David Bentley Hart - Can metaphysics discern God?

[@VedantaKesari]

A great book is "The Transmission of Doubt" by Da Free John. God is so difficult to find because He is so utterly obvious. The conceptual mind is like an umbrella that blocks the sun.

[@Autobotmatt428]

I like that

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

“Conceptual mind?” Or over thinking “intellectual” mind ? Surely God has or is a mind (or 3 minds?) “containing” concepts?

[@VedantaKesari]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns The mind belongs to the world. It is a function needed to live in the world like fingers, eyes, etc. But just like you can't understand God with your fingers you can't understand God with your mind. How can the finite understand the Infinite? The meaning of Realization is Transcendence.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

@@VedantaKesari So minds as a category cannot exist without intricate physical systems? Former is grounded in latter?

[@VedantaKesari]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns NO.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

LOL Are they wearing the same outfit? Either way, I love both of these gentlemen.

[@quisdaman]

Metaphysicaly they're not the same outfit

[@whoami8434]

Every video is better with Hart. This interview should have happened years ago. I wonder what Hart would think of someone who reasoned as follows: 1. If my desires are shaped in virtue of the kind of creature that I am, then I cannot determine my desires (in the same way I cannot determine the kind of creature that I am or the form my nose naturally takes). 2. My desires are the result of the kind of creature that I am. 3. Therefore, I cannot determine my desires. And secondly, 1. If I cannot do what is contrary to my desires, then I cannot determine my actions (since desires seem to be the only reason I act). 2. I cannot do what is contrary to my desires. 3. Therefore, I cannot determine my actions. It seems to me that these conclusions are almost self-evidently true. It makes me somewhat suspicious as to why it is I even seek the Divine. Perhaps this is why Hart is a universalist... since we really don’t seem to have a choice but to seek God in all we do (since all we can do is seek what is represented to us as being good which, to us, is always to seek God). Are we all simply doomed to seek God anyway? I mean, the embrace of the Divine is certainly welcome, but I question whether or not I’m merely a drone, programmed to seek whatever it is that I happen to want at the time which, as it happens, appears to be God.

[@whoami8434]

A A A B B B one can have desires for states of affairs, states of consciousness, and even for different desires themselves (I can have the desire to not desire to eat chocolate cake). These seem to be desires with no material referent (they are obviously oriented toward something, but desires need not be for objects alone). In your comment you said that desires are always for objects. Let me know if you meant something other than material objects as it seems that desires can be for objects as well as abstractions. We can only do what we desire to do. If I do not desire to get out of bed, then, if I do get out of bed, there must be something that pulled me out of bed. This could be anything: I wanted to get to work on time, I wanted to start a project, I wanted to not sleep in too late, etc. We may not desire what is instrumental to getting what we want, but we only do what we don’t want to do for something we do. Therefore, we only ever do what we want to do. This conclusion seems true to me. The strength of our desires pull us through what we do not like and the desires as well as their strength seem to be totally independent of myself. There’s a quote from Schopenhauer that goes: “Man can do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants”. This seems self-evident.

[@whoami8434]

A A A B B B and the idea that I am not determined is a mere claim. If you could support it, I would appreciate it greatly.

[@davea18]

I think your argument only holds when you're talking about desires and actions as categories. You cannot choose your desires in the sense that you cannot choose what kinds of desires are possible for a human to experience. You also cannot choose your actions in the sense that you cannot choose which kinds of actions are logically possible for a human being. But this does not necessarily say anything about the capacity to act on individual desires or individual actions. That is a separate question altogether.

[@mohammads.r.370]

Joel Falla. - Desire is, as I understand it, the drive for self-actualization. - The important question in the argument you make is in premise 1: "my desires are shaped in virtue of the kind of creature that I am." The question is, what kind of creature are you? That is, what kind of creature is the human? - The classical position would have it that there is something sacred about man: man can attain a rank above the angels or one below the animals. What determines the rank? One's level of God-consciousness. So man's self is not bound in the way that your argument implies it to be. In choosing the nature of his relationship with God - man fundamentally determines the nature of self. - Once his self is determined (chosen), then his desires are determined: as the will to self-actualisation. Once the man's desires are formed then his actions/choices are determined. But the point is that, fundamentally, the nature his self and hence his desires are his choice; a choice which he makes by choosing his relationship with God. This is what it means to be human.

[@whoami8434]

Dave Andrea this is not meant to be condescending, but please read my argument again and elaborate on your criticism. I’v been trying to clarify these points for quite a while, and the premises I work with seem to be truisms to me. If you could, reference the premise you disagree with and give it a good ol’ slapping.

[@mohammads.r.370]

- Metaphysics, properly understood, must either begin its inquiry with the nature of consciousness or the nature of being. In both instances the unconditioned ground of consciousness/being is sought. This unconditioned ground then becomes the standard by which all knowledge is judged. If cognition does not begin at an unconditioned basis then knowledge cannot be attained: at best, only probable opinion can be achieved. - The problem with modern (secular) metaphysics is that it begins inquiry from the standpoint of the phenomenal subject. As a result, knowledge of reality as such becomes impossible. Sure, modern secular man can produce technology but he can't know reality in and of itself, but only as it presents itself to his contingent point-of-view. Hence the "death" of metaphysics in modern secular society; hence the tendency towards the empirical; hence the materialism and naturalism. - Pre-modern (religious) man did not begin with affirming the contingent individual subject (ego-centric perspective) as rationally self-sufficient. But sought to ground all thought in the unconditioned Being/Consciousness; which, by definition, is God.

[@ontologicallysteve7765]

Mohammad S. R. So, I'm somewhat new to all of this and I'm just simply fascinated by it. Can you make any reccomendations for a book on Christian Metaphysics? I'm very much interested in the nature of reality (as seen through a Christian perspective). I've read Palamas and a few critiques/commentaries on his works and I've been left wanting more.

[@John-lf3xf]

Mohammad S. R. Salam bro

[@medvenson]

Ontologically Steve If you’re looking for books on Christian metaphysics (still) id recommend starting with someone like Ed Feser, a Roman Catholic philosopher. His book “scholastic metaphysics” would be an excellent intro or his book “five proofs of the existence of God” those works will get you introduced to the language and arguments used by/in Christian metaphysical philosophy.

[@jorgeramos597]

The Last Superstition by Feser and The Experience of God by Hart

[@jorgeramos597]

Ontologically Steve The Last Superstition by Feser and The Experience of God by Hart

[@youngman44]

These are excellent interviews with Hart. Much of this discussion is explored in great depth in The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, and Beauty

[@andrewwhite6]

Amazing is, what is revealled or delivered with perfect timing, measure, and grace when you stop trying so hard, simply ask with the same directness you would with your biological parents.

[@williama2572]

Salvation is for eternity you can never loose it

[@daithiocinnsealach1982]

He admits philosophical investigation can never remove doubt. We knew that anyway. "The final encounter with God, or an encounter with God that would take you beyond doubt, wouldn't have the character of a metaphysical proof." Translation: Belief in a particular chosen deity still boils down to personal faith. He argues that the argument from contingency will take you no further than the god of the philosophers. This is why William Lane Craig for example has to start with contingency and then argue for the historicity of the Resurrection. To get from the general to the specific.

[@emmashalliker6862]

Your assumptions are what he means about the words knowledge and faith. I don't think you mean what he means.

[@emmashalliker6862]

Translation the final encounter with God is not a philosophical arguement but a meeting, a mystical union.

[@brad1368]

@@emmashalliker6862...in other words...more things that are improvable

[@Modus07]

​@@brad1368improvable? You mean unprovable? The mystical union of the contingent consciousness with the ground of its being in universal consciousness for the subject who has attained this immediate apprehension is the very opposite... it constitutes "proof" par excellence... but not in the radically delimited rationalisric sense where subject apprehends an object, rather in transcendent way where Subject apprehends subject.

[@TheGuiltsOfUs]

History of an error - Nietzsche 1. The true world -- unattainable but for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in it, he is it. (The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple and persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.") 2. The true world -- unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man ("for the sinner who repents"). (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible -- it becomes female, it becomes Christian.) 3. The true world -- unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it -- a consolidation, an obligation, an imperative. (At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Konigsbergian) 4. The true world -- unattainable? At any rate, unattained, and being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us? (Gray morning, The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism) 5. The "true" world -- an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating -- an idea which has become useless and superfluous -- consequently a refuted idea: let us abolish it! (Bright day; breakfast: return of bon sens and cheer-fulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.) 6. The true world -- we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we also have abolished the apparent one. (Noon: moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.')

[@theophilus749]

As ever, DBH seems to leave RLK totally non-plussed. I sympathise, in different ways, with both of these figures.

[@spicerc1244]

I've seen a lot of the philosophical content produced by Robert L. Kuhn. I finally looked him up and he really loves China and communism - why? lol

[@Autobotmatt428]

Finance

[@tedgrant2]

Let's assume that the one true god exists. The end

[@suatustel746]

Can get anyone gets satisfactory understanding this piffle talk!!!!

[@georgecostanza9244]

Penn and Teller but not atheists or magicians

[@publiusovidius7386]

lol. Still no credible evidence for the existence of a mind unconnected to matter and yet acting upon matter. Any original entity/force which stops an eternal regression (if eternal regression needs to be stopped at all) could just as well be a material brute fact as some kind of deity. So all of Hart's philosophizing is a front for his emotional feeling that there ought to be a god. That's it. It's like debating whether Hera has an orgasm when Zeus has sex with her on a golden cloud, bringing fertility to all the world.

[@samuelstephens6904]

-"So all of Hart's philosophizing is a front for his emotional feeling that there ought to be a god." To be fair to Hart, all he is saying in this interview is that coming to the conclusion that the mind isn't reducible to material causes naturally leads to new sets of questions that may move you closer into the direction of God. I'm not sure I agree with that since the most substantial modern critiques of materialist accounts of mind come from thinkers who are still totally naturalists and atheists, but he wasn't really prompted to provide such a critique then and there.

[@samuelstephens6904]

@@jeffslater5393 -"Why do you believe that undirected, random, aimless, arbitrary, purposeless, and irrational matter just happen to create you: a rational creature that could discern the nature of the cosmos?" No one can really say _how_ it is that non-mental properties can add up to minds, but that doesn't mean it's ontologically incoherent or metaphysically impossible. After all, any object in your immediate vicinity will be reducible to other things that are not identical to those objects or do not share their properties. So minds could be reducible to non-mental things which are arranged in such a way to give rise to thought. To dispute this as a possibility in principle is a _modo hoc_ fallacy.

[@sambyassee9132]

You fail to understand the vital point that mere uncharacteristic, unmoving facts are not the primal groundwork for our reality as much as the existence and essence of love, goodness, mercy, etc, that is personal relation. These are more powerful than facts because they grab at a world facts cannot pretend to touch: a world where we do not find the truth (as with facts), but the truth finds us. So no, it is not an emotional intuition of Hart’s, it is him trying to express something really so obvious it cannot be expressed in words because it makes it easier to miss.

[@sambyassee9132]

He’s trying to teach skeptics such as yourself not how to logically arrive at God, but how to experience, understand and receive God; that is, how to exist.

[@brad1368]

You can philosophize all you want...actual evidence is required.

[@sambaxter3304]

The female is capable of amalgamating into one and thereby becoming very powerful but they are nowhere near as well-intentioned or moral as the natural male. Both are only as important as each other so do not worship either. One does not come before the other, or create the other.

[@williama2572]

The Bible is clear...just read it...it says right there...there's no mystery

[@LegaleseLiteracy]

lol

[@russellbelina4579]

That's what you got out of this? The bible is clear with no mystery??? 😅

[@brad1368]

The bible is a bunch of disjointed stories that often contradict each other. It's kind of cool that it was written, but to take it as factual would require blind faith.