Socrates philosophy and method

[seer]

"The more I read, the more I meditate; and the more I acquire, the more I am enabled to affirm that I know nothing"

I agree that you know nothing.

[shunyadragon]

That is the whole point! What God is capable of. Is He capable of relating truths about Himself to us? Is He capable of overcoming our fallibility so we can understand those truths? Again, in the past you said that God was compassionate. Is that an absolute truth? Or is it relative - could He really not be compassionate?

You did not answer the question: Are you capable of knowing what God is capable of?

Another question: Can you comprehend the the difference between what God is capable of and what God actually does?

[seer]

You did not answer the question: Are you capable of knowing what God is capable of?

YES - if God tells me! Again if God says that he is capable of forgiving my wrong doing - then yes, I can understand that.

Another question: Can you comprehend the the difference between what God is capable of and what God actually does?

I have no idea what this means.

[shunyadragon]

I agree that you know nothing.

Fantastic complement! The best I have had in a long time.

Of course you claim to know all absolutes that are worth knowing. Mirrors break under your weight.

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road
~ Voltaire

[seer]

Fantastic complement! The best I have had in a long time.

Of course you claim to know all absolutes that are worth knowing. Mirrors break under your weight.

But Shuny, you can not even claim that you know what you just wrote if you don't know anything! Sheesh you are slipping into Solipsism.

[shunyadragon]

YES - if God tells me! Again if God says that he is capable of forgiving my wrong doing - then yes, I can understand that.

Hearing voices does not qualify knowing what God is capable of.

I have no idea what this means.

Can you comprehend the the difference between what God is capable of and what God actually does?

You are describing what you believe God actually does for you, and not what you know what God is ultimately capable of in the absolute sense. I will take this as the answer that you do not know.

You still have not responded to humblethinker post.

Still waiting . . .

[seer]

Hearing voices does not qualify knowing what God is capable of.

I said nothing about hearing voices. Though God certainly could speak audibly. But my point, and you know it, is that God is fully capable of communicating with us. Unless you don't believe He has that ability.

Can you comprehend the the difference between what God is capable of and what God actually does?

I'm not sure if this is relevant, my only point is that God is fully able to communicate truths to us, and that He is able to cause us to understand said truths. That our fallibility is no hindrance to Him. I'm not saying if or when He did this.

[seer]

You are describing what you believe God actually does for you, and not what you know what God is ultimately capable of in the absolute sense. I will take this as the answer that you do not know.

Stop being an idiot Shuny. Yes, in the absolute sense God is capable of forgiving our sins. In what other sense is there?

You still have not responded to humblethinker post.

I already did.

[shunyadragon]

The skepticism of Socrates came out fully in the Age of Enlightenment. It is this guidance that I follow that encourages an agnostic doubt of what one believes.

Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/

Skepticism enjoys a remarkably strong place in Enlightenment philosophy, given that confidence in our intellectual capacities to achieve systematic knowledge of nature is a leading characteristic of the age. This oddity is at least softened by the point that much skepticism in the Enlightenment is merely methodological, a tool meant to serve science, rather than a philosophical position embraced on its own account. The instrumental role for skepticism is exemplified prominently in Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), in which Descartes employs radical skeptical doubt to attack prejudices derived from learning and from sense experience and to search out principles known with certainty which may serve as a secure foundation for a new system of knowledge. Given the negative, critical, suspicious attitude of the Enlightenment towards doctrines traditionally regarded as well founded, it is not surprising that Enlightenment thinkers employ skeptical tropes (drawn from the ancient skeptical tradition) to attack traditional dogmas in science, metaphysics and religion.

However, skepticism is not merely a methodological tool in the hands of Enlightenment thinkers. The skeptical cast of mind is one prominent manifestation of the Enlightenment spirit. The influence of Pierre Bayle, another founding figure of the Enlightenment, testifies to this. Bayle was a French Protestant, who, like many European philosophers of his time, was forced to live and work in politically liberal and tolerant Holland in order to avoid censorship and prison. Bayle's Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697), a strange and wonderful book, exerts great influence on the age. The form of the book is intimidating: a biographical dictionary, with long scholarly entries on obscure figures in the history of culture, interrupted by long scholarly footnotes, which are in turn interrupted by further footnotes. Rarely has a work with such intimidating scholarly pretentions exerted such radical and liberating influence in the culture. It exerts this influence through its skeptical questioning of religious, metaphysical, and scientific dogmas. Bayle's eclecticism and his tendency to follow arguments without pre-arranging their conclusions make it difficult to categorize his thought. But it is the attitude of inquiry that Bayle displays, rather than any doctrine he espouses, that mark his as distinctively Enlightenment thought. He is fearless and presumptuous in questioning all manner of dogma. His attitude of inquiry resembles both that of Descartes' meditator and that of the person undergoing enlightenment as Kant defines it, the attitude of coming to think for oneself, of daring to know. This epistemological attitude, as manifest in distrust of authority and reliance on one's own capacity to judge, expresses the Enlightenment valuing of individualism and self-determination.

© Copyright Original Source

[shunyadragon]

I said nothing about hearing voices. Though God certainly could speak audibly. But my point, and you know it, is that God is fully capable of communicating with us. Unless you don't believe He has that ability.

I have never doubted God's ability to do anything, but as Humblethinker pointed out in the question you have not answered, I am skeptical of claims like yours.

I believe you did claim God talked to you. By the way 'ifs' do not translate into absolute truths. Neither does claims you believe God can forgive you.

YES - if God tells me! Again if God says that he is capable of forgiving my wrong doing - then yes, I can understand that.

I'm not sure if this is relevant, my only point is that God is fully able to communicate truths to us, and that He is able to cause us to understand said truths. That our fallibility is no hindrance to Him. I'm not saying if or when He did this.

God being fully able to communicate with us, does not translate into fallible humans being able to understand the absolute truth of God's communications absolutely. Humblethinker's question is relevant.

[HumbleThinker]

Not necessarily. It could be that most of those who claimed to have heard from God actually didn't. This wouldn't be a defect on God's part. In principle I do not believe that any God worthy of that title would be incapable of accurately communicating to the creatures He created. If He so chose.

But given that there is no way to test which if any of these people have actually heard from God, claims of hearing absolute truth from God don't seem particularly useful at the very least. At worst, it puts into doubt the whole idea that God is capable of giving anyone an absolute truth in a manner they are capable of understanding and conveying to other people.

If we accept that God is capable of giving absolute truth, he is still giving it to fallible humans who may misunderstand what He is telling them. Or if they perfectly understand Him, they may inaccurately convey what they have understood, being fallible humans. Yet if we accept that God can give absolute truth to others in a way they can infallibly understand and in a way they can infallibly convey it, we still need to be skeptical to protect ourselves from, like you said, those who are simply lying.

So we can be skeptical of people's claims of having received absolute truth from God, while accepting as a theoretical possibility that God is capable of giving human absolute truth about something. I think we can all agree on this. However, this, combined with our known fallibility, logically necessitates that we even be skeptical of our claims of having infallibly received absolute truth from God. Plenty of unthoughtful people have believed that they have received absolute truth from God. I for one would like to not be one of them as I assume you would to.

[seer]

But given that there is no way to test which if any of these people have actually heard from God, claims of hearing absolute truth from God don't seem particularly useful at the very least. At worst, it puts into doubt the whole idea that God is capable of giving anyone an absolute truth in a manner they are capable of understanding and conveying to other people.

If we accept that God is capable of giving absolute truth, he is still giving it to fallible humans who may misunderstand what He is telling them. Or if they perfectly understand Him, they may inaccurately convey what they have understood, being fallible humans. Yet if we accept that God can give absolute truth to others in a way they can infallibly understand and in a way they can infallibly convey it, we still need to be skeptical to protect ourselves from, like you said, those who are simply lying.

So we can be skeptical of people's claims of having received absolute truth from God, while accepting as a theoretical possibility that God is capable of giving human absolute truth about something. I think we can all agree on this. However, this, combined with our known fallibility, logically necessitates that we even be skeptical of our claims of having infallibly received absolute truth from God. Plenty of unthoughtful people have believed that they have received absolute truth from God. I for one would like to not be one of them as I assume you would to.

My only point is that God would be able to convey truth and that God could overcome our limitations and cause us to understand correctly. Where, or if, He did this, is another story. Shuny, in our long and painful past discussions, seems to believe that this is categorically impossible.

[seer]

I have never doubted God's ability to do anything, but as Humblethinker pointed out in the question you have not answered, I am skeptical of claims like yours.

I believe you did claim God talked to you. By the way 'ifs' do not translate into absolute truths. Neither does claims you believe God can forgive you.

No Shuny, I did not claim that God talked to me. But if you agree that God is able to communicate to us and is able to overcome our limitations and cause us to rightly understand then we have no argument.

God being fully able to communicate with us, does not translate into fallible humans being able to understand the absolute truth of God's communications absolutely.

Why not, why can't God overcome our limitations as cause us to rightly understand Him?

[HumbleThinker]

My only point is that God would be able to convey truth and that God could overcome our limitations and cause us to understand correctly. Where, or if, He did this, is another story. Shuny, in our long and painful past discussions, seems to believe that this is categorically impossible.

I'm not really worried about God being able to do so; I'm more worried about our ability to correctly perceive Him doing so. How would a fallible creature confirm that he has been giving information infallibly? To keep it topical, what would be different between Satan giving us information claiming it is absolute truth and God giving us information claiming it is absolute truth such that we could tell the difference? Less dramatically, how would we differentiate between God and some other hypothetical supernatural being giving us information? And if we confirm it's God, how do we confirm that we have understood the information infallibly?

In at least one step along the way, we are just trusting our own judgment that we have gotten a message from God about absolute truth and have infallibly understood it.

[shunyadragon]

No Shuny, I did not claim that God talked to me. But if you agree that God is able to communicate to us and is able to overcome our limitations and cause us to rightly understand then we have no argument.

You are ignoring the substance of the objections by Humblethinker and I. I DO NOT agree with you that fallible humans can comprehend uniformly absolute truth to the degree it is reliable.

Why not, why can't God overcome our limitations as cause us to rightly understand Him?

Not the issue under discussion. God's capability is not the question at hand. The matter of fact reality of the inconsistency of fallible human comprehension, which justifies a skeptical agnostic philosophical view toward the inconsistent claims of absolute truth.