The Euthyphro dilemma

[2ndRateMind]

I mean no disrespect toward any individual when I say this, but it seems that when our personal preoccupation with religion revolves around resolving these kinds of questions, it has gone off the rails.  Mormonism in particular is a practical religion, not a philosophical one.  

 

Dear spamlds

 

One of the things I find most commendable about the LDS faith is your obvious sense of community, as evidenced by your practical actions. But practical actions need to be directed accurately, in order to be most effective. One of the ways we can ensure this is to reflect on our philosophies, and discover how rigorous, how coherent, how comprehensive, how consistent, they are.

 

And, one of the things that distinguishes humans from lower orders of animal is the possession of a recursive consciousness, the capacity to think about our thinking, and assess it's quality. It would be a shame, I think, if we ignored this God given ability in favour of a headlong rush to do good things when a little meditation might improve us, and hence our impact on the world, to a great extent.

 

Then again, through the medium of the question I put in the OP, I have learned many fascinating things about your faith, and I would not have known them had I not put the query to you. It was not, in this sense, and for me at least, at all a vain enquiry. I hope, therefore, you will humour me should I ask any more questions; they are not meant to trip anyone up, just put in the spirit of a genuine desire to understand.

 

Some wag once said 'philosophy is questions that may never be answered; religion is answers that may never be questioned'. It would be good, I think, if we merged the two, and came up with a philosophy of religion that involves answers that may be questioned, for surely that is the way, individually and collectively, to develop our religious understandings and begin to converge on God's truth.

 

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited August 30, 2014 by 2ndRateMind

[Urstadt]

And, one of the things that distinguishes humans from lower orders of animal is the possession of a recursive consciousness, the capacity to think about our thinking, and assess it's quality.

Any one who uses "recursive consciousness" when referring to the discursiveness nature of human beings and metacognition does not have a second rate mind. This is doctorate level verbiage. Impressive. :)

Edited August 30, 2014 by Urstadt

[spamlds]

Like I said, I wasn't making any comment toward any particular individual in this discussion so far.  My insinuation is that when Plato's name emerges in a discussion of Christian theology, it's a warning flag.  Greek philosophy was a corrupting influence in both Judaism and early Christianity.  Paul warned in Colossians 2:8,

 

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

 

There is a danger that concerned Paul that people would intellectualize the simple gospel truths and engage in philosophical debates "after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."  All the early Christian controversies, like Arianism, had roots in Neoplatonism.  

 

One of the things I admire about the teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young is the complete lack of this kind of attempt to intellectualize our religion.  I'm not anti-intellectual, but footnotes don't convert anyone.  We send out uneducated missionaries who are witnesses of direct personal intervention in their lives by the Holy Ghost.  We sent out untrained farmers, laborers, merchants, and others to preach the gospel at the beginning of this dispensation.  I love what it says in D&C Section 1:

 

19 The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh—

20 But that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world;

21 That faith also might increase in the earth;

22 That mine everlasting covenant might be established;

23 That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers.

 

Like Paul, our lot is to be "fools for Christ's sake" when it comes to the sophistries of the world  (1 Corinthians 4:10).  There are some questions we need to be focused on, especially when we deal with nonmembers.  Does God live?  Is Jesus the Son of God?  Did Jesus establish a Church?  Did the members of the Godhead restore that Church through revelation to Joseph Smith?  Have we received gospel ordinances from a person having authority?  Have we received a remission of our sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost since we believed?  If the answers to those things are all affirmative, the Holy Ghost will do the rest of the teaching as we do our duty. Plato's not going to do us any good if the answers to any of those questions is "No."

Edited August 31, 2014 by spamlds

[2ndRateMind]

Yes, it's interesting to ponder which God will judge more kindly; the one who fails to realise his intellectual potential because he distrusts philosophy and doesn't want scripture challenged, or the one who uses his intellectual capacity to it's fullest extent, but nevertheless goes astray on matters of dogma and doctrine.

 

I think your warning about sophistry, and your commendation of the fundamentals of the faith, is entirely fair comment. I take note of it. However, it seems to me that not all of philosophy is sophistry, and not all of the religion is the fundamentals. Can we arrive at a compromise? I will try not to lead anyone astray with sophistry, and you let me ask questions that respect the fundamentals of any Christian faith; that God exists, is good, and loves us, and that Jesus was born, lived, taught, was crucified and died, was resurrected, and now sits heavenward, at the right hand of Majesty on high. 

 

Do we have a deal?

 

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited August 31, 2014 by 2ndRateMind

[Urstadt]

Paul warned in Colossians 2:8,

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Like Paul, our lot is to be "fools for Christ's sake" when it comes to the sophistries of the world (1 Corinthians 4:10).

I want to piggyback off these excellent points.

Philosophy and science were used many times throughout history as an attempt to understand the ways of God (Taylor, 1989). The problem was that these attempts always led to an ontic logos (Taylor) that was far and wide from the straight and narrow preached by the Savior. Especially because so many of these philosophies and sciences were based primarily off of Grecoroman and Cartesian philosophies that promote an onotological individualism (Taylor; Bellah, et. al, 1995). In other words, these philosciences led to a self-serving form of religion and morality that paved the way for later destructive philosophies such as moral nihilism. The water just keeps getting muddier. As it does, this is when people like myself, 2RM, and others feel the tendency to evaluate our ways, our thinking, our ontic logos. But, as I have had to learn in my own intellectual pursuits, this cannot be done without revelation from God.

I don't mean that we aren't capable of obtaining truth (empirical or otherwise) without God. What I mean is that we cannot learn the truth we need to get back to the presence of our Father without His revelation guiding us.

Many post-Cartesians and positivists worry that an arbitrary morality is being set. And, in deed it is to an extent. The only arbitrary truth set forth by God is the bare minimum (and perhaps then some) absolutely necessary to return to Him. The rest is up to us. Which is where moral philosophy (yes, this is a legitimate discipline, see Charles Taylor: A Secular Age, The Source of the Self; and John Macmurray: Persons in Relation for a starting point) can be of great value to us. But, it must be done with the background understanding (Taylor, 1995; Wittgenstein, 1953) of the gospel, and our relationships with others (Slife, 2004; Macmurray, 1991).

Otherwise, we risk analyzing these truths, values, morals, and virtues in a vacuum--as post-Cartesian dualism would have us do. This is one of the many intellectual pitfalls that can take us away from the gospel, just as Paul said to ths Colossians.

But, submitting to God will take a degree of humility on our part. It will take us being honest with ourselves and asking, "Which law do I want to live? God's or man's?" The answer (law) we choose will determine the degree of glory we attain hereafter (as we are discussing on another thread at this time).

In the words of William James, "Whatever decision we make, we make at our own peril" (The Will To Believe).

Edit: The year of the Wittgenstein reference has been added.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Urstadt

[2ndRateMind]

There is a lot in this post to digest.

 

Initially, however, it occurs to me that, if we regard revelation as a conversation between God and us, inevitably that conversation will take into account where we happen to be right now, intellectually, morally, emotionally, etc. This may account for the fact that revelations have differed, some widely, some so considerably from others that they are mutually exclusive.

 

My own personal revelation confirmed to me the fundamentals I outlined above, and nothing more. This is important if you want a glimpse of my trajectory, which tends to be as distrustful of subjectives I have no access to as spamlds is of philosophy. Accordingly, my project is to build, from those fundamentals, from those philosophical findings I find to be wise, and which stand peer criticism, and from my reasoning, a workable Christian faith. I am reluctant to seek further revelations; the first having had quite enough impact, thank you, rendering me hospitalised with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. So, it is to the more gentle science of thinking about thinking that I turn, with eclectic abandon. I do not care overmuch for the provenance of wisdom, only that it represents a quality of thought to which I can aspire.

 

I do not know if this approach is a humble one (I will accept input from any one, from any time or any where) or an arrogant one (I reserve the right to assess it's standard according to whatever criteria seem to me appropriate), and I don't much care. It just seems to me to be the right way to proceed, at this particular point in my life. 

 

All that's a bit personal, and you all probably don't deserve to be burdened with it. Nevertheless, I will add just one further personal comment. I don't really care what degree of heaven I might inherit, or even if I will get there at all. I am entirely content to leave that to God's good and loving judgement. What I do care about is closing in on the truth, and that is quite enough to keep me occupied for a good time to come.

 

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited August 31, 2014 by 2ndRateMind

[spamlds]

2ndRateMind wrote:

 

"Can we arrive at a compromise? I will try not to lead anyone astray with sophistry, and you let me ask questions that respect the fundamentals of any Christian faith; that God exists, is good, and loves us, and that Jesus was born, lived, taught, was crucified and died, was resurrected, and now sits heavenward, at the right hand of Majesty on high."

 

Nobody is bargaining here.  It's an open forum and the mods set the limits very liberally.  I have no problem with you asking questions.  However, it's important that we deal with the most fundamental questions.  You restated my questions in terms that are straight out of the Christian creeds, and more importantly, you omitted the ones that require a committed answer.

 

Our message to the world is straightforward.  God has commissioned us to preach repentance.  Intellectuals don't like that word.  (Mind you, I have a college degree, but I know what my professors were like.)  Repentance is a heartfelt admission that one has been on the wrong path all along.  It's a turning toward the right path.  The right path is Christ.  Jesus indeed founded a Church and gave the keys of the kingdom unto men.  That authority was taken from the primitive Church for apostasy.  A new dispensation was opened in 1820.  The Father and the Son appeared to a prophet in modern times.  Over the ensuing decade, Joseph Smith was given the keys of the kingdom that were held by Peter, James, and John.  The spirit of revelation guides the Church today.  Christ himself directs it through revelation.  The Church holds the keys of baptism and other gospel ordinances.  Those who repent and are baptized receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  The gifts of the spirit are manifest in the lives of the members of the Church.  Miracles occur, just like in the New Testament.

 

None of these things have to do with philosophy or dogma.  They are the consequences of God restoring the ancient Church of Jesus Christ anew.

 

This morning, I will leave my home and go sit in council with the local leaders of our congregation.  We will discuss things like how to help a family who is suffering from unemployment become more self-reliant while we provide for their temporal needs.  We will make plans for visiting the sick and the aged who need assistance.  We will make decisions about missionary work to proclaim the gospel more effectively.  We will coordinate efforts to assist youth who may be on the verge of straying.  We will discuss how to reach out to less-active members who are struggling with questions of faith and love them back into the fold.  We will make plans to visit the sick and lay hands on them so God will heal them.  

 

In all of those deliberations, Plato is not going to be mentioned once.  Plato doesn't save souls.  He doesn't possess any divine authority.  He has no power to touch lives and bless them.  None of the people who I'll meet with this morning will act out of dogma--they'll act out of love.  It will be the source of our joy for the rest of the week.  That's what is going on in the thousands of LDS congregations around the planet today.  The price to join that effort is sincere repentance and baptism for the remission of sins.  No Plato is required.  You can ask questions all day, but you're missing an enormous opportunity.

[2ndRateMind]

I am glad you get satisfaction from your good works; you deserve to, and they do you, and your church, great credit.

 

You say, however, that Plato will not be mentioned. That is not to say he is entirely irrelevant. His thinking still influences today what we think of as a good society, indeed what we think of as good, at all. Not everything he taught would be agreed by us, but he is the most important among the Greeks who first began asking the right sort of questions. This is a tremendous legacy, and we owe him gratitude for it. To blame him for any subsequently developing heresies is a bit like blaming the Holocaust on Neitzsche, or the gulags on Marx.

 

Which brings me on to a more important point. Philosophy is transparent and accountable, subject to amendment by any individual who can put together a cogent, relevant argument. Philosophy therefore, by gradual increments and the occasional significant paradigm shift, is upgradeable. I am not sure that any of this is true of progress by revelation, which seems, to me at least, to be opaque, unaccountable, and fiercely resistant to alteration by any but an elect elite. So, I suggest, philosophy does have advantages we can, and should, take advantage of.

 

Best wishes, 2RM. 

Edited August 31, 2014 by 2ndRateMind

[Dravin]

Which brings me on to a more important point. Philosophy is transparent and accountable, subject to amendment by any individual who can put together a cogent, relevant argument. Philosophy therefore, by gradual increments and the occasional significant paradigm shift, is upgradeable. I am not sure that any of this is true of progress by revelation, which seems, to me at least, to be opaque, unaccountable, and fiercely resistant to alteration by any but an elect elite. So, I suggest, philosophy does have advantages we can, and should, take advantage of.

 

Best wishes, 2RM. 

 

Heh, there are a lot here, on the board, who would say what you conceptually paint as the advantage of philosophy is it's disadvantage and what you conceptually paint as the disadvantage of revelation is indeed it's advantage. That is, that philosophy's mutability by anyone who can put together a cogent argument is why it is unreliable, and that the lack of the same, the inability for revelation to be changed by anyone putting together a cogent argument is indeed it's strength. 

 

I'm not arguing either way, but it is interesting as it highlights that there is a big difference in premise at play.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Dravin

[Urstadt]

So, I suggest, philosophy does have advantages we can, and should, take advantage of.

This was precisely my point in my last post when I was talking about moral philosophy. Much of our ethics today are based off of philosophy. In fact, as many of you already know, the term ethics comes from the Greek word ethos, which means moral character, and is a philosophical concept.

----------------------------------

I still maintain my previous point, though. And, this isn't directed at anyone specific, or any specific post, just like my last post wasn't either, but rather all of us. Such philosophies must be considered in the backdrop and background understanding of the Gospel. Otherwise we do have nihilistic relativism.

An example of this is the current status of philosophy today, which builds off of Dravin's point above: there is little-to-no unanimous truth in the field. Moral philosophy is pitted against moral nihilism, free will is pitted against determinism, solipsim is pitted against social construction, relationality is pitted against Cartesian, monism is pitted against dualism, continental philosophy is pitted against anglo-american and post-Cartesian, Grecoroman is pitted against eastern philosophies such as The Tao and Confucian, religion is pitted against atheism, religion is pitted against eastern philosophies, philosophy itself is pitted against science, and all that is to say nothing of how these philosophers critique each other so effectively without the upgrade ever following through because people would rather stick to what they want to believe (e.g., Heidegger and Gadamer on Descartes; Husserl on Kant). Trying to decide which philosophy has the most truth, without the Gospel, is a lot like trying to say which culture in the world is the one all human beings should live by. We could even consider each sub-discipline of philosophy a lot like a culture in the world, with its own values and moral oughts. When viewed this way, its easy to understand why philosophy is so relative and lacks unanimous turth. It is also easy to understand why proponents of a particular philosophy are reluctant to change/upgrade the tenets of their philosophy.

This is also why we need an author of absolute truth who transcends us all: God.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Urstadt

[spamlds]

Well said, Urstadt!  My approach may seem simplistic, but before I converted to Mormonism over three decades ago, I was big-time into reading philosophy.  I also delved into Eastern religions after having explored Christian faith.  To me, knowing about God was not as important as knowing God.  Joseph Smith's testimony thrilled me because here was an innocent who had no guile, who approached the throne of grace, and pierced the veil.  He didn't bother with man's mumbo-jumbo.  What is it that President Kimball said?  Something like, "Who wants to drink from the low end of the stream that the cattle have walked in and muddied?  Better to go to the high ground and drink from where the water comes pure out of the source!"

 

I think Paul shared some of my frustration with philosophers.  Paul knew that Christ was to be experienced.  The Holy Ghost makes for an experiential religion.  He wanted to bring the Athenians to that transcendent experience.  Instead, all they liked to "...tell, or to hear some new thing."  Paul's first-hand knowledge of the resurrection was scoffed at because it was "subjective."  

 

Suppose I knew the location of a room in a tall building in New York City that contained a million dollars and I told you that, if you followed the directions I'd provide, you could find it and share it with me.  Some people would be willing to give it a try.  Others would scoff saying that I was a deceiver or deluded.  Others would say it isn't possible that an average person like me could know such a thing.  A debate could erupt between those who would say I might know and others who would try to dissuade them from believing me.

 

Nevertheless, all it would take to find the fortune is to follow my directions and you would know I was in my right mind and correct. My "subjective" knowledge was indeed true.  It could be validated by simply following the correct directions, step-by-step.

 

Our missionaries teach people how to find the Pearl of Great Price--a personal, experiential testimony of Christ through the Holy Spirit.  All anyone has to do is follow their simple instructions to find it.  It's as easy as finding the treasure in my example.  All anyone has to do is have faith in the instructions and act upon them.

Edited August 31, 2014 by spamlds

[2ndRateMind]

Heh, there are a lot here, on the board, who would say what you conceptually paint as the advantage of philosophy is it's disadvantage and what you conceptually paint as the disadvantage of revelation is indeed it's advantage. That is, that philosophy's mutability by anyone who can put together a cogent argument is why it is unreliable, and that the lack of the same, the inability for revelation to be changed by anyone putting together a cogent argument is indeed it's strength. 

 

I'm not arguing either way, but it is interesting as it highlights that there is a big difference in premise at play.

 

 

Ha Ha! That made me giggle! It never occurred to me that a people of such modern revelation might be anti-progress! Still, that is an interesting finding.

 

Best wishes, 2RM

[2ndRateMind]

An example of this is the current status of philosophy today, which builds off of Dravin's point above: there is little-to-no unanimous truth in the field. Moral philosophy is pitted against moral nihilism...

 

This is also why we need an author of absolute truth who transcends us all: God.

 

Agreed, but I think, the fact that we have a democratic dialogue in play is no bad thing. We all learn from the Great Debate, whether we participate and contribute, or merely wonder how anyone might talk such nonsense. The fact that there is an ultimate author must mean that there is an objective truth, and that these dialogues, though they might take centuries or even millennia to resolve, and barring catastrophe, must eventually coalesce around it. Meanwhile, as the Chinese curse would have it, we live in interesting times.

 

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited September 1, 2014 by 2ndRateMind

[Urstadt]

Agreed, but I think, the fact that we have a democratic dialogue in play is no bad thing. We all learn from the Great Debate, whether we participate and contribute, or merely wonder how anyone might talk such nonsense. The fact that there is an ultimate author must mean that there is an objective truth, and that these dialogues, though they might take centuries or even millennia to resolve, and barring catastrophe, must eventually coalesce around it. Meanwhile, as the Chinese curse would have it, we live in interesting times.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Yeah, I'm with you on this. There may be an ultimate author but we still have to do our part.

Well said.

[Anddenex]

In all of those deliberations, Plato is not going to be mentioned once.  Plato doesn't save souls.  He doesn't possess any divine authority.  He has no power to touch lives and bless them.  None of the people who I'll meet with this morning will act out of dogma--they'll act out of love.  It will be the source of our joy for the rest of the week.  That's what is going on in the thousands of LDS congregations around the planet today.  The price to join that effort is sincere repentance and baptism for the remission of sins.  No Plato is required.  You can ask questions all day, but you're missing an enormous opportunity.

 

Why not?  Our prophetic leaders aren't afraid to quote Plato.  If Plato said something good, then this good is from God, no matter how you want to slice it.

 

"Fasting is also one of the finest ways of developing our own discipline and self-control. Plato said, “The first and the best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.” (Laws, Book I, section 626E.)"  From L. Tom Perry, October 1986 -- emphasis added.

 

The quote about self-control is fully gospel centered.  We are constantly taught to master oneself.  

 

"Indeed, as the First Presidency stated in 1978, we believe that “the great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.”25 Thus, we have respect for the sincere religious beliefs of others and appreciate others extending the same courtesy and respect for the tenets we hold dear." (James E Faust, April 2006, The Restoration of All Things, emphasis added)

 

There is a time and place for all things good.  Whether this be with friends discussing philosophy, religion, faith, repentance, etc...  

 

When you are referring to "sit in council" of course discussing the philosophies of men isn't a topic of discussion in these meetings.  This website, forum, isn't a bishopric meeting, a young men presidency meeting, PEC, or Ward Council.  There would be no need to discuss these concepts.  To share a quote, in like manner as our leaders have from Plato, or any other person God inspired by his light and knowledge with wisdom even in these meetings has a place.  If Apostles can mention Plato, give a quote that he spoke in God's light, then there isn't any reason for us to be afraid to share a good quote, which benefits the discussion.

 

I quite enjoyed the communication between 2ndRateMind and Urstadt, which wasn't taking away from the gospel of Jesus Chris, in the least.