation; it is like using nothing but the visible spectrum and calling it 'diagnostic radiology'. In fact, it is worse; it is agnostic radiology.

This is why there are more and more people willing to blacken religion with the radiation of reason. It is the only way to preserve the new monopoly — by destroying the old one. But which one sees more? Which one is of greater value to humanity? Both might contend that they are the only truth. But the key question we have to ask is, "Can anything be supernatural and still be true?"

Paranoia. Theology.

Those two words are taken from a conversation in China Miéville's latest book, Kraken. They constitute one character's response to the question, "What is it you're doing?"

That question, in turn, is asked based on what the character appears to be doing, which is the application of a rather recondite 'reconstitutive intelligence', splicing together bits of information and memes into some sort of sensible structure. It sounds rather confusing, doesn't it?

But that is exactly what we do when we apply hermeneutic skills to a religious text. It is a kind of paranoia-driven desire to find meaning, under the assumption that there is a meaning to be found. We bend our apparently considerable intelligence (think of the thousands of scholars in many venerable religious traditions, obviously somewhat talented in the cognitive department, many of whom also with talents outside and apart from theology) to the manufacture of sense from what ought not, by the terms of the world, to make sense.

The texts themselves contain lines about how the supernatural authority or enlightened person behind them is impossible to comprehend for most (or all) mortals, and yet also that the text is from this being's deepest thoughts. Logically, then, most if not all of the text should be incomprehensible to the rest of us.

And yet, our fundamental assumption is that meaning can be gleaned through the simple application of some commonsensical skills and heuristics. Why is that so? Why should we assume this?

If the supernatural source supposedly has made the incomprehensible comprehensible, then it has diminished its own authority; it has 'dumbed down' the ineffable and unknowable. Most texts therefore strike a balance between what is obvious and what is mysterious.

It is a balance, however, that most people don't seem to think about very much. Either blood is symbolic or it is actual; it cannot be both and it cannot be neither and it cannot be part one and part the other. Either birds are birds or they represent the devil or the temptation of mankind or the salvation thereof. And so on.

We twist ourselves up in knots by attempting to fix meaning in things which shouldn't be fixed in meaning or cannot be fixed in meaning. When Jesus explains a parable, that's fine — it's his right, since he is divine. When we explain a parable that has no stated meaning, how do we know we are right?

Ockhamite Monotheism, or Why I Am A Monotheist

In a frequently-read previous post, I established a simple argument for why I am not an atheist given my beliefs. It isn't a new argument, but it's one that is supported by the converse reasoning of Joel Marks.

His side, of course, is that since God doesn't exist, he should be amoral. It is the same argument, but with a different choice — in my previous post, I said that since I would like to believe in morality, at least one god must exist.

To take that idea one step further, I call upon my interlocutors once again. Most of the friendly discussions I've had with the non-religious, agnostic, or atheistic people I know invoke William of Ockham. That worthy's philosophical principle of reductionism, also known as Ockham's Razor, insists that we should not accept plurality where a reduced set is possible, or that we should not multiply entities beyond necessity. It is a principle used by scientists ever since Newton started pretending to be one.

While it is not necessarily axiomatic, consistent application of Ockham's Razor shows better results in most domains. Hence, if one is going to be a theist, then one should be a monotheist, since any system invoking gods is probably best with one God. The only flaw is that human god-systems tend to be unimaginative — they mostly posit contradictory gods and powers (hence the theomachies and titanomachies of mythology) without allowing for a God capable of complex thinking, behaviour and exercise of will. That's because it seems easier to have gods handle separate domains, something like a celestial bureaucracy or equivalent.

Indirectly, this assumes that consistency must be a virtue derived from perfection, with the ultimate consistency being complete homogeneity. An inconsistent God would, by this argument, have to be more than one god.

Such an assumption seems spurious, since a perfect God or a perfect universe would then be a singularity. This in turn would conflict with other concepts of perfection (such as the idea that a being with the property of existence is of a higher order of perfection than one that doesn't exist, non-existence implying imperfection). It would also conflict with the idea that a god must exert powers, since there would be no differential across which to demonstrate any properties whatsoever, let alone powers.

The point really is that no matter what philosophical and theological convolutions we go through, if we want to be theists, it makes most sense to be monotheists. And creative ones at that.

The Attributes of God

We learnt, in the old days, of Mass and Distance, Duration and Energy; we learnt of the Fluid Electric and the Power Dynamic. These we learnt were the fibres and the sinews of the universe, the impulses and the machinery. And if there was a God, He had to be beyond all these things.

So as we learnt more and more, the boundary seemed further and further, our horizon wider and wider. And still we said, if there is a God, He has to be beyond all these things. Which seemed to us that, if true, it meant that God was further and further away, and had less and less space.

For we filled all the space of our thought with names and named things, and if what we named was not God, then why, of course, there was always 'beyond' for God to be in. This was when we were young and foolish; we thought of our powers to name and to identify as great powers and mighty.

But what we failed to see was that we could name every molecule in our little puddle (and for every 18 grams of it, there were 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or so) such molecules) and give names to every possible interaction between each one (and of those there were many more) — and this was not yet wisdom, nor power, nor majesty. For being part of a puddle, and knowing about water, and each molecule, and on our scale, the differences between them (for no two molecules can be the same, according to the High Priests of the Quantum) and what they did — these were nothing compared to the greater molecules beyond, and beyond, and beyond.

And still, we said, well, God is not a water molecule, and we can see all that is, it is all water molecules, and perhaps, the forces of van der Waals, the temporary loves and hates of evanescent dipoles, and above all, hydrogen bonding — and within all, covalent bonding, and around all, perhaps gravity. So God, if there is God, is beyond that.

One day, another puddle was consumed by fervent heat, and its elements laid bare. And in that one blinding moment, we realised that there was oxygen, and hydrogen, and smaller things than that, including a binding energy that we could not have known. And all these things we tried to name, even as the names sublimed in the radiance of the final moment. This fascinated us.

Yet another puddle was consumed by a plant, and photosynthesis occurred in the sunlight and carbon was added to the vocabulary. But though there were also magnesium and nitrogen and phosphorus and many other elements, the new universe of carbohydrates did not see them, and rejected them. We were quite sure that such things must exist, but they were beyond our experience, and we saw them not, and wondered at shadows.

=====

The man sipped his black, black coffee. He wondered what they would think, if there were minds dwelling on the surface of water molecules, and a molecule of 2,4,6-trimethylxanthine hove into view. He wondered what they would think of his spoon, unused, if he were to plunge it into the atrament. They would probably understand sugar, and not like it much, he decided.

He blew across the face of the hot, hot coffee. And he had compassion upon them.

But no, he was not yet God, although very soon, the coffee would make its way through the marvellously complex world of his biochemistry.

Talking of Hawking

Tonight, I am in a somewhat Shakespearean mood:

KING HENRY VI
Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!
GLOUCESTER
Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.

(From Henry VI Part II, Act 2 Scene 1, a rather apposite passage.)

The discussion on this page has been on my old neighbour's somewhat indiscreet (perhaps deliberately so?) comment on the necessity of God as far as the existence of this universe is concerned. The comments in particular are amusing grist for the student of epistemology. Some outright howlers have been perpetrated, along with ancient chestnuts so hoary as to be dangerous conkers.

Take for example the following supposedly logical argument for the danger of being a theist, presented by a commenter called 'Natman':

1. If you believe in a single God, you will have to choose one out of infinite possible varieties.
   
2. If any percent of the possible gods will punish you eternally, then there are an infinite number of hypothetical gods who, if they exist, would punish you for eternity.
   
3. If there is only one god, then your chance of worshipping it, and not a nonexistent entity instead, is one out of infinity.
   
4. Therefore you will almost surely fail to pick up the correct "One True God".
   
5. So if a god does exist, the chance of you going to any variety of heaven is infinitesimal, regardless of whether you are religious or not.
   

What do you think of this reasoning? Personally, I think that my argument for not being an atheist is better, and certainly more entertaining. In my next post, I will probably discuss why I find Natman's 'logic' so funny, and will link that to why 'integrated programmes' are also very amusing. Cheers!

=====

Update: I've put some responses to Natman's argument in the comments section. Those are better there than in a separate post of their own.

The Ten Not-Commandments

Occasionally I think about the vast body of myth and legend that accretes on top of other stuff, like the layers of an ever-increasing pearl. Ever since the time the Israelites wandered in the desert, the story has been retold in Sunday schools an youth fellowships until what is 'known' bears no resemblance to the original text. Bear in mind that modern English chapters and verses have little relation to the original textual divisions, which were generally found in continuous scrolls.

In Exodus 20, God tells Moses a few things. He starts by making a few general statements, which have for some reason been elevated to commandments. They are actually a preamble to a legal contract, and are found in Exodus 20:2-17.

Thus, a good reading of the material that follows will clearly demonstrate that Exodus 20:22-26 amplifies and clarifies Exodus 20:2-7, about what exactly constitutes the authority and status of the first party in this contract. This form is repeated; in Exodus 21-23, amplification and detail are added. People who don't read this don't get it.

That's why people misinterpret Exodus 20:12, for example. The verse reads, "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." It is meant to be clarified by Exodus 21:15,17: "And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death... And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." Obviously, if you do either of these two things, that is what constitutes actively dishonouring your parents, and your days will therefore be short.

The same is true for Exodus 20:13, the much-misunderstood "Thou shalt not kill." This is used as a prime directive, without differentiation, by a lot of bad readers of the Bible. However, this is clarified in Exodus 21:12-22:2; these verses clearly distinguish between murder and accidental killing — for example, if a man 'lies in wait' for another and then kills him, that's murder. It even talks about death resulting from accidental causes and under what circumstances a man can be held reliable — if an ox gores a person to death, then the ox will be stoned to death, but if the ox had a previous history of aggression, then the owner will also be put to death. Similarly, kidnappers and slavers (21:16), and thieves who break and enter (22:2), can be put to death. A person who has read these verses would not be such a sloppy handler of 'Thou shalt not kill' since the subsequent chapters make it obvious how that verse should be interpreted.

The last example I'll give is Exodus 20:15, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." This has nothing to do with lying in general and everything to do with perversion of justice, as Exodus 23:1-9 makes clear: "Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment: Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause."

That last line means that you should not let someone off just because he is poor, and sounds terribly unjust to the modern ear. However, reading the rest of it shows that the burden is placed primarily on the landowners and owners of animals. And verse 8 is an explicit injunction not to take bribes.

All in all, anyone who thinks that a moral code is based primarily on something called the Ten Commandments is not making sense. It is quite clear that the Ten Commandments are not the be-all and end-all of the Mosaic covenant; they are only a preamble, a list of key points, a sort of introductory PowerPoint slide, to be elaborated upon at length and not to be treated as the main presentation.

It is also clear that Moses broke the tablets of the law (Exodus 32:19) with only Joshua as a witness to this perfidy, and then proceeded to kill 3000 Israelites without God telling him to do so (read Exodus 32:14-28). It was one of many sins of anger that Moses perpetrated, but which God forgave.

Perhaps it's a good thing for professing Christians to read more carefully the entire burden of their scriptural heritage before engaging in unedifying arguments about all kinds of strange things.

Philosophy and the Problem of Computers

The philosopher Gordon Clark once said, "If a truth, a proposition, or a thought were some physical motion in the brain, no two persons could have the same thought. A physical motion is a fleeting event numerically distinct from every other. Two persons cannot have the same motion, nor can one person have it twice. If this is what thought were, memory and communication would be impossible…It is a peculiarity of mind and not of body that the past can be made present. Accordingly, if one may thing the same thought twice, truth must be mental or spiritual. Not only does [truth] defy time; it defies space as well, for if communication is to be possible, the identical truth must be in two minds at once. If, in opposition, anyone wished to deny that an immaterial idea can exist in two minds at once, his denial must be conceived to exist in his own mind only; and since it has not registered in any other mind, it does not occur to us to refute it."

But every single one of his assertions is nullified by the existence of computers. Two computers can indeed have the same thought, or one so similar in each machine that it defies differentiation to all intents and purposes. Two computers can have the same motion, and each of them can replicate that state indefinitely. Memory and communication obviously remain possible, as do immaterial ideas that exist in two (or more) minds at once. In fact, this post, if considered an immaterial idea, will soon register on many different servers in many different places, all at once.

The Clark quotation can be found in Ronald Nash's 1994 book, Faith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith, in which Nash states a six-point defence of truth. A quick reading of this tome, followed by a quick re-reading of other related issues, convinces me that almost all philosophers have a blind spot which has to do with their audience. Essentially, philosophers are writing for a human audience, and so their thoughts are limited to what humans can understand, evaluate, or otherwise process. This can still be pretty strong, sometimes, since you can convert many such arguments into symbols and have a computer evaluate them.

The problems begin to surface when you substitute the implicit or explicit human audience with an audience of computers. You might not be able to duplicate, clone, or replace chunks of memory perfectly in a human — but you can do this with computers. In theory (well, information theory, anyway), you can do many more things with computers reliably than with humans, when it comes to information. The only escape is to assert that a computer doesn't think and hence cannot be used to answer philosophical questions about mind and God, while asserting that this 'idiot-savant non-thinking data-processing' ability is different for humans.

That, however, is a point not of philosophy, but of faith. I have no problem thinking of this as an article of faith, but I think it is dishonest to sell it as a premise on which to base rigorous systems of philosophy.

Sound Bites

I remember that when I was very young, my father taught me some mnemonics which seared their tattoos into my brain. One interesting mnemonic involved Jesus' debate opponents, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

My father said that the Pharisees were Fair-I-See — in Matthew 23:27, the Bible records that Jesus said, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." They appeared fair on the outside, defenders of the law, very meticulous about practices and customs, but not at all like that on the inside.

He said that the Sadducees were Sad-U-See — in all three of the synoptic gospels, they are described as people who deny the concept of resurrection, and hence believed that in death, all go down to Sheol forever. In fact, they were complete materialists; the book of Acts tells us that they did not believe in supernatural agents or agencies.

For Christians, these two errors are pretty serious. The first is to adhere to the form, but not the substance; the second is to deny that there is a spiritual destiny at all. I've succumbed to both at various times in my life, and I suspect that there might yet be times of drought.

Transdarwinian

In the last couple of decades, the determinists have hit the wall of reality while the atheists have been pushed to another wall by a tide of relentlessly unmindful religionists. The world is turning like Dorothy's house on a whirlwind simply because some people don't know where to stop.

For a start, I say to Christians (who the bulk of the relentlessly unmindful seem to be), "Have you considered what actually is necessary for salvation? Does it include the ideas that the Bible is a science manual and that Man is unable to write a Bible with errors in it? For if so, none are saved since those two points have been clearly and decisively disproved."

But in the humility of my own mind, knowing that I am all too fallible and human and prone to error of all kinds, I think of what might have been. I look at what the Bible says. And I look at what kinds of expression humans typically use. And I look at what we seem to see of history. And maybe...

Two hundred thousand years ago, God (in whose image man the scientist — as well as man the artist — was made) raised one particular kind of animal upright in the plains of Africa. For thousands of years, this animal had been viable, intelligent, but not going anywhere fast. And that is the message of Genesis 1, for it is clear that when God speaks, He speaks to an entire race of humans, male and female, and then He rests. They filled their African world, a world where no less than a dozen different population clusters of breathtaking genetic diversity could be found. This took 130,000 years.

Seventy thousand years ago, God inspired man. For some reason, the mind of man opened, as did the geography of man, and man exploded from Africa. But it was a slow and odd migration, for crossing the centre of the world (where Africa meets Eurasia) and then filling the rest of it with loose groups of random humans, took 60,000 years. And then man decided to build permanent settlements in Eden, where God had finally placed him — for that is what history tells us.

And somewhere around 6000 BC, where recorded history first begins in written language, the second narrative of Genesis has begun. For there are two creation stories in the first three chapters of that book, and one question has always been, why two? And perhaps the first is the story of Man the organism, while the second is the story of Man the inspired. Where inspiration arises, choice follows, and where choice appears, change will come.

Genesis 4 tells us that Cain, the farmer who founded a city killed his brother Abel the nomadic herder. It might have been literal, but it is certainly historical in vision. For the third son of Adam was Seth, and in his time, men adopted organised religion. There is no way to prove that any of these people existed, but history tells us that the kinds of people they represent did indeed arise in that order.

Who knows the mind of God? We see in part, as if through a glass darkly; we know in part and think in pieces. And we don't have all the pieces, and never will have, till time ends.

There is a strange world out there, with mysteries which we know because of our science and our reasoning will not be solved. The narratives we spin and contest may incite fear and division, or inspire great feats of achievement, or may have no meaning at all. But one thing is for sure — Christians spend too much time contesting the little firefights and not looking at the prize they claim to be aiming for. You don't need to fight science to be holy.

The Tax-Collector's Gospel

It is some accident of history, if such are the narratives you believe in, that the first gospel of Jesus Christ is the one attributed to one Matthew, a tax-collector by profession. About thirteen years ago, I remember preaching about what this Matthew said about what his master said not. Here is what I found when I was reading up for it:

By taking a quick look at the verses which are designated to be Matthew 5:17, 9:13, 10:34, and 20:28, we learn that Jesus’ own words tell us about why He did not come, before he tells us why He did.

• “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”
• “But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
• “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
• “...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

If you read these lines, and the context in which Matthew embedded them, the conclusion is inescapable. The Jesus many Christians think about is not the Jesus that the Christian Bible actually says he is. You have to tread very carefully indeed, to avoid the many traps that a person might fall into while making odd claims about Jesus.

For Matthew was a tax-collector, a professional at the art of extracting coinage from those who sought to hide it. He knew what words meant, and kept his meaning plain. If you trust the integrity of his text, you should read Matthew 10 before you talk about the Great Commission (a phrase not found in the original text) or anything else which might stir you to action in the world around you.

Thirteen years later, I have to remind myself about such things again.

Consistency and Logic

Ah well, here I go rehashing old points again...

The thing about logic is that it doesn't indicate what's right or wrong. Rather, a body of logic is consistent or inconsistent; if inconsistent, it leads to contradiction or paradox. A body of knowledge is information held together by logic; if the knowledge is inconsistent with itself, it will likewise be self-contradictory or paradoxical.

However, as in all human domains of knowledge, there are areas which can be flagged as 'unknown' or 'insufficient data'. In some domains, such as those called 'science', we build an edifice that is consistent with everything we think we know, and if that doesn't work, we change the edifice to fit. (Note that 'edifice' roughly means 'thing used to edify', just as 'sacrifice' roughly means 'thing used to make sacred'.)

The only difference between good theology and good science is that theology makes axiomatic the idea of a non-human superior intelligence that is dominant in the universe. This intelligence is not provable within the logic of science, and hence not testable.

A scientist who says he doesn't accept theology is in roughly the same position as a physicist who doesn't accept that life exists — physics doesn't 'do' life and there is no way to use physics to define life or prove it exists because life-proving stuff is not built into physics just as theology isn't built into modern science. It's as simple as that.

Catalysis

I look at him and he looks at me. There is always something lazy there, which binds curiosity with disdain. On one hand, the cat contemplates me with a certain mild wonder as to whether I might indeed be coming by with food, a back-scratch or some other companionable activity; on the other hand, that lazy looks says, "I might care, or I might not; and in the end, it is all one."

I think of cats, and I think of God. With all the running around and theological infighting and heresies, heterodoxies, 'ways to God' or 'ways to Hell', theisms, atheisms and other God-related isms, it is all too likely that He, at the very instant of creation (or is it 'at every instant of creation'?) has decided that the the price of free will is worth the near-unbearable egocentrism of the human condition — just as we too have learnt to deal with the near-unbearable egocentrism of the feline condition.

I look at the cat: I, his nominal master. His entire existence is below the radar. I have no idea what he thinks and yet I think that God knows everything I think. The cat has his own anthropology, but what it is, we do not know. It might not even exist. In that sense, our forbearance of the cat is rooted in our ignorance. But God, ah, God is a different matter; His forbearance is rooted in the fact that we think He forbears.

In fact, we know less of God and His mysterious ways than the cat knows of us. His motives are arbitrary, as befits the Arbiter of All Creation. His ways are not our ways, and as the Bible shows us again and again, He is perfectly willing to let us be deceived while not being the immediate origin of deception. Most times, we deceive ourselves or each other. All times, we are fools.

I look at the cat. He is not now looking at me, but is flumphed across his cushion in the sun. And I laugh.

Disaster Philosophy

Suppose a natural disaster occurs, and thousands of people are instantly rendered homeless, hurt, horrified. Some are beyond that. Then an atheist says, "These people need help."

Why is this so? From what first principles is this derived?

Perhaps it's the principle of empathy. "You can imagine yourself in their position, so you should help." But this is a position based on an imaginary situation, one that not only does not exist, but which you are deliberately imagining in order to rationalise your behaviour.

Perhaps it's the principle of equivalence. "Something like this might happen to you, and when it happens (if it happens), you would be glad for others to help you." But this is a position based on a hypothetical situation, one that does not exist and one which you imagine might exist because you hope that it is true. This one's more serious, with two possible replies. Firstly, people will help you anyway, because people help people they don't know — this is an empirical finding. Secondly, this is a bad justification for helping others; it's like pretending there's a heaven so that people will behave themselves on earth.

Perhaps it's the principle of emotion. "Oh, that's a bad thing! Here, have some money. Now I feel good." Ah, this one doesn't deserve comment. Doing things so that you feel good? Isn't that hedonism of some sort, thinly disguised?

Perhaps it's the principle of economics. "If I help people, then the nett economic power of the world increases and everyone's life gets better." Sounds plausible. But can you prove it?

Actually, the more you think about it, the more you realise that the rational atheist has no real reasons to help anybody.

But what about the rational Christian? The Christian is told essentially that he should help others because he is saved for no particular reason, and this point is rubbed in so that nobody can boast about being saved. Get this: you don't deserve it, so you should be happy with what you have — and you should help others whether or not you think they deserve it, and especially if you don't think they deserve it, because you were helped when you didn't deserve it.

It's a strangely compelling argument. It turns all the other arguments on their head. It's a WINNER.

There's No Logical Proof of God

There are a few ways we can show this. Here's the most basic:

If a system of logic is created that does not have the existence of God as an axiom, it cannot show that God exists. This is because by definition, God is of an order of complexity beyond other axioms (else He would be subject to, and limited by, such axioms). If a system of logic is created that has the existence of God as an axiom, it cannot show that God exists either, since that existence is treated as axiomatic and hence not to be proven. If we use any kind of reasoning in which X and not-X covers all the possibilities (principle of bivalence), then God cannot be shown to exist by logic.

Here's a theological proof:

If God requires belief, then that belief must be volitional (free-willed). Otherwise, it has no significance. Therefore God cannot present a complete proof of His existence, because if such were to exist, then the option to not believe would be irrational. That would mean that belief would be the only rational choice, thus removing the option of free-willed rational belief. This also means that if anyone tells you that they can prove the existence of God, they are either lying, or they are advancing an argument that is sufficient for them to believe but does not necessarily compel belief in anyone else.

That said, I believe I have good grounds for belief in God, and I am not ashamed to say that I can give a good account of my faith.

Worthless?

Today's post was triggered by something somebody said about how worship comes with a sense of one's personal unworthiness. I think that's partly justifiable; after all, you are indeed facing the Infinite and Eternal — compared to such things, you might feel finite and timebound. But further examination proves that the position of unworthiness is philosophically and theologically untenable beyond certain limits.

Let's begin with some simple assumptions. Let's say you are conscious that God is infinitely greater than you, and not bound by time, space or any physical limitation. This makes you feel infinitely small. I would say that you have a perception problem. Why? How on earth are you perceiving (or conceptualising) infinity (whether infinitely great or small)? The Good Book says that God has set the idea of the infinite universe in the hearts of men (see Ecclesiastes 3:11). If this is true (I am assuming you must believe it is so), then you have a piece of that infinity and eternity in you. You are only a smaller infinity, a kind of aleph-null (for the mathematically inclined, look here).

You cannot therefore be thinking of yourself as worthless, only less worthy than you think you ought to be.

But that's wrong too.

Let's go to another assumption. The standard of 'worth' must be external to the things being assigned a value of 'worth', or else it can't be used as a benchmark. God must be the source of this standard, or else 'worthiness' with respect to God is a useless measure. So either you are not worthy enough (according to God), in which case you can't even aspire to come before Him or worship Him or even interact in any other way with Him; or you are worthy enough — and it's not because of you, but because He has assigned you a sufficient value of 'worth' so that you may approach Him.

You cannot therefore be too unworthy, and to think you are is actually some sort of negative pride or false humility (or humility based on false assumptions).

There are hymns with lines like, "I, though so unworthy, still am a child of His care..." and those have quite another meaning. It means that you are indeed unworthy of your own merit, but you are thankful that he has assigned you sufficient merit to be worthy of grace.

But what is the textual evidence for all this? Many Christians think that philosophy is the next worst thing to sorcery, and the textual evidence for it is that human philosophy (the philosophy of men, human philosophers, the philosophy of the world etc) is quite soundly rejected as long as the basis does not accept the major premise. That major premise is of course that God exists and interacts with us, and St Paul, for example, uses philosophy based on this premise quite shamelessly and extensively (his own words, not mine).

So let's look at the text. From searching the Good Book in its many versions, I have yet to see a human claim unworthiness successfully. God does say that many things are worthless or of no value, but the text says even physical training has value. The text also says that humans have been given (or will be given, conditional on their free-willed request or acceptance) many things — gifts, grace, wisdom, peace... the list is very long, and all of it confers and implies God-assigned worth.

Hebrews 12:3 does caution against the peril of considering oneself more highly than one ought (after all, that was the sin of the greatest of the Kherubim), but it also enjoins us to consider ourselves with sober judgement, and the next few verses talk about our gifts. The implication here is clear: don't think too highly of yourself, but do evaluate your worth according to the standards of God.

A similar concept arises when humans are told that the wise man should not boast of his wisdom, the strong man of his strength, or the rich man of his riches; rather if they must boast, they should boast of how well they know God, specifically in terms of the countervailing virtues of kindness (a scholar should be kind and teach, not mock, the less-educated), justice (an officer should be just and not tyrannical in his exercise of power) and righteousness (a gentleman should be righteous in his use of wealth, and be generous, not hold on to it out of avarice).

In other words, you can hold on to your sense of self-worth, provided you know how that worth is calibrated and what it is measured against. It is no sin to be honest, but it is a sin to bear false witness; in this context, 'bearing false witness' means to either inflate or deflate your actual worth. The Good Book tells us not to use dishonest scales or measures. And this is why we have to soberly judge ourselves.

Have we done what we are told to do? Are we fit (as in exactly a match for) the tasks we have been given? The point is that we fail these tests often, but we do succeed sometimes. And when we fail, we suffer the consequences, but we also know that the Master does not hold most failures to be the be-all and end-all.

So, we're not so worthless after all. What we need to do is figure out how much we're worth and then use that capital to do what we're supposed to do.

Drawing Lines (Part IV): Mathematics and Theology

At first sight, this seems to be an odd choice of disciplines between which to draw a line. Surely it is obvious that the two have nothing in common? Well, not so fast...

Here's a list of what they do have in common. Both of them

• construct knowledge based on fundamental axioms which are supposedly self-evident but unproven and nevertheless taken to be true;
• use rigorous logic to derive secondary propositions from those axioms;
• claim to explain the underlying structure of reality;
• handle entities which the human mind cannot visualise nor find material analogy for;
• have been shown to have questions for which there are no answers;
• can be demonstrated to obey Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems (or at least, their extension to sets of logical propositions);
• seem to be obsessed with numbers and symbols;
• have a long tradition of philosophy and religious conceptualisation;
• have been considered necessary disciplines for the pursuit of an ordered life.

So... what don't they have in common? Actually, that part is pretty easy. Theology prefers words to numbers. Ha, yes, I was only teasing. Theology of course requires the existence of God as axiomatic. Mathematics requires the existence of a universe in which things remain consistent (but unprovably so). The two are not quite the same thing, I suppose.

=====

Afterword: As BL has pointed out, there is an entertaining episode in the history of mathematics, involving mathematicians David Hilbert and Paul Gordan. Hilbert's work on the Basis Theorem elicited Gordan's response, "Das ist nicht Mathematik. Das ist Theologie." If that were the case, Gordan was to recant eventually, for he later said, "Even theology has its merits."

Two Ravens

Recently, I received a spate of communications from various students who wanted to know more about epistemology. It was all very mysterious to me, since I thought that (at least for this season), all of them had finished dealing with that part of the syllabus.

I would have continued in that blissful state, except for one event. That was when one of them spilt the beans. She said, "Errrm, we were supposed to submit our drafts but some got carried away."

What got carried away? The students? The drafts? I didn't really resolve the answer to that question, since it became a confabulated mishmash of "the teacher took it away and didn't give it back" (how likely that is, I leave it to you to determine), "my classmates wrote one essay for each question" (I call that insanity), and "I spent all my holidays writing this 4000-word monster thingie, how could I be bothered with 1600 words?"

Well, when the 1600 words in question have as much weight as the 4000-word monster, perhaps priorities should be adjusted, no? A good way to adjust priorities is really to go back and look at an old literary project of mine that I've mentioned before. After reading Two Ravens in its entirety, you will probably have a better grasp of epistemology, confabulation, romance, theology and priorities than you had before.

Just a note of explanation: the two ravens of this project are Thought and Memory, or as the Norse sagas have it, Huginn and Muninn. In the invented mythology of this narrative, they are a pair of angels who are close friends and perhaps lovers. They did not disobey God but were too involved with humanity to listen to Him when Satan rebelled. For that, they were given a unique fate, which is alluded to in parts throughout the story. They also mix around with other powers that 'the Highest' allows to operate in Middle-Earth (or Midgard) and in general make comments about everything they see.

The second post was written on 11/11/2004 and, taking a cue from T S Eliot, was titled What the Thunder Said. You can find it here. The first post is of course Two Ravens 001, which is at the bottom of the blog page, and can be found here.

Incredible

The word 'incredible' means 'unbelievable'; credo means 'I believe' in Latin. I report today that I do not believe in the spiritual realm.

At this point, I suppose some of you will give up on me in horrid (from Latin horribilis, 'bristling with fear') indignation. I can imagine the cries of, "Yes we knew you were a heretic all along!"

But I sincerely do not believe that there is a spiritual realm as distinct from a material, secular, or temporal realm (a caveat follows later). I do not think that any of the world's great religions, let alone mine, have ever made the distinction in the way post-Enlightenment so-called Christians sometimes do.

In the Good Book, which is where many of my readers of all credulities and dispositions orient from, the secular is seen as that which exists in the present age, in a fixed time, in that slice of eternity which is sequential and bound. The temporal is much the same. And the material is just the physical manifestation of the immaterial. To think that you can separate them from the spiritual is like saying that my body does not include my kidneys or my liver. Or like saying that my mind exists outside and apart from my body.

I believe, however, in the material, secular and temporal realms as plausibly and possibly distinct among themselves. One age succeeds another, one nation is not another, one substance is distinct from another. But to me, they are all part of the 'spiritual realm'. And if that realm is everything, then it is not a realm (from Old French reaume, 'kingdom, political unit'), but the cosmos, the university of all.